December Newsletter
Greetings from the North Rupununi to one and all. I hope that everyone enjoyed their holidays and was able to spend as much time loving their friends and family as possible. I most certainly did and I enjoyed every second of it!!
School in Guyana closed on a Friday, the 7th of January, and Jess and I made it out of Annai on the 8th, but not before having a wonderful night of drinking and dancing that last night away at the Bina Hill Institute’s Christmas party! Who says dancing to the same 5 Pepe Moreno songs over and over again and again can’t be a good time?
The last week of school was spent marking final exams, which was a nice and quiet change of pace because most of the students were heading back to their villages all throughout the week. For some of my classes, it was hard to see so many of them fail and in the end, to feel like I was the one who had ultimately failed as a teacher. While I am sure that I have not become the best teacher in the world in only a few weeks of teaching, I must remember that some students just don’t see the importance of learning and their education and one can only rack their brain time and time again to somehow tell them or demonstrate it to them that we are not getting up every morning to come teach them because we think they deserve a punishment for something, but these things for their best interest. I am sure that every teacher in the whole wide world feels like this at times, so I will try to take it with a grain of salt. There definitely were certain students that do genuinely seem to like learning and they work hard, some work very hard, at their studies, and so it was nice to see my hardworking students get the grades that they deserved. All in all, I have realized that teaching is a challenge, and I was ready to take a break, regroup, and spend some time in Chicago enjoying all the luxuries I hope to never take for granted again, the most important one being my family.
We flew out of Annai on the 8th of December to head to our mid-year conference in Georgetown, which put us in Georgetown for about 4 days, which was fun because we got to hang out with all the other volunteers and hear stories about all the different sites where there are World Teach Volunteers. We met with some officials from the Ministry of Education on one of those days…. and let’s just say that it was a very interesting experience that left us all a little exacerbated…maybe a word like enraged would be better for describing how we felt. First off, the guy walks in and cuts Nancy off just to let us know that it really didn’t matter what we said, it was not their (the Ministry’s) responsibility to deal with our frustrations. After a ten-minute speech about how there is nobody at the Ministry accountable for the regional education officers (REDO) in our regions he opened the floor to us. At this point I was thinking, “Well, what is the point of saying anything or even sitting through this meeting if the energy that will go into thinking about and saying something won’t make any kind of difference, and it has already been stated that not an ounce of energy will go into fixing any sort of problem there is. Who ever said the energy that goes into a system equals the energy that goes out? Not in this case. Anyways, to be concise in order to not rile myself up about this ‘official’ again, I will just tell you that when we were talking about reading and how loads of students don’t even know how to, let alone interpret poetry from the 18th century, we were told that they are not aloud to repeat the first and second grade (think about when you learned to read) because students at this age are too sensitive and the Ministry does not want to damage them…I think most of us wanted to stand up and start letting our private thoughts become spoken words in a slightly irrational way at this point. Everyone reading this would probably (hopefully-or else I am taking you off my email group :) ) agree that not knowing how to read your whole schooling career might possibly damage a person more than holding them back one year to get a fundamental problem fixed before it goes too far and really damages a student. Would it be harder to admit that you don’t know how to read when you are young and don’t much care about an image or when you are 15 years old and really cool with a hot girlfriend? Not to mention all the years up to this age that you have sat in class pretending like you knew what was going on, while not really learning much after all this time, wasted time. This man also told us that research shows class sizes of 50+ are more beneficial to students than a smaller class would be…uh, what? Then he brought up classrooms in India and completely lost relevance then.
So after being mind-blown from my experience with the Ministry of Education, I was looking forward to letting my neurons take a break as they glided 30,000 feet in the air. Travelling home made me a bit weary, physically and mentally, after 4 flights and 3 countries in 2 days (actually 3 flights…. I had a few days between the Annai to Georgetown flight)…but I was excited, so it all very much worth it. Being home made me realize how great of a city Chicago is and how proud I am to come from there. We got to fly in going west just to the North side of the city. It was about 6:30 p.m. when I landed, and seeing all the lights was surreal considering where I was coming from. By this time I was getting ants in my pants (and a sore bumsy after all that sitting) and just wanted to get off the plane, stretch my muscles, and RUN off the plane as fast as I could to see my mama! Being home also made me realize that it is my home, the place where the people I care for the most are at, my family, my friends, my dog (I guess she would be classified under family too, huh?). Hopefully I got to see most of you, and those of you that indeed I did see, I had an amazing time with and thank you for making time to hang out with me while I was home. Becky, well we spent a massive amount of time together, I especially loved the dance party with you and Mary, Erin you were always around too, walking my dog at 3 in the morning, Michelle and Niki thanks for trekking out to the city to come and hang out, everyone I saw on New Year’s Eve, it was great and I couldn’t have been happier to ring in yet one more year with you all. Courtney and Shelbey thanks for helping me cook on Christmas and I love every moment I get to spend with you. But Mom, oh Mommy, I need to thank you the most for bringing me home and I am so happy that we got to spend so much time hanging out and thoroughly enjoying and appreciating each other’s company in a way we might never have done before. Being away from you and not being able to talk to you whenever I want rips my heart out sometimes and makes we wish time away to come back home to where you are. I love you so very much and hope that one day I can repay you for all you have ever done for me, even though I think I might be too far in debt to ever work my way out in this lifetime. The time went all to fast, but I will be home ‘just now’ as they would say in Guyana. I will fill you all in about my ventures back to Guyana and eventually Annai. Let’s just say that I wish I could snap my fingers and just be where I want to be. School is once again underway and time is once again flying. You will hear all about it in January’s newsletter, which, as you have noticed by now, will probably be ready and sent sometime in late February…Until then…. take care and take time to love the one’s you love.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
November Newsletter
November Newsletter
It doesn’t feel like November in the Rupununi. Summer is everlasting here. Now that November is over, the school term is coming to a close. Exams start on November 27th (happy birthday to me J) and the week prior all we are to do is review. Looking back on what I have covered in my classes versus what the syllabus written by the Ministry of Education wanted me to cover leaves me feeling a bit let down by myself, but in all fairness I have to understand that I did the best I could do as a teacher with no real teaching experience with students that, even though my students are between the ages of 12-17, might not be able to read. When the beginning of November rapidly approached (I can’t believe how fast the time has been going) and we started thinking about wrapping things up and planning when we would have exam week, I panicked a bit because I realized that my students were far, far behind. The thing is though is that they don’t get it. For example, I teach third form Biology, which would be 9th grade comparatively, and this is their first year taking Biology. We started with the living things flow chart, which is very basic and really only needs to be memorized at this stage, but towards the end of the term they still didn’t get it. I would ask questions like “Name one thing that all living cells have”(We had moved on to chapter 2 at this point: Cells) and they would respond by shouting “Eukaryotic!” which made me realize that they still didn’t grasp how that flow chart worked and divided things up…so how could I move on? I didn’t give up on teaching about cells, but I did constantly have to go back and explain a few more times how the chart worked and stressed that they need to memorize it and engrain it in their heads if they wanted to move on. This is what makes me not feel so bad about being so far behind on the syllabus because I feel there is no point on moving on with more and more information when they don’t even understand the basic concepts, which is what the local teachers do. At times it seems like they care more about moving through the syllabus than whether or not their students understand the information presented. The problem is that the Ministry doesn’t understand that without learning resources, most basic being text books, how are the students supposed to move at the rate they have determined when the only source they have is a notebook full of notes and no other references? Not to mention that they don’t have electricity that would enable them to study more efficiently after the hour of 6 p.m. The Ministry seems to think their ideas to be held in good theory, but if they would only do some outreach to Region 9 they would realize that their theory is much more than could ever realistically be put into practice down here. There are a number of challenges that these students have to face, which include a major lack of resources (posters/visual aids, individual textbooks (which means that class sometimes has to be only chalk and talk because they just need to get the information down in their notebooks), lunch, properly ventilated classrooms, desks, chairs, sometimes even pens, no electricity for the dorm kids at night), most don’t have parents that could help them with their studies, and finally (although I could keep going), if they ride to school from a nearby village they have a long haul everyday to school both in the morning and at two o’clock in the afternoon when the sun is blazing in the savannah during their 6 mile journey home after a long, hot day at school. One day Kirsty, Grace, and I rode to Aranaputa, which is a village that is 6 miles down the road from the school and a source of a good number of our students that do not live in the dorms. We realized after the day was through how rough the ride could be for some of our students, and I think we all had a bit more understanding and compassion for how demanding their days are and why they would have a hard time performing well. When I mentioned earlier that some students don’t even get lunch, it is mostly those students that endure this commute to school (the dorm kids have lunch made for them even though they sometimes don’t eat it), which means that by two in the afternoon when it is time to make that six mile trek back to their village they are doing it on empty. By the time they get home it is about 3, they might have chores to do, and before they know it, it is nearing 5:30-6 and the sun is going down and taking the light with it. When can they study? Plus, there are quite a few parents that do not stress the importance of education, probably because they are uneducated themselves in terms of Western standards of education, and just live off the land, living a very tribal lifestyle. I don’t want to say they are uneducated though, because they are not stupid, they just know about different things like farming, their land, and how to make so little work somehow than we do. If I went into the jungle with some of the locals they could probably tell me so much about the trees, plants, and animals and what they can be used for. There are some students that do really understand, but my, oh my, there are so many that just don’t get it. It’s hard to determine if they don’t know it because they genuinely don’t understand it, or if they don’t understand it because after they copied the notes I put on the board they never looked at them again. It’s hard to find a balance to keep them all moving forward because there is such a wide range of intellects that you either have to lose some at the bottom or lose the ones at the top because they get so bored, which isn’t fair to them at all. And as always I find myself holding a double-edged sword because it is not fair to leave most behind because it was their education system that failed them long ago and now they have to bear the brunt as a result, but at this point, what can I do? I could push for the system having remedial classes, but I am not going to change the whole system in only one year, which I know I could never think I could do because it just is not realistic, and besides, who would teach these classes? We are already short teachers even with the 5 of 12 teachers that are volunteers. So all I can do next term, now that I have a clearer understanding of what the situation is here, is work hard and find out why they are not understanding it, it occurred to me that some might not be able to read, and to just help them as individuals as much as I can.
