Small projects with big outcomes

May 3^rd – May 13^th

Due to the lack of projects going on, this weekend I spent an inordinate amount of time in the cyber. Some of these days I would sit back and think, “What am I doing?” Here I am in another country – why don’t I take advantage of my last months here and get out and visit with the people? Why don’t I go start something new? Then at the same time I remember that I’m trying to transition myself out of Nicaraguan culture. The closer I get to my departure from the country, the more I seem to re-adjusting myself to the American mindset. I’m passing more time thinking about what I’m going to do after Peace Corps; where will I end up? What will I be doing? What do I want to do? It doesn’t help that I get a new idea every other day, but that’s always been how I’ve tended to work. Lots of options mean lots of potential experiences on the table. We’ll just have to see how it pans out.

When I wasn’t freaking myself out by making my future even more uncertain, I kept working on my spelling bee word list. For whatever reason, going through the dictionary for hours on end, selecting appropriate words for as spelling bee is absolutely draining. It took me 2 more days this week to actually finish the list. With that big step out of the way, I just have to go to the German NGO and get things rolling. First I sat down with the director to hash out plans for the competitions. The NGO has always gotten my hopes up only to smash them so many times, but I was content with what our most recent plans had been – we’d put the competition in 5 schools and I’d train the teachers that would be heading the classes.

First I told the director that I thought it’d be a good idea to bring all the teachers into Achuapa instead of having me hoof it out to each school to explain the competition. Furthermore, this way we could ensure that every teacher hears the same instructions. We can clear up any questions with everybody present, thus preventing most major headaches in the future. This idea got the green light – then he one-upped me. Instead of 5 schools, why don’t we put the spelling bee in all 52 elementary schools in the municipality? 52 schools? This has been the initial idea the NGO had when I presented the spelling bee to them back in December before they whittled it down to 5. I quickly agreed, as this is what I’d hoped for since I started the project back when I showed up to Achuapa (almost 2 years ago). The final plan is to have every 5^th and 6^th grader in the municipality participate in the competition. Each school will have their own competition (or select their best students via grades on the spelling tests) and send 2 students to a “nucleus” competition. In Achuapa there are 8 nucleuses that have around 3 to 4 schools each. So they nucleus competition would have 6 to 8 students participate (maybe more now that I think about it), with 2 winners going onto the final competition in Achuapa in September. In the end, the 16 best students would attend the final competition to determine the winner in the municipality.

When I had the first spelling bee back in August of 2008, I had a grand total of 24 kids participate in it. “So this is what a successful project feels like.” Being the first project I’d started in my town, I looked at the successful completion of the activity as a sign of the project being successful – sustainability be damned! Naively, I thought that that exuberance of the principal and the teachers was indicative of what they thought about the activity (while it ended up being true in this instance, Nicaraguans will be super excited about anything that is suggested – the catch is that it generally revolves around the volunteer planning and doing everything). Fortunately though, the excitement turned out to be genuine. Come the next school year we did the spelling bee again, this time expanding from just 6^th graders to a combined 5^th and 6^th grade competition. I had parents running up to me in the street asking how their son/daughter did in the competition, as well as telling me how hard they’d been studying the words. That competition also went super well. So well that the principal told me that the 3^rd grade teacher wanted to do a competition as well.

I left the teacher the words, thinking that she’d talk to the other teachers that had already participated in a competition. Well, when I came back from a 2 week vacation in Guatemala, I discovered she’d approached the spelling bee from a totally logical way – one I had never bothered considering. She didn’t teach any of the rules that we wanted the kids to remember; she just taught 120ish words. I don’t know I never thought of doing the competition this way – I mean that’s the way I learned to do it. So we had a competition over the words that they’d covered – and the kids did a GREAT job. That’s when it hit me – teach the words, and use the rules as a reference. That’s exactly how the spelling bee will be.

On the 6^th I went to my public school to “co-teach” with my counterpart. The more times I do it, the more…apathetic I feel. The kids are out of control this year. I attribute this to two things – my counterpart being a total softy when it comes to discipline (I’m completely opposite) and the kids being seniors. My counterpart had the new manual for the class as of 3 days prior to the class, yet he used the old one when making the lesson plans…resulting in inaccurate information being taught to the class. I gave a brief explanation of what the kids needed to do and had them do their work in class. My counterpart wanted to plan the year with me and suggested we do it outside of the classroom (herein lies the conduct problem I imagine). Then the kids too came up with a bright idea and went ahead and asked me:

“Profe, can we work outside?”

“No. You don’t work when in the classroom, so why would you work harder outside?”

“But it’s hot in the classroom profe.”

“It’s hot anywhere you go. So no.”

You have to earn rewards in my class. Even though my bosses told me I need to work on positive reinforcement, I quite enjoy being the stickler. But I’m working on it. I told the kids they needed to at least turn in one factibility study by the end of class. By the end of class, I had 2 that were turned in. Unfortunately, they were done exactly how I said not to do them. I gave them back to them and told them to write more. It ended up turning into homework since nobody actually listened to directions, and instead created an easier way to “complete” the assignment. I don’t know whether it’s because my kids are just super lazy or what. They’ve already received all the material in the class, but are less willing to put in the work. On top of that, they’re more argumentative. One of my groups said they’re going to make a lamp. In the class the goal is to create creative products. So a lamp…is not very creative:

“Why is a lamp creative?”

“Because profe, it’s not a real lamp. It’s just going to be an adornment for the house.”

“Who will buy a fake lamp to put in their house?”

“Everybody.”

“Have you ever seen a fake lamp in somebody’s house?”

“No.”

“Would you ever buy a fake lamp for your house?”

“No.”

“Then why would you want to sell a fake lamp?”

For some reason this is always a no-win situation for me. I can’t ever convince my kids to think of something more creative. Furthermore, I don’t have counterpart support, which I think is pretty crucial. So the creative products coming out of Achuapa: hair gel and fake lamps. Watch out Nicaragua, here comes Achuapa!

After my Thursday class, I actually needed the whole weekend to recuperate from it. I kept reading a book about the Naples mafia and tried to do my description of service and site report. I’ve got to turn them both in by the end of the month, but what else am I going to do?

I started the next week with a community bank presentation to the German NGO. The presentation went super well – so well that I longed for the times when audiences were so attentive (attentive audiences are non-existent here). My presentation set off a good conversation about how to promote saving in Achuapa. If nothing else, at least the employees of the NGO know how to do a community bank now si Dios quiere.

On the 18^th, the new phenomenon in Achuapa happened again – the lights were turned off. Now this would be totally understandable if we weren’t in a drought, but everytime it has happened, there has been no rain, weather, nor clouds anywhere in our part of the country. The electric company has just been turning off the power simply to watch us melt in our zinc roof houses. Usually they end the joke around 6 PM so we can all eat dinner, but this time it wasn’t turned back on until 9 PM. So a potentially productive day was completely destroyed. I spent the majority of the day reading. It was too hot to take a nap (2 billion degrees maybe?), so I spent 3 hours that afternoon sitting in front of my house staring at the street. Life just goes back to the Stone Age without light. Thanks electric company!

