The Adventures of Lynne

The tragedy in Guyana, for me, painted the 2nd week for us working in Charity.  ( The MV Barima tragedy occurred on July 18, when the passenger and cargo vessel capsized and sank off the coast of Guyana )  Because Charity was the closest port, the survivors were brought into the hospitals along the Essequibo coast, starting in Charity's hospital. Later, the bodies were brought as well as the families coming to identify them. My teaching partner (co-facilitator) Munirah is a lieutenant in the army reserve and was required to support people coming in to identify bodies and to go out to sea, scanning the ocean to find bodies in the area. As I write this, there are still people missing. Munirah's experience, as she told it to me, was so, so, sad for the families that came. So many children.  We became part of the community because we were there. While normally we would have a "Canada-Guyana Night" (cultural exchange with the participants in the program), this was moved t...

  Our first experience in Guyana was in the capital Georgetown, where we met our hosts from the Guyana Teacher's Union (GTU). When speaking to Coretta MacDonald, the president of GTU, we contemplated the women that were involved in the union back in the 40's and 50's. They had fundraising events including bake sales to purchase the building and land for GTU. We aligned ourselves in solidarity with those women. Coretta McDonald, GTU president The Treasurer, Raelene took us on a tour of Georgetown the next day. We got a bit of a history lesson by visiting the museum and then went to the sea wall where we became fascinated by the scarlet ibises. Global warming has sent these beauties to the wrong part of Guyana Raelene told us. On Saturday we traveled up the coast by car, by speedboat and by car again to get to Charity (a village along the Essequibo coast).  Charity is a river port and is famous for its Monday market where farmers and indigenous groups (Amerindian) bring their...

  Yesterday, our new CTF-FCE Executive Director, Annette Bouzi delivered one of her first speeches in her new role. We were receptive of course! Welcoming Annette Bouzi We continue to receive training in preparation for our various countries. Many of the teams, especially the ones going to African countries will leave tomorrow afternoon. We will head to the airport in the middle of the night tomorrow and get to Guyana through Barbados at 8pm. We are excited and ready! This evening we walked past the parliament buildings (whch are under construction), I knocked on Mark Carney\s office door--no answer. I stopped to say hi to Oscar Peterson before heading back to the U of Ottawa residence where we are staying. Talk to you from Guyana! hanging out with Oscar Our fearless leaders (program officers) Our officer is Beverley Parks, second from the left, who is also the director of the International Programs at CTF. She's fantastic at her role, a woman to admire! The other three are also wo...

This is my third year with the Canadian Teacher's Federation (CTF, FCE for  Fédération canadienne des enseignantes et des enseignants ) "Teaching Together or TT (Enseigner Ensembe or EE.)" It used to be called "Project Overseas"--in fact, it was still called that my first year. CTF wanted to change the name from "project," which sounds a little like Canadians fixing problems elsewhere as their pet project, to a name that reflected the collaboration and cooperation between Canada's federation and the those of other countries. We all belong to "Education International." In fact, those of us who are team leaders went to Ottawa in February for training and were addressed by Cassandra Halle, our then Executive Director, for the last time, because she became Deputy General Secretary for EI! I found her inspiring and feel happy (and proud) that she will represent Canadian educators so well. Two years ago the first new name that CTF came up with...