Home for the holidays!

The last month of school was pretty uneventful, as expected. Classes ended about two weeks earlier than they were supposed to. The teachers turned their grades in on a Friday and the kids were still supposed to show up to school the following Monday. With nothing to do but clean the classrooms and the grounds and fool around things were pretty chaotic so the last week of school ended up being just a day. The teachers got sick of the kids showing up with nothing to do so they gave up pretending there was still school and told everyone to just go home.

A bunch of my Peace Corps friends and I got together for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a gigantic feast with all the usual Thanksgiving food (mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, etc.) except we had chicken instead of turkey. The next day I went to my favorite Laguna de Apoyo with my friends Julie and Jocelyn and later that afternoon we went to a bodybuilding competition near my town where some friends from my gym were competing.

The first week of December I worked at an Intensive English Summer Camp for 80 high school students hosted by the U.S. Embassy with some Nicaraguan teachers and 4 other PCVs. We went to the Embassy to plan everything out the day before. It was really unorganized and overwhelming and we were all really stressed out about it. For the first couple days we were doing a lot of improvising and making lots of changes as we went but we got things down pretty quickly and it all started running much smoother. The mornings were English classes with the Nicaraguan teachers teaching and the PCVs helping out. The afternoons were culture classes with the PCVs. We each picked a holiday to teach them about and the another miscellaneous culture topic. I taught the kids about Thanksgiving and we made Pilgrim and Indian hats with construction paper which they continued to wear for the rest of the week. Jocelyn talked about Christmas and had them make paper snowflakes and wreaths. Julie talked about the 4th of July and taught them the national anthem. Jess and Liz taught them about Martin Luther King day and had them make their own "I have a dream" mini-speeches. The week was full of typical camp games and movies and the last night we had a talent show. We also went on a field trip to a national TV station and newspaper company. The kids were great and so much fun to work with. It really showed us PCVs that there actually are Nicaraguan students who care and are interested and motivated, which was really refreshing because the majority of our high school students are nothing like that.

I came home on the 20th. I got in at around 1am and left the next morning at 7am to visit my grandparents. They're doing really well and it was really nice to see them. I got back home on Christmas Eve and spent a white Christmas (it snowed!) with my family. The day after Christmas we had to put my dog, Goober, to sleep. He was 12 1/2 years old and was pretty sick. It was horrible but was probably best for him. Now we're in Colorado skiing for a week. I'll be home for a few days before I go back to Nicaragua on the 7th.

On my own!

I officially moved out and I love it. I should have done it a while ago. My mom gave me a ride on her way to town last Friday with all of my stuff and that was that. On Saturday I went with some gym friends to a nearby town to bring back a stove that they´re lending me. Then I went to Jinotepe and bought a mini fridge and a bunch of organizing shelves, pots, pans, broom, mop, etc. By the end of the day Saturday, with the help from some community class students who live across the street, I was all settled and moved in. I´ve been cooking and eating tons of vegetables which I definitely missed. I´ve also been doing laundry and cleaning daily which I didn´t do with my host family in an effort to not impose on their space and use their stuff. I bought a hammock the other day, too, and spent almost all day yesterday in it reading. Life is good!

Moving out!

My dad´s trip went really well. He operated the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday that he was here and then gave some talks on that Thursday and Friday. I went into Managua to go to the conference. On Friday afternoon when it was over we came back to my town which was in the middle of the Patron Saint celebrations. My two best friends in Peace Corps were in town so we went to dinner with them on Friday night. On Saturday we went to the rodeo which was an interesting, as always, experience, and then Sunday morning my dad left. Dad had a good trip and says he wants to come back once or twice before I finish. He invited the two medical students he worked with this trip and the trip in January to spend a month at Maryland.

Leptospirosis, an illness caused by contact with dirty water (infected with animal urine), is rampant in Nicaragua because of all the rain and flooding. 17 people have died from it so far. The health centers have been handing out Doxycycline which is the prophylaxis. That said, I just got back from a baptism party. It was pouring and the gymnasium place they had rented out flooded with dirty leptospirosis water. I couldn´t stop thinking about the cut on my toe. The first thing I did when I got home was wash my feet.

I decided that it´s time to move out of my host family´s house and live on my own. I was afraid to tell them because they tend to hold grudges but they seemed to take it pretty well. In fact, within 12 hours my mom had already called Peace Corps and made sure they would send her a trainee in January when the next new group comes, so I guess she wasn´t too heartbroken. I´ve been looking around for a place and I think I´ve found somewhere. My boss is coming to supervise my classes and talk to everyone I work with so she´ll give me the O.K. or not if I can move in. I´m really excited be on my own and be able to cook and stuff.

