Our Neighborhood Park

We try to go to the park or on some sort of walk every day so that the dogs can work off some of their energy and be admired for all of their cuteness by all of the onlookers.  Yesterday the park that's very close to our house was full of people swinging, playing soccer, and spending time with their families.

Read more...

Supernanny Part I

I'll admit, one of my guilty television pleasures is that I like to watch Supernanny on Friday nights.  I love how Jo is able to manipulate the kids into doing exactly what she wants, and that she isn't afraid to let the parents know when they need to shape up.  It's almost the end of the school year here (everyone is ready for summer vacation!) and I realize that my school could use Supernanny's tough love.  I try to channel Supernanny myself to varying success, but here are two lessons that my institute still needs to learn:

Routine: Students (and teachers) need a routine to be able to thrive.

Exams

One of the most difficult things for me about being in Nicaragua is that seemingly no one here likes to plan ahead.  As a student, the first week of school I always looked at my academic calendar and wrote into my agenda our days off, exam days, and other important dates, and then I was always looking and planning ahead.  I realize that I fall at one extreme end of the spectrum, but Nicaragua falls on the other; there is no yearly calendar, and most decisions about schedules happen the day before.

The exam schedules here are sort of strange.  Teachers don't get to choose when they have tests in their classes, or how much their tests are worth.  Instead, about six times a year we have exam weeks where each day every student has one exam at the exact same time; the English exam may be Tuesday during 3rd hour, and every teacher administers the English exam to his or her third hour class. There are "partial exams" about every two months, so in April, June, August, and October, which cover the previous two months' worth of material.  Then there are semester final exams that occur in July and November.  We just finished our October partial exams last week, and teachers are still working on getting their grades submitted.  The last day of the semester is already set for either November 21st or November 28th (depending on who you talk to), and teachers will need time before that date to get all their final exams graded and grades figured.  That leaves a maximum of three weeks to finish any outstanding topics for the class (the topics that must be covered are dictated by the Ministry of Education), review for the final exams, conduct the final exams, and compute grades.  And, remember, we just completed one set of exams last week.

I had been worrying about the end-of-year schedule for weeks now because there just isn't enough time to get everything done.  On Wednesday, the principal's office finally decided that it needed to make some decisions, so they announced that all teachers' final exams must be submitted for approval the following day... not a lot of time considering that many teachers teach five different grade levels.  They announced that the final exams will begin on Tuesday, but they had not yet announced the schedule for the exams, though this is usually posted a week or so in advance.  Further complicating matters, school was canceled Friday and is canceled on Monday for the mayoral elections nationwide.  I don't have class on Thursdays, so I didn't see if they finally did post the finals schedule for students, but I suppose we'll all find out on Tuesday.

Days Off

As I said before, there's no academic calendar that says when there are days off.  Some días feriados are easy to predict, like for Nicaraguan independence day, but even then you never know exactly how many days off you'll have before and after the actual celebration.  Many other days, though, just show up out of the blue.  Two weeks ago, we were about to begin our partial exams on Thursday.  At the same time, there was a big band competition coming up on Friday.  Band here is really the only extracurricular activity, so it's a pretty big deal; the whole school was already on an emergente, shortened schedule so that the band could have time to practice; though I was trying to take advantage of what little time we had left to review for the tests, the classes were all shortened from 45 minutes to 30.  Then on Tuesday, they decided to cancel school on Friday so that everyone could attend the band competition.  This meant that all the exams had to be moved up a day, so I lost yet another day of classes that could have been spent reviewing.

Other times, we don't even get a days' notice of a day off.  One day in September, I went to school and found students playing outside and several teachers just sitting in the teacher's lounge.  It turns out that there was some activity that had caused school to be canceled, but neither the students nor the teachers had been informed that they didn't need to come.

