13/11/09

Its been lovely to have some more communication with Max. Letters getting through now, both ways and we had a text out of the blue saying he was taking the children to a National Swimming Competition for a week and had phone reception. It took 3 days to get there. So we have been able to talk and text a bit though getting through is sometimes difficult and line not great. so Max and Dru, the Head Teacher, are with 9 children, boys and girls at this big miniOlympics kind of event in Berbice and its been quite a shock I think to see how poor the Region (8) where Chenapou is  and how the children have nothing - had to be bought a set of clothes for the trip; certainly have never seen a swimming pool even though some of the other children had been training daily in pools. Max and others had tried teaching the kids - who are all great swimmers as they live on a river but know none of the strokes or rules - in the short time they had - and amazingly they won 3 silver medals and a trophy! That must have felt so good. Max says the stadium is in a more wealthy part of Guyana - on a sugar plantation where the owners have their own tennis courts, pools etc. Also pretty shocking I think to see the inequalities so starkly.

Max sent me a birthday letter with some parrot feathers, again caught by the children and roasted and eaten. They found a baby hawk which had fallen out of a tree and is  now being kept in a rabbit hutch. A boy called Carl caught an alligator with his bare hands and keeps it in a bin full of water. Stanley, the head teachers son has a pet tortoise found in the bush and the children brought back a toucan the other day for eating! For those of you that havent seen it - The Lost Land of the Jaguar - 3 parts - shows what a fantastic country it is  This is the link to part 1  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6122643334854272061&hl=en    

Max is planning to build a chicken run and get some hens - as both chickens and eggs are expensive - but there must be a reason why they dont have any.

Some excerpts: ''we have just got back from poison fishing which was incredible. A long time ago a  Patamona man took a tapir for his wife which gave birth to a human child. They found that whenever they bathed him the fish would float to the surface 'high,high high'. So the tribe took the baby boy with them on fishing trips and poisoned lots of fish. One time when the boy was getting older they took the boy with them and bathed as usual. This time though they overbathed the boy and kept him underwater. a snake 'shot' the boy and when they had finished fishing the boy began to die. Boils full of pus began to form and the bush doctor said there is one place near Paramakatoi where this boy needs to be buried. The tribe carried him there and on the way where pus dropped on to the ground the Hairi plant grew. At the point in Paramakatoi where the boy is buried roots of Hairi hang down the rock face, long and exposed. They called the plant 'Hairi' because the fish get high.

Thats the story and its a shame the boy died because pounding the Hairi gave me blisters and it would have been much easier to dunk a child in water. We speedboated down river a fair distance ad then walked for an hour up a small creek. We camped and in the morning started beating Hairi into the water. The fish get drunk (and your mouth goes numb) and the whole village (almost) catch them with nets. Beating the Hairi is tiring and me and Henry could only manage a few bundles. The men were doing it all day. People poisoned form 6 in the morning until the middle of the night using torchlight. There was no hunting because should someone shoot a tapir the fish wouldnt poison. The Hairi gets beaten and soaked in the water turning it cloudy. The poison then travels down the creek to its mouth so basically we wiped out all the fish in this stretch of the creek. The men shoot the poisoned bigger fish, called yarrow, with arrows because they are hardly affected by the poison. It was amazing to watch. I wrote a poem when we went fishing with the the headmistresses husband the first time : ' He holds his spear with his iron hands.

Dancing in the creek his shadow stands

Just like his forefathers in past lands.

A shimmer in the water calls

Muscles tense like the forest walls

and like a swallow the spear falls'  ''

Max goes back on Saturday and they are thinking of chartering a plane - presumably very expensive but they want to take some provisions back which is too much for them all to carry.

Max and Henry are getting on very well and have now settled in with some good friends in the village. They have learned some Patamonan. The teaching is hard as they are expected to cover such a lot and the children are at such different stages. There are 9 teachers in the school which doesnt have classrooms, blackboards, books but 150 children. Dru is the only qualified teacher and is excellent - from the region. Apparently there is funding from World devt for a new school but it seems to be focussing on flush toilets which Max doesnt think is the main need for these children.  

Apparently they use' charms' a lot which could be risky as they can be used mainly for boys/men to attract women or be strong but may include things like cutting arms or putting stuff that burns on testicles!

