The Sad Truth

Two months ago one of my best friends in my town collapsed in her backyard. Her family quickly found her and rushed her to the town health center where they took her to the department capital, Somoto, in a small, run down taxi. From Somoto, she was taken for a three and a half hour ride in an ambulance to a public hospital in Managua where she and her husband were told to go back to Somoto. There was no space and the doctors weren’t available. Since the ambulance had already left, they made the return trip in a school bus. After a stroke, eight hours of travel, and little consultation with any medical professionals, she returned to the same spot where she had collapsed in the morning.

A couple of days after the stroke, I was able to visit her in her home where she was recovering, and though I had been in her house several times before, I wasn’t prepared to see what I saw. Her husband led me into their dirt floor room where they had the small bed that she, her husband, and their 3 year old daughter share. My friend was half asleep with a bandana tied around the lower half of her face, covering the drooping, right hand side of her mouth. Her face was swollen and her glassy eyes rolled around cartoonish-like. A four inch foam mattress sat atop an old metal bed frame that sagged under her weight, nearly touching the ground. Above her, two plastic trash bags were tied to the cinder brick walls in what appeared to be a feeble attempt to catch the water that got through the old tile roof when it rained. The room was damp, dark, and horribly depressing.

I stayed in the room and visited with her and her husband for about 45 minutes. In my year and a half here, I’ve never felt so distinctly the divide between rich and poor. She was struggling to recover from a stroke, holed up in a damp, dirt floor room, sleeping on an old mattress under a leaking roof because she happened to be born in Nicaragua. I wanted to take her to the States. Take her to a hospital where they wouldn’t kick her out. Get her the care that would have prevented a 30 year old woman from having a stroke. Put her in a room worthy of a human being. Give her a small handful of the opportunities that I’ve been given.

While I was sitting in the room, her husband handed me what they always share with me, a cup of coffee, a warm tortilla, and a Nicaraguan cheese, cuajada. In her normal, joking fashion, my friend said, “Ahh, David, you’re used to everything now, even tortillas with cuajada.” I smiled and agreed, but it wasn’t true. I’m not and will never be used to the cruelty of chance and circumstance.

The next Daddy Yankee?

Sometimes I hate Nicaragua

This happened to my house a week ago.


Then I found this the following day. I've slept with one eye open since.

Roads in Nicaragua

This is why I'm currently evacuated to Managua. I took this movie when I was stuck in a rural community 6km from my town. It used to be a road, but with the rains it turned into a river.

What's New With Me

Since I last posted, I've been home to the states, finished up a major part of my project and survived a "hurricane." Here it all is taken from an email I sent out a couple of weeks ago.

As far as getting back from the states, it was a lot easier this time than it was when I came back after Christmas last year. It was still hard, but I’m just in a much better position now. When I cam back from Christmas I still hadn’t even started formally teaching, so all my work was ahead of me and I still didn’t really know what I was doing. I also came back and the entire month of January was vacation here so it was long and boring. This time most of my teaching is done for the year and everything is just so much easier now that I’ve been here awhile longer. I’m much more comfortable with my work, with my Spanish, with my friends, etc. so it was easier to come back to. It also helped that I have less than a year left to go and am planning on coming back again in December.

When I got back I had two really busy weeks. My class ends with a competition where all of the student business groups present their work and their business plans in the town. The best groups move on to a regional competition where they compete against other schools that have a PC volunteer teaching the same class, and the regional winners go on to a national competition in Managua. So, when I got back I had two weeks to finish teaching the class and organize the local competition. It was a lot of work, but ended up going pretty well.

I had all my groups present in class and from each section I picked the two or three best groups to present at the local competition. We used the town rec-center to hold the event. The first hour the kids sold their products at little tables and whoever showed up could walk around and look at the projects. Then when the power finally came back on (we had to wait for about an hour) each group presented for 8 minutes in front of 4 judges from the town and turned in their final reports. After the presentations, the judges picked the 3 winners that will now compete at regionals. It sounds like something pretty easy to pull off, but it was hard.

The night before I finally got the certificates sent to me from Managua but they ended up having an incorrect name on them, so I went to the internet café at night to make new ones. In the middle of making them, the power went out. The power goes out everyday here from 7:30am until 2pm so I asked the owner if she would open the next morning at 6:30am! She said yes, so I woke up at 6am and made the certificates. Unfortunately she didn’t have certificate paper so I went to a little office supply store here and banged on the door at 7am to see if they had any. They didn’t so we just had to use normal paper. Then I showed up at the rec center and realized I was the one who was supposed to clean it before the event, so I had to recruit kids around the town to bring mops and brooms to help me. When I finally got that done, I went back to the school to take the speakers, microphone, tables, and chairs over with the truck I had arranged to use. Not surprisingly the owner of the truck had decided to go to a different city that day even though he told me he’d be around. So with no other truck available, I recruited more kids to help me carry everything over by hand. I made two or three trips carrying tables and speakers on my back! The people in my town kept yelling at me, “David!! Por que esta trabajando como un burro?” David!! Why are you working like a donkey?

When we finally got started, things went well and I was actually really proud of my students. You think throughout the year that no one is getting anything, but some of them were listening. Granted these were the best 8 or 9 groups of the 24 or so I had so I’m not working with a high percentage of listeners, but nonetheless, I was really happy with the work they did. And it was nice to see them excited about the project and what they had done. It was funny watching them present…they were really nervous, shaking even at some points. My students are mostly 15 years old so most of the time they’re all tough and too cool for school, so it was great to see them so out of their element. When we were finishing the competition I even remember thinking that I wish I could be around for next year’s, so that goes to show what a high point it was for me.

Anyway, since then it’s been great. Now that most of my teaching part is over I’ve told my teachers that I’ll happily still plan class with them, but I’m not teaching anymore. This means I show up for class and help, but really don’t need to do anything…I’m really just preparing the three groups that are going to regionals. It’s a lot less stressful and less frustrating like this. Now when class is cancelled or it doesn’t go well I can just shrug my shoulders and go back to my hammock.

As you can imagine though I have a lot more time on my hands now, so I’m starting to plan some new projects. I’m currently rounding up about 20 names of good students in third year that I can give little classes to after school. These are the kids I’ll teach next year and I would like to give them some classes on leadership, teamwork, communication, presenting, math etc. that will really help them next year with my class. I’m going to try to do this after school where the youth group normally meets so I can kind of kill two birds with one stone. Prepare next year’s students and revitalize the youth group building which isn’t being used at all right now. We’ll see if it works.

I’m also going to try to start a bank like the bank I started at the local school at the community school I teach. I’ve had one meeting with them and things went well but then we never followed up on it, so I’ll have to be a bit more proactive. It sucks to always have to be the cheerleader.

The hurricane was really anticlimactic. All the volunteers around my area were moved to a larger city where we stayed in a hotel for 2 days. Nothing happened where we were (it was actually fairly nice out) but it did hit Nicaraguan’s Atlantic coast really hard. It’s actually been a lot worse here since. Last weekend I wasn’t around my town but apparently it rained horribly hard which explained why half my house was flooded when I got back. You can imagine I was happy about that.

Currently, I'm out of my site and staying in Managua until further notice. It's been raining for a week straight so Peace Corps evacuated a large portion of volunteers to Managua. My town is fine, but I couldn't get out to my rural school because the rivers have risen so much. On my way into Managua we passed a huge sink hole in the middle of the highway. It looked like an earthquake had hit. It'll be interesting to see how long we're holed up in Managua.

Third World Safety = First World Lawsuit

Mid-Service Interview

Peace Corps volunteers here in Nicaragua put out a quarterly magazine for volunteers which among other things includes printed interviews with all the volunteers that are ending their service and all the volunteers that are beginning their service. An exit interview and an entrance interview. I’m obviously not quite finishing my time here yet, but since I’m exactly half way through my service in Palacaguina, I’ve decided to post a mid-service interview. Here it goes…

Nicknames:

Dabeeeed (long “e”), Daveeees (long “e”), gringo de cero, Saquir del futuro (my neighbors claim that a six year old kid named Saquir looks like me. Hence, I’m the Saquir of the future.), chele (slang term/name used for anyone fair skinned), Profe, Teacher, Hombre David

Favorite Saying:

Va a dar su vuelta? – This is asked when I’m wondering around my town making the three or four visits to the houses of the families and friends I have here. You making your rounds?

Voy a hacer un mandado- Living in a small, small town is hard and the gossip is fierce. I can’t leave my house without one my neighbors asking me where I’m going or running into someone I know who asks me the same. Initially, this was annoying…why do I have to tell them where I’m going every time I leave my house? Now, I’ve learned how the Nicas handle it and it works like a charm. All I have to say is “I’m going to run an errand.” I can say this no matter what time it is and what I’m actually going to do and the questions stop. There’s a nice, unwritten agreement to quit asking questions when you get this response.

