My Site Visit

Whew, so much has happened the last week! I met my three counterparts (Henry, Xiomara, and Enrique) and they all seem very nice. Henry has intermediate mid/high language skills (from my observations) and already has some great classroom practices. His students are motivated and excited to learn. This is the hardest part, so we are well on our way! His big goal is to incorporate more games and materials in the class, which I can definitely help with. Xiomara has basic mid language skills and her big goal is to work on her own language ability. She is about my age and has already told me that she wants to be great friends. Also she’s the lead English teacher for all of Ocotal, so this could be a great resource. Enrique has Basic low language skills and his big goal is to be able to read the Bible in English. I’m not sure if I’m the right person for that, but we’ll see. I wasn’t able to observe either Xiomara nor Enrique in the class, but from what they have told me, we will also focus on teaching methodologies.

In addition to these three counterparts, there are two other English teachers at the school. The one I met has FANTASTIC English skills (she lived in the States as a youngster) and currently works in the nearby university. We were both excited by the idea of me beginning to teach there with her. She said I could even start during December and January. Also, the idea of getting all the English teachers together to plan came up. This would be really exciting because then everyone would be teaching the same vocab and grammar at about the same time. If we can pull this off, it would be an amazing accomplishment.

The school itself is gorgeous, clean, and inviting. It’s very well organized and doesn’t seem like there are many major issues. The classes begin and end with a school wide bell, and of course, everyone wears uniforms. The students are respectful and seem excited by the prospect of having me in the classroom. I was able to talk with both the principal and the vice principal and they too are excited and seem very supportive. There are three different shifts of students (7-12, 12-5, 6-9pm), but still only 45-50 teachers. This means that many have to teach two shifts to fulfill the mandated 30 hour work week. At least one of my counterparts teaches each shift, so we’ll see what my schedule turns out to be.

In addition to my school responsibilities I will be working on secondary projects. Right now I have two possible groups for informal English classes in the community. One came about when I was reading in the park and Sarahí came up to talk to me. She is a tour guide in Ocotal and is highly motivated to learn better English. After asking for lessons, I asked her to get a group together (which currently has 17 interested people) and we would work something out. The other group is being put together by one of my site mates, Nikki. While she has been living in Ocotal, many random people have asked her for lessons. She’s giving me the list and we’ll see what works out. Speaking of site mates, I have two super nice ones. Nikki is from Small Business and has less than a year left of service. Jessie works with the Health sector and has about a year and a half left. I meet up with Jessie for ice cream and a chat one day which was a lot of fun. I got to meet Nikki also, and she was nice enough to store my bags while I’m finishing up training. While I was at her house, I got a peek at her amazing library of books and DVDs. From seeing our similar tastes in entertainment, I think we will be great friends.

I didn’t leave my things in my host family’s house because it was less than an ideal situation. It was a rough four days with them. The first two days I really tried to integrate into the family, but other than the youngest girl, it was super hard. To top things off, their dog was guarding the house against intruders very well (aka against me). He bit my clothes, trapped me in my room, and basically scared me throughout my time there. When I asked the owner of the house (crying and shaking uncontrollably) about tying him up, she told me that I was basically overreacting, needed to chill out. Needless to say, I will not be returning to the house. When I go back in three weeks, I’ll be staying in a boarding house.

While I was out of the house from 10am-8pm each day escaping my family, I walked around the pleasant city of Ocotal. It’s pretty diverse with packed streets towards the center of town, but off the main streets a bit, the roads stop being paved and the houses are rustic. Although at times it seemed that I was the first white person some of these people have ever seen, everyone was welcoming and spoke clearly (YAY!).

For lunch and dinner I ate street food or from a restaurant since I did not have good access to a kitchen. This actually was kinda neat because now I’ve tried a lot of different traditional Nica food. My favorite is the taquitos (which are called tacos here), chicken or shredded beef rolled in a corn tortilla and then fried and served with cole slaw. It’s definitely not the healthiest thing, but really yummy to eat while reading a book in the park. Right next to the park is a community library with lots of good books in English and Spanish which I intend to raid as soon as I get bored. My overall feelings of Ocotal are that it will be a good city to do my two year service, but I know it will be a challenge at the beginning. It will be lonely and difficult to make my community of friends and start fresh. I have gotten so used to Dolores: its people that greet me on the streets, the kids I play with at night, my host family that I love and adore, and the high school where everyone knows me. I just have to remember that I developed all this in two months. In Ocotal I can do the same, I just have to be patient and talk to as many people as possible. This time however, I will have the added challenge of being the only TEFL volunteer and coming to the town during a two month vacation from class. WISH ME LUCK!