Site Assignment

I didn’t have time earlier to write a blog about how we found out our sites, so I wanted to give a little more details.  So, one of our trainers and Roger (the awesome driver) picked us up Friday morning around 7:15am and then we drove to this museum of a battle of independence, I believe.  It was pretty boring, unfortunately, and it was really hot and stuffy in there so I wanted to throw up.  Luckily, there was a nice breeze and I stood in the doorway with a couple other trainees.  The funny thing about the museum though, was that there was a huge painting that the lady was describing and it had white, pasty men with red hair attacking the Nicaraguans with guns and knives.  She described these men as “North Americans” and said “but, they were from different countries…”  It was a little awkward, probably for both parties because she didn’t want to tell us directly that our ancestors attacked Nicaraguans.  Anyway, after the museum tour, Andrew, Sam, and I had been eyeing a cool tree outside so we decided to go on a climb.

We then joined the rest of the group on a hike up a near mountain (or large hill).  It was a pretty exhausting hike because the hill was very steep, meaning we increased altitude very quickly and lost our breath a lot.  It was exhilarating though and the view from the top was definitely worth every ounce (or bucket) or sweat.  

After we were all back from the hike and drenched in sweat, it was time to load back into the microbus and head over to Managua.  Our trainers dropped us off at one of the malls in Managua and I felt like I entered into a completely different world.  It was so clean and really nice.  The people were all dressed nicely and the bathrooms had toilet paper, running water, and soap!  This was a strange feeling to me.  This mall was cleaner than several malls that I have been to in the States.  Well, while we were at the mall we all got lunch and had a few minutes to cruise around and check things out.  Then we went to the PC office for our site assignment reveal.

When we got to the office, we went into a conference room and there was a cake to celebrate some birthdays and then there was a board with balloons attached…our sites were inside those balloons.  Julia Elena (Julie, my partner teacher in Matagalpa) had been sick in Managua, so she found out her assignment and then got to start the reveal.  She threw a dart at the balloon board and popped a balloon which had a trainee’s name and site assignment.  That trainee then went up and tacked their strip of paper on a map of Nicaragua where there site is located.  They then threw another dart to reveal the next person.  This was pretty fun, and I’m glad I was only the 3^rd or 4^th person because there were plenty of balloons to catch my dart—I missed the first 2 throws.  We then all found out our assignments; some were disappointed, and others were overly-excited, but I think we will all learn to love our sites, our new families, our counterparts, and our community.  When my site was revealed I was a little disappointed because it wasn’t what I was expecting, but I’m being optimistic and I believe that it is exactly where God wants me to be.  I know that wherever I go, my job remains the same and I’m looking forward to meeting new people and starting projects. 

My site: Boaco, Boaco, Nicaragua

The department (or state) of Boaco is directly in the middle of Nicaragua, sometimes known as the heart of Nicaragua.  Apparently, the town of Boaco is a little cooler than some places in Nicaragua and cools down in the evenings, which I’m looking forward to.  Boaco is known as the city of two floors because half of the city is on a large hill and the other half is below in the valley.  It’s a pretty large city (60,000 people) and it has a bank, post office, restaurants, hospital, several schools, cybers, and more.  I don’t know that much more about the place yet, but I’m going on a site visit this week so I will add more details when I find out.  I’m really looking forward to this :)  I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to get online because I don’t know my schedule for the visit.  I’ll be leaving Tuesday morning for Managua because we have site visit preparation and we’ll all be staying overnight there (except for those who are going to the RAAS, which is the far southeast department of Nicaragua and they take an overnight bus to get there).  Then, we all set out this next morning to find our sites.  I’m a little nervous about the trip because initially, they told us that we would be meeting our counterparts in Managua and they would be riding the bus with us to our sites.  Well, apparently that was changed so we will be riding the buses on our own.  I’m taking two bags with me so I can leave things at my site so I don’t have to take everything at once later.  Please pray for safe and easy travels :)

My Site!

I found out my site today.  It wasn't what I was thinking, but one that I had considered.  I'm being optimistic though because I think it will be a great place for me.  My site is: Boaco, Boaco.  I've heard that it can be a little cooler which would be nice.  It's known as the town of two floors because it is in a mountainous region with part of the city on the hill and the rest on a lower area.  Next week we get to do site visits so I'm excited to see what it will be like and to meet my new family and counterparts :) 

Countdown to site!

