September 8th
Due to my incredible sleep deprivation the previous week, I slept close to forever – yet still let myself enough time to eat breakfast. While I did put in a good 11 hours, ‘sleeping in’ doesn’t really take on the same definition here. You’re sleeping in if you sleep past 8 AM. The extra hours come from the fact that you go to sleep so flipping early every night (because really, what else is there to do?)
Due to the upcoming Independence Day here, there are no classes in any of the schools for this week. They’re all practicing for the huge celebrations that will happen the 14th and 15th. While it’s all fine and dandy that they show so much dedication to preparing for this celebration, this is really the last thing the students need. They need to be in class – learning. I don’t care what country I’m in, spending so much time preparing for something like this is not a good use of educational resources.
Due to the continual practice, I had very little on my plate: a trip to the Enitel to see if my package came, work out, and meet my counterpart at 4 to plan a class. It was about 600 degrees outside so any outdoor activity would have to be severely limited. Therefore, just before lunch, I headed out on a mission to get my package from Enitel and then get some bananas. The end result was that I got neither. My package was never sent from León, and bananas are nonexistent in Achuapa today. This was completely unacceptable.
I resolved to do some sort of activity, so after lunch, I grabbed my bike and planned on taking a ride down the road towards El Sauce. Lindsay called me right as I was headed out and we talked a bit about how things were going. Almost immediately after she called, Kat in Estelí called me to ask about buying a used bike and what she should look for. I did an advising session with her (I wonder if I’ll be able to throw that on my work report…), then headed out on my bike ride. With the brutally hot and dry weather, I ended up stopping at the top of the first gigantic hill I came too. The planning of the trip was kind of slapdash, and I was without water, so I only rode for about 15 minutes. Nevertheless, it felt good to get on the bike and pedal my worries away.
Following my ride, I did some yoga and worked out, then read a bit before I headed over to my counterpart’s house to teach her about stocks. I rode over there to find her without her book because she’d left it at the school, and having not read the section either. I had no other option but to leave the book with her, and I’ll go back to her house tomorrow to help plan the class with her. It’d be nice if she would be prepared and enthusiastic, but whatever – bohuzel.
That spelled the end to my day, aside from me spending a couple hours reading about the Mayflower and those ill-prepared Pilgrims.
September 9th
Being well rested, except not at all (I woke up wicked early and couldn’t get back to sleep), I was pretty stoked to have something to do this morning. I was to meet Gloria, the owner of the milk cooperative to discuss the ins and outs of her business as well as talk a bit about her ecotourism project she was going to start.
I got out of the house and over to her milk cooperative (3 blocks down my street) to meet with her at 8 AM. Unfortunately, but not exactly unsurprising, she didn’t show up, and I sat around for 30 minutes talking to some half-naked homeless man eating gallo pinto out of a cup. He asked when I came to Achuapa, told me the pulperia was closed, and gave me his weather forecast for the day. Not information I came for, but I was glad to get some sort of interaction out of my trip down the road. Not wanting to waste me being in dress clothes, I headed over to my institute to meet with Johanni, one of the English teachers. There I set up some times to meet with her so she could practice her English. Following several catcalls from my students I got back home.
I did around an hour of yoga before and decided not to lock myself in my room like I did the day before. It was yet another beautiful day, so I wanted to take advantage of it, as well of my enthusiasm to get out an exercise. I figured I’d take a bike ride down the road to El Sauce for 30 minutes, to see how far I’d get. The road itself is incredibly hilly and for a dirt road, in very good shape. After besting the first hill (which was quite a task), I was greeted by the some of the incredible views that surround Achuapa. In addition to the physical beauty, I saw a couple of deer, and a random flock of sheep (I think?). My game plan was to ride for 30 minutes, then turn around and be back in time for lunch. I became less inclined to continue after 20 minutes (and 5 enormous hills), after it appeared there was no worthy stopping point in the foreseeable future. No less than 2 minutes after turning around, one of my pedals locked up, rendering my bike pretty much unrideable. Before I’d turned around, I remember thinking, “Man, thank god I’m on a bike, I’d hate to walk home from here,” and that’s exactly what I did. The sun was absolutely brutal with the temperature no less than 90 degrees. It was a rough walk back home, but luckily I was able to coast down the hills (albeit with a terrified expression on my face since I had to ride in a very precarious position since my bike is fixed gear). In the end, it was another one of those “Wow, what an experience!” moments, and left me missing the snow more than ever – even if it is September.
