Where have I BEEN?!

The last month has been busy, as you can probably tell by my lack of blogging. Let me tell you a little bit about what I've been up to.

Christmas week was pretty busy with choir activities. We had a performance with other churches in the plaza, a festival (say that with your best Spanish accent so it becomes a Spanish word and not an English word) with other choirs at our church, and we sang at Christmas Eve mass, as well as Christmas day masses at 8am and 6pm. Phew! It was a busy month of practices and performances/masses that kept me more occupied than I had anticipated!

We were also supposed to sing at the New Years Eve and New Years Day masses, but I got sick on the 31st and was pretty much out of commission for those two days. I was better on New Years, but by that time, we found out we would be bussing over to Managua for our retreat, instead of flying (holiday travel busyness applies to Port, too. Who knew?). So I took advantage of the opportunity to rest and try to fully recuperate before getting on the bus, because these trips are supposed to be quite the adventure.

And quite the adventure it was! The fun started when we got to the bus "terminal" around noon:30 and they told us the tickets we had were for the bus that left at 10:00am. That's the part where your stomach goes into little knots. But after a while, they figured out that this was not the case and that we did indeed belong on the 1:00pm bus.

So if you enjoy long bus rides on school busses, you probably would have had a ton of fun on this trip! However, I am not a huge fan. Things went pretty "smoothly" for the first few hours. I use smoothly in a figurative sense to say that we didn't have the kind of problems we had later in the trip. In a literal sense, the ride is anything but smooth as the driver must navigate crater-filled roads and try to avoid other obstacles that may have surfaced in the recent months.

Our first stretch break came at a river, where we would load the bus onto the lanchón (hmmm...ferryboat type floating device that brings people and vehicles back and forth across the river. If you have a better translation, let me know). The pulley system on which the equipment operates runs on an old semi-truck motor. I'm not smart enough to know the logistics of all that or why that's cool, but that's what one of the drivers pointed out to me.

So when we got across the river, the drivers had ascertained that we had a flat tire. This was the first of six flats on the trip. That's SIX flat tires for those who are only skimming and not reading thoroughly! The good part about the flat tires was that it allowed us time to get out and stretch for a little bit. The bad part is, they obviously make the trip longer.

Stops were also made whenever we got to an accessible form of water. You see, water is free, and engine coolant costs money. So why buy engine coolant when you can stop every hour or hour and a half to fill up a bucket with water? Of course! Problem is, this system has its holes, and a few hours outside of Managua we had some overheating issues. After about an hour and a half of trying to figure out what to do and getting some fruitless advice from passing motorists, it was decided that where the coolant would normally be poured, we were going to pour not only water but also oatmeal. Yes, oatmeal. I was slightly upset that oatmeal was going in an engine and not in my belly, but I got over it when it worked. No, I do not understand the logic behind this, but shortly thereafter, we were on our way again.

Once in the city limits of Managua, we were stopped not once, not twice, but thrice by local police. The first two times, the police officer had an ID out and was apparently trying to locate someone that had participated in recent criminal activity. (Comforting, huh...) The third time, there was some issue with the license plate on the bus. Why not?

Overall, the trip took about 25 hours (probably 19 hours travelling and 6 hours stopped for the aforementioned reasons).

And we went in the dry season when the roads are good. ¡Imagínate!

So the purpose of this trip was to get to the Managua area for our first CapCorps retreat. Unfortunately, we couldn't gather with the Lima crew as well, so it was just us Port volunteers and the Managua volunteers, but we had a grand ol' time. The retreat was a very welcome respite from four straight months in one place. We went about half an hour outside of Managua to Las Palmeras Retreat House in Diriamba. It was a surprisingly large complex that we had all to ourselves, likely due to the fact that we were there from a Monday to a Thursday and that it was the week after New Years. So it was nice to have just us there.

We had four days of reflection on our time thus far and how we want to move forward. We were challenged to let go of thoughts and practices that might distract us from concentrating fully on the retreat. It felt really good to focus on where we were and what we were doing. I'm still working on developing my "being in the present," and this was a good step toward that.

The last night of the retreat, we played Uecker. My first time playing, which I as a Wisconsinite am somewhat ashamed to admit. We had a grand ol' time, despite the fact that the team I was on lost. But it's not about winning and losing, people! Anywho, the retreat was great and the food was fantastic :).

