I am currently in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It has been a busy past couple of weeks. I only spent about a week in Chile since I was in a time crunch to meet my parents in Buenos Aires. In Chile I stayed in Santiago for a couple of days and then took a three day trip to visit Viña del Mar and Valparaiso, Chile. They are coastal towns with houses built all down the mountains leading into the sea. Valparaiso was a bit run down, but had a lot of charm whereas Viña was much more well kept, but a bit cold feeling. I was in fact suffering from a bit of a cold while in Chile, most likely due to the bitterly cold temperatures in the Andes on the way there.

Arriving finally in Buenos Aires, I was blow away with how pretty the city was. I have to say that it is the most developed city I have seen in all of Latin America. Along with my parents we walked through almost every corner of the city noticing that every part seems to have a different architectural inspiration. We stayed at a very nice hotel in Recoleta, certainly much different from what I have been used to for the past 2.5 years. I had compiled a list of restaruants from people who had been here previously and we hit most of them. The steaks here are unparallel to anything I have ever had before, out of the last 10 days, I think I have had about 10 steaks. We did some of the touristy things like go to a Tango show. It was a dinner and show with about 2 hours of tango dancing, five different acts displaying the history of tango. Another interesting event was going to a Professional fúbol (soccer) game, Argentina vs. Paraguay. The game ended at 1 - 1, which was a bit anticlimactic, but still incredible. Argentinians are serious about their soccer and upon entering the arena you worry that you may be crushed to dealth.

I would have to say that the highlight of Argentina thusfar was going to Patagonia. We stayed in a place called Madryn which is located on the east coast of Argentina. There is a protected wildlife reserve called the Valdez Penninsula which we spent two days circumnavigating. Among elephant seals, sea lions and other land critters we were lucky enough to see Southern Right Whales and a Killer Whale tearing apart whatever it had just killed. The right whales were amazing, they were enormous and came within feet of our glorified raft. The killer whales were from more of a distance, but equally spectacular. Killer whales were out of season, so it was rare to see them at all. I was suprised that the eastern coast of Patagonia is a flat semi desert. The weather held out for us, in fact for the most part I have been lucky with weather. I am on the last leg of the journey, only two more weeks until I am back in the States. Until next time.

I am currently in Santiago, Chile via Uyuni, Bolivia. I had an opportunity to take a 3 day jeep trek through the salt flats of Bolivia as well as the San Pedro de Atacama desert in Chile. Day one began in the early afternoon. The crew contained a driver, cook and 6 tourists including myself. Two of the people I was with I had been traveling with since Lima, Peru for the past 2 weeks, so I knew it was going to be a good time. We headed to the salt flats and I was blown away by how huge it was. It is apparently 12,ooo sq km in size and all solid white salt, it is the remains of an ancient salt lake. Without sun glasses it was a blinding experience, fortunately I was well equipped. The most interesting thing is that there is no point of reference in terms of distance, so it is a fun place to take pictures, people in the distance just look like small people. There was a town which processed the salt, albeit very rudimentary, as well as all the buildings are made out of salt blocks. Now I love salt, but I think this was a bit overkill. Cruising through the flats we blew a tire and swerved a bit before coming to a stop. The following day was mainly driving, blew a second tire. We passed by several lagoons which has several species of flamingoes, I clearly could not tell them apart, I think it is just a farce. An interesting part of the day was seeing strange rock formations in the middle of the desert. The wind and sand eat away at the bottoms of boulders moreso than the tops, leaving rocks looking like trees and mushrooms. That night was fairly painful. We spent the night at about 4600 meters or 13800 feet. The temperature dipped well below freezing to about 12 degrees F. I had on a shirt, fleece, coat, gloves, hat, 2 prs pants, 2 prs socks, sleeping bag, and two fleece covers and I was still freezing my ass off. The next morning we went to see geysers and thermal baths in the middle of the desert, I decided that I was not interested in stripping down and swimming as ice crunched under my feet, I will leave that for people who are completely insane. We finished the third day seeing a green and red lagoon, due to the type of algae and then got dropped off at the Chilean boarder. The ride into Chile was certainly noteworthy as well, we decended about 2000 meters (6000 feet) in about 40 minutes. The road was unnecessarily steep and had emergency runoffs every 500 feet in case someones brakes gave way. All in all it was a worthwhile trip. Well until next time.

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I am currently in La Paz, Bolivia. It has been a very eventful last week and a half since my last post. Well I spent a couple of day in Lima, I have to admit that I was not all that impressed by the city. I made my way to Cuzco, Peru which is home to all the famous ruins of the Incas. For three days I visited various ruins ending in the pinnacle of seeing Machu Picchu. Even with all the hype, it stands up to impress. I did some serious mountain hiking as well, climbing a 700 meter mountain and a 650 meter one the following day. Both of these mountains surrounded Machu Picchu which gave a great birdseye view of the ruins. This was one of my major things to do on this trip, like Christmas as a kid, it passes too quickly. The next trip was to visit Lake Titicaca, the largest lake in South America. On the Peruvian side is Puno. The most interesting thing about Puno are the people who live on floating islands. They are made out of boyant reeds, in fact everything that is on the island is made of reeds, such as the houses, boats, watch towers ground etc. It was certainly unique.

Making my way into Bolivia was an experience. In my travel book it says that entrance visas are free, well this changed 4 months ago and is now 135 dollars, among having a list of things to complete before you enter. I had to bribe the official to overlook my unpreparedness. Our president strikes again in pissing off yet another country, so it´s citizens have to pay for it. In fact U.S. citizens are the only country that have to pay anything to enter Bolivia. I have to say that when I was told this I was embarrassed, we are really not held in very good reguards around the world.

In Bolivia I began in a town called Copacabana which has majestic views of lake Titicaca. I did run into problems originally since the town does not have ATMs. I was down to my last 2 dollars in cash when I was able to have a bank give me an advance on a debit card, I was seriously concerned that I would be in deep doodoo on that one, but disaster averted. All is well and I have been pretty healthy. Until next time

I am currently in Lima, Peru. I spent about a week in Ecuador checking out the city of Quito as well as the southern central part. While in Quito I met up with some friends, one of which was from Quito, who knew the city much better than I. One of the highlights was going to the ¨midad del mundo¨ which is the equator. Apparently a few years ago, due to GPS they realized that they had been about 200 meters off in what they had thought to be the equator. They had built a park and a monument marking the ¨line¨, but in fact it is not correct. Well we went to the current ¨real¨ line and saw all the spectacular occurrences that come with it. You can balance an egg on a nail; they show you how water drains on the line, as well as north and south of the line. I am not sure if it was a trick, but sure enough it does go down in different directions. It was a wonderful tourist trap. I spent the next few days heading south on my route to Peru. A couple of towns really I thought were pretty. Alausí is a town where a train leaves to trudge down the Nariz de Diablo ¨devil´s nose¨. It is a series of switchbacks along a cliffs edge that are quite terrifying. From Alausí I headed to Cuenca. This was a really pretty city, smaller than Quito, but certainly more charming. Crossing the boarder to Peru was a bit nerve racking. There is a bit of a racket with fake money being changed. The fake money changers work with some of the corrupt police in that they will change your money and then a police officer will ask to see the money you changed, tell you its fake and take it from you, god forbid they go directly to the source of the fake money. Well knowing this I only change money at banks. I was stopped by an officer and told he wanted to search my bag for fake money, to which I replied that if he wanted to search me we had to go to the police station so there would be more witnesses, he promptly sent me on my way. Once in Peru I took a 21 hour bus ride to Lima. Sitting anywhere for 21 hours really tests your sanity, not to mention the man pushing 350 pounds sitting next to me. It was an amazing ride though through the desert of western Peru. I had expected peru to be much more lush, but the entire west coast is a baren desert. It is beautiful how the desert ends right into the pacific ocean. Well until next time.