I find out my site on FRIDAY!!  I'm so excited to see where I will be living for the next 2 years!  This is crazy and I'm way too impatient, but I guess I waited forever to find out that I was coming to Nicaragua, so I guess these next few days will go by quickly :)

The Amazing Race

I was working on my lesson plans the other night and I realized I needed to print something before I could create the other part of the materials.  It was already 7:30pm and my host mom was cooking my dinner, so I told her that I was gonna go to the cyber really fast.  Well of course I decided to run because I don’t like walking sometimes and I needed to be fast.  I had flip flops on, but what the heck.  So I took off running down the street and it was pretty dark, but the street lights were on.  There were a bunch of young boys in the street playing and they started shouting “Corre! Corre! Corre!” which means “Run! Run!”  So, I shouted back “Vamos!” which means, “Let’s go!” and they started running with me down the street.  It was hilarious.  I turned the corner and headed down the main street to the cyber and the race evaporated.  I then realized that I get plenty of attention being a gringa walking down the street, but now that I was running (which no one ever does here) I got a lot more attention.  I didn’t really want this extra attention, but I also needed to travel quickly, so whatever.  I just ignored it.  So, I got my copy in time because the cyber was still open yay :)  On the way back I decided to run as well because it felt good.  I need to exercise more and it felt great to be running again.  Anyway, I ran down the main street and then rounded the corner onto my street and there were a couple little boys sitting on the sidewalk and they started shouting at me again, so of course I encouraged them to join me by saying “Vamos!” and they took this as an invitation to a race.  The next thing I knew, I was in a full on sprinting race down the cobblestone street in the dark with little 8 year old boys in my flip flops.  I kept thinking I was going to trip or run through dog poop, but fortunately neither happened.  The race did have to end because my house was at the corner, and sadly I don’t think I would have won if it had continued, but I blame my flip flops and the cobblestone.  These kids have the advantage of playing in these streets every day.  This is one of those experiences that I’ll never forget.  I’m glad I’m still able to be free and have fun being myself :)

Back to reality

Matagalpa was so much fun, but yesterday was time to return to reality. The other half of our group met up with us in Matagalpa and we had a time for reflection on the week, including sharing most challenging moments and funniest moments. It was a good time to hear stories from everyone, especially those from the Jinotega group. We then went out to lunch before coming back. The ride to Managua was about 2 ½ hours, but we were in our Peace Corps microbus, so it wasn’t too bad. Then, we had to take a bus back to San Juan. This was the worst part. The ride to Managua on Sunday had been pretty bad (waiting forever for a bus, they were all full, having to ride to Masaya and switch buses, etc.) so we weren’t looking forward to getting on the bus again. We found a bus in the terminal that would take us right to San Juan, so we got on there, and fortunately there were seats. Well, this just meant that we had to wait until the bus filled up of course. After waiting for awhile, we pulled out of the terminal, but picked up several people on the way.


Kellie and I were squished against each other on a seat with people pressing against me because I had the aisle part of the seat, and Jess was across the aisle from us sharing a seat with a lady and her crying child, but we couldn’t see her because the aisle was crammed pack with people. We finally made it home after an hour and I had never been so happy to get off a bus.

I arrived home and was welcomed by my family. I was unpacking my stuff and found out we had water!! I was so hot from lugging my stuff around and traveling all day, so a cold shower felt nice. Then, since we had water, I was able to use the washing machine which was awesome! After eating dinner, I unpacked the rest of my stuff and relaxed because I was so exhausted.

I’m really excited for this week because we get to find out our site assignments on Friday! Then, the next week we’ll get to meet our new counterparts, visit our sites and meet our new family :) But, we do have a lot of work to do in between…back to the reality of work and class.

Matagalpa, I love you.

Wow!  This place rocks and I wish it was one of our site towns, but unfortunately it is not :(  There are two other sites in the department of Matagalpa, but the city of Matagalpa is not one of our sites.  We have been having so much fun exploring our area of the town and eating some great food and just relaxing in the hostel.  Yesterday was our first day of teaching and it went really well.  We got up pretty early because we had to be at the school by 6:50am and we didn't have time to eat breakfast before heading over there which was a bummer.  Julie taught an 8th grade class in the morning and then we did a little debriefing and headed back to the hostel for breakfast.  We had gallo pinto, scrambled eggs mixed with some veggies, tortillas, cheese, and fresh pineapple juice.  It was so good!  We then talked through my lesson to make sure everything was set for that and then we hung out a little before going back to the school.

