Hello!

Playing 'electric fence' at Youth Friendly Space.

       Berbice team here, writing a very much delayed blog entry! A lot has happened in this past week. We have been continuously teaching at the Letter Kenny Youth Friendly Space, finishing off our communications topics and moving on to physical health topics. The kids there have definitely warmed up to us! Since it is an after school program we try and make the lessons as fun and engaging as possible, as well as being informative.They all love playing games, both the ones that we teach them and ones they teach us like cricket or "dog and bone".
 

Preparing to teach at Guysuco training college.

     
       As well as the Youth Friendly Space, we have also been teaching weekly at Guysuco Training College. Like we've mentioned before, these are mostly young men aged 18-22 so we have been catering our lessons to what we think would most benefit their age. We taught a 2 hour lesson on STIs and HIV/AIDS, and another on smoking and substances and both went really well! The students seem really receptive and after talking with a couple of them one on one, they have given us great ideas on what they would like to learn about, so we hope to incorporate that into our future lessons.

Graduation ceremony. 

       Yesterday, we had the honor of partaking in a graduation ceremony with some of Omeshwar's students. Seventeen of the students from our first class that we taught at the IT and office administration training college had finished the program and so the ceremony took place yesterday afternoon (Wednesday 23). It was a really nice ceremony and to our surprise they asked one of us to present an award to one of the students. It was really awesome though to see the students moving on to the next chapter of their lives. After the reception, we met a man who is a special needs teacher in region 6 and does outreach work with disabled persons in the area. We spoke with him briefly about the work he does in the area and we are hoping to meet with him again to reach the youth that he works with.
    Other than that, we have planned with Omeshwar to visit a children's shelter today and are planning on playing some fun games that relate to health. This weekend is Guyanese Independence and we have been invited to attend a number of ceremonies and apparently perform a cultural item....no idea what that means or entails but we shall see.
    Lastly, in terms of our day-to-day lives here we are enjoying ourselves immensely. There have been some aspects that have been difficult to adjust to, such as the black-outs and our frequent loss of running water but we have done our best to be flexible and adapt. As much as it has been trying at times it has been a very humbling experience and a great opportunity to experience the reality of the way many people live around the world. Not only that, but it has been very eye-opening to realize how fortunate we are at home to never have to wonder whether we will have electricity or running water when we want to cook or shower. Having said that, I think we have adjusted very well and are not overly bothered by these minor set backs.
    Well we have to run because it is time to go meet the children at the shelter so until next time, cheers!

The sunset from our veranda in Letter Kenny. 

Alyssa and Joe

Surprise!

Time for some Georgetown updates!

"Mother May I," a game the kids taught us

After our busy day on Friday, we had another busy day with 2 teaching sessions and games afterwards at a couple community centres. In the morning after the lesson, we attempted to play cricket with the kids. Arash hit the ball a few times, and seemed to be the one who got to do the most, while the rest of us stood in the outfield and were still confused about the game. Maybe next time we’ll catch on.

At the community centres, our lessons are more like discussion groups. We usually sit in a circle and talk about issues more than we lecture to students, because there are many ages and abilities in the groups. The students are very engaged, and often even end up teaching eachother – and teaching us! We’ve learned lots of new fruits and vegetables, like cashew fruit, pawpaw (papaya), star apple, mamey, callilou (spinach) and many others.  In the afternoon, the children at the Sophia Youth Friendly Space brought us guinep, a small fruit similar in size and texture to a lychee, but with a meatier fruit and a seed inside. The kids are so amazing, always wanting us to experience Guyana, often through asking us to play cricket and games, but also by giving us delicious food.

Between the first and second teaching sessions, Ms Toney gave us some methai, a sweet, crunchy deep fried breadstick, and “cool downs” (Guyanese freezies). After a break for lunch, Ms Toney drove us out to Sophia outskirts, where we then took our first Guyanese bus the rest of the way to the centre, so that we wouldn’t hurt her car too badly on the washed out roads like we did to the poor man in the cab the day before. Busses here are the size of large minivans with an extra row of seats. The bus was pretty fun, but we were glad to have Ms Toney to show us where to get on and off.

