Roaming Around

Last weekend I finally went to see the infamous waterfall in a nearby pueblo (I say infamous because the town is named for it) and to wander around on a finca (farm) as I love to do. Photos:

Little bitty plantain plants:


Tomates:


Cows:


Sorghum


Dried up corn:


Perty flowers:


Really big plantains:


Climbing a tree:


Waterfall!


Me in the waterfall:


On Friday I went to the beach with my local NGO for their Christmas party which included all the Nicaraguan staff as well as the remaining German volunteers. At one point we decided there were more Germans than Nicas (and clearly I was waaaay outnumbered):

Perfect swimming spot:


Look at all those cheles (white people)!


My two favorite ladies:


And cute kids:




And just to make my tranquilo life here a little more interesting, I came home on Friday night to find this on my bathroom wall:



It’s only the second scorpion I’ve had in my house in the year that I’ve lived here and the other one was out of reach to kill & left on its own. Luckily this time I had my handy can of Raid so I grabbed a flip flop as back-up, carefully opened the door that goes outside from the bathroom so I could hide behind it and escape in case of Very Angry Scorpion, and sprayed the sucker. Thankfully it fell off the wall and tried to escape but fell over so I smashed him with the sandal & kicked him into the backyard. The end.

Back to Work

After coming back from vacation with my parents I didn’t have a lot of time to rest before jumping back into my random little projects and commitments. On Thursday I accompanied my friendly neighborhood NGO to do a Dia de Accion (Action Day!) with a group of primary school kids and their parents in a little community that’s technically in the municipality to the northwest.

We drove a ways on a dirt road though sugar cane fields that I never realized extended that far out. The caña is ready for harvest so it was huge and some areas were really pretty with the silky flowers blowing in the wind (sidenote: I would say hands down the favored liquor in Nicaragua is rum, and that rum generally is of the Flor de Caña variety, which refers to these pretty silky flowers).



But the harvest also means that giant, and oftentimes overloaded, trucks hauling caña go flying down these little dirt roads:

Truck:


Aftermath:


It’s not totally obvious in that photo, but the trucks kick up massive plumes of dust which get blown into the houses and the school which is located right on the road. I was coughing just from having spent the morning there so I can’t imagine what havoc that must wreak on the respiratory systems of long-time residents.

The NGO is building a new school for this community, the old one you can see to the left in the above pictures. Here’s what they have so far of the new one:



It’s pretty close to being done, just missing the zinc roof, the floor, and a coat of paint. We gathered the kids and adults outside for the morning underneath a giant chilamate tree:



The day’s activities included two piñatas and some presentations on family planning, some of which were more age appropriate than others in my opinion but that’s neither here nor there. The whole piñata thing here is just slightly different than how we do it in the States – throw in some energetic music and make the kids dance in between swings and you’ve got the Nica piñata:



And ensuing chaos:



And here's my Facebook album from mom and dad's visit.

Papito y Mamacita visitan a Nicaragua

Despite the obvious attempts of that big snowstorm to make my parents turn right around and return to Managua, they did in fact make it safely home. Overall, everything went really well – they enjoyed their foray into international travel, I didn’t have an anxiety attack, and no one got hurt. Now that’s what I call a successful vacation! I realized that I can’t think of a time in my conscious memory during which I spent every waking hour of an entire week with both my parents so I think it at least partially made up for my long absences over past few years. But what am I going on and on about? Pictures!

Mom and dad helped some of my friends/colleagues practice their English:


But work didn’t last long before we went to the schwankiest resort in Nicaragua, Barcelo Montelimar:



Mom loved the ocean:


Dad wore a fancy hat:


We swam in the biggest pool in Central America:


And watched the sunset over the ocean (I believe that was a first for them both):


Next we went to Granada where I ate tasty food to my heart’s content and we tried to negotiate their love of coolness with my now ridiculous sensitivity to cold as we programmed the AC. Mom and I went shopping in Masaya, we walked around town a lot, saw the lake, and a little bit of the Purisima (the celebration of the conception of the Virgin Mary). But the definite highlight was Volcan Mombacho, which now every member of my immediate family has seen since I first ventured there with my brother back in May.

