I wrote the following blog post for my job at the Rasmuson Foundation. It will soon be published on Rasmuson's blog. I also wanted to share it here:

Earlier this year, I returned to Alaska after 27 months of U.S. Peace Corps service in Central America. I worked as a community health volunteer in Nicaragua, the second-poorest country in the western hemisphere (after Haiti). The often deplorable living conditions I experienced and the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health’s lack of resources were astounding. Water and vector-borne diseases were rampant, and many people lacked the resources to purchase a simple tube of toothpaste, let alone vital medications. Despite these hurdles, I was inspired by Nicaraguan nurses and doctors who worked long hours trekking through rivers and over mountains in 90-plus degree heat, just to deliver a few drops of polio vaccine or to check-up on a newborn in a far-flung village.

After returning to Alaska, I began to search for local volunteer opportunities. A friend told me of the famed Dr. Jill Seaman and her involvement with the nonprofit, the Alaska Sudan Medical Project (ASMP). Since 1989, Seaman has split her time between Bethel, Alaska working for the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation, and in the outer reaches of South Sudan in Africa.

In July 2011, after more than 50 years of bloodshed, Africa’s largest country split in two and the Republic of South Sudan became the world’s newest nation. I thought Nicaragua had dire health conditions, but after speaking with Dr. Jack Hickel, founder and board president of ASMP, I realized that South Sudan’s plight is much worse. The nascent country has no health care system and very limited access to infrastructure like running water or electricity. Hickel has a diploma in Tropical Medicine and began his work in Africa in 1982 as a medical missionary. In 2007, at Seaman’s invite, he visited the remote village of Old Fangak, South Sudan.



Dr. Seaman (right) and Dr. Hickel (left) at workHickel was shocked by the desperation and death he saw during his 10 days in the Old Fangak. The remote reaches of South Sudan carry some of the worst health statistics in the world. According to ASMP’s website, the infant mortality rate is 1,700 deaths per 100,000 births. Thirty-six percent of children are malnourished and just 10 percent of children have had full childhood immunizations. Due mainly to substandard healthcare, average life expectancy is just 42 years. Upon returning to Alaska, Hickel gathered together friends and supporters and formed ASMP.

With help from ASMP, the village of Old Fangak is now is in the process of building a health center. Past successful projects include completion of two wells, construction of six latrines, and the development of a vegetable garden small-business. ASMP strives for sustainable development where it works – ultimately providing jobs and opportunities for locals. Villagers have been trained to be community health workers (similar to Alaska’s Community Health Aide Program), or to work as welders. ASMP also hopes to train locals to use the drilling equipment and build new wells, creating a lasting impact in the region.

As Rasmuson Foundation’s visionary and former president, Elmer Rasmuson said, “Helping others is an Alaska tradition.” Seaman, Hickel and the over 30 volunteers who have traveled to Old Fangak since 2007 epitomize this Alaskan tradition.

Filmmaker and ASMP volunteer Todd Hardesty recently completed a video spotlighting the organization’s work entitled “The Village.” Portions of the video have been posted on ASMP’s YouTube channel. I had the opportunity to see part of the video at a recent ASMP fundraiser in Anchorage and was left speechless by the stunning contrast of the agony of human suffering and the beauty of the country and its people.

ASMP volunteers began the annual trek for the fall/winter building season in October and teams are still departing. Goals for this year include finishing the new health clinic building, beginning construction on a second clinic, completion of a water well, drilling of two wells in nearby villages, and fence construction around the medical compound.

Building the clinicSeaman and Hickel remind me of the Nicaraguan counterparts I worked with in Peace Corps and admired for their perseverance and commitment to public health. I have been inspired to volunteer locally with ASMP, and I hope to make the trip myself to Old Fangak next year. Many ASMP volunteers are spending this year’s holiday season in Old Fangak – a testament to their dedication and spirit of service. The tasks at hand for the new country are great; I am heartened to see an organization like ASMP that is leading the way in healthcare, development and service. To learn more, check out ASMP’s Facebook page.

I’ve been back in the U.S. for almost seven months now (Whoa, where did the time go?! I still feel like I just returned). While I have a job, albeit a temporary one, some of the returned Peace Corps volunteers (RPCVs) in my group and groups that followed mine are still jobless and trying to readjust to life in America. As I talk with my RPCV friends and read blogs, I realize this is quite common. Many dedicated, smart, responsible, young Americans are being under-utilized in this country, due in large part to the current economy. I see a lot of wasted potential and wonder; is this a Peace Corps epidemic?

When you return from Peace Corps, you feel on top of the world. You’ve accomplished something you set out to do – you pushed through 27 months of blood, sweat, and tears (not to mention vomit, diarrhea, dirt, manure and torrential rains). In Peace Corps, you command respect in your community – you can call together a meeting of the mayor, local leaders, teachers and parents with a simple handwritten note. They will attend because you are the token American. Your opinion and you matter. You return to the U.S. ready for a change; ready to see family and friends; enjoy creature comforts; and to make some money!

My Peace Corps cohort with our end of service certificates.

Ready to go back to the U.S. - we had no idea what was coming....But reality quickly sets in. You realize that back in the U.S., you’re just another face in the crowd of 20-somethings looking for a job. Yes, Peace Corps sets you apart and can often make the difference when you’re looking for a job, but in the current economy, this might not matter. When my cohort left for Peace Corps (the day after President Obama was sworn-in), the economy was just beginning its downward spiral. We felt lucky; we were leaving at just the right time. By the time we finished our service, the economy would be on the upswing, right? Right? Wrong. The deep valley of the recession seems to have no end.

Looking at the RPCVs from my cohort, I see that a few are now in graduate school (the ones that filled out grad school applications while in Peace Corps - not an easy feat!), a few are working in professional jobs, but the majority seems to be struggling with the “what’s next?” question. One of my RPCV friends wrote on Facebook recently that she was “wondering what to do with this life??” Some, lacking direction or not wanting a long-term commitment, decide to do another stint in Peace Corps in the “Peace Corps Response” program. The Response program is for RPCVs to serve 6-12 months in Peace Corps’ countries working in more advanced and complex positions than normal volunteers. Others join AmeriCorps or Teach for America – continuing in the theme of service, yet still living in poverty. A few of my RPCV friends are working various part-time jobs and still networking and applying with a vengeance to jobs in their career field. One girl has visited numerous RPCV career fairs; applied to probably 100 jobs; flown out to Washington, DC multiple times for interviews; but she is still working as a part-time caterer and cow-milker. Way to use your youth, America.

I feel lucky to live in Alaska right now where the recession is being felt somewhat less than in most states. Jobs seem plentiful, and although they may not be in my idea career field (International Relations), I can make some money to save up for graduate school and beyond. I get frustrated though when I see my RPCV friends’ Facebook updates and we talk on the phone. I can tell many of them are getting burned out in the job search and are starting to feel without direction and lost in the crowd. Who knows, maybe we’ll all go back to Nicaragua, maybe we’ll give up on the whole idea of a career and a successful life in the U.S? Nah – we’re Peace Corps volunteers. We can take a beating and we come back for more. Anyone who has been puked on in a “chicken bus” or pooped their pants from a bacterial infection should never be underestimated.

SeaVees has come out with a shoe commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps. See article here: NY Times

At $78, it's too bad current PC volunteers could never afford them!

Since I’ve decided to stay in Sitka for the summer, I’ve been trying to make the most of small town island living by getting outdoors as much as possible. Usually I do this through hiking since Sitka has a wonderful trail system, maintained by a local nonprofit organization and the U.S. Forest Service.

Here are a few pictures from some of the hikes I’ve been doing with friends and family. Sadly, most of the big hikes we’ve done up the tallest mountains have happened to fall on cloudy, rainy days so the view was less than spectacular. We climbed Mt. Edgecumbe volcano one Saturday (14 miles round trip), but at the top were faced with less than 20 feet of visibility due to heavy fog at the crater. After so much work, it can be very frustrating to not be rewarded with the wonderful view you were waiting for, but I just have to remember that this is Southeast Alaska and rain is the norm…

We also hiked Harbor Mountain on a rare sunny day in Sitka (64 F!!) and I was reminded again how beautiful it is here and how lucky I am to be able to call Sitka home. I’m enjoying the summer here and while I can’t see myself living here long term, I do plan on enjoying all Sitka has to offer in the meantime!   Up the volcanic rock summit of Mt. Edgecumbe

My father and me hiking Mt. Verstovia

 Looking down at town from Harbor Mountain

Me, Danielle, Liz and Elisa Although we spent about 27 months together in Nicaragua (in separate villages of course), apparently that wasn’t enough! We just had to organize a post-Peace Corps (PC) reunion! My good friends Elisa, Danielle and Liz who were in my same “group” of health volunteers during my PC service came this month for a two week trip to Sitka (my hometown) and Juneau. The girls are from Minnesota, Texas and Oregon respectively, and this was their first time in “The Last Frontier.” I was thrilled when they decided to do the trip last fall and we have been planning the trip using spreadsheets and Facebook groups for months.

Sunny Sitka!

Sitka's Mt. Edgecumbe volcano - it looked like it was erupting this night! (It is dormant however)

It was so nice to see their familiar faces again after having been back in the U.S. for a month. We were able to re-connect, talk about readjustment to the U.S. and its culture, job-seeking, future plans, and our general feelings about life in America after Nicaragua. After spending so much time together in PC training and finding weekends to be together throughout our service, I feel like I’ve known these girls my entire life. After serving in PC, you find that no one quite understands what you’ve been through and can talk about it with you like other volunteers in your group.

Sitka National Historical Park (aka Totem Park)

We had fun seeing the sights of Alaska and enjoyed some amazing weather. Although we had our share of rain and mist, we also had quite a few cloudless, sunny days with temperatures in the low 60s F (pretty good for southeast Alaska!) We hiked a different trail just about every day, went camping at a beautiful Forest Service cabin outside of Sitka located right next to a natural hot springs, took the ferry to Juneau for a few days and saw the Mendenhall Glacier and the Alaskan Brewing Company, went out to Sitka’s “fisherman bars” – quite an experience, sang a lot of Nicaraguan reggaeton songs that we missed, made Nicaraguan food, gave a talk about PC and our service at the Sitka high school and the local library, and just sat around enjoying each other’s company and watched movies. With just under 9,000 residents, Sitka is pretty small and the girls joked that after their two weeks here, they started to recognize most people in town.

The educational talk about Peace Corps we gave at the Sitka library Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau

Juneau from above - we went up the Mt. Roberts tram Hiking the glacier in Juneau

The chicas took off today and I already miss having three buddies to do things with. I’m also a bit stressed about what’s next for me. I haven’t planned much beyond this trip, and now that it’s over, I’m finding myself still conflicted about my next steps. I’m debating between staying and working here in Sitka for the summer and living at home, or moving up to Anchorage (Alaska’s “big city”) and looking for work there and rooming with friends. I plan on applying to graduate school this fall and would start in 2012, but after PC I realize that plans (even the well thought out ones) can change in a flash.

Cabin we rented for a night

A friend we made Nicaraguan food we made! (everything is basically fried...) Like the "Words with Friends" iPhone app, but in real life! Playing Scrabble...

I’m so happy that Danielle, Elisa and Liz were able to come up and I hope they had as much fun seeing my home state as I did showing it to them! I enjoyed being a tourist as well as I showed them the sights and even learned a few things about Alaska myself! My family friends in Juneau the Trivettes, as well as my parents here in Sitka were wonderful and hospitable hosts. We felt very cared for and I know the girls felt like they were “en casa.” I can’t wait for our next PC reunion… we’re talking about a return trip to Nicaraguan next spring!

Until next trip!

Well, I've been back in the U.S. for about a week. The transition is a bit hard at times and I haven't had much energy to do much besides unpack and re-learn English :) My major purchase has been an iPhone 4 and as I learn how to use it, I've been taking photos using the built-in camera, capturing a few of the things that I'm happiest to see back here in the U.S.A. Here is a photo gallery of a few of "my favorite things" :)

Pedicures! To take care of my callused mistreated feet!

Sushi! (I don't eat meat, but I love fish!)

Sugar-free gum - an American jumbo pack with 35 pieces! They must have been thinking of me...

Washing machine. Wow, just a simple push of the button wipes away hours of toil at a washboard.

Clean, drinkable tap water that doesn't contain parasites or bacteria

Family cat #1

Family cat #2 Both are flea-free and snuggly!

Apples!

Kombucha. I think I missed this beverage the most (well, after red wine)

Moutains and cool weather for wearing jackets and not constantly sweating!

Our family dog, Layla

Take me on a hike, Penny!

Where were you when President Obama was sworn-in in January 2009? I was in Miami, Florida watching it on TV, enjoying my last day in the U.S. I was preparing to leave to begin my Peace Corps service as a community health volunteer the next day.

After 27 months living in this hemisphere’s second poorest country, I have completed my service and am now officially a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV).

I have learned a few things and changed a few pre-conceived notions about the world, about development and about myself. Here are a few things that I’ve recently been reflecting on as I prepare to leave Nicaragua next week to return to the U.S.:

I will never throw anything away before first thinking of how I could re-use it or give it to another person. Nothing should ever be wasted!

Development work is not as simple as I once thought

As much as we try in the developed world to be “green” and save the environment, our lifestyles are not sustainable and for all the little changes we make (using energy efficient light bulbs, using less plastic grocery bags, etc.) it makes just a small dent in the overall picture of our carbon footprint

Peace Corps isn’t perfect – but neither is the UN, Save the Children, UNICEF, the IMF or the World Bank (living here I’ve seen firsthand many of the programs these organizations implement and have realized their respective strengths and flaws). Peace Corps is just another tool to help increase diplomacy, communication and if development increases along the way, so be it

There are certain things that I will miss, and others that I cannot wait to get away from. Let’s start with the negative first and end on a positive note. You’ll notice the latter list outnumbers the former.

Things I will NOT miss:

Rainy season – being wet and moldy all the time

Dry season – being dry, dusty and allergic all the time

Catcalls and verbal harassment on the street

Living alone and feeling vulnerable

Hours and hours spent on hot, sweaty, dusty and noisy chicken buses

Horrible customer service

Barking dogs and crowing roosters at night keeping me awake

The lack of separation of politics and education, health and other social and government services

Coffee so sweet you can feel cavities forming and food so salty, your mouth dries up eating it

Weekly comments by friends and neighbors on how “fat” or “skinny” you look that day (they are never even accurate)

Seeing heart-breaking poverty all around you – in rural villages and in the largest cities

Things I will miss about Nicaragua:

Bathing in my outdoor shower being able to see the birds and sun

Washing clothes by hand (it’s enjoyable to a certain extent)

Warm weather

Close friends I have made here and their open hearts and hospitable spirits

Vibrant Latin music and dancing. Everyone from babies to the elderly knows how to shake it to the latest reggaeton song or the most classic ballad or salsa song

The freedom I have in my work here. Also, the more relaxed pace of work and life in general

Seeing people who are so poor, yet so happy and giving

Kids dressed in school uniforms walking past my house at 6:45 am every day on their way to class, telling me it’s time to start a new day

Red beans and corn tortillas

Being able to really “eat locally”

Being within a day’s travel to a gorgeous Pacific beach

Brightly colored houses (my own hot pink house especially)

The camaraderie and closeness I feel with other Peace Corps volunteers –especially those in my group “Nica 49”

Nica 49 at our "Close of Service Conference" with our two Nicaraguan supervisorsHammocks

The clip-clop sound of horse hooves on the cobblestone street outside my house

My site-mate Kristen

Kristen and me“Visiting” people being a day-long activity

Fresh fruit – mangos, watermelon, pineapple, coconut and dragon fruit especially

Feeling powerful and capable because of my role as a Peace Corps volunteer. I feel confident calling a meeting of older leaders, parents, teachers, health center staff, and youth because I know they will respect me and listen to what I have to say both because I am from the U.S. and a Peace Corps volunteer

The hospitality of village people and their willingness to let you into their lives and homes

The black/white nature of male/female relationships here. You will know if a guy likes you or not right away. It will be made apparent when you first meet him by a whistle, cat call or sexist comment. No beating around the bush here!

I will never take for granted again the following things:

Indoor plumbing

Tap water that doesn’t make you sick

Customer service and efficiency in businesses

Quality clothing and shoes

Hot showers and bathtubs

Ubiquitous wireless internet

Having a car at your disposal

Washing machine/dryer

Couches

Vacuum cleaners

As I prepare to return to the U.S., I am finding myself feeling a little ambivalent about it all; sort of without emotions. I’m not excited to leave, but I’m also definitely ready to go. I do feel that my time here has been sufficient and I am ready to move on to the next step, whatever that may be. I plan to move back to Alaska to work for a time before possibly beginning graduate studies next year in international relations somewhere on the east coast. My life feels very up-in-the-air at the moment, and this surprises me. When I started Peace Corps I thought that by the end of these two years, I would “have it all figured out.” I would know what I wanted to study in graduate school and I would feel more mature and have finalized my “life plan” (whatever that is…). However, this of course is not the case. These two years have gone by faster than any other period in my life, and I find myself asking just as many questions today as I did when I began Peace Corps in 2009, perhaps even more questions, and more complicated ones.

My body and my spirit are tired though. I’m ready to go back to the U.S. for a bit to recuperate before I will be ready to think about what comes next. After being sick with some intestinal parasite or bacteria every 1-2 months here, I am physically exhausted and ready to feel healthy and energetic again. I am also emotionally worn out. I have worked so hard here to learn the culture, learn how to work with the Ministry of Health, troubleshoot problems that arose, deal with failed projects, strategize how to implement successful ones, and deal with the daily stresses of life in a third world country – all of this alone.

I am proud of myself for sticking it out until the end, through some very tough times. Of my group of 21 volunteers who entered the country, 13 of us finished our service completely. These are pretty normal Peace Corps statistics. It has been an emotional and physical rollercoaster – Peace Corps is definitely not for everyone, and that doesn’t mean that volunteers that complete all their service are superior to others, it just means we’re more stubborn perhaps :)



At our end of service presentation with our supervisor (far left) and the Peace Corps country director (second from left)On my last day in-site, it was very odd to see my pink house empty of all my possessions. I will definetly miss the $45/month rent, but I am looking forward to indoor plumbing again! I sold most of my furniture and household items to the new volunteer replacing me in my site – in one pick-up truck load, my entire Nicaraguan life was moved out! Saying goodbyes in site was a tearful but necessary evil and I had a hard time saying adios to dear friends such as Mariana and her family who have supported me through my toughest times (my robbery) and celebrated happy ones (our joint birthdays in June) with me like I was part of their family. It is so hard saying goodbye to people when you don’t know when you’ll see them again. I probably won’t return to visit Nicaragua for at least 3-4 years.



My last meal in-site at Mariana's house. Plantain, beans and cheese. 

Ready to go!

Ringing the bell at the Peace Corps office - a tradition for all volunteers who end their two years



Who hoo! Some people I do know I will see soon are three of my good girlfriends from my Peace Corps group “Nica 49” that are coming to visit me in Alaska in May for two weeks! I am excited to host visitors and share Alaska with them. We are already looking forward to this reunion and I know it will help us all go through the re-adjustment process to the U.S.

I’m ready for some rest and relaxation in the States – luckily my parents and I will be visiting Orlando, Florida for five days when I return. Although I’m not sure if Orlando is the place one goes for r&r, or if it will just rudely shock me back into American culture. Either way, I’m looking forward to visiting the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and drinking a butterbeer! I am also looking forward to buying an iPhone, drinking a Kombucha tea and seeing my nieces (and they will happen in that order as well). I will be traveling visiting family in Oregon and then going to my sister’s graduation in California in May.

I’m not going to become complacent however. I know that after a few weeks, I’ll be ready for the next adventure!

All over the world, Peace Corps volunteers have painted thousands of world map murals in schools, parks, city buildings, community centers, sports centers, health centers and hospitals. The first world map was done by a Peace Corps volunteer named Barbara in the Dominican Republic in 1989. Since then, a “world map kit” has been created and distributed to all Peace Corps countries with detailed step-by-step instructions on how to create this beautiful and educational mural. You can read about the project here.

The other Peace Corps volunteer who lives in my community (my ¨site-mate¨) Kristen and I decided to paint a world map mural in a rural school outside of our village. My parents graciously decided to give us the funding for the paint, brushes and other supplies. Kristen and I had both worked in that school in the past giving classes and knew the Director, teachers and students well. When we brought up the idea of a world map project, they were excited and ready to support the activity. We decided to use an empty wall on the side of one of the main class buildings. It would be seen by the school children and also by people walking by the school.

What we thought would be a relatively quick project (a few weeks at most), ended up taking us 10 months from start to finish due to rainy season, summer vacation, and the conflicting work schedules of Kristen and me. The map was further complicated by the fact that we had to take a “chicken bus” out to the community ever time we worked on it, taking up practically an entire day. However, we pushed through. We were determined to have something tangible come out of our Peace Corps service, and I think we just wanted to see if we could actually do it!

Here is our map project, step-by-step:

Step one: Wash the wall. Have a carpenter (or otherwise skilled person at measuring) mark out the 6x12 foot space on the wall. This took one day, and required us to coordinate with the carpenter and pay his bus fare and for his labor that day.

Washing the wall

Don Enrique measuring

Step two: We painted the rectangle a light blue (ocean) background color. We did two coats (two separate days of painting).

Painting the background

Step three: Have the carpenter return to mark out the grid system on the map. The Peace Corps world map kit uses a grid system to transfer a relatively small map image onto a larger surface. We made 1,568 blocks (28 rows x 56 rows) in pencil.

Step four: Draw the map! We used pencils and the map guide to draw each individual square. This tedious task was made easier by many hands and eager kids.

Drawing countries

It´s done! Ready for paint!

Step five: Outline all the countries and borders with black permanent marker. Be careful not to make mistakes! We had a little trouble with this part in the area around the former Soviet Union since the guide we were using was quite outdated and needed some new countries added. We had to improvise a bit on this part and not use the guide. Let’s just say it’s not perfect, but it gets the job done.

Step six: Paint the countries! The guide told us what color to paint each country, and we divided the work up among students. This required two coats of paint as well and involved a lot of paint drips on clothing and on each other. We bought primary colors and from those were able to mix other colors like purple, pink, and brown.

Painting countries, one by one

Our arms got a bit tired

Step seven: Use the light blue ocean color to paint over the pencil grid lines (they wouldn’t erase!)

Kristen and I

Step eight: Re-draw all the borders with black permanent marker and write country and ocean names.

Step nine: Celebrate the map! We didn’t have time for this step since we finished just days before I will be leaving my community, but you could tell the kids felt accomplished and proud of what we had done. Even if they had just played a small role: painting a couple countries or helping paint the ocean, they felt part of the larger overall activity.

The younger children in elementary school loved to crowd around the map as we were writing the country names yelling out “Look! There’s China! It’s so big!” “Wow, Nicaragua is so small!” “I didn’t know that’s where South Africa was…” “Wait, Africa is a continent?” I can tell that many hours will be spent sitting in front of this map contemplating the various countries on it and giving these children a greater sense of their world and their place in it.

¨This map was made in 2010/11 with the Peace Corps volunteers Kristen O´Neil and Lilia Penny Gage with the fourth and fifth year students with funding from Steve and Amelia Gage.¨On the top of the map we painted a Peace Corps symbol (“Cuerpo de Paz in Spanish”), and the Nicaraguan flag. On the bottom we wrote when the map had been made and by who, as well as noting my parents for their financial contributions which made it possible.

Kristen and I, very satisfied!Good work kids!I’m happy to be able to leave this map behind which will last long after the memory of my presence has faded.

Would a Penny by any other name be as sweet? I guess it´s time to come clean and admit it. I have a double identity. In Nicaragua, I am not the same Penny that you may know and love (or not – hey, you may just like my blog). For the past two years, I have carried out my life in another language and even used an alias. I have denied parts of my personality and changed my mannerisms in order to fit in with the local culture. In many ways, I lead a double life. Now, as dramatic as this may sound, it’s not my first time doing this. When I studied abroad in Spain, I experienced living in another culture for the first time, and I had to make myself understood (my personality, my nuances, my desires, etc.) in a new and foreign language. I believe that everyone undergoes a bit of a personality change when they speak another language. While Spanish is almost second-nature to me now, there will always be differences in what is expressed. I have been less outgoing here, more hesitant, more willing to watch and wait rather than act first. However, this has brought its own benefits, and by changing myself a little bit, I have learned more about Nicaragua and my own personality.One part of my double identity however that took some time for me to get used to has been my alias – yes, I use a different name here in Peace Corps. It wasn’t always this way – during training I tried to use “Penny,” but was met with difficulty. It was hard for rural Nicaraguans to wrap their tongues around the foreign word – it always ended up vaguely sounding like the Spanish word pene, (pronounced pay-nay) which is their word for the male reproductive organ. Yes, snicker all you want, I’m used to it.I never had this same pronunciation problem in Spain – Spaniards were able to say my name just fine, often recalling the famous Beatles song “Penny Lane.” I think that in comparison to Spaniards, Nicaraguans are less used to pronouncing foreign words and have little experience with English. The Peace Corps language facilitators suggested that I choose a different name to go by during my service. First we tried Penelope; it was also too hard for most to pronounce. I considered going by “Katy” since my middle name is Kathleen, but there were too many Katies, Kats, and Catherines in Peace Corps and it would have been confusing. I ended up choosing to use the Spanish name I had picked in high school Spanish class. It’s a tradition in most high school language courses to choose a name to go by in class in that language. I imagine teachers believed it helped students get into the feeling of being and speaking the language, immersing oneself into español as much as possible in an American classroom. Most kids picked funny names like Margarita or Nacho. I had looked at the list of Spanish names in the back of our textbook and chosen the “L” name (one of my favorite letters) that I liked the best: Lilia. So, it was settled. I would go by Lilia. After four years of high school use in the classroom, I already automatically turned around whenever I heard someone say it and was used to writing it down. Simple enough, right? Nicaraguans should have no trouble with it. Wrong. Even this “Spanish” name was hard to pronounce – they wanted to turn it into “Lilian” or even “Liliam.” Teaching people how to pronounce Lilia probably took me just as much time as it would have for them to learn how to say “Penny” correctly… but, at this point, a few weeks into my service with introductions already made; it was too late to turn back. I was christened Lilia/Lilian/Liliam whether I liked it or not.It took a while to get used to going by a different name – after a lifetime of being known as Penny/Pen/P-nut/Pizzle/Piz/and even Pennykins, it was like that was all a different world. It made the process of integration into culture here and learning the local Spanish slang and way of speaking that much more intense and all-encompassing. Sometimes I wouldn’t respond when someone would call “Lilia”, I often wrote my name down as Penny, confusing co-workers and messing up attendance lists. My Peace Corps supervisors who had originally met me as Penny had to get used to calling me Lilia, at least when in the presence of my Nicaraguan counterparts. It was like I had a completely different identity “in-site.” I behaved differently (always muting my actions and personality at first to fit in and please others), I was without peers my age to be friends with, I was speaking a foreign language, and using a different name. This must be what people in the Witness Protection Program go through a little bit, I remember thinking.Whenever I left my site, or was talking with other volunteers, or even in my online Facebook life – I returned to being “Penny.” It was like putting a favorite sweater on – it felt comfortable and familiar. Lilia was still awkward and I was unsure who I wanted her to be. I always felt like I wanted her to be the perfect Peace Corps volunteer: always be culturally sensitive, be liked by everyone, and avoid political frictions. This was of course not possible as I learned later on in my service, and eventually accepted.The other Peace Corps volunteer that lives in my site, Kristen, had trouble with the Lilia/Penny distinction. She called me both names interchangeably, and we often confused others when we talked in the company of other Peace Corps volunteers. “Who’s Lilia?” they would ask. I will maintain a friendship with Kristen for my entire life – we have experience bonding under extreme conditions during the past two years. I wonder if she’ll ever slip up in the future and call me “Lilia” by accident when we’re back in the U.S.Many Peace Corps volunteers use the phrase, “Out of sight, out of mind” but change the word “sight” to “site” to describe the feeling they have when they leave their assigned Peace Corps community (or “site”) to come to the big city for a medical appointment, to go shopping or banking, or just to hang out with other volunteers and speak English. They use this phrase because the minute you leave your village, part of you immediately forgets about your life in-site and your work. It’s a stress mechanism I believe – our bodies are so exhausted mentally and physically in-site that whenever we leave, there is a little feeling of relief, of relaxation. We are finally “off-duty” from our 24/7 lives as Peace Corps volunteers – we are out of the fishbowl (or at least in a larger fishbowl where we don’t stick out as much!) Towards the beginning of my service, it was hard for me to leave site and leave “Lilia” behind – was it like that part of me didn’t exist anymore? Will it still exist after I leave Nicaragua, or just in the minds of people who knew me as that person? After 26 months here, 23 of them being spent as “Lilia,” I can now go fluidly between the two names/identities. I’m not sure where Penny ends and Lilia begins. I’m not sure how much of Lilia I will bring back with me to the U.S. – how will Lilia have changed how Penny behaves? Having an alias here has changed how I think about my experience – it wasn’t just two years living in another country, it was a completely different life I led here. I’ve changed – going back home I won’t be the same person who left, but I won’t be the person that I was here in Nicaragua either. I can just see a future Peace Corps volunteer coming to my town asking about that volunteer who was here 2009-2011, “Did you know Penny?” they might ask. “Penny?” people will respond, “Never heard of her. There was this one blonde girl named Lilia though…Let me tell you about her.”

