March 2007 Newsletter
Well, you have already received some March news, the “Look up at the sky” segment that included the incredible story of the plane ride and the Lunar Eclipse. Those were two events that occurred in the beginning of the month to fill a newsletter or two…I figure since you know some of the events that have already occurred in March I will share with you some journal entries, take you through a week in my life here in Annai, North Rupununi, in Region #9 of Guyana, and share my thoughts and feelings, those crazy emotions which I have yet been able to fully grasp the meaning of.
Before the depiction of my days in Annai I will first give you some detail of what is going on here. School is coming to a close for the term, which is insane in terms of time flying by- I never realized how fast 13-14 weeks could fly by. They have a week of review and revision (3/12-3/16), a week of exams (3/19-3/23), and a week of marking exams for teachers and the beginning of a venture home for students (3/26-3/30). I will be leaving to go with some of the students back to their village, Nappi, on Wednesday during the week of marking. I am really excited for this trip since I don’t ever really have a chance to see the far out villages that my students come from. This will by far be one of the biggest experiences I feel I will have missed out on when I leave Guyana, but in terms of time and money it just isn’t feasible to get around...Some villages take days to get to, and we only have our weekends. In Nappi, Delphina, one of my favorite third form students, is going to take us hiking to the falls and maybe even cook us pepper pot, which is a local dish I have never tried…I will let you know how it is. All I really know about it is that one of the World Teach Volunteers last year had to shave the legs of the cow they were making it out of…
So….
A week in my life….
Most of us believe that a week begins on Monday, but if the week is to begin in a nice and calm manner that doesn’t start with hurrying off to work, then I would prefer to start it on Sunday as the calendar tells me I should.
Sunday’s in Annai are by far my favorite days because they consist mostly of lounging in a hammock or bed and reading, doing wash, journal writing, spacing out somewhere in my head, reading again, this time maybe a magazine, a textbook, or back to whatever fiction story has me captivated at the moment…Sunday’s for me here are days that I can wander around not doing much of anything, while at the same time feeling completely satisfied at the end of the day.
Journal Entry 3/18/07
“I just make some bread, I beat the crap out of the dough, and now I will let it sit in the sun so the yeast can make it fluffy with carbon dioxide as it undergoes fermentation. I light a cigarette (no, I haven’t quit…yet) and walk out the back to grab a seat in my hammock. It’s squeaking-the brackets need some Soya oil. My clean, well, kind of clean wash is blowing on the line, I need it to dry quick since I have more waiting in the bucket to be rinsed and it looks as though some showers are moving in from the distance. Sunday morning. Another great day to get lost in this world and go wherever my mind takes me.
I lean my head back in the hammock and close my eyes. It’s about 11 a.m., roughly, and I’m already ready for an afternoon siesta. Kirsty has “knicked” my I-Pod again; I can hear Rusted Root playing from their kitchen.
It lightly starts to sprinkle as I stare at my wash, I’m praying it doesn’t pour, otherwise the drying will not move along as rapidly as I would like it to. I get up and start rinsing the second half. Shit-I shouldn’t have added more soap. Now it’s going to take a second rinse. I hate when that happens. I have found that the trick is to add just enough soap where you can legitimately imagine your clothes are actually getting cleaned but more instead of just wet so they can shrink back into shape.
Not only did I have a heaping mound of filth to wash, but also Tulip rolled around in donkey dung, or an equivalent, and I had to wash her too. Ah, my dirty, nasty bitch. Maybe she was trying to eat it (she has been caught on more than one occasion eating different varieties of turds) and ended up so drunk with pleasure that she fell over into it.”
Monday through Friday are just about the same thing. I wake up at about 5:30-6 a.m. with the sunrise and crawl out from underneath my bug net. Bleary-eyed I turn on the pot of water to make some coffee-Nescafe instant coffee and powdered milk…is there a better way to start the day? Sometimes I take a morning walk with my best friend I-Pod and my dog Tulip, other times I read or write in my journal, or maybe pull together some last minute details on a lesson-it depends on the morning.
The school bell rings (a hand held bell, not the type you are thinking of from your school days…I guess depending on your age ) for assembly at 8:15, and first period starts at 8:30. Every day my schedule is different. Monday’s and Friday’s are my busiest in terms of having classes and Tuesday is my least, with only 3 periods to teach. The other 5 periods of Tuesday are spent lesson planning and probably writing out notes for fifth form. We have one break at 10:15 until 10:30. Then we have another break, a lunch break, at 12:15 until 1:05. The last bell rings at 2:15, we reconvene again for assembly, and the students are dismissed at roughly 2:30.
Depending on what day it is, I get home between 2:31-4 p.m. Sometimes we run up to Rock View in order to check the post by 4 p.m. to retrieve letters that have been sent to Singapore before reaching Guyana, or else we read for the afternoon in our hammocks. Dinner talk/preparations begin at about 5, and by 6 we are normally eating or making some sort of concoction out of things we manage to scrounge up as a group. Beans, rice, chapattis (flour and water), roti (flour, water, sugar, salt, baking powder), beans again, and hopefully some sort of vegetable, mostly being okra, bora, or green cabbage, or if we are really lucky, a pumpkin to make pumpkin curry with…mmm…Did I mention beans? Hopefully the lights come on while we are cooking, but more often than not they do not get turned on until 7 p.m., which is after we have cooked and the sun has gone down.
