Teaching

Hey all,

so, havn't been able to make a post for the last 3 weeks or so as I have been down in St Cuthbert's which has no internet access and doesn't even have a phone line and mobile signal is very erratic at best!! Anyway we arrived in St Cuthbert's 3 weeks ago and our first impressions were how are we going to clean up this house but also how amazing a place it was. We had the weekend to settle in before we began teaching on the 1st September. The school is really small, there is 130 kids and only 4 teachers; me, the other 2 volunteers and a teacher called Sir Percy, who is a very qualified maths teacher, but has the slight problem that he is an alcoholic. The HM for the school is also the HM for the Primary School in the Mission, and he is only there 3 days a week, coming in on monday afternoons and leaving on friday mornings. Although it has been tough work with just the 3 of us for the most part teaching it has been really rewarding, and I have already begun to see improvement in some of the students abilities.

I am teaching Science at the school and although this can sometimes be quite challenging, trying to keep the students attention (which is difficult enough as it is!) can prove to be quite difficult. The difference in ability as well within a class is very evident. Our Grade 7 (year 7) class is of 55 kids where more than half of them are unable to read or write. Although it can be very tedious and stressful at times, it has also been really rewarding when you know that students have begun to understand something that they didn't before and thats only the first 3 weeks!! I have also got to do something called SBA's with Grade 10/11 or School Based Assessments, which are similar to GCSE coursework, but is basically just an experiment write up i.e method, diagram, results, evaluation etc. The only problem is I have to do 24 of them this year!!!! It is going to be a lot of work, but hopefully I can get them out of the way ASAP to prevent a rush at the end of the year!

St Cuthbert's itself is a really nice village, and has some incredible creeks!! They really are beautiful. We are also not the only white people in the Mission anymore! On Tuesday an American and his Amerindian wife returned to St Cuthbert's to live after being in Florida for the previous 8 years and he was very suprised to see white people almost as much as we were!

The weather has been so hot but we keep getting told that its getting cooler but it just doesn't seem like that to me! It has rained a few times, although it is nice whilst it is raining, afterwards the humidity soars and you can't do very much without getting soaked in sweat for a few hours.

We have begun to make some really good friends in the Mission, one of the local shop owners has become like our adopted mother and has been looking out for us and helping us out which has been very much appreciated. We have also made really good friends with her 2 daughters, Morona and Verona, who have had to come up to Georgetown to go to college. We will be meeting up with them later today though as we are up in GT for the weekend. The trip here was an interesting one however! We woke up this morning at 2am, to get onto a truck for 3am to take us up the trail to Soesdyke, on the road up towards GT. It was very bumpy, and we had 9 people squeezed into the back of a toyota pick up!! The trail is about 13 miles to the main road, although it takes at least an hour to travel the distance because it is extreme off-roading! We arrived in Soesdyke this morning at about 5am and then got a bus up to GT. The buses here are completely different to buses back home, they are like little minibuses, with drivers who are crazy!! they also try and squeeze as many people in as possible, and so at one point on our journey we had 20 people in a 12 person minibus!! They are all brightly coloured as well and normally have someone sitting by the side door shouting out the window at you to see if you want to get in. Something else we have noticed as well is that the amount of horn beeping is incredible!! People beep their horn to get your attention, to tell you to go away, to get you to stop from pulling out or to try and get you to go faster if the driver thinks your going too slow!

I have been playing a lot of cricket since I have been here which is something of a religion here, like rugby is to the Welsh or Kiwis which has been really good and I am actually going to be playing for the Mission in a national competition on sunday which should be really good!! I started introducing rugby to some of the kids yesterday, but they seemed very reluctant!! They said that it was far too rough for them!!

It's Amerindian Heritage month here in Guyana at the moment, and it is the Heritage day at St Cuthbert's next saturday, which we are all really looking forward to. It will be an opportunity to see Amerindian Culture first-hand and get involved in the community and have a good party!! We have been told we have to try the bamboli drink, which is made from cassava. They also have another drink called fly, which is made by fermenting potatoes. The only problem with that is that it absolutely stinks of vomit!! It doesn't taste a lot better either and it is strong!! The Amerindian people are really friendly and have welcomed us with open arms and started to make us feel really at home which has been really nice, and I am really looking forward to seeing the dances, and the speakings and just the celebrations in their entirity. Will be the opportunity of a lifetime.

Anyway, it has been a really filled 3 weeks so far, and I'm sure that it isn't going to get any less interesting over the next few weeks but have got to go and have lunch now so will speak to you all soon.

Much Love xxxx