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| news | December 09 | |||||
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From
Cozumel, the Nicaraguan Sojourn, Oct. -Nov. 2009 Having lived for several years in Mexico, I was still very frustrated that my ancient brain was not doing the job of making me fluent in Spanish. I could get by all right, but I wanted to communicate better. On the horizon appeared an opportunity an Immersion Spanish Language School in Apoyo Laguna, within a dormant volcano, established within a biological research station, an hour drive from the capital of Managua, Nicaragua, and at a very reasonable price. After checking their website, re-reading it several times, I knew it would be rustic, but the promise of certified teachers who would have me in class 4 hours a day, seemed like the way to go. I have done many “tent and peanut butter and jelly sandwich” trips, my good friend Kathy loved the idea, and so we were ready!
COPA airlines actually have room between their seats, so
the trip was quite pleasant. Kathy and I were really excited! Elmer,
from the station, picked us up at the airport in an ancient stripped-down
Land Rover and the adventure began. The first thing I noticed were the
buses in Managua - they are operator-owned and each bus is painted in
wild colors, none the same. They had wild animals, nature scenes;
cultural events splashed all over, even the windows. The first thing
Kathy noticed was that she was flying around in the back with the
luggage. Good sport, that Kathy! Upon arriving at our destination, we
walked up the steps toward a group of people, but weren't sure who were
the directors. No one introduced themselves, but someone told us to go
into Rm. 2, then someone told us no, we should go to a different room,
but finally we ended up in Rm. 2. Now you will notice that I did not say
“bedroom” because our home for the duration was a room with 3 single
beds, no chest, no hooks, no chairs, no place to write, one electric
plug, no bathroom, tin roof, one very, very dim light bulb, a sheet and
2 pillows each. The 3rd bed was our “chest” and I slept at the bottom of
my bed because that was closest to the light bulb. Breakfast was always granola, banana, and milk; coffee was boiled in a pot on the stove and strained. Once in a while there were scrambled eggs, but I felt guilty asking for them. Every meal (it seemed to me) had gallo pinto, red beans, and rice (Kathy was there for two weeks and I was there for three; Kathy liked the beans but I faded fast). Lunch was the main meal and it was the only meal where meat showed up, usually chicken, rice, cabbage and tomatoes (no limes or dressing); maybe some veggies. Dinner was rice or beans or potatoes and veggies. Fresh juice was available at lunch and dinner; dessert is not in the Nicaraguan dictionary. Bread was absent (except one day the “good” cook made rolls but we had to beg for butter) and usually we were offered ¼ of a tortilla in place of bread. There was plenty of sodas and beer available for purchase, and if you were really desperate for dessert, chocolate “ding dongs” were available for $2.00 a package. There was no ice or hot water but the cook froze 2 baggies of water each day so that the juice would be cool. The worst part was the cooking oil they used it smelled so bad it made me nauseated and I would wander off somewhere. It was actually 4 days before Kathy and I received an orientation. Dr. Jeff (“I have a PhD [piled higher and deeper] and 2 Master's degrees, so that makes me the most intelligent person in Nicaragua”) responded after I asked for one. He usually could be found pontificating to the younger male students who hung on his every word and, of course, he blamed Pablo (Nicaraguan Head of Research at the station who said he spoke no English, but I thought otherwise). Later, Pablo blamed Jeff because Jeff was always going off somewhere to a meeting. So now you know how smoothly things are going. The first week, Kathy and I each had our own teacher; we would take a small table and chairs down to a clearing that overlooked the lake for a great classroom location. Kathy's teacher was a young woman, Mailine, and Josue was my teacher. He was a college student, majoring in business administration and both of these teachers were great. There was lots of laughing and camaraderie and they gently but firmly pushed us along. Some days I had almost 2 hours of homework, which really kept me hopping. The second week, there were fewer students, so the teachers who weren't permanently on staff did not come. Kathy's teacher was Rodrigo, a former Sandinista revolutionary, a very animated guy, who, when he got excited, started yelling to make sure you heard him. Only, don't try to second-guess his political views. My teacher was Aura, a young woman who was on staff and the girlfriend of Pablo. (Jeff told us about the huge scene the week before we arrived I guess Pablo's wife showed up and let everyone know what she thought). Kathy had a great week with her teacher; I suffered. Aura's method of teaching was “Read this,” Write this.” I felt like a second grader who was being punished and made to write the pages. Now remember, most of our day was in Spanish, so when I had a question (in Spanish) for