Exams:
The students were unable to take the exams that we had originally written for them due to the fact that we had no paper because as a school we could not buy any due to a lack of funds (the Headmistress has been using her own money to get things we need for the school and she has 3 kids of her own) and the Ministry didn’t send us any. No paper meant no photocopying (we do have a Xerox machine that can be run on a small generator), but without paper that machine is no good. Most students are supposed to take a CXC style exam (it depends on which form they are in and which subject the exam is for), which consists of 2 exams. Paper I is a long multiple choice and maybe some True/False and short answer. Paper II is supposed to be more essay style with only about 2-3 essay questions. For fifth form I had to write 60 multiple choice questions on paper I. When we found out that there would be no way to make paper copies of the exam we realized most of the exams we had written were not going to be administered. There was no way that I was going to be able to write out 60 multiple-choice questions on the chalkboard. I ended up going through the exam and picking out the most important points and minimizing my exams as much as I could so they could realistically take it in the time allotted. Once again the students lose out because taking these CXC style exams gives them practice taking the exam and gives them a chance to learn how the exams are written, so when the time comes for the real thing they are comfortable with the style of the CXC’s. The CXC exams are taken at the end of their last year of secondary school and their scores determine what kinds of jobs they would be able to get in Guyana (and maybe the whole Caribbean, since they are exams taken by all Caribbean countries…I don’t know??). It’s hard when you see fifth form students (this would be like 12th grade) working so hard only to have yet one more disadvantage because their education system lacks the ability to complete basic tasks like sending down paper for exams they dictate are required. It seems like liability is not a word in the vocabulary of any of the Ministry officials, and the sad result is that the children of Guyana are paying for it, more so in Region 9 since people look down on the Amerindians that inhabit this part of the country.
The People:
I mentioned earlier that we went to Aranaputa, a beautifully lush village that sits in a basin surrounded by mountains and jungle that is 6 miles away from the school. Let me introduce the two girls that I went with. Grace and Kirsty are 17 and newly 18 Project Trust volunteers from Scotland. They are both amazingly high-energy and spirited people that have gracefully adjusted to life in the Rupununi. I could not imagine being in this situation when I was 17, and I am so proud of them. My first inclination was they were only going to last a week when I heard Grace say “what made them think that I could live like this in the middle of nowhere?” (they are not given any kind of choice as to where they are placed whereas Jess and I asked to be very rural like we are), however, not long after they had made their house a home and were really being creative about how to make it all work. Probably more so than Jess and I, but we were in very different living situations. I think seeing how Grace and Kirsty had made themselves a home made Jess and I that much more anxious to want to get situated in the place that we were going to be living and so we could make our own home. So anyways, yeah, they are great and lots of fun, and on a sunny Sunday morning we made our way off the compound on our bikes to go to a Gospel church with one of our students. The roads in the village are pretty much all sand, which is not very easy to ride a bike in. I actually tipped and fell off my bike at one point in the day. We went to church, which was a short service led by some of the parishioners due to the fact that the Reverend was out of town. They sang some songs, which I wished I knew so I could sing along, and read some versus out of the Bible. They acknowledged us welcomed us into their church during the service, and after the service one of our other student’s (Althea) sister Zita, who is a teacher at Aranaputa Primary School, came over to us and invited us to her house for lunch. After being led around the village by Jennifer Peters, who you can see a picture of on my blog, and stopping at random students’ houses to meet their families, we made it over to the other side of the road where the village continues to Althea’s house. We sat with her and her family and looked at pictures, and her sister Zita told us there was lunch waiting inside. When we finally went in we couldn’t believe it. There were only 3 plates on the table, along with a nice spread of food, and they wanted us to sit down and eat first. After insisting they eat with us, we enjoyed lots of local dishes like chow mien and a chicken dish together. When we were leaving we thanked them up and down for being so hospitable to us, as all the locals seem to be. At each house we went to we either were given fruits to take home or given food and drink. When we were headed home the 3 of us just kept saying, “Geez-everyone here is so nice.”
Thanksgiving:
Happy Thanksgiving to you all…it didn’t feel like Thanksgiving to us, but we did end up having a Thanksgiving meal on that Friday. I got to talk to my family over the computer, which was nice but did make me miss home knowing they were all together and I couldn’t be there with them.
Well, exam results will be out in December’s Newsletter and I get to be at home reflecting on the differences between Chicago and Annai living. I hope that everyone is doing well and enjoying the cold weather I never thought I would miss…I hope that everyone is finding they are actually getting my emails now seeing as I have been able to fix the second newsletter group in my contacts list. But there are pictures on my blog, so make sure you check it out.
www.wattsinguyana.blogspot.com
Happy Holidays!!!
