It’s all a process

2008 2 September

August 31st

I stayed up way late last night (at least for the Nica Richard), and went to sleep around 2 AM. I got caught up with all the latest news and keeping you all updated – be grateful.

The hostel was relatively empty, but provided a comfortable atmosphere. For some reason though, I had a lot of things on my mind last night (story of my Peace Corps life), so I tossed and turned for most of the night. I think it was one of those nights where I just passed out from exhaustion. I really dread the nights like that (they tend to be the result of thinking about the future – something that is really detrimental when you’re so early in your service. However, I struggled through and made it to the morning.

David showed up around 10 AM and him, Lindsay, Jordan, and I all headed out to lunch at a place called Cocinarte (literally, “To cook yourself”). The service was god awful, but it’s one of those healthy food places, so it tends to warrant the unreasonably long wait, particularly considering that rice and beans is the daily staple. It’s nice to break the trend and eat some food that is, you know, not fried…and good for you.

We spent a good time hanging out with David for the day. It was so weird to think that he was going back to the States early next week. Not only that, but it just didn’t register. Here was somebody we’d grown through training with. Everybody you’re around grows so much given the short amount of time that you’re here, it was almost like parting ways with somebody you’d known you’re entire life. It hit me when I left and got on the bus back for Achuapa that David was my best guy friend here in Nicaragua, and now he’s gone. It’s going to be hard to replace the sort of friendship I had with him during my service, but I’ll have to persevere and get over it. I kinda hit a low point on the bus ride home for a bit. However, after constantly being exposed to an unusually high number of stressors, I’ve become really good at talking myself out of bad times. It’s necessary to constantly remind yourself of the reason you’re in the position you’re in. It’s a voluntary decision – nobody is keeping me here. So really, I don’t question my motivation, but I have to remind myself of what my motivation was in the first place. Could it be said that this is one of the skills you pick up in Peace Corps?

This upcoming week will pretty much be spent completely out of site. I’m tired of being out of my site – the last 2 weekends (and the 8 days I spent in the hospital), I’ve been out of site. It really knocks me out of my equilibrium when I’m not around the people at my site for a while. Unfortunately, I’m going to be tossed into a situation like this again this week since I’m going to be a judge in the LEC competitions of two of my friends. Being so far away means that I have to leave the night before and spend the night in their site to ensure that I arrive on time to the competition.

After this week though, I’m going to try to stay in site for as long as possible – I really need to buckle down and get back into a routine here. I’ve got things I want to do that just can’t happen with me having to leave site so frequently. Therefore, I’m praying that nothing unexpected happens in the next couple of weeks, and I can just stick around in my site and get things done. My mood is always a whole lot better when I feel productive. I’d say that’s the key to making it through PC – it gives you a sense of purpose while you’re here.

September 1st

The beginning of my 5th month in Nicaragua – exciting!

I surprisingly slept incredibly well – a good 10 hours before waking up around 8 AM. I was looking forward to a full day back in site (and the only full day I’ll have here until next Monday), so I resolved to be a little more proactive. After a  shower and some reading, I headed over to the MINED office to talk with the delegada, to change the date of the LEC competition. She wasn’t there, so I headed home without anything to show for my newfound initiative.

I was to teach the 4th year students at San Sebastian the first mixed ‘LEC lite” (the course trimmed down to whatever my counterpart and I determined were the main points), at 11:30, so I had a little time to kill before I had to head over to the school. I read a bit more (If I keep this up, I’m going to be knowledgeable about everything!), then stumbled over to the institute to find the students marching around the school, playing drums, and xylophones. It appeared that everybody in the school was participating in this musical affair, so my enthusiasm to teach was soon replaced with the reality that I probably wouldn’t be teaching today.

I went to the teachers office where I found the sub-director, “So…are there classes today?” “Hahaha! No way!” he responded. I at least wanted to talk with my counterpart to just make sure we were on the same page, so we went and found him marching around the block with the students. After a brief conversation, I discovered that not only would class be canceled today, but it would be canceled everyday through September 15th – the students need to practice! It turns out that September 15th is the Nicaraguan Independence Day, and there will be a huge celebration with all the school in the municipality of Achuapa. My other institute has been practicing too, but has only pulled students out of class. This institute appears to have turned it into an all-inclusive event, because every student in the school was participating, whether they’re playing an instrument, or just marching. So yea, class will be canceled for 2 weeks…definitely not what I expected.

With no class to teach, I headed back over to the MINED office and changed the date of my LEC competition to the 22nd. I then ran around to reserve the location, and make sure that my potential judges were still all onboard with participating.

That effectively ended any work I had to do for the day. In light of the lack of productive outlets, I rode around the town a couple of times on my bike, and stopped by Ervin’s (the person who is going to open the hotel) house. He was sitting on the porch enjoying his lunch break, so I joined him for a 2-hour chat. I always look forward to chatting with him if only because he speaks so clearly and slowly that I can understand absolutely everything he says. As of now, he’s the only person I consistently see and just chat with, outside of the people in my host family.

