#Lakenicaraguaproblems

Call em what you will, chayules or sayules, some horrible little creatures paid their annual visit to San Miguelito recently.

I went to go watch my team play soccer, because I wasn't feeling well enough to play. Turned out we didn't actually have a game, but I stuck around to watch the boys play with my sitemate and a Nica friend, Kleydi. 

Life in San Miguelito had already been pretty awful that week, hotter than verano, so hot I'd broken my "no wearing shorts outside" rule. We were watching the game as pleasantly as one can when it's a bazillion degrees with 100% humidity when sudddenly, a brownish yellow blur appeared on the horizon of the lake. Christina and I were oblivious to the impending doom until Kleydi groaned. "Chayules!!" A giant cloud of decidedly biblical proportions headed straight for the town, blown across Lake Nicaragua from Costa Rica. The chayules soon arrived in force, distracting players and onlookers alike, as we hurried to cover our mouths and eyes with our shirts.

So what are chayules exactly? They're horrible little translucent insects. They don't bite, but when they arrive in such a giant storm, they smell like fish, especially when they die or get rained on. They don't do well with the concept of personal space, getting all up in mouths and eyes and food and laundry and anything they damn please. They die and pile up on everything, like a foul, thick layer of dust.

That was my cue to get of town. Luckily, I was headed to Managua for some medical appointments and a talk about "Teaching Vocabulary" to the new group of Peace Corps volunteers. Never had more propitious timing.

Playing Soccer with the Devil

Word of the Day:

Satanas- Satan

la delantera- forward

la portera- goalie

la defensa- defense- What I've been playing mostly.

I joined a soccer team! Or more accurately, my friend Kleydi signed Christina and I up for a soccer team and then informed us about it later. I was overjoyed about it, however, because I'm desperately in need of exercise, ways to meet more people and things to do on Sundays. I really miss the Chilean slang term "Fomingo"= Fome (boring) + Domingo (Sunday) because it would be a highly accurate description of the way Sundays can drag on interminably here. 

We don't have practices as far as I can tell, but the two women's teams scrimmage against each other on Sunday mornings. I'm not sure if my team has a name, but we have pretty cool bright orange Barcelona jerseys. We're an interesting mix of people. There are two huge women on my team, not fat, just BIG, who intimidate me a little bit. One of them is nicknamed Satan. I still don't know her real name or how I should address her. A very typical problem here. The rest of the girls are very young, wispy and fast. They are mainly my students, which has created some awkwardness at school because they are not always the best at paying attention in class. Despite the differences in size and ability, we are halfway decent on the field, given that we don't actually practice together. 

The soccer field is basically a glorified mud pit strewn with pebbles, although it boasts a stunning view of the volcanoes on clear days. I fell the first day and cut my knee pretty badly although it didn't hurt. I didn't clean it for a while because I didn't notice how much it was bleeding. Hopefully this has established a tough reputation for me because my playing leaves much to desired. Maybe now I can become known as "La gringa que chorrea (The gringa that spurts blood)" instead of "La gringa que corre (The gringa that runs)". Little Spanish pun there for y'all. 

It's great that we can field two women's teams here. Considering women wouldn't have played soccer a few decades ago (probably not in the US either, come to think of it), it's a nice sign that progress can come in rapid spurts. Like bleeding knees, except positive.

Fotos

 The cathedral in Leon. It's the largest in Latin America, and incredibly beautiful.

 Political mural in Leon, about the overthrow of Dictator Somoza.

A really cool mural in the indigenous neighbor of Subtiava, Leon

 The gorgeous crescent shaped beach of San Juan del Sur

TEFL 60 buddies looking adorable, Playa Maderas, San Juan del Sur

Problem Solving

piropo- catcall, flirty remark. Generally obnoxious and cliqued at the same time.
munequita- "little doll"- Who you calling little doll? MY UMBRELLA AND I WILL SHOW YOU WHO'S A FRAGILE LITTLE DOLL....

At this point, now that I've lived in San Miguelito for nearly a year, a lot of people know who I am, or what I'm doing here. It's more common, most days, for me to hear "Adios Teacher" or "Adios Emily" than "Adios mamacita, munequita, que guapa etc. bla bla bla". It still occasionally happens, especially when I leave "urban" San Miguel, and when I go to the dock, because the soldiers stationed there don't have a whole lot to do except try and pick up women, while holding rifles no less. Compared to Chile, and other places I've been, comparatively the piropos are not as bad in Nicaragua because they are rarely sexually explicit, but it's still obnoxious. Usually what's most common is that men will hiss at me, trying to get my attention so that they can piropo me. I've become highly talented at ignoring this. It's kind of actually a fun game, because they become more frustrated the more I ignore them. I like making their attempts to express dominance over me (although I'm sure they would not couch it in those terms) end in their frustration.

Despite people knowing that I'm a profe, there are still certain corners in town where I generally can expect to hear something. There's one corner in particular where two boys usually hiss at me at the very least. They're young, but they don't study. As far as I can tell, they don't do much of anything, except sit on the street corner.  Usually, I ignore them, because they are young and rather pathetic, and I don't really like confrontation enough to take the time to have a real conversation with them about their behavior.
However, things went down a little bit differently about a week ago. I was having an awful day. I'd woken up at around 2 am because my neighbor had slaughtered a pig and was cooking chicharones and generally being very loud, and I hadn't been able to fall back to sleep. After a stupid day of incredibly interrupted teaching, I went to the health center, and spent a frustrating two hours trying to figure out a medical problem.

As I passed the corner on my way home, those little pain- in - the asses started with the hissing. HISSSSS. HISSSSSSSSSSS. I ignored them. HHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
I had walked past them, when suddenly, I snapped. Compelled as if by some demonic force, I spun around, gesticulating wildly with my umbrella, and began to scream at the top of my lungs as if those poor unlucky souls represented every man who has or ever will wrong me. "WHY DO YOU DO THIS EVERY TIME I WALK BY HERE?!!!!!!!!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???!!! DON'T YOU HAVE ANY RESPECT FOR WOMEN??!! GAHHHHHHHHH (frustration and scorn).

