Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Correction coming thru

OK, those of you who know Ramelle, also know that he knows just about everything there is to know.  So...I have to correct my last post.  After Ramelle pointed out to me that Oxen are usually driven by a stick,( I had posted that the cart driver had reins ( silly me) I went back and looked at the photo more closely, and sure enuf, that sullen looking man driving those oxen was indeed doing it with a long skinny stick.  Like I said, they were not strolling, maybe trotting oxen style, and they made a hard left turn without slowing down.  I don´t know what he would do if they did not do what the stick told them.  Hope to never find out.

If anyone who reads this blog wants to know anything about anything, just post it here and I will forward it on to Ramelle...our living breathing encylopedia !!!!! :)))))

Saturday, November 27, 2010

First report from my site

Well, I am here amongst the folks I´ll be living with for the next two years.  It is a great little pueblo with amazing people.  Well, the guy I took a photo of this morning was not too ¨friendly¨looking.  I live on a dirt street, in a part of a house that is on a corner.  So, about 6 I went out to turn on the water ( the owner turns it off at night as she thinks there is a leak in the lines and does not want to spend the money to find it)  and found a team of oxen pulling a load of firewood heading down my street at a fast pace.  There was a strong looking guy standing on the wagon with the reins and a young boy on top of the load.  I ran inside and got my camera and took a couple shots. Neither of them smiled but its a great shot.  I still don´t know how to get my photos from my camera tothe computer but when I figure it out, I´ll post it. 

So, here I am.  We got sworn in as real live PC vols. on Nov. 22 in Managua and the Country Director had us all ( 43 in total) to her house for a turkey dinner that evening.  She is a really lovely person.  The dinner was great and they had a pumpkin pie made from a squash they have here , ayote.  It seems if you add all the right spices and follow a recipe the PC has put together, you get a ¨¨pumpkin¨pie.  It was incredibly similar and very tasty. 

I got to my site on the 23rd but could not stay at my place as it was not exactly ¨ready¨for me.  the owner claims she was not expecting me for several more days but......Anyhow, I got back on the bus and spent the night at a great hostel in Leon, the Sonati, for $17 for a private room with a private bath.  The next day I had a meeting already planned with some other PC vols from last year to go over their triumphs and disasters in their classrooms, so it was not a wasted trip.  We met at a Gringo cafe, Cafe Rosita, in Leon near the Claro ( one of two phone providers) building.  I recommend visiting Leon for anyone interested in trying Nicaragua.  It has the central american crazy market scene, mixed with some beautiful Spanish style buildings from when the Spanish had colonized here, and very friendly people.  There are several European style hotels and some restaurants with good reputations and lots of small streets, crowded with taxis and people, lots of hustle and bustle,  a good place to visit.

  My daughter, son in law and their three girls are planning to viist here in April which is reputedly the hottest month of the year.   Should be fun for all.   The week they are coming is called Semana Santa, the weeks of the saints so they´ll be lots of festivals at night, lots of really loud music and dancers.  Somehow scantily clad dancers and regatone music is appropriate at these festivals celebrating various saints....thank god !!!  Schools are closed that week so I should be able to get vacation time to be with them.....in Leon and then for a few days in Costa Rica. 

In addition to my encounter with the ox cart this morning, I have had several interesting encounters.  I went to an end of the year ( they have off the months of Dec. and Jan ) teacher´s meeting and was very impressed by the things I heard the teachers saying.  They are very poorly paid, about $200 a month ( 4000 cordobas) for hot work in crowded classrooms in conditions you can´t even imagine.  I blogged earlier about a campo (rural) school but the situations in all the schools are challenging yet the teachers ( god bless 'em) hang in their and do a great job.  The children all wear dark blue pants or skirts  ( the girls wear white sox with black shoes) white shirts or blouses.  They are beautiful.  They run wild just like our kids even tho its beastly hot here.  They have a  promotion program next Tuesday which is quite festive, I believe, so I´ll be going to that.
The teachers all think its funny that I try to dance, they just giggle and shake their hips and say¨bailar.¨  But, its more fun than sitting around smiling and wondering what everyone is saying, which is my only other choice at this time.  You can´t have a conversation, even if you can speak Spanish, as the music is always tooo loud.

