I usually don’t post videos as the official post itself, but this I must do.
It is fixed. And I can play on it. I have learned how to reglue a viola neck on its body, fill in potentially annoying cracks, sand down pegs for a good fit, and drill holes in the pegs for the strings.
And Bob and I had fun doing it.
In mid-December, I’ve mentioned that my viola’s neck unglued. Since then, I got hold of another violin while waiting for violin-fixing materials to arrive. Though they’ve arrived safely about over six months ago, we haven’t taken the time to fix the viola.
A month ago, unfortunately, the second violin, which at the time was being the center of attention at a pre-youth party, got dropped – and the scroll broke off. (Way to go MC – my violin braking record is increasing at an alarming rate …)
Seeing this instrument was not mine, I was adamant at getting it fixed before I left.
So today, we took out the violin glue, the clamps, the foam, and any other tools we thought were useful, and adventured ourselves into the world of violin-making. Meanwhile, Sarah went picture-happy. 
(click for more pictures)
A long, long time ago (“in a galaxy far, far away” or “I can still remember” – take your pick), perhaps in January, Philip had an inspired idea. We should have a Youth Conference.
One of our main tasks here was to find literate youth to take over the work we’re doing. Yet we didn’t seem to be able to see it happening anytime soon. So he began to think: when has he, as a youth, felt particularly inspired to go out into the world and help out? During Youth Conferences. Meeting new people, seeing opportunities to help, seeing HOW one can help … it was a great idea, and would have been simple enough to pull off in North America.
Not here apparently.
But he still held on to the idea that we should do such an activity. And held on and on … and eventually, despite the gazilion cultural/time/human resources constraints, we had a Youth “Thing-Picnic-Event” on Sunday. To our delight, we were a total of 27 youths on a small island in the middle of the Maroni river.
At 6:30am, we left Wagi-Pasi (the village where we stay the weekends) with a carload of a few more youths, and dumped them at a meeting point where a boatman was to ferry us to the island in two or three loads. After picking up a few people (including a bleary-eyed Sarah), we were finally all reunited on the island around 7:45am, ensuring us a spot (it’s summer vacation – and it’s a popular island to go swimming and picnicking).
The island and its beach
Armed with drums, food, and swimsuits, we began the day with a few prayers and split up into a few groups to study a few things. That was, by far, the one thing that worried me the most. These kids have just finished their exams – who wants to study more?!? But they did good. Many were way too shy to talk in front of the group, but we managed even the shyest to say a few words throughout the day.
One of the pavilions where we had the workshops
A group had come from Cayenne, the capital, and they were heading the main workshops. A few side workshops were a drumming session and a First-Aid workshop (done by Sarah – and me helping her translate a few things). Sarah and I must be some of the most nervous people I know. We both panic right before a presentation or before teaching a class – but when we actually teach, we really get into it. Go figure. It was great to get to do that together.
Sarah and Oginio
There was some soccer playing on the beach, some good food, some major swimming, and in all, everyone left the island in the evening with a grin.
“The ball’s in the water – AGAIN!”
How many youths can you fit on one pirogue?
The evening was wrapped up with a supper at the Doekoe girls’ house, where there was some serious Saramacca-American jamming going on (explained in the previous post). I’m still thrilled that Sarah brought her small bagpipes. The kids were quite confused by the concept. (“You blow in a bag, and then what? Huh? You have to squeeze it for the sound?”)
And it’s with this activity that four or five youths have expressed interest in helping out around.
Without this activity, I doubt they would have stepped up.
And without Philip pushing for a Youth Conference, I doubt we would have done this activity (despite it not being a Conference in the end).
So – kudos and thank you, Philip.
So – the new group with whom I’m staying on the weekends. This is them. The nutty uncle that attacks people with flour and juggles babies is the drummer with the light green shirt.
I also DO have a few new pictures. We have a fun fun clothing relay race game for the lesson on the Bab (er … for those of you who sort of know the history of the Faith, and wonder how in the world a clothing relay race ties into lessons on the history: the Bab worked as a cloth merchant with His uncle as a youth … hence the clothing relay race … it’s a stretch, but it works …!)
Also: there is this particular tree here that has pretty pink puffs as flowers.
Quite a few of them, actually.
Just look at the mess. 
I love taking a weekend to travel to Cayenne. No matter how crazy it is.
First off, this time I got to drive the little Twingo the long distance because the car’s finally completely fixed (and has passed the legal technical driving test – making it legal to drive the darned thing in public). It was Philip, Caity (a friend of Philip’s from Georgia, USA) and I manning the Twingo.
