Lesgeven en handwas
Door: StefanJaartjeLethem
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Stefan
02 Oktober 2010 | Guyana, Lethem
Hey everyone!
Hows the rainy flat country in Europe doing? I'm doing great, thinking in English starts to feel normal, although it is even weirder to be a Dutch teacher teaching English to a bunch of English kids. But as long as they pay attention it all goes fine.
The Amerindian kids are weird to teach anyway, if you ask one to write an answer on the blackboard they shiver away and stare at you like you insulted them in a really bad way. But when you ask them to dust off the blackboard they all want to do it. Imagine a teacher asking you to dust off his writing on the board back at home... :P I waited like 5 minutes for 1 boy to get up and move 2 feet to copy an answer from his notebook onto the blackboard.
Even harder is teaching without them having any textbooks or workbooks, I actually have 24 English A textbooks for 70 students divided into 3 classes. So guess who's the one carrying books around from class to class... indeed I have them do it for me.
So that's the teaching part, for the rest me and Calum are still living in the same dirty apartment, filled with roaches ants and lizards. I was actually joking on facebook when I said “ bread with ant starts to get usual, just some extra protein”, but by now its actually not that bad.
We went to the local heritage celebrations last weekend, drinking cassava-drinks and watching the miss-rupununi pageant going on. A beauty pageant going on on a football pitch in the moonlight. It was actually more fun when Calum started talking to random locals that gave him (and me.. XD) vodka and beer. The people here are not really used to alcohol, although it's so damn cheap. He waited until the next day to tell me that it was the local police... ROFL
Then last 3 days we didn't have any water coming to our houses, so we had to check the supply tanks that are placed on a tower about 8 metres high, but nobody ever thought about making a ladder up to it. So Calum had to jump/climb his way up the thing :P. took him about 45 minutes to get half way there when Timothy arrives (other teacher living on the school compound), kicks off his flip-flops and climbs up in the tree standing next to it in about 50 seconds. Two hours later we found out that something was blocking the pipe on the bottom of the water tower, and even though it was pitch black we managed to replace the pipe-lines after sawing the old ones out and we had water again, victory! =)
Anyway it feels amazing to tell everything something about myself again, hope you find it good to read as well. Uploading photos onto this site is a pain, so all my photos are still on facebook, until I get enough to send an entire SD-card home you'll have to ask Arthur/BB/any other friend with facebook to show them to you. Or make an account yourself which is quite easy and add me as friend (Stefan La Rooij, Netherlands).
Sports day is coming up as well, everyone is assigned to their houses and have to get uniforms etcetera. Which is only for the inter-house sports day. A week later is a inter-branch (schools around Lethem) sports day, then you get finals for the entire region in Moco-Moco, from which the winners go to Georgetown for national finals. Absolutely amazing how everything stops for sports. Of course as a teacher we're kind of expected to have them pass their exams at the end of the year too. So sometimes you want to teach a lesson in between, which the students don't really appreciate.
Anyway that's all I have to say for now, hope you enjoyed it in the same amount as I enjoy reading/hearing news from home from you. So please say something every now and again, or even text me on my Guyanese phone :P Calum and me will share one phone till December ones we get paid. Do not call though, way to expensive.
Miss you all more and more while I'm thinking about/writing to you,
Stefan La Rooij
Guyana
+592 647 4243
Hows the rainy flat country in Europe doing? I'm doing great, thinking in English starts to feel normal, although it is even weirder to be a Dutch teacher teaching English to a bunch of English kids. But as long as they pay attention it all goes fine.
The Amerindian kids are weird to teach anyway, if you ask one to write an answer on the blackboard they shiver away and stare at you like you insulted them in a really bad way. But when you ask them to dust off the blackboard they all want to do it. Imagine a teacher asking you to dust off his writing on the board back at home... :P I waited like 5 minutes for 1 boy to get up and move 2 feet to copy an answer from his notebook onto the blackboard.
Even harder is teaching without them having any textbooks or workbooks, I actually have 24 English A textbooks for 70 students divided into 3 classes. So guess who's the one carrying books around from class to class... indeed I have them do it for me.
So that's the teaching part, for the rest me and Calum are still living in the same dirty apartment, filled with roaches ants and lizards. I was actually joking on facebook when I said “ bread with ant starts to get usual, just some extra protein”, but by now its actually not that bad.
