Sorry that it’s been such a long time in
between blog posts. Between travelling, getting ready for school to start, and
having a lot more limited internet I haven’t been able to do as much writing as
I would like to.
In the last month, I have moved, travelled
back to Carazo for a week of grammatically intensive language classes, visited
the north of Nicaragua, and have been told that I will be teaching an
environmental chemistry class at the
local university (what?!?!).
For those of you who haven’t been in the
loop about my living situation, I recently moved from a house where I was
staying with a Mestizo family to an apartment complex. They family I was
staying with wasn’t terrible, I just felt more like a tenant staying there than
a member of the family. So I figured that I may as well live on my own since it
was cheaper and I could have more control over my living situation. Elvira, one
of the other volunteers living in Bluefields, helped me to find a room in the
apartment complex that she was living in. I live on the second floor, so I get
a shared balcony that has a wonderful breeze during the day.My neighbors have
been really great and I already feel closer to some of them than I did to my
family. I also have started cooking for myself and am experimenting with
cooking Nicaraguan food. My last meal featured tajadas (fried plantains), which
actually came out ok.
At the end of January, all the volunteers
who hadn’t reached an advanced level of Spanish when they finished training
(aka: me and everyone in my training town) had to return to our training towns
for a week-long grammar intensive class.
It was really great to be back in my training town with two of my
closest Peace Corps friends, but it was also exhausting. On top of eight hours
of class with only a short break for lunch, we also had about two hours of
homework every night. Plus, we had Nicaraguan friends and host families to
spend time with. Needless to say, by the end of the week, I feeling exhausted
but content with how helpful the classes had been. I’ve always been the kind of
person who likes to know the reasoning behind things and receiving classes on
Spanish grammar really helped to clarify some things that I was confused about.
Right after the language class, Geri and I decided to
aprovechar (or “take advantage”) of our time on the Pacific Coast, so together
with Tom (the other volunteer that was in our training town) we decided to
travel to the furthest city north in Nicaragua, Jalapa and do a half marathon
that one of the health volunteers was putting on. Now just to clarify, Geri was
the only one who did the half marathon. Tom did the 10-km and I helped out with
the race. Since the half-marathon started at the Nicaraguan-Honduras border, we
really did go as far north as we could. Since Jalapa is in a mountain valley,
the course was stunningly beautiful, although poorly marked. Most of the Peace
Corps volunteers participating got lost (Tom did a 17 km instead of a 10 km),
but regardless, everyone seemed to have a great time. From there, we stayed the night in Ocotal,
another city in the department of Nueva Segovia that is chalk full of Sandino
history (Sandino is a revolutionary that fought against the US invasion of
Nicaragua). The next day, we travelled down to Madriz to do a tour of the
Somoto Canyon. Pictures will be coming soon, so I won’t try and explain too
much. Basically, it’s a smaller version of the Grand Canyon here in Nicaragua,
but with water. The tour was really relaxed and slow paced. Most of the time we
floated down the river and stopped to do a little cliff jumping. Don’t worry
mom, the jumps weren’t that high!
The last place we stopped was Tom’s site in
San Jose de los Remates in the department of Boaco (aka: cowboy country). It’s
a really beautiful, clean city right in the heart of the mountains. We finished
the visit with a hike up to a waterfall with a gorgeous view of the surrounding
mountains and cups of locally grown and roasted organic coffee. It was awesome
to see Tom in his element. From there, I travelled to El Rama by bus, got stuck
there for two days because all the Pangas going to Bluefields were filled, and
eventually arrived back home ready to get back to work.
Since then, I have been busy getting ready
for school to start: meeting with my counterparts, talking to my contacts at
the local university about the possibility about helping out there, and trying
to contact some of the local NGO’s in Bluefields. After meeting with the Dean
of the College of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, I was informed
that I had been signed up to teach the course “Environmental Chemistry,” a
course which, mind you, I have never even taken. I guess I should have been
more specific when I agreed to help out with the more advanced environmental
studies classes in November. I then had to calmly explain to him that while I
wasn’t allowed or qualified to teach this course, I would be happy to help out
with making lesson plans and facilitating classes. Now I’ve learned my lesson
and in the future plan to be VERY specific about what I am able and not able to
do as a volunteer. It was a good learning experience to have in the first few
months.
Well, that’s all for now. Sorry that this
was such a long post. I hopefully won’t wait this long to write another blog
post. Next post I promise pictures of my vacation! Miss you all!
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