Even if there is school and it isn't raining and the teachers come and the students come, that doesn't mean I can actually be teaching English.  On Tuesday a teacher came into my class about ten minutes into it and told all the students that it was time to walk to some sort of cultural activity across town.  Other times we waste a ridiculous amount of time as my counterpart collects money from all the students to make photocopies for their exams, and still other times random people (unaffiliated with the school) might come in to make announcements, advertise their computer classes, or ask for money to help care for a sick child.  I had a teacher in high school that hated school assemblies or other activities that took away her class time; then I thought she was overreacting a little bit, but now I understand completely.

Class Length

Classes here are supposed to be 45 minutes long, and we have English class three times a week.  The bell in my school isn't automatic, so its ringing depends on a secretary or teacher remembering that class is over.  Sometimes the bell ringer gets a little too enthusiastic and class is only 20 minutes long; other times, no one remembers to ring and class may be nearly an hour.  This makes it impossible for us to pace the class and make sure that we're at a stopping point when the bell is about to ring.

We also frequently use the emergente schedule, which allows for the school day to finish early.  These classes are supposed to be 30 minutes long, but can range from about 15 minutes to a full hour, depending on who's there to ring the bell.  The shortened schedule can be used for anything from giving the band extra time to practice to allowing for a staff meeting.  Often, for really important events like teacher parties, the school uses the double whammy of a shortened schedule, and then cancels the last few class periods just for good measure.  The shortened schedule is most popular during exam times.  Your guess is as good as mine why we would be shortening and canceling classes during the last few days that teachers have to review with students.

Supernanny says that "sometimes, all a family [school] needs is some structure and some practice at working together to get them back on track."  If the teachers can never know if we're going to have class and how long it's going to be, it's impossible for us to plan activities and make sure that we cover all the topics that we need to.  I rarely have time to assign homework, because either there isn't enough time for students to copy it off the chalkboard or because they have too much time and everyone completes it in class.  Similarly, students and teachers need to know when they will have school, when there is no school, and when the exams will be so that they can at least pretend to care about studying.

From the very first days of training, we've heard over and over that we must be patient with different cultures and that one culture isn't "better" than any other.  Most of the time I buy that or at least understand it, but this has been beyond my comprehension.  Even after just one year here, I already know that we miss days for independence day in September, that we have band competitions, and that we have shortened classes during exam times.  I can't figure out why no one sits down and establishes an official calendar with dates so that everyone can plan ahead.



Stay tuned for Part II, Discipline and Consequences.

Read more...

Yes, We Did

 From Slate.com

 

Even a few days after the polls in the U.S. closed, we're still a little in shock that the election is over and that Obama won.  I think because we were so far away geographically from the campaigning, we paid particularly close attention to what was going on.  We woke early up on (most) Sundays to catch Meet the Press, watched a lot of Anderson Cooper 360, and were always reading the latest blogs about what was happening in the campaigns.  Since January, we've always had some caucus, primary, debate, or interview to be looking forward to, and now it's a little sad that the whole thing is done.  Needless to say, we were holding our breaths until the election was officially over, but now are extremely proud of Obama's historic victory; we're now even more excited to return to the States eight months from now.

 After conducting informal exit polls Obama garnered approximately 100% of the votes cast in Nicaragua. All of the norteamericanos I know sent in absentee ballots and even all of the Nicaraguans that talked about it were big Obama fans; in our classes when we asked if students knew what big event was happening in the U.S., all of them knew about the election and many even yelled out "Obama!" 

To gear ourselves up for election night, we ordered some all-American Papa Johns:

It was at 11:00 when they officially called the race for Obama, though we were pretty sure what was coming after Obama won both Ohio and Pennsylvania.  Dora celebrated after the race was called:

 She simply could not contain her excitement:

Hooray!

Read more...

Brown Dog

One of the most noticable differences between Nicaragua and the US are that there are street dogs everywhere.  Most are very skinny and malnourished, and the female dogs almost certainly have a litter of puppies hidden somewhere nearby.  Dogs here play a very different role than they do in the US--while our pets are members of our families, here pets are, at best, animals fed scraps in exchange for guarding a home or hunting mice.  People don't hesitate to kick, run over, or throw rocks at dogs, and so most dogs are, quite understandably, very timid or overly aggressive.

