The weekend in Ocotal

On Saturday morning, we headed up to the rural mountain community of Ocotal - about an hour and a half drive from El Sauce. We stopped to visit the Buena Vista school we built last year. Unfortunately, the kids were not in session, but seeing the finished product again was a rewarding experience - knowing the children of this community were attending school every day in the new building with new materials and books. 

As we reached the community of Ocotal, we were met by the tourism cooperative with 16 horses to take us on a ride to a coffee farm. 

We were given a tour by Juan Martinez as he explained the process for cultivating coffee beans. Bethany, the Enlace intern, translated for us. Fortunately, my Spanish has improved over the course of the year, so I was able to understand a lot of the tour before it was translated. It's amazing how muc work is out into producing the coffee beans we use every morning back home. The farmers here do everything by hand, and a lot of time goes into making just one pound of coffee. The community does not have running water, indoor plumbing, or regular electricity (although many houses use solar power now), yet they are able to grow everything they need to survive and make a living. 

After our coffee tour, we headed up to the Ranchon for lunch, some fun and games, and a hike up to one of the most amazing viewpoints I have ever seen. 

They just added these cabins for visitors to stay the night - however, we stayed with host families.

Some of the community members came up to make us dinner. Then, we had a bonfire, listened to Enrique, one of our translators, play guitar, and watched the kids dance and play games together. The kids were especially interested in some puzzles that one of the families in our group brought up for them. It was awesome to see the kids interacting even with the language barrier. 

I stayed the night with Emiliano and his family who I spent some time with when I was down here in August. They made us a delicious breakfast on Sunday, and I got to spend some time chatting with their oldest son, Alonso, who is studying English in Leon - a nearby city. Alonso heads down to El Sauce every Friday night (about 2 hours depending on his mode of transportation) and catches the bus at 6:00 Saturday morning. The bus ride is about 2 hours to Leon. After a few hours of class, he heads back home and returns at about 8:00 that evening. I am impressed with his determination and desire to continue to improve his Engliah language skills. Eventually, he would like to teach all of the kids in his community how to speak English. 

After breakfast, we headed to another house in the community to learn how to make corn tortillas - another amazing process! Following that, we had the opportunity to learn about the group of women who make baskets from pine needles - Fuente de Pino - and create a keychain from needles ourselves. This year was much more successful for me than last year, but I still have so much respect for the women who do this all day long. One basket can take two or three days to create. 

After another lunch at the Ranchon, we headed back down to El Sauce to get ready for the work week. On the way back, we stopped at the other two schools the Lupisellas have built. 

Back in Nicaragua!

Thursday - We arrived in Managua and were greeted by Juan and the new intern from Geneseo, Bethany. We had a delicious Nicaraguan dinner complete with rice, beans, fried cheese, and my favorites, jamaica juice and plantains. Then it was off to the hotel - a comfortable place with a very hospitable staff. 

Friday - We started off with a delicious breakfast at the hotel with fresh juice and coffee. Then it was off to a walking tour of the old part of Managua where the government buildings used to be. An earthquake in the 70s caused major damage to the buildings, and the government decided to move the city center to the other side of town. 

After exchanging some money and stopping at the supermarket, we began the 2-hour drive to El Sauce. Here ae some scenes from our van. 

We arrived in El Sauce to meet our host families and have lunch. Deyanira, my host mother, and her two sons, Alejandro and Sandro, were very welcoming and eager to meet me. We had an orientation meeting and got a short tour of El Sauce followed by a delicious dinner prepared by Sarita (the host mom I stayed with in August). It was nice to see people I had connected with during my last two trips as well as meet new people in the community. 

These are two of the three pets where I am staying and the two boys playing a new game they just got. 

Una escuela nueva

Off to Nicaragua again to begin the construction of a new school outside El Sauce. We have a group of 16 heading down for the week (Linking Hands for Learning, formerly Avon for Nicaragua). 

Last week, HF-L Middle School students and staff raised over $1000 to help with the school construction. This school will cost about $12,500 to build (including materials, transportation, and paying local workers). The school will service about 25 families and provide a safe environment for their children to learn. 

I am looking forward to seeing the many friends I have made over the past year, as this will be my 3rd trip down to El Sauce. I am staying with a new host family, so I am also excited about connecting with new people and improving my Spanish-speaking skills. 

Thanks to everyone for their continued support and encouragement of my travels and work in Central America. It has been a truly rewarding experience, and I can't wait to share the progress of our upcoming project!

