Today was a whirlwind of emotions! Somehow four of my
classes’ tests coincided with each other. Form 4 did a fantastic job, six A*s
and 100% A-C. I made some calls home to parents to congratulate their kids; one
in particular got a D in the last unit and has been working his socks off to
pull his grade for this unit up to an A*! The two A Level classes probably fared
slightly less well. I’ll have to wait until they get marked to see. One of the
classes opted for me to mark them (that’s my evening gone!) whilst the other
class wanted to peer mark them. Finally form 3 was more of a mission. Last
lesson of the day and 3 walked in late; immediate detentions. The rest did the
test, some lost marks for talking, some for cheating.
Back to Friday and the best moment of the day was hearing a
fellow colleague singing ‘Single for ever:’
“I don’t have to stay at home, I don’t have to answer me
phone, I could have any gyal in me car.”
Friday afternoon was market day, a great idea to get the
students thinking about businesses. They had to run their own business and sell
their product to the other students. It was nice to get the afternoon off
teaching and be able to plan for the week ahead but bittersweet in that I would
have had 4S and 5S who are a delight to teach.
Finally the bell went for the end of the day and the start
of the three-day Diwali weekend. The Diwali pageant itself was on Saturday. It
was just like Titchfield Carnival that I remember from my childhood. Lots of
trucks decorated with lights and costumed people parading down the sea wall
road. Being Guyana, there was added lime, more sticky-hot heat, hand-held
explosives (instead of sparklers) and a Hindu twist for Diwali.
As the trucks went past our section, people started to leave
for home but we had some friends further down the procession so we jumped on the
back of my bike and road right through all the lit up trucks, got a police
escort for part of the journey then continued through thousands of people all
shooting fireworks over our heads as we road by. We reached our friends before
the carnival so got the pleasure of watching all the floats again!
Sunday was a bit more relaxed. The floats moved on to
Berbice. There were still hundreds of people blowing things up on the sea wall
though. One of my friends/ Guyanese cousin made us Seven Curry. Apparently this
dish is exclusively Guyanese and a big mash-up of seven different Guyanese
curries. It was really tasty and we stuffed our faces.
Guyanese family :)
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