After seven weeks of training, PC announced our permanent sites today. There were some very happy aspirantes ( we would be volunteers) and some disappointed ones as well. This has to do with the process. PC gave us a list of open sites with descriptions. We could pick our best three. Then we had interviews. What this process did, I think, for some people was to get them invested in a site. Not getting it seemed personal or at least a disappointment. The truth is that with a couple of exceptions nobody had ever been to these sites. That didn’t stop some aspirantes from getting their hearts set on them. I have learned a lot from this process, to wit, that we don’t really know what we want, but the process of having to say we want something weds us to our own choices, uninformed as they are. Easy for me to say. I asked to go to the mountains, to a small community. And that’s what I got.
PC asks us not to reveal the name of the town on a public posting for security reasons, but if any friends read this blog and want to know just send me an email. You can google the site. Suffice it to say that my town is in the northern, more mountainous region of Nicaragua. I’ll be the first English teaching volunteer at the site, but I’ll have a site mate, a volunteer from another sector already there. I’ll be working with 4 English teachers in a very large high school, large because although my town isn’t very big, kids from all the 22 small surrounding towns come to the one school. I am very excited about this opportunity. I understand that the counterpart teachers are eager for the help and are willing to find a time to meet all together to work on plans. This is a big concession on their part. Nicaraguan teachers don’t get paid much and often try to work other jobs. Or they have families to take care of and that is time consuming in this country where, for instance, laundry is done by hand in a concrete sink with a built in concrete washboard, rinsed by hand, wrung out and hung to dry. But I have big dreams of making a real functioning team to design classes and materials and of establishing a bank of lessons and teaching aides that will survive my time at the site. Big dreams for someone who just learned where she’d be a few hours ago.
I can say that my site is in a pretty interesting area of Nicaragua is you like the outdoors. Look up the Grand Canyon of Somoto and Miraflor Nature Reserve. Two friends of mine here pulled Leon and Granada, the two bigger historical cities. Another volunteer is on an amazing volcanic island and another is on the eastern Caribbean coast. So there are lots of places to visit on vacation. And in the meantime, if small gets to be trying, I can travel a half hour or so in different directions to 2 decent sized towns.
Monday we all leave for a five day site visit. I am excited to be going and scared that my Spanish won’t be good enough. But I know enough to get by and if the small talk gets too rough in Spanish I can flip to English with those 4 counterparts who, thankfully, speak English at least somewhat.
On a lighter note, I learned how to withdraw from the bank into which PC deposits my training living allowance, about $35.00 per month. I’ll get more, $200, when I swear in but will have to pay my own room and board from that. PC picks that up now. Feeling confident and flush, I looked to buy a pair of jeans in the market and small stores of Jinotepe. You can buy used American clothing, but it’s not organized well at all and so you have to do a lot of pawing through racks. The style of jeans here is skin tight. Another challenge. Didn’t buy anything first time out. I found out that I’ll need to pay about $10 for a decent pair. So you can see there won’t be a lot of new clothes.
Next time I write, I’ll describe my new site The first person I can entice to visit me in Nicaragua can do me the favor of bringing a polar fleece. I think I’ll need it.
Going North
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