Once the lights go on we normally go back to reading or do whatever it is that we might need to do for school. Kirsty and I decided the other night to pretend we were rock stars shooting a video and found that banging two lids to pots together make a fun yet deafeningly annoying instrument we called the symbols. We started in the kitchen and eventually found a dance floor/stage outside on the steps of the canteen. We danced to Salt-n-Pepa’s “None of your business” and “Shoop”, as well as a little Black Eyed Peas…Needless to say, I think we drove everyone within earshot of our clanging lids crazy, and I think Jess and Grace were more than happy to make their way over to the school to photocopy their exams. It was fun though; we released some stored up energy.
Things I think of between here and there….
For those that know me well, you will understand how good this is for me…for those of you that don’t know me that well, well, you’re about to…
Journal entry 3/25/07
“It is Sunday and I am barricaded within the cement walls of my house all by myself and I love it. I was supposed to go to Aranaputa with the girls, but I didn’t want to. I felt like I just needed the place to myself today, I needed a bit of quiet alone time. I have been reading back over my journal from March and there are so many entries where I mention something about going home, and to be honest with myself, it’s exactly what I am thinking of right now. I don’t want to go home today, or even tomorrow for that matter, but I am getting anxious to get home. I think coming here to Guyana to do this has been a very positive experience for me, and I am excited to go home and apply to the Western life of mine all the things I feel I have learnt here this year.
So what exactly have I learned? Well, I have definitely learned that I love spending time by myself just doing random things, whatever it is my mind feels like doing in a moment. If there is anything that I think is the most important quality I have realized about myself, it is this. I have always been such a social butterfly, unable to sit for more than one second by myself without hearing voices through a phone, a TV (even if I am not watching it), or able to even sit, I was always on the run. I am not running anymore, and I am rather happy with that. When I do get home I want to be less of the screwball I was before I left…
…I can’t wait to have my own apartment again, and not let myself be so busy that every single day I have something to do, somewhere to go. I want to stay at my apartment and lose myself in it, much in the way that I do on the weekends here.
I want to start saving my money instead of squandering it away on things I shouldn’t and save for things and experiences I really want…A foreign adventure with my mother, trips around my own astoundingly beautiful country, a farewell to my debt, money in the bank to head off to graduate school with…
These are things that make me anxious to get home (although I left some of the more personal thoughts out…). I want to become a better cook and have gatherings with my family and friends, I want to watch good quality films that make me think, as well as read books of the same. I want to learn about so many things in the world around me, about people and cultures, about government and religion, about Earth and space, the biology to the physics. And I want to write it all down. Everything I see and do I want to write down and keep track of the experience and my corresponding thoughts. I want be more in tune with my body, and I want to take better care of it seeing as I only get one in this life, and I like this life.
Probably having so much time to sit and think about these things is what makes me keep saying I want to go home-it’s because I am excited to see myself and how I respond to life back in the U.S. and the rest of the developed world after this experience. Plus, it seems like I see so many people able to move from here to there, and it makes me feel stuck on Bina Hill, unable to trek too far away into a place that has so much life to discover. Even though life here seems pretty easy, which I can’t say that it isn’t, it’s the monotony of it all that can drive me into a frenzy.
Sometimes I feel like I spend my days with students that don’t really care about the world around them, or what even can feel like themselves for that matter (why I let these ones stand out to me I don’t know why because there are many students that are gifted and very hardworking). (In the next few paragraphs when I say “they” I am only referring to those students that I see as being this neglectful of their future…In no way do I mean all the students or their parents or the whole of Guyanese people.) Maybe these students just scare me because I fear for what will happen to Guyana, especially the Rupununi, in the next 5-10 years if they don’t pull it together…the youth that is. They seem so lazy sometimes, like they can’t and don’t even want to care for themselves. They don’t want to do anything for themselves-not even make food. They just expect everyone else to do things for them. Seeing this makes me realize that maybe this area is too dependent on volunteers, which has been mentioned to me but I did not see it as so at the time. Each volunteer probably comes in with some form of pity or another towards the people, the students, and then we end up feeling bad and the students have figured it all out…and therefore they play the “poor me” and end up getting too many things handed to them with minimal effort on their part. And now they have become a product of their environment. The nurturing aspect has led them to take things for granted.
So what would happen if all 6 of the volunteers at this school left at the end of this year no more were to return? I ask them this sometimes. “Who will teach you?” I say. They have to take responsibility for their own people, for their land, for their futures. They cannot expect somebody else to do it without being exploited and having their land raped. They have to learn about certain things for their own subsistence, they have to learn so they don’t get outsmarted by the CEO of the next lumbering company that wants to do business here. “We will pave the road for you, and you can pay us with your trees.”
To someone who doesn’t know or is unable to think about what he really means because they haven’t been taught or haven’t learned how to think, this might sound like a fantastic idea, but who benefits? Don’t you think a paved road would make it easier for the CEO’s trucks to come and collect the lumber and haul it out with all it’s biomass over a smooth and freshly laid road? However, the person who has been taught to think, and is able to do it critically, might stop and weigh the pros and cons and would be able to ask the villain just the right questions to show (s)he is not a foo and that (s)he is educated and able to make wise decisions since (s)he has learned to assess a situation and is able to predict some of the results.
