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......
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