It doesn’t feel like November in the Rupununi. Summer is everlasting here. Now that November is over, the school term is coming to a close. Exams start on November 27th (happy birthday to me J) and the week prior all we are to do is review. Looking back on what I have covered in my classes versus what the syllabus written by the Ministry of Education wanted me to cover leaves me feeling a bit let down by myself, but in all fairness I have to understand that I did the best I could do as a teacher with no real teaching experience with students that, even though my students are between the ages of 12-17, might not be able to read. When the beginning of November rapidly approached (I can’t believe how fast the time has been going) and we started thinking about wrapping things up and planning when we would have exam week, I panicked a bit because I realized that my students were far, far behind. The thing is though is that they don’t get it. For example, I teach third form Biology, which would be 9th grade comparatively, and this is their first year taking Biology. We started with the living things flow chart, which is very basic and really only needs to be memorized at this stage, but towards the end of the term they still didn’t get it. I would ask questions like “Name one thing that all living cells have”(We had moved on to chapter 2 at this point: Cells) and they would respond by shouting “Eukaryotic!” which made me realize that they still didn’t grasp how that flow chart worked and divided things up…so how could I move on? I didn’t give up on teaching about cells, but I did constantly have to go back and explain a few more times how the chart worked and stressed that they need to memorize it and engrain it in their heads if they wanted to move on. This is what makes me not feel so bad about being so far behind on the syllabus because I feel there is no point on moving on with more and more information when they don’t even understand the basic concepts, which is what the local teachers do. At times it seems like they care more about moving through the syllabus than whether or not their students understand the information presented. The problem is that the Ministry doesn’t understand that without learning resources, most basic being text books, how are the students supposed to move at the rate they have determined when the only source they have is a notebook full of notes and no other references? Not to mention that they don’t have electricity that would enable them to study more efficiently after the hour of 6 p.m. The Ministry seems to think their ideas to be held in good theory, but if they would only do some outreach to Region 9 they would realize that their theory is much more than could ever realistically be put into practice down here. There are a number of challenges that these students have to face, which include a major lack of resources (posters/visual aids, individual textbooks (which means that class sometimes has to be only chalk and talk because they just need to get the information down in their notebooks), lunch, properly ventilated classrooms, desks, chairs, sometimes even pens, no electricity for the dorm kids at night), most don’t have parents that could help them with their studies, and finally (although I could keep going), if they ride to school from a nearby village they have a long haul everyday to school both in the morning and at two o’clock in the afternoon when the sun is blazing in the savannah during their 6 mile journey home after a long, hot day at school. One day Kirsty, Grace, and I rode to Aranaputa, which is a village that is 6 miles down the road from the school and a source of a good number of our students that do not live in the dorms. We realized after the day was through how rough the ride could be for some of our students, and I think we all had a bit more understanding and compassion for how demanding their days are and why they would have a hard time performing well. When I mentioned earlier that some students don’t even get lunch, it is mostly those students that endure this commute to school (the dorm kids have lunch made for them even though they sometimes don’t eat it), which means that by two in the afternoon when it is time to make that six mile trek back to their village they are doing it on empty. By the time they get home it is about 3, they might have chores to do, and before they know it, it is nearing 5:30-6 and the sun is going down and taking the light with it. When can they study? Plus, there are quite a few parents that do not stress the importance of education, probably because they are uneducated themselves in terms of Western standards of education, and just live off the land, living a very tribal lifestyle. I don’t want to say they are uneducated though, because they are not stupid, they just know about different things like farming, their land, and how to make so little work somehow than we do. If I went into the jungle with some of the locals they could probably tell me so much about the trees, plants, and animals and what they can be used for. There are some students that do really understand, but my, oh my, there are so many that just don’t get it. It’s hard to determine if they don’t know it because they genuinely don’t understand it, or if they don’t understand it because after they copied the notes I put on the board they never looked at them again. It’s hard to find a balance to keep them all moving forward because there is such a wide range of intellects that you either have to lose some at the bottom or lose the ones at the top because they get so bored, which isn’t fair to them at all. And as always I find myself holding a double-edged sword because it is not fair to leave most behind because it was their education system that failed them long ago and now they have to bear the brunt as a result, but at this point, what can I do? I could push for the system having remedial classes, but I am not going to change the whole system in only one year, which I know I could never think I could do because it just is not realistic, and besides, who would teach these classes? We are already short teachers even with the 5 of 12 teachers that are volunteers. So all I can do next term, now that I have a clearer understanding of what the situation is here, is work hard and find out why they are not understanding it, it occurred to me that some might not be able to read, and to just help them as individuals as much as I can.
Exams:
The students were unable to take the exams that we had originally written for them due to the fact that we had no paper because as a school we could not buy any due to a lack of funds (the Headmistress has been using her own money to get things we need for the school and she has 3 kids of her own) and the Ministry didn’t send us any. No paper meant no photocopying (we do have a Xerox machine that can be run on a small generator), but without paper that machine is no good. Most students are supposed to take a CXC style exam (it depends on which form they are in and which subject the exam is for), which consists of 2 exams. Paper I is a long multiple choice and maybe some True/False and short answer. Paper II is supposed to be more essay style with only about 2-3 essay questions. For fifth form I had to write 60 multiple choice questions on paper I. When we found out that there would be no way to make paper copies of the exam we realized most of the exams we had written were not going to be administered. There was no way that I was going to be able to write out 60 multiple-choice questions on the chalkboard. I ended up going through the exam and picking out the most important points and minimizing my exams as much as I could so they could realistically take it in the time allotted. Once again the students lose out because taking these CXC style exams gives them practice taking the exam and gives them a chance to learn how the exams are written, so when the time comes for the real thing they are comfortable with the style of the CXC’s. The CXC exams are taken at the end of their last year of secondary school and their scores determine what kinds of jobs they would be able to get in Guyana (and maybe the whole Caribbean, since they are exams taken by all Caribbean countries…I don’t know??). It’s hard when you see fifth form students (this would be like 12th grade) working so hard only to have yet one more disadvantage because their education system lacks the ability to complete basic tasks like sending down paper for exams they dictate are required. It seems like liability is not a word in the vocabulary of any of the Ministry officials, and the sad result is that the children of Guyana are paying for it, more so in Region 9 since people look down on the Amerindians that inhabit this part of the country.
The People:
I mentioned earlier that we went to Aranaputa, a beautifully lush village that sits in a basin surrounded by mountains and jungle that is 6 miles away from the school. Let me introduce the two girls that I went with. Grace and Kirsty are 17 and newly 18 Project Trust volunteers from Scotland. They are both amazingly high-energy and spirited people that have gracefully adjusted to life in the Rupununi. I could not imagine being in this situation when I was 17, and I am so proud of them. My first inclination was they were only going to last a week when I heard Grace say “what made them think that I could live like this in the middle of nowhere?” (they are not given any kind of choice as to where they are placed whereas Jess and I asked to be very rural like we are), however, not long after they had made their house a home and were really being creative about how to make it all work. Probably more so than Jess and I, but we were in very different living situations. I think seeing how Grace and Kirsty had made themselves a home made Jess and I that much more anxious to want to get situated in the place that we were going to be living and so we could make our own home. So anyways, yeah, they are great and lots of fun, and on a sunny Sunday morning we made our way off the compound on our bikes to go to a Gospel church with one of our students. The roads in the village are pretty much all sand, which is not very easy to ride a bike in. I actually tipped and fell off my bike at one point in the day. We went to church, which was a short service led by some of the parishioners due to the fact that the Reverend was out of town. They sang some songs, which I wished I knew so I could sing along, and read some versus out of the Bible. They acknowledged us welcomed us into their church during the service, and after the service one of our other student’s (Althea) sister Zita, who is a teacher at Aranaputa Primary School, came over to us and invited us to her house for lunch. After being led around the village by Jennifer Peters, who you can see a picture of on my blog, and stopping at random students’ houses to meet their families, we made it over to the other side of the road where the village continues to Althea’s house. We sat with her and her family and looked at pictures, and her sister Zita told us there was lunch waiting inside. When we finally went in we couldn’t believe it. There were only 3 plates on the table, along with a nice spread of food, and they wanted us to sit down and eat first. After insisting they eat with us, we enjoyed lots of local dishes like chow mien and a chicken dish together. When we were leaving we thanked them up and down for being so hospitable to us, as all the locals seem to be. At each house we went to we either were given fruits to take home or given food and drink. When we were headed home the 3 of us just kept saying, “Geez-everyone here is so nice.”
Thanksgiving:
Happy Thanksgiving to you all…it didn’t feel like Thanksgiving to us, but we did end up having a Thanksgiving meal on that Friday. I got to talk to my family over the computer, which was nice but did make me miss home knowing they were all together and I couldn’t be there with them.
Well, exam results will be out in December’s Newsletter and I get to be at home reflecting on the differences between Chicago and Annai living. I hope that everyone is doing well and enjoying the cold weather I never thought I would miss…I hope that everyone is finding they are actually getting my emails now seeing as I have been able to fix the second newsletter group in my contacts list. But there are pictures on my blog, so make sure you check it out.
www.wattsinguyana.blogspot.com
Happy Holidays!!!
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Home for Christmas and taking hot showers!
Hey everyone, happy holidays!!!! I hope everyone is keeping happy, healthy, and warm!! I am home for Christmas right now, and I have been slowly but surely reacclimating to life with hot showers, vegetables, electricity, and burrrrrr, the cold! I got home on Wednesday the 12th, and I will be here until the 2nd of January. I already do miss Annai, but I know that I will be back soon enough. While I am here I have been enjoying the company of my much missed mother, and I have been able to see most of my family (I get to see the rest tomorrow...my niece is starring in a play and I can't wait to see it!)and some friends. I am trying to convince my brother to let me have a party at his house on Friday the 22nd, so if you are in the area of St. Charles, keep it in mind. I have been eating my little heart out, salads for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I have been cooking, and my mom and I bought a 50 pound bag of flour to work on my bread making. I am going to be cooking most of the dinner on Christmas, and I am really excited for that. I will make a few things that I have learned to make in Guyana, like roti, bake, and a curry of some sort. My mom, brother, his girlfriend Courtney, my friend Erin, and I went out for seafood at McCormick and Schmick's last night, it was oh so good...New York strip, seared rare yellowfin tuna, calamari, some good wine....it was heaven. I am mmming and ahhhing everything I put near my mouth to taste or near my nose to smell. I went grocery shopping with my mom the first full day I was home, and man was that a bit overwhelming, but man did we get some good stuff! I wonder if I didn't come back in the middle of all this how intense my readjustment would be at the end of the year. It would be interesting if there was a way I could see...I guess I will just have to do it again sometime and stay put for the whole year. I do feel incredibly lucky to be home, I probably would have been crying my eyes out on Christmas day. It will be cool to hear from Gace and Kirsty and Bryan (other volunteers that stayed there) to see how thier Christmas was.
