LPI results

Well I did a bad job on my LPI or the language test or at least I think I did. So I will be staying back for more training. Joys I am sick of training I have been doing 6 months of training! At least I don't thing I will be sent home. Its only for like a week so in the long run it will make no difference. It's hard to imagin that training is almost over. Time went by really fast.

We finished our youth group project. It turned out really nice. It is of a mural I will put a picture of it on facebook. The sware-in is in one week! I can't wait. Now its just a bunch of charlas about technical, medical and security stuff. Boring but essential.

My Site

Hey all so my computer is acting up again. The keyboard is crazy some key’s will work others won’t very frustrating. Anyways I can still use it with the on screen keyboard. Let’s see a lot has happened since I last wrote. I stopped at my volunteer visit right? Well I had the second LPI or language assessment. I went up a level but not enough I was hoping to do better. I will just have work harder. Though things seem to be against me. I am sick and we have less classes and more technical training. I get my site on Fri. Then it is the site visit. I will be able to speak a lot then. I am really excited about this.

A lay out of my request:

• · A small site close to the city.
• · I want to do work with conservation.
• · I want to work with NGOs and community organizations
• · I want to work with youth.
• · I am nervous about teaching but excited as well

Talking about teaching I just finished my last class in training. My class gave me 2 gifts, a pencil eraser holder and a wooden turtle. They are both very cute and beautiful. I was touched and surprised I know it wasn’t the best teaching they had but the kids even asked if I was going to come back to visit. I felt loved.

On the other hand the youth group is not working out well. There were two weeks of no meeting because of rain and Peace Corp commitments. When we tried to have our next one, we only had 2 out of 20 people showed up. We need to get our product done in fact we are changing it to something easier. We are going to do stuff with plastic bottle flowers and a mural. We now have 5 people in our group, which I am more than happy about.

I got my site assignment I am going to a small town 45min from Leon. We had our site visit the other week. My site has 3,000 people but nit feels smaller. I have two schools that I work in one in town and one about 4km away. I didn’t get to see the one fare away because of the rain it was flooded. The teachers were great and I can’t wait to start working there. They already came up to me with a few project plans, a park, a trash collection and dump, they seem receptive to a recycling campaign but it is not really part of the culture to recycle. Everyone is very nice and helps me with my Spanish. I can’t wait to get started!

My family consists of all women again. There is my mom and a 21 year old and an 18 year old. The 21 year old has a daughter 5 and the 18 year old has a 1 year old son. The 5 year old loves me and the 1 year old is scared of me. The family is really nice and I feel very welcome there. I get to be a vegetarian here as well! My room isn’t anything to write home about. It’s small with no ventilation. So in other words it is very hot. Leon is one of the hottest parts of Nica. This should be fun come summer.

Went to the Laguna yesterday which was cool if the hike wasn’t an hour straight down and you had to climb back up. I felt like I was going to die. I will not be doing that again.

Volunteer Visit

Hi, Lets see, much has happened since i last wrote. I just got back from volunteer visit. Which is when we get to spend three days with a current volunteer shadowing them and learning about what it is like to be a volunteer. I stayed in a small village in Leon which is hot and humib. When i say small I mean small. There were like 700 something people in the village. I loved it! I felt so at ease there. It was silente, well as silente as you can get on a farm. But at least there was no radio blaring or horns honking and tv's. Heaven in my eyes.

The house was really small though and it was really crowded. There were four of us cramed in there. The house was a thatched roof with a garden in the middle which was cool but took up to much space. There were alot of biting ants and i think i am allergic to them. My feel swelled up and got numb after getting bit. I'll just have to carry around benadril from now on incase i get swarmed by them. No real deal just very annoying.

The village was a bit spread out with tons of animals and farms. There was alot of errotion problems. I went to the school with my volunteer and observed him teaching two classes. Then we toured the village and spoke with people there. I was very excited i understood most of them! Afterwards we had his youth group and played soccer. We had food that wasn't meat which i was craving. I really want to live in a house by myself with in a family consetion. I feel like i will be more comfortable and sain in that situation. I'll have to talk to PC about that. I can make my own vegetarian food. I really think i will be one when i get home.

My spanish is slowly improving i guess it is hard for me to tell but i'm sure i am. I understand how it is supose to be but when i try to speek it it comes out all wrong. Very fustrating. At least i can understand everyone even if they can't understand me. I can only get better and will improve greatly when i get to my site. I can't wait I'm soo excited to get started.

Love you all and miss you though not as much as last time. Hope all is well for you guys in the states. Until next time.

