Back home!

Back home after the trip to Tobago. Yesterday we were swimming on the beach at Pigeon Point, which is where all the film stars go - white sand, palm trees, pelicans diving (and sand flies).
Guyana is like the 1940s, Tobago is like the 1960s, so coming back to the UK is a bit surreal. They say it is hot and humid here, but I felt cold this morning for the first time for a year.
Signing off the blog. Thanks for reading!

Postcard Tuesday

Adventure day - caught a bus over to Speyside and found the recommended "Red Man" to take us snorkelling - he also took us to land on the island of Little Tobago, passing Goat Island on the way where Ian Fleming used to live. Little Tobago is a nature reserve, we saw frigatebirds, pelcans, brown boobies, laughing gulls, terns and brown noddies! The snorkelling was real fun - we floated around above Angel Reef, spotting blue, yellow, red and black fish darting in and out among cushions of coral and trees of coral with white tips. It was difficult to get back home as no buses showed up but we were advised to flag down route taxis which have a P registration. They charge just double the bus fare. We got back to find that there was fruit available here for the first time - unlike Guyana where there is fruit on every corner. Someone should start a business shipping it over here!

Postcard Monday

Early swim at the nearest beach where the Beatles went. We tried in vain to find a bank that would change our remaining Guyanese currency. Strolled around the Botanical Gardesn, enjoying the peaceful trimmed neatness and parkland benches. Then caught the scheduled bus which was on time, clean, luxurious, safely driven and cost 40 pence to go to the other end of Tobago. Our apartment is beautiful, set up on a hill overlooking the sea and the rainforest. We need a bit of beauty to act as an antidote to Guyana. This place is a bit like Cornwall but hotter - with hair pin bends, pretty fishing villages and hidden beaches. We walked along a well used track to Pirates Bay for a swim. Here tourism is the second biggest industry after fishing, so the place is set up with trails, signs, benches and cafes. We had a great evening meal - tuna steaks, rice and loads of different vegetables (veg is hard to buy here, but fish is plentiful).

Postcard Monday

Postcard Monday

Postcard Sunday

Despite dire warnings that no tickets were available, we queued for stand-by tickets for the slow cargo boat to Tobago. We were relieved to get on, although amazed that there was masses of space so all the warnings were pointless. Six hours on the boat in the company of a dozen lorry drivers, passing Trinidad's misty hills and islands, rounging the western point close to the Venezualan coast, then along the north coast and across to Tobago. We spotted some dolphins and pelicans on the way.

Postcard Sunday

Postcard from Tobago - Saturday

Saturday
Taxi at 3 am, then a good flight to Tinidad. We went on a personalised tour by land rover all round the Northern Range of mountains including Asa Wright Nature Centre which has a grand house with a veranda overlooking bird feeders attracting hummingbirds, brilliant coloured small birds as well as agouti which are rodents about five times the size of a squirrel. We also had an adventure hike along trails and across streams to a huge waterfall for swimming. We stayed at a massive family house (our guide's mum) with myriad trees and shady verandas. She knew about architecture and took me on a tour of the good old and bad new buildings in Port of Spain.
Trinidad itself is a big shock after Guyana, it is like stettping from the 1950s to the 1980s. There are six lane highways, shopping malls, high rise blocks and a state of the art performing arts centre which looks like Sydney Opera House. It was built by the former president to show off to foreign leaders, but with zero consultation about what was required. The new president of Trinidad and Tobago seems to have been elected as a reaction to the bad behaviour of the last on who was "involved in all kind of stupidness".

Postcard from Tobago

Packing up, Leaving events

I am starting to feel sad about leaving the many good friends that I have made here. It feels a bit more final when you start putting things in the case. We can only have one case with 20 kg, so we have to leave a lot of stuff behind. People here are grateful for clothes - my landlady runs two old peoples' homes, and they always need things, if only for rags. Pensioners here only have the equivalent of 18 pounds a month, so they have to rely on local relations for handouts, or remittances from family overseas (over half of all Guyanese live overseas). I'm giving my bike to a new volunteer who needs to learn to ride it. I've helped her to scoot along on it, but she still needs to get both feet onto the pedals. We enjoy our challenges on VSO! Books go to the VSO Office, where they have a library.
Yesterday after work we went down to meet a choir friend at their church so that we could use the piano a bit just before their choir practice. St Andrews Kirk is the oldest church in continuous use in Guyana. It was also our last quiz night, we were one point behind the winners. Monday was a farewell meal for a group of volunteers at an organiser's family house. That was lovely as we enjoyed chatting to family members with young children as well as the auntie of the house who was a highly educated lady with interesting conversation.
Today we have a meeting with the director at work. I have to dress up smartly and shake hands and avoid sounding off about issues. This is hard for me as I have difficulty keeping my mouth shut! I am learning to be more accepting and have good grace.
Tomorrow we have a lunch at work as well as an early evening visit to our American friend to play a few hands of bridge, and enjoy her fine snacks!
We leave for our week's holiday in the Caribbean on Saturday very early. I may get to put more things on the blog while on the holiday, but we are planning to be in a fairly remote area. I will access email tomorrow Friday, but then may not be able to read it again until Saturday 23 July when I will be in London, God willing.

Leaving Do 2

Dancing at the leaving do.

Leaving Do

Yesterday was a special day as my landlady had a Yard Party for us. This is a picture of me reading my poem.

End game

Definitely getting on the end game now. I am still going round chasing up the last of the assignments for the visual impairment module. It is the last day of the summer term today, so I hope to get most of them, although one teacher preferred to come in on Monday and do the whole thing then - which means I probably will have to be her blind subject, wandering about with a blindfold... I had some good news yesterday, one of the teachers does sewing and showed me a tracing wheel which works really well as a pin wheel for making tactile diagrams. So we now have a low cost local version, using a piece of polystyrene as a mat (cut from the bottom of a fast food box).
My downstairs VSO friend is taking a few of us for a meal tonight - I have cooked her loads of dinners so this is her way of repaying. This will be a posh job, I will put on my long frock! But we can't be too late as tomorrow morning we have a birding trip with our local friend, so we are getting picked up at 5.15 am! On Sunday my landlady has a yard party (with caterers) at lunchtime, which is to celebrate her return to Guyana after being overseas for a long trip, and two of us leaving. I will read my poem there, it is easier than making a speech. I will also organise a bit of dancing - before we get stuck into the lunch. Monday night is a leaving meal for the World Teach volunteers to which I am invited.
I read my poem at choir last night, and told them how much I have appreciated their friendship and support - they have really been a family to me.

Poem

How do you Like our Beautiful Country?

It’s a difficult question without a doubt
It’s taken eleven months to find out
But now I’m leaving, I can reflect
I’m looking back with rose tinted specs
So forget the mosquitoes, rubbish and fuss
And the awful drivers on the minibus

Botanical Gardens with buttressed trees
Toucan calling in the morning breeze
Falcons hunting from the NCN tower
Kingfisher dives by lily flower
Caciques that squawk, humming birds flit
Cayman – just one foot long, I’ll admit!

Blue sky after a day of rain
Sea wall walks – saw a pelican again
Lily leaf offerings set afloat
Demarara view of a docking boat
Shady elegance along Main Street
Pineapple with ice cream today for a treat

Chatting in the yard with our landlady who
Says, “Find a little something you can do
Bring some teachers that you can train
They’ll come for the lunch at NCERD again
Who knows how things will turn out
When you’ve been here some months and found your way about.”

Special school visits by bus, ferry, bike
To listen to needs and find what they’d like
Working in the office, countless mugs of tea
Studying and working to discover how we
Can do training for inclusion, so we will
Banish despair and make hope possible.

My friends in the choir – you gave me a song
To sing in my heart when the hours were long
You let me sit beside you to struggle with the alto
Of ambitious cantatas, the harmony of calypso
You gave me insight into how you cope
With your Guyanese life, with faith and hope.

Soft lights of Diwali and Christmas dining
Meeting the Minister. music and wining
New Year fireworks as people stand
Mashramani parades and costume band
Muslim kasidas, Phagwah paint sprayed
Will it wash out? No, I’m afraid!

Dear VSO friends, if we’re smiling or we’re mad
You’ve put up with my worries, which can’t be bad
You’ve listened to my woes, you’ve cut my hair
You’ve suffered my cooking and the shortage of beer
So I thank all you people, as in God’s hand
I can now find the beauty in this land.

Caricom Day

Yesterday was yet another public holiday - Caricom Day. Guyana is part of the Caribbean first and foremost. Guyanese medics train in Cuba. Many Guyanese work in Trinidad as they can earn so much more. We also hear about links and agreements with many other countries, still the UK, but increasingly Canada. Large numbers of better qualified Guyanese are accepted for immigation to Canada, mainly in Toronto. The top schools are well supported by alumni organisations there. There are also doctors here from China who run the new hospital at Linden, and we read about aid and agreements with China to improve drainage and sea defences. But everyday the overwhelming influnence is from the US: the TV, the huge 4x4 vehicles which are so unsuitable for the small side roads here, the fast food outlets including a drive thru Kentucky Fried Chicken.
I'm getting a bit nostalgic about Guyana now we are closer to leaving. I've been cleaning up the flat and finding ways to answer the big question ... "So how do like our beautiful country?". I'm writing a poem about how it has taken me 11 months to answer it. The poem will be coming to this page soon!

