Adventures on the Rupununi part 2: Brazil and the Lethem rodeo

Things have been hectic the past few weeks, but I wanted to finish this blog post series before I leave tomorrow. So, without further ado:

Saturday morning, we decided to make an excursion across the border to Bon Fim, Brazil. Lethem is only a stone’s throw away from the Takatu river, which serves as the border between Guyana and Brazil. The small border town of Bon Fim is not far away on the other side. However, we weren’t entirely sure if we could get there. American citizens are supposed to have a very expensive visa in order to enter Brazil (lucky us, huh?), but we heard from multiple sources that to travel to Bon Fim, it wasn’t necessary. After the hotel tried and failed to connect us with their usual guide, we decided to just hail a car on the road to the immigration office on the border and then see about finding our way from there.

The car we picked up drove us over the Takatu and left us at the immigration office on the Brazil side. There we encountered a fairly large crowd, which resulted in a long and unproductive wait. After discussing our options with a British friend who happened to be there with a tour group, and eventually asking an immigration officer, we concluded that the rumors about crossing to Bon Fim were not true, and that we would need the expensive visa after all (which, by the way, is only obtainable in Georgetown, across the country). We started to walk back to Lethem, taking pictures on the Takatu bridge on the way.

At the top of the bridge, a man in a little blue car stopped and inquired, “Are you getting good pictures? You can get better ones in Bon Fim!” After our unsuccessful inquiry in Brazil, his claim seemed a bit dubious. In spite of our doubts, he assured us that we could in fact get to Bon Fim, and that he would happily take us. To further assuage us, he even gave us a lift to the Guyanese immigration office to ask about this ourselves. After a short conversation, the genial officer subtly encouraged us by telling us to “never say never!” if we really wanted to get to Bon Fim, and by assuring us that we wouldn’t have a hard time on the way back into the country.

It was a little jarring to cross a river and suddenly be on the right side of paved roads, and to see stoplights and signs in Portuguese in a town that couldn’t be much larger than Lethem. Even New Amsterdam, the second largest town in Guyana, doesn’t have any stoplights. It was one thing to take a plane ride to Tobago and be in a much more developed country, but quite another to drive 15 minutes and see such a drastic change. Jimmy, our impromtu tour guide, carried us to a little restaurant in Bon Fim near his house, where we had a great meal and got a small peek at Brazilian culture. After lunch, we took a ride around Bon Fim and then headed back to Guyana for the main event, the rodeo.

The Guyanese rodeo was quite different from the rodeos I went to as a child. Here, the Amerindians were the cowboys, and the rodeo was like a small fair. We hung out with other volunteer friends, ate meat on a stick (a very welcome treat; before the rodeo I could count the number of times I ate beef in Guyana on one hand), and enjoyed watching the events. The real event was the music and dancing that started at night fall: lots of dancing and music!

Saturday morning, we headed to Moco Moco falls. This is a small waterfall that was once the site of a hydroelectric plant built by the Chinese government. Unfortunately, it was damaged by a landslide and has been out of commission ever since.  It was a nice place to go for a Sunday morning swim, and it was an enjoyable excursion that allowed us to pass through an amerindian village.

The last part of our trip, the stop in Surama, was much more peaceful than the start (besides the fact that we nearly got stranded there when it was time to leave), so there's not much to tell. Part 3 will be pictures of Lethem, Brazil, and Surama, which I'll post after I return.

On a final note, this will be the final blog post I make before reaching home. The reality of being back in the states has been in the back of my mind for the last week. However, I've been trying to focus on enjoying the remainder of my time here, instead of thinking about the readjustment process and the "reverse culture shock" of being back in America for the first time in 11 months. I'm not quite ready to leave Guyana yet; I wish I could carry my students for the next year, especially my 4th form students who will be writing their CXCs next year. I felt like I was only truly becoming comfortable in New Amsterdam in the last couple of months. 

There's a saying that if you eat Labba (a local animal) and drink the black water, you'll always return to Guyana. Over the year, I felt that experiencing the diverse culture and beauty of this country has been my way of doing that. It has been wonderful to work with my students and seeing all of the wonderful places, especially in the hinterland. While it hasn't been easy, I really appreciated the opportunity to live here and have this experience. I truly hope that I'm able to return here one day soon.

