Easter Escapades

I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Georgetown - feeling wonderfully clean and cosmopolitan - having endured the seven-hour boat journey from Orealla to Skeldon. The last time we got the boat, we'd managed to head down with enough time to sling our hammocks up in a suitably space-hogging manner, then spent the trip liming and playing everyone's favourite game: "What do you reckon is the most annoying birdcall?". Yesterday we didn't plan quite so well. We ran down to the boat five minutes before it departed, throwing our cat (in a loving way) at a student, yelling "please look after her for two weeks. Thank you!" behind us. Claire used her wily Northern Irish ways to claim an unoccupied hammock, Elaine sat on the roof, and I was relegated to the floor. The hammocks (filled solely, it appeared, with people who enjoyed drooling and dropping things) and various boxes of fruit took up most of the airspace, so I curled into a tiny ball amongst piles of timber, and spent the night going "ouch, dammit" whenever the boat listed too far to the side which would render my face crushed by a different pile of timber.

I was glad to arrive.

We then got a bus from Skeldon to Georgetown. I fell asleep, which I'd assumed was an acceptable thing to do on such a long trip, but it seemed to alarm my fellow bus-goers. When most people sleep on public transport they look as though they could do with a blanket. I, apparently, look as though I could do with medical attention. Since arriving we have been gaffing with Ry-Ry, a PTV stationed in Chenapau, a Patamona village in Region 8, and mooching around our favourite GT haunts. Coffee Bean, basically. We're killing time before heading to the airport tonight to pick up my parents and brother, and then begins THE EASTER SPECTACULAR!

And no. I do not want to give the following two weeks a less crappy name.

I've decided to categorise this post, to organise it in my own head. more than anything else.

Our House

The positively palatial building in which I now find myself living is a turquoise wooden contraption on stilts. It was apparently quite roomy when Elaine and Heather had it to themselves, but Claire and I put a stop to that nonsense by erecting a bunk bed in the living room. Heather and Elaine have been absolutely amazing, considering we gatecrashed their lives with very little prior warning, and we've managed not to have any arguments more serious that "whose turn is it to make the roti/feed the cat?". It does feel rather like we're on an extended school trip, what with all the white people in such a confined space, but luckily we're all chilled out enough that we're not stepping on each others toes too much. As far as I'm aware. Maybe I'm just oblivious to my irritating ways...

Teaching

Getting to school, I'd just like to mention here, involves walking up a very, very steep hill in very, very hot weather. I refuse to allow Amerindian toddlers to best me by getting up faster than I can, so I'm getting fit, at least.

At the minute, I'm not doing an enormous amount of teaching. Far less than in Wakapoa, anyway. Arriving towards the end of term meant that all classes were engaged in little more than revision in preparation for the end-of-term exams, so my job to date has mainly involved running CXC Biology and Human and Social Biology revision sessions (apparently they're different enough to justify their being distinct subjects. I beg to differ, based on what I've seen), and covering the classes of any teachers who happen to be absent. This being Guyana, there are several AWOL teachers at any given time, so I'm nearly always doing something. Being ferried around to classes ranging from Grade 1 to Grade 11 has also enabled me to learn a lot of names, which is obviously useful. Next term I'll be teaching some Grade 10 Biology. Grade 10 are touted as the nightmare class, but I still seem to be new and tall enough that they're all pretty scared of me. I'll enjoy this power while I can; I know it won't last.

Free Time

When we're not teaching, we're liming, and this activity can manifest itself in any number of ways. I'm a pro at sitting for hours in my hammock eating mango and talking to people over our veranda, but "liming" can also include wandering aimlessly, bathing in the river, hacking coconuts to bits rather more inexpertly than my Guyanese counterparts, laughing when the cat falls off something, washing clothes in the river, cooking curried anything, wining, drinking Surinamese beer, reminiscing about wining and drinking Surinamese beer, playing chess/scrabble and napping. It's a simple and lovely life.

On Saturday we headed to "The Resort" with a group of students and Chess Man (a guy from Georgetown, whose name we don't know, who decided to instil enthusiasm for chess in Amerindian kids. The response has been genuinely phenomenal). We were told we'd be leaving at 7, so I begrudgingly rolled out of bed and headed to the river to bathe. It was a supremely hot day. At ten to, we collected Mark - a boy from Grade 6 who loves nothing more than to mock the way we walk (it's too upright, apparently) - and dragged ourselves up the bastard hill, Adam West in tow, since he wouldn't stay home. I wasn't too put-out at this point, since we'd been promised there'd be a tractor at the top to take us across the savannah to the resort, but after sitting around waiting for two hours it appeared this wasn't the case. We then staggered across the dusty earth for hours, feeling a little more moisture wick from our blood-streaked bodies every time we parted our cracked lips to scream in anguish, or brushed against a particularly dry bit of vegetation. It probably wasn't as awful as I'm remembering it to be, but it was surely pretty damn close. Luckily the resort is an icy cold black-water creek, so we splashed around merrily in a jolly little boat for a couple of hours and cooked some chow mein before bumbling back home. It was delightful in the end.

Well, there really weren't as many categories as I'd thought there would be. Huh.

Anyway, I'll see you all after Rodeo! xxx