Excelling at Excel

Hello world,

I sit here trying to write as the Italian Job blasts in the background. Nothing but good news to report today!! We had an excellent dinner at Mediterraneo, an Italian place that serves great pastas and entrees and smoothies...so it’s pretty much good all around. I had chicken with pepper and pear sauce and a pineapple and melon smoothie. If there’s one thing cuisine wise that I’m going to miss from a country filled with gallo pinto, it’s going to be the fruits (papaya anyone?) and the fruit juices and smoothies, which are served at pretty much every food joint and Nicaraguan households. 

I’m proud to say that our APF training with Ruido Verde went really well! At first, it seemed as if everything was going to go badly. Everything that could go wrong, did. The guys didn’t show. The guy with the laptop we were going to use didn’t show. His phone didn’t work. Turned out his phone had been changed. People biked up to his house; he wasn’t there. None of the other four most committed members didn’t show, despite repeated confirmations earlier in the week that they would. The house itself turned out to be a transit point of sorts for what seemed like the entire neighborhood. From the back of the house (which I imagined to be limitless due to the number of people that streamed out of it) emerged several infants in all shapes and sizes, all of their anxious mothers, and all of Christian’s extended family. One of the children took it upon himself to repeatedly bang a Gatorade bottle of the doorframe. And in the middle of the room sat the four of us gringos, awkwardly waiting an hour and a half before we decided to start with only Christian and Cesar (the two guys we worked with on Tuesday). Hooking up the laptop to the TV didn’t work. Neither did the first computer we tried. After a few faulty stops, we finally for the work shop going. 

In the end, we had a great, interactive conversation with Christian and Cesar, who were extremely receptive. I was gratified that they truly seemed to be appreciative and enthusiastic about the information. Cesar was extremely familiar with the computer (by Nicaraguan standards) and quickly picked up the information, which was good because my understanding was the rest of the group wasn’t. Even Cesar however seemed to learn a lot from our Excel demonstration; at one point I had to playfully tell Cesar to pay attention because I caught him playing a game on his phone. However, there was a great mixture of dialogue, of informality with serious learning, and lecturing versus feedback. Tess, our group leader, said she saw them learning in the two hours that we talked, which is a wonderful thing to experience. At the end, Christian expressed his heartfelt gratitude for our work, which made me feel as if we had done something tangible. 

Christian also showed us his super cool lower rider bike (called Spider Bike) and his iron work shop where he had all kinds of rock and grunge posters hanging, as well as a closet of tools titled “no toque mi mierda.” I really liked these guys. They’re playing a concert on Saturday with their band, also named Ruido Verde. 

After that and lunch, Jade and I went on a scavenger hunt to complete a questionnaire with questions like “how much does a pair of glasses cost at the market? At the optometrist?” (answer: 70 and 1600 cord respectively). We walked all over, having conversations with people, being confident in our spanish, etc. We discovered some great cafes along the way, and also met one of the most insolent kids. Our first encounter was in the supermarket, where he ran up (twice) and groped Jade. This is a TEN YEAR OLD BOY. The second time I yelled after him and he ran away with a gleeful look on his face. Two hours later, we spotted him again across a busy street. Because we were blocked by moving cars, and he knew it, he mocked us from the other side. This kid is dead meat next time I seem him. 

Time to finish the Italian Job and then it’s seven hours of sleep and back out in the field at 6:30 AM tomorrow. Goodnight!