854 días de amar

the words accompany this track: https://soundcloud.com/reylucas/dias-de-amar

 

(vienen ya) a un país de montañas, de mar y de selva

(vienen ya) a un barrio al que el Tip-Top a domicilio nunca entra

porque lo que pierde Tip-Top no perdás vos, no tengás miedo de nada

porque aquí, si sos buena onda, te cuidan y te hablan de cualquier chochada

(vienen ya) a un lugar donde los y las jóvenes se pueden recrear sanamente,

donde aprenden y crecen y saben relacionarse mejor con la gente

porque aquí compartimos y convivimos y buscamos el calor humano,

porque este mundo es difícil y no sos ni miércoles sin tus hermanos…

… y hermanas, porque aquí también vivimos la igualdad de género

y ¡oigan! no se olviden que mi cumpleaños es el 2 de enero

espero muchos saludos en Facebook… cuidado no lo hacen

y más allá y más importante que eso… ¡cuidado no se bañan!

pero, en serio, he vivido aquí ochocientos cincuenta y cuatro días de amar

y he aprendido mucho, mucho, MUCHO más que he enseñado,

de los dichos, los doble sentidos, la jerga y cómo se habla en nicañol, a

qué significa luchar, qué significa la hospitalidad, qué significa dar.

porque aquí los y las nicaragüenses dan hasta lo que no tienen,

dan porque vivir solidario es la única manera de vivir bien

y esa es la lección que para mí ha sido la más importante

no te puedo arreglar a vos, ni vos a mí, pero juntos, sí podemos

y otra cosa, he recibido el amor, el cariño, el perdón y la aceptación

he aprendido la humildad, la comunidad, la lucha y la gracia

y con todo el amor de mi corazón, sabiendo que las palabras siempre hacen falta

han sido ochocientos cincuenta y cuatro días maravillosos, gracias, gracias, gracias

a translation:

854 days of loving

(come now) [i just realized that my spanish was bad on this one, oops!] to a country of mountains, of sea and of forests

(come now) to a neighborhood where Tip-Top [fried chicken chain] delivery never enters

don’t miss out on what Tip-Top does, don’t be afraid of anything

because here, if you’re chill, people will take care of you and talk to you about whatever

(come now) to a place where youth can play safely and healthily

where they learn and grow and know how to relate better with others

because here we share and we live together and we find warmth

because this world is difficult, and you ain’t wednesday [play on a spanish curse word] without your brothers…

…and your sisters, because here we also live gender equality

and listen up! don’t forget that my birthday is on january 2

i expect everyone to congratulate me on facebook… beware if you don’t

and more importantly… beware if you don’t bathe! [very common nicaraguan joke]

but, seriously, i’ve lived here eight hundred fifty-four days of loving

and i’ve learned much, much, MUCH more than i’ve taught

from expressions, double meanings, slang and how to speak nica spanish,

to what it means to struggle, what hospitality means, what it means to give

because here nicaraguans give even what they don’t have,

they give because living in solidarity is the only way to live well

and this is this the lesson that for me has been the most important:

i can’t fix you, you can’t fix me, but together, we can

and another thing, i’ve received love, affection, forgiveness and acceptance,

i’ve learned humility, community, struggle and grace,

and with all the love in my heart, knowing that the words are never enough,

these have been eight hundred fifty-four incredible days, thank you, thank you, thank you

Language: A Whooole New Wooooooooooorld

One of the main reasons why I wanted to do international volunteering was to improve my Spanish. Despite having studied Spanish for a combined 6 years in high school and college, despite trips and studies in El Salvador, Mexico, and Spain, I’ve never felt quite comfortable with actually using it. On all my trips, overwhelmed by having to decipher actual Spanish-speakers who spoke fast and with correct accents, I retreated into the safety of my numerous English-speaking companions, only using it when I had to and happily delegating local interaction to others. Knowing that I hadn’t fully immersed myself in these places, that I hadn’t challenged myself to put the knowledge I knew I had to use, I came to Nicaragua determined to improve my Spanish.

So, now that I’m 14 months in, where am I now? I realized this while riding the bus recently on the way to work: I’m doing pretty well! Interestingly enough, if you use the language you want to learn, you learn it. I’ve found myself able to make conversation with strangers, friends of friends, taxi drivers, you name it. I can understand pretty much anyone, and my ability follow conversations between Nicaraguans (even if I’m just overhearing them– NO, IT’S NOT EAVESDROPPING!) is improving more and more. I can form more and more complex sentences, am able to respond faster and more coherently, and my on-the-fly conjugation, while it has its off days, is pretty damn good (if I do say so myself). People tell me that I speak good Spanish, they compliment me on my accent… it’s great!

What I’m most proud of, though, is that it’s not just Spanish I’m getting the hang of; it’s Nicaraguan. And Nicaraguan is a different beast altogether (just as Salvadoran/Mexican/whateverSpanishspeakingcountry is different). It’s the slang (“¡qué tuani, mae!“) it’s the double-meanings (that result in uproarious laughter whenever I fall into them), it’s the pronunciation and accent, it’s the different cultural connotations of certain words and the contexts in which they can be used (it’s also a never-ending process; I find myself continuously altering little details of knowledge, and I’ve come to more than a few realizations that something I thought was totally innocuous is actually kind of strong). And for me, understanding Nicaraguan Spanish, and what makes it uniquely Nicaraguan, has been and still is a critical part of my acculturation process. Language expresses the values, and perspectives of a culture and the individuals within it; when I ask someone how they’re doing, and instead of answering “fine,” or “ok,” they say “allí vamos” (more or less “we’re getting there”), it expresses a forward-looking optimism that embraces the struggle of life and believes that there is something to be struggled for. Understanding what people say to me and how they say it means I have the ability to understand them as people. And understanding them means I can build relationships with them, bridge those gaps of culture, distance, history, privilege, etc. Language grants me access (albeit not total and definitely not objective) to the Nicaraguan experience in a way that can’t be understood by just seeing it on TV or in photos.

a photo with my boy Melvin, and a little Halloween costume language joke. Gallo… pinto. Get it?

Which brings me to the picture I posted above. “Quip kalm end espic Espanglish.” These days, I stick in Spanish words whenever they’re more convenient; “I took advantage of” is now “I aprovechar‘d,” “You dressed up all fancy!” is now “You’re all arreglada/o!” There’s also certain things that I just can’t say anymore. If anyone reading this could shoot me an email and give me one word to call someone who has a taste for the finer, more expensive things in life and is very reluctant to ever let them go, that’d be awesome. Until then, though, I’m gonna call these people fresas.

