June 2007 Newsletter
Hello and a happy summer to you. It is hard to believe that it is the month of June, which means it’s my last full month here. It seems so unreal that almost one whole year has past when it feels like it has only been one long summer. The school term, which feels like it has just begun, is swiftly coming to a close. This month was a fun month having two weekends of field trips and a third weekend that held the graduation of the fifth form students upon the completion of their CXC exams.
Fourth Form’s Payback
In May I mentioned how my form four students have now become my new fifth form, meaning I am working them extra hard by trying to do as many SBA’s as we can so they will not end up in the same situation as fifth form was in when I got to the school. Well, we are done. Biology students turned their completed SBA’s in at the very end of May and everyone turned in their integrated science SBA’s on June 15th. As a way to pay them back for all the hard work they did in the last 2 months I took them on a field trip to see the cock-of-the-rock, which is a very beautiful and ornate bird that brings in eco-tourists and provides a means of livelihood for the village of Wowetta. I do not think that any of my students have seen this bird, sadly even the students that come from the village. The bird is found in more ancient and highly eroded mountain habitats that are rich in the presence of vines. The males are the more spectacular creatures to see with their colorful plumage of a deep orangeish-red and their crest that fans in front of its face. The female, who is maybe not so spectacular being a darker brown, is equally exiting to see. I was fortunate enough to hike this trail last November and was able to see many males who almost seem to glow against the gray rocks and greens and browns of the vegetation.
We hired a tractor to take us the 3 miles down the road to Wowetta and off maybe about 1 mile through the savannah and bush to the site of the trail where we would begin the 5-6 hour round-trip hike. We ended up having to split the trip into 2 weekends due to the amount of students in fourth form and the amount that would be allowed to hike the trail at a time. This meant that transportation, food, and snacks had to be paid for twice. I was able to cover the foodstuff, but the transportation was beyond my means. Luckily, Jess offered to put forth some of the money that her family’s restaurant had raised and sent to the school (Bruno’s Restaurant in Philadelphia), so I gratefully thank them. Early in the morning 4 of my students and I went into the kitchen to start preparing the breakfast of farine and eggs. Once finished, we called the rest of the fourth form students that were going on the trip. I made sure that they ate as much as they could, seeing as most mornings they only get served bakes and tea (bakes are deep fried dough-not very nutritious). Once everyone had a full belly we set off on the tractor. It was fun seeing the students having fun, relaxing, and enjoying the day so far, and it was only 8 a.m.
The hike in takes about 2-3 hours, depending on how much wildlife is available for viewing along the way. The first weekend we went we were able to see monkey’s playing in the rain. We also were constantly hearing macaws and these great sounding birds called screaming pijas. All this noise makes you stop and realize that you are really in the rainforest, you are in the jungle. Our guide, Huxley, pointed out tapir trails, many other small birds, and various fruits and plants used by the indigenous population. He showed us these plums that the tapirs eat that cannot be eaten raw by humans because there are these small worms that, if ingested, grow in your stomach until they burrow through the stomach lining and literally out through the skin of the abdomen. Yuck-despite my cravings for fruit I opted to stay away from those….
So, like I said, the trip was divided into 2 weekends, with half of the fourth form students going the first weekend and the other half going the next (although some lucky students got to go both weekends since we had extra room). The first weekend we only saw the female, but everyone was still pleased to see her. We also were able to climb under the rocks in a cave to see the nesting sight (and a lot of bats). The female builds a nest on the side of a massive boulder. In one of the nests there was a female brooding and in another there were 2 baby chicks, which sadly enough were dead by the next weekend. The second weekend, alas, we saw the male. The students were so excited, as they often are by birds (bird watching is a very big thing in the Rupununi).
Both weekends granted 2 long and enjoyable days. I think the students really appreciated being able to go, and for me to see them and interact with them in an environment outside of school, but in one where they were learning about something important to the area was just as rewarding for me, and I was happy to be able to do something like that for them.
Form 5 Graduation
Fifth form finished their CXC exams on June 13th and the graduation ceremony followed on Friday, June 15th. It was exciting to see them all dressed up in their fancy clothes, walking the stage to receive their confirmation that they are no longer secondary school students, but instead all grown up.
Unfortunately, most of this story is going to be about the Headmistress and how she acts under pressure, and basically her negative attitude in general. First of all, let me give you her background. She is from the coast, as you will constantly be reminded, and also an active member of the armed forces of Guyana. She is generally laid back and works hard to make things function as they should at the school, mostly in terms of admistrational duties. However, when under pressure or stress, she can turn into a monster, which she did on this very day.
The regional officials were in for the graduation from Lethem, and in Guyana, looks often surpass all measures of meaning. Despite that fact that there was a torrential downpour that delayed the onset of the ceremony, that some students hadn’t even arrived yet because of the rain, that the PA system was not yet set up, the headmistress (HM) still tried to get the ceremony started and was freaking out snapping at people because of how bad this looked to the regional officials, who I myself have never seen be very competent of much themselves. She tried to start the ceremony by getting the procession together and trying to talk in the huge benab over the rain. She created a disaster by not having patience and acclimating to the conditions the environment provided. What could we do? The rain was falling hard, and also, we had been kept in the dark about the details of the graduation but were expected to be psychic at this moment and figure out with no direction what needed to be done to get it going smoothly. Once everything got in order and the PA system was hooked up, which she wouldn’t stop for a second to let them fix it the right way, it seemed as though everything was moving along nicely, despite her awful speech that made me realize why she was not very welcomed by the locals. Oh, but she didn’t think it was nice at all. When we went to serve the food she said that this was unacceptable and we would all hear about it later. How I maintained my patience with her at this moment I don’t know, because all I wanted to do was kick her in the shin. If anything went wrong it was because of her lack of patience and overemphasis on how something looks on the outside. Added to this overemphasis is something I didn’t find out until after the ceremony when questioning why some students were not in attendance, but some students were not allowed to walk in the ceremony because they could not afford the $10,000 (US $50) outfits the HM and another teacher bought in Georgetown that were to be worn so everyone looked uniform in the ceremony, a uniformity that only lasted for those 2 short hours, but whose cost may have left their family members hungry for the rest of the month. This is absolutely unacceptable to me considering that this is a massive sum of money for so many families who have either no or very little income, and who may still work with their neighbors on a barter and trade system. To deny and embarrass a kid in a moment that was supposed to be so special not only to the student, but also to his/her family, friends, and teachers, is superficial and cruel. And at many times this is how I viewed the HM: superficial and cruel. Too many times in too many staff meetings she would put down the people of the Rupununi by saying, “this might be okay in terms of Region 9 standards, but on the coast this is unacceptable.” She was constantly reminding us that she was from the coast and that “these people,” the same people that were sitting in the staff room with us, were this and that, and she would not accept getting the reputation of being someone from Region 9 who has fallen to the level of Region 9’s standards. My respect for her was dwindling upon hearing all of her racist remarks, and on the day of the graduation I lost the rest of what I had. In one way she is good for the school because she does get things done, but in another way I feel it is people like her that make the Amerindian people of the area ashamed of who they are.
After the graduation we all went to Rock View (minus the HM!). It was some of the teachers and fifth form students combined. For many of the students, this would be one of the last times they see their teachers, as well as their classmates. It ended up being a big party, and it was fun to see them having fun liming (hanging out) and dancing.
Random Things I wanted to tell you…
· I was on a run and I got to see 5 pairs of macaws as they flew overhead. They always fly in pairs or as a threesome. They mate for life, (if they lose their mate they will not find a new one), and they screech like they are pissed off. I don’t know if these two things are related. I love them.
· Every morning and afternoon there is an assembly where the students say the morning/afternoon prayer, a thought of the week, a song of the week, and the national anthem/pledge. A different teacher led assembly each week, and when it was my week I taught them “Keep on the Sunny Side.” I loved hearing them sing it. One evening around sunset I was on a run, and I played it on my I-pod, succumbing to the feelings of sadness I was beginning to experience when the reality that I was leaving kicked in (even though I still never fully realized it). I stopped on the road and cried my eyes out. There are moments where I feel very excited about going home, but as more and more time passes, as it quickly is, I am starting to feel an enormous amount of grief and reluctancy about leaving this magical place, this simple place where life has time to be enjoyed, despite the lack of vegetables and flavors.
· The sky here is amazing.
· The generator was broken for the better part of June, so to save myself from going crazy by being locked in my bed to protect myself from the hungry mosquitoes unable to turn on my headlamp to read because it attracted the sand flies, those tiny little devils that are able to insidiously enter into my mosquito fortress due to their minute size, I started going up to Rock View at 6 p.m. to watch the news. All I heard was “ more civilian casualties, more civilian casualties….” And I wondered, can the world get itself out of the mess it has gotten itself into? More civilian casualties, more civilian casualties...
· I keep having dreams that I have been home for 2 months and I haven’t turned on my cell phone yet.
· The frogs, crickets, and God knows what else have been so loud during the nights lately that I have to pull my blanket up over my ears and cover them up because the pitch is so high it hurts.
· There have been some big, loud, heavy storms passing overhead.
· Things I have read
o “Appreciate what you have when you have it-those experiences you have on your way to wherever it is you want to go. Just enjoy those moments.”
