More Alphabet Soup

Last week I went to a Project Design and Management workshop (aka PDM), which was conveniently held at a hotel on the beach not far from my site. We spent basically three full days discussing development, approaches to participatory community development (that is, getting the community involved as much as possible), and the steps of designing and managing a community-based project. The workshop is open to pretty much all volunteers in Nicaragua so we were a mixed bag of volunteers from all five sectors: agriculture, small business, health, environment, and English. The volunteers came from regions all over Nicaragua and everyone brought a Nicaraguan counterpart so I had the opportunity to meet some new and interesting people.

As my counterpart I brought Rafael, who manages the NGO where I teach English. They do a lot of projects in the rural areas outside of town so he came in with a lot of knowledge but he said he learned something so that’s good.

Here we are in our little work group with an environment volunteer and her counterpart who are working on building a bigger library in their town:


And here’s some of our work, PC-Nicaragua is probably the country’s biggest consumer of papelografo which are the big sheets of paper you see here. We basically wallpapered the room we were working in:


Although we did work our tails off, we also had some fun. The last night we had a bonfire on the beach and the hotel staff roped a bunch of us into doing a goofy competition. For being good sports (my partner Colin and I came in 3rd out of 4 teams), we were awarded these fancy shell necklaces:



But my favorite part was at the end each group had to present a creative review of the steps we learned. All the groups presented some fantastic and very creative summaries. My group did a fashion show, I put my Spanish to the test as the announcer while my group members strutted their stuff:

Stephanie showing El Sombrero de Visión (The Vision Hat)


Rafael in La Faja de Plan de Acción and Las Botas de Presupuesto (The Action Plan Belt & Budget Boots)


Go Team Mafael del Sillo (we named our team by combining the names of our two sites)!

Transportation, Nica Style

One of the things I’ve been trying to do with my teachers is to contextualize our lessons – that is, using familiar situations and everyday vocabulary for Nicaragua, not the U.S. The old English book they used before had all this stuff about airplanes and stewardesses and stuff that 90% of my students will never encounter. This month in the 9th grade we’re teaching about transportation and my counterpart brought in what he thought was an appropriate list of means of transportation. I thought I had done a good job by adding things like horses and trying to figure out the best way to translate “microbus.” Well, Joel came in with a list that included not only horse but mule and donkey as well as cart.

This post will require a part two because this doesn’t even cover all the forms of transportation in this country, but here’s a start:

Guy riding a cow (not common, but it happens):


Guys hanging on the back of a truck (very very common):


Launching boats in Masachapa, which is still done by rolling them out on logs:


On the bus:


Caponera, the Nica equivalent of a rickshaw:




Small child on moto, and no, she doesn’t have her license:


Horse cart:

I seriously think about this stuff ALL THE TIME!

The past couple weeks have been pretty uneventful. I tried to organize a meeting about doing a ballet class with a group of dancers at the instituto but that fell through because the teacher I was coordinating with wasn’t able to organize the kids in time. Some friends are trying to organize a general dance group in the community and want my help so I’m hoping that might work out, and if not I’ll try to organize through the instituto again. But the next month will be difficult to organize anything at all: next week I’m going to another Peace Corps training, the beginning of September I have a big English conference in Managua to present at and at the same time I have three friends coming to visit and the fiestas patrias, aka Independence Day. So despite feeling ready to get started on something new right now, I’m forced to wait in order to give myself the greatest chance of success. One of the frustrations of Peace Corps service.

Development work in general is just not easy. I find that I, and many of the volunteers here, often get bogged down in bigger questions of culture, gender, and the effectiveness and sustainability of our work. I had conversations about this with both Nicas and Americans this past weekend, so it’s been on my mind again. One of my Nica friends was expressing his frustration to me about how programs, groups, even businesses don’t last long in this community because the people lose interest & motivation really quickly. I found that was true with my adult English class, which started with 10 students and ended with only three. Although I think that it’s a common problem, he felt it was particularly acute here in our community.

