July 22nd to July 31st
The 22nd was much like any other Wednesday for me – I went to my campo school to teach. The previous week none of my kids had anything ready to present in class, but this time they all had their marketing (though I wanted their entire business plan, it’s better than nothing). Presentations were not very honed, but then again that’s why I’m giving them a month to work on everything.
Thursday the 23rd marked my 3rd site visit from Peace Corps. This time around my boss visited me (the project specialist, who was also a business volunteer, alternates with my boss on site visits), and it made me so nervous I lost sleep over it. I don’t know why I’m so nervous when my boss comes, I guess it’s because I’m always expecting her to say, “Goggins, what the hell kind of operation do you have going on here?” While her visit didn’t yield anything negative, I figure it’s because our project specialist was a volunteer and I feel more of a connection/understanding with her since she went through it all.
Not only was I scared, but my students were also terrified. Today was also the first day that my kids would be practicing their full presentations. I was glad that my boss would be there because then my kids would understand that everytime I grill them on their product, it’s not just me being me – it’s how the judges are going to be. Her questions were so on the money that the next week my students didn’t want to present the following week in front of me because they were embarrassed.
The rest of the site visit was good and not as scrutinizing as I imagined it would’ve been. I took my boss to the new comedor (“restaurant” but on a much smaller scale), and I asked her a handful of questions considering how to approach starting some new projects and extending old ones. I also got some tips on things to put in my presentation for the new training group. Following our lunch, we had a meeting to all my counterparts, my delegada (the top Ministry of Education official of every school in the municipality of Achuapa), and a few other MINED employees. We cleared some things up with my counterparts, and then the rest of the session turned into an unexpected gossip session – about me.
“I saw Ricardo walking around town with that white girl!”
“Yea, I saw them the other day too! She’s a volunteer too! I’ve even met her!”
“Oh yea! I told all my friends when I found out!”
“Why have you never presented her to me?”
“I haven’t met her either! Why not? I want to meet her next time.”
It went on like that for a little longer before I tried to change the subject. Instead of changing the subject everybody just laughed at me and said I was embarrassed. So I told them I was going to quit Peace Corps if we didn’t change the subject – and they laughed some more, “No you won’t! You’re already halfway done!” Eventually my private life details had been examined enough and my boss headed back to Managua – phew.
That weekend I headed to Malpaisillo before going to Managua on Monday. I was giving a presentation on the types of secondary projects that the volunteers could take part in. I did my presentation in the office during the day and headed to my hotel later that night. By chance, this day was also my 1-year in site anniversary. I had originally planned on just going to the grocery store and getting some yoghurt and whatnot for dinner, but a couple other volunteers were going out for dinner. Being a “significant” (or rather, a milestone) point in my service, I decided to renounce my economic ways for one night and splurge for the night.
The next day, I gave my presentation to the new volunteers and it went…terribly. I was expecting to walk in there and have it be exactly like giving a class to my 4th year kids – but it wasn’t. I was nervous and my voice was trembling (for the first time since I started doing presentations back in high school), and in the midst of all this, I totally ignored my PowerPoint presentation and made up everything as I went along. Oh well, whatever. It’s good practice.
After getting back to site the following day, I continued putting things together for my competition. My classes went pretty well this week, but I still had some groups that hadn’t done anything/enough. Nevertheless, I’m sure they’ll pull it together come competition time (I’ve told them they will receive a zero in the class if they don’t present in the competition).
August 1st to August 18th
The opening weekend of August I headed to León for the most needed payday in my Peace Corps service. With so much time spent in Managua due to medical reasons, I dumped around 67% of my salary in around a week, leaving me teetering on the brink of financial insolvency. However, I was able to hone my inner cheapness (though I suppose it’s pretty out in the open) and make it until the weekend with room to spare.
