Taxonomies

A couple of weeks ago someone was venting on the San Juan del Sur Facebook site that some surfers had referred to themselves as locals.  They have lived in SJdS approximately 4 months.  I completely understood how she was frustrated and I started thinking about what local means and how I have answered "Where are you from?" in the past and currently.  I don't actually have a great answer.  New York is probably the best answer.  My kids having been born there adds some legitimacy to my claim.  But it is not clear cut. 

So a week ago Ari and are were working on a biology lesson.  Side note:  the lesson was really cool and ABSOLUTELY not a reflection of my usual homeschool lessons.  We are supplementing her school here to keep her on track for the States but that usually consists of a few pages of math and spelling while I put Calhoun down for a nap.  I don't want to mislead you into thinking I am a super-creative homeschool mastermind.  Anyway.  We started studying animal kingdoms (and I do mean WE here) and then Ari gathered 10 random objects and started classifying them.  It led to neat discussions about how some objects could fit into several categories, how the categories themselves are pretty arbitrary etc...  And it was great hands-on learning.

The NEXT day she told me that she had asked her friend (also white) where she was from and that her friend had said, "Nicaragua.". Ari was a little incredulous and said, "But she has light skin!" I explained that her friend was born in Nicaragua and had lived 5 of her 6 years in Nicaragua.  Yes, her parents are from other countries and yes, she grew up speaking English but if she couldn't say she was from Nicaragua, where could she claim as home?  I pointed out how this problem was similar to our classifying problem and we ended up talking about stereotyping.  We spoke about how generalizations help us organize the world but also how misleading they can be. And Calhoun is a different case altogether.  He is often completely delighted and surprised by the fact that "they speak our language!" when people, who Ari and I have already categorized as "English-speaking" speak to him in English.  His brain is not yet categorizing people on their skin color.  And it's kind of wonderful. 

Cello gigs

A couple of weeks ago an acquaintance asked me play cello with them for a few songs at their gig.  I did and it was fun.  Then, less than a week later, I found out about an arts benefit at a restaurant on the beach and offered to play a little for that.  They agreed.  At the arts benefit, I was supposed to play alone but a woman who was going to be doing silks (think Cirque du Soleil) asked if we could do our "acts" together.  I thought that would be fun and that went well.  I was asked by the restaurant to come back the next night to play for Wine Wednesdays.  A Bossa Nova act and I took turns.  One of the owners asked that the guitarist (who also plays saxophone) and I work something up together (him on saxophone and me on cello) for the next week.  The following evening I get asked by the woman who did the silks if I could possibly play at a circus show they are doing and could I rehearse tomorrow morning at 10?  I say that I can as long as I can bring along the kids.  The answer is yes and I'm excited.

***

For those of you who are confused:  Yes you read correctly and yes, I play viola (and occasionally violin).  But cello is what I have here in Nicaragua (to be a pseudo-teacher for Ari) so that's what I play here.  

***

That brings me to Friday.  The kids sleep in and wake up at 8 or 8:30.  I offer to get donuts at my favorite donut place (Día de los Donuts). We stop and do a couple of errands and then we head to the hotel.  It's near one of the beaches that's about 20 minutes away from town.  We are driving down the road.  It's sunny and beautiful.  The kids are singing along to their recent favorite CD.  It's a musical called "Something Rotten" and includes such lines as, "...he's such a pompous little man" and "I try and emulate Shakespeare" and it's FUNNY to hear the kids sing along and also funny to see the cello in the passenger seat as the truck bounces down the road.  We get to the hotel and they are just setting up the silks and lira rings so we jump in the pool and swim and play on the putting green and have hummus and veggies (!) until it is time to play and the kids behave well and we are there until 1pm but we're having a great time.  We finally leave and the rest of the day is fun- we chat with friends, eat good food and relax.  And I think that this is the life.

Until I start vomiting on Saturday morning.  And then suddenly it's the worst thing that I am in charge of two kids and that I have a gig that evening.   A friend comes to my rescue and takes the kids to the beach with her kid for a few hours and that gives me a chance to pull it together (and sleep) and by the time I need to leave for the gig I think I will make it through the evening OK.  But then, just as  Ari and I are about to get in the truck, the cello wobbles and falls to the ground (the hard hard ground) in its case.  I look inside but I already know.  It's broken. A neighbor uses the new word for broken I just learned and I am relieved I understand but sad to have to answer in the affirmative. It can be fixed but not in less than an hour.  Ari and I go back home.  I email/text/call people to let them know I am not coming.  Ari draws a picture of a cello for me to cheer me up.  When I manage to tearfully tell Stuart he, of the you-can-fix-this-the-show-must-go-on-ilk, tells me to use Ari's cello.  I think the idea is ridiculous at first but then I see the appeal of at least showing up for the gig and I rush out. They are agreeable after hearing me play a little on this instrument that is a). not very good and b). 4 sizes too small for me and I start playing.  I am asked to stop because it is too soft and too squeaky. I am asked to just play at intermission instead when people are eating.  I do that but am asked to stop again.  I COMPLETELY agree and understand but am not in great mental shape to overcome the embarrassment of being asked to stop playing.  But (and this is one of those times kids are just so great) I HAVE to overcome it because Ari is there and what else am I going to do? so we just enjoy the rest of the show (it was fabulous!!!), Ari has a yummy meal and then Ari falls asleep on the way home and I contemplate how fabulous life seemed the day before and how depressing it seemed so quickly and how, truth be told, it's all good and I have nothing to complain about.

