Today started off well I suppose, if you consider
waking up at 5:45 AM a nice start. I didn’t have to get up until 6:45 AM, so I
quickly passed out again for some more sleep. Anyways today was the first day
of classes (Spanish and technical training). It started with a breakfast of
(any guesses?) rice, beans, tortillas and cheese and scrambled eggs. Despite
the bland sound of the food, it was actually quite good (especially the eggs).
After that it was off to class.
Arriving
at the school at 7:45 AM, Dan and I saw the gated doors closed. We thought this
meant that we couldn’t go inside, but this woman just walked up and looked at
us sitting off to the side thinking to herself “man these Gringos are dumb” and
just opened the gate. It was only slightly embarrassing. Classes today were
focused on getting the students sorted into Spanish levels. The owner of the
school read off names of those in the different levels. There are five levels
(1 to 5) with 5 being the most advanced. Somehow I managed to place myself in
level 4 and it was good for the first 2 hours (where we were working on grammar
and pronunciation), but the second 2 hours were quite taxing (listening and
speaking). I can read and write Spanish decently well, but the speaking is
challenging for me now. The man teaching the grammar is patient and his name is
Jorge (George). The woman leading the speaking and listening is named Mariella
and she speaks quite a bit faster and is a bit harder to understand. I was able
to understand a bit of what was happened, but every now and then a new word or
phrase would lose me and it would take a few sentences for me to catch up. I
think it will get even easier as I go along, so I didn’t get too down on
myself. During the speaking session (2 hrs) we talked about Nicaraguan culture
and about ourselves (because Mariella wants to get to know us). Mariella talked
about the different customs here and the safety of the cities. For the most
part the cities and public transport are reasonably safe, but Mariella said not
to take a taxi alone or to have cellphones or wallets in back pockets on buses.
Mariella was also saying that Nicaragua is much safer than most central
American cities because in San Salvador people can’t even walk around safely
because there is so much gang (gangs = pandillas) violence. Mariella was happy
though because there really aren’t any gangs in Nicaragua. The primary reason
for this is that in Nicaragua, the family is a very strong unit and force. It
already can be seen in the fact that much of the family lives together for
economic reasons and for the safety. Beyond this Nicaraguans typically spend
most of their waking time together if they are not doing other things. This
stresses the important family connections and ensures safety. Due to this time
together, gangs aren’t really able to get a grip on society as the family
doesn’t want them to. This was after Mariella said that one of the gangs beat
up a woman’s son and the woman went to the hospital with the son and took care
of him. She then talked to different families to prevent gang violence I think.
Mariella
also talked about the safety of Nicaragua. One of the first things she
mentioned was that Managua is not super safe. She also mentioned that most of
the areas that we (as students) would be travelling to would be pretty safe.
Dan and I said that we will be travelling to San Carlos by the San Juan River
(Río del San Juan). She said that it’s hot, but the river makes it more
manageable. The downside is that this brings more mosquitos and Dengue fever to
the area. So bring on the drums of DEET! (for the second month at least). We
then had a lunch of seasoned beef, rice, beans and tortillas. After lunch we
had a lecture on the medical equipment (respirators) and then a “lab” naming the tools in
Spanish.
The Euro Café
No comments:
Post a Comment