IT'S BEEN AWHILE

She made it!




My girl scout girls all decked out in their heels and make up for the get together.




All the dancing boys...like becky said, in the states it would be totally frowned upon that all my students were at my party third-sixth...




Welcome Becky!




Can you say DANCE PARTY!



Now was this picture really worth second degree burns on the bottom of my feet....I THINK SO...Little Mermaid for life! hahaha



So this is the jeep from the sixties that I almost died in three times on the way to the wedding with grandpa driving in the rain with one head light and wipers that dont work...decided it was better to just close my eyes.




The newlyweds with their cousins.




The beautiful flowers



Place where they purify the water




Her favorite spot in the house, the rocking chair. Although now I cant use it unless I want to be covered in hair...but hey at least she isnt in my bed.




My princesa is still famous in my town,and doing rather well. I attempted to teach her "paw" this morning but has not caught on yet. Now that it has started raining my house is always full of mud from her. I need to figure out a system to keep her clean.


Where to begin, probably with the most exciting thing since my last update…Becky’s visit! Yes, I had my first visitor and what a success it was! I’ll give you a quick run down of the most exciting events.

First of all my friend Israel offered to meet me in Managua to pick up Becky. This worked out well so we didn’t have to deal with the bus system here. So after her long flight we started on our two hour drive to my town for a party I had planned. Since Becky was only going to be in my town one night I decided to invite everyone over so they could all meet her. Well I was running around like a crazy person attempting to cook, bake a banana bread, do my makeup, find chairs, get music all at the same time. Luckily a 13 year old neighbor came over earlier and saved me in the kitchen and cooked half the food. Pretty sure she thought I was crazy as the banana bread was exploding in my new toaster over and the chili was boiling over the pot. Anyways, I invited about 25 people (which is a lot for my little house) not thinking they would all show up. Well they ALL showed up WITH friends. So it turned into a quite the bash. I only have my computer and that just isn’t loud enough for their taste so some of the guys went to bring over their huge stereo system to hook up! Becky was a little nervous at first because of course everyone just stares at her. Then she got used to it. A fifth year high school guy wanted to talk to her. He knows some English but cant pronounce the words so he spent all night writing to her on a napkin “What is your name” “You are beautiful” “ Take picture us?” haha At least he realized she didn’t know that much Spanish. All my little third-sixth graders just kept talking to her as if she understood perfectly. I finally told them “SHE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND SPANISH” They were so confused and did not understand the concept.

The next couple days were a blur of traveling and craziness. I now know it is better to take visitors to one place and enjoy it instead of trying to show them all the hotspots in the country…I forget how horrible the transportation can be since I’m used to it. So we had to travel to Managua to get to Catarina which has a beautiful lake in a crater. We relaxed there. Then the next morning went on our way to Masaya, then to Managua, then up to Leon. It didn’t help it was the holidays and EVERYONE was out traveling around and the buses were packed. In Leon we met up with my friends that are volunteers and we went out to eat, and the next day left for the beach! On the bus to the beach we got stuck behind a drunk guy (they are everywhere) Some are fun and some are annoying. Luckily we got behind a fun one. Who was trying to get us to taste his half eaten chunk of pork! Then he started talking “English”. You know how sometimes kids from the States think they can talk Chinese by just making noises that they think sound like the language. Well this is exactly what this guy did but in English. Which made us laugh hysterically which made him laugh hysterically with pork all over his face and teeth, and we sat there laughing until we got to the hotel. So we spent two days on the beach relaxing and getting burnt. One day my friend Chris and I took a walk on the beach to check out this big rock in the ocean. Well there were waves coming and splashing over a smaller rock and I thought it would be a great photo opt for a Little Mermaid pose. So I go out in the ocean and sit mermaid style on this rock. Well while I was out there my sandals fell off and got swept out to the ocean. I tried to get them until the waves crashed into me. I wasn’t too upset because they were 2 dollar Nica sandals. Then as we kept walking we came to realization that the sand and rocks we were waking on were about 500 degrees! So here I am sprinting and screaming from one part of wet/cooler sand to the next burning my feet along the way. It was miserable, so not only did my whole body look like a lobster that night, so did the bottom of my poor burnt feet! That night we went out dancing at a huge party on the beach and when they asked for four women contestants somehow Becky and I ended up on the stage in front of everyone competing against two Nica women in their 40s in a dance contest! It was a great night. The next day we had to travel back to Managua and we stayed in the Best Western which was FABULOUS and then Becky had to leave super early on Easter :(