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Tsunami drill

March 17th, 2016

Today was the last day of school before Easter vacation (a very big deal here!).  It was also my first Tsunami drill.

Yesterday I learned that Ari's class would be getting out early, at 10:45.  THIS morning I learned that Calhoun's class would be getting out at 10:00.  I will refrain from commenting about how helpful it is to find that sort of thing out the day of when you are trying to run errands, plan things etc...  Anyway, I was also told that there was to be a tsunami drill and that there would be a parent meeting at 10:50. Another parent contacted me and asked me if I could pick up their child, Ari´s friend, as they were unable to change their schedule to accommodate this sudden change.  I said yes.

Perceived schedule:

7AM: Drop off one child at school
8AM: Drop off the other child at school
10AM: Pick up one child from school
10:45AM: Pick up 2 children from school
10:50AM: Attend a parent meeting (with children in tow, I guess, so I am not sure why I picked them up at all)

Actual schedule:
7AM: Drop off one child at school
8AM: Drop off second child at school
9AM: One child arrives at door with school cleaning lady because she vomited (Ari, not the cleaning lady.)  They somehow were wandering around town for a while even though Ari knows where we live and even though I wrote my phone number down at registration.
10AM: Leave Ari at home watching a video to pick up 2nd child.  But alarms are going off because the tsunami drill has started.  They asked us to pick up the kids DURING the tsunami drill. ¿¿?? So I walk with Calhoun up an extremely steep hill.  4 people are pushing a girl in a wheelchair.  The wheelchair is made of out wheels drilled into a cheap plastic chair.  It looks scary.  Calhoun is not going fast enough so the principal offers to carry Calhoun.  Calhoun refuses but wants me to carry him.  So now I feel as if I am SUPPOSED to carry Calhoun up this ridiculous hill.  The doctor speeds past us on a moped.  The drill is running smoothly.  We hang out on the top of the hill in the sun for a while.  I eventually ask if we may go so I can attend to my sick child.  We may.
10:48AM:  I leave my children (thank you YOUTUBE) and go to pick up Ari's friend.  I am 3 minutes late so she is crying.

Later on I see a girl from the place I volunteer teaching English who also attends Ari's school.  She informs me that Ari vomited at assembly.  She asks what she had for breakfast.  I explain she had yogurt.  She tells me the vomit is green.  I explain that the yogurt was not green and that perhaps Ari was celebrating St. Patrick's Day.  She doesn't get my joke.

The Hill.  

The Drill.

Homework

Calhoun

Yesterday Calhoun's homework was to "draw a boy with 2 qualities".  I felt that I understood the Spanish but had no idea what he was supposed to draw.  His class seems to be working on parts of the face so I thought that perhaps what was meant was that he should draw two parts of his face.  So I went to ask our neighbor, Matilde.  It was obvious to her.  He was to draw two different emotions.  But on one boy?  

Two pictures of the same boy having two different emotions.  Done (see attached).

Ari

I found two photocopies of a drawing of a flower in Ari's backpack last week.  If I had found them in Ari's backpack in the States I would have assumed they were just for fun.  But they don't just give out paper here.  So I kept them.  A couple days later I was asking our neighbor if there was any homework and she mentioned something about a flower and the stations of the cross.  She didn't seem to have more information except that Ari was to hand them in on Monday when she has Religion.  As the due date approached, I asked Matilde again but either she didn't understand the assignment or I couldn't understand her explanation.  So I turned to the other gringa mother. She's lived her for years and her daughter speaks Spanish well.  

She wrote me back:

"I think it has to do with the stations of the cross.  I believe there are 14 (??).  I got [my daughter] to write one on each flower, 1 word on each petal.  The teacher didn't say it was wrong.  But she didn't say it was correct either."

Wait!  Why had she already turned it in???  I thought it was due Monday?  So Ari and I got to work.  I explained the stations of the cross so that she would have some idea of what she was writing.  We looked at them in English and then we set about putting my idea of a Spanish phrase that captured the essence of that station on each petal.  Except each flower had 8 petals.  So that left two blank.  She turned it in.  They gave it right back to her and had her color it.  Our time might have been spent better counting to 120.  