It’s even harder to see the students, especially the male students, which have strong personalities and are in a real position to make decisions for this land and the people that occupy it, but instead are pissing time away being cool and lazy. They are seemingly oblivious to what their future holds as I watch their emulation of characters like Eminem and 50 Cent, which worries me that these potential leaders are going to make some serious mistakes that will result in the loss of the land and suppression/oppression of the people. All because they didn’t understand the power available to the encroaching world to exert its force because they were too busy doing nothing for themselves except taking it all for granted. And believe me, I know I am not above this way of thinking, or unthinking I should say, because I myself was one of these time pissers. I just hope they can it together before the damage has been done. And then I stop and wonder if it’s not already too late. Damage may be already done that has not yet materialized; however, I would never want to let myself think that it was too late. Sometimes damage can be reversed, and if it can’t then it can at least be slowed or halted. I fell that the present generation of students at this school, and all the schools in this country for that matter, are going to be largely responsible for positive progress in Guyana for Guyanese people, especially preservation of each unique Amerindian culture in the nation…
All I can hope when I leave here is that I have taught some of them enough to understand the great responsibility that lies before them in their future, whether they use this knowledge now or if they retain it until they realize what I was trying to say in my ranting and raving about standing up for themselves, about preserving their environment, about learning the language and customs of their ancestors.
Biblical Rain
The rainy season has started, or so I think. I am told that this is just the beginning, but man, does it RAIN here. Hard. And for extended periods. One day Jess and I came home to a flooded house where one would wonder if we even had a roof or louvres in our windows. All my papers were wet, my bed was wet, my books were wet, and just about every inch of our floor throughout the whole house was wet. The front of our house gets flooded out with about 5+ inches of water, so in order to get just over to Grace and Kirsty’s house we got a board and made a makeshift bridge to carry us from one front stoop to the other. Unless I remember to bring in my hammock when it rains my days of hammocking are just about over it seems. Our solution to this is that we are going to get hammock hooks and hang them in the house, even though I prefer the bed since the flies, along with the ants, are starting to take over the world. Grace and Kirsty went to the Cricket World Cup in Georgetown at the end of the month. They brought back a blow up boat, which is normally used in pool settings, however, in our case will be used to explore the vast and flooded savannahs surrounding us soon enough. We are going to reinforce the bottom of the boat with duct tape just to err on the side of caution.
I hear a plane…hopefully that means that the package my mom sent a month and a half ago will be arriving, although I doubt it. Everyday that I go to check my hopes are shattered when Josephine tells my packages have not yet arrived.
Our break started early, 3 days early I think due to the World Cup. Why school had to be shut down, especially all the way out here, is beyond me. This is one of the problems with the ministry of Education here. To compensate for this week an extra week has been added on to the August term, however, our plane tickets are booked for our return trip home already and cannot be changed without a fee, so we are going to miss the last week of school. This next term is the shortest being only 12 weeks, and 3 of those weeks are not even teaching weeks as I explained in the beginning of this newsletter. How time flies…
We have Easter break from March 30th - April 15th.
I will tell you all about it in the next newsletter. Until then-Peace out.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
February 2007 Newsletter
February 2007 Newsletter
“Winter” in Annai….
While it is cold up for you up in the North, equatorial Annai is still sunshine and just about 100ºC every day. Each morning in a mostly clear sky the Sun rises with a breezy accompanist from behind the Macarapan mountain and over the savannahs with her rosy aura that blankets the horizon before quickly fading into hues of pink, blue, and orange. The mid-afternoon heat blazes while it drives you to your hammock where you wearily wait it out with a good book and picturesque view in which the birds dance and sing. Every night like clockwork the Sun begins her departure behind the western Pakaraima Mountains and bids us goodnight with a sky so colorfully painted you wish it were indissoluble. In her absence comes the Night Sky, its accomplice a new Moon, a quarter, half, or full Moon, and depending on his brightness the stars shine accordingly. In a new Moon the Milky Way frosts a fuzzy line, in the full the savannahs glow in the light. Sometimes as I lie in safety under my bug net from those things that creep and crawl in the night I can see the stars shimmer through the horizontal slits of my window as I doze off into a dream. J
There was a lot of excitement in February, most of it NOT school related, although we are working hard in that arena... Its Holiday season here, meaning that Brazil has its Rodeo and Carnaval, and Guyana has Mashramani week. So without further ado…
Fifth form and SBA madness….
Well, we are working hard here, and Easter term is in full swing. Fifth form and I are working hard to complete their SBA’s, which are school-based assessments that count towards their CXC score-the exams they take upon completion of secondary school. They should have started these last year at this time since there are 24 to do, and the range of topics is over 24 chapters (a glimpse into the future…we are only on chapter 15 and it is one week before the end of Easter Term, but I am happy to report that SBA #24 will be completed this Monday!). Reasoning for this situation aside we have no choice but to work as hard as possible to get them done in order to get the students to where they need to be come April 30th (this is the date they are to be submitted by me to the Ministry). Each one is an experiment in the lab, and a 1-2 of 5 skills is to be assessed for each. Sometimes I will assess observations, recording, and reporting, other times manipulation and measurement. The other skills that get tested are analysis and interpretation, planning and designing (they are given a topic and have to think of the hypothesis and then design an experiment to test the hypothesis), and drawing. Some of the criteria are kind of comical, for example-in drawing-“lines are of even thickness”…how this assesses their knowledge on a subject I don’t understand albeit, nonetheless, it must be done. I try to be sympathetic while I push them to work hard, because they really do have a massive workload. I just try to make it fun. The social studies teacher is on a month leave (all teachers get this after a certain amount of time and they can take it whenever they want…the month before exams, during exams…. doesn’t matter…. and the worst part is that the students, whether they have a teacher or not, are still expected to know a certain amount of material dictated by the Ministry) so I took over her class periods with them since I happened to be free during those times. This means that we spend 4 periods together on Thursdays. This means we have a chance to get a lot done. They are marathon Thursday’s that start with all of us in the classroom discussing our chapter notes over coffee (no food/drink in the lab!) before we move the party to the lab, where we complete 2-3 SBA’s. We all think in our heads, ‘uh, 4 periods of this…’, but I think we all have a good time, and at the end we are proud of our accomplishments that don’t really end up seeming so hard earned. We are doing what we must, and it will be my greatest achievement here to see them pull through with 24 completed SBA’s, and hopefully they will do well on their CXC’s. I am going to have to keep in touch with them in order to find out how they did since I won’t be here when they get there scores back in July…that’s kind of a sad realization.
