Bat Baseball

One night after dinner, a bat got in the house. I was unsure what the procedure would be. I have heard that some families are completely un-phased by animals in the house and others do everything in their power to kill it. During training, we had mice twice and both times my host father trapped them in the bathroom and killed them with a wooden spear.

We all realized there was a bat in the house. It was obvious. My host father went to get the broom and then started swatting. My host mom and I were responsible to tell him where it was and he was swinging away. It would fly from the kitchen to the living room and back again. I really didn’t think he was going to be able to get it but he completely surprised me. With one good swing he nailed it. I immediately started laughing hysterically. It was such a ridiculous site. We then took it to the neighbors to show their 2 year old son and I of course took some photos. 

Although Bat Baseball happened a few weeks ago, I am dealing with bats droppings in my room this week. It completely grosses me out but my host family doesn’t really seemed phased by it. I did research on it today and it looks like I will be hanging aluminum foil strips from the beams. Thankfully, I sleep under a mosquito net and it catches all of the bat droppings but it’s completely unpleasant to wake up to it every day. Hopefully they find a new place to hang out soon! 

Enchiladitas. Solamente diez cordobitas.

Here enchiladas are nothing like the Mexican enchiladas that you have all had.
Here they are corn tortillas with something additional in the dough that gives it a more orangey color. They are filled with rice and a teeny tiny bit of ground beef. The dough is folder over itself and deep fried. When the street vendor sells them, they all offer a chili sauce to pour over it. Watching the Nicaraguans do it, the trick it to bite off one end and pour the sauce directly inside the enchilada. They definitely resemble more of an empanada but they are definitely a must have. The cheapest ones are C$5 (about 20 cents) and the expensive ones are C$10. It’s definitely not a healthy snack but sometimes I cannot resist. There are a father and son team out of San Fernando who make a living out of selling C$10 enchiladas.

My host family gets a kick out me imitating the father:
“Enchiladitas, enchiladitas. Solamente diez cordobitas. Calientitas, calientitas del sol. Solamente diez cordobitas.”

Typical Week

A few of you have asked me what my typical week is like. This is what my class schedule is. This does not include all the bus travel time, which I was going to include but it is hard to capture because for example on Tuesday mornings I take a bus to a road where I try to get a taxi. I actually take a taxi about 30% of the time. The rest of the time I wait around until a good hitchhiking opportunity. So it's impossible to actually capture how much time I am standing on the side of the road. 

Mondays

7:15-8:15              Co-planning session
11:15-12:15         Co-planning session
12:15-1:45           Class with 5^th Year

Tuesdays

7:30-8:30              Co-planning session
10:35-12:05         Class with 4^th Year
12:05-1:00           Co-planning session

Wednesday

8:00-9:30              Class with 5^th Year
10:05-10:50         Class with 5^th Year
10:50-11:35         Co-planning session

3:00-4:15              Session 1 of my English Class in town (beginner)
4:30-6:00              Session 2 of my English Class in town (advanced beginner)

Thursdays

7:45-9:00              Co-planning session

10:35-12:05         Class with 5^th Year
12:05-1:00           Co-planning session

                -OR-

12:15-1:45           Class with 5^th Year
1:45-3:15              English Class with Counterpart

Fridays

10:50-11:35         Class with 5^th Year

Traditional Folk Dancing Costume

My host sister participated in the folk dancing group in town. As a result, I had the opportunity of seeing her perform a few times. Here are some pictures of her all dressed up!

And here she is with her sister (left) and cousin (right).

Actos – Día de las Madres – May 30th

Mother’s Day is big deal here. It is celebrated on May 30^th and as the guide book says, “No one gets away with just a card – more things close than at Christmas.” There is no school and every school puts on presentation in honor of the day the day before. I went to two Actos, one at one of my high schools and then went to the one at my host sisters’ elementary school. At the one at the high school, there was singing, dancing, a skit, a poem and even games for the moms. They had the moms play musical chairs and participate in a singing competition.   There was cake and soda for all. There was an overabundance of cake and I was offered it 3 times. I luckily was able to turn it down nicely the two additional pieces. Cake here is definitely not as good here as it is in the states. The icing is both a strange flavor and consistency. I miss Funfetti and carrot cake. Overall, it was a nice Acto. The only negative is that very few mothers showed up. We waited about an hour after the scheduled start time to begin, hoping that more mothers would come, but only a few trickled in.

In the afternoon, I went to the acto for the elementary school in town with my host mother. It was at the parque central, and they had two kioskos set up with seats underneath. It looked like it was going to pour so we made sure to sit towards the center of the small tent. It ended up being an acto with a long rain-filled intermission. It started an hour late, which I am finding out is completely normal and expected here. There were mostly dancing numbers. The folk dancing was performed by the local folk dancing youth group. They perform at all the local events. One of the town drinkers arrived at the event while one of the dancing groups was performing. He danced along with the music and tried to join the dancing group as well. The students were very serious and barely reacted when he got near them. The police escorted the guy out but it didn’t stop him from coming back. Luckily, he seems pretty harmless. He is a running joke in my host family because he is present at all community events and always seems to be dancing at them. I have a few videos of him.

