First Week at School!

I finally had my first day of school on Tuesday! It was a crazy day though because I am still trying to find my place in the classrooms as well as trying to be a literacy specialist for grades 1-3 and also a 7th grade remedial class. The first day was a bit overwhelming because everyone wants me to do something different, like help in the classroom, teach lessons, do pull out literacy groups, etc. I wish I could be a couple people at one time!
My first day looked like this: I take a 15 minute minibus drive to my school and walk down about a ½ mile to the school. Right when I walk in the school everyone greets me and says, “Morning Miss!” The children (or pupils) are so sweet. I got my very own desk smack dab in the middle of the first, second, third, and fourth grade classrooms. The classrooms don’t have walls, most of them are separated by blackboards, but the whole school is one big room. The children begin their day by praying, singing the national anthem, saying the Pledge of Guyana, saying a pledge for the school, and singing some other patriotic songs. Then the children start school at 8:35(ish). It was kind of a crazy week because there were two holidays. One was Labor Day (which they got Monday off for) and the other holiday was Indian Arrival Day (which they got Thursday off for). Yes—Guyana has a lot of days off! One reason for this is because there is a big mix of cultures. Anyways, there were two days off that week and so a lot of students just didn’t come…at all. As you can see, it makes in really hard for the teachers to teach and the students to learn. That is one struggle that I am facing already. A lot of students also don’t come if it rains outside. So…we are now approaching the rainy season (May and June) and I am curious/worried that many of the students won’t even come. This week, I did a lot of observing and a little bit of teaching phonics. Oh yeah and one of the teachers just didn’t show up on Friday…so I taught the 6 first graders that came to school. The children seemed to respond well; however, it is VERY hard to teach phonics when I have an accent. I was trying to say the word “am” for a spelling test and the children were looking at me like I was crazy! They said “m?” and I said “am.” I realized later that I should have pronounced it “om.” So as you can see, that’s another challenge I am going to be facing! I am going to come back to the States with an accent! I am anxious to start pulling students out next week in what the school calls a “reading shed.” Basically, it is a concrete structure that has a wall on one side (to shield the rain). I am going to be taking a group of the struggling students outside to do some phonics help. I have already been collecting materials for the children to use. Oooo I thought of a really good one too! So, Alicia, my neighbors, and I were walking to the sea wall (Atlantic Ocean) and I said that I wanted to start collecting soda caps so that I could use them to write letters on top. I am thinking of using these caps for manipulatives so the students can make words. Unfortunately, there is A LOT of trash lying around, so I had no problem finding bottle caps to use. The girls liked finding the caps too…it was like an Easter egg hunt! I know I sound kind of subdued about the trash everywhere, but I have no idea what to do to help the situation. Does anyone have any ideas? There is not a garbage collection and there is only one garbage facility in all of Guyana! Most people just burn there trash. But most people don’t even give it a second thought when they throw their trash on the ground. Alicia and I have been trying to help the situation by talking to our neighbors, etc…but it is still a HUGE problem. So if anyone has any ideas…please share!
Last week a bunch of volunteers and I went to a legit beach. I stayed in the water almost the whole time. It was glorious…I didn’t want to leave! But we had to catch a minibus at 3:30pm. I guess the minibuses don’t run that late. Plus it was about 2 hours away from our house. Either way, it was worth every second!
The puppies are doing great! They are getting so big! Odie knows his name and he just learned (today) to go down the stairs! Hopefully that will mean he will be able to go to the bathroom DOWNSTAIRS!
Oooo funny minibus story! So, I was coming home from school yesterday and this lady made me laugh so hard. See, when you need to get off a minibus you have to give a landmark so the driver knows where to stop. Usually I say, “The house before the turn” or something like that. So this lady was like, “stop by the fat man.” Hah! What?! I forgot to mention that Guyanese will flat out tell you that you are fat. Like, “put the fat girl in the front.” It’s so crazy! It makes me really want to keep running, huh?
I started gong to the Catholic Church (about a 15 minutes walk from my house). It is really small, but it is really nice…everyone is so sweet and welcoming. Last week the priest wasn’t there, though. See, he is the priest for 4 churches all along the coast. We had a reading/singing service last week. We had a May Day fair last week too at the church. There was a lot of different games and food that we sold to raise money for church repairs. I came early to the fair to help out and I was put in charge of selling rosaries and a couple of other religious items. It was nice to feel like I was part of the community! This week, Father Montrose was there. It is so cool because he says the exact same things that Father Rosing says at Holy Family! Plus today we crowned Mary and laid flowers around her. It was really nice for mothers day. It reminds me of when we did this in grade school at St. Matthews.
Alright, well I will write more next week. But I wanted to take the time to wish a HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to my beautiful mother. She deserves to have everyone wait on her hand and foot…because she is amazing and I miss her so much!