SO! To keep you apprised of what I’ve been up to: meeting people and teaching classes. Community integration requires me to pretty much introduce myself to anyone that can tolerate talkive to me for five seconds. Some of the more notable instances include: police chief, the three superintendents of the school districts that I work at and the mayor of one of my cities I teach in. This is giving me the false sense of importance and inflating my ego but I’m ok with it.
I also started co-teaching/observing a vocational entrepreneurship course that meets Sunday afternoons. (Funny unrelated story, I can’t spell ‘entrepreneurship’ in English to save my life but I can spell emprendedurismo just fine.) It’s comprised of people who want to start their own business because the job market for Nica is well, poor to say the least. In attendance were 3 highschool students that I don’t teach, and a handful of other people dabbling with business ideas. Next week is the last class so they’re bringing their prototypes and I’m conducting a feasibility study of their business plans. Hopefully, I’ll continue on an individual basis with the more promising plans and act as a consultant to help them obtain the required initial capital. Goodness, maybe I am important? Add another point to Pedro’s ego.
And of course a productive week wouldn’t be complete without an even more productive Saturday night. At 3pm I took a bus (the most crowded schoolbus I’ve EVER encountered, well over 100 people.) up to Ocotal. Saturday was the kickoff to their fiestas patronales called Carnival. What is carnival you ask? Picture the downtown of any major city. Now fence off an 8 block radius in the heart of the metro area. Perfect, now add 8 stages and the most popular Nica bands performing from 9-4am. Bienvenidos a Carnival. Around 20 volunteers from nearby departments attended. We grabbed dinner (bacon cheeseburger!) and drinks at a couple local bars till 11pm. Then we danced, drank and ate dangerous street food for 3 hours. After our feet could not stand another salsa song (or great a rendition of “I will survive”) we crashed at a local hotel. After a typical Nica breakfast (beans, cheese and tortilla) we headed back to our sites to continue saving the world. The best part? Roundtrip transportation, food, drinks and the hotel cost less than 600 cordobas, otherwise known as $26. I love this country, anybody wanna visit?
-Pedro
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