"no voy a dejar que te pasa nada"

Just got back from four grueling days of in-service training. Tuesday through Thursday we had lectures and workshops with our counterparts, and Thursday to Friday it was just TEFL 54 volunteers. I learned a lot, and am so excited to start the new semester fresh with all of the changes me and Tania are planning to make in our classes in terms of encouraging more participation (in English) and discipline, which is, to me, the biggest issue. Actually, there are lots of big issues. Like class always being cancelled for some assembly or meeting or random day off. Like paperwork for the Ministry of Education that takes priority over teaching a class. Anyways, I'm still excited to start implementing all of this stuff, and being MORE for my 2 counterparts (Tania and Mercedes), and for Cesar and for Jose Antonio and Ramiro and Gilberto and Absalom and all of the English teachers in Diriamba and Dolores. As well as for Michael and Carlos and Melvin and Tatiana and Daniela and Stefania and Stefania's little sister and Katherine and Guadalupe and Anyeli and Ayaris and Gioconda and Gabriela and Olga and Vladimir and Sergio and Belkis and Eduardo and Freddy and Yasmina and Martha Elisa and her little daughter for my awesome bosses and fellow volunteers and finally for the incoming TEFL 57 trainees! I have learned a lot this semester and I can't wait to improve myself.

Last Saturday I woke up with diarrhea followed an hour or two later by stomach pain so I did a stool test and discovered I had amoebas. I'm blaming the increase of flies in my kitchen and EVERYWHERE. I had to take one pill four times a day for three days, and another one three times a day for 10 days! For the amoeba BABIES! Yuck. I have just finished day four of the second kind. I really don't like pills. And I think these pills are messing with my stomach a bit too. There is always something. But I did sign up for Peace Corps and all that goes with it. Half of the people at in-service training were sick with parasites or bacteria or some gastro-intestinal issue.

I keep forgetting to take my camera everywhere.

"si es amor abrazame con ganas, si no lo es tal vez sera mañana"

I semi-recently posted about being bored, correct? And that nothing new and exciting was happening to me anymore? Well, I spoke too soon. Two weekends ago, I went to Niquinohomo on a Sunday morning. I was gonna stay the night, and leave the next morning for Managua. The bus from Niquinohomo passes right in front of the place I was supposed to go to, so I thought I might as well leave from there. Anyway, I am approaching my stop in Niqui, so I do the usual, stow away my ipod, get up, tell the cobrador (The person that collects the money on the bus and also shouts out to people telling them where the bus is going and also tells the bus drive when a passenger wants to get off) that I want to get off at 'tapiceria' and some time in between when I got up, was talking to the cobrador, and waiting for the stop, someone opened my backpack and took out my wallet and my ipod. Partly my fault, because I had both of those things, along with my phone, in the same very accessible pocket of my backpack, which I had on my back, not in my arms, forgetting everything the Peace Corps security officer has told us because I am getting too comfortable and too trusting, and bad things ONLY happen in Managua, right? Anyway, Neha of course, doesn't notice until about half an hour later and deep into an animated conversation with her host mom that that particular pocket of her backpack is open, and realizes that two critical things are missing. Freak out a bit, run back onto the street to see if maybe I dropped it, knowing that that was not the case but doing it anyway, and trudging back to my Niqui host family's house, call the bank to block my account, and send sad text messages to Luis. At this point I have no money, so I borrow 100 cords from my host mom (From now on I will refer to my Niquinohomo (training) host mom as Julissa) to survive for the next two days. Then I make Luis come with me to make a police report, which I need to ask Peace Corps for a reimbursement on the cash I happened to be carrying at the time, which was about 400 cords. Oh yeah, I also had a flash drive in my wallet. The second one I had bought here. And last weekend I just bought my third. =/. The rest of the day goes by normally, but feeling stupid. So I needed some official Niquinohomo Police stamp on the police report, but they didn't have it at the time (of course) and I didn't get it until Tuesday, when they decided they needed to interview Luis too. I had to make a bunch of annoying trips to Managua to get a new ID and to get my passport so I could get a new credit card and then to return the passport (because Peace Corps keeps our passports so that we can't run away). And I guess I have survived surprisingly well without my beloved ipod, but I'm gonna have to find some other ways to entertain myself on buses.
I have ANOTHER story about this past weekend, but I'll write about it later.
In regards to work, tomorrow begins the semester break, which is a week and a half. Not much of a break though, because 4 days of it is in-service training with my counterpart (the 12th till the 15th), and then I'm helping out at a girls' camp another volunteer is doing in San Marcos (another municipality of Carazo) and she wants me to do the HIV/AIDS part, so I gotta study up on that and come up with a fun way of talking about it. That is on the 18th and 19th, and school starts back up on 20th. I'm looking forward to it all though, mix things up a bit. And awaiting the motivational push that in-service training is going to give me.
I should really sleep now. Got a lot of work to do tomorrow.
Peace.

"Esta comida es de Neja y Luis, cuidado Concho se la come, ellos van a venir." - note from Luis' mom

All of the important people in my life think so differently from each other. How IS success measured, REALLY? Can anyone answer that?