Lads are back on tour

I have officially now been in French Guiana for a full month. And in that month I have worked around 15 hours. But, I have also visited two islands, slept in two different hammocks, visited 3 different rivers, and had my passport checked on the road from Cayenne to St. Laurent approximately 6 times. Every single time they ask me if I have dyed my hair... when I explain that it’s just the sun they look at me all suspect like I must be some kind of English drug mule, and not in fact a primary school English teacher, who, to be honest isn’t at all qualified to teach English. Maybe that’s reason enough for them to question why I am here.

Why am I here? That is a question I find myself asking more often than I should. Obviously l am here because I chose to be here, but in general, I am assistant-ing because Bristol University told me to go away for a year, take a good long look at myself in the mirror and come back knowing more French than I did before. In terms of the job itself, aside from an English accent, I feel I am offering very little to the children here that they could not get from their normal teacher. It’s hard to explain much of the culture side of England, when they cannot even point to Europe, let alone England on a map. Probably because they have never needed to, and probably will never need to know. Looking down the class list, all but one where born in St. Laurent du Maroni, and their idea of a foreign land is Cayenne, a 3-hour trip down the main highway. When you explain England is another continent entirely to French Guiana, the response is usually- oh, so it’s in Métropol (mainland France)? In their minds, the capital of Brazil is Oyapock- the border town- or if they are feeling very adventurous, Belem, one of the larger cities in Northern Brazil. I was discussing travel with a friend of one of my flatmates. I explained how I work really hard for a short period and then travel. His response was: I don’t really have any desire to travel, I prefer to just live my life and spend my money on that. This took a lot to get my head round. We had another bizarre moment in class last week when the teacher was trying to explain the concept of a border. Somehow, the concept of racism came up, which, was explained, by one of the only white children in the class as when “the white people hate the blacks”. The teacher chose not to explain properly. Great.

Generally the teaching is going okay, although the lack of access to a photocopier, printer or even internet means teaching materials are few and far between and generally the class is limited to me writing on the whiteboard or singing a song. This week I’m planning to do a class on Halloween if I can get my act together and sort something out for it. This morning, however, was the hardest class I have taught by far.  I showed up at a new school for my first day, offered (basically begged to have a day of observation)... “No, no, no, don’t worry you go ahead and start”. Brill. The teacher then, introduced me to her class of 8 year olds, explained, this is your new English teacher Polly.... go! Before walking out of the class and leaving. She seemed annoyed after the class when I told her, that it was generally okay except that no one listened to me, everyone was shouting, and when I asked a boy to sit down, some of the girls recommended that I needed to hit him with a ruler. NOT MY JOB! They asked me if I was a teacher in England... NO! But.... do you have a curriculum to follow for this year..... NO! Sort it out dudes otherwise it looks like I’m going to be having a bad case of Mondays blues for the rest of the year.

It didn’t help that I was incredibly tired and sore-throaty when I woke up at the ugly hour of 6:30am to get ready this morning (ok, so admittedly, I snoozed for another hour, yet another lesson plan NOT done...). The reason for this? The epic weekend we have just spent in Kourou. I was worried that I was losing a bit of Polly J loveforlife due to the limitations of speaking in French and generally not having much to do, but that was forgotten this weekend. It didn’t start ideally however, as we decided to experiment with some public transport in Guiana. I now see why people are willing to drive their friends four hours to the airport and back, or why Yoga is cancelled tonight because the teacher has to drive one of the other teachers half way across the country.