Adventures on the Rupununi part 1: The Road to Lethem

At the beginning of our service in Guyana, my housemate Corin expressed a strong desire to travel down to Lethem to see the rodeo that takes place every Easter. When I read about it in the guidebook, I was intrigued: an American had started a rodeo in Lethem, a dusty frontier town on the border of Brazil. It’s in a region of Guyana called the Rupununi, an area of savannah that contrasts greatly with the dense forest and swamps to the north. In the past, cattle herding was a major livelihood in this region of the country, and evidence of this way of life remains clearly evident even today. The rodeo provided the locals a way to show off their ranching skills. The guidebook made it sound like it was the thing to do over Easter, and that many people from the coast and different areas of the interior traveled to Lethem to participate in or watch it. I was interested in traveling to a different part of Guyana and seeing a different side of life from the one that I experience living on the coast, so I decided to join Corin and another volunteer in our group, Sarah, on the trip to Lethem.

The Easter break adventure began before we even got on the road. Due to communication difficulties and a last minute change of plans for the trip, we couldn’t book a seat on the more comfortable and probably more reliable Intraserve coach bus that runs between Georgetown and Lethem. As a result, our only (affordable) option for getting down to the rodeo was to take a minibus.  After living in Guyana for 8 months, I saw the sudden change in plans more as an opportunity for another true “Guyanese” experience instead of a major inconvenience.

We spent Wednesday night at Sarah’s house outside of Georgetown, and set out to catch the minibus in “little Brazil” the next night. We ended up on a bus with Charlie, our driver, his family, an Amerindian man wedged between my travel mates and me, and a rasta man (who mostly hung outside of the window the entire time because the bus had too many people). In all, there were 15 people and all our luggage on a bus with 12 seats. Overloading is actually a pretty typical practice for a normal minibus that travels shorter distances, especially in Georgetown. However, for such a long trip, it gets really cramped to have extra people in the back rows, and it probably led to some of our problems later on. After taking nearly an hour to load all of the Rasta man’s merchandise on top of our minibus, we finally set off from the capital around 8:30….

Loading up the minibus in Georgetown. Those boxes are the Rasta man's goods that he sold at the Rodeo.

Only to stop at the immigration office in town to fill out some sort of document called “the manifest” and present ourselves as travelers on the Linden-Lethem road (to be honest, I’m still not entirely sure why we had to do this).

We finally were on our way around 9:00 pm Thursday night. Besides a stop in town to pick up some fried chicken and a second random stop on the side of the road to drop a parcel (which is a pretty common occurrence when traveling anywhere in this country), everything went smoothly until we got to Linden, the last major town before the paved road ends. Charlie got lost trying to find the police station to present ourselves for the manifest, so we ended up driving around in circles for a little while trying to find it (mind you, Charlie works as a minibus driver on the Linden-Lethem road, so it would seem that he should know where it was). Eventually, we did manage to leave Linden around 11 pm and really get on our way.

The red dirt road south of Linden is rough. Because of the rain and the number of large “bush trucks” that traverse it, there are many large pot holes and deep tire tracks that make it hard to drive on for any vehicle besides the most sturdy 4x4. Most minibus drivers just speed down it anyway, but the going was slow for our bus. Charlie’s caution paid off: not long after we were overtaken by another minibus, we found it tipped over precariously on the side of the road because it had gotten stuck in a pothole. We of course stopped to watch an army truck and a group of men work together to get it unstuck, and then set on our way again.

We continued on for another hour or so until Charlie’s family decided it was time to stop for a food/ bathroom break in the middle of the jungle. This was my first true taste of the interior. It was a little eerie to be out in the middle of the jungle at night, with nothing around us but the trees and the sound of howler monkeys calling in the distance.