There´s only a month left of school so I´m skeptical that the next few weeks will resemble any sort of productivity...

Rain!

It´s been raining like crazy here and everywhere but my site is seriously flooding. The country is actually on a sort of state of emergency because of it...though I´m not really sure what the entails. Until yesterday it had rained here in my site nonstop for an entire week. The Lake Nicaragua is overflowing and flooding all the communities that live along its edges. Other lakes and rivers are flooding everywhere too and people are being evacuated and put in shelters. The news is 100% about the floods and shows people´s houses floating away, up to the roof with water and people tearing their houses apart to be able to reuse the materials somewhere else. I think we´ve received a record amount of rain this rainy season and the rivers and lakes have reached levels higher than those during Hurricane Mitch in 1999 which was really destructive...and there´s still another month (at least) of rainy season left.

Other than the rain not much else is happening. We haven´t had much class because of the rain. The kids who live in the campo and have to walk really far on muddy roads don´t come when it rains like this so classes don´t really happen. Things should pick up again as normal next week.

The current PC Trainees were supposed to go on their volunteer visits this weekend but they were cancelled because of the rain. I was looking forward to giving a PCT the inside scoop about Peace Corps! Training is rough and they need the encouragement. I´ll see them this weekend for a charla on Cultural Adaptation though.

My dad will be here in 10 days to do hip replacements and attend the national orthopaedic meeting in Managua. I can´t wait to see him! I can´t believe September is already over.

One year in.

Sorry for not writing in a while...as usual. Everything has been going well here and not much new is going on to report. My one year anniversary in country has come and gone and next is the one year left in country (November). Time is flying.

My boyfriend came back to visit for a week which was a nice break. We went back to our favorite spot at the Laguna de Apoyo and went to San Juan del Sur to see the turtle tour like I did with my sister.

School has been about the same. We´ve been missing a lot of class in the high school because they´ve been preparing for this coming 14th and 15th which are the Independence Days of Central America and Nicaragua. The band only exists for this time of year and has been practicing for over a month. Band practice is in the afternoon so if a student who goes to school in the afternoon session wants to be in the band he/she misses a ton of class. The teachers ordered matching lime green polo shirts to wear for the big parade on the 14th where we´ll be walking through town (while the students march, literally, like an army) all day. On the sleeve it has our names, mine says Profe. Carla Pellegrini. It´s funny to think about sometimes how I´m a teacher here and would be nowhere near qualified to do it at home.

Rainy season is still going strong, but it´s not terrible. The worst is to come now that it´s hurricane season. It rains everyday in the afternoon, sometimes in the morning, too, which poses a problem for drying clothes, but mine have been drying pretty well in my room. Everyone here says clothes that dry indoors smell bad. Oh well.

Four new PC Environment Trainees got to town last weekend. I actually just met them all right now. They seem nice and are all overwhelmed and struggling with their Spanish, which is normal. I told them they just have to get through the 11 weeks of training and then it´s all downhill.

Yesterday I made pesto-filled tortellini that my sister had sent me via my boyfriend with a tomato and broccoli sauce. It was really nice to have some real italian food! My mom loved it, my sister was hesitant and my grandmother refuses to even try anything remotely out of the ordinary. I ate it yesterday for lunch and dinner and today for lunch, too.

The next few months before I come home for Christmas (I officially have my tickets! Dec. 20-Jan. 7) will be really busy. This week is all the Independence Day stuff. Then I have a mid-service medical evaluation, a PC Trainee coming to visit for a weekend, some charlas (sessions/talks) to give to the new trainees, my dad´s visit in October, the patron saint celebrations here in October and then it´ll be the end of the school year and Thanksgiving! Until next time...

Almost been here for a year!

My sister just left from her almost week-long visit on Saturday. It was really nice to see her and we had a lot of fun. She didn´t even complain about the cold showers! We went to Granada, Masaya, the Laguna de Apoyo and San Juan del Sur where we went on a nighttime tour to see sea turtles laying and hatching from eggs!

