[Vision2020] Ca. 2/15-16, 2007 letter from Dave Barber in Nicaragua

[Louise Barber]

[2/15 or 2/16, 2007]

 

Mario and I have talked about going into Managua and getting prices on books
-- and volleyballs.  Volleyball is the only school sport they seem to have
around here, and yesterday when I was at the Los Cedros school (more about
that later, and my 250 tarjetas del dia del amor y amistad), one teacher
said that currently they can´t play (the net looks very tight and ready)
because they don´t have a ball!  I think it would be a wonderful act of
amistad to give these schools a good leather ball.  Maybe soccer balls too,
though they play that on concrete basketball courts, so maybe no good ball
could last.  But the one they have at Gustavo Carrion is soft and cheap.
Anyway, here is a breakdown of school sizes of the major schools, the seven
I am visiting:
            Gustavo Carrion Zamora (Alba's)................... 750
            Los
Cedros........................................................ 750
            Martha Susanna Gutierrez (Mario's)............... 450
            the four others (ca. 450 X 4).......................... 1800
 
TOTAL.............................................................. 3750

This means, roughly speaking, that when I finish my seven day-tours, I will
have been seen AND heard by roughly 3500 students in this area.  That's the
good and the bad news.  

            I don´t know much yet about non-school needs.  The local water
supply seems OK, though the pressure is really low.  But I´m beginning to
enjoy my morning pour of water from the pail.  The alcalde [mayor], in two
discussions, emphasizes the desempleo (unemployment), and he has high hopes
that the hotel being constructed (by Gran Pacifico, which I think is an oil
company) will employ locals.  Bill McLaughlin noted to Louise and me that in
such situations it is not usually locals who get employed, and last night
Mario echoed the same concern.  But he said, I think, that the mayor or
other officials are trying to set conditions so that locals WILL be
employed.  If they know English, of course.  The mayor, Nestor Gutierrez is,
by the way, according to Mario, the best of all the alcaldes of VEC.
Yesterday at Los Cedros, a grueling, lovely day, I visited a total of at
least 16-18 classes and spoke to them all.  After which they ask questions.
They need to be prodded, but depending on the teacher they may be prepared.
Typical questions are do I like Nica food, how old am I, do I have family
and hijos [children], why am I here, how long will I be here, what do I like
about Nica, what do I think about the schools.  But yesterday at Los Cedros,
a very well-prepared group of seniors asked some great questions including
one about what I think about Nica politics and the new government, what
problems do I see in their school (I mentioned the problem of HEARING
anything), how might we from Moscow help them, and -- get this -- could I
provide information about METHODOLOGIES of teaching English.  I said no, I
didn´t know enough about their current ways of teaching yet.  I didn´t tell
them I´m an ESL novice.

            This morning as I left the house about 8:30, coming here to get
some Internet time -- an attempt which crashed along with Hotmail, but now
it´s OK (it´s 5pm, or 3pm in Moscow), I was met at the corner by a woman I´d
never seen or noticed, who spoke to me in very broken English, and we walked
a few blocks to her house, which was on my way to the school.  I suspect she
was waiting for me, though how she would know my schedule is beyond me.  She
said she had been to the university but problems at home had prevented her
from learning more English -- her husband was in the hospital a lot and then
died.  She wanted my suggestions about learning English, and we talked about
the need to listen and to have things to read, and programs for learning.  I
couldn´t help [her] or figure out any subtext.  But it was interesting. I
hear very little English -- including from my students in English class.
Mario knows lots of words and phrases but almost never puts together a
sentence in English.  Nor does Ana, though she can.  

            In the morning yesterday I visited at least ten elementary
classes and spoke to each one.  And each student -- they had been really
well prepared -- gave me a Valentine’s Day card.  The cards are worth a
sociological-linguistic-symbolic study.  Then they asked me questions.
Whoops!  got to go back into the heat.  More later

 


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