-Jeff Corwin
o “I have always found people love you best if you can laugh at your own foolish misfortunes and keep mum about everyone else’s.”
-Barbara Kingsolver in Prodigal Summer
o “There are two ways of looking at the problem:
1.) Oh my gosh, what a burden, or
2.) What a great time to be born! What a great time to be alive! Because this generation gets to essentially completely change the world.”
-Paul Hawken
The following are quotes taken from articles found in the May 2007 Vanity Fair Green Issue
I read this magazine (despite obvious flaws considering it was supposed to be a “green” issue) and was enthralled with the information in it, and I only hope that others read it. One article that I found extremely interesting and shocking was “An Ecosystem of One’s Own.” I don’t think we intentionally do harm, I think it’s more that we just don’t know the harm we are inflicting not only on the environment and the organisms in it, but to ourselves as well (well, we are organisms in the environment, aren’t we?). I don’t want to sound preachy, once again, but I just want to inform. I think the only way that we can save ourselves is by educating ourselves and finding alternative methods and ways of going about our everyday lives, no matter how big or small, that will help move us in a more positive direction than we are headed for now.
o “Mercury is a by-product of plastic production that gets converted to methyl-mercury by microorganisms which accumulates in the tissues of organisms.”
o “If you are eating KFC in Liverpool, you’re eating the Amazon.” (the trees of the Amazon are cleared to make way for soybean farms, that of which 5% of the product is eaten by humans-the rest is sold to US an European markets to feed livestock).
o “Styrene molecules from polystyrene cups/plates migrate into food from containers and, once in your system, become estrogen mimics. These have bizarre effects on reproductive anatomy and fertility (precocious puberty, undescended testes) and may increase your chances of getting breast or testicular cancer.
o “One flush of an American toilet uses more water than most Africans use in a day.”
o “We did not inherit the land from our fathers. We are borrowing it from our children.”
Until next time…take care.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
May Newsletter
May 2007 Newsletter
This month was a good month. It went by quickly and it is hard to believe that there is only one month of school left, not even. It did not take long for us to get back in to the swing of things after returning from Easter Break, and with each week that passes we watch with incredulity as the time flies by.
Fifth Form Finale
All of our hard work is coming to an end, and it will hopefully pay off as fifth form students finish their classes and begin writing their CXC exams. They start on May 13th and end on June 13th. At this point all I can do is hope I have done a good job teaching them all I was capable of, and all they can do is study their bumsies off before they write their exams.
When test time comes by us in a land that is not here, even the poorest of the poor students start to cram for their exams so they can at least pretend to make some sort of attempt to do well on them. Here, however, I see some students, mostly the students that live in the dorms, stroll around lackadaisically like none of it matters…and it has made me realize the following: maybe this doesn’t matter to them. Some of them don’t see the importance of school, and to be fair, why should they? Yes, education is great. We would all rather talk to someone who has half a brain than someone who is ignorant to everything around them. But I know we have all met people who have gone through the education system to the highest levels and still managed to maintain their imbecilism. We have also met those people who have had very little formal education that blow our minds with their intelligence. In light of this I think it is fair to conclude that even though some of these kids don’t find an importance in getting educated doesn’t make them stupid, and even if they did find it important, what really is going to happen to most of them once they return home to their villages, even if they do amazing on their CXC’s? Does Guyana have jobs available for these graduates? And, if they take them, do they have to move away from their cultures and customs for a life on the coast and leave not only their families, but possibly their identities as well? I know that most of us would think that just because you move away from where you are from in no way translates in to you having to leave your identity at home. However, the perception I have formed in my time here is that to be an Amerindian in Guyana, especially an Amerindian living on the coast, is not a desirable trait. It is more out of fear that I say they would leave their identities at the doors of the coastland because they would be too ‘shamed’ of who they are and where they come from, perhaps because the ominous people on the coast, who think they do not share the same burdens, they seem to believe the same troubles of poverty do not plague them, would make them feel this way (you will understand this bold opinion of mine next month-hopefully). So the point is, is that I gave up caring how well some of them were going to do on those standardized exams. If they don’t do well, well, hopefully they learned something they can apply to their real lives, wherever it shall take them. There was nothing I could do to make them sit down and study, at this point their lives were their own, and they could do what they wanted. Most of them will be returning home to live in their village, the same as their parents, and their parents, and their parents…and I, we, should consider this okay. I have heard two different reactions from parents. One parent said that them leaving to go to secondary school, especially those students that come here more to hang out for a few years and ‘lime’ with friends, leaves the parents with less help to maintain their own subsistence, as well as making the students lazy upon their return to the village after graduation. It really does seem that some students see this as a 5-8 year vacation, depending on how long it takes them to get through all 5 forms. The other side, which made me re-think my original opinion I had upon coming here in the first place, was that if a student upon graduation decides they want to leave the village, the region, the country, well, who is the parent to stop them? Would any of us agree to our parents holding us back from our dreams, the things that we believe will make us happy? Would a parent want this of their child? The child is no longer uninformed, despite what a parent would hope to believe. There comes an age where a person is free to make their own choices and decisions to find their own way through their life. How does this relate to my opinion of what values I thought I would bring with me during my experience here? My original idea in a nutshell was that I didn’t want to bring in an outside influence that would make these kids think that life was better on the other side so they would want to leave. While I still firmly believe this idea, it is not necessarily in the same framework I came here with. I want them to hang on to who they are and where they come from, but I know that I can’t come here with my I-pod, my clothes, my Nike shoes, getting some packages that contain stuff like good cotton underwear and not think they won’t get curious, or they won’t see these things and want them the same way I did. I just don’t want them to think that life is better in the “civilized” world, because is it really? From what I can see Guyana, and more specifically the Rupununi, does not get bomb threats, does not have tankers rolling around with armed militants sprouting out their tops, does not emit mass quantities of greenhouse gases, does not eat all the cattle that it’s neighbours are clearing their land to produce a product for export, does not have thugs running around with ‘gats’ tucked into their pants (maybe in GT, but this is the Rupununi I am talking about), does not start devastatingly myopic wars over money (the only conclusion I can draw out of it all, but let me state that this is only my opinion) and put sanctions on countries already in shambles politically, economically, environmentally…I suppose I could go on for a long time, but I will spare you all of my ranting and raving. Just put it this way-why does the Western world believe that they have it so right? What makes some of us believe that every other person should live just as we do when we are facing so many serious crises that I wonder where we can even start to begin to clean up some of the massive messes we have created? From this perspective in the peaceful atmosphere of the Rupununi where I get very little news (which I am sometimes grateful for), except for the occasional Newsweek magazines that come my way or on the BBC World News I get to watch, it makes me reluctant to ever want to go home for fear of entering a world gone mad. Being here has made me scared for all of us, no matter where we come from…ppphhhhwwwoooooo…all that out of study habits of my students.
Journal entry:
“If the whole world got amnesia, how would we all relearn everything? Would all those sacred books that determine so many people’s lives be looked at as just books or would they still be the “moral doctrines” they are today? Lily said that people innately know what is right and what is wrong. Last night I came across this in my book (Wicked)…
‘Evil is moral at its heart-the selection of vice over virtue, you can pretend not to know, you can rationalize, but you know it in your conscience.’ (p.370)
The New Form 5
Seeing as the 2006-2007 graduating class has left the building (or at least moved to the dining hall to take their exams), the new top dogs to rule the school are my Fourth Form students. They thought they were going to ride in the glory of it all; all the while I had another idea for them.
Work, work, work. I would not feel like I was a success in my time here if I did not try my hardest to prevent the fourth form students from having to endure the same madness the fifth formers of this year did when they get to Form 5. Therefore, there were notes, and notes, and more notes for them to copy of the bulletin board in order to move through the material as rapidly as possible to make some time to perform our SBA’s. I will reiterate, for those of you who either forgot, or just so happened to skip the newsletter where I explained the predicament fifth form when I got here, we were in bad (bad, bad) shape when I first got here.
They must do 24 SBA’s, which are lab practical’s they must write up to be scored as part of their overall CXC score. When I got here in September they not a single one done and had only covered 6 out of 24 chapters in the book. Needless to say, it was quite a mess compiled on the fact that I had absolutely no idea what these things were and how I was supposed to go about figuring out what needed to be done, what topics needed to be covered, which skills needed to be assessed and how many times, and how to write a mark scheme for each.
Why is fourth form having to work extra hard because of this? Well, considering that their 2007-2008 teacher sadly will not be me, but indeed will be another volunteer, I wanted to make sure that they have enough done and they were as much a part of the process as I was so that they will be ready to go no later than October. This time frame will give the new volunteer time to get situated and give my students time to fill them in and help guide them along together, teacher and students. I have complete faith in my Form 4 students, whom I have grown very, very attached to, and I know they will have a successful year next year. This whole month was SBA after SBA. The due date for their books is June 15th, and they will have 10 out of the 24 completed by the end of this term. That will leave them in really good shape for next year, and they should have no problem getting the other 12 done by the end of March. As a reward for all this hard work we did in May, I took them on a special trip in the first week of June, but you will have to wait to hear about that…
Aranaputa Trip
Aranaputa is a village that is about 6.5 miles from the school and many of our students travel this distance every rainy morning and swelteringly hot afternoon. One of our student’s sisters has been very welcoming to us, and invited us to hike up the Aranaputa mountain trail and camp over night at the cabin there. It was such a great trip and I felt so alive once I got to the cabin. It was a cabin up in the middle of nowhere, and it made me come to life in the way only something you really love can make you feel.
