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.