Nicaragua Week 1

I arrived safely! 

My host family is amazing. 

The staff at Tesors de Dios, 

the special needs school, are amazing! 

There's a large missionary community close by of North Americans who are either teaching English or serving in various capacities. I met some this week.

Culturally, there's so much to learn!! I'll speak more on that later.

Bugs are not fun. Ants. A cockroach. The BIGGEST spider of my life! Like a mini tarantula. It came out of no where in my room and praise God my host family was still awake. Thankfully there was a clear path to the door... not sure what my plan would have been otherwise!  

I learned that the school year here is from January to November. Winter break is equivalent to summers off in the States. I didn't realize this until I arrived. I came during the last week of vacation for the children, a week of preparation for teachers. 

Because it's a prep week, there hasn't been a whole lot I can do. How does a gringa help when she can't understand what they're saying?? I've been put to work here and there organizing a new documentation system. Instead of having a binder for each child, they want to switch to a binder for groups of children organized by the day they come. Some kids come 2x a week, but most come 1x week. Some attend a public school on the other days; for others, their 1 day a week at the special ed school is the only form of schooling they receive. 

Tasks take longer here. 

It took all day to create a new binder for 20 children's files with dividers between each one. Something that would take maybe 1 hour back in the States.

First, because the schedule of each child had to be sorted out, then because we don't have divider sheets. We made tabs out of folded sticky notes. These were taped on to page protectors (sleeves). Then we ran out of tape. 

Then there was confusion over the files for children with common names.. which one is which? People have 4 names here First, Middle, Mom's last name, Dad's last name. Different documents are under different combinations of these 4 names, or sometimes just the first. You can imagine the confusion this adds to a foreigner doing this task. 

 

Eggs, toast, papaya, and chai tea for breakfast

Encountering Culture

• Relationships take higher priority than tasks. When needing to get somewhere, if someone stops to talk, you talk with them, then go. You don't rush people.
• Communication is more indirect than direct. People don't always say what they mean out of respect for the listener. An extreme example is if you ask someone for directions, even if they have no idea, they will give you directions. It would be shameful to say not comply with the request. On a smaller scale, when needing to ask someone a question, it can be seen as rude to approach the person with your question directly. First, you have small talk, ask how their family is, how their day is, what they are doing... then spit out the question.. 
• As someone who enjoys efficiency and clarity... but who is also very self-aware of my differences... my mind is in constant chaos. Seeing as I wouldn't be good at this even in English, I'm great at it in Spanish.. ;P 

The food is good and sometimes strangely combined.. 

Rice, beans, chicken and sausage kebab, cabbage salad, and fries