Stormy Days

Tuesday I had a couple meetings to go to in Managua so I got up at 4:30am, left house a little after 5am and took the 5:30am bus.  Because of a huge rain storm and horrible traffic in Managua, my bus was 30 minutes late getting in.  I had called a taxi to pick me up at 7:30am, but then called again and said I’d be about 20 minutes late.  So, I was at the bus station at 8am waiting and the taxi didn’t come until 8:30am.  So much for getting in early for my 9am meeting!  I had to drop off some things at the PC office before going to the US Embassy for a meeting for a camp I’ll be working at in January.  We also had to pick up two other PCVs going to the same meeting because they were stranded at other bus terminals.  The taxi overcharged us because of all the rain and traffic issues (apparently they were overcharging a lot of people), but we finally got the Embassy which was an interesting experience in itself. 

The first step: Show your ID cards and be escorted inside the first building.  Then, metal detector #1 and confiscation of all items.  They went through all of our things—worse than the airport—and took any food items, water bottle, chapstick, any other liquids, cell phones, cameras, etc.  Then we walked through the metal detector.  They told us they were not allowed to guard any money for us so we had to remove that from our bags and carry it on us.  I made a joke about that, saying that “Oh, you’re just allowed to keep all of our valuable items that you could sell on the street.”  They were young and had a good sense of humor and knew I was making a joke so I didn’t get detained or anything :)  It was sad having to turn off my phone and give it up…  

Next step: escort across the courtyard and into the main building.  We went through another metal detector there.  Is this really necessary?  Not quite sure about that.  Then we had to sign in and write why we were there and who we were meeting.  We sat in the lobby with the guard until our escort came.  She had to wave at the guard to electronically open the doors as they were all locked.  High security here.  She took us to our meeting room and we finally got down to business around 9:40am.

The meeting went really well and I’m really looking forward to working with the other PCVs and Nicaraguan teachers.  The camp is going to be in January for Nicaragua English teachers to give them an opportunity to participate in a 5 day camp to practice English, learn new methods and cultural activities, and receive support in their job.  I’m excited, but I have a lot of work to do starting now…gotta get planning so I can submit my first lesson plan next week.  

We got to have lunch at the Embassy which was fun and the food was yummy and decently priced.  I chatted with the other people in the meeting and met the new English Language Fellow from the US.  She’s super nice and she offered me a ride back to the PC office after the meeting with her and her taxi guy.  Sweet!  

Back in the office, I got together with Melissa, another TEFL PCV, and we cleaned up our power point presentation and ran through our activities.  We got things ready and did a dry run with our tech trainer.  Since we were in the office late, we chatted a little with our country director who offered us a ride to our hotel or wherever we were going.  We invited her to come to dinner with us and she accepted.  She picked us up at our hotel a little later and took us to a nearby restaurant and we had a nice, relaxing dinner.  Then, she surprised us by paying for it all :)  Even after being rain soaked and running around crazy, it wasn’t a bad day after all. 

This morning I slept in a little later then the day before, but only until 7:30am.  I got some breakfast, got ready, and headed over to the office to get things ready for our charla.  We printed things out and looked over everything to make sure it looked good and we were ready.  We had planned to do a fun “trainee Bingo” game throughout our presentation so we picked up some candy on the way.

It started getting stormy again on the way to Diriamba, Carazo, but we were comfortable in the PC vehicle and not crammed inside a damp bus.  It was a pretty chilly day and since I’m not used to the cooler weather, I didn’t have a sweater, just my polo, capris, and sandals.  Oh well. 

Kelly did a charla first with our tech trainer, and then Melissa and I were up after the break.  We did a charla on giving teacher workshops.  It was new information for the trainees so they found it interesting and we had random slides with pictures of them pop up to fill in their Bingo cards (to which they eventually won chocolates for Bingos) so that kept their interest as well :)  

They are a fun group of trainees and I had fun working with them and hope to work more with them in the future (well, I at least have one more charla with them).  I’m sad that no new PCVs are coming to Boaco, but I’ll see them around.  

We finally got back to Managua around 7pm and Melissa and I ordered some pizza to be delivered to our hotel.  We all hung out and everybody was pretty much exhausted so it’s nice not to have anything tomorrow.  I’ll be heading back to Boaco and I have a class in the afternoon, but the students will be doing presentations.  Hope it goes well :) 

It’s been nice staying in the hotel, but unfortunately, there hasn’t been any hot water, which is the main draw to staying in hotels in Managua.  Bummer!  Guess I’ll have to wait until next time.