Here are a few photos from when my sister Kari visited recently in March. So she gets the credit for the good photography. We went to Granada, the island of Ometepe, and San Juan del Sur. It was super hot and went fast. I´m on a little trip right now to Matagalpa (coffee growing area) and hoping to tour a organic chocolate factory tomorrow (and buy a ton of course:) ) . Its about to start the rainy season here and all the farmers are going to start planting again. Everything here is going well, and I´m looking forward to my trip home in June.

Cathedral in Granada

San Juan del Sur

Monkey Island on Ometepe

Concepcion Volcano on Ometepe

Church in Granada

Peluche and me outside my house

A crazy spiny plant

View from my town- of a little house there

Here are various photos (in reverse chronological order- I´m not sure why) of my parents´ visit here and Christmas and New Years celebrations

at midnight we doused him with a little gas and lit him up Saying goodbye to 2008 The gang of kids at the New Years party Making our Año Viejo...a stuffed dummy that is filled with dry grass and fireworks

Killing the poor snowman Another piñata we made for a New Years celebration A Purisima celebration, which are very common in all of December

A piñata we made for this girls graduation party

A trip to find elusive strawberries

Taking freshly baked rosquillas out of the oven

Photos from my parents trip here in early December

Relaxing with our wonderful tour guide at the Laguna de Apoyo

Family photo

The celebration of the Griteria (conception of Mary)

Our fresh caught lunch...Guapote, rice and plantains

The islands off Granada, one has friendly monkeys

Orchids, Mombacho

Butterfly house, Mombacho

A stop at a Coffee finca...the different roasts

View of Granada from Volcano Mombacho

A parrot at our hotel in Granada eating his breakfast

Playing endless games of memory

My mom and dad

Me and my host family

My mom reading to Nurian and Mauda

The coffee is ready for harvesting Dec., Jan.

My beautiful tortillas

The chickens and Peluche eating corn

Stong women....carrying the water for the day on their heads

Getting water from the well

IPiglet eating one of his last meals

Mauda climbed a tree to bring me some flowers that smell kind of like lilacs to put in my house

View from a little plot on the side of the mountain

sugarcane

Cut sugarcane or caña, ready to be eaten. You suck and chew on the fibers to release the sweet juice and then spit them out.

Sugarcane, which it a common treat for kids here around Christmas time

Green papayas, I´m looking forward to ripe ones, though

These are called bananos cuadrado (square?), which are best eaten green and fried

The beginnings of a bunch of bananas

Another group of baby bananas, they are about the size of my finger

I´m loving having a camera again, I must say. This past Sunday I went up the nearby mountain with some kids to look for papaya that´s coming into season. They were still really green, but we brought one back to make a candy they call Piñonato. There´s quite a few families in my community that live at the base of the mountain but have small plots with various crops like coffee, beans, and different fruits further up. They loaded me down with a bunch a free food to take home: squash, green bananas, sugarcane, jocote. Generosity is a very common trait here, one I´m trying to become better at. Many times I´m what they call pinche, which basicly means cheap/ stingy. That´s all for now, I´m just trying to be better at posting pictures when I have the time. Adios.I

Resting beside a little mountain streamPeluche and me on a hike in JuneCute little furry donkeyNaptime in my house, all animals are welcome, pigs, dogs, chickens, ducks, cats, etc.

My pig, his name is Piglet, its very amusing how they pronouce it here, unfortunately he´s not this cute anymore, and he´s going to grace someone´s dinner table for ChristmasYes, I agree this is weird, but I was in Managua for a doctor visit and on an early morning walk I ran a across a circus that was visiting town and wanted to take a picture of the animals outside to show to the kids in my community, but was invited in by the workers to take some better closer shots- here´s a tiger staring me downThe friendly Mexican animal trainer 

The main cathedral at nightMosaics in Leon

The final days of my camera, before its untimely drowning in Sept., were spent in Leon which is a beautiful old city with many cathedrals and is close to the beach. I just spent 2 days there, but it was very relaxing. I´m hoping to have to have some new pictures to add as a very nice person has sent me another one. The people here have definately missed my taking pictures for them. They´re always asking when I´m going to have it again. Alright thats it- oh here are some other random older pictures too. This posting pictures takes forever!