Adioooos- If you walk by someone here and say “hello” it means that you’re planning on slowing down and chatting for a few minutes. Luckily, you can conveniently say “goodbye” and quickly convey that you have no intention of talking at the moment. This is great at ending unwanted conversations before they even start.

Ni quiere a dios – God doesn’t even want it! After anything describing something undesirable, you can add emphasis to just how undesirable it is by saying “God wouldn’t even want it!” This is used A LOT. In my case, I like to use it with older people that I don’t know well because it’s a surefire way to make them laugh. For example, they might be asking me what Nica foods I’ve tried and when they ask me if I’ve tried their famous cow stomach soup, I’ll reply with all the emotion in me and a wrinkled up, disgusted face, “Ehhhhh…Ni quiere a dios!” This is met with all the little, old ladies looking amongst themselves confirming that the gringo actually just said what they heard, and it’s normally followed by hearty laughs. Stupid gringo.

Si dios quiere – If God wants it. After you make any type of commitment to do something in the future, you can end your promise with “If God wants it.” This is super convenient when you’re not sure if you really want to be a part of the commitment. For example if I try to set up a meeting with someone, we’ll plan it for the following day at a given time, but the conversation might end with me saying “see you tomorrow” and the man or woman saying “If God wants it.” How do I argue with that? If they don’t show up (this is often the case), I’m comforted knowing that it’s not their fault. God just didn’t want the person to walk the three blocks to my house or call me to say God didn’t give him the motivation today to have the meeting.

Hay mas tiempo que vida – There’s more time than life.

What have you done during your service?

I’ve learned Spanish, I’ve been laughed at, I’ve lost my dignity, I’ve read a lot, I’ve written a lot, I’ve cleaned my house one million times, I’ve taught a business course to 16 year olds, I’ve sweat, I’ve started a community bank, I’ve filled my quota of awkward moments for the rest of my life, I’ve helped out some businesses with accounting, I’ve appreciated my family, friends, and life back in the states more so than at any other point in my life, I’ve pretended like I know what I’m doing, I’ve learned a lot and taught a little, I’ve spent countless hours hanging out in rocking chairs talking about when the power will return.

If you could change one aspect of your time here so far, what would it be?

I’d make a little extra money every month. I’d come into my service knowing more Spanish than I did. Though the latrine really isn’t that bad, I might spend some more time searching for a house with a flushing toilet. I’d also change my roof to the much cooler tile roof.

What will you miss?

I’ll miss my five year old best friend/son, Sergio Luis. I’ll miss being able to show up at anyone’s house around lunchtime and be given a huge plate of food. I’ll miss the collective scream of excitement of an entire town when the power returns around 7pm. I’ll miss the coffee and biscuits that I get when I’m hanging out at my friends’ houses. I’ll miss being able to immediately round up a countless number of kids to play soccer, Frisbee, football when I’m sitting in my house bored. I’ll miss my hammock. I’ll miss the excited looks I get when I say “adios” to the 5-10 year olds that stare at me. I’ll miss my students that want to learn. I’ll miss working within an organization that is filled with passionate, caring, optimistic hard workers that believe in what they’re striving for.

Who/what would you bring back?

I’d definitely bring back Sergio Luis. It’s not that he has a terrible life here…quite the opposite, but I wish I could give him all that I’ve been given. I’d bring back the finger wave gesture to say “no” to anything. The lazy days…not all of them, but it’d be nice to have one or two every week in the states. I’d bring back the ability to have a best friend that is 5, another that is 25, and another that is 65.

How has the Peace Corps changed you?

I shave once every other week, not once every other day. I haven’t worn a shirt and tie in a year. I walk more slowly because really, there’s no rush. I no longer use the most efficient routes from point A to point B, I use the routes that offer the most shade. I’m much more patient. My friends in the states are 21-28 years old, while my friends here are less than 16 years old or older than 50 years old. I’m more outgoing. I dump a lot of salt on everything. My table manners are worse. I’m less judgmental. I’m over my aversion to public toilets. I’m more assertive. I show up to all engagements 30 minutes to an hour late. I’m more laid back.

Gained weight/lost weight:

I’ve lost about 10 pounds that I couldn’t afford to lose in the first place.

Would you do it all over again?

This is hard to say. I would definitely still do it if I was the same age and in the same situation I was in last year when I started, but I’m not sure if when I’m done here I could sign up again for another 27 months. It might just be too hard to ever want to do it again. Ask me two years after my service.

Have you thought about leaving early?

I’ve dreamt about it a lot, but I’ve never considered it seriously. I’ve just occasionally wanted to get Dengue Fever or break a bone so that I can get a couple of free weeks in Managua or the states.

Things you’ve missed the most:

Family and friends, trash meals, hot showers, carpet, couches, delivery pizza, Fall, Winter, anonymity, customer service, manners, having my own car, draft beer, Big Ten Burrito, Qdoba, clean streets, UM football, privacy, washing machine and dryer, new music, Best Buy, Borders, American convenience.

Parasites

The most recent parasite that I had. Disgusting.

"It can also be transferred from animal or human feces."

Check out my published photo in the newest edition of Schmap Atlanta. Click on "Photos" and scroll through to find my name under a picture of Atlanta Underground. Cool.

Pictures

Two links to pictures taken while Zach and Brent were braving Nucca-ville. Enjoy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14075148@N00/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweettasteofindia/sets/72157600396363715/

Teaching

During the first few months in my site, I became more familiar with the book from which I’d be teaching, and I thought that it was fairly straight forward. I had been here long enough to realize the Nicaraguan public school system would present a lot of challenges, but as for the class material I figured we could manage. Unfortunately, I greatly underestimated the challenges and the difficulty of the material.

As I’ve described in previous blogs, the Nicaraguan classroom is generally a small room that shares a back and front wall with other classrooms (picture a large rectangle split up into three or four classrooms). The upper half of the side walls are windows that allow a bit of air to pass through, thankfully. Unfortunately, those windows also let passing students to stand “outside” of the classroom to stare, whistle, cat call, or disrupt the students receiving class. This additional noise is added to the general chaos that results with 50 fifteen year olds inside a small classroom at the same time. I have to yell to teach. In short, the classroom environment is not conducive to learning. The lack of school-wide rules creates more problems.

In general, a 45 minute class lasts 30 minutes at most. Just long enough for the teacher to sit down in front of the class, read a few definitions, and then quickly return to the teachers’ lounge. She might leave the class with some work to do or let a student finish dictating the lesson to his classmates, but regardless, the class is left unsupervised. So, the last 15 minutes of class is normally recess, meaning the following teacher spends 15 minutes rounding up her students and getting them in their seats. This is, of course, when the teacher shows up. It’s not strange to have two or three teachers just not show up to work, leaving more than a few sections of students free, without supervision, for 45-90 minutes blocks. With short classes and absent teachers, it would make sense to have a rule that requires all students to remain in the classroom during class hours. There isn’t and the students, not surprisingly, take advantage of their free time. Last week, as I was arriving to my class, I watched a kid outside of the classroom pick up a desk, raise it above his head, and body slam it to the ground. Not once, but three times. I shrugged my shoulders, hid a smile and ignored the problem. If it were my way, that kid wouldn’t even be allowed outside of the classroom, thus avoiding the body slamming problem. So, in my book, since they (the teachers and principals) created the problem, they can fix it. It won’t be fixed though. To go along with the lack of rules, there’s also a lack of consequences.

Now, I’m not yet old enough to have completely forgotten about my high school experience. I can remember the troublemakers, the disruptions, the lack of respect for authority, etc. I imagine that I share a lot of my frustrations with any teacher in the states. But, in the states, the teachers and principals always have the trump card…grades. If you acted up too much or didn’t turn in your homework your grades suffered accordingly. I thought I would have the same leverage here.

We are asked to turn in grades about once a month. In my first month, I graded all of the homework and was slightly discouraged when many of my students didn’t turn in anything. I put their names on the board, I talked to them after class, I told them they could still turn it in and get some points. Most of them didn’t care or listen, so when I tallied up the scores, I had almost 20 students in every section who were failing the class (below 60%), not because they were doing poorly on homework or quizzes, or because I was grading strictly, but because they didn’t do anything. Nothing, zero, not one piece of work handed in. I turned in the grades to my counterpart so that she could turn the final copy in to the principal’s office, and when I saw the final grades that were on the students’ report cards, two kids had failed. The 18 or so other students that should have failed were “bumped up” to 60% or above. Why? Because a teacher that gives too many failing grades will lose her job. I have since left all of the grading to my counterparts.