Looking forward to leaving...

Two of my good friends are leaving this week. Yesterday one of them had a low key party, and was then going to start packing before getting a taxi at 8 am this morning. I think I will get my packing done a bit earlier than that! Another is leaving on Saturday. We are two weeks from leaving so there are various leaving things coming up. My downstairs friend is taking a few of us out to dinner at a posh place because I have cooked her lots of dinners, she is also leaving on the 17 July, but is coming back at the end of August. My landlady is going to do a leisurely outdoor afternoon event for us, with caterers doing the food. A local friend is organising a day trip on another day, so all in all things are hotting up.
At work I am getting the filing of paperwork sorted, then I will sort out the computer files. I'm still glad to be visiting schools to support ten staff doing the visual impairment module. One teacher finished her assignment today. For her tactile diagram she made a diagram of a big fish with real fish scales stuck on. The scales were from a massive fish, they were an inch across! If I have any time left over I will spend it doing a bit more work on my Maths Tactile Manual.

Course, Concert and Cake

I am pleased today to get most of the assignments handed back, so I have getting a sense of completion which is great. Next I am doing support for the half module option in visual impairment which is only being done by a few teachers, so it is more manageable.
Recently at work we have been running around to get the final accounts done for our training. We got Unicef funding so we had to do the accounting ourselves. My local counterpart was in charge, which left me to stand at the photocopier for ages getting copies of travel claims and receipts.
We have written a report on the training which I finished today including challenges and recommendations. I came up with three challenges. We were told to run a distance learning course, but some of the teachers who work in special schools do not have the academic ability to learn by this method. So I am recommending that additional training should be done with them to teach them the content. The second challenge is that the motivation to study is low. We are recommending that teachers get salary points for successful completion of the course. The third challenge is that there is no replacement for me when I leave, and I have been doing this full time for the last four months or so. So who will write the modules, produce them, go round the schools to support the teachers, organise the training days?
We had quite a quiet weekend. Yesterday we went to a concert run by a visual impairment cultural association - there were one or two good items, but otherwise it was rather an endurance test, including starting 50 minutes late - but that is not a surprise in Guyana. Last night I cooked a meal for a group of us including our VSO Australian friend who we visited in Mabaruma. She cooked us such a lovely meal in a pretty appalling kitchen, so I wanted to make a special meal for her. I did pancakes with lots of bits and pieces. But I think the pineapple and cinnamon cake was the best bit. Pineapples are dead cheap at the moment, you can get a small one for 30 pence. The main problem is that they make your teeth jump unless they are really ripe.
Tomorrow is police check day, it takes about four hours of standing in queues I understand...

Two good things

One of the challenges of working here is that reluctance of some Guyanese to share skills. Even though a local person is running training they are unlikely to want a trainee to get really good at things in case their position is usurped. They are even more reluctant to allow an outsider like me to come anywhere near in case that becomes uncomfortable for them. But things this week have resolved a bit in that it seems there is a need for training in JAWS (speech software) and there are people (including some users who are blind) who could do the training. So even though I'll no longer be here, one of my achievements could be to get this moving.
Another good thing is that the Disability Act has finally finally been ratified by the President. So there may be a bit more action now. On our blackboard at work I have written my motto (I can't remember where it came from) : To be truly radical we need to make hope possible and not despair convincing.

Good bits

As we get nearer to leaving we're making sure we appreciate some of the good bits of Guyana - so Saturday morning we had an early walk round the Botanical Gardens. Even after all our visits we can still find a completely new bird we haven't seen before, plus lots of old favourites. Whether you know the names or not they are so flamboyant as to be memorable.
We've done a bit of star spotting - the Southern Cross is familiar now low in the sky, and we see Orion high overhead (instead of on the horizon as in the UK).
The sea wall is always good for stretching the eyes and the mind on days when it is not too hot. At the end is a jetty where you can get a view down the Demarara River and spot the massive ships in the docks.
Last night we went to an amateur theatre show in honour of fathers. It had good variety acts, singing dancing and skits, as well as eulogies to five local fathers, read by daughters or wives. Then they were serenaded and had a smoochy dance on stage - very sentimental and Guyanese.
At work I have clear tasks to get done, marking assignments and chasing the missing ones. Then I have three weekd to support teachers doing the visual impairment option. I have a few more than expected so it'll keep me busy. On Friday I got interviewed for the TV, so now I have done all types of media.

Training Week

Having a busy week doing training days - today is the last one, so that will be quite a relief. We have had very good attendance this week so that is encouraging. We had sessions on teaching reading, teaching children of low ability, positive ways to manage behaviour. We had a massive discussion on Wednesday about corporal punishment in schools, which is still allowed here.
I've been supporting the teachers to get even better marks on their assignment this time round. So sitting through break and lunch pointing out where they could get a few extras. They are very proud and want to do well.

Marshall Falls Trip

We had a big trip out on Sunday. It was the group to do the quiz night, so it could be seen as a celebration of our noble victory. We took minibus and speedboat to Bartica, then we had an organised tour, again by speedboat. We had a guided tour of a few places of interest, dropping off at an island with the remains of a fort, and viewing the prison from the safety of the boat. We saw a granite quarry that produces the massive blocks of stone that are currently being used to improve the sea wall in Georgetown. I think it must be a bit like moving Stonehenge blocks to get them up to here.
We had an exciting wizz up the rapids on a broad stretch of water then the even more exciting bouncing wizz down again. Then up a small tributary to stop off near the falls. The heavens opened when we got there, but we sheltered under tarpaulins for half an hour so we didn't get too soaked. Then we had a half hour walk along a good trail through the jungle, admiring blue morph butterflies, and some of the massive red flowers that are commonly used for flower decorations at posh places here.
The falls are about ten feet wide and ten feet high which does not sound that exciting, but there's a large quantity of water coming over, and we climbed up the rocks to get through the curtain of water to sit behind. It was quite a challenge to get up the rocks, our tour guide was showing us the way and hauling us over. One of the women fell and knocked her teeth as well as falling on her back on a rock, so we were looking after her and trying to make her comfortable. Not much fun for her to have to face getting back down again! We were able to swim a bit in the pool below the falls, but it was quite blocked with tree trunks. So it was a great adventure, but maybe not quite enough of a risk assessment done... I think we should have had a roped rigged up so that we could use it if we needed.
Anyway our friend has seen the dentist now and had some work done on her front teeth. She thinks they are going to be ok.
This week is our major training week, first day yesterday. I was mainly doing introductions and linking the activities, as well supporting people individually with getting assignments improved. The range of ability of the teachers doing the assignments is huge, some have a degree and some have never done training before, indeed some have special needs themselves, and somehow I have to make the course accessible to all. The day went better than our June days, so that was good. I particularly liked a session done by a VSO colleague about positive approaches to behaviour management. In Guyana corporal punishment is still acceptable and widespread so we try our best to present other options.
I've also got the visual impairment module handed out, with an assignment to be done by the end of term, so that I can get it marked before I leave. So that is a weight off my mind.

Successful week at work

I am really chuffed this week to have finished the visual impairment half module of the training course for special school teachers. It has been work in progress for so long that it was hanging over me a bit. I will be able to give it out next week during our training days. It is an optional module, so I expect only ten teachers will do it. I will have time to support them while I am in country until mid July. So that works out well.
Our training days are Monday, Wednesday and Friday next week. A third of the teachers from each of the schools attend on each day. I am mainly organising the logistics of the days as well as giving support to the teachers to get their assignment two completed. We have three presentations on the days, all being done by VSOs. One on teaching reading, one on teaching children with low ability, one on classroom and behaviour management.
Last night I slept over at a new volunteer's house as she is very nervous about security at night. We had a good chat and this morning she said that she slept well in her own flat for the first time, so that is good. She is a lovely person, so I am enjoying making friends with her.
This weekend we have a bridge evening at a friend who works at the American Embassy (posh place) and on Sunday we have a long day trip to Marshall Falls - so watch this space for the story about that!

Mabaruma trip

Had a great trip to Mabaruma, or should I say adventure? Adventures are where you don't really know how it will turn out, and that is how it was. We went up to Charity on Thursday by minibus and boat, which was fine, and stayed over with a VSO volunteer there who is a great friend. He had fixed up the boat ride for us, but at the last minute the boatman phoned to say that he would not be going. The regular boats run part way, but after that it is a question of finding anyone who is going and negotiating. So we went on the regular boat and stopped over a night at Morruca on the way, then we had a promise of a boat leaving Saturday morning.

The area around Morruca is beautiful, it is a wetland area where rivers join up in the rainy season. There are meant to be 99 bends - it is very narrow, full of flowering lilies and weed. If it is the dry season you have to get out and push at times, but we were OK - apart from the torrential rain at times, when you hide under a tarpaulin. We stayed at an Amerindian hostel which was cheaper than the guest house. It was fine, shared kitchen to use, and a friendly lady in charge. The next boatman phoned to say they'd be late, so we waited for ages until eventually the boatman's brother arrived and took us on. That was along tiny rivers then bigger and bigger until we turned near the sea to go upstream along another river.