Against most advice I decided to go to the most dangerous country in South America, Colombia. After spending a few days here, I am not sure how it has such a poor reputation. I have been spending the last few days in Cartagena, Colombia, which is on the Northeastern coast of Colombia. It is country steeped in history and it is considered Colombia´s historical gem. Pablo Ecobar threatened to level it in 1989 with 500 tons of dynamite, for retaliation of the government clamping down on his drug trade. I was able to spend two days just walking up and down the streets of the old city, every turn was a postcard. The whole city is surrounded by a solid stone wall to keep out pirates back in the 16th and 17th century. Joined by the shipmates I had from Panama we scoured the city. During the days walking around and in the nights sitting out in the squares drinking rum and watching street performers. One square in which we frequented was originally the square where slaves were bought and sold, I kind of felt bad laughing and drinking there.

On one of my walking days I came across barracaded streets and all kinds of army and military personel. I wandered over to where all the comotion was and stumbled into where Alvaro Uribe, the president of Colombia was walking out of one meeting to head to another. I was able to get within 3 feet of him and got a decent picture. I could not image me just wandering up to where George Bush was and have no one question me. It was just a random circumstance of right place right time. Tomorrow I am heading to Quito, Ecuador. Until next time.

I left the last entry in Panama City, but I had not seen the Canal by that point. I spent a day at the Miraflor locks. I was fortunate enough to see a couple of cargo ships go through the locks. The sheer size of it all was humbling. The ships are 300 feet by 1050 feet and hold thousands of of truck size containers. I could go into the engineering of the locks, but I will refrain. What I would like to spend some time sharing is an amazing sailing trip I took from Panama City to Cartagena, Colombia. I left last thursday the 24th of July and did not arrive in Colombia until today the 31st of July. I was joined by 7 other tourists on a 40 foot sailboat called the Wind Surfer. Our captain, a 23 year old Colombian named Tilson. Our first leg was from Panama City to the San Blas Islands. These are islands off of the west coast of Panama and are not included on most maps. They are owned and controlled by the Kuna tribe and are much like the indian reserves of the US. They live in sugar cane cabanas and their only mode of transportation is a dugout canoe. The San Blas Islands are a collection of 375 islands which a single family can inhabit for 3 months and then they must switch islands. None of them are owned by foreigners, in fact foreigners are not allowed to even rent them. We spend four days there and spend the night on our sailboat. They were some of the most pristine beaches I have ever seen. One night we were treated by a Kuna family to a lobster and crab dinner which they had spent the whole day catching. It was a scene right out of survivor. I and my travel companions were eating by lantern in a sugarcane hut, breaking the shells with whatever hard object we could get our hands on. Well the difficult part of the journey was a 50 hour straight shot from San Blas Islands to Cartagena. Now just to place some emphasis, this is over two days of straight sailing, without stopping. Well we started of well, getting great time and enjoying ourselves. Then the wind died. We were stranded somewhere in the carribean sea, motionless. Fortunately our luck changed and we got moving again. There was a bit of a storm on our last leg with the boat rocking so profoundly that it was impossible to get any sleep, in fact a wave crashed into the side of our boat and my open window was turned into a water tunnel into my cabin. On a positive note I did get a chance to see several groups of dolphins and flying fish as well as some of the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets that I have seen in my life. Arriving in Cartagena, finally after 7 days of poor nights sleep as well as my only showers being swimming in the salt water, it was a godsend. It is such a beautiful city, the old town looks straight from a movie set. I will have more time in the next few days to see more of it. Until next time.

Much has happened in the last week, I will try to keep it succinct though. Last time I had written I was in San Jose, Costa Rica. Well my next stop was Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. This is located on the south eastern corner of Costa Rica. According to the travel book it is "a laid back beach town where anything more than surfing or laying on the beach is considered overly ambitious." Once there I have to admit that I was dissapointed. The town had a seedy feel and my friend and I immediately thought we would leave the following day. On a whim we decided to walk down the solid coral, depressing beach in search of better pastures. To our amazement as we turned bend an immense expanse of beach with crashing waves opened before us. Immediately we did a 180 and decided to stay a couple of nights. We certainly took advantage of the beach as well as the waves, body surfing.

Next on the itinerary was Boca del Toro in Panama. This is located on the north eastern part of the country. Its an archipeligo (a chain of islands), each with it's own personality. We stayed on the main island which was called Isla Colon, mainly because it has the best night life and restaurants. We spent the first night enjoying the 50 cent beers and getting to know some of the other travelers. Yada Yada Yada, large headache the next day. Taking a water taxi we visited another island and spent the day laying around a beautiful, private beach. What I neglect to mention is that to get to this beach you have to take a 30 minute hike through mud upto your calves, the only way to make it is to go at it barefoot, which got quite slippery. I am not sure that many beaches would be worth it, and this was barely so.

Today I have just arrived in Panama City. We crossed the Panama canal to get to the bus station, I will be checking that out in more detail in the coming days. I will hopefully be able to get some pictures up here is a few days. Until next time.

I would like to apologize that my writing style has diminished. I do not have a computer so I am writing these in internet cafes, not exactly an inspiring locale. I am currently in San Jose, Costa Rica, I finished with the Peace Corps in Nicaragua on July the 8th. The first leg of the journey took me to Corn Island. These are islands on the Caribbean side (East Coast) of Nicaragua. It is much different than the west coast counterpart. For one thing they speak creole English. The people are of African decent. There are two islands, Big Corn and Little Corn. The big one is mainly a fishing village and much more developed. The highlight of the trip though was Little Corn Island. It was like a deserted island. It is less than 1 mile long and about .5 miles wide. There are about 450 residents and no cars nor roads on the island. I am traveling with another Peace Corps volunteer named David and we rented a cabana about 20 feet from the waters edge. It was so peaceful, almost too much so. There is little to do on the island, other than swim, drink beer, eat, and lay around and that is what we did for 3 days straight. It is the rainy season right now, so it pretty much rains every day. Fortunately we at least had a half a day of sunshine and then it would get overcast leading into torrential downpours. I have to say that I got a little nervous when the winds would pick up that the waves would crash over our cabana, but it never got that bad. After a few days we got a little sick of paradise and decided to move on. Flying back to the capital of Nicaragua, Managua, in the middle of a storm on a little prop engine plane is not an enjoyable experience. I will never trust those little things. Spending the night in Managua, we woke up early to catch our 10 hour bus ride into San Jose. Once arrived we decided to enjoy the local cuisine of Taco Bell. It has been over 2 years since I enjoyed one of America's greatest achievements. It had been a long day sitting on a bus and we were not up for much adventure, so we found a local bar and decided to have one beer before getting some sleep. Well it wasn't long before the locals got curious with the strange gringos and began to buy us beers so that they could sit down and talk with us. One guy in particular would have been an unbelievable character in a play or movie. I had noticed him dancing by himself earlier with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Well he pulled up a chair at our table and switched from an unintelligible babble, to handshakes, to hugs, to deep screeching cackles. Still now, in the morning, I can smell his cologne on me. He was a very nice character, but I don't think I have ever consumed a beer faster so I could get out of there. Today I am to explore the city of San Jose. Until next time.

This was published in the quarterly magazine for Peace Corps Nicaragua. It is a publication written for volunteers by volunteers. Filling this out also means that my service is coming to an end. I can not believe that it has been two years. I am due to leave here in July.

1) Name: Oliver Dunn

2) Site: Somoto, Madriz

3) Nicknames: Chele (whitey), Profe (Professor), Oliver Cann, Oliver Garza

4) Favorite Dicho (saying): “Que me la vaya bien” (“Go well for me”), why am I going well for you? , “Si dios quiere” (If God wants it”), a great way to not have to do anything, apparently God didn’t want it.

5) Any advice on dating a Nica? If you get more attention here then you did in the states, then I am sure it is true love.

6) What did you do during your service? Helped build Primary Schools, Tried to teach kids to think originally, Tried to help restaurants with their business, traveled all over Nicaragua. Read tons of books.

7) If you could change one aspect of your service what would it be? I did it pretty much the way I thought I would and wanted to.

