A Standard Week in My Ridiculous Life

So, as many of you are wandering, I'm sure, what on earth I actually do with my days given that my work schedule is 12-hours a week, (if that) I feel now is the time to give you a sneek peek of the life of PollyJ here in SLM. Don't get too excited.

Monday- We start the week at a classic 7.00am. This is something I will NOT be adapting back in England life. Don't worry, there is plenty of snooze-ing done, usually until the last possible moment, as in, out of bed 7.47am- leave house at 8. If there is no time for breakfast, a strawberry milkshake from the "chinois/ corner shop" will have to do. 8.15- My first class of the week. This lucky class get to test out my lesson plan for the week, before all the other classes, generally meaning its in need of a bit of improvement. But, I like these guys- generally good banter. UNLIKE class number 2. I generally have some chocolate in the break to psych myself up for it but it doesn't do much good. They are the worst of the week consistently. I walk in, teacher walks out for a snack, chat, and general free hour. Kids go wild. I sit and wait... sometimes for half the class. We get round to the date, I send a couple of people out. I ask "how are you?" they reply "yes". I explain that this doesn't make sense and the class is finished. Teacher has not returned so I leave them and go next door. To the young'uns- meaning they're cute, but they don't understand. If, after an hour someone stands up when I ask who is wearing 'green' we have done well.

And that's it for the days work. 11am- I'm out of there! Sometime between 11 and 6 I will fit in the weekly food shop. More and more depressing as the weeks go by. I just cannot live permanently in a place where bread, milk, eggs, salami cheese and juice with the odd tin of veg costs 30 pounds. Thing is, even if I had all the money in the world, there is nothing to spend it on. There just isn't the choice. And that's when the shop is full! Often, there are whole aisles empty, waiting for a delivery from France. There was cheese-gate at the beginning of January and Peanut-butter-gate has been ongoing for a while now. 33 types of pasta does not make up for the fact that there is only one type of sauce for the pasta... tomato.

Sometimes I teach a private lesson on Mondays, but if not thats about it until Yoga at 6. Thankfully the easy class is on Mondays, so its mostly stretching, ommm-ing, lots of lying down, namaste, au revoir. My kind of exercize. Monday night is normally write blog night, epic fail this week as you can see.

Tuesday- Same thing, three hours at a school 8-11 (My favourite school). The teachers are organised, they tell me what to do, and they control the class when they don't listen. Sort of, like, what they are supposed to do! Sometimes I even get an e-mail the day before informing me of what I will be expected to do- what a treat! In the afternoon I do a class with some adults - primary school teachers who have to learn English to be able to teach it in their classes. Sometimes 1 person shows up, if we are lucky, 3. I bore them with my poor grammar knowledge and a banal role-play that I have been told to do, everyone leaves, thankful it is over for another week.

Tuesday evening is a bit of a loose end. No yoga, pool closed, not even the juice place by the river is open! Awkward. I'll watch a film, faff around or maybe go for a bike ride. Or, do some baking, which is planning to get into as of now.

Wednesday- Another 3 hours at school- yet again a different one. I teach 4 classes for 40 mins each, although normally at least one teacher is absent. They don't replace teachers here. They tell the kids not to come, and if anyone shows up they get lumped in with another class to do some colouring. great solution. Sometimes, the kids have been naughty and are not allowed to have an English class- even less work. Either way, I end up doing not very much. I head to the market when I'm done, tomatoes, bananas, lettuce, and for a special treat Peppers! are usually on the list. Again, fairly uninspiring, same stuff every week, although there is a stall that does a nice slice of raspberry tart!

Wednesday lunch is the first swim of the week- I always aim for 100 lengths but, generally I consider anything over 80 lengths to be an acceptable amount to justify the raspberry tart. Lots of faffing, and soon enough its 6pm, yoga class number 2. No relaxing here. The poster is put up on the wall. You do 5 sun salutation A, 5 sun salutation B and you are off. You follow the postures on the poster, nobody talks, and the teacher comes round and sometimes moves you into the right position. The best part by far is the lying down at the end- if you rush through the positions, sometimes you can even fit in a cheeky nap!

