As you can see by our little gage to the right of your screen, our peace corps service is now 100 percent complete. The last week of our service was pure parties and getting the house ready to go. This party was a particular favorite because it began with a pinata modeled after kory complete with tie, hat and sandles (professional sandles of course). Everyone was quite honored to take a wack at him. The rest of the party consisted of speaches made in our honor and long silences when no one wanted to say anything. We found out later that many didnt want to speak because they thought they would cry. (I swear I'm not making that up.)

This was the third going away party we had from the members of our church. We were very touched, but made sure there were no uncomfortable speaches this day, instead we made everyone sing the national anthem twice and dance and play games. We had a presentation with Dr. Lia and Panchita, the team of our big charla project, that hopefully they will finish. Even our boss Pilar, George the director of Peace Corps Nicaragua and his wife came. (Ps, those are the baners in the background). A final good bye dinner at the casa materna followed by more speaches.

The ringing of the bell in the Peace Corps office is the official end of service ceremony. It means you have finished with honor (i guess) and that you are on your way home with no more work to do. I love this picture of Kory! He is so cute! He was very excited to finish all the way to the day we were supposed too.And even though we left our home in Nicaragua, we arrive in a home much more engrained in our souls. And in this new home lives all our families whom we adore. We were greated at the airport with tons of people and love and have enjoyed every second of being with the people we love. Don't think its all fun and games though, its hard. Though a fluke we found ourselves in the super Walmart in Evenston Wyoming, standing in front of the deoderant, mesmerized by the shear selection of brands and scents and the lovely packaging on every single one. We had difficulty making the decision. Then we were at a birthday party for my cute little niece, wherin she had a pony and a pinata.. and just feast your eyes on how calmly the children are picking up the candy. We were used to a sight much more similar to a chunk of meat thrown into a pirana pond. Everything here is so luxurious and clean and orderly. Even the outsides are clean. Even the dirt I think is pretty clean. You buy it in sacks here at the store. Its weird. Being jobless for the first time in our lives is unnerving but we are trying to enjoy all the company we have since we are living with Heather's sister. Heather will be pursuing a career in community based social work.. whatever that means (she doesn't even know what kind of a job that will land her) but she has big dreams and is not sure the common social work job is going to cut it. Kory also has big dreams, the first of which include buying a new computer to work on. He will be designing a computer program which he has never done. We are people who need that creative slack that Peace Corps fostered so well in our jobs there. We want nothing more than to keep doing Peace Corps, but here at home. Hopefully we will find our niche in this big strange world full of stuff and order. We are thinking this will be the last blog entry as real life just isnt as interesting. We thank all of you who followed our blog and kept up with what we did. We created it for all who wanted to share in our adventures. The next adventure is parenthood and beyond! Wish us luck!!Adios y que Dios les bendiga!

We spent the weekend with our host families for the last time. Going back to Carazo is craziness. The difference in ones personality from when you first arrive in country, unable to speak, stunned at the way things are here, and returning after everything is completely normal, is difficult to explain. This time, instead of them showing us the ropes, and teaching us how to wash clothes and eat fruits, we were showing them how to build ovens and better their buisinesses. It was really rewarding to see our personal growth juxtaposed against itself and to remember the kindness of people who have looked after us.

Victoria

Me in the pulpuria

Panchita- Mom

Me, grandma, mom, and cousin pedro

Marvin, Kory's mom and dad, Claudia and Javier

Kory and Javier making popcorn.

After 5 years, vegetarian gets... hungry. It was decided that he should eat tantalizing tidbits of meat when desired, but not in excess. So those of you who have been saddened by Kory's vegetarianness, will be pleased to know that he will welcome any fine cutlets, but only of the finest. Example, Matt is authorized to share a steak that only he has cooked. Anyone is authorized to buy a pepporoni pizza for him or chicken strips. Meats that will not be accepted include fish, boney kinds, skinny kinds, guts, snakes and slugs.

PS, no the wife is not saddened by this new turn of events, but she reports feeling happy that her sweetie is content with eating style.

How, you ask can poo be a miracle? Well, you take a cow and a bag of plastic and you get food. Simple.. missed one step.. gas. This is another awsome project that peace corps volunteers are doing here in Nicaragua. We (being health volunteers) havn't had the pleasure of being trained in biodigesters, but we decided to go and observe one so that when we get back to the states, we can impliment this low tech miracle when we build our straw-bale home.

Look, its like this. You have a cow, or maybe you don't. You can find cow poo in the streets, or you can use other kinds of poo, including human. You mix the poo with 1 part water, well blended. Then you put it in a bag, where the gas is collected and goes through a pipe that lands at your gas stove. This gas is oderless and can provide about 6 hours of cooking a day based on the size of the bag.

This day, we went to a very small and dry community in Leon, where there were plenty of cows, dirt, rocks and jicaro trees. They already had the hole dug, so the volunteer showed up with her bags, and pipes and we put it together. I wont bore you with the details, but its a pretty nice biodigester and we were pretty excited at the concept. now we just have to figure out how to insulate it against the Utah winters.

Poo in hole.

Poo out hole.

Nice lady makes you fresco de cacao.. my favorite. Dont worry, Im going to make some for everyone who comes to our party. I dont think I will be ablet toast the cacao like she is in utah. But i will do my best to make it authentic.

This is a project that a few volunteers are doing. Did you know that you can crochet or knit using plastic bags that you get from the grocerty store? It is a fantastic way to help kids here make money and help the environment. I thought that we were plastic bag over users in the states but it is much worse here. If you tell the vender that you dont want a bag, he or she stops, looks at you in this sober and confused way and without questioning, they nervously slip your item into a bag and give it to you. Its funny. Anyway, this is my second bag, I taught the youth group at my church how to do it and they struggled a little, because they didnt know how to crochet. But it was fun.

Anyway, I think many of our friends may be interested in this. The plastic bags, once they are cut are called Plarn and I have included a youtube video on how to cut them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4gJSR4RtDw

There is lots of info on the web about how to use the plarn to make all kinds of fun things. Im working on a rainbow bag now. I tried making a sun hat, and it didnt really work out that great. You have to learn to crochet, but this takes about 1 hour. Seriously. Also I have found youtube to be very useful in learning crochet techniques so I can follow patterns. TRY IT OUT! Maybe when we come home we can do a little peace corps activity and learn how to do it!

The great chocolate adventure continues. For those who don’t know what the great chocolate adventure is, let me catch you up. A little while ago—translated from “hace un rato,” which in Nica Standard Time is ten years, two years, yesterday or ten minutes ago depending entirely on the context, which may not exist (in this case two years ago)—I decided to dispel a long held, albeit erroneous, belief of mine concerning the making of chocolate. I believed that the mysteries and apparent difficulty surrounding chocolate production were nothing more than carefully contrived lies intended to keep chocolate expensive and maintain the general ignorance of the bovine public (a theory which, despite my recent discoveries, still holds true in some respects, none of which said respects involve cattle). This quest—I say “quest” because the journey from I-don’t-have-chocolate-ness to I-made-chocolate-ness consumed much of the scant economic resources I had and nearly all of my considerable mental concentration—lead me to Guillermo, the chocolate man. Guillermo, the self-professed poet, scholar, doctor (without title)…(and practicing), chocolate maker and jokes teller, entered my life as a novelty. He managed to further confound my notion that making chocolate should be easy, gratifying, and memorable. Don Guillermo Castillo told me some great jokes that I didn’t get and all about the secret world of chocolate making, with such specific phrasing as “it’s quite difficult,” “very complicated,” “super delicate,” “you have to test and classify each bean,” or “guaro killed my father so now I’m going to finish it all,” (though I think that last one may have been the punch line to a joke about a man who was asked to explain why he answered “vengeance” when asked why he drank so much, but could have been about chocolate too). He spent hours telling me nothing about chocolate. Everything was cooked, cooled, stirred or fermented for “un rato” (in this context, probably ten minutes or a day). He did bring out a plate of chocolate to bathe (this is frosting, to bathe a cake he meant) and spoons. It tasted like smoke. Anyway, to sum up Guillermo, after a year and a half of waiting for the right belt to come in he finally repaired his chocolate machine (from which he intended to extract the fruits of a secret recipe for chocolate butter, …for toast) following which he disappeared from the face of the earth. I can only hope that he is in a better, chocolaty-er place. Not heaven though. I don’t expect to find chocolate there any more than money or pornography. I found Guillermo by shopping around for a hand mill. For those of you who live in the modern age of electrical appliances, or anywhere in the developed world, post 1950, a hand mill is a medieval torture device, about which it was discovered at some point in the past that, as a byproduct, things could be ground smaller. Here I must mention that my wife told me to take the cacao to the town mill instead, rather than purchase a hand mill for several hundred córdobas, as a test. Although I say “town mill,” this may be a bit of a misnomer. It makes it sound exclusive, like there is only one. To better understand the frequency of mills in any given neighborhood of, say, 400 humble citizens, a paltry seventy percent of whom make tortillas to sell daily, I recommend going to Wikipedia.com and searching “Starbucks,” then cross-referencing the search with a random word like, I don’t know, “Manhattan.” I was ashamed to take my cacao to the mill. I honestly don’t know why. It may have something to do with the fact that it was not corn, but could have been due to a number of other contributing factors as well (such as having receive the “bad face” for standing in front of a long line of hard-working women with several pounds of wet corn on their heads waiting for me and my hummus). The mistake of not listening to her suggestion this time would cost me dearly in the two years that followed. I should have listened. What can I say but sometimes they know. This isn’t to suggest that women know everything and should be followed blindly. To say so would be folly, and a damned lie. It is actually against my very religion (The First? Church of Women Don’t Know Everything But I Wish That They Did So I Would Know Who to Ask Stuff in La Dalia). That last part of the name of the church is what is known as an ambiguously placed modifier. Is the church in La Dalia? Or is that where you ask stuff? The membership has decided that this would be the first question for women …if they were to know everything. Incidentally, the chocolate making experiment failed because it turns out that it is a very long, complicated process. At least to get commercial quality, smooth chocolate it is. Also, cleaning out chocolate liquor (or the chocolate paste which comes from grinding toasted cacao beans) from a hand mill is what I would liken unto cleaning petroleum jelly from a bucket of space Legos, which I can only imagine is similar to washing cold butter from a janitors key ring, which, having not had the experience, I suspect would remind me of cleaning cocoa butter out of a hand mill in Nicaragua. Processing chocolate in a hand mill is a lot of work, and it sometimes comes out kind of purple and tastes like grass. If it is not properly toasted, the resulting chocolate is extremely foul to the taste. Not just bitter, like cooking cocoa (which can’t kill you), but much worse (because you would swear that it could). Eventually I settled for making hot cocoa pellets, or ground up cacao and sugar hand pressed into a cake to be dissolved in a cup of hot water. Recently, my wife made a batch of hot cocoa pellets that turned out better than mine (which I had abandoned about a year ago following the third consecutive batch of purple grass-tasting muck). She had followed her own advice and taken the cacao beans to the town mill (not the one that lets the pig from the street clean up the rinsing corn-water, but the clean one whose owner often lets me pay her in peanut butter). When the batch of good hot chocolate ran out, it came time for me to try the mill (the owner of which I now owe chocolate). The results were impressive. So much so that I couldn’t bear to use the cacao for hot chocolate, but instead began creating all sorts of chocolate flavors from chili, to rosemary, to cloves, to cardamom and anise. (Fortunately I stopped just short of goat hair ginger bites. …Have you tried them? Then who are you to judge me?) From here, who knows? I made a box of assorted chocolates for my wife to tell her that she was right (this time) and let me say that life is not like a box of chocolates because unless you are as stupid does, you generally know what you’re going to get, or you can at least find someone who does. (Hint: the dark chocolate nut clusters are the really bumpy dark ones). However, life is a little like a box of homemade chocolates for a Valentines Day present: kinda pretty, a little bitter, and you might get some love for the effort. The purpose of this story is not to tell you how to make chocolate (or love). That would be pointless because it is just too hard and complicated and you would never figure it out (though you can buy some from me if you want…chocolate). No. The point is that if your wife says take it to the mill—I don’t care what it is, in the name of all things soft and sweet and spicy, in the name of all things that melt in your mouth, in the name of all things that carry endorphins and help your heart when you get old, in the name of regrets about wasting two years of your life sipping hot cocoa water instead of enjoying the indescribable gratification of dissolving a bar of semi-sweet, chili-laden chocolate made from the beans with your own two hands—just take it to the mill.

Before and After pics that you WON´T BELIEVE!

Well, it has been an absolutley CRAZY couple of weeks trying to get the project done and ready for a party, but the Casa Materna project that you all donated to is officially finished. So officially that we had the ribbon cutting ceremony that was hilariously Nicaraguan... will explain. First though, I want to say how beautiful it is there in the Casa Materna. Looking at these before and after pics, I realized that I have already forgotten how absolutley ugly it was there before. Its hard for us North American´s to believe that they would have lived with it that way for so long, but for them it was perfectly normal. I would say they just didn´t know what they were missing.Wednesday we baked in our oven for the first time and baked ALL day! I was frustrated at first because all the midwives had to come from their communities and they NEVER arrive on time.. and of course they were quite late, but they DID eventually come and when they did we had a riotously good time baking up a storm. We baked for 7 hours in our little oven which worked like a charm! I am in love with it and wish I had had one when I first got to site. We baked breads that had fruits and vegetables to help teach them methods for improving nutrition. Don´t laugh at me because when I tell you what breads we baked.. you will question their nutritional value, but trust me, anything you can do to help increase variety in the diet here especialy with fruits and veg, is an improvement. We made double batches of banana bread, carrot cake, pumpkin bread and just for fun, cinnomon rolls. They LOVED THEM!!!! I had purchased cakes as refreshement for the party and we ended up not even touching them because had baked so much.

So on to the ¨inaguración¨as they call it here, as I said it was VERY nicaraguan and I cannot go into all the details here on the blog or it would take forever. I wrote a short story in a book Im writing called ¨The Birth of Eva¨ and it was like 4 pages long. Lets just suffice it to say that we started 2 hours late, and after we had started the guy from mayors office decided we should sing the national anthem and should do a ribbon cutting, oohh, also that our speakers were not big enough. He said we had to send someone up to the radio station to get the disc with the song. We waited around another 2o minutes or so in which time, a kid brought bigger speakers (we already had big ones) and then later the guy from the radio station came and had the song only on his memory, so we ended up singing it without music after waiting for 20 mins. Ahh these are the things I will not miss. But if you can stay calm, they are decidedly amusing.This is a cute little girl that came to dance for us. It looks pretty exciting in this picture but the dance was just her stepping back and forth back and forth for the whole song. It was cute anyway and I will say that she and her family were the only ones that arrived on time. Here´s the last minute ribbon cutting ceremony, I was honored to do the honors.Kory and Doña Alicia serving up the gaseosa.