I ate lunch, then headed over to the bike shop to deal with my busted pedal and chat with Rene a bit. In the end we didn’t fix the problem, but with an approaching hurricane (this is a daily occurrence), I headed home to the dryness of my room and the refuge of the book I’m reading (who would’ve guessed I would’ve ever said that?). On that note, I’ve been thinking about how much I’ve been reading (just non-fiction), and how much random information by the time I’m done with my PC service. On top of that, going back reading for school work will be a total joke since I’ve become accustomed to reading huge amounts on a daily basis. Nevertheless, eventually I’ll have to decide exactly what it is I want to study. Do I want to get a grad degree in economics? Some environmental degree? Teaching?
Off to El Sauce tomorrow to be a judge in yet another LEC competition (I’m a professional judge now! This is going on the resume.)
September 10th
I’d say today was a nice change of pace, but in light of last week, today was really more of the same.
I had to get to El Sauce super early in the morning to be a judge in the LEC competition, and caught the 5 AM bus there. Strangely enough, my counterpart from Los Caraos was on the bus headed to León because she’s got some chronic stomach problem. I talked to her for a bit during the trip, but I was really craving the sound of the Ipod over her at 5 AM, so I listened to tunes most of the way.
I met Irene at her house which is located in the center of town and hung out for a bit before Maria, an ag volunteer, showed up with her boyfriend in an absolutely enormous truck. Her boyfriend’s mom lives in the States and instead of coming back, bought him an enormous Ford F250. It’s an absolute beast and complete overkill for the streets of El Sauce. Nevertheless, we had a bunch of errands to run before the start of the competition, so it definitely came in handy.
After running around for an hour picking up chairs, tables, and refrigerios, we showed up to Irene’s institute to start the competition. She had some 20 groups participating in the competition, the most that would be participating out of any of the competitions I had judged. Most of the groups did I pretty good job, but there were a few outliers on both sides of the spectrum. Overall, the competition clipped right along, but unfortunately for Irene, all the winners came from one school (bohuzel for them), so we were a tad worried about getting lynched following the competition. It all turned out well, and after the competition, Irene and I went out for lunch before I headed back up to Achuapa.
I got the bus almost immediately after we got done with lunch, and was back in Achuapa by 3:30 – great timing. After stopping by the alcaldia to find out the mayor wasn’t in, I headed back home to drop off my stuff. Wanting to take advantage of being all decked out, I decided to get on my bike and look around for a house or room to rent. I headed to the hardware store and asked the owner who informed me she had absolutely no idea, but would look into it and get back to me. Dejected, I headed over to Ervin’s house where I found his wife sitting on the porch. I bitched about how I couldn’t find a house in the town and we sat around for 20 minutes before she said, “You know, the house across the street is for rent.” She then informed me that the owner worked around the corner. Totally stoked, I headed around the corner and met with the owner, who works at the election commission. He told me that the house was still under contract until the 25th, but after that it would be available. Also, he mentioned that the guy living there now was paying 500 cords a month – around 25 dollars! Perfect! It’s the exact price I’d been looking for! It’s a split house that was built just a year ago, made of concrete, has real secure doors, and for a Nicaraguan house, is quite large. I can only speculate as to what it includes since I have yet to see the house. However, after peeking in, it has an ample living area, and apparently has a huge patio in the back. The one downside is that is probably has a latrine, and from what I heard, it might now have a shower. Back to the bucket shower?
I was pretty ecstatic about the find, but I’m trying not to get my hopes up (but it’s not working at all). I hung out at Ervin’s house for a bit afterwards and talked with Noriko, the Japanese Peace Corps (JICA) volunteer. We exchanged a bit of music and movies before I headed home. The rest of the night just included working out, answering the host family’s questions about when I was planning on marrying the cat, and watching a movie.
I finally have no reason to leave site for an extended period of time – man am I ready to stick around and get things rolling.
September 11th
Today was supposed to be my first day back in the classroom…and that didn’t happen.
The day started early enough at 7, and I did my thing so I could get over to ISJ for my class. Once over there, I met up with the English teacher and set up a time so I could help her study for her English exam. Afterwards, I met up with my counterpart and we went to class…but the class wasn’t there. It turns out, with this Independence Day celebration, class was cancelled yet again for drum/dance practice for the big event that will be thrown Monday. Bottom line is that my students now have 1 week to work on their business plans before the local competition. Nobody has done any of them, 3 of the 4 groups don’t have a prototype, and all but one of my students got a 75% or lower on the exam. About 90% of them failed the exam, and the one girl who got a 100% hasn’t done any of her homework – like the rest of the class. In other words, it’s not looking good for their grades. Whatever, it’s their problem – I won’t pity them when they fail. They had the time and chose to screw around. I am curious how many people will whine and cry to argue their case – as if I’m going to change their grade. It’s going to be fun to wield my influence!