The 19^th was perhaps the most important day of my service. I woke up super early because I was so excited, did a brief workout, and headed over to the German NGO for an 8 AM meeting with the superintendent of the Achuapa school district and the NGO staff. Because I’m in Nicaragua, the superintendent showed up at 8:45, but whatever – at least she came. At this meeting, we hashed out the details of my spelling bee and other things the NGO had going on. The spelling bee got excelente’s across the board and we set up a date for me to train the teachers and principals that the spelling bee will be in – all 54 of them (there 52 rural and 2 urban schools that the delegada pointed out to us). So on the 26^th I will breakdown the basics of the competition and how to teach the material. So the tiny spelling bee that I created in my first months of my service with 24 students is now a municipal wide competition that will affect 54 schools with approximately 800 participating students. I had no idea of the potential amount of success I could achieve with this project. Including this year’s competition which I won’t be present at, close to a thousand kids have participated in my spelling bee – there are only 14,500 people in the entire municipality!

Later that day, I got a call from my APCD (my boss) asking me to go to all the training towns with the business technical trainer to get permission for the new trainees to enter the schools. Since the tech trainer is new, I’ll just be there to explain exactly what the volunteers will be doing. Just clarification I guess. At least it keeps me busy – the down times are killer at this stage in the game.

Thursday, after another super (sarcasm) class, I grabbed some lunch and headed over to my buddy Santo’s house. Of all the projects that I’ve done, the spelling bee has been the most successful and Santo’s business has been the second most successful thing I’ve devoted my time to. Unlike other Achuapeños, any suggestion I’ve ever given him has been implemented. I taught him to control his accounting, the importance of product placement, how to do a business plan, the importance of doing a survey, marketing, and now – he has opened a cyber. This was his goal from the moment I first met him, but it’s nothing I thought I’d ever see finished. He took every suggestion from the surveys into thought – privacy, good machines, fast service, good air circulation. I really think the business (and him as a businessman) is destined for big things. I helped my buddy start a cyber – my other super successful project.

A visit from Luis, Christmas Break, and finally working in Achuapa

December 9^th – January 26^th

My last couple days in Nicaragua before my big trip to the States were pretty good. The Thursday before I left (the 10^th), I headed down to Managua for yet another appointment with my incompetent dermatologist. I showed up, having heeded her advice by applying a specific acid, only to have her tell me that the skin was “completely burned” and that she couldn’t do anything. Thanks for that sound advice Doctor, here’s 50 dollars. She did a minor burn on my foot that didn’t swell up like it normally did, so I wasn’t able to drain any of the liquid – thereby hurting me more, looking terrible and causing future problems. Though I was mad that the dermatologist once again failed to help me rid my foot of warts, I strategically planned the visit to coincide with Luis (my buddy from Chinandega who finished his service in July) coming back to Nicaragua to visit. He came in the following day around noon, so I hung out in the office until he finally rolled around.

Brie was down in Managua as well so all three of us headed to León to meet up with Brie’s neighbor for a night out on the town. Luis is pretty flashly (or at least he pretends to be – either that or he likes rubbing in our faces that we’re poor), so he picked up dinner and instead of our normal activity (well, normal for whenever I’ve hung out with him), we just headed back to our hotel and didn’t go crazy. However, Luis always has a “aw man, come on, you’re not done are you?” mood to him. So instead of turning in because we were tired, we all sat around and had a couple of beers before retreating to our room to have Luis go through watch a couple hours of music videos. There’s no changing him.

Since I was going to the States on Monday, I had to head back to Achuapa to pack a bag and secure my house. So after breakfast, Luis and I headed to Achuapa (somehow he was easily talked into going). It was the first time he’d actually been to Achuapa since the volunteer before me, but it was nice to get to hang out with him another day. I did the majority of what I needed to do (with the exception of packing almost all the important things I wanted to take home), and Luis couldn’t go without beer, so I made the rare exception and we had some beers and watched a movie.

The next day morning we left Achuapa and had a brief stopover in León while we waited for Luis’ girlfriend. Once she showed up, we went back down to Managua (I was flying out the following morning). After a couple hours, his girlfriend headed back to Chinandega and we went and caught a movie.

Between the horribly uncomfortable beds, the bugs and my constant worry that I would oversleep my alarm, I slept roughly 10 minutes the entire night. Finally when the time I was actually supposed to wake at rolled around (I felt like I’d waited months), I got ready and didn’t even have time to finish my short regimen before my taxi driver showed up (the best driver in the whole country). Not only did he pick me up at 4 AM, he arranged to pick up 2 other people that were out of the way, and bring us to the airport – and he did it all for 11 dollars. I don’t care what country you’re in, but that’s a damn good deal. He charges virtually nothing (so I always tip him double the fare) but only takes appointments due to being robbed 3 times by Nicaraguans. The result being the most trustworthy and fair taxi driver in the country.

Getting out of Managua was pretty much a non issue and I was issued a seat right away, but I had a short window of time to make my connecting flight to Colorado Springs (I wouldn’t have been able to fly into Denver for days), so after getting through customs (no weird looks, inquisitions, or anything!) I booked it for my gate, which of course was at the farthest end of the airport. Once at the gate, they had a ticket waiting for me and I discovered I was the only standby on the plane – because it was empty! So I was finally heading back home for the first time in a year and a half.

The culture shock started immediately after getting off the plane. Everything just bugged me. I wanted to get away from everybody; I rolled my eyes at people complaining about everything under the sun. Having been away from all the amazing “luxury” goods like running water (that’s drinkable!) and no flaming piles of garbage, I could find nothing to legitimately complain about.

The culture shock continued as soon as we started landing in Colorado Springs. I cried upon seeing Pikes Peak (I missed our mountains a ton, though I never really venture through them), and was overwhelmed with an undescribable feeling upon landing.

The majority of my trip went just like that. I enjoyed seeing everybody and experiencing all that I’d missed, but being away from it for so long made me realise that I don’t need the majority of it. My big conclusion was that aside from going back to study for my Masters (though I might do it somewhere where it’s a whole lot cheaper – like Europe or Canada), I don’t need to go back to the States anytime soon. It’s just doesn’t fit for me anymore. Sure I enjoy many things, but for the most part, it’s just way too overwhelming for me to take on a daily basis. They say that simplifying your life is what needs to be done in order to be happy, and I honestly couldn’t agree more. Maybe it’s just the culture shock, and I’ll get readjusted once going back in July, but there`s just too much “stuff” for me to handle.

