"Si no es una cosa, es otra."

So now, in the cyber with the good music, THEY PLAY BOLLYWOOD. LOL. Crazy. I don´t really know where to begin updating. I met for the first time with the San Gregorio teachers last Friday, and today for the second time. There are 5 but only 3 are really serious and gonna come regularly. They are Gilberto, Jose Antonio, and Absalom. Today we met in San Gregorio, which is 2 bus rides, about 40 minutes, away. We alternate each week between there and Diriamba, which is 10 minutes away from me. I´m also now working with the other English teacher in my school, Mercedes, but she only teaches 7th grade, so that´s not much extra work. I haven´t been searching very hard for a house, but I should start. I am gonna try changing my malaria pills to see if it improves my hair loss problem. I also have a skin situation on my arms that the doctor said was nothing but it has spread so I´m gonna ask again. There are also a bit of constipation issues. In case you wanted all of my health deets. I have been having some strange abdominal pain for the past week, not severe, just strange, and some lower back pain, which I think is from spending a lot of time standing (in class) and reaching up high to write in the board. In other news, Luis is kind of officially turning into a rockstar. He signed some contract to perform in the artisan market in Masaya, so we´ll see how that goes. There have also been some modeling offers, and talk of going to some kind of music school that doesn´t cost a lot of money apparently. Did you know that there is some Mexican remake of High School Musical? It´s pretty much the same, except they play soccer instead of basketball. I was just watching it with my nieces. Oh, one of the cybers (not this one) has wireless internet, which is pretty exciting. I just told the guy working in this cyber about it, I still plan to remain loyal to him, he is the nicest cyber owner. My sister is moving to West Virginia, and my mom is in India, and my dad is in Cali and I am in Nicaragua. School has been pretty good, mainly trying out amazing activity ideas that fail because there are too many students in the classrooms. The class size ranges from 30 to 55. Still being a bit intimidated by Tania at times. I keep on finding students, and people in general, that remind me of people back home. Mostly friends. My schedule is falling into place, and I really want to start a youth group in addition to everything else. I got the mayor to pay for an announcement about my English classes that I´m starting on Tuesday. Hopefully not a ridiculously overwhelming amount of people show up, but a good amount. Today`s heat has drained all of the energy out of me. I´m gonna go now, byebye.

There are three internet cafes in Dolores. Two of them suck, but have printing. The third one, which is the best, is called Cyber Space, and the owners speak really good English, and the internet is fast, and they always have good, cool, hip English music playing. Sometimes you can hear them singing along (from inside their house which is connected to the cyber).

"¿Como sabes...?"

My body is freaking out on me a bit. I`m losing hair, I`m having sleeping issues where I wake up in the middle of the night for no reason and then have fitful sleep the rest of the night and wake up tired, but it seems like it`s fading right now. People are telling me it`s because of "nervios", or stress, but who knows. I`m also having allergy issues, which really aren`t that bad, but I`m on Zyrtec and Nasonex. And since I`m apparently on a rant about my health issues, let me just give you all all the details. I`ve had these wierd brown spots on the whites of my eyes for the past 3 or 4 years, and I never thought much of them at all, until this past June when my sister just noticed them for the first time on a drive home from Vegas, so I figured maybe they had grown or gotten darker or something. Most people don`t notice them at all. Anyways, she scared me, so I started looking stuff up on the internet, and ended up scaring myself some more reading stuff about cancer, and resolved to finally ask a doctor about it, and to save looking up health stuff on the internet as a last resort. Well, by this point, I had already sent in all of my medical information to Peace Corps, so of course I was afraid to make a doctor`s appointment because I was under strict orders to tell Peace Corps anything and everything about my health and I didn`t want some brown spots on my eyes to make them paranoid and decide I wasn`t ready to leave when I was supposed to leave. Anyway, I asked a doctor and he said it was fine and it was nothing, just pigmentation, which is exactly what I wanted to hear, and I was slightly relieved, but then he said "but, if you want, you could see an ophthalmologost" and of course I said "Oh no, if you think it`s nothing then I`m sure it`s fine". This whole situation still left some doubt, but, I have friends that will tell you I`m a bit of a hypochondriac, and during the beginning of Peace Corps training I was....ok I really don`t wanna tell this whole story. Anyway I finally saw an ophthalmologist here and he said everything was fine and that I don`t have cancer in my eye. I have conjunctival melanosis, which basically translates to brown spots on your conjunctiva. LOL.

I bought my first birthday present for a boyfriend today. That was nervewracking, as buying presents always is for me, which is why I prefer to make things.

School stuff started up this past week in the form of registration, which basically means wasting time talking to other teachers and not attending really to the students or their parents that come to enroll, OR meetings that end in shouting matches between the principal and the teachers. It`s probably very immature of me to post that here, or maybe not. Next week there are workshops for teachers organized by MINED (Minesterio de Educacion) and my counterpart says they are boring and stuff, but I`m gonna go because I should becausemy counterpart is required to and I need to hang out with her and talk about planning and school as much as possible while she isn`t at home tending to her kids. There is so much inefficiency throughout all of this but it isn`t my job to change how things are run, my job is to help English teachers in Nicaragua, especially the ones who genuinely ask for it.

A new group of Health trainees just got here three weeks ago, and since most of the towns in Masaya and Carazo are training towns, (including Dolores) there are 4 Health trainees in Dolores at the moment, which I am really excited about because I want to learn things from them and then teach those things to other people. This week they`re giving talks in the Health center about exercise and dental hygiene and other very necessary things. I`ve only met two of them that are here in Dolores, and 3 that are in Niquinohomo.

I have a lot of paperwork to fill out before February 15th, as well as planning first lessons and classroom routines and outlining rules and goals and all that teacher prep stuff that I have never done before in my life. There is also a birthday and Valentine`s day, and all of these teacher workshops next week, as well as my kids` English class. Again, my Spanish probably hasn`t improved as much as it should have, and I haven`t done all of the technical reading I told myself I would do, but I am just getting into this book called Blood of Brothers by an American journalist named Stephen Kinzer, which is all about the Sandinista revolution and civil (contra) war in Nicaragua. I had no idea what a Sandinista was when I got on the plane to Nicaragua, but it is a very significant word here, and I should probably make a brief post about Nicaraguan political history at some point. But I will say now that the Sandinista president, Daniel Ortega, is in the process of ammending the Nicaraguan constitution so that he can be legally re-elected this November, because the current constitution prohibits it in multiple ways. I am a little nervous some shit`s gonna go down come November, or even sooner. Nobody thinks it`s going to be serious and bloody or anything, but protests and stuff will definitely happen.

I should go now because I`ve been here for an hour and 15 minutes which is more than what I usually allow myself, and like I said, I got work to do, but I`m probably just gonna go back and read my book instead.

Peace.  

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.