So I brought up the conversation I had with a volunteer and former volunteer on Saturday, which is that development and religious mission organizations in the past (and often the present) created a Culture of Receiving in many countries. By coming in with money, materials, and resources & building, donating, and giving, these organizations broke the mantra of “give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day but teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” Basically, people become accustomed to not having to take responsibility but simply wait for someone to come in and give them what they need. So when I came here with just myself and no money or resources, people were pretty puzzled about how I was going to help.

More recently development organizations are realizing this and trying to work for more sustainable change, but that often entails working against a culture that may have been created by the same organization in the past. And it’s difficult to find funding for long-term, sustainable projects that may not show results in the next five or even ten years. Donors (and the public) like to see the new hospital, the kids eating school lunch, and farmers planting and harvesting more crops. It’s the need for instant gratification and the do-it-yourself mentality so many of us westerners have. It’s a lot harder to go in and teach others how to do something that they may do imperfectly by U.S. standards, or never at all. And when you throw in the fact that the changes we wish to make (higher education standards, new agricultural methods, environmental awareness, gender equality) are based on our culture and not necessarily on the culture in which we are working and the ethical implications of that, my mind starts to spin so fast I have to sit down.

This all might sounds really abstract and weird to those of you who aren’t accustomed to pondering development in your spare time. So here’s my current, on-the-ground dilemma: I have had it hasta aqui (up to here) with machismo and a culture that directs large numbers of women down the path of dependence on men who many times don’t treat them very well. So right now I really want to start working more with my female students, through dance or a more explicit girls empowerment club, because I feel that it would be beneficial for them to learn skills such as leadership, family planning, self-esteem, etc. so that they can be successful in life – a success that is defined by my cultural standards, not necessarily those of rural Nicaragua.

So the question is, is this a change that is even desired by people here? Do women see something wrong with their way of life? Do men? And what is my right as a foreigner to come in and say, “Do it MY way! It’s better!”? Well, short answer, is that I do know a lot of women who aren’t happy with their lives, and most men don’t realize that it’s a problem. As for the rest of it, it’s a gray area. So, as far as I can decide, I hope to form a girls club that is formed around the wants and needs of the girls themselves instead of dictating it all based on what I think they need to learn. And it might fall apart, it may never even get started. I have encountered a totally new kind of stress in my work here, it’s not having too much to do (though I do have that too) but having ideas and goals and not being able to reach them. My biggest struggle has been taking an idea from my head and making it happen on the ground, but I’m still plugging away and hoping that in the coming months before I leave that it will be something I grow more and more confident with.

That was a lot. To close on a not so serious note, here’s a picture from back in June of some of my students who performed a socio-drama at an anti-domestic violence event. The group includes my most fabulous gay students (you can probably guess who they are) who were mostly dressed as women for the skit. I love these kids!

Revolucion

Just before the IST we passed a big political holiday here in Nicaragua: The 19th of July, which this year was the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution. I know that before I came to Nicaragua I had little or no clue about the history of the country other than a big war in the 80s and since I was born in the 80s I knew almost nothing about that either. So, based on my Peace Corps history packet, here’s some Nica History:

Basically, Nicaragua was ruled for many years by the Somoza family, who were generally backed by the U.S. government. I’ve heard varying reports of the prosperity of the country during that time but a lot of the people I’ve talked to tell me that Nicaragua was generally in good shape and that migrant workers in the region actually came here looking for jobs (today they mostly go to Costa Rica and Panama). In December 1972, a major earthquake virtually destroyed Managua and international aid money poured into the country. It was because of the misuse of those funds, which were largely distributed to rebuild and strengthen businesses owned by the Somozas instead of helping the people, that the revolution happened. Guerilla wars occurred between 1972 and 1979, and the Carter administration in the U.S. began to criticize Somoza’s human rights record in 1977, eventually suspending economic aid. On July 17th, 1979 Anastasio Somoza went into exile in Miami.

