But I stray from what I set out to talk about. The whole three months before those wonderful weeks of vacation are a blur for me, mostly composed of slogging through the minutiae of trying to do the three big things I set out to do at the beginning of this semester (along with teaching in the instituto): Draw Maps, Bring Tech to Jalapa, and put on an English Teacher Workshop for the New TEFL Manual. Let’s see how those are going!
1. Maps: ALMOST DONE!
I started on the map in the instituto I work at with my soon-to-be-leaving site mate, Diego, way back in February, I think. It was slow going, especially at the beginning, when we had to draw all the lines to create 1568 identical squares in a 28 x 56 rectangle on a wall. After that got done, the project seemed to gain momentum, the countries slowly but surely got drawn, and color-by-color have been painted onto the wall, with the exception of the orange countries, and a little bit of ocean around the Americas. We’ll hopefully put the finishing touches on it this month, before Diego leaves Jalapa in July!
The second map has flown into being by comparison, despite being much bigger than the instituto map, thanks partly to my experience with the first one (which led me to borrow a huge 8-foot level to draw the grid, which allowed us to do it in a morning instead of a week this time), but thanks mostly to the hard work of the PIEAT (an NGO from Colorado) volunteers at the school/preschool they’ve built in whose entranceway the map now resides. I started the map two weeks before my vacation, and now after a little over a month it’s nearing completion; it just needs the pink, orange, and dark green countries painted in. The whole saga will be chronicled on facebook when they’re finished! For now, take a look at them both where they're at:
(Instituto map, plus some of the helpers who painted)
(PIEAT Map, with Donna in the foreground :)
2. SPA project: APPROVED!
Edgard and I successfully wrote a 15-page proposal in Spanish, along with 20 or so pages of appendices detailing prices, contracts, agreements and so forth, that was approved by the Peace Corps’ SPA project committee the week before I left for my vacation. What was in it? A promise for about 4,500 dollars from USAID to buy two computers, two LCD projectors, two sets of speakers, two printers, and a set of solar panels and batteries to create a back-up power system for the instituto’s two English classrooms, as well as a promise to raise 30,000 córdobas (about 1,400 dollars) from the community of Jalapa to put in a whole new electrical system into the classrooms, improve their security, and contribute some money to the tech.
The coolest part for me, apart from getting to taste success after the meeting with the SPA committee, was seeing how energized the parents and teachers of my community got over this project, first and foremost Edgard, who wrote, translated, priced, negotiated, set up and attended meetings to make this happen. Before I submitted the project, the presidents of the instituto’s PTA worked to solicit donations from all the parents of the school, and in doing so raised 22,000 córdobas (!!!) of the 30,000 we need. I’m hoping to meet with the treasurer of the project, a particularly active parent named Don Ramón, this week to see how close we are to the goal, and hopefully get started on the construction phase while we wait for the tech money to come in from Washington, which it will hopefully do by the end of June. An opening ceremony is tentatively planned for the end of July to coincide with the start of the second semester of school. Pics to come!
3. Workshop: DONE!
(Julie of Kilali,
Matt of Kilali,
and Megan of Susucayan present their Communicative Activities Charla)
On Friday, May 13th, 42 English Teachers from all over Nueva Segovia converged in the Casa Comunal of Santa Clara for a whole day’s worth of workshops put on by Megan of Susucayan, Matt and Julie of Kilali, Liz Millet of Mozonte and myself, and to receive the new edition of the TEFL manual. They participated in a session about how to plan using the new manual led by me, Liz, and my instituto counterpart Janet; another about how to create communicative activities put on by Megan, Matt, and Julie; and finally my patented workshop about how to create big, tactile and colorful classroom materials, during which they made their own laminated magazine-cutout puppets, and received a roll of tape so that they can create many more. Snacks and drinks were provided, and at the end, certificates of participation were awarded.
The whole thing went off without a hitch, thanks mostly to all the behind-the-scenes work all the volunteers put in to make everything happen. I haven’t heard a whole lot yet apart from the volunteers’ reactions (“It went so well!”), but the early reactions from the participants seem to also be overwhelmingly positive, especially from those teachers who never had access to the first TEFL manual, and from the Kilali teachers who are now motivated and energized to plan and make materials, which is such encouraging news!
(Edgard, my counterpart, receives his certificate!)
***
It's great to see things progressing as my service is winding down (less than six months left now!). The other thing I'd like to share today is that way back in June of 2006 when I was newly returned from a study abroad in Ecuador, living in a Co-op and in charge of my own cooking for the first time in my life, I decided to stop eating meat. That makes this month my 5-year Veggie-Versary, an occasion I'd like to celebrate here with a series I shall call "Cooking with Chef Steve," in which I share some of my favorite recipes for things I've made down here. I haven't cooked a whole lot lately (too busy to blog = also too busy to cook, usually); but I'm expecting June to be a lot less busy than the past few months have been, and so I'll have the time to make some tasty dishes, and make the blogs a really cool series (hopefully!). As always, thanks for reading, and stay tuned!
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