In the multitude of corn-based foods made in the northern region of Nicaragua, where I live, my favorite by far is the rosquete (ros-ket-ay). It is similar to its famous relative (often exported), the rosquilla which is like a Nicaraguan version of a Cheese-It. I believe rosquetes are superior however because they contain no cheese and have a wonderful crispy taste, similar to a Swedish gingersnap. They are coffee’s perfect acompañante.

Every little pulperia (store) in my town that sells rosquetes knows that they are my favorite snack. When I enter the store they automatically tell me if they have rosquetes or not, the former being said with a large smile “They’re your favorite, right?” and the latter being said with a sympathetic downcast look. I had wanted to make rosquetes since the beginning of my service, but finding someone who bakes them on a regular basis has proved quite difficult. There are always rumors of who is making them, on what day of the week, and where they live… Well, this past week I finally was able to find the infamous (and elusive) Doña Chana who has been making rosquetes for decades out of her home with her children and grandchildren. I stopped by late morning and they already had the dough ready and were rolling out the doughnut shaped rosquetes, pressing the distinctive design into each one using a cheese grater (so that’s how they do it!) The dough contains ground corn, sugar, vegetable shortening,baking soda, and a bit of salt. They had woken up at 3:30 AM to start preparing the dough and were rolling out rosquetes until about noon, making over 1,000! Doña Chana let me make a pan of my own rosquetes, and needless to say they weren’t as perfectly formed as hers or her daughter’s were, but they ended up tasting the same!

Doña Chana (right) and her daughter rolling out cookies

Making the circular forms, then using the cheese grater to make the design Ready for the oven! The pan in the foreground is the one that I made (they look a little irregular compared to the others :) In the afternoon, they fire up the large dome-shaped brick oven in her backyard – filling it with firewood and lighting it, letting it heat up to a high temperature. Then they take out the wood, leaving the space inside hot enough to bake rosquetes to a nice, signature toasted crisp.

Lighting the wood to heat the oven Removing from the oven Nice and toasted! As we talked about my impending departure in April, Doña Chana seemed appalled that soon I would be back in the U.S. where she had heard that Nicaraguan staples like yucca root was apparently $5/lb. (here it is less than $1), and where there would be no rosquetes available! She promised to mail me some, but I doubt they would taste the same after two weeks in-transit to Alaska. She did give me a simple recipe, and if I can find some good corn, I may be able to make some. Here is Doña Chana’s recipe for a small batch of rosquetes: 5-6 pounds of corn (cooked then ground), 1 pound of vegetable shortening, 1-2 pounds of sugar, 2-3 tablespoons of baking soda, and a pinch of salt. Mix all ingredients and form into rounds (use a cheese grater to stamp the top if you want), place on ungreased baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. I can’t wait to try it out back home – probably won’t taste the same coming from a gas oven rather than a woodstove though.Ready to eat!

I just checked off another thing on my "bucket list" of things to do before I "kick the bucket." Last night, I was lucky enough to see one of my favorite musical artists in concert, in Managua, Nicaragua nonetheless. Now, this wouldn't be so surprising until you hear who he is - no, it's not Pitbull, Daddy Yankee, or even Shakira - it was DJ Tiesto, yes, in Nicaragua. When I found out, I had to check out literally three websites and make a few calls to make sure he was really coming and it wasn't some sort of weird joke. DJ Tiesto is a Dutch DJ and is one of the most popular DJs in the world, spinning dance/trance/techno/house music until the wee hours in places like Ibiza, Europe, the U.S. and Asia - but he had never before been to Nicaragua. I was doubtful that Nicaragua would be able to generate the fan base to fill up the concert stadium, but not to worry - the concert was amazing and it was completely sold out. DJ Tiesto wrote on Twitter that people from Central America "have so much beat in their blood!"

I went with a few friends from Managua and a couple other Peace Corps volunteers. When he came onstage, the crowd went crazy. Even one of my supervisors from Peace Corps was there! We had an amazing night at the outdoor venue enjoying Tiesto's "Kaleidoscope World Tour" until I literally couldn't dance anymore. I woke up with swollen feet and will probably lose a toenail due to repeatedly being jumped on and stepped on by fellow concert goers. (No hard feelings though, guys!) I was annoyed that at the entrance, our glowsticks were confiscated with no explanation... I did sneak in some bubbles however. My college rommate Lexi and I are diehard Tiesto fans and I have fond memories of us senior year at UAF dancing around in our room together with the volume at full blast. She has been to two previous Tiesto concerts in New York City, and I have long been waiting for my own chance. Of course, I called her from the concert on my cell phone so she could at least hear him in the background, as she had done for me in NYC.

Below are a few videos and pictures I took that night. What an amazing way to finish up my time in Nicaragua - such a coincidence! Just over a month left in Nicaragua, and I'm going out on a sweet note...My friend Amy and I pre-concert in our amazing Nica jeansKat (a fellow Peace Corps volunteer) and ILoved this guy's shirt - Dutch colors!There were some painted fake cows at the entrace that said "Holland" "Tiesto" and had tulips painted on them - a mix of Nicaraguan and Dutch culture perhaps?I was all over the place dancing, and so was my hair...

The corner store (or pulperia) next to my houseThe pulperia. Nicaraguan life revolves around this institution – what is it, you ask? Well, I was also a bit confused upon my arrival here. The word contains the Spanish word for octopus, “pulpo.” Was it where they sold calamari? No, a pulperia is another word for tienda; specifically a small store, usually run out of someone’s home that provides everything to the barrio it is a part of from washcloths to sanitary napkins, from underwear to shampoo. Gum and candies

Soap for washing clothes

Coming from Alaska’s bulk culture where practically every resident is a card-carrying Costco member, I was surprised to see the way that pulperia owners eke out their living in such small scale operations. In the rural arctic area of Alaska where they live, my older brother and his wife pile their pantry high with provisions for the winter, bringing in goods on the yearly barge. To avoid the high “village prices” their house is stuffed with dozens of packets of noodles, tins of sauce and meat, bottles of alcohol, and even the essential Reese's Pieces.

In Nicaragua by contrast, people buy their daily goods in the exact opposite of bulk, on an individual scale. Every morning the youngest children of the house that are considered old enough to go out on their own are sent out to purchase a single bag of ground coffee, a pound of sugar and some sweet bread for breakfast. Around 10:30 AM those same children will make the trek again to buy provisions for lunch: beans, rice, oil, chicken, salt. For the afternoon coffee at 3 PM, the same – and in the evening the pulperias are full of children buying salty or sugary packaged junk food.

Chips and treats - 10 cents each

You can buy everything individually – one bar of soap, one egg, a stick of gum, a small baggie of cinnamon, one ibuprofen pill, a packet of Tang… Families have no supply of petty cash to purchase items in bulk, and many households do not have refrigerators to keep food fresh, so everything is made in the moment and re-boiled or simply sits out overnight and eaten the next day. After two years here, I have begun to believe that refrigeration is actually an unnecessary part of Western life and a scheme that the electricity companies have put on us to use more watts – highly overrated. That mold won’t kill you – just smother some sour cream on it or some sweet ketchup to mask the taste and wolf it down, verdad?

Spices

Individual packets of oatmeal

I have a feeling that when I get back to the States, I will be shocked at the mere volume of food and supplies available in the grocery stores. I will protest, “But, what if I only want one piece of bread?” “Why buy the whole box of band-aid when I only need one?” Individual item purchasing a la pulperia is really very convenient.

The "medicine cabinet"

One of my best friends in-site is a woman named Mariana. She and her husband own a pulperia in the front of their house facing the main park – a very good location. They are open sunrise to sunset seven days a week, which really facilitated our friendship since every time I walked by I would hear her voice calling out to me “Hoooola!” beckoning me in for a cup of sweet coffee or a piece of papaya. She is a permanent fixture in the town, sitting in the pulperia looking out on the town and it’s goings on. She can always share the latest news with you and gossips to a fault. I sometimes find myself rolling my eyes as she goes on about Roberto what’s-his-name who had a child with Maria something-or-other and she and he were fighting last night (didn’t you overhear?!) and the baby was crying all night long! Who are these people? I have no idea, but for Mariana, they constitute her own private little telenovela or soap opera, conveniently accessible at all hours from her front porch.

Mariana at work weighing the dry goods

She sits and entertains visitors and clients who come by to spend a few córdobas. The money trickles in slowly and is measured in cents; I don’t know how she makes any money selling gum, bread and soap. I really don’t understand how any pulperia in this country makes a profit since within a 100 foot radius of any house, there are anywhere from 2-5 pulperias all selling the same exact items.

Individual batteries for sale

Single use packets of fabric softener and cleaning solution

Owning a pulperia is not so much about business as it is about socialization and being a part of your community. When you open up your home to sell items, you invite visitors at all hours – your private and professional lives are combined. You are never off-the-clock and can expect knocks at your door at all hours as someone comes for an emergency liter of vegetable oil or an extra pound of dog food.

Shampoo packetsSome of the pulperia items I will miss the most are the individual packets of shampoo – very useful for travel! Also, being able to buy hard candies individually and rosquetes, a sweet gingery corn cookie. Soon I will be lamenting the days when I could walk a few feet outside my door and find everything that a human being could ever really need, all smashed chaotically into the tiny space of the neighborhood pulperia…

Everyone laments when it’s time to do laundry. Usually when the pile of dirty clothes has piled up and spilled over the laundry basket, you’ll hear a long sigh by the owner of those articles of clothing, followed by the sorting and washing of clothes in a grudging manner. Although most Westerners have clothes washers and dryers, apparently the act of putting the clothing and detergent into the washer and pressing a few buttons causes thoughts of dread and incites laziness. I’ll admit, in college I was one of these people as well. In my on-campus apartment, to access the laundry facilities, we had to walk outside a hundred feet or so in the snow and cold to change laundry loads. And don’t even get me started on those infamous missing socks…In Nicaragua however, I am without the modern amenities of a washer and dryer and instead use my lavandero or washboard and hang clothes out to dry on a few lines of twine strung between trees in the backyard. Several other Peace Corps volunteers pay people to wash their clothes for them ($0.50/dozen items), but for some reason I have never felt the need to do this. Maybe it’s because I’m just one person, and with regular washing throughout the week, the quantity or burden of laundry never piles up too much. I’ve also realized, as I begin to think about ending my time here in Nicaragua (my service will be complete in two months), that washing clothes is a relaxing activity for me – almost meditative.In a slow-moving country like Nicaragua, washing clothes makes me feel like I’ve had a productive day. Talking with other volunteers about their average Sunday, you often hear something along the lines of “Well, I woke up, read a book for a while, watched a DVD on my laptop, and just sort of sat around… But, I did do some laundry!” The last part is said with a markedly positive tone, as if to point out that, yes, although I reclined in a hammock for six hours of this day, at least two of them were spent doing something productive, honest and with visible results. Believe me, when working as a Peace Corps volunteer, you live for these little, visible results from your efforts.I have always read articles on meditation in magazines and online that recommend that every healthy adult should engage in this rewarding, solo activity. I however am not the meditative type. My friends know that I can barely sit still to watch a movie or have a conversation; I have to be doing something with my hands, or in some other way be accomplishing something. This is something that many Americans have in common, but it is also something that has slowly been toned down for me after living in Nicaragua for two years. I am much more content to just sit on the side of the road for an unlimited period of time simply waiting for the next chicken bus to come along, or to just sit and talk about the weather and the recent town gossip at a friend’s house for hours on end. I do enjoy yoga and can relax when I’m being instructed to by the teacher – as if simply by participating in the class, I am “accomplishing” something valuable. But simply sitting in my house with my eyes closed and legs crossed, “blanking” my mind is not possible. Washing clothes however, is – and it’s something that I need to do on a regular basis (or else the townspeople will call me cochina, basically a dirty little piggy). I like to think that I’ve become a sort of expert in the art of washing clothes by hand, and will proceed to explain the process which I find so relaxing and satisfying. First, I fill up my large outdoor sink, or pila with water (usually first thing in the morning before 8 AM when the running water usually stops working in the town).

Filling up the pila

If my clothes are extra dirty, I will have had them soaking in water with detergent for a few hours beforehand. Then, I use a bar of laundry soap (sold in a variety of colors and smells – my favorites are the blue antibacterial or the purple, lavender-scented ones). I rub this bar all over the item of clothing and then proceed to rub it back and forth vigorously over the stone ridges of my washboard (which also serves as my all-purpose sink for washing dishes, brushing my teeth, etc.) After I’ve worked up a good lather and rubbed most of the dirt (and color) out of the piece of clothing, I pour clean water over it using a small bowl, taking water from the pila.

Working up a lather

After squeezing out all the extra water, I hang it on the line, securing it from the gusts of wind with a few clothespins. On a sunny, hot day, the clothes could dry in an hour or two. In the rainy season, clothes would go days without drying – being hung indoors to avoid the endless rain. Mold would even form on some of the hard-to-dry items, causing a lot of headaches for Nicaraguan housewives (myself included). Every once in a while, a bird will decide to leave a little “gift” on some of my drying laundry, making me have to return to wash it all over again.

My backyard - pila, washboard, outhouse and clothing lines

Sometimes I listen to my iPod while I wash clothes, but usually I just zone out and let myself be carried away by the simple act that I am performing. I can look at the trees, enjoy the breeze and eavesdrop in on my neighbors talking or to their radio. I watch the pigeons and doves flutter in and out, trying to drink water out of my pila and sometimes the neighbor’s cat come and sits with me; the skittish thing watching me from a safe distance sitting in the dirt. As I begin to think about ending my Peace Corps service, I am increasingly realizing the things that I will miss about Nicaragua and my daily, simple life here. Washing clothes has become my meditative time and my moment to relax and enjoy being outside without expectations or requirements. Although sometimes, this activity isn’t the most relaxing (try washing bed sheets by hand, for example), I will definitely miss it once I’m back in the U.S. Although, nothing beats the feeling of putting on a hooded sweatshirt or wrapping yourself in a towel that is fresh out of the clothes’ dryer…

Want to take your honeymoon in Nicaragua? Wait, wait – I can convince those of you out there reeling in shock. Despite its tumultuous past with a bloody civil war, the Iran-Contra scandal and its extreme poverty, Nicaragua is also the land of lakes and volcanoes, of sun and beaches. It is more affordable than its highly-visited neighbor Costa Rica and while it may not be known for its tourism infrastructure or luxury, you can’t beat its rural charm! People are increasingly realizing though that despite a tumultuous past, Nicaragua has a lot to offer.

The Nicaraguan Institute of Tourism cites that in 2010 for the first year ever, Nicaragua was visited by over 1 million foreigners. This influx may be due to the country’s recent publicity in the TV show “Survivor” and it’s past appearance on the Discovery Channel´s ¨Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmer¨ and it´s upcoming appearance as a destination another Discovery Channel program, “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” (it should be showing in March I believe…)

So, it should be no surprise to you then that my college roommate from Alaska, Brianna (Bri) and her husband Ryan decided to come to Nicaragua for their honeymoon this January. (Of course, my being a Peace Corps volunteer played a large role in their decision!). They were married on New Years’ Eve in Colorado and arrived in Nicaragua on January 5th. First, they went to Little Corn Island on Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast and they spent a week in a beach bungalow having “couple time.” After their week of honeymoon, they flew back to Managua and traveled around the western part of the country with me for about ten days.

This was my first time meeting Ryan. Bri had met him the summer that I left Alaska to do an internship in D.C., and the following January, I left for Peace Corps, and I hadn’t seen Bri for two years. It was quite a reunion – it was so nice to see her again and our friendship felt so familiar, but it was also different since now she had a husband and had in many ways completely changed her life. The way Bri raves about Ryan, I already knew I would love him. After getting to know him during this trip, I can agree that she is a lucky girl to have found him (and also he with her!) Reunited! In my community´s central parkThey visited my Peace Corps community and stayed in my little pink house and we lived rural-style for a couple days, although it wasn’t such a change for Ryan and Bri as you might have thought. In Alaska, they live in a “dry” (no running water) wooden cabin on the top of a mountain overlooking the city of Anchorage. It’s quite a rustic and pioneering way of life – very similar to Peace Corps! They have an incinerating toilet for solid waste and have to pee outside (at my house, Bri actually commented on my wonderful latrine and how nice and civilized it was!) They wash clothes at a laundromat or an obliging friend’s house. In many ways, my Nicaraguan house here was very similar to theirs (except here you can wash your clothes by hand and hang them up outside in the sun to dry, and in Alaska they would just freeze, and also I have running water most days).

Bri and I at my house Ryan and Bri relaxing at my houseWashing clothes by hand at my houseNicaraguan Betty Crockers - we made a green mango pie and wore our Nicaraguan apronsMaking sushi at my house (thanks Mom for sending the ingredients!)During a visit to my friend Jairo’s rural farm, Ryan and Bri milked cows and rode horses. Bri was thrilled to grind the corn by hand, pat-out her own tortilla and eat it fresh off the fire. Jairo also showed us about thirty roosters that he was raising and training for cock fighting (which is not illegal in Nicaragua). First they cut off the extra red parts on the rooster´s head (apparently called the ¨wattle¨ ¨earlobes¨ and ¨comb¨) to avoid having them being bitten while fighting. Feathers on the bottoms of their bodies are removed as well to avoid injury and make them lighter and more agile. Little spurs are placed on their feet to provide maximum injury to the other rooster. Jairo said that people will bet US$500 - $1,500 on local games!Removing the wattle, earlobes and comb of the rooster to prepare him for cock fighting. Poor guy!

The spurs the cocks use during fighting - imported from Mexico

Bri patting out a tortilla under Gregoria´s watchful eyeComparing the tortillas Bri and I made

Bri trying her hand at milkingAnother day we took a visited the Somoto Canyon and hiked/swam for four hours through the beautiful scenery. In the city of Somoto we also visited rosquilla bakeries which make the traditional Nicaraguan corn and cheese crackers. Ryan and Bri fell in love with rosquillas and between the three of us; we ate through about three bags in as many days.Somoto CanyonRyan and Bri sharing a smooch in the CanyonCoffee beans being sun-dried

Visiting a coffee processing plant in my town - right now is harvest seasonAfter time in my village, Ryan and Bri went by themselves to the Miraflor Nature Reserve outside of the city of Estelí. I have never been, but now I think I’ll have to put it on my “bucket list” before I leave Nicaragua because they had a great time. They stayed with a local family there and went horseback riding for hours – seeing lush forests and pine trees.And this is why they call them ¨Chicken buses¨...After their time in Miraflor, we met back up and headed west to the colonial and university city of León.

LeónLeón is in an area of the country that is infamously hot, and the suffocating temperature made it was hard to do as much sightseeing as they would have liked. We did get to do something that has been on my to-do list for while, and that Ryan was especially interested in since he works in geology and with volcanoes – volcano boarding! What’s this, you ask? Well, you hike up active volcano cone and ride down it toboggan-style on a wooden board. It was just as fun and crazy as it sounds. The hike up was about 45 minutes and very hot and slippery. The entire volcano was composed of small pumice stones and ash and it was easy to lose your footing. We were also carting along our wooden boards which were heavy and uncomfortably large. The volcano we boarded is called Cerro Negro or Black Hill due to its distinctive black cone. Once we were on top we could peek inside the shallow crater which was emitting smoke and smelled of sulfur. In the distance we could see four other volcanoes running along the Nicaraguan coastline reminding us that this was part of the “ring of fire.” On the edge of the crater there was an abandoned seismic measuring shack which looked dusty and unused. Although this volcano is active, it’s not that serious I suppose. Cerro Negro Hiking upAfter reaching the top, we donned our bright our bright orange protective suits and plastic goggles to prepare for the ride down. Our guide gave us a quick tutorial of what to do and not do: always hold on to the handle, keep your mouth closed to avoid stray pumice stones and ash from flying into it, and use your feet on the sides to steer and as brakes. Bri and I were the third and fourth people from the group to go and despite the nerves, we both took off down the mountain without hesitation. The hill was quite vertical and sloped down at a dramatic angle – we could see the orange truck that was waiting for us at the bottom and it seemed very far away. The driver was waiting at the bottom and had a speed gun, clocking our speeds as we came down. Ryan was the fastest in the group – he went 69 km/hour (40 miles per hour) and I got up to 49 km/hour (30 mph) before wiping out on my side and scratching up my forearm. Despite my tumble, once at the bottom of the mountain, I instantly wanted to climb up and do it again. After we had done it once, everyone was excited to do it again – improving our technique to go faster. After the ride, which probably lasted about 45 seconds, our faces were completely covered in black ash – when Bri took off her goggles, there was a line of clean skin where the goggles had protected her and the rest looked like one of those cartoon characters that has had a bomb go off next to them; hair everywhere and face blackened. We found pumice and ash everywhere that night – in our ears, socks, underwear and belly buttons!We were pretty stylish in those suits...Bri ready to go!There she goes! See the truck far down in the distance?From León, we headed to the colonial city of Granada. We treated ourselves to massages at a spa ($25/hour!) and relaxed. Bri had become quite sick at this point with a strong cough and she was visibly dragging. I could tell that she was miserable – not just because of her sickness, but because it was interfering with her vacation. She pushed herself though to do some of the activities we had planned. We spent one day in Masaya – Ryan checked out the Masaya Volcano while Bri and I shopped at the famous market there, buying souvenirs. We also went to pick up my wedding gift to Ryan and Bri – a special ordered hammock with their names embroidered on the side with a heart between them. I can just see them both lounging in it in their little red cabin on the mountains above Anchorage.Fancy dinner night in GranadaOur last day, we spent the night at the Apoyo Lagoon, arguably one of the most beautiful places in the country. The water is clean and warm, and the surrounding area is a protected nature reserve. It was a relaxing oasis and calmed our nerves from the frantic, touristic city of Granada – and despite Bri’s sickness, we all enjoyed one last night together.

Apoyo LagoonSo relaxed...The next day we took off early for the Managua airport – Ryan and Bri’s Nicaraguan cigars, hammock and other souvenirs in tow. Having both done stool tests while they were here (suspecting an intestinal infection), they knew that they were not contaminated with bacteria or parasites, and they were ready to go back to civilization. Bri lamented that she could not stay longer to make up for the time “lost” while she was sick. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had changed her ticket at the last minute and stayed until the end of January. But, of course, real life awaited – Ryan had to get back to work at the U.S. Geological Survey and Bri had a few more university classes to finish up this semester before obtaining her bachelor’s degree from University of Alaska Fairbanks in Natural Resource Management. They were excited to move in together at Ryan’s small mountaintop cabin and settle in to their lives together as a married couple.

I am so grateful that Bri and Ryan decided to spend their honeymoon in Nicaragua, and a portion of their time traveling with me. Having visitors really makes me feel loved, and I really enjoy sharing this country with others. I don’t realize how much I have learned about Nicaragua and its culture until I am explaining it to a non-Nicaraguan. Bri was amazed at how assertive I was against the machista Nicaraguan men and non-confrontational, passive-aggressive people we met. In hotels, taxis and restaurants I became our biggest advocate – making sure that every last córdoba was accounted for and we weren’t being ripped off (a side-effect I suppose of being a Peace Corps volunteer that lives on U$180/month). I am so glad that Bri and Ryan were able to experience Nicaragua and see how I live – when I return to the U.S., I know that the transition will be hard at first. Talking about Peace Corps and my time in Nicaragua will mean nothing to most people. I’m so glad that my parents, sister, and now Bri and Ryan have visited me here – they can share, in a way, part of my Peace Corps experience and relate to the struggles and celebrations that make up my life here.

Although saying goodbye to visitors is always sad, after Bri and Ryan had left for the airport, I felt oddly excited about returning to the U.S. It had sunk in that I will be done in just over two months! Seeing Bri again and meeting Ryan prepared me for life back in Alaska and helped me transition back to thinking about daily life there. Talking with Bri, I got excited about the little things that I’ll be able to do when I’m back : go to the gym with Bri, train for the Equinox Marathon in Fairbanks in September (we may do a relay team with my other college roommate Lexi), having Nicaraguan cooking nights at their little cabin, and joining a book club that Bri is a part of.

So, the countdown has officially begun to my Peace Corps “Close of Service” (COS). Time is flying by and I have to really budget my time now to make sure I do everything I want/need to before I leave in April. I’m already looking around my house and mentally packing up my things and deciding what will stay and what will go. The new Peace Corps volunteer who will replace me arrives April 1st to my town (they are already in-country in training), and I will leave soon after. Alaska, here I come!