One would think that this loss of English might be concerning, considering that my current plans are to return to the United States permanently following the end of my 30 months here in Nica. I, however, look at it differently. I, and other volunteers (shout out to my wonderful Volunteer Missionary Movement, Witness for Peace and Jesuit friends) speak Spanish all day in our jobs, and when we hang out with our Nicaraguan friends and neighbors. And eventually, our language changes; we all navigate Spanish and English so well that they start to mix, and for me, it’s almost like we have a secret volunteer language that allows us to express ourselves much more clearly and accurately to each other than in either Spanish or English. What Espanglish shows me is that we are successfully building relationships we are here to make, bridging the gaps that we are here to cross. It shows me that we are leaving ourselves open to learning, that we are vulnerable and letting ourselves be changed, that we are staying present and really living here. We alter our beliefs, our values, and our perspectives, and we alter our language.

KITTEN MADNESS

So, for those who don’t know, back in October/November, we had a SLIGHT mouse problem. We ended up borrowing Chepe’s cat, Perrita (Spanish for “little dog”. clever, right?) for a few months, and although she did get rid of the mice, she ended up giving us a gift (or 4) bigger than a mice-free house: KITTENS!

I unfortunately can’t find a picture of all 4 at the moment, but there were 2 grey-with-dark-stripes, one named Manny (named after the Modern Family character) and the other named Mia (short for “Mi Amor”), and 2 black cats (although 1 had some white hairs sprinkled around), Osito (Little Bear) and Viejito (Little… Old Person). We’ve ended up keeping Mia at the house, while Chepe keeps both Perrita and Manny, and Osito and Viejito have gone to homes of friends. But, here’s some pictures I’ve taken:

the kittens really enjoyed cuddling in the bag that held our garbage bags

Manny! he was my favorite until THE GIRLS made us give him away... and now his eyes are brown!

yeah, they love me.

i came into my room last night, and found Mia here...

nappin' on the laundry basket

it's like a mirror image!

what a look of amazement!

Manny in his bed/food bowl

Along with all the awesome that comes with kittens, work is pretty good, too. At the beginning of the year, I opened up English classes for kids, but after a few weeks of doing English for 6 hours a day (and ending with kids who had just finished school and want to do ANYTHING but sit still for another hour), I decided it was too much. Luckily, the new Jesuit volunteer, Chelsea, decided to put her Childhood Education degree and English-teaching experience to use, and now I only teach in the mornings to adults. Speaking of which, here are a couple shots from a class a couple weeks ago:

my intermediate adult class! from left to right: Keling, Ernesto (we call him Don Ernesto out of respect for his age) and Danny

An exchange that Danni asked me to translate from Spanish: "Pensé que no fuiste al inodoro"; "Yo fui porque tengo diarrea."
Just another day in English class, haha

In addition to that, a project that I think I’ve mentioned before, Jóvenes Comunicadores, has begun! We just finished up our first workshop on editing video, where the participants made their own short videos about the creation of a “culture of peace” in their neighborhoods. At the end of this month we’ll be entering an audio editing workshop. Should be fun!

One last story: my good friend (and Jesuit volunteer) Heather works at a library, and every year they have a little festival to promote reading and the library to the community, especially the kids. One night, she had a dream that at this festival, I was on a stage, rapping about reading. So the next day she called and asked if I wanted to do that. My answer was HELL YES! So, next Friday, April 13, I will be rapping about reading to 100+ Nicaraguan kids! Here’s hoping I can be to them what Lavar Burton was to me. I THINK there’ll be video, and if there is, it will definitely be posted here.

More transitions…

On January 14, we had a killer party. Food, drinks, loud music and dancing. It was a great time. We were celebrating Megan’s return to the United States, and giving all of our friends one last time to say goodbye. We put out a small table with paper and pens, and everyone wrote little notes to her. Afterwards, we put all the notes in a little book for her to remember us, her friends, and Nicaragua by.

 

Then, the next day, Margarita/Courtney moved out into her new home in Monseñor Lezcano, a barrio nearby to the northeast of Batahola Sur, with our good friends Mache (a coworker in CANTERA) and Amanda (an ex-Volunteer Missionary Movement Volunteer). Margarita is beginning a new job as a (paid!) employee of CANTERA, working in fundraising. Amanda is doing the same in the Cultural Center of Batahola Norte, our sister barrio to (as you could probably guess) the north.

 

And THEN, eaaaaarly Friday morning (I’m talking 4:45AM here), the 5 of us and Chepe went to the airport to bid Megan goodbye on her return. There was some last minute baggage adjustments (which resulted in a new cinch backpack for me! Score!), but eventually Megan made it through, and last I heard, she was sitting comfortably in her home in Appleton, WI, with some pretty snow and a helluva lot of cold haha.

Margarita/Courtney on the left, Megan on the right

 

So, this past week has been a little bittersweet. I’m glad for both Megan and Margarita; they’re moving on to new phases of their life, and surely it’s gonna be a great time for them. They did the volunteer thing, owned it, and now they’re ready to go to the next level. Hell yeah. At the same time, it’s sad to see them go. And, in typical human fashion, I didn’t really notice it until (you guessed it!) they had gone. Looked through a bag of stuff that Megan had given me, saw a photo of us at the Jóvenes Constructores graduation that she had given me, and BANG! pangs in the chest. And no offense, world and my other community members, but no one hugs quite like Margarita. At least she’s just about a half hour walk/10 minute bus ride away.

 

BUT, I’m also pumped for the future. Our community of three has jumped out of the gate, with efforts led by Isa and Ana to clean, redecorate and reorganize the house. It’s transformed nicely, and I quite like the look of it. These girls got IDEAS. As well, work has begun again, albeit a bit slowly. Last week, Chelsea (Sean’s replacement) and I spent our mornings in the Soya, cleaning and hanging out, and going back home before lunch. It was nice to have a chill work week to get to know everyone again (it’s strange how long a month and a half actually feels), and to take advantage of a BALLER deal in Dimitrov for January: C$5 12 oz. and C$7 500ml soda! You just can’t beat that. It was also good, I think, for Chelsea, to integrate a bit more and get to know everyone that comes around the Soya, and begin to think about the stuff she wants to get involved in. The Rap Workshop I’ll be doing (I’ll write about that once it actually starts) is gonna start on the 31st, English is gonna start again on the 6th, and the Jóvenes Comunicadores project I’m helping out with is gonna start, and so it’ll be a busy, challenging (but hopefully fulfilling) next 12 months.

 

Also, this happened:

2-1 against Real Madrid! Visca el Barça!

 

That’s about it for now. This Sunday’s gonna be full of cleaning, community meetings, preparation, and (hopefully) watching the Niners/Giants game. Go Niners!

December, Christmas and New Years

December is a BUSY time here haha. I’ve spent the entire month running around and in meetings, as everyone in CANTERA rushes to meet end-of-the-year deadlines. And now, here I am, about to head on the Cap Corps retreat with Marcia and the Managua crew tomorrow, and then when we get back on the 11th, it’s back to work! Quite hectic.

From December 15-17, I was in the yearly CANTERA Spirituality Retreat, along with about 80 other people from various organizations all over Nicaragua, and from other countries, too (including Spain! Shout out to my new Basque friends!). The first day, I thought “this is the dumbest thing ever. All we’re doing is the same repetitive dance moves to slow repetitive music for 15 minutes, and then repeating those 15 minutes twice.” I was expecting a bit more talking and sharing, more about forming “spirituality” (because does anyone REALLY know what that word means?), and I got frustrated to the point of just walking out of a communal dance after the second repetition. However, I talked to Linda (the CANTERA Youth Program Director), and she explained (and the retreat leaders may not have explained this, or maybe I just wasn’t listening closely enough) that this retreat was about communal forms of spirituality (in her [paraphrased] words, “like our indigenous ancestors”), achieved especially through physical interaction. And, as pretentious and new age-y as it sounds (and probably is), after understanding what it was about, it worked for me. I lost myself in the dances we did, in the music, and really felt a sort of unity with the entire group (something that everyone else claimed to feel as well). I felt my “energy” (Jesus Christ, I feel silly typing this), normally kind of spread out throughout my body, “centered” in a way, in a big ball below my heart. And, despite not sleeping more than 5 hours per night during these three days, during and for a while after each dance, I felt, truly, tranquility. I was relaxed and calm, but alert and awake. It was a really new, cool experience, and I really feel like I’m starting to form a stronger connection between my body and my mind, and allow myself to entregar (sorry for non-Spanish speakers, but it’s really the best way I can describe this. It translates pretty much as: give over to) myself into my body and allow it to do what it wants to do. Which is useful (and not, many times haha) when I’m shaking it at a club. But yeah. This was a really cool, eye-opening experieince.

This Christmas was unlike any other I’ve experienced. Mostly because it took place in Nicaragua. On Christmas Eve, Megan, Isa, Ana and I (Margarita was in the United States celebrating with her family) went to our good friend Mache’s house to hang out and bake cookies and all that. It was fun, and I got to eat some baller cookies, courtesy of Megan’s parents or friend (whoever sent her the mix), and Ana’s sugar cookie recipe. Ana and I decided to sleep over, and Mache’s little sister, also called Ana, came down from Somoto (where Mache’s from, way up north) to spend the night, as well. Mache THEN got a call from her cousin (whose name, unfortunately, escapes me), who invited us to hang out with her and her landlord and their house a few minutes’ taxi ride away.

Apparently, in Nicaragua Christmas dinner isn’t eaten until midnight. This was difficult, and we failed miserably; at one point, Mache and her cousin’s friend went to a gas station to pick up some junk food to hold us over. In fact, we didn’t even make it until midnight (mostly because people started getting tired). We drank rum, talked and listened to music, and at around 11:15 we ate a chicken dish that the cousin’s landlord had made, roasted in the oven with a rich stuffing/sauce with olives, carrots, tomatoes, onions, peas, and a few other vegetables. It was damn glorious. Then, at midnight, as we were trying to head back to Mache’s to sleep, the fireworks started. EVERYWHERE. It was the closest thing to a battlefield I’ve ever experienced (except not at all). EVERYWHERE we looked, people were setting them off; cars drove over them, people rode and walked by them because there really just wasn’t a way around it all. It continued until about 4 in the morning. And for the next few days after. UNTIL….

I went to El Salvador on the 27th to visit my good friend Meredith, as she prepared to lead an Oberlin delegation to the little rural community of Santa Marta, up in the northern department of Cabañas.

The red part!

Santa Marta is located just above Victoria, in this photo:

Just about a bumpy half hour bus ride north!

I met her, her friend Chabe, Chabe’s sister Leti, Leti’s husband Silvestre, their daughter Luz (or Lucita), the woman Meredith stayed with for the time I was there, Doña Cipriana (approximate spelling), and a man whose name I forget because I just saw him this one time, at the airport. They drove Meredith and I the five hours from the airport to Santa Marta, and dropped me off at my host family’s house that evening. My host family was made of the father, Ramón; the mother, Márgara; their sons, Giovani (12) and Elceo (approximate spelling, 6); their daughter, Saraí (approximate spelling, 4); and Márgara’s niece, Rosa (19). They were AWESOME! They were very chatty, the kids were really nice and played with and talked to me, Márgara cooked awesome food, and I felt very comfortable and at home. I rewatched Grease (and decided I liked the songs, but still not the message), saw The Little Mermaid, Cinderella 2, and Beauty and the Beast Christmas courtesy of Saraí (who also decided to act out The Little Mermaid for me), and got to know a Mexican comedy show, El Chavo del 8 (The Boy from Apartment 8). Ramón was also an amateur DJ, and loved to blast music and practice mixing and stuff. It was cool.

I really enjoyed my time in Santa Marta; I spent a lot of it just relaxing at my house or at Leti’s with Meredith and Chabe, and it was a nice break from the city and the busy-ness of Managua. Silvestre had three birthday parties, three days in a row, and they were chill, with just food, a few drinks, family and friends. I’m really grateful to Chabe and Leti and their family for letting me celebrate with them, despite the short time we had known each other.

I spent part of New Year’s at Leti’s, taking part in a New Year’s Secret Santa with their family. Chabe was my Secret Santa, and gave me a necklace, El Salvador and F.C. Barcelona bracelets, boxers (she said I looked like I didn’t wear any), and soap (she said I looked like I didn’t use it). FUN TIMES! After that, my host family came by to pick me up to go to Márgara’s other niece’s house for their New Year’s party, but as we were walking away, I realized that I hadn’t said goodbye to Meredith, and told them I would catch up. This was a bad idea. I had no idea who the relative was or where their house was; I just knew that they had a sweet sound system, and so I figured I would “follow the music.” HA. There was also a community-wide dance going on, and by “following the music,” I ended up going down a bunch of dark paths and across a river only to find myself there, and realizing that they weren’t going to be there. So I went back and had to jump my house’s gate in order to get my cell phone so I could get some light, and then proceeded to follow every other path until I got uncomfortable doing so, before I gave up and went back to Leti’s, where people were still hanging out. It was here that the night took a turn for the worse.

Despite the music, the party’s atmosphere was really chill, and no one was really dancing or anything. I was just hanging out, conversing, and the topic came up about drinking before dancing. I mentioned that, in the United States, a lot of people tend to drink before dancing, and Chabe’s baby daddy made a little jibe about gringos (he’s Bolivian and has lived in the United States for the last 20 years) and their “party time,” in English. Not understanding what he meant, I shook it off, but he kept going (in English). He said that I “brought my privilege” down to El Salvador, and I tried to play it off again, saying “just a little bit.” But, he kept going. He started to talk about how “so many gringos just like you pass through here,” and how “he knew what I was doing, and when everyone else found out…” (he didn’t finish), how I always had a “sickness” (Whiteness), and when I tried to play it off again by saying “only half-White” he said, with a straight face, “it doesn’t matter.” He started talking about how it disgusted him to see me in El Salvador, “manipulating the kids,” and then he got up to get another drink, but not before sneering in my ear, “you STINK.” It was honestly, pretty chilling, and a little bit frightening (not the least because the guy is like 6 foot 3 and weighs probably about 180-200 pounds). I then sat down, and a little bit later Chabe asked me why I was so quiet, and I just tried to play it off, saying that I was tired and disappointed that I had been unable to find my host family. After talking to her for a little while, we figured out where they were, and she hooked me up with someone who was going to head that way. I got up to leave, said “¡Feliz año nuevo!” to everyone, and Chabe’s baby daddy called out to me, sarcastically, “Happy New Year!” I answered him back, and he replied “Fuck you!” to which I turned around and walked back. I apologized if I had offended him, and explained that it was “just your face.” I tried to explain to him that I had no other motives other than to get to know the community Meredith has really grown to love (this is her third January there), and to see her for the first time in a long time, but he never let me finish, he just kept going, saying that it doesn’t matter, I’m a White gringo, and that means I’m stained.

I ended up just walking away, and going to Márgara’s niece’s house, but what he said stuck with me, and still has been. Even though he was drunk, he was quite lucid and coherent, and there was such an intense hatred in the way he said what he said and in the look on his face that chilled me. The next day, I spent the entire day at my house, and felt incredibly anxious about leaving, wondering if every Salvadoran that I passed was thinking the same thing. I thought about it a lot, though, and I realized that if nothing else, I have a little bit better of an idea of what a lot of people of color have had to deal with, and how they may have left their houses every day feeling, for decades in the United States. It caused me to think a lot harder and a lot more honestly about the privilege I bring with me, and think a lot more concretely about the ways I want to, if not renounce it, find ways to use it so that other people can take advantage of it. It got me to think a bit more about myself as a mixed race person, and how I blend in (or don’t) in different places and different contexts. And, while the baby daddy didn’t apologize to me (Chabe says that he claims to have his reasons for feeling the way he does), I don’t mind that this happened. And, overall, everything in Santa Marta was wonderful.

So that’s about it for now. It’s a pretty crappy ending (in TWO ways, HA!) but I gotta finish getting ready for the retreat. I hope everyone reading this had a great Christmas and New Year!

A bit of news from Dimitrov

First, some sad news.

Last month, my community member Megan and I witnessed a fatal shooting. If you want to read about it, Megan wrote about it on her blog. One of those present at the shooting, a 13-year old boy who used to hang out at the Soya (however, I never personally knew him), was sent out of the barrio by his mother to protect him from revenge by the victim’s former gang. Apparently, he decided to come back, and yesterday while playing soccer, he ran away from the game to chase the ball, saw a member of the victim’s former gang, got shot and died shortly after. This happened a little way up the street from the Soya. He was a friend of our boss’ 11-year old daughter, and everyone in the Soya knew him. It was talked about a lot today, and people seemed to be taking it harder than the previous one (although maybe I’m just noticing it more this time). The first time, I just felt shock. I had never seen a shooting before, let alone someone dying, and I just really couldn’t believe that it had happened. But this time, I was angry. I was angry at the kid for coming back to the barrio despite knowing that people there would be very willing to kill him if they saw him, I was angry at the gangs for getting revenge, and pretty much just angry at the entire situation in the barrio.

We talked about the shooting with our English student Daniel, whose family we visited last month, and who lives very close to where the shooting took place. He told us that in Nicaragua, if a minor commits a crime, they are generally just let off the hook and go unpunished. There is no juvenile hall here, no program whatsoever for juvenile offenders. According to him and other people I’ve talked to, the father will be held responsible (although he apparently has left the barrio). Everyone is also completely sure that the cycle will keep continuing as the gangs keep seeking retribution.

This incident also affected the Jóvenes Constructores, whose microbusiness presentations and defenses were today. One of them, due to their connections with both victims and their residence in rival gang territory, did not feel safe coming to the Soya, and was unable to present. However, everyone is working on trying to find a way to provide them the opportunity.

But, aside from that, it was a great day for the Constructores! All 12 microbusiness plans were approved, and all will receive startup capital (and not a small amount, either), thanks to Catholic Relief Services. That was great. I was only able to see two of the presentations due to my commitments in English class, but the presentations were all well put-together, well-presented, and all their figures and projections were extensive and looked impressive to these completely untrained eyes. Fortunately, this isn’t the end of the program’s involvement; CANTERA and Catholic Relief Services will continue to check in with each joven as their business develops, specifically to provide assistance in financial management and generally to support and (to use my boss’ boss, Linda’s words) to accompany them.

A day of good and bad. I was just talking to Margarita about the shooting and my thoughts about the entire situation, and the conversation reminded me of a blog post from last November that she shared with us during reflection last Sunday. It’s about being an American volunteer in Nicaragua, and what our job really calls us to do. I encourage everyone to read it: http://jhc-cdca.blogspot.com/2010/11/to-hell-with-good-intentions.html

General update

It’s been a loooong while haha. I said this in the last post, but it never ceases to amaze me just how fast time seems to be going. In three weeks, the Jóvenes Constructores program will finish up, and there will be a celebration that Megan and I are going to have to perform for. In less a month and a half, I’ll be 22, Megan and Margarita will have moved out, and then just 8 months later, the new Cap Corps volunteers are going to come. It’s funny, since I remember feeling like the year and a half was SO LONG before I actually came here.

 

Even though they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving here, Megan and I have decided (in a repeat of last year) to hold an English class Thanksgiving celebration at our house. We’ve decided to go ALL OUT, so if you’re reading this, Mom, I would LOVE IT if you could send me your recipe and plan of action for cooking turkey 😀  I’ve also basically gotten my workload outlined for next year. I’m going to be assisting Marcelino, the CANTERA Communications man, with his program Jóvenes Comunicadores (Youth Communicators), acting as a liaison between him and the Communicators of the various territories. The main job of Jóvenes Comunicadores is to spread the information the youths are learning through CANTERA workshops and programs throughout the community, especially through audiovisual outlets, such as radio and video vignettes and posters. One thing that they apparently do not do a lot of, and one thing I want to talk to Marcelino about, is promote CANTERA and territory activities, to spread awareness and provide opportunities for the community to engage with CANTERA and its programs. There will be four audiovisual workshops for the Jóvenes Comunicadores that I will be attending, one of which I’m especially interested in since it’s about editing audio. Why would I be interested in that, you ask? Because, against my better judgement, I have decided to lead a Rap Workshop for youths in each territory, starting in February and ending in November. No, I won’t be teaching them how to rap; at least, I won’t be pretending to be a teacher. What I’m more interested in doing is providing an opportunity for expression, especially in a form that many of them enjoy listening to. It’s only in basic planning stages right now, but I really hope it can succeed. My goal is to have a mix CD recorded by the end of November, and maybe even put it up on the Internet to solicit donations. Keep your fingers crossed! Haha. I will also be taking over the English classes, and will most likely open up the class times to try and find new students. I may also be teaching a basic guitar class in Ciudad Sandino (although a Latin guitar class, so I need to learn that myself first haha). It looks like it’ll be a busy year, but hopefully a rewarding one!

 

I was supposed to go to El Salvador this weekend to attend the memorial celebration for the assassinated Jesuits of the University of Central America in San Salvador, but I’ve been sick since Wednesday with some strange stomach sickness. Sad boosh. If you’re curious about the Jesuit assassinations, I’ll provide a short summary. In the late 1980s, the Jesuit priests living and teaching at the University of Central America taught a Liberation Theology, which maintained that the liberation of the poor and oppressed was not only a good thing, but was imperative to living a Christian life. The political implications of this theology concerned the oppressive military Salvadoran government, which at the time was embroiled in a civil war. In order to silence the Jesuits, the infamous Atlcatl Battalion (which massacred 1,000 people a few years earlier in the small town of El Mozote) was sent in, and they shot up the Jesuit’s house, killing all six priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter. And, to remember their martyrdom and what they meant for social justice in El Salvador, there is an annual memorial celebration. Hopefully I can go next year.

 

That’s all for now. I hope everyone reading this is doing awesomely!

Managua and CANTERA

Note: this was written last Thursday, but due to unforseen complications, hasn’t been uploaded until now. Just so ya’ll get a sense of when this happened.

It’s quite hard to believe that I’ve been here for almost five weeks! The time really has flown.

Living in our house has been great so far. Megan and Courtney have been taking us around the neighborhood (Batahola Sur) a bit, introducing us to their friends and acquaintances. One woman, Claudia who lives with her husband and three(?) kids across the street, has been particularly awesome. We pass by her place often, and she and her family are always down to chat. She’s lent me a Nicaraguan cookbook and told me that she’s down to teach me whatever dish she knows (for some reason I’m wary of ethnic cookbooks… probably the CAST major in me), and in return I’ve been helping her a little bit with her English. Her kids, for their part, like to come by every once in a while to the house and say hi, and the youngest son, Mario, in particular just loves to yell “ADI-ADI-ADI-ADI-ADI-ADI-ADI-ADI” at us (“¡Adios!”). The adios thing is interesting. Here, and I think in most, if not all, Spanish-speaking countries, when people pass on the street, instead of saying “Hi!”  or “¡Hola!” like we do, they say “¡Adios!”,  “Goodbye!”. Since they all know I’m not Nicaraguan, sometimes they’ll speak in English, and say “bye bye.” If they want to actually have a conversation, that’s when they’ll say “hola.” I thought it was weird when I heard it while studying abroad in Spain, and it took a week or two to get used to here, but now that I think about it, it makes much more sense. Saying “Goodbye” when passing someone clearly and immediately signals your intentions, that you want to acknowledge that you know the other person and you’re happy to see them, but you don’t want to or don’t have the time to catch up (Alfredo, my host dad from Granada, also used to sit on the porch and yell out people’s full names as they passed by). Whereas in English, with always saying “hello;” I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m always unsure for a second about what people want to do, and when I say “hi” and decide to stop to have a conversation, more often than I’d like to admit the other person just keeps going. Whether this has something to do with failure to read body language and intonation or whatever, or with my habit of not showering, I don’t know. But my point is, I like this convention, even though an entire episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm would not exist without it.

We’ve also been spending a good amount of time with our friends Andrea and Sam (and our new friends Amanda and Greta) at the Volunteer Missionary Movement house in the neighborhood across the way, Batahola Norte, which is just across the street from the Centro Cultural de Batahola Norte, a community center that provides classes in performing and visual arts, technical and job-related skills, English, and other things. Their choir, Coro Ángel Torrellas de Batahola; named after the Spanish Dominican brother who started the choir, performed at the Rubén Darío National Theater, singing “Mass in C Major OPUS 86” (forgive me if this is wrong, I just copied this from the program) by one Ludwig von Beethoven. They’ve traveled quite a bit, including to the US, Canada, Mexico and Guatemala. I was quite impressed, and according to Andrea, who has sang in choirs, this piece is quite difficult, and was made moreso, apparently, by the dresses the women were wearing. Not too shabby for an open membership choir taken strictly from a single barrio!

Two streets away from us live Chepe, our Little Brother of Jesus local coordinator (who, while being born in the US, has been in Nicaragua for over 30 years and recently got his citizenship), and three young men who are considering becoming Brothers, Elbert, Miguelito, and Francisco. Every Tuesday we all get together for dinner and reflection, switching off between our house and their house. Elbert, Miguelito and Francisco are all great, and I’m looking forward to getting to know them better. On a slightly-related note, I have chosen to cook on Tuesdays (or, well, every other Tuesday), and am very pumped to hone my skills cooking for so many people (although nothing compared to the quantity that any Obie co-oppers have had to cook for). I’ve cooked my Nica version of Spanish paella (chiltoma, Nicaraguan green pepper, carrots, and chillote, a Nicaraguan mystery vegetable instead of red/green peppers, eggplant and asparagus) and salmorejo, to kind reviews (I didn’t do my best job), and I’m hoping to have Claudia over this coming Tuesday to teach me indio viejo, a sort of porridge-y thing with vegetables and beef, and tostones, basically Nicaraguan french fries made of plantains instead of potatoes (and frankly, I like them more). I thought there were pictures, but there aren’t any.

CANTERA is the non-profit here in Managua that Cap Corps has set up a partnership with to give us volunteers something to actually do here. Here is a handy tree that Lauren, a Jesuit volunteer living in Ciudad Sandino (a small town just outside of Managua) and working at the CANTERA youth center there, drew for us and Elizabeth copied down:

WHAT A TREE!

The program I’ll be working in with Megan and Elizabeth is the Urban program, for youth in poor areas. There are four centers, in Ciudad Sandino, in Dimitrov (this is the center where I’ll be doing most of my work), in San Judas, and Mateare (although most people pronounce it Matiari haha), a town further outside of Managua after Ciudad Sandino. Then there’s the Rural program, [in which Courtney and Ana work along with two other foreigners, Nicoletta (Italian) and Marius (I think that’s how you spell it… he’s Catalán), and three Nicaraguans (at least these were the people that went when I did), Juan Alberto, Erling (who is famous in our house for absolutely LOVING American boybands), and unfortunately, a woman whose name I can’t remember] which assists co-ops (I know that one is for honey, and maybe the other two as well?) in Belén, Mateare, and Ciudad Sandino, but also goes out further into the rural communities outside of Managua to encourage diversification in gardens and teach sustainable, organic agriculture to kids in schools. I rode along one day for that second part, and it was wonderful. Here’s some proof:

Juan Alberto (orange shirt) and Erling (in the background) teach me about gardens!

A proud farmer with his turnip!

A praying mantis posing for the camera

If I ever question why I'm living here... this is what I'm gonna look at

A pretty flower that Elizabeth took a picture of!

The view from someone's HOUSE.

The view from someone's HOUSE, part 2

Then, there’s the Natural Medicine program, which Lauren described as doing “pretty much what their name says, and whatever else they want.” Apparently there isn’t much interaction with that program haha. And then, there’s the “National Workshops,” or talleres, which are four one-week sessions spread out throughout the year about various things, including gender, whatever “deut” refers to, and probably other stuff, too. Megan and Courtney are in the gender workshop, which if it is still around next year I hope to get involved in, as well.

The basic principle of CANTERA (whose 23rd anniversary is actually today!) is popular education. It’s goal is to empower communities to use their own strengths and resources to develop and improve their community themselves. We were given a great presentation by Ramón, a Catalán man working for CANTERA in a capacity that I cannot remember at the moment, about this. He showed us a PowerPoint about some of the projects CANTERA sponsored in communities after a hurricane in 1996. In each case, they had an open community meeting, where they asked these questions: 1) what has our community looked like historically? 2) what do we want it to look like in the future? and 3) how can we make it look like that? I think there were a few more questions in there, but that’s the basic outline. And then, once communities agreed, they drew up plans, got their materials, and got down to work. It was incredible to see all of these planning stages, and see how everything actually ended up turning out pretty much exactly the way they planned.

At this point, I’d like to focus more on the Urban program. This principle of popular education is also carried out here, along with a heavy emphasis (which is also present in the Rural program) on the environment. This past weekend, we went to a campamento for the youth (which here means anywhere from ages 11-25) of all four centers at the Nicaraguan Sporting Institute (Instituto Nicaragüense de Deportes in Spanish), Megan, Courtney and Marius as staff and Elizabeth, Ana and I as participants. We woke up at 5:00AM, took a bus from Dimitrov at 6:00, and immediately started the activities when we arrived around 7:30. We didn’t stop until midnight, and with the energy and exuberance of the youth, many of us didn’t go to sleep until about 1:00 or 2:00, and in my room, there was this one guy who would yell “COMPAÑEROOOOOOS” about every 20 minutes until 3:00. In Marius’ room, which was supposed to be the quiet one, they hit anyone who fell asleep in the face with their pillows. We then woke up at 4:45 to do Zumba until 6:30, and then went until 4:00pM doing activities. Until yesterday, whenever anyone asked anyone else, Nicaraguan or foreigner, if they had recovered from the campamento, the answer was always “no.”

But there was a method to the no sleeping madness. There was quite simply a ton to do. There were a lot of games and activities, all of which were based on teamwork and communication. There was also a huge amount of dancing, and the first night ended with a talent show, where dance groups and theater groups from each community performed their own choreography and plays. These activities were interspersed with talks about leadership, empowerment and the environment, trying to inspire the youth (or at least get the idea in their heads) to take control of their personal and communal futures. We were split into teams of about 50 youths (I was on the Águilas [eagles]), where we had to decide as a group our team name, our war cry and team dance, and had to elect a leader. We then used these teams to complete various really fun challenges, which involved pour water from a bucket into a cup, passing through one of those rope spiderwebs, and a treasure hunt.

I went into the campamento at first thinking, “Oh, this is gonna be awesome! I’m just gonna hang out and make a bunch of Nicaraguan friends!” However, this wasn’t exactly how it happened. The lack of sleep made concentrating on Spanish harder, and my lack of energy was totally present on my face and in my body language (which culminated in falling asleep during the leadership talk while sitting in the front row), which just didn’t lend itself to making friends. Furthermore, the Spanish being spoken was so fast, with so much slang and double entendres, that it would’ve been really hard for me to follow anyway. So for a little while, I was kinda disappointed that things weren’t happening like I thought they were going to. But, I slowly came to the realization that I wasn’t there to make friends and hang out, and that even though I was a participant and not a leader, this campamento was not for me. I’m not a Nicaraguan youth, I’m an American volunteer, and there is a large difference between us. The campamento was a celebration of them and getting them inspired to lead change in their communities and in Nicaragua as a whole. I was there to be present and to understand, to see and interact with the youth and just get an idea of what they’re like, and to see and experience CANTERA’s work firsthand. And I think I did all of that. I have a much better understanding of CANTERA and its youth program than I did before, and I can see the organizations values very plainly in the activities they chose, the talks they gave, and even in the individual centers, where classes are taught by volunteering community members, not by people hired or contracted from outside. Everything the program does is geared towards youth realizing their agency and power, or at least toward providing them with a place to positively use their energies and talents, even as they live in poverty, in unfortunate domestic situations, and often with the threat of violence around them. I’m quite proud to say that I am working for this organization, I’m excited to see where my work takes me, and I really hope I can find a talent or skill to share with the youths, much like Megan gives photography workshops (in fact, there’s a CANTERA-wide environmentally-themed photo contest next month, with a gallery showing in November).

Right now, I’m assisting Megan in her English classes, which are from 8:00AM-9:30 (advanced), 9:30-11:00 (intermediate), and 11:00-12:00 (beginning) on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. She’s going to leave me with quite a good framework to work with, and with an awesome group of students. So far, it’s been very relaxed, with students coming and going whenever they can for free, and I really like the freedom we have to teach how we see fit. What Megan does, and what I think I’ll be continuing to do, is go over a chapter in the book, do a sort of review, and if needed, go back and re-learn whatever needs to be re-learned. The structure is also very loose; a lot of our time, especially in the intermediate and advanced classes, is spent just talking, and I think this helps keeps the students interested and keeps them from getting overwhelmed by or bored with the technical details. As a point of comparison, the English classes at the Centro Cultural de Batahola Norte charge for admission and are registered with some overseeing organization, which results in a more formal atmosphere, grades, and a fixed curriculum that doesn’t allow for going back to concepts that weren’t fully learned the first time.

Here’s some photos I took of the youth center, La Soya:

The front gate

The inside!

The storage room!

The kitchen and cantina! From left to right: Marta (the BOSS), Gabriela (the theater teacher), and Fidencio (an ex-Joven Constructor that volunteers there)

A little rotunda thing!

One of the security guards, Don oh-crap-i-can't-remember-his-name-now

The office! With a bush!

The back area! Some nice benches, the bathroom on the left hidden by the big bush, and a big barrel of water in the foreground!

The biggest program at La Soya, which I alluded to when describing Fidencio, is the Jovenes constructores program, or Youth Builders. It’s in its third cycle right now (each cycle taking six months), and the youth in this program are from ages 16-22 who live in Dimitrov. On weekday mornings, they… build stuff. The first group, of which Fidencio was a part of (along with a bunch of other people who spend their time at La Soya as community volunteers), actually built all of La Soya, and as part of the program’s alliance with the national police, built a small police station behind La Soya. Then, in the afternoons, they come back to La Soya for various courses and talleres. This past Monday (October 3), they began a month-long course on microbusiness, and at the end they have to write up a full-fledged business plan. Other courses include job-finding skills, computer skills, as well as talleres based on inspiring personal growth (incredibly important given the situations that many of the youths live in), thinking critically about the world and society around them (for instance, last week I sat in on a couple of sessions that dealt with human rights, and I think there’s a whole taller about gender), and, of course, environmentalism. It’s a wonderful program, and there’s a video that I’ll post here (with English subtitles!) if it’s actually on the Internet.

On a more mundane level, I got brave on Monday and decided to drink the tap water at work in Dimitrov. So far, I’m totally fine, I drank more of it yesterday, and I’m still fine. Hooray!

Waxing reflective

Technically, I’m writing this post for the official Cap Corps blog (you can check it out here). But, I figured, why not post it here, too?

 

Today is my sixth day in Managua. Courtney and Megan picked us all up from our homestays in Granada on Saturday, and we’ve been pretty much whirlwinding around, meeting A LOT of people and trying to get to know the city a little better. Essentially, it’s been six days of new. New people, new dynamics, new places, new smells, new sounds, new bugs, new buses, new walks, a new home… like I said, six days of new. And since joining up with Cap Corps this past April, new has followed me everywhere. I graduated college the next month, and for the first time, I didn’t have to go to school again in the Fall. For the first time, I didn’t have a real, long-term plan (except for Cap Corps), I didn’t know exactly what I would be doing in the foreseeable future (all I knew was that I would either teach English or work in a rural area), I didn’t know who I would be around, and, all that the newness that waited me was really, really exciting. Then, at the end of summer, I packed my bags and headed to Milwaukee for the first time for Cap Corps orientation. New people, new interactions, new rules, new living situations, new perspectives, new everything. And, JUST as I was really starting to feel comfortable with them, I packed my bags again and, at 3am, went to the airport to fly to Nicaragua for the first time. And for three weeks in Granada, I learned how to live in Granada. I developed new relationships; with my host family, with the people at my language school, with the people I passed on my daily walks, and with the new friends (mostly ex-pats) that I met there. I learned a new language (Nicaragua Spanish, and for any readers who learned their Spanish in Spain with hopes of going to Nicaragua, a warning: Spain Spanish is most definitely not the same haha), I ate new food, I developed a new routine (wake-up: 7am, bedtime: 10pm), I saw new things (the good: volcanoes, clouds and the campo; the bad: borrachitos [drunks] and huelepegas [gluesniffers] sleeping on the sidewalks and lots of hungry animals), and over the three weeks, I became more and more familiar, more and more comfortable with my new surroundings. And of course, right as everything seemed to be really coming together, I came to Managua. And as anyone who has traveled outside of their city, town, or even neighborhood, everywhere is its own little world, its own little universe. Instead of walking everywhere, due to Managua’s size and sprawl, I take buses; instead of using streets in directions, I use non-existent landmarks (my address: “Batahola sur, de donde fue la Nicalit, una cuadra al sur y una cuadra abajo” / “Batahola sur [my neighborhood], where the Nicalit used to be, one block south and one west”); instead of spending my days with my host family, watching TV and sitting on the porch, I’ve been hanging with Courtney, Elizabeth, Ana and Megan in our house, doing our own things, planning our activities, and speaking (mostly) English; instead of going to class in the mornings, I go to work (although this week and next is Managua orientation, and I actually start working soon after that). New neighborhoods, and now there’s some that I shouldn’t go into alone (like the one I work in), at least until I get to know more people there. A new lifestyle, where I have to handle bills, food, and all that other boring stuff for the first time, and live for the first time with people who aren’t already my good friends or family. And then, there’s me. I will be a new me here in Managua, different from the me in Granada, different from the me in Milwaukee, and different from the me back home in California.

 

After all that, I think you all can guess the theme that’s been running through my life these past few months. Newness. And like I wrote above, it’s exciting. I’m interested in EVERYTHING. I just want to walk around everywhere and take it all in, to explore and to understand the new worlds I’ve been passing through. But at the same time, a part of me is a little tired of new. Traveling, exploring, and understanding are all tiring activities, and having to do take my accumulated explorations and understandings, put them away, and start all over again three times in two months is tiring. Having to constantly be animated, friendly, energetic, smiling and happy when constantly meeting new people is tiring. But I’m happy, and excited, to know that Managua is my last newness for a long time, and I’m glad to know that I can take it that process a bit slower here. I have 18 months to make Managua old, and the best part is that even once I get comfortable, I can go deeper and find the little newances (see what I did there?) that I missed the first time(s). Being around Courtney, Megan, and other volunteers who have been here longer than I, their comfort and belonging is visible. Despite their accents and native languages, despite their skin color, despite their entire life experiences, they have all made Managua, and Nicaragua their home. They have made themselves a part of the local landscape, and have integrated themselves into their local community. Seeing all that has completely reassured me that the immersion experience is possible, and that it works. One volunteer is finishing up her volunteer time this month and coming back in January to start her job here. Another is seriously considering the possibility of staying after her program finishes up. Others are somewhat bittersweet; happy to be returning to their friends, families and roots, but sad to be leaving the place and the people they’ve called home for the last one-and-a-half to two years. I, for one, hope to feel that bittersweet tinge in my last few months, way out in 2013. For me, that leads to this question: how can I get to that point? How can I make Managua my home?

 

Over the next 18 months, I would like to answer that question by being open, honest, reflective, helpful, friendly, compassionate and conscious. I want to use all of those qualities to develop relationships with the people I encounter in my work and in my community, and especially to be able to be sensitive to the differences between our backgrounds and perspectives and to their needs, in order to do the best work I possibly can as an English teacher, and in whatever other capacity I am used in. I want to experience, to build my courage and let go of my fears and anxieties (in a healthy way haha), and surrender myself to living a new lifestyle in this new context. I want to speak as much Spanish as I can, so that I can better understand not only the words, but their context and their connotations. I also want to keep the life I’ve left behind in the United States close to my heart, to remember my family and my friends and make sure that my surrender doesn’t mean forgetting. Doing all of this will be hard. But, I have a wonderful, supportive community in Megan, Elizabeth, Courtney and Ana, I have what appears to be a wonderful, supportive community both at work in Cantera (an awesome non-profit that runs the projects we all work on) and in my neighborhood, and I’m hopeful and (reasonably) confident that I can achieve my goals and really make Managua my home.

Granada in as much of a nutshell as possible

Unfortunately, I never got to do a “daily life” sort of post about Granada, and honestly, that seems pretty okay to me. Granada really felt like a three week vacation, and if you’ve been reading my blog regularly, it probably looked like one, too. So this post is where you all get to meet my family! (Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of my actual house… Oops!) edit: BUT Elizabeth did it for me! Thanks, E!

My house is in the middle. Home, sweet home!

 

So this was my family, los Norori. They’re headed by my parents, Alfredo (whose 51st birthday was this past Thursday) and Blanca:

Whenever Blanca gave Alfredo his meal, he said to her "Gracias, Blanquita" and to me, with a smile, "Tengo buen marido" (I have a good spouse)

 

Their three daughters (from right to left) María Amanda (22), Judith (11), and Patricia (25), who everyone called Patri:

Patri’s 8-year old son, Milton, and her boyfriend, Carlos, as well as María Amanda’s boyfriend Rommel (whose picture is sadly missing), lived in the house:

Milton and Judith, home from school

Carlos. Handyman and resident English speaker.

Last Saturday, a 23-year old German couple, Martin and Anna (who is actually Russian-German, and whose name is actually pronounced like Ana), moved in with us:

After a big day at the Laguna de Apoyo (which i'll talk about next time)

They are both really awesome, and after 4 weeks of language school at Casa Xalteva will be living in San Carlos, which is southeast across Lake Nicaragua from Granada, for I think 5 months volunteering with a program from Germany. It turns out that Martin actually studied abroad for a year in high school in Modesto, CA, so we’ve spent some time bonding about that. They’re really awesome, fun people. We’re friends on Facebook!

 

I really, really, really liked my host family. They were all very hospitable, very nice, and despite having hosted students for four years, were all incredibly open to talking to me and hanging out with me, especially Judith, who is probably the most energetic kid I’ve ever encountered. She just NEVER STOPPED WANTING TO PLAY. It was ridiculous. She’s also apparently a damn good tennis player, and sometime this month she’ll be playing in Managua, so hopefully I’ll be able to go and see her. Blanca and Alfredo were always open to talking to me about anything, especially politics (I think I’ve already written about that, but the situation really warrants a separate, more in-depth post), and they never shied from giving their opinions about stuff on the news or in the neighborhood. Everyone in the family is pretty damn funny, and they loved to make jokes, especially when I was the object haha. But it was all in good fun. I don’t know. I feel like anything I write doesn’t really fit my experience; everything was just always good, and I can’t really think of any specifics. They’re just a great, loving, helpful family. They’ve made a point of telling me that their house is my house and that I’m always welcome back, and Alfredo has invited me back for Christmas and for November 6, to celebration of Daniel Ortega’s inevitable reelection. Gah. I could go on. All the kids in their neighborhood were really awesome, too, and I loved playing with them and talking to them.

 

Speaking of Casa Xalteva, if I haven’t explained it before, Casa Xalteva is the language school I studied at in Granada these past three weeks. They hooked us up with host families, have provided the opportunities to do the awesome touristy stuff we’ve been doing, and have helped us practice and improve our Spanish. My teacher was Manuel, a 30-year old, SUPER giggly “diva” (as said by Elizabeth). What I really liked about him was that he didn’t seem to be too into formal Spanish practice; he didn’t like to do many grammar exercises and whatnot. What he enjoyed more was just talking. So we talked about politics, about history (both U.S. and Nicaraguan, and the [unfortunately, not uniformly positive] places where they cross paths), about food (A LOT about food, actually), about culture… pretty much about everything. He corrected me when I was wrong, he pushed me to better remember and better use different tenses and vocabulary (I have a 6-7 page list of Nicaraguan slang haha), and he was just a great person to talk to. Yesterday, we went on a walk to the market, where I tried vigorón (yuca, chicarrón [fried pig skin], and some kind of garnish made of cabbage, onions, carrots, some hot peppers, and vinegar) and walked to his house, where he lives with his girlfriend (it’s very common in Nicaragua to live like you’re married but not actually BE married), his two kids (a 7-year old, Keisha, and the HUGEST 3-month old I’ve ever seen, Tyrese), and his girlfriend’s parents. They were all really nice, and we watched some ESPN Latino haha. Our classes were technically from 8am-12pm, but we took a 30-40 minute break between 10-10:30, and generally (this is all true of the other teachers as well) we actually started class about 8:15. After lunch, Ana, Elizabeth and I all came back to Casa Xalteva to volunteer in the afternoons with the after-school homework program, and for the last two weeks Ana and I taught English after that.

The kids weren't really into taking the photo haha

 

Aside from its Spanish program, Casa Xalteva aims to help Granadan kids struggling in school. In Nicaragua, kids either go to school in the morning or in the afternoon,  and so Casa Xalteva has a morning program for younger kids, from about 5-10, and an afternoon program for older kids, from about 8-14. I can’t say what they did in the morning since I was in class, but in the afternoons, from 1-3 all the kids would do their homework, then we would play games for an hour, and then a few of the kids would stay from 4-5 for English class if there were teachers available. In addition, Juan Carlos, the boss of Casa Xalteva, and Andrés, the school’s excursion guide, run a program for two (or maybe three) schools outside of Granada where they contribute school supplies for students. The kids chosen for the afternoon and morning programs are generally kids who are on the poorer side and have trouble in class, and they incentivize attendance by providing an always wonderful-smelling lunch for them. It’s a great school, and I highly encourage everyone to visit their website to read more about it: http://www.casaxalteva.org/     ESPECIALLY if you want to learn more Spanish and have an immersion experience, I couldn’t recommend Casa Xalteva more highly. You get a quality education, access to great excursions, the option for a wonderful host family AND you support education for underprivileged children! What more could you ask for?

 

One day, I think I’ll do a post about food, once I remember to take my camera everywhere and take pictures of it. Nicaragua cuisine consists mainly of plantains, cheese, bread (straight up bread or tortilla), animal protein (either eggs or meat), and rice and beans, which are served both mixed (gallo pinto), and separate (at least Blanca served it that way. But everyone would just mix it up anyway haha). And EVERYTHING is fried. And I really like it, but I suspect there’s a reason why I don’t remember ever seeing a Nicaraguan over 40 without a paunch.

 

I moved into the house in Managua today, and so far, I really like it! It’s nice to have a space that is totally my own, and to spread out and not live out of a suitcase. Here is a picture of the front of the house!

I didn't lie!

And here’s a couple pictures of my room! (which is actually the living room with a false wall and door put in. But I’m totally into it)

My shelves!

My bed, my mosquito net, and my window!

And here are two wild Cap Corp’ers that I found going through the trash can:

My new housemates! Megan (left) and Courtney (right)!

 

That’s all for now! Soon I shall post about food, the Laguna de Apoyo, and the Aguas Agrias!