It also didn’t help that the entire trip I was sick with one mystery ailment or another (more on what it was later). I didn’t gorge myself with all the delicacies I’d hoped to because most of the time I just didn’t have the apetite, was on antibiotics, or I just didn’t want to because my preferences had changed (or tolerance – one to two beers and I have no interest in drinking more).

Even going to the gym was a shock to me. Here I was in a gym with everything I’ve ever needed. I get every monthly issue of Mens Health and now I finally had the opportunity to do some of the exercises that I’d seen. However, with so much equipment, I spent more time trying to figure out what it was that I wanted to do than I did actually work out. I also discovered, that while I’m in stellar shape now, I don’t have the strength that I used to. Being in Nicaragua has forced me to completely revamp my workout so that I need virtually nothing. Therefore, once in the gym, I ended up doing the majority of the exercises I would’ve done back in Nicaragua.

There was one thing that I couldn’t get enough of though – the snow. It was so great to have massive amounts of snow after not having any for 20 months. Furthermore, it was the first time I can remember that I looked forward to shovelling the sidewalk and driveway. However, even the excitement of the snow wore off as I was absolutely freezing the entire time I was in Colorado. Towards the end of my trip, I was really craving the constant heat of Nicaragua.

Another thing about my States routine was that I suddenly began to jog. Before I left for Peace Corps, jogging was a last resort to exercise, as I always preferred to be out there on my bike. But with 4 flat tires, none of my fun bikes were rideable. So for the first time in my life, I took running over my beloved bicycle (that’ll change once I get back!). Also, due to the time change (which was only an hour), I tended to wake up around 4 and go for a jog because I had no idea what else to do.

Overall the trip was a good one – I got to see most of the people I wanted to see, I indulged in practically everything I had been missing and I got the fill of U.S. culture that I needed to push me through 6.5 more months of Peace Corps.

The trip back was a complete miracle as I definitely shouldn’t have made it on any of the flights, but the great divine intervened and put me on the last seat out of Denver and made me the only standby going to Managua. It all worked out. I even met another volunteer in the airport in Houston, so we shared a cab and a room in Managua. All the parts of the trip magically came together when stastistically they probably shouldn’t have.

Once back in the Nicaragua, I spent a few days in Malpaisillo where Brie and I were able to indulge in the handful of goodies we still had from out trip back home. New Years was a nightmare and sleeping was near impossible, but we managed to survive it and not be exhausted the following day.

My first day back in Achuapa, the 4^th, I found that my dog had not died (I was worried he would) and everything in my house was safe in sound – though it was awfully dirty. However, my situation was pretty similar to the one I’d left – I had no actual work to do. I had planned to solidify my spelling bee project that I’m trying to implement in the elementary schools, but I just didn’t have the time. Furthermore, I’d anticipated that the NGO I was hoping would help me, was going to bail on me. Due to this, I had to be persistent in trying to meet with the boss of the NGO’s Achuapa branch. I went to try to meet with the boss every day for 2 weeks before he was A. finally there and B. not busy. While I waiting for the opportunity to schedule a meeting (that he would actually attend), I pretty much just sat on my butt and watch movies that Phil had hooked me up with when I was back in the States.

Also, during those weeks, I headed back to Managua for another appointment with my worthless dermatologist. I showed up, she told me the skin was too hard so she couldn’t do anything. Another 50 dollars down the drain. Thank you taxpayers. I formally requested to see the other dermatologist for the next time I come down to Managua. Brie and a volunteer from my group, Katie, were also in Managua that day, so we all went out to dinner. Surprisingly, Katie had the contact info for the USAID guy whose house we went to for Thanksgiving, so he picked us up and we went out for paella. He’s a cool guy and we hung out with him until around 1 AM. He sneakily picked up the tab at the restaurant (70 dollars!) and then convinced us to go to a “Young Diplomats” party at some uppity bar. We were reluctant at first, but gave in since he was so jazzed about it. At the young diplomats was everybody that worked at the embassy that was in their young 20’s, plus a group of students from Harvard. I’ll let you all guess how well they mingled with 3 Peace Corps volunteers. Luis was a good host and brought us around to introduce us to a whole bunch of people, but there’s really only so much we can talk about. We’re both government workers but with completely opposite mentalities. In spite of this, Luis stuck around and chatted with us for most of the time and picked up our drinks too. While I hate not paying my own way, it was nice to be treated to an experience like that.

*Warning: the following is disgusting*

The following morning, still full of paella, I had a funny feeling. It felt like I had gas. Not real bad gas, but almost like little bubbles of gas. I shrugged it off and went to the bathroom to discover that my problem wasn’t gas – I had a 9-inch intestinal worm that had finally made its way through my system. Then it all made sense – all my mysterious illnesses when I was in the States was because I had an intestinal worm for 5 weeks, and those gas bubbles weren´t gas at all – it was the head of the worm. I went into the PC office and told them about it and they gave me some drugs for it.

That day all the business volunteers met to discuss our business camp that will take place at the end of the month. Everybody was pretty distracted for the most part and we didn’t get as much done as we’d hoped, but we still got out at the time we’d hoped. Following the meeting, we worked on camp stuff (presentations and whatnot) and that night Brie and I took Jordan out for dinner to TGI Fridays. The food was amazingly overwhelming, but we did exactly what we’d set out to do – completely gorge ourselves.

Late that night, I had diarrhea a couple hundred times, which I knew wasn’t good. I ignored it for the better part of the morning before caving in and calling the med office. They sent me over to get a stool analysis and by lunchtime I discovered what my new problem was – a bacterial infection. Perfect – a worm one day, a bacterial infection the next. Healthwise, January definitely  hasn’t been a lucky month.

The next week I finally was able to meet with Mr. NGO boss man, and he put my spelling bee plan into action. We got an action plan to introduce my spelling bee to around 5 schools and scheduled a meeting. He called up the education superintendent for the municipality and scheduled a meeting with her for the following morning. However, my delegada (superintendent) was sick with what she thought was dengue, so she canceled the meeting and rescheduled it for Wednesday. Since I wouldn’t be able to attend (another camp meeting in Managua), the NGO boss said he’d take care of it.

When I got back to Achuapa, I discovered that the meeting went great and the delegada loved the idea of doing the spelling bee. However, since she’s still out of commission with her illness, I’ve been unable to meet with her to discuss the specifics.

I also attended my first meeting of agricultural workers via the NGO. I attended their intial informational session of the year where I was introduced to around 35 of them and we discussed what they are interested in so I can develop some business sessions. The meeting went well and I was put in charge of creating a bunch of business informational sessions for a group of agricultural workers that do not have businesses, which will then be combined with 30 more agricultural workers that do have a business (once we get to the presentations that are important to business owners).

Once I started meeting with the NGO, work really picked up. We’ll see if I can maintain this level of productivity in the upcoming month.

