Week 6
So I didn’t get to post last week, but if you had constant penis fights going on in front of your house all week, I highly doubt you would have found the time either. Yes, this week was the annual festival for Saint San Juan (Is that a saint? I just go by what I’m told) in San Juan de Oriente. Apparently, this is a huge deal here. They cancel their classes (not our Spanish classes though, PC takes no holidays!), and basically get drunk all week, shoot off noisemakers, have parades constantly circling around the town, play music 24/7, and randomly decide to stage fights with bull penises as their weapon of choice. I’ve been told they spend weeks preparing these bull penises so they are extra effective in battle. It really must be a fulfilling experience to see your bull penis in action after all that hard work. So basically last week I was trying to sleep thorough band music at 4a.m, stepping over passed-out drunks on the way to class in the morning, and running away every time I saw a bull penis fight coming. Seriously, they are gross. Guys get bloody and really should seek medical attention afterwards. This one guy had all these slash marks on his face. There can’t be anything worse than a bull penis to the face. I’m not sure how many times I’ve used the phrase bull penis in this paragraph, but I will stop now. Bull penis. Okay, last time, promise. Gringo tourists even came, which was kind of a bizarre sight to see in our small town. The tourists were even doing weird touristy things like taking pictures of the chickens in the street. Must have been city people.
We also had our language interviews this week and received our site packets! My language level has progressed 2 levels, but I need to advance one more level in the next 3 weeks, or else you people will be seeing me sooner than expected! No, I really should be okay, but cross your fingers during week 9. The site packet and site fair were probably the best parts of the week. The site packet is just a list of all the potential cities our group could be placed in with descriptions about each city and the job we would be doing there. Everyone got crazy excited when they brought them out, like fatties at a Ryan’s kind of excited. At the site fair we got to go around to different stations and ask questions. We have our interviews tomorrow with the people in charge to tell them our preferences. I’m trying not to get my hopes up for a few of them, but it’s hard. Clearly, they can’t put you exactly where you want to go, I just hope they don’t send me somewhere I really don’t want to go. My top choice right now though is Corinto, Chinandega. I won’t get into why right now, cause I’ll probably start envisioning my life there and…..damn, too late. I am debating the merits of begging during this interview, perhaps weeping, I’ll keep it on standby, just in case There’s several others I really like too, though. We find out next Tuesday, I think, so I’ll just go in expecting the worst and hoping for the best. Leaving you now with that nugget of wisdom. Later people!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Week 5
Week 5
Possibly, my best week ever! Not in life, that would be a rather bold statement, but if my five weeks in Nicaragua all had a battle royal of awesomeness, week 5 would probably give a firm bitch hand to weeks 1-4. Sunday, we began our volunteer visit journey. I went to Telica, Leon to visit Peter. Telica is only about a 10 minute bus ride from Leon, the second biggest city in Nicaragua after Managua. To get there I had to take a microbus (basically a van) from Catarina to Managua, then another slightly bigger van from Managua to Leon, then a real bus (by that I mean an old American school bus, cause if I haven’t it mentioned before, that is what all their buses are).
The micro from Catarina to Managua was a little bit like Way too Fast, Way too Damn Furious! If in that film there was a minivan with no seatbelts going about 100 around all these super sharp turns, switching into the wrong lane and playing the kind of game of chicken that nobody wins. At one point a rock was thrown from one car at our van breaking part of a window causing some glass shards to fly around. People screamed, but I’ll be damned if our driver slowed down. After that, I put on my sunglasses and decided to go to my happy place, Olive Garden. The ride from Managua to Leon was a dream by comparison. Air conditioning, beautiful scenery, and the best of Celine Dion. Listening to “My Heart Will Go On” whilst cruising through the tropics; that my friends, is what dreams are made of.
Almost as soon as I arrived in Telica around 11a.m., I met Peter, and the conversation was basically Peter: “So do want to go to the beach, or” Me: “YES!!!”. So he called up some other volunteers and 4 of us ended up going to the beach a little after noon. The other two were environment volunteers named Rachel and Peyton. This was actually my first time in the Pacific, a little rough, but fun. We ate at this cute little beach bar and I got a cheese burger and fries. I was most likely making inappropriate noises during my consumption of this meal. We stayed at the beach till almost 6 before taking a bus to Leon to meet some more volunteers at a bar for dinner and to watch game 5 of the NBA Finals. There are apparently a lot of PC volunteers in the Leon area. It was awesome getting to hear a bunch of different perspectives on the life of a PC volunteer.
