StefanJaartjeLethem, 4 augustus 2011
Guyana , Georgetown 32°

End of the year

How is it going guys? I m feeling amazingly sad. Over the last week i had to say bye to my village, friends, house and students down in the rupununi savannah. And even though this is an event that from the first day you know is coming, it was for me one of the hardest arts of my gap year. School ended in the beginning of july, which ment saying bye to some of the dorms children from the little villages. As you probably know i send a lot of time during my year at the dorms with the dorms kids, laying football, dodge-ball or helping them with their homework. On the last day of school some of them cried, some of them gave me letters/gifts or even begged me to stay, “i will never like chemistry without you...” ..... i wish i could....
Somehow for me these days weren’t that bad yet, i was quite busy with a nationwide football tournament, and i was glad for this otherwise i would have had a lot more trouble alone in the savannah. Anyway, my school beat the other two schools on the savannah (Annai and Aishalton) and therefore we were allowed to travel up to linden (15 hours minibus with 20 bored boys and a lot of mud...) we lost our match there by cheating referees and corrupt coordinators, and then we went back through the same mud xD...
I stayed in St. Ignatius for a bit, and then went down to Dadanawa and Aishalton. Two incredibly beautiful places, the first being on of worlds oldest/largest and last running ranches. And the second is said to be Guyana’s biggest Amerindian village. My trip was mainly done by hitching rides of strangers and more familiar people. In dadanawa i rode some horse, saw an anteater and crossed the plantoon (looking for photos of the plantoon, the rest on facebook.)
In Aishalton i was staying by one of my students (more a friend, didn’t teach him anyway), he showed me around, led me to his family and got me drunk on the local carrey. Then the way back up included a lot more of rum, even fresh passion fruit punch, and therefore took a bit longer than expected, but that was all cool, you cant be too hurried in the savannah, thats one of the reasons why i love it here so much.
After this amazing trip, finally reaching one of my goals in the savannah, travelling to Aishalton, it was time to start packing my bags and feeling sad. Saying my byes to some special people in St. Ignatius was of course harder then others. Janice Torres, one of the other teachers and sometimes like second mother to me was probably the hardest adult to say bye to. And then again one of my students, veronica Benedict, who was the only one to make me cry..... =(
Since then i’ve been in Georgetown, tried to get to Surinam but failed, and now i have only one week left in south America. Tomorrow i will be going to the villge of orealla, where 2 other volunteers work, to come back on Monday and Thursday i leave for home (to reach friday night...
Cya in a week and i’ll upload one more entry from when i am back in Amsterdam, to re-cap on the whole year.
Stefan La Rooij

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