I finished work at half 12, headed back showered and by 2 we were ready to go. We had been informed that not only was there a bus at half past 2, if not there was a taxi at 3. Perf. We got to the station at 2, not wanting to miss anything. Not only were we the only people there, there was also a severe lack of vehicles, i.e none. 2:30 came and went, as did 3, and even the homeless guy in the corner walked off. We were about to admit defeat when a white mini-van drove on a nearby road. We stood up to hint that we wanted to get on, and he came over. Im leaving at 6 he explained. No, there is nothing before. Right, back home for a nap, before trying again at 6. To be fair, he rocked up at 10 past, not bad for Guyanese time. On the way there, I received a slightly worrying text from Olivia, errrr, so, we have nowhere to sleep tonight. Slightly awkward. Luckily we managed to sweet-talk the lovely German (a Spanish assistant we had met in training) into letting 4 random English girls quadruggle in his bed and kick him out onto the sofa. Mega thanks needed. We arrived around 9 to Kourou and he took us out, first to show us the best burger van in town (yep, he was right about that one), and then to hit the town. We tried a couple of bars, found some 3 euro caiprinhas. Lucy (remember her from training? The crazy one...) asked the barman if she could pay on a card because she had no cash. He said no, but as you girls are so Jolie (pretty) you can have two rum punch for free... banter.

We requested Gangham style (our theme tune) and, as always, it was played straight away. We went outside for a quick bit of air, while it was still playing, and a random guy got out of a car (whilst he was driving it :p) ran over, and joined the dance. JOKES! Even more jokes, turns out he is a rocket scientist here to launch a casual satellite. More on that later. We cut Friday night short at 2 am as we had a boat to the Iles de salut, the one place in Guyane with clear blue water, at 7.15 the next morning. 

Shades on, pain au chocolat in hand, we boarded the boat. Cheeky catermaran (no idea how to spell that). Lovely chilled boat ride chatting to the girls, having banter with yet more rocket scientists. I should probably explain that French Guiana is the location of the European Space Agency, and this is likely one of the only reasons that France continues to pay for it, hence all the crazy scientists. Upon arrival, the chilled out boat man was like, give me your stuff and swim to the island. Er, yes please! I have been waiting a month for clear water. It was like something out of Pirates of the Caribbean. With rocks, palm trees and falling coconuts awaiting us when we had swam to shore. I don’t need to go on, but it was an awesome day, although checking out the old prison cells, particularly the solitary confinement ones was WELL eerie. Anyone read/seen papillon? Nah, me neither.  But apparently all that stuff went down here on these islands. I did get an awkward bit of dehydration going on (anyone who knows Polly J well, knows that this is serious times) but luckily Lucy was manning up and carrying the picnic box to save my pathetic self from having to do it. The dehydration made the free rum punch on the boat even more delicious.  Feeling very sun-kissed (read: crème bruleed), we headed back to the port, and back to Germans for a shower and a nap.

Couldn’t nap too long though as it was dinner party time with some of the Brazilian assistants- nice! Being classic Brits abroad, we, well, Lucy and Olivia (I was sleeping) rocked up with two bottles of cheap rosé, 6 cans of extra strong beer, 8%, diet coke and paté (admittedly more French than brit abroad) to add to the party. It was such a nice night, chatting to all the other assistants –all in French as this is the only common language. And then, when sufficiently loving life, we clambered all 8 of us into a 2-door Renault Clio. Obvs me and Lucy chose to sit in the boot, not quite sure why, but ducking down to hide from the gendarmes is quite a challenge when your knees are already tangled in your shoulders. We rocked up to the same bar as the night before. Ok, there may be nightlife here, but a different bar each night is just too much to expect!  What should be playing as we walked in but.... Saturday night... school disco classic. We cleared the dance floor and did the routine for everyone in the club. They loved it. The bar lady was not loving Lucy so much when she tried to buy a desparados, explaining, ok I have two cards, and they probs both don’t work but can we try??? Big smile. Sure enough “the transaction cannot be authorised” so... bank of Polly had to be called upon. Pretty jokes, as I had tried to take out 20 euro that morning and the atm had said insufficient funds. Awkward. Between the three of us anglais, we left Kourou on Sunday with about 40 cents to our name. 

