Every time that someone finishes his or her Peace Corps service in Nicaragua (called "COS" or close of service), he or she rings this bell that's in the middle of the office. It's a tradition that started right around the time that we got here, and today is finally our turn to ring the bell and become RPCVs, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers.

Whenever TEFL volunteers get together, an inevitable topic of conversation is difficult counterparts. It always made me feel a little smug that I never had anything to contribute to those chats since my counterpart, Romel, has been a really great teacher and friend over the last two years. Even though my official job here is to help him improve his English, I think he has taught me more.

I can't really say enough nice things about Romel: he works really hard to support his family, working 10-hour days teaching at two different schools. He's a really affectionate and kind father to Jeycob and Natalia, and he and his wife, Azalia were always there to remind me that the odioso Nicaraguans that want our dog dead or to kick us out of our house are the exception rather than the rule.

Romel and Azalia are two people that I know we'll stay in touch with and they're a big part of the reason that we will continue to come back to Nicaragua to visit.

Romel and me planning a lesson:

Jeycob:

Azalia and Jeycob:

Natalia:

The family at Natalia's first birthday party:

Romel with a gigantic mutant mango:

The family motorcycle (I worry every time I see them get on it):

Romel and me on my last day of school:

Carmen has been my counterpart at school since the very beginning. Here in the English program, we are required to work with Nicaraguan counterpart teachers so we're not taking a job away from a Nicaraguan, and so our work will be more sustainable as our counterparts improve their English and their teaching methodologies. So we plan for all of the classes together on the weekends, then teach together during the week.

The first time I met Carmen was at our Counterpart Day during training, and I honestly found her really intimidating and I thought she hated me. I was even more worried because we had to live with Carmen and her family for the first six weeks that we were in Masaya. Fortunately, my first impression was wrong and Carmen turned out to be not only my colleague but also one of my best friends here.Carmen is unlike any other Nicaraguan I've come to know; she is a really tough lady and has a strong sense of fairness and right and wrong. Carmen is very different from the Nicaraguan women I met in training: she's independent and raised her daughter by herself and cares for her granddaughter while also working as a teacher. She's one of the only people that doesn't continually ask when Paul and I are planning to have kids, and she stands up for me when others ask by saying that we're still young and it's better for us to complete our educations and have jobs and establish ourselves before rushing to bring kids into the mix. Though that's not revolutionary idea to have in the States, it is quite atypical here, and is one of many examples of Carmen's modern thinking and willingness to disagree with the majority.

I've come to trust Carmen a lot and can talk honestly with her about any subject. Carmen and I have a lot of free time between classes, and we use the time to talk about just about anything. She's probably the only Nicaraguan I feel comfortable talking to about the things about this country and culture that I dislike--the sexism, the way politics influences all decisions, and the way people are mean to dogs, for instance. In Nicaragua it's pretty risky for Americans like us to discuss topics like politics because people feel very strongly about those issues and are often biased by their loyalties, but Carmen is always honest and open about her opinions and she is never afraid to call it like she sees it, always while thinking critically about each topic. Carmen and I are also very similar in that we enjoy complaining and finding the irony in things, so we really were a perfect match.

During the last two years I've also gotten to know Carmen's daughter, Lizayara, and her granddaughter, Natalie. Lizayara has been studying English in Managua on Saturdays and I'm amazed at how well she speaks after a short amount of time. She's one of the most studious people I've met here, and though she doesn't yet know what she'd like to do as a career (engineering and medical school are a couple of her top contenders), I know she'll find success and grow up to be as smart and independent as her mom. Recently Lizayara invited us to her 16th birthday party this spring: I'm amazed at how much Natalie, Carmen's granddaughter (also in the picture above), has changed over the last two years. When we first moved in with Carmen, she was living with her son and helping care for Natalie because Natalie's mom was killed in a motorcycle accident the year before. Natalie was very shy and quiet and I'm pretty sure she found me really annoying. Now when I go to Carmen's on the weekend and Natalie is visiting, she's a lively little girl who is always scheming to get cookies and is willing to talk with me and let me help her study for her upcoming tests, and is even eager to show off the English she's learning in school.

On my last day at school the teachers threw me a despedida, a going away party. I had to say a few words, and as I was talking about how much I appreciated Carmen, I started to tear up, the first time since we've started saying our goodbyes. Tomorrow Carmen, Lizayara, and Natalie are coming over to have lunch with us, and we're also going to make sure that they have e-mail accounts and give them a crash course in how to use Skype so we can stay in touch. Carmen really has meant a lot to me during these two years, and it's going to be tough to say goodbye.

The Peace Corps office in Managua has a lot of functions: it's (obviously) an office where people go to work, a meeting point for volunteers from all around the country, a doctor's office, a library, and an air-conditioned refuge for volunteers. It is especially easy for Holly and me to get to the office because it's right off of the highway that we have to take to get to Managua, so if we have a lot of work to do, it's worth the $1.50 roundtrip to go to the office and do the work in air conditioning and with free internet since there's basically no place in Masaya with air conditioning.

Here is the outside of the office. Up the stairs is the entrance into the security guards' office; they are always really friendly as we sign in, and always on guard for stray cars parked in front of the office or terrorists that may be passing through (the FBI's most wanted list and various terrorist pictures are prominently posted in their guard station, just in case) :The fleet of Peace Corps Landcruisers that are ubiquitous in international development circles:

The front door:

Mimi really deserves her own entry; she is the receptionist at the office, but you can tell by the cards hanging around her office that she means way more than that to the volunteers. She has lots of responsibilities and is always busy, but she is on top of all of her duties and is never too busy to say hi when you walk in and to ask how everything is going. She also seems to recognize all volunteers' voices when she answers the phone, even if you're really sick and mumbling that you need to talk to a doctor. We really appreciate Mimi and will miss her very much when we leave. Gracias por todo, Mimi!

Karen started working as the project specialist for the TEFL sector just a couple of months before we arrived in 2007. Before that she was a Spanish teacher in the Peace Corps. During our two years, we have had three separate APCDs (the sector boss), but just one Karen. She has been wonderful and we can't thank her enough either--especially for those months when there wasn't an APCD to help shoulder the work load.

Here is Karen with her really adorable son, Ryan.

Here's the entrance to the Peace Corps medical office, a place we visited far too many times. Marva was responsible for making all our appointments, filling our prescriptions, and keeping everyone on schedule (a nearly impossible task), and Maria Elena, Mariano, Marta, and Ximena were the four doctors charged with keeping us healthy and sane.

The books in the PC library are all donated, and since no one is really responsible for upkeep, they usually look about like this. That said, there are always good books to read in there, and it's definitely part of the reason why we both read more than usual during our two years.

The bulletin board is also a little on the Laissez Faire side, but it lets volunteers find out about important new events, like who was elected president. There are also glimpses of the volunteer computers; there are supposed to be two in the lounge and two in another room, but at least one is almost always broken or missing.

Today is my last day of classes at my school, INJOCRUM (Instituto Nacional José de la Cruz Mena). I’m actually pretty sad to be leaving the kids… though at the beginning of my service I sort of dreaded going to school, by the end I finally found my groove as a teacher and going to school became the only thing that I really enjoyed about being here.

Here’s where I walked daily to get from the market where I got off the bus to my school. This is also where Marvin and company always harassed me:This is the outside area of my school; this is before first hour when kids are just hanging out, playing soccer, and buying snacks:Here’s the marching band at a competition my first year at INJOCRUM. I never liked all the class we missed for the band to practice, but I did like their cheese grater instruments. I spent many, many hours in the teachers lounge since my teaching schedules always had a lot of free hours in them. The barred doors in the first picture go to the principal’s office, the secretary’s office, and the vice principal’s office. The painting in the second picture is of José de la Cruz Mena, the musician for whom the school is named.These are some of the students I had my very first school year here, in first year (7th grade) in the morning with Francis. The one in the middle is Eddyson, and he was one of my favorites:This is my IV E (fourth year, section “E”) class from last year. This class first made me enjoy coming to school, and I was legitimately sad when I no longer got to teach them. They were all good kids that participated in class, did their homework, and laughed and my corny attempts to make jokes.Here’s III G (third year, section “G”) from this year. In the first picture they’re learning directions. I had many of these same students last year in second year as well.

This is Rafael, one of my favorite kids that I had both last year and this year. He loves to ask me how to say new phrases and then practices them on me later (like, “Teacher, welcome to our class!” “I am finished!” and “See you tomorrow, teacher!”). Here he is showing off the chicken skeleton he made for science class. They asphyxiated the chicken so as not to break any of its bones, and then he carefully disassembled it and glued it back together. I think it’s really gross, but also pretty interesting.Here’s Rafael’s class, III I, learning prepositions of place.Finally, I’ll also miss the teachers. This picture is from a staff meeting where we also had a dance competition to practice our solidarity. This is Lila, who is an amazing seamstress and sews most of her own clothes (and also brings clothes and purses to school to sell to other teachers). At the far left is Iris who took a long time to warm up to me, but eventually she learned my name (“Holly Regan, but not like Ronald Reagan, that’s it, right?”) and we became friends.When the last bell rings at 5:45, the kids come pouring out of the gate to the school. I rarely get out of school quickly enough to see the whole mess of students leaving to go home; these are a few stragglers that took more than 30 seconds to get out of school.I never thought I’d say it, but I’ll actually miss being a teacher here.

