October Newsletter

I am working on the pictures slowly but surely...it takes a while to upload them...


October Newsletter

It’s strange to not have the season starting to change…kind of sad to be missing all the fall colors, the chilly weather moving in, the scarecrows and cobwebs, and cuddling up on a Sunday morning under the blankets on the couch watching some movie you have probably seen one thousand times before….but you love it just the same and nestle on in. My mind seems like it will forever be stuck in summer while I am here, and when I come home next July it will be hard to understand that a year has passed. If I refer to last summer, I will probably be talking about summer of 2005.
It is still hot here, obviously, I am just above the equator. Everyday brings the sunshine, and along with that, the heat of the sun’s rays…It’s always the hardest to teach after lunch, because it is one o’clock, and the breeze took a lunch break, not to return until sometime after dark. Both the students and the teachers drag through seventh and eighth period, and when the bell is rung at 2:00, after announcements have been done and the pledge has been recited, we all leave to head home, some of us straight into our beds or the hammock.
The beginning of this month was a little stressful due to our lack of home; but that all got worked out…Jess and I are slowly but surely putting a personal stamp on our new place and making it our home and I must say it is coming along quite nicely...It was also hard in the way of adjusting in the same way I mentioned in September, having days where I really liked it here, and then the days when I would have given anything to get out of here and return safely to my home in Chicago where life seemed easy compared to this. There were long periods when I felt like I hadn’t laughed for weeks, which to me means that I was not mentally healthy (don’t think I can’t hear your sarcastic remarks coming back…), but I soon realized it’s all about how I let myself handle things…So I took a hold of those thoughts and emotions of mine, and eventually I found myself laughing again at just about everything that was funny…I once again started letting myself see humor in life instead of letting the black hole of negativeness suck me in…I sometimes still have those bad days where I feel there is no bright side, but those days are still getting to be even fewer and more far between as I sit here writing this (which time is no longer in the month of October, it seems to be hastily slipping away), which means that everyday I feel a little more settled, a little more at home. I love the relaxed atmosphere where life actually has time to be lived. My weekends are thoroughly enjoyed by sitting in the back of my house catching a cool breeze in my hammock, sipping on coffee, reading a book, writing in my journal, building something out of wood, which I have been having the most incredible and curious urge to do, or just doing whatever it is that I fancy in that moment. Granted these long and luxurious days tend to lead to temporary bouts of ADD, but that’s okay…it’s not like I really have to be that focused. And then, before I know it, my relaxing and wonderful weekend is already over and I can’t believe I managed to fill that time and still be wishing for more. A new thing I have been doing that I have fallen in love with is playing on a slack line…It’s a rope made of tubular nylon webbing that you tie between two poles and try to walk across…similar to tightrope walking, but not that high, and it gives in the middle (hence the slack part of the name). It’s good for balance, and man, can it keep you entertained for a better part of the afternoon. We have also been practicing the whip and the bow and arrow…Sunday Funday continues…
At school we started collecting organisms to view and man did I have a good time with that.... I found this huge moth just about dead in my room, which was perfect because I just so happened to be teaching some of my classes about pollination, so I pulled out the huge, long proboscis to show the students how the insect gets it’s reward of nectar. I also caught a big spider, a jumping spider of some sort, and we wanted look at it up close and see all eight of it’s eyes…This required killing it of course, so I tried ethanol, then when that didn’t work, boric acid. I feared the spirit of this poor spider would haunt me, as well as it’s kin, but to my amazement this strapping little spider persevered in the face of death, so much that I resolved to set it free for it had fought the good fight and deserved to linger in life. One of the students also brought in a millipede, which worked out perfectly because we also had a centipede, creepy and quick little buggers they are, and we practiced using a dichotomous key to identify which was which (of course they already knew which was which, but it was just practice…).
Every morning there is a short little assembly where the students do their pledge and national anthem, and there is a quote of the weeks and a song of the week. Each teacher takes a turn doing a week. During one of the weeks this month they sang this song that all of us foreign teachers found amusing, it goes,

“Children don’t waste your time at school,
Always try and obey the rules,
Schools not a place for a fashion parade,
Or a jewellery exhibition,
So don’t waste your time at school…:”