Our first stop in the jungle

The bus eventually made it to the first major truck stop on the way, called Mabura Hill, around 4 in the morning. It isn’t much more than a gas station, a bathroom, and a small restaurant, but arriving at place with an actual toilet and food to eat was a much needed respite from the road. The truck stop was shortly before the next manifest stop (which turned into a 30 minute restroom break in the pouring rain) in the village/outpost called Mabura. Mabura is at a junction in the road to another interior town called Mahdia, where Brazilian and Guyanese miners and loggers living deeper in the jungle converge to cash in their finds and stock up on supplies. Because of its location on the road, it’s pretty much the last true sign of civilization (i.e. the only place after Linden that has cell phone service) until Lethem. I didn’t realize it until the trip back when we passed this point later in the morning, but it seems to be an important area for the men who work in the interior.

We continued down the road at our sluggish pace, primarily because our bus was so overloaded with cargo and the girls in the bus wanted to switch spots often. At one point, Charlie realized that we couldn’t make it up a moderately steep hill. All of the passengers had to get out and walk up to the top, and a passing 4x4 towed our bus up to the top.

Getting some help up the hill. I think that white minibus in the background was the one that got stuck in the pothole the previous night

 

Eventually, we made it to Kurupukari crossing at the entrance of Iwokrama late Friday morning. Here, vehicles must be loaded onto a pontoon boat and carried across the Essequibo river. Because of the rodeo and the general increase in traffic along this road, we had to wait in line to cross. It didn’t seem like the wait would be terribly long…until two medium-sized buses full of tourists pulled up behind us. At first, this didn’t seem like it would cause a major delay. We happened to know several people on these buses, so their sudden appearance behind us was a nice surprise. We hung out on the bank of the Essequibo river, talking and getting caught in a sudden rainstorm.

The bank of the Essequibo river at the Kurupukari crossing

Pontoon boat that carries vehicles across the river

Another view of the river and Kurupukari village in the background

Drenched after the storm at the crossing

Loading the minibus onto the pontoon boat

It seemed like it would finally be time for our bus to load up, but then the two tourist buses behind us cut the line and got loaded onto the pontoon boat ahead of us. In all, we ended up waiting at the crossing for 2 hours, as the boat made a second round trip across while we watched from the bank. We did eventually make it onto the pontoon and across the river, and we were able to enter the Iwokrama forest in the early afternoon.

Iwokrama is a large area of protected rainforest in the center of Guyana. Known as the “green heart of Guyana”, Iwokrama is a project in ecotourism, rainforest preservation, research, and sustainable logging. We had actually hoped to visit and go on some of the tourist activities offered here as part of our Easter trip, but due to a lack of communication and the expense of staying in the lodges, we weren’t able to. Even so, I got an idea of the magnitude of the rainforest as we passed through. The enormous canopy trees stretched up towards the sky higher than any trees I’ve ever seen, and it was clear that the forest was dense just beyond the road.

The view of the forest from the minibus

Probably because of all of the activities that go on here, the road is relatively well maintained. Our progress through the forest was speedy. That is, until we encountered a backup of traffic in front of a bridge not far from the southern edge of the forest. A bush truck trying to cross a wooden bridge over a gorge broke through the wood and got stuck. There was space for smaller vehicles to pass it on the side, but just as we pulled up, another vehicle that was trying to pass had some difficulties and also got stuck. We were reunited with the tour buses that cut us in line at Kurupukari and walked around the bridge to view the damage and the progress of traffic. Eventually, the traffic was able to slowly start to get through again. After watching our minibus cross with bated breath, we finally got past the accident and were soon on our way. Unfortunately, the other two tourist buses were too large to pass, so they were stuck in the forest for several hours until the bush truck was moved.

It doesn't make a lot of sense that this truck was driving on the edge instead of the wooden planks in the center. Maybe it was and it slipped to the side?

Huge crowd of people watching the traffic jam on the bridge.

Around 5 pm on Friday evening, we exited the forest and entered the savannah of the Rupununi. The change was drastic; one minute we clearly still in forest (near the end it thinned out and the trees were smaller), and the next we were in grassy plains. It felt like we had suddenly crossed into another country entirely. This was the first time I saw Amerindian villages. The thatch roof buildings were dispersed throughout the savannah along the road.