After the rain-filled intermission, we went into a building. Unfortunately, it was impossible to see anything but a few minutes after we arrived we were all served arroz con pollo. It is a pretty typical dish here, especially for birthday and other large events. It is served with a piece of white toast. And of course we each got a cup of soda.

HAPPY BELATED MOTHER’S DAY TO ALL!

What we collected on our walk...

I went for a walk with my host parents a few weeks ago to one of the communities. We went to place an order for yucca. My host mom wanted to go straight to the source so we went to this sweet woman´s house who has a small piece of land where she grows a variety of things including yucca. It took us about 45 minutes to get there. While there, I learned that one of my students is her son so I spoke to him for a few minutes about what I am doing here. It is super common to give people fruits and vegetables when you have an abundance. This woman had a large melecoton (starfruit) tree and she gifted us a large bag full of them to take. We used them to make frescos, homemade juice (bottom right). Her neighbor had a cacao plant and we asked him if he would give us one (top right). We left them in the sun for about 2 weeks to dry out the seeds and brought them to the mill to grind them into a powder to make frescos. The spiky one is called guanabana. It is also known as soursop in other parts of the world. According to Wikipedia, "the flavor is described as a combination of strawberry and pineapple, with sour citrus fruit notes contrasting with an underlying creamy flavor reminiscent of coconut or banana." I would never be able to describe a taste as thoroughly as a Wikipedia contributor has been able to.

Laguna de Apoyo

This is a picture taken by one of my site mates from training. It is from when we went to the lookout for the Laguna de Apoyo. It is a really pretty place and this picture actually does it justice. 

Nancites

I have found something I hate here. It is a tiny fruit that usually is yellow but sometimes is red. They have a super strong scent. They remind me of really stinky cheese or vomit. They are in season now and everyone is eating them. People are gifting bags of them to my family. Now we have the drink in the fridge and bags of the fruit in the fridge and on every shelf. I don´t like the fruit, the juice made of the drink or the ice cream in a bag. Supposedly they are also made into a dessert but I haven´t seen that yet. Instead they eat them on the bus and the smell is overpowering. EVERYWHERE. I am anxiously awaiting the end of the season.




from wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrsonima_crassifolia

My wonderful host family

 My host parents and sisters

My immediate host family and her sister, her husband and their son. They live next door so we see them all the time! For the first month, their son was afraid of my blue eyes. I would wear sunglasses around him so he wouldn´t cry. He is no longer afraid. We are actually good friends now. He turns 2 in November.

Working in the institutos

In terms of my work, I am in the high schools. I have been assigned 5 schools in 5 different towns in 3 different municipalities. As a result, I travel a lot. I am on the bus hours each week, which I got used to living in Jersey and working in NY. The buses here are old school buses, however, and there is no AC and people are often packed like sardines. I am friendly with many of the ayudantes and drivers. One bus I take Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings so I am a frequent customer. Sometimes I even get discounts!
My role the first month was to observe. I attended the classes, took notes and observed the teaching styles of the different teachers. After about 3 weeks of only observing, I started co-planning in some of the schools. It requires meeting the teacher for about an hour and discussing the upcoming class and how s/he wants to teach the information. I try to introduce some interactive methods and try to make the teacher understands the material that s/he is teaching. The class is one that builds on itself all year long and ends with a Product Competition. They have to do a survey, make a prototype, complete a business plan, etc. We’re trying to provide them with necessary skills in a country where almost everyone is a microbusiness owner. My classes vary greatly. My smallest is 9 (the last time only 3 students attended) and the biggest is over 45. My furthest school is 70 minutes away on the bus and the closest is a 20 minute walk. I will be working with 4th and 5th year students, which is equivalent to 11th and 12th graders in the states.
It is definitely a learning experience, as I did not receive much formal teaching experience in the states. And truthfully, even if I did, there would still be a learning curve. Classroom dynamics are very different here!

IST

On July5^th, I travelled to Managua to meet the other business volunteers for our In Service Training. We were at a beach resort from Friday evening until Wednesday morning. It felt quite fitting for the time of year. Here it is the rainy season and the low season for the beach, which is why we were there. It only rained on Tuesday. We were in charlas all day, from about 830-5 so we didn’t get much beach time. Since I’m not a beach person, I didn’t mind. I really enjoyed the time with the other volunteers. Friday night and Saturday the business volunteers of the earlier groups were there for an idea exchange. One group was getting ready to leave Nicaragua after 2 years of service and the other has been here a year. It was very powerful to be in a room of people of all different stages with the same overall goal. The trainings were very useful; I learned a ton. And they also gave me more confidence in what I am here to do. I understand the curriculum a little more and now have materials to do business advising/consulting, personal finance consultingand also entrepreneurship and personal finance classes. I have to do a community analysis over the next 2 months to see what my community needs.

