February 2007 Newsletter
“Winter” in Annai….
While it is cold up for you up in the North, equatorial Annai is still sunshine and just about 100ºC every day. Each morning in a mostly clear sky the Sun rises with a breezy accompanist from behind the Macarapan mountain and over the savannahs with her rosy aura that blankets the horizon before quickly fading into hues of pink, blue, and orange. The mid-afternoon heat blazes while it drives you to your hammock where you wearily wait it out with a good book and picturesque view in which the birds dance and sing. Every night like clockwork the Sun begins her departure behind the western Pakaraima Mountains and bids us goodnight with a sky so colorfully painted you wish it were indissoluble. In her absence comes the Night Sky, its accomplice a new Moon, a quarter, half, or full Moon, and depending on his brightness the stars shine accordingly. In a new Moon the Milky Way frosts a fuzzy line, in the full the savannahs glow in the light. Sometimes as I lie in safety under my bug net from those things that creep and crawl in the night I can see the stars shimmer through the horizontal slits of my window as I doze off into a dream. J
There was a lot of excitement in February, most of it NOT school related, although we are working hard in that arena... Its Holiday season here, meaning that Brazil has its Rodeo and Carnaval, and Guyana has Mashramani week. So without further ado…
Fifth form and SBA madness….
Well, we are working hard here, and Easter term is in full swing. Fifth form and I are working hard to complete their SBA’s, which are school-based assessments that count towards their CXC score-the exams they take upon completion of secondary school. They should have started these last year at this time since there are 24 to do, and the range of topics is over 24 chapters (a glimpse into the future…we are only on chapter 15 and it is one week before the end of Easter Term, but I am happy to report that SBA #24 will be completed this Monday!). Reasoning for this situation aside we have no choice but to work as hard as possible to get them done in order to get the students to where they need to be come April 30th (this is the date they are to be submitted by me to the Ministry). Each one is an experiment in the lab, and a 1-2 of 5 skills is to be assessed for each. Sometimes I will assess observations, recording, and reporting, other times manipulation and measurement. The other skills that get tested are analysis and interpretation, planning and designing (they are given a topic and have to think of the hypothesis and then design an experiment to test the hypothesis), and drawing. Some of the criteria are kind of comical, for example-in drawing-“lines are of even thickness”…how this assesses their knowledge on a subject I don’t understand albeit, nonetheless, it must be done. I try to be sympathetic while I push them to work hard, because they really do have a massive workload. I just try to make it fun. The social studies teacher is on a month leave (all teachers get this after a certain amount of time and they can take it whenever they want…the month before exams, during exams…. doesn’t matter…. and the worst part is that the students, whether they have a teacher or not, are still expected to know a certain amount of material dictated by the Ministry) so I took over her class periods with them since I happened to be free during those times. This means that we spend 4 periods together on Thursdays. This means we have a chance to get a lot done. They are marathon Thursday’s that start with all of us in the classroom discussing our chapter notes over coffee (no food/drink in the lab!) before we move the party to the lab, where we complete 2-3 SBA’s. We all think in our heads, ‘uh, 4 periods of this…’, but I think we all have a good time, and at the end we are proud of our accomplishments that don’t really end up seeming so hard earned. We are doing what we must, and it will be my greatest achievement here to see them pull through with 24 completed SBA’s, and hopefully they will do well on their CXC’s. I am going to have to keep in touch with them in order to find out how they did since I won’t be here when they get there scores back in July…that’s kind of a sad realization.
Brazil
There were 2 weekends in a row that we spent in Brazil. The first weekend was for Rodeo, which is an actual rodeo, hence the name. While I don’t much care for the lassoing of poor animals that have their testicles cruelly tied together for the sake of human enjoyment, the party was fun. The rodeo clown was fun to watch too, clowns remind me of my great-grandpa. To get to Brazil, all you have to do is cross the river and wah-lah, you are in Bon Fim. Technically you are supposed to take the ferry across, but this guy Leroy decided otherwise (he is Leroy Brown, the baddest man in the whole damn town). Both days we crossed through the river in his truck. With drinks, it was fun…without them I the fear of God was in me that our truckful of roughly 20 passengers was going to be shot down by a weaselly Brazilian border sniper hiding in the bush. Not to mention that I was in the cab on the way there the second night and I could stick my hand pretty much straight out the window and it would be in the water. I don’t think Leroy meant to get as deep as he did. And seeing as I am here to write this, we never succumbed to the weasel in the bush.