And while we are on the subject of school I should state that I have a really hard time understanding why you would require any kids, but especially those 3-5, to wear white shirts.  I drop off Calhoun in a white shirt and he returns to me in a brown-streaked shirt with the occasional splash of red or blue from ridiculous candy that the nuns give him for free because he's charming.  

But Ari and Calhoun seem to like this school (perhaps having to do with the aforementioned ridiculous candy) so I will cease complaining.  For now.  

 

Magic wands and pretty boys.

I am trying to plow my way through the 5th Harry Potter book in Spanish.  It's taken me three weeks so far and I am only in the 200s.  But if anyone brings up wands, spells, owls or lightning-shaped scars in conversation, I AM SET!  The book is from the local library here and I cannot say enough about how wonderful it is to have a library nearby.  Last year when we were here we spent at least 3 hours a week there.  We have a busier life this time around but we still love the staff, books and free WiFi.


I went back to Minnesota recently and I:

1. had a hard time throwing toilet paper in the toilet (versus in the waste basket beside the toilet).
2. assumed the power had gone out when the garage door opener didn't seem to work one day (I hadn't hit it hard enough).
3. slept astonishingly well with no roosters, dogs or kids to wake me.


What else do I want to say?  A month ago we moved into a (much) smaller, cheaper place.  Our other place was very fancy and although we miss the view (and the microwave) we are a 3-minute walk from the kids' school, we live next door to a girl in Ari's class so I can ask her mother when I don't understand the homework, and we have extra cash to go out to eat/go swimming at local hotels more often. Ari is doing well in school and Calhoun is his charming self.  Calhoun  asked me the other day what "Que lindo!" meant.  I explained it meant, "So handsome" and he immediately shot back, "No, 'Que guapo!' is 'So handsome." I explained that "Que lindo" meant something more like "How pretty!" but for a boy but he didn't really accept that explanation.
 
And what about the lechero???  Same guy from our last neighborhood.  It took me a couple of weeks to figure out when he wends his donkey-cart through this neighborhood but now I know (8:20-  the water guy comes around about 11) and we are kept in milk.

Garbage and the Queen of Sweden

There are a lot of ex-pats here but you can tell the Italians.  They speak Spanish to you right away.  Non-Nicaraguans from almost any other country will usually start off in English but not the Italians. And why should they?  I just discovered I have an Italian neighbor in a mostly Nica neighborhood.  I discovered this because we were both waiting for the garbage truck to come by.  We knew it was nearby-  they come MWF at around 8am and yell, "basura" and everyone runs out with their garbage. In a place where you can't flush your toilet paper and where the ants come marching in (and not two by two) as soon as you set down the mango peel, you don't want to miss a garbage pick-up.  Anyway,,,, even people from Spain will often greet you in English.  The other day I met a Spanish woman (who greeted me in English) and her two sons and I assumed her husband was Spanish until I heard him tell the little kid, "Pojd' sem",  I asked him if he was speaking Czech (he was!) and then attempted to speak Czech with him.  I had managed English, Spanish and Swedish already that day and I have to admit that adding the fourth language turned out to be a little beyond me.  Yes, I could say a few sentences but not without interjecting Spanish.  

If you are not interested in languages you should TUNE OUT NOW.  

Here's what happened: In both Spanish and Czech (but not Swedish) you would use a polite form in asking someone's name (assuming they are not a kid).  In Czech and in the Spanish the Czech guy had learned in Spain you would use a plural you form.  But in Latin America (with a couple of exceptions), Spanish-speaking people use the third person singular as the polite form.  So it ends up sounding a little bit like you're saying "How is s/he?" if you are not used to it.  Having been used to speaking Spanish and using that form I then asked this Czech guy, "What is his/her name?" and he, understandably, thought I was asking his kid's name.  But I wanted to know his name.  I eventually got that out of him but I must have used 4-5 Spanish words in the 2-3 sentences I attempted in Czech,  Incidentally, if not interestingly, I made a similar mistake when I was living in Prague.  I met a Swedish person on the tram and as I was so used to using the polite Czech form (the plural), I was using the 2nd person plural for this woman and she finally stopped me and said, you really don't need to be that polite.  I am not the Queen of Sweden. 

What to do when there is a blackout

1. Find the flashlight that your kids love and have cleverly hidden.
2. Kick yourself for not having downloaded a new book from the library onto your kindle.
3. Do NOT clean.  Scorpions lurk.
4. Go to bed early so that you can wake up before you have to rouse your kids at 6am.
5. Write a blog entry that you won't be able to send until there is power again and by that time you'll dislike what you've written and want to do a rewrite.