I’m not going to say it’s an ordinary night but it’s certainly not out of the ordinary that I should sit here eating vegetable soup and fried, salty cheese by the light of my headlamp and some milk jugs lanterns. There is a vigil taking place in the street in front of the house next door. My house is filled with not only the singing, clapping, and keyboard music from this event but also sounds from another Evangelical service somewhere in the distance. I was up this morning at 4:45AM because that’s when the little boys (10 and 14) next door woke up. I guess sometimes they stay in the house alone—their aunt lives next door. But the mom is sometimes working. She’s the Sandinista Party leader in these parts. So when mom isn’t around the radio is especially loud, the nights often late, and the mornings early. It’s a constant frustration for me and more so since the 14-year-old got his hands on an Eminem CD. Will the Real Slim Shady please get the h-e-l-l out of this country? I was explaining to someone that my neighbor had come across some really offensive music. And she said, “Oh, right. They’re Sandinistas. Is the music against your country?” I guess that would have been a normal thing. I was like, “Well, no, that’s not it at all. The music is FROM my country and I despise it. It’s offensive to all people of difference and I can’t tune it out—because it’s in English!” Spanish music I can tune out because if I’m not concentrating I don’t understand anything, but English music is another story.

Overall, today was productive. I decided to take the bull by the horns and start a youth English Club even though I’m not sure exactly how it’ll go or where we’ll meet or if I’ll have enough time. The advice I gave to myself—something I’ve been working on for awhile now—“Don’t wait until you have everything completely planned out because that day may never come. Just dive in there and let it shake out how it will.” I used our unplanned, unstructured class time to talk with some students that I know are really interested in English. I invited them over to my house to discuss the possibilities. We decided to focus on using English instead of just copying down new words or doing translation activities (blah.) For our first meeting, we played a rousing game of Old Maid—card game supplied by a family friendJ It was so fun. First we talked about all the people on the cards: witches, pirates, gardeners, ballerinas, etc. I mean, when you’re learning a language, it’s basically imperative that you learn about witches and pirates early on. In the discussion about “witches” we also had to talk about the word “with” and also “which” so in the process of playing there were so many learning/teaching opportunities. I wrote out some key card-playing phrases such as, “My turn, your turn, his turn, her turn, I won, You lost, I have a pair, I don’t have a pair,” etc. And as we played the kids really did use the phrases. I don’t think I could have hoped for more.

Later in the day, my friend’s 10-year-old came over—we’ve been watching the Planet Earth documentaries on my computer. He’s really a bright kid. Planet Earth is in English but has Spanish subtitles. We eat popcorn and he reads along. Due to the power outage we couldn’t use the computer. Instead we played Go Fish! and he whipped up on me! By the end he was speaking the English names of the “animalitos:” whale, snail, tropical fish, sea horse, and more. It was a pretty good day, until the religious fervor of the evening hours anyway. The vigil lasted over 5 hours until after midnight. The dogs started barking at 3:30AM.

If I could change any two things about this developing country, I would demand the noise ordinance be enforced and I’d put into effect some sort of leash law for dogs and perhaps pigs, cows, and horses. Individual freedom is very important, obviously. But when the practice of your individual freedoms, religious or otherwise, completely disrupts the work, sleep, and daily functioning of half the town—that’s not okay. Practice what you wish, but have some respect for others you know? Get up at 4AM and start grinding corn, go for it, but keep your dog in the house if he’s going to bark for 3 hours straight. It’s not too hard to be respectful when you think about it—but you have to think about it.