Officially a Volunteer!

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

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

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.

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.

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...

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!

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

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!

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

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

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!

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!