Rum, Sweat, and a Casual Rocket Launch

                   Almost at the end of the first week in Guyane and I still haven't really organised much. The housing panic amongst everyone else here has continued but Im just hoping something will show up. The plan at the moment is that someone is driving us to St. Laurent (my town for the year) tomorrow, which saves the 35 euro bus, and then I am staying with a teacher for a couple of nights, then swapping to an apartment-floor one of the other girls has organised for the rest of the first week while the two of us look for somewhere to live properly. At this rate its looking like it might end up being a hammock in a porch but that sounds pretty good to me!
Since the last blog we have been fairly busy. The afternoon after we last wrote, one of the teachers took me and Olivia to buy phones, we got a really sexyyyy basic thing with torch and radio, but on the plus side we got to choose our numbers, so both of ours are very similar. Then we headed back to the teachers house for a swim in her pool and a drive round some of the nicer beaches, where all of her teacher friends were kite-surfing. Everyone here seems really young, fit and attractive- hopefully this will be enough to spur me into action :S First ill need to get off the diet of chinese takeaway and rum and fruit juice :S...
                 The next morning was another early awakening for a full day of assistant 'training'. This time it only started around an hour late, pretty good going for Guyane. Time doesn't seem to be much of an issue here and i have noticed in the last couple of days that I have actually started walking slower. Im hoping to return tres mellow, tres tanned and tres less sweaty in the heat. As for the training it ranged from completely useless to vaguely interesting. Most of it was aimed at the people teaching older children 11-18, whereas Im doing up to age 10. There was one section which was really useful for me, I got given a huge pack with loads of activity sheets and instructions on what I need to teach. The only thing that concerns me, is that at Primary level, often in the school there isnt a single teacher that speaks the target language (i.e english) So basically, I am responsible for getting a class of 10 year olds to the correct level to start at 'big school.' Jokes? On the plus side apparently it involves lots of singing and music-y stuff which should suit me muchas. We had a delicious lunch that consisted of battered prawns, prawn rolls, pastried prawns, prawn skewers, prawns on bread, prawn sandwichs... If you love prawns it would have been heavenly . I however, tried a couple and then decided that the rum and guayaba juice that was also on offer would be a much better idea. 
                By the time we made it back to the pool (home) ... we still can't swim in the pool  it was getting fairly late but no-one was hungry after prawnfest 2k12 (they had kindly shipped over any leftovers to the pool if we wanted a snack), so we started browsing the internet for holidays. Now, by this day, Lucy had arrived, another Brit, by her own admission a bit crazy and impulsive... (a bit crazy???? I'd go with tres... Within the hour she had booked us all flights for our first holidays in November and was like... you all owe me £190. SO... the plan is.. we finish in school on the friday, Oli and Lucy make it over to my house (hopefully I will have one by then) on the border. We then have I think between 8-10 days to travel across suriname and guyana (english) to make it to the capital of Georgetown. From here we fly to Trinidad for a cheeky week or so and we are hoping to make it to Tobago as well if possible. I guess sometimes impulsive is the way forward!!... little bit awkward in that we didn't realise we would need visas for Suriname (we're british darling... surely our passport gets us in everywhere!), which meant we had to wake up at 6 again the next morning to tackle to bus to Cayenne that we had heard rumours of...


7.30am- all ready to go, stood at what looks like a bus stop, no sign of a timetable but we are on it...
8.20am- a bunch of guys smoking their morning joint at the bus stop ask us why we are sitting in the sun and offer us room on the bench... they don't question why we are here.
8.30am- we ask the guys when the next bus is coming. They reply... ha! to cayenne! mate it doesnt go from here, go that way that way and that way and youll see the bus stop... brill
8.50am- stop off at the townhall to check we are going the right way. We have told everyone we are braving the bus and simply REFUSE to return defeated to the pool.
9.05am- check at the supermarket we are going the right way... apparently we are
9.10am- Lucy starts sticking her thumb up aiming to hitchhike us there... LUCKILY, after 10 minutes or so a very kind BUS pulls over and picks us up for the bargain price of 2 euro to Cayenne. According to the timetable, we were either 40mins late for the 8:40, or half an hour early for the 9:50....Guyane time banter?

