Bring on the rain....

             Luckily the rain waited until AFTER I had finished teaching for the week. A 15km/45min soaking wet journey does not appeal massively :S But pretty much since Friday it has been rain times! Don't get me wrong, its not all day, I can still have a nice 2 hour swim in the outdoor pool, or sit and have a juice and a cookie from the hut on the river, but for a few hours each day it is tempting to snuggle up in my sleeping bag and nap the day away. So far I have been quite enjoying it. After months of feeling guilty for spending a single second inside when the weather is so nice, finally, it is cold enough to wear trousers (sort of- if you put the fan on full) and not feel bad for watching three episodes of Gavin and Stacey back to back.
         

  In other exciting news, I arrived home on Thursday (after a cheeky desparados and lesson planning sesh) to find internet installed and working in our flat. YAY! No more having to trek to the supermarket for my limited 90 mins before the battery runs out. I've even worked out how to get Iplayer working. Ok, so in the new year I'm going to try and not just chill and watch English tv/radio, but for now, its Christmas, its raining, my roommate has left so I have the room to myself, Im going to make the most of it.
            Its not been a particularly exciting week, in fact I have been fairly healthy. Lots of yoga, Lots of swimming, Lots of vegetables, and No Alcohol (1 desparados in 10 days does not count)! In fact its been an actual detox! Not sure what Im going to do with the 15 plantains and the 5 Aubergines that I have to eat before wednesday but Im sure we can find a use for them.  Bikini body for Miami, here we come. (5 days to go!) I've checked the weather forecast and apparently its around 25. Will be taking a hoodie and jeans.
           On Friday, I went to one of my schools (voluntarily!) for the Christmas party, and got to see Santa arriving in a canoe from across the river while all the children sat and waited. Potentially the worst Santa costume EVER but I suppose you have to work with what you've got here. The kids then sang some songs (the 10-year old conductor did a VERY interesting job)... and sat down for some juice and yule log. I was invited to sit at one of the tables. But, didn't realize that me sitting down, was because they wanted one of the other girls sat there to leave. I explained that this wasn't very nice and why would they want here to leave? I didn't know quite what to do with the response : "Well, we want to have all white people at this table." Right. So, I grabbed an extra chair so no one would have to leave and tried to tell them that this was not an acceptable form of arranging seating. Had a conversation with one of the girls at the table. "Madame, I used to live in Suriname" Me: "Thats nice, whereabouts?" (as in, which city)... "You know, the red house with the white door..."... Me: "?? Oh, yeh.... cool..."
            Im getting ready for battle this afternoon at the supermarche. On a normal day, you have to wait about 20 mins for a free checkout counter, even if you want to buy one item! But today, when it is opening expecially for christmas shopping madness, who knows! I could be there for hours ! whoop. No turkey for me, at this rate it looks like plantain and aubergines with whatever else I can find for a bargain price... i.e- nothing! I also need to get two bottles of wine, which, will probably end up being drunk (obvs) but are primarily to fill the santa trousers wine-carrier my sister felt the urge to send me :D

Mastering "le stop"

Well, it seems like my pleading letter in poor French to post-office customs worked, because I arrived home from a weekend away to find a package awaiting in the mailbox for moi! How exciting. It’s safe to say my inflatable Santa and ridiculous novelty sunglasses are pride of place in the room. Cheers Lor! I even have three wrapped things to open on actual Christmas day. It’s looking likes it going to be a bit of an about-a-boy sort of Christmas. Me on my own watching movies, eating food and drinking wine, but fingers crossed we are getting internet installed chez-nous this week so I should be able to do lots of skyping to get over the loneliness. :S Either way, a group of assistants are coming up on boxing day and then it’s off to Paramaribo on the 27^th to get ready for Miami- so don’t feel too sad for me!

I ticked off another first this weekend. Hitch-hiking. And I didn’t start at the shallow-end. Oh no, as a matter of fact in my first weekend of faire-ing “du stop” I traversed over 500 Kilometres, met 9 friendly and interesting drivers and even got one of them to drop me off at Macdo for a much-needed and long-awaited Hangover maccy-d’s. Bizarrely, it has also been one of the best opportunities that I have had here to practice French for a long period of time with a small group of people (i.e me and Katy and the driver). Here is a brief summary of how I saved 70 euro!

1)      First stop- we had to wait all of two minutes for a car to stop and take us on a brief journey to a better “hitching-spot”. He was a film-maker heading to the beach with his baby daughter Venus in the back of the car!

2)      We hit lucky with the second guy, a Parisian who was on his way to the airport in a swanky rental car after spending three weeks working here, and thus he drove us over 200 kilometres, nearly all the way to Cayenne. He even apologised for not being able to take us all the way... as he was about to be late for the flight!