On the road between St-Laurent and Cayenne. Click on picture for a few more.
And this time, we were off to Cayenne for the French Guiana Baha’i Convention. This means: election, mega consultation on stuff, and organization of stuff. Basically. I thought, when I’d taken a day to pick up the ballots of 10 different local communities (details explained in the April 24th post linked here), that I could not possibly learn more this year about Baha’i administration.
Boy, was I wrong.
Anyway, between having to translate all the consultations and discussions to an Auxiliary Board Member from French to English (and back again when he had comments to add) and having to draft a letter to the Universal House of Justice on behalf of the Convention of the Baha’is of French Guiana, I learned many many administrative nooks and crannies. Interesting ones at that.
And had a lot of fun.
Why?
1 – I learned to drum on a djembe for the first time of my life. Not only was I able to keep the beat – I learned fast enough to bring the beat to a good speed for songs and other things! Yay!
2 – There’s a theater in Cayenne. As in, movie theater. Which was playing the new Indiana Jones. In French. But who cares if it was in French. The whole story is set in the Amazon. And, I mean, come on! It’s worth it just for the Indie theme! (*cue Indiana Jones theme*)
3 – Nothing could stop us 6 youths (including said Auxiliary Board Member) to pack in the tiny Twingo and drive to the movie theater. Not even getting the car in a ditch.
Conventions can be fun.
And on a completely unrelated note, Sarah was kind enough to post some of her pictures of me and the goat. Which I shall share here.
“lula and marie-claire go head-to-hand: a fierce contest of wills ensues…”
“and the winner gets to eat the loser’s pants”
(captions courtesy of Sarah Windle)
John, a friend of mine who has traveled to a few countries and stayed in a village in China, has coined the following: “The Six Month Hump”.
He means that when you live in a new area (let alone a new country), it takes about six months for you to really start getting into the new culture and the new rhythm, and find your own space in it.
I’m inclined to agree.
This week was the first week that I brought out the fiddle to someone’s house without it being an event. Just – bring the fiddle to fiddle a bit after a children’s class. The whole family got into it. The father was laughing out loud, he found it so different and fun. But I wasn’t playing French-Canadian fiddle tunes like I would have done a few months ago. I was playing along a song in Sranan-Tongo.
This is what John meant by the six-month hump. I can now go in a house here, feel comfortable with their slightly different ways, and feel comfortable pulling out some of their tunes and get everyone going. Just as if I were at home playing a French-Canadian tune.
It was nice.
I plan to do it again.
Other things to celebrate my six-month hump:
All week I’ve been getting myself ready to go to Cayenne, the French Guyanese capital, for a tutor refresher course that we were to direct. We were to be 7 going there, 4 in one car and 3 in the other. The seven of us all played an important part of the workshop. We were so pumped at doing a 3h road trip, it wasn’t even funny. We had to cancel all of our weekend classes, prepare presentations, pack a few drums … it was going to be great.
And a day before leaving, the little car wouldn’t start.
Uh-oh.
We tried everything, except getting our trusty mechanic to look at it (as he was in Suriname for the weekend).
So, we canceled the workshop.
Backing up slightly in time here: about three days before that, I’d looked at the class and art material boxes, which were all over the place and completely unsorted (that will happen when you have 2 to 4 kids like us come for a few months, bringing their own materials and leaving it behind without having much time to organize). Anyway, I’d asked if it were possible for me to take a couple of days off in the near future to make an inventory and to re-organize everything, so we know what’s available, and what we need to go and get.
Back to the canceled workshop.
This meant I had two days where I’d already canceled my classes.
So I just spent a weekend cleaning, categorizing, trying out over a couple of hundreds of markers (to test for dried-out ones), re-sorting coloured paper, etc etc. I tell you, no simple task, but I had a blast nonetheless.
I even had a nice free late afternoon on Sunday where I shamelessly pulled out the violin for almost three hours.
And the workshop has been postponed to March – no harm done.
Oh yeah – have I mentioned that, when Bob and Jackie went to tow the car back to the house, it just happened to work fine again?
Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be …!
Well, January was nuts.
Animals seen:
Events attended:
Movies watched (you’d better believe it – we watched a MOVIE this month! … Two, actually!):
(oh yeah. we’re so classy.)
Ongoing classes:
Traditional/cultural things learned:
Personal things accomplished:
8h30: Wake up
8h30-11h00: Run around like a headless chicken planning Sunday’s prayer meeting, packing for the weekend.