Observing in local classrooms

On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, I had the opportunity to visit two more schools to observe a few English classes. The first school was in a rural community on the outskirts of El Sauce known as Rio Grande. The teacher greeted me in English and was eager to have me as a guest in his classroom. The first class I observed was taking a quiz on a verb tense they had learned previously. Many of them struggled with the directions and understanding what to do. The kids were free to leave when the quiz was finished, and the teacher marked them. Unfortunately, his English was not the greatest, and he was marking some of them incorrectly. 

Afterwards, the students had physical education, and Javier and I played volleyball with them. Their net was a single rope tied between two trees, and the teacher asked me to help him explain the rules of volleyball as he did not know them. It was a close match, but my team pulled through in the end for a win. The kids were very well-coordinated and athletic - not to mention very competitive. They also allowed kicking the ball up as an option (being big soccer players). 

During the second class I visited, the class was learning about using the word "too" vs "very." The teacher asked me to help explain it, so I facilitated the lesson as he watched. He had a guide to teach the material, but as I mentioned before, his English was not very strong, so he struggled teaching it to the kids. Later, I would find out that this is very common amongst English teachers in the schools (especially the rural ones). This teacher actually had better English language skills than many others that attended my workshop. 

On Tuesday night, I taught my first English class to a group of adults in the community. The regular teacher, Sean, was back home in the United States for a few weeks, so I took over the class for the week. It was a level 2/3 class with a wide range of abilities. The focus of the class is on speaking, and there are many presentations. The Enlace group designed a workbook for each of the 3 levels including grammar, vocabulary, and readings for the students to memorize. I found that many of them could memorize the information well but then had trouble applying it in conversation or their presentations. I incorporated a game into the lesson where the students practiced identifying various comparative adjectives as well as a conversation about the role of women in their country. 

During the spare time I had left, I was working on developing my presentation for the workshops I would be teaching later that week. The more experience I got observing in classrooms and seeing how English is taught, the better I could design the activities for the teachers to use in their classrooms. Every evening, I also had the opportunity to practice my Spanish with my host family as I listened to Sara and Juan Carlos tell me all about Nicaraguan culture, history, and traditions after dinner. Sara is a doctor who has a private practice and pharmacy, and she is a great cook!  Juan Carlos has a degree in sustainable agriculture and is taking over as coordinator of the Enlace Project. I also developed a bond with their son, Jose Carlos, who is currently in 6th grade. He enjoyed telling me all about what he was learning in school, asking me questions about what life was like in America, and showing me fun video games he plays. He is a very bright young boy who attended a Math Olympiads competition in the capital, Managua, on Monday and will be competing in some sort of speaking competition next week. Maria Gabriela, their teenage daughter, loves American music, especially One Direction, and hanging out with her friends. Juan Carlos, Maria Gabriela, and Jose Carlos all take English classes in the city of Leon on Saturdays. They enjoyed practicing their English with me and learning new words as well. It was a great opportunity for us to learn from one another!

On Wednesday of last week, I headed to Jonathan Gonzalez Institute, a high school in El Sauce, to observe two different teachers. The first one spoke English well and had a great rapport with the students. I could tell he had clear expectations and used humor with them to get them interested in learning the language. I got to see 3 different classes and talk to some of the kids as they were working. After heading home for lunch, I went back to observe another two classes by a different teacher. She enjoyed having me talk to the kids in English and tell them all about why I was there. She spoke English fairly well, but we still needed Javier to do some translating! Most of what I observed in the classrooms I was in was direct instruction of grammar skills on the whiteboard, students copying sentences into their journals, and some independent practice if time. In general, about 50-60% of the kids completed their homework, and fewer than that were willing to participate in class. To me, the biggest area for improvement is to have the kids speaking more English (even if it's just repeating vocabulary words or sentences) as they didn't seem to be doing much of that. It was more listening and writing. This was a focus of my workshop with the teachers - along with using dynamic activities to get the kids interested in learning the language more. Some were internally motivated and engaged, but most were not.

I headed back to the office for a few hours to work on finalizing everything for the workshop. Then, I had English class again, where I spent some time teaching the difference between auxiliary verbs such as "must," "can," "might," etc. I enjoyed listening to the students' presentations they had prepared. 

Weekend in Ocotal

Last weekend, I headed up to the mountain community of Ocotal to spend a few nights with a family who runs a coffee farm. Javier, my translator who teaches an English class in Ocotal on the weekends,  and I jumped into the back of a pickup truck to take the long, bumpy trek up the mountain. On our way up, it began to rain heavily, and we picked up 6 or so kids walking home. We drove by the school I helped build in February and got dropped off almost at the top of the mountain near our host family's house. Emiliano and his wife, Marta recognized me immediately, as did the two kids (Mercedes and Marcos). I showed them pictures I had taken of them in February. Javier and Emiliano talked for a few hours while I sat and let my ears become accustomed to the beautiful sound of the Spanish language (I couldn't make out much of what they were saying)! Alonso, their oldest son came home late in the evening after attending an English class at a university a few hours away. He enjoyed practicing his English with me. 

