week 5

It’s hard to believe that I’m already entering week 5 of the 11-week training session. Recently things have been looking better. We’ve started a bunch of the projects we’re required to do during training like starting a vegetable garden, giving talks in elementary school classes, forming a youth group, and various other things. I’m gaining confidence in my Spanish from a lot of positive feedback, though there are times when my communication skills still seem inadequate. This week our group visited the little library in the central park and I borrowed a Spanish book by Gabriel Garcia Marques called El Coronel no tiene quien le escriba. I think I tried to read it when I was in college to no avail. Even this time I opened it up, read a couple pages and had very little understanding of what anything meant. But I kept going and at some point I started flipping between that and the dictionary to decipher each sentence. I really enjoy reading well-written books, and somehow the process of unveiling Marques’ prose is fascinating. It’s also good because most of it is written in past perfect or imperfect tense, which I have tons of trouble using. I think I need to go back and write down the vocabulary to actually learn it, but that’s an additional level of effort that I’m not yet ready to commit. Though I seem to be moving in that direction. Living in Nicaragua has sparked a desire to learn as much vocabulary as possible. The amount of time that I can sit and read my Spanish-English dictionary is incredible. Maybe I really just want to be able to communicate fluidly again. Something else I’ve realized is that I don’t like watching TV. My family continually sits in front of the TV every evening but I have absolutely no interest in watching TV. Usually I sit in the living room with them and read. The other day I asked my host sister what she read for fun and she said she didn’t like to read. So sad L

Today we had a session on cultural differences with Naomi that was really interesting. We read an article written according to studies that were done on how Peace Corps volunteers have dealt with cultural differences. The pattern fits me pretty spot on. There’s the initial enthusiasm period in the very beginning of training when everything is fresh and new. Then there’s the initial culture shock when you are frustrated from the inability to communicate well with the new language and it makes you homesick and emotional. It’s almost like stress and makes you extra tired and keeps you up at night. Then there’s adaptation and acceptance for the rest of training as you learn more Spanish and feel more comfortable in the community. Apparently the next two steps happen after training, where we go to our sites alone and are hit by another culture shock. This stage is followed by another adjusting time. Week three was definitely when I wanted to pull my hair out and be with people who shared my culture. I felt like I knew my own culture and was aware of my own filters and biases. But the frustrating part was the close-mindedness of everyone around me. During week three my host sister was showing me how to peel and orange with a knife. In Nicaragua, oranges are eaten by cutting the very outer edge –like when you remove apple skin with a knife. They leave the white spongy part, cut off the top and just squeeze out the juice. Anyway I commented that in the US we don’t peel oranges with knives. My sister’s response was, “You don’t have knives?” On another day, I made fried rice or arroz chino (Chinese rice is what they call it in Spanish) for my family. It was rather unsuccessful because the rice was too wet but they generally liked it. I had stir-fried the vegetables, which is a new concept because in Nicaragua the few vegetables are boiled and therefore not crispy. Rodrigo, the ten year old asked his mom if the orange things were carrots. And if they were carrots, why were they so hard? It blows my mind that this kid has never eaten a carrot that wasn’t boiled. As you can imagine, my body has spent the last 5 weeks adjusting to a Nicaraguan diet of rice, beans, plantains, and very few vegetables. I can’t wait to cook again! Anyway my point in all this was that the final step in adjusting to a different culture is accepting the cultural conditioning of people around you. I’m sure I’ll be jumping back and forth, but at the moment I am at peace with the culture of my host family.

Something very exciting is that we’re leaving to visit volunteers on Sunday! It’s an activity in week five, for trainees to visit other volunteers who have already been in their sites for over a year now. They want to give us some insight into what volunteer life will be like and hopefully provide some inspiration. Plus it’s a vacation from training! Carolina and I are visiting a married couple in Nagarote, Leon from Sunday to Wednesday. The advanced Spanish group has gone to visit them already and apparently they have an ideal situation. They’ve got a great house, and a big site close to big cities and a beach! I can’t wait!