After my failure of a class, I left to meet up with the alcalde to see if he could perhaps give me some free photocopies. He’s a jolly guy who always wears a hat, and named Milan strangely. He’s always really receptive as he was this time, but after laying down my situation he just told me “Oh yea, the copy machine is broken.” Bummer. However, he did suggest I go to one of the NGO’s in town to ask for some funds to cover the costs. I headed over to the MINED office to talk with the delegada to ask how I go about doing that and she gave me access to one of their computers and printer to type up a letter. All of a sudden, I was blasted back to my days in Business Spanish LSPA 345 where I was writing a business letter asking for something. The only thing I could remember was that I needed to really beat around the bush and use a lot of fluffy language before I finally get to the point. After doing all that, I had a very aesthetically pleasing letter and only 2 grammatical errors in the whole thing. If only I could pronounce my words as flawlessly as I write! I printed it up, got a big thumbs up from our delegada and ran over to Vision Mundial to hopefully get some money. I had no idea how the process was going to go, but it just involved me dropping off the letter and leaving, or in other words, not what I thought. I thought I’d give them the letter and they would say “Wow! Here’s a bag full of money!” Don’t ask why I thought this would happen.
I stopped by the primary school to organize a soccer team, where I was directed to come back next week. I also wanted to get judging material to each of my judges so their ready for the competition, so after stopping by the school, I headed over to the cooperativa to hopefully score some free photocopies. I chatted with a couple of the people I know at the coop (I realised I know just about everybody), and got the copies before they told me to go to the cajero – DAMMIT, they’re not free! I didn’t have money for them, so I had to run home real quick, grab a quarter’s worth of cordobas and go back to the cooperativa to pay for my photocopies. Not all was lost however – my friend who works there had been inquiring about a place to live and found a place for me. She told me it’s a pretty big place but the lady wants to charge $50 dollars a month. She, like me, scoffed at the high price, and she said she’d try to talk it down for me – awesome.
After all that nonsense, I headed home thinking I’d been out forever. “It must be around noon!” I thought to myself. Oh how wrong I was – it was 9:20 AM. I ran all over town and did tons and tons of things, and it took all of an hour and a half. What the hell.
With nothing else to do (literally), I headed back home, worked out a bit and dove back into my Mayflower book for a couple of hours. Following lunch, I headed to the bike shop where I hung out for a bit and inquired a bit more about the town. The high point was me finding out that we have a bread shop in town and nobody bother to flipping tell me. I’ve been going around town for 2 weeks looking for plain bread and nobody has had it, nor bothered to mention that there was a place I could get it all this time. Oh I see how it is Nicaragua. As a plus to the whole situation, if worse comes to worse, when I move into a house, I can definitely fill my stomach with bread. With a big piece of bread ringing in at a whopping 5 cents, if the budget warrants it, I can make a meal out of bread and a multivitamin. On that note – gotta learn how to cook.
Was weird seeing absolutely nothing about the September 11th attacks for the first time ever. I heard nothing, saw nothing, and only realised it after I saw today was the 11th. Probably a good thing.
September 12th
I effectively put an end to the only thing I had to do today by choosing not to observe the Independence Day practice at Los Caraos today. In a way it was a silent protest since we wasted so much time with it, but I also didn’t to go simply because I don’t care/I’ve been listening to the practice for the past month.
Since I decided to not attend that event, I had little to do. I headed over to the hardware store to one, foster some sort of friendly relationship with the owner (when I move into a house, the hardware store will be the first place I go – maybe I could get some sort of discount, or maybe at least some free haircuts), and also to get a recharge for my phone. I took a bike ride around the town as well to find that they are paving (well, “blocking”) two of the most treacherous streets in town. That was big news – welcome to small town, Nicaragua. Aside from that awfully exciting news, I started another book, called Prague appropriately enough. Great book so far. I also helped the English professor at one of my schools again today.
With the Nicaraguan Independence Day on Sunday, school is cancelled Monday and Tuesday. So I’ve got a huge weekend, yet I’m staying in site since I’d been out of Achuapa for so much time in the last 3 weeks. I’m kind of bummed at the timing of this, but there will be plenty of time to leave site during the summer break in November, December, and January.
We’ll see how this super long weekend goes.
September 13th
Today I had the sole game plan of going to the cooperativa to make sure one of my potential judges, Juan Bravo, the president of the cooperativa, was still in fact, going to be a judge.
