25/3/09
7 months gone, 4 ½ to go.
I can’t remember when I last wrote, whether it was after Mashrami, after Phagwah, both, or not at all. So, as usual, bear (bare?) with me a tad.
So, since returning from Phagwah – a Hindu festival where lots of dye is thrown over EVERYONE & EVERYTHING resulting in dyed skin, clothes & hair (Ollie’s hair is still green 3 weeks later) for a fair few days – Ollie and I returned to Jumbie mayhem. Since getting back the school has been evacuated & ‘cleansed’ by exorcism several times. It’s exams at the moment (though no-one’s quite sure whether they’ve been cancelled after yesterday’s havoc) & several times they’ve been interrupted by dramatic scenes of possession from various girls. This week, for 6 nights in a row, the Pentecostal Church (i.e. ‘Clap Hands’) are holding a crusade on the ballfield – about 200m from our house. This involves aggressive, strangely accented preaching, AWFUL keyboard playing, the WORST singing, some exorcisms & plenty ‘Praise to Jesus’, ‘Flee evil demons’ & ‘Hallelujahs’! All done through microphones & being belted out so that the whole of Moruca can hear for FOUR HOURS …I just want some peace & quiet!
So yesterday, at 11.00, just as form 1 & 2 were finishing their IT exam, all went crazy. Suddenly there was screaming coming from all over the school & there were students all over the ballfield. 4 girls got the Jumbie & were being carried, or manically kicking up on the ballfield. Each was surrounded by a group of students, being held down & prayed over.
At this point Sir Steve ran into the class I was invigilating & told them to stop what they were doing & get out of the class & school as fast as possible. I told them they could leave if they were scared but that if they wanted to do well they should try & finish. Within 10 minutes the school was cleared apart from the staff who all congregated in the auditorium waiting for permission from above to leave. While we waited there was still one girl thrashing around on the field, surrounded by a group of 20ish people, including her mother & completely traumatised younger brother. They prayed over her & sang & struggled for about an hour.
We never got permission to leave so we waited until the usual time of 12.00 for lunch & returned at 1.00 to a studentless school & for a 3 ½ hour meeting where …what a surprise ……nothing was decided on. It is possible that next week (our last of term 2) no students will come to school & yet we, being staff, will have to turn up & spend a week doing nothing.
I’m bored of it all, I’m bored of school keeping being dismissed & us still having to turn up & spend hours doing nothing. I’m bored with Jumbie & don’t see how it’s going to be stopped. All the emphasis is on prayer & locals are generally closed to the idea of getting in psychologists. Yes prayer is a healthy thing to do, however this has been going on for far too long & we need to start looking at other options. I wish that the ministry would step in & help. There’s a condition called ‘crowd hysteria’ that has been diagnosed in schools where similar things have happened. Look in to it; no-one seems to be here!
I’m so tired of doing nothing!!! Very tempted to just leave & go to St Cuthberts where we’re actually needed & will be used.
Other news: Easter plans are made. We’re going down to Lethem on Monday – we being me & St Cuthberts & Dora boys. Ollie is meant to be going on the Sunday (she’s going Aishalton project with New Amsterdam Girls). Craig is flying down on the following Saturday with a friend from England. Rodeo is happening on the Saturday & Sunday there & so most of Guyana goes to take part! Not sure what we’ll do during the first week, maybe go to Brazil or there’s a cabin on a mountain, near a peanut butter factory, that has nice walks around it close-ish to Annai…we’ll just wing it. After Rodeo, me, Craig, Ollie, Craig’s friend & maybe Milly are going to go to Karanambu Lodge. Karanambu is in the middle of the jungle & is a research & eco-tourist place. It’s run by a pretty eccentric lady who releases giant otters back into the wild. Ollie & I fly back to town on the Wednesday. Then on Friday we may try to go to Kaiteur Falls. It’s going to be an expensive Easter! BUT HEY! I’ll get STEAK!
We continue to see plenty sloths & plenty Toucans at the moment. Shame that waterproof camera number 2 drowned. We went on a bush cook last Sunday. Bush cooks are where you go somewhere nice, generally in the bush, make a fire & cook lunch. We went to Cabora Creek – a beautiful and secluded part of Moruca. I walked there about an hour after the others as I was still in bed as they left! I put on some chillaxing music – none other than choir boys (don’t laugh – I was feeling mellow), waved to a sloth in the bamboo & set off for Cabora Creek. I past a tree with a couple of Toucans in it – they always shock me by how weird they look - & also passed the biggest caterpillar/ grub thing I’ve ever seen – about 3cm diameter & 15 cm long – like something out of Doctor Who. I then passed a very traditional, palm roofed stilted house & 3 little girls (probably all 6 yrs and under) who were in the ‘yard’. They’d clearly been asked by their mother to pick up rubbish outside – they were all carrying plastic bags – but instead they’d decided to play ‘dizzy dinosaurs’ (you know the game where you spin round until you fall over!). So these 3 tiny girls, their long hair all in plaits & in their home made ‘princess’ dresses were all spinning in the dust & wind with their plastic bags held out like parachutes apparently (to me) all to the music of choir boys – it was an absolutely gorgeous sight.