Mabruma was great, real countryside and very friendly Amerindian people. You have to greet everyone you meet. We stayed with a volunteer and had other vols to visit and go around with, so that gives the inside story to the place. We walked up the hill to the church early on Sunday, then visited more vols and raided their mango tree. We walked down to a swimming place in a little stream where I swam among all the local kids. In the afternoon we went on a long walk through jungle trails, this young vol had explored all these trails on his own while going running. We flew back on Monday morning, which was a great experience, tiny little concrete hut next to a tiny airstrip. But the flight was fine and exciting to see all the rivers below winding through the jungle, and wondering which ones we had been along. Good views of Georgetown when we got back as well.

Trip,quiz win, supporting teachers

All set for my trip to Mabaruma leaving this afternoon. I'm really looking forward to having a break away from Georgetown.
Last night we went to the quiz night at the bar, and for the first time we were the winners, so that was a bit of excitement. Our Guyanese friend who does the quiz with us is arranging a day trip to a beach on an island later in June so that is something else to look forward to.
Otherwise I am getting lots of things sorted for going home.
At work I am going round to the special schools giving teachers support for doing the second assignment on the course. It is about doing a child study, then deciding what the child should learn, and how they should learn it. Then they are asked to discuss it all with a colleague, then try out their idea and see if it works. So it is a very practical exercise. This is unusual for courses here, which are very theoretical, so teachers find it a bit strange and need lots of support to know how to answer open ended questions. Anyway from my point of view I really enjoy going round the schools and having that contact with the teachers. My big vision is that the teachers are empowered to work together, to share ideas and develop good practice.

Culture, theft, bikes and training

On Friday I went to a Hindu cultural evening which included a fantastic drumming group, musicians and dancing. I went with the new VSO who originates from Northern India, so she was able to explain what it was all about, as it was all in Hindi language.
During Friday night my downstairs neighbour had her laptop stolen - hooked out of the window by loosening the metal grill and passing it between the grill and the woodwork. She was out at the time. It is always upsetting when these things happen, but she does not follow security advice that we are given. She leaves her computer stuff on a table in full view right next to the downstairs window. Laptops are a major target - which is mainly why I don't have one, and rely on computers at work.
Sunday I attempted to teach the new VSO how to ride a bike - which she had never tried before. She managed pretty well, and got as far as scooting, balancing and starting with one foot on the pedal. Not quite got to the two pedal stage yet. I'm really glad to have had the bike because it gets you places quickly so I don't get so hot and sticky, also it makes it much easier to get around independently at night.
This week at work I'll be agreeing the plan for the next lot of training days which are in week beginning 14 June. I'm also going round the special schools giving support on Assignment 2, which is to do a case study on a child, plan how to adapt teaching for them, then try it out.
On Thursday this week we are off on our trip up river to Mabaruma, so I'll be out of email contact until Monday.

Looking forward

I am looking forward quite a bit now, trying to get the next steps organised. Next weekend we are off to Mabaruma which is in the north of Guyana. One of my close VSO friends got transferred up there, so it will be great to catch up with her again. It is a big wildlife area and good for walking, so I'm hoping to see all that elusive wildlife, even perhaps monkeys. We are going overland by speedboat and minibus, and stopping a night with another VSO on the way. Then we can catch a plane back, which will be my first flight in Guyana. Apparently the forest looks like brocolli from above.
I have got a flight sorted out which allows me to stop over in Trinidad for six nights at no extra cost. VSO get flights a lot cheaper as we are classed as missionaries (how many of us we can live up to such a claim?). We are going to get a boat over to Tobago and stay at the quiet, wildlife end of the island for a few nights in a self catering place. The tourist stuff talks of fantastic beaches, snorkelling, forests, waterfalls. We are going to spend the last night at the busy end so we are ready to get the flight back to Trinidad. Then arriving back in the UK on 24 July.
I'm also applying for jobs or hours at the College for next year.

New volunteers and getting used to change

We have three new volunteers which makes some new opportunities to meet up. We had a social on Friday evening at the rooftop bar. It actually poured with rain, so we had to be indoors, but it was still good to meet them as well as catching up with the other volunteers. There are not many now who have been here longer than we have, we are becoming the old hands. I was talking to a friend last night who started in November, and she is just feeling more settled. I reckon that it takes six months, that is about the time that I felt I lived here. Another volunteer was talking about the feeling that VSO is cutting a chunk out of your life, and that feeling lasts for quite a while, but then that changes into feeling that this is your life. I suppose it is all about acceptance of change. We had loads of training about that before we came out here, but it is a lot different when you are inside it.
Went to a dance performance on Saturday night, which was everything from five year olds to adults, and everything from ballet to break dancing, but it was a good varied evening with some good music. On Friday this week there is a Hindu event there, and one of the new volunteers (who is a sikh from Glasgow) will come with us - so we'll get a bit of interpretation hopefully.

Jobs, teachers, jollies.

I have just finished applying for a job at the College where I used to work in the UK - so it feels like I am getting closer to finishing here. The job is for an ICT teacher, which would be a bit of a change, but it would be a challenge, although a different one from the challenges here. I have to get a police check before I go. Another volunteer says that she got a police check from a different country that said "she is not a thief, and as far as we know has not murdered anyone". Hopefully the police checks here will be a bit closer to what is expected in the UK.
At work this week I've been chasing up the last of the assignments. I enjoy the bit where I go out into schools and meet with teachers. It's usually a few teachers at a time, and I now know them well enough that they will talk with me freely. There is a big range of ability among the teachers here. They get allocated to schools by the education department, who tend to send the more able teachers to the better schools - the special schools are the bottom of the pile. Also teachers are so poorly paid that they would not consider doing any work outside teaching hours. So reading a booklet may be beyond what they can do while they are supervising children with disabilities, as you can imagine.
A couple of jollies over the weekend - a gathering at a rooftop bar (sea views) to welcome the new lot of volunteers tonight - and a dance performance on Saturday. We find dance is fairly safe as you get music as well as a spectacle, but you don't have to try to understand jokes in the local creolese dialect.

Training and potluck

Last week was so busy that I did not get to do my second blog entry of the week. We ran training on Monday Wednesday and Friday. I was leading the days, although managing not to do too many sessions myself - but it is still quite a strain to hold it all together. Anyway it went well. We had more teachers attending on each day through the week, so the Monday lot can't have thought it was too bad! I got loads of assignments in, and spent Saturday marking them all (I'll take a day off sometime in lieu). This week I'lll be chasing up the missing one by the deadline on Friday. One of my main aims was to facilitate the teachers to share good practice. We gave up calling it that after Monday, and called it shopping instead. So half the group were vendors, and half shoppers. The vendors set up shop to talk to the shoppers about the activity they did for their assignment, and the shoppers paid by giving positive comments and asking questions. Then we swopped around in the afternoon. Teachers here don't like sharing ideas, so it was an achievement to get it to work.
There was a film festival last week showing European films for free so I enjoyed going to some of them.
The weekend was busy, with England winning the twenty 20 cricket, and I ran the potluck supper for the new VSO volunteers to meet the others last night, which went well.
Next excitement is that we are planning a trip to Mabaruma which is a great nature place up the coast, with a massive speedboat trip up a small river, and a flight back. Should be fun!

Canoeing and Training

On Sunday I went for a paddle in a dug out canoe - I was really pleased to have the authentic experience. It belongs to the VSO who I went boating with last weekend. She had it made locally (it cost her sixty pounds). She keeps it on the Demarara River, so it's quite close to Georgetown for a day trip - one hour on a minibus. The canoe is stored at the landing stage for a tourist site, and the trip she does is the same journey they do. This means that there are a few speed boats going by which means there is an option for rescue if we got stuck! First there's a long paddle across the big river, which yesterday was a very smooth crossing- then along the shore up to a small creek, which is then similar to the River Lugg size, only no rapids and bigger trees. We were going up on the tide but the timings were not quite right for the turn, so we had to come down against it. It was a great day for canoeing, cloudy so not hot. The canoe was similar to a canadian, but a bit less stable.
We did our first Training today, we had seventeen teachers instead of thirty expected, but maybe that was just as well on our first day. I arrived to find that the ceiling had been taken down in the room we were to use, so that was a good start. On the whole though it went well, in good humour, despite the snacks arriving an hour and a half late (not my fault).

Funding at last

We finally have funding to run our workshops next week, also for our three days in June. This is great news, as it has all been such a last minute job, you never know if it will run or not. It has been a bit stressful. Now I have been booking up who will come on which day, and getting all the paperwork sorted out. It feels much better when I can actually get on with it.
All the teachers from special schools (90) are coming, and bringing their first assignment from the course. The assignment includes that they need to try out a new activity with their class, and evaluate it. I have used the Reflect Plan Do Review method that we did last year at work. I was astonished that some of the teachers did not seem able to understand what I meant by an activity. They think that teaching is about writing on the blackboard. We have a long road to travel!
The main thing that I want to do on the course is to get them to share good practice. Teachers here are always criticised and blamed, so I want to try to get them to talk in pairs and small groups about activities they have tried, then they can take them back to their own school, and hopefully spread some new ideas around. In the process I hope they will learn to work together and support each other. Then in the future who knows what will develop. Ninety teachers all pulling in the same direction should be able to get some things changed for the better for kids with special needs?

