Crimes and Punishment

Discipline.

I'm talking about penalizing "bad" student behaviour. It's a subject that comes up once in a while here at BECA.

Personally, I'm not a fan of it. I'm a firm believer in using rewards to incent as opposed to using punishment to dissuade.

Nevertheless, I guess there comes a time, when you have to put your foot down and say "enough is enough."

One of these times occurred this month (May). Four students decided to go off on their own, change their program of studies, and enroll in an extra English course - without informing BECA administration. That's a big no-no.

Incredulously, they somehow managed to convince the school administration to give them a 50% discount for the English course and scrape together the monthly $6 fees. Huh???

Where did that money come from? (A sympathetic grandfather, a government bonus, a sister . . . it turns out.)

But what to do? These are young adults, after all. It was quite a mess.

What made it more difficult was to the end they maintained their innocence and two of the participants actually blamed another student for not informing them that they were doing something wrong.

That is when I drew the line. "Come on you guys, let's accept some responsibility here."

In the end, we decided that they had to be disciplined. (They go to the bottom of the list to raise money for their careers for 2011, amongst other things.)

I applaud their desire to learn. I just figure that we have to maintain some order here and enforce some rules. Isn't the integrity of the BECA program at stake?

Or does the integrity of the program really matter??? I'm not sure.

Stay in touch, dear reader. Something tells me there will be more to this story.

(Hopefully not) to be continued.

10 Charming Oddities of My Day-to-Day Life in Masaya, Nicaragua

There are some things when you live in a different place that strike you as just damn odd. Masaya, Nicaragua is no exception.

However, I've noticed that with a little time -- I've been here now almost 3 years -- I've come to appreciate some of these "oddities."

Here is my list of "charming" oddities (in no particular order):

     1) "Thank you" means "no thank you" (more often than not).

     2) The hairstylist washes your hair AFTER they finish cutting it.

     3) There are stop signs at the intersections with traffic signals.

     4) You are a gringo even if you don't come from the United States.

     5) Nicaraguans drink instant coffee even though ground Nicaraguan coffee is excellent.

     6) The taxi driver will pick up more passengers while enroute to your destination (and will sometimes drop them off before you!)

     7) The taxi driver will take you with him to buy gas, without asking.

     8) It doesn't cost anything to receive cellular phone calls.

     9) EVERYONE has a cell phone. (See #8)

     10) Obituaries via loudspeaker. Huh? Yep, it's true. I couldn't believe my ears the first time. Here in Masaya the tradition is to announce the death of your loved ones via loudspeaker on a slowly moving vehicle.

Celebrate the differences!

Paying More

How would you feel if the gardening service (or, for you Canadians, snow-shovelling service) charged you $75 and charged the neighbor $50 . . . and your yard (errr, sidewalk) was bigger?

I don't think you would like it too much. Well that happens here to me in Nicaragua.

Not always.

Not everyday.

But it happens.

I call it paying "el precio gringo" (gringo price).

It used to really bother me and I'd get really worked up about it -- especially if it something as blatant as paying a higher fare on a bus when the person sitting right beside you is paying less.

You could say it is a fact of life for me here in Nicaragua. What's a person to do?

I break it down this way. When it comes to personal expenses I have learned to accept the idea. They probably have the idea that "gringos" have more money and can afford to pay more. Guess what? Generally speaking, they are right and I can't argue with the logic.

It gets a little more complicated when it comes to BECA. I still get annoyed when "they" want to charge the BECA Foundation more for stuff just because we are a North American organization. Now we are talking about the money of donors. Moreover, we are talking about money that goes to helping Nicaraguans! Geez.

Here is a summary of my "paying more" strategy:

BECA stuff: Fortunately, we have Antonio. I stay away from negociations in the hopes that they not realize a "gringo" is involved. Sometimes it makes a difference.
Walter stuff: Pay the "precio gringo." And smile.