Hurricane, Cramped microbuses, and the stickiest situation yet

2008 31 May

May 28th

With today being our group’s first day without a Spanish moderator, things started off slow from the get go. Though I feel it is more an earned privilege rather than a break. We got to start the day an hour later, and when we arrived at Avi’s house to do our training interviews with Ashley, our master trainer, we were informed that he would show up at 10:00. With Avi and Owen at their youth group, Jordan and I hung out on the porch and chatted while we waited for Ashley. As things generally go in Nicaragua, Ashley showed up 20 minutes late, on top of planning to arrive an hour later than he initially said. I gave my evaluation of training. I had good things to say about everything about training, with the exception being my displeasure for the calendar/schedule making process we were put through Monday and Tuesday. To my delight, Ashley informed me that there was miscommunication and that what we did was unnecessary. Good. I almost felt vindicated when he told me that, as that was the only reason I didn’t receive a high mark for my attitude. Go Go Goggins Go!

After the interview, we sat around and hung out with Roger, one of the Peace Corps training facilitators. As we realised we weren’t really doing anything entirely productive, Jordan and I took off and went back home to eat before we had to head to San Marcos – the location of today’s training session. We have a set of “tools” to use when we get on site called PACA tools. It basically breaks down to things we can do with the community to promote understanding of community needs and stimulate thought about what could be done to amend community deficiencies. It was a pretty basic training session as most of us had already implemented the PACA tools with our youth groups, but it did help clarify some issues we had with the tools.

Two of the volunteers had birthdays this month, so Peace Corps brought them a cake. It was a sort of sky blue colour and absolutely loaded with frosting. Loaded as in it had the amount of frosting you always wanted on your birthday cake when you were a kid. However, being far removed (some of us more so than others, and all but one more so than me) from our childhood, the frosting was a little too much to handle – but I still went back for a second piece loaded with frosting, just to make sure.

Our Masatepe group got our schedule for readings we’re supposed to do for each week. Due to our lack of a facilitator, we’ll now be doing 3 readings a week, then discussing them every Tuesday at Jordan’s house. This is great because A: Jordan’s house is a 20 second walk from my house, and B: Because we meet at 10 AM on Tuesday (if I every decide that I want/am able to sleep past 6 AM). We also were told about our trip to Managua we’re making tomorrow. It’s at some university called U.C.A. (University of Central America I think), and apparently there is a microbus that leaves Masatepe and will drop us off at the front door of the university – sweet deal.

It has been raining every afternoon now, which has sucked. Surprisingly though, I haven’t been nearly as frustrated/bummed out by the rain as I was in the U.S. Maybe it’s because of the buildings, or cars driving down the road and reminding me that the roads will yield a sloppy bike ride, or that I actually had a bike to rides (I miss you Bella and Madeline!). Whatever it is, I’m just glad I’m not as infuriated about it as I imagined I’d be.

May 29th

Well, it’s 1:30 PM right now, and it’s impossible to do anything right now (more on that later), so I’ll give a run down of how today went (since the day is already over).

We had to be in Managua at U.C.A. this morning at 8…and as I continually learn, it generally doesn’t work that way – today was no exception to this rule. It started raining yesterday at around 4 and still has not stopped. It’s not just rain – it’s an absolute downpour. I’ve never seen so much rain in my life. So this morning we had to meet in the park to catch a microbus to Managua. I called a mototaxi…but 7 AM rolled around (the time I was supposed to be on the bus, and 30 minutes after I called him), and he still wasn’t there. Coincidentally, Jordan had called one as well and stopped by my house and picked me up. At the bus stop, we met up with Avi and waited for the bus. It was 7:15 before the bus (more of a van than a bus) finally arrived. We all piled in the bus (by piled, I mean way over capacity), and headed towards Managua while picking up a few people along the way (including Owen who went to the wrong stop). When we finally had the microbus full, we had 19 people (not including the driver) in a van that had seating for 8. I was in the front row, but we put two people and a police officer facing Avi and I, then some lady gave me her bag to hold while she stood wedged between the seat and the door. The guy sitting next to me had a gigantic 40 lb bag of rice on his lap and other people had some bags as well. You really didn’t have much room to move/breathe, but it worked out. It was total gridlock traffic in Managua, which made the trip a little less pleasant. We had to open a window and I had to unzip both my coats due to the immense heat that 19 people crammed in that van caused.

Ultimately we arrived in rainy Managua where a Peace Corps vehicle was waiting for us. We got in and we’re told that we were headed to the U.S. embassy, not a conference on youth at U.C.A. like I thought. We got brought to the Peace Corps headquarters where we got to meet some current volunteers that are going to give us a presentation tomorrow during our Friday training session. The power in the building kept going on and off which was kind of weird (I thought all U.S. government buildings would have some sort of hardcore generator or something). After about 20 minutes at the headquarters, we all hopped in the Peace Corps minibus with our awesome driver Douglas (the one who treats us to blaring 80’s music every ride). There was no music this time around, but with only 8 volunteers (our group and the advanced Spanish group from the TEFL program), maybe Douglas a few more people to morph into the Peace Corps party bus.

We arrived at the embassy (an incredibly massive compound) and went around to the entrance where we had to give up our cell phones, flash drives, and a bunch of magazines I didn’t feel like carrying. We were issued ID badges and packed into a van where we were driven 100 feet to the next building (I must have been back in America!). We got off the bus where we surprisingly met the U.S. ambassador who was coincidentally out there smoking a cigar. The embassy itself is hardcore, and just screams ‘America’ in every way, shape, and form. Just to confirm this, I peaked into the bathroom to see that it was indeed designed by some American. Next to some army command center in the middle of the room, we were led into some conference room complete with plasma TV, upside down electrical plugs, high speed internet connection, ceiling mounted projector, and of course – Oreos for snacks.

We were given an informal presentation about scholarships provided to Nicaraguan youths on behalf of the U.S. government, and we also found out more about what resources we can use for youth groups (the embassy has distribution rights for every American movie), and they briefed us on camps that we could assist with throughout the year. It was cool to see the sorts of projects that we could get involved with that weren’t Peace Corps related.

After the presentation, we checked out a library that we could utilize if we ever want material for our schools (when we get to our sites). After 15 minutes there, we left. Instead of being treated to the van ride the 100 feet to the gate, they made us walk. I guess they were transitioning us back to life in Nicaragua.

After piling into the Peace Corps vehicle, we were on our way back to our training sites. The ride was about 3 times longer than it normally is due to the torrential downpour we were having. Additionally, we got into the hills and there was incredibly thick fog you couldn’t see more than 10 feet through. We all were fine with the delay as we got to chat with the TEFL volunteers from Diriamba that we rarely see. It’s hard to explain, but you really start to pick up on what is a typical Peace Corps conversation – overly personal things (from an outsiders point of view), with absolutely nothing off limits. The frankness can be hysterical at times.