Would you know how to handle a snake bite in the middle of the Nicaraguan wilderness? How about a broken limb? A machete wound? While some have been trained in first aid (albeit about 20 years ago), most of the local health volunteers (brigadistas) in my community wouldn’t know what to do in those situations. While they have enthusiasm and a strong desire to improve their community and support Health Center activities in the rural communities, brigadistas are often poorly trained and lack resources. None of them have basic first aid kit materials or are confident to address emergency situations in their villages.

Enter Emergency Relief Services for Latin America (ERSLA). This non-governmental organization (NGO) runs out of the Nicaraguan city of Estelí and was founded by a former Nicaraguan Peace Corps volunteer named Rodney McDonald. I have known him for months and since they often work with firefighters and other emergency relief efforts, I brought up the idea of coordinating a basic first aid class in my community. This month, several volunteers from the U.S. came down to Nicaragua to work with ERSLA training firefighters and helping with administrative efforts. Turns out one of them, named Ryan, was a paramedic, spoke Spanish, and willing to do the training in my community! We coordinated a half-day training and invited all the brigadistas in the community. Ryan and Rodney arrived bright and early, however like most Nicaraguan meetings – it started about an hour and a half late. Only female brigadistas showed up – I guess that’s what you get for holding a meeting during coffee and tobacco season. Most of the men were probably doing seasonal harvest work for the local cooperatives.

Ryan led an informal training session and his Spanish was great. The women were a little giggly in the presence of two American men and were quick to forgive his grammar errors. Since most brigadistas have little to no first aid material in their homes, Ryan taught simple first aid techniques using common items such as a t-shirt, a bottle of water, a baseball cap or wooden sticks. They role-played common scenarios making a sling out of a t-shirt, carrying someone who was wounded, and making a splint. In the case of neck or spinal injury, he showed the women how to make a neck brace using the bill of a baseball hat, wrapping it with cloth.Practicing sling tying

When there is no ambulance (or donkey) available!Ryan was quite the clown with the ladies. Here he is pretending to have a neck injuryMe getting a sling wrappedStopping bleeding and elevating

The Health Center Director and Head Nurse were also present at the training and I think even they learned a few techniques. When resources are scarce and there is no anti-bacterial wash, clean gauze or even band-aids out in the field, using what is available in the home or in the field is the brigadista’s only option. These brigadistas are paid nothing and volunteer their time and energy to improve the health of their communities. The brigadistas program began after the Nicaraguan Sandinista revolution and is one of the great grassroots networks that we can access and utilize as Peace Corps volunteers to implement community education programs.

The training was a success, and I hope to coordinate with Rodney to have follow-up sessions in the coming months. Thanks ERSLA and thanks to Ryan! Check out ERSLA’s web page at: www.ersla.org

Note: photos to come soon on this blog.

Alana, Ena and I arrived tired and red-eyed after our flight from Cuzco and the three hour express bus ride south from Lima along the dusty, sandy Pan-American Highway to Alana’s Peace Corps site. She lives in a larger city compared to my community in Nicaragua, and I was in shock that she had modern things like a bank, large grocery store, and gym close enough to reach by taxi ride. Alana is a small business development volunteer, so she mainly works with artisans who sell local handicrafts and with youth. She started her Peace Corps service about five months after I did, in June 2009.

A large part of Alana’s work consists of assisting in activities and administration for a “comedor” in her site. The comedor is a soup kitchen/community center and has been in existence for about 45 years. It is funded by a Peruvian-American man. Ena, the Bosnian/Austrian volunteer who had traveled with us to Machu Picchu was volunteering there for six months. She had found the website online and showed an interest in coming and was chosen. Her room and board are free in exchange for her work at the Comedor (she helps serve meals and teaches art and dance classes to the children). The comedor feeds breakfast and lunch to 150-200 children and disabled adults and elders daily. There is a nice area with mirrors for dance and exercise classes, children’s books for them to read, and about eight computers with internet for classes. The comedor’s website is: www.bemelsa.org

We stayed with Alana’s host family, and Alana graciously let me sleep in her twin bed while she used an air mattress (what a great host!) We were so tired out from our Machu Picchu trip (see previous blog), that for the first day we simply rested and wandered her neighborhood. We settled in to Alana’s daily routine: hanging out with Alana’s Peruvian boyfriend Jose, going to the gym in the nearby city, eating meals with her host family, helping serve meals at the Comedor, and walking Alana’s dog “Lady.” Alana bought Lady as a puppy in her site and raised her – she plans on bringing Lady back to the U.S. when she finished her Peace Corps service.

Alana’s site is located in the region of Chincha in the department of Ica and was surprisingly cool and windy and very dry. She said it never rains – I was thrilled since in Nicaragua we have recently come out of a horrible rainy season in which several hurricanes and tropical storms passed through flooding streets and washing out bridges. In Alana’s site we were able to wash our own laundry and it dried in the same day! I was thrilled not to have mold growing on wet clothing and shoes (as it does in Nicaragua, and as it had also been doing on our rainy visit to Machu Picchu).

The days passed surprisingly quickly in Alana’s site. We were very relaxed, and I was enjoying a well-deserved break without thinking about work or the daily dramas of my site. However I was very tired and slept much more than usual – every day I woke up feeling like I could have gone right back to bed. I think it was because it is customary to drink tea rather than coffee in Peru. Coffee is more expensive, and what is grown domestically is sold abroad. I was having serious withdrawal symptoms since I am quite the caffeine addict. Although Alana’s host mother had graciously found some coffee in town and made me a watery cup every morning, it just wasn’t cutting it. I dreamt of my French press and strong coffee back in Nicaragua.

We were arriving in Chincha just in time for Christmas celebrations. A typical Peruvian Christmas activity for children is to hold a “Chocolatada” where invited children are treated to a mug of hot chocolate (made with Peruvian chocolate, condensed milk and cinnamon), and the Peruvian Christmas necessity: panetón. Panetón is similar to fruitcake, but made with lighter dough. It is simply not Christmas without hot chocolate and panetón. The comedor had a large Chocolatada planned and had invited all the children and adults who ate there to attend. Gifts had individually been purchased for each person. During the Chocolatada, the children sat around in small chairs around the Christmas tree and nativity scene while Alana, Ena and I busied ourselves helping to pass-out mini-panetons and cocoa as Christmas music blared over the speakers. Two dance groups formed by children who ate at the Comedor performed – one of them was a class that Ena taught in modern/jazz dance.

Afterwards, when the kids had been sufficiently sugared-up, a young Peruvian girl stuffed a pillow under her shirt and put on a Santa Claus costume to hand out presents. They were “supposed” to wait until the night of Christmas Eve to open their gifts, but many could simply not contain their excitement and slowly worked away with their little fingers at the edges of the wrapping paper until the present had “accidentally” been revealed. They received balls, electric cars, dolls, books, and clothing. For most of these children, this would be their only Christmas present, making the Chocolatada even more special.

In Peru, the main Christmas festivities occur on the evening of Christmas Eve. A special dinner of turkey, French fries, Inca Kola (an integral part of any Peruvian party, it is bright yellow and tastes a bit like bubble gum), hot chocolate, canned peaches and panetón is served late, and the entire family attends a midnight mass. They carry with them the baby Jesus figurine from their nativity scene to be blessed by the priest, afterwards returning home to place him in the manger and go to bed. Nothing much happens on the 25th – most people take the opportunity of day off to eat more panetón and drink a few beers on the front porch.

Alana, Ena and I had Christmas Eve dinner with Alana’s host family. Along with Jose, we decided to make some American treats to donate to the meal and used a Peace Corps cookbook I have to make oatmeal/raisin/chocolate chip cookies and a mango cobbler. After baking, we had a lazy day sitting around using the internet at the Comedor (I was so jealous that Alana had free internet right around the corner from her house!) Alana’s host mom started tearing up when she was expressing how happy she was that Alana and I were there to spend Christmas with her family. “I’ve never had people here before for Christmas…” she began, but then she broke down and had to run off to her room to compose herself. She is a very sweet woman and made me wish that I lived with a caring host family like that in my site.

After Christmas Eve dinner we went to bed rather early since we had big plans for the next morning – a visit to Paracas, on the Pacific coast, about an hour from Alana’s site. There, we were going to go on a tour of the Ballestas Islands wildlife refuge which had penguins!

We were up early and on the boat tour by 9 AM. I was surprised to suddenly see so many tourists, even on Christmas Day. Our boat was full of Japanese tourists, but there were also many Europeans and Australians. In Alana’s site there were few gringos, but the area in general is very touristy because of Ica’s proximity to Lima. Many tour companies organize day trips there.

We donned our mandatory bright orange life jackets and were off, straining our ears over the engine to hear our tour guide – he spoke in Spanish and then in a weird English. We actually weren’t sure if he was really speaking English, or just making English sounding noises… I think he had learned English by looking at written English words and simply memorizing them, using Spanish pronunciation. At least we could understand him in his Native tongue.

As we sped through the brilliant blue water, we saw the Paracas Candelabra prehistoric geoglyph on the side of the coastal sand dunes. The design is cut two feet into the soil and possibly dates to 200 BC and is 595 feet tall. When we arrived at the Ballestas Islands we were instantly surrounded by birds. They were flying beside and above us, going sideways, diving into the water to fish, and pooping. Our guide warned us not to open our mouths if we looked up. There were gray and blue-footed boobies, guano birds, pelicans …. But the stars of the show for me were the Humbolt penguins! I had never before seen penguins outside of the zoo or the animated movie, “Happy Feet.” They were quite small and relatively far away, but with a good zoom on the camera, you could see them well. I hadn’t been out in a boat since being back in Alaska, and it was refreshing to feel the ocean mist and the movement of the waves.

After our two hour tour, we ate breakfast on the shorefront. As it got later in the morning, more and more Peruvians showed up to set up camp on the beach with their children to go swimming. Alana and Jose went in swimming, but Ena and I just dipped our feet in – we were just enjoying the sun, remarking on how odd it felt to be on a warm beach on Christmas Day. Last year, I was also on a beach for Christmas while traveling with a Swedish friend in Costa Rica. Sun seems to be turning into the “norm” for me – I’m a little worried about having to live in North America after this and having to learn how to deal once again with the cold rain, clouds and snow.

On the 26th, we had another outing planned - we were going to go whitewater rafting (in Spanish, “canotaje”) with a few girls from Alana’s youth group, Ena, and Jose. Alana had been several times – it was located about an hour and a half from her community – but the young Peruvian girls had never been far outside of the city, much less ever engaged in something as adventurous as rafting. We took off early, but this time went north to the town of Lunahuaná. There were about 30 rafting guide agencies in the town – this was also a popular tourist destination. On the day we visited however, we didn’t see many other foreigners. We all got geared up in life jackets and helmets, leaving everything that couldn’t get wet behind. A guide went in the boat with us and another rode in a kayak alongside to help rescue anyone who fell in.

The rapids were at “level 3” due to the water level and the ride was fast and fun. As we went over big swells and bounced around, one of the Peruvian girls (Alana’s host sister) became more and more quiet and stopped paddling. Her face froze in a worried expression of angst. “Are you okay??” we yelled at her over the rush of the river – she nodded solemnly. No, she said, we didn’t need to stop, yes, we could keep going. However, we could tell that she was pretty scared. The guide told her not to worry and took her paddle from her so she could concentrate on simply hanging on to the raft. The other two Peruvian girls were doing okay, although you could tell that when they had planned to go whitewater rafting for the first time, it was simply an abstract idea in their heads and they hadn’t quite imagined this. Alana, Jose, Ena and I on the other hand were having a ball. We were getting soaked by the splashing river and it cooled us off in the hot sun. The hour long ride wasn’t long enough, and I wish we could have kept going; however the poor Peruvian girls looked like they were ready to finish.

After we pulled up to the shore, the girls walked, like shocked little wet cats up to the guide hut and we turned in our gear and headed to the park to eat a picnic lunch. After they dried off and the adrenaline began to leave their system, they became more relaxed. They were thrilled to see the pictures one of the workers on the shore had snapped of us when we paddled by, and I could tell that they couldn’t wait to tell their family and friends about what they had done – and survived – that day.

My last couple days with Alana were spent lounging around some more and enjoying vacation. We talked about our plans post-Peace Corps and caught up on lost time together. It had been two years since we had last seen each other – right before I left for Peace Corps in January 2009. Alana is considering extending her service and spending a third year in her community, taking a more active, managerial role at the Comedor. She was also trying to talk me in to extending my service and maybe even serving a third year in Peru – I’ll have to say, it is pretty tempting. I will probably end up back in the U.S. though, working for a year before I go to graduate school for International Relations. I was trying to convince her to come back to the U.S., and I know she is feeling torn by the decision of either staying in Peru or going back to the States. Her parents and younger sister are coming to visit in January, and I know she will talk it over more with them.

On my last day, Alana and I spent the night in Lima where we went shopping, ate amazing sushi and wandered the busy downtown streets people-watching. We tried a purple cornstarch pudding, bought some DVDs and CDs at Peru’s largest pirated movie and music market and enjoyed our last hours together. The next morning I left very early and was back in Managua by midday. As I stepped out of the airport, both the hot sun hit and the numerous catcalls from men nearby hit me like a brick, both of them reminding me that yes, I really was back in Nicaragua. The towering skyscrapers of Lima faded from my mind as I drove through Managua in a taxi to the bus station, not one building around me rising above a story or two; the depressing – yet familiar – poverty I have come to call home.

I suddenly felt like I was in known territory – unlike in Peru where I had relied on Alana to pick the hostel, catch our bus on time, decide what sights we would see, now I was back “home” where I knew how to handle the male comments that kept hurling at me, the begging children at the bus station, at which little store I could buy saltine crackers to settle my stomach, I knew where the bathroom was and how much I should pay to use it without being overcharged by the woman who liked to increase her price a córdoba or two when she saw a gringo. After living here for 23 months, Nicaragua was almost as familiar to me as coming home to Alaska. I’m not sure how I feel about that – it’s sort of an unwilling acceptance; sometimes it feels like my life here is only a superficial temporary one, while my “real” U.S. life is on hold. Seeing Alana in Peru, I saw that she had her U.S. life and Peace Corps life more merged – she had a boyfriend, had more luxurious amenities like a gym and a nice grocery store, she was planning on a third year of service… I was jealous of her country of service, but I was also glad that I was serving in Nicaragua – it seemed more wild and uncivilized, smaller and poorer. Peace Corps might not be harder here than any other country, but it some ways it felt more necessary and more like the Peace Corps that Kennedy had in mind when he founded the Peace Corps 50 years ago (this year is the anniversary!).

I caught a bus back to site and was back in my little pink house by nightfall. What a day. As I unpacked that evening, I could still smell Peru on my clothes and feel the dust and sand of the dry climate on my skin. For the next few days as I went through my daily routine and adjusted to life back in-site, I imagined what Alana and her host family were doing at the same time – waking up, walking Lady in the park, washing clothes by hand, eating rice and seafood, sitting in a hammock… Our lives are similar, as most Peace Corps volunteers lives tend to be, but also different. I’m looking forward to our next reunion…who knows in what country it will be! Being around friends like Alana and Emily (from AK as well who joined us for the Machu Picchu part of our trip) who have known me practically my entire life made me realize how much I miss that feeling of friendship and community. We were able to give each other advice and talk about our problems and I knew they really understood me. In my site, many girls my age are still living at home, pregnant, married, or living in the larger cities studying. It’s hard to find someone to really talk to and hang out with. I know that these last four months of my service are going to go flying by, and soon back in the U.S. I’ll have more “community” than I can handle – and probably be ready to go back somewhere where no one knows my name or gossip about me!

Although I was sad to leave Peru and Alana, there was one major thing that I missed about Nicaragua and was happy to get back to: my French press and strong coffee!

I spent two weeks over Christmas visiting my lifelong friend Alana, who is currently serving as a business development volunteer in Peace Corps Peru. We began studying Spanish together in high school and have remained close throughout the years, despite our different paths to college in Alaska, Washington, and South Carolina. I had never before been to South America, so I jumped at the chance to visit Alana before my time in Nicaragua was up.

Traditional Peruvian woman and childAnother friend from my hometown named Emily also joined us for the first part of our trip where we went to Cuzco and Machu Picchu. A Bosnian/Austrian volunteer named Ena who works with Alana at a soup kitchen/community center in her Peace Corps community also came along. Emily and I arrived in Lima and Alana and Ena met us there (their town is a three hour bus ride south of the capital). I was impressed by Lima’s large buildings, modern highways and downtown shopping area. Having been in Nicaragua for so long, I’d forgotten what a city felt like. To give you some perspective, the city of Lima has about 8 million residents, while the entire country of Nicaragua has 5.5 million residents. There were foreigners everywhere – it was nice not sticking out. Alana told me that Lima is “like being in America. But once you get out of the city, there is still real poverty.” She also explained that Lima’s economy is one of the world’s fastest growing. Natural resources like minerals, seafood, as well as tourism seem to be the main industries.

After spending one night in Lima, we flew on Peruvian Airlines to the city of Cuzco (it was more expensive than the 14 hour-long bus ride alternative, but because of time limitations we decided to fly). Cuzco is located at 11,000 feet (about twice the altitude of Denver) and the side-effects of the altitude really got to some of us. I had taken some medicine to help with the effects, but Alana said she felt the altitude the minute we stepped off the plane: headache, fatigue, an odd feeling of floating, and difficulty breathing when walking or hiking. We arrived at our hostel and drank some Coca tea which has been used by the Incas for centuries as a natural remedy for the negative effects of altitude.

Me and Emily enjoying Coca tea We spent one night in Cuzco – a street of cobblestone, winding streets, and steep hills. There were many tourists, all on their way to or coming back from the infamous Machu Picchu. We spent our time wandering around and shopping in the markets. Items made from alpaca wool were the specialty of the area – prices ranged from $4 for a scarf to $400 for a boutique sweater. Silver jewelry was also crafted there and featured the Inca calendar, the Pachamama (or Mother Earth) symbol, and llamas.



A woman in traditional Inca clothing and a baby llama!

Dolls for sale at a market stall



  From Cuzco, we left on a bus for Ollantaytambo (try saying that five times fast!) to catch the train to Aguas Calientes, the base camp for seeing Machu Picchu. The drive was breathtaking. From Cuzco we started our winding descent among green vertical hills lined with terraces, cows, sheep and the occasional llama. We followed the river valley which eventually led to Machu Picchu, located at about 8,000 feet. The snow-capped serrated peaks of the Andes were visible in the distance, yet the sun and a warm breeze coming in the windows made this feel surreal. On the way, we stopped for chicha, a fermented drink made from corn (also made in Nicaragua) that is mildly alcoholic. When we arrived in Ollantaytambo, which was a few thousand feet lower than Cuzco, my friends instantly started to feel better; headaches lessened and breathing became more regular.

Chicha

Emily, Alana, me and Ena on the drive

The view we had of the Andes on the driveWe caught a night train to Aguas Calientes which was pleasant although expensive - they have a monopoly on transport to Machu Picchu. Peruvians get a discount however and sit in their own cars, separated from the hoards of foreigners who visit Machu Picchu. During the two hour ride we were served Coca tea and we talked excitedly (and loudly) and played card games (as Ena commented, entertained by us three gringas, “We are being like…how do you say it? Typical Americans right now!” probably annoying the other travelers….but hey, you’re on your way to Machu Picchu – get excited!) 

Aguas Calientes is a town built on tourism – it serves little more than as the starting and ending point for visitors to ascent Machu Picchu, and afterwards to relax in the hot springs and grab some pizza or Chinese food (the restaurants all advertised these gringo favorites). After settling in to our hostel, we set our alarms for 3:30 AM and packed our bags with snacks, rain jackets, drinking water and our cameras. We slept fitfully, afraid of over-sleeping the alarm. Our hostel started serving a light breakfast at 4 AM (they’re used to travelers who get up early to arrive at Machu Picchu first). Still groggy from sleep, we walked briskly in the pitch darkness about 20 minutes to the gate leading up the vertical mountain to the Machu Picchu ruins. We had forgotten a flashlight and were a little intimidated by the dark shadows of the surrounding mountains and the rushing river noises. Weren’t there also wild cats in this area?? At the entrance gate we found other travelers already waiting who were also planning on doing the hike up the mountain (the first buses up the mountain start at 5:30, so a few motivated, in-shape tourists like to hike up instead, leaving at 5). At 5 AM the gates opened and we sped off in a crazed rush towards the peak like the beginning of a race.



Me on the hike up

Mountains in the early fog The hike started out fast like any other hike I’ve done in Alaska – steep and slippery with mist and mud. The trail skipped the switchback road and ascended straight up the mountain. There were few breaks, if any, and we strained our eyes to see the stone steps of the trail through the darkness. It was very foggy out and moist – rainy season was beginning in Peru and the probability of having sunshine during our visit was unlikely. After the first 30 minutes or so of straight uphill hiking/running (we just had to be the first ones there!) my lungs started to feel funny. As a child I had asthma, but recently it hasn’t been a problem. After hiking at high altitude for a while, I started to feel the familiar feeling of my throat closing up and my lungs straining. I couldn’t tell if it was my asthma acting up or if it was simply the thin air of the altitude. Either way we had to push on, and with short breaks it was bearable. We made it up the mountain in under an hour and were there when the gates were opened. We were planning on climbing Mount Waynapicchu (the immense dagger-shaped peak that rises above the ruins), so we had our entrance tickets stamped for that since they only let 400 people climb the mountain daily.

It was daylight by then, but the clouds were thick and the wind was strong. Visibility was extremely low. We raced into Machu Picchu, but were slightly disappointed when we realized that we couldn’t see much more than 50 feet in front of us. Mount Waynapicchu was covered in clouds and we couldn’t even make out the ruins. Ena and Emily became separated from Alana and me. We felt disoriented by the fog – we studied the map and tried to figure out where to go. Then it started to rain, hard. There were few places to take cover, but Alana and I took refuge in a cave that was part of the ruins for a bit. I found a plastic bag tucked in a corner that the maintenance staff uses for trash and made it into a makeshift poncho. Alana’s guidebook on the ruins turned into a wet pulp and our rain jackets became soaked.



Alana and me hiding out from the rain in a cave. We got a few weird looks from passing tourists -

we think they were jealous of our spot!

 After an hour or so the rain cleared off and the fog began to slowly lift. I became dizzy looking around me at the peaks surrounding Machu Picchu (which means “Old Mountain”). It really rests on the narrow edge of a mountaintop and is surrounded by dozens of green, jagged peaks. We had been tired from our hike up and I couldn’t imagine how the Incas had lived here and hiked around the city daily, hauling food, building, and farming.

We wandered the ancient city for hours – it was very well-kept and preserved. We had surprising freedom and could walk virtually anywhere unattended and unobserved – since it was so early there were relatively few tourists present. I’ve even heard of people who get naked at Machu Picchu to take a memorable photograph… We chose not to hire a guide, but in hindsight it would have been beneficial. We did however talk to one of the Machu Picchu caretakers for quite a while – he showed us the Condor temple/prison area and the King’s palace (complete with his own urinal). The Incas had made an intricate water system that ran throughout the city providing irrigation and disposing of waste which still worked! The terraced land at the entrance to the city was also still in good condition. Workers wandered the grounds throughout the day collecting trash (Yes, apparently even at Machu Picchu, one of the world’s greatest wonders, people still throw trash on the ground).

I was blown away at the way the Incas had made the stone walls before modern machinery. Immense rocks weighing many tons had been cut in straight lines and fit together exactly without mortar.

During the downpour, the rainwater flowed easily through the water system which acted as a gutter – we never stepped in puddles or in excess water. I think modern city planners in Nicaragua could take a note from the Incas – my house there overflows every time it rains and the streets fill with water.



The water/irrigation systemWe saw the famous Temple of the Sun (we were there just two days before the Winter Solstice, when the sun is supposed to shine through one of the temple’s windows, marking a specific area on the temple floor), the Temple of Three Windows, the fountains, and the astronomical observatory. 

The Temple of the Sun 

The astronomical observatory - these circles of water served as reflecting pools for the night sky.

The dwellingsAs we eavesdropped on various tour guides and read our own information, we learned that despite all the research that has been done in the 100 years since it was discovered by an American professor, Machu Picchu remains one of the world’s greatest mysteries. It is not known exactly what the city was used for or who lived there, but it is speculated that it was used for important religious ceremonies, although as we were told by a guide, they did not engage in human sacrifice. More than 100 mummies were found in the ruins, mostly women, leading some to speculate that it was used as a convent.

It was breathtaking just to sit and look at the ruins and think of the lives the Incas used to lead here. The fact that there is so much mystery surrounding Machu Picchu makes it more interesting – you can invent your own history for the place, your own ideas for what it was used for.



Terraced farming area (and llamas)

The only beings that permanently live at Machu Picchu now are chinchillas (there were droppings everywhere!) and llamas. The former were hiding out during the day, but the latter were obviously accustomed to humans so we were able to get quite close for some photos. They’re soft and friendly, but they can also get annoyed and spit at you. I was almost run over by one large female who sprang down the stone steps unexpectedly towards me, her ear bells jangling and her enormous rump bouncing under her thick, matted white wool. I moved quickly out of the way. The Incas decorate llamas with bells, ribbons and woven fabrics for special ceremonies to show them off and make them beautiful, and the llamas residing at Machu Picchu were no exception.



Lounging llamasWhen we were getting ready to head back down to town at about 1 PM, the weather was finally beginning to clear up. Sun was trying to shine through the clouds, and Mount Waynapicchu finally emerged from the clouds (we decided not to climb it due to the low visibility and our own exhaustion). At last we were able to get pictures with the image of Machu Picchu that everyone has seen before, with the mountain looming in the background.

We opted to take a bus down the mountain since we were so worn out (it was worth those $7!) and we went straight to the hot springs that gives the town of Aguas Calientes its name. They were located right beside the rushing river. Most travelers come to the hot springs after a long day hiking around Machu Picchu, and we were glad we did too. The warmish to mildly-hot water soothed our muscles and brought us back to life again.

For dinner, we walked up and down the hilly streets of Aguas Calientes, being harassed by hostesses who stood outside restaurants and called to us, grabbed our hands, and offered us free drinks if we’d pick their restaurant. The nice thing about this is that you can negotiate your price, and the restaurant we finally decided on gave us a good deal. Alana, Emily, and Ena ordered Alpaca meat (they were going to get guinea pig, the traditional Peruvian delicacy, but it was too expensive), and I ordered a stuffed pepper made with rice and potatoes. The traditional ají chile sauce was included and I fell in love with it. In Nicaragua, the principal spice used in food is salt, and the only condiments are very sweet ketchup and mayonnaise. I was impressed by Peruvian food and their use of spices – it revived my taste buds.

We ended our trip with another night in Cuzco and by going out dancing at a discotheque (once again we were harassed by the workers of the clubs who grabbed our arms and tried to charm us with free drinks). We were up until the wee hours (amazing considering what a busy four days we had had).