8) What will you miss? Having so much free time to relax, read, write, reflect, and hang out. I will certainly miss being able to get sauced off of $5.

9) What would BRING YOU BACK to Nicaragua? If I receive the following phone call within my lifetime: “Oliver, this is Danny Ortega calling. We have a bit of a situation. Nicaragua, as you are well aware, is going through some growing pains. Well, as it turns out the Nicaraguan people have banded together to develop their tourism trade by organizing themselves and their resources. We have decided it is about time that Costa Rica stop taking all of the tourists in Central America. The reason I am calling you is that your President has made me aware that you are well versed in this field. In fact you are the only person in the world who can make this happen. Without you there will never be a possibility for Nicaragua to reach “developed nation” status. The future of Nicaragua, its culture and people rest on you. We are willing to pay you whatever it takes for you to lend us your services. Please, please, come back to Nicaragua to help us. You are our last hope, without you we will surely fall.” So yeah if I received this phone call then I would at least flip a coin, heads being that I come back.

10) Your most pinche (cheap) moment? I lived 2 weeks on 500 cords ($25) to see if I could do it, I guess this is not that big of a feat for an Agriculture Volunteer, what do you people spend your money on?

11) How has the PC changed you? I will certainly be much nicer to and more patient with people who can not speak English very well. I have even more of an appreciation for the US then I already had. I am much more realistic on the effectiveness of “development work”.

12) Favorite Nica food or drink? Gallo Pinto (Rice and Beans) with Ketchup, Tacos with ketchup and cream, Fresco de Naranja (Fresh Squeezed orange juice).

13) Most random care package item? A box of baby wipes, however they came in handy.

14) How many times did you have to poo in a cup? Never, I am the bionic man, I imagine all the lead and arsenic I had in my local drinking water helped me.

15) Best/worst memory? My best memories were the times I spent with other volunteers, too many to count. My worst memory was almost dying when a truck I had hired nearly fell off a cliff when the brakes gave out.

16) Bus stories? A fond memory I have riding a bus was when a friend and I rode on top of one. We were heading to a rural mountain community and we took turns passing a bottle of rum and coke, while dodging the low laying branches and power lines. The views just kept getting better. (If this is not permitted then I was just making it up, but I did have a helmet on.)

17) Most embarrassing moment? It was kind of embarrassing coming back to site after the two consolidations during the threats of hurricanes. It never got worse than a torrential drizzle in my site and they could not understand why I had to be emergency evacuated.

18) Would you do it all over again? If I were to be transported back two years, I would do it again. That is to say I am glad that I did it. Would I do another 2.25 years after this? Ni quiere a dios (Even god wouldn’t want it).

19) Did you ever think about quitting? Never seriously, the idea of working 10 hour days, having to wake up at 6am, and sitting at a desk seemed worse.

20) Conveniences/commodities/creature comforts you missed the most? Choices at a bar, food from all over the world, being surrounded by people who “get you”, peace and quiet, not having to cross my fingers every time I eat, warm showers, not being bored out of my mind, not being asked for money or visas every day, common courtesy….shall I continue?

21) What's next? Travel through South and Central America for as long as the readjustment allowance allows. I suppose after that I will look for a job that I can make a lot of money so that I can buy a bunch of crap to make myself feel better about all the time I spend at work. Have a family, sacrifice for my children so that they can have more than I did growing up. Have them grow up to be unappreciative, resentful and tell me how I ruined their lives. Eventually retire, move to an old folks home, have my mind slowly slip away and call my family, who only come to visit twice a year out of guilt, the wrong names. Sit staring out of a window muttering nonsense to myself and then one day become mulch.

22) Advice for remaining volunteers? If given a choice, most people would not choose to do this. Don’t let someone make you feel guilty for not doing enough. Do what you need to do to keep your head. Make sure you keep a good sense of humor about things.

23) Parting words: Roses are red, violets are blue, you’re still in Nicaragua, sucks for you! Thanks for the memories.

Visions of poor naked children playing in the dirt usually come to mind when one thinks of the 3rd world. Houses made of mud brick, straw or corrugated tin roofs dominate the landscape. Well this is not too far off, but certainly not the rule. There are disparities in wealth just as we have the in the United States, the most wealthy nation in the world. We certainly have all of the modern conveniences at our finger tips, if we have the means to take advantage of it. Often there is a bit of guilt for the people who have “everything”, and our benevolent conscious grips us when we see the commercials about what 20 cents a day can do if we were only to make the phone call to pledge this meager tithe. Millions of people around the world do try to help by donating tens of millions of dollars worth of money, clothes and food. Clearly it is the duty of humanity who can afford it to be socially responsible. It is not as if one chooses at conception where they wish to be born, into what family, or socio economic level. There has been a lot of good done and a plethora of good to be done.

The problem that seems to exist though is that the inefficiencies in development work are such that no person in their right mind would invest in a public company with similar practices. In effect that is what we are doing when we put money into a development project, investing. The goal is not to see financial returns, but rather to see that people are better off than before.

Currently countless dollars are poured into projects that do not have clearly defined goals and objectives. Many religious groups are to blame for this fact. They think that to give gifts are the way to better an underdeveloped nation. This has created a culture of the open palm. People will wait around for years for someone to rebuild buildings, roads, bridges, schools, homes, latrines, wells etc. There are very few non governmental organizations (NGOs) that will teach people how to do the work that will offer them the opportunity to better their own lives.

What is happening is that the open palms have replaced people willing to break a sweat. It is much easier for both parties to throw money at a problem, but never effective. How can people in developing nations be trusted with lump sums of money? Clearly they have not learned the skill of using it to grow and develop or else they would not be in the predicament they are in. Government officials in the US are corrupt; do we honestly think that they would not be here?

An issue that I have seen is that there are too many NGOs. They tend to overlap in many areas and think it beneficial to reinvent the wheel at every step. Understandably they have to have something to sell the investors, but why aren’t there NGOs who are able to direct finances towards programs that exist and have proven effective. How many different English programs are needed? This is the case in most niches of development work. Everyone want to have their name stamped on a product and none of them are very good products. It seems that the type of people who go into development work are scattered. They may begin with an idea and then see need in other areas as well. They then try to reach 6 or 7 different issues and do then all poorly. Could any company be effective if they begin making bicycles and then see the need for t-shirts, bubble gum, couches, light bulbs and cement? Possibly with the work force of the US government this would be possible, but in the real world this is not efficient.

Well I’ve just returned from my most recent brush with death. I’d received a phone call early in the morning asking if I’d be so kind as to get out to a rural community where we’d built a school and take photos of it. The donors for the school like to have a nice picture in their office to prove that they are good people. Well as I’m also a very good person I jumped at the opportunity. I hired a truck to take me out there which cost the equivalent of $60 for the entire day. To a Nicaraguan this is a small fortune, but I was in a time crunch so I did what needed to be done.

Things got off to a great start. I had to borrow a camera from a friend of mine, but he decided to join me on my quest. The mission was to drive to the school, take happy smiling pictures of the students in front of their new school, then drive home and send these pictures back to the states. It seemed, at first, like a fairly straight forward task, something even I could accomplish. We ran into some early luck. I did not know exactly how to get to the school since I’d only been there once. I stopped by the mayor’s office, interrupting his meeting to get directions. As luck would have it there was a member of the destination community at the meeting. I was able to take him with me, therefore avoiding the whole “getting lost” problem.

Well more or less that was the last of our good luck and the beginning of our “find the good fortune in this” luck. It began to rain. Never mind the fact that we are currently in “dry season”. Since I was in the back of a pickup truck I was exposed to the elements. Fortunately it was cold too, so I was cold and wet as the wind pelted me. We passed by the teacher of the school as he was leaving the community on his bike. Needing help gathering the students, since school is currently out of session, we picked him up to, promising that we would drive him to where he needed to go afterwards.