The second weekend we went for CARNAVAL!! It was fun and we set our desired conquests up in the stars, and the stars we did get. Grace and I went on the first night, and we danced, danced, danced. It was good “foe-haw” (sp?) music and loads of fun. The second day Jess and Kirsty met up with us, and it was a slow start to the party at first with lots of yawns and low energy. Then we retired our senior citizen cards as we regained our youth and remembered the fact that we were in Boa Vista, Brazil at CARNAVAL…We decided to be on a mission to get ourselves CARNAVAL t-shirts, but the deal was that you had to get someone to give you the one they were wearing. Needless to say, we triumphed. We got split up, but when we reunited each one of us was wearing a CARNAVAL T-shirt, none of which were purchased. Kirsty and I also managed to get these colored hair/ribbon things for our hair. While we were slit up Kirsty and I decided to play truth or dare in the crowd. I had to act like a fool and dance throughout the crowd, and I made her run up to the stranger of my choice and give him a great big hug and then run away. While we felt bad afterwards due to his immense confusion over the situation, it was pretty funny. Then we just got really hyper and this is when the real fun began. When we were trying to find another shirt for Mark (another volunteer that was here for 10 weeks), we decided we should try to get up on stage…and when you set your goals high up in the stars, well ladies and gentlemen, the stars you shall receive. We not only got up on stage, where we were taught to dance by the background dancers and were each able to have a go at the bongos, but there was this huge bus moving down the road through the center of the crowd (where the actual parade was going to be) with a band and dancers on top, and apparently they liked our dancing on stage so much, especially Mark’s (this is a joke J ), that they escorted us off the stage after awhile and brought us up on the top of the bus!! It was so much fun, we were able to look down on the crowd from both points!! It was such an amazing night, and then we ended up just dancing until 4 in the morning before crashing back in our hotel!
Mashramani
Mashramani, or Mash, like all Guyanese holidays and events, takes a whole week out of school. The word is from an Amerindian language and means “a job well done,” and the holiday celebrates the independence of Guyana from the UK in 1966. There is a festival that is called Republic Day, and it is celebrated with food, music, games, and the big event, which is the parade. There were competitions in Lethem, and from there Georgetown, where the big party is really held. Annai Secondary School pulled it together with flying colors and no help from the Ministry’s regional office, and we ended up winning a lot of the categories. We had a fundraiser at the school where games and music were played, food was sold, and a cultural show and beauty pageant was put on, Unfortunately, I was sick and in bed for both days of the fundraiser, but I could hear the festivities from under my bug net (getting sick out here is no fun when you yearn for a couch and movies to keep you busy while you sweat it out). We didn’t end up raising an exorbitant amount, but we ended up with more than we started with and everyone seemed to have fun doing it.
Other Events…
Happy Birthday MOM!!! Feb. 4th
Happy Birthday big brother Jimmie!! Feb. 27th
Happy Birthday Melanie!! Leaving 27 is sad, but 28 should treat us good too!!
Happy Birthday Christy!! Feb. 22nd
Happy birthday Grace!! Grace became an adult when she turned 18! Feb. 7th!
Man, lots of Birthdays!!
I am excited to write March, it has been a good month (you already have had a dose of the first few days), and it will be more about what life is actually like here…. until then…. impeach the president. Despite what he thinks, he is no Harry Truman.
Happy Valentine ’s Day!! We went to a fundraiser at Rock View for the youth group here. It was a good dinner and then was followed by drinks and dancing.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
January 2007 Newsletter
January 2007 Newsletter
Time to head back to Annai…
Happy New Year!! 2007 already? Where does time go? Well, as I have mentioned, going home was a lot of fun. I left Chicago on the 2nd, and I got back into Annai on the 6th. I had to stay a night in Trinidad, a night in Georgetown, and a night in Lethem before finally travelling back to Annai by bus. I had to go to Lethem because the weather was bad in Annai, so we couldn’t land there. There were only 2 of us aboard this small aircraft that had a pilot that was really into what must have been a good book…He read, I nervously sat behind him watching the dials on the dashboard (is it called a dashboard?). The wonders of autopilot are wonders I prefer to be kept behind that charming door in the front of the aircraft with the small metal sign engraved with the words “Crew Only”. It was nice to be able to stop in Lethem before heading back to Annai though because I got to see the WTV’s there, so that made it the extra night worthwhile.