Luckily, I didn't use any curse words, because everyone on the block came out of their houses to watch the gringa utterly lose her cool. The kids didn't make eye contact with me as a I raged, and when I turned my heel and stomped away, they laughed, but very nervously.

While this was obviously a stupid, reactive and rather disproportionate way to deal with the problem, it seems to have been effective, at least so far. Hopefully, their grandmother, who's Catholic and who I occasionally buy vegetables from, said something to them. Or maybe it's just chance. But I'm just maybe hoping that the word has gotten out through the town's highly efficient gossip machine that I will yell at you (or maim you with my umbrella, given the way rumors work) if you piropo me.

School Daze: September School Stories, Week 1

Word of the Day:
procer- national hero, "great person" according to my dictionary

Surprise! School is a hot mess right now, in preparation for the September 14th and 15th Independence Day celebrations. As a result, this week I washed a lot of laundry, made a lot of plans for workshops and classes and started reading a 1000+ page book in Spanish. I thought it would take at least a month to get through it, but I'm already 300 pages deep....

Is this the part of Peace Corps when the madness sets in??

Too much honesty: Say whatever justified comment you want to make about how bad public schools in America can be, but I'm pretty sure that even in the worst school district in America, students are in the building for more than 2.5 hours every day. I have gotten way too snarky lately. I was not having a particularly good week, and was feeling way to inclined to be real with everyone, students and teachers alike. When I walked into the wrong classroom because the periods had been shortened and my 9th grade students gleefully told me that they were done for the day (it was 9:30 am) I commented aloud "You have no idea how easy school is here. No idea." It wasn't nice, it wasn't (entirely) necessary, but it was true. 

That's definitely safe: On Thursday, during the entirety of a school day that ended after 2.5 hours for some reason or another, several students were using power tools to saw large logs to create a "table," the legs of which were dug into the ground. Supposedly this was for the technical training class "OTV" that they all have to take, although I'm not sure a)why they were allowed to skip all the other classes b)what the table is supposed to be used for c) NO ONE WAS SUPERVISING THEM AT ALL WHILE THEY WERE USING DANGEROUS POWER TOOLS.

Welcome to Rainy San Juan- My classes in Las Palomas so far this semester have been challenging to say the least, due to band practice. The students in the band do not have to attend class right now. Therefore, when the band director didn't show up, the kids in the band complained that they couldn't work in class because they didn't have their notebooks or pens with them. I ripped out paper from my notebook and made classmates share pens with them. "No Excuses!!" (A reasonably good cognate) said mean Teacher Emily. Teacher Emily shouldn't have bothered. A massive downpour broke forth from the heavens, with big drops of rain pounding against the zinc roof with a vengeance, rendering our lesson plan useless. We were trying to introduce new vocabulary on clothing. We ended up having the students copy from the board, but when the students copy vocab without hearing it first, the results are usually not too good when they try to pronounce it. O well, what are you gonna do?

Possessive " 's " and "of"
According to a book that one of my counterparts has, and the curriculum for Saturday school, saying "a bag of rice" or "a box of pancake mix" implies possession, ie that the rice belongs to the bag. The way you form the possessive in Spanish doesn't vary if you say "la casa de la mujer" (the woman's house) or "las patas de la mesa" (the legs of the table).
I don't think native English speakers think as explicitly of possession when we are talking about "the rooms of the house" or "the carton of cigarettes,"  but the idea that you could is really intriguing to me.

Not related to school but story worthy: The bottom of the door to my room spontaneously fell off one day. Fascinating what a little mold can do. My host family fixed the door within a little over a day, but in the meanwhile, a chicken got into my room through the giant hole and pooped on the floor. ASSHOLE. Chickens are insufferable when they are in their awkward teenager phase: not only do they look like freakish dinosaurs, you can't even eat them yet. They think it's perfectly acceptable for them to hang out in the house and I spend half my day chasing them out, as they awkwardly squawk away. WE ARE NOT FRIENDS.

The Sound of Unsilence

Word of the Day:
Hay mucha bulla.- There's a lot of noise.

One thing that's really been getting on my nerves lately is the inability to find a quiet space to work or take a break from everything. Obviously I find being around people enjoyable, but introvert that I am, I also find it exhausting, and I need a lot of "me time" to compensate. The way my schedule is, especially this semester, that's been pretty easy to get.

The only problem is that it is SO LOUD everywhere, all the time. As someone who thrived on a farm miles from much of anything, in the hushed libraries of Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts or in discreet, relaxed coffee shops, I still haven't been able to adjust to what it's like to live in an environment that is less artificial and less polite.

A panorama: 

Chickens. Although the 20 roosters who were living at my house for several months have moved on, praise be to God.

Radio Disney blasting at 6 am when my host sister showers before school. For a while, they had the same playlist every morning, so I woke to the Canadian vowels of Carli Rae Jepsen. (I missed you seeeeewwwwwwww seeeeeeeewwww bad)

Babies and toddlers crying and shrieking.

 People yelling back and forth in their houses or from the street. I've decided that if I ever have a family, it will be a house rule that you need to go find the person you wish to speak with, and talk with them at a normal volume. Unless it's an actual emergency.

Neighbors blasting reggaeton, ranchera, Jesus music, or Jesus ranchera  (yes, this is a real thing) so loud you can practically feel it, even from across the street.

Evangelical churches singing off tune for HOURS.

Trucks passing selling vegetables or bricks or announcing some festival.

My probably half deaf host brother, playing the same 10 annoying and sappy old love songs on his cell phone at full volume (TE QUIEROOOOOOOOOOOO, TE QUIEROOOOOOOOOO, bla bla bla bla TE QUIERO) or watching Discovery Channel so loudly the house shakes until my host mom yells at him to lower the volume.

Children at school dragging their desks, an awful sound that "Teacher Emily" has stopped even responding to, settling instead on making angry frowny faces until the kids stop doing it.

Rain storms, sometimes nice, sometimes deafening.

THE THUNDERING 1/2 MUSICAL 1/2 ANIMAL MADNESS THAT IS BAND PRACTICE.  BOM BOM BOM BOM BOM BOM IT SOUNDS LIKE WE ARE IN LORD OF THE RINGS AND BEING INVADED BY SAURON'S ARMY.....WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Earplugs were a good invention. Thank you, inventor of the earplug!  Wikipedia says this was Odysseus and his crew, so go figure.