Brazil
There were 2 weekends in a row that we spent in Brazil. The first weekend was for Rodeo, which is an actual rodeo, hence the name. While I don’t much care for the lassoing of poor animals that have their testicles cruelly tied together for the sake of human enjoyment, the party was fun. The rodeo clown was fun to watch too, clowns remind me of my great-grandpa. To get to Brazil, all you have to do is cross the river and wah-lah, you are in Bon Fim. Technically you are supposed to take the ferry across, but this guy Leroy decided otherwise (he is Leroy Brown, the baddest man in the whole damn town). Both days we crossed through the river in his truck. With drinks, it was fun…without them I the fear of God was in me that our truckful of roughly 20 passengers was going to be shot down by a weaselly Brazilian border sniper hiding in the bush. Not to mention that I was in the cab on the way there the second night and I could stick my hand pretty much straight out the window and it would be in the water. I don’t think Leroy meant to get as deep as he did. And seeing as I am here to write this, we never succumbed to the weasel in the bush.
The second weekend we went for CARNAVAL!! It was fun and we set our desired conquests up in the stars, and the stars we did get. Grace and I went on the first night, and we danced, danced, danced. It was good “foe-haw” (sp?) music and loads of fun. The second day Jess and Kirsty met up with us, and it was a slow start to the party at first with lots of yawns and low energy. Then we retired our senior citizen cards as we regained our youth and remembered the fact that we were in Boa Vista, Brazil at CARNAVAL…We decided to be on a mission to get ourselves CARNAVAL t-shirts, but the deal was that you had to get someone to give you the one they were wearing. Needless to say, we triumphed. We got split up, but when we reunited each one of us was wearing a CARNAVAL T-shirt, none of which were purchased. Kirsty and I also managed to get these colored hair/ribbon things for our hair. While we were slit up Kirsty and I decided to play truth or dare in the crowd. I had to act like a fool and dance throughout the crowd, and I made her run up to the stranger of my choice and give him a great big hug and then run away. While we felt bad afterwards due to his immense confusion over the situation, it was pretty funny. Then we just got really hyper and this is when the real fun began. When we were trying to find another shirt for Mark (another volunteer that was here for 10 weeks), we decided we should try to get up on stage…and when you set your goals high up in the stars, well ladies and gentlemen, the stars you shall receive. We not only got up on stage, where we were taught to dance by the background dancers and were each able to have a go at the bongos, but there was this huge bus moving down the road through the center of the crowd (where the actual parade was going to be) with a band and dancers on top, and apparently they liked our dancing on stage so much, especially Mark’s (this is a joke J ), that they escorted us off the stage after awhile and brought us up on the top of the bus!! It was so much fun, we were able to look down on the crowd from both points!! It was such an amazing night, and then we ended up just dancing until 4 in the morning before crashing back in our hotel!
Mashramani
Mashramani, or Mash, like all Guyanese holidays and events, takes a whole week out of school. The word is from an Amerindian language and means “a job well done,” and the holiday celebrates the independence of Guyana from the UK in 1966. There is a festival that is called Republic Day, and it is celebrated with food, music, games, and the big event, which is the parade. There were competitions in Lethem, and from there Georgetown, where the big party is really held. Annai Secondary School pulled it together with flying colors and no help from the Ministry’s regional office, and we ended up winning a lot of the categories. We had a fundraiser at the school where games and music were played, food was sold, and a cultural show and beauty pageant was put on, Unfortunately, I was sick and in bed for both days of the fundraiser, but I could hear the festivities from under my bug net (getting sick out here is no fun when you yearn for a couch and movies to keep you busy while you sweat it out). We didn’t end up raising an exorbitant amount, but we ended up with more than we started with and everyone seemed to have fun doing it.
Other Events…
Happy Birthday MOM!!! Feb. 4th
Happy Birthday big brother Jimmie!! Feb. 27th
Happy Birthday Melanie!! Leaving 27 is sad, but 28 should treat us good too!!
Happy Birthday Christy!! Feb. 22nd
Happy birthday Grace!! Grace became an adult when she turned 18! Feb. 7th!
Man, lots of Birthdays!!
I am excited to write March, it has been a good month (you already have had a dose of the first few days), and it will be more about what life is actually like here…. until then…. impeach the president. Despite what he thinks, he is no Harry Truman.
Happy Valentine ’s Day!! We went to a fundraiser at Rock View for the youth group here. It was a good dinner and then was followed by drinks and dancing.
“Winter” in Annai….
