Its been another busy couple of weeks over here in Guyana. The main reason being the School Based Assessments I have had to complete with the 5th form. Nearly all of my students have now finished all 20, only a week after the deadline (not bad for the Guyanese). This means I currently have 450 SBAs sitting on my desk waiting to be marked. I have also nearly completed the syllabus with the 5th form and only have a few weeks left to teach them before they go on exam leave. We only have three weeks left before we break up for Easter. When we come back after Easter we only have 10 weeks before we finish teaching. I can’t believe how fast time is going by, it feels like it won’t be long until I’m sitting on that plane coming home. As much as I miss you all, I’m really not looking forward to leaving and think it will be harder leaving Guyana than it was leaving England.
As usual we have plenty of up as well as downs in the past couple of weeks. Nothing here is ever easy or straight forward but at least it’s never boring. We have also been branching out into new cuisines, cooking fresh fish for the first time. We bought the fresh fish (already gutted thankfully) and decided we didn’t need help preparing it. Scraping together our basic knowledge of fish preparation we worked out how to de-scale, take of the head (aided by our much-loved meat cleaver) and fillet the fish (also aided by our meat cleaver). We then battered and fried the fish with some quality British mash. The result was surprisingly good, although I’m not sure it was worth the hours spent scrubbing scales off the kitchen walls and floor as well as our hair, skin and eyes. We have made a note to de-scale the fish less vigorously next time.
Valentine’s day was celebrated at school on Friday 13th, although some chose to celebrate black Friday instead. I got several roses from students which was nice (although some were just an attempt to make me extend their SBA deadline) and a card from one of my classes. On Valentine’s day we treated ourselves to a shopping trip. We dressed up in red and white for the night and went to the local club, fighting of the offers for dates on the way  However, in the morning we found out that valentines night ended tragically for two of the girls who had been at the club. They were murdered when they got back to their home in New Amsterdam at 4am in the morning. It was a sobering reminder of the reality of living in a place where violence is so common. It brought us all back down to earth and made us rethink who we can trust. The police are still looking for the murderer which is not particularly reassuring.
On a brighter note, the past couple of weeks have been spent preparing for ‘Mashramani’, a celebration of republic day in Guyana. Republic day (23rd Feb) celebrates the day Guyana was declared ‘the co-operative republic of Guyana’ and was freed from British rule. The reason for republic day being the 23rd Feb is because the Berbice slave revolt started on 23rd Feb, 1763. The revolt was the first major slave rebellion in Guyana and was started by slaves on a plantation on the Canje river on the outskirts of New Amsterdam. Despite the revolt not gaining the slaves their freedom, it wounded colonial life in the plantations irreversibly and today the participants are regarded heroes. For us, learning about the origins of ‘mash’ made us reflect on how little we know about the slave trade and how closely linked slavery is to Guyanese culture. For the first time I thought about the fact that all Guyanese, except the Amerindians, are descended from slaves or indentured laborers (workers brought from China, Portugal and India to serve a period of labor before being freed). This means that essentially the whole coast of Guyana is made up of a mixture of six different races. Underneath the impression of unity they would like to give the world, there are complex racial and social prejudices which can be traced back to the days of slavery. They are living in a land they never chose to live in, which could be part of the reason why so many people choose to leave. Making an effort to understand the history of the place we are living in has made me realize how much history shapes people’s attitudes and culture.
Back to the actual mash celebration, there were dance, costume and dramatic poetry competitions which all the schools took part in during the weeks leading up to 23rd Feb. Our school won the regional competitions for their dance and physical display. The students made all their costumes out of Guyana flags and danced Caribbean style to soca music. The Physical display was impressive with lifts, flips and a collapsing pyramid as the climax. We went with the students to Georgetown when they performed their dance at the national competition. This meant we got to see the best dances from all over Guyana, some were better than others but all were very entertaining. The highlights being the girls dressed as cricket players dancing with cricket bats and the girls dressed in school uniform (St Trinian style) dancing provocatively (Britney Spears style) in front of the judges ( I think they were disqualified!). Multi came second after a flawless performance  but were still annoyed to have been beaten by their rivals, North Georgetown secondary.