I suppose the line between passing and failing is arbitrary anyway, right? The difference between 59% and 60% doesn’t mean much unless a school system has decided that 60% means you’re passing and 59% means you’re failing. And if you’re applying to college an admissions officer doesn’t care if it was 59% or 60%, passing or failing, you’re still not getting into college. But, again, that’s not the case here. Students who move on to university take a short entrance exam and if they have the money to pay tuition, they’re accepted. So, a student here could do very little in high school, count on being “bumped up” to 60% in his classes, graduate high school, take a university entrance exam, and become a university student the following year.

All of this can probably explain why Juan Antonio turned in a recent test half blank. When I quickly looked over the test and handed it back to him, mentioning that half of it was blank, he took the test back, waited five minutes and turned it in again half blank. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the answers, (immediately before the test we had done a review which included all of the answers) he just didn’t want to do it. He scored a 14/60…and passed with flying colors. I’m not sure I would be bothered to write the definition of a market if my grade didn’t matter either. Whether you’re body slamming desks, failing to turn in homework, or turning in half finished exams, there are few consequences.

Given the poor environment and the lack of consequences, it should come as no surprise that my students are a lot further behind than I had anticipated, making my class much more difficult. For example, I did not anticipate that my students would have a hard time with a market study because I assumed they knew what a market and a survey was. When I realized that wasn’t the case, I explained that a market is a group of people with specific characteristics. Going on our third week teaching market study, I still have most of the kids yelling out “a place where you sell and buy!” when I ask them what a market is. As for explaining what a survey is, I patiently described the purpose and how we do one. I have kids in the front of the class act out surveyor and surveyee. I give them examples and finally, ask them to come up with 10 survey questions about their business to ask potential clients. Why would creating 10 questions be easy though, if you’re 15 and have only ever been asked to copy and memorize? In the end, I have a counterpart that says I give the students too much work and maybe 5 or so kids in each class truly understand what I was trying to teach.

In the coming weeks, I’ll start teaching unit cost for a product and the groups will begin setting the prices on their products using a defined % profit margin. If a group has a product that costs C$10 to make and wants to make 10% profit on each product they will set its price at C$11. Simple enough…if you know some basic math and understand percentages. Unfortunately, the teachers don’t even understand percentages. Each month when we turn in grades we have to have 100 points exactly because no one understands how to turn 140/150 into a number between 0 and 100. I foresee problems for my students and partial insanity for me.

This insanity will be added on to the feelings of frustration/worthlessness that surround me when I show up to class and find an empty classroom because class was cancelled for unexplainable, inexcusable reasons and no one bothered to tell me, or when I lose the first 15-20 minutes of class because most of my students and my counterpart don’t show up on time, or when my counterparts are changed in the middle of the year without telling me. Two or three times a week, I want to throw up my arms in the air and quit. I want to shake all the people I work with and get a logical, rational answer to my question, WHY???!!! I want to pick up a desk and body slam down to the ground.

But, when things go well, when I can tell my students are paying attention and learning something, when someone answers a question correctly, or when I have a counterpart teach a class correctly-beautifully!-I want to move on, continue trying and improving. I’m losing on most levels, but the few wins and the small successes keep me in it.

So, here I am just shy of the halfway point in the year. We’re certainly not where I thought we would be at this point, but I didn’t anticipate some of the problems/challenges. My expectations and standards are drastically lower than when I started the year, but even with the drop, they are higher than what my students are used to; and that’s what I hope for now, that my students are challenged and held to a higher standard than what they’re used to. They’re not going to learn everything that I want them to learn in the class. Maybe they’ll pick up a few things here and there…maybe not. But, I hope, in the end that they expect more from themselves because they had a teacher that expected more from them.

Communicating like a Nica

When I was home over Christmas, I shared with my family the Nicaraguan custom to point with chin and lips (not your hand or finger) when you want to point out a location. So, for about two weeks we walked around the house puckering up our lips and laughing. With this in mind, I share with you how to communicate like a true Nicaraguan.

· When you want someone to repeat what they said or you don’t understand: Squint or scrunch up your nose.

· When you want to say hello to someone across the street: Extend your arm parallel to the ground at waist level. Put your palm up and extend your neck so your chin points up.

· When you want to say someone is stingy or cheap: Flex your bicep and tap the bottom of your elbow with your opposite hand.

· When you are talking about money: Extend your pointer fingers and slide one across the other as if you were peeling a carrot.

· When you want to say no: Extend your pointer finger and aggressively wag your hand back and forth.

· When you want to say someone has a lot of money: Extend your pointer finger and thumb and hold them out in front of you so that they form an invisible outline of a giant stack of money.

· When you are talking about drinking beer or rum: Extend your thumb and pinky finger (the hang loose sign) and hold your thumb at your mouth. Move your hand up and down as if drinking from a glass.

· When you want to say something is crowded or full: Touch all fingers and thumb together on one hand.

· When you want to eat or are talking about eating: Hold your palm in front of your mouth, fingers together. Snap your fingers back and forth near your mouth.

· When you want to refer to your diarrhea: Make a fist and lock your elbow into the side of your body. Move the lower part of your arm up and down while grimacing.

· When you want to point to something: Pucker up your lips and aim where you want to point (also works to jokingly indicate that your friend is crazy when he’s telling a dumb story).

· When you want to get someone to come towards you: Extend your arm in front of your body and move your wrist up and down with your fingers pointed towards the ground.

One Dollar a Day

In my research leading up to joining the Peace Corps, I read a lot about the number of people who live on one dollar or less a day (1 in 6 people in the world). Reading that number from the comfort of a $720/month apartment, it was hard to even imagine how that was even possible, one dollar per day. Though the number still shocks me, 11 months into my service I have a much better idea of what one dollar a day means.

I get paid 3600 cordobas per month, the equivalent of $200 per month or $6.67 per day per month. This monthly salary is certainly higher than most people within my town, yet I still manage to spend every last cord every month. Since I’ve been keeping track of where I’ve been spending my money, I’ve found that almost a third of my salary is spent on what I define as “entertainment.” This includes anything that I buy or do that isn’t needed, such as a night out with friends, a trip to visit another volunteer, gorging myself on McDonald’s or Burger King when I’m in Managua, going to the beach, having a beer or some rum, etc. Now, I could make a strong case that this “entertainment” is actually an absolute necessity considering it’s the only thing that keeps me sane here, but for the sake of argument, I’ll say it’s unneeded.

So, if I subtract a third of my salary (3600-1200) that I spend on completely unneeded things, I’m left with 2400 cordobas, $133.33 per month or $4.44 per day per month. At this level, I can still live very comfortably and still have a lot of unneeded expenses. For example, I am able to rent my own house, to buy expensive gringo food like peanut butter and olive oil, to use the cyber café, to have a cell phone, and to eat meat a few times a week. But, you can imagine that this isn’t the case when you make 2400 cordobas per month and you’re supporting a family of four or five.

My good friend here is a teacher at the local high school, making about 2500 cordobas per month, $139 per month or $4.63 per day per month. Her husband occasionally has part time work, but is mostly unemployed, so the family lives on and depends on my friend’s salary. $4.63 per day per month divided by the four person family means each person lives on about $1.16 per day (defined as moderate povery). They all share a bedroom, in a house with 5 other extended family members. They eat rice, beans, and tortillas everyday with an occasional serving of meat. Besides a few trips to neighboring cities, they rarely leave the town. In fact, a couple of weeks ago when I asked her if she could come to a training conference two hours away, she couldn’t go because she didn’t have the 15 cordobas to pay the fare. $0.83 cents.

Unfortunately, the teachers, including my friend, are the lucky ones within the country. It’s a horrible monthly wage (the lowest in Central America), yes, but it’s still a monthly wage that is almost always paid and paid on time, unlike the majority of the other work that is available. According to the Central Bank of Nicaragua, 64% of the people employed are working in the informal sector performing such work as producing foods for local consumption, making handicrafts from local materials, or working as tailors, shoemakers, shoe shiners, carpenters, etc. They are self employed, making little money month to month, and at times, making less than what’s needed for survival. 48% of the population lives below the poverty line, making Nicaragua the second poorest country in the western hemisphere (Haiti is number one).

So, given the money that most people are living with, my salary of $6.67 per day puts me at a level that very few in Nicaragua reach. Tack on to my salary the health benefits I have through Peace Corps and an American credit card, and I'm one of the most fortunate persons in my town, despite living at a level that is lower than any I've experienced in my life. And though I now have a better idea of what one dollar a day means and I can see everyday the people living at that level, I'm convinced I could not do it. Whether I'm sitting in a $720/month apartment in Ann Arbor or a $27/month house in Nicaragua, one dollar a day is not right.

Unorganized thoughts on my first month teaching

Finally, I feel like I’ve started teaching. Since arriving here 9 months ago, I’ve gone through 3 months of training, preparing me to teach, and almost six months of general observation and practice teaching within my site. Though the time has been valuable in many respects, it feels good to finally get started with my main project.

