On Friday morning, the last day of school, Harry and I decided to go and spend the first week of our Easter holiday in Manaus, Brazil. 19 hours later, at 5am on Saturday, we were leaving our apartment in Sand Creek to begin our journey. This is the story of the most spontaneous holiday I have ever taken… Read more
Fame!
World Map – It’s Finished!
It took the best part of 2 months, but it’s done! At 11′ wide and nearly 6′ high, I’m really very pleased with how the map has turned out. It probably could have been done a lot quicker, but I had to take a break when I waited for transport to Lethem to buy more paint, when I had to wait for transport to Lethem again to buy a new marker pen, and when I had to stop working on it for a week during the exam season. Photos below: Read more
Categories: Secondary Projects, Updates
Tags: mural, photos, secondary projects, world map
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Last Day of Term!
School closed today for the Easter holidays, and as usual the last day of term was dedicated to a fundraising/events day, including dances, songs, poems, skits, a fashion show (I took part – photos are below!), a donut eating race, horse racing/riding, kite flying, sack racing, lime and spoon racing, table tennis, dominos, an obstacle course race, and more! Photos below… Read more
TG#9 – Catch and Cook a (Hopefully Massive) Fish
Categories: Traveller's Guide to Guyana
Tags: cooking, fish, fishing, photos, traveller's guide
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TG#12 – Drink a Guyanese Beer
As many of my friends probably know I stopped drinking alcohol shortly before I left the UK and have no plans to start again, so I really didn’t know how I was going to tick this one off my list. As there really isn’t any such thing as “non-alcoholic beer” in Guyana, this was my compromise: Read more
Lariam Nightmares
One of the most prevalent illnesses in Guyana is malaria, which is why all Project Trust volunteers are strongly advised to take anti-malarial medication. There are a number of options available, and I have been taking Lariam whilst overseas. It’s a once weekly pill (which is nicely convenient), but it comes with a huge list of side effects (which are less convenient). Unfortunately the Lariam medication caused me to suffer awful nightmares every single night for the first 2-and-a-bit months of my gap year. On 19th September 2012 I was sat in a seemingly un-ending PTFA meeting, and in my boredom I found myself writing a poem about the nightmares I was enduring at the time. On that note, I present a poem that I have imaginatively entitled “Lariam Nightmares” – enjoy! Read more
Another Reason to Smile
This morning I received a bit of post from home that quite simply made my day. It wasn’t a letter or a postcard or an occasion card… it was a card with a turtle catching a Frisbee on the front of it!
Sent to me from Jess’ family, it apparently had no purpose other than to “make me smile”… well, I can say mission accomplished! It made me smile all morning, and was much-loved by my 8A class (it spent the morning blu-tac’d to my chalkboard). Thank you very, very much 🙂
TG#8 – Make a Fishing Spear/Rod
The photos below show what I made this evening; people here call it a “water gun”. It’s a sharpened spike of metal with rubber tubing on one end – and that’s all there is to it! The second photo shows how it’s fired, the third and fourth photos show my “testing”, and the fifth photo shows the first “fish” I caught with it.
I haven’t caught a real fish with it yet, but that’s mainly because the water in the creek is too coudy because of the recent rains so I can’t see the fish below the surface. When it clears (probably after the Easter holidays) I’ll be back down at the creek, trying my hardest to catch a whopper!
Note: I’ve caught fish here in Guyana using cast-net and hook/line methods, but I’m not crossing off TG#9 until I catch a fish using this.
TG#29 – Learn How to Make a Local Dish
Total So Far
£5,215.98 / £5,100 102.27%