Leslie's 10 steps to condom use

On Sunday we were writing in our journals and making up some activities for the lessons next week when we got a call from the Berbice team saying that Omeshwar, the social worker from the Ministry of Culture Youth and Sport for the region that the Berbice team is in, would be in Georgetown and wanted to meet us. We said we would love to meet him, BUT the sneaky, sneaky Berbice team actually fabricated Omeshwars whereabouts to make sure we would be around on our day off so that THEY could visit us! Next thing we know, Joe, Alyssa and Jamie have surprised us at our door. We had an amazing day with them, exploring Georgetown by going to a new, delicious Brazilian restaurant and then going to the Sea Wall in the evening, a popular Sunday night hangout spot for locals.

         On Monday morning, before the Berbice team left, Jamie showed us a store called Nigel’s that has anything you could want or need. We were so happy to discover it and be able to get some much-needed snacks for our busy days like Fridays and Saturdays. Thanks Jamie!!!

         We taught a couple lessons, and then headed off to Lifeline. After Lifeline, we went to an unreal restaurant, Ali Babba’s, where we had – wait for it – SHAWARMAS! Doesn’t get better than that, folks.

         Tuesday we had some more teaching, and we stocked up at the Guyana Stores on clothing and ribbons to get ready for Guyana Independence Day this Saturday! We all got shirts and belts, and Arash even got a pair of Guyana shorts. Tuesday night is our only evening off, so we went for a long run along the Sea Wall. Our running goal is to get to Suriname (just kidding, it’s 200km away).

         We’re all getting along super well, so lucky to have such an awesome team!

-Beth, Arash, Sydney, and Leslie

All On Our Own

Hi everyone,

Arash here! Today marks the 14th day since our arrival to Georgetown and also the second day we are completely on our own. Kelly left Georgetown for Toronto yesterday morning as her trip was cut short due to the recent flooding in Lethem. So, it is now completely up to us to explore the town, make new contacts, and represent QHO to the best of our abilities. I should mention however that Jamie is still in Berbice and will be coming to visit us here in Georgetown next week before she heads home.

Wednesday was a relatively busy day for the Georgetown PEs. Sydney and Leslie started off the day by teaching a lesson on nutrition, fitness, and disease in the morning, while Sydney and myself taught the same lesson to another class in the afternoon. Then, later that day, we all traveled to East Ruimveldt (one of the low-income communities surrounding Georgetown) to hold a homework help session at the East Ruimveldt Community Centre. We were greeted by Ms. Donna, the social worker in charge of the East Ruimveldt area, and lots of kids who were beyond excited to see us return. We definitely recognized many familiar faces from our session the previous week, which is always a good sign! We helped the kids with anything from math and spelling to social studies and art. During this time, Sydney and I decided to give the older kids who didn't have any homework, an introduction to our upcoming lesson on Sexual Health. This was very welcomed by the students and other community members who joined in to listen, and also solidified the need for our curriculum. Once everyone had finished their homework, we decided to go outside and play, which included giving a lot of piggy-back rides to the kids.

On Thursday, since a lot of our classes were canceled due to the CXC testing (a test which must be completed by students in order to get a job in Guyana) going on in schools, we all headed to a local GRPA (Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association) to get some information on resources we could provide to our students when we teach them about sexual health, contraceptives, and STI’s. Leslie and Beth even put on a brave face and signed up and got tested for HIV so that they could get a sense of how HIV testing works in Guyana and to be able to provide the students with the details. Overall, visiting the GRPA was very successful and provided us with a lot of insight about the process of getting tested for STI’s and HIV, as well as the stigma associated with it. Later that day, Leslie and I taught our regular class at community college, after which we all went out for dinner with Kelly on her last night in Guyana.

Friday brought about a relatively hectic day for us in Georgetown. We started the day by teaching at a new school Ms. Toney had arranged for us, the Sophia Primary School. Getting to this new school however was a mission and a half! The Sophia Primary School is located in the Sophia community, which is around 20 minutes outside of Georgetown. However, due to the heavy rain we had experienced the past two days, many of the roads were washed away and were left with huge ditches and potholes. Against all odds, we made it to the school and taught our lesson. After, we met up with Ms. Toney so that she could provide us with the times and locations of some new schools that we will be teaching at. The addition of these new schools to our schedule has made us quite busy, but we are excited and very eager to reach out to as many people as possible during our stay in Guyana. After our meeting with Ms. Toney, we made our way to the Royal Academy school, taught our students there, then headed to the Ruimveldt Children’s Home. The Ruimveldt Children’s Home is a place where children can hang out after school, get help with their homework, and eat some food. There we met Ms. December who was in charge of the kids for the day and was beyond happy to have us. During our hour stay, we hung out with the kids, I re-tried to learn “how to dougie” (watch the video), and helped Ms. December and the staff with serving the kids' food, and the clean up that followed. We all loved our experience at the Ruimveldt Children’s Home and will be going back every Thursday and Friday. 