A big success

September 21^st – September 27^th

Sleep deprived (Brie’s dog made tons of noise all night long and thus prevented a good solid sleep), I caught the morning bus back to Achuapa. Once back, I left my stuff at my neighbor’s house and borrowed a bike so I could get my keys from Johani’s house. She wasn’t around, but I spoked with her mother who commented that I’m whiter after my trip (which I feel is just something to say as oppose to me actually being whiter).

Keys in hand, I went into my house to find that – it was exactly how I’d left it. I don’t know why, but I always have the expectation that when I leave for long periods of time, I’ll return to find some notable problem with my house (as has happened before). I dropped off my stuff and went over to the primary school to talk about the spelling bee with the 4^th graders, which I’d scheduled to have the following day (the 22^nd). Everything was still on, so I did a few errands to get my house back into working order and then relaxed the rest of the day (transition time is important).

Thursday I woke up early and got over to the primary school where we did the first round of the spelling bee. The professor had changed the way she did the spelling bee, and taught a list of 90 words, without teaching the 8 rules for spelling. At first, I believed this would be a problem because there weren’t a whole lot of words available for the first and second round. The final result was that the scores were significantly higher, and all the students that went on to the final round (which is an oral round) all got at least 19 out of 25 words correct on the exam.

Back in my house, I kept thinking about the way the first round went. Was it a success? A failure? Both? I had run the past two competitions by having the professor teaching 8 basic rules and then giving a list of 300ish words to the students. The written round consisted of 30 words, and the 10 best scores would go onto the final round. The disadvantage with this was that the majority of the students got around 50% of the words correctly, with the smartest ones getting around 65 to 70% correct. I kept pondering it until it came to me – when I participated in events like that, we always studied words progressively. The emphasis was on words, not rules. We would have a spelling test every week and would study a small number of words (around 25). From this, I decided that I needed to rework the way I did the spelling bee.

I’ve always wanted to expand the competition to other grades, so I decided that I could give 10 words a week to each grade. At the end of every month, semester and at the end of the year, they could have cumulative exams. This way, they have to keep studying the same words, thus retaining more words. Before developing this on my own, I wanted to speak to the directora of the primary school, but for some reason, there was no school on Friday, so I would have to wait until Monday.

Monday we held the final round of the spelling bee with the 4^th graders. I was worried we’d run out of words (I couldn’t use any of the 25 words that were on the written exam), but after eliminating 5 of the 10 students in the first round, I saw we’d be fine. The oral round went a handful of rounds, with the last two students going 3 rounds before we had a winner. The top 3 places once again went to all girl students – why has there never been a boy who has placed in the top 3 of all the spelling bees that I’ve done? The directora wasn’t in that day, so I had to put off explaining my idea for a restructured spelling bee.

I’ve already finished teaching the given material in my business classes, so I set off to look for business professionals that could come and speak to my class. Johani’s sister, an accountant in the mayor’s office said she’d love to and would confirm with me the following day. With that out of the way, I went over to Visión Mundial, a German NGO to talk to their nutricionist about the possibility of working together to give health presentations. After around an hour of waiting, I met with the president of the Achuapa branch and told him who I was and what I was doing in the community. He immediately perked up upon hearing that I was teaching students how to run a business and told me of a program he wants to do to get agricultural workers capacitated enough to create value added products (this is essentially what we try to teach in our business course). We were both excited about the possibility about this, so I then told him about the spelling bee I’m doing in the primary school. This he was super excited about and told me how they’d been looking to develop some sort of curriculum for all the 54 communities in the municipality of Achuapa. I gave a brief explanation of how it was run, and he just got more excited. I then got to the main idea I’d hoped the cover – health education. The nutritionist wasn’t in, so I told him about my presentations I’d like to give in the primary school and also that I wanted to do an HIV/AIDS tournament in the pool hall in town. He too loved this idea:

“I don’t know why we haven’t worked together thus far, but next Thursday we need to sit down and draft a budget for all these activities. I want to make this spelling bee a big event with a final competition in town. We need to take advantage of the 9 months you have left and get as much done as possible.”

During this time, he also agreed to come and talk to my class next week. This meeting really excited me – I’ve been trying to expand the spelling bee to other schools since I started it. Out of all the things that I’ve done in Peace Corps, the spelling bee has been the thing that has made me most proud. Even Peace Corps staff has loved the idea and took the guide I created and distributed it to volunteers so they too could have spelling bees in their communities. It’s pretty unreal to be able to have funds put into the project and work with a respected organization to bring this activity to all the students of Achuapa. Pretty much, it’s everything I’d hoped for. With the help of this organization, my spelling bee will turn into a sustainable activity – probably the most important goal of Peace Corps activities. Talk about a high point in my service.

Tuesday Johani’s sister told me she couldn’t come to my class, so I headed over to a German women’s NGO in town to ask if they could come for my class this Thursday. They agreed that there is a need to inform the students about the potential careers they can pursue, and said their lawyer and psychologist could come to the class – perfect. I spent the rest of the day tending to the sick dog that showed up in my yard on Sunday. He is completely emaciated and after being hit by a car, which broke his back paw, he’s pretty much stationary. I feel badly, so I’ve been taking care of it and feeding it since then. He’s getting fatter, which is good news. Hopefully I can nurse it back to health (as healthy as it can be with a broken leg), or at least let it die a bit more comfortably than it has lived thus far.

Yams!

September 23^rd – September 28^th

Wednesday I did a bit of running around to plan my classes and also to help my winning business group get ready for the competition. Combined with a trip to Johani’s house to hang out with her and her family, I was pretty “busy” the whole day.

On Thursday, I woke up super early to work out (around 4:30) and did my normal routine before getting ready for class. I was fortunate to get up so early because a student from my public school showed up to tell me that the class would begin a half hour early, and class would only be 30 minutes long. Apparently the teachers were going to get together to discuss the conduct of the students and turn in grades as well. So my kids got to go home a couple hours early even though they didn’t have school for 5 weeks in a row. The kids were restless and I spent the majority of the class moving students from one side of the room while attempting the find the right (or wrong) chemistry between students that would yield silence. When I showed up to my class at my private school, I arrived 10 minutes early to write up everything on the board. I passed my students (all of whom were in a group) and told them class would be quick today if they showed up on time. They responded by telling me that there wasn’t class today (as they always do). Ignoring their begging to not have class, I prepared the class and waited. When the bell finally rang, two of my kids were in the class and the rest were outside in the park. I told them to get in the classroom because class had begun, to which they said I promised there wouldn’t be classes after the competition. So they boycotted class. I’ve dealt with their complaints the entire year that I wasn’t going to fight them this time – so I just took points off their grades. My job is to teach the kids, not fight them on everything I ask them to do. With class being cancelled, I hopped on the bus to go to Malpaisillo and celebrate Brie’s birthday.