Monday morning we watched a little 30 Rock on Peter’s computer before eventually going to meet one of his counterparts for a planning session. This counterpart was really on her game, so Peter didn’t even have to do much of the planning. Peter had another class at 3 which gave us some time to go to these hot springs that were about 10 minutes from his town. The scenery was beautiful as there are a plethora (look at me with my SAT words) of volcanoes in the area. The springs were cool too, unfortunately there was this drunk and/or mentally retarded man who would not leave us alone. We kept asking him in Spanish to go away, telling him we didn’t have money or cigarettes. Then, I think he wanted a picture of me with his cell phone, and while I know I could easily be mistaken for some glamorous celebrity, we should be able to still be able to travel in peace. Finally we just left and I didn’t get to take any pictures, but trust me, it was pretty cool.
Other things we did before I left Wednesday. Visited Peter’s old host family, there was a puppy, I wanted to steal it. I observed a couple more classes, one excellent, the other totally crazy with the kids talking the whole time. Tuesday night we went to see a movie in Leon at one of the maybe 4 or 5 movie theatres in all of Nicaragua. We saw “The A Team” or “Los Brigados A, Los Magnificos.” It was in English, but had Spanish subtitles. The movie was pretty good, didn’t love it. There was nothing not to love about the movie theatre experience on the other hand, with popcorn and air conditioning. After, we went to another bar and watched game 6 of the NBA finals. If your thinking this trip sounded suspiciously like a vacation, it basically was. Also, I probably spent way too much money, and before we got paid Friday had about 3 dollars to my name.
The trip back went mostly without incident. I decided to walk back through Catarina on the way to San Juan and investigate the Cookies n’ Cream ice cream there again. Still not sure what makes it so good, further investigation will be required. The things I do in the name of science. Thursday, we had these small group sessions on stress that were essentially bitch sessions where everyone just complained about what was bothering them. I’m always up for a solid bitch session, so participate I did. Friday, we had some more charlas and such, also they brought us Papa John’s pizza for our lunch. I’m not going to even play like I didn’t shamelessly grab one of those garlic/mostly butter things to take back to my table. A bunch of people from different training towns met later that night and went out to this really cool bar along the highway that played mostly techno music. Bundles of fun. It was decided that this will be our new Friday thing.
Today we got to go to the Masaya Volcano as a group. There were some beautiful views and a very strong sulfur smell in the air. For once, I actually brought my camera too! Though, this internet is having problems uploading them, so I'll have to post them next time. Just use your imaginations for now. Till next time people, keep it classy!
Possibly, my best week ever! Not in life, that would be a rather bold statement, but if my five weeks in Nicaragua all had a battle royal of awesomeness, week 5 would probably give a firm bitch hand to weeks 1-4. Sunday, we began our volunteer visit journey. I went to Telica, Leon to visit Peter. Telica is only about a 10 minute bus ride from Leon, the second biggest city in Nicaragua after Managua. To get there I had to take a microbus (basically a van) from Catarina to Managua, then another slightly bigger van from Managua to Leon, then a real bus (by that I mean an old American school bus, cause if I haven’t it mentioned before, that is what all their buses are).
The micro from Catarina to Managua was a little bit like Way too Fast, Way too Damn Furious! If in that film there was a minivan with no seatbelts going about 100 around all these super sharp turns, switching into the wrong lane and playing the kind of game of chicken that nobody wins. At one point a rock was thrown from one car at our van breaking part of a window causing some glass shards to fly around. People screamed, but I’ll be damned if our driver slowed down. After that, I put on my sunglasses and decided to go to my happy place, Olive Garden. The ride from Managua to Leon was a dream by comparison. Air conditioning, beautiful scenery, and the best of Celine Dion. Listening to “My Heart Will Go On” whilst cruising through the tropics; that my friends, is what dreams are made of.
Almost as soon as I arrived in Telica around 11a.m., I met Peter, and the conversation was basically Peter: “So do want to go to the beach, or” Me: “YES!!!”. So he called up some other volunteers and 4 of us ended up going to the beach a little after noon. The other two were environment volunteers named Rachel and Peyton. This was actually my first time in the Pacific, a little rough, but fun. We ate at this cute little beach bar and I got a cheese burger and fries. I was most likely making inappropriate noises during my consumption of this meal. We stayed at the beach till almost 6 before taking a bus to Leon to meet some more volunteers at a bar for dinner and to watch game 5 of the NBA Finals. There are apparently a lot of PC volunteers in the Leon area. It was awesome getting to hear a bunch of different perspectives on the life of a PC volunteer.