I woke up way earlier than I thought I would, yet was somehow well rested, and I rolled out of bed. I’ve found doing yoga every morning gives me that…vitality if you will, to start the day in a clear and focused manner. This relaxing session was followed by the unpleasant, yet unsurprising attacks of these tiny little ants that are all over our housing compound. Today, they devoured me in the shower.
To kill a couple of hours, I sat down to the Prague book again and got through a few pages before sleep was beckoning me yet again. Supposedly well rested, I ended up yielding to my physiological demands for just a bit – but then I’d head to the cooperativa to at least be somewhat productive during the day.
I got all decked out, got on my bike (always a good feeling), and was on my way to checking off the only thing on my to do list for the day. However, upon arrival I found that the office wasn’t even open – oh no, my only chance to be productive was thwarted. Without any idea of what I should do next (I didn’t want to go back to my room and read another hundred pages today), I rode around the blocks for a few days before running into Ervin on the street. We discussed his business plan and how things were going with his job before parting ways – but like hell I was going back home. I made it about 50 meters before stopping at the bike shop. Here I would spend the next 6 hours just chatting with any and every person that walked in.
While from an outsiders view looking in, “hanging out at the bike shop” the entire day appears to be incredibly unproductive. Hell, from my initial perspective, that’s exactly what I was labelling it. What this schedule-filling occurrence ended up doing was turn a potentially bad day into a great day. It’s the little things that get you through the day and this was one of those little things.
The whole thing started in the conventional and banal manner with me just walking and taking a seat in one of the lawn chairs in the workshop. Yet 6 hours later, I had talked with everybody about literally every topic across the map. It began with talk about Independence Day in the States, and what we do there. It evolved into September 11th and where we were, what we thought. This developed into a conversation about huge buildings, including the huge tower in the country that I multiple times failed to name in Spanish.
As some students from Los Caraos called me from the street as they rode by on their bikes, “Profe Ricardo!” the conversation changed yet again – into how half the town is in love with me, and whom I’m going to marry. Nobody. Yet, as somebody who is 22, I should have married a couple of years ago, so changing the subject was just not happening
The rain came and thankfully, and washed away the current topic. It now was the Red Sox, bike components in the States (and of course, how much they cost), and teaching them (Rene, and his [now mine as well] friends) a wide array of English words and phrases. “Flight attendance” “No, attendant” “¿Attendant? Como…una persona que…” “…que atiende a los pasajeros.” “Ahhh, así es.”
The end result? What started out as a habitual act (going into the bike shop to kill time), turned into a 6-hour cultural exchange (one of the main objectives of being a PCV). Not only that, but my stumbling, bumbling Spanish (as it generally is at the beginning of the day), improved to such a degree that I was making connections in my head and turning them into sentences even before I could translate into English what I was saying. In other words, I was thinking in Spanish.
What a developmental day.
September 14th
Today was filled with obligatory plans – I had to go watch the Independence Day celebration. I wasn’t overly excited to go and participate, but when you live in a town of 3,000 people and something like this goes on – you have absolutely zero alternatives. Everybody closes their shops, pulperias, hardware stores, etc. So if I did want to do something else, I’d be doing it alone, and I’d be doing it outside of the town; I could perhaps go hiking.
The power went out yesterday at 10 AM and never came back on, so I woke up earlier than normal because it was bloody hot without my fan on. Therefore, instead of sleeping through the Independence Day celebrations, like I wanted, I woke up at 6:30 AM – plenty of time to partake in the festivities! Since I got out the door so early, I headed over to the bike shop where I killed a good hour before we heard the kids from ISJ marching down the street. It wasn’t actually that bad at first – a good cultural event. However, after a while, it just became redundant and I grew weary of listening to the same drumming they’d been practicing the last 3 months.
Nevertheless, I stuck around until 11:30 (after 4ish hours of watching), before going home to eat lunch and lay down (I’d been standing up for all of those 4 hours). The afternoon possessed more of the same until it all came to an abrupt end (wasn’t too smooth of a transition) around 2 PM. After this, I went looking for a house to rent. The one house I’d found – my supposed dream house – was absolute, and total garbage. It was one room, had no pila (a place to wash clothes/dishes), a latrine 40 feet from the house, and just a water spigot in the backyard from which I could bathe myself (amongst the severely undernourished and perhaps dying livestock that populated the yard. If that doesn’t sound glamorous, I don’t know what does.
