Happy Thanksgiving!

While you all are at home cooking, watching football, planning your black Friday shopping and sleeping off a turkey induced coma, I’ll be trying to finish up the last of my class material for the term, preparing for end of term exams, and grading a mountain of papers. However, I wanted to take a moment to celebrate the holiday in spirit and think about the things I’m grateful for.

1.       Running water

As you all probably remember, the first couple of weeks I was here the water pipe that runs to our house was broken. As a result, we had to connect the pipe manually every time we wanted to fill up our reservoir tank…and on a few occasions we had to go find a spigot at the school so that we had water to bathe and wash dishes/ clothes. Needless to say, it wasn’t too great to arrive to New Amsterdam for the first time after a long afternoon in a hot minibus to find that there was no water at the house. However, our water was fixed a couple of weeks after we got here, so I’m thankful for no bucket showers or toting water to the house to wash my clothing.

2.       A working fridge

The lack of a fridge was almost as frustrating as the lack of water, because it meant that a lot of food was wasted. We had to make trips to the market every couple of days because our vegetables went bad, and we had to eat everything we cooked immediately. The problem, as it turns out, was not the fridge itself but the electrical wiring in our kitchen. The electrician finally solved the problem a couple of weeks ago, so now we can enjoy ice, dairy products, and leftovers for our lunches.

3.       A french press

Coffee is one of those little things that I didn’t realize I would miss until I got here. A Peace Corps volunteer shared some of her coffee with us shortly after we arrived. However, we’re too poor/ cheap to buy a real coffeemaker, which would probably be imported from the U.S. and cost double the regular price. We ended up making coffee with a funnel, some coffee filters (an upgrade over the paper towels we started out with), and gravity. Mom mailed me the french press that my friend Amy gave me, and ever since then my housemates and I have been extremely grateful that it doesn’t take 20 minutes to make one cup of coffee.

4.       Miss Ingrid and the kids that live with her

Miss Ingrid is one of the security guards for Multi, and by extension, us, and she’s been really helpful ever since we got here. The children who live with her, Stephan, Julius, Tenesha, and a couple of her grandchildren, have also been great. From helping us to identify and cut up strange vegetables to showing us where to get our bike tires filled, they’ve frequently rescued us. In exchange, we help them with their homework from time to time, share our American treats, and lend movies to them. I’m grateful that we have friendly neighbors to help us and watch out for us.

5.       My housemates, Corin and Colleen

I’m grateful that I have other people here to talk to who are dealing with the same issues we face day to day, and who can relate to the unusual or ridiculous things we’ve experienced so far. While I could try to describe them here, there are some things you just have to see or experience in order to believe. The Peace Corps and VSO volunteers all have their own places, which has its own perks, but I’m glad that I’m not alone at school or when I get home at the end of the day.

6.       Rainy season

Rainy season seems to have officially arrived here in Berbice. While this means that my clothes get rained on when I hang them up to dry, and I occasionally end up biking home in the rain (which is probably my least favorite thing besides walking to my dorm at midnight in sub zero temperatures), it’s wonderful to not arrive to school drenched in sweat or continue to sweat all day in the classrooms. Plus, sometimes I’m actually too cold at night to turn on my fan while I sleep!

7.       Christmas in Tobago

My white Christmas this year will be in the form of white sand beaches! I’m grateful that I’ll be able to see my mom next month and have a vacation on a real beach (I realize that this comment is coming from a Floridian, but the local beach is very muddy and inadequate). In addition, I’m thankful that this year I won’t have to bundle up in order to go outside; I can honestly say that I don’t miss the snow or the cold.

President Jagdeo and Continuing Promise 2010

A few weeks ago, while my housemates and I were in Georgetown for wifi, air conditioning, and coffee, we ran into an embassy worker who mentioned an American ship that was coming to bring school supplies to our region. At first this was only a mildly interesting prospect, especially since we found out that the supplies were already allocated to other schools. Then the helicopters arrived, and American soldiers descended upon New Amsterdam for their weeklong humanitarian mission in the region, called Continuing Promise 2010.