I finally got back home to find my yard completely flooded (even more than it normally is during rain) to find everybody in my living room. Apparently the power went out because all this rain and wind is from a hurricane that just hit the country. Initially, it was a tropical storm, but at 11 AM today, it was upgraded to a hurricane. So hurricane Alba is my first experience with a hurricane! I was kind of relieved to find out it was a hurricane because I had never seen rain like this in my life. I know it’s supposed to rain like crazy until at least Saturday, but I don’t know if it will rain on Sunday (when the power goes back on, I’ll check out the status on this hurricane that I knew nothing about). I gotta start watching the weather more often, or maybe start reading the newspaper.

So yea, that’s my day – there’s a hurricane going on and the power is out.

I have a youth group later today, but something tells there won’t be many people that are going to show up in the middle of…well, a hurricane. I don’t really want to show up anyway.

May 30th

So, as a result of the hurricane, we were all picked up at our houses to go to training. We were all put in standfast mode (stay at your sites) as a result, so Peace Corps didn’t want us moving around. The Peace Corps is pretty hardcore on security, so they drove us the 7 km to San Marcos for the day’s training session. The training session was more of the same – a rabies shot, learned about ways to protect ourselves (rape and sexual assault), and about how we’re going to work with small businesses in our sites.

It was relatively smooth sailing, and we got back to our houses around 4 PM. Some of the trainees from Niquinohomo came to Masatepe after training to go to our supermarket. I accompanied them because I had the strange idea that I would actually want something there – I didn’t. So I headed back home, changed out of my PC clothes, and headed over to the internet café. I had a pretty good journal post for the day, but upon arriving, realised I hadn’t uploaded the entry onto my flash drive. Shame, shame, shame. I caught up on some of the U.S./World news and then headed back home with Avi (who I ran into at the cyber café). He was meeting Owen at the park and they were going to Perry (a TEFL volunteer that lives in Masatepe) at 8 PM. I decided I’d join them, so I went to the park as well. It was a gorgeous night – much different from the past 3 nights with the tropical storm. Avi finally showed up, and we headed to Perry’s house and we hung out with her and her roommates. She lives with 2 Germans and a Romanian, all of which are pretty cool, and we sat around and spoke in Spanish for a couple of hours. We started to get into some chisme (gossip) that was floating around the town about PC volunteers and trainees, but ultimately Jordan and I decided to head home at around 10:40. We chatted a good bit for a couple of blocks and we ultimately realised all those charlas we were given about how to protect ourselves we were going to have to use.

While walking past the park, some drunk people approached us, but onward we went. First obstacle passed. It was almost like a video game, you had to devise a strategy to minimize eye contact/maximize distance between the drunks to get to your final destination. We walked down the principal calle and went down a street that we normally walk down. However, this time we had 2 guys behind us. One of them was following us pretty aggressively, which we definitely noticed. We turned on the next street and they guys pretended they were going straight but ultimately turned and followed us again. We realised this was going to be bad and stopped on the next corner. Jordan busted out her cell phone and made the fake phone call that PC tells us to do. This scared away the drunk guys and they walked down the next street. The bad thing was that we needed to head in the direction the guys went. We decided to walk up (south) one more street before heading to the west (the direction of our houses). We got to the cuadro (the not so nice place) and upon our arrival, we found a less than pleasant group of men approaching us, and to complement this lovely situation, there were our aggressive buddies coming at us from the north. Jordan started running south down the road while I just walked fast. I was just going to sacrifice myself to by her some time – but luckily we didn’t need it. She found a mototaxi, so we got in. The guy tried to grab us in the mototaxi as we drove past him, but we made it and got back home safely. So those Peace Corps suggestions came in handy – thank you Peace Corps!

I’d always walked with Jordan everywhere before this happened, and coincidentally we just discussed situations like this today. Lesson of the day – the buddy system works.

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Posted by thegoggins

Whoops

2008 30 May

I forgot to put my journal entries on my flash drive before coming to the internet cafe.

However, as you might have guessed, I survived Hurricane Alma. I was out working out on the broken swingset in the middle of it while it was raining like crazy – but whatever. The eye passed over me while I was out there which was pretty cool to see. The clouds were spinning around like crazy.

But yea, I´m alive. I´ll post my journal tomorrow.

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Posted by thegoggins

More Masatepe, Profe Gogs, and me going native

2008 28 May

May 26th

 

Due to this being our last week with our Spanish facilitator, our only task this morning was to make a calendar with everything we are going to do until Mid-July. That’s FOREVER AWAY. I can’t even decide what I’m going to plan for one day, let alone for the next 8 weeks. So as I planned it and even got so frustrated, I went into hysterics – literally. I had a laughing attack and just lost it because I just couldn’t handle it. Peace Corps is requiring it of us since we’ll be on our own for the most part the next 8 weeks. So…I made a schedule…I don’t intend to follow most of it…but at least they have a schedule now. Following the planning of my life the rest of training, I practiced my class that I was going to give later today. The morning flew by as we had barely anything to do, so I went home and got some lunch.

 

The game plan for the afternoon consisted of me teaching a class at 1:30. Usually my class is at 2, but due to exams this week, they altered the schedule. However, upon arriving, I met with the director of the school who told me that not only was it a different schedule, but it was completely different from what they had told us. She told me that my class in fact had been canceled. We tried to find out what the schedule was from some of the professors, but it appeared that nobody in the whole institute knew. So we set a tentative game plan that I would teach the same grade, but after recess – yay, after recess. Not only that, but our business program director decided that she wanted us teaching more than 6 classes. So if all goes according to plan, I’ll end up teaching 8 classes before I go to my site. The other business volunteers are only going to end up teaching 3 classes, so I should really reap the benefits of this once I start teaching full time at my site. While it’s kind of a pain to be doing now, the practice will probably pay off in the long run.

 

Jordan and I had another youth group meeting this afternoon, which was kind of a downer. Our group isn’t the most motivated, and motivating them is proving to be quite a task. We aren’t getting the attendance we’d hoped for, and it’s really hampering our efforts. We’re not allowed to suggest ideas for the group to do, because if the group isn’t interested in the activity, they just won’t show up. The only group member who ever has any ideas/anything to say about the project, wasn’t too positive today. He doesn’t think our project, a “cine club”, will work, nor does he know how it will work. Hopefully we can convince him otherwise.

 

May 27th

 

I didn’t expect today to be very noteworthy today – and it really wasn’t. The game plan for the day was to teach my first class with 9D (Ninth grade, level D), and then relax the rest of the day. However, as I have learned, things generally don’t go according to your plan. The class I was to teach is at the same time as my Monday class, but due to finals, it was canceled. So my planning for the class and what not went down the drain and will have to wait until the following week. All in all, I should be able to teach 8 classes by the time I finish my training July 18th.

 

Peace Corps wanted a more legible copy of my calendar of events for the next 2 months, so I had to redo all of it again, albeit more compliant this time around. Yesterday I was overly peeved that I had to dedicate time to doing their schedule while I had to practice for my class (more on the result of that later). So I planned that again, but this time only allotted myself 2 hours every morning to read the newspaper as opposed to the four I had provided myself on the previous schedule. What can I say? I’m willing to read a little bit faster for Peace Corps. I even put some TV watching time into my schedule – how generous of me.

