Bicycle

So I finally broke down and bought a bicycle. This metallic beauty (named Oscar because that's the brand, I'm so original) only cost me $13,500 (about $75 US). I don't live far from town proper, maybe a half mile, but the bike makes it much easier to get there and back, and I've been using it a lot. Its also much easier to carry stuff to and from the market, etc, so I've been really happy with it in general. However, because its basically the world's cheapest bicycle, there have been some issues. I was riding back into the rice fields just to see where the road went and the seat came loose. For some reason there is an adjustment at the top of the seat post if you want to angle the seat up or down or something, and the nuts allowing this adjustment had gotten loose. So I had to ride for about 30 mins alternating between a severely angled seat and an awkward squat. Also, for some reason all the bicycles here have the breaks switched around backwards from what I'm used to. So the front break is on the right hand side of the handlebars, and the back break is the left hand. So I almost killed myself a few times by using the wrong break until I figured it out and got them switched around. The bike is a little small, so its a little awkward to ride. And every time I need to make an adjustment, I have to go to the market (only open until about 4 and school gets out at 3) and hope the guy is there. Sometimes its just his wife or female workers or something and while they are pretty handy, they can't do everything. So then other times I have to go to the guys house where he keeps all his tools and such. He's been really friendly and helpful though, and it turns out that I teach one of his daughters. Its a small town.

So I love riding the bike, probably moreso because of its “character,” but I've also managed to open pandora's box at the school. One day I was riding back from town, and one of the dorms kids asked if he could borrow the bike. I said sure, and he rode it for a while and brought it back. Now not a day passes where at least 2-3 kids ask if they can ride the bike. Other dorms kids have bikes. There are plenty of bikes around. For some reason they all want my bike though. Its only the younger kids and some of them didn't know how to ride and now are looking pretty good on the bike. The constant stream of kids knocking at my door asking to use the bike gets a little annoying, but I figure there's not really any harm in letting them ride around the school compound in their free time.

Mashramani (Part 1)

Mashramani (shortened to Mash and also called Republic Day) is Guyana's independence day celebration. Its held on the 23^rd of February every year. As the day hasn't actually come yet, I don't fully know what all will be going on that day. However, there are a variety of school-related Mash events, that culminate with a national competition in Georgetown just before the actual holiday. So a few weeks ago, there were 3 days of events in Anna Regina, similar to inter-school sports. Events were held at the community cricket ground, and students could attend if they wanted. Naturally teachers were needed to escort those students who wanted to attend, and I was asked to go for all 3 days. With half the school gone, there wasn't much teaching to be done, so I was happy to check everything out. A summary of the events follows.

Dramatic Poetry

Before I start talking about dramatic poetry, a word about the number of schools present. All the schools in the central Essequibo Coast were eligible to participate. I think this was about 5 secondary schools total, and about 8000 nursery (kindergarten) and primary (grades 1-6) primary schools. So each event was primarily made up of children ranging in ages from very young to young. Most of these children performed their dramatic poetry readings by screaming into the microphone as loud as humanly possible. The theme of Mash this year is “celebrating our culture, preserving our pride,” which seems kind of weird, but whatever. The upshot was that most of the poems (yelled at ear splitting volume) were very patriotic and full of Creolese slang. So the readings were very hard to understand as well as very loud. I had a headache after dramatic poetry. The best entrant was a little kid in a suit who proposed to a person-sized map of Guyana dressed in a wedding gown and veil.

Calypso

The calypso competitions consisted of both groups and individuals singing a variety of Caribbean and Guyanese songs. I think there's a real niche market here for some vocal trainers. Some of the children have beautiful voices, but I don't think anyone has really been working on the concept of harmonizing. As a terrible singer, I know the best way to hide is to just sing simple stuff off on your own, staying out of the way. All the group singers sang exactly the same parts, which is tough enough if you're an excellent singer. The dramatic poetry headache only got worse after calpyso. That was the end of day 1.

Masquerade

So around Christmastime in Guyana (at least on the Coast), roving bands of street performers wander around with a few drums, maybe a recorder and triangle, and play music for tips. They also will do some rhyming to impress their patrons. Its sort of like Caribbean caroling. For some reason, this tradition is also part of inter-schools Mash competitions, with both individual and group performers. The individuals do all sorts of dance moves to the beat and have to be adept at picking up money that's thrown to them. The groups have some certain archetypes of costumed dancers: a boy dressed up as granny with lots of junk in her trunk, a doctor, the bad cow (someone with a big cow costume who just jumps around), etc. They all just sort of bounce around on stage for a while to the drum/recorder/triangle noise. I'm not sure how anyone could judge it, but they did. One school had the granny give birth on stage, which was entertaining.

