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Let's start things off with a very large bug!
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| This cute little fella is about an inch or so long. The picture doesn't do justice to how iridescent green it is! |
In this post we mentioned that we couldn't buy paper in Rivas the day we returned from our border run. All stores were closed due to a national holiday. That holiday was Liberation Day, celebrating that July 19th in 1979 when the Sandinista's ousted the Samoza regime and came to power. Just like any country anywhere, the celebratory day is marked with speeches, beer, parades, beer, fireworks, beer, flag waving, beer, festive dinners, and of course beer.
We weren't sure how the chicken bus relay paper delivery would go. We'd never had a cause to test it out. Sunday evening and Monday morning, we were using up the last of our stock, rather nervously - even printing some worksheets onto colored paper. We had no idea if or when we'd get paper again. But, lo and behold, four reams were delivered Monday evening! Um, wow.
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When we got back, we discovered that our router had died in our absence. Que lastima. This little black box was our link to the outside world, by golly. For example, YOU!! While we could get by without the internet, it would make our lives much more complicated and boring. We use the innerwebs a lot for lesson planning, for starters. Plus we keep in touch on Facebook and email, sending out blog posts, and are able to unwind and occupy our down time with silly games and other distractions. Ugh!
Enter MacGuyver. Or my wife playing like Richard Dean Anderson, anyway. She figured out a super smart short term solution. The router was dead, yes, but the signal via the ethernet cable was still good. She realized that by plugging the cable directly into one of our laptops, then turning on Apple's 'internet sharing' toggles, allowing all Apple devices to communicate with one another, we were back in business.
The cable company, Alfa, is located in Managua so we had no dreams that they would send a tech out anytime soon. (Note: 'Alfa' is Spanish for 'Comcast') We were quite pleased that they had someone out about ten days later. Turns out the power cord and AC adapter brick were bad. So he just replaced that and everything was all good. Like most people we encounter, when we told him we were English teachers, he wanted to practice with us. Pretty cool stuff.
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| This shot was taken at night - the flash lit it up pretty well. Seems chickens, when not provided with a proper coop, will roost up in the branches. In this shrub there were about a dozen settling in for the night. |
Also on the tech side of things… The Sunday of our return was for lesson planning, getting organized for classes starting the next day, printing copies of worksheets, etc. I fired up the ol' HP Ink Advantage 2515 to make copies of a sheet for one of my Monday classes, lifted the lid to place the original on the glass - and recoiled in Stephen King-like horror.
There were approximately a gajillion ants that had taken up residency inside our printer. To make it even more horrifying, almost the entire visible area under the glass platen was covered in eggs the little bastards had laid, with ants scurrying all over them. Yeah, it was as disgusting as it sounds. We found ourselves yet again dismantling the printer, this time taking it pretty much as apart as we dared, removing screws with HP-factory specialized screwheads. Using my Leatherman and the Specialized bike multitool we had brought, we were able to get it dismantled enough to shake all the ants and eggs out.
The question now was if it would work after we reassembled it? Crossing our fingers, we carefully pieced it back together and hooked it up. Whew! It worked! Big relief! The router issue was one thing but not having a printer would be more suckier. A career in 'emergency office equipment field repair' may be a viable option upon our return to the states.
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We also finally modernized the storage solutions for our tech things. Only being here for a year, being frugal unpaid volunteers, and having had a ton of trouble getting a shelf built and delivered when we first arrived, we have long housed our printer and router on an old cardboard box. Not classy, rather ghetto, but it got the job done. Sort of. It was a bit shaky and there was nowhere to put the laptop when we hooked up to print. We finally bit the bullet, so to speak, and commissioned a shelf to be built by our friend and local master craftsman, Hamilton.
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| It's looking all official up in here. |
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| After I taught our morning beginners, Maria and Crisna asked Bex! for help translating some homework they had from their secondary school English class. |
We got back in the saddle, kicking off our third semester of teaching here. Man, time flies! It was great to see all of our students again. Like us, they were eager to get back at it. We also started spreading the word about a new class we decided to launch. Before the visa renewal trip, we had been approached by several people asking about a class geared specifically toward those who work in the service industry - hotels, restaurants, pulperias, guiding, etc. We had tried something similar to this in the beginning, a class for the parents of the OBS kids. That class didn't catch on, so we dropped it.
After much discussion while on our trip in Costa Rica, we figured we'd give this new class a shot. It's more work for our already busy schedule but we came here to teach, so teach we will. If the students will show up, so will we. We visited all the restaurants in the village, 6-7 total, plus dropped flyers at the pulperias and anywhere else we thought potential students might hear about this new offering. It was a week of eating a lot of meals out, which is okay, even though cooking at home is great, too.
