February 2007 Newsletter

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.