Journal entry 5/20/07:
“This weekend we hiked up the Aranaputa Mountain to camp at the cabin overnight, and as soon as I saw the cabin I felt so alive, and I realized what I really wanted in my life…Like all of a sudden life just clicked…after this weekend, and feeling so ALIVE and free-spirited once I got to that cabin, I felt that is what I want, a place in the middle of the woods, a home out in nature. I feel like this weekend has set my brain in motion thinking about what new adventure awaits me. This experience was one that would have left a hole in me somewhere had I not come to do it. Now, I feel like it is time to start wrapping up my thoughts and what this place has taught me about people, the differences in the world, and me and my place in the world. My answers seemed to come to me as I was on that mountain about what I felt about myself and finally feeling like I knew more of what my place in the world was to be in the future…So we hiked and it was really fun, and it was hard work, but I felt so unbounded in feeling so physically and mentally strong. It makes me happy to finally have my head out of the clouds, or to think I do. It makes me so happy that I did this, that I came to Guyana, an experience that has shifted me in a straighter direction. I feel confident that even though I don’t know where I am going I have finally gained the ability to make good decisions. Not knowing is what makes life so exciting to me, especially realizing that life can take you anywhere if you let it.”
Rewa
Rewa is a village very close to us…it hides just in Macarapan Mountain, which is a mountain I have mentioned before, the one the sun hides behind while it lights up the morning sky. Well, this village might be in trouble. I think that it is in trouble, and it worries me to no end, and makes me feel like I have to come back and help every aspect of the village and ultimately the surrounding area. The people, the culture, the wildlife, the land…the ecosystem as a whole. Why do I feel so worried? They have done preliminal oil drilling to see if there was any oil in the depths of the Earth, and sure enough there was. They are going to start drilling there soon, and I fear that in the same way that Brazil’s indigenous populations have been lost to this type of industrialization, the same will happen to the Macushi tribe in this area of Guyana. And it won’t only be Rewa that is affected. I suspect they will build a road branching from the main road, which would be a junction just off to the South of a village called Wowetta (you will hear about this village and what makes it so special in June’s newsletter). That would therefore have an effect on that village, and I am sure the road will be paved, the macaw population that flies to Macarapan mountain would be affected, the people’s subsistence as they know it would be forever changed, the groundwater will be polluted, and the list goes on and on…Paving the road would bring in so many negative changes that I warn my students to be careful of what they wish for. I am not sure when this drilling is going to take place, but from what I can tell it is going to be soon. I fear that a small, poor, developing country like Guyana does not have the governmental infrastructure to keep out the corruption of greed in order to preserve it’s natural resources, one of those being the Amerindian heritage, the forest and savannahs, and all the life in them that they depend on. It’s hard because they don’t know about drilling for oil simply because they have never been taught or had a need to know, so when the companies come in and start their destruction on a mass scale (I have no faith that they would comply with governmental law the same way they would in a more developed country that had the money to oversee the project) they might not know what hit them until it is too late and they have become essentially slave labourers on their own land because, like all living organisms, they just need to eat, not to mention all the other necessities these big brains of ours demand that we find. There is one man I know that is persistent on not letting the drilling happen, but unfortunately it seems as though he might be the only person who is educated about the issue, but he is dutifully trying to spread his knowledge as he pleads his case to the locals. Another deplorable fact is that I have not had much of an opportunity to talk to this man, although I hope to sit down for a chat before I leave. There are a few more key people who I can only hope the Amerindians in this area will look to as leaders and heed their words of wisdom in the years to come…I will keep positive that it will all work out okay, but it will definitely be interesting to come back in 2-3 years and see how much it changes here.
Random…
Sometimes I am not quite sure about including stuff like this in my newsletter, but then I think-hey, why not? Despite how idealistic, smug, young, and whatever other words of criticism I would think I could endure, these are the types of things that being here and living this experience makes me think about, so why would it not be a part of what I tell you about my life here? I suppose it’s due to the fact that I feel like this shouldn’t be about me, it should be about the community and the students, but, like everyone has told me and I knew myself, I am going to leave here with having learned more from this place and the people that inhabit it then I could ever teach…So here is some of what I feel like I have learned, some of what I feel they have shown me, not told me, is important in living life.
Journal entry 4/20/07:
Why do we let ourselves become so busy that we don’t have time for our close friends and family? What is it that we are all so busy doing? Buying a car that will rarely take us to our brother’s house? Buying a new house that will rarely feel the presence of people enjoying each others company because there just isn’t enough time? Without intending to sound preachy, why are we here? Was my soul put in this body to work like a slave for things I have been made to feel, somewhere along the way, that I need? Was I born into this world to build a paper cutter house, buy a brand new car made to break down, to buy clothes designed by Madonna, J-Lo, and Mary-Kate and Ashley, to buy stocks and bonds and build a massive bank account so when I get to the gates of heaven, or some kind of equivalent, I can tell So and So when So and So asks me what I thought of life that…Well, I don’t know. Maybe that’s what so many of us will realize once we reach those pearly gates of heaven, is that we don’t know.
“I have a big bank account, a nice car, I built a massive house. I was rich.”
“Ah,” says So and So, “but I asked you what you thought of life.
“I just told you.”
So and So replies,” That is not life my friend, those are things. When you tickled your car, how did it react? When you called your car just because you wanted to say hello, what did it say? When your house took its first step, how did it make you feel? When you celebrated another year of life with your stocks did they blow out all the candles in one shot?”
“But, So and So, I had the money to do things. I had money to eat, I had money so my kids got to wear nice clothes and have good things. My wife got to have her nails painted every weekend and her hair highlighted at the best salons.”
“Okay then, let me ask you this,” says So and So. “How did your kids look in those clothes? Did those things make them into caring and understanding people? Did you ever take notice of your wife’s nails and hair and wonder whom she was trying to attract with her beauty? Life is not a collection of inanimate objects. Life is experience, a collection of memories. Life is family and friends. It’s sharing, not hording. It’s understanding, not outcasting. It’s good, not evil. It’s sharing lunch with a friend over friendly conversation, not getting it to-go (in a polluting Styrofoam container) to get back to your desk to read Financial Times. It’s reading a good book, not straining your eyes at a computer for 14 straight hours to collect overtime to pay for that new living room furniture you couldn’t really afford. Life is experiencing moments and sharing those moments and remembering those moments with family and friends. Without these moments I just don’t see how life is lived.”
He looks down, quite unsure of what to say to So and So, and he realizes that he didn’t call his best friend for two months when he heard that he had passed. He acknowledged he didn’t know his wife anymore and even worse, how old his children were, and even more importantly, who they were. He hadn’t seen his family in over a year, and before that, sparsely. However, the ultimate sin he felt he had committed as he stood in the presence of So and So was that he didn’t know himself. No matter how busy he had ever gotten, his heart, his mind, his soul had always walked around with him. Essentially, it was really the only thing in life he shouldn’t have been able to escape; yet somehow he had. But since he was always so preoccupied with other things he never took the chance to sit down and listen to those 3 components that made him up, so therefore, he never knew what they were trying to tell him all this time.
“I will not judge you or send you to the gates of hell for such a sin, but I cannot let you enter now, my friend, because you have gained no insight since you last left. Instead you will be reborn, an infant, your soul placed in the womb of your mother filling a body that waits the journey of this world. Live this life over, try again. LIVE this life over, and I will meet you again.”
And so it was.
What if we had that chance? Maybe we do, who knows? What would we do differently? Would we change anything about ourselves if we fully understood that life in these bodies is mortal, that no matter how hard we try to drink from a synthetic fountain of youth that is being created for us by all these pharmaceutical companies, by Dr. 90210, we are all going to die? What would you change if you could do it all over again? We should each make a list, look at it, and then hopefully realize that we are not dead yet.
Alright, I have either thrilled you or bored you, or maybe you found a happy balance. In any way, I hope that all is well, and I hope that everyone is starting to enjoy the daffodils and tulips spring has brought you. Take care of each other. Until next time…
This month was a good month. It went by quickly and it is hard to believe that there is only one month of school left, not even. It did not take long for us to get back in to the swing of things after returning from Easter Break, and with each week that passes we watch with incredulity as the time flies by.
Fifth Form Finale
All of our hard work is coming to an end, and it will hopefully pay off as fifth form students finish their classes and begin writing their CXC exams. They start on May 13th and end on June 13th. At this point all I can do is hope I have done a good job teaching them all I was capable of, and all they can do is study their bumsies off before they write their exams.
