Has it really been a week since the plane landed? We’ve had 4 days of Spanish classes and it is beginning to feel like we have a routine now. Even the fact that the taxis and microbuses (they pick up passengers for specific routes) are still on strike feels like a part of the regular routine. We won’t know what to do once the taxis and microbuses are running again.

A regular part of Spanish classes each day is that someone in the class has to have read a newspaper article and prepared a summary that they share with the class. There is also a discussion of current events, as well as feedback about the previous day’s lecture. All in español, of course.

Tuesday afternoon we had Coyuntura (our weekly group meeting) at the unit house. After opportunities for sharing we had a lunch of chicken (in some pretty delicious sauce), Nicaraguan veggies, a cole slaw salad, and, of course, rice and beans. After lunch Libby, Sarah, Lindsey, and Karla S led us in hymns and a short worship service reflecting on our need for control (and how we have less of it here).

Wednesday afternoon the lecture was by Dr. Alvaro Taboada, who had been a colleague of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, a famous journalist whose assassination by the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 set off a series of events that led to the fall of the dictatorship and the start of the Sandinista revolution. During the first 3 years of the new government Dr. Taboada was Nicaragua’s ambassador to Ecuador, until he resigned in protest over a number of government measures that he described to us. His view of the events of the 1980s was quite different from that in our textbook on Nicaraguan history. Nicaraguans still remain very divided on who is to blame for the economic collapse and the war during the 1980s.

Thursday morning the newspapers announced the country would start rationing electricity by having forced blackouts in different parts of the country in different time blocks. The problem is with some generators and a shortage of fuel oil to run them. Our department, Carazo, is scheduled to have daily blackouts from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Some of our homes lost electricity at 7 this morning, but some didn’t.

Thursday afternoon we visited the Juan Jose Rodriguez public secondary school in town. Although this is a good secondary school that is better than most, only about 60% of the students who complete primary school go on to secondary school, and less than half of the students who enter secondary school eventually go on to graduate. The directors said the major reasons students drop out are economic-related. The school director said that the school had a lot of financial needs also, and he was right. The school lacked a lot we take for granted, like educational materials on the walls and textbooks for the students.