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.