tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20395746156916993632024-03-05T17:11:09.063-04:00Dan in GuyanaNote: The views expressed in this weblog are entirely the author's own and do not reflect in any way the views of VSO, or of anyone else for that matter.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-7125927260909425062012-10-27T16:30:00.001-04:002012-10-27T16:30:47.148-04:00Choc Quib Town<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Quick break from the life plans stuff to share this amazing band, hip hop with beautiful latin and african rhythms, from the Pacific Coast region of Colombia.</div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zymwAUmhCp4&feature=autoplay&list=ALHTd1VmZQRNrW91QwqWam8SLsYAdRh8SX&playnext=7">A good YouTube playlist</a>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-70618200727144065922012-10-19T16:15:00.001-04:002012-10-19T16:20:09.849-04:00Where I am At, Part 2 - My New VisionIn short, I have a new master plan.<br />
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My last master plan went roughly like this - become a teacher, get some experience, use that to travel the world, live overseas and do some good. VSO was the culmination of that plan, and on finishing my placement I felt a little directionless as I didn't have a new one. That was one of the reasons I wanted to spend some time travelling, learning, reading, meeting people, having fun, and reflecting.<br />
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It has been a great experience. I have meet and stayed with wonderful people with very different lifestyles, from eco village hippies to young entrepreneurs blazing a trail in foreign lands. And more importantly, I have had a chance to let the mental dust settle, see what is left standing and think about what I want from life and what I can offer.<br />
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So, my new master plan is, more or less:<br />
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<b>to work to develop the use of technology to radically reshape how education works, improve opportunities for creativity, exploration and play, free teachers to teach, and better serve those who are most let down by the current system</b></div>
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This topic is something that has surfaced in me in one form or another throughout my life learning, teaching and advising. I have also been hugely inspired by some recent reading, especially <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-One-World-Schoolhouse-ebook/dp/B0076DEOII">The One World Schoolhouse by Salman Khan</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Why-School-Information-Everywhere-ebook/dp/B00998J5YQ">Why School? by Will Richardson</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Hole-Wall-Self-Organized-ebook/dp/B0070YZSFQ">Beyond the Hole in the Wall by Sugata Mitra</a><br />
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What I will end up doing exactly is something I will find out as I embark on this new path. I could work with NGOs or schools in developing countries to try new models of education delivery. I could work as a teacher in in the UK or elsewhere with a focus on experimenting with cutting edge technology driven teaching methods. I could work for one of the organizations that are blazing new trails for what education can mean, such as the Kahn Academy. Or I could pioneer a project of my own, perhaps alongside a more traditional teaching job.<br />
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Whatever path I take, I am convinced that technology, and especially the open sharing of information, has the potential to vastly improve (or damage) the equality of educational opportunities, to improve (or damage) motivation, independence and curiosity of learners, to liberate (or cage) teachers. And I want to be part of this exciting change.<br />
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And <b>I need your help.</b><br />
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I don't expect to have a clear path laid out for me. And I definitely don't have all the answers. So I would love to hear, in the comments or by <a href="mailto:dan.hunni.sett@gmail.com">email</a>:<br />
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<li>Ideas, criticisms, thoughts and comments</li>
<li>Suggestions or introductions to <b>people, organizations or schools</b> thinking along similar lines</li>
<li>And ideas for a <b>name for a new blog</b> dedicated to the topic of using technology to reshape education. Using some or none of the following:<i> learning, fun, play, change, excite, exploration, personalisation, technology, evidence based, equitable, revolution, curiosity, awe, joy, creativity</i></li>
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Thanks for reading. I will write more soon on how I have come to this decision, what I think I have to offer, what I think is wrong with education as it is now (and where it is headed) and how I imagine it could be transformed for the better.<br />
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Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-12406565785917468402012-10-14T21:11:00.000-04:002012-10-14T21:11:29.488-04:00Where I am at - and recap of the best Spanish learning resourcesOne of the problems of blogging on the road with no laptop is that once you miss a little while it is hard to know where to start... So just a quick post for now to update where I am at now, and then I will get into the habit of sharing my thoughts and experiences more...<br />
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I am now in San Gil, Colombia, working as a bike guide and mechanic for a couple of months. San Gil is being marketed as the extreme sports capital of Colombia. It is a beautiful little city surrounded by lush hills and close to amazing rivers, canyons and beautiful little towns. I was lucky to bump into a couple, one Brit and one American, who run a restaurant and bike company here - <a href="http://www.colombianbikejunkies.com/">www.colombianbikejunkies.com</a> They needed a bit of help with bike guiding and maintanance, and so I jumped at the chance to settle a little while in a beautiful part of Colombia, ride bikes and learn more about looking after them. It is hard work - our most common tour is 55km, mostly downhill, but factoring in preparation and putting away it is a good 13 hour day's work, and plenty of exercise. At the same time I have been continuing to take the time to work on my Spanish and think about where I want to head next in terms of life and career.<br />
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Spanish first - although living and working with mostly gringos is not helping too much, I am still picking up Spanish pretty well. I am probably between an A2 and B1 level on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages">Common European Framework </a>now - can get by really well in most situations, but big groups, drunk farmers and new vocabulary is still challenging, and I still make plenty of gramattical mistakes when talking. I haven't taken any official lessons, but a combination of meeting and talking to as many people as possible, and working with a few great books seems if anything more effective for me than I think formal lessons would be. The best resources for me have been:<br />
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<li><a href="http://www.duolingo.com/">duolingo,</a> a wonderful free website with a combination of principles including Kahn Academy style lessons and a knowledge map, paid for by using elements of people's language learning to crowd source translation of the internet. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQl6jUjFjp4">There is an interesting TED talk by the maker of the site here.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Practice-Perfect-Spanish-Tenses-Edition/dp/0071639306/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339433416&sr=1-1-spell">Practice makes Perfect: Spanish Verbs</a> - a great textbook for practicing the bizarre intricacies of conjugating spanish verbs, but introducing vocabulary and other elements of the language along the way</li>
<li><a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCYQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbooks.google.com%2Fbooks%2Fabout%2FBreaking_Out_of_Beginner_s_Spanish.html%3Fid%3DUPtaNwoeyLoC&ei=e2F7UJyHJpPo9gSEmoC4Aw&usg=AFQjCNEmTplOybEVg2LgjmTXx5X4GRnf5w">And Breaking Out of Beginner's Spanish</a> which is a really wonderful book for bridging the gap between the artificial Spanish you encounter learning grammar and vocabulary and how people really speak. I have lost count of the number of times this book has helped me with real conversations and idiomatic or colloquial speach. Really reccomended for anyone past the very basics - it might be a bit tricky to start with but will repeated readings will take your spanish up a great deal.</li>
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Good, that shows that the hardest bit of blogging is getting started! Think this post is long enough, so I will save where I am at with career and life thoughts for a future post.<br />
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Adios!Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-64136959382748188122012-06-29T13:41:00.001-04:002012-06-29T13:41:11.344-04:00Getting highI´ve moved on from Caracas now, at least for the time being, to stay in a fledgeling eco village project high up in the Andes, near to Merida. It is a stunningly beautiful place, just above the level of the cloud forest, and a lovely contrast from the buzz of Caracas.<br />
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My stay in Caracas was wonderful, and a great advert for Couchsurfing as a way of travelling and getting under the surface of things. In a week there, I saw rehearsals and performances at a prestigious music school, visited two different special needs schools, met some wonderful people, salsa danced, visited the beach, saw an amazing amount of different live music as well as fitting in a few of the standard tourist sights and working little by little on my Spanish. All thanks to my wonderful hosts Cheryl and Jorge. They also hooked me up with the eco village as a next stop.<br />
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Venezuela is an incredible country, with music, landscapes, art and wonderful people coming out of its ears. There is however an elephant of a problem here. An angry, destructive elephant. The violence. From the apartment in Caracas you could hear the ra-ta-ta-ta of gunfire coming from the nearby barrio most nights. The perception Venezuelans themselves have is that the rule of law no longer really exists in many places. Day to day things feel more structured, controlled and safe than Guyana, but in the cities there is an almost constant background threat of armed robbery. The cause is unclear. Chavez, the USA, a violent history, the curse of oil, inequality, poverty, guns from Colombia, corrupt police, and a growing consumerist culture are all possible contributors. It is a great shame to have such a cloud hanging over such an amazing country.<br />
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However, there is so much here to love and enjoy that I have to feel some optimism for the future.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-6845922231960669742012-06-16T20:37:00.000-04:002012-06-16T20:37:08.297-04:00Ciudad de musicaI´m now a couple of days into my stay in Caracas, after a week relaxing on the beach. I´m staying <a href="http://www.couchsurfing.org/">(couchsurfing)</a> with a couple of musicians who teach, sing and play in various bands around Caracas. This city is alive with street art, music and drama - in the last couple of days I have an incredible amount of artistic activities - a street festival for St John´s day with loads of different venezualan drumming and dancing groups, murals and graffiti everywhere, a street music festival with local bands playing in hundreds of locations across the city streets, and situational drama in the streets. I even got to add my contribution to the music this afternoon with a pair of shaky eggs.<br />