I parted ways with Ervin at 2 and headed back home where I unwound with a workout and yoga session. I’ve found these yoga/relaxation sessions are still just as valuable as day 1. I have yet to find a better way to relax while I’ve been here – it’s just essential for mental health. It’s good to have an outlet!

It rained like crazy tonight (it’s as if the rain is on a schedule to come every night), so the rest of the night I remained indoors (well, as ‘indoors’ as a Nicaraguan house permits). Dinner was coupled with a conversation with our employee about the proper definition of somebody who is young. The Nicaraguan definition of somebody who is young is somebody who is without a kid. As soon as they have a kid, no matter what the age, this person is automatically labeled a “Viejo”, or rather, somebody who is older. Upon probing for the rationalization behind this, she explained that they’re more responsible because they have a kid. I totally shot this idea down by explaining that somebody my age having a kid without the means to provide for this kid, and without options to improve their life was in fact irresponsible. After my short discourse, she conceded that indeed my rationale made a whole lot more sense that the Nica version. Woo! Richard – 1, Nicaragua – TBD (Too be determined).

I’m off to Malpaisillo tomorrow to be a LEC competition, it will good to get an idea of things I’ll need to do during my competition, you know, to one up my friend – it’s not just the students that are competing!

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Good classes, and…´coping´

2008 19 June

June 17th

Today started out in the typical way of me waking up at 5:30 in the morning. This also yielded my routine when this occurs – exercising. Now while it may seem that I exercise all the time (it’s true), without weights, it’s just different. I find myself having to work out 3 to 4 times as long in order to prevent myself from getting soft. Coupled with the fact that I’m losing weight because my metabolism is sky high, staying fit is no easy task. Then again, nobody ever said Peace Corps was.

Since I woke up so early, I was ready to roll really early after my gigantic breakfast of half a watermelon, half a pineapple, eggs, bread, and milk. We had a training session at 10 AM in Catarina, a town 20 minutes away, so I figured to kill time, I’d go to the internet café. The internet café opened 20 minutes late, but I’ve grown so accustomed to Nica time I just perched myself on a balcony across the street and waited. The weather was nice since it was so early in the morning, and with fewer people on the streets at that hour, it provided a nice environment to be out an about.

I uploaded my diary, saw that another foot in a shoe (the 5th so far!) appeared off the coast of Canada, and then headed back home. Avi had sent me a text telling me that we were now meeting in Masatepe at Jordan’s house, so that prolonged my lounging around time. For some reason, I was famished, so I had another hearty breakfast of Peanut Butter and Honey sandwich, a banana, and a mango. After the aforementioned indulgence, I had enough caloric intake to make it the next 3 hours.

The charla we were going to have (Coping with Stress), started late because one of the PC medical officers was sick, so we were combined with another group. I got my 3rd rabies shot (only one left!), and had to wait about 30 minutes for everybody else to get theirs. While I was waiting, I spoke with one of the volunteers who showed up, Mason, because I heard he had been talking about Colorado. A few questions later, and I discovered he was volunteering with his wife outside of Leon. Not only that, but he went to CSU, his wife went to CU, he was in Fort Collins 5 days ago, and he lived on the Congress Park side of Botanic Gardens. It was nuts – but super cool.

The charla ended up making everybody a lot more stressed than we had been before (what the TEFL volunteers told me had been right!), and since the actual charla started an hour late, Avi and Jordan had to take off after an hour to go teach their classes. The charla kept going on and on, and eventually, I too had to take off for home home to eat before my class.

I got home to discover the gas had gone out, and had to wait 10 minutes for my lunch (which I really had no time to do). I threw my papelografos together that I had prepared for my class (I’d already made them for another class), and got really worried that I was missing one of them. Fortunately, I was just missing one that just required me to write “Backpack” on it, so I wasn’t set back too much. My bowl of chicken and rice soup (with a chicken leg in the middle of the bowl) and plantains was inhaled as I was running later than I preferred, and I took off for class.

I took the route to class that is a little sketchier, but hey, I’ve found that I’m pinche with everything nowadays. I got to the school 10 minutes before my class started and had to find my class. This was going to be the first class I’d teach to my 9th grade ‘D’ class, and I had no idea where it was. I went and found my abuelita, Doña Cecilia, who incidentally is the secretary, and she pointed out the classroom for me. Jordan was wrapping up her class in the room next to mine, and the only thing I could see was how loud her class, and my upcoming class was. The professor had left the classroom I was going to teach in and the kids were beating each other up, being noisy, etc. I was kind of worried about discipline, but I figured if they were bad, I could just yell at them in English if it came to that.