So the Sandinistas came to power and the current president, Daniel Ortega, was in charge of the country for pretty much all of the 80s. The Carter administration attempted to make things work with the new Nicaraguan government but when Reagan took over, he decided he didn’t like the new leftist government in his hemisphere so, with the help of Congress, he funded the Contras out of Honduras to re-start the civil war in Nicaragua with a little additional help from the CIA. That lasted until 1984 when Congress decided they didn’t want to fund the Contras anymore which then led to the fun-filled Iran-Contra Affair in which Reagan raised funds for the Contras by illegally selling weapons to Iran and I think we all know how that ended up.

In 1989, the first democratic elections were held and the Sandinista party lost. In fact, it wasn’t until Ortega was reelected President in 2006 that they returned to power. So on the 19th of July there was a big party in Managua, all buses were going that direction with Sandinista flags waving (the infamous red and black) and lots of fireworks & such things going off around town here. It happened to fall on a Sunday so we had Monday off as a national holiday so I ate sopa de mondongo (oh yes, that’s cow stomach soup!) and relaxed on my patio.

Here are some pieces of war history at the scenic look out over Managua:



For my non-Spanish speaking readers, the sign says: “The remains of the horse monument to General Anastasio Somoza that was in front of the National Stadium. It was constructed in 1954 and torn down July 1979.”

Alphabet Soup

Like any good government agency, Peace Corps is full of acronyms: PST, IST, COS, APCD, ET, SLF, VRF, PDM, the list goes on. So this past week we had our one-year IST which stands for In-Service Training. There was one three months in that I missed because I was still hanging around in Panama and then we get this one at a year in. I have officially made it through one full year of Peace Corps service!

For IST everyone grabbed a counterpart or two and headed to the lovely northern city of Matagalpa:

I originally was gunning for a site in this area because of its cooler temperatures. I brought a sweater, wore closed-toed shoes, and even wore my hair down! Craziness! And we were put up in a lovely hotel up on the hill that had hot water and cable TV – quite frankly they’re lucky we left our rooms.

But it wasn’t all hot showers and vegging out, we definitely worked hard for our nice accommodations. Most of us left our sites between 5 and 6am on Wednesday to be in Matagalpa by 10:30am and we started promptly at 11. We worked all day Wed and Thurs. Friday our counterparts left after lunch and us volunteers stuck around to do some more stuff and were cut loose on Saturday. We covered a lot of topics, largely pertaining to activities to use in the classroom, evaluation methods, planning teaching workshops, going over our new manual for the new curriculum, and learning a bit about Nonviolent Communication – which I think everyone should learn about! Here are Erin and Alli teaching everyone about how to resolve conflicts more effectively:

It’s challenging to get so much information in such a short time, but I know my counterpart, Axel, really enjoyed it. Here he is with a mango:

And here’s Axel with Matagalpa in the background, I guess he’s trying to look like a tough guy or something:

More photo highlights:

The lovely ladies of TEFL:

Enjoying a break:

And singing along to Eternal Flame, yes those microphones are markers – we were a little punchy by the end:

It was really great to see everyone and get to hear a little about what people have been up to for the last year. We also received our official COS date (that is Close of Service, when we’re done) and that is July 16^th, 2010. I know that the next year will fly by so I need to get on those projects that have been floating around in my head. Also, after April 16^th I can’t take more vacation so all you stragglers out there who still wanna come visit better take note!

Nica 51 Packing List!