Boating and Twenty 20

Had a great weekend at Rockview. It is on the Esseauibo River, which at this point is about a half mile wide, but there are huge islands which make it narrower. Another VSO has a flat bottomed boat there, which you paddle like a Canadian canoe, so that was great. We went upstream, as the current is a bit strong to venture down where there is faster moving water leading to rapids. We hoped to see monkeys, we heard howler monkeys but didn't see them. They have a spooky howl which reverberates around very early in the morning. We hunted for cayman - in the day and at night with a torch. We went into backwaters and swampy bits - I think I saw one slipping along about three feet long. We did have good views of red and greeen macaws, night hawks, toucans. I'd say there is more wildlife to be seen on the River Lugg! We are spoilt by watching too many wildlife programmes on the TV, we expect to see something around every corner.
We went to the Twenty 20 cricket yesterday, West Indies v England. It was in a huge stadium, all very well set up and organised. It rained a few times so the match was a bit messed up, but there was an exciting ending - they had to get 30 runs off 22 balls. The crowd went potty as the West Indies hit a good four and a single to win.

Cricket and Curriculum

Here's signing off for this week, as I am off to Linden for the day tomorrow, then from there I'll be going straight on to my weekend trip to Rockstone on the Essequibo River. Let's hope for some fine weather. The 20 20 cricket starts tomorrow, so there is quite a fatalistic notion that it will rain. We are going to the cricket on Monday afternoon, which is England v West Indies. So I expect my next blog will be Tuesday.
We had a busy day at work yesterday - I was assisting in facilitating a workshop for head teachers of special schools about curriculum. At the moment there is no curriculum guide for special schools, they just adapt things from the nursery or primary guides as they see fit. The problem is that the curriculum guides here are extremely prescriptive, and teachers feel they must follow them to the letter, or they will be criticised. So all children are being taught the same thing in the same way at the same level throughout the country. This causes problems for children in mainstream schools getting left behind as you can imagine. We were working yesterday on the idea of having a core curriculum as well as an auxiliary curriculum, for instance having sign language or Braille tuition. A vast amount of expertise and work will be needed to get all this down on paper, but I guess that a start can be made.
I'm still hoping to get the Unicef funding through for the SEN training days which start May 10th, but I've now agreed with my manager that if we don't have funding agreed by Monday 3rd then we will cancel, and try for the June training dates. If not then I'll just keep going round the schools myself, encouraging and cajoling... I enjoy the trips out!

Planning trips

We had a very wet day yesterday - it was hosing it down in hour long blocks with the odd half hour between, just to get your hopes up. So I spent some time looking ahead to our trip to Tobago at the end of July. It's not the kind of holiday that I'm used to! Tobago is small and quiet compared to Trinidad, and the north eastern end even more so. The whole island is only 25 miles long by 5 miles wide, there are buses up and down the coast roads, so we can hop around to rain forest trails, boat trip to wildlife island, snorkelling on reefs, waterfalls, turtle beaches - sounds great.
A bit closer is a trip next weekend to Rockstone - which is a bit more my style, rough and ready. Another volunteer has a boat there on the Essequibo river. You get proper rooms to stay in, but you take all your own food and hire the kitchen. It will be great to have a weekend away, and I'm looking forward to the boating. It is a flat bottomed boat, which is paddled I think. Let's hope the weather is a bit better.
We are trying to get a list of ten good things about Guyana - I think one of them has to be the blue sky in the morning after a day of rain. You can't count the weather generally as it is too hot and humid.

Trips expected and unexpected

Well I had a bit of an unexpected adventure this week. I went out to Linden on Wednesday, and had a really good morning doing some support to the teachers in the two special schools there. I was pleased to get finished quite early, and got on the minibus at the bus park at 12.30. They were just leaving so that was great. The bus set off and seemed to be going in a different direction, but I didn't worry too much as they often go off round the houses to deliver stuff or drop people off for favours. But this was different - we ended up driving down a dirt road, miles and miles through the jungle. By the time I realised that I was on the wrong bus, it was too late for them to turn back. This dirt road was totally devoid of any type of habitation - absolutely nowhere to stop, no traffic, nothing. In the end I had to choose whether to get dropped at the police post and chance getting a lift with some vehicle coming out, or go on to the next village, which was another hour into the bush, then stay over with the bus driver's mother and get a bus out in the early morning. I chose the police post, with the possible prospect of crashing out there for the night. Fortunately a massive lumber truck came by and I hitched a lift out with this very nice Indo-Guyanese driver. It was only two years old, and very luxurious, with bouncy seats - much more comfortable than the cramped minibus. But he went about five to ten mph, and it took three hours to get back to Linden bus park. The right bus was just leaving so that made a pretty long day, 6am to 8pm. You don't know how glad I was to get back to civilisation! In my defence the minibus did say Georgetown Linden on the front, but when you look around you notice they all say the same, wherever they are going...
Anyway the expected trips are going well. I am trying to get to every special school each week. I am never sure how many teachers I will get to talk to, but as long as I talk to someone then I reckon it is worthwhile. I mostly get round on my bike, so I enjoy that despite the boiling hot weather. You just have to keep drinking lots of water. And on the way back I can drop in at the VSO office where they have home made fresh juice in the fridge and newspapers. So that is an excellent recovery spot!

Choir

The concert went well last night - much to my relief. It is the first time we have managed to get the last song right! The concert was started with a steel band playing the hallelujia chorus, which is pretty amazing. I never knew you could play really serious music with steel pans. I think the secret to the concert working was having all the amplification and speakers set up properly so we could hear the accompaniment better. The church was packed out including a few of my friends, so that was good. Some of us went for a pizza afterwards - the first time I've been to that sort of place while in Guyana. It was just like pizza hut, but called mario's.
So this week there is no choir, I've got a few spare slots to have some other jollies - bridge with my american embassy friend tomorrow Tuesday (who does the great snacks) then there is a violin concert at a cafe on Thursday.
At work I'm starting doing support slots at special schools, I did one today where there were loads of teachers, but not many questions. I think I'd be better doing it informally, so I'll go for that next time. Apparently we may hear about whether we can get the UNICEF funding by Thursday, then it will be really full steam ahead...

Rain

Torrential rain yesterday - it may be the start of the rainy season at last. There was quite a bit of flooding - I had to wade through an inch of water to get to the front door. The bike is handy though for getting through shallow water. Fortunately the route from home to work does not really get seriously flooded as it is at the higher point near the sea wall. The land slopes down as you go away from the sea, as this area is below sea level. There are canals and drainage ditches, sluice gates which can open at low tide to let flood water out. But there are problems with drainage ditches getting blocked by weeds and rubbish. Guyanese people have an aversion to rain and cool weather, for me it is rather pleasant - I can still go swimming in the hotel pool in the rain!
At work, lots of things get cancelled if it rains, as some staff at schools can't get in, also some children and parents stay home. So I spent the day yesterday catching up on writing the half module on visual impairment for the special needs course. It is nice to be writing about something which is within my area of expertise for a change.
We have extra choir rehearsals getting ready for the concert on Sunday evening. It is difficult to get it right as we have practised so much using the piano, but now we have to sing to an accompaniment CD, which is difficult to hear, and has faster and slower sections all over the place. If we miss our entry then it is hard to know what to do.

Back to work with a bump

Back to work this week, which has been a bit hard to get my head round after the holiday. I was pleased though that the SEN Course module had been printed so I have been sorting that out. Unfortunately the meeting for the head teachers of special schools which was Thursday and today had to be cancelled as it looked as if the cash would not be available to pay their travel expenses. So I am booking up slots to go round the ten special schools next week to take out the course booklets and hopefully to meet with some of the teachers and explain how they should be getting started on it. I will be happier going out and working directly with teachers, rather than being in the office all the time. The days seem to be very long (8 - 4.30 with one hour for lunch).
The cash situation was made worse as the director was on holiday, so we could not use his clout to get things moving. This is the first time he has taken leave in four years as he feels that there is no-one who can take over while he is away. This is quite a common thing, the printing man said the same thing. Often we know that staff are in work even though they are on leave - they tend to come in late and leave early. Not a healthy situation. One of the other problems for staff on leave is that it is prohibitively expensive to get away to a holiday destination, and there are few options locally, mostly people go to visit family and friends for relaxation.
Choir is revving up for their Easter concert which is next weekend. It seems to be getting better, but it is all very touch and go. We are practising in the church now, but it all gets a bit silly as we are to get there by 8, the place is being used by a steel band till 8.30, or is locked up, then by the time everything is ready we are singing from about 9 to 10.30. This is all Guyana culture, and I have achieved the patience to put up with such slow attitudes. You just have to "take your time" and enjoy having lengthy chats with other folks. I feel I know quite a few of the choir well enough to feel relaxed and able to share their chit chat and jollity. It is amazing how jolly it all seems despite the knowledge of all the constraints that people live with here every day - mind you the choir members are pretty well off middle class educated people on the whole. There is a small group from the choir who sing in a smaller folky group (by ear) and are really good to listen to - they have a concert on Sunday afternoon, so I'll look forward to that.
I've had lots of people staying over with me this week as everyone is in and out of Georgetown to get flights overseas. A great couple who work with Every Child Guyana were here last night. They are working against child abuse, which overlaps with our work in the area of school discipline - corporal punishment is still legal and widespread here - also parent "licks and lashes" are commonplace. I have ceased to be shocked about this now, but it was very hard to come to terms with when we first arrived. At all times when you think about education here you can just think 1940s / 50s Britain and you will get the picture.
Easter holiday Monday was the kite festival here - we reckoned there were between 500 and 1000 kites in the sky, quite a few home made in a hexagon shape, some massive ones about a metre high, and even some mini versions about three inches, and teeny ones which are just a tassle on a string. It is quite a fine sight and rather appropriate for Easter.
Wildlife note: saw my first scorpion in the swimming pool, it was about two and half inches long, with fierce looking pincers on the front end...