3)      This guy wasn’t even going the same direction as us but he picked us up anyway, and after a slight detour to pick up and drop off his friend (who gave us some yummy Brazilian food) he drove 30-mins out of his way to drop us off in Remire-Montjoly about 10km outside of Cayenne. We even stopped for a cheeky desperados on the way.

Way home:

1)      A nice portugese teacher again dropped us off at a better starting point and wished us luck in getting ALL the way to St. Laurent by “stop”. I think this was code for, you girls are crazy!

2)      After a bit of competition with a homeless looking man also trying to hitch (we won obviously) a nice couple who have been living here for over 10 years took us an hour or so to Kourou. They have lived in all the major towns in Guyane so it was interesting to get their perspective on the different places and the people that live there.

3)      Ok... so this time we had to wait like, a whole 10 minutes for someone to pick us up, and I was beginning to panic. I even let down the hair and put on the shades and everything. Soon enough another swanky rental car stopped and a woman agreed to take us the 10 or so km t the turn off she was taking. She was new to Guyane having just spent 4 years living in La Réunion. Why she came here I’m not sure. Turns out she got lost, missed the turning and ended up taking us about 30km before having to turn around.

4)      After being dropped off in the absolute middle of nowhere, the problem was not that cars were driving past us. The problem was that there were no cars! Luckily, the very first car stopped for us and the young girl drove us all the way home. Slight incident with the Gendarmes because, she didn’t have an L-plate (apparently you still have to have them for 2 years after you pass or something ridic) and also, they couldn’t find the photo in my passport. I mean seriously, its not that hard. And in record time we were home, in about the same time it would have taken in the taxi. Admittedly, the speedometer in the last car was broken and the girl herself admitted “I honestly have no idea what speed I’m driving. Ha! I think its safe to say it was well over the 90km limit.

Should probably explain why we went to all this effort in the first place. Well, being the socialites that we are here in Guyane :S we had two birthdays to celebrate in one night! The first one was at Olivia’s house (cough: Mansion- don’t even really wanna talk about it... key words: Jacuzzi, pool, 4 FRIDGES!) and it was a surprise party for Laure, another assistant. We showed up with a bottle of rum and soon we were sat drinking in the Jacuzzi catching up with everyone and celebrating our successful journey. Drank some more Rum (quite a lot), had a pizza takeaway, a birthday cake, and then we were off to the second party at Anne’s house. (She is the teacher that came to Trinidad and Tobago with us). Oops- I guess we all forgot it was a fancy dress party. Everyone else looked good though! Quite frankly most of us were too drunk to care. I think I personally managed to drink enough rum for everyone there, and had to have a cheeky sit down for 45 mins and be the DJ as that was all I was capable of doing :S At around 4am – it felt like about midnight in my head- we walked back to Olivia’s and everyone found a suitable hammock/bed/sofa to crash on. My head was not my friend the next morning. Neither was the sunshine. Or the heat. Where is the rainy season that we are supposed to be in the heart of right now ?

                In other news, I’m happy to have made it to the last week before the holidays. Most classes are going well, but some I am on the verge of giving up/ not caring for a couple. If the teacher doesn’t care, why should I? I am not going to waste 45 minutes a week shouting at them, so if they end up colouring for the whole year and not listening to me, so be it! If nothing else, I have learnt that I really don’t want to be a language teacher permanently. On Friday though, i don’t have any classes as it is the school Christmas party, but if I want I can go check it out. Apparently Santa is arriving by pirougue (big canoe). That’s a first for me! But must just be how we do it here in the amazon.

Anyway, so sorry to leave you all wanting more (i’m sure) but Gavin and Stacey is calling me and its almost 11. (I have become a boring old person who likes to be asleep by 11, has to get up at 7 and generally needs at least an hour napping at some point in the day. )

Perhaps over the next week when I have lots of free time (read: awkward Christmas loner with nothing to do) I can entertain/ educate you all with some fascinating and well thought-through insights into this department and its functioning. Then again I could just stick to rum-drinking and general bantering. On verra! 

Dora the (north-west of French Guiana) explorer

Yet another week has passed which means time for another blog. I’m writing this over a delicious dinner of jam and toast with bread that I had to traverse a country to buy (I took the canoe over to Suriname this morning for a cheeky spot of shopping- what is that about??). Let’s just say that with only a small fridge and no freezer between 5 people and an ice-tray that leaks and spills fridge-juice everywhere, I am going to have to start being creative with what can be considered a meal.

Update on all things my life:

The feet: Good news! It seemed for a while over the weekend that the whole fungus/ worm/ unknown thing was improving, however it now seems it could have just been the anti-itch cream which was reducing the reaction. Bad times- it seems to have spread to my hands as well. The whole thing is becoming rather non-drole. But: I’m still trying hard with positivity, so not going to moan.

The Christmas present: So, after having been exciting about a package in the mail coming my way for well over 3 weeks, I received a letter from customs today saying that unless I can provide a receipt for the goods inside it is going to be sent back to England. I am hoping that a handwritten letter explaining that it is a Christmas present from my family and please, please can I have it, will be enough. 