That put a severe damper on things – I was super excited about living there. I saw a friend of mine, Kenis, in the streets and she showed me a house that was available just around the corner. It was a gigantic house available for 50 bucks a month. While it was more than I wanted to spend, it was an absolutely gargantuan house and definitely worth it. When we went to meet the owner we were informed that he in fact was no longer renting it, but selling it – dammit. I headed over to Ervin’s house after this and proceeded to sulk for a couple of hours. In the midst of being disappointed/pissed off, a lady I’m advising told me I could rent a room in her house for 100 dollars a month – uh no. She then kicked it down to 70 dollars a month – still no. For some reason, nobody seems to understand that I have no money. Every foreigner that has ever come to Achuapa has had money, so I’m getting the price that they would pay. Another house that was being rented by a French guy was being rented for $300 a month – get real. This put me in an even worse mood. What happened next came straight out of a Hemingway novel – it rained. This was an appropriate enough omen for me, so I made a hasty exit, hopped on my bike, and rode home.
It all falls back into that Maslow’s hierarchy (did you pay attention in psychology?), and my housing situation in the future is looking seriously grim. I love everything about Achuapa except my totally unknown housing situation. I refuse to get totally ripped off and pay a ton of money (see more than 50 dollars a month) for housing. In fact, if it comes down to having to pay an exorbitant amount of money for my housing, I’m going to ET (Early Terminate for those non PCV’s out there). I will not be financially taken advantage of because I should have a bunch of money. I’m a super cheap/frugal/economical person, so when I’m seriously worried about my finances like I am now, this is a non-negotiable issue. I brought this issue up to my host family, and was offered a room in the old health center for 50 dollars a month. I don’t really want to live there, but if it comes down to it, that’s where I’ll temporarily live while I wait for my host mom’s kids to go back to the U.S. (so I’d live in the health center for 2 to 3 months). The one advantage is that I wouldn’t have to buy furniture, and it has a toilet, shower, and ceiling. Nevertheless, I don’t want to take this route – I want to find a place I can call my own. I want to put stuff up on the walls – I want to make it my place. I don’t want to keep moving all over the place. Another option apparently is for me to live in the Casa de la Mujer (the women’s house), which I also don’t want to do.
So to all those foreigners out there who decided they want to make a difference in the world by volunteering in tiny places in the middle of nowhere – thanks @$$holes, I can’t afford to live here because you’re too wimpy to commit to volunteering for an extended period of time like a Peace Corps volunteer. Thanks for artificially inflating the prices here. This is the San Francisco of Nicaragua, and it doesn’t have anything to warrant it.
September 15th
Last night, was plugging in my battery charger and I electrocuted myself (the wiring in every house is pretty shoddy). I went to bed soon after with worries fresh on my mind.
I wasn’t feeling too socially active upon waking up, so I decided to screw around on my computer for a bit (my broken computer keys magically repaired themselves following my electrocution), and deal with the rest of the Achuapan world a bit later in the day. By the time 8 AM rolled around, my phone was ringing – my counterpart was calling me yet again. Since the previous night, she’d found 3 places available to live and was sending her son over to my house to pick me up to go see them.
Her son picked me up literally 2 minutes after I got off the phone with her (small town remember?), and we headed over to one of the houses. On the way there, I learned that Achuapa has perhaps the biggest pulperia in the world. I’d never ventured over to that area of the town, so I’d never seen it. Basically, it’s a warehouse with tons of stuff. In any other country, this wouldn’t be anything – but being in Nicaragua, it’s absolutely incredible. This rivals the size of some of the grocery stores that I’ve seen in Nicaragua. Not only that, but it had the cheaper (and tastier) Corn Flakes that I’ve only been able to get in Chinandega – they’re 36% cheaper than the Kellog’s Corn Flakes of the same size. This magical gigantic pulperia is everything I’d always thought I lacked in Achuapa (for the most part). I was absolutely ecstatic after seeing this pulperia that I didn’t even care if I found an affordable house. One of the houses that is available is about half a block down the street from the warehouse pulperia and is where the dirt road starts. We waited a little bit for the owner before we were told to come back later.
We then headed over to Enma’s house (she’s a professor in one of the schools in Achuapa, and one of the first people I met in town), because apparently she had a room available. Enma had a setup where I’d have my own room, living room (pretty small, but a living room nevertheless), shower, toilet, and even a room for guests to stay in! She has an enormous yard, and it was just perfect. To make it even better – she just wanted me to help pay to pave the floor in my room. Aside from that, she told me I could pay a dollar a month, 5 dollars a month – whatever I wanted. I was super excited to find this but then reality set in immediately upon exiting her house – it’s across the street from a bar. This is a non-negotiable with the Peace Corps (though I think I’m going to ask them about it anyway), so I left her house dejectedly and went back to the first house.
