Balls and Books

We've mentioned our Balls and Books program in previous blog posts, but it's about time it got a formal introduction. The idea came about when we started comparing our own high school experiences with those of our secondary students here in San Nicolas. Here is the kind of thing we were thinking about:

Pretty Much Any US Public High School	The San Nicolas High School
Students have the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of organized after-school sports.	There are no organized school sports teams.
The school owns a huge collection of quality sports equipment to make practicing easier.	The school owns a flat, battered volleyball, a rimless basketball court, and a flat basketball.
There are tons of other after-school clubs and activities (choir, band, drama, etc) for students to participate in.	There are no after-school clubs or activities.
Students not only have textbooks (or even iPads with textbooks) for all of their classes; they also have access to a school library that will lend them books.	There are no textbooks – students copy what teachers write on the board into their notebooks. The only library in town (which consists of a couple of shelves of books) doesn't lend books out.

We had noticed in our English classes that many of our students had a serious lack of confidence in their own thoughts and ideas. Even if they absolutely knew that their answer had to be correct, they refused to say it out loud until we had confirmed that they were correct. This puzzled and frustrated us for a while. (*Footnote)

But then it occurred to me: there must be a direct link between participating in sports and activities and a person's self-confidence. More important than learning how to kick a soccer ball or play the flute is building up the confidence to do these things for an audience, and then receiving positive affirmation for your efforts. Because these kinds of activities aren't available to them, most San Nicolaseno high school students have never had to perform anything under pressure, and in turn have never been affirmed for their own ideas or talents.

Anyway, the money just didn't exist within the public school system to get any extracurricular activities like this going in San Nicolas, so in the end we took matters into our own – and your own – hands. We created an official “Balls and Books” fund through VMM's web site, so that all of the donations that go into this fund will go directly to starting extracurricular activities in San Nicolas.

We have already raised enough money through this fund to buy six new sports balls for the school and start an after-school book club. (More on this below). But there are plenty more expenses to come: buying more books for the book club, painting the basketball court with basketball and volleyball lines, purchasing soccer balls, buying instruments for a potential future band . . . The list goes on. So please, with the goal of instilling talent and self-confidence in the teenagers of San Nicolas, consider donating to our Balls and Books fund. (Scroll down to our bio and click on the second "Donate" button under our bio).

Want to know more about the extracurricular activities we're working on? Here is a little recap.

Balls

Students playing with the new basketballs

During the world cup, Davie did a fundraiser through the school. Students bought and filled out brackets, and the student who predicted the bracket closest to the actual world cup won a soccer ball. With the rest of the money and some of the money donated to our Balls and Books fund, we were able to purchase three volleyballs, three basketballs, and one soccer ball for the school P.E. and sports programs.

The P.E. teacher, Reynaldo, is working on developing a high school soccer team. This year the team played one league game in Esteli, but he is hoping that next year it will be more successful.

Books

I have been working in the community library one day a week, helping the librarian organize the few shelves of books they own by the Dewey Decimal System. Thanks to friends and family who have donated books in Spanish, the town library has also inherited several nice new books.

This week we had our first book club meeting. A nice-sized group of four high school students showed up, interested in reading. When I asked them how much reading they had done before, one girl said that she had read two books. Another girl said that she had read a few Shakespeare quotes on the internet. We voted on what book they wanted to read together, and The Hunger Games won.

I am hoping that getting a couple of copies of The Hunger Games into these students' houses will spark a bit of enthusiasm for reading, but we'll see. We'll meet to discuss the book as we read it together, and I also want these students to help me with a reading program for elementary school students. My plan is to bring the high school students into the elementary school once every other week or so to read picture books to the littler kids. My hope is that this will not only instill a bit of curiosity about books in the elementary students; it will also give the high school students that sense of self-confidence and leadership that they so need.

*Of course, this also has a lot to do with the one-right-answer educational methods that still reign in the campo of Nicaragua.  

Nicaraguan Idol

The whole San Nicolas high school crowded into a room in the mayor's office this morning, sitting on the floor, sprawling out the door. They had been practicing for the last six weeks (some more than others), and finally their singing-in-English abilities would be put to the test.

