Returned this afternoon from a two-day adventure in Jinotega with my Nicaraguan boss. I have two bosses—well, four really but two are within the English program and of those two, one is Nica and one is American. Both are under the age of 35. On this visit, we met with English teachers at four high schools as well as the directors of those schools. We tried to meet with the superintendent (delegado) of the department of Jinotega but he double-booked and wasn’t able to see us. This is incredibly common. Some other male administrator “attended” to us and in two phone calls during the meeting he made reference to the “muchachitas” from Cuerpo de Paz who were sitting in his office. I was not impressed but had to consult my boss later to ask if his tone and word choice were as condescending and “ol boy” as I thought. Yes, “I’ve got two little ladies from Peace Corps here in my office.” Not cool, dude. But on to bigger and better things . . .

We went to Jinotega to do what is known as “Site Development.” We try to meet all the key players and make sure they know who we are and what we do—exactly. We give the directors and teachers some paperwork to complete. It requires some work on their part—such as finding a family for the new volunteer to stay with for his/her first six weeks (after the first three months of training) in the city where they’ll stay for two years. The information we receive from the teachers helps my bosses make the best possible matches of volunteers to counterpart teachers and it ensures that the teachers who work with volunteers are motivated and committed to do more work. Yes, working with a volunteer takes more time, not less. Most of these strategies are new even since I’ve been in country. The TEFL (English teaching) program that I’m a part of is only four years old versus some other programs such as Environment or Community Health that have been here in Nicaragua for like 30 years. Anyway, the managers of the TEFL program I can say for certain are great at getting feedback and really using it make improvements. Lots of folks are curious about the TEFL program but that doesn’t exactly mean they’re ready to commit and work side-by-side with a PCV for two years. Our quest is to find those teachers who are motivated, committed, and open to sharing and developing better teaching strategies.

Anyway, my boss had been in touch with this woman, Josefa. Josefa responded quickly and consistently to all emails and phone calls. This is rather rare. She even offered to be our guide in and around Jinotega which might have meant she wanted to get out of work but it also meant to she was more than willing to give us any amount of her time. We met three great teachers on Wednesday morning. After that meeting I started to get excited about the possibilities! We lunched at a buffet on Calle Central and had a moment to buy a few $1 movies as we sat and waited for our plates to arrive. I got “Invicto.” Later we tried to meet with the delegado of Jinotega. He’d be the person highest up in the Ministry of Education in the department of Jinotega. They gave us a bit of the run around and told us first that he was nowhere to be find but later that we should come back in 30 minutes. Fine then. We hurried on over to Soppexcca to buy bags of Jinotega’s finest coffee. When we returned, we met briefly with the condescending guy and then we found Josefa! Woo. It took a couple of phone calls to locate her until finally we were all standing in the street talking on the phone looking for each other.

Josefa is a slight, soft-spoken, gum-chewing woman around 40, works somewhere within the Ministry of Education. Later when asked “So who is this Josefa woman?” neither my boss or I could really say. Here’s what we know: She is always available. She seems to know everyone. She works occasionally with a PC volunteer in the business sector. She arrives on time. She has bangs and straight hair just a bit above her shoulders that she pulls back on the sides. She wears knee-length black skirts and she chews gum constantly.

We took her with us to the community of La Concordia outside of Jinotega on Thursday morning. In La Concordia we met a teacher, a director, and a municipal delegado who tried to convince us that the hive of bees hanging in the entryway to his school were called, “Quita calzon.” This roughly translates to “take your underpants off.” He claims they will swarm you and get into any dark place. You basically have to strip to get them away from you. Better than a guard dog, no? This guy was a riot. We left Josefa in La Concordia and took the funny delegado to El Coyolito making a pitstop along the way at the home of his sister. She had a spare room where the new volunteer could potentially live for the first six weeks after arriving in the community. My bosses have to personally see all potential houses. In fact we did two other security checks for volunteers who had just completed the required six-week family stay and were ready to move into new places. All of the homes or rooms we rent must be inspected by a PC staffer. At the house check in La Concordia my boss asked the lady if she had pets. I found the conversation hilarious. It went like this:

Karen: “Do you have any pets?”
Doña Auxiliadora: “No. (pause) Well, a monkey. But he’s in his cage.”
Karen: (slowly, taking notes.) “Okay . . . “
Doña Auxiliadora: “And a little rabbit. It’s not a rabbit. It’s a hamster. It has a cage too.”
Karen: “Okay, hamster.”

