Toms second letter

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Good afternoon ! I’m still alive and well said thanks for asking. And I’m still having the best year of my life! Two months on time is getting so fast weeks go by in seconds!

Dan and I are getting along really well. We don’t think to ourselves, we just say out-loud our thoughts to each other ! We are starting to find our place in the community. People shout “Sir!” to us not only when we pass them but when they just see us ! We have made some very close friends Kezia, Davina, Andrew - all are teachers and also some pupils. With the pupils we play a lot of Frisbee or football whereas with the teachers we talk, joke, have barbecues and eat dinner. The only problem socially is that Wauna is so small - the only people our age and who we would socialize with are a handful of teachers and grade eleven pupils therefore drinking is off the menu.

We have been up to so much. All of which I have written down in my diary. Enclosed are some pictures (most from Dan’s camera - mine is out of use due to battery problems) of our time so far. Activities to be highlighted so far:
• Walk to Hosororo waterfall where we loaded our bags full of grapefruit, star fruit, coconuts and oranges that people just handed to us!
• Barbecue with Kezia and Davina where we cooked some amazing barbecued chicken
• Bonfire Dan and I made burning a huge box load of paper and causing the barbecue bottom and to break through
• Dan’s birthday when I made the loveliest cake (sponge with icing and butter cream). Kezia, Davina and Javon (male teacher from local town) came round and we ate really well (fried rice, macaroni cheese) and drank wine !!
• Laura and Mel (Moruca vols) stayed with us for one night. We spent it eating/sharing our Guyanese cooking skills and drinking rum !
• School sports competitions! The first week was our school, the second was amongst our area, than the last week was inter-zone finals. At this event we met Dan from Port Kaituma (another volunteer) and Laura and Mel. The Guyanese take their sport so much more seriously than their education!

Teaching is still going really well. Every lesson I end up laughing at something or feeling so proud that I’ve taught something. The kids are always laughing at me for pronouncing something differently. Even when I try to say it like them they still laugh!

My favourite things are looking at the jungle out of my bedroom or classroom window, hearing the Caribbean accent from the children and finding out about a new food every day day! The kids always bringing the oranges and guava. Today I ate bread fruit - similar to a chestnut. We are never hungry ! Sometimes we don’t cook because people bring curry etc round to us - we don’t even ask for it !

Love Tom.


p.s. At the moment Dan is making a sunbed - he takes his G9 science class out to chop wood for him ! I’m still in the process of making a basketball court!

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