Within days of arriving in Mabaruma, we were excited to hear that an outreach trip was going out the following day to one of the villages in the region; Sam would get his first genuinely remote medicine experience, and I could tag along for the ride. It seemed like a great chance to get a feel for Amerindian culture, and to see how it could be running workshop sessions with them.
To elaborate – when we met Minister Ramsammy, confusingly, his vision of what I could do in the villages seemed clearer than Sam’s role. The Department of Health had had a breakthrough in some of its education work, through the use of drama games. They’d realised what its sometimes easy to forget in the cut & thrust of theatre in London – that the shared experience of making and watching drama creates powerful and memorable and sometimes life changing experiences, and is almost definitely more effective than lecturing a group of secondary school students about safe sex. Therefore, the focus was on how to roll out edutainment to the regions. The problem here is that essentially very few (read zero) Georgetown professionals will dream of heading to the regions for more than a day at a time. Sam and I had agreed to be there for 4 months. Thats why the Minister had a glint in his eye.
His confidence in my ability to create blossoming drama in the villages was not shared by any people I discussed it with. Amerindian culture is not known for its exuberance or expressivity; they themselves tend to be quiet, unassuming people (which possibly accounts for their historical lack of representation politically, socially or otherwise). Though actually, more than anything, they generally live so remotely, their exposure to the rest of Guyanese culture – or any element of global culture – is frequently negligible.
Mabaruma, Region 1, is seen as almost the remotest of the remote in Guyana. You can’t get here by road – you can go taxi-boat-taxi-boat-taxi, as you weave your way through the profusion of rivers and tracks that wend their way through dense jungle. Or you can fly. When you get to Mabaruma, you find a single road, lined with rubber trees, so pleasantly shady, and at each side, the municipal buildings of the region. Its a tiny, sleepy town. Yet Mabaruma begins to look positively urban once you head out into the villages.
On our first outreach, we were bound for White Creek, a village maybe ten miles away, but a good hour and a half’s driving over the most terrible roads you can imagine. We passed through villages on the way – Hosororo, Wauna, finally getting to White Creek just before lunch. We arrived at the village centre – scattered buildings along the way get a little denser until you reach the Health hut, next to the cricket pitch and the local schools. The health team swung into action – Monica the local Community health officer showing Nurse Johns (the vaccinations specialist) and Sam to the spaces they could practice in, and Dentex (the equivalent of the Medex in the dental world – trained somewhere between a dentist and a dental nurse) set up his portable chair – it was his first visit to the village, as became apparent by the procession of terrible teeth that greeted us in gappy grins.
I went off in search of the captain. The Amerindian villages elect a captain for three year terms, and visitors to the village should seek him out and get permission for their activities. Norman, White Creek’s captain, was almost regal – gentle, quiet, with the most perfect posture I think I have seen, and thirteen children. The families here are very big.
I explained that I would like to run a theatre games session with some of the children – I thought this was the best plan, to get my first sense of how I could work with groups here. He suggested I use the local school hall as it was Easter holidays and sent me off in search of the Headmaster Lloyd, while Norman spread the word that there would be games for children from 10 years up the next day at the school.
That night we slung our hammocks in the Health hut – the opposite of taking our work home with you I suppose – and the next morning Lloyd let me into the school. Like a latter day Julie Andrews, I was all smiles as the kids drifted in – 50 of them in the end, and ranging in ages from 2 (Rocky a very smiley toddler) to 25. I guess it was something to do that day.
The session that followed was invaluable to me, though not the easiest or most obviously successful I have ever done. We played a wide range of games – from the very simple stop, freeze – when I found myself being followed round the room like a mother duck with fifty slightly confused ducklings behind me, to name games which were painfully slow (the children, and particularly some of the girls, were incredibly shy about using their voices in public) but great fun in the group parts when, en masse we would shout everyone’s name and action at full voice.
A big part of the shyness is to do with the educational culture, I think. Most lessons are “chalk and board” – teacher dictating, children copying – in the worst cases without really understanding. There isn’t a widespread participatory approach in any discipline as yet. So the blank, rabbit in headlights look when asked to invent an action for your name in front of a big group is quite understandable, and we got there with everyone in the end.
Also, as we’ve learned since being here, there is a language barrier. With most Guyanese in Georgetown and Mabaruma, the language is Creole, the common Guyanese language which has evolved through all the many groups here – African, East Indian, Portugese, English and Chinese. Its a vibrant, colourful and very expressive language. Most people, once they realise we are English, will slow down and speak more clearly (and sometimes more loudly). But in the villages, Creole is spoken with the local accent, and possibly the second language to the Amerindian local one (though more and more rarely, the original languages seem to be dying out). So the looks of incomprehension I found myself faced with were often due to my English accent.
Most successful were the group games – singing, chanting, and an adaptation of Whats the Time Mr Wolf (Whats the time Mr Jaguar) which was a big hit. Less successful were games which involved physical contact (People to People) or a vocabulary which included any sense of theatre (a sculpting game where you made your partner into any character or emotion you liked met with a nonplussed silence).
Still, what seemed clear to me was that the lack of expressivity I’d been warned about was, of course, just skin deep. Once they understood the games, and begun to know and trust me, the group were by turns highly focused, wildly exuberant and very characterful. Of course, this is just the first step, but it gives me hope that the edutainment project, when I get it started, will find a fruitful home here.
