This week has been a lot more relaxed. There has been sports going on at school since Monday so we have not taught all week. The main sports event on Wednesday was rained off – the field was under three feet of water. It seems Guyana is not so different to England after all. We have had quite a few thunderstorms recently with some spectacular bolts of lightening. Storms at school are pretty fun. The school has a corrugated iron roof so teaching when it is raining is a bit of a challenge! The kids get pretty excited or scared when there is thunder and lightening and tend to scream and hide under their bags.
It seems I have not been strict enough with the kids so far. I have only had to make a couple sit on my desk with me. Megan, who is teaching in the tutorial school down the road, makes them teach the class, do thousands of lines or stand up for the whole lesson. Last time she walked into one of her lessons one of the children exclaimed ‘dear God no!’ and hid his head under his hands. I am aiming to get the same reaction from my kids!
As for the cooking, I seem to be doing the bulk of it but am really enjoying learning how to make all the new foods. So far our neighbour has taught us to make roti, pumpkin and beef, chow mien, cook up rice and egg plant. Next we want to learn to make tasty curries from scratch. We also went to the mosque for dinner which was really nice. They had made loads of delicious curry and fed everybody who needed feeding whether you are Muslim or not. Everyone here is so religious, in our small community there is a mosque, a Hindu temple and a Christian church. There doesn’t seem to be any friction between the religious groups – there are Muslims and Christians in the same family. Church seems to be the centre of the community.
This weekend the five volunteers from Dora and St Cuthberts came down to visit. We did not know they were coming so five boys turning up on our doorstep at 10pm on Friday was quite a shock. We had a good weekend relaxing and went into New Amsterdam. We went for a bike ride on Saturday and ended up going swimming in the river with some local girls. The river is really dirty and probably full of sewage but it was fun! The clay at the bottom is knee deep but is apparently good for your skin. However, after the boys left we discovered the damage done…it seems that the only thing boys can break that duct tape cant fix is our water pipes.
We have also discovered why we should not buy things in Guyana. Our bikes are now temporarily fixed thanks to our neighbour. However, foolishly, we decided to buy a CD player. The first time we used it we heard a bang and smoke started coming out of the top (the voltage we used was not too high). The shop does not have a returns policy and we can now understand why.
There are some changes taking place at school. I am taking on the 5th form Jolene was teaching and she is teaching the sixth form chemistry. We might also be doing the A level biology after school. Whats more, we might be moving to the house on the school compound but I suspect this will take a while since it has no furniture and there is rubbish everywhere. The house is nowhere near as nice but it would be far more convenient.
This weekend we are heading up to St Cuthberts for Amerindian heritage weekend which we are all really looking forward to. It involves six hours of travelling but travelling in this country is so much more interesting than travelling in England!
it is now monday - i wrote the blog on thursday but will update you all about the weekends event when i have time! was very eventful and not at all relaxing!