When test time comes by us in a land that is not here, even the poorest of the poor students start to cram for their exams so they can at least pretend to make some sort of attempt to do well on them. Here, however, I see some students, mostly the students that live in the dorms, stroll around lackadaisically like none of it matters…and it has made me realize the following: maybe this doesn’t matter to them. Some of them don’t see the importance of school, and to be fair, why should they? Yes, education is great. We would all rather talk to someone who has half a brain than someone who is ignorant to everything around them. But I know we have all met people who have gone through the education system to the highest levels and still managed to maintain their imbecilism. We have also met those people who have had very little formal education that blow our minds with their intelligence. In light of this I think it is fair to conclude that even though some of these kids don’t find an importance in getting educated doesn’t make them stupid, and even if they did find it important, what really is going to happen to most of them once they return home to their villages, even if they do amazing on their CXC’s? Does Guyana have jobs available for these graduates? And, if they take them, do they have to move away from their cultures and customs for a life on the coast and leave not only their families, but possibly their identities as well? I know that most of us would think that just because you move away from where you are from in no way translates in to you having to leave your identity at home. However, the perception I have formed in my time here is that to be an Amerindian in Guyana, especially an Amerindian living on the coast, is not a desirable trait. It is more out of fear that I say they would leave their identities at the doors of the coastland because they would be too ‘shamed’ of who they are and where they come from, perhaps because the ominous people on the coast, who think they do not share the same burdens, they seem to believe the same troubles of poverty do not plague them, would make them feel this way (you will understand this bold opinion of mine next month-hopefully). So the point is, is that I gave up caring how well some of them were going to do on those standardized exams. If they don’t do well, well, hopefully they learned something they can apply to their real lives, wherever it shall take them. There was nothing I could do to make them sit down and study, at this point their lives were their own, and they could do what they wanted. Most of them will be returning home to live in their village, the same as their parents, and their parents, and their parents…and I, we, should consider this okay. I have heard two different reactions from parents. One parent said that them leaving to go to secondary school, especially those students that come here more to hang out for a few years and ‘lime’ with friends, leaves the parents with less help to maintain their own subsistence, as well as making the students lazy upon their return to the village after graduation. It really does seem that some students see this as a 5-8 year vacation, depending on how long it takes them to get through all 5 forms. The other side, which made me re-think my original opinion I had upon coming here in the first place, was that if a student upon graduation decides they want to leave the village, the region, the country, well, who is the parent to stop them? Would any of us agree to our parents holding us back from our dreams, the things that we believe will make us happy? Would a parent want this of their child? The child is no longer uninformed, despite what a parent would hope to believe. There comes an age where a person is free to make their own choices and decisions to find their own way through their life. How does this relate to my opinion of what values I thought I would bring with me during my experience here? My original idea in a nutshell was that I didn’t want to bring in an outside influence that would make these kids think that life was better on the other side so they would want to leave. While I still firmly believe this idea, it is not necessarily in the same framework I came here with. I want them to hang on to who they are and where they come from, but I know that I can’t come here with my I-pod, my clothes, my Nike shoes, getting some packages that contain stuff like good cotton underwear and not think they won’t get curious, or they won’t see these things and want them the same way I did. I just don’t want them to think that life is better in the “civilized” world, because is it really? From what I can see Guyana, and more specifically the Rupununi, does not get bomb threats, does not have tankers rolling around with armed militants sprouting out their tops, does not emit mass quantities of greenhouse gases, does not eat all the cattle that it’s neighbours are clearing their land to produce a product for export, does not have thugs running around with ‘gats’ tucked into their pants (maybe in GT, but this is the Rupununi I am talking about), does not start devastatingly myopic wars over money (the only conclusion I can draw out of it all, but let me state that this is only my opinion) and put sanctions on countries already in shambles politically, economically, environmentally…I suppose I could go on for a long time, but I will spare you all of my ranting and raving. Just put it this way-why does the Western world believe that they have it so right? What makes some of us believe that every other person should live just as we do when we are facing so many serious crises that I wonder where we can even start to begin to clean up some of the massive messes we have created? From this perspective in the peaceful atmosphere of the Rupununi where I get very little news (which I am sometimes grateful for), except for the occasional Newsweek magazines that come my way or on the BBC World News I get to watch, it makes me reluctant to ever want to go home for fear of entering a world gone mad. Being here has made me scared for all of us, no matter where we come from…ppphhhhwwwoooooo…all that out of study habits of my students.
Journal entry:
“If the whole world got amnesia, how would we all relearn everything? Would all those sacred books that determine so many people’s lives be looked at as just books or would they still be the “moral doctrines” they are today? Lily said that people innately know what is right and what is wrong. Last night I came across this in my book (Wicked)…
‘Evil is moral at its heart-the selection of vice over virtue, you can pretend not to know, you can rationalize, but you know it in your conscience.’ (p.370)
The New Form 5
Seeing as the 2006-2007 graduating class has left the building (or at least moved to the dining hall to take their exams), the new top dogs to rule the school are my Fourth Form students. They thought they were going to ride in the glory of it all; all the while I had another idea for them.
Work, work, work. I would not feel like I was a success in my time here if I did not try my hardest to prevent the fourth form students from having to endure the same madness the fifth formers of this year did when they get to Form 5. Therefore, there were notes, and notes, and more notes for them to copy of the bulletin board in order to move through the material as rapidly as possible to make some time to perform our SBA’s. I will reiterate, for those of you who either forgot, or just so happened to skip the newsletter where I explained the predicament fifth form when I got here, we were in bad (bad, bad) shape when I first got here.
They must do 24 SBA’s, which are lab practical’s they must write up to be scored as part of their overall CXC score. When I got here in September they not a single one done and had only covered 6 out of 24 chapters in the book. Needless to say, it was quite a mess compiled on the fact that I had absolutely no idea what these things were and how I was supposed to go about figuring out what needed to be done, what topics needed to be covered, which skills needed to be assessed and how many times, and how to write a mark scheme for each.
Why is fourth form having to work extra hard because of this? Well, considering that their 2007-2008 teacher sadly will not be me, but indeed will be another volunteer, I wanted to make sure that they have enough done and they were as much a part of the process as I was so that they will be ready to go no later than October. This time frame will give the new volunteer time to get situated and give my students time to fill them in and help guide them along together, teacher and students. I have complete faith in my Form 4 students, whom I have grown very, very attached to, and I know they will have a successful year next year. This whole month was SBA after SBA. The due date for their books is June 15th, and they will have 10 out of the 24 completed by the end of this term. That will leave them in really good shape for next year, and they should have no problem getting the other 12 done by the end of March. As a reward for all this hard work we did in May, I took them on a special trip in the first week of June, but you will have to wait to hear about that…
Aranaputa Trip
Aranaputa is a village that is about 6.5 miles from the school and many of our students travel this distance every rainy morning and swelteringly hot afternoon. One of our student’s sisters has been very welcoming to us, and invited us to hike up the Aranaputa mountain trail and camp over night at the cabin there. It was such a great trip and I felt so alive once I got to the cabin. It was a cabin up in the middle of nowhere, and it made me come to life in the way only something you really love can make you feel.
Journal entry 5/20/07:
“This weekend we hiked up the Aranaputa Mountain to camp at the cabin overnight, and as soon as I saw the cabin I felt so alive, and I realized what I really wanted in my life…Like all of a sudden life just clicked…after this weekend, and feeling so ALIVE and free-spirited once I got to that cabin, I felt that is what I want, a place in the middle of the woods, a home out in nature. I feel like this weekend has set my brain in motion thinking about what new adventure awaits me. This experience was one that would have left a hole in me somewhere had I not come to do it. Now, I feel like it is time to start wrapping up my thoughts and what this place has taught me about people, the differences in the world, and me and my place in the world. My answers seemed to come to me as I was on that mountain about what I felt about myself and finally feeling like I knew more of what my place in the world was to be in the future…So we hiked and it was really fun, and it was hard work, but I felt so unbounded in feeling so physically and mentally strong. It makes me happy to finally have my head out of the clouds, or to think I do. It makes me so happy that I did this, that I came to Guyana, an experience that has shifted me in a straighter direction. I feel confident that even though I don’t know where I am going I have finally gained the ability to make good decisions. Not knowing is what makes life so exciting to me, especially realizing that life can take you anywhere if you let it.”
Rewa
Rewa is a village very close to us…it hides just in Macarapan Mountain, which is a mountain I have mentioned before, the one the sun hides behind while it lights up the morning sky. Well, this village might be in trouble. I think that it is in trouble, and it worries me to no end, and makes me feel like I have to come back and help every aspect of the village and ultimately the surrounding area. The people, the culture, the wildlife, the land…the ecosystem as a whole. Why do I feel so worried? They have done preliminal oil drilling to see if there was any oil in the depths of the Earth, and sure enough there was. They are going to start drilling there soon, and I fear that in the same way that Brazil’s indigenous populations have been lost to this type of industrialization, the same will happen to the Macushi tribe in this area of Guyana. And it won’t only be Rewa that is affected. I suspect they will build a road branching from the main road, which would be a junction just off to the South of a village called Wowetta (you will hear about this village and what makes it so special in June’s newsletter). That would therefore have an effect on that village, and I am sure the road will be paved, the macaw population that flies to Macarapan mountain would be affected, the people’s subsistence as they know it would be forever changed, the groundwater will be polluted, and the list goes on and on…Paving the road would bring in so many negative changes that I warn my students to be careful of what they wish for. I am not sure when this drilling is going to take place, but from what I can tell it is going to be soon. I fear that a small, poor, developing country like Guyana does not have the governmental infrastructure to keep out the corruption of greed in order to preserve it’s natural resources, one of those being the Amerindian heritage, the forest and savannahs, and all the life in them that they depend on. It’s hard because they don’t know about drilling for oil simply because they have never been taught or had a need to know, so when the companies come in and start their destruction on a mass scale (I have no faith that they would comply with governmental law the same way they would in a more developed country that had the money to oversee the project) they might not know what hit them until it is too late and they have become essentially slave labourers on their own land because, like all living organisms, they just need to eat, not to mention all the other necessities these big brains of ours demand that we find. There is one man I know that is persistent on not letting the drilling happen, but unfortunately it seems as though he might be the only person who is educated about the issue, but he is dutifully trying to spread his knowledge as he pleads his case to the locals. Another deplorable fact is that I have not had much of an opportunity to talk to this man, although I hope to sit down for a chat before I leave. There are a few more key people who I can only hope the Amerindians in this area will look to as leaders and heed their words of wisdom in the years to come…I will keep positive that it will all work out okay, but it will definitely be interesting to come back in 2-3 years and see how much it changes here.