The night continued, and at some point, everyone else went home and me, Lucy, and Olivia ended up in another bar/ pizza place with the rocket scientists. We were, no exaggeration, the only white people there. The Dj had never even heard of Jay-z, that is how gangster he is! We ignored the funny looks and decided the only way they would accept us would be for Lucy to do the worm in the middle of the floor wearing a short white dress and granny panties. Even this had no reaction. She then chose a victim and was all, I want to learn to dance like you. After the women replied, quoi? Lucy grabbed Olivia, pushed her head down and started grinding like everyone else in the club. Luckily the fire alarm went off soon after to save us humiliating/ risking our lives even more. There was only one thing left to do that night, so we drove to the burger van, to find it was out of burgers. Awkward. We then headed back to the hotel of the rocket scientists for a midnight (more like breakfast) feast. This consisted of goats cheese, baguette, chocolate covered almonds, and a very poor attempt at popcorn. How tres cosmopolitan. Turns out rocket science must pay slightly better than language assisting as the company pays for them each to have a suite and a rental car.

The conversation over the picnic went something like this : So... rocket science, is it actually hard? Because really you guys seem like a bit of a joke... Reply: Erm, yeh, actually it is quite hard and we are actually quite intelligent.... Oh... awkward pause... (me and lucy): yeh, but, have you ever had to play simon says in English with a bunch of 8-year old Guyanese kids, because that is actually quite hard. Rocket Scientists: No, to be fair, Im sure that is harder. Back to Germans for another quadruggle. Hungover morning with some delish chocolate and banana crepes – cheers German!- and then the awkward moment when Lucy was like, German, where did you put my camera last night? Er, Lucy, you had your camera. SHITTTTTTT. By some crazzzzzzy stroke of luck, Olivia had saved the number of one of the rocket scientists on Friday night. We rang him and were like... heyyy... do you possibly have the number of your Taiwanese friend??? 20 mins later, the camera had been found in the car of the rocket scientists. What an absolute ridiculous stroke of luck. We went for ice-cream to celebrate and then to the beach before everyone pretty much crashed in the afternoon. Me and Katie got a lift back to St. Laurent and I have basically been sleeping ever since. The room needs a clean, I need a shower, rent is due, and I still don’t have a French bank card, and basically I am falling apart. Just have to make it to Friday and it is time for Trinidad and Tobago. Oh, and the casual holiday I just booked to Miami for new year. Top Bants.

Adios amigos POLLY xxx

Eternally grateful to the inventer of Simon Says

Yet another sweaty Monday in St. Laurent and even with the ventilator (fan) on max, 6 showers a day is the approximate amount needed to not show up everywhere looking like you’ve just attempted to run a triathlon in the desert, without any water. I don’t know how people manage to show up for lunch, or work looking refreshed and unbothered by the heat, IN JEANS. Might be something to do with leaving their air-conditioned house to get into their air-conditioned car to their air-conditioned place of work? I currently have air conditioning in none of the above. The situation isn’t helped by the fact that the heat is almost as intense at 8 in the morning as it is at 1 in the afternoon, the two times when I have to bike to and from my schools- which are not conveniently located in the town centre. This would have been a nice thing for my mentor teacher to organise, since she had a choice of over 17 schools to put me in, and chose potentially the two furthest away. In the words of the lady in charge of the other half on my timetabling... well, I don’t know why she has done that??? Yeh, me neither.

                Anyway, in the grand scheme of things, I have now racked up a grand total of 3 hours of teaching in the schools- definitely earning my salary for the month of October :S On Thursday, I showed up at the farthest away school to be greeted by the head teacher who said “Oh, I heard you weren’t supposed to be coming anymore, Oh well, this is good news.” #LovinOrganisationGuyaneStyle2k12.  I Sat with a group of about 8 kids, primarily Amerindians who were excited to be learning English but, unfortunately, too shy to actually speak to me. This makes teaching predominantly oral language skills a little bit difficult.  They knew what they were supposed to do, as when I moved onto the next person, they would whisper the correct answer in their ear, but saying it to my face was apparently too much of a challenge. One boy just turned his chair around and faced away from me every time I spoke to him. Perfect. I was saved towards the end of the lesson with a game of Simon says and a rendition of Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. When in doubt, I’m just going to whip out one or both of these activities probably every week for the whole year as they seem to go down well.