Until next time, 

The Georgetown Crew! 

Georgetown - Can't believe it's already been 10 days...

Hey everyone,

Beth and Arash checking in! We can't believe that this is only the second week of our stay here in Georgetown, Guyana, as we feel like we have already done so much and experienced a lot of the culture that Guyana has to offer. But most importantly, we have all become accustomed to the ways of the city and feel very much at home.

For our first week in Guyana, we mostly taught as a group of 4 in order to become familiarized with the school system here, and to be able to get Kelly's feedback on our lessons and our teaching. However, for this week and for the rest of our stay here, we have split up the schedule so that we only teach in groups of two and that we get to work with each other.

We started off the week with a lesson that Beth and Sydney taught, and lets just say that we thought we were doing the teaching, but the students definitely taught us a lesson in classroom management. We quickly realized that the overwhelming number of teenage boys would rather have cracked jokes than listen to our lesson on communication. However, when we read over the question box questions we were surprised to see that the students were definitely paying attention because we got lots of relevant, insightful questions. Arash and Leslie taught at the same time, teaching a great lesson to a smaller group on physical health. The poster they made resembling a giant nutrition label was a huge hit, and really helped a lot of the students grasp the concepts of healthy eating, and the importance of essential nutrients. As more time goes by, we're realizing that an advantage of being here for 8 weeks is that we can get to know the classroom dynamic and tailor each lesson to best suit the students' needs.

That afternoon we all went to Lifeline for our first time to tutor students. There was a mix of ages between 5-12 years, but since there were 5 of us (Kelly was there too) we got the job done.

Early Tuesday morning, Kelly left Georgetown to join up with the Berbice team. This was a very last minute decision, as she and Jamie were supposed to travel to Lethem (past project location) to drop off teaching manuals for the community so that our curriculum can still be taught thus maintaining sustainability. However, the extreme flooding of the region rendered it unsafe for PDs to travel there as they could have become stranded. After much deliberation, Kelly and Jamie decided that it was in everyone's best interest to call their contacts in Lethem and mail them the QHO resources instead.

For the PEs, Tuesday brought a very productive day (likely due to the coffee we enjoyed at breakfast!). Leslie and Beth taught a lesson on physical health to an extremely attentive class. While Leslie and Beth were teaching, Sydney and Arash went above and beyond by exploring the town (and the internet) for local resources that correspond to the material in our curriculum. They visited a local health institute, where they were given up to date resources that we can now provide to students. They even figured out where we can get HIV/AIDS testing, so that we are able to answer our students' questions about the testing process!

After a long day of teaching and walking all over town, we practiced what we preached by going for a long run! We found an awesome route by the sea wall; the breeze by the sea makes the running in the heat and humidity much more bearable.

We're about to snuggle up and watch a movie (but not actually snuggle because it's too hot) then have an early night before our morning classes tomorrow.

Until next time!

The Georgetown Team

Georgetown Update

Hi Everyone!

Leslie here. We are early risers in Georgetown as the sun rises around 5:30am! It is awesome because we get all of our lessons prepared early in the morning, and collect all of our teaching supplies so we're ready to go.

We have lots to update you on, as we were super busy this weekend. Friday we all taught at Royal Academy. Myself and Arash taught the From 1 and 2's and Beth and Sydney taught the Form 3 and 4's. Arash and I had a great time teaching the communication lesson, and we were soon promised a cricket lesson in return. Arash also learnt a popular Guyanese dance move; dougie-ing. Its fun that we can teach them valuable information, and they can teach us things about their culture that we would otherwise never be exposed to. Beth and Sydney really enjoyed their class, they also taught a communication lesson and their students were very much engaged and excited to participate. Upon leaving the school, we were all given fresh cool refreshments from the students and set off on our walk home.

On the way home, we stopped at a local fruit market. We picked up selected fruits to munch on as snacks and easy breakfasts before classes. The bananas here are about half the size in Canada, and are very sweet - almost tasting like a pineapple. We also bought a lot of grapes and apples. Fruit here is delicious and very easy to come by.