Okay, beans are one of the most important crops here so I wanted to show the process of growing them from planting to plate, so we start with plowing the field with oxen (on the hills they plant by hand)They get together with family, friends, paid workers, etc. to plant by hand ( you can see Peluche helping on the left)Freshly planted fieldVibrantly green new plants

Okay we´re skipping a bit here, but this is the harvesting, you yank up the plant, let it dry a bit and then wack the pods so the beans come outI lasted about 5 minutes

Then you bathe your children in the beans, just kidding, but someone was bored here and thought it might be funThen you eat your beans with tortilla and maybe cheese, for just about every meal. Bon Apetit!This is the pitahaya plant a.k.a dragon fruit, its a wandering cactus, and these white flowers eventually turn into the fruit you see in the following 2 pictures, we made a jam from it, but its really good raw

This is the fruit- marañon a.k.a cashew, the little part hanging off the fruit is where the nut is, they also use the fruit to make juice or eat rawCracking open the shells

the final product- roasted cashews

Hello! It´s been a while since I´ve written anything on this, for various reasons- one because I´m lazy, two because I´ve had camera problems and I didn´t want to write without pictures- thats boring:) So finally I found a solution to my first camera problem, but the day after I did that I dropped my camera, telephone, MP3 player and electronic dictionary in the ocean- and nothing works so their won´t be anymore new pictures for a little while- these are all from before the incident. I´ll write little descriptions by the photos, but otherwise everything is going pretty good, I can´t believe its been a year already, but I am enjoying it and already getting a little sad thinking about leaving. So I hope you all find the photos interesting- if anyone reads this that is:) Adios.

Some pictures of the cute puppies we had at our house

Grapefruit tree

Tree nursery (Vivero) of coffee plants which will eventually be transplanted

Peluche, reluctantly receiving his weekly flea bath (after which, every time, he bolts and rolls around in the dirt!)

A water reseviour (pila) that some people have to help with watering crops, only if there is a water source nearby, which isn´t common

I can´t believe its Easter already. Time is going by pretty fast. They celebrate Semana Santa (Holy Week) quite differently here. A lot of people go to the beaches/rivers/ lakes to swim: I just went swimming in the Rio Coco yesterday with some people from my town. They also eat fish on Thursday/ Friday, and I´m not sure what else we´ll do, but I´ll find out soon. Otherwise, things have still been a little slow on the work front. But just this last week our training group of about 20 got back together to discuss our first three months of service and it seems like alot of others are in the same situation. I can finally feel my Spanish getting better, its a whole lot easier to converse and I´m starting to understand all the songs of the radio finally! We just started a project with a few women starting little gardens in their yards, but its the dry season so they have to haul the water from nearby wells, which is not fun. Also a school garden is in the works. Walking everywhere has become normal for me and there are alot of hills here, so I´m getting in pretty good shape. Also the sun is brutal, especially midday, so my arms and face getting pretty tan. I can´t really think of much of anything else interesting at the moment, but I hope to be better at updating this more regularly in the future. Everyone have a Happy Easter! (I actually saw marshmallow peeps in a store here, but resisted buying them- I thought a couple years break from them might be good for me:) )

Just a pretty rose in my first host family´s yard

Some men making adobe (straw, dirt, manure and water?) to build a house

Me on a recent hike up our nearby mountain

A nearby farm where they grow zucchini for exportation, but they also sell it in the market here. I´ve been eating it all the time, and they love zucchini bread that I´ve been making.

An old cathedral in Ocotal

Peluche being tortured by some neighborhood kids

Some kids in my weekly English class, I think the only reason they come is because I make them snack and we play hangman

A visit to a place where they grow tomatoes

Mauda´s impression of me when I get annoyed with the kids playing in my room Since I don´t get to see my neices (and nephew, finally), I have to hang out with the Nicaraguan babies and kids:)

Ena and Ruth, part of the family that I live near

Hello,

Its been a while, it seems like there´s always so much to do when I´m in town and never get to use the computer. I´m settling in my new home- I now have a concrete floor, and I bought a little stove top thing so I can start cooking for myself. I´m really excited about that, after finding a big bug in my beans a few weeks ago. Otherwise I´m not really doing too much- December is a relaxed month here, not much work getting done, but I´m meeting people, working on my Spanish and reading alot. I´m going to finally post some more photos, and I´ll write some more some other time. Hope everyone and their families has a wonderful Christmas and happy New Years :o) Oh and I have a new address if anyone´s interested its:

Christa RosinPeace CorpsA.P. #3Somoto, Nicaragua

Adios!

