Village Life

I live in the ANS Village.  To most of you that doesn't mean much but it's like living in a really small community.  If you have ever seen the village the "Others" live in on LOST then just imagine that but with a fence around it. :) There's lots of people, some excitement, and neighbors.  I lived in dorms with lots of roommates in college but it's not quite the same when you have families living around you rather than young adults.
About a week or so ago, maybe two weeks I was reading in my room (I do that a lot) and I hear Alex (my dear friend and neighbor) yell "SARAH! LAURA!  Come to my house ASAP and bring your cameras...I have something to show you!!!!!"  So in humoring my good friend in neighbor I did as she told me with as smile and went over to her house.  She told me to look in her toliet...my first reaction is "Alex, your gross!"  But Alex isn't the kind of girl who would poop and tell so I humored her.  This is what I found:

For those of you who don't know that is an iguana.  They are really common and we have tons on campus but I've never seen one in someone's house let alone in the toliet.  WHO KNEW!  So we went and got our good friend Melvin.  Melvin is one of the guys who is head of maintenance and he fixes things when they break.  He fixed my toilet, my air conditioner, listened to Alex cry when she an ant nest in her house; He pretty much does it all.  So here is a fun little video of Melvin the magician working his magic :)

My favorite part of this video is when Alex smiles in the end...haha! That one of the many reasons why I love her! :)

In other village news my friends bought motorcycles!  Learning to ride a motorcycle when you live in the village is a ticket to freedom and they cost under 2,000.  I couldn't get a picture, but i'm sure there will be one to come!

This semester has gone so so fast!  I can't believe it's only 8 more days of teaching for me.  Two this week, one week of SEMANA SANTA ( spring break!) in Costa Rica and Panama, and then we have Monday off the following week, and the next Monday off and then we leave!  It's gone so fast but I'm ready to be home and start the job pursuit!

One way I really need prayer is just of this whole job thing. Just that God would give me wisdom as to where to apply and he would just provide what I need in those places.  I had a little "worry day" on Saturday.  (Worry Days are day I freak out about the future)  Luckily I was able to talk to my mom who reminded me that it really isn't in my hands anyway!  Yay for wise mothers!

Next post will be full of Semana Santa pictures!!! WOOO HOOO!

Learning to Long for More

Sunday I leave Nicaragua for a week.  I am so excited to have cleanness (not a word), no burning trash smell, good food, English, and Walmart....the list could go on.  But the point is that Sarah and I are stoked to go back to the states for even just these 7 days.  I've made out my list of must do's: Target, Asiago breakfast sandwich at Panera, Poncheros, Firehouse Subs (Florida!), STARBUCKS!, Kilwins (another Florida fav), driving, petting animals, drinking sink water, not getting whistled or kissed at, and sleeping without ants.
It's funny because everyone who is from the states or has ever been to the states is really excited for us.  My friend's fiance is Nicaraguan and doesn't really want to go to the states or live in the states.  He has known this his whole life and doesn't know the joys that are offered in the US.  (Note: I'm not implying the US is great and wonderful, it just has a lot more than Nicaragua)  She just tells him that it's better than Nicaragua but he likes his milk that makes me gag.  He likes where he's from and doesn't want anything different.  I feel like it's a lot of how I am.  I know where I am but I don't always believe that what God has ahead of me is better.  It's better to wait for something big than stay where I am or get little joys now when God promises Heavenly treasures.
As I said I've had a lot of time to read lately and have gotten really into a book by Elizabeth Elliot called Passion and Purity.  I have to say this book has not been what I thought it would be about!  I have learned so much and have actually seen my self in a lot of what she talks about in the book.  She doesn't only talk about physical purity but emotional purity.  Emotional purity or the Christian-ese term "guarding your heart" has always confused me.  What does it mean to guard your heart anyway?!?
A few years a really liked this guy and even though my close friends thought he might have an interest in me.  I thought I was again "guarding my heart" and I never pursued it...not even a little.  It wasn't until we were apart that I really realized how much that relationship (or whatever you want to call it) had hurt me.  There were so many times I thought about bringing it up, sending an email, or being like "WHAT IS THIS? What happened?"  One of the things Elizabeth Elliot talks about is how often we ask God to either give us what we long for or take that longing away.  What God tells us is "I want you to learn to long for something more"  I have to say this has been a hard learning experience and it's lasted way longer than I ever would have imagined.  And even though I am over him and have moved on I still think it's important for me to be pray that God will teach me and I will learn to long for something more than just this...just going home for a week...just Nicaragua...just the lima beans if I have the promise of an ice cream sundae...getting the drift of what I'm learning? :) (last one might have been a stretch)
I feel like being here has been a challenge for me spiritual but it's in these challenges that God is moving, teaching me, and molding me to be the woman of God he has created me to be and for that I am thankful.