After spending a night in Managua, I was on my way to Costa Rica to renew my VISA. You see, Nicaragua gives you a 90 day tourist VISA when you enter the country which can be renewed once. After those 180 days, you have to leave the country. "But Lee," you say, "You are but 50 miles from the Honduras border. Why don't you go there to renew your VISA?" Well, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have a Convenio de fronteras abiertas (Open Borders Agreement), which allows travelling between the countries without all the normal hassle and paperwork at the border. Great for people looking to travel, bad for people needing to renew a VISA.

So Rich Coast it is! Another bus ride -yay! But this is a coach bus, with soft seats and a TV..well the TV's color is busted, but it's still a TV. And who needs color for Mr. Bean reruns anyway?

The first few hours of the trip I had an open seat next to me, which was nice because I could stretch out a little bit. When we got to Rivas, Nicaragua, we picked up about a half-dozen people, and that's when Fritz (Fred) sat down in the seat next to me. Fred was born in Germany, spent about 8 years in the States and has been living in Nicaragua/Costa Rica for about 15 years. He goes between Costa Rica and Nicaragua every couple of months to tend to the businesses he has in each country. Anywho, it was great to have Fred because of his knowledge of San Jose. Since we didn't roll into San Jose until midnight, I felt much more comfortable having gotten the lowdown from Fred.

But before getting to San Jose, we had to cross the border. Fred figured we would be there for about an hour, but it was getting close to two hours when we were getting back on the bus, and customs still hadn't checked the bags. So what's our plan, money collector guy? Mira, que todos aporten un dólar o veinte córdoba para que no nos revisen el bus o las maletas. Translation? "Alright, everybody chip in a dollar or 20 cordoba so they don't check the bus or the bags." I literally almost burst out laughing when he said this, and I had some thoughts about perpetuating the corruption in Latin America, but hell if I wanted to sit there for another hour while they checked the bags. So we got the money together, the customs people came by and opened the luggage compartments and came on the bus for like 30 seconds to make it look like they were doing their job, and we were on our way. Totally awesome!

So Sunday was my first day in Costa Rica. I got up and wandered around the city a bit. Since we got into the city so late, I ended up just staying at a nearby hostel for a night intending to find a different one for the other nights. So I wandered over to the barrio (neighborhood) where there were supposed to be some good backpackers hostels. Well, eventually I ended up running into a dead end street that actually led to Simón Bolívar Zoo. Sure, why not? Zoos are fun. So I spent some time checking out the toucans, poisonous frogs and capuchin monkeys. Of course I had to get pictures of the Capuchin Monkeys - they're my Brothers!

Afterwards, I grabbed a quick lunch and then went to the Catedral Metropolitana (Metropolitan Cathedral, which you probably figured out) for noon mass. If you know Latin American history, you know that when the Spanish came, they built their City Centers with huge elaborate Catholic churches (most often Cathedrals). Well San Jose is no exception. Metropolitan Cathedral is definitely a huge Catholic church that has all the bells and whistles of the conquista. The service was nice, though, and the people were sociable.

Since I had some money saved up, I decided to be a tourist and look for some kind of Costa Rican adventure. I found a nice combo tour that consisted of a Volcano tour and a visit to La Paz Waterfall Gardens, which I had looked up before going to Costa Rica. So I booked that for my Monday.

But my Sunday wasn't complete. The tourist package place I found was connected to a Holiday Inn. So here comes white privilege: I know my Packers are playing, and hotels always have bars, right? So I wander into the hotel and up to the bar on the second floor and walk in as a couple from the States is walking in. All the TVs have fútbol on, and the husband is like, "Oh it looks like just soccer today." So I say, "Oh were you hoping to watch the playoffs, too?" "Yeah, we wanted to watch some football." Perfect. Now I'm not the only gringo that wants to watch football. So we had the barista (bartender) put the game on. So Jim and Jan are a doctor and a nurse, respectively, and were on a 9-day Costa Rica circuit. We were later joined by their friends Mark and Betty, Mark a former helicopter pilot and Betty also a nurse. They were great company and even better company when they insisted on buying my beer :). Only bad part about the night was that the Packers lost. Guess eveything can't go better than planned.

So Monday was the tour day. The bus picked me up at my hostel at 6am and we went around picked up the others (about a dozen of us in total) and headed out of the city. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there was a third part of the tour that included breakfast. So, our first stop was at Tres Generaciones coffee plantation. There was a really heavy cold front moving through Costa Rica for the three days I was there, so it was a cold and windy and rainy, but it was one of those rains where the sun was out, so this combined with the altitude produced a whole lot of rainbow time. At one point we had two rainbows, and at another point, I saw what was easily the brightest rainbow I have seen. Really cool. The coffee plantation tour was pretty cool. I'm not a big coffee drinker myself, but being that it was cold, I grabbed a cup with breakfast.

