My new school, playing baseball, and learning spanish.

BASEBALL

So the past few weeks I havent gotten to be able to go to our games, or when I have havent been put in many of the games. Our team is really good, so its not like Im sulking. But I wanted to get in, and today in the game they put me in. I still havent been able to do well batting, but I didnt do too bad at second base today. heres some photos. It felt incredible to get out there on the field. Its a childhood dream Ive had to pick up baseball again.

I just need to mention it that my real childhood dream is to be a pitcher. Ive been practicing quite a bit. He even had me warming up in the bullpen today, but I still need to control my pitches better before being put in. But Ill keep at it, and Ill be a hell of a pitcher one day.

LEARNING SPANISH

I am beginning to love being here. I am actually blown away that somehow, some way, I am learning spanish. I can have conversations now. I can understand what people are saying. I can respond (sometimes correctly).

Isnt that incredile? In the beginning, I just force myself to talk to people, to struggle thru, even when I didnt get what they were saying to me. I have kept at it every day, and even tho at the end of every day, you cant always see how u progressed just in the past 12 hours, but put those days together, put those conversations together, and, its incredible - you just learn.

Granted, Ive put in hours and hours and hours of studying, looking up words, writing things down, using words in sentences, asking people how to say things, watching movies and reading in spanish. but what amazes me is that before, i just to just hear a lot of babbling words, but now they are ACTUALLY words, that i can understand, that have significance. The human mind is incredible.

MY SITE VISIT - FAMILY AND SCHOOLS, AND BEAUTIFUL VIEWS

I visited my permanent site last week, and it is nothing shy of incredible. This community called San Jose thats surrounded by mountains, and the mountains are like RIGHT next to my community. It looks so boss. And from the baseball stadium, which is at the top of the hill, you can see mountain ranges way off in the distance.

Its surrounded by a community that specializes in milk and coffee production. My mom brews organic coffee every day, and shes an incredible cook. I cant tell you how many cups I had while I was there. so good.

My family there is incredible. The 13 year old boy is one of those rare mixes of a genius who is actually really cool and good looking. i dont know why thats a rare mix, but i feel like it is. my 19 yr old sis is really nice, just super geniune, but i am most impressed by the dad. he is involved in their lives, sits and quizzes his son each night at the dinner table, has a great playful attitude, and is just a lot of fun. There are few fathers who do that (im totally generalizing), but he does it, and he does it well.

I visited 2 of the 3 schools I will be teaching in. They are in rural communities. So show you how rural it is, one of my schools has 10 kids. ten. thats one classroom. the kids are from 1st grade to 6th grade, roughly 2 kids in each grade, but they all get taught in the same room. aka, i will be a teacher of a class of kids from  6 to 12 years old. Talk about a challenge.The other schools are very similar.

ITS CHEAP HERE

hair cut for 80 cents, a coffee for 8 cents, and 12 bananas for 45 cents.

went to the beach, and had 6 beers, a huge lunch, and went horseback riding on the beach (without a guide, they just give u the horse and u go where u want), all for 15 dollars. thats nuts.

my life here

The content of this website/blog are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the United States government or the Peace Corps.

Before going to our permanent site:

I cant believe we already got assigned our permanent sites! Its so crazy. Ill get to that. Today our principal from our sites came to meet us in Managua, and we had "classes" together all day to get on the same page. Its so cool that they are here to bring us to our site, show us around, introduce us to the schools we are going to be working in (I will be teaching three different classes in three different schools), all of which are rural. Many of them are multigrade classrooms. 

Today was an exhausting day in spanish. All of the sessions, all of the talking, all of the planning - all in spanish. Its kind of cool that we can do this, and every day I am both encouraged, and I admit to getting discouraged often. 

Learning spanish is the most difficult task I have ever undertaken. Its taken humility, confidence, patience, time, failure after failure after failure. It takes dealing with embarrassment, confusion, tiredness, and a never give-up attitude. It stretches me beyong my barriers almost every day. After my two years here, I feel confident I will call it one of the greatest accomplishments of my life, that each day I fought through it. And at the end of the day, I kept moving forward.

