Guyana 08 Hazel Hathway

last blog.. probably

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:47:54 +0200

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.

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news from guyana a tlast!

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:38:17 +0100

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.

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Finally back!

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:09:46 +0100

Happy late New Year and I hope you all had a good christmas. Well heres the much requested 11th blogg in the series of our adventures. The reason I have not posted a blogg for a very long time is because of the amount of work I have had to do since getting back from out christmas holidays. I have had to stay home every weekend marking and right now I feel like I am just keeping my head above water. To top things off, my laptop crashed today so I lost the blogg I wrote yesterday so I am now writing a new (and hopefully improved version.) I had to buy a new harddrive today which cost me 25,000 Guyanese dollars – the equivalent of about 80 GBP or half a months wages to put it in perspective.
Over the christmas holidays, six of us spent one week in Barbados before we met up with 13 other volunteers for two weeks in Tobago. Spending christmas in the Caribbean was, needless to say amazing. When I wasnt out surfing (with sea turtles and pelicans!), I was relaxing on the beach with the other volunteers or out enjoying the Caribbean nightlife. On christmas day all 19 of us went on a glass bottom boat tour to an island where we had a buffet barbeque, open bar, music and limbo competion (which Jolene and I skillfully won!). To end an awesome christmas day, Jolene and I managed to get ourselves free jet ski rides home  Everyone had a great time and all the ‘merry making’ took our minds off the fact that we werent with out families for christmas. On New Years (or old years as they call it) we were all served free food and drink at local bar as it is traditional to serve free food and drink on New Years Eve. We saw the British New Year at the bar before we headed to a beach party for the Caribbean New Year. Suprisingly enough, it rained but we didnt let that stop us dancing barefoot on the beach all night. Three weeks in the Caribbean was definetly what I needed after, what was at times a very difficult and stressful term. I wont go on about it anymore as I wouldnt want to make you chilly English folk too jealous 
Coming back to Guyana was abit of a shock – it brought us all pretty quickly back down to earth. It had rained all christmas so when we arrived in Georgetown the streets were flooded with the water from the waste water ditches. As you can imagine, the smell was not particularly pleasant. All the rain has caused food prices to almost double and fears of a flood like 2006 where there was an outbreak of leptospirosis. It seems like the rain is coming to an end though despite the fact that it rained all day yesterday. The temperature dropped to about 20C which left us all complaining about the cold weather and wearing jumpers.
Back at school, as usual I have been overloaded with work as six of the fiftth form have two years worth of SBAs to do in a month. I have started doing extra lessons with them after school every week but am wondering whether this will be enough. The rest of the 5th form still have 16 SBAs to do which I am currently trying to organise. As for the 4th and 1st form they are mostly still a pleasure to teach as well as alot of hard work. Some of the firtst form are however getting a little too outspoken which has led to the punishment rate increaing. On Thursday I will have a first former reciting a quote by Nelson Mandela about the importance of education. Both the rest of the class and I are waiting with much anticipation. The punishment already seems to be working as I saw him boasting to his class saying ‘I is the only gangsta round here’. He then turned around to see me standing there and immediately appologised saying ‘sorry miss im not really a gangsta’. I had to try my best to look dissapproving despite finding the hole situation hilarious.
Living on the school compound has so far been very enjoyable despite it feeling more like a farm than a school. I came out of the staff room the other day to find a full grown pig with its front legs on the top of the bin (a large oil drum), gorging itself on the contents. This pig has also been causing us trouble as it comes into a garden early in the morning and makes a whole in our fence. There are also several piglets roaming the school who very much enjoy wallowing in the students plant beds and of course the rubbish bins. The stray dogs have also become more corageous (or desperate) and have taken to climbing on the canteen table to eat any left over food. Then there is the cows who appear in our garden and we have no idea how they get in or out. We have one pig sized hole in our fence and as far as i know full grown cows are not flexible enough to squeeze through a hole the size of a pig. It turns out the cows do belong to someone as i saw a small boy herding them out of the school yesterday afternoon whilst teaching my students in the canteen. I have now found a way of using the stray donkeys, horses, cows, dogs, pigs, goats and sheep in the school to my advantages. I took my first form students out into the yard in our science lesson to note down all the structural features of the plants and animals in the school compound. Needless to say this took plenty of time.
We also had our visit from Doug and Ingrid, our Project Trust co-ordinators. As far as i know it went well and everyone enjoyed themselves, especially the meal they treated us too (although that could just have been a way to get out of tasting our interesting cooking..). They seemed impressed with our new house which was of course in a normal state of cleanliness and tidiness...
Then of course there was Barack Obamas inaugaration which everyone was very passionate about. We woke up to our neighbours blazing the Presidential mix ’08 which has been a massive hit in Guyana. There were also TVs in the gym, home economics department and office set up especially to watch it. Unfortunately I still had to teach so didnt get to watch any of it.
Well Im gonna finish off and save the rest for another time. The volunteers from St Cuthberts and Dora should be coming down this weekend so things could get interesting. Im just praying they leave our water pipes intact...

