The view from the mirador in Juigalpa
A silhouette of national hero Sandino
Another view
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Otra Ocasion
"On another occasion"....
People here sometimes use this phrase to decline politely, ie to decline buying something from a traveling vendor on a bus, or to not give a beggar money. I think it's pretty applicable to everything. There wasn't class today, but en otra ocasion...
el mirador-scenic look out
El Dia de la Tierra- Earth Day
la sierra- mountains
el abigeato- cattle rustling
This week was a bit of an absurdity. At some of the institutos, we managed to lose nearly an entire week of classes without school actually being closed. Luckily, I've started some side projects which are a nice way to break up my week, because these are not necessarily contingent on school being open. It's also really nice to plan things on my own. Co-planning is awesome, but it can be really time consuming. Also, the side projects, in addition to school, have helped me become more integrated in the community. I pretty much can't go anywhere in greater San Miguelito without running into a student/one of my student's parents or someone calling "Hi, teacher." It's always reassuring when the kids actually use the correct forms of the greetings, contingent on the time of day, which occasionally happens.
On Monday, it was Earth Day. In San Miguelito, they held a plant and animal fair to celebrate. It was supposed to start after the first two periods of class, but after a cow was brought into the schoolyard, teaching pretty much ground to a halt. My counterpart and I gave a class, but we were literally the only ones who were teaching. I'm not sure that the feria had a very good environmental message, since mostly the students sold drinks out of styrofoam cups, and cows are the least environmentally friendly animals pretty much ever. I didn't have my act together this year, but maybe next year I'll try to promote some more environmentally friendly stuff. Over all, San Miguel is a fairly environmentally conscious municipio, though. There's recycling and an environmental NGO. It could definitely be a lot worse.
El Tule did not have an earth day fair, so my counterpart Jonathan and I had a regular day of class. We had our 10th graders create cartoons about a legend we had just read in class and we taught the 11th grade about the future tense. The students really liked class, compared to their usual reaction, which is to make grumpy faces at us and sigh a lot. I suspect this was because we used audio visual resources, had them create timelines, and because it was relatable to things they are thinking about as it gets closer to graduation.
On Monday afternoon, we had our 2nd meeting of the 7th and 8th grade English club/class. A few more students showed up. We brainstormed topics for the class, played "I'm going on a picnic" (for more diagnostic of people's level) and learned the song "Green Grass Grows all Around" because it seemed appropriate for Earth Day. One of the students taught me the version in Spanish, which was cool. Totally gonna teach it to the chavalos on the block.
On Tuesday, there was a Musa Dariana competition, which I've previously described, so we only taught one period of class in San Miguelito. In the afternoon, in El Tule, Jonathan and I had a great bunch of classes. We taught 7th grade verb to be, using, you guessed it, "Very Good Friend" and then we taught 9th grade the command form using safety/warning signs and by playing "Pin the tail on the Donkey," which was a huge hit. Especially because I messed with the kids by changing the size of the donkey on the chalkboard after the students were blind-folded, to the amusement of all involved. There are a ton of donkeys in El Tule, so this vocabulary word is pretty essential for describing daily life there.
On Wednesday, my co-teacher wasn't going to school, so I decided to go to Juigalpa, Chontales to go to the grocery store and get my cash money cash money for the month. Juigalpa is two and a half hours from San Miguelito, which is kind of a haul, but could be worse. It's a biggish city (by Nicaraguan standards) of 50,000ish, but it's the antithesis of touristy. Chontales is cowboy country, and it's right at the foot of the Sierra Amerisque, so there's lots of rough looking mountains around, and rougher looking cowboy characters, as well as some noveau riche rancher types. Especially at this dusty time of year, it's hot and dry, almost vaguely deserty. It was a long ride, but going to the grocery store was pretty worth it, for the slightly better selection and especially after I realized how much pulperias mark up the prices.
After filling up my backpack with an eggplant (OMG!!!!!!!!!!), coffee, milk, pasta, tomato paste and various other provisions, I climbed around the various hills of Juigalpa. I had heard of a restaurant that had a fabulous view of the mountains, and I wanted to check it out. I didn't want to admit to anyone that I didn't know where I was going, so I just kept walking around and going up the hill, because that seemed a logical way to get to the mirador. I eventually got to this dirt road and after asking at a hotel which was not the restaurant I was looking for, I found it, and it was pretty spectacular and well worth the embarrassing amounts of sweating involved. This is how un-touristy Juigalpa is: the road to one of the main touristic attractions isn't even paved. Who knows where that restaurant actually is. After that, I hung out in Juigalpa's central park which was very lovely, a good old Spanish town with a plaza in the center of town kind of deal. I ate ice cream for lunch, because I usually can't find good ice cream at site. I'm totally a real grown up. HA.
Unfortunately, I miscalculated the bus schedule, and ended up waiting over an hour and a half in a bus stop by the dirty, dusty highway for the next bus to come. This, however, gave me insight into a fascinating economic niche that a Juigalpa beggar has found for himself. In a country where no bus schedules are formally posted anyway, he basically serves as a bus schedule. In exchange for a few coins, he tells you when the next bus to your destination will arrive. This seemed to be surprisingly lucrative. I watched him change out coins for bills, and he had made approximately $4 by only 2 in the afternoon. Considering that teachers make about $6 a day here, that's no small feat. This was all fascinating, but of course he began to hit on me (ah the allure of the sweaty, dirty gringa with a backpack full of milk), so it was nice when the bus arrived, even though I had to travel back home on foot on a bus that was packed like a cattle car.
I planned on Thursday morning with the teachers I work with on Saturday, but I didn't teach in the afternoon because of some sort of sports day. On Thursday evening, we had our inaugural meeting of our "English teachers and other people who know lots of English" club. Our topic was: "Tag Questions are fun, aren't they?" Tag questions, those mini questions we use at the ends of sentences to verify information (the meeting was last night, wasn't it?), make dumb comments (sure is hot, isn't it) or be snarky (he's a smart one, isn't he?) are a pain in the ass if you don't have the privilege of being a native English speaker, but everyone seemed to be pretty clear on how to form them and when to employ them by the end of class, which was awesome. We had 2 gringas, 1 German and 5 Nicaraguans show up, including 3 of my counterpart teachers. It was really nice to actually teach an advanced conversation class, which I hadn't really done since high school, when, to be brutally honest, I had literally no idea what I was doing, methodologically speaking or otherwise. Teaching more advanced speakers is fun, because you have to test your own knowledge of grammar and you get the opportunity to reflect on cultural and situational nuances much more than you do with beginners.