While it is cold up for you up in the North, equatorial Annai is still sunshine and just about 100ºC every day. Each morning in a mostly clear sky the Sun rises with a breezy accompanist from behind the Macarapan mountain and over the savannahs with her rosy aura that blankets the horizon before quickly fading into hues of pink, blue, and orange. The mid-afternoon heat blazes while it drives you to your hammock where you wearily wait it out with a good book and picturesque view in which the birds dance and sing. Every night like clockwork the Sun begins her departure behind the western Pakaraima Mountains and bids us goodnight with a sky so colorfully painted you wish it were indissoluble. In her absence comes the Night Sky, its accomplice a new Moon, a quarter, half, or full Moon, and depending on his brightness the stars shine accordingly. In a new Moon the Milky Way frosts a fuzzy line, in the full the savannahs glow in the light. Sometimes as I lie in safety under my bug net from those things that creep and crawl in the night I can see the stars shimmer through the horizontal slits of my window as I doze off into a dream. J
There was a lot of excitement in February, most of it NOT school related, although we are working hard in that arena... Its Holiday season here, meaning that Brazil has its Rodeo and Carnaval, and Guyana has Mashramani week. So without further ado…
Fifth form and SBA madness….
Well, we are working hard here, and Easter term is in full swing. Fifth form and I are working hard to complete their SBA’s, which are school-based assessments that count towards their CXC score-the exams they take upon completion of secondary school. They should have started these last year at this time since there are 24 to do, and the range of topics is over 24 chapters (a glimpse into the future…we are only on chapter 15 and it is one week before the end of Easter Term, but I am happy to report that SBA #24 will be completed this Monday!). Reasoning for this situation aside we have no choice but to work as hard as possible to get them done in order to get the students to where they need to be come April 30th (this is the date they are to be submitted by me to the Ministry). Each one is an experiment in the lab, and a 1-2 of 5 skills is to be assessed for each. Sometimes I will assess observations, recording, and reporting, other times manipulation and measurement. The other skills that get tested are analysis and interpretation, planning and designing (they are given a topic and have to think of the hypothesis and then design an experiment to test the hypothesis), and drawing. Some of the criteria are kind of comical, for example-in drawing-“lines are of even thickness”…how this assesses their knowledge on a subject I don’t understand albeit, nonetheless, it must be done. I try to be sympathetic while I push them to work hard, because they really do have a massive workload. I just try to make it fun. The social studies teacher is on a month leave (all teachers get this after a certain amount of time and they can take it whenever they want…the month before exams, during exams…. doesn’t matter…. and the worst part is that the students, whether they have a teacher or not, are still expected to know a certain amount of material dictated by the Ministry) so I took over her class periods with them since I happened to be free during those times. This means that we spend 4 periods together on Thursdays. This means we have a chance to get a lot done. They are marathon Thursday’s that start with all of us in the classroom discussing our chapter notes over coffee (no food/drink in the lab!) before we move the party to the lab, where we complete 2-3 SBA’s. We all think in our heads, ‘uh, 4 periods of this…’, but I think we all have a good time, and at the end we are proud of our accomplishments that don’t really end up seeming so hard earned. We are doing what we must, and it will be my greatest achievement here to see them pull through with 24 completed SBA’s, and hopefully they will do well on their CXC’s. I am going to have to keep in touch with them in order to find out how they did since I won’t be here when they get there scores back in July…that’s kind of a sad realization.
Brazil
There were 2 weekends in a row that we spent in Brazil. The first weekend was for Rodeo, which is an actual rodeo, hence the name. While I don’t much care for the lassoing of poor animals that have their testicles cruelly tied together for the sake of human enjoyment, the party was fun. The rodeo clown was fun to watch too, clowns remind me of my great-grandpa. To get to Brazil, all you have to do is cross the river and wah-lah, you are in Bon Fim. Technically you are supposed to take the ferry across, but this guy Leroy decided otherwise (he is Leroy Brown, the baddest man in the whole damn town). Both days we crossed through the river in his truck. With drinks, it was fun…without them I the fear of God was in me that our truckful of roughly 20 passengers was going to be shot down by a weaselly Brazilian border sniper hiding in the bush. Not to mention that I was in the cab on the way there the second night and I could stick my hand pretty much straight out the window and it would be in the water. I don’t think Leroy meant to get as deep as he did. And seeing as I am here to write this, we never succumbed to the weasel in the bush.
The second weekend we went for CARNAVAL!! It was fun and we set our desired conquests up in the stars, and the stars we did get. Grace and I went on the first night, and we danced, danced, danced. It was good “foe-haw” (sp?) music and loads of fun. The second day Jess and Kirsty met up with us, and it was a slow start to the party at first with lots of yawns and low energy. Then we retired our senior citizen cards as we regained our youth and remembered the fact that we were in Boa Vista, Brazil at CARNAVAL…We decided to be on a mission to get ourselves CARNAVAL t-shirts, but the deal was that you had to get someone to give you the one they were wearing. Needless to say, we triumphed. We got split up, but when we reunited each one of us was wearing a CARNAVAL T-shirt, none of which were purchased. Kirsty and I also managed to get these colored hair/ribbon things for our hair. While we were slit up Kirsty and I decided to play truth or dare in the crowd. I had to act like a fool and dance throughout the crowd, and I made her run up to the stranger of my choice and give him a great big hug and then run away. While we felt bad afterwards due to his immense confusion over the situation, it was pretty funny. Then we just got really hyper and this is when the real fun began. When we were trying to find another shirt for Mark (another volunteer that was here for 10 weeks), we decided we should try to get up on stage…and when you set your goals high up in the stars, well ladies and gentlemen, the stars you shall receive. We not only got up on stage, where we were taught to dance by the background dancers and were each able to have a go at the bongos, but there was this huge bus moving down the road through the center of the crowd (where the actual parade was going to be) with a band and dancers on top, and apparently they liked our dancing on stage so much, especially Mark’s (this is a joke J ), that they escorted us off the stage after awhile and brought us up on the top of the bus!! It was so much fun, we were able to look down on the crowd from both points!! It was such an amazing night, and then we ended up just dancing until 4 in the morning before crashing back in our hotel!