My first lesson was for 7A (they split each grade level into two sections--A is for the higher level, B is lower level.  Some schools have sections all the way to I, and it's pretty unfortunate that they track the students in this way and don't mix the levels).  I taught a lesson on things we like to do in the summer, practicing "I like" and He/She likes".  It was good and the students seemed to enjoy the lesson.  They all swarmed me at the end and were asking me questions about where I was from, etc.  We then went to the teacher's lounge to do a debriefing, but our counterpart wanted us to go back to the classroom.  I thought she wanted to do the debriefing there, and I had a one of our trainers observing me there.  There was a little confusion, but apparently the computer class for 7B was canceled so she wanted me to teach my lesson then instead of waiting until their English period.  So, without a debriefing, I went straight into teaching the next class.  Fortunately, it was the same lesson, just a different class section, so I was already prepared with my lesson in mind and materials in hand.  I just wasn't expecting to be rushed in there.  Also, the class didn't start on time because we were walking around the school and the confusion was taking place.  The lesson went well though and I could tell that these students were taking a little longer to understand, so I did use some Spanish.  I was in the middle of my last activity when the bell rang and the students got up and started heading out of class.  This was weird because in the last class I had plenty of time in the end and I was reviewing some extra questions when the bell rang and all of the students stayed in their seats and let me finish the question and they answered.  Weird.

This is me teaching in the first class.  There was a skylight shining right on me, making me sweat profusely.

So, we still get a weekly allowance while we're here and we are given a certain amount of money for meals each day.  Well, Julie and I decided we wanted to go a little cheap and save some money because we did spend a lot on our handmade purses and chocolate...  So, we bought bread, jelly, and yogurt at the supermarket (I brought peanut butter from my host family), and then we bought some bananos at a little store.  We got an awesome deal on those--12 bananos for 8 cords!  They usually sell for 1 cord each, so we were pretty dang excited!  It's the simple things in life, really.  We came back to the hostel and enjoyed our cheap lunch on the balcony and relaxed in the beautiful environment.

 
We had a little debriefing session with on of the volunteers here that organized our practicum week to discuss how things are going at our schools.  It was cool to hear about the other schools too.  We are at a semi-private, Catholic high school so it's a little different--in the beginning of the first class everyday, the teachers read out of the Bible and then the students say a prayer.  That was interesting. 

After our discussion, we planned our lessons for the next two days to make sure we would be prepared.  It was nice to get all of that taken care of, because the first night we were here, we met with our teacher at 5:30pm and talked about what we should be teaching this week, and then had to go get dinner, and then we started planning around 8pm for the 7am class the next day.  This time was much better and more relaxed.  We then walked around down town and we ate dinner at the same place we had dinner the night before because it was great food for cheap.  I had gallo pinto, scrambled eggs with ham, a cooked plantain, tajadas (which are the banana chips), and some pico de gallo salsa on the side.  This was a full plate of food for 38 cords--that's less than $2.00!  I was full after eating all of that and it was delicious.  The night before I got pretty much the same thing, but I had beef with sauce and veggies instead of the eggs with ham, and that was a little more, 50 cords, but that's only $2.50.  I love it!  Julie and I also went and got Eskimo after dinner to celebrate our first day of teaching.  We had coconut ice cream, which was awesome. 

When we came back, I had a debriefing with my trainer who had observed me earlier, because he didn't have time after my class with all the schedule switching.  We had a good chat and I feel like things are going really well.  We then hung out with the other trainees and our friends that we've met in the hostel (3 girls staying in our room--1 from Canada, 1 from Australia, and 1 from Belgium). 

My class this morning was scheduled to start at 7:43am (random, I know), so we had enough time to eat breakfast before leaving.  Yes!  We got to the school and started setting up and then found out that the students were still in PE and their teacher had taken them to a field that was off campus.  We waited, and waited, and waited.  Some of the students started trickling in around 8:20 and my class was scheduled to end at 8:26am.  Needless to say, I didn't get to teach this morning, but Julie and I did have to sit and wait for 45 minutes in case the students did arrive.  Bummer!  Well, we have two more classes today which is 7A (they have two classes, split by a 45 minute break) and we are co-teaching these, so that should be fun.  I'm excited to teach with Julie because we have been working really well together. 

My empty class this morning :(

Life is rough in the Peace Corps...

So I've been talking about how we've been so busy and life is crazy different here, but today is unique.  We are currently in Matagalpa for our practicum week and as I type this, I am lying in a hammock on a balcony of a hostel with free wi-fi.  Oh, the life of a Peace Corps volunteer... Well, this definitely isn't the usual, but I'm enjoying the time to relax.  My brother was actually just teasing me asking if we ever work around here between going to volcanoes and eating ice cream and such.  I guess I don't blog that much about the non-exciting things regarding work, but really there hasn't been that much that's not exciting.  Everything here is a great experience, something I'll never forget.  We really do a lot of work and have long days of Spanish class (which can be exhausting) and youth group (again, exhausting) and meetings (did I say exhausting?).  However, there are the few times like today, and the rest of this week for that matter, where we get to kick back and hang out.  I am really loving this, especially getting to hang out with people that I usually don't see very much.  I was sad to be separated from Jess and Kellie, but this is good to hang out with the other people who aren't in my town. 