It’s one of those songs that once you get it in your head you sing it all day, or in our case, all week. It’s a fun and upbeat song that’s a hoot to sing, and especially fun to start your day to, and then you end up humming it all day…The students got a kick out of the fact that we liked it, and they would sing it as they went by us and helped us in learning the words. Don’t you all worry if you don’t yet appreciate it in all it’s splendour-I will sing it for you once I get home.
Towards the end of the month a few students and I went to the Iwokrama Centralized Wildlife Club meeting…Our club’s name is Green Paradise Club, and I took a few students to spend a Saturday afternoon talking about bird watching (the program is sponsored by the Audubon Society), composting, self esteem, and then they worked all afternoon to prepare to put on the skit in the evening. We had a lot of fun, and the students are actually really good actors!! It was funny. In terms of the club, we just elected officers and we are trying to come up with activities that we want to do next term, like hiking up and staying the night on the Aranaputa Nature Trail, and we have started talking about how we can do some fundraising to help send us on these adventures as well as help to provide us with funds for other projects we want to delve into around the compound, such as composting, building picnic tables, landscaping…we are trying to set some big goals that we can hopefully achieve throughout the next two terms…
So here’s a good story….it was a lazy Sunday afternoon in the compound, we were all sitting around doing not much of anything, reading, writing, each one of us in our own little worlds. Then what to our wondering eyes should appear, but a giant anteater….It was awesome. The kids chased it into the compound and Bryan, Jess, and I ran out yelling (screaming perhaps?) out to Grace and Kirsty next door (it’s funny how we just talk through the walls at times) to get outside to see it, and we all ran out there with our cameras in hand (except me, man oh man). It was so scared, I felt so bad for it, so we tried to corner it in a way that it would be forced to go back out the gate and leave the compound… inside the gates the kids might have terrorized it to death. I ended up getting so close to it at one point, I took one look at its hooves and decided this thing could probably hurt me pretty bad if it was that scared and saw me as a threat, so I backed away. Its tail is huge and it looks almost feathery, and its snout was just as long as its body and tail combined it seemed. Luckily before it got hurt by one of the students and before it hurt itself we got it safely out of the compound, and it was exciting to watch it run home back into the savannah. We were not quite sure if it was a giant anteater, which is an endangered species, or a regular anteater, but either way it was a nice way to be roused on that lazy Sunday afternoon! The moment was filled with so much excited energy coming from everyone, we were all smiles after it moseyed on it’s way.
A few weekends ago I was lucky enough to be able to venture into the Kunuku Mountains, which separate the Hinterlands into the North and South Rupununi. We were led in by some locals that rented a mini-bus that was to take us into the bush, far, far into the jungle (okay, not that far, but it was a good ride in and then a decent hike). There were times in the bus that I thought it was going to tip over, there was no road, and we were up on a ledge…It was a bit unnerving, but at the same time so much fun. We got stuck in the mud only twice if I recall correctly, and we had to get out and push the vehicle. Pepe Moreno blared out of the speakers, his 5 songs set to repeat for the entirety of the afternoon, it amazes me that all of Guyana has not gone deaf. Seriously, I could not believe that we still were driving this far into the bush…there literally was no rode and we had to close the windows so we wouldn’t get whipped with razor grass and branches. The guys would have to get out and walk in front of the mini bus to help us make it through without getting stuck or tipping over. So once we got to a place we could no longer navigate by car, we set off on foot and hiked the rest of the way in…It was such a nice waterfall, it was like a little playground where you could hike up just a bit more and see all the different waterfalls that led in to the big one that we first saw at the bottom. We cut up some palm tree branches and placed them across the rocks to for a grill and the boys cooked up some good grub. We hiked around, played in the water, and looked around a bit. When we got back in we went for some ice cream, which is a major luxury for Jess and I , it was such good homemade ice cream that Sean said was some sort of corn flavor. I don’t really know what flavour it was, but man was it good.
Lastly, Halloween….It was definitely weird to realize it was Halloween with the sun shining bright and hot like it was the middle of July…We were having a party for the kids, and I didn’t even realize that they had no idea what Halloween even was. Some of them ended up making costumes, which ended up being really creative considering the supplies they had to make them with. We played a game where the adults went and hid and the students had to run around the compound looking for us, and whoever found all six of us first won. It was really exciting, I hid in the jamoon tree right by my house (it looked like rain, and this way I was close in case it started to downpour), and I would giggle to myself when the kids would unsuspectingly run right underneath me. They eventually started to see me though, and once one came it would draw a crowd. It was a lot of fun and it inspired me to want to put together a game of capture the flag someday soon.
Well, once again I wish everyone well and I hope that everyone is well…remember to laugh and try to keep on the sunny side…as hard as it might seem some days it is the only thing we can do…November’s will be just around the corner, and I will be getting pictures up on my blog as time permits…Until then, take care of yourself and I am getting excited to come home for Christmas and see some of you!! Hope everyone is enjoying the fall weather and all the glorious colors that I am missing so much!! Bye!!