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