 

This was our last day with our Spanish facilitator, so we did a bunch of pencil pushing and all sorts of other formalities. Since my class was now canceled because of exams, I went from having very little to do this week, to having nothing very significant to do this week. It really is quite a radical shift from the first 2 weeks of training. I guess this is what the volunteers who were in the advanced class were referring to. The amount of running around I have to actually do now amounts to 2 youth group meetings and 2 classes to teach a week. In other words, I have 3 hours of actual work to do, and the rest of the time to fulfill Peace Corps goals for myself. Examples of these goals are as follows: integrate yourself into the community, watch TV in Spanish, read the newspaper in Spanish, speak with a family friend, ask family about formal/informal greetings, etc. As you can see, VERY intense work required of me. While, fulfilling Peace Corps tasks (except having a successful youth group) are relatively easy, I definitely have enough books to start a library. Admittedly, I haven’t exactly kept up with the reading, but I’ll have plenty of time to do so. Maybe that’s why we’re allotted so much time to get the reading done? Last time I picked up one of the books, I read a page and immediately switched to my reading for fun book. I know they want us to read it and be knowledgeable and whatnot, but aren’t books for reference? When I hit a wall in wherever I am, I can refer to these books. They could be the FAQ’s/Open here in event of emergency part of my house.

 

While I’m talking about reading material, the sheer amount of reference materials they give us has led most of us to refer to Peace Corps simply as Paper Corps.  All they stuff they print off and give to us can hardly be considered sustainable.

 

I observed Avi’s class this afternoon and got a first hand experience of what happens when a class is…less than cooperative. Avi went from smiling the first 5 minutes to not so smiley Avi (which really is a rarity) after about 5 minutes in the class. It was near impossible to get control of the class with all the commotion that was going on. To make matters worse, all the students were studying for an exam they had the next period. This effectively thwarted any plans he had for teaching today. He had a good plan, but the combination of all these adverse circumstances yielded a less than desirable outcome. Next time it’ll work out.

 

I’ve been going crazy without a gym. There’s a gym in town that costs a little more than a dollar a week, but from what Avi told me, it’s one room with some weigh equipment in it. I might spring on it one week just to see how it suits me. Mostly I’ve resorted to running about 30 minutes everyday/everyday it doesn’t rain, doing tons of pull-ups on our kitchen ceiling, tons of pushups, and yoga on the sheets that I brought. Today I went old school and got a bucket and filled it with rocks so I could add some variety to my workout. I’m trying to devise some way to get a little more resistance training into my workout. I think the next step is going to involve me buying a bucket, buying some sand and/or cement, then filling said bucket with aforementioned heavy things. Hey, it worked in the Rocky movies.

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Managua, Masaya, and the riding of the bulls

2008 26 May

May 24th

As I often lament going to Managua, I whined about it this morning as well. I woke up at around 5:45 (not my plan) so that I could get out the door by 7:30. I ate my eggs and fresh pineapple then headed over to Jordan’s house to pick her up. After picking her up, after taking no more than ten steps, here comes the Peace Corps bus roaring down the road towards us. Our master trainer, Ashley, told us the bus wasn’t coming until 7:45, but apparently, the bus driver was told we were meeting at 7:30. So he picked us both up, then proceeded to drive around the town for 15 minutes to pick up Avi, and patrol every street in Masatepe looking for Owen. The driver did not passively look for Owen as anybody that looked remotely like him was pursued. When we’d realise it wasn’t Owen, the bus driver would turn around and go searching some more. Eventually we grabbed him, then headed to pick up the rest of the volunteers. The driver is awesome in another sense as well. Whenever he’s our driver, you always hop in and he has 80’s music blasting. It’s like the Peace Corps party bus. This morning we were treated to the Ghostbusters theme song, which was accompanied by Doo Wah Diddy during the ride. It’s worth going to training just by having this driver.

Our training itself consisted of learning how to make lesson plans and well as ways to appeal to learning styles, and ways to work with our counterparts at our sites. A current volunteer and her Nicaraguan counterpart also gave a presentation about the situation most Nicaraguan teachers face (it’s a grim economic reality). Once again, since we’re in the advanced group, our group got pulled aside where we were told that we wouldn’t have a language facilitator anymore nor would we be getting another one. So that means all those Spanish classes I was hoping Peace Corps would be giving me – won’t be happening. Instead of having Spanish classes, they gave us a book in Spanish called “The successful entrepreneur”. I think it’s a book of interviews with entrepreneurs in Nicaragua and how they got to the position their currently at. One of the business trainers is going to meet with us (Weekly? Daily?) to discuss the book and what we thought. At least, that’s what I got from the brief description they gave us.

Following our Peace Corps Party Bus dance party, we all went back to our training sites. A bunch of people wanted to go to Masaya, so since I hadn’t left my site to do anything except training, after eating lunch I went with 7 other volunteers to go check out the Masaya market. The bus ride in the refurbished Fairfax County Virginia school bus took about 30 minutes and was relatively painless. Owen sat next to a man who had a chicken in a cardboard box and was bringing it to the market to kill it and…we never really understood what he was going to do with the chicken afterwards. Let’s just assume he was going to eat it.

The bus dropped us off in a big bus station (aka a dirt lot), which was situated right next to the market. The market has tons of tiny passages through every section. Most of the time you have to duck under some shirts or some other type of good that is being sold. There’s a wide array of absolutely anything you could possibly want to buy, whether it’s counterfeit or not. I went to go scope the place out and to get an idea of where I could get a hammock for when I go to my site. Almost everybody in Nicaragua has a hammock and the best hammocks in the country come from Masaya. You can get a hammock there made out of the finest material in any and every colour you want. You can even get it personalized with your name on it. I think I’m going to get a navy blue one that has ‘GOGGINS’ across is in bright yellow writing. Or something awesome like that. Mmmm…hammock. It was a good trip and I got to talk with the other volunteers in a non-work setting, which was a nice way to change things up.

While I’m on that topic – nothing I’ve done so far has felt like work. It kind of just feels like I’m in school or something. I had a set schedule, meetings, etc. Peace Corps deposits money in my account every Friday. This provides me with funding to buy licorice sticks (or some Nicaraguan equivalent) the following week. I also still don’t feel like I’m in Nicaragua. When I’ve traveled around in the past and studied abroad, I’d always walk around trying to take everything in. I’d be completely overwhelmed with everything I was trying to perceive with every sense that was available. However, for whatever reason that isn’t the case here. There’s nothing shocking about where I am – and I don’t know why. I wake up every morning and look around without much concern that, yes, I am still in Nicaragua. Mostly I wake up and analyse my VERY vivid dreams/nightmares. The past 2 nights I’ve had dreams that have partially been in Spanish and partially been in English. Certain parts will be in Spanish (like a tshirt somebody was wearing in my dream), to conversation (when somebody said to me in the dream “me interesa”). While it’s cool to be having dreams in Spanish, I’m kinda disappointed that the Spanish in the dreams is not grammatically correct. Not only that, but when I see the incorrect Spanish in my dream, I realise it. I realise it and point it out to my grammatically mistaken illusory dream counterpart.

