Claire 1 – 0 Unemployment
To get this blog finally up to date I´m fast forwarding a bit. So here are a few journal entries from my time in Nicaragua. I´ll get back to writing way too much about small events soon!
October 15th
I’ve been in Granada three days and already I’ve started Spanish school, found a job, moved into my new house and bought a phone. How very settled in I am. No one can call me an aimless wanderer now!
I’ve been on the road for 2 months, since I finished work in Peru in August, and the idea of going shopping for groceries really got me excited. Never realized how much I’d missed that! No more dorm rooms and cans of tuna for dinner now. And no more ‘Where’ve you been, where you going?’ conversations with people I’ll never see again. In South America I found it really easy to find people and go travel with. Central America seems deserted in comparison.
All this settling down came about during my first Spanish lesson. When we got over the whole ‘You’re really travelling on your own?’ talk he started telling me about the place. It’s the second city of Nicaragua after Managua, the capital. It sits on the side of the lake, and has a big volcano just next door. He said most of the place still looks very colonial with all their pretty Spanish style buildings. He then mentioned that there’s an organization looking for volunteers to help out in the rural schools. To which I said ‘As it happens I’m trying to save the world before I’m 30, so I might check those guys out.’
‘Those guys’ turned out to be La Esperanza; the local NGO that’s working on helping the educational system in the city. They send volunteers to school to give extra help to students, and provide the pay to employ more teachers and built things like toilets and walls in the schools. They also sponsor older students to enable them to go to high school. All I needed to get in on this fun was to have an intermediate level of Spanish and six weeks free time (normally 8 but the school term was almost over). So, I kicked 5 countries out of my plan and signed up.
These people even gave me a house to live in. I had a choice of two, the third was full. These houses have been donated to the organization. I was told one house spoke Spanish, the other mostly English. Being a little cocky I said I’d have no trouble in the Spanish house, so in I moved. Oh, how silly I can be!
October 22nd First Day of work at La Epifania school.
Oh holy God! When the volunteer coordinator mentioned the enthusiasm problem among the staff, I guessed there may be trouble ahead. School is supposed to be from 12-5. But my co-worker Jaime mentioned that in the 2 months she’d been there they’d worked until 5 twice. At 12.30 the students were still racing around. They may not have been learning anything but they seemed to be having a great time. Eventually teachers arrived and people started scattering. I was placed in one of the first grade classes, and Gemma, my co-worker and housemate said I should just observe for the first day, to see what level the kids were at. All I seemed to learn was that Karla ran the show, the 8 year old who doesn’t like foreigners ……or my shoes. One kid introduced himself as Spiderman and proceeded to climb every high object in the room and jump off it. The classroom is made of brick, but about 5 feet up the wall it changes to bars, making it look a little like prison, but also makes a great jungle gym. They seem to like spending the afternoon climbing the bars and jumping on one another. I made the mistake of putting one guy´s school bag on the ground next to him when returning it. To this Karla screamed at me that his mother had washed that and now I’d ruined it.
I was given a list of children who needed extra attention. On my list were Spiderman and Karla. Going to be a fun 6 weeks!
October 29th
I may have been a little hasty in judging my class. I thought that only doing work for an hour or so a day was a bad thing. But then I met Jaime. Jaime tutors the other 1st grade. Her students don’t like to sit down, so they don’t. Paying attention is a concept they have yet to get a grasp on. They are however very concerned with how best to beat each other up, and the teachers’ 3 minute a day appearance doesn’t do much to calm the situation. But Jaime soldiers on, taking out a kid at a time, tearing them from the jungle, to work on basic topics every first grader should know. While I have a small group of children, Jaime has the entire class to divide her time between. One guy tells her he hates foreigners anyway when she doesn’t pick him to work with. Also, one started chanting something about Lucifer at her.
In comparison my class is pretty good. They know how to sit down and write. Although we do have a few who constantly whip their pencils over their heads, through the bars, and out onto the grass. Then proclaim that they have nothing to write with, so they might as well take a stroll.
The floor in our class is washed every half hour. Never knew kids liked mopping so much! The school’s leader, Christian, came back to work today after a short vacation. He asked how the art and PE classes were going. First I’d heard of that! So I went about getting some materials to make stuff.
In other news I’ve joined an aerobics class! Five months out of the gym has made these classes pretty strenuous, but out instructor Manuel makes them fun with his Latino butt wiggling.
Photos will follow. Can´t seem to find them right now….
Tags: 6 - Nicaragua, nicaragua, Travel
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