Last Tuesday I was in the teacher's lounge looking at my calendar to count down the days to the end of school (about 5 days left!).  A street dog came into the lounge and jumped up on my lap, trying stealthily to lick me on my face.  Most of the other teachers were shocked and perhaps even disgusted when I started to pet her.  I had some free time before my next class, so I went to the market to buy her some food, which she quickly gobbled up.  She stayed nearby, either laying on the floor or making attempts to hop up in my lap.  When I went off to class, she stayed in the teacher's lounge snacking on her food, and she was off exploring somewhere when I finished my classes.

That night I told Paul about the sweet dog I had met, and on Wednesday brought back the remaining dog food.  The dog came back to school that afternoon, and hopped like an excited gazelle as I started getting her food back out.  After she had eaten her lunch, I went off to class and she followed me into the classroom, where she layed down in the corner as I taught.  When I left at the end of the day, the dog followed along, sometimes staying behind to sniff or explore, and sometimes running ahead and waiting for me to catch up.  I didn't intend to take her home, but must admit I stopped to make sure she crossed the big streets safely.

So, we now have an additional four-legged friend at our home.  She's not very old (she hasn't had any puppies yet, and still acts like a puppy), but has already had a tough life.  She has several cuts on her face that are healing, and a big scar on her back that we suspect came from a machete. We didn't really have a plan for what to do with her, but the first day we had her we realized we can't send her back to the streets: we took Dora and Brown Dog (as we call her, for lack of a better name) to the baseball stadium nearby to play and run.  As we were walking back, Brown Dog (who behaves wonderfully off-leash) bent to urinate in a grassy patch near a park.  There was a sanitation worker scooping up leaves nearby, and he promptly threw a rock at her.  We were a few steps behind, and yelled at the man to stop; his only response was that he thought she was a street dog.  A few hours later, Paul was outside with Dora and Brown Dog, and a neighbor purposefully swerved to run into her with his bicycle.  When Paul yelled at him to stop, the boy's response was, "That's how Nicaragua is."  I don't think we've ever hated being here more than we did after seeing how hateful people can be to a poor puppy for no reason at all.

We got Brown Dog a collar and spread the word among the neighborhood kids that we're taking care of her, so we haven't had any other incidents since the first day.  She and Dora get along really well, though sometimes Brown Dog plays a little roughly for Dora's liking.  Though she's had a tough life as a street dog, you'd never guess by her behavior.  In her heart of hearts, Brown Dog really wants to be a lap dog, though her awkward, long legs make it a little difficult.  She follows us from room to room and always wants to be in the middle of the action.  After a few days of Dora showing her what she's supposed to do, Brown Dog now loves playing fetch or tug-of-war with Dora.  She knows how to shake and is getting pretty good at sitting, and walks much more obediently on a leash than Dora does.

Our hope is to give Brown Dog to a Volunteer that's looking for a sweet, cuddly dog that is also a very loyal guard dog; she is always alert to strange people or sounds, and Dora usually runs behind trying to pretend she knows what's going on.  Brown dog sleeps out in our garage/patio, and I've never felt safer.  If any Volunteers reading this are willing to give Brown Dog a permanent home (and a better name!) please let us know.  Until then, you can find us all snuggled together watching T.V.

Read more...

Lists of things

Unfortunately I had to update my list of things that have been stolen from me so far on Friday. I stopped at a restaurant (in what I now realize is the "bad part" of Masaya) to look at the menu and left my bike alone for maybe two minutes and when I turned around it was gone. I think I had that bike for about a month or two but it's gone. There are probably 30,000 blue bikes in Masaya so I don't really think the police are going to be much of a resource.

I know I've posted this picture recently but it's the only one I have of my bike. The description that I've given everyone is that it's blue with Shimano stickers. I'm pretty sure it's gone.

My list of things stolen is:

• Basil plants (x2)
• Bikes (x2)
• Bike locks (x2)
  
• Handkerchief (stolen off of the clothesline)
  

That's really not a bad list considering that other people that live close have had computers and iPods stolen. That's the only thing that contains my vigilante spirit.

Read more...