This week on Monday and Tuesday I went to a rural community school to co-teach with an English teacher/neighbor/brother-in-law of my afternoon counterpart at the high school. I´ve been helping him in the morning with his English (he´s a math teacher who got stuck teaching English) and he wanted to show me he classes, so I went. We went on his motorcycle which was a little frightening (and not allowed by Peace Corps, don´t tell!) but he went slowly so it was ok. The kids there are completely different than the kids at the high school here--they are respectful and actually interested in learning. It was remarkable and refreshing. On Wednesday we only had English class until 3pm and he was going to keep teaching (math) until 5 so I decided to take the bus (that passes only 3 times a day) home. There is a point in the road that dips down and turns into a river when it rains hard because that is where the water drains from all nearby towns. When the bus arrived to this point the river had risen and the road was impassable. We all had to get out of the bus (so it´d weigh less and not slide into the flooded street/super fast current) and wait for the water to go down. It took about an hour before it was low enough to cross. During the rainy season that is a normal occurrence there and quite a hassle for those traveling to those rural communities daily. I was asked if there were rivers like that in the US. I said yes, but not that crossed streets and that if it did cross a street a bridge probably would have been built.

School has been about the same, though I haven´t been much because of my sister´s visit and then the two days out in the countryside. The one day this week I was actually going to go there was no class because the kids went to the circus to raise money for a student who had been in a motorcycle accident and is really poor.

Yesterday my community class organized for a photographer to come take a group picture of us. Next week they have another text to finish off this part of the ¨course.¨ Hopefully they´ll all pass like last time.

I was selected as a judge/test corrector for the English part of a test that the kids in the municipality were taking to see who is the best student and go on to the department level of the test. The test was full of errors (made by local English teachers) and I had to go through by hand and correct all of the tests that we were about to give the students. A bunch of other ¨judges¨ there had a lot of corrections to make too for the other subjects on the test. I´m not sure why the tests weren´t reviewed before the same morning that they were going to be taken by the students. Because of all of that, and the usual Nicaraguan tardiness, the kids didn´t start taking the test until 2 hours after they were supposed to!

Not much else is new. I´m looking forward to seeing my boyfriend when he comes back to visit in 2 weeks.

Back to work...sort of.

My community class had a surprise welcome back party for me the first day back at class. They were so happy that I was back, which helped the transition back to work. It was so nice of them and just reminded me of how appreciative the Nicaraguans are. They made a ton of food and had decorated the room with balloons and everything. We played pin the tail on the donkey with a Nicaraguan twist (you have to dance while you´re looking for the donkey). My sister took pictures that I´ll have to get from her to post online.

School has been fine. This past Monday was the 31st anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution so there was no school. Everyone (all the Sandinistas, that is) goes to some plaza in Managua to hear the president talk (for 2 hours!) about how great the government is and that, oh by the way, he wants to be the president here forever even though it´s illegal. Anyway, in order to transport the masses to Managua this day, the government bought out 50% of the nation´s transportation to assist in the caravans. This left the rest of the country without transportation. Thanks, Daniel. We also didn´t have school on Tuesday because of it...because all government workers are required to attend this talk in Managua or else they´ll lose their jobs and they got back late on Monday night, so obviously they couldn´t go to work on Tuesday.

I went to the town circus last night. It was interesting to say the least. They had some clowns, a tight rope (loose cable) walker and some scandelously dressed overweight women dancers. The stands were constructed of 2x4s that were not nailed together and were bowed in the middle. I´ll put up some pictures soon.

My sister is coming to visit in a week which I´m really excited about. We´ll hike a few volcanoes and it´s turtle egg laying season so I think we´ll get to a turtle refugee too to see that.

Back to Nicaragua

I got back safely and uneventfully to Nicaragua on Wednesday afternoon. I was honestly a little less than thrilled to leave everyone at home and come back but once I got here everything was fine and comfortable again. My family was so happy to see me and we sat around talking for a while when I got back home. The first cold shower was pretty chilly but I think I´ve quickly re-adapted to them again.

I started going to the gym here with my sister. She´s been saying since I got here that she was going to start exercising so I´m glad she finally came around. It´s so nice to be sore again. I was getting bored and sick of my P90x workouts with the resistance bands. The gym is, as my friend Julie accurately described it when she was here visiting this weekend, ¨raw.¨ There are two rooms with a bunch of free weights, bars and benches. There are three cardio machines (a treadmill, stairmaster and bike), none of which require electricity...figure that one out. The two brothers who run the gym are deaf/mute (along with their parents and another sibling) and are former Nicaraguan champion body builders. They´re really nice and have been helping my sister and I with our workouts a lot.

Other than that not much else is new. School starts up again this week. I´m starting my new schedule with just 7th grade in the morning with my counterpart, Scarlett, and 7th, 8th and 9th grade in the afternoon with my counterpart, Ana. I´m really looking forward to spending more time with Ana. Until next time!