Random…
Sometimes I am not quite sure about including stuff like this in my newsletter, but then I think-hey, why not? Despite how idealistic, smug, young, and whatever other words of criticism I would think I could endure, these are the types of things that being here and living this experience makes me think about, so why would it not be a part of what I tell you about my life here? I suppose it’s due to the fact that I feel like this shouldn’t be about me, it should be about the community and the students, but, like everyone has told me and I knew myself, I am going to leave here with having learned more from this place and the people that inhabit it then I could ever teach…So here is some of what I feel like I have learned, some of what I feel they have shown me, not told me, is important in living life.
Journal entry 4/20/07:
Why do we let ourselves become so busy that we don’t have time for our close friends and family? What is it that we are all so busy doing? Buying a car that will rarely take us to our brother’s house? Buying a new house that will rarely feel the presence of people enjoying each others company because there just isn’t enough time? Without intending to sound preachy, why are we here? Was my soul put in this body to work like a slave for things I have been made to feel, somewhere along the way, that I need? Was I born into this world to build a paper cutter house, buy a brand new car made to break down, to buy clothes designed by Madonna, J-Lo, and Mary-Kate and Ashley, to buy stocks and bonds and build a massive bank account so when I get to the gates of heaven, or some kind of equivalent, I can tell So and So when So and So asks me what I thought of life that…Well, I don’t know. Maybe that’s what so many of us will realize once we reach those pearly gates of heaven, is that we don’t know.
“I have a big bank account, a nice car, I built a massive house. I was rich.”
“Ah,” says So and So, “but I asked you what you thought of life.
“I just told you.”
So and So replies,” That is not life my friend, those are things. When you tickled your car, how did it react? When you called your car just because you wanted to say hello, what did it say? When your house took its first step, how did it make you feel? When you celebrated another year of life with your stocks did they blow out all the candles in one shot?”
“But, So and So, I had the money to do things. I had money to eat, I had money so my kids got to wear nice clothes and have good things. My wife got to have her nails painted every weekend and her hair highlighted at the best salons.”
“Okay then, let me ask you this,” says So and So. “How did your kids look in those clothes? Did those things make them into caring and understanding people? Did you ever take notice of your wife’s nails and hair and wonder whom she was trying to attract with her beauty? Life is not a collection of inanimate objects. Life is experience, a collection of memories. Life is family and friends. It’s sharing, not hording. It’s understanding, not outcasting. It’s good, not evil. It’s sharing lunch with a friend over friendly conversation, not getting it to-go (in a polluting Styrofoam container) to get back to your desk to read Financial Times. It’s reading a good book, not straining your eyes at a computer for 14 straight hours to collect overtime to pay for that new living room furniture you couldn’t really afford. Life is experiencing moments and sharing those moments and remembering those moments with family and friends. Without these moments I just don’t see how life is lived.”
He looks down, quite unsure of what to say to So and So, and he realizes that he didn’t call his best friend for two months when he heard that he had passed. He acknowledged he didn’t know his wife anymore and even worse, how old his children were, and even more importantly, who they were. He hadn’t seen his family in over a year, and before that, sparsely. However, the ultimate sin he felt he had committed as he stood in the presence of So and So was that he didn’t know himself. No matter how busy he had ever gotten, his heart, his mind, his soul had always walked around with him. Essentially, it was really the only thing in life he shouldn’t have been able to escape; yet somehow he had. But since he was always so preoccupied with other things he never took the chance to sit down and listen to those 3 components that made him up, so therefore, he never knew what they were trying to tell him all this time.
“I will not judge you or send you to the gates of hell for such a sin, but I cannot let you enter now, my friend, because you have gained no insight since you last left. Instead you will be reborn, an infant, your soul placed in the womb of your mother filling a body that waits the journey of this world. Live this life over, try again. LIVE this life over, and I will meet you again.”
And so it was.
What if we had that chance? Maybe we do, who knows? What would we do differently? Would we change anything about ourselves if we fully understood that life in these bodies is mortal, that no matter how hard we try to drink from a synthetic fountain of youth that is being created for us by all these pharmaceutical companies, by Dr. 90210, we are all going to die? What would you change if you could do it all over again? We should each make a list, look at it, and then hopefully realize that we are not dead yet.
Alright, I have either thrilled you or bored you, or maybe you found a happy balance. In any way, I hope that all is well, and I hope that everyone is starting to enjoy the daffodils and tulips spring has brought you. Take care of each other. Until next time…
April Newsletter
April 2007 Newsletter
Howdy Everyone! Happy spring to you!! I am sure everyone at this point everyone has just about had it with Father Winter and are ready to see life come alive again, creating more life in the process. I would love to see the daffodils bloom, then the tulips (and I would show it to my dog, who just so happens to be named Tulip, so she could know the beautiful spring flower she is named after), and feel the morning chill turn warm as the sky clears and allows the sun to peak out, warming up the afternoon. The wet season is starting to appear here, and I am really excited to see how the savannahs flood so much that they connect to the rivers, which means there will be life in those waters that I have not seen before. It’s like a tropical spring.
On the Road…Easter Break
So I last left you with Jess and I headed off to Nappi, which was to be the beginning of our 2 and 1/2 week South American extravaganza…Unfortunately the only thing that materialized of the trip to Nappi was the talk of it, and not due a lack of our own ambition, but instead a typical situation trying to get somewhere in the Rupununi, which is not annoying, just not a huge surprise. It was nobody’s fault except our own ignorance that led us to believe that it would only cost GUY$4,000 (US$20) to get into the village, and another $4,000 to get out. The original plan was to go out with the students on Wednesday morning; however, the back of the truck was brimming with students and baggage while more students were waiting outside of the truck to find a seat. In seeing this we decided that to could take the bus to Lethem and then hire a vehicle in…Delphina (the student I mentioned in the last newsletter) was the one who gave me the “estimate” of the hired vehicle. I waved my farewell and with excitement told them I would see them there…Jess and I made the trek to Lethem only to find out, much to our disappointment, that to get to Nappi it costs GUY$15,000, which is about US$75. And this was only one way, so needless to say, we could not go…So we rolled with the punches, drank plenty of Polars, which is one of the worst beers ever brewed, and tried to make up for our loss by planning the next adventure to a different village, which, once again, did not transpire. So, after realizing the only trip we were taking out of Lethem was the one back to Annai, we hopped on the bus and went home.
On Saturday the 31st we had a wedding to go to. Two of the teachers at the school, Sir Sean and Miss Edna (now Mistress Edna), got married in Annai and held their reception at the Annai benab. It was really nice, although I felt bad for Edna because she was so hot in her wedding gown that she didn’t seem like she was enjoying the ceremony much. They are a very nice couple and I wish them all the best.
To continue on with our plans, we headed back to Lethem on Sunday. I was supposed to go to Datanowa Ranch with some other World Teach volunteers, but recognizing transportation there probably was not possible we decided to head to Venezuela instead…Little did we know that the week before Easter is Holy Week and everyone from all over Venezuela comes down to “La Gran Sabana” for the week. We thought we were going to have trouble finding a place for 6 of us to sleep, but things worked out, as they always seem to do…we did have to switch hotels all 3 nights, but that was fine as long as we had a place to stay. We took a tour in La Gran Sabana with a man named Louis. Louis did not speak much English, but man, was he a good time. He would lie in the waterfalls and slide down them like a little kid. It was funny…maybe someday you will get to see pictures. Our tour was a “non-traditional” tour where we would drive through the Sabana and then stop and get out hiking. We saw some amazing waterfalls and pools. We stopped at this one spot that was elevated over the rest of the Sabana and Louis relayed to us, half in Spanish and half in English, that this is where Jurassic Park was filmed. All of a sudden La Gran Sabana became filled with tyrannosauruses and vallaso raptors in my head because you could clearly see that it was true. It is this vast open space with nothing but scattered tree islands, hills, and savannah. When you yelled your echo was carried out and back to your ears…I love that.
