Me and Al at the South Rivers Power Station's balancing tank. The new South Rivers Boy Scouts Troop.

"Worms" 4/02/2004 I have learned the hard way that it a bad idea to go walking around barefoot here. Apparently that is how you get worms. For more than a month now I have been feeling tired and shaky and losing a lot of weight. I was losing weight and feeling weird before Christmas and may have had them since then, but they finally got to me this week. I was almost sent to the hospital on Tuesday. Anyways, I am feeling much better now. Hopefully I'll get my old energy back soon. One of my good friends here, Al, has gone to Tortola to find work. There are so few opportunities here in St. Vincent that unless you want to grow weed you have to leave to find work of any kind. Hopefully Al will find a good job up there where he can use his computer skills. As for me, I am looking more and more towards the day when I will be back in a mentally challenging environment. On Sunday, the Boy Scouts came to South Rivers by beginning a troop here. I think that this is going to be a great thing for some of the boys in this village. Many of the boys at the school here do not perform well at all. I believe it is because many of the parents do not take any responsibility for their sons' performance in school or general behaviour. If they do not behave well or cannot read as 10 year olds, the parents do not see it as a bad reflection upon themselves. Since the Boy Scouts is a performance based organization I think it will go a long way in helping the boys in school. It might even help wake up the parents a little bit. One boy was late for the induction ceremony and was confronted about it by one of the Boy Scout officials in front of everyone. This came as a huge shock to all the parents. They are simply not used to anyone expecting them to meet a standard of any kind.