Writing from home!

Made it home safe and sound. When I told everyone in Nicaragua I was going home they all rushed to give me presents to take to my family--typical Nicaraguan sweets and crackers. It was really nice and made me realize even more how generous the Nicaraguans are. At the same time they were kind of saying goodbye like I wasn't going to come back which was a little disheartening, but I made sure they all knew it was just for 10 days. My sixth graders were actually angry that they were going to have two weeks of vacation because they said my class gets them out of their houses.

The Carlos Fonseca English extravaganza was a complete flop. The "acto" on Friday consisted of the kids doing their skits in the library for my counterparts and I (although I only went in the afternoon. My a.m. counterpart told me not to go). The kids in the morning did it mostly in Spanish because my counterpart didn't help them or, the three times I asked her, tell me who they were so I could help them. The two groups my afternoon counterpart and I had been working with did really well. The following Monday was supposed to be the big competition between all the schools in my town and my high school was the only one to show up. We combined the morning and afternoon groups into 2 acts (about 60 kids total) to go to the department capital to compete against schools from all over the department on Wednesday. I spent Monday afternoon translating and finding the rhythm to a Nicaraguan song I'd never heard before and Tuesday morning practicing with all of the groups. Wednesday we went to the department capital, Jinotepe, at 2pm when it was supposed to begin. We waited and waited and waited until about 4pm. Only one other school had shown up and they eventually found out that the event had been postponed for a bunch of bogus reasons. Supposedly they're going to reschedule but I don't believe it. What a waste.

Home has been really nice. I've already been here for a week and it's flown by. I was expecting it to be weird and overwhelming with the air conditioning, free wireless internet and readily-available hot water but it mostly just feels like a continuation of last summer before I left for Nicaragua. The hard part will be re-adjusting to the inescapable heat, cold showers and pay-by-the-hour Internet cafe, but it shouldn't be too bad. My grandparents and an aunt, uncle and cousin came down to visit from New England which was really nice. I've eaten lots of healthy, grilled (not fried!) food and have spent a lot of time with my family and friends.

With the rain, come the flies...

So I´ve learned that the first few months (May and June) of rainy season are also fly season. Gross! Everyone and their brother has been sick. Mostly just with a cold, but I was lucky enough to get an amoeba and a parasite! I either drank a bad batch of water or the flies contaminated my food. I´m completely fine and recovered now. It really only lasted one morning before the PC docs were able to diagnose it and get me on antibiotics to make everything stop. I feel pretty lucky actually that I made it over 9 months here without getting sick! That might be a Peace Corps Nicaragua record.

School has been on and off due to meetings and ¨actos¨ as usual. This Friday (tomorrow) there is an acto/competition about Carlos Fonseca, an important dead Sandinista. The kicker is that everything´s in ENGLISH! What does that mean? A) That I´ve spent several hours helping kids translate their skits and poems and writing out pages of phonetically-spelled English, not to be confused with Swahili!, and b) that no one is going to understand anything that the kids are saying except for me and my two counterparts. Haha. Should be interesting.

Not much else has been going on. Our kitten has been missing for the past 3 days, so I think it´s official that it´s lost/dead/stolen. We have bad luck with pets here.
My community classes just had another round of tests. Everyone in my more advanced class passed! And only two failed from the other, beginner class. A great improvement from the 50% passing rates on the last tests. Success!
Countdown to when I get home is at 11 days! I can´t wait to see everyone, go to Trader Joes and Target and eat good food!

HELLO rainy season.

Rainy season has officially begun. In fact, it hasn´t stopped downpouring with the exception of 5 minutes here and there for the past 2 days. It rained so hard yesterday that SCHOOL WAS CANCELED. That is not a joke. It rains here for 6 months out of the year, but yesterday it warranted canceling school. Hmm. And I´d thought I´d seen it all in terms of excuses to cancel class. Wrong. The best part is that no one thought to let me know before I trudged out in the rain to walk to school. I put on my hat, raincoat and shoved my bag underneath that coat so it wouldn´t get soaked. 10 minutes later I arrived at school, soaked through to my underwear, at the time when I usually have class to find the teachers sitting in the teachers´ lounge doing nothing and no students in sight. Apparently when it rains really hard the kids don´t show up (some claim their parents won´t allow them to leave the house) because a lot of them have to walk from somewhat far away towns and would arrive soaked. I´m not entirely sure what the solution to this is since it will be raining pretty consistently, or so I imagine, until November. We´ll see.

