Okay, here are the blogs from the last month. They should all be dated and listed below in order, be sure to read them in order as some of them refer to prior entries. I still have not received my camera, so no pics yet. Hopefully I will get it this week. I've got to go to Esteli wednesday to friday for a meeting about the English program. There are some American volunteers here who are retired teachers and they are going to be teaching a little seminar to help us. I am very greatful for this. As soon as I get the camera I plan to open a flker account where all my pics can be seen, I'll let you all know.
In other news, Callie and I are being eaten alive by zancudos. They are much like a mesquito but with a wing span that is about an inch and a half. The bites are painful and big, they swell like a mosquito bite but hurt worse and heal more slowly. Our ankles are covered with bites that are turning to big scars, and we even make efforts to wear pants and socks and repellant. They are still getting us no matter what we do. The scary part is that these are the pleasant little animals that carry Dengue. Many bites so far and all is still well. I think they will go away as the weather changes soon to the dry season. Apparently we've only got about another 3 weeks of rain left.
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Tuesday October 8th
A couple nights out in
Sunday night was the night of the big show. The national stadium is divided, basically, into two sections: the field, and the seated areas that are completely blocked off by chain link fences and locked gates. We were part of the poor crowd behind the giant fences. The main goal in our section, it seemed, was to make it into the other section. With this end in mind people rushed gates, bribed police and guards, and tore apart fences to crawl through holes. Drinking at a show in
All in all, great fun. I danced the night away, and I am not one for dancing either. Must have been the Managuan heat….since it deffinately was NOT the music, which I have not got much to say about. It was the Black Eyed Peas, really…enough said.
Most importantly, this weekend I met a group of good people in
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Wednesday October 9
Upon returning to Cusmapa this weekend I decided that if I want to make some waves here I’ve got to start splashing around a bit. I’ve been hanging out in the manualidades classroom getting to know the kids and the teachers, I have suggested expanding the program there and everyone seems really interested. AltaGracia, the manualidades teacher seems very supportive of new ideas, so my goal this weekend and the coming week is to research what supplies I need to have sent here, and what supplies I can get here, and make a detailed list of ideas. Hopefully we can have a meeting sometime soon to discuss the best way to go about it. I feel a little nervous about starting this program since my Spanish is so bad, but I figure jumping right in is a good way to improve it.
Yesterday I suggested to the school’s director, Dona Paula, that we have an English class for the adults at the school, so the teachers can learn English. Paula seemed to really like the idea and said she’d ask around. Today one of the teachers asked me about the class, so I guess there is interest. I think it could end up being really great, I’ll get to know the other teachers, and the English program could be more sustainable if the locals were able to teach it themselves in the absence of American volunteers. I really hope it works out, if it does I will be forced to learn to teach English in a hurry, but I’ve been reading a lot about education theory, so hopefully I’ll be okay. I’m thinking that with an all adult class I won’t ever speak Spanish with them, so my lack of ability in the Spanish language hopefully won’t hold me back too much.
I taught my first English class solo today. Callie accidentally rescheduled her choir class at the same time so I had the class all to myself. It went SO well, I was very pleased. The kids were engaged, we learned and had fun. I think I was lucky though, because the weather is bad today so attendance was low…I had about 10 kids.
I learned yesterday that October is supposed to be the rainiest month of the wet season, and so far I believe it. The dirt road that runs in front of our house resembles a river more every day. This weekend while we were traveling (we are lucky to have missed it) the rain was so much that there was no power at all for the whole weekend. It rained yesterday and all night last night, and it is raining right now, so the public schools were cancelled today and attendance at Fabretto is dismal, for students and teachers alike. It is also really cold. I don’t think I packed nearly well enough for this weather, I’m wearing my fleece and rain jacket everywhere, and I wear my fleece to bed. I guess it’s only for this month and then in gets really hot, so I think I can tough it out.
