Scary Rain and Other Things

Last night the scariest rain I`ve ever been around came to my town. It was almost one in the morning and I was sleeping peacefully tucked under my mosquito net with the breeze of the fan on my face. There had been a pitter-patter of drops on my zinc roof when I first went to sleep at 11, but nothing to write home (or in this case to blog) about. All of the sudden the rain aggressively fell onto my roof. It seemed more pressurized than when I would put my thumb over the spout of a hose when I was little. Hitting a zinc roof. That plus the apparant fact that the zinc roof has nail holes in it allowing water to come in and FALL ON MY BED meant there was no more sleep to be had. BuMMER!

After laying out towels in some strategic places on top of the mosquito net and a couple of well placed ear-plugs, sleep was once again found.

Other than that rain (which hopefully signals the beginning of the rainy season = not as much dust and the occassional break from the heat), life has been continuing in a pretty normal pattern. I gave a presentation to the English teachers in my area about how to use a resource developed by Peace Corps. It was about 3 hours long and went really well. Now if only we could get school to meet often enough for them to use this new resource :/

Last Monday school started 40 minutes late so they students could have an assembly celebrating Mothers` Day. Let me put two things straight for you: 1) there were no mothers present, 2) Nicaraguan Mothers` Day is May 30th....they`ll be doing this weekly until then. Tuesday my counterpart had to go to a school out in the country so we didn`t have class. On the upside though, my community class was able to meet on Wednesday! Our review session went well and overall, I think it was a productive class.

However, fifteen minutes before my community class was scheduled to start, the guard of that building (almost every building has a guard here...this building is owned by the mayor`s office so this guard goes back and forth between the two) came to tell me a woman wanted to talk with me who works at the mayor`s office. I politely told him, "No. I have class in 15 minutes." He said it wouldn`t take long and we went. From a previous interaction with this woman, I was already irritated and knew it would result in nothing being accomplished. I went in...and was right. Basically she wanted me to fill out a paper saying I use a room in their building twice a week for four hours total. I said, "Okay where`s the paper?" She didn`t have it and asked me to come back the next day. I did. She didn`t have it. Someone else was going to print a copy but then the electricity went out. When I suggested we write it by hand she looked at me as if I was speaking in English (I wasn`t). She asked me to come back the next day. My reply, "No. Maybe on Monday if I have time." Inefficiency. Ugh.

But seriously, life is good. My new community class for teachers start this Tuesday. I`m excited and hope people show up. The idea came from a few primary school teachers who asked me to come to their classes and teach their students English (in Nica they don`t receive English until high school). For the PC project and for me, it`s a better use of time and touches more people if I teach the teachers: days of the week, numbers, colors, etc. Nothing too heavy.

Other AWESOME things happening: I just got an INCREDIBLE package from my friend Lauren H (thank you!), my dad comes to visit in July, I am officially done and will see you all in LESS THAN SIX MONTHS!