The ultimate poop story and other tales from ANS

So last Wednesday one of the other first grade teacher came into my classroom after class.  He told me i would never believe what had happened today.  He told me that during reading time he sent one of his little boys to the bathroom.  After the boy had been gone for a while the maid that cleans our block came into the classroom...note that she never talks to us.  I guess it's a cultural thing that they "workers" don't talk to the teachers...weird but it puts it into perspective.  Anyway the lady motions him outside.  Jason is the last classroom on the row.  The maid tell him that she caught this little boy of his pooping next to the wall just around the corner from his classroom.  Sure enough there was poop there.  The maid told the boy to go to the bathroom to wipe and wash his hands...haha!  So the little boy comes back and Jason asks him if did it.  He says "no Mr. i didn't do it..."  Jason then pointed at the security cameras and said he would just look at the video.  The little boy then quickly admitted to doing it...His reasoning?  He was having such a good time in his reading group he didn't want to be gone too long.  WOW...I told Jason that he should take it as a great compliment to his teaching! haha!

So for the past 4 schools days: Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday I have been on my own...aka no cooperating teacher and no substitute.  Which is fine but has been very taxing especially since I am trying to get things done before I go home in 2 WEEKS!  I can't wait for a week in Florida with my Dad for most of it than the rest of my fam for 4 days!

Friday one of my favorite teaching moments...like EVER!  I found out via a mom that the girls in my class had been ganging up against one of the girls and she was going home crying every night.  This broke my heart especially that this is the one of the nicest sweetest girls that is in my class.  So we (me & my assistant) told the girls they had to come in during break and eat lunch with us.  While they were at specials we rallied the troops and got around 7 other 1st and 2nd grade teachers to join us.  We planned a little skit in which I was left out by all the other girls and they wouldn't talk to me.  The same situation my little Mia was in.  When they came into the room they all sat around one table expect for Mia.  I wanted to cry just looking at them!  I couldn't believe my girls were doing this!  I didn't tell them what we were doing...we just started acting.  It was awesome! A few of the girls came up to me during the skit, while i was cry and ask "Ms. Laura are you ok?  Are you crying?  What's wrong?"  After it all the other teachers left and we talked to the girls about how they thought I felt.  Mia started crying and we were able to really reconcile the girls' friendships with each other!  Mia was all smiles the rest of the day!  It was so rewarding and she kept coming up to me and giving me hugs.  All I could think was: This is why I want to be a teacher!  I want to be able to teach kids to love each other...build community and grow together!

My first graders have also started dating I guess!?  What in the world!? I had one of my little boys writing "Takoa <3 Mikela" on his paper!  I told him he better erase it or I would hang it up in the hallway...haha!  He doesn't even care that the whole class...including all 3 of his teachers know!  The best things is for Valentines he sent her a candy gram.  The next day she brought him a little card.  For cards we usually put them in their homework folders so she gave the card to my assistant.  At break Laura, who is my assistant, told me Mikela had written Takoa a card.  I asked if it was really bad that I wanted to read it...she told me she already did so I did too...(not sure if this is professional, probably not, but too cute to resist)  Let me paraphrase the card to the best of my knowledge.  "Takoa, Thank you for the candy gram.  I know that you love me and it's ok.  I love you too but please don't tell the class.  Mikela"  You can't tell me that isn't precious.  Yesterday, I talked to his mom who is a friend of mine.  She said she doesn't understand where he gets it...She explained....They don't even have a TV! haha  The best part is Takoa's little sisters is telling her mom that my cooperating teacher's son is her 'novio'...aka boyfriend.  They are in K4...which is preschool.

