I´m a real volunteer!

Swearing-in ceremony:
Don’t read this if you’re grossed out my bodily functions. And if you do decide to read it, keep in mind that Nicaragua is the #1 country out of all active Peace Corps countries for diarrhea.

So we had to be at a hotel for swearing-in at 8:30am, but since we were already staying in Managua, the trip wasn’t nearly as hellish as our typical “find a way to get to Managua by 7:00am from your pueblos that are at least an hour-and-a-half away” ventures. So we get there for our family fiestas (chatting and a ceremony), and I felt great, which was a relief considering the previous few days had been spent very near a toilet. We got through the family ceremony with no issues…then came the actual swearing-in. Right before it started, I HAD to go to the bathroom. I not-so-calmly made my way down the hall to the restroom and there was a cluster of people (what in the US we may call a line) but since in Nicaragua people don’t believe in lines, I ran to the front and took the next stall. Anyway, after about 5 minutes, I determined it was safe to return to the ceremony. Upon leaving the bathroom, 2 Peace Corps employees came running toward me because apparently the ceremony had started, and the volunteers had already sung the national anthem of Nicaragua, and were almost done with the Star Spangled Banner. Luckily, I was fine for the remainder of the ceremony…but seriously, how embarrassing/appropriate…

Ocotal:
Unfortunately I had to change houses from the original family with which I was going to live because their daughter was going to go to school in Managua, but that’s no longer the plan. So, I have a new house, new family, and yet another adjustment.

I can’t complain though; I LOVE my new family and my new house. I live with 5 women (mom, 2 sisters (14, 18), cousin (20), pit pull (6 months)) and 1 brother (19). They talk faster than anyone I’ve ever met, and it’s not just because it’s in Spanish, I swear. It’ll probably be good for my language development though…well, that’s what I tell myself anyway.

Speaking of language, I was talking to a friend from back home today and this is how the conversation went:
Me: Yeah…um…we went to…uh…this this this place for dinner…and had a, um, beer or two.
Friend: Yeah…um…are you having problems speaking English?
Me: Yes.

It’s weird, learning a new language, because you always learn the most elementary words first, so when you want to talk in either language, you tend to go with the simplified version of everything. Apparently in my case, I can’t even make a sentence with basic vocab in English – I wonder what I sound like in Spanish…well actually, I’d rather not know. So, I’ve learned that I totally should’ve taken the GRE prior to this experience. I’m only three months in and already can’t speak English. When I decide to apply to grad school I’m going to have to explain in each essay for all schools why I matched the score of a 4 year-old in the vocab section. Eh, oh well.

Ocotal is beatuiful.For example, last night we were hanging out at a bus stop having a few beers (common, i guess), and the stars were absolutely incredible. I felt like I was at the IMAX watching a really good movie about the universe. I even saw a shooting star. The only thing missing was Morgan Freeman narrating...

Sorry there anren´t any photos this time. I´ll make sure the next ones are good...

low-town...

that´s what we call ourselves...because we can´t speak spanish...

i can´t get the videos to upload (the connection is too slow), but here´s a picture of the bull penis fighting - interesting, eh? these fights break out absolutely anywhere within a crowd of people, and many innocent bystanders get whipped with a long piece of leather. i´m really glad i never got in the way.


ouch.

so, ocotal, nueva segovia. i visited my new home a couple of weeks ago, and i really do love it. my counterparts are relatively apathetic and don´t really care about my business curriculum, so that will definitely be a challenge, but check out the view from my town. as you can see, i´m situated in a sort of valley. we´re pretty much protected from the rain (unless there´s a hurricane), and it´s generally fairly hot...good thing there are three eskimo stores.

while visiting my new home, i stopped by all 3 of my schools - two of which are in ocotal and the third is in totogalpa (south of ocotal in the department of madriz). the directora in my school in totogalpa is AMAZING. she´s super excited to have a volunteer working in her institute and with her staff, but she was even more excited to introduce me to the single teachers at the school...probably the most embarrassing moment so far in nicaragua.

i´m also going to be working with a women´s solar panel group, as i mentioned before. i visited their "offices" too, and it seems like a really successful operation so far - i´m ready to get involved. my only fear is that i´m going to dedicate way too much time to this group a.k.a. not having time to sleep. the schools are my first priority, so i need to keep that in mind when working with them, as hard as that may be.

there´s a few really cool restaurants in ocotal as well, and an amazing central park. mom - you´d totally dig all of the different species of plants, trees, viney things, etc.

a little piece of history - ocotal was the first place to get bombed in the western hemisphere. and guess by who..? yeah, the US. unfortunately, given the nature of this blog, i need to stay away from political commentary...so i´m just going to post another picture of ocotal:

pretty, eh?

love you all! miss you!

my new home for 2 years is...

ocotal, nueva segovia. it is nowhere near a beach - sorry, micah.

ocotal is the department capital of nueva segovia, which borders honduras. it takes about 4 hours to get there from managua. ocotal is a bigger city (per nicaraguan standards, but still no movie theatre), and my secondary projects are going to be really cool: i´m going to be working with a group of female entrepreneuers marketing their solar panel products, and i´ll also be working with ADRA teaching the LEC course to adults. as far as work in the actual institutos, i´ll be teaching 9 sections of la empresa creativa (aka the business course) in 3 different schools, and each of my classes will have more than 50 students with the largest class at 71. talk about a full classroom.