Saturday was probably one of the most exciting days we've had here yet. In the morning we travelled to one of the low income communities where we were greeted by a bunch of children from the East Ruimveldt community. The social worker that works at the Community Centre, Ms. Donna, was beyond enthused that we were there and the kids were super happy to be spending their Saturday mornings with us. Ms. Donna reiterated the importance of our presence in the community and assured us our work would be cherished and remembered. After our lesson, we took the children outside where we learnt a variety of Guyanese games. The first, a variety of Duck Duck Goose, involved running at top speeds around a circle before the other got back to their spot. There is a unique song that is sung along to it, and after a few rounds of practice, we all got the hang of it. Another game "Fish, Fish in a Dish", got all the children excited and they were happy to teach us their favourite pastimes. The kids were sad to see us go, but happy to know that we would return on Wednesday afternoons for Homework Help and then every Saturday as well for a Health lesson.

Playing a Communication Activity in the East Ruimveldt Community Centre. 

Saturday afternoon, our social worker Ms. Toney took us to the Sophia Youth Friendly Space. Sophia is another low income area of Georgetown. All the kids were happy to see Ms. Toney arrive and quickly showed up on bikes and with their siblings. Beth and I did a session with the younger kids (aged 3-7years) and Arash and Sydney taught a lesson to the older children (8-14years). After the lessons were done, we played a lot of hide and go seek, another Guyanese game called "Blind Eye" and lastly we watched a traditional dance that the girls do in May around a May-Pole in celebration of Independence Day (on May 26th). We were exhausted after our 6 day teaching week and we all went to sleep and rested up on Sunday.

Sydney & Arash's Lesson at the Sophia Youth Friendly Space

We are looking forward to visiting all of our classes again this week and seeing the children again! Now, we get to start our lessons on Physical Health: Hygiene, Nutrition, Fitness and Disease.

Cheers for now,

Leslie, Sydney, Beth and Arash.

One week since we arrived!

Hello from Berbice,

             I can't believe it has been one week already since we arrived last Sunday. It seems like it was just yesterday that we got on the plane in Toronto and yet it feels at the same time like we have been here for ages allready. We are becoming more and more comfortable in our surroundings and I am definitely becoming more accustomed to the local accents. I find myself struggling far less to understand even the stronger accents, which was defintely a struggle when we first arrived. There are some things that we are still adjusting to, like the music that starts every morning at about 8:00 at full volume from the church next door. Today is Mother's Day so there was an especially large gathering at the church next door. A special greetings and wishes to all of our mothers at home on this day!
             We have been continuing to work very closely with Omeshwar from the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport. He is particularly interested in working with youth who are not formally in schools, which is great and fits perfectly with QHO's desire to try to impact those who are most in need. We have made arrangements to teach a number of times this coming week and though things have been off to a somewhat slow start with a lot of meetings to arrange things, I think that this week will be full of teaching. One of the opportunities that we are very excited about is the man Emanuel, who runs the Youth Friendly Space in Letter Kenny is very excited about teaching with us. He is a very charming and friendly man and has a great deal of passion for impacting young Guyanese people. We travelled with Emanuel yesterday to the nearby market in Port Mourant, where we distributed pamphlets on sexual health topics like emergency contraceptives, family planning, involvement in the community to reduce stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS, abuse, TB, and a whole range of topics as well as distributing free condoms. The market happens every saturday in Port Mourant and is a huge bustling market where you can find pretty well everything you need. Emanuel was hugely helpful in helping us find a whole variety of fresh vegetables and fruits. We quickly stopped in at a fast food restaurant called Spready's to get a cold drink and met three young American women who were stationed nearby in a community called Blackbush, working with the PeaceCorp. They seemed really nice and are here working in Health and Education, so we chatted about the work we were doing and exchanged contact information. We returned home with a huge shopping bag of fresh produce which we were very excited to cook for dinner last night.
        My time is about to run out at this internet cafe so I will rap it up but all is well here and we can't wait to get into teaching this week! Cheers till next time,

Joe, Alyssa and Jamie.

Berbice PE's

Greetings from Letter Kenny!