Ok, now about Matagalpa.  So I had been thinking this is where I wanted to live for my two years, but then I was worried that I would arrive here and change my mind.  Maybe I had built it up too much in my head.  Well, I'm here and I love it.  I'm not sure if there is a site in the actual city of Matagalpa, but this place is great!  It's a pretty big city, but it doesn't feel that big.  They have everything here and we walked around the "downtown" area and it seems really safe and clean.  The weather is cooler, which is a definite plus.  The hostel we're staying at is owned by a previous PCV who finished last summer.  He served here in Matagalpa, returned to the states, and now co-owns this hostel.  It's actually a really nice place, and I'm looking forward to bringing friends here.  It's only $7.00 a night for a bunk bed which is shared with 7 other people, but there's these big closet things to lock up your stuff and there's a giant bathroom in the room too.  If you want a private room, it's $30.00 a night for a king size bed and a bathroom.  This place is super clean and they have awesome food in their cafe.  There's coffee all the time and purified water, a TV room with shared dvds, a book exchange, hammocks galore, and did I mention the free wi-fi??  Ok, it sounds like I'm writing a review for this place--are you wishing you were here yet?  Oh, I forgot to mention that there's a chocolate factory really close, but the hostel sells some of the chocolate, so we've already purchased and eaten some fantastic REAL chocolate :)

On our way to Matagalpa...so green!

This is the hostel in Matagalpa, Matagalpa.

Coffee and chocolate :)

Julie and me toasting to chocolate.

Yummy chicken sandwich.

Hammock on the balcony.

Jess is back in town!

Yes, Jess is back, but she is still trying to gain energy. Thanks for your thoughts & prayers! Her blood platelets started to rise so they let her come back to San Juan and we visited her Thursday evening. It was so nice to see our friend again :) She was able to come to meetings today in Masatepe, but I think she needs more rest…the weeks following Dengue apparently are full of fatigue. Continue to pray for our friend!


Today in our meetings we found out where we’ll be going for next week’s Practicum Week. This is an experience where we “shadow” a Nicaragua English teacher for a week. We go to his/her classes, observe, plan, and teach. We are paired with someone in our group and our whole group has been split in two. I am in the Matagalpa group—yay! We will be staying in Matagalpa for the week and I’m going to be working with Julie Elena (Julie). I’m so excited! This should be a fun and unique experience and I’m really looking forward to the cooler weather :) We have a pretty busy schedule as we are supposed to be at the school all day with the teachers and we have other meetings with our whole group to reflect on our experiences.

We are now finishing Week 6 of training…we are over half way through, but really it feels like we’re much closer to the end than the beginning. We have Practicum Week this next week, then a week of classes & finding out our site on that Friday (Oct. 28th) & a Teacher Training Conference on Halloween, then we have our site visit week, and then only 2 more weeks of wrapping things up with our youth group, co-teaching, and final projects/reflection papers, etc. Before you know it we’ll be swearing in as volunteers! Woo! I’m ready!!

Learning

Tuesday night we had our youth group meeting without Jess because she has been in Managua trying to get better. We were sad not to have her, but we had to continue. We took our jovenes to a shop to teach them some vocabulary. Instead of sitting around in a room and trying to explain products and doing direct translations, we took a trip to a shop and discussed the items in the shop and explained how to describe them in English. It was a great experience! Even some people who work in the shop “attended” our class so they could learn some vocabulary. We had a good time and it was fun to learn some new words in Spanish too. When we came upon a small ceramic turtle, which happened to also be a whistle, we took advantage of this to teach our jovenes something important. We talked about whistling which led to whistling on the streets, specifically whistling at women/girls. Then, we explained that American women do NOT like it when men whistle at them. In fact, it’s very rude and disrespectful. They were surprised, along with the man in the shop. They asked “men in the US don’t whistle in the streets?” (of course this was in Spanish) and we replied with NO! haha This was a good opportunity to share this cultural difference because we, American women, have been whistled at many times, as well as called various things, and it’s really frustrating. When I walk down the streets here, I don’t usually say anything to men because they give me looks, whistle, say “hey lady” or “I love you”, and then sometimes women in their mid 20’s to 30’s give me mean looks because I guess I’m drawing attention from the men. It’s really frustrating. It’s definitely harder to be an American woman here. For the most part, I ignore men on the streets, unless I know them. I feel like I’m being rude, but they continue to say they love me each day I walk by, so I don’t think their feelings are hurt. Anyway, just had to vent a little about that, but I’m also glad Kellie and I got to “teach” our male jovenes a little something yesterday.


