Things My Kids Say 2

Update:
I'm no longer working in Guyana, but I'm trying to keep the blog around, especially as some info for potential WorldTeach Guyana volunteers. I have a couple of facebook albums from my time in Guyana. Here are the links:

Guyana Part 1

Guyana Part 2


Somehow this never got published, so here's some blog B sides:


So this isn't really something that's been said in my class, but I have one class where some boys in the class seem to be really keen on meowing in class.  So I've started calling them cat-boys, which everyone else in the class seems to think is about the funniest thing in the world.  It's also cut down on the meowing.

So I'm marking exams from my science class.  We talked about sampling, doing a small survey to estimate a population size and we talked a little bit about how your estimate is good or bad based on the sample.  So I had them estimate the number of dolphins in this river around here, and then asked if they thought it was a good estimate or not, ideally hoping for, "it depends," or "I think dolphins are not evenly distributed" etc

instead I'm mostly getting:

"Yes because the river is long."

"No because there aren't any dolphins in the river."

"No because I think the river is longer than you told me." (I did my research before, the length is pretty accurate)

But my new favorite is "no, because that is too much dolphins."

June Newsletter

June (!) Newsletter

Have you ever been on a roller coaster ride that just kept accelerating? That's how the last few months have felt. My time in Guyana is rapidly coming to a close, and I can't believe it. It seems like just the other day I was finding out I had to live in a dorm, shocked to realize that Thanksgiving was coming, or planning for a second term of teaching. Now my third term of teaching is almost halfway over, and the reality still hasn't really sunk in. Here are some things that have been going on since the last update (in March I suppose).

Easter Vacation - Rupununi

In Guyana there is a 2 week break around Easter, so myself and 3 other volunteers took the opportunity to see a lot more of the country. There are 2 major Easter events, the rodeo in Lethem and the regatta in Bartica. Since I'd been to Bartica on many occasions, I really wanted to go to the rodeo. Lethem is a town in southwest Guyana that is on the border with Brazil. You can either fly there, which takes a couple of hours, or take a bus. There is a road (I'd estimate about 500 km long) that is mostly a wide dirt road. Buses leave from Georgetown, and the trip takes about 20 hours, if the roads are good and there are no holdups or accidents. My team left a few days before the rodeo and got off before Lethem, in the village of Surama. Once you go through the forested areas closer to the coast and cross the Essequibo River (as the 3^rd longest river in South America, travelers pretty much have to cross it to go anywhere in Guyana – its the same river I cross to get from Georgetown to Anna Regina) by ferry, the jungle gives way to a broad savannah. This area, called the Rupununi, is absolutely gorgeous. There are even some mountain ranges, though large hills might be more appropriate. Away from the coast, populations are very small and primarily Amerindian. I believe Lethem is considered a town, but it is the only one, everyone else lives clustered in small villages.

Surama is an Amerindian village that is considered one of the success stories of the eco-tourism movement in Guyana. The village has a fully functioning eco-lodge, complete with a large pavilion for eating and relaxing, and a variety of small “cabins.” We had light at night via solar power. We stayed in Surama for 2 nights, and had a local guide take us canoeing on a river (saw my first monkeys in the wild), hiking up Mount Surama and on a night nature hike. We didn't see any jaguars or anteaters, but it was a great time nonetheless. From Surama, we arranged a trip to Wowetta, the next village up the road. My teaching buddy Luke is friends with a Spanish VSO (Volunteer Service Overseas I think), Sergio who had invited us to stay with him. He was living with a host family in Wowetta, where we stayed for another 2 nights. The family Sergio was staying with lived just a short walk from the road, with 3 houses, a brother a sister and their parents all with their families. It was really fascinating to actually get to interact with an Amerindian family in the interior. Also I was embarrassed at soccer by a host of little Guyanese kids. Over and over again. Sporting failures aside, the gentleman who hosted us, Bertie Xavier, was an excellent host and a fascinating guy to talk to. He was really involved in local and international politics, working with the UN to represent indigenous people in Guyana. He had also gotten the village involved in a UN pilot program that brought solar panels to the houses in the village. A company essentially set up a lease-to-own agreement with each household, with the idea being that the extra working hours gained by using electric lights could allow for increased income through the production of arts and crafts or the processing of cassava.

