Christmas is Here, Bringing Good Cheer

Merry Christmas family and friends!

School is out, I have been able to sleep in late (you all know this is one of my favorite things ever), and enjoy watching Christmas movies with my friends. It still hasn't snowed here in Nicaragua, but it is only 82 degrees here today, cloudy, and windy, and I am wearing a hoodie, so I feel pretty Christmasy. The Christmas scented candle right next to me is also helping out a lot.

Instead of working on lessons plans or cleaning up my classroom, I have been home today just doing things around the house, listening to some sermons, and trying to "be still and know" that He is God. It has been a little weird not being home for the Christmas season. My family has many traditions and it has always been a really special time for me to spend with my family, and this is the first time I have ever missed it. But this morning I just felt so blessed to be here in Nicaragua, to be walking out His plan for my life. Last year as I was preparing to come, I knew that it would not always be easy, but I wanted so much to give everything I am and had to please Him. I still want that. Thinking back on the fun week I had with my students - celebrating the birth of Jesus, playing with fake snow and seeing such joy in their faces - I am filled with so much happiness. Here I am and I was able to share the blessings of Christmas with my precious students. I had not intended to share all this today, but it has been swimming around in my head, so there it is.

And now take a peek at what my kids look like after school (at least on Christmas program days):

"But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy. Today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you, he is Christ the Lord." Luke 2: 10-11

xoxoxo
Laura

Let it Snow!

What do snowmen do at night?
Most of my kids have never seen snow, much less have built a snowman, but they all came up with some pretty creative things that snowmen might do at night when no one is looking. Among many crazy ideas, my 4th graders said they sing Stayin' Alive, steal cookies, have a dance party, and join a neighborhood baseball game.

Here was a morning journal we had this week:
Have you ever seen snow? What do you think about it?

Here are two of  the responses:
"No, I haven't seen snow. I think snow is soft. I think I want to eat snow. It tastes cold. That would be so cool."
"Well, kind of. I saw snow when I was two years old. I think snow is like clouds. But melted clouds. They are very fluffy."

My dad (by the way he rejected my horse request) emailed me some pictures of the Omaha snow. I showed them to my kids and they freaked out. It makes me smile because I hate hate hate the snow. Yes, I think it is beautiful when it falls and when it covers Christmas lights, but that's it. I do not miss cold toes or frozen car doors or gray slush. My mom sent me some fake snow that we are going to try out at our Christmas party this week. I told the kids about it and they keep pestering me about it. Is it snow day? When are we going to do the snow? Did you already do the snow at your house? (Why would I do that??)

In unrelated exciting Nica news, I got my cedula. This means I am an official resident of Nicaragua! I had to leave school to go get it done, and so I had a substitute. I didn't tell my kids I was leaving, so some were unsure of where I went. The next morning when one girl in my class saw me, she bolted across the room and gave me a huge hug. This girl is not normally a hugger, so I was a little surprised. She looked up at me and said, " I thought you were in jail, I am so glad you are here." I had no idea what in the world she meant by that, but figured she thought I would go to jail if I didn't get my cedula or something. At the end of the week I read her morning journal. One of the prompts was about whether or not they remember their dreams and asked them to describe a dream they remembered. Turns out this girl had had a dream the day that I got my cedula. She had a dream that I had to miss school because I was arrested and got thrown in jail. They got a new substitute who didn't teach well and found out they would never see me again. She wasn't sure if the dream was real or not and only figured out when she saw me the next morning that I didn't actually go to jail.  I love my students. Never a dull moment.

Much love,
Laura

Thanksgiving Delights

Now that it is December and the Christmas Season is here, I feel like Thanksgiving was a long time ago and that this post is already out-dated even before I post it. Apparently it was just over a week ago, so I will continue on with my thoughts.

Even though Thanksgiving is a U.S. holiday, we celebrate it at NCA. We put on a Thanksgiving program and put a huge emphasis in the classrooms on what it means to be thankful. Since we have been in the poetry mood in the 4th grade, we memorized a poem, created some actions, and presented it during our part of the program.

Reciting "Thanksgiving Delights"

The video is a little unfocused in parts, but it will give you an idea of what it was like. I love how they all remembered to wear their fall colors!

We had a couple of days off for Thanksgiving, some my roommates and I headed up to the mountains. We stopped in Jinotega where we helped bake and serve Thanksgiving dinner at an orphanage.

The potato peeling masters

The Feast

We left lots of kiddos with full bellies!

Some were unsure about the green bean casserole...

Everyone helps with the morning chores - feeding the chickens, cleaning up the yard - even the little ones.