Last night I went to the first Christmas program of the community held at the other school I´ll be working at.  Its a public/catholic arrangement and the folks there seem great too and very excited to have me coming.  I´ll be spending these next two months getting acquainted with the community and meeting people and the kids so I´ll be ready to start at school on Jan. 31. The program was outside, with huge speakers, they love really loud music, but the kdis were great singing and dancing to Christmas songs.  We did not get rain so everyone was happy.  There must have been a hundred people there.  I was told that the money raised would go to pay the social security for the teachers.  I will be working with a teacher there who teaches English, along with some other of their teachers for my environmental classes, and he is very very interested in speaking English with me.  He told me about some other volunteers he works iwth, one group from some evangelical church in PA so I want to find out more about them.  Lots to do and learn.

This school tried to plant a garden ( its required by the Dept. of Ed. in an effort to improve the nutrition of the school children) but did not have much success so they are looking forward to starting it again with me.  I looked at their garden last night, there were a few sad looking chiltoma ( green pepper) plants standing there and then I looked up, its right under a huge tree.  We´ll be moving the garden......

One of my schools has 3 deaf kids in a special ed. class with a teacher who wants more training to work with them so I have an appt. with the Nic. assn. for surdos/mutos  ( deaf/mutes) in Managua next Wednesday ( its a 3 hour bus ride from here) so I´ll get to try my Spanish.  I´ll spend some time this weekend writing out what I think I´ll have to say so I can practice certain words.

Yesterday I went back into Leon to buy a few things and get some cash.  On the bus home, a really really crowded bus, I was sitting next to two other people ( on a two person seat) actually I was hanging off into the aisle and there were two people standing in the same aisle next to our seat, but I did not have it so bad, across from me were three people in that seat too and one woman was holding a toddler on her lap ( all in about 90 degree weather) and we were all sweating up a storm and standing or sitting cheek to cheek. No one complained, not even me, given the fact that I have it so much better than everyone else !!!  Anyhow, as I was struggling to get my bus fare out ( 15 cordobas) and fumbling around with a handful of change and  a 100 cordoba bill, the lady next to me, said, in Spanish that I udnerstood somehow, ¨let me see what you've got¨So I dumped my pile of change into her hand, she counted out what  I needed, and dumped the rest back into my back pack. And smiled.  Turns out she works in the kitchen in one of my schools and also rides the bus to Leon everyday to sell food at the bus terminals.  Talk about working hard....she looked about my age...but she could have been a lot younger....works ages you. 

One last thing, I  was walking along one of our paved street the other day, with my umbrella up ( its not so hot in the shade) and a huge 18 wheeler came at me ( actually there were two of them) loaded with peanuts.  It took up the whole street with only about 1 foot on each side, which means about 1 foot from the doorways.  Crazy....but a good crop I guess. There is a lot of beautiful farm country around here, surrounded by volcanoes......lots of contradictions.....

Thats all for now.....hope all had a good Thanksgiving....my sweet daughter celebrated her birthday the same day.....I made my first phone call from Nicaragua to celebrate with her......what a girl she turned out to be.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

A little more info

My daughter asked about my ¨quarters.¨  Here is what I told her....

I have a three burner gas cooktop and a gas tank attached,  a bike ( that needs a lot of tune up work which I´ll get done as soon as I get back, a fan, three tables, a rocker, a plastic chair, a bed frame, a place to hang clothes...and a bunch of pots, pans nad dishes all of which I bought from the previousl vol. for $75.  Doesn´t sound like much, but most new vols. start out with nothing so at least I have a place to cook nad sit.  My bathroom and shower are outside but are in little houses ( its not an outhouse but you have to throw water down it to get it to flush) and the shower is just a pipe that comes out of hte wall...the water is not heated but it comes out of the ground a little warm due, I guess, to all the volcanoes around here and the geothermic heat.