Cuzco plaza at duskAfter just a couple hours of sleep, we had to wake up to catch our flight back to Lima (note: Peruvian Airlines is consistently 3-5 hours late. Be prepared to wait in the airport for a long time). From Lima, Emily left back to the U.S. (with only two hours of sleep to go on, she had to wait until a standby flight at 1 AM), and Alana, Ena and I headed to Alana’s community in the department of Ica, on the southwest coast of Peru. We were so exhausted, we could barely muster the strength to say goodbye to each other. The past five days had been a blur of short hours of sleep and lots of exertion and fun at high altitudes. We had bought matching silver rings in Cuzco featuring the Coca leaf to remember the trip and each other and vowed to exchange pictures as soon as we had access to internet. However, my trip was just beginning – I still had nine days left in Peru. My next blog entry will be about the second half of my trip in the more rural area of Alana’s site in Chincha, Ica.

According to UNAIDS, in 2009, 33.3 million people worldwide were living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), and there were 2.6 million new infections. Since the beginning of the epidemic, more than 60 million people have been infected with HIV and nearly 30 million have died of HIV-related causes. In Central and South America, 1.4 million are infected with the virus. This number is minimal when compared with Sub-Saharan Africa where there are 22.5 infected, but HIV/AIDS is a rising problem, increasingly being spread by men who have sex with men (who do not necessarily identify as homosexual), and youth who do not use condoms and have multiple partners.

December 1st marks World AIDS Day and this past month, I have been teaming with local health volunteers, nursing students and youth health promoters to plan and execute HIV/AIDS educational sports tournaments in billiards and volleyball.

The billiards tournaments are a way to educate men (billiards halls are not a place that women are usually welcome in) about HIV/AIDS and condom use while involving something that they like (pool) with another thing they like (prizes). The first time I helped out at an HIV/AIDS pool tournament was during Peace Corps training, during my first three months in-country back in 2009. I thought it was a neat idea: participants sign-up beforehand and pay an entry fee; during the tournament they have to listen to brief educational talks about HIV/AIDS and condom use; in the last round, the final two players have to respond correctly to a question from the talks they received in order to get their points whenever a ball falls into the pocket. What kept me from organizing a tournament in my town was the fact that organizing one would require me to go into a billiards hall at night and voluntarily surround myself with machista Nicaraguan men. Not exactly on the top of my to-do list. However, after our recent President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)-funded workshop with men, I felt more empowered to work with this population. I also had two male leaders from my community that I had brought to the workshop who were revved-up to work in HIV/AIDS education and who really wanted to put on a billiards tournament. So, with their help we put together my town’s first billiards tournament at the end of November.

It was a success – although we only had eight participants in the tournament (we had wanted 16), there were easily 30-40 men standing around listening to the information and observing. We had the support of the billiards hall owner who was present at the tournament, which made all the men mind their manners and respect those organizing the event a little more. A nurse from the Health Center and the Small Business Development Peace Corps volunteer who also shares my site also accompanied us and helped out.

World AIDS Day was December 1st, and I requested funding from Peace Corps to organize the same type of tournament-style HIV/AIDS educational event, but this time with volleyball. Volleyball is a very popular sport in my town (you may remember from previous blogs that I was on a team for my first seven months in-site). I knew that using volleyball to spread HIV/AIDS education would let us reach the youth population and catch their attention, drawing spectators to watch the event and learn.

Eight teams (four male and four female) signed up, ages 14-24. The youth health promoters that I work with through the non-profit Plan International helped me write the proposal for the funds, organize the budget and give the informational talks about HIV/AIDS in-between the volleyball rounds. Two nurses from the Health Center and a Master of Ceremonies to play music and control the microphone also assisted. Another Peace Corps volunteer came from the city of Estelí to help me out as well. (Above, two of my favorite nurses and I at the tournament).

I was pretty nervous in the days before the event since all eight teams had not yet signed up. Was anyone even going to show up the day of the tournament? Would it rain? Would the electricity go out and we would be without music? I was worried that everything would fall apart – Nicaraguans are notorious for promising to help you with something, but at the last minute they fall through. We announced the tournament the usual way, via loudspeaker driving around the town two days before the tournament, calling for teams to sign-up. This did the trick and at 6 PM the night before, the final team had signed-up.

We also announced the tournament using a cloth banner hung in the street (another common way to spread news here). The youth promoters and I cut a couple hundred red ribbons for pinning on shirts for all the players and Health Center staff to signify solidarity for people living with HIV/AIDS. Before coming to Nicaragua, I had never actually met someone infected with HIV. After working as a community health volunteer here for a year and a half, I have had the opportunity to meet several HIV positive Nicaraguans who work in local HIV/AIDS support organizations and who fight for the rights of those who are living with the virus. After my experiences with them, I truly know the meaning of that red ribbon and what it means to wear it on December 1st.

The tournament came together at the last minute, as most Nicaraguan events do. A large amount of what we needed to put the event on (sound system, tent, extension cord, pick-up truck, Health Center staff, and the volleyball net) was donated by the Mayor’s Office and Health Center.

Peace Corps funds mainly paid for the food, educational materials, and the street banner. Plan International donated two large trophies complete with inscribed plaques, and 12 backpacks filled with school supplies for the two male and female winning teams. Teams that placed second received a volleyball (also a valuable prize since sports supplies are a luxury and not provided by the schools) All participants received a certificate of participation - Nicaraguans love those! (Below: the prizes and the two winning teams).

Many spectators turned out to watch the games and listen to the information about HIV/AIDS. The nurses handed out condoms, and the health promoters played a basketball game with youth on the side of the court – if they got the ball in the bucket, they had to answer a question about HIV and they got a candy if they answered correctly. The six games flew by – the players paid close attention to the HIV/AIDS information and were able to answer all their questions correctly in order to move on to the next round. Loud reggaeton music blasted over the town as the soundtrack to our tournament thanks to our DJ. That is one thing that worked to my benefit that day; Nicaraguans never complain about noise. Below: the youth health promoters that helped out with the event.

Immediately after the tournament ended and we had handed out the prizes (the kids were thrilled), I took off in an express bus to the capital of Managua. My Peace Corps group had our “Close of Service Conference” the next day and I had to be there early. We are officially the oldest group in-country and will be the next ones to leave. I will finish my Peace Corps service in April 2011. I know that my time is limited and the days are flying past. I’m trying to savor each day I have left in-site since we often have to run back and forth to Managua in these last few months doing administrative and medical Peace Corps activities, as well as helping train the new group of health volunteers that arrive in January and will be replacing us.

For Christmas, I am going to visit my good friend Alana who is from my hometown in Alaska and is currently serving as a small business development volunteer in Peace Corps Peru! I have never been to South America and am looking forward to seeing Machu Picchu. A blog on my trip is soon to come!

Recently I’ve found a mystery hole in my backyard. It looks like a burrow of some sort, a few feet from my latrine. I’ve never seen any type of animal or insect going in or out of it. I put a rock over it the other day, thinking that if it was a mice or snake hole (do snake even use burrows?) that the rock would keep them from entering my yard. See photo below of rock over hole:

The next morning, I awoke to find the rock moved, quite a few inches from the hole (see photo below of moved rock, with my hand for scale). I immediately placed the rock back over the hole, and the next day found that the same thing had happened.

Now I have become very intrigued as to what is living in this hole and has the capability to move this rock. I really have no idea what it could be. Have any ideas? Help me solve my backyard mystery!

Nicaraguans call themselves “children of the corn,” and for good reason. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, corn – more specifically “maize” – is a large source of income for many rural families and is literally in about every bite of food that Nicaraguans eat. Maize can be used in powdered drinks, main dishes, puddings, desserts, and candy. The most common (and my favorite) way of eating maize is in the traditional tortilla.

Nicaraguan Señoras wake up as early as 3:30 or 4:00 AM to start making the day’s tortillas. The more rural the family, the earlier they wake up to prepare breakfast for their husband or sons who go out to the field to work at 5:00 AM. There are certain houses in town known as the “tortilla houses” where you can buy them - my neighbor makes 200 tortillas daily! To prepare tortillas, the maize is cooked the day before, usually in gray ceniza (ash) to help strip off the outer layer. The cooked maize is then set aside to cool until the next morning. Below: cooking with ash (the color isn't too appealing, right?)

The maize is rinsed and taken early in the morning to the nearby mill. There are dozens in the town located in people’s homes or garages, and they start up at 4 AM every day. If you’re up early enough, you can see women venturing out into the morning mist with buckets of cooked maize on their heads, going to the mill which will grind the maize into a smooth pulp for .14 cents/pound. Below: maize pulp ready to make into tortilla.

After grinding the maize, the women trek back home and start up the kitchen fire. A small ball of maize is rolled and a circular sheet of plastic is used to shape the tortilla without sticking to the wooden kitchen table. Experienced tortilla makers can whip out a perfect circular and uniform-width tortilla in less than 10 seconds. People like me take a good minute or so to do the same (although I earn quite a few points for even trying. “You won’t go hungry!” the Nicaraguan women praise me for my oval, misshapen tortilla). As they are pounding out the circular shape, they use the left hand to shape the edge, while the right hand comes down in a repetitive smack, rotating the plastic sheet to continually smooth out the surface (wet your hands first to avoid sticking). If you’re out walking early in the morning, you can tell which family makes tortillas by listening for the radio music, looking for smoke coming from the kitchen, and the telltale “smack, smack, smack” of the tortilla pounding. Once the fire is hot, you can use a ceramic or metal frying pan to cook the tortilla – some have holes in the middle (for air movement maybe?). After the tortilla has been formed, it is thrown on the hot pan for a minute or so, and flipped twice. Experienced tortilla makers use their bare hands to flip it – expertly maneuvering between simultaneously pounding out tortillas and cooking them. Nothing is added to the ground maize, and no oil is used on the pan. Just plain maize + fire = hot and fresh tortilla. My favorite breakfast here (besides oatmeal, of course) is a soft, hot tortilla with boiled red beans. In my community, you can buy tortillas for anywhere from .05 cents to .09 cents/each. Later in the morning (after 6:00 AM) you can observe another exodus of women taking to the streets with cloth dishtowels, on their way to their daily tortilla provider to buy their family’s daily “bread.” My host family, which had about 10 people in it would go through about 40 tortillas in a day. They are served at every meal and accompany soup, beans, meat, cheese, or in a pinch can simply be served with a sprinkle of salt.

After repeated bacterial and parasitic infections, I’ve had to cut down on my tortilla consumption since it isn’t the cleanest food in the world (lots of contact with unwashed hands and dirty water), but they remain one of my favorite Nicaraguan foods. Lucky for me, for most Nicas they are too.

Since the beginning of my service, I’ve seen the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health (MINSA) handle several public health emergencies: the fight to prevent swine flu (whose name was later changed to H1N1 Influenza), Dengue fever (a viral disease spread by mosquitoes with symptoms similar to malaria), and Chagas disease (a parasitic infection transmitted by a small bug known in Nicaragua as chinche through its infected feces deposited on the skin and later rubbed into the eyes, mouth or a wound). For each of these outbreaks, MINSA has had to mobilize their community health volunteers, organize educational campaigns and depending on the disease, distribute medicine and vaccinations to those who most need them. Often, those who suffer most from these diseases are the most poor who live in the dirtiest conditions and lack the education to prevent infection. In the past month, a disease already well-known among developing countries and Latin America – Leptospirosis – has surged with 510 cases nationwide, 16 deaths and 17 hospitalized patients. Below: educational posters in the health center about Chagas disease, Influenza H1N1 and Leptospirosis (I made the last one) :) Leptospirosis is a bacterial disease which affects humans as well as a variety of animals – most common in Nicaragua domestic animals (cats, dogs), cows, pigs, donkeys, mules, rats and mice. It is transmitted to humans through contact with infected water, soil or food through an open wound or through ingestion. Because of recent heavy rains due to intense tropical storms, rivers have overflowed, homes have been flooded, and fields washed away. All of this extra water only facilitates the transmission of this disease as wells become contaminated with animal urine and feces and people walk barefoot through rivers. Most diseases increase during the rainy season, such as diarrheal diseases, mosquito-borne illness and respiratory infections – Leptospirosis is no different.

Leptospirosis presents flu-like symptoms (fever, chills, body pain, and headache), also bleeding out of the nose and other orifices, vomiting, diarrhea, and dry cough. If untreated, the second stage is characterized by renal failure, meningitis, and liver damage. Antibiotics are used to treat the disease such as amoxicillin and doxycycline. The latter can also be used as a prophylaxis – when taken weekly, it can prevent the disease. MINSA has been working on educating the public and distributing doxycycline to the entire population above 2 years old. I have been helping in this effort as we go out to every one of the 24 outlying villages of my community walking house to house giving out medicine and explaining to residents what Leptospirosis is. Below: two girls in a village waiting for their medicine. They were VERY interested in me and my tattoo.

The Police, the local cabinets of “Citizen Power” and all the Health Center personnel have been helping in this effort. Every day a group takes off in the Health Center worn-down pick-up to forge rivers and drive down unpaved roads to deliver the medicine to every last house. Since the outbreak began, MINSA has distributed prophylaxis to 2,828,512 individuals and also rodent venom to 167,950 families. The nurses here are assigned to different villages and they know their assignments well. I look out at the hills and see nothing but green, but they can tell me where every house is, how many children live there, and what the best way to walk there is. When we show up at their house, most residents already seem to be expecting us. Although they may not have a television, most families have a radio and have been following the spread of the disease religiously. Everyone dutifully takes their medicine – even the young children. Nicaraguans have come to expect this treatment from their socialized medicine system – healthcare that comes to your door. Below: a baby hanging out in a hammock in one of the communities - what a face!

I give quick talks to the families about precautions they should take (tie up domestic animals outside of the house and do not let them near water sources, avoid walking barefoot or bathing in rivers and pools of water, clean-up debris in and around the house to avoid creating places for rats and mice to hide, and washing hands with water and soap. They nod diligently, but I know that most of these suggestions will go in one ear and out the other. When they have no running water – it is much easier to bathe and wash clothes at the river rather than hauling water from the well, and how can they move the entire herd of cow that is living right outside their front door? Where would they move them to? I see many barefoot children running around the yard, playing with the dog – I tell them they should get some shoes on, but I normally get an odd look. “What is this crazy gringa telling me to do?” but a stern look from their mother usually gets them to do it. Yesterday all the parents were buzzing about something they had heard on the radio that morning – a three year old had recently died in the neighboring municipality from Leptospirosis. Now they knew it was serious.

The community health volunteers of the villages are always willing to help. I have mentioned them in previous blog posts. They are community leaders who have been trained by MINSA to give educational health information, give injections, provide basic first aid and support MINSA activities. They accompany us on the doxycycline rounds and give us the inside information on the community and who is at risk. Although they receive no pay and frankly, very little support from MINSA, they are always at the ready and a valuable asset.

MINSA’s reaction to the Leptospirosis outbreak has been swift, and hopefully prophylaxis will suppress the numbers of people who contract the disease. Most of MINSA’s normal activities have been put aside (as they were in the H1N1 outbreak) to devote all resources to Leptospirosis. Although there have been no confirmed cases in my municipality, people are operating on red alert. Everyone in Nicaragua is talking about Leptospirosis. I do realize the importance of this disease, but at the same time I wish that the same attention could be given to other public health issues, such as HIV/AIDS or teen pregnancy. I have no doubt that if all government, public communications and MINSA resources were mobilized to distribute family planning and educate the public house-to-house, it would make a substantial dent in those high statistics. Of course, swallowing a pill is an easier solution, a less complicated behavior to change, and more culturally acceptable than limiting sexual partners or using a condom – which is what would be required on a national level to cut down on HIV levels.

Since the beginning of my service I have been cooperating with a non-profit organization in my community called Plan International. Plan operates in communities in 48 developing countries working to promote children’s rights, and increase the quality of life of the world’s poorest children. They also have a child sponsorship program. Specifically, they focus projects in education, health, water and sanitation, domestic violence, economic security, emergency relief, youth civic participation, and HIV education.

For a year and a half, Plan has been working in my community training youth sexual and reproductive health promoters. They started this project at about the same time I began my Peace Corps service, so it has coincided nicely, especially since one of the Peace Corps community health project’s goals is the education of youth and adolescents in HIV/AIDS prevention and teen pregnancy prevention. Ten youth (ages 14-19) were chosen to be trained in sexual and reproductive health promotion from five of the villages in my municipality – I helped in choosing some of the kids, asking local leaders and teachers about who would be best. Some came from rural areas; others livedin the urban center. All were identified as potential leaders among their peers. Below: the promoters and I at their "graduation" ceremony.

Throughout the training program organized by Plan, the youth have been trained to be competent sexual and reproductive health educators. They go to the departmental capital city monthly with the forty other promoters from nearby municipalities for training from Plan staff in self-esteem, human rights, civic participation, youth development, leadership, HIV/AIDS, STDs, teen pregnancy, anatomy, and condom use. Each promoter has to form their own youth group of ten kids and replicate these learned topics to their group. I help the promoters in perfecting their presentation techniques, helping them research topics, lead meetings, and of course play games.

I have seen the ten promoters from my town grow and learn throughout this project – they have increased their self-esteem and are now more likely to participate in their community and take on leadership roles. One young promoter was so shy at the beginning of the project that she couldn’t even say the word “condom” out loud in public, but after undergoing youth promoter training and being around other self-confident peers that aren’t ashamed to talk about these topics, she has increased her knowledge and self-assurance and those days of shame are long gone.

It’s not all work, however. Plan also gave sports equipment to each of the youth promoters to play volleyball, basketball and soccer at the youth group meetings. Kids won’t come to meetings if they know they will only be working – these meetings are supposed to be different from school – more fun and engaging. The promoters organize energizing games throughout the meetings to keep the kids attentive and interested.

The project is coming to a close now – all of the meetings have been held, and each group has written a community action plan; identifying community needs and how they can meet them using local resources. To celebrate the finalization of the project, Plan organized a four day leadership-building workshop trip to a camp in the mountains of the department of Jinotega (“heen-oh-tay-guh”). Below: "Welcome to Jinotega. The best business for Nicaragua is food production." (Jinotega is an agricultural hub of the country - on the bus I saw cabbages, carrots, potatoes, peppers, coffee, and beans growing and for sale on the side of the road). The promoters from my department came, along with promoters who were doing the same project in the western department of Chinandega. In total, there were 130 kids. Another Peace Corps volunteer from Chinandega and I were invited to chaperone and help facilitate the camp.

I had never been to Jinotega before and was surprised at the cold climate. During our stay, the temperature varied from the low 60s F (perhaps even the high 50s!) to the low 70s F. The showers (unheated of course) were the temperature of ice water. The constant presence of rain, clouds and fog – rather than depress me (as it did to the kids) – actually made me think of my hometown in Alaska. I felt like I had been transported back to Sitka for a few days and enjoyed not sweating for a change.

The retreat was held at the VidaJoven (YoungLife) Nicaragua ranch. YoungLife is an American non-denominational Christian organization that works with youth. YoungLife exists in my hometown, but I was unaware they worked internationally until going to this Nicaraguan camp. A common practice for the youth members of YoungLife is going to a ranch retreat (either in the U.S. or abroad to do a volunteer project) in the summertime to build leadership and spirituality. The ranch in Nicaragua has a small lake with canoes, hiking trails, ropes course activities, a baseball field, basketball court, and auditorium. Needless to say, the Plan promoters were thrilled to be there.

I was in charge of a dorm room of 15 girls – so it goes without saying that I didn’t sleep much. Many of these youth had never left their home overnight before. These kids were very different from one another; some were relatively well-off, living in the urban center – they wore newer clothes, had lip gloss and perfume, and fancy cell phones. Others came from more rural areas and wore patched hand-me-downs, spoke with the rural accent and were more reserved. Some of the boys were openly gay, some promoters were very young (13), others were on the older side (22). However, despite their differences the kids formed a strong bond during those four days. I remember being so amazed at these young leaders – I hardly remember what I was doing at 15 years old, but it sure wasn’t talking about HIV, condoms, and community action in front of my peers! Below: each community made a mural, this one says "Adolescents and youth for a different generation."

The days were busy, but we still found time for fun. During the retreat, a “radio station” was formed by a few kids and they provided the soundtrack for our meals and were DJs at the dance held on the last night. A talent show was held one night and the kids danced traditional as well as reggaeton dances, recited poetry, sang, and did theater. One day we split into groups to tackle the outdoor maze and ropes course leadership activities. I was assigned a group and wore myself out as we raced through the challenges to be the first group to finish: running through the hiking trails, getting lost in the maze, climbing walls, pushing oxen carts, and paddling canoes. None of the kids had ever been in a canoe before and it was entertaining watching them figure out how to steer the boat – bumping into the lake shore and going in reverse more than forward.

The promoters shared ideas, strategies for community action and made fast friendships. When it was time to say goodbye there were several tearful goodbyes and exchanges of e-mails and phone numbers. The experience empowered the youth to keep working, hopefully even after organizations like Plan or Peace Corps leave, and the funding dries up. Looking at every one of those 130 youth, I could see that each one had a special kind of leadership. I am happy to be a part of this project and see each one of the promoters from my town grow and learn. I know I have learned as much from them as they have from me and hope to keep in touch with these kids far into the future – they’re going places!

For the past few years, the Community Health Program of Peace Corps Nicaragua has been receiving funding from the President´s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). This plan was enacted under President Bush in 2003 and is the largest effort in any nation to combat a single disease. www.pepfar.gov Working in partnership with host nations, over ten years PEPFAR plans to support treatment for at least 3 million people; prevention of 12 million new infections; and care for 12 million people, including 5 million orphans and vulnerable children. To meet these goals, PEPFAR will support training of at least 140,000 new health care workers in HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care. In the fiscal year 2009, $897,000 was given through PEPFAR to three organizations to work in HIV/AIDS prevention in Nicaragua. Peace Corps was one of those organizations - the others were the Centers for Disease Control and USAID.

In Nicaragua, the second-year Community Health Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) are allotted PEPFAR funding according to their regional area to carry out workshops with a population of their choice. I am living in the northern region of Nicaragua, and together with the seven other health PCVs that also live here, we decided to focus our HIV/AIDS workshop on adult men. In Nicaragua, approximately 97% of all HIV transmission occurs through sexual contact – the majority between heterosexuals. There often exists the belief in Nicaragua that AIDS is only something that affects homosexuals or prostitutes, but the group most affected by the epidemic right now is actually housewives. Their husbands leave the home, town, department, or even country to work cutting coffee or in other agricultural labor such as beans or maize, and are away from home for days, months, or even years at a time. On their journeys, they inevitably have sex with women who are not their wives without using condoms. It is not uncommon for one man to have several girlfriends, or to frequently use the services of sex workers. When he returns home, he will refuse to use a condom with his wife – “What, do you not trust me?!” – and transfer any STD he has acquired to her. The wife will most likely do the test for HIV the next time she gets pregnant (it is common procedure during a pregnancy to avoid transmitting it to the baby), and will find out that she is HIV positive.

Besides the fact that they are often a mobile population and often have multiple partners, men are a vulnerable group for HIV infection in Nicaragua also because of machismo, that Latin phenomenon which most men here embody. Machismo creates a man-focused society – marginalizing women’s contributions, shunning feminine attitudes, and above all being non-feminine and very macho. This usually manifests itself in high domestic abuse rates, men having multiple sexual partners, a strong discrimination against homosexuals, strong gender role differentiation, and the marginalization of women in public life. Women are often in a vulnerable position, powerless to request that their husband or boyfriend use a condom. It is the man who usually makes these decisions, and he is often not willing to oblige.

Every PCV invited three to four adult men from their communities to participate in our two-day PEPFAR workshop. In addition to second-year community health PVCs, we also included four other PCVs from different sectors (Agriculture and Small Business Development). From my community I invited a policeman, a nursing student who was doing his practicum in my health center, and a community health volunteer. Other PCVs invited students, migrant workers, youth leaders, businessmen, transsexuals, and gay men. As you can see, there was quite a variety. There were participants who came from urban areas as well as the most rural and isolated communities. Many of them knew nothing about HIV; although some were well-versed in the epidemic and were already working in preventative health. Every invitee was chosen by the PCV in their community because they were leaders and worked in some capacity with the PCV, and would possibly be interested in future HIV/AIDS educational activities. Below: a couple of my invitees and me.

Our workshop started out with reviewing/learning the basics of HIV and AIDS: how it affects your body and immune system, how it is transmitted, and how to prevent it. We also did a condom demonstration relay race, dividing the men up into teams and having them all put a condom onto a cucumber using the seven correct steps we had taught them. (Cucumbers were used in lieu of wooden penises since most PCVs forgot to bring theirs - they are usually common at health centers and standard issue for PCVs for use in condom demonstrations). Below: the relay race.

The Laboratory Technician from my health center – Xiomara - came to facilitate the session on the test for HIV. She is a very dynamic person and did a great job explaining the test – which with the new fast technology, takes only about 20 minutes to see results. A male PCV volunteered to go through the steps of the test in front of everyone; even having the blood taken from his finger using a lancet to show how easy it was.

On day two we had guest speakers discuss sexual diversity and sexual and reproductive rights. You could tell many of the men were uncomfortable discussing these topics, and there were quite a few snickers and sideways glances. However a few men voiced their opinions that these topics were “very important” and “should be discussed more, especially starting in the home.” The transsexual and gay members of the group appreciated this session I think and felt validated by the facilitator leading the session.

The next session was given by a Nicaraguan organization called “Men Against Violence,” and they discussed machismo and violence towards women and how they affect the current AIDS epidemic. The participants became very animated and everyone had something to say. Most of these men probably grew up in households where they saw violence towards, or at least mistreatment of women, and they probably had never thought about its impact on HIV/AIDS before. While all the men agreed that violence against women and female subordination was the norm in Nicaragua – they also agreed that this was hindering the fight on HIV/AIDS and they could each start with individual change by being positive examples in their own lives and in their own families.

Next, I co-facilitated a session with another PCV regarding behavior change, focusing on men and their adoption of healthy sexual practices such as condom use, limiting their number of sexual partners, and doing the HIV test. We reviewed the five steps of change: pre-consciousness, consciousness, preparation and intention, action, and maintenance. We also discussed what influences our behavior changes: role models, culture, learned behaviors, habits, rewards, consequences, and social norms. The men were all very participative in the session; thinking about men in their own communities and if they are or are not practicing healthy sexual behaviors, why, and how to overcome these obstacles to behavior change.

