You may have noticed that I haven’t posted in a long time. This is partly because the start of term has been pretty busy, but mainly it’s because it is now the rainy season in Guyana. It started roughly when I got back to Sand Creek (3 weeks ago) and will still be going when I’ve gone back to England and the next generation of volunteers have arrived to replace me.
People seem to have quite mixed opinions on the rainy season in Guyana – some love it, some can’t wait for it to be over. I personally prefer the dry seasons, but I’ve compiled a list of pros and cons so you can decide for yourself whether you’d enjoy it or not.
(NB: These pros/cons are based on my experience of the rainy season in Sand Creek and probably differ for other areas of the country.)
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Pros:
- We can be absolutely sure that the well won’t run dry, so as long as the solar pump keeps working we will have running water for our two months left in the village.
- The nightly lightening storms look amazing.
- The creek is now high enough to cover most of the rocks, meaning we can finally go on the river trip we’ve been discussing with Filho since around October (keep your eyes open for a blog post about it some time before I leave Sand Creek in July).
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Cons:
- The weather is often quite overcast, which means the solar panels don’t produce as much juice to charge the batteries, which means we’ve started to get “blackout” nights every now and then.
- The mosquitoe and carbora (SP?) population seems to have gone up ten-fold. Also, mosquitoes here are a lot bigger than the ones in the UK, especially around rainy season; a mosquito “bite” is quite a lot like being pricked with a needle.
- Frogs. Loads of them. So many that sometimes you have to raise your voice to be heard over their croaking in the evening.
- To get out of Sand Creek I have to pass two rivers, both of which become impassable during the wet season. Most boats don’t leave and come back within a weekend, so until the rivers go down I’m largely trapped in the village.
- Some students have begun trying to skip school “because it was raining.” This means that they miss out on lesson time, and that I have to let “strict sir” out of his cage far more often than I’d like.
- The rain doesn’t make things any cooler, just a lot more humid during the day and “muggy” in the mornings.
- Downpours are intense and begin without a moment’s warning, which makes me even more weary about taking my camera or phone anywhere with me, as they have both already received a good soaking at some time this year. (This is also the reason my wallet currently has a somewhat “soggy” appearance.)
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So, you can see why rainy season is not my favourite season in Guyana… and they only have two. Still, most of the problems and complaints about the rains are superficial and aren’t really bothering me – I’m still having a great time in Guyana, and I’m becoming more and more painfully aware that the summer holidays are looming closer, and my time in Sand Creek is nearly at an end.
Keep your eyes on the blog for the my last few posts as a teacher, and then get ready for five weeks of posts and photos as I travel around South America.