We started off by playing 2 Truths and a Lie. Then I introduced the tag question structure, which most people were familiar with, but needed extra practice, especially for some of the trickier rules. We used the 2 Truths and a Lie sentences to practice forming tag questions. Then, we played "Human Bingo," but with the variation that people had to use tag questions to complete their grid. Lastly, we finished using some vaguely silly situation cards, which helped to contextualize some situations in which the grammar might be used, for example:
-Your cousin is visiting from the United States and you want to cook her sopa de pescado. She has many allergies though, and you want to make sure she will not be allergic to the fish. What do you ask her?
-You're in the doctor's office and the doctor is checking some results from a blood test. He's frowning and talking to himself. Because of his behavior you are worried that you have a serious illness. What do you say to the doctor?
-You are gossiping with your friend about another friend named Nick. He broke up with his girlfriend last month. Ask her if Nick is still single.
-You and your cousin are sitting on your front porch on a hot afternoon. You're sweating a lot. You want to make a comment about the heat. What do you say?
On Friday, we had TEPCE, which is a teacher's planning meeting. We were supposed to evaluate our work for the last month and plan for the next one. I hung out with two counterparts, Rafael and Jonathan, which was a good time, despite the fact that the reflection questions we had to answer were really tedious. We swapped names for different food containers, different types of local industries, like tanneries and rice processing plants, the difference between "a lot" and "too much" and discussed whether it's appropriate to say "I'm really hot" to express physical discomfort in English. I decided that it's appropriate in certain contexts, if coupled with a time expression, for example, "I'm really hot right now." NOT read in a sexy tone of voice... I love my counterparts, they're good people.
In the afternoon, I had English class for the chavalos. I didn't really want to plan much of a class, so I thought we would have a mini-lesson on learning styles and pronunciation, to help them identify how they learn information best, which is an important thing when you're learning a second language. However, I couldn't find a learning styles test online that was culturally appropriate, age appropriate, (11 year olds in Central America don't go out to cocktail parties to drink wine or go to museums) OR in Spanish, so I ended up having to translate one, which was a lot of work, and defeated the purpose of me not planning a lot for class. O well. I also introduced the students to a color coded phonetics chart, because the kids kept telling me they are really worried about their pronunciation. The beauty of teaching the phonetics of vowel sounds this way is that it is fun and accessible, and you can teach it by making continuous associations with colors over time.
On Saturday, we actually had class. I taught a bunch of eighth graders the "I like to eat apples and bananas" song from Barney as a warm up for class, and accidentally told the class that we were singing the song to make us "horny" for class. NOPE. Not what I meant so much. The kids actually liked our lessons this week though, which was fun. We were talking about likes and dislikes which is a great topic because it triples their ability to have a conversation, and it's relevant to them.
After school got out, I went wandering to visit some other PCVs in nearby parts of Rio San Juan/the RAAS (Southern Atlantic Autonomous Region). First, I went to celebrate the fiestas patronales in El Amendro (The Almond Tree) with a bunch of other PCVs from Rio San Juan. Even though it is probably only like 30 minutes away by private car, it took me over 2 and 1/2 hours (including a bunch of walking because I'm an idiot) to get there due to terribly timed connections. It's always cool to visit other people's sites though and we had a lot of fun eating scrumptious frito (fried chicken and plantain strips) and dancing (by which I mean attempting to dance with any grace whatsoever) to cumbia while surrounded by cowboys on a baseball field in the moonlight. We might be few, and isolated, but everybody in Rio San Juan is super cool and a lot of fun.
Early on Sunday, I went over to Nueva Guinea to visit some TEFLeras from my training group. Nueva Guinea is really big (Nicaraguan standards so we're talking 100,000 people, max), but there's not very much to do. It's as if a bunch of evangelical Christians had built a cowboy agricultural paradise in the middle of the jungle. It does have a super market though, which is pretty exciting. I only got to see my friend Natalie for a little bit because she had to return to her site in central Nicaragua, but Isabel and I hung out for a little while and wandered the town. I made it back to San Miguelito early in the afternoon to discover that ants had eaten holes in the milk that I bought on Wednesday, and that it had gone bad in the interim. So I cleaned up that giant mess, and went to church. And so it began.
Structural Violence and Orange Trucks
Word of the Day:
las naranjeras- orange orchards
On Saturday evening, 6 orange pickers from Rio San Juan (day laborers) are killed when the truck (a modified cattle car) they are riding to return from work crashes and overturns, the fault of a drunk driver traveling at an excessive velocity. Those killed are students, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers. They are entangled in all the usual webs of human belonging, and their sudden departure leaves these webs in tattered. 6 children without a mother. Parents without a son. A 10th grade student who went to pick oranges for a day to get money for the school's sports day, and doesn't return because that is the cruelty of random chance, someone else's bad decision making colliding with vehicles.
Their deaths seem to be more than a tragedy, somehow a violation of human rights, but what name by which to call this injustice? There is no code that precisely pins down what caused this. Most simply, they are poor and they would not have died in this way had they been rich. It is the handless violence that makes people work as day laborers for low wages in the hot sun, that denies them the right to travel safely, that denies them control over their destination, literally and figuratively.
Their deaths strike me as somehow different and more unjust than a regular accident because they are caused by something more sinister and deeper and without readily available remedy, in the same way that the thousands of children who die of gun violence in America differ from school shootings, in its quotidianness, and the daily indignities proceeding. And yet it is so wrong to try and tally up pain, because everyone suffers and grieves and to pretend otherwise is to perpetuate another injustice to victims, to reduce them to statistics, rhetoric, media frenzy, instead of real lives. As does the word victims. How easily language fails us.
Really, I'm left with no response more sophisticated or articulate than to say "this is not fair." It becomes easier to see why people here pepper their speech with expressions like "Si Dios quiere", if God wills it. Because what else can be done but wait?
Saturday, April 20, 2013
A few recent pics
Christina and I hanging out on the muelle with some kids- lots of fun!
A beautiful sunset... you can't see the volcanoes though :(
The gifted fish all fried up...with a nice little tomato and onion sauce as accompaniment.