Monday morning we watched a little 30 Rock on Peter’s computer before eventually going to meet one of his counterparts for a planning session. This counterpart was really on her game, so Peter didn’t even have to do much of the planning. Peter had another class at 3 which gave us some time to go to these hot springs that were about 10 minutes from his town. The scenery was beautiful as there are a plethora (look at me with my SAT words) of volcanoes in the area. The springs were cool too, unfortunately there was this drunk and/or mentally retarded man who would not leave us alone. We kept asking him in Spanish to go away, telling him we didn’t have money or cigarettes. Then, I think he wanted a picture of me with his cell phone, and while I know I could easily be mistaken for some glamorous celebrity, we should be able to still be able to travel in peace. Finally we just left and I didn’t get to take any pictures, but trust me, it was pretty cool.
Other things we did before I left Wednesday. Visited Peter’s old host family, there was a puppy, I wanted to steal it. I observed a couple more classes, one excellent, the other totally crazy with the kids talking the whole time. Tuesday night we went to see a movie in Leon at one of the maybe 4 or 5 movie theatres in all of Nicaragua. We saw “The A Team” or “Los Brigados A, Los Magnificos.” It was in English, but had Spanish subtitles. The movie was pretty good, didn’t love it. There was nothing not to love about the movie theatre experience on the other hand, with popcorn and air conditioning. After, we went to another bar and watched game 6 of the NBA finals. If your thinking this trip sounded suspiciously like a vacation, it basically was. Also, I probably spent way too much money, and before we got paid Friday had about 3 dollars to my name.
The trip back went mostly without incident. I decided to walk back through Catarina on the way to San Juan and investigate the Cookies n’ Cream ice cream there again. Still not sure what makes it so good, further investigation will be required. The things I do in the name of science. Thursday, we had these small group sessions on stress that were essentially bitch sessions where everyone just complained about what was bothering them. I’m always up for a solid bitch session, so participate I did. Friday, we had some more charlas and such, also they brought us Papa John’s pizza for our lunch. I’m not going to even play like I didn’t shamelessly grab one of those garlic/mostly butter things to take back to my table. A bunch of people from different training towns met later that night and went out to this really cool bar along the highway that played mostly techno music. Bundles of fun. It was decided that this will be our new Friday thing.
Today we got to go to the Masaya Volcano as a group. There were some beautiful views and a very strong sulfur smell in the air. For once, I actually brought my camera too! Though, this internet is having problems uploading them, so I'll have to post them next time. Just use your imaginations for now. Till next time people, keep it classy!
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Week 4
Ugh, I’ve been having a spot of computer trouble lately. Hopefully, the situation has been resolved. This week has also felt crazy busy. I taught a class Thursday, which sounds a bit more impressive than it was, since I used a lot of visual aides and such. Either way, the combination of nerves and heat made me sweat a small pond. Also, we’ve been having a bit of youth group drama. We have to start this youth group at our local school to take part in a business competition as part of our training. Well the group needs to pick a product to sell and it’s caused a dash of division in our young ones. One group wanted postcards and the other this candy made from a local leaf. I was kind of hoping for some Gossip Girl like confrontation, where people get yogurt dumped on their head and banned from the steps of the Baptist church or something, but alas, the post card group kind of just stopped showing up and the problem sort of solved itself. These people need to watch more trashy tv.
We also got to step foot on American soil again, at the U.S. embassy that is. It was pretty, and we got a lecture on food security, which I guess was interesting, if your into that type of thing. I kind of was hoping we would get more of a tour though, or at the very least a cocktail party. I always imagine those are the types of things that happen at embassies. On the way back I had an extremely pleasant bus ride where I was shoved standing into this corner and some guy put a power saw by my foot for an hour, like that was an okay thing you can do.
Other interesting things this week. I had cookies and cream ice cream here the other day, it was heaven. I mean I know they use full on fat and probably a butt load of sugar, but I have no idea what else they use to make it so good! I’m not even a huge cookies and cream fan back in the states. Perhaps crack? There was also this odd parade Tuesday where primary school kids ran around the streets in random costumes. One kid was dressed like an old person, some were wearing crazy animal masks. Just in the middle of the day, for what I was told is some holiday called day of the children. I saw a bizarre chicken/mutant walking in the street the other day, that literally looked like an aborted fetus. People here also wear these American shirts, and they have no idea what the writing says. I’ve seen little boys with shirts that say “I’m a Proud Big Sister“, and an old woman with this Cancun shirt that said “I’m shy, but I have a huge dick”. It’s kind of awesome. The noise thing here is still bizarre to me. They shoot these bombas all day and night that are basically fireworks without the pretty lights. Just smoke and noise. All the time. Sometimes I feel like I’m in the middle of the American Revolution or something. Last night I heard what I swear was some kind of traveling band. This noise started getting louder and louder and it was like trumpets, drums, symbols, saxophones, the whole she bang. At 5 in the morning.
