A Quick Heads Up

There's a hurricane on the way, it´s name is Alma, the main thing everyone here seems to be worried about (and when I say everyone I mean my host 'sister', who has a penchant for revelling in bad tidings) is the electricity and the water going. We're not near the coast. Oh, and of course the lack of transport... great!!!! so this is just to say that if you don't hear from me, it's probably a lack of internet. I haven't had time to get any facts yet, thought I'd post something quickly while I can just in case. You probably haven't heard a thing over there have you!!

http://www.weather.com/newscenter/hurricanecentral/update/index.html?from=hurricane_tracker

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080529/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/nicaragua_tropical_weather

The Swimming Hole

Orlando seems to like animals. A lot. He owns the bar/restaurant and land of the swimming hole an hour from Yali. He’s raising a funny little Eagle-type bird, which will be off into the wild soon, has numerous dogs and chickens and stories of other strange animals that he’s raised and let out into the forest. He’s also got many plans for his spot of land and his restaurant… organic veg, an energy system using cow pats, solar panels. He’d like to learn English too – he gets quite a few visitors who don’t speak Spanish at all to the swimming hole. Bonnie and I were surprised by this… we’ve not met anyone up here north of Esteli who is being a tourist, much less wants to communicate in English. I’m glad to hear it for his business…perhaps another Nest Trust volunteer in Yali could do a day in San Rafael Maggie Jo?

The Workshop/The Capacitacion /The Taller

We had the teachers’ workshop, and everyone came, and we had coffee and biscuits, and I facilitated. I taught them Polish*, (with apologies to anyone who actually speaks the language) to show the wonder of teaching without translating, we threw balloons about, and we talked about lesson planning. And we talked about how on earth to get shy Nicaraguan students to produce language. So we’ve lots of ideas. We also decided that Nicaragua’s a great place to communicate without speaking, as they have so many symbols of their own… nose scrunch like a rabbit to say “I don't understand” to name one. So it’s even easier to teach English without speaking Spanish!

I´m terribly glad it went well. So I have had a day off today and concentrated soley on studying Spanish and thinking about the Dumball.

*We did numbers one to ten, matching words to numbers, and I got them to guess the “Who’s this?” “I don’t know.” “It’s ME!” joke to show how you can understand something from context and making stupud signals and faces.

The RAIN Came!

About a week a go it attempted to rain, and then we had nothing for a few days, Then 3 days ago it ARRIVED. For about 2 hours it pelted down, and I sat in the Cyber place finding things to do on the internet as I didn’t want to travel the 20 paces to my house… It was extremely heavy and since then, we've had about an hour or so of rain every day. Before it comes it gets very dark, and the air feels so heavy I have to support my head cos it feels as if it’s going to drop off. I have shared this feeling with a number of people, in spanish and english, and I seem to be alone with it but I swear I’m not being dramatic – it affects me, I’m telling you.

This is the edge of the square in Yali, awash.

We interrupt this blog... *DUMBALL ALERT¨*

This week, I feel like I'm the one at home... The boyfriend that I like to call Luke is gallivanting through Europe again with the Dumball Rally, and once again with a thinly veiled ´charity´ disguise (in the form of War Child) for what is really unadulterated adventurefun. So it's blogswap time, and I'm sitting ´at home´ in Yali, hoping like the middle-aged auntie figure I have become that they all come back in one piece. And when I say all I mean of course DUMBALL ONE, the cowmobilerangerover carrying the geniuses that are the Dumball and their trusty manservant Sudders. Good luck lads, Nil Carborundum!
http://moblog.co.uk/blog/dumball2008
Latest news - Germany wouldn´t let them in so just a short detour through the Alps to Zagreb! Heavens Above.

I´ll tell you about my most enjoyable teachers workshop and the RAIN tomorrow!!

We have transport!

Well, for the time being everyone's come to some sort of resolution that may or may not involve Venezuela and the buses are back. I don't know any more than that and at present I shan't be placing any more energy into finding out. So I am in Esteli with the wonderful Juanita and cosmopolitan food! And, more to the point, I went to El Regadio today to teach English to a very motivated bunch of young people who are studying three nights a week at the moment without a teacher. What a brilliant bunch. They are really willing to try out their language, a few of them are going to try to lead the others as their language is better, and I will join them when I can on Sundays to do a class and also do a workshop for the budding teachers. This is them working in groups introducing each other... they were even happy to invent names and places to make it all more interesting! "This is Ronaldo. He's from Brazil. He lives in Paris"... When you're all Nicaraguan and you all live in El Regadio the exercise can get a bit tedious...

And as there is just the one bus there, and the one bus back per day, i was up at 5 to catch the 6 am and we had time to explore their gorgeous scenery before the 2pm bus back. They took me to a laguna that - legend has it- is above the head of a big mythical serpent, and the tail is at the other end of the pueblo. This is apparantly the reason for it never drying out... spooky. (Once again, language disclaimer - could have been entirely different) They were great story tellers and they will make cracking guides - in any language!