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moving house!

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:35:05 +0100

Well yet again, the lack of blogging reflects how busy we have been. Three weeks ago we finally moved! The whole moving experience was hard but ‘character building’ as always. We are now incredibly bitter and angry with the government and have experienced how the government in third world countries work and how they treat their people. We feel pretty empowered though after discovering how to get things done despite this. I found a speech in one of the past volunteers work books this week which pretty much sums up the problems we have faced with being in Guyana and the problems facing the country. I don’t know who wrote it but its pretty accurate:

‘The problem with Guyana is that it is populated with Guyanese. But before I get lynched let me explain some properties of the typical, average Guyanese and why this counts against them. First off, Guyanese love delegation. This comes from the top, in the government and ministries. Everything is someone elses responsibility. Nobody accepts any responsibility for any failure, it is always someone else who they are relying on. What this means is that the common people always see it as someone elses responsibility to change things.
Secondly, Guyanese are defeatist by nature. They have a great tendency to resign themselves to the way things are what ever you suggest, theres always a reason why it cant or wont work. Even if that reason is purely just that that is the way things have always been and so therefore it wont change. This is a vicious circle, people believe things wont change because they never do but they don’t change because people don’t make an effort to change them because they believe things will never change.
Lastly, nobody is prepared to set the example. The Guyanese will complain that everyone is always late and yet those complaining will turn up late themselves because they know that otherwise they will have to just wait for other people. All this wouldn’t be quite so annoying if the Guyanese didn’t have a tendency to complain about their situation 24-7. Most people I know will complain about the government but most don’t vote.
Now I’m making a plea to all Guyanese. If you don’t have any ideas on how to change things keep stum and don’t criticise those that do. If you do have an idea, try it and don’t leave others to do it. And those who have tried, don’t give up and go to Canada or England in your despair. Please, you are the only people who can fix your beloved country, don’t give up on it.’

We are all finding it incredibly frustrating dealing with the characteristics of the Guyanese everyday, especially when there is so much potential in the students at school but they are just being let down by the education system. We are trying to mamage in our own way to get things done. We (Jolene and I) had a meeting with the HOD , Head mistress and lab assistant after the lab assistant did not turn up as usual and had not prepared anything we had asked him to. We had spent the week planning five SBAs so we could spend the whole day on Friday in the lab. We turned up in the morining and the lab assistant was not there, nor were the keys to the lab which he was supposed to leave at school. Since no one else has the keys, there was no way we could get into the lab. Not wanting to let the lab assistant get away with it and determined to complete our SBAs we marched down to the lab assistants house to find him outside fixing his beloved motorbike. We demanded the keys but he refused to give them to us. We then went back to school and started writing a letter of complaint since it is not the first time he has failed to turn up or prepare our equipment. He then turned up and started preparing our equipment, at which point we had a meeting about the whole situation with the Headteacher and our HOD. Our HOD was pretty unconcerned and very unhelpful as usual but the head mistress was very supportive and helpful. after our long and rather heated meeting, we eventually got into the lab but only got 1 out of the 5 planned SBAs done. Since then there has been no improvement with the lab assistant – I have planned more SBA for tomorrow but he hasn’t even picked up the equipment list from the head teacher. We will be finishing that letter of complaint and sending it to the board of governers.
Aside from problems at school, we have also had various problem with the house since the move, especially with the drainage system. Our toilet was blocked for three days and could not be unblocked by any ingenious method we could come up with. The plumber came and it turns out that there was actually plants growing in out drain and no cover. After clearing out the plants, it turns out that the sewer it actually blocked underground. We now have to get sewage workers in from the ministry, surprisingly enough they still have turned up after a week of promises. Meanwhile we have an open sewer in our back garden (which the students grow plants in) and have to plunge our sewage pipe with a big stick if we want to flush the toilet. The whole thing is not particularly pleasant but yet again very ‘character building’.
Despite this, we are a lot happier here though as it gives us so much more time and the opportunity to get involved with New Amsterdam more. Last weekend was town day in New Amsterdam. This is the day it was officially declared a town. There was plenty going on in town with food, very loud music etc. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many amps stacked one on top of the other blazing out a variety of rap, hip hop and r + b at 12 in the afternoon. The party continued into the night so we got a good opportunity to sample the night life of New Amsterdam for the first time! I’ve never felt so white in my life, but loved it. We all stick together and have learnt how to deal with all the attention (usually fairly rudely). The whole thing was pretty gangsta – we even came across a spontaneous dance off in the middle of the street. It was amazing! Back at school, things have been incredibly busy as I am trying to get as many SBAs done (school based assessments) with the 4th and 5th form as possible, as well as writing and marking exams for all my classes. On top of this I have a mountain of paper work including lesson plans, schemes mark books etc all of which must be filled in using the right colour pen (the Guyanese love beurocracy). I also took my biology students on a field trip to one of my students father’s labs on Friday. Despite the late start due to a teacher deciding to put her test in the morning, when we were supposed to leave (she was gambling in the staff room with the other teachers when she should have given them the test), the trip was a success. The students had the opportunity to see onion cell, blood slides, a leukaemia slide and urine sample containing a bacterial infection under the microscope. They were all really interested and inquisitive which made it all worthwhile. There used to be 16 microscopes at school (most of which were donated by VSOs) which we could have used but they have all been stolen so there is now only one which we are not allowed to use. As for this weekend, we took a trip to Moruca again as Monday was another public holiday. Despite the rain we had a pretty awesome time, discovering that a Guyanese picnic in fact involves a ride in the back of a pick up with 12 other people along with a generator, amps, cd player, water pump to wash the car, plenty of food and large amounts of vodka and rum. The night before a snake was found dumped in a bag at the bar. It was a rainbow snake which is not poisonous so was safe to hold (which Nicola took full advantage of!). It was a beautiful snake which apparently someone had caught but couldn’t sell so we let it back into the jungle where it belongs.
Anyway, I think this has been a record-breakingly long blogg so im gonna wrap up with the fact that we are going to Barbados in four days, which makes everything seem a lot better! Six of us are going to Barbados for a week and then meeting most of the other volunteers on Tobago for two weeks. I am very much looking forward to a well deserved break. Merry christmas to everyone and a Happy New Year!