To culminate day two, we hosted an evening billiards tournament at a nearby pool hall. This was no regular pool tournament however; it was an HIV/AIDS educational tournament. We divided the men up into groups and each group was responsible for giving a short talk between the rounds of pool on various HIV-related themes: how HIV and AIDS work, how it is transmitted, how to prevent it, the HIV test, and correct condom use. The men themselves would play in the tournament as well as facilitate the educational talks in-between the rounds. In the last billiards round, the two final players had to answer correctly a question about HIV/AIDS; otherwise the ball would be taken out of the pocket and placed back on the table – losing their points. So, in order to win the tournament, the players not only had to be good at pool, but they also had to know their HIV/AIDS information. The men really enjoyed it – pool is a popular pastime for men in Nicaragua and billiards tournaments are an effective way to educate men about HIV/AIDS and condom use while having fun.

On the last day of the workshop, we had a testimonial from a man who is HIV positive. He came from a Nicaraguan organization of people living with HIV/AIDS. He has had the virus for 15 years, and has still not acquired AIDS. He had been participating in the workshop for the previous two days, and none of the other participants had any idea he was HIV positive; I think it shocked a few men to hear his story. He explained how he had never been educated on sexual and reproductive health as a child and his younger sister had had to explain sexual intercourse to him since he didn´t receive the information from his parents or teachers. He only found out he had HIV when he decided to do the test on a whim while in the Health Center testing for an STD. Although he said it still hurts deep inside and he struggles daily to cope; he finds hope in the fact that he is working for an organization which strives to educate Nicaraguans about HIV/AIDS and how to prevent it, and for those who are infected – how to live a long, healthy life and ensure their human rights are respected. At the end of his session, the man formed a ribbon on the ground with candles (to represent the red HIV/AIDS ribbon which represents solidarity with HIV positive persons), and he sat in the middle. We all encircled the ribbon of candles, listening to his story and taking in the moment. A few tears were shed. Many of the men had gotten to know this HIV positive man throughout the past two days of the workshop and were shocked and saddened to find out his tragic story.

At the beginning of the workshop, the participants had been asked to write down on a piece of paper the first word that came to mind when they thought of HIV/AIDS. Their answers ranged from “fear

Every 15 seconds, another child dies from lack of clean water and sanitation.

One sixth of the world’s population does not have access to potable water.

Statistics like those didn’t really mean anything to me before joining Peace Corps. Now that I am living in Nicaragua, I realize that turning on the tap to a clean, strong stream of cold (or hot) water is a luxury that few will ever experience. Getting water is a daily battle here; many rural residents have to haul it from unclean wells, or collect rain water for daily tasks. Water-borne illnesses are common and other diseases are spread by the lack of hygiene resulting from water scarcity.

One of the organizations that I’ve had the opportunity to work with while in Peace Corps is “Potters for Peace,” or in Spanish, Ceramistas por la Paz. Their goal to provide safe drinking water to those who lack it is also one of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals: “To halve, by the year 2015, the number of people who are unable to reach or afford safe drinking water, and the proportion of people without access to safe sanitation. By 2025, to provide safe water, sanitation and hygiene to all.” (Below: making the ceramic filter).

PFP makes and sells ceramic water filters to purify water. The filter is a simple porous clay container with a coating of colloidal silver that is reported to remove 99.98% of turbidity, parasites, and bacteria, including e-coli, vibrio cholera, giardia, streptococcus, cryptosporidium, and total coliforms. Since I have become sick from at least four of the aforementioned organisms, I was particularly interested in this project. (Below: a x-ray look at one of the filters).

In the urban center of my community, we have running water through a central system (well, on a good day). The water comes from a pump that is next to a small river. In the surrounding smaller villages (they are still considered part of this community), there is no running water and the residents use shared wells, sometimes located far from their homes. In the urban center the water goes out for several hours daily and when we have hard rains and the river floods it can turn a dark brown color.

After trying to drink tap water for a few weeks, I have now realized that it’s like playing Russian roulette. Sometimes you won’t get sick, but more often than not, you will. I buy purified water which cost U$1.25 for an 18 gallon container. I have to cart these large containers four blocks to my house from the store they are sold at. Needless to say, it’s quite annoying. Most families in the urban center buy these purified water jugs as well – sometimes up to 5 per week. Others that do not have access to purified water can use chlorine or boil their water, but this is often too time consuming, expensive, or simply not deemed necessary.

Recently PFP offered to partner with interested Peace Corps volunteers to provide filters and educational materials for free. I contacted them and soon received a personally-delivered donation of 17 filters (the whole set includes a plastic bucket, spigot, water filter and cover). They also donated coloring books for children that addressed water sanitation issues, crayons, education posters, a “Ceramic Filters for Sale Here” sign for use in a store, and water testing materials to test for bacteria and parasites. Two of the filters I donated to local organizations for public use: the Health Center and a non-profit which works with special needs children. The rest of the filters I have been selling out of my home and at a local store. With the money earned, we will buy more filters – hopefully creating a sustainable cycle and a way to earn money for businessmen who choose to sell them for a profit at their stores.

The only problem that I’ve found with the filters is their price. They are C$575 córdobas, (about U$28) which for most families is a substantial amount. However, local health promoters and I have been trying to promote the filters as a way to actually save money. For the average family who buys filtered water jugs, the price of one ceramic filter would buy them 23 jugs. When you do the math, the ceramic filter pays for itself quickly. That long-term vision is a little difficult for most Nicaraguans to grasp- most would rather spend a little bit now rather than a lot- no matter what the long-run savings is. No one has a large amount of petty cash just lying around (there’s a reason that you can buy single eggs, single-use baggies of spices, and single cigarettes in the stores here). We have been working with local stores letting people pay for the filters in 2-4 payments.

PFP is in 21 countries in the world. They train locals to learn how to make the ceramic filters; creating jobs and providing income for the most poor. The filters are long-lasting – PFP told me that one woman had the same filter for 10 years and it was still working for her. They also make sense; local artisans work with clay and stone, so these filters are not such a new idea. The health center has often done projects with rock and sand water filters – a less sophisticated version of PFP.

I am very grateful for the donation by PFP. The water filters are selling – slowly, but surely. Locals are very interested in how they work and how they can possibly save them money. I have recently purchased a filter as well – no more lugging around purified water for me! When so many Nicaraguan children are affected by diarrheal diseases, hopefully this project can reduce sickness and infant and child mortality. I encourage you to check out their website at:

NOTE: I recently found this blog on my computer. I wrote it quite some time ago, in January 2010. It expresses the feelings of anger and insecurity I’ve had in my site; the other side of Peace Corps that volunteers don’t often talk about. I’m feeling much better now than when I had written this blog- I think my kickboxing DVDs help me a bit! I guess I forgot to publish this entry to my blog, so I’ll do it now:

So, not all is well in my site. I’ve been trying for the most part to keep my blog positive (I mean, who wants to read something that just makes them sad?) but recent events have pushed me over the edge. I’m having a mini “mid-service crisis” I think and am struggling with deciding how to approach both my work and personal lives.

To begin with, at the beginning of December my house was robbed. (This is my second robbery. The first was the housekeeper in my host family’s house. She stole $50 from my room). The robber somehow got a copy of my front door key (a spare key was taken from my host family’s house I think) and they came in when they knew I was out of the house one night and stole my laptop, some earrings, my hairdryer, toothpaste... It was obviously just a small-time robbery, but it really shook me up and I am still recovering emotionally. What if I had entered the house while the robber was still inside? What if I was in the house when they tried to enter? My Christmas vacation back to the states was well-timed in that I was able to go home for a bit to relax and take a mental break from Nicaragua. The police here are well-intentioned, but due to lack of training and support, my case fell by the wayside and ultimately was closed. At least I had personal property insurance (thank goodness Peace Corps told me to get that!) so I was reimbursed for my laptop. What hurt the most about the incident was that it had been someone I knew (there is a strong suspicion that it was my old host brother) – someone who knew my movements and knew how to get a copy of the key. It was someone that I had placed my trust in and they had violated that trust. I felt sick to my stomach. Didn’t they know that I was here to help them? Didn’t they know how hard it is sometimes?

I changed my locks the very next morning of course, but my spirit was broken. Before the details of the robbery were known, every time I saw a young man in the street I would look at him and think, “Was it you?” I had to remember to take a step back and realize that there are larger systemic influences in effect. Poverty can make people do horrible things and I am probably looked at in the community as someone who has money (although trust me, my $190/month stipend from Peace Corps is nothing extravagant!)

After the robbery I was barraged with neighbors and friends giving me the “I told you so” speech. I was so sick of it. “Oh Penny,” they’d say, “didn’t you know you can’t trust anyone?” or, “You should know better!” I wouldn’t say anything in reply. Should I really have known better? Who should have told me? It seemed like after something bad happens here, you just can’t stop getting advice – but before the event actually occurs; no one has the courage to tell you.

My Christmas vacation made me feel much better about everything until I came back to town to discover that the barbed wire at the side of my house had been ripped down and someone had broken into my backyard. I think that they were just getting back there to steal mangos from my tree since nothing was stolen or messed with, but it still upset me and made me feel less safe. It was probably just some bored neighbor kids who knew I had mangos back there, but the fact that they broke-in so easily made me uneasy and worried. It reminds me of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – it’s difficult for me to concentrate on work when I’m not feeling safe or secure.

This morning while on an early morning run, a young man on a bike passed me from behind and grabbed my butt as he whizzed by. Not just a passing touch, but a real grab. I started yelling profanities and running after him, but he sped up his cycling and disappeared. No one was around to help me. I was so upset by what had happened. Things like this happen every day: profane things are yelled at you in the street, men disrespect you… but I have never been touched before and it made me feel very vulnerable. Who does this punk think he is? I realize that the culture of machismo is strong here in Nicaragua and I have definitely had to chew-out a few “vagos” or “street punks” for getting too fresh with their comments or verbally harassing me. What bothers me is that I don’t know who that biker was and I’ll never be able to confront. I need to live with this frustration – take it out in other ways, channel it into something else. Maybe in my work with youth I can stress the importance of equality between the sexes, of respect, of morals and values. Maybe if these kids had better role models for behavior when they grew up they wouldn’t harass women on the street or steal from their neighbors (believe me, I’m certainly not the only person in my town that has been robbed this year).

I’m pretty upset about these recent incidents and I am finding it hard to concentrate on projects. My mind keeps wandering at work and I get upset. No, I get mad. At the same time I feel helpless, and I’m not used to feeling that way. I don’t know how to make these people stop treating me this way. And I guess the answer is that I can’t. This is their world and I’m just trying to function in it as best I can. Hopefully with time and with cultural insight and understanding I can make peace. I have to realize that these incidents are just singular events and singular individuals out of an entire town. I know many men who are respectful and friendly to me. I also know several other community members who have been robbed this year – I’m not as “targeted” as I might feel. This is going to take some time though and right now I’m just doing it one breath at a time. One deep breath at a time.

I’m sorry this post is so negative; I just really had to vent. I think it’s important that my blog show how real life is here. All Peace Corps volunteers experience things like this; lack of feeling safe, feelings of disrespect and harassment, complications adjusting to the culture… I feel much better after talking to fellow volunteers and getting advice. For the most part, my service thus far (9 months down) has been going well and I’ve been feeling positive. I think this is just the difficult mid-point. Peace Corps warns you about this, the “mid-service crisis.” Hopefully I’ll come out of this soon and get back to some positive blog posts…!

Rainy season has arrived in full force in Nicaragua. The six month-long season began in May and has been making my life pretty miserable. The rain has been falling so intensely that I feel like Nicaragua is being water-boarded. This year’s hurricane season is supposed to be unusually active and a few tropical storms have already been in the area. Today we’re enjoying a rare break of hot sun and the air is thick with humidity. My backyard is saturated with water – every step brings a squish or a splash of mud up onto my ankles. Rain fell for about ten days straight when Hurricane Agatha was hitting nearby in Guatemala and Honduras. School was cancelled, people didn’t go to work, and the electricity went off and on all day long. A sink hole was even created in the middle of Guatemala City (see photo below): During the ten days of downpour, people huddled in their homes and ran from building to building, cowering under umbrellas. Children were still sent out to buy tortillas and cheese at the nearest store, and they scampered through the puddles wearing slippery flip-flops. The ground, like an over-saturated sponge, stopped soaking up the water after a couple days and soon the water just skidded off the surface. The problem in Nicaragua is that there is nowhere for the runoff to go. Streets flood with thick, muddy water; the rudimentary “ditch” system (aka the water runs out wherever you dig a ditch in the mud in front of your house) is unable to handle the volume. Rivers swell and overflow, taking boulders, branches and roots with them – carrying them meters downriver. (below: an overflowing river and a flooded well).

My house (which my landlady advised me has the tendency to flood during hard rains) did not flood too much, mainly due to my excellent ditch-digging abilities, if I do say so myself. Before the rains came I put on my thick, black rain boots and devoted an afternoon to digging out the water’s runoff path so it could run more freely, carting buckets full of mud down the street to dump in an empty lot. Needless to say it was a hard day and made me wish my Dad was around to help me. There are quite a few things that I periodically have to do around my house: kill spiders, replace light bulbs, cut tree branches, re-hammer nails, etc. that I wish I had a “man” around to help me with. I usually suck it up, or go to my neighbors and put on the dumb-blonde act, hoping Don Silvio will come rescue me from manual labor.

After those ten days of intense rain, the first day of sun felt like a breath of fresh air. Windows were opened, days’ worth of laundry was hung up, and people finally ventured out of their houses to assess the damage. Some newly paved roads to villages had been overtaken by overflowing rivers and covered in mud and rocks. Newly planted bean and corn plants had been drowned or washed away – the complete opposite of what happened last year when we faced a drought. Some adobe homes had collapsed, or been filled with mud. I saw wells that had been covered in mud, and people were struggling to dig them out. The national news reported that several people had perished in the rains: they had been washed away in rivers or their homes had collapsed on them.

Another Peace Corps volunteer whose community is nearby mine recently had trouble getting back to her town by bus. The rains had swelled a large river they had to cross, creating strong rapids that stormed over the cement blocks that normally served as a bridge. Ten buses and a couple hundred people were stranded on either side of the river waiting for it to go down. My friend weighed the decision whether or not she would cross –she had never seen water that high and was genuinely scared. When a bus finally did make the first attempt, the water went up to the windows. It was a miracle it didn’t get swept sideways, but she decided against crossing and came back to my site to stay the night and wait it out. A good decision, I would say (below see a photo of the river and the "bridge" with buses waiting to cross, and a video of the first bus crossing).

Although I grew up in a temperate rainforest in Southeast Alaska, this rain is different. There is no escape: no warm, watertight house to run into, no gutter system, no ocean for the rain to wash away in. My town is in a valley and I feel like the rain is slowly filling it up, day by day. Well, July marks the half-way point in the rainy season. Hopefully we’re over the worst. In the meantime, I go everywhere with my trusty umbrella.

Recently while I was sick with a bacterial infection and Peace Corps was putting me up in a hotel in Managua (aka: an air-conditioned oasis with wireless internet, hot showers and cable TV), I watched an episode of a program called “Losing it with Jillian.” Jillian Michaels, a personal trainer who got her start on the popular show, “The Biggest Loser,” is now starring in her own show, trying to change America’s bad diet and exercise habits one person at a time. Her no-fooling -around and drill sergeant style has gained her quite a reputation, and in the episode that I watched, she was on a Yavapai-Apache Indian reservation trying to mobilize the “nation” to fight diabetes.

It’s no secret that type II diabetes is a large problem among the Alaska Native and Indian population of the U.S., and Jillian seemed motivated to single-handedly eradicate it. She had started working with a handful of obese Indian women; doing daily workouts and helping them change their diet. The camera panned across a hot desert spotted with cacti, then you saw these large women come into view, trotting obediently alongside Jillian. Their faces strained in effort as they lifted heavy weights to do squats. Jillian’s strong voice barked at them, “no giving up!”

Jillian and the women organized a town hall meeting to discuss diabetes with a guest doctor who specialized in the disease. They walked house to house handing out flyers the day of the event inviting the whole reservation. When the meeting time came however, only a handful of participants were in the seats. “I just don’t know what to do to get these people to listen!” she complained.

The next day, Jillian was walking with one Indian woman who was her main “change agent,” and began to break down about how difficult her challenge seemed to be. Jillian’s goal was to first change this one woman, and then try to change the Indian nation. The Indian woman had a four year old son who was already obese. “Why are people so apathetic?!” Jillian implored, “I mean, do you even want to change?!” The Indian woman walked submissively by her side with her eyes downcast. “You’re feeding your child JUNK!” Jillian continued, “It isn’t even food! What is so hard about saying no?? Is it hard to say no to heart disease, to diabetes, to cholesterol, to a doughnut? To what?!” In Jillian’s mind, these people were voluntarily killing themselves through their lifestyles and it was like she was flashing a big red stop sign in front of them, but they were just ignoring it.

An “Aha!” moment came when the Indian woman finally spoke up. She was in tears. “I don’t know how to change!” she began. “No one every taught me. This is all I know. You need to help me, teach me. It’s hard!” Jillian finally softened her tough demeanor and resolved to help the woman and to try and help the community. They continued on their walk.

Watching this episode, the other Peace Corps volunteers sharing my hotel room and I were dumbstruck. Observing Jillian trying to effect change in this Indian reservation was so similar to our experience here in Nicaragua working in community health behavior change. We arrive with excellent tools and resources and so many ideas and aspirations; we are going to actually DO something here! We are going to change lives for the better! Then reality hits. Behavior change is hard. People may not show up to meetings, they may tell you they want to change, but they may continue their old habits. One thing is the knowledge that a behavior is wrong, but another is helping to motivate actual action to change that behavior. Watching Jillian was like watching a poor, misguided, greenhorn Peace Corps volunteer. “With an attitude like that, you won’t last long here!” my friends and I laughed as we watched Jillian fret and complain. It was also hard to see the Indian woman break down emotionally – she did have a strong desire to be healthier and change her habits, but when you’ve grown up learning certain behaviors your whole life, that change will not occur overnight or be easy.

Condom use, diet change, exercise, hand washing, cleaning habits, and common myths about diseases are just a few examples of the types of behaviors that we seek to change here in Nicaragua. The aerobics class I teach in my community was packed for the first few weeks, but then as time wore on and women saw that it was actually difficult to do exercise and lose weight, attendance tapered off. I can teach one hundred women how to cook with soy meat, but the real test comes when they’re at the corner store deciding what to make for lunch that day. After a hand-washing class, students might wash their hands regularly for a few days, but then they forget if those habits are not reinforced by their families.

At times, I also get frustrated with the slow-moving change here (but, nowhere near Jillian-level freak-outs at my community members). When you really want to make a difference, you can feel useless when you don’t see immediate results. I guess that’s why Peace Corps is two years, not two weeks.

Well, looks like Nicaragua, like all of Latin America is caught up in World Cup madness – or Copa Mundial as they say here. I guess I’m a typical American – I did play soccer in elementary school, but don’t know much about the sport currently. While studying in Spain I had my first introduction to soccer and its large fan base – I remember walking home from classes in the evening and seeing old Spanish men in stylish hats smoking cigarettes and drinking vino as they watched Real Madrid or FC Barcelona play, cheers erupting from bars all over the city when goals were scored.

My site-mate Kristen is quite a soccer fan and she’s been filling me in on the basics and on the likelihood of each team’s success. Through her I learned what the little yellow flags mean, what the hottest players names are, and all about the French team’s dramatic meltdown.

Since the Copa has begun, Nicaraguans have temporarily forgotten their loyalty to baseball (it’s more popular here than soccer), and during important games, almost everyone can be found glued to their (or their neighbor’s) television or radio. Little boys have put down their bats and baseball mitts and instead can be seen kicking around worn balls on the dirt streets. Coca-Cola and various other businesses have posters featuring professional soccer players up at every corner store. On the radio, the FIFA theme songs that feature Spanish singers have been playing almost hourly, and I hear young children and adults humming the tunes mindlessly as they ride their bikes and wash laundry. Everyone has the Copa on their mind. Is it like this in the U.S.? Below a photo of Nicaraguans watching a game at a Managuan bus station. Honduras, the only Central American country to make the FIFA World Cup had the support of almost every Nicaraguan. In the finals, everyone was rooting for Uruguay (“they’re representing Latin America!”). Tomorrow’s final game between Holland and Spain however will be more controversial. I was listening to the radio today and heard the commentator say, “Now, I hear that some people are being very rude to Spain and don’t want to cheer for them tomorrow. Some people still carry a grudge against the conquistadors, but look at it this way: if they had never come over here, well then, you and I wouldn’t be here, right?” So, it seems support will be divided in tomorrow’s game. I however will be rooting for España!

Some other noteworthy things:

-I had my third intestinal bacterial infection last week. (I also read in the paper that Bolivian President Evo Morales did as well), however I did not have to be hospitalized like he did. I did feel like I was going to die and had a fever, horrible stomach cramps, diarrhea and nausea. Thank God for Cipro – as soon as I started taking antibiotics I improved greatly. I always have to watch what I eat, especially things that contain unpurified water or milk products.

-My parents and sister arrive in Nicaragua on August 3rd for a two week visit! These will be my first official visitors and I am very excited to show them my town, my house, and the highlights of Nicaragua. I’ll be writing blog updates on our travels - wish us luck!

-I got to go to the U.S. Embassy 4th of July party that was held on Embassy grounds. It was amazing! The U.S. Embassy is really like a little piece of America here: there are toilets you can actually flush the toilet paper down, a pool and a baseball field! I’ve also heard rumors that some deer were imported from the U.S. and roam the Embassy grounds… just for kicks. Eleven other Peace Corps volunteers and I got to enjoy the great BBQ, live music and fireworks! Below is a photo of the Ambassador Robert Callahan and me (note my great headwear and his cigar, dangerously close to my face :)

Some background information on abortion in Nicaragua from a recent article I read:

“Amnesty International has accused the Nicaraguan government of "chilling indifference" to the rights of women and girls in its refusal to allow any exceptions to its blanket ban on abortion.

The Nicaraguan law means that even under-age girls who are raped or who are the victims of incest are forced to bear any child they may conceive or risk their life or imprisonment by seeking an illegal abortion. A United Nations human rights working group recommended Nicaragua should change the law, but the country has refused. The total ban was introduced in 2006. Nicaragua is one of four countries that forbid all abortion - the others are El Salvador, Chile and Malta.”

Nicaragua, like most Latin American countries, is mainly Catholic, so views on abortion and condom use follow traditional religious beliefs. Once I saw a mural on a church which depicted Jesus holding a bloody fetus with the words “Abortion is murder.” During my time here, I have had intimate contact with two women who found themselves pregnant within this culture which denies abortion, yet at the same time does not promote family planning.

During Peace Corps training, my 33 year-old host sister “Maria” found out she was pregnant. She already was the single mother of a four year old daughter, and the father of her coming baby was her current “hidden boyfriend.” Hiding a relationship is common here, where official permission from parents is not given easily. Young lovers will meet up in the streets at night, having sex in alleyways, cemeteries and underneath soccer stadium bleachers – anywhere semi-private. Maria was so worried about her mother finding out, I had to buy the pregnancy test for her at the pharmacy and for a few weeks was her only confidant. This pregnancy was unplanned – she earned just U$75/month as a preschool teacher and her boyfriend was unemployed. There was barely enough space in my host family’s current home to fit the current members, and adding another mouth to feed would stretch their very limited resources. I’m not sure if abortion was legal in Nicaragua, she would have gone through with it. We never talked about it, but I could see the panic in her eyes when she told me her test came back positive. “My mother will kill me! She’ll throw me out on the street again, just like before when I was pregnant with my first daughter.” (Yes, these are words coming out of a 33-year-old’s mouth). She says she never used condoms because she had pena (shame) to buy them at the pharmacy, and her boyfriend didn’t like to use them. I tried to support her emotionally and she eventually told the family and secretly marrying her boyfriend after I moved out of their home to my new community. The baby was born last October, and despite her initial anger, Maria’s mother has accepted the new little boy with open arms. They are scraping by, selling chicken and horse feed from their home, and my host sister has still not moved out of her mother’s house.

In my current community, another close friend, 23 year-old “Lucia” came to me in panic asking if Peace Corps had any information on abortions. I was taken aback – due to Nicaraguan laws, abortion was normally a taboo subject, and I knew Lucia came from a “good Catholic family.” When I explained to her that Peace Corps can’t give her any information and that while yes, abortion is legal in the U.S., there’s nothing she can do here in Nicaragua. Lucia and I had previously had long conversations about family planning and condoms, when she came to me in shame asking about abortions, I could see how difficult it was for her. Peace Corps warns us about this: after educating so many youth and young people on the necessity of condom use and birth control, there will still always be a few who don’t follow through and either end up pregnant or with an STD. Behavior change is a complicated phenomenon and there are many factors that can inhibit the implementation of new behaviors – in the case of family planning, culture, religion and Latin machismo being some of them. Lucia explained that she hadn’t used a condom with her boyfriend (also a “secret” relationship) since they had so much “trust” with each other, she didn’t see the need. Once again, I was Lucia’s only confidant and she was terrified to tell her family and lose her reputation.

Weeks later, Lucia came to me saying that she had investigated getting an illegal abortion at a gynecologist in a nearby city. The cost was U$300 – an unthinkable amount for her or her boyfriend to pay. She was torn emotionally and finally told her mother about the pregnancy in order to obtain money from her to carry out the abortion. I was surprised when she told me this since I knew her family was Catholic. Apparently, religious values took second place when a crisis of this nature falls upon this family.

Even after she had the money, Lucia vacillated on whether or not to carry out the abortion. I didn’t know what to say to her, and simply served as a listening board. She was well along in her pregnancy (in the second trimester I think) when she finally decided to go through with the illegal abortion. It sounded like a horrible procedure – Lucia had to take medicine to induce labor and had to “give birth.” It was a day-long affair and she returned looking weak, pale and with a vacant stare. She refused to talk about it. She started to lie in bed all day long, never having enough energy to talk or go out of the house.

When I first moved to my community, I was taken aback by Lucia’s vibrant personality and her passion for life. She studied in the university in Managua, traveling back and forth bi-weekly. She was uniquely independent for a Nicaraguan woman, didn’t like to tie herself down with a “serious boyfriend,” and liked to travel around the country meeting new people. I felt like she was the one Nicaraguan woman that I could relate to; we would sit and chat about traveling, dancing, and politics. She had a mind that was thirsty to learn about the world. After her illegal abortion however, she slipped into a deep depression. She was weak and listless and ended up dropping out of the university, of which she was in her last year. A few weeks after the abortion, she suffered a hemorrhage which made her even weaker. I was worried about her health and her refusal to talk about what had happened to her. It was the elephant in the room; everyone knew what had happened in her family and I did as well, but we never discussed it.

When I moved to my new house, I stopped having much contact with Lucia and we didn’t see each other much. Last week however, I heard a rumor that she was pregnant again. I went to investigate and saw a noticeable bump under her shirt. She was seven months along. She got pregnant in the same year she had the abortion and this time was keeping the baby. The father was the same boyfriend. I didn’t go into details with her; she was visibly ashamed to break the news to me of her new pregnancy. She knew that I worked every day to promote contraceptives and here she was - one of my close friends, pregnant right after an abortion.