Well, here is the donor list I painted on the wall there. All those who donated are on it and will be there forever. Thanks again for your help in making this dream come true for them and for me. I could not have done it without you guys.

Before we start with pictures and fun, I would like to share that we have our plane tickets and we will be returning home on Friday the 26th of March at 830 pm! So get your party ready cause we want to see you ALLL!!!!

In other news, I will be paying the final payment to the contractor to finish the PARTNERSHIP project in 1 hour! He finished 1 week early and did a really great job! I am sooo incredibley pleased! One of the midwives said, ¨It feels like we are in a different country!¨ (That is a nice compliment considering that nothing is ¨pretty¨here.) I made a 7 hour trip yesterday to tell the lady at the nursery that we wanted plants. There is no cell phone reception up on the mountain and so I had to go and tell her in person. It was a trying day. I will have to make the trip again on the 2nd so I can pick up the $13 dollars in plants that was included in the project. (yikes) She asked me why I dont buy more so I could make the trip worth it, which miffed me. But what can you do. We are planning the inaguration of the project for the 4th of february and on the 3 we will spend all day baking breads to share at the party. I hope all works out nicely and that they are impressed by the breads enough to want to bake them and sell them. Thanks to all who donated. I will be sending or bringing home gifts for you from the women here. I just have to think of something cool to do. I will post more pics when we get more plants!

In other news at church our womens group had an activity where we learned to cut hair. I was worried that noone would come, and then the 1 sister I asked to come from Matagalpa and teach us, brought 4 other girls and we had a blast. Hardley anyone dared to try it out, but two of the young women here went right home and proceeded to give their sister a major haircut that was pretty bad. hehehe.

Also I taught the women in the casa materna to crochet the other day and when I came back on monday they had made a WHOLE bunch of little things! I was pretty excited!

ps, I got bit by a dog last week and forgot to mention it. It was all due to the maldito gato. Its probabley better that I did get bitten or my peacecorps service wouldnt be complete. Now I feel like I can come home. It wasnt too bad anyway.

Well, I (Heather) turned 31 on saturday and it was pretty ordinary, but its good to be alive! Kory and I have started a ritual where you have to earn your birthday or you dont get to add another year of maturity to your life. So on your birthday you must justify it. I won´t bore the general public with details, but just suffice it say, that I indeed DID turn 31 and am proud to be 1 year more mature.In other news, we now have our 3rd orange kitten, who after many days of failed namings and deliberation was given the name Sidecar. Yes sidecar.. like a sidecar on a scooter. Its the best we could muster Im afraid. We dont have any idea what to do with him before we come home, but he has the best spots ever and a really cute face with green eyes, so that is winning him some possible ¨bring home¨points. We have to look into the process first but we will see.

As for the projects, I am happy to announce that both of our big projects and our radio show are going well. We have transfered management of the radio show to a local organization called Rainbow and are now just sort of watching to make sure it continues. We had a meeting with the team of charlas listas yesterday in Jinotega and you can see that the Nicas get pooped out a bit after lunch. Panchita on her cell, and ohh, Kory appears pooped out too. It was a difficult meeting but we left confident that we could leave on the date we had proposed, so we will almost officially be planning on coming home on the 26th of March! So get ready...

My project at the Casa Materna here in my site is going swimmingly as my sister would say. Here are some pictures for your enjoyment!

Well, we have begun the project at the Casa Materna La Dalia that some of you contributed too. I had the ¨pleasure¨and duty of buying 3 8¨ tubes of PVC piping for our underground gutter. The guy at the hardware store here in La Dalia said, ¨sure, I will have it before you get back from vacation.¨ Then when I came back, he said no, but that he would call again. I waited another few days and passed and he nonshalantly tells me that they didnt have any. So the next day I go to Matagalpa to find the pipes, determined to bring them home before the weekend so that on monday we could use them. I spent the ENTIRE day, working through miscommunications and lies trying to get these pipes. People here say things that they absolutley dont mean or check on. So when I would call a place, they would say, ¨yes we have them.¨ Then after walking for half an hour to arrive at their place, they would go and check and, ¨oh, we dont have any, they are 6 inches.¨ This happened numerous times. I almost didnt make it home that night, but by a miracle and a last minute phone call, I got the pipes ordered and promised for saturday arrival. Well, they OBVIOUSLY wouldnt arrive on saturday, because that would be way too reliable. Then, I was promised monday before noon and ended up waiting until 530 pm and I went home. He called me then and said they would arrive at 830pm and I said fine but I wont be there. I had to leave for managua at 4am the next day so it was in Korys hands. Well, they did arrive and Kory tells me they are already in the ground, so now I wont even get to see them!

It´s a humbling experience to have to fight so hard for every little thing. It shows how difficult it is to get things done when you are poor. On the way home from Matagalpa that day, I was feeling bad, especially because my bus didnt stop for me, but stopped only at the top of the hill and made me run to the top, but I got on. I was standing watching a couple seated with their three kids. When the money collector came by, they didnt say anything when he asked for money (which is the nica way of communicating that they didnt have any money.) He charged a few other people then held out his had and the couple again didnt do or say anything. He finished with the back of the bus and then came back. The man spoke in a very quiet and humble voice that I couldnt really hear but he never made eye contact with the money guy. Finally the money guy just gave him their tickets. I was instantly put into perspective. I had spent the whole day trying to find pipes so I could spend 2700 cordobas when this family did not even have the 22 cordobas for a bus trip. I was reminded that I am here to experience life as they do and that I was ok and I even learned from the experience. I will not take for granted all the available things at home depot or having a car to get there and the ability to pay for things. Anyway. So thats an update. I will soon be puting pictures up so you can see the progress!

Just so you know, if all goes well, which we still dont know if it will, we will be coming home in 11 weeks! Right now the date is the 26 of march, but that could VERY well change as our charlas listas project is NOT progressing. Well. pray that it will.

Well, we left the 26th of december to embark on our last vacation before the end of our service.. and probably the last vacation for a few years. Dont worry, we were NOT big spenders, we spent less than $20 a day on food and all fun items. Our hotels costed between $15-25 for the both of us except the last night we splurged on a place with a mirror, it was a nice place for $50. Ok, now that my financial justification is complete, I want to say that it was a great adventure. When we first found out we were going to nicaragua, I put a picture of Big Corn Island up on the blog to represent Nicaragua. (Feel free to flip back.. its kind of cute.) But we finally got clearance from the embassy to be able to go there. Its two little islands in the Carribean, that are serviced by La Costena air. A tiny airline. Here are our boarding passes. And here is our tiny little one-prop plane. We unexpectadly got the best seats.. of all the 12. We sat right behind the pilot so we could see everything. I thought about my sister the whole time, knowing how much she would have enjoyed it.

Here is the first sight of the island from the captains windsheild as we decended. We later sat on that dock (the little one on the left, watching the planes land. See below.)

At first it was hard to find a clean beach.. being Nicaragua and all. We walked around the entire island the first night. The next day we found this pristine beach where we layed on the dock all day.

We had always wanted to get scuba certified, and we had heard that it was really cheep there, but we didn't have it in our plans until a guy at our hostal said he just finished and that it was pretty easy. So we decided to give it a go. We did a discovery course, wherein if you liked it, you could go on for the next two days and finish the course. The first time I went down, I couldnt equalize the pressure in my ears and it hurt like the devil. I ended up not being able to decend all the way. I was frustrated and almost quit. But kory had the time of his life in those 45 minutes while he waited for me to decend with the instructor, so he convinced me to try again. I figured out eventually that I was doing it wrong. The next day when we went out, I went right down, 10 meters with no problems. It was great! The first thing we saw when we got down there was a giant brain coral.

Here is kory watching the video and studying for the test.

This is us with two other peoples in our class and our instructor Julian. A hilarious french guy who made everything lots of fun. Once when we were down, we started kung foo fighting, but it was like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon style because we were flying through the "air". I think Kory is going to be seriously addicted. I liked it too, but got pretty nauseous on the boat. Im super glad we did it though. It made this trip salvaje!

Next we took a boat out to little corn island, 45 minutes of terrifying and drenching adventure. I really thought we were going to be turned over in the waves. We cought air several times and I was dripping wet. On the way home it stared to rain and we held a black plastic cover over us to keep "dry". It was quite crazy. anyway, here is a sandy christmas tree we made to bring in the new year. I know I look terrible, but I was without a mirror for the whole week and in and out of the ocean was unbecoming of me.

That night, on an island so small that there were no motorized vehicles, only wheelbarrows, we became part of a huge party with people from all over the world. Kory was quite social and built a huge bonfire with a guy from South Africa. We tightrope walked and ate a coconut and even danced!

The next day we set to building sand sculptures. This is a very nice sea monster out of a bamboo root. Kory also started making these sand balls and placing them all over. We spent a good few hours doing this. It was very relaxing.

This is our little bamboo hut hotel on the beach of Little Corn.

We found lots of sea treasures and lugged them all home. Here is a nice sea sponge. Below is a pile of conch shells. They were like garbage littering both islands. We brought one of those home too. I dont know if it will make it back to the states, but I hope so.

We slept A LOT during this vacation. MMMMMMM...

The last night when we came back to Big Corn, we stayed in a nicer hotel owned by some Italian people. They were very nice. They told us how the great great great grandson of captain morgan (a notorios pirate, in case you didn't know, who frequented these islands) was the owner of the big house we had seen. They said he was very piraty, which means he probably deals, not in gold, but gold "dust" if you will. They said that there are lots of drug busts, but the dealers just dump the cocaine into the sea (because it is cheap in Cuba). It is usually well packed and floats so when the sea is very choppy and its windy, people often find big packs of drugs. That is why lots of people on the island have nice houses. They find drugs! anyway, it was a good bit of story to go along with the island.

(This is not a pictuer of the great great great grandson of captain Morgan). Well, we are eager to get back to work on our projects and feel sufficiently refreshed enough to do so. So keep updated about the progress, especially those who donated.

Well, as you can see, we had a wonderful Christmas. I think the concensus is that it was much better than last year. We decided to do a Christmas Eve activity with our church, so Kory and I put together some ideas and this is what we came up with. We started off by gathering all kinds of stuff around the house that we won't want to take home. Little stuff. We wrapped it up with newspaper and painted a sacko red, attached a letter from Santa Clause in glitter with golden ribbon (sounds like no big whoop to us, but these are kids and adults who never never had a present given to them like this, especially from santa clause.) We spent the morning of Christmas eve making a sort of wasail that didnt use any apples because there are none here. We used pinapple, oranges and limes. Kory made a star that lit up with an old flashlight led piece, and some wings for an angel. Then we decorated the church with a manger. I (heather) had written a small play for the kids and we gathered all kinds of towels, pillow cases and old sheets, then we dressed them up. The poor little guys got really hot waiting for all their late parents to show up to the play. They did a great job, and Korys puppet narrated the whole evening. It was very cool. Then at the end, we sang here comes santa clause in english and we heard a "ho ho ho, feliz navidad" outside, and when we looked out, there was a big red sack full of gifts. But santa had written a very cool thing. he said we couldn't ask for the presents, we had to pick a present, unwrap it, and gift it to someone in the group that would want or need it. We got to go around several times, but by the end, nobody could help saying, "mememe! give it to me!", so we stopped the game. figures. But that doesnt mean we didnt have a great night. I don't think anybody liked wassail. They had never had hot drinks that were not coffee, and it was also, a really hot evening and because it had pineapple, which EVERYBODY knows, you should never eat after mid-day. So .. We still have quite a bit to drink. Kory loved it. But it was sooooo fun for us to prepare surprizes, which to me is the funnest part of christmas. So we went to bed with dreams of sugar plums dancing in our heads and we woke up and low, sant had visited us too!Kory got a new hoodie and some SUPER cool jeans, mountain dew and doritos. Heather got a cute new jacket and a darling little necklace with a hand carved turtle in it. Kory also made me a little wooden turtle out of bamboo. Its on a stick and the legs move. Its very cute.

Now the thing that really made Christmas, the best, was the food. We decided to have lots of yummy food to graze on all day. We made homemade soynog, which was WAY better than the real eggnog I made last year.

Now lets see, we had vegetarian chicken salad sandwhiches, coconut burfi with chocolate, a VEGETALBE TRAY WITH RANCH dip!, chips and salsa with real mozzerella cheese, and homemade yogurt cheese with peppers and spices. It was AWESOME. The only problem was eating it all in one day, being that we were leaving for the Corn Islands the very next day. But we were very very blessed this christmas to feel the true spirit. So we hope you all had a MERRY CHRISTMAS too!

I must say that this past week, we have seen more progress in our works then we have in the last 2 years put together. First, the Charlas Listas project was printed in its full form and we had a meeting to evaluate them with all the big peops. We invited several midwives and casa materna workers and we tried it out on them. We did a test to see how they react with them as tools without any instruction. We also invited one who did not read, to see if she could interpret the pictures and use the tool. She didnt do so hot, but I think she has memory problems, so probably not a good test. Now we have divided them up amoungst several casas maternas and we are evaluating how they are used and if it is easy or hard, or confusing and if the content is well written and executed etc. We have recieved good feedback for the most part. It has been thrilling to see a whole years worth of work, that thus far we have only seen on a computer screen, printed in the size it is intended to be and to see them used. We pray there wont be too many changes and that they will get funded and we can see them put in the casas maternas AND participate in the training before we leave. That is the clencher.

In other news, we built the oven in the casa materna. We had an agriculture volunteer come and help us build and we invited people to help and learn as well. It was mostly successful and despite the rain, we finished.

Then thanks to a private doner friend, we were able to build a roof over it, something we hadn`t planned for. We also began the clean up for the flagstone project that you all helped fund. The first step, which is part of the required 25% community contribution, was that we had to clean up the area, take out all the rocks and garbage, and level the big piles of dirt the last project left there. We enlisted the help of the members of our church, and sadly, not very many of the husbands came.. only mine and the missionaries, but the women worked their tales off, carrying rocks and buckets on their heads. It was a cool day. Also, for those who missed the donation and would still like to donate, email me and let me know. There are always things that go wrong in nicaragua and-or things I forgot to add in. If that happens we will have to find the funding fast and it would be good to have a list of people ready to help. Ok. Well thats all for now. We will post after the holidays and begin the work. The money for the project has been sent here to Nicaragua and I am waiting for them to deposit it in my account! Yipeeeeee!!!

I wanted to let you all know immediately that we have now met our goal for the project! I am in tears writing this right now because I think you all just broke some sort of record and raised the money in 4 days! This means that in a weak or so I will hopefully get the money and we can begin after Christmas. This is soooooo exciting. I just want to say how lovely it is to have things get done. I have been calling and pestering the mayors office for a good two months now to get the sand for the project and still don´t have it. (They promised me today, ... again.)