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oving house!

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:33:43 +0100

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drama in guyana continued

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:40:55 +0100

Continuing the drama in the ghetto that is Blairmont, we have had the police round this morning to file a report about the stolen camera. They questioned our front neighbours yesterday as they saw a man go in through our back door in the blackout on the night it was stolen. They didn’t mention any names. The police took away the brother of our next door neighbours this morning who they said was looking suspicious (he has also just come out of prison). Now our next door neighbours are threatening our front neighbour and her daughter, as they believe she told the police it was their brother. There are heated arguments going on across the street and we are just staying inside trying not to get involved. We just don’t really know who to trust but haven’t been keen on our next door neighbours since we arrived as we regularly hear her shouting at and beating her young daughter. Domestic and sexual abuse is pretty common in Guyana and is actually seen as a bit of a joke.
Megan would also like to mention stupid hospital number one. She had to be rushed to hospital this weekend as she couldn’t breath. She lost her voice from shouting too much at tutorial on Thursday. By Saturday she was coughing profusely and on Saturday afternoon she couldn’t breath so was rushed to hospital. The first hospital she was taken too first directed her the wrong way while telling her to mind the wet paint (whilst Megan was staggering and struggling to breath). The doctor then seemed more interested in what they were doing in Guyana than in treating Megan’s lack of breath. Jolene’s rage at this situation triumphed again and she persuaded them to put her on oxygen. They then however left her on her own in the room on oxygen after she had collapsed walking to the room. The nurses refused to let Jolene and Nicola be in the room with her, claiming it was ‘hospital policy’, but would also not stay with her themselves even though there were no other patients in the hospital (they preferred to fold bandages than look after a patient who is struggling to breath). They then went to another hospital which, thankfully, was far better. They diagnosed Megan with asthma which was probably brought on by all the dust and cleaning products we used whilst cleaning our house. She still has a cough now but is getting much better.
On the brighter side of things, we have discovered the supermarket in New Amsterdam. We all got incredibly excited after finding cheese, milk and bacon! We made an excellent spaghetti Carbonara to celebrate. We have also got involved in a school called school of the nations, which is across the road from tutorial. It is a private school inspired by the Baha’I faith. It based on teaching positive virtues and good character as well as the academic content. We really enjoy going there since everybody is friendly and helpful. There are also several teachers our age, including a Canadian volunteer. Went there on Tuesday for the celebration of the birth of their prophet, Baha’u’llah. Learning about the baha’I faith (we had never heard of it before we came here) was really interesting and thought provoking. Every Friday they have ‘firesides’ where they discuss community issues and teaching methods for encouraging positive virtues etc.
I also went up to a chemistry workshop last week in Georgetown. It was run by one of the few dedicated chemistry teachers in Guyana. She has been teaching chemistry in Guyana all her life and taught a large proportion of the chemistry teachers at the workshop. It was really refreshing to see someone so dynamic and passionate about teaching. At the same time I was shocked by the lack of enthusiasm and initiative from the other chemistry teachers. Out of at least 25 teachers there I was the only one willing to type up the work we had produced during the workshop so it could be emailed to everyone, despite most people having access to a computer.
We did not teach for the whole of last week as the whole school had to prepare for graduation on Thursday night. A ridiculous amount of money was spent on the event, especially on the trophies. About thirty trophies were awarded to the students, which they got to keep. Hundreds of pounds were spent on these trophies when the school can even afford enough stools for the lab or text books for the children. It was quite sickening to watch the school waste money on something so superficial in an attempt to try and be something it is not or something it used to be. It was also incredibly frustrating to not be able to teach for yet another week especially since I am six weeks behind with some of my classes simply because school activities mean I have not been able to teach. We now only have one teaching week left because two weeks are taken up by exams and the last week is taken up by Christmas parties. I have now taken to emailing my student’s notes and homework as it seems to be the only way we will get through the work.
Whilst I have been typing this we have just heard that the police have arrested our neighbours brother which will no doubt cause a lot of friction and arguments within the community. We are definitely looking forward to moving out!