And, here's a token picture of me to prove I'm here. They insisted on taking one of me on my own, so we may as well use it! You can see that I'm trying to employ the twist-your-body stance that I learnt for my brother's wedding but it didn't quite work.

Right. I'm off to find some English novels and chocolate cake. I hear tell of a place...

The Strike.

The government isn’t subidising the transport enough. So the taxis, and buses, are on strike in the whole of Nicaragua. You do have to feel for them – they’re already driving clapped-out old US school bus rejects and the ones I have experienced do a bloody good job of navigating stony dirt roads. There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight at the moment and it’s been over a week. Sometimes it’s hard to find out what’s going on cos my language is bad, sometimes it’s hard cos there’s no electricity, sometimes it’s hard cos everyone has a different story. I was watching the news a few days ago, and the whole strike seemed to be over – then the fast-talking uncle came in and laughed at me for watching the government’s channel. Ha ha he said, you won’t get the truth from there. Ah. Silly naïve Rebecca, expecting a news programme to just give me the news. Sure enough, an hour later on another channel – no end in sight. And it’s quite a claustrophobic feeling in small a place like Yali not to have buses leaving and entering, but more than that, the price of food is going up and in cities they are worried they’ll be running out. Because, much food is transported on top of the buses, and also when there is a transport strike they block roads with buses so that no-one can get through – private or public. And the cargo are on strike too. When I explained this to Luke last week he said “So, if you travel, you’re a scab”. Pretty much, yes. But here in Yali we’re surrounded by farms so I guess we’re okay for milk, bananas and cow meat for the time being.

I wrote the above a few days ago, and things have got quieter here and more bunged – -up and violent everywhere else since. And today I had yet another lesson in politics at the cooperative wherein I discovered that transport is already subsidised, and the guys that own the franchises get alot of money and don’t spend all of it on the buses. A fair bit goes in their pockets. So the bus drivers aren’t seeing the benefits of the subsidies, but it’s their bosses that are instigating strikes. So it´s complicated, unsurprisingly. And I’m certain I’m not doing it justice. Gustavo cheerfully adds that the guy who has dropped in to give us the latest news on the strike (“It continues”) fought for the contras, so they fought against each other in the war. But now they´re chatting about a transport strike. And I feel sure that while chatting cheerfully about how they used to fight against each other, Gustavo asked him what he got paid off with after the war and he said “a pair of white trousers”. How far away from my reality am I?????

Oh, yes, and this came just after an in-depth conversation about how Elton John´s music was brilliant in the seventies and has gone downhill since. Which machetes through cultural divides cos we can all agree about that – and that Bennie and the Jets really does kick some ass.

He even named his Jeep! He must be groovy

So, what were you up to at 7am this morning? I was on the back of Gilberto's motorbike heading to Las Delicias to teach one to one on a farm. Owned by Jose Luis, one of the few English students that's actually a farmer (most are the offspring of farmers) and a motivated guy. Only thing is it's hard to juggle farming and learning so he's the guinea pig to try out visual, practical English classes. And Gilberto goes up there for the cooperative every day to check the cows so there's the lift sorted. Didn't think my first time on a motorbike would be at 33 in Nicaragua but hey!

We went walking around the farm, he showed me things and we named them and made short sentences (This is my brother's house... This is a cow... We call this tree japote") and then we went back to his house and drew a map of the whole journey, with lots of words to practice and remember. My suggestion was then to put the map up somewhere he would see it every day, and I proferred the idea of the loo, explaining that in my culture men like to read there. He didn't go for this idea in a big way (pit latrines aren't so accomodating I guess) but he took to the idea of putting it by the toothbrushes in the kitchen where they clean their teeth. I'm going back in a week - if any of it's stuck we celebrate, if none of it's stuck we knock the idea on the head!

And in the meantime I got to see some blissfully amazing countryside, mountains bananas and coffee as far as the eye could see. And we stopped off at various places for Gilberto to show me family, sugar cane processing places, and more coffee. One difference that he seemed to be suggesting between fair trade and non is that the fair trade farms don't burn their fields, and have many more trees and therefore less erosion. There are environmental indicators to the quality mark.

The most comedic moment was when the road was too stony and Gilberto asked me to get off and walk while he negotiated the slope. I got off, he negotiated perfectly and I bloody fell over trying to walk! Fool.

So here's Gilberto, on the bike, Jose Luis behind him, and his brother. And - the coolest little jeep!! It even has a name - perico. Something like a cockatiel I think... A bit far to bring it back for the dumball but what a perfect specimen!!
















And here is the new clothes washing station at my house in Yali, being finished off. The chap pictured is studying architecture as well as fashioning cement into washing stations, and in 5 years if you want some architecture done - he's your man. I tried to make a joke that the lavenderia should have been a bit more avant garde and aesthetically pleasing (every single wash station in nicaragua is exactly the same) but my vocabulary wasn't broad enough and he hadn't heard of Gaudi. Sorry about the bad light, it's pitch back in that shack out the back and I didn't like to leave him standing there like a lemon too long.

