I’ve been thinking about this blog and I have a couple of disclaimers I want to make.. There are some constraints on writing that I’m afraid may leave a false impression. First, although the national election is today and the politics in Nicaragua are intensely interesting, PC has a policy of strict neutrality when it comes to any political expression, which as far as I can see, means no expression at all. It would be hard to talk about politics without betraying an opinion, so saying nothing is the best course. Second, I don’t want to write anything that would offend an average honest Nicaraguan. There are hard things to see in this country and they are especially visible to people who aren’t used to them. I’ll write about one below: dogs. Until I understand something better I hesitate to describe it because I’m afraid my norteamericano response would leave a false impression. As a result sometimes I worry that what I write will sound like a travel brochure full of quaintness and local color. Enough said on that topic. Reader beware.
We are heading into the last 2 weeks of training. The final language evaluations are next Friday. I have made my peace with them. I know what I know and no more at this time. PC is sponsoring a workshop for teachers and each training group has to prepare a 1 ½ hour charla, on a subject regarding the teaching of English. My group is talking about lesson planning, and my part in particular is objective writing. This doesn’t sound too interesting as a topic, but it is to me. I have become a little passionate about how we teachers use the students’ valuable classroom time. Especially here, where time is so hard to come by.
For example, I learned yesterday that there are 220 school days in Nicaragua. Officially. Compare that to the 180 days usual in the U.S. But those 220 days don’t happen, especially for English class. To begin, English class meets on average for one 2 hour class and one hour class per week, compared to other subjects that meet daily. And in fact, English classes last 1 ½ hours and 45 minutes respectively, for a total of 2 ¼ hours per week of English instruction. Secondly, school often doesn’t happen. For instance, this week there was one day of school. Why? A holiday ( Day of the Dead), a political meeting for teachers, and two days related to the use of schools as voting places. This is an unusual time, but school is cancelled for all kinds of reasons. In a lecture yesterday a representative of the department of education said that actually there are 70 class meetings for an English class in the year, about a third of the school days and from what I understand that is optimistic (I’ll bet he doesn’t count the days when school is closed for torrential rain). As a result, I am on a tear about using that remaining class time as well as possible. And that means a special obligation to get the purpose of those few classes clear. Hence, my topic: writing objectives.
Nicaragua is beautiful right now. We are entering “winter”. The days are nicely warm but right now there is less humidity and it actually gets cool at night. My family thinks it’s cold, but I think it’s fine.
My birthday was last Thursday and I got more celebration than I thought. PC is all over birthdays so I got text congratulations from my jefe and others. Then my family celebrated by—are you ready for this—having a pizza motorcycled in from the nearest city. It was served to me with a traditional birthday drink made for me alone, chiche de jenjibre, made of ginger finely ground, rice, canelo (cinnamon) and coco. It clears the sinuses and was pretty refreshing. The next day the training group met and my two 22 year old Texan sitemates rose to the occasion by buying a bag of candy for the group and for me 2 packages of microwave popcorn and a marshmallow and chocolate lollipop. They really surprised me with that one. Everyone sang happy birthday and then I was taken out for beers after class. An altogether satisfactory birthday.
Dogs. Whenever you travel abroad you see street dogs. Same here. They are pathetic and skinny and not-neutered and really scruffy and dirty. They are a part of the landscape and after a while you don’t notice them much. We have three dogs at my house. All day long they are tied up on short leashes in a place where there is shade and water. They are fed. At night they are let loose to guard the house. They bark at whomever comes along, usually only street dogs. When I got here I was horrified about the dogs, including the dogs at my house which I was not allowed to touch because they did not know me. Now I am not. Our dogs have a better deal than street dogs. They are free to roam around the yard for about 10 hours a day. The family doesn’t play with them, but they get shots and occasionally washed. It seems a pretty good deal for them, given everything. And in a place where there really are no extras, the dogs need to earn their keep.