Tomorrow we head off on our separate volunteer visits. It’s where each trainee goes and lives with a different volunteer for 4 days to see what life as a real volunteer is like. Mine is Peter and I will be in Telica, Leon. I’m pretty pumped cause there’s both a volcano and a beach nearby, and he told me to bring hiking boots and a swimsuit. Not too excited about traveling tomorrow though. It’s a three hour bus ride, which I know will mean getting straddled by multiple strangers for three hours while other people try shoving tasty treats at me to buy that I know can only lead to diarreaville, and that is a township I visit far too often as it is. I know, no pictures or bar graphs again! But I’m bringing my camera to Leon and will take bunches! Until next time lovely people, I miss you all!
We also got to step foot on American soil again, at the U.S. embassy that is. It was pretty, and we got a lecture on food security, which I guess was interesting, if your into that type of thing. I kind of was hoping we would get more of a tour though, or at the very least a cocktail party. I always imagine those are the types of things that happen at embassies. On the way back I had an extremely pleasant bus ride where I was shoved standing into this corner and some guy put a power saw by my foot for an hour, like that was an okay thing you can do.
Other interesting things this week. I had cookies and cream ice cream here the other day, it was heaven. I mean I know they use full on fat and probably a butt load of sugar, but I have no idea what else they use to make it so good! I’m not even a huge cookies and cream fan back in the states. Perhaps crack? There was also this odd parade Tuesday where primary school kids ran around the streets in random costumes. One kid was dressed like an old person, some were wearing crazy animal masks. Just in the middle of the day, for what I was told is some holiday called day of the children. I saw a bizarre chicken/mutant walking in the street the other day, that literally looked like an aborted fetus. People here also wear these American shirts, and they have no idea what the writing says. I’ve seen little boys with shirts that say “I’m a Proud Big Sister“, and an old woman with this Cancun shirt that said “I’m shy, but I have a huge dick”. It’s kind of awesome. The noise thing here is still bizarre to me. They shoot these bombas all day and night that are basically fireworks without the pretty lights. Just smoke and noise. All the time. Sometimes I feel like I’m in the middle of the American Revolution or something. Last night I heard what I swear was some kind of traveling band. This noise started getting louder and louder and it was like trumpets, drums, symbols, saxophones, the whole she bang. At 5 in the morning.
Tomorrow we head off on our separate volunteer visits. It’s where each trainee goes and lives with a different volunteer for 4 days to see what life as a real volunteer is like. Mine is Peter and I will be in Telica, Leon. I’m pretty pumped cause there’s both a volcano and a beach nearby, and he told me to bring hiking boots and a swimsuit. Not too excited about traveling tomorrow though. It’s a three hour bus ride, which I know will mean getting straddled by multiple strangers for three hours while other people try shoving tasty treats at me to buy that I know can only lead to diarreaville, and that is a township I visit far too often as it is. I know, no pictures or bar graphs again! But I’m bringing my camera to Leon and will take bunches! Until next time lovely people, I miss you all!
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Mother's Day, Interviews, Constipation, oh my!
Days 17-23
What a week! Last Friday seems like forever ago, I really need to keep up with this more. I was totally going to take pictures of my town on the way over here, but it’s raining, of course, since it rains for at least 2 hours a day, every day. At night it seems to rain even more. It rains crazy hard too, so the streets basically turn into these mini-rivers, and everyone in town loves just standing at their doors and windows watching it. Or maybe they just love the priceless entertainment of silly gringos sloshing around in thigh high water wearing completely rain-inappropriate attire. Anyways, so last Friday night me and Peter from San Juan were supposed to meet some of the trainees from Catarina to travel to Nicinomo for a party at this restaurant one of the trainee’s families owns. If that sounds complicated, it’s way worse when you consider that at the time only one of us had a cell phone. How did people get things done before cell phones? Pre-planning? Land lines? Physically looking for people? Who knows, I can’t even wrap my head around it. Long story short, communication issues occurred, half us didn’t know where to go, so a few of us just ended up drinking some beers in Catarina. Oh well, it was still fun, but the restaurant we were in kept playing obnoxious American rap music and like Kenny Rodgers so…I don’t even want to talk about it.