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frustration in guyana

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 22:52:10 +0100

Firstly, I have to apologies for my lack of blogging in the past few weeks. We have been very busy, mainly because we are very ambitious in our plans and usually forget to include the ‘Guyana’ factor i.e. everything takes at least twice as long as you expect. This week we haven’t even had time to go to the market to buy food since we have spent every afternoon trying to sort out our new house. The whole moving experience has definitely been an eye opener. I always knew corruption existed, especially in the third world but had never been lucky enough to experience it! Since the ministry decided we should move ‘as soon as possible’ over seven weeks ago it has been a frustrating journey of people not turning up to work, people not doing the job they should (like ‘cleaning’ but not removing the corrugated iron from the living room), applications not being made, essential parts not being available and money somehow being short (despite the fact that the ministry will be saving money by us moving since they wont have to pay rent). The house we are moving into is a house on the school compound in New Amsterdam and is owned by the ministry. It has not been lived in for a couple of years and there is no electricity (the last supply was illegal) or water. At first we thought it would be a simple job of getting a tank and water connected, electricity reconnected, the house cleaned and furniture moved in. it turns out this is far from simple where the ministry is involved. Seven weeks on we have a tank and water supply (after constant phone calls to the plumber), we have cleaned the house ourselves since the cleaners the ministry sent never turned up (Megan is now sick as a result) and we have half of our furniture. The ministry have given us two beds and one pillow for four people. Apparently they are waiting on some money to order the rest. After speaking to some locals it turns out that what normally happens is that somebody takes some money out of the budget at every level so by the time the workers need to be paid there is not enough money so the workers do not turn up to do the job. It is incredibly frustrating not being able to trust or rely on anyone to do the job properly. Everything that has got done is because we have made it happen. It has been a good lesson in how to get things done in this country: do them yourself. A good example of this is Jolene’s visit to the ministry to get our furniture (the ministry now hate her since they have been on the receiving end of so many angry phone calls!). she had been cleaning our house all day since the ministry cleaners never turned up so was wearing a t-shirt. They refused to let her in because she was wearing a t-shirt. When she told them what she thought about this they let her in. She marched in told them / took everything we wanted, promoting the man to say ‘ooh, little lady knows what she wants’. It seems forceful, assertive tactics definitely work in this country!
It is disheartening coming to this country as a volunteer teacher and being treated like this. We still have no electricity at the house so went to the electricity company on Wednesday to sort it out ourselves and the ministry hadn’t even made the application they told us they had. We have no idea when we will get power since the company ran out of voltmeters which needs to be fitted. We can’t move until we have electricity so at the moment we have two houses which we go between.
We were also robbed on Friday night in the blackout. We were eating dinner on the balcony at about 7pm and forgot to lock our back door. Someone (we have our suspicions) came in and took some money and Jolene’s camera. It has definitely woken us up more to the need for better security etc and the experience will sadly only make us even less trusting of people.
Anyway, aside from the frustrations of living here we have also had some really good experiences. We went to Orealla last weekend which is an Amerindian community 50 miles down the Correntyn River. The journey takes six hours on a packed boat (with no toilet!) where everybody strings up there hammocks one on top of another. On the way back we slept over night on the boat which was not entirely comfortable since hammocks and boats are not a great mix. It turns gentle rocking into a sleepless world violence and pain. Not fun. It was however very Michael palin–esq. On the way back we spent the first part of the journey on the roof of the boat watching the sunset and star gazing with Surinam to our right and Guyana to our left. Orealla is really pretty and we spent most of our time in the river, even after we saw a piranha jump about 10 feet away. Apparently only about 10 people a year get digits bitten off which was not all that reassuring. We enjoyed the peace and wildlife (seeing iguanas in there natural habitat rather than tied up for sale at the ferry stelling) was refreshing. Anyway I will have to continue this update as I have plenty more to add (slightly more positive things!) when I have more time. I am writing this at an internet café in NA since it is a blackout again in Blairmount so I cannot use my laptop. I am also locked out of both of our houses since Megan had to be taken to hospital because she had an asthma attack so they have taken all the keys. All in all it has not been a fantastic day but things can only get better!