I'm going to keep this one strictly class related because I have so much other stuff to say that no one would read it if it was that long.  But I hope you enjoyed these little tales :)

First Earthquake + First Espanol lesson

This afternoon after my last lesson of the week, I walked to lunch with my cooperating teacher.  (I eat lunch while the kids are in Spanish) I had just sat down with my usual lunch of chicken strips with honey mustard and amazing homemade chips (great meal for $2! or 40 cords).  I was eating with my two friends who teach in the middle school when our table began to rock.  At first I though someone was just moving the table but then no one was moving and it lasted a little long for that to be it.  I looked at my cooperating teacher, Maria, who was smiling at me from across the room asking if I felt that.  IT WAS MY FIRST EARTHQUAKE!  Awesome!
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc00017cj.php
Then the sirens started going off in the school.  Being from Iowa there is no reason why I would ever need to know what to do in case of and earthquake so I had to ask her where I was suppose to go.  She said we just had to get away from the buildings and trees.  The siren only lasted a minute at most but I found out the tremor was a 5.1!  Such a cool experience.  Nicaragua has 50 volcanoes, 7 of which are active.  There is a lot of movement and shifting of the plates here.
My second unique experience of the day was our first Spanish lessons.  This is no Ballard High School Spanish class.  Professora Balew has nothin' on this lady.  She spoke Spanish the entire time...it was super intimidating and my brain literally hurts after being immersed in it for dos horas.  It's kind of crazy how much I can remember though because I didn't think it was as much as it was.  This lady teaches Spanish for the Peace Corp and is giving us lesson for 5 dollars each time!  I'm hoping I come home a better Spanish speaker and understander (not sure if that's a word but oh well my brain is fried!)
:)
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Starting teaching/weekend out of Managua

Last Monday was my first day at school.  It was only a staff work day but it was really nice to get to know the other teachers and the school without the worry of kids.  I meet my cooperating teacher who is very sweet and I am very excited to be working with her.  We also are doing a book study for professional development which I am really excited about.  I realized my need and desire to be constantly learning more professionally and this definitely is helping to fulfill this desire.

Last Tuesday I met my kids.  I don't think I have ever been so nervous to meet a groups of 20 six and seven year olds.  It is kind of hard because some of the don't know as much English and the kids usually talk to each other in Spanish.  This has been especially true after coming back from a month of winter break.  It's kind of difficult situation because I want them to be conversing with each other and doing think pair share but I never know if they are on task or not.

This week I have taken over writing.  It has been an adventuring figuring out what works and what doesn't with all ELL kids in a very open environment where it's usually fairly loud.  Have three little angels that don't seem to want to do any writing but I have already seen improvements in there stamina to write.

Yesterday I came home very frustrated and overwhelmed by the whole experience.  I called my mom and she suggested really focusing on building relationships with my students.  Today this was my main focus and I have to say it made it much more enjoyable.  I am beginning to appreciate and get to know the little personalities in my class.  I know you aren't suppose to have favorite but let's face it I have a little tiny favorite.  This little boy is seven years old and I have nicked name him the mob boss.  He is absolutely hilarious and always has a comment to say after every class discussion.  He also loves food and money and is very good at ordering people around.  The thing is they listen to him because he just has that mod boss way about it.  My teach and i constantly are smiling at each other when he does something that is mob bossish.  :)

The other really exciting thing is that we got out of Managua this weekend!  It was awesome!  Managua can kind of kill your spirits and so it was nice to see other parts of Nicaragua.  On Saturday morning we went to Granada for breakfast.  It was SO GOOD!  We went to a place called Kathy's Waffle House and then toured around Granada.

Above is a picture taken from the Cathedral's bell tower looking over at Lake Nicaragua.  The largest lake in Nicaragua

This is the cathedral!  I think it is so absolutely stunning!

This is a video of La Laguna.  We went to an overlook on Saturday then went swimming in it on Sunday! So much fun and so beautiful!