Dance

Choreographed dance routines. The individual performers from ARMS both did Indian dances and were excellent. The girl in the older age group was unfortunately disqualified when her song ran on too long and she was impolite to the judges. I had heard that she'd had quite a streak of national Mash performances going, so everyone was pretty upset. I'm not sure if any appeals were heard on the matter. The group dances were pretty entertaining, though we heard a few popular songs over and over. Both groups from ARMS also did very very well. They had some excellent costumes and choreography. The older girls also had some flags, it was a little bit like a color-guard routine. Both groups of girls took first place in their age categories. Day 2 was a lot more fun than day 1.

Costume

The final day commenced with a costume competition. In reality it was more like a float or display type thing. A student would get up on stage in costume, usually pulling some sort of decorated cart or something. Lots of little kids barely dragging around various decorated carts. ARMS didn't compete in the costume competition. Another school's girl had on this massive dress type thing with an enormous flared collar. She too could barely walk.

Physical Display
The week's events concluded with the physical display. The younger kids did all sorts of exercises and balancing stunts, while the secondary schools basically did competitive cheerleading things, without any yelling or awkward forced smiles. Some of the younger kids at the school got put up really high. Another school made a human pyramid 4 persons high, all standing, which was pretty impressive. They won.

On the whole it was a pretty fun day. I think the national competition is coming up next week and I don't think I'll get to attend. I am planning on going to Georgetown for Mashramani proper. Its supposed to be one of the biggest parties/spectacles of the year, so I'll report back afterward.

Volleyball

Thanks to a generous donation from the Saint Mary's College of Maryland women's volleyball team, Anna Regina Multilateral is now the proud owner of about 12 used volleyballs. The school has a net that's currently set up outside, but I'm told can be moved inside. I've just started playing with some of the kids after school and during their free periods. This gives me a great opportunity to break down some barriers with the kids and seem like more than just some foreign teacher who talks about boring science stuff all day. 

I found out that I'm free when my grade 11 science stream kids have a guidance period. The other WordTeach volunteer, Keith, is supposed to teach them during guidance. Despite the fact that 11 science is filled with some of the best kids in the school, they aren't terribly self-motivated and sometimes I really feel like I'm struggling to get through to them. So Keith quickly ran into trouble with the unstructured guidance class, and just decided the best thing was to just give them a free period every week. So I didn't find out until recently, but this week I took them outside to play volleyball during the free period. Some of them went elsewhere to play cricket, but most of them stuck around and were interested to learn. They said it was the best guidance period they'd ever had. Hopefully it'll pay some dividends in the classroom as well.

Some of the older kids in the school have clearly played volleyball before, which is both good and bad. They generally know the rules, and have some technique. There's almost no attempt to hit the ball more than once on a side though, and no setting of the ball. Bumping is an unstructured mess. I'm hoping that with time I can gradually get them to start working together and playing real volleyball. Its also a fine line to walk because this is rare recreational time for the students, so its important to me that they have a good time and don't feel like they're at practice. Anyway, I have some tall kids and some high flyers that I think will be really excited to learn to spike properly and really start playing. Its a gradual process, but I'm really enjoying it.

In addition to the older kids that I've played with afterschool and a little during school, I've been given a grade 8 gym class. We meet once a week for 30 minutes. One of the gym teachers has a permanent schedule conflict on Mondays, so they had to divvy up his classes and somehow I got this one. There aren't any grades or curriculum, they are just supposed to play team sports. So we're going to play volleyball until they get tired of it or I get tired of trying to teach them. So far I've only had 2 classes this term, but the first class we learned about the rules of the game, how to keep score, proper technique etc. The second class we actually broke out the balls and worked individually on bumping and setting and then on how to serve and rotate. In the future I want to do some simple drills and then start playing games, of course. The kids seem really enthusiastic about it, which is nice.

Christmas

Programming note:  Sorry for the lack of posting in the new year. I was buried in a book and the internet has been kind of lousy lately. I have quite a few posts queued up for the coming days and have a new batch of photos up on Facebook.