We got to the final stretch of our trip there, rain still going strong. To our astonishment we came upon a truck that was stuck in the mud on the one lane bridge. The owner was nowhere to be found. From this point on me and a few others had to walk the rest of the way, about 3 miles to the school. Uphill, 3 miles in the rain sucks! I convinced my driver to wait for me to return, which was to be about 5 hours later from our guess. At this point I was glad that I never pay anyone the full amount until I reach my destination. He also sent one of his two helpers with us, from what I can gather for confidence purposes. I am just glad that he did not send the chatty one with us.

Being confident that we were not going to be stranded 35 miles from the nearest town with a phone line, we began our hike. It was not all that bad, but just a bit slippery and wet. Once in town we had lunch at the teacher’s house while the other person we had picked up in the community let the students know there was to be picture time. Now I would like to spend a moment on this. I am at a loss how they are able to get information around in these towns. People live in a radius of about 10 kilometers, but somehow everyone gets the message within an hour. Since Nicaraguans do not move too fast and having “runners” is out of the question, I will just assume that it is mental telepathy.

We sat around waiting out the rains and found our 10 minute window for happy, smiley, picture time. Nicaraguans in general do not smile in photos. They take it as a very serious occasion. A donor does not want a picture of 20 kids who look like they are pissed. People who live in rural communities are the hardest to get to smile. They are self-conscious, timid and nervous. I had to act like a moron for 10 minutes to get any reaction out of these kids. I know that me acting like a moron is a stretch for the imagination, but seriously I can pull it off.

Mission accomplished we wrapped up and headed back. The rain began again, this time harder than before. It was an easier trip back being that it was down hill, but more slippery. Back at the truck that had fortunately waited for us, the guys, whom had not eaten all day, were stealing unripe plantains from a farm. We piled in back, with shoes squishing and underwear dripping. We were given a plastic sheet to put over our heads to help us dry out.

I have to say that I had a bad feeling about the ride back, but I was thrilled to have pulled off this feat. We were going fine for most of the way until we got to a hill where we could not quite make it. This is not a rare occurrence, usually you just back up, get everyone out of the truck and then they give it another shot, if successful then everyone just walks up the hill and continue on. Well this was not the usual case. We stalled and then began backing up. Something did not feel right since we were coasting backwards at an uncontrolled pace. In fact it felt as if the driver did not have any control. In fact the driver did not have any control. We were going backwards, without breaks on a mountain road. Since we were in the back of the truck we could see what was coming. Right in our line was a tree on the side of the road. Narrowly missing the tree we began rolling backwards off the side of the road. We began taking out a barbed wire fence until we came to a crashing stop in a ditch on the side of the road.

I would like to touch on when I said earlier about how the “find the good fortune in this” luck began. Well this was truly the case. Had we gone off the other side of the road, I would have found myself careening down a 50 foot cliff. As it was we were half in this ditch and teetering, had we gone any father a good couple of rolls would have been on the menu. If I were to be asked what I do in an emergency situation the answer is nothing. I just sat there frozen, hoping to hit the tree so it would stop us.

Here we were about 20 miles from the nearest town with electricity. Our truck stuck in a ditch. At this point it was about 4:30pm, the sun sets at about 5:30pm. Fortunately we had cell phones, but we were so far from town that to find a signal we had to walk around finding higher ground with the phones over our heads. I was the only one with signal, but low on minutes. Once minutes run out the phone is useless other then to receive calls. We were able to get in touch with the mayor, but they were sketchy about the details of coming to help us. I called Peace Corps as a backup. I was hoping to have them dispatch the helicopter, but no such luck. At around 8pm, with the help of the mayor we had gotten the truck out of the ditch and they drove us back into town. We left the old truck on the side of the road, it not being reliable to trust. The driver and one of his helpers spent the night inside of it so that it was not stolen. We all spent the night in a hostel in town.

Well I feel fortunate that things did not end up worse as they could have. I have now developed a terror of being in a truck as it is climbing a hill. I am waiting for this to happen again. I think I will have to place myself in a spot where I can make a jump for it if need be. All I know is that I had better be racking up some major “get into heaven” points.

I have taken for granted, working for restaurants, how spoiled I was with good food. I used to have a menu to chose from, daily, anything from sushi to a 24 oz bone in rib eye, while working with Shaw’s, or Red Curry Chicken Pad Thai to Duck with hoisin sauce, while working at Vong’s Thai Kitchen. The main concern that I would have would be to not eat too much and obtain what people think of as Midwestern girth. I have been fortunate to be able to come home from time to time and calm my cravings, but I also think that this is making it harder to let go of what I am missing. I certainly do not have the choices that I once had, but I think this helps me to enjoy it when I can make something reminiscent of home.

The other day I got together with another volunteer and we made fajitas. This was no small task because to get those ingredients together was a challenge. First off the tortillas they sell here are corn and are more or less flavorless. As everyone knows the only tortilla worthy of fajita is flour. We were able to score these in the capital city, but it was only one piece of the puzzle. Another important aspect of fajita is the spices. When I was home last time I stocked up on spice packets of taco, fajita, fried rice, kung pao, sloppy joes, etc. I was literally like a kid in a candy store filling my shopping cart with these; I had a huge grin on my face the whole time. Between the two of us we were able to locate onions, tomatoes and bell peppers. Rice and beans were the easiest part, since that is all they eat here.

As we were at his house we were in such a good mood with the reward that was to come. We kept saying “I am so happy right now”. I have a shit eating grin on right now just writing about it. We made quite a bit of food and our theory was that we wanted to break this up into shifts. We had one fajita each at around 6, another at 8 and finished off the rest at 10. We wanted to delay the satisfaction as long as was possible.

Now I do realize that this whole experience would have been a lot better with a Jose Cuervo Margarita, but I will take what I can get. I fear that it is the little experiences like this that will stick out most vividly in my mind years from now. I also know that I will have a serious eating disorder when I come home for good. It is things like this that I plan and I look forward to the entire week, it is pretty pathetic.

The school year has come to an end and it is quite a relief to have the hardest part of my service behind me. As a small vacation I went with a group of volunteers to the beach. We rented a house on the beach and relaxed for a few days. One of the highlights of the weekend was going to see the turtles. Every year around October and November the sea turtles climb onto the beach to lay their eggs in the sand. The amazing thing is that they all come to the original beach in which they were born. Unfortunately the time in which they lay the eggs is in October, which me missed by a month. I did however come just in time for the hatching of the turtle lings. It was a pretty cool experience. It was also much less regulated than it would be in the states. It was nice to see that there have been some efforts to protect the area in which they nest, since they are an endangered species.

They really had no rules other than to not take the turtles home with you, which I was quite tempted to do, since they were like little toys. As I walked out onto the beach there were circles drawn into the sand where turtles had laid their eggs. In hundreds of spots there were circles and tiny turtles climbing out of the sand. It is said that flashlights should not be used, but rather to use red lights, since once the turtles come out the white light is harsh on their eyes as well as it disorients them. Apparently they use the reflection of light off of the water to find their way. The problem with the flashlights are that no one has red light, nor do they supply anything for us to use. Light is a necessity since there are thousands of these little creatures crawling all over the place, if you have no light you will end up stepping on them.

When I say that there is little regulation the thought of them allowing us to pick them up seemed impossible. On the contrary they invited us to do so as well as take pictures, which I had imagined would not have been allowed. There was no one watching us either, we had free reign on the beach and there were no restrictions.

An interesting experience was when they let us release all of the turtles that had hatched during the day. Since naturally the success rate of a baby turtle to mature to adulthood is less than 1% due to crabs, birds and fish picking them off on their entrance into the sea. To help their odds a bit the rangers collect all the turtles that hatch during the day and then release them later in the night. So we had the honor of releasing about 100 turtles into the sea. The important thing is that they have to be released about 50 yards from the water because they have to learn the beach so they can return to lay their own eggs. It was so frustrating watching these poor things. They would flap there way to the waters edge and then a wave would come and push them back 50 feet. I had to hold back the urge to throw them into the water. It is amazing that from the moment they hatch they have to fight to survive. It was certainly an interesting spectacle to witness.