Teaching Anecdotes, Week 8
Words of the Day:
el batido- smoothie
el murcielago- bat
el capullo- cocoon
la oruga- caterpillar
This week was a weird week, because I only really taught half the classes I usually do for various reasons. I did plenty of other things though, so I'm full of stories as per usual...
Meeting with the most entertaining interruptions thus far in Nicaragua: On Tuesday, I went with my counterpart teacher Xiomara to represent the TEFL program in a regional meeting between the Ministry of Education and Peace Corps in San Carlos. Things started off badly after Xiomara lost her cell phone when we went to get batidos. We went back to the batido place to look for her phone, and tracked down the taxi we had been riding in: this is how small of a city San Carlos is. No sign of the phone though.
The meeting might sound really important, and it was to a point, but it actually only involved 10ish people, and was held in a cramped office. Our presentation went really well, even though I was super nervous because I had to make it in Spanish. Some interesting points were made in the meeting. I definitely can't do everything they want me to do, like provide more support to further out communities (I don't own a horse, have an infinite transportation budget, or any free time), but I can absolutely improve my communication with them, which was one of the concerns that was raised. As the meeting went on, things got a little bit nutty: a bat emerged from the ceiling while the Small Business Volunteer from San Carlos, Matt, was presenting, several people kept answering their cell phones at once, and a four year-old child of one of the participants began running around and interrupting her Mom while she was talking.
Site Visit: My boss, Greg, came to visit to see how things are going, trouble shoot some problems, celebrate successes and chat everybody up. He met with all my teachers and 2 of 4 principals, so I think that was a pretty good percentage. It was great to have a chance to talk, vent and reflect on what's going well, which is most things. As an RPCV (returned Peace Corps Volunteer) from El Salvador, Greg totally gets what can be frustrating about service, and generally has good advice. From his visit, I realized how great my counterparts are: how dedicated and how talented. I feel more invigorated in my work from having someone to bounce ideas off of and I'm hoping to get the ball rolling on three more projects this month: English "Office Hours" to help students who don't have the opportunity to have class with me to ask questions, get homework help or practice, (which really is just going to be an excuse for me to hang out on the dock to watch sunsets), an English night for profes to practice with each other and a community class for 8th graders (more details below).
Shortest class so far: Greg came to observe class in Las Palomas...for like 20 minutes. We arrived a little late to school, at 12:40, to have the principal inform us that the teachers would need to leave to attend a parents' meeting at 1. Our class was a little bit discombobulated for a lot of reasons in addition to that, but the kids got to interview Greg, which was plenty comical, and he got to see our World Map/What is she doing activity?, and had some great suggestions for how to improve the activity. He was shocked by how well the students behaved. Then, as we were waiting to talk to the principal, Christian, one of the 8th grade students, came over to us and asked "May I leave?" I thought he meant school, but he just wanted to get water. Then he came back by, and said "Thank you very much." Greg asked me if I had paid him off, which I had not, although I should probably do that retroactively. No, son bromas(Jk)... But maybe I'll gift him a platano or a mango.
English Club organized in one hour or less: During class, one of the chavalos in 8th grade in San Miguel asked me if I would consider giving an English class for speaking practice. I told him that I would consider it, but that he needed to find at least 10 friends first who were interested, figuring this would take him at least til the end of the week. I was helping a student with her English work while recess was starting, when he came up to me and told me that he had a list of kids ready. Then, on Thursday night, the day before class was going to start, he and his friend ran into me in the street and told me that he couldn't attend the first meeting, but that they already had prepared a list of topics, a letter thanking me for doing the class for them, and a contract of how they will treat me and how they expect to be treated. God, I love the kids here who are excited about learning, they make my job easy and enjoyable.
On Friday we had our first meeting. We had a good number of kids show up: 7. More expected next week, but I'm fine with a small class. We played a game called Chatty Penguin, that I learned during training, in which you have to hold a coin between your knees and walk a certain distance while telling facts about yourself. The kids tried to do it in English, which was a good diagnostic. Then, we set some rules for class and set a time. We spent the last hour and half doing reader's theatre (google it if you're not familiar, my internet is too slow to get a link) with the story "The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar," which was simultaneously a little bit hard for them and a bit juvenile, but I think they liked it, and it reviewed some vocab that as eight graders, they should know, like days of the week and numbers. We're going to keep working on it next class.
Something that could be really cool: Natalie, a health volunteer in San Carlos is working on a class to help health care providers improve health care quality by tapping into their interest in English, so that she can teach a class combining English and a curriculum about quality improvement for health care. I set her up with Peace Corps' Nicaragua's TEFL manual for some ideas, and we considered some topics/activities for the class. I hope it works out, because it would be really cool, especially since, according to Natalie, the need for better quality in health care isn't always recognized by caregivers or patients, since the system is free. It's nice to be in a country where we have such a high density of volunteers, for the social aspect as well as to have other perspectives from different sectors to inform your own work.
Who doesn't love vegetables?: Brought some "realia" to class to a lesson that was mainly about fruits and vegetables. The kids thought it was hilarious and paid attention.
Cross your fingers: I feel like we've finally made some headway with some of the more difficult students in my Saturday classes. Maybe this is wishful thinking, but I really want positive reinforcement strategies to pay off. Honestly, this might be a better legacy for me to leave at the school, because having English once a week for an hour if were lucky is not really going to help anyone learn much language. But I would love to influence the way teachers' approach classroom management.
All of my eight graders in 8B did their homework. This was shocking to me because usually only a third of the class does it if we're lucky. They might have copied the answers from one or two students, but at least they made the effort to do that, which they usually do not. I made them give themselves a round of applause for actually doing their work.
I feel like maybe we've turned a corner with 7B too. This is the most difficult class I teach, because the students are older (some have kids), have jobs and real responsibilities, and yet are just starting school, so they feel like we are babying them or get frustrated easily with the material. Many of them have probably been told for their entire childhoods and adolescent years that they are necio, problem kids. Others students are from way out in the campo, and are terrifying of speaking in English. To top things off, we teach this class in a preschool classroom, because there is no space in the rest of the primary school where the other sections receive classes. The students crowd up to tiny desks or tables, in tiny chairs and the board is really worn out and difficult to write on. They are currently finishing a new high school building, and we can't wait to get over there. It's gonna be amazing in comparison. Today, though, one of the students who's usually super necio actually participated in a game. I praised the bejezus out of him, holding his behavior today up as an example for the rest of the class. Maybe it will continue to pay off. I savory these little victories, even if they are coincidences.