(Break from letter as I get dragged downstairs to take part in a special school ‘crusade’. 5 more girls sick….school dismissed….apart from…teachers….service with the AWFUL keyboard downstairs…I thought it couldn’t get worse! OH well, I suggested to the teachers that we have a bush cook at the school seeing as we having nothing to do & they all said YES! So have gone to get supplies)
SO I arrived at the creek without having been eaten by a ‘tiger’, much to the relief & joy of our local friends & had a lovely afternoon.
My birthday cards starting arriving 2 weeks back, thank-you! Though the PM hates me so much that I can no longer enter the post office so others have to collect it for me!
‘One more girl just got ‘attacked’’
Grrr, this thing is driving me mad!
Well, that’s most of the news, I think…Whanita is pleading for any dresses that could be used for the Moruca day beauty pageant….Maybe check out some charity shops? Also for bright make-up…she trains the beauty queens!
Will write after Easter,
Lots of love,
Emily
xxx
Monday, 20 April 2009
Letter 9 from Guyana
6/3/09
Not much has happened since I last wrote. The Jambie spirit continues to possess girls – I can currently hear a girl screaming with it downstairs, she’ll probably be sent home just like the others, just in time for missing exams! 8 girls have been possessed in the last week..what a surprise.
Craig and Ollie went to the dormitories last month to walk in on one of my brightest students thrashing and screaming -> full of the Jambie. One of the older boys was holding her down – clearly using the event to feel her up. Most of the dormitory boys seem to have had enough of this whole thing & they themselves are starting to suggest that these girls are just doing this for attention. The girls laugh about it, & as soon as Craig & Ollie appeared to be more interesting than Subina – the supposedly possessed student, they all turned away from her & she herself sat up & started joining in the conversation. It’s strange, we’ve had lots of meetings about the situation & the staff are so divided about what is actually happening. Sir David – a very well respected member of staff & the community is convinced that it really is an evil spirit causing these ‘fits’. Miss Lucy, another respected and very outspoken member of staff is sure that this is either a psychological or attention seeking situation. Whatever is going on needs to be sorted out – often it’s the very bright students who’re being affected & the size of the dormitory has gone from about 130 to 60 students. These kids are not coming back and they’re influencing those that are left behind. I had one of the girls come to my Biology class, sit down & place a lime on the desk in front of her. When questioned about it she said that it was there just in case something ‘rose up in her’ – she left the lesson ½ way through – she could feel ‘it’ stirring.
The dormitory boys are now sick too. This time I think that it’s genuine – something to do with diet – real bad stomach pains – to be honest they don’t look well.
Did I ever tell you that we have a new HM? We had Sir Nigel last term, Miss Bernie (Big Bernie – there are 2) for the first 3 weeks of term & now Sir Glen. He’s a really nice guy, quite shy, but nice to work with.
Did I mention that in January we got paid? Wow – a lot of cash - lots of photos of rolling around in money. Highly inappropriate but irresistible. Unfortunately since then I’ve had to pay off all debts from the previous 5 months & so my pile has run rather thin.
Craig & I continue to go for regular walks following our rule that any interesting path has to be taken. This has led us to many dead ends, random houses, cassava fields & ponds but also to a few new places worth finding! My favourite find has been Cabora Creek which is surrounded by jungley trees. It’s fairly deep & very cold & has nice logs that you can sit on while watching Toucans fly around overhead. Our first visit there Craig & I watched 4 Toucans flying around – I guess that makes 8 cans?
Did I mention that I’ve moved on to creating chicken pies? Damn it, I was going to try & write a letter without mentioning food!
We’re now famous! We were in the Newspaper. A photo of Ian & I (right at the front) then Ollie, Liz & Craig, then Nick & Nicola & Meg (other volunteers – at the back) all at Mashramani parade in Town 2 weekends ago. We’re labelled as ‘tourists’ …just because we’re white it does not mean that we’re tourists! Our students found the picture before us – one has stuck it in her IT book with ‘Miss you are beautiful’ written underneath. Haha, to be honest I just look fat. Yuk!
Mash was good, though I got the most sunburnt I’ve ever been; my nose has never been so hot! About ½ of Guyana was in town for the parties, beer, rum, music & float parade. The Ministry of Amerindian Affairs invited us to be on their float & insisted that they had costumes for us. Only Stewart properly took up the offer & his costume turned out to be overly tight, tiny red shorts & a gold headdress. He also frazzled …mainly because they insisted on covering him in baby oil so as to stick glitter to his chest & then having him walk with the float in the hot hot sun for 2 hours.