Well, I hope that everyone is doing good and trying to take time to enjoy the season for what it is supposed to be and if I don't have a chance to see you or talk to you, well, let me bid you a very merry holiday season! Take care!!
P.S. I am working on November's newsletter now...I will have it up in the next few days, but until then I hope you are enjoying finally being able to see some pictures!
Well, I hope that everyone is doing good and trying to take time to enjoy the season for what it is supposed to be and if I don't have a chance to see you or talk to you, well, let me bid you a very merry holiday season! Take care!!
P.S. I am working on November's newsletter now...I will have it up in the next few days, but until then I hope you are enjoying finally being able to see some pictures!
Monday, November 27, 2006
October Newsletter
I am working on the pictures slowly but surely...it takes a while to upload them...
October Newsletter
It’s strange to not have the season starting to change…kind of sad to be missing all the fall colors, the chilly weather moving in, the scarecrows and cobwebs, and cuddling up on a Sunday morning under the blankets on the couch watching some movie you have probably seen one thousand times before….but you love it just the same and nestle on in. My mind seems like it will forever be stuck in summer while I am here, and when I come home next July it will be hard to understand that a year has passed. If I refer to last summer, I will probably be talking about summer of 2005.
It is still hot here, obviously, I am just above the equator. Everyday brings the sunshine, and along with that, the heat of the sun’s rays…It’s always the hardest to teach after lunch, because it is one o’clock, and the breeze took a lunch break, not to return until sometime after dark. Both the students and the teachers drag through seventh and eighth period, and when the bell is rung at 2:00, after announcements have been done and the pledge has been recited, we all leave to head home, some of us straight into our beds or the hammock.
The beginning of this month was a little stressful due to our lack of home; but that all got worked out…Jess and I are slowly but surely putting a personal stamp on our new place and making it our home and I must say it is coming along quite nicely...It was also hard in the way of adjusting in the same way I mentioned in September, having days where I really liked it here, and then the days when I would have given anything to get out of here and return safely to my home in Chicago where life seemed easy compared to this. There were long periods when I felt like I hadn’t laughed for weeks, which to me means that I was not mentally healthy (don’t think I can’t hear your sarcastic remarks coming back…), but I soon realized it’s all about how I let myself handle things…So I took a hold of those thoughts and emotions of mine, and eventually I found myself laughing again at just about everything that was funny…I once again started letting myself see humor in life instead of letting the black hole of negativeness suck me in…I sometimes still have those bad days where I feel there is no bright side, but those days are still getting to be even fewer and more far between as I sit here writing this (which time is no longer in the month of October, it seems to be hastily slipping away), which means that everyday I feel a little more settled, a little more at home. I love the relaxed atmosphere where life actually has time to be lived. My weekends are thoroughly enjoyed by sitting in the back of my house catching a cool breeze in my hammock, sipping on coffee, reading a book, writing in my journal, building something out of wood, which I have been having the most incredible and curious urge to do, or just doing whatever it is that I fancy in that moment. Granted these long and luxurious days tend to lead to temporary bouts of ADD, but that’s okay…it’s not like I really have to be that focused. And then, before I know it, my relaxing and wonderful weekend is already over and I can’t believe I managed to fill that time and still be wishing for more. A new thing I have been doing that I have fallen in love with is playing on a slack line…It’s a rope made of tubular nylon webbing that you tie between two poles and try to walk across…similar to tightrope walking, but not that high, and it gives in the middle (hence the slack part of the name). It’s good for balance, and man, can it keep you entertained for a better part of the afternoon. We have also been practicing the whip and the bow and arrow…Sunday Funday continues…
At school we started collecting organisms to view and man did I have a good time with that.... I found this huge moth just about dead in my room, which was perfect because I just so happened to be teaching some of my classes about pollination, so I pulled out the huge, long proboscis to show the students how the insect gets it’s reward of nectar. I also caught a big spider, a jumping spider of some sort, and we wanted look at it up close and see all eight of it’s eyes…This required killing it of course, so I tried ethanol, then when that didn’t work, boric acid. I feared the spirit of this poor spider would haunt me, as well as it’s kin, but to my amazement this strapping little spider persevered in the face of death, so much that I resolved to set it free for it had fought the good fight and deserved to linger in life. One of the students also brought in a millipede, which worked out perfectly because we also had a centipede, creepy and quick little buggers they are, and we practiced using a dichotomous key to identify which was which (of course they already knew which was which, but it was just practice…).
Every morning there is a short little assembly where the students do their pledge and national anthem, and there is a quote of the weeks and a song of the week. Each teacher takes a turn doing a week. During one of the weeks this month they sang this song that all of us foreign teachers found amusing, it goes,
“Children don’t waste your time at school,
Always try and obey the rules,
Schools not a place for a fashion parade,
Or a jewellery exhibition,
So don’t waste your time at school…:”
It’s one of those songs that once you get it in your head you sing it all day, or in our case, all week. It’s a fun and upbeat song that’s a hoot to sing, and especially fun to start your day to, and then you end up humming it all day…The students got a kick out of the fact that we liked it, and they would sing it as they went by us and helped us in learning the words. Don’t you all worry if you don’t yet appreciate it in all it’s splendour-I will sing it for you once I get home.
Towards the end of the month a few students and I went to the Iwokrama Centralized Wildlife Club meeting…Our club’s name is Green Paradise Club, and I took a few students to spend a Saturday afternoon talking about bird watching (the program is sponsored by the Audubon Society), composting, self esteem, and then they worked all afternoon to prepare to put on the skit in the evening. We had a lot of fun, and the students are actually really good actors!! It was funny. In terms of the club, we just elected officers and we are trying to come up with activities that we want to do next term, like hiking up and staying the night on the Aranaputa Nature Trail, and we have started talking about how we can do some fundraising to help send us on these adventures as well as help to provide us with funds for other projects we want to delve into around the compound, such as composting, building picnic tables, landscaping…we are trying to set some big goals that we can hopefully achieve throughout the next two terms…
So here’s a good story….it was a lazy Sunday afternoon in the compound, we were all sitting around doing not much of anything, reading, writing, each one of us in our own little worlds. Then what to our wondering eyes should appear, but a giant anteater….It was awesome. The kids chased it into the compound and Bryan, Jess, and I ran out yelling (screaming perhaps?) out to Grace and Kirsty next door (it’s funny how we just talk through the walls at times) to get outside to see it, and we all ran out there with our cameras in hand (except me, man oh man). It was so scared, I felt so bad for it, so we tried to corner it in a way that it would be forced to go back out the gate and leave the compound… inside the gates the kids might have terrorized it to death. I ended up getting so close to it at one point, I took one look at its hooves and decided this thing could probably hurt me pretty bad if it was that scared and saw me as a threat, so I backed away. Its tail is huge and it looks almost feathery, and its snout was just as long as its body and tail combined it seemed. Luckily before it got hurt by one of the students and before it hurt itself we got it safely out of the compound, and it was exciting to watch it run home back into the savannah. We were not quite sure if it was a giant anteater, which is an endangered species, or a regular anteater, but either way it was a nice way to be roused on that lazy Sunday afternoon! The moment was filled with so much excited energy coming from everyone, we were all smiles after it moseyed on it’s way.
A few weekends ago I was lucky enough to be able to venture into the Kunuku Mountains, which separate the Hinterlands into the North and South Rupununi. We were led in by some locals that rented a mini-bus that was to take us into the bush, far, far into the jungle (okay, not that far, but it was a good ride in and then a decent hike). There were times in the bus that I thought it was going to tip over, there was no road, and we were up on a ledge…It was a bit unnerving, but at the same time so much fun. We got stuck in the mud only twice if I recall correctly, and we had to get out and push the vehicle. Pepe Moreno blared out of the speakers, his 5 songs set to repeat for the entirety of the afternoon, it amazes me that all of Guyana has not gone deaf. Seriously, I could not believe that we still were driving this far into the bush…there literally was no rode and we had to close the windows so we wouldn’t get whipped with razor grass and branches. The guys would have to get out and walk in front of the mini bus to help us make it through without getting stuck or tipping over. So once we got to a place we could no longer navigate by car, we set off on foot and hiked the rest of the way in…It was such a nice waterfall, it was like a little playground where you could hike up just a bit more and see all the different waterfalls that led in to the big one that we first saw at the bottom. We cut up some palm tree branches and placed them across the rocks to for a grill and the boys cooked up some good grub. We hiked around, played in the water, and looked around a bit. When we got back in we went for some ice cream, which is a major luxury for Jess and I , it was such good homemade ice cream that Sean said was some sort of corn flavor. I don’t really know what flavour it was, but man was it good.