Taxi driver interaction of the week: I spend a lot of time with the taxi drivers on a weekly basis getting to and from work. On Monday, one of my favorite taxi drivers, who drives a tiny neon yellow car, randomly announced to our jammed car "Did you know that in her country they their kids out of the house when they turn 18?" This undoubtedly is one of the "facts" many people here find most surprising about my life. I tried to clarify by explaining that not everyone does this, and that I WANTED to leave, but I did end up having to admit that I left home at 18. Most of my attempts to avoid making generalizations about American culture are about this successful.
I speall rill good I swer: I've been noticing lately that I've been struggling really hard to spell homonyms (words that sound the same, but have a different spelling). It makes no sense to me why this would be the first thing in my English to deteriorate, but maybe there's an answer in linguistics or brain science. Aaaaaaaaa saber. (Who knows)
el batido- smoothie
el murcielago- bat
el capullo- cocoon
la oruga- caterpillar
This week was a weird week, because I only really taught half the classes I usually do for various reasons. I did plenty of other things though, so I'm full of stories as per usual...
Meeting with the most entertaining interruptions thus far in Nicaragua: On Tuesday, I went with my counterpart teacher Xiomara to represent the TEFL program in a regional meeting between the Ministry of Education and Peace Corps in San Carlos. Things started off badly after Xiomara lost her cell phone when we went to get batidos. We went back to the batido place to look for her phone, and tracked down the taxi we had been riding in: this is how small of a city San Carlos is. No sign of the phone though.
The meeting might sound really important, and it was to a point, but it actually only involved 10ish people, and was held in a cramped office. Our presentation went really well, even though I was super nervous because I had to make it in Spanish. Some interesting points were made in the meeting. I definitely can't do everything they want me to do, like provide more support to further out communities (I don't own a horse, have an infinite transportation budget, or any free time), but I can absolutely improve my communication with them, which was one of the concerns that was raised. As the meeting went on, things got a little bit nutty: a bat emerged from the ceiling while the Small Business Volunteer from San Carlos, Matt, was presenting, several people kept answering their cell phones at once, and a four year-old child of one of the participants began running around and interrupting her Mom while she was talking.
Site Visit: My boss, Greg, came to visit to see how things are going, trouble shoot some problems, celebrate successes and chat everybody up. He met with all my teachers and 2 of 4 principals, so I think that was a pretty good percentage. It was great to have a chance to talk, vent and reflect on what's going well, which is most things. As an RPCV (returned Peace Corps Volunteer) from El Salvador, Greg totally gets what can be frustrating about service, and generally has good advice. From his visit, I realized how great my counterparts are: how dedicated and how talented. I feel more invigorated in my work from having someone to bounce ideas off of and I'm hoping to get the ball rolling on three more projects this month: English "Office Hours" to help students who don't have the opportunity to have class with me to ask questions, get homework help or practice, (which really is just going to be an excuse for me to hang out on the dock to watch sunsets), an English night for profes to practice with each other and a community class for 8th graders (more details below).
Shortest class so far: Greg came to observe class in Las Palomas...for like 20 minutes. We arrived a little late to school, at 12:40, to have the principal inform us that the teachers would need to leave to attend a parents' meeting at 1. Our class was a little bit discombobulated for a lot of reasons in addition to that, but the kids got to interview Greg, which was plenty comical, and he got to see our World Map/What is she doing activity?, and had some great suggestions for how to improve the activity. He was shocked by how well the students behaved. Then, as we were waiting to talk to the principal, Christian, one of the 8th grade students, came over to us and asked "May I leave?" I thought he meant school, but he just wanted to get water. Then he came back by, and said "Thank you very much." Greg asked me if I had paid him off, which I had not, although I should probably do that retroactively. No, son bromas(Jk)... But maybe I'll gift him a platano or a mango.
English Club organized in one hour or less: During class, one of the chavalos in 8th grade in San Miguel asked me if I would consider giving an English class for speaking practice. I told him that I would consider it, but that he needed to find at least 10 friends first who were interested, figuring this would take him at least til the end of the week. I was helping a student with her English work while recess was starting, when he came up to me and told me that he had a list of kids ready. Then, on Thursday night, the day before class was going to start, he and his friend ran into me in the street and told me that he couldn't attend the first meeting, but that they already had prepared a list of topics, a letter thanking me for doing the class for them, and a contract of how they will treat me and how they expect to be treated. God, I love the kids here who are excited about learning, they make my job easy and enjoyable.
On Friday we had our first meeting. We had a good number of kids show up: 7. More expected next week, but I'm fine with a small class. We played a game called Chatty Penguin, that I learned during training, in which you have to hold a coin between your knees and walk a certain distance while telling facts about yourself. The kids tried to do it in English, which was a good diagnostic. Then, we set some rules for class and set a time. We spent the last hour and half doing reader's theatre (google it if you're not familiar, my internet is too slow to get a link) with the story "The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar," which was simultaneously a little bit hard for them and a bit juvenile, but I think they liked it, and it reviewed some vocab that as eight graders, they should know, like days of the week and numbers. We're going to keep working on it next class.
Something that could be really cool: Natalie, a health volunteer in San Carlos is working on a class to help health care providers improve health care quality by tapping into their interest in English, so that she can teach a class combining English and a curriculum about quality improvement for health care. I set her up with Peace Corps' Nicaragua's TEFL manual for some ideas, and we considered some topics/activities for the class. I hope it works out, because it would be really cool, especially since, according to Natalie, the need for better quality in health care isn't always recognized by caregivers or patients, since the system is free. It's nice to be in a country where we have such a high density of volunteers, for the social aspect as well as to have other perspectives from different sectors to inform your own work.
Who doesn't love vegetables?: Brought some "realia" to class to a lesson that was mainly about fruits and vegetables. The kids thought it was hilarious and paid attention.
Cross your fingers: I feel like we've finally made some headway with some of the more difficult students in my Saturday classes. Maybe this is wishful thinking, but I really want positive reinforcement strategies to pay off. Honestly, this might be a better legacy for me to leave at the school, because having English once a week for an hour if were lucky is not really going to help anyone learn much language. But I would love to influence the way teachers' approach classroom management.