We reached the village Annai and the next truck stop, called Rockview, shortly after entering the savannah. This stop was largely uneventful, until we tried to leave. The sun had set by this time (it was around 6:30 pm; the sun rises and sets quite early year round because Guyana is so close to the equator), and there wasn’t much light. Just as we exited the gate of Rockview, we hit a large rock. At this point, I was afraid that we would be spending the night there, because it sounded pretty bad. Charlie decided that the damage wasn’t enough to stop us, thankfully, but our progress after this point was really slow. The combination of the darkness, the poor condition of the road, and our bus issues meant that this last leg of the trip took 4 ½ hours instead of 2. To be honest, despite all the setbacks earlier in the trip and the fact that I managed to pick the worst seat on the bus (because of the position of the seats, I had to get out every time the people in the row behind me wanted to get out), I honestly was fine until this last leg. I think that the cramped seating on the bus, the lack of sleep from our frequent stops, and traveling over the rough road finally caught up to me. By the time we finally reached our hotel in Lethem at 11pm Friday night, I was extremely happy to lay down on an air mattress in a tent. We skipped the first event of the rodeo, a pageant that was taking place at our hotel, but after our arduous journey the rest was much needed. Total travel time: 26 hours.

And to think, all this happened and our trip had barely started! Coming up next: Adventures on the Rupununi part 2: Brazil and the Lethem rodeo.

Coming soon: Adventures on the Rupununi parts 1-3

Hey everyone,

The lack of blog posts for the last couple of months is not due to lack of things to write about, but because I never got around to writing about them and getting the pictures. However, my Easter break adventure to the southern part of Guyana is too compelling to not write about. I figured that if I officially made a promise that more stories are coming, I would feel obligated to write about the trip sooner rather than later. I'm a bit busier now because I'm applying to medical school, but I do promise to post in the coming weeks!

Random life skills learned in Guyana

 Hello, and Happy New Year everyone. Yes, I'm still alive down here. I took a hiatus over December and intended to blog when I got back from vacation, but I got busy and suddenly January is almost over. There are quite a few holidays coming up in February and March, so I'll try to be better about writing. 

With every new experience comes a new opportunity to learn and grow as a person. Oftentimes, a new experience gives us a chance to learn things that we didn't expect. My roommates and I had a conversation about this one evening, and it led me to further reflect on the things that I've mastered here that I couldn't have learned had I stayed at home. So, without further ado, a list of the random life skills I've gained:

1. How to neatly wrap books in paper and sheets of plastic. Now when I go to medical school, I can keep my textbooks looking like new by wrapping them in gaudy paper.

2. How to eat and drink out of a plastic bag without utensils!

3. How to ride a bike with a flat tire in a billowy skirt around cars, potholes, children, cows, dogs, flying insects, wooden carts pulled by donkeys, large delivery trucks that shouldn't be on the road, etc. Next i'll have to learn how to talk on the phone and tow someone on the back of my bike at the same time.

4. The best way to kill rats (rat poison mixed with plain white rice)

5. How to outsmart ants (because quite frankly, trying to kill them all the time is futile)

6. How to catch a toad that meanders into the house

7. How to avoid the little frogs living in my shower and bathroom that like to jump around unpredictably

8. How to kill cockroaches and flying beetles without bug spray (I'm not sure I'll ever be able to kill spiders, but at least they're pretty rare)

9. The necessity to using a ruler to draw any line, write straight on a piece of paper, or tear a page out of a notebook so that the whole thing doesn't fall apart.

10. How to improvise an activity on the spot when the planned lesson turns out to be too short.

11. How to make pizza without an oven (Next step: making an oven on a propane stove)

12. How to strike a match successfully without breaking it or going through half the box

13. How to eat just about anything with a plastic spoon or spork (i'm still working on how to eat noodles)

14.How to survive without a refrigerator.

15. How to understand people mumbling in thick Guyanese accents (well, sort of)

16. How to enjoy a rousing 80's ballad, or any other type of music: at a volume that the whole village can hear, of course!

17. How to catch a car on the road, and also how not get ripped off by the car driver when I reach my destination

18. How to dry my clothes during the rainy season in less than three days

19. How to write legibly and draw elaborate diagrams on a not so good chalkboard

20. How to appreciate the simple joys in life, and how to not take a luxury for granted

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