I don’t know but that just struck me as funny. We did not see either creature. Later we visited the high school in El Coyolito. And we left the funny delegado there. We proceeded to San Rafael de Norte about 40 minutes away to do another housing check. It was at that moment that I realized that my purse was still in El Coyolito—where they have no phone signal. Bummer. My boss purchased our lunch and we headed back to Coyolito. While passing through La Concordia once again we spotted Josefa at the bus stop and she hopped in—happy as a dog with two tails. [Note: All weird Mississippi-sounding sayings I've learned from friend Anjie] We found the teachers leaving school and the crazy delegado wearing my purse in the street. A good laugh was had by all and then everyone jammed into the back of the range rover and we took them to La Concordia. I should mention that at this moment the entire country had been receiving rain for over 24 hours—continuously in some areas. My boss is a super trooper but more about that later.

After this bit of backtracking we burnt rubber with Josefa in the back seat to get to our final destination of the day—La Bastilla. La Bastilla is hands down one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen in Nicaragua. It sits about nine kilometers off the main road and has no bus or phone service. These details could pose some problems for a volunteer. Anyway, we bounced, climbed and twisted over the nine kilometers on a one lane rock path—it was hardly a road—before arriving at La Bastilla and finding that the wooden bridge had collapsed and we could go no further. A few sad-face photos later my boss was doing an 8-point turn trying to get our tank of a car pointed the right way.

It was 4:30PM when we got back to Jinotega. Josefa, as agreeable as ever, hopped out at the market and offered her services for any future “adventures.” My poor boss was already pretty tired and sore from driving the stiff manual transmission of the range rover. We stopped at a store and did some power shopping until she was mentally prepared and physically rested enough to carry on. I asked her to drop me along the Pan-American highway so I could grab a bus that would take me to my friend’s house. She quickly vetoed that idea when we found out the bridge was underwater. She was just not willing to leave me anywhere where my chances of catching a bus in the rain weren’t 110% sure plus it was almost after dark. That said, we headed toward Matagalpa, supposedly 45 minutes away, so I could stay with my buddy Anjie. My boss was still deciding if she would stay over too or drive 2+ hours back to Managua. She had to be there by 8:30AM this morning.

The drive to Matagalpa was insane. We took the most direct route that led us through some mountains and curves on a blacktop road without a single lane line which is to say we drove at night, in intense fog, on a black road with no lines whatsoever. I rolled down my window and stuck my head out and directed us—right right, okay now softly to the left, okay turn harder, harder still, yes still left. This went on for about 45 minutes. We couldn’t see a thing but we couldn’t stop or turn back. We’d have been there all night. Finally we arrived in Matagalpa and it became clear that both of us would stay and leave at 5AM which we did. My boss dropped me in San Benito this morning where I caught a reliable bus to Teustepe. I passed out for two hours on my friend’s hammock while waiting on the next bus to San Jose. Got back to San Jose and cleaned up all the bat crap and puddles in my house and passed out for another hour and a half.

The rain continues off and on. The situation on the Pacific Coast (Chinandega and Leon) is much more dire. They are such dry, hot places. When the rain comes, the ground there doesn’t know what to do. I’m not entirely clear but as I understand it, there is a hurricane in Honduras or Mexico and that’s where all this rain is coming from. In closing, it was a super fun couple of days. My boss never loses her cool. She laughs all the time, makes good conversation—in English or Spanish—and will go to whatever length to get the work done well. I learned a lot, which was the point of my going, and I’m excited to work with the teachers I met. Oh and I think I found a place to live! Size-wise it’s probably like my studio in Chicago but it’s decent. I do well in small spaces especially since it’s just me—no pets, not even a monkey.:) I really like the landlady and the house is super hidden so my stuff will be secure when I’m on the road. New address to come