The Iwojima was on a mission to take school and medical supplies to various countries around the Caribbean. Somehow, region 6 of Guyana was put on the list of stops, so there were soldiers here to renovate a school, run medical and veterinary clinics, and repair the incinerator at the New Amsterdam Hospital. For the first couple of days, my housemates and I started to play “spot the soldier” and joked that we should find people to bring us American fast food from the ship.

If the sightings of many more foreigners wasn’t enough to alert us of their arrival, the frequent helicopters sightings certainly was. A field just across the road from BHS and the hospital was turned into a temporary landing pad for the next week. The first day this happened, my whole school was captivated by the descent of three choppers that landed shortly before the first bell (after the first day, the frequent sound of helicopters flying overhead became an irritating distraction during class). Then, the deputy headmistress of my school, Ms. Tracy, suddenly announced that I along with two other teachers needed to take some students to the hospital. I had absolutely no idea why. All I knew was that I had to hurry to my morning classes and give them instructions on what to do in my absence, because their midterms had just been pushed back a week.

Eventually the group of teachers and students from my school made our way down the road to the hospital, to be greeted by a plethora of members of the navy, airforce, and marines, many of whom were part of a large band. In addition, there was a steel drum band (the first time I’d seen steel drums in this country since I’ve been here) and a tent and chairs that had been set up in the courtyard. I was still in the dark about what was going on until I received a program: it turned out that everything was set up for a ceremony to commemorate “Continuing Promise 2010”, and that the president of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, was to be the keynote speaker. At this point I got excited; I had certainly never expected to see the president in person. I also was able to speak to one of the members of the airforce, who told me more about the mission and mentioned that volunteers had helped them out at their previous stops, and that if I wanted to help I should visit the medical site. The ceremony commenced soon afterwards. President Jagdeo spoke about the emigration of Guyana’s citizens to the US due to the policies of the Guyanese government in the 70s-90s, and thanked the organizers of the mission for the work they were doing in the region. All in all, it was a pretty neat thing to witness.

Much to Ms. Tracy’s disappointment, I didn’t get to meet President Jagdeo, as he was spirited away for a tour of the Iwojima shortly after the conclusion of the ceremony. The students did get to meet a couple of soldiers and take pictures. Plus, on Saturday I got to shadow the military doctors at the clinic they had set up in Rose hall, a town a few miles away. The prospect of going on humanitarian missions like CP 2010, in addition to the other benefits of joining the military, has made me consider military medicine more seriously. While we never got any McDonalds in the end, and my iPhone screen bit the dust due to getting wet while I was at the ceremony (it was raining sporadically the whole morning and my bag got wet), the visit of the soldiers was an interesting event.

The steel drum band

Ms. Bhajan, the regional education officer for region 6 (essentially the top official for education in the region)

President Jagdeo

The group of students from Berbice High who attended the ceremony

Helicopter flying away at the end of the ceremony

Updates Coming Soon

I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm still alive down here. There's plenty I want to blog about, including our school sports day, the american humanitarian mission in my region and seeing the president of guyana in person, and most recently Diwali, but it's been tough with midterm exams and an increasing number of blackouts. An update is coming soon!

Home Sweet Home

I ended up with a bunch of free time two weeks ago due to an unfortunate encounter with wasps on my way home from school. Since I was sitting around with nothing to do, and I couldn’t do write very well with a swollen hand, I ended up taking the time to do some much needed cleaning and organizing around the house and in my room. Here are some pictures of our house in New Amsterdam:

The Kitchen

Living Room/ Dining Room

Note the fan. This thing (affectionately known as the jash cool, its “brand name”) is my lifeline here. I have a hard time sleeping or sitting inside our house during the day without it now.

My Bedroom

The Front Porch/ Laundry Area

The black thing on the side is our water reservoir tank. We used to worry it would be empty before we could refill it. Now we run to turn it off so that we don’t have a waterfall and a flooded porch.

The view from our front porch. The Internet café/ snackette is the white building across the street. The guard shack and pavilion sitting area are to the right. Our front yard doubles as the plot for the agricultural students, but they haven’t planted anything yet…so the goats and cows take care of our lawn maintenance sometimes.