Yesterday when Kellie and I were walking over to our meeting in Catarina, a man started saying things to us, but we ignored him like usual (I think he said “hey where are you going?”). Anyway, as were continued walking and ignoring him, he said “I know you’re listening” in the same creepy voice they all use. We couldn’t help but laugh. It was actually good English though. We always joke how the men continually use certain phrases in English, such as “I love you”; “Hey lady”; “Where you going?”; etc. and that we need to teach them some new phrases. This guy knew what he was saying, clearly.

The topic off catcalls came up again in our youth group last night when the jovenes were reviewing the vocabulary they learned—they actually brought up the topic which was funny, and then I suggested that they teach the others what we taught them about whistling in the streets. It was pretty funny. They asked why we don’t like it, so I said, because I’m a teacher and when I’m walking down the streets and the jovenes/muchachos say “Hola blanquita; I love you; hey lady…” (I made sure to use the voices the men use in the streets) it’s inappropriate. They loved my impressions and I think I got the point across.

Yesterday, in our Spanish class we were practicing present perfect and past perfect with things that we have done in Nicaragua or had never experienced since we got to Nicaragua. This was very interesting and I thought I would share some of them just for fun. Here are some of the sentences we wrote:

Before coming to Nicaragua…
-I had never taken a bucket bath.
-I had never sweated so much in my life.
-I had never slept under a mosquito net.
-I had never been told “I love you” by so many men in the streets.
-I had never not been able to take a shower because the water “se fue” (went away)
-I had never been on public transportation where men were riding on top of the bus to hold onto passengers’ bags.
-I had never been on a school bus with 3 to a seat and people crammed into the aisle.
-I had never seen people walking down the streets with machetes.

These are just some of the experiences I’ve had so far in Nicaragua. They are definitely different than what I usually experience in the U.S., but they’re normal here. I’m curious what is strange in our culture to foreigners??

Site Fair

So, we were given a packet of site descriptions for us to look through and see what kind of place we wanted to live. There was a catch though; the sites did not say which town, or even which state they were in. We only had “Site A” at the top and a description of the site, including climate and an approximate distance from the capital, but it still wasn’t clear. I did some investigation and thought I found at least all of the states, because we knew which states were options, just not which ones went with each site. Are you confused, ok then you’ve caught up with all of us…


Well yesterday we had a site fair, where volunteers from the departments (states) that we will be going to came and shared things about towns in their state. They didn’t tell us any specifics about town names, just what small, medium, and large towns are like in their department. Ok, how is this going to help us since we don’t know what site goes with which department. Confused again? We were too. Anyway, it was neat to hear about the different departments and I put in my preferences of site names. I’m hoping for the department of Matagalpa because it’s mas fresco (cooler) and it’s still not too far from Managua (less than 3 hours). We don’t find out for 2-3 weeks, so we have some time to worry…haha Ok, I’ll try not to worry. We have another interview coming up to talk about placements so we’ll get to talk more about our preferences and such, so hopefully they’ll put us where we would best fit :) I’ve heard that somehow PC magically knows where you should be, and everybody ends up loving their sites. They always tell us, “no matter where you go, you will find something you like. All of the sites are great and there are wonderful people.” I hope they’re right! :)

Anyway, Jess couldn’t go to the site fair yesterday because she’s still sick and had to stay home. So, I used my digital camera and videotaped each of the short presentations on the different departments to take to her. Kellie and I went over to Masatepe after the meeting so we could activate our PC bankcards and then we went shopping at Pali and bought some snacks to have a girls’ night since Jess was going to leave to Managua for more testing. So, we finally got back and made popcorn (Jess’ family has a microwave!), watched Friends, and hung out. We were sad that Jess missed the site fair, but we shared the information with her and she has the videos to watch now.

Jess left this morning to go to Managua because her blood platelets were dropping in number. She has done more tests, but we’re waiting to hear if she has to stay overnight or not. Please pray for her to get better soon. We really miss her and hate to see her sick and weak :(

Life of Luxury

Sunday morning I got up and ready to go to Masaya to meet up with our counterpart. I went to Kellie’s and then we waited at the church in town. We found out that our counterpart’s cousin drives a taxi so she had him come pick us up and take us to her house in Masaya, which was really nice. We had a private taxi ride (with a safe driver) and didn’t have to crowd next to anyone on this hot day. Lovely. We arrived at her doorstep and we took a seat in the front room. It was pretty big and full of rocking chairs (these are a necessity in every house here). We met her mom and grandma and chatted with them for a little. Our counterpart’s grandma set up a fan by us—I think Nicaraguans assume we gringos need fans in this heat, which I guess is true haha We talked with our counterpart and somehow we got on the topic of cake and we said that we liked cake too. She told us to wait a minute and she left the room. When she came back, she said that her aunt was going to make a cake and it would be ready by 2pm. What?! This was pretty darn funny, but who can say no to cake? She then woke up her toddler to get her ready and we met her husband. Then, we headed out to the market. We wanted to look for leather sandals and I needed to get another mouthwash (this is pretty darn expensive here, because not many people buy it). We cruised around the market, tried on sandals, and then Kellie and I bought matching ones.

