Words of the Day (Corn Edition, Volume 1)
la mazorka- cob
la tuza- husk- According to my counterpart, this is a super campo word, so there may be other variations
Penefi- the Sanmigueliteno word for Managua. My counterparts were joking around with my boss (who lives in Managua) about this nickname for the capital city when she came to visit. No other town in Nicaragua has this name for Managua and no one knows where it came from. Hilarious.
It's been an interesting month for sure. By which I mean that not a ton of school has been taught, for various reasons that I will delve into shortly. Yet, as usual, no shortage of amusing occurrences.
I'm Not With The Band- In preparation for the Independence Day celebrations of September 14th and 15th, the marching band and its accompanying dancers began rehearsals at the beginning of August. While music education and patriotism are great, and I am all for them, the band's schedule is greatly deleterious to the educational process here. In San Miguel, having band practice means we sometimes lose part of the school day or have shorter periods, but sometimes the regular class schedule isn't interrupted. The noise is pretty overwhelming when they do play however; Nicaraguan marching bands feature huge bass drums, cymbals, marimba and an instrument called a lyra, a vertical xylophone relative.
It's a whole different ball game in my campo schools. Since the kids live far away and can't stay after school very late to practice, we stop teaching at 3pm, instead of 4:30. As a result, our teaching time has effectively been cut in half. This is obviously bad for any sort of learning. In Las Palomas, the situation has grown even more absurd. As of the last week of August until September 14th (Independence Day), the students who are in the band don't have to attend ANY class. So now half of my students are learning during half periods. I can't help but think there's a more effective way to do this. At least I have more free time now :(
My harmonious harmonica- In San Miguelito (the noisiest and least attentive of the 4 schools where I work) I have stopped trying to get the kids attention using my voice, and started blowing very hard on my harmonica. This is generally effective at getting their attention. Unfortunately, they always want me to play a song after. The only song I know on the harmonica is "Taps." When I played it after they insisted way too hard, they asked if it was the National anthem. Not quite...
Time for you to get a watch- Don't know why, but teaching how to tell time is one of my favorite topics as an ESL teacher, probably because it's easy and practical. We used a plastic tape covered "whiteboard clock" to practice, which was quite fun. Then, we had the students draw clocks on a scrap of paper and practice asking each other the time in an activity called "Cocktail Party." They found a partner, and then had to exchange papers and find a new partner when I blew on my harmonica. This activity works much better with a noise maker for the teacher, as I've learned after trying to do it without a signal to change partners many times with limited success.
The Sunset is Very Beautiful: With my counterpart Antonio, I've started teaching in some of the 10th and 11th grade classes in San Miguelito. This has been surprisingly fun, because they're pretty into in English, and some of the topics are fun. On the other hand, the slightly older teenage boys really find creeping on me in class to be one of its highlights. We've been working on a unit about Tourism. While brainstorming touristic attractions in San Miguelito, for instance, "my house" came up frequently as a place that I should visit. According to another student, the only thing that Rio San Juan offers is "beautiful girls." I had an amusing encounter with one of the ringleaders of all this, however. I was hanging out by the dock in the late afternoon when he and his posse came by. "Teacher- the sunset is very beautiful!" We had just learned the word sunset in class, so I was very pleased. This remains the first and last not- creepy thing he has ever said to me.
If you're going to San Miguelito: As part of the 11th grade Tourism unit, Profe Antonio gave the kids an old song from the 60s- "If you're going to San Francisco", except he changed the lyric to "If you're going to San Miguelito." One of the lines in the song is: "Summertime, will be a love-in there." It therefore fell upon me to explain what a love-in was. Not having been very alive during the 1960s, I couldn't remember exactly what the concept entailed, but I knew it had something to do with free love and the Vietnam War and stuff. This was awkward because 1) Talking about other imperialist stuff the US did in a setting where the US backed a Contra army to overthrow the government is pretty awkward and 2) I didn't want to get up in front of a group of horny teenagers who actively creep on me and be like "In the 1960s, some people from my country did sexual sorts of things in public parks as a protest" because I had a feeling that would get misconstrued very quickly. I think I ultimately came up with a pretty good explanation...although there was a ton of snickering when I mentioned "love." The song was actually sort of appropriate, because it describes a period when great changes are happening, and I tried to draw parallels to their generation of Nicaraguans, the first in many many generations to grow up in a country that is not at war. Think it turned out all right. I really want to make a music video of them singing it, because I think that would be rad. As long as they'll "be sure to wear flowers in [their] hair."
Teacher and her Naughty Books- While I was waiting for a meeting to end in Las Palomas, I was sitting outside the principal's office reading "Song of Solomon." One of my best students came over to say hello and asked what I was reading. I gave him the book to look at. I happened to be on a sex scene. He started trying to read it. Luckily, because Toni Morrison is a genius, it was poetic enough that he didn't understand the language and I didn't have to defend my reading choices as literature instead of smut.
O, Sister- I now teach my host sister.This is awkward because she's not the best student and I feel weird about asking her to pay attention in a way that I don't feel with the other kids. Luckily, though, she was much more into the lesson we did in 10th grade this week, which featured 2 Truths and a Lie and a lot of picture drawing. At least I hope I can get a frank opinion from her on whether our classes are any good or not.
Wrong Sort of Leaf- We were reviewing plural spelling rules in an 8th grade class, teaching the -f/-fe to -ves spelling rules. To teach the word leaf, I tried to draw a quick maple leaf on the board, because that was the first thing that came to mind for some reason. It turned out really ugly. The kids and my counterpart all decided it was a marijuana leaf, not having images of sugar maples in autumn and Canadian flags and that sort of thing. ERASE! ERASE!
Bold move- My counterpart tried to kill a wasp with his bare hands by smashing it against the board.
Milk a cow- In one of my campo schools, we've been teaching daily activities. Given that there are plenty of farm kids, we decided to teach this vocab. This phrase has become very memorable for the students, due to a pun in Spanish. "Mil cacao" means "One thousand cocoa plants" in Spanish. The kids go wild every time they get reminded of this vocab. I like teaching the 7th graders a lot, because they are still easy amused and eat up bad puns and bad acting like they were candy.
Mawage is not what brings us together today or any day-During a visit by my boss, the educational assessor accompanied us. It was a nice opportunity to chat. We were talking about where I lived in town and when I told her, she asked "Aren't you married to one of the sons?" MARRIED? ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? People in town seem to have this idea that we are dating because they can't seem to understand that two people who happen to have different genders could interact without being in a relationship. BUT MARRIED?? SERIOUSLY?? That's a new one.
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