This is at a the Monkey Hut Hostel.  If you ever visit Nicaragua look it up! We went swimming and ordered pizza which was super good, but Sarah got sick after eating it.  As you can see though it's a little piece of paradise.

To get in you jump off the end of the dock.  We then swam out to the far floating dock.  I hope you can see it in this picture cuz it's kind of far away.  The water was really choppy this day so I was exhausted swimming out there and back...plus I had run Sunday morning so getting out of bed on Monday was a bit of a challenge. :)

No Mas Gasolina

So tonight Sarah and I went out to dinner with Alex, another teacher that lives here in the village, and Stephanie, a girl who works for the peace corp North of Chinandega.  It was really fun.  We went to a Middle Eastern restaurant.  It was muy, muy delicioso!  Although our waiter was not very good.  He brought me another drink that I never ordered.  He charged Alex for 3 drinks when she only had 2 and put in the wrong salad order for Stephanie.  She sent it back then he tried to charge her for both dishes.  It was very interesting but then came the big adventure.
What I haven't told you was this was our first experience taking a taxi in Nicaragua.  We got there perfectly.  They way back was a little more rough.  We got in a taxi and got him down to 20 Chords a person (about a dollar) to take us home.  However we only made it about a mile and all of a sudden he pulled over.  Alex and Stephanie started to ask him questions and then get out of the taxi.  I asked what happened and it turns out that the driver had run out of gas.  So he just kicked us out on the side of the road...never the way i thought my first ever taxi ride would go!  So armed with Stephanie's pepper spray we marched on along the street in Managua. We were about two blocks away when Alex hailed down a taxi for the road that I guess is not great to walk at night.  As we were stepping along the dirt paths toward the school I could only think that these are the kind of adventures i would not forget about Nicaragua. :)

I am currently watching Julie and Julia.  I am encouraged by watching Julia Child try to speak French :)  Sounds like my Spanish.
PS. If you weren't away Sue Sylvester in Julia Child's sister.

PPS. I just saw the first lizard since I've been here.  Sadly it was on the wall my apartment.  AH!  and Sarah is asleep so I had to withhold my scream and wake up my roommate tenancy.

No hablo Espanol

In other word...i don't speak Spanish!  Ah!  Sarah and I have been in Nicaragua for 3 days now.  It's definitely been and adventure of sorts.  I'll just walk you through the last 3 days.
*Note it's really long so I labeled the days and then did a brief overview at the end :)


Day 1-CRAZY scared, what am i doing here

The flights were perfect.  I really wasn't even nervous until we flew over Managua. We were worried about making out connecting flight in Houston but we got to the gate in time to go to the bathroom and have them check our passports and then load on time.

We went through customs which was a little confusing because again no Espanol.  We got to the greeting place and were met but 3 men that work at the school, none of which spoke English.  Sarah and I kind of freaked out because they just grabbed our bags and took off.  But we followed dodging traffic on the way out to the van.

This city and country is really poor.  I don't think I was ready for the poverty that is here and it came as a culture shock driving through the streets from the airport.  People stand in the middle of the road and sell things from water, to Disney towels, to juggling for money.  It's a whole new world down here and something were told we are going to have to get used to.

We arrived at our apartment wondering what in the world we got ourselves into!  Sarah and I both broke down for a while.  We had no internet so we went to the office so we could email our parents and maybe get some food.  Emailing was the hardest and i started crying but didn't want my parents to really know all that was going on with me.  We exchanged some money and went to the supermarket.

 We bought some food but then when we got back to make supper realized we have to have something to light our stoves and oven with...which we don't have any lighters or matches. So we had PB sandwiches. I brought PB in my suit case just in case this would happen. Their milk is SO weird...it came in a bag!  Yesterday we opened in an put it in our coffee pot...very interesting. 

We also came back to all of these ants of various sizes all over the aparment.  I went on a little ant masacre with my Deet bug spray.  Not sure if it did any good but it made me feel better. 

We do have air conditioning in our bedrooms, it's really loud! But so are birds and owls around our apartment.