When I left Chicago I knew I had to come back, but a part of me didn’t want to go. However, the other part of me couldn’t wait to get back to the calm life I find in Annai where on the weekends I get to lay around reading a good book in my hammock, go on a bike ride or maybe a hike, and just relax and let the world take me where it will instead of having a mile long list of stuff I have to do because in some way I feel obligated by a world which compels to me to feel like I should be a productive and responsible citizen. I love not having errands to run; although there is always lesson plans to be completed…I do love it here though and really want to enjoy this while I can, although it has not been as easy as it sounds. I have found myself wishing time away and thinking more about home than the experience I should be living in as it is presenting itself. Maybe the predicament is so due to the fact that one day I was in Chicago, where I can get anything and everything that I pretty much need or want, the next I was in the middle of nowhere with very little.
Journal entry 1/4/07
“…This is real life for me right now and for the next 6 months I want to live in every day fully conscious o f this experience and not sitting there thinking and wondering about what the next experience holds for me. What’s the point of dreaming of all these things I want to do and be if I am constantly living in the next moment while the present moment, which is a dream come true, is passing me by.”
Journal entry 1/6/07
“…but now that I am once again in my room and under my bug net on my nasty sheets that have been pissed and shit on by bats for the past 3 weeks, I feel at home and comfortable, like I belong here and need to be here. But I definitely have to wash my sheets in the morning.”
Let the water flow…
The first thing that Jess showed me when we got up on Saturday morning was that there was a trickle of water coming out of the faucet in the kitchen sink! Whoa…gone for 3 weeks and life as I knew it had dramatically changed!! Running water, or at least a sign that made me believe that it could be possible! That only lasted about a day or two. While we were gone over Christmas break they had installed a water tank that catches the water from the roof and gutters when it rains!! When there is water in it we don’t have to go down to the well to fetch it for all the mundane little tasks that require water, like flushing the toilet. There is nothing like the feeling you have as you walk to the well to fetch water just to flush…actually we always flush with the dirty dish water (we are now huge advocates of water conservation if not by choice, then by default), but indirectly you can see what I mean. We never much minded having to run to the well, but it is nice to now only have to go for drinking water…everything in the universe likes to exist at the lowest energy level possible, right? It is therefore innate in me that I take pleasure in this new tank.
By the end of the month they had installed a water pump that pumps water from the clean well (there are 3 wells in total on the compound-1 down the hill just outside the gates, which is the only clean one that can be drunk from, and 2 behind the student dorms, which are dirty) up to the school when the generator is on. This means that the showers (well one of the showers) work!!! And I must say that even though I got to shower while I was in Chicago, it was enjoyable to be afforded the luxury of a shower here! So anyways, the saga continues. When they put the pump in they sealed off the well, since the pump was so expensive. Based on the tales you have already heard up to this point of my adventure here, do you see what the problem is on the horizon? …That’s right, our generator breaks frequently and we run out of gas for it even more frequently. The first term it seemed like if we did have gas, the generator was broke, and then in fixing the generator they used all the gas…It would be worked out, but the cycle would start again after a day or two, maybe a week if we were lucky. So they install this water pump, seal the well, and the generator breaks….uh-oh…200+ people on the school compound and no access to clean drinking water. What do we do now? Thank God for our amazing Headmistress (HM) who sat on the radio trying to call the Ministry in Georgetown for the greater part of two days, threatening to break the seal on the well if they didn’t take action, and take it QUICK. Why some high ranked official would make such a hasty decision without thinking it thoroughly through instead of being more pragmatic in the face of wanting change and “progress” and realistically assess the circumstances at hand was beyond me…It was kind of stressful, but in the end it worked out well. It was February first when they finally fixed it…
Ohhhh, back to shhcool…
I ended up missing the first week back at school since I was in transit, but I didn’t miss much. I was not the only teacher that was en route during this first week. It was disheartening to quiz my students and try to just get them to recall the terms and topics we had covered in the last term. They all looked at me with blank faces like I had just spoken to them in Yiddish. Even those that I thought were my brightest students made me wonder if they had retained any of the information I felt like we had worked hard on learning last term. It made me feel like I had completely failed, as a teacher, and I doubted that I had even taught them anything at all. There were times in the first few weeks back that I found myself feeling angry with them, like I was wasting time trying to teach to students that at times do not seem to give their future much thought, and therefore, their opportunity to get an education seems unimportant and unappreciated. Then I would try to take a second and remember my own self at this age, and I wondered if my teachers thought the same thing about me when they saw me sporting my new Christmas threads, gossiping with my friends, and completely unaware that I was in school to get an education, and only partly there to be socialized. We took about a week to review and those students that worked were able to pull their knowledge of Biology and Science out of the corners of their minds where it had been stored over break.