After the coffee plantation, we headed over to Volcan Poás. As we drove up to the parking lot, it was quite apparent that the weather was going to impact us here a little more than at the coffee plantation. It was about a twenty minute hike up to the crater in 40 degree, rainy, windy conditions. Thankfully, the tour guide had an extra umbrella to lend me, since I came unprepared for this fantastic cold front. When we got to the crater, it was completely clouded over. We were disappointed but pretty amused by the computer-generated depiction the volcano (oh so THAT's what it looks like!) and the fact that there was a raised picture-taking platform for which there was a 10 minute limit (we weren't even all up at the crater for ten minutes before we were ready to leave). Oh well...

The rains followed us to La Paz Waterfall Gardens, but it was still a cool experience. There was a lot more there than I had understood there to be. There were five waterfalls, I want to say, of which we saw three, hiking from one to the other. One of them is called Magia Blanca (White Magic). Looking at the center of the waterfall for about thirty seconds produces a kinetic effect when you look at the wall to it's right, as though the wall is warping. It's pretty sweet. Someday I'll get a video up on Facebook. It works watching it on the camera, so hopefully it'll work on a computer screen, too.

There was also a butterfly sanctuary, a hummingbird house, a panther, a leopard, all sorts of amphibians and reptiles and a full-scale model of an indigenous family house back in the 1800s. The house seemed kind of out of place, but they had good fresh bread :).

They also fed us lunch at the waterfall gardens, which was delicious. Between lunch and waiting for the mini-bus after the tour was done, I had three more cups of coffee to stay warm. Like I said, it was cold, even for me. I don't drink coffee, by the way, in case you were unaware.

Another benefit of the tour package was that there were yet MORE cool people to meet. I ended up talking with Randi quite a bit, since we were both travelling on our own. Randi grew up in the States but moved to London when she was in her 20s and has been living there for about 20 years.

Annika and Sebastian are from Germany. Annika had been travelling and doing research on rainforests throughout Central America for about nine months and Sebastian had just gotten into Costa Rica a few days earlier to spend a few weeks there before both of them were headed back to Germany. Annika had all the plans laid out but wasn't telling Sebastian anything, something that kind of made Sebastian nervous, as it would do to me. Gotta be in the know! Anyway, it was fun listening to them speak German between each other, and they both spoke really good English. Annika spoke quite a bit of Spanish, too, from spending time in Central America, and I think she knew quite a bit of French. Jealous, party of one :).

Then there were two guys from Italy who have been living in and working in Germany for the last eight years. Libero and Eros. How sweet are those names? "Hi my name is Libero, which means 'liberty' or 'free.'" "Hi, my name is Eros. I'm named after the Greek God of Love." I'm still not over those names. Anyway, real good people.

After talking with Libero for a while, he said he and Eros were renting a car to head down toward Jacó, a beachtown on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. So they invited me and Annika and Sebastian to come with them on Tuesday. So we did that. Spent the day swimming and taking in some sun and trying to get coconuts down from the trees. Thankfully, the cold front wasn't impacting the Pacific side, so it was actually beachy with the sun and the warmth and everything. When I tried to offer Libero money for gas and chipping in on the car rental and the water and snacks they brought, no dice. People are so generous. They finally let me buy them a beer when we got back into San Jose that night. Still quite a deal.

So the Rich Coast experience was great. I had a relatively uneventful trip back to Managua. We even let customs revise our bags and the bus instead of paying them off, since the border was less busy than on our way there.

But we're not done yet! I stayed Wednesday night in Managua before heading over to Masaya to get a guitar. I got into Masaya late afternoon and was having some trouble getting oriented to the city, so as dusk is settling in, I grab a taxi and ask the taxi driver to give me a spin around the city so I can get my bearings. Couldn't have found a better guy than Eddi. So Eddi takes me around for like 45 minutes showing me the markets and the schools and the churches and the good barrios and the bad barrios, and he even has a neighbor that owns a hostel that he can show me that's close to the Artisan Market, which is where I want to be for the Berbenas cultural celebration that takes place every Thursday. Eddi charged me $2.50 for this 45 minute tour around Masaya and gave me his cell phone number so I could get in touch with him when I needed to get somewhere in Masaya. The next day he took me to get my guitar and waited around for more than an hour while I picked out a guitar and had it restrung for my left-handed self. Price again? $2.50. I don't know, maybe that's a lot for him, but it seemed like quite a deal to me.