One of the many chores that I get roped into just because I'm a man (see also taking the dogs out late at night, talking to strange people at the door, and cooking) is the weekly water bottle run. In our old house there was a pharmacy with water just down the street, but once we moved the closest place with water was the supermarket in the park, so I had to balance it on my bike. I'm pretty sure that by now with all of the frescos and helados we've had we are more or less immune to whatever is floating in the water, but it's nice knowing for sure that the water is clean. Now we're living close again to Farmacia Carolina, but only for a short time to take advantage of the close access to clean water. I'm not sure we'll be able to find a place to live in the US that has 5-gallon jugs of water easily accessible by bike and/or foot. I guess that's just another sacrifice that I'm willing to make.

P.S. 1 week from today we'll be back in the States (and with any luck, we'll have Dorita in tow).

We’ve said before that you don’t really choose to become friends with other PCVs—it just happens. Nicole is one of the people in our group that we probably would have been friends with anyway. We’re usually the ones that stay at home rather than go out and party, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, but we’re all a little boring. Nicole and I lived on the same block during training and since her Spanish was already pretty perfect when we got here, I would go to her for homework help, and during the week we would make frequent trips to Eskimo. Now that we live 5 hours apart, we still see her pretty often because she can stay here when she needs to pass through Managua. We went to visit her once, and that was enough for us. She and Dora are best buddies, too, and Dora treats her just like family by eating her underwear. Nicole is from Florida (but not Miami, even though we teased her about that for a while), and even though Palo Alto and Lake Worth are pretty far apart, I think we’ll have to visit her there.

Though I listed yesterday the things I won't miss about Nicaragua, that doesn't mean it was all bad; there are plenty of things I already begin to feel nostalgic about, and we still have a few days left here! In fact, the things that I disliked yesterday are exactly the same things I like and will miss about the place:

10. Daily Life – For the last two years we haven’t had to worry about jobs, health care, or (until recently) housing. In the economic security sense, it will probably have been one of the least stressful periods of our adult lives. Our main teaching duties only require about 20 hours of actual work a week, and if we wanted to, we could just do that and spend the rest reading books or playing bocce ball.

9. The Weather: While six months of the year are a little too rainy or hot, the other six are pretty nice. In December through February you can be guaranteed sunny, warm (but not too hot) days with a nice breeze. It goes without saying that we never have to worry about snow or ice or being too cold, and it’s been nice not to have to worry about heat or air conditioning in our houses during this time. We’ve become very finely tuned thermometers; I feel comfortable between about 82 and 88 degrees; any cooler and I feel cold, and any warmer and I feel hot.

8. Food – We’ve eaten our share of gallo pinto, tejadas, and arroz de leche; we can’t honestly say we don’t enjoy the food here. It’s also so much more convenient here—there are helados and ice cream and snacks for sale in nearly every house, and people go door to door selling other goods or come into buses to sell cheap, yummy food while we’re traveling.

7. Inexpensive Wares – I think it goes without saying that on a Peace Corps volunteer’s budget, cheaper is better. Beautiful hand-woven hammocks cost $10 and original paintings can be had for $5. Additionally, people go door to door selling most things you could ever need, from food to universal remote controls to pillows.

6. Transportation – Public transportation is inexpensive and prolific. We’ve been without a car for two years, but we only really regret it occasionally. Taking the bus is inexpensive and convenient to and from Masaya almost all waking hours (and several hours before waking). Additionally, we can take a cab anywhere within our town for 50 cents or a ruta for 15 cents—I am quite sure we’ll never see such cheap transportation again, especially not in Palo Alto.

5. The Critters – Obviously Dora has earned a special place in our heart, along with other neighborhood dogs, little lizards, and Dora’s friends like Brown Dog, Luna, and Colacho.

4. Culture – It is still kind of a shock to meet grown men living with their mothers without shame, but it is nice that strong family ties are important in Nicaraguan culture. There’s also a distinct culture here in terms of holidays and celebrations, food, music, and beliefs—it’s very different from the States but sort of comforting at the same time.

3. Being Different – It’s always easy for our friends to find out where we live once they get close enough because they can just ask the neighbors where the gringos live. Being different also gives us a chance to share our culture and ensures that no taxi ride passes in silence.

2. Spanish – It’s great to know another language and we’ve learned a lot. Over the last week with the landlady drama our Spanish seems to have improved greatly. Also, English lacks some really useful phrase and words; some things like como no and fachento are just better in Spanish, and (with each other at least) I think we’ll continue to use them long after we leave here.

1. People – We have made great friends in Nicaragua that we’ll be sad to leave, especially our counterparts, neighbors, volunteers, and Peace Corps staff. We’ll be talking more about some of our closest friends and Nica family in our last few days here.

One of the things I think I fear most about returning home after Peace Corps is having to answer the inevitable question, "So did you like it?"

Peace Corps' motto is that it's "the toughest job you'll ever love." It was without a doubt tough, and we're still not sure what the experience meant to us, let alone sure how to condense it down to a sentence or two to explain it to friends and acquaintances. Part of the difficulty is that it's been quite a roller coaster, often with lots of emotions even within one day. We've celebrated little victories and felt helpless during little crises.

Now that we overcame our housing crisis, I feel much more at peace with my Peace Corps service; though it was really stressful at the time, I'm really happy it helped us get closer to Romel and Azalia, and I'm happy we are back in our old neighborhood with people we know well.

That doesn't mean I have a wistful, romantic view of everything that happened here, though; many of the things that I love most days are things that I hated on others. As our time here fades, I think we'll begin to forget many of the things that were so difficult about being here, or that made us want to pack our bags and head home. In case we're feeling sad about leaving, here are some of the things that we won't miss:

10. Daily Life: Even the simplest tasks are just much more complicated here. Seemingly pleasant things like going to a restaurant or ordering a pizza can be complicated, un-fun tasks, and these little things seem to happen nearly every day. Even venturing out of the house can be difficult as we have to avoid the crazy drivers of Ministry of Health trucks, people zooming down the streets in their motorcycles, and other everyday hazards.

9. The Weather: It's unfortunately that Nicaragua only has two seasons since one of them is decidedly annoying. It rains a lot during October. During March right as the rainy season is beginning, it is really hot and downright miserable.

8. Food: No matter how good food may look, there could be trouble lurking. We've imported more boxes of Kraft Mac & Cheese than I'd care to count, and even the most basic supplies can suddenly disappear. Outside the home, our options are limited to pizza or gallo pinto, both of which can get a little old.

7. Inexpensive Wares: Stuff here is cheap, mostly in the "poor quality" sense of the word. Most of our Nicaraguan possessions seems to have a two year lifespan and are now giving out: handles are falling off pans and pots now have holes, clothes we bought here (even from the nice mall in Managua) are falling apart, and most recently our prized plastic furniture started giving out:

6. Transportation: I will never miss being stuck in a tiny microbus intended for a dozen people that has 25 people in it with no ventilation because all the windows are closed because it's sprinkling. During the strike there was no transportation and we were stuck, and we also really hate being overcharged in taxis or buses.

5. The Critters: We've had a lot of critter encounters during our time here. Lately our most vicious enemies have been scorpions, culminating with me getting stung by a scorpion in my arm pit at 2 in the morning a few weeks back. Eww.

4. Culture: It's hard to live in a culture that's not your own, and as much as we try to integrate and accept it, about some things we just have to agree to disagree. The machista culture that's so accepted here just isn't cool, I don't like that people make things up instead of just saying, "I don't know," and politics here caused a lot of uncomfortable situations. Another thing we never came to accept is the different views on personal space and privacy--it's perfectly acceptable for people to blast their music any time, even if it's the Alvin and the Chipmunks birthday song over and over at 5 in the morning.

3. Being different: Missouri isn't known for its striking diversity, and I looked just like everyone else there, so coming to Nicaragua was a double whammy: we came to a place even more homogenous than our own home, and we were totally different from all those other homogenous people in appearance, culture, and speech. People make lots of assumptions about us (like that we're rich, stupid gringos that can't speak Spanish) and it's impossible to blend in and do anything anonymously.

2. Spanish: Related to number 10, any little thing becomes more difficult when it has to be done in a different language. I am not a fan of the usted/vos distinctions or preterit and imperfect split, and a lot of people pretend not to understand what we say even though we're pronouncing the words just fine.

1. People: Some people I just won't miss. We won't really miss the people who tried to take advantage of our volunteerism, people who throw rocks at dogs, the cobradors and other vendors who charge us more because they think we're rich and/or don't know any better, or people who steal stuff from us, and I don't think we'll be sending "We Miss You" cards to our landlady anytime soon.

The bad things are often easier to list and recall because they happen every day and stick out in our minds, and I don't think it would have been fair for anyone to expect that we would love everything about this place and our time here. Overall, though, I think the good probably outweighs to bad. I don't want to end on a negative thought, but I promise that tomorrow I will have a list of the 10 things we will be sad to leave behind.

With only ten days left, I think we'll make it!

The other day as Paul and I were in a taxi, we saw the driver give a woman some weird-looking Monopoly money. It turns out that Nicaragua got new money overnight:Since then we've decided this money is really cool so we've been trying to collect it. Today, for instance, we just got this C$200 bill ($10 USD):It turns out that might not have been such a good idea, and we plan to spend it first thing in the morning to get it off our hands. Time Magazine talks all about it here:

Most of the criticism, however, seems to indicate an underlying lack of confidence and trust in the government. There are many who remember the first Sandinista government's inventive monetary policies and the resulting mega-inflation of the 1980s. As a result, some people are now treating the new plastic dinero as if it were a hot potato. "Many people don't want these bills because they think they are valueless and they're going to get stuck with them, so they're spending them as fast as they can," says clothing vendor Fabiola Espinoza. It has unintentionally created a bizarre stimulus effect on Nicaragua's beleaguered economy. "As soon as I get one of the plastic bills, I try to pass it on right away to someone else," says shopkeeper Gloria Romero.