Reading Reviews Vol. 6

"There is nothing more animal- like
 than a clear conscience
on the third planet of the Sun.
Wislawa Szymborska, "In Praise of Self Deprecation", as quoted in Pathologies of Power

"Where do people earn the Per Capita Income? More than one poor starving soul would like to know. In our countries, numbers live better than people. How many people prosper in times of prosperity? How many people find their lives developed by development?"
Eduardo Galeano, "Those Little Numbers and People," as quoted in Pathologies of Power

"Como la mudanza es nuestro hogar, cuanto mas baja e indefensa sea nuestra situacion, tanto mas hemos de guardar interiormente la integridad." / "When movement is our home, as low and defenseless as our situation may be, so much more must we guard our integrity inside." Peregrinatio (Pilgrimage), Mathilde Asensi

Word of the Day:
insolito/a- unusual

Soooooo basically with all of the insane bus rides, lack of school, and rain afternoons, I have read a bazillion things of late.

72. Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech- Edward Sapir
 This is a free book for Kindles from Project Gutenberg! It was really interesting to think about what language actually consists of, and the examples from varied languages around the world were really cool, but linguistics is really not for me. 

71. La Fiesta del Chivo (The Goat's Feast)- Mario Vargas Llosa
Re-read, although I understood way more than when I had to read this in a literature class my sophomore year of college. A really intense, but well-written book following a wide set of characters connected to Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic for over 30 years. Graphic depictions of torture and rape though, reader beware.

70. Slaughterhouse Five- Kurt Vonnegut
I think I read this when I was in high school, but certainly appreciated it way more this time around. Just the right amount light without making light of its subject matter (the firebombing of Dresden).

69. Song of Solomon- Toni Morrison
What an amazing and complex book, on every level. Floored. Can't believe I made it until Peace Corps without reading any of her work.

68. Little Bee- Chris Cleave
Really mixed feelings on this one. While Little Bee is an incredibly unique and feisty protagonist, I felt uncomfortable with the way Cleave uses Nigeria as a scary playground in which to challenge his white protagonists with ethical dilemmas. I'm being a little bit unfair with that assessment, but I think if Cleave had toned back the drama slightly, and created a more fleshed out depiction of oil conflict in Nigeria, he might have nailed it. This is unfortunate, because he had so many great things to comment on: inhuman immigration policies, rampant racism in places that are supposedly oases of multiculturalism, and our obligations to our fellow human beings. I also thought he did a realistic job writing from the perspective of two women convincingly.

67. Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor- Paul Farmer
Re-read. This is one of the most passionate books I've ever read. Paul Farmer makes an incredibly compelling case for economic and social rights.

66. Peregrinatio (Pilgrimage)- Matilde Asensi
Another re-read. I love this weird little book that my college Spanish teacher assigned us in an upper level grammar course. A father writes his son instructions for how to complete a pilgrimage, and throws in some nuggets of wisdom about life along the way. It's also got some really cool medieval illustrations.

65. Blood of Brothers- Stephen Kinzer
A good, journalistic introduction to Nicaragua's tumultous recent history. While it doesn't give the most panoramic view of the Contra War, I really appreciated that he went into detail about the Sandinista and Contra hierarchy and the impact of the war on the Atlantic Coast. Kinzer also gives a lot of details about Nicaraguan culture, many of which are still relevant, amusing, or interesting (juice in bags, timeliness, giving directions in a city without numbered buildings, etc.)

64. The Open Veins of Latin America- Eduardo Galleano
I have to say that I was a little bit disappointed by this one. A leftist classic by a Uruguayan journalist decrying the causes of underdevelopment in Latin America, I felt it was a little bit dry in a lot of parts, particularly because other things I've seen by Galleano are incredibly poetic and quotable, and because it's nearly 40 years since its publication and the majority of the statistics are now pretty irrelevant. Although I'm sure some of the figures he cites on malnutrition and such are not as outdated as they should be. However, still a powerful book.

63. Jardin del Invierno/Libro de las preguntas/el mar y las campanas/ defectos escogidos- Pablo Neruda poetry collection
Re-read. Some of my favorite Neruda. Written in the two years before his death, Neruda's at his outspoken, wisest and most biting. Yet still beautiful.

62. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
As with the above, grumpy older men are the best. Taleb brings up some really trenchant points about how blind we are in the way we view the world. Sometimes along the way, he's insufferably arrogant, but it's worth putting up with.

61. The Poisonwood Bible- Barbara Kingsolver
A really important book to read if you're going to do work abroad. I think it's an easier trap to fall into than one might think to be a "Nathan Price" character, ie one who goes about wanting to impose his/her will on the savages. I thought Kingsolver did a really good job researching the book, although I'd love to have a Congolese opinion on that.

60. Jesus Land- Julia Scheeres
In case you were considering it, you don't want to go to Christian reform school in the DR. At times, Scheeres' 17 year old self is a little wearisome, but she's got quite a crazy tale to tell.

59. High Fidelity- Nick Hornby
I have a fear that this book is scarily accurate about modern relationships. Basically, you should just stay with the next person you end up with, because the world is terrifying and messed up, and it's too complicated to do otherwise. Somehow, though, Hornby communicates that message in a hilarious and occasionally profound way.

58. Estrella Distante- Roberto Bolanos
Re-read. Deals with the post 1973 coup aftermath in Chile, as it affects a poetry collective. So nice to see Chilean vocab again!

57. The Lacuna- Barbara Kingsolver
A really cool book. For me, the form of the novel, with a lot of letter writing back and forth, detracted from the overall panorama, but overall, a really powerful at the gap between individual lives and national truths.

56. The Awakening- Kate Chopin
Never had to read this in high school. 2 comments: 1) After reading the book on mental illness, it just sounded like her "Awakening" was the onset of manic depression. 2) The US is and always has been such a multi-lingual country! Why do we so easily fall for the lie that it is not?