Thursday- The dreaded hour of 6.30am is seen once a week as I have to be teaching by 8 but the school is a half an hour bike ride away. I teach some more little ones. We played simon says on the first day, and everything I have done since has been a let down for them. The teacher told me to just send people out if they misbehave, even if I only have one person left at the end. Its quite fun. How are you? Yes! Are you tired? Yes! So you want to sleep? No! You're hungry? No, who want's food? Yes... and so on... ridiculous.

I have an hour break between classes so I sit by the river, eat a precious apple (literally a euro each)- and then its back on the bike to go half an hour further down the road. I reach the school sweating ridiculously having had to walk up the biggest hill in the area because I have still not succeeded in biking all the way to the top. 45 minutes of heads, shoulders, knees and toes has pretty much kept me going since october, although we did make snowflakes at christmas for a bit of variety. 11am and I'm off back to SLM, a delightful hour on the bike in the midday heat.

At the beginning of the year I would sometimes go to the cinema on Thursdays, but, sadly, it has closed down, because they don't even make films in the format the the cinema runs on anymore. I mean, seriously. Occasionally they show old documentaries but not often. If not, its a cookie and a juice by the river and some book reading. Thrilling.

Friday- Time for a lie-in. Today I can snooze until 8.40am because I don't have to leave until 9! I make it to the school for half past, but luckily the break always goes long and I only end up having to teach for about 20 minutes. Its the same class as thursday. The only class I teach two times a week, and the ones that understand the least. I am also their ONLY english teacher. Given that I have no idea of the curriculum for their age (or in fact any age I teach)- one can only hope some of it will be relevant in the future. As we only have 20 mins, I never plan much apart from, er, finish what we did yesterday. The day break finishes on time I am up shit creek. Oh wait- we are in Guyane. The break will never finish on time.

I then teach two of the nicest/ highest level classes of the week which is a nice end to the week and then bike home at lunch time in rush hour! (ha!) Seriously, there is a bigger rush hour here at lunchtime than there is in the morning or the evening. People must seriously be craving crepes and baguette!

If it is an exciting weeked (probably not) I will then hitchhike/ taxi/ carshare to somewhere more exciting and see some other assistants. If not, the friday night highlight is another 100 lengths at the pool. Before christmas we used to go out to some bars for a boogie, but to be honest it's the same thing every night, and I do not want random old rasta's grinding up on me and stinking of weed, paying paris prices in a shack in the middle of nowhere. So... I haven't been for a while.

Saturday- Definite lie-in, this time a proper one as I have nothing to get up for :D Then its off to the market to stock up on raspberry tart. Sometimes I go crazy and get a couple of spring rolls, a samosa and call it a picnic! whoop! Movie in the afternoon perhaps, bike ride and some more cookies and juice in the evening! possibilities are endless

Sunday- Another lie-in, obvs. Then another 100 lengths. Go me. Then its lesson planning day. I don't know why I always leave it last minute but I do. Every week I plan to do something exciting and different, every week it gets to sunday and im like, hmm, ok lets do... the alphabet. Planning done. I generally have a marathon skype afternoon with however is available and then... as it is carnival season, around 4-5 the parade starts, it gets to loud to hear so I go outside grab an ice-cream and watch.

Sunday evening is choir time- we have a concert in April and already know all the songs, but seriously I doubt we'll be ready. The level is, shall we say, not quite university standard. On the plus side, its something to do and everyone is friendly :D

And that my friends, is about it. Im sure you're all wildly jealous. NOT. Hope my life hasn't been to boring for you :D xxx

The Chickenman

        It has been an especially dull week in the land of St. Laurent Du Maroni -and trust me, to be especially dull takes some doing... As such we shall have to turn to the children of my numerous classes to provide the entertainment for this blog-post. For some bizarre reason, the three CM2 (year 6) classes I teach on a tuesday morning were all on top banterous form. I'm hoping some of these quotes don't end up being "had to be there" moments... that would be awkward! 

          The first classic came when I was asking the children if they had any interesting pets at home (other than the 8 dogs and 3 cats- apparently normal for a guyanese household). The quotes are obviously all translated. If they could speak English this well by age 10 I wouldn't need to be assisting them! Teacher: Jean-Claude, you have a parrot, don't you? Child: No. Teacher: Yes, you do, I'm sure you do. Child: Yes, but he's dead. Teacher: (laughing)... Ha, I know its not funny, but still... Child: Miss, it's not funny. What can I say! He drank some hot water and he died! Cue awkward silence in the class. 