MADE IT TO CAYENNE for our first view of the city. A really nice man on the bus offered to walk us across the city to the Suriname consulate where we were going to get visas sorted. Turns out from one sie of the city to the other is about an 8 minute walk, so.... it didn't take him very long to walk us there!

                  We had heard bad things about the consulate. The americans had told us that we would have to wear long trousers and cover our shoulders and that the whole thing was very serious and formal. WELL.. we wondered in short-shorts and all, and had a good chat with our (now) good friend Thomas, the man behind the counter, working out the best visa options for all of us. After a cheeky trip for some passport photos and some photocopies we went back to drop them off (im getting mine done in st laurent though as it will be easier to pick up) and by the end Thomas and us were best friends/ We took a photo with him, and he even asked the next lady in the queue to wait 5 mins while he gave us his number. He was even considering coming on the holiday with us, until he realised he probably couldnt get the time off work. What a shame :S Good luck to Olivia who had to go back on tuesday to pick up her passport!
                  We then had a wander round the 5 main blocks and went for some crepes to celebrate our holiday, bus and visa success -- thats what the french do isn't it ?? Randomly one of the teachers drove past outside, recognised us and offered us a lift home via the fish market. Guyane is so small, apparently everyone knows everyone and its only a matter of time before you bump into someone!
Spent the afternoon at the beach... Lucy and Oli saw some turtles hatching eggs and I didn't, as I was asleep for about 2 hours. cheeky power nap. Got back, and had about 20 mins to change into our dresses for the welcome party that evening before a teacher came and picked us up to watch a CASUAL ROCKET LAUNCH from her garden with a beer. We watched the telly do the countdown and when it got to three we all ran outside and saw it even though the launch place is about an hour and a half away. It was really cool and we watched it all the way until it disappeared and could see all the separations of the boosters and some other stuff (I dont know much about rockets) ... The sound came about 5 minutes later as well... bizarre!
                   The party was pretty cool, it basically involved a buffet dinner a rum fountain and some traditional local singing and dancing, what more could you ask for?? We had a bit of a boogie, but things did improve slightly when the dancers gave up and let the dj take over. The teachers upstaged ALL of us, in attractiveness as well as dance moves. Muy jealous... need to get learning how to dance :S We then headed into Cayenne on a bus having picked up a few stray children along the way and watched a bit of the film festival. Everyone was a bit tired and mega sweaty after the dancing, and as most of the film was in creole we didnt really understand much so by the time the bus picked us up at half 12 I have never been so excited for bed! 
               Slept an increds 12 hours and have just got back from 2 hours at the local pool.. had to wear a sexy swimming cap! Its obvs been a hard day, but apparently we are hitting up Cayenne tonight as it is one of the Brazilien guys' birthday.... this is all depending on whether we can find a taxi to take us there and back which seems to be a bit hit and miss... but... On Va Voir! 

Who knows, maybe by the next blog I might even have somewhere to live...
On the bright side, the tanning is coming along muy bueno!
xx

And so it commence's....

            I have officially made it here in one piece! It began with the bargain £17 megabus London-Paris, which I would tres recommend. After the ferry the drivers swapped and the second one was a little bit of bantersaurus... coming up with such gems as "and now ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to get out your camera, prepare to see a side of Paris you have never seen before..." as we entered a ten-minute long tunnel which seemed to run underneath most if not ALL the potential sight-seeing opputunities. However, I think this was trumped to quote of the day by.... "Watch now if you will, ladies and gentleman, as I navigate a large roundabout, with no road markings, everybody just taking their time, enjoying their day...." as we almost crashed about three times. 