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It is worth noting that a lot of these happenings are part of Chavez's election year propaganda machine!<br />
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For all that you hear about Caracas, it seems really safe, attractive and friendly. There are big Barrios (shanty towns) covering most of the hills surrounding the city, and many of these are violent, with high powered weapons being common. However, there is so much more to the city, and it feels like one of the most alive and spirited cities I have had the pleasure to visit. It is also beautiful in it´s way, a messy combination of old colonial architecture, ugly concrete skyscrapers and tumble down Barrios surrounded by lush green mountains, with a perfect year-round climate.<br />
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Still to come in Caracas I will be visiting a special needs school, getting a drumming lesson, and I suspect much more. Can´t wait.<br />
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Here are few Caracas pictures - more on my <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/109768102997882905455/Venezuela?authuser=0&feat=directlink">Picasa Album</a><br />
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<br />Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-41467077189172511242012-06-11T14:17:00.003-04:002012-06-11T14:17:18.549-04:00Creatures and Saltos (waterfalls)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I wrote some comments and stuff on here, and put the pictures in the right order, but the internet ate them and I´ve been in the internet cafe too long already. So just look at the pretty pictures anyway. Taken at Pandama Wines and Wowetta in Guyana, and Santa Elena, El Pauji, the Gran Sabana, Santa Fe and Mochima National Park in Venezuela.<br />
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<br />Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-70786099017102780552012-06-11T12:57:00.003-04:002012-10-14T21:13:24.251-04:00¿Aprendo espanol es facil?This lovely video put together by Matt Stone and Trek Parker (not a phrase you hear often!) nicely explains what I´m doing with my life. It´s amazing to discover that you don´t need to be rich or clever to travel the world and have amazing experiences. You just need to do it!<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/ERbvKrH-GC4?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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I discovered the video on the blog <a href="http://www.fluentin3months.com/">fluent in 3 months</a> which is a blog written by an Irish guy who has spent the last 8 years travelling and learning language, and has some great tips on faster language learning - mainly, speak it! <a href="http://www.fluentin3months.com/life-lessons/%20">There´s some great life lessons here too.</a><br />
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Few people seem to speak English here anyway, so this shouldn´t be a problem, however to put a bit more pressure on making language learning a clear goal, I hereby publicly set myself a target of achieving a level of B1 on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages">Commmon European Framework benchmarks for language fluency </a>over the next three months - that is, <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and
abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of
specialisation. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity
that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible
without strain for either party. Can produce clear, detailed text on a
wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving
the advantages and disadvantages of various options.</blockquote>
Wish me luck!<br />
<br />
Currently my main resource for learning is my Kindle, loaded up with Collins English-Spanish and Spanish-English dictionaries, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Learn-Spanish-Novel-Way-ebook/dp/B007BYL94E/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339433380&sr=1-1">Learn Spanish the Novel Way</a>,<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Made-Simple-Revised-Updated/dp/0767915410/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339433348&sr=8-1"> Spanish made Simple</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Practice-Perfect-Spanish-Tenses-Edition/dp/0071639306/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339433416&sr=1-1-spell">Practice makes Perfect: Spanish Verbs</a>, plus trying to get out and talk to people as much as possible. Any other recommendations or lovely PDFs people could send me would be incredibly welcome!<br />
<br />
In the meantime, I´ll also be having as much fun as possible. Next post will give a few pictures of the fun so far.<br />
<br />
<br />Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-37786166638542431472012-06-03T20:15:00.004-04:002012-06-03T20:15:57.800-04:00On to the next stageSo, my Guyana experience is over, at least for now. At some point I might write some blogs trying to put the whole experience into context, and filling you in on some of the crazy and wonderful parts of my experience in more detail - losing a toe to a fish, crossing the jungle and savannah by motorbike, DJing at parties and out in public, getting powdered, soaked and dyed at Phagwah, learning to cook roti and bake and learning to wine and to waltz Guyanese oldies style.<br />
<br />
Wow, that´s a lot!<br />
<br />
Finishing a placement is as much of an emotional rollercoaster as starting it. I was very lucky to get to the point where the work that VSO had started in the region could be handed over to some amazing Guyanese teachers - Simone and Mycinth. I feel honoured to have worked with two people with such a passion for improving education in Guyana and such positive and selfless individuals, and very hopeful that they can continue to work with teachers to move things forward. VSO has largely pulled out of education in Guyana now, and so it is wonderful to be able to pass on the baton to such capable hands.<br />
<br />
Right now I am starting a new journey - a few months travel in South America. Starting in Venezuela, continuing to Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. I hope to get some perspective on my experience in Guyana, and how it has changed my understanding of what I want from life and what I can give. Also I hope to meet people with different lifestyles and cultures, learn Spanish to a reasonable level, and have fun in amazing places. This part of the world has a shaky reputation for safety, but is also packed full of mountains, waterfalls, beaches, music, dancing, animals, and different cultures.<br />
<br />
My journey began with some time in the Rupanuni. Thanks to Tjeerd, Sergio, Melvin, Sonja and Eddie and Behi for the great company and hospitality along the way. The Rupanuni is a savannah area in the south of Guyana, with amazing open skies and incredible sunsets, bordered by jungle covered mountains. Relaxing into the steady pace of life there with a few walks and bike rides was a great way to get into the travelling spirit.<br />
<br />
My first faltering steps into Latin America have been in Santa Elena de Uarien, a lovely frontier town (not a phrase you hear often) a few kilometers into Venezuela from Brazil. I have spent a few days hanging out, testing out a few phrases of Spanish and meeting some interesting people. There are a few nomad type travellers around, including a Spanish guy who has been cycling with a tent all the way from Mexico, and a camper van full of Argentinian graphic designers who have been on the road for three years, passing through Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. They keep going by selling some crafts and working over the internet from time to time and seem like some of the happiest people I have met.<br />
<br />
I also started on my plan to get more active with a very long and very hilly bike ride through the Gran Sabana to a small hippy ish community called El Pauji, where I stayed for a couple of nights and swam in some beautiful waterfall plunge pools before facing the long and very hilly bike ride back.<br />
<br />
Signing off for now, new blogging policy is quick and straight from my head. One lesson I am trying to learn from my experience so far is: less perfectionism, more action!<br />
<br />
Also, work less, live more!<br />
<br />
Ciao.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-65055695935236977052011-12-23T10:32:00.000-04:002011-12-23T10:32:47.371-04:00All my Christmasses are green<span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; font-family: Tahoma;">This is, unbelievably, my Third christmas in Guyana. And christmas in Guyana, like the other holidays, has it's own unique set of traditions. A great thing about this country is that the major Christian and Hindu holidays are celebrated by (nearly) all Guyanese, regardless of religion, in a uniquely Guyanese way. Easter is flying kites on the beach and watching horse racing. Phagwah is crazy water and dye fights in the street. Diwali i</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">s terrifying fireworks and spinning wire wool. And Christmas is:</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; font-family: Tahoma;">- spring cleaning your house and changing all the curtains</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; font-family: Tahoma;">- a big, messy street party on christmas eve, with rum and ginger, huge soundsystems, drunken santas and last minute shopping</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; font-family: Tahoma;">- black cake, pepperpot, apples, grapes and nuts (apples and grapes don't grow in the tropics so are expensive imported luxuries here)</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">- Caribbean Christmas songs; <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqMvlajzlGk">I saw Mommy Kiss a Dreadlocks</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG_9YKqH5Ek">We wish ya an Irie Christmas</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BOfBCl7d9U">Drink a Rum</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HR2nBO9zFY">A Rich Man For Christmas</a> and </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6UDO91QDIQ" style="font-family: Tahoma;">Never Had A White Christmas</a><span style="font-family: Tahoma;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; font-family: Tahoma;">- and church till 1 in the morning and partying till the next day on Old Year's Night</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj08FQ8vM2Hah9s3ZLvhW0MniKzw_Y-1MiZEoXWHZL-PZBckFFirC-XT0wfauToX13qzLpNdAE-7YnYH2x8xPBARphU8QBGJ9uCucIXr3nXT4DG7gYEPNeg6TCPduVkMj0ZhHScg_NPiFOB/s1600/IMG_0409.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj08FQ8vM2Hah9s3ZLvhW0MniKzw_Y-1MiZEoXWHZL-PZBckFFirC-XT0wfauToX13qzLpNdAE-7YnYH2x8xPBARphU8QBGJ9uCucIXr3nXT4DG7gYEPNeg6TCPduVkMj0ZhHScg_NPiFOB/s320/IMG_0409.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; font-family: Tahoma;">This christmas I am off to <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/109768102997882905455/OreallaNovember2011?authuser=0&feat=directlink">Orealla</a>, the place most in Guyana that has most stolen my heart. And my toe.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; font-family: Tahoma;">Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday, however far away you are!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-8258811282543761152011-12-06T15:23:00.001-04:002011-12-06T15:47:37.446-04:00If you don't mind awfully, would you be so kind to consider maybe thinking about casting your eyes over this entry and even if you would be so kind try decoding the symbols in order to extract meaning so that you can discern myHow an English person asks a taxi driver to stop:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span lang="EN-GB">Excuse me,