A crazy guy who claimed to be Daniel Ortega’s brother kept hitting on me, which evoked the complete opposite reaction in my dad than I expected (he thought it was hilarious!) but at least the guy can take a decent picture:


Mom and dad on the trail:


This is the truck that drives up and down the volcano while you hold on for dear life:


We were pretty active in the morning and evening but we mostly chilled around the hotel in the heat of the afternoon - either in the pool or reading (my mom took one of me so I just had to return the favor):


I'll upload more of my photos on Facebook and link it here, but my computer is being finnicky so that will have to happen later.

They`re still alive and kicking!!

So far so good on the parental visit. They arrived safely on Tuesday night and I ran them pretty hard on Wednesday, we traveled from Managua down to my town, practiced English with some advanced speakers as well as a couple beginners and walked around town a lot. I don`t think they were quite prepared for the heat coming from chilly Minnesota! But Wednesday was the only night they`ve had to spend without AC because Thursday we headed off to a schwanky resort on the Pacific coast and then yesterday we trekked our way over to Granada where we`re staying in a cute little colonial hotel. I will post pictures as soon as I`m back in site, but I thought I would alert the rest of the family that mom and dad are in one piece and enjoying their vacation, though they`ll probably be a lot more comfortable when they`re back in the house they keep at 65 degrees all year round in the ´sota.

Thanksgiving Photos

Photo highlights from my Thanksgiving spent at the house of a USAID guy – let’s just say we were all ready to work for USAID after seeing his crazy nice house. I would also like to note that his co-host for our dinner (since there were 20 of us who went to eat at his house!) actually imported some ingredients to make this dinner.

First, the food:
Despite both hosts being vegetarians they did get us a turkey too, as well as REAL cranberry sauce, a lentil stuffing that was impressive, mashed potatoes, veggies, and really really good cornbread – there was more food but I was stuffed:


I wish I would’ve had space in my stomach for seconds on dessert – they had cheesecake with frozen blueberries, apple pies, and gringo ice cream (as opposed to the Eskimo ice cream we get here, that’s pronounced eskeeeemo):


Aside from the food, the digs were insanely comfortable. Here are my friends Liz & Dianne enjoying a couch which may not seem like such a big deal but trust me, it is:


And here I am, reclining – also a big deal:


Definitely a great Thanksgiving for us volunteers. Now I’m back in my little casita preparing for the imminent arrival of my parents on Tuesday night. I may not get a post in this week so don’t yell at me (yes, I have once been chastised for not posting soon enough).

Feliz Dia de Accion de Gracias!!!

We just finished a two day All Volunteer Conference (AVC) in Managua. All 180 volunteers in Nicaragua came down to discuss the conference's theme of Food Security, do some training sessions on various topics, and attend some professional development info sessions. It's events like this that make me realize how few volunteers I really do know, mostly because there are very few volunteers in my department/immediate area and we're all basically from one or two sectors anyway. And since I'm leaving in 8 months my group was pretty meh about making new friends since we are inching slowly out the door.

The Nica 51 volunteers swore in on Monday as well so we officially have two groups of TEFL volunteers in-country again and means that I have new a semi-site mate and three more volunteers within about two hours of me.

For Thanksgiving, PC coordinates with the embassy to send interested volunteers to spend the holiday with folks who work at the embassy so I'm still at the hotel waiting to be picked up to go with a group of volunteers to hopefully enjoy a real gringo-style Thanksgiving dinner at a schwanky embassy house.

I was going to make a list of things I'm thankful for, but I won't. I'm just thankful in general.

