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You've read many posts that talked about the drought here. Yes, we had consistent rain in November, finally. But when families are counting on rain to grow their food, timing is everything. We know people who were able to harvest some rice - one of the primary staples here. Beans have been in short supply, though. We buy them when we can but asking around the village netted few results. People just didn't have them to spare, which is understandable.
We do quite a bit of shopping at the store located at Rancho Merida - it's the store we refer to as Wal-Mart. They have a little bit of everything, if you look hard enough. Except beans. We would ask each time we went in: 'Tiene frijoles crudo?' 'No, lo siento.' was getting to be the standard answer. One day, we wrapped up our shopping and were heading out the door when Mercedes, the owner, stopped us and asked us to wait a few minutes. Imagine our excitement when she went to her house and returned with beans for us!! She had beans!
She set them on the counter, we got out our wallets and asked how much we owed her. We were giddy at the prospect of having beans again! Can you say gallopinto?! And then - Mercedes refused payment, saying these were a gift to us. Have we mentioned how generous this community is? We got home and weighed them - 4 pounds!!!
Once again - humbled beyond words.
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After their second stellar week of volunteering, we said goodbye to our Aussie friends, Tim and Tania. This dynamic duo was creative, fun and energetic and the children loved them so much. Heck, we did, too. We really hit it off with them. They foolishly invited us to visit them in Brisbane. Haha! Be careful what you wish for!!
On the last day, they presented the kids with gifts of crayons, stickers and coloring sheets. It was a play day, mostly!
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| Esneider and Tim compared their curly locks. |
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| Many hugs were given! |
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TnT did a little kayaking with our friend, Juriel, right before they left town. They stopped in to ask directions.
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| "Australia? Yeah, I know it. Let's see… if you head due west and veer slightly south, it's about 15,700 kilometers thataway." |
On one of their last nights in town, we had them over for dinner and to play some Cornhole. Actually, it was originally to be 'beers and Cornhole', that is, until Jasmina (one of our OBS 1st graders) came by the house with her mother - who was selling nacatamales!!! We bought 4 and had a lovely dinner and took in the sunset! Great timing and we got hugs from one of our fave students.
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Before they left, Tim and Tania pitched in not just in the school. Tim and I helped these guys get their truck push started. I was keeping my head down so I didn't step in a hole and break an ankle. The truck lurched, blew black smoke, and we were exhausted. (Get it?)
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| There is no "i" in team… But there is an "i" in equipo. |
A while back we reported that our friend and the founder of Ometepe Bilingual School, Alvaro, had been in a bad car accident while on his way to Managua. We are happy to share that he is making a great recovery, getting around the hotel on crutches. Plus he's very proud of the weight he's lost!!
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The local fauna continues to be a regular part of our life in the village and at home.
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| A variety of owl moth, so named for it's owl's eye pattern. It has a 4"+ wing span. |
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| All-you-can-eat straw buffet! |
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| And, um, yeah - this bastard had to show up. |
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While we drooled over Facebook pictures of Thanksgiving menu preparations back home, we had a fun crafts project with the kids! We made the ever-popular handprint turkeys! [Darrin 'Cuddlebuns' T. - I'm looking at you!]
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| Moises, the picture of calm and cool. And a turkey. |
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| An extremely excited Osman! He exploded shortly after this picture. |
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| Class mom, Dulce |
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| Keneth did a great job! |
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| A very proud Daren! You can see we had the 1st graders write 'gobble gobble!' |
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| Dayana, hiding her dimples behind her artwork. |
Gobble gobble!
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After the handprint art work classes were done we hit 'Wal-Mart' for some supplies. Mercedes and her crew were all there. She commented that they could hear the children making 'gobble gobble' sounds and asked what activity we were doing. So we pulled out the art supplies and made handprint turkeys with them!! Haha! I think it had been a few (!) years since they'd held a crayon. It was very fun and they could NOT stop giggling, laughing the entire time! (Googly eyes have that effect on people.)