Trip to Lethem - Easter

I'm back at work now, but this is about the trip to Lethem at the end of last week.
After the luxury at Rock View, Lethem is a bit of a shock. It's quite a rough place in many ways - the roads are dust roads and full of grit, so sandals were a bad idea, I just ended up with loads of blisters. We stayed with a couple of volunteers who had a big house where we were made very welcome. I cooked a meal for a crowd one evening, and realised how restricted the food options are there - I managed pancakes with bits of this and that, so it worked out ok.
We did a long walk over to Bon Fim which is in Brazil - there is a brand new bridge so that was quite exciting, and nice to see the river far below. Bon Fim was a bit of a disappointment, as we never really found the main part, it was early afternoon and everyone was on hammock duty.
Friday we tried to get a trip out to some waterfalls in the mountains nearby, but it seemed that everyone was busy with getting ready for the rodeo, so we could not arrange it. We walked over to an amerindian village instead which again was deserted, being Good Friday- everyone was off to church.
We walked over to the rodeo site on Friday and found a good ice cream stall - but things didn't start until the evening with a beauty pageant. So Saturday was the big day, with bull riding and bucking bronco. They had a stand with seating, and the whole thing was pretty well organised without big gaps. The events were a spectacle, with the bulls keeping the upper hand. Some of them were quite wild, trying to jump up and over the fencing, so that was a bit more exciting than expected.
The trip back was a bit of a nightmare 13 hours on a dirt road, pouring rain and a coach with no windscreen wipers - it was really great to get back onto tarmac for the last couple of hours. We did see some unexpected wildlife - a tortoise crossing the road, and lots of big 18 inch lizards.

Last day at the lodge

This morning we were meant to be getting a trip in a dugout canoe on the river, but it did not happen as the man´s cousin had borrowed the boat. It was explained that this is all part of the Guyanese culture, as things are often owned in common. We ended up walking along to a more habited place in the rain, then watching some people who were making and firing bricks. The river bank was a good place for watching the birds and the comings and goings of river folk. We were hoping to be able to see monkeys, caymans and giant river otters on this trip, so it was bit of a disappointment.
This afternoon we climbed a quite big hill behind the lodge. At the top were huge boulders, granite?, so we had a good vantage point for looking out over the savannah. The immediate thing that you notice is that the land is not fenced, there are just patches where villages have planted trees and set out houses. The ground here is very poor, white sand and scrubby grass.
Then we had a swim in the pool and yet another scrummy meal. It will be a bit hard getting back to normal tomorrow...

Cock of the Rock

Today we had an early start, leaving at 6 am, to do quite a long walk along a jungle trail to get to the cave where the cock of the rock bird nests. This bird is very dramatic, being bright orange/red with a big crest on its head. We had a guide from the local village, who was very knowledgable about trees and their uses and birds. He was able to imitate the sounds of birds that he heard, which helps attract them to come closer. But it is still pretty difficult to see anything as the trees are so thick. Anyway, we did see lots of stuff along the way, including green and red macaw, swallow tailed kites, woodcreepers, woodpeckers, and we heard the screaming piha, which is a very loud caller but is a boring grey colour so is very hard to see. We also saw some amazing butterflies, including this bright electric blue one which I´ve seen at the other trip. It took three hours to get to the cave, but we were rewarded by seeing the cock of the rock, including going in the cave (below a massive rock) where they were nesting high up on the wall, among bats. The really interesting part is listening to how the local amerindian guide talks about the jungle trees and animals and shows such a close knowledge of the whole place. Afterwards we went to the village shop where the guide came from, where they had just butchered a cow, so there was a massive pile of raw meat on the table. I was asking what happened next, thinking that they would be distributing it around the village so that it would get used quickly, but they said they would be packing it up to go in the freezer - so that shut me up. However they do not have electricity in the afternoon here at all, so that does not sound too great. This afternoon was rest time - hit the hammock.
Tomorrow we are going on another early trip to canoe to two oxbow lakes where there is good birding, but also we may be lucky and see monkeys or giant river otters. I´d like to see monkeys as I haven´t seen any yet. We have been told to cover up and use insect repellent - they only warn you after you have booked! We have a boatman to do the canoeing, but I´ve asked to take a turn. They say that the boat will go round in circles, so I´m hoping to show a bit of expertise to control that.
Cheers Kate

Savannah

First day of my holiday. We travelled overnight from 9 pm to 9 am. The first excitement was that the windscreen blew out - it was pretty dramatic, but it was actually a temporary windscreen which was plastic. We drove along for quite a time with a howling gale coming through the front of the bus, but then we were transferred to another bus in the middle of nowhere. In fact a howling gale is quite a relief because it is so hot, even at night. After that we kept getting out every hour or so, either at a truck stop for cups of tea and loos, or because it was a police check point or customs. All the time it was dark we were travelling through the jungle, but there was a full moon, so you could watch the trees go by. I thought they would be massive trees, but it was mainly small trees with just the occasional giant. The road deteriorated into a dust road for most of the journey, which was dire in parts, with the bus barely managing 10 miles an hour, but other places was fairly smooth. Eventually it got light, and we had a ferry across a river which was a great dawn experience. Shortly afterwards we emerged from the jungle into the savannah which was quite a relief.
The lodge where we are staying is pretty luxurious, lovely food. In fact they had a volunteer from Canada who is doing a critique of food service in local tourist sites staying today, so we probably had even better food than usual! They have a little swimming pool, and quite an extensive kitchen garden, beautifully set out with raised beds just like a proper organic place. They try to be self sufficient in food as it is in the middle of nowhere.
In late afternoon we had a guide to take us on a nature trail, which was climbing up a hill nearby, so that was great as we could see right across the savannah. He was playing bird calls on his mobile phone which attracted some birds in. I suppose that is cheating, but is apparently quite a common way of making sure tourists do actually see something.
Tomorrow (6 am) we are off on quite a long but flat walk to a place where you are more or less guaranteed to see a coq of the rock, which is Guyana´s national bird. The day after (5.30 am) we are going to do a river trip by dug out canoe. There are cayman and giant river otters.
Sorry to make you all jealous...
Cheers Kate

Off on the trip tonight

Tonight I'll be on the overnight bus towards Lethem. It takes about 10 to 12 hours, partly on tarmac road, then on a dirt road. They wake you up every few hours and get you off the bus for security checks. So that all sounds pretty dire. We are staying three nights at Rockview Lodge which is an eco-lodge in the centre of Guyana, among mountains and good wildlife spotting country hopefully. There are various trips included in the package.
Then on to Lethem for three nights for the rodeo, which is literally a cowboy weekend. The first event is Friday night when there is a rowdy karioke night at the hotel. Apparently last year an american guy won it, and the local people were a bit angry about that and so it all got a bit out of hand. Let's hope the locals are better at singing this year!
Hope to get some good photos, and give you the lowdown next week.
Cheers
Kate

Out of contact from 26 March to 6 April

I only get internet access at work, so please don't expect postings to this blog after Friday 26 until Tuesday 6 April. This also applies to email, but I may be able to beg to use someone else's email to catch up at some point. Cheers

Working and relaxing

At work I'm writing a half module on visual impairment - adjusting it all to fit the situation here - which is that the support staff themselves have very little know-how and very few resources. So it is about making things bite sized and straight forward in simple language, while trying to retain the correct professionalism.
Had a good bird watching morning on Saturday, we saw three toucans which are a real treat, then a couple of mini woodpeckers. They are about half the size of the UK ones, and creep up the tree. Bird watching is a good hobby as it has that WOW factor - lots of things in Guyana are not very wow, so it brightens things up.
Have got our trip booked up for next week for three nights at Rockview Lodge, which is an eco lodge on the way to Lethem, then three nights staying with a couple of VSO volunteers in Lethem. It is the rodeo weekend, so there should be plenty going on, if only people watching. This is my first bit of leave, so that will be great whatever. We are going on an overnight bus where they pull you off at various checkpoints, so it is a bit exhausting.
Have got a couple of tickets for the cricket 20 20 which is May 3 - W Indies v England. I'm not really into cricket, but it is for the experience.
Yesterday I met a woman from the US who is researching about abuse of women and children in Guyana. The statistic is that one third of children get corporal punishment at home. It is also still legal in schools for head teachers to administer. I have seen teachers carrying a cane or equivalent as a way of getting children to behave. The attitude of men towards women here is very old fashioned - women are expected to be in the home. We experience very different attitudes towards men and women at work, if men are in trouble it is a jokey matter, but for women it is not.
Cheers