I hate to be a bother but would you consider being so kind as to help me out by
maybe pulling the car over to let me out just before the next road, by the
house with the large balcony and the mango tree, is that a mango tree or an
avocado tree, I get those awfully confused, is it a mango tree that has the
leaves haning down like that, anyway if you could do me the honour of letting
me, oh we’ve passed it, never mind, I hate to be a bother but if you could
bring the car to a halt at your very first convenience I would be most awfully . . .</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">How a Guyanese person asks a taxi driver to stop:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span lang="EN-GB">Driver! Street coming up.</span></blockquote>
<br />
On the other hand, protocol when walking down the street is:<br />
<br />
England:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Blinkers on, studiously avoid eye contact or interaction of any kind, stern and unapproachable face.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Guyana:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Every man, woman, child and goat you come near gets a Good Morning, or at least a quick 'Wam*?' </li>
</ul>
<br />
Taxi drivers dealing with British directions are equally confused as a Brit dealing with a smile and greeting from a stranger in the street.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">* My favourite contraction of 'What's Happening?'.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikwmV2vkiVrI0ZcP4Graeg75AXwhLojIvqlGQLA7COEnVe9IEtD7FXkKBjhvz0Cu19XR-O4r_9wJMxQri9Px1ghk6E8WMTrdfh-qOPo8zqcou32aSYDLGZjLDAHHxQtONqoMBdn6aVeSb_/s1600/DSC_0112.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikwmV2vkiVrI0ZcP4Graeg75AXwhLojIvqlGQLA7COEnVe9IEtD7FXkKBjhvz0Cu19XR-O4r_9wJMxQri9Px1ghk6E8WMTrdfh-qOPo8zqcou32aSYDLGZjLDAHHxQtONqoMBdn6aVeSb_/s400/DSC_0112.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-19566155623175190812011-12-06T15:03:00.001-04:002011-12-06T15:20:37.910-04:00Rain stops everything.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<st1:country-region><st1:place><span lang="EN-GB">Guyana</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-GB"> has a very efficient system for
rain which would improve the quality of life immeasurably in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span lang="EN-GB">England</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-GB">. The plan - get all the rain out of the way in the shortest time possible. The clouds don't bother with drizzling, spitting, showering, misting, sprinkling or any of the other half hearted rain types we are so fond of. </span>When the heavens do open, they open all the way, and a week’s worth of British
drizzle falls in the space of five minutes.</div>
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<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">First, you feel a drop
in pressure, the air clears, your sweating dies down half a shade and the temperature falls. There is an ominous silence, a swirling, a sense of impending doom. After a couple of minutes, the sky tears
apart and water comes gushing through. A second outside gets you saturated. You have to stop work as you can't hear yourself shout, let alone think. The street becomes a river, your front yard a lake and the guttering a dramatic waterfall. There are more flashes of light than the paparrazi chasing after <<i>insert pointless attention seeking celebrity here</i>>, and the thunder shakes plates off tables and loosens false teeth. Everything stops.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Then after half an hour, the rain clears up, the sun comes out and dries things off, and you go about your day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Anyone up for starting a petition for the UK to adopt this system?</span></div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-63735227130963597062011-05-18T16:46:00.000-04:002011-05-18T16:46:06.534-04:00Travel in GuyanaThe Lonely Planet – South America on a Shoestring travel guide devotes a few short pages to Guyana. The opening line of the ‘facts for the visitor’ section gives a pretty good introduction to the challenges facing tourists.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Nothing is easy here.</blockquote><br />
There is certainly some truth here, although there have been some changes since the guide was written. The bad news is that travelling in Guyana can still be complicated, unpredictable, frustrating and surprisingly expensive. Georgetown is dirty, dangerous and has few real tourist attractions. The roads are treacherous with wildlife, potholes and crazy drivers. There is still little in the way of tourist infrastructure. Without insider knowledge, it is very difficult to arrange journeys yourself, and often the only option is expensive guided tours. The mosquitos and the climate are brutal until you get adjusted to them. The rainy season, which for the last few years has not stuck to the usual schedule, can in the interior close down roads entirely or leave you with no option but to wade through waist deep mud. And seeing the most interesting parts of the country often involves costly internal flights or many uncomfortable and bumpy hours in a cramped bus or boat.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3CmKTVNTP7IjLt7zZxTaR4tlHjAh1nw_ukgHGEHffQ9lf4MeB7qlHZXmPt0ECtG1GfcDyEeo05YRsZ6UpSnQIdilPZN1tSUqJh7MCIHtAej-t2EyMUG2O1m_L0iA_1q9RxRozYRU6-tK1/s1600/IMG_1868.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3CmKTVNTP7IjLt7zZxTaR4tlHjAh1nw_ukgHGEHffQ9lf4MeB7qlHZXmPt0ECtG1GfcDyEeo05YRsZ6UpSnQIdilPZN1tSUqJh7MCIHtAej-t2EyMUG2O1m_L0iA_1q9RxRozYRU6-tK1/s320/IMG_1868.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>But despite, (and partly because of), these difficulties, this is an incredible country. Dig a little, and you will find unspoiled paradises, practically untouched by tourism. The people are incredibly welcoming and open. The culture is a wonderful mix of influences, taking in psychedelically colourful Hindu festivals, wild Carribean party spirit and traditional Amerindian communities deep in the jungle. There is a great soundtrack to life here - you are always within earshot of loud music in the costal towns, the jungle has an endless chorus of birds, frogs, insects and monkeys, and the savannah offers incredible peace and quiet. There are thousands of square miles of pristine rainforest, the highest single drop waterfall in the world thundering into a remote gorge, breathtaking open savannah and an unbelievable range of weird and wonderful wildlife. There is tasty food, world class rum, and joyful, sexy music. You can tackle almost any weather Guyana will throw at you with shorts, a T shirt and an umbrella. You can sleep in a hammock surrounded by the eerie roar of howler monkeys, bathe in pristine black water creeks and canoe down jungle rivers with giant otters for company. If you want to get off the beaten track then you’re in luck. There isn’t a beaten tourist trail in the whole country.<br />
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I wouldn’t recommend Guyana for everyone. There are many cheaper and easier places to travel, especially coming from Europe. It doesn’t fit into many longer itineraries either – there are reasonable links to some Carribean islands, but the only easy way to get to most other countries in South America is to fly via the US. But if you’re willing to put in the effort there are great rewards to be had.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPDL_tYS_kXwbHNi_eBBKwx-qiIsR5R6gEB7OMGut22_yQg_Phvr1Tel9J2EfLJyGXnQjwYVlYDKZyVY4dQgPfHnpTIf7uRbOYg9xAsaDicRkeFyDTYGGOdmTP_ArfIHzXbIt8tSulJFz5/s1600/IMG_1962.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPDL_tYS_kXwbHNi_eBBKwx-qiIsR5R6gEB7OMGut22_yQg_Phvr1Tel9J2EfLJyGXnQjwYVlYDKZyVY4dQgPfHnpTIf7uRbOYg9xAsaDicRkeFyDTYGGOdmTP_ArfIHzXbIt8tSulJFz5/s320/IMG_1962.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
For anyone interested in travel in Guyana, the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Guyana-Bradt-Travel-Guide/dp/1841622230">Bradt guide</a> is highly recommended. It is probably the only decent guide book to Guyana available right now – pithy statements aside, the Lonely Planet guide is pretty useless, and most South America guides don’t even mention the country. I will also try and follow this post with write ups of some of my favourite journeys in Guyana so far.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-69536540003217563172011-03-03T18:19:00.001-04:002011-03-03T18:21:27.031-04:00Top TipsMy main role here is in training and sharing ideas with teachers around how to make their classrooms more child friendly, inclusive, and accessible for children with special needs. Some of these ideas never seem to get put into practice, some get tried but are hard to keep up, and some work like a charm. These are the top 3 Guyana tried and tested simple, easy and effective ideas.<br />
<br />
<ol><li><b>The 'Magic Box'</b> - This began as a way to try and make sure everyone is participating when doing training sessions with teachers. We decided to get all teachers to put their names in a box, from which we would pull out names at random to respond to questions or feed back after group work. Names that have been chosen got put to one side until everyone had had a turn. The box quickly evolved into a labelled, decorated 'magic box', with the teachers shouting an enthusiastic chorus of 'hocus pocus' every time a name was picked. I am now baffled as to why any teacher of facilitator would try to work with a group without using some kind of random system to choose who should respond to questions. Teachers and pupils have really taken to the idea, and I also now use this in every training session I do. It is great for pace, good fun, and keeps everyone on their toes.</li>
<li><b>1, 2, 3, Eyes On Me - </b>Rappers, rock stars and children's entertainers have known for years that a call and response routine is a great way to get everyone excited and in sync. It works for teachers too. The primary school (or grown up) version is that the teacher says '1, 2, 3, eyes on me' and the pupils respond '1, 2, eyes on you'. For teenagers it might work best to make up a more relevant call and response routine. One of the biggest challenges for many teachers, myself included, especially with teenagers, is getting them to pay attention and listen. The call and response trick seems to work like a charm, and in a friendly and positive way. No more 'we can wait here all day', 'it's your own time you're wasting', and the other classic empty threats we all remember from our school days.</li>
<li><b>Set questions or tasks that start easy and get harder</b> - Differentiation is difficult and time consuming, and to teachers in Guyana it is a new and unfamiliar concept. The education system is based around all pupils doing exactly the same work, whether they finish it in ten seconds or two hours. Differentiation can be a tenuous concept for teachers in the UK too, and is often forgotten or done badly. It was certainly something that was always talked about, but little understood, when I was in teacher training. The simplest way I have found to explain how to do differentiation in practice is: when giving class work, start with easy questions that review previous knowledge, move on to slightly more challenging ones that address the new content, and finish with an optional task to stretch the thinking of the quicker workers.</li>
