Anniversario!

Today is my 9 month anniversary in Nicaragua, which means I'm roughly one-third of the way through my 27 months of service. Because the weather never really changes that much I have a hard time marking the passage of time, but even so, I feel both like I just left yesterday and also like my life in the States seems so far back. It gets confusing.

Ya llevo 9 meses acá en Nicaragua, y este es un-tercero de mi servicio de 27 meses. Pero no hay temporados como en Minnesota, siempre hace sol aqui entonces me siento lo mismo ahorrita como en julio. Y a veces me parece que salí de los estados ayer y otros veces que hace mucho tiempo que estaba allá.

School got off to a pretty good start this week. Tuesday was the first official day of class to which I arrived late because the pedal on my bike fell off. I stopped to ask some nice gentlemen for help but they couldn't do much because the bolt on the pedal was bad so I walked the rest of the way to school, got introduced to the students along with the other teachers, and then ran off to fix my bike. I came back in the afternoon, got introduced again (the school runs on a morning shift and an afternoon shift, I don't remember if I've explained that before), and then sat around planning the week with my counterpart teacher because the class schedule wasn't finished yet and he didn't have a homeroom class to do orientation with.

Clases empezó de nuevo esta semana. Llegué tarde a la primera día porque el pedal de mi bici se cayó. Pedí ayuda de unos varones pero el pedal fue malo entonces caminé al instituto, la directora me presentó a los estudiantes con los otros profesores, y después fuí a arreglar la bici. En la tarde hicimos lo mismo pero ellos no habían terminado el horario entonces planifiqué con mi contraparte.

I'm feeling good about the new school year, I'm a lot more confident than I was when I arrived in August and that goes for both in and out of the classroom and with both my students and fellow teachers. I'm working on getting to know the other teachers better and I feel like they're accepting me more as one of them instead of a temporary volunteer which is awesome. A lot of the same challenges remain with my counterparts and the educational system in general but hopefully I can make some headway at least with my counterparts.

Me siento bien con este año escolar nuevo, estoy más confidente que antes ambo en y afuera de la aula y con mis alumnos y los profesores. Me parece que los otros maestros piensan en mi mas como colega en vez de una voluntaria quien va a salir muy pronto. Todavia tengo las mismas retas con mis contrapartes y la sistema de educacion pero espero que puedo hacer algo por lo menos con mis contrapartes este año.

Lastly, I would just like the mention that right now my house is a neat-freak's nightmare! I have never cleaned so much in my life and still had such a dirty house. It's been really windy and since it's also bone dry the wind kicks up a lot of dust. Add into that the fact that we have a cement plant nearby that may or may not filter the dust from the processing and you get dust in and on everything. My attempts to clean have been further frustrated by the water going out the past couple days when I wanted to clean. But really, I'll take this over high temperatures below zero like Minnesota can be this time of year.

Al final, quiero mencionar que mi casa es una disastre! Nunca en mi vida he limpiado tanto y aun tengo una casa bien sucia. Hay mucho viento y sin lluvia el polvo esta increible. Juntos con el polvo de la cementera hay polvo en todos lados. Lo mas, cuando quiero limpiar muchas veces no hay agua. Pero prefiero esta situacion al frio que hace ahorrita en Minnesota.