Heat wave (Thurs., Sept. 30)

Well we had some warm weather yesterday afternoon and a little today, but besides that, it’s pretty much still cool weather, which I am enjoying. It only rained a little this morning, more like sprinkling actually, and then it stopped, so it’s all good. I know a lot of people are waiting for all of their wet laundry to get some sun, but I really prefer the more temperate weather, which I know is not common here, but I’m soaking it up while I can. It seems kind of funny, soaking up the cool weather while the sun is somewhere else, but I’m soaking it up. It’s not like I’m missing out on getting a sweet tan or anything because my skin is seriously incapable of tanning, which I have come to accept. Also, that means that I won’t be so wrinkly as I get older, right?

Anyway, we’ve been pretty busy again this week with lots of meetings, but they were really interesting and informative so that’s good. It’s always fun to meet new volunteers and hear their stories because the volunteers give the charlas, sometimes with the staff, but today it was all volunteers. They have such unique situations in their sites so it’s neat to ask them about their experiences and find out all the tips and secrets. So, we pretty much had a full day of meetings and we had been wanting to go back to Catarina for ice cream, but we weren’t sure if the place would be open in the afternoon because it has such weird hours—pretty much just when they want to be open. Anyway, Jess and I took a bus back from our meeting in Masatepe and walked to Catarina. AND, the ice cream shop was OPEN!! We asked for banana splits and the young girl told us they didn’t have them. So, we were of course bummed out and were trying to figure out what to choose instead because we had our hearts set on banana splits. Well, then an older lady walked in from the back and asked the girl what we wanted. We asked her for banana splits and she said YES! Wooo!!! This was awesome! So, she made us banana splits and we savored every little bite, including the gummy bears on top. I remembered to take a picture this time to share :) Hope I don’t make you too jealous!

After coming home from the cyber and chatting with Kellie, I got ready for The Office—so excited that I can watch that here! My host mom told me she was going to make me plantanos fritos and fried cheese for dinner, and I clarified with her: platanos fritos de maduro, but she said no, the other kind. Then I asked her is those were the sweet ones and she said no, to which I made a kind of disappointed “oh” sound. Fortunately, she picked up on this subtle hint and said she could make the sweet ones and I said, oh yes please. Then I told her that I prefer the sweet ones. Woo! I have been waiting for this opportunity to come up because I’m not too crazy for the other ones because they just taste like potatoes. If I’m going to be eating some extra carbs, then they might as well taste good, even though they probably lost all nutritional value… Also, when she said she was going to make it with fried cheese I was a little disappointed because their cheese is kinda weird and really salty and frying cheese, is that really healthy?  I was wanting to ask for gallo pinto too because fried cheese and bananas is not really a dinner is it? Well, fortunately for me, she did add gallo pinto (some protein!) and the cheese was mozzarella—awesome! I was super excited about that. Yay! So, dinner ended up to be really good, but I might be a little sick because there were so many bananas and they’re pretty sweet and I did eat a lot of fried cheese haha It tasted really good though… I do need to ask for more vegetables though. I haven’t had much lately since my stomach got better and I don’t have to have an all veggie diet. Hmmm…I wish I had a little more say in my menu, but maybe I just need to speak up a little more. I did ask my host mom for eggs for breakfast because I needed more protein to hold me throughout the day, mainly because I had just been eating bread and fruit for breakfast which was good but didn’t last me very long before I was hungry again.  Now, she makes me eggs every morning, and will usually add ham and sometimes cooked tomatoes and onions, which is great! I just don’t want to inconvenience them too much, but I guess I would prefer someone to tell me what they liked so they were happy and feeling healthy. It’s just hard when I’m in another culture staying at someone’s house to request certain foods when they’re already providing me with a place to live and everything else here. It’s a little struggle, but I guess I just have to figure it out.

This is Jessica--we were walking in Catarina and a herd of animals approached us.

Bad/Good news: First, the bad news is that we’re not going to do the volunteer visit next week because of the current weather conditions. Apparently, some places have bridges under water :( Also, it would be too difficult for PC to reschedule all of the visits so it’s canceled. Bummer! However, there’s some good news for us coming up… We got an email from PC telling us that we have the opportunity to go to Managua for Thanksgiving and spend Thanksgiving dinner with Embassy families, which would be awesome! They’re trying to arrange that and we need to get a group together so we can pack into hotel rooms so it’s not too expensive. Also, we might be getting phone chips which make it free to call/text any PC volunteers, staff, etc. which is also super cool. So, even though there’s some bad news, the good news outweighs the bad. We’ve gotten to talk to a lot of volunteers so far and we’ll meet more in the other charlas coming up, so I guess we’re still getting some volunteer experience through those.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to teaching again next week, so I’ll keep you all updated on that. Oh, did I tell you about this last time? It went well, but we had a few breakdowns in the lesson because the students’ English level is much lower than I had expected. I guess I assumed too much from what the English teacher told me about the class, but working more with the students will give me a better idea of where they are regarding English. I need to communicate a little more with the teacher and make sure our roles in the class are clear because that was an issue as well. We just need to prepare more and go over what we want to say in class to get the students to understand the content and meet the objectives. It all comes with more experience…

Here are some pictures of my classroom.  The teachers move to different classrooms, but each class is reserved for a certain grade, this one is 7th grade.