55. A First Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links between Leadership and Mental Illness- Nassir Ghaemi
This book had a fascinating premise, but I think it got a little bit carried away with causation vs. correlation. Was Lincoln's decision making ability really enhanced by his depression? Regardless of the validity, however, it's a really interesting take on historical figures.

54. The Sex Lives of Cannibals- J. Maarten Troost
A man lacking much direction in his life follows his love to the Pacific Island of Kiribati. I only read the 2/3 of this that were left in the Peace Corps office, but this was pretty funny and managed to not be too offensive to locals. Mostly. So glad I'm not a PCV in the South Pacific.

53. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks­­- Rebecca Skloot
Researching the life of Henrietta Lacks, a black woman whose cells become immortalized as the He-La line, now used in research all over the world, I think this book would have been better if it had gone a bit wider and been more willing to deeply and critically engage with the ethical issues in science research and health care provision. Not to say that Skloot does not in some parts, but I just wish she had taken it a bit further.

52. A Visit from the Goon Squad- Jennifer Egan
Critics raved, but this book fell flat for me. The characters weren't fleshed out enough for my liking, and I'm not old enough to relate to the mid life crises everyone was having.

51. Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith- Jon Krakauer
Exploring a murder of a mother and her infant by Mormon fundamentalists, I think that Krakauer managed to create a relatively fair picture of the Mormon religion from its origins, including its titillating fringe elements. There are tons of Mormon missionaries here, which I find fascinating. I wonder how they get around the pretty explicit racism in the book of Mormon...

50. My Horizontal Life- Chelsea Handler
It's comforting to think that most people don't have their love lives together even a little bit.

49. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas- Hunter S. Thompson
I read this on a bus ride back from a conference in Managua, and I'm pretty sure the woman sitting next to me was horrified by the completely insane illustrations in the book. I decided that if she asked, I would tell him it was a book about hell, which wouldn't have been too much of a lie. I was almost a little sad when she didn't ask.

48. Marcel Mauss- The Gift
Man, anthropology has sure gone a long way in the last 50 years! While the premise, looking at ways in which giving cements social and economic relationships was brilliant, I found the writing pretty insufferable due to poor organization and clumsy phrasing. Maybe it was just an especially unwieldy translation from ze French.

What is a Total Eclipse of the Heart Anyway?: San Miguelito's English Song Festival

Word of the Day:
la musica clasica- While this might connote Mozart to some Nicaraguans, for many, it's "classic rock."
la pista- a track, ie for karaoke

The Ministry of Education's English Song Festival is a pretty big deal here. Students learn a song in English and then perform it, using only a karaeoke track. It's funny how you sometimes can't get anyone to pronounce anything in class, but suddenly, when you hand kids a microphone, they are all over it.


I spent a lot of time preparing students for the competition, during recess, during a special trip with my counterpart to a restaurant in town that has karaoke microphones and even at my house, where a bunch of girls stopped by with questions about how to pronounce songs by various artists featured on "Rrrrrrrrrrradio Disney" and love ballads of the "musica clasic" genre that were probably popular in the States before my birth.    

Being that we are the only native speaking English residents of San Miguelito, it fell on my sitemate Christina and I to judge the competition. We figured there would be at least another Nica judge, but no, it was just up to us to decide, which was slightly daunting, because I didn't want the entire town's wrath upon us if we chose a singer they didn't like. It was quite fancy though; they gave us our own table, complete with water bottles and fancy champagne glasses. I felt pretty absurd trying to drink water out of a champagne glass while essentially watching a glorified karaoke battle. 

All of the students did a pretty reasonable job. There was some great pronunciation and not so great singing, and some great singing with marginal pronunciation, but students managed to nail both.
It was a tough decision, but ultimately, we decided that 2 girls who rapped and danced to Justin Beiber's "Never Say Never" would get 1st place, followed by a dramatic rendition of Toni Braxton's "Don't Break My Heart." 3rd place went to an amazing singer who is less talented at English, who sang "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston.

We'll see what songs those darn kids come up with next year!

One Year in Nicaragua!

Well, that was fast! Not a whole lot to say really.

 This song (which is like 5 years old now because my music collection is extremely outdated and reveals how truly unhip I am) really resonated with me today.

¨I can say I hope it will be worth what I give up
If I could stand up mean for the things that I believe.¨



Nica 60, here´s to another 16 or so solid months of service!!

August School Anecdotes: If you're going to San Miguelito

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.

Haciendo lo correcto: The Heartwarming Story of How I Got My Computer Back

Hacer lo correcto- to do the right thing

I should start this post off by saying that this is very much a classic "Emily story", in that involves me losing things (a common occurrence until recently), extreme feats of physical clumsiness, people being really nice despite my general haplessness, and absurd bus rides.

As previously mentioned, my computer got stolen off a bus about a month ago without my noticing as I traveled to notoriously touristy San Juan del Sur with a gringo pack of other TEFL volunteers. I logically assumed that this meant I would never see it again.

However, on Tuesday, I got a bunch of calls from a strange number during class. When I received yet another during my break, I decided to pick it up, assuming this person had the wrong number. The caller introduced himself. "Hi, you don't know me, but I'm an evangelical preacher in Rivas and I have something of yours." I thought for a second. Id card? Credit cards? Cell phone? I had all those. Then it hit me. "OMG, DO YOU HAVE MY COMPUTER???" I shrieked, although not without a tinge of suspicion. When he said yes, I almost started dancing around the school courtyard. "Look", he said "I'd like to explain the circumstances of how I got it, I'm an honest person..." I told him we could talk after class when it wasn't so unbearably loud, since band practice was getting underway.
A few phone calls later, the story, particularly of how he had gotten my phone number, became clearer. Apparently, his wife had bought the computer and realized it was stolen when they found all my files on it. Lazy thieves didn't bother to erase anything. THANK GOD!!! Luckily, a Spanish version of my CV happened to be on the computer, and so they found my contact information and decided to do the right thing and contact me.

I was still sort of suspicious this was some sort of hoax/elaborate thieves' plot, but I liked the vibe I got from the guy, so I figured I would head to his tiny town, called Belen, during the weekend, to try and get it back. As luck would have it, another Peace Corps volunteer from my training group lives there, so I figured she could back me up if things went south.
The only minor difficulty was that Belen is literally on the opposite side of the country from me, around the lake (although arguably, most of Nicaragua is on the other side of the country from Rio San Juan), and that I wanted to teach my Saturday classes in "El Never", which end until 10:30 am.

