I'll be honest. This week sucked. Personally, I had lost my momentum and motivation from so much time out of San Miguel, mentally and physically. Also, I got weirdly sick for a little while, missing a day of work with some of my favorite classes. I noticed that minor annoyances were bothering me more than usual: milk thirsty ants (SERIOUSLY WHY DO THEY LIKE MY MILK, THAT'S NOT A THING), the fact that finding vegetables on a non-market day is tantamount to a treasure hunt, the faces that everyone makes when I don't have exact change, etc.
To top things off, rainy season started in earnest. This means that almost everyday, it will rain at least once. I have mixed feelings about rainy season. There are beautiful romantic moments, like when the sky is filled with gigantic, majestic thunderheads, or like when you are lying in bed and there's a light rain falling, making a calming plinking sound and afterward it is cool and everything smells richly of wet earth. Then, there are other moments of rain season which are much less agradable, like when a downpour pounds against the zinc roof of your classroom as you are trying to teach, or when you get ten consecutive mosquito bites on your elbow and fear dengue, or when everything is muddy and the roads are washed to bits, or when the refrigerator spontaneously starts molding everywhere, and as a result of all this, you have a much stronger urge than you should to beat a leering drunkard with your umbrella. Can you tell which part of the culture shock cycle I'm in? It's like playing level of satisfaction limbo, how low can it go?
I'm being very dramatic, it's not actually that bad at all. And it was not certainly not without highlights:
Awkwardest: Apparently Venn Diagrams are not really a thing here. So I accidentally drew an admittedly very phallic looking three-way venn diagram on the board during my youth group. Another strike against me on the list of inappropriate things I have done and or said to them. Clearly, I didn't catch on quickly enough, because when I tried to draw one in my 9th grade class, I got a similarly smirk filled reaction. Should have overlapping circles going VERTICALLY. Next time...
Runner Up: It's been so hot that I can't stop sweating, even when I am not moving. Like sweat dripping off my chin and nose. I ran out of sweat rags and so I just upgraded to using a tee shirt, which drew some looks, but I was totally sweating enough to warrant it. All in- class movement is pretty much on hold: no Total Physical Response (TPR) until further notice.
Best original student thought in English of the week: One of my students in my 7th and 8th grade enrichment class likes to insult other students despite my admonishments and the class rule expressly forbidding being disrespectful to other students.
Two excellent insults this week resulted from some direct Spanish translation.
You are horse. (Vos sos caballo!)- What he meant to say? You are stupid.
You are strawberry. (Vos sos fresa!)- What he meant to say? You are lazy.
"Teachers and Other People Who Speak Lots of English Class": We did a section on time idioms this week. We made up for lost time since we didn't have class the week before. Time flew as we had fun.
Inspiring person of the week: This guy who lives way out in the campo came to the "Teachers and Other People Who Speak Lots of English Class" because he was visiting San Miguelito. His English was really good, which was awesome. Imagine living in the middle of the countryside, three hours from the nearest small town and making the tremendous effort it takes to try and learn a foreign language, with very few opportunities for practice. That's drive.
Song of the Week: The Jellyfish Song
On Friday morning, I went to nearby (2 hours is close enough for me!) Nueva Guinea (New Guinea, no idea where that name came from) today to watch fellow TEFL PCV Isabel's presentation in a workshop put on by the American Embassy as part of their English Language Fellows program. It was a really cool teacher training, focusing on pronunciation, the ECRIF teaching format, and Reader's Theater. Before her presentation on Reader's Theater (a reading, speaking and listening activity where you take books and adapt them into a script format for informal theatrical performances), Isabel had the brilliant idea to do the jellyfish song as an energizer. We got about 40 or 50 English teachers and students doing this. Then, that afternoon, I introduced the Jellyfish song to my 7/8th grade enrichment class. The two students who attended class (grumble grumble where IS everyone?) greatly enjoyed it.
The Jellyfish Song (Call and response, with actions)
Arms up...wrists (or hands, if adapting for easier vocab) together...And do the jellyfish, the jellyfish, the jellyfish fish (make a jellyfish motion)
Arms up...wrists together...elbows together...And do the jellyfish, the jellyfish, the jellyfish fish
Arms up...wrists together...elbows together...knees together...and do the jellyfish, the jellyfish, the jellyfish fish
Arms up...wrists together...elbows together...knees together...ankles together (or feet if adapting for easier vocab)....And do the jellyfish, the jellyfish, the jellyfish fish
Arms up...wrists together...elbows together...knees together...ankles together...butt out.... And do the jellyfish, the jellyfish, the jellyfish fish
Arms up...wrists together...elbows together...knees together...ankles together...butt out.... face squished (make a squishy face)....And do the jellyfish, the jellyfish, the jellyfish fish
Arms up...wrists together...elbows together...knees together...ankles together...butt out.... face squished...tongue out (THE BEST PART)...And do the jellyfish, the jellyfish, the jellyfish fish
A fun site visit: My friend Isabel visited on Saturday, and graciously sat through a Mother's Day celebration at my Saturday school in the community Never Oporta. Then we hung out on the dock, and ate fritanga (grilled meat with fried plantains and salad), which are pretty much the best things to do in San Miguel on Saturday nights. On Sunday, we hung out with Verena, a German volunteer who lives in San Miguel. She made us German style pancakes, with condensed milk and bananas on top, which are sort of like crepes. Then we walked around San Miguel a bit, taking in the gorgeous view from the top of the hill and visiting an artist's house. 4 extranjeros definitely caused a stir. It was super fun to have her visit. It's always great to have other PCVs understand what your site is like, and it's really cool that there are so many of us in Nicaragua, because in every department, you're guaranteed to have someone to stay with.
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