Back to School and Climbing Volcanos
Hello again,
Over the past couple of weeks, school has been meeting regularly for the first time in about a month, so I've finally been able to teach with some regularity.
My regular day begins at 5:30 when I wake up and have coffee and bread for breakfast with my host dad, José Ramón, and my brother, Daniel. Then at 6:30 José Ramón drives me a couple of blocks away to the bus stop where I board a van full of students that goes from Tola to Rivas that drops me off at Santo Domingo.
Then, on most days I am teaching English from 7:00 until 11:30, followed by a one hour break for lunch. After that, I teach again until 4:30. Then I go home on the public bus which is actually an old school bus from the United States, so it's usually extremely cramped when it's filled to the point that people are standing in the aisles. After getting home, I usually help cook dinner, eat and watch a movie with José Ramón and Daniel. Then I go to bed around ten.
I'm currently teaching grades 5-11, and since there are two sections of each grade, I teach 14 classes in total. Rather than teaching all of the fifty students in each class, I'm only teaching 15 students from each class because I really didn't think I'd be able to handle 50 fifth graders at one time. My English classes generally last between an hour and an hour and a half. Here's a video of some of my seventh graders practicing their conversation skills:
Regarding the political situation here in the country, things have perhaps improved a little since the last time I posted. Most of the roadblocks have been removed by the government over the past couple of weeks, so travel around the country has become more possible for Nicaraguans. Nonetheless, violence continues in other parts of the country with a current death toll of somewhere between 200 and 300 since the anti-government protests began on April 18th.
Because of this political tension, there was a brief moment when I felt scared to be in Nicaragua for the first time since arriving over a month ago. It was about 4:00 on a Thursday afternoon two weeks ago during exam week, so all of the students had gone home early and only teachers correcting tests were left at the school. All of a sudden the church bells from the center of town began to ring which supposedly means that the city is under attack. The vice principle immediately told all of the teachers to go home. One of the teachers started to cry because her daughter was walking around outside, but she didn't know where she was. My host dad, being the super brave and selfless man that he is, went out to look for the girl who was missing. I was then left at the school with about ten other teachers. Fray Fernando led us in prayer. All of us were scared, and didn't really have any idea what was going on. Luckily, the girl and my host dad returned home after about ten minutes, and José Ramón and I returned to Tola.
Later that night we watched the news to see what had happened in Rivas. We were worried that some people had lost their lives. We breathed a sigh of relief when we found out that nothing significant had happened. There were were a couple people injured a few miles outside the city when the roadblocks were being removed, but thankfully apart from this nothing else happened. So despite the scare, we were never actually in danger, and Rivas still remains without any kind of violence.
Please be assured that I am not in any sort of danger here. The violence has stayed completely in other parts of the country. I just wanted to share this experience because after having gone through this scare I feel that I've learned something. I now at least have a small idea of what those in other parts of Nicaragua have been frequently been experiencing these past ten weeks. This kind of fear, helplessness, and stress must take a huge toll on the lives of those who live in areas that suffer violence that occurs almost daily. Please keep praying for peace here.
On a lighter note, I spent this past weekend in Ometepe, an island in Lake Nicaragua, about a fifteen minute taxi ride and one hour on the ferry from Santo Domingo. I went with a friend of my host family named Pancho. We stayed with his sister and her husband and son during our two nights on the island. On Sunday we hiked partway up the volcano Madera, but we had to turn around before the halfway point because of the amount of mud on the mountain. From where we turned around we still got a really beautiful view of the island and the other volcano, Concepción. Here are some pictures from our adventures. Just so you don't miss it, I wanted to point out the chihuahua that followed us up the volcano in the hiking picture.
Pancho up until a couple months ago worked in a bar in a really touristy part of the country called San Juan del Sur. With the political tension, however, very few tourists have been coming to this country, so Pancho has been without work since the beginning of May. This situation is extremely common for the thousands of Nicaraguans that worked in the tourism industry. Pancho and many others are leaving the country and going to Costa Rica to find work. Please keep all of these people who are without work in your prayers.
My first five weeks have really flown by here, and it's hard to believe that my time is almost done.
Enjoy these miscelaneous photos of the wildlife here in our neighborhood in Tola and of me cutting the grass at Santo Domingo.