The next day, Brie was going to Rivas (a city in the south of Nicaragua), so I spent the majority of the day in Managua hanging out with a couple English volunteers I hadn’t seen in a while (around a year). We went out to lunch and then I spent the rest of the afternoon watching trashy reality TV with another business volunteer from my group (it really makes you feel good about yourself, given you’re not as trashy and stupid as the people on the shows).

Following an hour or so of watching that crap, I headed to Granada where I met up with Brie. We went out for dinner at what essentially is an air-conditioned sports bar (Mom and Dad à you went here). While there are a lot of good restaurants in Granada (definitely more reputable than a sports bar), the entire benefit is that it’s freezing inside and is away from the street (meaning that street performers and every other person doesn’t come up asking for money). While that may seem unjustifiable still, the food at the “sportsbar” is actually quite good. We got a mountain of food and some really good cocktails for more than reasonable prices. However, as if that was going to stop us (it’s not often we get to eat such rich food), we went out for dessert as well. We should’ve listened to our stomachs though à people in this country have no idea how to make a good cake. We were ready to explode following that meal, but that’s what we went for, so the day was successful.

The next day, we grabbed some breakfast before heading to the enormous supermarket in Managua (seeing a theme in this trip?). We walked around there for around an hour and a half before settling on some items we can’t get anywhere else – like Italian wine, yams and yoohoo. In before hopping a bus to Malpaisillo, we picked up a rotisserie chicken to top off our meal and caught a bus.

We got into Malpaisillo around dinnertime and were up to our ears with the delight that the rotisserie chicken, yams and wine brought to us. Unfortunately, the movie we bought (Duplicity – some movie with Clive Owen and Julia Roberts as counterintelligence agents for private corporations) was horrible. You can’t win them all.

The next day, I headed back to Achuapa on one of the morning busses. Upon boarding, I noticed 2 white people near the back of the bus – they turned out to be the couchsurfers that I was going to meet up with later that day. They’re going up to the Spanish school near Achuapa for a week, so I chatted with them the whole bus ride up. I also spoke with a Nicaraguan who lives in El Sauce about my plights in Achuapa (being called a CIA agent and a terrorist). He was so angry about this, he gave me his number and told me to give him a call if I ever get tired of dealing with the people. “Just call me, and a guy I know will make them disappear. Just say the word.” I gave him the required thank you but told him it’d probably be better if I just avoided the people instead of having them killed.

Once we arrived in Achuapa, I took the couchsurfers (a French couple) to our local comedor where we grabbed some lunch before they caught the bus to the town where the Spanish school is. During lunch, I learned that the guy is a ski instructor, her girlfriend is a preschool teacher, and they’re travelling through Central America until December. After which, they’ll go back to their tiny town near the French-Italian border in time for ski season. From what it sounds like, they’re going to spend the night at my house on Sunday, though they’ll have to get up at 3 AM with me the next day so I can go to León for the regional business competition. I relaxed the rest of the day (particularly since its been so hot) and in the process I forgot to buy food for dinner – it was fritanga food for me.

Come Monday, I woke up early (but not early enough to exercise) and went to the primary school for the first round of my yearly spelling bee. This year I worked with the 5^th graders in addition to the 6^th graders. The kids were super nervous and in the end, while I had some ties, I didn’t need to do some arbitrary act to select the top 5 from each class. Strangely, only 2 guys are going on to the next round, and the top 5 scores in the 6^th grade were higher than the best score by the top 5^th grader. While the top student from both grade is going on to the next round, it made me think – are the 6^th graders more “able” to do this activity than the 5^th graders? Or did the 6^th graders just study more? Also, why was the average score of the boys significantly lower than the average score of the girls?

I went and did some errands afterwards and ran into the mother of one of the students who participated in the competition. Coincidentally (or not coincidentally?), the girl is the niece of my buddy who owns a bike shop. Upon seeing me, the mother came up to me, eager as ever, to ask how her daughter did in the spelling bee. Upon telling her that her daughter got the highest score out of any of the students in 5^th and 6^th grade she near exploded and almost accidentally hugged me. She was completely elated and told me how hard she’d studied and that she’d helped her study for the competition. It was good to see that my activity yielded parental involvement and motivated the parents as well as the students. It’s definitely an event that could be hugely beneficial to Nicaragua if they implemented it everywhere instead of just some places (I know they have it some places, but it’s not part of any curriculum). That was a good pick me up after having such a rocky end to the last school week.

The worst (and best) bus ride in history, the LEC competition, and new projects

October 19^th

Having done nothing the previous night, we started the next morning pretty early again (of course this was probably due to the fact that Lindsay, Jordan, and I all squeezed into her bed). Once again, it was absolutely gorgeous outside, and it made us wonder why on Earth we got put on “standfast” in the first place. We all headed to the cyber since Sundays are lay-low days anyway, and after remembering that most are closed on Sunday, we headed over to gringo street (where all the hostels are) and found a cyber that was open. There we ran into Pete, an agriculture volunteer, and Joey, an SBD volunteer from out group. Joey had just gotten out of the hospital (again), and decided to head up to Leon before heading back to his site.

I took off after an hour and met up with Jordan at her house where we just lounged around. Since I’m pretty accustomed to living a tranquilo lifestyle, that’s what we did for the next billion hours it seemed. Lindsay showed up after doing some work at the cyber and went back to Cinco Pinos, and Jordan and I continued to sit around.

You can imagine how exciting that is.

Also, my counterpart called me about 12 times telling me the kids didn’t have money to come to the competition. After I said that this was nothing new, the delegada called me up and said that they needed to go. I still had no answer for her, just saying that my counterpart didn’t help me look for money so we didn’t raise anymore. So I assumed they weren’t coming.

Due to my lack of activity, the only other thing I did was hang out with the TEFL volunteers for a while before watching the Red Sox lose game 7. Ugh.

October 20^th

Now with only 2 people in the bed, I slept a whole lot sounder than in the past couple of days. Jordan and I had to get up early for the LEC regional competition, so after a quick breakfast and getting decked out in our finest, we headed over to the building the mayor’s office is in (one of the only buildings in the city with more than one floor). We were having the competition in a ballroom above the mayor’s office, so we had a lot of setup to do.

Jordan ordered around 150 chairs and 20 tables, so we planned on setting that up immediately upon arriving. However, time passed…and some more time passed…and they weren’t there. We got the mayor’s office to donate some chairs and tables but they were far from sufficient. On top of these problems, I got a call from my counterpart at 8 AM, “We’re here” “What??? You’re here? I thought you weren’t coming.” Since my group decided to show up, I had to run back to Jordan’s house to pick up their powerpoint presentation so they’d be able to present during the competition.

I ran across the city and grabbed my flash drive and got back to the mayor’s office before they even showed up – guess I’m just that fast. Unfortunately my professionalism took a hit because the weather was gorgeous and amazingly hot (AKA, I arrived drenched in sweat).

