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…