Lastly, Halloween….It was definitely weird to realize it was Halloween with the sun shining bright and hot like it was the middle of July…We were having a party for the kids, and I didn’t even realize that they had no idea what Halloween even was. Some of them ended up making costumes, which ended up being really creative considering the supplies they had to make them with. We played a game where the adults went and hid and the students had to run around the compound looking for us, and whoever found all six of us first won. It was really exciting, I hid in the jamoon tree right by my house (it looked like rain, and this way I was close in case it started to downpour), and I would giggle to myself when the kids would unsuspectingly run right underneath me. They eventually started to see me though, and once one came it would draw a crowd. It was a lot of fun and it inspired me to want to put together a game of capture the flag someday soon.
Well, once again I wish everyone well and I hope that everyone is well…remember to laugh and try to keep on the sunny side…as hard as it might seem some days it is the only thing we can do…November’s will be just around the corner, and I will be getting pictures up on my blog as time permits…Until then, take care of yourself and I am getting excited to come home for Christmas and see some of you!! Hope everyone is enjoying the fall weather and all the glorious colors that I am missing so much!! Bye!!
October Newsletter
It’s strange to not have the season starting to change…kind of sad to be missing all the fall colors, the chilly weather moving in, the scarecrows and cobwebs, and cuddling up on a Sunday morning under the blankets on the couch watching some movie you have probably seen one thousand times before….but you love it just the same and nestle on in. My mind seems like it will forever be stuck in summer while I am here, and when I come home next July it will be hard to understand that a year has passed. If I refer to last summer, I will probably be talking about summer of 2005.
It is still hot here, obviously, I am just above the equator. Everyday brings the sunshine, and along with that, the heat of the sun’s rays…It’s always the hardest to teach after lunch, because it is one o’clock, and the breeze took a lunch break, not to return until sometime after dark. Both the students and the teachers drag through seventh and eighth period, and when the bell is rung at 2:00, after announcements have been done and the pledge has been recited, we all leave to head home, some of us straight into our beds or the hammock.
The beginning of this month was a little stressful due to our lack of home; but that all got worked out…Jess and I are slowly but surely putting a personal stamp on our new place and making it our home and I must say it is coming along quite nicely...It was also hard in the way of adjusting in the same way I mentioned in September, having days where I really liked it here, and then the days when I would have given anything to get out of here and return safely to my home in Chicago where life seemed easy compared to this. There were long periods when I felt like I hadn’t laughed for weeks, which to me means that I was not mentally healthy (don’t think I can’t hear your sarcastic remarks coming back…), but I soon realized it’s all about how I let myself handle things…So I took a hold of those thoughts and emotions of mine, and eventually I found myself laughing again at just about everything that was funny…I once again started letting myself see humor in life instead of letting the black hole of negativeness suck me in…I sometimes still have those bad days where I feel there is no bright side, but those days are still getting to be even fewer and more far between as I sit here writing this (which time is no longer in the month of October, it seems to be hastily slipping away), which means that everyday I feel a little more settled, a little more at home. I love the relaxed atmosphere where life actually has time to be lived. My weekends are thoroughly enjoyed by sitting in the back of my house catching a cool breeze in my hammock, sipping on coffee, reading a book, writing in my journal, building something out of wood, which I have been having the most incredible and curious urge to do, or just doing whatever it is that I fancy in that moment. Granted these long and luxurious days tend to lead to temporary bouts of ADD, but that’s okay…it’s not like I really have to be that focused. And then, before I know it, my relaxing and wonderful weekend is already over and I can’t believe I managed to fill that time and still be wishing for more. A new thing I have been doing that I have fallen in love with is playing on a slack line…It’s a rope made of tubular nylon webbing that you tie between two poles and try to walk across…similar to tightrope walking, but not that high, and it gives in the middle (hence the slack part of the name). It’s good for balance, and man, can it keep you entertained for a better part of the afternoon. We have also been practicing the whip and the bow and arrow…Sunday Funday continues…
At school we started collecting organisms to view and man did I have a good time with that.... I found this huge moth just about dead in my room, which was perfect because I just so happened to be teaching some of my classes about pollination, so I pulled out the huge, long proboscis to show the students how the insect gets it’s reward of nectar. I also caught a big spider, a jumping spider of some sort, and we wanted look at it up close and see all eight of it’s eyes…This required killing it of course, so I tried ethanol, then when that didn’t work, boric acid. I feared the spirit of this poor spider would haunt me, as well as it’s kin, but to my amazement this strapping little spider persevered in the face of death, so much that I resolved to set it free for it had fought the good fight and deserved to linger in life. One of the students also brought in a millipede, which worked out perfectly because we also had a centipede, creepy and quick little buggers they are, and we practiced using a dichotomous key to identify which was which (of course they already knew which was which, but it was just practice…).
Every morning there is a short little assembly where the students do their pledge and national anthem, and there is a quote of the weeks and a song of the week. Each teacher takes a turn doing a week. During one of the weeks this month they sang this song that all of us foreign teachers found amusing, it goes,
“Children don’t waste your time at school,
Always try and obey the rules,
Schools not a place for a fashion parade,
Or a jewellery exhibition,
So don’t waste your time at school…:”
It’s one of those songs that once you get it in your head you sing it all day, or in our case, all week. It’s a fun and upbeat song that’s a hoot to sing, and especially fun to start your day to, and then you end up humming it all day…The students got a kick out of the fact that we liked it, and they would sing it as they went by us and helped us in learning the words. Don’t you all worry if you don’t yet appreciate it in all it’s splendour-I will sing it for you once I get home.
Towards the end of the month a few students and I went to the Iwokrama Centralized Wildlife Club meeting…Our club’s name is Green Paradise Club, and I took a few students to spend a Saturday afternoon talking about bird watching (the program is sponsored by the Audubon Society), composting, self esteem, and then they worked all afternoon to prepare to put on the skit in the evening. We had a lot of fun, and the students are actually really good actors!! It was funny. In terms of the club, we just elected officers and we are trying to come up with activities that we want to do next term, like hiking up and staying the night on the Aranaputa Nature Trail, and we have started talking about how we can do some fundraising to help send us on these adventures as well as help to provide us with funds for other projects we want to delve into around the compound, such as composting, building picnic tables, landscaping…we are trying to set some big goals that we can hopefully achieve throughout the next two terms…
So here’s a good story….it was a lazy Sunday afternoon in the compound, we were all sitting around doing not much of anything, reading, writing, each one of us in our own little worlds. Then what to our wondering eyes should appear, but a giant anteater….It was awesome. The kids chased it into the compound and Bryan, Jess, and I ran out yelling (screaming perhaps?) out to Grace and Kirsty next door (it’s funny how we just talk through the walls at times) to get outside to see it, and we all ran out there with our cameras in hand (except me, man oh man). It was so scared, I felt so bad for it, so we tried to corner it in a way that it would be forced to go back out the gate and leave the compound… inside the gates the kids might have terrorized it to death. I ended up getting so close to it at one point, I took one look at its hooves and decided this thing could probably hurt me pretty bad if it was that scared and saw me as a threat, so I backed away. Its tail is huge and it looks almost feathery, and its snout was just as long as its body and tail combined it seemed. Luckily before it got hurt by one of the students and before it hurt itself we got it safely out of the compound, and it was exciting to watch it run home back into the savannah. We were not quite sure if it was a giant anteater, which is an endangered species, or a regular anteater, but either way it was a nice way to be roused on that lazy Sunday afternoon! The moment was filled with so much excited energy coming from everyone, we were all smiles after it moseyed on it’s way.
