Tuesday in Training...

Today, I wake up at 6:30am, take a freezing cold bucket bath and scarf down a quick and yummy breakfast of oatmeal, fresh pineapple, bananas and 2 fried plantains with cinnamon while finishing my homework assignments and reading over the Emprendedurismo course material that I will be teaching later today.

At 8 am my Spanish teacher and fellow trainee show up at my house.  Today, just like every other weekday, we set up ‘class’ on my front porch.  This consists of 3 plastic chairs, one whiteboard, a handful of poster sized paper that we call papelografos , markers, masking tape, and an eraser.

At 2 pm today we are teaching our second “Life Skills Charla” to our youth group, topic of choice, “Rompecabezas de Comunicacion” or “Communication Puzzles”.   

The first hour of class we spend planning.  The weather is still manageable, it’s in the low 80’s and my skin is still dry.  We spend a decent amount of time looking up words we don’t understand and trying to comprehend the meaning of complex sentences and the overall theme of the lesson that is so eloquently written in Spanish.  Once we figure out the material, it’s time to figure out how to teach it in a foreign language.  Not only do we have to comprehend the material, we have to explain it and make it understandable to our students in Spanish. 

It’s starting to heat up and by noon we are completely drenched in sweat.  The mosquitos are biting and the pesky flies won’t stop landing on my arms, legs, face, neck, everywhere.  It so utterly disgusting but I eventually give up and stop trying to make them go away.  I have no more power in me to fight them.  A motor-taxi driver parks across the street and is blasting some stupid American song that goes “I want to make love right now” and about every hour the Catholic Church procession carrying a statue of Jesus with full band in toe marches past us blaring their trumpets and ardently pounding their drums.  No big deal, we aren’t trying to study or anything Nicaragua.  A few times, the Catholic procession stops about a house away and stays there for awhile making it just about impossible to hear each other speak, accomplish anything or let alone prepare an important lesson.  Then there are the “bombas”, these ear-piercing firework type things that are blasted up into the air at all hours of the day and night.  They end with two extremely loud “pops” and depending on the distance can really hurt your ears.  How in the name of God are we supposed to get Anything accomplished under these ridiculous circumstances!?

Finally, somehow we successfully finish planning our lesson, jump off of our plastic chairs and take a seat on the dusty floor, grabbing a marker and starting to prepare our papelografo’s.  These are the visuals we will tape up on the wall to teach our lesson to our students, there are no blackboards or powerpoints here.  Finally, it’s time to practice.  Our Spanish teacher corrects our pronunciation, and sentence structures, she chimes in when we use the wrong verb tense, or forget an ‘a personal’ or completely butcher the Spanish language. 

By 1pm the blistering heat makes it hard to think straight.  I physically feel like my brain is frying and I cannot attempt to think straight any longer in a foreign language.  My jeans are literally sticking to my body and I am drenched in sweat.  I’m mentally drained and it gets harder and harder to communicate in Spanish.  I get so frustrated and so close to being broken down.  This material is hard enough to teach in English let alone in Spanish!  But by the time I am about to physically and mentally lose it, Peace Corps arrives to watch us present our Charla to our students.  They are here to provide feedback and more importantly, to report our progress back to our superiors.  I push on for one more hour because now it’s time to make a good impression and teach my kids an important charla in Spanish. 

Surprisingly, I get all my points across and the four of us trainees co-facilitate well.  Our kids understand the theme, have fun playing the communication games, stay involved and have fun answering our questions.  I think they even learn something new about the importance of good communication skills.  Afterword we receive great positive feedback and I feel really great about what we just accomplished.

Now its 3 o’clock and the clouds are coming in, it starts pouring rain on the zinc roof and we can barely hear each other.  But the cool breeze provides a much needed relief.  Everyone leaves and I take a minute to breath.  Lying in my bed safe under my mosquito net I don’t care how sweaty I am.  I relax and watch an episode of The West Wing on my computer and enjoy a break from the horrible mosquito’s and the Spanish language.  Then, it’s back to work, time to prepare my lesson for tomorrow; the topic is characteristics of an entrepreneur.  I’m teaching it at 7:45am at the local high school.  I spend my time before and after dinner looking up words I don’t understand, asking my family if my sentences sound right and going over important phrases. 

By 8pm I’m completely beat and happily head off to bed.  Tucking myself in under my mosquito net I can’t help but smile.  This is really hard.  But I’m doing it.  Day by day I’m getting through it and I am proud of my accomplishments.  I’m learning a whole new curriculum and I am learning how to teach it in Spanish!  I’ve never done anything like this!  It’s hard, really hard but I’ve never felt more accomplished.