Paul in Nicaragua

Elections

2008-11-20T09:32:00.002-06:00

As exciting as the U.S. elections were, Nicaragua´s might be even more exciting (or crazy and dangerous, depending on your perspective). The mayoral elections here were held on November 9th. Here in Corinto, the result were interesting. The night of the elections, the Sandinista party announced victory and started to celebrate, only to find that the Liberal party also had declared victory and started their own celebration parade. The following day I had a friend who decided to hang out with the crowd in front of the election center. I call him every hour for updates and here were the results.

10 am - Liberals won.
11 am - Sandinistas won.
12 pm - Liberals won.
1 pm - Sandinistas won.
2 pm - Liberals won.

And it pretty much went on like that for the rest of the day and the following days. A couple of days ago they unoficially announced that the Sandinistas won, but the Liberals are still disputing it. Also, this race is interesting to me because the candidate for mayor was the director at my health center so I knew him well.

The good thing about Corinto, is that it hasnt turned into violence like the race has in Managua. The Liberals are claiming fraud and are fighting with the Sandinistas. Whats so interesting to me is that this is all over a mayoral election! But, it is the first election since Sandinista Daniel Ortega has been back in power so both parties are fired up about it. One thing I´ve learned here is that political parties are something that runs deep. The civil war here in the 80s was to some extent (although not completely) the Liberals vs. Sandinistas (of course with the U.S. meddling hand in there making everything much more violent). As a result, people here are VERY political and get very emotional about elections.

I am completely safe here in Corinto. We have been told by the Peace Corps office to stay out of Managua until this issue gets resolved. Hopefully things will resolve themselves soon and everyone can go back to normal life. The following is a NY Times article about the protests. In my opinion, it paints the picture a little more dramatically than it is, but I havent been in Managua in the past few days.

here is the link

Claims of a Rigged Vote Foment Bitter Protests in Nicaragua

Rain

2008-10-20T12:49:00.002-05:00

I think that is my most frequently used title of my blogposts, "Rain". The good news is that the rain (seems like it) has stopped! October is the rainiest month in Nicaragua, and I would imagine most of Central America. It is also the month that God decides to close the water spout and not let it rain for another 6 months. Let me explain. The rainy season starts in may and it gradually rains more and more until October. October is characterized by gray skies and weeks where it only stops raining for 1 hour at a time. We just went through one of those weeks (compounded by Tropical Storm Number 16, which apparently never got big enough to deserve a name). Last week it was constantly raining including one day where it literally torrentially downpoured for 12 straight hours. During this month, there is no such thing as dry clothes, everything has a nice damp feeling to it. But, miracle of miracles, yesterday and today have been super sunny and no rain. Although this is not a confirmed end to the rainy season (and since I am writing a blog about it we will probably have another week of torrential downpours) it sure feels like it. The odd thing about the end to the rainy season is that its not gradual. One day it pours all day, the next day its sunny and then you don´t see rain again until may. Its like God realizes he accidentally left the garden hose on and abruptly shuts it off. Anyways, heres hoping that the rains have stopped so that my clothes stop smelling moldy and the risk of me showing up to work soaking wet are slim to none.

My month...

2008-09-18T17:47:00.002-05:00

The last four weeks or so have seemed like a bit of a haze. I feel like a lot has been going on but at the same time, I haven´t done much.

Part of this has to do with my focus on my post-Peace Corps life. After a couple of months of working here as a Community Health volunteer I decided I want to get my Masters of Public Health when I finish Peace Corps. So in the past couple of months I have been researching different schools I might go to. And realizing that application deadlines for fall 2009 are in December I realized I also have to take the GRE! So the past month I have dedicated a good amount of time to the GRE (hoping my test scores will make up for my unmotivated/unfocused undergrad experience). It was fun being a student again and learning college level things. And the vocab study has proven to be a little easier based on the spanish vocab I know (although the spanish meanings trick you on a few english words). I´ll be taking the GRE in October so I felt that September was my month to buckle down and study. At first I thought being in Nicaragua and studying for the GRE would be difficult, but since I dont have TV or internet in my house it has proven much easier! All was going great with my studies until...

I got sick with who knows what. The last weekend in August I woke up one morning with a fever. I felt fine the rest of the day, then when I went to bed I had a fever. This continued for a couple of days, fever and body pains at night and feeling fine during the day. After 5 straight days I figured I should get some tests done. I did, and nothing came back. Meanwhile, the fever and body pains continued but now not only at night. I went and visited the Peace Corps doctor who said I must have an infection in my lungs (by this point, my lungs were hurting too, and my tonsils were quite swollen). He put me on amoxicilin, and that didnt do anything and I continued with the fever (about 2 weeks of fever for those of you keeping score at home) so he put me on a stronger antibiotic. Finally, that seemed to work. I started those pills at the beginning of this week and I have steadily improved. I feel about 95% healthy at this point which is a huge improvement from the previous part of this month. Yesterday I started to get a rash on my body, leading everyone (including myself) to conclude that I must have had Dengue Fever this whole time. Although my symptoms dont match up exactly, Dengue Fever is chararcterized by a rash at the end that looks exactly like the rash I have right now. Dengue is passed by mosquitos and there is no treatment or cure. (Although I´m not sure if I had Dengue, learn about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengue_Fever). You just have to ride out the symptoms: body pains and fever, ending with a rash. Dengue can be dangerous but only when someone has gotten it multiple times. Since this is my first time, and I´m 6 months from leaving, I think I´m safe! Anyways, I´m not sure if you are interested in my health or not, but this has dominated my life for the past couple of weeks. It was difficult for me to be working because I felt weak during the day. I tried studying for the GRE, but vocab just doesn´t stick in the brain when you have an intense headache!

Anyways...thats been my life for the past couple of weeks. Gracias a Dios, I feel better now, which is great because tomorrow I am taking a trip to Costa Rica to visit my sister! It will be a 12+ hour bus ride, but worth it since I hardly ever have a chance to see her and her husband. I´ll take lots of pics and try to blog about it when I get back. I hope all is well with everyone. It was Central American Independence day on the 14th and 15th, so Happy Independence Day!

Peace Corps Budget Problems...

2008-08-28T18:19:00.002-05:00

Some of you may have already heard me complain about budget problems in Peace Corps Nicaragua. Not only is our stipend very out of date (using lasts year prices when many basic goods like rice and beans have more than doubled in price, although PC Nicaragua is currently fixing our stipend issue) but lots of other things like our subscription to Newsweek (free stacks of the magazine in the office every week) and a yearly conference for all the volunteers in country are being cancelled. Katrina, the other Peace Corps Volunteer in Corinto with me, brought the following article to my attention. As I assumed, Peace Corps Nicaragua isnt the only country with serious budget problems. The unfortunate thing is that most politicians (and Americans) look favorably on the Peace Corps and had had plans to expand it. But for international economic problems it is less possible. To me, its a simple issue of getting your priorities straight...

Peace Corps to Pare Ranks of Volunteers:
Despite Bush's Goal of Doubling Program's Size, Tight Budget Forces Cuts
By Christopher LeeWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, August 22, 2008; A15

The Peace Corps, the popular service program that President Bush once promised to double in size, is preparing to cut back on new volunteers and consolidate recruiting offices as it pares other costs amid an increasingly tight budget, according to agency officials.

The program, which has a budget of $330.8 million, is facing an anticipated shortfall of about $18 million this fiscal year and next, officials say. Much of the gap can be attributed to the declining value of the dollar overseas and the rising cost of energy and other commodities, officials said. That inflates expenses for overseas leases, volunteer living costs and salaries for staff abroad, most of whom are paid in local currencies.

Those factors "have materially reduced our available resources and spending power," Peace Corps Director Ronald A. Tschetter wrote in a July 22 letter to Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), a member of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds the program. "Tough budgetary decisions must be made now in order to ensure a financially healthy agency next fiscal year," he added.

The agency estimates its foreign- currency-related losses at $9.2 million for fiscal 2008 alone, spokeswoman Amanda Beck said yesterday.

In part, the program is caught in the political standoff between lawmakers and the president over the federal budget. If, as seems likely, Democrats delay final passage of the spending bills that fund the government until after Bush leaves office next year, programs such as the Peace Corps could be forced to operate at current funding levels indefinitely, administration officials said.

Beck said the agency could experience another $9 million in losses in fiscal 2009 in a "worst-case scenario" in which the agency has to operate under a year-long continuing resolution.

But that scenario is very unlikely, McCollum said yesterday, noting that her subcommittee has signed off on the agency's $343.5 million budget request and its Senate counterpart has approved $337 million.

"It's only going to be a short amount of time before a new budget gets through, and the Congress is committed to moving Peace Corps in an upward direction," she said, adding that the agency should ask for short-term supplemental funding if it needs it.

Beck said the "best course of action" would be for Congress to approve the president's full budget request.
In a July 21 letter to Tschetter, McCollum wrote that she had "serious doubts" about the agency's plan to close regional recruiting offices in Minneapolis and Denver by Jan. 1.

"It is my goal to see a growing number of highly qualified, diverse and determined Americans of all ages committing themselves to serve our country as Peace Corps volunteers," she wrote. "Achieving this goal will require . . . a strong nationwide recruiting presence."

Tschetter described the closures as "mergers" with other offices in Chicago and Dallas that are part of a move toward a "field-based recruiting model" expected to save $1.5 million. Thirteen people will be reassigned to other jobs in the agency, officials said.

The tight fiscal climate also means an anticipated scaling back in new volunteers next year by 400, wiping out planned growth and leaving the overall number of volunteers at about 8,000, according to Tschetter. Volunteers serve for 27 months and are paid a stipend of about $2,500 annually.

Managers at Peace Corps headquarters in Washington have been asked to cut their budgets by 15.5 percent. The agency even plans to stop providing copies of Newsweek magazine to volunteers in the field, something it has done since the 1980s. (Newsweek is owned by The Washington Post Co., parent company of The Washington Post.)

"It just seemed like an extravagance," Beck said. "Everything is under consideration, including the director's travel."

Kevin Quigley, president of the National Peace Corps Association, a nonprofit group of former volunteers, said, "I worry about what the [budgetary] implications are for the next president, who we anticipate will have plans to expand Peace Corps."

Established in 1961 by President Kennedy, the Peace Corps provides skilled volunteers to other countries while promoting mutual understanding between Americans and people of other nations. About 190,000 volunteers have served in 139 countries since its inception.

The 8,079 volunteers today number the most in 37 years but are far fewer than the goal of 14,000 by fiscal 2007 that Bush set in his 2002 State of the Union speech.

Expanding the program remains a popular idea. Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has pledged to double the size of the Peace Corps by 2011. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), his Republican counterpart, has praised national service and said there should have been a stronger national push to encourage people to join the Peace Corps and other volunteer organizations after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Another visit!

2008-07-26T18:54:00.002-05:00

You guys must think, does Paul work there in Nicaragua or just roam around travelling Nicaragua like a vagabond? Well, a little of both I guess! Last week I had a great friend come visit me (we´ve been friends since we were 4 and I made sure to point that out to all Nicas, they were quite impressed...as am I!).

Anyways, this trip was a little more work and a little less vagabond then other visits I had. Partially due to my lack of vacation days and my friend´s flexibility, we did a weekend trip to Granada and then spent the week working/hanging out in Corinto. It was great because she got a great idea of what my life is like here (both work and play) and got to meet all the people important to me here. While in the area of Granada I got to go to one of the more beautiful places in Nicaragua that I still had never been too, the Mirador de Catarina. It overlooks a volcano crater lake (I had visited the lake part on my parent´s visit, but never been to the overlook), and as you can tell is very beautiful...

One day while we were in Corinto,we decided to do a little day trip to Leon (1.5 hour bus ride away, and my favorite city in Nicaragua). The biggest cathedral in Central America in in the central park there. Here is a pic from the top of the cathedral looking at another church in Leon and some volcanoes in the distance.

While in Granada, we visited Volcano Mombacho where you can go ziplining. They are long cords connected between trees and you hook yourself on and essentially glide through the trees. I had been ziplining once before, but this time they let us do some crazy stunts such as hanging upside down!

And going two at a time...

I like this pic that my friend took because it sort of captures my life here. I am always on a bike. My work is not stationary, it always takes me from the hospital, to someones house, to the mayors office, to a youth group meeting, etc. And my mode of transportation, and the mode of transportation of most people in Corinto, is by bike. My bike is rickety and old, but I love it (most of the time). Some of my friends here have lovingly nicknamed it my ¨Mercedes-Benz¨. I love the fact that I get everywhere by bike, but sometimes at midday I would love a real Mercedes-Benz with air-conditioning. Biking to work in the states is possible, but not as easy as it is here, so I´ll enjoy it while I can.

As always, friend visits are great because I get to share Nicaragua with them. Peace Corps has had the same 3 goals since John F. Kennedy started the program in 1961.

Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

When I have friends visiting me, I get to share the things that I have learned about Nicaragua, and they get to experience it firsthand, which is what the 3rd goal is all about.

Now, its back to normal life. Hopefully, I´ll be able to get work back into high gear quickly before the heavy rains start in september an interrupt everything!

Funerals

2008-07-09T18:25:00.003-05:00

Visiting or living in another country it is always interesting to observe the culture and traditions. These traditions are usually strongest regarding important life events (ie. weddings, funerals).

Unfortunately, I have gotten to witness firsthand the traditions regarding the death of a loved one here in Nicaragua. I had been to one funeral here before but it was of the grandma of an acquantaince so I just went to the funeral mass. Sadly, yesterday there was a death here that literally hit much closer to home. My neighbor, David, 35 yrs old, died suddenly of a heart attack in the middle of the night.

David had been Mr. Fix-It in my house, helping me get everything in order when I moved in and helping me with anything from a broken toliet to a falty light switch. His wife, I have always considered my ¨mom¨ of the neighborhood who can help me answer questions such as ¨How get out ______ stain¨ and always brings me extras of the food she makes. Two of David´s kids are my best friends from the neighborhood whom I have gone to play baseball, go running or just hang out in the hammocks in my house. Anyways, needless to say, I consider them a great family and this was a devastating blow to them.

In Nicaragua, from the time a person dies, the body is not to be left alone, and typically should always be with the family. For this reason, the night immediately after the death, the family has a vela in their home. This is very similar to a wake but with a few important differences. The family rents plastic chairs by the hundreds (businesses that rent plastic chairs for all types of events are plentiful) and puts them in front of their house. Around 7, or dusk, people start to show up to accompany the family. The body is in an open casket in the front room of the family house and as people show up they give their condolescences to the family and pray at the body. It is customary that the people coming to visit the family will give them bread or coffee grains. This is because the family is expected to make coffee and give a piece of bread to all of the guests throughout the night. The main difference between a vela and a wake is that the vela doesnt end until the sunrises the next day. Although, this is not to say that everyone stays that long. The closer you are to the family, or person that died, the longer you would stay.

There is an exception to this rule. Homeless drunks are prevalent in Nicaragua. The drunks show up for the free bread and coffee and end up staying the whole night drinking. It is considered very acceptable to drink alcohol at the vela. The idea of the vela is to accompany the family at all costs, so neighborhood teenagers will set up a table and play cards all night. Although an American might consider drinking and playing cards at a wake very offensive, it is not offensive here and it is very much a part of the vela. I said to a woman that I was at the vela with, ¨Its great that there are so many people here to support the family, but I really dont like that the drunks show up, to me its a lack of respect to the family¨, the woman looked at me a bit funny as if she had never imagined the concept of a vela without drunks. She responded ¨The drunks are needed because they lighten the mood a little bit and they make sure that the family is accompanied until the sunrises¨. I guess the drunks do serve a purpose in town...

I stayed at the vela until about 2am which seemed to me like an appropriate time for a close neighbor who had a 8am meeting the next day. There are all sorts of interesting beliefs associated with the vela, the family has to be with the body all night so that bad spirits don´t prevent the soul from reaching heaven. Also, (with varying degrees of who believes this 100%) it is considered dangerous for anyone who is pregnant or with an unhealed cut to go to a vela. This is because the body emits something that if it enters a living body through a cut can kill them. Generally, people with cuts have to cover them, and pregnant women either stay away or cover their stomach in a sheet.

The vela ends at sunrise and then the preparations for the funeral begin. In the case of David´s funeral, it was at 2pm. Friends and family meet at the family´s house a half hour before the mass and then there is a procession carrying the body to the church. After the mass, there is another procession through town that ends at the bus stop. At the bus stop, the family will have rented 3 or 4 buses to take all the people to the cementery (in the case of Corinto, since it is a fairly small island, the cementery is on the mainland, about a 10 min drive away). At the gravesite, a close family member nails the coffin shut which is generally very emotional, and then close male family members lower the casket into the hole with rope and take turns with a shovel filling in the hole. Also very emotional.

Anyways, that is the typical funeral here in Corinto. I think in bigger cities here there might be traditions closer to U.S. style. For those of you that are religious, pray for David´s family, they will have a rough time emotionally and making ends meet for a while.

What is interesting about living in a different country/culture, is that on the surface things are very different, but being there with the family at this funeral, you realize that all humans have the exact same feelings and emotions.

P-A-R-T-Y

2008-07-02T12:18:00.002-05:00

As my loyal readers know, we are trying to raise money for the construction of the Adolescent Clinic here in Corinto. Well the best way for any teenage in the world to raise money is to have a party (more or less like a high school social...but with a few differences).

Xiomara and I, with the help of our loyal team of youth, went around town arranging all the details, buying soda to sell, paying the DJ, asking permission from the police, and reserving the location. Although, this was sort of like a high school social, people not in high school also go to it. And since the drinking age is 18, and there are a lot of people here in high school over 18, any time you throw a party, you have to serve beer or else no one will come. I was hestitant to serve beer because this was a fundraiser for an ADOLESCENT Clinic, and I didnt want people to get the wrong impression. But people convinced me that without beer, theres no party. And all we had to do was make sure we didnt serve to minors.

We were nervous the day of the party for many reasons. We had invested a certain amount of money in just DJ, soda, beer, and reserving the location. Which means, if a certain amount of people didnt show up, we would lose money. Another big worry was rain. Its the rainy season here, and if its raining people dont leave their houses. So if it rained that night, we would have lost a lot of money. Luckily...it didnt rain.

I volunteered/was assigned to be the bartender at the event. I forgot how much fun it is to be the bartender, even if I was only serving cans of beer and bottle of coke. I got to relive my college bartender days for a brief moment. Unfotunately, tips are not customary in this culture...

The DJ pumped reggaeton, salsa, bachata and carribean music the whole night and the place filled up quite nicely. We sold all the drinks we needed to sell and had enough people come that we made money. It was a success but we need to do about 20 other events like it to make the money we need! But now that we know how to throw a party, we´ll be able to make more money in the future. In the meantime, my life as a Peace Corps Volunteers has become party/event planner (and part-time bartender) and I´m enjoying it!

Friends Visit

2008-06-21T11:37:00.003-05:00

I had the chance to spend the last week here in Nicaragua as a tourist and it felt pretty good! The occasion? I had two friends from the states come and visit me. They rented a car so we were travelling in style! I usually travel in the buses and it made me realize that things are just so much easier in your own car. Although, I made the recommendation, ´You totally dont need 4WD, all the roads to the places we´re going are really nice´. I guess my mind just conveniently forgot about the bad roads we had to drive on. But, their little Hyundai Accent did great and there were no extra charges at the end of the week despite bottoming out on potholed dirt roads multiple times.

We started out the week in San Juan del Sur at the fanciest resort there. Everytime I go to San Juan del Sur, I go on a budget. Meaning my lodging is cheap and I try to do cheap meals. But this time, in celebration of my friends being there, I decided to dip into some of that american money savings and REALLY be on vacation. Let me just tell you, it was VERY enjoyable. I tried to just ignore the prices and not think about my food bill in comparison to my monthly rent in Corinto. And luckily, down here, no prices are out of control so you never spend much more than $15 on a meal, even when you´re ´splurging´. We had a great time trying out different restaurants, lounging by the pool/beach, and drinking $3 margaritas that were 2 for 1.

Next we headed to Granada, stopping at Volcano Mombacho along the way. We did the island tour outside of Granada, stopping by monkey island and having a howler monkey crawl into our tiny little boat! It was really hilarious, a very tame monkey, just looking around for some food! We also found out that you can rent an island house for about $180 a night and it can sleep 10 people. I took a mental note of that and hopefully I will complete my dream of someday attending/throwing an island party in Granada. That night we went out to a live salsa band bar and attempted (and failed) to dance like latinos.

The next day we headed to Corinto, stopping along the way in the colonial city of Leon for lunch and a tour of the Cathedral (biggest in all of Central America). We headed into Corinto and my friends (two rather attractive white girls) had to deal with a slightly uncomfortable situation. We had to park the car in one spot, then take a open air bike taxi across town to my house. This turned out to be more like a gringa parade for all the Corinto men to stop and stare at. It was a fairly successful parade based on the crowds reactions of whistling and shouting. Needless to say, they felt pretty uncomfortable.

Whistling and staring at girls is part of the culture here and the woman here arent fans of it, but arent too offended either. They are just used to it. So bringing in two gringas, who to them essentially look like movie stars, they just can´t help but stare. I have darker features, and am a male so I dont get as much attention here (although I do get whistles from high school girls sometimes), but many Peace Corps Volunteers with the blonde hair/blue eyes, equate their experience here to being a movie star. People are always watching you and interested in what you´re doing. Obviously, this dies down as your community gets used to you, buy the extra attention is an undeniable feature of life here that we all have to get used to (some more than others).

Anyways, once the initial parade was over, we settled into a relaxing evening in the hammocks of my house and ate a nice homecooked rice and beans meal prepared by yours truly. The next morning I took them by the hospital, showing them where I work and introducing them to a few of the people I work with. Then we headed out of Corinto toward Managua so they could catch their flight back to the US of A.

