San Igancio school registration

This past week went by really fast. I guess it is because we have been really busy settling into Granada, registering for Spanish classes, planning and preparing for the children’s summer school activity group and getting to know the other volunteers.

La Esperanza owns a few bikes for the volunteers to use while they are here. Since our house is the farthest away from the main square I snagged a bike from one of the other volunteer houses whom barely used it. Ryan fixed it up for me: lowered the seat though I am still on my tippy-toes, tightened the brakes and checked the gears. Stefan and Anna also have bikes so we all decided to ride our bikes up to San Ignacio school everyday, usually a 45 minute walk from our house. I am happy cause the ride’s good exercise everyday. Meanwhile, Ryan set up a car pool for $1 per person per week for the other volunteers and is getting pay $1 a day by La Esperanza to take the computer for the kids up to the school. We figured this would add up to a free week of rent for us.

Ryan started Spanish lessons on Wednesday. He first planned to go 2 hours everyday during the week but after the first day and LOTS of homework he thought that might be too much. Instead we decided it would be better for him to go 3 times a week and I could go 2 times a week. Even though we are living in a Spanish speaking community it is still hard to learn the language without really knowing the words in the first place. Plus I was feeling left out cause Ryan, Stef and Anna are all taking Spanish classes. With us all in classes hopefully it will encourage us to speak more Spanish in the house. Queremos hablar español sólo en la casa.

On Thursday we started registration at San Igancio school. **Side note: San Igancio is a one of the poorest areas of Granada. The houses are small one to two rooms made out of thin slices of tree trunks or cardboard layers.

Thin sheets of layer wood = walls.

San Igancio house made with tarp and corragated steel

The roofs are corrugated steel and they are all gated with barbwire. There are a few stores in the community and some of the houses with power, not all though.

Houses in San Iganico

The school we are working at is the only one in the community and was just built in June this year (though it is still not complete). Therefore most of the children have never been to school and are barely formally educated. With this said the reason we are doing summer school in San Igancio is for these children to catch up a bit before the new school year starts in February.**

So continuing with Thursday’s registration… when a group of white people come into the village it inevitably generates attention.

Posting signs for summer school in San Igancio

First we walked around the community posting signed (in Spanish) that explained the summer school program and registration. Kids and parents immediately came to sign up. Some of the kids stuck around to hangout and play with us. We planned to do registration for three days Thursday, Friday and Monday maxing out at 100 kids. An hour into Friday’s registration we had 104 kids signed up. The enthusiasm of the kids and parents excited us that much more.

Parents waiting to sign up there kids for summer school

Playing Soccer with the Kids

Kids of San Igancio

They love playing Baseball

the Crazy hyper kid

Kids of San Igancio

She doesn't talk or know how to read

We can’t wait for school to start on Tuesday BUT before our work and study load gets too crazy we decided to retract to the original plan of hanging out at the beach. We came back to San Juan del Sur for the weekend for just a little more surfing and sunbathing before the eye of the storm.

written by

ryan & debbrial on November 28, 2009 from Granada, Nicaragua

from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas

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