I also bought some small purple maracas that say Nicaragua on them. We were also looking at some earrings and then our counterpart told us her friend had a shop in the market with jewelry so we went over there. As we were looking at this collection, our counterpart told us that she wanted to buy us earrings and one of the cool wooden bracelets there. Well, cool. We picked out earrings and bracelets, and then got a bracelet for Jess since she was at home sick.

After we got what we needed in that market, our counterpart wanted to show us the other market in town, which is known as the tourist market. We took a coche (horse-drawn carriage) over to the other market, which was a fun experience. The difference between the two markets is remarkable—the tourist one is much nicer, cleaner, less crowded, more expensive, and has police guards. This one is actually called the old market because it’s inside what kind of looks like a colonial castle without a roof.

We looked around for awhile, but of course didn’t buy anything because it’s a lot more expensive. *Tip to Nicaraguan tourists: ask to go to the new (covered) market—it has a lot of the same things for a whole lot cheaper! Anyway, our counterpart wanted to take us out to lunch and she apologized that her mother doesn’t like to cook on Sundays because she wants to take a break—she says that on Sundays she usually goes out to a restaurant or orders food to the house (she doesn’t cook). So, we went to a restaurant in the market, which was really nice. The food was great! I tried cacao, which is a chocolaty milk drink and it was delicious. I ate grilled steak (which is pretty thin here, but I like that) served on a hot plate, with pico de gallo on top, and a fried plantain on the side. It also came with rice, refried beans, cheese, and tostones (another form of fried plantains that are round slices that have been squished, fried, and taste like potatoes). It was all awesome! I couldn’t eat it all but I wanted to because it was sooo good.

We then walked over to the central park and then to Pali, which is the local chain of supermarkets. I got my mouthwash there and we found their snack section! We bought some animal crackers and decided we have to come back when we have more money. We then went back to the park and hung out. Kellie & I got a scoop of ice cream from the Eskimo, and then we headed back to their house. On the way back, we found some dancers. Here, the dancers go from house to house doing their dances and sharing food. We watched the end of one of the dances and then walked to another house with them to watch the full dance. These dancers were kids, which is pretty common. They do traditional Nicaraguan dances.

When we got back to their house, we drank some cold sprite, which was so refreshing on this very hot day. Her husband went and picked up the cake and brought it in. We were shocked to see this cake.

It is beautiful, as you can see. Apparently, her aunt makes and sells cakes, so she knows how it’s done. Could we have been spoiled anymore today? We enjoyed the beautiful cake and then planned some lessons for this week (we had to do something professional after shopping and eating cake and ice cream). After the plans were set, and we hung out for awhile, she called her cousin, gave us a slice of cake to take to Jess, and her cousin took us back to San Juan in the taxi. We definitely felt like we were living the life today, and then realized we were still poor Peace Corps volunteers living in a humble town. I love it though. It was a nice break today, but what really was fun was going to Jess’ house after and hanging out with her, sharing funny stories from the day, and then coming back to my house and watching Friends together. I love our San Juan group—we really have become good friends and I’m so happy to be with these wonderful girls.

Sweat

This weekend has been HOT and it doesn’t look like it’s cooling down anytime soon. Great. That was sarcastic. Anyway, yesterday we had a lot of meetings and it’s always not that fun sitting for hours with no air moving through the room. Also, we were all starving and waiting for lunch to arrive, but we were pleasantly surprised to see boxes of Papa John’s pizza!! They told us we could have 3 pieces each, so we grabbed napkins and started stacking. It’s so funny when they bring food to us because we seriously go crazy, especially now that it was pizza. There were 20 of us fighting for different kinds of pizza from 6 large boxes. It was madness, but so awesome all at once. Never have we all been so happy to see pizza (and soda) in our lives. I guess I have been spoiled because I’ve had pizza twice with my family, but it was nice to have it again and eat like a monster with everyone else.


After the pizza craze, we returned back to our meetings and they decided to throw us a challenge: make a 30 minute vocabulary lesson (we had just been discussing teaching vocabulary) to include a warm-up activity, vocabulary introduction, developing activity, and wrap-up activity…oh yeah and we have 30 minutes to create all of this from scratch and make any materials we might need for the lesson. Oh, and they will draw names out of a hat so two people will be teachers, so you might have to teach this lesson to half the group and then be evaluated. WHAT?!? I felt like I was on Design Star or some other reality TV competition. We had a lot of freedom with what we could choose along the lines of what vocabulary and what activities, but I kind of wish there was a little more focus, because so many thoughts were racing through my mind. Well, they finally said that we could work with partners to create lessons for sanity purposes, but we would still have to teach by ourselves if selected as a teacher. It’s of course intimidating teaching to your peers, especially if you’re not feeling too confident in your lesson. Ugh! Fortunately, I was selected as a “student” so I got to participate in someone else’s lesson. Phew! What a relief that was. After the pressure was off, then I kind of felt sad because I liked my lesson and I didn’t want to waste it. Ha! Figures. The lesson went really well and then we all shared what our lesson ideas were and it was cool to hear what everybody had planned.

We then headed back to town. Jess was home sick, so Kellie and I were together and decided to share a mototaxi with the Catarina trainees (Julia Elena, Melissa, and Matt). So, we fit 5 of us in a moto with the driver. As we approached the empalme in Catarina (the roundabout where all the bus stops are in front of Catarina) the moto died. Apparently, 6 people in a moto is too much haha The guy got out and did something in the back and then it started back up, but the Catarina folks got out because we were close enough for them. Kellie & I took the ride into San Juan so we didn’t have to walk along the Carreterra (highway) which was nice. Then, I came home to running water so of course I had to take a shower! Yay! I love being able to take “real” showers here, even if I’m wearing my flip flops and the water is really cold. At least I don’t have to pour cold water over myself and shiver. I have done this too; I’m not that spoiled.

Mototaxi ride

Today we went on our volcano trip, which began with a standing bus ride there and then some diversity meetings. We were waiting for the heat of the day for our hike apparently. Well, we finished the meetings, I sold my family’s peanut butter to the environment group because I gave them my commercial for it last time and they were really excited, and then we packed into the jeeps for our “hike”. Well, they told us to dress accordingly and that we’d be hiking a volcano. Hmmm, not sure why we had to have hiking shoes and “dress accordingly” besides it being really hot. They drove us up to the viewpoint and we got out and took pictures and looked around for about an hour. So, there was no real hike, but it was still cool looking into a live volcano, seeing the smoke, and smelling the sulfur. Then, they brought out the food, which was the real excitement. They had bread, cheese, peanut butter and jelly. The trainees were like seagulls on scraps of food. We hovered, grabbed the slices of cheese, dug into the peanut butter jars, poured two liter soda with one hand because our other hand held our sandwich and chocolate treat. It was fantastic. We had a great time stuffing ourselves before the ride home.

They dropped us off back at the main entrance to the park and then we had to wait on the side of the highway to flag down a bus. That took awhile. Every bus stopped for us, but they were all going to different places so we had to wave them off. Finally, the right bus came and about 17 of us piled on to the already crowded bus. I stood next to the driver. Yikes. We made it home safe.

Tomorrow, we’re planning on going to Masaya to meet up with our English teacher at the high school. She wants us to see the festivals there, meet her family, and then go out to lunch. It should be fun :)

Co-Teaching

I had another successful English class, but it was not without frustrations.  We did a lot of review, which is very important, to reinforce the new vocabulary and grammar.  However, my counterpart and I still need to work on co-teaching.  I feel like I’m teaching the whole class and she’s my assistant teacher, which is not the way it’s supposed to be.  Hopefully we can figure this out so we can work together.  It’s difficult because I don’t think she has co-taught before, and the school system is very different here, as well as the culture.  There are many factors that we have to consider, but we can definitely work through this.

Work It Out

So Monday night was the second time of a successfully completed work out dvd. Woo! This time, my host sister, Caridad did the work out with me. She was wanting to work out, but we never found a good time, until Monday night! My host cousin joined in and the little kids too. It was hilarious! I feel wonderful from working out and I want to get back in the routine. I haven’t really been working out here because it’s so hot that I sweat when I’m sitting on the couch, so there’s not much motivation to get hotter… We did the work out dvd in the evening which was nice because it wasn’t very warm. I hope we can keep it up!

Here are some things I forgot to mention last time…


Our “Standfast” is over, which means that we are allowed to travel outside of our training towns and the road conditions have improved since the hurricane weather.


I fed the dog. I usually would be against feeding scraps to the dogs here, because nobody wants the dogs in their houses, but they keep coming back because there’s food. However, I was eating what I think was beef and it was cooked a little weird so it tasted funny, and my only option was to toss it to the dog out the door, besides eating it but I definitely couldn’t do that. Maybe I started a bad habit because for dinner that night I had a large chunk of fried cheese and I couldn’t make myself eat the whole thing and the dog was just lying on the floor so nicely so, he got some cheese too. I felt like a kid getting rid of veggies underneath the table, which I never did when I was little ;) I think this dog might just become my friend while I’m here, although I’m never gonna touch him because he probably has fleas or some disease. I feel horrible for all the dogs here. I want to be back in a place where I don’t fear touching dogs because of what they might pass on to me.