It's always so hard to get a feel for what 'yes' means here. We've written before about how everyone always says yes even if they know they won't make it to the party, the class, the meeting. Again, we never feel like it's malicious. It's more that the locals don't want to hurt our feelings and so think that telling us to our face they'll come to the new class will make us feel good. And to be fair, life here is way different than back home. For example, when it's time to plant or harvest, there ain't no one coming to class. Parents pull kids out of school because it's an all hands on deck situation. Even the primary age kids - 7, 8, 9 year olds - are expected to help. The other thing we've experienced here is that people can be complacent. Since we're here for a full a year, we get the sense that people think it's okay if they miss a class because, hell, 'the teachers are here for a really long time'. If they miss this class, they'll just go to the next one.
Our hope was that at least half the affirmatives we were getting would end up being butts in the seats. Since this is a 'catch up' post, I'll jump forward to the present: I am happy to report that we now have thirteen brand new adult students who are very excited and grateful that we are offering this new class! Remember, this is a small community. To have 13 new students is incredible. We are quite ecstatic about this!!
We call the class 'Working English'. Part of the reason for the great turnout is the way we set up the schedule. Many people in the service industry work a schedule like this example:
Monday 6 AM - 2 PM
Tuesday 2 PM - close
Wednesday 6 AM - 2 PM
Thursday 2 PM - close
etc.
We hold the class at 3:30 in the afternoon, right here at Playa Gringo, on our porch. We cover two topics each week, teaching the same content M and T, then different content on W and Th. This way, for people working the rotation, they only have to come to class Monday or Tuesday, and Wednesday or Thursday - and they won't miss anything. Genius! The wife's idea, I admit. It seems to be the fix that allows people the utmost flexibility and thus far it's working great.
We rock.
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| A warm-up mini-dialogue for our newest students. |
Our first Friday activity with the Ometepe Bilingual School first graders was 'fun with straws' day! We showed the kids how to move water from one cup to another using a straw. Then we had them blow bubbles in the water. Or, more accurately, half of them were doing it anyway so we made it part of the lesson. We're adaptable like that. We also had them use suction with the straw to move pieces of colored paper. Then we circled them up around their desks to use the straws to maneuver an inflatable hippopotamus around the edges, relay style. They had a blast - and so did we!
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| Itzel, making very sure she didn't drop her paper! |
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| Jesner was very calm and cool. |
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| Josias grasped the concept right away. |
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| Daren had no problems! She figured it out quickly! |
Our first graders are awesome!
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We welcomed two new volunteers who were joining us for a couple of weeks - Eli and Emma. They did a great job teaching our OBS kindergarteners and first graders, as well as holding sessions for the public school 7, 8, 9 year olds. We showed them the ropes the first day and introduced them to the kids. At the end of Day One our volunteers told us they were good to go, so we let them plan and run their own classes for a couple of weeks. We still showed up on Fridays cuz the kids get a little cray-cray by the end of the week.
Eli was able to stay a little longer, so a few days later the kids said goodbye to him…
They did a wonderful job and we got a couple of good ideas from them during our customary debrief session (over beers, of course) before they left Merida.
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| And we got an opportunity to eat cake when Eli left, too. |
We had one of Hamilton's crew, Gerald, come over to 'mow' our 'lawn'. Both words in quotes because the lawn is really a big open area around the house, extending to the two gates - one gate to the beach, the other to the trail up to the road. The yard was getting overgrown, making a great hiding spot for snakes and other unpleasantness. And by mow, we mean hacked down with a machete. A lot of work, for sure. Much nicer and much safer for us gringos.
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And now a new spot I like to call "Eating like a local". We were given a few small fish by a prospective student. He brought them up from the lake piled in his t-shirt - the wife opted to use a plastic bag. We removed the heads, but other than that served them up Nica-style - fried whole accompanied by fresh límon, rice, and sofrito (cooked tomatoes, onions, and peppers with a not-so-secret ingredient to tie it altogether (ketchup).
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| Dee-lish! |
He had something furry in his mouth and it was screeching something fierce. It was a reasonable sized rat or some other type of rodent. And it was soon silent. Then we looked on with morbid fascination as the iguana proceeded to slowly work the entire thing down its throat, a little at a time - whole.
We told our friend Juriel about this and he said 'No, no. Iguanas eat only plants.' Um, sorry, dude. Not true. Just ask the furry mammal.
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Speaking of iguanas…
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| It was the smaller one on the right that downed the rodent! |
After Eli and Emma left, we went back to teaching the OBS kids. We enjoyed the break it provides when we have short-term volunteers here but we also miss 'our' kids. We see them regularly all over the village and they always run to give us hugs. But, yeah, it was good to be back in the classroom with them, too.
