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 3rd 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 50th anniversary of the founding of the school, so the events were combined. On the first Friday evening of the final term, a handful of 9th and 10th grade girls (the 11th 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
11th 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 11th 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. 9th grade students in Guyana write national exams in four subjects: math, science, english and social studies. I teach science to all the 9th 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 8th of July, which some days seems far off but most days feels too soon for my time to end.
Alex
