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
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