My host sisters have never been to the beach so I brought home a bag of shells for them. They loved them! We played with them for quite a few days. They have asked me a million questions about the ocean. Since it’s far away, the nearest ocean is probably 6 hours, they have never been and most kids they know have also never been. They are completely fascinated by the waves and keep asking me about sharks. Hopefully they will be able to make it to the beach one day!

Homework

I am responsible for homework help. I help both my host sisters with whatever they have. Sometimes they do not copy all of the directions down and other times there is a word I don’t know that is necessary to complete the homework. My bag of books (dictionary, 501 verbs, PC binders, etc.) was in Managua. I was without it and my suitcase for 8 weeks. My boss was supposed to bring it when she visited 4 weeks ago but the room was locked when she went to get it so I lived out of my hiking backpack. I put a lot of thought into packing it and I am so glad I did!

Back to the homework, the lack of a dictionary makes it quite exciting to help them. I have learned many new words, have learned a lot about the area and have had to figure out how to teach basic math skills in Spanish. My youngest host sister is in pre-K so her homework usually consists of writing her name, writing numbers 0-10 and drawing many pictures. The older of the two is 8 so in math she is learning her multiplication tables and basic division. We have spent hours working on both. She also has homework in all her other classes. We have been practicing rhyming words, discussed the importance of accent marks, and have recited a poem. For her tests, I was responsible for her test about Mozonte. She had to memorize what Mozonte means, what are the natural resources, the natural formations, the names of the 4 rivers. We recently started doing additional math practice because it is definitely lacking here. Partially due to a lack of resources, such as worksheets, and a more rigid form of math education. We are spending a lot of time on the multiplication tables and basic addition and subtraction! Wish us luck!

July 4th

The 4^th obviously isn’t a holiday here but I decided to celebrate. My class on the 4^th was cancelled because they had end of semester tests during my class period, even more of a reason! I took my two host sisters out for ice cream because I don’t know of a place in town to get a hot dog or hamburger and the only thing I could think of that we do on the 4^th is have ice cream. We have a pulperia that sells ice cream with a few chairs so we went there. We took pictures and talked about the significance of an independence day. 

Leña

Most of the cooking here is done using leña instead of gas. My host dad and host uncle went to get the leña the other day and since we use many sticks each day, it gets used rather quickly. Leña is much cheaper than gas. Gas stoves are hooked up to tanks that need to be refilled and the tanks themselves are expensive and it is a hassle to get them filled. Sometimes we use the gas stove, to make quick things like eggs, reheat food and boil water but pretty much all other cooking happens outside with leña. Since gas is expense, we use the oven for storage. Most people never turn on their oven.

Tacos

The day my host mom made nacatamales and I was convinced we would eat them for dinner, we actually ate tacos. My host uncle picked them up from his favorite place in the nearby city. They were delicious!! I have learned here that even if things have a name that I recognize, it’s rarely what I am expecting. It has happened numerous times. With fruits, like melocoton, which I was taught means peach but here it means star fruit. Mantequilla isn’t butter here; it is cream, like sour cream. So it came as no surprise that when I was told that there was a taco in the aluminum foil, it didn’t resemble the NY version of a taco when I opened it. Here it’s a rolled, fried corn tortilla filled with meat topped with cheese, a ketchupy sauce and mantequilla. I had 2 chicken tacos for dinner that night and they were delectable. It reminded me of the Greek gyro. Something relatively simple that is incredibly delicious--ethnic fast food. 

Pin the Tail on the Donkey – June 20th

Felt like a productive day. I had a successful co-planning session in the morning and then went to the high school in my town where the students had organized a teacher appreciation party. There were cookies, ice cream and soda. They also made some games. They drew a Pin the Tail on the Donkey game, which surprisingly was quite a hit. The teacher who placed the tail perfectly won a package of cookies. I was called up during the second activity. There were nine balloons taped to the blackboard.  I picked a balloon to pop and inside was a small piece of paper. It said I had to dance with one of the students. So I danced with this outgoing girl to music that was inaudible so it was like we were dancing to imaginary music. Everyone had a good laugh!

Nacatamales

My host family is super excited to introduce me to the different foods of Nicaragua. During the 3 months of training, I hardly tried anything. I didn’t really have the opportunity to try the various foods but now my host family is making it a priority. They are eager to share their favorite dishes, restaurants, and drinks with me. I have been in site for a little under 2 months and I am quickly checking foods off my list. The next few posts will be all about food. So far, I have liked almost everything I have tried. It helps that my host mom is a great cook!