All of my eight graders in 8B did their homework. This was shocking to me because usually only a third of the class does it if we're lucky. They might have copied the answers from one or two students, but at least they made the effort to do that, which they usually do not. I made them give themselves a round of applause for actually doing their work.
I feel like maybe we've turned a corner with 7B too. This is the most difficult class I teach, because the students are older (some have kids), have jobs and real responsibilities, and yet are just starting school, so they feel like we are babying them or get frustrated easily with the material. Many of them have probably been told for their entire childhoods and adolescent years that they are necio, problem kids. Others students are from way out in the campo, and are terrifying of speaking in English. To top things off, we teach this class in a preschool classroom, because there is no space in the rest of the primary school where the other sections receive classes. The students crowd up to tiny desks or tables, in tiny chairs and the board is really worn out and difficult to write on. They are currently finishing a new high school building, and we can't wait to get over there. It's gonna be amazing in comparison. Today, though, one of the students who's usually super necio actually participated in a game. I praised the bejezus out of him, holding his behavior today up as an example for the rest of the class. Maybe it will continue to pay off. I savory these little victories, even if they are coincidences.
Taxi driver interaction of the week: I spend a lot of time with the taxi drivers on a weekly basis getting to and from work. On Monday, one of my favorite taxi drivers, who drives a tiny neon yellow car, randomly announced to our jammed car "Did you know that in her country they their kids out of the house when they turn 18?" This undoubtedly is one of the "facts" many people here find most surprising about my life. I tried to clarify by explaining that not everyone does this, and that I WANTED to leave, but I did end up having to admit that I left home at 18. Most of my attempts to avoid making generalizations about American culture are about this successful.
I speall rill good I swer: I've been noticing lately that I've been struggling really hard to spell homonyms (words that sound the same, but have a different spelling). It makes no sense to me why this would be the first thing in my English to deteriorate, but maybe there's an answer in linguistics or brain science. Aaaaaaaaa saber. (Who knows)
Friday Night Fish Fry
el sabalo- giant fish, found in Lake Nicaragua or the Rio San Juan.
las gallas- gills
las escamas- scales
la aleta- fin
el muelle- dock, wharf
el guapote-the good kind of fish round here
Just after I blogged about being gifted things, I got gifted something especially awesome.
My sitemate Christina and I were sitting at the muelle in town, hanging out, after teaching a group of 8th graders some English. A boat came in from one of the islands, and some very drunk sports' fishermen disembarked. One of them stumbled towards shore, carrying the largest fish I have ever seen. It was a biblically proportioned sabalo. Absolutely gigantic, supposedly weighing 130 pounds. Epic.
We had just met an American engineer, who's half Nicaraguan and half German, who visits San Miguel every few months, the night before. When he got off the boat and saw us, he offered us some fish from the rest of their catch. We tried to protest, because we didn't know how to gut and prepare fish, but he insisted. So we wound up with two fish. Since we were pretty clueless about what to do, we decided to enlist my host mom's help in preparing them. It was really interesting, and she was a good teacher. She helped us cut the fish, flavor it with salt, lemon, and garlic and fry it in lots of oil. We made a tomato and onion salad- the traditional accompaniment around here and a side of gifted plantains and ya- delicious, and completed unexpected Friday night fish fry.
las gallas- gills
las escamas- scales
la aleta- fin
el muelle- dock, wharf
el guapote-the good kind of fish round here
Just after I blogged about being gifted things, I got gifted something especially awesome.
My sitemate Christina and I were sitting at the muelle in town, hanging out, after teaching a group of 8th graders some English. A boat came in from one of the islands, and some very drunk sports' fishermen disembarked. One of them stumbled towards shore, carrying the largest fish I have ever seen. It was a biblically proportioned sabalo. Absolutely gigantic, supposedly weighing 130 pounds. Epic.
We had just met an American engineer, who's half Nicaraguan and half German, who visits San Miguel every few months, the night before. When he got off the boat and saw us, he offered us some fish from the rest of their catch. We tried to protest, because we didn't know how to gut and prepare fish, but he insisted. So we wound up with two fish. Since we were pretty clueless about what to do, we decided to enlist my host mom's help in preparing them. It was really interesting, and she was a good teacher. She helped us cut the fish, flavor it with salt, lemon, and garlic and fry it in lots of oil. We made a tomato and onion salad- the traditional accompaniment around here and a side of gifted plantains and ya- delicious, and completed unexpected Friday night fish fry.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Gringa vs. Comal: Cooking Tales
Words of the Day
regalar- to giftbochornoso/a- embarrasing OR stifling hot "un calor bochornoso"
el comal- clay surface for tortilla making
triturar- mash up, mush up, or the verb for squeezing jocote seeds out of the cooked fruit with your hands
aprovechar- take advantage of
desbaratar- fall apart, aka what happens to all of my tortilla attempts
I've finally started cooking for myself! More than anything else, this has made me feel finally settled in and infinitely happier here. My host mom is a really good cook, and I didn't want to offend her, but I really wanted more variety, spice, and less oil, rice, sugar and salt in my diet. And I wanted to swap out the meat for some veggies. I finally worked up the courage to ask her if I could cook and she was surprisingly fine with it. It really makes my days fabulous: cooking up things from home (very improvised variations) while jamming out with some salsa tunes on my iPod has improved my quality of life tremendously. It really is true that the fastest way to the heart is through the stomach.
So far, kitchen projects have included trying to perfect my tortilla making, which is a bit more of an art form, although not impossible. With two plastic sheets and a plate to squish, you can make uniform tortillas really easily without doing it by hand the old school way, but tortillas can fall apart on the comal if the water to flour ratio isn't just right.
Other things I've made: Squash and Platano Stew (life-changing recipe from the Nicaraguan Peace Corps volunteer "magazine"), a recipe my mom makes called Squash with Egg and Cheese (exactly what it sounds like), pasta with mango and tomato sauce (gotta go with local options), Mexican Guacamole (not quite in season yet, but once starts, I will probably eat guac daily), and repochetas, which are fried tortillas with bean dip, tomato, cheese and cabbage salad on top. Also known as the best things EVER.