                On the Friday, I did my first two classes at another one of the schools. I walked in, hoping the teachers would maybe suggest working with a small group or something like that. Turns out, the only thing she had written for a lesson plan for the hour was... first lesson with Polly. This involved her saying, ok, go... and then I had to entertain the whole class for an hour. After we had mastered, my name is...  nice to meet you (shake hands) after an exhausting half an hour... I gave up and was like, who wants to play a game of Simon Says?? Thankfully everyone agreed. This process was then repeated for a second hour with the second class of the day. It’s not the children’s fault they are hard to entertain for an hour, I just really feel like my one hour of training in a meeting room qualifies me to be principal English teachers to half of the schools children. On the plus side, all the kids were really nice, and had apparently been waiting for me to return the whole week. There were a few weird questions however. One girl asked me how come I am white and speak English? I’m presuming that this is because the only first-hand experience they have with English-speakers would be the odd friend from British Guyana. Also, all the white people they know are French. Another girl asked me if my parents were generally nice to me when I was at home. I said yes, but decided to move swiftly one as I feel this conversation could have taken a turn for the worst. The funniest bit was that NONE of them could comprehend that England is actually cold-ish most of the time. EVEN at lunchtime???? they asked . YES. Even at lunchtime it is cold I explained. Minds= Blown. 

                We have just spent a really nice weekend back in Cayenne, the capital. We left Friday night, around 6 with a couple of new friends who we had spent the previous weekend with and dinner one night. We stopped about an hour outside of Cayenne to buy a car at 9 O’clock at night, as you do, and we then stopped in Kourou to have dinner, in a nice Dominican restaurant, our first restaurant in French Guiana. Don’t get me wrong, the food was really good and the portions were huge, but 15 Euros is the average for a main course in any restaurant here ranging from shack, to nicer shack to actual restaurant. This does not sit-well with my English, only eat in a restaurant when I have a voucher, and share the meal, and drink tap water mentality. We finally arrived into Cayenne at around half 11 (around 3 and a half hours later than the time we had told the friends we were staying with). Luckily they were around and we got hold of them and meet up at the Place des Palmistes, which is the main square in Cayenne. Everyone seemed tired so we headed back to the apartment of two of the assistants. It was like entering a new world. Huge, spacious, clean white apartment with a sofa bed, which is by far comfier than our actual bed. Air conditioned bedrooms and a balcony. I suppose that’s what you get when you pay 1300Euro a month (for two people!!) Accommodation prices in Cayenne are ridiculous! We pay approximately a sixth of this for our humble abode.

                It was really nice to see the other assistants again after a couple of weeks apart, and when one of the host teachers, was like, Im going to bar, who wants to get in the van and come with, I jumped at the chance. After 4 hours in the car, I was tired, but when there is a potential opportunity for some night life in Guyane, you take it. We squeezed six of us and headed to the vaguely dangerous market area to a Brazilian bar. You know you are in a classy establishment when the Caiprinhas are served from a petrol container. No wonder I had a headache the next morning. We hastily left this bar when it turned out that a dispute that started inside, was taken outside, and resulted in one man being stabbed 10 times. Rumours circulated that he may be dead, but we are not sure. I just saw the ambulance pull up before we headed to another bar about 3 doors down. They tried to charge us 5 euro each, but somehow we got away with it by saying that we are in the Capoiera club. Good job we didn’t pay as there were about 5 people in when we got there. Oh yeah, and 4 of these were the DJs. There were also about 6 guys in the world’s lamest VIP area, basically a raised area of the room looking down on the 8 or so of us dancing away to some fairly appalling mixtures of music. They did play Danza Kuduro about 4 times though. Props.  