To elaborate – when we met Minister Ramsammy, confusingly, his vision of what I could do in the villages seemed clearer than Sam’s role. The Department of Health had had a breakthrough in some of its education work, through the use of drama games. They’d realised what its sometimes easy to forget in the cut & thrust of theatre in London – that the shared experience of making and watching drama creates powerful and memorable and sometimes life changing experiences, and is almost definitely more effective than lecturing a group of secondary school students about safe sex. Therefore, the focus was on how to roll out edutainment to the regions. The problem here is that essentially very few (read zero) Georgetown professionals will dream of heading to the regions for more than a day at a time. Sam and I had agreed to be there for 4 months. Thats why the Minister had a glint in his eye.
His confidence in my ability to create blossoming drama in the villages was not shared by any people I discussed it with. Amerindian culture is not known for its exuberance or expressivity; they themselves tend to be quiet, unassuming people (which possibly accounts for their historical lack of representation politically, socially or otherwise). Though actually, more than anything, they generally live so remotely, their exposure to the rest of Guyanese culture – or any element of global culture – is frequently negligible.
Mabaruma, Region 1, is seen as almost the remotest of the remote in Guyana. You can’t get here by road – you can go taxi-boat-taxi-boat-taxi, as you weave your way through the profusion of rivers and tracks that wend their way through dense jungle. Or you can fly. When you get to Mabaruma, you find a single road, lined with rubber trees, so pleasantly shady, and at each side, the municipal buildings of the region. Its a tiny, sleepy town. Yet Mabaruma begins to look positively urban once you head out into the villages.
On our first outreach, we were bound for White Creek, a village maybe ten miles away, but a good hour and a half’s driving over the most terrible roads you can imagine. We passed through villages on the way – Hosororo, Wauna, finally getting to White Creek just before lunch. We arrived at the village centre – scattered buildings along the way get a little denser until you reach the Health hut, next to the cricket pitch and the local schools. The health team swung into action – Monica the local Community health officer showing Nurse Johns (the vaccinations specialist) and Sam to the spaces they could practice in, and Dentex (the equivalent of the Medex in the dental world – trained somewhere between a dentist and a dental nurse) set up his portable chair – it was his first visit to the village, as became apparent by the procession of terrible teeth that greeted us in gappy grins.
I went off in search of the captain. The Amerindian villages elect a captain for three year terms, and visitors to the village should seek him out and get permission for their activities. Norman, White Creek’s captain, was almost regal – gentle, quiet, with the most perfect posture I think I have seen, and thirteen children. The families here are very big.
I explained that I would like to run a theatre games session with some of the children – I thought this was the best plan, to get my first sense of how I could work with groups here. He suggested I use the local school hall as it was Easter holidays and sent me off in search of the Headmaster Lloyd, while Norman spread the word that there would be games for children from 10 years up the next day at the school.
That night we slung our hammocks in the Health hut – the opposite of taking our work home with you I suppose – and the next morning Lloyd let me into the school. Like a latter day Julie Andrews, I was all smiles as the kids drifted in – 50 of them in the end, and ranging in ages from 2 (Rocky a very smiley toddler) to 25. I guess it was something to do that day.
The session that followed was invaluable to me, though not the easiest or most obviously successful I have ever done. We played a wide range of games – from the very simple stop, freeze – when I found myself being followed round the room like a mother duck with fifty slightly confused ducklings behind me, to name games which were painfully slow (the children, and particularly some of the girls, were incredibly shy about using their voices in public) but great fun in the group parts when, en masse we would shout everyone’s name and action at full voice.
A big part of the shyness is to do with the educational culture, I think. Most lessons are “chalk and board” – teacher dictating, children copying – in the worst cases without really understanding. There isn’t a widespread participatory approach in any discipline as yet. So the blank, rabbit in headlights look when asked to invent an action for your name in front of a big group is quite understandable, and we got there with everyone in the end.
Also, as we’ve learned since being here, there is a language barrier. With most Guyanese in Georgetown and Mabaruma, the language is Creole, the common Guyanese language which has evolved through all the many groups here – African, East Indian, Portugese, English and Chinese. Its a vibrant, colourful and very expressive language. Most people, once they realise we are English, will slow down and speak more clearly (and sometimes more loudly). But in the villages, Creole is spoken with the local accent, and possibly the second language to the Amerindian local one (though more and more rarely, the original languages seem to be dying out). So the looks of incomprehension I found myself faced with were often due to my English accent.
Most successful were the group games – singing, chanting, and an adaptation of Whats the Time Mr Wolf (Whats the time Mr Jaguar) which was a big hit. Less successful were games which involved physical contact (People to People) or a vocabulary which included any sense of theatre (a sculpting game where you made your partner into any character or emotion you liked met with a nonplussed silence).
Still, what seemed clear to me was that the lack of expressivity I’d been warned about was, of course, just skin deep. Once they understood the games, and begun to know and trust me, the group were by turns highly focused, wildly exuberant and very characterful. Of course, this is just the first step, but it gives me hope that the edutainment project, when I get it started, will find a fruitful home here.
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