</ol>What are your best teaching or facilitating tips?Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-58918674268614991832011-01-27T13:22:00.000-04:002011-01-27T13:22:20.119-04:00Soca Reggae Dancehall JunkieI gather some people were having trouble downloading the mix of 2010, as Z-Share sucks more than a hungry mosquito that's got inside your bed net, so here is a new and friendlier download link.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BzjT8MEQY5X9NzZmMzk3MzItZDliOS00NmE5LTgyODgtOWY0NzU1ZGEyYzkz&hl=en">DOWNLOAD</a></span></div><br />
<a href="http://guyanadan.blogspot.com/2011/01/mix-of-2010.html">(Tracklist is here)</a>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-80254053032089666002011-01-17T10:39:00.000-04:002011-01-17T10:39:25.298-04:00Believe<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Religion was one of my worries in coming to a developing country. I was concerned that my position as a firm non-believer could lead to real difficulties in fitting in, and that the kind of awkward but well intentioned efforts at conversion that I have experienced from time to time in the past could be a regular occurrence. In reality, it has not been a major problem. It has felt a little awkward for me at times – there are prayers to begin almost every meeting or workshop, and attending a number of religious functions is necessary – but overall people are very tolerant of different beliefs, perhaps due to the melting pot of different sects and religions here.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I have had a few conversations with people who are astonished, appalled or baffled at my non-belief, but I have got much better at dealing with this than when I was an eighteen year old who saw the world much more in black and white. I now go for an approach along the lines of ‘I believe that we don’t need God to be good to each other. People are good because we like doing good, and I think that is a really great thing. And the world is an amazing and beautiful place – we have nature, art, music, love and friendship. I don’t need to add anything else to that.’ The idea is to:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-GB">a)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-GB">show that atheism is possible and reasonable</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-GB">b)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-GB">show that atheism is perfectly compatible with being good </span></i><span lang="EN-GB">and</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN-GB">c)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-GB">convince them I am not Satan’s representative on earth.</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">If a), b) and c) don’t get me anywhere, then option d) - <i>bore them enough to make them change the subject - </i>normally does the trick.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Not being a churchgoer does close off one of the main avenues for becoming more integrated into the community. Church is the entirety of many people’s social life, and a real part of what ties communities together. Leisure options in this part of Guyana are almost entirely based around either Church or Drinking. Watching cricket or horse racing, dancing, liming come under Drinking; singing, sports clubs, praying are all done at church, or with a church group; and weddings and funerals are a bit of one and a lot of the other.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Living in a very religious culture for an extended period of time has given me a slightly different understanding of the effects of religion on individuals and societies. For some people with desperate life situations, religion is the only thing left to hold on to. And it is very easy here, especially for women, people with disabilities or those with little education, to find yourself with in a desperate life situation. Religion can also bring focus and discipline in situations where turning to drink or drugs can be an easy option. In some villages, women are very keen to recruit their husbands to the teetotal Bretheren church for this reason. Some Churches also do excellent work for vulnerable people – for example, local orphanages in my town get a great deal of support from religious groups. Finally, regular church going seems to do wonders for public speaking abilities. It seems like everybody here can conjure up a rousing speech, with humour, intonation and heartfelt emotion, at the drop of a hat. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">But there is definitely another side to the story. Of course, in a mainly religious country, religious organisations are likely to be the main conduit for charity, but I suspect that secular Britain would match a similar but more religious country on charitable giving. The Tea Party Republicans, for example, are by hardly a shining example of religious people filled with empathy and generosity. And while churches bring the community of people who attend that church together, they can rip the wider fabric of a society apart. Racial divisions, which have plagued Guyanese politics ever since independence, are solidified by religious divides. This can be simply because of the social effects of people from the same ethnicity tending towards the same religions, but some groups (by no means all) actively preach intolerance for other sects or religions.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">This happens even within very small towns. Evangelist Christian churches set up by American or European missionaries have taken over almost every Amerindian community in Guyana. I have heard a few times from Amerindian people in different areas of Guyana that these churches create serious divisions between people. Some of the churches are open and inclusive, and regularly host larger meetings together with other groups, but others will preach hatred and intolerance towards other sects. This can have terrible effects on small communities that were previously a single cohesive group. There are villages of just fifty people where this kind of rivalry between churches has torn the society apart.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Closely related to this is the danger of intolerance of other lifestyles, whether that is women challenging gender roles by </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PxpYI4j7kU" target="_blank">wearing trousers</a><span lang="EN-GB"> or of </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIUZlzd37sI" target="_blank">homosexuality</a><span lang="EN-GB">. ‘Because god says so’ is arguably the last acceptable excuse for bigotry. I have personally never understood how one line in an obscure bit of the bible can trump all the stuff about love, understanding and supporting the downtrodden, but what do I know?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">A final effect that I see religion having is to reinforce a lack of questioning of authority or critical thinking. A common frustration for volunteers in Guyana working with many different organisations is that we find people seem to be unwilling to question authority, or to re-think how things are done. This kind of attitude built into the structure of many organisations, especially the education system. There is always a right or wrong answer – opinions and ambiguity are rarely, if ever, encouraged and discussed. A good child is quiet, does their work, and gives the answer that the teacher wants to hear. And a good follower of a religion is one who Believes. No prophet (except <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjz16xjeBAA" target="_blank">Brian</a>) has to my knowledge ever said ‘think for yourselves’ or ‘I could well be wrong’. Religion is obviously only one factor that contributes to this way of thinking – the long history of slavery, indentured labour and colonialism, and the authoritarian governments that inherited the power structures left by the British clearly have a huge role to play – but I feel that until there is a change in the prevalence or attitude of many of the religious organisations here, the development of the country as a whole will be held back, and those who do begin to think differently and question how things are done will continue to move away.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">But despite all this, my experience here has led me to believe that there is something that New Atheism / Scepticalism / Secular Humanism hasn’t yet come to grips with.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">There are many religious objections to atheism. Many of them are to do with the philosophical or scientific evidence for god. These are mostly ‘god of the gaps’ type arguments, and I have not heard any that are at all persuasive, at least for anything other than a meaninglessly vague, non-specific idea of God. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The more powerful arguments are the ones that say, in one way or another, that what is true doesn’t really matter – it is the effect that belief can have on your life that matters. For those with science/logic type brains like mine, this gets nowhere. I would rather be miserable and right. For more normal people however an appeal to emotion can be very powerful, and for good reason. From my experience, you could break this argument down further into something like this:</span></div><blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Religion is the only way people will be good</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Religion makes people happy</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Religion gives a sense of awe/transcendence</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Religion brings people together</span></div></blockquote><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The argument from morality is easily taken apart, by empirical evidence - 9/11, the Catholic Church covering up widespread paedophilia, the Spanish Inquisition etc etc - and by reason - ‘religious’ ethics seem to be quite flexible according to the wider societal norms of the time, and for most people an innate sense of right and wrong seems to trump the religious one. And when it doesn’t, the consequences can be horrific.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The happiness argument is a bit harder – religious belief is one thing that crops up in many large studies of happiness as a reliable factor in making people happier. I think however that the field of positive psychology is showing the way forward here, with evidence that techniques such as meditation, mindfulness, exercise, doing good, and having a sense of purpose are powerful secular routes to the same end.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The sense of awe or transcendence argument simply evaporates if you were to spend a second in my brain while I am looking out over an </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Roraima" target="_blank">amazing landscape</a><span lang="EN-GB"> (I haven't been there yet but really want to), listening to ‘</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTAxObwMnGY" target="_blank">Sir Duke</a><span lang="EN-GB">’, </span><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/beau_lotto_optical_illusions_show_how_we_see.html" target="_blank">learning how the brain works</a><span lang="EN-GB">, or looking at </span><a href="http://www.thedripartist.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/drip-art-painting-omg-no12.jpg" target="_blank">Summertime</a><span lang="EN-GB">, and I am sure every atheist in the world could give their own examples.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">But, in the UK at least, the sense of community seems harder and harder to find, especially as ‘<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_house#Country_pubs" target="_blank">the local</a>’<b> </b>as the hub of life is, outside of soap operas and sitcoms, more and more a thing of the past. We seem to be desperately searching for a community with common values, in the virtual world through Facebook or on internet forums where we can find people across the world who share our most obscure tastes, or in the real world through sport tribalism, music subcultures or book clubs. Maybe this splintering of smaller specialist groups is the future. And maybe we will find ways to make that work. But I hope that there is some way to bring that wider sense of community cohesion back.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://www.venganza.org/about/" target="_blank">Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster</a> anyone?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">By the way - think for yourselves. I could well be wrong.</span></div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-55812588951720259402011-01-13T09:34:00.000-04:002011-01-13T09:34:23.010-04:00Not over the hill yetWe are in danger of finishing a meeting on time. It’s the end of a long day of note taking, roleplay activities, group discussions, and more note taking for the region’s Head Teachers. The Regional Education Officer winds up her speech and I get ready to stand for the last verse of the national anthem, the usual finish to any meeting. But no – there’s something else that wasn’t on the agenda. I had been wondering why I had seen one of the recently retired head teachers lurking at the back. Surely head teacher meetings are not so much fun you would want to keep coming after retirement?<br />
