3 months!

The past few weeks have been busy at work!  The first week back after the holidays was a short one with 2 public holidays! Labour Day and Indian arrival day. For the second one we went to Highbury which is an hour down the East Bank. It is the first place the East Indians arrived when they came 173 years ago. We sat with 2000 other people in a large wooden building watching a programme of dancing, singing and information about the journey from East Indian to here. We were given traditional food afterwards. We got a lift back with a nice couple – I was a bit worried about how we were going to get back as the sugar trucks they had put on for transport were full!

A couple of months ago I applied to VSO for a small grant to buy some books for a reading project here. The hope is that we will train up parents who will come in and hear children read individually twice per week at school. There is a charity called the Guyana Book Foundation which sells really lovely reading books which are appropriately levelled and culturally relevant at a reduced price. With the grant, I purchased enough books for 4 schools. This week we went into the first school and tested all the children in Grade 3 and 4 on their phonics knowledge, word recognition and comprehension. We then sorted them into two groups – one to be heard read and the other as a control group. In the afternoon we did a workshop for the parents, teaching them how to read with the children, giving them strategies for decoding and questions to ask. They will now hear those selected children at least twice per week. At the end of the term we will go back and test all the children to hopefully prove the project worked. Then (and I have to find funding first) we would like to roll this out to other schools. The parents seem really keen to start the programme and hopefully it will have a positive impact not only on the children in the reading project, but their children too, plus it will help build relationships between the school and community.

I ran my first full days workshop for the Literacy Professional development course. The first module was on teaching reading through phonics. I had 11 out of the 16 people turn up (I am investigating where the others were!!) plus a few other teachers and peace corp. volunteers who were interested in learning about phonics. The course went well, there are things that I would do differently next time but the participants seemed to get a lot out of it. I will now spend the rest of the term supporting them with their assignments and going in to observe them teaching. At the end of the course they will be trained literacy resource people who can be used within the region to support others.

I have also been to cluster meetings and run workshops on reading comprehension and writing composition – being given objects like

“Teach the 6 different types of writing composition for grades 1 – 6 in an hour” – just a small ask then!

Those VSO dimensions of flexibility and adaptability are coming in use this week with meetings being changed, then changed back and only knowing what is going on a few hours before! Also I have been asked to do a workshop on something and then that has changed when I arrive – a lot of thinking on my feet!

For the weekend we went to White-water which is an Island in the Essequibo River. A beautiful peaceful place with white sand – though still brown water! We had a relaxing weekend of swimming and reading on the beach. The water had piranha in it which some people caught fishing about 20 m away from where we were swimming – we were told it is fine to swim as long as you dint have open wounds! I would like to point out how brave I am becoming here!!

I past the three month mark which was a great milestone to reach! I have found the past few weeks a bit tougher but I guess some of the novelty of life here has worn off but next week I am going to Barbados for the week (it is very close to here). While I am very excited about hot water, ac, Italian food, the beach, no cockroaches, not sleeping under a mosquito net – the thing I am the most excited about is seeing a friend from home – cannot wait!

The weather is starting to turn here and I think we are going back into rainy season! There are two dry and two rainy seasons per year. It rained all last night and all today. I went home at lunchtime and had to wade through water up to my knees! It is very close to the door – luckily it has stopped raining so hopefully the water level can go down before we get any more!

Finally a lot of people ask about the cockroaches – I obviously talked about them a lot at the beginning – they are still here though in a lesser number due to some powder I have put down – I find quite a few dead ones and some that are alive too – but they bother me less. I did have a HUGH black spider to deal with the other night which was horrible as I HATE spiders – give me cockroaches any day!

white water

Indian Arrival Day

Ready to read scheme - testing the children

All the books we purchased

A warm up game at my course

The Literacy course

Indian Arrival Day

With 2 parents from a school we met at Indian Arrival Day

Catching the boat to White-water

Belated Happy Easter

We had our Easter holidays a week later than in the UK. With no school it meant all the time was spent in the office (I don’t get school holidays here sadly!) which was good to catch up on paperwork and prepare for next term but I also found it quite boring!

VSO asked me to go and carry out a needs analysis of a reading project run by a Lions club in Georgetown. The project ran every Saturday afternoon and a mixture of teachers and volunteers provided reading support for the local children. Then they were allowed to take home a book to read for the week. The scheme has been running for some years and is very successful. We agreed on a plan of action and I will provide some training for them later in the year.

For Easter another volunteer and I went to the Rodeo in Letham in the south of the country. We went on an organised tour (I use the word organised loosely!) with 20 other Guyanese people. The tour organisers were trying to promote domestic tourism and encourage Guyanese people to see their own country. They also let us on!!