          Luckily, the bus stop was just around the corner from a tube line that connected to the airport, so I got on fairly hassle-free with all my baggage -although I did have to sacrifice all dignity and wear one backpack on the front ... .sad sad times.... Had my first encounter with a french homme who invited me to ignore the airport come chez him, drink some wine eat some food.... much though this sounded very appetizing I decided to stay on the tube to the airport. He didn't seem to believe me when I told him that I don't have a working phone in France- but apparently all English girls are very beautiful, not like the french.... what a smoothie!

        Orly airport is not the most exciting place to spend a night, so I dont have much to report, apart from the awkward look on the mans face when I ordered a pain au chocolat, por favor :S I must stop doing that! After a bit of reading I decided to find a suitable place to settle for the noche, and whilst wandering round the empty terminal just me and my overflowing trolley, another lost soul, looking similar appeared and said, Polly??? Oui c'est moi... I think it was the cookie monster hoodie that gave it away. Luckily I had ran into Olivia, another assistant, from Edinburgh, who was on the plane, and who also seems well up for lots of adventuring during our many holidays...

       15 hours later we boarded the plane. Pretty uneventful, I would however recommend Air France for airplane food, where else do you get served a mini bottle of wine AND a double shot of RUM with your lunch? Win. We arrived, as did all the bags (phew), and the toilet had a toilet seat AND toilet roll, which is unheard of in South America. We will choose to ignore the fact that their was ONE ladies toilet in the whole airport. ONE. And also my passport wasn't checked as everyone just pushed past the one women in uniform who was supposedly customs control. 

        It was beginning to look a bit dodge when there were no signs with our name on it, but at least there were two of us and we were too tired to be panicked. Then this women appeared... vous etes assistants.... OUI! and we jumped in the car and got dropped off at a swimming pool which is our free home for the week,. Except we are not allowed to use the pool. And there are no buses anywhere and the nearest shop is a 20 minute walk. Banter? I am going to get SOOOO fit walking this year-- shame about all the chinese takeaways which are the cheapest way to eat :P

         So for this week we are living at the pool which is in a suburb called Remire-Montjoly about 8km outside of the capital, Cayenne, which I have yet to see... I HAVE been to the beach though... always a plus! Although, I never thought I would ever say that the water in Scarborough is CLEAR by comparison....

(I think the photographer must have got a good angle for this photo as it didnt look quittttteeee this nice yesterday... however, still pretty cool!) We've eaten lots of chinese (the only cheap option) and lots of baguette as we are tres french. Can you believe that the corner store here it costs like 2 euro for an apple but you can get a nice packet of pork terrine for only 1?! That shit Kray, Jay! O and also you can get a litre of rum  (55% alcohol ) for 5 euro... well... if there isn't anything else to do.....

This morning we had a meeting with all the teachers and government people and to be honest it was 5 hours too boring and 5 hours too french for my liking so Im hoping the others can fill me in on any important points I may have missed whilst doodling. Everyone seems to be having some kind of crazy panic about where they are going to live... I on the other hand, am going tres flow... I mean we are not going to end up on the street :S I hope... anyways there is not much we can do until we get to the towns we are teaching in and are able to look around... I have found another girl in the same place as me and I think we are going to look for a place together. The teachers also seem really nice and offered me a place to stay while we find somewhere and seemed worried about lifts to get me there and so on... Dont they realise that I am Polly J, traveller extraordinaire and things such as travel do not worry me :) ! 

So, all in all this has been a rather rambling account of my first few days. I still dont really GET guyane... I love the complete mixture of cultures and races but I dont really understand why it even exists and how it works. I shall keep you updated when I learn more.

On a parting note, apparently one of the schools I am teaching in is in the village of an Ameridien Tribe... how i'm going to get there I have NO idea...but it sounds a little bit cool. 

Also, there are four flavours of desparados at the local shop AND you can buy it in cans. WIN

Until next time when maybe I will have a clue about what is going on here....

POLLY x 

Megabus to South America... almost...

