Happy Thanksaction!

Some of you may remember the phrase ¡Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias! from high school Spanish. It does indeed mean Happy Thanksgiving. Being the nerd that I am, though, I like to think about the translations and how the words that are used in different languages imply different practices. Well, in all honesty, Thanksgiving isn't really celebrated here in the Nica. There are actually a lot of preparations taking place for the Feast of the Virgin Mary, or Purísima, which starts this weekend and runs through December 8th. It's a pretty big deal. And our choir practice schedule shows it.

But...I'm writing about Thanksgiving, because I'm still gringo and hold close to my heart my Northamerican holidays. So if you want to translate Día de Acción de Gracias, it would come out roughly to "Day of Action/Act of Thanks." That really doesn't mean a whole lot in English, but I like the use of the word Acción, because I feel like "giving thanks" is often turned into simply saying what we're thankful for. But Thanksgiving is more than just saying. It's doing. It's an acción. So here are my thoughts on Thanksaction:

Praise God for all of the wonderful blessings you have in your life. Recognize the unique gifts that each one of us presents to one another. Appreciate the simple things that we often take for granted, such as security within our homes, support from friends and family members, and clean clothes. Hug someone who you haven't seen in a while. Human touch is powerful. Share your talents and skills with someone who can benefit from them, and ask for nothing in return. Listen fully to the words of someone your elder, and learn from what they say. Reflect in silence and allow God to speak to your heart. Spend time away from cars and concrete and notice the beautiful things nature has to offer. Look inside yourself and focus on all the good things you can offer the world. Contemplate how you might become a more complete person. Give your time to someone so their labor might be less. Open your heart to change that makes the world a better place. Be willing to change yourself if necessary. Ponder what it means to Give Thanks, and know that it is all of these things. ¡Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias!

So what's an average day in Port like?

Glad you ask!

Well, if you want to start at the very beginning of the day, I'm often woken up in the middle of the night by a confused gallo (rooster), an agitated perro (dog) or a talkative perico (parakeet). It depends how paranoid I am, too. When the dogs are barking a lot, that means there are people around, and people shouldn't be around at four in the morning. I think I have managed to sleep straight through the night at least a few times, but I'd rather wake up in the middle of the night. That means I'm well-rested and not sleeping too heavily.

I typically get up for the day around 5:30am. I try to participate in some sort of healthy activity like going for a run, attempting to do yoga or doing some exercises at home. There's a gym about a five-minute run away, so I go there occasionally, mainly on Saturday. Just want to get the blood flowing in the morning.

After that, I get out the pot and oatmeal and get that ready. I can't tell you how pumped I was to find out that there was oatmeal in this country, and at a price reasonable enough that I could eat it everyday! I'm somewhere around 70 straight days of oatmeal, which I realize is very ridiculous. I didn't even have that kind of a streak in the States! Breakfast isn't a big thing here, so options are limited. Thankfully, I was able to create my American oatmeal here to Port. It started out just as oatmeal, but I'm building it back up to the old monster it was: eggs, soymilk (well, powdered soymilk), honey, cinnamon...I'm basically just missing pasas (raisins), but I think I might have found an economical source for that too! If only there was Calcium- and Vitamin-D-fortified Florida's Natural Orange Juice to accompany my oatmeal. Sigh.... :)

After breakfast, gotta renew the water source in the house. For that, we have our pozo (well) from which we can pump water into the tank that sits on about a 12 foot tower in the back of the house. The pump can run for about fifteen minutes before it overheats. If I understood the explanation correctly, the machine is actually a pump for oxygen tanks for divers, if that makes any sesne. I could be mistaken, but the moral of the story is that using it to pump water up to a tank isn't really what it's supposed to be used for. So it needs like 10 hours to cool down after it's been running for 15 minutes straight, because that's not what it was made for :). That's so Nica!

I usually find some way to entertain myself for the next hour or so before I go to classes. Usually I take a shower...just kidding - I always take a shower! A cold shower of course. Midday showers are better than morning showers because in the morning it actually is a littly "chilly" (about 65/70 degrees fahrenheit), so cold showers don't always feel great. Taking a midday shower means you're probably sweating, and the heat of the day usually helps to heat up the water in the tank, so it's not so cold. But I don't wanna go to class stinky in the morning, so taking a shower at lunch is not really an option! Then I have half an hour or so before I actually head to classes, so sometimes I just dawdle (if that's a word), sometimes I read, sometimes I sweep. Depends on the day.