That weekend we also went to New Amsterdam to visit the 4 New Amsterdam Girls (NAGs). New Amsterdam is about a 2 hour car journey from Town & is just like a smaller simpler version of Georgetown. I quite liked it, though would not be able to live there comfortably with the number of nasty & annoying comments that follow you down every street. The girls live in a fairly big house (bungalow) on Multi School’s compound – where Hazel & Jolene work. The school was MASSIVE & had cows wandering through the building. The best thing about New Amsterdam was finding BUTTER! REAL BUTTER, I feel that at home I never properly appreciated the stuff. Oliie & I also managed to buy Olives! Wow!
While at New Amsterdam the girls’ friend Jason – a lean black guy with dreads – decided to take us on a walk to a ‘creek’. We were fairly suspicious about the idea because the Guyanese are not the most environmentally friendly people – they’re taught at Primary to throw plastic away into rivers – so we thought that any creek in New Amsterdam was not likely to be hygienic.
After a long, prickly, ant ridden, bushy walk alongside of a perfectly good road (we later discovered) we arrived at a filthy looking trench. We were told that this was not the creek (thank God) BUT that we had to cross this to reach the creek (Yuk!). So we held our belongings above our heads & sunk into the clayey bottom of this lovely 4 metre stretch of water whereupon we entered into a field of tall sugar cane. This, of course, was Ollie’s idea of a dream – surrounded by sugar - & of course it’s healthy sugar because it’s a plant. There was literally caramel seeping from the stems &, as Jason cutlassed a path through the forest of sugar canes we were handed back sticks of sugar cane to nibble on. The field had clearly been burnt recently & so there was ash all over the ground – so obviously we had to give ourselves war marks – we soon arrived at another trench which, again, we were told had to be crossed – this time it was too deep to walk, so belongings had to be left. On the other side we found ourselves still in the sugarcane field but this part had been completely chopped & burnt. At this point Jason pointed to the next trench & said ‘that’s the creek’ err….well….it wasn’t a creek & it was exactly the same as the trench we’d just crossed. Anyhow we proceeded towards it hoping to be pleasantly surprised. We arrived, after having to throw Jolene over a ditch too wide for her to cross, to find, as we had predicted, a trench similar to the previous one. The water was warm & brown & was sweet & sugary (not that I meant to drink it ….eww parasites). Hey it was an experience! A morning well spent!
Other news:
Our friend had a baby! I was meant to be there to see the birth but left the hospital at exactly the wrong hour. It’s incredible – like Craig says: ‘The greatest magic trick ever’. Crazy how 1 hour it’s inside Susan & the next it’s a living being in the world!
On a sadder note a friend of ours was killed 3 weeks ago by a falling tree when working out in the bush. We didn’t know him well but he’d been to a few of our parties & we’re good friends to some of his relatives. He was only 28 & had a wife and 3 gorgeous kids. In Guyana when someone dies there is a night wake, so for 9 nights friends & family go up to the dead person’s house to play cards & dominoes. The nine night (the last night of the wake) is always a fairly big event & I found myself taking part in very serious dominoes with 3 old, fairly tipsy men. It seems that the most essential part of the game is to slam the dominoes down hard enough to make a really good bang & shake the table – earning a round of applause.
It was my birthday! The night before us whities of Moruca had a big roast dinner – yorkshire puddings & stuffing included! On the Monday (my actual birthday) I allocated myself FROSTIES – something we don’t usually allow in the house because I eat them so fast – like within a day – because they’re addictive & make me hyper. I also managed to get my hands on some Bournville Chocolate – it was stupidly expensive ….but so worth it! I had an awesome day at school – gots to love the kids! Received loads of cards from students …nearly as many as on Valentines (yes a very successful valentine haul this year). The afternoon I managed to go up by the Church to use the internet & saw all my lovely messages….THANK-YOU to all. It was also Whanita’s son’s birthday (Church, the youngest – now 6) so we went over in the evening for cake, curry & roti. The Guyanese here do ‘stick the cake’, where who’s ever birthday it is cuts the cake then feeds it to a member of opposite sex & then that person does the same to them! Very odd. There are also many verses to the Happy Birthday song here including: ‘How old are you now’ & ‘may the good Lord bless you’. The thing I’ll never forget on my birthday was waking up & sitting outside watching the sunrise over the jungle when suddenly Happy Birthday songs blast through the trees from Whanita’s house – full volume just for me….so surreal! After cake we went to play pool at Aunty Jenny’s where I celebrated in usual fashion by losing every game ….always so close! After this Ollie & I returned to watch ‘The Notebook’ at home in hammocks.
Craig was sent sing-a-long Mamma Mia – we had an awesome time with some rum & a worried looking Larry watching it last weekend. We payed back the neighbours for their noise in the mornings by singing into the early hours of the morning.
Finally, before returning to the advanced Jambie situation, I find myself talking more & more like the locals. It’s worrying, but if you’re trying to explain something to children who’re just not understanding you, it makes much ,more sense to just say it how they understand it rather than to repeat it in my *ahem* lovely queen’s English 50 billion times.
Th is turning to +
So. Three has gone to tree etc.