P.S. I get PIZZA for lunch!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Problems in Nica

Hello from Nicaragua. Life is hard right now. Spanish has been kicking my butt. I fear i am not learning enough fast enough. I know it's one step at a time poco s poco but i can't help be get dicuraged. It is not what i expected it to be. Even though i don't know what i expected it is not this. The people are great and i'm having fun to some extent but I'm not falling in love with it like in Niger. Don't get me wrong i'm not close to thinking about quiting. I just don't feel as prepared to be successful here as i did in Africa. They say that Nicaragua's training is the best i have not found that to be the case. I can't quite tell what is wrong with it though. I just don't feel prepared technically to teach. I'm sure a lot of my droughts has to do with language though. I have little to no confidence in my Spanish abilities at this moment which is really hurting me.

I now have a class alone for Spanish to help me improve. It is working but i still have along way to go. I can't tell if I'm getting better or not which is frustrating. My new teacher is good and very patient with me. I have a lot of assignments of going and talking with people in the village to gain my confidence. It's scary but very effective. I hope to make a few new friends doing this. I'm also talking more with my family :) I will get there soon i know.

Our youth group is going well we had less kids this time around but that is to be expected since some of the kids were skipping class to go to the last one. We had to change our project a little bit. We are going to make a mural instead of a playhouse out of bottles. It takes a lot of work to make this happen and we only have a month to get it all done it. The kids seem excited none the less.

I taught my first class last monday. It went better than expected i taught it on recylcing and did a game with clay which the students loved. It would have been better with most language background. I'm beginning to see the true importance that language has on my work. The kids got it eventually. I do my next on in two weeks on the carbon/oxygen cycle. Fun which i find is hard to do in english so this should be interesting. I just need to prepare more at least i have more time to do so.

I want to take the time to write about some problems i have noticed in Nicaragua. I would love comments on how i might be able to fix them or help. Also just comments in general on what you think.

Environment
1. Deforestation: The farmers are cutting down trees for farming and making a living for their family. The land that they are using is not fertile and this is the only way they know how to make a living. They use slash and burn. There is also areas that are suppose to be blocked off for conservation that is slowly being sold.

• Possible solutions: Teach farmers other farming techniques, replant trees

2. Trash in streets: Before plastic banana leaves were used as plates and were thrown on the ground this is fine then since it just decomposed. Now they use plastic and still throw it in the streets. There is little to no garbage cans present and the children think it is funny to do so. They have a trash pick up but i don't' know how much it is effecting the trash. Not all villages have a pick up.

• Solutions: Create more trash cans, teach about recycling, do projects using recycled products

3. Polluted water: There is a lot of sun off from erosion and waste. The factories dump waste into the water. The villages dump waste in the garbage. The rivers and lakes are all contaminated and some are incapable of handling life. There are some areas that drinking water is not possible because of chemicals or lack of freshwater. Salt water and fresh water are mixing.

• Solutions: Teach about waste control, teach about the importance of clean water

Social

Teen pregnancy: There are many 15-18 year old having baby with older men or boys in their schools. Parent are afraid to let their kids go out and many girls an locked in the house. They use of contraceptive is frowned upon. Parent will not buy contraceptives for their child yet they also don't want to be grandparents. Sex edu is taught in school with a focus of abstinence but i am unsure how much is taught in homes.

• Solution: Teach parents how to talk to their children

Drowning: Many children drown because they can't swim even though there is alot of water in and around Nica. There are not many body of waters in villages and children/adults alike can't swim

• Teach swimming lessons if water is available, teach about water safety

Obesity: It is considered healthy to be overweight. mother worry when their child begin to loose weight and many of the foods are fattening. This is part of the culture of Nica. Their is little to no exercise done by Nica's.

• Teach cooking classes, teach about exercise and the importance, healthy living

Any other ideas? I'm all ears. Love and miss everyone.

Indpendence Day

Hey Just wanted to give you some information about their independence day. It goes for two days. 14 and 15 of September. It starts off on the 13th though with the passing of the torch. Which is when a torch is passed form Guatemala to Costa Rica. It goes through Hondores, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Each of these countries have their Independence at the same time. Then on the 14th at 7:00 in the morning all of the schools march in a parade throughout my village. See the pictures on my Facebook. Then they did a grand performance in the park. It was really cool and interesting. The next day they repeated the same show for those who missed it the first time i guess. Don't know for sure. Then in the afternoon schools from Managua come and preform.

One week in still going strong! (with some set backs)

MY COMPUTER IS FIXED FOR THE TIME BEING BUT I CAN'T SEE IT LASTING FOR THE WHOLE TWO YEARS.

It's really cute i have two little girls watching me type they are fascinated by it.

So I have been here a week now and I still like my village. My family is nice but i find it hard to start a conversation with them. Mama is very overbearing and acts alot like well a mom. Fancy that. LOL It can get very annoying at times but it is nice to know that she worries about me. The food is good but I'm getting sick of gallo pinto or beans and rice. There is at least a veracity of other foods that i get through out the day. Like sopa de pollo and their version of hamburger with is not a hamburger by the way. The food is very greasy here as well. A lot of fried stuff. Apparently chunky is healthy and good looking in their eyes. They keep trying to get meat on my bones! I can't eat a whole plate full of food lol. Oh well i try but i don't stuff myself and get sick.

