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!