Weekend with the Boys and Mailing Address

I had the great privelige to travel with an old friend and some new ones this past weekend. My buddy Colin, the one I road tripped with this past summer and studied with in El Salvador, and two other guys living in El Salvador right now came to visit Nicaragua. I swear, it felt more like they were hosting me in Granada. We went out to eat, drank mojitos, took a small boat tour and went to Laguna de Apoyo to swim. It was luxurious. On Sunday morning we came back to to Managua early, before their bus back to El Salvador, to have breakfast with the community. It was really great to have so many good people in one place.

From left to right, sporting JVI colors unknowingly: Sam, Jeff, me, and Colin

From left to right: Megan, Michael, Sam, Colin, Jeff, Me, Jenna, Amber


My Address (By request):

Patrick Reynolds
C/O JVI
Apdo LM 161
Managua, Nicaragua

P.S. I LOVE getting mail!!!

Semana Santa - Holy Week

Happy Easter, Felices Pascuas, and happy spring to all those who have the pleasure of experiencing it this year. It seems to get hotter here. They say holy week is the hottest week of the year. That’s not true…perhaps this week is though. For Holy Week I went on “mission” for one day with other teachers and some students. We went to the homes of about fifteen students, visiting, and wishing happy and blessed Holy Weeks. Honestly, it was kind of awkward. It was much more evangelizing and guilt tripping than I was comfortable with. My boss was asking what the family had planned for holy week. As is custom the country over, many had planned trips to the beach or other places throughout the country. When my boss heard this she proceeded to remind people why it is holy week, because “we are celebrating the passion, death, and resurrection of the lord.” She would then remind everyone to go to services Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I sat in silence for the most part, smiling occasionally. On Tuesday of Holy Week I did the Nicaraguan thing and went swimming at a lake with some coworkers. We grilled meat, drank rum, and swam. It was great. Wednesday Michael and I headed back to the mountains of Estelí, to La Granacha. It was good to get out of the Managua’s heat; I relaxed. I finished reading Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, played my guitar, and went hiking with Michael. We ran into a snag on Friday when we were planning to head back to Managua. We found the bus to Estelí wasn’t running and that we had to stay another day. It was a mixed blessing. It was great to spend another day in paradise, but we were unable to notify our compañeras at home. When we finally got home on Saturday they were quite worried about us. So it goes.

Work started up again yesterday, Easter Monday, and it was a shock to the system. Luckily for me only about half the kids came because they didn’t realize there was class. Apparently all the public schools didn’t have school. Some people missed the memo. Anyway, I didn’t have to cover any classes because there were so few students. I finally took some photos at school. You can see some of the kids that I spend time with in the afternoons. These are not the kids I have in class, so I pretty much like them all. Good kids.

¡La Música Mai!

So, since being in Nicaragua I´ve felt disconnected from American culture a bit. That is to say, the American culture I receive here is different. It´s everywhere: American brands, Wal-Mart-owner-supermarkets, Coca-Cola, eighties music on the radio, etc. One thing I have missed is music. Perhaps it is being away from my friends who constantly kept me updated and interested in new tunes, but I feel like I don´t know what´s out there, and music is one way I have started to feel disconnected. However, that said, I have picked up some new music since being here. It´s funny, some of the most popular music here is in fact American, well, Puerto Rican actually. Here are a couple links to popular songs:

The newest by Daddy Yankee
And Calle 13

Soy Resident

Well, it is official. I am now an official Nicaraguan resident. I am a card carrying expatriate. It feels good. Considering how much beaucratic red tape we had to go through to get it realized, it was realitively easy compared to the immigration process of the United States. There are hundreds of thousands of Central Americans who would love to get the same kind of residency in the US. I feel humbled by my privledge to be an official resident.

Learning Math All Over Again

2+3=5, duh.

You would think teaching simple math would be easy. Well, apparently not. Yesterday we had an all morning workshop about math. It was principally for the primary teaches, myself included. The workshop was given by a Swiss national who is living with his family here in Managua. His role is to support and develop math in all of Fe y Alegría´s schools in Nicaragua. That´s quite a task. Anyway, the workshop was great. I had forgotten math can be fun. I think he really turned many of our notions about math unside down, especially for my coworkers. It is typical for a teacher to put a bunch of problems on the board and for students to copy and do the problems. This is not a good way to learn but it is how just about every class, in every subject, is taught to Nicaraguans the whole country over. I personally have not had a real intensive math class since St. X High in Cincy. Even with my math skills well on the backburner I remembered not only how to multiply fractions but was able to teach my coworker who is a 6th grade teacher. I don´t know how kids learn here. Michael´s coworker, a Nicaraguan, said that for a kid to learn in the Nicaraguan school system they have to be an outright genius. I´m starting to believe him. Anyway, the workshop was energizing and gave me some ideas to spice up my lesson plans that teachers leave me. Even if they leave me with simple copying plans I feel like I could spice them up a little bit. Vamos a ver.