This post is really for the new group of TEFL trainees who will be landing in Nicaragua in September. I figure at this point they’re starting to gather some of the stuff they’ll need for the big plunge so I present my list of necessary items:

Must Haves:
• Headlamp – for late night reading under the mosquito net/trips to the latrine/when the lights go out
• USB Memory Sticks – for taking to the ciber, backing up photos
• Camera - duh
• A good everyday bag – I actually found my good everyday bag in Panama, it has a strap that you can lengthen to wear crosswise or shorten to wear on the shoulder & it’s big enough to fit a couple notebooks & a water bottle
• Umbrella or rain jacket – it rains a lot, especially in October, I recommend the umbrella route
• Books – again, duh

Recommended
• Ipod & speakers – you can take them to school if you want, or just to play music at home
• Battery powered alarm clock
• Command hooks – esp if you think you’ll live on your own
• Cards/Uno deck – my host sisters really liked playing Uno during training
• Laptop & DVDs – aside from the obvious benefits, PC does a lot of communication electronically so it will save you money going to the ciber all the time to write reports, etc. Don’t bring a shiny new laptop though, it could get stolen, attacked by viruses from using USBs at the ciber, and most likely will be covered in dust after the first summer in Nicaragua. Mine is suddenly slow as molasses & I can’t figure out why. Be prepared to junk it when you leave.

If you have space
• Pillow – I brought mine and I’m sooooo happy I did!
• Spanish-language book, if you have one you like – I didn’t bring one & wish that I had
• Sheets – this is more for if you plan to live on your own, you also might just wait & have them sent down later or bring them back when you visit home which is what I did

Women’s Clothing – my advice is to pack what you can and leave a pile of clothes behind, some for hot climates & some for cooler climates & when you get your site assignment you can have your family or whoever send off a package – this goes for anything you wanna pack & don’t have space for.
• Look for materials that either absorb sweat or don’t show it, or bring camisoles to wear under your shirts if you sweat a lot
• At least 10 pairs of underwear, synthetic if possible
• 7 bras, including sports bras
• 5-7 pairs of socks
• Work-appropriate tank tops with wide straps – no spaghetti straps at school, but teachers here do wear sleeveless stuff, just make sure it’s tasteful
• 7 shirts/tank tops you can wear to work
• 5 shirts/tank tops for casual
• 2-3 long-sleeved shirts
• 1 going-out outfit
• 1-2 pairs of jeans
• 3-4 work pants or capris or skirts
• 1-2 casual pants or skirts
• 1-2 nice outfits or dresses
• 2 pairs of shorts for lounging around
• 1-2 swimsuits
• Pajamas
• A fleece or light jacket
• Tennis shoes
• Walking sandals
• 1-2 Nicer work sandals/shoes
• Flip flops

For guys, work dress is a lot more lax – nice jeans are acceptable for both sexes but the male teachers wear jeans a lot more than the female ones. And a simple button-up is good for work or whatever.

Toiletries – it is true that you can buy most any of this stuff in-country (except contact solution, which you can find but it’s tricky) but during training you get very little money so either pack it or bring money from home to buy it with
• Lots of contact solution if you use it
• If there’s space, a large supply of pads and/or tampons, pantyliners or bring a Diva Cup
• Pack Towel
• The usual: toothbrush, tooth paste, shampoo, conditioner, soap, hair bands, etc

Misc
• School supplies – markers, whiteboard markers, index cards, pens & pencils
• Special spices for cooking
• Sheet/blanket/sleepsack for hostels
• Sewing kit
• Sunglasses
• Moon Handbook
• Anti-bacterial hand stuff
• Flashlight
• Gatorade powder
• Yoga mat or other exercise stuff – I didn’t bring my yoga mat & was able to buy one here but I had to wait till the very end of training. I have started downloading yoga podcasts on my laptop to do at home & you can bring exercise DVDs or buy them here (only a dollar for bootleg DVDs!)

You’ll be given a big bag o’ books during staging as well so be prepared. It includes a Spanish-English dictionary & some more language stuff, as well as technical manuals & a notebook to use during training. I packed in a large backpacking pack, a rolling duffle bag, and my normal backpack & so far that’s served me pretty well.