I haven´t decided yet if I prefer sweating all day long during the dry season or not being able to go anywhere without getting soaked during the wet season. My jeans and sneakers are still soaked through from yesterday morning and are showing no signs of drying in the near future. I haven´t figured out what´s going to happen with the laundry situation either. I can hang my clothes up in my room to dry but only after they´ve dried partially outside so I don´t flood the floors, which won´t happen if it never stops raining. But now it´s really damp and moist inside too with all the rain so it´ll take several days for it all to dry in my room. I´m sure I´ll figure something out in the next few days since the rain is sure to keep up and my pile of dirty clothes is stacking up.

In other news:
-Some family from Managua brought us a kitten to kill the mice (He´s already killed one). His name is ¨Chele¨ which is what they call people with light skin (he´s white and orange).

-I saw someone with a t-shirt from Joe´s Crab Shack the other day. It didn´t say where the restaurant was located, so I just assumed it was Maryland.

-My grandmother and I stole some limones dulces (sweet lemons--cross between an orange and a lemon) from the abandoned yard across the street. My mom told us we were going to get diarrhea from them because they were stolen.

-I´ve implemented assigned seats, a warning system and started giving out stickers to kids with good behavior in my 6th grade class. Results have been incredible and have made the class so much more enjoyable!

-A neighbor and family member left for Costa Rica to work with her husband and left her 3 year old son with us. The 14 year old son pretty much lives on his own and (due to the lack of parents and guidance) is doing poorly in school and has been getting into drugs. Apparently she´s not coming back until December! And I´m not sure if that´s just to visit for Christmas only to return to Costa Rica or if it´s to stay and actually raise her own children...hopefully the latter though I sort of doubt it.

-My mom has converted to gringa guacamole. She´s made it a few times now with my recipe instead of hers!

-I´m officially coming home during our mid-semester vacation. June 28-July 7. I can´t wait!!

Not so fast...

Well, I spoke too soon. Monday was a half day of school because of some meeting that the teachers absolutely needed to hold. Tuesday was a normal, complete day of class (though I guess it´s more normal to miss class than have it). Wednesday was the Mayor´s birthday, and since all of the teachers are really Sandinista like the mayor, they had to celebrate for him at school...another half day of class. Today is the 31st anniversary of my town´s ¨liberation,¨ a.k.a. when the Sandinista´s took over, so there´s no school. And tomorrow, since the kids probably wouldn´t show up since it´s Friday and they didn´t go to school on Thursday, there´s supposedly a meeting, and no school. What a joke.

In other news, some relatives of my host family who live in Managua brough us a kitten. We named it Chele, which is what they call people with white/light skin because he´s white and orange.

Back to work

Matiguas was a blast! I left a very unproductive (as usual) TEPCE early on Friday and got to Matiguas around 3pm. We woke up at 5am the next morning to go to Jocelyn´s family´s farm where we milked cows, rode horses and herded cows! We ate lots of delicious chocolate cake that they make at a bakery nearby her house and went out dancing Saturday night. Sunday we went to a swimming hole called ¨Agua Fria¨ (Cold Water) and amazingly survived the bumpy trip driven by a crazy German guy in his ancient, falling apart car, who works with Jocelyn´s family. Monday morning I bought cuajada (a type of cheese) to bring back to my family. It was a really fun trip and nice to see Jocelyn and Julie. I was still really happy to get back to my family, my mom´s food and my bed (and mosquito net!).

Monday night I resumed my normal work schedule with my community class and Tuesday we finally started up with classes again in the high school, though we´ve already missed some English classes for meetings and doctor´s appointments. I don´t think we´ve ever had a complete week of class without interruption.

Other than that, not much else is new. My mom killed a gigantic spider for my last night that I found in my room. Since it´s been starting to rain all of the animals are coming out of the walls or wherever it was that they were living peacefully without bothering us. I recently found a gigantic colony of ants (huge ones, and some with wings) living in the top of the tank to my toilet, which is now cleaned out and securely sealed shut.

Saturday I have a meeting with the other nearby PCVs in Masachapa, a beach town in the department of Managua. ´Til next time!

Who needs school?