The total square footage is probably about 200 but thats enuf for me.  I had a little trouble sleeping this past week as everyone has chickens and at least one rooster in their yards.  And , of course, the ever present dogs that apparently do not sleep ever !!!!! 

I expect to accumulate more stuff as I need it and am here for a while.  Like, get this, I have wifi access in my hovel.  The folks next door have it so my predecessor shared the expense with them and I said I would do that too.  I don´t have a laptop yet but my daughter and her family plan to come down next April so I have asked her to bring me one.  I am told not to trust the mail delivery system in Nic. ( specifically anything that has to go thru the Leon post office) with anything more than a flat envelope.  I have gotten a couple boxes that came thru the Manaugua correa, but I´m not going to chance it with the Leon folks.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Report on my site

I have just finished a 5 day visit to my site in Malpaisillo.  I head back to my little bario of Jinotepe tomorrow for a couple more weeks of entrenamiento ( training and language classes) then we swear in on Nov. 22 and then I am back here for 2 years on Nov. 23.    This place is quite different from Guisquiliapa, my training town. Its more of an urban setting but there are only two paved streets.  The suelo ( dirt) around here is very black, volcanic soil, I believe.  The folks I will be working with are terriffic.  One of them, Profe Adalayda, the director of the escuela ( school)  que se llama ( called)   18 Junio ( thats the the date the town was liberated by the Sandinistas from the Somozo´s National Guard in 1979)  There is so much political stuff that goes on.   If the Sandinistas should lose the election next year, the name of the school will change back to what is was before the Sandinistas got elected a few years ago.  Funny, actually the school still has the old name painted on some its walls.  I´ll be working in that school with 3 or 4 teachers and in another school, Nuestra madre Fatima, its a catholic school but gets some public funding somehow, with 3  teachers there.  This morning I met the English teacher there and he is all excited.  His English is pretty good but he´s Nica so of course he has an accent.  We are thinking that maybe we can combine my lessons on the environment with his English lessons and get both done together.  The kids all want to learn english far more than they want to learn about the environment so maybe that will be an incentive.  

Last evening, one of the profes from 18 Junio came by on her bike to take me on a little tour of the town.  I bought the bike from the leaving volunteer ( whose little space I am also renting for $50 a month, more about that later) so I hopped on my bike and we took off.  As I said, there are only two paved roads and they are paved only thru the busier part of town, they turn to dirt pretty fast and the dirt is pretty loose in spots - had to do some serious steering to avoid the cow poop, the running waste water and the many people who are out in the streets in the early evening.  We had to take one detour as we saw some muchachas coming our way with a young bull on a mecate ( rope) egging him on to be rowdy.  We found another route.  We went  looking at the few remaining trees from the old growth ( over 100 years old - I think we have found 5 remaining in the town) One is in the middle of the bus terminal which is a wide space surrounded by an authentic market, little stalls selling all sorts of things.  There is a group of women who sell various foods and drinks to the buses as they roll in, always blaring their horns and going way to fast, but so far I have not seen anyone or anything squashed.  There are lots of  ¨tricicles¨ three wheeled carts, powered by a youngish male with a bench in front of him with a little roof.  It is very cute to see them coming at you...today I saw three little kids in their school uniforms sitting in there on their way to preschool.  Very cute.


  So, my assignment is to teach about the environment in the schools, to work with the teachers to help them use more participatory strategies, to start a vegetable in as many schools as I can and to work with other NGOs ( ONGs in Spanish) on secondary projects whenever possible.  I have met some other volunteers from a couple other NGOs with similar goals so I think that will turn out pretty good. One amazing thing I found out is that there is a public access TV station located in a little casita ( thats a nice name for a shack) about a block from me.  Seems like a good place to put PSAs about discharging soapy water into the streets, trash in the streets, etc.

