Busy Busy Busy

I almost forgot about my blog because I've been working on some things here, but thanks to some dedicated blog readers, my parents notified me that I had been slacking on my updates  hehe 

Anyway, so I have two workshops coming up this weekend and I have been doing a lot of work trying to get things together for those, one of which includes checking in with teachers to confirm attendance and collect money for the new manuals we're providing.  That has been the most difficult--tracking down my counterpart teachers to plan lessons is hard enough, but then trying to find/call teachers from other schools AND collect money from them is a whole other story. 

I met with Andrea (PCV in Tecolostote, Boaco) the past two weekends to organize things for our taller (workshop) on the new English manuals that PCVs edited.  They are super!  They have lesson ideas and activities that correspond with the Ministry of Education (MINED) curriculum here and are extremely helpful to English teachers here, who have NO textbooks and NO materials and some have NO prior English teaching experience.  We already had a TEFL manual, but it was just recently updated and we are so excited to get it out in the teachers' hands.  But first, we are setting up talleres to present the new information to the teachers and show them how to use the manuals.  This is part of my job description (teacher trainer).  It's exciting to do these talleres because I feel that I'm giving the teachers something valuable they can use in their classroom for a long time.  Andrea and I are looking forward to this weekend! 

Along the lines of my other upcoming taller, I'm working with an environment PCV in Camoapa, Boaco who has a community English class and would like to help his students (who are mostly teachers--English and other subjects).  We are working to put together a taller on pronunciation and communication.  A lot of English learners say they have problems with pronunciation and they want to practice pronunciation.  However, in the TEFL field, we don't suggest teaching pronunciation as a whole lesson in itself, but rather include it in a context of another lesson.  Personally, I don't focus too much on pronunciation with my students because I want them to first be able to produce the words, phrases, etc. and be understood.  That's my objective.  Then, as students advance, pronunciation practice makes more sense.  Well, I explained this to Jason (the env. PCV) and we are going to include communication practice activities in the taller so that the teachers will have opportunities to communicate things with others and then we will include some specific pronunciation exercises.  We met two weekends ago and we're meeting again before the taller on Friday.  I get to visit Camoapa for this one and I'm excited.  I've been wanting to visit the little towns in Boaco since everybody already come to the capital and has seen where I live. 

Well, no that you can see I've been a little busy with planning and such, I can also include a little frustration that's been lingering the past few weeks.  So, I thought my internet "issues" were over with, but apparently not quite yet.  *Hopefully they'll be resolved today though*  I received my bill for the internet and they had charged me for the two weeks that I had not received internet, even though I had gone into the store and talked to people on the service line several times.  I had my sister pay the bill for me because I received a call telling me that they were going to cut off my internet since the bill was late (oh yeah, someone got the mail, opened my bill, and set it on a bookshelf in the kitchen with other papers without telling me).  So, I waited until the weekend and had Jasser go with me to the Claro store.  They told us that we would need to bring an official letter of complaint along with the identification card of Jasser's grandpa (who is the account holder).  We had to wait for the next weekend for this since it was already Saturday afternoon and they're closed Sundays and Jasser goes to school in Managua during the week. 

Well, Jasser came home Friday night and we put together a mighty fine letter of complaint and collected the necessary items, made copies, and prepared ourselves for the fight (no, not really).  We took the things in the next morning and the lady that "helped" us was rude and told me that I didn't connect the router up right and I was just trying to get money for leaving the router off for 2 weeks.  Hmmm, not great customer service.  I was beyond frustrated after that, so I went home and tried to cool off before my planning session with Andrea.  I had Jasser call his uncle (who is also one of my counterparts) and he came over to review the situation. 

Today I went to the Claro store yet again, and my counterpart asked for the boss, a lady he knows, and he explained the situation to her.  She was very kind and told us to just present the information to the customer service representative and that she would credit our account.  Fortunately, we talked to a different lady then the one before and she was much nicer.  However, she needed to get approval from another guy, who happened to leave at 11:30am for lunch, so she told us to come back around 3pm.  Long lunches here.  I'm a little more optimistic about this now, but there still is a slight problem.  They only have one recorded report from me which marks one week of no service from the internet, and that wasn't even the week I didn't have internet.  So, it's a little frustrating because no one documented when I went into the store before to tell them the router didn't work, nor when I called service line several times.  What's a gringa got to do to get some good customer service here?  Apparently, I need back up.  Jasser helped me a lot, but the lady didn't buy our case, but having an older Nica with me, who also has some inside connections was more helpful.  We'll see how it all pans out...

Now I don't want to end this blog on a bad note, or thinking of frustrating things, so I'll tell you a little about this weekend and leave you with some cute pictures.  I went to Frank's town to visit and the little granddaughter at his house was turning 1 and getting baptized.  How exciting :)  So, we got dressed up and celebrated with the family.  The poor little girl was sick, but it was a great party.

At the baptism

Baptism/Birthday party

The aftermath of the piñata

Enjoying the party