Sports and Roti!
Every day I spend in Paramakatoi, I love it even more. Guyana really is awesome.
School sports was fantastic fun. I ended up jumping the long jump, and probably losing. The rest of the time was spent burning under the sun, eating ice cream which came on the plane (my first taste of ice cream in nearly two months, those of you that know me well will understand how rare that is for me!), trying to find shade, taking dramatic sport photos, screaming unrelentingly at the PK athletes and wandering about with Xander and Calum. At one point, I drifted away from the rest and ended up drinking a little bit too much cari with some villagers under a mango tree. Trying to walk in a straight line when I went past my students was fun. The boys stayed for a while, and we had a good laugh. And they made our house horribly messy. We all went down to the shallow pool in the Paramakatoi creek for a paddle and a swim. There were other people there, so we ended up playing catch with them and getting half drowned by the enthusiastic children!
Saturday was Miss Becky’s husbands birthday, so when we went to buy some farine, we ended up getting fed beef curry, roti, beer, iced tea and cassiri. We revealed our own ineptitude at making roti, so on Sunday, we all went along to Miss Becky’s house for a roti making lesson. It was really enjoyable, and hopefully our roti making skills are better now. Whilst there, her daughter, one of my best science students gave us chicks. Ours is tiny and brown, called Tigerlily. She lives in a cardboard box in the kitchen, and when we’re at home, she goes in a pen that Rosie made her in the corner of the livingroom. She is very cuddly and pecked Calums eyeball. The Kato boys named their chick SJ.
Teaching is getting easier, and I managed to successfully discipline one of my Grade 10s yesterday when he was being disruptive. I’m also getting more organised. My lesson plans are improving, and I’m keeping a record of behaviour, lesson notes and exercises, and homework. Hoepfully next term I’ll be much quicker.
We’re walking to Kato tomorrow, which should be interesting as we only have 3 hours of daylight to walk it in, and it will take us about 4 hours to get there. We’ve got loads of work to do ebfore then, so this is going to be quick.
Missing cheese, and everyone at home. But mostly cheese.
Lots of love,
Bob/Sarah
P.s: if anyone’s stumbled onto this that knows Ben and Harry from Chenapau, they are both alive, well and have a pet chicken.