          Who knew a bit of agua caliente could pose such problems to our parrot friends! Shortly after, another girl explained that she did have a dog but not anymore. I didn't want to get into any more dead parrot situations but still, I had to ask: "did he die?" "No miss, he left." "Why did he leave?" "How should I know miss, he's a dog, he's got to live his life, you know?" Fair enough. Sounds like my kind of dog. 

           I was then given the interesting task of having to explain the words for chicken both female and male. Chicken was easy. They knew that one. Hen I could explain. And then we came to the male one or, the boy chicken as I referred to it as I forgot the french word for male. Hint: its male. One particularly loud boy in the front row, who I have often seen at the bar in the local discotheque (he is 10!), shouted out "Chickenmon" jamaica style. "Er, no, sadly its not chickenman" I explained, although I kind of wished it was as it would save me the embarassment of having to explain the word Cock. The worst part about this, is that, as they don't speak English, this word means nothing to them, apart from male chicken after today. But for some reason, it made me feel really sheepish as if I was teaching them a bad word. Sometimes I think the kids have a higher mental age than me. Particularly when they correct my french grammar. "Me: are you happy?vous etes heureuse?.... Child: Er, madame, it's actually heureux" Well, you know what? You don't see me correcting every single word of English you speak which is wrong, do you! I just smile and pretend I understand. (BAD TEACHER).I did get to teach them another cheeky word later on in the class: FART Because, quite frankly the smell was too bad to ignore. Lets hope they don't tell the teacher. 

             When asking a simple question to a 9-year old, you can never expect a simple answer. When you pick them to answer a question, they have the floor and they want it for as long as possible. So.. How many dogs do you have? Clearly, I require an answer such as 2, or in the case of this crazy country, probably 9 or so. Even the teacher has 7! What I will get however, is the life story of each dog, living or dead, the dreams, fears and future career plans for each animal. This is great, sometimes, when I have been too busy napping on a sunday (often) to fill a full 45 minutes with my lesson plan. However, when I actually want to move onto another subject than animals (which we have been doing for 3 weeks now), its not ideal. Thank god for the kid with the big glasses and the mullet who sits in the front of my third class. When I asked Toya (tres chatty) how many dogs she has.. .she replied... 7, but 

nowitsonly6becauseoneranawayandtheotheronedidthistheotherday.... blah blah, He tapped her gently on the shoulder and explained: "er, Toya, If i'm not mistaken, I think she was asking you for the exact number of dogs, not their life story, thanks." LEGEND. 

           I'm well aware that these various musings on children and domestic animals may be completely boring and pas de tout funny and maybe its just me chuckling away, but to be honest, I am a little worried for my sanity. The most adult conversation I have had this week was with the 12-year old who has been stuck in year 5 for three years now. Oh, and the weird guy at the park, who came and sat leaning against me on a park bench (er, inappropriate) and proceeded to tell me how beautiful I was, how much he liked my style and that he wanted to be with me, and oh, maybe I could help him find a job as well. I had a snotty nose, greasy hair, I was practically wearing pajamas- as I do most days these days- and thought that putting my headphones in, and writing in a notebook facing away from him would give off the "I'm not interested" signal. When that failed, I asked him politely to let me do some work. He was STILL not detered. in fact, he asked me if I was scared of him. Great chat-up line! "Ok madam. I will sit right here, on the other bench and wait for you to be finished and then we can talk." He waited over 45 mins where I did not so much as glance at him. Needless to say, when I finished I got on the bike and biked quickly and in a weird way so he couldn't follow. Not cool.

