Las Lideres Del Dia de Educacion

As first student “Las Lideres Del Dia” we had a very, very fun day to manage. After waking up at 6:45 to wake everyone up at 7, we ate egg sandwiches and watermelon and pineapple! 🙂 We were very excited about the fruits. After having an educational seminar and learning shocking sad statistics about education in both the US and Nicaragua, we embarked on our field trip to a local primary school in the city of San Marcos, 45 minutes away. We were surprised about how poor and how little education is offered in Nicaragua and we realized that we are so lucky to live where we do and have such great educational opportunites. Driving down into the valley in which San Marcos was located, the views were jaw-dropping. Upon arriving at the school, we were greeted by 80 smiling faces, eagerly waving to us, both groups couldn’t contain thier excitement. We had split into four different groups and we each rotated and taught a section focused on a particular aspect of American culture. The dance group taught the local children a version of the “Cha Cha Slide” which included some booty wiggling which everyone enjoyed, and in return the students showed us traditional dances. One lucky student exclaimed that he “Finalmente baile con una gringa!” (got to finally dance with a white girl! :)) The music group sang “Old MacDonald” and taught the kids how to play “Down by the Banks,” and in return breifly tasted (until we were told we shouldn’t just in case) dishes and drinks that students had made to bring in for the day. The sports group taught the kids how to throw frisbees and played with a bouncy ball (until it popped 15 minutes in… 🙁 ) and were taught a special version of hop-scotch, and other groups played basketball y futbol with the kids. The kids loved learning English words, and loved shouting the few English words they knew like “Hello!” The kids asked us to come back, and we were sad that we won’t be able to spend time with them again. Of all the amazing people we met on our field trip, we were most inspired by the teachers of the school because of their passion to help the kids, the confidence that they gave thier kids when the kids presented to us, and how much love they had for their students and for us. On our bus ride home, we got pretty musical… Mark started off a rap battle which then led to a chorus of Disney, One Direction, Iggy (a chi chi wa), and many other fun pop songs. We arrived back at our new home, “Hotel Kiuras” to a delicious rice, chicken, and vegetable lunch! (The food here is REALLY good!!!)

We prepared for our first English lessons with our students at a local school and came up with lesson plans and interactive games to keep the young students interested. However, when we arrived at the school, we figured out that teaching is a much harder task than we originally thought… especially with a language barrier. Thankfully, our fluent Spanish speakers, Celeste, Vanessa, Christian, and Yasmin were able to help carry the groups, translate back and forth, and keep some control over the classroom. We are teaching students ages 10-14 and they seem to be bouncing off the walls with energy, but many are very eager to learn. Our next task will be redirecting that energy into their focus of learning. We are very proud of our ability to work as teammates to accomplish our first lessons and even though all of the groups struggled, we all ended up having a good time and felt like we were helping the kids.

At our nightly meeting we gave lots of “Big Love” to our group and we’re becoming a large Nicaraguan familila! 🙂 Everyone is having a blast getting to know one another and everyone is so kind, amable, couragous, compassionate, and committed. Everyone is headed to sleep early because we wake up REALLY early tomorrow to shadow high school students!

We really enjoyed being “Las Lideres Del Dia” especially as partners because there was never a worry about letting something fall through because there were two of us to remember to tell people what to bring or where to be at what time. We also enjoyed leading songs, rap battles, and repeat after me songs on the bus, and we think the other Glimpsers enjoyed it too! 🙂 We learned at the primary school that it is so easy to inflict joy in others, that education is a gift we take too often for granted, and that it can help us in so many situations and in unimaginable ways, giving us confidence and feeling like we can be anything!

We want to give a shout out to all the moms and dads at home missing their kids! We miss you too but are having too much fun to notice! 🙂 <3

We hope you have had an amazing four days without us, because we are making life long and life changing memories here.

Sending our love and hope you enjoyed our post,

Aydan and Annie

Las Lideres Del Dia de Educacion