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moruca!!!!!

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 15:33:15 +0100

Recently we have been discovering more and more that Guyana is a place where anything is possible. Illegal fireworks can be bought from your first form students outside the market, juice bottles can explode spontaneously and blackouts can last for a week. Everything will make so much sense when we get back to England as we seem to spend most of our time in a state of confusion. The past two weeks have been very busy with work and travelling.
This weekend we went up to Moruca, an Amerindian village north of Georgetown, to visit some other volunteers. They are also staying with a world teach volunteer from Cambridge and a Peace Corps volunteer from LA who are both slightly older and more experienced! To get there we had to cross four rivers – the Berbice, Demerara, Essequibo (which is 20 miles wide!) and down the Pomeroon and up the Moruca river. The journey was amazing especially the last bit in a speedboat through the jungle. On the way back the speedboat leaves at 5:30am so you get to see the sun rise over the jungle whilst speeding down river. It is incredible. Moruca is really beautiful – a world away from New Amsterdam. The Amerindians are quiet but friendly people. We visited the secondary and primary school and were shocked at how peaceful the place was despite having 400 kids in fairly small class rooms. Since there are no Amerindians in New Amsterdam and the population is made up of loud and lively Afro and indo Guyanese this was a big surprise to us. It was a world away from the New Amsterdam – it didn’t feel like we were in Guyana. While the people may be quiet, the jungle definitely is not. I was woken by the sound of howler monkeys at 3am on the first night which was really bizarre. There was also a tarantula on the wall of the bathroom and hundreds of army ants working together to lift leaves and flowers many times their size. Apparently we have to go back in the rainy season to see all the monkeys and snakes. We were interrupted at 2:30am on Friday (whilst searching for the diamonds we had dropped under the table) by the neighbours telling us to call a doctor because their son was really sick. We went over to see him sweating and barely conscious on the floor. After considering the possibility of septic shock we smelt the alcohol on his breath and realised he had just passed out from drinking. They wouldn’t believe us though since their son ‘never drinks’. Even in the jungle things aren’t so different from home. The Amerindian men drink a lot and cheat on their wives a lot which makes the whole place feel slightly uneasy and claustrophobic in my opinion. It wouldn’t be a nice place to fall out with your neighbours since there is no way of getting away from them. On Saturday we got a pick up to a nice sandy beach by a creek and went swimming and fishing, Jolene caught two Hussars which we could have curried but didn’t know how.
Moruca is in a strange stage of development. They have just got mobile phones and everyone has one. Digicell (the mobile phone company) is everywhere – there are Digicell signs in the middle of the jungle. The village seems to have lost a lot of its traditions since getting contact with the outside world. A lot of people have had a glimpse of what else the world has to offer and get depressed with their own lives. There have been several suicides in the village recently. Whether the two are related I don’t know but it could be a case of ignorance being bliss. Either way I don’t think any thing will stop the village from developing – there are plans to get the Internet. Whether good or bad, things in the village are definitely changing quickly. As for education, access to the outside world can only be a good thing but at the cost of the traditions of the community.
Back at school, our head teacher came into my chemistry lesson to invidulate it with no warning. I also just happened to be teaching moles and Avagadroes law – the hardest thing to first learn in chemistry. Luckily she doesn’t know much about chemistry though so she couldn’t comment on the content! She was pleased with my teaching but concerned that I hadn’t written every small detail of what I had done and said in my lesson plan. It seems that they would rather it looked like you were teaching well on paper than actually teaching well. I am still enjoying the teaching although Jolene and I are finding it ever more concerning (but amusing) that we make up the chemistry department in the best school in Berbice.
Tuesday was a public holiday since it is dewali (or deepvali) the hindu festival of light. I spent the day cooking with our neighbour and spent the evening walking around the village looking at all the Diya (small lights people decorate their houses with), fireworks and small kids spinning burning steel wool around their heads. The Guyanese have a fascination with fireworks and bangers (they sound more like bombs here though). There have been several every day at school which usually involves a loud bang screaming kids and lots of smoke. There was also a firework set off outside the staff room today which meant the police were called to school.
The blackout lasted a week and we have had consistent power for a couple of days until today when it went off again. I am now in Georgetown as I have to attend a CXC chemistry workshop today and tomorrow. I am looking forward to finding my own way around Georgetown and pretty glad I have made it safely so far!