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| Mercedes is not too sure what to make of this. |
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| This is one reason the community |
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And since it's such a good craft and being efficient teachers we like to recycle ideas, we taught Thanksgiving vocab and made handprint turkeys in our youth class, too. We'd shown them a picture of a real live turkey (taken in Mérida 1 year ago), so many students opted for realistic grays and blacks in their coloring. And there were googly eyes for all!
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| Deymar, Ricardo, Edwin |
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| The artists' muses |
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| Donaldo, Fanor, Ashly (who seemed embarrassed to be in the same picture with the two goofball boys) |
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| A class full of turkeys |
A while back Juriel brought us some plantains. Not like a 'few in a bag' but an entire stalk of them. It would be like someone bringing you corn on the cob and handing you the entire cornstalk, ears of corn still attached. We love platanos and it worked out perfectly, with a few coming ripe every couple of days. After about 4 weeks, we just cooked up the last of them. Dee-lish!
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| Kool kindergarteners. |
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We welcomed our last short-term volunteer of the year - Abena! From Germany, she had been traveling in Central America and was gracious enough to help out at OBS. She had scheduled two weeks with us but had to leave after one because she lost her glasses and was having issues with her contacts. Trust me when I say you don't want to be around 13 kindergartners or first graders and not be able to see. They will OWN you.
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| Roll call! |
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| First graders giving goodbye hugs! |
There is a spot in our village where construction crews have been excavating, digging out an entire hillside to load dump trucks with dirt. This dirt is being dumped on the road, then graded and rolled. They are improving the road!! Remember, this is why we returned to Mérida, to teach English before the road improvements brought increased tourism!! While we haven't seen any paving yet (and probably won't) - at least the road will be smoother and more navigable which will bring more tourists! Hooray!
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| For now, it's just big piles making the road narrower and more dangerous! |
Ah, of course. The pavement ran all the way through Balgüe and ended just past the biggest, swankiest, fanciest, nicest compound/estate on the island. Methinks this is not what the World Bank had in mind when they provided the money to pave the road to the evacuation point, which isn't anywhere near Balgüe and is in fact on the opposite side of Volcán Maderas in San Ramon. But money is power so the good road followed the $$$$.
We biked back toward Balgüe to have lunch at Cafe Campestre - but they weren't opening for another hour. Our early start backfired, at least as far as having lunch was concerned. We then tried to buy tortillas, but the tortilleria didn't have any. Shucks. Lunch at home was just fine, of course!
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Teaching. It's what we do.
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| Our youth students used monsters to review body parts and numbers. |
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| Our new adult students conducted a class survey to practice past tense yes-no questions. |
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And here are some of Dave's other jobs besides 'Teacher'...
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| Porch surfer |
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| Model |
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One measure of success in our teaching endeavor is when we see students playing with the English language, recognizing the patterns and experimenting with the vocabulary. We taught rhymes to our youth class, working on pronunciation and minimal pairs. One of our rock star youth students, Donaldo turned in his homework, which was matching up words that rhymed from a provided list and writing the sentence (for example) 'House rhymes with mouse.' On the bottom of his paper, he wrote in 'Donaldo rhymes with Ronaldo'. Haha!
Another example: Bex! taught past tense, having students ask 'What did you watch yesterday?'. The kids would answer with the verb in the past tense 'I watched Ojo por Ojo yesterday.' For the verb 'buy', Bex! provided some clothing vocabulary for the kids to use in their answers - a shirt, pants, shoes, a hat, etc. So, it went like this: 'What did you buy yesterday?' 'I bought a shirt yesterday.' But... these kids!! They started substituting other vocab we've taught them! 'I bought a motorcycle yesterday.' 'I bought a boat yesterday.' Then the ultimate answer from ace student Edwin - 'I bought two cars and a house yesterday. I am rich!'
This same class has also figured out how to replace verbs when asking future tense questions. We taught 'What are you going to do tomorrow?' with students responding with an activity in a sentence like 'I am going to fish tomorrow' or 'I am going to swim in the lake tomorrow'. Well, a few of these kids figured out - all on their own - that they could replace 'do' with any verb! Bex! was walking home after class with a few of them and they asked her 'What are you going to do tomorrow?' (They like to practice the new lessons on our walks home!) Then Donaldo surprised his teacher by asking her 'What are you going to eat tomorrow?' Wonderful! If you've ever taught, you'll realize what a huge achievement this is!!!
