So one of the fun things I've been doing lately is helping teach an English class at the local art school Xuchialt!
The class is part of the Access Program, a two year English course sponsored by the US Embassy, in which about 26 high school kids from the entire city are chosen to participate free of expense. The program is supposed to be pretty effective, because after two years, most students come out speaking English fairly fluently.
I've been helping by giving some culture lessons, which is really fun! I recently had to teach about symbols of the United States, which, to be honest, was as much of a lesson for me while researching it as it was for them. I also talked about the seasons, since Autumn and Spring technically don't exist here in Nicaragua.
I also help with general pronunciation, because it's beneficial for the students to hear English spoken by a native speaker, and sometimes answer random questions about what people actually say in the states vs. what the textbook says (for anyone who's learned another language, you understand the struggle of using textbook phrases when talking in the real world and sometimes getting weird looks and/or sounding overly formal)
Activity where they had to match adjectives/words to the appropriate season, such as "Christmas", "leaves change colors", "ice cream", "Easter", "sweaters" and "pumpkins"
I love helping with this English class because the kids are all so enthusiastic, energetic, and happy to see me! Every Tuesday and Thursday morning when I walk into the classroom, they smile and wave at me, and sometimes even exclaim "Lauren!!" in a super excited way. It makes me feel so special!
Also, the teacher is really cool and he is very open to me conducting activities, such as a game of Name Bingo, or ideas such as having a Thanksgiving potluck, which may be something fun we'll do for the cultural lesson about Thanksgiving!
Anyways, today we went to Las Peñitas beach because the kids planned a community service project to go to the beach, pick up garbage, and make signs with messages (in both Spanish and English) such as "Don't Eat Turtle Eggs" or "Don't Pollute the Beach" to post in restaurants.
Karen proudly posing with her lovely sign
Rodrigo and a parent stapling a sign to a twig structure thing
Another lovely sign
Group photo!
Another group photo!
They also decided to march down the street with their signs, as well as swarming around cars that passed by, which was pretty entertaining to watch
You can't escape us
These kids would be great in Berkeley
Even though it was scorching hot outside, the kids did an amazing job of carrying out their community service project all the way through. We picked up trash along the beach for about an hour, and I swear, the sun felt like it was about 3 feet away from us.
What you can't see is the buckets of sweat dripping off our bodies
Later, we came across a white guy walking down the street, so naturally the kids shouted at me, "Lauren, there's a gringo! Go talk to him!"
"Ummm, what?"
"Go interview him! We want it for our video!"
"Umm...okay"
So I awkwardly walked up to this man, with a posse of 26 kids + 6 parents following me, introduced myself, and asked him his thoughts about the pollution on the beach...as all 26 kids whipped out their cell phones and were recording us.
Yup. It was interesting.
After the cleanup, we ate lunch, and I stayed behind with a few of the girls to play in the ocean.
(Just an interesting side note, in Spanish, the word for taking a dip in the ocean is "bañarse", which also means to take a shower!)
Showering in the ocean
We tried to take a jumping photo - tried!
I showed them pictures of my family and friends on my phone. (And they had fun awwwwing over all the photos I have of me and Sebian)
We also danced bachata
After the beach, we took the bus back to the mercadito Sutiaba, then spent a few hours at the park, eating fruits (there's this red berry that tastes exactly like red wine, whose name I've forgotten), listening to Shakira playing from their cell phones, and discussing things such as paranormal experiences (one of the girls says she was once chased down the street by the ghost of a woman dressed in white, which was the most terrifying thing I've ever heard in my life) and the phenomenon of rain splitting between regions (such as when there is a line between one side that is raining and the opposite side which is completely dry. Funny enough, immediately after talking about this, it began to sprinkle and we saw this happen right before our eyes!)
Lastly, Karen was so sweet and gifted me a pair of chapas, or earrings, which she bought from a vendor at the park, because she remembered me telling her how I liked her hoops and wanted me to have a "recuerdo".
Chapas!!! Gracias Karen!
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