I spent Christmas in Tobago with my family. It was great to see them and to be in such a beautiful country. I'd forgotten how much I missed hot showers, air conditioned bedrooms. Tobago has its litter problem under control, which was also refreshing. We stayed in a quiet fishing village on the Caribbean side of the island and it was really peaceful.

As great as it was to see my family, it was also a little strange because we were coming to Tobago from two very different places. For me, it was almost development overload, with all the conveniences I'd been living without for 4 months. For them, Tobago was a bit undeveloped and a challenge. Driving was scary, there were farm animals everywhere, and the grocery stores didn't have much to offer. So that was a little frustrating at times. Its hard to hear complaints about a place that only make you think “man, they have no idea how different things are just a few hours by plane from here.” Anyway, just an observation on expectations and vacationing, I suppose. I think I'd probably be pretty happy if I ended up living on an island like Tobago.

Bartica!

Last weekend I went to visit my British friend in Bartica.  Here are a few brief observations.

Bartica is a prety laid back town.  It's about an hour up the Essequibo River, and its the last town before you really get into the jungle, so there's a lot of mining influence.  This also means there are a fair amount of Brazilians there.  I think the mining money and Brazilian influence makes it a pretty laid-back party place, moreso than other parts of Guyana.

Drank a lot of beer with some other white guy volunteers.  There are a couple of older British and Australian guys and a couple of Peace Corps volunteers as well.  Most of the Guyanese people I hang out with drink hard liquor because its cheaper, but it was nice to have a change of pace.  The place they normally drink at is called Ease the Stress, which is a pretty fantastic name.  At Ease the Stress I saw a couple small groups of women out at the bar, and even some mixed-gender groups.  This is something I haven't seen in Anna Regina very often, so I think it can be chalked up to Bartica's laid-back mentality.

Lots of beer.

Straightforward enough, I think.

The WorldTeach teachers live about 3 miles up the only road leaving Bartica, at Three Mile Secondary School (a functional name if I ever heard one).  Cabs are pretty expensive, but there's a semi-regular bus service.  Since there's pretty much only one road, sometimes you can get other people to stop and give you a ride, or pay bus fare for a cab.  So in the morning Luke and I are waiting for the bus to go into town, but a guy with a lady passenger stops and gives us a ride.  The lady turns around and stares at me for like a minute or too, and makes an excited noise when I took my sunglasses off.  Then she turns around and proceeds to reach her arm beside the seat and grab my leg.  She didn't say anything.  I sad "hey now!" or something, and that was that.  Then she did it again.  Longer.  I said "Excuse me miss, I don't even know your name!" which she thought was funny.  She repeated it to the driver and then said some other stuff to him that I couldn't really understand (I'm still kind of hit and miss with the Creolese).  Nothing else happened, and the guy let us out along the road at the Australian guys neighborhood.  And that was that.  I don't think I've ever been sexually harassed before.  We watched some Premier League football.  It was nice.

Three Mile Secondary School is about 2 years old.  The teacher quarters where the guys are staying have ceiling fans, 110V electricity and outlets.  Marek has an air-conditioned computer lab basically to himself.  Both apartments have refridgerators.  Basically, I hate them.

Bartica sits at the confluence of three rivers: The Essequibo, Mazaruni and the Cayuni.  I'm not sure about that last one, but I think it starts with a C.  Anyway, Luke took me on this jungle walk just off the main road about halfway between the school and town.  There was a raised wooden path through some swampy areas, I saw some sort of prehistoric palm tree thing, observed some butterflies, typical jungle stuff.  The path lead to a small sand beach along one of the rivers (Mazaruni maybe?).  There were a few kids wandering around, but we pretty much had the place to ourselves.  Apparently the beach is a Sunday thing.  Bartica also has a bigger beach in the town proper.  Anyway, the water was nice, we played frisbee with the kids and had a great time.

Note the kid in the tree.  They were doing flips off the branch into about 4 feet of water.

Bartica has hills!  That might not be surprising or noteworthy to anyone else, but I don't think there's anywhere that's more than about 3 feet above sea level anywhere on the Essequibo Coast or in Georgetown, so I hadn't seen a hill in about 5 months.  So I was excited.  Around Bartica is also pretty jungle-y, which I also thought was pretty fantastic.  Tropical coastal plain is cool and all, but I liked seeing all the trees.