The big kids go to school in the afternoon and the little ones stay and get lessons in the morning.

I could go on about the orphanage, but I think these pictures and their precious little smiles say enough. God has his hand upon them.

Next stop on our weekend adventure: Matagalpa. We stayed on a coffee plantation, and let me tell you, it was beautiful. I am continuously taken aback by the beauty of this country.

My favorite part was taking a horse back tour of the plantation. I would like to take this moment to make a public plea to my dad for a horse for Christmas. I ask for one every year, but so far it hasn't happened. Maybe this year, Dad?

"Please?"

"Pretty please?"

We will see if that works.

Happy December, friends.

xoxoxoxo
Laura

Monster Poetry Bash

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I LOVE TEACHING POETRY! Thanks to some excellent poetry books and fun forms of poetry, my students caught the poetry bug and filled pages of their writing notebook with their creative writing.

To celebrate their excellent work, we had a Monster Poetry Bash. Students read their work and recited poems as we ate snacks and cheered them on.

I love when my students love something. When they get excited about something they learned. When they really get it. I have to think that God is the same way with us. He must love those moments when we get it.

"She Should See Her Mom"

Every morning when my 4th graders come in they look for their journal prompt on the board and begin the day by writing. Last week one of the prompts was "What should Miss Eberly do for her birthday?" Here were some of their answers:

She should buy pizza for the whole class
She should tell her friends to throw her a surprise party
She should buy a car
She should sleep in her bed
She should see her mom
She should eat pancakes

Not sure about the whole car and pancake idea, but I did get to see my mom! My brother's wedding was last Saturday and I got to fly home on my birthday and stay in Omaha for a few days for the occasion.

Me and Autumn

Me and my Uncle Bill

The Siblings!

My best friends Shannon and Leah - how I missed them!

There was something that I was really looking forward to doing when I got home: go to Target. I know it sounds silly, but hear me out. In Nicaragua running errands is not always a pleasant experience. There is no mega store that is guaranteed to have all the different things that you are looking for. They might not supply it. They might not have in stock that month. Or it might be WAY more expensive than it should be. Running errands here is usually a whole day experience. Maybe one day Walmart will make its way to Nica, but not yet.

Though my time home was short, I was able to see most of my family and friends. I'll admit, living away from them has been hard. Being away from home has been hard. Every day here is a learning experience. Learning where things are, the correct way to say something in Spanish, how to keep my shoes from molding, how to stay sane when there are ant invasions. Its just little things, things like knowing what to do and how to act and how to order food that I took for granted before. I didn't even know those were things to take for granted. Now I see how much God is stretching me just by simply being here, living a life that is out of my comfort zone and outside the realm of things I know and understand.

Thankfully, He both knows and understands.

xoxoxo
Laura

P.S. Thank you to everyone who spoiled me while I was home. I love you and miss you and am thankful that you are in my life.

It Might Be...

...another post about animals. Please excuse me for all the writing dedicated to my adventures with animals, but they have managed to find a way into my daily life that I didn't exactly foresee before I came to Nicaragua.

Today the PE teacher came into show my students a little friend of his:

Size? Larger than my human hand. Location found? The kitchen. 

About a month ago, this guy came to visit at school:

And this one at my house:

I am rethinking my earlier post about the pigeons. The ants have now surpassed them in unfortunate habits. To name a few:

• Finding a way through zipped backpacks and lunchboxes into my students' food. We are all ready for lunch, happy and hungry when... the ants attack. Raid must be found. Backpacks dumped out. Ant hills sought and destroyed. This happens at least once or twice a week. One student even wrote a very impressive poem about the reoccurring ant invasions. More on poems later.
• Living in my desk and a taking up residency between the keys of my keyboard.
• Tingling up your arms and legs as they crawl on you. They are small, so hard to locate. You feel them, but cant always see them. 

Raid is one of my new best friends. Not one of my favorite smells, but it gets the job done. 

___________

Time to talk poetry! I love love love teaching poetry. The last two weeks we have been doing a Monster Poetry Unit. When I first told my students we would be studying poetry they gave me the are you trying to kill me, Miss Eberly? face. I don't like that face. Two weeks later, some most of my students are generally excited about reading poetry, learning a new type of poem, and getting their ideas on paper. Some students have surpassed my expectation on what they can do. They all have a writer's notebook and I see them jotting down their new poems during the day and showing them off to me later. Today in groups they worked on some free verse poems about different colors. 

