Back to Work

Tuesday night I realized that I had forgotten to tell my counterpart that I wouldn't be in class on Thursday because of Peace Corps meetings (we finally have a new director for our sector! glory be!). So Wednesday I went up to the school to tell him and instead I learned that there wouldn't be any classes on Thursday at all because we were going to have a workshop in the morning. That's what we call Nica Style.

My work situation this year is a little bit different from last year. I've started working with another teacher at a school out in the boonies and it looks like I'm gonna go out there twice a week to work with a young teacher who's already using some really great activities in his classes. The first class I taught with him we played Tic Tac Toe where the students had to turn a singular noun into a plural noun to win the square (we played boys vs. girls, always a motivator). When I went out this week I was looking at his lesson plans from the past couple weeks and saw that he used Tic Tac Toe in a couple of his classes! With the other teachers I work with I sometimes wonder if they'll ever use the stuff I show them ever again and here's this guy using it again right away. So awesome to see that.

My other errand at the school on Wednesday was to tell the counterpart I've had problems with in the past that I wouldn't be working with her in the classroom anymore. This has taken me some serious time and thought to finally decide to cut her loose because I hate giving up on anything and anyone. It became utterly apparent very quickly that, despite numerous discussions on the topic, she still does not understand why I'm here or what we're supposed to be doing together. Even though we haven't successfully planned a class yet this year due to her not showing up, she seriously told me that if we stopped working together it's because I don't want to work with her and not because she doesn't want to work with me. Somehow this rubbed me the wrong way to the point that I agreed to give it one last shot. I am clearly a glutton for punishment, but this time we're doing this right. I've written up a little contract for us and the principal to sign and I'm going to have Peace Corps call and explain for the umpteenth time why I'm here and why it's important that we plan together. I have no idea how this will go.

Here are some photos from my recent site-seeing trip in Managua with my friend Maria. Unfortunately, Managua doesn't have many sites to see.

Maria in the middle of the Plaza de la Revolucion. Note the large pink Ortega billboard in the background. They had one of these in each corner of the plaza and they all say the same thing:


Me standing near the ruins of the National Cathedral, it was damaged in the earthquake in 1972 and tourists aren't allowed inside due to falling concrete:


We approached the lake that borders Managua that I can never remember the name of, and that's probably because no one goes there because it stinks!! Seriously.