My >> me
Us >> we ‘come by we house’
Hers >> she ‘she book’
His >> he
Take >> carry ‘carry me home miss’
At >> by
U is pronounced o ‘Ogly’
Etc. Crazy stuff.
So the advanced Jambie situation:
Today there were 6 girls that got possessed at school. Now it’s not just the dorms kids. School closed at 2.30 today & Sir Glen told all the dorms children to go home as soon as possible. Exams have been postponed to the week after next & there’s an emergency PTA meeting on Tuesday to discuss whether school should continue this term!
INSANE!
Off to St Cuthberts this weekend to vist Ian, Declan & Stewart & their 2 pet turtles. The to Town for Phagwah – a Hindu festival where lots of dye gets thrown all over everyone, followed by large amounts of water.
WOOP!
Will update you soon on situations, remember: The Jambie likes chicken & the colours red & black, it’s big & hairy with pink eyes & doesn’t like lime, garlic & methylated spirits ….
Stay safe!
Lots of love
Emily xxx
Sorry about the writing ..v messy…v tired.
Not much has happened since I last wrote. The Jambie spirit continues to possess girls – I can currently hear a girl screaming with it downstairs, she’ll probably be sent home just like the others, just in time for missing exams! 8 girls have been possessed in the last week..what a surprise.
Craig and Ollie went to the dormitories last month to walk in on one of my brightest students thrashing and screaming -> full of the Jambie. One of the older boys was holding her down – clearly using the event to feel her up. Most of the dormitory boys seem to have had enough of this whole thing & they themselves are starting to suggest that these girls are just doing this for attention. The girls laugh about it, & as soon as Craig & Ollie appeared to be more interesting than Subina – the supposedly possessed student, they all turned away from her & she herself sat up & started joining in the conversation. It’s strange, we’ve had lots of meetings about the situation & the staff are so divided about what is actually happening. Sir David – a very well respected member of staff & the community is convinced that it really is an evil spirit causing these ‘fits’. Miss Lucy, another respected and very outspoken member of staff is sure that this is either a psychological or attention seeking situation. Whatever is going on needs to be sorted out – often it’s the very bright students who’re being affected & the size of the dormitory has gone from about 130 to 60 students. These kids are not coming back and they’re influencing those that are left behind. I had one of the girls come to my Biology class, sit down & place a lime on the desk in front of her. When questioned about it she said that it was there just in case something ‘rose up in her’ – she left the lesson ½ way through – she could feel ‘it’ stirring.
The dormitory boys are now sick too. This time I think that it’s genuine – something to do with diet – real bad stomach pains – to be honest they don’t look well.
Did I ever tell you that we have a new HM? We had Sir Nigel last term, Miss Bernie (Big Bernie – there are 2) for the first 3 weeks of term & now Sir Glen. He’s a really nice guy, quite shy, but nice to work with.
Did I mention that in January we got paid? Wow – a lot of cash - lots of photos of rolling around in money. Highly inappropriate but irresistible. Unfortunately since then I’ve had to pay off all debts from the previous 5 months & so my pile has run rather thin.
Craig & I continue to go for regular walks following our rule that any interesting path has to be taken. This has led us to many dead ends, random houses, cassava fields & ponds but also to a few new places worth finding! My favourite find has been Cabora Creek which is surrounded by jungley trees. It’s fairly deep & very cold & has nice logs that you can sit on while watching Toucans fly around overhead. Our first visit there Craig & I watched 4 Toucans flying around – I guess that makes 8 cans?
Did I mention that I’ve moved on to creating chicken pies? Damn it, I was going to try & write a letter without mentioning food!
We’re now famous! We were in the Newspaper. A photo of Ian & I (right at the front) then Ollie, Liz & Craig, then Nick & Nicola & Meg (other volunteers – at the back) all at Mashramani parade in Town 2 weekends ago. We’re labelled as ‘tourists’ …just because we’re white it does not mean that we’re tourists! Our students found the picture before us – one has stuck it in her IT book with ‘Miss you are beautiful’ written underneath. Haha, to be honest I just look fat. Yuk!
Mash was good, though I got the most sunburnt I’ve ever been; my nose has never been so hot! About ½ of Guyana was in town for the parties, beer, rum, music & float parade. The Ministry of Amerindian Affairs invited us to be on their float & insisted that they had costumes for us. Only Stewart properly took up the offer & his costume turned out to be overly tight, tiny red shorts & a gold headdress. He also frazzled …mainly because they insisted on covering him in baby oil so as to stick glitter to his chest & then having him walk with the float in the hot hot sun for 2 hours.
That weekend we also went to New Amsterdam to visit the 4 New Amsterdam Girls (NAGs). New Amsterdam is about a 2 hour car journey from Town & is just like a smaller simpler version of Georgetown. I quite liked it, though would not be able to live there comfortably with the number of nasty & annoying comments that follow you down every street. The girls live in a fairly big house (bungalow) on Multi School’s compound – where Hazel & Jolene work. The school was MASSIVE & had cows wandering through the building. The best thing about New Amsterdam was finding BUTTER! REAL BUTTER, I feel that at home I never properly appreciated the stuff. Oliie & I also managed to buy Olives! Wow!