I’m not sure why she decided to keep this baby. Maybe she didn’t have enough money for another abortion. Maybe she couldn’t emotionally go through with another. She is due in a few weeks. She has no job and her boyfriend does seasonal work on a delivery truck. She says that he wants her to move in with his family in their house nearby. I struggle to talk to Lucia these days. Whenever I look at her, all I see are lost opportunities. I see the exuberant girl that I met in my first days in my community, the girl who knowledgably told me everything about Nicaraguan idioms and her university life. The girl who seemed so sophisticated – she didn’t belong in this small town, I had thought. Now, Lucia will end up just like her mother and her older sister – a young mother with no education to support her children on her own. She will rely on her family or her boyfriend’s family since he is deciding to “recognize” the child as his own, as they say here in Nicaragua.

I am not pro-abortion, but I do favor a woman’s right to choose. The fact that Nicaragua makes all abortion illegal is a roadblock to this country’s development. When girls and women cannot make their own decision about whether to give birth after an unplanned pregnancy, or even rape or incest (both common here) – they often fall deeper into the cycle of poverty. Their children grow up in single-parent homes and struggle through life. Women may sell their bodies or take their young children out of school to work instead. As I learned through Lucia, even though abortions are officially illegal, women will always find a way to get them done, and an illegal procedure often means a dangerous one. While Lucia’s hemorrhage didn’t prove serious, other women might not be so lucky. While the Catholic Church opposes abortion on the premise that all life is sacred, I believe that God wants children to come into loving homes that plan for them, and if family planning can facilitate that, then the church should be supporting rather than banning condoms.

I hope the Nicaraguan government will stop wishful thinking and realize that allowing legal early-term abortions is a step towards guaranteeing the human rights and preventing poverty that the subjugated female population of this country so desperately need.

There’s a new fancy house being built on the next block, someone is adding a few bedrooms onto their existing home, my neighbors have bought a new pick-up truck, a new restaurant is being constructed, and my friend Alba just started classes this year at a nearby private university. What do all of these events have in common? They are all being funded by remittances: money sent back to Nicaragua by relatives living abroad, mainly in the United States, Spain and Costa Rica.

This money is a type of “unofficial development assistance,” that the U.S. inadvertently gives to hundreds of countries around the world. According to a book I’m currently reading, Forgotten Continent: The battle for Latin America’s soul by Michael Reid, more than 25 million Latin Americans are thought to live outside their own country. “People have become an important export for some Latin American countries: remittances totaled some $62 billion in 2006…This figure exceeded the combined flows of foreign direct investment and official development aid to the region.” I’ve observed that most Nicaraguan families who are well off, own businesses, have nice homes, or own vehicles, have a family member sending them money from a developed country.Above: a typical Nicaraguan home in the country.

Below: a home being constructed by a family with remittances from the U.S. Notice a difference??

Husbands and brothers usually make the journey abroad to work for a few years; leaving wives, girlfriends and/or children behind while they go mojado (illegally) - (literally, mojado means “wet.” The saying come from the idea that when clandestinely crossing a border made by a river or other body of water, you would get wet). They work in whatever they can; cleaning boats in Louisiana, milking cows in Michigan, childcare in Florida, waiting tables in California, cleaning office buildings in New York… I hear the stories of these illegal immigrants from their family members as I talk with my neighbors. It seems surprisingly easy to get into the States illegally, and once there, they will work in anything for very little money. Going legally is often out of the question; the time consuming, confusing and competitive American visa application process deters many Nicaraguans who barely have enough money for the bus ride to Managua to visit the U.S. Embassy.

Most people go abroad for 2-5 years without any visits home. In my community, I see children growing up without fathers or mothers, only recognizing the face on the web camera when they video chat with their parent at the internet café once a month. The wives men leave behind usually remain faithful; overseeing construction of the new house they will share when their husband returns, and taking care of the children. These men, on the other hand, usually find girlfriends abroad and when they return, may bring back an STD or HIV/AIDS – if they return at all. During their stay in the States, they rarely learn English, choosing not to enroll in classes or socialize with Americans to avoid risk of deportation. They live in constant fear of being caught and their lives consist of little more than work and sleep. While it may be surprisingly easy for them to get to the States, once there, the policies are not in place to help integrate them in to American society: teach them English, give them temporary work Visas (most only want to work for a few years to build up money to build a house and then go back to their native land), and make them taxpayers or even American citizens.

While the Nicaraguan leftist President Daniel Ortega warns against the ills of capitalism and the United States’ evil ways (most recently criticizing Arizona’s infamous immigration reform and the BP oil leak), paradoxically, thousands of Nicaragua’s residents flee their native land in search of economic prosperity in capitalistic, democratic countries. Even loyal socialist Sandinistas will gladly accept money sent from relatives in the States.

Growing up in Alaska, I saw little of the volatile immigration debate that is currently gripping the U.S. Immigrants in my community mainly came from the Philippines and were there legally. I can’t imagine how some illegal immigrants must live and the prejudice they must put up with in order to give their family a better chance. The money they send back funds university educations, better homes, and food for their families. I live comfortably in this country for about U$250/month, so it doesn’t take much. Many Americans are willing to donate money to non-profit and relief organizations to aid developing countries, but when that “aid” comes from illegal workers in the U.S., the attitude suddenly changes. It seems like an odd situation: we can either give a developing country money with no real payment in return through “official development assistance,” or we can give people from these countries temporary work visas and at least get something out of our economic exchange – their work.

Everyone wants to ignore the fact that immigration exists: that the leftist government of Nicaragua is still highly critical of capitalism, and the U.S. refuses to reform immigration and acknowledge the existence of these illegal immigrants, many of whom fill important roles in our economy, all without paying taxes.

I know I’m not an expert in immigration policy, I only know what I see on a daily basis and what I read in the headlines while I’m at the internet café. I hope that future U.S. immigration reform, if it comes to pass, will take into account the opinions of both American citizens as well as legal and illegal immigrants. Here in Nicaragua, I see the families on the other side of many of those illegal immigrants – the human side of those dark-skinned men and women you see doing yard work, cleaning homes and washing dishes. They have families to care for just like everyone in the U.S., and they are searching for the American dream just like our ancestors did.

When I heard there was a free cooking class being offered Sunday mornings at a local restaurant, I didn’t hesitate to sign up. My site-mate Kristen and I showed up the following week, and along with 12 other generously proportioned Nicaraguan women, we began to learn some basics. The class is very informal and we’re loosely following a booklet that the teacher used when she took the class at the nearby university. There is a focus more on foods that you can prepare to sell: jams, pickled foods, candied fruits, sauces, etc. We have made mango and guava jam, pickled chili onions, candied orange peel, tomato sauce, vegetable juice, and sangria! (I got pretty excited about that last one, but it turns out they make it more with red soda pop rather than wine…hm…)

It’s been a nice group to be a part of. The ladies have lots to share, and since I’m a chef-in-training, I’m soaking it all up. Although we’re not making real “food,” I’m looking forward to using these recipes in the future (can’t wait until my mango tree ripens and I can make my own jam!) The ladies are also interested in learning some things from me. I’m going to show them how to cook with soy and also how to make peanut butter. Today in class, the women started talking about how happy they were that they signed up, how much they’ve learned, etc. One of them went off rambling about how, “Some people say they hate the kitchen! There are so many women out there that just don’t like to cook, but they need to learn! What a barbarity!” (In Nicaragua, everything is a ¨barbarity¨) I ducked down a little bit when she started saying that since I am a self-proclaimed “non-cook.” Being around all these cooking queens can make me a little nervous sometimes, but they are always eager to help and teach me.

The best part about the class is the matching aprons, hair covers and MASKS that they all have! Yes, masks… It looks like I’m hanging out with a bunch of middle-aged, portly gangsters. See photo below, oh so cute. It’s even better that the apron color is magenta.

They also thought it was hilarious that I was cleaning up after our messes. “Oh, your mother would be so surprised to see you cleaning!” they giggled. Hah! Little do they know that’s all I DO at home! They insisted on taking a picture of me mopping to prove to the folks back home that I was working down here in Nicaragua. Notice the stylish apron and head scarf they let me borrow.

In a developing country with a struggling economy, people are always looking for ways to make a buck. One of the most common ways a family will make a few cordobas to buy their daily beans and rice is by selling street food. You can find middle-aged, portly women selling snacks and beverages on every street corner, on buses, at businesses, and walking around town with carts or with the food stacked on their heads, calling out in a sad singsong voice “Rosquiiiiillllaaass!” or “Tamaaaallleesss!” (Two typical foods made from corn).

They sell soda, water, fruit juices, coffee, fried chicken with tortilla, tacos, enchiladas, corn on the cob, candies, marshmallows, cornbread crackers, fruit, potato chips… Most of these foods are served in plastic baggies, including the drinks. You might ask, as I did when I first arrived here, why all the plastic baggies? I recently read a book (“Blood of Brothers” by Stephen Kinzer) which chronicles the civil war in Nicaragua in the 1980s, and during the early years of leftist Sandinista rule, when they were trying to implement socialism. During this time, imports were severely limited. People had to make do with what they had and whatever was cheap and/or local. Plastic bags fit the bill, and Plastinic, a Nicaraguan plastics company served the population, turning out plastic tables and chairs, dishes, buckets, and baggies. You will not find any Nicaraguan home without plastic lawn chairs being used as living room furniture. As for plastic baggies, they were one of the only things available to hold food when disposable plates and other containers were cut off. The habit still continues today despite the availability of other packaging methods. Drinking out of a plastic bag is an acquired skill. You have to bite a hole in the corner of the bag and suck out the contents. If you´re in a ¨fancy¨ place, they just might give you a straw, too! It actually proves to be quite a successful technique and is useful for “on the go” traveling. Food is also served in plastic baggies – everything from chicken and tortilla to potato chips or mango. Plastic is also the material of choice to start a fire on the firewood stove. Yes, I realize those fumes are horribly toxic, Nicaraguans insist that it just burns better than wood! I try and leave the kitchen when they start torching the plastic bottles and bags...

Another downside to all the plastic: thousands of empty plastic baggies litter the streets of every Nicaraguan town, since Nicaraguans are not only notorious street food eaters, they are also litterers. If you were to ask most people if it was “right” to toss their empty water bottle out the window of the bus, they would reply “no,” but that doesn’t stop them from doing it every day. Peace Corps environment volunteers are working every day on behavior change in this area, educating young children in schools and promoting the “I don’t throw trash” campaign with bumper stickers and t-shirts. As Peace Corps volunteers, we lead by example, throwing away our own trash and encouraging others to do so, and often work with youth groups to undergo local cleaning campaigns and increase awareness. Although, when I return to the States, I think I´ll take back the habit of storing food and drinks in plastic baggies – very convenient.

Since I have officially passed the half-way point of my two years of Peace Corps service, I am now beginning to get into familiar rhythms of yearly events. This April marks the annual national vaccination campaign. You might remember my blog entry about this event last year, one of my first blogs in-site. This year, I’m participating for the second and also last time. This year I bring a different perspective and although it’s the same villages, many of the same kids, and the same nurses, I now feel a greater sense of belonging and understanding in my community.

If you didn’t read my blog last year, here’s the gist of the campaign: country-wide, all the health centers send out teams of nurses and doctors to each surrounding village for two weeks straight to vaccinate all young children against polio, DPT, DT, MMR, etc. They also administer Vitamin A and anti-parasite medicine. It’s a well-organized event that most nurses carry out with efficiency and experience that I found astounding last year. How can they remember all these kids’ names? How do they not get lost trekking around the mountains looking for that lone house with the unvaccinated child? How do they know just how to grab a screaming and kicking child to make him sit still for the shot?

An unsuspecting child waiting his turn.

This year, I’ve been taking a more active part in the campaign and as a consequence have been spit on, bitten, cried on, hugged, ran away from, and stared at by hundreds of kids as I administer anti-polio drops, Vitamin A and anti-parasite medicine. (The nurses tried to convince me that they should teach me how to inject –“It’s so easy, really!” – but I politely declined). A child who doesn´t want to take his anti-parasite pill.

When we go to a village, we set-up our vaccination central “camp” at the house of the local health volunteer. The conditions vary extremely; some of the volunteer’s houses are immaculate and you can tell the family is “well-off” (relatively speaking): they own chickens, ducks, pigs, a dog, have lots of fruit trees, multiple bedrooms in the house, and maybe even running water and electricity, or at least their very own well. Others get by with the bare minimum. They give us a few battered plastic lawn chairs held together with twine and we position ourselves under a scrawny tree nearby for shade from the hot sun. We set-up the China-donated cooler to hold the European Union-donated vaccines, organize the Canadian-donated syringes, and get out the American-donated Vitamin A drops. Thank you international community. Ready to go. Our first victims start to arrive in the arms of their mothers. Some come willingly; others have tear-stained faces which attest to the battle of wills that must have taken place at their home minutes before, ending in the child being forcefully dragged or carried to be vaccinated. “It’s just drops in your mouth!” we call encouragingly to those who seem hesitant – for most, it is (see photo below).For some unlucky ones though, they have to face THE NEEDLE. In this case, everyone present gasps in excitement and anticipation, craning their necks to get a good view. Much attention and care is taken to commenting on whether the child looks scared, whether he or she will cry, or how big the needle is compared to previous needles that those present have had plunged into their skin. The needle goes in; the child’s cry goes off like an alarm. All the mother’s present proceed to coo and stroke the child, the children in their arms with eyes as wide as saucers. The poor victim, scarred for life, sobs and glares at the nurse, its torturer.

More kids arrive – mother’s holding babies shuffle in and out of plastic chairs. The yard is full of babies and mothers, and chickens – some women breastfeeding absentmindedly, others shifting uncomfortably trying to hide behind their child, wanting to avoid a possible tetanus shot we may give them. Some women are still dripping water from their hair from their recent bucket shower. A few have had their toenails recently painted and their babies are wearing Sunday dresses. Other mothers are in worn corn and bean-stained clothes with tired looks on their faces; they have laundry waiting at home and lunch to cook. How long is this going to take anyway? No one complains though – the socialized medicine system here may be frustrating, slow, and inefficient, but these people have grown to expect these services and they will wait any amount of time to receive what little they can.

One nurse devotes herself to tabulating all the numbers. She looks up names of children in a large battered notebook from the health center records, writing in pencil the date of the vaccine. Each family here also keeps their own vaccine records – at birth the baby is given a vaccination card onto which all dates and appointments are written. Depending on the care that card receives by its owner, on vaccine day, we are handed some that are illegible, stained, ripped, and often lost. You can tell a woman is a new mother when you see a bright, white and clean vaccination card that she stores in a plastic bag. Squinting as we try and make out the writing on the older cards, “Does that say 1996 or 2006?” “Was this child born in 2005 or 2006?” (That one is often met with a blank stare by the mother with a ‘how should I know?’ look). Many children move around frequently due to their family’s migrant lifestyle – perhaps the mother lives in the U.S. and sends money back. One year the baby will be living in Managua with an aunt, the next year moving to Estelí to stay with their grandmother, and maybe, years down the road they’ll move in with an uncle in Jalapa and grow up knowing him as their father.

The day continues. We calculate ages, months since the last booster shot of dpt, tetanus, mmr… Pens and pencils are stuck into ponytails just as quickly to be grabbed out again, brows furrowed, erasers move erratically back and forth over the paper, shavings blown away. Cell phone calculators are whipped out to avoid confusion on birthdays. It is customary here to state your age in an approximate value, rounding up or down. Many women tell us they are 20, when after looking at the records it turns out they are 23 (it surprises them as much as us). Calculating exact ages is not too important here and something that people are not used to. I once spent three minutes trying to convince the nurse doing record keeping that no, a boy born in December 2008 was not yet two years old. She had trouble understanding that although we were in 2010, December had not yet passed.

I was often in charge of taking care of the MEF (mujeres de edad fertile) – women of child-bearing age. This means I had to look up every mother’s name who came to the vaccine post and see if she was up to date with her tetanus shots, and record new women who weren’t already on file. This was particularly difficult for me since it meant I had to spell a lot of Nicaraguan names, which are not your typical traditional Spanish names like Maria or Esperanza. It got quite frustrating. How do you say that name again? Spell it for me? What was that again? “It’s Hairy… H, A, I, R, Y,” one answered me (pronounced “Hi-ree” in Spanish). “What?!” I replied, “Are you sure??” Good thing she doesn’t speak English. Poor thing, hopefully she never moves to the states; she’d never hear the end of it. Here are just a couple of the odd names I’ve encountered down here – a mix of English and Spanish, European and make-believe: Milady (My Lady), Lubby, Mayerling, Maycol (when pronounced phonetically in Spanish sounds like Michael), Duglass (pronounced like “Dooglas” – a Spanish version of Douglas), Yelsin, Sindi, Harol, Daysi, Yessel, Jeniffer (yes, two F’s), Furry, Moni (pronounced like “money” in English), and Visitación (means “visitation” in Spanish)… Oh well, I guess I shouldn’t poke fun, my name is arguable just as funny.

On a few days, we finished vaccinating earlier than expected, and the nurses got anxious to go out and explore a bit before we went back to town. “Don’t we have to get back?” I asked, wondering if the health center director would appreciate us joyriding around in the health center vehicle conducting unofficial business. “Oh, we have all afternoon!” they’d insist, “Come on, let’s check out this coffee cooperative nearby, I’ve always wanted to go.” Okay – you’re the boss… Upon entering the large co-op, we are treated to a grand tour of the facility (one of the largest in the country). It is coffee processing season here, so we see the women sitting outside under a wooden tent structure “picking” the coffee beans, and sinewy men hauling 50 lb. sacks of finished coffee beans into large trucks, from which they will be transported to markets in China, Russia, the U.S., and Europe. We are treated to coffee samples and free promotional calendars featuring a half-naked Nica girl lounging on motorcycles (what that have to do with coffee, I’m not sure). An hour after we had entered, the nurses and I left the cooperative happy and caffeinated, each with a couple pounds of coffee under our arms. But the nurses weren´t done exploring yet! We then proceeded to visit an isolated rural vineyard and enjoyed a tour of the farm by the old man who owned it. When he saw our vehicle pull up to his cement home, we saw him jump into a shirt and some boots and rapidly dry-shave his stubble using the rearview mirror of his broken-down motorcycle in order to be presentable. I’m sure not too many people from “outside” come to buy grapes there, much less a bunch of nurses with a blonde gringa. He treated us all the grapes we could fit into our bellies. All together, we left with about 50 pounds of green, purple and black juicy grapes, at $0.75/lb. Sadly, he had no wine on hand, but promised that if we came back, he’d have a few liters set aside for us. Nice outings to finish hectic days. I guess there’s always time for coffee and grapes… Above: nurses enjoying the grapes. Notice the sexy coffee calendar in one nurse´s hand.

This year, I feel more comfortable in these rural villages. The extreme poverty that used to scare me: children as skinny as broomsticks with faces and bodies so dirty you can’t tell their skin color, clothes so worn that they take on a transparent quality, and villages and homes so isolated I begin to doubt if they’ve ever even heard of the internet. Despite the poverty, they are often happy and generous with what little they have. I will gladly accept the mango juice they offer me, even though I know they have so little and it will probably give me parasites. I will be thankful for the dirty, roach-filled latrine that they let me use – it’s better than none at all. I will enjoy the shade of this sparse mango tree, even though I’d much prefer an electric fan. I’ve learned to be thankful for the little things, and to take time to smell the coffee roasting.(Below: my neighbor´s baby and I. I held the poor thing down while they gave him a shot in his leg).

Although I didn’t fall in love immediately with Nicaragua, it was love at first sight with the San Juan River. For my Holy Week vacation (the week before Easter is a national holiday here), six other Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs) and I headed down to that rugged, little known and slightly wild place known as Río San Juan (San Juan River) in the south of Nicaragua. The river starts at the enormous Lake Nicaragua (Largest Lake in Central America) and snakes along to the Atlantic coast, forming the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. It is one of the most isolated areas in the country and therefore, one of the most intriguing. The river was used by Aztec traders beginning in the 1200s and has since been the battleground for Spanish conquerors and pirates. During my days there, I became enamored with the river, the scenery and the people – I would transfer my site down there in a minute if I could! However, transportation there and back is a different story. To get there, we took a tortuous 15 hour ride on a small ferry that was holding about three times as many people as it should have been. (If you’re from Southeast Alaska and are familiar with that Alaska Marine Highway System, then imagine riding on something half the size of the LeConte with the passenger load of the Columbia). We camped out, spreading out sleeping bags and hanging up hammocks outside to try and sleep during the overnight ride (see photo below). We made one brief stop on Ometepe Island, the famed hourglass shaped island with two volcanoes (one of them is currently erupting!) and dropped off/picked up passengers, as well as piles of green plantains and a tangy small fruit called jocote. Like my hometown in Southeast Alaska, most foodstuffs arrive by boat to the Rio San Juan. We arrived groggy, but excited at 6 am in San Carlos, Rio San Juan – the department capital. From there, we visited a volunteer named Jill in her amazingly quaint town down the river. It has 1,000 people and only is accessible by water (there may be a road, but apparently it’s too beat up to want to use). We enjoyed hanging out with her and seeing the “Casa Materna” – a boarding house for pregnant village women to come live at right before they give birth to reduce complications. Jill is working on a project there to start a women’s cooperative where they sell earrings and handicrafts and have tourist information. Several tourists pass through the little town on their way to start the trip down the river. Starting a little business there would benefit the women by providing extra money to help buy nutritious food. Most of the time they subsist on rice and sometimes beans. After bidding Jill farewell, the seven of us went to a town called El Castillo (The Castle). Positioned directly on the banks of the Devil Rapids, it is named for the Spanish fortress that overlooks the town. The fort was built between 1673 and 1675 and used primarily to attack pirates, who were forced to slow their boats as they navigated the Devil Rapids. One of Nicaragua’s dearest heroes, Rafaela Herrera, led a successful attack on a British fleet from the castle in 1762, when she was just 19 – becoming a feminist legend in the country. El Castillo is beautiful and arguably the friendliest Nicaraguan town I’ve ever been in. Tourism is just beginning in this area – most of the hostels are just a year or so old and the local charm has not been lost. If I had to pick another town in which to live in Nicaragua, this would be it. From El Castillo, the seven of us rented two kayaks and two canoes to start the big river trip to the Atlantic Coast. We were planning to do it in three days. We rented our boats from a local guide named Miguel who is AWESOME, check out his website at www.firststepecotours.com Miguel lived in the U.S. for a while, so his English is great and he is quite a character… He showed me crocodiles at night (their eyes glow red!), made me some beans and rice, and treated me to some dark Nicaraguan rum mixed with coconut water from trees in his front yard. Try it - delicious. Due to a variety of reasons that I will refrain from going into in this blog, mostly because of space (but trust me, it´s pretty hilarious), we didn’t up doing the entire trip all the way to the Atlantic coast. We did one day of paddling and then decided to hang out on the river the rest of our vacation. I was happy to just sit and watch the water go by from our hostel in El Castillo. It was nice to be around water again. It rained every day we were there. Rio San Juan is full of life. The rain forest, lush jungle, rivers and islands are part of the Rio San Juan Biosphere Reserve that harbors macaws, toucans, hummingbirds, parrots, great blue herons, egrets, giant river shrimp (they have huge crab-like claws and can easily weigh a few pounds), turtles, crocodiles and bull shark (!) Also, lots of mosquitoes. Unlike the mosquitoes in my site that are used to me and refrain from biting, on this trip my legs and feet were covered in red bites. At the end of our very relaxing Holy Week trip, we took an 8-hour night bus back to Managua. I took a sleeping pill and was passed out the whole way, unpaved road and all. I’m already thinking about when I can go back to the river. I can still hear the water rushing in my head…

What would we Peace Corps Volunteers do without cell phones? Although Nicaragua is still a developing country, it has been able to make one of those infamous “technology leaps,” as it goes from having limited to no phone service immediately to cell phones, skipping the land line phone in-between. You see leaps like this with internet as well: the country has no internet whatsoever, and then the next day you see someone has a Netbook laptop and wireless connection in their house. No slow dial-up modems here! Developed countries did all the dirty work and now technology is cheaper and faster, making it accessible to the masses.

Probably nowhere is this more evident in Nicaragua than with cell phones. Just about every Nicaragua, rich or poor, young or old, has a cell phone. When phones start at about $10, they’re not too expensive, even by Nicaraguan standards. Every Nica teen can be found chateando – sending text messages back and forth to friends, in their spare time. Often you’ll see a person who looks otherwise somewhat poor (used clothing with stains and rips, the hardened look of someone who works in the field, strong calves from hauling water)… but then you notice that, Hey – isn’t that a $100 camera phone in their hand?? Nicaraguans place great importance on their cell phones.

Although cell phones have arrived in all their glory, sadly cell phone etiquette has not. Here are few informal “rules” that Nicaraguans like to follow. 1. Whenever your phone rings (and yes, you will always hear it ring because it is NEVER to be put on silent mode or turned off), you WILL answer it. No matter if you are at work, teaching a class, in a doctor’s appointment, riding a horse, driving a bus or in a meeting with the Director of Peace Corps: that call must be answered. And if possible, answer it while you are still in the room in which the meeting is taking place – just ask everyone’s pardon and try and make your conversation short, but of course don’t lower your voice. The person on the other end of the line might not hear you! 2. As mentioned before, driving while talking or texting is perfectly acceptable. One’s social life doesn’t wait! 3. It is perfectly acceptable to ask to see a friend or even a stranger’s phone and search through their text message history. You don’t have anything to hide now, do you?? 4. Whenever you are without music (out in the villages, in a car without a stereo, on a farm…) you must play the songs stored on your cell phone at full volume. Background music here is a must, no matter where you are. And you must strive to have a well-rounded music selection: ABBA, Air Supply, the BeeGee’s, bachata, salsa, meringue, reggaeton, and of course, the Titanic theme song.

One of the annoying things about the cell phone companies here (there are only two, “Claro” and “Movistar”), is that it is very expensive to have a cell phone, compared to the U.S. Here, cell phones work on a pre-paid system. You go to any corner store, restaurant, grocery store, etc. to put some dollars on your phone every week. Calls to other Nicaraguan cell phones can cost up to $0.25/minute! Sometimes there are “promotions” where you can send 500 text messages for $2 or something, but I usually end up spending quite a bit on my cell phone every month. All Nicaraguans understand this, and the constant complaint you’ll hear is, “Ay, no ando saldo!” “Dang it! I don’t have any cell phone credit!” This is often a lie; since the person is probably just being pinche (cheap) and wants you to make the call for them on your phone (you’re a gringa right? That means you have lots of money, yes?) Also, phone calls are made very short to the point of almost feeling rude. Both parties in the conversation know that time is money and only the important details are shared before the conversation is rushed to a close. Here is a sample conversation between the Head Nurse at my Health Center, Hileana and I (she is calling me):

Me: “Hello?”