I want to say a special thanks to my sister T and my family for being so supportive and putting fire under lots of peoples seats. Here we say ¨pilas puestas¨ or batteries put. Thats them. Keep checking the blog for updates on the project. Today we build the oven, which WAS part of the project, but the PCPP committee made me take it off. I realized ALL the materials were donated anyway and so we have pressed on. It has been more than extremely difficult to get all the ingredients we need to build this more efficient oven, especially when working with only very old women. But hopefully tomorrow, I will be able to say that the Casa Materna now has an oven, and we will begin training on how to make bread with fruits, vegies and green leaves.

Thanks again. I love you all. God bless you during this season!

Let me introduce you to a big project I am working on to fix the Casa Materna where I work. I need the financial support of all of you back home to make this project happen, so I would like to tell you a little bit about the project and how it works. This is my casa materna, where approximately 450 rural women come during their last month of pregnancy each year. The Casa Materna was constructed to help encourage women to give birth in the health center instead of at home on their dirt floor. There was an extremely high maternal mortality rate here, but the casas maternas have reduced that significantly. The CM provides a safe place where the women can have supervision of midwives, free healthy food and daily checks from the doctors. They stay until they are in labor and then they go to the health center. It is also a refuge for women who have been raped or abused or are fleeing family violence. The service here is absolutly free and we often find that the small amount of fund that we recieve to keep this place running don´t come.

This is the main area.Another view of the main area, this is the first view the women get when they arrive. This is the only entrance to the CM, which is often flooded with water and mud. The women who are 9 months pregnant and the elderly midwives who work there step on those small stones when it´s full of water.Here is the back area, where we did our beautiful mural, but you can see that its not an enjoyable or even remotley attractive place. We would like to put a garden here with benches to sit on. This is an example of all the trash that gets left around or has accrued. This is pretty much how the CM has been for the last 15 years or so. It is dangerous to walk on and the midwives report that there are currently 2-3 slips, trips or falls each week!! I myself have tripped several times. There has never been funds to fix this problem, but the first thing midwives asked me when I arrived was for a garden. When I became aware of a way to get funds through the Peace Corps Partnership Project, we decided to do it.

We decided that we would like to cover all the area that is dirt with a stone and cement flooring that is leveled to correctly divert water out of the CM. We would leave deliberate garden spaces where the workers can plant ornamental plants to make the CM a more inviting place, and hopefully encourage women to use it instead of giving birth in their home which could be hours and hours from a doctor. We would replace all the bad dirt in these gardens with new dirt. In the back space, in front of the mural, we would like to leave rows where vegetables can be planted. It would have a drip irrigation system so it does not dry out in the summer. These are some examples of what we are shooting for.

They way the project works is that has to put forth 25% of the total project costs and they have done this! We busted our trousers and raised more than the required 25%, and this from an extremly poor community! Then after hours and hours of grant writing, and presentation before the board here in Nicaragua, the project is sent to Washington DC where it is then approved and given a website. I provide the names and contacts of all my friends back home and you help to donate the other 75%. These projects cannot exceed $5000, and indeed, we are only asking $1652 U.S..

This is where you come in, we need you all to help donate what you can to make this happen. The problem is that I can only start the project when the total has been reached. If this does not happen fast, we will not be able to finish this project before we go home in 3.5 months and it will have to be aborted! That means all our hard work and the donations that the community has already made will be in vain.

If you are thinking of doing something nice for someone else this holiday season, this would be a perfect gift. Please donate what you can, I know for some that will be small, but the sweet girls of Matagalpa and the kind midwives who have looked after me these past two years, would be very much thankful to recieve this gift that they have wanted for so long.

Please help us out by going to the official PCPP website and making a tax-deductable donation BEFORE CHRISTMAS!

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=524-075

If you get lost on there, go to Nicaragua, and look for my name (Heather McKinnon) or you can type in the project number which is 524-075.

It will be A LOT FASTER if you make payment by credit card or electronic payment. Checks are slow and if we have already met our goal by the time your check makes it to Washington, it will go to another project.

Thanks for being part of our service. You have no idea how much all of you support us, by keeping up on our blog, sending us chocolate and taking care of things for us while we are away. This is the part that we absolutley cannot do without YOU. We will keep you posted on this blog of the project success, IF we get the funds on time and can start the project. If you have questions please email me or call me.

Merry Christmas!

Heather McKinnon

butterfliigirl@gmail.com

505-855-7308

PS, if you didnt see the last blog entry, its pretty good...

We have been gone for two weeks and had many different adventures. The first thing we did was participate in the All Volunteers Conference, wherein all 170 or so Peace Corps volunteers in Nicaragua get together to learn and share ideas. I was asked to do a session on healthy cooking techniques with some other volunteers.We taught how to cook vegetarian tacos and homemade whole-wheat tortillas, hummus, babaganoush, yogurt, sandwiches, coconut pancakes, squash soup and bean burgers. It was awesome! We also promoted my new cookbook ¨Cocinar Simple¨ that right now, mostly has only my recipes and a few of Kory´s, but will soon become a cooperative collection of recipes from all volunteers who want to contribute. It will grow and be an awesome collection of what you CAN cookin Nicaragua.

We also had the opportunity to learn what other volunteers are doing in their sites. We attended sessions on bio-digesters (which are giant poo bags that make an oderless methane gas which you can use to hook to your stove and cook with for up to 6 hours a day). We plan on making one for our house when we get home (someday when we are actually homeowners). Another awesome session we attended was how to use trash to make things.We learned how to use plastic grocery type bags to crochet purses, wallets, bags, belts, you name it. Now we just have to learn some fancy crochet moves (we are a bit rusty). We also had the chance to learn about options for working in international development, which for Heather was quite good, Kory… not so useful. We had an awesome talent show the last night by the pool, where most people got drunk, but there were some really good numbers. Kory read some of his poetry that he has written about Nicaragua (and will hopefully be published when we get home). He also did a very sweet thing and read one of my recipes as a poem to showcase my cookbook. It was very darling. We ended on a Thanksgiving message from the new Peace Corps Director Aaron Williams and another speech about Food Security (which was the theme for the conference) by PC Nicaragua Country Director George. Overall it was really fun to get to know lots of other volunteers. The next day happened to be Thanksgiving day and we had arranged to eat at the home of a family who works at the Embassy. We had dinner with a Mormon family with 4 kids. We felt right at home with them. They let us call home, lent us a bed to sleep in for the night and prepared a nice dinner for us vegetarians. It is really amazing that they would open their home to total strangers. Mr. Black was just getting into watercolor, and it just so happens that Kory is a professional in this, so we had a watercolor class with him and his 3 girls.

It was very fun. We watched movies, played “Set”, a card game favorite of Kory’s and we stayed overnight there. It was really interesting to see how a family can live in different countries. For us it was really nice to experience a different socio-economic level in Managua for a day.After that we headed up to Madriz to hang out with other volunteers. We really enjoyed being with other people as we are most often alone and isolated. Near Somoto is a famous canyon that really resembled Utah. A fat slot canyon I would say. It was beautiful. We, and 12 other volunteers, piled in the back of a moving truck with 17 other foreigners that our friends know there and drove to the canyon.From there we hiked about 2 ½ hours over rocks and through water. The last 2 hours we got in the water and floated down. When Matt said we were going to “float” the canyon, I, being from Utah, imagined a large raft with paddles and life jackets and rapids, but this was NOT the case here in Nicaragua. We put on life jackets or tubes and got in the water and swam/floated slowly downstream. It was super fun, but it got a bit cold near the end and it took several hours before I could feel my fingers again.

This is a picture of most of the people who are left in our group (Health 46) that arrived here in Nicaragua with us. That night was the huge Somoto Carnival festival where they have lots of bands in the street and dancing contests. Almost everyone went but us. We were too tired and didn’t want to spend the 120 córdobas (6 dollars!!!!) to get in and dance for an hour, so we watched episodes of “The Office”. We then decided to go to the Miraflor reserve, which is a jungle/organic farm protected area in a cloud forest.We had the amazing opportunity to sleep in a TREEHOUSE!!! The tree house was in a very old strangler tree (it’s a parasite tree that surrounds other trees and kills them, the original tree dies, leaving a hollow cavity inside). Here are some pictures. The only problem was that the toilet was quite far away, which along with the fact that we were drinking homegrown, fresh chamomile tea, makes for a rather humorous story. The tree was off by itself and in the night, the clouds came in and rested over the jungle making it difficult to go pee in the latrine some distance away. So going pee in the night was going to be difficult. I found this awesome spot that was sort of a hole in the tree with a tiny little seat that would allow me to pee all the way to the ground, a PERFECT midnight potty, right outside the door. Not knowing that chamomile could act as a diuretic, I didn’t know why I had to keep peeing, but one time I got up in the night and decided to try the hole. My candle was not light enough to show anything and then it blew out, so I just pulled down my pants and sat down on the “seat”. I went and then when I stood up, my but cheeks felt quite stingy. I thought it was just from sitting on a tree branch. I pulled up my pants and then realized that I had fire ants on my bum! I went inside were there was a candle and we tried for a long time to get all of them off. OUCH! They hurt. I had ants in my pants for another good hour and the welts to prove it! You wouldn’t think that a place in the middle of nowhere with no electricity, could have such delicious food, but the woman who ran the farm was an AMAZING cook. We ate fresh, organic vegetables prepared in the most delicious ways that I have eaten in Nicaragua. It was like being in Europe. NO ONE stared at us, which you don’t realize is a luxury until you haven’t been stared at for a good two years straight. Anyway we highly recommend Reserva Miraflor. For the last bit of adventure we headed back to the office to have our final oral Spanish exams, which will tell us at what level we speak. It was stressful but we are now glad we have it over with. (no results yet). The next day our group (health 46) was whisked away to a beachside resort on the Pacific coast for our Close of Service conference. We learned about all the paperwork we have to do, the rigorous medical exams including pooing in a cup once a day for three days, decisions about flights, resumes, how to find a job, apply for graduate schools, etc. It appears that it is just as hard to get out of Peace Corps as it is to get in. The good thing was that we were treated like kings. I had not been less than stuffed with food for the entire two weeks, and this was not helping. We swam in the pool after the first day and then we sang karaoke until 1am. When we went back to our luxurious beach-front bungalow, I had a feeling I should go out on the patio. I was sitting out there a few minutes when I saw a guy in the Turtle hatchery, which until then had not had any movement. I went over and saw that there were baby turtles in there and he invited us to go and release them. What LUCK! We have wanted to do this for many many years and have had no luck. The only bad thing is that our camera battery died and we couldn’t take pictures, but it was a full moon and the turtles were so little and darling. Again with luck, the next morning we woke with dreams of baby turtles and found they were releasing more, so we went crazy with the pictures.That about sums up our awesome trip, except that we also asked special permission from the Embassy to go to the Corn Islands for Christmas and we were approved!... But we may not have enough money to go. We will see, because we also have a ton of work to do in these last 3 ½ months.

PLEASE DONATE TO MY PROJECT ON

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=524-075BEFORE CHRISTMAS!!!!

Well what do you do on halloween, your favorite holiday, when everybody in the village thinks its a satanic holiday, and they are also spreading rumors that Mormons drink blood and worship satan? Well. you make a delightful scary breakfast for your wife, you take advantage of your english classes need to learn about culture in the united states and you throw a very quiet party. So kory told his english class to dress up and they arranged all kinds of treats and games. We watched some black and white movies and bobbed for mandarin oranges. It was a great time. But the anarchy came the night before. When having recieved countless plastic fangs and spider rings from our family, we decided that it would never do to pass them out, thanks to the above named reasons, so we thought it would be rather father christmasish to walk around the night before and sprinkle them all over in the streets. Then on all hallows eve, all the children would be helping us celebrate, when they woke and found such strange objects. Surely they would figure out what they were! So that is what we did. A humble but respectable halloween.

Also, the response to the service entry and related blog has been very disappointing.

These are the kittens I saved. Their owner, told me the mother had abandoned them. I told her that we could save them and that I would be over. I went over the next day, and we taught them how to drink milk from a plastic bag TRUE NICA STYLE! It was darling. Their mother came back a few days later. So the family decided to give me one.. I couldnt say no of course. They told me I was their second mother because they had them thrown away in a box int he back yard, awaiting death when I came over with milk. Not to sound like a superhero or anything, I mean, dang, their just kitties. But they are flippin' cute! I dont have my kitty yet, they are too small. Its sure to break my heart again. Im positive of it.

The Development Question

Since being here in Nicaragua, I have often considered the illusive and ever-evolving idea of sustainable development. I have entertained several theories, some simple, some complex, which originally lead me to the idea that that answer lied in the development of critical thinking and problem solving skills. I now believe it to be much simpler than that. Here is basically how I broke it down: Brigada development is "give a man a fish" development. He eats for a day, but may have starved otherwise. It is necessary, but not sustainable. The second form of development is that which is employed by the majority of organizations working in third world development: "teach a man to fish." Sure, he eats for a lifetime, but then you are left to teach another man to fish. That, therefore, is not sustainable either. The Peace Corps approach is more like "teach a man to teach a man to fish." This way, the village eats for generations and you go home. Is it sustainable? It is if the village likes fish. That is to say, it is a great idea, fishing, but they don´t own it. Everybody knows that the boy who has a paper rout and saves up to buy his own bike will take better care of it than the boy who recieves a bike as a gift. This lead me to the fourth approach to sustainable develpment, or at least to fishing. It is this: "teach a man to think and he'll find a way to eat." Although we know that "fish" isn´t literally "fish," I used the word "eat" here to leave it more ambiguous. This theory is a little bit more complex. Basically it is the idea that if given the means to occur naturally, the idea of development will become liquid and fill the shape of the container it is given. This is the most sustainable means of development out of the four mentioned, as it makes no assumptions about the size or the shape of the container. However, it gets really ugly really quickly when one considers the enormous task of developing critical thinking and problem solving skills over generations. How do you teach a people to think?

Enter the fifth theory. It is so much simpler than all of this. It´s not new. Not by far. Nor does it require generations and generations of work and long complex explanations. This is not some obscure Jared Diamond social theory. Here is how it works: "Teach a man to fish for others." Service. Simple as that. How does this relate to development? To answer that, one has to first chose one of the dozens of definitions available for the word. That is, we have to ask ourselves, "what is the end-goal?" "Toward what are we developing?" By by-passing all of the complicated problems with "development" work infringing on cultural identities, or imposing Western ideals on under developed cultures, the answer can be as simple as a fulfilling life, personal liberty, and happiness. If this is developement, then the answer can be as simple as SERVICE.

My friends, the Golden Rule is flawed. The Golden Rule asks that you do unto others only after first asking about yourself. It requires that you first ask "How do I want to be done unto?" Forget that. I say, "Do unto others as they need done unto, and for once don´t ask 'what's in it for me?'"

It comes down to this: This life, for whatever reason you assign to it, or whatever religion you use to justify it, is hard. I don´t care if you´re Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hare Krishna, Pagan, Athiest or anything else. This life is just hard. If there is anything you can do to make it just a little bit easier for anybody, then damnit, do it! Do it now. Do it quietly. Do it well, with all of your best talents and resources. Do it selflessly. And learn to graciously accept the service of others.