I can’t wait till I start having dreams where they start using Spanish correctly. Maybe that’s a Peace Corps high point? I should check the handbook.

May 25th

When I started the day, I had few plans and intended to do just a few things in addition to planning my class for Monday. Well, as we all know – plans change. I slept the latest ever (7:50 AM!) and putzed around for a little bit. I watched CNN and BBC world news for a while when I got a phone call from another one of the volunteers. She wanted to know if I was going to the Laguna near Catarina because bunches of people were going. As I traveled pretty extensively the previous day, I decided to opt out of this trip since I’ll have plenty of time in the next 8 weeks to go to there. Immediately after the phone call, I got a text from the a PC volunteer that lives in Masatepe (I didn’t even know she knew my number), and she informed me that she had a note for me. So I met up at her house 30 minutes later (with directions that said “Go in back of this one building and look for the green door”), where she gave me the note. It was from my friend who is in the TEFL program and is living in El Rosario. It was a big surprise, so it was nice to get it. I hung out and spoke with Perry (the PCV who gave me the note), and she showed me her gigantic house that she rents out in Masatepe. Her service ends this upcoming November, so I spoke with her about a few aspects about Peace Corps service that I was curious about. Mostly I just gawked at the amazingness of her house compound. She rents a room (that is in a separate building) from a couple that lives in Masatepe, and shares the compound with the couple, and a couple of Germans. They have an orange tree, avocados trees, coconut trees, to name a few. Additionally she has a yard with its own mini-rainforest. It was absolutely amazing. She told me not to get my hopes up about living in a place like that as the house she lived in before was a total dump, and she just got lucky because she worked at the same school as the Germans. Amazing.

I got home around 11, and chatted a bit with my family/watched TV. While talking to my host mom, who shows up? Why none other than Dianne (my friend that gave me a note), and Jenn. They came all the way from El Rosario with Dianne’s host mom just to see me. They had a vague idea where I lived (as addresses in Nicaragua are all invariably vague), and had to ask somebody down the street where the gringo lived. Sure enough they found my house. It was good to see them, as we don’t get to see the TEFL volunteers in a sanctioned Peace Corps event for a few weeks. They stuck around for a couple of hours and chatted and we served them up some fresh guayaba fresco. I wasn’t anticipating their arrival and then ended up leaving at the time I was supposed to meet another friend in the city center. I was starving so I inhaled all my food in mere seconds and was on my host dad’s bike the next flying down the streets to the park where I was supposed to meet her. As tends to be the case in a small town, I ran into about 7 people I knew on the way to the park – so of course I had to stick around and chat. I ended up making it to the park 15 minutes late and…my friend wasn’t there. So back home I went where I ran into a few other people I knew and had to chat up for a bit. It started raining like mad, so I kept indoors for a bit.

During the beginning of the winter, the rain is intermittent, so of course, it stopped after about 10 minutes. I went to Jordan’s house to give her some money and she wasn’t there. Upon returning to my house, I saw she was standing in front of it. After a short review of what she did during the day, she told me some other TEFL volunteers from Diriamba were in town, and were waiting in the park – so off I went to the park. When I got to the park, I saw not the volunteers, but Dianne and Jenn who were waiting for the bus to go back to El Rosario. The Diriamba volunteers had gone to the barrera (the bull ring that is made out of aluminum siding, tree trunks, and random pieces of plywood). The barrera is a the most dangerous place in town as it is where people get totally hammered and watched drunk people ride bulls.

It was evident how dangerous it was when we got there. While waiting in line to enter, some random guy just punched me in the side, and a while later another tried to pick pocket me. The first guy I saw riding a bull really didn’t do too hot. He was toast as soon as he started and was flopping around unconscious on the bull for about 5 seconds. He got thrown off and the bull turned around, and was going to ram him in the neck/torso. Inexplicably, the bull raised his head at the last second and jumped over him instead. The guy was completely unconscious though and definitely had broken his back and/or was dead. We weren’t really sure. They just grabbed the guy by one arm and dragged him out of danger though. This was a scene that was repeated 2 riders later with a guy who was immediately thrown off the bull and rammed by the bull. The drunk people that stand around the ring taunting the bull all circled around him when he was thrown off, and dragged unconscious man #2 off by one arm and threw him under the boards to the that surround the ring. Those were the two worst situations, which is pretty bad considering I saw 6 people ride and 2 were horribly injured. Another drunk guy who was taunting one of the bulls slipped when he was running away and was rammed straight into the ground. I don’t understand how he didn’t break something/everything in his body, but the man was up and drunkly running about no less than 5 minutes later. This was also the case with the man who was sitting on a wall and kicked the bull in the head. The bull proceeded to put his horn through the guy’s back, and the man, now bleeding profusely, continued watching/taunting. Mixed in with this, everybody who watches the bull fights is generally drunker than drunk. While watching, a drunk man ran straight into me and just continued leaning into me. I…did what PC told us not to do, and pushed him off of me and he smashed into the aluminum wall in a state of confusion. I just turned around expecting him to go at me, but this didn’t happen. I turned around to confirm the worst only to see that this drunk man had continued towards the exit where he proceeded to fall face first down all the stairs that led towards the door.

It started raining like a hurricane (and still is 6 hours later for that matter), so I headed home as I was tired of watching drunks get mauled/beating the crap out of each other. It had been raining for about 35 minutes before I finally left, so when I finally did make my way out of the aluminum building, there were foot deep rivers in every road. Luckily I was wearing my sandals, so it wasn’t much of an issue. However, some of the streets had rivers that went up to my knees and were moving like rapids.

Now that was an experience.

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The adventures of the now Profe Gogs

2008 24 May

May 22nd

Today we were full of nerves as we would be planning for our charla our group would be giving to the business volunteers today, and that nervousness was elevated by me having a class to teach in the afternoon.

A volunteer who is finishing up her service came to Masatepe to help us do our Charla. We’re basically treating it as teaching a real class, and will be giving the class to our fellow trainees. Since we’re the most advanced Spanish group, once again we’re the ones who have to do things first. The girl who came to work with us lived in the same house that I’m living in now. She was the first volunteer my family ever hosted – so she walked back with me to come visit after we threw together a presentation for tomorrow. She chatted it up with my host padres while I sat around for an hour trying to figure out if I was nervous about teaching a bunch of 10th graders or if I wasn’t.

Eventually, the hour of truth was upon me and I made my way to class. I had the ingenious game plan of taking a mototaxi to the school so I wouldn’t be sweaty after walking through the sun to get there. However, for whatever reason, this was the first time I’d never seen a mototaxi on my way to…anywhere really. So I had to walk the entire way there (I don’t know why I’m whining, it’s only a 4 minute walk). We were told that some head honchos from DC were going to sit in on our classes. Peace Corps Nicaragua gets evaluated every 5 years…and this just happens to be that year. So we were anticipating that they would watch Jordan’s class that she would teach, then would leave afterwards to evaluate other parts of the program.

