Thursday 10 March 2016

We love visitors!

We have continued our streak of luck of AWESOME visitors (Although I don’t believe there is such a thing as a “bad visitor”—our *yellow* door is open to all of you!!). Kyle’s uncle, Rick, and his cousin, Ben, came to visit us last week. We had a great time hosting them and showing them our lives here, and also enjoyed being treated to some vacation time in Granada at the end of their trip. They were wonderful guest—adventurous and curious. They had a rental car so they were able to experience many different parts of Nicaragua, as we were pegado (stuck) in San Nicolas teaching English class and other responsibilities. They were great sports and super flexible in whatever came there way :)  We really enjoyed having you and will be waiting for Stiffney Christmas 2016 Abroad, Destination: Nicaragua!! :D

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Much love.

Sunday 6 March 2016

The Bulletin Board

Let me just tell you about one of the most glamorous part of our work here in Nicaragua: Making and designing bulletin boards.
We are becoming experts in this field and believe that we can legitimately put it on our resumes. “Professional Bulletin Board Designer”. It takes skill to make a good bulletin board. The perfect stencils and tracing. The perfect scissor skills. Placement. Spatial design. You  better have good handwriting. And color. color. color.
In all seriousness, this has been a pretty good way to keep our hands busy and to feel that we are helping out in a tangible way. The bulletin boards at the school are a HUGE deal and teachers are often left working on them when they could be planning, grading or doing other teacher things. So taking some of this task of their plates (I think) helps them out! :)
We have also found our bulletin board work to be a type of reflection on parts of the culture here (this could be another whole blog post that I could write on and on about). But we have found that looks are important. Not necessarily physical, bodily looks (although that does seem to be the case sometimes especially for our female students…maybe ANOTHER blog post). But looks of a building. How the school looks. How the landscaping and gardens look. How the new mirador looks. How a bulletin board looks. It’s IMPORTANT. Even when there may be (what we consider) more important things like buying more textbooks or paying teachers more. The effort and focus may be more on looks of the school building and planting a garden. Which I can also appreciate, but sometimes I find myself questioning the priorities. All that being said, our bulletin boards seem to be an important piece of the visual appeal of our school. And we are more than happy to work on these pieces of art when needed :)  
Here is just a sample of our work:
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The 2016 annual bulletin board. “Welcome to the 2016 school year….In good hope!” (a governmental slogan)
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The staff’s birthdays on the balloons and the school “core values” in the yellow squares that my school social worker side was so happy to put up! :)
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The “counseling” bulletin board with the monthly plan and activities and announcements
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The daily schedule. Actually putting the schedule together is a project that is only possible through a computer program (it gets pretty confusing). Writing it up in the perfect dimensions is another challenge.
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My latest project, the Saturday school schedule.
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One of the first we worked on in 2015. Loved cutting out those letters for the title.

I know it’s not the most life changing, or glamorous work of volunteer work. But it is fun to work our creative sides, and to see something tangible at the end of the day. We are proud of the relationship building and the seemingly abstract impact we are having here in Nicaragua, but sometimes it is nice to DO and see something at the end of the day…..Cue: The Bulletin Boards!