The Blue Group coping their group poem into their notebooks

Next week we are having a Monster Poetry Bash! I can hardly wait. Students will pick their best poems and copy and decorate them to present to the class. They are all memorizing a children's poem as well that they will present with (hopefully) excellent articulation, pausing at the correct spots in the poem. Be prepared for a bombardment of poetry pictures in the near future. 

xoxoxo

Laura

Rain Rain Go Away

Something weird happened this week:

My students came to school wearing jackets. We didn't turn on the classroom fans or open the windows. I wore long sleeves and wasn't hot or uncomfortable. The temperatures were in the -gasp!- upper seventies/lower eighties. 

Storms and hurricanes blowing over Mexico and other parts of Central America have brought almost a week of constant raining to Nicaragua. With it came a cool breeze and only tiny hints of the sun here and there. Yesterday for lunch my roommates and I had grilled cheese, tomato soup, and apple cider - we almost felt like it was fall. 

The rain does bring some issues. For example, my shoes are always wet and my clothes have been hanging on the clothesline for almost a week and still aren't dry (I am sure they have the very pleasant musty smell right now). The rains bring actual problems besides minor personal inconveniences. Some parts of the country have seen flooding, landslides, and a collapsed bridge. Guatemala and Mexico have experienced a lot of damage as well.  I am thankful to live in a sturdy apartment on a paved road when many around me do not. Please pray for protection for those living in places where the rains cause much damage.

My classroom has also experienced a little flooding action. 

Because the field at school is muddy, my students have been deprived of playing soccer for ONE WHOLE WEEK. Who knew they could last so long?

xoxoxoxo
Laura

Report Cards

Report card time is upon us. Video games, groundings, and extra privileges hang in the balance, filling students with either excitement or extreme apprehension.

On the report cards there is also a conduct section. If only there was room to give some examples of specific classroom behavior I see in my class:

• Earlier this week I was writing a math problem on the board. When I turned back around to ask my students a question, I noticed that one of my students was lying on their chair on their stomach, with both their head and feet touching the floor on either side. When I asked him what exactly he was doing, he gave me a look like I talked to him in Japanese and told me he didn't actually know. That made two of us. 
• During the middle of some student presentations, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see one of my students hiding behind a pole, peeking around it like they were a super spy with a pretend gun in their hands. He ducked in and out, squatted down, and even covered his head. He forgot about my existence and didn't notice me until I was a couple of inches away from him.
• We have chapel every Wednesday with the 3rd - 6th graders. I sit strategically behind a couple of my extra-energy kids to keep and eye on them. During the middle of chapel, one of my students mentally left school and must have landed at a dance party, because the next thing I knew, he was doing the Macarena, complete with all the movements, right there in chapel.

Yep, those are my kids. It is hard to account for those moments on their report cards, so maybe I will just let them be fourth grade secrets.

If you have time this week, please pray for my first ever parent-teacher conferences. Thank you!

xoxoxoxo
Laura

Hardhats and Bats

October is here. In other words, perfect time to explore a bat cave! 

Before we met the bats, we checked out Masaya Volcano. It is active, has many craters, and is a little smelly - yay sulfur!

A look into one of the craters

Another crater, home to monkeys, snakes, deer, anteaters, bobcats, and some old bones.

The sun went down, we picked out our gear (hard hats and almost-dead flashlights), and got ready to hit the trail to the bat cave.

"Yay can't wait to go on this trail!"

"What was that? There are vipers that hang from the trees and the bats might fly in our faces?"

I don't think it was wise for our guide to tell us the bit about the snakes, but he did. We did some hiking and found the bats (and thankfully no snakes).

Just like the ones at the zoo, minus the cages.

Before we went into the cave, the guide took out his flashlight and started examining the trees for snakes. WHY?!

The above cave is not the one we explored, due to large quantities of bats and fumes, and small quantities of oxygen. We chose this one:

Lovely, isn't it? The bottom of the cave is covered with large tree roots. People used to hide in here during war times, and looonnng ago it was used for sacrifices.

The coolest part of the night was standing on the edge of the volcano and listening. You could here the magma and gases moving below. On some nights you can see some of the lava. Unfortunately, this was not one of those nights.

I find it impossible not to see God's craftsmanship in this country. As we were hiking, I looked out and saw the sunset. I looked down and saw the mouth of a volcano. I looked up and saw the crescent moon. How can I not notice Him? 
....

That was my Saturday night. My weeks have been just as entertaining, only instead of bats and caves I have little 4th graders and earthquake drills. Earthquake drills are slightly more enjoyable than fire drills, tornado drills, and lock down drills that I practiced in the States. No more squeezing in small bathrooms or filing hundreds of students down flights of stairs. Here is the average earthquake drill:
Hear the alarm.
Get under your desk and cover your head.
Count out loud to 30.
Line up and walk quickly to the soccer field.
Hold up your green all clear sign if you have all your students and no injuries, hold up red if there is a problem.