I walked in to class, and being the new professor, got a lot of snickering and whatnot, but the whole class stood up next to their chairs as I put my papelografos up on the board. All the seats in the class were moved up to where some students were seated about 5 feet from the front of the classroom. After I hung all my stuff up, and got all 45 of them to sit down, and briefly introduced myself, and all the formalities PC wanted us to do with the students. For some reason, my Spanish was once again amazing, even better than yesterday, and the class went super well. I talk a class on Creativity, and they responded well to the activities that I planned, and did really understood everything I was trying to drive into their heads. Not only that, I got an applause at the end of class. I’m 4 for 4 on applauses so far. I just don’t get it though, I’m not all that keen on teaching after observing the class in Chinandega, but every one of my classes has been incredibly.

I got home around 3 and wasn’t keen on sitting in the house, so I headed to the grocery store for my 5 times a week habit of buying chocolate milk and sitting in the park people watching. The weather has been amazing as of late, so it was a good activity to kill the time. I sauntered home to find that Jordan had just stopped buy, so I stopped by her house. I generally feel really uncomfortable in her house for some reason (even though it’s a palace), but ended up hanging out and talking with her in the rocking chairs for an hour and 40 minutes – a new record for me being there when it wasn’t forced. She went over to my house to chat with my parents a bit afterwards, where my parents proceeded to give me crap about an undisclosed topic – but that’s ok.

William and I ended up spending a couple hours afterward writing piropos (which are cat calls, but also cheesy pick up lines). This has been an activity we’ve done the last couple days for whatever reason, and it’s hysterical every time. One of the lines you ask? “Tus ojos son más brillantes que el sol que ilumina Nicaragua.” Oh yea, we’re going to be the Casanovas of Masatepe.

Afterwards, I arranged to meet up with Oliver for a beer, so I grabbed Jordan and headed over to meet him. She brought her host brother, and we all met up with Oliver in front of the bar – which was closed. So we headed down the street to one that was open, but empty, and hung out for about an hour and a half. Oliver called me twice that night, so I got to practice my Spanish listening skills, which were actually pretty good, and hanging out with two Nicaraguans also helped improve my skills.

When my Spanish is on it’s mark, generally it’s a great day.

June 18th

Today I had another ‘exciting’ training session to go to in Olla de Barro, and like always, I wasn’t really looking forward to. The only reason I ever actually get stoked to go to training is because there is a small chance I’ll get mail. However, this inkling of hope too is dwindling as I still have yet to receive any mail – get on it people.

I was feeling none to hot last night/this morning, so I was kind of dehydrated, but nothing out of the ordinary for Nicaragua. I mean come on – I’m in the tropics. I slept until 6:30 (starting to sleep in more!), and really only had the energy to lie in bed for an hour. So of course, that’s exactly what I did. After getting in an argument about what I was sick with my host mom (she told me it was the chocolate milk I drank yesterday and that I was eating too much peanut butter), I stopped by Jordan’s house and we caught the bus to Olla de Barro.

Our first charla was about entrepreneurial activities and competition in Nicaragua. Coincidentally (but probably not), it was given by the guy who wrote the book that our group in Masatepe has to read every week and discuss with one of the business project coordinators. It was the first charla we’d had in Spanish where he would make sure we were paying attention, so I had to actually listen. I always understood the ones in the past, but I just didn’t care because all the charlas say the same thing – Nicaragua needs your help, these are the problems, blah blah blah. Yea, I got it, I’m here to help. But wouldn’t you know it, I got super into it when he busted out some economic indicators describing the state of the economy in Nicaragua. They were some misleading figures and I cut loose, but whatever. I think I’ve spoken more in Spanish today in the form of arguments than I have in any other situation – but hey, I’ll need practice arguing too!

The second charla was a practice class given by the trainees from Nandasmo and was super difficult topic to teach, but props to them for doing it. The volunteer I visited in Chinandega, Luis, helped them prepare their charla, but unfortunately for him he got wicked sick last night and wasn’t able to attend today.

After the charla, PC gave us a ride back and with me still being sick, I queasily fell asleep only to be awoken 3 hours later covered in sweat because the sun decided to invade my sleeping area. I was to meet Jordan at 3:15 so we could go to the institute we teach at, and find out the exam schedule for the following week…but stomach said that wasn’t going to happen. I accompanied her to the institute, but then went to Owen’s house to wait for her (we were going to meet there at 4 anyway). Eventually she showed up to tell us that (surprise surprise) they didn’t know what the exam schedule would be until tomorrow. Scheduling tends to be where most problems arise during training and is really something that is completely unavoidable. Initially, my reaction is some sort of obscenity-laden tirade, but after experiencing this on a daily basis, I’m a lot more apathetic to my schedule being totally screwed (at least from a trainee point of view).

We had to rendezvous at Owen’s house because PC wants out training group to do an analysis of a certain industry in Masatepe. We have to create a survey in order to analyse a certain market in the community. Since there’s an abundance of pulperias, we’re going to survey 8 pulperias and create a SWOT analysis to see the weaknesses, strengths, and general characteristics of this type of business. We don’t have any confianza (trust) with any of the pulperia owners, so the majority of the questions just scratch the surface, but can still give us a picture of how they run their business. Yea, I know – exciting.

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