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 :)