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title-4886191

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:20:38 +0200

This week we have experienced a lot of the Hindu culture. We were invited to the temple on Thursday night to celebrate the end of their nine days of fasting. They cooked seven curry for everyone which is seven different types of vegetarian curry followed by sweet rice and roti. We ate out of giant lilly leaves and had our first curry meal eaten entirely with our hands. At least it saves on washing up. The temple was very different from the mosque – it was very lively, noisy and colourful. The service was all about the kids and teaching them how to play music or how to carry out certain rituals. At the end they gave out work books, pencils and science text books to all the children which was really refreshing to see. We also went to a Hindu wedding on Sunday after buying Indian outfits to wear in Georgetown on Saturday. We all love the Indian clothes – they are so comfortable and colourful. I think the guests at the wedding appreciated the fact that we made an effort and in return made plenty of effort to teach us how to dance. After the ceremony we ate plenty of seven curry again from giant lilly leaves and danced Hindu style (taught by an amazing Hindu grandma) to loud Indian music. The Guyanese love to dance and Hindus are definitely no exception! After visiting the church. Mosque and Hindu temple we have decided that Hinduism is our favourite religion!
On Friday we went up to Georgetown and met up with the volunteers from St Cuthberts. We all enjoyed it but find Georgetown pretty tiring as it is so full on. We are all enjoying becoming more independent now as we get to learn how transport etc works here and how to deal with all the attention. It a really strange feeling leaving home but feeling less independent than when I left. At the moment we go everywhere at least in a pair as none of us yet feel comfortable walking through New Amsterdam on our own. This is mainly because of all the attention we get and because of our (probably unjustified) fear of getting mugged. Once we move over there though (hopefully next week) we should all have a lot more independence which will be really nice.
At school things are going well, getting on with SBAs despite the timetable still not being fixed eight weeks in. I am also discovering more and more how little the students like to think for themselves. They would rather copy notes from a blackboard all day than actually think about what they are writing. They get very concerned when I tell them it is just a thinking exercise and they don’t need to write anything down. The blackouts are still continuing with the last one lasting for 24hrs.

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title-4845909

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:41:49 +0200

The past week has been very busy. Sports was rescheduled and was held on Friday. The events included cheerleading (Guyanese style) and a bicycle race on grass where everybody had a different size and quality bike. It was very amusing watching the guy on the tiny BMX trying to keep up with the racing bike. At the weekend we went to the beach which is an hour by bus over the river. The water is very muddy but at the bottom there is a whole load of clay which is apparently good for your skin. Consequently, we all gave ourselves a full body spa in preparation for the wedding on Sunday. Before the wedding we went to a Pentecostal church to meet up with a teacher. Church in Guyana is a world away from church back home. Everybody was singing and praying in such an uninhibited way. It was really good to see people so passionate about something and not afraid to show it. One of the unwritten rules in Guyana seems to be that you have to be religious. If you say you are not religious, they laugh at you. As for the actual wedding, it was very bizarre. Apparently they had already got married and were just legalising it on Sunday. It was held at their house which was decorated with a cake etc at the front. They were playing load Indian music so there was no way you could talk to each other. We waited for hours before the bride and groom turned up for 10 minutes, had pictures taken and promptly left. We were told there would be a party when they returned but by that time were fed up with waiting and went home. We have however been invited to another wedding this Sunday which is a Hindu wedding. Hopefully it will be slightly more exciting.
At school, I have been using the labs more and learning how to get things done in this country. The first form were fascinated with the reactions I demonstrated and left some of them asking why they had to wait until sixth form to learn about ligands. I have started my first SBA (experiment and write up which goes towards their final grade) with my fourth form. It turn out that they have only been in the lab twice. I don’t understand why, after four years studying science at a school with 3 labs they have only been in twice. There seems to be a generic answer to all these sorts of questions ‘this is Guyana’. I have also had success with my new punishment of giving the students poems or quotes to memorise and recite in front of the class. One of my first form successfully recited ‘I wondered lonely as a cloud’ yesterday. If any one has any suggestions of poems / quotes / lyrics / speeches don’t hesitate to let me know! I am aiming to have a class full of poets and philosophers by the time I leave.
We have also spent the past week trying to get things sorted so we can move into the house on the school compound. They found the keys they had been looking for all week to open the house but when we tried them they didn’t actually open anything. They broke the door down so we have now seen inside and written a list of all the furniture we need. They have also started cleaning it us for us, despite my fourth form offering to do it for us. Things seem to be moving more quickly than expected which is a really good sign.
We have had black outs every night for the past week. Noone really knows why but people say there is either a fuel shortage or workers steal essential parts which have to be bought again from overseas. I don’t know which is true but it is pretty frustrating for everyone, especially people who are trying to run businesses. Apparently the government is trying to keep it all quiet. Lets just hope it doesn’t continue since trying to cook by candle light is never that successful.