I am inspired a lot by Rocky. Just as he said, "You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! " - Rocky Balboa

I watched Rocky the other day in Spanish, and it was encouraging, uplifting, and I felt inredible. And, I could understand most of it. Its so cool to finally be able to watch normal things and udnerstand most of what is said, and at least the gist of what was not understood in words.

I also was able to site through an entire church service and I understand over 90 percent of what was said. How incredible is that! Talk about a miracle.

I feel truly lucky to be here. It sounds silly, but I really feel like Im living my life to the fullest. When else could I ever say I literally got up, left my family, left my home, left my job, my responsabilities, my friends, my grad school, and my life in the united states, all for the pursuit of something greater. I left to go learn from a community different from me, to teach kids, to learn, to challenge myself, to learn new skills, to learn a new language, to encourage others, to hopefully be a beacon of hope and light. to be a community facilitator, and an optomist. speaking of optimism..

Sickness

So I finally got my first fun sickness here. I got lucky and got two at the same time, actually - a bacterial infection and a parasite infection. Luckily Peace Corps is so awesome, that they picked me up from my house because I couldnt walk or anything.

I was dehidrated enough that they needed to take to the capital - Apparently these infections made me have so much diarrhea and vomiting, that I couldnt even make it the hour trip to the hospital without kindly asking the driver to pull over so i could walk into the woods (thankfully there were woods there) so I could poop (arent you glad you read this post?).

The funny thing was that I asked him if he could pull over so I could vomit, which is what I thought I had to do, but then when I got like two feet into the woods, I realized I had to poop more than vomit. Oh, decisions.

The thing about this day was that it was the day we were supposed to find out about our permanent site assignments for the next two years! wowww well unfortunately, i missed that meeting, so a lady from the peace corps came to deliver my folder to me with the contents determining my future - it was a fairytale moment. I have a sweet picture of it that Ill put up later.

Im feeling much better now, actually. yay!

Site

So, my next two years are going to be in this place called Boaco. And apparently its on the side of a mountain, and has an awesome sports scene, with a sweet sports complex, which is rare here.

We are going to visit out sites for a week starting tomorrow - how crazy! so exciting.

Its SO epic to take a step back and look at what Im doing. Im living out my dream in life. 

"Two roads diverged in the woods. And I took the road less traveled..."

Baseball

Our team is in the semi-finals of the towns playoffs, and its a best of 7 series, and we are down 3-1. I have found out its tough to jump right into a sport that requires a lot of skill and practice when you haven’t played it since you were 9. But I am fulfilling a dream by learning how to pitch. I feel alive when Im out there, and I could pass hours on hours on the mound, its so relaxing. Im so lucky I have guys in the pueblo that want to help me learn. I feel on top of the world when Im out there.

Basketball

we made it to the finals of our towns tournament, and we are up 1-0 in a best of 7 series. those games are a hell of a fun time. im loving it so much. They are at night, under the lights, and a lot of people from the community come to support. Ive been playing decently well, for being removed from playing for a little bit of time. But im good enough to jump right in. ive been averaging maybe 8 points a game.

Heres a few pics from my first game 

overall, ive been shooting about 50 percent from the field, but surprisingly my free throws havent been the best. however, when push came to shove and we were down 1 point with less than a minute in the semi final, i knocked down two free throws to put us up. we won that game.

My first day teaching, and an average day is in my life in Nica

The content of this website/blog are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the United States government or the Peace Corps.

Things I love about teaching:
Every day when I go to the school, the little girls will come up to me (they call me Profe Tom) and its customary when kids show respect to a teacher to extend their hands toward the teacher like they are praying, and you clasp your hands around theirs and wish them good morning.

Its like, really really cute. It almost makes me want to go to the school every day whether I have class or not just to greet them in the morning. It doesn´t even matter if they are in my class or not. I teach 6th grade, so most of them are too cool to do it, but all of the little kids come up and do it.

What its like in my school:
Not every class had 42 kids, but mine does. There is one textbook for my class, and its the teachers. The students all have one notebook, and that is their textbook, homework book, notebook, and drawing book,and whatever else, all in one.

Most every student wears a uniform, which is a dark blue skirt for the girls and blue pants for the boys, and a white shirt for both, and whatever shoes they want. All the profe´s wear jeans and a polo. They must be dark jeans though, always dark jeans.

 A recap of last week:

On Monday I taught for the first time in a 6th grade classroom in the school in my pueblo. There were 42 students, about 35 of which could barely contain their energy and it was damn year insanity (which can be a good thing if you have a marathon planned for them to run, or are a well seasoned teacher, or know the  language the kids speak, and maybe have more than 0 classes under your belt in the past).

It actually went pretty terrible. Like, I felt really defeated after the class. I couldnt wait to go back home, and go sit in my room and think about America, my grandmas house, or Monterey and the beach, or anything but where I was and all the responsibilities I had to do. But when I got home, I had some fairly serious host family cultural misunderstandings to deal with, that I felt even way shittier than I already had. (I promise, the story gets happier soon!).

But what happened next is exactly what the Peace Corps is during the first 3 months of training; no more than 2 days after having an awful beginning of the week, I gave my second class, changed some things, and had a really successful, bangin class. The kids enjoyed it, I felt respected, and all was well in the world. In fact, I was on top of it.

PHEW.

I actually still cant believe the turnaround. My mind must be like... "Tom, wtf are you doing. One day Im up here and the next day Im down there. Make up your me!" (get it? I got so much more clever since I got here).


Whats an average day like for me?

I usually wake up at 545 for the first time by my choosing (the times I wake up before that are because of the roosters directly outside my window). My dad is already working out in the back porch area. He is always fixing things and building some serious stuff. My mom is cooking, and I grab a shower. About 50 percent of the time its a bucket shower because theres no running water at that time.

To bucket shower, we keep a huge barrel of water in the bathroom and a little kind of cup to pour water on you. I love bucket showers.

I eat food that my mom cooked, thats always fresh. And always it contains rice and beans, and usually some other things. But always rice and beans, for all 3 meals.

We have 6 hours of spanish class, and when I come back at 3 pm, I have time to change for baseball practice thatgoes til 6. Then I have dinner, and a hundred things to do to prepare for a class I am going to give, or for homework I have, or reading the same book every day about Taky the Penguin with my little sister who is 4 and never tires of the same book.

Both of us have memorized the book.

Its somehow like 9 pm and Im exhausted, and sleep, after tucking my misquito net, that hangs from above mybed, under my mattress. So basically its like I get to sleep in a cool fort every night like Im 5.

In the mean time, I walk in the streets, run into about 5 kids that are in the school who know my name, and every single person in the streets (everyone is always walking everywhere) says hello to each other, or "Adios," in spanish. It sounds like goodbye, but its also a passing hello kind of thing.

How my spanish is coming:

I only speak with my group members in Spanish, and its getting better every day. Sometimes I feel like its terrible, and other times I feel like I got my message across and did well. But I cant wait til its even better. I still hate when I can´t understand a word people say, and I hate asking people to repeat themselves a few times.

My host mom and dad are pretty damn hard to understand still.

As for the the language I used in the classroom, I prepared a decent amount, stressed quite a bit about it, and wanted to say so much more to the kids and the professor than I knew how. But little by little, Im getting there. Its tough to coplan a class when you cant speak wellwith the prof. But we get our point across.

And when I am not clear with the kids, she just clears up the confusion. The prof I work with (its mandatory we work within another teachers classroom) is really good with the kids. She seems like she has a lot of years under her belt, and is really good with them.

How often I have diarrhea:

All the time. And its totally a normal discussion here between the volunteers. Of the 40 in my Peace Corps group, we have lost all shame in telling our stories of our sicknesses, fleas, diarrhea, dengue, vomiting, or internal pests, or whatever they are called. I have thankfully only had diarrea.

My first baseball game in Nica

  The content of this website/blog are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the United States government or the Peace Corps.

Well, it was just as fun as expected. The coach had told me earlier in the week that I would get a few innings of playing time, so I continued to show up to practice and whatnot, and I guess he thought I was okay enough to put in.

Before I get to the game, I need tell you that all the kids in the school yell out my name, and ask me when I have practice next. And the kids who ask actually show up to watch. At first I thought they were asking me when the game is. But no, they want to know when I have practice next.

One kid I know for a fact travels 45 minutes by taxi to see me practice. Its really cute. And now random people I dont know yell out my name when passing in the streets (everyone is in the streets at all hours of the day in my village) and they make some sort of baseball gesture and smile. Its happened about 5 times since sunday.

I played 2.5 innings and was at first base. I think for not playing in the past, I played pretty decently. I could have done some things better, but then again I didnt screw up bad.

I batted once, and I really thought the pitcher was a joke, but I guess its a little different when youre facing him. The short story is I struck out looking on a full count. I think the call was bs but I dont know how to argue yet in spanish, so I decided against it.

I was surprisingly not that stressed about playing, or even batting. I knew I could have had a hit or two if I got another at bat in the game, but the other first baseman came in in the bottom of the 3rd to take over.

I was really worried about my leg muscle, because I had lightly pulled it a few days before... a terrible downer when Im getting ready with an awesome opportunity!

I was literally praying so much before the game that my leg would be fine. I was there for a reason, and thankfully, the leg held up. I was super careful warming up, and even while playing, looking back I cant believe I didnt reinjure it.

The coach gave me a sweet uniform (none of our uniforms match), and I think he bought me cleats too. I just wear my black phillies hat that was a gift to me from Caitlin years ago.

I also bought a cup because at one point he told me I was going to play catcher, and I knew a cup would not be provided. Thus, I needed to ensure that there would be future Tom Fords, so I thought 20 dollars was a sound investment. Its probably the most expensive things I will every buy here.

To give you a comparison, today in the market, I bought 6 disney movies for about 90 cents.

Unbelievably, none of my friends took a picture of me playing. The game was at 930 am and one or two of the girls at my site were sick and couldnt come, so anyway, I guess that gives us another thing to look forward to next week!

I am going to continue to pray that my leg stays in shape and is healthy enough to play.

peanut butter, honey, and crackers > gold

  The content of this website/blog are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the United States government or the Peace Corps.

Each saturday, all 40 volunteers come together from their individual sights for more training.

When we do, I cant even tell you the pure joy on our faces when the PC brought out a tub of peanut butter and a bottle of honey, and crackers. It was just as good as any christmas morning in recent memory.

Talk about a wonderful moment in my life. Just look at that bar of gold in my hand

I remember needing to close my eyes because my body could only handle so many senses at one time when that sweet honey, which was more like gold, was all up in my mouth piece.

I must have had 10 crackers, striaght up a glutton with the amount of pb and honey on those bad boys. I remember pointing out to my friend Travis that he has food on his face and he's like "it doesnt matter... just leave it, man." I knew exactly what he meant.

Then I go to the bathroom and - ah! - another treasure! Soap! Running water! A flushing toilet each and every time I press the lever! The day was simply magical. There wasnt even a single fly to speak of!

Dont get me wrong, I LOVE my site, and and beginning to enjoy not needing any luxuries. I like not worrying about that stuff. But I can assure you I have never treasured as much as I did yesterday the taste of  that cracker with peanut butter and honey and as much delicious tea and coffee as my tummy could handle.

The way I prepared mine, in case you are interested, is that I spread the peanut butter evenly with the knife, then i carved this crevice in the pb in a straight line, then filled that with honey. Then with each delicious bite, I would scoot my tongue along the bite-line, as to move the peanut butter to cover the area that the honey would not be able to drip out of. I had that jawn DOWN. 

The PC is so good to us.

In fact, I even ration the Oreos they bring. They bring these little packs of 4, and I decided to save them for days during the week that I am sad. So far I ate 2, and that's not because I was sad yet, its just because its hard to save them.

Us in one of the PC buses

What do I miss most, food wise? Desert. We all went around and talked about what desert we would want most, and what we would be willing to pay for it. I mean, we eat very well, and three times a day, but there just isn't desert here. For each person who went around, the desert got more and more ridiculous and grand.

I just wanted a big sundae. And maybe with some cookies n cream ice cream. And definitely lots of chocolate sauce. And a little caramel, too. I don't like cherries much, but that would be a nice touch right now. I would look at it for a long time before eating it just so glare at its beauty.

And for the record, everyone in my group is posting about crackers and peanut butter, so if you think Im crazy, well, you may be correct, but at least I am not the only one.

I dont even know whats happening.

I continue to adjust more and more each day, I think.

Well, whats new... well, on Saturday, me and the 3 other volunteers are going to be teaching 10 kids from my class how to plant a veggie garden. We chose a plot right next to the classrooms, and started to prepare the ground today. Its kind of terrifying that we are supposed to teach these kids, in Spanish, how to do this stuff, in three days.

More terrifying is that I am going to be teaching my first class (again, in Spanish) in 10 days – not this Monday, but the following. Wtf. 

And even more… well, not terrifying, but certainly more odd, is how I got to be part of our towns baseball team. A bunch of us went to the game at our local stadium on Sunday, and I remarked to a girl who is the host sister of one of my fellow volunteers “I could do that.” And then I said one more time a little bit later that I really want to play.

Well, it turns out that later in the game shes like, well, theres my dad, and points to the guy on the field, and shes like “hes the manager of the team.” So the next day we go to class (we have class in her house) and shes like, “so, theres practice today and my dad wants you there.” So Im like wow… yeah, sure.

The only problem is that Ive been sick with… well, who knows what the hell Im sick from.

Anyway, I went to practice Monday, then they were like come back tomorrow, then they said come back again. And today they gave me a uniform and asked if I can play Sunday at the local stadium with their team, and Im going to play first base, I think.  Goodness gracious, what have I gotten myself into.

This is awesome/nerve racking.

Arriba y Bajo

 The content of this website/blog are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the United States government or the Peace Corps.

Man how things change in one week.

When I got here I was way too overwhelmed. The first night I almost couldnt even handle it · I couldnt understand anyone, still had the embarrassment/fear wall up, and was totally surrounded by a place completely unfamiliar.

I could go on and on about that feeling of hopelessness/embarrassment/fear/disconnectedness, but I will leave it at that I was all of those feelings and slightly depressed maybe, for a few days. Every day was up and down and up and down with my mental state. BUT..

Yesterday was the FIRST day that I felt comfortable! Talking, walking in my city (we walk everwhere), and I am evennn starting to be able to understand most of what my host mom and dad says (if you heard them speak, you should be clapping for me right now on account of them breaking the world record for most words spoken in a minute.) people here dont really get the concept of slowing down when they talk, save my older sister, who has become the ¨...what did she say?¨ person that I go to. Shes a boss.

Things that stressed me--

At first, I still needed to sit myself down almost every single day before I left my room to tell myself that I can do it.

Most of what scared the hell out of me is that I am going to be teaching my first class in three weeks  at the school · in spanish. Whoa. And conducting community surveys in peoples houses · in spanish. Its a daily, hourly worry of mine, but everyone says youll pick it up. I can already see ive improved an insane amount, and I can certainly get myself around now.

My group of 4 was even able to navigate to two separate cities today via a taxi, on foot, then a bus, there and back. And these arent average taxis or buses. The same rules that exist in the US arent here.

Next Saturday I am leading a group of  students in the school to begin planting our school garden. All is in spanish.

One thing thats awesome is that I have to take a bucket shower half of the days. Since the water is out in the town every day for several hours, various times, theres a barrel in the shower filled high and you have this oversized cup that you pour over your head.

Its actually kind of nice and I am beginning to love bucket showers. My community is really poor and is an awesome culture shock. I am beginning to really enjoy it.

Some things I need to get used to are the noise. Last night as I was laying in bed, and I had this odd feeling that something wasnt right, like something was off, and I couldnt put my finger on it.

Finally, I realized that it was absolutely the first time since I arrived, the VERY first moment, that there was no noise. No dogs barking, none of that damn rooster that camps outside my window (although it still kindly waked me up at 5 am every day), no tv blairing in the house (the walls that separate the rooms dont reach the ceiling, so you can hear everthing)...

... no kids yelling, no one in the streets, no music playing, no one walking in my house, no noise from that parrot that lives in my house that repeats what my host mom says, and even repeats her laugh. None of it! How blissful.

Oh, and the neighbors must be having a part every single day at 530 am, because I wake up to that blairing music too. But its all part of the charm. Some things you just need to accept, and I have gladly accepted a lot of things.

I am lucky that I havent felt any homesickness really.And I dont really miss having any ammenities, either. And I am trying my best not to say that this place is better/worse than at home. To do that is something that is very ingrained in American culture-to compare things. Its just different.

Hasta luegooooo