When I wasn’t frustrated with the lack of effort I felt I was seeing, I did realize that there were a lot of students that I really missed while I was gone, but when I would excitedly inquire about their break, especially the students who seem to not like being away from home for so long, they would say-“ah, it was okay” or just say outright that they did not enjoy their break. It was most of the students that I asked that would respond like this, and so I stopped asking, confused about what it takes to please these kids. Maybe it’s just a cultural difference and they don’t react to things the way I would expect, I don’t know, but it got to a point where I would rather imagine that they all had a satisfying few weeks at home with their families the way I had hoped they would when we were all headed home in December.
Journal entry 1/26/07“…
"...I wonder if I can really do this with a positive attitude. I know part of why I feel this way is that I am just feeling like these people JUST DON’T CARE and I wonder if I could be more useful putting my energy somewhere else, into a cause greater than this, into something that will actually make a difference. But hopefully somewhere and in someone here that is a mystery to me at this point I am making a small difference…
…some of them just give up so easily that you wonder how they are ever going to make it when it is their generation’s turn to be the people out there making decisions. It’s almost like I feel that it is inevitable that this region is going to become inundated with foreign companies coming to “develop” the area…”
Until February…
Well, that is January in a nutshell. I hope everyone is enjoying what 2007 has brought to you at this point, and that if you are in an area that has a season they call “winter” you are keeping warm. I was glad that the weather was pretty mild while I was home, but I do find myself wishing for a change of season!! It just feels like it has been one long summer!
Until next time, take care, and try to keep on the sunny side in the dead of winter!
Time to head back to Annai…
Happy New Year!! 2007 already? Where does time go? Well, as I have mentioned, going home was a lot of fun. I left Chicago on the 2nd, and I got back into Annai on the 6th. I had to stay a night in Trinidad, a night in Georgetown, and a night in Lethem before finally travelling back to Annai by bus. I had to go to Lethem because the weather was bad in Annai, so we couldn’t land there. There were only 2 of us aboard this small aircraft that had a pilot that was really into what must have been a good book…He read, I nervously sat behind him watching the dials on the dashboard (is it called a dashboard?). The wonders of autopilot are wonders I prefer to be kept behind that charming door in the front of the aircraft with the small metal sign engraved with the words “Crew Only”. It was nice to be able to stop in Lethem before heading back to Annai though because I got to see the WTV’s there, so that made it the extra night worthwhile.
When I left Chicago I knew I had to come back, but a part of me didn’t want to go. However, the other part of me couldn’t wait to get back to the calm life I find in Annai where on the weekends I get to lay around reading a good book in my hammock, go on a bike ride or maybe a hike, and just relax and let the world take me where it will instead of having a mile long list of stuff I have to do because in some way I feel obligated by a world which compels to me to feel like I should be a productive and responsible citizen. I love not having errands to run; although there is always lesson plans to be completed…I do love it here though and really want to enjoy this while I can, although it has not been as easy as it sounds. I have found myself wishing time away and thinking more about home than the experience I should be living in as it is presenting itself. Maybe the predicament is so due to the fact that one day I was in Chicago, where I can get anything and everything that I pretty much need or want, the next I was in the middle of nowhere with very little.
Journal entry 1/4/07
“…This is real life for me right now and for the next 6 months I want to live in every day fully conscious o f this experience and not sitting there thinking and wondering about what the next experience holds for me. What’s the point of dreaming of all these things I want to do and be if I am constantly living in the next moment while the present moment, which is a dream come true, is passing me by.”
Journal entry 1/6/07
“…but now that I am once again in my room and under my bug net on my nasty sheets that have been pissed and shit on by bats for the past 3 weeks, I feel at home and comfortable, like I belong here and need to be here. But I definitely have to wash my sheets in the morning.”
Let the water flow…
The first thing that Jess showed me when we got up on Saturday morning was that there was a trickle of water coming out of the faucet in the kitchen sink! Whoa…gone for 3 weeks and life as I knew it had dramatically changed!! Running water, or at least a sign that made me believe that it could be possible! That only lasted about a day or two. While we were gone over Christmas break they had installed a water tank that catches the water from the roof and gutters when it rains!! When there is water in it we don’t have to go down to the well to fetch it for all the mundane little tasks that require water, like flushing the toilet. There is nothing like the feeling you have as you walk to the well to fetch water just to flush…actually we always flush with the dirty dish water (we are now huge advocates of water conservation if not by choice, then by default), but indirectly you can see what I mean. We never much minded having to run to the well, but it is nice to now only have to go for drinking water…everything in the universe likes to exist at the lowest energy level possible, right? It is therefore innate in me that I take pleasure in this new tank.
