Making the necessary adjustments

The last month has been a real whirlwind. I'm actually shocked to see that I haven't written for almost a full four weeks. I guess that shows how involved my mind has been in other thoughts.

Being in Port has required a significant adjustment. Before I left, I anticipated some time of transition and change, but the level to which I have experienced these thus far has been a surprise.

I had come to Port with the expectation of working at the schools as a planner of extra-curricular activities, with some phy ed teaching on the side. It is obvious, though, that the need is greater in other areas.

I have been working with a number of students on an individual level, working mainly with reading. Well, not so much reading as identifying letters and syllables. I have one boy, Carlos, who simply cannot grasp the alphabet for the life of him. Today, I asked him to find the letter "i" in the alphabet. After looking for a while, he pointed to the letter "g." I explained what letter it was, reviewed vowels with him in hopes that it might jog his memory since he seems to identify vowels quicker, and then asked him again to find the letter "i." After searching for another minute or so, he pointed to the letter "g"....again. So where do you go from there?

For all you teachers out there, I have gained a new level of respect for what you do. I've also been teaching--or trying to teach--a number of English classes between the two schools (Maureen Courtney and Niño Jesús). Some classes are better than others, but the overall lack of discipline at the schools has been a real challenge. Kids are constantly asking to go to the bathroom or to get a drink of water. They wander over to their friends' desks to talk about who knows what. Not everyone always has a pencil, so there are constant requests to share writing utensils, which just means it takes longer for them to get everything copied down. Additionally, the kids are all at such different levels that trying to move on once a topic has been covered means deciding to leave about 75% of the kids in the dark, because they a) only came to class once this week, b) didn't bring their notebook and couldn't take down the notes or c) simply didn't pay attention or write anything down. To make things more challenging, the regular teachers usually wander off when I go into to teach the class, so if the class goes nuts, there's not much I can do. I could offer a punishment, but what? There's no test for English class, no grade, no passing or failing depending on how much you learned in English. Essentially, I just have to hope the kids behave. Oy!

The greatest challenge, though, is language. Oh, my Spanish is coming along fine and I continue to associate with Spanish-speakers, but the indigenous language of Miskitu is so prevalent that some of the students need directions given to them in Miskitu (which of course means they're definitely not learning anything in English class). Additionally, many of the teachers talk amongst themselves in Miskitu, and there have been times where they've intentionally switched to Miskitu so I don't know what's going on. (No, I'm not just being paranoid. If someone says Háblame en Miskitu para que... which means Talk to me in Miskitu so that... and then points at me, that's not just paranoia.) I knew Miskitu was spoken in Port, but I didn't realize it was so widespread.

I went through a good week or two of significant frustration with the language barrier, the cultural challenges (where 1pm actually means 4:30pm, if they actually come at all), the being so far away from family and friends and everything else I'm used to having at my disposal. But I've been able to encounter a certain peacefulness in the last couple weeks. I've gotten ahold of some resources for learning Miskitu and have started learning the language. I plan to tackle that full out in December when school's out. I've gotten used to the idea of just how long I'm going to be here and how much I'll learn, despite the fact that I haven't learned everything in the first couple of months (if you know me, you know I think I should be able to learn everything in two weeks :)). And I'm learning in general to take things as they come, to try not to be on my own schedule all the time and to look for ways I can do what needs to be done and not just what I want to do. It's a lot of adjusting, but I think I'm making progress.

Fire!

I'm a little delayed on getting this post up, but last Friday turned out to be more "exciting" than anticipated. In Nicaragua, the education system is regulated so that all the primary and secondary school students are learning the same thing. In order to keep teachers up to date, they take the last Friday of the month to get together (by the grade they teach) in the morning or afternoon to review what needs to be taught for the next month. It's a painful process to see, because there are only a handful of manuals for every 20 or so teachers, so the meeting is largely composed of copying what is in the manual into a notebook. Photocopying or getting more manuals doesn't seem to be an option.

Anywho, I tell you that simply to explain that we observed this meeting and then had the afternoon free to do whatever. I was a little tired after the first week of work and getting adjusted to the schools, so I decided to lay down and take a nap. I slept for about half an hour before the humidity woke me up. I was dozing back of when I heard a loud boom. That didn't seem out of the normal by any means, because where our house is located, there's a decent amount of traffic coming into and going out of the main part of the city, so trucks are often coming by and making a racket. Then about five seconds later, my fan shut off, so I knew the power was out. Again, not very alarming since the power has gone out a half dozen times since we've been here. I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep at all without the fan, so I started to get up, and at that point my brain started processing the boom and the power outage as more than coincidence.

So I stepped out onto the porch and saw the black smoke rising up above the trees across the street and thought, Well, that can't be good. So I grab the keys and open up the front gate. I walked out to the left (west) and walked over to the street that runs perpendicular to the street our house is on. About five houses north, there's a house absolutely up in flames. By this time, anyone who heard the boom or saw the smoke rising above the trees is gathering around to watch the spectacle. By the time I ran back inside to get my camera (yeah, I'm kind of a tourist like that), the fire had started to spread to the house next door. Now the neighbors are getting worried about how far it's going to spread. A fire truck finally shows up after about ten or fifteen minutes, but guess what's missing - water! So now we've got to wait another ten minutes for the water trucks to come, because the Good Lord knows there's not fire hydrants here. So, like I said, the neighbors are getting worried about their stuff, so we all start helping this guy clear his stuff out of his house. Unfortunately, some of the kids that were "helping" were actually taking advantage of the situation to do some personal shopping. Thankfully, none of the big stuff was stolen, and we got it down the street (near our house) so it would be out of harm's way.

Now sweating profusely and trickled with ash, I decide to get a closer look at the fire and get some up close and personal footage. In hindsight, it probably wasn't the greatest idea in the world, but it was fun to be so close to the action. First of all, I counted one and about five pairs of firefighter boots among the couple dozens of guys trying to get the fire out. A significant amount of time was spent trying to get the fire truck's hose hooked up with the water truck's valve and get some water pressure. It seemed to be that whoever was willing to help would jump in, so I ended up helping snake the hose over the chain link fence and around some posts. After about ten more minutes, they were finally able to get water pressure and started on spraying everything down, and in about 20 minutes, things were mostly under control.

We helped the neighbor man get his things back into his house, and I talked with him for a little while about life stuff, the kinds of things you get into when you are about to lose all your possessions and are just glad to have your life. He was grateful for the help and content to have what he had. Thankfully the fire didn't spread any further, and hopefully it will be the last time any of us have to see anything like it.