Me with some coffee berries, out drying

The whole Agriculture volunteer group at the Swearing-In Ceremony in Managua

Our group from my training town, Santa Cruz

This is Mauda, the 4-year-old in my host family, she keeps life interesting

And finally, my (kind-of) dog, Peluche, who I´m renting for the two years, he´s pretty cute and I´ve started giving him baths with flea and tick shampoo

Soo...I finally found out where I will be living for the next 2 years....its a very small community about 4 miles south of the city of Somoto in the region of Madriz. Its about 2 hours from the coast maybe and 25 minutes from the border from Honduras. I just got back from a 5 day visit there. Its definately more rustic than where I´ve been living, I´ve been too spoiled. I do have my own little one room house, which is cute, but it has a dirt floor and its not really sealed so any spider, scorpion, etc. who wants to enter, may.

Also I have to be careful about leaving my door open cause chickens like to come snoop in my stuff and poop on my floor...that definately has to stop. The people wash clothes in the little creek that is near my house- as will I, I guess. There is a makeshift shower area outside the house and you have to dip water out of a metal barrel with a plastic bowl, but it has a fantastic view.

The people there are like, over-the-top, friendly which makes up for what it might lack in amenaties. They took me around to meet people in the community and showed me their fields. Also, some community members took me around Somoto to show me where all the necesities are- bank, post office, supermarket, etc. They seem pretty excited to have me there and have good ideas of what they want me to do, so that makes me feel a little better about all this. So now I´m back in my training town for another week and then we say good-bye and go to Managua for swearing-in, a conference, and a Thanksgiving party before going to my site for good.

Hey everyone,

I just thought I´d post a few pictures while I have some free internet time. Us trainees in the northern part of the country were evacuated to Managua because we´ve been having some crazy rain here for the past week, and more is coming. There has been some landslides and roads collapsing, etc- but its not really dangerous, just a precaution really. Anyways I´m in a nice hotel in Managua with cable TV and nice rooms. Yesterday we got descriptions of our potential sites, its pretty confusing, but by next week I´ll know where I´ll be living for 2 years- I´m a little nervous but also excited. So I´ll just try to post some more pictures now.

The first 2 pictures are a family member coloring in my room, my room, a statue in Managua,

An Independance Day activity at the local school, planting our garden with our youth group, a soccer game, etc. Sorry I´m horrible at posting pictures! And maybe more but I´m running out of time

Hi everyone:)

I just started this blog to make it a little easier on me, keeping in touch with everyone and as an easy way of sending pictures of what I´m doing here. (Actually I´m not too sure right now what I´m doing here but thats a separate issue!:) I just left last month to work as an agriculture/rural development volunteer for 27 months. 1 down- 26 to go: just kidding. I´m in the midst of 3 months of language and tech. training while living with a host family near Esteli, Nicaragua- in the North Central region of the country. It´s beautiful here and the weather is pretty moderate. It rains almost everyday in the afternoon, but the dry season is coming in a month or 2 and then it hardly rains at all. I´m a little sad about missing Fall though, since its my favorite season:( My host family is great...very nice people, decent food- I have a 10 yr old host brother who constantly wants to play soccer (somewhat of an obsession here) and wants to practice his English with me- its pretty fun. And I have a 17yr old host sister who is very sweet too. I´m learning alot about local agriculture and nature- I´ve gotten to milk a cow and vaccinate a chicken- fun stuff. You think I would´ve milked a cow before being from Wisconsin -right? Nope, I have to go to Nicaragua to do it. Its been a little bit harder than I anticipated, adjusting to everything being to different and new- but that´s part of why I did this. I´m looking forward to learning from the people here- they are very intelligent and creative and have been through some difficult times- but to do that I need to be able to understand them!- which is difficult sometimes with the accent, local phrases, and my horrible Spanish, but I´m getting better everyday. So...I´m going to try to post a few pictures and I´ll try to update this periodically. Oh here is my address if anyone wants to write, I´d love to hear from you, right now its:

Christa Rosin, PCT

Voluntario de Cuerpo de Paz

Apartado Postal 3256

Managua, Nicaragua

Central America

It takes a couple of weeks for mail here too. This will be my address until Nov. 10th-ish, then I´ll be moving to my permanent site for the 2 years and I´ll have my new address and I´ll let you all know. I really do have access to most things I need here- (except for Grey´s Anatomy and Law & Order:) and they can´t be mailed)- and I know its expensive to send things- so I´m not expecting any packages, so don´t feel pressured:) All I really need are prayers- and those are free:) Hope everyone is doing well. Adios!