Although visiting Corinto was not the most glamorous or fun part of the trip, I´m glad that my friends got a chance to see it. They got a better idea of my life here so that when I am done with my Peace Corps experience, I will have friends (and family) at home that understand my time here. Plus, like I said the last time I had friends come and visit, its great because the people that meet my friends in Corinto, will be asking me about my friends for the rest of my time here. Visits like this help the people in Corinto understand my pre-Corinto life a little bit better.

Anyways, vacation time is over and Monday starts normal work all over again. We´ll work hard to raise the last funds for the project and continue overseeing the construction. Although I pumped my friends for all the gossip back home, I havent recieved any updates recently, how about an email? Enjoy your summer!

Pics of the project...

2008-06-21T11:19:00.005-05:00

In my last blog post I mentioned that we are working on a project to build an Adolescent Clinic. Well, the construction is plugging along, here are some pics of the development...

This is Xiomara and I, the ones seeing the project through. She is one of the most dedicated employees I know. She is continuing working on this project despite the fact that the hospital has told her that they no longer have funds to be able to pay her. She says that she doesnt want to see this project fall because it is important to the adolescents in Corinto, so she will at least work until it is completed. Myself and other from the hospital and local NGOs are doing everything we can to make sure she starts getting paid again because it would be a big blow to the adolescent program at the hospital if we lost her.

This is the adolescente house. The walls are all up and in this picture they are working on putting in a front porch. With solid funding through the rest of the project, the Clinic should be completed in August.

Some workers completing the porch.

Xiomara pretending to mix the cement and help out. We both wanted to help out a bit with the construction but realized that we know pretty much nothing about building houses. In the background is part of the hospital.

Neglected blog...

2008-06-11T17:39:00.002-05:00

Wow, my last post was April 9th? Thats embarassing. In my defense I have been busy the past 2 months. I always had a blog post planned out in my head but then every time I went to the internet cafe I didnt have enough time (or money) to sit down and write it. Anyways, excuses excuses, I´ll let you know what Ive been busy with.

First off, I havent updated people with what exactly my job is in a really long time. And, since my job is slightly more concrete now than it was last year when I was starting out it makes sense to give you guys an update. My job is more or less co-director of the Corinto Health Center´s Adolescent Program. Since adolescents here don´t get a lot of guidance from their parents or the schools on topics such as healthly living practices, HIV, STIs, Self-Esteem, and leadership skills, the health center here runs a program to help create healthier adolescents in Corinto. Or at least thats what my counterpart Xiomara and I have turned it into. We get zero funds for activities from the health center itself so we rely on local NGOs that have the same goals that we do. Part of why I have been busy is because at the beginning of April the health center finally gave Xiomara and I our own (temporary) office. This basically changed everything because before that we would kind of roam the health center finding desk space to use when someone was gone, but now we have a place to put our things and more importantly, the adolescents can come to the health center and know where to find people to help them for any question or problem.
We didnt realize the potential at the time, but the office has turned into some what of an after school center. In the afternoon adolescents are showing up for help with homework or to help us with our job. Its great! The goal is to better connect adolescents with the health center, and here they are, showing up without even being asked! This all is the precursor to the big project we have been working on since last august which is the construction of an Adolescent Center. We started building in May and are hoping to finish in August. This adolescent center will have a space similar to our office where adolescents can come and hangout, do homework, or have meetings. There will also be a part where a doctor and nurse will exclusively see adolescent patients. The idea is that adolescents will feel comfortable looking for help with any questions or problems. Xiomara and I have been very busy overseeing the start of the construction, organizing our work in a way that will take advantage of the space we will have, organizing some fundraisers to raise the last $1000 to complete the construction, and of course our everyday activities that involve training adolescents on the important topics of the adolescence. So as you can see we´ve been busy! My normal internet time was in the late afternoon but now the kids are hanging out in our office until around 6pm so I dont have as much time for internet.
In addition to my work in Corinto, I have also been involved with giving classes to the new training group that arrived at the beginning of May. As you may remember from my training, it lasts 11 weeks and involves language classes and classes given by current volunteers related to their future job/life. At the end of May and beginning of June, I went to Managua to plan and give two different classes to the new Small Business trainees. I gave a class on how Nicaraguan gender roles will affect their job and life, and a class on Facilitation Techniques. I really like working with the new trainees because they have a lot of enthusiasm and are SO curious about what it will be like when they finally get out in the field as volunteers. It always reminds of how much Ive learned in the past year and a half (today I am completing 1 year and 5 months in Nicaragua, can you believe it?).
Anyways, thats what Ive been up to. I´ll try to post pictures of some of the activities and of the construction of the Adolescent House. I have two friend from home visiting me this saturdayfor a week so it will be a great vacation! I hope the summertime is treating everyone well!

What is the What

2008-04-09T19:48:00.005-05:00

I just got finished reading a phenomenol book and want recommend it to all of you. It is called What is the What. I read a lot of good books here in Nicaragua and this probably is the best one that I´ve read. It is a memoir/novel about a man from the Sudan who was one of the Lost Boys during the civil war there and the book is about him escaping from his war-torn hometown, encountering other orphan boys escaping from the war, making a ´home´ in a refugee camp, and finally living in Atlanta with other Sudanese refugees.

It is classified as a ´memoir/novel´ because it written by David Eggers (great author) based on the true stories of the life of Valentino Achak Deng. Valentino is not a writer so he had Eggers write his life story in the first person voice of Valentino. It cannot be classified specifically as non-fiction memoir because Valentino cannot guarantee that his memories of traumas and conversations are completely accurate (much of the story takes place when Valentino is 6 and 7 years old), but he does say that the whole story is written as historically accurate as he can remember.

The powerful stories of Valentino complimented by the excellent writing of Eggers makes this book one of the best I´ve ever read. It sheds a lot of light on the situation in Sudan the same way The Kite Runner and A thousand Splendid Suns sheds light on Afghanistan. I never really understand the Sudan/Darfur situation until I read this book. The book can be both depressing and comical but I highly recommend it. Let me know if you read it...

What is the What
by David Eggers
http://www.amazon.com/What-Dave-Eggers/dp/1932416641
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/books/review/Prose.t.html

Isla de Ometepe/Friends visit

2008-04-05T14:25:00.002-06:00

Holy Week for me here in Nicaragua meant a week for vacation from work, learning lots of wierd new Catholic rules, and two of my best friends visiting me from the states!

More on the Catholic rules later, let me tell you about the vacation...

We decided to go to Isla de Ometepe, one of the most beautiful spots in Nicaragua. In fact it is a candidate to be one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World, unfortunately, it is in 124th place in that contest. http://www.new7wonders.com/nature/en/nominees/northamerica/c/OmetepeIsland/

Nonetheless, it is a very beautiful, unique spot in the world. Nicaragua is known as the ¨Land of Lakes and Volcanoes¨ (a bit cooler than ¨Land of Lincoln¨, in my opinion). The Isla de Ometepe brings this nickname to life in a grand fashion. The island is really two connected volcanoes in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. Lake Nicaragua is the largest lake in Central America and the island of Ometepe the largest island in a freshwater lake in the world. I had never been to this 124th Natural Wonder of the World, so I thought it would be a great place to take my friends. They arrived at around 1pm on a Saturday (having had a flight from Chicago at 6am) and we headed straight for the islands. The trip to our lodging on the island took slightly longer than any of us expected but we arrived at 7pm at la Omaja (http://www.laomaja.com/).

It was dark when we arrived on Saturday night, but luckily the next morning we were rewarded with the views that la Omaja offered, including this sunset view later that day:
On that Sunday we hiked Volcano Maderas, supposedly the easier of the two volcano hikes on the island. It ended up being an 8 hour hike. We weren´t as lucky with our views this time, when we got to the top, the volcano was in a clould. Still a very pretty hike but the next day our sore muscles paid for it. The rest of the time we had on the island we just hung out. We went to the beach one day and to a natural spring another day. We celebrated St. Patty´s day as best we could with Nicaragua beers and rum. Not quite the same as Guiness and Irish Whiskey but it got the job done. Here are some pics of my friends from la Omaja. We weren´t very good at taking group shots or anything...

On Wednesday morning we left the island to head back to the mainland. This was the view of the island behind the ferry.

This is the ferry you ride on, it is about a 1 hour trip.

Ometepe is a gorgeous place to visit but it is fairly obvious that tourism is still fairly new. In some ways that was great, we were off the beaten path and seeing things that not many have. But in some ways not. La Omaja is a set of beatiful secluded cabañas with gorgeous views, but mobility from there was difficult. If you wanted to go anywhere else on the island you had to set up transportation the day before. There was one vehicle and it usually left in the morning and came back at night. I´m sure in 5 years things will look much different on Ometepe as Nicaragua is starting to realize its tourism potential. I´m glad I got to see it before it is overrun with tourists.

From Ometepe we went to the colonial city of Leon which is about 1.5 hours from Corinto. Unfortunately, many things, including the Cathedral, were closed because of holy week. So we just hung out with some other Peace Corps friends that were in Leon on their vacation as well.

On Thursday morning, we headed to Corinto so that my friends could meet some of my friends and people I work with in Nicaragua. We had a Nicaraguan version of a BBQ, which is making a huge soup. It seems wierd to make soup at midday on a hot day, but it was delicious. Although there were some language difficulties, I´m glad that my friends got a chance to meet my friendships here in Nicaragua and that my workmates had a chance to meet my friends. Now that the people here know my friends, they are always asking me how they are doing and if I´ve talked with them recently. Its nice when they take an interest in my life like that.

It was great to have friends from home visit, this way when I get back to the states other people will know what my past two years were like. We had a good time vacationing and now all three of us are back to our normal routines.

As far as wierd Catholic rules here are a few:

1. No sweeping the floor on certain holy days

2. No swimming on Holy Thursday or Good Friday (although only the very religious followed this)

3. No sex during the holy week (they interpret the ¨dont eat meat¨thing as not eating ¨human meat¨ aka, sex.

Of course, as with anywhere, only some actually follow these rules. I just thought it was interesting that the Catholic church, which is supposedly run by the Vatican, is so regionally different.

I hope everyone had a a good Easter and is enjoying the Spring! I´ll try to write more often in the future...

Sweet Fifteen

2008-03-08T14:34:00.002-06:00

In the U.S., we have the small tradition to celebrate the ¨Sweet 16¨ birthday of a young woman that is turning 16. Of course this old tradition has been popularized recently by the awful but great MTV show called ¨My Super Sweet Sixteen¨. Well, as many people already know, Latin America has had their version of a Sweet Sixteen party long before MTV even existed except that they celebrate the 15th birthday of a young woman. This is no doubt a very fun tradition here in Nicaragua but in some ways it has gotten out of control. Many consider the 15th birthday party a bigger party occasion than a marriage and spend accordingly. The 15th birthday party here often includes a tiered cake, DJ, and hundreds of guests. Although I think it´s excessive, Nicaraguans love any excuse for a party so a girl turning into a woman is as good an excuse as any!

The 15th birthday parties usually take place at the host´s house or a neighbor´s house but sometimes they rent out a bar or nightclub. Preparations include hiring a neighborhood lady to cook food for the guests (usually Arroz Relleno, rice with shredded chicken and vegetables). They almost always serve bottles of alcohol, depending on the religion of the family (Catholics drink, Evangelicals don´t). The color scheme of the party is always pink, pink, pink. The tradition is that the birthday girl wears a pink gown, the tablecloths, centerpieces and cake are all pink, and pink balloons and streamers for decorations. At more formal (and more expensive) 15th birthday parties the birthday girl will have a ¨court¨, or 6 of her closest girlfriends and 6 of her closest guy friends. This usually involves some sort of a dance sequence with a choreographer (not to be stereotypical, but this almost always is the only openly gay man in town). They practice this dance for months in advance. Since I work with adolescents, I know this too well because many kids will have to miss youth group meetings because ¨I have dance practice for _______´s 15th birthday party¨ .

This past weekend I went to the 15th birthday party of the niece of the woman I work closely with (also this girl used to be in one of my youth groups). This was a more low-key 15th birthday party but still very nice. There were about 75 guests and it was considered a ¨small get-together¨. I helped with some of the decorations including the pink balloon heart behind the cake. This particular birthday girl, Genesis, chose not to wear the pink bubble-gum gown and instead just went with a regular dress...boring. Oh, and that cake top is a barbie doll with cake as a dress.

This is a really bad picture because you can´t see the girl, but the idea is to see the decorations in the background. These were the tables set up in the patio with all the various pink decorations. All in all we blew up about 150 balloons for the event, my lungs hurt afterwards.

This was at the end of the party. This is the woman I work with, Xiomara, and one of the youth that we work closely with, Danixia (a member of the youth group and also a close friend of the birthday girl).

As you can probably see, the 15th birthday party is a really big deal for the birthday girls and their families. There is no equivalent for guys turning 15. For girls it represents them turning into a woman. In the majority of girls, they are not allowed to date until they are 15. Although, this just means that a lot of girls date secretly before they turn 15. But it really is a significant birthday because they generally have a lot more freedoms from their parents after they turn 15. Also, I must point out that these extravagant birthday parties are generally thrown by upper middle class and high class type families. A familiy without resources might ask a relative in the U.S. to send money for a party or just not have a party. But even the families with money end up saving for close to a whole year to throw the party. Its easy to look at it as a waste of money, but it´s an event that the families will remember for the rest of their lives so you might as well make it memorable!

These are some pictures I took at the beach in Corinto. Of the coast of Corinto there are some small barrier islands, one of which has a lighthouse which makes for very pretty pictures.

Possible desktop background picture?

February

2008-02-23T16:10:00.002-06:00

I guess February has been a slow month for me. Ive been busy with work and everything else, but I guess not much out of the ordinary has happened. One event does stick out in my mind...

On Valentine´s Day (dia de San Valentin or Dia de Amor y Amistad) the city hall had an event for 5th and 6th graders in the central park in Corinto. Since I participate in the city wide Commision for Children and Adolescents, I was involved in the event. The event consisted of a drawing competition, poetry competition, and a dance competition. I was chosen to be in charge of the dance competition.

The participation in the poetry and drawing competition was weak. Only three participants in the drawing competition and 2 in the poetry competition. They prepared things before hand on what the Day of Love and Friendship/Valentine´s Day means to them. Although, I was impressed that two 6th grade boys got up in front of a group of 100 6th graders and read a poem they wrote about love and friendship. I guess poetry is a little more respected here among men than in the States because of Nicaragua´s beloved poet Ruben Dario (almost every town has a school named after him and he is the face on the 100 cordoba bill).

But, the headline competition was definitly the dance competition, the one I was ¨in charge¨of. I had never really attended this style of dance competition before but I in charge of organizing and being the MC for it. I´ll be honest, once I realized what was involved, I quickly passed the responsonsibility onto someone more capable.

The dance competition had 26 participants, or about 1/4 of the audience. Both boys and girls participated in the 4 preliminary groups of 6 or 7 and in the final round. It involved blasting Reggaeton music as loud as possible and then everyone watching while the participants grinded on each other for about 4 or 5 songs. Then the audience would vote on who were the top two and they would dance in the final round. The final round included 2 boys and 5 girls. The boys tried to win the crowd over by ripping of their shirts (which I laughed histerically at because remember, these are kids of 10 or 11, are they showing off their muscles?). The girls tried to dance scandalously, which I also laughed at because they were trying so hard to be grown up woman...but they are just tiny little 10 yr olds. On the one hand it was a little disgusting that the town and teachers (and technically myself) were supporting this competition. But most of them just saw it as innocent. They just think that this is how one dances to Reggaeton music, so of course the boys and girls would dance the same way. They really didn´t think there was anything sexual about it. I would have probably been apalled if I hadn´t seen this type of dancing by boys and girls at every single party and event I´ve been to since I´ve been here. But I guess we know why latin men and woman dance so well when they are adults...they´ve been practicing since they were toddlers.

I think Valentine´s Day parties are a little more interesting here than in U.S. schools...

Where the streets have no names

2008-01-30T11:22:00.000-06:00

Here is a link to an interesting article about Managua, Nicaragua's capital. It will give you an idea of how screwed up the direction system is. Although, I have grown to love it because in the end you always know where something is!

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1701487,00.html

A few more less interesting pics...

2008-01-21T15:13:00.000-06:00

Here are some more pics just for fun.

On January 6th, I went with some friends to a all you can eat brunch in Managua. They serve delicious food and all you can drink champagne. What could be more fun!

This is a picture of Katrina, my sitemate, and me. Katrina is the only other Peace Corps volunteer that lives in Corinto with me. She teaches English as a foreign language in the high school. We don't live together but we do see each other fairly often. We teach an english class together on monday and thursday nights. Also, she lives by the hospital so I sometimes see her on my way to work. She will be done with her service December of this year, 4 months before I am done. We are each others support system whenever we have problems with work or life in Corinto. I'm lucky to have someone that lives so close that can help me with whatever I need (including taking care of my cat, David Beckham, when I have to be in Managua for work).

A picture of Lisa and I at the buffet.

This is a picture of Playa Maderas in San Juan del Sur. We had to hitch a ride for about 15 minutes away from the town of San Juan del Sur to get to it but it was definitly worth it. Close by is one of the beaches where people say it is one of the best surfing places in the world.

This ones for you, Dad. Here's me on my cell phone at our cottage in San Juan del Sur overlooking the ocean.

Taco night at the cottage. I brought back some taco seasoning packets from the states and we made ourselves tacos for New Years Eve dinner.

Cat got your lip?

2008-01-21T14:04:00.000-06:00

As I think I mentioned I got a cat recently. My host family in Corinto had a cat that recently had kittens and they offered me one. Since I have a significant mouse/rat problem in my house I thought, what the hell, I could be a cat person. Plus, I live alone and its nice to have someone to talk to other than myself. The odd thing is that I only talk to the cat in Spanish. I just don't think it would make sense to talk to in English, its a Nicaraguan cat. With the recommendations of some of the neighbor boys, I named the cat David Beckham, or Becks for short. Anyways, here are some pics of little David Beckham:

Chewing on my bike spokes which I thought was funny...

And now for the mystery of my lip....

On Jan. 2nd, the day my friends and I were leaving San Juan del Sur I woke up at around 8:00am. I didnt eat any breakfast. Around 8:34am I said to my friends that were awake, "My lip feels wierd." They shrugged it off. Within 10 minutes they were saying to me, "Holy crap Paul! What happened to your lip!" My lip apparently just decided to start swelling up, a lot. Only my upper lip. Everyone asked me, did you get bit by a spider or something? Not that I noticed. Did you eat anything out of the ordinary? Nope, just things that I've eaten my whole life (or at least for the past year). So it was a bit of a mystery why I had an upper lip roughly the size of a football. We all chalked it up to a probably spider bite while I was sleeping. I took some Benedryl, and we had lots of laughs about it until later that afternoon when the swelling went down (although it didn't go completely down until the next morning). Chalk it up to something wierd that happened on vacation.

People were calling me Marge Simpson because the Simpson's characters have a bigger upper lip than lower. I look just like her.

I purposefully made myself look like a sad puppy in this picture so that when I showed people the pic they would feel really sorry for me. But the truth is that I was pretty much laughing during this whole ordeal.

So Jan 3rd my upper lip was finally back to normal. I thought to myself "What a wierd freak thing to happen, I don't even have any allergies that I know of. Oh well, its over now." By Jan 4th I was back in Corinto and completely forgot about the lip swelling incident.

I woke up on Jan 5th, my birthday, and went to lay in my hammock. A neighbor boy came over to wish me happy birthday and we were sitting there talking. All of the sudden I had a sensation in my lower lip and I thought to myself, "This cannot be happening again!" I ran into my room and popped two Benedryl pills. I thought I might catch it before it got out of control. But no. It swelled and swelled and swelled until I looked just like Bubba from Forrest Gump. Again, I didn't eat anything strange and didn't feel anything biting me. Plus, the spider bite theory was pretty much debunked because it is very unlikely that a spider would bite me in southern Nicaragua on the upper lip, cause me an allergy for the first time, and then three days later bite me on the lower lip in northern Nicaragua. I think the early Benedryl did help me this time because the lip was unswollen by 5pm. Thank goodness because I was still able to go out for my birthday.

Anyways, I still have no idea exactly why my lip swelled up twice. I talked to some doctors here about it and they say it must be from something I ate. Maybe. But I just ate what I always eat. Anyways, I am now 16-days lip-injury free. I'm going to try and keep the streak going.

Happy 2008

2008-01-18T11:26:00.000-06:00

I know that you all miss me. I haven't written in over a month. But the truth is that I've busy, sick or travelling. I'll recap.

I left for the U.S. on Dec. 19th to visit family and friends for Christmas. I was super excited to see everyone and hang out at home. But, to be honest, when I was taking off from Nicaragua, I was thinking, "Thank goodness I'm not leaving here for good!" It was a good feeling to have, knowing that I wanted to come back to my life here in Nicaragua. A lot of Peace Corps Volunteers go home for a visit and say they don't want to come back to Nicaragua. That being said, after spending a great 10 days with friends and family, I could have used another 10 days more. Home is home for a reason, you just feel comfortable there. I did a whirlwind visit of everyone in 10 days and really enjoyed myself. But, I could have used another 10 days to just chill at home.