Schoooooooool’s out for the summer

We’re in the last week of class right now, so I give you photo highlights from the 2009 school year: From my country school: Students singing the national anthem: Eighth Grade: The awesome picture my counterpart drew for learning body parts: And from the instituto: Some seventh grade girls: It’s a little difficult to see, but in this picture my students are playing baseball during recess using a paper ball and a seat plank from one of the desks: Singing songs in English: I like this one because it shows almost the entire 8th grade class hanging on the window bars to watch the 7th graders sing – clearly their teacher didn’t show up for class: Some of the best students from the 9th grade class singing I’m All Out of Love by Air Supply: Although they did get fewer points for reading, this group probably sang the best out of the 7th grade class:

Quinceñera

Saturday night I went to my first quinceñera, which is the big celebration thrown for girls when they turn 15 (quince). The girl, Keyling, has never been in any of my classes at the instituto but one day last year one of the teachers brought her to me with homework questions and since she studies English in Managua she regularly finds me at school or at home with questions. She’s pretty awesome and I was super excited when she invited me.

It was really similar to a wedding, except in pink. The quinceñera wears a fluffy pink dress and carries a bouquet of flowers and I think there were 12 pairs of damas y caballeros (ladies and gentlemen, kinda like bridesmaids and groomsmen in a wedding) who all wore their matching dresses and suits. The whole party gets ready and then walks down to the church, Keyling was escorted by her father but also had a younger guy escort who’s traditionally her cousin or some other family relation. I saw them walking down the main street, which is also the highway incidentally, but wasn’t fast enough to get a picture.



At the church, they did a pretty usual catholic mass with bible readings, a couple songs, a sermon, and communion. I was happy to see some familiar faces at the church, I wasn’t sure if I would know anyone but I don’t know why because this is a small town and of course everyone’s related or friends or something! None of my pictures are spectacular because I was way in the back at both the church and the reception, but you get the idea.

With the damas:


With the caballeros (you can’t see it well in this picture, but the guy on the left of Keyling was her escort guy and his shirt was pink to match her dress):


The Quinceñera herself:


Some of the damas, the one in the middle is in my 9th grade class:


From the church we all walked over to the dancehall for the reception, again the whole party walking down the middle of the highway which I find so hilarious but is totally normal here – most families don’t have cars and they certainly don’t rent limos like you might do for something this big in the US hence we walk, besides the town’s not that big anyway. I actually saw a wedding party doing the same thing past my house earlier in the day.



Clearly the theme for quinceñeras is pink – pink balloons, pink table cloths, pink cake, pink pink pink!

I should mention that this is probably on the fancier side for a quinceñera, especially in a small town (I’m sure wealthy families in Managua do much bigger than this). They rented the dancehall and paid for a band which a lot of families around here would not be able to do.

Once we were in the dancehall, all the guys and girls processed in and danced a couple semi-choreographed dance numbers including a waltz, bachata, and salsa. It was adorable and I wish I could’ve gotten better pictures but I doubt they would’ve captured it anyway. Here they are in the middle of a coordinated spin move:



Once the group dances were over, the band started playing and everyone got out on the dance floor and tore it up. I stayed long enough to dance a little bit, but since I was unaccompanied I headed for home before it got too sketchy to be out alone (around 9 or 9:30 on a Saturday night).

Camping and condoms and raindrops, oh my!

How’s that for a title, eh? Oddly enough, it fully encompasses my Friday and Saturday this week because I helped out at an overnight camp to teach family planning skills to a group of 36 youth (which in this case stretched from 9 years old to over 20). The camp was organized by that NGO I always talk about where I teach English but the facilitators included two from the health center, a German volunteer from the NGO as well as other staff, and leaders from the Club de Jovenes Ambientalistas (Young Environmentalist Club, mas o menos). The participants were members of the aforementioned club from two different towns in the municipality.

The two days involved various games/ice breakers, leadership activities, some environmental stuff, a bonfire, a hike, and talks about gender, sex, forms of contraception, and STDs/HIV/AIDS. Although the group got a little out of control sometimes and especially the second day didn’t always want to participate, there was definitely learning going on and most of the participants seemed to enjoy it.

Working hard


What would a sex ed talk be without putting condoms on bananas?
Some of the facilitators:


La Practica:


And of course, blowing up the condoms once they were off the bananas:


As always, the night was the most interesting part. Several of us were concerned about how the kids would be kept under control – especially keeping the boys and girls apart – but that was left up to the leaders. They set up three tents – two for the girls and one for the boys – a ways away from our center of activities while several of us facilitators decided to sleep under the shelter where we’d been working all day. We thought we’d get more sleep there.