                The next morning, with a lovely Caiprinha headache, we checked out the market, grabbed some food and then we were off with the people who had brought us to Roura, a village about half an hour outside Cayenne. We spent the afternoon doing a trip down a creek in a pirougue, and discovered that Palm trees are not technically trees and that their trunks cannot technically be called trunks. Er, you what? After an evening bbq on an open fire, we settled down in the hammocks for a delightful (read: full of mosquitos, dripping water, and generally a little bit unpleasant) night. Up early the next morning for another boat ride, this time to Ilet de la Mère, just off the coast of Cayenne. We picked up Olivia (Scottish assistant) on the way. She was clearly desparate for some UK banter, after two weeks living with her host family with pool, Jacuzzi and jet-ski included. Hard life, eh! The main reason we were heading to this island was for the monkeys, and they didn’t disappoint. As soon as we stepped off the boat, we were surrounded and they were jumping all over the place, especially if you had any food lurking upon your person. We walked a tour of the island and then settled onto the beach for an hour or so, which would have been nicer, had the water not been a mud bath instead of fresh water. Olivia and Katy had cute monkeys crawl up their arms and sit on their head- I had one do a poo on my bag. Such is life. On the boat ride back, the boat driver presented us with Lime, Sugar-cane Syrup, and Rum, all the ingredients of the Guyanese speciality, Ti-punch. The syrup and the rum don’t mix, so your first sip is pure rum and your last is pure sugar. An interesting experience. But I figure, if I drink it often enough I can probably do it withoxut squinting and violently shaking my head. After lunch and ice-cream at the hut we had slept in, it was 4 in the afternoon and we headed back on the long, boring road to St. Laurent. Everyone says it’s approximately 2.5-3 hours drive. It’s more like 4, but if anything it feels longer as it is just one straight road from Cayenne to St. Laurent which starts at 0km and ends at 299km. You also get questioned at the police checkpoint about half way there, where you must explain what you are doing on the road, show your passport, and generally go along with whatever power trip the gendarmes are on that day.

                And here I am, back in St. Laurent for another week of work- so far I have 5 scheduled hours between Wednesday and Friday. Next weekend we are planning on visiting les iles du Salut, apparently the only place in French Guiana with clear blue sea water. Yes! This is on the condition that we can find somewhere to stay, someone to drive us there and a boat to take us to the islands. Will let you know how that one goes!

Polly x 

Getting to Grips with Guyane

Having been in St. Laurent for around 10 days now, it’s safe to say it’s been an interesting, if not very eventful time. I’ve never thought of myself as a particularly hormonal person, but this week has been really testing.  Coming to a foreign country to live and work is SO different to travelling and adjusting has sometimes been difficult. Don’t get me wrong I’ve still fitted in some loving life- for instance, when we finally bought a bed to save having to live on the foam mattress on the floor, the time I discovered diet Orangina at the shop, or, the moment when the bank machine DIDN’T eat my card. However, compared to normal Polly there have definitely been more instances of moody/sad times, such as, when ALL I wanted to do was swim, but when we got there the pool had changed the schedule and was closed, or when the bank machine DID eat my card, or when I woke up in the middle of the forest in a hammock at 3 o’clock Sunday morning and thought, Where am I and WTF am I doing here?? However, after the first week, things are starting to even out a bit, the room is now looking more like a room than a homeless shelter, I’m buying a bike today, and we have even found some friends to go to dinner with tonight!

