Busy Weekend

My flatmate was away for the weekend, so I was able to get up early on Saturday without having to creep around. Early on Saturday there is a farmers' market a couple of streets away, so I went down to get a few provisions. Provisions is what they call the basic root vegetables etc here. My latest recipe (courtesy of my nice landlady) is for metagee. This is root vegetables (cassava, sweet potato, eddo), plantain, onion, garlic, celery leaves, grated ginger, chilli all cooked in coconut milk (grate coconut into water then squeeze out) then with fish laid over the top. Then you have dumplings cooked in the top, the dumplings are flour and cornmeal. It was pretty good, but takes ages to prepare all the vegetables. Fortunately I had some guests who were happy to peel and chop stuff up. I had another VSO staying overnight - she lives out in the sticks so appreciates a chance to see the bright lights of Georgetown - well we both went to the Catholic Cathedral for 6 am mass, then went swimming in the hotel pool, and back in time for breakfast.
Later on I cycled to a sports day run by the Rotary Club for children with disabilities. They call it paralympics, but it is more like a school sports day with running races etc. After each race the children were given a pair of shoes (crocs).
On Sunday afternoon there was a Deaf Awareness concert, called Talking Hands Dancing Feet. It was brilliant, with children and teenagers doing various dance and skits etc, all with signing and interpreting where necessary. The whole thing was delayed an hour in starting, which is just Guyana time, so you have to chat to your neighbour to keep entertained.
The evening was the concert with the choir. Fortunately my costume was ready in time. I really enjoyed taking part - by yesterday I felt more confident about my alto parts, and they gave me a person to stand next to who could keep me on track. There were other music performers including a solo violin which was very professional, as well as a steel band who played the overture from the Nutcracker. I didn't know they did anything so ambitious. It is great to mix with local people in that context as you have the challenge of the pieces to give a focus.
Back to work this morning, then a major trip out to Linden Special School tomorrow. We are being picked up at 6 am.