While at New Amsterdam the girls’ friend Jason – a lean black guy with dreads – decided to take us on a walk to a ‘creek’. We were fairly suspicious about the idea because the Guyanese are not the most environmentally friendly people – they’re taught at Primary to throw plastic away into rivers – so we thought that any creek in New Amsterdam was not likely to be hygienic.
After a long, prickly, ant ridden, bushy walk alongside of a perfectly good road (we later discovered) we arrived at a filthy looking trench. We were told that this was not the creek (thank God) BUT that we had to cross this to reach the creek (Yuk!). So we held our belongings above our heads & sunk into the clayey bottom of this lovely 4 metre stretch of water whereupon we entered into a field of tall sugar cane. This, of course, was Ollie’s idea of a dream – surrounded by sugar - & of course it’s healthy sugar because it’s a plant. There was literally caramel seeping from the stems &, as Jason cutlassed a path through the forest of sugar canes we were handed back sticks of sugar cane to nibble on. The field had clearly been burnt recently & so there was ash all over the ground – so obviously we had to give ourselves war marks – we soon arrived at another trench which, again, we were told had to be crossed – this time it was too deep to walk, so belongings had to be left. On the other side we found ourselves still in the sugarcane field but this part had been completely chopped & burnt. At this point Jason pointed to the next trench & said ‘that’s the creek’ err….well….it wasn’t a creek & it was exactly the same as the trench we’d just crossed. Anyhow we proceeded towards it hoping to be pleasantly surprised. We arrived, after having to throw Jolene over a ditch too wide for her to cross, to find, as we had predicted, a trench similar to the previous one. The water was warm & brown & was sweet & sugary (not that I meant to drink it ….eww parasites). Hey it was an experience! A morning well spent!
Other news:
Our friend had a baby! I was meant to be there to see the birth but left the hospital at exactly the wrong hour. It’s incredible – like Craig says: ‘The greatest magic trick ever’. Crazy how 1 hour it’s inside Susan & the next it’s a living being in the world!
On a sadder note a friend of ours was killed 3 weeks ago by a falling tree when working out in the bush. We didn’t know him well but he’d been to a few of our parties & we’re good friends to some of his relatives. He was only 28 & had a wife and 3 gorgeous kids. In Guyana when someone dies there is a night wake, so for 9 nights friends & family go up to the dead person’s house to play cards & dominoes. The nine night (the last night of the wake) is always a fairly big event & I found myself taking part in very serious dominoes with 3 old, fairly tipsy men. It seems that the most essential part of the game is to slam the dominoes down hard enough to make a really good bang & shake the table – earning a round of applause.
It was my birthday! The night before us whities of Moruca had a big roast dinner – yorkshire puddings & stuffing included! On the Monday (my actual birthday) I allocated myself FROSTIES – something we don’t usually allow in the house because I eat them so fast – like within a day – because they’re addictive & make me hyper. I also managed to get my hands on some Bournville Chocolate – it was stupidly expensive ….but so worth it! I had an awesome day at school – gots to love the kids! Received loads of cards from students …nearly as many as on Valentines (yes a very successful valentine haul this year). The afternoon I managed to go up by the Church to use the internet & saw all my lovely messages….THANK-YOU to all. It was also Whanita’s son’s birthday (Church, the youngest – now 6) so we went over in the evening for cake, curry & roti. The Guyanese here do ‘stick the cake’, where who’s ever birthday it is cuts the cake then feeds it to a member of opposite sex & then that person does the same to them! Very odd. There are also many verses to the Happy Birthday song here including: ‘How old are you now’ & ‘may the good Lord bless you’. The thing I’ll never forget on my birthday was waking up & sitting outside watching the sunrise over the jungle when suddenly Happy Birthday songs blast through the trees from Whanita’s house – full volume just for me….so surreal! After cake we went to play pool at Aunty Jenny’s where I celebrated in usual fashion by losing every game ….always so close! After this Ollie & I returned to watch ‘The Notebook’ at home in hammocks.
Craig was sent sing-a-long Mamma Mia – we had an awesome time with some rum & a worried looking Larry watching it last weekend. We payed back the neighbours for their noise in the mornings by singing into the early hours of the morning.
Finally, before returning to the advanced Jambie situation, I find myself talking more & more like the locals. It’s worrying, but if you’re trying to explain something to children who’re just not understanding you, it makes much ,more sense to just say it how they understand it rather than to repeat it in my *ahem* lovely queen’s English 50 billion times.
Th is turning to +
So. Three has gone to tree etc.
My >> me
Us >> we ‘come by we house’
Hers >> she ‘she book’
His >> he
Take >> carry ‘carry me home miss’
At >> by
U is pronounced o ‘Ogly’
Etc. Crazy stuff.