i´m heading to ocotal this week to spend time with my counterparts and meet the directors of my schools. i´ll also be meeting the group of 27 women from the solar panel business, and ADRA is going to give me a presentation one day this week as well. i´m looking forward to it all, but it´ll be more than slightly overwhelming. the family i´m going to be living with for the first 6 weeks sounds pretty cool, but i guess i´ll find out on wednesday. from the sound of it, my rent is going to be pretty expensive, so it´ll be an experience trying to stretch each cordoba to the max. oh, and most rent here is set in US dollars, which really sucks, because somehow the cordoba is actually depreciating against the dollar.

here´s the scorpion i´ve been talking about:

mangos, nica style:

next time i write, i´m posting all the info about las fiestas en san juan. i´ll post pictures, and hopefully videos of the bull penis fighting, i´ll talk all about the band (complete with trumpets and drums) that roamed the streets starting at 4am and happened to LOVE sitting on the corner next to my bedroom (and just when i was getting used to the roosters...), and i´ll throw in some info about the saint too, i guess.

miss you all...

2 down, 1 to go

no real news here...

i had my second class today, and it went pretty well. one of the PC employees came to observe and couldn´t believe how awful my students are. on the bright side, i only have to teach one more class to those banditos. it´s tough, the whole speaking-in-a-language-i-don´t-really-know thing, but i´m getting used to it...or maybe i´m actually getting better at it.

i haven´t yet had a breakdown, but we have our second language exam tomorrow, and that might beg for a cry session. we´ll see.

i might cut my hair, and by cut, i mean chop. it´s hot here. i haven´t made a decision yet though...

miss you all! just in case i haven´t said this befrore, i love getting mail here!

I know it has been a while...

sorry guys...i´ve been pretty bad about updating this thing. where to start..?

this past week we each went to go visit a current volunteer. i didn´t have too far to travel, while many others in my group were taking 8 hour bus trips to exotic locations. if you couldn´t tell, i was pretty upset with the situation at first, not because i was staying in the same department, but because i´d already visited and observed this volunteer. i was really looking forward to checking out how another volunteer lived, but didn´t get the opportunity...it turned out to be a good time, nontheless.

crap, i forgot to bring the picture of the scorpion. sorry.

we have a youth group in our community of about 15 kids. they laugh at us when we try and communicate. anyway, we decided to plant trees at the institute as a community project, but the first two times, none of the youth showed up to plant. nicas are interesting in that way...they´ll swear up and down that they´ll come to a meeting even if they have no intention of going. it´s kind of frustrating. in the end, we had to go to their school and take them out of class to plant the trees. good story, eh?

so we have our second class this week. the theme is ¨my life in 10 years.¨ i´ll let you all know how it goes on tuesday.

we went to an active volcano yesterday: volcan masaya. it was pretty cool. here are some pictures:

we went on a little bit of a hike, and this is what the volcano looks like from a distance.

these are the chicago peeps. on the left is danica, owen is in the middle, and i´m on the other end. in nicaragua, if you want to point at something, you use your lips similar to what we´re doing in this picture...

this is a picture of the majority of nica 47. i think there are 8 people missing...
oh, and i was going to have someone send me a pumice stone, but i found a great one on the volcano.

yesterday we also celebrated avi´s birthday. it got a little out of hand...we all drank too much, but had a good time overall. kat´s on the left, then me, then owen, and bobby is on the right with the dog.

So, we get all the info on the possible sites next week, and we find out where we´re going the following week. we don´t really have a say in where we go, but we do get to discuss with the country director where we´d like to go and why. we´re all super curious about where we´ll be living for the next two years. once we get our final site placements, we go and visit for a few days and stay with the family with which we´ll be living for at least the first 6 weeks of service...

first day of class...

i had my first class today:
-51 students
-51 students in a classroom the size of my old cube
-51 students in a classroom the size of my old cube and all with mouths that talk out of turn

no, it wasn´t bad. i think it probably could´ve gone better, but for my first class, i´ll take it. my facilitator said that i sounded confident in my spanish...and, well...i´m glad it sounded that way. i´m pretty encouraged, actually. i´m excited to be a teacher, but it´s definitely a lot of work.

oh, and i had my first encounter with a scorpion. i didn´t get stung, but i have some pictures that i´ll post next time i get to the internet.

another note: i eat avocados every day that are the size of my head.

miss you all!

i´ve survived my first hurricane...

well, i´m surviving it right now. it´s only a category 1, but it´s pretty crazy. i guess it´s the first tropical storm of 2008 - hurricane alma - and it´s about the size of the entire country of nicaragua.

did i forget to mention the fiesta we went to..? the one where the bouncers wouldn´t let us leave..? yeah, that was pretty cool.

next week we start teaching in classrooms...in spanish...we need to fill 45 minutes with material while keeping 15-16 year olds entertained. my first class is on tuesday, and needless to say, i´m more than a bit nervous.

ok, must get back ´home.´

oh, and ps, i love the letters. keep ém coming!