Jordan’s class went super well. Her students expressed all the creativity, motivation, and participated like any other American class would have. Or in other words, it wasn’t what we expected. We expected no creativity, no participation, and tons of noise. Due to the lack of distraction in her class, Jordan flew through her class and finished 20 minutes early. Her class finished and we were all just surprised at how her class was and extremely pleased with how smoothly everything went – next was my class.

I arrived to my class where all the students stood up upon me entering, greeted me with a good afternoon, and I had them sit down. At first, I was a bit nervous and talked a little fast. What I ended up doing was completely deviating from my game plan to read my plan to read what I had written on my papelografos (I seriously can’t think of the word for them, they’re big pieces of paper), and just verbally gave all the directions to the class. I flew through the first activity, which was an icebreaker where the students had to change 5 things about their appearances. It got a little rowdy from the activity, but they were pretty receptive to me yelling at them to be quiet and to listen. My Spanish facilitator criticized me for not coming up with other ways to keep the rowdy ones quiet, but I thought I handled it pretty well. I had bought a bunch of candy to get the students to participate…but participation was really a non-issue. My main activity was for the students to talk about what their life was going to be like in 10 years and most of the students had something to say. The whole point of the activity was to teach them to think ahead, and think of what will happen in the future/what they’ll need to do to achieve certain goals. To kill time/embarrass the students, I made them come up to the front of the class and share their lives in 10 years with the rest of the class. Then I subjected them to an interrogation by questioning them about their plans and how they’d achieve them. It mostly went well when I had one girl (who I figured out is my best student) present her life. It was this gigantic 1 page description of her life. I had absolutely no idea what she said, so I just said, “Wow, that was really good, give her an applause.” I got the class done, reviewed the class, and told them to think about the theme for the next class and finished everything 5 seconds before the bell rang. It was pretty great. However, the PC/government big wigs that were supposed to show up to Jordan’s class ended up watching my class for 20 minutes. So if Peace Corps ends up pulling out of Nicaragua, you know where it all started.

May 23rd

Today was a sort of “day off” as I only had to go to training in the next town over. We all met up at 7:30 to take the bus to Olla de Barro to meet up with the other volunteers for a full day of training. This was another training session where I didn’t start drifting off in the middle. However, this probably could be attributed to our group having to give a charla to the other volunteers since we’re in the higher Spanish group. We kind of slacked off and didn’t prepare as much, but we got our point across, and the only thing lacking was our organization as well as grammatical errors from a lack of practice.

Our charla was followed by rabies shots and a charla from the head PC doctor in Nicaragua. We learned about Malaria and Dengue fever and prevention tips/steps to take. As long as we take the malarial drugs, we won’t get it, and as long as we get to the hospital to be hooked up to artificial nutrition, we’ll survive dengue fever. Nicaragua only has a handful of people get the most severe strain of Dengue fever, and there’s never been a PC volunteer that has got it, so I’m not too worried.

It’s always good to see the fellow people in our small business group if only to share stories about the week – what illnesses we got, how our bowel movements are going, the latest dish we got, the newest unknown vegetable we’d eaten, and how many times we’d eaten gallo pinto recently (the answer is we eat it pretty much every meal).

The afternoon session flew by pretty quickly and was full of breaks, which made it even more laid back. Even though it’s job training, it’s more like sitting in info sessions that inform you on ways you could approach things. The training sessions are like classroom survival skills. More than ever though, you’re expected to be creative – really creative. It’s absolutely imperative that you teach a class that complements every learning style. If you don’t appeal to them, you’re going to lose the attention of some of your students.

Regarding my class, I’m going to have to be more of a hardass on Monday to let them know I’m not screwing around. However, it’s only a 33-minute class because they’re taking final exams, so I don’t have to plan as much. In addition to kicking up my disciplinarian side, I have some students that are the ones that don’t pay attention and just don’t bother to do the assignment, nor care. On Monday, these are the students I’m going to make do everything. They’ll be no slacking in my class! I won’t let them be lazy and not pay attention – I’m dynamic and mean. Good luck 10A.

I got back from class around 3:30, which was amazing. It was the first day I arrived home where I didn’t have to plan a class, go to a youth group, meet up with somebody, run errands, or anything. I wanted to relax, so I started fixing my host Dad’s bike. It makes tons of noise so I fiddled with the brakes and got them aligned. I took the bike for a spin around the block to find the source of all this damn noise to discover that not only did the bike make a lot of noise, but it is totally beat to sh*t. Everything is bent big time. However, with everything being made out of iron/steel, I’m not too concerned about the bike falling apart. I’ve initially diagnosed the wobbly crankset as a bottom bracket that isn’t secure (Jon – ideas?). I’ve got to pore over my PDF bike manual to get a better idea of what the issue is and what I can do to fix it.

After that, I wasted a couple hours watching TV, and ate some dinner (gallo pinto with some chicken/rice soup if you care). Then I went over to one of my student’s houses, Javier, to grab him to go running with me. The great thing is, he always says he’ll do something, no matter what it is. Chess? He’ll go grab the chess set and a table and bring it down the block. Running? He’ll just drop everything and go right then and there. Youth group? Just let him drop off his stuff at his house. Reliability.

During the night, my host mom hosted her bible study/singing/whatever group while William and I worked out in our kitchen. He never wants to run, so I try to make it as hard as possible on him since he never worked out before I showed up. I made him do 200+ rowing exercises until he was totally exhausted. In the end this kicked me in the ass because when I went to do exercises next, the resistance bands just broke. So through creativity and innovation, we spent 2 hours fixing the bands. We still haven’t finished, but we’ve got time to pull it all together.

I have to go to Managua for a short 4-hour training session on whatever. I’m not a huge fan of Managua, but I don’t have much of a choice. To top it off, PC decided that our training group (once again because of our high Spanish level), is going to go to some conference in Managua next Thursday to learn about ways to work with youths. PC will take us out to lunch and pay for our transportation, so it works out in the end.

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Posted by thegoggins

More pictures

2008 22 May

My street (my house is the second house on the right

Walking home from class

Here´s my gym (the broken swingset)

This is what a youth group meeting looks like 5 minutes after the meeting was supposed to start – ah…Nica time. At least William helped me with the chairs.

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Posted by thegoggins

Another reason to hate the rain?

2008 22 May

May 20th

Today started off easy enough – Jordan and I got accustomed to Nica time and we arrived 10 minutes late. We really have a much more relaxed schedule since we don’t really have Spanish classes. Before our schedule was full of a bunch of meetings and places we would have to go. However, since we’ve become familiar with the area and important people, our workload has significantly decreased…or maybe we’ve just gotten used to it. I know that I am definitely less stressed out than I was in the first week. It also helps that our youth groups are pretty much in order (though we only had one show up yesterday). We discussed a survey that we had to do of a family business – and I interviewed my host mom’s cousin. It was a really brief 2-page survey so it really flew by. It felt a lot like the work I had to do with the English teaching company I volunteered with.