         This is our third day here in the Berbice area! Berbice is the area surrounding and including New Amsterdam, and the new name of our project. It was renamed to Berbice because most of our teaching will be outside the city, including the small town of Letter Kenny where our house is. It has been a very busy couple of days! We arrived in New Amsterdam at around noon on Wednesday where we explored for a couple of hours before getting a car to our house in Letter Kenny. After settling in to our house, we met Omeshwar, our contact at the Ministry of Culture Youth and Sport. He is awesome and we are all very excited to be working together. After sort of briefing the three of us on his plans for us over the next two months we joined him at a meeting for the Administrative Board of the WHIM Police Station. Omeshwar is the newly elected Chairman for the board and it was a very interesting meeting and an honour that he invited us to attend. Unfortunately, this was our first introduction to the mosquitoes in Berbice and they seemed more than happy to indulge. Due to very high levels of rain lately there has been significant flooding in the region and as a result the mosquitoes are much worse than in the Georgetown. After the meeting, Omeshwar drove us to a Chinese restaurant that is literally across the road from our house in Letter Kenny. We took home some chow mein for dinner before settling in and planning our teaching lesson the following morning. We got to bed quite early after a day of exploring our new surroundings and what would be our home for almost the next 2 months.
         We woke up early around 8 to prepare for our lesson and eat breakfast and I must say that it is definitely still taking some adjusting to sleeping under a mosquito net. It is something that I have never experienced and it takes some adjusting to as any body part that touches the screen may get bitten through the screen by the mosquitoes. At around 11:15 we had our first teaching session at a training college in New Amsterdam, where the students are all about to graduate by next week. The students were roughly between the age of 18-22  according to Omeshwar, and were about 15 females and 5 males.We taught goal setting and values and it went very well for our first lesson, although over time there will of course be many opportunities for improvement. After a quick lunch at the Stelling (the port), Omeshwar took us to the Letter Kenny Youth Friendly Space. This is somewhere we will be teaching a few times a week and it was so cool! However, the center has been flooded for about 5 days so when we arrived we helped build a makeshift bridge to get across the lake that seemed to surround the building. Yesterday was an opportunity to meet some of the kids we will be working with, and for them to get to know us. The kids were shy at first, but after a game of Captain, Admiral, Boom they started to warm up to us. We also played cricket! It was my first time, and it was really fun for the 30 seconds I got to play before Joe got me out.
         Today we are going back to the Youth Friendly Space, and later on we are teaching our first lesson at the Guysuco Training College, where we will be teaching once a week. Apparently we have to teach condom negotiation and sexual health to about 100-120 young men, which is a little intimidating but its good to just jump in I guess! Anyway, our time is about to run out on our computer at the internet cafe so we will have to follow up again soon. We will also try to attach some pictures of where we are living and teaching as proof that we are actually here. Until next time, cheers!

Joe, Alyssa and Jamie

Georgetown - Project Director update

Hey everyone! Kelly here.

I have now been back in Guyana for 10 days! It has been such an incredible experience to return to Guyana this year as one of the Project Directors. Having spent 8 weeks teaching here last year, it's been so great to reunite with old friends, recognize former students (oh, how I've missed being called "Miss Kelly"!), eat at my favourite restaurants, and be able to confidently navigate the streets of Georgetown right from the start (I'm not as directionally-challenged as many have accused me of being). It's also been a lot of fun passing along all of my knowledge to this year's Peer Educators!

Walking to Chase Academy!

This morning we were all woken up by a torrential downpour outside, and we scrambled to close the heavy windows in our rooms so that our belongings wouldn't get soaked. Fortunately, the rain ended quickly, and we were able to put our umbrellas away during our walk to Chase Academy, where the 4 Georgetown PEs taught a lesson about hygiene, nutrition, and disease to a Form 4 (Grade 10) class. I have been observing the PEs in all of their teaching sessions this week, and it has been amazing to see the vast improvement in their teaching even between their first lesson on Monday and now. They're still getting used to understanding their students' accents, but I've assured them that in a few weeks they'll be pros at it.

For lunch, I let the PEs lead the way to Shanta's, a little restaurant close to home that serves awesome pumpkin curry and roti. The PEs were at first confused as to which direction to turn at which streets, but with my help they mastered the path from Rima Guest House to Shanta's, which I'm sure they will visit often during their time here.

Last night I created a simple map of Georgetown, with restaurants, schools, hospitals, and other important locations highlighted, which will be helpful for the PEs as they slowly familiarize themselves with the city. There's lots of empty space on it, which they can fill in as they discover new places that I never explored last year!

A map of Georgetown that I drew for the Gtown PEs, with important buildings and locations.

In the afternoon, the PEs split up to teach at different schools. Beth and Sydney taught at Chase, while Arash and Leslie taught at Community College. This marks the first time that they taught in pairs instead of a group of 4 since they've been in Guyana. They all did an awesome job, and were super excited to read through the comments and questions written by their students at the end of class.