<br />
It turns out that a group of the head teachers have put together a special programme to honour two of their recently retired colleagues. The retirement age here is 55, but from their appearance and energy levels you would put both ladies in their early forties. They are dazzling in coordinated red and black attire. The programme includes heartfelt and tear-stained speeches, poems, songs, an acrostic – ‘R is for robust, rambunctious, resplendent Rosie’ – and a dramatic skit. The love and respect felt for the retirees is palpable.<br />
<br />
Finally comes the giving of gifts. Two male head teachers have the task of presenting the tokens of appreciation – a set of jewelled gold earrings each. Rose, known for bringing laughter, warmth and a wonderful line in topical poems to liven up every meeting, is up first. She removes her earrings and tilts her head to let her presenter carefully begin putting the new pair in. The room collectively holds its breath as the heavily emotional proceedings of the afternoon come to a head.<br />
<br />
Rose, always blessed with perfect timing, chips in:<br />
<blockquote>“Now we see if he knows fi find de hole.”</blockquote><br />
The resulting shrieks of laughter must have been audible in England.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-79197427037162827612011-01-05T19:56:00.000-04:002011-01-12T19:01:49.807-04:00"They all look the same."<blockquote>White people all look the same.<br />
Cows all look the same.<br />
Chinese food all tastes the same.<br />
Reality TV shows are all the same.<br />
Football matches are always the same.<br />
All X looks/tastes/sounds/smells the same</blockquote><br />
It is interesting being on the receiving end of this for a change. Despite living in a town with a total of probably less than five white men at any given time, I am nonetheless often mistaken for somebody else. This is a common experience for lots of the volunteers here. Due to the complicated history of Guyana since independence, outside of the capital and a few tourist hot spots, white bais and gyals are a rare sight here. So to many Guyanese, we all look the same.<br />
<br />
If you hear this kind of statement from an English person talking about their two Indian colleagues you would (and probably quite rightly) think 'racist'. But nonetheless, they are telling the truth. People of a race that you are not used to seeing often do, literally, all look the same. <b>To you</b>. Just like to the elderly classical music fan, punk rock all sounds the same, to the beer connoisseur all red wine tastes the same, and to the city dweller all cows look the same. But to the punk, the sommelier and the farmer there is a world of difference between bands, wines or cows.<br />
<br />
A nice aspect of travel is that you get to experience your perception of the world around you change as your mind creates new categories and relationships to make sense of your new surroundings. I recently re-listened to one of my first Dancehall CDs, and what sounded repetitive and impenetrable on first listen is now a connected world of vocal styles, recognisable riddims and emotional associations. One of the hardest things when you are new in the country is that you meet many, many people who all remember you, but at that point many of them, to you, look the same. As time goes on, the differences become clearer and the categories in your mind get more detailed and finely drawn every day. The change is too gradual to notice, but dramatic when you look back to your first impressions.<br />
<br />
A quick google tells me this is called the 'own race bias' or 'cross race effect' (the internet really is amazing - i searched for 'they all look the same psychology' and found that out in seconds). <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-race_effect">Wikipedia</a> tells me that this effect has been studied extensively, and studies show it may be responsible for around 30% of failed negotiations between English and Chinese businesses. I am sure that the similar 'cross music/literature/taste/species' effects are responsible for all sorts of misunderstandings, distrust and dislike between different ages, classes or social groups within countries too.<br />
<br />
So - a late new year's resolution for everyone: take the time to investigate some food, music, people, language, sport or animal that all smells, tastes, looks, sounds or feels the same to you. You might be surprised.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">PS: I managed to get cognitive science, food, music, learning, wikipedia and Guyana all into one post. Jackpot!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">PPS: <a href="http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/%7Eschaller/Ackerman2006.pdf">This is an interesting and entertainingly named paper on the subject</a> - apparently the cross-race effect disappears for angry faces. Maybe when first meeting people of a different race you should ask them nicely to pull an angry face? On second thoughts, perhaps not. You might get a real angry face. The disturbing implication of this is that we instinctively see people of a different race as an 'out group', and therefore potentially threatening.</span>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-66736821010788562832011-01-03T17:51:00.001-04:002011-01-27T13:15:57.915-04:00Mix of 2010<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://cache2.artprintimages.com/p/LRG/19/1922/GWT9D00Z/art-print/parental-advisory-explicit-lyrics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="141" src="http://cache2.artprintimages.com/p/LRG/19/1922/GWT9D00Z/art-print/parental-advisory-explicit-lyrics.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"></span><span lang="EN-GB"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">This is a mix with my personal choices of the Guyana tunes of the last year. It is mostly a pretty accurate picture of what I’ve been hearing this year, with a few personal favourites thrown in. Some tracks are included because I love them, and some because they were inescapable. Some are a bit of both (Rum and Redbull, please stand up). And some popular tunes have been left out - the floppy haired teenager that sounds like a girl was also inescapable, but I you’ll be pleased to know I have kept this 100% Bieber free. However, it was prepared in a factory that also handles Black Eye Peas and Shakira, so be careful.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">It's mostly Soca, Dancehall and Reggae with a little hint of Chutney. I was going to write some posts about each type of music but that's what Wikipedia is for. I'll post some more in depth mixes of each style if you all are interested.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BzjT8MEQY5X9NzZmMzk3MzItZDliOS00NmE5LTgyODgtOWY0NzU1ZGEyYzkz&hl=en"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-size: large;"> DOWNLOAD MIX</span></span></a></div><span lang="EN-GB"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span id="goog_1047011867"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">Tracklist:</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">1.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Bill Withers – Lean on Me</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">2.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Wayne Wonder and Frisco Kid – Dreamland (Old Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">3.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Baby Cham – The Mass (Old Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">4.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Voicemail – Laptop (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">5.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Terror Fabulous Ft Nadine Sutherland – Action (Old Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">This takes me back to dancing to a soundsystem on the main street last Christmas Eve. The bit where the drums drop out and the bass goes wobbly made me determined to find a copy. I love this style of older Dancehall.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">6.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Buju Banton Ft Caron Gonslaves – No Second Class (Old Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">7.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Mr Vegas – Mi Believe (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">8.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Iyaz – Replay (Dancehall Remix)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">9.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Konshens – Pretty Devil (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">Reminds me of a big crowd watching two toddlers showing off their disturbingly good wining skills at the boxing day lime in Georgetown at the end of 2009.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">10.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Vybz Kartel – Virginity (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">I had a shock when this came on in a shared car (like a taxi that picks up passengers as it goes) with two little kids sitting next to me and nobody batted an eyelid. But then I never understood the words to ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes To Hollywood when I was growing up, so maybe it isn’t as bad as it seems. It is amazing (and worrying, considering much of the content) seeing how many kids know every song word for word.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">11.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Rhianna – Rudeboy (Dancehall Mix)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">12.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Rhianna - Rudeboy (Skinnyboy Reggae Remix)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">I first heard this remix on a minibus coming back from some school visits, at the magical time of day when the sun is low in the sky and golden light shimmers across the ricefields. As a result I like it far more than I should.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">13.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Beres Hammond – No Apology (Reggae)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">14.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Tarrus Riley – She’s Royal (Reggae)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">15.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Fantan Mojah – Most high Jah (Reggae)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">I love the high synth part on this riddim.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">16.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Sanchez – Feel Good All Over (Reggae)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">17.