The end of term and looking forward to the Mount Rioraima trek

saturday 12th July 4.50pm Temperature 33.9c

Schools closed on Friday 4th July and we attended a flurry of graduation ceremonies that were held in Nursery and Primary schools. The dressing up of the pupils as young as 4 in full gowns and mortar boards and the presentation of laminated certificates in transformed child friendly rooms watched by adoring parent(s) all dressed up to the nines took us aback. All that creativity and effort and expense for those ceremonies contrasted starkly, for the most part, with the dullness and lack of initiative of the poorly resourced teaching and learning lessons. (PICTURES TO FOLLOW IN A FEW DAYS)....The Internet connections recently have been bad....
Because the last 3 weeks of term were taken up withese preparations and therefore there was no teaching to speak of we spent our time logginging in data of the grade 2 and 4 tests ( equivalent to the SATs tests) onto a data base for the first time in the region's history so that we have a abaseline of sorts to work from. It is tedious but we think invaluable for the future..

GOOD NEWS...we have secured a bigger house, have insisted that major refurbishments are carried out before we move in, and that has been agreed. technically the house will be ready by the 15th but we will not move in until we have come back from the Mount Roiraima expedition ( 10 day trip in all...see picture for views from the top). Mount Roiraima is on the border with venezuela and we will have to travel into brazil and Venezuela to climb it. It is the highest mountain in Guyana , approximately 9,700 feet and is regarded as one of the olderst and curious places on the planet....300 billion years old ( if you believe in the scientific evidence) and the setting for Conan Doyle's The Lost World..We go on Friday 18th July and it should be a memorable but wet experience....!! Watch this space