The week after she left I was just in a slump, lazy and not wanting to do anything. Until on Friday Jamie and I went to go talk to the man in charge of the environment in Matagalpa. We are going to present to 20 people about the importance of recycling and how they can make recycled projects. He is a great contact to have and I think we will be able to accomplish quite a bit with his support. After the meeting Princesa and I went to visit Jamie’s site to help her host sister plan her wedding. Then we went to the circus in Matagalpa on Saturday night with a family from her town. I don’t think I have laughed so hard in quite a while. First of all it is a children’s circus yet they had about 4 acts of dancers wearing thongs and bras doing booty shaking dances. Jamie and I just could not believe it was happening. Granted the circus had a trapeze act and tight rope which were good. On the other hand they had about 6 different points in the circus when mascots would come out to shake hands with the kids. They had the Teletubbies, Sponge bob, and a Winnie the Pooh that didn’t tuck the flap to the head into the body suit so he sat out there with his hands holding onto his head so it wouldn’t fall off as kids hugged him. The family from her town loved it so much they went back the next night!

Then the week after that I started teaching my science classes. Which are going pretty good. When I was observing for two months I noticed that some classes can get OUT OF CONTROL. So what I did was first make rules with the help of the students before I started teaching. They also came up with prizes (game, 5 minutes of recess, applause, 5 minutes to draw, etc) and consequences (more homework, move seat, lose five minutes of recess). Then I wrote all their rules down and hung them on the wall so they can remember the rules they made. In addition to this I implemented the stop light behavior system. Where green light is 100 points, yellow is 50 points, and red is 0 points. They always start at 100 points. But if they aren’t listening and there is a lot of side chatter etc they are going to drop to fifty etc. Well the whole stoplight system is a competition between all grades. So at the end of every month the class with the most points gets to have a special recess with me and my Frisbees, football, soccerball, jump rope etc. So maybe they were just angels this first week because they are still excited about the competition. Let’s see if they can keep it up. The topics I had to teach were about sperm and eggs and their importance in sixth, dangers of pregnancy in the adolescence in fifth, AIDS and STDs in fourth, and differences between boys and girls in third. So it was interesting but I think they enjoyed the classes. We have our in service training tomorrow and I am going to ask my bosses if we have to teach what they teachers would be teaching that day or if we can just teach about the environment. Although it looks like next month we start with plants and animals.

As for my secondary project with the kids with special needs and my little Milagro (the little girl) Everything is going well. Milagro has been sick and in the hospital with a kidney infection, but yesterday she had retained her ability to count from 1-10. I also made cards with pictures. She is able to match and identify shirt, balloon, house, and flower! So I need to start making more pictures to see if she can continue with her identification of objects As for the kids in the school, I originally thought that since I was only there two hours a week they wouldn’t remember me, or really care when I was there. But those kiddos are so adorable and run up to me every Monday. I have taken on working especially with two of them. One is a boy with Downs Syndrome who enjoys kicking and hitting everyone. So we are working on behavior. The other is a girl who is Deaf but everyone talks to her as if she can here so she is always confused. So I have been using one of the teachers that is Deaf as well to help me teach her signs to certain objects. You can just see her face light up when people attempt to sign and motion what they are trying to communicate. Its cute because the other little kids at the school understand her well and always are using hand motions when talking to her.

Then yesterday after class with those kiddos I went on an excursion with a lady from my town. We went about 40 minutes up in the mountains to talk to the owner of a company who purifies water to sell. The same guy also started a flower business. So we went up to his land to do an interview about how they purify the water, why he decided to start it, how he went about it etc. Then we walked through his six green houses full of flowers. His next business plan is to try to export it to the States. Very nice man, he even gave me to boquets of flowers before we left!

Last story. So last Saturday my host sister that was in Spain got married. They had the reception in the house of where I used to live. I helped decorate the night before, and that night the husband was talking about how in the states they throw the garter and what not. And I was telling him yea, and sometimes they make him take it off with his teeth. Well the whole family loved the idea. So the night of the wedding when it was time for the garter they handed me the microphone! (Luckily, his family brought about 5 bottles of rum and were in a rowdy mood and enjoyed my idea) So anyways I get on the microphone and explain that he was going to take the garter off and then I say “ Well we have two options, he can take it off with his hands….or with his TEETH!” And everyone started yelling and screaming and chanting DIENTES DIENTES DIENTES (which means teeth) So they were all ready for it, then I surprised everyone the newlyweds included because we didn’t discuss this part before hand. I said “Well to get permission to get under her dress he has to dance up to her, and if he isn’t dancing good enough or sexy enough she can give him the thumbs down and he has to start over” That is when the real screaming and shouting started. So they turned on this song with a super fast beat and the groom started shaking it! I was laughing SO hard! He got the thumbs up right away…I took a video of it and you can’t even hear the music over all the screaming. So all in all it was quite a success and maybe they will continue on with this tradition that we have!