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!!