of articles, english classes, and coffee

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Wrote an article for my hometown newspaper. Printed version is a lot cooler than the online version, but this online version has comments from readers, which I always appreciate!

http://www.lakesunleader.com/archive/x1450777758/A-letter-home-from-Nicaragua


Valentine´s day passed rather uneventfully, other than a great surprise call from the family. The Boy traded a work day to stay home that Saturday, so that was nice. It feels weird calling him The Boy on here. I generally try and use initials and nicknames for everyone that I write about on my blog, just so their names are not printed online.... but I´m gonna break that rule now and start using his name because .... because that´s just the way it´s gonna be. So things are going well with Lenin and I. Yes, his name is Lenin. As in Marx and Lenin. But with a Spanish accent. So leh-neen.

The bigger news, though, is that I am going to be teaching English. In the school. To preschool through 8th grade. And to the professors. Now, this is not what I went into the meeting for. School here started a few weeks ago. Yes, school starts in February here and goes through November. Vacation is December and January.

So there´s a defunct school garden. And, being an Agriculture volunteer, figured this school garden would be a good project to get going. My aunt L, wife of uncle T the carpenter, is the 1st & 2nd grade teacher. So I asked her about meeting with the teachers to discuss the aforementioned garden.

Well, the meeting went well. Yes, the school garden is a great project. What other projects do you have in mind? I said I want to paint a big map of Nicaragua on the outside of the school. Great. What else? Well, I teach English classes three afternoons a week at the community meeting house. Oh really? How would you feel about teaching in the classroom here?

And somehow, now I will be teaching 5 days a week. Now, I am not opposed to this at all. Overwhelmed, but not opposed. In fact, it will be nice to have a schedule of some sort. To have to be somehwere at 8am every day that I´m in site. Oh, and the professors on Tuesday afternoons.

Now, I can teach kids English no problem. They are easy and fun and I have experience. But my only experience teaching teenagers has been in China, too, where the teenagers had a basic understanding of English grammar and I was working on teaching pronunciation and the finer points of English.

I´ve never taught anyone older than like 10 English from the beginning. The basics. So. This will certainly be an adventure!

Enough about English classes. I start next week.

So, I am working on putting together a story about coffee. Coffee in Nicaragua, from the berry to the cup. It´s an interesting process.

To me, coffee and chocolate and tobacco could be the saviors of this country. Mostly because they are cash crops. Coffee and chocolate especially. In the States, for instance, who has ever heard of Nicaraguan coffee? No one. Costa Rican coffee, yes. (¨That´s Costa Rican, butthead!¨- 10 Things I Hate About You reference).

At any rate, coffee and chocolate. Cafe and cacao. Things that make the world go round and are at my fingertips here, just waiting to be explored and written about.

And on that note, signing off!

Oh, and the mail shoutout! Postcard from sfriday of New Zealand!

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Photos

coffee beans
These are coffee beans. They come in berry form. And are grown in the mountains. After the berries are harvested, they mill the berries on the mountain. And bring the wet beans inside the berries down the mountain. They wash them, and lay them out to dry, like this. We are searching for bad coffee beans in this photo. They guy in the orange shirt, that´s my host uncle H, the owner of the coffee.

feet amid coffee beans
my typical reef sandal suntan lines next to the boy´s feet... which are about the same color....

Comments

[Mom]

not just.....
And, not JUST a shelf,.........but a really NICE shelf! We're impressed.

[Mom]

nice!
Pretty new bracelet, too?! Pretty.