Operation Retrieve Computer got a slow start, because it started raining right as I was leaving school. Not only did I not have an umbrella, but I was wearing sandals, and they are doing a sidewalk construction project which has completely wrecked the road. My sandals broke when they got stuck in the mud, I got completely dirty and wet, and as a result of the walk to the highway taking nearly 20 minutes (instead of 5), missed a bus going north. There are precious few buses in Rio San Juan, so this was quite unfortunate.

To make a long story short, I eventually I got to Managua, but not until 5 pm. I could have made it to Rivas (the nearest city to Belen) that night, but I don't know it very well, and I didn't want to try and find a hostel at night in an unknown city. So I decided to head to the colonial city of Granada, which I know much better, and has loads of cheap backpacker housing.

Should have gone to Rivas. Granada turned out to not be the best decision, because it was in the throes of a giant street carnival to celebrate Mary's assumption, which a) disoriented me and b) ensured that there were throngs of people, particularly drunk men, everywhere, although it was still early, so there were families about. I was panicked about getting robbed. I had one of those "O shit, I'm a woman aren't I" moments when I got surrounded by a crowd of men. It was only for a few seconds and none of them did anything to me, but I was petrified that I was going to get robbed or who knows what, particularly because it would have been ironic to get robbed while on my way to getting unrobbed. Luckily, I got away quickly, walking near some families. I stopped at the first hostel I found, which turned out to be great and cheap, and I got to laugh at the "professional poker player" who had gotten robbed by a taxi driver when he paid $240 for a taxi ride because he wasn't paying attention to the exchange rate. This  made me feel better about my lack of knowledge of the calendar of Nicaraguan festivals. I'm not THAT green. Always know your exchange rates when traveling.

The next morning, I headed for Rivas, but got delayed by an hour because there were no buses leaving every 15 minutes like the hostel owner had described. Instead of being there at 8, I didn't get there til 9:30. Belen was adorable, with a cute little church and park. More importantly, the people who bought my computer were adorable and sweet. I got an even better vibe from them in person. They handed it over right away and encouraged me to look it over. They apologized for looking at my files. They said they realized that something was probably wrong when it was sold to them without a charger, but they rationalized it . But especially once they realized that I wasn't just here paseando, they wanted to make things right. "How can we preach about these things if we don't do them ourselves?" commented the preacher. Before I left, they said a prayer to bless my journey. I got goosebumps from the whole thing. It's just so rare that people do the right thing, at least in my experience.

After re-reading one of my favorite Paul Farmer books, "Pathologies of Power," I had been inclined to give the couple the full amount they had paid for the computer, in what is probably best described as a massive outpouring of white guilt, my own desire to "hacer lo correcto." Basically, I started over-analyzing the reasons Nicaraguans would be poor and need to buy a used computer.  As fate would have it, I didn't actually have that much money in my account at the time, so I couldn't give them the full amount. This was probably just as well. On the off chance they were involved in stealing it (which after meeting them seems extremely unlikely), I didn't want to reward them. And I didn't want to condone buying stolen goods, regardless of the structural injustices that might lead to that. And last, the amount they had paid for it was nearly twice what I had originally paid for it, which seemed a little bit ridiculous to pay to regain property that was technically mine.

However, down the line, I'd really like to do something for them. They run a series of comedores infantiles, sort of like a food kitchen for children, and I'd like to help them with some of their Christmas charity, even if it's not a model of development I necessarily agree with. We shall see how, but I'd like to do right by them.

Esoooooooooooooo

This cartoon made me laugh. I wish I had seen it earlier to show to my 11th grade students for our section on ¨Gender and Inequality.¨ Next year, for sure.

Dengue, or something like it

I did not actually have dengue, but I’ve been sick / exhausted for about the last week with something that was probably just a flu sort of thing, but resembled dengue with some of the symptoms. But I am finally on the mend, poco a poco (bit by bit).

What a long, strange month it’s been.  Too little work, too much time to think, but luckily plenty of stimulation to shake up my brain a bit. I’ve been a little vaga, out of the place where I live quite a bit, more for work and Peace Corps sanctioned reasons than not, but I still feel a bit weird about it. Between school vacations, trainings for Peace Corps, teacher trainings, national holiday, class cancelations that have logic in this country, but not in my rational, orderly Anglo-Saxonized imaginings of what a school schedule should be like, and illnesses, I’ve only taught about 5 days of class this month. Not to say that I haven’t been some sort of busy, but I feel like my purpose has been shriveling up, bit by bit. I’m waiting for a lluvia of ideas (brainstorm) that will revive it again. Real storms have settled into a dreary rainy season routine in one of the rainiest Julys on record, which has admittedly put a damper on most everything, from my ability to think clearly, to mood and movement.

The reason I haven’t posted in nearly a month is that my computer was stolen at some point during my travels. The thought of having to parse my thoughts out in long hand and retype them seems to have dried up most of my will to write. Hopefully, I’ll get the energy back for it again soon.

I started this post wanting to recount where I’d been and what I’ve seen, but it doesn’t seem right somehow.  For one there is too much to tell, and secondly, a list of places seems oddly divorced from what the experiences were actually like.

It’s a pity, because I feel like I have a lot to actually reflect on for once, but asi es. No tengo tiempo ni tintas para todos (I don’t have time or ink for everyone.) Not to capture the adventures with my fellow Peace Corps volunteers who’ve become like a family of sorts, or the dedication and wisdom of our counterpart Nicaraguan English teachers. I don’t have the time to tell fully of the colorful figures of travel and daily life, like the fisherman on the beach in Pochomil who tried to sell me crab, or for the guide at the Museum of the Revolution in Leon who talked to me about every aspect of his life for 3 hours, or the neighborhood children and our new reading routine or about the time I got into a public argument with a counterpart about the meanings of catcalling and machismo.