Apparently the money is also illegal and worthless (read the Time article for more details), so let's hope we can pawn our bills off tomorrow morning. Yikes!

To have been posted Thursday June 4, 2009.



A daily occurrence for women volunteers here is that we will be catcalled by random men on the street. These calls of “¡Gringa! ¡Chelita! ¡Hermosa! ¡Mi amor!” really bother some women, but I usually never let it get under my skin. On my daily walk to school from the market where I get off the bus, though, there are a couple of men in particular that have yelled to me every single day I’ve walked by them on my way to school even though I shake my head fiercely and refuse to acknowledge their existence.

After my trips to the States this past spring, my first day back to school the cat calls started anew: “¡Mi gringita! Where have you been? We thought you were lost! We’re so glad you’re back!” It was at this moment my heart softened a little bit for these guys… at least they had noticed my absence and seemed to miss me a little bit. More recently, I’ve been going to school in taxi because I don’t leave the house in time to catch the ruta, so when I passed by them on Tuesday they said, “¡Mi gringita! I know you’ve been passing by in cab so you can avoid me! I’m glad you’re back!” and at that moment I decided that perhaps I should try to reach a truce.

Yesterday I went shopping for souvenirs during my free periods at school, so I had to walk past them to get from school to the market. Normally when I approach the men I look straight ahead and keep walking, but yesterday I walked up to them and said hello… this alone was enough to preempt the catcalls for that visit. I explained to them that I have been ignoring them for all of this time because to Americans, those catcalls are very rude and offensive. I told them I now realize, though, that they don’t say those things to offend me, but rather because they think it’s nice. They agreed and said they meant no offense, so we introduced ourselves and agreed that I will stop ignoring them and will say hello to them when I pass, and they will stop catcalling me and say hello instead.

In the end they told me I needed a picture of them to remember them by, and it just so happened that I had my camera with me yesterday. Here’s their picture:

The big, jolly guy is Marvin and he’s the one who led the catcalls, the one sitting on the curb is Alberto, and I don’t remember the names of the other two. Marvin told me that I need to tell everyone who sees the picture, “These are the men who fell in love with me and bothered me every single day.” There you go, Marvin.

To have been posted June 5, 2009 In May, 2007, the Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) group came to Nicaragua as its 44th training group. Each training group is referred to by its number, so we're TEFL 44. We started off with 20 and lost a few here and there and are now down to 13. June 7, 2007 at Volcán Masaya during training. This was before anyone "ETed" (early terminated) but three people are missing from the picture. Here we are at swearing in on July 20, 2007. At this point two had left, so we were 18. This is from the despedida (farewell party) for our first boss, Deepa. We had three bosses while we were here--Deepa, Lizzet, and Joayne, and for about 6 months had no boss (though Karen did a great job doing her job and the boss's job during that time):Finally, here we are near the end at our Close of Service conference in April, 2009. It's hard not to compare other PCVs to family: you don't get to choose who else is in the group, you have lots of forced quality time, and they're the people that you'll probably spend most holidays with, so you end up liking each other despite pretty big personality clashes. We also know that these people are the only others that will really understand what our time was like here, understand the drama and chisme that comes along with being a Peace Corps Volunteer, and for with it is totally normal to use words like chisme, pinche, como no, and fachento in an otherwise all-English conversation. Today was our final Close of Service presentation to the Peace Corps staff, and the last time we'll all be together. We had a nice dinner and began saying goodbyes. Fortunately it's not too difficult to stay in touch now with email, text messages, Skype, Facebook, and $29 flights, but we'll be sad to anyway and we're looking forward to seeing everyone again soon.

To have been posted June 3, 2009.

Now that we’re about to leave, we’ve been thinking a lot about what sorts of souvenirs we’d like to bring back with us to remember Nicaragua by. Masaya is the undisputed capital of arts and crafts in Nicaragua, so we have a lot of things to choose from, all right under our noses.

Masaya’s Old Market is its tourist market and it housed in an... old market that looks like a castle.

It’s really nice and clean and well lit, but it’s also a lot more expensive because it caters to tourists. We generally took our visitors here to get a feel for things and to pick out what they want, and then we took them to the other market. They do have a large selection of the wide variety of goods available here.

The New Market is Masaya’s main market where Masayans do their shopping for nearly all goods, but it also has a separate artisan section for the brave tourists. Here’s the parking lot of the market and some outside shops. The entrances to the actual market are past the big tree on the right:

This market is closed in and is therefore dark, dirty, and provides a fairly overwhelming experience. We don’t have many pictures of the inside because it’s too dark and there’s just too much stuff crammed inside to be able to take a picture that does it justice. Here are two attempts:

Finally, the city of Masaya isn’t the only place to find good souvenirs. The entire department is full of artisans, and each little town is known for its own type of work. Masatepe is known for its woodwork (and sometime in the future Paul and I plan to return and buy a nice set of rocking chairs), Catarina has tons of plants and gardens, and San Juan de Oriente is known for its pottery:

We will probably make a couple more trips to the markets to scout out the wares we’d like to buy and bargain to get a good deal on them. We’ve decided to take some art home with us so that we can display it in our home as a recuerdo of Nicaragua and of our markets here.

Taxis are way more common in Masaya than privately-owned cars. It's how we get around when where we're going is too far, it's raining, or too hot. Taxis don't have meters or anything--in Masaya you know that no matter where you go it's supposed to be C$10. In Managua you have to negotiate a little bit before you get in. No ride costs less than C$20 ($1), and the most expensive taxi I've taken was around C$50 per person from one end of Managua to the outskirts where the airport is. Holly and I realized recently that in an effort to avoid getting ripped off, we drive an exceptionally hard bargain. Most Nicaraguans accept the first price that the taxi driver gives them... we usually negotiate it down at least C$5.

Taxis are supposed to be highly regulated, but anyone with a car can try to turn it into a taxi for a while. The white car below is a non-registered taxi, or a pirata. The one behind it has the official red and white taxi plate.The bane of our existence, the announcer-taxi: it's pretty self-explanatory, but those speakers are so loud that when they pass our house we can't hear anything else. Taxis are usually really old, barely maintained enough to run cars, but it's a pretty inexpensive way to get around (and we don't have any other choice). It's unlikely that we'll be nostalgic about that time that we fit 8 people in a taxi, but maybe after taking a few taxis in the US our pinche halves will miss the prices.

Here is my book list starting at the beginning. At least 75% of these I read in the first year before I got too busy with work (and TV). Going over this list, I remember what else I was doing while reading a certain book or I tie a memory of a person to a book. I read Underworld during my first weeks of training when I didn't have anything better to do than read an obscenely long book. Sputnik Sweetheart I read on the plane going home for Christmas the first year. I know that Nicole gave me Three Cups of Tea and Danny loaned me Amerika.

I realized when I started to keep this list that a lot of the books I read were about people in unfamiliar places or circumstances. I'm not sure if it was totally a coincidence, but it was comforting to know that I wasn't the first to deal with being a foreigner and that people had survived much worse.

Like Holly, I'm really glad that I had a time that was relatively free of modern distractions that I could use to read. Some of my best reading got done in the hammock when the electricity was out. I'm not going to count the pages (because I'm lazy and have limited internet time), but with Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings, I'd say well over 4,000 pages were about wizards, vampires, and elves, and I'm not at all ashamed about reading about wizards and elves.

1. A Wild Sheep Chase, Haruki Murakami

2. Underworld, Don DeLillo

3. Mountains Beyond Mountains, Tracy Kidder

4. Empire Falls, Richard Russo

5. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini

6. To Bury Our Fathers, Sergio Ramirez

7. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey

8. Shalimar the Clown, Salman Rushdie

9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling

10. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

11. Dance Dance Dance, Haruki Murakami

12. American Gods, Neil Gaiman

13. Interview with a Vampire, Anne Rice

14. The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien

15. The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien

16. Raise High the Roofbeam Carpenters & Seymour, an Introduction, J.D. Salinger

17. The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac

18. The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Nifenegger

19. Einstein: His Life and Universe

20. Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs

21. Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins

22. Naked, David Sedaris

23. Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer, James L. Swanson

24. For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway

25. My Car in Managua, Forrest D. Colburn

26. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami

27. Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson

28. Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami

29. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers

30. The Death of Ben Linder, Joan Kruckewitt

31. The Dante Club, Matthew Pearl

32. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Patrick Suskind

33. The Celestine Prophecy, James Redfield

34. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck Klosterman

35. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert

36. A Million Little Pieces, James Frey

37. Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen

38. Life of Pi, Yann Martel

39. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn

40. The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, George Packer

41. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

42. After Dark, Haruki Murakami

43. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller

44. A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini

45. Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, Ben Fountain

46. The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

47. The Third Chimpanzee, Jared Diamond

48. Haunted, Chuck Palaniuk

49. Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Aron Ralston

50. Law School Confidential, Robert Miller

51. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

52. The House of Spirits, Isabel Allende

53. A Dog Year, Jon Katz

54. Lamb, Christopher Moore

55. River Town, Peter Hessler

56. Dry, Augusten Burroughs

57. Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer

58. Marley and Me, John Grogan

59. Amerika: The Man Who Disappeared, Franz Kafka

60. The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway

61. The Yiddish Policeman's Union, Michael Chabon

62. Straight Man, Richard Russo

63. Oracle Bones, Peter Hessler

64. Survival of the Sickest, Sharon Moalem

65. Oh the Glory of It All, Sean Wilsey

66. What is the What, Dave Eggers

67. The four Twilight books, Stephanie Meyer

68. Sex Lives of Cannibals, J. Maarten Troost

69. Getting Stoned with Savages, J. Maarten Troost

I'm sure that there are at least a couple of books that I'm forgetting about, and I have another 3 that I've been reading on and off for way too long. We just gave away our TV, so maybe in the 12 days we have left I can finish another couple of books.

Peace Corps has certainly given me a lot of free time to read books. Some books that I read were amazing and are now among my favorites, while others I read out of sheer boredom and desperation. Bold books are my top ten favorites, italicized books are the ten I hated most liked least. Here are, in the order that I read them, the books I read cover to cover during Peace Corps (skimming and quitting don't count):

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards (432 pages)

The History of Love: A Novel by Nicole Krauss (272 pages)

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder (352 pages)

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (304 pages)

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (352 pages)

A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (448 pages)

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (371 pages)

Marley & Me by John Grogan (304 pages)

A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel by Haruki Murakami (368 pages)

Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami (416 pages)

Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson (496 pages)

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (336 pages)The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (336 pages)

Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins (352 pages)

The Dante Club: A Novel by Matthew Pearl (464 pages)

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel by Haruki Murakami (624 pages)

Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu by J. Maarten Troost (256 pages)

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (320 pages)

American Taboo: A Murder in the Peace Corps by Philip Weiss (384 pages)

Naked by David Sedaris (224 pages)

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (368 pages)

Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn (224 pages)

My Car in Managua by Forrest D. Colburn (148 pages)

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind (272 pages)

The Freedom Writers Diary by Erin Gruwell (320 pages)

Running with Scissors: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs (352 pages)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (784 pages)

Atonement by Ian McEwan (368 pages)

Good Owners, Great Dogs by Brian Kilcommons (288 pages)

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (560 pages)

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert (352 pages)

Water for Elephants: A Novel by Sara Gruen (350 pages)

How to Be Good by Nick Hornby (320 pages)

The Dog Whisperer: A Compassionate, Nonviolent Approach to Dogtraining by Paul Owens (256 pages)

Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua by Stephen Kinzer (450 pages)

The PowerScore LSAT Logic Games Bible by David M. Killoran (402 pages)

The PowerScore LSAT Logical Reasoning Bible by David M. Killoran (541 pages)

LSAT 180 by Kaplan (368 pages)

The Official LSAT Superprep (405 pages)

Law School Confidential by Robert H. Miller (352 pages)

Graduate Admissions Essays: Write Your Way Into the Graduate School of Your Dreams by Donald Asher (256 pages) River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter Hessler (432 pages)The Ivey Guide to Law School Admissions: Straight Advice on Essays, Resumes, Interviews, and More by Anna Ivey (324 pages)A Dog Year: Twelve Months, Four Dogs, and Me by Jon Katz (240 pages)

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeanette Walls (288 pages)

How to Get Into the Top Law Schools by Richard Montauk (560 pages)

Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera by Bryan Peterson (160 pages)

The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby (240 pages)

The Elements of Photography: Understanding and Creating Sophisticated Images by Angela Faris Belt (384 pages)

The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby (448 pages)

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (544 pages)

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer (608 pages)

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (640 pages)

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (768 pages)

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach (336 pages)

Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins (320 pages)

The Dogs of Babel: A Novel by Carolyn Parkhurst (288 pages)

That's a total of 22,689 pages, for an average of 30 pages a day (though 3,888 of those pages were about wizards, vampires, and werewolves). I don't think I'll ever have time to do this much reading again over a two year period of time, but I think I'm okay with that.

To have been posted May 30, 2009

May 30th is Mother’s Day in Nicaragua, one of the biggest holidays of the year. School is canceled the Friday before, and the Thursday before is a big assembly for all the moms to come and be celebrated. Here’s one of my school’s many murals dedicated to mothers:

Last weekend we finally traveled back to Carazo to visit our Nicaraguan moms and catch up with them one last time. It really didn’t feel like more than two years ago that we first arrived at their houses for training and started our service here, and we were shocked to see how much our host siblings had grown. Here were Williamcito and Claudia in June 2007:

And here they are now with some bubbles we gave them:

Here’s Paul’s host sister Alejandra two years ago:

And here she is with Paul now:

Happy Mother’s Day to our Nica moms… we really do appreciate all the work they did for us, all the patience they had for us, and everything they taught us. We will miss them a lot!

We know we’ve neglected our blog and our “40 posts in 40 days” commitment, but we think it’s been justified… we’ve had a pretty crazy week. Here’s what happened:

This week gave us a crazy story to tell

when our landlady said, “Here no more you can dwell!”

She kicked us to the street

in a manner not very discreet

So we said, “With 16 days left, that’s just swell.”

But this story has a happy end.

Our friends came to help and us they did defend.

We found a new house

containing not even one mouse

And here we’ll be until home the plane us does send.

The story is much more complicated, but I think the limerick does it justice. If you want to hear more, the prose version of the events is free, but the epic poem and iambic pentameter versions come at an extra charge.

Also, last week this blog had is 10,000th visitor! Thanks so much for reading, and we promise we’ll catch up with our neglected posts soon.

Another dining option for those days when we don't have any dinner ideas, are too tired to cook, or are too poor to order pizza is tacos. There's this adorable little taco truck motorcycle in the central park that makes delicious chicken tacos for C$15 (75 cents) each. They're not the typical hard shell tacos that we were used to, but they're pretty yummy.

When I first discovered Tacos La Salle I would ask first if they had tacos, and then if there was chicken. I eventually figured out that they don't sell anything other than chicken tacos, so now I just ask for "two." They also know me well enough to leave off the ketchup and crema from our tacos.

The chicken is sort of sweet, and while I like to eat my tacos with some chile (a mix of onions and vinegar) and cabbage; Holly prefers to eat hers plain.

We could do most of our grocery shopping in the market... it's a little bit cheaper and the produce is a little bit fresher, but it's also an inconvenience and disgusting. Instead, we go to Palí, the Wal-Mart-owned grocery store that is found in most cities throughout Nicaragua. As far as grocery stores go, it's pretty shabby, but it keeps us supplied with the staples most of the time.

Here is the refrigerated vegetables section. I haven't really been adventurous enough to try most of the veggies in here. I can recognize about half of them, but sometimes when you think it looks familiar it turns out to be flavorless chilote:

Once you pick out your vegetables, you have to take them to the one scale at the back of the store to be weighed. Forgetting to weigh your vegetables before you check out is the biggest faux pas you can possibly make at the grocery store. Yet, I try to put it off because most of my fellow shoppers have no sense of line-making or first-come-first-serve, so you have to fight to get your vegetables weighed along with anyone buying rice, sugar, or beans in bulk. This was a slow day at Palí, but trust me, it can get pretty heated.

Most of the food in Palí I just pass by without noticing. There's no way that we're ever going to be desperate enough to buy sardines, spicy vienna sausages, or whatever other abundance of canned meats are deemed worthy of an entire aisle:

Here's a cross-shot of the store. Note the weird prices: I'm convinced that it's a scam because the cashiers don't have exact change to give you so you end up losing 3 or 4 cents every time that you check out. If you buy that 3-liter of Pepsi for C$26.30 and pay with with C$27 you're lucky to get C$0.50 back, but best case scenario is that you lose out on C$0.20 (Palí accepts cash only, by the way). Also, since there's no better place to say it, I'll point out that you have to pay for your plastic bags. There is absolutely nothing "green" about this--it's just the store being super cheap.

About a quarter of the small store is devoted to food. Half is cleaning supplies and toiletries (which is really just a subset of cleaning supplies) and the remaining quarter is rum:

You might imagine that taking pictures in a grocery store was exceedingly awkward. It was, but it was worth it for posterity.

Though we love our visits to the movie theater, it's not convenient for frequent visits and is too expensive. That doesn't mean, though, that no one here gets to see the latest movies. Though there are no Blockbusters or Netflix, there are pirated movies for sale on nearly every street corner, either in wooden display stands or laid out on the sidewalk.

It's important to ask about the quality of the movie and if it's dubbed or subtitled. The very newest movies are always really bad quality, like handheld camcorders in movie theaters where you can hear people coughing or laughing and someone's head covers part of the screen. I think that out of this picture, Angels & Demons is in that phase. Of similar quality are the combo DVDs that might contain three or four movies. Popular combos are Steven Segal movies, the Harry Potter movies, or other animated children's movies. Though they're really fuzzy and often hard to hear, four movies in one is a pretty good deal.

After a movie's been out for a while, its quality increases to like an award show preview so every once in a while a notice will come up on the screen saying, "For Awards Consideration Purposes Only." These pictures are good quality, but I don't understand how non-English speakers can watch them: the subtitles are always comically bad and often make no sense at all.

The jackpot is when it's a DVD "con menú" and sometimes they even include the special features and deleted scenes. Most movie salespeople are pretty honest when you ask about the quality, and many even have portable DVD players so that you can preview a movie before you buy (movies always cost C$20, or $1).

The movie sellers also keep big stacks of movies that they'll hand to you to browse through, or they'll hand us things they think we might like. Normally, their guesses are way off and they try to convince us to buy the newest Bratz movie or Anime Combo 2 en 1 or something like that.

We've seen most of these movies and many volunteers trade movies when they come across a good one ("good" in terms of cinematic value and/or good video quality):

Obviously, we would never condone the purchase or viewing of pirated films. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Normally we try to keep our blog relatively positive and censor ourselves from saying a lot of the things we really want to say, not posting on the blog when we're too angry, etc. In the (distant) future I'm sure I'll look back fondly on Nicaragua and might even miss being here, but this is not one of those times.

I may regret writing this post and delete it when I feel better in the morning, but until then I need to vent and get my frustrations off my chest.