I have just come off of almost a week spent in the capital city of Managua. The reason I am here is that there has been wave after wave of rain storms inundating Nicaragua. We are in the middle of rainy season, as well as hurricane season, but normally rains run like clockwork, coming in the afternoon and then quitting. Well the rains began last Monday, the 8th and now writing this on the following Tuesday the 16th it has been raining in some part of the country ever since. In the mountains this is creating landslides, avalanches and roads being washed away.

Last Friday, the 12th, I received a phone call from Peace Corps saying that I had to come to the capital of the country. It was no longer safe for me to stay in my village. While on the way, we passed a section of the road that had fallen away. The two lane Pan American Highway, was reduced to one lane. This is an issue for the country because it is their main highway. I have to admit that it was a bit nerve racking to have in the back of my mind that I am traveling through mountain highways and pieces were crumbling.

Once in the capital we were put up in hotels. We were glued to satellite weather reports to see how long it would last and how bad it would get. The strangest part was that there was very little rain where we were, but we kept getting reports of severe flooding, families losing their homes and mass evacuations. It is strange to think that some of this was going on where we were previously living. The low lying areas in the north were the hardest hit. All of the water that was falling in the mountains were I live was filtering down and flooding the rivers in the low lands.

Fortunately the rains should be stopping, so things can begin to dry out. Other than the obvious immediate damage for the country there is going to be problems to come. A lot of the bean harvest has been destroyed. A majority of this country relies on beans and rice to survive; this will be devastating for thousands of families. The price will be rising to actually surpass the price of chicken per pound. Since most people eat beans in place of chicken because they can not afford it, we shall see what happens.

Another issue that will be emerging will be the drinking water. At this point it is mostly contaminated. This has not even been an issue discussed in the news at this point, but it is an inevitable side effect of massive flooding.

The school year is quickly wrapping up, in fact I have less than a month left, since my last day giving class this year will be the 8th of November. I have certainly had my ups and downs this year professionally. The course that I am giving is called “La Empresa Creativa”, or “The Creative Business”. The point of the class is to give high school students other options after high school, since most of them will not be going off to college. We are also trying to teach them to look at something differently and try to make it better, in the process giving them an opportunity to make money.

To say that this whole process has been a challenge is an understatement. To change a culture is next to impossible; it is like carving a marble statue with a Q-tip. One must take seriously the mantra “if you can make better one persons life…”, otherwise time seems to be wasted.

How the course works is that the students form groups, which will become their business partners and they spend time together developing the different aspects of their business such as the idea, organization, production, marketing, budgets, initial capital, etc. The culmination of this course is that Peace Corps has a series of competitions where the students compete against other schools. The final competition has prizes such as scholarships, internships and cash.

In trying not to downplay the circumstances that the other business volunteers are placed in, mine is certainly distinct. They are all working for public high schools that have set teachers and organization. They also have a set of obstacles that I am glad I do not have to contend with, such as enormous class size and office politics. My situation is different because the school I work with is not even a real school, but more so an after school program, run by a NGO (non governmental organization). The issues that I run into are attendance, homework being done and being taken seriously that this information is important.

My students have real school as well, so to have to do extra work for me, understandably, is not high on their priority list. I am not able to have actual grades, since they would not mean anything and carry no weight. I also get very little support from the people who are supposed to be “in charge” of these students. Suffice it to say I was a bit nervous when it came time to prepare for the competitions. I had a few groups tell me that they did not yet have a product, although I had not been privy to this as we were doing the business development of the product they told me they had. I spent about a month giving a crash course on all the information that I had covered prior. I had laid down the hammer in saying if they did not have things done by specific dates, they could not compete.

The day of the competition I was clearly nervous. I had invited judges as well as prominent people from the community to see the work done by the students. I had left it up to some of the people I work with to decorate and help with other aspects of the day. This was a huge leap of faith because I have not met too many people here who I can count on. I figured that they would not want to look bad either, so I crossed my fingers. The day went off without a hitch. It did last longer than I had anticipated, but then again everything takes longer here. Most of the groups really had their acts together and knew their material. The judges were impressed, as was I. Most of the groups had a different product that they had told me two weeks prior, but they had crammed to put together their business plan and prototypes. They actually learned how to do what I taught them to do, remarkable!

Last weekend I decided an interesting experience to have would be to go to a music concert in Nicaragua. The act was Black Eyes Peas, a fairly popular hip hop/ pop group from the US. I got together with a group of volunteers from various organizations and we bought tickets. Prices of tickets to the concerts here were certainly an indicator of the haves and have nots. Normal tickets were $12 and these were in the bleacher like seats, or you could pay $50 for standing room, much closer to the action. The common consensus between us was that no one really liked the band enough to pay that much and being smashed in a mob of thousands, many of whom were looking to pick your pockets was not very appealing. We all arrived at the stadium together and since the seats were not assigned, we picked out the best we could find. I am sure it’s as much of a shock to you as it was to me, that the section we had purchased were like nosebleeds, but instead of height it was distance that was the issue. The concert was to begin at 8:30pm sharp, but true to Nicaraguan fashion it did not start until about 10pm. A few things worthy of pointing out was that there was a wall of chicken wire separating these seats from the field where the band was as well as all the people who had paid more for closer tickets. The beverages offered were rum by the bottle or by the shot. It was certainly a bit different from selling soft drinks and beers. For food choices in place of hot dogs they had a plastic bucket filled with cold, unwrapped, tacos and enchiladas.

Finally the concert began. I noticed that there were a lot of people crowded against the fence dividing the stands from the field. Suddenly you could see people making a run for it through the fence. It seems that people had cut a big hole and were rushing to blend in with the other fans on the field before the police tackled them. Out of nowhere about 30 police ran towards the hole with batons raised high and were able to deter anyone else from making the dash. I then noticed in another part of the fence there was a police officer guarding another hole, but periodically letting one or two people through onto the field. This sparked my interest so I asked one of the people standing around what was going on. He told me that for an extra 50 cordobas, the equivalent of $2.50 you can pay a police officer to get onto the field. Well due to my rum judgment I though this to be a fun idea. Well I approached a guy on the other end of the fence and asked if we could get through. I handed him a 100 cordoba bill, about $5. He said that I had to wait a few minutes and then the police officer would let me and my friend crawl through the hole in the fence. Well after about 10 minutes of pressing against the fence with a police officer pressing his back to me, he moved out of the way as we snuck in.

As we were walking slowly onto the field to escape being obvious, 6 police were running in our direction. Fortunately they were occupied by carrying off a fan who had apparently gotten a bit aggressive. Well we were able to get into the mass crowd and blend in, well as well as two 6 feet, white, gringos can blend into short Nicaraguans. The concert was a good time, I will certainly be making a repeat appearance.

On Tuesday, September 4th 2007 I lived through my first hurricane. It came bursting onto the coast of Nicaragua with a category 5 rating. It took out whole villages and caused gusts of wind up to 180 miles per hour. Due to the trajectory of it we were, as Peace Corps volunteers, told to group together depending on our location. The city in which I live is in fact the meeting point, so I was to stay in a hotel until further notice. It is a bit awkward telling your native friends and neighbors that you are being evacuated due to the danger and good luck to them. I packed belongings with the possibility, if things got really bad, everything left in my house would be ruined. Basically that consisted of my I-Pod, Camera, Lap Top and Passport. I rushed to the hotel, as the skies could not look less threatening.

The first night, all of the volunteers in my area were together and watching, on CNN, the advancement of the swirling red ball. Like every weather report, things were changing moment to moment. At one moment it was heading north of us, the other it was losing strength, next moment it was regaining strength. Still the night sky was clear and star filled. The next day, it had hit Nicaragua directly on the Caribbean coast at a category 5. It was coming directly at us in the north, and still holding strong, but having dropped to a category 4. We were told that it was to hit my location around noon. The skies at around 11 am began getting a bit cloudy and drizzle began to fall. We were hidden away in the safety of our hotel, but outside the children were still going to school and it was a normal day for all the rest of the city. I asked around a bit about past hurricanes and I was told that in our town, surrounded by miles of mountains, there is never any major impact by the winds of a hurricane, but the rain is what to watch out for. It causes flash floods and mudslides.