Saturday was a off day for us last week, what what! So all of us San Juan volunteers decided to go shopping in Masaya with this volunteer we had met earlier in the week. She’s been here for 9 months so it was the perfect opportunity to shop in a big town with someone who had some experience. The main market there is crazy, I felt like we were in Aladdin or something. We also walked around the more touristy part of town and got some American style pizza (or is it Italian style?) either way it was delicious! I also purchased a cell phone! My number is 505-861-75589 (I don’t really know where to put the dashes, telephone numbers here have a different number of digits). If you want to text me, I can receive them for frizzle, but don’t always expect a reply, this boy is on a budget. I also got a big fat sunburn from the Masaya trip since I forgot to wear sunscreen. God, I hate being pale. When is that coming back in style?
Sunday was Mothers’ Day, and that is a huge deal here. Kids had school off Friday and Monday in celebration and the churches do all these activities. I kind of had a headache though Sunday afternoon and my host mom told me they were going to be at church for at least 3 hours, so I quite literally told her I couldn’t do it. Afterwards, she kept going on about how she saw one of the other trainees there, and I was like, thanks, I get it, I’m an awful son for not going to church on Mothers’ Day. Then, we had pizza from Catarina. I’m starting to think pizza is kind of the go to food for classy occasions.
Monday feels insignificant, so I will not discuss it, except to say there was this crazy woman in the street who set up some speakers and decided to scream incoherent things for at least an hour. I don’t want to talk about what I wanted to do to this woman, but it involves the tennis racquet I own, yet currently have no use for. Thanks, mom.
Tuesday, my bowels said, I’m not done with you yet! Except this time I was super constipated. I blame the plantains. We’re not really supposed to self-medicate, but I told my sister I needed some damn laxatives. Those cramps were not playing around. The next day, Wednesday, I felt highly unstable, so of course we had to travel a bunch. \I found out I’m giving a class with a partner…for 45 minutes…in Spanish…next week…awesome. That has disaster written all over it. So we went to the school we are teaching at in Masaya for a little pre-teaching visit. We have to give our classes at private schools during training, because apparently the new minister of education here isn’t a huge fan of gringo organizations and won’t let trainees give classes in public institutions. This is a new policy. We also walked to Catarina for a technical training session. So I put in a Med-Kit request there that said “something for constipation”, I almost put laxatives, but I didn’t want them thinking I was one of those laxative bulimics. Is that a real thing? I don’t know, I’m sure some people try it.
Today was a pretty full day too. This morning the San Juan and Catarina volunteers had to travel to Masaya to observe a PC volunteer teaching in the classroom. The volunteer was really nice and answered a lot of our questions. The students though, seemed to spend most of class staring at us and laughing, so I’m not too sure of what they got out of it. In the afternoon we had a little interview with the woman in charge of training, Naomi, and also got our evaluations from our professor. My evaluation with my professor was kind of stressful, it was all in Spanish, and she kept going on about me needing to ask more questions during class, so of course during the evaluation I started asking all these questions that really had nothing to do with the evaluation itself. She brought it on herself. I think my interview with Naomi went really well, though. I felt extremely enthusiastic, but for some reason started to veer towards crazy town, yet kept it in check. Like at one point I did this crazy laugh, and went “oh, lord!” With a kind of southern black woman inflection. I have no idea why. I never say that. Also, maybe it was her bubbly personality, but I felt the strange urge to tell her things I knew I shouldn’t. For instance, I almost went on this bizarre tangent about animal abusers and how sometimes I have these intricate fantasies where I torture them dramatically, then thought, “wait, this is both unrelated to the current topic, and bat shit crazy.” So I didn’t. To wrap it up, I pinky promise I’m going to post twice next week, that way these posts won’t be unmanageably long. Like this one. That I’m pretty sure no one will make it through. I mean, it’s like a short story. Sorry to the two of you who made it this far.