A few weekends ago I was lucky enough to be able to venture into the Kunuku Mountains, which separate the Hinterlands into the North and South Rupununi. We were led in by some locals that rented a mini-bus that was to take us into the bush, far, far into the jungle (okay, not that far, but it was a good ride in and then a decent hike). There were times in the bus that I thought it was going to tip over, there was no road, and we were up on a ledge…It was a bit unnerving, but at the same time so much fun. We got stuck in the mud only twice if I recall correctly, and we had to get out and push the vehicle. Pepe Moreno blared out of the speakers, his 5 songs set to repeat for the entirety of the afternoon, it amazes me that all of Guyana has not gone deaf. Seriously, I could not believe that we still were driving this far into the bush…there literally was no rode and we had to close the windows so we wouldn’t get whipped with razor grass and branches. The guys would have to get out and walk in front of the mini bus to help us make it through without getting stuck or tipping over. So once we got to a place we could no longer navigate by car, we set off on foot and hiked the rest of the way in…It was such a nice waterfall, it was like a little playground where you could hike up just a bit more and see all the different waterfalls that led in to the big one that we first saw at the bottom. We cut up some palm tree branches and placed them across the rocks to for a grill and the boys cooked up some good grub. We hiked around, played in the water, and looked around a bit. When we got back in we went for some ice cream, which is a major luxury for Jess and I , it was such good homemade ice cream that Sean said was some sort of corn flavor. I don’t really know what flavour it was, but man was it good.
Lastly, Halloween….It was definitely weird to realize it was Halloween with the sun shining bright and hot like it was the middle of July…We were having a party for the kids, and I didn’t even realize that they had no idea what Halloween even was. Some of them ended up making costumes, which ended up being really creative considering the supplies they had to make them with. We played a game where the adults went and hid and the students had to run around the compound looking for us, and whoever found all six of us first won. It was really exciting, I hid in the jamoon tree right by my house (it looked like rain, and this way I was close in case it started to downpour), and I would giggle to myself when the kids would unsuspectingly run right underneath me. They eventually started to see me though, and once one came it would draw a crowd. It was a lot of fun and it inspired me to want to put together a game of capture the flag someday soon.
Well, once again I wish everyone well and I hope that everyone is well…remember to laugh and try to keep on the sunny side…as hard as it might seem some days it is the only thing we can do…November’s will be just around the corner, and I will be getting pictures up on my blog as time permits…Until then, take care of yourself and I am getting excited to come home for Christmas and see some of you!! Hope everyone is enjoying the fall weather and all the glorious colors that I am missing so much!! Bye!!
Saturday, November 25, 2006
greetings all!!
My October newsletter is just about finished, I am just putting on the final touches...hopefully it will come accompanied by pictures....
September Newsletter Part II
September 2006: Part II
So…I hope that everyone enjoyed the first part of September with me…Sorry I have no pictures, but the internet access here is really slow and I also do not really have a way to get them on. I will be working on getting this newsletter onto a blog instead of doing it this way so that we won’t have the problems that we have been having…
So, I will start with adjusting to a different life in a different, not to mention undeveloped, country. In a territory that is very foreign to me there are some days I feel like it is all normal and I am used to it, however, other days I want to cry, to go home, to quit it all because I feel out of my element, I miss home, especially my mama, and there is nothing I like about this place. Feelings like these come and go, and hopefully with time everyday will feel normal, with these bad days being few and far between…like it is my home for the time being, and I enjoy being here(In real-time, while I am actually writing about this, which I can assure you is not in September, time slips away so fast, I do feel very calm, content, and happy here most days…) Part of the problem was that Jessica and I were living in limbo without a place to call home, which was a source of mounting frustration after 3 weeks of orientation with 30 people, feeling dumped in the middle of nowhere, and to then not have a place to settle in to and call our safe haven, a place where the big bad wolf just outside our door could not blow down to further agitate our poor rattled nerves (this living situation in real-time is now corrected, whoo, praise the Lord).
In terms of adapting to living in a tribal community that is possibly on the verge of being exploited by the Western world, well, it’s hard to know what to think. I want to educate these children, but it seems like some people, possibly those that come from Georgetown, ridicule their way of life in a way that makes them seem very insecure about who they are and where they come from…I actually had a student tell me that she wished she was white and could come live in America with me…very disturbing. I want to show them the opportunities that are out there if they really want them, but at the same time, I don’t want them to feel like they shouldn’t be content on living the tribal life that they and their ancestors have been living since, well, the tribe started. The name of the tribe that is in this area is the Macushi Tribe…and to illustrate how rapidly they are losing their foothold on their culture, the parents of the students all know the Macushi language, however, their children do not and most of them seem to have no aspirations to learn it. In one generation it is possible that this language could be lost. And lost to what?
My Ishmael…
By Daniel Quinn
“For hundreds of thousands of years, people as smart as you had had a way of life that worked well for them. The descendants of these people can today still be found here and there, and wherever they’re found in an untouched state, they give every evidence of being perfectly content with their way of life. They’re not at war with each other, generation against generation, or class against class. They’re not plagued by anguish, anxiety, depression, self-hatred, crime, madness, alcoholism, and drug addiction. They don’t complain of oppression and injustice. They don’t describe their lives as meaningless and empty. They’re not seething with hatred and rage. They don’t look into the sky yearning for contact with gods and angels and prophets, and alien spacemen and spirits of the dead. And they don’t wish someone would come along and tell them how to live. This is because they already know how to live, and ten thousand years ago humans everywhere knew how to live. But knowing how to live was something the people of your culture had to destroy in order to make themselves rulers of the world.”
While I realize not all of this holds true, and I also realize that not everyone might think this way, there seems to be people that think that every community should be striving to become part of the developing world, the Western World, and in being here and seeing all the beautiful natural resources these people have, I have come to realize that one can only hope that they leave the land as their ancestors have left it, respect it the way their ancestors did, and that a few don’t get greedy and start hording all the resources to themselves. I must see that while some may be yearning to get out of here and go into a different world, one that they have been told is so much more glorious than the one they know, there are some here that are very content with their way of living and it is not place in coming here to uproot that feeling. I am sure that most of the Amerindians here do not wish someone from the outside to come in and tell them how to live; they do know how to live. It might not be to the excess the rest of the world lives in, but isn’t that good? At one time I want to say, wow, there is a whole big world out there, you have no idea, and at the other time, there is so much to explore here, so much it could possibly take you a whole lifetime if you let it.
In terms of teaching and the school…School started on September fourth, but we really didn’t start teaching until the third week into it…They cannot do their time table of classes until they are sure they know what teachers will be returning and what subjects the teachers have the ability to teach. The HM (Headmaster/headmistress) did not arrive until two weeks into the term…for unknown reasons. She is new at the school this year and comes from the coast. At first I was a little sceptical, but now I think that she is really trying to do good things for the school, like get enough gasoline at one time so we don’t keep running out…the generator will be on for a week and then off for three (when it does come on it is only from about 7-9:00). We ended up with 12 teachers total, I wanted to teach Geography, but I ended up with too much on my plate, so that was out…I want to start a Geography club next term because a lot of students are interested in it, and I am interested in learning about it as well. I ended up teaching Biology and Integrated Science (a combo of all sciences as far as I can tell, with a few odd topics to cover here and there). Without World Teach, Project Trust, and Peace Corps, there would only be 7 teachers here (one teacher left on maternity leave) to teach something like 200 students. The school doesn’t really have much in terms of resources. They don’t have textbooks, which make it hard to teach because there are not many visual aids, and therefore, everything they need to know needs to be written on the board, which leaves them taking lots of notes, and it seems as though most students never peek at them again. Most of the curriculum is way beyond them, and it seems they may have gotten lost at the very start of their schooling career, since the Ministry of Education is so dead set on teachers following a syllabus, which they move through too quickly even if the students don’t understand…those that don’t are left behind from that point on. I have been trying to just read my students by asking them questions to see if they really understand, and if the majority don’t, I don’t move any further. I have a hard time understanding what the point of moving on is if they don’t understand a concept that is essential in order to build a pyramid of information on top of it. I have been trying to make it fun while being stern at the same time…I have heard that if you are not stern in the beginning you might end up with a nightmare, so seeing as nightmares scare me, I am trying to evade such a situation as much as I possibly can.
I live at work basically, and let me tell you, although I am sure that most of you know, living at work is oh but a dream…What are you talking about sarcasm…I sense not an ounce of sarcasm in that statement whatsoever…okay, fine, it’s really not that bad, but after a long day with the students, sometimes we have a hard time finding some privacy due to the fact that we have a guava tree, a lime tree, and a jamoon tree just outside our backdoor. The girls get bored on the weekends, so they make rounds to our house, one group comes, they go, the next group comes, the next group goes, and so it continues on this way all day, some you have to tell their time has ended and they must leave while others just keep going on their merry little way after just a short amount of time. Most of the students are sweet, and most of them are really polite…Good Morning Miss, Good Afternoon Miss, Good Night Miss…these are the usual greetings which take some time getting used to. Instead of saying good night as a bid farewell, here it is a salutation. There are a few unruly students, but given the age group this is nothing to fret about, mostly the boys, occasionally the girls.
