RICE

Monday, May 11

ELECTIONS

Boring day for me- I basically was on house arrest. But it was an exciting day for Guyanese!

Tuesday, May 12

NO ELECTION NEWS

I had training- no need to elaborate.

Wednesday, May 13

NO ELECTION NEWS

Again, more training.

Thursday, May 14

NO ELECTION NEWS

AKA still no one is working and no school. So no practicum as planned -training instead.

Friday, May 15

THE OPPOSITION WON.

This week felt INCREDIBLY long. 

For reference to the process of voting here in Guyana, check out my last blog. 

Basically the results were only announced 4 days after elections took place because of this process and because of a few other reasons. Recounts were called for and took time to complete. 

But those happy with the election celebrated with song and dance and even some tears!

It was a HUGE day in history.

Saturday, May 16

FISH MARKET

We left at 5:30 am and went into Georgetown and headed around the fish market. I’ve never been to a fish market, but that smelly place had some beautiful fresh catches. I wish I would have taken pictures, but it’s been hard to take pictures because I already stick out and don’t need anyone seeing me flashing my phone everywhere.

Birthday Party for Sarah S. and Missy! It was so nice to see everyone outside of training, and to see the adorable puppies at Sarah’s(:

Sunday, May 17

Laundry day. Hand wash. Working on my technique. Took me over an hour. Relaxed after the hard work.

Then I went to Kelly’s for Suzie’s BDay Bash! Same as yesterday- it was nice to spend time together as people and not just PCTs. 

Monday, May 18

Today we went to the schools for practicum in the morning. I performed a literacy assessment on my grade 1 pupils and just had them identify the letters and their sounds. The kids loved working with me even though it was boring. I also loved working with them! The assessment was difficult to do with the noise level and lack of space to conduct it in, but I was able to receive some data and analyze it into what is exactly needed. The rest of the day we had a reflection.

Tuesday, May 19

Training. No fun.

Wednesday, May 20

FIELD TRIP to GT (Georgetown)

First, we went to NCERD National Center for Educational Resource Development.

They taught us about how the educational ministry is set up and of course gave us resources to use and contact to reach once we go to sites.

We also got to go around GT a bit to different shops and book stores.

No time for ice cream though.

Thursday, May 21

Half day with the crazies at school. I basically worked with them one on one and was able to help the “lower level” students as they’re called here, to receive a bit more attention which helps them learn more. The kids love me now. Sometimes they forget to call me Miss Fran and they just say Fran instead of just saying Miss, which is the respectful way to say teacher. After school, we reflected with education volunteers.

Friday, May 22

Training all together today. That means volunteers from Laluni (the far training site) and the Soesdyke and Timehri. 

Saturday, May 23

Kyera (my new PCT friend) went back to Sarah S’s for another party except no one showed up. HA so yeah it was nice though because it was so low key! 

Sunday, May 24

I’m pretty sure I did nothing today.

Monday, May 25

Rice:

I’m taking this opportunity to talk about 2 things thus the title of the blog..

I’ll start out with the obvious- rice has become a main food in my diet. Not gonna lie, I don’t love it. First I’ll explain in what ways I eat rice, how often and then I’ll explain how good it is. Then I’ll move onto my other reason for writing about “rice”. 

Rice is a major crop here in Guyana. This means that it is a cheap food and comes in total abundance. AKA we eat rice all the time. Rice for breakfast, rice for lunch, rice for dinner. I’m lucky because I don’t eat rice for breakfast and my host family knows that I truly don’t care for rice. But I eat it often because I am here to learn about the culture and make it more of my own. So, rice fried, rice in cook up (basically rice with veggies or rice with beans, or rice with… just all cooked up together), white rice and brown rice (with sides of vegetables and fried fish nearly every lunch). Basically I eat A LOT of rice. To me rice has no nutritional value and is just a place holder. It pretty much just shoves my stomach full, but I think since it has no benefits of eating it I get hungry a little later. Maybe that’s just because I eat less than 1/3 of the portions my family would eat.

ok moving on to the other meaning of rice.

Roaches and mICE =RICE

So. To make a long story short. I was up watching tv all alone when a HUGE flying roach comes out of no where. I have a minor panic attack, laughing at myself of course, but I remained very still. Once I calmed myself down, like a 5 year old who didn’t get their way, to my surprise popped out a little mouse!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m going to get used to these things, but I’m living in such a nice house here I didn’t think it would happen just yet. I also didn’t think a mouse would pop out after I freaked over a cockroach. I literally ran to my room laughing at my ridiculous self and locked myself in for the rest of the night hoping the creatures wouldn’t find their way to my room. 

(mind you other trainees have bats in their rooms, lizards, frogs, spiders.. and I freaked out over RICE)

Tuesday, May 26

It’s my birthday and I’ll smile if I want to!!

Rewind a bit. 

I woke up, got out of the shower and to my delight a cake was on the table. My jaw dropped with shock of the surprise and its beauty.

My host mama is a champ and made me a beautiful cake of the Guyanese flag. We wrapped it up and I shared it with all of my friends. I also was sung to, blew out a lighter as my candle, and received a handful of cards, and a few hand made bracelets. I truly can’t express how thankful I am to be here with so many supporting and loving people. This is my first birthday away from home in 23 years and I definitely shed some tears in wishing home friends and family could have been here to help celebrate as well. BUT I’m so thankful to have the love from everyone in GUY27, thank you thank you thank you. Here’s to many more times of leaning on you all for support!

Here’s to another 2 years!

Wednesday, May 27

Today we were at the school all day again. I’m not going to lie. I really don’t want to have my own classroom. I love working one on one with the students. There is one boy who really wants to be on the same level as his friends, he did the homework I gave him over the holiday, and he asks me for help regularly. It makes me so excited just thinking about him because I can’t wait to really focus on him and help him with his basic letters and numbers so he can actually start learning like his peers.

I say it was hard because PC gave us a project. But our Head Mistress isn’t really the head mistress, she is the acting HM and also has her own classroom to teach. Like today, she had a meeting so my teacher went to teach some of her classes. Back and forth back and forth, her class our class, her class our class. It was just so tough. And in our project we are to work with the school to do something the school needs and wants. HM told us that they are getting a reading room ready and would love if we could help. When she took us to see it, they have NO books. No libraries in the school, no art classrooms and gyms like we are used to in America. The thing is we don’t have access to books to create the reading room, no books, no tv, no furniture, no carpets, we have nothing tangible to contribute. So how do we help? We came up with materials that the student could make, books, literacy tools, flash cards etc and we explained them to the teachers today. They basically are at just the same loss we are. We still have no materials. So it was a rather depressing meeting for me. I felt down after it. Like I’m not here to give you “things”. I’m here to work with your community. And I felt alone because the things they want I can’t provide. 

So even though the day was hard as hell. I’m really thankful for my buddy who is going to make this short stint at his school enjoyable for me.

SIDE NOTE:

I’m sorry for the delay. I’m going to attempt to blog once a week from now on. And I’ll type in a word document every night to not forget!

ALSO: 

My iPhone isn’t recognized by my computer bc of my Guyanese sim card so I haven’t been able to get pictures on here. If anyone knows how to help me PLEASE do!

Love you, thanks for reading and SO sorry I wrote so much!

Kisses,

Fran