Arrival in Bina Hill

We arrived in Annai at noon today via yet another small airplane (it seems that this trip was destined to help Cynthia conquer her agitation with flying) and were driven to Bina Hill by Vincent and Medex Bartholomew through some fairly heavy rain. After unpacking, we did some preliminary exploring of our accomodations in the middle of the rainforest. Our adjacent room windows are visible in the picture, and the teaching classroom is upstairs. There is a store, which carries basic supplies, within the complex. Unfortunately, the store is out of bottled water and toilet paper currently, and the owner says that the supplier delivers goods sporadically. This might be a moment to panic, but not to fear! Our experienced travellers brought solution to purify water if necessary and plenty of wet-wipes for those unexpected situations. Oddly, there is plenty of juice at the store: orange, punch, grape, pineapple, but no water.

There are several foreigners living nearby. Millie is from the UK, and she is teaching biology at the local secondary school. Apparently, the closest hang-out where you can get some cold drinks is 15 minutes by bike or 45 minutes walking. There are some random French guys who are here only briefly to make some extra cash before continuing their tour around South America.

As for the project, we have started alerting the Healthcare Workers by radio about our workshop and were further told that some of the young female students might benefit from a frank discussion about sexual health, something that they would likely be more comfortable discussing with female doctors. Looks like we will be doing a bit of high school guidance class!

The landscape is quite remarkable here. There are Macaw parrots that fly around the trees, and we saw lots of interesting critters even on our short walk. The Bina Hill institute is nestled in the forested mountains, making it a scenic location for schooling. It is getting dark and they will be shutting down the electricity soon; this means that we will have to charge our computer so that we can watch our 1 episode of Rome later tonight! As you can imagine, bedtime is pretty early here.