Aura, she could not even explain it in Spanish. Later that day, I casually asked Jeff if Aura had been teaching long. His response was, “IS THERE A PROBLEM?” I replied that I was merely curious and he said that if there was a problem, I should tell him. Since it had only been one day, I decided to give it another try the next day. But there were no discussions, no original writing, and no review, only “Read this, write this.” I felt bad, because as a teacher, I did not want to be overly critical of another teacher, but it was pretty clear that she had been told to teach me because there was nothing else for her to do. Day 3 was a little better, but I made sure to ask Jeff if I could have Josue as a teacher the next week. He said he would ask Pablo. On day 5, Aura showed up with a book (in Spanish) that, when I looked at it, had ALL the answers to the questions I had during the week. I asked her where she got this book, and she replied, “Oh, this is the Teacher's Manual.” Grrrrrr. I held my breath and did not ask why she hadn't read it. Later, I asked Pablo if Josue would be my teacher the next week and, without giving him a chance to reply, inferred that otherwise, I was leaving with Kathy. Josue arrived on Monday, pushed me hard, re-did everything I missed the previous week and I was back on track. He is a great person! During the week, we also had other activities. One night was a trip to Masaya for a Folkloric Show that featured a dance troop from Argentina as well as Nicaragua. I also found a place to eat some “real food.” San Juan Oriente was a small artesanias village famous for its pottery. Catalina was a park over-looking the Apoyo Laguna; another trip was to a museum in Masaya and then to Fort Coyotepe, the last stand of Benjamin Zeledon, the 1912 hero of resistance to U.S. intervention. The guide took us underground to the dungeons where the prisoners were chained to the walls and existed in total darkness really spooky! From the top of the fort, you could see a smoking volcano in the distance. One day we spent an hour at a local school. The class of about 25 was in a one room school house, consisting of student ages 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and a few 10 year olds. In one corner was a collection of 2, 3, 4 year olds who could not be left at home alone and came to school with big brother or sister. You can imagine the confusion. There were not many books around, but each child seemed to have their own markers and pencils. We walked around and talked to the kids and let them ask us questions. The 3 non-conforming students were seated in desks outside the room; several family dogs snoozed in the shade, waiting for their owners to be released. The room was dark (no lights) but cool. The task at hand was to trace and cut little petals to put in a paper flower basket. This visit just about sent me over the edge. How could one teacher teach 5 and 6 year olds to read, while at the same time keep the older kids reading or writing with no chance for assistance? Their future is grim how would any of these even get into high school or college? Their future would be a repetition of their families' past, which could include something like the following paragraph. Miguel was a volunteer at the Reserve, from Berlin, Germany. He had been in college at home, but got called up to the German army. He felt that he could make better use of his time, so, with government approval, he volunteered to do ecological research in a 3rd world country. Only Haiti is poorer than Nicaragua in the Western Hemisphere. Living with a local family, Miguel walked to the Reserve each day, returning to his home at night. One day, 2 guys came out of the forest and jumped him, but luckily, he did not have any money on him and he got away. Miguel spent most of his day playing computer games and reading if Jeff didn't leave anything for him to do; one activity he was in charge of was to guide the students up to the rim and plant trees. Kathy and I opted out on that one. Miguel also caught moths at night and catalogued them. Katherine was from Copenhagen, using the Reserve as a base for hiking around the area. One Sunday, she was walking down a road toward Catalina, and a bunch of guys in a car tried to pick her up. She ignored them and kept on walking. About an hour further down the road, she noticed a guy walking toward her. He stopped to ask her a question and she noticed that other car coming toward them. He was the advance man to hold her down while the other guys jumped out of the car. She immediately began screaming as they tried to wrestle her backpack off, and luckily, another car came by and slowed down, so the “hoods” left. She was quite upset by the time she returned. My point is, if kids don't get a good education, they can't get a job and then resort to this type of behavior out of the necessity to eat, recycling the family history. Most of our days were pretty much the same. There is only one road down to where we were and you could go by foot or car. Since we did not have a car, it was walking, but mostly up roads or down roads, sometimes in mud. There was nothing there but the beautiful tropical forest, with eucalyptus, bamboo, orange, lime, mamey trees; wild flowers and bushes, beautiful