The rest of the morning consisted of pin the tail on the donkey and us learning the command form of vos (none of us studied vos in school since it’s not really proper Spanish). However, it’s easy enough and we’ve pretty much gotten a hang of it. We just have to accustom ourselves to not using the form we always were taught. Avi gave a mock class presentation to us as practice for his class that would be later that afternoon.

At around 1, we all met up at the instuto where Avi and Owen were to teach their first classes. They both went well, but the principal of the school hadn’t informed either teacher that there was going to be somebody presenting in their classes. This didn’t particularly affect, Avi’s class, but Owen had to give his class in the library. It was really unfortunate, because he had planned out everything and everything that we wanted to do during our first class couldn’t be done because he was just standing in front of a mass of kids who had been ready to watch a movie – not watch a presentation. So that was unfortunate, but he fought through it.

Jordan had our youth group (our make up meeting) at 5:30. We really didn’t have much hope that anybody would show up due to the paltry showing and participation in the other meetings. Today was totally different. We had an ice breaker that really engaged the kids and then had them make a map in 2 different groups. They really got into it and worked together to make the map, which was great. It’s exactly what we’ve been trying to do for the past 2 weeks. They got so into it that we just let them do it for 20 minutes. However, after 20 minutes, Jordan and I looked at the 2 maps, and none of them had any roads on them. They just had blocks with names in appropriate parts of the map. This much really be a cultural thing since both groups (13 people in total) did this. I can kind of understand that since none of the roads have names nor do the houses have numbers. If you wanted to get to the Pali grocery store, they address of it would be: “Go to the 2nd road off the highway and one street south of the park.” I have a similar address that is the name of my neighborhood followed by what street they have to turn on. When going to the bank to exchange money, you actually have to tell them that address too. It’s a new experience for sure. Our awesome group meeting was cut short though by a torrential downpour and of the 9 chairs I brought to the meeting, 7 were remaining as the kids all took off running down the road with chairs to protect themselves from the rain. This wouldn’t fly so I spent the next 15 minutes running around in the rain going house to house to find my stolen chairs:

“Do you have my chairs?”

“No, Rene has them”

“Rene, do you have my chairs?”

“No, Carlos has them.”

“Carlos, do you have my chairs?”

“No, Mario has them.”

“Mario, do you have my chairs?”

“No, Doña Martha has them.”

So I went to her house (where Jordan lives)

“Jordan are my chairs here?”

“No, they’re not here.”

After looking past her, “Those are my chairs in back of you”

“Oh, I guess I do have your chairs.”

If you’re interested, in Spanish, plastic stools are banquitos. At least I found them.

Bummer we had to end our meeting early, but definitely a high point.

May 21st

Today the class was once again low key as we had our first interviews with our Peace Corps program director. It’s the first of 3 interviews to determine what site we’re going to go to for our 2 years of service. I was the first victim which was fine – it gave me more time to tell stories, which I love to do. However, after she explained the process any whatnot, I asked her how me not having any medical problems would affect the process. She told me that other people that have medical problems would have to be located closer to Managua. Which I came back with “Oh, so that means you’re going to kick me out to the boondocks.” She laughed, but what I got from my meeting (even though it’s HARDCORE preemptive, is that she’s going to throw me out at the edge of the Nicaragua. The interview went really well as she laughed at a lot of what I had to say and had overall positive facial expressions with regards to my answers. She asked me if I needed running water or electricity. My answer to both was: “Well, they’re sure nice to have.” So yea, they’ll probably throw me in some tree house near the Honduran border. Bring your candles if you’re visiting! While I’m ready for them to send me somewhere that really isn’t my preference (a tiny town with no electricity or water), I came up with an advantage to living in such a place – it’s perfect for the miser in me. It all works out in the end I suppose.

After the meeting, I did a quick outline-like presentation of my class presentation for tomorrow. I’m a tad nervous – ok, that’s a lie. I’m f*cking terrified. It’s one thing to have never taught a class, and it’s another thing to not speak the language fluently. So off I go to teach a high school class of 45 kids a subject I just learned about, in a language other than my mother tongue. Does this sound like a recipe for disaster? It sure does to me. I’m really prepared, so it will probably go better than how I see it in my head – my students setting fire to the building, and forming a revolution (that I’m not leading!). As noted before, I have one kid from my youth group in the class, so that will hopefully help.

Following the practice and some other activities, we all went to another PC training session in Olla de barro. We got a ride from our program director to the site, which was great – saved 4 cordobas! There was a presentation about security issues (where the head of security scares the crap out of you with examples that generally never happened to actual Peace Corps volunteers, just people who were in Nicaragua), followed by a presentation regarding Gender and Development. It was the first training session where I didn’t find myself falling asleep – figure out what this formula was Peace Corps! It was a winner! After around 3 hours, our group took the public transit back to Masatepe. It was an interesting enough experience- they’re just old school busses that are painted over. Since our bus wasn’t on a particularly busy route, it wasn’t too big of a deal. I was however sitting in a particular seat over the wheel well. All was well, but I was a little concerned with the enormous hole in the floor – boy the road sure goes by fast. I was convinced that the floor was going to give way and donate me to the highway gods, but I made it to my destination sans death. An optimal outcome to say the least.

This was the first night in a while that I got home early without having a ton of work to do or a meeting to go to. I did however, have to make presentation materials for my class tomorrow. So what did I do you ask? I worked out in my kitchen with our family friend William for 2 hours, while rocking out to Russian techno, and more or less working on my presentation. I would’ve started earlier had I realised it would’ve taken so long…but whatever, I finished it.

While everything is going pretty well, one thing hasn’t changed – it’s still way too hot.

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The crazy life I live

2008 20 May

May 18th

I set a new record for sleeping in – 7:15! Yea, I know, I’m working on it though. I would’ve slept longer, but my host parents (whom usually wake up at around 5:30) were still sleeping and my parrot was totally FLIPPING out and just screeching. So I woke up, killed it, and ate it for breakfast. That was the game plan, but with it being early, I just had eggs instead. The day was really nonchalant, particularly because I didn’t have to wake up for some Peace Corps nonsense for the first time in since the previous Sunday. I actually got to chill out. It was great, I woke up, read a bit, exercised for a while, then had some breakfast. I took a break afterwards by watching a soccer game which I followed with a 20 minute jog in the boiling hot zillion degree weather. I realised one thing on this jog – it’s too flipping hot to jog while the sun is out. I am far too pale for it to do me any good. Furthermore, it dehydrates you hardcore. Essentially, it’s like dowsing yourself in water and being shocked that you’re wet. It’s obvious and stupid to think that it won’t be exactly the way it always has been – a bad idea. As far as I know, the weather has been 95 degrees and above everyday I’ve been here. Jordan and I were talking last week about how it was cooler and how much nicer it was. After checking the weather report, I saw that we were just losing our minds as it was just as hot every single day (with last Tuesday being a bit hotter at 99 degrees). I’m just super grateful that it’s not as humid here as I thought it would be. It’s more humid than Colorado, but at the same time, it’s completely tolerable. Massachusetts, New York, and Florida are all a zillion times worse with regards to humidity – at least in Masatepe. With weather like this you realise how much you always took a good breeze for granted. It’s the equivalent of being handed a huge bag of gold. While using that metaphor, I’d like to point out that I’d take a breezy day over a bag of gold any day down here – it’s that hot. Fortunately it’s cooler at night so sleeping isn’t nearly as hard as it is in places like DC (which is why Virginia and Maryland were more than happy to cede that swamp to the government).