We went to the local heritage celebrations last weekend, drinking cassava-drinks and watching the miss-rupununi pageant going on. A beauty pageant going on on a football pitch in the moonlight. It was actually more fun when Calum started talking to random locals that gave him (and me.. XD) vodka and beer. The people here are not really used to alcohol, although it's so damn cheap. He waited until the next day to tell me that it was the local police... ROFL
Then last 3 days we didn't have any water coming to our houses, so we had to check the supply tanks that are placed on a tower about 8 metres high, but nobody ever thought about making a ladder up to it. So Calum had to jump/climb his way up the thing :P. took him about 45 minutes to get half way there when Timothy arrives (other teacher living on the school compound), kicks off his flip-flops and climbs up in the tree standing next to it in about 50 seconds. Two hours later we found out that something was blocking the pipe on the bottom of the water tower, and even though it was pitch black we managed to replace the pipe-lines after sawing the old ones out and we had water again, victory! =)
Anyway it feels amazing to tell everything something about myself again, hope you find it good to read as well. Uploading photos onto this site is a pain, so all my photos are still on facebook, until I get enough to send an entire SD-card home you'll have to ask Arthur/BB/any other friend with facebook to show them to you. Or make an account yourself which is quite easy and add me as friend (Stefan La Rooij, Netherlands).
Sports day is coming up as well, everyone is assigned to their houses and have to get uniforms etcetera. Which is only for the inter-house sports day. A week later is a inter-branch (schools around Lethem) sports day, then you get finals for the entire region in Moco-Moco, from which the winners go to Georgetown for national finals. Absolutely amazing how everything stops for sports. Of course as a teacher we're kind of expected to have them pass their exams at the end of the year too. So sometimes you want to teach a lesson in between, which the students don't really appreciate.
Anyway that's all I have to say for now, hope you enjoyed it in the same amount as I enjoy reading/hearing news from home from you. So please say something every now and again, or even text me on my Guyanese phone :P Calum and me will share one phone till December ones we get paid. Do not call though, way to expensive.
Miss you all more and more while I'm thinking about/writing to you,
Stefan La Rooij
Guyana
+592 647 4243
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02 Oktober 2010 - 22:46
Gemma(ie):
Hoi "nevie" een mooi verhaal! Fijn weer iets te horen. Wat een gedoe met dat water! Wél spannend natuurlijk. En ...het is gelukt. Zo teacher ik vind je geweldig!!!! Liefs. -
03 Oktober 2010 - 11:09
Cees Rutgers:
Ha Stefan
Nou als ik dat allemaal zo lees: cassava, rupunini, Moco-Moco... dan denk ik: dat is wel een heel andere wereld waar hij nou zit.
Maar ik maak ook heel wat mee! Ik ben zojuist voor het eerst in mijn leven op facebook geweest. Wat zeg je me daarvan! Ik heb de foto's gezien. Mooi hoor, Stefan. Heel veel groet ook van Marjanne. Wij gaan hier de winter in en hoe is dat bij jou? Altijd zomer? Dag dag. -
03 Oktober 2010 - 15:27
Marc:
5 minuten voordat hij iets op het bord schijft?? Wat moet het dan worden als ze spreekbeurten gaan geven?? 5 dagen? -
04 Oktober 2010 - 08:48
Viktor En Rianne:
Hai Stefan,
Klinkt allemaal leuk en goed (vooral dat van die mieren); zie uit naar nieuwe verhalen en updates! -
04 Oktober 2010 - 15:18
Hans Clerc:
Stefan, goed te horen dat je er zo lux bij zit... Ben benieuwd of je de jongenlui enthousiast en in beweging krijgt. Wij zijn net terug van 5 weekjes vak in zuid-frankrijk, ook behelpen hoor in een kleine caravan. Sterkte en tot horens -
04 Oktober 2010 - 16:16
Max Brouwer:
Hey dude,
I'll keep it in english:P
Even though I read it kind of late this time, I still read your stories everytime and I'm going to check your facebook here after. But I had a good reason not reading immediatly this time. I got myself a room in Delft!!! It's in a very big house (incl. me, 18 housemates) in a student complex with about 900 students living here.
It's great fun:P
I hope to be hearing from you soon again. -
05 Oktober 2010 - 18:59
Maya:
hee stefan,
heel leuk om zo nu en dan te horen hoe je t heb daar in verweggistan. Voelt t al een beetje normaal om een leraar te zijn? :P
x
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