Repitan conmigo: I am angry!

···Disclaimer··· I have just realized that this is another rant session and I apologize in advance.

Hey everyone,
I am trying to think of what I have done this week, and I can´t even remember. Oh yeah, I started teaching in the elementary school. I am teaching preschool, kindergarten, first and second grades. It is fine and all, but I think the teachers are thinking that it´s a free hour for them and they just leave as quickly as they can. I keep asking for the curriculum of what I am supposed to teach and the only person that gave it to me was one of the first grade teachers, so I have just been teaching one thing for everyone regardless of what the other curricula require. One of the classes is 80 minutes long, which is far, far too long for holding the attention of first graders. I just felt like a babysitter at that point. The teachers´ attitudes bother me, but whatever. Anyway, most of the kids have liked english class so far. I have been teaching about feelings this week. They only have one or two class periods of English each week, and I have only been introducing a couple of words, like happy, sad, angry, sleepy. That way they can remember. I do funny actions that they love to copy and that helps them remember. There are so many kids that don´t really even talk at all, I wonder if they know how to speak much spanish or if they are just really shy and embarrassed. And then the second grade class will not stay in their seats, no matter what I do. They have no discipline at all, and are just a bunch of tattle tales.

Also I began another round of English classes at night, but only two nights a week for now because there is just not time for any more with the leadership seminar coming up. As usual, there were plenty of people the first day, and the second day only about 8 people returned. I am curious to see how many of those 8 will make it back for next Tuesday. I feel like the classes go well, as long as people actually come. I really don´t know what to do to make them want to keep coming. People want to learn English but don´t want to put forth any effort. If I give grades, they stop coming because they are afraid of getting a bad grade. If I don´t give grades, they don´t take assignments seriously and stop coming. If I have games or other fun activities, they stop coming because they don´t want to be singled out. If I don´t have fun activities, they stop coming because it is boring. If I keep the course on schedule, people stop coming because they feel like it is going too fast. If I slow it down, people stop coming because they are bored and tired of repeating the same things over and over. If I bring food or prizes as incentives, it doesn´t matter because at that point everyone has left the course. If it´s hot, they don´t come. If it´s rainy, they don´t come. If they are busy, they can´t come. I don´t know what else to do! If anyone has any advice that might help me, please let me know.

I also feel a little bad about last night. I went over to say hi to my neighbor Encarnaciona, and after talking for about 20 min. she told me it was her birthday but they weren´t going to have a party like they did last year. So I wished her happy birthday and gave her some geranium seedlings as a present, and later she walked off down the trail to her sister´s house. But then this morning I heard some of the teachers talking that they had gone down there to Encarnaciona´s birthday party that Orlando had invited them, but nobody invited me! Shunned! Oh well, what can you do. I haven´t been invited to anything recently, come to think of it. I wonder what´s up with that. Shunned repeatedly!

Maybe I´m just in a bad mood right now, I have been really tired this week and have slept a lot during the day because I couldn´t sleep at night. Sorry if you don´t want to hear about this, but a couple days ago I got my period and although my periods have been quite light and pain-free since I have been in Chichica, this one hit me like a hammer in the gut. I was at the school just finishing the eternal 80 minute class and walking home when suddenly I could hardly walk because my belly hurt so bad. I made it home and took 400 mg of ibuprofen but it wasn´t cutting it so I took another 400 mgs an hour later, even so if I don´t have ibuprofen in me I have to puke. I have slept so much this week, I didn´t do my dishes for about 4 days and everything was nasty gross because I had to sleep when I had some extra time. I wonder if it is endometriosis or something. Well, at least it´s not amoebas and I don´t have to run to the latrine every five minutes. But this probably has a lot to do with my bad mood today.

Also last night I gave some coconut rice pudding to some visitors, and the kids told me that it tasted like soap and they didn´t want it. I felt like telling them that I have had to put up with eating lots of stuff here that I didn´t want to like chicken feet and tripe and mountains of rice when I can hardly stuff any more in my stomach, and it´s rude to complain when someone gives you something that is actually good. But I guess they probably like chicken feet. Who knows.

I am also trying to get a government agency, Proyecto Ngäbe-Buglé, to sponser making the copies of the manuals for the seminar but it has been really hard to communicate with these people. Last week when I was in San Felix I called a Peace Corps contact over there and made an appointment to talk with him, but he didn´t show up. So I waited around in the office for over an hour, asking if he had showed up and finally someone told me he wasn´t coming. So I asked to talk to the director, knowing it would be a waste of time but I wanted something to happen for having waited there, so I went in his office and handed him my letter. He took exactly three seconds to look at it, and told me he would give it to the guy with whom I had the appointment because he does all the work with the PC. That was the meeting, I was in the office for about 15 seconds. Predictable! Anyway, I tried to call the other guy a few days later to see if he read the letter and to try and make another appointment, but the stupid phone service has been even worse than usual and kept cutting out before I could even get anything said. All we got established was that they hadn´t given him the letter and that he would be driving through Chichica on the 25th on his way to Peña Blanca. Then I ran out of money on the phone and couldn´t find any more cards because the store was out, and I had to teach in the school so there was no time to wait for the chiva driver that sells cards. So a couple days later I tried to call him again but he was out of the office and didn´t have the cell phone. So I will try again today and hopefully I will be able to make another appointment to talk face to face, this phone crap is just not working. It´s still harder for me to talk on the phone anyway.

My chicken has decided to abandon her babies, even though they are still pretty small. They still come to my house to sleep, and last night they were running around stomping in the middle of the night so I tossed them in a box and they went to sleep. Maybe they were cold. But the chicken doesn´t come back to sleep or even eat anymore, but I have caught her the last couple days and tied her up so she will lay her eggs at my house. I hope she comes back today to lay there, I won´t be there to make sure she does. Oh wait, it is tomorrow she will lay. That´s ok then. I still haven´t eaten the one she laid yesterday.

Ok, I feel slightly better now after ranting and raving. I am sorry to all you back home who had to put up with it. I also have tried to post a new video I made of my house to show what it looks like now, but this computer won´t even open the files on my camera. So much for that. At least it is charging my iPod. A lot of computers won´t charge it because the anti-virus software keeps blocking it, but these computers here are loaded with viruses and will let me charge it. I can´t charge it in the wall because the charger is retarded, so this is practically the only place I can make it possible to listen to music. And last week, after I got it charged after being run down for more than a month and not being able to charge it in the other internet cafes, I pulled out the iPod that night and found that it had been playing for hours and was about to run out of battery! I was pissed. Tonight I will listen to music and maybe I will feel better. Thanks for listening. . . maybe next time will be better!

Chao!