Course writing going well

Having a productive time at work - the first module of the special needs course is nearly ready to be printed, and I have started to write a half module on visual impairment. Everything you want to say has to be brought down a few levels to match the local situation, and you have to put in examples to make it easier to understand. I have another week to go before taking a week off before Easter. All our proposals connected to special needs are going into an appeal to UNICEF, so hopefully some of them will get through.
We have a few things lined up for the weekend - tonight is a VSO social for the new batch of volunteers. It is at a roof top bar with free snacks and drinks - it's a shame that I don't drink alcohol isn't it? Nice view though, and it is good to catch up with how everyone is getting on, especially as I am now a bit more positive about my work.
Then Saturday evening we have bridge with our friend from the American Embassy who provides the most scrummy snacks in the world, and insists that we always go round there. I think she feels more comfortable being at home with her security guard at the gate, rather than swanning around the town visiting dubious characters like us.

Donkey Cart picture

See blog below!

Donkey Cart

These carts are used for general deliveries of timber etc or for picking up grass cut from the verges. The horses are quite thin, and are often left to stand for long periods in the heat. But there is plenty of grass for them on the verges when it has rained. On the back of the carts they often have a verse from the Bible, including the reference.
You can see in the background the contrast between the old house made of wood and the new house made of concrete. But you can't assume that the old house looks scruffy inside. There are huge contrasts everywhere - for instance opposite where I work there is an old man who sleeps rough, boiling up a pot of water over a fire, right in front of a massive new bank building, which looks a bit like a temple. They were watering the new grass inside yesterday, while we are in the middle of water rationing because of the failure of the rains.

Thoughts on a Sunday afternoon

Quiet weekend - it has been a bit cooler which is a blessing - more breeze. I tried out my flatmate's hammock as she is away and decided to rig one up on my balcomy, which works pretty well.
Wildlife in the house: blue and green lizards about 5 inches long - they are rather cute. We have the occasional cockroach - you don't stamp on them because then they release their eggs. You try to catch them with a glass and a bit of card, and chuck them out of the window. Yesterday I heard birdsong very loudly - like a blackbird, and there was a grey version sitting high up in the kitchen. All the windows and doors are open (with security grills) so they can get out easily. We also often have small bats diving around at dusk. Wild ants will come if you leave the smallest crumb on the worksurface - they are very small and get into anything, so you have to keep things shut tightly.

This is the lodge at Arrowpoint, which is the tourist place where we went for the day. Jungle walk, mountain biking and canoeing (in plastic canoes, not dugout - hope to have a ride in a dugout on the next trip!).

Hunting

This is an Amerindian guide who was showing us how they wait for wild animals in the night. They sit up on this when there is a tree fruiting nearby, and they do animal calls hoping the animals will come. He said that they keep a lucky seed in their pocket which means that the animals are more likely to come. In the old days they would shoot with bow and arrow, but nowadays with a gun.

Amerindian village

Amerindian Village - a picture from the trip a couple of weeks ago, showing an Amerindian guide explaining about how they use fruits from this tree. This was at an Amerindian village called Santa Mission.

Things are going fine. Today we have a meeting this afternoon of the head teachers of special schools, to look at the issues involved at managing schools. There is another VSO who is an education management specialist, so she is leading this. I'm just supporting, and arranging the snacks. Every meeting or training has to have snacks. I think this is a remnant of the days when people really were short of food here, or possibly it is because the food people eat is generally cooked food rather than sandwiches. People eat rice and beans, or roti (flat bread) and curry for lunch. You go to the canteen for a snack and the cheapest is channa (chick pea gloop).

My course is all going ahead swimmingly, yesterday I got the distance learning version from my VSO colleague, which makes it all look very professional. I was really pleased with it. So just need to get some more bits sorted, then it can go for printing. Endless permission letters, application forms and notifications sent out this week - I think bureaucracy was invented here. This is because they do not seem to have a system for approval going through meetings. You might expect my boss to take it up to the next levels and get it approved, but that does not happen. You have to go and find the higher managers in person and get them to sign it. They do not have an email system here, and not even pigeon holes, so it is all about walking around. I suppose it is part of the oral culture.

Bridge game this evening with my friend from the American Embassy - last time we had cheesecake! Film tomorrow at the Indian Cultural Centre to mark International Women's Day, and a VSO potluck supper for meeting the new vols on Sunday. The position of women here is fairly dire, think 1950s in the UK. Women are expected to be in the home, or perhaps teacher nurse, office or shop. Many women run market stalls selling produce. But there are people fighting that battle, I know some at choir. They are much older women who were well educated, the younger educated people usually migrate overseas. Over half of Guyanese are overseas, many in Canada.

Last Mash picture

This one is remarkable regarding the contrast between the golden glitter covered woman pulling the float and the content of the float, which was a minaturised house, with little bits of nicely made furniture.

More Mash

You'll have to lie down to look at this one, but that may be just as well considering the look of this guy! In the background you can see all the families camped out along the road for the day to watch it all go past.

Another Mash picture

A more extreme costume from the children's mash parade. Not quite sure what it signifies, but hey!

Picture - Mash parade

Trying to put on some pictures again. This is one of the children's groups on the Mashramani parade. You can see loads of Guyana flags, and this group looked like they were enjoying themselves, so deserved a picture!

Otherwise everything is going well at the moment. I'm hoping to get my course arrangements signed off today. If that goes OK then I can send out all the letters and start getting teachers signed up.

We're also planning an Easter trip to Lethem in the interior, with a stay at an eco resort on the way. Then over the Easter weekend there's a rodeo which is a big crowd puller - it may be a bit loud, but worth it for the experience. We hope to stay over with a couple of other vols, then do a day trip to Brazil (well just the nearest bit of Brazil!). This is my first bit of time off. Most of my leave will be at the end of my placement - I'm hoping to leave here shortly after July 16, then have a week in the Caribbean before coming home.

Things are generally going well with me, I'm looking forward to a quieter weekend following all the festivals and events last week. I'm hoping to get a bit of a break over Easter, possibly travelling to Lethem in the interior where there is a rodeo, and maybe going over into Brazil. Plans are also afoot to go to the Caribbean on the way home in late July, so that sounds exciting.

I was saying last time that I needed to get the SEN Course approved, but it turns out that it does not need to go to any committee to be approved, just by the Director and that is done. We had a session with someone from the Monitoring and Evaluation section who was talking about how to match up our projects to UNICEF targets so it is easier to get the finance. So I'm doing that today. As I'm writing the course at the request of the minister, I am hoping that the finance will not be a problem, but we will see. Meanwhile I am going to write the half module on visual impairment, which will keep me happy for a while. I'm also trying to negotiate who will hold the course when I'm not here, who will write the modules for next term, and who will edit them.

Youman Nabi, Phagwah

Festivals rolling in thick and fast at the moment. Friday/Saturday was Muslim celebration for the birth (and death) of the prophet. Went to a music event which was mainly chanting Kasidas, which are songs from the Koran. I suppose a bit like Psalms. These were mainly done by young men about 14 to 20 say. Amazing strong voices and self assurance to stand up on stage and sing/chant. There was also a visiting performer from Trinidad who had two musicians playing harmonium and small hand drums. He was improvising more and responding back and forth with the musicians. The whole event was quite serious, with well dressed people.
Phagwah is the Hindu festival of spring, also new year, which was yesterday. It is about celebration, music and dancing, covering people with colour and happiness. We went to the Indian Cultural Centre. You wear old clothes because you get bright coloured paint powder marked on your face, amidst happy greetings. The kids squirt you with water pistols full of dye. There was music (same instruments) and brightly dressed dancers in various styles. The message is that when the colours wash off that feeling of happiness should remaim.
The two festivals contrast by being from exact opposite ends - one completely from thought and prayer, the other from the feeling of elation and fun. But both are clearly deeply felt by the participants as a spiritual experience. Fascinating.
Wish they had better PA systems though because it can be a bit painful on the ears when people sing too loudly into microphones. Apparaently there is sometimes trouble with people chucking water around in the streets - particularly if it is filthy water from the trenches...
Back to work today, trying to get this SEN Course approval sorted this week.
Cheers