The teaching: Last week I made approximately 200 Christmas cards with the children. I promised to send them all to England. I even promised to send one to the queen.  I am such a liar. This week we are making snowflakes. I’m not even bothering with English anymore, we are going for, this is a cultural thing that all English school children must enjoy every Christmas season. I’m hoping for some more inspiration in the new year.

*Note: Dear teacher of CM2 at Terre Rouge, putting a bag of Christmas decorations on the floor and handing a staple gun to 10-year-old, is NOT an acceptable way to spend 45 minutes.

The Nenge Tongo lessons: Mi wani ferstan Nenge ma a de fanado di mi taki moro. Mi musso du moro! Ha! Try and find a translation for that one on word reference. Two classes in and three to go, I think I really need to do some revision tomorrow. The teacher announced that he was worried about me and Katie’s progress at the last lesson. Well, it is potentially because 1) he goes at a million miles an hour 2) Its the only thing I have actually had to use my brain for, for a number of months or 3) The fact that because he is teaching in French, for us, every word has to go through 2 translations in my head in a number of seconds Nenge-French-English. Even though Nenge is supposedly 45% English based, sometimes when you go through French you lose all sense of the similarity. For instance it took me almost a whole lesson to work out that kondre (con-dree) is actually not that far away from country. Through pays in the middle and its easy to get confused! Never mind. Tomorrow, I plan on doing a cheeky bit of revision with a Desparados when school finishes at 10:30am? Too early for a beer? Well, it is nearly Christmas, not that you would know from the 33 degree-ness that persists.

The weekend: Really fun actually! Laura, a girl that we met in Trinidad and again in Tobago, flew over for a week of exploring South America and came to stay for the weekend. As she arrived on Thursday, we had the perfect excuse for a long weekend. (Ok, I did have to work 3 hours on Friday, but in my mind it was a long weekend.) We rented a car whoop! (we are not going to talk about the 1800 euro deposit on MY card that doesn’t seem to have been refunded yet... am I panicking.. no... not panicking... no panic here.... will check again tomorrow :S) But yes, the car was great for freedom and Friday afternoon we were picking up the car and heading straight for a swim in the river – so much nicer knowing you don’t have to bike back! We then got dragged around by a friend of a friend and ended up at the worst restaurant ever. Waited over an hour to be presented with a pile of soggy chips and a piranha with eyes and teeth that had been fried so much you couldn’t actually pull it apart, let alone enjoy it. The night did improve luckily. Me and Laura pre-drank to chase and status in our kitchen with a bottle of 3 euro rum. That was finished soon enough so we headed down to the Mombari for a boogie and some more rum. I asked for one beer and one ti-punch, got presented with three beers. Told bartender I only wanted 1 beer. 5 mins later, she comes back with 3 ti-punch. No! One of each. Evil glare ensued. We moved onto Chez Ones in the Charbo until around 4 before retiring. (We won’t tell the rental car people about the jokes time we fitted 7 people into a kia picanto :S)

                Saturday was a late started due to slighttt Rum headaches and general laziness. Checked out the Christmas market and the normal market and then bought all the ingredients to have a typical French picnic. Except it was the 8^th December and we picnicked in bikini’s by a creek. We had lots of cheese, baguette, salami... and that seems to about cover the French diet. It was really nice just driving around and seeing some different scenery and places even though we didn’t go that far. Checked out Apatou and stopped by some waterfall things on the way back. However, no one seemed to like my mp3 player choices and kept swapping to the Caribbean reggae Cd we have heard a million times and quite possibly could provide most of the top 10 worst songs ever in the world. I was not impressed. They only made it 4 bars into 1D and skipped earthquake before it could even get going! Saturday night was more chilled, and involved juice and cookies from the hut by the river, pizza takeaway and lots of Gavin and Stacey. Perf.

                Sunday: Bright and early start to make the most of the car which had to be back by 3 to the garage. Drove to Mana and then onto Awala-Yalimapo (bit of a mouthful) for some beach time! We did manage to pick the first consistently cloudy day we have had since we got here to go, but in somes it was nice. Almost like an authentic English beach experience, except I could still swim in the sea in December without dying of hypothermia. We saw where the ocean meets the Maroni river and lots of people  kite-surfing and even snuck in a nap. On the way back to St. Laurent we stopped in Javouhey. This is a Hmong village so the people are (their ancestors probably) were refugees from Laos who were brought here by the French government to do agriculture and provide fruit and veg. The climate here is also quite similar to laos. There was a craft market and I bought yet another traveller style purse with a long strap – you can never have enough! And we then went to one of the many food stalls for some delicious spring rolls and other South-East Asian delights. Not sure pineapple cake is one of these delights, but, I bought that anyway! It was such a nice Sunday morning thing to do, and obviously popular with the metropols as the place was crawling with them. The afternoon was a blur of more napping, dropping of the car and sorting out petrol money, but we were back on track by the evening.

