Training Flashback

26/March/2010

Awkward Moment: The lady that comes to clean my landlady’s clothes showed me that there’s oregano, basil, and cilantro growing in the yard (score!!!). And she told me that by putting basil in your ear (to keep the wind out) gets rid of a headache. I pretended to be suddenly enlightened and said that I put it in my food. She said “You eat it?!” and looked at me like I was nuts.

Could it be??!! Jenn Berry comes tomorrow?!

This past week I was yet again…gone. Before I left I had one last youth English class at my house. Well, actually it was cancelled, but 4 girls showed up anyways. So we had a great class, reviewed what we learned last time, and went over some topics they were covering and about to be tested on in school. They are such hardworking, motivated girls, and I hope in the future I can get them scholarships to study English if they want. Through Peace Corps and the U.S. Embassy, we have access to scholarships for kids to attend summer camps, study in Managua, and even study in the States for a short time. There’s one girl in particular that stands our, and if she wants, I think she can go really far. She picks up on new topics quicker than any kid here I’ve seen.

I went back to my old training town of Santa Teresa, Carazo for a language taller (workshop). We had 4 days of class, 8 hours a day, plus homework. Gag. It was a serious training flashback. We all stayed with our old families, which for me was wonderful, because I love that family! I stayed in my old room, slept on my old bed, and was reminded of all the quirks of the house and the town, like: my hostmom snoring like a freight train, playing with Milli (the 2 year old), eating greasy Nica food, helping Anita (my hostsister) with her psych homework, talking to my hostmom about her anxiety and giving her tea to relax her, seeing Joey outside the house (a little dog with a devastating underbite), eating ice cream (it’s actually too hot to eat ice cream where I live, it melts before I can eat it), sneaking out super quietly before anyone wakes up to go running, and having lunch with the priest. I was completely surprised when I arrived, because my hostbrother, and a friend of the family who previously I could never understand, suddenly were talking somewhat clearly to me. I couldn’t believe I was hearing each individual word they were saying, when before it was just rambling sentences strewn together. This is really the only marker of success I’ve had since training. We got through each day, wondering how we EVER survived 3 months of training. By the time lunch came around, we were pretty much spent, and in the afternoon we grew to be slaphappy.

One night we went to the next bigger town called Jinotepe and stopped in for ice cream. We saw a big guy, saying “Whatcha want” in a thick southern accent. We thought it was so strange, and as we looked around we saw more white people. Like idiots be began giggling, because it was so strange to see white people in a town like Jinotepe. It’s normal in Leon proper, or at the mall in Managua, but in a smaller town, no way. While we were giggling, we recognized this kid that was part of our youth group when we lived in Santa Teresa. We caught up a little bit with him, then he responded to a question from the white guy. Obviously, in ENGLISH. This kid is apparently a translator for these white people’s church group. And he was in our ENGLISH class, and NEVER lead on that he spoke English! It was so bizarre. We kept asking why he never led on that he knows English, especially because at that time during training, our Spanish wasn’t that strong, and we had trouble explaining things to the kids. They left the ice cream shop, and we were left with so many unanswered questions. So many.

On the way to Jinotepe that night, Carla, Jocelyn and I were in a microbus, talking in English about some things we had learned in class, and wondering what we thought some of their sayings mean. There was one particularly dirty saying, lets just call it “fireworks”. I sat in the seat riding backwards, facing the rest of the bus, and I asked Carla and Jocelyn “I think “fireworks” means……” Except I switched from English to Spanish without thinking, and said the dirty phrase, which SHOCKED the bus. There were people blushing and laughing with looks of pure shock, and maybe a little disgust. The 3 of us immediately realized and burst out laughing. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard I cried….before this. I was just beside myself, trying to turn my head away from facing the rest of the bus.

On the way back to LPC I tried to travel as cheap as possible out of Managua. I got on a “ruta” bus for the first time ever in Managua (these buses only go within Managua, and they’re where the most crazy stories come from). I was trying to haggle some taxi drivers to take me to the bus station, but they were asking too much, so I went with the ruta. I haven’t been that nervous for months! I thought there was only one way out of Managua in that certain direction, so I got on the first one I saw. As luck would have it, about 10 seconds after I paid, I asked the driver to let me off, while we were waiting in the left hand turn lane, because I had to go straight, not turn left. I continued to walk at an extremely brisk face, trying to broaden my shoulders and look tough, staring down any guy that was staring me down. I came across a bus stop and asked a couple which bus to get on to get to the terminal, and they helped me get on my way, the right way. Hopefully I got out any confusion today, so that when I’m traveling with Jenn we can go along smoothly.