The family also runs a women's cassava processing operation a short walk from the houses. Cassava, also known as yucca, is a staple Amerindian crop. In the interior regions close to Venezuela on the coast, Amerindian people turn the cassava into cassava bread, which is like a very dry and hard flatbread. In the Rupununi, cassava is turned into farine, which is ground into small round pieces, kind of like couscous but harder if not softened with some sort of sauce. The tricky part about cassava is that it is poisonous if eaten raw, and must be processed carefully to make it safe to eat. This is a long process, which involves the use of a matape, a long woven tube that's closed at one end and has loops at both ends. The large ones are about the size of a person. The matape works kind of like a Chinese finger trap, in that if you pull on the ends, the middle gets squeezed. Milled cassava is placed inside the matape, which is hung off the ground. Then a long tree branch or trunk is placed in the bottom loop, and heavy rocks or concrete blocks are hung on the trunk, removing the poisonous cassava water. Alternatively, someone can sit on the trunk to do the squeezing, which I imagine is a nice break if you've been milling cassava all day. The cassava water can actually be used for cooking and processing into some other products, but I'm not as familiar with that process. After the cassava has been squeezed in the matape, it is then toasted in large metal pans, yielding farine. For the two days we were in Wowetta, there were probably 8-10 women working nonstop, well into the night, making farine. The sun was hot and the labor looked brutal. I couldn't stand near the wood burning ovens that heated the metal pans for toasting for more than about 3 minutes before the smoke made my eyes water. The women obviously didn't complain to us, and I think they have embraced the opportunity to support their families, while their husbands are out farming or hunting.

In Wowetta, we also had the opportunity to trek out of the savannah and into the jungle. About 10 years ago, a villager discovered a nesting site for the Guyanese cock of the rock, an endangered bird with brilliant orange plumage. After an hour and a half of hiking or so, we came upon a collection of large boulders where the birds nest. We saw about 4 different birds and got to see their nesting sites. The birds wouldn't let us get really close, but they were so bright that it was not too hard to pick them out.

After all our fun in Wowetta, it was time to continue our journey on to Lethem. When we got off the bus in Surama, we didn't really have a plan for reaching Lethem. Because all the buses leaving Georgetown were going to be full due to the rodeo, we couldn't reserve a bus ride from Surama or Wowetta to Lethem, as every bus that runs makes the entire trip. So we hoped we could catch a ride in the back of someone's pick-up or that something else would present itself. Naturally, it did. While in Surama, the woman who runs the village community center, where they have a satellite phone and internet for making reservations, etc. asked us what our plans were for reaching Lethem. when she found out what day we were hoping to go to Lethem, she said the Surama football (soccer) team would be heading to Brazil to play a match on that day, and that they could give us a ride. Now, there is no phone in Wowetta, so we just had to agree to a tentative plan of being out on the road in the morning we were to be picked up. Sure enough, a enormous truck (here they're all made by Bedford, which I'm told is a British manufacturer) with about 30 people in the back came chugging up the road. The truck was pretty well packed (it had a bench running down the center), so we had to sit on the side rails. It did have a framework for a tarp, so we had plenty to hold onto. The soccer team was not going to Brazil via Lethem though. We were trundling along the road, when all of a sudden, the truck just turned off into what mostly looked like grassland. There was a faint track. After about 30 minutes of driving on a path that increasingly become more of a suggestion of a direction to go, we pulled up to a river crossing. The crossing consisted of some guy's house, the river, and a couple of rowboats. The soccer team hopped out with their suitcases and friends in tow, and began rowing themselves across the river. From there the driver and a few others stayed on the truck as we backtracked to the main road and headed to Lethem. I got to stand at the front of the bed with a little kid and felt like king of the savannah. It was great, and a lot more comfortable the the first half of the voyage. A trip that took us roughly 2-3 hours on the return trip (in the bus) took us about 8 hours in the truck, but it was absolutely worth it. We finally made it Lethem, the day before the rodeo.

Easter Vacation – Rodeo

What would you do if you had miles and miles of essentially deserted grassland? Well the Amerindians have decided to raise cattle. This is more prominent in the southern Rupununi, south of Lethem, so we didn't actually get to see any ranches. The rodeo is a yearly celebration of all things cowboy. Aside from the jarring realization that all the cowboys were Indians (in the non-politically correct sense) the rodeo itself was much like I imagine rodeos back in the US to be like. Bull and stallion riding, barrel racing, steer roping etc. There was also a wild cow milking contest, where cowboys had to bring down a cow and milk it, but all the cows were dry, and a watermelon eating contest, which my colleague Suzanne won handily. Her (unofficial) prize? A bottle of rum. But, like all good social events, the rodeo was about more than the rodeo. Tons of people, including foreigners make the trip down from Georgetown and Brazilians swarm over the border. There were lots of carnival type games, a rickey Ferris wheel and booths selling food and drinks. The best food award clearly goes to meat-on-a-stick man, a Brazilian guy who just sold skewers of meat. Steak is hard to come by in Anna Regina, so I think I single-handedly transferred a large amount of Guyanese currency to meat-on-a-stick man. Hope he spent it well. We also saw most of the other WorldTeach teachers, some who had a grueling 30 hour trip down due to a bus going halfway off a raised portion of the road and the vagaries of the river crossing, which is only open 12 hours a day.