By the end of the month they had installed a water pump that pumps water from the clean well (there are 3 wells in total on the compound-1 down the hill just outside the gates, which is the only clean one that can be drunk from, and 2 behind the student dorms, which are dirty) up to the school when the generator is on. This means that the showers (well one of the showers) work!!! And I must say that even though I got to shower while I was in Chicago, it was enjoyable to be afforded the luxury of a shower here! So anyways, the saga continues. When they put the pump in they sealed off the well, since the pump was so expensive. Based on the tales you have already heard up to this point of my adventure here, do you see what the problem is on the horizon? …That’s right, our generator breaks frequently and we run out of gas for it even more frequently. The first term it seemed like if we did have gas, the generator was broke, and then in fixing the generator they used all the gas…It would be worked out, but the cycle would start again after a day or two, maybe a week if we were lucky. So they install this water pump, seal the well, and the generator breaks….uh-oh…200+ people on the school compound and no access to clean drinking water. What do we do now? Thank God for our amazing Headmistress (HM) who sat on the radio trying to call the Ministry in Georgetown for the greater part of two days, threatening to break the seal on the well if they didn’t take action, and take it QUICK. Why some high ranked official would make such a hasty decision without thinking it thoroughly through instead of being more pragmatic in the face of wanting change and “progress” and realistically assess the circumstances at hand was beyond me…It was kind of stressful, but in the end it worked out well. It was February first when they finally fixed it…
Ohhhh, back to shhcool…
I ended up missing the first week back at school since I was in transit, but I didn’t miss much. I was not the only teacher that was en route during this first week. It was disheartening to quiz my students and try to just get them to recall the terms and topics we had covered in the last term. They all looked at me with blank faces like I had just spoken to them in Yiddish. Even those that I thought were my brightest students made me wonder if they had retained any of the information I felt like we had worked hard on learning last term. It made me feel like I had completely failed, as a teacher, and I doubted that I had even taught them anything at all. There were times in the first few weeks back that I found myself feeling angry with them, like I was wasting time trying to teach to students that at times do not seem to give their future much thought, and therefore, their opportunity to get an education seems unimportant and unappreciated. Then I would try to take a second and remember my own self at this age, and I wondered if my teachers thought the same thing about me when they saw me sporting my new Christmas threads, gossiping with my friends, and completely unaware that I was in school to get an education, and only partly there to be socialized. We took about a week to review and those students that worked were able to pull their knowledge of Biology and Science out of the corners of their minds where it had been stored over break.
When I wasn’t frustrated with the lack of effort I felt I was seeing, I did realize that there were a lot of students that I really missed while I was gone, but when I would excitedly inquire about their break, especially the students who seem to not like being away from home for so long, they would say-“ah, it was okay” or just say outright that they did not enjoy their break. It was most of the students that I asked that would respond like this, and so I stopped asking, confused about what it takes to please these kids. Maybe it’s just a cultural difference and they don’t react to things the way I would expect, I don’t know, but it got to a point where I would rather imagine that they all had a satisfying few weeks at home with their families the way I had hoped they would when we were all headed home in December.
Journal entry 1/26/07“…
"...I wonder if I can really do this with a positive attitude. I know part of why I feel this way is that I am just feeling like these people JUST DON’T CARE and I wonder if I could be more useful putting my energy somewhere else, into a cause greater than this, into something that will actually make a difference. But hopefully somewhere and in someone here that is a mystery to me at this point I am making a small difference…
…some of them just give up so easily that you wonder how they are ever going to make it when it is their generation’s turn to be the people out there making decisions. It’s almost like I feel that it is inevitable that this region is going to become inundated with foreign companies coming to “develop” the area…”
Until February…
Well, that is January in a nutshell. I hope everyone is enjoying what 2007 has brought to you at this point, and that if you are in an area that has a season they call “winter” you are keeping warm. I was glad that the weather was pretty mild while I was home, but I do find myself wishing for a change of season!! It just feels like it has been one long summer!
Until next time, take care, and try to keep on the sunny side in the dead of winter!
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