Saturday Night in Yali

Three adult computer lessons done. All absolute beginners, all in Spanish. Maybe this is possible after all...

And this week, as well as having the first proper computer classes, we have agreed a date for a teacher training workshop with all the teachers, we have started using registers in the English classes, and Gustavo has started to observe the English lessons. It has also been agreed that we have a problem with the kids class, that they are unacceptably unruly and if it doesn’t get better the class will be cancelled. That’s quite a lot isn’t it. Due to the bus strike having no end in sight, the agreed date for the workshop is probably going to fall through – nothing yet has happened the first time I’ve planned it in this country – but the fact we’ve agreed it at all is mammoth I believe.

And Saturday night in Yali was pretty fun, despite a 4 hour power cut. I discovered another guy who has opinions on coffee selling- and he's a coffee farmer. He also works at our cooperative on the insemination project. Gilberto is his name for anyone able to absorb it...! He's taking me out to a community called Las Delicias on Tuesday as he has to check cows there, and I need a ride to try out my new "teach english one to one on the farm" idea. I hadn't discovered how fascinating he is to talk to though until he joined me and Gustavo in one of the few drinking establishments in Yali. And who needs leccy when you're a few Toña's into the evening? Especially as I got to indulge my English needs too - a volunteer on another project who's been here a while joined us too. So I'm not the only gringa in the village if you were wondering!!

I bet BAE's AGM didn't have Mariachi...?

Last week another cooperative in Yali, Cooperativa Gorrion, had their Asembla Ordinaria (like an AGM). As I was in my cooperative’s office that morning, I got invited by our president Noel... once again, not knowing what I was accepting, and I feel sure it was because I had exploded with frustration the day before... (things are moving very slowly on the teaching side).

I’m quite capable now of understanding that I’m being invited to something, but often am clueless as to what. And it’s hard to say "could you explain that again slowly as I want need to wear the right shoes or think up an excuse”. It turned out to be the longest AGM I have yet encountered, but also the only AGM that has involved a Mariachi Band, specifically employed to "wake us up”. I’m in the sort of mood this week where I cannot fathom why another culture would behave as they do (and all this without the influence of the Daily Mail) and I couldn’t help thinking that if they kept to the point and didn’t have an AGM lasting five hours then perhaps they wouldn’t have needed a band to rouse them. Anyhoo, the AGM turned into a fiesta, the Mariachi stayed, and I didn’t dance - again. I’ll have to rectify that soon, but this time it was because I needed the loo. For 5 hours. And there wasn’t one. I have no idea how everyone else managed. Crazy gringa, insisting on keeping herself hydrated. Due to the fact I had no real idea where we were going I didn’t have my camera, but I took a picture of the location the next day... With the balloons gone, and the cattle back in the corale in place of the plastic chairs and rum. There it is!

During the meeting, the manager of the cooperative – a forceful woman named Francesca – gave out in huge detail about Fair trade coffee and the rainforest alliance. I hope to find her at some point and get her to repeat her tirade, in bite size chunks and pausing for dictionary breaks. But it means we might have a Coffee – Parte the Thirde entry and then at least one part of the tag line of this blog may not be lying...

Noel (president of our cooperative, keep up!) also included me in a planned trip to the Miraflor nature reserve last week, for a group of the English students to see what they're doing with tourism. The idea was to motivate them into learning more, Noel is very keen on tourism but the youth aren't really learning fast enough for his plans... so at the end of the trip he gave the youth an impassioned talking-to about how tourism "is in their hands now..." And that with a bit of luck and hard work we will attract "Chele" (literally, white people). And then looks at me and says, "we already have one!!" And I had been trying to blend into the background. He's a groovy guy. I like his vision.

So I’m learning this week that I´m a girl that likes a bit of infrastructure. Call me crazy, but if we’re going to have a (planned) power cut for 3 hours every day, I want to know when it’s going to be. You know, cos then I might plan around it. The same with water. And, hey, no-one likes a transport strike, but when it lasts for 7 days and counting and they block the roads so no-one can pass... So this weekend, I’m not going to Esteli as planned, to teach English in El Regadio, I’m staying in Yali. To continue learning the lesson that patience is a virtue...

Oh, and this will make my colleagues laugh. Guess what I’ve been invited to join in with next week at my co-operative? A strategic planning day!! Hahahahahahaha. Yes, there is a bitter undercurrent to this post.

"The man can barely manage to comb his own hair"

...to quote my good friend Cath.

What in the name of all that is good and true have you people done??? Boris???

I vowed to keep this blog to the point but sweet Jesus and his angels how the hell have you put that ninkompoop into power? Honestly, I turn my back for a minute... Last time it was a siege on Graham Road and the burning of the best night spot in Hackney. This time... what happened? was it the promise of getting rid of b-b-b-bendy buses?? When did this happen anyway? I thought it wasn't til next week. I'm stunned. There can't be that many Have I Got News For You fans knocking about. Right, that settles it, when I come back I'm not living in London. Who wants my flat? You'll have to prove you didn't vote for him...

Heavens above.