I work in two high schools in Palacaguina. I have three sections of 50-60 students in the main school and one section of 18 students in a school about 15 minutes outside of the town. I teach a Junior Achievement type course called La Empresa Creativa to the rough equivalent of US sophomores/juniors. Throughout the year, the students work in small groups developing a business plan and managing their small business. Most of the content is very hands-on as opposed to general business theory or definitions. For instance, the groups do a market study to determine what business to open, they sell shares in their company to fund the necessary start-up capital, and they keep track of the business accounting while producing and selling their product. For the most part, I really enjoy the material and the idea of the class, but it’s certainly not easy teaching it in Nicaragua.

A normal class has around 50 students and one teacher. There are no books for the students and besides a general outline of subjects to cover, the teachers have no curriculum. Oftentimes, the teachers are left to find class material on their own in libraries or the internet. Though they try to match specific skill sets with what class a teacher will teach, it doesn’t always work out, leaving, for example, a teacher who has studied English in college, teaching high school math.

Photocopying books or homeworks is too expensive, so generally, the teacher will copy down in a notebook definitions and one or two examples which he/she can dictate to the students during class. The students copy the definitions into their own notebooks, memorize the answers to homework examples and regurgitate everything on a test. There’s very little discussion or critical thinking involved in any class. In fact, many times when the teacher begins to discuss a point during the class, the students immediately start misbehaving and talking because they know that all they need to know for the test is what’s copied down in their notebooks.

So, given what the students are used to, you can imagine that it’s hard to teach a hands-on, project oriented class in your second language. But, things in my case aren’t too, too bad. For one, Peace Corps volunteers, over the last five years, have developed a book to teach the class, so I don’t have to make things up on the fly. The book is nicely written and well organized which has made it easy to plan my classes and give my students a fairly good idea of what we hope to accomplish during the year. I’m also working with three Nicaraguan teachers, meaning we team teach the class during the year, with the idea that at the end of my two year service, there’s two or three teachers trained and prepared to continue teaching the class. Though I’m doing most of the teaching right now, my Nicaraguan counterparts and I plan the class together and they help me within the classroom. And finally, I only have one 90 minute class period per section per week. In other words, my counterparts and I plan one class on Sunday, and then I give the same class four different times.

But, though the book, my counterparts, and the schedule are indeed helpful, it doesn’t mean things go smoothly. Most of my initial classes have been spent trying to teach things that I expected my students to already know. For instance, when I tried to form six groups by counting each student one through six, the students blankly stared at me. After getting them to understand how it would work and telling them where each group would meet, we counted off. In the end, half the class had forgotten their number and the other half asked me where their number was meeting. It was a disaster. But, the next week we did the same, though this time I taped numbers on the wall where each group was going to meet. Besides the four or five questions I got at the beginning of the class of why there were numbers on the wall, the process worked much better.

In the second week I spent almost ten minutes teaching how we were going to turn in homeworks. Normally if they have homework to turn in, the students surround the teacher as he/she walks in the door, waving papers in his face, screaming “Profe, Profe!!” By the time the teacher has collected all the papers and navigated his way out of the maze of students, no less than five minutes of class time has been lost and every student is out of his or her seat. It bothered the hell out of me watching this last year. So, the first day they had homework to turn in I turned away all the students that ran up to me, telling them I would collect it at the start of class. They all sat back down confused. At the start of class when I asked the students in the middle to pass their homework to the corners and the students in the corners to pass all of the homeworks to the front, I got more blank, confused stares. After showing them an example of what I wanted, the homeworks were turned in correctly. I wonder if they’ll remember the process this week.

Class discipline is also hard with 50 students. As I mentioned, the students aren’t used to answering questions or discussing material, so when I’m in the front teaching, the classroom is horribly loud and half of the students aren’t paying attention. But, if I start to write anything on the blackboard everyone quiets down and starts to scribble. I could seriously write whatever nonsense I wanted and they would copy it down without questions. Though it’s much easier to give a class with just definitions, I try to ask questions and hold discussions even if it means, right now anyway, that I have to yell over the other voices. I try to get them to raise hands rather than yell out the answer, I call on the troublemakers and put them on the spot, I praise the ones that are listening or participating, but it’s a long, uphill battle to reverse what the students have learned over the last 10 years in their other classrooms. I wish I could more accurately describe what the class room environment is like, but suffice it to say that it’s horribly tiring and completely frustrating trying to teach the students in a more dynamic manner than the simple dictation they’re used to.

On the other end is my class of 18 students at the rural school who wouldn’t talk if their life depended on it. The class is dead quiet no matter what I’m doing. I could walk in dressed like Batman and they would stare at me with the same confused, blank looks they give me everyday. I ask a question and 18 pairs of eyes immediately fall to the floor.

“Ramiro, name a business you know from your community.” Ramiro, sits there nervously pretending to scribble something in his notebook. I wait for what seems like hours and what must seem to him like days. I try to help him, give him examples, re-phrase the question so that all he has to say is yes or no, but I get nothing until Nubia helps him out, bailing the rest of the class out, including me. She’s the only one that ever talks or answers questions. One student out of 18. So though it’s a lot easier and more relaxing teaching at this school, it’s equally frustrating.

Overall I think things are going well given what I’ve heard from other volunteers and how I feel. It’s certainly frustrating and even though my students probably don’t quite understand yet why we’re teaching this class, I think the class is important specifically in this country. According to USAid, of 100 students that enter first grade, 11 graduate from high school. So, arguably, the ability to create and manage your own small business is more important than many of the more general high school subjects. And even still for the lucky few that move on and study at the university level, Nicaragua doesn’t have and isn’t generating sufficient places of work for its rapidly growing population. The chances that a university graduate finds work within his or her field is low, meaning these graduates need to know, at least in a general way, how to create and run a business. Will my students actually walk away from my class with this knowledge? I’m not sure, but if they raised their hands more in my big classes and weren’t so shy in my small class, I think we’d be a lot further ahead. We’ll see where we are in a few weeks.

Peace Corps Top Universities

A list of the colleges and universities that produced the most volunteers in 2006. University of Michigan sits at number 4 with 82 volunteers.

Syllabus Week

I had friends in college that used to call the first day of classes “Syllabus Day.” The idea was that on the first day of school, professors wouldn’t do much more than hand out the syllabus and talk about the class in general terms. For the most part it was true and it also happened to be a convenient excuse to skip the first week of school. With this in mind, I approached my first week of classes with low expectations, simply hoping I would be able to introduce the class to my students and to talk about what I expected of them. And now after a full week of “school” I realize how naively high those expectations were.

I arrived at the school at 8am on Monday, exactly the time I was told to show up. Though there were a handful of students that were waiting, I was the first teacher to show up. The others wandered in around 8:30. I felt a little weird being the first teacher there on the first day of school, but I’ve had plenty of experience waiting at the school. On my first day of classes in July I was told to show up on Thursday at 7:00am. I did as I was told, but then had to wait an hour before anyone else arrived. They had failed to mention that since the hour had “sprung forward,” 7am actually meant 8am. When the other teachers arrived and told me why I had had to wait, I cursed every single one of them under my breadth. Then I made sure, in the future, to confirm all meetings with a discussion as to whether the person was talking hora vieja, hora solar, or hora normal.

So, the late arrival of the teachers didn’t surprise me much. What did surprise me was that by 9am we were all still sitting in the teachers’ lounge not doing anything. Meanwhile, most of the students had arrived and were hanging out, running around, fighting, dancing, and enjoying “syllabus day.” Again, the students’ behavior wasn’t much different than any other normal day of school, but it was a little more active considering it was the first day of school and that all of the students had been asked to arrive at 8am as opposed to only half of them. At 10am we had a 20 minute “assembly” where the principal and the government representative spoke to all students and staff. At 10:30 the students were dismissed for the day and asked to return on Tuesday at 8am.

Not very productive I thought, but I had seen the warning signs. The two weeks prior to the first day of class, the teachers and administration spent the days waiting for the parents to arrive at the school to sign up their sons and daughters. I thought it was a bit strange that no one seemed to be working on a class schedule or assigning students to the morning or afternoon shift. The Friday before the first day of class the teachers didn’t know what classes they’d be teaching, if they’d be teaching in the morning or afternoon, or what their class schedule would look like. Why did I think that the first day of school would be organized?

Tuesday was more of the same disorganization and chaos. On Monday afternoon, the administration had decided which students would have classes in the morning and which in the afternoon. How did they let the students know Tuesday morning? They tried to congregate all of the students (900 strong) in front of the school to read students’ names and what shift they were assigned to. Did it work? Hahaha…

After getting through no more than 30 names, it was too loud to hear the teacher. So, they decided to give a list of students to each teacher and then allowed the students to run around trying to find their name. I didn’t ask why they couldn’t just tape the lists to the front wall. In fact, after I saw a girl start to cry because she wasn’t in the section she wanted to be in, I left too annoyed to stay to see what would happen next.