I have thoroughly enjoyed all of my Project Director duties this week, including introducing the PEs to Ms. Toney (our main contact at the Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Sport), setting up a meeting at Lifeline, observing the PEs as they teach in various schools, giving advice on lesson plans, and showing them everything Georgetown has to offer. Yesterday I got to witness the PEs buy their very first bags of juice at Juice Power!

Georgetown PEs holding bags of juice from Juice Power, after a day full of teaching sessions and meetings!

Being back in Guyana brings back so many memories from last year. I can't even express how special my experience as a PE last year was, and I'm so happy that I get to guide this year's PEs and help make the project even better than before. I have full confidence that the PEs will do an amazing job this year. I have watched them improve as teachers over the past 7 months, from their very first time teaching during their interviews last October to handling rowdy students in their teaching session this afternoon. Sometimes I wish that I could be a PE again this year and join them!

- Kelly

Georgetown - Goodbyes and more teaching

Hey everyone,

Our friend the sloth! 

We have been quite busy the past two days hence why we were not able to update the blog yesterday. We started off the day yesterday by making a trip to the Guyana Zoo in Georgetown so that we could see more of Georgetown and understand where the locals lime (hang) out. We got to see many exotic animals that are native to South America such as the Giant Otter, Anaconda, and the Harpy Eagle. It was a great experience to be able to see these animals especially since we will not get another chance to do so! After the zoo, we headed off to Chase Academy for the first time. This would be our second teaching session thus far. We taught Form 1s (Grade 7 Canadian equivalent), both the Headmaster and the teacher were extremely welcoming and excited to have QHO back at their school. The lesson went extremely smoothly and the kids were very responsive and took away a lot from what we taught. As well, we felt a lot more prepared and comfortable teaching than the day before! Before the Berbice (formerly the New Amsterdam project) team left Georgetown for their project start date, we all enjoyed one last dinner along the ocean together! 

Last night as a whole team! 

On Wednesday (May 9th), we went back to Chase Academy to teach the Form 2 and Form 4 (grades 8 and 10/11 Canadian equivalence). We got really good responses from the students today including personal thank you's from the two classes. After Chase Academy, we travelled to LifeLine which is an organization designed to provide support to those affected and infected with HIV/AIDS. After discussing with the director of the organization, it was decided that our role there would be to work with the children, tutoring them on everyday school subjects. We cannot wait to get started with this project next Monday.

Leslie during a teaching session at Chase Academy. 

We be limin' til next time!

Leslie, Arash, Beth, and Sydney

Georgetown - First teaching day!

Our new friend who told us to bring back his
picture to Canada to show our friends! 

Hey everyone, 

This is the Georgetown team! It's the second day and we already feel like we have done tons. We started off today by walking around town and visiting a few marketplaces. It would be an understatement if I said that we were not overwhelmed by the large number of people and vendors that were crowding the streets. 

Although our pre-departure training warned us of looking both ways before crossing the street since in Guyana cars drive on the opposite side of the road, we were surprised to see how important that rule really is! The first place we visited today were the Guyana stores, which in some ways is equivalent to the Walmart of North America. We then made our way to Starbroek Marketplace, which was in a beautiful building with any kind of merchandise you could possibly think of. The Georgetown team then had to split up from Jamie, Joe, and Alyssa as we had to head back home to prepare for our first teaching session. On the way, we visited the City Mall which houses the only escalator in Guyana. We also got some traditional food on the way, consisting of Roti, pumpkin, chicken, and potato curry, and Dahl. I should say that the food here is truly delicious and we cannot get enough of it. Beth's favourite food was the pumpkin curry with Roti and she says that she will eat it everyday! We will see by the end of eight weeks...

Us on the only escalator in Guyana (more exciting than you would think) 

The Georgetown family outside Rima right before our first
lesson. 

