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