Mashramani
Mashramani, or Mash, like all Guyanese holidays and events, takes a whole week out of school. The word is from an Amerindian language and means “a job well done,” and the holiday celebrates the independence of Guyana from the UK in 1966. There is a festival that is called Republic Day, and it is celebrated with food, music, games, and the big event, which is the parade. There were competitions in Lethem, and from there Georgetown, where the big party is really held. Annai Secondary School pulled it together with flying colors and no help from the Ministry’s regional office, and we ended up winning a lot of the categories. We had a fundraiser at the school where games and music were played, food was sold, and a cultural show and beauty pageant was put on, Unfortunately, I was sick and in bed for both days of the fundraiser, but I could hear the festivities from under my bug net (getting sick out here is no fun when you yearn for a couch and movies to keep you busy while you sweat it out). We didn’t end up raising an exorbitant amount, but we ended up with more than we started with and everyone seemed to have fun doing it.
Other Events…
Happy Birthday MOM!!! Feb. 4th
Happy Birthday big brother Jimmie!! Feb. 27th
Happy Birthday Melanie!! Leaving 27 is sad, but 28 should treat us good too!!
Happy Birthday Christy!! Feb. 22nd
Happy birthday Grace!! Grace became an adult when she turned 18! Feb. 7th!
Man, lots of Birthdays!!
I am excited to write March, it has been a good month (you already have had a dose of the first few days), and it will be more about what life is actually like here…. until then…. impeach the president. Despite what he thinks, he is no Harry Truman.
Happy Valentine ’s Day!! We went to a fundraiser at Rock View for the youth group here. It was a good dinner and then was followed by drinks and dancing.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
January 2007 Newsletter
January 2007 Newsletter
Time to head back to Annai…
Happy New Year!! 2007 already? Where does time go? Well, as I have mentioned, going home was a lot of fun. I left Chicago on the 2nd, and I got back into Annai on the 6th. I had to stay a night in Trinidad, a night in Georgetown, and a night in Lethem before finally travelling back to Annai by bus. I had to go to Lethem because the weather was bad in Annai, so we couldn’t land there. There were only 2 of us aboard this small aircraft that had a pilot that was really into what must have been a good book…He read, I nervously sat behind him watching the dials on the dashboard (is it called a dashboard?). The wonders of autopilot are wonders I prefer to be kept behind that charming door in the front of the aircraft with the small metal sign engraved with the words “Crew Only”. It was nice to be able to stop in Lethem before heading back to Annai though because I got to see the WTV’s there, so that made it the extra night worthwhile.
When I left Chicago I knew I had to come back, but a part of me didn’t want to go. However, the other part of me couldn’t wait to get back to the calm life I find in Annai where on the weekends I get to lay around reading a good book in my hammock, go on a bike ride or maybe a hike, and just relax and let the world take me where it will instead of having a mile long list of stuff I have to do because in some way I feel obligated by a world which compels to me to feel like I should be a productive and responsible citizen. I love not having errands to run; although there is always lesson plans to be completed…I do love it here though and really want to enjoy this while I can, although it has not been as easy as it sounds. I have found myself wishing time away and thinking more about home than the experience I should be living in as it is presenting itself. Maybe the predicament is so due to the fact that one day I was in Chicago, where I can get anything and everything that I pretty much need or want, the next I was in the middle of nowhere with very little.
Journal entry 1/4/07
“…This is real life for me right now and for the next 6 months I want to live in every day fully conscious o f this experience and not sitting there thinking and wondering about what the next experience holds for me. What’s the point of dreaming of all these things I want to do and be if I am constantly living in the next moment while the present moment, which is a dream come true, is passing me by.”
Journal entry 1/6/07
“…but now that I am once again in my room and under my bug net on my nasty sheets that have been pissed and shit on by bats for the past 3 weeks, I feel at home and comfortable, like I belong here and need to be here. But I definitely have to wash my sheets in the morning.”
Let the water flow…
The first thing that Jess showed me when we got up on Saturday morning was that there was a trickle of water coming out of the faucet in the kitchen sink! Whoa…gone for 3 weeks and life as I knew it had dramatically changed!! Running water, or at least a sign that made me believe that it could be possible! That only lasted about a day or two. While we were gone over Christmas break they had installed a water tank that catches the water from the roof and gutters when it rains!! When there is water in it we don’t have to go down to the well to fetch it for all the mundane little tasks that require water, like flushing the toilet. There is nothing like the feeling you have as you walk to the well to fetch water just to flush…actually we always flush with the dirty dish water (we are now huge advocates of water conservation if not by choice, then by default), but indirectly you can see what I mean. We never much minded having to run to the well, but it is nice to now only have to go for drinking water…everything in the universe likes to exist at the lowest energy level possible, right? It is therefore innate in me that I take pleasure in this new tank.