After lunch, we met up with Ms. Toney at the Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Sport. Ms. Toney is a social worker and the acting director of the Ministry. She is in charge of all the youth in Guyana. She has been working hard to create a teaching schedule for us which she will drop off tonight! After having a meeting with her, we were off to our first teaching session at Community College where we taught a lesson on goal setting and leadership to a class of students ranging from age 12 to 14. Community college was a one room school house which was divided into 4 classrooms by chalkboards. This was a challenge seeing as  it was hard to block out the noises from the other kids...not the perfect teaching situation for our first lesson. Also, since this was our first lesson, we were super nervous. However, once we stepped into the room and started teaching, all of our anxiety went away and teaching became a natural thing as we had been preparing and practicing for so many months. It was also interesting to see how teaching styles differ in Guyana from that in Canada. For example, as we entered the class, all the students stood up to greet us and wouldn't sit back down until we told them to. As well, they would stand up every time they responded to our questions. However, these students were highly disciplined, polite, and respectful, which is something we could definitely use more of back home at Queen's. 

The ride to Community College...EXCITED!

After we finished teaching, we made our way back to the Rima Guesthouse and started to reflect on our experiences in Guyana thus far. We have thoroughly enjoyed the traditional foods that are offered here in Guyana and have started to get used to the intense heat and humidity which makes things extra sticky! Leslie and Sydney learned an important lesson last night about the rain in Guyana: move all important items away from the windows when it's raining and the window is wide open! When the rain comes on it is sudden and very heavy, but it is so welcomed because it really cools everything down.

All in all, we still cannot believe that after 8 months of preparations we are finally here in Guyana and cannot wait to share more experiences with each other and with you!

We be limin' til next time!

Arash, Beth, Sydney and Leslie

Georgetown, our new home!

Hey there,
        Joe checking in here from Georgetown, Guyana. We left Pearson Int'l Airport last night at about 11:00 and arrived at Cheddi Jagan Airport this morning at 7:40. There is no time change between Georgetown and Toronto, so we were in the air for about 7 hours total with a bit less than a 2 hour lay over in Port of Spain. We all met really friendly fellow passengers during the flight, one of which gave Beth and I some rare breed of banana called apple bananas or silk figs. We walked out of the airplane onto the tarmac into a balmy 29 degrees celsius morning, and immediately you could feel the humidity in the air. My fingers were sticking together and it was almost like you could drink the water out of the air. We stood for a minute on the tarmac and tried to soak in our surroundings as it struck us all that our 8 months of preparation had finally come to an end and we had arrived in Guyana! Pretty phenomenal feeling.

Taxi ride to Georgetown

        Jamie and Kelly met us once we had navigated through the small airport customs and picked up our baggage. Luckily everything was intact and untampered with. With the help of a friendly cab driver Jamie and Kelly negotiated a mini bus taxi to drive us the hour back to downtown Georgetown and we all enjoyed the drive back as we got our first introduction to the sites around Georgetown. The habit of honking at every car on the road by every car definitely seemed to be a little unfamiliar for most of us newly arrived peer educators. We arrived at Rima Guesthouse by around 9 this morning and could already feel the day heating up. I must say the heat is something that despite being warned sufficiently by our Project Directors, none of us were really ready for just how hot it is and today has actually been quite a mild day. Anyway, we spent the rest of the day walking around and exploring with the group, taking out money at the Scotia Bank and resting from our travels. After a nap in the early afternoon, we grabbed some lunch around the corner at Jerrie's restaurant and got to experience some of the local cuisine. I ate a dish called Channa, which is a spicy chickpea dish and an eggball, which is a hard boiled egg cooked in a layer of cassava. Some of the others had either jerked chicken or baked chicken and "cook up", which is essentially rice cooked with beans and some vegetables, seasoned and all mixed together. All in all, it was a delicious meal and I think we all enjoyed it thoroughly, though some of our stomachs may take some time adjusting to the spicy food.
      After a couple of meetings to go over some of the logistical details of keeping track of everything while we are on project, we went over some teaching details and are now preparing to go for dinner at another restaurant in town. After dinner we may head down to the "sea wall", which is a popular hangout on Sunday evenings. Today has been a great first day and while we are all definitely still adjusting, I can say that I am so excited to get started on teaching and getting out to see more of the country. The Georgetown team is hitting the ground running and are teaching tomorrow afternoon. Alyssa and I are heading to New Amsterdam on Wednesday morning and are looking forward to getting settled in at our new home there. From the sounds of Jamie's meeting with our partner social worker Omeshwar there is a ton of stuff for us to do and we are gonna be super busy, which is incredibly exciting! Well it is time to get ready for dinner so until next time, cheers from the Guyana team.

Here we gooooooooo

Hello folks,

Arash here! We are currently at the Pearson airport in Toronto awaiting our flight to Port of Spain. We are super excited and cannot wait to start our journey.

Much love,

The Guyana crew