I've been posting a lot for incoming volunteers lately. The newest batch is coming in soon, but the timing is such that those who are sent out to the Rupununi are going to get here just barely before we all leave, so there's very little overlap. We won't get to help them get settled the way Steven did for me. Also, I completely remember just the months of obsessing about how I didn't know what I was in for. Usually, since I have limited internet access (which is why I so often post half a dozen entries at one go) I only manage to post about events. Events are great, but since it's the exact opposite of normal, it doesn't give anyone a very good idea of what the "normal" really is.
So here we go: This is what an ordinary day in my life here is like.
On a week day, a student will whack the metal pipe with a hunk of wood at oh-god-thirty in the morning (sometime around before five A.M. which is just mean). This gong is the signal for the students to get up. The sun isn't even up yet. I am morally opposed to being up before the sun is.
Soon after, the gong sounds again to signal that the students need to go do grounds-work. They have to rake up the leaves on the compound, pick up the trash that the donkeys have spread everywhere after knocking over the bin in the night, feed and water the chickens, and do stuff down in the garden. By about 6:30 they're raking outside my house, playing music on their cell phones and sometimes even singing. Sometimes I hear them say something like "I think Miss is still asleep." God I wish. Where am I? Usually whimpering and trying to get dressed in the dark as the mosquitoes suck all the blood out of my body. Why am I dressing in the dark? Because there's no electricity, and I can't open my door or window to let in light while I dress, because there are students EVERYWHERE. I can't even pee until I'm dressed, because my bathroom is outside off the porch.
7:30 the gong rings again and the students go in for breakfast. I continue to fumble around my house for my coffee, muttering "I don't wanna go to school today" to myself. In case you haven't noticed yet, I'm not exactly a morning person.
8:00 is when the assembly is supposed to happen. It usually doesn't. It usually starts around 8:30, which is when it's supposed to be over and classes are supposed to start. I trudge the 20 yards from my house to the school, followed by my loyal puppy Freddy, and stand in the back stifling yawns. The kids sing, have a prayer, all the teachers give long-winded speeches about discipline, the kids sing again, there's the National Pledge in there somewhere, and I get jealous of Freddy, who is practically snoring at my feet and try to subtly check that I have all my clothes on right-side out. At around 9:00 we finally get to classes... sometimes.
Half the classes on the schedule don't actually have teachers, so they get skipped, and more often than not the kids are pulled out of other classes to either spend more time in the garden (which I'm sort of okay with) or to rehearse for whatever: a pageant, a holiday, graduation which is half a year away, or even just opening a meeting with a song. I have not been very good at hiding my eye rolling at this. My Counterpart even has me look away from the students before he'll tell me classes are canceled again, because he knows the face I'm about to make.
For the next three or four hours, I'm either in back-to-back classes, or waiting for the other teachers to do something. I do a little bit of everything. Every few minutes I hear "Miss, are you busy?" and so begins my next project. Then we have lunch, which all the teachers eat in the cafeteria with the students. It's chicken and rice. Every day. I go chat with the cooks in the kitchen, who tease me about being a white girl eating farine, or about my longing for vegetables.
Sometime around 1:00 or 2:00 we go back to classes. Half the students have decided not to come back to class. We rally the rest and attempt to hold classes until they get pulled out again for more rehearsals. On Thursdays and Fridays in the afternoons the kids do sculpting and weaving. I love that part. I wish the kids could do more things like that.
The work day is over between 4:00 and 5:00, and I can finally go back to my house for a few minutes. I say a few, because at 5:30 I go over to my host family's house and take my sisters for our evening walk, because it has finally cooled off enough that I can go outside without an instant sunburn, but still gives us half an hour before the sun goes down.
When I get home from that, if my house has electricity, I'll do some stuff on my computer (like writing up the blog posts I'll put up next time I have internet) or watch a movie or something. I like to clean my house in the evenings because not only is it less hot, but like I mentioned before, I hate mornings and am incapable of functioning as a human being then.
If I have no electricity, then I bathe, sweep my house in the dark, and climb under my mosquito net to read a book by flashlight in the dark until I fall asleep.
At some point in all of this, I have to take care of the plants growing on my porch, keep tabs on what's going on at the gardens, do all my reports, and take tons of pictures of everything.
Freddy follows me for almost all of this. If I have to talk at assembly, he'll come up on stage with me. If I'm teaching, he's in the classroom sleeping under the blackboard. If I'm in the teacher room, he's sitting on my feet under the table right in everyone's way. He's my furry, bug-covered shadow.
On weekends, it's all laundry, cleaning, hammock time, and movie nights with the students.
I'm never really "off" though. Since I'm one of the only adults living on campus, if the students need anything, they come knock on my door at any hour of any day. If one is sick, I may need to take them to the clinic in the middle of the night. If they're bored, I have to help give them something to do, or they might just come to talk to me for awhile.
A staff person at the last VAC meeting made the suggestion that volunteers use vacation days to "vacation at site." AHAHAHAHA no. That's not a thing. At all. Ever.
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