Concerts, cricket and cats

As I type this, I am nursing several wounds.

Well, “wound” is probably a bit strong. I am nursing several tiny scratches, and a couple of puncture wounds (there’s no other word, OK?) on my wrist. I could have avoided all of these things if I had it in me to avoid the animals that caused them: in a bid to free three kittens from the burden of orphanhood (and abuse from Amerindian toddlers), we somehow adopted them, and the puncture wounds are from a dog biting me. That one wasn’t my fault, though. I was innocently walking somewhere, and - in a seemingly random act of malice - a dog emerged from a bush and attached itself to me. This was all a couple of weeks ago, and the dog is still alive, so I’m not so much worried about rabies as I am pissed off that my bruised wrist prevents me from writing properly at a time when I have lots of writing to do.

The mounting workload is the only thing currently standing between us and a much-needed break, and it seems unconquerable. We spent all of our free time a couple of weeks ago writing exams, all of our free time last week invigilating and marking exams, and all of our time now writing exam evaluations, report cards, index cards, class logs, class journals and schemes of work and lesson plans for next term (I say “writing”, but in my case it’s decidedly more “pitifully scrawling, and complaining about Rio the dog to anyone who’ll listen”).

We were given a break from paperwork last week for the school’s Christmas concert - a night we played a relatively large part in planning, but now denounce entirely. I’d deemed it a fabulous idea to teach my class “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, and spent longer than was strictly necessary parading around on the sand, conducting and ensuring it was perfect. And it was! My class of 38 had initially been reluctant to learn what they clearly saw as a random song Miss Lucy made up on a whim, but at my insistence they persevered, and actually ended up enjoying it. They seemed genuinely upset when another teacher later declared they weren’t all allowed to sing it. Fair enough, I thought, 38’s quite a lot of kids. I was mentally whittling down the choir to perhaps 12, when she pointed at one girl and said “Tifona can sing it on her own.” This annoyed me hugely, given the amount of effort my class had put into practising, and considering that most of the other acts ended up being long, identikit dances to Pepe Moreno songs by huge groups of kids. Also, it's not like the song would become shorter by omiting anyone singing it. Tifona did a great job, anyway.

The day of the concert arrived in a blur of balloons and grass skirts. Claire and I got up at four (which doesn’t actually seem that early, horrifyingly) to make curry, which we would then be responsible for selling during the interval of a concert we’d also be filming. Luckily the video quality was so poor that we had to delete it – it definitely works to our advantage that no one gets to hear our exasperated sighs as the least charismatic compère ever went into another rousing verse - the fifteenth, maybe? - of his song about a zoo. The concert began at six, and we were assured the entire affair would be over within an hour and a half. At midnight we were still crouched by the stage, unable to swat away mosquitoes lest we shake the camera, and generally hating life.

As you can imagine, we were thrilled to be told there’s another concert on Saturday at a nearby school, and we’ll “definitely be going, won’t we?”

On Friday, our HM invited us to a cricket match at Mora, a nearby island. Claire was understandably reluctant, considering we both hate cricket with a passion I usually only reserve for slightly-too-small sandwiches, but I chirpily agreed, bound by the self-set proviso that I say yes to everything. On Saturday morning, we found ourselves sitting in a boat with Wakapoa Mission’s cricket team – a group constituting the island’s entire reserve of testosterone. Only once we’d settled ourselves under a tree at Mora and mentally prepared for the four hours of mind-numbing boredom that were sure to follow were we told that, by the way, this was now to be an overnight trip, and we’d simply kip on the floor. Claire shot me a murderous glance – not the first, or last, of the day – as we checked off the things we didn’t have: food, money for food, spare clothes, insect repellent, or anything to do. Luckily, a member of the team chose this moment to produce some bottles of vodka, and the rest is history.

(N.B., Ma and Pa: don’t worry that we’re unable to feed ourselves or anything. We found a cashew tree nearby and gorged ourselves on fruit.)

It’s only once we return home to the Mission that we appreciate quite how friendly it is. People are generally nice to us wherever we go, but it’s lovely to jump out of the boat and immediately be swarmed by dorms kids and dogs, then walk home in a motley gaggle of children and neighbours as everybody waves at us.

It will be slightly odd next week when we head back to Georgetown and spend extended periods of time with other white people. Claire is the only white person I’ve seen for months (we thought we saw one in Charity the other week, but he was simply an albino), and it’ll be strange to be – almost - in the majority again when we accost the hostel in Tobago with our presence. We’ll be a smaller group than originally planned: of the 16 volunteers, one went home almost immediately, another flew back quite recently because he’d macheted his hand and needed surgery, and two have their own plans in the south of Guyana. Those remaining will doubtless be overjoyed when I place them in lines and make them sing The Twelve Days of Christmas.

I hope everything in Britain’s good. I’m going to stop writing this thing now and use my remaining time on the computer to find out what’s going on in the rest of the world (I hate not having any access to news – I only found out about Gaddafi last week). Love, hugs and kitten scratches to you all.

xxx

P.S. We actually chucked the kittens out yesterday. They’re pretty big now, and have more than proven themselves to be excellent climbers/clawers, so we reckon they’ll be OK. Three girls from dorms have adopted them (and, sadly, renamed Mr. Beefy "Beyonce".)