For whatever reason, I decided to catch the early Achuapa bus so I could do some errands in León, then double back to Malpaisillo later that day. Generally, waking up early for the bus stresses me out due to all the rushing I’m doing making breakfast, getting ready, and washing my dishes (without running water this really increases the amount of time I have to spend to get ready). So as is, I’m always nervous about missing the bus (there are ony 2 morning buses – 4 and 5 AM), but the bus driver (a man whom I known by the name of Negro, literally black) kicked it up a notch for me. Negro is known around Achuapa as the fastest bus driver in town. While there aren’t many, it could be argued that he’s one of the fastest drivers in the country. That being said, starting at 3 AM (when I rolled out of bed), he started doing loops of the town. Everytime he passed by my house freaked me out. I was never sure if he was gone for good or if he was going to do another vuelta (more or less trip or loop). After a couple of loops I couldn’t handle the stress – after scrambling my eggs, I just dropped them into my hand (I make a block of eggs to save on wasted food) and shoved them into my mouth. I was too worried to miss the bus that I skipped brushing my teeth (probably the most religious routine I have – I’ll do it no matter how I feel or if I’ve just come back from the bar at 4 in the morning) and just grabbed some gum.
Once in León, I met up with Jordan and chatted a bit before doing some errands – checking the mail, and picking up a load of gum. After my chores, I spent the weekend at Brie’s house in Malpaisillo. This is generally my place of retreat for a variety of reasons. However, the proximity of the town to Achuapa – a “mere” 2.5 hours away – makes a weekend out of a site a whole lot more comfortable (logistically) than when I would do weekends away in Chinandega with Luis (who completed his service and went home).
It was during this weekend and my trip back to Achuapa that I realised my “visibility” has been extended. Now, even though I don’t live there, people are recognising my in Malpaisillo and ask me how I’m doing. All the bus drivers and guys who work on the bus drivers know me too. My favourite morning bus to Achuapa has a cheery plump guy with a huge belly as the cobrador (the guy who collects your fare). While on his bus on my way back to Achuapa, I was forced to stand in the aisle. After collecting the fares, the cobrador came up to me, “Oy, Richard. That lady over there is going to get up in a couple of stops, go get close to that seat so you can get it when she leaves.” Looking out for me. This also happens to me when I take the morning bus that leaves an hour later. On this bus, it is not the cobrador but the fresco guy (think a super sugary fresh fruit juice) who tells me who points out people who are going to be getting off soon.
Once back in Achuapa, I semi-jumped into preparation mode. My local business competition is the next week (Thursday the 13th), so I wrote up a letter soliciting donations and got the MINED stamp of approval. My goal was to get something for prizes as well as other things that would improve my competition. After a couple vueltas of town over a couple days, I managed to scrounge up 3 free hours of internet time in the internet café, 5 ice cream bars from the ice cream shop, 5 notebooks and 2 pens. It was a strange array of prizes I’d have to split between 3 groups, but one way or another it’d work. During this time, I was going around finding judges for the competition, confirming a location, and helping all my student groups to get ready for the comp (unfortunately, some of them hadn’t done anything in the 7 months we’d had class).
I gave a month in class for all the students to just work on their presentations, papers, etc., but here we were in the last classes before the competition, and a lot of them were haphazardly throwing things together. The groups that had finished were doing some major polishing on their projects and it was good to see that everything I’d been blabbing about through the year had stuck with some students. Still, I had higher expectations. With classes out of the way, I did some reading on Thursday and a major cleaning of my house.
Friday the 7th was the first day of the 9th annual Achuapa Music Festival. Last year it fell on my 2nd weekend in site and really left a huge impression on me. I was super stoked about it this year, and told tons of volunteers about it. Because of this high praise, Brie, Jordan, and Churro (Brie’s friend from Malpaisillo) all came up and volunteered for a day at the festival with me. To mark the event, we were going to make some rum raisin cookies (they were absolutely amazing) in my new toaster oven.
Before our volunteering was scheduled to begin, we had lunch at my favourite comedor Buen Sabor. I had translated their entire menu for them so they’d be able to professionally cater to English-speaking visitors. However, after asking them, they told me they weren’t using it yet – so much for that.