Apparently the guys didn’t all fit in their tent so about half slept in the shelter with us, it didn’t take too long to quiet them down but then someone starting snoring like you wouldn’t believe so I didn’t sleep too well. Sometime around 1am the sky opened up and poured down rain and I woke up to find the folks who’d been sleeping down below in the tents running up to the shelter all wet and muddy. Turns out those tents weren’t water proofed by any means, so we accommodated all 50ish of us on the tarps in the shelter and lights went out for the second time just before 2am. Again I didn’t sleep well and before I knew it it was 5am and the kids were getting up already.

It was pretty cool to see something like this organized here – I didn’t think the topic got breached very often what with how religious people are and the especially high amount of Catholics (about 75% of the population). But they really reached a lot of people through the camp and another part of the project - organizing groups of kids to present short skits at local schools about family planning.

I intend to do my part by wearing my camp t-shirt to school so that while I’m writing on the board my students will read the back:



“A hero who helps you plan and really saves lives”

Phenomenon

A popular activity to do in English classes here is to do an English Song Festival where the kids pick songs to sing. Any English song festival would not be complete without the inclusion of one of the following: Rivers of Babylon, Eternal Flame, or anything by Air Supply. What most of us volunteers consider to be cheesey 80s music is still widely listened to here and I’ve almost gotten used to hearing Cindy Lauper on a semi-regular basis. And Air Supply recently performed a concert in Managua and the band stayed at the hotel where my friend Maria works so she managed to snag tickets to the concert and was super duper psyched.

So the 8th grade kids in my country school were performing their songs this week, there was Rivers of Babylon, Dust in the Wind, a song I didn’t know, and a reggaeton song that was totally inappropriate but since neither the students nor my counterpart understood the lyrics it was pretty much ok (if you don’t know what reggaeton sounds like, google Daddy Yankee or Wisin and Yandel). However, I was shocked to find that most of the students were really embarrassed to sing in front of everyone.

It might seem natural that high schoolers would be embarrassed to sing in front of their class, but I had generalized that all Nicaraguans love to sing, regardless of talent for the art, because I have seen so many people sing rather out of key in front of large groups of people and not blink an eye. My counterpart at that school never understands why I don’t feel comfortable jumping up and belting out the Star Spangled Banner all by myself. I’ve tried to explain to him that in the U.S. only people who sing really well sing in front of groups of people but he always shrugs and then belts out a couple lines from his favorite songs.

I think back to my friend Sarah’s wedding here, where one singer didn’t quite hit all the correct notes. The volunteers in attendance maintained composure but Sarah’s gringo guests who were new to Nicaragua were giving each other glances and even Sarah’s mom couldn’t keep a straight face. Meanwhile I’m sure the Nicaraguans were like “What’s wrong with the gringos?”

However, the person who takes the Singing Cake is one of my neighbors. This neighbor loves to sing at the very top of her lungs to the point that she’s yelling and not even singing, and completely out of tune. This clearly drives me perfectly insane on a nice Saturday afternoon when I’m reading in my hammock and find myself cringing every 10 seconds.

I don’t want this post to come off sounding judgmental and negative, I just generally find it amazing that people are able to get up and sing with abandon and not worry about what they sound like. Perhaps we gringos (or at least me gringa) are too uptight in expecting anyone who sings in public to be perfect and should learn to appreciate the sentiment behind song, rather than concentrate on each note.

Since I don’t have any pics from the singing this week, here’s the student who sang the inappropriate reggaeton song lip synching a different reggaeton song at a big presentation-type thing a couple months back:



And on a completely unrelated note, there have been some pretty major political developments recently. Major enough for the BBC to take notice at least.

El niño is Spanish for…. The niño!!!!