By Wednesday morning my expectations were low. All I really wanted to know was who I would be working with and when my classes would be. It didn’t happen. They got pretty far creating, rearranging, and discussing the schedule they made on the chalk board, but it was completely erased at 11am. At that point, I told my principal that she could call me when they knew my schedule and I left.

Though the tentative schedule was finally agreed to on Friday, they all tell me it will change. As for the students, they got through the first week with a little more than an hour of class time. Which I suppose is a good thing considering that many of the students decided not to show up until Thursday. At the rural school where I teach, 28 of the 150 students showed up on the first day. Is this because the students know the teachers won’t be organized/prepared or are the teachers unorganized/unprepared because they know very few of the students show up? I’m not sure (though there’s no excuse for the teachers being as unprepared as they were), but “syllabus day” just turned into “syllabus week” and I haven’t even gotten to address my students yet. We should have been so lucky in college.

Return to the States, Return to Nicaragua

December 21 came quickly. I can remember when Doug Emeott visited Nicaragua in early August and was only a couple weeks shy of returning home after a summer abroad in Costa Rica. We talked about everything he would do within the first week home…where he would eat, what he would drink, how long the first hot shower would be. As much as I enjoyed dreaming about the states, I didn’t let myself dwell on it too much. December seemed too far away to even entertain thoughts of home. But, the weeks and months passed quickly and I was soon on the plane, returning after eight months.

I landed in Houston on my way to Phoenix and was a bit shocked at the development. There seemed to be too many houses, roads, and cars. The number of pools and golf courses that we flew over was ridiculous. Most of my thoughts were along these same lines during the remainder of the vacation…every store seemed too big, every road seemed too crowded, every restaurant seemed to have too many choices, and (thankfully) every employee seemed to be too nice (Nicaragua could use some customer service training).

So besides the initial shock of how big everything was, nothing seemed too different and my vacation didn’t disappoint. The food, hot showers, and flushing toilets were everything I had dreamt about and more. I had forgotten not only how much we have, but also how nice everything is. Everything was so comfortable and pretty. It was hard to leave when the time came. The two weeks, as expected, went more quickly than I wanted.

I haven’t seriously thought of ending my service early and the thought never crossed my mind when I returned on January 4th. But, I certainly wanted to stay in the states for at least another week, and I found myself jealous of the volunteers that were close to ending their service. I thought that I might be able to ease myself back into life here, but that hope quickly vanished when I landed in Managua, got to my hotel room and found no hot water and mosquitoes. If that didn’t remind me where I was, the next day, with its stifling heat, three hour school bus ride back to my site, and rice and bean dinner, certainly did. I was back and there was no hiding.

I was more shocked upon my return to Nicaragua than my return to the US. I had forgotten how much seemed normal when I left. Though I cursed the cold water shower for a few days (and my neighbors’ stereo at 6:00am every morning), I quickly adjusted to the obvious differences like food, latrines, and power outages. The hardest part was readjusting to everything that goes along with being the foreigner.

Before I left, I had gotten used to the stares on the bus and in the street. I knew how to handle the conversation I have long since grown tired of with the guy on every bus that wants to know where I’m from, what I’m doing, if I’d like to meet his family, or if I know his brother in Miami I could brush off the drunks in the park that want to shake my hand and then ask me for five pesos. I could ignore my host family’s constant questions as to why I don’t want to come to their home more often, why I don’t want to eat there, and why I’m not staying to visit more even though I’ve been there for two hours. The kids that knock on my door at 8am wanting to play, the neighbors’ kids watching me through the fence as I clean my clothes, and every kid’s questions as to how much this or that costs in the US…it all seemed normal when I left.

It’s hard to describe the feelings that go along with all of it. Coming from the US where you can be as anonymous as you want and you are afforded a large level of privacy from the time you’re very young, it’s hard to adjust to being an object that everyone wants a piece of. For example, I often feel guilty if during the middle of the day I decide to relax in my hammock and read as opposed to spending time with my host family or other friends. When I do decide to stay in my house I have to shut my door and windows to avoid being bothered by the kids on my block. Everyday from 8am to 8pm, if I want to be alone, I need to hide in my house. The only time I feel safe to do whatever I want to do without guilt and without fear of being bothered is after 8pm.

But, the lack of privacy is only one part. The feeling of out of “placeness” also weighs heavy. Whether I’m with people I know or strangers I always feel a bit out of my element, uncomfortable. It’s surely a combination of many things, not least of which is the differences in culture and language. But, this combination adds up to a never ending feeling that I’m off my guard. Off my guard but always on call…Surprisingly, I had learned to deal with all of this before I left, but the first week back was especially difficult.

Now, almost three weeks since returning, I feel normal again. I’ve gotten used to all the stuff I was used to before I visited the states, and again feel confident and proud of what I’m doing. During the first week back when it was pretty rough going, I kept reminding myself of what I was doing in my job a year ago and how unhappy I was. Nothing could be that bad and I quickly realized that the negative and challenging aspects of living here are far outweighed by the positives. Though I’m still jealous of the food they’ll be eating and the comforts they’ll be returning to in a few short weeks, I feel kind of bad for the volunteers that are ending their service. Their two year vacation/retirement is ending. Mine is still just beginning.

Updates Part 2

More events/thoughts:

• A week ago, two teachers from my school showed up at my house and invited me to a party. They had told me about it earlier, but I had forgotten the date and wasn't particularly excited about it anyway. In fact, on the particular night they showed up at my house, the power was out on my street and I was looking forward to using it as an excuse to shut my door and go to sleep early. I obviousily didn't shut my door soon enough, and when they asked me to come I couldn't easily come up with an excuse given the power outage..."actually, I've gotta a lot of work here to do in the house without power, so I'm gonna have to pass," wouldn't work, so I reluctantly went.

We arrived at a house and the majority of the 25 or so teachers from my school were waiting, dressed in their best. Like every other Nicaraguan party I've been to there were an assortment of plastic chairs sitting around the room and a large stereo system that blasted music at an uncomfortable volume, making conversations beyond two word phrases impossible. This never seems to be a problem, however, given the only thing that is ever said to me at the parties is !Baile, David!

When I first got to Nicaragua, I would normally decline the requests to dance until the end of the night when everyone else was dancing, foolishly thinking that given the number of dancers I would be able to blend in a bit more. It never worked and generally made things worse, only prolonging the anticipation of the other party goers of watching the gringo dance. This particular night, I decided to try the exact opposite and immediately started dancing. Was I the only one dancing in the center of the plastic chairs? No, there was one other lucky lady, but you can imagine who the wallflowers were watching. To the cheers of my coworkers, I danced to the first song wishing I had had a few drinks before coming to the party, but my strategy of dancing immediately seemed to work as the hoopla surrounding my dancing was significantly less than what I had experienced by waiting until the end to dance. After the first song, I took a seat along the side of the room and was surprised to have one of the teachers hand me a drink.

Most of the drinking I see within my site is the drinking that's done in the park by groups of men that drink cheap rum out of plastic bags. The idea of a casual drink is almost non existent and I had never seen a woman drink before this night. Given the conservative nature of the teachers and that almost all of them are women, again I was surprised to see that many of them were drinking as well. But, I didn't have much time to dwell on this thought or finish my first drink before I was grabbed again to dance.

I quickly realized that the downfall of my new strategy was that now I had shown them that I would dance, making it that much harder to turn down an invitation to dance. So, I ended up breaking it down with just about every teacher that was there. "¡A ver, David! ¡Baile!" As they all drank a little more, things started to get a little more relaxed. First the cigarettes came out. Then, the chants of ¡Arriba! ¡Abajo! started and I laughed watching all the teachers dressed is their handmade, knee length skirts dance as close to the ground as they could. Professora Esperanza, with her painted eyebrows and short, curly hair, was the clear winner and was applauded with screams of approval.

Even further into the night the karaoke dvd made an appearance and some of the teachers took turns with the microphone. Unfortunately someone also brought a karaoke dvd with songs in English...you know, all the greatest hits, ABBA, It's my party and I'll cry if I want to, Rivers of Babylon. The calls for "Dance, David!" turned into "Sing, David!" With horror I watched them put in the disc, and with delight I watched them switch the audio/video cords incorrectly. When they asked me what was wrong, I politely said "I have no idea."

By the end of the night, many of the teachers, though certainly not horribly drunk, had had a few drinks. Beer cans, cigarettes, CDs, and left over food could be found on every chair/table and the house looked more like a college house than a Nicaraguan sala. When I finally bid my farewells, I was happy I had come. I didn´t particularly want to dance as much as I had to (my original strategy is better), but it was really nice to see the women from my town enjoy themselves and relax. I wish it happened more often. I just hope that next time they don't bring the English karaoke dvd.

