Working world

Sunday August 29th

What a tumultuous adventure the past two weeks have been. After setting up my classroom and working as best as I knew how, I found I was totally unprepared for the start of the school year. Luckily the first week was only three days and half days at that. I had different teachers helping each day, but honestly, first grade is by far the hardest grade to teach. As they are all coming from preschool, it is a huge transition for them as the days are four hours longer and they have to learn how to read, write and think in a different way, all of which requires a great deal of concentration, which none of them have. That is to say, more than doing any teaching, games or projects like I was excited about, I had to spend every moment trying to discipline them, trying being the key since everything I tried seemed to fail miserably. The first few days were so trying as I felt like everything was way over my head and that the job was more that I could handle.. Taking into account many different reasons and factors that I will spare you the boredom of explaining; I am switching from my job. Still a little up in the air, but the last few days of last week I worked as an assistant with the new first grade teacher who moved from pre-school. Not only does she have a lot of experience, but she also had many of the students before. So its been interesting seeing how she works, and how to run the classroom. If all works out as planned I will be working as the teacher of “nivelación”, which means I would be the English tutor for students who are behind in their class, since almost all the materials are taught in English, it’s essential that students are all on the same level. This way I would work in small groups with the various grade levels and not have to be in charge of being responsible for an entire classroom of 20 crazy 6 yr olds. Buuuut things are still kinda up in the air so hopefully ill figure it all out early this week. Im also trying to get some dance classes up and running as soon as I can. I have the OK but I need to figure out the logistics of it.
In other news three very exciting things have happened. Number one was that I just had a lovely visit from my father! Well technically he was here for the ninth regional conference for burn medicine that was hosted by Aproquen. So while I was working during the day he was busy with meetings and lectures. On Thursday I escaped from work early showed up as a surprise at his lecture, which both in Spanish and in biology language I was surprisingly able to follow about half of. I also took advantage of his staying a nice hotel here, going to the cocktail parties they hosted for everyone at the conference, and sleeping each night at the hotel. Since the conference was only Thursday and Friday, on Saturday there was a planned excursion for everyone. We drove to Masaya, about 45 min away and went to the artisans market there. I went there when I was here in May, but there are so many beautiful things that it’s hard not to buy something every time you go. We left with some lovely cloth bags, a hammock, and someother little presents for people. The trip continued on to Granada, a colonial town that runs up against lake Nicaragua and has become one of the largest tourist cities here. The cars dropped us off at the water and we took a boat to one of the isletas. The lake is one of largest lakes in the world (I want to say 19th??) and has about 300 hundred tiny islands in it that are the results of a volcanic eruption many many maaaany years ago. Many of the islands have been bought by individuals who construct houses or whatever on them. All 57 of us jumped out of the boats onto a dreamlike lump of land surrounded by warm fresh water that is owned by the parents of Carlos Pellas (he and his wife are the founders of Aproquen). There was live music, endless refills of fresh coconuts, macuas (national drink of guava, orange juice and white rum), rum-and-cokes–since the Pellas’ are the owners of nicaragua’s national rum, Flor de Caña—a swimming pool, and an incredible meal of meats, tortillas, beans, and typical sweets from here. After about four drinks I somehow found myself taking a nap on a concrete bench, as most other people danced, sang, talked business, and the unfortunate few who were pushed into the pool without warning by one mischievous guest. Around 4 pm we headed back to the hotel and arrived just in time for the daily rainstorm. In the evening my dad, his girlfriend Susan, and I met up with the parents from the house I’ve been staying at (they became friends with my dad immediately) across the street at a famous restaurant here. I had bought tickets a few weeks ago from the swimming teacher at my school who told me that there was going to be a concert as a fundraiser to send the school’s swim team to Panama later on this year. For some reason I assumed there would be some typical Nicaraguan music or something of the sort. Instead we were presented with an unfortunate surprise of having young teenage rock bands make up the lineup, which could only be justified by the fact that most of them are students at the school. Let’s just say that after a piña colada and some sweet plantains, the group of us was sneaking out the back to make it an early night of good sleep. I hope they don’t ask me any questions at work tomorrow… This morning my dad and susan left in the weeeemorning while I caught up on the sleep I’ve been missing. Then comes part 2 of my exciting news! I spent all day moving into my new home!!
I met an American last time I was here, named Matthew, who has been here for about 6 months working with an NGO and more recently started working part time at Aproquen as well. He was gone these two weeks that I’ve been here so he’s been off my radar, but when he came back for the cocktail party last Wednesday and I told him I was still looking for a place to move, he asked me why I didn’t move in with him, as though it was the obvious solution, which it ends up being. His work provided him with a house in Altamira, a much more centrically located area. The two other people who were living with him this summer left and so the house has more than enough space. I have my own room with lots of space, a big window, a fan, a bathroom, plus the house has a large living room, huuuuge kitchen which im going to take full advantage of, a porch and a little garden out back. In other words, PLENTY of space for guests to come stay with me! So I spent today setting up my room, walked to the grocery store near by, and got home just in time before it started pouring…which it has been doing all afternoon. We were going to go to the softball league’s final game (its become this new craze here of having lots of softball teams, maybe 7?, that all compete against each other.. kinda weird and random) but it got rained out so we’ll go tomorrow.
Lastly, third exciting thing is that I visited an NGO here on Friday and will beginning working some with them. They are called FIMI—International Indigenous Woemn’s Forum—and are a sister organization to MADRE, where I worked as an intern in New York two summers ago. MADRE is an international women’s human rights organization that actually began as a partnership between American and Nicaraguan women who worked together in solidarity during the war in the 80s. Before moving here, I got in touch with them to see about continuing some work with their sister organizations here and FIMI is who they put me in touch with. Hopefully they will be paying me, but if not then I will just do some volunteer work since I am very passionate about the issues they deal with, just wont be able to do as much.
In sum, Im feeling much more optimistic about things, still have much to figure out but am feeling more grounded, especially having a new home I feel comfortable in and an awesome roommate. I hope this upcoming week will be busy and will help me work out some kinks I’ve been needing to do…

Lots of love!!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo