A Return to Normalcy

Bye T-Bone

 As my old host mother put it, “Se Acabó la Buena Vida!” (The good life is over). This past month really has seemed more of a vacation than anything else. Between my friends visiting, the Super Bowl, and being able to surf a good bit, anyone monitoring my daily habits may have questioned if I was really a Peace Corps volunteer. And although it was fun, too much at some points, I get to a point where I just needed to be doing something productive. I need to get my hands dirty in work again. So I was more than ready to dive headfirst back into work with the start of school this past Monday, February 13^th.  Or at least I thought I was.

As I’m sure some of you can attest to, after not having done something for awhile, you tend to remember all the good things about it, and dwell on how you can improve on your past experience and successes/failures. You get excited, you start planning in your head just how everything is going to go once you’re behind the reigns again, which of course is flawlessly. After a semi-successful idea exchange with all of the business volunteers, plenty of small informal talks with a handful of friends, and plenty of time to plan on my own, this is exactly how I had felt walking into the classroom this week. And it was then that reality kicked back in, and I remembered just what the Nica classroom and educational system was like. The Nica classroom and education system lacks organization, and coming in as a lone outsider, it is very difficult to combat. So as I start off the school year again, on unsteady ground, the emphasis will be organization, at a both a classroom level, a teacher relationship level, as well as with the individual students. I have a difficult task ahead of me, but I’m fully refreshed, and up for the challenge!