Back at the other house, the wife of the landlord let me see the house. The house has a gigantic living room that as of now has a dirt floor. But in the room behind it are 2 bedrooms, a shower, and the most modern kitchen I’ve seen in Achuapa – it has a SINK. It has a giant hole in the wall where the living room is, so I was a bit worried about that one. However, everything in back of the living room was great. While it has a latrine instead of a toilet, this is a trade-off I am willing to deal with. The landlord’s wife told us we could find him on the other side of town, so that’s where we headed. We found the guy (I think his name was Tino) and I talked with him about everything that needed to be done with the house as well as what he’d be willing to charge. He told me he would fix the hole in the wall (with cement no less!) and he would put ceramic tile on the living room floor (!). Price wise, he told me around 1,000 cords (around 50 dollars), and that would include lights and water. I was pretty satisfied with this, but time will tell how it goes. It’s a huge house, so I think it might be worth it just because of that one.
After talking with the owner, I was finally able to head home to eat breakfast (I’d been carrying around a box of Corn Flakes for the past hour and a half while I was talking to all these people about houses). I relaxed a bit more while I was there (mainly because the water went out), and did some reading and screwed around on my computer some more.
Soon after lunch, my counterpart called me because some of my students showed up to her house to get me to look over their business plan for the competition. I went to her house and checked out the business plan and as I was headed out the door, another group with their business plan showed up. I graded the second one and then headed to the Institute where I was to meet the English teacher. I helped her out for about an hour and a half (after meeting with her just 3 times, I’m already seeing incredible improvement!), and since it was pouring (as it does everyday), we chatted for another hour before I headed home. Before we parted ways, she said she’d go check out a house she thinks is available for 30 dollars a month (double trouble!).
I was home only for a brief moment before heading out yet again to do some more housing investigation. I don’t know anybody’s name, but they all know my name, so I just popped my head into some random person’s house and asked them if they knew somewhere a house was available. They knew my situation and were disgusted that so many people were charging me outrageous prices for renting a place. They brought me around the corner to see a room that some people had empty. This room (while small) she said I could rent for the price of 300 cordobas (around 15 dollars!) a month – wow. They had two rooms available, the bigger of which Peace Corps could have security issues with – but it’s good to know about that option as well!
Strange how things just took a 180 after I got electrocuted – it’s like something out of a movie.
September 16th
Tons of things on the agenda ≠ having a productive day.
I woke up pretty early today to meet with Gloria (finally) to talk about her ecotourism thing she has going on, as well as her milk cooperative. I got all ready to roll and out the door by 8 AM and headed on over to her casa de la mujer to find that…she wasn’t there (surprise surprise). Leslie, the grandson of my host mom was working there and told me she wasn’t there. She had told me the previous time when I saw her in the street that she’d been waiting inside. He told me that she had actually lied about that and so I shouldn’t hold my breath that she’ll show up this time either. Well whatever – I’m not losing any sleep over it.
I told Ervin I’d stop by his house afterwards to work on his business plan, so I expedited that on the schedule…only to find that he was sleeping. Batting 0 for 2 now. Off I went to one of the dentist’s office afterwards (the dentist, Dr. Bonilla is going to be a judge in my LEC competition) to pick up a business plan I lent her so she’d know how to judge the business groups on Monday. She hadn’t finished reading the packet, so she asked me to come back at noon. Woo – strike three!
With my entire morning plans destroyed, I headed to the bike shop where I hung out for a little bit before thinking about some things I’ll need when I eventually do move out of my host family’s house. A buddy of mine, Freddy, builds beds and rocking chairs so I think I’m going to have him make most of my furniture. Then it hit me…where the hell am I going to put all this furniture while I’m looking for a place? So off to my counterpart’s house I went.
There I found Profe Maria and her son and chatted them up a bit. We talked about the nice little house I’d found and due to security concerns with the owner (and the fact that he hangs out at the bar all the time), it seems like it could be a poor choice. Profe Maria then mentioned how she wants to buy another house in Achuapa, and if he (the sketchy owner) would sell the house for $5,000, she’d buy it and then rent it out to me for close to nothing (for those of you that just figured it out, buying a house in Nicaragua is REAL cheap). All for this idea, I headed over to the house with my counterpart’s son, Rafa, to go inquire about selling it. Unfortunately, he wasn’t around, but we’ll inquire in the future.
I ran into Ervin on the way back from the house and then sat down with him to do his business plan. For the next 3.5 hours, we worked on writing his business plan (though I told him 3 weeks ago to do it, and then we’d go over it). We did 2 sections of it before lunch finally rolled around (longest Achuapan morning ever). One incredibly amazing thing did come out of the morning session though – I found out that in the next couple of days that conventional telephone lines are going to get installed in Achuapa. This is huge and incredible news! With telephone lines comes one amazing thing – internet access. Here’s hoping.
