Pictures of Dolores

I know my sister posted some pictures on facebook, and I will probably post these on facebook, but I wanted to post some here too!

In the green is Karellys(10), in the jeans and plaid is Mallerly(5), in the orange is Karellya(10), and in the yellow is Naomi(6 months). Karellys, Karellya, and Mallerly are my host sister, Janet`s, kids, and Naomi is my host brother, Raul`s, third kid.


This is Franco, Raul`s second kid, in the car on the way to the beach on Christmas day, eating some chocolate-covered marshmallow thing.


This is my host mom, Isolina, at the beach. My sister has posted much nicer pictures of her, though.


This is my room, from the doorway.


This is the lavandero, which is like the bathroom sink, the kitchen sink, and the laundry area.


This is the kitchen.


This is the living room.


This is my host dad, Francisco, with Naomi, in the living room.

I really never know what to write here anymore. Tuesday and Thursday English classes are over, school starts February 15th. I was supposed to be reaching out to some teachers in a rural area of Diriamba, called San Gregorio, to work with them during the school year, but I had planned to meet them today at TEPCE, which is a monthly teacher meeting to reflect and make basic plans for the following month, but there was no TEPCE today, probably because the school schedule got moved around and now school is starting later, so now I have to figure out how I`m gonna do that before Peace Corps thinks I`m a slacker. My sister brought me some dried mangoes from the states and they are delicious and are not gonna last very long. I have appreciated all of the food that has been sent to me, but I think I`m good now, and won`t be needing anymore. =) In terms of health, I just have allergy issues, but I`m handling it. I`ve also been losing a lot of hair, which could be stress but could also be the malaria pills I`m on, so I might have to change those, which I wouldn`t mind because they are the most disgusting pills I`ve ever taken. I`ll probably get a blood text next week to make sure I`m not deficient in anything or something. And my host mom has recommended a shampoo that worked for her but I`m afraid it just might be something for old people hair loss, not this kind of hair loss. Ummm...I need to actively start looking for another place to live that is just as ideal as the one I wanted. Oh yeah, I had dinner with my would-be neighbors, a young couple, and that was nice. We`re going out for pizza in Diriamba (which apparently has delicious pizza) next Sunday night. Alex (my host nephew) is in love with some girl from Rio San Juan, which is a long bus and boat ride away, and he spends hours on the phone with her and texting, and it`s really entertaining making fun of him; and we bond over our relationship problems (if and when we have them). My sister`s family got another really cute puppy, and named it...Pelusa, and now they just ignore the ugly one, Doky, who is not as cute but I still love him even though he is necio (naughty). Oh yeah, and 80 percent of the pets I know are named Pelusa, which just means like, furry, or fuzzy, like it`s like everyone in the states named their pet...Shaggy or Furball or something. There are some videos and pictures that I want to upload to facebook but every time I come to the cyber I remember that I want to upload them too late, and decide I don`t want to pay for more than an hour of internet time and that I`ll do it the next time. My sister also brought me a few office DVDs, and I`m halfway through them already. Actually, yeah, what I do want is TV shows, I would LOVE TV shows, or movies, but mostly TV shows because they last longer. Glee maybe, I would say Lost but people have told me if I watch those I won`t get ANY work done. More Office. Ummm, I`ve heard of this show called The Wire, which is supposed to be really really good but I know nothing about it.

So my sister visited me for the weekend and Luis gave her a present. As did my host mom. Ummm...I got to eat quite a bit of non Nicaraguan food in the form of sandwiches and got some delicious cheez its. I also got to go to the movies. But right now there are too many people to talk to online so I`m gonna go.

Incidences.

The other day in this cyber cafe (the one that I am in, the best one in the Dolores, the best one I have been to in Nicaragua) I met this guy named Paul who is from Canada and he is an industrial engineer (or something) and he told me how he has a bunch of Indian friends and has been to India and has been to a garba in India, and was like "It`s funny, I`ve been all over the world, and I met my wife in Pali." (Pali is a supermarket chain in Nicaragua). Anyways he got married and has been living here for 7 years. He`s a little older, and he was interesting.
There is this place called El Mirador, and it`s just like this pretty lookout over the Laguna de Apoyo, and it is in Catarina which is a town right next to Niquinohomo, anyways, the other day I went there and got a little private concert from Luis and his friend, which was really really nice, I have videos I`ll put them up as soon as I can. He plays the violin and the guitar and sings; it`s all pretty dreamy, I know.
My sister is coming to visit tomorrow!! That`ll be fun and nice with awkward meetings with all of the people in my life.

So the house got rented to someone else, but it`s okay.
The first two university student classes went well, the last one is on the 29th.
I`m just tired and overwhelmed at the moment but that doesn`t mean im not happy.

Life Update

I haven`t included nearly as many details in this blog as I did in my Costa Rica one. It doesn`t really compare, because there is so much more (yet so much less) happening and so many more feelings and joys and frustrations, but I`m hoping this post will be thorough.