• I often eat two lunches or two dinners in one day. It doesn't matter where I go, without asking the family always seems to give me food. Not only do they give me food, they give me more of it than anyone else in the family. More meat, more soup, more fresco. I accept it with a smile and eat it even if it's the last thing I want.

Along the same lines, I've become quite a coffee drinker here. Like the food, almost every house that I go to, I'm given a cup of coffee. Last week, before two p.m. I had had four cups of coffee and a coke. It was rather disgusting, but what can I say when they just give it to me?

• I've posted some online pictures online. I have other pictures that I will post when I get home, so check again in about a week.

• Last week, my next door neighbors had a purisima, a celebration of the Virgen Mary. What seemed like the whole town showed up to celebrate, and the family handed out food, toys, and candy to anyone who showed up. The party was really nice, but unfortunately, the shrine to the Virgen included one of those plastic, Christmas dolls that play the really plasticky, annoying, looped music. No words, just a da da da, da da da, da daaa daaa da da to the tune of Jingle Bells, Santa Claus is coming to Town, and We Wish you a Merry Christmas.

It was drowned out during the party, but when everyone had left I began to hear it. I didn't think anything of it until I went to bed that night and it was still on. The houses here are really close and the concrete walls block no sound from passing through. It's not rare for me to be in my house, listening to a conversation that my next door neighbors are having. So, though I've learned to ignore the conversations, the blaring stereo at 5am, the roosters, and the fighting dogs, the Christmas doll was impossible to ignore.

I lay in bed annoyed, but surely someone will turn it off, right? Wrong. It played the entire night. The next day it continued and again drove me nuts as I went to bed. By the third night, I was no longer angry at the doll, I was furious at the 12 people that live in the house. Isn't there at least one person that is annoyed as much as myself. Had I not left for the weekend on Friday, I was going to pay my nine year old friend, who is always with a sling-shot in his pocket, to assasinate the thing. Thankfully, when I returned on Sunday, the doll was no longer turned on, was taken out by the other neighbors, or was out of batteries.

• I'll be in the states from December 21 through January 4. I wasn't allowing myself to think about my return trip home until this past weekend. Now, I can't wait for Thursday though I'm still debating what my first meal will be. I hope to talk to you over the holidays. Happy Holidays!

Updates: No particular order

It's been awhile since I last updated and a lot has happened. Rather than try to catch up with everything I'm just going to write about some specific events/thoughts in no particular order.

• I'm all moved in and settled into my house. I've done a lot of work over the last two months to get it into shape and finally I feel like I have a home. Among my bigger projects: building my shower wall up so that it covers more than just my lower half; replacing the actual shower head and pipes so that I can take a shower rather than a bucket bath; painting the inside of the house (it didn't quite come out as I wanted...it looks like a mint chocolate-chip ice cream, but my options were limited and it certainly looks better than what it was); cleaning my backyard of most of the trash that had been thrown there; and building a fence in my backyard that, unfortunately, fails to keep the roosters, cats, dogs, and ducks that still get in.

I also finally have tables, chairs, bowls, more than two plates, and everything else that I was lacking. My site mate just ended her service and left me almost all of her things, including the above items and her first class mattress which, though is wonderfully comfortable, left me with a funny feeling after the first night because I didn't wake up with a deflated four inch mattress resting on the uncomfortable wood frame. You'd be surprised what you get used to.

• I actually think I'm moving up in my age group of friends now that I've been here a little longer. First, the street that I live on is also home to around 6 fourteen to sixteen year olds that I've become friends with. Normally they just come over and sit around, making me say swear words or asking me to talk in English. Although at times I wish I could come home without one of them seeing me and coming over, it's nice to have some friends older than 8 years old. Strangely, the 14-16 year olds remind me of hanging out with my friends from home which has a lot more to do with our immaturity than their maturity.

I also have become better friends with two kids that are around 25. They've helped me do all the work at my house and we're starting to hang out a bit more. My language is getting good enough where I can generally joke around which helps, but it's still hard to make friends here. In the states, you can easily go out and get a drink, go to a movie, or go out to eat. Here, at least in my town, there's nothing like that and if there was no one would have the money to do it anyway. So, the manner in which you become friends is fairly different than what I'm used to. But, like I said, I really do feel like I'm becoming friends with some people and I'm definitely not lonely here...if anything, I could spend more time alone given the street that I live on and the number of kids knocking on my door.

• My birthday last week was actually fun. I was expecting it to be rather boring and uneventful, but it went well. I went over to my host family's house for dinner and my host sister bought ice cream for me after. We walked by La Casa del Adolescente where a youth group that I hang out with meets and heard someone talking in there. I peered in and...Surprise! We ate cake and drank pop (you know, just like my 2st, 22nd, and 23rd birthdays in the States) and there were never ending calls for ¡Dance, David! When I got out of there and finally reached home to have a well deserved drink, my sitemate, and the other two friends I had mentioned earlier came over and hung out. Overall, I had a good time.

• Two weeks ago all the volunteers (around 150) in Nicaragua were invited to spend four nights in a hotel/resort in Managua. The conference happens once a year, the week of Thanksgiving, and gives us the chance to meet the volunteers in other groups and learn more about their work. It was basically two full days of presentations on selected topics that volunteers might be interested in, from your career after Peace Corps, to how to build a community garden. Anyway, the hotel was the same hotel that I stayed at the first three days when I arrived in Nicaragua. I remembered it being alright, but nothing very special and certainly not nearly as nice as the hotel they put us up in in Washington, D.C. So, when I found out that the conference was there, I was excited, but didn't think it was that special. I guess I had forgotten what I'm use to now.

The hotel was awesome this time around. The showers I took twice a day were certainly the nicest showers I've had here in Nicaragua. Hot water and water pressure, how quickly I had forgotten how beautiful you are. The food was all you can eat buffet and included more than just rice and beans. The air conditioning, the pool, the cable tv, none of this I remembered from my first stay when I wrote the hotel off as mediocre at best. At the end of the four nights there this time around (after 7 months here) I was ready to write a five star review. I think I've actually become accustomed to my living conditions here and now after experiencing this hotel, I'm a little worried what might happen when I get to the states.

You mean to tell me that I can throw toilet paper in the toilet and it'll flush. The water comes out hot! What's this...ahhhh, a napkin to wipe my hands off. I don't have to wear shower sandals?

• I finally feel a bit more defined in my work. The school year here ends at the end of November so I won't start teaching again until the end of January. As for my other projects, I'm working with three businesses here. One group makes bamboo baskets that they sell in the markets in the larger cities. Another group is a group of 10 or so women that are just starting to make coffee and ground up powders that the people here use to make several types of drinks. The third business is a restaurant that just opened in my town. Right now I'm working with the first two groups trying to come up with a name for the business, a logo, slogan, etc. Both groups are just selling their products to friends and families, but really have no real grasp of what a business is in the way that we define the word. They have both received funding from a program here in Nicaragua that hands out money to small businesses. So, although they were required to write a business plan to be considered for the funding, I've gathered that the plan was mostly written by outside people and not the actual owners of the business.

The restaurant is a little bit further along, despite being only a couple of months old. I'm just starting to help them with how they manage their accounting. I really enjoy working with the groups, but it is frustrating. There's so many things that need to be done that it's hard to figure out where to start, and everything takes longer than necessary. You want to do so much and it'd be so much easier to do everything myself (the stuff that needs to be done is very basic and would have been done before the business opened in the US), but I can't because one it's not my business or money, and two, they need to learn not only how to do it, but why they should do it. It's certainly challenging, but it's nice to have finally somewhat figured out a few other projects other than the classes at the school. The frustration now is a good type of frustration in that I have figured out what I'm doing, but I'm not in a position to fully start given the vacations here and my vacation to the states in a couple of weeks.

• My beard is over two weeks old.

Why can't I be there?

The beauty of this Motor City season has been the utter surprise. There was no real hope of spring, and no chance of a letdown come the summer. This wasn't the Red Wings or Pistons or Michigan football -- teams that carry expectations like rucksacks. The Tigers were a baby left in a blanket on a doorstep, thrilling with every coo and smile and crawl and wobble. So the city was happy with a winning team, delighted with a contender, giddy with a playoff clinch, and downright dizzy with a win over the almighty Yankees, who will never ever know the wonder of an impossible pennant.

The economy may be bad, and the auto industry may be struggling, and the Lions may be winless, but for a good hour Saturday night, a slab of pavement in Detroit was the happiest place on Earth. The Tigers had given a town its most unforgettable two weeks ever.