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Morgan Heritage – Down by the River (Reggae)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">18.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Sanchez – Pretty Girl (Reggae)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">19.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Jah Cure – Call on Me (Reggae)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">20.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Jah Cure Ft Alison Hinds – Call on Me (Soca Version)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">21.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Peter Ram – Real Tight Ft Che’Nelle (Soca)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">22.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Lil Rick – One Juk For The Carnival (Soca)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">23.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Rupee – What happens in de party (Soca)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">What happens in de party stays in de party. My lips are sealed.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">24.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Soca Elvis – Rum Don’t Bother Me (Chutney)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">There is currently an epidemic of Chutney (Indian Calypso/Soca) records about drinking rum. Another great title is ‘You Always Knew I Was A Drinker’. In general, Chutney songs are either about drinking, wining or cheating; Reggae songs are about making love, losing love, Jah, or smoking weed; Soca songs are about partying and wining; and Dancehall songs are about clothes, money, drinking, cheating, daggering (more on this later) or fucking.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">25.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Patrice Roberts – Wukking Up (Soca)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">26.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Machel Montano – Wining Season (Soca)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">27.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Peter Ram - Pumping (Remix) (Soca)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">One of my favourite Soca tunes. It baffles me that Soca has never really crossed over in the UK (with the exception of ‘Feeling Hot’). I forsee a future England where Soca is in the ascendancy, and whining lessons are the new Salsa lessons. Every thirty-something single in the land will be there every week, with an instructor telling the class ‘for the next four beats, wiggle your arse into his crotch side by side… now up and down… and round in a circle… now put your hands on your knees and push back… now hands to the floor and right leg in the air …’</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">28.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Blak Ryno – Come a Mi Yard (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">29.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Vybz Kartel – Bicycle (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">30.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Beenie Man – Under Curfew (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">31.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Mavado – House Top (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">32.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Vybz Kartel – Gyal for Free (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">33.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Demarco – Run Him Out (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">34.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Serani Ft Ding Dong – Skip to Ma Lu (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">35.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Voicemail – Style and Swagger (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">36.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">G Whizz – My Girl (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">37.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Gyptian - Hold You (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></span><span lang="EN-GB">For the first half of this year, every other car going past my house was playing this record. The plinky piano riff is burnt forever into my brain.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">38.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Vybz Kartel – Straight Jeans and Fitted (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">39.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Trevor Off Key – Fake Jeans Admit It (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">40.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Bounty Killer and Elephant Man – This is How We Do It (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">41.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Vybz Kartel – Clarks (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">When I was growing up, Clarks were sensible school shoes that your slightly overprotective parents bought for you because they believed the marketing spiel that we all needed shoes exactly fitted to the width of our feet or we would grow up with crippled, twisted, pancake shaped lumps of flesh at the end of our legs. Dancehall artists are obviously also very careful to have properly fitted shoes.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">42.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Beenie Man – Nuh Stress Me Out (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">43.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Beenie Man – I’m OK (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">44.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Beenie Man – Rum and Red Bull (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">This was huge for the last few months of the year. I included a Guyana style spinback for you all. Guyanese DJing is doing this five times a song, shouting over the mike every two seconds, and singing badly over the chorus. When Beenie Man’s set was cut short by a torrential downpour, he played these tunes and then quickly left the stage. By this point the audience had either left, hidden underneath the stage itself, or crammed themselves into the side of the beer tents desperately trying to escape the deluge.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">45.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Richie Loops – In My Cup (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">46.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Ricky Jai – Bar Man (Chutney)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">47.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Busy Signal – Up in Her Belly (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">48.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Machel Montano – Thiefin (Soca)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">49.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Mr Dale – Soca Junky (Soca)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-size: x-small;">My other favourite Soca tune</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">.</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">50.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">RDX – Daggering (Soca)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">Daggering is the only dance style I have ever heard of that has <a href="http://www.inquisitr.com/25536/broken-penis-cases-triple-in-jamaica-due-to-daggering-dance-craze-video/">allegedly caused a spateof broken penises</a>. I have heard it will be featured on next year’s Strictly Come Dancing.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">51.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Spice – Jim Screechie (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">52.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Baby Tash – Believe Me (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">53.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Elephant Man – One More Whine (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">I love any dancehall tune that rips off old house records, especially Daft Punk ones, especially with a punning title. I heard this coming out of a record shop and had to go in and buy it straight away. Can’t stop the whining.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">54.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Laden – Time Fi Warm Up (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">55.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Demarco – She Can’t Wait (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">56.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Enur – Calabria 2008 (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">57.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Swappi – Dis Gyal (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">The new song of the moment. Non-music-geeks should skip to the next paragraph now. Music geeks still here? Good. It’s a Dancehall tune based on an old Claude Von Stroke remix! Superb. I’m hoping for one based on a minimal house record next. Maybe one of those vocal versions of Marc Houle ‘Bay of Figs’ that Diplo used to play will catch on. And I should plan to come back in two years, by which time Dubstep will have crossed over the Atlantic. That will be amazing. Dubstep Dancehall. On that subject … there’s a Dubsteppy tune on the new Kanye album. It’s great. As is the whole album. I realise I’m way behind the time on this, but it really is good. Have a listen.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">58.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Donae’o and Problem Child - Party Hard (Soca)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">I like the percussion combination beat and bassline to this, and the way it sounds borderline depressed whilst instructing you to party hard. This will always remind me of the long, bumpy, dusty minibus rides to and from Lethem, Mahdia and Iwokorama after hearing it on repeat for a couple of those journeys.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">59.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Major Lazer – Pon de Floor (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">This took until the middle of this year to get really popular, since then and has been the song of choice for showing off your car soundsystem.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">60.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Busy Signal/Major Lazer – Busy Medley (Dancehall)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">61.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Black Eyed Peas – I Got a Feeling (Pop)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">62.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Shakira – Waka Waka (Pop)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">In terms of frequency that I have heard it, this is by far the song of the year. I must have heard this over a thousand times this year. One school event alone counted for about a hundred plays, as the song was played for every child who came on stage for the fashion show and dance display. I have absolutely no idea why it is so popular.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">63.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Jah Cure – Unconditional Love (Reggae)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">64.