Para Alicia

More love for the teacher!! Haha and they nearly got it...! What is your name? My name is Karla y Nimia. Teaching the beginners is verrry difficult, although they are the most keen.

Got the oldest ones to answer questions today, on their own in their books! Rather than just copying off the board.

1) Where is the sofa?
2) Where is the oven?
3) Where is the bed?
4) Where is the bath tub?

Example answer being: the sofa is in the living room.

Took some of them a while, but most of them managed to answer correctly :) although one girl showed me her answers; she got the oven is in the closet. I was like hmm nearly..!!

Question of the week

Why does Santa go to countries like England and America where the children already have everything, but he never comes to Nicaragua?!

Didn't know what to say to that.

Knowing what to teach has also been hard. I tried to do 'for breakfast I eat...' 'for lunch I eat...' 'for dinner I eat...' last week. Before realising that they probably don't eat 3 different meals a day when they said they drink 'coffee black' for breakfast and have cola for dinner.

But teaching is sooo funny! Last week they kept giggling coz 'tomato' sounds like 'te mato' in Spanish which means 'I kill you'. And for some reason everyone already knows the word 'chicken'. As soon as we showed the picture of the chicken it was 'CHICKEN, CHICKEN!!' Now this week we try to teach the word 'kitchen' and get 'chicken' repeated back to us lol.

Me: 'What do you have in the kitchen?' (after learning words such as 'oven' and 'fridge')

Little boy: 'err CHICKEN?!'

Today I got flowers!

Being a teacher is well fun!

Teacher :)

Look what 2 of the girls gave me after class today!!

First day back at school. I now have two more people in my team. American man and a woman from New Zealand. Both don't speak Spanish..! But American man knows everything and never stops talking. We attempted to teach food today..went quite well. Did spelling competition at the end of one class, which they loveddd. Need more easy games like that.

Good news :-)

The policeman found my blackberry :D went back to the pool today and they were sooooo rude and unhelpful, saying that now I had the police involved they couldn't do anything. They didn't even apologise, just said they can't take responsibility for their guest's stuff at the pool as it is a public place. It is not a public place - you have to pay $5 to get in. Going to write some bad reviews on Trip Advisor.

Then went back to the police station to see what they were doing. Didn't expect anything. Then I got there and they told me the man I saw yesterday wouldn't be in til Monday, so I thought..yep that's the end of my Blackberry, but then no..in he walks and says, "is this your phone?!" HA! So he went to the girl in the pictures house, turns out that was the friend of the girl who took the phone. She took him to the girls house, and he got the phone. Very efficient police service in Nicaragua!! Still doesn't know where my other phone is as the girl claims my bag was already open and they just took my Blackberry. When I got out the pool my bag was closed tho.. Said the girl had paid to go to the pool and was quite rich. The family had a nice house, good car..doesn't know why she'd steal.

So now everyone keeps telling me I should have been more careful. Don't think my phone would have survived the last 3 months if I wasn't. If this had happened in the street then it would have been my fault, but at the private hotel swimming pool where nearly everyone sits at the pool on their laptops, with iPhones and I was 3 metres from my bag.  How more careful can I be?!

Hmmm

Both my phones got stolen today. I have been expecting to be robbed ever since I first arrived in Cuba, so am always soooo careful, holding my bag tight, not taking my phone if I'm going somewhere busy, out at night etc. So today it gets stolen from the nice pool at the posh hotel while I was 3 metres away in the water. Mombacho Beach Club, Hotel Spa Granada - No one go there!!!!!!! Am not very pleased. Was with my phone all day lying at the edge of the pool, then went for a swim for about an hour. Well sat on the step in the pool facing my bag, so I don't know how it happened, but when we got out the pool when most people had left both my phones were missing from my bag :( 

Went and told the woman on the bar who called a man who turned up with his two children to tell me that it wasn't them. She told me to say it definitely was them because they were black and thieves she said. But I don't think it was them. I told her I thought it was these two girls who asked me why I'd only just got in the water. But she said it couldn't be as they were her daughters. So after a while they decided there was nothing more they could do and told me I should be more careful with my stuff, after being quite offended that I was only accusing the Nicas not the other tourists, saying they shouldn't let them in the pool...! 