We headed back to Lethem on Thursday for the Lethem Rodeo. Come Monday we were supposed to head off to Manaus to go on an Amazon River trip for a few days, but I ended up going back up to Venezuela with a different group to go white-water rafting. We had 3 days, so we ended up planning another trip into La Gran Sabana the day before we were to go rafting. I had already seen a lot of the trip, but we ended up getting a lot further the second time around. We slid down these natural rock slides that have been formed from the constant flow of water over time. We also saw some amazing waterfalls, which seem to be everywhere in Venezuela, at least around Santa Elena. The next day we went rafting, which was awesome, minus all the cabbora flies (in Spanish they are called pura-pura)…Cabbora flies come out in the day and are similar to black flies. They were attacking us as we paddled down the river, which led to a lot less paddling and more and more jumping in the water for relief. The rafting was not as we had expected-by standards that we are accustomed to, this was not white water rafting. It was a three-part expedition…we rafted for a little bit, but before that we walked behind this amazing waterfall. At one point we had to get down on our bellies and crawl under this rock…it was really cool to be on the behind all that rushing water and see how it had shaped caverns most people never get to see. After the rafting we went body rafting down the same route. It was really scary the first time, and whoever was the first person to do it must have been nuts. You had to jump directly in to this one part of the water if you were going to go down the correct way…Otherwise, watch out. The thing was though, is that once you started walking/sliding/slipping and falling down the path you were supposed to take you really just lost control of the whole situation and could only hope for the best. It was a rush, and once you got to the end the guide would blow the whistle and you had to swim hard out of the rapid. After we body rafted we then paddled to the village to have lunch and pack up the boat to head back into Santa Elena. This is when the mosquitoes killed us. We kept goofing off and jumping out of the boat. There was one point just before we came to the village where there were these rapids that the guide forgot about (I don’t know if many people actually paddled the hour and a half to the village). At this point I didn’t have on my helmet or my life jacket. I asked him if I needed to put them back on, and at first he said no, and then he said I should maybe put the helmet back on…Well, thank God for that. We went down the rapids with no problem, but we went backwards into them to play around and spin the boat around, and I ended up falling right into the rapids…I opened my eyes under the water, saw yellow, and realized I was underneath the boat. Luckily in my moment of panic came a wave of calmness that told me to just let the river take me instead of fighting it. It happened so fast, and before I knew it I was down river and above water, but that moment when I opened my eyes under the water and realized I was underneath the raft kept coming back to me all day, and the more I thought about it the more all the ‘what if’s’ started freaking me out. At least I had that helmet on.
So overall the break was fun and I fell in love with Venezuela. We ended up meeting so many cool people that were travelling around for a year, 6 months, 5 years, who were all in Santa Elena either having just come down from Mount Roriama or about to head up it. I was envious of these people and decided that I will just have to go back since I didn’t have enough time to hike it myself…
Back in Annai for the second half of the month…
While I was looking forward to going home I knew that the variety I had had over the past 2 weeks was going to be null and void in Annai, however, after two weeks of being away from home my own bed and space were calling my name. Upon returning home I realized that this was the home stretch, the last term, and I am left in disbelief as I begin to look back on a year that has gone by so fast and start wrapping my thoughts and feelings of this experience up.
Journal entry 4/14/2007:
So, home sweet home, no food, no food. For lunch I had 10 cloves of sautéed garlic and a cup of coffee. I am going to run to Rock View to try to get to the garden and check the post before 4…otherwise the only possibility for dinner is beans.
…It’s crazy to look at the calendar to try to make some final journeys out to some villages… flipping the calendar to June and seeing ‘last week of new material, review and revision, exams…’It’s nuts how little time is actually left. I was anxious to get back and start this term to finish out this year. While I am enjoying it, and in the end I will have enjoyed it all, I am getting ready to get back to a less privative life style, although I do not see myself fully re-adapting back to the excessiveness of Western ways. Here though, I have definitely learned to appreciate certain ones, like selections of food, refrigerators, things to do, internet access…Guyana has been great up to this point and I am so glad that I came to do this- I have learned so much about myself and have experienced such a different sort of life than anything I am used to, and I have been given the opportunity to be able to see diversity, both culturally and environmentally.
Journal entry 4/17/2007
“Back to school today. It’s strange that I feel much the same as I did at the beginning of last term after I had come back to Annai from Chicago, wishing time away, anxious to get home. I keep telling myself that in 2 months I will probably be wishing for more time here, and I will most definitely be about to miss this place and be sad this experience has come to an end. I know July 7th is going to be unbelievable in so many ways. But I am getting bored here at the same time…I can never venture out very far, and even less on my own. I am starting to need a bit more variety and will appreciate it so much when I get home. Variety of so many things…people, food, attractions, things to do…I just feel like every day is too much of the same. However, I know these 2 months will go fast, and I also know that soon after I return to Chicago I will be wishing for savannah and mountain views, this lifestyle that is so simple yet challenging in so many ways. I will be longing to be curled up in my hammock reading a good book and taking in the breeze…
…The thing I will miss the most here are the nice people. The locals are so nice and understanding, so patient with each other sometimes in ways I cannot understand, and they are giving. They might not be the most academically educated people, but when you weigh the qualities and characteristics you would most desire in people, I think they tip the balance in the positive direction with all their attributes you wouldn’t find so abundantly in other places…
…One thing I have realized in my travels in the past few weeks is that people don’t really like Americans. I have known about U.S. sentiments, however, I don’t know if I have really realized it. People generalize Americans based on how our politicians run our country (how we let our politicians run our country). I do not like this and do not like how I am type-casted based on where I come from. There were times over the past few weeks where I would just assume to tell someone I was Canadian as opposed to an American in order to delete the stereotyping. I think so many of the negative connotations come out of this long war that we are in, and the true nature of the beast that seems to be more and more evident as time goes on. I would hate that someone would assume that because I am an American I would put a price tag on a person’s life, that I would choose the almighty dollar over the spilling of red blood, and I am sure that most Americans would not want to be dressed in the same ugly stereotypes.
Making farine in Surama
The last weekend of April we went to Surama to make farine with a woman named Paulette Allicock. It was such a great experience that was an eye-opening experience about how life exists out here.
Farine is made out of cassava, and it is a 2 day process to make it. We arrived at Paulette’s house at about 8 a.m., and after some bread, bananas, and coffee we headed out to the farm to get the cassava (Paulette and her family are lucky-last year’s rains just about wiped out most people’s cassava plant, so farine and all other cassava foods are in limited supply this year). Her farm is huge. It was planted using a slash-and-burn method, and if I remember correctly it had just been done 2 years prior. We went to the back of the farm to find the mature cassava crop, and then we started hacking away with our cutlasses. You cut down the stem part of the tree and then pull the tubers out of the ground. Once they were up, someone else cut a bit at then to see if they were good to use. After gathering a bunch, we packed the cassava into these things called warshees that you carry on your back. They are made out of plant fibers, and resemble a backpack. They have a head strap and 2 arm straps. The one I carried up didn’t have working arm straps though, so I tried just using my arms and my head to carry it back up to the house. I left the farm in an upright position, however, when reached the house I was fully bent over using my back muscles to carry up that heavy load. Halfway through the trip I thought I was going to have to pass the load off, but I was bound and determined to do it by myself. By the time we got back to the house, which was about a 15 minute walk, I felt as though I had already accomplished such a hard task, and this was only the beginning. My arms already felt like Jell-O. In the end this was the hardest part.
The next step is to peel the cassava. This part got to be a little meticulous at the end because only the small little tubers that were a pain in the ass to peel were left. Once the peeling was done, it was time to wash them in the bucket, and grate them. They have contrived this novel craft to assist in the grating. Most people grate on a grating board into a bucket…the Allicock’s however (and I think most people in Surama), have made a bike that you petal to spin this metal cylinder that grates the cassava. One person sits on the bike and petals, which isn’t that easy at times, and the other people push the cassava through the grater…watch your fingers though! It spins so fast and it is really sharp, and with one wrong movement your fingers could be getting grated. I think Paulette was getting really nervous watching us push it through, but don’t worry, we all still have 5 full fingers on each hand.
Once it was grated it gets put into this box where it sits over night. Paulette had some cassava soaking for a few days that we added as a source of yeast. This is the difference between Brazilian farinha and Guyanese farine. Guyanese farine is better…it’s not as fine as the Brazilian and it tastes better. So we left that to sit until the next morning. While we were working she was making us lunch. We had picked a pumpkin while we were down on the farm and she cooked that up as a stew, and she also curried some fish that her husband Daniel had caught that morning. It was so good and all 5 of us sat that and ate our little hearts out. Firsts, seconds, thirds…I don’t know, maybe some of us even had fourths, and it was all so good.
The next morning we arrived at about the same time, but started much slower than the day before. By the time we had got there Paulette had already strained the juice out of the grated cassava…it is poison. Once it was strained it was in blocks that had to be sifted. This part was nice. It made your hands so soft, and for some reason it was one of those tasks that seems like it should be a chore, but you actually find some satisfying pleasure in it. Before we sifted it though, we had to go back down to the farm and gather some fire wood. I think they were laughing at the quantity we managed to scrounge up, but nonetheless the fire was started. Finally it was roasting time. The farine gets added slowly to this giant metal plate that sits on a framework of bricks and has a hot, hot fire underneath. When the farine gets added it has to be stirred constantly. The more you add the harder the stirring gets because it is so heavy. It needs to be stirred constantly for two hours…so while the farine is getting roasted, well, so are you. The fire gets hot and if you are not careful the smoke coming from the fire below will burn your eyes. As time went on and the water vaporized out of the cassava, it became lighter and easier to stir, and it became edible farine. When we were all done and all the farine was in one large bucket, we got together as a group and took a picture with such a sense of accomplishment. Making farine is very hard work, and it was cool to be able to experience something that has been such an integral part of their society’s subsistence for all this time. Paulette was nice enough to let us take home 2 giant bags, which was a nice treat considering that it is hard to come by, as I mentioned earlier.