                Most of the first week was spent mostly running errands, learning to work around the RIDICULOUS opening hours here, oh and three hours of work on Friday (it's sometimes hard to remember I’m here doing a job as I haven’t actually started yet), So, it was nice to get away for the weekend... On one Katy’s (my roomy) schools was organising a sort of getaway for the weekend into the forest, and they were lacking in numbers so she signed up, and I tagged along J We didn’t go too far, but it was just nice to get out of the dirty city. We spent the weekend chilling in an open cabin thing by a creek that you could swim in, with kayaks for mini-adventures. We technically didn’t see any monkeys butttt we definitely heard something big moving in the trees. The night involved beer, rum, and a giant vat of spaghetti as altogether there were about 12 of us- including one of the teachers 2-year-old son which added to the fun. I think we made some new friends—the whole French thing seems like it’s going to be an issue though as everyone wants to practice their English :S I’m hoping to absorb it all and wake up fluent one day.  For the night, I slept in a hammock which I luckily found on the shelf outside our room with leftover stuff from past housemates. It didn’t even fall down in the middle of the night, despite my less-than-amazing hanging skills. Sunday was much the same. It’s a hard life when your biggest decision is deciding the exact point when you can’t nap any longer because you are too hot, and you need to jump into the river.  We have been invited to a similar weekend this weekend in Cayenne, the capital, to visit an island and do some walks with some of the same people. So, up till now, it looks like our plan to get out St. Laurent every weekend is going well.  

On Sunday evening one of the teachers drove us to the ONLY happening (and Open) bar on a Sunday, which was actually really cool. It’s a definite hang-out for those from the métropol as opposed to locals. It was a boat on the river which had been extended into a bar and holds open mic sort of stuff every Sunday. My goal is to sing there by the end of the year. My only concern with the night, well, with Guyane in general, is that, although everyone at the bar seemed to be drinking and loving life, as there is no public transport AT ALL, this means all of these people are driving home, which is not really too banterous.

Last Friday I got my first taste of what my job is actually going to be like. I visited three of my schools (god knows how many I’m going to have in total, I reckon it’s probably going to be like 2 hours in 6 different schools, not cool!) The first school was in the town centre, whereas the other two are in Amerindian villages, a rather long trek outside of the city. Having said that, ALL the kids seemed really nice, and generally enthusiastic about learning English, or maybe it was just the thought of having someone different teach them for an hour a week. Most of the teachers also seemed nice, although one of them seemed to have the technique of, keep shouting at them until they start crying, which was rather awkward. There was also another teacher who had his students separated according to how ‘weak’ or ‘strong’ they were, I believe he described the ‘worst’ table as useless. Apparently they need attention every 2 minutes, never do any work and are really disruptive. And all this he described right in front of them.

I think one of the most interesting things about the schools is going to be the amount of languages going on. In the centre of town, the vast majority of students speak taki taki at home which is a Creole, largely based on English, which I’m hoping will help. Whereas, in the other schools in the villages, at home the kids speak local tribal languages and the younger ones just starting school don’t speak any French at all. As well as this, there are also a fair amount of kids who have moved from Brazil, Suriname, and Guyana, which adds even more languages to the list. I’m not quite sure how the same curriculum that applies in actual France, can work just as well here, but that seems to be what happens. The facilities are generally quite bad. In one of my schools for example, there was one computer, no internet, and some of the classrooms had no electricity. The teachers are also limited to two photocopies per child per week! Looks like I’m going to be writing on the board a lot.

To be honest I don’t think I’m any closer to discovering how Guyane works or how it came to be as it is. We met a hippy doctor at a bar who had spent months WALKING across the middle-east (random), and he said he has been here for 5 years and still doesn’t really GET how all the different cultures function together. He also told us that it’s the simple things in life that make him happy, like, a nice leaf on a tree, or a breeze just as you are getting too hot. When he’s not too busy admiring the moments in life, he is apparently at the hospital trying to cure Leprosy. (I thought that was just a thing in the bible but appaza not- oops!) One thing I have worked out after just a week is that there is little integration between the locals and the ‘Europeans’. Every ethnic group has their own areas of the town to live, certain bars that they can go to and even parks where the children can hang out. One of the first questions everyone asks us when they find out the road we live is, so, you live with.... (Hushed tones)... locals? Er, yeh. It just seems incredible that there are many people suffering with things like leprosy and HIV here, living in tiny shacks with MANY children, when, just down the street, attending the same schools, a ‘FRENCH’ family will be doing their shopping at the air-conditioned supermarket, kite-surfing and kayaking at the weekend and biking on their nice bikes to the weekly yoga class (which was almost completely white). They might go to the ‘black’ village to a bar on a Friday, just to add a bit of excitement to the week, but that’s about it. Obviously this is a bit of a generalisation, and I’m sure there are exceptions, but this seems to be the case for the majority.  

