Our first week in Guyana

 

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 wares. It's a huge party starting Sunday night and ending Tuesday morning. We are located an easy walking distance to the market and to the school (Charity Secondary School). We met with our co-tutors and got to work on Monday with the opening ceremony and worked with classes for the rest of the week. We are lucky to have the same group of participants this week, so that we can deepen understanding in our different subject areas: class management, leadership, learning styles and instructional strategies. An interesting part of our work is that the majority of participating teachers are teenagers or hovering around 20 years old! Here in Guyana, a person can get a job as a teacher after finishing high school and teach while attending teacher's college, getting a degree later. One of the areas these young teachers have is in class management in secondary school since their students are their age, and in some cases older! It reminds me of my Mom, who in the late 50's began teaching a week after her 17th birthday, grades 1-8 in a one room school house! She went to teacher's college in the summers and got her degree later too. I sometimes feel more like an instructing teacher instead of a collaborating teacher. These young teachers have little experience to draw on, so we explain as often as we discuss.

I was immediately intrigued by this sign on the road which is on the way to school each day:

I also feel excited by the idea that high school students in grades 11 and 12 can choose "Agri" as a subject focus, going on field trips to see farming and crop growing/harvesting techniques, and the business end of the agricultural system. It makes "buying local" especially so here in Guyana!

Yesterday, one of our hosts, Desiree, celebrated her 64th birthday and included us in the party, which was a wonderful trip to Mainstay Lake (Mainstay Resort). The water is called "black" water. Here in Guyana, there is black water and brown water. The brown water is muddy, cloudy with sand, both ocean and rivers. The "black" water is a result of the tannins from

leaves and foliage of the rain forest. When we swam in the lake, it was warmish, so it was like swimming in a big lake of red rose tea! It was a beautiful place to spend the day. We spent a lot of time wading and treading water in beautiful, natural surroundings. The hour long trip to the lake gave us a view of donkeys, cows, goats and rice fields.

 

For my Donna

Our favourite foods (all four of us) are Cook up (rice and beans and chicken)and Pumpkin curry. We have enjoyed "bakes: and "polawries" and oh my the avocados are divine! They are delicately flavoured, almost fluffy in texture and picked right off the tree for our enjoyment. We've had starfruit and mango right off the trees beside the school. Desiree, our sweet host, gives us mangos from her trees and avocado. My co-tutor Munirah gave us a "Mama." It's a fruit sometimes called Mamey or Mommy Apple. It's kind of like apricot mixed with orange? Peachish? It was good. We've also had bananas and pineapples, plantain chips and fried plantain, lots of versions of fried chicken. I haven't tried pepperpot yet--which comes from the Amerindian (indigenous) cuisine. One of my teammates has had it and liked it. It's like a hearty stew with cassava syrup and spices.

Last night, the main road, which we are on, was blocked off with a lot of ambulances and police cars moving about. We guessed that an accident or some kind of tragedy was happening. This morning we learned that a ferry had capsized fairly close to here and some of the survivors were brought by boat or helicoptor and are being cared for in the Charity hospital. I spoke to some men down at the dock but they didn't know much more than that. We have been seeing various uniforms about town, helping deal with the tragedy.