The rest of the day we “volunteered” in the most passive sense of the word. Last year on the first day, I spent the whole day translating, but this year I only had to translate a handful of times. The organization of this year’s festival really seemed to fall through and overall it affected the quality of the festival. The promotion for this year was really poor and it showed in the attendance by international and national visitors. On the 2nd day, some 45 bands were signed up to perform – and at 15 minutes apiece, they’d take forever. It was this year that I realised that it’s not really the festival that I enjoy, but the work that comes with making it a success. That being said, once my shift ended on the second day at 7:30 PM I was reluctant to even watch some bands play. Nevertheless, I threw my 4-year old neighbor Omara on my shoulders and we watched for 30 minutes before we got bored and left – and that was the end of my 2009 Achuapa Music Festival experience. While I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did last year, I got 5 new t-shirts (they were better than the year before) and a professional looking certificate (didn’t have that last year either).
Team León (and Colorado)! Me, Brie and Jordan
Another reason for my not watching the festival was because I had to be in El Sauce the next day at 6 AM to talk to the new volunteers (who were going to be judges in my business competition). Upon waking up that morning, (at 4:15 AM), the music festival had yet to end from the night before. The way it ended up going, I was able to jam out to some music the entire time I was getting ready.
Down in El Sauce, I saw Richard and Fran (Richard is the volunteer who visited me, and Fran, an agriculture volunteer, is his wife) and briefed them on their responsibilities for being a judge in the competition. Afterwards, we chatted a bit and had some breakfast before I ran some errands (which via ridiculous problems took too long and prolonged my stay by another hour).
Back in Achuapa, I spent the days leading up to the competition getting everybody up to speed – including students, counterparts, judges, etc. My kids seemed to be ready or in the position to throw together a satisfactory project for the competition, so that took off a lot of pressure.
Everything seemed to be going smooth and steady until the day before the competition. I’d noticed on my jog that morning that the bus from El Sauce to Estelí, hadn’t come through Achuapa, but I figured it was a fluke and would be late. A few hours later, after arriving at my campo school, I was helping my kids with their business plans together and their visual aids when Richard called me. He told me that the early bus I’d planned for him and Fran to come on wouldn’t be leaving. I had two choices – find 2 other judges or push the competition back a couple of hours. Following fifteen minutes of frantic internal deliberation, I decided I’d remain unscathed if I just postponed it a couple hours. Then back in Achuapa, while running around doing my final preparations (I told my kids they couldn’t come ask for help the day before so I had time to finish everything for the competition) I heard that the place I was going to use for the competition had a birthday party, thus eliminating any hope that I’d be able to have the room ready to go the night before. While a tad peeved, it wasn’t anything that would hold up the competition in anyway, so I didn’t worry too much about it. The next setback came when I talked to one of my counterparts. Her dad, the vice mayor and my maestro de ceremonia (my announcer), wasn’t in town and wouldn’t be around for my competition. Luckily my counterpart said she’d do it, thus ending that problem. My next holdup came when I was telling my judges of the new time of the competition, and one of them wasn’t able to come. I had a replacement judge chosen, but this was one of the bigger problems as my replacement judge was chosen at the last minute and didn’t really have the qualifications I wanted. In spite of these issues, I survived the night, but got no sleep due to worrying.
Though lacking a good night’s rest, I was definitely more calm regarding the competition because I knew it was too late to fix anything – I’d just have to roll with things now. Be that as it may, I still ran into other problems. At 8 AM when I went to set up for the competition, the man with the key to the room was nowhere to be found. While he showed up momentarily afterward, it was just another thing that tested my nerves.
When I finally got into the room I’d rented, I found the place covered with birthday decorations (balloons and streamers), which was perfect since I had no decorations whatsoever – it made it look like I put in more effort than I actually did. Not even that, but there were 85 chairs and 15 tables around from the birthday party the night before. I got everything set up and ready to roll by 9 AM, and my last judge finally showed up at quarter past ten (despite living across the street from the competition location).