Unfortunately for everyone involved, the tables and chairs didn’t show up for 2.5 hours. Due to this, many people were whining and complaining, but eventually we got around to starting at 10:30. Since my group never told me they were coming, they weren’t on the presentation list, so they’d be going last. Bummer.

All in all, the entire competition went very smoothly. I had the incredibly important role of being the time guy – I got to stop people when they went over the 5-minute time limit for the presentation. The groups that presented really annihilated all the groups that participated in the Chinandega competition. I don’t know if it’s a lack of motivation on the part of the students in that department, the heat, or what, but it was interesting to note that. The way things went, Jordan had 2 groups that got awards, groups from La Paz Centro got the top award (they started an advertising company – and just became an official business in the town), and Brie’s group from Malpaisillo that was selling bees wax candles (also already selling their product), got second place. These were the only two places since only they will continue onto the national competition.

With the end of the competition, I intended to head off to Achuapa and relax the whole way. Whoa did it end up differently than what I thought.

First, my counterpart told me that she needed to go to the doctor, and therefore would not be going back to Achuapa with the students and me. Great, so I have to take care of them. I walked around a bit with the students, bought some things in the market, and then we all caught the camioneta to head over to the bus terminal.

We got to the bus station an hour and a half early, which was good and bad. It was great because the last bus generally has no empty seats on it, but bad because we had to wait for so long for the bus to depart. I killed the time by casually chatting with my students, all of whom had woken up at 1 AM in order to catch the bus that came from León (To make matters worse for my students, the bus that they caught that morning got in an accident and was delayed an hour.) It seemed that my stars had aligned correctly when the bus left an amazing ten minutes early. This meant one thing – I’d be able to get home that much earlier right? Wrong.

Our problems started at the first empalme (an intersection for highways). No more than 20 feet after turning onto the highway that goes towards Malpaisillo, the bus got a flat tire. This was much to the dismay of my students and me in particular. They’d woken up super early in the morning, and I’d been away from Achuapa for so long I really wanted to go back. The whole tire changing process took about 45 minutes before we were finally on our way again. After this, things seemed to be improving – we got to the next empalme in what seemed to be record time. Since we were clipping along so nicely, I kicked back and enjoyed some tunes – we had a mere 2 hours to go after all.

I spoke to soon.

After very little time, we ran into a huge line of cars that were stopped on the highway. Just to give some background information – this highway never has any cars on it. If we see more than 3 cars the whole 2-hour trip on this stretch of highway, it’s a busy day. The driver then broke the news to everybody – the river had flooded the bridge and we had to wait until it got lower so we could cross the bridge. I got out of the bus to go check out the river with my students and we ran into Irene, the volunteer from El Sauce. She had left the competition and hour before we did, and they’d been waiting at the flooded river for about an hour and a half. The bridge normally crosses over a super tiny creek, but now this tiny creek was more of a raging river that was a good 100 feet across. This meant we were to sit and wait for around an hour and a half – luckily, it could’ve been longer. Everybody in the line of cars was completely ecstatic to be able to pass over the bridge after having waited for so long. Each vehicle that crossed the bridge did so to the deafening sound of falling rain, a rushing river, and the cheers of the passengers.

We pushed on and about an hour later we arrived in El Sauce. This arrival was debatable as the bus never actually stopped at the stop, nor took the normal route through the town. I didn’t know we actually we’d actually stopped until we were on our way out of town and past the cemetery that marks the end of town. My students told met that the cobradors said we’d have to sleep in the bus, which I already was aware of. I’d called PC security to ask him about what to do, and he recommended I stay in El Sauce – but since I didn’t know we’d stopped, that was no longer an option.

Time for an experience.

As everybody kept saying, we arrived in Rio Grande (a town in the middle of Achuapa and El Sauce (about 7 miles from Achuapa), the driver stopped the bus and said we weren’t going anywhere until the morning – #@%$! We all got out of the bus to swear, relieve ourselves, and wander aimlessly when a truck appeared out of nowhere. We asked him where he was going and he told us he was headed just outside of Achuapa. “Could you take us as far as you’re going?” Surprisingly, the man said he’d take us – so me, my 4 students, and the other 21 people that were on the bus climbed in the back of this tiny pickup truck (TINY TINY). I was one of the last people in the bus because I had to run back on the bus and grab all my stuff and barely was able to jump in the back before it took off. Unfortunately, due to the number of people and bags we had in the back of the truck, I was left to stand up at the back of the truck, with my legs bent just a bit so I could hold on to a suitcase and the shoulder of one of my students to avoid falling out of the truck as it travelled 30 miles per hour. To make matters more…interesting, this entire time, I’ve been carrying 4 jars of peanut butter. So if you can picture all of the above, and then add 4 jars of peanut butter in a bag I’m holding, that’s what my situation was.

The truck dropped us off at the point that we could see the telephone tower that is in Achuapa, but unfortunately it was still super far away. We now had to walk 20 minutes through the mud, in the pitch-black night. I’d been crouched over with my legs bent for 20 minutes (because my life literally depended on it), so my body barely had the capacity to continue. Not only that, but during this walk, the bag holding my peanut butter bust open and my peanut butter went rolling all over the muddy hill I was now trudging up. I collected my strewn about peanut butter jars and continued the muddy, blind hike down the middle of the Achuapa-El Sauce road. Finally, we saw a truck approaching us and a man got out to illuminate the horribly muddy road that stood between all of us and the truck. I was the first person in the truck followed by my 4 students, and while we waited I proceeded to drop my peanut butter all over the roof of the truck – nearly losing them all.

The truck drove us the last 15 minutes to Achuapa and finally dropped us off at the park. Once again, another problem arose – my students live in the community 5 km away and it was now 9:30 (mind you we left at 3:45 PM, so this normally 2 hour 45 minute ride turned into close to a 6 hour ride). The roads definitely would be horrible, and it’s a dangerous road to travel down at night, so my 2 girl students stayed at my counterpart’s house since she wasn’t home, and my 2 male students came to my house. We were all starving and thirsty, but I could only offer water since I had no food in my house. I could only give my students some sheets, and they ended up sleeping on the floor of my room for the whole night (and they looked like corpses – see picture).

Oh wow – WHAT AN EXPERIENCE!

October 21^st

My students and I rolled out of bed (well I did, they got up off the floor) at around 5:30 AM, because my students had to go to school (they actually wanted to even though I told them they didn’t have to). I was exhausted but got up with them because my gate was locked. So like last night, I had to scream for my neighbour to unlock the gate so we could get out. Once they took off, I was left to my own devices. I tried to go back to sleep, but it just wasn’t happening.