               For weeks now I have been attempting to hit-up the local “chorale”, but I’m either not in St. Laurent until late Sunday night, or tired, or some other reason. But this week I was determined as one of the teachers I work with had specifically invited me. After a fair bit of biking slowly looking shady, I found the place and was like, erm, please can I come sing ? Everyone was really welcoming and I’m definitely going to try and go every week I’m in St. Laurent. The level is slightly... school standard, but, it’s just nice to be singing and if nothing else it is really good sight-singing and French-language singing practice. Afterwards, me and Laura went to the Goelette (bar on a boat, jazz music), for a cheeky despé (desparados) to finish of the weekend and chill out. And Voila another week down, and only 17 days until I fly to Miami to meet a certain Mr. James Sanderson. More than psyched to hear some good music and be in a proper club and chill by a pool and the beach!

All that stands between me and the holidays are a further 100 christmas cards and 250 snowflakes. On y va!

Crisis in the Caribe

not going to lie, it’s not been an ideal week her in La Guyane Francaise. Character building, challenging and a patience-practicing are words that spring to mind. So the bike broke, my foot was looking rather manky, and then, after posting the last blog, I returned chez moi to discover that our fridge and freezer had been robbed. This is NOT IDEAL in a tropical country, where things like ice cubes and cold water are a necessary part of daily life. Oh and you know, non-mouldy food. The delightful man who stole said appliance, does not seem to understand a common concept that, when you move out of a house, you change the name on the bills. As such, he has been paying the electricity bill for our house for the past year, without living there. Funnily enough, many people have come and gone over the year, and some have neglected to pay the man for a bill we know nothing about as it in his name. Long story short- no one has paid him, he robbed fridge. My housemate tried to explain that this is not how reasonable people deal with this situation- but sadly to no avail. She also asked which day he would be going to change the name on the bill (so we could go together and arrange a straight swap)... he was very aloof. Turns out, this was so he could wait, and cut off the electricity on a Friday, when he knew we would be stuck the whole weekend waiting for the office to open without electricity. What a douche. His name is Teddy. What a douchy name. Not going to lie, Friday morning was a low point. Housemate had decided she would be leaving me alone in the Maroni while she went back to Suriname to hang out with some guy. This was not so bad, and after a slight panic, I decided that I would catch up on some writing, join the library, go swimming, nothing groundbreaking but still. After returning from the library (unsuccessfully- seems like you need an FBI background check, 15 signatures of recommendation, fingerprints and eye scan, and muchas photocopies before they will consider letting you be a member of the one room library, discovering the electricity had been turned off was not what I wanted to here.

After a frantic search for a taxi to Cayenne for asap, using FAR too much of my phone credit, it’s like 1 euro a minute or something tres ridiculoso, I found one willing to pick me up chez moi at 2pm. This gave me an hour to pull myself together and throw some stuff in a bag. No time for lunch, doesn’t matter anyway because lunch is difficult on the equator without a fridge. Anyway, I was on my way, I have never been so happy to see the cemetery which signals you are leaving St. Laurent. Thankfully, Laure and Sam, living in the really nice apartment with beaucoup de space, agreed to let me stay for the weekend. The Friday night was chilled, bit of sangria, Chinese takeaway and a sleep in an actually comfy bed with a FAN! Did I mention ours broke last week? Not quite sure what happened Saturday, but after a little cheeky bit of shopping and a baguette, the drinking started and soon we were on the beach drinking wine out of the bottle wearing shorts and flip-flops. That is definitely the first time I have been able to say that about the 1st December! At some point there was a Mcflurry drive-through, more takeaway food, more wine, back to the beach for a casual night-time rocket launch, and then on to a club to dance away the stresses of the week.  Bear in mind, that throughout all these activities we were going around with 4 of us in a 2-seater car, me and laure hid under a blanket in the boot bit in case anyone came for a look.

It’s so strange here how the nightlife can vary so much from Cayenne to St. Laurent, given that it is only a three hour drive. Well, I suppose its not that strange. Cayenne is on the eastern side of Guyane, closer to Brazil, and thus populated heavily with Brazilians who want Brazilian music. St. Laurent on the other hand, is much more African in terms of population and therefore we get the reggae and the Caribbean beats as opposed to the latin stuff. I think, I prefer the Caribbean stuff, but after a couple of hours, both styles leave you begging for some Rihanna. Honestly, even Gangham style will do which is the only worldwide song that they seem to like over here. Got in around half 4, and slept well again in a comfy bed, and Sunday was a bit of a write off. To be fair, you don’t even feel like you should be doing something because there is nothing to do on a Sunday. Buying bread and milk, good luck!