Technical Difficulties

Sorry for the missing pictures in the last post. I'm using word to type up the blog posts offline now, and for some reason the pictures didn't go through when I tried to publish the last one. I'll try to figure out what going on and repost in the next couple of days.

Teaching with Limited Resources

One of the things that was discussed a lot during the Orientation was how we could be effective teachers in a situation where there are limited resources. I think that our conversations and the workshops mentally prepared me so that I wasn't shocked by what I saw at BHS, but being in the situation and trying to work around the problems has been quite the learning experience.

First and foremost, the thing that's missing the most from the schools are the teachers. There are some teachers who always come to work on time and teach all of their classes. Compared to what I've heard about other schools, even New Amsterdam Multilateral (where I live), Berbice High is relatively well organized and well staffed. However, there are quite a few who show up late to work if they come at all, and these same people show up late for class or for registration (attendance), which really interferes with the effectiveness of the people who are trying to teach. In Colleen's situation, the teachers show up to school, but then they proceed to spend all day in the teachers' lounge instead going to class. Because of the way the classrooms are designed, it can be difficult to teach the kids even when the adjacent classes have someone teaching a class and keeping the kids relatively quiet. However, when the classes don't have a teacher and the kids are getting loud, communicating in the class can become frustrating, if not next to impossible. Some of the science teachers in the upper classes work around this by taking their class to the lab. It's not a feasible thing to do for every class, but it's something I hope to be able to do more, especially as I start doing more practical activities with my students.

Adequate numbers of textbooks is another big problem. Some kids have their own textbooks, but most students get their books from the school bookroom. There aren't enough for each child to have their own, so either the students have to form groups in class, or they have to go to another class to borrow a book. Last week I had to distribute books to my form class, the kids who I'm responsible for to take attendance or in case there's some problem in the class. There weren't enough English books to go around, so I had to randomly pick the kids who were going to get a book. The hardest part was near the end, when one students quietly mentioned to me that he didn't get a book as I was leaving the class. Knowing that some of the kids won't have access to books for homework, and would have to go around asking to borrow one for class is still hard for me to think about.

BHS is lucky to have a science lab and some supplies, but even there the resources are severely lacking. I've been working with some of my kids on the cell and the microscope, and part of the lesson was for them to actually go and look at specimens so they would have some hands on experience. Corin and I went in a couple of days before my activity to look at the scopes and see what slides were useable. We found that there were only two, and they were very simple microscopes that used a mirror for a light source and weren't powerful enough to magnify in much detail. We got them to work ok, but it struck me that just six months ago I was using microscopes that I could use to see the details of animal cells and even bacteria, something I couldn't even dream of doing here. Even in middle school I used microscopes this powerful. Every now and then, when I'm standing in the lab, I can't help but think about the wide difference in resources I had growing up and what these kids have.

One of the major challenges I've faced in school so far is working around the lack of resources and their repercussions. It's something that we all have to figure out throughout the year as we go along.

Hightlights of the first week of school

Part two of the double-post: Here's an idea of what my day is like.

Monday:


7:45 am: Bike to school while trying to avoid pedestrians, cows, potholes, and taxis. All concern about whether I’m flashing people has disappeared; I’m more concerned about whether I’m going to make it to school in one piece.

8:00 am: Arrive at BHS very sweaty, silently thank God that I’ve made it, and find the teacher’s lounge in the IT lab, because the administrative building is still being painted. Find out that I’m teaching forms 1,2, and 4 integrated science. Then spend 15 minutes trying to figure out my schedule on the insane (handwritten) timetable after all of the other teachers have left for the opening assembly.

8:30 am: prepare to sit in the teacher’s lounge for the next three hours or so because my first class isn’t until after lunch ends at 11:15. Mentally prepare myself for my first class as a teacher. Try to sit in the cross breeze so that the sweat can dry a little.

9:00am: talk to the Head of the science department (HOD) and find out that they want us to teach 3rd form physics and maybe even maths classes. Either that or join another department and teach social studies or English. Nothing is decided, but I begin to get nervous that I’ll be teaching a 4th form maths class.

10:20 am: lunchtime. I end up waiting until 10:40 to go to the canteen because of the huge mass of students all trying to buy lunch from two lunch ladies. It’s still crazy when I decided to brave the crowd, but one of the benefits of being the teacher is getting served first, so I don’t have to wait too long.