____________________________________________________Saturday Morning, October 13th
The rain has not stopped for more than a couple hours here and there since Tuesday morning when we got back to Cusmapa. That means it has been raining pretty much non-stop for over 96 hours. School has been cancelled until further notice at the Instituto (that’s the public school) and Fabretto might as well be closed because no one is coming to classes anyway (except for a couple of Callie’s ever dedicated choir students). The roads are terrible; the dirt road in front of my house is half river half road. I can’t imagine how buses are making it up the mountain at all, though apparently they are…luckily, since the road up here is the lifeline of Cusmapa. The air is so wet that there is a film of water on the floor and other surfaces; everything feels a little slippery and cold. My wet jeans and shoes aren’t drying.
People here are saying there has not been rain like this since Hurricane Mitch (that hugely destructive hurricane? Yes.). When Hurricane Mitch came the roads were out for two and half months and people started to go hungry since no food could make it up the mountain. We have our wonderful garden (though some of it has been destroyed by the rains, we lost a banana tree) to sustain us and we also walked around town to buy extra food just in case.
Ironically, our water is turned off and our tank is slimming, so we have to be careful how we use water this weekend so we don’t run out. That means no showering or flushing toilets, which we tend not to do anyway, so I think we’ll be okay.
In other news…..
Thursday morning instead of classes there was a teacher’s meeting, no one plans the meetings, so attendance is never complete and teachers miss really import info, as was the case with this meeting. At the meeting it was announced that all teachers are to have their entire plan and budget for the entire 2008 school year completed by Monday morning. Hmm, sounds crazy right? I thought so too, but after learning more it seems almost pointless to make a budget at all since there is no money to fulfill it anyway. I think there is even a “budget” now with a real dollar (
At the meeting I was especially happy to find out that almost every teacher at the school signed up to take my English course. They made a list and chose a time and gave me the day they’d like to start….I was completely surprised by all of it, I went to suggest the idea at the meeting and they all already knew about it! They made the class five days a week at
For my art classes I proposed a paper making program and a wood block printing program. The wood block program can start soon. I have some supplies that I brought with me from home, and others I think we can find in Managua (I hope, there is no art community here really, from what I can tell…universities don’t even have art programs, so supplies might be difficult to come by). The papermaking program will take more planning and constructing of materials, so it will not start until next school year. (This school year ends in about 6 weeks; the next begins in February.) This gives me time to work with Maximo, the gardener at the school who also maintains the garden at my house, to learn about local plants that may work well for paper pulp. It also gives me time to work with
I think the papermaking and printing programs could end up working really well together. We could print on paper that we make and ultimately sell our creations. I definitely think there is a market for hand made paper, especially if it’s marketed right (community development project…fair trade...indigenous materials…recycled materials….etc.) I think we could also make and sell cards, calendars, etc. as part of the printing program.
_______________________________________________Sunday evening,
Callie’s birthday weekend in Esteli.
Saturday was a big anniversary for La Segovia, so when we showed up to do our shopping there were tents and bands, free food, raffles, and, most importantly: free beer. We each had several while we shopped, it was magnificent. La
To celebrate Callie’s twenty third birthday we had dinner at a delicious paella restaurant. The paella was amazing, a real treat. The meal was way too expensive for our budgets, but for a special occasion we all justified it. The restaurant is a charity in Esteli that contributes food and money to help street children. They have a spacious dining room to accommodate large groups, as there was last night. A big group of Evangelical missionaries were dining and drinking, and we had the unfortunate experience of talking to them for a while. Poor Callie got cornered by the creepy and drunk minister who took immediately to preaching his nonsensical Evangelical mumbo-jumbo to her. After that experience we were all ready for a couple drinks.
Drinking at that bar last night I think I spoke the best Spanish of my life! A couple drinks and suddenly I could understand what people were saying and actually respond. It was great! I speak drunk Spanish marvelously!
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The rain in Cusmapa and its victims.
Monday October 22
Classes at the public schools have been cancelled for the entire week because of the rain and the damage to many homes in the area. Many roofs are caving in. A headline in one of the newspapers said that Daniel Ortega has announced that the destruction and death from the rain and the hurricane last month has put the country in a state of disaster. I think the headline said there have been several hundred deaths related to the rain, and there are surely many more that are undocumented. There have been a couple in Cusmapa alone, and I’m sure there are more than I know.
Two of the deaths in Cusmapa were the cousins of our students and friends, Anyelka and Jubelkis. They have lost three cousins this year. The one earlier in the year was sick and went to the health center where they gave him a bad shot that killed him. The girls did not know what he was sick with, but did say the injection was mala.