I really took a good hard look at my host dad’s bike and…realised that practically none of my tools will work on it. These bikes are built for Nicaragua (aka, they’re built like tanks). I didn’t need all these specialized bike tools (save a chain tool and tire levers), all I needed to bring were some screwdrivers and an adjustable wrench. Allen wrenches? What the hell do I need those for? The only thing they’re useful is for boasting about how I can fix bikes…in America. So bring on the screwdrivers.

I went to my host grandmother’s house this afternoon after I went to the internet café which is 3 blocks away. I showed up to find a cauldron (I wish I was overstating this) full of soap. This soup literally had full potatoes, carrots, fist-sized pieces of meat, beets, half heads of cabbages, and several other vegetables, which I’d never heard of. “They’re from the same family of the potato…” Uh…ok. Whenever I see a fruit or vegetable that I’m not familiar with (which tends to be every meal), I ask what it is and generally get an answer like “Oh, it’s like this.” Ok, that sounds good, so I’ll pretend it is that. That’s pretty much the way I’ve approached it. It’s like squash you say? Well then squash it is. I seriously didn’t know half of the food I’ve been eating existed. Not only that, I often get a variation of the vegetable I didn’t know existed the following meal. “Oh, so this is like that one vegetable that was like squash?” Ok, thanks for the squash.

While I’m on the topic of food: I didn’t know you could make drinks out of 90% of the things that I’ve had to drink. While they’re super sweet (today I had some variation of carrot and apple fresco), one glass contains enough sugar to start a candy factory. I knew they had a lot of sugar from when my host mom made a guayaba fresco, but it wasn’t until I saw a glass of a fresco poured today that I realised how much sugar there actually was. I was too full from my soup to eat/drink anymore, so I poured my fresco back into the pitcher – there was half an inch of sugar at the bottom of my cup. Talk about over saturation.

Following my massive bowl of soup (3 times the size of my head), I headed back home for a siesta that invariably turned into a sweating marathon as I opted to sleep in my jeans and clothes. Yea…in Nicaragua that just doesn’t really fly. If you want to sleep, you’re sleeping sans clothes. I met up with my group afterward to work on our town map and discuss with Jordan our next meeting with the jovenes (which is tomorrow morning at 10 am and we’re not counting on any of them to show up). I went home to find my host dad there in an ecstatic mood because the phone was actually working. He was so elated; he busted out his phone book and called the U.S. After his call, he excitedly told me that he just called Los Angeles, skimmed his book, and picked up the phone again. After his various phone calls to every number he could find, I asked him about dinner. He responded that if I wanted dinner, I’d have to go back to my abuela’s house because there was no food in the house. I checked the fridge, and he wasn’t lying. The only thing we had was half a bowl of corn flakes and no milk. I think we buy food every morning from the people that sell food from their carts in the street. I don’t know why we don’t just buy food for a couple days, particularly since we have a refrigerator.

He told me I could use his bike, so my reluctance to go seek out dinner plummeted. I was on the bike and out the front gate before he could finish what he was saying. His bike is a…well…not really a bike. I’d compare it more to a tank. Literally. I know there’s always a comparison like that about how people have indestructible this and that, but this truly is. Back home, I have steel bikes, and they’re hardcore bikes – but they’ve got nothing on this bike. I think the bike is made of steel rods as the bike must weigh 40 lbs. If you ran over this bike you would just damage (obliterate the undercarriage of) your car. The last time I was on my bike was May 2nd, and wow did I miss my bike. Bikes here go for around 100 dollars if I want a brand new road bike. But since I live on a dirt road, and I’d have to worry about running into wayward bulls (like the one that stumbled in front of our PC bus the other day that we came inches from hitting), I think a mountain bike is the way to go. I had such a good time on the bike, I think I’m going to buy one (a mountain bike is super cheap, with used bikes being even cheaper (in the 30 dollar range)), just for my 3 months here in Masatepe. The city is 6 by 13 blocks, which makes it a flipping hoot and a half to ride through. Especially when you consider you’re avoiding the mototaxis and peole.

While the dinner wasn’t the healthiest (probably the most unhealthy of my life), it was super tasty. With a meal of fried plantains, fried cheese, coleslaw like salad the size of a quarter, and a sugar infused fresco, you’re just asking for a heart attack, diabetic coma, or for good measure, both. But I just can’t say no to those fried plantains. They’re like potato chips, and absolutely amazing. I tell myself that since it’s a fruit, it’s definitely good for me.

Well, at least I rode the bike home.

May 19th

With our first classes approaching, everybody made a plan for their classes over the weekend. We did some quick practice before Jordan and I had to leave for our 10 AM meeting with our group of jovenes. Ha. I wish. Our group of jovenes turned out to be just one joven – Javier, a kid who I go jogging. Nobody showed up, so Javier busted out his chess set and we had a battle right there in the middle of the shaded area near the broken soccer swing set in our barrio. I killed him during the first game, and he obliterated me during the second game. He’ a good kid – and a good chess player. I think we’re going to make a chess game a weekly/daily thing. So after Javier and I played a couple of games, he went back to his house while Jordan and I established the basics regarding our classes that we’re going to teach. This week we’re both going to teach a class on Thursday, then I have my second class to teach on Monday. Coincidentally, Javier is in my class that I’ll be teaching; it will be good to have an aficionado to help me win over the class.

My game plan for the class is to do an ice breaker where the kids change 5 things about themselves, then have them do it again. The whole point of it is to point out how you have to be creative and innovative to change 5 things about your appearance the second or third time around. I’m only going to have the kids change twice since Javier informed me there are 45 kids in the class. After that, I’m going to have them make a life plan. The activity is called “My life in ten years.” Thinking outside the box is something that most youths are accustomed to, and considering that most of them end up working for a family business and/or starting their own, teaching them to be creative is essential. The activity is something the kids really aren’t accustomed to as most professors just have them copy entire paragraphs for work. I think it will be a good exercise, and it will help me find out more about the kids and how they’ll be as a class to work with.

Following our planning session it was lunchtime. I finally cracked open my book that I broke for fun (‘Stories I Stole’ if any of you are curious), and that was really relaxing. At times this whole experience can be overwhelming, particularly because Peace Corps bombards us with work due to our higher Spanish level. As long as it’s not all for naught, I won’t b*tch about it, not that much anyway. I’m pretty excited for the first class, but really have to think about what I’m going to do in the 5 other classes I’m going to teach. They all have to be in the intro to La Empresa Creativa, which is what I’ll be teaching when I’m at my site in August.

Our group went to meet a group of jovenes that was organized by Luis Aleman (the Sandinista group leader we met last week). We got there (at the Masatepe Intercultural House)…and…he wasn’t there…nor was his group…nor had anybody working there been advised that any group was going to show up. Oh Nicaragua.