There are lots of other benefits to cooking for myself. It's a great way to build relationships in the community, since finding ingredients can be a bit of a treasure hunt, and as such I have the excuse to talk to many people and practice Spanish, which has become a problem of late, since I spend so much time teaching in English. It's also a way to make conversation with my host family, because they're interested in what I'm making. They're also always interested in what it's called, which is entertaining, because very few of the things I cook have real names. I also get gifted random food sometimes, because people are so generous. Sometimes, it's a really nice thing, like when a friend invited the gringas over to cook cusnaca, a jocote, cinnamon and milk desert and gifted me almibar (a sweet and sour jam sort of thing with seasonal fruits). Or when my counterpart gave me sweetbread. Or when the fruit lady who thinks an extra mango in my bolsa of purchases. Other times, it's convenient gifting to avoid waste: mangos, overripe platains, and possibly soon, avocados. So it's good that I'm cooking to be able to aprovechar everyone's generosity.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Funny Names Nicaraguans Call Each Other
Boy, that last post was kind of a downer, wasn't it? Here's some lighter stuff. Now that I'm picking up more jerga, slang, I've been realizing that people call each other pretty goofy names and it seemed time to catalog them. I would love to know the etymologies on some of these....
poofi- My host siblings call each other this sometimes (but I've heard other people use it too). Its quite possibly the goofiest thing I've heard in Nicanol.
prix- Y entonces, prix?= (roughly) What's up, dude?
cunado- this means brother in law but can be used to mean friend/"man", too
la jaña- this is a slightly despective or at least very informal word for girlfriend, or "chick"
el broder- friend. "Mi broder" Etymology on this one is less mysterious.
pippi- generic term for a child.
el/la maje-I think this term is Costa Rican, which is why it is far more common in Rio San Juan (which borders Costa Rica) than in other parts of Nicaragua. It basically means "dude."
Si, hombre!- Literally: Yes, man. Used to add emphasis to something you're saying. There are many situations when this phrase seems comical to me: when women use it with other women, and when people direct it to small children.
Tristeza
Word of the Day
vela- wake (but I'll explain how it's a little bit different)chisme- gossip
"todo ha sufrido el lento vacio de sus manos, /y su respiracion ha gastado las cosas."
"everything has suffered the slow emptiness of his hands/ and his breathing has wasted things away." Pablo Neruda, Residencia en la Tierra (Residence on Earth)
Death has swooped in too close lately. It's cliqued, but its been a reminder that death is an inevitable part of life, one which I often decline to think about until it sneaks in and takes what it wants, remorselessly.
Last week, the world lost a tremendously adventurous public servant, diplomat Anne Smedinghoff, the older sister of one of my good friends from college, Regina. While working for the State Department in Afghanistan, her convoy was attacked as they went to deliver books to a school. While I never really got to know Anne, I always heard fascinating stories of her diplomatic escapades through Regina. They had such a beautiful bond. My heart goes out to their family and all those entangled in the violence of this long suffering, incredibly resilient country. http://annesmedinghoff.com/
Today, I am heartsick for a city I love and the victims of a cowardly attack. I have the most beautiful memory of the Boston Marathon last year. My friends Molly, Eric and I went to go support two of our friends who were running, Regina and Saumya. It was a sweltering Patriot's Day, but gorgeous, everything coming into bloom, a perfect symphony of nature crescendoeing with tremendous human effort. We made signs, and when Saumya appeared, we decided to run with her for a little bit. We were wearing flip flops, and not wearing running shorts. The crowd was cheering and we worked it a little bit. It was so exhilarating that we kept going with Saumya...for the last five miles of the race. I ended up running barefoot. We triumphantly crossed, blistered, brimming with endorphins, smiling at the insanity that friendship can bring you to. I choose to carry this image of the race with me, and I will not let it be sullied by today's horror. In it are so many of the elements that make modern Boston such an amazing city: friends from all over the country brought together by love of knowledge, far more diverse than their physical appearances would let on, coming together to challenge themselves just for the hell of it. I hope that we will have the courage as a nation not let fear of terrorism further deprive of our liberties, of our dynamism, of our beautiful diversity, of everything positive that cities like Boston themselves represent.
Death has also been stalking this little pueblo. It is also a cliqued observation, but it seems to me sometimes that Nicaraguans seem more comfortable with death. Not to say that they grieve any less deeply, but merely differently. A grandmother of a neighbor died recently, but because I am out of the chisme loop, I didn't realize what had happened until I saw a lot of chairs gathered outside their home. Even then, it took me a long time to catch on: I thought it was a party, until most host family started commenting about what was going on. Their house buzzed with activity all night long, with friends and family gathered all night long, almost joyfully. I heard a lot of laughter, and from across the wall, it was hard to distinguish from a more joyous occasion. Several other elderly members of San Miguel died this week as well. All this talk of death led to reminiscences: of past velas, velas during the war years, of battles up in the hills, of the ghosts of executed prisoners, of mercy, solidarity and vengeance.
Maybe Nicaraguans are more comfortable with death because unfortunately it touches their lives so much more than in a developed, peaceful country. Women sometimes recall their miscarriages or infant deaths when they tally up their children or recall numbers of siblings. My host brother remembers going to the Health Center as a young child to see the bodies that were brought in during the war years. In some small Nicaraguan towns, "death trucks" for lack of a better term, circulate around with news of those who have died, in lieu of a written obituary. School shuts down if anyone prominent dies. It is never far from the public realm, always on the tip of the tongue, bittersweet and weighty.
Despite the sadness of all of these events, striking so close to communities I am part of, it was amazing to see the way that people came together to respond. In my tangled jungle of friends from college, quite literally strewn across the globe, it was beautiful to see the role of social media in spreading news, organizing responses. In tight-knit San Miguelito, rapidly changing, but decidedly not fully in the digital age, this support is still very physical, with visits, food and waiting. Death forces us to huddle together, whether in plastic chairs outside someone's house or around our computers and iPads, mining our brains for a way to express the sorrow that we feel and a way to support those left behind. It revitalizes weakening links, even as it robs us of our beloved.
On the subject of all this, I was forwarded a link to a really excellent blog by a former Tufts student that is a fantastic resource for those struggling to support friends in time of need.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Teaching Anecdotes: Week 7
Week 7. Or really 6.5. It's always reassuring when I realize how briefly I've actually been doing the teaching part of this job. It makes me feel more competent somehow. Especially in stressful, sweltering weeks like this one where just walking to catch the bus seems like a marathon. I drink about two gallons of water daily and I could still drink more. Only one month until rainy season, although it will still be hot then.