          I suppose i'm just getting a bit frustrated being stuck in this town. The first week after Miami was ok because I needed some downtime, but now we are three weeks into the term, and I have not been inside a single moving vehicle, meaning the whole time has been spent in the same 1km2 of the town centre. Oh, and my 2 far away schools which I have to bike to, but even then it was raining and biking in the rain gave me a cold this weekend. Not ideal. If I have a problem like this home (which, to be honest) I wouldn't have, I would call some friends and DO something. 2 problems... don't wanna sound like a Billy, but to be honest I can't really say, aside from other assistants who mostly live 3 hours away, I haven't really made any friends. 2nd problem: Even if I had, there is NOTHING to do. Thank god for Skype and Utorrent. You know its sad when you go to an all-day choir rehearsal and one of the teachers of your classes takes you and explains that, she's not feeling great as she went to bed at half 5 after a carnaval party. She is 35. I am 21. My friday night was spent doing 100 lengths at the swimming pool, making a jacket potato, downloading a gossip girl and getting to bed by 10 because I had to be up at half 8. What is that about?!?! I can't even rely on yummy food to get me through as none is available. I was watching the comic relief bake-off thing today (a program I would NEVER watch at home) and was actually salivating at a victoria sponge!

Bring on the Caribbean... 13 days of teaching and 3 weekends to go! Ha.. I guess my life is not such a sob story after all.

Peace out, 

Polly xxx

The Things I Have Learnt

      Things I Have Learnt So Far This Year… (In No Particular Order)

·         How to fix a bike chain that has fallen off.

·         How to accidentally delete the start bar and sound card on the laptop, and then also have to learn how                                 to get it back.

·         That St Laurent Du Maroni has the only still-operating Wooden (yes, Wooden!) hospital in the whole of France and its territories.

·         How to make a better than average crêpe without any weighing scales!

·         That napping the majority of the afternoon in a tropical country is completely acceptable.

·         The first half of the first series of poses of Ashtanga yoga.

·         That paying 6 euros to get to Suriname and back to save 3 euros on a loaf of bread is completely justified- on principle alone.

·         How to negotiate A and E on my own in a foreign language (still haven’t got the bill-whoop!)

·         Why people who travel South America always seem to miss out the Guyanas- ouch :S

·         That Guyane has the highest birth rate in not only France, but the whole of the Americas! (the average birth rate is 4! Children per woman, compared with 1.9 in metropolitan France.

·         How to discipline my students in Nenge Tongo, the local language. Sidon. Tapu U Mofu (sit down, and shut your mouth J)

·         How to write as much as possible in a text using abbreviations and txt tlk to avoid going into two text messages which will cost 22c instead of 11!

·         It is possible to get sunburnt even when there is a tropical storm going on.

·         Your mail will still be delivered even when someone put a firework in the box destroying it. You just have to hope that you get to the letter balanced on a shelf by your gate before someone else does.

·         That speaking to a person at the post office to pay for posting postcards can save you 7c per postcard compared to stamps from the shop- win!

·          That the Indian food section of the supermarket here consists of one lonely jar of chicken tikka masala, overpriced, like everything, at 4 euro. I will live without and enjoy a nice pasanda with pashwari nan, 2 bargi’s some pakora and mango chutney when I get home- not that I’m craving it or anything.

·         That pay-as-you-go phones still exist and that here, they are an absolute rip-off.

·         That sometimes, shops can run out of phone credit for a specific company. How do you run out of a thing that you can’t even see... what?

·         That 60% of the population here are under 25, 55% of the working-age population are unemployed and that the growth rate per year of the population is 3.7%

·         That when you introduce yourself as Polly to French-speakers they will generally hear Pauline, and, being British you will be too polite to correct them.

·         How to control a class of 30 7-9 year olds so they learn lots of English and behave perfectly every class. Ha! Just kidding, still very much working on this one.

·         That NOTHING you would like to get done at a certain time can get done at said time due to weird, restrictive and annoying opening hours. Particularly between 12-4pm when sleeping and eating are the only acceptable activities. If you are on the street at this time, not sleeping or eating, you will be looked at weirdly and told “bon appétit” as if you are surely on your way home to eat tout de suite.

·         How to fill out an immigration/ customs form without having to consult my passport for any details as I know them all off by heart.

·         That some of my 10 year old students can have a very basic conversation in English (probably their 3^rd language), whereas other people in the same class cannot write their own name in any language. Yay French school system :S

·         That a Cosmo magazine, with 1.50euro plastered all over the cover, turns out to be approximately 15.64 euro when you add on the costs of importing and overseas department prices rises, meaning no Cosmo for Polly J.

·         That any Caribbean song must mention the words “wind up your body” at least 62 times to be successful.

·         That the bus stops and taxi stands dotted around the town are all lies, there to deceive tourists and visitors that this is a place where public transportation exists. It doesn’t.