There is one road from the North to the South of the country. It is the same one I went to Mahdia on – but this time it was a bigger bus and a slower driver (didn’t get travel sick this time – also used those pressure arm bands – thank you Carolina!)

If you start at the top of Guyana it is coastline, further down is jungle, then rainforest, then finally savannah – it was really interesting driving south and seeing these changes. The road is a dirt road and varied from 10m wide to just wide enough for a bus. There is either thick jungle or rainforest either side, so if the road gets blocked there isn’t an alternative. We came across a lorry which had slid over on a wooden bridge. It had happened at 7am. We came across it at 1pm. There was a queue of traffic – this is probably the busiest weekend for the road of the year with everyone heading to the rodeo. 4x4 were able to get by but they were swapping wheels to put thinner ones on – we also saw someone drive up on the raised bit on the edge of the bridge. Our bus was too wide to get by. We knew it would be a while so went for a walk – was really beautiful with trees towering 30 m high either side of us. At 6pm another lorry turned up to pull the first lorry off. It took about 45 minutes but they did it to a loud cheer (everyone was still stood on the wooden bridge as this happening!) we set off and finally arrived at 1am – 27 hours after we left!

We were sleeping in hammocks – they had removed all the beds from a dorm room and put up 20 hammocks. It was actually much more comfortable than I imagined it would be! You sleep diagonally across them.

The following morning we headed over the boarder to Brazil – it took a while to get through immigration and when we arrived though they decided our driver wasn’t allowed to drive – but coincidently there was a bus and driver we could hire! Having spent 2 hours getting through immigration we decided to get it. Another beautiful drive to Boa Vista – open landscape with mountains in the distance. We went to a “Brazilian” restaurant – you filled up a plate with salad and rice and they came round with different types of BBQ meat on long sticks and carved off what you wanted. We took a walk through Boa Vista and had a short time shopping. When we drove back through immigration it was closed so we were told to go through and come back in the morning!! We went to the rodeo that evening – it was like an old fashion English fair. They had a big ferris wheel, shooting, toffee apples, hoop-la, BBQs and candy floss. We had a go on some dice games and decided to brave the Ferris wheel – when you are 30 m in the air you suddenly start question the rickety thing you are on! There was of course the obligatory disco with loud music – they were playing music from North Brazil – I actually missed the Guyanese music!

The following day we tried to come back through immigration but they were still closed! So we headed to the waterfall. Another beautiful drive off-road – savannah all around with mountains in the background. We drove through some Amerindian villages – they have traditional style housing often made from mud with a thatched roof.

We climbed up past pools of water and small waterfalls to the big one at the top. We climbed up the waterfall itself and could go behind it. Our guide showed us how to slide down the rocks into the pool of water below. No one else wanted to go so obviously I had to! I think once a girl had done it then the others had too! I went down a second time and didn’t quite time in right and hit one rock and bounced off another – I have 2 bruises the size of saucers on each leg – that will teach me hey!

Finally we were able to check back into the country and we headed off to the rodeo – we watched the cowboys try to stay on bucking horses and lasso cattle. The cowboys here have bare feet for better grip. There are quite a few ranches in the surrounding area.

On our bus was a cricket player and his family – he once captained the West Indies and still plays for teams in Trinidad and Canada – everyone knew him wherever we went!

The journey back wasn’t quite as long but equally as eventful as we kept having problems with the bus. We also stopped at the canopy walkway – we didn’t see any wildlife but it was nice to walk through the trees.

The following week I was so tired and resorted to some afternoon naps – my first since getting here!

We watched the royal wedding here – I made scones (best I could with the ingredients I had) cake and we had tea! Was lovely to see it!

The following weekend I was invited by a family for a bush cook. We went to the field next to the school and made a huge pot of rice and chicken. The children and I went walking at the back along the creek. They went swimming and jumping off the bridge into the water. We went back and ate, then played cricket – I did quite well and got a few runs in! I also got quite sun burnt!

It is very hot here at the moment and humid – I just seem to sweat constantly and I am having 2 or 3 showers a day! Just sat in the house doing nothing is hot – I don’t get much of a breeze being downstairs!

Hope you all had a great Easter!

 

 

Me playing cricket

The Lions reading project

The pontoon across the river on the way to Letham

The offending lorry!

The rodeo

Add caption

The famous cricketer!

Around Letham

Traditional housing

Sliding down the waterfall

Playing in the water

Down the East Bank - near NA

That is the way to get in the water!

Cook- up!