Many people told me that it would be wierd for me to visit home. But the reality was that I felt like I had never left! Although a couple of things did strike me when I arrived in the Houston airport on my way to Chicago. First would be hostpitality. I bought a bagel and cream cheese in the airport (delicious). When I walked up to the counter I was greeted with "Hello Sir! How are you doing today! What can I help you with!!!!!!" I literally had to take a step back from the woman for a second. I have not recieved that friendly of service in over a year! That continued to strike me throughout the trip with waitresses and everyone. I would think, "Is this waitress interested in me?" Then I would quickly realize, "Of course not you fool, she is just nice so you give her a tip!" The other thing that struck me in the Houston airport was accents. Everyone had a Texan accent. And then I stood in line for the flight to Chicago and heard Chicago accents, and embarassingly, I got a little emotional. Thinking emotionally, I said to myself, "These are my people!" Luckily I snapped out of that emotional state pretty quickly. Anyways, other than that it was pretty normal being at home. I enjoyed every meal, every moment on a couch, and every moment with friends and family. Thanks to everyone that made time to see me and made my visit great!

When I got back to Nicaragua I went for 3 days to the beach town of San Juan del Sur. I met up with 15 Peace Corps friends there and we rung in the new years on the beach. It was a really fun and relaxing trip and great to catch up with those friends. On Jan 2nd I headed back to Corinto. I thought that it would be tough for me to adjust back but it wasn't as bad as I thought. Although I did have a tough time motivating myself to get back into work. But it was great to see all my neighbors and friends here. And now after 3 weeks of work I have my motivation back!

Anyways, I have some pictures and stories to share that I will try to post this weekend. One involving my new cat and one involving a random swelling of my lips. Stay tuned...

Some reading recommendations...

2007-12-10T16:32:00.000-06:00

I have read a good amount of books since I got to Corinto. Peace Corps Volunteers have a great informal book exchange system going so I almost always have a supply of recommended books to be reading. Whenever we get together we usually bring a book or two we have just read and trade with others. Since most Peace Corps volunteers in Nicaragua dont have TVs (although most Nicaraguans do) we end up doing a lot of reading! Anyways, since its the Christmas season and people are thinking about what they want to give or recieve I thought Id put down the books that Ive read in Corinto for some ideas. I honestly liked all of the books Ive read except one.

Here are the books Ive read, in order of when I read them (and yes, I do keep a list):

The Blood of Brothers by Stephen Kinzer
This is a book about the war here in Nicaragua during the 1980s between the Sandinistas and the Contras (aka U.S. Government). Its a really good read for anyone that is thinking about visiting me or is curious what exactly happened here in Nicaragua during the 80s.

The Best American Non-Required Reading 2006 by Various Authors
This was a gift to me before I left for Nicaragua and I really enjoyed it. Editors pick out random reading material such as newspaper articles, short stories, graduation speeches or blog entries and compile them into this book. The 2006 edition was great and Im sure the 2007 edition would be just as good. Its great as a book to just pick up and read whenever, you dont need to read them in order.

Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins
This book is really interesting for anyone interested in international politics, especially U.S. work in developing countries. It is the true story of a guy who says he ended up screwing over a lot of developing countries while working for the U.S. government all in the name of helping developing countries. Im not sure I believe everything in the book, but nonetheless it is a very interesting read.

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
This was also a gift before I left. It took a while to get into but turned into some of the best writing and storytelling I have ever read in a novel. Its such a unique story thats written in a wierd style but I would definitly recommend it to anyone interested in something a little different.

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
The best book that Ive read here. It is the story of a Harvard doctor that opens a clinic in rural Haiti. It is very well written and the story solidified my desire to get a Masters in Public Health and work in international public health when I am done with Peace Corps.

Lost in Transmission by Jonathan Harley
Ive been told this book is out of print, but if you can find it, its definitly worth the read. Its about an Australian journalist that gets posted to the Indian subcontinent in 2000. As the events of 9/11 unfold he is assigned to Afghanistan and other countries in the area. He weaves the current news stories of the day with his own struggle as a person adapting to living and working in India and Afghanistan. Since its written by an Australian, it also offers a different perspective on those events.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Ive been told there is a movie from this book. The book, although a bit depressing it is a very well written and well informed novel about an Indian family that has moved to the United States. Maybe I just like all the books that are about foreigners adapting in a new country, but the story and characters are very real which make this a very interesting read.

Naked by David Sedaris
A typical David Sedaris book with different disconnected stories about his life growing up. It is definitly funny and an easy read. Its a good beach or brainless book, but it doesnt have a lot of meat to it.

Dreams of my Father by Barack Obama
This is the first book by Obama before he hit the national political stage. For that exact reason it is a compelling book. His words are not glossed over by fears of how it might affect his campaigns. He talks candidly about his views, angers and drug use. I feel like I got an idea of how he thinks which is an important thing to know about a presidential candidate. And besides all that, his story of growing up is just plain interesting with a Kenyan father and a Kansan mother and growing up in Hawaii, Indonesia and L.A.

The Things they Carried by Tim OBrien
I had wanted to read this book for a while and Im glad I finally did. It is about the Vietnam war. OBrien is a very skilled writer and writes this book not as a continuous story but different fragments of one big complicated story. OBrien is a Vietnam veteran and I feel like I got a better idea the experience as a young man in war and now as an older man struggling with his memories. Its a quick read and I definitely recommend it.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Housseini
This is the second book by the author of The Kite Runner. I cant say if this was better or worse than the Kite Runner but its woth the read. It follows the story of two women in Afghanistan and the impossible lives that they are leading. It gives good insight into the history of Afghanistan although much of the story is very depressing.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Since I work trying to convince Nicaraguan adolescents to live healthily, I thought that this book was very useful. It describes the phenomenon of how trends or behaviors change. It is very anecdotal so its an easy read and the information is valuable to anyone, no matter where you work or live.

Hawaii by James Michner
This book was 1034 pages so its a bit of a time investment. That being said, I am super glad I read it. Michner writes historical novels that are full histories of a region. In this case he starts in Hawaii with how the volcanoes were formed, moving to the story of the first inhabitants of the islands and how they got there. The majority of the story involves the missionaries and other immigrants that came to the islands over the years between the early 1800s and 1900s and how they shaped the history of the islands. I read the first half of this book, set it down for a couple of weeks and then read the second half. Its a committment but well worth it.

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Anyone that lives in Chicago should read this book. It is the true story of a serial murderer in Chicago during the time of the worlds fair in Chicago. I have lived in the Chicago area my whole life but didnt really know anything about the worlds fair or this murderer. They both are fascinating stories. Larson did tons of research and writes this book like a novel using dialogues from the real life diaries of the people in the book.

All I really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum
This was the one book I didnt really like. A little corny for me. But I read it because I picked it up to see what it was about and when I realized it was crap, I was on page 50. The book only had 190 pages so I thought, what the hell, Ill just finish it. And thats how it got on this list, but I dont recommend it. Unless of course you like corny, which some people do and thats ok...

Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone by J.K. Rowling
I had never read a Harry Potter book nor seen a movie so I felt like I was finally in the loop on pop culture. Everyone knows about this book so Ill just say, if youve been avoiding Harry Potter, dont, you should read this, its a fun read.

Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger
I hear that this is a popular TV show in the States now. But I guarantee the book is better. It follows a west Texas football team through a season in the 80s. It talks about race, economics and the dynamics of a football team. A good read that kind of made me want to play high school sports again.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Ditto.

The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger
Ive never seen the movie but the book was great. Apparently the commercial fishing industry is really interesting and I never knew! It is a very interesting story of a boat lost at sea but it also give info on storm systems, rescue operations, the fishing industry, and the ocean.

The Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith
Quick easy fun read. Its about a womens detective agency in Africa and small simple stories that result. It is a book series but you dont need to read them in order.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Im not going to lie, I borrowed this book because it had the word elephant in the title and I love elephants. It doesnt have much to do with elephants but the story is still great. It is about an old man in a nursing home who is recalling his memories as a young orphaned man working with a travelling circus. The world of a travelling circus in the 1930s is really fascinating and the author definitely did her work finding out all the details about that life. This is one of my very recommended books.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
If you want to know what using all sorts of crazy drugs is like but dont actually want to use them, just read this book. It is written as one big trip in Las Vegas in the 70s. I enjoyed reading it but Im not sure everyone would.

The Firm by John Grisham
A page turner. Somehow Ive never read this extremely popular book but Im glad I did! Ive read other Grisham books and he always knows how to weave together a great story. Also recommended, but everyone has probably already read it!

Anyways, those are my recommendations for Xmas gifts. Im trying to be in the christmas spirit here, but 90 degree weather makes it tough. But Im not complaining, Im worried about the freezing cold when I get home! See everyone soon!

La Griteria

2007-12-08T13:24:00.001-06:00

One of the biggest celebrations of the year just took place yesterday, December 7th. They call this day La Griteria, or in my crudely translated Spanish, The Shouting. It celebrates the Virgin Mary on the day before the religious holiday celebrating the Conception of the Virgin Mary on December 8th.

I had been waiting to see what this holiday was like for a long time. For the past 3 months Nicas have been telling me, ´Youve never been here for the Griteria, its so alegre, so alegre. Its so happy´. I figured it was a good holiday, but its hard to get excited about a holiday that youve never seen and isn´t part of your tradition growing up. My neighbors and co-workers were anxiously awaiting this day but I was indifferent; I was just happy I was getting a half day off work to do some long needed clothes washing. But, after participating last night, I think this holiday won me over.

The holiday is similar to Halloween except that it celebrates the Virgin Mary instead of all things freaky and devilish. But the main idea is that kids and adults go around ´shouting´ to peoples houses that have an altar of the Virgin Mary set up and yell ´Quien causa tanta alegria? ´ which means, Who causes so much happiness? Then the person inside the house responds with ´La Concepcion de Maria´ or The Conception of the Virgin Mary. Then the people visiting the house start singing various songs praising the glory and sanctity of the Virgin Mary. As the visitors are singing, the people inside the house hand out presents to the people singing. These gifts can be anything such as candy, juices, laundry detergent, matches, whistles, plates, buckets, ice cream, firecrackers, or balloons. Really anything goes, and it obviously usually depends on how much money the family has. When a family gives out plates or buckets or ice cream there is usually a huge crowd outside the house, everyone shouting and singing. It can get kind of crazy!

I think I like it better than Halloween for a the folloing reasons. First, everyone participates, not just kids. Second, its not just candy, its random stuff. I received a hand sewn matchbox holder to hang on my wall, I never even knew they existed, and now I have one. What a nice surprise! Third, the timing of the holiday couldnt be better. Families giving out presents to whoever comes to their door all in the name of the Virgin Mary, it put me in the Christmas spirit!

Here is a website that talks a little bit more about the traditions of the holiday:
http://www.vianica.com/go/specials/8-december-celebrations-nicaragua.html

And here is a passage I found that apparently explains the history of the holiday:

The story goes that Bishop Monseñor Isidro Augusto Oviedo y Reyes made a promise to the Virgin Mary as he sought her protection from the violent eruptions of the Cerro Negro volcano in Leon, Nicaragua that occured from late July and early August of 1947. The volcano had been sending rivers of lava down its slopes and raining sand and ash down upon the streets of Leon with increasing fury for weeks. For her protection of the city, he promised that Leonesas would celebrate her assumption with city-wide processions every year on this day.

This celebration of penitence is also referred to as “Purísima de Penitencia” or “Virgin Mary of Penitence.” This particular day is unique to Leon while the rest of the nation (and Leon again) celebrates the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary on December 7th.

Here are some pictures of the La Griteria in Corinto:

The altar of the Virgin Mary a family friend put up.

Kids shouting and singing to the altar.

You cant see this well, but it is the central park in Corinto, complete with Xmas tree and Xmas lights.

Here are the family friends kids in front of the xmas tree. I went with them to go ´shouting´ as they call it.

This is one of the houses that gave out plates so there was a crowd in front.

Thats all I have for right now. Ill be heading home in less than 2 weeks, I hope to see people then!

The pics finally...

2007-12-08T12:57:00.000-06:00

I finally got some of the pictures loaded.

This is a pic of some youth group kids putting an HIV awareness poster on the back of the buses that go between Corinto and the big city, Chinandega. As I have mentioned before these buses are old school buses from the U.S. Unfortunately this one is not painted interestingly, some of them are painted really bright colors with cool designs.

This was during the pool tournement. I was teaching them how HIV is transmitted. The girl with me is someone that works with me, otherwise you probably wouldnt see any and women in the picture.

The guy who just shot the cue ball is the eventual champion.

Me with the champion and owner of the Billiards hall. The champion won about 15 dollars and a soccer ball.

December 1st

2007-12-03T20:07:00.001-06:00

December 1^st was a lot of things for me this year.

I completed eight months living in Corinto on December 1^st. Since I have a 24 month commitment here, I am a third of the way done. Time is flying by, a little too fast if you ask me.

December 1^st was also the day my $50 monthly rent on my house was due. Not super important, but noteworthy.

It was also the start of December, the month that I go home to visit my friends and family in the States. It was the first day that this trip felt close and when I thought about it I got a very excited/anxious feeling in my stomach.

And, as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the health sector, December 1^st also meant that it was Dia Mundial Contra SIDA, or World AIDS Day. We as health volunteers are encouraged to organize our own activities or help with the organization of community activities on this day. Since my community is in an area of Nicaragua with a high incidence rate of HIV/AIDS, we have a Municipal Commission for the Fight Against AIDS. The main organizers of this committee are myself, my counterpart (who works at the health center in Corinto), and another Nicaraguan who is the head of a human rights NGO. The three of us are supported by representatives or volunteers from local schools, the Red Cross and other NGOs.

We organized three different events throughout the whole day. From 10am – 3pm we had informative booths with information in front of the supermarket, bus stop and in the central park. Members of my youth groups and members of the Commission were in charge of manning these booths. It was pretty successful because we got the information distributed but a lot of people were really embarrassed to approach the booths and take the information. So, the resourceful youth group members took the brochures and went in search of people, passing them out to taxi drivers and people who passed by but didn’t stop at the booth.

Then at 3pm, I planned a pool tournament at one of the local pool halls. One of the new focuses of the Peace Corps health program in Nicaragua is targeting men to encourage safe sex and healthy practices. Seems obvious right? But, in a strained health system like Nicaraguan, the country-wide health focus immediately goes to women and children, the most vulnerable. Since Peace Corps works directly with the Nicaraguan health system, our focus used to also be on women and children. Men get their health information from their friends or not at all and they rarely ever see a doctor except for emergency situations. Peace Corps still has a big focus on women, children and adolescent but we are also trying to go to where the men are and educate them on things like HIV/AIDS. Pool halls are pretty much exclusively the domain of men and most women are afraid to go in them. Men go there to drink and play pool for 5 cents a game.

The pool tournament was an idea that I learned in my Peace Corps training and it goes something like this. Sixteen participants in a single elimination tournament and after the first round I give a 10 minute talk on what HIV is and how it is transmitted. Then the guys play the second round and afterwards I give a 10 minute talk on how to prevent contracting HIV. They play the third round then I give a talk on the correct uses of a condom and passed out condoms to the players. Condom use is not common here and many men have never touched a condom let alone used one even though they have very questionable sexual practices. At that point they play the championship game and after a player sinks a ball, they have to answer a question based on the talks that I gave. If they get it wrong the ball comes out and is put back on the table. If they get it right they continue. These questions reinforce the information for the players and also for the audience that has gathered to watch the championship. Our tournament had 16 participants and about 25 onlookers that couldn’t help but also learn about HIV and its prevention. I was a little nervous about going in and doing this tournament because the guys that go to billiards halls (especially in a port town like Corinto) are usually pretty rough around the edges. I was going to be this clean cut gringo walking in and interrupting their good time. But the reality was that the guys gave me respect and really enjoyed the tournament. I had a great time doing it and hope to do the tournament in other billiards halls around Corinto in the next couple of months.

The third activity was a movie in the central park about HIV. A Nicaraguan NGO made a soap opera series (as you may know, Latinos LOVE their telenovelas) about social issues such as HIV, teenage pregnancy, violence and other important issues. So we showed an episode of that series that was about HIV. There is rarely “something to do” out of the norm in Corinto so we got a pretty good audience for it.

I think it ended up being a really good day and in the end everything came together. We had big problems in the beginning with organization. We had a truck organized to pick up the materials and drop them off at their respective places at 8am. The truck arrived at 10:45am. We told the people who were helping us to arrive at 9am. They started trickling in at around 10:15. You always hear about working with other cultures and how they aren’t punctual and you think, ¨if someone shows up to a meeting 30 minutes late, it’s not that big of a deal.¨ But it starts to get really difficult to work with people when you depend on them for a big event and they aren’t responsible about it. I would say that this is the biggest challenge I have here. Not just people being late, but people not taking their commitments seriously. Anyways, in the end all the events turned out great. But between the hours of 8am and 11am, I wanted to pull my hair out and scream because it seemed like our entire event was going to fall flat on its face. The Nicaraguans I was working with were also frustrated but not as worried as I was. I guess they are just more used to working like that. Although, all in all, it was a great work day.

I tried to post more pictures but I could only get a few to work. Here is one of some of the participants in the tournament listening to my talk. I´ll try to post more pictures later.

Pics

2007-12-03T19:38:00.000-06:00

This is one more pic I could load. They are some of my youth group kids with a representative from the red cross. They are manning a table in front of the fire station which also happens to be where the bus stop is

Baseball Fever

2007-11-04T14:42:00.001-06:00

Baseball season has started here in Nicaragua and its impossible not to notice. All the kids (and adults) that usually play soccer in the streets or on the beach have traded in their soccer ball and stick goalposts for a bat and glove. The end of the World Series and the beginning of the Nicaraguan national baseball league coincide and it gets everyone baseball crazy. People claim that baseball is the national sport in Nicaragua but if you ask anyone under 30 they’ll tell you that soccer is by far their favorite sport. A lot of kids will follow the major leagues because they play the games on TV here. Usually, the favorite team is the Yankees, presumably because of Daddy Yankee the famous Reggaeton star. Although, generally, even the biggest baseball fan here still puts more weight into who wins the Real Madrid vs. Barcelona game in the Spanish soccer league.

There are a handful of baseball players that make it to the big leagues from Nicaragua, but usually no one famous. The most famous player to come out of Nicaragua is Denis Martinez. The Nicaraguan national baseball league only consists of 4 teams that continually play each other ( http://www.lnbp.net/ ). Luckily there is a team from the nearby big city, Chinandega, and I hope to go to some of the games this season. This league consists of mostly Nicaraguans with a few washed up Americans and other Latino players. The start of this league and end of the World Series gave me the opportunity to play some beach baseball with the neighbourhood kids and their newfound enthusiasm for baseball.

The field we played on was the sand on the beach. Corinto has an interesting beach where there is a sand wall, or cliff, 10 feet high about 30 feet from the shoreline. Behind the cliff is a big flat field of sand. In front of the cliff is the 10 foot drop, 30 feet of sand, then the water. So we played on the big flat field of sand. As you look down the beach, you can see 3 or 4 other beach baseball games going on, whereas only last week, you’d see3 or 4 beach soccer games. The catch about the field location is that left field has a cliff down the middle of it. And I, of course, was lucky enough to play left field. More on that later. A neighbourhood boy’s dad has a collection of 8 or 9 gloves for when a Corinto league sometimes gets organized. He is nice enough to lend them out for the afternoon to play the beach baseball games. Luckily he had a left handed glove for me to use. Unluckily, it was made for a 7 year old, but it worked well enough. We used metal bats and a ball that looks like it was made from wrapping a golf ball in a LOT of electrical tape. We played with home plate, only two bases (made by a pile of sandals), and no catcher. The teams consisted of about 3 adults (me being an adult), 3 teenagers and 3 kids.

I was a little nervous when we first started playing because this was my new neighbourhood and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of the new neighbourhood kids by making errors and striking out. But luckily that faded when on my first at bat I hit a home run (or jonron). After living my life being the ¨small kid on the team¨, I forgot that I was the big kid on this team and playing well would be easier than I thought. I only made a fool of myself once when I forgot about the whole ¨cliff in the middle of left field¨ thing. I was going for a fly ball that was going to land before the cliff drop. I was aware of the cliff, but forgot that by chasing the fly ball full speed, my momentum would carry my over the 10 foot sand cliff. Well that’s what happened, Paul going nearly full speed over this sand cliff. No damage done (the sand is soft at the bottom) except a few scrapes from broken shells. I climb over the wall and everyone is telling me, ¨Pablo, you don’t need to try that hard, you don’t need to jump over the cliff!¨ I just looked sheepishly and said I forgot about the cliff.

Anyways, that game, and the game the next day, were really fun, and I hope the baseball fever continues so I can play some more beach baseball. It has been a good way to get to know other people in the neighbourhood and have a good time hanging out at the beach.

I hope all is well with everyone else…I’m sure you enjoyed hearing about me at the beach while you guys are experiencing the November cold settle in. Remember, you can always take a vacation down to Corinto to play baseball, we’ll put you in left field and see how you do!

House Pics

2007-11-04T13:16:00.000-06:00

I moved into my new house about a month ago and I thought I´d show you guys some pics. I tried to post these earlier but the website wouldn´t let me. But now I´ve got them so here they are:

This is my front door and window. That tree is an almond tree but I have no idea when it actually produces almonds or how they taste.

This is the house directly across the street from mine. I think its really funny because they have a painted Santa Clause, two American flags, two xmas candles and a pink door with an xmas bell on it. I´ve got a house with a great view!

This is a picture of my street taken from in front of my house to the left.

This is the front part of my front room. The front window and door are there on the right and my bookshelf with novels and workbooks is there on the left. And of course, my hammock and bike.

This is the corner of my front room. It is in the corner opposite of my front door. That doorway leads into my bedroom. I have my two hammocks for louging around and the table and chairs for eating or planning classes.

This is a pic of my bedroom. On the left there is my ¨closet¨, a bar with clothes hanging on it, straight ahead is my bed. The door at the end is the door into the kitchen. And that yellow and green thing in the foreground, is a cot, but I use it like a table when I don´t have visitors. The two doors on the right go out to my patio but I usually just keep them closed.