By the end of the month they had installed a water pump that pumps water from the clean well (there are 3 wells in total on the compound-1 down the hill just outside the gates, which is the only clean one that can be drunk from, and 2 behind the student dorms, which are dirty) up to the school when the generator is on. This means that the showers (well one of the showers) work!!! And I must say that even though I got to shower while I was in Chicago, it was enjoyable to be afforded the luxury of a shower here! So anyways, the saga continues. When they put the pump in they sealed off the well, since the pump was so expensive. Based on the tales you have already heard up to this point of my adventure here, do you see what the problem is on the horizon? …That’s right, our generator breaks frequently and we run out of gas for it even more frequently. The first term it seemed like if we did have gas, the generator was broke, and then in fixing the generator they used all the gas…It would be worked out, but the cycle would start again after a day or two, maybe a week if we were lucky. So they install this water pump, seal the well, and the generator breaks….uh-oh…200+ people on the school compound and no access to clean drinking water. What do we do now? Thank God for our amazing Headmistress (HM) who sat on the radio trying to call the Ministry in Georgetown for the greater part of two days, threatening to break the seal on the well if they didn’t take action, and take it QUICK. Why some high ranked official would make such a hasty decision without thinking it thoroughly through instead of being more pragmatic in the face of wanting change and “progress” and realistically assess the circumstances at hand was beyond me…It was kind of stressful, but in the end it worked out well. It was February first when they finally fixed it…
Ohhhh, back to shhcool…
I ended up missing the first week back at school since I was in transit, but I didn’t miss much. I was not the only teacher that was en route during this first week. It was disheartening to quiz my students and try to just get them to recall the terms and topics we had covered in the last term. They all looked at me with blank faces like I had just spoken to them in Yiddish. Even those that I thought were my brightest students made me wonder if they had retained any of the information I felt like we had worked hard on learning last term. It made me feel like I had completely failed, as a teacher, and I doubted that I had even taught them anything at all. There were times in the first few weeks back that I found myself feeling angry with them, like I was wasting time trying to teach to students that at times do not seem to give their future much thought, and therefore, their opportunity to get an education seems unimportant and unappreciated. Then I would try to take a second and remember my own self at this age, and I wondered if my teachers thought the same thing about me when they saw me sporting my new Christmas threads, gossiping with my friends, and completely unaware that I was in school to get an education, and only partly there to be socialized. We took about a week to review and those students that worked were able to pull their knowledge of Biology and Science out of the corners of their minds where it had been stored over break.
When I wasn’t frustrated with the lack of effort I felt I was seeing, I did realize that there were a lot of students that I really missed while I was gone, but when I would excitedly inquire about their break, especially the students who seem to not like being away from home for so long, they would say-“ah, it was okay” or just say outright that they did not enjoy their break. It was most of the students that I asked that would respond like this, and so I stopped asking, confused about what it takes to please these kids. Maybe it’s just a cultural difference and they don’t react to things the way I would expect, I don’t know, but it got to a point where I would rather imagine that they all had a satisfying few weeks at home with their families the way I had hoped they would when we were all headed home in December.
Journal entry 1/26/07“…
"...I wonder if I can really do this with a positive attitude. I know part of why I feel this way is that I am just feeling like these people JUST DON’T CARE and I wonder if I could be more useful putting my energy somewhere else, into a cause greater than this, into something that will actually make a difference. But hopefully somewhere and in someone here that is a mystery to me at this point I am making a small difference…
…some of them just give up so easily that you wonder how they are ever going to make it when it is their generation’s turn to be the people out there making decisions. It’s almost like I feel that it is inevitable that this region is going to become inundated with foreign companies coming to “develop” the area…”
Until February…
Well, that is January in a nutshell. I hope everyone is enjoying what 2007 has brought to you at this point, and that if you are in an area that has a season they call “winter” you are keeping warm. I was glad that the weather was pretty mild while I was home, but I do find myself wishing for a change of season!! It just feels like it has been one long summer!
Until next time, take care, and try to keep on the sunny side in the dead of winter!
Time to head back to Annai…
Happy New Year!! 2007 already? Where does time go? Well, as I have mentioned, going home was a lot of fun. I left Chicago on the 2nd, and I got back into Annai on the 6th. I had to stay a night in Trinidad, a night in Georgetown, and a night in Lethem before finally travelling back to Annai by bus. I had to go to Lethem because the weather was bad in Annai, so we couldn’t land there. There were only 2 of us aboard this small aircraft that had a pilot that was really into what must have been a good book…He read, I nervously sat behind him watching the dials on the dashboard (is it called a dashboard?). The wonders of autopilot are wonders I prefer to be kept behind that charming door in the front of the aircraft with the small metal sign engraved with the words “Crew Only”. It was nice to be able to stop in Lethem before heading back to Annai though because I got to see the WTV’s there, so that made it the extra night worthwhile.
When I left Chicago I knew I had to come back, but a part of me didn’t want to go. However, the other part of me couldn’t wait to get back to the calm life I find in Annai where on the weekends I get to lay around reading a good book in my hammock, go on a bike ride or maybe a hike, and just relax and let the world take me where it will instead of having a mile long list of stuff I have to do because in some way I feel obligated by a world which compels to me to feel like I should be a productive and responsible citizen. I love not having errands to run; although there is always lesson plans to be completed…I do love it here though and really want to enjoy this while I can, although it has not been as easy as it sounds. I have found myself wishing time away and thinking more about home than the experience I should be living in as it is presenting itself. Maybe the predicament is so due to the fact that one day I was in Chicago, where I can get anything and everything that I pretty much need or want, the next I was in the middle of nowhere with very little.
