On Monday I went to NCERD, a branch of the Ministry of Education responsible for educational resources. Whilst there I bumped into a collection of British 5 VSOs, they were very friendly and have put me in touch with some of the volunteer community in Guyana. The following evening I went to a cafe where Brits tend to hang out and met some more. It was nice after being here for a bit to have a chat to some people from home; most of these are on a 2 year placement which is quite a commitment. I have yet to make Ultimate Frisbee in the park on Wednesday afternoons which sounds great fun.
NCERD has a stock of 600 computers to roll out providing IT labs for 150 computer labs across the country, which I hope to be able to help out with and should give me a great opportunity to travel around. In fact I had my first opportunity on Wednesday with a trip to Region 5 to re-install the software on a load of computers. If you have been to the cinema this summer you would be forgiven for thinking that this is where the Guyanese keep their
prawns, but in fact Guyana is divided into a number of regions, this one to the East of Georgetown.
The NCERD technician and I got in a car to Region 5 - this was like a bus but in car form, in that the car drivers are quite aggressive in getting passengers. Anyway, we managed to fill the car and he drove quite safely for about 90 minutes all the way to the Berbice. It was pretty hot, but fortunately I was by the window and got a chance to take a few pictures. In fact the journey was quite spectacular, we passed some very fancy houses, some run down ones and at some points just thick palm trees on both sides. There seem to be animals wandering around a lot of the time - I assume they have owners but even in Georgetown there seems to be the odd horse just wandering; on this road it was cows.
Continuing with the Region 5 theme, the school we visited was in the charismatically named No. 8 village, and as such was No. 8 school. It was a small primary school with a similar design to St. Stanislaus although smaller and quite well kept. The IT room was actually very impressive - all of the computers had backup power supplies so when we had blackouts (and we had a few short ones) they didn't turn off. This is very handy when installing Windows.
Once the job was done we were driven to the bus stop - and were stopped by the police. However after a brief look in the car and the boot we were waved on - I think this was to do with
recent events in Guyana. After this we caught a bus, and had another spectacular drive, this time in the sunset, through the palm trees along the road back to Georgetown. I look forward to further adventures out of town...
