Week 2!

Week two complete, and wow was it ever different from week one! This was our first week teaching in schools, and all of our hard work and practice lessons in Kingston during the year are starting to pay off! Nick and Ciara had an extra early start to their Monday morning, as they were teaching in three schools about one hour away. Elizabeth, Liz, Delaney and Hailey stayed a little closer to home and all finished at the same spot on Monday afternoon. The classrooms in Guyana are quite different than North America, as most rooms are separated by chalkboards instead of walls, so needless to say we have all found our “teaching voices”!

As a group, we have all come to appreciate our primary and secondary school teachers and all the effort they would put into teaching us, but especially in their introductory lessons. We sometimes found it difficult when the students wouldn’t ask questions right away, or volunteer to participate, but they are likely experiencing the same initial nerves that we are! “Ice-breakers” seem to be a great place to start when getting to know the students, and the whole Berbice team seems to really enjoy the games “two truths and a lie” and “where the west wind blows”. Some of the classes that we teach in twice a week are already starting to warm up to us, and are starting to engage more and more! We are all eager to continue creating bonds with students and creating welcoming and engaging learning environments!

This past Friday evening, we had the pleasure of teaching the young adults at the Guysuco Training College about Mental Health, Mental Illnesses, Suicide, and Sexually Transmitted Infections. The six of us tag-teamed the lesson, and all enjoyed it so much! We were teaching men similar to our age, and although we were only there for a 90 minute lesson, we received a lot of awesome questions, and were able to start some important conversations. We were asked to come back in a couple weeks from now, and we are all eager to return!

As for our lives outside of the classroom, we have created a good routine of coming back from class, going to the Youth Space, making a “family-style” dinner, and then working on our lesson plans for the next day. Our first week consisted primarily of introduction to Mental Health lessons, and after asking each classroom what they would like to focus on, we will soon begin teaching a plethora of different topics in different classes.

On our day off on Saturday, we went to the Letter Kenny beach with our friends from the community. We certainly learned from our previous mistakes and loaded up on the sunscreen before leaving! We learned how to play cricket, the most popular sport in Guyana, and we soon realized that we have quite a way to go with our sporty skills! We topped off our week with a restful Sunday, full of lots of lesson planning, preparation for our upcoming week, and lots of Mother’s Day calls to our wonderful Moms back home!

We are excited to see all the new classroom adventures that week three has to offer!

Until next time,

The Berbice Family