Hey everybody, sorry that so much time has passed since my last blog post. I have been busy the last couple weekends and time just got away from me. I’m going to try and write shorter posts more often so it is easier for everyone back home to follow what I am doing down here.
So what have I been up to since January? Well I have got all moved into my house and settled with all my things set up the way I want. I bought some plastic shelves things last time I was in Matagalpa, one for my kitchen and one for my bedroom. I took my pcv friend’s advice and took down the all the creepy pictures and other knickknacks that are my landlords and boxed them up and put them under my bed. I am really happy with the way the house is looking now. I’m going to have a house warming party later in March so my friends can see my new house and La Dalia
Other notable events in February:
I went to Matagalpa and watched the Super bowl with other PCVs it was pretty fun to hang out with everyone; I didn’t really care about the game although I almost won some money in score pool. Unfortunately since the game was broadcasted in Spanish I didn’t get to see the commercials which are honestly my favorite part.
I put on an English teacher workshop the second weekend in February for all the teachers in the La Dalia area. I had requested some money from a grant available at the US embassy but for some reason there was a breakdown in communication and I didn’t get the money in time. We still had a pretty good turnout though; I think not having the money made the logistics much easier. I just focused on what I was going to be teaching and didn’t worry about the other stuff. I was afraid that I had bit off more than I could chew but I was happy the way it turned out. Alison came up and helped me out and I had the assistance from Ishmael the Matagalpa university professor. The teachers all gave positive feedback so I think I will do another one later in the future, but now I will know what to organize better.
I’m still doing my community English class in the evenings, it is going pretty well. I was co-teaching it with Ishmael but he is now working more at the university in Matagalpa so I have taken over as the sole teacher of the class. I was a little hesitant at first about the class but now that I am in charge I like it much better. We are using an English textbook that I borrowed from Ishmael which gives us a good guide and base to go from but I am starting to do more dynamic activities so that we aren’t just reading out the book the whole night. I am also still working on the students’ punctuality. It’s an uphill battle but I am determined haha so will see tonight if there is any improvement.
The biggest event of this month has been the start of the school year last week. If had to choose two words to describe school and the whole start up process here, I would say chaotically unorganized. We had a bunch of boring teacher meeting where I did absolutely nothing except get introduced then sit around and listen to rest of my teachers shout and argue with each other about various topics concerning their new schedules. Organization is not a strong point at Nicaraguan schools it seemed every day last week the schedule would change and the teachers would let the students go a few hours early so they could re-organize the schedule. I don’t know exactly why it took several tries but after talking with my fellow TEFL volunteers I learned that they were experiencing the same thing. In fact I learned today that the teachers are still working out the kinks in their schedules.
One interesting fact I learned at one of these boring meetings is that I got a new teaching counterpart. The one I had before that had gone through all the Peace Corps training and that had several years of teaching experience got moved to another school about an hour away from La Dalia. My new counterpart’s name is Mariling she is 23 and in her last year of university to be an English teacher. Her English is ok although she doesn’t understand me a lot of the time when I speak in English. She unfortunately didn’t receive any of the Peace Corps training just a quick call from my boss telling her what our role together is. I don’t feel that she quite understands what I am in the classroom for. So far I have just been sitting on the side while she does the teaching and then I read words off the board for the students to repeat back to me and proof read her lesson plans. When I called my boss for advice she said that I was right this was not my role and that is a common mistake that Nicaraguan teacher make when they first get a volunteer. When we plan together next I am going to bring this up so we can figure out how I can best be of service. I also want to talk to her about classroom management, because in my 7th grade classes they students are out of control. I am confident still that we can work out a solution.
Well that I all I have to say right now. I am going to post this today before the library closes. I will keep everybody updated on how things go at school more regularly from now on.
Check out this link to see pictures of my house
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2410042&id=11521764&l=6ad39c1fe2
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