Guyana

After a very successful placement in Maldives, I wasn't ready to come back to England. I took off to travel around India and Nepal with a mate of mine and then went to Guyana for another two years. Again, this was with VSO. This time I was a bit higher up - teaching teachers how to teach. VSO were great, they provided a lot of training to be a teacher trainer as well as guidance on curriculum stuff. By this time, I was a pretty confident teacher and so was looking forward to what seemed to be a logical progression.

Guyana is based in South America, up in the north somewhere between Venezuala and Brazil. It's an English speaking country, with a big mix of cultures. When I was there, it was in a considerable state of development, certainly poorer than Maldives. The majority of the country is made up of rain forest and it's incredibly beautiful. I think the country is about the size of England with a population of less than 1 million. Imagine that. Most of the country is covered in untouched rain forest and whilst I hope the country develops, I hope the rain forest remains intact for as long as possible.

The work was very interesting, and I got to travel pretty much most of the country with it. A lot fo the time I had to take boats and even canoes to go to a particular school. Very exciting! I felt like a real Indianna Jones on some adventure. The poverty was quite hard to deal with, and crime was very high. Whilst I was lucky enough to never be mugged or attacked, our house was broken into about 2 or 3 times.