Oh, can´t forget this...   The school, 18 junio, has a special ed. class.  Not sure how many kids are supposed to be in but when I observed last week, there were 5.  Two are deaf, one can hear but not speak ( they are all about 15) one girl who looks about 15 and maybe is down syndrome, and one about 10 whose looks did not reveal anything but the teacher says she can´t learn.  So.....they were all stringing beads and making necklaces when I got there.  There was not a book or paper in sight.  The teacher has no training at all in special ed...she is in the class because she got anxiety attacks with the regular classes....while I was sitting there being chummy with the kids, an old man came to the fence and grunted...the kids all looked out and I learned that he is student in the class....he is 43 !!  He is clearly severely impaired and they say he has no where else to go during the day, his mother died last year, and he does not harm the other kids so they let him come to SCHOOL !!!!!  Can you imagine that !!!   I have my work cut out for me in this regard....those deaf kids don´t have any signing skills, they could not write their names when I asked them all to sign my book, they are not behavior problems and they sure seem to me like they could learn .  I know there are schools for the deaf in Leon but it is a 75 cent bus ride away and apparently the school district does not provide transportation.   Work to do there !!!!    The school summer vacation starts for all the kids at the end of November and they are out until the end of January so I´ll have some time to figure this out.  Apparently there is a woman here in Nicaragua who was a PC vol. for a couple of years but then decided to stay.  She is in her 60s and apparently is a sign language instructor somewhere here.  I need to find her....fast. 

And the other amazing thing is that last Friday, serendipitiously, there was a meeting at the school for the parents of the special ed kids. !!!! I got introduced but I didn´t say anything since I can barely speak to one person at a time, surely not a room full.  But, it was nice to see those parents all together ....like old times !! Apparently, they have an ïnclusion¨law but I don´t know where it is or what it actually says so that will be a project for me too when I get back here at the end of November.  MINED, Minister of Education, is in Managua so I´ll go there.  Apparently, there is a special ed. office.  Hope my Spanish improves fast !!! 

It has improved a lot but I still speak very slowly and often has to rephrase what I want to say so that I can used words and verb tenses that I know. 

One last thing before I go....yesterday afternoon, when I did not have anything to do and was sitting in my place reading ¨The girl with the dragon tatoo ¨( very good by the way)  a cock fight broke out in the yard of the casita across the dirt street from me.  I watched for a while from behind my wooden doors ( I have these two wooden doors that close in the middle behind one of those open iron work security doors). Apparently, cock fighting is against the law, but people train cocks to fight by coming togehter in yards ( across the street from me for example !!) and stirring up fights.  They don´t have those awful blades on the cocks so there is no blood, just a lot of crowing and squawking.  I got outraged for a while but I settled down.  These people are so poor and have so few things to enjoy in their lives, I decided to let them do this in peace....since they´ve been doing it forever anyhow and I am not going to change them.  Hopefully, their children will have more choices and make better choices.......

The birds were georgeous and the owners picked them up and stroked their feathers very lovingly and then shortly after that, placed them on the ground and egged them on to fight.  Go figure !!!çç

One more last thing, I went to Leon on Saturday for the day of looking around.  There is a huge mercado there with all kinds of scary and exciting activities and there is also a central business district that has a very European look in a central american sort of way.  There is a huge cathedral in Leon, takes up an entire city block, has 5 colonades inside, very very lovely in a churchy sort of way.  There is a museum of the revolution and of course many many universities.   Leon is about 1 hour away by bus and that bus ride is an experience in itself.

So, thats all for now.  I am getting closer and closer to actually doing some productive for the kids here.  It is so funny, they gather around me and stare like I am Santa ( or mrs. Santa).   They are beautiful in their little uniforms and georgeous hair and skin.

Thanks for the emails.   Ellen, I loved all that info.  I´ll respond soon.  The cyber is closing now.

Love to all......