Transport was a bit of an adventure as usual.  To get to Bartica from Anna Regina, I have to go to Parika, across the Essequibo River.  All the boats leave from that side of the river.  So I was running late on Friday, as usual.  The last boat supposedly leaves at 5.  I got off the boat in Parika at 5:15.  I think I caught the last boat up the river.  Unfortunatley I couldn't really enjoy the ride because I was jammed in the front of the boat and it was dark.  However, it was uneventful.  Leaving Bartica was another story.  I got to the stelling (boat dock) around 3pm.  Last boat leaves Parika for the Essequibo Coast at 5.  The boat ride is an hour long, so I had plenty of time.  But I just missed a full boat at 3, and had to wait for the next one to fill.  That took an hour, but I still had some time, plus a little last-boat wiggle room on my side in Parika.  What I didn't account for was engine trouble.  We got about 3 minutes down the river and one of the engines isn't running, and wont' crank. They eventually get it working, but anytime they shut off the engine it takes about 5 mins to get both engines up and running and get up to full speed.  Still ok on time.  Then we randomly have to meet up with some other boat (it has police on the side, but was full of regular looking people) to trade captains or something.  More engine issues.  Then, I think because of the issues, we were burning through fuel at an abnormal rate.  So we had to stop twice to get more gas.  A one hour boat trip instead took about 2 1/2 hours.  I did not make the boat home.  Fortunately, I have some friends (other WorldTeach teachers) who live on the Parika side of the coast, so I was able to stay with them.  I had to get up at 5 or so to catch the bus and boat and cab back to school.  I made it to school around 8:45, late, but not late enough to miss any classes.  It was a bit of a stressful end to an otherwise relaxing and wonderful weekend.  I think I'll be returning to Bartica at least once in the new year, its a really nice place.

November Newsletter

 November Newsletter

 So naturally things have been pretty hectic here in Anna Regina, so I'm sorry I haven't written a more timely update. Here are some of the recent goings-on.

School Life

Things have settled into more or less of a routine teaching wise. While there are the usual assemblies, events and other disruptions, I feel like I've been in a pretty good groove teaching wise. Next week is the last week of teaching, followed by a week of exams and then a week of grading, paperwork and Christmas parties. The kids will be at school even for the last week, though they won't be doing any work other than preparing for parties. I'm hoping to squeeze a little teaching in during that week if I can get all of my grading done, especially for my 11^th grade students preparing to take their exams at the end of next term.

I'm slowly staring to learn some students names, though I still have a long way to go. Some of my classes are starting to get a little loud and rowdy, and I'm not sure if its because I've been to lenient on them or because we're close to the end of the term. Probably a little bit of both. We had a parent-teacher conference day the other day and most of the kids who came in said they were happy with the way I was teaching and could understand me in class, which is encouraging.

Essequibo Night

The Essequibo coast had what was essentially a state fair type event in October, called Essequibo Night. The event actually was on both Friday and Saturday night down at the community cricket ground. There were booths from all over the region, including businesses, restaurants and government agencies. For a small town, the place was packed both nights. There was also a huge main stage with a live band both nights. The event was part of Guyana's Agriculture month, to help celebrate all the rice production that goes on in Region 2. Some of the other WorldTeach teachers came to visit. It was great to see them again, since we hadn't hung out since before school started. We had a great weekend sharing our experiences so far, culturally and in the classroom.

Graduation

At the end of October, ARMS had graduation for last year's 11^th grade students. Because the Caribbean-wide exams are so important and results don't come back until August, graduation is pushed back into the fall term. I think it is so late in the term because it gives everyone a chance to plan the event, since nothing really happens during the summer break. Leading up to graduation, I was placed on the stage setup committee and the snacks committee. The week before graduation we had work during the afternoon periods, setting up the stage, lighting etc. The event was held on the school grounds, in an open air covered area. The tin (actually zinc, and everyone calls it zinc rather than tin) was very dirty and dusty, so the school had a firetruck come and spray out the area. I've seen a firetruck in action before, but it was still pretty cool. The best part was that the man operating the hose had no regard for anyone who was in his way. No one received a riot-control blasting, but a few people (myself included) got a little wet. One nice thing about living on the school compound is that it's easy to go change your clothes!

For the snacks committee I had to help prepare snacks for all the graduation guests. We planned on about 1,000 people showing up. So some teachers and the dorms kids helped make cheese spread sandwiches and stuff them into bags with cupcakes all morning the day of graduation. It was a lot of hard work, but it was nice to have a lot of willing hands helping out. I also helped to serve the snacks and drinks to everyone as they were leaving the school after graduation.

