Mashramani

On Tuesday we celebrated Mashramani in the village, which is republic day for Guyana. It is classed as a public holiday so everyone has the day off work and school. The village had a parade in the morning where each class got dressed up and had a big cart with speakers following them around booming music out! They did a tour of the village and finished up on the sports court where it turned into a bit of a party with everyone dancing and enjoying themselves. Later the games began which included football, cricket and volleyball where Yupukari played against people from Katoka, I kept score and unfortunately Yupukari lost at all 3 which I am told is very rare. There were also stalls selling food and the local drink Carry. The drink then started to flow in the evening and people were in good spirits until early in the morning. (Photos coming soon)

Wednesday was fun day, where the school had the afternoon off and played games, similar games to sports day back in England, like the 3 legged race, sack race, egg and spoon race but instead they use a lime. We played until the rain came down and boy did it rain, after a while people got fed up sheltering from the rain and decided to just carry on through it which was a funny sight people falling over all over the place.

Today is the last day school day of celebrating Mash, a concert is being held this afternoon where each class has a little performance to show the village. I have been helping make nursery costumes this morning and looking forward to seeing them in action!

The weekend is due to be fairly quite a lot of people are out of the village so means I have time to do some much needed washing!! Then Monday is another public holiday called Phagwah which is a spring celebration, traditionally people wear old clothes and get wet and then colourful powder is thrown at you and that is your costume for the day!

Two weeks of madness!

Just when I thought life couldn't get any busier, the past two weeks have been crazy! It started late on a Friday night when a group of friends came in that we hadn't seen in a while so we had a little drink and stayed up in to the early hours. On Saturday we recieved an email to say a van had fallen off a near by bridge, so everyone piles in a minivan and the boys on their bikes we drive off to this bridge to see if we could help. The boys were like an army people moving around grabbing things we would need to help, we had ropes, food, drink, plates the whole lot! When we finally reach the bridge there is no van but clear evidence of where the van had fallen off. We decided to carry on to Karanambo and join some of the people we knew there, when we arrived we learnt that the van that had fallen off was actually someone we knew, luckily everyone was ok and no one got hurt. We stayed at Karanambu for the whole day and then eventually I came back to Yupukari on the back of Mike's motorbike - first time for me on a longish journey on the back of a bike. The following Tuesday I went to Lethem on the back of Chris's motorbike this time, it takes two hours which does not sound too long but when its blazing hot sunshine it feels like it takes forever! The journey back was even more interesting after we lost the motorbike keys but luckily the bike was still on and running so we could continue with the journey which was very dark with limited bike lighting, however I arrived back in Yupukari safe and sound.

I have also been to a place called Katoka which is a neighbouring village to Yupukari. To reach Katoka we went by bike but first had to cross the river by putting the bikes in a boat and paddling them across, for vehicles they do have a pontoon which can be used. The journey takes about 45 minutes bumping around on tiny little bike tracks in the middle of the savannah. On arriving to Katoka we were greeted by a friend of ours called Trevor who handed us a coconut to cool off. The ground is very sandy compared to the red gravel in Yupukari and there are lot more palm tress and open space, the place is also generally more peaceful and people live a slightly more basic lifestyle with out house toilets and kitchens. We spent most of the afternoon there, it was like a mini holiday break which was very much appreciated.

Last Thursday I joined a group of people on a 4 day river trip to a place called Mapari, or rather the creek we would be camping by is called Mapari. We set off in 2 boats and travelled down river for about 6 hours stopping for lunch and drinks on the way. When we get to Mapari the boys set about like an army setting up the camp, hammocks were being slung up everywhere with rain covers hoisted up above the sleeping area and kitchen area. In no time we had a fully functioning camp. My first night sleeping in a hammock was surprisingly comfortable and warm so I was very pleased that the next few nights of sleep would be enjoyable. The next day we went to visit the falls up the creek where we scouted out possible photographs for the photographer who was with us. The photographer was a guy called Pete Oxford who is putting a book together of Guyana and needed to collect specific shots. Half of the crew spent the evening liming around at camp whilst the other half went on a night trip to see what wildlife might be out and available to photograph. The next day Fernando, Chris and I went to visit Ashley's farm, where we saw Edo (unsure of spelling) growing and many other plants, when we got back to camp the monkeys were in full swing howling away so we decided to take a walk to see if we could see them. We saw a group of spider monkey babies but apart from that we could only hear them. The last full day we had again we split in to 2 groups, 1 group went down river to see what birds they could find and I went with Chris and Fernando fishing. We spent a few hours trying to catch fish but no such luck apart from 3 tiny fish which were only good for bait! I forgot to mention that it rained for nearly the whole time we were there so everything we had was damp and most our clothes were soaked, just as we were about to leave the sun came out and we had a good 2 hours of sun and then dark clouds for the rest of the journey, we kept warm by getting a little merry and being silly.

There is a small chance I may be off again this weekend this time to a place called Saddle Mountain where a friend has a big house up there where we can all stay. However I have to get to Lethem before I can join the trip and that is the trickiest part finding a ride for tomorrow!

The Caiman Project

Saturday night was my first experience of a village party, it was a young girls birthday which most of the village had gathered to celebrate. We headed up to the "bar" of Yupukari which is often referred to as Sankeys. I got to meet some more people from the village which was nice and everyone was in good spirits which meant they were less shy to approach me. I sampled some of the local drink called Cary which is one of the many products made from a vegetable called Cassava. As the night progressed and people became more high spirited the dancing began, the preferred music for parties in the village is Foho music which is a Brazilian style of music. There is also a specific way to dance to Foho which a few people tried to teach me and wasn't long before I was being pulled up to dance in the benab. The music and dancing continued on till the early hours of the morning!

Sunday was a relaxing day which I spent at the river watching the boys catch fish which we then roasted and ate by the side of the river. Sunday evening I was very lucky to be invited out with some of the guests to go and watch the guys go Caiman catching. We set out at dusk on a boat down the lake, the guests and me in 1 boat and the catchers in another. The first part of the trip was very quiet and peaceful whilst we searched for Caimen eyes bobbing above the surface, then all of a sudden a loud thrashing and splashing sound came from beside the boat and before I knew it a Caimen is being pulled up the front of the boat having its mouth taped shut where it is then dragged off to a small landing area in order for us to get a closer look. We climb out the boat and stand beside this amazing creature which lying unnervingly still, the guys measure several different aspects of the Caiman before weighing it and sexing it which some of the guest including myself also had a go, it was a very unusual experience and one I will never forget. It is a very impressive sight to watch these guys catch and handle these dangerous creatures.

Monday I had my first grade 9 English lesson to teach. After speaking with the head mistress and reviewing their exam results from last year it appeared they were falling behind on their writing skills especially figurative writing. The first lesson I prepared covered similes, where I had prepared a review sheet and several worksheets. I took the class for an hour and by then end felt confident they knew what a simile was and how and when to use them. Today I took them again but this time covering the topic of metaphors, although some of them seemed to understand what a metaphor was and could differentiate it from a simile some could not. After spending an hour with them and a lot of them still struggling we decided to stop and continue tomorrow where we will go over them again. As I write I am looking for other ways to show a metaphor and explain it and trying a different worksheet approach which I hope is a lot more successful tomorrow!

Dinner was an interesting occasion yesterday, we have an Australian guest with us and he wanted to catch an iguana and eat it, so the boys caught 1 for him which was then cooked up into an iguana curry. At first I was slightly put off by the idea of eating lizard however after being convinced to try I did and it was delicious!!