What I ACTUALLY do

Ok to show you followers that I do more than eat fruit and lounge in hammocks, here are the work related things that I’ve been up to.

Attending class:  Every weekday, I have class.  At 8am I meet at Kate’s house (one of my fellow trainees) and practice Spanish in her host family’s carport.  We cover a whole host of random topics ranging from salutations to cookware.  Our profe is Alvero.  He’s employed by the Peace Corps but a citizen of Nica and speaks zero English.  He’s an ok professor; focuses solely on business and doesn’t find my jokes very funny.  Class goes nonstop till noon when I get an hour for lunch.  After my rice and beans, it’s back to class from 1-3pm (but recently class has been running as late as 4:30pm).

Technical training:  Every Wednesday and Friday after language class, we have technical training with all the business volunteers.  We meet at a restaurant that’s in a central location for everyone.  For a couple hours we discuss everything from reporting to Peace Corps HQ to how to discipline the kids in our soon to be teaching classes.

Health and safety training:  Every other Saturday, we meet in Managua (quite a hike) for ‘everything else’ training.  This is with all of Nica 56 so it’s the only time we get to see our Agriculture buddies.  It was a lot of fun to see everyone and talk about who’s gotten sick and who has internet, a pool, and a 50inch tv in their host house (I hate you Harry).

Youth group:  We, the four of us in Nandasmo, are also responsible for starting up a youth group.  The objective is to get kids ages 15-20 and do a business plan competition.  We had our meeting and 11 jovenes showed up!  It’s a good start but a ton of work to plan and facilitate everything.

So needless to say, I don’t have a lot of free time.  Typically the only free time I have is my 30 minute run and if I’m really lucky, an hour at the cyber to talk with all of you.  The rest of my time is spent bonding with the host family and doing homework (barf).  It’s a lot of work but I’m still really enjoying everything thus far!  To show how little free time I have, can someone let me know if the bulls made it to the finals?  Viva Chicago!