I'M A REALLL VOLUNTEER!!! (to be said with a Pinocchio voice)

11/26/10

It's official! I am finally a volunteer I finished my 3 months of training and now I am setting off my quest to improve Nicaraguan high school students' knowledge of English. All 43 of us came down to Managua on Sunday to get ready for the swearing ceremony the next day. The ceremony was great very similar setup to college graduation without the gowns. We had two people from our group give valedictorian speech in which they thanks the training staff and our host families for all their hard work and congratulated us for making it through training to become full fledged volunteers. I am really grateful for my host family. Especially after the problems I had with first host family, my second family took me in as own of their own family members. In fact my group of Nica 54 half environment and half TEFL is one of the few groups that made it through the entire training without somebody having to return back the States for medical or behavior reasons. Although I had nothing really to do with that I'm very proud of my group overall, and it was great to see all the same faces at the swearing ceremony that were in Granada.

The ceremony was held a super nice hotel in Managua. In attendance was the American Ambassador, as the keynote speaker, our Peace Corps Country Director, Training Director, and Program Directors. They all gave motivating speeches congratulating us on the progress we had made so far inspiring and motivating us for the challenges and successes we are going to have during our service. I really enjoyed the Ambassador's speech. He is a 30 year career diplomat and has worked around the world and he told us that no matter what projects and aid the US gives to developing countries, the most effective way to facilitate change and serve the people is by doing what we are doing. By living amongst the people we are serving we are showing them another side our American culture. His speech give me chills it was definitely on of my proudest moments. I really hope that I can improve my community stereotype beliefs that American are only good for their money filled wallets. I know there are already a few English teachers in La Dalia who have seen the professional and economic benefits of learning a foreign language, my only hope is that I can plant that seed it my high school students' heads.

After the ceremony I took my host mom out to lunch to thank her for all love and support she has given me, I wish that the rest of the family was able to come but they were busy with school and work. After lunch I returned back to the hotel to get ready for an early Thanksgiving dinner at our Peace Corps Country Director's house. The food was amazing!! I wasn't really expecting much since Nicaraguans don't celebrate thanksgiving and so probably wouldn't have all the traditional supplies. I was just happy to spend it with friends. I was dead wrong this was an amazing Thanksgiving with all the fixings you could possible imagine! Everything from sweet potatoes with marshmallows to cranberry sauce, green beans, and of course lots of mashed potatoes stuffing and turkey. I was very impressed it was so much fun the perfect send off for us all.

I was really excited to get to my site and start getting settled except I ended having to stay in the hotel in Managua for a week and get over my bronchitis that has been with me for about 3 weeks. Its been kinda boring especially after most the volunteers left on Tuesday. Fortunately there were other volunteers who were sick and so we were able to keep each other company. As infirmaries go the hotel the we were put up in was really nice. Wireless internet, cable tv with american channels and a pool I felt kind of spoiled and a little a sad to leave. However I made it back to La Dalia today (on saturday) I am just as glad to be back to my site. Managua is in nice to visit but like any big city its expensive and much more dangerous than my site.

I had hoped to get back before Friday so I could attend the last TEPCE teacher conference of the year, and introduce and establish myself, but it didn't work out. I don't really know what I am going to do over the summer break. I don't start teaching until the end of January. Its kind of a weird feeling having all this free time. During training we were always scheduled to do something, attending charlas, co-teaching and planning and daily Spanish class. There was always something to do and now we are really on our own, I am both excited and nervous about being on my own. As result I don't know how much I will have to write about until school starts but I will try and keep up on the weekly schedule. This week I am going to meet the mayor and police and librarian so I can start reading more in Spanish. I am also going to go visit my site mate who lives down the road. She is and environment volunteer and so has more of a to do list before school starts so maybe I can help her out with that.

Well that's all for now

Hasta pronto!

A rainbow of Peace Corp Polos

The new Matagalpans!

Ambassador Callhan and I 

The New TEFL volunteers with the Ambassador

For more pictures check out my facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2397380&id=11521764&l=c56394a9cc 

Site visit update

11/12/10

I wanted to post this update earlier but I have been battling a cold and just haven't had the energy to do much. It seems that even in the tropics I can't get away from the winter cold.  However I talked to the Peace Corps doctors and they are giving me some medicine that will hopefully help kick this cold to the curb. So while I'm feeling ok right now I wanted to update everybody on how my trip to La Dalia went. The bus ride is not particularly long. The longest leg is only two hours but it its in an Amtrak style charter but to Matagalapa. It´s from Niquinohomo there are 3 legs making the whole journey just under 5 hours. I also had the company of my site mate Alison so having someone to talk made the time go by faster. Alison is in the Environment Education sector and is living in the neighboring town just down the road from me.  I imagine that we will be collaborating a bit on projects together over the next two years.  Overall the trip is very scenic especially once you get to Matagalpa you start to get in to coffee country and are able to see the many different stages of the coffee harvest, it’s very interesting.