Exhibit A:
Classroom resources here are extremely limited, so we often make due with what we have at hand. For quite a while now we've been saving all kinds of bottle caps. Lids from peanut butter, hot sauce, toothpaste, etc. Bex! cleans them all up and we use them in the classroom. We call them our 'Nicaraguan Legos'. In these pics, we were teaching a lesson on 'same and different'. The kids were sorting the lids by different criteria - color, size, shape, height, material, etc.
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| Dayana, Jasmina, Daren, Gretel, Anjela, Cindi (l-r) organizing caps by color |
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| Cindi, feeling very proud of her stacking work! |
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| Jesner showed off his mad stacking skilz. |
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| Snack time! Jeysi, Cindi, Dulce, Daren and Jasmina enjoy some fresh fruit juice. |
Exhibit B:
Getting out of the classroom is a great resource (and no permission slips required down here). We've played Red Light Green Light with the kindergarteners a number of times - it's great for soaking up some energy, working on following instructions, developing gross motor skills (especially when we add extra locomotions like hopping or walking backwards). This time, we got the kids leading the game, too.
Level: Beginner
Time Required: Flexible
Materials Required: Something red and something green
Target Language: Red, green, stop, walk
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| Um, Moises - please get back in line. |
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| Profesor David reviewing commands and signals with Jonathan |
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| It almost always eventually turns into a straight up foot race! |
Much like the monkeys and iguanas, the free ranging chickens seem to be getting quite comfortable with us. They come to our place to graze on whatever it is they eat but at first were keeping their distance. Now, they just come right up on the porch to pay us a visit.
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| Every day is a bad feather day for this birdie. |
We recently learned that chickens like the ones that visit our yard are referred to as Indian Hens. All the random stuff they eat, particularly the protein filled bugs, means they are great egg layers, but it also means their meat is pretty nasty. We'll take the advice of our students and stick with TipTop for our breasts and thighs.
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While attendance for the new Working English class has been great, we've been struggling with a couple of other classes. Like we've stated, we're here to teach, so if people show up, we teach. It can be easier with more students, though, because we like to get them talking to each other in English through dialogues and role play activities, rather than relying on us to provide too much of the chatter.
Life is not easy here, though, and many people have other, more important obligations. We understand that, of course. It can be frustrating for us because we plan a great lesson and get excited, then one person shows up. But - we teach the one person. They made the effort, so we make the effort.
For example, the morning class for beginners was bringing in 6-7 people for a while, which was great given the target demographic and time of day (7-8 AM). But lately we've been getting 1, 2, maybe 3 students.
The high school group has dropped off, too. Part of this is because the kids have their regular public school class and homework load. Plus they have the commitments that come with schools anywhere - sports, presentations, band, etc. In fact, most of the kids have recently been involved in preparations for the celebrations surrounding Independence Day. This is different than Liberation Day mentioned at the top of this post. Celebrated in mid-September and featuring drum corps, dancing and singing, speeches and more, rehearsals have pretty much drained our class dry. We're lucky to get 2-3 students and even had a night when no one showed up!
We're simplifying the high school lessons until after the celebration program mid-month. Hopefully, attendance returns to the normal level at that time.
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We have one class that is a beacon of hope, as class attendance with other groups runs through peaks and valleys. We fully admit this is our favorite class. We have a wonderful and committed group of adults that we teach in the afternoon, four days a week. They come to class regularly, do their homework, study, practice their English with tourists. They are funny and friendly and help us with our Spanish. They have learned a tremendous amount since we arrived and we are so proud of them. They are a joy to teach, always engaged and interested, challenging themselves to get it right, curious about the language.
(Note: We teach this class in the OBS Kindergarten classroom. The artwork on the walls is not reflective of the abilities of the above students.)
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| Put your hands together for Juriel and Marbelli. |
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| Let's hear it for Isidro and Berman. |
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| Give it up for Alcides, who we are pretty sure is actually an international spy. |
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All work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy. Impromptu cornhole tourneys help keep things fun. Plus we can teach our Nica friends the art of trash talking.
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| Let the trash talking begin. Yosselin picked it up right quick! |
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| 'I'm weening, I'm weening' - Mr. Bean, Rat Race |
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| David getting some much needed strategy advice from Harvin. |
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Conducting another hammock test. She does this frequently...
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| I should have grabbed a sharpie and played connect the dots with the bug bites on her legs. Probably wouldn't have gone over very well, though. |
Signing off. More important things to do now.
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| Our casita is two paddle boards wide. |
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| Bean bags? Check. Aiming juice? Check. |
Sunsets here are rather glorious most every evening…
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