Apparently, the English song competition is both an annual and national event in Nicaragua. As part of the curriculum for all public high schools in Nicaragua, every year around this time, students have to get together in groups and sing a song in English while also performing some kind of dance. It's like a Nicaraguan-accented, slightly off-key version of Glee.

This year, the songs that the students chose ranged from classics like “You're the Inspiration” to Enrique Iglesias' “Heart Attack” to Miley Cyrus's “Butterfly Fly Away.” (Our Beatles and Bob Marley suggestions were shot down right away with bored looks and thumb-jerks to go to the next song).

Planning for the contest became a little more complicated when the normal English teacher stopped showing up at school because of some health issues her daughter was having. Davie and I took over the contest as best as we could, but details like when the contest would be and how we would grade the participants somehow didn't reach us until the last minute. Add to that all kinds of technology crises (The electricity is off today, I guess we can't practice), and the whole thing became a bit rocky.

But there were also some pretty cool results. For one, this contest brought out some of our most apathetic students to produce some of the best performances; it was perfect proof that everyone learns in different ways. There is a group of girls in 10^th grade who spend most of their time in class staring down into their laps, hiding their cell phones behind their notebooks. But if you had wandered by the school just after classes let out any day during the last few weeks, you would have heard this same group of girls belting with all their might, “It's too late to apologize . . . It's too late!”

Davie also noted that the different songs that each grade chose reflect their varying identities or life stages. The 9^th graders who sang “Heart Attack,” for instance, have just begun dating and accordingly are just experiencing their first heartbreaks. The 10^th grade girls who sang “Apologize” have by this time had some discreet dating experiences and are feeling a bit of jaded nostalgia for their romances-gone-bad. And then there is Alondra, the quiet, amazingly intelligent 11th-grader who sang “Butterfly, Fly Away” (and who will also probably “fly away” herself one day to much bigger places and things).

Today as we sat at the elaborately-tableclothed judges panel, watching our nervous students get up and sing, all of the stress we've been feeling because of this contest became worth it. Cheesy as it sounds, it is totally true. One by one, each of the five groups did a little introduction in English, passing the mic around to announce their favorite English phrase: “My name ees _____.” Then they got their game faces on, rolling their eyes up to the ceiling to remember their words, beginning to sway back and forth with the music, and finally, in front of all their classmates and several fluent English speakers, singing and dancing their hearts out.

In the end, the 10^th grade girls won the competition with their elaborate dance moves and belted singing. They will go on to represent San Nicolas at the departmental contest in Esteli in September. But the thing that impressed us most today was the amazing courage it took for all of our students who got up and, in front of the whole school, sang a song in a language that they aren't fluent in.

Everyday San Nicolas in Photos

Davie's dad came to visit us last week, bringing with him a backpack's worth of camera equipment and a huge suitcase of dark chocolate, sun screen, raspberry jam, new white shirts, and six volleyballs and basketballs.

Davie had ordered these balls online with the money that a few of our supporters had so generously donated to our Balls and Books program. We also raised a bit of money within the community through the World Cup bracket raffle that Davie organized at school, and all of this money has now materialized into six brand new balls for the school sports programs. With his dad, Davie presented these balls in front of the school last week.

But this isn't all that materialized of Davie's dad's visit. Jim Wiegner is renowned among his family and friends (and really anyone who has ever met him) for being a tireless photographer. He knows that to find the very best photo, you need to be snapping pictures pretty much nonstop, just waiting for the photo that will perfectly capture a story.

So without further ado, I will let a few of Jim's pictures tell the story of everyday life in San Nicolas.

San Nicolas soccer field from a road out of town.

Davie talks to his former baseball coach.

Main form of transportation to communities: horses

"Ya casi."

Where the 11th graders spend most of their time: just outside of class.

7th grade

"Oye chele!"

Everyone in the campo has a clay oven out back.

5-year-olds in Nicaragua are way stronger than in the US.

Cow traffic

If you don't have a horse or a moto, you hitchhike.

Street soccer

The pulperia where we get most of our groceries.

Barbed wire laundry line

When you're not at work, you're here: watching the people go by.

English class lovin.

"Me next! Me next!"