A surprising realization: I finally made an exact count of my students. There are 433 of them at 4 different schools. Plus all the teachers. Which explains why I'm having trouble with names.
Most fun: Using The Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" to practice listening and review the use of should for decision making. Introducing a bunch of 10th graders who mostly are from way out in the campo to early punk rock was a good time. Sadly, we ran out of time before we could extend a discussion of the song to talking about healthy and unhealthy romantic relationships, a previous topic. Seriously though, I bet there are plenty of other punk songs that are really good for teaching English to teens...good beat, catchy, loud, simple lyrics, rhyming...I'm going to investigate this further.
Doing math: We've been giving out math problems to several classes of students as a way to help them practice numbers. The kids seem to like it, surprisingly, and since Nicaraguan students statistically have about as much trouble with math as they do with English, extra practice seems like it kills two birds with one stone!
A global activity to practice the present progressive: This week, I adapted an activity that a Moroccan co-teacher taught me last year at the Welcome Project (the place where I was most recently a volunteer English teacher in the States). Our eighth grade class just finished a lesson on countries and nationalities, so I made a bunch of flashcards with people from different places around the world. Because the time of day is different in different parts of the world, the activities that people are doing in the same moment are very different, which is cool to think about. The students had to write a mini paragraph about each person, describing their country, nationality, and what the person was doing at their time of day.
This activity is better in a ESOL setting, especially a very diverse one, because you can have people think of the time of day in their country and imagine what family or friends back home might be doing at a given time of day. If you have students from Nepal, Turkey and Haiti, the activities are going to be quite different.
So excited for next week: One of my bosses is coming for a visit next week. I'm hoping he has time to observe at least part of my class because the 8th graders in Las Palomas (hands down my favorite class to teach) are going to "interview" him. For homework, I told them they needed to write a few questions that you would ask a visitor from a foreign country. Based on their knowledge of English, I'm expecting some great, slightly invasive questions..."How tall are you? How old are you? Are you married? What color eyes do you have?" It's gonna be a good time.
Worst although most comical arrival home from school this week: Today, I arrived home exhausted, dirty (dry season= billowing dust at all times) and smelly (dry season=profuse sweating at all times, even when not moving) from a bad night of sleep, followed by a 12 hour day of school/ planning session at one of my profe's houses to discover that my host family was out the house. While I dug in my bag for the keys, the neighborhood chavalos approached. "Emily, Emily can we play?? Let's play". I explained to them that I needed to change and eat some things first and that I needed a few minutes to myself. Not wanting to take no for an answer, they tried to follow me into the house and I had to lock them out. While I was showering outdoors, they saw my feet and started yelling for me again, asking what I was doing. I yelled back that I was trying to take a shower, before realizing that I was advertising my nakedness to everyone in the neighborhood. Classy. Then, I needed to return a phone call from my dad. Right as I dialed his number, the chavalos got into the house. "Emily, Can we play?" Chavalos are like zombies: they will always find a way into your house and find a way to get what they want. Except they are cute and earnest.
A surprising realization: I finally made an exact count of my students. There are 433 of them at 4 different schools. Plus all the teachers. Which explains why I'm having trouble with names.
Most fun: Using The Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" to practice listening and review the use of should for decision making. Introducing a bunch of 10th graders who mostly are from way out in the campo to early punk rock was a good time. Sadly, we ran out of time before we could extend a discussion of the song to talking about healthy and unhealthy romantic relationships, a previous topic. Seriously though, I bet there are plenty of other punk songs that are really good for teaching English to teens...good beat, catchy, loud, simple lyrics, rhyming...I'm going to investigate this further.
Doing math: We've been giving out math problems to several classes of students as a way to help them practice numbers. The kids seem to like it, surprisingly, and since Nicaraguan students statistically have about as much trouble with math as they do with English, extra practice seems like it kills two birds with one stone!
A global activity to practice the present progressive: This week, I adapted an activity that a Moroccan co-teacher taught me last year at the Welcome Project (the place where I was most recently a volunteer English teacher in the States). Our eighth grade class just finished a lesson on countries and nationalities, so I made a bunch of flashcards with people from different places around the world. Because the time of day is different in different parts of the world, the activities that people are doing in the same moment are very different, which is cool to think about. The students had to write a mini paragraph about each person, describing their country, nationality, and what the person was doing at their time of day.
This activity is better in a ESOL setting, especially a very diverse one, because you can have people think of the time of day in their country and imagine what family or friends back home might be doing at a given time of day. If you have students from Nepal, Turkey and Haiti, the activities are going to be quite different.
So excited for next week: One of my bosses is coming for a visit next week. I'm hoping he has time to observe at least part of my class because the 8th graders in Las Palomas (hands down my favorite class to teach) are going to "interview" him. For homework, I told them they needed to write a few questions that you would ask a visitor from a foreign country. Based on their knowledge of English, I'm expecting some great, slightly invasive questions..."How tall are you? How old are you? Are you married? What color eyes do you have?" It's gonna be a good time.
Worst although most comical arrival home from school this week: Today, I arrived home exhausted, dirty (dry season= billowing dust at all times) and smelly (dry season=profuse sweating at all times, even when not moving) from a bad night of sleep, followed by a 12 hour day of school/ planning session at one of my profe's houses to discover that my host family was out the house. While I dug in my bag for the keys, the neighborhood chavalos approached. "Emily, Emily can we play?? Let's play". I explained to them that I needed to change and eat some things first and that I needed a few minutes to myself. Not wanting to take no for an answer, they tried to follow me into the house and I had to lock them out. While I was showering outdoors, they saw my feet and started yelling for me again, asking what I was doing. I yelled back that I was trying to take a shower, before realizing that I was advertising my nakedness to everyone in the neighborhood. Classy. Then, I needed to return a phone call from my dad. Right as I dialed his number, the chavalos got into the house. "Emily, Can we play?" Chavalos are like zombies: they will always find a way into your house and find a way to get what they want. Except they are cute and earnest.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Teaching Anecdotes, Week 6
Words of the Day
la cigarra- According to a bilingual poetry collection I've been reading, this means locust. I'm not sure if the bugs that are currently making creepy alien noises on the hillsides near town are actually locusts, but that's what people call them.
la gata- A woman with light colored eyes. Gato/a means cat. I'm Catwoman.
