Knocked Down a Peg or Two

Today was easily one of the lower points of the trip so far. Rarely, if ever, have I felt so overwhelmed in my life. One of our projects in training is to create a youth group. The ultimate goal of the youth group is to come up with an idea for a feasible product or service, create the product or service, sell it locally, and then compete in a competition against the other youth groups created by the trainees in other towns. There are four other groups of small business trainess in the Masaya region, and six or seven other groups of agriculture trainees in the neighboring Carazco region. I'll explain more about youth group later on, after our first meeting.

The original plan today was to stop by the local schools and put up posters advertising our first meeting for later on in the week. Little did we know, our language facilitator, Dona Gloria, had arranged for us to talk in front of a couple classes to more effectively reach out to the kids. She caught us with our pants down; all of us were completely surprised at the new assignment.

Now in a normal environment, talking up a youth group is no problem. But a classroom of 14 - 15 year old Nicaraguan kids is not what I would consider a normal environment. If you think back to your classroom when you were that age, one thinks of 20-25 kids, in a structured class room where there is at least a facade of order. That is not a Nica classroom. We're talking 50+ kids, moving in and out of their seats, constantly jabbering with the teacher succeeding, but struggling, to talk over them and constantly get their attention. Oh yeah, and they speak Spanish. Only Spanish, and at a pace that was incredibly difficult for us to understand. We made our presentation, and were lucky to get through that, stuttering and stammering the whole way through. Luckily Dona Gloria stepped in for the questions we attempted to field afterwards. Deer in headlights, we were.

The whole experience was humbling, and showed me just how much work I have ahead of me. I've made progress over the past week, but not nearly the progress I had hoped for. It's a tricky thing, learning a new language. It's not like a business concept, or a math equation which you just suddenly understand. Learning a language is going to be a long process, and I feel as though for the next two years I'll be learning. I may be conversational, and probably fluent, but I'll always be learning. Because every minute of every day is a learning situation.

"It's simple to seek substitutes for competence - such as easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence." 
- Howard Roark