The party went on Saturday night, in the lot outside Cheli's, and in the parking structure outside Elwood's, and everywhere in between. And even when Adams went quiet again, well after 10 p.m., there were still two kids hanging on that fence.

Waiting.

Waiting in Palacagüina just isn't the same.

"Today, the league. Tomorrow, the world."

I got home today just in time to turn on the TV and watch the bottom of the ninth inning of the Tigers vs. Athletics game. This is just too good to be true. My host family was a little weirded out to see me jumping in the hair, yelling "Walk off home run, walk off home run!!!!!" but they can think what they want...the Detroit Tigers are in the World Series!

My New House

I finally found a house and moved in two weeks ago...finally. It's essentially a square, concrete structure with a dividing wall in the middle. On either side of the dividing wall are two rooms. Of the four rooms I've made one into my bedroom, one into a kitchen, and one into a living room type area (the other I'm reserving for the hammock I plan on buying). Unfortunately, the house doesn't have indoor plumbing which means I have a latrine in the back and I have to store water to use in the kitchen in a big barrel. It's certainly inconvient, but you get used to it.

The house is a bit of a fixer-upper. Along with being covered in cobwebs when I moved in, the repair work that has been done in the house reminds me of the classic student house in Ann Arbor. Everything is done haphazardly by people that probably shouldn't be doing the repair work in the first place. The owners here don't always have the money to do an effective/professional job, so they let their son, uncle, aunt, or whoever else do the job with whatever's available. That means, I have a light switch that is at ground level, a repaired crack in the wall that is already beginning to crack again, and a closet that is made out of old, rotting wood. But, like that old, shitty college couch that upon first site is deemed too gross to sit on, after a couple days of use the dirt, cobwebs, and faults become your own and you're comfortable with the filth. So it goes with my house and after a couple days of cleaning and repairing the house feels like my own...even if I still have a long way to go.

My first job has simply been to buy the requirments to actually live and cook in the house. Without a Target down the street, this job is much more difficult. I've been all over town questioning people and meeting people in search of tables, chairs, dishes, mattresses, etc. In many respects it's been a two week long Spanish vocabulary session where I'll realize I need a screwdriver, for example, and then walk to the hardware store to describe what I'm looking for. Have you ever tried to describe the word "hook" without also knowing how to say "to hang"? It's hard!

Besides the Spanish, outfitting my house has been a cool experience mostly because it's so different than what I would have done in the US. Everything I've bought has come from a twenty or so block radius. Besides the help of a truck to move a bed and a refridgerator I've made all my purchases on foot, walking from store to store. Need a table? Go to the carpenter's house and give him the drawing. He'll have it done in a week and will transport it to your house in the basket of a vehicle that can best be described as a tricycle. Need a plastic basket? Go to the park where a man has 1980s pickup truck filled with everything from socks to sheets to plastic hampers. It's kind of a Target.

So, after a few weeks of working and buying, I finally got all the things I needed to start cooking this week. This means I'm now on a healthy diet of oatmeal and bananas which is just what the doctor ordered after a lack of fruits, five months of rice and beans, and something fried at every meal. It's beautiful to be able to eat when you want, what you want, and how you want it. Now, if I could only find a Taco Bell.

First Month at Site

I was waiting to update my blog until after I had found a place to rent, but I'm still waiting, and as this marks the first days of my fifth month in Nicaragua, I decided to update anyway.

Things have been going really well. After the first two weeks, things started to pick up a bit more and since, the days have been moving quickly. My work in the schools involves three sections of around 50 students at the institute and one section of 18 students in the more rural school. Right now, I'm mostly observing and helping out the three different teachers I work with, but I plan on starting to teach more formally within the next week or two. I did have the chance to use a class period to introduce myself which was a nice way to break the ice, and since then, the students are a lot more willing to talk to me and I've really enjoyed the classes. Among the questions I've been asked are "What does 'son of a bitch' mean?" "Do you have a girlfriend/how many?" "Have you been to Yankee Stadium?" "Why are all North Americans tall?"

Besides my work in the school, I still hang out a bit at the youth group building. This past weekend they had a small party which I can best describe as a middle/high school dance. The dance floor, at any given point, was filled with five to six couples dancing (certainly not enough to make me feel comfortable dancing) , and several people around the outside watching. It has been my experience at parties that no matter how many people are dancing or how much I don't want to dance, I am asked, pleaded, expected to dance. This party was no different, and as most of the kids there were students from my class, my entrance onto the dance floor was met with shrieks and screams, followed by all eyes on me for the remainder of the song. Thankfully, my site mate was there to share the spotlight a bit.

My housing search has been a frustrating process that still isn't over. There's been a range of issues that I've run into that disqualifies a certain house (too expensive, too close to loud church, no latrine, broken shower, etc.), and unfortunately, I think I've seen just about all there is to see to rent. There are still a couple of houses that I'm waiting to hear back from the owners, so I still have hope to be back on my own after living with a family for four months (try it, it's hard).

As much as I'm ready to have my own place, my family here is really good. My best friend is my four year old cousin who is ready to play when I wake up and when I'm ready to go to bed. He competes for attention with his four month old brother and I, at times, seem to be the only one he can win over. Otherwise, the house is comfortable, the food is good (I'm actually use to beans for breakfast), and the rest of the family is great.

Though my first two weeks went by rather slowly, things have really picked up. Already, with a couple of meetings in Managua scheduled for September and October, I feel like I don't have much time until the school year ends. I hope I can find a house before then!

I'm a Volunteer

After eleven weeks of training, we were finally able to swear in as Nicaragua 41 Small Business Volunteers. I can't say that I felt completely comfortable leaving the schedule of training, but we were all ready to start our service as the end of training was a bit repetitive and we were all looking forward to being closer to living alone.

Week 10 was spent in Niquinohomo. Our last week we had some classes, but really it was a chance to say goodbye to our training families and towns. I was definitely looking forward to moving, but it was hard to say goodbye to my family and friends in Niquinohomo. My family had a goodbye party for three of us, complete with a piñata and every kid on the block, and my mom wouldn't let me leave without at least two plastic bags for my trip and my new town. I don't think I convinced my family that I could indeed wash my own clothes and cook my own meals. When I told them I could do both, it was always met with skeptical looks, so I assured my mom that I would call with my address so that at least she could send me the bread she bakes every Saturday.

Our last week of training was spent in Managua where we had many of the creature comforts we had been missing. Think: air conditioning, McDonalds, Burger King, movie theater. It was a comfortable "vacation" from our normal living arangements. On Friday of our last week, we swore in as Volunteers. It was a real nice ceremony with our training families, Peace Corps staff, US Embassy representative, and Nicaraguan government representative. Several people spoke before we sang both national anthems and took the Peace Corps oath in both Spanish and English. At the end, we were official volunteers.

I spent the rest of the weekend in Managua before leaving for Palacaguina. There were four of us that were able to take the same bus north which was nice to have some company for the three hour trip. Especially since as we approached our towns we were all pretty nervous. I was glad I had the opportunity to visit before arriving, but it was a scary thought that I was really on my own now in my new town. I got off the bus, got my bags and that was it, I was in my town where I would spend the next two years.

Though I've been going to the school and trying to stay busy, my first two weeks have been pretty slow and I anticipate the first few months to be the same. My primary job will be teaching in two schools. The Nicaraguan school year ends in December, so the first few months of my service are designed to give me a chance to get to the know the town, the schools, and my students (and in many cases learn Spanish) before having to formally teach. In January/February I'll begin teaching a junior achievement type course to the equivalent of 11th graders. Until then, I get to observe in the schools and give "charlas" to the students I'll teach in the coming year.

I'll also be working with a youth group that a former volunteer started. I'm still not sure what I'll be doing with the group, but right now I go to the meeting place just about every night to play ping-pong with the kids who are all around 14-18 years old.

For the most part, I've had a much easier time easing into the town than I had anticipated, and things are going really well. My Spanish surely isn't great, but I tested out at a fairly high level considering my entry level, and I'm much more comfortable with my ability. Partly, I'm simply more comfortable going through my day and only understanding a certain percentage of what's said to me, but it gets a little better each day and I can generally fumble through most conversations. The next test will be finding a house to rent and actually understanding/writing a contract with the landlord. I envision no problems with that task.

I had planned on posting the pictures of my training town while I was in Managua. Unfortunately, two weeks before getting to Managua, my camera was stolen while I was eating lunch during a training session. I have a few pictures that I had saved on a jump drive, but the rest were lost. As for pictures of Palacaguina, I hope to borrow a friend's camera for a day to take and post some pictures online.

The Worm Woman of Kalamazoo and IKEA

I initially hated IKEA as I first visited when I lived in London and anything in/around/about London I hated. But, since they built a store within the Metro-Detroit region I've been slowly growing to like the company.