I have started a new blog for the purpose of making anonymous comments about services rendered, recieved or even witnessed. The idea is that it is hard to set an example by doing things anonymously, yet the examples are so important to inspire others. Please comment on this blog and do so anonymously to preserve the spirit. The blog is fishingforothers.blogspot.com

I hope all is well with all of you.

-Kory

Well, enough about us. Let's talk about, ... well it's just us. Us, us and more us. For this, I make no appologies. The fact is, if you didn't care about us as much as you like to pretend you don't, you wouldn't be reading this. I know, I know. The title of the blog may be a little bit exagerated, since not all of our adventures are amazing, but you are, in fact, reading it. I also make no appologies for this since you, the reader, will likely have had a hot shower either sometime before reading this or will have one shortly after. By shortly I mean within five months of course.

I made an airbrush yesterday. You can't put me in a third world country, take away all my toys and tell me not to play. I built this little bruiser out of an old ink jar, a radio antanae, a bit of bamboo and a piece of tubing from a broken iron. What you can't see in the photo is that the other end of the tube is connected to my mouth, making my lungs the air compressor. The advantage of this is that I can control the air pressure with my mind instead of buttons and levers. The disadvantage is that my air compressor is encased in a broken rib (the tragic result of playing soccer in a muddy field against fast little kids who have eaten, breathed and slept soccer for their lifetimes, in a pair of plastic-soled street-purchased sandals). Every breath is agony. I am now working on some various tips to refine the spray. I am making them from tapered metal writing pen heads.

Rótulos Milton

Here is a story for you. A friend of ours, María (name changed to protect the people who have never used the internet or a computer and will never see this anyway), sells tacos. Actually, she makes tacos and her sons sell them. Lately the taco market has dropped through the dirt floor and they can barely eat. Her eighteen-year-old son is a bit of an eighteen-year-old. By this I mean that work is for other people who don't have important social lives. He was a member of our Art Club we started when we first arrived here. He has also been participating in a drawing class I have been giving and an English class. The kid has talent. He just needed some direction. Well, I helped him to start his own business. I helped him with the capital and I am overseeing the financial part and guiding him on the creative and p.r. parts. The business is that of making signs. Sounds simple enough, but this is a resource strapped country and sign making generally consists of the person in the house who knows how to write misspelling two or three words on a piece of paper with a pen, which is then glued to the front of the house. The thing is, there are so many home businesses that are unmarked because of this system. We started with a sign for his mother, which was free, to have a sample to show when looking for clients. She repairs clothes, in addition to making tacos. We decided to advertise for her.

We made the sign using used clothes (some of them may even be yours!) because it is cheaper than buying fabric. We can buy used clothing for ten to twenty-five cents U.S.$ per article. "María" now has over 2,000 córdobas of work to do (about $100, also known as enough to live on for a month or two).

With photos of this sign we moved on to other clients. More used clothes.

We have a Mill sign to make this week and a background to paint for a local photo joint. Milton is learning how to balance the expenses and the income and calculate his profit, fifty percent of which automatically goes to his mother as rent, food, etc. I am really proud of him and his work. After a couple more jobs I will step aside and let him run things.

One night while working, he brought a picture of his head and a catalog for clothes that he had cut up. he said that the body on the picture had been damaged and that he just needed a new body to save the photo. This was the only body in the catalog that was the right proportion to his head size. His intention was to have me photograph it and he would have it printed at the photo store to replace the old (skinny) one. Notice the giant sports bra behind him! He wishes! Hilarious. Enjoy this taste of Nicaragua!

Well our friends Matt and Brooke came and went in a torrent of great fun.When they got here we brought them immediately to our site and we made it just in time for them to be the final exam for korys english class. We made beans and rice and homemade lemonade. Kory did show and tell with all his awsome inventions but in fast forward, knowing we were going to leave again early in the morning. Some of the boys from our church came over to pick out a tie that they brought (thanks to all who donated by the way). Anyway, they came officially to film our training that we did for youth. We (9 volunteers from our region) were given money to do a training for 4 kids each from our communities.Please note the awsome mural kory made in the background, that later served as a backdrop for the photobooth.We spent 2 days in Estelí talking about all kinds of things related to aids. Thanks to some awsome and creative volunteers (also known as Matt and Jess) we stayed up ALLLL night the first night (I want to note that I had to get up and leave on a bus at 5 am and then I stayed awake until 3 am. Suckk!) but it was actually really cool. We called it a lock in because they all had to stay and participate. We had a mini casino in which we showed them the odds of aquiring an STD if they didnt take protective measures, we did a condom water toss, a mural, olympics, a fashion show, a photo booth... TONS! it was exausting and well executed. Matt and Brooke filmed the whole thing and did interviews with lots of people and hopefully will be able to edit us a nice few films.

After all the work was done we brought our kids back to our site, leaving just enough time to allow M & B the pleaser of chopping down a banana tree with ripe bananas, and the next day got on yet another bus to Leon. Leon is a pretty Tuanis (cool) city here in Nicaragua and we walked around for the night. It is also one of the hottest places on earth.. or so it feels. I think the matt and brooke almost died. Us desert dwellers, we cant live well in the humidity. Kory went on a shopping spree of used clothes and the next day we were off to the ocean. Brooke said.. ¨now this is vacation¨ and boy was she right. We had worked our tails off and spent about 18 hours on buses during the week. So we sprung for a couple of $20 bungalows that on high tide were about 20 feet from the water and relaxed. We were going to go and do turtle patrol all night, we even bought flashlights, but then it started to rain and we couldnt do it. All in all it was a great vacation. For more info on the matter you should check out matt and brookes blog and matt and jess´s blog. (see right hand column.)

I just want to add a special thanks to all the people who helped donate stuff to send for us. We have been having a ball with it. Eating gummy eyeballs, chocolate, and other delicious unmentionables. With the spices mom sent I whipped up a VERY convincing and delicious vegetarian sausage for my cookbook and some banana bread as well. The ties and clothes have been extremly valuable and the books as well. THANKS SO MUCH! It should be known that no peace corps volunteer is complete without the support of friends and family. Knowing that I sound like a complete idiot... you are the wind beneath our wings. hehe. Thanks agian. We love you all!PS, this is the traditional nica photo we took in front of two backdrops, please note the dirty door. LOVE IT! (sorry I couldnt turn it on this program... but it adds the nicaraguanness of it.)

Well, we have found the Casa Materna to be in a financial pinch lately, suffering because the economic depression has trickled down to the NGOs and other funders here in the small town. It is also in between harvests. We just had the corn harvest and the coffee harvest.. the big daddy is about a month away. So there is little money to be spent on pulling out that old rotton moler that has been bothering you for so long, or buy some things at the store. (Which are by the way two of the things the casa materna has done to help make money.) Anyway, Kory and I decided to paint this mural to help call attention to services that they offer. While kory was painting on the finishing touches, I heard the sweat screaming sounds of a 3 year old having his rotton, sick, black teeth being pulled out. Ahh the sounds of progress.

Well after a super hard week with a sucky neighbor making lots of trouble for us here in our site, I was gifted with a house full of loving friends, who had come to help make donuts (or dona as they call them here) for a wedding. While we cooked, Kory entertained all the kids with tricks. It was 3 hours of fun and fat, we made 84 little donas and dipped them in chocolate. I felt very blessed this day to see that I still had friends and that they were willing to give service for someone else (the couple getting married). It was fulfilling in a deep way.

This past week we did a training that focused on helping people recognize their career goals, figure out what kind of job they wanted, how to find that job, that job, then how to interview for that job. It was one of the most important and pivatol things we have done here for more reasons than one. We are really proud of all the people who hung in there, who made great sacrifices to participate.

Well, we havnt updated the blog in a few weeks. This is very sad I know, but its because we are busy, which is happy. I dislike being idle. I will make a small account of what we have been doing. We went to Jinotega a few weeks ago to review our big Charlas Listas project with the bosses and they loved! This is good, but we only got half way through. So we need to go back and review the rest. Then we have to have them translated into a language called Misquito. This will take a lot of work. We are also compiling activities you can do to teach each topic. But the bus ride to Jinotega is one of the most beautiful in the country and we stopped on top of the mountain to buy vegetables and get some bids on plants for the garden in the casa materna.I (Heather)also finally learned how to make a few things with corn. Each year when they harvest corn, they make all kinds of different things with it. Things made with fresh corn smell and taste very sweet and delicious. I had been waiting through 2 harvests for someone to teach me how to make these things and had not had the opportunity until the other day. This is called Atol, and it is a pudding made with the fresh corn. Basically you cut the kernals off of the cob, and then have them ground into a paste. For atol, you add a little water to the paste and mix it good, then you strain it through a cloth. What you get is some delicious corny flavored liquid and REAL cornstarch! Its crazy! Then you just cook it until it thickens with a little cinnamon, then add milk and sugar. It is steller. The next thing we made was Guiríllas, which are sort of like tortillas but they taste sweet. These are one of my favorite things to eat in all of nicaragua. And when the guirílla ladies get on the buses and the whole stinky bus starts to smell like sweet corn.. mmmmm!!!!! They are served with cuajada, which is a simple crumbly salty cheese. Anyway, to make them, you just take the ground, raw corn and spread it into a griddle full of melted butter and then turn it over after it cooks on one side. I was hoping that someone from Utah could try this with your corn there and tell me if it works. I know the corn we have there is A LOT sweeter and may be too different to make these, but they are sooooo delicious, SOMEONE should try this. I will for sure when I get home. This is our reading group. It was a smash hit the first week, but the second week it started raining and only one person came. Ahh nicaragua. Today we will try again. I really hope this works, we are going to try and tempt them into good attendance by rewarding them with a party and some cool t-shirts. They can at least all identify letters and such, but they cannot read well. They are all women from our church, and it is hard to teach them in church when they cannot read. Anyway, as literacy is part of the womens organization of our church, AND nicaragua has an outstanding history of literacy programs, we decided to jump in. During the somoza period, the sandonistas held literacy classes in hidden places at night to try to help elevate the people. Then when the sandonistas came into power, they made a program where they sent all the young people in high school out to the country to teach people to read. Today, the highschool students all teach people in their community. Its pretty cool. The only funny thing is that each year after they complete the literacy course they declare their territory ¨Free of illiteracy¨ which is a complete joke, otherwise they would not have to continue year after year. Hehe. Here is one of the signs-Kory has been working very hard in our back yard this week. After giving a charla about mosquito control in a rurual comunity, he learned that MINSA will fine you for having too much growth in your yard because it harbors mosquito larva and snakes. We have been fighting the nicaraguans about our yard grouth for a long time. They think it is a barbaridad, but we LOVE it. BUT, now since we could be fined, and seeing as how we dont want to be causing mosquito problems, kory sharpened the macheti and went to work. He battled against this big.,. no, huge beehive that was in our lime tree. He had all kinds of schemes to try and smoke them out including homemade darts, levers, smoke rings, torches etc. Finally he got them out, only being stung 4 times which is miraculous, and cut the branch down. The next day we went to harvest our limes before our neighbors did, and found the bees busily rebuilding. Horrible little creatures. Why cant they be cool bees, that give honey? Anyway, we got the limes and found that we had lots of bananas growing too. The next day kory build the COOLEST rake you have ever seen out of bamboo. I love that kid. When my sister came, she said it was like swiss family robinson, and its totally true.

Yesterday was the 14th of September which is Independence day here. They always do this big old presentation in the stadium. The highschool kids practice their drums for about 2 months before, tossing aside less important topics in school like math and reading, and pound the SAME rythms every second of every day. Every little child, aspiring to someday play the drums, gets a stick and water bottle or peice of metal and pounds endlessly the rythms. It really makes you want to die. Being as how whatever happens outside, happens inside, we had to tell our little neighbor boy Yader, last night, from our bed to be quiet. He was on the other side of the wall and had been pounding for about 2 hours on a plastic bottle. Anyway, the actual presentation is pretty impressive, and makes you real proud to see all your students, and littel friends out there dressed all nice and in all kinds of silly uniforms and dancing, throwing batons and playing drums. There were tons of people.

In other news, my grandfather passed away a few days ago. This is very sad for my grandma.. I think. I have been trying to call her for two days and have found her phone line very busy, true to her cute gossipy self. Anyway, he had lived in a nursing home for many many many years and i hope he is free and happy where he is. As for us, we will continue working on. Thanking God every day for our health and energy and being able to be in this wonderful difficult place, learning and learning and learning about oursel

No you are not looking at one of korys weird paintings, he ACTUALLY did use our blender to make a new light fixture in our house. This sad sad blender. We saved our money .. or rather I was too tight to buy a good blender which costs about 800 cordobas, so we bought one that costed 350. It barely stirred the food. The motor caught on fire within the month while trying to blend COOKED BEANS! Can you believe it. So it was hanging out in the storage room that had a bad light socket. Kory did this in a few hours one day. Dang it he´s funny.

In work news, this is a nutrition charla I did in my house for my church womens group. We learned about good nutrition and then I taught them how to cook with vegetable, green leaves and soy beans. We made a delicious vegetable soup with yucca leaves and TVP, we made these little fried soy balls that were full of green leaves and onions and garlic (no cracks about deep fried things being unhealthy! You do what you can here. Baby steps) And we also used the soymilk to make banana smoothies (frescos). Yum!

No news about the cat. I heard 2 seperate roomers (how do you spell that) about where he was and I went looking, with no luck, Now I hear that someone named Doña Marta has him tied up in her house in Barrio San Martín. Marta better watch her back! I have looooottss of photos of that cat to prove he is half mine.

I also started a literacy group with my church womens group. It was really cool. I hope they hang in there for the 7 months we have left.

My time-share kitty has disappeared. I want him back. He brought me joy and I wonder if he's ok.

I used to think that this was the easiest job ever. A dream job. I used to say that Heather and I were basically funded to do whatever we could to help people. That I could spend all day trying to initiate projects or connect people or organizations and that I would never have to stop to seek my own funding to sustain myself in the meantime. I never had to figure out how to get paid for it. The folley in this thinking is that it neglects to mention the stress created by the combination of the following elements: 1) Trying to help your best friends, who are poor and starving, to find a way to sustain themselves. and 2) Dealing with the guilty knowledge that if you fail, you don´t starve. You go home. We have so much, and so little.