Graduation itself was very nice. The stage was all dressed up with curtains, a nice sign and some decorated tables. There were all kinds of trophies and book prizes (gift-wrapped books) given out. Academic awards were also given out to students of all grades for the previous year. The ceremony lasted about 4 hours, and I was told that it was a relatively short one compared to previous years! Unfortunately I was so busy that I didn't really get a chance to hear any of the speeches, but it was a very nice ceremony nonetheless. After the event, all the teachers and special guests had a nice dinner in the dorm dining hall, served by this year's 11^th grade students. It was nice to socialize with the teachers a little bit.

Main stage at graduation.  The school's headmaster is speaking.

Halloween

Halloween isn't really celebrated in Guyana, but I ended up having an unexpected party anyway. I was heading back to the dorm after doing some schoolwork in the lab in the evening on the Sunday of Halloween, when the dorm mother stopped me in the stairwell and asked me come back down to her room after I got myself settled in. Normally Sunday nights are painfully boring because everything is closed and the students have mandatory study time. Well it turns out that the dorm mother's daughter was having her 17^th birthday and the dorm mothers decided to have a little party. It was a little strange because the daughter herself wasn't there until later in the evening (she was out at some sort of police horse show event at the community grounds for quite some time). So it was just myself, Keith, the dorm mothers and one of the security guards hanging out and having a few drinks in the dorm mother's room. Eventually some of the students came in, one brought a laptop so we had some music, and the rest of the kids crowded in the hallway by the door. Anyway, the party turned into a Halloween party when the kids started coming down the hallway (for the girls) or down from upstairs (for the boys) in costume. There were a lot of painted faces and hair whitened with baby powder, and a few more elaborate costumes (bedsheets, toilet-paper mummy, etc). Each time someone would make an appearance, all the kids in the hall would crowd around them screaming at the top of their lungs. It was quite a spectacle. This was one of my favorite times in Guyana so far, mostly because it was so unexpected and pleasant. It was really nice to interact with the dorm mothers and kids in a social setting as well.

Dorm mothers and residents on Halloween.

Thanksgiving

Naturally, Thanksgiving isn't really celebrated in Guyana either. Fortunately, Thursday is my lightest teaching day (I have classes for only 3 of the 7 periods), so I had the time to write this newsletter. Unfortunately, Keith and I are still living in the dorms with only a single electric burner to cook with, so I'm not preparing any sort of Thanksgiving feast (we've been told the place should be ready by next week though, so we'll see). My mother did send me some butternut squash from the family garden (arrived just yesterday!) so I think I'll cook some up and have a simple Thanksgiving anyway. I am so thankful for all the support my friends and family have given me so far this year, and also that I have the ability to keep in touch with them throughout the holiday season. With things being so hectic at the end of the year, I don't think I will have time to send a December newsletter, so I'll try to make up for it in the coming year. I hope this newsletter finds you well and that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and holiday season in general.

Alex

Guyanese Things: Money

In Guyana, the currency is in dollars.  Guyanese dollars, naturally.  The exchange rate is about $200 Guy = $1 US.  Things are generally cheaper here, but not dramatically so.  I'd say on average things are about half as expensive, though it is pretty variable.  I've gotten a decent feel for how much things cost in Guyanese dollars, so I don't have to convert everything back to USD, but I'm also getting pretty quick at doing that.

The most interesting/frustrating thing about the money here is the denomination of the bills.  There are $20, $100, $500 and $1,000 bills.  (There are also coins - $1, $2, $5, $10 but usually stores will properly round prices or wont even bother with change.  I've been given a $5 or $10 piece of candy instead of change on a few occasions.)  So the largest denomination is about $5 US.  This means when you're buying something expensive with cash, the physical stack of cash gets pretty large pretty quick.  A bicycle for example costs about $20,000 ($100 US), so if I do end up buying one, its going to be an interesting trip to the ATM.

So on top of the general weirdness of hearing that your dinner cost $2,000, teachers are paid in cash.  I'm receiving a stipend that is paid through the school of about $49,000 per month.  Due to paperwork delays (I'm told only missing one month is quite remarkable), this past month I received my stipend for both September and October, which totaled to about $98,000.  So I go into the office and one of the secretaries takes out massive stack of thousand dollar bills and counts out 98 of them.  I don't think I've ever seen that many bills in one place.  It was quite  a wad of cash, especially when you think that it is basically about $500 US.  So it would be like having $500 in $5 bills back home.

 Ballin so hard.