Got back to St. Laurent late Sunday night, to find the electricity ON --- I have heard rumours of illegal cutting of wires, etc... don’t wanna get involved.  Monday was another great day. Spent  5 hours at the hospital waiting to get my foot seen as the stuff that the other doctor gave me didn’t seem to have much effect. That was fun. But besides all this, I have decided today (although it will probably change tomorrow) that one must be positive and try to love life, even when life is a little bit boring and hot a gives you mushrooms on your feet (first it was fleas and now fungus is the diagnoisis. Not sure which is worse. Plus, we are learning the local language, Nenge Tongo, and had our first class today. It was the first time I have had to actually use my brain in far too long, it actually hurt. But apparently after 10 hours of intensive courses we will be able to understand all the people in the street and will be able to talk back! Ha! We shall see. Apparently it is 45% based on English so maybe we have a little head start whoop whoop. As for the rest of the week- its not looking too busy. At the weekend we are hoping to rent a car and go for a look around the surrounding area but who knows. I feel like Christmas is just going to come and go this year without me even noticing it. At this rate I won’t even have any English telly left to keep me going as I have watched most of it :S

Lads on tour in Suriname (that well known party destination)

It’s been an interesting week this week. I’m currently not actually legally in French Guiana as I skipped past the border post at the weekend on our return from Suriname on Sunday, and so have a missing exit stamp that I need to go back and get sometime this week probably. I also had my first thrilling taste of French health care today, when I finally decided that the weird bubbling scabbing growing thing on my right foot, wasn’t just a casual mosquito bite that I had scratched. Not really sure what it is but apparently it’s like microscopic flea things chilling out under my skin having a good munch and then moving further along the foot when they have sufficiently killed the rest of the skin. (I hope no one is eating while reading this.) Sounds nice doesn’t it! So, for the next three days I have to mash up some tablets, mix it with cream put it on the foot, and also take some normal tablets. And pay 50 Euros for the pleasure.  Will deffs be claiming that one back. We had also another faux pas yesterday when, my housemate decided to be nice and bring my bike to the supermarket to meet me so I could walk home. Dunno how, but the wheel does not look wheel shaped right now, so we are on a mission to get it fixed before I have to trek to my Amerindian villages on Thursday and Friday. On a plus note... a first bit of mail for me came and I am now the proud owner of the newest series of Made in Chelsea, and all episodes of Gavin and Stacey. That should help the 4 weeks until Christmas go quickly! Also, I finally have a French bank card AND the pin number for it! Shame my first exciting purchase was foot cream.

All the bad luck aside, we have just spent a very nice weekend in Paramaribo, Suriname. Why did we go there I hear you ask? Well, if you want a good night out, and any reasonably priced clothes/ items, turns out you have to cross a border to a whole new country. So, after finishing my hard day of 2 classes on Friday (one was cancelled, as apparently seeing a circus performer is more important than an English class with me (pffftt), we put on our rucksacks and walked to the border. It had been a whole 13 days since we last we out of Guyane, think we did well to last so long! On the other side we were packed into a taxi who assured us that he had only 2 places left in his car and that he would be leaving immediately. Turned out, we were the only ones in the car, and leaving immediately meant driving around the town, and back to the border, approximately 4 times for over an hour until the car was full. Even then, after the hour we were moved to another taxi and somehow ended up being charged more than we had originally agreed. Fail. Upon arrival, we discovered that where we had planned to stay was full. I suppose thats what you get when you rock up on one of the busiest weekends of the year (independence day) without a reservation. This turned out to be fortuitous in that we stumbled across a really nice hotel (by my standards) with an actual bathroom with an actual bath, an actual duvet and actual air-con, with an actual telly. We are not used to these comforts chez nous! You know you live in French Guyana when you walk into a room and proclaim how utterly freezing it is, only to check the temperature on the air conditioning to find it is actually still a balmy 28 degrees. The move to this hotel was also unfortuitous as it used up most of our budget for the weekend. Oops. We had been paid, so oh well.

basically my name on a portaloo company!

That night we hit the town, checked out the waterfront and marvelled at what it must be like to live in a place with actual people doing actual things at the weekend. Trust me, I never thought I would utter the words, yeh, i’m hitting up Paramaribo tonight for a big one :S I mean, it may be better than here, in St. Laurent du Maroni, but it is by no means world class night life. The next day we accidentally slept til 1 o’clock, but to be fair, it was the first comfy non-mosquito riddled night I had had for a while, so that was fine. Except for the fact that all the shops shut around 2 o’clock on a Saturday which made our planned shopping day a little difficult. We won’t go into the palava I had trying to buy a keyboard, but all you need to know is that I do not have one. Or a bikini. Or sunglasses. Or in fact anything that I went to Suriname to buy. We spent the afternoon wandering around, attempting to buy things, eating... But around five we gave up and headed back to the hotel for a bottle of champagne with a nice hot bath. Turned on the telly after my bath to discover frozen planet was on. In English! Absolute win. I can say without doubt it is the most comf I have been since we got here. It didn’t last however, as we had to get back on it to attend a massive reggae concert for the Independence Day. Some guy, called Jah Cure. He must be big over here because girls were literally crying when he threw his smelly towel at them! Even the prime minister of Suriname came on stage to say hi so the whole thing must have been a bit of a big deal. Not going to lie, I was tired, and believe me, it is hard to tell the difference between reggae songs. The coolest part was just watching how people here behave at a concert, how they dance, where they stand, what they drink, etc. So even if the music wasn’t thrilling, I still enjoyed it. And my main man JAH took his shirt off at the end so it can’t be all bad.

