September Newsletter #1

Odds and Ends From Anna Regina
I wrote this on Monday, September 6th but am just getting around to posting it. Some new photos are up on facebook as well.

Getting to Anna Regina
So last weekend, we were met at CPCE by Gary. He's a gym teacher at the school and also is responsible for the lab. He was really good friends with last year's volunteer. Anyway, he guided us through the eventful process of getting to Anna Regina. From Georgetown, you can take a taxi or minibus across the Demerara River. The river is crossed by some sort of floating bridge that somehow comes apart to accommodate ship traffic. From looking at it, its clearly not a drawbridge, so my guess that it swings open, though it could somehow retract on top of itself. Once across, the bridge, the main road runs along the coast to Parkia, on the mouth of the Essequibo River. This is about an hour drive, depending on how often the minibus stops or how many tractors, horse-drawn carts and puttering mo-peds you get stuck behind. From Parika, a speedboat is used to cross the Essequibo River. The river is pretty wide; it takes about 45 minutes to cross. The scenery is beautiful though. Lots of primarily or completely undeveloped islands with dense foliage and protruding palm trees. The speedboat drops you off in Supenaam on the Essequibo Coast. From here another minibus or taxi is used for transport to Anna Regina, about 40km up the only road, which again, runs along the coast. The Essequibo Coast is one of the areas where rice is grown in Guyana. So along the road you're flanked on one side by the Atlantic Ocean and miles and miles of rice fields on the other.

Anna Regina
Anna Regina is the capital of Region 2. I was told recently that it is the newest village in Guyana to reach town status (the 7th town overall), so it is still pretty small. However, the basic amenities are provided, as they are in most places on the coast. Supermarkets, hardware stores and an internet cafe are all within walking distance of the school. So far (knock on wood) we have not had any electrical blackouts, and the school dorms have excellent water pressure. The water pressure has dropped a little now that the students have moved in to the dorms, but no one can complain about running water on the 3rd floor of a building in Guyana. The town has a handful of restaurants, bars and there is a lake resort nearby (the beach is very flat and muddy), so Keith and myself have the means to entertain ourselves. Everyone I have met in the town has been very friendly and talkative. I think it is going to be a great place to live.

Anna Regina Multilateral School
The school is about 4 blocks off the main road. There is a main academic building, a computer lab and bike park building, administrative offices and shop area, auditorium/gym and dormitory. The main academic building is 3 stories tall. Only one classroom wide, to maximize breeze effects. The rooms are simple but nice. Students either sit in chairs at clustered desks or at 2 person benches in front of rectangular desks. Chalkboards are painted plywood. Classes are separated by walls, in contrast to some schools, where a mobile chalkboard is the only separator. The school has a fully stocked chemistry lab, though some of the chemicals look much older than me. There is also a physics lab, though it is not so fully stocked.

The Class Schedule
At Anna Regina, there are about 25 classes worth of students. The students do not move around, instead teachers come to them. The day is broken up into 7 45 minute periods. To make the schedule, the deputy head teacher (assistant principal) makes the schedule out by hand. So he's working with what amounts to a 35x25 grid (period-day vs class), on paper. So he sorts out who's teaching what, where for the term. There is no daily schedule, each day is different. For the most part, a teacher will teach a given course 3-4 times over the week. So those are the constraints. It's like a bad brain teaser, and I can only imagine the massive headache it would be to solve this logic puzzle even with the help of a computer, which the DHT did not use. The end result is a massive chalkboard in the staff room with the class schedule written in (photo here). Naturally, there are a lot of conflicts (everyone here calls them “clashes”) when teachers find they are scheduled to be in 2 (or even 3) places at once. So naturally the schedule is still in flux, but here are the classes I'm currently scheduled to teach:

Year 8 Integrated Science (1 class)
Year 9 Integrated Science (5 classes, the entire 9th grade)
Year 10 Physics (1 class)
Year 11 Physics (1 class)

Beginning in year 10, students are split into streams, based on their professional/personal interests. Among the choices are Agriculture, Science, Arts and Technical. Only the science stream students take subject-specific science courses instead of the general integrated science (physics, chemistry and biology).

Dorm Life
Due to some mix-ups, Keith and I are living in the dorm. We have been told this is a temporary situation, as we are waiting for the region officials to find a suitable house/apartment for us. While its a little frustrating to be able to completely settle in, life in the dorms has been nice. Last week was quiet before the students arrived (and the aforementioned water pressure!), but now there is a lot going on. Some of the dorm children are beginning year 7, so this is likely the first time they've been away from home. There haven't been any incidents yet, though.

The First Day
Today was the first day of school. Because you can never be sure who all will exactly show up and especially for year 10 when the students are redistributed into streams, there is a lot of paperwork and administrative work that has to be done on the first day. I'm sharing a base (homeroom) class with Reshii, a maths teacher who's taught at the school for about 5 years. I'm glad to have someone to show me the ropes. We have the year 10 Tech stream class. So today Reshii went off with the other year 10 base class teachers, and I hung with the 10 Tech kids. We did a few math games, chatted a little, and the students caught up after their summer break. Unfortunately I won't be teaching any courses to these students beyond the 15 minutes of base class every morning. It was a pretty casual first day. Tomorrow I think we will be able to begin school in earnest. I'm eager to start meeting my students now that I'm beginning to learn my way around the school.