The work week is four days long, and Friday is my planning day, so I can figure out what I'll be doing the next week. But (big "but!") we've only had like three or four weeks of regular class since we got here in the middle of September. Whether it's been the threat of political uprising, the celebration of things like Día de la Autonomía (Autonomy Day, which is a-whole-nother topic) or Día de los Difuntos (Day of the Dead), or the threat of weather (hurricane or normal rain), there's always been at least one day when I was supposed to be working that classes didn't happen. Come to think of it, I think I've had about as many days not working as I've had working in the last five weeks. Also very Nica!

When I do actually go into work, I try to teach English to primary school students at Colegio Niño Jesús for about forty minutes first thing in the morning. I say try because it usually doesn't go too well. That's not just particular to me either. The kids are not what you would consider well-behaved and often need to be reminded by their teachers to keep the noise down. Sometimes they take an interest in English for about five minutes, but then they realize it's work just like any other class and they lose interest. So the other 35 minutes is just trying to keep things under control and throw an English lesson in sometimes :).

After that first period, I head over to Escuela Maureen Courtney to work with Carlos for the next hour of classes. Carlos is in the nivelación (catching up) class, which means the staff felt he wasn't benefitting from the normal classroom environment and needed some different attention. Carlos can't identify letters worth a lick, and sometimes I just don't know what to do. I can work with him on three letters for a whole hour and he might get one of them by the end of the day. Maybe! But there's no way he'll remember it the next day. When he's not working with me, he's in class copying down notes that the teacher puts on the board. I'm not sure what he does with these notes, since he can't read, but at least he's well behaved and tries really hard. The kid has an amazing attention span to be able to work with me for that long, and he really seems to want to learn, but it just doesn't stick! I don't know if I'll see much more of Carlos. Word on the street is that his family owes the school his colegiatura (school fees), and he didn't come to class at all this last week and a half, so his family might be keeping him at home so they don't get harassed about payments. Sad :(. But, if anyone has any good ways to teach a kid to identify letters, syllables or words, I'm willing to try anything at this point!

The rest of the morning I spend helping out with the music taller (workshop). Sometimes this involves me actually working with the kids, and sometimes it just involves me practicing guitar, since I'm learning how to play (and eventually teach) right-handed and some upside-down left-handed. I practice guitar when the kids are practicing the recorder. That's right - everybody loves the recorder! The kids actually like the recorder more, too, because it doesn't hurt their fingers to play it, like the guitar does! But when the new schoolyear starts in January (or February, depending on who you ask) I'll actually be working with the kids one-on-one with this, so hopefully they'll learn to love the guitar :).

After that, I walk back to the house for lunch, which usually involves rice and beans somehow. Rice is definitely a staple. A day doesn't go by without rice, and I'm good with that. I'd probably be ok with rice and beans everyday if I had to. Plus it's cheap, so why not? After eating, I usually have about half an hour before heading back to class, so I study some Spanish or some Miskitu or maybe take a power nap if the dogs were barking too much the night before.

Afternoon is spent again at Maureen Courtney. Couple more English classes a couple times a week, more of the same results. I have at least a handful of kids in the fourth-grade class that take an interest in the subject, so I just end up teaching them and asking the other kids to keep the noise down. Teaching five kids for half an hour is better than struggling to teach 30 for five minutes, if you ask me... It was frustrating at first, but I've accepted that I can't change in one day what the kids have been doing for years.

I also do more individual attention in the afternoon - with Alejandro, who is about 20 and also has significant learning impediments. He's in the nivelación class in the afternoon. My understanding is he got into the education system late, and so he struggles with reading as well. He can identify letters and syllables and eventually words with a bit of effort. If we repeat a sentence enough, he not only reads it, he also comprehends it. We've been working a lot on that lately, because he knows the syllables well enough to get the words out, but he doesn't always know what the point of the sentence is. Another good kid. Super quiet. Pretty sure his first language is Miskitu. Another good reason to learn the language, right?!

Eliezer is the third kid I work with individually, also in the afternoon nivelación. Eliezer has an easy time identifying and reading syllables, but also struggles with comprehension. His reading is robotic, but the good part is he does know the syllables, which is more than a lot of kids in the class can say. He also works really hard and can put up with me for an hour of class, which says quite a bit. Now if only he would do his homework...