This is my kitchen. You may recall that at my other house my kitchen was outside in the patio. This is completely closed in so it is a big step up. I have my fridge on the right, stove straight ahead, and sink and clothes washing station in the bottom left. That doorway goes into my bedroom.

View from the back of my patio. My clothes are hung there after a morning of washing. The first door there is into the kitchen, and the second two doors are into my bedroom. That little box thing in the ground is a well. I don´t use it but my neighbor who doesn´t have running water comes over and gets water from it.

Thats all. Thats my house. I really like it, its a lot bigger and nicer that my other house. Plus I like the neighborhood a lot more. I´ve had a chance to make some new friendships so overall the move has been a great thing!

Update...

2007-10-23T14:45:00.000-05:00

I´m going back home right now. The rains have mostly stopped and supposedly are not going to start up again. In fact, I´ve even heard that the rainy season is over which would be fastastic so all the stuff in my house would stop molding. Anyways, back to the real life...

Still here...

2007-10-21T18:59:00.000-05:00

So I mentioned in my last blog that I was stuck in a hotel in Chinandega...

Well, thankfully they let us leave and go home on Wednesday. I went back and explained to everyone why I was absent for the previous 5 days and started to get myself settled back in. But of course, Saturday morning I receive a phone call telling me a tropical storm is coming towards Chinandega and that I have to head back to that same hotel. I was not happy about it but I grudgingly packed up and went. On the positive side I got to watch the Illinois vs. Michigan game last night. Although they lost, it was a fun game to watch and cool to see the pics of Memorial Stadium and Kams. Also, the hotel is going to do some of our laundry which is fantastic becuase we cant do our own laundry on account of the rain (and not really being home to be able to wash).

In other words, Im still in the hotel with nothing new to report. Hopefully the rains stops and the sun comes out so I can go home! (but not until after tonight so I can watch the Boston v. Cleveland game on cable tv!)

New House

2007-10-17T11:44:00.000-05:00

So unfortunately I’m still stuck in a hotel wasting the hours away watching TV and using internet. The rain has calmed down a lot but the Peace Corps has still not allowed us to leave. The say a tropical storm is headed our way, but we’ll see if it actually shows up.

Anyways, since I have some extra time on my hands I figured I would write about the new house that I moved into. I feel like 50% of my blog entries are about me moving or my house, but I have been moving around a lot. Hopefully, this will be my last.

So I moved to a different house in Corinto a week and a half ago. With the evacuation thing I have only spent 5 nights there but I really like it so far. I enjoyed the old house I lived at but I always knew that I wasn’t going to stay there my whole two years. My old house was right in the center of town and not on a very residential street. I always knew I wanted to live in more of a neighborhood area and away from the chaos of the center of town. Also, the walls in my old house were paper thin and didn’t reach all the way to the ground, so I could hear EVERYTHING that my neighbors said and did. And I shared a shower and patio with my neighbor, so I lacked a lot of privacy. So in the past couple of months I have been casually looking for a new place to live.

My best friend here, Manuel, told me about a house that his mom owned in a neighborhood that I really like. He told me that the current tenant was going to move out soon and I would be able to move in. I decided I was ready to move and that this was good timing. So last weekend, I paid a guy $5 to come with his pick up truck and help me move my stuff from my old house to my new house. Moving wasn´t too difficult but it was a bit tiring. The day after I moved in a bought a few new things for my house including a CD player which is awesome to finally listen to my own music! (anyone that wants to send me interesting CDs, that would be great!)

The new house is about double the size of my old house. It has a really big living room when you walk in. Then I have a decently sized bedroom and an indoor kitchen and bathroom. My old house had a kitchen and bathroom in the patio so having it indoors is a big improvement (think bathroom trips in the rainy season, much better to not have to leave the house).

The other great thing about my new house is that I live really close to a lot of my students from my 6th grade classes. The classes have recently ended with them so I still get to hang out with them. Believe or not I really love hanging out with the 6th grade kids here. Before I came to Nicaragua, working with middle school kids was my nightmare, but these kids have won me over. Anyways, I live by these kids and a bunch of other kids since this is more of a residential family neighborhood. I wanted to live by a lot of teenagers because that is the population that I work with.

Anyways, overall I am really happy about the move. I have a mango and lime tree in my backyard which is pretty awesome to me. I´ll try to post pictures soon of my house and the neighborhood but since I am not currently in my house I cant take the pics. Soon though...

RAIN!

2007-10-13T12:32:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven´t written in a long time, I have been busy in the past couple of weeks. I´ll write about that in a blog later today, but right now all I can think about is RAIN.

I wrote about rain in a blog earlier in the year, but the rainy season really kicked it up a notch in the past week. Since this past monday, it has rained continuously pretty much every moment of the day and night. I vaguely recall a thursday afternoon break from the rain for about an hour, but thats it! Is this what a monsoon is? Anyways, in addition to this, I conveniently left my rain coat in the office in Managua, good work Paul. So basically I just have to wait for the times when the rain slows down to be just a drizzle to go anywhere I need to go.

This rain has been irritating for many reasons. First and foremost, when its raining all the time you can not hang your clothes out to dry. I desperately needed clean clothes (as did the rest of Corinto/Nicaragua) so I had to wash and dry my clothes inside, which leaves everyone smelling fairly mildewy, gross. The other thing is that everything is just wet. The air is wet, you can feel it. My bed and clothes feel moist. My matches wont light which means its difficult to light my gas stove (after 20 failed tries with 20 different matches, lucky number 21 finally lit). My patio flooded. My shoes and bottoms of pants are always wet. Its just gross. Thank goodness the rainy season is over in another month.

But this irritating rain might, and already has, turn into a bigger problem. There is a lot of flooding all across the country. Peace Corps office in Nicaragua has consolidated all the volunteers in their nearest big city or in Managua, the capital city. Which means I am currently in Chinandega with the other volunteers from Chinandega waiting out this rain in a hotel (not bad, it has a TV and three free meals a day). Supposedly there are a couple of tropical storms headed our way so they are afraid if they dont get us out of our sites now, the already saturated ground will completely flood when these bigger storm systems come and we´ll be trapped in our sites. As of yesterday there were a few volunteers that were stuck in their sites and Peace Corps went to get them in their cars with snorkel gear (air intake above the roof of the car so it can pass through deep waters). I think all the volunteers are safe in their consolidation points now. Us volunteers don´t think anything serious will happen but I guess its better to be safe than sorry. The staff of Peace Corps Nicaragua is really great about keeping us safe. They may be overcautious, but they are responsible for 150 some volunteers so it makes sense.

Anyways, thats my life right now, wet and on hold. I´ll write later this week about my new house and the project I´m working on. But, I want to take pictures of my new house (hopefully not flooded!) to post on here. I hope all is good and dry with everyone!

More parade pics...

2007-09-14T19:57:00.000-05:00

I just posted about independence day, see previous post. Here are some more pics.

Cute little girls in traditional dresses.
I thought this girl was funny. Despite the fact that all other participants got hot and tired after 2.5 hours (temperature in the 90s and long sleeve and marching, yikes!) this little girl did not stop dancing the whole time.

More traditional dress...

This is my host sister in Corinto, Karen. All the girls from her school braided their hair like that the night before. This is also taken very close to my house.

Independence Day...Nica Style

2007-09-14T19:07:00.000-05:00

September 14th and 15th Nicaragua celebrates its independence from Spain. When they gained their independence in 1821 it was as part of a coutry that comprised of all of Central America. Central America would later break apart to the independent countries that exist today; Nicaragua gained its complete independence in 1838.

In Nicaragua they celebrate independence day with a big parade, similar to the United States. The parade consists of representatives from each primary and secondary school. Each school has a Banda de Guerra which is basically a marching band, but with only percussion. Each school somehow obtains drums (I think they borrow them from somewhere, but I´m not sure where) and then for the 3 months leading up to independence day they practice how to play the instruments. Also, each school has their own band uniform. Some are just variations on their school uniforms, and some are much more elaborate marching band uniforms. Because they have to pay a neighborhood lady to make their uniform, usually only the rich kids can play an instrument (but I guess thats not much different than the U.S.). Accompanied behind the band are the best students of the school (who don´t have to pay, so there is some justice). In front of the band are the dance group. Most of the schools also have some students in traditional dress that will carry the sign saying which school they are representing.

Today (14th) they did a parade around Corinto with each school all dressed up, dancing and marching and playing their percussion heavy songs. The dancer girls would dance scandalously in front of them. Even though I´ve never seen the movie, I couldn´t help but feel like I was on the set the movie Drumline. It was really fun because I know a lot of the kids that were marching so it was fun to see them all dressed up in uniform and playing an instrument. Plus, marching bands are just cool.

Tomorrow they are going to have a competition between the secondary schools for best band. Should be pretty great to watch.

Here is a picture of one schools dancing girls.

This is the public high school of Corinto, and also the biggest secondary school in Corinto.

Another one of the marching bands, with possibly the most extravagant uniforms. The two kids playing the xylophone things are my students. This also happens to be right in front of my house, with the ice cream shop in the background.

These are some of the girls in nicaraguan traditional dresses (but people only wear them for nostalgic occasions like this, you won´t see any random woman on the streets like this).

This is the group that especially reminded me of Drumline. The girls shook their stuff in 5 inch heel leather boots during a 2.5 hour long parade. Now thats pride for your country.

Hurricane Felix

2007-09-07T17:55:00.000-05:00

I got a few questions if I or any of my friends were affected by Hurricane Felix that passed through the eastern coast of Nicaragua and parts of Honduras. Luckily, no one I know was affected. I am on the western coast of Nicaragua and the hurricane never passed here. Peace Corps Nicaragua doesn´t have any volunteers on the east coast (for security and logistical reasons) so there were no Peace Corps Nicaragua volunteers were involved. Some volunteers in the northern Nicaragua border areas were evacuated as a precautionary measure but the hurricane did not end up passing through there.

The northeastern Nicaraguan coast was hit pretty bad as well as parts of Honduras. Since I don´t have a television or recieve the newspaper I get sometimes get unreliable information, but I´ve been told that 90% of the roofs in that region of Nicaragua were torn off in the storm. On Monday, my site Corinto, the biggest Nicaraguan port town on the Pacific, is doing a fundraising event to to support the relief effort in Puerto Cabezas, the biggest Nicaraguan port on the Atlantic. Hopefully, Puerto Cabezas, and the rest of the towns affected, will recieve the support they need to rebuild.

You can read (perhaps more reliable information) about the Hurricane Felix in this New York Times article sent to me by a friend:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/world/americas/05hurricane.html?em&ex=1189137600&en=4199cd261ec85c76&ei=5087%0A

Paradise

2007-09-03T21:52:00.000-05:00

A week and a half ago I had the great opportunity to go to San Juan del Sur with a couple of friends from my training group. My friend Danielle (who was my neighbor in my training town) had her parents visiting Nicaragua for 2 weeks and her parents rented a villa in this beautiful Nicaragua tourist destination. You may have read about this beach on the south western coast as ¨the next Costa Rica¨ and the ¨great new place for Americans to retire¨. There is a lot of development going on in that area, but luckily it isn´t overrun by tourism...yet. There are a lot of foreigners around in this small town which is nice because it causes coffee shops and english language bookstores to exist (whereas they are non-existent in the rest of the country).

Anyways, these pictures are part of my response to the people that said ¨Why the hell would I want to go to Nicaragua?¨ when I tried to convince them to visit me.

This is our ¨family dinner¨ cooked by Danielle´s stepmom. As you can tell we had bottles of wine, nice dinnerware and delicious chicken cacciatore. It was a nice break from rice and beans eaten alone at my plastic table and chairs on Winnie the Pooh plastic plates (that makes my life sound really sad, but honest, its not!).

This is me, Danielle, Lisa and Jonathon in the wonderfully American kitchen.

The villas are built into this hillside. The brand new Villas de Palermo are only $130 a night (two bedrooms, two bath, kitchen, living room and a gorgeous pool...do you see my future as a travel agent?)

This was our view from the villa. You can see the reception/restaurant and pool are in the bottom left corner. You can see the ocean in the background. The only drawback was that the ocean (and town) was a 5 minute drive away. But to us it wasnt a drawback because the pool overlooked that beautiful green landscape so we were more than content to spend our time lounging by the pool.

The PCVs poolside.

As you can see it was a beautiful spot and we were very lucky to be invited by Danielle´s parents to spend the weekend with them. It was also a great chance to just relax with some of my friends here. Usually when we see each other we are in a big group and rushing around somewhere so this was a nice break. Anyways, your trip to Nicaragua to visit me can clearly be as luxurious as you want (as long as you´re paying). Think about it...

p.s. for you future retirees: these villas are also for sale and San Juan del Sur is supposed to be a good investment right now. I´ll even offer my services of ¨taking care¨of the villa during my time here...

My Routine

2007-08-30T21:50:00.000-05:00

Some people have been wondering what exactly my job or day-to-day life looks like here in Corinto, Nicaragua so I thought I’d share an average week.

Monday and Tuesday are generally what I call my free days. This means that if I need to make any meetings, work on any side projects or plan my classes I do it on Monday and Tuesday. This isn’t to say I do nothing on Mondays and Tuesdays, I just don’t have any consistent obligations on those days. Mondays and Tuesdays I go to the health center in the morning and work in the nurses’ office. Sometimes I’ll have meetings in the mayor’s office or in the schools, so I’ll go there. But my home base for those days is the health center. I hang out, chat it up with the nurses and doctors and do my work. I’ll usually eat at a small café right next to the hospital that serves rice, beans, and some sort of typical Nicaraguan meat dish.

Wednesday’s and Thursday’s are my busiest days. In the mornings of each of these days I go to elementary schools and give health classes to 5^th and sixth graders. Right now I am at the end of a twelve week series in two different schools, so I know the kids decently well. This might be my favorite thing because its fun to hang out with kids of that age. My classes have been topics such as self-esteem, puberty, effective communication, and preventing HIV and teenage pregnancy. I have a good time with the kids but my level of enthusiasm for teaching goes on a week by week basis. Some classes go really well and others not so well. But overall I really enjoy teaching in the schools.

Wednesday and Thursday afternoon I also meet with two separate youth groups. About 3 months ago, my counterpart, Xiomara (in charge of community outreach and education for the health center) and I went around Corinto looking for adolescents in different neighborhoods to form youth groups. Right now we have 3 different functioning youth groups. Sometimes Xiomara and I meet with them together, but since she is busy with other duties, a lot of times I meet with the youth groups alone. I plan ahead of time games and a topic to talk about. The topics are generally the same as the ones I cover in the schools.

Friday’s vary. In the afternoon I meet with the 3^rd youth group. In the mornings sometimes I go to the hospital or have another meeting. But a lot of times I wash clothes Friday mornings. Washing clothes by hand takes time so in order to catch up with my mountain of laundry, I’ll wash on Fridays (to supplement my Saturday and Sunday morning washing).

Weekends also vary. I usually go out for some beers one night of the weekend with my friends Manuel and Vilma. They are two Nicaraguan friends my age who have been great friends to me since I moved to Corinto, they helped me find my house and helped me get acquainted to Corinto so I’m lucky to have them. In the mornings I’ll wash my clothes and in the afternoons I’ll clean my house, go to the beach, go hang out with the other volunteer that lives in Corinto or go into Chinandega (the closest big city) to buy things or meet up with other volunteers. Another things I like to do that surprises people is keep myself up to date on movies. They sell bootleg dvd’s here for $1 (fairly bad quality but still watchable) so I’ll buy them or borrow them and then my neighbors and I will watch them on their dvd player. I have seen The Simpsons, The Departed, and Ocean’s 13 among other in the past couple of months. I’ve probably seen more new releases here than I would have in the U.S. Anyways, I also read a lot to keep myself entertained. I read about a book a week, and Peace Corps provides us free Newsweeks (we can pick them up when we are in the PC office in Managua) to entertain ourselves.

Along with this, I try to go running at least 4 times a week. Now that it’s gotten a bit cooler here in Corinto I run at 5:30pm along the beach and it’s fairly comfortable. Plus I get to watch the sunset every day which is added motivation to go run. All of this routine stuff added in with the random obligations of life keeps me fairly busy.

That’s my week in a nutshell. Any questions?

This is a picture of a couple of the girls in one of the youth groups. This particular youth group is all female. The other two are coed. It wasn´t our intention to have an all female group but they were the only ones that maintained interesting in attending the group meetings. The woman on the right is my counterpart, Xiomara.

Interesting news article

2007-08-23T22:31:00.000-05:00

This article was sent to me thanks to my mother. I think it is an interesting article describing the political situation in Nicaragua. It talks about some of the power outages in the capitol city, Managua. These problems are affecting the energy supplies here and causing all areas of the country to ration electricity. Here in Corinto, we don´t have power between 7am and 3pm. Every part of the country has its own schedule of when the power is off. Anyways, here is the Chicago Tribune article, (thanks mom!)

Chicago Tribune Article 8-13-2007

Everyone have a good weekend!

for the record...

2007-08-16T17:09:00.000-05:00

My family that just came and visited me and saw me in person say this after reading my blog:
¨I don´t know why people say you´re fat, you didnt look fatter to us when we saw you.¨

Regardless, i do need to cut back on that delicious fritanga...

Bats and fat.

2007-08-13T17:52:00.000-05:00

I thought I would share two quick stories about adapting to life in Nicaragua.

The other day I was working on some of the materials for a youth workshop in one of the offices of the health center and was really hot. I ride my bike to the health center so often times I arrive and I am hot. It doesnt help that the offices are small and usually have only one small window to fresh (hot) air. So I´m sitting, sweating, making these materials in the office, when something big flies past my face. A bat. My reaction should have been, ¨Holy crap, a bat!¨ But instead my reaction was, ¨That little breeze felt soooo gooood!¨

I´m being a good adapted Peace Corps volunteer by using local resources (a bat) to make up for what I lack (electrical fan)!

My other story is in regards to food and my weight. When I first got to Corinto and showed some of my new friends pictures of me and my family people would always tell me that I ¨looked much skinnier in person than in the pictures¨. I thought that this was a good thing, perhaps I would return to the States skinnier just as my friends had predicted. But then came the reality of living and eating in Nicaragua. Let me explain.

In training, we were fed 3 small meals a day and didn´t know many Nicas outside of our host families. So fast forward to me arriving in Corinto after training (skinnier because of three meals a day in small portions) and discovering the amazing world of fritanga! Fritanga are little stands that women have in front of their houses where they sell all the fried delicacies of the Nicaraguan diet. I´m not going to lie, I became addicted. I craved Dona Blanca´s fried enchilada and gallo pinto every night. So from eating dinner most nights at a fritanga I put on a lot of the weight I had lost. And when I walked into rooms people would say, ¨Hola Pablo, you look fat today!¨ (Oh thank you! Good day to you too ma´am!) Anyways, the fritanga alone didn´t beef me up.
I found myself eating 4 or 5 meals a day because people kept giving me meals. I would eat a sizable lunch and then about 30 minutes later someone would come stop by with a plate of food and say ¨here we made this for you!¨ and I would say to them, ¨oh thank you so much but I just ate!¨ But then they would get a really sad look in their eyes and just kind of stand there with the plate not knowing what to do, so finally I´d say, ¨but I guess I can eat more...¨ So then I would dutifully eat a second lunch. Then dinner time would come around and the same thing would happen. Thus, two dinners and two lunches. This didnt happen all the time, but once or twice a week is enough to beef me up.

Anyways I have a few strategies to combat this:

1. Running

2. I bought a fridge. This way when I have gifted food or leftover food I can put it in the fridge and save it for another day.

3. Stop buying from fritanga.

In the past week I have implemented all of these strategies and we´ll see what happens. I dont mind having a gut, I´ve had it my whole life (it seems). But I would like to avoid people greeting me with ¨Wow you´re fat!¨ We´ll see what happens...

Pictures of the trip...

2007-08-13T17:29:00.001-05:00

Here are some pictures from my family´s trip to visit me that I should have put up weeks ago.

This is us hiking through a cloud forest in Selva Negra.

This is a great picture taken by my sister. It captures the beautiful church in Granada with one of the painted school busese in front which is a primary mode of transportation here in Nicaragua.

This is my host family´s house from training when I brought my family there to meet them.

A picture of my family with my host Aunt and two cousins.

Here is my Nica family and family family all together at my host family´s house.

First visit from the states

2007-07-26T18:42:00.000-05:00

So I have been bad about updating this blog lately but it is because I have been busy. I just got done with a wonderful weeklong visit with my family. My mom, dad and sister Laura came to Nicaragua last Wednesday and gave me my first chance to be a tour guide, be a translator and really tour Nicaragua. The tour was whirlwind but great! I´ll cover some of the highlights.

We first went to Selva Negra, an eco-friendly coffee farm in the mountains. This is a self sufficient farm that groes coffee, livestock and makes cheeses. It also has difference cottages and rooms for rent for a nice rustic getaway in the leafy green mountains of Matagalpa. It is a very peaceful spot to chill for a couple of days and thats exactly what we did. We ate our meals at their outdoor restaurant overlooking a lake and the mountains with ducks waddling by our table and howler monkeys sreaming in the distance. We spent a little less than 2 days there and we all agreed that it was the type of place you could just stay and relax for a week. (sidenote: Selva Negra, which employs over 200 Nicaraguans, just got a contract with Whole Foods to sell their coffee. The coffee is great and the cause is good, try to support it)

After the relaxing and cool mountain air we moved into the high gear and hot portion of our trip. We headed to Granada, the colonial Nicaraguan city on the lake that U.S. newspaper travel sections love to write about. The city itself is beautiful and the most prepared place in the country for tourists. It has fancy restaurants, hotels and a beautiful central park. A huge volcano looms in the distance and off the edge of the lake are over 100 tiny islands that you can boat through. My favorite part was the food (surprise surprise). I earned my reputation as a two plate eater by gladly finishing my mom and sisters half eaten plates. I´m not going to say that I only eat rice in beans in Corinto, but I dont really eat any delicacies such as Spanish style seafood pasta or french fries. Needless to say I thought it all was delicious.