11:15 am: begin my first class of second formers with introductions, class rules, and then begin teaching the scientific method (it was the only thing I could come up with without the textbook or the curriculum guide to go off of). Lesson goes ok, but I’m stretching things as much as possible because the kids are shy and a little reluctant to participate.

12:25: second break. Take a deep breath and relax for the next hour.

13:20 (1:20 pm; the 24 hour system of time keeping is used here): begin my second class with the first form students. They’re more enthusiastic and a little easier to manage, especially because it’s their first day at a new school as well.

14:30: school day ends. After meeting up with Corin and gathering our stuff, be prepare to brave the road home once more.

14:45: Leave school. The road is slightly less chaotic than before, but still scary. I bump into a parked taxi while trying to avoid a moving taxi, and then struggle to peddle away while the taxi driver is shouting at me.

15:00: Make it home and thank God I survived the day. Immediately shower because at this point I’m drenched in sweat. Sit and relax for a while.

16:30: wash clothes by hand.

18:00 dinnertime.

18:45 head over to the internet café to look up ideas for leading class tomorrow, because I still don’t have any books or any hints as to what the students are supposed to be learning this term.

19:15: leave unsuccessful. This happened to be the busiest day at the internet café, so the internet was too slow to get anything done.

19:30 sit at the dining room table with my housemates for the next couple of hours trying to think of ideas. Finally decide to have the class “follow the scientific method” with a little experiment and also plan on teaching them averages. Also come up with a short lesson on the units of measurement and unit conversions just in case.

21:00 bed time.

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Tuesday was pretty much the same as before. We woke up to the sound of torrential rain outside, and it didn’t let up at all by the time we were ready to go to school. We ended up taking a taxi and shared the car with about five primary school kids and one student from our high school. Since the time table was still in flux, I decided to double check my classes for the day. Lo and behold, I found out that I’m also a 3rd form physics class…which worries me, because I just took my first real physics class last year. The only consolation is that I only have the kids once a week, and they’re not depending on me for their big standardized tests, the CXCs.

I told my HOD that I don’t really know what to prepare for this new class because I never got any books, so she promised to get me some materials to work with. I’m really thankful that I had prepared the extra lesson on units of measurement, because that’s what the students ended up learning that day. My HOD did bring me the books in the end, but it wasn’t until I was in the middle of my first physics class. Yes, during class. We quickly found out that it’s common for teachers or students to interrupt class if they need to find a student or give the teacher something. Despite the semi-regular interruptions by teachers and students, and the confusion of the schedule, things went ok all things considered.

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The rest of the week was pretty normal (for Guyana). The timetable for the school is still changing a lot, even into the second week of school. As a result, I still don’t really know all of the classes I’ll be teaching this year. In addition, it takes a long time to get the materials I need to teach: nearly halfway through the second week, I still don’t have the book for my first form classes. A big part of being here is being flexible and working with what we have, even in the confusion and miscommunications.

New Amsterdam

This time I'll post twice to get everyone up to speed about living in New Amsterdam and my first week of school.

Our long awaited departure from CPCE arrived Saturday, August 28th. My housemates (Corin and Colleen) and I Ioaded up in a minibus for the drive over to New Amsterdam. After a long delay (the minibus was 45 minutes late, and then we waited for more passengers in Stabroek market for another hour or so), we were off. It’s a pretty easy drive out here from Georgetown, but certainly not boring. On the way we discovered yet another use for a machete (as a whip to herd cows across the road), passed a random parade/ protest against domestic violence, and crossed over the new floating (read: scary) bridge over the Berbice river. We were tired and a little shell shocked when we finally arrived at our house on the Multilateral Compound, but thankfully Sir Buster (a teacher at Multi who came to collect us) bought us dinner and water, so we settled in the best we could.


New Amsterdam consists of three parallel roads, Strand, Main, and Republic, connected by several cross streets. Berbice High School is on the other side of town, so Corin and I will have to master the fine art of biking with skirts to get to school every day. Across the street from us is an internet café/ “snackette” (kind of like a mini convenience store with tables to sit and eat there), and we’ve made friends with Miss Lolita and her family who run it.

