Esteli - Week Four

• Jamie88's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Esteli

Trip Start Jun 16, 2008 Previous
Entry Trip End Sep 01, 2008 Next
Entry

  Esteli, Nicaragua
Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Our final week in Esteli went way too fast. We began our final week of teaching on Monday but thankfully didnīt have to do our cultural exchange dance class in the afternoon because the girls choreographing it had had an argument and couldnīt agree on the next steps! The morning had been a pretty packed day of teaching, as I got scared that I hadnīt actually taught my class anything and had just spent the time listening to English songs and playing games, so I crammed in a load of grammar work into one morning!
On Tuesday, Rachaelīs crazy assisstant Sobeyda  had  organised a  cultural food exchange. Me,  Ellie and Rachael (well just  Ellie really!) cooked a curry and most of the students cooked various Nicaraguan dishes. After trying lots of traditional food including some Nacatamales - after which you canīt drink milk or soda or pretty much anything, or you will die - we were stuffed but the students still tried to feed us more, with everyone wanting us to try what they had made. The rest of the morning turned into a photo session as pretty much everyone wanted a photo of, or with, us and the cheeks were aching from all the smiling.
Wednesday was the final day of teaching so we did lots of work before I had my final sports class, in which I organised aīmy class vs.ī game of footy which we edged 5-4 - it was a nice way to end the classes. In the evening I had to write the test for the following morning and me, Rach and Ellie planned to go out to celebrate once we had finished them, but it never really materialised and we ended up just having a couple of beers at my house instead.
Thursday was the day of the exam and it began with a present from one of my students, Vielka, who had bought me a large but very nice yoghurt, milk, coconout, strawberry frozen thingy that her mum had made.

'Cooking' curry at the girls' house!

It was really nice but I told her it wouldnīt get her extra marks. After all the students had finished I marked all of the tests and all but one student in my class had passed. It was a real shame that the lad who failed was Carlos who had been really kind to me, teaching me some Spanish, attending class everyday and showing me a softball game one afternoon - although I was generous with his marking I still couldnīt find a way to pass him! When he turned up in the afternoon with a few of the other students who were practising theatre and dance it was really awkward.
In the evening we went to Vuela Vuela, a nice bar near Ellie and Rachaelīs house. After a few drinks and a food platter we were just about ready to leave when a man came across and asked if he could join us. We said yes and the man turned out to be every inch of the character he looked. His name was Richard (or Ricardo) and he was a middle-aged, Anglo-Argentine, translator with a handlebar moustache, who had just moved to Esteli as Washington was too expensive. He spouted a load of pompous nonsense in his RP accent and I was biting my tongue extremely hard at certain moments - particularly when Rachael asked him to expand on his familyīs work in the meat-packing industry. However there was more to him, and eventually he started telling me about his problems with drugs such as Ritolin. Rachael couldnīt find such sympathy and had a heated debate about Shakespeare with him instead!
Friday was the last day at the university which meant that we had the closing ceremony which was planned for 10am so after a lie in I got a taxi to the university for the last time.

Another nearby street

In Nicaragua people share taxis and the driver decided to take a fare from a woman wanting to go somewhere in the opposite direction of the university so I ended up arriving at 9:50. Being Nicaragua, it started at 11am after we had had a brief feedback session with Delia from Third World House anyway!
The ceremony was really nice and after a couple of speeches and the national anthem, we gave out the certificates for our students and were given one ourselves from the university which was nice, even if my name was spelt īBernardī on it! We also had presentations of the cultural exchanges so Oli and Natasha showed off their murals and Rachael and Ellieīs fantastic Nicaraguan adaptation of Romeo and Juliet was performed, itīll be on in the West End in no time.
After these two presentations each class gave us some presents and so did a related organisation in Esteli (Iīm not sure who they came from!). I ended up with two Abu Hamza-style shirts and two key rings whilst the others got varying presents, but at least one Abu Hamza each. Unfortunately the last act of the ceremony was us performing the dance that we had mastered in our dance classes - not on TV as Ellieīs assisstant and host dad had us believe - but still in front of everyone. Three minutes of embarassment later and it was all over and we spent some final time with our classes - in true teacher fashion I had a lolly for them all - then the photo-taking recommenced.
It was arranged that we would go to a bar called Rincon Regal at 8pm that evening and after meeting with Susana (my older but very religious student who didnīt fancy the bar) at a quieter bar, me, Ellie and Rachael made our way to Rincon.

Esteli street near uni

Quite a few students turned up and we spent a few hours drinking, dancing (we even cracked out our the dance weīd learnt again) and chatting. By midnight, most people had left and Oli and Natasha also left to head home but us remaining three went to a karaoke bar with Fran and Wilfredo, where we ended up singing and Ellie and Rachael murdered īGangstaīs Paradiseī!
Saturday was our final morning in Esteli as our bus to Managua was at 3:15pm but my family was nowhere to be seen so I left them a postcard saying goodbye on the dining room table before heading round to the girlsī house. After some speed-packing Ellie was ready for the bus but Rachael was nowhere to be seen and we didnīt know where she was. As we were catching the last bus to Managua and couldnīt miss it (or else we would miss all our other buses) we had to leave her behind. Catching the bus was less crucial for Rachael as she was  going to Cancun to meet her boyfriend for a week and was flying there because she was scared of the Tica bus and begged her parents to pay for a  flight instead! Literally with one minute to spare, Rachael rocked up at the bus station - the clock on her computer in the internet cafe was 20 minutes slow and she hadnīt realised how fine she was cutting it!
After one final present from Reinaldo in my class who had gone to the station to give us all presents, we boarded the bus away from Esteli, the first leg of our journey to Mexico. It was just the three of us leaving Esteli as Oli and Natasha have decided to go elsewhere in Central America to visit her cousinīs friends and weīll be meeting them in Mexico sometime before we fly home.

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Me with three of my students!	Me, Ellie, Rachael and theatre students	Me, Rach and Reinaldo (legend!)	The last night
The main hall

Slideshow Print this entry Share Montelimar hotels

Previous Entry Next Entry