Name: Roseanne Rogers
Location: Guyana
Report Title: Properly Proud of My Kids
Report Date: 03/02/2010
Really sorry it’s taken this long to send a second update, but we just haven't had the chance to get internet access...or money to use it before now! Well, that’s Amy and I almost 4 months in to our time here, and it’s only just hit me how fast the time has gone by! Teaching is the most exhausting, rewarding, frustrating and most of all, surreal thing I’ve ever done. The level of education in Orealla is painfully low, but the strict syllabus does not account for this. So, effectively, there are children sitting in lessons on venn diagrams and vectors whilst not knowing that negative numbers exist! I feel this is the root of most of the educational problems. The students become disillusioned with learning because they don't understand it and it’s not at all applicable anyway, so resort to making their own entertainment. This entails a game of who can disrupt the "white miss's" lesson the most.
Saying that, the children are without a doubt the best thing about this year. Every week they manage to make me laugh so hard I cry. Every day they motivate me to be a better teacher much more than any 4 hour long staff development session ever could. And every once in a while, another teacher will tell me a harrowing story about one of the kid's background which will make me more appreciative of my life then I ever thought possible.
We have (finally) been paid and are now on our Christmas holidays so I may be thinking back with rose tinted glasses but the past few months have, all in all, been pretty great. The cooking hasn't been so much of a struggle as I thought it would be! Mangoes and Papaya generally don't need much done to them thankfully. The cockroaches generally don't bother me (much) anymore and I've discovered a simple existence isn’t necessarily a bad one at all!
After a few weeks of hard slog during lunchtime, Amy and I sorted out the school library, which the kids love. However, our evening lessons for grade 11s had to be accompanied by an armed policeman hiding in the bushes after a "Jambee" also known as a grade 9 boy spookily rang the school bell one night. As much as I respect and am interested in the local culture, which definitely includes superstitions, I feel it can go a bit far. When people fall out, they curse each other. If someone is ill, they are taken to a witch doctor. If crops fail, it is spiritual, not physical causes. But I guess that’s all just part and parcel of experiencing a culture so far removed from my own.
I have to put a special mention about Sports Day here, because it was just so brilliant. After weeks and weeks of waking up and heading to the ballfield to train at 4.15 am...My house "Potoka" were ready for action. And boy, did they perform! All health and safety concerns aside, this was proper Guyananese competitive spirit at its best. Kids were running around the ballfield15 times in 38 degree heat without any shoes. Boys were jumpingmassiveheights with only a tiny mattress to land on at the other side. It was tough on them all, but Potoka won!!!! And I was properly proud of me kids!
Anyway, next term there are many more public holidays - chances to venture out in search of internet and now we have been paid its easy peasy to do so, so there will definitely be more regular updates next term. Now we've settled in there is so many things Amy and I want to change for the better. The Grade 11s and I have big decorating plans for their classroom and I really want to start an art club after-school...so hopefully the rest of the year won't fly by too fast!