I got up and after making a quick breakfast, I went out to buy all the things I couldn’t get earlier due to a lack of funds. What I didn’t realise at the beginning was that a list would’ve been an amazing idea. However, due to whatever reason, I didn’t make one. With all my common sense out the metaphorical window, I made 5 trips to the giant pulperia, 4 trips to the mini-super, and 2 trips to the pulperia in front of the cooperativa. I bought some sheets for my bed (finally), a pillow (it’s total crap), got 100 egg carton palates (going to soundproof my house), a can of tuna fish (I’m going to make a Nica oven out of it after I eat it) and a bunch of negligible foodstuffs.

When I got home and lounged around in my house, my neighbour came over and told me the ‘chela’ stopped by my house on Sunday. This meant but one thing – the new white person in town wasn’t just passing through. I had an English class to teach at 11:30, so I headed down there right afterward to teach the Albergue class with Johanni. For reasons that I wasn’t to clear on, the class was cancelled. I think it had to do with exams or that kids were ditching classes or something, but whatever.

Now done with the only other commitment I had for the day (the spelling bee was postponed because the directora wasn’t there today), I decided to head over to the new volunteer’s house to meet her. I’d never actually been over to her part of town, even though it’s a mere 2 blocks from my house. The road was pure mud and rocks (that’s probably why I’d never been there), and was exceptionally muddy in light of the rainy season. I had to ask a 5 year old where the lady’s house was (Doña Flor, or Mrs. Flower if you were to translate it). I’m always reluctant to follow a Nicaraguan’s directions, so while I was wandering around looking for somebody else to ask, a girl came out of a house and came over to me to tell me the chela wasn’t going to be home for half an hour. Wow – information that comes to you!

I headed back a little bit later, but got lost on the way there (one road too far). While making my way back, I surprisingly saw another white girl. I had no idea if that was the girl I was going to meet or now, so I halfway asked with the question, “¿Usted es…?” She took off her baseball cap to reveal short bright red hair and just nodded her head. I had no idea what that meant, but it was really awkward so I just kept riding down the road where I proceeded to get lost. I hit a dead end, or rather a forest, so I had to double back and go back to pass the awkward white girl who was now sitting on the corner reading something. I finally got back to Mrs. Flower’s house and met the new volunteer in town, Robin. I had some basic questions I needed answered before casual conversation was to proceed, “Where did you come from? What are you doing? How long are you staying?” It was more like an interrogation as first, but eventually we transitioned into normal conversation. She’s working in the clinic of the cooperativa learning acupuncture and holistic medicine, and is from New Jersey. Unfortunately for me, she’s only staying 4 weeks, but hey it’s better than nothing right? We ended up talking for a while because it started raining, and we found out we really had a whole lot in common (including crazy travelling alone). Additionally, it was like a job fair since I gave a run down of what Peace Corps was, what my job was, what I hated, what I liked, if it was hard, etc.

After showing her all the good pulperia’s in town (and where to get a box of Corn Flakes), I stopped by the pulperia across the street from Rene’s bike shop to chat with some of my friends. It then dawned on me that I had yet to plan for my Wednesday 3^rd year class at San Sebastián, so I headed over to Esteban’s house to take care of that. I wouldn’t be going because my contact from the Millennium Challenge Corporation was coming to Achuapa tomorrow, so I wanted to get my counterpart ready for the class. I showed up and he was doing laps around the block on his bike because he was bored (according to his wife), but a quick text message later of “I’m in you’re house. Come. We need to plan,” he was there a mere 30 seconds later. I told him I wouldn’t be there and he just told me not to worry about it, school was almost out after all. Then, I hung out and chatted with him and his wife for hours. The conversation bounced back and forth from the education system, to the cyber that’s opening in Achuapa (in a week!!!!!), the Yankees sucking (my counterpart is a huge Yankees fan), the importance of learning another language, and my future plans. On top of that, it revolved around my complete ineptitude with regards to cooking. This ended up being the key phrase as my counterpart’s wife told me I should just stay for dinner, “Done.

I left my counterpart’s house around 8:30 pretty satisfied, and was completely beat. It was a busy day for not doing anything that was truly productive (according to my Peace Corps work report).

October 22^nd

I slept like a rock last night, but unfortunately I still woke up at 6 AM. I tried to go back to sleep, but the only thing I could think about was making sure I was awake to fill the barrel in my bathroom and fill my gallon jugs so I could sun them on my roof. So I made a compromise, I’ll go turn on the faucets and then go back to bed and rest until I hear the water when it’s turned on. Of course, the second I went and laid back in bed, the water came on – so I started my day.

I went to take a shower only to remember that I sent all my clothes and towels to be washed…so…my towel ended up being my shirt. The day obviously didn’t start that well, but it’s not like I could just hit the reset button. I did some more errands while I waited for my contact from El Sauce to show up – this came in the form of going to the pulperia again, going to the primary school to talk about the spelling bee (it’s going to be Friday), talking with the delegada about the regional competition, and hanging out with Kenis a bit in the cooperativa. I talked with Kenis for a long time before I realised that I was late for my meeting with my NGO contact. I abruptly left and headed over to the Casa de la Mujer to find Leslie, the grandson of my host mom there. “¿Está Gloria o Ninoska?””No, andan en El Sauce.” Or in English, they were in El Sauce – another day wasted. No matter, I’m great at killing time now. I went and hung out a bit more in the cooperativa with Kenis before heading over to the bike shop and chatting with Rene for a bit. There, a guy who owns a bike with a ridiculous amount of accessories told me that if he were in my position, he “sure as hell wouldn’t be here in Nicaragua.” Then I economically broke it down to him and explained to him that I’ve been able to travel more than any of my friends, and do everything I’ve wanted to do with my life so far without incurring any debt, even though I’ve never really made that much in my life. Thank you economics degree.

With all my new cooking gadgets in my house, I tried to make some lunch. I had bit plans – beans, rice, fruit, vegetables, and peanut butter. However, after doing a couple rounds of the town, I found nothing but beans. So I ate some beans, rice, and some guineo (banana like but a bland tortilla like taste) that my neighbour gave me. Mmmm….starch, starch, and starch. To make the meal even more healthy, I had some white bread – thank god for that multivitamin.

I was going to head over to the institute at 1 to meet Johanni for another English class only for her to call me to say she’d be 10 minutes late – 10 minutes, how un-Nicaraguan of her. Her English class wasn’t the best for me – maybe it was my crappy diet I’ve had lately. She’s improving incredibly, but some days I just don’t have the patience. It’s days like this when I miss a good Colorado microbrew (ahem – gift idea).

I did some exercises in the park where I had a 3 or 4 year old talking to me the whole time:

“Cheleeeeeeeeeeeeee! What are you doing?”

“I’m doing exercises.”

“Those aren’t exercises!”

“Sure they are, I’m doing pull-ups. It’s one of the best exercises you can do!”

