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??