So following that less than optimal outcome, Jordan and I headed back to our barrio to track down the youths that didn’t show up to the meeting. It was a real candid and informal approach, which was great – no convincing was needed. They all committed to showing up tomorrow (since they didn’t show up today), so we’ll see how it goes.

All this was followed by my regular nighttime run with Javier followed by my makeshift exercises on the broken swing set with the kids in the neighborhood.

Afterwards, I ate and hung out with William for a couple of hours. He’s over every night and we talk a lot – about everything really. He has become the best guy friend I have in Nicaragua. It’s kind of strange because I can only speak to him in Spanish, but I don’t know, we always seem to be on the same page. We’re similar in many ways, but he doesn’t really rival my energy level nor my enthusiasm when telling stories/speaking (but who really does?).

So far so good – and I still haven’t gotten sick! *knock on wood*

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A misunderstanding and the ´solution´

2008 18 May

May 16th

Today we all met at the bus stop in Masatepe to get picked up by Peace Corps to go to a training session in Managua. I got a typhoid vaccine (again, thanks CSU for not recording it), and we all said goodbye to one of the volunteers who had to ET due to a medical emergency in his family. We met at a hotel in Managua where the TEFL volunteers were waiting for us (but none of the business volunteers knew). So it was a huge surprise and everybody was super happy to see everybody we haven’t seen in a week. We did some basic training sessions then had lunch. After lunch, the Nicaraguan minister of education showed up and gave a 3-hour presentation about the state of education in Nicaragua. Basically, it’s not doing well, but he needed 3 hours and seizure inducing graphics to tell us this. Hey, however they want to do it here, who am I to argue with it?

We parted with the TEFL volunteers (my group got to take the bus with the TEFL volunteers), and went back home. I went to the internet café for a bit, ate, then went with Jordan to a Nicaraguan artisan festival. They had traditional Nicaraguan dance, song, as well as the same band that decided to play Beatles songs following a raffle. However, their singing wasn’t too hot so I Jordan and I decided to head home. This was where it got interesting.

I dropped Jordan off at her house, then walked the 30 seconds to my house where…nobody was home. My family told me they’d be there at 9:30, and being 10, I assumed they were sleeping. I clanged the lock against the big metal door like my host mom told me to do, but nobody showed up. After futile banging of the lock against the door, I scaled our huge concrete wall with steel spikes at the top and descended safely into the yard. Now my only problem was getting into my ‘apartment-like’ part of the house. I knocked on the door of my host parents room for about 20 minutes and nobody answered. I figured they were deep sleepers because it’s so loud in Nicaragua. So I had a few options, sleep in the hammock, sleep on the stairs, sleep on the roof, or try to get into my apartment. I opted for the last one. I got the window of my apartment open and tried to open the door next to it – to no avail. So I looked in the yard for an extremely long object that I could use to push the door lever open on the door across the room. As if in a movie, I found just that – in the form of a gigantic 20-foot steel rod. So I put the steel rod through the window and pushed the door lever open. Success! Except not. The door didn’t open, and I didn’t know why. I kept trying variations of what should’ve opened the door in what all proved to be useless attempts. However, while being persistent in opening the door through the window with the steel rod, the neighborhood security caught me with my shirt around my head like a bandana. Luckily, being one of 2 gringos in the neighborhood, he knew who I was. I’d passed him a couple of times when I was jogging the other night. So I chatted it up with the security guard, Bernardo, about Masatepe, how to successfully break into my house, and the current state of housing prices in Masatepe. Eventually I decided to climb back over the Great Wall of Masatepe and walk around with the security guard who pointed out that all the lights were still on in my house – which indicated that my family wasn’t there sleeping like I thought. We walked around the block twice and sat down near the broken swing set that I exercise on. Luckily, my host parents showed up extremely soon. The whole extended family was in the truck with them and they all laughed at how I tried to break into the house (I’d left the 20 foot steel bar still in the window). The laughing ended though when we discovered that the key they had now wouldn’t open the door. After pondering a bit, we finally got the other door open (by kicking it open) as well as the door I’d been trying to open for an hour. I hadn’t broken anything, thank god. I hadn’t even scratched the paint near the lock. However, despite my host parents telling me it was fine, I had successfully scolded myself for trying to break into the house.

But it got a good laugh.

May 17th

I had to wake up wicked early this morning due to yet another PC rendezvous with my fellow business volunteers. We all went to San Marcos to do more training and learn how to start a community bank (we’re required to start at least one in our sites). My story regarding me breaking into my house was a bit hit and it circulated among the volunteers. Our master trainer, Ashley, asked how my night was. Assuming he had heard bits and pieces I told him the story to which he responded, “Yea, your host Mom called Peace Corps this morning and told us what you did and how you compromised the security of their house and they can’t tolerate that. So we have to find you a new site in Masatepe.” At first I doubted him, but no, he said it with the straightest face possible and said they were going to take me to Managua until they can place me in another house in Masatepe. All I thought was “Oh damn, that’s like strike one on the Peace Corps slate.” Luckily he was let me in on the joke he was playing on me after which I proceeded to thank him for keeping me humble – in the form of punching him and telling him I was going to kill him. Talk about terrifying, I thought that was it. Probably the best joke anybody has ever played on me.

After coming home from that, I went and got some mouthwash as well as picked up my broken sandal from the repairman who fixed it for 6 pesos (about 31 cents). I took the mototaxi to Pius 12 (a town near mine) where we unsuccessfully looked for a guy on his farm (that we had to trek through a orange/banana/misc fruit plantation. There was a kid who took the mototaxi with us the whole way who kept on drifting off while we were heading there. He kept drifting off with his head following forward and him catching himself. Finally he didn’t catch himself and smashed his head on this steel post in front of him. Suffice to say he was awake after that encounter. After that, I think I spent around 3 hours sitting in the hammock while talking with our family friend, William. It’s weird how fast time goes by when you’re just sitting around. I really enjoy having parts of my house out in the open – I always brush my teeth out in the yard because that’s where the sink is. It’s great because I get to talk to our parrot (which I just noticed mocks me when I laugh – watch it Lupe). The only thing that separates our kitchen from the yard is a wrought iron gate. This means on nice days, like today for example, I bring the table out in the yard and eat. I’ll make a video of my house to show everything in it later – it’s pretty great.

There’s a fiesta going on tonight that I’m just way too flipping tired to attend, so I made a gringo appearance to kick up my ego (it’s like I’m a celebrity, lots of people wave at me, most of whom I don’t know). I really know the town well now (as in I know where all the streets go, and which ones I need to take to get to key places), and I ‘adios’ everybody (I have however adios’ed the wrong people a couple of times which has yielded me being followed). I really ought to start reading any/all of these crappy books PC gave me…particularly since I have to plan a class for next week. Someday I’ll get around to it…

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A few more pictures…

2008 16 May

La alcaldia (mayor´s office)

Police Station

The big Catholic Church in town. This is where the sermon dance party was when I arrived.

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