General Update
I haven’t done a blog in a long time, and for that, I apologise. PK is fantastic, and I really feel at home here and don’t want to leave. People bring us food sometimes … bananas (our favourites), tomatoes, cassiri, an entire load of bread once, oranges, and also some plantain (delcioooous fried for breakfast).
Anyway, we’ve been up to quite a lot. A second visit tl Kato, watching a Kato/Kukubarru ladies football match, went to the Kato Primary School Concert (a pretty rowdy, drunken affair), had a bonfire and a couple bottles of rum under the stars, saw two snakes, drank cari in a church, helped fix said church with mud walls, swam a lot, ran 100m and did the long jump in Inter-House Sports, got up at 5am for a morning run, walked to Yawung River and had a swim, judged a debating competition, experienced an earthquake (I thought it was a tractor), found the school library’s National Geographic Magazine collection (a large, cobwebby box), received an eye injury from a moths wing dust, ate my first chocolate bar in months under the stars on the top of the mountain, made a semi-edible risotto (using imitation dairylea no wine and no parmesan), held an election for my register class’ Government, helped write a debate for the school debate team, made some fun class games and went farming with a local farmer.
Phew! It’s been a busy few weeks. Today is our 59th day in Guyana, and so for our 60th day, we’re going to celebrate. Calum and Xander from Kato are coming over here tomorrow with their school athletes for Inter-School Sports, hosted by PK on Thursday and Friday. Tomorrow is also a national holiday – Eid-Ul-Adha – whatever that is. Apparently it’s Muslim, but I don’t think there are any Muslims in PK, so no one knows what it’s for, but it’s a holiday, so we take it! We’re also going to celebrate our 2nd month in PK on Friday.
Teaching is becoming easier, and I’m beginning to like it. My lessons are becoming more fun, my students are becoming more interested, and I’m becoming more confident. Learning everyone’s names is hard … I have over 200 students … but I’m getting there slowly. The quality of writing is still pretty appalling, and at times I do struggle to get any meaning from sentences they write in their work, but I am patient in repeating explanations and reasons, so hopefully they’ll improve this year.
After going farming, we had to hike up a rather high mountain with rucksacks full of spring onions, pumpkin and lemons, and I realised just how horribly unfit I am. So I’ve told Rosie (who did Orienteering back in the UK) that she can train me. So I’m getting lots of exercise, and hopefully will be capable of doing some epic trekking at the end of the year. For the time being though, it feels like I’m dying whenever I get up at dawn for a run.
It’s crazy how quickly this year is flying by. The thought of returning to the ways of Britain is filled with dread and excitement. I really miss everyone back at home, and my friends from various places, but I do love it here, and it is going to be very hard to leave. Sometimes I sit on the back doorstep and admire the stars, and the lighting, and Kawu Mountain on the horizon, and think that I’m the luckiest person alive.