No time to reflect on art and culture, tourism as colonization (albeit a tasty and delightful one), about my growing frustrations with organized religion, about how history is all too easy to erase from a landscape, about resilience, about how patience is harder to cultivate than I thought it would be, about how it is easy it is to understand less about a place the more time you spend there, rather than more.

Maybe someday I’ll get the words out and tell the stories rightly, if I can even rightly lay claim to them as my own.

Celebrate, There's an Efeméride Relevant to Someone Somewhere!: The Last Week of School of 1st Semester

Word of the Day:
efeméride- celebration, special day, anniversary. Average number per month? I'd venture to say 5 or 6, but that might be a conservative estimate.

So this week was pretty underwhelming as far as teaching goes. It was good to be back in Rio San Juan though!

On Monday, there was no school, because Teacher's Day had fallen on a Saturday, so everyone needed to have off. Ah, yes. I tried to read Spanish picture books to my neighbors, but they got bored.

On Tuesday, I taught my only classes for the week, in San Miguelito. Mostly, though, we just reviewed old material, so my contributions were minimal. I also went to El Tule, but because the teachers had to meet about the students' grades, I didn't do a whole lot more than help a student make a powerpoint presentation.

On Wednesday, my counterpart told me there wouldn't really be class in Las Palomas, but I went anyway, because I hadn't seen everyone in a while. He told me they would be making a mural. This turned out to mean that the teachers were making a giant paper presentation board (for lack of a better term) to celebrate July's efemérides: World Population Day, Day of the Triumph of the Sandinista Revolution, 124th Anniversary of the Publication of national poet Ruben Dario's book Azul, Day of the Nicaraguan Sportsman/woman, Day of the Students. The poster featured a lot of flowers, a giant butterfly, flags and revolutionaries. Best looking revolutionary on the poster: Carlos Fonseca Amador, founder of the FSLN. Can't get enough of his geeky hot glasses. Worst looking: Fidel Castro. His beard is really struggling with age. But I suppose outlasting 5 (is that the correct figure?) US presidents is hard work.The fact that I had time to make such vapid observations is pretty indicative of how much I was contributing to the process.

On AMERICA'S BIRTHDAY, we had a Rio San Wide volunteer meeting and then had a goodbye party for Matt, a business volunteer in San Carlos. It was a fabulous day. We went down the Rio Frio, a smaller river that flows from Costa Rica into Lake Nicaragua, fishing, swimming, jamming. Great people and scenery.

On Friday, I tried to organize my room. It is overflowing with English materials. I officially don't have enough space for all my pronoun/verb dice and my "materials that could perhaps be turned into recycled crafts" collection.

On Saturday, I went to school, even though the teachers were just turning back grades. We didn't teach, although I did some play some bingo and hangman to review with my favorite 8th grade class. There was a meeting with a lot of parents who were worried because their children had failed this semester. I also helped the teachers rework the schedule after they had made it, because according to the old schedule, I was going to be at the school for nearly 5 hours with nothing to do; they've extended the school day, and there are only 2 sabatino English classes this semester.

Now, headed back to Managua for a regional NicaTESOL conference; my friend from training, Jamey, and I are giving a presentation about how to speak more English in class using cognates. Should be a fun time!

A Different Kind of Road Race, or, How I Came to Know Güisquiliapa

During training, I received a piece of advice that I've always tried to follow: accept any invitation that doesn't make you feel uncomfortable.

Adhering to this philosophy with my host family in Carazo during training frequently led to amusing incidents where I blindly tagged along and got an insider look at various aspects of Nica life. There was the time I accidentally attended a FSLN rally on my 4th day of training (the political party currently in power; probably a HUGE no-no since Peace Corps is apolitical), the time we randomly surveyed some land (still not really sure what that was about), the time we took a trip to the town nursery to pick (steal?) guayaba fruit, and the time I crashed a family party and was made to dance to marimba music, among many others.
When I went back to El Rosario to visit my old host family last weekend, accepting a "Vamos!" invitation once again led to an unexpected adventure.

I was sitting on the porch with my old host mom's granddaughter chatting and thinking about getting some fritanga (the Nica equivalent of grilled meat) for dinner when her cousin invited us to accompany him to some sort of parade. Bored, we agreed to go along, and after he buttered his Evangelical aunt up with a story about how we were going to do "an errand," he brought us along with a group of his friends to go in a Catholic parade celebrating Santiago (Saint James), who is the patron saint of the nearby town of Jinotepe.
A ton of people had turned out to watch the saint's image as it passed through the dark streets, which led to highly dangerous near collisions with cars and motorcycles as we exited the pueblo, headed for the highway. Many people were dressed in camouflage, which the cousin explained was not for military purposes, but chosen because they would be making a 16- day pilgrimage up to the mountains and then back to the sea. Spurred on by the gigantic drums at the rear of the procession, which began to beat a faster rhythm, people broke into a trot. This officially marked the only time I have seen Nicas run when not trying to catch a bus. It was quite joyous.

Not wanting to be an aguafiestas (party pooper), I said I didn't particularly mind if we continued to follow the procession more. And so, we walked on to the town of Güisquiliapa (pronounced Whiskey-lee-Ah-pa), which supposedly lies at the same distance from the highway as El Rosario. I personally think the road there is far longer, but maybe this was an illusion arising from the absence of fritanga in my stomach. Güisquiliapa is a tiny, although seemingly very nice town, with dirt roads, a tiny school, and a church. After the procession finally made its way to the church and was blessed by the priest, we made the long walk back home, witnessing a duck trussed up for strangulation and a wild west style line up of horses, ready to gallop off somewhere. No idea what those elements of the festivities were about. The "pagan" undertones of Latin American Catholicism are really fascinating; you've got to wonder where some of the syncretic practices originated and how they've been adapted through the centuries.

We got back after 8 o'clock, super late for Nicaraguan standards, so there was no fritanga left, but I did get some pizza from a new restaurant in town. A comforting standard after a new cultural experience.

"The West Stuffed with Money, Power, and Things"*: A Trip to the Land of 1% Milk and Honey

*Quote by Salman Rushdie, The Jaguar Smile

Word of the Day:
una potencia- superpower

I went home to the States for my sister's graduation! It was amazing to see my family, eat salad, and take stock of things 6 months into my service.

