Southerners have the best accents!

“Good Mornin’, darlin’” is the most beautiful thing to hear. This week I got to hang out with a fellow Tennessean who is a current TEFL volunteer. You could hear both of our accents getting stronger the longer we talked to each other. It was fabulous! People just walked by and stared at us. Did I mention that there are NO other southerners in my group? The longer I stay here, the more I appreciate Tennessee, the people there, and the life I lived there. My dad was right; I will probably come back to Johnson City and think it is perfect.

Speaking of a place to live… we received a packet of the sites to choose from. We have the weekend to look it over and then on Wednesday we’ll be attending a site fair. At the fair, a volunteer representative comes from each department of Nicaragua to tell us a bit more about the different projects, the living conditions, any problems, etc. On Thursday we have an interview with the Program Director, Joaynne, to tell her our preferences. Right now many of the sites interest me. I’m kinda looking for a mid sized site where I am not an anomaly, but also not anonymous. I would like to stay busy with many counterparts or by working in a nearby university. That being said, I would still like to see other volunteers at least twice a month, so my site would have to be relatively close to others. I guess we’ll see what I get.

This past week has been pretty chill. I had my language interview on Thursday and I’ll receive the results on Monday. I think I did pretty well, but you never know. The last time I was a Strong Intermediate High, but they said I would have done better if I talked more. Sometimes it is hard to get enthused about the topics they bring up and you don’t feel creative. This time however, I talked her freakin’ ear off! If they are looking for rapid fire Spanish, I gave it to them. Not so sure about the grammar though. J

Other than my interview, I have taught a few classes and youth groups. My counterpart and I only have 3 more classes to teach before the end of school. I’m teaching seniors (who are fantastic!), so the last month is always busy and therefore we miss a lot of class. The official end of the school year is the second week of November and then my seniors will be “promoted”. It is supposed to be a fancy ceremony and I’m really looking forward to being there. I hear there are even corsages!

Many people are really looking forward to the break, especially my youth group. They had an unfortunate situation where their English teacher got a scholarship to the U.S. and left ALL her classes at the beginning of October. The Ministry of Education failed to get a substitute and the school didn’t have enough money to pay for one. That is when PC stepped in and offered us as a good alternative. We are substitutes, but not allowed to call ourselves that because we aren’t going along with the MINED curriculum. It has been a challenging group because they were told they are “lucky” to have this opportunity when three other classes don’t get it. (AKA- you get to work when the others get to play soccer and eat ice cream in the courtyard with their friends.) Needless to say, it has been hard to motivate them. We will see if we accomplish our final project of singing 2 Michael Jackson songs, 1 of Celine Dion and 1 of Nick Cannon. This past class we translated them from English to Spanish. Anyone wanna translate “Beat it” for me?

So tonight started out really fun. I came home from Jinotepe after going to the cheap phone and calling the U.S. for 2.5 cents a minute (compared to 25 cents a minute to make a domestic call within Nicaragua). I dropped by Steve’s house, talked with his family, and played with the little 4 year old, Ferani. They are great to hang out with and I will definitely come back to visit them. After that I stopped off at the bakery and got some cookies to share with Isolina and Francisco (my host parents) and on the way back home I was invited to play. This may not seem like a lot, but the neighborhood kids are so much fun. We play baseball, tag, kickball, around the world, cups, some kind of patti-cake thing… and lots of others that they teach me. I quite often feel like I am taking Tom Hank’s place in the movie “Big.”

So, yeah… it started out fun, but now the windows are vibrating from the music playing at the basketball courts- a block and a half away! Apparently they have a school sponsored dance every other weekend. The students are charged admission to gain entrance, and they blare music all night. At first I thought this was a great fundraiser, but then was told that the school simply keeps the money and doesn’t do anything with it. I secretly wonder if this is how the principal is paid. The music is very alluring and I thought about joining the fun, but then realized that grinding on the students may be frowned upon here. Flashes of newspaper articles and movie clips went through my mind that Mom and Dad forced me to view during my student teaching. Thanks guys… you knew it would pay off.

Well, I guess that is all for now. We have a birthday coming up in my family (Mallerllys is turning 4) and I am going to go to a PCT party tomorrow at a farm. Thank you to everyone who is taking the time to read this blog. I hope that you are getting something out of it, because I really enjoy sharing my experiences with you. Also, thank you to everyone who is writing me emails. I do get to read them once a week and it is always a treat to hear what is going on in the States. Have a great week!