While in Granada we visited the Volcano Mombacho which is in a cloud forest. It had a great view of Granada and great vegetation because of the almost constant moisture in the air. We also visited a lake that was formed on the inside of a crater of a volcano. It was a beautiful spot to swim and relax at an outdoor restaurant until a huge storm came in a blew over all of the tables and chairs. We also did the boat tour of the small islands where rich people build pretty houses. I couldn´t help but think how I was going to get myself invited to a Granada island party sometime during my 2 years here.

After the first 4 days of tourist Nicaragua, my family was ready for real Nicaragua. On Sunday morning we set out for one of the longest but most rewarding days of the trip. We left for Santa Teresa, my training town so that my real family could meet my Nicaraguan family. I imagined much awkwardness because of the language barrier between my family and my nica family. But in reality, both my families got along great and had no problem talking through me as translator.

We continued on and met up with a group of Peace Corps Volunteers I am friends with and my parents took them out to pizza. We proved our love/lack of pizza by consuming 4.5 pizzas and two orders of breadsticks between 10 people. From there we drove (stuffed) to Corinto and immediately after arriving went to dinner at one of my Nica friend´s house.

I spent the rest of their time in Corinto showing them what its like to live and work there. They had a good chance to see some of the interesting challenges I face. For example, for about 38 our of the 48 hours that they were in Corinto there was no running water. Also my interesting neighbor situation where our walls inbetween us are made out of plywood and dont quite reach the floor leaving a 3 inch gap between the wall and the tile floor. While we were sitting and talking in my living room, my neighbor, who was in his house, says to me through the wall, ¨Paul, my girlfriend is pregnant.¨ Myself, not thinking that this was a ¨through the wall¨ conversation topic, was unsure how to react so I just said, ¨Really? Congratulations.¨ Privacy is fairly nonexistent at my house because sometimes they participate through the wall in conversations that are going on in my house. Also, we have many through the wall conversations that would probably be more appropriate face to face. But anyways, my family got to see the places I work, live and hang out in Corinto.

I´m very glad that my family got to know Nicaragua and Corinto. There are certain things that you just have to experience to fully understand and I´m glad that my family now understands. My family got generally the same impression that I first got. The scenery and vegetation are beautiful, the people are great, and its not as poor as you would think the second poorest nation in the western hemispere would be.

But more than anything else, I was just happy to spend time with my family. Growing up my whole life in Glen Ellyn, always living/being close to my family and maintaining the same friendships since I was young, it made me take for granted the importance of having people around that just know you. One big thing I miss here in Nicaragua is having people around that know everything about me and having family and friends that know where you come from, your goals, your personality and your quirks. My family visiting me for a week was a chance for me to be around the people that know me best and I enjoyed that break. I love meeting new and different people here but sometimes its nice to have those people around that know what you´re going to say before you say it.

Anyways, now that I have tour guide and translating experience I will charge my next visitors a higher fee (read: more leftovers at fancy dinners). And I hope I have more visitors here because I really enjoyed sharing my experience here.

I´ll try to write more often now that I´m back from vacation. Write me updates, I always like hearing whats going on back home. Take care everyone!

Mini-vacation...Miraflor

2007-07-02T13:35:00.000-05:00

I just got back yesterday from my first mini-vacation in Nicaragua and it was an overall success with a few interesting stories along the way.

The trip was to Miraflor, a nature reserve/coffee farm/pretty place in the mountains, to spend the weekend with my training group discussing the good, bad, and funny of our first three months in site. The trip from Corinto to Miraflor took about 10 hours on 5 different buses. The buses were either minivans packed with people, or old discarded yellow school buses from the U.S. packed with people. When you get on these buses there are vendors that come on selling a variety of things such as tomatoes, beverages, enchiladas, books on how to learn English, or bananas. This always entertains me because these buses are super cramped with people and these vendors try and pass through everyone yelling out what they’re selling. Once the bus gets going, there is always people getting on and off, we pass through villages and sometimes stop briefly for vendors to get on and try to sell stuff again. In other words the bus rides are definitely uncomfortable, hot and cramped but the time usually passes quickly in an entertaining way.

We all arrived to Miraflor on Friday after everyone had long busrides. Mine was one of the longer bus rides, but one girl in my group rode about 15 hours to get there. It was great to see everyone and find out about their sites. We stayed at Posada la Sonada in a cabin that had about 14 beds.

This is a cabin where the 14 of us stayed. Thats me standing in the green shirt there.

The owner was a sweet lady who cooked all our meals for us (delicious I might add) and arranged for a guide (read: 22 yr old neighbor boy) to take us on a hike to the nearby waterfall on Saturday. The hike was great because I finally had a chance to walk around in the mountains in Nicaragua.

The weather in Miraflor was a lot cooler than what I am used to in Corinto because it is in the mountains. I slept with my jeans on, two long sleeve shirts, a jacket, and a heavy blanket. In Corinto, I sleep in boxers, with a sheet and a fan pointed at me. The hike was great because the weather was still fairly cool, even at midday. Despite the cool weather, when we arrived at the small waterfall we decided to go swimming. There was a small cliff overlooking the waterfall where you could jump off of into the water below. We all took turns doing the cliff diving into the frigid cold water.

Thats me jumping into the water...I jumped from where the girl in the pink shirt is.

This is part of my group posing for a beautiful pic in front of the waterfall.

Later that day we returned to the cabin played cards and hung out. Most of the weekend was spent exchanging stories. For example, a guy in our group who lives in a very rural site was taught by his Nica friends how to make a chicken poop any time and any place. It involves spinning the chicken and spitting on its stomach and he says it works every time. Then he proved to us that it works every time by grabbing one of the chickens where we were staying. But the question we all asked was, “First off, why would you ever need a chicken to poop, and second off, who figured out that this was the way to make a chicken poop.” I guess you can never underestimate the lack of “normal” entertainment in farming communities.

This is our buddy showing how to make a chicken poop. Another one of the many valuable life skills we pick up in the peace corps.

On Sunday, we all said our good byes and left again to our sites with plans to meet up again in September. I left with my two friends that live close to Corinto and we hopped on our series of buses. The trip back was a bit exciting because about 30 min into our third bus it broke down in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road. We had already paid and we were in the process of getting our money back (of course not in full, but about a 70% refund) when another bus passed by and picked up some of the passengers from our bus that were standing on the side of the road and had already gotten their refund. That other bus started to leave and so we are trying to hurry up our refund process so we can chase the bus. We finally get the refund and start chasing after the bus yelling “Suave! Suave!” or slow down. Keep in mind that we are running with big backpacks on, the stupid Americans chasing after a bus full of Nicas. They finally slow down enough for us to jump on in the back door (remember the back door of school buses?). Well, there are three of us, and since the bus just picked up a bunch of new passengers, all the seats and the aisle were completely full. There was room for about 1 more person in the back there, but somehow we managed to squeeze the three of us on, barely being able to close the door behind us. Anyways, we spend the next three hours standing in the back of a packed old school bus, on dirt roads, holding our backpacks and bags. When finally arriving to our destination, we were exhausted but also felt lucky because if we didn’t get that bus, we may not have been able to get home that day.

Its times such as those that remind me that I’m in Nicaragua. Corinto is fairly developed, I have internet a block away from my house, almost always have running water, electricity, and cell phone service. So sometimes I think that my life here isn’t much different from life in the states. But riding on a school bus on dirt roads standing up makes me think, I’m probably in country a bit different than home. Then I learn the definitive way to make a chicken poop, and I know I´m a long way from Chicago.

Never mind about the rain.

2007-06-27T10:53:00.000-05:00

So Mother Nature loves to prove me wrong. Since the blog about how much its been raining here, it hasn´t rained. It has been hot and sunny here in the past two weeks with clear skies. Now I´ve recently been told that the rainy season means its rains for spurts then doesn't rain for a while. So really, its just kind of like spring time in the U.S.? I´ve been told that August and September are really wet months here but I´ve also been told the rainy season (right now) cools down Corinto and, in reality, it is still 95 degrees at 9am everyday.

Anyways, I actually have grown accustomed to the weather here and have lost the ability to imagine what ¨cold¨feels like. This means its perfect timing for me to take a brief vacation to the cold region of the country. This coming Friday I will be travelling to Esteli which is in the northern mountainous regionof the country. I´ve been told that its gets cold there during the night and sometimes you even need a sweatshirt! I´m going there to meet up with the majority of my training group to celebrate two girls´ birthdays. Our training group (20 of us) spent 2.5 months together in classes and living together in training towns. But, since we swore in as volunteers on March 30th and all left for our sites in different parts of Nicaragua, we haven´t seen each other. We are all going to meet up at a nature reserve that has cabins, hiking trails and lakes so it should be a great time to catch up with everyone, hear funny stories and speak english!

In Peace Corps they talk about the 3 month hump. This is the first three months at your site when you are still adjusting to the new people, the language, the work, living situation and the culture. Most volunteers say that this is the hardest part of their service, and since it is almost June 30th, everyone in my training group is about to pass the three month hump. So in a way this get together will also we to celebrate that. I´m sure there will be difficult times in our future, but by now most of us at least feel at home in our sites and settled into our jobs.

This will be my first time away from my site in the 3 months that I´ve been here and I´ve been looking forward to it for a couple of weeks now. It will be nice to see a different part of the country and hang out with Americans (especially so close to the 4th of July). Anyways, I hope all is well with everyone else...

Have a good 4th of July and eat lots of BBQ for me!

Rain....

2007-06-07T18:50:00.000-05:00

(My rainy patio)

So the rainy season has started here in Corinto. I also used to be confused to exactly what the rainy season is so let me explain. Simply enough, it means it rains. Usually every day. It will rain once or twice a day for about an hour each time. We still have days of sun, but they are interrupted by an hour of rain. I actually kind of enjoy it but it has thrown some complications into my life...

First, if its raining kids don´t go to school. I feel this can be problematic for an education system when there is a 6 month long RAINY SEASON! I´ve learned that there is a system to this madness. The kids start school at 7am. So the rule is that if its raining past any time past 6:30am, school is cancelled, at least for the kids anyways. The teachers still go so they can get their full government paycheck. So for example, last week, it rained in the early morning every day. So the students didn´t go to class for an entire week. Usually, at around 7:30am (or earlier) the sky would clear and the rest of the day was sunny and beautiful. But since it was raining at 6:30am, there wasn´t class. I blame this mostly on kids laziness and parents willingness to allow it, but there are actually some good reasons why. Most importantly, most of the schools have holes in their roofs, therefore if its raining, they can´t hold class. This ncludes two high school classrooms thats don´t have a roof at all. Legitimate excuse. Also, most kids and parents think that if they get wet, they will get sick. Understandable although I have gotten very wet from the rain many times here and have yet to get sick (its hot here, even during the rain so I personally believe it is impossible to catch a cold). Anyways, since half my job is teaching classes to 6th graders here in Corinto, if it rains...I have nothing to do.

Another result of the rainy season. Bugs. I´m not sure if this picture does justice but my feet have been covered with bug bites ever since the rainy season started. And of course they itch a lot. Its mostly just flies and mosquitos, but they really eat away at my ugly feet. All the Nicas tell me its because I have ¨sweet¨ gringo/American blood. That could be because Nicas don´t seem to have a problem with the bug bites. (For all of you that thought you would get two years without seeing my beautiful feet, no worries, here they are!)

Another problem I have with the rainy season involved my leaky roof. Luckily my landlord lives next door to me and is a super nice guy. He fixed the roof as soon as he could so I only had to deal with a couple of days of leaky roof.

The other inconvenience that the rainy season brings is getting my clothes to dry. Since I line dry all my clothes, unexpected rain makes it difficult to have clean, dry, good smelling clothes. For example, this morning I washed some clothes because it was super sunny. Depending on the item, it usually takes the whole day for clothes to line dry. Three hours after I washed, a big downpour came. Luckily I was at home this time, and I quickly tranferred my clothes to a line underneath my patio roof. Sometimes it starts raining unexpectedly when I´m at work and then my half dry clothes soak with rain water, which is usually less than clean. Sometimes my neighbors are nice enough to bring in my clothes, but sometimes they forget.

Anyways, thats how the rainy season has been affecting me in the 2 or 3 weeks since its started. In the past two weeks I have had two other changes that have nothing to do with the rain. I talked about my neighbors before, but now I have more. The brother of my neighbor and his wife just moved in next door with their newborn baby. Which makes, a 22 yr old woman with a 3 yr old, 24 yr old guy and 23 yr old woman with a 14 day old baby in the house on the left of me. Then on the right of me which was vacant before moved in a 25 year old guy by himself (it´s really rare to live alone, but his mother lives elsewhere and is planning to move to that house in a couple of weeks). It sort of feels like college but with babies and without all the beer. OK, maybe not college, but I´m living with young people again instead of middle-aged families and in that sense if feels like college.

Here is a picture of me and the new baby in my house. The baby boy´s name is Casey, and I was in charge of correctly spelling the name for the official documents. They wanted the correct english spelling but thought that it was spelled Keysi. You´ll notice that the baby is wearing a red bracelet. Nicaraguans put this bracelet on their newborns to protect them from drunks. Or at least thats what the mother told me. But all the babies I´ve seen in Nicaragua have this bracelet to protect them from harm (from drunks).

I think I´ve exhausted myself talking about rain and babies. Congrats to everyone that just finished school! Someone write me an email on how the new sunny weather in Chicago (or wherever) is affecting your life...

2007-05-21T18:44:00.000-05:00

This past week was very busy for me. I moved into my house this past weekend, which was more exhausting work than I thought it would be. Between the moving, cleaning, and arranging all day Saturday and Sunday, I was spent.

Then this past week I was working a couple of projects for the Dia de Solidaridad, or Day of Solidarity. This is an international day of recognition for the rights of people living with HIV and support for a cure. In typical Nicaraguan fashion, there was three different days that this was celebrated because no one was quite sure of the exact date.

I was told by various people that it was this past Wednesday, so I decided to do a red ribbon campaign in the high school. I had some of the neighborhood kids and coworkers help me make about 900 red ribbons. Then on Wednesday I went to every class in the high school to distribute them and give a 3 minute talk on the meaning of the red ribbon and importance of non-discrimination against people living with HIV. It was the first project that I have done here and I was pleased with how it went. The students wore the ribbons and listened to what I had to say. It was the first time that I have worked in the high school but I hope to work with them more in the future.

On Wednesday we also had a meeting with some youth leaders in Corinto about the significance of the Dia de Solidaridad and how they can bring that message to their classmates. During that meeting, a man who works with human rights came and told us that the Commission on AIDS in Corinto was going to start up again (I had been told that it hadn’t functioned for a couple of years) with a meeting on Thursday to plan activities for the Dia de Solidaridad on Sunday. So at the meeting on the Thursday a couple of the community leaders planned a small event in the center of Corinto to promote the Dia de Solidaridad. Then on Friday some of the Doctors were going around to schools saying that day, Friday, was the Dia de Solidaridad. Then yesterday, Sunday, we had the event at the Corinto Museum celebrating the day. Fiestas here are never just one day, and apparently neither are days of remembrance. So in other words I was busy with all of these events. They all turned out really well so I was happy.

This was the event on sunday in front of the Museum in Corinto. It is the nicest building in Corinto so there are a lot of events inside and around the building. We had an information table and some music playing.

These are some of the youth leaders (wearing the red ribbons I made, I might add) working on posters for their schools. Nicaraguan tradition is to never smile in pictures, the youth do sometimes because I think they have caught on from American culture, but still in every picture you get some faces that look angry/awkward.

Living alone is working out fantastically for me. I was worried about being lonely but it turns out that I live next to a great family that is very welcoming and generous so it is almost like I still live with a family, but have all my own space and stuff. The family next door isn´t a traditional family. It’s a 22 yr old mother, her 3 yr old son, their house worker a 40 yr old woman, and her two kids, a 12 yr old boy and 6 yr old girl. The house worker doesn’t technically live there but her and her kids spend the day there every day from 7am – 8pm. The kids will hang out in my house with me a lot and I chat it up with the women often. It’s been a great situation in the short amount of time I’ve been living here. I’ve also met some of the other neighborhood kids who are fun to hang out with. One of them really wants to learn English and he often comes over to do his homework so I can help him with his English. (Quick little story about the 3 yr old next door, he’ll come over to my house and just point and stuff and say “What’s this?”, he’ll point at a chair, then the wall, then my bottle of water, then the floor, always saying very inquisitively “What’s this?”. The best part is that he’ll come over every day asking the same thing about the chair, wall, floor, etc. I’m glad I have a cute Nicaraguan toddler in my life again!)

My ¨house¨is two rooms, one is like a living room and the other my bedroom. This is my living room with my bedroom in the background. I have plastic chairs which is typical of every nicaraguan household. My hammock is the colorful thing there on the right hand side. I love it. Oh, and the best part about my house is whats hanging on the wall next to the doorway, a machete. Another staple of every nicaraguan household.

This is a picture of my ¨kitchen¨. It is outdoor which is common in Nicaraguan households. That door is the door to my bedroom. I have some clothes hanging there because it was threatening to rain so I put them under that roof. The lavandero is the sink thing against the wall which is where I wash my clothes, dishes and hands. The little table in the middle has a stove on it, its like a gas powered hot plate. And the other table with the sheet over it is where I keep my dishes and spices. The sheet protects it from bugs and the ash that fall from the sky here (from the burning of the sugar can fields close by, apparently thats how you harvest sugar cane).

I thought this was a good picture of my patio. I share the patio with two other houses. I took this on a saturday which is typically the big clothes washing day. Those different colored little towels are my neighbors sweat rags (every single person here carries around a sweat rag to wipe their brow because everyone is constantly sweating!) I have some clothes hanging to the left hand side and in the back. That turquise thing in the back is where the bathroom and shower are. In the bottom left hand corner you can see the little cement block path I have to take to get there. This pic is taken from my ¨kitchen¨.

Thats all for now, keep me updated on how the Chicago spring/summer is going!

Moving Day

2007-05-09T14:45:00.000-05:00

In my posts I have talked about my housing prospects. Well, I finally decided on something and am going to move out this weekend! I will be moving about a block and a half away from my host family´s house so I will still be located in the ¨center¨ of Corinto. It is sort of like a townhouse in the sense that I will share some things with my neighbors. It is two small houses attached to each other, sharing a patio and a shower. My house is two small rooms. There are two toliets in the patio (one for me, one for the other family) and one shower that we share. I will also have my own lavandero, or washboard and sink in the patio. Most of the houses here have their toliet, ´kitchen¨ and shower out on their patio with just a roof over it to protect it from the rain. A Nicaraguan kitchen usually consists of a lavandero and a gas powered hot-plate stove. The lavandero serves to both wash the clothes, and also as your only sink and place where you wash your dishes. Sort of hard to explain, so once I move in I´ll take pictures.

Anyways, the finding a house process was annoying to say the least. Basically I just asked every Nicaraguan I knew if they knew of anybody renting a house. Then random people would come up to me and say ¨I hear you´re looking for a house to rent, do you know who´s renting a house? Carla, who lives two blocks down from where Don Julio lives, do you know where Don Julio lives?¨ ¨No.¨ ¨Don Julio lives one block north and two blocks down from the church.¨ Then I would follow those directions to find Carla and ask her about her house. (Quick note about directions here: the streets don´t have names here and people dont have house numbers. Your address here is in relation to a landmark. For example you might live, two blocks west and one block north of the central park. The Peace Corps Office address is ¨Two blocks north of Hotel Brandt¨. Also, sometimes they are in reference to things that don´t exist. Your address might be, two blocks north from where the bank used to be. Basically it just means that you have to be always asking questions as you go to a destination). As you can imagine, I often brought a Nicaraguan with me to help me find the places and also to ask about prices.

The one good thing about the house searching process was that I realized how nice the Nicaraguans are. I told a casual work acquaintance that I was having problems finding houses and on the weekend she came to my house and led me ALL around Corinto to people she knew asking if they knew of houses. She spent 4 hours with my looking for houses. I kept telling her that she didnt have to do this for me, and she said, ¨You would do the same for me if I was in the U.S. looking for houses.´ And no doubt, after this experience I would. But I was thinking, if some random Nicaraguan (or any foreigner) got a job at my office in the States and was complaining about lack of good housing in Chicago, would I spend my saturday afternoon contacting real estate agents and asking friends for available housing? I wish I could say yes, but probably I would just sympathize with them and move on to the next topic of conversation. Not only did this woman help me, but the next day a friend of mine did the same thing, taking me around to people he knew to ask them about housing. I was impressed by the help I was given which really made me feel welcome here. Granted things are a bit different in the States, but try to show hospitality to foreigners living in the U.S. as repayment for them helping me here. A small gesture goes a long way to help someone feel welcome in a strange place where they dont even have addresses!

Anyways, I found the place I´m going to move into through a friend of a friend. I am hoping to only live in this place for a few months while I continue to look for a more private place, where I will have my own shower and own patio. I move into my new place this weekend. I am most excited about being able to cook for myself (this excitement will probably fade immediately after I make myself a huge veggie omelette that I have been craving). I dont have that much stuff so the move shouldn´t be too difficult, I´ll keep you updated on how everything goes. Have a good weekend!

Vaccination Campaign and Fiesta

2007-05-01T12:22:00.000-05:00

So I guess the fact that I haven’t posted in a while shows that I am settling into normalcy here in Corinto because I don’t have something new and exciting to post every other day. Anyways, the last two weeks have been pretty interesting and exhausting.

