New Project, New People

I am working on a new project, I am creating a photographic counting book for children. The photos also depict what village life is like here so hopefully they will be able to relate more to the book. So I have been all over the village recently taking photos and trying to find the right number of things yet still make a good picture...I have had a lot of fun doing it and have been to parts of the village I had never been to before. I have been working on the project with a young boy called Jason who has been helping me take the photos but also finding out the Macushi translations of some of the objects for me so we can do the book in English and Macushi.

I am also going to be asking the headmistress if I could take be a Physical Education teacher and take lessons for each class on whatever day they normally have games time. I hope to teach them some games that I used to do at school and hopefully they will be able to teach me the ones they do here.

My room mate has just come back after being in Georgetown for a week, it is nice to have someone else around the house again, we are also having a couple coming to stay with us at the end of the week who are IT experts and are coming to look at our internet connection and laptops. Hopefully they will be able to make some of them run faster as it would be a huge benefit for computer club. They will be staying with us for 3 weeks I think, it will be weird having an older couple around the place for a while.

Rainy season is beginning here, last week we had a lot of rain which is when I found out my house is not so water proof! I woke up in the middle of the night to find a river of water throughout my whole house...except my room! :) So for most of this week repairs are being done to my house to fix leaks and replace old mosquito mesh. We have also now been given our own water trestle which is being hooked up today so we will finally have some running water.

Next week I think I am off to Georgetown to sort out some much needed paperwork I am not looking forward to the 13 hour bus journey there and back though!

School Break Over

So I haven't had the internet for a while as the modem and some other bits had to be taken to town to be fixed so the internet was down for about two weeks - which has been quite nice to be out of reach it was actually quite liberating not to have to check emails and the urge to see what was going on in the world of the net.

It has just been spring break here where the children had two weeks off for Easter, for the first few days I helped out in the library with Grade 6 revision for there common entrance exam which took place over the break, the results are not out until June so finger crossed they pass.

I then went to Lethem for the Rodeo that takes place there, it was a nice opportunity to meet up with everyone I have met so far. The Rodeo takes place over the course of three days with many different events happening, for example on the first night there were two beauty pageants, then on Saturday and Sunday there was bull riding, lassoing and other such activities. One of our friends was competing in the beauty pageant and another friend is a vaquero and took part in all the Rodeo events and eventually winning Rodeo King!! So as you can imagine we were very happy to be there and cheering everyone on.

Lots of construction work has also taken place over the Easter break, Caimen House has a new front which is a new hammock area, the teachers quarters are really coming along, and the library is about to under go an extension which is exciting.

School started back today so back to work, today I am re - advertising my computer program to see if we can get any new comers or even to just remind the people who came before they are still on and they can come back and refresh themselves. After school I am also helping with Grade 9's projects they have to do for each subject so we will be checking what they have been doing over the break and see what improvements could be made.

During this week I am also hoping to get together with the sports teacher here to start organising swim lessons as the sports competitions are in the next couple of months and we need to start preparing.