Thumbs down on Transformers 2. Thumbs up on helping some kids start a pizzaria. (more on that later). I saw G.I. Joe in Managua. It served its purpose. News from the medical office: for those of you in the know, the tests came back and everything looks good. We are overwhelmed with joy and relief. LAPC (Life After Peace Corps) is beginning to take shape for us. It is a lot to consider. It will be difficult to not be volunteers. What Heather didn´t say about the volcano trip is that at the beginning of the hike there were kids selling sticks they had cut down for walking sticks. They were five Quetzales each. I bought one. After the hike there were kids at the bottom of the trail asking everyone to gift them their sticks. I told them "no, I paid Q5 for this stick." What does this have to do with anything? Well, I gathered a handful of the kids together and started "La cooperativa de niños palitos" or "the twig kid cooperative." Here is how it works: They all work together, set up a stand at the base of the volcano with a sign that explains that they sell sticks for Q5 and buy them back for Q2. That means that they are essentially renting the sticks for Q3. In this manner, they eliminate the competition by working together, stop cutting sticks, earn more money, and stop bothering the tourists. While to some, this may seem like an elaborate scheme to sell my stick back to poor kids, but it goes further than that. I don´t need Q2 as much as I need them to learn that if you buy something for Q2 and sell it for Q5, you have earned Q3 without doing any work and that asking tourists to gift them murchandise they have already purchased is not sustainable. The point is, I was on VACATION! There is no escape. Ever. The world is made up of just so many components and I don´t think I will ever be able to stop trying to show to the individual possesors of each component the potential whole. We are built on independence. It´s what we value in our culture. Why? We all have so much to share and for too long we won´t consider sharing it without asking "what´s in it for me?" without even thinking about the fact that if everyone forgot themselves for just a moment, we would all be in someone´s thoughts and have someone else in ours. The "me first" mentality will implode our world. We need to turn outward. First.

So, thanks for letting me blow off some steam. Things are going great here. We love our work and eveyday we learn more that we will carry with us and use for the rest of our lives. We love and understand each other more now than I think we ever would have without this experience. Our family will be stronger for it, our lives richer, and our spirits inseperable. Thank you everybody who has supported us in this service and continues to support us with comments and letters and e-mail and the occasional package. We love you.

No pictures today because I wasn´t planning on updating the blog. Other news, however, Mt. Dew appeared in an grocery store in Managua. Just a promotion. A trial. They weren´t even cold. I bought six and carried them back six hours home, where they sit, chilled in the refridgerator, waiting for me. It´s the first I have seen and there may never be anymore in this country again. Doin´the Dew, Nica style.

Well, we finally had a vacation. We went on a trip to the Guatemala temple with our church peops from Matagalpa. We left our site on monday night, slept in the church until 3am and then we got on a bus with 41 other people and drove through 3 borders to get there at 8pm. We had a really great time during the two days we spent there. Becky flew in to the city and with the help of some very nice members whom we didnt know, we met her at the airport.

The next day we headed to Tikal, which was an ALL day bus ride again. Tikal is of course incredible and awsome (the more inspirational use of the word.) It was rainy that day and was very slippery in the jungle. there was also an odd scent of chicken soup everywhere we went. We finally decided it was either the europeans or a tree that was everywhere. Anyway, we imagined ourselves climbing up the stairs on our way to be sacrificed. Of course this in unavoidable to imagine this. Thanks to Apocolypto and 2 semesters of art history. But besides the trembling in our legs and slippery mud, we managed to control our fear. The scariest thing was climbing those freakin stairs... wooden and wet and barley stable.. you can see kory is the little red dot. He is wearing his ¨blog shirt¨as he calls it because he always happens to be wearing it in our blog entries. (We have a limited selection of clothes.) Anywho.. it was super scary. Becky was especially scared which I though suspicious for someone who claims to have jumped out of an airplain 2 times.

After another all day bus ride back to the city, a night spent at a friends house and another complimentary ride to the ¨bus station¨ we were ready for our travel to Panajachel. Here we are.. well, kory and becky, in the ¨bus station.¨When we left in the bus they asked us to lay down so that the police didnt see us. They said it was illegal to take people out of the station.

El lago Atitlan is a GIGANTIC crator lake that colapsed and filled with water, then sprouted 3 more volcanos around it. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It was really interesting to compare the level of development of Guatemala with Nicaragua. I found that they seem to have had a lot of economic stimulation and growth since the last time I was there. Their standard of living is definately a few steps above that of Nicaragua. Their cultivation methods seemed very much more orginized and fruitful and thier diet is DEFINATELY mejor. They were eating a nice variety of vegetables and squashes. Here they almost never eat vegetables. Anyhow, besides all that, their culture had not been obliterated by decades of war.. not that they have not had wars.. they have had serious problems but it didnt rob people of their cultural identities entirely and today the different tribes still dress in their traditional outfits.

We stayed in the ex-pat hippi filled town of San Marcos, where they do all kinds of massages and yogas and have cute little restaurants. The streets are just little stone paved sidewalks. For me it was a dream. I loved it there. Besides all the hippies, we could probably live there and be happy forever.Next we were off to civilized Antigua.. the gringo mecca of Guatemala. For kory and I, it was a treat to be in a place with nicely designed stores and restaurants and good smells. You dont realize how precious this is. And its usually only a benefit to those who have money. When you live without it, you realize what a precious commodity good smells and purposeful design is. We were encantados.The last day we had, becky wanted to go climb a volcano. STUPID I say, but I was outvoted, so we went. Kory in his flipflops, me in my crocs and becky in her sandles (not a wise choice, but it really wasnt a choice.. its all we had) We suffered through razor sharp rocks filling our shoes and having to go on. At one point I took off my shoes because they kept filling with rocks and it hurt. Kory borrowed a machete and cut off the bottom of his pants to tie on his flipflops. Quess how long that lasted. ... Ya. About 3 minutes. The horrible climb was well worth it when we got to the top. We were able to go right up to the molten lava.. as close as not burning our hair and shoes would allow. But close enough (1 meter) so that kory could poke his walking stick into the lava and roast marshmellows in 2 seconds. mmmmm. It was something they would never let you do int he civilized world. They would block off the mountain.. and probably for good reason, but it was a pivital moment in the vacation for us. We werent expecting anything so cool and were very much excited to add this to our list of things we have done before we die. Good thing we didnt die there.

For those of you who just can´t get enough of progress meters moving too slowly on your computer screen for every blasted thing, check this little puppy out! The slowest progress meter ever! (look to the right). Ohhh the agony!

So since people here don't sew with patterns, I decided to try to it. My mother taught me to sew when I was a very little girl. I even had this little miniature sewing machine that really worked. There is a little fabric store here in my town that reminds me of an old west mercantile shop. Every time I go in there, I find myself talking about my mother and how she had a fabric shop and how she taught me to sew. I always ask them if they will let me touch the fabrics because I cant know them only by sight. They must giggle when Evita comes to visit.

Anyhow, so remembering how patterns generally are, I went out into the world of sewing in Nicaragua, and I tore it up. I started hand sewing a shirt and decided that it would be WAAAAAAYYY easier if I had a machine. So, knowing that the Casa Materna had a machine (even though it was a manual) It MUUUUUSSST be easier than sewing by hand right?

So, the Regina is a machine that is extremly common here in nicaragua. There is a sewing machine, and an electric sewing machine. This is the sewing machine. Which, surprising is quite handy when the power goes out. So since everybody here, well, many people know how to use it, I figured I could too. I tried one of the machines and it was fregared, that is to say, NOT working very well. Then the midwife told me there was a newer one tucked away in the closet. So I drug it out and gave it a whirl. It took a while to figure it out, and a whole can of oil to the joints, and a visit from a lady in my church to get the stitches working right, and some work getting the rythm of the foot peddle, but I was teaching a class within a few days. Here I am showing the women in the CM how to use it. I sewed a dress this day and realized some technical errores in the pattern and may have to redo a part, but I was pretty pleased.

This is the first shirt I made. Most of it is sewn by hand, but it was finished on the regina. So... Thanks mom for showing me the way in the world of sewing. I think of you with every stitch.

My best friend will be turning 31 soon, and as he says, officially entering his 30's. And as his best friend I can attest to his staggering genious and earthshattering beauty (no im not as creative with my words as he, so I borrowed those and mixed them up.) Kory has been blessed by a drive to create meticulously refined peices of work of many mediums, favoring the watercolor and word medium. I have been blessed to be his partner of 5 years, and his siamese twin for the last 1 1/2 years here where we are nearly inseperable. How do you celebrate such quiet and intense beauty as he? I am not sure. Besides to give him these words in this small and huge semi private/public forum.

Whether he is framed in mamoth snow storms, fog, a garden, a computer, a gaggle of fluckigers, a jungle or a mosquito net, he is still the most lovely person I have known.

Kory, congratulations on another year of living, and learning. As the aboriginies would say, "what have you learned? Do you desearve a birthday?" As his official twin, I would definatly say yes.

We love you kory. We are blessed by you. Happy birthday.

I am sure that many of you have been wondering how Heather and I stay in such great shape in the Third World. Especially as vegetarians in the second poorest country in the hemisphere (yes, that means this half of the planet Earth). First of all, being vegetarian is cheaper and healthier than eating meat here and all Nicaraguans could benefit from a little less cerdo and a little more repollo. However, the real secret lies in this simple new recipe happened upon by Heather. Banana Maple Chocolate Tacos. Here´s how it works.

What you need:

Bananas

Chocolate pancakes (pancakes, cocoa)

Homemade maple syrup (as if there were other kinds)

mmmmmmmmmm.

Yesterday we completed our fifth trip around the sun as married people.

We have decided that we sort of like it, being married and travelling around the sun on this blue rock. I won´t bore anyone with an account of all of the things that we have learned and how happy we are etc. because it is obvious from our glowing faces above. (Incidentally, the bottom of the totem pole is always the most important, being at eye level, and is always carved by the chief. The top is harder to see and left to lesser artisans. At least I read that somewhere. Obviously a lie. Which is why I like to call this photo "Tall Cheif.") Rather, I thought I would post some of these images that we shot of each other and ourselves yesterday. We decided that as an anniversary activity we would shoot some portraits of each other. They look much darker here than they should be, but I hope it is just this monitor. It was a fabulous activity and I highly recomend it to any couple. It is a great way to study each other and remember that wrinkle in that one spot that you thought about for days after the first, and haven´t thought much about since.

So with no further ado, I give you the us, acording to us.

Happy June days!

It’s 4 am and kory just left on the bus for Managua. I miss him when he is gone and decided to write a blog entry. Besides seeing my first live snake here, the only other exciting things we have done is attend an “In-Service Training” with our Nicaraguan colleagues.

(I know I look terrible in this picture.. no im not pregnant, just pansona.)

Kory took a 14 year old from our radio group and besides a possible scandal with her and a young doctor that was there, all went very well. It was the first time she had stayed in a hotel. One of the most exciting things we did was learn that the US government has set aside funds for HIV-AIDS trainings, which are to be done by peace corps volunteers. So we were divided into groups by region and started planning. We chose to focus on youth ages 15-20. Was that suicide or what! It will take place in October so there will be more to say about that later.

Since I have become a master at cooking with soy during my time here, and because we also had a session from Soynica, an NGO that promotes the use of soy, I thought I would put some instructions on here.

Soy is an amazing crop that has soooooo many endless wonders that its like trying to imagine where space ends. Ok, not quite that much. BUT, its extremely healthy and its even better it your not buying pre-processed stuff but actually making it yourself. Its also a lot more cost effective. So here it is, I hope you try it:

Buy the soybeans. They are a pale color and perfectly round. I don’t now how they get like that, but they happily change to regular been shape once they are “inflated”.

Now, I had been following a recipe that had you soak the beans in water overnight. But Soynica says to use the following recipe that does NOT include soaking them overnight. They say that it lessens the weird bean taste that you get when soak them all night. Becky can attest that I HATE this been taste and that it made the soymilk intolerable for me, so hopefully this helps. I haven’t tried it yet, except at the training and I thought it was still there somewhat, but hey… remember you are not buy Silk soymilk, you are making your own! And that’s just beautiful in itself.

1 pound of dried soybeans

• Take the beans and clean them, that is, make sure there are no rocks or grass etc, which all of ya’ll in north America, probably won’t find too many, but we do.

• Put them in a pan with enough water to cover them and bring them to a boil for 20 mins.

• Wash the “precooked” beans (that is what you call them at this stage because they still require more cooking) 4 times without trying to remove all the skins.

• Now you need to grind them. If your suuuuper cool and have a mill that grinds, say, wheat, this is perfect. If not you can use a blender, food processor or hand mill. You want them to be ground pretty fine unless you plan on using them for hamburgers. I like a little texture in my burgers so I leave a part of the beans ground roughly.

Now you have what is called soy payana, or meat. *The payana still needs more cooking which is to be done in whatever recipe you use.

Now what do you do with the payana you ask?

You can make soy milk or tofu with the liquid (see below) or you can use the “meat” to make a billion things, like meat balls, hamburgers, taco meat, fritters, enriched rice or pasta etc etc. Here are a few recipes.

Soy milk

Payana from 1 pound of dried beans

1-2 liters of water

A little vanilla

sugar to taste

Some put a little lemon juice in or lemon peal

and any fruit you want

• Put the payana and the water in a pan and mix them together.

• Cook them until it boils then turn it off.

• When it cools you will need to strain the payana through a cloth, squeezing it to get all the milk out.

• Put the payana aside and use in another recipe.

• To the milk add sugar or honey to taste and the vanilla.

• Allow to cool and enjoy.

• If you want to make a fruit smoothy.. mmm. You will like it. Just blend with fruit and ice.

Tofu/ Bean Curd

• When you get the meat and water boiling, strain the out the meat while hot.

• In the milk add half of the following mixture while stirring a little and then leave it covered for five minutes.

¼ cup vinegar or lemon juice with 1 cup water.

• If after 5 mins, it has not curdled, put the rest of the above mixture in and leave it another five mins.

• When you see that the white part has curdled and separated from the whey or yellow liquid, it is ready to strain in a cloth. The more liquid you strain out the firmer your tofu will be. You can also leave it in the cloth and press it for a while with something heavy to make it firmer. Now, I will be honest, I haven’t ever really gotten a nice firm, square piece of tofu like you buy in the store. But if you have access to buy a tofu mold for pressing, it might help.

• Remember that the payana you have left over is of LESS nutrient value than the payana you get if you don’t make the milk, just so long as you drink the milk you will get it all. If you don’t make milk, you can just use the payana to make stuff.

• I like to curdle the tofu while the payana is still in it and then I just strain it with a cloth like normal and throw out the whey. It makes a neato texture that was the catalyst to my first “Chik Patty”.

Soy “meats”

“Chik Patties”

Payana from 1 pound of dried beans

1-2 vegetarian bullion or chicken bullion

1- 1 ½ cups white flour for every pound of dried beans

Crushed up corn flakes

• Dissolve the bullion in about ¼ cup hot water and then add the payana.

• Add the flour and mix well. It should form nicely into firm patties. If it doesn’t, keep adding flour. (also if when you cook them they fall apart its because you haven’t put in enough flour to make it stick. So add more.)

• Press each patty into the corn flakes

• Fry in a little bit of oil in a frying pan and enjoy.

Meatballs

Payana from 1 pound of dried beans

1-2 vegetarian bullion or chicken bullion (optional, but if you don’t add this, you must add some salt)

1- 1 ½ cups white flour for every pound of dried beans

• Dissolve the bullion in about ¼ cup hot water and then add the payana.