Over the last few days, we’ve been exploring the town and slowly getting the house set up. Our house has three bedrooms, a toilet and a shower room, a living/ dining room, and a small kitchen. The biggest task was fumigating the kitchen to get rid of the cockroach population that had taken residence in the cupboards. Once that was done and the shelves were lined, it started to feel a little more like home. I shared a room with Corin for the first few days here, because my room didn’t have any curtains. However, the house is pretty much set up for now, and I’ve moved into my room.

The major problems that we’ve been dealing with have been the lack of running water and the lack of a refrigerator. First, the water situation. The water supply to our house connects to the city line via a PVC pipe that runs through an overgrown trench. Due ot the large mass of weeds, the city line disconnected from the house line pretty much every day. Last year, the girls who lived here had to connect the main water line from the city to the water line to the house because it disconnected all the time. In addition, the city water is not on 24/7, so everyone has a reservoir tank that they fill while the city water is on to save water for the off periods. When we got here, the line to the city water was disconnected, and the water tank was empty…which made for an interesting 24 hours until we could get help to connect the lines and fill the tank.

Everyday when the water was supposed to be on, we first had to turn off the pump and check to see if the lines were still connected. Mostly, they weren’t, so thankfully the maintenance man helped us connect the pipes for the first week and a half. Then we had to fill the tank and pray that the line stayed connected until it filled. This system was kind of annoying, but for the most part it worked when we could get the water lines connected. After many calls to our field director and the Regional education officer (REDO) who is supposed to take care of these issues, it seems like we got the problem fixed.



The refrigerator, on the other hand, is still an issue. We’ve had a couple of people look at it, and someone was supposed to pick it up on Monday to repair it, but it’s still a glorified pantry sitting in our kitchen. This is annoying because we can’t store meat or fresh vegetables, and we have to eat what we cook immediately the fact that the water got fixed within three weeks gives me hope that this will be resolved soon as well.

A selection of pictures

My humble lodgings during orientation at CPCE

Cummings Lodge Secondary, where we had the teaching practicum

A caterpillar that our students brought to show us the day after our nature walk

The students who attended the lessons during the practicum

Me, Colleen (one of my housemates), Marek (another volunteer), and the 5th form students

Teaching practicum

The third week was super busy with a teaching practicum in the mornings and meetings in the afternoon. At Cummingslodge secondary, we led maths and science lessons for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th form students (which is roughly equivalent to 8th-11th grades). I helped plan and taught food chains with three other volunteers to the 2nd and 3rd form students the first three days. The last two days we taught the nervous system to the 4th and 5th form students.
It was pretty eye opening to work with the classes. Not only did I get some much needed practice in leading a class and planning a lesson, I also learned a lot about the difference between Guyanese and American students:
-Guyanese students are very meticulous about keeping their notebooks neat. For example, they make sure that they’ve copied the board exactly as written, they use rulers to underline or draw diagrams, and they’re not allowed to tear pieces of paper out. A lot of time in class was spent letting them copy things from the board. I also noticed that they would either draw a line through any mistakes and write “cancel” or they would (neatly) remove the entire page from their books. I remember back in middle and high school that there was not particular way we had to keep our notebooks. Students would tear things out of their notebooks all of the time and would hand things in with rough edges. Here, students would never do such a thing; the one time we asked students to tear a piece of from their notebooks (before we were informed that it wasn’t allowed), most of the kids spend a long time making sure that the pieces were neat by tearing the paper with a ruler.
-teachers here are called “sir” or “miss” and their first names. For example, a male teacher would be “sir Luke”, and a female teacher “miss Lizzy”. When they answered us, it was “yes miss” or “sir” followed by the answer; much more formal than I expected. Sometimes they stood when we entered the classroom in the morning (it was a little inconsistent though; it seems like that may be a custom, but since we didn’t know the students relaxed after the first day).
-Even though we were only there for a week, it seemed like some of the students became really attached to us. On the second day, a couple of students brought me and another teacher flowers so they could show us what some of the plants we talked about looked like. Also, Colleen, my house mate, got hugs from several of the students after the second or third day.
On Friday, we had a closing ceremony with the students. A couple of them sang songs for us, there were some impromptu speeches, and we gave them certificates and snacks. It’s really unfortunate that none of us will be teaching there this year, because it was great that they came out for the week to get lessons from us.
In the afternoons we had our last orientation sessions in preparation for our dispersal along the coastal regions. After spending three weeks together adjusting to the new country, it was a little strange to leave to our sites, but I’m sure that the group will visit each other during free weekends.