Now, after receiving this link from a former professor, I think I have to love them. Commercial scale vermicomposting! I wonder if Ingvar Kamprad has read Natural Capitalism.

Site Visit

I'm not really sure that I could have gotten a site that I wasn't excited about because I really didn't know any of the sites and I didn't have too many specific things I was looking for. So, I went to Palacagüina (ümlaüt-ville) expecting to like it, and after spending a week there, I'm reading to move in.

We travelled from Managua to Palacagüina on Tuesday morning. The ride is 3-4.5 hours depending on the bus you take (school bus or Greyhound), but it's an otherwise really nice trip through the mountains (especially when along the way you hear The Scorpions hit, The Winds of Change). I travelled with the sub-director of one of the schools I'll teach in, and when we got to Palacagüina he was able to show me around. This was, of course, after we stopped and took a break at a friend's house where we watched the Michael Jackson Thriller, Billy Ocean Get out of my Dreams, Get into my Car, and Gloria Estefan Rhythm Is Gonna Get You music videos. Yes, with the school buses and music, it could be 1985 here.

Anyway, Palacagüina is a small town with around 3,500 people that live within the central city and 15,000 people within the entire municipality. It's a lot cleaner than my training site and has a bit more to offer wtih a couple of restaurants, three internet cafes, a "gym", etc. All in all, for a small town, it has a lot more than most. It's about 20-30 minutes away from the department capital which is a larger city with anything else I would need, including an actual grocery store, and it's an hour to an hour and half away from Esteli, the North's largest city.

The family that I'll live with for the first six weeks is also really nice. The house is smaller than the one I live in now, and it's a lot more basic with concrete walls and a "tile" roof. We have electricity and running water, but the house only has a latrine and my shower is a brick structure with four walls and a door that works well for the short women in my family, but only covers me to my upper chest. The short shower stall makes for a great view of the house kitchen or looking the other way, a great view of Nicaraguan mountains.

I'll be teaching at two schools. One school is within the central city and has 2-3 sections of third year students (it's basically the equivalent of sophomore year in high school) and the other school is in a small rural town about 10 km outside of the city. I didn't get to spend too much time at the schools, but the directors and the few teachers I met seem really nice (they all spoke slowly which is really all I ask) and happy to have me. I also met the coordinators of a youth group that was started by a former volunteer and that I might do some projects with.

Three nights isn't a long enough time to get a great impression of any place, but as first impressions go, I'm really happy with my site. As much as I enjoy being around my training group and having an English outlet, I'm looking forward to having more time and space at my site. And, though I feel like I could still go through months of Spanish classes, I think I'll more quickly learn the language once I'm at my site and surrounded by it all day.

Palacagüina and Parasites

We've been really busy the last few weeks, so I haven't had the time to update. But, a lot has happened and we're almost done with our training period, which is exciting and frightening.

My training group finished our youth group project a couple of weeks ago when we spent three days working with our group and students from two local schools cleaning the main street of Niquinohomo. The street really did look a lot nicer when we were finished, but it was completely trashed again within two days. That was a little discouraging, but without trash service or waste baskets within our town it's hard to fight. Anyway, it's been a lot of fun working with our youth group as most of them are around my age. It's also helped my spanish along.

Our second class at the school was two weeks ago. I taught to the same class which made it quite a bit easier than the first time. My second class was definitely a lot better than my first. My Spanish was a bit better and I was more prepared for the environment.

We also had our second language interview. Basically, you talk with one of the language professors for 10 or so minutes. The conversation is recorded so that when the interview ends two people are able to listen and critique your Spanish ability. My first interview wasn't much of a conversation. It was more me blurting words (and by words, I mean colors) and the two or three phrases that I knew. Needless to say, my second interview was much better. I was graded at the intermidiate level which means I can carry on a simple conversation and "get by." I certainly don't feel all that comfortable with the language, but it has gotten a lot better since I arrived, and the interview helped remind me how much I have improved, even if I have a long way to go.

In other news, this past weekend I woke up on Saturday morning running to the bathroom. I then spent the morning in the bathroom and the rest of the day in bed without energy and with a fever. Sunday, I woke up feeling alright and Monday I was back to normal for the most part, but I learned on Tuesday that I have a bacterial infection and two types of parasites. Pleasant, I know. Truthfully, I feel fine now...it sounds a lot worse than it is. Anyway, I took some pills last night to kill the parasite and for the next three days I have antiboitics to take. The worse part is that it has made me a lot more conscious of what I'm eating and how it's prepared. This makes it a lot harder to eat anywhere in Nicaragua. I haven't had much of an appetite lately, but slowly it's returning.

And...we finally received our sites. For the next two years I'll be living in Palacagüina. We got a list of possible sites two weeks ago and then we had an interview with our boss to explain our preferences. We had to wait a week before finding out which made for some good speculation amongst the trainees. It was a little unnerving the night before knowing that someone else was deciding where you'd live for two years, but I didn't have much of a preference in sites. Beyond Niquinohomo and a few other towns, I really don't know much about other cities and regions of Nicaragua, so it was hard to decide where I wanted to move based on a short paragraph description. Palacagüina sounds good to me.

The town is in the north of Nicaragua, in the department of Madriz. The entire town has around 16,000 people with 3,500-4,000 people within the main city and the rest in the surrounding rural areas. It's the first time that a business volunteer will live there, but there's been a number of health and environment volunteers, and I'll have a sitemate from the health sector. I'll teach in the city school and also in a small rural school outside of the town, and apparently there's several other NGO's that work within the city.

On Monday I leave for a week to visit Palacagüina, giving me a nice chance to get to konw it a bit more before moving there for good. The following week we return to our training towns for our final week of Spanish and technical classes before spending our final week in Managua before swearing in as volunteers and moving onto our sites. The last few weeks are really busy with finishing everything up before training ends.

Other thoughts: How are the Tigers so good and why do I have to miss this season? I can't wait to move back to this. I'm jealous of all that went to Bonaroo. Why isn't anyone going to Nashville for the 4th of July?

Comments

Thanks to everyone that has posted comments so far. I can't quite explain how fun it is to hear from people through email or through this blog, but going through a day only communicating in Spanish is tough, and when I'm able to escape to the internet to enjoy an hour in English hearing from friends and family really is cool. Thanks.

Also, congratulations to Brent Carr on his new job in Houston, Texas. I hope it's not EECS related.

"Teaching" a class

Since my last update, I managed to "teach" a class and travel to Nandaime for a volunteer visit.

As part of our training, we are required to give three or four lessons at one of the local schools in Niquinohomo. The trainees are able to pick the lesson and the class lasts 45 minutes. Easy enough in English, but in Spanish it's another story. If you could hear my Spanish you would laugh at the thought of me teaching a lesson on self-esteem in front of 45-60 sixteen year olds. To add to the problem, the classrooms sit back to back in one building with thin walls and lots of windows, allowing lots of noise to pass through and students to sit outside of the classroom whistling, talking to students in class, and laughing at the instructor.

Other than the environment my class actually went fairly well considering my language ability. We played two games that took up most of the time period and my speaking part was generally scripted out. It also helps that the students are interested in you (at least the first time) and are willing to listen to what the gringo has to say. But, it was scarry getting in front of a class and trying to teach in a second language. I have a lot more respect for the foreign GSI's that I had in college. Brent, give them a break in your next class. It's not easy.

This past week I visited a volunteer in Nandaime, a city about an hour away from Niquinohomo. The visit was for us to get an idea of what it will be like working in the schools, working on secondary projects, and living on our own. It was also a nice break from our training routine and language classes.

The volunteer I stayed with had a fairly large house with two rooms and a porch in the back. The two rooms had nothing except his bike. A bed sat in the middle of his porch and a plastic chair sat in the corner. That was it. He had a broken sink and a toilet that semi-worked, but nothing else. I slept on the floor with a small sleeping bag and a jacket as a pillow, and we traded the chair back and forth through the three days. Despite the living conditions, the visit was pretty cool.

On Monday we rode bikes on dirt roads into the country, crossing two or three rivers and stumbling upon different trails. I haven't seen much outside of the small towns I've visited, so it was cool to see a completely different environment and landscape. Tuesday and Wednesday we spent at the school teaching classes and meeting his students. It was cool to see the actual class and subject that I'll be teaching in a few months.

I learned a lot spending a few days outside of training. Mostly, that it's going to be hard moving to a new town without the safety net of other volunteers within your site. Finding housing, projects, friends, etc. will be a tough task to complete on your own. Especially after establishing a home in my training town. I've become comfortable with my town, my family, and my friends (despite my spanish). It'll be hard to leave and adjust again.

This next week we're busy with our youth group and another class at the school. I'm staying healthy (somehow I didn't get sick after eating trash food and drinking tap water for the weekend) and happy.