Que sera, sera

As someone (probably a teacher) once said, “All good things must come to an end.” By good things , I am lead to believe, mean vacations, and here too good things have ended. I am now back to school, which means dreams of new back packs, pens and the smell of new notebooks bouncing in my head. The government has recently changed the curriculum for schools, and also the content of English classes around the country. The week before school started, all teachers had to take part in a week long seminar on the new curriculum. The first entire day was nothing more than Sandanista propaganda, and what it means to be a good Sandanista, and what values we must have to be one. From then on, we all spoke about the new curriculum, but the only problem was that no one has a copy of said curriculum, and we were more or less told to “just trust” that it was better. So to celebrate surviving the week of boredom, Liz and Diane ever-so lovingly opened their doors to other volunteers and threw a dance party. Volunteers from around Nicaragua came to their house and we went out to dinner and went back to their house and, well, danced the whole night. It was another flawless party they threw, and a great way to end our vacation. I am still working with one counterpart from last year, and also a new one who I think is going to work out very well. The first class, one counterpart and I decided to give a pretest to the students to see what they remember from last year. No no one's surprise, they didn't remember much. There were a total of 54 questions, and the average score was about 7 correct answers, although I had one student who achieved the highest score with 39.
This week, we are going over the exam, mostly having to conjugate the verb “to be” and also playing different games to try and instill the different forms. One game we played was called “El pingüino” (The Penguin) What the students had to do, was put a 5 Cordoba coin in between their knees, and walk across the classroom while saying the conjugated forms of the verb “be” (I am, you are, he is etc.) Once they got to the other side of the room, they had to drop the coin into a container. If at any time, the coin hits the floor during the walk or when they drop it to try to get it into the container, they must start all over. I find that this exercise helps the students lose “pena” to speak English in front of me and the other students, because by the end of the year, each and every student will have “walked like a penguin” in front of each other; and not to mention, it makes class a lot less boring.
Today I went with my counterpart to a local women's building to ask them if they can donate a classroom they have so I can start my English classes for the workers in the tourist markets. I didn't know what I wanted to do for my secondary project until I was walking in the market and saw a vendor reading a book titled, “Learning English Without a Teacher” so I asked her if she was learning anything and she said she was learning a little, but the only problem was, was that she didn't know how the words are pronounced. So I told her I would look into finding a place to hold the classes, and would start classes for her and a few of the other vendors in the market. I hope everything turns out, because I think this would help a lot of vendors to better communicate with the tourists that peruse their goods for sale.
Oh yeah I forgot, I got another cat!! This one, I decided, would not be left in the hands of Diane, as kittens turn out to disappear when left in her care. (Oops, think you got a little meat in your teeth there, Diane ;) ) Its a 5 week old kitten, that was abandoned by it's mother. It's tan with stripes, and has tiger looking stripes on her stomach. The first couple of nights she stayed under my bed, too afraid to come out, but after a while she started exploring the house, and is less afraid. Unfortunately, she has not really learned where to go to the bathroom, for one morning I found a little present left in my t-shirt, she'll learn!
So it's been really windy here lately, and during a night's deep slumber I was awoken by the sound of my roof being ripped off my house. Clearly, first thing that came to mind was that I was getting robbed, and these guys just didn't care how loud they were; so I jumped up, and reached for my machete when I realized it was a random 4AM strong gust of wind, so since that night, every time the wind comes around it sounds like my roof is coming off my house.........I better go ask they landlord to fix that.
The other day, I was coming home from Granada, and once I got home, I realized that I had left the keys to my house on Liz's TV stand. LOL I was soooo pissed, I really didn't have any other option, as since the break in, my landlord provided me with new locks, and gave me all the keys, but returning to Granada and getting the keys. I knew that right inside the door, hanging on a hook, was the other set of keys to my door. Knowing that I couldn't reach them, I took out the long pieces of glass in my “persian” window, and tried to figure out how I was going to get those keys. Next thing I knew, my neighbor lady had shown her creativeness, and was walking towards me with 2 broom handles nailed together, and THAT pole was stuck into a little tube thing with a hook on it. Right behind me were about 6 other neighbors shouting at her telling her how to get the keys, and they all had 6 different ideas. It was F-ing crazy. She was fishing my keys off the wall with this contraption, when she knocked them off the hook onto the floor, everyone gasped in unison. After a little more fishing around, she got them!!! So in return, I gave her a little gift, and the extra set of keys. Don't worry, this is the neighbor I really trust, shes the one that every once in a while, cooks some extra food and brings it over for me, and when I make an American meal I will bring her some.
I finished the Harry Potter series, I'm a little sad it's all over.
Liz recently got bit by a dog, and it's a little gross, but when the dog released his grip and pulled it's teeth out, it ripped a little chunk of fat to the outside of her arm. No worries, she did a little “Peace Corps home surgery” and cut it off. (By the way Liz: I read on web MD, and that green ooze coming out, and the patch of green fur, you either have a staph infection, manic depression, or cancer. I'm not sure, but you should really look into that!) I heard a fun little quote, “Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana”. I thought it was clever .
So I was teaching class right before I came to the internet café to post my blog, and all of a sudden these crazy loud sounds started coming from the doorway, and after a few minutes students started running all over the place, and SMOKE started coming in the classroom from all over the place. The school administration thought that today would be a good day to FUMIGATE the school. Now one with half a brain cell would realize that men coming in with fumigating tools, and gas masks should mean that the students need to get out of the school first, but no. Students were trying to fan the smoke out of the way so they could see where they were going, and even one girl started gagging. I went directly to the principal and asked why they would do this while there were students, because this is toxic smoke and can really cause damage. His response, “The Ministry of Health doesn’t work on the weekends”. How wonderful!!


Well thats it for now folks, I'll see you around.