Work: In 10 weeks of Peace Corps training I learned about using communicative activities to teach English as a foreign language. The idea of speaking ONLY English in an EFL classroom was drilled into my head. I learned about using I do, We do, You do, in lesson planning, along with some other formats. I learned that class sizes range from 30 to 60 students, and there are virtually no resources except my brain and my creativity. I learned that I am not nervous standing in front of a classroom full of teenagers, but that I am VERY slow at lesson planning and it is HARD. I still have a long way to go before I feel really confident in my ability to successfully teach English as a foreign language according to the high standards set by my bosses. I`ve started these community classes here in Dolores, and they are going okay. I speak far more Spanish than I should, but that is going to change. Today. It started off with just everyone being invited, Tuesdays and Thursdays for an hour and a half, but then I realized that there was such a wide range of abilities that I needed to make two classes. So I did, and Tuesday was more basic, and Thursday was more advanced. People ended up just coming to both anyways. But I still teach more difficult stuff on Thursdays than on Tuesdays. THEN, I thought I would make it even more easier on myself and make the division between the classes easier by making a kids`class, for people 12 and under (because Nicaraguan youth don`t start learning English till 7th grade, so that would mean all of the students in the kids` class would HAVE to be at the same level because none of them had taken ANY English yet. Boy was I wrong). But things are getting better and I`m learning but I have gotten lazy in terms of the using-no-Spanish-at-all rule. My counterpart, Tania, has worked with 5 sets of Peace Corps TEFL trainees, because Dolores is a training town. So she has TRAINED people like me. And she already knows all of the things I learn and do and am supposed to be teaching and sharing with HER, because other trainees have practiced with her. But she really wanted a full-time TEFL counterpart, so here I am. I feel so unqualified to be her counterpart, because not only does she have more experience working with Peace Corps than I do, but she has more general teaching experience than I do. Basically there are very high expectations of me here, and I`ve realized that that is necessary for me, to keep me on my toes and constantly trying to improve.

"Home" life: My host family is awesome. I feel more comfortable with them already than I did with my training host family after 10 weeks of training. Probably because I spend more time with them and I`m not running around doing training stuff. My host mom lets me help her in the kitchen, and has made me a bunch of clothes. I ask her for advice about how certain things I might do might be viewed in Nicaragua, and sometimes she tells me bits of local gossip. They have said I could live with them for the entire two years, but I am eager to cook for myself and have privacy to do things my way without having people look at me funny. UGH, and now the shitty part, I found the perfect house, but now the security officer can`t come for a long time to check it out, and people are always looking for places to live, so they are going to find someone else who wants that house pretty soon, and I can`t promise landlords anything to make them hold the house for me (or maybe I should just lie) without Peace Corp`s approval, so I`m pretty sure I`m gonna lose that house and I`m SO bummed and frustrated. And I met my potential neighbors last night and they are SO cool and it would be SO nice to live there, I know I won`t find anything better or more affordable. I don`t know when I`m gonna get over this.

Emotional health: Stress about housing, stress about my abilities, stress about my relationship with my counterpart (because I know if I felt more comfortable and less intimidated by her we could be better friends, but I can`t help but feel like I need to act super professional and prove myself to her, and I know she wants to be better friends), a little bit of stress about my health and weight gain, stress about how much time I should or should not be spending with a significant other outside of my site, stress about money (but not much). This is the state right now, but a few weeks ago I was genuinely happy and comfortable and content, and I`m hoping those feelings will come back again. If the house situation ends up being in my favor, I`m sure everything will be good again.

Social life: I`m becoming pretty good friends with my counterpart`s younger sister, Ana Luisa. I`m also becoming better friends with my host nephew, Alex, who is 19. That`s about it. And I guess this is a good time as any to announce that I`ve found myself a Nicaraguan boyfriend, Luis, and I see him twice a week. I`ll write more about him some other time. Other than that my host mom, Isolina, will take me with her to random social events. I`ve met a lot of people through English class, so that`s good. No good, solid friends yet, but I´m not worried.

Keeping in touch with people back home: I`m starting to miss people and interactions from back home more now than places and food like I did initially. I`m not really sad or anything, but I do feel out of touch and want more emails and updates! I will post some more pictures on facebook soon too, I`m gonna start getting better at that.

Next week there is some in-service training, so I`ll get to see all my friends from training for a few days, that`ll be nice I think, If I remember not to be stressed out about my housing situation.

Over the past few days I`ve been wondering if I really should have waited and taken a position doing health education, even if I wouldn`t have left already. Becuase it is so necessary in Nicaragua, its almost ridiculous how much people don`t know about nutrition. But in Nicaragua, the health volunteers mostly talk about HIVAIDS and prenatal health and I don`t know how qualified I am to lead conversations about sex and AIDS and make Nicaraguans feel comfortable talking about it when I don`t even know how comfortable I am talking about it.
But then when I`m motivated I`m pretty much happy.

"Tienes un espejo en tus pantalones? Porque puedo verme en los." - Anonymous

That title is a little risky in case a student or my counterpart see it, but I don´t think they will. This week I had my first kids´ class and it was kind of a failure; hopefully more people come next time. On the 30th, the environmental education volunteers that trained in Dolores (the same time TEFL volunteers had training, they came in with us) came back, including the guy that lived in my host family`s house, so I hung out with them, had some beers, shared some of my Trader Joe`s goodies, it was nice. Also the lights went out for longer than they ever have before, right after we removed the largest spider and cockroach I`ve ever seen (not in a cage) from our house. On the 31st I went to Niquinohomo, hung out with my host family, visited with Andrea, Sam, Julie and Matt, and partied with my host family, and said people came to party as well, in addition to Jane, the small business development volunteer who lived with my family during her training, and her Nicaraguan boyfriend. In Nicaragua, New Year`s parties don`t really start until midnight. I didn`t know that until this day. That was fun. Sunday was an adventure. Today there were goodbyes but I`m gonna see these people again in a week for counterpart day and in-service training that we have next week. I`m stressed about my four classes this week, but I`m excited for a concert that I`m going to on Saturday. I felt more close to my Niquinohomo host family than I ever have this weekend when my host mom played with my hair extensively. K my internet time is almost up. Peace.