So I already had a pretty good grasp on the fact that education here is much less important than it is at home, but this last week eliminated any lingering doubts. There is a national baseball tournament in town and the ONLY possible places the mayor could find for the 100+ players to sleep were the high school and elementary school. So there are a bunch of old, fat men/baseball players living in the schools, which means we can´t possibly have class. At first they were only supposed to be here until Tuesday, so no class Monday and Tuesday. Then Tuesday night rolled around and they still hadn´t left. No class Wednesday. Friday is TEPCE, the monthly meeting with all the teachers from the area to evaluate the last month and plan the next month, so no class Friday. That left today, Thursday, as the only day for class. But who is going to show up for just one day of class? No one! Not even the teachers because they know the kids won´t come. Technically there was class today and even knowing that the kids wouldn´t show, the teachers were supposed to show up. When I got there this morning, the vice-principal and the janitor lady were the only ones there. I signed my name in the attendance book and turned around and left. What´s more is that Saturday is ¨Day of the Worker¨ and because it falls on the weekend this year, no class Monday either! It´s comical and sad at the same time. The kids miss class here more than they receive class, and it´s accepted as the norm and has been for who knows how many years. At least I´ve still been able to have my community classes at night...in the same elementary school that is occupied by baseball players.

The other night I made gringa-style guacamole for my family. Here they make it with just avocadoes, onions and hard-boiled eggs. I took out the eggs, added cilantro, tomatoes, lime juice and chile. And they liked it (though they added a bunch of salt to theirs)! Well my mom and sister did. My grandmother is afraid to try anything new and refused.

Tomorrow after TEPCE I´m heading up to Matiguas, Matagalpa to visit my friend Jocelyn!

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day everyone! Two posts in two weeks!! Woo hoo!

Today, to celebrate earth day, the kids got out of school early (what else is new?) so they could go around town picking up all the trash that wouldn´t have been there if they hadn´t thrown it on the ground in the first place. And I was greeted by a pile of burning trash (the more plastic bags, the merrier!) when I got to the elementary school this afternoon for my 6th grade class. Ha.

I only went to school in the mornings once this whole week because my counterpart´s daughter is sick. The only reason I went the one time is because I didn´t know she wasn´t going to be there and was guilt-tripped into teaching alone. I explained to the principal that if I teach alone (which is against the Peace Corps and Ministry of Education rules) I´m not capacitating my counterpart which is the goal of the project. She said she didn´t see a problem with it, but if I was uncapable of handling the kids alone (not the issue) then I could leave and she´d have them copy random sentences on the board that they wouldn´t understand. So I stayed and taught alone, but after that day I was sure to call my counterpart before going to school to see if she was going or not.

I´m not entirely clear what´s going on with Danny Ortega and the Sandinista government here, but I´m pretty sure he did something unconstitutional again, which provoked a bunch of riots in Managua in the past few days. Everything here in my town is fine and I have no reason to go to Managua, don´t worry! My host sister´s boyfriend was over last night after we got back from my community English class and was saying apparently some pro-Sandinista things. My sister just sat there nodding her head and playing along (My family is very, very anti-Sandinista). When the boyfriend left, my mom let my sister have it. She said (with a wide array of Spanish curse words) that the boyfriend can´t ever talk about politics again in her house, that he should have known better and that my sister´s an idiot for not putting him in his place. The yelling went on for a good 10-20 minutes. I knew my mom was super anti-FSLN but I´d never seen her so outwardly-passionate and intolerant about it before! Today she explained to me that the Sandinistas kick people out of their houses so they can give (for free) those same houses to Sandinista supporters who then turn around and sell them for profit, or stay there to live. One way in which they literally ¨buy¨ the people and the elections. I´m not sure how accurate that is, but based on the politics I´ve seen, it wouldn´t surprise me too much if it were true.

I think that´s it for now! Off to my community class...

I´m still alive!

Sorry for the delay! I know it´s been almost two full months since I´ve written. I´m going to try and recap them as succinctly as possible:

-My pet chicken is officially MIA/dead. Poor Lucy.

-I bought a ¨new¨ but of questionable quality bike for $70. Within 4 days it had a flat tire that I had to get repaired. It´s currently making all sorts of squeaking noises which makes it quite embarrassing to ride. Getting it checked out is on my current to-do list.

-I ended up giving my morning 6th grade class a quiz because I was so frustrated that they weren´t learning anything or paying attention. Bad idea. About half showed up for the quiz and the next day only 4 of 20 came. In the meantime, my boss came to visit and talk with my counterparts and see how everything´s going. She suggested a more relaxed, fun approach to the 6th grade classes which doesn´t include homework or quizzes. The new outlook on life has made the class much more enjoyable but I haven´t been able to re-start the morning class despite several pleading attempts. They don´t believe me that it´s fun now! Good news is the afternoon class is upwards of 30 VERY enthusiastic kids who sprint into the classroom when they see me coming.