As far as work goes, last week was the National Vaccination Campaign in Nicaragua. This means that the health workers all throughout Nicaragua go door to door through their communities vaccinating children under 5 against polio and any other vaccines they still need. Also, they vaccinate kids and adults against tetanus. So, since I am now a health worker here in Nicaragua I went out with a team of nurses to give these vaccines. Mostly I just did some of the paperwork involved and carried around the cooler of the vaccines. Although they would have let me, I did not inject anyone because it is against Peace Corps rules and I’m pretty sure that would break some sort of medical moral codes. The polio vaccine is actually just droplets that you put into the baby or child’s mouth, so I did helped administer those.

Overall it was a very interesting experience because I got to go door to door and see a lot of different parts of Corinto. Everyone of course was really nice and invited us inside so I got to see the range of houses here from shacks made out of tin to big super nice houses (probably paid for by a relative working in the U.S., or at least that’s what a Nicaraguan friend told me). All the little kids were really cute and it was amazing how some kids took it with a smile, and then some kids would try to run away screaming and crying. I’d say the crying was much more common.

An interesting cultural thing was a belief about the relation between bathing and vaccines. Most of the mothers would say, “But my child hasn’t bathed yet today, won’t the vaccine cause damage because of that?” Most of the mothers believed that if later in the day the child bathed after the vaccine it would somehow cause harm to the child. But Nicaraguans have a lot of interesting beliefs in regards to hot and cold liquids. For example, you shouldn’t take a cold shower when you’re really hot because it will cause harm. And you shouldn’t drink a really cold drink when you are really hot because it will cause harm. As a result sometimes they will serve you coffee on a really hot afternoon. I haven’t experienced the coffee one much in Corinto because it is a bigger city and these beliefs are generally much stronger in the rural areas. Anyways, it’s easy to think these beliefs are stupid, but us Americans also have our own beliefs that are based on no scientific fact…it’s just another one of those fascinating cultural differences.

The vaccination campaign was really cool to participate in but exhausting! Walking from door to door all day in 100 degree heat was a bit tiring. I’m glad I participated in it but I also glad its over (well almost, we are going to the high school to vaccinate on Wednesday).

This past weekend was a Seafood Festival to benefit the Old Folk’s Home here in Corinto. It was delicious! It worked sort of like the Taste of Chicago where you bought tickets and then went to booths that were selling all sorts of different types of seafood dishes. For example, fish tacos, shrimp pancake type things (sounds gross but delicious), shrimp cocktail, fried fish, shrimp paella….and much more. I was really impressed by the organization of this fiesta. I’ve been to a couple other fiestas in other cities in Nicaragua and they seemed to be haphazardly put together, but this was very well run. Congrats Corinto! The fiesta is continuing all week which means that Tuesday and Thursday no one has to work which is nice. There is a concert this Friday and other activities throughout the week…should be a good time.

The final news I have to share is that I’m almost positive that I found a house to move into! I am required by Peace Corps to stay with my current host family until May 12 and then after that I can choose my own housing situation. I am anxious to live on my own after almost 4 months of host family living. The house I found would be far away from the center of town so it would be a smaller neighborhood feel, which is what I was looking for. I want to live in an area where I can really get to know my neighborhood; the center of town just doesn’t have that super friendly feel like the smaller neighborhoods have. I’m going to decide for sure where I’m living tomorrow so I’ll keep you updated.

That’s all for now. Hope everything is good with everyone at home. Its graduation season and the weather is probably nice, enjoy it!

Hiking Volcano San Cristobal

2007-04-18T15:07:00.000-05:00

Now that I’ve been in Corinto for more than two weeks I feel more like this city is my “home”, which is a nice feeling to have. I’ve made some friends (all high schoolers, but hey, they’re fun too) that helps me feel like I have some sense of belonging here. Work is starting slowly. I’ve realized that my counterpart isn’t much of a “helper”. This is a little frustrating but now that I’ve realized this I know that I have to take initiative instead of waiting for her to show me things. That’s what I did this past week when she wasn’t around, I went around Corinto introducing myself to some people that I think I might work with in the future (ie. Youth Center and Women’s Center). I think I will start giving classes about HIV, teenage pregnancy and self esteem to sixth graders next week. This will start giving me a routine, which I am anxious to start having here. Also, I have been looking for a house to rent here in Corinto. I currently live with a host family which is working out really well, but after more than three months of living with host families, I’m ready to have some privacy and independence. Finding a house to rent has proven to be more difficult that I thought. Things are either too expensive or way too run down. I may have found something today that I can rent for a good price and it’s small but very nice. It would be close to where I am living now so I could maintain the same friendships easily. We shall see.

Anyways, this past Sunday I went with some other volunteers to hike Volcan San Cristobal. This volcano is about an hour drive from where I live and you can see it looming in the distance from Corinto. It is the tallest volcano in all of Nicaragua at 1,765 meters high. We started on the trail at 6am and got to the crater at 11am. The top was more amazing than I had imagined with made the very difficult/hot hike very worth it. Plus, being that it’s Nicaragua, we were the only people hiking the volcano, so we had it all to ourselves all day on a beautifully hot Sunday afternoon. We spent about an hour on the rim of the crater eating lunch and exploring the crater a bit. Then we descended for the next 4 hours finally arriving at our truck parked on the dirt road at about 4pm. I haven’t done an all day hike in a long time, I forgot how exhausting they are! But it was by far one of the greatest hikes I’ve done. Interestingly enough, usually hikes are great because of the view from the top of the surrounding area. This hike was great because of the view of the actual top of the volcano, the crater.

This is a picture of us hiking up the volcano. It was starting to get very steep at this point...and very hot since we were past the tree line.

This is my friend Travis, right on the edge of the crater. As you can see there is tons of sulfur gas coming out. The outer crater is very big and wide, but then if you hike down in you can see a smaller (but still big) opening which is where Travis is standing.

This is what the top looked like right before we got to the crater. It was loose volcanic rock with lots of cactuses. We all got a little cut up in there. Plus that was the view...it was a little cloudy but still beautiful.
This is an attempt at a shot of the crater. Again you can see the gas coming out. It was too big to get the whole thing in the photo.

This is the group of volunteers I went with. The man on the left is the host dad (nicaraguan) of the guy in the Alma shirt. We are standing on the edge of the crater of the volcano. On the left is down the volcano, and to the right is the crater.

Sunday night, after the volcano hike, I went to a variety show that my host sister was participating in to benefit the Old Folks Home here. There were some young people, like my host sister, participating but the majority of the singers were men or women between the ages of 60 and 70. I wish I had a video camera with me. I’ll just say this, one the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life is a 70 year old Nicaragua woman dancing provocatively on stage to a Daddy Yankee reggaeton song. To make it even better, halfway through the song a random 75 year decrepit man jumps on stage to dance with the old Nica woman. Priceless.

Anyways, thats all from me right now, I hope everyone else is doing well, keep me updated with your lives! Until next time...

Puppies and host family.

2007-04-18T14:21:00.000-05:00

I haven´t really said much about my host family here in Corinto. They arent quite as great as my host family in Sta. Teresa but they are really nice. I have a 16 year old host sister that I hang out with a lot and I have met and hung out with her friends. I know, I´m back in high school again. Anyways, I also have a 26 yr old host sister who is almost never around, and a host brother who is 11. My host mom is about in her 60s. They have two dogs and one of their dogs just had puppies the day before I arrived in Corinto (almost 3 weeks ago). Here are some pictures of the puppies!

Here is a picture of me with the puppy in our living room.

This is a picture of my host brother Payo, host sister, Karen, and me. And of course the puppy.

And so you might ask, ¨Paul, are you going to keep one of the puppies? They are so cute how could you not want one?¨ And the answer to that is, yes I would love to keep one. However, the mother is the ugliest dog I have ever seen in my life. (And not the cute kind of ugly like my Grandpa´s old dog).

Here is a picture of the mother...since there is a good chance that those puppies will grow up to look like her, I´m not going to keep one of the puppies. How could I possibly love a dog that looks like that???

First week at site...

2007-04-07T17:22:00.000-05:00

Well, here I am, living in Corinto. I moved here last Sunday after lugging my 80+ pounds of luggage from Managua to Corinto on two different buses (just an fyi: the modes of transportation here are either “microbuses” which are vans from the 1980s that are very run down and they somehow pack in about 20 people and there always seems to be room for one more. Or the alternative is taking a school bus. Literally these are old school buses from the States that get sent here to Nicaragua when they are too old to transport the U.S. schoolchildren. These are a lot slower than the microbuses but generally you have a bit more room. Sometimes you’ll see a school district from the states written on the side of the bus that you recognize, or sometimes they repaint them to be very colorful. I think that the old school buses are one of my favorite “different” things about Nicaragua. I took the school bus to Corinto because it had much more space for all my luggage, but usually I take the microbuses to get around).

Anyways, the first three days here were pretty tough. I was really overwhelmed again by everything. I had just spent the past 2.5 months becoming very good friends with the other trainees and spending a lot of time with them, and then poof, I was on my own. I also went from a SUPER structured training environment, to here, where I have to develop my own idea of what I am going to work on. Then of course this was coupled with a new host family, still having problems with the language and being in a new place and not knowing anything or anyone. So basically, I was stressed. And when I’m stressed I become quiet which makes things even worse because then everyone around me thinks I quiet and shy so it’s hard to meet people. As you can see I was struggling.

But sure enough after getting to feel comfortable with my host family and understanding the language a lot better (the slight difference in accent in Corinto compared to Santa Teresa really threw me off) I started to be myself again and have really enjoyed Corinto. I was a little shocked at first because the people here aren’t as openly warm as in Santa Teresa. I attribute that to the fact that Corinto is more of a big city by Nica standards and Sta. Teresa is a small town. In Sta. Teresa when you walk down the street you say hi to everyone. (One more brief side note: here in Nicaragua if you pass someone on the street you don’t say “Hola”, you say “Adios”. This confused myself and the other Americans in the beginning but now it seems normal. They don’t understand why we would say “Hello” to someone as we’re passing just like I don’t understand why they would say “Adios” to someone while passing). Anyways, so here in Corinto when I would say “Adios” to people I’d get blank stares and no responses. This was not the Nicaragua I was used to because usually the people are so friendly. After being here a couple of days I’ve noticed that this city operates differently. The people are still really friendly but with people they know. In Santa Teresa, “strangers” almost doesn’t exist because everyone knows each other. But here, in a city of 20,000, there are strangers. So it took a couple days for my neighbors here to get accustomed to my face and my presence and now they are as friendly as the people in Sta. Teresa. It seems minor, but little things like that made it hard for me to adjust at first.

The past two days have been great here. I have a host sister who is 16 and she has been showing me around Corinto and helping me improve my Spanish. It is Semana Santa here which is the holy week, and so there are processions through the streets everyday. All of Nicaragua has the entire week off of work and school so it is a party week for everyone. I haven’t really done any partying since my only friend here is 16 yrs old, but it seems like a good time watching everyone else! But the moral of the story is that I started to feel more at home here and adjusted to the ways that things work here in Corinto. It’s a little more rough around the edges than the “perfect” Sta. Teresa. But I’ve grown to like that aspect because it seems a little more real.

This is a picture of one of the processions through Corinto. It was on Good Friday so it was Christ with the cross followed by the Virgin Mary.

Anyways, I only had to do minimal work this week. I went with my counterpart (a doctor at the health center who I will work directly with for the next two years) and a few other health workers to various restaurants and food stands on the beach and made sure that they were preparing food in a sanitary way. It was great to get to know some of the restaurants. I was super impressed by the fact that these checks were going on, but really they didnt check much, I’m still not convinced that some of the places are preparing food sanitarily. Next week my counterpart is gone all week so I’m basically on my own. I think I’ll go to the health center and try to meet some of the workers and doctors there and then maybe visit some of the other organizations here that I might work with. For example there is a Youth House and a Women’s shelter here, I’m still not sure how they work so this week I will go investigate.

The two women in navy blue I was working with. This is one of the beaches in Corinto and we were walking around talking to people that were selling food from little stands. Not a bad way to spend a days work. The beach isnt gorgeous, but I think it beats an office building. Although I might change my mind if that office building had air conditioning...

I’ll close with a funny story. When we were visiting the restaurants to “inspect” them, we would all meet at the health center and then get a ride to the beach. Our ride was the town ambulance. Here in Nicaragua ambulances sometimes transport sick or injured people, but most of the time just transport health workers or whoever needs a ride. The ambulance is just an SUV with a stretcher in back. Anyways, the ambulance driver, Don Pedro, came to pick up myself , my counterpart and three other female workers. We started driving and Don Pedro started talking to me about how I was definitely going to marry a Nicaraguan woman. By the way, every Nicaraguan that I meet, within the first minute of conversation tells me that I will definitely end up marrying a Nica. It’s quite amusing. (Don’t worry, I don’t have any plans like that so far). So Don Pedro was telling me that I had to find a Nica woman to marry me but first I had to learn how to pick up a Nica woman by catcalling. The catcalling here in Nicaragua, and Corinto especially, is ridiculous. It doesn’t matter if a woman is with her husband or by herself she is going to get some comment on how beautiful she is and possibly/probably something more explicit. Whats interesting is the men here generally think that this is the best way to find/pickup women and think that the women love it. (An American girl here who has a boyfriend in the states was asked by a Nica man “What catcall did your boyfriend use to get you?”). So I’m in the ambulance with 4 women and Don Pedro, and Don Pedro pulls alongside this woman who is carrying a huge bucket of stuff on her head and just starts catcalling her, telling her how beautiful she is for about a minute (p.s. this woman was about 50 yrs old and not beautiful). Meanwhile the women in the ambulance just laugh while this is happening and I can’t help but laugh. The woman who is being catcalled just stands there, listens and smiles but doesn’t respond. Eventually Don Pedro pulls away with the ambulance and tells me “That’s how it’s done.”

I think the catcalling is awful, but it’s honestly a part of life here and there’s nothing I can do to change it. So when Don Pedro is giving me a lesson, I’ll just listen and laugh.

That’s all I have for now, Happy Easter everyone!

Officially a Volunteer!

2007-03-30T13:48:00.000-06:00

This morning my training group and I officially swore in as volunteers! This means that we are now Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) instead of Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs), its a good feeling to finally be there, and also a bit scary! Anyways, the ceremony consisted of a first part where it was just our training staff, the trainees and our host families. I made a picture slide show that was shown that had pictures of all the families with their host kids, and then other fun pictures from our training. It ended up turning out really well and all the host families really liked it. So that part of the ceremony was thanking our host families. Then the second part was much more formal with the U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua, the Minister of Health from Nicaragua and all the Peace Corps staff including the country director. It all took place at the nicest hotel in Nicaragua, the Intercontinental. The ceremony ended with the Minister of Health swearing us in as Peace Corps volunteers in Spanish, and then the Ambassador swearing us in as volunteers for the U.S. government in English. It was a really nice ceremony with all of us dressing up nicely for the first time since we've been here! Here are some pics from the event and afterwards:

This is Danny and Kadesha, two members of my group that spoke at the family ceremony giving thanks to the families for hosting us. My picture slideshow thing is in the background.

This is me and U.S. Ambassador just after swearing in. He looks like he's not happy, but really he is super thrilled that he finally met me.

And right after that previous picture, the Ambassador was mobbed by Nicaraguan news reporters. I'm not sure what they asked him, but basically after every event where the Ambassador speaks, the press asks him to comment on something. Hopefully we'll get in the newspaper here!

This is a picture of the of our whole group after the swearing in. The guy in the middle with the suit on is our Assistant Peace Corps Director (APCD). He is basically our boss because he is in charge of the Peace Corps Health Education program in Nicaragua.

Here is the guys pic. A couple of the guys in our group grew beards all through out training that they called their "swearing in beards". I am a little sad that I didnt participate because I've never had a full beard in my life. But, at the same time, having a beard while being in 100 degree heat for 3 months sounds like a nightmare. And they agree, they are shaving them off later today. The three guys in the suits are Peace Corps staff. Our APCD is on the left. The man in the black suit in the middle is our Peace Corps Country Director who is in charge of all things Peace Corps in Nicaragua. And the guy on the right is Nicaraguan and was in charge of our training.

Anyways, that was swearing in. Its was really exciting for all of us, but we all feel really anxious too because for the first time since we got to Nicaragua, we are all going to have to separate. Our group has spent a lot of time together and have gotten really close, but starting this Sunday we are going to scattered throughout the country. Also, throughout training we had something planned just about everyday with assigned tasks and were usually surrounded by other Americans. Now that we are actual volunteers, we go off to our sites to live surrounded by only Nicaraguans and we have to create our own job and form new relationships from nothing. Pretty exciting and pretty intimidating!

Anyways, our group is in the capital city, Managua, this week and we plan on going out and celebrating our swearing in. Then tomorrow and sunday we will be saying goodbye to each other as one by one we leave for our sites. I will be leaving Sunday morning for Corinto. It will be quite a mix of emotions.

One more thing...During the swearing in ceremony we thanked a lot of people that helped us throughout training and our friends and family from the states definitly was mentioned. So I just wanted to thank everyone who has sent me emails, cards, or packages! Every little bit helped me to adjust to my life here in Nicaragua. And thanks for reading my blog and emails, every time I could vent a little bit, or share a great experience helped me to organize all my new thoughts in my head. Anyways, thanks to all!

Youth Group Party

2007-03-26T14:30:00.000-06:00

We had a party to celebrate the Youth Group finishing their project. Overall it was a pretty lame party...we played limbo, drank some sodas and then have them certificates thanking them, but they seemed to have a good time.

This was the whole group. There are a couple of guys missing from the pic, but this is almost everyone.

We played limbo, and I was one of the final two. Impressive right? Especially becasue I was playing against a bunch of 14 yr old girls!

This is just a pic from St. Patty´s Day.
This is some of us when we went to La Boquita for St Patty´s Day. A pretty fun time was had by all.

Random pictures

2007-03-26T14:13:00.000-06:00

So I finally got the digital pictures that some of my friends in the group have taken, so these pictures are just random ones I´ve been meaning to post...

This is a picture of my training group about 3 days after we arrived in Nicaragua. My training group has 20 future volunteer, and this picture also has 3 current volunteers. (Thats Lake Nicaragua in the background.)

Just another pic of Carlito. I feel like an annoying parent that always shows baby pics...

Three of these people, I live with and 4 I dont live with. The woman in the center (white shirt) is my host Aunt Veronica. She lives next door to me and houses another trainee (the only white girl in the pic). The other two girls are Veronica´s daughters. I consider them part of my host family too because I spend a lot of time hanging out at their house. I tend to be all the butt of all of Veronicas jokes but she is really funny so I enjoy it!

This is me washing my clothes by hand. Yesterday I washed two loads worth and I have cuts on my hands from it...its hard work!

This is another trainee that lives in Santa Teresa, Lisa, cutting the long hair around my ears so I could avoid getting a haircut for another week or two. Since it was nighttime, she was using my headlamp which made it even more funny.

2007-03-21T11:05:00.000-06:00

So always a crowd favorite are pictures of Carlito. Here he is in our house dressed up as a cowboy. Since my host mom is a seamstress (and a nurse...she pretty much works from the time she wakes up, 6am until the time she goes to bed, 10:30pm) she makes costumes and rents/sells them. So this was just a random night when she let her grandson carlito dress up.

And thats carlito with his aunt (whose 9) and my host sister Athziri. We decided that she was a Spanish Space Dancer, because we didnt really know what the costume was.
And here is me with Carlito. I got my haircut the next day so its not quite as long, but basically thats me after 2 months in Nicaragua, any different? I dont think so.

This is my new room in Corinto. I know that this isnt the best picture but it gives you an idea. And yes, its a bit messy. The savior is that I have a fan which is pretty much a necessity because its so hot during the day and night. This room is much bigger than my room in Santa Teresa which is nice.

Another view of my room and the door into my room. You can sort of see that one of my walls is just a piece of wood...it doesnt go all the way to the ceiling, its just a block between my room and the living room. The ceilings are really high Spanish tile ceiling. Currently, nearby Corinto, in Chichigalpa they are burning sugar cane as part of the processing of the sugar, and so ash falls on Corinto all day. Since the roof isnt exactly air-tight when I get back from a day of work my room and bed is covered in ash. Luckily I live with a host family that cleans my room every day, a necessity here because of all the ash and dust. I dont know what I´m going to do when I live on my own. Sweeping and dusting my house everyday will be something I have to get used to.

Leaving Corinto and heading back to Santa T.

2007-03-20T16:04:00.000-06:00

There were some rocky spots about my visit to Corinto but overall I left Corinto on a very positive note. I am excited to go back there on April 1st and I think I will have a better plan of how to attack my first couple of months. I still am unsure of exactly where I will focus most of my energy but I am hoping to get experience in a lot of different areas in the first couple of months and then after that focus in on one area. But I am excited to get to know the people better and form my work relationships.

Everyone from my training group of 20 returned to the capital city of Managua on this past Thursday. Since we had meetings all day on Friday in Managua, Peace Corps put us up in a hostel/hotel for the night. We all went out for dinner and beer which was a great way for all of us to share our stories from our weeks in site (e.g. I showered with a huge cockroach!, I have nowhere to put my clothes except on the dirt floor!). Everyone was really happy about there new sites which was great to hear especially since some people were happy with their initial site assignment. Most people had the same feelings as I did, the first couple of days were rocky, but by the end they were super excited to go back.

The other interesting thing was that we were all really excited to get back to our host families that we had been living with since we got to Nicaragua. I’m not sure if it is just by necessity, or our host families are that great, but we all genuinely missed them while we were gone. When I got home they were really interested to hear about my new site, but specifically to hear about my new host family. I made sure to focus on the negative things, so my current host family wouldn’t get too jealous.