I've been working really hard for the last few months on a manual of lesson plans, games, and classroom strategies to accompany the new national English curriculum. We've been working on it in a small committee and asking for the input of all the English volunteers here. The committee members have been working, but I've been especially stressed that very few of the other volunteers agreed to help us, and most of those that did agree backed out because they're "too busy" or it's too hard, leaving the few of us with even more work to do. I spent the day today in the Peace Corps office working on the manual, and that always leaves me exceptionally stressed as I realize how much work there is to do and how little time there is to do it. Peace Corps (Cuerpo de Paz) is often jokingly called the "Cuerpo de Paseo" (hanging out corps) because people don't actually work, and that seems to be the case with many in my group--they no longer even go to school, let alone help with any extra projects.

After traveling home I took Dora outside since she had been cooped up in the house all day by herself. She went about her business like she normally does, and happened to stop to poop in the street in front of a house where people were sitting outside in their patio. As she started going to the bathroom, they started yelling at us and picking up rocks to throw at Dora even though I had my plastic sack in hand to pick up the poop. Though I told the people to stop yelling and not to throw anything since I was going to pick it up, they continued so I ran Dora home to get her safely inside before they could hurt her. I went back with the bag to pick up the poop and calmly tell the people that it really wasn't necessary, that we're responsible dog owners, and that Dora's poop being on the ground for 15 seconds is nothing compared to all the street dogs that roam around freely.

I had hoped for an apology, but didn't get that at all. They told me they were going to call the mayor's office and report me because a dog pooping is prohibited (?), they started laughing at me for being upset, and told that they'll throw rocks at Dora to kill her if they see her again.

I don't really know what we're going to do for our last 22 days here, but I do know that I hate being here and just want to go home.

One of the best escapes from the heat and the stresses of everyday life is a trip to the movie theater. In Managua there are several movie theaters that are pretty darn similar to theaters in the US: air conditioning, popcorn, comfy seats, (relatively) overpriced sodas, the whole works. Managua has two theaters that we've visited, Metrocentro (which is near the Peace Corps office) and Galerias (which is on the highway to Masaya). Here's Galerias' movie theater:

And Galerias at night:

We saw our first theater movie in Nicaragua about a month and a half into training. For those two hours during Pirates of the Caribbean 3, the four of us (Paul, me, Kelly, and Nicole) completely forgot we were in Nicaragua; I won't lie, we were all a little sad to walk out of the theater and realize we were still here. Paul's host mom threatened to spank us for getting home so late (about 7:00), but it was completely worth it, though at that moment I wasn't quite sure we'd last the full two years.

Since then, we've gone to see a few movies that we legitimately wanted to see, but we often just need a break from reality and see the best thing that's playing and that's subtitled (some movies are subtitled and others are dubbed). I think this is a complete list of the movies we saw in the theater while we were here:

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Ocean's 13 Gone Baby Gone Beowulf Sex & The City Movie Gran Torino Changeling Fast and Furious Tickets cost about $2.50 a person and refreshments actually aren't that expensive; we usually go for a popcorn and soda (though no free refills here), but recently have tried nachos and hot dogs to make the experience that much more authentic. Finally, most trips end with a visit to the (also air-conditioned) La Colonia Hyper supermarket that's next door to the mall to buy other fachento goods like supplies for mini pizzas, cans of Dr. Pepper, cookie mixes, and pickles.

Before we came here, I thought coyotes were just the predatory canines found throughout North America and the guys that smuggle people across the US-Mexico border. It turns out that coyotes are also guys that hang out in the park and change dollars for córdobas and vice versa.

We have to change money every month because we earn córdobas and pay rent in dollars; the first 10 or so times that Holly and I employed the services of a coyote we were convinced that they would rip us off. There's no regulatory agency or any avenue for complaint, but they are unfailingly honest, which is surprising for guys that pack heat and carry around a huge wad of cash. In the US someone that fits that description would definitely be a shady character.

You can't see it in this picture, but coyotes always wear fanny packs. The fanny pack contains a gun and their trusty mini calculator.

Here's Nicole changing some of her hard-earned córdobas for dolares. When we first got here the exchange rate was 18:1 but now it's a little over 20 córdobas to the dollar. Also, coyotes offer a slightly better value over banks and bonus drive-up service.

In addition to the buses and micros that go from city to city in Nicaragua, larger cities like Managua and Masaya also have rutas or urbanos that are neighborhood buses within the city. In Masaya, for instance, there are rutas that go from the market to the neighborhoods of Monimbó, San Carlos, Sacuanjoche, La Villa, and El Estadio. All the rutas in Masaya cost C$3 (15 cents) no matter where you get on or off. I never ended up getting a bike, so I took the urbano to school every day (Paul always tried to make me feel guilty by saying a bike would be cheaper than the cost of the urbanos every day, but after doing the math, I realize my daily commute over these two years cost less than the three bicycles he bought).The urbanos that go to Paul's school just got upgraded so they're now really nice charter buses, but most of them are just obnoxiously decorated school buses like the one I used to take to school when we lived in Monimbó:When we moved to the stadium, my daily commute improved significantly (though it really wasn't bad to begin with). In Monimbó, there were only two urbanos and they stopped running to eat lunch between 12:15 and 1:00, which was exactly when I needed to go to school. Now in San Juan (our neighborhood) there are three urbanos that run all day; I can count on one to pass every eight minutes like clockwork, and I only have to walk a few steps from our front door to catch it. Here's the route our ruta takes (P.S. I'm proud of this map, and think I'm probably the first person to put a Masaya ruta's route on the Internet):Here are our neighborhood rutas. This one is my favorite because there is more leg room, the seat covers aren't ripped as badly as in the others, the the cobrador (the guy who takes the money, standing in the second picture) is nice. It's parked in front of the market, and I always get off there then walk the block to school.

This is my second favorite ruta. Its driver doesn't really like to come to a complete stop for me to get off, so I always have to jump out really quickly.This is our arch enemy ruta, though I've never been willing to wait the extra 8 minutes for another one to pass in order to boycott it. We hate it because the cobrador is mean and won't let Dora on; he tells us that dogs are prohibited, but this is clearly a lie since Dora has ridden on dozens of other buses in this country. Once I did spill a bag of dog food on this ruta and maybe that's why he's mad, but Dora had nothing to do with that. Besides, if he would have relaxed his no-dogs-on-the-bus rule, the spill would have been a non-issue, anyway.I can only hope to find public transportation in Palo Alto that's both as convenient and cost-effective as the urbanos here. I'll keep you posted.

Note: Holly and I realize that the last week of posts have really centered around our cuisine, and that this is unfair to Dora, so I hope this corrects any unfairness.

Since she was a puppy, we've fed Dora Pedigree because it was the only brand we had heard of before (the second most promising brand is called Dogui). When we took Dora home last year, we found the exact same Pedigree puppy food that we buy here, but she loved it. It took us a while to figure out that the difference is probably that the food came in a sealed package and wasn't stale like the food that we buy her from huge bags in the market here. You can find full bags of dog food here, but due to some awful economic decision it is cheaper to buy individual pounds of dog food than it is to buy a whole bag; we would end up paying 50% more if we bought a 25 lb bag instead of 25 individual pounds. I'd like to introduce you to Nicanomics.Though prices for Pedigree are pretty much consistent throughout Masaya, it's a little risky to buy it from unknown vendors because the less scrupulous ones mix it with lower grade foods. Dora will be shocked when we get to the US and not only is there fresh Pedigree, but there's also a much wider selection of dog food, up to and including free-range organic vegetarian human-grade prime rib-flavored tofu dog food. I hope she'll share with us when we fall on hard times.

Then again, Dora also likes horse poop, so maybe Pedigree is all she needs.

When we moved to our new neighborhood last September, we were devastated that our new house (with its drop ceilings and lack of exposed wooden beams) has nowhere to hang a hammock except outside in our garage. To pour salt in the wound, our new neighborhood is the heart of the hammock industry in Nicaragua, and I would venture to guess in all of Central America (see picture below of the souvenir "Panama" hammock). There is quite a variety of hammock styles: hammocks with a wooden beam, hammocks without the wooden beam, hammock chairs (like the Panama hammock), baby hammocks (like the neon blue one in the picture below), lazy hammock chairs, and banana hammocks (seriously, hammocks to hold literal bananas). Add to that that hammocks can be ordered in any combination of colors and materials (most hammocks are made out of colored string, manila, but others are made from fabric or plastic) and you quickly realize that the possibilities for relaxation are endless.

One of the rites of passage to become a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nicaragua is creating a youth group and doing a project with your youth group during training. I posted a long time ago about my youth group, but never posted the pictures to prove that we got our project done. At long last, here they are!

Here was our first youth group meeting:

One of the requirements for training is that we give two charlas, or workshops, to the kids on issues relevant to them. They wanted a charla about how to prepare for a job interview. The night of the presentation, the power went out, so we did it by candlelight.

The youth group also played a lot of games like Uno.

To raise money for our sign project, we had a soup sale where we made soup, sold buckets of it to people in the town, then delivered it to them for lunch.

It was a success, but I think Shannon and I did more than our fair share of vegetable chopping.

Here's the old sign; the plan was to dig it up and put the new one in its place.

But it was quickly decided that they'd just put the new sign in front of the old sign, then remove the old sign later. As far as I know, the old sign still stands directly behind the new one.

At the end of training, we had a presentation and celebration for all the youth groups from our five training towns. Here's our group giving its presentation:

And here's our official youth group portrait:

Repostería Castro is right next to where I wait for the bus to take me to school. Sometimes that's a long wait, so I make my way down there to get some Torta Combinada (chocolate/vanilla swirl cake). Holly is a big fan of the galletas de colores (sprinkle sugar cookies) so I'll usually pick up some of those, too. They have lots of decorated cakes and other deserts, but I haven't really had much reason to buy Sponge Bob or Rosita Fresita birthday cakes... we usually just eat pizza.