Max sounded happy and engrossed in it all. They plan to travel at Christmas - maybe to Surinam and then later they want to go to Brazil. So much to see and learn and lets hope it stays so good. He does love to hear from you all though so keep writing! (but letters take about 2 months to get to him!)

Julia

We all got another letter today with Leo having a separate one to open on his birthday which is Wednesday. So I'll add to the blog latest things from his letter. He hasnt  received any letters and would love to.We have written 6 letters so far, so please write - he will probably get them all sometime!

Max says he has been involved in a 'CAYAP'. 'This is when a farmer calls for assistance to clear an area of forest for his farm and villagers go and help out. The deal is if you help me they'll help you when you call a cayap. Our school has one tomorrow to set up a school farm. It is going to grow some fresh vegetables to sell to the school kitchen (there are hardly any veg here). Last Friday the school held a welcome party for us which was great fun. A few of the local lads kept topping up our drinks with rum and the villagers taught us to dance. One of the teachers kees coming round to tech us 'white boys' how to cook.

Last weekend we went fishing and camped in the bush. I kept thinking how much dad would have enjoyed it. As with most fishing expeditions I embark on I caught no fish and thought how mum and Anya would have laughed at me. It was Henry's birthday which the fish seemed to know because he caught 5. The head teacher's children went off and returned with about 20 each!

There are holes we are blocking with gaffa to keep the cockroaches away and there are crevices where the tarantulas live! Next weekend we are going fishing with nairi poison to catch fish for sports day snacks. I hope i will have better luck there. We are going to be camping for 2 nights in the bush.

The teaching is very hard. The class I teach, and Henry too, stretches the definition of mixed ability and on top of that one of the students possess the basic foundations required for me to build on. Then I have a strange syllabus that insists on teaching these kids amazing amounts of stuff. It is basically England's education system 50 years ago but with fewer resources. I'm tutoring 2 kids extra to try to get them to do especially well in their grade 6 exams. The school building is one big hall with blackboards separating the various classes which sounds more difficult than it is. Resources include a blackboard, chalk and around 2 textbooks for each subject. Innovation is required! My class has 18 children in it and I'm still trying to work out the best way to teach them p- do I abandon the syllabus and just drill in the basics or is that too unfair on those that have them?

We're getting to know a lot of people and I've picked up a couple of words in Patamona. Inwayke means yes and cannay means no. Tengue means thankyou very much. Thats about it though unfortunately. We have made friends with most of the other teachers and the villagers are very friendly. the other day we had a knock at the door at 2 a.m inviting us to go for breakfast (cassava bread and toma is the Amerindian staple - toma is like a spicy soup with fish or meat inside).

The women here tend to be friendlier than the men but like I said everyone is friendly. There tends to be two types of people - amerindians and miners (who tend to be black coastlanders). Both that we have met in Chenapou are very friendly but it sounds as if miners used to have - and still do in parts - a bad reputation. We want to try some mining before we leave. Its strange ot think that what you see in the jewellers comes form here. The headteacher and her family have sort of become a surrogate family. she has 3 children - Stanley, 11, Stacey, 9 and Sceline, 6 who are all really sweet and great fun to be with. Her husband, Stanley too, is pretty impressive at making things form the forest. Today he came back from making wood (chainsawing greenheart, the hardest wood in the world into planks) with a baby eagle that fell out of the tree after they chopped it down. Somebody has a pet toucan and Drew has a tortoise, found in the forest. Today we found a giant centipede, apparently more venomous than a scorpion that Henry has kept to show his class on Monday - he's teaching about them. We've also seen a giant millipede.

Bedtime is around 8.30/9 and we get up at 6. It gets dark at 6 and light at 6-we are right near the equator. Handwashing clothes is hard work! The easy iron shirts work well and the waterproof jacket that Olwen gave me is great - we're high up in the mountains so its cooler here than in Georgetown (ridiculously hot) but gets quite chilly here around 4/5 am. every few days there is a thunderstorm and every night the sky is absolutely amazing - so many stars!'

Max says he'd love some more photos to decorate his room so send some if you can...

The boys havent decided yet what they want to do at Christmas. 

