No Time to Waste
23- nov – 2010
First Day in Leon
I’m officially in site now – León, León. However, it hasn’t quite sunk in yet. It just feels like I’m away from my home in Masatepe.
So I got into town around 11:30am and I had my first Peace Corps meeting at 1pm. Way to get started quickly, right? Well, there have been TEFL volunteers in León for the past 3 years and each summer (aka Nov – Feb) they coordinate a 1 week long English summer camp for 4th year high school students. This year´s camp is next week and the León crew invited me to participate + help out. I’m excited to jump right in and start working. Not to mention it’ll give me something to do these first few weeks while I’m settling in.
I also enjoyed the meeting because it allowed me to meet some of the other PC volunteers in the area, one of the English professors at UNAN, and some of the 5th year English students from UNAN. Afterwards, I went and saw where Chelsea (one of the environmental volunteers) lives + got my first campo (countryside = middle of nowhere, super poor community) experience. During that time, I also got to chat a little with the English teacher at UNAN. She’s very nice + excited to have me in town. She filled me in somewhat about how things work at UNAN and the types of courses they offer / I might be teaching next year. She said that there is an English department meeting sometime soon to discuss who will be teaching what courses next term and that she would let me know the details so that I can come too. Maybe, just maybe, I might have somewhat of an idea what I’ll be teaching by the end of the year! *fingers crossed* That would be a miracle.
Tomorrow I’m hoping to go to UNAN with Chris to walk around and meet the directora. I also asked him if we could just chat a little about León and what it’s like to be a TEFL volunteer in the area. He said no problem, so that’s the plan. I need to learn the ropes here…
Sunday there is some type of festival in the town where Chelsea lives. I am going to go with her and the English professor from UNAN. Should be fun + probably very interesting.
That’s all for now…
