Since September so many things have happened, so I will attempt to do a round up!
Early in the first term was extremely busy with sports. We had interhouse, where the pupils of the school were split into James House and Fredericks Houseb and competed against each other over 3 days in track, field and cycling events. It was a great competition, it was nice to work with the younger students as well, and it helped us to learn lots more names! (There's 141 students in the school and I think I know most of their names, hopefully more than half). Sadly James House (Octavia's house) were victorius over Fredericks House (my house), though they both competed fiercely. After interhouse came interschools, where we travelled down to Sawariwau, another village in South Central Rupununi, with our top athletes, to compete against other schools. It was a great week, though tiring, especially as we had to get our students on the field at 5 every morning to train them. I was doing the scoring for our school, to make sure we didn't get cheated out of any points, and I managed to get a terrible sunburn on my legs - there was actually a line where one side it was red and the other white. It was good to keep my brain practicing fast mental maths, especially during the 100m sprints, by the time we had had the athletes presented to us in the order they finished in, the next race was over. In the end, Macushi Primary came 3rd! We also spent time with Tamas and Jack, the 2 PTVs in Sawariwau, and Alex and Sam, who had come with Sand Creek, and it was great to hear how they were getting on.
In October (I think), we went to visit Shirley, and English women who lives at Mountain Point, close to Shulinab Village. We cycled up there, which took a good few hours, and spent the weekend there. We got fed loads by Aunty Rhonda, and also learnt how to make some good food. Shirley has lots of horses, so we helped her feed them and helped out generally around the house. When we woke up on Sunday morning we found Jaguar tracks around the house - sadly I still haven't seen an actual Jaguar (though I don't want to see one too close up!).
In November we spent a weekend in the falls with some friends. we rode horses down to Public Landing, which is a small space next to a creek, where we roast chicken, then put up our hammocks to spent the night. Then on Saturday morning we rode to the falls. The falls are really beautiful, we swam and shot fish to roast with an arrow and a piece of rubber. I actually managed to shoot one fish, though it was pathetically small! Luckily the boys were there, otherwise we may have starved, or just lived off farine. The boys also shot an eel, which tasted really good roasted.
December was very busy with revison, tests and the closing of school. I was very impressed with my students, at their results in their end of term exams, the majority passed (got 45% or higher overall). The last week of school was spent doing christmas activities, looking over test papers and preparing for the closing of school. Also a whole day was spent with the pupils washing their furniture - I can't imagine that happening in an English school. On the last day of school, the students put on a talent show for friends and family, which was very entertaining! I had Grade 9 singing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. We also had a staff party, which was really fun - lots of dancing! It was a great end to a long (15 weeks!) term.
Hopefully I will try and update this blog a bit more, though the internet is tempermental, I guess we'll see! It will probably end up being more round up posts.
Thursday, 19 March 2015
6 months late...
Hi all! Though I'm not sure if there is anyone to say hi to still, seeing as I haven't posted on here since I got to my project. Ooops, sorry about that, I have planned to plenty of times, but the internet is so painfully slow, that I give up and use the small amount of time I spend on the internet contacting friends and family.
So it's now 7 months in, and we're in our second last week of the Easter tern, time had been flying by recently, I feel like it was only just Christmas!
Seeing as I haven't posted since I got to Shulinab, below is a blog post which I wrote out on paper soon after getting here, but just didn't get round to putting up:
Since my last post I travelled down to Lethem from Georgetown in a 12 seater plane, stayed one night there with the rest of the region 9 lot (in a supposedly haunted guest house), then got driven down to Shulinab, where we have been for the past 3 weeks. (Well, 7 months now).
We had a few days to get ourselves sorted and settled into the community before school started. We spent most of that time meeting people and walking around the village. Everyone has been so lovely and welcoming to us, and they are all happy to help us if we need.
On the first day of school I was quite nervous, especially after finding out that my pupils of my grade 9 class will be between 13 and 16 (turning 17!), so not that much younger than me. The pupils here are really respectful and lovely. I'm really enjoying teaching at the moment, but there is a lot of paperwork! Most evenings we spend lesson planning, because things have to change often depending on how well the previous lesson went. Octavia and I both teach under the mango trees in the school compound, as the school has a zinc roof and it gets extremely hot inside. The mango season has just finished, but in the first week mangos were dropping all around the place - making a great breaktime snack. Luckily none have fallen on my head as of yet! Though I do get a lot of ants and spiders falling onto me / my desk during the day, which is not overally pleasent, but you get used to it.
