work begins

Jan. 31st 2007

I sit at the apple computer in my classroom, 30 minutes before the first class I’ll be teaching. Nervous is a good word to describe how I’m feeling right now, but it doesn’t describe everything. I am also a little sad and a little confused. You see, this morning I had to tell the teachers at San Isidro public grade school that I wouldn’t be teaching there this year. That was after spending a week with them; helping clean the classrooms, prepare classes, and just getting to know them in general. They are amazingly fun women and men with crucial insights into the San Isidro community and its relationship with the Fabretto organization. I will still be seeing them, probably quite often, but it is simply not the same. At the end of the movie Shawshank Redemption, after the character Red is released from prison, he goes through various rationalizations for his feelings of discontentment, and finally settles on this one, “I guess I just miss my friend.” That is sort of how I feel. I just met these other teachers, and within a 48-hour period, our relationship was drastically changed. For Mike, the volunteer before me here, he spent much time with the San Isidro teachers, but for me, the program is changing and the schools are changing and I have to change with them…
It all started with Don Vincente at the bus stop. I get off and he is waiting for a taxi. He casually mentions that tomorrow in the morning I have a meeting. This gets me wondering why nobody had told me before (not a big deal) but also would he have told me if he hadn’t happened to be at the bus stop that day? Who knows? That afternoon I was in the Fabretto school and I was given the new Fabretto schedule by one of the office workers that had apparently been put together by the new SAT (tutorial style education) teachers this past Friday. See, Fabretto is going through some changes. Whereas last year Fabretto was just an after school program where Mike taught English, this year they are implementing a program that will allow people to get what in the US would be like a GED—so the equivalent of a high school education. They brought in the SAT teachers, changed the whole program and then a few days later I see the schedule. They had me teaching at 7am and at 11:30… it takes just over an hour every day for me to get to work, if the busses are running on time, so it was really unfeasible, closer to impossible, for me to come at 7 without waking up around 4:45 every day or so. But also, I realized, that if I were to change the times when I was working here, the classes would conflict with the classes that I was under the impression I would be teaching at the public grade school. When I asked the Fabretto English director about this, I was informed that I was contracted to Fabretto and she thought she had me all day. This is, in fact, true, but I was growing attached to the little public school, so I felt trapped. And when I told the public school director, Soledad, that I didn’t think I could teach there any more, she told me I had to put my foot down and tell them what I wanted to do… which I don’t think was really the best advice, but oh well. I thought for a while that I could work it out where I would teach at the grade school, 4 classes a week earlier in the morning and then come to Fabretto for my 10am class. But after talking my community and to the office, it became apparent that I would be trying to do too much, especially considering that I’m supposed to be teaching afternoon classes until 4 also… so, my schedule is basically worked out now, I just have to decide when to do the afternoon classes and for how long, but it has just been interesting navigating the Nicaraguan bureaucrazy (intentional) and losing the opportunity to teach the 5th and 6th graders… of which there are 42 fifth graders and 32 sixth graders (and 32 was referred to as very few, apparently once there was a 1st grade class with 63 or so). I remember Mike telling me that he hoped I had the opportunity to teach there in order to see the drastic difference between the public and private, but also because the teachers are so gang-busters. Pues, no más. So I will be teaching 5 different classes of SAT students twice a week, hardly enough to learn very much English, but oh well, and then the afternoon students, which I have yet to set up their class times, or how much how often I will do it……..
2 hours later, I have taught my first class! It went, well, well, considering that it was their first first first ever English class. I took my teaching teacher’s advice and just started with all English… jumped right into it, no holds barred. And it went okay. I could see that 2 of the students had actually had a little English, as one proceeded to call me over and count from 10 to 20… good for you kid, but I’m trying to teach us how to speak the language, not just repeat things we memorize… and I think that is the hardest part. They are used to their other classes where they take notes and memorize things, but I’m not doing that, I’m trying to get them to listen and repeat another language, read and write another language… so it’s a bit more tricky… but I think they understand “what is your name,” “my name is,” “what is his/her name,” “his/her name is,” and “where are you from,” “I am from” but I’m not really sure… although I think they definitely got the my name is part. I worked on that longer. It was fun, the kids are responsive. One little girl asked me how to say “tus ojos son bonitos” in English, and I told her that we are working on “my name is right now.” Maybe someday kid, but not in my class. It will take some time before I can see how well the students are going to behave on a regular basis… but they were well behaved today, I think the subject matter has them pretty intimidated so that they are trying to listen as much as possible. Oh well. We’ll see.
Community living this past week has been very good for me. I really feel us coming together in unexpected ways. I’m impressed especially by matt and andriana’s commitment to the new community; for whatever reason I thought they would still have more lingering attachments to the old community and have trouble reinvesting themselves. But nope. And, as adri said, we 4 bring in new energy and excitement for every little thing. So one funny little story for you all before this hits 2 pages long…
The other night Margie and I got into a discussion on whether or not the JVI handbook included, referenced, or even implied chastity as the recommendation for our living status. I thought it did, Margie insisted otherwise. So we kinda forgot about it, but last night I brought it back up and we broke out the handbook. Now there has been a running joke about volunteers never reading the handbook but always claiming to be, along with the office always reading it, even on their Friday nights. So imagine our surprise, as we discuss what it means when it says resistance and tolerance when the phone rings, and lo and behold, it is Kristen calling from the office. I’m not sure if she believed us when we said we were just reading and discussing the handbook, or if she wanted to believe us when she found out that the section of interest was on dating relationships and that myself and a community mate were discussing whether or not chastity is expected of us. But oh well. Kri took it well, and probably had a good laugh about it. I hope to hear from you soon. Drop me a line, leave a comment, whatever you like. Delve into yourself and you will discover that the kingdom of god is within you. Find it, follow it.

james