This past weekend happened to be St. Patty’s Day and us trainees felt like we had to celebrate it in some way. We decided to go to the nearby beach for the day. The trip was about 2 hours by microbus to “La Boquita”, a beach on the Pacific Ocean. The beach was pretty beautiful and the waves were the biggest and most powerful I think I have ever seen. But that’s not saying much since it was the first time I’ve swam in the Pacific Ocean (except in Corinto, but those beach are protected by other islands). I ended up being sore the next day from getting knocked down so much by the waves! This particular beach was really fun because they had little straw cabanas where you could hang out in the shade. We ordered some food and drank some beer, but not enough to make an Irishman proud. The beach was interesting because there were some random pigs and horses that were roaming around on the beach. It added a new element to beach life that I had never experienced before. All around, it was a unique and fun St. Patty’s day.

This week is called “independent study week”. It basically means that if there is anything that we want more information on, we have this week more or less free to investigate it. I’m going to continue taking Spanish classes, although at this point they are optional. Also, I’m going to attend a class on how to cook with soy, something that’s encouraged for Nicaraguans because it is a cheap source of nutrients. I’m still thinking about what else I should try and learn.

I guess that’s all from me right now. It was a super long post, but a lot has happened. I hope everyone had a good St. Patty’s Day, and are enjoying the fact that spring is almost there! And as always, thanks to those that have emailed me!

First Impressions of Corinto...

2007-03-13T19:57:00.000-06:00

So a week after receiving my future site, I get to visit Corinto for a week, in order to meet my counterpart I'll be working with for 2 years, and get to know the town and the Health Center a bit.

So here I am finally at my site after many weeks/months/years of waiting for this moment! Its sort of a roller coaster of emotions that at this moment are very overwhelming, but I'll try to explain some of my first impressions.

First my impression of the town in general. Its a little bigger than I expected but not too big. I am happy about that. It is divided into small neighborhoods that make it manageable. Although I still am overwhelmed by how big it is compared to my host town of Santa Teresa. There are some parts that are fairly nice, but there are other parts that are super poor. Everyone rides around on bicycle which I think is great. Things are just far enough away to not be able to walk, but not far enough to need a car. Also, it is surrounded by beaches which are really beautiful. Somehow I sill can't wrap my head around the fact that I am living so close to the pacific ocean.

Work so far is super overwhelming. Talking about work with my counterpart is great, there are so many awesome opportunities for work here in Cor into. But I've now been to the Health Center and met a ton of people and its just very overwhelming to think about how to initiate all the possible projects. I'm hoping that after I am here for a couple weeks/months and I know the people this will be easier. But right now I am overwhelmed by the amount of people I have met and having to explain who I am and what I am doing in Spanish to a bunch of different people that have no idea what Peace Corps is. Most people assume I'm a doctor because I'm working at the health center. And then they don't really understand why I am coming all the way to Nicaragua for 2 years just for health education. But overall, everyone has been super nice, its just overwhelming. Ok, i think I've made the "overwhelming" point. I'm super excited for the work possibilities, it will just take some time.

So the other aspect of my new future life is my host family. This I was thinking was going to be no problem. I had already lived with a Nicaraguan family and so I figured that it would be easy. And for the most part it is. Although, there have been some unexpected glitches. First off, my host mom can't understand any of the Spanish that I speak. My counterpart, and my family in Santa Teresa understand me fine, but somehow here, they can't. So I'm working on that. The other issue is food. I like all Nicaraguan food and basically here I will eat whatever. But of course they ask me what I want to eat, so I respond, "whatever your guys are eating, i like everything. " They didn't like this answer and kept asking me. So finally I answer, with a SUPER typical Nicaraguan dish, and they respond, "oh no! we don't have that right now, do you want us to go buy it, I feel really bad!" So I am irritated, because literally I will eat ANYTHING. Here is another food related discussion I had with my host mom after she gave me a huge plate of rice and beans and eggs for breakfast-

Host mom- Do you want tortilla with that
ME- No, that's ok, this is perfect.
HM- So, You don't like tortillas
ME- No, its not that, i just don't want tortillas with this.
HM- So then you hate tortillas.
ME- No, I love tortillas, its just that I don't eat that much for breakfast so this is plenty.
HM- So that's too much food...sorry, I can take some away.
ME- No, its the perfect amount!
HM- So then do you want some bread
ME- No, I don't need anything else with this
HM- So you hate bread
ME- no, its just that this is plenty
HM- I'm sorry I gave you too much food
ME- no its not too much, its perfect.
HM- Well then, here are some crackers, why don't you have some crackers with that.

And it continues from there....
I think you get the picture. Anyways, the family is super nice, but sometimes being in conversations like that start to irritate you when they happen every meal.

Overall, I am super pleased with my site but I realize now more than ever that its going to be a big adjustment for my first month or two living here. But at the same time, I'm very excited about the adjustment so lets just hope everything works out!

I'll try to take some pics of the town and post them here sometime. Happy almost st. patty's day!

2007-03-13T19:28:00.000-06:00

This is another picture of volcano Masaya with the smoke. My first volcano, I still think its cool.

Here's a picture of a group of us at the volcano. From left to right is, Cody, Amanda, Brian, Me, Lisa, Jorien, and Lauren.
This is a bus full of peace corps volunteers. When we have class we usually have to find our own transportation to and from the location. This usually means taking a microbus or walking. But sometimes when we are travelling all together in a group from the peace corps office, or Peace Corps is being especially nice, they will send this bus to come and get us and take us where we need to go. The bus is owned by PC and the driver is name Douglas, or as we call him Don Douglas. He is Nicaraguan and just about the nicest man ever. He is always smiling and always happy to drive us wherever, even if it is at 6am. This bus also has many nicknames such as- DonDouglasMobile, White Rabbit, and Conejo Blanco. Anyways, not that interesting for you folks, but a lot of fun for us!

Here is a slightly more recent and good picture of the group of us that live in Santa Teresa. Again from left to right is, Danielle, Kadesha, Lisa, and Me. This was taken on Valentines Day when we exchanged gifts with some of the kids from our youth group.

Pictures and Nica Schools

2007-03-07T17:44:00.000-06:00

So...I just posted a bunch of things. I finally got some pictures online after a couple of failed attempts. I also wrote an entry about the schools here...enjoy...and fill me in on your lives!

p.s. I just bought a cell phone here since I know I´ll have cell phone service at my site. If you want my number, just email me.

More Pictures!

2007-03-07T17:19:00.000-06:00

So this is a class room in Nicaragua. See my post below to read more about the schools in Nicaragua. If you recall, I have been working with a youth group while I have been here in Sta. Teresa. We meet to hang out, but primarily we were working on a project. The kids chose there own project, they wanted to give a talk in the school about environmental health (clean water, throw away garbage, etc.). So we had a youth group of about 14 kids but we decided to divide them in two groups and each group would give a different talk in different classrooms. Another trainee and I worked with a group of six, and the two other trainees worked with the other 8 kids. These pictures were taken while the kids were carrying out their project in the schools. This was the same school that I gave my HIV talk in.

Two members of our youth group describing what makes up a healthy community.

This was the group that we worked with (one dropped out because she was too busy with school). Their names from left to right are: Ruth - 16, Walquiria - 14, Hoksom - 16, Jefferson - 16 and Jared - 20. Their name are kind of surprising, but most of the young people names here are very uncommon, either uncommon English names or uncommon Spanish names. They are a lot more unique with their naming of children here. Walquiria is my host-cousin and lives next door to me, so I hang out with her a lot. The others stop by a lot too so I see them about every other day. We were really worried about how the actual project would turn out because they were super nervous when they practiced and were really worried about actually doing it in front of the classroom. But they did an awesome job and didn't show their nerves at all. The other trainee and I were like proud parents as we watched them do their thing on their own.

This picture is super old. It was taken after I had been in Nicaragua for only two days. I realized that I never posted it. This is the group that I am living with in Santa Teresa. From left to right is Kadesha, Lisa, Danielle, and me. Danielle is living with Walquiria´s family. So we live right next door to each other and we hang out with each others families a lot. Lisa and Danielle are both from Boston and Kadesha and I are both from Chicago...kind of random how that worked out. Danielle and I worked together with the group of kids that is pictured above and Kadesha and Lisa worked with the other group. We get along with each other really well which is great because we spend a lot of time together in class or working with our youth group. This picture is really old...we are all much more tan and my hair isn´t quite as razor short. I´ll try to put up a recent pic of me....eventually.
And this is just for fun. It was a big mural in one of the buildings we were in and I thought it was beautiful. I currently have it on the background of my computer...I suggest you do the same.

Pictures of Volcano Masaya and a Nica Bday

2007-03-07T17:00:00.000-06:00

These are some fellow trainees from my group. They are standing at the edge of Volcano Masaya. The smoke in the background is sulfur from the active volcano. And yes, the guy second from the left is goofy. The guy in the green shirt is named Travis, he is going to be the closest person to me from our group when we get to our sites. He will be in the city of Chinandega (where I visited for my volunteer visit) which is about a half hour away from Corinto.
So this picture is a little wierd but I thought I´d include it because I thought it was funny. These are two of my good friends from the group, Jonathon and Brian. Let me explain what they are doing. In spanish, there is no word for awkward. You can say incomodo, but really that just means uncomfortable which our training group doesnt think accurately describes awkward situations. So since we are foreigners living in a strange land with a new family, we have awkwards moments nearly everyday, if not multiple times per day (for example, when the toliet doesnt flush randomly and you need your host family to help you solve that problem, or you confuse the spanish word for gay and mattress, colchon vs. cochon, i think you can see the possibilities for awkwardness with those two words). So one trainee know sign language and told us the ¨sign¨ in sign language for awkward. The sign is holding out two fingers, and waving them up and down. So basically during conversations, during lectures, or any time we are together, we use the gesture a lot to describe our super awkward feelings. I hope you guys can appreciate the humor in that...
The girl in the middle with the long hair was the birthday girl. She is my ¨host-cousin¨and her name is Windy (and the answer to your question is: her mom thought the name was pretty). This was at my ¨host aunt´s¨house where I hang out a lot because it is next door to my house.
That is my nephew, Carlito trying to take down the pinata. I call him my nephew only because he calls me his uncle. So cute, I know. For you spanish speakers, he actually calls me: Pabliiiito, mi ti-iiiiiiito. And yes I am going to miss him immensely when I have to leave that site.
That is my host sister trying to take down the pinata. All the kids were waiting super anxiously to charge the candy and money that falls from it.

Nica Schools

2007-03-07T16:42:00.000-06:00

One of the things that Peace Corps encourages/requires us to do as Health Educators is work in the schools. Essentially we are “guest speakers” that come and give a half-hour or hour long class on a health related topic. During training each of us is required to give one talk to a classroom, but during our service it is optional but encouraged to do it on a regular basis.

The schools here have many similarities and many differences than schools in the U.S. The primary school has a “pre-school” that is preschool/kindergarten. Then they have grades 1-6. Each grade only has one classroom, so each grade has about 45 students for one teacher (at least that’s how it is in Santa Teresa, I would imagine it depends on how many kids there are in town). The way class usually works is that each kid has a notebook and the teacher lectures and the class copies the notes into their notebook. The students don’t have workbooks, textbooks or anything like that. Usually the teacher has a teacher edition textbook that she lectures from, but not for all subjects. Needless to say, with 45 kids and no resources, the classes are a lot less interactive and creative than many classes in the U.S.

As a result, when some whitey American approaches the teacher and says I want to teach your class for 45 minutes, the teacher is more than willing and the kids generally love it. It’s a change of pace for the kids, which I think they need. Peace Corps has taught us a lot of effective games/activities that we can play with school children and has taught us the importance of many visual aids. So usually us Peace Corps people go into a class with a bunch of posters made up and games to play. Generally the kids have fun no matter what, but sometimes it’s questionable how much they are actually learning. Sometimes the kids only focus on the game aspect and not the content of the game, and some important content aspects get lost in our mispronunciation of words. But that is why this is training...we are still learning how to do things effectively. But the kids always learn at least a couple of things

So the four trainees in Santa Teresa, we each picked a grade that we wanted to give class to. I picked the 6th grade because I figured I could give a more interesting health related talk to sixth graders rather than 3rd graders. The other three trainees picked 3rd grade, 4th grade and 5th grade. I asked my class beforehand what they wanted to receive a class on, and they said HIV, so I was more than happy. The other trainees chose their own topics: nutrition, importance of hand washing, and sexually transmitted diseases (the 5th grade teacher suggested this topic).

After observing my fellow trainees give their talks and doing my own I have decided a few things. First off, kids are really fun to work with. However, you have to pick the right class. One of my fellow trainees gave a talk where there were kids running around the room, shouting things out, talking between themselves and other various VERY annoying things. She was so frustrated at the end of this talk, but we all decided that it was a lack of discipline from the teacher, nothing that she did. I will always remember to pick well behaved classrooms instead of the super wild ones. With 45 students, it is almost impossible to regain control once you have lost it (especially without the help of the teacher).

I gave my HIV class to a group of 6th graders that had a disciplinarian teacher. These kids behaved nearly perfect. I was shocked. I was expecting that me saying words like semen, sex, and condom would be too much for them. But they all sat there attentively listening. I’d like to think that they acted this way because I gave them a chat about being mature when talking about topics like this, but I know it was really because they were super afraid of their teacher (she was pretty tough, even I was a little afraid of her!).

Anyways, I think working in the schools was fun, but I was quite glad to be able to leave after an hour. I wouldn’t want to be stuck there all day with the kids (no offense all the teachers I know, new respect!). Its kind of like, wanting a nephew but not wanting my own kids yet.

Anyways, that’s pretty much the bulk of what I did this week, prepare and give that class. This Friday we are going to meet our counterparts (the person we will work directly with for the next 2 years) and then on Saturday I’ll go to Corinto for a week long stay to get the know the place. I’m very excited and nervous! I hope all is well with everyone else, have a good week!

Corinto!

2007-03-02T16:09:00.000-06:00

So….we got our site assignment about 3 hours ago and I´m super happy! I´m going to the city of Corinto. It is on the Pacific coast in the Northwest part of the country. This was my first choice for site placement so I am quite thrilled! So let me explain a little bit about the process and a little bit about the city...

First the site selection process. The sites are picked by the Associate Peace Corps Director (essentially, my boss...he runs the PC health program in Nicaragua). He has an hour long interview with each of the trainees to discuss things like what types of things you want to work with (HIV, Maternal health, children, youth groups, etc.), what type of place you want to live (big/small town) and what type of resources do you want/need (access to cell phone, access to internet, running water, etc.). So he gets an idea of where we want to go and where we think we would be good. Then we have a site fair, which was this past Saturday, we a PC Volunteer for each area of Nicaragua explains a little bit more about the area and the different sites. We could ask a lot of questions and find out more specifics about each individual site. Also, we got a packet that had information on each of the 20 sites that were available. At the end of the site fair they gave us a piece of paper where we could write down our top three choices and reasons why we should be sent there.

So then during this past week, my boss discussed and decided with his assistant, the training team that give us a lot of our classes, and other people that know us well. They take into account what us trainees say we want but ultimately they can decide wherever they think that you would be good.

So...all of us trainees were ANXIOUSLY awaiting where we would be living for the next two years! Today they told us in a mini-presentation and gave us a booklet of more detailed information about the site and in what areas we´d be working. It was really fun to find out where everyone would be going. We put our name on a map of Nicaragua where each of us is going. The majority of the sites are all in the north, but there are three sites in the south. All in all it was really fun and most people were really happy. A few people would mildly disappointed but no one was too upset. One of my good friends in my training group is placed about a half hour from me so I´m happy about that. And I am within a 4 hour bus ride of most people in my group (seems long, but definitely close enough for a weekend visit) so that made me happy.

As far as the city...

Corinto is a port city with about 20,000 people living there. It has cell phone service and an internet cafe, running water and electricity, so I have all my bases covered. It is actually an island right off the western coast. It is connected to the mainland by a short bridge. So yeah, i´m going to live on an island for the next two years of my life! As a midwesterner I´m still getting used to this idea, but also very excited about it! It is also about 30 min bus ride west of the city of Chinandega (where I visited for my volunteer visit) so I´ll be very close to the third biggest city in Nicaragua.

The reason why I wanted this site had nothing to do with the beaches, but it is definitely an added bonus. Actually, this site really appealed to me because it is a port town. Therefore it has one of the highest rates of HIV in the country. But at the same time its a smaller town. So I will have access to NGOs and other resources but not be stuck in a huge city. My main job will be working with my counterpart with HIV education. This site also appealed to me because there is huge opportunities to work with men in this area. A lot of the health care here in Nicaragua is focused on the women and children because they tend to have the most health problems. The problem is that the women are being educated on health issues, but in this machismo society, the men usually make the final decision. So things like the importance of condom usage need to reach the male population so it can hopefully come into practice. Since its a port town with a lot of port town problems, I think its really important that the men have access to this education. Corinto has a lot of opportunities to be working with men´s health such as with the taxi drivers, the nearby military base, and some other places. Also, this site works with youth promoters. Youth promoters are teenagers that go and give talks to other teenagers about how to live healthily. So part of my work will involve training them on how to give effective talks.

I´ll have a lot more information after I go visit it in a week. I leave next Friday to go visit for a week. During that time, I will get to know my counterpart, meet the family that I´ll be living with for the first 6 weeks, and get to know exactly what I´ll be working on. Anyways, needless to say I am really happy about this site for a bunch of reasons! I´ll try to post to pictures soon cause I have been lacking in that department. Hope all is well with everyone! Happy unofficial St Patty´s Day to all Illini! I want you guys to email me stories...

Thanks for people that have sent me letters...its great receiving mail!

Funny Shower Moment...

2007-02-17T12:58:00.000-06:00

My posts have been sort of boring lately about my future placement and everything, so I thought I´d share something funny.

Hear in Nicaragua the power goes out frequently. It is caused by the over use of electricity and the system shuts down. Since the water pumps that allow us to have running water here are powered by electricity, when the power goes, so does the water. So the other day I had went running, and while I was gone, ¨se fue la luz¨, as they say when the power goes. So I was in dire need of a shower but yet there was no running water. Since this happens often, every Nicaraguan has a garbage barrel full of water in their bathroom. The idea is that when the house doesn't have running water you can still shower using a bucket and the water from the barrel.

So, I could still take a shower after the run, using the bucket and barrel, but in order to use the bathroom I would need a flashlight. Luckily, my lovely sister Laura gave me a headlamp as a birthday present before I left. I decided that a bucket shower is the absolute perfect use for the headlamp (except of course when I´m washing my hair). So there I was, naked in the pitch black bathroom, with a head lamp, scooping out small buckets of water onto myself trying to get myself clean. At one point during the ¨shower¨ I just started laughing by myself in the bathroom at how silly I must have looked with this headlamp on.

Ok, so maybe the story isn't that funny, but I couldn't help but think, ¨Oh, if my friends and family could see me now!¨.

Everything else with me is good. I have no class or meetings today and tomorrow so I am super excited to have some free time. I plan on visiting a nearby river tomorrow with some other trainees and some teenagers from our youth group. It should be a fun time since I´ll finally get to swim! Its so hot here but there really isn't any place to cool down until the nighttime.

I am about halfway done with my time here in Santa Teresa which is completely bizarre to me. Time has been moving fast year because they keep us so busy. Anyways, thanks for all the emails people have been sending me! I´ll try to send some hot weather up there if all of you will send some cold weather down here!

Volunteer Visit to Chinandega

2007-02-14T09:34:00.000-06:00

So I suppose I'm sort of a moron, but I just realized how to see the comments that people have posted! Thank you for all of the nice/funny comments...its good to know that people are actually reading this!

I currently am in the Peace Corps office in Managua after my volunteer visit. The office is a really nice space and has two computers that the volunteers can use the internet free of charge, its great!

So the trip that I had been anticipating for a long time, the volunteer visit is basically over. It was a really great experience to be in Chinandega for a couple of days and be with a real live volunteer one-on-one. We meet a lot of volunteers who come and give us trainings, but you can´t ask them all the questions that you want to. Plus, actually seeing something in action is a much better teaching tool.

The first day we got there we went to the beach. This beach wasn't particularly beautiful but it was a beach in the sun so it was great. It was the first time I had been swimming in the Pacific, and I'll be honest, the waves really disappointed me. I was told that the waves were very unusually calm when we were there, so I guess next time I'll see the 100 foot waves that I was expecting.

After that little day at the beach we went back to Chinandega and hung out. This city had a much smaller town feel than I expected. The tallest building is three stories high and most all building are one story. Also, there is really only one main road with a bunch of city things on it, while the rest of it is just endless typical Nicaraguan neighborhood. There are three other volunteers that live in Chinandega, a married couple (both 26) that teach English, and a business volunteer (27). Oddly, this is one big reason why I would want a smaller city as a site. I want a site where I live and am friends with Nicaraguans. If I am in a site with 3 other volunteers I would be tempted to hang out with them all the time.

On the flip side of that argument against the big city, the programs available to work with in the big city are amazing. The health center has a great HIV/AIDS testing program and is very open to new ideas that a volunteer would bring. Also, there are a couple of NGOs that work with HIV education that are very willing to collaborate with a new volunteer. While I was visiting, we met some of these various people and agencies that are working on this and it was a great experience.

Basically, I am really having an internal battle with myself over what I want in a site. I want a more rural community with access to the NGOs and people affected by HIV, unfortunately this doesn't really exist (actually one site does sort of exist like that, but I'm trying not to get set on it because we can only preference sites, not actually pick them). Anyways, if you want to know what consumes my thoughts during most of my free time, it´s this internal debate.