So the advanced Jambie situation:
Today there were 6 girls that got possessed at school. Now it’s not just the dorms kids. School closed at 2.30 today & Sir Glen told all the dorms children to go home as soon as possible. Exams have been postponed to the week after next & there’s an emergency PTA meeting on Tuesday to discuss whether school should continue this term!
INSANE!
Off to St Cuthberts this weekend to vist Ian, Declan & Stewart & their 2 pet turtles. The to Town for Phagwah – a Hindu festival where lots of dye gets thrown all over everyone, followed by large amounts of water.
WOOP!
Will update you soon on situations, remember: The Jambie likes chicken & the colours red & black, it’s big & hairy with pink eyes & doesn’t like lime, garlic & methylated spirits ….
Stay safe!
Lots of love
Emily xxx
Sorry about the writing ..v messy…v tired.
Friday, 10 April 2009
Letter 8 from Guyana
7/2/09
I’ve finally run out of writing paper, can you believe that I’ve written 350 pages of letters?!
I see that you’ve been getting loads & loads of snow! Craig’s parents emailed us pictures of what it’s like in Aberdeen – looks incredible & makes us all very jealous. Here the rainy season has ended & it is so so so hot! I’d forgotten how hot it was. The water is all drying up, we’re back to using pond water to bathe in & our rain tanks are pretty much empty. This morning we looked in the bucket of pond water we’d collected (& bleached) to discover a tiny, beautiful little fish …that was er, bleached to death.The river goes down by about ½ foot every day. How come the year I miss Winter you get proper ice & snow?
Surprisingly not much has happened since returning from Tobago. I may have mentioned that Mel, a PT volunteer from last year, was here. She left on Friday morning, it was really good to meet her. She was pretty awesome – it was good to find out that all the rumours are completely wrong and blown out of proportion – I can’t wait to hear what’s been said about us 2 living with a BOY to next year's volunteers. Mel managed to find her old dugout canoe & we spent a couple of afternoons, first trying to get into it without sinking – very tricky, takes a good deal of balance - & then travelled down to Coco, 10 minutes paddle down the river, where we went for a walk.
Ollie & I went for a really good walk last Thursday to Mora, an area of Moruca about 40min walk from Kumaka. When we were in Mora a man asked if we’d like some coconut water, so we went to his house. It was beautiful, wooden, built in a secluded place surrounded by all sorts of fruit trees and bushes. He turned out to be the father of my top 1A IT student. We were introduced to his wife Rose. He neatly cut down 4 coconuts & sliced off the tops of 2 so that we could get the water. Compared to Craig his skills with a cutlass were far superior! They then produced a soursup – a green knobbly/spiky fruit about the size of a large pawpaw. They cut up a ripe one & gave us some of the white lycee/melon textured fleshy fruity part. It tasted amazing, like passionfruit/granny smith apple/ lycee. It’s definitely a favourite!
So Ollie & I made new friends! We left carrying 2 large coconuts, this soursup & then as we walked back home various students ran after us carrying bags of Acquero – a fruit about the size of an egg that’s got a greeny yellow skin that has to be cut off to reveal orange stuff around a large brown round seed. You can eat the orange stuff. It takes a lot of effort to get not very much of a fairly tasteless bit of fruit & unfortunately every day students have been bringing them in for me for the last week. Ollie & I returned from our walk laden down with fruit, in fits of laughter at the situation & singing Hakena Matata very loudly – why not?!
I received a letter from Miss Mortimer & one from Abbie Smith last week – nice surprise – they took 3 months to get here! I haven’t heard from quite a few people for a long time, I hope they all got my letters – I’ve replied to everyone who’s written to me. I was especially wondering if Ali ever got my letter thanking her for the books?
Robbie will be pleased to hear that Sophie walked past a bush yesterday that had a sloth hanging in it. This was just off our path to our house – about 1 metre off it so Sophie has some absolutely incredible pictures. She was so close she could touch it.
I went on a really really good cycle ride on Thursday, it’s very uppy downy & the track was not brilliant – had about a foot wide of smooth road the rest was real cut up. So it actually took quite a bit of skill to stay on!
Lots of mangoes around this time of year they are so amazing, mmm. Last week the whole of Moruca ran out of onions! As did the whole of Region 2 also. Guyana was in a massive shortage as its onion shipment didn’t arrive! This ruined our Chicken Tikka Massala a tad on our curry Thursday though it still tasted damn good!
Recently I’ve been dreaming loads about Project Trust, debriefing volunteers, returning etc. It’s weird! Probably because of having Doug & Rishon & then Mel here. We now only have 4 months left in Moruca! How weird. We’re over half way through the term’s teaching (remember that no teaching happens in the last 4 weeks) & we’re over half way through the teaching overall! By the time you get this we should be over half way through the year. Time has started to fly by. School is very busy at the moment. I don’t even have time to read! Miss Bernie has gone on a months leave leaving Ollie, another teacher – Miss Rowena - & I to take over integrated science to forms 1 & 2. So I now am teaching 8 more periods a week. Tuesdays also I’m teaching a few kids to read, Mondays I’m helping 2 boys with maths, Thursdays I’m teaching extra Biology to the Form 2 students who’ve recently been moved up to Form 3.