And a word on staging in DC – a number of people in our training group had problems with the staff in DC in terms of clothing and piercings, but as far as I know none of the issues they brought up were actually issues in Nicaragua. Por ejemplo, my roommate in staging was told that her dress pant capris were too short (they kinda showed her knees a little) so she ran out and bought a bunch of new stuff before we left but I know she’s worn them here and never been told they were inappropriate. Same for piercings, some people were told to take out eyebrow and nose piercings in DC but when worn in Nicaragua they never have had problems. And not everyone with piercings was told to take them out. My recommendation is to wear your nicest stuff to DC and if you have a piercing to wear a small one. If there’s a real issue with something you wear, the staff in Nicaragua will tell you. Keep things tasteful and respectful while at the same time being true to who you are. We want to be good representatives for the U.S. while at the same time representing its diversity and ourselves as well – that of course is my opinion and has nothing to do with official Peace Corps policy :)

A Wedding, Nica Style

As you may or may not remember, there is a former volunteer who lives about 20 km away from me. Sarah left Peace Corps but she stayed in the country to teach in another school near Managua and this past weekend she got married to her boyfriend (now husband), Moises.




You may be thinking “woah, PC volunteer marrying a Nicaraguan!?! Craziness!” but it actually happens a whole lot – more often with female volunteers marrying Nicaraguan guys but it can go the other way too. Seeing the direction the rest of our TEFL group is headed in, I kind of doubt that anyone else will be taking the plunge before we leave.

I digress.



Six of us volunteers attended the wedding, and we weren’t really sure what to expect. Sarah’s parents and a group of friends flew down for the festivities but it was largely a Nicaraguan affair. First off, it started a half hour late :) All the gringos were firmly in their seats but the Nica’s kinda just rolled in whenever so although we started with a half empty church, it ended closer to full. There were also about a zillion screaming babies.



The actual service was what surprised me the most. It started out much like any religious wedding, but in the middle of it the pastor stepped down and a lady in a suit stepped up and took care of the civil part of the wedding. This involved reading off the full names, ages, professions, and birth places of the bride and groom and having them along with their witnesses sign some paperwork. When that was over we got back into the religious stuff and finished with the usual kiss. We all thoroughly enjoyed the part where the pastor was trying to pronounce English stuff and would make his attempt and then follow it with “algo asi” (something like that).



Then there was the reception with food and the best cake I’ve eaten in Nicaragua (Nica cake is different from American cake- especially the frosting which just doesn’t taste right and they put something between the two layers of cake that looks like it might be tasty but usually it’s not – the first time we got Nica cake during training everyone’s eyes lit up but that only lasted until the first bite when we realized that it’s not what we were expecting). Then my friend Maria caught the bouquet, the second one she’s caught in Nicaragua thus far:



Overall, really not that different from a wedding in the U.S. except for the civil part.

Fun with English-learning

One of my secondary projects (teaching in the schools is my primary project) is teaching English to the three person staff of a local NGO – I know I’ve written about them before. I love teaching them, partly for situations that arise that are absolutely hilarious. One of my favorite misunderstandings that came out of that class happened a while back. I asked one of the women “Do you have a cousin in Rivas?” and her attempt at translating before answering (“Eres una cocina en Rivas?”) actually means “Are you a kitchen in Rivas?” That might be one of those, “you had to be there” moments but we still laugh about it to this day.

Last week in class we were going over the homework which was to match the opposite adjectives in a list (small-large, deep-shallow, etc.) and the two women in the group had worked together and determined that “tall” didn’t match with anything on the list and so they had written in “bass.” I kept looking at it thinking “how in the world did they come up with bass?” With a little more thought I realized that they had taken “tall” which is “alto” in Spanish and knew that the opposite was “bajo,” which translates to both “short” and “bass” as in bass guitar. It’s like a little puzzle sometimes making the connections :)

Cultural Tidbits from Central America

As I hope you all have heard, there was a coup last week in Honduras. The same day I flew into Nicaragua, the military took over the government in Honduras, installed a new president, and flew President Zelaya to Costa Rica and thus far have not allowed him to return to the country. This happened for a variety of reasons, foremost being that the Honduran constitution prohibits not only re-election, but any attempt at changing the constitution to allow it. So Zelaya was trying to find a way around this little hurdle, not unlike all the Alba buddies (Chavez, Morales, and Nicaragua’s own Daniel Ortega) who are all looking to find a way to remain in power. So far all Peace Corps volunteers in Honduras are staying in their sites since most of the action is in the capital and there have been no far flung effects into Nicaragua.