Another good sleep and breakfast come lunch, then it was Sunday, chill day! Because normally my life here is so stressful :S We checked out some independence day markets and celebrations, but didn’t last too long before we headed to a bar with a pool and plonked ourselves there for the afternoon. One cheeky last luxury of a mcflurry in the taxi on the way back to the border, and it was across the river in yet another canoe and back to the Maroni massif!

On another note, it’s nearly December and it does not feel like it at all. The people downstairs have put up a Christmas tree which just seems ridiculous but I don’t suppose it is. As well, I am supposed to be starting Christmas activities at school this week or next. When i’m finished drawing monsters that is, which is this week’s activity. I did some maths yesterday, and worked out that there are only 15 more week of teaching until I am finished teaching, as I still have 6 weeks of holiday to look forward to before the end of April. Jokes. So, as for me, I will be off, have to go and pay the doctor, as I forgot to take money with me earlier. I have also been attempting to go jogging which is easier said than done in this kind of heat- especially with worms growing in your feet. Mmm. Lovely. Might just have to watch Gavin and Stacey instead!

Dear French Guiana.....

Dear French Guiana,

During the two months that I have lived here, I have managed to compile an interesting list of queries. I doubt you will be able to tell me the answers, as I suspect that probably, there are none, but still. In no particular order:

1)      Why is it that in the “national newspaper” which consists, on a daily basis, of 24 pages, 5 of these pages, on a daily basis, contain information on seemingly every horse race that has taken place in the world that day. I have yet to see a single bookie’s for anyone to use this information within.

2)      Why do you have such a grand issue (so big that you feel the need to make posters) with people wanting to buy a single yogurt and not a whole pack from the corner shop?

3)      Why do the bins get collected THREE times a week, when you do not have enough money to provide some of the classrooms in my school with electricity?

4)      And a further note on bins, why is it that you have to get your bin from a specific, government owned bin-buying place? And how come said bin-buying place is only open Wednesday morning from 8-12 as that is the only time the bin-selling man is around? Is he the only one capable of bin-selling?

5)       Why do you greet people with “bonsoir, when it is barely lunchtime?

6)      Why is it that the children in your school system think that the only other countries in the world are America, or part of Metropolitan France?

7)      Why, oh why does a loaf of sliced bread cost 4,90 euro from the supermarket?

8)      And why are pineapples small and very expensive here when we live in the right part of the world?

9)      Why is it that, at the beginning of every month when the benefits are given out, that every atm in town runs out of money as people rush to buy their month’s supply of rum and cigarettes? Could you not plan ahead for this?

10)   Why is it that a full-time teaching position is only 18-hours when every other country in the world thinks 40 is more appropriate?

11)   Does the town really need to shut down EVERYTHING for a four-hour nap between 12-4pm? Surely, 2 hours would suffice for a nice lunch and a lie-down.

12)   Why is it that glamour magazine has only 1,50 euro written in massive letters on the front but when I get to the till you try to charge me 5,20 euro?

13)   Why even bother with a weather report in the newspaper, when all it does is choose a different adjective for hot and sunny each day?

14)   Why are the phone contracts SO rubbish? No, phone credit should not have an expiry date. It is clearly a non-perishable item.

15)   Why can’t a mosquito just bite me and leave, does it have to stay and hang out and invite friends and extended family round to my toes for an all-night rave?

16)   Why is it 35 euro’s for a taxi ONE-WAY to Cayenne, a three-hour journey, when you can get to Georgetown, Guyana, a city two countries away, for less?

17)   Why is air-conditioning not compulsory in all accommodation?

18)   Why is it IMPOSSIBLE for me to get a bank card, no matter how many times I go into the bank with which I have an account, and ask a different receptionist. Baring in mind that this is a feat in itself given your ridiculous opening hours?

I think that is enough query-ing for one day. If you have any answers to any of the above I would love to be enlightened. I will bear in mind that you will only be able to reply on either a Monday morning between 8am-10am (when I happen to be working), or a Thursday afternoon between 4-7pm (the one day the cinema has a showing), as these are the only times you can bother to be open.

Thanks,

Polly Johnson

(confuddled english assistant)

(still without bank card, dustbin, pineapples or glamour magazine)

Liming Trinidad style.. with welsh accents???