In the last week I’ve marked 250 assignments, so I’m very busy. I’m actually quite enjoying it. Last week I learnt 1A, 1C & 1D’s names FINALLY. 1C is very naughty, they now, recently, have been getting lines – in an attempt to try & get them to work/behave. I feel like I know the students better, I even got invited on a bush cook with some of my Form 3s for this weekend, overnight at Waramuri – unfortunately I couldn’t go, also not sure how appropriate it would have been – I think it was just a group of boys. I’m feeling completely settled. I would never have been satisfied if I’d had to leave after 6 months – it’s taken until now for me to really feel completely comfortable. So I now look forward to the last bit of this experience, it’s going to be very different to the first ½.
We’ve got a couple more Red Cross trips coming up & of course seeing as we’re the official cooks & hot drink makers, Ollie & I will be going! We also have Valentines Bingo as a fundraiser next Friday.
There are loads of Public Holidays to look forward to, such as Mashrami – republic day – weekend after next. It’s a long weekend so we’re going to go visit the 4 New Amsterdam girls Saturday & Sunday & then go check out the carnival in town on Monday & then go to a T-pain & Seranni concert (2 very very popular pop artisty people). 2 weekends after that it’s a weekend, then Monday then 2 holidays – Phagwah – (?) where everyone in town throws dye over everyone/thing & then water …very colourful. So we’re going to try go to St Cuthberts (Ian’s project) & then to town. We then have Easter & rodeo to look forward to down in Region 9 – need to organise everything. THEN Peazy comes out for June (at the end of May so that she gets to experience Moruca day (independence) – another holiday) which is so exciting. So there’s so much going to happen & I reckon it’s going to go so fast.
Life in Moruca continues to move on, it gets much busier now that it’s dry. We continue to bear/bare (?) the noise/ screams/ smoking coming from next door, strange children appearing in our house, guests appearing unannounced & the cockroaches & students excuses. We continue to go on regular walks, students continue to tell me that ‘Miss Miss you getting thick.’ Ooo & Ollie started a Channa Challenge! Channa is cooked (soft chickpeas seasoned & with pepper sauce, garlic etc. It’s the cheapest snack here. She’s bet another volunteer: Declan (St Cuthberts) that she can eat Channa for 3 meals everyday for a month – he’s competing & the prize is 10yr old rum. She’s doing very well so far – she’s got fairly experimental adding honey, jam, peanut butter, mayonnaise, sweet corn etc.
Hope all is good. Keep up the contact! If you ever get too cold just pop over to visit.
Love to all,
Lots of love
Emily
Xxxxxx
PS Next time I write I’ll probably be 19 …eww what a nasty age to be!
Mmm …galaxy & Terry’s chocolate orange (HINT)
I’ve finally run out of writing paper, can you believe that I’ve written 350 pages of letters?!
I see that you’ve been getting loads & loads of snow! Craig’s parents emailed us pictures of what it’s like in Aberdeen – looks incredible & makes us all very jealous. Here the rainy season has ended & it is so so so hot! I’d forgotten how hot it was. The water is all drying up, we’re back to using pond water to bathe in & our rain tanks are pretty much empty. This morning we looked in the bucket of pond water we’d collected (& bleached) to discover a tiny, beautiful little fish …that was er, bleached to death.The river goes down by about ½ foot every day. How come the year I miss Winter you get proper ice & snow?
Surprisingly not much has happened since returning from Tobago. I may have mentioned that Mel, a PT volunteer from last year, was here. She left on Friday morning, it was really good to meet her. She was pretty awesome – it was good to find out that all the rumours are completely wrong and blown out of proportion – I can’t wait to hear what’s been said about us 2 living with a BOY to next year's volunteers. Mel managed to find her old dugout canoe & we spent a couple of afternoons, first trying to get into it without sinking – very tricky, takes a good deal of balance - & then travelled down to Coco, 10 minutes paddle down the river, where we went for a walk.
Ollie & I went for a really good walk last Thursday to Mora, an area of Moruca about 40min walk from Kumaka. When we were in Mora a man asked if we’d like some coconut water, so we went to his house. It was beautiful, wooden, built in a secluded place surrounded by all sorts of fruit trees and bushes. He turned out to be the father of my top 1A IT student. We were introduced to his wife Rose. He neatly cut down 4 coconuts & sliced off the tops of 2 so that we could get the water. Compared to Craig his skills with a cutlass were far superior! They then produced a soursup – a green knobbly/spiky fruit about the size of a large pawpaw. They cut up a ripe one & gave us some of the white lycee/melon textured fleshy fruity part. It tasted amazing, like passionfruit/granny smith apple/ lycee. It’s definitely a favourite!