This blog isn’t nice and thematic. But I’m going to add a couple of pictures. Just learned how to do it. 2 cute Nica babies:
Me and volunteer Chris atop Masaya volcano in the rain:
I’ve been thinking about this blog and I have a couple of disclaimers I want to make.. There are some constraints on writing that I’m afraid may leave a false impression. First, although the national election is today and the politics in Nicaragua are intensely interesting, PC has a policy of strict neutrality when it comes to any political expression, which as far as I can see, means no expression at all. It would be hard to talk about politics without betraying an opinion, so saying nothing is the best course. Second, I don’t want to write anything that would offend an average honest Nicaraguan. There are hard things to see in this country and they are especially visible to people who aren’t used to them. I’ll write about one below: dogs. Until I understand something better I hesitate to describe it because I’m afraid my norteamericano response would leave a false impression. As a result sometimes I worry that what I write will sound like a travel brochure full of quaintness and local color. Enough said on that topic. Reader beware.
We are heading into the last 2 weeks of training. The final language evaluations are next Friday. I have made my peace with them. I know what I know and no more at this time. PC is sponsoring a workshop for teachers and each training group has to prepare a 1 ½ hour charla, on a subject regarding the teaching of English. My group is talking about lesson planning, and my part in particular is objective writing. This doesn’t sound too interesting as a topic, but it is to me. I have become a little passionate about how we teachers use the students’ valuable classroom time. Especially here, where time is so hard to come by.
For example, I learned yesterday that there are 220 school days in Nicaragua. Officially. Compare that to the 180 days usual in the U.S. But those 220 days don’t happen, especially for English class. To begin, English class meets on average for one 2 hour class and one hour class per week, compared to other subjects that meet daily. And in fact, English classes last 1 ½ hours and 45 minutes respectively, for a total of 2 ¼ hours per week of English instruction. Secondly, school often doesn’t happen. For instance, this week there was one day of school. Why? A holiday ( Day of the Dead), a political meeting for teachers, and two days related to the use of schools as voting places. This is an unusual time, but school is cancelled for all kinds of reasons. In a lecture yesterday a representative of the department of education said that actually there are 70 class meetings for an English class in the year, about a third of the school days and from what I understand that is optimistic (I’ll bet he doesn’t count the days when school is closed for torrential rain). As a result, I am on a tear about using that remaining class time as well as possible. And that means a special obligation to get the purpose of those few classes clear. Hence, my topic: writing objectives.
Nicaragua is beautiful right now. We are entering “winter”. The days are nicely warm but right now there is less humidity and it actually gets cool at night. My family thinks it’s cold, but I think it’s fine.
My birthday was last Thursday and I got more celebration than I thought. PC is all over birthdays so I got text congratulations from my jefe and others. Then my family celebrated by—are you ready for this—having a pizza motorcycled in from the nearest city. It was served to me with a traditional birthday drink made for me alone, chiche de jenjibre, made of ginger finely ground, rice, canelo (cinnamon) and coco. It clears the sinuses and was pretty refreshing. The next day the training group met and my two 22 year old Texan sitemates rose to the occasion by buying a bag of candy for the group and for me 2 packages of microwave popcorn and a marshmallow and chocolate lollipop. They really surprised me with that one. Everyone sang happy birthday and then I was taken out for beers after class. An altogether satisfactory birthday.
Dogs. Whenever you travel abroad you see street dogs. Same here. They are pathetic and skinny and not-neutered and really scruffy and dirty. They are a part of the landscape and after a while you don’t notice them much. We have three dogs at my house. All day long they are tied up on short leashes in a place where there is shade and water. They are fed. At night they are let loose to guard the house. They bark at whomever comes along, usually only street dogs. When I got here I was horrified about the dogs, including the dogs at my house which I was not allowed to touch because they did not know me. Now I am not. Our dogs have a better deal than street dogs. They are free to roam around the yard for about 10 hours a day. The family doesn’t play with them, but they get shots and occasionally washed. It seems a pretty good deal for them, given everything. And in a place where there really are no extras, the dogs need to earn their keep.
This blog isn’t nice and thematic. I was going to add a couple of pictures but my attempt failed. I'll try to learn how next week.
