Week 3!
We cannot believe that it is already Week 3 in Guyana! The Berbice gang is finally starting to get in the swing of things, and teaching is coming much more naturally! After finishing all of our introductory lessons, we are diving into many more topics, and the students continue to engage more and more. A few of us did the reproductive anatomy lesson this week, and there were many laughs and red faces, especially among the younger grades, but it has to be taught at some point!
The questions we have been getting in our question boxes are usually pretty interesting, but when we get the odd funny comment or question about how cold Canada is, it always puts a smile on our faces! We encourage every student to write us a question at the end of every lesson, because we know it can be intimidating to ask in front of all of their peers.
Along with teaching, lesson planning has also become much easier to do. The six of us usually bounce ideas off of each other every evening, and find ways to adjust and tweak each lesson to suit each of our individual classes. The students seem to enjoy activity-based lessons the most, so we have been eagerly thinking of new ways to incorporate fun activities into our lessons!
Our life outside of the classroom hasn't changed much, but we continue to grow closer with our friends at the Letter Kenny Youth Space. One of our friends was kind enough to invite us for dinner on Monday night, and we were all so thrilled when they served our favourite – pumpkin curry and roti! The community we have been welcomed into is beyond anything we could have ever hoped for. Everyone we have met has been so kind to us, and always make us feel right at home. Even the man who owns the bar below us, Ravi, came upstairs while he was working to show us how to make roti! It was lots of fun and definitely requires a skill that we haven’t quite figured out yet. The verdict from Ravi was “needs improvement”, but a good try for our first time!
This past weekend was especially fun because we went to Georgetown to visit the other half of the Guyana group! Sharing our stories and unique experiences in the classroom was so much fun, and we stayed up for hours catching up. After our best breakfast since arriving in Guyana on Saturday morning, we ventured to Kaieteur Falls for an outstanding day trip. We boarded a 15-seater plane and took a 1-hour flight directly over the Amazon Rainforest. We walked to three different lookout points, each getting closer and closer to the falls. The view was nothing short of breathtaking, and was something none of us had ever seen anything quite like.
We are so blessed to be in such a lush, welcoming and beautiful country, where we can spends off exploring one of the wonders of the world, our nights with friends, and our school days with eager and engaged students.
At the rate we’re going, Week 3 is going to be tough to beat!
Until next week,
The Berbice Family