sweet sweet Lethem!!

HELLO HELLO!!! I have now been living in Lethem for about a week and toady was my fifth day of teaching- if you can call it that- the school is very unorganized – I have been sitting with one particular class for 4 days strait doing whatever comes to mind while the school makes the schedule. This afternoon I had with them play cards for ohhh 2 hours- I’m running out of jeopardy/ word finds/ hangman ideas. So far our days have been pretty routine though- wake up around 6, make breakfast- Be proud Andrew- I cook my roommates French toast THAT’S RIGHT I cook!!, we then go to school, come home, go to the internet/ look for friends, go to find dinner at one of the little shacks and then wonder home to be in bed around 9 absolutely exhausted. But so far this routine has been pretty successful with introducing ourselves to the people in Lethem and let me tell you there are some crazyyy characters.

First and foremost there is Bruce. This guys is an ex VSO (European volunteer) who stills works here as a teacher (after 2 years) and he lives on the school compound like us. It seems that everyone in town knows this man and smirks at the mere sound of his voice. I’m not sure how to take him seriously as he seems a mere characterature of himself. His daily outfit (and by daily I mean I have yet to see him wear different clothing than this) is a pair of green sweat pants tucked into gray socks with tevos topped off by a wrinkly dress shirt and a tie much resembling a potato sack. As if that weren’t enough he has an insane love of the phrase “jolly good”- insert English accent- and he accompanies about 7 jolly goods with the most vigorous handshake I have ever seen. And that’s just at the beginning of the convo- you can never tell what talking to this man might reveal. For instance this morning we were casually talking about how he used to live in Ethiopia (amoung Vegas as a card dealer, London as a double bus driver and Fiji) when mid convo he just smiles and says well yes that all ended when I was captured by the military and held as a prisoner of their civil war. But no biggie to Bruce his captures were nice so they releases him after a mere 6 months- nice vacation right?? Is this man for real?? More to come.

Among our western friends there are plenty of white volunteers- about 15 or so. They are all very nice and mostly in the 30s or older. There is Kristin (a peace corp) who will prove to be a valuable friend- she has a really nice house complete with a tv, dvd player and like 10 coconut trees.

Pat!! Pat my just be one of my new favorite people (and this is not only because she rears horses and is going to teach me how to ride). Pat is an American who relocated to Guyana (reasons unknown) and currently lives in a thatch house across the creek from us. She seems to pop up at the most unexpected moments with answers to questions that we hadn’t even asked- she found us at the airstrip when our ride had forgotten us and got us a cab- thank goodness I didn’t have to drag the green ladies 2 miles. Pat seems to appreciate us as well- she writes a soap operay blog (rupununispin.blogspot.com feel free to read) and is thrilled to have material for her next issue thanks to us- think learning how I was forced to scoop out the content of our broken toilet to Reve pretending she has a chronic problem (yeast infection by Pat’s suggestion) requiring refrigerated medication in order to get a frig out of the redo (regional education office)- hasn’t happened yet as we are waiting for a letter required to see her but stay tuned.

Our New Friends!!! After wondering around town looking for friends our own age we had just about given up looking and accepted the fact that they didn’t exist and we were sitting at the Brazilian restaurant discussing that very thing when low and behold guess who shows up?? Pat!! with Sean (american guy) and about 5 others who followed later. Apparently they had been at our house but couldn’t find us and come into to town looking. But yay!! New friends!! Among them is Sean- he a researcher researching something, he lives with 2 others who we haven’t met yet. Also there was Sara who, with her husband, runs a company called Bush Masters- they take tourists into the Bush- the jungle- and drop them off for high adventure vacations. She will be great as she knows all the best spots to go camping!!

So that pretty much sums up most of the volunteer but that not to say that there aren’t any eccentric locals because that is definitely not true. Take Auntie B for example (all older women are called Auntie)- upon first meeting she chased us down to ask us over for dinner- nice right- we liked her until we found out that she’ll act really nice but then starting requiring very weird favors. Think forcing a volunteer last year to chase a chicken around in her yard until he caught it (about 2 hours later) and then making him kill it for dinner- SORRY Auntie B I will NOT be doing that.

The other teachers at our school have been very nice and helpful though but that is a different story from the school board (we had our first meeting yesterday lead by Alfred aka frog man) This meeting was to discuss our grievances- or the fact that we had not had running water for 5 days- the boards suggestion was to start collecting rain water to store- ya I don’t think that will cut it, sorry guys. But luckily following the meeting one of the teachers came over to look at our plumbing and was able to fix it- someone had turned it off. It would have been nice if the school board told us this but I guesss that not the Guyanese way haha.

School officially starts on Monday and I am now responsible for teaching bio, integrated science and English. While this teaching thing sounds great in theory, it turns out that I actually have no idea what I am doing. YIKES but I assume/ hope that I will learn as I go along.

OH YES I almost forgot we have a puppy named Sophia Lauren (she’s teeny tiny and all black- we love her even though she keeps us up allll night) She’s not the same puppy that Reve was supposed to bring- that one got stolen back by her mother and hidden – weird right?? Oh well Sophia is better. She is supposed to be our watch dog but at the present moment weighing in at approx 2 pounds she can’t even keep the cockroaches away. Oh well she is sooo pretty and adorable!!

Ok my fingers are sore- I guess that all for now!! I tell you later how my teaching went!!