Cashews, or semilla de mariñon, are grown in Nicaragua and are sold pretty much everywhere. Most of the vendors in Masaya have learned the word "cashew" and are really proud of it so they like to find gringos to practice. The cashews are unsalted and really good; I'm sure if we find something like it in the US it will be $10 a baggie, but here they're just 50 cents.

When people ask me (and they often do) if I have children, my response is usually, "No, but I have a dog and she's like my baby." It generally makes people uncomfortable enough that they don't push the issue further, but it's not that far from the truth; Paul and I have definitely turned into "dog people" and have realized that whether or not people like Dora or dogs in general is a pretty good litmus test with which to judge them by.

Before joining Peace Corps, one of the things we read was that many volunteers get dogs during their service, and we had this same plan long before we even knew we'd be coming to Nicaragua. Once we arrived I had some cold feet, but I finally relented and we wound up with Dora. Though having a dog isn't always easy--the late-night potty breaks, keeping her from eating horse poop, fretting about her broken leg--it's definitely been worth it and Dora has been one of the best parts of our Peace Corps service.

Though her first impression of America wasn't quite ideal, she's agreed to come back with us on the condition that there will be lots of car rides, an endless supply of liver treats, and no monkeys.

February 10, 2008

February 26, 2008

March 1, 2008

March 4, 2008

March 19, 2008

March 31, 2008

April 2, 2008

April 19, 2008

May 25, 2008

December 18, 2008

December 26, 2008

May 16, 2009

May 16, 2009

P.S. My brother graduates high school today, valedictorian of his class and a graduation speaker. I wish I could be there! Happy graduation, Jake... I'm proud of you!

When people ask me (and they often do) if I have children, my response is usually, "No, but I have a dog and she's like my baby." It generally makes people uncomfortable enough that they don't push the issue further, but it's not that far from the truth; Paul and I have definitely turned into "dog people" and have realized that whether or not people like Dora or dogs in general is a pretty good litmus test with which to judge them by.

Before joining Peace Corps, one of the things we read was that many volunteers get dogs during their service, and we had this same plan long before we even knew we'd be coming to Nicaragua. Once we arrived I had some cold feet, but I finally relented and we wound up with Dora. Though having a dog isn't always easy--the late-night potty breaks, keeping her from eating horse poop, fretting about her broken leg--it's definitely been worth it and Dora has been one of the best parts of our Peace Corps service.

Though her first impression of America wasn't quite ideal, she's agreed to come back with us on the condition that there will be lots of car rides, an endless supply of liver treats, and no monkeys.

February 10, 2008

February 26, 2008

March 1, 2008

March 4, 2008

March 19, 2008

March 31, 2008

April 2, 2008

April 19, 2008

May 25, 2008

December 18, 2008

December 26, 2008

May 16, 2009

May 16, 2009

P.S. My brother graduates high school today, valedictorian of his class and a graduation speaker. I wish I could be there! Happy graduation, Jake... I'm proud of you!

After the 1972 earthquake that destroyed 90% of Managua, the cathedral was condemned, and the Catholic Church decided to replace it with the Ugliest Cathedral Ever.

It was finished in 1993 and is understandably controversial. It's supposedly the most recently built cathedral in the world, but sometimes people play fast and loose with their facts, so there's my disclaimer.

Choco bananos are, well, chocolate-covered bananas and helados (or caritas, depending on geography), are really delicious frozen treats that come in plastic bags. Like soda and other beverages you just bite off a corner and eat it through that hole. You will find them in a variety of flavors: fruit, peanut, milk, banana and milk, coconut, nancite, and some others that I can't remember. The quality and contents vary greatly because they're sold and made in any given person's house. Sometimes the fruit helados have papaya or watermelon, but the ones that I got today only had pineapple and banana. Regardless of the contents, they're delicious (and cheap--5 cents each).

This was one of the first pictures we took with our new camera; I was experimenting with the long shutter speeds at night in León. I'm fairly sure there were some motorcycles and cars missing a headlight that passed, which explains why some of the lights don't match up exactly.

Whenever we're I'm too lazy/tired to cook, we sometimes like to play pizza roulette. It works like this: you call up Telepizza or Pizza Gold (the two Nicaraguan pizza places in Masaya) and you request whatever toppings you want. Two times out of three you will get a pizza with missing ingredients, added ham, or both. This is a pizza we ordered a while ago; we asked for tomato (check) and garlic (missing) but not ham (it came with ham). The default pizza here is ham and ketchup, so we're at a big disadvantage if we want something else. This was a lot more frustrating when I was a vegetarian and was a leading reason why I switched back to eating meat, but it's still annoying now. This was temporarily solved when we ordered a lot from Pizza Gold. They got to know me as Don Paul; I would call, start talking, and they would cut me off and know immediately who I was, what we wanted, and where we wanted it delivered. When our sitemate John moved into our old house and ordered Pizza Gold, they were really confused why a different gringo wanted a different pizza delivered to Don Paul's house, but they eventually allowed it.

It's kind of sad to admit, but one of our favorite restaurants in Masaya is Papa John's... okay, it's our favorite, but there's not much else to choose from! It's a little pricey, but when we're ready to splurge, there's no better use of $15 than a large pepperoni from PJ's. It always comes exactly like we order it arrives right when they say it will on an awesome pizza moto.

A picture isn't even really necessary since it's exactly the same as in the US, but here it is:

Even though Papa John's isn't healthy, Nicaraguan, or cheap it's been a good comfort food for us and has been there to celebrate election day, Christmas, Easter, birthdays, and many other milestones during the last two years.

This is the Peace Corps-approved laboratory in Masaya; I'm sorry to say that we've both (though Paul more than me) made many trips here to drop off a variety of, um, samples.

We were just realizing the other day how tough Peace Corps has been on our health and well-being. We've had our fair share of bacterial infections, parasites, sinus infections, and other mysterious combinations of symptoms. Though we're not always sick enough to call the doctor or start a round of antibiotics, there have been many days where we are battling a cough, runny nose, stomach ache, or just don't feel good; it seems that on any given day during these past two years, one (or both) of us is beginning to feel ill, in the throes of a sickness, or recovering from an ailment.

I think there are a lot of factors that made our Peace Corps service so rough. Good nutrition has been really difficult for us; our diet consists mainly of rice and beans, macaroni and cheese, Corn Flakes, pizza, and pasta--a carbohydrate lover's paradise. Better food is available in places like Granada or Managua, but it's far away and not feasible on a Peace Corps Volunteer's budget.

Similarly, sanitation issues are an ever-present concern. The water here is not clean, and though we buy and drink five gallon jugs of water at home, we also drink drinks made from tap water when we're at school or a friend's house. This is a risk since any food or drink that we don't prepare ourselves (including at restaurants) could very well be a bacterial infection or parasite waiting to happen, but it's not very practical to go two years only eating things we prepared from start to finish. Add to that the normal risks of handling dirty money, using public transportation, and a lack of running water and sinks to facilitate handwashing, and it's no surprise that we've had our share of sickness.

The climate and weather also contribute to our illnesses. During the dry season it's dusty and easy to have respiratory problems, and during the rainy season the always-present puddles are havens for germs and gross stuff like leptospirosis. It's also really hot. Even though the heat may not cause diagnosable illnesses, it doesn't help our energy or make it easier to recover from other ailments.

I just finished a round of antibiotics two days ago but I'm sick again (which is why was I was at the lab yesterday to take a picture) from a combination of any or all of these factors. Keep your fingers crossed that it's another bacterial infection and that I won't have something new--malaria, dengue, or swine flu--to add to my list of Peace Corps illnesses.

Look. You might think it's cool to pee on the side of someone's house, or you might just be too drunk to find your way home, but either way urine trouble. No orinar aquí.

The More You Know.

I've recently been looking through our blog's archive to find things that we've neglected to post about, and I was shocked to realize that we've never devoted a post to Eskimo. Eskimo (pronounced eskEEEmo) is Nicaragua's main brand of ice cream. What Eskimo lacks in quality or tastiness, it makes up for in availability; I imagine that every town, no matter how small, has at least one cooler with Eskimo popsicles for sale in some pulpería somewhere.

Even my small training town had an Eskimo freezer and it was the perfect way to relax and gossip after a long day of Spanish classes. We frequently ate Eskimo after our bigger group trainings, and when we moved to Masaya it was easy to keep the tradition alive since there was a full Eskimo ice cream shop just a block from our house:

One of Eskimo's most important characteristics is that the workers inside are always really mean. I feel slight pangs of guilt for painting all Eskimos with such a wide brush, but I've eaten at many Eskimos all throughout the country, and it's just true. If I receive a cup of ice cream after ordering a cone, that's just too bad. If I want a three córdoba (15 cent) popcicle but only have a C$5 (25 cent) coin, I'm out of luck--I'd better just come back when I andar sencillo (have correct change), because they don't have it and I'm silly for thinking that they should keep a few córdobas around to make change themselves.

Though poor service and melty popsicles in the States would certainly earn a place on my blacklist, Eskimos here know I have no alternative and that I'll keep coming back for more. Here's our newly-remodeled Eskimo:

And a payasito (little clown) we once got when we were out with Dora. She was thirsty and we had forgotten to bring her a water dish, so she drank water out of the cup when we were done.