Anyway, that is enough of my musings for one blog, I’m sure you can look forward to many more. The big question is, what on earth are we going to take to this dinner party tonight so that the people will want to be friends with us :S As for work this week, well, I went to a meeting this morning, but the women I was supposed to see had kindly forgotten and was in another town- so, we are no further forward on when I will be starting. At this rate they’ll be paying me around 100 Euros an hour for the work I’ve done this month! Oh well, shit happens!

Being Flexible (in more ways than one)

Life has been changing fairly swiftly over the past days: thankfully we are no longer living at the pool- the pool that we weren’t allowed to swim in... the women kept   parler-ing about the chemicals in the water... dubious! To celebrate the end of our time at the Pacoussine, we bought a bottle of 4 euro rum and started getting on it. The initial plan was a night out in Cayenne, however, once it transpired that, No, there really AREN’T any taxis, the hitch-hiking option seemed a bit less appealing. Especially when, I doubt that many people would want to pick up a bunch of random foreigners wandering around the capital, heading for a random suburb at 4 in the morning. So Pacoussine Party it was. Ring of fire was involved, yet again, although sadly the VIKING has not yet made it to the states so the rules were obviously not quite as banterous. Somehow we managed to entertain ourselves until around 2, this did involve a cheeky Maroon 5 concert from one of the Brazilians (who knew they were big out there?), Sadly he didn’t know Payphone, une grande dommage -oui-jpridz? At 2, and it had to be 2 for some unknown reason, Lucy decided to plonge dans la piscine. Sans clothes. Ok, just underwear. There are some lovely photos flotting around somewhere :S Oh well, why fight it when you can be classic brits abroad? Even if we are, it seems, the ONLY Brits in this country at this time- tourism doesn’t seem to have quite reached these parts.

The next morning, Sunday, the gods of the swimming pool had decided that there would be no electricity and thus internet for us pauvre assistants. This meant we actually had to talk to each other... awkward! Obvs just kidding, everyone was pretty friendly although for some (ok, maybe more than some) Im kind of wandering if they knew what they were letting themselves in for in Guyane, or why they wanted to come here at all. As we keep being reminded, Oui c’est la france, but we are actually in South America – although it doesn’t ressemble any part of it I’ve ever seen....

Sunday was also moving out day, much though I loved living in the back room of a swimming pool and freezing at night due to some people being rather KEEN with the aircondicionado. We were all moving on, some with more appetizing prospects than others. Olivia, for example, is moving in with a family, and living there for free, with an ensuite, swimming pool and even a jetski thrown in for jokes!- on the condition that she teaches their daughter English. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me... Lucy, on the other hand, is also living for free although this seems to be some kind of back alley Couchsurfing deal, where she may have to disappear for the weekend when the real owner of the room comes back to hangout. I’m sure she’ll make friends in no time, her town is so small, apparently she’ll know everyone before she even gets there... practically.

Me, on the other hand, trekked alllll the way across this crazy country- or whatever you call it, which, by the way, is one straight road all the way (there’s not much inbetween), to my home for the year, St. Laurent Du Maroni. First impressions, were, not going to lie, not great. If one has a penchant for decrepit and deserted colonial shacks and the odd alcoholic wandering the streets, you would love it here. Basically it seems to be a bit of a mixture between nice suburbs populated by all the metropolites (people who come from France mainland), with serious looking gates and swimming pools for the residents anddddd.... the odd ghetto/ less nice suburb populated by the natives, or those coming from the islands or suriname. To make life a little bit more jokes, the language on the street is generally a creole called taki taki, tres ideale for my language development this year.