Form 5 Exams
Well, this is it for Form 5…They start taking their exams in the first week of May. I marked their SBA books and sent the results into the Ministry the day I got back from break…and I was very happy to do so, thinking that the SBA madness was all over. However, I realized that the same madness is going to be taking place with form 4 until the end of this term, especially now that I have an extra 6 periods to prepare for them…I want to make sure that they are not in the same position as 5th form was this year when they get to 5th form. When I started working with the current 5th formers they only had 6 chapters out of 24 in the book covered (and not very well), and they had not a single SBA done. I will feel a sense of accomplishment here when I am done with the fourth formers though, because when I leave they will have 12 out of the 24 SBA’s done and marked, and at least 8 chapters of the book covered extensively. I thought that 5th formers that are writing their CXC’s (the final exams to leave school that determine what kind of jobs they can get) was going to be my big achievement that I could be proud of when I left, but I realized that they are not ready, despite how hard we worked, and sadly enough I just don’t think that they will do that great on the exam. I accept this, and I understand that there just wasn’t enough time-all I can do is wish them the best at this point. What I can do though, is I can get the fourth formers in a good position so they will not have to go through the same thing that this year’s 5th formers did, and they can be at a pace that is not as stressful and can actually take the time to really learn the material.
Well, this is all for April…Oh, one more thing I didn’t mention…I am now a non-smoker. I quit when I came back from break, and I was also hypnotized by Grace’s mom, who is a doctor, to help me. And Mrs. Lindsay, I just wanted to let you know that I still haven’t smoked (and between you and me it is the middle of May, but shhh…I don’t want to ruin the story for the rest, so just casually act like April just ended). She told me when we started the process that I should just consider myself a non-smoker from this point on, and gave me ways to help in the process. And it worked! I was ready, and with that experience to help me, quitting has actually been kind of easy. There were a few moments that weren’t but for the most part having the mentality right away that I was a non-smoker helped a lot. Woo-hoo for my lungs!! (That’s another thing she said…every time I want a cigarette imagine what my lungs must look like, and then when I don’t smoke, imagine that a piece of black lung tissue has healed itself and is now renewed as the pink tissue it is supposed to be. Calm, control, confidence!
Hope all is well and that sunshine is warming your cold winter blues…Until next time…take care!
Howdy Everyone! Happy spring to you!! I am sure everyone at this point everyone has just about had it with Father Winter and are ready to see life come alive again, creating more life in the process. I would love to see the daffodils bloom, then the tulips (and I would show it to my dog, who just so happens to be named Tulip, so she could know the beautiful spring flower she is named after), and feel the morning chill turn warm as the sky clears and allows the sun to peak out, warming up the afternoon. The wet season is starting to appear here, and I am really excited to see how the savannahs flood so much that they connect to the rivers, which means there will be life in those waters that I have not seen before. It’s like a tropical spring.
On the Road…Easter Break
So I last left you with Jess and I headed off to Nappi, which was to be the beginning of our 2 and 1/2 week South American extravaganza…Unfortunately the only thing that materialized of the trip to Nappi was the talk of it, and not due a lack of our own ambition, but instead a typical situation trying to get somewhere in the Rupununi, which is not annoying, just not a huge surprise. It was nobody’s fault except our own ignorance that led us to believe that it would only cost GUY$4,000 (US$20) to get into the village, and another $4,000 to get out. The original plan was to go out with the students on Wednesday morning; however, the back of the truck was brimming with students and baggage while more students were waiting outside of the truck to find a seat. In seeing this we decided that to could take the bus to Lethem and then hire a vehicle in…Delphina (the student I mentioned in the last newsletter) was the one who gave me the “estimate” of the hired vehicle. I waved my farewell and with excitement told them I would see them there…Jess and I made the trek to Lethem only to find out, much to our disappointment, that to get to Nappi it costs GUY$15,000, which is about US$75. And this was only one way, so needless to say, we could not go…So we rolled with the punches, drank plenty of Polars, which is one of the worst beers ever brewed, and tried to make up for our loss by planning the next adventure to a different village, which, once again, did not transpire. So, after realizing the only trip we were taking out of Lethem was the one back to Annai, we hopped on the bus and went home.
On Saturday the 31st we had a wedding to go to. Two of the teachers at the school, Sir Sean and Miss Edna (now Mistress Edna), got married in Annai and held their reception at the Annai benab. It was really nice, although I felt bad for Edna because she was so hot in her wedding gown that she didn’t seem like she was enjoying the ceremony much. They are a very nice couple and I wish them all the best.
To continue on with our plans, we headed back to Lethem on Sunday. I was supposed to go to Datanowa Ranch with some other World Teach volunteers, but recognizing transportation there probably was not possible we decided to head to Venezuela instead…Little did we know that the week before Easter is Holy Week and everyone from all over Venezuela comes down to “La Gran Sabana” for the week. We thought we were going to have trouble finding a place for 6 of us to sleep, but things worked out, as they always seem to do…we did have to switch hotels all 3 nights, but that was fine as long as we had a place to stay. We took a tour in La Gran Sabana with a man named Louis. Louis did not speak much English, but man, was he a good time. He would lie in the waterfalls and slide down them like a little kid. It was funny…maybe someday you will get to see pictures. Our tour was a “non-traditional” tour where we would drive through the Sabana and then stop and get out hiking. We saw some amazing waterfalls and pools. We stopped at this one spot that was elevated over the rest of the Sabana and Louis relayed to us, half in Spanish and half in English, that this is where Jurassic Park was filmed. All of a sudden La Gran Sabana became filled with tyrannosauruses and vallaso raptors in my head because you could clearly see that it was true. It is this vast open space with nothing but scattered tree islands, hills, and savannah. When you yelled your echo was carried out and back to your ears…I love that.
We headed back to Lethem on Thursday for the Lethem Rodeo. Come Monday we were supposed to head off to Manaus to go on an Amazon River trip for a few days, but I ended up going back up to Venezuela with a different group to go white-water rafting. We had 3 days, so we ended up planning another trip into La Gran Sabana the day before we were to go rafting. I had already seen a lot of the trip, but we ended up getting a lot further the second time around. We slid down these natural rock slides that have been formed from the constant flow of water over time. We also saw some amazing waterfalls, which seem to be everywhere in Venezuela, at least around Santa Elena. The next day we went rafting, which was awesome, minus all the cabbora flies (in Spanish they are called pura-pura)…Cabbora flies come out in the day and are similar to black flies. They were attacking us as we paddled down the river, which led to a lot less paddling and more and more jumping in the water for relief. The rafting was not as we had expected-by standards that we are accustomed to, this was not white water rafting. It was a three-part expedition…we rafted for a little bit, but before that we walked behind this amazing waterfall. At one point we had to get down on our bellies and crawl under this rock…it was really cool to be on the behind all that rushing water and see how it had shaped caverns most people never get to see. After the rafting we went body rafting down the same route. It was really scary the first time, and whoever was the first person to do it must have been nuts. You had to jump directly in to this one part of the water if you were going to go down the correct way…Otherwise, watch out. The thing was though, is that once you started walking/sliding/slipping and falling down the path you were supposed to take you really just lost control of the whole situation and could only hope for the best. It was a rush, and once you got to the end the guide would blow the whistle and you had to swim hard out of the rapid. After we body rafted we then paddled to the village to have lunch and pack up the boat to head back into Santa Elena. This is when the mosquitoes killed us. We kept goofing off and jumping out of the boat. There was one point just before we came to the village where there were these rapids that the guide forgot about (I don’t know if many people actually paddled the hour and a half to the village). At this point I didn’t have on my helmet or my life jacket. I asked him if I needed to put them back on, and at first he said no, and then he said I should maybe put the helmet back on…Well, thank God for that. We went down the rapids with no problem, but we went backwards into them to play around and spin the boat around, and I ended up falling right into the rapids…I opened my eyes under the water, saw yellow, and realized I was underneath the boat. Luckily in my moment of panic came a wave of calmness that told me to just let the river take me instead of fighting it. It happened so fast, and before I knew it I was down river and above water, but that moment when I opened my eyes under the water and realized I was underneath the raft kept coming back to me all day, and the more I thought about it the more all the ‘what if’s’ started freaking me out. At least I had that helmet on.
So overall the break was fun and I fell in love with Venezuela. We ended up meeting so many cool people that were travelling around for a year, 6 months, 5 years, who were all in Santa Elena either having just come down from Mount Roriama or about to head up it. I was envious of these people and decided that I will just have to go back since I didn’t have enough time to hike it myself…
Back in Annai for the second half of the month…
While I was looking forward to going home I knew that the variety I had had over the past 2 weeks was going to be null and void in Annai, however, after two weeks of being away from home my own bed and space were calling my name. Upon returning home I realized that this was the home stretch, the last term, and I am left in disbelief as I begin to look back on a year that has gone by so fast and start wrapping my thoughts and feelings of this experience up.
