elections sunday approaching

Presidential elections are this Sunday in Nicaragua. If you don't know much about Nicaraguan politics, there are many more than two political parties. In fact, there are probably more than the five that I can think of. You may recognize the leader of one party--Daniel Ortega. He was the Sandanista leader during the 80s when things in Nicaragua were pretty bad in just about every way. This man is friends with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela (from whom he recieves much funding) and Fidel Castro of Cuba. There is some concern that if he gets into office there will be many problems as there were before when he took office. It also seems to be common knowledge that his wife is into some kind of witchcraft. The more I find out about him, the more I can't imagine how he has supporters. Yet, he does. He may be the candidate with the most direct votes in the election this Sunday. I'm not sure what poles are showing at this point, but a few weeks ago the poles showed Ortega winning the most votes, but not enough to take office (35%). What would happen is a second round with the two highest vote-getters. Most likely an opponent by the name of Eduardo Montealegre would be second up. In this scenario, most of those who had previously voted for someone other than Ortega would vote for Montealegre. Poles showed a big number of people would never vote for Ortega under any circumstance. Let's hope this is the case.

Interesting note: one of the other candidates goes by the name "El Feo" which basically means "the ugly one". I kind of doubt a campaign like this would work well in the US... Now that I've said that, here are a few pictures...



In other news, progress has been underway on the new high school wing of the school, and I have some pictures here for you. First up below is a shot where you can see most of the building. It contains four classrooms, an office, and two bathrooms.



Something I find interesting is the materials and building styles that they use here. Most everything is concrete and metal. No wood is used, which I guess isn't so strange in a stucure such as this, but it's true for houses, as well. Much of the wall is made of concrete blocks, while the supporting structure is made of rebar and poured concrete. The blocks are then covered by more concrete. You can see the bare blocks on some of the external walls, and the parts that have been finished on the inside. This picture is the inside of a classroom:



Parts of the roof. Brought to the side in smaller pieces, wielded together and painted, and then placed along the length of the roof. If you look at the picture just above, you can see brackets on the truss that will hold these long pieces.



High quality and high tech equipment for reaching high places. Seems to work effectively. I will often see ladders like this twenty feet long reaching up a telephone pole on main streets. I'll try to get a picture of that sometime.



Here is a picture of the worksite. What I think is gravel for filling before laying concrete, and a pool they made for water. Not sure how they use it, but we do experience water outages on a regular basis.



The clothes of the workers just waiting around for the end of the day. Yesterday it rained quite hard and I'm sure they want dry clothes at the end of the day today. Not to mention, work here is hot and dirty, so maybe there are always clothes hanging around.



In other news, I never got that meeting to happen between the director and the willing students about tutoring. I'm afraid to push too much at this point, and it's close to the end of the year anyway. I think I may have said some things the wrong way (in Spanish) and conveyed the wrong message in some discussions regarding this and other issues. In cross cultural situations, it's always a challenge to say exactly what you want to say in the way you want to say it. Many subtleties go into communicating effectively including intonation, word choice, and much more. Hopefully we can still make some progress on that before the end of the year.

I have been finding this whole classroom experience harder again lately. Students, at least I think it's them, have been finding it harder to listen and pay attention. Much talking and laughing and throwing of things. I have been getting very angry in class, and I don't like it. My attitude is turning into, "Well, if you don't care then I don't either." Lesson planning is a struggle and even when I think it should be fun, they don't get into it, or they don't even get started because I can't get their attention. I think there are definately things I could do better, but I need to change my mental and emotional approach, which right now is a little tough.

In other news, I have seen some ways that I think communication could improve and overall involvement of the teachers at the school. It may take a shift in thinking by the leadership, but I have some ideas percolating that I'd love to share with the director of NCA sometime. I'm not sure how or when I can do that effectively, but I'm waiting and watching for an opportunity because I think much could be done in these areas.

Prayer items
-General strength to finish the year out strong, and perhaps a better attitude that is stronger and more influential than that of the students'.
-That I can present my ideas clearly and that they will be met with affirmation.
-I have been feeling a little sick for the last week. Some kind of bug going around. Sore throat, cough, fever. Many students are feeling it and a few teachers have had their own taste as well.