Actually, it's not quite true that we have no alternative to going to Eskimo to get some ice cream; there are also Eskimo bicycles, Nicaragua's answer to the ice cream truck. Fruit, pillows, and universal remote controls salespeople pass down our street peddling their wares daily, so of course it makes sense for us to be able to buy popsicles as well. The difference, though, is that while the other salespeople charge the same price for their goods whether you buy them from the door-to-door sales or at the market, the Eskimo cyclists' prices are higher; that C$3 dulce du leche popsicle is C$5 from the man on the bike--a 60% markup!

Despite the surly Eskimo employees and the general complete lack of quality, the Eskimo treats like Tu y Yo, Grande con maní, sundae royal, and Cocoa will always have a special place in my heart and hips.

The market is absolutely disgusting, and these photos do justice to all of its gross-out qualities. Once you get close to this area of the market the smell is overwhelming and you just want to hold your breath and power walk through it.

It goes without saying that in the open-air market there's no air conditioning or sneeze-guarded coolers. The most advanced disease-prevention technology used is the fly swatter. It should also go without saying that we don't buy our meat from here.

Katie is another volunteer from our English teacher group who lives about 20 minutes from us. She and her fiancé, Moises, are always there for us to babysit Dora when we have visitors or have to be in Managua, and they really go the extra mile--lots of walks, playing fetch, baths when she needs it, and even a blowdry. Now Katie and Moises are getting married and we couldn't be happier for both of them.

One day in November, Katie and Moises brought Luna to Masaya to play with Brown Dog and Dora. This was near the end of their romping and roughhousing, so they were tired enough to sit still (or collapse, in Dora's case) for a picture. Thanks to Kristel for the expert photography.

P.S. Happy Mother's Day to our moms!

About two months ago when I was at the grocery store to buy butter, I noticed that there wasn't any. When I got home I asked at the neighborhood pulpería if they had any. They did, and though it was a different brand than the Parmalat that we're used to, we were getting desperate. I took it home and it was rancid. I'm not sure if all La Perfecta brand butter is this gross or if it had just gone bad, but this was the beginning of the 2009 Butter Drought that has apparently scarred me. I asked in the grocery store where all the butter had gone, and apparently something was wrong with the machine that does the packaging. Fortunately, the shortage just ended, but I've been stockpiling butter as if preparing for a visit from Paula Deen, and I don't really know if we're going to be able to eat all of this butter in the 39 days we have left.

As of today, we are forty days away from June 17, our Close of Service date and the day we come back to the States! We decided that we'd like to try and do a post a day for these last 40 days, and in particular we want to focus on pictures that we really like but haven't posted before, or on everyday sorts of things that may seem mundane to us now but that we'll want to remember once we're back in the U.S.

This was taken from our hotel's balcony in León. I love the tile sidewalk and steps that get really slippery when it rains, and I love that the woman selling her bagged refresco drinks is yawning.

We'd love suggestions for pictures to take or things to post about in these last few weeks, so please let us know if there's something we should take pictures of or something about our time here that you'd like to know more about.

We're in the home stretch and the rain just started this week, so I think we'll make it!

A few weeks after our trip to the East coast, I returned to the US for a trip to Palo Alto ("tall stick"), California to visit Stanford Law School. Though we needed to buy sweaters and mittens for our visit to the East, the only things I found myself lacking at Stanford were sunglasses and sunscreen; the weather was beautiful, in the middle 70s to low 80s every day.

If I were choosing a law school based on weather and asthetics, Stanford would have won hands down. As it turned out, though, Stanford would have been my choice even without those bonuses; it was the perfect mix of all the things I loved about the other schools: it is one of the country's best law schools and will certainly open up a lot of opportunities to me, it had beautiful facilities, a really welcoming faculty, and students that seemed genuinely happy to be there; and it just felt right even in the first few hours of my visit. After talking to Paul on the phone one of my last nights there, he finally confessed that he had been rooting for the bike-friendly, dog-friendly, warm weather, close-to-an-Ikea Palo Alto all along, and we came to the surprisingly easy decision that we'll call Palo Alto home for the next few years.

I can't really capture the sense of community or the academic opportunities or the gut feeling that I got there, but I can express the beautiful surroundings, so here goes. Palm Drive is the famous one mile stretch of road lined with palm trees leading into the Stanford campus and the quad:

Here's the Stanford Memorial Church in the quad:

Stanford has fountains all over the campus, and unlike Truman, Stanford both keeps its fountains full and allows people to enjoy them. On the weekday I was there, there were students in swimsuits sunbathing in the fountains and others wading in to cool off between classes. Over the weekend there were tons of families on campus riding bikes or rollerblading or having a picnic, and plenty of people there with their dogs playing frisbee or cooling off in a fountain: The law school itself is in one U-shaped building just a few minutes' walk from the student union, bookstore, post office, and the heart of campus. The middle section has the law school café with a beautiful patio out in the back and some conference rooms upstairs, the right section has the classrooms, and the left wing has the library and faculty offices.Here's the view from the second story of the law school building. The skies really were that bright blue.Here's the campus bookstore:

And this is the old student union: Stanford has a tall tower, the Hoover Institute, that houses a think tank, library, and visiting faculty offices (Condoleezza Rice apparently had her office there). You can also ride to the top and take pictures, so I did. Here's the view to the north with the San Francisco Bay in the background: And here's the view to the south of the law school building and the mountains back behind:

After the three days of admitted students events, I was sold. To make the trip even better, our friends Keith and Erin made the trip up from San Diego to meet me, catch up, and explore Palo Alto and San Francisco. Though the 7-1/2 hour trip is enough of a trek by itself, Keith ane Erin deserve even more credit for coming considering that they made the trip with their dog, survived the LA traffic, and spent seemingly endless hours in Wal-Mart thanks to a tire blowout. They finally arrived, and we stayed up late catching up. They (understandably) spent the next morning sleeping in while I finished the admitted students weekend by having breakfast with a lot of my future classmates and observing a class. That afternoon, Keith, Erin, and I reunited and went into San Francisco to Fisherman's Wharf and took a boat ride around the bay. We went under the Golden Gate bridge: Here are Keith and Erin with the Golden Gate Bridge behind them: And we went around the island of Alcatraz: One of my favorite parts of the day were the sea lions that camp out on the docks of Pier 39. They were pretty noisy, a little smelly, and I'm sure Dora would have lumped them into the monkey family, but I thought they were pretty cute.

More than a year after starting the law school process and beginning to think about post-Peace Corps plans, it's a great relief to know where I'll be studying and where we'll be living. After having no control over where we did our Peace Corps service, it's quite the change to have had full control over where we'll be living next, and to have picked a place that's so easy to be exited about. Just today Paul found a list of 103 things to do in San Francisco; I've got #56 covered, so only 102 to go!

In March, we made a trip to the US to visit many of the east coast law schools that I was considering. The schools I visited were having admitted students weekends in which they invite their admits to come and visit (most schools reimburse travel costs, which is why this trip was possible) and they talk about the school's strengths and give the admitted students the opportunity to sit through a million Q&As and panel discussions to try and make the law school decision a little easier. Though I had hoped that I would love one school and hate all the rest (and thereby have a really easy decision), that of course didn't happen and I liked all the schools for very different reasons.After sitting in Managua's airport for a four hour delay, we finally arrived in Boston. Though our Google Map directions to our hotel didn't quite work out, we did get a nice tour of Boston at night.We brought along all the pants and long-sleeved shirts that we had, but we still had to do a couple of emergency Wal-Mart and Target trips to get weather-appropriate clothing.Our first stop was New Haven, Connecticut to visit Yale. The architecture was really pretty, but since Yale rejected me just a few weeks after the visit, no need to dwell much on the school (no hard feelings, though).

By far the most successful part of the Connecticut trip was our visit to its gigantic Ikea. We were like kids in a candy store looking at all the neat, cheap stuff they had on display. All potential law school cities were vetted that night to make sure they had an Ikea nearby (they all did).

After our night in New Haven, we went back to Boston via Providence, Rhode Island and met up with Dylan and Stefani, our wonderful Harvard hosts.

We had a free day before the admitted students weekend events began, so we went into Boston to do some touristy stuff like eat famous pastries, sample some awesome New England clam chowders, and take pictures of Barack Obama cutouts wearing Harvard t-shirts.

It was a remarkably nice Saturday for Boston in March (or so we were told) and there were lots of street performers out and about. This guy ran and did a flip over these five people. He cleared them easily--he probably could have made it over six.

After all the fun, I actually did spend three days at admitted student events to learn about HLS. Here's Harvard's Langdell Hall:After Boston, we took the Bolt Bus to New York City (I'm quite proud that our two tickets were $11 total thanks to dedicated Internet sleuthing). Though we only had a couple of days there, we visited both NYU and Columbia's law schools and squeezed in a pretty impressive number of sites like Times Square.Equally impressive was that we were able to squeeze into our tiny hotel room.

Rockefeller Plaza

Museum of Natural History

Here's Paul at Columbia--proof that we actually did visit the law schools along with all our touristing:

From New York City, Paul had to go back to Managua and I continued the law school tour on my own. I went from New York City to Ann Arbor, Michigan to see the University of Michigan Law, also known for its impressive architecture.

This is the reading room, though it could easily substitute for Hogwarts' Great Hall.

Apparently all the buildings on the law quad have to be built in the style seen above. When it was time to build the new law library, the stones were too expensive. Instead, they built the library underground with a strange, modern-looking triangle dug into the ground to let light in.

I really loved Michigan's campus and the city of Ann Arbor. Everyone was really friendly and there was a great sense of community. Even the squirrels were really welcoming:

After Ann Arbor, I got to go spend a few days in Springfield to catch up on laundry, replenish our dwindling mac & cheese supplies, and of course spend time with family and friends.