Come noon the outer reaches of the hurricane, according to the Doppler radar, were touching my city. The rained increased a bit, but still no wind to speak of. This continued all afternoon. At about 6 pm the storm had lost power, but still was advancing strong. It was directly above us at this point. The rain never got any stronger than a torrential drizzle and the winds were a whipping 2-3 miles per hour. The volunteers all huddled in my hotel room, watching DVDs and drinking vodka, sprites and pineapple juice. Were clearly were all terrified. I had experienced rain much harder since I have been here as well as stronger winds. Well that was about it. Nothing much ever materialized and it had moved on to Honduras.

I do not want to take anything away from the hurricane, it certainly did some damage on the coast. I was kind of hoping though for a bit more excitement. I am the type who likes to watch a bull fight in hopes of a god goring, or watching a car race for the accidents. I guess I should consider myself lucky that things were not worse. As of today, two days later, things are back to normal as if nothing ever happened. I did feel somewhat ridiculous to return to my neighborhood and see everyone again. I am sure they were thinking, “are you going to be evacuated for every rainstorm?”

I can now say that I am a hurricane survivor.

I, since I have been here, have considered myself pretty tough. From the beginning I chose to throw caution to the wind and drink the local tap water. My rational, other then me being a bad ass, was that I am going to be living here for a long time and I might as well get used to the fun new organisms here. The water here has different bacteria, as well as an assortment of parasites and amoebas. I figured, who was I kidding by drinking purified bottled water to avoid sicknesses? If I did not get something from drinking water, I would from a salad, brushing my teeth, breathing etc. So I dove in. I drank pretty much any tap water I could get my hands on. I felt like quite a native when I would go to a restaurant, ask for water, and when they brought me a chilled water bottle with a glass and no ice, I would shoe it away and say tap is fine. Sometimes I would even get impressed looked from the servers. I wonder now if that was because even they don’t drink the water in those places.

Up to this point I have been pretty lucky with not getting any sicknesses from the contamination of water, I think that my system is clearly accustom to the water and I have now intestines of steel. I have drunk some pretty questionable glasses of water, but I am still here.

This is all to change however starting today. I was informed, by a local NGO (nongovernmental organization), that the water in my town is contaminated. They have apparently just tested the water here and found unsafe levels of lead and arsenic. For almost a year and a half I have been drinking 2-3 liters of water with lead and arsenic. LEAD AND ARSENIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The effects of lead are: may cause impaired mental function. Other symptoms are appetite loss, abdominal pain, constipation, fatigue, sleeplessness, irritability and headache. Long-term exposure to arsenic in drinking water can cause cancer in the skin, lungs, bladder and kidney. It can also cause other skin changes such as thickening and pigmentation.

So what is going to happen in my community now that this information is known? This is certainly a legitimate question. Unfortunately the answer is nothing. The NGO has decided that they are probably not going to release the results. Why? Yet Another fantastic question. This is due to the fact that nothing will be done by the government if the information is released. The money does not exist to upgrade the filtration process. If the community finds out there will be a panic. Most people can not afford to buy bottled water, so they will be forced to use water that they know is contaminated. In this case, it is assumed that ignorance is bliss. My personal question is do I tell people I am friends with in the community? I know full well that they can not afford bottled water and they will tell people they know, eventually creating the panic that is trying to be avoided. Should I respect the decision of the NGO and whoever wants to keep it suppressed?

Suffice it to say I have, as of now, switched. I will be drinking strictly bottled water from this point on. This is certainly not an easy task. It is kind of like being a vegetarian. I have to inconvenience everyone I come into contact with. When I am at peoples houses and they offer me coffee, fresh fruit juice, etc. I have to turn them down and ask for either a coke or something else bottled.

Basically cut me some slack when I finally come home. Due to these contaminants my brain has slowed down to a crawl. I have forgotten most of your names, or even what you look like.

I would like to apologize for being such an inconsistent blog writer. It has been almost 3 months since my last entry. To be honest I have been struggling to think of a cool story to share. My life these days has been pretty average. I am giving class during the week and hanging out with friends on the weekends. These days I think that I am getting quite used to this life in Nicaragua. Things are not shocking and different to me anymore. I was not suprised to be bombarded by 10 chickens in my house while I was trying to read and relax, nor the fact that some of my Nicaraguan friends spit the floor of my living room. I am slightly nervous that things are not strange to me anymore. I just hope I will be able to assimilate back into civilization when I am finished here.

The main thing that is frustrating me recently is the fact that now for 3 months straight the power company has been cutting power from 7am to 2pm. This is not a huge deal for me, since there is daylight and other than using the internet, I am not tremendously affected. The problem that I have is that it is devistating for businesses. Imagine trying to run a restaurant during the day when you can not refrigerate your products. Also for any company that need to use computers during the work day, they are not able to function. When the power goes out so does the water.

Apparently the main problem lies in the fact that the Nicaraguan government has been using two late 1970's diesel powered power plants. Unfortunantly the cost to run these things is more expensive than what they can collect charging people for the power they produce. There does not seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel either. They say that things "should" change next year, but I imagine that is not the real truth.

Finally the rains have arrived. After going through some of the driest 6 months I have ever experienced, of everything in my house being covered with a layer of dust only seconds after dusting and hot days with sweaty nights. This is now a time of fruits so succulent that juice runs down your chin. All of the mountains transform from a distressing brown to a lavish green. It was the equivalent of winter for foliage. In the past 6 months it rained maybe 3 times. The colors of blooming trees are astonishing and almost counterfeit looking. I have been waiting for this time for quite a while. I have so been looking forward to cloudy days, cooler days and chilly nights. Being a Chicago native I hate myself for wishing it were cold and gloomy, but I have learned to live with myself.

Unfortunately I have found myself in a situation where I just can not win. Since the rains have begun it has rarely stopped raining. Like the first snow it is a magical time. Everything looks beautiful. Also like snow though it becomes quite a nuisance. When it rains here there are two ways in which it likes to present itself. The first is a torrential downpour where water leaks through walls, roofs and floods any possible walking path. Typically it is short lived. Umbrellas are little match for this because it comes down at all angles leaving your top half only slightly saturated while your bottom half resembles stepping out of a pool. The other way is a slow steady rain that lasts all day. This is annoying too in that you never catch a break, when dashing from place to place, without getting soaked, unless it becomes second nature to dress in plastic in the morning.

This is the season for mud. My backyard is basically a mud wrestling pit. I would not have any problem with this if I did not have to walk through this when going from room to room, since that is how my house is designed. I had thought that I was a genius in paying the neighborhood kids to collect rocks and make me a walking path. Well I did not take into account that this path would soon sink into the mud, apparently rocks do not float in mud, who knew? So I am back to square one and track mud into every room in my house. Also while walking I have had to put away my sandals. As I walk around town it is impossible to avoid mud pits. As you walk through this it covers your bare foot and squishes up through your toes. I could normally live with this if I didn’t think about what percent of that mud is horse, cow and dog feces. “Serenity Now”

Bugs! Well since the ants have been displaced by water filled tunnels they have joined my living quarters in mass. I have recently been introduced to an ant the size of a finger. It was moving rocks I might have considered skipping in a lake. There are also flying insects that look like ants with wings that come in swarms at night. They are attracted to the lights so the only way to avoid having a shower of flying ants is to sit in complete darkness. Mosquitoes have gotten much worse and have defeated me by confining my time at home under a mosquito net. “Serenity Now”

Teaching will become more difficult as well. Since most of my students come from other communities by bike, they chose not to make the hour journey through waterfalls. The ones who do come must strain to hear my screaming as the rain pounds against the tin roof. I am looking forward to my trips to rural communities in the back of a pickup truck and showing up looking as if I swam there with my clothes on. “Serenity Now”

