I have just come off of almost a week spent in the capital city of Managua. The reason I am here is that there has been wave after wave of rain storms inundating Nicaragua. We are in the middle of rainy season, as well as hurricane season, but normally rains run like clockwork, coming in the afternoon and then quitting. Well the rains began last Monday, the 8th and now writing this on the following Tuesday the 16th it has been raining in some part of the country ever since. In the mountains this is creating landslides, avalanches and roads being washed away.
Last Friday, the 12th, I received a phone call from Peace Corps saying that I had to come to the capital of the country. It was no longer safe for me to stay in my village. While on the way, we passed a section of the road that had fallen away. The two lane Pan American Highway, was reduced to one lane. This is an issue for the country because it is their main highway. I have to admit that it was a bit nerve racking to have in the back of my mind that I am traveling through mountain highways and pieces were crumbling.
Once in the capital we were put up in hotels. We were glued to satellite weather reports to see how long it would last and how bad it would get. The strangest part was that there was very little rain where we were, but we kept getting reports of severe flooding, families losing their homes and mass evacuations. It is strange to think that some of this was going on where we were previously living. The low lying areas in the north were the hardest hit. All of the water that was falling in the mountains were I live was filtering down and flooding the rivers in the low lands.
Fortunately the rains should be stopping, so things can begin to dry out. Other than the obvious immediate damage for the country there is going to be problems to come. A lot of the bean harvest has been destroyed. A majority of this country relies on beans and rice to survive; this will be devastating for thousands of families. The price will be rising to actually surpass the price of chicken per pound. Since most people eat beans in place of chicken because they can not afford it, we shall see what happens.
Another issue that will be emerging will be the drinking water. At this point it is mostly contaminated. This has not even been an issue discussed in the news at this point, but it is an inevitable side effect of massive flooding.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Success and Failure
The school year is quickly wrapping up, in fact I have less than a month left, since my last day giving class this year will be the 8th of November. I have certainly had my ups and downs this year professionally. The course that I am giving is called “La Empresa Creativa”, or “The Creative Business”. The point of the class is to give high school students other options after high school, since most of them will not be going off to college. We are also trying to teach them to look at something differently and try to make it better, in the process giving them an opportunity to make money.
To say that this whole process has been a challenge is an understatement. To change a culture is next to impossible; it is like carving a marble statue with a Q-tip. One must take seriously the mantra “if you can make better one persons life…”, otherwise time seems to be wasted.
How the course works is that the students form groups, which will become their business partners and they spend time together developing the different aspects of their business such as the idea, organization, production, marketing, budgets, initial capital, etc. The culmination of this course is that Peace Corps has a series of competitions where the students compete against other schools. The final competition has prizes such as scholarships, internships and cash.
In trying not to downplay the circumstances that the other business volunteers are placed in, mine is certainly distinct. They are all working for public high schools that have set teachers and organization. They also have a set of obstacles that I am glad I do not have to contend with, such as enormous class size and office politics. My situation is different because the school I work with is not even a real school, but more so an after school program, run by a NGO (non governmental organization). The issues that I run into are attendance, homework being done and being taken seriously that this information is important.
My students have real school as well, so to have to do extra work for me, understandably, is not high on their priority list. I am not able to have actual grades, since they would not mean anything and carry no weight. I also get very little support from the people who are supposed to be “in charge” of these students. Suffice it to say I was a bit nervous when it came time to prepare for the competitions. I had a few groups tell me that they did not yet have a product, although I had not been privy to this as we were doing the business development of the product they told me they had. I spent about a month giving a crash course on all the information that I had covered prior. I had laid down the hammer in saying if they did not have things done by specific dates, they could not compete.
The day of the competition I was clearly nervous. I had invited judges as well as prominent people from the community to see the work done by the students. I had left it up to some of the people I work with to decorate and help with other aspects of the day. This was a huge leap of faith because I have not met too many people here who I can count on. I figured that they would not want to look bad either, so I crossed my fingers. The day went off without a hitch. It did last longer than I had anticipated, but then again everything takes longer here. Most of the groups really had their acts together and knew their material. The judges were impressed, as was I. Most of the groups had a different product that they had told me two weeks prior, but they had crammed to put together their business plan and prototypes. They actually learned how to do what I taught them to do, remarkable!
To say that this whole process has been a challenge is an understatement. To change a culture is next to impossible; it is like carving a marble statue with a Q-tip. One must take seriously the mantra “if you can make better one persons life…”, otherwise time seems to be wasted.
How the course works is that the students form groups, which will become their business partners and they spend time together developing the different aspects of their business such as the idea, organization, production, marketing, budgets, initial capital, etc. The culmination of this course is that Peace Corps has a series of competitions where the students compete against other schools. The final competition has prizes such as scholarships, internships and cash.
In trying not to downplay the circumstances that the other business volunteers are placed in, mine is certainly distinct. They are all working for public high schools that have set teachers and organization. They also have a set of obstacles that I am glad I do not have to contend with, such as enormous class size and office politics. My situation is different because the school I work with is not even a real school, but more so an after school program, run by a NGO (non governmental organization). The issues that I run into are attendance, homework being done and being taken seriously that this information is important.