It’s been a while but the blog is back! Truth is, between all the liming and swanking in Tobago, followed by a severe bout of homesickness and tiredness, followed by a challenging 10-hour work week that I have yet again been faced with, there has been little time for blogging. But here I am, yet again sweating away in the room (even though it’s 9pm) I’ve got trance music on in the background- partly because I’m half asleep, partly because it’s the only music on the computer since I can’t be bothered to plug in the hard-drive. Anyway, here goes.

                Last time we spoke, we were in Georgetown. It’s safe to say that that feels like months potentially years ago, and not the actual 12 days that have past since I last wrote. We had thought ahead, and, as Georgetown is considered fairly notoriously dangerous in these parts, we decided on a hotel with a club downstairs to avoid any awkward walking home scenarios. This was a très bon plan. We grabbed the cards and headed down to the bar for around 8. So, Mr. Barman, what time does it get busy around here? Barman: Er, around 2am if you’re lucky. Hmm, ok, whats the cheapest drink.... Barman: well girls, looks like buying a bottle of rum is going to be your best option. Us: Ok! I guess we could manage that. He was right, the party didn’t really get started until pretty late and by this time we were on bottle of rum number two. Somewhere along the way we ordered the spiciest noodles and chicken on the actual planet, and Lucy took the tactic of stuffing her mouth with napkin, whereas I ran to the room tears in my eyes in a desperate search for the last gulp of water. Olivia at this point was somewhere on the other side of the bar sandwiched between two dodgy-looking creatures trying to escape without  being taught how to dance Guyana style :P Not quite sure if the food came before or after the gunshots, but I guess thats how it goes in Guyana. We heard four shots fired, in CLOSE proximity to the bar, as in, outside. We looked at each-other as if to say, surely not? We then looked at the barman, who shrugged as if to say, classic Thursday.  Lucy ran outside, ran back in to announce that a man had been shot dead in the car... oh wait correction, the shots were fired into the air and everyone should just get on with their lives. Shortly before being tempted by bottle number 3 we trekked home (up the stairs) and all managed to pass-out leaving the room key in the door the whole night. Who said Guyana was not a safe place?

                The next morning was NOT great. Lucy was searching for A bank, ANY bank, that would accept her card, Olivia was tired and wanting to go to museums, and I was beginning to feel the ramifications of the noodles with a little thing that starts with a D and rhymes with Onomatopoeia. Great. We somehow made it lunch, after having got far too close for comfort in the room toilet which conveniently had no door, and then we were off to Guyana’s version of centreparks. Turns out, Guyanas version of centreparks is not like centreparks. Its more like, a dirt track with a small sign and a couple of umbrellas next to a toilet block round a lake. We didn’t have a reservation (even though we had called ahead and been assured this was fine) so getting us a tent set-up seemed to be quite an effort for the staff. As did taking the boat to get us some water for the night (silly us, presuming there would be somewhere to buy water). But by the evening (apart from the fact i spent most of it in the toilet, we were beginning to like the place. As we had accidentally refused security guards thinking it was joke, the manager and 2 employees had to sleep on a bench outside our tent  to protect us... from spiders apparently :S I don’t think they often have groups of 4 young white Europeans coming to stay often as we were about the only white people we saw in the whole country apart from the airport, and some guys on a dermatology conference! Random :S

                Over the weekend we made friends with most of the staff, played volleyball, went canoeing, played lots of cards, Introduced Guyana to vodka and coke... when we ordered it, the bar lady was like, you do know you drink that with sprite right. Ahem... you may win on the Rum front, but, I think the English (ok, maybe Russians) know what they are talking about when it comes to Vodka. We also came across my roommate who appeared like a new castaway on shipwrecked on a boat across the lake. Apparently our instructions to get to Georgetown, call this number and speak to a woman called Susanna worked! She had traversed all of Suriname and Guyana in about 36 hours due to a doctor’s appointment required for her visa. But she made it. Taxi was ordered- again Susanna, what a life saver!

                Next morning we were on the plane to Trinidad!  Oh, not before we had paid the departure tax. Olivia, who had bought pounds specifically for the purpose as for some reason they were accepted, and had NOT forgotten to mention her good planning MANY a time, had a minor (read HILARIOUS) breakdown when the woman looked at her SCOTTISH tenner and was like... er, no. HA! Olivia: But this is legal tender! Woman: No Olivia: This country is soooo racist (rather too loud). Ok great, time to get through security :S