I am certain that all yall wonder what it is like to be a volunteer in a third world country. Sitting in your cubicles, filling out meaningless reports that no one will read, must make you wish that you could just let it all go and live in a tropical climate and answer to no one. Well I am here to tell you that it is not all it is cracked up to be. Yes, I do feel quite liberated and I do not wish to be back home dealing with restaurant customers who complain that their food is not hot enough to burn their mouths, that their table is too close to the kitchen and the reservation they did not make is not in the system. I am at most times quite content with the fact that I am not making gobs of money to spend on things that I don’t need. I am living a life influenced by Ernest Hemmingway, Mark Twain, Jack Kerouac and Bill Bryson. That is about the extent of the luxuries that I lead. The third world, as I have seen it is hot, dusty and poor. When looking at a map of the world, why is it that when you trace your finger around the contents between the tropic of Cancer and the tropic of Capricorn you realize that in recent history there has not been an astounding amount of development and growth? I certainly do not have the answers, but I find it to be quite interesting. My work here has been slow, frustrating and at times feels like I am non-existent. The age old question of development comes to mind quite often. Is the mass consumption, capitalistic, independent, financially success measured world of the developed world what we are to strive for in life, or have we missed the clues that a self sustainable, socialistic, community oriented world the direction we should have gone? For so long I looked at this world as something in which we all had something to learn from each other, but I am second guessing this theory. I saw the Latin-American world as one which treasured community, family solidarity and love of living life. I have not entirely lost this vision, but it has certainly been altered. In terms of family solidarity it has been altered the most. Almost daily I am bombarded by people who think that, me being an American, I can hand out visas as a paper man hands out papers. Anyone I have met, if given the opportunity would leave their children, wives, husbands and parents to make a better life in the states. From what I have seen, the US is the still the promise land that our ancestors came to prosper. On the one hand it is disconcerting; on the other hand it makes me feel so lucky to be a citizen of a place that people dream to be a part of. The other day I was part of a business group who had to come up with a business. When it came time to do the financial portion, I was disheartened by the financial rewards my group members expected. They were content to make $30 a week, being paid by piece produced. I am currently being pushed by not only the Mayor, but the American Ambassador to help in opening a sweat shop in my city. In terms of dining luxuries I am certainly at a disadvantage. Convenience is such a luxury, one in which I miss dearly. Most of you are not exempt from the list of people I would kill to choose the type of cuisine I would like for my evening meal. To put together a meal I have to either buy food from a “fritanga” which is street food, or walk about a mile to 6 different places to gather the ingredients to make pasta. Water here is a crap shot. I conceded to the fact that I am here too long to drink only bottled water, so I drink the local tap water. I am not sure if I have a digestive system of steel or if I am super human, but it has only led to intermittent problems which have, to this point, corrected itself. The other day I filled a water bottle and found a small white worm floating in it. The government is to the likes of what we read in history novels in terms of corruption. The past president is under house arrest for corruption, but still influences our current president. Not to mention that our current president is getting instruction from Hugo Chavez. I have to hand it to Daniel Ortega, our current president that the power outages and water shortages are to a minimum as well as he is doing a phenomenal job in building infrastructure here. In the near future the dirt road that I had to travel 1.5 hours to teach will take about 25 minutes once paved, due to him. Personally life is not as eventful as it once was. I have been able to read more books than is humanly possible, but as in the states, the time spent reading is time to kill and I certainly have enough of that. The weekends were once something that I looked forward to in terms of not having work and it usually meant that something was going to happen. Well here a weekend is also a time for no work, but the difference is that there is nothing ever going on. A big weekend is sitting in front of your house watching people walk by and talking to your neighbors. That is of course if I am following Peace Corps rules and staying in my town, which as I am sure most of you agree is not something that I want to do often. Financially I am living in a strange climate. Peace Corps pays $200 a month, $50 goes to my rent, and another $10 goes to my water and electricity bill. This leaves me with $4.50 a day to live on. Considering the fact that people live on $2 a day this is a luxury, but this country is one of extremes. On one hand one can live on $2 a day quite easily and we are, as Peace Corps Volunteers, expected to live like the poor, but the other people live differently. The prices in the capital, or major cities is much more 1st world. A night at a hotel is $50 a night, a night out with dinner and drinks is $30. It leads to a life of tease. Burger King and Subway are available, but only the rich can afford it at $5 a meal. This leads me to how amazing the states are. Things in the states make sense, are organized and are efficient. To think that 50 states, as large as most countries, were able to unite and agree, is quite an accomplishment, one which is much overlooked. Am I happy? That is a question which must be asked either day to day, or at the end of my service. Some days I want to go home more that anything else and others I wish I had a house and farm here to live off of. The whole question of, “what is the point of life” comes into play quite often. I have always been someone, through all the drinks, fun and random conversations, to have a master plan, something happening in the future, something to look forward to, but at this juncture I am really at a loss. I am really not sure where to go from here. It makes sense to continue my search, in whatever it is I am looking for, or to find the country which makes the most sense, but I fear that this is not a reality. Why is it that people feel the need to travel? Are we looking for something? What is it that we are looking for? I think that we are looking to answer questions about the point of it all, but the reality is that the only thing that happens to us is that we have more questions in the end. The world, as I have seen it is certainly not something that is answered in the viewing of it, but much more in retrospect, as we can see what has worked and what has not. Well as a conclusion, I do love the life that I live. I have never been one to choose the easy path; I always have liked a challenge.

Last week I was helping out an NGO I am working with, to take pictures of a school in a rural village. From the start it was not to happen. The bus which was to take me part of the way decided that it was not going to leave on time because it was not full enough. Finally, when we did leave, 1 hour later, it had changed its status from a ¨routa¨ meaning it leaves the highway to enter several villages, to an ¨expresso¨ meaning it did not leave the highway. After being over charged for a cab ride to my first destination point, I had made it. Well this was only my first destination point. From here I had to hitch hike into the mountains. This turned out to be a very lucky hitch hike. In talking to the other hitch hikers I learned that if I want to go to the community I am trying for; I have to be let off at a random part of the road and hike in. Well I was let off and told to walk about 4 hours down a dirt road and I will be there. I am not sure about you, but when someone gives me a time like 4 hours, or 1 for that matter, when it comes to a walk, it seems quite subjective. By another stroke of luck I ran into a group of kids who were about to make the same hike to the same community, we were even met along the way by the drunk uncle who made the walk with us, or in his case stumble.

It was a beautiful walk, parts were along rivers and the views that were offered were stunning. The issue I had was that we seemed to always be going up. I thought at times that my heart was going to beat out of my chest, clearly I need more exercise. I was grudgingly entertained by the drunken uncle who had 5 questions which he asked over and over for the entire walk. I do have the satisfaction of knowing I do not have the capability to murder, otherwise I would have pushed him off the mountain. I was put to shame a bit by the children who were from 10 to 14 years old who were carrying bags of mangoes among other things and did not seem tire, ever! Well after 3.5 hours of hiking we finally made it to the village.

My job was to take pictures of the school with all the students in front of it, so when I mentioned this to the people of the town, they informed me that there was not school the following day, a Friday. F@%$ING PERFECT! I tried my best to get the word out that there was a photo shoot the next morning and I need all the kids in their uniforms. That night’s sleep was insufficient to say the least. With the worry of this all being for naught, my body aching from the hike, dehydrated, sleeping on a wooden board covered in rice bags and hearing odd sounding critters buzzing around my head, insomniacs sleep better. Well the morning was a success. I had every kid in the village at the school, in uniform and perky. I felt a badly because after about a half hour of taking pictures I was finished. I think they were expecting a show, at least more than my pathetic magic tricks, which are my go to entertainment.