Hileana: “Hello Penny – you know what? The pregnant women’s’ meeting today has to be cancelled. There’s an emergency here at the Health Center…got to go. Talk later.”

Me: “Uhh…okay? I’m out here in the middle of the village waiting for you… Are you alright? What happened??”

Hilean: “Adios Penny!”

Click.

Hm… Well, it looks like if I want to find out what happened in this story, I’ll have to call her back. Tricky little devil – she’s not going to get me to use my credit! It goes without saying that the person who is making the call has complete power over the conversation: what the topic is, how long it lasts and who does the talking. It’s their money after all!

In Peace Corps, we use cell phones as our main mode of communication to the main office, the safety and security officer, and of course to other volunteers. Since text messages are much cheaper than making an actual call, we usually communicate by texting. Some of the texts we send and receive I’m sure would be quite confusing and/or hilarious when seen by someone who is not in our inner Peace Corps Nicaragua circle. Here are some variations of texts that I have sent and received:

WAS JUST WOKEN UP BY A BAT FLYING AROUND MY HOUSE. CURRENTLY COWERING UNDER MY MOSQUITO NET. DO THEY SUCK HUMAN BLOOD??!!

JUST HAD 7th BOWEL MOVEMENT OF THE DAY. NOT NORMAL, RIGHT?

NO RUNNING WATER FOR THREE DAYS. SILVER LINING: DON’T NEED TO WEAR SUNSCREEN ANYMORE SINCE I’M FORMING A PROTECTIVE LAYER OF DIRT.

JUST SAW AN OLD WOMAN ON THE BUS WITH A USED T-SHIRT THAT SAID “I LOST MY PHONE NUMBER…CAN I HAVE YOURS??” NOT SURE IF I SHOULD TELL HER WHAT IT MEANS OR NOT.

OMG-JUST FOUND OUT THAT TIGER WOODS HAD AN AFFAIR! DID YOU KNOW THAT??

(Five minutes later….)

OH WAIT…I GUESS THAT HAPPENED LIKE 2 WEEKS AGO…

JUST GOT PUKED ON BY A BABY ON THE BUS…GREAT WAY TO START THE DAY.

I’M GOING TO BE LATE TO THE MEETING; I’M BEING HELD HOSTAGE IN MY HOUSE BY A STRAY DONKEY THAT IS BLOCKING MY DOORWAY, EATING PLANTS IN MY FRONT YARD.

WHAT’S THAT RHYME ABOUT POISONOUS SNAKES AGAIN??? IS IT RED AFTER YELLOW KILLS A FELLOW? RED AND BLACK, OKAY JACK?? TEXT BACK QUICK!

JUST SLAUGHTERED AND DEPLUMED BY FIRST CHICKEN. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TODAY??? :)

Well, that’s all for now. A new blog entry will be coming soon about my Holy Week vacation which starts tomorrow. I’m planning to canoe the San Juan River which separates Costa Rica and Nicaragua with a group of friends. It’s like Nicaragua’s mini-version of the Panama Canal. Should be beautiful!

Today I went to the nearby city of Estelí, “The Diamond” of the north of Nicaragua. It’s one of my favorite cities in Nicaragua. There are a few nice restaurants that serve some good gringo treats like wheat bread, homemade yogurt, and my personal favorite; a cucumber and celery juice drink (it’s amazing!) I was running the usual errands – going to the bank, getting my hair cut, shopping at the market, etc. when I ran into some neighbors from my site – Don Silvio and his wife Doña Yelva. They too were running errands. Their family owns a successful restaurant/pool business and they also have a fritanga where they sell fried food like tacos, enchiladas and plantain chips every night. They go to Estelí weekly and fill their pick-up truck to the brim with groceries to supply their little business. People who own vehicles in Nicaragua are rare, at least outside of Managua. There are not too many cars and trucks in my site and everyone knows who owns one. Most people who own a vehicle have a family member who works in the U.S. and sends money back, which is the case with Yelva and Silvio. They’re wonderful people to have as neighbors, always giving me free tortillas and juice. I sometimes watch telenovelas with one of the younger daughters in the evening, getting my fill of Spanish soap opera drama.

I chatted with my neighbors a bit on the street in Estelí– it was mid-morning and they were just beginning their errands, as was I. I was tickled that I actually recognize some people on the street. I’m realizing that I recognize more and more people now as I walk around town, in the classrooms when I give classes… I guess it’s a sign that I’ve been in my site almost a year. Don Silvio and his Doña Yelva offered to give me a ride back to town that afternoon in the back of their truck. I agreed wholeheartedly. Anything is better than riding in the crowded, sweaty, and slow old school buses that we use here for transportation (you may recall a previous blog about it).

At 3 pm I met up with Silvio and Yelva again. By this time their weathered but cared for pick-up was weighted down with large sacks of potatoes, tomatoes, melons, mangoes, onions, cucumbers, watermelon, papaya, pineapple, ground meat, chicken filets, paper towel, straws, paper plates, and eight 5-gallon buckets full of cooking oil. I wasn’t sure there was going to be room for me in the back of their truck with all their loot, but they managed to squeeze in a plastic chair for me to sit on. As we started down the road, I felt like I was in a county fair parade – sitting high atop all of these fruits and vegetables as we slowly passed people staring at me in the street (no matter what I do in Nicaragua, I’m stared at).

Travel in the back of pick-up trucks is very common here. I’m pretty sure that Peace Corps doesn’t allow volunteers to officially do it, but that doesn’t stop anyone. If you didn’t ride in the back of a pick-up, you simply wouldn’t get anywhere. Ironically, for my work at the Health Center here, that is our main mode of transportation. When we go on visits out to the remote villages, up to 15 nurses will cram in the back of the poor old Ministry of Health pick-up, hanging on for dear life as we jolt up and down over rocky roads and through rivers.

I’ve really grown to enjoy rides in the back of pick-ups, and it’s been a while since I’ve had “the pleasure.” As I settled in for the 45 minute ride back to town, I took a bite of the sweet mandarin orange that Doña Yelva tossed me as we took off. She’s a nice motherly type – constantly in the kitchen cooking with an apron on. She always has a smile for me and is always game to try whatever I’ve tried my hand at cooking or baking. She especially liked the banana bread I made a couple weeks ago. She and her family have built a mini food empire in our little town and make most food for meetings, luncheons and social events.

The wind is refreshing due to recent rains, which is odd since it’s the middle of the dry season. Nevertheless, everyone has been enjoying the temporary fresh feeling in the air and the lack of dust. The weather is cool, probably in the low 70s in the shade. I tied my hair up tight in a bun to avoid the agony of combing it out later after a thorough brushing by the wind, and stuck my sunglasses on to protect my eyes. Bugs were flying into my cheeks like torpedoes.

The wind was strong and carried back to me the scents of the cargo we were carrying. I caught whiffs of pineapple and mango. The cooking oil next to me started to slosh back and forth and through a leak, some oil found its way onto my shoes. Darn it. Hand washing clothes is one thing, but I hate hand-washing shoes.

As we moved farther away from the city and into the mountains, I shifted my gaze outward. In a crowded bus, you don’t have the luxury of a view, so some of the landscape looked foreign although I had passed it uncountable times before. Because of the lack of rain, the small mountains were dry and dusty. Shades of brown speckled the scenery, the monotony being broken at times by a lush green tobacco farm. The north of Nicaragua is known for many crops: coffee, corn, beans, and tobacco. Tobacco farms are some of the most luxurious – the big bucks the crop pulls in allows the owners to have vast plantations and pretty buildings. The large green tobacco leafs looked out of place among the dry expanse of dust.

As we sped along the Pan-American Highway going north, more smells came to me. Manure from cows, the smell of burning trash, burning plastic, burning firewood, burning leaves… My nose for burning materials has grown rather keen in Nicaragua. We drove through the smells of pigs, horses, and truck exhaust. As soon as I smelled one thing, it disappeared only to be replaced by another. We curved around the sinuous highway, winding our way up into the mountains.

Many other trucks passed us with passengers in them like me, hitching rides in the back. Their heads were covered with towels or scarves and they tucked down into the bed of the truck. When we passed through a shaded area of the highway, the temperature did drop quite a bit. Wait a second, were those goose bumps on my arms?? No, false alarm. It’s not that cold in Nicaragua. I stuck on my sweatshirt anyway to cut down on the wind.

As we neared our town I began to see all the usual landmarks; restaurants, bus stops, and churches that lined the highway. We had to slow down or swerve to avoid missing dogs who wandered onto the road or the occasional cow. Finally, we reached the turn-off for town. As we drove the few kilometers to reach the house, Silvio and Yelva started to recognize people. Honks of greeting were exchanged as were yells of “¡Adios!” We pulled up to our street and I hopped out. Safe and sound, and in record time. “Did you watch all the food?” Don Silvio asked jokingly. “Don’t worry,” I replied, “nothing flew out.” I didn’t mention that just as we had taken off, a large bag of fried pig skin had been picked up by the wind and smacked me in the face. A small price to pay for a scenic ride through the mountains.

For those of you readers who know me personally, you know that I’m not a great cook. I do enjoy baking, but growing up with a super-Mom who was an amazing chef sort of hindered my cooking abilities. You’d think that this would have caught up to me before now, but living in the U.S. on my own during college, this was never a problem. There were always fresh vegetables available to throw together a good salad or pre-made food at Fred Meyer (one of my favorite stores). In Peace Corps, now that I’m no longer living with a host family and I’m officially “on my own”, my lack of cooking knowledge can be frustrating. I’m learning some basic staples, slowly but surely: beans, pasta sauces, stir fry, etc.

I’ve also been sharing my baking knowledge with some friends here who are lucky enough to own ovens. We’ve made banana bread, cakes, cookies… I’ve introduced them to the novel concept of wheat flour. They’re slowly coming around, but prefer their white bread for now. In return, Nicaraguan women are always eager to teach me how to make Nicaraguan food. I’ve made corn pudding, tamales, soups, pasta dishes, tacos, fruit juices and even pizza with them. A Nicaraguan woman (or 13 year old girl for that matter) is a thing to see in the kitchen. In Nicaragua, as in many Latin countries, the kitchen is still mainly the woman’s domain. They are groomed from about the time they can walk to run errands, cut vegetables, pick out meat at the market, fry rice, bake beans…Each household has a certain ways of peeling oranges, certain rules for cooking (no eating Nacatamales - a traditional dish - before sleeping), and no citrus when you’re sick (!) In my quest to learn how to cook for myself (since tomato and onion salads and oatmeal can get a little old, even I’ll admit), and in an effort to improve nutrition practices with local mothers, I’ve started cooking with soy. Soy is nothing new to my food vocabulary – I am a vegetarian – but in the U.S. I always bought pre-made soy milk, tofu and soy meat. In Nicaragua, you’ve gotta start with the actual soy BEAN. I guess I knew they existed: edamame, roasted soy nuts… But I never thought much about how the bean was changed into the milk, the meat, or into soy sauce. I first learned about cooking with soy through Peace Corps – many volunteers teach local women how to use soy beans to add protein and omega-3 fatty acids to their diets. Soy beans have twice the amount of protein in them than red beans and they also have the same type of fat (omega-3) that salmon does. Soy also contains no cholesterol and is rich in fiber, iron, vitamin B and calcium. Needless to say, it’s a great food, especially in nutritionally inadequate Nicaraguan diets. And it’s cheap (even by Nicaraguan standards), $0.50/pound. When red beans can often rise radically in price depending on the season, soy beans can be an economical substitute. So, how do I get all that good food out of this hard little bean, you ask? Well, after putting together about ten soy “workshops” with various groups in my site, cooking with soy is one thing that I do feel pretty comfortable with. I’ll walk you through the steps. Below is a group of ladies making soy that I worked with. They´re all mothers of special needs children. 1. Buy one pound of soy. Clean the soy beans, picking out any twigs, rocks and dirt that come with it. Wash the beans with water, rubbing them with your hands, changing the water three times or so. 2. Put the beans in lots of water to soak for 12 hours. 3. Wash again, rubbing with your hands to take off the outer shell of the bean (although this is optional). 4. Grind the beans at the local mill (if you’re in Nicaragua), or with a hand mill, or even using a blender with water. Mills are everywhere in Nicaragua – a fellow volunteer once equated the number of mills here the prevalence of Starbucks’ in downtown Manhattan. They are mainly used for grinding corn for tortilla and for coffee. 5. For every pound of beans, add one gallon of water to the ground beans. 6. Using a cheesecloth or fine strainer, strain the ground beans from the water, saving the water in a separate container. 7. This liquid you now have is the SOY MILK! The leftover ground beans are SOY MEAT! So easy, I know…You can understand why I like doing this. From here, you usually boil the soy milk, constantly stirring. Some people like to add vanilla extract, sugar, cinnamon, etc. to give it flavor. Nicaraguans like to add Maizena which I think is like a cornstarch, to make a pudding. You can also blend the milk with bananas to make a smoothie. Or mix it with rice and sugar to make Arroz con leche. Others use the milk to make flan, or yogurt. To make soy yogurt, add ¼ cup of yogurt bacteria (or just plain yogurt) to every liter of milk. Heat the milk and yogurt mixture slowly until it’s the temperature of “blood” (gross, I know). Take it off of the heat and put it in a clean container and cover with a towel for 3-5 hours until it takes form. Refrigerate. You can add fruit or other flavorings to make it tasty. Above is the group of mothers enjoying the soy food we made.

Using the soy meat, you can mix it with spices and vegetables to make “sausage.” You can also make fried soy cakes by adding an egg, some flour, veggies and spices and forming little round cakes. Another recipe I have calls for adding a few bananas, an egg and sugar and cinnamon to the soy meat and then frying the cakes to make a sweeter treat. Last week, during my “volunteer visit” which I wrote about in the previous blog, we made soy chili, which is by far my favorite soy recipe. We added the soy meat to sautéed onion and garlic, lots of tomatoes, tomato paste, chili powder, green and red peppers, and some water and cooked (probably for about 40 minutes). (The soy meat takes a while to cook – otherwise it turns out a bit crunchy). Then we added a few cups of cooked red beans. YUM!! I’m sure it would be good with some cheddar cheese on top, but of course that’s not available down here except in Managua. In the future, I’m planning on making soy flour, soy cheese (aka tofu), and one of my favorite snacks, roasted soy beans. It’s pretty fun making something from scratch. I also have plans to make my own peanut butter, and maybe even my own chocolate. I get inspired by other volunteers who have cooking classes in their sites and are experimenting. Peanut butter is a “value added” product that some Agriculture volunteers are trying to promote in communities that produce peanuts. Above is my aerobics class group enjoying the soy milk we made (also in the photo is my site-mate, Kristen). I’m sorry I don’t have more photos of making soy, when my computer was stolen in December, a lot of my photos were lost. I encourage you to try making some soy – the beans are available in the bulk section at most stores. I found it in my small hometown in Alaska while I was home in January, so it should be available pretty much everywhere. That’s all for now. I’ll keep you updated on my cooking adventures!

So, I guess I am officially a “veteran” in Peace Corps Nicaragua. I’m almost halfway through my service (14 months left!) The new group of Community Health volunteers arrived in the country in January and are in training until they will be sworn-in in April, just as I was.

I have been involved in helping out with some training sessions for the new group and it’s fun to have some new faces in our little Peace Corps community. Last week, for three days I had a trainee visit me in my site. Each trainee was assigned to a different volunteer to see what “real” Peace Corps volunteer life is like. When you’re in training, it sometimes feels like you’re in an isolated bubble with Peace Corps babying you every step of the way. There is little freedom and you often wonder, “What will Peace Corps really be like?” The “volunteer visit” is supposed to help clear up questions trainees have about service and help them visualize volunteer life.

I hosted a girl named Katie. We got along really well – we’re both optimistic and outgoing. I planned a full schedule of events for our days. We had a youth group meeting, did some surveys in the health center, gave a Malaria/Dengue talk to the waiting patients, gave classes in both the elementary and secondary school, gave a training on HIV/AIDS to a pregnant/lactating mothers group, and made soy milk and soy chili from soy beans. Yum!! Here is a photo of our group, my site mate, Kristen, a Small Business volunteer also helped out. They put in a little too much chili powder for these Nicaraguan ladies' mild tastes, but we thought it was great! She also accompanied me to the aerobics class that I teach and sweated along with the ladies and we made some good meals together in my kitchen. It was nice having someone around for a few days and it was fun to introduce her to things in Nicaragua that were completely new to her; new foods, fruits, words, concepts… I didn’t realize how much I had learned until I started sharing with someone who had just arrived in-country. In the past year I have come a long way. I’ve adjusted to all the things that turned me off at first and I have adapted to living in a small town in Nicaragua.

I remember how I was last year on my “volunteer visit” – all wide-eyed and inquisitive. Everything was so new and exciting. I was also super motivated and a little over-eager – that toned down after the first few months. I wanted to be a “super volunteer” – building clinics, single-handedly wiping out AIDS in Nicaragua, eradicating Malaria and malnutrition... After a little while though, reality sets in and you realize that you’re just one person and two years isn’t really that long. There is so much you have to learn in order to be successful; it takes about a year just to be comfortable with your counterpart relationships and how things “work” to actually get real projects started. You’ll also be let down a lot – adjusting to the work style here and the pace of life is a big part of adapting. Accepting the fact that not everyone will love you is also hard. That’s especially relevant in a country like Nicaragua with a rocky past with the U.S.

As this new group of trainees prepares to begin their service in April, the Community Health volunteer group who arrived the year before my group will be leaving. It’s going to be sad to see all those familiar faces leave. I know it won’t be the last time I see many of them – it’s not like we don’t live in the same country – however it will mean that our shared experience of Nicaragua living will come to an end. I’ll especially miss Matt and Jess – a married couple who lived in my departmental capital. I always remember going to their house and being greeted by their huge white dog, Astro (see photo of them and Astro above). They also adopted a cat here and both animals will be going back to the U.S. with them. Matt and Jess both had lots of experience and did some great work in their two years. I really admire them and will miss their advice and their open and friendly personalities. I am often jealous of Peace Corps married couples – they always seem to be doing amazing projects and working together. It makes sense – you have someone to bounce ideas off of and two people are more creative than one. So, bon voyage to “Nica 46” (the outgoing group”) and welcome to “Nica 52” (the newbies)!

The volunteer who visited me, Katie, and I:

Well, I’ve adjusted to being back in Nicaragua now. The first few bucket showers were a cold wake-up call (literally). It was nice to come “back home” after vacation to my little pink house and visit with my neighbors and friends in the community. They were all excited to hear what I had done back in the states and they all loved the little gifts (candy, hand lotion, “Alaska” souvenirs) I brought back to share.

Some news: a new Peace Corps Nicaragua community health volunteer group has just arrived in the country. It’s hard to believe that my group arrived one year ago! I’m involved in helping train the new group by giving a two sessions: working with youth and community analysis tools. This new Peace Corps group will be in training until April when they will be officially sworn-in as volunteers (just like I was last April). The sad part is that the health group who arrived one year before I did will be leaving – their two years of service is up and their replacements will take over their sites. I’ve gotten to know the older health group pretty well and will miss them when they leave. They had a lot of good resources in that group: a previous nutrition college professor, two married couples who always had neat projects going on to inspire me, some had Masters in Public Health degrees… They’ll be missed! Can’t wait for their going-away part in March, hopefully at the beach!

Now that I’m back in site, I’m starting to think about projects that I want to accomplish in the 14 months I have left of service. I’m realizing that the time is really flying by and I need to take advantage of every day I have in site to get things done. Here is a look at what I’m thinking of working on/have already started on:

-HIV/AIDS training for all teachers at the local high school

-HIV/AIDS training for the local police

-First Aid/CPR training for local health volunteers and midwives from the villages with the aid of a non-profit organization from the U.S. ( www.ersla.org )

-Continued support to rural teen “health promoters” who learn about health topics (STDs, HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy, sexual and reproductive rights…) and teach other youth about these issues. I educate them on the topics and help them plan their sessions.

- Continued classes on sexual and reproductive health in the high school and a possible health fair.

-With my site-mate (who is a small business volunteer), starting a community bank with the health center staff to encourage savings and earn money off the interest.

-I’ve also recently started an aerobics/dance class with a group of women. It’s been a fun way to stay active and also share information with them about eating right and exercise.

-Continued work in soy cooking – perhaps some cooking classes for my neighbors who own several restaurants in town and mothers in rural communities.

-Private tutoring for some neighbor kids in their college courses.

-Billiards tournament at a local pool hall with a focus on HIV/AIDS education for men. The participants have to answer questions about HIV/AIDS to win – it’s a great way to reach a vulnerable population and increase knowledge about the importance of condom use.

Well, those are just a few of the main things that I’ve been thinking about and starting to work on since I’ve been back. New ideas are constantly coming up, especially when I talk with other volunteers and hear what they’re up to. The biggest roadblock to all projects in Peace Corps is of course, lack of funds. There are some funds from the U.S. government we can request especially for HIV/AIDS education, so I’m hoping to apply for those in the future (they give up to $500), but the rest is mainly do-it-yourself funding or begging local organizations to help out.

Last night I went to a girl’s 15th birthday party (if you’ve read my previous blog about this, you’ll remember that it’s a BIG deal here). The family pulled out all the stops. All the women and girls of the family had new dresses, there were pink balloons and banners everywhere, a large box draped in pink silk held all the gifts, a three-layer pink cake topped with a figurine of a girl in a pink dress towered on a table and there was even a private ceremony by the Catholic priest. We all got dinner, soda pop, ice cream and they even started handing out rum at the end. In short: a fun night.

Oh, P.S., here is a YouTube video I posted last month of me giving a tour of my house. If you haven't already, check it out! My house is pretty darn nice by Peace Corps standards, but it did take a lot of work to get to that point. I'm sick of painting, fumagating, fixing, repairing... I am pretty happy with it though since my previous two host families were a lot more cramped and dirty situations. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0QZ_4POpGE

Until next blog!

¡ Feliz Navidad! y ¡Próspero Año Nuevo! (Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!) Okay, so I’m a little late getting this blog out, but hey, I’ve been on a much-needed vacation for the past three weeks! (my only one in the past year) I’ll give you a little rundown of where I went and what I did.

I spent Christmas in Costa Rica with two friends who traveled from Sweden to visit. It was a little weird celebrating my first Christmas without snow, but it was nice to be on the beach on Christmas Day.

Although Costa Rica neighbors Nicaragua, sharing the same flora, fauna, climate and many of the same foods; there are some immense differences between the countries. Costa Rica is a much more politically neutral country than Nicaragua - they have no army and their main economic focus seems to be tourism (along with coffee and electronics exports). When I crossed over the border into Costa Rica by bus (it took eight hours total), I could almost instantly notice a difference. There was no trash littered on the sides of the road, and trees and plants were greener and healthier-looking. You could tell that Costa Rica takes care of their nature - they seemed to have a national park or wildlife reserve every few miles and you saw little exploitation of the land (in comparison to Nicaragua of course).

What you did see though was a lot of tourists – approximately 2 million tourists come to the country every year. From the moment we stepped foot into the capital of San José, to the beaches of the pacific, we were just a few more faces in crowds of countless Germans, Scandinavians, Australians, Canadians, Americans… But, tourists = money = development, and you saw that Costa Ricans had a much higher standard of living. Many Nicaraguans cross the border to come work in Costa Rica at low-paying jobs, and they send money back home, often to children and spouses they’ve left behind. Many people equate the relationship between Nicaragua and Costa Rica to that between Mexico and the United States.

I did enjoy Costa Rica – it was nice to see a place where the land was cared for and things like “customer service” weren’t just an afterthought. It was also great reuniting with my Swedish friend Mia who I hadn’t seen for over two years! We did a zip line canopy tour in the Cloud Forest, hung out at the beach, and even saw a leatherback sea turtle! On Christmas Eve enjoying a tropical drink :)

After Christmas, I headed from Costa Rica to Alaska. What a trip that was! I split it up into two days, so I wasn’t too jet-lagged. It was very nice to be able to see my family (including a new niece!) and friends again for New Years.

Alaska was as beautiful as ever, and I even go to see some snow! Being home, I relished in the little luxuries that I had always taken for granted before: hot water, potable tap water, carpets, wireless internet, a variety of food available at the grocery store… I definitely went through a bit of reverse culture shock when I first got back to the U.S., but I think my little Costa Rica trip sort of eased the transition a bit. The best part of being back in the U.S. was simply blending into the crowd. No one looked at me funny on the street, I didn’t get catcalls from rude men…I was surrounded by people who looked like me!

Above, the view from the flight into my town.

My family and I with Mt. Edgecumbe in the background.

I cooked my family a traditional Nicaraguan meal while I was home: red beans and rice, fried green plantains, steamed ripe plantains, steamed chayote squash, fresco cheese, avocado, corn tortilla and tomato and onion salad. I was giving them a preview of Nicaraguan food since they’re planning on visiting me this coming summer! My sister and I on a hike with our dog.

After I was in Alaska for a week, my family and I headed down to Portland, Oregon for my Grandma’s 90th birthday. It was a fun excuse to see family that had travelled from other states to celebrate together. My Grandma is an amazing woman. She is truly a world traveler. She picked up traveling after her husband died and has been to countless countries. Israel, China, Russia, South Africa, Egypt, Spain, France, Greece, Germany, Costa Rica, Philippines, Indonesia, Panama…and many more that I can’t remember. I’d love to have a list that long when I’m her age – and hopefully I can make it to 90 and still be as healthy as she is!

My cousins and I surrounding my Grandma with "spirit fingers"!

From Oregon, I returned to Nicaragua. This country is so small; on the flight from Houston to Managua I recognized like three people (an Embassy family and another Peace Corps volunteer). I just got in last night. It’s a little strange to be back and it will probably take me a couple weeks to fully adjust. I had to remember that you can’t throw toilet paper into the toilet bowl here…and I sort of miss hot showers, but oh well, my time here is so short (I have 14 months left) and those things won’t be bothering me in a few days.

More updates soon when I get back into the swing of things here. The new group of Peace Corps health volunteers comes next week! It was one year ago on January 22nd that my health group arrived! What a fast and crazy ride this past year has been…

What a crazy past 10 days this has been. Two big things to update you on: All Volunteer Conference and the World AIDS Day concert in my department capital.

I’ll start with All Volunteer Conference (AVC). All of the ~180 volunteers in Peace Corps Nicaragua descended upon the Best Western Hotel in Managua (one of the nicest hotels in Managua- we were pumped) for two days of workshops, forums, meetings, etc. Due to budgetary reasons, apparently AVC was not held last year, so I feel lucky to be able to have participated this year. The theme of this year’s conference was “A cross-sectoral approach to food security.” If you’re a follower of my blog, you may remember a previous entry I wrote that had to do with food security. For those of you who missed it, the quick definition of the phrase food security is: “when all people have sustainable access to sufficient food to lead a healthy and productive life.” The root cause of food insecurity is poverty, so this topic is especially relevant in Nicaragua. Food security involves all the five sectors of Peace Corps working in Nicaragua (small business, environment, agriculture, health, and teaching English), so it makes sense that we addressed this problem with all the volunteers in-country with a focus on collaboration and cross-sector work. Food security has to do with whether appropriate food is available, if people have the purchasing power to access that food, whether they know how to prepare it in healthy ways, health conditions of food preparation...