Me and Katy- the American assistant, also lovinglife2k12 here in St Laurent, have decided to live in the centre-ville, but this is all good, because we are one block away from all the prostitutes and at least a 2 minute walk away from the village chinois which seems to be a bit of a no-go-zone. When I say we decided to live here... basically I mean, I was staying at a teachers house Sunday/Monday night, in one of the nicer suburbs, when I got a phone call from Katy saying, I met a guy, he is moving out tomorrow, we can move in, pretend only one of us is living there and only pay 250 euro between us a month. Sounds perf.  250 is an absolute bargain here when people easily opay upwards of 500 a month for a studio- ridicule, je sais! And... mostly it is perf... it just needs a bit of decorating. The bed is currently a mattress on the floor with some wooden palettes underneath, but we are working on that. Today we acquired a table and two chairs to create the dining corner of our room, AND, piece de resistance, the iron bars on the windows are perfect to hang a hammock between. Theres a vaguely equipped kitchen as well- win!

Our new housemates did sort of look at us like... who are these crazy white girls moving into this place with just backpacks and a beach towel, BUT generally everyone keeps to themselves and we have had pas de problemes in our first two days. Also, either camouflage is back in fashion or, the guys work for the army. Nous ne sommes pas sur. Anyway, living with border control must surely be good for security, n’est pas? On the plus side, if my laptop gets stolen, I will probably be able to claim more on insurance than it is actually worth, another win. Lack of internet in this lovely house is a bit of sad times however. BUT I did find an internet cafe today which is 50cents an hour with a student card, AND apparently the supermarket has free WiFi, so I may have to head over there for a croissant and a cheeky skype a couple of times a week... The other option is to make some kind of deal with the people that live downstairs where, they give us their password, we pay them some money and everyone is happy :D Now we just need to find the Chinese lady at the pizza place to pay the rent too and we are good to go!

I haven’t even been to a school yet, although im not sure I even want to, given that when I tell people the school Im going to, the responses range from, good luck, to, you are going to regret this in the raining season, to, by bike? But you will die! Bueno, we shall have to see. Im beginning to think that the assistants in some cases are just a bit of a faff for the teachers to organise. At one of my schools, apparently most students don’t speak French as a first language, so I highly doubt the effectiveness of an English teacher there for between 2-4 hours/ week. But apparently this order for each school to have English tuition has come direct from the métropol, so it must be adhered to.

We have just about exhausted all the errand running that we need to do around here, although even that is almost impossible, given that everything is closed either between 12-2 or 2-4, or on special occasions 12-2 AND 2-4, so basically the town is like a ghost town unless its 7.30am, basically because it’s just TOO hot to do anything most of the day. The fruit and veg market which happens twice a week was nice this morning though! We are all stocked up until the next one on Saturday! ALSO, due to a lack of having anything to do, as both my teachers and katys don’t seem in any rush for us to start work, we have gone in search of activities to keep us entertained. So far, we have come up with, cinema one night (there is only one screen and thus one film a week...), swimming one night, capoeira one night- we called some guy named junior who is going to hook us up, AND, the success of the day, YOGA. We are going to be well bendy if we go twice a week. You pay 60 euro to be a member for the year and that includes 4 hours a week... a bargain I say! The location was really cool as well, in a school, but outside looking out into the forest and hearing the insects buzzing. Turns out the teacher lived in London for 7 years, so she can even swap to English if we get stuck, random! But all in all, it went well, and we even managed to croggy there. I fell the secret to success in Guyane is going to be keeping busy, keeping hydrated, and keeping the skin peeling to a minimum. I feel its time now for me to aller to my mattress on the floor for a good nights sleep. This will be uploaded the next time I visit my friend at the 50c place, or feel the urge for a pain au chocolat from the supermarché.

A tout de suite
Polly xxx