I usually get home from the schools around 4:30pm. Since we've only been in the house about a month, there's been a lot of projects to work on, so there's been a lot of that kind of getting stuff done. Just lots of odd jobs that I won't bore you with. We do have a homemade compost bin though. Yeah! Well, we've had a compost bin for about two weeks. I can't say how long we'll have it because it might get ripped off. That would be sad, because it took a while to punch the holes in it. Hopefully the ladrones (thieves) would be smart enough to realize that it wouldn't really serve as a garbage can anymore. Although, I suppose it could be used as a clothes hamper...

Weekends are actually pretty busy. Laundry is handwashed, so doing that once a week leaves about two hours worth of laundry to clean and rinse and hang. I always pray for sun on the days when I do laundry so it dries out quickly! Sometimes it can take like 30 hours to have it dry out. Doing laundry has taken on a whole new meaning, because I'm actually DOING the laundry, instead of having a machine do it for me.

Weekends have also gotten full with choir activities. At first I thought choir would be a Saturday-afternoon-practice/Sunday-afternoon-church activity, but it seems there's always another special celebration to ensayar (rehearse) for. So we often end up practicing on Sunday afternoon, too, and then maybe singing at another event. So Sunday is like my fifth work day.

I guess to answer the question, there really is no average day here in Bilwi! Especially with the weather! Rain days here are more prevalent than snow days in the States. Since most of the kids walk to class from 10 to 45 minutes away, and because there's a belief (founded or unfounded) that the kids get sick when they get wet, only about 20% of the kids show up when it's pouring out. So after about half an hour of debating whether or not kids are going to show up, everyone gets sent home. More recently, the sun has begun to set sooner, so the afternoon classes get let out a little earlier so the kids can get home from school before dark. Always another reason to shortern the day! Someday this might frustrate me, but not right now. For the time being, I'm just taking whatever comes and trying to process my place in the world. I'll have plenty of time to think about it in December when there's no class!

Not for those with a weak stomach

So I had started to write about just what exactly I do around here on a regular basis when something came up this morning. I was starting to work on laundry when one of our little mouse friends decided to scoot past me along the wall. We've been trying to solve this mouse problem for a while now. We bought poison a few weeks ago and found one dead mouse in our laundry room a few days later, but holes were still getting punched in our food bags (Dry spaghetti? Oats? Seriously, what is this mouse thinking?). So we figured out that the mice were using the hole in the wall where the sink plumbing runs in order to get into and out of the house. Ok, so we put more poison down there. Well, we hadn't really seen much of the mice until today.

So, obviously the goal is to get rid of the mice. I don't know a whole lot about mice, but I don't really want to chance one biting me so "getting rid of," in this case, means killing, and probably killing pretty brutally. So I follow it along the wall and it hides behind our leftover roll of barbed wire. I move that and he hides behind of the legs of the laundry sink, and he's obviously trying to get to his hole in the wall. So I redirect him back to the other wall where he hides behind a broom. Fortunately, we have about a foot-long block of wood sitting in the laundry room, so I pick that up, move the broom and when he starts to scurry, take a whack!

Somehow I connected so he's kind of hobbling toward the back door to get outside, so I have to hit him again, because now it's a matter of putting him out of his misery. So I whack him again, doing my best to hit him on the head so it's quick, but he's still moving around. I pushed him outside in the back of the house and gave him the third hit that ended his day...and life.

After we found the first dead mouse, it was a sense of accomplishment. The mouse was causing problems, we decided to address the problem and we got rid of the problem. It was easy because it was like it was the mouse's fault for eating the poison. It was indirect. This time, it was very direct. I not only watched the mouse die. I participated in it's death. Hell, I was the main antagonist.

Some of you may think, Big deal. Dead mouse. Well my mind doesn't operate that way when I kill something. I immediately felt like crap. I'm thinking, all this mouse is doing is living it's life, causing me the minor problem of poking holes in food bags, and here comes the big human with the stick to put an end to things.

This is the problem I have with war. Yeah, I'm taking it there. I'm not gonna sit here and say I have the solution to ending international (or even intranational) conflict without using force, but war to me is an ugly thing. To me, sending troops off to war is like putting poison out for mice. Sooner or later, something's gonna end up dead. It's easy to put the poison out, because it detaches you from the situation. You don't have to do anything, and the outcome just happens. That's how it is for national leaders. Presidents, dictators, whoever. They send troops off to fight their fights and don't have to see the consequences directly. I'd like to see how a national leader would react if, instead of the enemy killing their troops, the troops were released home to the leader so that he or she him- or herself would have to end that soldier's life. How would that change the game?