Julia (Max's mum)

A letter arrived yesterday written on Aug 31, posted on Sep 2 -  and it arrived on Oct 8 - the wait has been hard but now we know the kind of delay. I'll add bits of Max's letter

' I'll start with the journey to the village - so surreal! We left on Friday. A minibus from the ministry of Education was supposed to be picking us up at 5 a.m but didnt turn up (this is Guyana...) so Kala and her husband groggily drove us to the airport. we checked in and weighed all of our luggage (food for 4 months). Luggage weighted 500lbs  - 190 lbs more than permitted so we had to pay lots extra. We then went to board the plane - not big and not well made! I was surprised to be told to sit in the co-pilot seat - all of the controls within touching distance and pedals moving by my feet as well as a steering wheel in front.Despite being completely shattered I couldnt sleep cos I didnt want to slump against the controls and accidentally press eject AND because I was flying over the rainforest! The flight was only an hour long and we arrived in baking heat at Kaiteur Falls. We were surprised to meet some white people in the waiting area (tarpaulin) - and chatted to htem until our headmistress arrived on a later flight. Drew is so nice and has been looking after us since then. She arranged for our boxes to be carried to the landing stage and we went to get some tara-fish and cassava bread. we had to wait all day for the boat and then loaded up. It was a magical journey - sun setting, sillhouetting the trees against the sky, loads of birds flying across the river, fish jumping out of the water, a kingfisher. It was dark by 6 and we were navigating by moonlight and a small torch. Every 10 minutes lightning was striking far away - no thunder - and the sky would be illuminated for a split second. Occasionally the torch would reflect off a caiman and red eyes would peer back at you form the distance. When we got to the village, the torch lit up soem Amerindians fishing in dugout canoes. The luggage boat arrived after us and we unloaded. Me & Henry could lift half of what the Amerindians could - they are so strong!

Everyone here calls us 'sir' which is a little strange. The village is full of contrasts - yesterday we saw a crowd of children in a traditionally made shelter all watching a film on a portable dvd player! Our house is very basic - no water and the rain tank is broken. no electricity as the wire is broken and lots of 'roaches. We have a table, 2 chairs, 2 mattresses and one bed and that is literally all! Lots of spiders and too many cockroaches. A tarantula 'tally' on the wall is a little terrifying - the previous volunteers - Matt & Bruce, clearly very popular, counted 25!

The children here are very sweet, amazing at climbing trees and swimming. They can climb straight up trees with no branches to pick fruit.

No post gets to Chenapou directly - but write to Kala - address is on blog - and Kala passes letters on to the chief when he goes to the capital'

Max would love to hear from you all

Thats the essence of the letter - Julia, Max's mum

Guyana is a strange place - Carribean culture yet part of South America and ex-British colony but seemingly lots of American influence. Having always identified more with Carribean countries (ex-slaves, english speaking in common) it is now starting to realise that it is actually part of South America and there is now some limited trade with Brazil. Although Georgetown was built by the British and Guyana is an ex-British colony and part of the commonwealth it is geographically closer to America and American tv and imports are quite common.

Yesterday we went to the Ministry of Education to learn about our paperwork for the year; as follows.

General Scheme of Work (Plan of what you will teach for the next 5 years)

Annual Scheme of Work (Plan of what you will teach for the next year)

Termly Scheme of Work (Next term's work)

Plan of Work (Lesson plan for every lesson)

Record of Work (What you actually teach)

Development Card (How student has developed)

What they do with it all god knows.

Last night we went for a meal at a Brazillian restaurant (meat, meat, meat) and then today we went to see the British High Commisioner. The security around the building was ridiculously tight. A sign read 'No mobile phones, cameras or other dangerous items'. We had to go in one by one (when they reluctantly decided that we did indeed have an appointement - overzelous guyanese security guard) and were searched with a handheld scanner after walking through an arch. 'Do you have a gun or a knife in your pocket?' I was asked when the metal button on my shorts set the scanner off.

Head to the jungle tomorrow, 4am start. Joyohjoy!

Over

Max xx

'I live for d'rum' - met some Guyanese people and it seemed to summarise them (their words). Laid back and chilled out. Thought I'd make the most of the internet before I am without it for a year!

We went to a creek in Georgetown yesterday (small river more or less) running through the jungle. It was absolutely gorgeous although somewhat worrying that the water was too dark to see what was underneath - apparently they had found some baby anacondas in there. Went swimming, canoeing and played some volleyball to a backdrop of reggae music (true carribean style).

