Mission MapaMundi

So we all remember when in the 2007 Miss Teen USA pageant when the girl from South Carolina gave that really bad answer about why many Americans can't find the United States on a map, right? (If you don't remember, I gave the information so you could youtube it. It's seriously worth a look.) In case you don't feel like looking it us, the gist of it is that this girl gives the most awkward answer of all time. A.C. Slater couldn't even keep the adorable smirk of disbelief off of his charming face. Anyways, in the middle she made a somewhat valid point...if she were talking about Nicaragua. She said she thinks it's because a lot of people don't have maps and therefore really can't know.

That's sort of the truth here. There are internet cafes and some schools have one map or one globe for the entire school. Some kids don't know where Nicaragua is because they've never seen a map before. There isn't ready access to a map. Because this is true in a lot of third world countries, Peace Corps does something about it. They have a system of drawing giant murals of world maps in schools. There are two main ways to do it. The first one is the projector method where we use a projector and a world map printed on a transparency. We trace it onto a wall that's already painted blue and then we paint it. The other is the grid method. More on that later. It exists for when there is no projector or when there is no electricity to run the projector.

So, one Peace Corps volunteer decided to take this project on. She was determined. She was prepared. She had helpers. Her name is Julie and she's one of my best friends. Julie lives in the department of Leon, about 6.5-8 hours of travel by bus for me; because of that distance I'd never visited her. Well, this past weekend changed all that. I had a ride to Managua (so I didn't have to take the bus and it cut the time to Managua from 5 hours to less than 3) and when I was done there I hopped a bus to her place. I got there Thursday afternoon.

Friday morning a church group of 11 high school and college students and 3 chaperones were coming to help Julie out with the map. Seem a little weird? You have no idea. One of the chaperones was an old friends of Julie's from high school and it was sort of all a big coincidence. Anyways, she and I had no idea what to expect from them or from the map, but our hopes were high. So we headed to the school and the first picture is what was done so far. Julie had cleared the furniture and painted the ocean. We had a lot of work to do, starting with setting up the projector.

Hah! How we actually thought something would work so easily, I don't know. We had the map printed on the transparency and went to the school library to pick up the projector that all the teachers had told Julie would be perfect for the map and the transparency. They failed to mention that it was for SLIDES. What were we going to do?

Turned out we were going to do the grid method. It basically involves measuring 56 squares across and 28 squares down and making a grid. Then we use papers that someone from PC developed that show exactly what squiggly line to draw in each of the 1568 squares. Dear God. We were not looking forward to this. It just seemed so tedious. Oh well though. We really had no other option.

Julie and I walked to pick up the group. We were meeting them at the park...and it was quite the spectacle. They rolled up in a suh-weet bus with AC, so we hopped on. They all seemed really chill and fun as Julie guided Pedro (the kick-butt driver who I'm pretty sure could navigate that bus anywhere) to her house so he could park it.

Then we went to work! Julie and I were more than a little nervous about what all of the group would do since there wasn't enough space for everyone to work on the map at once. Turned out not to be a problem thanks to the Nicaraguan tradition of getting out of school early. The Nica students played soccer and volleyball with them. At one point I saw a little hackey-sack. Some students were brave enough to come help out on the map. It was all pretty impressive considering the visitors had pretty limited Spanish, but language really isn't a barrier as long as people are willing to look a little silly while miming things. And looking silly definitely wasn't a problem for these Americans. They were awesome.

So by the end of the day, the map was drawn. Julie still has a lot of work to do. I still don't really know how she and her students are going to paint it using acrylic paint...but if anyone can do it she can.

And I'm hoping I can too. She completely inspired me to do this in my town. I talked to the head of education in my town and he's excited and asked me when I'm starting. I mentioned it to the mayor earlier today...basically saying I need money, and he said something along the lines of, "It's a great idea. Come into the office sometime this week and tell me how much you need." I know it's not going to be quite as easy as it seems like it's going to be, but I feel prepared and supported. I know my students will help me out...not as many that promised they would, but some of the faithful ones (and if we're being honest, some of the boys will come just because they have incredibly inappropriate crushes on me...whatever).

I'm SUPER-excited about this and will keep you guys posted! My goal is to start in the public library, then in the two schools I work in, and start in the other schools in town after that. I have some things I need to get under control before I start, and then I have to price point the materials (sharpies, pencils, yardsticks, paint, possibly a projector [keep your fingers crossed for this!], and paint brushes, a roller and rolling pan too for the ocean...I think that's about it). I should definitely have some done before I come home for Christmas though so...ask me about them then! (Or now via email. Duh.)

Miss you guys! See you in LESS THAN FOUR MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!