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.