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Adventures in St Cuthberts etc

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 15:39:52 +0200

Travelling up to St Cuthberts is half the fun of the trip. St Cuthberts is an Amerindian village about two hours from Georgetown where there are three volunteers working. The last hour of the journey involves travelling on the legendary sand trail through the jungle in an open back pick up. It certainly wouldn’t pass health and safety rules back in England but its appears to be the only way to travel here.
It was Amerindian heritage weekend where the Amerindians celebrate their culture. It would appear that their culture involves a lot of Amerindian and reggae music, dancing (mainly the men) and a hell of a lot of Amerindian home brews. We sampled a whole variety of new and interesting drinks as well as traditional Amerindian food such as tapir (bush meat) and cassava bread (the Amerindian staple food). We also enjoyed the live Amerindian band, especially the novel lyrics which included lines such as ‘I love you like a plantain’.
The main attraction of St Cuthberts is the creek. It is really pretty with refreshing black water and plenty of trees and banks to jump off from into the water. It was a far cry from the luxury of our bathroom and shower – we had to wash in the creek and use the public long drop. The village is also built on sand, so in a nutshell, you can never be clean. The locals are friendly although the men seemed to talk to us a lot more than the women. One of the locals took us for a ride up the river in his boat. The jungle up the river is really interesting. We were really enjoying the trip until the engine cut out. At this point the driver chose to tell us that there were ‘plenty of Cayman’ in the river. We had to drift all the way back down stream (keeping our eyes pealed). This meant we missed our truck we had organised out of St Cuthberts. The next truck we could get back was at 3am on Monday morning. We enjoyed the rest of the day at the creek before returning home at 3am – rushing to get back to school on time. It was definitely an adventure and we are all looking forward to going again (perhaps on a slightly quieter weekend).
Since the weekend I have been enjoying teaching. I have now taken over a 5th form chemistry class who will be taking their CXC (equivalent to GCSE) exams this year. They have a lot of work to get through so there is a lot of responsibility on my behalf, especially as all of them are ambitious and aim to become doctors, physicists, pharmacists etc. I have also used the lab for the first time with my first form. The state of the lab was a shock – no running water, unlabelled chemicals lying around and everything is incredibly dirty. We have now got the water working again and started the job of cleaning up with the help of some sixth formers.
Today we have sports which was rescheduled due to the rain. It rained heavily again last night so it is possible it may be rained off again! This weekend we have been invited to a Muslim – Christian wedding which we are all looking forward to, but are confused as to what to wear.

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title-4798744

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:23:50 +0200

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!

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More madness from Guyana

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:36:10 +0200

Well our third week in Guyana has not been as dramatic as the first two. It has been really hard work getting to grips with everything at school. Turning up to a lesson prepared to teach biology only to be told the class actually has chemistry (despite what your timetable says!). Its really frustrating but at least improves my ability to make up spontaneous lessons! My year 10 class are a really nice, bright bunch but no one has a text book so its up to me to tell them everything they need to know for their exams, which is slightly daunting! Most of the students in the class want to be doctors and are aiming to get a scholarship to study medicine in Cuba which is a lot of responsibility on my behalf! I am really enjoying working with them though and am sure I will work them hard this year! As for my first years they are full of questions and consistently concerned about whether their work should be in pencil or pen and precisely how their page should be layed out. It has already become clear however that even here the girls (generally) put far more effort into their homework (not much different from back home!) As for discipline, the kids are generally very well behaved and have only had to punish a few students for not doing their homework! It seems the ‘dog ate my homework’ excuse is popular here too.