So I ended up getting back to Port on the 16th of January. We started back into work (sort of) on the 18th. The regular teachers are enrolling kids. Susan, Kathryn and I have kind of been coming and going to the schools as we see fit. I ended up tutoring a few kids most of this past week because their mom brought them to the school to enroll and wanted some tutoring before the schoolyear. Sure, why not?

The kids start back in classes this coming Tuesday, February 2nd. I still don't have a totally set schedule. A lot of it depends on Niño Jesús' schedule, which I haven't seen yet, because the vice-principal takes care of getting the schedule out, but he had to go down to Bluefields and Corn Island to tend to some issue with some land that he inherited and some company is starting to harvest crops on...without asking permission. So I think he just got back yesterday. Maybe there'll be a class schedule by Monday....the day before classes start!

Oy, what a whirlwind. Congratulations if you read all the way through and actually know what's going on. If you don't like reading and this is the first full sentence you're reading of this post, maybe I can work on finding a time to Skype with you :).

Merry Christmas - It's 85 and Sunny!

So Christmas is now less than a week away. Only by the advent wreath at church could I verify this for you. Sure, there are some shops pushing Christmas supplies, and I'll hear the occasional reggae Christmas tune. But Christmas just isn't Christmas without snow and at least one good "O, Come, O, Come, Emmanuel." :) I've experienced Christmas in a tropical climate before, when I was in Ecuador for Christmas 2004. While snow and Christmas hymns were lacking there, as well, I had the anticipation of at least seeing my parents and one of my sisters over the holiday season. This year, no such luck. Fortunately, the wonders of technology will make "face-to-face" communication feasible.


There was a time when what was important to me at Christmas were the presents. At some point in our lives, most of us experience the desire to get the latest electronic gadget or some necessary (or unnecessary) item that we don't quite feel like purchasing ourselves. But I can remember very specifically the sentiment and very vaguely the details of when that desire got the best of me, and how my attitude toward Christmas has changed.

It was Christmas sometime in the late '90s. I must have been about 13 or 14 years old. I was wanting and expecting some sort of video game system to upgrade from my N64 that was probably all of two or three years old, I think. At that time, as family, we were still opening presents on Christmas morning, rather than on Christmas Eve as we do now. After gifts, we would have been headed to celebrate Christmas with my mom's side of the family.

Whatever it was that I was expecting, I didn't get it and I was not a happy camper. My family will gently remind me that in my teen years, I wasn't always the most pleasant person to be around anyway, but this was pure pissed-offedness. Unfounded. But that was my reality. I'm pretty sure I didn't thank my parents for the presents I did get (and if I did, it was a grumbly thank you), and I spent most of the rest of Christmas day upset over the thing I didn't get.

I'm not going to lie and say I had an epiphany the next day about "the real meaning of Christmas," but I did feel pretty horrible about how I acted. It almost makes me shudder thinking about it now, how wrapped up I had become in the what at Christmas and how little import I was giving to the who and the why.

Since then, and especially over the past several years, I've grown tired of the capitalism of Christmas. I've scoffed at the "Christmas creep"--the way Christmas keeps creeping closer and closer to starting in June. I've enjoyed more and more all the Christmas hymns that are sung only one month a year. I've gotten more and more drawn to just sitting and being with my family and not anticipating the presents I will or will not get. I've gotten to a place where the who and the why really matter more than the what.

That's the real reason why this Christmas will be different from any other I've experienced before. I won't be at home to help pick out the Christmas tree with my dad and sister Sara. I won't be able to help decorate the tree with my mom. I won't be at home to decorate Christmas cookies (or inundate them with sprinkles) with my niece and nephew. I won't be able to compete with my sister Katie to see who does a better rendition of Stephen Colbert's version of The King of Glory. I won't be able to demolish my hip trying to surf down an icy hill in a plastic sled with my cousins. I won't be playing a good game of Garbage with my aunts and uncles.

Point is, Christmas is much more than the gift exchange. I could probably name, I don't know, maybe a dozen gifts I've gotten for Christmas in my lifetime. And I could probably name even fewer of the gifts I've given to other people, as bad as that is. I'm not pretending to be the first to give the message that Christmas isn't about the gifts. But it's not just that it's not about the gifts. It's about being proactive about the flipside, what it is about. It's about spending time with people you care about, if you're fortunate enough to have them in your life. I'ts about recognizing the miracle of God becoming human in order to begin a process that would end in what we celebrate as Easter. It's about the love that should permeate our everyday existence and would go a long way to solving problems if we would cultivate it.

