Shelley in Guyana: September 2011

The last 6 weeks have gone by so quickly again – I guess once you reach the half way mark time really does fly! I have now been here nearly 8 months which is just scary!

My time at NCERD was interesting; there is a huge amount of red tape, bureaucracy and functional hierarchy in the Ministries here. I thought there was a lot where I worked but I really had to jump through hoops to get my project approved in Town. Having got my project signed by about a million people I was allowed to present it to the Chief Education Officer, he approved it and asked me to use it to work in collaboration with another project he was about to start. I have to say I nearly danced out of his office, having been such a battle for the previous few weeks it was almost too easy to get him to agree! I have been working with the Rotary club to put together a book club scheme. Children would be able to stay behind one night after school, use a library, someone hear them read and be able to do book orientated fun activities. We are still in the planning stages but it is hoped to have the project running for January.

So I came home to New Amsterdam – having not lived their consistently for 6 weeks I was really missing it! With Mum and Dads visit I had been feeling home sick but getting back here and into a routine I felt much better.

So the new term started and wow what a busy few weeks it has been! I think because I have been here a while and established myself I am being asked to do more and more things by different groups of people, and it is quite hard to say no – though I must get better at saying it, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

This past week in particular I have been working late; feeling quite stressed and had a few tears in the office! I need to be firm with myself and not take on too much, one for my own sanity but also I am not here as a literacy coordinator but as an advisor and when I leave in a few months then the Region needs to be able to sustain these ideas, events and practices. I need to use my time productively and concentrate on things which will be sustainable.

One way I have done this is to meet with all the people who have been trained previously in the Literacy course which is running here. I met with 15 of them and after a discussion of literacy issues in the region I did a demonstration workshop to them on spelling. They are now going to replicate that workshop in their own clusters (groups of 3 schools meet once per moth for staff development training). This is the first time I have done this but I am hoping it will be a more effective use of my time (rather than trying to get round to all the clusters) and secondly using the resource teachers we have in the region.

September was Education month and I was asked to organise Literacy Day for Region 6. The main activity was a Teddy Bears picnic in the park. We had 300 children from schools in the New Amsterdam area come and take part. The main activities featured around story reading, the stories we used were fun, interactive and had the children laughing at the events. I also did the “Going on a bear hunt” song which they children (and teachers) loved. The theme of the day was reading is fun and that was the message we promoted to the television and newspaper reporters we had there. I have had some positive feedback from people on the street that saw the report which was lovely.

Launch of Education month was held at one of our Secondary schools and various people were invited to speak and we had dances, skits and a steel band performance from the children. The steel band were amazing and completed their act with Dem a watch me, which will mean nothing to you unless you live in Guyana!

I ran my first Nursery workshop – well two actually on the same afternoon and had a dash between getting from one to the other! The second one they had been locked out of the health centre where they meet so we did it in the sports pavilion instead!

A friend of mine had a baby in late August – he was born 2 months early. She had been in hospital a few days before he came which gave me a chance to see inside a hospital – lets say I will not be getting sick here. Luckily a doctor made a call to send her to the main hospital in Town where her baby was born a few hours later – if she had had him here probably both her and the baby would have died as they didn’t have a piece of equipment needed to help. It reminds you that life here is so fragile – sadly another friend’s cousin who was full term went into the hospital to have her baby. She needed an operation so the doctor was called, he said he didn’t like doing operations at night and would return in the morning. By then the baby had died inside the mother. So baby Christopher is very special and very lucky – even though he was only 4 lb 7 when he was born he is getting big and strong already. I have been having lots of cuddles!

I have visited the beach twice in the past month – always a nice place to go, the breeze is strong and they have benabs you can string up a hammock in. The water may be brown but I think it is the warmest water I have swam in. When we were there last we thought we saw a whale but alas no, it was a big piece of drift wood!

There has been some more wildlife in the house! The cockroaches came back – I think this was due to me having stopped putting the powder down, so it went back down and they have dwindled in numbers. Then there was a mouse and quite a large one. Think he has been got rid of. My house is starting to resemble a spaceship with silver duct tape over every crack and hole (which there are a lot of) and finally a poisonous centipede – if they bite you something bad happens cannot remember what!

The beginning of September was ridiculously hot! I would be lying in bed with the fan on at night sweating but thankfully it has cooled down a little to around 33 degrees! I think the big thing here is the humidity – I don’t go a day without sweating here – so nice! The day we did the Teddy bears picnic was so hot – I was filmed by 3 different TV stations and I had to keep on saying don’t film this bit as I am using my sweat rag (lovely name hey! Completely acceptable here to always be wiping yourself with a cloth) to make myself a little more presentable. I was had on a pink shirt – not a good choice as it shows the sweat!

Some other things I have been involved in are a regional spelling bee competition, with the winner going onto Georgetown to compete again the other regional winners. The final two girls were amazing spellers and exhausted the list we were given by the competition organisers. The girl who won our region’s competition went on to win at Nationals and will be representing Guyana in a Caribbean competition. It was fantastic she won and a big boost for the region!

I also had to give a speech at a graduation ceremony – something to inspire and motivate the pupils (Mum and Dad laughed when I told them that). It went quite well but the thing that always sticks in my head for speeches here is how you have to address everyone in your audience at the beginning of your speech. So mine began – Madam Chairman, pastor, special invitees, head teacher, teachers, parents, pupils and graduates! You mustn’t forget anyone!!