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Angel Doolas – You Trickster (Reggae)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">The ‘Coming in from the Cold’ riddim that this song is based on has been huge all year and this is the version that has stood the test of time the best. It reminds me of sitting at a friends house in Lethem while the whole Riddim CD – twelve or more songs based on the same backing track - was being played by the neighbours on repeat. Lethem is near the Brazilian border, and since a new bridge was built across the river that crosses the border a large portion of the residents in the town are now Brazilian. This means you hear a lot of Forra (???) music, a very repetitive and chirpy local style of Brazilian dance music. Traditional Forra is made with drums and accordion, but most of the modern stuff sounds like they have just left a cheap Casio keyboard on the ‘salsa’ rhythm. For half an hour. Then they stop and put it on again, slightly faster and in a different key. Even with dancing girls in little skirts to watch it is hard work – as noise coming from next door it is maddening. A nice reggae riddim CD on repeat was a big relief, and suited the lazy feel of the hot, dusty savannah town.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB">65.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Tessanee Chin - I Want to Know What Love Is (Reggae)</span></div><div class="MsoList2" style="margin-left: 0.75in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">Dan’s first law of Reggae Versions states that Eighty percent of songs in the world can be improved when covered in a reggae style. The second law states that the cheesier the original, the more it will be improved. As the original to this is cheesier than the lovechild of a strong stilton and a ripe camembert sitting in a sauna on a hot day, this cover is as good as music gets. The brass in the chorus is just amazing. I even quite enjoy the Disney style chord change near the end. This song also stands in for all the cheesy eighties ballads that are frighteningly popular here.</span></span></div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-41353663547855869332010-12-29T17:43:00.000-04:002010-12-29T17:43:21.797-04:00Guyanese ChristmasWhen your body clock is trained by a grey and rainy England, time seems to stand still in the tropics. There are two seasons here - sunny and rainy. A slight difference in temperature and frequency of showers are your only cues that the year is passing, other than that it's always hot all year round, it's sweaty all year round, and the sun rises at six and sets at six all year round. Christmas therefore comes as a shock each year, and passes without you ever really feeling like it is actually there.<br />
<br />
Christmas in Guyana comes with it's own set of traditions. In the run up to the big day it is all about cleaning, changing your curtains, and putting up the decorations - which include all the tinsel, santas and fake trees that we know and love back home, with the addition of plenty of big, bright fake flowers.<br />
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Next up come the office parties. These run pretty much the same as back home; a mountain of food gets eaten, the quiet one has a few too many drinks and shows their wild side, and at some point there will be a conga line.<br />
<br />
And then Christmas Eve. You might expect this to be a quiet time for family, church and contemplation. It isn't. Chrismas Eve is one of the biggest and messiest nights out of the year. Early in the evening it is all about shopping, liming, and getting your photo taken with Santa and Elmo in front of a Hannah Montana backdrop. As the evening progresses, the street gets busier, the soundsystems get louder and louder and everybody gets drunker. There is a seamless transition from shopping with the family to wining, drinking and discharging your home-made aerosol flamethrowers. We wind up watching a spontaneous breakdance competition on the street, backed by a soundsystem made up of a car with a laptop sat on the bonnet and a pile of speakers on the roof, and accompanied by the sounds of bottles exploding under car wheels as they unwisely try to reverse out of their spots.<br />
<br />
By Christmas morning my house is still shaking to the bass from the bar over the road, and Main Street is a wasteland of broken bottles. Christmas day traditions are food based - Pepperpot, Black Cake, Ginger Beer, Garlic Pork, apples, grapes and walnuts. Black cake is a heavy dark fruitcake and Pepperpot is a delicious Amerindian beef stew, made from casreep, which is similar to molasses but is one of the amazing variety of foods that can be created from Cassava, a starchy root vegetable that is the staple diet for Amerindians living in the interior (explaining life in Guyana sometimes leads to a neverending chain of smaller explanations; the role of Cassava is a long post in itself).<br />
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Boxing day in Georgetown is another big party day, with the Big Main Lime bringing people and sound systems from all across Guyana. In Berbice it is a choice between sleeping off your christmas indulgences and going to the races. I'll follow up with a bit more on the races in a future post...<br />
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Happy new year everyone!Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-35409163627877962662010-12-03T14:17:00.000-04:002010-12-03T14:17:33.839-04:00Pointless Guyana related listsClearing up half-written blog posts from a while back - here's some pointless Guyana related lists.<br />
<br />
<strong>Noteworthy facts I was told about Berbice (my region of Guyana) before coming here:</strong><br />
<ol><li>There's lots of farming</li>
<li>It's the hippy region of Guyana</li>
<li>There's a relatively nice beach</li>
</ol><strong>Noteworthy facts I wasn't told about Berbice (my region of Guyana) before coming here:</strong><br />
<ol><li>It has the biggest number of mosquitos</li>
<li>It has the most vicious mosquitos</li>
<li>It gets the most blackouts</li>
</ol><strong>Most impressive types of roadkill</strong><br />
<ol><li>Caiman (alligator)</li>
<li>Plagues of frogs that have apparently fallen from the sky carpeting the road for miles</li>
<li>Cows </li>
</ol><strong>Things ants love to eat</strong><br />
<ol><li>Honey</li>
<li>Jam</li>
<li>Flour</li>
<li>Biscuits</li>
<li>Bread</li>
<li>Sink Plugs</li>
<li>etc</li>
</ol><strong>Things ants won't go eat even if you leave them open on the worktop all day with a sign saying 'free and food, come and get it' and hot lady ants employed to entice passers by</strong><br />
<ol><li>Marmite</li>
</ol>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-25864321617551778842010-12-02T18:00:00.000-04:002010-12-02T18:00:40.778-04:00Good old daysOn a roll today, one proper post, one 'this thought popped in to my head' one. The thought?<br />
<br />
You know when people look back to 'the good old days' - where there was no health and safety, no speed traps, you could give a child a clip around the ear, when men were men and women were women?<br />
<br />
<b>I live there.</b> <i>(Disclaimer: This is an exaggeration. Many attitudes are changing rapidly in Guyana. I would love to give VSO and similar organizations some credit for this, but probably pirated TV showing Oprah every day is what we should thank. But in essence, this is the situation.)</i><br />
<br />
There is definitely another side to the rose-tinted silver-lined sepia-tinged memory.<br />
<br />
<ul><li>No health and safety - Lots of people die and get horrifically injured at work. Lots of them. Frequently. Really badly.</li>
<li>No speed traps/traffic calming/speed bumps - Seriously, I will never complain about this again. Traffic here is deadly. For a tiny country, the number of people being killed in road accidents is terrifying.</li>
<li>You can give a child a clip round the ear - I'll be (a little too) honest here. Corporal punishment works. Kids here are better behaved and more polite than you could hope to find in England. But, and this is a big but, they grow up learning that strength gives you the right to beat someone who doesn't agree with you. So men beat their wives, wives beat their men, parents beat their kids and sometimes their parents, and nothing gets discussed.</li>
<li>And men are men and women are women - so women are expected to cook, clean, take care of the babies, do everything to care for and treat their men, and men are expected to drink rum and come home late. Gender equality has allowed many women to go to work now, but they still have to do all the housework, put up with infidelity and raise the children at the same time.</li>
</ul>But some of the 'good old days' stuff is true. People look after each other. There is a real sense of community. And children respect their elders.<br />
<br />
Or at least they pretend to, for fear of licks...Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-70217406980055788272010-12-02T17:32:00.000-04:002010-12-02T17:38:16.251-04:00Day in the life...OK, getting back on the blogging wagon here. I'm going to change my attitude a bit to what i do here, so future posts may be a bit rough around the edges... I have decided to go for more posts, less trying to get them exactly right.<br />
<br />
so ...<br />
<br />
A few people have asked what exactly my work days are like here. That's a difficult question to answer - to take this week as an example, I've had:<br />
<ul><li> a day and a half spent planning, marking and organising in the office</li>
<li>an impromptu speech to open a disability advocate for kids training</li>
<li>a day facilitating a couple of sessions (including a completely impromptu STI awareness bit complete with very graphic photographs) for a parent conference at a primary school</li>
<li>a day visiting teachers in schools</li>
</ul>You may notice the word impromptu comes up quite a lot. The best thing about the impromptu STI session is that I didn't even consider that this was a funny situation at the time. Myself and another, newer volunteer were put in the position of having to give a talk about STIs, with no warning whatsoever, to thirty shell-shocked mothers, and I only realised this was out of the ordinary once my colleague pointed it out. Guyana has made me un-surprisable.<br />
<br />
Anyway, my day today was visiting schools. I am working at the moment together with a Peace Corps volunteer who is mainly based in New Amsterdam Special Needs School. Together we are running a series of workshops for primary school teachers, one from each school, looking at strategies to make schools more inclusive. A combination of chalk-and-talk teaching, an overambitious curriculum, too many tests at a young age, and teachers with either little training, no training, or inappropriate training leads to a majority of pupils getting left behind, and leaving school with very limited basic skills. We are aiming to train one teacher in each primary school in the region with some strategies to involve more pupils. These teachers then in theory can train the other staff in their schools. Today was a follow up visit to see a couple of those teachers in their own classrooms.<br />
<br />
Both schools were over an hour from where I live on a minibus 'up the Corentyne' - towards the Corentyne river on the border with Suriname. This takes you from the more urban areas of New Amsterdam and Rose Hall Town into more rural farming areas, where the main road is both a road and an area to graze cattle, dry rice, store piles of mud, and mix cement. None of this road furniture stops the minibuses tearing along at ridiculous speeds on the wrong side of the road with Vybz Kartel blasting out of the speakers.<br />
<br />
Both of the schools I visited today were a real breath of fresh air. In each, the head teachers were working incredibly hard, and incredibly effectively, to make calm, structured learning environments and to give their teachers ideas to engage more pupils. At one school, they were working to develop a Resource Centre in a building that had clearly been put up years ago with development money, but never staffed or made use of.<br />
<br />