“You don’t do them very high – only to the bar. My dad can do pull-ups as high as the sky.”

On top of buying more stuff. I was keen to make my dinner tonight, so I walked all around town carrying random things as I did them in no particular order – I bought some pots, bought some bread, bought some cheese, bought some pineapple, and checked some other pulperia’s for food. While I did all this, I passed my house 4 times. Upon arriving to my house, my neighbours came and sat in my kitchen to watch the “experiment” I was about to conduct. They seemed completely flabbergasted that I intended to eat pineapple at night, and on top of that, that I was going to eat it with rice, beans, and cuajada. The dinner filled my belly, and really that’s all I ask from my cooking. So…mission accomplished.

Here’s hoping for a productive tomorrow? Maybe?

October 23^rd

The productive part about today – I had a class to teach. Aside from that…my productiveness is debatable. Today was just a day where if I had somebody observing what I did (one of you readers for example), you’d probably be dying, “Oh my god how can you do this? This is sooooo boring.” Or in other words, I did a lot of sitting around. However, as I’ve noted before: for me, a successful day is one where I finish it and I’m satisfied with what happened and don’t feel it was wasted.

So I woke up before my alarm, got ready and headed over to I. San José to teach my class for the first time in 2 weeks (I missed last week because of the Chinandega regional competition). The class went pretty well, and by that I mean that I had nobody trying to take pictures of me the entire class. They were pretty well behaved (well, for them), but this was definitely due to the fact that they have an exam next Thursday. Speaking of which, this next exam brought out another student I’d never seen before. I’ve been teaching at this school since July, and it was the first time he’d shown up to class. He’s…going places…yep, he sure is.

After the class, my official professional, working Richard day was over. So I set out to do some errands – unfortunately as of lately this has meant stopping by the huge pulperia to buy something I hadn’t realised I’d needed. Today, this came in the form of a smaller knife, and a container to store a half-pound of cook beans. Instead of slaving over a pot (well, not really slaving), but instead of buying a pot to cook an absurd amount of beans, I outsourced the work to a friend of mine who did it for free. This was another sound economic move by me, and a worthy headline in the Achuapa newspaper (if we had one). I’d been buying a bag of cooked beans for 5 cords (that bag lasts me 3-4 meals), so by getting them for free now, I’ve saved myself around 79 dollars over the rest of my Peace Corps service.

Pleased with my savvy-ness, I set out to do the next significant thing on the agenda – buy some vegetables so I didn’t have to eat just beans and rice for lunch. It’s been raining like crazy, so the Estelí bus hasn’t been bringing fruits and vegetables that much, so selection was definitely lacking. I ended up getting a tomato, a chiltoma, and something that looked like an orange. After inquiring, the fruit stand lady just told me:

“Oh it’s super sweet! Super sweet!”

“Um…ok, give me one of those.”

“You just want one?”

“Yea, that should be enough.”

“But they’re so sweet!”

I resisted the pressuring fruit stand lady and just got one, came home and put them in the fridge. Coincidentally, when lunch rolled around, all I did was eat rice and beans and the half of a pineapple from the previous night. It then started to rain.

Some 3 hours of yoga later, after the rain had passed, I headed over to Esteban’s house (my counterpart) because I was pretty much told by his wife that I had to come. I spent the majority of the night over there chatting with them about this and that. Oh, and the exciting part was them showing me this amazing pillow – the softest pillow I’ve ever experienced in my life. Since his wife is going to León tomorrow, she said she’d grab me two of them – I just couldn’t resist! Also, more amazing news – the cyber in Achuapa opens on Wednesday – WEDNESDAY. I’ll finally be connected with the rest of the world again, except this time it will be on my terms.

Week from today, I’m going on vacation.

October 24^th

Today I was finally able to do my spelling bee – and it was a huge success. I thought of this idea a while back after seeing how poor everybody’s spelling skills were, and the competition was finally realised.

I showed up at the school at 8 AM to give the test, which was met with the groans of most of the students of 6^th year. With all the moaning and whining they were doing, I was convinced that everybody would fail the exam, but that’s far from what happened. After the exam, it was a field day, so the kids no longer had class. During this time, I graded all the exams to find that of the 29 people who took the exam, 10 people got a 75% or higher – remarkable for a Nicaraguan classroom. There was one girl who got 3 out of 40 wrong and even remembered some spelling rules that she was able to transcribe. It was super satisfying to see that so many people cared enough to study a bit. The best part of it was a girl in the class, Adriana, telling me how poorly she did and how she didn’t even want to know what she got – only to find out she got the second highest score in the class. Not only did she surprise everybody in the class, but she amazed herself as well. She was just so happy about it. I’m going to plan with the directora and the professor of the class next week for the last oral round, so they can implement the second phase of the competition while I’m on vacation the first week of November.

Following the spelling bee, I bought some honey (good natural sugar), finally got my housing contract together with (I’d never been able to get a hold of the lawyer in town), and talked with Kenis a bit before meeting Johanni to help her plan an English class at 1 PM.

Later that afternoon, since the gym is still closed (my buddy Edys might have dengue, and he always has the key), I went and worked out in the park in front of San Sebastián. Unsurprisingly, a bunch of kids showed up to inquire as to what it was I was doing. I took advantage of this by explaining exercises, the importance of being active, and then turning it into a competition (everybody in this country is a sucker for a good competition). I even branched out a bit from my normal preschool group and got a high school kid to participate as well. This has got to be somewhat sustainable yea?

Amazingly, it didn’t rain today (thank GOD), so I took advantage of the beautiful weather by taking a bike ride around town and dropping by to say hello to everybody I know. After my ‘house calls,’ I headed over to Esteban’s house to plan for our 3^rd year class for next Wednesday. However, when I arrived he was nowhere to be seen – he was at the stadium apparently. I waited in front of the house with the girl who takes care of his kid (she’s 23 but looks like she’s 12 or 13 tops), met my counterpart’s parents, and then was brought by his wife across the street to her parents house (apparently they’d wanted to meet me). While I was there, I met her dad (who was in the middle of getting a hand massage), who owns a cow farm in Achuapa. He then told me about the heritage of his family dating back to the late 1800’s. Apparently his grandfather was from France and went to the Dominican Republic where he worked for a few years. While he was working there, he heard about some sort of huge project going on in Panama – the Panama Canal. There he worked on the canal from start to finish before hearing about some sort of mining project going on in Nicaragua. This project, mining gold, brought him to Achuapa in the 1910’s, where he and his family have lived since. It was pretty cool hearing about his family story, before he digressed into a 30-minute story about bull riding. With all the talk about the farming life, he told me I could borrow a horse whenever I wanted – that’s cool.

I guess I’ve really got the community behind me.

My students sleeping on my floor after our nightmare bus ride

This is what leather shoes look like after not wearing them for 5 days during rainy season. Yes, that´s mold.