Last week, the second, a twenty year old cousin of theirs slipped on one of the wood planks that you have to cross to get over the giant cement drainage ditch that runs along our street. He hit his head and drowned. This happened in the very, very early hours of the morning, so it is unclear weather he was sober or not. The ditch is four to five feet deep and has no guard rails at all, the plank that functions as a bridge is about sixteen inches wide, rickety, and slippery. I worry for the kids who play next to the ditch everyday. I am surprised I have only heard of the one accident there, I wonder if there have been more.
Callie and I have wondered if anyone on the scene at the drowning knew CPR. The girls told us they took him to the health center but when they got there he was already dead.
The last, yesterday, was a three month old baby that died of pneumonia. Anyelka tells me that because of the rain they have nothing dry in the house and that the water is leaking into the house through the walls. I don’t think they had dry clothes for the baby. I wish they would have asked us for a blanket, we would have given them one.
I think a community emergency health seminar would be an incredible idea here. Callie has been talking some about it and when her mother, who is a doctor, visits this January she may teach one. Teaching this community first aid and CPR would be so incredibly helpful for them I think. It is terrible that they do not have a place where they can go for dependable and safe medical attention. I even question the competency of the doctor employed by Fabretto that works at the school (a different “doctor” than the one at the Cusmapa health clinic). Check out Callie’s blog for her experiences with him, like when she was stung by a scorpion and when she injured her ankle. (callieinnicaragua.blogspot.com).
____________________________________________________Saturday Morning, the day after our first dinner with Mayerling and after completing the giant fish in manualidades
Yesterday we painted the giant fish. Marcos did not come to class a single time the entire week and thus missed the creation of his brain child. I am sad and disappointed by this.
The fish ended up being a fun and creative project that the kids really enjoyed. The final product is dynamic with all colors, many materials, many shapes, lines, and textures. The body curves slightly and appears to be turning in the air, it moves gently on the cord it is suspended from.
From beginning to end the kids were busy participating. They bent and secured the wires, they applied and taped the cardboard and paper, they got their hands wet in the papermache and applied it over the entire body. Yesterday, they painted the entire surface first one side red and the other purple, then afterwards applied all other colors and patterns. They painted with rags, small brushes, and their hands. After the painting energy had died down the last remaining student glued on a wire mustache and made paper stars that she stuck to the wet paint.
sides can be seen.
The dinner ended up being a great time, I got to practice my Spanish a ton and Mayerling was hillarious all night. Callie and I experienced our first dirty jokes in
Friday was the Day of The Dead.
Saturday afternoon in Somoto Callie, Mike and I took a long stroll through the cemetery. The cemetery in Somoto is large and spread out, it spans over several small hills and as you walk through it you walk towards the mountains that are spread out before you. The coronas from the holiday were on all the graves, hung over crosses, spread out on the ground, piled on graves stones. Live and fake flowers covered the ground. Much of the overgrowth that normally crowds the graves during the rest of the year had been burned. There was candle wax soaked into the charred grass at the foot of many sites where the lights had been maintained for several days consistently. All colors can be seen at a cemetery after the Day of The Dead. The graves themselves are painted in every color, blue is by far the most common, and all the flowers and flower coronas make for a lively and brilliant sight. The graves are a mix of wealthier family plots with statues and small church-like tomb structures to small crosses made of two planks nailed together, all side by side. There are graves of old wood, concrete, tile, and sometimes small marble statues; they vary from names hand scrawled in paint to long titles inscribed in stone.
As you walk through this cemetery the feeling is not at all like the serious and austere mourning you feel in the
After a night of debauchery in Somoto, Callie, Mike and I left Saturday morning on an early bus to Esteli where we needed to go to the bank and our favorite grocery store. We were all a bit tired and had hope for seats on the bus and wishes for, at a minimum, music at a low volume. None of our hopes were fulfilled.
To paint a better picture of a bus in
1 comment:
Lauren, it sounds like you are having an amazing time. I bet you are a really great teacher too! I miss you tons. Dont let the bugs eat you though I want you to come home some day!
Ashley
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