During this trip I got to experience for the first time, Nicaraguan HOT. The city of Chinandega is one of the hottest places in the country. Unfortunately I don't have a temperature of how hot, but the sun felt like it was burning a hole through you during mid-day. By 9am it was hot, and only around 5 would it start to cool off. It was so draining to the point that during mid-day you couldn´t really accomplish anything...so we didn't. Where I live in Santa Teresa would probably be just as hot, however we have really strong winds throughout the day and night that keeps things cooler. As a result I never feel too overheated or anything in Santa Teresa, although it is really hot. I did decide that I could live in Chinandega even though it was super hot. Which was good to know because whenever you ask a Nicaraguan not from Chinandega about Chinandega they respond with "Holy crap its super mega hot there, why would anyone ever live there!" But I have learned that every Nica thinks that about every place that isn't where they live.

Anyways, I'm heading back to Santa Teresa this afternoon and I'm actually pretty excited to get back "home". I will be having normal training for the next couple of weeks. One exciting thing we do get to do in the next two weeks is receive information on all the available sites that we can go to and then we have an interview with Peace Corps staff about our preferences. I'm very anxious to receive my site, and also very excited! Anyways, thanks again for the comments, if anyone has a question just let me know!

Happy Valentines Day!

A break from training...

2007-02-09T16:04:00.001-06:00

All the trainees are splitting up this Sunday and everyone is going to visit a different volunteer in their site until Wednesday. The peace corps staff picks where we are going based on what we are interested in in location and job. I received where/who I am visiting today and I am really happy! I am going to visiting a volunteer who is living in Chinandega. Chinandega is the capital city of the Department (same as State) of Chinandega. If you´re looking on a map, it is in the very Northwest corner of the country. Let me give you a little background on this place and why I´m excited to be going here:

The Department of Chinandega has the second highest rate of HIV/AIDS infections in the country to Nicaragua. The only Department that has more is the Department that the capitol city is in (Peace Corps Volunteers do not working in that department). So as a Peace Corps Volunteer, you biggest chance to work with HIV education and prevention is in the Department of Chinandega. I am almost positive that this is the field I want to be working in so I am happy I get a chance to visit it to get a sense of what it is like. Also, since it has the second highest HIV/AIDS rate it has a lot of NGOs working there with education and with group of people living with HIV. Many of the health volunteers placed in the Department of Chinandega work with these NGOs on education projects and with training nurses and doctors on appropriate care for HIV+ patients. This work sounds super interesting to me so I´m excited to see exactly what a volunteer does there in a typical day.

So the volunteer that I am visiting lives in the capitol city which is pretty rare for a health volunteer. This means that she works more with the administrative/policy part of health care (but obviously, her main focus is education). I still don't know exactly what she does, but she has been involved in some really great projects. One thing she has been involved with is initiating and carrying out a counseling program for people that are going to get an HIV test and for people that have been recently diagnosed. It will be great to learn more about the stuff she has been working on and how she got involved with it.

Overall, this is pretty much the site I wanted to go to most, so I am super happy about it. The only negative thing about it is that I don't get to visit a volunteer that is living in a more rural area and see that perspective. I wish we could visit two volunteers! I´m still torn on whether I want my site to be more rural or a bigger city. I think that both have their advantages and I hope to have a better idea of this after I get back from my volunteer visit.

I´ll leave this Sunday and then come back to Santa Teresa on Wednesday, valentines day. Some of the kids in our youth group invited us to be a part of their "Amigo Secreto" game. This basically entails us picking from a hat somebodies name in the group, and then you are their secret friend, and you buy them a gift and everyone exchanges them on valentines day. Here valentines day isn't quite as romantic in the US. Its called "dia de los novios" and also "dia de amistad" which both mean, day of boyfriend/g-friend, or day or friendship, so it works both ways. I plan on getting a gift for my person on my little trip to Chinandega.

Anyways, Happy Valentines Day to everyone else! I´ll be sure to update when I get back from the trip...

Update

2007-02-07T17:53:00.001-06:00

Here’s a quick (or long) update on my life:

This past weekend was a fairly calm weekend. I had class all day Friday and again on Saturday morning from 8am-noon. Friday night I just hung out at home with my family and went to bed early at around 9:30, I know, I’m such a party animal. Then after class on Saturday I went running (I’m up to running about 8k’s now, I’m training for a “supposed” half-marathon that exists here in Nicaragua in July) and hung around the house.

One interesting thing about Nicaraguan culture is the value of simply sitting around and talking. I’ll quote one of our cultural readings: “Westerners are incapable of understanding the psychology of sitting. In villages all over the world, sitting is an important social activity. Sitting is not a ‘waste of time’ nor is it a manifestation of laziness Sitting is having time together, time to cultivate social relations.” This quote and other readings got me to thinking that us Americans feel like we are doing “nothing” if we just sit with people for the night. There needs to be some activity such as watching a movie, playing a game, going somewhere in order for us to feel like we did something. I still feel like I did nothing this weekend but at the same time when I reflect, I feel that I did some good bonding with my host family this weekend, so I suppose that doesn’t count as nothing. Generally, the people here don’t do anything on the weekend just to do something. There has to be some fiesta or some reason to actually leave their house. This includes vacations as well. The people don’t generally go somewhere just to see it, they go because they have a reason to go for a job or something. For some families it has to do with money, but for many it is simply just the way their culture is. Very different from the U.S. (keep in mind that when I make these cultural statements I am generalizing and I really only have the perspective of 1 town in Nicaragua).

Anyways, moving on from the psychology of sitting to the Super Bowl. I did get to watch the Bears lose the Super Bowl. I’ve noticed that when I leave the country my team always gets to the final and loses (e.g. Illini B-Ball). Oh well. It was actually a lot of fun watching the game because a group of 10 of us Peace Corps trainees got together at a bar/restaurant in Santa Teresa to watch the game. The restaurant is owned by my host aunt so that was fun. Included in the group were three trainees from Chicago and one trainee from Indianpolis so we had a good rivalry going. It was fun to get the group together outside of a classroom setting. This was one of the first times that it has happened because we all live in different training towns and we are always busy with classes or homework. All of the trainees are sort of torn between hanging out with each other in our free time and hanging out with our families. So far we’ve all mostly chosen to hang out with our families for the sake of getting to know them and improving our Spanish. But it is kind of a shame to make some really good friends and then not be able to hang out with them as often as you would like.

One major accomplishment of mine this past weekend was washing my own clothes. I’m talking about hand washing with a washboard. It was actually really fun although family seemed to think that it was just about the funniest thing ever. This was mostly because I am white and because I am a guy. My host dad and host brother both don’t know how to wash clothes (although don’t get the wrong impression, my host dad actually does most of the cooking) so the idea that this white boy was washing clothes was too much for them. The other trainees have their wash basin in their backyard patios of their houses so they have some privacy while they wash. Mine however is right in the middle of our tiny kitchen. For me to wash all the dirty clothes I had took about 2 hours. Meanwhile during this my host dad and sister were cooking lunch, people were eating lunch at the table, people walking in and out of the house. So basically I had no privacy while doing this like most of the other trainees have. The other thing that they thought was so funny was that I was sweating while doing this. I was not sweating profusely, but some beads of sweat accumulated on my forehead. This is a very labor-intensive activity that I was doing in an un-air conditioned house in the tropics. In other words, I had every right to be sweating. Basically what I realized after this was that I will always be funny. It will never be normal for a white boy to wash his clothes, or do any other various “Nicaraguan” activities. But hey, at least I could make some people laugh for 2 hours. Plus, washing stuff on a washboard gets things 10 times cleaner than in a washer.

Anyways, those were my little adventures/thoughts this past week. This Sunday each trainee goes and visits a volunteer at their site for about 4 days. We are all very excited about it to finally see exactly what the daily life of a volunteer here in Nicaragua is. Assume that my next post will be about that so hope that it’s a positive one!

Hipica - Drunkards on Horses

2007-02-07T17:38:00.000-06:00

Here is a random procession that happens all throughout the fiestás patronales. This one passed right in front of my house.
This is basically what the hipica is...drunk guys on horses.
This is the street i live on...That green house on the left is where I live. The church is farther down on the left.
This is my host brother, Dayris, and his cousin´s kid, Ashkom...he visits often and is really cute.

Fiestas Patronales de Santa Teresa

2007-02-07T17:32:00.000-06:00

(note: i wrote this post on Feb 3, however the internet was being difficult so I was unable to post it...here it is)

Last week in the middle of the week I was feeling really frustrated. My spanish was not to the level that I wanted it to be. I couldn´t throw in quick jokes to the conversations like I wanted to and sarcastic jokes just failed miserably. I feel like that took away a big part of who I was, and therefore with the locals I couldnt really be myself. I couldnt joke around with the guys in my Youth group and I wasn´t ready for the whole spanish learning thing to be a LONG process. But...then this past weekend happened and I have felt way better ever since...

This past weekend was the big yearly fiesta in Santa Teresa where basically everyone just parties for three days straight. There are various activities each day that the town does. For example, on Friday night they have a stage set up in the street and the town elects the ¨queen of santa teresa¨which is more or less like electing a homecoming queen except they do it in a form similar to the ms america pageant with teenage girls competing from different neighborhoods in sta teresa. The girl who ended up being the queen is a girl from our youth group! So that was part one of feeling better, I knew the prom queen. Thats the most important thing in any town, right? I was feeling good about myself but still not completely out of my funk.

My favorite part of the fiesta was on saturday. A music group from the carribean coast came to perform in santa teresa. They were a fun raggae type band (called dimension costena, check them out). They played indoors basically in a rec center type place. Nicaraguans love dancing, and as many of you know, i´m a fan of dancing. So this was a great non verbal way to be bonding with the locals. I went with my host brother and host sister as well as some other peace corps trainees. We showed the nicas some dance moves and they showed us some merengue and salsa moves. Not to mention that this was my first opportunity to dance with a real live latina woman. I´ll be honest, their hips dont lie. Also, let me just explain a little bit about this ¨rec center¨ There are only a few small windows. There were about 400 people dancing in the room. and it was about 85 degrees outside. Obviously this place did not have air conditioning. I´m sure most of you can imagine what a sweaty mess I was, but it didnt matter because so was everyone else. It was nice to finally be accepted for my sweatiness.

The third day of the fiesta was the ¨hipica¨. This was explained to me before the fiesta as a day where these specially trained beautiful horses come and parade gracefully on a parade route through town. It is beautiful and the best part of the fiesta. Let explain what actaully happens at the ¨hipica¨. Everyone within 10k of Sta Teresa who owns a horse rides into Santa Teresa. When they get here they all start drinking beer. Meanwhile, all the residents of santa teresa go on their porches and start drinking beer. This all occurs at around noon. So by 2pm there are basically drunk guys riding around on horses haphazardly while drunk nicaraguans are dancing in the streets to makeshift musical bands. I decided to be an observer this day (still a little tired from the night before) and it was quite comical. Another volunteer and me were standing on a crowded street corner and a drunken bum decided to come up to us and sing us a song. Everyone is dying laughing that the bum is singing the gringos or cheles (as we are called here) a song. Midway through the song, his pants simply fall down, he doesnt notice and just keeps on singing. Quite comical for the entire street of people staring at us.

All in all this weekend was a good weekend of bonding with my nicaraguan family and some of the neighbors I have gotten to know. This past week for some reason my spanish has felt better and has started to click a bit. I gave my first health center talk with no problems and our youth group meeting went smoothly. This training in peace corps will have lots of ups and downs, as will my two years service. But right now, I´m just enjoying this good mood swing.

Settling in

2007-01-24T17:28:00.000-06:00

I have a bunch of things to write about but not enough time (the power went out in the big city, so my hour long internet session got cut down to 15 min).

Here is whats been going on with me in the past week:

Myself and the three other volunteers at my training town formed a youth group in town and had our first meeting yesterday. We were all a little nervous about how things would go and whether our spanish speaking and understanding skills would be able to handle 15 teenagers. Anyways, things ended up going great. We invited about 20 kids in town (went to their houses and personally invited them to come) and 13 showed up. We considered that in itself a big success because if i was 15 and a random foreigner invited me to a youth group, I probably wouldnt have gone. So we introduced ourselves at the meeting and had everyone else introduce themselves. Then we divided the group into girls and guys and had them each make a map of Santa Teresa. Its a really good activity for young people to see the differences in perception of the town between genders (especially in a country with concrete gender divisions like Nicaragua). We kept the first meeting short but have plans to go play soccer with them tomorrow afternoon, should be fun...I hope our group still shows up.

Other than that not much is new. It is fiestas patronales season here which means that each town has a small festival to honor their patron saint. Ours is this weekend which means lots of live music and dancing in the street. I´m excited about it. This past weekend I was at the fiesta patronale of another training town. I was walking with a group of 5 other peace corps volunteers down the street. During these fiestas there are random groups of people with instruments or costumes that make a haphazard sort of parade down the streets. Its sort of spontaneous and the people all get on the sidewalk and watch them go by. Well this particular time while we were walking a ¨parade¨came by. Except this time everyone that was in the parade and was watching the parade just stopped and started staring at us. We were only standing on the corner watching the parade but suddenly we became the entertainment. I thought it was quite amusing. This happens all the time here though. I get tons of stares wherever I go so I make sure that I say hello to everyone that stares at me, because then they realize that I´m a person and become really friendly. It seems to work so far.

Classes are going well so far. They are held at one of the other volunteers host family´s house. This happens to be my next door neighbor so my walk to class is about 14 steps. In the next couple of weeks we are going to be getting more involved with our town health center. In two weeks we will be giving our first ¨charlas¨which are basically health talks in the health center to the people waiting in the waiting room (more of a hallway). Since nicaraguans dont have much access to health education and the doctors are too busy doing the essentials (shots, giving medicine, etc.), a good way for the people to get information regarding preventing diarrhea, breast feeding, malaria and dengue, hand washing, HIV and other STIs is by giving little talks to the people waiting to see the doctor. A main part of my job in PC is to help the health center with these mini education session. When I am in my site I will be able to branch out and do education in schools and other places but talks in the health center will sort of be the bread and butter of my service.

I´m sure I could say more but I have to get home to eat my Gallo Pinto (rice and beans). Although you would think that eating rice and beans every meal since I´ve been here would get old...it hasn´t. I love it. If anyone has questions about anything else I´m doing or about Nicaragua, just email me, I´ll try to write about it next time.

Some Pictures

2007-01-20T10:05:00.000-06:00

This is my host family...only Dayris and my host dad Julio are missing from the picture. Its Karen, Carlito, Me, Athzyri, and Lourdes.
This is my house...its all painted lime green which i really like.

Postal Address

2007-01-20T09:57:00.000-06:00

Some people have been asking about my postal address here, so here it is-

Cuerpo de Paz/Paul Fleming
Apartado Postal 3256
Managua, Nicaragua

That will be my address until March 30 when I move to my site town and get a new address.

My new life...

2007-01-18T16:25:00.000-06:00

Sorry I haven’t posted sooner, I’ve been very busy adjusting to my new life! Let me explain a little bit about what’s happened (a lot!) since I left Chicago a little over a week ago…

I arrived in DC and stayed in a hotel in Georgetown and got to meet everyone else in my group. There are twenty of us that are all going to be volunteers in Nicaragua in the health sector. I was very surprised to find out that everyone was between the ages of 22 and 24. I was expecting some people in their late twenties or older. Everyone is from different backgrounds and different experiences and it’s great because all of us are pretty much at the same place in our lives. Those two days in DC were full of meetings on Peace Corps policy and other mostly boring things. But it was amazing how quickly you can make good friends in such a short time!
Early on Wednesday morning our group flew to Miami and then to Managua, Nicaragua. I wasn’t that nervous getting off the plane but I did have the realization that “Whoa! This is really happening!” We were whisked away by a Peace Corps bus to the tourist friendly town of Granada, an hour south of Managua. January 10, the day we arrived was a very important day in Nicaragua because they inaugurated Daniel Ortega as their new president. He was a Sandinista leader in the 80’s but claims to be a changed man. From what I gather he plans on bring more equality to the poor people of Nicaragua. I still don’t know enough to comment on the situation but some Nicas (what Nicaraguans are called here) like him and some hate him. We shall see what happens… Anyways, while in Granada we stayed in a hotel and had meetings all day about what to expect from our training and how to deal with certain situations as they arise. It was much more interesting than the more general DC orientation. Also, we got vaccinations. I told some of you that I thought I didn’t have to get any vaccinations, I was very wrong. So far I have had three, and I have 7 more to go. Also, during these meetings in Granada, the training instructors evaluated our levels of Spanish. I expected to be more advanced in the group but I ended up placing just below average. That’s fine with me because almost everyone had a strong background in Spanish. A lot of people have studied abroad in Costa Rica or other Latin American countries so I feel like they have a bit of an advantage because the Spanish here is very different than Spain.

On Friday we received our training site placements and host family. There are five training towns all within about 8 miles of each other. Our group was divided into five levels of Spanish and so each town hosts one of the levels. I got placed in the town of Santa Teresa which is right outside of the city of Jinotepe, which is an hour south of the capital. I think that there are about 4,000 people that live here (I’ve asked 5 different people, but no one knows the population). The family that I moved in with is absolutely wonderful. My host mom and dad (Lourdes and Julio) are both in their 50’s and are super accommodating and nice. They have three children, Karen is 28, Dayris (male) is 23, and Athziri (it’s a girl, and is pronounced at-zee-ree) is 9. Also, my favorite part about the house is Carlito, he is Karen’s son. He is four years old and the cutest kid I have ever met. He is always dancing and singing around the house and rolls around on their dirty floor. It’s great. When I don’t know what to be doing or saying with the adults, I just go play with Carlito. The first three hours in their house were a little awkward but since then I have felt completely comfortable with everything.

I know everyone is wondering about what facilities I have here so I will explain. We have running water and electricity in our house. The running water only functions from 7am-8pm. The electricity is fairly spotty. Yesterday the lights kept going out for a minute at a time. But in other words, the majority of the time we have running water and electricity. The only concern of mine is that there is only one bathroom for the seven of us that are living in the house. This is problematic to me because Peace Corps keeps telling our group about all the gastrointestinal problems that we will be having. I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. Also, there is only one sink and it is in the kitchen so I have to brush my teeth and shave in the kitchen with everyone else around. I guess I have been spoiled thus far in my life because I have almost always had my own bathroom. My room is pretty basic, the walls are made of particle board and the ceiling is the tin roof. The room is more or less open air because walls don’t always reach to the ceiling so I can feel the wind shake everything. I am told that January and February are the “windy season”. All day and night there are huge gusts of wind that feel as if you are in a tornado. It really puts the Windy City to shame. Because of the wind it has been fairly mild here. Sometimes during the day it will be really hot but it cools down at night.

I have had a chance to do some really cool cultural things with my host family since I have been here. My first day I went to a “Quince Anos” party of a girl that was turning 15. As you may know, in the Latin culture the 15th birthday of a girl is a huge deal. This party had about 100 people at it. It had the formalities you would expect from a wedding, a mass, a special dress for the girl, dinner for everyone. It was impressive and very interesting. Also, on Sunday I went to a basketball game with Dayris and some of his friends. The game was between the Santa Teresa team and another local town. After the game we played some two on two and then some other game that was like “21”. I think I may have won, but I didn’t really understand the rules so I’m not sure. On Sunday night I went with Dayris out to the local bars. There are three restaurant/bars in Sta. Teresa. When I have a beer in me it’s much easier to understand and talk so it was a very fun night!

As far as the classes part of training, those are going well so far. I have Spanish class every morning from 8-12. In the afternoons we have different activities depending on the day. For next week, myself and the three other volunteers have to start a youth group and talk about some topic regarding health. It will be hard to organize and recruit youth, but I think it will be a great experience. I think I will get better at Spanish very quickly because there are only four of us in the class and we have class so often. Also, I talk a lot with my host family so hopefully I can improve quickly.

I guess those are the basics of my life so far. I’m sorry if this was written poorly, I’m already struggling transferring between English and Spanish. It looks like I’ll have internet access about once a week so I should be able to update this site weekly. If anyone has any questions for me, just email me!

About to Leave...

2007-01-06T17:28:00.000-06:00

Hi Everyone!

This is where I am hoping to post updates throughout my two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nicaragua. I am still unsure how often I will have access to the internet to post on here but I am hoping that I will be able post at least twice a month.

My flight leaves from O'Hare at 9am on Monday so I am less than 48 hours away from leaving! I have been getting all of my things packed up and tying up all my loose ends. Its been a tiring process but my excitement about everything has kept me energized. I'll explain whats going to happen in the next couple of days because I have been getting a lot of questions.

On Monday I fly to DC to meet up with the rest of my Peace Corps group (about 20 other volunteers that are doing Community Health Education in Nicaragua) to have a two day orientation. While we are there we go over some paperwork, Peace Corps philosophy, and the basic details of getting to and living in Nicaragua. On January 10 our Peace Corps group will all fly together to Managua, Nicaragua where we will stay in a hotel for a couple of days and get adjusted to Nicaragua. After the brief stay in the hotel we will each move in with a host family. We will stay with our host family for the duration of our training (about 3 months). During training I will take classes on cultural adjustment, safety, the Spanish language and most importantly, how to be a health educator.

I also have had a lot of questions about what I will specifically be doing in Nicaragua so let me explain a bit. I am a Community Health Education Volunteer and will be working out of a Nicaraguan rural health clinic. My primary job will be to give talks to local community groups and schools about topics such as HIV prevention, clean water, general nutrition and sex education. Right now I know very few specifics about my job but I should find out more in the next week or so. I will not get an official assignment concerning where in Nicaragua I will living and working for the next 2 years until March.

Hopefully that information explains a little bit more about what I am doing. Any other questions anyone has just email me, although a lot of things are still up in the air. I hope to hear from all of you soon! I'll try to post again shortly after I arrive in Nicaragua...