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JillCollins
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Name: Jill
Country: United States
State: California
Birthday: 10/22/1983
Gender: Female
Interests: Traveling, meeting people, talking, laughing, learning, relaxing, enjoying life
Occupation: Education/training
Message: message me
AIM:  JillybeanatCal
Member Since:
2/17/2003
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| It's about time the I update and add photos! These photos are from when Ani and Heather came to visit in November. We had a great time together and here are the pictures to prove it!
 
This is at the school when Ani, Heather, and I taught an English class, and at the bus station.
Here I am with my little host nephew.
Ani playing twister with my little neighbor friends.
Ani in the hammock with Denisa.
The end of December I went home for Christmas. It was great to be back home for a while. I cooked with my mom, decorated the christmas tree, drove my car, saw friends, helped my cousin look for a wedding dress, spent a lot of time with my family, wrote a lot of Christmas cards, and tried to soak up all the US culture I could!
When I got back to Nicaragua I had about two weeks to hang out before school began. I spent time at the beach, catching up with families in San Jacinto, spending time with Xavier, and exchanging stories with my Peace Corps friends about Christmas visits to the US.
When school started I began working with the fifth and sixth grade classes teaching environmental science class. We are working on a lot of hands on activities. We have started compost heaps in the schools as well as worm compost boxes. In about a month we will begin a garden and a tree nursery. One goal I have is to grow trees and plant them all over San Jacinto to shade and reforest the area. I will do that with my classes as I teach them the importance of taking care of the environment and the value of trees. It is definitely a challenge working with Nicaraguan classes. The kids are badly behaved, much worst then the US. Many kids come and go as they please, talk in class, don't do their work, or throw things and fight with other student... and this is normal and expected of the kids! It's crazy but I do the best I can. I've gotten used to it at least.
This year I am also working with the school to create a park with playground equipment, bathrooms suited for little children, and plants, as well as do some improvements in the school. I am writing a grant through Peace Corps to complete the project.
Here I am in the bus!
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| "Anyone can
give up; it´s the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together
when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that´s true strength."
-Dr. Seuss | | |
| Today is the Purisima in Nicaragua. It is basically the Nicaraguan equivalent to Halloween. Each house puts their statues of Mary in the front door and decorates them with flowers and candles and anything else cheesy and glittery. The houses have big bags of candy and little toys and tupperware and well basically what ever they can come up with waiting to give to the people that pass by. At night the people walk around the streets and to each house they say "Quien cuasa tanta alegria?" and the response is "La concepcion de Maria". Then the people in the street are given their candy or trinket and move on to the next house.
Everyone is in their houses preparing their Mary statues as we speak. The kids are aching for night to come so they can roam the streets and eat candying until they want to puke. I love these kind of cultural days!
What does a day like this mean to the older kids? FIESTA of course!!! I'm going with Xavier and some friends to a big party on the beach.
Tomorrow we have a Peace Corp meeting with all of the volunteers in the Leon area. That night we are going to go out to dinner and then dancing. About 7 new volunteers arrived in the Leon area a couple weeks ago so its our little welcome party for them.
I get to go home soon!!! SO EXCITED!!!
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| ps. I added a ton of pics on Facebook if you are interested | | |
| I really just want to say that I love my life... And I am saying this after an entire day of trying to get things done and not getting ANYTHING done... which doesn't even make me mad... if anything I just laugh at the inefficiency of this country. I went to school in the morning to give a computer class to the teachers. We had a time and a date and all. Tuesdays and Thursdays 12:30 to 1:30. For weeks I have been trying to give this class but there is ALWAYS something that comes up. Today the teachers only taught for two hours and then left to go to an activity in town. Tomorrow there is no school because the teachers are going on strike. Yesterday there was no school because it was national Sandinista day. Tuesday they left early because they came to my house for lunch. Yep... that's the education system here. Anyway... back to my day... so I showed up and everyone had already left. Then I went to a community about 20 min by bus from San Jacinto. I was told we were going to have a meeting about planting a tree nursery. When I showed up they told me that it was now moved to the next week. So I took the bus to Leon and stopped by the World Vision office to talk to the guy who knew when our next meeting was going to be. After I talked to him I went to five book stores to buy a agenda planner. You know, those little books with calendar and you can write what you need to do every day. Apparently all stores here are out of stock. Next stop, Red Cross. I wanted to ask them for information about treating burns and if they were willing to donate any supplies (sometimes the children at the Hervideros burn themselves because the boiling mud splatters on them). No, the Red Cross didn't have any information and wasn't willing to help. When I left the Red Cross I headed over to the market because I was craving a fruit called Zapote. NOBODY in the market had them. That was my whole day... pretty much got nothing done... haha. Oh well.
Tonight is a friends birthday. He works at a hostel in Leon and I know him because this hostel is like the hang out spot of my friends. There is a bar and a restaurant and a pool table. It's a fun place. He is Belgian and loves techno music so I imagine there will be a lot of techno dancing tonight. | | |
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