After the rodeo, we hung around for a couple of days, found a great swimming hole and saw some waterfalls. It was more like a rocky creek, but the water was cool and clear, and it reminded me a little of the North Georgia mountains. The waterfalls were also the site of an attempted hydroelectric power plant that was built by the Chinese. The Guyanese people had interesting things to say about the Chinese who worked on the project, saying that they lived in spartan conditions but took really good care of their dogs until they ate them. They also told us not to worry about snakes, because the Chinese had eaten them all. The power plant was finished in 2000 but was out of commission a few years later. It was like something out of Jurassic Park. It doesn't take long for the jungle to start reclaiming the signs of human “progress.” After our trip to the waterfalls, it was time to head back to Georgetown. The return trip took a little longer because we took a minibus with only one driver, about 24 hours. We timed it so we got to the river crossing about 4 hours early and the driver could sleep. On the way down we took a bigger bus with two drivers, so we didn't have to make any extended stops. The minibus was actually somewhat comfortable, but I was definitely ready to to get off the bus when we got back to Georgetown. At this point I was wiped out from a busy week and a half so I just returned to Anna Regina for a little rest and relaxation.

ARMS Pageant and Anniversary

ARMS always has a pageant during the final school term. It's a big community event and an opportunity to show off the talents of the female students. This year also happens to be the 50^th anniversary of the founding of the school, so the events were combined. On the first Friday evening of the final term, a handful of 9^th and 10^th grade girls (the 11^th graders are too busy with exams for pageants) competed for the title of Miss ARMS 2011. One of my students won. Unfortunately I couldn't really watch the proceedings because I was working the concessions stand which was hectic but fun. Then on Saturday the school had a reunion in the evening. Unfortunately, not too many people came, but I think that those who did enjoyed themselves. Monday through Wednesday were filled with exhibitions, competitions, reflections of former students and teachers and sports. It was a nice celebration of the school, which I gather has had its good reputation for quite some time. It also meant that not much teaching got done for the first two weeks of school.

Exams

11^th grade exams began with the return from Easter break. Some of my students are writing as many as 13 or 14 different exams, many with two separate tests (a multiple choice and a long answer test) on different days. My physics students told me they thought the first part of their physics test went pretty well, but we shall see. Scores won't come back until sometime during the next school year, so I won't be around to bask in the glory or scramble for excuses based on the results. The school is a different place without the 11^th graders, who take their exams in the auditorium for the most part. The building is quieter and less crowded and I have more free time. On the other hand I miss teaching my oldest students. They were pretty fun to teach. My exam preparations are far from over, however. 9^th grade students in Guyana write national exams in four subjects: math, science, english and social studies. I teach science to all the 9^th graders, so I've been trying to cover as much material as possible in my last few weeks. The students in general are pretty good, so I am hopeful they will do well.

Well, I think that's about it for this update, though its quite a long one. I hope to send out at least one final July newsletter as I wrap things up. The final day of school is the 8^th of July, which some days seems far off but most days feels too soon for my time to end.

Alex

Fruit Quiz

Fruits in Guyana are a little different. Consider this part 1 of your education.

The picture below contains a lemon, a lime and a wild cherry pepsi can (imported from america - woo corn syrup). Which is which?

answer after the jump

Exams Part 2

Here's another couple of exam week nuggets:

1. So the kids all get photocopied tests, but write their answers on their own pieces of paper. I'd already collected this one guy's paper, and he was writing on the back of his exam paper, which is fine. They're bored. I get it. But then it starts drawing a lot of attention, and he's sitting in the back of the classroom, so it must be interesting. Also all the kids sit at these double-wide desks, so its the kid (who's in 8th grade) and a 7th grade girl from a different class. Anyway, I walk back, and he's drawing but (somewhat skillfully) covering it up with his hand. So I let him go for a while, but eventually take it up. There was some crude drawing of something resembling a naked lady or something. Nothing too outrageous, but probably what was causing the commotion. What caught my eye was something else though. He had written:

Hello, my name is Vivekanand Mangar and I am in 8-1. I don't have a girlfriend because I have a big head."