The elections are coming up in November and the current president has been in for two terms so has to stand down. To say thank you for all his hard work there was a president appreciation day which main focus was a celebration at the National Stadium. About 12 of us went from work and it was an interesting afternoon. Culturally we saw lots of great things – the highlight being 7 people parachuting into the stadium. There were dances, children with balloons, steel bands, singers and even a re-enactment of a police dog catching an escaped prisoner! In between all of these were some very long speeches praising the president. I was talking with my colleagues saying that I could never imagine this happening in the U.K. I also made a joke about the president being late for the event and was told to not say things like that; you never know who is listening. It is hard to know how much corruption there is in Guyana’s government – there is certainly a lot of corruption on a lower level particularly with the police. We will see which party gets in when the elections happen in November – though a lot of people say it is a forgone conclusion as one party is predominately Afro-Guyanese and the other Indo-Guyanese and as there are more Indo-Guyanese people in the country they will be the ones who get in.

I spent a lovely afternoon taking a friend and her kids to the local park. It is part of a fast food place so we had ice cream and went and played in the park. The kids were having so much fun and then their Mum told me they had never been to a park before let alone gone on a slide or swing – the eldest of her children is 12. The place we went to was only 15 drive from her house and in the nearest town to where she lives – again makes you count your blessings.

On a sadder note a Grandfather came into the office the other day to try and get a placement for his grandson for a different school. When asked where the parents were he said the father had killed the mother. I sat and talked with him for a while and it was incredibly sad. A child has lost both of his parents, one dead, the other in jail. Back home there would be counselling to support the child, but here there is nothing like that. The boy has understandably gone off the rails a bit and now it is down to his Grandfather to help him.

We had a call back workshop with VSO – the two areas we covered were challenges we had faced (we filled up 6 flip chart sheets between the 5 of us!) and violence. I think quite a few of us feel frustrated that we have witnessed violence both domestic, and towards children both in and out of school. Now in school there are guidelines for how corporal punishment can be carried out so if I see it happening incorrectly then it is easy to intervene (saying that they mainly won’t do it in front of me). But when it is happening around you by friends and neighbours it is hard to know what to do. Here it is normal to hit children to discipline them and it is also seen as ok to hit them with objects. It is hard to know when to intervene – what is and isn’t acceptable. The same with domestic abuse, there isn’t a great support system for women who are victims of it, no where for them to go if they leave their husbands and often the police don’t want to get involved. Are you making a situation worse by getting involved? This is changing slowly and there have been a few campaigns recently to highlight abuse. Sexual abuse is also very high here; the school welfare officers spend a large amount of their time dealing with it. But again the perpetrator often isn’t prosecuted and if the child is removed from the home then they get put into a children’s home where often the same thing can happen or they ask to be returned as they miss their family.

Guyana is a strange society – on one hand you have very high level of violence you only have to pick up any newspaper to see who has been murdered the day before or the number of people injured by cutlass attacks, yet when you walk down the street people saying good morning to you, people have made me so welcome and feel part of their families, children are polite when you enter a classroom but will also say a good morning on the street and people are getting on with their lives and seem happy dispute all that is going on a round them.

Before anyone worries most of the violence here is domestic or gang / drug related.

The longer I am here the more people I get to meet – I cannot go anywhere now without bumping into someone I know (or who I don’t know but they know who I am which happens a lot and can be quite embarrassing!) I know my neighbours on my street better than I did where I lived in Bristol for 4 years and I am really enjoying the “outside culture”. People are always outside their houses so as you walk by you can stop and talk. Because of the weather this just doesn’t happen to the same degree back home. People are very friendly here and always have time to stop and “gaff” (chat) and at work I do have to stop and remind myself to have a bit of a gaff first before launching into what needs doing that day!

I am use to washing by hand, boiling water etc but the thing which drives me mad is cane dust! We are surrounded by sugar cane fields which they burn before harvesting the crops – it is to get rid of the dry leaves around the bottom. Some days it can seem like it is snowing big black pieces of cane dust – and it gets everywhere. I will often come home and my house is filthy with it as it gets under the door, through the cracks in the windows. I am sweeping my house several times a week. It also made lovely marks on my washing a few days ago – I was not impressed!!

Last weekend we went to Rockstone – it is a little guesthouse on the side of a river about 2 ½ hours from Georgetown. The journey down was fun – 150 kph in the minibus! The place itself was lovely, very peaceful when we were on the water and we paddled a boat to a sandbank in the middle of the river. We saw lots of birds and an otter (just for a second). On the bus on the way back up they were playing Bob Marley – not something you hear a huge amount of, it was lovely everyone on the bus was singing along! The more popular music here is soca, dancehall and chutney – I never thought I’d get into the music here but I have to say I am converted – you will hear it playing on my stereo when I get home!!

The driving here is interesting – it is the only thing that happens at any speed! The drivers and minibus drivers tear along so quickly over taking and death from road accidents is very high. If I can I always try and get the front seat as it is the only one with a belt and really try to avoid the middle back seat. Here children don’t count as numbers in a car so it is fine to have a child sat on your lap for the journey – so different to back home where you need a car seat. Everything here is much more relaxed and I do think we have gone safety crazy back home – but because of that we have so many less deaths and accidents on the road – I guess it is trying to find that happy medium!

Sorry to mention the C word in September but if people want to send out cards, remember letters take 4 – 5 weeks to arrive and parcels 6 – 12 weeks depending on their size (though I did get a DHL parcel in about a week!). It may be longer with all the extra mail at Christmas. At the moment my placement finished 10^th February 2012 so probably don’t send any letters after 1^st January.