The teacher I saw in the next school had worked with a previous VSO volunteer, and had a wonderful attitude towards the children. She believed, and showed through her teaching, that engaging the children positively through activities, games, stories and songs is the best way to get them to learn and behave well. I saw a revision session where pupils were reading and answering questions together in pairs, and a phonics session punctuated by songs and silly actions. The fourty pupils, a previously struggling group with some challenging children with very disadvantaged backgrounds, were having fun and learning without realising it. And she was even using a couple of ideas from our workshops amongst plenty of her own!<br />
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I came away from today feeling <strike>terrified that we were about to run into a bull</strike> much more positive than I have for a while about the value and impact that VSO volunteers can have here. Sometimes the challenges and obstacles, particularly at the level of policy and beauracracy, can make you wonder how big an impact we can really make. It is really heartening to see real evidence of ideas getting passed on, filtering in to everyday teaching and making a real difference.<br />
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Song of the moment: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro2Ejt3CwuU">Beenie Man - I'm OK/Rum and Redbull</a><br />
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Postscript - therefore, please donate to VSO! A re-adjustment of foreign aid policy has decreased their share of the British funding pie, so they do need support. In my experience in Guyana, VSO are certainly one of the most effective organisations for helping people to help themselves without becoming dependent on outside aid.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-85752186801249880782010-05-06T16:50:00.000-04:002010-05-06T16:51:10.829-04:00The greatest chat up line ever?A white gyal friend of mine, walking through the market, minding her own business, was brought out of her thoughts by the sound of loud, violent vomiting from a man she was walking past.<br />
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<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>HEEEUUUUURRRRRGHHHH BLLEEEEEEEUURRRRRRRRRG HYEUAAAAAAAURRRRRRRGHH</b></span></div><br />
She turned round to see what was going on, to see a man bent double, fingers pointing into his mouth, savagely convulsing. Once he knew he had her attention, he paused the mime to explain - "I'm just making room for some of that <b>white meat</b>*!"<br />
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They are now happily married.**<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">* There was a popular song a few years ago here called 'never had white meat'.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">** Bizarrely, this is not true. </span>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-76207765852505029182010-05-02T20:30:00.000-04:002010-05-02T20:30:59.741-04:00Comedy JamA quick post to get back on the blogging regularly wagon. (Also check out my posts on <a href="http://raquelvso.blogspot.com/">Raquel's great A to Z of Guyana</a>).<br />
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Comedy often gives a pretty good idea of what the big issues of the minute are - watching back some old fast show episodes recently took me back to the zeitgeist of Britain in the mid to late '90s - the National Lottery, Britpop, Supermodels and Eco Warriors. Last night I went to a touring comedy sketch show that was doing an outdoor show at the cricket pitch up the road; year-round, reliably warm outdoor events being one of the great advantages of a tropical climate. I was glad that I hadn't been to such a show in my first few weeks here - I would have understood maybe two words - but these days I can understand the majority of what people say. Most of the time. The sketches did indeed give a pretty good picture of the issues of the day. So from that evidence alone, here's a top five list of issues in Guyanese society:<br />
<ol><li>Sexual mores and morality, and how these differ between Georgetown and the countryside: this sketch involved a promiscuous, sophisticated girl living in Georgetown, ashamed of her farming roots, teaching her religious, virginial cousin the ways of dating, Georgetown style. Which turn out to involve men in dresses, a new man every week, and large sums of money changing hands.</li>
<li>Auntie Men - Like the UK in the days of Carry On and Are You Being Served, (and, it could be argued, Little Britain) there is a great divide between the prevailing attitude to homosexuality in real life (wrong, disgusting, sinful and peverted) and the reaction to gay people on stage (hilarious and wonderful). This show did have some strong (and well recieved) gay characters, which could be a sign of new attitudes gaining a foothold. </li>
<li>Corrupt traffic policemen - <br />
'How are we going to get paid today?'<br />
'We need to start charging people for ADT.'<br />
'What's that?'<br />
'Any Damn Thing!'</li>
<li>Domestic Violence - in this case a skit about a woman falsely claiming to have been beaten by her husband, who has clearly been battered by her to a pulp. Of course the female magistrate sentences the hapless man to life in prison.</li>
<li>Beauty Pageants - actually, this wasn't a sketch, just a bizarre and slightly disturbing part of the intermission. But beauty contests crop up everywhere, most bizarrely in my experience as part of the government run Amerindian Heritage Month celebrations. The contestants last night, the youngest of whom was about 10, came on stage to prove once and for all that there is no good answer to the question 'why should you win this beauty pageant?'. And further proving that if there is, 'because i'm smart, intelligent and intellectual' isn't it. This spectacle contrasted sharply with the genuinely smart and talented actresses involved in the show.</li>
</ol>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039574615691699363.post-78238058847135063162010-01-13T19:50:00.000-04:002010-01-13T19:51:48.311-04:00Soca Junkie - Music of Guyana, Part 1<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">First, an overdue correction: the ‘amusingly bad grammar’ in the sign in a previous post – ‘water is life, care it’ isn’t bad grammar at all. It’s just Creolese grammar, like ‘I tell she’, ‘me na know’, ‘walk with your things’. Lesson learnt, for the fiftieth time, until I forget again: Don’t be too quick to judge.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And now to the matter at hand. I had to do a music post sooner or later. More will follow.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Music has been one of the defining elements of my experience so far, and the sounds of Guyana will linger in my ears long after I have left the country. And when I get home my friends will wonder what the hell has happened to my music taste.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The title is a bit of a misnomer: most of the music you hear here is not from Guyana. There are a few local bands and singers, but even they apparently tend to record in Trinidad or Suriname. The vast majority of music is imported from elsewhere, mainly Trinidad, Jamaica, the USA or Brazil. And when I say imported, I mean downloaded as a low bitrate MP3 and burnt to a CD. There are either no copyright laws here, or nobody has bothered trying to enforce any, so even the biggest department stores sell nothing but pirated CDs and DVDs. These are ridiculously cheap – you can usually get between five and ten CDs for 1000 Guyanese Dollars (About £2.50), although luxuries like the CDs coming with accurate tracklistings or actually playing all the way through are far from guaranteed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Music is everywhere here, and it’s loud. Whether it’s reggae blasting out of the minibus, eighties ballads in the taxi, Chutney* blasting out from your neighbour’s house at 6 AM or dirty thumping dancehall played in between overs at a cricket game, there is almost always some kind of music within earshot. There are some noise laws, but the application of these is very hit and miss. Generally 'hit' when i'm in the middle of dancing and the club gets shut down at midnight, and 'miss' when i'm trying to sleep at five in the morning.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The most popular songs are bought by everybody, and played by everybody, repeatedly, for months. For the first few months here, </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeILEAFnMlM"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">One More Night</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> and </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8VsuLd9l4s&feature=related"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Nightshift </span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">by Busy Signal would be heard about ten times each a day. It’s just once or twice a day now. I have been through a similar 'three stages of culture shock' experience with these songs as </span><a href="http://guyanadan.blogspot.com/2009/10/culture-shock.html"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I did with blackouts</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> - enjoying them, then being driven to the edge of Insanity (a village on the way to Georgetown**) by them, and then eventually coming to tolerate and even like them, and freely choosing to listen to them at home from time to time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">As for going out and dancing***, the DJing culture here was a bit of a shock when I arrived, and one of the things I thought it might be hardest to adjust to. DJs usually play the start of the song, till it kicks in, have the MC shout a bit, rewind, sing over it, rewind when it gets to the good bit again, and then skip to the next song. Then they play the start of the song, till it kicks in, the MC shouts a bit, they restart the song, sing over it, rewind when it gets to the good bit again, and then skip on to the next song. Then they . . . well you get the idea. When I first went out this irritated the life out of me. But after a while you begin to see how it works with the music and the way people dance here. Hearing full songs all the way through sounds a bit boring now. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">One good thing is the variety you get in each club over the space of a night. Most places will play the full range of Dancehall, Soca, Culture and a bit of RnB and classic dancefloor tunes as a bonus. The bad side is that there’s not much choice between venues – apart from some places that play more sludgy eighties ballads or Chutney, most places have identical playlists. There are probably at least twenty songs you can pretty much guarantee hearing wherever you go.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Next music post: a rundown of popular Guyanese**** musical styles. With examples. Lucky you. It must be nearly Christmas.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXsJtCP_dCs"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Mr Dale - Soca Junkie</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">* Indian music crossed with soca, we'll deal with this at a later date...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">** Not actually true. But it could be. There is one called 'Good Faith'. I plan to go there and do something horribly selfish and short sighted. In good faith. Do you see? But I never got round to going to Glasshouses (near Harrogate) and throwing stones, and I lived near there for five years, so chances are I won't actually get round to it. And it's a bit of a silly idea really.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">*** The dancing culture is quite a shock too, but one for another post.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">**** Not really Guyanese. See above.</span>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13823373371823487915noreply@blogger.com1