Orientation highlights

Sorry about the lack of posts recently. A lot has happened, but I didn’t get a chance to finish a post at the end of the second week and I’ve been super busy with teacher training and meetings this past week. There is an internet café across the street from my house, so I’ll post a couple of times next week with the events of orientation.
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Highlights of week 2
The second week here at orientation was much slower paced than the first in terms of formal sessions, but there were some highlights of the week:
On Monday, we headed to the US embassy for a meeting about security issues to watch out for. It was like returning home for a few hours…after everyone filtered through the thorough security search (much like going through airport security), we were treated to a couple of hours of AC, hot water in the sinks, and a taste of life at the embassy. Some of the advice was unrealistic to the point of being silly for people who are going to live like Guyanese (we were advised not to use minibuses, the main form of transportation around here) but I guess for the intended audience, i.e. embassy people getting paid American wages, it was well founded. Other than the novelty of being inside, the trip was pretty uneventful.
On Wednesday, we ventured out into Georgetown for a scavenger hunt that took us through the most famous sights. Among other things, we saw the Umani yanna, the botanical gardens and the national library. We ended up going during the middle of the day, so it was super hot, but I did see a lot of sights that I wouldn’t have gotten to otherwise.
During the last week of orientation, we did practical work with the students in a local secondary school called Cummings Lodge secondary. It’s common to advance students to the next grade even if they don’t pass, but those that don’t do well enough during the year have to attend summer school. On Friday, we all headed over to present ourselves to the parents and the students we’ll be working with (a few of them at least). The students have already been in school for six weeks, and have one more week of summer classes before a one week break. However, it seems like a lot of them started their vacation a little early. It’s a little scary that the school year will be starting so soon, but this week was really good for hands on practice with other experienced teachers as a warm up. More details about the teaching practicum and some pictures are coming soon!
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Some random observations of Guyanese culture
Umbrellas: Being so close to the equator means that the climate is hot and humid all of the time, and the sun is very bright. To stay a little cooler, many Guyanese women walk around with umbrellas while outside to shade themselves. My first purchase here was an umbrella so that I could follow suit. I still sweat buckets even under the umbrella if I’m walking around during the day, but the shade does help a little.
Music: The music that I’ve heard for 90% of the time since I’ve been here has been a mash up of reggae, soca, chutney, and popular American R&B songs, especially Neyo and Rihanna (Neyo had a concert my second weekend here, and RIhanna is half Guyanese). The Guyanese love to listen to music all of the time, the louder the better. It really feels like being in a club even in the middle of the day. One quirk about the radio here that I find kind of annoying is the fact that the DJ will cut in to make announcements (or something like that….sometimes I can’t decipher what’s being said), but it seems like people tend to play their own CDs more that listen to the radio, so I haven’t heard it too much. The Guyanese are also really into 80’s music, especially during Karaoke. I’ve always considered karaoke to be a silly affair where people get up to sing badly, but Guyanese take it to another level entirely: most of the time they’ll choose slow “oldies” ballads and really get into it.
Minibuses: It feels like an adventure every time I get on. Minibuses are vans that go around town on certain routes based on the number painted on it. Usually there’s a driver and a “conductor” that takes the money and hangs out the window looking for more passengers. The one that passes by CPCE is the #44. Sometimes they deviate: when I was headed back from a trip into town with a housemate, a lot of 44 buses said they were not passing by our stop. However, they’re pretty consistent. In the city there’s a bus “station” (strip of road near the Starbroek market) where we can make transfers to another line or catch a bus back to CPCE. The driving can pretty fast…I usually try not to look out the window too much. New Amsterdam is pretty small though, so after I get to my site I probably won’t be using them too often.

Again, there's much more to come about week three and my new site in the next few days!

