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.