Until next time,
Jack
Over the past couple of weeks, school has been meeting regularly for the first time in about a month, so I've finally been able to teach with some regularity.
My regular day begins at 5:30 when I wake up and have coffee and bread for breakfast with my host dad, José Ramón, and my brother, Daniel. Then at 6:30 José Ramón drives me a couple of blocks away to the bus stop where I board a van full of students that goes from Tola to Rivas that drops me off at Santo Domingo.
Then, on most days I am teaching English from 7:00 until 11:30, followed by a one hour break for lunch. After that, I teach again until 4:30. Then I go home on the public bus which is actually an old school bus from the United States, so it's usually extremely cramped when it's filled to the point that people are standing in the aisles. After getting home, I usually help cook dinner, eat and watch a movie with José Ramón and Daniel. Then I go to bed around ten.
I'm currently teaching grades 5-11, and since there are two sections of each grade, I teach 14 classes in total. Rather than teaching all of the fifty students in each class, I'm only teaching 15 students from each class because I really didn't think I'd be able to handle 50 fifth graders at one time. My English classes generally last between an hour and an hour and a half. Here's a video of some of my seventh graders practicing their conversation skills:
Here's another video from last Thursday when we celebrated the day of the teacher here at Santo Domingo. The preschoolers did a great job dancing for their teachers!
Because of this political tension, there was a brief moment when I felt scared to be in Nicaragua for the first time since arriving over a month ago. It was about 4:00 on a Thursday afternoon two weeks ago during exam week, so all of the students had gone home early and only teachers correcting tests were left at the school. All of a sudden the church bells from the center of town began to ring which supposedly means that the city is under attack. The vice principle immediately told all of the teachers to go home. One of the teachers started to cry because her daughter was walking around outside, but she didn't know where she was. My host dad, being the super brave and selfless man that he is, went out to look for the girl who was missing. I was then left at the school with about ten other teachers. Fray Fernando led us in prayer. All of us were scared, and didn't really have any idea what was going on. Luckily, the girl and my host dad returned home after about ten minutes, and José Ramón and I returned to Tola.
Later that night we watched the news to see what had happened in Rivas. We were worried that some people had lost their lives. We breathed a sigh of relief when we found out that nothing significant had happened. There were were a couple people injured a few miles outside the city when the roadblocks were being removed, but thankfully apart from this nothing else happened. So despite the scare, we were never actually in danger, and Rivas still remains without any kind of violence.
Please be assured that I am not in any sort of danger here. The violence has stayed completely in other parts of the country. I just wanted to share this experience because after having gone through this scare I feel that I've learned something. I now at least have a small idea of what those in other parts of Nicaragua have been frequently been experiencing these past ten weeks. This kind of fear, helplessness, and stress must take a huge toll on the lives of those who live in areas that suffer violence that occurs almost daily. Please keep praying for peace here.
On a lighter note, I spent this past weekend in Ometepe, an island in Lake Nicaragua, about a fifteen minute taxi ride and one hour on the ferry from Santo Domingo. I went with a friend of my host family named Pancho. We stayed with his sister and her husband and son during our two nights on the island. On Sunday we hiked partway up the volcano Madera, but we had to turn around before the halfway point because of the amount of mud on the mountain. From where we turned around we still got a really beautiful view of the island and the other volcano, Concepción. Here are some pictures from our adventures. Just so you don't miss it, I wanted to point out the chihuahua that followed us up the volcano in the hiking picture.
Pancho up until a couple months ago worked in a bar in a really touristy part of the country called San Juan del Sur. With the political tension, however, very few tourists have been coming to this country, so Pancho has been without work since the beginning of May. This situation is extremely common for the thousands of Nicaraguans that worked in the tourism industry. Pancho and many others are leaving the country and going to Costa Rica to find work. Please keep all of these people who are without work in your prayers.
My first five weeks have really flown by here, and it's hard to believe that my time is almost done.
Enjoy these miscelaneous photos of the wildlife here in our neighborhood in Tola and of me cutting the grass at Santo Domingo.
Until next time,
Jack
Wow; so much happening each week. I'm glad you are having time to let these experiences sink deep into you. And I love that stylin' work apron in the final picture.
ReplyDeleteI miss you!