Mashramani

Tuesday was Mash - to celebrate Republic Day. Guyana got independence from the British with a constitution that created republic after 5 years. This was 40 years ago. So this year Mash was a big event. It copies a lot of Trinidad carnival. The floats start gathering at 8 am and move off throughout the day. Each float has a lorry with some people on, but mainly massive ghetto blasters on the back - with soca music so loud it feels like it will give you a heart attack. There are then a procession of people behind the float walking and dancing along the street all dressed up and sometimes with walking floats being pulled along. All along the roads families are camped out for the day, with rough sun shade rigged up, blankets to sit on and loads of food and drink for all.
Sounds fun? Well I was hoping for steel bands, and there was only one and you couldn't really hear them because everything else was so deafening. I've seen masquerade done in another place, which is a bit like a mummers play, and I was hoping for that. They were around but did not seem to be performing unless I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. A lot of the dancing (wining) is very lewd, I cannot describe it in a public place as I am sure to offend somebody, so if you feel strong enough to see a demo you will have to wait! Suffice to say that absolutely nothing is left to the imagination. The whole event was meant to be about celebrating cultural diversity, which was not the case. Everything was very much the same culture. I did not see any Indo-Guyanese culture although there were Amerindian floats but not with their own music or dance. The soca music was often the same track played on every lorry. I found out later that the track that is played by the most floats wins a prize, and it was a fight out between two of them. Talking to local people after the event, they say that soca is what mash is about, it is just the way it is. Of course the street music was blasting out until at least three oclock in the morning, I was glad of having ear plugs.
Monday is Phagwah which when everyone chucks water and paint over each other, so this may or may not be more fun... watch this space. I'm hoping to go to the Indian Cultural Centre to see some dancing, and maybe get to try seven curries. That is the traditional dish, you get a teaspoonful of seven different curries, all vegetarian. The music should be a bit more cultural as well.
Cheers

Saturday was the children's parade for Mash (carnival) - there are competitions all around the regions and the winners get to come up to Georgetown, which is a big event for them. The parade was walking/dancing, usually with a wheeled float which someone is pulling along behind them. All with deafening music played over massive loudspeakers on lorries at regular intervals. I understand that the Mash parade on Tuesday will have more of the traditional steel bands which would be more my kind of thing. It is a public holiday anyway which will break up the week a bit! It is Independence Day, celebrating 40 years as a republic. Also next Monday is a Hindu holiday, Phagwah, so we get a day off for that as well. There is some Kathak dancing at the Indian Cultural Centre that I may get to.
I finished the next draft of my course on Friday, so that was good. I will get some more people to read it and give me feedback this week while I write the overview and get advice about the way of running it and assessing it.
My old pal at my morning swim came back from three months in Trinidad, and exclaimed _ so you're still here then! Well yes, I'm still here and feeling a lot happier with life generally, so that is good.

Getting on with things

This week I've been able to concentrate with sorting out this training course. I've agreed what roles we VSOs will have in getting things done, so I am able to move it on now. I've talked to the head teachers of the 9 special schools and units about the course, and they seem fairly positive about it, but then they probably would not say otherwise. It is difficult to get a straight answer because as I'm working as part of the Ministry of Education, everyone feels they have to agree with me. Also Guyanese people don't like to refuse anything, they say "just now" which means "wait a bit, I'll do it soon", or possibly "no chance today - you'll need to ask me five times before I even give you an answer".
We have five new VSO vols so there is a social tonight at the roof top bar, which has a good view over Georgetown - a good Friday night slow down experience. Free bar and good snack! There is a couple who have just finished in Ghana, with four weeks at home, then out here. They are enjoying the rest now they have got here! A few of the older volunteers get into this kind of globe trotting but I don't think I could cope with the strain.
Everything is very dry here, the rainy season in Dec and Jan did not happen, so they are short of water for the rice fields. They are having to pump water into drainage/irrigation ditches. They are expecting rain in April to relieve the situation.
The main TV channel here gives a good idea of what the government is concerned about, and covers the meetings they have with farmers, also quite a lot of stuff on climate change and the Low Carbon Development Strategy. There has been quite a bit of negotiation with miners who are concerned about having stricter rules about getting permits. The mines are open cast gold mines and make quite a mess of the environment, although they only cover small patches.

Nature Resort trip

Had a lovely day out yesterday at a nature resort. It is a tourist trip, so you get to ride in a comfy coach, then it's speedboat up the Demarara river, then up a side creek, which was the size of the River Lugg. You think that you're going to spot lots of wildlife, but in fact it's not quite like the nature programmes on the telly. We visited an Amerindian village, then did walking through the forest where I spotted a big electric blue butterfly, then kayaking back, then lunch then mountain biking then swimming in the creek... you know I like being busy.
This week there has been a bit of a freeze on spending, so I'm not going off to the interior, but that is quite a relief - I would have been running around producing the handouts and preparing sessions.
On Friday I had a long chat to another vol who may take over the main thinking about this SEN course, as he would be able to continue with it next year. That also would be a big relief - I could do more of the administration and support. I am keeping my fingers crossed.
This week is the build up to Mashramani (carnival) so when it all hots up there will be extreme street parades with steel bands, extreme costumes and lots of wild behaviour. We also get a day's public holiday on the 23 Feb for it. It is a general festival celebrating Guyana as a nation, so that is more of a uniting factor- most of the other festivals are one religion or another.

Lots going on

Today is looking busy - I'm seeing a couple of teachers at the unit for the blind, then going to meet someone from the University of Guyana. I'm hoping to be able to do some sensitisation about disability and blindness to their maths students and staff. So that may be a bit of a challenge, but nearer to my core skills for a change! I've done the second draft of the module for the SEN course, so that is going to two colleagues for them to do their bit. Tomorrow and Friday I'm up country in Linden, no internet there.
Next week (Wed, Thu) I've been asked to go to the interior (flying) to do some input on SEN to literacy educators. I am adapting stuff from the course to suit what they are doing, plus some extra things about teaching adults and about Numeracy. I have to edit down the handouts. It may however not be happening as there is uncertainty about the finance for it.
Sunday I'm pff to a nature resort for the day. It's a treat for my friends birthday. There are walks in the jungle, canoeing, mountain biking, visit to amerindian village, and wildlife spotting. PHEW!

Monastery

I had a lovely weekend away staying at the monastery. It is a benedictine monastery with three monks - you are sharing their space, eating meals with them and attending the myriad services if you wish. One monk plays/improvises very enlivening music for the services, the garden is interesting with orange trees, paw paw, there is a fantastic view out over the river and the odd toucan hopping around the trees. Plus the golden sandy beach on the riverside for a swim. Idyllic!
Back to work today, I've been teaching some maths to a teacher, along with how to do practical work for it, and how to do it in Braille. I'm going up country on Thursday to Friday this week, to work with the staff at the other unit for the blind. I enjoy that as it seems pretty clear what you are trying to do. They did set themselves a target to do some Jaws (computer speech program) with the children every day, so let's hope they have actually done something...

Busy with work and fun time

I've had a busy week writing a course in special needs. I decided to base it on all the stuff I've been doing over the last few months which is really practical strategies for trying out with your class, then seeing what works. Pragmatism!
I've also done quite a few individual support sessions with teachers in the mainstream schools where they have units for the blind. Many of these are not really about blindness, more about slow learners - children who can't read, but I'm gradually learning something about literacy so that I can maybe offer some helpful suggestions.
This weekend I'm off with a friend to stay at the monastery that I visited before (which also has a brilliant beach) and to visit some VSO friends who are leaving Guyana next week. It is interesting to listen to the leaver's perspective...
Things are hotting up as I have been asked to fly off to Lethem in the interior to help with a literacy training, so that will be exciting - Wed 17 to 18 Feb.

Half Way letter

I'm calling this a half way letter as I am working for 11 months (1 month holiday). So what's four good things about being in Guyana?
1. Friends - I've made lots of good friends I realise - it's a bit painful at first when you are trying to establish new friendships - things are not as they seem because of different cultures. But now I have good friend who are British, American, Australian, Philipino and Guyanese. Also there are a few repeat volunteers who end up being a bit stateless - who have spent the last 10 years being cols in Asia, Africa, Pacific - they have quite a different attitude - nothing is very surprising any more. A handy attitude to have for survival here.
2. The Guyanese are open and friendly although very formal - you meet someone, anyone, and they expect a polite marning, good afternoon, good evening, good night, although it's hard to get the good night correct as it is used as an opening greeting instead of a farewell. If you sit next to someone in an event, you would be seen as stand offish if you didn't speak and have a chat.
3. Wildlife - to maintain sanity, I need to check out something bearutiful and surprising - toucans, red macaws, huge butterflies, massive kingfishers, trees full of epiphytes, cannon ball trees and shrubs with attendant hummingbirds.
4. Church. I've been quite inspired bu the enthusiasm and commitment of all ages - 95% of Guyanese are actively religious - I have got more serious about my faith while I have been here - it is a cornerstone.
What about the challenges? Within the scope of what I can make public that is!
1. It's been hard to settle at work as we had so little induction, also because my placement had objectives on a much higher level than I usually work, whereas what I really needed to do was to get in at the grass roots - at least that is what got me motivated.
2. Getting on with other VSO vols has been a major challenge. We all get in each other's pockets too much, and it is easy to assume that other vols see things the same way - so don't assume anything about anybody.
3. No countryside walkable from Georgetown and it is hugely expensive to travel, no footpaths, no maps, canals clogged with plastic, smouldering heaps of rubbish beside the roads, stray dogs...
(I am allowed a little moan aren't I?)