Then went on Facebook in the internet cafe and found a strange status from me. Turns out to be the name of a girl from Granada, Nicaragua. So I print off her picture and my Facebook page and marched back to the hotel with my evidence. Then there is a dippy American boy as manager, so he didn't help much, he also looked her up in Facebook and tried to call the woman who was on the bar and said I should go back tomorrow. 

I then went to the Police station, and told them what happened, and made a statement. They seemed more interested than I thought they would be. Then he printed it off and off we went back to the hotel to investigate!!! When I arrived back with a policeman was a very different story. American boy and doorman looked quite terrified..ha. Policeman demanded to see the pool etc and said he would be back tomorrow. 

Will see what happens...

Lake

Had a lovely day at this lake near Masaya. Think its another ex-volcano now filled with water. Me and my German friend got a mini bus from a hostel in Granada with some foreign people..2 other English and 2 other Germans. It took us to a place next to the lake with cabins to rent or you can come for the day. Spent the day floating on woggles and canoeing around the lake.

Was sooooo nice and quiet, and the water was warm and still and so clear and could hear monkeys howling from the mountains.

Granada

Here are some photos of Granada that I took yesterday (the town that I am living in). This is the cathedral that is in the Central Park.

This is the main street which leads up to the cathedral. All the buildings are painted different colours, first thing I noticed when I arrived. At night all the restaurants open and have the tables outside like in Europe. Apparently Granada isn't a very tipical Nicaraguan town though, and is quite touristy. 

This is another cathedral which is near the lake.

Then I found the lake and ended up on a boat tour of the islands...
This is a view of the Volcán Mombacho from the water. Not sure if I want to climb up it or not.

Me on my boat:

Some of the islands:

Most islands seemed to be owned by foreign people. Some had posh hotels on them. There were two for sale we went past with nice houses on them. I think he said they were between $200,000 and $300,000. 

Other school

This is the school we teach at on Mondays and Thursdays. Bit posher!

Juan Diego

Today we just had two classes. The first one was a class of about 15, then the second has 35 pupils!! But it was Leonies last day so they sung for her at the end, was funny! Then we were invited back to the other school for lunch to say goodbye to some volunteers who are leaving this week. It was nice that even the teachers were saying thank you for our work, so its like they do actually want us helping in the schools.

More fotos! Two girls covered in glitter...

As soon as we get any phone or camera out, they all want to take pictures with it!

Profesora

Oops have forgotten to blog for a few days - am now a busy teacher!!

Walk to school

So this week was my first proper week, as Leonie (girl on my team) was sick last week and so we didn't go to school much. I think I said before that I was going to help teach English..turns out that September is very low on volunteers so from next week it is up to me to teach English myself!! I'm quite excited for this. I have spent this week watching how Leonie has been doing it and helping out.

So we teach in 2 different schools; Mondays and Thursday in a small school where we have 3 classes called Juan Diego, and then Tuesdays and Wednesdays in a bigger school where we have 5 classes called Jose de la Cruz Mena.

Jose de la Cruz Mena 

Each class lasts 45 minutes. They are all different grades, but they seem to have mixed ages, and they are all at the same level of English so each class we do basically the same thing. Except in the 3rd grade who are beginners. This week we have been doing the weather. 'It is sunny,' 'It is raining' over and over! Teaching is verrrry tiring!!! Especially when it is so hot. But really like all the children, they are really nice and friendly and seem interested to learn.

Two of my students!

Have the week off next week so going to do some travelling and plan the week afters classes. Going to be doing food/shopping topic..so all suggestions welcome!!

San Juan del sur

At the beach for the weekend. Pacific siiiide. We arrived yesterday on a very full bus which took 2 hours to a place called Rivas but only cost $1, and then got a taxi to San Juan. It's quite nice, all the restaurants along the beach are on stilts which is cool, but too many waves for me. Spent all day on the beach shopping. At one time I had about 8 people around me trying to sell me ceramic pots and CDs, I was like noooo, no more. Discoteca tonight..quiero bailar!!!!
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device