I really like La Dalia overall as I said before.  Upon my arrival I was met by my counterpart Luis he is very nice and seems anxious to work with me. He is 25 and speaks English very well. My other counterpart is Marlon he also speaks great English and is in his early 30's. Both of my counterparts live in Matagalpa which is just over 90 minutes south of La Dalia. The both teach all week and then take English class at the university in Matagalpa on Saturday. I don't know how that is going to affect my co-planning relationship with them, but I imagine I am going to be making weekly trips in to Matagalpa for shopping and banking purposes so I'm sure I can work out some schedule with them.I observed some their classes and unfortunately neither one speak much English in class. Also noteworthy Luis has won a scholarship placement to an international teacher conference that will be for 6 weeks in Washington DC. He is very excited because this will be his first time in the United States. He wants to see some of the sights and ride a subway which I clarified for him that he won't be able to see anything from because it’s underground. This is a great experience for him because I'm sure he will come back with a lot of great ideas, however I am a little nervous because his conference will take place during the first 6 weeks of school.  This means I will be working with a substitute for my first 6 weeks teaching at the school. It’s going to be interesting – that's for sure.  My school has a sister school partnership with a high school in Boden Sweden. So my counterpart Marlon has been working with them a lot both in Sweden and in La Dalia. There is a good chance that I will be involve in part of this sister school relationship however I doubt my Peace Corps bosses will let me take trip to Sweden if the opportunity arises, but you never know ….right?

On Friday I was invited to a workshop on classroom discipline held at the school, a very important topic in my line of work so I went along. It was actually pretty interesting. The school principal was talking about the importance of proper behavior especially when the graduating students go to university. He introduce me and shared what my role would be, then after some more talking the students broke up into groups to work on a survey. During the break I went to join some students and teachers who were getting some refreshments. I was sitting with my counterpart when some girls came up asked him for some pronunciation help for their final group project, and he referred them to me. I was happy to help in any way I could. The girls' project was to sing a song in English, the song they had chosen was “Down” by Jay Sean. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUbpGmR1-QM So we listened to the song on one of the girls' cell phones while reading the lyrics and practicing the pronunciation of some of the words. Afterwards the principal came around and called us all back to the classroom for the rest of the workshop. At the end the principal said “to close Sam and some girls are going to sing for use”. I was caught by surprised, but anybody who knows me knows I have never been a shy karaoke singer. I was not nearly quite embarrassed as the girls were but with some coaxing they finally came up and we sang together, it was pretty hilarious. A lot of students took videos so I'm going to see if I can get a copy.

 My new host family is a nice young couple. The dad Alejandro is 26 years old and is a high school English teacher in a nearly by town and the mom Diana is 23 years old, she is a stay at home mom who looks after their 4 year old daughter Michelle. She is very cute and like most children that age very curious she told me on a nearly constant basis that I was very tall.  There is also a large extended family that is over at the house on a daily basis so there is a never dull moment. My host family here in Niquinohomo is young but a little older than me, however in La Dalia my host family and one counterpart are all around the same age as me so it’s a different relationship. On Sunday Alison and I went out with my whole family to the river for the day. It was a lot of fun we drove out to this spot then hiked down to the swimming hole. There were rock cliffs that were around 20 feet high that we climbed up and jumped off.  Alejando and his friend were climbing up as high as they could to do flips off the rocks and nearby trees. There were also other less dangerous places to play around where I spent more time, I did not want to fall and break some and have to spend a long uncomfortable ride to the hospital. We took a picnic out there and had a great time. I am anxious to explore the rest of the Peñas Blancas and Piedra Luna area.

However due to some unforeseen circumstances I planning to move out as soon as my first 6 weeks are up. As of now I haven't really done much in depth investigation of other housing options but I have some a few leads that I am going to investigate when I get back.   One of which is a subdivision like neighborhood called Barrios de los Maestros it’s a neighborhood of about 50 identical houses that were built by a Spanish NGO so that the teachers of La Dalia could have adequate housing. In my opinion they are far more than adequate. My counterpart Luis showed them to me and said that a lot of the teachers from my school live there, and that they were subsidize so the teachers could afford them. So I hopefully I can afford to rent one on my budget.

My work schedule at school is going about 16 hours a week I believe so I imagine that it will be split up between morning and afternoon sessions with both counterparts. When I wasn't at school I was walking around town trying to meet as many of the important people as possible. I met my local Ministry of Education delegate and Sub delegate they are in charge of the school’s curriculum so they were very interested to learn what my role as Peace Corp Volunteer would be as well as my role in the classroom. I also meet the librarian and some other local English teachers who are interested in starting an English conversation group as well as a constructing an English audio lab in the school. I'm excited that I already have some projects to work on before over the summer break. Although I know the audio lab project is going to take a long time. I wasn't able meet the mayor or the police chief but I am planning to meet them with my site mate Alison when I get back. 

I am swearing in just about a week I can't believe how fast training has gone by. I am really going to miss my Niquinohomo host family but I am anxious to get back to La Dalia and get started on some of my projects. When I get the school will just be getting out for the summer/Christmas vacation, although I will have a chance to meet and greet some of the other teachers in the area at the last TEPCE of the year.

Tomorrow my Niquinohomo group is finally giving our presentation of communicative speaking activities at the Regional English Teacher workshop. So I have to go meet with my group to put the final touches on our presentation.

Hasta Pronto

See this link for my pictures from La Dalia

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2394688&id=11521764&l=b16e236861

Site Visit in La Dalia

Hola Todos!

To all my loyal followers I haven't really had time to write a full post I have been doing a lot of meeting and greeting. I like my site I'm up in the mountains and its really nice and warm (Oregon warm, not Nicaragua warm). I met my teachers and students at my school and everybody seem really excited to work with the new gringo!

More soon!