Today we had a briefing from Kala and her daughter as to the dos and donts (dont sleep with married men, hang around with criminals or steal money...). Then a few of us helped Kala's niece with the dinner, cooking rotis. HOw much help we were is debateable - Henry had apparently burnt 25 rotis by the end of the session.

'til next time

xxxxxx

Arrived in Georgetown after a fairly delayed flight via New York, sitting in seats that most definitely aren't designed for people with long legs and sandwiched between a big Guyanese man and a much smaller project trust volunteer. We were picked up from the airport by the country rep called Kala and her son then drove us to their house where we chilled for the rest of the day. In the evening me and Henry decided to sleep outside, under some fairly dodgy mosquito nets. ALso not designed for the long legged we both woke up having been feeding the mosquito population of Guyana and covered in hundreds (literally) of bites. Annoyingly none of the other volunteers had been bitten at all.

That day we went into Georgetown for some literacy training at Kala's work. Some teachers froma  local school came and taught us how to develop reading skills. Kala works for the Candaian government, administering their aid donations. Her work building is faiurly plush, sandwiched between the Prime Minister's house and the President's house (or one of them anyway). Both with some fairly scary looking men carrying AK47s sitting outside.

As for Georgetown it is quite busy, lots of car hooting (at each other and the white PT girls) - traffic lights were only introduced two years ago and everyone hates them apparently. Some crazy overtaking, cars overtaking cars that are alreadys overtaking! To get to Kala's work we also had to travel over the longest floating bridge in the world - spanning the Berbice river, the 3rd biggest in Guyana.

Last night me and Henry went to the local beer garden (village shop selling cold beer basically) with Kala's son and just relaxed and talked about Guyana. Nice not having to worry about A-levels and universities anymore!

Probably going to be a while before I update this now!

Catch you all later,

Max

I'm writing this at 3am on the morning of my departure. It has only just hit me that I am going away for a full twelve months. Anya has helped me pack all my stuff into a huge bag - apparently the key is to roll all your clothes and carry all of your heavy stuff in your hand luggage to keep the weight down. So basically I have one big 90l rucksack (weighing 20kg exactly) and a smaller hand luggage bag. Anyway after packing it began to sink in that I was actually going away. Even at my leaving party on Saturday I hadn't felt upset, but now I do. All my friends and family have been so absolutely amazing to me throughout the whole event so far with donations throughout the year, brilliant gifts and fantastic advice and support. I said in my speech at my leaving party that you only start to appreciate how much your friends and family mean to you when they are about to be taken away. 

Me, Mum and Leo are heading down to London at 9am tomorrow. My flight leaves at 5pm and then I fly to New York and then to Georgetown (the capital of Guyana). I'm arriving there at 12 in the afternoon on Thursday 20th August when I will hopefully receive a text message with my a-level results in from my mum! 

Anyway I'm now off to bed, think I should get at least some sleep. Love you all, you are all amazing. 

Max xx

I went on my training from the 31st June - 3rd July. It was, as with my selection course, held on the Hebridean island of Coll. This is fairly remote - I had to travel by train to Glasgow, then to Oban where I stayed the night before getting up at a horrendously early hour to catch the ferry over. At our training we learnt about all of the different scenarios we might find ourselves in, how to look after our health, how to look after our house and last but not least how to teach! We spent a lot of time preparing and giving lessons to each other. We also learnt a lot more about our respective projects and had a chance to chat to our desk officer (the person in charge of our country) about our projects. This revealed how truly remote the project is that we are going to ... To reach it we first have to take a plane from the capital (Georgetown) into the middle of the jungle, followed by a two hour boat to the village. Our village has electricity for a couple of unreliable hours in the evening (when the shop is open apparently) and there is no phone line or internet. There is a (dodgy) postal service, but it is tricky to actually send post, and to quote one volunteer 'christmas presents arrived in april'. At our school there is 100 students, and these come from a population of 500 in the surrounding area. However there are only 100 people in the immediate village. My partner is a guy called Henry from Birmingham, we get on really well. We will both be living in a semi-detatched house on stilts. Apparently if we let them, the Amerindian women will clean, cook and wash our clothes! (they feel sorry for the white boys with no skills the desk officer said). He also said we shouldnt let them do any of this for us...

Anyway thats all for now. I leave on the 19th August. Communication will be difficult but Im sure it will be possible through delayed post. Il send my address out soon. 

Max x 

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