Term 2 Review

Sometimes, and for various reasons like putting up a blog every once in a while for example, it would really be nice to have internet that is actually available and functioning when you need it to be. As it is, our contact to the outside world consists of a few minutes worth of Wi-Fi every once in a blue moon when Dwayne, the guy who has internet, is in, which is rarely, and isn’t busy, which is even scarcer of an occurrence. Thus the lack of blogs I put up, which I profusely apologise for to anyone actually interested in reading them.

I included part of our term 2 activities in my last blog, and the rest of the term passed by just as quickly, if not quicker than the beginning of it. 11 weeks really isn’t much when you have school as well as lots of afternoon and weekend activities.

This term Catriona and I made it our goal to get involved in the community as much as possible. Our weekends were always packed. We spent them visiting places like Kato, Chenapou and Iramutang, baking cassava bread, spending time with the dorms children and in mango season, much to my delight, with fetching mangoes from Mountain Foot and eating as many as we possibly could. During the week we made it a point to visit our local friends after school whenever we could, which combined with the schoolwork we had to do kept us pretty busy most days.

I hadn’t expected it as much, but over time the place got colder and colder at night – I actually need a hoody most nights now and as I am writing this blog we have entered the start of rainy season which means lots of rain, and masses of mud. We took a trip to Iramutang, a place right across the Brazilian border, and whilst there I purchased a blanket, which is fluffy, yellow, has pigs on it and has turned out to be an absolute godsend (especially when compared to the musty sleeping bag I used before that).

Transport has not been our friend this term. It took us over three weeks worth of attempts to even get to Iramutang. First, the truck we had organised to get a ride with broke down, next the ATVs going were way out of our price range and then when we thought we had finally figured it out and were going to get a free ride, we were left waiting at 3 o’clock in the morning for ATVs that never came. We finally managed to get to Iramutang, and it was very odd just to be on pavement again and to have phone signal. It is pretty crazy how much difference it makes just to cross the border from Guyana to Brazil in terms of infrastructure and alike. Our bad luck with transport didn’t stop there, but extended to our Kato trips as well as our Chenapou trip, leaving Catriona and I to think we have some form of spell on us.

Our issue with the Chenapou transport was that we had organised an ATV to take us back to PK so we wouldn’t have to walk both ways, and then said ATV broke down whilst we were in Chenapou so we had to somehow rearrange. When you have no phone signal and rely on radio to contact people in the region, it really isn’t all that easy to organise things, but thankfully we managed to. I do enjoy radioing people. It’s pretty cool to get to call out to places and to do the whole “copy” and “roger that” procedure; however, it sometimes takes an eternity or even several attempts over a few days to get through to the someone and more often than not the connection is really bad, so I would really prefer to have signal.

The Chenapou boys had come to PK for Mashramani, the Independence Day, and when the event was over we trekked back with them. The trek was considerably easier this time, and Chenapou as impressive as the last. Our stay including bow and arrow shooting practices, two canoe trips and a visit to the Backdam. It was really interesting to see the Backdam, which is what the gold mining places are called. I got to try myself at hacking at the ground, holding the power hose and handling the pump (excuse the lack of appropriate terminology), all of which is very hard work in my opinion, and I only did it for a short while. Over the course of our stay we saw a total of 3 snakes, one of which Catriona almost stepped on when we were trekking back to PK, causing me a near heart attack. I still love Chenapou, and the village and our experiences there are definitely well worth the trek, and even the snake encounters; they do make for a good story as long as nothing ever comes of it.

We have had a few visitors to PK this term, and it is always with great pride and love that we show them our little village. First it was Jonny, representing our Desk Officer from Project Trust. He was only here for about half a day and a night, but we did our best to show him PK’s best sides and spots and I think/hope that he enjoyed his stay. Right before the end of term Catriona’s mum and her friend Holly came to visit. Again, we tried to show them as much as possible, and because we had a slightly longer time frame this time we managed to introduce them to our local friends and local foods and drinks like cassiri, carie and toumar. We also introduced them to the joys of fetching water buckets and bucket showering as well as showing them all our favourite spots. From what I could tell, they enjoyed their time at PK, and I would even say fell in love with it as quickly as we did; but then again, how could you not. When Anne and Holly came, they brought some things for us, including 2 boxes of cereal and actual (well, UHT) milk, which after not having drunk real milk in over 6 months turned breakfasts into a heavenly experience for a few days. It was really great to have them here. Catriona loved seeing her mum and I loved getting to meet her – she was incredibly kind to me, and so if she ends up reading this, I’d like to say thank you.

Towards the end of the term we had quite a lot of schoolwork to do. Our first task was to make the exam papers for our classes as well as specifications plus specifications tables and mark schemes, which takes up far more time and a lot more effort than I had anticipated. During exam time we had to invigilate our form classes and mark the papers of our subject classes. Once all that was out of the way it was time to do all the stats for our form classes, fill in the kids’ report booklets, create masterlists and balance the class registers, as well as having to do some other paper work. Doing all that paper work is definitely not on my list of favourite things to do, but it is a very satisfying feeling when you get finished with it all, hand your papers in to the headmistress and just be done with it.

The past few paragraphs were a very very condensed version of what I got up to this term. I really wish I could put up more blogs so I could describe aspects of my life here in more detail, but we make do with what we have. There is only one more term left now and I already dread the day I have to leave PK, and my kiddies, behind, so I plan to make the most of it.