11h00-11h30: Remembered to eat breakfast.
11h30-14h00: Finished preparing the prayer meeting and packing and preparing for the weekend.
14h00-14h30: Commuting to village (car).
14h30-15h00: Get attacked by 15 children all yelling happy birthday and throwing home-made confetti.
15h00-16h00: Younger children’s class. Students: 5. Topic: Helping others. Neat thing: the kids requested we write down class rules and hang it up in the carbet. Here are the rules they came up by themselves: 1) no hitting, 2) ask teacher permission to get up and go pee, 3) listen when someone else is talking, 4) no vulgar words or gestures.
16h00-17h30: Older children’s class. Students: 6. Topic: Zoroastrianism/Zoroaster. Had a fun geography game too (to give them an idea of where in the world all these different religions come from). Played a little bit of dreidel as we learned about Judaism last week.
A dreidel.
17h30-18h30: Had adults and youth sneakily come up to me and say things like, Oh, do you mind if we start the class a teensy bit later, and, Would you mind if the delegate election didn’t happen tonight (this coming from a guy who’s on the National Spiritual Assembly …) . Finally got steered into a house to watch the soap opera all women around here watch. This NEVER happens in the village usually. Not when I’m there, anyway. Something was definitely up.
18h30-19h30: Got kept in the house by a girl who claimed it was high time I get my hair styled. As she was doing whatever she was doing, I had a clear view of the carbet where the kids and youth were tying up christmas lights (I don’t think I was supposed to have that clear view). Halfway through a youth came into the house, looked at the girl doing my hair, and did an attempted subtle thumbs down. The girl piped up: You know what, that’s not a nice style. Let’s try something else! At the same time, I could see the kids and youth having a hard time with the lights.
19h30-23h30: Not-so-surprise birthday party. Forget JY class and delegate elections. Moved those two to Monday night.
Birthday specifics:
7h00-8h30: Wake-up, breakfast, email, all those shenanigans.
8h30-9h00: Commute (bike).
9h00-10h30: French lesson. Number of students: 13, all women except for one teenager boy who just moved in the country and can’t speak French yet.
10h30-11h30: Children’s class. Number of kids: 3. Not successful. This is the class with the superstitions and violence problems, and both types of problems arose today. Having too little kids makes it hard, as they try to get more attention, and it feels like there’s not much of a structure. Was not able to finish the lesson – had to put away everything as a punishment for hitting each other. DON’T like doing that.
11h30 – 13h00: Waited in the same house for the JY class at 13h00. Children were rather subtued when they realized I was indeed not going to pull out colouring sheets for them and I was holding the punishment to its full value. HATE, hate hate doing that. But at this point something needs to be done or nothing will change (about the violence, that is – superstitions isn’t something to be punished, obviously). Ate lunch: rice, chicken, and some bitter (but good) green veggie.
13h00: Planned with the junior youth class, which is fairly new, to change times to Thursday 7pm. 1pm is too close from when they come back from school (Wednesdays = half days).
13h10-13h30: Commute back home.
13h30-14h30: Unplanned break.
14h30-15h00: Commute (bike).
15h00-16h45: Favourite class: 5 youth and junior youth girls, most are sisters. One is a friend, and today she dragged along her 16 year old cousin, male. It was quite funny, as the girls are pretty boisterous, and he looked quite out of place. He also brought along a friend, which turned out to be the same aforementionned lone teenage boy in my French class. May have to start a class of their own so they feel more comfortable with friends their age and energy level. Topic: perseverance.
16h45-17h15: Commute home.
17h15-18h15: Squawking away on the violin. (click here for example of the sonority of a 63 Euro instrument – violin, bow AND case – and the result of going a month without touching a stringed instrument)
18h15-19h00: Supper. Menu: peanut-butter banana sandwich (I was home alone). Then shower.
19h00-20h00: Consultation about my children’s class and what steps I should take now that it seems to have a) dwindled to three students and b) have a lot of violence problems. No final decision reached yet, but a good honest discussion with the mother is in the works.
20h00-21h00: Aimlessly grasped at what the next children’s classes topic should be.
21h00-23h00: Discussion with Philip on what makes a good children’s class, discipline problems, good stories to present, how to make relevant coopertive games, and lots of tangeants.
23h00-23h30: Printing colouring sheets and preparing tomorrow’s classes and the likes.
23h30-00h00: Writing this thing, and hopping immediately to bed.
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