The competition went super well in comparison to last year and my attendance was pretty good as well. I managed to get all the principals and counterparts I had as well as a representative from the ministry of education to attend. By the time the competition had ended, I had my predicted 1st place winner, but my 2nd and 3rd place winners completely blew me away. My smart kids from my private school got 4th place (which really disappointed them), and my campo school didn’t have any groups in the top 3. While my smart kids from my private school took the loss with silent accepteance, my campo school reacted with rather unsportmanlike behaviour. Though I had nothing to do with the grading by the judges, people yelled at me even though I’d spent weeks organizing the event by myself (because nobody would help me). I was annoyed for sure but managed to keep it together. A little later that night, the group of delinquents in my town that call me a terrorist did it again and I reacted the wrong way. That, combined with several other issues led to a complete meltdown on my part and too much stress for me to handle the situation.
In light of my meltdown, I hastened my departure from Achuapa (I was originally going to leave on Sunday), and took off on the noon bus. My goal was to sit tight in site since I’m going on vacation the 27th, but I figured me being infuriated for a couple days in site wouldn’t benefit anybody.
Friday and Saturday I spent the rest of the day chilling out in Malpaisillo and coming back from from the angry cloud that had formed over me. Sunday, Brie and I headed to León to meet up with Jordan because they were going to take advantage of some beauty event that had all the proceeds going towards cancer. I decided to skip the manicure and I hung out for a little bit with the new volunteer in Telica (near the city of León), Peter. He seems like a pretty cool guy and a good fit for León (his whole group seems a whole lot more with it than my group was). After he took off, I met up with Jordan and Brie again and we grabbed a pizza for lunch (we all were thinking the same on this one, I’d even been dreaming about pizza). Following lunch, we caught a movie (The Orphan). Come Monday morning, I headed down to pay another visit to the dermatologist for my plantar warts. I spent the morning hanging out with some volunteers from Rio San Juan and caught a bus with one of them to the hospital later on (she had a tattoo of a cob of corn on her forearm – something I’d never seen, nor expected to see). After my doctor showed up 30 minutes late (every appointment she has showed up 30 minutes after the appointment time, always coming straight from home – what’s she doing?), and 10 minutes of burning my feet with liquid nitrogen, I was out of there. I got to León without a problem and took an unsanctioned microbus to Malpaisillo (via Telica, which I was able to see for the first time). I put a good dent in a book (River Town) during the trip has well, thus convincing me to abandon my IPod for travelling in favour of a book (it makes those 5 hour trips so much more bearable).
Tuesday morning I headed back to Achuapa on the first bus back (for the first time – I was able to catch it), saw fresco man and rolled into Achuapa a good 30 minutes early. While I left completely enraged, it was good to be back now that I was in a better mood. I knew this would be the case and didn’t take to heart anything I was feeling in the peak of my “crisis”. That’s just how I take my service – if I’m off the wall angry, I just need a few days to unwind and it will be ok…and it was. It definitely helped to get back to have my soon to be 5 year old neighbor Omara invite me to her piñata birthday party tomorrow. It’s all good again.
During these two weeks, I did some major book reading (for me):
A Long Way Gone – B+. A book about a boy from Sierra Leone who had to flee his village when he was young to fight with the national army against rebel forces. A powerful look into the life of these child soldiers and what they have to go through. Though it was too gruesome for me to get through the first time, I’m glad I picked it up a second time.
Ugly Americans – B+. A book about the a bunch of Americans that were involved in high-risk trading firms in the 90’s on the Japan Nikkei. They exploited a weakness in Japanese rules to make tons of money (or lose a ton and cover it up). In the process, one of them (who the story follows) managed to make be enormously successful thus leading to the book. A super fast read.
The Brooklyn Follies – A-. One of the first fiction books I’ve read in a while. A good story about a retiree and the happenings in his life. I had no idea where it was going for the first half of the book, but when it all came together, to came to be a very enjoyable book.
The little kids from my neighborhood
One of my groups presenting in the competition
3rd place
2nd place
1st place
As you can see, I have hair again.
Posted by thegoggins 