What a week! Last Friday seems like forever ago, I really need to keep up with this more. I was totally going to take pictures of my town on the way over here, but it’s raining, of course, since it rains for at least 2 hours a day, every day. At night it seems to rain even more. It rains crazy hard too, so the streets basically turn into these mini-rivers, and everyone in town loves just standing at their doors and windows watching it. Or maybe they just love the priceless entertainment of silly gringos sloshing around in thigh high water wearing completely rain-inappropriate attire. Anyways, so last Friday night me and Peter from San Juan were supposed to meet some of the trainees from Catarina to travel to Nicinomo for a party at this restaurant one of the trainee’s families owns. If that sounds complicated, it’s way worse when you consider that at the time only one of us had a cell phone. How did people get things done before cell phones? Pre-planning? Land lines? Physically looking for people? Who knows, I can’t even wrap my head around it. Long story short, communication issues occurred, half us didn’t know where to go, so a few of us just ended up drinking some beers in Catarina. Oh well, it was still fun, but the restaurant we were in kept playing obnoxious American rap music and like Kenny Rodgers so…I don’t even want to talk about it.
Saturday was a off day for us last week, what what! So all of us San Juan volunteers decided to go shopping in Masaya with this volunteer we had met earlier in the week. She’s been here for 9 months so it was the perfect opportunity to shop in a big town with someone who had some experience. The main market there is crazy, I felt like we were in Aladdin or something. We also walked around the more touristy part of town and got some American style pizza (or is it Italian style?) either way it was delicious! I also purchased a cell phone! My number is 505-861-75589 (I don’t really know where to put the dashes, telephone numbers here have a different number of digits). If you want to text me, I can receive them for frizzle, but don’t always expect a reply, this boy is on a budget. I also got a big fat sunburn from the Masaya trip since I forgot to wear sunscreen. God, I hate being pale. When is that coming back in style?
Sunday was Mothers’ Day, and that is a huge deal here. Kids had school off Friday and Monday in celebration and the churches do all these activities. I kind of had a headache though Sunday afternoon and my host mom told me they were going to be at church for at least 3 hours, so I quite literally told her I couldn’t do it. Afterwards, she kept going on about how she saw one of the other trainees there, and I was like, thanks, I get it, I’m an awful son for not going to church on Mothers’ Day. Then, we had pizza from Catarina. I’m starting to think pizza is kind of the go to food for classy occasions.
Monday feels insignificant, so I will not discuss it, except to say there was this crazy woman in the street who set up some speakers and decided to scream incoherent things for at least an hour. I don’t want to talk about what I wanted to do to this woman, but it involves the tennis racquet I own, yet currently have no use for. Thanks, mom.
Tuesday, my bowels said, I’m not done with you yet! Except this time I was super constipated. I blame the plantains. We’re not really supposed to self-medicate, but I told my sister I needed some damn laxatives. Those cramps were not playing around. The next day, Wednesday, I felt highly unstable, so of course we had to travel a bunch. \I found out I’m giving a class with a partner…for 45 minutes…in Spanish…next week…awesome. That has disaster written all over it. So we went to the school we are teaching at in Masaya for a little pre-teaching visit. We have to give our classes at private schools during training, because apparently the new minister of education here isn’t a huge fan of gringo organizations and won’t let trainees give classes in public institutions. This is a new policy. We also walked to Catarina for a technical training session. So I put in a Med-Kit request there that said “something for constipation”, I almost put laxatives, but I didn’t want them thinking I was one of those laxative bulimics. Is that a real thing? I don’t know, I’m sure some people try it.
Today was a pretty full day too. This morning the San Juan and Catarina volunteers had to travel to Masaya to observe a PC volunteer teaching in the classroom. The volunteer was really nice and answered a lot of our questions. The students though, seemed to spend most of class staring at us and laughing, so I’m not too sure of what they got out of it. In the afternoon we had a little interview with the woman in charge of training, Naomi, and also got our evaluations from our professor. My evaluation with my professor was kind of stressful, it was all in Spanish, and she kept going on about me needing to ask more questions during class, so of course during the evaluation I started asking all these questions that really had nothing to do with the evaluation itself. She brought it on herself. I think my interview with Naomi went really well, though. I felt extremely enthusiastic, but for some reason started to veer towards crazy town, yet kept it in check. Like at one point I did this crazy laugh, and went “oh, lord!” With a kind of southern black woman inflection. I have no idea why. I never say that. Also, maybe it was her bubbly personality, but I felt the strange urge to tell her things I knew I shouldn’t. For instance, I almost went on this bizarre tangent about animal abusers and how sometimes I have these intricate fantasies where I torture them dramatically, then thought, “wait, this is both unrelated to the current topic, and bat shit crazy.” So I didn’t. To wrap it up, I pinky promise I’m going to post twice next week, that way these posts won’t be unmanageably long. Like this one. That I’m pretty sure no one will make it through. I mean, it’s like a short story. Sorry to the two of you who made it this far.
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