Guyana Letter 12 - the last one!

3/6/09 (1 month till school’s over!

Hello! This is the last letter you are going to receive before coming out to visit! Hope you’re excited.
Not too much has happened within the last month. We have had a fair few visitors, including: Ian, while Ollie & Craig got the opportunity to go to Shell Beach, our Kiwi friend Rachel [who just can’t seem to leave this country] who cooks awesomely & enjoys food about as much as me, Terrence – our Georgetown Friend – Dora & Cuthbert volunteers & Rachel again – for Moruca day. This is all just a warm up before relations start appearing ….first batch arrives on Friday – belonging to Ollie.
Banks my now 5 week old black kitten is growing so fast one can almost watch it happen. She’s playing, climbing, feeding & generally leading a very comfortable life. We still have yet to train her to eat cockroaches …I currently have an ongoing battle with her about urinating under my bed, Yuk!
The benab is complete. The palm thatch, open sided hut out the back of the house is a perfect place to chill in a hammock with a book in the breeze off the savannah. It served its purpose very well for holding guests on Moruca day! We’ve spent so many weekends & holidays just out there with books, music, good food, the cat, rum punch etc.
The 3 Canadian red cross volunteers who are here for 2 months are awesome, very nice people. They’ve been helping out at the primary & secondary school, the hospital & the dormitories. Unfortunately due to recent events they are going to be leaving sooner than anticipated. I’ll explain just now.
Last week was Youth week. This was an excuse for the children to have a whole week of activities & NO lessons. Monday was supposedly an art & crafts day. Unfortunately the idea was a really good one, but no-one, of course wanted to structure/organise the event so it turned into a day of students doing nothing & teachers doing paperwork. Only 2D [my class] could be found doing anything remotely creative. Ollie & I taught them how to make bracelets, so we had a small industry for the day.
Tuesday was a holiday. Craig & I cycled to Waramuri a sandy, hilly ride that I fell off twice on. It took 1 hour 45 minutes but we did get lost a fair bit. The sudden burst of exercise made us feel quite sick but it was actually a very nice & fun ride. We visited Waramuri on a red cross trip – it’s a beautiful, white sand village on the river. There’s a peace corps volunteer there who we went by so as to bathe & generally recover. Unfortunately Craig standing in his boxers in the front door [he rarely is seen in more clothing] has started a few rumours about Miss Keena & a naked white ‘sir’.
Wednesday, Sir Rouel, Ollie & I took my class to Bamboo Wall where we had a bush cook & I wowed them with my cricket skills! ‘Woah Miss, you lash hard bad!’ The place was stunning – plenty bamboo. We found a circle of bamboo that had a diameter of about 3 ½ metres & this is where the boys made the fire. The place was beautiful with streams of light slanting between bamboo. It took 3 hours to cook the rice & even then it was not soft …mmm crunchy.
It was a good day out though, the children all had fun. On the way back we took a ‘short cut’ through thick jungle. Somehow Ollie, Arlene (a student) & I got separated from the rest & we found ourselves alone in silent bush with mahoosive trees & vines all around – uh oh ….we found them 25 minutes later!
On the Thursday Ollie & I took my class to Flavi’s at cabaccali where we had a day of competitions. To be honest we just wanted a relaxing day of peace & quiet, so we devised a cunning plan. We created 3 competitions, all involved sending the students away to complete tasks!
1. Fruit gathering competition. 1 ½ hours to gather as much & as various fruit as possible. We got 22 varieties & 293 pieces of fruit …enough for a DELICIOUS fruit salad.
2. Savannah Race. First child to cross the river & then savannah, touch Sir Lloyd’s house & get back wins. Methods: swim, run, paddle dug-outs.
3. Fishing competition. ½ an hour to catch as many fish using hands as possible. 2 were caught!
Was such a good day – though I accidentally got so sunburnt & am now suffering the consequences.
The weekend was then Moruca day/ Moruca expo weekend. This weekend was good fun: Morucan food, drink, crafts & pageant – 1 big party, we even had a ban come in for Friday night at Flavi’s. Various friends of ours had stalls & were selling Fly [local alcoholic drink made from ‘sweet potato’ i.e. beetroot] doughnuts, cassava bread & pepper pot & other local dishes. I got HIV tested & am NEGATIVE! Yey. Party, party, party – shame so many students were around to observe. Saturday night I had 3 men proclaim their love to me – complete strangers of course.
Unfortunately a few things marred the weekend, including: the Canadian volunteers having over $1400 stolen, the Red Cross having their day’s income from their popcorn stall stolen, & then our friend getting really drunk & threatening to kill himself from the top of a telegraph pylon. It was really horrible.
A weekend later & I find myself in a hammock in Caraburi school on my last Red Cross trip. It’s raining – Rainy season has finally decided to happen & the noise of the rain on the zinc roof is at such a level that I literally cannot hear anything happening around me. Sophie has pointed out that this is excellent practice for the childrens projectory voice skills!
Ollie has gone out to collect her Mum, sister & friend & Craig has gone to collect his Dad. Louise arrives on Wednesday – so its all happening! This last week I had my last Biology lessons & I’ve completely finished all work with I.T. So ….I’m done. We now have 3-4 weeks of exams & then ….
Very mixed feelings about coming home. I’m dreaming a lot about it. I’m very ready to return but I’ll miss this all so badly. Give me a week of being back in England & I’ll be wanting to escape again!

Lots of love from,
Emily XXX