Well then folks, take care for now, and October’s newsletter is just around the corner. I managed to get a blog going and the web address is heatheringuyana.blogspot.com, and hopefully it will be full of pictures soon!!
Until then, keep on the sunny side and take care!!
So…I hope that everyone enjoyed the first part of September with me…Sorry I have no pictures, but the internet access here is really slow and I also do not really have a way to get them on. I will be working on getting this newsletter onto a blog instead of doing it this way so that we won’t have the problems that we have been having…
So, I will start with adjusting to a different life in a different, not to mention undeveloped, country. In a territory that is very foreign to me there are some days I feel like it is all normal and I am used to it, however, other days I want to cry, to go home, to quit it all because I feel out of my element, I miss home, especially my mama, and there is nothing I like about this place. Feelings like these come and go, and hopefully with time everyday will feel normal, with these bad days being few and far between…like it is my home for the time being, and I enjoy being here(In real-time, while I am actually writing about this, which I can assure you is not in September, time slips away so fast, I do feel very calm, content, and happy here most days…) Part of the problem was that Jessica and I were living in limbo without a place to call home, which was a source of mounting frustration after 3 weeks of orientation with 30 people, feeling dumped in the middle of nowhere, and to then not have a place to settle in to and call our safe haven, a place where the big bad wolf just outside our door could not blow down to further agitate our poor rattled nerves (this living situation in real-time is now corrected, whoo, praise the Lord).
In terms of adapting to living in a tribal community that is possibly on the verge of being exploited by the Western world, well, it’s hard to know what to think. I want to educate these children, but it seems like some people, possibly those that come from Georgetown, ridicule their way of life in a way that makes them seem very insecure about who they are and where they come from…I actually had a student tell me that she wished she was white and could come live in America with me…very disturbing. I want to show them the opportunities that are out there if they really want them, but at the same time, I don’t want them to feel like they shouldn’t be content on living the tribal life that they and their ancestors have been living since, well, the tribe started. The name of the tribe that is in this area is the Macushi Tribe…and to illustrate how rapidly they are losing their foothold on their culture, the parents of the students all know the Macushi language, however, their children do not and most of them seem to have no aspirations to learn it. In one generation it is possible that this language could be lost. And lost to what?
My Ishmael…
By Daniel Quinn
“For hundreds of thousands of years, people as smart as you had had a way of life that worked well for them. The descendants of these people can today still be found here and there, and wherever they’re found in an untouched state, they give every evidence of being perfectly content with their way of life. They’re not at war with each other, generation against generation, or class against class. They’re not plagued by anguish, anxiety, depression, self-hatred, crime, madness, alcoholism, and drug addiction. They don’t complain of oppression and injustice. They don’t describe their lives as meaningless and empty. They’re not seething with hatred and rage. They don’t look into the sky yearning for contact with gods and angels and prophets, and alien spacemen and spirits of the dead. And they don’t wish someone would come along and tell them how to live. This is because they already know how to live, and ten thousand years ago humans everywhere knew how to live. But knowing how to live was something the people of your culture had to destroy in order to make themselves rulers of the world.”
While I realize not all of this holds true, and I also realize that not everyone might think this way, there seems to be people that think that every community should be striving to become part of the developing world, the Western World, and in being here and seeing all the beautiful natural resources these people have, I have come to realize that one can only hope that they leave the land as their ancestors have left it, respect it the way their ancestors did, and that a few don’t get greedy and start hording all the resources to themselves. I must see that while some may be yearning to get out of here and go into a different world, one that they have been told is so much more glorious than the one they know, there are some here that are very content with their way of living and it is not place in coming here to uproot that feeling. I am sure that most of the Amerindians here do not wish someone from the outside to come in and tell them how to live; they do know how to live. It might not be to the excess the rest of the world lives in, but isn’t that good? At one time I want to say, wow, there is a whole big world out there, you have no idea, and at the other time, there is so much to explore here, so much it could possibly take you a whole lifetime if you let it.
In terms of teaching and the school…School started on September fourth, but we really didn’t start teaching until the third week into it…They cannot do their time table of classes until they are sure they know what teachers will be returning and what subjects the teachers have the ability to teach. The HM (Headmaster/headmistress) did not arrive until two weeks into the term…for unknown reasons. She is new at the school this year and comes from the coast. At first I was a little sceptical, but now I think that she is really trying to do good things for the school, like get enough gasoline at one time so we don’t keep running out…the generator will be on for a week and then off for three (when it does come on it is only from about 7-9:00). We ended up with 12 teachers total, I wanted to teach Geography, but I ended up with too much on my plate, so that was out…I want to start a Geography club next term because a lot of students are interested in it, and I am interested in learning about it as well. I ended up teaching Biology and Integrated Science (a combo of all sciences as far as I can tell, with a few odd topics to cover here and there). Without World Teach, Project Trust, and Peace Corps, there would only be 7 teachers here (one teacher left on maternity leave) to teach something like 200 students. The school doesn’t really have much in terms of resources. They don’t have textbooks, which make it hard to teach because there are not many visual aids, and therefore, everything they need to know needs to be written on the board, which leaves them taking lots of notes, and it seems as though most students never peek at them again. Most of the curriculum is way beyond them, and it seems they may have gotten lost at the very start of their schooling career, since the Ministry of Education is so dead set on teachers following a syllabus, which they move through too quickly even if the students don’t understand…those that don’t are left behind from that point on. I have been trying to just read my students by asking them questions to see if they really understand, and if the majority don’t, I don’t move any further. I have a hard time understanding what the point of moving on is if they don’t understand a concept that is essential in order to build a pyramid of information on top of it. I have been trying to make it fun while being stern at the same time…I have heard that if you are not stern in the beginning you might end up with a nightmare, so seeing as nightmares scare me, I am trying to evade such a situation as much as I possibly can.
I live at work basically, and let me tell you, although I am sure that most of you know, living at work is oh but a dream…What are you talking about sarcasm…I sense not an ounce of sarcasm in that statement whatsoever…okay, fine, it’s really not that bad, but after a long day with the students, sometimes we have a hard time finding some privacy due to the fact that we have a guava tree, a lime tree, and a jamoon tree just outside our backdoor. The girls get bored on the weekends, so they make rounds to our house, one group comes, they go, the next group comes, the next group goes, and so it continues on this way all day, some you have to tell their time has ended and they must leave while others just keep going on their merry little way after just a short amount of time. Most of the students are sweet, and most of them are really polite…Good Morning Miss, Good Afternoon Miss, Good Night Miss…these are the usual greetings which take some time getting used to. Instead of saying good night as a bid farewell, here it is a salutation. There are a few unruly students, but given the age group this is nothing to fret about, mostly the boys, occasionally the girls.
Well then folks, take care for now, and October’s newsletter is just around the corner. I managed to get a blog going and the web address is heatheringuyana.blogspot.com, and hopefully it will be full of pictures soon!!
Until then, keep on the sunny side and take care!!
September Newsletter Part I
Pictures 1-3: My house...the walls do not go all the way up, which is actually pretty advantageous when you lock your keys in your room...you just climb up the door, pull yourself over the wall, and carefully find something to climb down on the other side.
Picture 4:
Me and some of the students. We made dinner at our house...the occasion was that two of the girls had a birthday and the other two helped Jess and me do wash down at the well for the first time.
Picture 5:
These are the trucks that we hop on to get to Lethem, which is 90 miles away...it has taken us 2 hours to get there, and it has taken us 14 hours to get there...
Picture 6:
The students have assembly every morning before school starts. They say the school prayer, the national pledge, the thought of the week and sing the song of the week. I taught them "Keep on the Sunny Side" when it was my week to lead assembly!
September 2006: Part I
Greetings from the North Rupununi!!! That is what they call the Region that I live in, well half of it anyways. The other half is, you guessed it, South Rupununi! The North and South Rupununi are separated by the Kanuku Mountains, which I had the pleasure of visiting last weekend…but you will have to wait to hear that until October’s newsletter…which is just around the corner, hopefully. Let me apologize for the lateness on this, I do not always have a computer that I can sit at for any extended period. They also call it the Hinterlands, which has a nice ring to it. ‘Where do you live?’ “Oh, in the Hinterlands.’