In addition to all of the above, I once again helped the English professor (she’s the most motivated Nicaraguan I’ve met since I got here in May) and chatted with her a couple of hours as well before heading back over to Profe Maria’s house to hopefully get some free stuff. The water has been out the past couple of days, so I was hoping to score something to quench my thirst. While she laughed at my motives for coming over, she did offer me half of an apple – a very facenta (pretentious) thing to buy here in Nicaragua since one apple costs at least a dollar. After mooching off my counterpart, I saw the gym was open on my way home (it’s been closed the last month because of rain), so I dropped everything right then and there and worked out until they closed. Overall it was a relatively run-of-the-mill day mixed in with a few incredibly miniscule events that change my life so significantly. Sometimes I feel like it’s the 1800’s when we lose all utilities (we lost water, light, and the cell phone signal all today for most of the day). Then when they come back, I get super excited. “Oh my god! There’s water! I’m going to go buy some containers to fill!”
It’s really a way to add some spice to your day – how long can you go without electricity, water, and a telephone? As if I wasn’t isolated enough without newspapers – when all that goes out, be on the lookout for smoke signals.
September 17th
With nothing on the plate for today (classes were cancelled yet again), I had a pretty casual morning, with the most taxing task being rolling out of bed. I know – PC sounds pretty tough.
I figured in light of my lack of set activities for the day, I’d call up PC to ask some security related questions about some houses I could live in. I’m quite fond of the room with the professor I know that was unfortunately across the street from a bar. I talked to my APCD (my program director) and she said that since I’m a guy, living across the street from the bar probably won’t be an issue so I’d probably get the ‘OK’ on that one. In addition to answering security related questions, I mentioned an idea about a secondary project I wanted to do – a spelling bee. The number of Nicaraguans with poor spelling skills is absolutely alarming. With competitiveness being the most profound characteristic of Nicaraguans, I figure what better way to drive home the importance of spelling than with a competition? With the spelling bee in the elementary school, the only thing needed to motivate then will be some miniscule prize like a bag of candy or something. Besides, Nicaraguans just want to win anyway.
Aside from the phone call to the APCD, I made my regular appearance in the bike shop, where I hung out for most of the morning. Lunchtime rolled around and I had one of my favourite dishes. However, it dawned on me that I’d always been eating it, and never actually had any idea what it was. Well today I asked, and whoa boy did I get an answer – cow tongue. All I can say is that I liked it a whole lot better before I found out what it actually was. The entire meal I just kept thinking how much it was like my own tongue. The whole mental image was how I was just eating my own tongue; it had the same texture and everything!
I made it through lunch and afterwards went to the institute to tutor the English teacher (in what has become the most sure thing about my schedule since I’ve been here). Following an hour and a half of a pronunciation boot camp, I went over to one of the NGO’s in town, Vision Mundial. With rapidly approaching ominous storm clouds devouring the mountains to the east, I had to expedite my trip and make it as succinct and to the point as possible. There answer was equally to the point – come back Friday. Hopefully by Friday, I’ll have some funds of some sort to help cover some of the costs for the competition.
The storm then came in and knocked out the water, then the power (twice), and I was back to square one yet again. With the rain, there was little to do but to relax, so I deferred some of the stress (can it be called stress?) and did some yoga.
Tomorrow I’ll teach my first class since August 28th! Finally.
September 18th
Today was an early morning; in fact, it was one of the first that I actually needed an alarm to wake up for.
The day began at 7, and I got really pretty quickly then headed over to the institute. When class started, I didn’t even bother waiting for my counterpart to come in. I was going to lay the smackdown on my class. This would be the last class we’d have until the competition on Monday, and I had a feeling that they’d bitch and moan – and that’s just what happened.
“So how many of you have done your business plan?” Silence. “You all know that the competition is Monday right?” Shock, outrage, and complaining. In spite of all the “legitimate excuses” that they were throwing at me, I shot them all down pretty quickly and they didn’t even bother to draw it out. I successfully diverted all the blame for not having anything done onto them. So what turned into a potential nightmare with tones of whining turned into a super productive class. It was the first time they actually worked when I told them to. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them pay so much attention. One group actually had turned in a business plan for me to grade, which I went over. It had a ton of errors, so I spent around 30 minutes explaining step by step, what was needed in the business plan and the presentation. By the time class was over, I was laying out all the necessary steps for another group (probably the only other one in the class that will actually do anything), and stayed 15 minutes after class just so I could go over everything and make sure the students understood. So attentive!