We have a bathroom.  We don't have to go in the jungle luckily!  We can't put our TP down the toliet so we have to put it in the waste basket which is gross but I guess i'll get used to it.

We watched the Proposal before going to bed.  It was like a comfort activity.

Day 2- tour and stop crying day

Woke up and had internet.  Made our morning because we can now communicate with the outside world...and people who speak English.  I got emails from my parents which was so good.  I also bought some skype minutes so i can call anyone in the US from my computer, which is really awesome!  We also met a woman who works in admissions named Carola.  She is amazing and has been so helpful!  She was able to give us some really solid advice on what we are going to have to get used to in the culture and opened her office up to us as a place to talk which was a wonderful thing to have.  She even offered to take us out to La Galleria which is a mall and has lots of really good restaurants.  We also got a tour of the school which was BEAUTIFUL!  I think I'm really going to like teaching in this school. 
Sarah and I also decided that we might go to Granada this weekend which is about 45 km away and is a very colonial city in Nicaragua.  So update there later...in other words we'll see what actually happens.


Day 3- mall and pool day


Today was a great day.  Took my time getting up today...a read a little and just kind of lounged around.  When we got up we decided to see if we could go the Metrocentro which is a near by mall.  We decided it would give a break from our mac and cheese and we could get a cell phone...haha
Getting a cell phone was hilarious.  I have decided my way of dealing with not being able to communicate is to just laugh.  I feel so stupid and embarrassed not knowing the language that I have developed this nervous laughter.  So I laughed all the way through our attempt a buying a phone...we talked to him for about half and hour and ended up not buying any minutes just buying the phone.  WHoops!  The only reason we were able to make this discovery is that WE MET SOME NEIGHBORS!  
I left our doors open in hope that someone might come by and sure enough tonight around 5:30 three girls came to our door.  It was wonderful to meet them.  One of the girls was just visiting, one of the girls is an eighth grade teacher and the other girl is with the peace corps.  Alex is the girl that lives here and she was able to give us great advice on how to use our phone, using taxi services, how to find the laundry and just be in Nicaragua.  I think we are going to hangout with them tomorrow.
Tonight we went to La Galleria con Carola.  It was so nice!  Nicer than any mall in Iowa, which was a bit of a shock.  She took us to dinner at an Italian restaurant.  Sarah and I have discovered our stomachs have shrunk since being here.  But it was so good and we learned a lot about Nicaragua: the government, the poverty, the issues with young people, pretty much lots of cultural information.  It was very interesting and Carol has been such a blessing!  
We also found out about this thing called VIP movies.  Be prepared for you world to be rocked....k?  You can go to specific movies that are in VIP theaters.  Here you have lounge chairs...aka lazy boys....and people bring you food.  I mean you have to order it but you can get sushi and wine and pretty much anything you would like.  We asked her how much it cost.  She told us double...Oh ok...how much does a regular movie cost.  "Oh around 3 dollars."  HAHA!  we can have VIP service for under the price we pay at home to go the the movies!  LOVE IT! :)  Sarah and I decide we definitely have to try that out! :)


I know it is super long so her is the brief version:
It was hard getting used to all of the differences.  The first day was major culture shock, but it's just keeps going up and up.  We are meeting new people everyday and have begun to really enjoy it.

Student Teaching

Two weeks ago I had my international/out-of-state student teaching interview. I didn't know where exactly I wanted to go. I had put Greece and Switerland as my top two choices but was thinking that I wanted to stay in the US and just do a out-of-state placement. After talking to Leigh Martin, the director of international student teaching she suggested that I go to Nicaragua. It is an amazing school and they are always begging for student teachers from UNI. I am so excited to have this opportunity to live in another country and learn about their culture.

I am super excited to see how God is going to use this opportunity. My roommate Mallory is going to Nicaragua this summer for a couple weeks as part of the Speech Pathology group here at UNI. They are actually working at a Christian orphanage. I would love to work at an orphanage like this. Nicaragua is a very poor country so I know there will be lots of places for me to serve and I'm so excited about it! I feel like God is really openning doors for me to go to Nicaragua. More to come!