From there, I went back to New York City for a scholarship interview at NYU and their official admitted students day events. I couldn't get a flight back to Nicaragua the afternoon of the interview, so I had an extra afternoon and evening to fill seeing some of the sights Paul and I hadn't made it to on our first visit. I went to the Central Park Zoo and saw the polar bear and seal feeding show:

And I spent a long time just walking around Central Park. I must say, it has Masaya's Parque Central beat.

From there, it was back to the stifling heat of Nicaragua and the daily grind of school. I wasn't even close to being ready to choose a law school because they all seemed great, but in very different ways--Harvard has classes, clinics, and opportunities to do anything; NYU had beautiful facilities in the city that never sleeps, and Michigan had midwestern charm and people that really seemed happy to be there. I was becoming quite nervous about how to weigh these criteria and how to pick which school to attend, and I still had Stanford to visit... fortunately, in the end, the decision was an easy one.

I would love to say that the two years have gone by so quickly that we haven't noticed, but that's not entirely true. It feels like it's taken forever. However, one perk is finally be able to tell taxi drivers that we've been here for two years and be telling the truth. Two years ago today we came to Nicaragua; we recapped our first year already.

In the last year we've had fun with all of our visitors. We survived a transportation strike, Revolution Day, a drug bust, getting sick and having stuff stolen.

We finally found a new house, and then tried to have things fixed in said house. We made a trip home and ended up with a broken-legged puppy, but she made a full recovery, fully able to wreak havoc again. We took in a street dog and tried to give her away, but she ran away instead. Dora got a brand-new (misguided) look and found a new BFF in Luna.

We celebrated the election of a new president in the US, Thanksgiving with friends, and survived the Nicaraguan mayoral elections.

We talked about how to do laundry, tried to channel supernanny, and got introspective about the value of our service.

Right now we have just 47 days to finish our work, say goodbye, and empty our house of 2 years' worth of accumulated junk. Right now we are ready to be home with family, friends, gringo food, and, we can't lie, air conditioning.

With every visitor that came down here, we went to at least one new place we had never been, and each trip had its own feel. On the Ragans' first visit, we went to Selva Negra in Matagalpa and regretted not bringing winter coats or avoiding the salad; when Laura and Nancy came, we enjoyed Pelican Eyes paradise; when my parents came, we braved the bumpy roads and one-way streets to visit León; and Danny's visit took us all the way to the Atlantic coast to ring in 2009. My brother Jake was the last visitor we'll host in Nicaragua, and his trip was the most laid back of them all. We knew Jake would be easygoing so we didn't really have a set plan or even reservations for where to stay during the trip. The (lack of a) plan turned out to be a success, and we wound up visiting volcanoes all over the country and finally making it to Ometepe Island.

We started by staying a couple of nights in Masaya and riding our neighborhood bus, visiting the markets and hunting for souveniers, and enoying the best restaurants Masaya has to offer (one day was more than enough time for the restaurant part). Here we are waiting for the bus:

We then made the journey down to Rivas to catch the ferry to Ometepe island, the large island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua that's the home to two large volcanoes. From the water's edge, the island seems so close that you could swim to it, but that's actually not the case. It's about an hour-long ferry ride that seems much longer when you're stuck with a lot of backpackers playing their guitars and bicycle enthusiasts wearing their padded shorts:

It gave us a great view of the volcanoes and the island, though, so we just tried to tune out Freebird.

We eventually made it to the island then took a taxi to our hotel, a nice little resort that was recommended to us by a Volunteer on the island. We made it just in time to catch a really pretty sunset:

The next morning, Paul and Jake woke up before the sun rose to celebrate Paul's birthday and Obama's inauguration by climbing Volcán Concepción, the big, active volcano on the island. My birthday present to Paul was that I stayed at the hotel instead of accompanying them to climb a really steep volcano.

The beginning of the path:Taking a quick break on the hike up:

They couldn't go to the very top to look in because it was too windy, and the guide said it was too steep and difficult to be worth going all the way up anyway. Here's the view from the volcano:

And proof that they were there:

There were even some monkeys up in the trees (don't tell Dora):

They hiked back down and made it back to our hostel by the middle of the afternoon in time for Paul to watch some of the inauguration activities and Jake to enjoy Paul's Nintendo DS until the battery gave out. We went to the main city to have some dinner and explore and then left the island the following morning.

We unintentionally match a lot.

After a ferry ride back to the mainland, we took a bus up to Granada. Masaya is only about 45 minutes from Granada in bus, so when we go we normally make it a day trip and come back to Masaya. We had heard good things from other Volunteers about a hostel called Oasis, so we decided to give it a try and planned to stay there for two nights to be able to hang out in Granada without having to travel back and forth. Plans changed, however when we woke up after our first night covered in flea bites. We packed up our things, stored them in our little hostel lockers, and decided we'd spend the second night in Masaya where we'd at least know they were our own bed bugs biting us.

We decided to spend the day visiting our second volcano of the trip, Mombacho. This was the volcano that cemented my hatred for all paths inclined, but at least this time we were only going part way up to do the canopy tour.

On the very wire, you go from the platform to the ground and the guy at the bottom pulls on the wire so that you bounce. My favorite is at the very end of the video when Jake crashes in to the guy:

We made it back to Granada, had some lunch and picked up our stuff from the flea-infested hostel, and went back to Masaya. Jake's trip was quickly coming to an end, so we had to decide how we should spend his last day here: visit the old political prison? Go swimming at the Laguna de Apoyo? Visit Volcán Masaya? Go to the zoo? Go to the parakeet nature reserve? Play more Nintendo DS? We asked Jake for input, but he deferred to our judgment and said he'd be happy doing whatever. Now, Jake and I did our fair share of bickering as kids, and a few short years ago he would have not only voiced an opinion, but he would have made sure it was the exact opposite of whatever opinion I had. For him to be so darn agreeable was quite a shock, and it was nearly impossible for us to choose, even after consulting our guide books and telling Jake the pros and cons of each possibility. Eventually it became apparent that Paul and I were just going to have to make a choice, so we decided to round out our volcano tour with a visit to Masaya's volcano. Jake's response? "Oh, good. I was just about to say I wanted to go to the volcano."

Masaya's volcano has a nice, paved road to the crater at the top and lots of trails surrounding it. We went on the cave tour to get out of the mid-afternoon heat and to see some bats: mission accomplished on both counts.

We couldn't really take a lot of pictures in the cave because it was dark (we should have brought own own head lamps, because their flashlights were pretty weak), but the guide took a picture of us in the back of the cave. It took a few tries since he was just pointing the camera at darkness. Also, Paul and I have too many green shirts: Here we are after the hike with the big crater behind us. There was a lot of smoke coming out of the crater; the guide said the reddish color was because it was sulfur dioxide. It smelled really bad and burned our throats. Apparently this cross was built in the 16th century to keep the devil away; people thought the volcano was the mouth of hell. Paul and I both had a great week, and since Jake never expressed an opinion to the contrary, we'll just assume that he did too.

Masaya is probably in the middle of Nicaragua's heat spectrum, generally not as hot as Managua, Rivas, or Leon, but hotter than Matagalpa or Jinotega. Right now, though, it's hot everywhere--right in time for a week of vacation for Semana Santa and nothing to do but sit around the house where we just sweat unless there's a fan blowing directly on us.

Yesterday we took a trip to the mall in Managua just so we could sit in the air conditioning for a few hours and it was everything we expected it to be. We took our time browsing at the stores and the nearby grocery store. There aren't many places close to home where we can enjoy the cold, but we're thinking of some complicated banking transactions that we'll need to do next week in the bank that has AC.

Here's our clock that annoyingly will not let us forget how hot it is in the middle of our house:

Think Again: The Peace Corps

by Robert Strauss

The reason the Peace Corps is overlooked as a development organization has a lot to do with the youth and inexperience of the majority of its volunteers. Equally important is its unwillingness to decide if it is a development organization or an organization with a mission “to promote world peace and friendship,” as stipulated by Congress in the Peace Corps Act. It would like to be both, but finds itself falling short on both objectives because it cannot decide which is the more important. Last week I discovered this article in Foreign Policy written by a former Peace Corps Country Director. It's a somewhat critical view of Peace Corps and its effectiveness, and asserts that many widely held beliefs regarding Peace Corps are actually myths.

Paul and I feel a little conflicted because we agree with many of Strauss' arguments, but also don't want to think our time here has been frivolous. We will leave Nicaragua in less than six months, so at this stage in our service we're beginning to think about the mark we'll be leaving on our community. This might not have been the idea time for us to stumble upon this article, but it's worth thinking about and I wanted to share it here.

In Masaya we're pretty lucky because we get regular trash pick up three times a week. Some of our friends in smaller cities have to wait a lot longer or just burn their trash like their neighbors. The truck usually comes in the morning, but we can't put trash out too far ahead of time or the dogs will tear it apart. There's really nothing worse than coming home to a ripped apart trash bag and your trash strewn all along the road for the whole neighborhood to see.

Several men walk alongside the truck all day long, picking up the trash and throwing it into the back of the truck. To alert people that the trash truck is coming there is a really loud bell that is rung as they're coming down the street, and Dora has learned that that bell means something exciting is happening. Usually we forget or are asleep when the trash truck comes, so we're always frantically running around trying to put everything in one bag, run to the front door, unlock several locks, and put the trash on the sidewalk. With my inferior human ears I sometimes don't hear it until it's already passed, but now Dora is quick to alert us and we don't have to worry about keeping stinky trash bags for an extra couple of days.

These guys just walk alongside the truck and pick up trash bags off of the sidewalk: