A BIT OF BAD LUCK

My living room



This is the kitchen area, I will post more pictures after I have everything finished.



My room! Still need to finish the wall and put a door on



Room that they never finished where my sister and her husband are going to stay




My backyard. That is where I wash my clothes, and the bathroom is on the right





Even though I have to use a bucket to flush it, and its not in my house its still a TOILET!!




My shower, bucket baths!




Cows outside my house, not an uncommon sight





My competition chart for the compost project!





The love of my life.




Flowers that I got on Valentines day from the cowboy. Mom was on to something when she used to say there was the Karen curse. Buy me something and then I break up with them. Not that he was my boyfriend, but that night I realized that he had thoughts of a relationship and I set him straight that we are just friends...still kinda feel bad about it.


Yes, I had some bad luck this week yet for some reason I couldn’t be happier. I think it’s because I FINALLY moved into my house! Which are where my problems begin and end. My sister is the owner of the house and on the 15th she told me it was ready for me to move in. So in all my excitement I started moving all my stuff over. I told her that I had a contract typed up that we can look at, but she said she was busy. We never got around to it that day. Let me back up and tell you about the history of the house. When she originally told me I could rent it and that the aunt was moving out she said that they would add on an extra room so I could have a big kitchen and dining room, they would put in the toilet, she would pay the light and water, and would charge me 50 dollars. Then a week later (mind you this is all a month or more ago) She decided she wanted to live there too. She is very independent and wanted that independence back that she had in Spain. She said she has a TV we can use, dishes, she would buy a stove, and that we would have our own rooms and personal space. I didn’t see a problem with it so I told her sure it would be great. She would then charge me 30 dollars a month. Well the night after I moved in her and her boyfriend came over to talk. Turns out they have plans to get married. He will be living here too, and not only that he had plans or should I say ideas to buy some Nintendo systems to put in the house for boys to come over and play. It’s a business here in Nicaragua. Kind of like an internet café, they have Nintendo places where boys can pay to play by the hour. They came to ask me what I thought and if I would mind. I told them that I absolutely did mind. I explained that I am paying for the house and I need my space to work, read, walk around in my pajamas, or whatever in private not with little boys running all over. My sister agreed so I guess that idea is out the door. I even asked if they think I should start looking for another place seeing as they have all these plans. They assured me that I was fine and just forget they asked. The next night they came over to talk again. My sister said she would buy everything for the house (garbage cans, buckets, tables, chairs, etc) but would charge me 40 dollars a month and I split the light and water bill. She said that her and her fiancé will only enter when they need to cook something, so I essentially would have the house and they would be out back in their room. So as you can see everything kept changing and it was frustrating for me. I agreed since they did do a lot for the house. They put a gate around the front porch for Princesa and they made the backyard twice as big for my gardens etc. I just get this bad feeling that they are going to use my rent money to fix things up more and then will want the house for themselves since they will be married. So instead of letting her buy everything I bought my own chairs, table, etc incase I end up having to move in six months when the contract ends. We will see what happens. I already have a back up plan. A friend of mine, Kiotho, already begged me to live with her and her family even before this drama. So at least I always have that option. As of right now I will be living by myself for the next 3-4 months until they finish the back room and they get married. So I am just enjoying my time now. My house is decorated, I started my compost, cleaned up my backyard and could not be happier!

My second day of bad luck was with my refrigerator. They didn’t have the fridge I wanted in stock so I had to wait until last Wednesday to get it. They said they would drop it off at my house. Well luckily I decided to go to the store to check things out Wednesday morning because as it turns out the fridge came but it was broken. Not only that, but it was the last one. My only option was to settle for a smaller one which I was not too happy about. The bright side of this story is that they had it in stock, I got some money back since it was a little cheaper, they delivered it for free, and I asked if there was anything they could give me for the inconvenience so they gave me two pillows for free which I didn’t have yet ( I have been sleeping on a sweatshirt for the past 3 months). So it all worked out.

My final day of bad luck which is the worst news of all is....my counterpart that is great, that supports me with everything, understands my project, is hilarious, and just a great guy is LEAVING me! He told me that I will have a new counterpart/director of the school starting in March. He got switched to a different school district. This is a huge problem. Because he received training about Peace Corps, his duties, my project, our objectives, everything! Who knows what this new person will be like. I guess that’s what I get for being creeped out by him the first day we met! I seriously almost cried though when he told me. Now I will probably have to have meetings with my bosses, they will probably come visit me to talk to the new director. The only way there can be a bright side to this is if they give us the director from the neighboring district that is extremely good looking! Hehe :)

GOOD NEWS: I finally realized that if I want to get things done, I have to do it myself! I just keep thinking it is like training and that our instructors or another person in the group will be there to help. So I finally took action and talked to my teachers about doing a school compost so when we want to do our garden in a month we will have good soil. They readily agreed and decided it would be best to work with fifth and sixth grade. So on Thursday I did presentations to each class about what they needed to bring (shovels, pick axes, fruit and veggie peels, leaves, cow manure, water, dirt) I explained the concept of a compost etc. I was worried that the kids would forget or just not care and not bring in the materials. I was also worried about doing a project with classes of 40 when only 5 boys are working to dig the hole. So to fix that problem I made a competition between both grades. I explained they got points for everything they brought in, and for the behavior (having order, teamwork, safety with tools, and discipline) during the project. I showed up on Friday and there were HUGE garbage bags filled with fruit peels, leaves, cow manure, they brought in SO MUCH stuff! I was in shock! I showed each class the point chart and explained what they would get points for and how they could get points taken away. Then as they were doing the project I had my handy dandy clip board that mom sent me (thanks mom, it worked great!) and recorded behavior points etc. If someone was yelling I would tell them that those are “being in order” points being taken away. Then they quickly learned to monitor their neighbors and wait patiently for the hole to be dug. The girls kept themsleves busy by working together to put all the materials in groups. It went surprisingly super smoothly and now we have two composts that we can use for our garden! The 5th graders ended up winning due to better behavior and the 6th graders were not too happy about it. I assured them that there will be plenty more competitions and not to worry!

My last two new bits of news are that I started meeting with the Girl Scouts down here. The leaders are all really nice. We have a big day with the girls next Sunday and I am in charge of making two activities for the environment and leadership so need to start thinking of fun activities for that. Then the 7th of March we have a cultural day and the Girl Scouts from each department are cooking a food from their department. Elyse, another volunteer, and I are doing a dessert from the states. Any ideas? I was thinking Rice Krispie Treats or Banana Bread. Then on the 14th we have a meeting to train other leaders in different areas, I again am in charge of contact with nature and environment. It’s exciting to be meeting more people and helping out. I still haven’t made my youth group, but I think these girls just might constitute for a youth group. Unless….I end up doing a girls soccer team which wouldn’t be until later after I contact the other communities.

A couple weeks ago I went to a place called Santa Julia. It is religious affiliated, and an organization that works with people with disabilities. It looks like a great organization. They have classes for kids, they teach teenagers a job they can do in their other building that is all about recycling, they have people that visit homes to check on the mothers and support them, offer therapy, and they have a park that is completely accessible. It is a great place. I told them I would love to help out once a week teaching. Well I decided to start tomorrow, so now I will be teaching there Mondays and teaching Science Tuesday-Thursday. My schedule is looking pretty great!

SCHOOL TIME!

Me and My Peace Corps Bffs on Jamies birthday




Fútbol Americano en Nicaragua!




Cheering on the Saints in Managua



Well first great news that I would like to share is that Becky bought her ticket to come visit me at the end of March!!! How exciting, I already have our whole itinerary planned out. It’s going to be just fabulous!

Second of all a lot has changed since my last entry. For one I started school so I am now the opposite of bored and it’s getting hotter and hotter here. First I will start with school. I was originally supposed to work in three schools (2 teachers in each), but my multi-grade school closed down because they only had 10 kids enrolled. It makes my life a bit easier because it was pretty far and dangerous walk along the highway to get there. On the other hand I feel really bad because the school is all that those people had. I wouldn’t even call it a community because there are only about 15 houses that are made of plastic, they have no water, are extremely poor and now have to figure out how to send their kids to school. Plus, it would have been a great experience to work in a multi-grade school. But now I have it pretty good. I will most likely work two days a week (with 4 teachers) in the school that is 2 minutes walking distance from my house and one day a week (2 teachers) at the other school that is about 20 minutes walking distance. I will only have to do two school gardens which will work out to my advantage because I can put more effort into each one. Other volunteers have schools that are either 2 hour walks (without the option of buses) or half an hour or longer bus rides. So distance wise I have it quite good. I started observing last week and am already in love with both schools. The teachers, my kids, and my counterpart are all great. I have been giving presentations to all the grades about myself. I used a world map and a map of the United States. It was surprising to learn that pretty much nobody here has an idea of where the United States (or even Nicaragua) is located on the world map. So it was definitely a teachable moment. Then I gave them comparison that they have 16 departementos and we have 50 states. Then I talked about Wisconsin and showed some postcards of dairy farms, the Brewers and Packers stadium, Wisconsin wildlife, and then talked about my family and friends. It was going great until I got to fourth grade…I let the kids pass around the pictures and the postcards so they could all get a better look. Well someone the picture of me with mom and dad on graduation day never made it back to the front. Not quite sure what happened to it but the teacher was so embarrassed and made all the kids empty their backpacks, pockets, search the room. It still didn’t show up and she was yelling at them saying they weren’t allowed to leave till someone handed it in…what a disaster. Well I finally said I had to leave and that since I know none of them took it, that someone will find it stuck in a notebook or something over the weekend and bring it back…which didn’t happen! Haha it’s the talk of the community now…kids and adults come up to me asking if the picture turned up yet. I tried explaining to the teacher that it isn’t a huge deal because I have a double of the picture down here, but I think she was just upset about the principal of the matter. So Peace Corps wasn’t kidding when they said I would be teaching in classes between 30-60. My lowest class size is 32. The others are 42, 43, and 46. In tiny rooms, that barely have enough desks. I have a lot of challenges ahead of me. One is that there isn’t space for activities, games, or even group work. Tuesday the sixth grade did group work and the majority had to drag their desks outside which of course ends up taking 20 minutes and wastes teaching time. Second, classroom management will be interesting. Luckily the kids seem so far pretty well behaved but it is inevitable that there are side conversations, kids off-task, boredom, etc. Third is textbooks and resources. In Fatima the classrooms had about 6 text books that weren’t the same and I thought that was bad. Here, there are NO science textbooks. Not even for the teacher to use to research teaching content! They have to use their own money to either buy a text book or use the internet. If I decide to buy textbooks I would have to buy 4, one for each grade. I gotta figure that out before I start teaching in March. Fourth problem is time and scheduling. All the teachers have science after recess. It will be impossible to work with two classes after recess. Which leads to the problem of time. The primary grades have class in the afternoon and it is supposed to be from 12:30-5:30. Class normally doesn’t start until 1:00, recess seems to always start at a different time and lasts different amounts of time, basically until someone realizes to ring the bell. Then they let the kids out at 5 before it starts getting dark. For example, on Tuesday recess didn’t start until 3 which is when it is supposed to end leaving the 3-45 minute class periods after recess to only 1-45 minute class period. I have to figure out how to work it all out.

New topic, my house. They are STILL working on. My sister I will probably be able to move in on Monday. She is going back to school and paying for her tuition so now doesn’t have money to finish with the construction of the new room. So she decided to finish the inside so I can move in. The thing is, I have to talk to her to see if she is still planning to move in later when it is done, is she still going to buy the stove, when are they going to finally finish because it is a disaster in the backyard, and will I pay 50 because I am alone or 30….I will have to keep you all updated. It also means I finally have to splurge and buy my bed and fridge and figure out how to get them both back here.

The last few weekends have been pretty great. At the end of January we all went to visit Icia in Esquipulas for Jamie’s birthday. We had a little bday bash for Jamie with our Nica friends and some other volunteers. An English volunteer that lives in the same city as Icia made shaped sunglasses out of pipe cleaners for us to wear all night. The Nica’s taught us a few new dance moves and we taught them flip cup! This last weekend a bunch of us went to Managua to watch the Superbowl. We went to a mall called Galeria’s and boy it sure felt like taking a step out of Nicaragua. We really felt like we were in Miami watching the game in the nice bar restaurants they had. The owners of the sports bar loved us so we all got free hotdogs! My friend Rachel is from New Orleans so we all cheered for the Saints. After the game we went to a Karaoke bar, and finally returned back to our air conditioned hotel room with hot running water!

Princesa update: She is doing well. I finally splurged and bought her a dog bed so now when I come back from school I don’t find her being sneaky and sleeping in my bed. Instead she is in her own. Plus she doesn’t try jumping up to snuggle at 5 in the morning now either because I think her bed is more comfortable than mine! I have to figure out if I want to get her fixed or not. My Nica friend said that I need to figure it out soon because if a dog is in heat here ALL the dogs come and run around the house trying to get in and all start fighting each other. She said it will be horrible by me especially because I live in the center of town. They offer a shot which I am assuming is like birth control that you can give every six months to the dog, but my boss just told me that it can cause cancer. So I am looking into getting her the operation. One vet said “oh yea we have a friend that does that for 300 cords”. Sounds pretty sketchy. The other vet said they do operations for 800 cords. I asked if she would stay overnight to recuperate and he said no. Then I asked if she has anesthetic and he said “well sort of, but not a lot” You take her back and have to take care of her and the incision for 8 days. My poor dog, I don’t know what to do! Any suggestions? I don’t want to put her under the knife here, I don’t want to give her cancer, but I don’t want to deal with a huge ordeal of dogs (which would I guess only be three times until I got back to the states). Well that is it for now, hope you all have a great Valentine’s Day!