At this time last year I was pulling my hair out waiting out days upon days of nearly non-stop rain. Generally, September and October are the rainiest months of the year as hurricanes and tropical storms mostly swing through the Caribbean which causes a bunch of rain on the Pacific coast. However, Rainy Season 2009 has turned out to be quite the dud & the fact that it’s been raining every night since Sunday is a miracle & much-welcomed by all. The el niño effect is apparently responsible for our sequia (drought) – something about the ocean heating up and preventing clouds from forming. Algo asi (something like that).

At first I really had no problem with the lack of rain, it meant I could still make it out to my country school on a hilly dirt road that becomes nearly impassable when it rains a lot and just getting around town wasn’t such a pain. But after a while everyone started getting a little worried (my counterpart even told the kids to pray for rain, & yes that’s legal here for him to say that) because obviously no rain = fewer crops = higher food prices + economic crisis + no more aid money = Nicaraguans are hungrier & poorer. It’s pretty late in the season for the rain so I’m not sure if it’ll make a huge difference but I’m hoping so. It also means that I get to remember what it feels like to be cold & even sleep without a fan!

I don’t have any super exciting stories this week, yesterday I did go represent the department of Managua at the Site Fair for our soon to be TEFL volunteers. Wednesday they will find out where they’ll be living for the next two years & I’ll find out who will be my new neighbor (only 10km away!) for the next 9ish months (can you believe it!?).

A little of this… a little of that…

Sunday was the final final game in the local men’s soccer league (I say final final because the real final game was the Sunday before but they ended in a tie so they did it again the next Sunday). Unfortunately I don’t have pictures because based on what I’d heard (tons of people, fights break out, the usual soccer helter skelter), I wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to bring my camera. The two teams in the finals happened to hark from two different towns which made it all the more fun to cheer for our home team who won & were rewarded with a trophy that was taller than most of the players.

After their victory & some necessary victory dancing around the giant trophy – which was quite entertaining seeing as these guys actually know how to dance – the team walked down the main street (which is also the highway, but whatevs) followed by a caravan of screaming fans in trucks & hanging out of car windows announcing to the rest of the town exactly who won the league this year. It was muy alegre (very happy).

We are also counting down the days left in the school year (28 by my counterpart’s count today) which ends at the end of November. I don’t think I ever mentioned here the schedule change that was decided at the end of August so I will explain now. All schools run on two shifts, there’s the morning shift (7am – roughly 12pm) and the afternoon shift (roughly 12:30pm to roughly 5:30pm), in my high school here in town the morning shift is 7th thru 9th grades only and the afternoon as 7th thru 11th but there were only two sections of 7th, 8th, and 9th grade and they have tended to be smaller than the morning classes which is always nice. Although we started out with a good 50+ kids in each of those 6 sections, some had dwindled to as few as 20 students regularly showing up plus a few randoms who only came some of the time. This “problem” of smaller class sizes was most prevalent in 7th grade but also in 8th.

So at the end of August someone decided that those sections should be combined, which was feasible in 7th grade, kinda crowded in 8th, and overflowing in 9th – we still had more than 30 students showing up regularly so when combined the 9th grade section was at 60 to 70 students. Luckily they’re well-behaved and many of them actually like to learn English so it hasn’t been too much of a problem. Now, you don’t have to be a mathematician to know that fewer classes means fewer teaching hours sooooo several teachers got their hours cut, my counterpart lost three hours off his schedule & was told he would now teach Civics to these three sections. Needless to say, he was not happy being told to teach a subject he’d a) never taught before and b) knew pretty little about.

Now with the end of the school year within reach, even these combined classes are shrinking in size. In the old system, students could skip tons of class but still show up for the big final exam & feasibly pass the class, even if they didn’t there was always summer school & reparaciones – exams they could take before the next school year & a passing grade meant they would pass the class. However, this year we’re assigning points based on attendance, discipline, participation, & projects & small quizzes which means if they don’t show up to class they’ll probably fail. The word on the schoolyard is that they’re still gonna do reparaciones though. Should be interesting to see how many kids have to take them and if there’ll be pressure to make them “passable” - if you know what I mean.

