Carnaval and other unrelated Guyane banter

             The holidays are finally here! I know, I know... whats that you say? It seems like yesterday I was raving it up in Miami? Well, it wasn't quite yesterday, but it was only 5 weeks ago. Definitely time for me to be off again- This time to Curacao! Working for the French government does have its perks! (albeit not many). The holidays are for carnaval, and EVERYONE gets a 5-day weekend to celebrate. The three biggest days of carnaval are monday tuesday and the finale next wednesday. I am missing all of them- oops. I LOVE the idea, a huge street party once a week for weeks on end culminating in a week long party, costumes, dancing, drums, etc. BUT its just putting the ideas into practice that poses the problems. I don't want to be rude about  my adoptive territory, but, its hardly RIO. Donning a sweaty, not to mention hideous polyester costume complete with mask and then being forced to pick old lechy men to grind with is not my idea of a banterous friday night. And although the parades are fun, Im not really sure how a group of 'hoodlum's wearing gorilla masks running in the streets and making as many children cry as possible fits into the theme. RANT over.
         There are a couple of Carnaval pluses! The galette de rois, a pretty tasty almond flavoured cake which has a little toy hidden in one slice and if it's in your slice you get to wear the king's crown which comes with the cake. Erm... I have been working a lot less these past couple of weeks: apparently English class with PollyJ just doesn't make the cut when there is carnaval-related cutting and sticking to be done! Today, I went to the carnval party at one of my schools- much more my level than the awkward adult ones. I arrived just as the procession was starting. Each class had a different theme, supposedly to do with nature, so we had elves, trees, lots of leaves, etc. One particularly banterous teacher had decided it would be a great idea to make his class wear swimming gear and then paint them entirely blue. It was quite a sight! We paraded around the dirt tracks of the village to an audience of about 25, most of whom decided they could watch from their hammock as opposed to bothering to get up. After the tour, they sang a song- and then out of nowhere, everyone whipped out a bag of flour and it was a full-on war!

Apparently, teachers should be treated with respect, whereas English assistants are fairgame!

Some of my students were nice enough to give me some of their flour to be able to retaliate but the damade was done. I definitely got some very weird looks when I biked home looking like this!

In other news... I am becoming worryingly Caribbean in my attitude in some ways. Please do not read the following and think, hang on, I think the word she is looking for is LAZY. its not. its Caribbean. So there.
I don't know whether its the heat, the lack of things to do, the invitingness of the bed, the lack of working hours, or the rain, but recently I struggle to accomplish even simple tasks in a day.

Seriously- In England, if I have things to do, I can generally get them all done super fast in an errand-hour/ occasionally afternoon.

Here= different story.

What shall I do today ? Some lesson planning? A blog perhaps? That insurance form I have been meaning to do since November? The bank transfer I have needed for 3 months? The answer is probably that none of these things will get done. By 10pm, If I have managed to eat at least 2 meals, do a songs worth of sit-ups and have a cheeky skype, I feel the day has been fairly productive. Yesterday, I even squeezed in a jam tart- and a two hour skype with wine involved. Productivity through the roof.

The thing is: yes, I should crack with my year-abroad essay, I should probably think of a topic for next weeks lessons or plan the trip to Brazil in April. However, the essay isn't due til June, the kids will never notice if I put in 3 hours planning or 3 minutes, and if I rock up in Brazil on the 1st April, everything will probably be ok regardless of planning. I have never been a one for deadlines- I hate the idea of leaving essays til the last minute, and when I want, I can be quite organised. But here there is just NO motivation. This week there has been NOTHING that actually needs to be done THIS WEEK.  I feel I have learnt that though I am not a fan of routine and monotony- Some semblance of structure/ purpose in life is probably useful! (I am sure I will eat these words when I am a final year student with lots of deadlines and things to do, people to see, places to be... )

Today I actually managed to put all my insurance forms in one plastic wallet! Who knows, maybe sometime after curacao I will get round to photocopying them?

In the meanwhile, I will be lying on the beach drinking a blue lagoon- blue curacao is clearly from curacao??? right??? SO, potench I will too busy to write a blog next week- hope you can all cope!