Its possible he didn't actually write it (could have been the girl), but I kind of had a hard time keeping a straight face for the rest of the exam period. I did quietly mention to him that his head wasn't really all that big, and he'd probably grow into it in a few years. Ah to be young again...


2. Unrelated excellent answers to a question:

Q: List three things you should do to take care of your eyes.

A: Never rub your eye with your eye.

A: If you have something in your eye, ask someone to blow it out for you.

Exams

This week is exam week. I was fortunate enough that my largest group of students (5 9th grade science classes) took my exam on Monday, so I've had plenty of work this week but will be able to finish my marking early. One of the topics we covered this term was atomic bonding, both covalent and ionic. Students were asked to identify some bonds.

Some have a little trouble with spelling, so I got some nice answers:

Convection bonding - we did talk about heat transfer and convection this term

Iconic bonding - Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan hanging out, making music videos.

Ironic bonding - I like to picture atoms sitting in a dive bar with tallboy PBRs and trucker hats, complaining about how nobody knows the actual definition of irony.

Guyanese Things: Drinking

Drinking

Guyana is home to some of the world's best rum. El Dorado 5 Year has won a lot of awards, and you can get a .75 L bottle for about $5. Some rudimentary research online suggests that you can get it in the US for about $30 a bottle. However, all the guys I hang out with prefer to drink vodka. And that same $5 will get you a bottle of vodka here, the locally made Ivanoff. I don't think anyone has ever considered giving it a medal for anything. It is pretty terrible. But the guys, for some reason, love it. I reached my breaking point with the Ivanoff a while ago, so I've had to try alternative strategies. Buying rum for myself works ok, but usually ends up with me getting really drunk, so that's a method that can only be strategically deployed. Another alternative is to drink beer. There are two (well really three) problems with this. Firstly, the beer is, relatively speaking, expensive. $1.50 a beer doesn't sound like much, but when you can get 3 beers for the price of a bottle of liquor, its hard to justify the cost on my meager living allowance. Secondly, you get dirty looks if you're drinking beer while everyone else is drinking hard liquor (aside: for some reason Guyanese call all liquor "rum," like "we should drink some Smirnoff tonight, its really good rum.") But I have found that if I drink Guinness, I get some respect. Much to the detriment of my liquidity, I've been drinking more Guinness. Here's a quick rundown of the beers in Guyana and what I think about them.

Guinness - This isn't your run of the mill, bread-in-a-bottle Guinness. This is the Foreign Extra Stout breed, a 7.5% abv beast that actually has some flavor. The flavor isn't all that great, but you can taste some hops and toasted barley. Its definitely my favorite beer here, though it'll sneak up on you.

Banks - This is the national beer of Guyana. Its a pretty typical Caribbean lager - not much taste, but pretty good when cold. It's the Budweiser of Guyana.

  
Carib - Another lager, this one made in Trinidad. Less flavor than Banks. I don't really like it all that much. Unlike Banks, bottles are not recycled. I think the lack of hassle with deposits and the ability to throw your bottles anywhere when you're finished (which I think is a bit of a national pastime here) are reasons for its popularity.

Parbo - Surinamese beer. Nominally a pilsner. Does have a little pilsner-y bite, which is nice. Probably my second favorite beer.




Banks Light - ugh.

Banks Premium - Banks regular is made with rice. Banks Premium is made with surgar. Why? Sometimes a place will have Banks Premium drink specials, but that's pretty much it.

Mackeson - A stout from the Carib people. More like normal Guiness. Not much alcohol, kind of sweet. I usually don't bother, but its tolerable.

There's some other beer, but that's about all that I've had. The third problem with beer that I alluded to above is, as you can see, the options are pretty limited. One of the things I'm missing the most food/drink wise is real beer. Hops and flavor and all that stuff is in pretty short supply here. At least the rum is good.

March Newsletter

March Newsletter

Despite trying the opposite of my usual March Madness strategy
(painstaking research vs. watching 0 college basketball games), I
managed to whiff on all 4 of my Final 4 picks. Maybe I should have
gone by uniform color or mascot.  March (I can't believe its already
almost over) has been a busy month school-wise, and also life-wise.
Here's a little peek into some recent holiday activities.

Mashramani
I had planned on going to Georgetown for Mashramani, where I was
assured the festivities would be "more bright" than those in Anna
Regina. Unfortunately, most of coastal Guyana experienced heavy rains
and flooding during the week leading up to Mash. Mash was on
Wednesday, and we actually had to cancel school on Tuesday at ARMS
because water had entered the building. The water came within about
1/2 an inch from our front doorstep, but luckily receded. Because
Georgetown also experienced some flooding and isn't the cleanest city
even the best of times, I decided just to stay in Anna Regina. Keith
did go to town and had a great time. He was even on tv.