Closer to home, not to be outdone by Michael Jackson’s sudden death, the mayor of Managua unexpectedly shot himself in the chest (so they say) this past week. The mayor, Alexis Argüello, is well-known and loved in Nicaragua not for his politics but for being a three-time boxing champion who put Nicaragua on the sports world map I believe back in the 70s. Although he was the Sandinista candidate, he was apparently not strongly Sandinista and so the official story is that others were pushing him and trying to control him to implement more of the Sandinista ideals which pushed him to suicide (yeah, I dunno either). I’ve been told that he only got into politics because he’s got like 8 kids and no money after years of battling a drug problem & in Nicaragua you can make some serious money as a politician which is the reason most people want to be mayor, not a desire to improve anything.

I happened to be in Managua the day they processed through town which made my trip to Granada a whole lot slower. People lined the streets to say goodbye and lots of trucks full of supporters and fans followed behind the hearse. Here’s the hullabaloo as it passed:



When I did finally make it to Granada, I enjoyed a lovely weekend with my fellow-volunteers celebrating the 4th of July:

It helps to know expats with pools:


And of course, there was a dance party:


Oh yeah, speaking of pools, we also celebrated Dia del Maestro (Teacher’s Day) last Monday. Our mayor threw a big party for all the teachers down by the beach which was lovely, though it was also my first full day back in the country and I was a little overwhelmed in general.

Mariachi band by the pool:


Last week was kind of a slow start for me coming back, but a little volunteer bonding time has me back to normal and ready to work. Luckily this week we have school vacations before we start the new semester next week so I have some more time to regroup and get ready for the second half of the school year.

Photo Montage of America

Week One: Minnesota:

Ate cheese curds at the Dam Festival with friends:




At my dad’s family reunion with my cousins:


Family reunion potluck = the best food in Minnesota:





Visiting friends:




Visited a winery, I never even knew there were wineries in Minnesota!


Last Three Days: Washington, DC:

At happy hour:


Wandering the city:


A night out with the girls:


More quality time with the girls:



The visit was waaaaay too short, but I had a fantastic time and I miss everyone terribly. I didn’t get hit by culture shock too badly, but here is my Top Ten Weird Things About America list:

1)You can flush toilet paper down the toilet – I knew I was home again when I got to flush TP in the Miami Airport. However, I didn’t get used to it and nearly threw it in the trash every time I used the facilities (TP can’t be flushed here, the system can’t handle it).

2)Streets are clean and free of stray dogs – really I noticed this more in returning to Nicaragua, I guess in the past everything was wrapped up in banana leaves so everything was just thrown on the ground and it would decompose quickly. Not so with plastic bags, but everyone still does it and I have to resist the urge to yell at people when they throw trash out of the windows of the bus.

3)Lots of cars – and in MN, an unbelievable amount of Pontiacs. Never noticed that before.

4)The sun sets at 9pm – we have 12 hours of sun in Nicaragua pretty much year-round, give or take a few minutes. I was in Minnesota during the summer solstice and thought my watch was broken the first day when it hit 6pm and the sun was still pretty high in the sky. I remember that being a major adjustment for me when I first got to Nicaragua, I miss long summer days.

5)Diversity – moreso in DC, people of various colors!! Nicaragua is homogenous.

6)English! – Everyone speaks English (except in the Miami airport), big surprise.

7)People dress weird – Everyone in the U.S. has something to say with their clothing, and in a way so do people here in Nicaragua, but the difference in dress is much less pronounced especially in the countryside. And you can always tell when new shipments have come in because suddenly everyone is wearing the same shirt or shoes or hair clips.