Journal entry 1/4/07
“…This is real life for me right now and for the next 6 months I want to live in every day fully conscious o f this experience and not sitting there thinking and wondering about what the next experience holds for me. What’s the point of dreaming of all these things I want to do and be if I am constantly living in the next moment while the present moment, which is a dream come true, is passing me by.”
Journal entry 1/6/07
“…but now that I am once again in my room and under my bug net on my nasty sheets that have been pissed and shit on by bats for the past 3 weeks, I feel at home and comfortable, like I belong here and need to be here. But I definitely have to wash my sheets in the morning.”
Let the water flow…
The first thing that Jess showed me when we got up on Saturday morning was that there was a trickle of water coming out of the faucet in the kitchen sink! Whoa…gone for 3 weeks and life as I knew it had dramatically changed!! Running water, or at least a sign that made me believe that it could be possible! That only lasted about a day or two. While we were gone over Christmas break they had installed a water tank that catches the water from the roof and gutters when it rains!! When there is water in it we don’t have to go down to the well to fetch it for all the mundane little tasks that require water, like flushing the toilet. There is nothing like the feeling you have as you walk to the well to fetch water just to flush…actually we always flush with the dirty dish water (we are now huge advocates of water conservation if not by choice, then by default), but indirectly you can see what I mean. We never much minded having to run to the well, but it is nice to now only have to go for drinking water…everything in the universe likes to exist at the lowest energy level possible, right? It is therefore innate in me that I take pleasure in this new tank.
By the end of the month they had installed a water pump that pumps water from the clean well (there are 3 wells in total on the compound-1 down the hill just outside the gates, which is the only clean one that can be drunk from, and 2 behind the student dorms, which are dirty) up to the school when the generator is on. This means that the showers (well one of the showers) work!!! And I must say that even though I got to shower while I was in Chicago, it was enjoyable to be afforded the luxury of a shower here! So anyways, the saga continues. When they put the pump in they sealed off the well, since the pump was so expensive. Based on the tales you have already heard up to this point of my adventure here, do you see what the problem is on the horizon? …That’s right, our generator breaks frequently and we run out of gas for it even more frequently. The first term it seemed like if we did have gas, the generator was broke, and then in fixing the generator they used all the gas…It would be worked out, but the cycle would start again after a day or two, maybe a week if we were lucky. So they install this water pump, seal the well, and the generator breaks….uh-oh…200+ people on the school compound and no access to clean drinking water. What do we do now? Thank God for our amazing Headmistress (HM) who sat on the radio trying to call the Ministry in Georgetown for the greater part of two days, threatening to break the seal on the well if they didn’t take action, and take it QUICK. Why some high ranked official would make such a hasty decision without thinking it thoroughly through instead of being more pragmatic in the face of wanting change and “progress” and realistically assess the circumstances at hand was beyond me…It was kind of stressful, but in the end it worked out well. It was February first when they finally fixed it…
Ohhhh, back to shhcool…
I ended up missing the first week back at school since I was in transit, but I didn’t miss much. I was not the only teacher that was en route during this first week. It was disheartening to quiz my students and try to just get them to recall the terms and topics we had covered in the last term. They all looked at me with blank faces like I had just spoken to them in Yiddish. Even those that I thought were my brightest students made me wonder if they had retained any of the information I felt like we had worked hard on learning last term. It made me feel like I had completely failed, as a teacher, and I doubted that I had even taught them anything at all. There were times in the first few weeks back that I found myself feeling angry with them, like I was wasting time trying to teach to students that at times do not seem to give their future much thought, and therefore, their opportunity to get an education seems unimportant and unappreciated. Then I would try to take a second and remember my own self at this age, and I wondered if my teachers thought the same thing about me when they saw me sporting my new Christmas threads, gossiping with my friends, and completely unaware that I was in school to get an education, and only partly there to be socialized. We took about a week to review and those students that worked were able to pull their knowledge of Biology and Science out of the corners of their minds where it had been stored over break.
When I wasn’t frustrated with the lack of effort I felt I was seeing, I did realize that there were a lot of students that I really missed while I was gone, but when I would excitedly inquire about their break, especially the students who seem to not like being away from home for so long, they would say-“ah, it was okay” or just say outright that they did not enjoy their break. It was most of the students that I asked that would respond like this, and so I stopped asking, confused about what it takes to please these kids. Maybe it’s just a cultural difference and they don’t react to things the way I would expect, I don’t know, but it got to a point where I would rather imagine that they all had a satisfying few weeks at home with their families the way I had hoped they would when we were all headed home in December.
Journal entry 1/26/07“…
"...I wonder if I can really do this with a positive attitude. I know part of why I feel this way is that I am just feeling like these people JUST DON’T CARE and I wonder if I could be more useful putting my energy somewhere else, into a cause greater than this, into something that will actually make a difference. But hopefully somewhere and in someone here that is a mystery to me at this point I am making a small difference…
…some of them just give up so easily that you wonder how they are ever going to make it when it is their generation’s turn to be the people out there making decisions. It’s almost like I feel that it is inevitable that this region is going to become inundated with foreign companies coming to “develop” the area…”
Until February…
Well, that is January in a nutshell. I hope everyone is enjoying what 2007 has brought to you at this point, and that if you are in an area that has a season they call “winter” you are keeping warm. I was glad that the weather was pretty mild while I was home, but I do find myself wishing for a change of season!! It just feels like it has been one long summer!
Until next time, take care, and try to keep on the sunny side in the dead of winter!
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
December's Newsletter
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.
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, 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!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