To make money, my host mom makes nacatamales every other Saturday. A nacatamal is a plantain leaf stuffed with cornmeal masa (dough), potato, pork, rice, tomato, onion & sweet chilis. The filling is packed in the plantain leaf and tightened with a small twine-like vine, that makes it look like a pillow, and then steamed to perfection over the course of many hours. She makes between 100 and 150 and sells to people in town. She takes orders in advance and of course makes a few extra.

I have been here for one of the Saturdays. On Friday, she does whatever she can do the night before. She washes the pork with a lime juice concoction and chops up some vegetables. Saturday morning she starts around 4am and with the help of our empleada they prepare the delicious delicacies. By mid-afternoon they are ready to be delivered. I thought people would eat them for dinner on Saturday, but it actually seems to be more common to eat them Sunday for a late breakfast with coffee. The day I was going to try them for the first time, I had no idea that we would wait so long to eat them. I was ready to eat mine for lunch on Saturday. Then once I saw the size, I thought maybe it would be for snack. I was sure we would eat them for dinner on Saturday, but no. I had mine heated up on Sunday morning with coffee. According to Wikipedia, “The nacatamal is perhaps the largest production within the traditional Nicaraguan kitchen and it is an event often reserved for Sundays at mid-morning, it is usually eaten together with fresh bread and Nicaraguan-style coffee.” I would have to agree.

School Trip Crashers!

My first Friday in site, my host mom asked me around 9pm if I wanted to go to a coffee finca (farm) the next day in Jinotega. Without hesitation, I said, “Sure! What time? Any time after 3:30am works for me.” She laughed and said, “We have to be ready at 5:30am.” It sound early, especially for all of you who know me in the states. I sometimes go to bed around that time. Here I wake up round 4:45am since we got to bed by 10pm each night. I could try to blame my early wake up time on the roosters that crow every day at 4:45am, but they make the noise day and night.

When my host mom’s brother showed up at 5:40, his son and daughter were in the car, which confused me. Especially since his daughter was pretty dressed up, but I should have been surprised my host mom was wearing high heeled suede booties to go to the coffee farm. We made several stops because her brother knows everyone and we were running some errands for his business. Then we went to the park in Ocotal and there were about 25 young adults standing around. That’s when I figured out that my host mom and I were crashing a school trip.

Some of the students are studying agribusiness specializing in coffee farms and some are studying to be coffee connoisseurs. The son is a student in the agribusiness program and his father was invited as a special guest because he own coffee farms.

On the way to the coffee farm, we went to have a typical Nica breakfast at a stop along the highway. They had one breakfast option. The only selection was you could choose to not include one of the components. The one option consisted of bean, eggs, cream, cuajada (a soft crumbly cheese), avocado, tortillas and coffee of course.  It was pretty good, nothing special since I eat all the components on a regular basis. Even avocado is something that I eat so frequently that I don’t really even think about it. I have tried the small avocados, which I didn’t really like. One day we had avocados that had yellow flesh and they were delicious!

The farm was quite far away and we were flying in an SUV. I can’t imagine how it would have been by bus. The drive was beautiful! According to Lonely Planet, “The back road from Estelí, has got to be one of the most beautiful drives in the country. It’s just high-altitude beauty, with one town, La Concordia, almost exactly 33km from Jinotega and 33km from Estelí.” Then we passed the Lago de Apenás-Asturias. “The third largest body of water in Nicaragua is artificial, formed in 1964… It is two lakes, much larger Lago de Apenás (54 sq km) and its smaller, northern brother, Lago de Asturias (3 sq km)… There is a hydroelectric dam, and PlantaCentroamérica produces about 50,000kw and usually holds about 324 million cubic meters of water; during Hurricane Mitch it held back 756 million cubic meters, just barely.”

We eventually turned off a main road and were on a road through a small town. We had to ask a few people for directions. Everyone of course knew the place and each person kept saying a little bit further up the road. Of course there’s not a sign to let you know you’re close or even when you finally arrive. We made a sharp right turn and followed a dirt path about 15 minutes all hoping we were on the right path and luckily we were. We finally reached the entrance of the place, Santa Maura, around 11:30am.

The coffee farm was incredible! It functions like a small town. They have a couple hundred permanent workers and their families. There is even a primary school for the children of the workers. We were given a special tour, which included an hour-long powerpoint presentation on the logistics of their farm and then we toured around the finca to see different coffee plants. It was my first time seeing coffee plants. I learned a ton about different coffee farming philosophies. We also got to go where their outdoor nursery where they have seedlings waiting to grow large enough to be transplanted.

We had to move the dinning table due to...

THOUSANDS OF FLYING BUGS!

Luckily, the bugs only were around for a few weeks. Things are back to normal and the table is back in the center of the room.