My classes are ok, i am in the second to lowest group and the lowest in my group but i am learning alot. I can see the difference when i talk. At least when i'm having a good day. Today was long and hard but i'm sure tomorrow will be better. That is just what happens here. We get a new teacher which i am looking forward to not that i don't like my teacher but i'm really for a new person. She is not what i would call my favorite teacher but i could have worst.

We have visit the school and i saw the class that i am to teach. I will visit it observe next week which i am looking forward to. We are trying to get a group of jovenes (teens) to have a good to teach them about recycling. However no one showed up. We are now trying to get people through the schools and talking to people on the streets. It was discouraging but that happens. Try and try again that should be the Peace Corps motto. Lets just hope we do better next time.

The weather here is strange it rains for like a few minutes to and hour the sunny. But rains most night really scary at times since the roof is a tin roof and it is really loud. Thunderstorms are the worst since they stay right over you and are really loud. I had one a few days after i got here and thought the house was going to blow over! All was well but i hugged my teddy all night long.

I went to the beach yesterday it was beautiful and soo much fun. I can't remember the last time i was there. I really want to learn how to surf! I have fish which was great and the first seafood i had. It was also cool to see different parts of Nicaragua. I have also been to the lookout over the lagoon that i close to my village. But i haven't been in it that is my next goal.

So i'm going to write my typical day for you guys:
6:30-7:00 wake up
7:00-7:50 get ready and eat breakfast
8:00-12:00 Spanish class
12:00-1:00 lunch
1:00-3:00 Spanish activities in my village
3:00-4:00 rest aka me time
4:00-6:00 talk with the family and watch tele novelas
6:00-7:00 dinner
7:00-8:30 Homework and more talking
9:00 Sleep!

Wow that was hard to do in English keep wanted to type in Spanish. I guess that i a good sign.

In my village

Well today is my first full day in my village. I am a bit homsick being away from all of the othervolunteers. There are four of us in the village doing training together. We all are fairly closetogether but it´s not the same as a room together. I am really confused with this keyboard. It isan english keyboard with spanish placement of letters. I have to try different buttons to get theright combination to write what I want. Still can´t find the at key lol. Anyways i got off course.

My village is a small village a little bit away from Masay which is a about 40km from managua. Itis not too noisy however the church likes to shoot off these loud gun like noices at random times through out the day! Very loud and annoying it shoocks me everytime. My family finds it reallyfunny. It is also a very safe town I have already checked in with the police to inform them of mylocation and time of stay in the town to make sure i am safe. There is also no post office so i don´t know how i´m going to write a letter i´m sure that Peace Corps can help with that.

My family, I have a Mama and three sisters two of which are twins. Which i can´t tell apartluckily we just call them twins so i don´t really need to tell them apart. I sometimes wonder ifthey ever get tierd of being called that are wish they had more of a separate indentity. Maybe i will ask them sometime when my spanish is better. I really like my family, they are all reallypaticent with me while i strugle through spanish. They encourgage me to talk although it is hardto get a work in edgewise with Mama. Then she wonders why i don´t talk lol.

Elections are happening soon so it is intresting to see all of the campaining that is going on. I amnot alowd to get involved with the election at all of really talk about it with people. But there are trucks that go through town with loud speakers that broadcast the runnering ideas andinfromation with a flag. It happens a few time a day very intresting. To bad I don´t understandwhat is being said. I don´t see alot of stuff about it on TV at all but that could be because of thestations that are on at home.

has so Training is ok a bit bording. I learned alot of it in Niger but it won´t hurt to learn it again or thatis what i keep telling myself. I find it hard to not fall asleep through some of the lectures. However the people are really nice and i´m finding i´m making alot of new friends. Class so farbeen easy but i know it will get harder later. Right now i just need to talk and get betterwhich is easier said than done. We have a rule that we volunteer came up with no english exseptfor certain times of day. So far with have been somewhat succesful but then we only had one daygive us time. Everything is still new we will get there soon.

Nicarague is beautiful with lakes everywhere and beautiful greenary and volcanos. Reallydiferent than Niger and the Us. Still hace alot to learn about the culture and life here. I will learneventually. It rains strangely here sort of like how it is in New Orleans. A little bit of rain for a short amount of time then sun. So you really don´t need an umbrella beacuse you can just wait itout.

So my computer is broken and i´m running out of time on this computer. I will have to finishsoon. Peace Corps is seeing if they can fix my computer is not i will just use my kindle or publiccomputers. IT will have hard to do my homework since i need to read stuff online but peacecorps with figure soemthing out. So i can´t spell check since everything is spanish so i´m sorry from all the bad spelling. Love you all and miss you.