The story of how I arrived home is pretty comical, and deserves a few lines. On Monday, the day before my flight, I took the "6 am" bus out of San Miguelito. While it is the earliest bus to arrive in Managua, the ride is never a fun experience, because it is a guaranteed 6 hours to the capital. This time was no exception, as we stopped every few hundred yards to pick up passengers, got stuck behind plenty of cow herds being moved, made a detour to a fish factory, and the police searched our bus with drug sniffing dogs.
In the middle of all this, I got a voicemail from the Peace Corps doctors saying that my follow- up appointment for my #kidneyinfection was cancelled because they had a meeting, and I began to squirm frustratedly in my seat, aggressively reading Brian Greene's The Hidden Reality for distraction. As luck would have it, I eventually got into the city, got my appointment back and confirmed that the infection was gone, which was all much simpler than I had expected.

The next day, after waking at 3 am fearing I would miss my taxi, I went to the airport at 4:30 am to catch my flight. I got to Atlanta extremely smoothly, where culture shock set in very rapidly, especially in my sleepless state. The first shocking thing was the scale: I'd venture a guess that the Atlanta airport is bigger than many small Nicaraguan cities. Secondly, I was thrown by the diversity. THERE WERE SO MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF PEOPLE!!!!!!!  I guess I've become sort of Nica in the fact that whenever I see people who do not phenotypically resemble the majority of Nicaraguans, I check them out extra, trying to figure out if they are other tourists or Americans or how I can place these "people from away." So I had to remember that I was in America, and that diversity was normal, and that I should probably stop checking everyone out quite so much.  After paying $10 for a Chipotle burrito, which is basically 2 days of my Peace Corps salary, I was profoundly unable to deal with anything anymore and settled down between two hipster parents and their brood and a Hassidic Jew to wait for our flight. Wait we did. I got stuck on the plane for basically 6 hours due to a bunch of absurd thunderstorm related delays, but I eventually got to the airport a little before midnight.

It was so good to hug my parents! Physical contact with loved ones is one of the things that can be hardest about Peace Corps service; it's easy to go for months without having satisfying physical contact with other people.

So what did I do while I was home? An exhaustive list:
-Hung out with my awesome family
-Vacuumed! I had not seen a vacuum for 9 months, so this was much more exciting than it sounds.
-Attended Adeline Clayton's high school graduation. Watch out University of Vermont! Plenty of promise headed your way!
-Had a lovely family party for the graduate, and hung out with my cousins, which was fun because we almost never get to see each other anymore
-Visited my grandmother, great aunt, aunt and cousin in Connecticut
-Ate grilled cheese, bagels, homemade pizza (which I sort of made, although with a ton of help from family members), smoked salmon pasta salad, chips, salsa, cookies, brownies, cake, cheddar cheese, broccoli, artichoke dip, SALAD, ice cream, and tons of other delicious things. Hence, nobody in San Miguelito thinks I am "delgada" anymore.
-Walked my adorable dog Maisy, who (not unlike moi) has become rather portly of late, but who is still the sweetest basset hound we've ever had
-Watched Season 4 of Arrested Development on Netflix (which is not available in Latin America)
-Went on bike rides
-Caught up with a few childhood friends

I also went shopping with my mother and sister, which was terrifying because of the overwhelming amount of choice in all of the stores. And also you could touch the things and didn't have to know their names!! I came very close to having a panic attack in Target. I am extremely bemused by one of the products apparently now sold in grocery and big box stores: cat food in weird refrigerated Pillsbury crescent roll-esque packages. These seem highly unnecessary to me, but what do I know. Also, I'm convinced they changed the size and or weight of quarters.

At least at home in the Somerset Hills, things felt very surreal. It was definitely bizarre to be somewhere so...perfect. I felt as if I had wandered into a picture the background that Nicas frequently photoshop into the background of their photos or hang as wall art: a fantasy-land representing freedom from want, the best of what can be imagined materially. I've always had a really weird relationship with where I'm from, because I've never felt that I belonged there, even though it was all I really knew for 18 years, so being back definitely brought up mixed emotions.

Despite living the dream, after hearing people tell me over and over about how I am so blessed to live in "una potencia," it was painfully apparent how damaged, divided and hypocritical my nation is. A few salient examples: after driving through one of the most air polluted zones of the nation, I spent most of my last day in America in the airport, cursing at CNN's vapid coverage of George Zimmerman's trial, and grumbling at Marco Rubio's religious rhetoric pandering to the Tea Party on the immigration bill. (Having lived in a country with minimal separation of church and state, I've become a bit fanatical about this not respected very often principle of our governance.) And while it was amazing to be home as the Defense of Marriage Act was struck down, the ramifications from the Supreme Court's other decisions have plenty of potential to be negative for many minorities.

Talking with my sisters, my family, friends and simply reading again made me realize how disolocated I am from so many things I cared about before I left: politics, environmentalism, vegetarianism, struggles against racism,etc. Sometimes, I'm blatantly unsure whether doing Peace Corps has made me a better or worse person, a more or less "active citizen", a more or less concerned child, family member or friend. It's not a question that's easy (or maybe even a good idea) to ask oneself during service.  It's so easy to lose focus on the bigger picture (sporadic internet certainly doesn't help) and not become incredibly self absorbed, especially when you are first settling in to life in a new country and are the center of everyone's attention, quite literally. 

On top of that, I've been doing so many things to fit in and because it's easy (and so much of my life, compared to life in the States, is not smooth or easy): going to church, even as my time here has made me increasingly uncomfortable with organized religion, eating meat, not eating well and exercising out of laziness, loosing track of the issues back home, not questioning sexist or racist attitudes more than is absolutely necessary, constantly buying things encased in plastic, etc.

I hope I'll be able to use this trip home as a springboard to re-evaluate my Nicaraguan life, re-center, and re-invigorate my work here. It's not enough to be "saving the world." (What an awful expression!) I need to hold true to the principles that I've developed for a reason. And to be less ambivalent about everything and everyone. Hold me to that.

Reading Reviews, Vol. 5

It's pretty easy to spot a slow month of teaching and lots of bus time in my reading patterns...almost halfway to my 100 books goal. Not halfway done with service.