New professor! Our new profesora is Blanca, and she happens to be my host brother’s mom. I guess he would technically be my host “brother-in-law” because he’s my host sister’s husband, and his mom isn’t my host mom. Gosh, it sounds like I’m describing a soap opera, but really it’s not that dramatic. Anyway, she is wonderful and such a difference from our last profe. I’m not going to spend more time comparing them, but I want to say that she is a great language teacher and really focuses on communication and teaching us new, relevant vocabulary to practice. Our classes have been great so far and I feel more confident in practicing my Spanish. She also came to our youth group last night to check it out and I felt it went well. We did a lesson on asking and giving prices because our town has a lot of shops, and about 80% of the people who live here are artisans—let me know if you want some pottery ;) I really want to buy some because it’s so great, but it’s not a good idea now because then I would have to carry them all over Nicaragua with me… Anyway, things are great and we’re very happy with our class.

Also, I tried bag drinks for the first time and I’m still ok :)  I don’t know why everything comes in bags here, but they do and that’s how we have to do it.  So, you bite off the corner and drink.  We tried chocolate, then went back the next day and got chocolate and strawberry (different bags).

Pizza! Pizza!

My family made pizza again last night, and this time Kellie and I helped out, which was super fun. Also, I made garlic knots to introduce to the family. Unfortunately, we did not have butter, so I used garlic and a little bit of oil. It worked well, but they just weren’t drenched in garlic and butter like I usually like :)

Earlier yesterday, we had meetings in Diriamba, which is in the department (state) of Carazo, so we got together with the environment trainees too. It was about a 45 minute ride, and the energy was low, so I decided to introduce “Deaf Karaoke” to my friends. I felt the time had arrived to share this magical experience. So, the rules are, you choose an upbeat song on your iPod/MP3 player that you know at least the majority of the words, and then turn it all the way up and sing your heart out. The catch is, your audience can’t hear your music, and you can’t hear your voice, making it difficult to see in tune. Soooo, you sound absolutely horrible which is hilarious to your audience as your voice is cracking and you’re trying to hit those high notes, but just can’t, AND, you think you sound like a rock star because the music is blasting and you just hear the real singer. Everyone wins in Deaf Karaoke. I started us off with “Bleeding Love” by Leona Lewis, and then Andrew belted one out, and Sam began his song, but we arrived at the museum, where our PC driver quickly exited. The environment trainer came and opened our bus door, but we all told him we weren’t ready, and we allowed Sam to finish. It was hilarious, as everyone eventually joined in. I hope we continue this game on other trips because it really is a good bonding experience; embarrassment certainly brings you closer to people.

After we all got back, I went shopping in Masaya with my host brother to get ingredients for the pizza and then returned to co-plan with the English profe. I brought back Snickers for Kellie and Jess so we enjoyed some of those while we were hanging out. Then, the pizza making was postponed for awhile because my host mom needed to make the bread first, so we took this opportunity to work out. I brought exercise dvds with me and Jess shared some leg and ab exercises. This girl is tough. She does yoga everyday too, so we’re gonna have to learn some of that.

Today I washed my undergarments, as these are not included in the washing clothes agreement our host families have made. It took me about an hour to wash everything outside in the pila and I am definitely missing washers and dryers. We actually do have a washing machine here, but we don’t use it that often because it’s only when we have running water. Dryers don’t exist here, so everything hangs outside to dry. Today is finally a nice, sunny day so I took advantage of that. We’ve had so much rain lately that all of the trainees have feared running out of socks and underwear… Some clothes were washed on the one nice day last week, but it then rained on all the clothes. This makes clothes smell bad because they sit in the rain forever and then take forever to dry because it’s still damp outside. On the other hand, my host mom took my clothes out of the washer and put them in a bucket for some reason. I’m really not sure why she did this because they were still wet. I finally asked her if I could hang them up in my room and she gave them to me. Two shirts were dirty at the bottom because there was dirt in the bucket. Hmmm. Well, I kind of made this obvious by leaving them out, dirty side up, while I put the other clothes away, and then my host mom gasped and said she would wash them again. I don’t understand the bucket thing. There are others’ clothes in buckets too. I’m just happy it’s sunny out and my clothes are hanging to dry.

This morning there was a parade celebrating the translation of the Bible into Spanish. There were a lot of people participating and it went in front of my house. It was pretty cute because they had Noah’s ark, complete with little kids dressed up as animals.