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.
So glad to read an update, Pat. re: Semana Santa -- I remember that week! We (Goshen College students) went to the beach that week and stayed in a house owned by the nuns who ran the school we taught in. I also went to church with my family in Loma Linda. As we were walking to the church, one of my "parents" said to me, "Por fin!" (i.e., FINALLY I went to church with them.) I recall that I barely understood anything that was going on in the service, it being Catholic and in Spanish. There was also a small neighborhood parade. We got our first snow flurries here today. Stay cool! Love, Ellen
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