Its been over two months since my last blog and this is likely to be my last before I reach home. Leaving has come around so quickly, we have one more teaching week, then two weeks of exams and then a week of ‘end of term activities’. The last six weeks since Easter have flown by and I know the next five weeks will go by even quicker. I know I will miss this place more than I realise, especially the teaching and the students. I had never considered teaching as a career before but, after this year I’ve realized I could really enjoy being a teacher (if the whole medicine thing doesn’t work out!). Teaching is a very difficult thing to do well especially here where the system is set up to make it look like you are teaching well, when in fact it is the system which is preventing you from teaching well. For the whole year I have tried to find the balance between do all the pointless things expected of the teachers and students and actually helping the students to learn. All the while I have realized that as much as you may value your own education and try to instill this on others, kids are the same the world over – only a few will really make the most of the opportunity they have. It is those few that do genuinely appreciate your effort that make the whole thing worthwhile. The few that say thank you after each lesson or those that write you notes letting you know how much they appreciate you. Then there are the best sort – those you know value what you are trying to do without them saying anything because they always do the work you give them and do it as well as they possibly can. There are very few students like this but they make up for the majority who make no effort and could care less whether you are there or not.
Apart from teaching, we have also been having a lot of fun as usual. We went down to region 9 for two weeks at Easter. Region 9 is in the south of Guyana. To get there you have to travel on a bus for 18 hours through the jungle, of course with the inevitable breakdown half way. Luckily for me I got ill about 10 hours into the journey. I had a fever and very low blood pressure for the next week, this meant every time I tried to stand things would go black and I could only walk for a bit before I would have to sit down to get the blood back to my head. We all went to visit two other volunteers in Aishalton for the first week with me in tow trying my best to stay conscious  The others spent a nice week relaxing in Aishalton while I tried to recover. I had a malaria test but it was negative. I am fairly sure it was a side effect of the anti-malarials I was taking. I stopped taking the anti-malarials as soon as I got ill but it took a while to recover since my blood pressure had dropped so much. Turns out all I needed to do was eat plenty of salt! For the last week we went to the main town called Lethem, which is on the border of Brazil and Guyana. Every year there is a big rodeo with people coming from all over Guyana and Brazil to watch and take part. For me, rodeo involved eating plenty of meat on a stick, wearing cowboy hats and dancing Brazilian style (fauha – not sure of spelling!)all night. All the other volunteers also came to Lethem so there was about 24 of us. The highlight of the actual rodeo was seeing a bull head butt the horse making the rider fall onto the bull. The bull then fell over, thankfully not crushing the rider. Fortunately I got an amazing action shot so the moment will live on forever. After rodeo we spent a lot of time in Lethem at the creek and then went to Brazil for a night. Brazil was all very overwhelming though; it is a lot more developed than Guyana. We spent a lot of time in the hypermarket feeling slightly confused by all the choice, just wondering around in a bit of a daze. I am now slightly worried what will happen when we get home. I can think reverse culture shock will be an issue!
Since Easter, we have spent all our time in New Amsterdam and for the first time, I have felt properly settled in here. We have enjoyed several more public holidays including Indian arrival day and Independence day, both of which are rather awkward days to be British Indian arrival day is the day celebrating the day the first indentured laborers were brought from India by the British. Indentured laborers were brought to work on the sugar plantations after the abolition of slavery. They had to work for five years in return for their passage and were paid a small amount. They also had fewer restrictions on practicing their religion and culture than the African slaves had which is why the most Indians are still Hindu whereas the afro-Guyanese are mostly Christian. The British would often mislead the Indians into believing that Guyana would bring them a far better life when the reality was far from better. Those who survived the journey often succumbed to tropical diseases. They were treated little better than slaves as they struggled to survive in an environment completely unfamiliar to them. On the other hand, the place they were coming from can’t have been much better, otherwise they would not have wanted to leave so desperately. We went to the village (Highbury) on the Canje river where the first Indians arrived in Guyana on may 5th 1838. There was a show of Indian culture involving singing, dancing and acting. The day was interesting but none of us could shake off the feeling of guilt, especially when you are the only white people there and they start talking about what the whippings their forefathers endured… everyone turns round and stares. To top things off, someone else thought it appropriate to shout to us from his car ‘get out of the road, you don’t own this country anymore!’.
As for independence day, things went a lot more smoothly. We went on a very Guyanese boat cruise (on a large old ferry) up the Berbice river. As always with Guyanese celebrations this involved plenty of loud music, food, drink and dancing whilst ‘cruising’ up the Berbice in a ferry straight out of the 50s.
There have also been two birthdays since my last blog. Jolene’s birthday was on 21st march. We went up to Georgetown to celebrate with some friends and other volunteers. The night was pretty epic but ill save that story for another time…
As for my birthday, it doesn’t make such a good story but was very enjoyable. At school, we had a ‘who can make Miss Hazel the best card competition’ with the first form. They got really into it (and very over excited) and made me some really nice cards which made me smile. We then went out in the evening to karaoke and danced the night away. At the weekend we continued the celebration by going to the beach with some friends. In true Guyanese style we took a boom box, a cricket bat and kites. Everyone had a really good day, although the brown waters of number 63 beach doesn’t quite compare to the white sands of the Caribbean.
As for school, the fifth form have their last chemistry exam tomorrow so we have been revising with them all weekend. The exam they have to sit is ridiculously hard but I am hopeful for some of them… I have also spent the whole day in the lab trying to teach the 4th form (some of whom have never been in the lab before I taught them) to do titrations. On top of this we have been attempting to make up standard solutions to use since no one else knows how. This went surprisingly well, especially since there is a new lab assistant who is far more helpful! We rewarded the students at the end with some demonstrations of reactions of sodium with water (it catches fire on the surface of the water and forms a small burning ball). It was all going well until we got a little too enthusiastic and caused a small explosion, much to the amusement of the students. Not to worry though, the glass bowl was very thick and the students were stood well back!
My sister will be coming out to visit on June 23rd which Im really excited about and then we are heading off to Jamaica on 13th July for the reggae sumfest. I come back to England on 15th Aug, a month before starting university. Overall, I am really looking forward to coming home and seeing everyone but at the same time I really don’t want to leave. I feel like I have just settled in and now I have to leave. I am so glad I chose to spend my year teaching here. While I haven’t loved every minute of it, the fact that I found it hard and didn’t immediately enjoy it means I have changed a lot more than if I had had an easy year in a project I loved. I would never have wanted my year to be any other way. If things had been different I would have changed in a different way and I really like how I have changed. I genuinely like the person I have become and feel very lucky to be able to say that.