birds including the Guarda Barranco, the national bird about the size of a large blue jay, with colors of blue, black and a big teal tail. Kathy and I had brought our scuba masks so we could do a dive in the lagoon, but once we saw that there was little visibility, and then one Sunday, saw all the people washing their clothes on the shore, we decided against the diving. Most of the people there were from all over the world Quebec, London, Argentina, US, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden. One group was on the staff of a Quaker school in Costa Rica; they had to leave CR every 90 days for a few days before they could renew their visas, so they came to brush up on their Spanish and enjoy a little vacation. One of the students, Nate and Kathy and I set off one day to find the only little store in the area, which was about maybe close to a mile down the road. By this time, we would do anything for a change of scenery. I was having a hard time walking (my arthritis kicks in or doesn't, but I never know when), so I decided to sit by the side of the road while Kathy and Nick continued on to find whatever “goodies' were available. They returned with some rum flavored “goodies,” and we began the trip back. All of a sudden, the sky above us was crackling and sizzling. The electric wires that crossed the road were on fire! We stopped (well, what else could we do?) and watched for a while as the fire flashed up and down the wires. I thought maybe we could try to time the flashes and make a run for it, but that was a bad plan. Along came 2 policemen on a motorcycle, and I thought, maybe they would ferry us past the danger on the motorcycle, one at a time. Yeah, right. How dumb can Sheila get? So we all stood around and watched the show until the transformer blew up and the wires flailed all over the road. Ok, now we can go? Suddenly, the whole forest of hidden howler monkeys went absolutely berserk, roaring outrageously, showing their displeasure with having their naps interrupted. At that point I was really hoping they weren't going to come flying down to the road, blaming us! When we got back to base, Jeff said “the electricity is out again.” Yeah, we know. The next week, Kathy ventured down to the store again, only this time with Simba, the alpha dog, in tow. Simba would take on any man or beast in the area, even tried to demolish another dog at the little store. Kathy laughed that she never felt safer. Laundry was done in the yard, over a CEMENT wash board. Man, is that rough on your knuckles. By the time you were done, you didn't care if your clothes were clean because now you had to get the blood from your fingers out of the clothes. And as soon as you hung your clothes out to dry, you knew it would rain. It rained almost every day, but some days more than others. Those were the days that it just didn't rain, it was an instant replay of how the football players drench their coach at the end of a winning game bucket after bucket after bucket. Kathy decided one night to just grab her bar of soap and stand in the driveway to shower, but we were afraid a landslide would whisk her away. Entertainment was not always necessary. One way you could amuse yourself was to check your shoes and everything in your suitcase everyday for scorpions. I received an early warning when I moved my pillow the very first night and there was one of those critters, just waiting for me to snuggle down for the night and slip my arms under my pillow like I usually do. While we were there, four people got stung and 2 of them ended up in the hospital. Another activity was to watch the HUGE spiders crawl up the walls of the toilet they actually change color as they begin to fight each other. Pablo showed us a video of the indigenous Meskito who live on the Caribbean side of Nicaragua. (If you saw the movie “The Mosquito Coast,” you have an idea of what the area looks like.) The Meskitos are hired by Columbians to scuba dive for lobsters, often making numerous dives everyday with no opportunity to decompress. When the diver gets bent and can't dive anymore, they are fired and left crippled, to fend for themselves. The Colombians also over-fish, utilizing very small lobster and are seriously depleting the area of lobster. One amusing day, while Kathy and I were in class, one of those big, black, pesky, demanding birds flew into our room. The cook chased it around a lot, and I guess the bird was bouncing off the walls. She finally got it and walked down to where Kathy was in class to show her the bird. Kathy thought it was so sweet, that the woman was cradling the bird and protecting it. Little did she know that the bird did exactly what you or I would have done if someone bigger than us was chasing us with a broom there was poop in our beds, poop on the walls, and poop in our suitcases, everywhere. The Reserve dogs, Simba and Cuco were always around to amuse you and Kathy and I managed to teach just about everyone to play Canasta, regardless of their native tongue. One day, Pablo got the hint that maybe 2 toilets really weren't enough for all of us, so he decided to add one to Kathy's and my room. Yes sir, after 3 days of pounding, pounding, pounding, we had a new bathroom complete with shower, sink, and toilet. The