It was the schools 33rd aniversary on Monday, which meant I could not teach on Friday or Monday. Friday was clean up day – the whole school spent the day cleaning the school. We were surprised to see that fishing the fish out of the waste water ditches with home made rods was involved in cleaning up the school. It would however appear that removing the plastic bottles, large scraps of metal, broken desks, chairs and stray animals was not! This place makes no sense!

Back in Blairmont (where we live), we have bought bikes which are not proving very useful since the handle bars tend to move without taking the wheel with them. It also has five gears, one of which is useable! The neighbours are all really friendly and invited us over for a family get together. They fed us so much food that even I couldn’t finish it! One of the family is apparently an ex national volleyball player and now coaches the top team in Guyana. He said he would teach us to play so who knows, I may come back an expert volleyball player. Our back neighbour has been over to help us fix the water which was off for a couple of days. She also taught us to cook chow mien and pumpkin and roti. The blackouts are pretty frequent here as well, almost daily. It makes lesson planning slightly more difficult when you have to do it by candlelight!

We went to Georgetown at the weekend to meet up with some other volunteers. We were hoping for a relaxing, fun weekend but ended up cleaning up the disgusting mess left by last year’s volunteers. Thanks guys! Cleaning it was pretty satisfying though I have to say! Plus I found out that cockroaches can fly!

So far so much has happened I already feel like a changed person. Coming here forces you to grow up so quickly and exposes you to so many difficult situations. It has already changed my attitudes towards many things. It has certainly made me appreciate how easy life is for most people in England. There is such a huge divide in wealth here but everyone lives together. There are a lot of people in Guyana who don’t have much but make the most of what they have got and work incredibly hard to give their kids a better life. A lot of these people are however planning to move out of Guyana since the education system cannot offer there kids the same opportunities as schools abroad.

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Guyana!

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:06:08 +0200

The trip got off to a rather traumatic start. Everyone was upgraded to business class on the flight to New York, except me. After this, our next plane from NY to Trinidad was struck by lightening! Due to the damage caused we had to change planes at Trinidad and were delayed. When we finally arrived after travelling the whole night we found our bags had not accompanied us to Georgetown. It was then decided that we should go out and see the nightlife of the capital city with no sleep and no clean clothes. We eventually got to sleep at 2am (7am British time) having been awake for 46 hours. Our bags turned up the next day and I have never appreciated my own clean clothes more.
We spent the week together in Georgetown socialising, seeing the sites and waiting around ALOT. The highlights included being interviewed for the six o’clock news, 2 boys being mugged at knife and screwdriver point, swimming in the British high commissioners pool and going to the Carifesta.
We arrived at our house in Blairmont (across the river from our school in New Amsterdam) on Friday morning. Our journey was fairly entertaining as we had a big, cool black guy driving the bus who enjoyed listening to classic 90s tunes such as the spice girls and boyzone. Pretty typical of Guyana,it is a really bizarre country (a guy just rode past the internet cafe bareback on a horse).
Our house is luxurious compared to the other volunteers. We have running water, electricity, double beds, a fridge and two balconies. The hammocks are already up but so far not much chance to ‘lime’ in them. We bought lots of fresh fruit veg and meat at the Saturday market. We have been attempting learn how to cook Guyanese food and so far it is going well. First on the menu was shark which is surprisingly tasty!
We started school on Monday which was a little overwhelming. For the first three days we were waiting for our timetable to be sorted, losing hope as we watched the teachers argue over which classes they wanted to teach! I finally started teaching today. I am teaching year seven integrated science, year 10 Chemistry and biology and may do some sixth form lessons when they arrive in October but this is yet to be decided. My first day of teaching went pretty well - got a fairly easy start as i had three year seven classes. The year 7s are really keen to learn and are pretty amusing to teach at times!
At the moment we are all finding the 5am starts and the hour long commute on the ferry and by taxi pretty exhausting especially when we have to wash, cook, clean and plan lessons when we get home. I’m sure we soon all settle into a routine and everything will get easier as we get used to it. The mosquitoes are also giving us hell! I started off thinking I didn’t need repellent and have paid the price with 50 bites on each leg between my knee and my toes, with the swelling making me look obese from the knee down. Cankles are not a good look! I have reacted badly to the bites and can only wear trousers as much as possible and hope the swelling goes down soon!

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