(I wrote this out on paper first) It’s roughly 5:15-5:30 a.m. I have no clock, but I have gotten good at telling time by the sky…the sun is just coming up to my right, and above me just to the left the moon is still shining bright and is looking roughly round and full. There is an amazing breeze here every morning; I’m still chilled even with my hoody on. I will cherish this breeze right now because in about 6 hours I will be wishing for it. Early mornings have become my favorite time, next to moonlit walks through the savannah…the morning is so quiet, one by one things start going to sleep as other things begin to open their eyes and yawn, and to hear all this while watching the sunrise over the mountains is a very peaceful and calming way to start my day. I like seeing the stars from my previous day and then watching the sunrise on my new day. I have started doing this recently, waking up pretty early, which is easy when going to bed late for me has become 8:30 p.m. This morning, however, I actually wanted to sleep a little bit longer. I started rousing and saw the sun was coming up, but I slothfully decided I would stay in bed for a bit…but the bats above me, well, they decided differently. Bats are apparently capable of some pretty high-pitched sounds that I was never aware of. I never thought I would have a bat as an alarm clock, nagging at me to get up when I just wanted to leave my mind dreaming for a few more lazy minutes, but sure enough, it complained about whatever it was moaning about for so long that I decided coffee was the next best thing. I bitterly climbed out of my bug net and told that bat to shut up. It’s still crying now. Now that I am up I guess I’ll forgive it and move on with my day.
Jess and I are slowly learning the way of life here in Annai. As I mentioned before, we have no running water, which means our voyages to the well provide water for drinking, bathing (straight out of the bucket nonetheless!), washing dishes, flushing the toilets, brushing our teeth, and any cooking, coffee, or tea. The well is just outside the compound…it is a round, cement platform about 7-8 feet in diameter, and there is roughly a 2x2 square hole cut into the middle of it. You tie your rope TIGHTLY to your bucket (otherwise you will be making a swift jump down that dark square hole to try to fetch your rope and bucket before the well swallows it whole) and you try to 1) throw your bucket in so it lands upside down 2) rest your bucket on the small ledge that’s about 5 feet below the ground surface and try to tip it so it lands on it’s side or upside down, or 3) lower your bucket to just above the surface of the water and give your rope a quick flick of the wrist. I find number 3 the easiest for me. We are actually getting pretty good at it. (Sometimes some of the kids would watch us while they were waiting for us in the beginning, and they would just giggle…they are always giggling…sometimes we are scared that there is something embarrassing hanging off the back of us, but now we know they just giggle…) Once you get your bucket at least halfway full you can then plunge it up and down until it submerges, and then you start pulling it up. Jess and I normally pull up two each, filling one large bucket that we carry up between us and 2 small buckets for each of our free hands. We then have to walk back up the hill. We try our hardest to get all the water back up, but it is inevitable, as we make our way back up the obstacle course of gravel, that some of it ends up on our feet and our legs…We try to split the buckets up so we have enough for drinking, bathing, and dishes, and all that other stuff I mentioned before.
I live in Annai, which I know I have already told you all. If you were to look at a map of the world, and you focused in on the western part of Guyana, you might see Lethem, Surama, or maybe even Annai. Surama is a nearby village of about 200 people. It was here that we hiked up just before sunset and saw the macaws flying. This is one of my favorite moments here so far. I am currently preparing a top ten list for October, so be ready…it should be good. Lethem is a bigger village, you could probably even call it a town. It is from Lethem that you can cross the river and be in Brazil (my trip to Brazil will also be in October’s newsletter…good times!!). This is where Jessica and I first fled after getting to Annai and feeling deserted in the middle of nowhere. We now flee there to try to get our hands on some fruits and vegetables. Annai does not have much in the way of either, and I miss them, as well as every cell in my body, terribly. Anyways, flying in here was amazing…when we started descending you could start seeing all the mountains and hills that these trees were on. So far, the only signs of human existence were on the plane…why then were we descending? A dose of reality set in and I had to ask myself where I was going and what the heck I had gotten myself into. I definitely felt very overwhelmed, even to the point of tears…they were tears of happiness and excitement, as well as a bit of fear. We then started to see groups of housing, thatched roofs of houses in the villages, and everything was very spread out. When the plane landed on the red gravel road, not scary in the slightest bit, no way, not landing on an unpaved road, and they literally threw our bags out on the runway, Jess and I got out on the runway, and the plane took off with J. Sue and Sean, they were headed towards Lethem.
We finally made it to the compound a few hours later, and after seeing our living situation for the first time, and seeing how secluded we were from everything else, how no one was even up on Bina Hill yet (this is what they call the hill where the school is and this Institute (I think the institute it is set up by the British), and we had no idea what to do in that moment. The guy who helped us get up to Bina Hill left and we both felt a little stressed out. We were tired, hot, sweaty, frustrated, confused, feeling out of our element, and both probably wishing we could snap our fingers and be at home in the U.S. in our nice and comfortable beds. All of a sudden it started pouring rain, and the only thing that we could think to do was throw on our suits and run outside and bathe in the rain (this conveniently saves you a trip to the well too). We felt so refreshed with higher spirits after that shower in the warm rain, and so we decided to venture out to explore our surroundings…. Here is the journal entry I wrote after our escapade into the wild, down that dark, rust-red, long gravel road….
8/22/2006
-Nighttime now…Jessica and I just had the scariest walk of our lives. After experiencing a bit of stage 2 (this is a stage of culture shock), we decided to go on a walk. It was nearing dusk, if you could call it dusk here, probably more like sunset to complete darkness, and we choose to go out exploring. When we left on a whim we had no idea where we were going or how long we would be gone. Thank God we thought to grab our headlamps, otherwise I think we might still be at Rock View Lodge right now. So we went out and walked and talked and just looked around at how beautiful this place is and we saw the village next to Rock View up ahead, so we just decided to go get some nice, cold beer. Walking down the road to Rock View we saw such a beautiful sunset behind the mountains-you would have thought then that our sensibility would have set in-how were we going to get home? But no, we didn’t think that far ahead, obviously still in stage 1. So we got some beers and ran in to Dillon again (this local guy) and he told us he couldn’t believe that we had walked all the way there. Maybe it was then that we realized that we would have to walk back in the dark, but I don’t think so because we still proceeded to have one beer, and yet one more. We bought a bottle of rum (which tastes more like whiskey than rum…El Dorado) and thought we could walk home and then just sip on some rum…Yeah. Before we even got out of the gates of Rock View we realized how dark it was and that we had a long walk ahead of us. Ten minutes into our walk terror had already struck us, but we just did our best to hide it from one another and walked faster than we might have walked ever before in our lives and with more determination to reach our destination than I have only felt in other situations where terror and fear were the only things I was feeling. I said a prayer, which I tend to save only for moments like these, but I said it because the only thing Jess and I could do was keep walking, and after that our fate was in the hands of some higher power that could choose to watch over us, which was what I was so desperately begging for. We kept track in slots of ten minutes, we reached the 10-minute mark, the 20-minute mark, 30 minutes…still not home and the Foot and Mouth building at the end of the long road to the compound had still not come into sight. There was a storm rolling in, at first it was paper lighting, which was at one time beautiful to see the mountains all lit up and, at the other time it was freaky because you felt like you were in some horror film and the boogie man was about to jump out at any second. We would see ahead of us in the distance reflecting eyes, what is was, we had no idea. Donkeys. Those damn donkeys. As long as it was only donkeys I suppose I should be happy. Finally we saw the building we had anxiously been waiting to see when we were only 5 minutes away form the ranch. I never thought Foot and Mouth Disease (that was what the building used to be used for) could make me so happy. We finally got back to the compound and just in time too, because literally about 5 minutes later it started to rain. Halfway through our walk the paper lightening turned into streak lightening and with those headlamps on our heads I was not quite sure if we had just made ourselves more of a target or not. My guess is that free electrons on your head might give you a little more exposure than you had ever hoped for. So we made it back safe and sound. We hated our place only hours before and returned to find our safe haven. And this all occurred before 8 p.m. We now lay in our safety net, which keeps bugs out, as well as the boogieman.
I hope everyone is doing well and keepin’ on the sunny side! I am doing really well, I really love it here. There was some stress in the beginning, but we now have a place to call home and we are really beginning to make it feel like our home. We made some crafts, have big furniture building plans out of scrap wood, and have nice places to sit and chill. I always feel like there is so much that `I want to do here, but the days are going so fast. We have not had electricity in a long time, so our days end at about 6:30. You can’t do much in the dark for long without the bugs attacking you. Part II: Life on Bina Hill and first weeks of school.,..Until next time…
I am going to try to send some pictures over email soon…there is trouble with the computer situation…not many that `I have access too….By the way, sorry this is late.
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