So Ollie & I made new friends! We left carrying 2 large coconuts, this soursup & then as we walked back home various students ran after us carrying bags of Acquero – a fruit about the size of an egg that’s got a greeny yellow skin that has to be cut off to reveal orange stuff around a large brown round seed. You can eat the orange stuff. It takes a lot of effort to get not very much of a fairly tasteless bit of fruit & unfortunately every day students have been bringing them in for me for the last week. Ollie & I returned from our walk laden down with fruit, in fits of laughter at the situation & singing Hakena Matata very loudly – why not?!
I received a letter from Miss Mortimer & one from Abbie Smith last week – nice surprise – they took 3 months to get here! I haven’t heard from quite a few people for a long time, I hope they all got my letters – I’ve replied to everyone who’s written to me. I was especially wondering if Ali ever got my letter thanking her for the books?
Robbie will be pleased to hear that Sophie walked past a bush yesterday that had a sloth hanging in it. This was just off our path to our house – about 1 metre off it so Sophie has some absolutely incredible pictures. She was so close she could touch it.
I went on a really really good cycle ride on Thursday, it’s very uppy downy & the track was not brilliant – had about a foot wide of smooth road the rest was real cut up. So it actually took quite a bit of skill to stay on!
Lots of mangoes around this time of year they are so amazing, mmm. Last week the whole of Moruca ran out of onions! As did the whole of Region 2 also. Guyana was in a massive shortage as its onion shipment didn’t arrive! This ruined our Chicken Tikka Massala a tad on our curry Thursday though it still tasted damn good!
Recently I’ve been dreaming loads about Project Trust, debriefing volunteers, returning etc. It’s weird! Probably because of having Doug & Rishon & then Mel here. We now only have 4 months left in Moruca! How weird. We’re over half way through the term’s teaching (remember that no teaching happens in the last 4 weeks) & we’re over half way through the teaching overall! By the time you get this we should be over half way through the year. Time has started to fly by. School is very busy at the moment. I don’t even have time to read! Miss Bernie has gone on a months leave leaving Ollie, another teacher – Miss Rowena - & I to take over integrated science to forms 1 & 2. So I now am teaching 8 more periods a week. Tuesdays also I’m teaching a few kids to read, Mondays I’m helping 2 boys with maths, Thursdays I’m teaching extra Biology to the Form 2 students who’ve recently been moved up to Form 3.
In the last week I’ve marked 250 assignments, so I’m very busy. I’m actually quite enjoying it. Last week I learnt 1A, 1C & 1D’s names FINALLY. 1C is very naughty, they now, recently, have been getting lines – in an attempt to try & get them to work/behave. I feel like I know the students better, I even got invited on a bush cook with some of my Form 3s for this weekend, overnight at Waramuri – unfortunately I couldn’t go, also not sure how appropriate it would have been – I think it was just a group of boys. I’m feeling completely settled. I would never have been satisfied if I’d had to leave after 6 months – it’s taken until now for me to really feel completely comfortable. So I now look forward to the last bit of this experience, it’s going to be very different to the first ½.
We’ve got a couple more Red Cross trips coming up & of course seeing as we’re the official cooks & hot drink makers, Ollie & I will be going! We also have Valentines Bingo as a fundraiser next Friday.
There are loads of Public Holidays to look forward to, such as Mashrami – republic day – weekend after next. It’s a long weekend so we’re going to go visit the 4 New Amsterdam girls Saturday & Sunday & then go check out the carnival in town on Monday & then go to a T-pain & Seranni concert (2 very very popular pop artisty people). 2 weekends after that it’s a weekend, then Monday then 2 holidays – Phagwah – (?) where everyone in town throws dye over everyone/thing & then water …very colourful. So we’re going to try go to St Cuthberts (Ian’s project) & then to town. We then have Easter & rodeo to look forward to down in Region 9 – need to organise everything. THEN Peazy comes out for June (at the end of May so that she gets to experience Moruca day (independence) – another holiday) which is so exciting. So there’s so much going to happen & I reckon it’s going to go so fast.
Life in Moruca continues to move on, it gets much busier now that it’s dry. We continue to bear/bare (?) the noise/ screams/ smoking coming from next door, strange children appearing in our house, guests appearing unannounced & the cockroaches & students excuses. We continue to go on regular walks, students continue to tell me that ‘Miss Miss you getting thick.’ Ooo & Ollie started a Channa Challenge! Channa is cooked (soft chickpeas seasoned & with pepper sauce, garlic etc. It’s the cheapest snack here. She’s bet another volunteer: Declan (St Cuthberts) that she can eat Channa for 3 meals everyday for a month – he’s competing & the prize is 10yr old rum. She’s doing very well so far – she’s got fairly experimental adding honey, jam, peanut butter, mayonnaise, sweet corn etc.
Hope all is good. Keep up the contact! If you ever get too cold just pop over to visit.
Love to all,
Lots of love
Emily
Xxxxxx
PS Next time I write I’ll probably be 19 …eww what a nasty age to be!
Mmm …galaxy & Terry’s chocolate orange (HINT)
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