March 2012

It's the end of another term - only one left now. This term has gone by with little occasion. The last four weeks in school were slow and very little was done in terms of school work. After the week that everyone in the dormitories was sent home, we had a week and a half of revision; then a week and a half of end of term tests, and the last week was "records' week".
After the dorms were fumigated, only about half the students returned for the following week, and it was only by the end of the next week that almost everyone was back. Having missed out on essentially three weeks' worth of work, I must admit that I am far behind in the syllabus. Next term will be mostly taken up with extra lessons, I think. This term, Grade 9 (the year that I teach) were given projects to do for most of their subjects. The Maths project was not a difficult one and, admittedly with much explanation and encouragement, most students have pretty much completed their final draft. (It is difficult to explain to somebody who is used to the British education system the level these children are at in terms of comprehension and knowledge, but basically they are at least two years behind where they should be. This is mainly because of poor teaching quality in lower levels.) The project consists of four things - the students have to collect some information from fellow students; then draw a bar graph using said information, then write a report. They also have to have some sort of plan. You'd be surprised at how many of them struggle to draw a bar graph correctly. Anyway, I've spent a lot of time explaining the project to the students and at least now their marks are reasonable. The marks count for 25% of their end-of-year mark - they'll get an assessment by the Ministry of Education also.

In the second week of March, because so few of the children returned to school, the classes were again merged into fewer classes - each year group had also been joined into one class in the previous week. This means a lot of the time the teachers had spare time, so they sat in other classes to supervise. This helped me a lot with the way the students worked and behaved in the one class I struggle with. I actually managed to do some work, which was great.
That Saturday, 10th March, Emily and I decided to go for a walk to Bamboo Creek. This is a settlememnt about a three-hour walk away and has about 50 houses. You have to walk down the mountain, as if you're going to Yahwong or to one of the farms, and then for over two hours on a trail, i.e. the "main road" to Lethem. We walked with suncream and soap, and a bottle of water - that was all. When we arrived, we were nonetheless surnburnt, very hot and not really all too exhausted. We walked through the village to see if we could find somewhere to bathe but instead found the school compound. This is built under the shadow of a steep mountain in a clearing surrounded by rainforest. Inside there is a primary school - which is bigger and in a better condition than our main school building; accommodation for a medic/health centre; and teachers' accommodation.  Luckily for us one of my pupils came running out of the latter and offered to show us around. Valentina took us to see the school building, then introduced us to her mum and her pet monkey, Jack, and then showed us to the creek - which we would not have found by ourselves. We bathed in the little pool - lovely and refreshing in the warm sun. Then Valentina took us back to her house, stopping at her auntie's house to get us some lemons, which were at least 10cm in diameter. When we reached Valentina's house, her mother had made us lunch, consisting of some  boiled eggs, boiled yam, tuma (a sort of stew with greens and hot peppers) and cassava bread. We were full at the end of that and overwhelmed by our host's kindness. They also gave us (as well as the lemons) some papaya, a mango, a big bunch of spring onions and a bag of "buckbeads". These are small seeds which are dry and hard and can be threaded to make jewellery. These things we carried all the way back up the hill with us. After giving us these things, Valentina took us up to her sister's house, which is on top of a small hill and overlooks Bamboo Creek and a lot of the rainforest. The view is absolutely stunning! After this, we walked back to the trail and Valentina left us to return home. We walked back and returned in three hours; we had made it there in about two-and-a-half, but it started raining about 20 minutes before we reached Paramakatoi, so we were delayed. It stopped raining just as we reached PK again. It was really a wonderful day - despite the sunburn. I think I am fitter than when I arrived, too, because I didn't really feel all that exhausted.

In the last few years there has been a lot of construction work going on in Paramakatoi, and therefore some weeks ago a new church building was completed. On the 25th of March there was an official church opening where people from all over the subregion came to celebrate and worship. On Friday the church was painted and decorated so that on Sunday, when the celebrations began, it was green on the outside and the inside had a stage with a curtain as a background and about 200 balloons hung up around the church, among other things. It was beautiful. Being a member of the community, I felt it only polite to go to this service, despite being agnostic and definitely not a member of the Weslyan Church. Emily and I arrived at a church full of at least 500 people. We were seated and joined the congregation in being told "Praise the Lord" about 50 times by the same Brother. Then followed a four-hour service consisting of different speakers and singers. At the end everyone who had donated money and time towards the construction of the church was thanked - the church was built entirely of donations. The contractors were men from the village who had volunteered to help - one of them was a young man who was bitten by a snake during construction and subsequently died. One of the locals, Virgi (the shopkeeper), got quite emotional about this as he was telling the story. A lot of the congregation were very upset, too. After the service, there was a big meal for everyone. There was tuma, cook up, cassava bread, cassiri, paracari and plenty more. I was, unfortunately, not hungry at all, so I didn't eat anything, but Emily enjoyed the meal a lot.
There were services every morning and every evening from that Sunday until Thursday morning. It was only on Friday morning that the village was back to its normal population, though it seems a bit quiet since all of the students have gone home, too.

