We've settled down nicely here. We've just got a good routine set in and are exploring the area and culture. On weekdays we wake up at 6.30am and cook breakfast (seems the entire region knows we cook monkey ears, a kind of pancake for breakfast. We then wash and swim at 8am and go to school at 8.40. School is extremely challenging but I am loving it! I'm teaching grade 4 (P5) which is the largest in the school. I have 17 pupils in the class with a very very extreme variation of standard (and 2 slightly disabled children I think). This makes teaching very hard as I have to cater for children from about P1 standard right up to P6 standard even though they are all the same age. I have had to teach one child the alphabet while giving one child Robert Louis Stevenson books to read. Most of the children speak creolese English which means they don't know how to spell small words (I thought I was bad) like 'the' 'sand' or 'play'. So when I set work I have to give about 3 different standards. I have also had to try and teach them to think for themselves. For example when I tell them we're doing maths, some of them couldn't work out which book to write in. They are improving all the time though. A lot of my teaching has been implying good attitudes, right and wrong, respect for other people. I've realised that if they are going to learn at all they need to actually have the right attitude. That is the difference between the good and okay in the class. The good do their work, read over it and ask questions. The okay just do it and the rest I have to sit beside them to make them do it (which is impossible to do often). Despite these problems I am really enjoying it. The pupils are all really interesting and funny.
When the pupils go home I then stay in school and do lesson plans or help to teach a girl who is repeating the equivalent of GCSE maths which she failed last year. I normally head home before 5, sometimes at 4 or earlier, then go for a swim. After that I play football, read or walk around the village with Ben. The villagers are very keen footballers and there are a few very very good ones. If we haven't been given a meal (which happens at least once a week like tonight) we cook dinner. We have surprised ourselves with cooking, we aren't actually too bad!! (I didn't say good)
Ben and I are having to train some pupils so that they can compete at the national swimming competition. As Chenapou has a wide river the children are generally the best in the region so Chenapou children represent the region. So in late November Mrs Dru and I are taking them to George Town to compete (Ben and I tossed a coin for it). But as I just mentioned Mrs Dru I'll talk about her. She is the headmistress and a very nice person but almost quit her job and disappeared from the school for 2 weeks (only reappeared yesterday) leaving us and the other teachers very disrupted. She did come back yesterday and decided she was staying till the end of the year thankfully.
Oh, and one thing on teaching I'm having to teach Spanish!!! Very interesting!
We've had so many good times so far, it's been brilliant. Some examples being:
- Flying to Kaiteur on a 3 person plane (smaller than the volvo);
- Kaiteur itself (a phenomenal waterfall);
- Sports day during which we had a canoe race and I sank my boat. It was described like the Titanic and also became a famous story around the region (This was my first experience with their canoe and I was paddling too hard and lifting water into the boat, I am much better at it now!);
- We decided to borrow a canoe and canoe upriver for an hour to these rapids we'd heard of. It was a nice canoe to just relax on. There is a sandy beach and some rapids and what must be the most beautiful, tranquil house in the world.
- I must mention the butterflies here, there are hundreds and hundreds and you see a constant stream of them all flying up and down the river. The most numerous are green ones. Literally they surround you and are all you can see. When I'm washing my clothes if I stick my hand out at least 20 butterflies will settle on it. Anyways there was a massive gathering of butterflies on the beach which partially blocked the sun.
- Finally last Sunday we helped at a farm and I agreed to carry a Warahi (locally made equivalent of a bag) back to the village. It was a 40 minute walk but it was the heaviest thing I've ever carried and roasting sun. I made it! Thankfully! Had to convince myself that I was narrowock and not an endopac (I'll explain this when I get home). I was carrying Cassava sticks back.
We've done lots of other stuff but that will do for now. Ben and I had decided not to go to Tobago for Christmas with the others but to visit other villages near by. But our message took so long to reach George Town that we were booked anyway (and we only discovered this on Saturday) so we're going to Tobago now for Christmas 21st - 26th I think then Suriname for New Years, then back home in January.
The village is a very closed community. Apart from the odd person from PK (Paramakatoi - the next village along) we have no outside world contact or news. We have absolutely no idea what is happening out there but I suppose that's what's nice about this place. It's just so relaxed.
As I have paper left I'll maybe write about Uncle Mac who I think must be the most interesting person in the world. He is extremely intelligent and 80 years old (set on reaching 140 when he says he'll die happily). A very happy man who has lived a decent life. At one stage he was the only teacher in the school but he was originally from Bartica on the Essiquebo. He has been on MP in Guyana, walked the entire country and has family around the world. He is very very patriotic towards the British and loves them. You would have to meet him to know what I mean.
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