8)I can walk the streets in peace – outside of a couple cat calls in DC, no one paid any attention to me – well they may have paid a little attention to the crazy girl with a massive backpack on the metro but whatevs.

9)Tall trees – driving around in Minnesota I was amazed at how tall the trees are there and how small they are around here in comparison.

10)Easy access to goods and services – Even in Small Falls there are various 24-hour establishments and in DC you can get a wide variety of food and goods at any hour of the day. Some of it will even arrive directly to your door. Amazing!

Adios America

I've been too busy eating everything in my path and spending time with my family and as many friends as I have had time for (sorry to those people I missed, the visit was short) to post on the blog. And I still haven't been able to upload my photos so I don't have much to show for the past 10 days yet. But my vacation is quickly coming to an end, sadly enough. The whole thing has felt much like a dream and going back to Nicaragua is neither sad or exciting for me. Regardless, I fly out tomorrow morning and I'll have a better post sometime next week.

USAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I'm writing this from the comfort of my parent's unbelievably comfortable recliner couch while hooked up to wireless internet (though that was a bit of a challenge) and listening to the sounds of my mom making bars (a midwestern delicacy of epic proportions). I am home.

My mind is still in a half-dream state about being here, but my stomach sure isn't. So far I've been fed amazingly wonderful food: hamburgers, steak, yummy sandwiches, grapes, pizza hut pizza, and cheese curds!! There will be a picture of the cheese curds later when I find someone to lend me their camera cable because I intelligently left mine in Nicaragua. Even though they cost $6 (that's about 120 cordobas which will buy you a small but very nice fish at the beach), the cheese curds were totally worth it.

In my small hometown I happened to come home during the Dam Festival (hence the cheese curds), celebrating the dam in town (toted as "the best dam festival in Minnesota") which reminded me again of the incredible diversity of rural Minnesotans. Granted they were all white, but you got your rural gangster types, farmers, bikers, townies who think they have money, townies who definitely don't have money, and about half of my high school class. Ok, there weren't that many of my former classmates there, but enough that I was doing double takes every couple of minutes trying to remember names and faces.

Today we're heading down for family reunion fun with my dad's family and I'm quite excited for the potluck lunch on Sunday. It should be good times with a large group of very chatty folks.

Exito!!

Success!!

I can breathe a huge sigh of relief now that we’ve given the workshop for the English teachers in my municipality. I’ve been planning this workshop (or in Spanish: Taller) with two other volunteers for a couple months now but it kicked into high gear towards the end of April/beginning of May as I started talking with the principals and the Ministry of Education folks and set a tentative date of June 9th that I wasn’t really sure would happen. Plans changed a little bit from what I had been envisioning and so I made a last minute attempt to get money from the mayor’s office (alcaldia) to cover the transportation for the teacher participants and the volunteers who would be presenting, a snack, and some materials. This can be a long, arduous process as you chase down the mayor and hope that he’s feeling generous, and since I’d heard mixed reviews of our new mayor’s willingness to give money, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Luckily a friend advised me to make an appointment which I never would have thought to do because usually you just have to go to the alcaldia and hope the mayor’s there and that there isn’t a huge line of people waiting to speak to him.

I went to the alcaldia in mid-May in hopes of seeing the mayor but ended up making an appointment for the 29th and left a letter of request for 725 cordobas (roughly $36). I went back on the 27th to confirm my appointment and the secretary told me that my request had been authorized!! I was shocked, and kind of didn’t believe her at first. She made some copies of stuff and told me the money would be ready the following week. I did go back that Friday for the appointment but the mayor wasn’t in the office, but my check was all ready by June 3rd and I went to the bank this past Saturday and stood in line for an hour and a half to cash it. But not without documenting it first:



With my money in hand, I only had to organize a few last details such as the snacks and, oh yeah, planning almost my entire presentation on materials development on Sunday morning! But I got everything in line, a good location, thank you notes for the mayor and MINED folks, food for the other two volunteers, and small change to use to reimburse the travel expenses. Tuesday morning I woke up at 4:30am to the sound of rain and figured that my good karma was ending because no one does anything when it’s raining out and they certainly don’t travel anywhere from one to 20 kilometers to go to a workshop they may not even want to attend. To beat, I got a call from my volunteer friends that they had been waiting for the bus for a very long time and none had passed.

