Jalapa Shmalapa

Greetings,

I Went to Jalapa this weekend. People that I have traveled with can attest to the quality of buses south of panama. They are not quite the same here. I had an 7 hour ride on an old school bus to get to the volunteer, named Diego, that I was visiting. On the way there i was smart, thinking ahead to the possiblility that the driver wouldn´t stop, thus giving us a chance to get out and relieve ourselvs. Well i was right in my forthought. The town is nestled amongst beutifull little mountains that compliment the refreshingly cool nicaraguan air. I arived to a grand welcome with Diego and the principal of one of his schools along with an english teacher. We ate a typical nicaraguan rice and beens plate with some carne de res. I took my stuff to a little Hotelito owned by a guy named Edgar. We hit the town for a little bit, but called it a night quite early due to the fact that a nice hour long bus ride was waiting for us at 6 am the next morning.

We left for school the next morning to a school mear feet from the Honduran boarder. Now for those of you not familiar with recent nigaraguan history, here is a little breifing. IN the late 70´s early 80´s Nicaragua went through a civil war, well actually a lot longer than that, but for our porposes we will focus on the early 80´s when good old Regan was in office. You see, we supplied the contras that were living in the mountains in hounduras to fight the Sandinistas. Well this led to much anti american sentiment in this area. Anyways, I say this because the first school we visited was ravaged by bullet holes from the war.

The next day, tuesday, we had 12 hours of school. Well, In reallity we only had about 3 hours, but because of the bus schedule we found our selfs waiting at 2 different schools for an estimated 7 hours, not including class time of travel time.

On the last day I left early to return home. The bus actually stopped, which was a miricle because I really needed to pee. Also, i bought some tasty Nica snacks that i needed to munch on.

Last night was spent preparing for today, My second day of teaching the class. this is not to get confused with our yourth group that we meet with every week that we help to create a product, no, this is me infront of 45 17 year olds teaching a class in some foreign language with 2 people from the Peace Corps eyeing and recording my every move. It´s very nerve racking. I was told that I did a poor job the first go around, which really pissed me off. So I tried my best again, but with more visual aids, and was told that I had taught a successfull class.

Now Im going to relax, I have been stressing about teaching those kids since friday. On saturday we all go to volcan Masaya for a little field trip.

I hope your all good.