So, of course, about ten minutes later another mouse scurries by me while I'm doing laundry. I'm still literally upset about having killed what I have to assume is this new mouse's brother or sister, so there's no way I'm killing this one. But I'm also not just gonna let it keep eating into our food bags. This mouse is moving pretty slow, so I'm figuring I can catch him. He gets into a corner and apparently is trying to act like I don't see him, so I grab one of the old rice sacks we have in the laundry room, throw it over him and pick him up, as he squeals for his life :(. I chuck him into the bucket we use for getting extra water from the pozo and let him sit, trying to figure out the best solution for getting rid of him.

Well, about an hour later, he's laying in the bucket panza arriba (belly-up). Apparently, he got into the poison we had set out. That would also explain why a mouse was moving slow enough that I was able to grab it.

Three dead mice. Two indirect and one direct kill. On some level, I know it's kind of silly to get upset about it. How many mice get killed in a day by how many people? I guess it's the bigger picture of respect for creation and my wondering about what makes one species superior to another that makes me think about this more than you might think about it. I just hope there's no more mice to have to make a decision about...

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.

Out of "The Zone"

After a week and a half of lounging and getting somewhat acclimated to Port, we started work at the schools this week. I spent Monday and Tuesday at Colegio Niño Jesús and Wednesday and today at Escuela Maureen Courtney. Since we got here toward the end of their school years (which run from mid-February through November), it has been a bit of a challenge to find our niche within the school schedule, and it has caused to feel a little out of place, out of "the zone."

Colegio Niño Jesús is a Primary and Secondary school (age of Primary schools kids range from about 6-12, while Secondary school is usually between ages 10 and 16. I know there's some overlap there, but that's how it is!), and there seems to be less of a need for us at this school for the time-being. The kids in primary school have class from 7:30am until 11:45am. The secondary schools kids are in class from 12:20 to 5:20 (there's no lunch program for the schools, and I think that contributes to the schedule. That and the fact that there are a limited number of classrooms and having all the kids there at the same time wouldn't work.) I'll probably mainly end up teaching English there once or twice a day for the last couple months of the school year, and then I'm hoping to find a greater calling once we start planning the school schedule in January.

Escuela Maureen Courtney is a Primary school that also serves kids with special needs. The age range of the kids here is much greater, from between 6 years to "kids" in their 20s. The younger grades (1st through 3rd) come to school in the morning, and the older grades (4th through 6th) come to school in the afternoon. In both the morning and afternoon sessions, there are special needs classrooms and a "nivelación" classroom, specifically designed for getting certain kids up to speed, or "nivelado." As there are many kids with delays, cognitive challenges, diagnosed "handicaps", or any other challenge, there is a significant need for individual attention. It seems I'll be offering a couple of English classes, starting to work with the music teacher so I can give guitar lessons down the line (if you think that sounds crazy, that makes two of us) and then spending a large chunk of my time working one-on-one with kids who are struggling with handwriting, language skills (yes, a gringo teaching Spanish), math, reading, etc. At some point, I believe I'll be taking on a "caseload" of kids to whom I will be offering counseling.

All of this is significantly different than what I had been anticipating prior to arriving. After-school/recreational activity planning was where I was headed, but the need is greater in other areas. It has been challenging to find my place within the structure of classes, and it wasn't until we met with all the teachers (ten in the morning and a half dozen in the afternoon) at Maureen Courtney that we all got a sense of where we were needed and how we could fit in to the daily routine. I can only pray that a similar sort of schedule can be sorted out next Monday at Niño Jesús.

Additionally challenging has been the use of Miskito by a large percentage of the population. It has been difficult to deal with the language barrier. So many of the professors and kids speak Miskito on a regular basis that there are many times that we are left out of the conversation by default or on purpose. Thankfully, the staff is all bi-lingual, and a great majority of the students are as well, as all the classes are taught in Spanish (although some of the students speak Spanish as a second language and need an explanation in Miskito to fully grasp the concept). A couple people have offered to teach Miskito in exchange for English lessons, a situation I will definitely be taking advantage of. In fact, the teachers are planning to let the kids out of school early on Friday mornings for the rest of the year to give us Miskito lessons for half an hour and have us give them English lessons for half an hour. Of course, with how things operate down here, there's no way we'll actually have an hour AND have time to eat lunch before afternoon classes, so maybe 20 minutes of lessons each.