"Welcome to the Land of Many Waters"

The first week of orientation is coming to a close, and I hardly know where to begin!

After meeting the other 14 volunteers at JFK for the pre-departure meeting, we braved the 6 hour red eye flight to Georgetown. For orientation we're staying in the dorms at the teacher's college, Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE for short) right next to the University of Guyana. I could probably right a blog post entirely about that! We’ve been busy this week with workshops about teaching and on Guyanese culture. It’s the tail end of the rainy season, so it’s been hot and muggy most of the time. The sea breeze makes it less extreme, however, and it can be quite pleasant at night. Surprisingly, I feel cooler when I’m outside at night here that I did in Florida.

Accommodations:

We all have single rooms in the boy’s dorm of the college, but only for the 1st half....due to summer renovations, we'll have to move over to the girl's dorm in a few days. The plumbing has been cantankerous, so we've all learned the fine art of bucket showers (people have been caught soaped up when the water stops in the showers several times), bucket toilet flushing, and outdoor washing (laundry). The accommodations are simple, but honestly it hasn't been a difficult adjustment.


Food:

It's been both strange and wonderful. Strange in the sense that it's unfamiliar, and I still don't know what several dishes I've eaten are called. Also, strange in the sense that certain dishes were served at an unusual time of day (I've definitely never had tuna salad for breakfast until I got here). Even with the unfamiliarity, I've definitely eaten better food in the last week than I did 90% of the time at ND. So far, my favorite dish is roti with chicken curry (roti is a flat, flaky bread....I'm not really sure what to compare it to. Maybe a very thick and doughy tortilla, or very moist naan). I definitely come to appreciate ice a lot since I’ve been here, and the first ice cream cone I ate was marvelous… We’ve been frequent visitors of the ice cream shop since we found out about it.


Orientation:

We've talked a lot in the past week about various aspects of Guyanese culture and the school system. One of the highlights of our formal sessions was the welcoming ceremony hosted by the Ministry of Education, We were filmed and had pictures taken that are to be featured in the news. If I can find the story online, I’ll post it here. We've also been to downtown Georgetown to see which areas to avoid and where the shopping is. Kitty, our security adviser, has come to talk to us a few times and led us through Stabroek market (the place to avoid) and Bourda market (the safe shopping) so we could get a feel for the city. He also went with us to a Guyanese dance club Saturday night so that we could get a feel for the social scene, have whining (ie Guyanese dancing) lessons, and enjoy some reggae and soca music. We also visited a local Guyanese water park yesterday (ie, a lake with speedboats and kayaks available for hire), which was a nice change of pace.

I’m truly enjoying my stay in Georgetown. The group has already become like one big, unusual family as we adjust to the new environment.

Site placement and final preparations

Summer is nearly over, and the last three months seemed to fly by. I can't believe that the time to leave for Guyana is nearly here! The reality of my looming departure finally struck me when I got my site placement a couple of days ago: I'll be teaching Biology, Integrated Science, or Chemistry at Berbice High School in New Amsterdam, a small town 2 hours outside of Georgetown by road (mom no longer has to fear making an arduous journey by plane, boat, or donkey to visit!). I'll be living with two other WT volunteers on the compound of another school located a few miles away. There's a notebook (!) of information about this site from the previous volunteers that I look forward to reading when I get to Georgetown. In the meantime I looked at the website for the alumni association of my school, which looks nice but is mostly blank... Nevertheless I was able to find out that the school was founded in 1916 and was originally a religious school for boys before it was turned over to government control in the 60s.

New Amsterdam,
(Nieuw Amsterdam in Dutch), located in the East Berbice-Corentyne Region, is one of the largest towns in Guyana, sixty-two miles from the capital, Georgetown. It is located on the Atlantic Ocean coast at the mouth of the Berbice River and has a population of approximately 33,000 people.

The main schools in New Amsterdam are Berbice High School, Berbice Educational Institute, Vryman's Erven Secondary, Tutorial Academy, and New Amsterdam Multi-Lateral High School (opened in 1975). The town is fairly small consisting of three main roads with about a dozen cross streets. It has a Mayor and a thriving market. From New Amsterdam you can get to Crabwood Creek (about 45 miles away) via the Corentyne or to the East Canje area of Berbice. A road also leads up the Berbice river bank to the town of Mara about 25 miles away.

