June 19th
Today I continued my growing habit of sleeping just a little longer as I woke up at around 7:30. I grabbed some breakfast, then had the intention of doing some exercises before I had to go to Jordan’s house at 9 for a training meeting. I got to my room, but for the next hour and a half I mixed 50 pushups in with an hour and a half of laying in my bed and staring at my ceiling. Ever since I got semi-sick the other day, I just haven’t quite felt the same, and this was a feeling that would continue throughout the day.
I got over to Jordan’s house where Avi and Jordan were waiting for Ernie (our SBD trainer) to show up to give us a quiz on the book we had to read. Owen showed up about 10 minutes late, and eventually Ernie rolled up in one of the 13 PC mobiles (a Land Cruiser with a snorkel on it). He’s sick with something weird, so he’s all drugged up (he didn’t remember dropping us off at the volcano last week, nor driving back to Managua). This resulted in him stumbling into the house, handing out our quiz, and then saying he was going to lay down for a bit. Instead, he proceeded to sleep for the next hour and a half. Upon waking up, he walked in a very non-straight line and stumbled out to his car. Georgia, our program director, had told us that we would get a packet today with all of the info about all the potential sites for us today, but Ernie didn’t bring it. After a few calls, he said that somebody was going to drop it off at noon – finally we would get to know what the sites were! However, to kill time, Jordan and I headed to the mayor’s office where we learned that they in fact did not have a program that was advertised. I then went to the cyber café (better in the mornings!)
When I got back to my house, my host mom told me Jordan had stopped by with a packet – the site info. It’s a huge 60 page bound folder with all 20 sites for the 20 SBD trainees. Included in the description of each site is information regarding:
Stats of the city (population, access to utilities, cyber access, climate, geography, and the distance from Managua by bus)
Classes we’ll teach (# of schools, # of sections, # of students, type of teaching we’ll do)
Other Primary Business Edu Activities (Biz Advising, Agbiz, Ecotourism, etc)
Additional projects at site (what residents at the site are interested/involved in)
Site Notes (If we’ll have a site mate, if it’s a new site, where the nearest volunteer is, what the main economic activity is)
What type of person would suit this site
Initially, my reaction was that this would tell me absolutely nothing, as it’s only 2 pages long for each site. How can 2 pages tell me enough about a potential place to live and work the next 2 years? Well, it actually did, and out of the 20, I found 12 that I though fit me (even though Peace Corps says not to get our hopes up):
Villa Sandino, Chontales
Granada, Granada
Nindirí, Masaya
El Viejo, Chinandega
Somotillo, Chinandega
Achuapa, León
Telívs, León
Ocotal, Nueva Segovia
Quilalí, Nueva Segovia
San Ramón, Matagalpa
San Rafael Del Norte, Jinotega
Yalí, Jinotega
Of those 12 sites, there are 4 that fit me like a glove (though I would’ve never thought they’d be my top choices in the beginning):
Achuapa, León
San Ramón, Matagalpa
San Rafael Del Norte, Jinotega
Yalí, Jinotega
Out of those 4 sites, all of them are in the mountains, have populations of 5,000 people or lower, are between 3 and 5 hours from Managua by bus, and have anywhere from 113 to 210 students that I’d have to teach. They all have working opportunities that complement my skills/interests so well, that I honestly can’t chose which one I prefer most (which is a good thing since I probably wont get it anyway). It’s totally pointless to make an analysis like I did since Peace Corps chooses which site I’m going to – but I’ve got a plan.
From 1 PM until now (9:30), I made a spreadsheet analyzing all the quantitative and qualitative variables of every site to find the economic characteristics of the sites that I preferred in comparison to all the other sites. I made tables, charts, graphs, and just to top it off, I made a power point presentation. I’m hoping with all this crap I did, I can provide an awesome argument for why I should be sent to one of the 4 sites I’m completely enamored with. It will probably be the first power point presentation in the history of Peace Corps site interviews, but hey, there’s a first time for everything.
Originally, my whole excel spreadsheet/powerpoint presentation was just so I could see all the facts down on paper, and it was interesting. My favourite sites are the smallest sites available (I always thought I wanted a huge city), and they’re the farthest from Managua (the most central location in the country). I also got to see what sorts of work options I gravitated towards → working with women, working with tourism, agriculture, micro businesses, economic development, and working with youth. I also tended to gravitate toward the sites with the lowest number of students. This was simply because I think I’d lose my mind with 12 sections and 586 students (as is the site in Estelí, a city of 75,000).
It was pretty fun to throw everything down so I could look at it all, but in the end I just couldn’t help but analyse it – I think I’m going to do a linear regression of all the variables to find out which variable is most important for me.
God I have too much time on my hands.
Posted by thegoggins 