On a lighter note, how many of us hear the phrase, "And for those of you that can bring your machete to school tomorrow, please have those, as we will be doing clean-up"? As financial resources are limited at Maureen Courtney (and I'm assuming at many schools throughout the country), there is not an official maintenance person, so the kids are in charge of keeping the classrooms and common green spaces clean. Of course, if you think there are lawn mowers, you are soooorely mistaken. I know that neither my wrist nor my back would have put up with the machete chopping that the kids did today! It's just not everyday that you see a BYOM (Bring Your Own Machete, as Kathryn so aptly named it) Party, and especially not at a school.

My lifestyle is already beginning to change in simple ways like going to bed around 9:30pm in order to wake up between 5:00 and 5:30am, eating a lot of vegetables since they are the most readily available food option, and taking time to learn more Spanish instead of watching SportsCenter. I have been fortunate to have not suffered any major setbacks, and I hope I can continue adjusting to life down here and start to feel more "in the zone."

Home Sweet Home

So we've been in Port for a week. It's been a pretty tranquila week. We've been lounging around a lot, trying to avoid the afternoon sun. September is supposedly the hottest month in Nicaragua. Arrived just in time for the heat wave, I guess. It's encouraging to know that the temperature will decrease, though I'm still not sure what the difference will be. I do know that sitting is my favorite new exercise. The output of sweat is similar to that of actually doing exercise.

So the setup right now is not definite. We got set up in what I consider to be a very luxurious house. We're actually living with the landlord's son; and the son's friend used to live here, is now sleeping in a little place next door and basically lives here just the same (he's here to shower and eat). The guys are cool, and it's been to our advantage to have a couple of locals around during our transition time. Still, we are anticipating a move at the end of the month when the rent is up or a few months down the line, so we can get closer to the convent (we're being supported by the Agnesian Sisters) and get set up with a space for the three of us, so it's more conducive to the community living that Cap Corps so fervently seeks.

Things are starting to fall into place a little bit more with the work we'll be doing. It's actually a little amalgam of tasks. For the first couple of months, things will likely be very informal, with the goal in mind of being able to transition to a sort of counselor relationship with the students. The school year runs from mid-February to the end of November, so we're getting here more toward the end of the year. For a couple of months we'll probably be observing classes, assisting some professors and maybe giving some English classes, with the possibility of other classes as well. Once January rolls around, we'll be into more of a set schedule. There's also talk of guitar lessons (surprise!), since the school has like 20 guitars that have been sitting around for years. I've got a lot of practicing to do to get ready to teach kids how to play!

Beyond the work, there's a lot more to get to know. I'm hoping to make some good friends in the market and try to get a deal on some food sometimes. There are supposedly some cool barrios nearby that we've yet to visit. If the opportunity presents itself, it would be great to hop on a bus and see places that are within a couple hours, but I don't know what the funding will allow. We'll see how the first couple months go.

So far, Bilwi is pretty much what I expected it to be. Maybe a little bit more :). Languages abound. Between Spanish, Creole, Miskito and some broken English, it takes a few seconds to distinguish the language and then begin deciphering what is actually being said. I think there's actually another language in there that I'm forgetting about. I know I'm hoping to get hooked up with some Miskito language classes to get some idea of what people are saying and to be able to go to Sunday mass at 10am and not be totally perplexed.

I'm glad to have a little time to relax right now. With Nicaragua celebrating Central America's Independence, there hasn't been much going on since we got here. Next week we'll start getting into the work routine and get an idea of how things will actually go. Until then, just more tranquilo living.

The transition has been more difficult than I had expected it to be. Having gone through the living abroad thing when I studied abroad in Quito, I figured it would be easy to adjust to living in a different country. But the fact that the living setup is different and the fact that I'm going to be here twice as long as when I studied abroad makes this time a bit heavier. It's hard to be away from the family and friends I've always been around. It's also difficult to be away from the activities I'm used to doing. It's definitely a bigger adjustment than I had anticipated, but so far I haven't had anymore breakdowns. I think having less to do gives me more time to think and long for things I'm used to, so once we start working, my mind will hopefully be more distracted.

In any case, this is my home until the calendar turns to 2011. It's crazy to think about all the changes I'll undergo, my family will undergo, my friends will undergo, my country will undergo in the time I'm here in Nicaragua. With any luck, the changes will be for the better :).