On the first weekend after our first week teaching it was the Heritage celebrations in Shulinab, as September is Amerindian Heritage month. Tave and I both tried our hand at archery, shooting the homemade water turtle. On the Saturday we were taken to a nearby creek by a fellow teacher and some of his friends, where we had a lovely, refreshing swim in the water. In the evening it was the last night of the village Heritage celebrations, where skits, songs and dances were performed. Most of the skits were in Macushi (the local language), but we enjoyed them anyway. We then spent the rest of the evening dancing with lots of people. On the Sunday, after a walk through the village we met a man who offered to take us horse riding, so that evening we went for a horseride in the moonlight, which was beautiful.
The pupils have started athletic sports at school in the afternoon, preparing for the interhouse and interschools competitions. The weeks are starting to go by really quickly, but it feels like I've been here and been teaching for a long time. I can't believe I left home just over a month ago.
We haven't heard much from the other projects as we have no phone signal, and limited internet access, but from what we've heard, everyone seems to be doing well and enjoying their projects. we saw the Aishalton boys last Saturday as they were going up to Lethem for supplies, and stopped by to say hello. It was lovely to hear about their project and how they are getting on.
I'm loving living here, and I think Tave and I have both naturally adapted to life here. I'm loving sleeping in a hammock, I think I'm going to need to find a place to hang one up when I get home.
So it's now 7 months in, and we're in our second last week of the Easter tern, time had been flying by recently, I feel like it was only just Christmas!
Seeing as I haven't posted since I got to Shulinab, below is a blog post which I wrote out on paper soon after getting here, but just didn't get round to putting up:
Since my last post I travelled down to Lethem from Georgetown in a 12 seater plane, stayed one night there with the rest of the region 9 lot (in a supposedly haunted guest house), then got driven down to Shulinab, where we have been for the past 3 weeks. (Well, 7 months now).
We had a few days to get ourselves sorted and settled into the community before school started. We spent most of that time meeting people and walking around the village. Everyone has been so lovely and welcoming to us, and they are all happy to help us if we need.
On the first day of school I was quite nervous, especially after finding out that my pupils of my grade 9 class will be between 13 and 16 (turning 17!), so not that much younger than me. The pupils here are really respectful and lovely. I'm really enjoying teaching at the moment, but there is a lot of paperwork! Most evenings we spend lesson planning, because things have to change often depending on how well the previous lesson went. Octavia and I both teach under the mango trees in the school compound, as the school has a zinc roof and it gets extremely hot inside. The mango season has just finished, but in the first week mangos were dropping all around the place - making a great breaktime snack. Luckily none have fallen on my head as of yet! Though I do get a lot of ants and spiders falling onto me / my desk during the day, which is not overally pleasent, but you get used to it.
On the first weekend after our first week teaching it was the Heritage celebrations in Shulinab, as September is Amerindian Heritage month. Tave and I both tried our hand at archery, shooting the homemade water turtle. On the Saturday we were taken to a nearby creek by a fellow teacher and some of his friends, where we had a lovely, refreshing swim in the water. In the evening it was the last night of the village Heritage celebrations, where skits, songs and dances were performed. Most of the skits were in Macushi (the local language), but we enjoyed them anyway. We then spent the rest of the evening dancing with lots of people. On the Sunday, after a walk through the village we met a man who offered to take us horse riding, so that evening we went for a horseride in the moonlight, which was beautiful.
The pupils have started athletic sports at school in the afternoon, preparing for the interhouse and interschools competitions. The weeks are starting to go by really quickly, but it feels like I've been here and been teaching for a long time. I can't believe I left home just over a month ago.
We haven't heard much from the other projects as we have no phone signal, and limited internet access, but from what we've heard, everyone seems to be doing well and enjoying their projects. we saw the Aishalton boys last Saturday as they were going up to Lethem for supplies, and stopped by to say hello. It was lovely to hear about their project and how they are getting on.
I'm loving living here, and I think Tave and I have both naturally adapted to life here. I'm loving sleeping in a hammock, I think I'm going to need to find a place to hang one up when I get home.
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