Me and volunteer Chris atop Masaya volcano in the rain:
I’ve been thinking about this blog and I have a couple of disclaimers I want to make.. There are some constraints on writing that I’m afraid may leave a false impression. First, although the national election is today and the politics in Nicaragua are intensely interesting, PC has a policy of strict neutrality when it comes to any political expression, which as far as I can see, means no expression at all. It would be hard to talk about politics without betraying an opinion, so saying nothing is the best course. Second, I don’t want to write anything that would offend an average honest Nicaraguan. There are hard things to see in this country and they are especially visible to people who aren’t used to them. I’ll write about one below: dogs. Until I understand something better I hesitate to describe it because I’m afraid my norteamericano response would leave a false impression. As a result sometimes I worry that what I write will sound like a travel brochure full of quaintness and local color. Enough said on that topic. Reader beware.
We are heading into the last 2 weeks of training. The final language evaluations are next Friday. I have made my peace with them. I know what I know and no more at this time. PC is sponsoring a workshop for teachers and each training group has to prepare a 1 ½ hour charla, on a subject regarding the teaching of English. My group is talking about lesson planning, and my part in particular is objective writing. This doesn’t sound too interesting as a topic, but it is to me. I have become a little passionate about how we teachers use the students’ valuable classroom time. Especially here, where time is so hard to come by.
For example, I learned yesterday that there are 220 school days in Nicaragua. Officially. Compare that to the 180 days usual in the U.S. But those 220 days don’t happen, especially for English class. To begin, English class meets on average for one 2 hour class and one hour class per week, compared to other subjects that meet daily. And in fact, English classes last 1 ½ hours and 45 minutes respectively, for a total of 2 ¼ hours per week of English instruction. Secondly, school often doesn’t happen. For instance, this week there was one day of school. Why? A holiday ( Day of the Dead), a political meeting for teachers, and two days related to the use of schools as voting places. This is an unusual time, but school is cancelled for all kinds of reasons. In a lecture yesterday a representative of the department of education said that actually there are 70 class meetings for an English class in the year, about a third of the school days and from what I understand that is optimistic (I’ll bet he doesn’t count the days when school is closed for torrential rain). As a result, I am on a tear about using that remaining class time as well as possible. And that means a special obligation to get the purpose of those few classes clear. Hence, my topic: writing objectives.
Nicaragua is beautiful right now. We are entering “winter”. The days are nicely warm but right now there is less humidity and it actually gets cool at night. My family thinks it’s cold, but I think it’s fine.
My birthday was last Thursday and I got more celebration than I thought. PC is all over birthdays so I got text congratulations from my jefe and others. Then my family celebrated by—are you ready for this—having a pizza motorcycled in from the nearest city. It was served to me with a traditional birthday drink made for me alone, chiche de jenjibre, made of ginger finely ground, rice, canelo (cinnamon) and coco. It clears the sinuses and was pretty refreshing. The next day the training group met and my two 22 year old Texan sitemates rose to the occasion by buying a bag of candy for the group and for me 2 packages of microwave popcorn and a marshmallow and chocolate lollipop. They really surprised me with that one. Everyone sang happy birthday and then I was taken out for beers after class. An altogether satisfactory birthday.
Dogs. Whenever you travel abroad you see street dogs. Same here. They are pathetic and skinny and not-neutered and really scruffy and dirty. They are a part of the landscape and after a while you don’t notice them much. We have three dogs at my house. All day long they are tied up on short leashes in a place where there is shade and water. They are fed. At night they are let loose to guard the house. They bark at whomever comes along, usually only street dogs. When I got here I was horrified about the dogs, including the dogs at my house which I was not allowed to touch because they did not know me. Now I am not. Our dogs have a better deal than street dogs. They are free to roam around the yard for about 10 hours a day. The family doesn’t play with them, but they get shots and occasionally washed. It seems a pretty good deal for them, given everything. And in a place where there really are no extras, the dogs need to earn their keep.
This blog isn’t nice and thematic. But I’m going to add a couple of pictures. Just learned how to do it. 2 cute Nica babies:
Me and volunteer Chris atop Masaya volcano in the rain:
Objectives and Dogs
Objectives and Dogs
Objectives and Dogs
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