This week we also did some crafts that our St. Paul pen pals sent us:

xoxoxo
Laura

Ometepe

Mini-vacation to an island...

Sunny shores
Great view of volcanoes
Relaxing time with friends

But - this is Nicaragua, and Laura is traveling with you. Mishaps are sure to happen.

Some teacher friends and I decided to take a four day trip to Ometepe, a large island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua.

On the way to Ometepe, we heard something funny in the car, then quickly realized we had a flat tire.

After searching the car for a jack, we realized we did not actually have one. A random passerby tried to help and finally flagged down a taxi. Together they went into town to get supplies. They came back and the nice Nica man helped us out, but not before it started to rain like crazy.

Another man came by to see what the action was all about. Turns out he didn't want to help us, but wanted to steal someone's wallet. After he successfully did that, we went on our merry way with the nasty, stinky tire crammed into the backseat. 

We found a tire place close by and got rid of the tire and put air in our tires, just to be safe. The tire man was impressed by the damage done to the tire.

By this time we very worried that we were going to miss the ferry that was to take us and our vehicle to the island. We drove and drove... and made it with five minutes to spare. From the ferry, we had a beautiful view of the island. One of those moments where you have to stop and thank God for the beauty of his creation.

The island is home to two volcanoes, Concepción and Maderas. Concepción is the cone shaped one behind me and Rebecca and is still active.
On day two we trekked up a part of Maderas to a waterfall.

I was a little winded when we made it to the waterfall, but it was worth it.

Later we spent some time at Ojo de Agua, a crystal clear natural spring.

Coconut juice anyone?

We spent some time at a beach and did some kayaking in a lagoon with an awesome view of the volcanoes and some monkeys in the surrounding trees. The only downside was getting bitten by angry fire ants.

Ready for our next mishap? One night my friends thought they would like to wake up early the next day to see the sun rise over the beach. I generally don't think waking up for any activity, no matter how great, is a good idea, so I decided to sleep in. I was sharing my room with Erin. She set her alarm clock for 5:30 am. Her phone had been having issues recently and her alarm went off at 1:30 instead of at 5:30. She hopped out of bed, grabbed her camera, and closed the door. Our door was very loud, and no matter how quietly you shut it, it still banged and made a loud noise. I was in the middle of having a frightening dream when I heard the door slam. I looked all around the room and finally realized it was the door and that Erin was not in bed. I tried to rack my brain for all the possible reasons that she would not be in bed at 1:30 in the morning, and finally came up with the conclusion that she must have been kidnapped. Obviously I was still in dream mode and not thinking rationally AT ALL. I freaked out for a while, but was so tired that I started to fall back asleep. Just then Erin came through the door and I yelled, "Where have you been?!" She explained that she sat outside waiting for the sun to come up when she realized that it was still very dark. She kept checking her watch and figured it must be wrong, so she changed the time on it, instead of on her cell phone. Finally she realized her phone must be off and came back to see what time it really was, where she met me angrily questioning her.

The next morning the fun continued when my other friend got locked in her room for a couple of hours and had to shout out her window to get help. On the plus side, we had a great view from the hotel and also some great sunsets at night.

Did you know that I have a habit of missing planes, buses, and other vehicles when I am traveling? It's true. Sometimes it's my fault, other times it's my alarm clock's fault, or it could be a plane delay's fault. I missed numerous flights last year on the way home from Bolivia. Suzi and I overslept and missed our plane in Chicago. In Spain I missed a bus to see a castle - twice. I had that feeling before I went to bed the last night of our trip. I triple checked my cell phone alarm clock. Because there was not a free outlet in our room, I had it charging in the lobby and my friend was going to bring it in with her. I woke up in the middle of the night and was nervous that maybe she forgot my phone. There were no windows in our room, so there was no light. I shuffled my way around the room to find the door and looked for the phone in the lobby and realized she did bring it in. My phone was in the room, but I didn't know where, so I couldn't put it next to me. I went to sleep and woke up about seven more times during the night, worried we weren't going to wake up on time. What happens next? You got it, my alarm didn't go off. We woke up at 8:10 and were supposed to leave to catch the ferry in time at 8:15. Thankfully, we made it with 5 minutes to spare, albeit a little dirty and smelly.

Oh, the adventures of traveling. We stopped at a restaurant on the way home, and I got in just a little more time to relax before the craziness of the school week.

xoxoxo
Laura