My mission accomplished, it was time to head back. One of the community kids was to be my guide and we had a bike this time to cruise down the declines. Unfortunately there were a lot more inclines then declines. Hauling a bike up hill makes you not want to be very good friends with it. We did get a chance to use the bike, but it was the most terrifying experience I have had in a long time. Due to this thing called gravity, even with me riding the breaks as hard as I could, we continued to gain speed. That was the first time I have gotten up 40 MPH on a bike, on a rocky road, with sizable drop-offs on the sides of the road. Lucky for me, the weight of both of us and me riding the brakes, put too much stress on the front tire and it flattened. We were able to ditch the bike at a friend’s house and we set off on foot. Mind you I am sore, under slept and dehydrated. The mid day sun was intense. My guide had no water and I had a liter water bottle to share between us. I wrapped a towel around my head (seriously, I was not looking to win a fashion award) to keep from getting burned and cool off my head. A lot of the way was down hill, but there were some major uphill parts as well.

The last part of the trip was a bit scary. My guide pointed to the top of a mountain and said that is where the main road is. I am at this point out of water, my mouth feels sticky and I am starting to get dizzy. I kept thinking to myself, what if I can’t make it? On the way up I had to stop several times and rest in the shade. My guide had my backpack and I was just trying to put one leg in front of the other. My legs were getting wobbly and burning. I did finally make it to the top. I had never been so happy to see a road before. I caught a bus back into civilization.

As for my guide, he just turned around and headed back. I did give him my water bottle that we were able to fill at house and I bought him 2 cokes and 4 bags of chips, the only things they were selling at the house. He is super human in my book. I did accomplish what I set out to do and I learned to bring more water in the future.

I have not been all over Latin America, nor have I been to many third world countries, so I am not certain if these things are limited to Nicaragua or not, but these are things that stick out in my mind as quite different than the US.

1) Instead of throwing their garbage in a garbage can they throw it on the ground. When there is a sufficient amount they sweep it into a pile and burn it.

2) Spitting is something that they do inside or outside. I have seen old women in a rocking chair hock and spit on her dirt floor. In bars here men will regularly spit on the tile floor, this goes for restaurants too.

3) The main form of transportation here is pick-up truck. The object of the game seems to be how many people they can fit into the thing.

4) Hitch Hiking is an approved form of getting around this country. It has offered me some of the most beautiful rides, but slightly frightening at times when passing on a one lane highway around curves.

5) Bicycles are also a main form of local transportation. It is not uncommon to see an entire family of 4 people on a bike. Man peddling, woman holding a baby sitting side saddle on the cross bar and child on the rear wheel pegs.

6) Cockfighting is a Sunday, after church diversion.

7) Music here is a range of crappy 80’s music from the states or reggeton, which begins playing promptly at 4am, quite loudly.

8) Nicaraguan food mainly consists of beans, rice or anything fried.

9) Power and electricity is about as consistent as George Bush’s honesty.

10) Dogs here do not share the same privileges as they do in the states. They are rarely aloud to sleep indoors and have to fend for themselves among other territorial dogs lending to a lot of fighting. They are also not to be trusted to be friendly, it is not uncommon to have to pick up a rock and pretend to throw it at them to get them to stop charging.

11) Nicaraguans have an interesting culture of paying for dinner or bar tabs. If you ask them if they want to go out to dinner of for a drink you have to make it very clear that they have to pay for themselves and whoever else they decide to bring, otherwise you are stuck paying the tab.

12) They have a fascination with fireworks, but only the huge bottle rockets they call “bombas” which they blow off at any religious service, during prayer, after prayer, every 30 seconds when there is a street parade or pretty much any time they feel like it.

13) When walking down the street it is rude to ignore people, so the greeting is “adios” meaning “good bye”. To be honest I might implement this in the states, it is a great way to end a potential unwanted conversation.

14) When an attractive woman is walking down the street men will hiss at them to let them know they are attractive “tsss tsss”, this is also done by Nicaraguan women who want to get the attention of a gringo guy.

15) The idea of distance is unimportant here, anywhere from 10 feet to 10 kilometers is termed as “aqui no mas” which means “here, no more”.

16) Peoples names here are quite difficult to learn since they have 4 names, two first and two last and they say them all when introductions are given. If I ask them what they want to be called they look at me like, “I just told you”. Add on to this nick names and I am thoroughly confused.

17) Men with large bellies like to pull their shirt above their pouch and go about their day. It is difficult for me to have a serious conversation with someone’s huge belly in my face.

18) Women here tend to be, let’s say well fed, they are certainly not self conscious about it since they wear shirts that only little children should wear leaving their curves to hang out.

19) In the more rural areas it is not uncommon to see a naked child running around.

20) The septic systems here apparently can not handle toilet paper, so every bathroom has a waste basket to put the paper. Enough said!

21) Political correctness here is not a word. They use very direct words to describe people. A light skinned person, or gringo is called a “chele” meaning “whitey”. A dark skinned person is called “negro” meaning “blackey”. An Asian person is called a “chena” or “Chinese” this really upsets most Asian people who are not from china. A larger person is called “gordo” or “fatty”. A person who is not attractive is called “feo” or “ugly”. As a twist of cultures, it is an insult to call someone “skinny”.

22) Dental Hygiene here is a problem. Many people have missing teeth and most have shoddy medal work done to keep their teeth from falling out.

23) There are two religions here, Christian or Evangelical. If you try to explain you are anything else they will never get it.

24) They are big on body language here. To point, they pucker their lips in the direction of what they are pointing at. If they don’t understand you they squint at you.

25) The idea of time here is unimportant. If you set a meeting for a specific time, it is expected that no one will show up until about 45 minutes after.

26) Women are also not shy about breast feeding in public. I have had several conversations with women, on a bus, in a line, during dinner making sure their child is well fed. When it gets a little odd is when the child is almost 2.

I am clearly not following my Compliment sandwich rule, but I can’t be perfect in every way.

So I have begun my school year and am currently teaching business classes to high school students. The curriculum that I am teaching is basic business concepts, but goes into how to create a business plan and by the end of the school year groups of students will have formed small businesses which we will then compete against the other school in which Peace Corps is teaching the same theme. Our purpose is to give opportunity to the students because they, for the most part, will not be attending college after high school. It is not an easy task to teach! In the states I feel like it is not easy either, but here they do not have any of the basic discipline that we have in our high schools, like raising your hand, not answering your cell phone during class, not getting up and walking around the class room to talk to your friends, being in class on time, etc. The culture here is one of very little critical, creative or personal thinking mainly due to the fact that it is a community mentality and not an individualistic mentality. What this means is that homework, in class work and tests are done by only a few and then the rest copy. Unlike cheating in the states, they do not understand that it is wrong. Parents also condone this by doing the homework for the kids and also don't realize how this is a bad thing. They figure that if someone in the community can do the work then they don't have to worry about knowing how to do it as well. This mentality has held this country back, as I am certain many other third world countries, because they never come up with anything new on their own. Getting them to think creatively or to take an existing product and making it better is about as difficult as getting an American High School student to design a rocket engine. On top of this lack of creativity classes are cancelled at least once a week for either teacher meetings, holidays and other various Saint days of which they seem to have weekly. Another challenge is that materials for the students is non existent. They might have a notebook and pen, but the school does not give books or any other critical material. Most Nicaraguans are notoriously bad spellers omitting silent letters or interchanging B's and V's which have the same sound. Some common mistakes are "ondura" for Honduras, "cotarica" for Costa Rica or public road signs that say "No Votar Basura" which when translated is Don't Vote Garbage instead of "No Botar Basura" which is Don't Throw Garbage. Being a teacher makes me feel bad for all the teachers whom I was the class clown in their classes, which were most. It is such a hard thing to keep the attention of kids and when there is one who makes a joke and distrupts the class my job becomes more difficult and also wastes time. I feel like I should go back and apologize to all my past teachers. I do find teaching rewarding though, when I see the light come on in their eyes it makes it all worthwhile. Also I do not mind that everyone in my community refers to me as "Profay" which is Professor, so I expect the same treatment when I come back to the states.