-The principal at the high school gives my morning (not so great) counterpart the last period on Thursdays free so we can plan. Drastic improvement in planning! Didn´t get to test it out too much this week though because classes were cancelled all the time. Once because there hadn´t been water at the school for 2 days and the bathrooms smelled bad. The justifications for canceling class never cease to amaze me.

-We had a week-long Spanish workshop with Peace Corps. Sitting through class for 8 hours a day for 4 days was painful but I learned a lot and filled in some major gaps in my ability to communicate everything I want to say.

-An uncle across the street gave me a really ugly hat that says ¨I love Jesus.¨ He then asked, about 2 weeks later, why he still hadn´t seen me wear it. Busted. I wore it to school and from school the next day and made a point to show him.

-Tyler came back to visit again for Holy Week/Easter break (Semana Santa). He brought dog treats for his favorite street dog, Samsung, which my family won´t stop talking about. We went back to our favorite crater lake, the Laguna of Apoyo, and went to the Isla de Ometepe (the big island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua). We stayed at a coffee farm and hiked up one of the volcanoes on the island. It took 7.5 long, muddy hours roundtrip.

-My grandmother sat me down the other day and very seriously asked if she could ask me a question. I, nervously because she´s never serious like that, said sure. She proceeded to ask if I knew how to climb trees because there were a few ripe avocadoes in the tree out back. I said sure, not actually knowing how to climb trees, as long as there were branches and it wasn´t a coconut tree. There were plenty of branches, but they were flimsy! I had never been so high up in such a wobbly tree before. It´s a miracle I didn´t kill it, or myself! The guacamole they made with the avocadoes was worth it though.

-My two community classes took the final test for that ¨level¨ last week. I had about a 50% passing rate between the two of them. We started up again this week with the next level for those who passed and the same level for those who didn´t pass and a handful of newcomers. Everyone told me that no one who failed would come back because they´d be embarrassed but 20 of the 28 have come back so far! Now I need to figure out how to make it interesting for them but not move too quickly for the new people...

I think that´s about it for now! I´ll try to write more frequently from now on! We have semester break in the beginning of July so I´m looking forward to coming home to see everyone over the 4th.

Routine established.

I made it through the first week of all my community classes. The youth and adult classes are gigantic (50-60 people in each class) and, surprisingly, the adult class is more difficult to manage than the youth class. The youth pay more attention and don´t talk as much with each other while I´m talking, and for this reason they are already ahead of the adult class, after only 2 days. Still, both classes are way too big and would be so much more productive with smaller numbers. Last night I had a few adults sitting outside the classroom because there wasn´t anymore room inside. The delegate from the Ministry of Education (my main Nica boss) came by to check it out. I think he was a little shocked by the overflowing classroom. Unfortunately, I don´t have any extra time in my schedule to break them up into smaller groups.

The sixth grade classes have been a little more challenging, though I was able to consolidate two groups into one so I have two sections instead of three now. The kids don´t seem to absorb much or anything of what I´m teaching them, despite the fact that children are supposed to be able to learn foreign languages easier.

Sunday was the anniversary of Sandino´s death. Sandino is like Nicaragua´s George Washington, except he led the revolution and started the Sandinista movement. At school yesterday, Monday, to honor this date, there was an ¨acto¨ at school. I felt like I was in East Germany getting ready to go off to war. They played military songs that condemned the gringos/yankees and were chanting things about patriotism, solidarity and, of course, ¨Viva Sandino!¨ Some kids dressed up in military fatigues and the majority of the 600+ students had an FSLN (Sandinista) or Nicaraguan flag. The best part is that they made me sit in front of everyone with the honored guests-- the mayor and the delegate from the Ministry of Education--so I had to feign enjoyment.

I started to think that things with my iffy counterpart were going better until the other day. She came up with excuses for not planning three times in a row. Then she showed me her plan book where she had copied (alone), word for word, from a manual made by Peace Corps that we use for ideas (not entire plans). I asked her nicely if we could do it together next time. We´ll see how that goes.

In other news, I think my pet chicken ran away, was stolen or was eaten by a bigger animal. I haven´t seen her in over 3 days. Her single, working mother (me!) didn´t have enough time to pay attention to her. Oh well...at least I won´t have to deal with convincing people not to eat her.

I just got BUSY!