The next morning, we got a tour of the coffee farm. I was amazed at how everything they eat (with the exception of rice) comes right from their land (or animals). Turkeys, chickens, pigs, and cows roamed the property, as well as 2 dogs, several horses, and a boisterous rooster. There were plantains, bananas, oranges, and countless other fruits growing from trees around the house. All of the meals that were prepared for me were delicious! And I got to drink fresh, organic coffee 3 times a day! Emiliano asked me if I wanted to learn how to milk a cow, so this happened...

In the afternoon, I headed up to the school with Javier (a 30 minute walk uphill through trails and over a rocky road) to observe his English lesson. He had a range of students from the ages of around 8-40. Some of the students were really excited about learning English, particularly the youngest student who asked me tons of questions to practice. Others, however, simply sat through the class without participating and often times not even paying attention. Javier said that there are some students whose parents don't provide much support or encouragement other than paying for them to attend the school, so it is difficult to keep them interested. 

Later that evening, I taught the kids in my host family how to play UNO and wrote down rules in Spanish for them so they could keep the cards. I bought a few pounds of the delicious Ocotal coffee to bring home and gave Emiliano his gift of a travel coffee mug and T-shirt from Honeoye Falls.

On Monday morning, Javier was supposed to have another English class, but there was some  miscommunciation and we arrived late, so all the students had gone home. However, the regular teacher was there to teach the younger kids. They started with a prayer and some warm-up exercises and continued on to have a relay race and then play some soccer for phys ed. Two boys don't own shoes, so they couldn't play with the rest of the kids. Luckily, I had brought a mini nerf ball with me, so I tossed it around with them for a bit. Our truck arrived around 9:00 to bring us back to El Sauce. On the way down, we stopped by the school in Buena Vista that was built in February so I could take some pictures and talk to the class and teacher. We are actually heading back there on Tuesday to drop off some supplies that were bought with the money I raised. 

It was so fulfilling to see the final product of the school and all the kids receiving an education in a safe building. Congratulations to all who had a part in making this happen! 

An attempt to catch up on my blog!

Well, it has been a fulfilling, yet exhausting week for me! It is going to be difficult for me to put into words all that I experienced over the course of the last week but I will do my best. 

Friday (yes, this was last Friday!): I had the opportunity to observe some English classes in a rural community outside of El Sauce. The teacher had a great rapport with his students, was fortunate enough to have a teacher's guide to teach English from, and is currently taking English classes in a nearby city to improve his skills. He was very nervous about having me watch his classes, but I told him not to worry and that I was only there to see how he teaches and to help him come up with ideas that could help him improve. I observed 3 levels of English classes. The first class did a great group activity in which they needed to write down sentences about a vacation they could take. A few students had phones with a translator app to help them with the vocabulary. This class was located on the side of one of the buildings. The second class, however, was much more difficult as it was held right outside another classroom that was very noisy, and there were students running around outside for recess. The only materials the teacher had were a whiteboard and marker. He did a lot of writing while the students copied, and they really didn't practice much English. Classroom management was very difficult in this class due to the distractions and poor location. The third class was very large, and they were a first-level English class reviewing some vocabulary about the months of the year and birthdays. When the students found out that my birthday was coming up on the next day, they sang me a beautiful song called Las Mañanitas to wish me happiness - it is a Nicaraguan traditional song that is very long! The students sang abut half of it to me. 

 

Quick update

This is a quick update to let everyone know I am alive and well!  :)  I spent the weekend (including my birthday) in the mountain community of Ocotal with a host family who has an organic coffee farm (among other crops).  In Ocotal, observed a multi-age English class, taught the host family kids how to play UNO, and threw around a football with some kids who didn't have sneakers and couldn't participate in the soccer game for physical education.  On the way back to El Sauce (on Monday), I had the opportunity to see the school I helped build in February in Buena Vista, introduce myself to the class, and talk to the teacher about how things were going with the new school.

Yesterday, I observed two English classes in the rural community of Rio Grande and played some volleyball with the kids.  Then, I spent some time preparing for my workshop on Thursday and Friday.  I also sat in on an adult first-level English class at the Enlace Project office and taught a second-level English class in the evening.  After a late dinner, I spent some more time preparing for the workshop.

Today, I had the opportunity to observe four English classes in a high school in El Sauce (7th through 9th grades).  I will be heading back later this afternoon to observe one or two more.  This evening, I will teach another English class and put the finishing touches on my presentation.  I will go into more detail later and post some pictures, but as you can tell, it has been a busy week for me!

Hasta luego!