Looking Ahead

Now that vacation and visits are winding down I have been able to step back, take a breath, and look at the coming year. Work will not be changing too much for me. However, instead of giving classes planned by other teachers, I will be giving English classes to preschool through fourth grade. Also, my friend Yamil and I are planing on starting a movie club. We hope to show a movie a week and have some kind of discussion around them. We are thinking to have a theme for every month, for example: classic movies, Latino movies, justice, race, etc. Once Yamil and I put our heads together there's no stopping the ideas. I was also just gifted a basketball, soccer ball, and even a good ol rugby ball which could open up some opportunities for playing with my students. Last year I played a lot of basketball with some of the high school students. I don't know if it will turn into a coaching position but it should be a lot of fun shootin some b-ball outside of school.
One challenge so far has been reaching out to our community in Ciudad Sandino. Our house, although beautiful and spacious, is closed off and walled in. I get the feeling that our neighbors look poorly on us or at least write us off a bit as the rich white folks who live in the house where the nuns used to live. It will be interesting to see if we can form good relationships with the people in our neighborhood. It's slow going so far. I will need to be really proactive about getting out into the community because our house is literally right across the street from school. It will be really easy to just go back and forth with minimal connection with the larger community.
So there you have it, some reflections because the work really starts and my nose is back to the grindstone. More to come sooon. Salud.

The Fam Has Arrived

It's family time here in Nicaragua. Among the four second years who are now allowed to have visitors, three of us have our families visiting at practically the same time. My parents and brother arrived last Tuesday afternoon. We spent a few days in Ciudad Sandino and Managua, taking in the sites and meeting people. We spent New Year's eve in the Ciudad Sandino house with our friends Joe and Kelly and their friend Nicki. I was really looking forward to seeing what the Ciudad had to offer on this infamous night of polvoras and bombas (fireworks and bombs). You may remember that last New Year's I posted a video of our neighbors "Burning El Viejo," well they do it in the Ciudad too. At midnight we all went out to the street to watch fireworks and a bunch of our new neighbors came up to hug and greet us with New Year's blessings. In the morning, as is a Reynolds family tradition we had a ton of friends and coworkers over for a lunch grill out. As always we threw a great party and everyone had their fill of hamburgers, hotdogs, and even brats brought directly from the brat capital of the world: Cincinnati.
The fam and I are now on the road. We have never had a vacation like this before. My parents have never been to Latin America and we've never traveled internationally together. That said, things are going very well. We went to Volcán Masaya, the Laguna de Apoyo, and are currently in the colonial city of Granada.
It's been really cool to share both the everyday side of Nicaraguan life that is my community, friends, and school and also the natural beauty of the countryside, the Nicaragua that is "the land of lakes and volcanoes." Nicaragua is such a breathtakingly beautiful country.