Back to work after a couple of days training with VSO. The first one was a call back workshop for those of us that have been in country for three or four months, with the volunteers and our local counterparts. We were looking at our expectations before we came and our experiences during this first part of our placements. The workshop came up with quite a few issues, and we gathered that many of them are recurrent issues for each group. I think VSO are nibbling away at some of these issues, but many of them are resistant to nibbling. Yesterday the workshop included some training in gender, as well as how literacy, special needs and disability volunteers could work together more closely. The idea of all this is a drip drip system, hoping that we can make small steps of improvement.
I had a busy weekend with various volunteers visiting to attend the training. So there were lots of good chats - I am increasingly aware that many of the volunteers in whatever region seem to experience the same challenges/frustrations that we do. It is all part of the experience!
On my Saturday morning walk in the Botanical Gardens I saw a toucan really close up, sitting in a tree - massive yellow beak, it was just hopping around looking ungainly. I also saw one of the large kingfishers again hunting along the creek. I think when you know what to look for and where to look for it, you are more likely to see it. A bit like life really....

Goodies and Running Around

Well I was in the lap of luxury on Sunday, I was invited for tea and cheesecake and a game of cards (rummy) with someone who works at the American Embassy - the cheesecake was the biggest I have ever seen and was delicious, there was real coffee and a host of other snacks. I told them about pudding evenings in the UK and they thought could be a good idea for Guyana. I am going round there this Sunday for a bridge evening, so the may be a possibility of more goodies. Treats have a bigger hit when you are living off bean stew and rice for the rest of the week.
Things at work have gone a bit potty, as we have been asked to write a training course for teachers in special needs schools IMMEDIATELY. That is really the problem, we get almost no management input for four months then suddenly the minister says something and everyone has to run around. Still it does make sense for us to leave a good solid course which covers the skills that we have. Fortunately one of us VSOs has the skills to transfer it into distance learning format, and they have time to do it (if their work doesn't take off by the time we have got the material together).
Also today a couple of us were called in to assist in a fact finding visit to the unit for the blind where I have been working mainly. We were told that it was to investigate a complaint that they were not doing anything, but in fact the person from the Ministry of Education was very fair, very interested and supporting change. He said he would try to get a separate grant from the ministry instead of having to go through the two mainstream schools all the time. So that may just work out well.
Tomorrow Friday and Monday we have VSO training days, which is a bit of a holiday really, so I'm looking forward to that. Cheers!

Had a good trip to Linden. The training on Thursday went well, there were 19 teachers who attended out of possible 28. I did an hour of activities about inclusion, both of the pupil with visual impairment as well as other pupils with special needs. I had 10 teachers who wanted me to do some follow up with them, I saw five of them on Friday. I also did some follow up with the two staff in the support unit for the blind, about Jaws, which is the speech programme for the blind. I am writing them a noddy guide for the basics, and persuading them that it would be good to do a little bit every day with at least one pupil, so that it becomes normal. At the moment they either write the work bigger and ask the pupils to copy it, or they like to record it onto cassette - but they don't have a cassette player at the moment. So I am trying to get them to see that if the work is on the computer then it can be accessed any time - for revision as well. Then it transpires that what the support staff really need is IT support, as they don't have much idea about word processing basics. The longer you work with people the more needs they seem to have! I suppose it is a question of confidence to be able to admit that you don't know something.

At the other blind unit in Georgetown, I discovered that although they have a couple of computers with Jaws, none of the pupils use them. So I think I will try to get going on getting some of those staff to see the importance of opening the door to computers for these kids. The main barrier is that I am not much good at Jaws myself, but then I guess that is quite a good starting point as I can appreciate that a noddy guide is needed. If I can understand it then maybe they can...

Had a birding outing this morning with a group called Feathered Friends. They give guides in the Botanical Gardens to see the birds. As I go there every Saturday morning I already have quite a good knowledge of the birds and where you see them, so that made it easier to tune in to what they were showing us. They had a brilliant big telescope for getting a real close up - which is great - if they sit still long enough. The highlight for me were these really massive kingfishers, which we saw fishing in the trench, also peregrine falcons which were diving after parrots which were bigger than they were! I also got the names of some of the common birds that I am familiar with.

We had a walk along the sea wall afterwards, and admired the JCB which is stuck in the mud on the beach. You can see half the cab above the mud, and the big arm. It was trying to dig a trench for the new broadband cable. Someone will be in trouble... I cannot think how much it would cost to have a JCB transported to Guyana.

The Haiti earthquake is on the news all day - it seems quite close emotionally to people here, but is physically a long way away. Guyana is off the danger zone for earth quakes as well as hurricanes, although it does do a good line in flooding as Georgetown is below sea level - hence VSO give us upstairs flats. The last massive flood was 2005.

Getting work moving

Things are getting going at work.
I have finished setting up my latest project which is about motivating teachers by finding and sharing good practice of inclusive methods, within special schools and between special schools. The idea is that this would help special school build up their good practice so that they can eventually become centres of good practice, and so could advise other schools. At the same time I am introducing the idea of a functional skills system which is about breaking down simple skills (like arrival at school) into a sequence of small steps where progress can be tracked with different levels of guidance/support. I hope some teachers will pilot this with a pupil in their class. Another idea is using P-Levels which is used for pupils with learning difficulties in the UK who are working below the National Curriculum level 1. Again I hope this can be piloted in a small way.
I went to a school today to introduce these ideas and the head teacher is keen. So that is great.
Today I also did a training for mainstream teachers at the school which has a unit for the blind. Five teachers came which was better than expected, plus most of the support staff from the unit. Three of the teachers want to have further support, so that gives me a way in to try to get some small changes in methodology towards including the blind child in the class more.
Tomorrow and Friday I am off to Linden to do a similar training with staff in that mainstream primary school, also to do more support in the unit for the blind there. I won't be on a computer again for a few days.
It is a good job that I like being busy!!!

Quiet Weekend

Had a peaceful weekend.
I have been doing my new hobby. I have borrowed a book from a friend which is called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. It is about how practising drawing exercises can increase awareness of switching from the left (verbal) side of the brain to the right (visual) side. I have been doing some of the exercises, which include copying drawings upside down (which pushes you into drawing what is actually there rather than what you think is there). Also drawing things when you are only allowed to look at the object, not the drawing. And the latest is about drawing the negative spaces around the object, not the object itself. Again this is so that you are concentrated on the shapes and spaces you are seeing, and not drawing from your idea of what the object should look like.
Had a party with choir on Saturday night, which was a big sit down meal, and afterwards some dancing. I did a couple of dances which went down quite well, and they did some group dances, one of which is called que que, which they do at weddings. It involves making up verses about people who are present and calling back the lines. I'm hoping to get someone to explain it so I can understand how it works. Last night I had a good bridge evening with VSO pals and cooked them a meal.

Busy busy.

Had a busy week, we have had to quite a few reviews, planning documents, mission statements, objectives, budgets and so on. We were also interviewed for the newspaper. They reported me saying lots of things that I didn't say, but the picture looked quite good.
On Saturday evening we have a party for choir, which is a meal out. I've been asked to organise some dancing afterwards - I don't have any music, so I'll have to sing. Should be fun anyway.

New Year

Happy New Year to blog readers all.
Fantastic fireworks on Old Year's Night - the best fireworks I have ever seen. The army were setting them off. Is that good use of resources in a developing country? Well I'd say not really, but other people say that giving that boost to uplift people's spirits at the start of a new decade is worth it. Apparently last year there were meant to be fireworks, but they did not happen.
Had a lovely weekend break in Bartica, staying over with some other VSO vols. It is down the Essequibo River, so involved speedboat rides, which was great on the way down, but a bit overexciting on the way back as the boat engine was having problems. We got grounded on a beach while it was fixed. Fortunately once we did get going the engine kept going, and it did not go dark on us.
One of the VSO friends is working on getting computers into schools in remote areas by using solar power - and pretty successfully too. The other vol is working in a Learning Resource Centre, which was already set up, but she has improved and developed the work with teachers and classes. It was the best place I have been in while I've been in Guyana, and is acting as a model for a resource centre in each region, with some aid funding. The problem is always having someone to run it who can keep control of the resources as well as using it to run activities to improve the teaching and learning.
We walked to a monastery where there was mass in a little room overlooking the river. An idyllic setting. After the mass we walked with some people who attended down to their little golden beach on the river bank. Another idyllic place where we had a swim alongside some local children. Places like this are not public places, so if you go there you are walking over someone's space. You have to have long chats with the owners/occupiers to make sure they are OK about you going on their beach. They may well feel threatened, and as there are so many cows (with horns) and dogs galore, it is not very comfortable if you don't feel welcome somewhere. I took some photos, so next time I get some loaded I hope to include them on the blog.
Back to work today, the schools are back so I should be able to get moving on my various projects. We are being interviewed for the newspaper and radio on Wednesday.