Well, I am finally posting again.  I waited until I had a laptop I could use at home rather than sit and sweat in a cybe cafe, and now I have it, thanks to my sister.  We are advised not to buy electronics down here as they are somehow configured differently, or something, even the brands like HP and Compaq, so she bought it up there for me.   I found a vol. who was visiting her family in Annandale, VA so my sister in MD took the computer to her and she brought it to Managua where I met her and we made the handoff. It worked perfectly more or less, the vol. in VA got delayed a couple days at the airport due to snow but I eventually got it and it is working perfectly. 

And, as luck would have it, my next door neighbor is the IT guy for a Spanish NGO here in town and he has wireless internet and has let me pay a little monthly to use it.  I think I have said before that this is the land of contradictions...he and I live on a dirt street, with water and electricity available most of the time, where they raise fighting cocks OPENLY in the dirt yard across the street, where ox carts pass daily....and we have wifi.  I'm not complaining,.,,,,just observing.

I have sort of dreaded posting since it has been such a long time and I had the silly idea that I would have to "catch up" by posting everything that has happened for the past month.  But, finallly, it occurred to me that I did not have to do that....its MY blog, so I can blog how much or how little I want....why did it take me so long to figure that out ? 

I have acquired a pet, Nici, a kitten who was treed in a neighbors yard.  She is calico and very cute.  Many cats downhere are inbred and have a long pointed face with large ears.  I am sure they are very sweet too but I was hoping I'd get one that looked more normal, and I did.  I'll try to post a photo but still am not sure how to do that.  I have found someone already to take her when I leave in a couple years and I also have a girl who will take care of her when I have to leave for more than a day at time.  People here are totally mystified by an "indoor" cat and the litter box concept.  Personally, I don't love the litter box concept either, but we live right on the road where trucks pass at high speeds ( yes, creating huge dust clouds)  some times and there are lots of dogs running loose. She'll get to go outside when she is older and faster !!  There are a lot of veternarians here, I guess because there are so many farm animals of various types.  So, right away, I got cat food ( they thought I was crazy when I asked if it was OK to feed to a kitten) and a big bag full of serrin ( thats Spanish for sawdust)  Kitty litter has not made its way down here yet.  Also, the vet recommended a pastilla for parasites.  So, I took her in ( no appt) he weighed her ( three pounds) in the same scale he weighs out the chicken mash in and he sold me a pastilla.  He charged me10 cordobas...thats about 50 cents. Now that is certainly something that is cheaper down here. 

School has not started yet for the kids,  but the teachers went in all this past week.  I really do admire and enjoy the teachers.  At one school, the catholic/public partnership school, the teachers are all young and seem to be best friends.  At the other, the public school, the teachers are more of a mix, many on the older side, but still all seem to be very friendly with each other and very very friendly toward me.  Both are very nice places to go each morning.  The catholic school has an English teacher so I have been working with him every morning this past week with some kids who failed the english exam at the end of the last school year and have a couple weeks of tutoring and then the opportunity to take it again next week.  That has been a lot of fun. The English teacher is very motivated to improve his own English so we have a lot of discussion too.  He corrects my Spanish and I reciprocate.  You know I love doing that.

Yesterday was an especially productive day for me.  I started out with the English class, until about 9 :30 am and afterwards was at my house, honestly planning to post to my blog, when the mother of one of the deaf kids who I have talked about earlier came to my door.   We had had a meeting the previous Friday with a representative of  the national assn. for sordos ( Spanish for deaf) , a representative from the public school system ( special ed) and four families here in my town who have deaf kids

I think I mentioned earlier that on one of my first days here, I observed the special ed. class in the local public school and discovered 3 teen aged boys who were deaf and had not received any special training in signing and the teacher had not had any training in how to work iwth them.  The boys are all very well behaved and well dressed and have families that are very strong and supportive but things down here are so hard to manage, I believe the families had just figured the would have to accept what ever the school offered.  Anyhow, out of ignorance or hutzpah or a combination of both, I started exploring resources and found the national assn. in Managua and set up a meeting with the executive director, that was about two months ago.  I bought several sign language dictionaries and gave them to the boys and their families here in my town.  The schools were on vacation at the time time, so things were a little harder than normal to orchestrate but eventually we got the meeting put together that we had last week.  The lady from Managua ( about 2 hours away) came, she brought the lady from special ed. who works out of Leon ( which is only about 45 minutes away)and I got 4 of the 5 families here in my town to show up.

  As it turned out, one of the deaf boys brought  another young girl ( aged 23) who lives nearby who is deaf but who had gone to a special school where she had learned some sign language when she was very young, a primary school.  She has a diploma from primary school but that is as far as she has gone in school ( 6th grade)  She seems perfectly intelligent.  Also, her mother told me yesterday that she could hear with the hearing aids they had loaned her at that school but they did not have money for them and the gov. does not provide them.  They are a typical very poor family which has just accepted their lot.  She did not seem angry when she told me that, just resigned.  I am hoping to find some resources for the girl's hearing aids.  Anyhow, the lady from Leon, the special ed. lady, was so impressed with this girl and what she had retained from her very early training in sign language, that she has arranged for this girl to get further training to be a sign language instructor so she then will come back here and teach the families and our children to sign.  Apparently, she will actually be hired by MINED ( That stands for Minister of Education) immediately, with her 6th grade education, to work in the mornings with these other deaf kids here in my town to teach them what she already knows, and then in the afternoons she will travel by bus to Leon where she will have her classes to get further training.  Apparently, she will be able to get her high school degree and then continue to get her "license" as a teacher.  I don't know if I have described this adequately, but its all pretty amazing to me.  Here was this 23 year old deaf muchacha ( a general affectionate  term for young woman) living in the country with a 6th grade education and helping her mother raise more kids then one day, out of the blue, she has the opportunity to finish high school, go to college, and have a profession here in Nicaragua.  Granted. a lot has to fall into place between now and then, and I do have a tendency to jump to conclusions,but ....I see this as a big WIN !!!! The families of the boys are pleased to as they will now have her as an instructor in their classroom teaching them  ....something they have not had before. 

One other experience I want to  share...its another bus experience.  I was sitting in a seat next to the window near the front of this bus when the bus stopped and there was a lot of shifting and squeezing going on in the aisle as people from the back were making their way forward to get off.  One really fat guy squeezed thru, I could see and feel the trouble he had passing in the aisle next to where I was sitting.  Finally, thru my window,  I saw him sort of squirt out the  bus door and was shocked to see not only a giant belly in front, but I also discovered that he had squeezed past all those people with a firearm of some sort, a gun, stuck in his belt, not a holster, just stuck in his belt.  He is one of our policia nationale.  What amazes me is that he apparently had no fear that anyone would touch his gun as he squeezed past them.....amazing.

Another thing I want to share...before I left Boulder, .I had changed my mailing address so that I would get an absentee ballot.  I was upset that it never did arrive and was blaming everyone from the Clerk and Recorder in Boulder to the poor souls at the Managua post office.  Well, it came a few days ago with the stamp " Missent to HoChi Minh City"  Now doesn't that just beat all ???

Now, I am going to try to figure out how to post some photos.

PS, thanks for all the birthday greetings ....its just great turning 65!!!!

More later,
Pat