Highlights of the first 2 weeks of training

Hola everyone!  I know it’s been awhile since my last blog post.  Here are some highlights of the first 2 weeks of training.

• ·      Independence Day and the Anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto:  Both the 14^th and 15^th of September are holidays here in Nicaragua.  Normally, there are parades on the 14^th and then the schools hold events on the 15^th.  However, recently there have been quite a few small earthquakes and some activity at the volcanoes, so the president made the decision to wait and have the parades on the 15^th.  I’m not sure how waiting one day made much of a difference, but whatever.  On the 14^th the four of us went with Doña Elsa, Susana’s host mom to a restaurant to have some beers and dance.  There was a live band, and we danced all night, getting home at 1:30 in the morning.  The next morning we woke up early to go to the parade.  All of the schools in town participated.  Every student marched with their school.  Some students wore sashes to show that they have academic excellence, and others played in the band or danced with batons.  After the parade, they presented awards to some of the students.  Then, each school did a performance in front of the park.  I stayed for the whole thing, even though it was really hard to see due to the HUGE crowd.
• ·      Spanish class:  Not too much to report here.  We’ve been having class the past 2 weeks and we only have one week left with our teacher.  This week we’re switching over to the schedule we’ll be having after she leaves so we can get used to doing our new activities.  I’m going to be teaching science in a 6^th grade classroom in town 2 days per week and then doing some programming at the library as well.  We also have to set up our school garden next weekend and work to maintain that over the rest of our time here.  Tuesday is my first day of teaching.  I’m teaching a 90-minute block on renewable and non-renewable energy sources.
• ·      Block Party!:  Friday night, one of the political candidates (town elections are in November) threw a concert at the end of my street.  The band was really good, and I spent a couple of hours listening to the music and dancing with the twins and a younger cousin who’s 8 or 9.  It’s hilarious how young kids here learn how to dance so early!
• ·      Huertos:  On Saturday, we had an all-day training on how to make gardens.  We went to an agricultural training center and had a training session about how to make a garden, what pests we should look out for, and how to make organic pesticides.  Then we spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon trying it out.  We were in small groups with a facilitator to help show us what to do.  We started with a patch of tall grass and had to use a machete to clear it out, then pickaxes and rakes to prepare the soil.  We made a fence by sewing empty sacks together and propping them up on sticks stuck in the ground.  We planted a row of radishes, a row of cucumbers, and some squash.  We also created a seedbed to plant tomatoes and bell peppers.  In order to have good soil, we had to mix compost, lime, and ash into the dirt.  We also had to sift all of the dirt so that the seeds were in very fine soil.  Robi, Tim, Chelsea, and I worked with our APCD María Antonia.  It was a really long day, but now I feel somewhat confident in starting our school garden.
• ·      La Hípica:  Sunday was the hípica in Masaya, the nearest big city to my site.  Susana, Chabela, Susana’s host brother Fran, Chabela’s host sister Lisbeth, and I went into Masaya in the morning.  We walked through the market, hung out in the park, and had lunch.  After lunch, we lined up on the side of the road to watch the parade.  It was a parade of tons of people on horseback.  There were men, women, and kids on all different types and sizes of horses.  It was crazy because there were lots of people and lots of drinking going on, even the people on horseback were drinking beers during the parade.  It was also raining pretty heavily the whole time, but we were only slightly annoyed by it.  After watching an hour of horses go by, the highlights would have to be all of the people drinking beer while riding their horses, the random guy riding a bull instead of a horse, picking out all of the attractive guys that rode by, and seeing all the cute little kids.  We left before the parade ended, mostly because after awhile all of the horses started to look the same.

Sorry for the lack of pictures on here and on Facebook!  My new camera causes my computer to freak out every time I try to upload photos.  The camera came with software that I’m supposed to download, so I think that may be the problem.  However, I need to have my computer connected to the internet in order to do that, so I’m not sure when that will happen.  However, I promise you I have been taking pictures and eventually I will find a way to get them up here!

Also- I said this when I was in Honduras, but I’m going to apologize up front for my writing.  Because I’ve been focusing so much on my Spanish and using it all the time, my writing and speaking in English is not what it used to be.  I am normally a pretty good writer, I swear J