36. A Thousand Splendid Sons- Khaled Hosseni
God, I think if we were to engage in the highly dangerous and ill- advised game of measuring suffering, I think Afghan women would be strong contenders for a "worst lives" prize. Heartbreaking story, pretty good at giving a quick run down of Afghan history since 1950, in a highly readable format.

37. Underworld- Don Delillo
THIS BOOK IS AMAZING. It made me, ambivalent as I am to sports, want to go watch a baseball game immediately. The writing is that good. Chock full of memorable characters. I don't think there's any writer more adept at portraying how modern American life can be so beautiful and so ugly simultaneously.

38. The Bluest Eyes- Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison attempted to do many things in this novel: depict small town American life in the 1940s, show the psychology of being black in America, critique society's narrow view of beauty, and write about childhood from a child's perspective while still trying to comment on occurences with a sophisticated, adult voice. The result was sometimes a bit jarring or overdone, but her writing is beautiful, political and heartbreaking all at once.

39. The Hidden Reality- Brian Greene
Different theories of the possibilities of multiple universes explained in relatively simple language? AWESOME. A lot of this book went over my head because I read most of it on a bus that was full of babies, filled to the gills and reeked of fish, but it was still fascinating to ruminate about how wild the universe(s) could be, without having to use much math.

40. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason- Helen Fielding
Probably I should stop trying to read chick lit thinking that I will like it. However, I hated this one less because it vaguely reminded me of my friends and I overanalyzing things. Except whereas B. Jones and Co. tended to limit their discussions to the men in their lives (or not in their lives), we overanalyze everything humanly possible.

41. River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze- Peter Hessler
Classic Peace Corps memoir about working as an English Teacher in a Chinese University. I've been making an effort to read Peace Corps memoirs a lot lately, because many family members have told me I should write a book about my experiences here, and I'm trying to take notes on what's been done and how well it worked. I have a zillion reservations about whether or not this is something I actually want to do, but I certainly don't lack time to ponder post PC options.  In my opinion, PCVs in China definitely have an advantage in the book writing department because China is so fascinating to Westerners, rapidly changing, "mysterious," etc: they have another angle to write about in addition to the vagaries of their service.
Despite the very different realities of our service, there were many aspects of Hessler's service that I identified with: the blessing and curse of having a sitemate, running, terrible transportation and students becoming obsessed with phrases you use in class. Overall, an interesting read, and one I'd recommend to people contemplating Peace Corps, because I think he captured the ups and downs of volunteer life pretty well.

42. In Cold Blood- Truman Capote
Classic non-fiction crime novel, ripe with details of 1950s rural Kansas life, early psychology, and with subtle commentary on the death penalty.

43. The Tiger's Wife- Tea Obreht
A short but multi-layered novel, set in the Balkans, filled with wonderful "magical realism" style story telling with war, identity politics and a girl's relationship with her grandfather as the backdrop.

44. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)- Mindy Kaling
Not the funniest memoir I've ever read, but plenty of relatable and amusing tales of how Mindy Kaling got to her role as a writer and actor on "The Office."

45.  Gone Girl- Gillian Flynn
This bestseller was quite the page turner, but I got frustrated with it towards the end because the plot became too overblown, unrealistic/inconsistent and the characters became too unlikeable. I found this really unfortunate, because Flynn writes so well about modern relationships (her description of the pressure to be the "Cool Girl" was one of the [sad] funniest things I've read in a while), post- recession blues, and the polite culture of small towns. I think that writing simpler story about how a relationship falls apart post-recession would have made for a more genuine and challenging (and certainly depressing) book, but it wouldn't have the bestseller lists in the same way. I guess I only like my plots to be fantastical if there's an element of magical realism intended, so that's a serious prejudice on my part.

46. To Die in this Way: Nicaraguan Indians and the Myth of Mestizaje, 1880-1965- Jeffrey L. Gould
A really important book for Latin American studies, looking at the way Nicaraguan nationalism developed in an exclusionary way that inhibited the survival of indigenous communities and customs, enabling and enabled by the imposition of an export driven capitalist model.
While Nicaraguans are well aware of the ethnic diversity of the Atlantic Coast of the country, the dominant discourse of "we are all mestizo, and this racial mixing occurred a long time ago, harmoniously" has blinded Nicaraguans to the violence, exploitation, and scorn which undid or threatened indigenous communities on the Pacific Coast, Central Highlands and North of the country during the 19th and 20th century.
With the exception of some regions of Guatemala, many of the historical processes that Gould describes can be seen all over Central America and for that reason, I think it's really valuable in understanding Central Americans' myths about themselves, and more generally, for reflecting on the myths that nationalisms promote.

47. On the Plaza: The Politics of Public Space and Culture- Setha M. Low
On an ethnography kick apparently! This had been on my reading list for a while. Using two Costa Rican plazas as a starting point, Low traces the dual histories (Indigenous and European) of public spaces in Latin America and looks at how public spaces are used, contested and experienced. While sometimes the theories in the book were presented without a ton of depth, particularly the connection between public space and democracy, I found it to be a really interesting starting point for thinking about (urban) public space and I thought the different methods used, ethnography, history, literature survey and interviews, made for a eclectic whole.

Hello there

I have so many blogposts I need to put up! A surfeit of emotions, observations and recountings! However, I did not transfer them to my flashdrive to bring them to the internet cafe, so I´m going to put up some pictures instead, which I´ve been meaning to do more of anyway. Enjoy!

 TEFLeros hard at work editing textbooks from the Ministry of Education. The results are on the right. I was actually working hard during this endeavor, I just really like coffee and breaks. At least everyone else looks diligent, because we are. As my boss loves to say, TEFL rocks!

Some of the members of the ¨Teachers and Other People Who Speak Lots of English¨ class, at a goodbye party for German volunteer Verena (center). From the left, my counterparts Jonathan and Antonio, my sitemate Christina, Verena, my neighbor Kleydi and moi. I was sick, which is why I am so inappropriately bundled; it is never even remotely cold enough to warrant such garb in San Miguelito under non-extenuating circumstances.