I kind of nervously made my way up to the school around 7:15 (morning classes start at 7am) and there were a few kids and fewer teachers around. I waited calmly and eventually the rain let up, the teacher with the keys to our space showed up and around 7:45 so did my volunteer friends. Slowly the English teachers started rolling in and by 8:30 all of the six teachers I expected had arrived (we told everyone 8am but planned for an 8:30 start time, it worked out perfectly). Needless to say, I was relieved and amazed to have everyone there, the presentations went really well and I think the teachers really learned something – one woman gave us all hugs which was nice! The afternoon wasn’t quite as smooth, I expected four teachers and we only got two, but it was still a good session.

I wish I could accurately convey just how proud and happy I am that things went so well. Doing a taller seemed like something so far above my level when I started my service and I never expected to do one before my second year (more experienced volunteers are expected to do talleres their first year and those of us with less teaching experience are expected to start them the second year – of the three of us who were working together, one was more experienced and two of us were newbies). My work can be really frustrating at times and I have trouble getting projects off the ground, so this comes as a huge personal and professional accomplishment for me, and what’s more I feel like I built up some good relationships with people in the community who helped me draft letters and thank you notes, set up the appointments, and just generally gave me advice.

Here are the six teachers working hard in the morning session (the two guys on the right are my counterparts I work with every week):



On Monday and Tuesday we’re doing the same taller in the other volunteers’ sites and Wednesday I fly for Minnesota! Unbelievable.

Another Successful Visit

The rest of Laura's visit was fantastic, we enjoyed the beach at Pochomil





and then headed down to the Island of Ometepe for the weekend which was spectacular.


I believe it is my new favorite place in Nicaragua, too bad it's it takes forever to get there from my site. I think the island is Nicaragua at its best: the people are super nice (I have the number for an excellent and informative taxi driver if anyone is looking for one), the landscape is gorgeous, it's safe, and although there were many tourists around even for the end of May, it didn't feel like they were encroaching on the local culture and I got the impression that more of the tourist infrastructure out there is Nica-owned (as opposed to Granada where it seems like all the most successful businesses are owned by expats).

Rather than spend a full day and what I can only imagine would have been gallons of sweat climbing up one of the two volcanoes, we opted for a 3 hour hike to a look-out point on Volcan Maderas, the smaller of the two. I think it nearly killed Laura and left me with a little family of blisters on both my feet.

Laura & our guide heading up the last steep portion:


The lovely view, Volcan Concepcion hidden behind the clouds and the lake below:


We rewarded that effort with an afternoon on the beach at Playa Santo Domingo:


(It was windy)


The next day we walked 4 kilometers to a farm in Balgue to see petroglyphs and buy some locally grown coffee.




We saw some howler monkeys along the way:




My feet survived that trip better but Laura's did not and we had some extremely good luck when the owner of our hostel drove past and gave us a lift home.

We also rewarded that with some beach time.


We spent our last night back in Granada and after all that sweating, we opted for a room with AC and got prettied up for our last night.

Cable TV and air conditioning totally warrants a photo:


Out on the town:


I'm sad to see Laura go, we had a great time and it seemed like everyone and their mother was asking when she would come back (my students even offered to raise money to fly her back down!). But continue I must, and I’m happy to say that I just had my mid-term health check-up and I’m pretty darned healthy. However, the highlight of my week was definitely receiving a check from the mayor’s office to cover some of the expenses for the teacher workshop I’m putting on next week with two other volunteers. That's a whole story in itself that I'll tell another day.