Journal entry 4/14/2007:
So, home sweet home, no food, no food. For lunch I had 10 cloves of sautéed garlic and a cup of coffee. I am going to run to Rock View to try to get to the garden and check the post before 4…otherwise the only possibility for dinner is beans.
…It’s crazy to look at the calendar to try to make some final journeys out to some villages… flipping the calendar to June and seeing ‘last week of new material, review and revision, exams…’It’s nuts how little time is actually left. I was anxious to get back and start this term to finish out this year. While I am enjoying it, and in the end I will have enjoyed it all, I am getting ready to get back to a less privative life style, although I do not see myself fully re-adapting back to the excessiveness of Western ways. Here though, I have definitely learned to appreciate certain ones, like selections of food, refrigerators, things to do, internet access…Guyana has been great up to this point and I am so glad that I came to do this- I have learned so much about myself and have experienced such a different sort of life than anything I am used to, and I have been given the opportunity to be able to see diversity, both culturally and environmentally.
Journal entry 4/17/2007
“Back to school today. It’s strange that I feel much the same as I did at the beginning of last term after I had come back to Annai from Chicago, wishing time away, anxious to get home. I keep telling myself that in 2 months I will probably be wishing for more time here, and I will most definitely be about to miss this place and be sad this experience has come to an end. I know July 7th is going to be unbelievable in so many ways. But I am getting bored here at the same time…I can never venture out very far, and even less on my own. I am starting to need a bit more variety and will appreciate it so much when I get home. Variety of so many things…people, food, attractions, things to do…I just feel like every day is too much of the same. However, I know these 2 months will go fast, and I also know that soon after I return to Chicago I will be wishing for savannah and mountain views, this lifestyle that is so simple yet challenging in so many ways. I will be longing to be curled up in my hammock reading a good book and taking in the breeze…
…The thing I will miss the most here are the nice people. The locals are so nice and understanding, so patient with each other sometimes in ways I cannot understand, and they are giving. They might not be the most academically educated people, but when you weigh the qualities and characteristics you would most desire in people, I think they tip the balance in the positive direction with all their attributes you wouldn’t find so abundantly in other places…
…One thing I have realized in my travels in the past few weeks is that people don’t really like Americans. I have known about U.S. sentiments, however, I don’t know if I have really realized it. People generalize Americans based on how our politicians run our country (how we let our politicians run our country). I do not like this and do not like how I am type-casted based on where I come from. There were times over the past few weeks where I would just assume to tell someone I was Canadian as opposed to an American in order to delete the stereotyping. I think so many of the negative connotations come out of this long war that we are in, and the true nature of the beast that seems to be more and more evident as time goes on. I would hate that someone would assume that because I am an American I would put a price tag on a person’s life, that I would choose the almighty dollar over the spilling of red blood, and I am sure that most Americans would not want to be dressed in the same ugly stereotypes.
Making farine in Surama
The last weekend of April we went to Surama to make farine with a woman named Paulette Allicock. It was such a great experience that was an eye-opening experience about how life exists out here.
Farine is made out of cassava, and it is a 2 day process to make it. We arrived at Paulette’s house at about 8 a.m., and after some bread, bananas, and coffee we headed out to the farm to get the cassava (Paulette and her family are lucky-last year’s rains just about wiped out most people’s cassava plant, so farine and all other cassava foods are in limited supply this year). Her farm is huge. It was planted using a slash-and-burn method, and if I remember correctly it had just been done 2 years prior. We went to the back of the farm to find the mature cassava crop, and then we started hacking away with our cutlasses. You cut down the stem part of the tree and then pull the tubers out of the ground. Once they were up, someone else cut a bit at then to see if they were good to use. After gathering a bunch, we packed the cassava into these things called warshees that you carry on your back. They are made out of plant fibers, and resemble a backpack. They have a head strap and 2 arm straps. The one I carried up didn’t have working arm straps though, so I tried just using my arms and my head to carry it back up to the house. I left the farm in an upright position, however, when reached the house I was fully bent over using my back muscles to carry up that heavy load. Halfway through the trip I thought I was going to have to pass the load off, but I was bound and determined to do it by myself. By the time we got back to the house, which was about a 15 minute walk, I felt as though I had already accomplished such a hard task, and this was only the beginning. My arms already felt like Jell-O. In the end this was the hardest part.
The next step is to peel the cassava. This part got to be a little meticulous at the end because only the small little tubers that were a pain in the ass to peel were left. Once the peeling was done, it was time to wash them in the bucket, and grate them. They have contrived this novel craft to assist in the grating. Most people grate on a grating board into a bucket…the Allicock’s however (and I think most people in Surama), have made a bike that you petal to spin this metal cylinder that grates the cassava. One person sits on the bike and petals, which isn’t that easy at times, and the other people push the cassava through the grater…watch your fingers though! It spins so fast and it is really sharp, and with one wrong movement your fingers could be getting grated. I think Paulette was getting really nervous watching us push it through, but don’t worry, we all still have 5 full fingers on each hand.
Once it was grated it gets put into this box where it sits over night. Paulette had some cassava soaking for a few days that we added as a source of yeast. This is the difference between Brazilian farinha and Guyanese farine. Guyanese farine is better…it’s not as fine as the Brazilian and it tastes better. So we left that to sit until the next morning. While we were working she was making us lunch. We had picked a pumpkin while we were down on the farm and she cooked that up as a stew, and she also curried some fish that her husband Daniel had caught that morning. It was so good and all 5 of us sat that and ate our little hearts out. Firsts, seconds, thirds…I don’t know, maybe some of us even had fourths, and it was all so good.
The next morning we arrived at about the same time, but started much slower than the day before. By the time we had got there Paulette had already strained the juice out of the grated cassava…it is poison. Once it was strained it was in blocks that had to be sifted. This part was nice. It made your hands so soft, and for some reason it was one of those tasks that seems like it should be a chore, but you actually find some satisfying pleasure in it. Before we sifted it though, we had to go back down to the farm and gather some fire wood. I think they were laughing at the quantity we managed to scrounge up, but nonetheless the fire was started. Finally it was roasting time. The farine gets added slowly to this giant metal plate that sits on a framework of bricks and has a hot, hot fire underneath. When the farine gets added it has to be stirred constantly. The more you add the harder the stirring gets because it is so heavy. It needs to be stirred constantly for two hours…so while the farine is getting roasted, well, so are you. The fire gets hot and if you are not careful the smoke coming from the fire below will burn your eyes. As time went on and the water vaporized out of the cassava, it became lighter and easier to stir, and it became edible farine. When we were all done and all the farine was in one large bucket, we got together as a group and took a picture with such a sense of accomplishment. Making farine is very hard work, and it was cool to be able to experience something that has been such an integral part of their society’s subsistence for all this time. Paulette was nice enough to let us take home 2 giant bags, which was a nice treat considering that it is hard to come by, as I mentioned earlier.
Form 5 Exams
Well, this is it for Form 5…They start taking their exams in the first week of May. I marked their SBA books and sent the results into the Ministry the day I got back from break…and I was very happy to do so, thinking that the SBA madness was all over. However, I realized that the same madness is going to be taking place with form 4 until the end of this term, especially now that I have an extra 6 periods to prepare for them…I want to make sure that they are not in the same position as 5th form was this year when they get to 5th form. When I started working with the current 5th formers they only had 6 chapters out of 24 in the book covered (and not very well), and they had not a single SBA done. I will feel a sense of accomplishment here when I am done with the fourth formers though, because when I leave they will have 12 out of the 24 SBA’s done and marked, and at least 8 chapters of the book covered extensively. I thought that 5th formers that are writing their CXC’s (the final exams to leave school that determine what kind of jobs they can get) was going to be my big achievement that I could be proud of when I left, but I realized that they are not ready, despite how hard we worked, and sadly enough I just don’t think that they will do that great on the exam. I accept this, and I understand that there just wasn’t enough time-all I can do is wish them the best at this point. What I can do though, is I can get the fourth formers in a good position so they will not have to go through the same thing that this year’s 5th formers did, and they can be at a pace that is not as stressful and can actually take the time to really learn the material.
Well, this is all for April…Oh, one more thing I didn’t mention…I am now a non-smoker. I quit when I came back from break, and I was also hypnotized by Grace’s mom, who is a doctor, to help me. And Mrs. Lindsay, I just wanted to let you know that I still haven’t smoked (and between you and me it is the middle of May, but shhh…I don’t want to ruin the story for the rest, so just casually act like April just ended). She told me when we started the process that I should just consider myself a non-smoker from this point on, and gave me ways to help in the process. And it worked! I was ready, and with that experience to help me, quitting has actually been kind of easy. There were a few moments that weren’t but for the most part having the mentality right away that I was a non-smoker helped a lot. Woo-hoo for my lungs!! (That’s another thing she said…every time I want a cigarette imagine what my lungs must look like, and then when I don’t smoke, imagine that a piece of black lung tissue has healed itself and is now renewed as the pink tissue it is supposed to be. Calm, control, confidence!
Hope all is well and that sunshine is warming your cold winter blues…Until next time…take care!
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