I was beat after that epic “last chance class” that I had to teach so I went straight home and jumped into bed to relax for a second. And coincidentally, no less than one second later, my counterpart from Los Caraos called me to tell me to come to her house because my students from her school were at her house and needed me to correct their business plans – oy, it’s never over is it?
Over at my counterpart’s house, unlike the other day, I found close to every single student in the class. I figured that with each group, I’d briefly look over their plans, give them back a marked up copy of their plan, and they’d leave…and I was wrong. It turned out to be exactly like it was at the other school – I went through step by step, each part of the business plan and presentation – and there went my morning. What I anticipated to be a brutal class turned into a brutal morning. Fortunately, I was out of there by lunchtime and went back home to each lunch.
I watched some of my Discovery channel (which I can completely understand, but still prefer in English. I’ve found that I like to be ‘wowed’ a whole lot more in English than in Spanish. The delayed reaction, since I process everything slower, bugs me. I also headed over to the bike shop for one of my “teach Rene some random words” and just to see how he’s doing. I later picked up a copy of the business plan from my counterpart’s house only to find that one of the groups was STILL there. This meant but one thing – I got roped back into correcting their newly revised copy of their business plan. On that note, I’m really proficient at evaluating business plans now.
I headed back home afterwards, business plan in hand, only to have some students from the institute show up to ask for the copy of a business plan so they could do theirs tonight. Just because I don’t want to hear any of their complaining, I’ve decided to show up to class tomorrow to give them last second help. God only knows how their business plans are actually going to turn out.
To fill out the rest of my day, I tutored the English professor – the only Nicaraguan in the country that ever shows up on time. Things like that keep me going. Small things, big impacts.
September 19th
Today was the day I’d find out if my Vision Mundial could donate anything for my local LEC competition.
I woke up early and was out the door by 7:45 – good time I initially thought. I’ll get there bright and early….oh right, that’s too early. Since they didn’t open until 8, I turned around and walked the opposite direction towards Instituto San Jose. I wanted to give the kids there one more class so I could help them out since they really weren’t ready at all.
I went into my directora’s office and told her I’d like to work with the students one more time before the competition was over. “When do you want to work with them?” “Uh…sometime today.” “Yea, no problem I can give you a class period to do that.” And right there she rang the bell. In the middle of the period she just rang it and said, “There you go.” Unexpected, but it helped keep me on schedule.
After helping out the kids there, or rather, standing around and yelling at them (the groups that still hadn’t done anything) for slacking off the whole time, I headed to the NGO to see if my money request had been approved. I met with the Vice President of the Vision Mundial office and pleaded my case with him. He told me that this month is the end of the fiscal year for the NGO, so he couldn’t promise me anything, but he would make some phone calls, and I’d need to come back at 1 for an answer.
To kill time, I did some rounds around town – visiting people I knew, going to the cooperativa, checking out the location for my competition, hanging out in the bike shop, etc. Furthermore, I prepared the packets of materials that I have to give to the judges of the competition. Overall, I got everything pretty much set for the competition (except for the 1st through 3rd place certificates which I’ll print off tomorrow).
I eventually went back to the NGO at 1, and he told me to come back at 3 because he still hadn’t heard anything. So I came back at 3, and he sat me down in his office. In the best was possible, he explained how he couldn’t help me since this was the end of their fiscal year. The was he put this was, “Pues, estamos jodido.” or literally, “Well, we’re f*cked.” This gave me a good chuckle in spite of the negative response. I think the whole process was worth it just for that answer. While that was negative news, he did tell me that if I come back on the 10th, he’ll most likely be able to give me something. So that’s what I’ll do. He said that their NGO likes anything that helps with intellectual development, and that everybody at the there was ecstatic about my proposal – it was just bad timing.
No hard feelings.
After dealing with the NGO, I went to my counterpart’s house to drop of my camera since today is her birthday. On top of that, one of my business groups was at her house to ask me for suggestions on how to present their paper and such. I was pretty stoked to see them caring so much since this is exactly the opposite of what is going on at my other school. I just told them to chill out and reinforced a couple main points and that was all they needed to do. I hope they win.
My counterpart’s birthday party was a hoot and a half. The party consisted of me, her son and daughter, and a bunch of her teacher friends (about half of whom I knew). I got to practice my Spanish in wild social situations with mucha bulla (lots of noise). I did pretty well and got a free dinner, cake, and drink out of it to boot. How economical!
I also found out big, big news – when we get the phone lines (I heard it will be within the next month), one of my judges will be opening a cyber café. AWESOME. As soon as that opens, I’ll never have to leave Achuapa. Achuapa will have it all, well…except a bank.
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