Full Circle

This week, from Sunday to Wednesday, I found my role reversed as I hosted a trainee for her volunteer visit. After about a month of training, when they’re heads are juuuust about to explode, all the trainees are sent off to visit volunteers to see what their lives could be like in just a couple months. After my volunteer visit I remember I was excited to see how much freedom volunteers have compared to trainees but obviously the thought of living on my own in some random town was still scary.

Let me back up a moment & explain some more fun Peace Corps details. In Nicaragua, training groups come in three times a year in January, May, and September. Each year the same sectors come in at the same time, unless they decide to change things, which was the case this year. My group of TEFL volunteers came in May 2008 with the Small Business (SBD) trainees, but at some point the decision was made to bring the agriculture volunteers in with SBD so the new group of TEFL trainees this year came in September with the environment group (health is our last sector and they come alone in January). The group before ours left in July so we’re the only TEFLers in-country right now and assuming no new changes are made, we will be gone before next year’s group of trainees come in so this is my only round of training in new volunteers.

My goal was not to freak this girl out too much, but also to give her a realistic sense of what volunteer life is like and I think I did that. We went to the beach twice, she went to class with both of my counterparts and saw the different dynamics I have with both of them, and I feel like she came away with a somewhat better sense of what she wants to have in a site. And after hearing some more about the new group, I’m excited to go next week and present How to Teach Vocabulary and in two weeks I’ll also be presenting a nearby town at the Site Fair and come December I’ll have a new neighbor (keep your fingers crossed!)! Barring this town getting cut from the list or the chosen trainee going home, we will once again have two TEFL volunteers in the department of Managua. Que cool.

What were you expecting? Part II

When joining the Peace Corps, the advice I heard over and over and over again was “try not to have expectations.” It’s excellent advice but nearly impossible to follow, especially for someone like me who looooves to daydream. Those first months in training and as I was adjusting to my site, I built up an expectation that the first year would be difficult but once I passed that magical one year mark that my second year would be easy. I thought I would have it all figured out and have my life perfectly in place- I would be used to the language and the people, be comfortable with my friends and my work environment, and plugging along smoothly on those big secondary projects that everyone seems to do in their second year.

However, I recently have found myself dealing with homesickness greater than in those first six months of service and battling back the desire to just get through these next nine months whatever way I can. Instead of feeling at home in Nicaragua, I felt like I was half out the door already and it surprised and dismayed me.

Luckily I had a little visit planned to those cool, green central mountain highlands to teach a ballet class to the girls group another volunteer has organized. Although it was a quick visit, it made me realize that I’m not the only one who is mentally checking out, whether we want to or not. Stephanie also made me realize that maybe the best way to deal with that strong desire to be back home is to really get into work here – to find the projects I really want to do and keep myself occupied and just watch the time fly by. I’ve returned to site with a renewed desire to get something accomplished in these coming months and to enjoy the parts of Nicaragua that I truly love.

And the ballet class itself was a blast to do! I’ve hesitated and worried about trying to start a class here in-site because of the logistics of footwear, floors, time, music, and participation. To go and do one isolated class with a group of girls who showed up entirely inappropriately dressed, on a concrete floor, without music because the power went out is one thing and trying to establish an ongoing class is another. I’m more motivated to try now, but also especially concerned after watching this group of seven girls run up against something challenging and see almost all of them sitting on the floor, decidedly defeated by the end.

Here are some pictures, the non-participaters became the photographers:






And our awesomely posed group shot:


And the vistas around Esquipulas:


Ending note: when I started my blog I didn’t want to present a totally sugar-coated view of Peace Corps life. Reading blogs before I left, I rarely read anything negative but I felt that I really wanted to hear about the tough parts. So this is my attempt at being real about my service. However, the real Real Story is that I can now communicate easily and comfortably in Spanish, I AM comfortable in my site, in my house, and with many of the people I interact with on a daily basis, and while working in the public schools is and always will be a challenge, I do feel like I can do my job effectively and it doesn’t leave me completely drained at the end of the day like it used to. I’m trying to get some cool secondary projects going and although I often feel like I’m not doing as much as I could be, I don’t know how I would fit in much more without overdoing it. I’ve learned that the second year isn’t easy, it just presents different challenges than the first.