I know it's probably too late to encourage any alteration to Christmas shopping habits for this year, but whatever you've gotten for other people or whatever you get from other people, try to make sure it's more than just a gift exchange. Take some time to be with them and listen to them and share with them. Take some time to appreciate the words of the Christmas hymns you might otherwise sing mindlessly at church. And if it's not too much trouble, find someone you like to spend time with and build a snowman for me.

"Hey, look - a white guy...

...I think I'll ask him for money!"

I imagine something like that passes through the brains of the men, women and children that take advantage of my passing by to ask for anywhere between "un peso" and "fai dolla'"--between five cents and five dollars, sometimes more.

When the kids do it, they typically go straight to the point - Not "Disculpe (Excuse me...)" or "Buenos Días (Good morning...); Just "Gib me wahn dolla'!" Most likely the only English they know, and it's probably not getting them as far as they thought it might. Kinda rude, right? Well, Brother David, one of the Bishops down here, gave a homily on this topic a while back, and he talked about how he tries to engage people in conversation when they ask him for financial goods. I've taken after this practice and usually respond to the kids by saying, "Buenas tardes, ¿Cómo estás?" Then we talk briefly about how he or she shouldn't demand money from strangers, and then I'm on my way.

Now, there are some adults that use this tactic to get money out of me as well. There are people that beg everyone for money and there are people that will just beg me for money. If you're a begger, you're a begger. I understand that you ask for money, both from me and from anyone else. But if you just walked by dozens of other people or dozens of people walked by you without you saying anything, and now you're gonna stick your hand out to me...? It's both frustrating and humbling at the same time. Frustrating because when they just ask me for money, it's because I'm white, and it shows the view people have of gringos, always having money in surplus. It's also humbling because as "simply" as I'm living down here and as much as I'd like to be able to honestly say that I have little more than they have, I actually have a lot more than most people have. I try not to use the words "No tengo" (I don't have any) in my response, because that's often bs. I have money for food and such at home, even when I'm not carrying money in my pockets, so saying I don't have money isn't really true. So I usually say that I can't and that I'm sorry and that I hope they have a nice day. Which is pretty cold, but I could spend hours of each day talking with all the people that ask for money.

Speaking of all-day conversations, there have been times where the conversation has gotten to be pretty long. There are some people who do indeed take the time to greet me with a "Buenas, amigo" (Hello, friend) and shake my hand. After some small talk about where I'm from and what I do, their financial troubles come up. People explain to me that they were just in the hospital and have to pay the bill and have no money (like this one guy who has shown me the same cut on his leg on four separate occasions over the first few months of being here). Or that they're not from Port and their mother is sick in their village, and this person has no money to get back home to their sick mom. Or some people, like my "good friend" Jonas Benedicto, tell me about how they used to live in the States and have a lot of gringo friends and just need a little money to get back on their feet in order to finish school. Jonas likes to hug, too. But out of concern for my personal safety, handshakes are more appropriate.

Then there's the incredibly awkward situation where it's someone closer to me asking for me to lend them money. My host brothers in Granada, a teacher at Escuela Maureen, one of our neighbors...all have asked me outright if I could lend them considerable amounts of money. This affects my interactions with other people who may or may not be asking for money. Some people have "confided" in me about how much they're struggling at home, how they are scrambling to get food for their family or are concerned about making it until the next paycheck. This is where all the begging affects me. Without asking me straight up if I can lend them money, I get the sense that they're hoping I'll volunteer to support them in some way. And I'm sure some people aren't necessarily looking for me to help them and just consider it a topic of conversation between friends, but the reality is that my experience has conditioned me to think they're asking for money.

Usually people are pretty understanding when I give them the explanation that I'm not allowed to be exchanging money with people. I explain how I'm on a fixed budget and that I can neither earn extra money (i.e. by giving English classes, which would produce a haul) nor can I give money away. I've given this explanation to a number of people that have stopped me in the street, and they express their appreciation for me taking the time to listen to them and to explain to them just why I am not going to give them money. Actually, when those conversations happen, the people walk away in a pretty chipper mood.

I try to be as patient with these interactions as I can. It can be more difficult when I have somewhere to be, but I at least try to take a minute to acknowledge their existence. On rare occasions, people just want to talk to the gringo and say Hi, and those conversations go much more smoothly. I guess it all comes with the privilege of being white.

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.