Holy cow. In the past 24 hours I went from just 17 hours of classes at the high school to 17 hours at the high school plus 15 hours of English classes in the community (1 group of adults, 1 group of kids, 3 groups of 6th graders). I got the mayor to pay for an announcement (a guy in a truck drives through town with a microphone) for my community English class. 115 people came! I divided them into 2 groups of about 55 each, which is a lot, but I´m pretty sure the numbers will dwindle as the class continues. Then, this morning, the principal of my high school and the principal of the elementary/middle school asked if I could teach the sixth graders so they come to high school with a basic knowledge of English. I think it´s all feasible. I should be able to use more or less the same plan for the majority of my classes outside of the high school which will save some time. I´m only here for 2 years so I guess they might as well take advantage!

Everything at the high school has settled down now and is going much more smoothly. The schedules are finally set and I have been CO-planning and CO-teaching, instead of flying solo, with both counterparts. Yay!

Spoke a little too soon

So school has started...sort of. Tuesday, the supposed first day of class, was only what they call here an ¨acto¨ or a form of presentation. It consisted of a prayer (church and state are NOT separate here), 2 piñatas/dance contest, music and a reminder of all the rules that will soon be ignored and not enforced. The second day of school actually started classes, but this week and next are supposed to just be ¨diagnostic testing,¨ or seeing what the students do and don´t remember from last year.

I am going to be teaching first and second year (7th and 8th grade) kids in the high school. When I arrived at school the second day for the morning classes, my counterpart was in a different class and asked me to make up the plan for our next class together. The whole point of the PC TEFL project is to CO-plan and CO-teach so it´s sustainable (when I leave the English teachers can keep doing what we were doing when I was here), so there´s one rule broken (didn´t co-plan). Then, once class started, my counterpart left me in the class alone with 60 kids for about half an hour. Second, and more important, rule broken (didn´t co-teach). Classes in the afternoon with my other counterpart were a little better.

Some of my classes are composed of mostly kids who are repeating a grade. There is even one kid in first year who is in first year for the fourth time! The worst part is that when we ask them what they remember from English class last year, we get blank stares. It´s been a struggle just to get them to spell the numbers from 1-10. So there is lots of room for improvement, from the students to my counterparts. Hopefully once everything at is settled down and organized (they are still fiddling with the schedule) it will be better...

My dad was here in Nicaragua last week. I got to see him and watch some of his surgeries in Managua on Tuesday and Wednesday. Between him and his friend they did 20 knee surgeries in 3 1/2 days! On Friday I brought him back here to my town to meet my family and see where I live. Saturday we went to the Masaya Volcano, Laguna de Apoyo and the market in Masaya. It was really nice to see him and to have him see my new home!

Last weekend four new PC trainees in the health group arrived to my town for their 3 months of training. They all seem really nice so far. I´ve been running with one of them in the mornings.

Hopefully next time I write I´ll be able to report some positive news from the school front.

Work has finally started!

Lots has happened since I wrote last, sorry!

Tyler was here for 11 days visiting. It was great to see him and to show him around what will be my home for the next 2 years. He brought me a ton of stuff, including a lot my sister Cristina sent along (thank you, Cristina!), the ingredients for hummus that I was missing and enough peanut butter to last 2 years. We went up two active volcanoes, swam in the Laguna de Apoyo (200m deep crater lake that used to be a volcano), visited my friend Julie in Leon and went to the beach, and went to Granada and Masaya. If you have facebook, you can see the pictures he took.

Everything at school started, finally, this past Monday. It´s just registration and teacher meetings, but at least it´s something to do! The first day of school is February 2nd.

A volunteer that lived with my family during his 3 months of training, Luciano, came back to visit. He helped me catch a lonely, lost baby chicken that had been wandering around the house for a few days. It´s now my pet/daughter and is named Lucy in honor of Luciano, her godfather. Ha! It´s been a blast. She eats rice out of my hand. We recently just untied her so she can wander around the yard and the town all day, but she´s learned where her home is and comes back every night to sleep.
My host grandmother´s brother died the other day. He had been sick with cancer for a while so it´s good that he´s not suffering anymore, but the viewing, funeral and burial were really sad. Viewings here are 24+ hour events. The whole town is invited, even the drunks, and sits in and outside the house in plastic chairs for as long as they want, until the funeral mass starts the next day. I went with my host mom and sister at 8am and came back to the house at 2am, but my mom stayed until 5am! Now that he´s been buried, they have 9 days of praying sessions at his house, which my grandmother will go to.

It´s actually been pretty chilly here at night. I had to shut the window to my bedroom for the first time ever...and I´ve slept with socks a couple of times!
My dad gets to Managua with a friend to do/explain some knee surgeries on Sunday. I hope to visit him in the city while he´s there, before he comes to my town for the weekend!