• Add the flour and mix well. (if when you cook them they fall apart its because you haven’t put in enough flour to make it stick. So add more.)

• Form into 1 inch balls

• Deep fry.

Hamburgers

Payana

1-2 cups of flour

1-2 tablespoons of salt

Whatever kind of vegetables you like, chopped very finely. Could be ANYTHING, but especially onions and garlic. Also green leafy vegetables add even more nutrients. I have learned to REALLY appreciate carrot leaves since I’ve been here and recommend that you put some in. I NEVER throw those guys away now. They have a great taste. You can also eat the leaves from any kind of squash.

• Mix the veggies with the payana and salt (and pepper if you want)

• Mix in 1 cup of flour, if you need more, add more.

• Shape into patties and fry with a little bit of oil. If they fall apart you didn’t use enough flour.

This might seem overwhelming, but it can be frozen in any of its forms. I make the payana and freeze half of it until im ready to cook It into something. You could even make a million hamburgers and freeze them, all ready for the grill at any time, saving tons of money and nutrients.

Well dearies, I bet your fed up with recipes and What a long blog!

If you have any recipe requests, let me know and I will oblige.

I suppose it’s time for an update. I would like to change the tone a little bit and get off of the contaminated water subject before unleashing the wrath of the most unconditionally dedicated sister/sister-in-law on the planet.

Before reporting on our project, I would like to take a moment to remember my Grandma Fluckiger, who passed away yesterday morning. She passed with all of her children present at her bedside. I am sorry that I am unable to attend the funeral but would like my family to know that I am with them in spirit. There is something to be said for Fluckiger funerals. Not that any funeral is a good time, but Fluckiger funerals are a great celebration of life as well as mourning the dead. They are painfully honest and candid. There is no pretense. No obligation to "look sad." People still laugh if something is funny and freely alternate between tears and laughter without the guilt of not keeping up appearances. I will miss it. I wish I could be there with everybody telling funny stories about grandma, of which there is no shortage, and remembering that she was simultaneously one of the most quirky and most classy ladies I have had the pleasure of coming to know in my short 31 years. That said, to the family members who are grieving, you have my sympathy as you would my shoulder. To those who are laughing, know that I share in those memories with delight and fond rememberance.

There is really not too much to report on right now other than further progress with our project: “Familias Mejoradas con charlas listas.” I thought that I would place a sample of some of the work we are doing for this project. Let me explain a few things, that you might more fully grasp the reality and scope of this project. It, as we have said before, is a series of 11 lessons around maternal and child health before, during, and after pregnancy. In these “charlas” we cover the following themes:

Órganos Reproductivos (reproductive organs)

El Embarazo (pregnancy)

El Parto y el Puerperio (birth and the first 40 days after)

Planificación Familiar (family planning, or birth control methods)

Mortalidad Materna (maternal mortality)

Lactancia Materna (breast feeding)

Infecciones de Transmisión Sexual—ITS (STD’s including HIV/AIDS)

Violencia Intrafamiliar (family violence)

Nutricón (Nutrition)

Higiene Personal (personal hygiene)

Casas Maternas (maternity houses, for promotional purposes)

Each of these 11 charlas are designed to be printed 1 meter by 1½ meters on vinyl banners which will hang on the walls of every Casa Materna in the country (about 70 now with 14 more planned). Each one is designed to be understood by “campesinas” (or women from the sticks) who can’t read or by the midwives who can’t read. Thus, practically every individual sentence is illustrated. And not just illustrated to accompany text, but rather, illustrated to stand on its own. To speak for itself. This obviously carries its own challenges considering the cultural differences which carry over into visual aid recognition, or symbolism. (For example, does a thumbs up sign imply something good here or does it mean diarrhea? We have to consider these things.)

Since each banner is not just a poster of a theme, but a complete lesson on that theme, each has between twenty-five and eighty individual illustrations. This may sound insignificant if imagining gathering eighty illustrations to represent something. However, to avoid involving international copyright laws (or a pronounced lack thereof) we decided to create each illustration originally, so that we own all of the images. That means that after days of writing the charla, then meeting with a team that we have assembled of doctors, nurses, midwife trainers, maternal health specialists and other health professionals to comb over each and every letter for accuracy and currency in both language and information—(not to mention cultural appropriateness)—that we have to sit down and plan each image. Then draw and paint each illustration on the computer at a high enough resolution to print at 1 x 1½ meters. We have finished 5 of them. We are halfway through the sixth one now and hope to be done with the design phase by the end of July. Each charla has about 150 hours of design work involved. Then we go through another review process with the team.

After they are printed, comes the second stage of the project: training. We will have a training for one person from every Casa Materna in the country to learn to use the materials, learn to teach how to use the materials, and to take them back to their respective Casa Materna. All of that being said, I would like to share with you some of the original illustrations we have created for this project as well as a couple of (low resolution) overviews of the some of the finished charlas.

Here we see the completed Pregnancy charla. Keep in mind that these will be 1 by 1 1/2 meters so naturally you won´t be able to read any of it. I am not sure which other charlas I can place on here because they may be a bit too graphic. Maybe just a detail picture from one.

This is an image from the Parto Y Puerperio charla. The image depicts a woman breathing deeply to relieve some of the pain associated with contractions. It also shows that she is breathing for two.

I hope this message finds you all well and enjoying the coming of Summer as we dip into the blasted rainy season, which will last almost till the end of our service. 10 months to go!

So, I have some comments about my last entry. Especificamente, the part about how poor people are here. YES, it is extremely sad how little people have, this is the second poorest country in this hemisphere, so it should be no surpise right? I wanted to say that, though I get frustrated at now being able to help people out with all the things they need right at the moment, we have to remember that throwing money at poor people, does not solve poverty. It makes us feel less guilty for all the things we have, and teaches them to wait for someone to give them money. Now, Im speaking of poverty as a whole, and im definatly not saying that some people dont REALLY need money in the moment, but speaking about our service here. We live in a little community, and EVERY SINGLE PERSON HERE needs money in a bad way. So our problem lies first in that though we would like to give money to people, it would run out in about 2 seconds and then we would have nothing left to give. We have to focus on doing things here that will keep giving long after we are gone. The problem is that we will never see the fruits of our labor, so when Im visiting my friends houses and they have so many needs, it feels like im a very stingy person.. and maybe I am, but I do believe that what we are doing here will benefit them in a different way. I think what is really important is that as humans we¨Learn to live simply, that others may simply live¨ This has long been a favorite ¨dicho¨ of mine, and it I think it holds very true. By learning that we dont need to buy and buy and buy, that really one or two knives is as good as a whole set, or that extra pair of shoes isnt necessary, can affect the world in ways you dont know. By having extra money that you can use in order to better others (in sustainable ways) of course, or better your education or give others education or experiences, we could really make a difference. As for the comment about baptism in river. ... I dont think whoever ¨anonymous¨ was understands how contamination is a vicious cycle. You use the river when you HAVE no other choice. As for the people who contaminate it, or the people who need to drink it, or baptize in it. There are no other choices. When you live here, you just learn to close your eyes and go. There is no, water testing , there is no million rules. And sometimes it turns out allright.

Well, it has been rainy here for a good week and rainy season doesnt start for another month. Things are still going well for us, except for our maldita computadora (excuse the language). But, hundreds of dollors and a new hard drive later, we are still having problems when we format discs and save things wrong like a couple of idiots. We went to a long awaited meeting with our team of professionals in matagalpa to revise our charlas and when we got there, the pcs would read our jump drive because it had been formatted on a mac without telling it to cross platform, and the day before that we saved over a file that newer than the one we were saving, so we lost an entire days work. Ya know, stupid stuff that makes you laugh and vomit at the same time. So we are plugging along designing. So far this week, so good. Here we are posing for a couple of drawings for the Personal Higene Charla. How it works is that we shoot photo references and then kory draws them and colors them on the computer.

Yes, I know we are allowing you into some things you may not want to see.. but at least we are fully clothed, which will not be so in the drawing. Im showing that women should wipe from front to back, kory is supposed to be peeing in public.. which of course, we DO NOT recommend. I know your probably grossed out, but you have to be very very straightforward when you are educating here. The pictures must be very clear because they are for people who cannot read. Maybe I will share the drawings with you too in the future. Today we are finishing our fourth charla out of 11. We hope to have them done by the beginning of august. ¡Ojala!

I took this picture of this beetle a fews weeks ago, but I am not sure if kory elaborated on it. It flew into our room one night and was crawling around on top of our mosquito net making a horrible ruccus with those giant 8" in antlers (together they measured that) so, judging by the barbs on the antlers, I didnt want to chance getting up in the night and having fly at me. And, not knowing about any of the bugs here, I felt I had to get him out. But I ended up spraying him with cocroach spray which was against my personal morals and especially emotionally painful because he screemed for a few hours and didnt die until like 24 hours later. I dont think I will ever do that again. I tried looking for info on bugs to see which ones really are dangerous, but couldnt find anything. Anyone know what this is and if it was dangerous? Im quite sure I have seen a speciman at hogal zoo.

This kitty is my neighbors 5th kitten since we have lived here. They all die. Unfortunatly im becoming quite attached to ¨Tigre¨because he comes over all day and pick the flees off him and clean out his ears and give him a snack and cuddle and then send him on his little way. Im quite sure my heart will be broken by the death of this little guy. One day I went out on the street and the little neighbor kid handed the kitty to me and said, ¨Eva, he is your same race.¨ I thought that was really funny. We do both have similar color hair.

So we have weekly baptisms in our church here and this missionary was here for 12 weeks. He always reminded me exactly of my (heathers) brother. Isnt it crazy? (For those of you who know what my bro looks like). They baptize in the river near town that is soooo contaminated.

I included a picture of how people who live near there wash their clothes. You can see the stacked up rocks, that are white with soap. Its really a hard situation because really these people have nothing and no way to not wash in the river.

Speaking of hardships, this week I have been visiting a lot of people from my church. And being really close to them and in their homes, the realization of exactly how much I do have is a reality for me again. This reality comes in waves and then goes away when I try to ignore it. It is so overwhelming. What is really frustrating is that there is virtually nothing I can do. I can change anyones life. I cant favor one peson when EVERY SINGE PERSON here is in such dire necesity. I wish I could. Heres a list I had at the end of saturday:

Jessica who is pregnant had her here electricity line ripped down by a drunk driver. She has no electricity, and no job and needs $200 dolors to fix it. Her pregnancy is also high risk and she has to do another ultra sound in may which costs about $7 that she doesnt have. She will also have a cesarean section.

Lizbeth is a 21 year old mother who lives in a shack of wood that is crooked and falling. It is divided into two rooms, the living room, kitchen and the bedroom. 7 people sleep in this house. Her baby has a baaaaaad case of scabies (I think that is what it is, but I hate to diagnos .. not being a doctor or even a nurse) and she has been to the health center several times and nothing works very well. His feet are covered in scab and pustuals. And it looks very painful.

Karina is a 15 year old mother, and the daughter of Rosa, one of the midwives at the Casa Materna. They just built ahouse out of sticks and plastic. It has no electricity or water. Her baby has a horrible skin infecction of unknown type and he has these big oozy blisters all over his body. He just got this a week ago and she said he crys until he throws up. She has also been to the health center for help. They said it would go away. I personally think it could be because they bath in the little stream that passes through our property and is full of garbage and black water from everyones shower and laundry and litter. Rosa recently fell and hurt her leg. he hobbles around with an umbrella and a broom.

Kenya has cronic arthritis and cannot affort asprin or tylonal or ibeprofen.. any common medicine that might help because she doesnt have the money.

Zaida and Juaquin are a great and smart couple. Juaquine hasnt been able to find a job for months now.

Esperanza cant find a job, she sends her son to sell stuff (unknown) at the highschool between class.

Soo, as you go home as I did this day and looked at all the peices of colored paper that I had just to use whenever I wanted, that my family so lovingly sent us, or the extra blanket we bought, or the pictures we had printed to remind us of home, or the extra 3-4 spoons and forks we have for when guests come, know how we are so blessed. You dont know what poverty is until you realize the absence of any material item inside a house. A dirt foor, a table and absolutly NOTHING else. We are all so blessed. I pray to be able to find a way to help my friends here and others in a way that will continue to give for their whole lives, and not just fix the problems they have today.

PS NICARAGUA RAN OUT OF PHONE NUMBERS AND HAVE THEREFORE ADDED AN EXTRA DIGIT TO OUR NUMBERS. FROM NOW ON, OUR NUMBER WILL HAVE AN 8 ADDED TO THE FRONT OF IT (after the 505 country code.) PLEASE NOTE THIS WHEN YOU CALL OR YOU WILL NOT GET THROUGH. IF YOU DONT HAVE OUR NUMBER AND WOULD LIKE TO CALL US, YOU MAY EMAIL US FOR PERMISSION.. to make sure your not a stalker.

Well, I hadn´t checked their blog for a while, but I was sitting at the computer and had already deleted the junk mail from all three of my email addresses, so I thought I would have a look and see what was new in Nicaragua. I typed in their obnoxiously long blog address (three times because I miss-typed one letter of like 40, twice)...reminded myself to bookmark it so I don´t ever have to type it again, and waited. Finally the page opened and low and behold there was a new entry. I could tell right away that Kory wrote the entry (even though he usually leaves the heavy writing to Heather) because he never starts his blog entries with things like "Well, I hadn´t..." Anyway, this is what was on their blog:

The first picture was a little bit strange. I expected to see photos of pregnant people or jungle plants. Instead it was somekind of construction equipment on a dusty street. I assumed it was Kory and Heather´s street, but I hardly recognized it for all of the construction and dust. He said that the government was working on developing the street. I guess down there they just start tearing things up and mixing cement in the street. They leave the bricks all over the place and people sneak out and steal them while the workers are on lunch. It is strange how people try to develop their country while consistently shooting themselves in the feet. I don´t know how those two deal with it. Kory said that they are pouring a sidewalk that will cover half of their front gate, which means they will have to open it inward and will have neighborhood kids level with the kitchen window. Sounds fun.

He was somehow able to avoid mentioning the fried macintosh that has put an abrupt halt to their work on the Familias Mejoradas project. It must be really hard for Kory not to gloat over Heather about how Macs "never crash or have problems." He´s a bigger man than I. To be quite honest I was hoping to see a picture of Kory unleashing all of his fury and throwing the bloody thing out into the street, right into the cement mix where it could be a semi permanent addition to barrio Las Colinas ( I say semi-permanent because apparently the cement that is mixed on the dirt of the street is not very stable and will likely deteriorate before the paving stones are laid in the street.