          So... here I am, sat in the delightful East Midlands Parkway train station, sat waiting for my megatrain connection to London , thinking this is the perfect time to start the lastest edition of my much-anticipated and eagerly awaited (I’m sure) year-abroad blog. This may seem like a bit of a strange place to be starting such a blog, but I have officially left York for good (well, at least 8 months), and as I have decided I am not allowed to start my book for the journey (On The Road by Jack Kerouac) until I actually start the proper journey (yet another megabus... this time to Paris) on Sunday, there is little else to do in this particular train station on a rainy Friday afternoon.

          For those of you that haven’t been informed or who asked where I was going but were too polite to ask where on earth it is, I’m casually off to French Guyana to be a primary school English assistant for the year. FAQ answer number one: NO, its not in Africa... thats GHANA... (easy mistake). It is in fact on the northern coast of South America neighbouring with Brazil and Suriname- which you’ve probably never heard of either. Trust me to find the smallest and only country in South America which is French-speaking to sneak off for my year abroad. Yes, Calais was tempting, but alas I decided to go for this instead.

          Not only is it in South America (my fav continent of the moment) ...but... RESULT, as it is technically part of France, imagine Yorkshire being transported to the middle of the Caribbean... I still qualify for all the extra grants and fee waivers that result from being in the EU and an Erasmus student. Not going to lie, I think this is the furthest away part of the EU there is, apart from maybe La Reunion (these frenchies are crazzzzy). Thus, FAQ answer number two: Yes, they use the Euro. Minds boggled?? Well, if they are not already, they will be after FAQ answer number three: NO, I’m not coming home for Christmas. I’m not saying that I value my £700 pounds more than seeing family and friends or so, (well, maybe I am :P) but it just seems a lot of effort and a bit of an anti-climax to come back to rainy England for a week or so when I could stay and experience a properly Caribbean Christmas (I’m thinking rum cocktail drank out of a pineapple whilst lying in a hammock with a sea view... right Sando?)

            Now, being as prepared as I normally am when I embark on these crazy trips, obviously I don’t really have many plans, except for to buy an adapter before I get to the airport, as I forgot to pack it..oops! I also don’t really have any idea what to expect when I get there. And I mean as soon as I get there...the woman supposedly picking me up from the airport has chosen this week to neglect checking her email it seems, brilliant! What I do know, is that i’m arriving in Cayenne, (the capital city, population less than York!) on Monday and then, a week later I’m being taken to my town- Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni- where I immediately start teaching. I’ve got some stickers and a list of useful websites (thanks Lydia!), what more do I need? How hard can it be to keep a class of under 10s occupied for an hour, when they speak a language that I have NEVER had to use outside of the classroom :S I am definitely being thrown at the deep end....

             Unlike most French language students about to embark on a year away speaking said language, I have chosen to spend most of the summer in Spanish speaking south American countries,  chatting away, loving life, all well and good until someone asks me a simple French question and I reply with Claro que si! Not ideal! At least if a security guard tells me off for trying to sleep in a Parisian airport for the night (actually happening on Sunday) I can explain, probably honestly, that I don’t understand. I’m thinking it’s going to be one of those things where it all comes rushing back to you when you need it, that’s going to happen, right?

As for now, my plan for the weekend is to spend a couple of last days with the boyf- mostly just so he can help me carry my bags which altogether feel like they weigh at leastttt one me- maybe? Lets just say its not quite the 10kg which I have taken with me on all trips before... to be fair I don’t think two backpacks is too bad! Ok, maybe I DONT need the FOUR new pairs of sandals that I bought in the sale laughing at everyone because Im off to sunny country for a year (I think its sunny, to be honest, like most things, I haven’t actually checked), but the laptop, speakers and books are deffo necessary to fill my time seeing as how my job contract is only for 12 hours a week. Don’t they know.... thats just one long shift at the hut!

         Anyway, I’ve written nearly a thousand words and I haven’t even actually GONE anywhere yet- I don’t think Nottingham counts.... So I’ll leave it at that, and the next one will be whenever someone  picks me up from the airport and takes me somewhere with internet connection   (you could be waiting a while).

Hasta Luego! ...err Au Revoir? That right isn’t it?

POLLY x