                We arrived at the hostel in Trinidad and were swiftly taken to a bar by the owners. Fun fact: the Trinidad accent, is tres WELSH. Literally, on the plane, me and lucy were like, hold up, are we off to port-of-spain or Cardiff?? Anyway, we got the bar at around 1:30pm and were persuaded to have one drink before some sight-seeing. Do I even need to tell you what happened next? 2-hours later, barely able to string a sentence together between us, we were stood in a line for a party boat, half a fried chicken in one hand (lining the stomach came a bit too late) 2 vodcrans (new abbriev for Vodka Cranberry) balancing in the other as we boarded the boat. I wish I could say it was amazing, you know what, from the pictures it looks that way, but unfortunately, we all have a memory blackout from approximately the same point in time, i.e the time between boarding and being in bed at the hostel. What I do know is that apparently my taxi-ordering skills are not that great at this level of drunkness as no taxi appeared soooo we had to hitchhike to the airport, and missed our flight :S Luckily, the kind people of Caribbean airlines put us on the next one to Tobago, and off we went. The hostel was by far nicer than my house here, we had a room just for us, ensuite air-con, for a bargain 10 pounds a night. Plus, on the first night, we got a free dinner (fish fresh from the ocean, with CABBAGE (we don’t have that here in the forest)), rum, and to round off the evening, a boat trip to the middle of the sea. There is this part called nylon pool, about a 15 minute boat ride from the bay where the water is shallow enough for you to stand up! Music on, rum in hand, dive in! Thats how it is done in Tobago. We were Liming (drinking/ going out) and Swanking (dancing) and Winding (more dancing) for a good couple of hours before it started to get a bit chilly.

                The next day was an all day boat trip of much the same. We did a cruise round the coastline, followed by a tasty bbq on a deserted beach, followed by more liming and a bonfire on another beach. We were told that the trip officially finishes at 4/5pm but that if you are loving it sometimes its more like 9pm. I think I got back just before midnight :S Oh and the boat left without me and Olivia so we had to sneak onto another boat and hope for the best. I did have a cheeky nap on the ride back. Managed to find some munchies on the walk back... yet again my stomach did not thank me for this .

                Yet another busy day the next day- we rented a car :S So you needed to be over 25 and have your license with you. We were like, ok, we have 3 over-25s, none of whom have their license, two 21-yr olds with licenses and 2 useless people (me and Olivia) what can you do for us? As we had acquired 7 people by this point, it was more of a minibus but it was fun and Lucy did an admirable job driving.  We got to drive round most of the island throughout the day, found a lovely beach for lunch. Admittedly I napped through most of the scenic sunset, but I did awake in time for us to pull up to the cinema for the opening day of SKYFALL. Now, this may not sound that exciting to you lot, but you have to understand, a) the cinema is St. Laurent has fleas, was last redecorated sometime in the 60’s and has a sound system equivalent to hearing the person next to you’s headphones. B) it is in French. Neither of these factors are conducive to James Bond viewing. Thus, we were tres excited to see it in a nice cinema, that sold popcorn, and that was in English. And we loved it! Although at the first shot of London, Lucy grabbed my hand and we both sort of had an awwww... look at our rainy homeland, I want to be there :S moment. Olivia, being Scottish, nearly died of happiness at the line: welcome to Scotland. Thank-you to the banter bus (the rental car) for getting us there and back, although we almost didn’t have time for a subway beforehand. Wouldn’t have mattered anyway as they had run out of meatballs and the toaster was broken. WHAT EVEN IS THAT??

                We almost made the sunrise the next morning in the banter bus, except we always seemed to be on the wrong road, oh, and one the wrong side of the island to be able to see it. Oh well, we had a nice drive around and got some delicious doubles- Tobago breakfast food. Hard to explain, but basically a sweet, eggy half omelette half pancake thing wrapped around spicy chickpeas with sauce and deliciousness. Stodge alert, but at 40p each it was rude not to have two.

                And this is basically how we spent our days in Tobago, boating, liming, EATING, chilling, beaching, exactly what we had planned for. Oh, and I did spend a casual 20 hours sleeping in the air-con on the last day- totes knackered and not looking forward to my sweaty place back in French land. Oh, and the 8 hours we sat at Trinidad airport waiting for our transfer, reading US tabloids (English magazines= excitement!!!) We timed it just right, as the man was replacing all the ones on the rack for the ones for the next week. Erm, excuse me sir, (flutter eyelashes) what is it that you do with the old ones exactly, now you have the new ones... you see we are English and we would LOVE some English magazines, as we are going to a place where this does not exist. He must have seen the desperation on our faces as  we managed to get away with 9 Tabloids for the price of 3. YESSSSS. I now know far too much about every celebrity on the planet, but I don’t care. I needed a bit of gossip after 6 weeks in the middle of nowhere.

And then we got on the plane back to Suriname and the holiday was over. Getting back was a little traumatic but we will talk about that next time. I have just racked up 2,098 words of a blog post (for anyone that is stilllll reading (hi dad!). This is approximately 66% of the total amount of words I must write towards my degree this year. WHAT A JOKE.

Not sure I am lovinglife2k12 at the moment, bit of an après-holiday downer, but don’t worry I am at least likinglife/ dealingwithlife2k12.

Love to all!!

xxx