So now it's the start of the Easter holidays and we're hoping to get to Lethem for the rodeo. The contractors who are building the primary school are receiving materials via truck from Lethem, so we're hoping to get a lift down with them either today or tomorrow. I'll let you know next month how it all worked, of course.

Until next time, thank you for reading and take care,

Love, Antje xxxx

Blog Update #6 - Mashrami

Hello everyone!  So here it is, half way through the year.  Six months have probably gone by much quicker for me than for you.  I am beginning to struggle to think of events which are interesting, so apologies in advance.

The first two weeks of the month (February) were reasonably uneventful.  Emily got a haircut from one of the locals.  She had to have it on the week of the full moon and she was given rules to abide for her hair to grow faster.  The Amerindians do something called blowing, where they whisper in Patamona under their breath, and then blow you, then whisper again, then blow you again.  Emily was getting a haircut so the elderly woman whispered charms to encourage healthy hair growth, and then blew her hair.  She was also told not to let any boys touch her hair and that she wasn’t allowed to share a comb.  Her hair is healthy, but it’s always been healthy, so what difference it made I’m not sure.

Mashramani is Guyana’s republic day, and is 23^rd February.  It is a national holiday, so the Guyanese celebrate by having pretty much a week’s holiday.  On Monday 20^th February, we had lessons in school as normal, though the students protested.  Tuesday was supposed to be the start of celebrations with a rally and a talk from someone important, but nobody organised it so it didn’t happen.  Emily and I then asked Mrs Toney if anybody had organised the rest of the week’s activities, which they hadn’t.  We therefore took it upon ourselves to organise Wednesday’s sports day and concert.  You can imagine that this was a difficult task, it being Tuesday.  The sports day went well.  We allocated a different event to each teacher, so everyone had as little as possible to do.  It was a beautifully sunny day - the nicest we’ve had for weeks.  I’m still recovering from the sunburn.

We went to school to register and then took all the children to the school field.  Here we split them into their houses.  House A – Hummingbird; House B – Cock of the Rock; House C – Harpy Eagle.  Each house leader took names of participants and teams and then the races began.  We had a sack race, a three-legged race, a duck race and an egg-and-spoon race (with guavas instead of eggs, because eggs cost GU$80 – about 25p).  There was then an eating competition where participants had to eat three packets of salty crackers, drink a cup of water and the run 100 metres.  There was then a tug of war between the students, and then one for the teachers.  My side won once and lost once.  There was then a small five-a-side football tournament – everyone took this more seriously than all of the other events, the teams even using football strips.  There was also a short game of cricket and a few volleyball games.  All in all it was very successful.

In the evening was the concert.  This concert had over twenty acts and over two thirds were forro dances.  Because of the poor organisation (due to lack of time) the electric equipment kept malfunctioning, the music was constantly muddled up and few people came.  At the Christmas concert we managed to raise GU$68,000; the Mash concert raised only GU$18,000 (about £60).  It was a pity to waste such an opportunity.

On Thursday 23^rd (Mash) we had the day off.  There was supposed to be a parade on the airstrip, but once again this wasn’t organised so it didn’t happen.  We were told in the afternoon that there had been a football game – had we known before we would have gone, but instead we spent the day liming.

Friday was a clean-up day in school, so obviously, few children turned up.  But all the classrooms were cleaned – the desks were scrubbed and the windows cleaned.  Emily and I tidied the tiny staff room, which was overflowing with textbooks and paperwork.  We were finished by lunchtime, so we got the afternoon off.

At the beginning of that week, we had been told that there was a scabies outbreak in the dorms.  The exterminator and the regional education officer were supposed to arrive that Wednesday to sort it out.  They eventually arrived on the Sunday, when all the dorm kids were sent home.  This means that this whole week, there are only village children in school, and, of them, some don’t bother to turn up.  This sets the school one week behind work, which is extremely frustrating, given we already missed and entire week for Mash.  So because so few students are in school, all the year groups have been merged, so there are only about seven classes in total.  This also means that teachers have a lot of extra time, and often there are two teachers sitting in a classroom whilst another takes the lesson.  This is great for me because I have a problem with discipline in one of my classes, and this has helped a lot.  Often the children speak Patamona, which I can’t understand, but the other teachers sitting in the classroom hear what they say and translate.