Then there were some pictures of them on a journey to visit the farm of a friend out in a community called la Esperanza. It looked like fun. I bet it reminded Heather of Woodruff, except that there were banana trees. There were even some shots of La Dalia from a distance. In one of them I think Heather was supposed to be pointing to about where their house is. Kory told the story of how when they got there, there was a big sow, or mother pig, in the process of giving birth. She had already dropped two little piglets and had three more stuck in the uteris and couldn´t get them out. Doña Isabel, a nurse from the health center wrapped a plastic bag over her hand and went in. I will spare the gory details but the effort failed, (even after she tried it without a bag) and pig and its babies were condemned to death. They eventually decided to bottle feed the two that had come out and try to save them. Knowing Heather, I´m sure she had a part in the lobbying effort. Afterwards they helped to extract the rusty seeds of ajoche from the pods. A messy work. Kory played some cards with the boys and that was that.

He mentioned something about Easter and an Easter egg hunt he sent Heather on and that was the end of the entry. Pretty boring as far as blog entries go, but since I was sitting there at my computer, which works, in a developed country thinking about all of the stuff I could buy for myself, I felt obligated to have a look and at least give it a read. I like to see what they´re up to anyway. I bet they sure miss their friends and family sometimes and it made me think: maybe I should get my friends and or family together tonight and order a pizza or something, because we can.

Anyway, I hope next time I check out the amazing adventures of Kory and Heather, Heather writes the update. Something nice about pregnant women and church activities...

So, I, (Heather) won teh biggest Peace Corp honor that can be given! The highest honor possible in a volunteers life! (Ok, maybe im exaggerating.. but still) Meet litte Eva.. my namesake! (In case you dont know, people here know me as Eva because they cant say Heather)... This baby was named after me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This week I was also passing the Health center and found this girl, Gladis who had been in the casa materna for a month. She was very smart and good to have in charlas. She also asked me questions about sex.. which of course, makes me feel good that she trusts me. (Besides thinking I know a thing or two.. hehe) She had been there for almost 10 hours in labor that seemed mild and was only dilated to a 3 so I told her I would come back with some food in a little while. Meanwhile a pregnant girl from my church sent her sister over and asked if I could make her some lunch as she was on bedrest and also that she was feeling a little worse. I got the midwife from accross the street and headed to her house. She was showing several signs of danger and so we made her go the health center. So I was bouncing between Jessica and Gladis. Jessica turned out to be fine and went home after the doc told her not to worry. I was with Gladis and she had like 4 bad contractions and then she said go get the doctor. The doctora was bouncing between two women in active labor adn a guy in the emergency room. So I didnt want to bother her if gladis was just in a lot of pain, but gladis, being a 3 time birthgiver said, yes she was ready. When I came back we walked her to the trusty birthing table and the head was already showing. The doctor hardly had time to strap on some gloves and she ruptured the sack that was showing and found that little Eva had pooped already. She told me to run and tell the ambulance driver not to leave yet because we didnt know how she would turn out. So I ran to the other side of the building adn arrived just in time to tell him to hold on. I ran back and the head had already came out. She pushed little Eva out and that was that. Eva was healthy. The doctor washed her off and kicked her off the table so the next lady could come in, which she did and gave birth right then. They always just leave the baby in the bed until the mom comes but I took her out because it was about to be occupied again. So I was the first person to hold her. I also got to dress her because Gladis didnt care. Then I asked what she was going to name her and she said "Evita" and I said "Really?" And she said that she had thought about it already. I didnt really think she was serious, but I suspected she was because Nicas dont joke that much. But when we came back the next day to take these pictures she said it was true. Can you imagine?!!!! Bomb!!

Here I am making butter in a jar in a hammock. I had wanted to try making butter but cream is scarce here. Then I thought that I should ask the ladies that sell milk out of their houses if it comes with creme on top. Turns out yes it does, so I bought some and decided that I would try it out. We have a blender but its the weekest little tuffer youve ever seen so I doubted its ability. I was remembering an activity that I did in Utah history in like 5th grade where we dressed like pioneers and walked around the school ground. But we had some cream in a jar and had to shake it all day and we had butter at the end. So I put my cream in a jar and sat in the hammock and shook for like 5 minutes and wam blam thank you mam! BUTTER!

Here is a baptism I attended. It was really pretty down by the river but you couldnt pay me to get in there with all that contamination.

Here is a member of our church posing for one of our charlas on personal higene. We will be explaining how germs are passed so we need to draw up some examples. This was my favorite. Although I still havnt posed yet for the one that says not to urinate near the house. .. I will be posing for that one.. No you cant see it.. well... maybe.

We went on a trip to matagalpa with some people from our church. 4 1/2 people threw up at one point during the trip. It was a challenge. But very nica. We will never forget it. And what with all this wonderful news could possible show what the lord has taken? First our computer is broken, which is the most important instrument to our project right now and also we had a real tragedy this week. We were at the internet cafe by our house the other night and we heard that someone had drowned. When we left we saw a group of people gathered watching them load a body covered by a sheet on a stretcher onto the back of a truck. I was saying how sad it was. But it wasnt until we walked a block further and were chatting with a neighbor that she told us the name of the girl. It turned out to be a girl that had been in our radio group last year. We were absolutly sicked, especially because we had seen her that morning. It never occured to me that it could possibley be her, even though it was at the house that she worked at that we saw them loading her body. She had gone swimming in the river and had drowned almost immediatly after she got in. People were attributing it to holy week (because everyone goes to the beach or the river to swim adn there are hundreds of deaths in the country every year).. but it wasnt holy week yet. It was just sad. Needless to say this put the computer thing in perspective for us. Im greatful for all of you whom we love and for my husband and the opportunity to be here. So many blessings. No need to sweat over the dumb stuff.

Well, what a week. So much birth going on. These are bananas in our backyard, which will surely be stolen before we can eat them. But they are beautiful nontheless. You can see the little baby bananas in front with flowers on the bottoms. Before I go into the long and horrific stories of births, I must tell about korys attemps at making vegetarian jerkey. This was his first mostly successfull attempt, which is TVP ground up with spices and fruit and then dried in ou r solar dryer. It turned out a little bit odd flavored and we decided it had to be thicker in order gain that chewey texture that is jerkeys star quality. We will try again. But it was because kory forgot to bring in the dryer monday night, that he went out back at about 10 pm and saw our neighbors in their backyard with flashlights. I went out to look and asked if every thing was ok, and they said it was not. I could see they were dragging a girl accross the ditch. I grabbed my flashlight and ran to help. The minute I saw her it was obvious she was pregnant and was unconcious. W dragged her across the black water ditch and up the rock cliff that comprises our neighbors back yard. When we layed her in house, the midwife from across the street examined her baby and told me to feel it. Strangly (for nicaragua) the crappy old toyota landcruiser ambulance we have was out front waiting with a stretcher. Probably due to the fact that we have two brigadistas (community health workers) and two MINSA employees for neighbors. They rushed her away. Turns out was the 13 year old sister Silvia, our neighber. Silvia didnt know what to do and we told her she had to go to the center, but she was worried about leaving her baby in case he needed to nurse. We left the baby and kory and I walked with her the three dark blocks to the health center. On the way she told me that she wasnt pregnant, that they had been to the health center two days earlier and had a negative urine test and they had told her to get an ultrasound. Now Silvia and her husband and quite young themselves and this girl had come from a community really far away. So maybe they didnt recognize how obvious it was, or recognized that she had probably been in labor for a while, or maybe they were in denial. I believed her about not being pregnant until we got the centro and she was inside the labor and delivery room screeming her guts out. Silvia finally went in. She screamed like I have never heard a Nica scream. Crazy. She was kicking and fighting too. It took all of the 4 doctors that were sleeping there that night, plus the midwife, plus the sister and nurse or two to make the birth happen. but we could tell she was giving birth. At one point we heard a loud slap and ¨Get a hold of yourself!¨Which sort of made us laugh in disbelief.. but hey its nicaragua. When she finally had the baby, there was no crying and we asumed that it had been born dead. There was blood every where and all down her legs. Donaldo came with silvias baby and we waited with all of neighbors. Silvia came out after a while and said that her sister was still unable to remember who she was, and she thought the baby was dead because they had been trying to revive it. They loaded the girl onto the floor of dirty ambulance, which luckily had just returned from matagalpa an hour earlier. They loaded a doctor bag masking the baby and waited for a little while while the guy with a really messed up and bloody leg, got into the back too, and they made the 2 hour horribly bumpy drive to the hospital in Matagalpa. It was really a shocker to think that we almost had a maternal death right in our back yard. The very thing we are hear to prevent. Luckily, they are both living and doing better, but it shocked me into working harder. We had put almost all of our charlas on hold because of the Big charlas project we are working on and I realized that I had to keep working hard. So the next day I gave a charla to the 14 girls at the casa materna, I will start doing this almost full time again. I had only been going like once a week. But Education is soooo important. Knowlege is power. Then last night kory and I had gone for a evening walk to the health center to find a professional to appear on our radio show and there was one of the girls from the Casa Materna, all alone and in labor. Her name is Laydi, and this is a picture of her I took posing for our charla project. She is supposed to be thinking about missing taking her birth control one day, but I couldnt get her to frown. Its difficult to have nica models. Anyway. She said yes, so I stayed. It was the first time I would see a live birth and get the chance to help. I felt really useless after the other night and told kory that maybe I should go back to school in Nursing. BUt I managed to make myself usefull with all those CNA skills. I rubbed her back and brought her water and explained things the doctores didnt. She was only in labor about 4 hours. AT first the pain was minimal, and then it got worse and worse. The doctor broke her water and then she was in reall pain. she never really screamed until they did an episiotomy, but she said ¨Aye, aye, I cant stand it, I cant stand it!¨a whole bunch. She is 17 years old for the record and this was her first baby. At this point, the electricity went out and kory came in with flashlights and we were shining the way for the doctor. Luckily they came on about 20 minutes later, but wow, sooo nica! Kory left and two more docs came in. They were practilly kneeling on her shoving the baby out. The head looked very odd shaped.. not round, until it popped out. It was super crazy to see this whole process and especially in nicaragua. They took the baby away without every showing her or saying good job. We caught the placenta in a plastic sack for her to take home and bury and the doctor sewed her up.When she got up to go shower, I asked her if she wanted to see the baby, since everyone else had disappeared, we went and looked at her. So cute. After she showered she brought baby clothes and we dressed.. very awkwardly this little creature. No nurse helped or said anything to her, and you must know that im no expert, only in dressing old people, but this helped better than nothing. Kory and I left and went home to eat dinner and I found myself looking at the inside of a cantalope very differently.

Here I am helping dig a trench for the water to flow. They are puting sidewalks on our street and the water runs all over and makes horrible mud that nobody can walk though. I got sick of waiting for somebody to something and so I complained that we should dig a little ditch and this guy (who is one of the cement laborers) said he would do it. But to get him moving me and Jaquelin went out and started. Nothing like making a machisto man feel inadaquit like having two women a job. He got right on it! Well. Thats enough for now.

So I had saint pattys day marked on my calander and we even talked about it in ¨Family Counsil¨ two days before, ... and then we forgot. I realized two days later and was pretty sad. BUT we have had our decorations up (thanks to mom) for the whole month. I just miss this holiday in Utah because it means spring is coming and it feels sooooooo incredible. Here. Just another day. Oh well. We skipped over it because we had a meeting with our Charlas group in which we presented our design for the first time. Besides that we didnt have the right cord for between our mac and their projector, and that the computer rejected reading the file half way through the second one and we were very late getting back to our site.. all went well. We felt very overwhelmed when we left, but feel better now.

We have photographing women in the Casa Materna doing things that we will put on on our posters and kory draws them. So this is a picture of a women getting a prenatal check in the casa materna from a doctor from the health center. We didnt use this image exactly but its cute. I (heather) had to pose for the reference photos that we OBVIOUSLY couldnt ask a pregnant women to do like, seizures on the floor, constipation (that one is really funny), carrying heavy loads, sore breasts, and bathing. It has been a good time. But your just going to have to imagine me doing these things... or maybe we will put the drawing .. they are pretty funny. We had to make me look like a nica of course.

The other day I looked out the window to see Don Enecifero (98 years old) in the tree hacking down branches with his machete. When I went out to watch him, he made the this funnies laugh. He is such a funny guy. I will really miss him!

Our friends matt and jess visited us from Madriz. We decided to go the Natural reserve Peñas Blancas which is this huge beautiful mountain. They wanted to charge us 20 dollers EACH for a guide to take us up the mountain, so we had to decline, but its super beautiful, maybe we will save our money and do it some other time.

We had a little picnic while waiting for a bus to stop.This is a coffee field behind us.

Rachel sent us some Clifford the Big Red Dog books and I wanted to let her know that our neighbor kids LOVE to read them! This is two of them reading them for the second time in front of our house. The first time there was 5 kids fighting over them. I just wanted to say thanks to all of you at home that support our projects and that send stuff for the people here. It is really cool. My mom especially puts a great effort into this. We were making a list of things we needed for our church, thinking we would have the missionaries buy it in managua for us if possible, and my mom called RIGHT THEN and said she was mailing a package for us. What did she send you ask? Only every single thing we had on the list! We will be sure to let people know that it wasnt us who bought these things or donated them. We will be writing your names in the books when we give them away. I just wanted to let you all know that you are making a difference. We love you very much! Love heather (and kory in spirit who is designing right this moment).

Wow, its been like a month and a half since we last blogged. I think this has hurt our fan base. Seriously. We haven´t written because we haven´t been doing much since we got back from our trip. Let me correct that, we have been working our butts off, but just have been in the house a lot designing a project. We are very excited for the project. We are writing a curriculum of charlas to be taught in every casa materna in Nicaragua and then we are drawing them up into a complete package that will be printed on a plastic banner and sent to every single CM. We will also be doing training for all the CMs when they get printed. So we have finished only one so far, which is Reproductive Organs, and we are almost done with the second which is Pregnancy. Kory is drawing all day long because we have to make these charlas usable for people who cannot read. We have 11 to do in total and so we are going to be in the house a lot. I, heather, feel like such a flippin housewife. My job is to write the charla and decide what information is in it, but that takes a lot less time then drawing every single little thing. So I clean and cook a lot these days as well as other stuff, but it feels awful housewifey. .... We both prefer to be out and about but we are really excited for this project. We are also going to contact people in other central american countries who might be interested in doing the same for their Casas Maternas. Who knows.....

Anyway. We have also been busy with our church here as the missionaries have been coming and we are now 22 members. Here is a picture of our last meeting. It is really cool to be part of and we are very thankful for the opportunity to be living here.

We had the opportunity to give a charla on medicinal plants to the new group coming in. The problem is we didn´t know that much about them, so they sent us to a training up north at a NGO who works with medicinal and tradicional plants. We made ginger cough syrup, eucolyptus tea, chamomile soap, and this is called a cataplasma, which is the boiled left overs from making tea. You make it into a little pancake that you put on your head if you have a headache or other part of the body. She surprised me by putting it on my head before I knew what was happening. I had the camera and shot this. It was actually extremly delightful and made me sleepy. Now this saturday we will be doing this training for all the new health volunteers in managua.