·         That the mini keyboard I bought to help with some sight-singing plays a semi-tone below the actual pitch it is supposed to be. #Musicstudentproblems

·         That unless you want to buy a 10-pack of toilet roll approximately everyday, you need to hide it in your room, away from your male flatmates. Awkward, when you’re on the toilet and then realise that you have forgotten- again :S

 And finally I have learnt.....

·         That, although I have learnt a lot of things so far on this year abroad, I have not learnt much of the things that I am here to be learning such as: How to speak French, how to tell off a student (they are normally just having banter), how to appreciate a fine French red wine (give me rosé any day!), or how to write a year abroad essay... I’ll start soon... obviously... I think I’ll just have a cheeky 3 hour nap then make a crepe and go to yoga. But after, defs...

That is all for now readers,
Polly (or Pauline, whatever you’d prefer...) xxx

Trop de champagne, pas assez de yoga...

         In the wise words of my yoga teacher, too much champagne, not enough yoga. Pretty much my sentiments for the past 10 days, except replace champagne with vodka and not enough yoga for no yoga, no exercize and lots of American food. It has been a very DIFFERENT christmas to normal, and although I am seriously looking forward to mince pies, gravy and a large tub of celebrations next year, maybe a ham and pineapple pancake and a bike ride around town aren't the worst way to spend Christmas. Thankfully internet arrived chez-nous just in time for major skying-seshes to occur on actual Christmas day, that, coupled with the new Michael McIntyre on DVD made it fairly bareable. Oh yeah, and the fact that I knew I was flying to Miami on the 28th may have also helped...
         Started my holiday at 2.30am on a bus to the airport. Something must have gone wrong with the planning because I arrived at the airport at 4am, for a 8am flight, in an airport where security takes approximately 3 minutes. I made myself comfy on the concrete floor, had a nap, and by the time I had woken up it was nearly boarding time! After a cheeky connection in Aruba and a spicy chicken sandwich, we were touching down in MIA... and I was properly back in civilisation! It happened to be raining at the time, which panicked me slightly but I put on a brave face, took a bus to the hostel and settled into the city for a few hours waiting for Sando to arrive.
        ...Which he finally did... at half past midnight! Meaning I had been up almost 24 hours... we still managed to go to the seafront and grab a beer though... I mean, I'm in Miami! The days sort of all blur into one with a delightful mixture of beach, food, more beach, nap, Party!, nap, beach, PArty! Party! NAP. Just what I wanted after three months in the amazon. The first two nights we went out with the hostel (apparently THE way to gurantee being let in, lets just say, Miami bouncers are slightly stricter, than, say, the willow. I wish I could remember the first one, although I'm sure it was great. Sando gave up on the second after queuing for over an hour, but I persevered, made some friends in the queue, snuck in through a fire door whilst they were letting people in after a fire alarm, and partied away at Nikki Beach.
             The next day was New Years Eve! We were lucky enough to meet some really cool people in our dorm that spoke french (Sando was loving that, not- at least there was a token German as well) Better still, they had a car and together we checked out downtown Miami, including a variety of not very interesting sight-seeing spots, lots of VERY tall buildings, riding around and getting lost on the worlds SEEMINGLY most simple metro system. Oh yes, and an ill-fated walk to Little Havana, which ended up in us giving up after walking 2 blocks and sitting in Wendys for 2 hours eating burger after burger. We did get to Little Havana eventually, in the car (much more suitable) but sadly it wasn't very exciting. It seemed to be just a run down high street with signs in Spanish (whoop ?) We collectitvely decided our time would be much better spent napping in prep for another big night.
           Most club tickets were going for at least 200USD! and even the hostel offering was 100! Hmm, I don't think so. Fireworks on the beach sounded like a perfectly good free option to me. It definitely turned out to be the best idea. After a brief incident where I lost Sando at 5 to Midnight, we found eachother, watched the fireworks and tried out the water (COLD!- or boiling, if its Sando you talk to. He has obviously not been living in the caribbean for 3 months. Next stop Ocean Drive. The strip was PACKED with people, families, partiers, drag queens, the lot! Perf for a bit of street Salsa dancing. (I taught James, according to him, he is awesome, ask for a demonstration :p) Bought a cheeky 11 dollar slushie-- it did have alcohol in it, don't worry I haven't gone completely crazy, and continued dancing down the street until we danced our way into a bar/club thing on the beach for free! Well, free for me, and it would have been for James, if he hadn't decided to shimmy into some guy and knock his beer over. He offered to buy a new one... bit awkward when it turns out a budweiser costs 12 dollars! Luckily he didn't let that deter him from the crazy dancing.
         Don't know whose idea it was for a 5am swim, but it definitely wasn't mine. I did get involved though. My shoulders just about went under for a second before I decided that this was ridiculously cold compared to the bath-like temperatures I am used to here in Guyane. I really enjoyed waking up hungover AND soaking wet- what a start to 2013. 1st January could have been great, if James hadn't decided he was hatinglife2k13. I mean seriously, it was like he had never stayed out late and drank before. "Polly, I mean, I don't know whats wrong with me, I just feel so tired and moody." Hello! welcome to the world! Its hard to decide between my two fav quotes of the day, the first being "Polly, I think its best if we just walk home in silence, because anything I say is just not going to be very nice..." Closely followed by, "Polly, what is the definition of morose? "Me: its what you are being right now... " James: "Yeh, I thought so. He managed to pull himself together enough to catch a midnight showing of Les Mis at the cinema (we did sneak a nap first, however it was still touch and go whether he would make it past the trailers awake or not :S) We both liked the film, but the general consensus was that it was too long- whether this is because it was actually too long, or whether its because it was 3am New years day and we had slept 4 hours and drunk lots, we are undecided.
          Another beach day- tanning for me, suncreaming for James, why he only brought factor 15 with skin the colour of his I do not know! The water was actually fairly nice in the day! And, it gave us a chance to check out the planes constantly flying overhead with signs telling you where to go out that night. I didn't want to risk another day of Morose-James so we took a night off for a change, after going out with one of the other assistants, also on holiday in Miami for dinner and drinks.


         Only an hour on the beach the next day as we headed to the everglades for the afternoon. The 'gators were cool, but the most amusing part was the southern accent of the tourguide and watching as the chinese tourists' hats flew off into the swamp despite being warned to take them off. Ha! The air boat ride was fun, and the whole everglade situation is fairly weird, like a masssssssivvvvvve shallow river/pond covered with grass and man made gaps for the boats to get through. I feel at least we saw some (:S) nature in the week. After a night off, there were no excuses for missing another so, after an hour or so chilling in the jacuzzi at the hostel (I know, right?!) we got ourselves ready headed off in the hostels party bus to the club, got some free drinks and then snuck off to find something better. Don't know how we pulled it off, but we ended up being led into a lift by some guy, sent up to the top floor, where, the doors opened and we found a dj rocking up the balcony- overlooking south beach! Not at all bad. Vodka was 15 dollars, so we snuck to a shack on the street and then came back, but all in all good music, good views, good fun!

        The last full day in Miami was obviously reserved for more beach as well as some souvenirs- who doesn't need a oop oop oop Gangnam style t-shirt?? We rented bikes in the afternoon and biked up the beach then saw some more sights and panicked to get them back to the place in time. Cheeky nap (as always) and then, time for a bit of culture! We took a picnic to the park to watch an the Orchestral Academy on the big screen outside of the concert hall. How tres sophisticated. I also had my last 7/11 slushie of the week- they will be sorely missed! Oh, and a Mcdonalds cheeseburger- just to check that they taste the same in America as in England- honest! Obviously we ended the holiday in style, back on the party bus to the 2nd biggest club in Miami and in my opinion the best club of the week, Cameo. The music was good AND the Dj was mixing well, that, like, never happens! It was great but James dragged me away at half 3.. something about me having to get up and pack at 9 to leave for my flight at 10, what a nightmare!



Lets just say the flight was not too fun. I feel asleep before take off and then was rudely awoken by a women  with a baby who was apparently in the seat next to me :S Even the cheese sandwich was terrible. Sort it out Caribbean Airways! Finally rocked up back in Paramaribo at 2am, slept in a hostel there the night before getting back to SLM (st. Laurent du Maroni- for us cool locals lol)  5 weeks to go til the Caribbean.... 24 days of teaching- not that Im counting! Hope everyone is loving life 2k13 :D

Adios xxx