Monday was one of the world teach volunteers’, Lisa’s, birthday.  In the evening, Emily and I went to Candacie’s with Lisa and Fiza for dinner.  We had shark and balle, which was very tasty.  After this, we went out onto the airstrip and one of Lisa’s friends distracted her while the four of us went to a woman called Vashti’s house.  We had organised a surprise party, so there was music, wine and people were waiting there for us.  We all hid in the shadows and surprised Lisa when she arrived five minutes later.  It was a great party.  There was plenty of wine and plenty of dancing, which is a recipe for a successful night.

Yesterday (29^th February) I met two French journalists who are sutck here because of the lack of planes.  They were filming for a programme called “La Rue d’Impossible” (The Impossible Road), so they travelled from Georgetown to Lethem by truck.  Naturally, they faced some transportation difficulties, and arrived in Paramakatoi later than expected.  But anyway, they have said they will be returning to France in 10-12 days, so any letters we want to send we can give to them to post on their return to Paris.  So I’m going to run and give them this now.

All my love to all of you.  Once again, thank you for reading,

Antje x

[Again, sorry about the lack of pictures.  No new ones yet, hopefully we shall be seeing some soon!]

Blog Update #5 - "Ee Ko Pay Waysaik"

Hi everyone!   It’s the end of January already, so I suppose it’s time for another update.  It seems like yesterday I was writing all about Christmas, but by the time I send this I will have been back in Paramakatoi for one month.  It has flown by, yet again.  Emily and I almost cried on 25^th, as it marked five months into our project; only seven months left!  But, as Emily pointed out, taking into consideration everything we did last term, we still have a lot of amazing experiences left, and a lot of time too.

Of the four (and a half) weeks back in school, I don’t think we’ve had one full week of teaching.  The first week back was admin work and organising timetables.  The three other weeks have been disrupted by countless meetings about teaching, welfare and Mashramani (the Guyanese equivalent of carnival).  This Friday will be a “clean-up day” – meaning we clean the school compound in the morning and get the afternoon off.  Which is quite convenient for Emily and myself because Doug and Ross from the Project Trust Team are supposed to be coming to visit us then.  We’ll be able to meet them coming off the plane.

So, in school there have been few developments.  I’m not sure if I mentioned that Sir Harold Simon is technically retired now, so the new head teacher is Miss Florina Toney.  Not much has changed, except that the discipline is slipping yet further.  I’m not sure how long Miss Toney will be head teacher for, because I don’t really think she likes the responsibility.  Technically, the head teacher is supposed to be a university graduate too, so we’ll see if they send anyone.  I doubt it, though – the Ministry of Education pretty much ignore us here in Paramakatoi.

Teaching is the same as last term.  I am still behind on all my schemes and struggling to catch up because most things take longer to teach than I anticipate.  But in terms of respect and responsiveness the pupils are much the same as they were at the end of last term, so I can’t complain.  We still get girls from the dorms visiting us every day.  Last Friday (27^th), two girls helped me make shortbread because I happened to be making it when they walked in the door.  It was for a Burn’s Night Emily and I held for our friends.  Lisa, Fiza and Candacie came down to ours to celebrate “the Birthday of oor National Baird”.  We made the Paramakatoi equivalent of mince ‘n’ tatties, because we didn’t have any hope of replicating haggis, neeps ‘n’ tatties 6,000 miles from Scotland!  We bought 2lbs of beef – slaughtered, literally, the day before – and stewed it with some cabbage.  I swear it was the best beef I’ve ever tasted.  I also made some mashed potatoes with spring onions, and margarine (if you can even call it that) instead of butter, which I think turned out quite well.  Instead of a toast to the lassies, Emily read a speech given by the late Steve Jobs at a university graduation.  The reply was a short poem picked out from a collection on Fiza’s laptop.  It was all very improvised, but good fun!  We managed to have a few drams, too, though we had to use rum instead of whisky (again, 6,000 miles from Scotland).  We were going to do some Ceilidh dancing, too, but we didn’t have any music, unfortunately.  Instead, we went to a party and danced Forro, which is on par with Ceilidh dancing in my opinion.  At the party, I was asked to teach an Amerindian how to dance.  He had left Paramakatoi when he was young and had “forgotten” how to dance Forro…  It turns out he was better than me!  It was still fun, though.