As I might have mentioned before, Mash is sort of a combined Republic
Day and Brazilian/Trinidadian Carnivale. In Anna Regina, there were
about 5 different groups representing government organizations,
private businesses, etc., all in various costumes. Through a friend in
the education office, I was able to "mash" with the Region 2
Department of Education. We had spray painted t-shirts and some
headgear. There was a parade that covered probably 3 miles in the
midday heat (I was exhausted and sunburned at the end), terminating at
the Anna Regina car park (the community cricket ground was unusuable
due to the rain). We marched and danced down the road, and everyone
came out of their houses to watch us. It was really cool to see my
students and a few other people from the community that I know. I
think some were pretty surprised to see me. After the parade and a
dance-off, a few fellow teachers and I went back to the education
office to escape from the heat. Events continued at the car park for
the rest of the afternoon and into the night. We returned to the car
park that evening for a few more drinks.

It was a pretty late night for a school night! For some reason the
school decided to have parent-teacher conferences the day after Mash.
This was good for me, because not many parents showed up, so it was a
low-key day. The parents that did show up were in for a surprise, as I
had dyed my hair red for the parade and didn't have a chance to get it
re-colored. One of the teachers has a friend who is a hairdreser, so
she gave us some nice hairstyles for the parade. None of the parents
said anything about my red stripe, but I did get some funny looks. The
headmaster quietly asked me to take care of the situation on Friday.
Not sure if anyone complained, but I guess as a teacher you're
expected to look professional for school. It was a fun week.

Phagwah
Phagwah is the Hindu celebration of colors. It also marks the
beginning of spring and the new year on the Hindu calendar. There are
some stories about how it came to be, but I wasn't able to get a clear
picture. Anyway, Phagwah is a big holiday, especially here on the
Essequibo Coast where there is a high Indo-Guyanese population.
Fortunately, the holiday fell on a weekend this year, so I was able to
invite some of the other WorldTeach teachers to come visit. 5 in all
came to say with Keith and me for the weekend. We had planned on
visiting the lake one day, but the weather didn't cooperate. We did
get to attend a temple that one of the teachers goes to for Phagwah
celebrations. There was a religious ceremony, everyone had a nice
lunch (pumpkin curry and potato curry, yum), and then the fun started.
The "celebration of colors" bit of Phagwah manifests itself with white
and colored powder. I'm not sure if the colored powder serves any
other purpose during the rest of the year, but for Phagwah, everyone
gets some and walks around throwing and rubbing it all over everyone
else. Its a really social experience. Everyone was really excited to
"play Phagwah" with us, I think mostly because they liked the way the
colors looked on our (mostly white) skin. Children also use squirt
guns and dye to escalate the color throwing. I think my shorts are
permanently stained. The powder got everywhere. That night we had a
proper housewarming party, which was really great.

Unfortunately everyone had to go home on Monday, the actual day off
from school, because they had to teach on Tuesday. There was a big
Phagwah event at the community cricket ground. More people, cultural
dances and singing and much much more powder. I'm still finding it in
between my toes and behind my ears. As great as it was to go to the
temple on Sunday, I had just as much fun at the bigger community
event. I've often wished that I could become more a part of the
community, not just the school and the school compound, and seeing all
my students and new friends and being able to just walk up to them and
smear color all over their faces (I didn't emphasize this enough, you
really rub your hands all over everyone's face) was really satisfying.
Afterward, a few of us went with the hairdresser and her sister (who's
actually one of my best students) to the outfall of one of the lakes,
where we did our best to get all the powder off. The past few weeks
have been really great here in Anna Regina, I feel like I'm starting
to fit in and make some real connections, and this Phagwah weekend was
definitely the highlight. I can't believe how fast the year has gone
by. Fortunately, the third term will be a little less demanding
teaching-wise, so I hope I can continue to enjoy my last few months
here in Guyana.

Easter Vacation
We get a 2 week break for Easter. A few other WorldTeah teachers and I
are going into the interior for most of it. We'll be going to Lethem,
a town on the Brazilian border, for the huge rodeo they have there
each year at Easter. We're also going to visit an eco-lodge and
Kaiteur Falls, the world's largest single drop waterfall. Should be a
lot of fun.

I'll be putting up some photos of the events throughout the week.