Several of the volunteers came down to New Amsterdam on the weekend before mash. The highlight of their visit was without a doubt our trip to go swimming in ‘the creek’. It turns out the locals like to take ‘short cuts’ through bush when there is a perfectly good road, just for the amusement of seeing white people (especially Jolene) struggling through the undergrowth. It also turns out that ‘the creek’ in New Amsterdam is in fact a trench in the middle of a cane field. After our trek through the undergrowth, we had to swim across two trenches and make our way through a burnt cane field with the aid of a cutlass. We ended up covered in caramel and charcoal as well as red ants before washing it all off in a less than hygienic trench.
We all then went up to town for mash. On Monday we dressed up in the colours of Guyana and followed the vibrations coming from the piles of speakers blasting a mix of gangsta rap, hip hop, r+b , soca, chutney, dancehall and reggae. We spent the day watching the floats in the parade, painting our faces and most importantly dancing. We also made it onto national TV, much to the amusement of all our students. We had bought tickets to go and a concert headlining T Pain (an American rapper for those of you who don’t know ;) in the evening. However, T Pain got a death threat saying he would be shot if he played in Guyana so he decided to stay away (hasn’t done much for his gangsta reputation in Guyana). They still put on a really good concert though with acts from Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad playing dancehall, reggae and soca (soul calypso) music
The weekend after mash in town, the parade came down to New Amsterdam. The parade was nowhere near as impressive with only six floats taking part. Plenty of people came out for the event however so the road was packed and the stacks of speakers ensured the party continued all day (until 8pm when the police closed off the road to avoid things getting out of hand). The party then moved into the club then the fire station until early in the morning.
The next public holiday we have enjoyed is Pagwah. It is a Hindu festival which celebrates the beginning of spring and the triumph of good over evil. The official rules of Pagwah are that if you are wearing a white T-shirt, you are playing. The unofficial rules are that if you are anywhere but hiding in your house, you are playing. People throw paint, powder, glitter, dye and water at each other all day until you end up covered from head to toe in various coloured powders and paints. The official holiday wasn’t until Wednesday but the students started playing in school on Monday. Despite Pagwah being banned at our school, I was still covered in glitter by my 4th form and covered in orange dye by the first form. By the end of the day, the school was covered in water, glitter and powder while the teachers sheltered in the staff room. It was one of the many times I wish was a student again. We got our chance to play on Wednesday though – we went up to Georgetown to meet up with some other volunteers. We started early, making up our paint/glitter solutions in plastic bottles with holes in the lid for maximum spray effect. Things got a little out of hand in the flat and we ended up covered in paint before even left the house. We successfully redecorated the flat, giving it a much more colourful, edgy look. On leaving the house, some Hindus at the car wash poured red paint over us before we took on the kids at the next car wash with our weapons consisting of various cleaning bottles filled with paint and glitter. Deciding to get take a break for lunch, we headed to royal castle, getting covered by more paint by people doing drive bys in pickup trucks. After lunch we headed to the Kendra where there was a band playing Indian music and hundreds of people dancing and throwing paint and powder all over each other. Needless to say, we got fully involved and left the place unrecognizable, having changed colour several times during our stay. What we didn’t realize however, is that the paint dyes your hair and your skin for several days afterwards. I am still struggling to get off the pink and green from my arms a week on. Those with blonde hair were the worst hit – Nicola has to go to school on Thursday with green and purple hair, much to the amusement of everybody else.
In other news, I spotted a caiman in the sewers outside our house. I thought they were joking when the locals told me it was a caiman but it turns out they catch them and eat them. I no longer look at the sewers with disgust but spend my time searching with my torch and planning how Jolene is going to take the next Caiman down with our pitch fork. Nicola and Megan have also been fasting – not eating between sun up and sun down – as it is the Baha’i fast for 19 days. Needless to say, I have not been fasting as it would be a terrible experience for all involved. I may fast for one day just to see how I cope although I will have to warn my housemates well in advance. It is Jolene’s birthday on Saturday so we are going up to G’town to celebrate. England is also playing cricket in Guyana on Sunday but unfortunately we were too late to buy tickets. It turns out cricket is the only thing the Guyanese will rush for.