On 21^st a man form the village took us down to Kawa River.  Siprion Stanislaus picked Fiza, Emily and myself up at 8.30am with his niece, Nicolie, a girl in grade 9.  We walked along the bush trail towards Kato, and after only five minutes encountered a snake!  It was only about 20cm long, but it was poisonous so Siprion gave it two thwacks with his cutlass and then threw the lifeless body away.  We walked for a further two hours until we reached Siprion’s old camp – where another family had taken over.  Siprion pretended to be angry about this, but they were his friends so it was obvious he was joking.  Siprion has been away from Paramakatoi for two years, and is still finding his place again.  He was refused a firearms license by the government, but had a shotgun anyway because he needed it to hunt.  So they arrested him and he was sent to jail for two years.  It has destroyed the poor man’s life.  His wife has taken his kids and gone to live in Mahdia, more out of shame than anything else.  He has come back to find his farm reclaimed by the jungle, some of his trees cut down and his camp commandeered.  He has also lost a lot of his friends, and has therefore taken a liking to Emily and Lisa, hence the trip.  He gives us fruit and veg regularly, too, which is really nice.

Anyway, we stopped and gaffed for a while, drank some cassiri, and then headed onto the track for the last five minutes of the journey to Kawa River.  We stopped and bathed and made some lunch.  Fiza made mashed potatoes, rice and stew.  It was delicious.  We then spent some time gaffing, before heading back along the track.  It took us nearly five hours to walk back.  The track is much longer than the bush trail, and we stopped for a while to gaff and drink cassiri with Siprion’s brother and then his nephew.  By the time we got back it was almost dark and was just beginning to rain.  Then Siprion invited himself in for a small glass of rum!  He actually did this three nights in a row, and then one morning – which confirms, in Emily’s opinion, that he is an alcoholic.  I am pleased to say we have hidden the rum and avoided any confrontations for now.  He’s a nice guy, though; he won’t give us any bother.

The next day Emily and I finally got round to visiting Nurse Wall again.  The previous weeks we had gone by but she had a visitor, so we ended up spending three ours playing games with some local children.  It was a lot of fun: they taught us some new games and how to whistle through our hands.  So on Sunday we went over again and gaffed with Nurse Wall for a while.  She lent us a 1,000 piece puzzle which we did last weekend.  Nurse Wall is a missionary who came from the US in the 70s, then came back in the 90s and has stayed ever since.  She is retiring in May, though, and returning to the US, but I know she will be back to visit regularly.

We then went to visit Mr & Mrs Williams, our old neighbours from when we stayed in the guest house (medic).  He gave us some cassiri and an eddo, which is like a potato when it’s cooked.  By the time we got home we had a collection of bananas, oranges, eddo, yam, spring onions, greens and more!  It was great.

This afternoon we went to play volleyball with some girls from the dorms.  We ended up playing cricket with some local children, though eventually we had to stop because we couldn’t decide on the right rules.  We then played rounders until it was too dark to see the ball.  I am exhausted.

Over the past two weeks we’ve been making more of an effort to learn the local tongue Patamona.  I will write a few phrases phonetically so you can get an idea of what it’s like.  Apostrophes are glottal stops.

Tingin (kuru) – thank you (very much).
Ae pannai aeke – be quiet (I actually think this is our most useful phrase.)
Waku bay na’ may sang – how are you? (Literally: “Are you good?”)
The reply is: yes – aewaik/aewat or no - canny.
Ee ko pay way saik – I’m cold (This is a phrase we’ve used a lot recently because it has been cold and raingin for most of January.)
Wa po ka sa’ mang – I’m hungry.
Oo te yat – I’m going.
Win a pong by – Let’s go back.
Ee tu yah bura mang – I don’t understand/I don’t know (very useful)
Chew ae you timbara – Red face.

Often when we can’t understand the Patamona, there are enough English words woven into the language that we can pick up some of what’s being said.  Sometimes people have conversations half in English, half in Patamona and are constantly switching from one to another.  Obviously, this can be frustrating sometimes, but I find it really interesting.

Now I have to go, I’m giving this update to Doug when he visits and I have a few more letter to write.  I hope all is well in snowy Scotland…  Though I heard it’s been quite a mild winter so far.  Thank you for taking the time to read about my experiences.  Until next time.

Love, Antje x

P.S. No pictures this time, sorry...  The memory card Antje mailed us has a bunch of viruses on it so we won't be uplodaing any of those pictures.Hopefully new ones will arrive!