trick was, though, to sit on the toilet, you had to do a 180 degree pivot to land on the seat and then your knees were under the sink. So if it was an emergency, your chances were better to head to the old toilet. And you could not leave the toilet paper in the new bathroom because there was no roof on it and it rained. It was part of the building and built into the side of the hill. Up above, overlooking the bathroom was the road, separated by a stone wall and vegetation. One night, a guy (or gal) on a motorcycle threw their beer bottle over the wall and it came crashing down into the shower. I flew 2 feet off my bed, and was glad I wasn't out there. On the last day that I was there, an electric light was installed Rm # 2 is now the fashion plate of the Reserve. I even got Rodrigo to pound a few nails in the door for hooks. There was no end to my pleasure at that point! Well, I am really missing Kathy by now. Aura had a bang up fight with Pablo and left. One night I was telling Geraldo about the bats in the chest freezer and he didn't believe me. Since the cook had gone home, he opened the freezer and a really awful smell started to search the room. He examined the freezer for a while and decided that it really wasn't keeping things as cold as bodies should be kept. When he told Jeff the next day, Jeff's reply was that “everything would be all right.” Yuck. Maybe they were waiting for Halloween? I also have a calloused butt. Honest! Those wood chairs were so hard, even when we sat on them with our pillows. So my scientific theory is that it takes precisely 3 weeks to develop a callus there. Another news flash when you live in a volcano and the sun begins to set, it is immediately pitch dark inside the volcano within 2 minutes of the sun's first slide. So that meant no studying after 5 pm because of the 10 watt light bulbs. Good grief, I guess that meant we could only play Canasta because the numbers on the cards were big enough to see. When I planned this trip, I had added a few days on at the end in case I got the chance to stay longer and take more lessons. Unfortunately, by the end of the 3rd week, I had it. So I continued on to Panama to see the Canal (it is on my “Bucket List”) and catch up on my thoughts and my sleep. And you can't imagine the happiness I felt by the time I got home to Cozumel. So, how would I rate this experience? That is a hard question. As for meeting my objective of learning a lot about the Spanish language, I think that was great. But I am not sure exactly what is going on at the Reserve. We asked why there was another Spanish Language School right next to our property and were told by Jeff that it had all been one, but now it was split because the other guys were money laundering. The other place didn't seem to have hardly any students, but then again, Pablo really never bragged about all the things his group was accomplishing in the way of research. During the time in Nicaragua, I felt really negative. Usually I am not like that, but everything seemed to be so hopeless in that country. I went, I thought, prepared to “rough it,” but it began by not being greeted, by not being orientated, by not being comfortable with not knowing what was expected of me or my time there. I am not an “organized” freak or a cry baby, but I guess I am used to certain ground rules and professionalism when you are running a business. And things never seemed to pick up. One day, Josue told me about the town IN the Managua City Dump. Yikes! There is actually a town built in the dump; it has a mayor and councilmen who decide the rules. They decide who gets first pick of the new loads of garbage and who has selling rights and who has bartering rights. They have laws on how the hovels can be constructed and who can come visit (friends can visit but cannot remove anything from the dump). This actuality was something I was missing all these years. It is unrealistic to think that I alone can make a difference. I have seen poverty in many countries, but this was the worse. When I think of the Bernie Madoffs of the world who could make a difference, and then think of them sitting in jail, eating pizza, while the rest of the world crawls and grubs for anything to keep them and their children alive, it is one huge nightmare. My feeling is that it is time to stop the wars, stop the space program, and take care of the people first. There aren't borders anymore, there is just our world. And it is time we start taking an interest in it.
The
2010 "Colores de Cozumel" Calendar is now available.
This labor of love showcases a wide variety of colorful,
beautiful photographs submitted by folks who love the Island of Cozumel.
The Calendar's months and days are in both English and Spanish and the
Calendar highlights both American and Mexican holidays. These make great Christmas presents. Pick your copy up at any of the local charitable organizations or by e-mailing bluesparrots@yahoo.com. Cost is $10 usd or 130 pesos. We will deliver them to your doorstep or arrange for them to be mailed via couriers to the United States at a small postage fee.
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Casa de la Cultura de Cozumel |
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| news | December 09 | |||||