No por mucho madrugar amanece mas temprano.- You can get up as early as you want, but dawn's not coming any earlier...Everything has a time and place. This dicho literally applies to my latest attempts to do laundry...We now only have running water at night, and from 4-5:30 am. I can get up as early as I want to wash things...except there is no light until dawn at 5:30 am.
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Awkwardest interaction with students: I was walking to the cyber cafe the other day when I ran into a pack of four 11th grade students. They are always together. Always. Their ringleader evidently thinks my constant sweating and heinous polo shirt wardrobe and GREEN EYES are the cat's meow and frequently tries to get me to help him with English so he can look at my GREEN EYES. Anyway, I had decided to ignore them, when I heard one of them say "Excuse me, could I trouble you for a moment?" in PERFECT ENGLISH. I was so taken aback that I made the mistake of turning around, and of course they then proceeded to bother me. I tried to talk to them about the English verb charts them were holding until I gave up and explained that dating them is entirely out of the question for innumerable reasons and that I expect to be treated like any other teacher. Except I had a hard time keeping a straight face because the situation was so absurd.
I (sort of) used a PACA tool! : PACA (participatory communitary analysis) tools are a set of very rudimentary development techniques that Peace Corps Volunteers learn during training, but use to varying degrees in practice. For projects such as TEFL or Business that work primarily in schools in very structured projects, the likelihood of using PACA tools regularly is rather slim. But I sort of used the "daily activities schedule" tool with my Saturday class of 11th graders, hoping to spark a discussion about gender roles. After reviewing adverbs of frequency (words we use to describe how often we do things) and daily activity words, we divided the class into small groups of male and female students. Then, they had to make an activity schedule of what they thought the other gender does during the day.
One really interesting thing most of the groups expressed while they were working on this was "I don't know what men/women do." This seemed sort of a strange sentiment to me, since gender roles are fairly stratified here: shouldn't it be obvious what everyone is responsible for in a given day? Maybe it's because so many people have parents who work abroad in Costa Rica or the US or Spain, or simply, because these things aren't talked about.
An activity that got unexpectedly out of hand: We played Tic-Tac-Toe with 11th graders in Las Palomas to review past tense verbs. We wrote out a grid with present tense verbs, and they needed to change them to the past tense form. The students got REALLY competitive, and started yelling at each other. It took some doing to remind them that it was only a game to practice grammar.
New favorite didactic material: Personal pronoun dice. They are great to use for speaking activities to help kids practice pronouns other than "I". There's really no shortage of ways to use them. Also, they're just entertaining enough to keep kids on their toes.
Dice template: http://www.toolsforeducators.com/dice/
Semana Santa
Holy Week in Nicaragua
las rosquillas- baked rings of corn and cheese, "The Cheese Its of Nicaragua"
el almibar- a very sweet dessert made with honey and seasonal fruits, such as mango, coconut, jocote and such
el recado- a sugar and cheese mixture, put inside baked goods, like sweet bread and corn empanadas. Not to be confused with pescado, fish.
el garrobo- I've heard lots of debates over this one. Some claim it is used to describe male iguanas, while others maintain its only for darker iguanas. I don't really know if either of these is scientifically correct, but I do know that Lent is reptile season. For eating,that is.
el salto- waterfall
el Viacruz- The Way of the Cross
Holy Week, much like Fiestas Patronales celebrations, provides excellent juxtaposition of the sacred and the hot mess-y. It's one of the most important weeks in the Nicaraguan Catholic calendar, but its also high season for decadent beach parties, since pretty much everybody who can afford to goes to the beach, or some other water source. Since Peace Corps is turning me into a crowds-hating grump, I didn't really feel like getting involved in that whole scene, hence why I jumped on going on a trip down the Rio San Juan early in holy week, and then coming back home to relax.
After getting back from my trip, I spent a while being minimally productive. Then on Wednesday, I finally got around to doing my taxes, which was taxing (eh eh) but worth it because I'm pretty excited about my $178 tax return. That's pretty close to a month's salary here, so probably gonna go wild with that. Probably, I'll just buy a lot of veggies, since they're nearly twice the cost of produce everywhere else in Nicaragua. After I finally got the online IRS tax thingamajig to work, which was no easy task given my slower than molasses internet connection, I went outside to see how my host family's rosquilla making was going. It was quite the production. There were trays and trays and trays of rosquillas and a roaring fire in my family's wood burning oven. Incidentally, there was also an iguana carcass drying by the fire, which was rather jarring. I eventually tried my hand at making empanadas, sort of like corn dough turnovers with sugary cheesy recado inside. Everyone commented I was really good at it, which might have been a lie or was just a reflection of a process that wasn't too difficult.
On Thursday, we did not eat the iguana, because a neighborhood dog carried it off.
On Good Friday, I felt ill, my hypochrondical monthly "This time I really have dengue fever!" scare. As usual, I did not actually have dengue. I lay in bed all day and read two books, reviews forthcoming. I tried to read sitting up in a chair, but this proved too difficult, so I went back to laying in bed. Since I couldn't really even deal with sitting up, going to follow the Viacruz around town in the sun for 3 hours was out of the question. Probably just as well, because I probably would have fainted even in good condition because being in the sun for extended periods of time here usually spells disaster.
On Saturday, I went to the saltos in the nearbyish town of El Almendro with my host family to go swimming. I probably should have stayed home, because I soon developed a pounding headache. The saltos were very nice, but the water was freezing and there were ridiculous crowds of people everywhere, their noise compounded by speakers blaring music. I'm all for nature, but I don't particularly like sharing it with a lot of other people simultaneously. On top of everything, in Nicaragua's "live at your own risk" culture, there were plenty of kids jumping off of trees and the ledge overlooking the swimming hole and doing other dangerous things that had this former lifeguard in a tizzy. "OMG EVERYONE IS GOING TO GET HEAD, NECK OR BACK INJURIES AND THERE ISN'T A BACKBOARD IN SIGHT!!!!!!!!!" More cringe- worthy than the bullriding, almost.
On Sunday, I dressed up and went to mass with the family and then went back to bed because I was still sickish. But I got bett-eh!
All this vacation stuff was nice, but by the end, I really missed working. Typical workaholic American, I know, I know, but seriously. After two weeks of not doing school, my book pile is running dangerously low. I'm excited for things to start up again and I'm optimistic that will have a lot of school without interruptions. I mean that mostly sincerely.
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