Anyway. on another note. Things have changed here for us. We no longer feel like we NEED anything, we feel very content and feel like we belong here. Its funny how one goes in stages. In november when we went home, we were feeling a lot of hate and frustration. Now we feel pretty much like we belong here and that our time is really short and we want to make the best use of it. We are thinking about what it will be like for us to come home. Even though we are not doing anything about it of course. Anyway. Having said that. We feel that everyone else is quite used to us being away too and thus have not sent us any chocolate lately. Our christmas stores are wearing down and we have only a few hershey kisses left. So if you have it in your hearts to send us some easter chocolate. We would be very grateful. We will also try to be better about blogging. Sorry. We love you all! Love heather and kory

So before crossing the border into Costa Rica, Becky, Kory and I went to Laguna de Apoyo here in Nicaragua. This is a lake inside a volcano crator, which has some great hostels, swimming and nothing else. It was amazingly beautiful. Granada Nicaragua is one of the oldest colonial cities in central america and has been "sacked" by pirates several times. (And not just any pirates, but seriously famous ones). Aside from being totally different than most of nicaragua, and having some really cool old buildings, there isnt TOOOO much to see. But we found this old church and paid to go up these stairs and that was pretty darn cool. You could see the Laguna de Apoyo crater, the Ometepe volcano and another one as well.

We walked to an old cementary where several Nicaraguan presidents are buried. It was very hot. We ate some beens and rice on the street after that and all was well.

The next day we headed out for the border and after being very confused as to where to stand in line and what to do there, we finally made it onto a very swank costa rican public bus. This was no chicken bus baby. It was a luxury liner to be sure. AND you pay BEFORE you get on. Costa rica appeared MUCH nicer, as people painted all the way around their houses, instead of just the front and also had glass in their windows. We were picked up in Liberia by Heathers family, after wearing the same clothes for 5 days and not showering for 3. We were swooped away to a luxury gringo villa (below) complete with a nicaraguan maid and a view to die for (above). We were about a ten minute walk from the Playa Ocotal and very close to Playa Coco. Ok, this is basically our beach. It was sooooo great. We snorkled here several times, sometimes we got stung by jelly fish, other times it was so beautiful. We saw lots of bright yellow puffer fish or purple ones with white spots. Sea snakes, tons of other fish, Heather saw an octapus.... It was truly savage.. (thats a good thing when you say it spanish). Here we are having dinner together on our deck overlooking the ocean. It was sooooo great to be with our family and see the baby and have some fun together. This is just off our beach. We payed for a boat tour and went out past this little island to a secluded beach. We were all drooling to get into the beautiful clear water. I did notice lots of jelly fish on the way in, but not being a sea dweller, thought, what do you know? So we got on the beach, drew straws for the snorkle equipment and went out into the water. Then.... we all got stung by jelly fish bits. Not whole jelly fish mind you. The water was full of little tentical parts. It was like someone had blended a billion of the litte buttholes. It was very hot and we couldnt swim and things were sad that day. Not really, I mean... we were in bloody costa rica right, while you poor saplings in Utah chisled snow from your windshield. BUT, the jelly fish became my nemisis for the rest of our trip.

Another day we took a river boat ride through a natural reserve and saw crocs and white faced monkeys (by the way, we had howler monkeys across the street from our hotel for several days) but these guys were super friendly and some got on the boat so you could see them really good.

Another day we decided to go hike a volcano.. well I wouldn't call it a downright hike, but a walk through the jungle. (We did drive up really high first though.) Here we are 7 people in the SUV.. we are in the back. It is called Volcan Tenorio.Baby in the backpack. Dad only fell once with her in there. No problem. This was what we saw along our little walk. It was truly breathtaking. No bugs that we could see. But we did see a toucan on the way out. Only becky has pictures. This is what was at the end of the hike, a strangley blue river which was caused by the minerals in the earth from the volcano. It was not recomended that we swim, because (the sign said) because they were not aware of the effects on your health.

Here we are doing "Turtle patrol", which is where you wait around for a female turtle to come ashore and lay her eggs. It was like an hour and a half drive from hotel, and we did not see a turtle. We were kind of sad, and tired enough not to go back to try again another night. But we played cards and had a picnic.

These are all pictures of the beach by where the turles come in to nest.

My sister caught a baby gecko which are all over here in central america and was showing it to the baby.

On our last day in there, becky and kory and I drove to the reserva Monteverde (2 1/2 hours) so that we could do a canopy tour. Which is strapping yourself to a zip line and ziping over the rainforest. The drive was bloody cold and there were hurracane force winds the whole way which scared us to death. But when we got on top of the mountain (still driving) we saw rainbows everywhere we looked. When we got there it was still raining (stupid "rain"forest), but we went anyway. IT WAS THE BEST EXPERIENCE OF OUR LIVES! Seriously. Since it was raining, we have no pictures, but words will never do it justice. Sometimes we would be going out over a valley with trees and rivers and vines below and go right into a cloud where you couldnt see where you were going or anything. Becky has one video and a few pictures of us before and after which I will post if I get them. Other wise, that is it! Back to work!

So we have been in Costa Rica for the last two weeks and have just arrived San Juan del Sur, which is the Nicaraguan beach claim to fame. It is truly nicaraguan. I dont think there is any sand. BUT, honestly I cant really see it because it is very late. It took us 6 hours tos go like 50 miles. .. maybe less. The border was a mess because the lights had been out for some hours an the line was horendous. Anyway. We left my family there in Liberia, where they will fly out tomarrow. Sorry we havnt written in a long time. When you are staying in a snobby gated community, there isnt exactly an internet cafe around. (Unless you had your own computer to use the wireless internet.. which we didnt!!) Anyhow. You can look forward to some great pictures and great stories in a few days. Right now we are pretty tired and the internet here costs the same as it does in la Dalia. But be assured that we are safe and healthy and happy, and yes,.... if your wondering, we did zip line over a rainforest.. in the rain. It was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Check you later! Love us

Well. Our first visitor has arrived. Last week Heather and I went to Managua to pick up her sister. It was Heather´s 30th birthday! Happy birthday Heather! Whats fun is that we both got to spend our 30th birthdays in Managua, in the medical office. Not for anything major. I had my chest x-rayed on my birthday to see if I had bruised a rib. For Heather, well, we were in town for our mid-service medical checkups. That´s right. Mid-service. Anyway, we picked up Becky on Friday. Saturday we headed to Selva Negra (black jungle), in Matagalpa.

Selva Negra is a natural reserve and coffee production farm that was founded by Germans, thus being named after the Black Forest in Germany, which incidentally is also not black. The reserve is a touristy little collection of mountain cottages, Hansel and Grettle style. We stayed in a three person room for about 16 dollar U.S. per person. There are some really beautiful hikes through the jungle. We found ourselves on a trail that lead straight up the mountain and didn´t realize until halfway up that it was listed as a "difficult" level. We passed many fabulous moss-covered trees larger than our health center. Throughout the hike the jungle was filled with the calls of the congos. For those who don´t know, congos are a medium sized monkey, halfway between a howler monkey and a chimpanzee in size. Their call sounds like a deep moaning dog bark, like a pitbul barking through a megaphone, underwater. It is a very haunting sound.

So if the trip up the mountain was hard, the trip down should be relatively easy, what with the assistance of gravity. If the preceeding sentence makes good sense to you, then you can count yourself among the non-jungle-savey. Has anybody ever seen the movie Romancing the Stone? Yes? If yes, skip to the bottom of this paragraph. If no, read on.

Note: Gravity plus mud plus 75 degree slopes plus being chased by leopards equals potential disaster. Fortunately we didn´t run into any leopards. However, the treck back down the mountain was nevertheless riddled with peril. I saved Becky´s life, by breaking her fall which might otherwise have continued to the bottom. Heather fell once, sliding only a short distance, but enough to thoroughly soil her pants (with mud). My elbow still hurts from an amaizingly graceful and acrobatic tumble which left my pants noticable unsoiled.

Near the bottom of the trail, we came accross the congos. They were everywhere above us. All throughout the canopy. We watched them for several minutes. Then, the males started getting a little protective. They were organized. One tried to urinate on us. Then they started screaming to eachother, a sound which, at that distance, makes your skin feel like it will shiver off of your body and crawl into a hopefully unoccupied hole. The screaming was aparently a signal to join in the attempted urinary bombardment. We ran to clear ground, escaping unscathed.I know they´re hard to see, but they are pretty freaking high up.Selva Negra was beautiful. Now, we are here in La Dalia just chillin. Becky got some of the business. You know what I mean. We fixed her up and she got some rest, otherwise we would be at Peñas Blancas right now, doing the same thing we did at Selva Negra. Tomorrow we leave for Matagalpa then to Granada to spend a few days before heading off to Costa Rica! Dang vacation is fun!

We should be able to update soon on this trip. Talk to you from GRANADA!!

Here are the pictures that Heather was unable to upload last time. Why yes, that is a bomb in my mouth.

Supporting the dynamite-stuffed borracho.This is the exploding "viejo" surrounded my too-close kids. Also, we finished the mural. It is in a long narrow space so it is difficult to photograph, but you get it, right? When we get a chance we will make a complete picture from parts to post.

>Sorry it took us soooo long to write about our new years experience. We have been super busy trying to get some projects done before the big vacation. But here it is. We spent new years eve.. working, but we also were invited to our neighbors house (the one with all the kids, that are pretty much our best friends) and we helped them make their “viejo”. Let me explain this tradition. They make an old man, who represents the old year, out of old clothes and stuff it with dry banana leaves, paper, fabric scraps and basically whatever they can possibly get their hands on. They also buy tons of fire crackers and stuff it full of those suckers. Now, these aren’t your sissy-crackers that you buy in the states.. even in Wyoming. These are nigh on dynamite sticks. They do not mess around here. This fire cracker thing has given us ulcers because all the kids in the street buy them and do all manner of stupid thing with them and there is absolutely no supervision. So.. though there was adult supervision, this night.. we were scared of dynamite. It turned out to be not as A-bombish as we had imagined (you know how anal retentive Americans can be because we are used to all manner of rules and laws). Anyway. Kory drew this wicked face for our Viejo! He was super creepy. Around 7 pm, the lights went out while we were watching a movie and we were soooooo tired, so we went to sleep and then woke up at 11:30 for the festivities. Everyone was out and it was super fun. We took a few traditional fake “passed out “ pics with him and set him ablaze. We really like this tradition and wish we could continue at home, but can you imagine burning ANYTHING in the states?!

Im sorry but Im out of time and cannot add any more photos because its painfully slow. Maybe later!

Also we have continued our work on the mural and have almost finished….. “Falta” a cow and a chicken and some logos. You can see here (never mind the saggy butt) that it is looking very nice. It should be done just in time for becky, or maybe she will help us finish it off. In other news, nothing. Soooo, HAPPY 2009!

Well. theres some rain here. I am sick again with a bladder infection. If ANYBODY knows of any supersecret preventative MEDICINE (As I am already taking all the regular precautions that need not be mentioned over the blog) I would appreciate it. I have now had four and Im really sick of it. Brett, how much cipro can you take in a day? Im at 500mg bid. I did recover from my diarrhea.. no I cant spell it. More cirpo. Im kindof down on Nicaragua today so I will keep my blog short. Dont worry, we are bound to feel this way sometimes. Our work is going a little slow. Did I mention the rain and the bladder infection?, sometimes we feel like we cant speak spanish at all. BUT we did have a fabulous youth promotores meeting. I dont feel like adding any pictures today and its time to catch my bus so I will add them next time and tell you all about it. I just didnt want to disappoint any fans... hehe. Well, I love you all! Em, congratulations! I wish I could be there and I really hope you send me some pictures either digital or snailmail. Ang and Mind, I will email you next time! Well! Tooooooooddddaaaaaloooooooooooo. Sorry this is the most lame blog entry we have yet to date. Kory wants to add something.

Foo for thought:

Kung foo

Foo Fighters

Pitty da foo

ni fu ni fa

...

Today we are in Granada, fabulously touristy, chock full of gringos. We are on our way back to La Dalia from Ometepe island. Heather has a bug or some such thing in her belly and is lying down in the dorm room. Hopefully she will recover for the 6-8-ish hour bus ride tomorrow.

Okay. Let us begin with the billiards tournament. The tournament works like this: We organize a tournament against VIH (HIV) wherein about 16 participants register to play billiards and recieve some education about the virus. In between each round of billiards, Heather and I give a brief "charla" (talk) about an aspect of the virus, how it works, how to avoid it, etc. Then, during the last round, the two players who are left have to answer a question about the charlas each time they get a ball in the pocket. If their answer is wrong, the ball is placed back on the table. The thing about this is, the men here never get any education because it is all geared toward women and children.

It was a blast. We had about 80 men crammed into this billiards hall and with the pouring rain outside, and no power. We had to climb halfway up a ladder against the wall and scream the charlas out to be heard. Here is a picture of Heather up on the ladder.

And some more random shots... there is a great picture of heather with me putting a condom over her arm, accompanied by a speech about how some men believe that their penis is too big to use a condom and about how none of their penis´are bigger than my wife´s arm. It is very compelling.

Well, after that, we had this language taller, or workshop, back in our training towns. Except this time, Heather and I were together in Santa Teresa. It was an intense crash course in the advanced compound tenses like past perfect subjunctive, in order to speak hypothetically. Try getting by in a lnguage, working in development in a thirdworld country where you can´t comfortably construct phrases like, "If you hadn´t thrown the garbage in your yard, you wouldn´t have slipped on the pop bottle on your way to the latrine in the middle of the night and and wouldn´t have broken your head." Yeah. Without compound hypothetical tenses, can´t be done. Right Ben?

Anyway, now we are practically fluent. Not really. But since most of the people from our group were gathered together in Carazo again, we decided to go to Ometepe Island in Lake Nicaragua (its the great big one on the map). It is an island in Lago Nicaragua which was formed by two volcanoes. They are a good time. Smoking and angry looking.

So we stayed on the island in a little hotel. I was pretty fun but pricy on volunteer budget ($0 per/hour). But cheap for tourist budget. It was $9 per person per night. The "all you can eat" buffet of Nica food was about $5.75. Ouch!

Yep. There they are. So we hiked around on Saturday looking for petroglyphs. Found ém. Got some great views of the volcanoes and plan to return for some of the more serious hikes later on.

Two of the other guys had birthdays this week and the girls got together real sneaky-like to plan a piñata. It was a good time. Then we swam in the lake, incidentally, the only land-locked source of fresh water sharks left on the earth. We swam in shark infested water. (Okay, to be fair, they are practically extinct and supposedly much further out.)

(at the hotel) Well, thanks for the birthday wishes, those who sent them. We are now officially free to travel and have visitors so,... the flood gates are open... Ometepe island The piñata (the car, from Cars) ...and we close with a shot of Heather and Kory in beautiful Granada at twilight.Thanks for the chocolates and letters and things. Abbey and Kim, I got the gummy bears, and letters from the kids and you guys, on my birthday. That was fun. Thanks.