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.

This is the best meal you've ever made!

This is how Calhoun described a meal I made the other day.  It was rice and beans, french fries and raw cabbage.  Ari rolled her eyes as she dislikes beans.  I'm pretty sure it was just the french fries he was over the moon for but his enthusiastic accolade made my day.

the Mareks out there

I was visting a Nica friend the other week when her husband came home for the noontime meal.  We’ve spoken before and have had at least mildly interesting conversations. This day he had heard that women were more intelligent than men and we started talking about generalizations and stereotypes.  I made plenty of mistakes and there were lots of pauses while I figured out what I was trying to say but we weren’t exactly talking about the weather.  Then I mentioned trying to improve my Spanish. He took my interest to heart and immediately became the schoolteacher.  But he started by asking me if I knew how to say, “Hola”!  It is, of course, POSSIBLE that I would be able to hold a conversation but not know the very basics but it struck me as so funny that, after a half an hour of conversation, he really thought I might not know how to say “Hi”.  Since then, I’ve noticed that he is just the type of person who really wants to make sure you know exactly what’s going on in a conversation.  He checks in with me and checks to make sure I know each word.  I remember this kind of person from other countries I’ve lived in.  In Kenya it was my host father, in the Czech Republic it was always Marek and in Sweden it was an Anna (not Myrén).  I remember often being annoyed, since most understanding happens in broader terms (i.e. it’s not necessary to understand every word to understand a story) but I have come to appreciate it.  In part, I appreciate it now because I am better at accepting help in general but also because I recognize that understanding every single word is NOT what I’m good at and so I could use the pressure.  So thank you to the Mareks out there.  

Return of the milkman

I have been back in Nicaragua for weeks and haven’t put my figurative pen to the (also figurative) paper.  I don’t have any good excuses.  Stories have been built up and been sorted in my mind but I just haven’t managed to restart the blog.  So here goes…

We arrived back in Nicaragua in the wee hours of New Year’s Eve Day. We slept in, had an unexpectedly wonderful (at least to me) time walking around Managua and then spent the night watching fireworks from the tower at our hotel.  It was a modest hotel but the mirador made it worth it on the 31^st.  We had fireworks going off everywhere we looked. 

The next day we set off to meet our friend Gretchen who was spending a week at a resort (I use that loosely) to learn to surf outside of a city called León.  We swam in the ocean, played on the beach and got to help release baby turtles in the sand and watch them make their way back to the ocean. The resort, Surfing Turtle Lodge, buys turtle eggs from poachers and then keeps them safe until they start to hatch.  It was pretty cool.

Wait.  

I tempted you with the return of the milkman and he hasn’t shown up yet in this blog.  Well, our very first morning in San Juan del Sur I woke up earlier than the rest of my family.  I decided to take a jog.  I ran up the hill first but quickly ran into dogs. They were friendly but insisted that they accompany me so I went back to the house, hid for a few minutes until they lost interest and then went back out to walk DOWN to town.  That is also how I deal with unwanted advances from men.  I hide for a few minutes until they go away. ANYWAY, I walked into town, went to market, found I was RIGHT ON TIME to order milk for the next day, bought some delicious pineapple (mango is out of season currently L) and ran into two familiar faces on the walk back. It was a happy return to life here.

I should also note that I have learned of and have purchased milk from a lechero (milkman) who passes through the adjacent neighborhood at about 8:30.  The upside is that you can get the milk without ordering ahead and that it is not as far to walk with a bag of milk in the heat.  The downside is that it costs 20 cents more per liter, he is not stationary, and that you are expected to bring your own container. 

But with two excellent options for milk we are much happier.  Ari is particularly thankful.  Around Thanksgiving at Ari’s school in Minnesota, her class wrote things they were grateful for on colored paper turkey feathers. One of Ari’s feathers read, “I am thankful for milk in cartons instead of in bags.”  I think she might be changing her mind.