There are several hotels in the town: Church View Guest House, Astor Hotel, Parkway Hotel and Little Rock.

I've got plenty of last minute preparations, but things are really starting to come together. After struggling with the maximum luggage allowance during my trip to France a couple of years ago, I'm determined to travel light this time around and restrict myself to one suitcase and one carry on. This is a little unsettling; the prospect of taking half the amount of stuff for twice the length of time makes me feel like I'm going to forget something important, but I'll probably be thankful later.

Going public and miscellaneous facts

In honor of making the blog officially public, here's a brief geography and history lesson on this interesting country:


-Guyana is on the northern coast of the continent. It is bordered by Venezuela on the west, Suriname on the east, and Brazil on the south.

-The border is closed between Venezuela and Guyana due to a longstanding border dispute, so there are no roads between them.

-As a former British colony, Guyana is the only English speaking country in South America. Writing on the board next year is going to be quite interesting until I learn the British spelling of words!

-The population is about 750,000, mostly concentrated around Georgetown, the capital

-Guyana is home to one of the most pristine tropical rainforests. It also has Kaiteur falls, which is considered the largest single drop waterfall in the world (by volume of water that flows over it. It is not tallest--that title goes to Angel Falls in Venezuela).

-The population is primarily East Indian and Afro-Guyanese. There are also small populations of Amerindian (the indigenous people) Chinese, and Caucasian citizens.

-The ancestors of the Afro-Guyanese were brought by the British as slaves. When Britain abolished slavery, these former slaves refused to continue working on the plantations, so the British transported East Indians to Guyana to replace them as laborers.

-Due to its history, the culture is more similar to the Caribbean islands than to the other Latin American countries in S.A., and Guyana is a member of Caricom, a group of 15 Caribbean nations whose goal is to promote economic integration and cooperation


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And to wrap up, a brief note about Jonestown, which is featured in the article I linked to:

The People's Temple Agricultural Project, also known as Jonestown, was home to members of a cult led by Jim Jones. In November of 1978, 918 people died in a mass suicide after drinking cyanide-laced kool-aid on Jim Jones' order. This incident is the second largest loss of American lives not related to a natural disaster, after September 11th. U.S. congressman Leo Ryan, who had gone to Guyana to investigate complaints against the cult, was shot and killed. He is the only congressman to die in the line of duty.

So the next time you hear or see the phrase "drink the kool-aid", you'll know that this may be its origin...

This is not the best quality map, but it was the only one I could find with Jonestown marked. Click for a larger size.

Guyana in the News

Saw an article about Jonestown in the New York Times, and decided to repost it here. I plan to blog on general information about Guyana, including Jonestown, once finals are over.

WORLD

Can Ghosts Bring Life to Jonestown Cult Compound?

By SIMON ROMERO

Published: May 2, 2010

Residents near the former cult compound where 900 Americans died in 1978 said they were interested in drawing more tourists to the site.

Testing the Waters

As of today, I'm officially part of WorldTeach Guyana 2010! I was accepted into the program two months ago, and the day I found out I was both excited and relieved that I wouldn't be working at starbucks until I got into med school! When I finished the confirmation process today it felt good to complete the first stage of actually getting there. Now for the hard part: four months of shots, doctors appointments, and working so that I have money to live on, not to mention finishing school and taking the MCAT! This process reminds me of going through the preparations for studying abroad in France two years ago (has it really been two years already??).

Since I confirmed today, I decided to go ahead and set up my blog. I don't think I'm going to update this much until I'm actually on the way to South America, but after reading a bunch of blog posts by Peace Corps volunteers last night (instead of sleeping...), I felt inspired to start my own. Although there weren't that many blogs for Guyana volunteers, I did learn some useful tidbits about what to expect when I get there. Information about Guyana is very limited, so finding the Peace corps stuff was really nice. Hopefully the people who are now going to their sites continue to update so that I can learn from them and better prepare myself for the transition.

Anyway, I've rambled on enough for now. Chances are I'll change the blog layout in the future, but for now, here it is!