My students have real school as well, so to have to do extra work for me, understandably, is not high on their priority list. I am not able to have actual grades, since they would not mean anything and carry no weight. I also get very little support from the people who are supposed to be “in charge” of these students. Suffice it to say I was a bit nervous when it came time to prepare for the competitions. I had a few groups tell me that they did not yet have a product, although I had not been privy to this as we were doing the business development of the product they told me they had. I spent about a month giving a crash course on all the information that I had covered prior. I had laid down the hammer in saying if they did not have things done by specific dates, they could not compete.
The day of the competition I was clearly nervous. I had invited judges as well as prominent people from the community to see the work done by the students. I had left it up to some of the people I work with to decorate and help with other aspects of the day. This was a huge leap of faith because I have not met too many people here who I can count on. I figured that they would not want to look bad either, so I crossed my fingers. The day went off without a hitch. It did last longer than I had anticipated, but then again everything takes longer here. Most of the groups really had their acts together and knew their material. The judges were impressed, as was I. Most of the groups had a different product that they had told me two weeks prior, but they had crammed to put together their business plan and prototypes. They actually learned how to do what I taught them to do, remarkable!
Adventures at a concert in Nicaragua
Last weekend I decided an interesting experience to have would be to go to a music concert in Nicaragua. The act was Black Eyes Peas, a fairly popular hip hop/ pop group from the US. I got together with a group of volunteers from various organizations and we bought tickets. Prices of tickets to the concerts here were certainly an indicator of the haves and have nots. Normal tickets were $12 and these were in the bleacher like seats, or you could pay $50 for standing room, much closer to the action. The common consensus between us was that no one really liked the band enough to pay that much and being smashed in a mob of thousands, many of whom were looking to pick your pockets was not very appealing. We all arrived at the stadium together and since the seats were not assigned, we picked out the best we could find. I am sure it’s as much of a shock to you as it was to me, that the section we had purchased were like nosebleeds, but instead of height it was distance that was the issue. The concert was to begin at 8:30pm sharp, but true to Nicaraguan fashion it did not start until about 10pm. A few things worthy of pointing out was that there was a wall of chicken wire separating these seats from the field where the band was as well as all the people who had paid more for closer tickets. The beverages offered were rum by the bottle or by the shot. It was certainly a bit different from selling soft drinks and beers. For food choices in place of hot dogs they had a plastic bucket filled with cold, unwrapped, tacos and enchiladas.
Finally the concert began. I noticed that there were a lot of people crowded against the fence dividing the stands from the field. Suddenly you could see people making a run for it through the fence. It seems that people had cut a big hole and were rushing to blend in with the other fans on the field before the police tackled them. Out of nowhere about 30 police ran towards the hole with batons raised high and were able to deter anyone else from making the dash. I then noticed in another part of the fence there was a police officer guarding another hole, but periodically letting one or two people through onto the field. This sparked my interest so I asked one of the people standing around what was going on. He told me that for an extra 50 cordobas, the equivalent of $2.50 you can pay a police officer to get onto the field. Well due to my rum judgment I though this to be a fun idea. Well I approached a guy on the other end of the fence and asked if we could get through. I handed him a 100 cordoba bill, about $5. He said that I had to wait a few minutes and then the police officer would let me and my friend crawl through the hole in the fence. Well after about 10 minutes of pressing against the fence with a police officer pressing his back to me, he moved out of the way as we snuck in.
As we were walking slowly onto the field to escape being obvious, 6 police were running in our direction. Fortunately they were occupied by carrying off a fan who had apparently gotten a bit aggressive. Well we were able to get into the mass crowd and blend in, well as well as two 6 feet, white, gringos can blend into short Nicaraguans. The concert was a good time, I will certainly be making a repeat appearance.
Finally the concert began. I noticed that there were a lot of people crowded against the fence dividing the stands from the field. Suddenly you could see people making a run for it through the fence. It seems that people had cut a big hole and were rushing to blend in with the other fans on the field before the police tackled them. Out of nowhere about 30 police ran towards the hole with batons raised high and were able to deter anyone else from making the dash. I then noticed in another part of the fence there was a police officer guarding another hole, but periodically letting one or two people through onto the field. This sparked my interest so I asked one of the people standing around what was going on. He told me that for an extra 50 cordobas, the equivalent of $2.50 you can pay a police officer to get onto the field. Well due to my rum judgment I though this to be a fun idea. Well I approached a guy on the other end of the fence and asked if we could get through. I handed him a 100 cordoba bill, about $5. He said that I had to wait a few minutes and then the police officer would let me and my friend crawl through the hole in the fence. Well after about 10 minutes of pressing against the fence with a police officer pressing his back to me, he moved out of the way as we snuck in.
As we were walking slowly onto the field to escape being obvious, 6 police were running in our direction. Fortunately they were occupied by carrying off a fan who had apparently gotten a bit aggressive. Well we were able to get into the mass crowd and blend in, well as well as two 6 feet, white, gringos can blend into short Nicaraguans. The concert was a good time, I will certainly be making a repeat appearance.
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