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| These are the cool kids - complete with English nicknames! |
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How do we know the Christmas season is upon us? Festive Toña labels, of course!
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| Oh, and Tia Margarita hung up a string of colored lights around her order window. |
It's the holiday season, whoop-dee-doo!!
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Christmas tree, ornament, stocking, Santa Claus, reindeer, candy cane, presents. Since the Christmas season had arrived, it was also time for Xmas themed English classes. At our youth class, we made Christmas trees and got lots of practice making requests: "Can I have three yellow ornaments, please?" "Thank you."
Our students were rock stars with this new vocab, too. We taught as a team for the last day of class and started by playing hangman with these new words. Notebooks were whipped out, word lists consulted, letters counted. And, on the way home after class we were bid farewell with "Merry Christmas, teachers" by Ashley and Keylin as they sped by on the back of their dad's motorbike.
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| Donaldo - "Yes, Santa, I've been good this year" |
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| Ashley - "Look, Santa, give me the presents and I won't kick you in the shin." |
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| Ricardo - "How does Santa do it all in one night?" |
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| Luis - "Ho ho ho!" |
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| Edwin & Ashley - "Naughty or nice?" |
The kids called me on it and I kept adding 10 years until I got up to 80+ years old, at which point they finally relented, agreeing that that was probably pretty close.
Grrr….
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Our friend Nora invited us to her home to have dinner with her son, Franklin (one of our kindergarteners) and her brother Luis. We had a great evening, with wonderful food and conversation. We brought Franklin some dot-to-dot coloring sheets and a new pencil. He dove right in, with help from Bex!
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| 'How am I doing, Profe?' |
This night was also, sadly, the night of our last full moon on the island. As we walked home, the sky was clear and the moon backlit Volcán Maderas and the palm trees. And there were 1,000's of stars! So beautiful.
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Visitors! Visitors! Visitors from Portland!!
Yep, we had a friend from Portland visit us here on Isla de Ometepe. Peter, along with his brother Andy and dad Gary, spent a few days in Mérida. It was a great time, getting caught up on hometown news and, well, just hearing about familiar places. They were kind enough to visit classes for interviews with our students. And we enjoyed dinner with them a couple of times. We shouted encouragement when they paddled to the Rio Istian. We had them over to play some Cornhole and watch the incredible sunset. Peter & Co. - Thanks for letting us show off our island!
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| Gary and Andy vying for the win. |
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| Peter pulling out his patented powerhouse pelota pass. |
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| At the volcano, turn right. You can't miss it. |
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| No caimans spotted, but the kayakers returned happy (& with all their fingers and toes). |
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Baseball is huge here. In fact, baseball rivals futbol (soccer) in popularity here in Nicaragua. Mérida has a team and they play not too far from our house. In fact, it's about a 3 minute walk. We've heard them playing before but had never gone to a game, always too busy prepping classes or teaching. But now that our teaching gig was wrapping up, we had time and so ventured over to take in a game. What a scene! I think all of Mérida was out rooting for their team! Vendors were selling pop, sno-cones, beer, vigaron. Families picnicked, kids ran around - just like any hometown baseball game back in the states.
And what a setting for a game, with a volcano in deep, deep right field!
While we were enjoying the game Yasir, a friend and high school student of ours, came by to say hi. Then he said (in English, thank you very much) 'My father would like to talk with you.' It was all very Godfather-like. We followed him over to where his dad, Luis, was standing, situated right behind home plate. Luis is also one of our students and a good friend, as well. We congratulated him on his new baby daughter, too!! It was a good visit, and Luis never moved from his spot, while people walked by to say hello and congratulate the proud papa! Don Luis was holding court while people paid their respects.
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And speaking of the new baby, let's wrap up Loose Ends, Part II with a couple of pics of baby Rosita! I lobbied Luis and Rosibela to name the baby Davida - they graciously declined.
Bienvenida, Rosita!
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| I am here! Ta-da!!! |
Loose Ends, Part III coming at ya soon!
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