Settling In

This coming week our schedule will be full! We will be helping teach English lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the library, basically all day. On Saturdays our swimming lessons begin, so far we have 9 pupils! Our other days will be filled with projects we might decide to pursue, like English lessons in San Ramón.

We will also be helping with a group from Vermont that will be coming soon. We call it the “Brigada de Vermont,” or Vermont Brigade. It is group of about 15 that are of mixed ages. There is a middle aged women coming with her two children (ages 8 and 10), a couple 15 year olds, a 52 year old couple, and some more of the like. It looks like it will be exciting. I am even helping develop a workshop with Mercedes for the Brigade, and future student groups. I really wanted to do a workshop on community organizing and Nicaraguan-US Relations because I know how little American school children are taught about Nicaraguan history, even though the US has played a big (negative) part in it. Also, often, as Americans (and generally white people with money) we think that our job is to travel to other countries to “to help develop a community,” or to “help appreciate how easy I have it in the US,” or just generally take a position of authority in a place that we have no reason to have more authority than people who live and know their lives, way more than we could ever begin to understand. For example, here in San Ramón, this community is developed, and it is really nice, second of all, what could a group of foreign Americans do in a week to change a community in ways that we dream of?, third of all, the overwhelming mind set that seems to be present that it is our duty to come here and be heroes and rescue this community because not everyone has toilets or tiled floors. I talked with Mercedes, and she has all of the same frustrations and she is really excited to have me on the same page. I also really want to change the perspective of coming here to teach and change this community to, how can this community teach them and motivate them to become active in their own community. My classmates from the DR program will hopefully be pumping their fists in my general direction, and I encourage those of you who have checked out our trip to visit our blog from our trip ( cultureandsociety312.blogspot.com ). If any of our readers have any ideas of dynamic activities that would engage both the young and old, I look forward to hearing from you in comments or emails.