Throughout the conference I attended workshops on food preservation and cooking, an informational session on careers in the Foreign Service which was facilitated by U.S. Embassy staff from Nicaragua, a information session on extension/transfer options within Peace Corps (yes, it’s possible to stay in Peace Corps for longer than two years, and perhaps go to another country!), and a session on career building for Nicaraguan youth. Throughout the entire conference we also enjoyed hot showers, air conditioning, cable television, a pool, gym, and amazing food. We all felt like we were in a sort of mini-United States for a few days. I met so many new people and made a lot of good connections for future projects and collaborations with other volunteers.

To close-out the conference, a talent show was held and open to all volunteers. To start out the show, they had asked for a presentation by each of the five Peace Corps sectors. Somehow, some girls from my health group and I ended up being roped-into doing a rap about HIV/AIDS. This was a rap that we had created in pre-service training months before, and it was still well-remembered by the other health volunteers and they all voted that we represent the health sector. Our rap group’s name was “Fusion 4” and we created a rap about the four bodily fluids that transmit HIV/AIDS. Intriguing, I know. It took us quite a while to think up rhymes in both Spanish and English, and each one of the four of us represented one of the fluids: blood, breast milk, semen and vaginal secretions. I got semen.

I’ll give you a few samples of our English rap lyrics so you can get an idea of our rhyming genius: “You might think you’re cool and daring, but you could be infecting yourself with that needle you’re sharing,” “If you wanna be a he-man, you better be baggin’ that semen!” “Hey mama, do the test before you give ‘em your breast!” And so on…

Needless to say, it went over pretty well and don’t worry, I have it all on video. Here is our rap group:

AVC ended on Thanksgiving Day, and perhaps the best part of the whole event was the Thanksgiving dinner that I got to attend. Peace Corps set-up all the volunteers with Embassy families and Peace Corps staff to have dinners at their homes. I was assigned, with three other girls, to the Public Affairs Officer (Kathleen) for the U.S. Embassy in Nicaragua and enjoyed a very memorable Thanksgiving.

Kathleen had invited about thirty other people from her office (mostly Nicaraguans), and her two adopted Bolivian teenage daughters were also visiting from the boarding school they attend in the U.S. Now, to give you a little background information on why I was so blown away by the dinner, you have to remember that on a normal day-to-day basis in Nicaragua I am killing cockroaches in my bedroom, going without water/electricity, taking bucket baths, and eating beans and tortilla at every meal. Kathleen’s house, on the other hand, was located in a very fancy suburban gated community of Managua, had a pool and eight bathrooms. We ate with silver and china and had four different types of pie. The other Peace Corps volunteers and I were practically crying at the end of the meal we were so happy. We also were invited to spend the night at Kathleen’s house and to top all of it off; she let us use her washing machine!! What an amazing invention. We were in heaven.

The next day, I had to tear myself away from Kathleen’s house- it was very difficult to leave Managua after a week of gringo-time and good food and hot showers, but I had no choice. Besides, I had to scoot back to my site to get ready for World AIDS Day (December 1st). In my town, we organized a work-party with about 25 youth to make posters and large red ribbons to put up around the town with information about HIV/AIDS. Volunteers in my nearby departmental capital had applied for some Peace Corps funds to hold a concert by a popular Nicaraguan rock group, and it was held on December 1st and open to youth from the surrounding communities. I traveled there for the concert with six youth from my community (between 13-15 years old) to help out with the concert and to chaperone the kids. Before the concert started, there were lots of games and activities with questions about HIV/AIDS and prizes. I manned the ring-toss.

Many non-profits were also there with informational tables and were giving out pamphlets and condoms. About 400 youth attended in all. The musical group was called Perrozompopo (sp?) which in Nicaragua means “gecko.” The kids were star struck and after the concert were getting autographs on their arms, backs, shirts, pants… The three girls that came from my town were excited to be able to leave home on an adventure and spend time with other youth.

The highlight of the event was a large condom costume that the Peace Corps volunteers had made, and one of them wore it around the whole night, strutting his stuff and dancing. It was quite the scene. As a health volunteer you learn to be pretty comfortable with condoms.

After the concert, I ended up having to chaperone alone about forty girls in a dormitory-like facility. These girls were all hyped-up from the music and all the contact they’d had with boys that day and it was no small feat getting them in their bunks and the lights turned off. I think I slept about two hours the entire night. It reminded me of middle school, except this time the roles were reversed and I was the mean lady telling them to get in bed and be quiet. It went successfully though – when we woke up the next morning I was relieved to see that all the girls were still alive and breathing and not pregnant.

The concert was a great way to celebrate World AIDS Day – I met a lot of youth who were really passionate about AIDS education and were very knowledgeable. Others had no clue what AIDS was but just wanted to come to the concert. I guess the event helped both of them – hopefully the kids learned something through it all.

I’m getting ready to take Christmas vacation in a couple weeks, so no big projects planned until I get back. Just relaxing a bit in my site and settling-into my house a bit more (good news – fleas are gone!) I’m planning on going to Costa Rica with some girlfriends over Christmas. I’ve never been before and it’s going to be interesting to see the differences between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Although they are so close, they are worlds apart in terms of their economies, tourism, and environmental policies.

More soon – from Costa Rica!

Since I arrived in my site, I have been searching for my own house to rent. After seven months of dead-ends, false promises, and general exhaustion with the whole process, I finally have found a house!

Why are you renting an entire house if you´re just one person? you may ask... Well, ¨apartments¨ don´t really exist here, so my best bet was to find a small, safe house of my own. My current host family situation is very crowded (12 people in three rooms), and I´ve grown tired of the endless gossip and drama involved with a large family.

The house (see ¨before¨ photo above) I´ve found is actually on the same street as my host family´s - just about five minutes away. It´s right next to the courthouse and the high school, so I feel safe. The neighbors seem very friendly and own a little fritanga - a Nicaragua-style street food ¨restaurant¨ selling things like fried enchiladas, tacos and chips. I´m renting the house from a local teacher for $50/month, which is a pretty normal price for a small house.

The house has four main rooms: a living room, a smaller room I´ll use as the kitchen - (I´ve decided not to use the outdoor firewood stove and kitchen the house has), a bedroom and then an extra bedroom I´ll use for housing visitors (come on over!) and for storing my mountain of reference books that Peace Corps has lent me for my work.

The past week I have spent waging a war on the house. Every day I have sweated and cursed as I swept, mopped, got rid of spiderwebs, fumugated, put in new light sockets, contracted a carpenter to put in new locks and doors, and, best of all - I painted!

In my hometown in Alaska, I remember when our neighboor, a Filipino woman, painted her house pink with blue trim. The entire neighboorhood (and perhaps even town) was in a bit of shock... Maybe in the Filipines you can do that, but in Alaska it´s just not normal to paint a house that color. Pink is one of my favorite colors, and I´ve often joked with friends that I´d love to have a pink house someday. Well, in Nicaragua, my day has come. It is completely acceptable, even enviable here to have a pink house. I decided on a fuscia color with dark brown trim, and my host brother and some of his buddies helped me paint it. They even told me how much they liked the color, and the neighbors also commented on how nice it looked.

I put in all of my things: a new bed, mini-frige, fan, stove, hammock...and I was all ready to finally start sleeping there when we discovered - gasp - FLEAS!!!

Yes, despite all of my cleaning efforts and all the cans of Raid that I had used, apparently the house had fleas. I had a little freak-out, needlses to say. I felt like in this war, the house was winning, and I was out of energy.

The next day I tracked down some venom to kill fleas and had a guy fumugate the house. We´ll repeat the whole thing in another week or so to get them all...

I´ve been looking up information on fleas on the internet the past few days, and it´s pretty scary. Having never really come into contact with them before (maybe Alaska´s too cold for many fleas?) my knowledge is lacking. Apparently there are many types, but they are a parasite - so they usually live on hosts: chickens, cats, dogs... Which makes me a little confused since there are no pets in the house, and the neighbors don´t have too many either. Although there are lots of chickens that like to cross over into my yard and pick through the grass. I´ve put up chicken wire, but they just fly over it...

So, although I have a nice pretty pink house, it still needs some work. I just hope I can move in before Christmas rolls around (I´m planning on going to Costa Rica with some girlfriends for a couple weeks). For now, my war wages on against the elements. If it takes all I have, I will dominate the fleas!!

It’s the end of a weekend trip; something I do every couple of weeks to run to the bank, go grocery shopping and basically take a mental break from the predictable routine of my site. Sometimes I go far: 3.5 hours in bus to Managua, or perhaps to a closer city like Estelí. I can usually buy some luxuries like a smoothie, yogurt, wheat bread and Diet Coke when I take these mini-vacations, which makes the hot and crowded bus ride worthwhile. I’ll describe to you what a normal traveling experience is like in Nicaragua; it’s something that terrifies many tourists (and myself as well when I first arrived here), but is also a truly unique and far-from-boring way of travel.

I wait on the side of the road, keeping my eyes peeled for a colorful bus to come careening down the cobblestone road. Old school buses from North America are used here for public transportation. The names of the school district are either covered-up or spray-painted out, but sometimes you can still see “Springfield School District” or a similar phrase on the side. The buses are as colorful as the birds here, painted in a rainbow of colors. Stripes, ocean scenes, sunsets, and women’s half-naked bodies decorate the sides. Tassels hang from every piece of equipment inside: the steering wheel, shift stick, rearview mirror… Stickers depicting Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the Lord’s Prayer adorn the walls inside. “Only God knows if I will return” is a popular phrase to see above the driver’s seat.

I see a bus approaching. Squinting my eyes to see the painted letters announcing the destination on the front windows, I see that this is my bus. There is no real set schedule to the buses (though some might tell you there is), but they are so frequent, you usually just have to wait on the road a half hour or so and one will pass. I put my hand out, palm down and hit my fingers against my open palm, making the Nicaraguan “pull over” gesture. This simple movement is all the cobrador or “bus attendant” needs to see. He is hanging out of the open swinging door on the bus, practically falling out at sharp corners, keeping his eagle eyes out for possible customers waiting on the road. The bus signals its impending arrival with a few tweets of the horn, letting all the people they are passing know what is coming. They can be pretty insistent with the horn sometimes, seeming to say with their repeated beeps, “Are you sure you don’t want to get on?! Come on! We’re going your way!” The cobrador puts his free hand out in a “What’s it going to be?” gesture as he passes people – if they confirm with the downward-palm movement, the bus immediately decelerates. It doesn’t even stop – just barely slows enough for the person to be rushed onto the bus while it’s still moving.

I’ve made it on the bus and am immediately met with a jumble of scents. The overpowering smell of perfumed women going to work in offices as secretaries or bank tellers, fried enchiladas, tacos and potato chips being sold by vendors, hung-over men who carry the stench of last night’s alcohol binge, the fresh smell of soap of small children dressed in uniforms on their way to school, and the unmistakable whiff of chickens that people bundle under their arms like babies – on their way to someone’s stew pot.

There are no available seats, of course. The aisle is crowded with the other unlucky souls who also have to stand. I am pushed to the back of the bus by the cobrador who serves partly as a herder, shoving us around like cattle and calling out “Move back! It’s empty back there!” It’s a good thing I’m not a claustrophobic person because I am instantly enveloped in a ball of humans; plump mothers, young children practically being suffocated since they are too short to reach the open air, men wearing cowboy hats – right off their farm. I catch a glimpse of an old plaque remaining from this bus’s old days as a school bus in the United States: “Maximum capacity: 55” it reads. Hah! There is probably double that amount in that bus at the moment, and more people are constantly shuffling on and off. The bus stops every few minutes to let on or off a different person. There are no set bus stops; it is the cobrador’s job to tell the driver when to pick-up or drop-off people. As a rider, you have to stay alert and make your way to the front when it’s your turn to get off.

I hold on for dear life to the bars above my head (also adorned in colorful tassels) avoiding pushing into my neighbors too much. The cobrador weaves through the crowd with amazing agility as we zoom along, collecting money from the passengers and making change. He shifts himself between bottoms, hips, elbows, heads, breasts and stomachs being careful to say “excuse me” or “sorry” when necessary. I am always impressed by how the cobrador can remember so many things at once. He has to keep track of who has paid and who hasn’t, keep an eye out for people on the road flagging the bus down, and load large boxes and bags of fruits and vegetables (and the occasional dog) on the roof of the bus. Yes, that’s right – dogs. I have seen a bus that had a dog riding on the roof – standing up!

There are official prices for certain distances and they are supposed to be posted in a visible place on the bus, but it’s often forgotten. I ask a fellow rider what the price is to my destination and am informed that for this hour and a half ride they charge $1. I am careful about being over-charged since I am an American. I have turned into a pretty cheap person since joining Peace Corps – but when you’re only living on $200/month, every cent counts.

As the cobrador approaches me, he asks my destination and struggles to hear my answer above the noise of the pounding music. The radio is blaring, providing another layer of chaos to the ride. “¡Celos de tus ojos cuando mires otra chica, tengo celos! ¡Celos!” declares the singing woman. The songs are usually reggaetón, salsa, bachata, cumbia… declaring lost love, betrayal, or describing the perfect woman.

I get lucky: a seat opens up and I collapse gratefully. My hands have gone numb from being above my head clutching the rail for so long. I stare out the window at the rolling green hills. Rainy season is about to end and soon they will turn from vibrant to dry and dusty. Numerous buses pass us going the other way and our driver honks and throws a hand out in greeting. There is a strong camaraderie between these drivers and cobradors that reminds me of fishing captains and their deckhands back home in Alaska. Ignoring the solid yellow line in the highway, we pass other cars, buses, and donkey carts with a speed that surprises me – these buses are far from new and often break-down, but today this bus seems to be doing okay.

Today my ride is rather pleasant, but these buses can be nightmares when you’re sick. Every Peace Corps volunteer seems to have a story to share about a time when they had a bacterial infection or parasite and they had to take a 5-12 hour bus ride to get to the nearest laboratory, praying that their diarrhea would wait until they got to their destination. There are no restroom breaks on Nicaraguan buses. Being vomited on by a small child is also common.

Today however, I do not suffer from loose bowels and there are no infants in my immediate area. Just as I start to relax, a booming voice penetrates the air from the front of the bus. I crane my neck and see that there is a man selling vitamins, anti-fungal lotion and parasite medicine. These traveling salesmen frequent rural buses and are actually quite entertaining. They have excellent oratory and persuasive skills. As I listen to his little speech I find myself wondering, “Hmm, do I really need some anti-fungal lotion?? You never know…”

As we pass through a small town, we stop at the bus terminal for a few minutes and people push on and off the bus. Along with new passengers, several food vendors mount the bus, holding their wares high and in a sing-song shout, announce their products. The vendors are usually middle-aged women with generous panzas (bellies), and they all sport a frilly apron with pockets for napkins, straws and plastic bags. All foods are served in plastic bags - including drinks. The women compete to be heard above the din of the bus: “Chicken and tortilla!” “Juice, soda, water! Cold juice, soda and water!” “Hot enchiladas!” “Corn on the cob!” “Taco, my love? Delicious tacos!” I usually avoid bus food since most of it sits out in the hot sun for hours before it reaches your mouth.

The bus charges on and my destination coming into view. I get to my feet and my seat is instantly snatched up by a standing person. Struggling to the front of the bus I avoid stepping on feet as well as I can. I reach the cobrador who is counting money at the front of the bus and tell him where my stop is. As the bus slows, he grabs my bag and my hand (what a gentleman!) and helps me jump-off. No sooner do my feet hit the pavement than the bus lurches away in a cloud of dust, as the cobrador runs to catch up and jumps in the open door at the back of the bus. “¡Gracias!” I say, my words being lost in the puff of smoke they leave behind.

I orient myself and set-off to run my errands, looking forward to the Diet Coke that awaits me in the grocery store. Here in Nicaragua both the destination and the journey are exciting.

Well, after six long months of daily practices and games every weekend, my team "Gemini" has won the local championships! We beat out four other teams, and let me tell you, it was not pretty. Even though the championship game was fraught with drama, bad calls by biased referees, complaints by both teams and a lot of attitude - we emerged champions. Like most small towns, these rifts between teams run deep, and when it all gets mixed with local politics of the town, it turns out pretty ugly. All the girls are pretty happy, despite the dramatic circumstances in which the final game ended. We had a team dinner after the game and danced until 2 am, still wearing our new uniforms. It was a bittersweet victory, not helped by the fact that my host family was vigorously rooting for the other team and hasn't let me hear the end of it since the night of the game...

All things considered, team Gemini has become a really close group over these past months, and yesterday I felt pretty sad that it was 4:30 pm on a weekday and I wasn't going to volleyball practice...

I'll be around for next year's season and am looking forward to hanging out with the girls and guys that I've met through the volleyball league throughout the coming year and a half that I have left in Nicaragua. (Wow, I'm already 1/4 of the way through my service!)

Another note: I should be moving into my own house soon, after a LONG and frustrating process of looking for a house to rent. I'm very ready to leave my current host family. Let's just say we have some fundamental differences. I'll put up a blog soon with photos of my new house. I'm contemplating painting the outside of it pink. Yes, only in Nicaragua would that be completely acceptable and normal.

I recently received a healthy lifestyle magazine in a care package from my family, and an article about antioxidant-rich foods caught my eye. In the U.S. this buzz-word, “antioxidant” is fairly well-known, but when I found myself trying to explain it to my Nicaraguan host sister over breakfast, I was met with a blank stare and a scrunched-up nose (in Nicaraguan nonverbal communication, that means confusion). “Free radicals?” She asked, “Those are in our bodies? Why do they need to be destroyed?” As I watched her eat some the typical breakfast of white sweet bread and tortilla with sugared-down coffee, I realized that this world of food that I was trying to explain was completely foreign. In Nicaragua, you eat what is available and you don’t complain. Food is a scarce resource that is subject to Mother Nature’s quirks and a person’s income level.

I realized that Nicaraguans don’t have ¨favorite foods¨ when I tried to use that as an ice-breaker introduction for a workshop I led with midwives. “State your name, the community you’re from and your favorite food” I instructed. One by one the women went off onto long tangents about how they just eat whatever is in season – beans, tortilla, etc. (of course, “only if God grants me the money to buy them or the good fortune to grow them.”) Most summed up saying that their “favorite foods” were beans and tortilla (aka what they eat every day). The concept was lost on them and I just had to smile at my mistake. I hadn’t realized before that experience what a luxury it is to even have a favorite food. The freedom of choice in what you eat is not universal and in poor countries such as Nicaragua, nutrition and health suffer.

In every rural Nicaraguan kitchen you can always find a few staples: tortillas made of maize, red beans, white rice and salty cow cheese. Sometimes there is a little bit of tomato, onion, plantain and some fruit to mix with sugar to make a sweet juice – but basically that’s about it. They don’t “count carbs” or even calories for that matter - most have never been inside a large grocery store that we would be familiar with in the U.S. A little corner store run out of someone’s house carries most of what they need: salt, sugar, beans, rice, white bread, soda pop…

As I continued reading the magazine, I saw a poll of some major personalities in the healthy-living world which asked them what they usually ate for breakfast. One nutritionist stated that he had “A medicinal smoothie that includes whey protein, a fatty-acid supplement, super greens, coconut powder, wild berry concentrate, goat milk kefir and frozen acai fruit.” My mouth literally dropped. This morning, when I went to my kitchen for breakfast there were red beans, tortilla and sweet coffee, period. If I were to read that article before joining Peace Corps, I probably would have thought – “Why didn’t I think of that smoothie?! I’m going to the store right now to stock up…” Now I realize that eating healthy is a privilege that only those in developed countries or with high incomes can afford. Before Peace Corps, even though I lived in the remote state of Alaska, I could still acquire a variety of exotic and healthy foods (however at a slightly larger price than the “lower ’48” – but still accessible). Another expert who was interviewed said that he enjoyed a Japanese breakfast; “steamed rice, miso soup, grilled salmon, pickles, cooked vegetables, sea vegetables and green tea.” Although there are some international restaurants in the capital of Managua, most people in the country only know “Nicaraguan food.” Being able to enjoy food from other countries that is easily affordable is also a benefit of living in a first-world, immigrant nation such as the United States.

I have been working lately in elementary schools giving classes on nutrition. Teaching something like the basic food groups is very useful and promoting a balanced diet. There are many varieties of fruits and vegetables here, but the habit of putting them into meals is not common. Simple carbohydrates, sugars and oil are prevalent, as well as high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol. I’ve gradually been teaching kids that sugar is not a protein, and that no, coffee is not good for toddlers.

I have also been doing some workshops in the surrounding communities teaching mothers and daughters how to cook with soy. Soy beans are grown in Nicaragua and are very affordable ($0.50/pound) and from just one simple bean you can extract soy milk, soy meat, tofu, soy flour, soy pudding... The benefits of soy are numerous: there is no cholesterol, it contains omega-3 fatty acids, has twice the amount of protein of red beans, and contains vitamin B and calcium. Although this bean is readily available here and often cheaper than the widely-used red beans, many mothers – due to lack of education, end up feeding it to their animals instead of their family.

There are also many food myths that need to be debunked. I have been working with a pregnant women’s group promoting breast feeding and proper nutrition for the mothers during and after their pregnancy. Many women believe that powdered milk you can buy at the store is somehow “better” for their babies than their own breast milk. There is also a belief that after birth, new mothers should only eat tortilla, cheese and a corn meal drink called pinol. Needless to say this does not provide to the mother the proper vitamins and minerals she needs to provide nutritious milk to her newborn.

Since I am a community health volunteer here, these ideas on nutrition are not new to me, but the longer I am here the more I realize how this affects one’s health. Who do you think will be more susceptible to illness? The kefir-shake drinking health guru in the U.S. or the malnourished Nicaraguan little girl who is fed on only beans and tortilla? The answer is simple and problematic. One’s income and education level are directly related to nutrition and therefore health. The term “food security” is thrown around a lot here in Peace Corps and has to do with ensuring that people have available, accessible and sufficient food that fulfuills proper nutritional requirements, whether this means they grow or buy it. Most Peace Corps volunteers directly work in this whether they are in the business, agriculture, environment or health sector. A married couple who is in Peace Corps who live about a half an hour away from my site recently co-wrote an essay regarding food security which won recognition in a worldwide Peace Corps essay contest. You can see the essay here: http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=learn.whatvol.foodsecurity.volstories.werderlyttle

As I read that magazine, salivating at the photos of strawberries, spinach and apples, I also had to realize that I am still very thankful for the food that is put on my plate here every day. I know that people sweat out in the fields to cultivate these beans and corn. Those tomatoes and cucumbers were grown right here in Nicaragua. I am definitely eating locally this year. Although I can´t say I´m not looking forward to some good kefir when I get back to the states!

For me, one of my biggest accomplishments since I have begun my service is the creation of a girls’ youth group in a small village nearby my site. The creation of and education of youth groups are one of the main goals for Peace Corps Community Health Volunteers. There are about 12 off-and-on members, and during our weekly meetings we address topics such as self-esteem, life goals, peer-pressure, family relations, puberty, teen pregnancy… We also have had “fun-days” where we go to a field and play volleyball, or paint our nails or make pudding. The club has been meeting since June and I’m slowly grooming them to be “youth promoters” – selected youth who will give talks to other youth about topics such as HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy and STDs. It’s a slow process since you can’t just walk in and expect these girls to open up to you and talk about delicate topics. They are from a very small village (about 80 houses in total), they are more shy and slow-to-participate than the “city kids” from the main town where I am currently living.

During a recent meeting, we were talking about birthdays, and we realized that two of the most participative and outgoing girls in the group (aka some of my favorites) were both turning 15 within days of each other in September. For those of you who don’t know, in Latin culture, when a girl turns 15, it’s a big deal. If there is money available, the family usually throws a huge “coming-out” party complete with a ceremony in the church with the birthday girl decked out in a pink dress specially made for the occasion. In the United States, we celebrate “sweet 16,” but in Latin America, they celebrate their 15 años. My college roommate back in the United States was of Mexican heritage, and she had a large 15th birthday party. I watched the video of the event, feeling like I was watching a wedding. There were elaborate decorations, dresses, attendants (like bridesmaids), flowers, a catered dinner, dancing… Even a Congressional Senator was invited.

So, now that we know how big of a deal a 15th birthday party is, you can imagine that I was a little surprised when both of these girls told me that they didn’t have anything planned for their special day. “There’s no money,” they explained to me. The sad part to me was that these girls didn’t seem very upset by this – they were used to it. Why should they expect their family to spend money on a frivolous thing like a birthday when they had to worry about putting beans on the table?

I decided that something had to be done. After asking permission from their mothers, together we planned a joint birthday party for the two girls, Leticia and Olania, that would be held at Leticia’s house with the girls’ families and the whole youth group invited. Sparks lit up in the girls’ eyes as they explained to me everything that they would have to do: make paper decorations, music, pin the tail on the donkey, eat cake… As they mentioned cake, they looked around nervously. Cakes were expensive, at least $15/pound. I quickly offered to bake two cakes since I love baking and had recently bought some cake mixes while I was in the capital city. We made invitations that very day, cutting designs and drawing hearts and flowers into construction paper. “You are cordially invited,” they invites said, “to celebrate with Olania and Leticia their most special 15th birthdays. Your presence would be eternally appreciated.”

The date was set, and I would arrive with paper, scissors and markers (courtesy of the Health Center) to make decorations, the cakes and some enchiladas to give the invitees (it’s customary to eat a small meal then cake). Since the enchiladas only cost about $7 for 20, I decided to donate those as well. (Yes I know, this is all very opposite to my previous post on development work…I should have had the girls raise their own money for the food, but we had little time and I feel like these girls really deserved it)

The day before the party as I made the cakes using a friend’s oven, I started getting a little nervous about the party. It had been over a week since I had last seen the girls. Did they still remember the party was tomorrow? Were the invitees going to show up? Were they going to value all this time and work I was putting in to get them food and decorations? Would their families even come?

All my fears were put to rest the day of the party. I arrived a few hours early to see Leticia and Olania doing their hair, and even wearing new clothes! They had both traveled to the bigger town nearby to buy new shirts, pants and shoes. This was really touching because I know their families don’t have a lot of extra money, but they must have realized that it was these girls’ special day and it’s an unwritten rule that for your 15th birthday, you have to estrenar, or “wear new clothes.” They had already put up some balloons around the living room area and set-up some plastic chairs. A few invited girls had arrived early and quickly got to work making decorations. “Congratulations on your special day, Leticia,” and “Your family wishes you all the best on this day, Olania” their signs announced.

I had also brought a special surprise for the two girls; two crowns that I had decorated with their names and glitter. In my family, we used to be an “extended family” to a group of kids a local boarding high school, and we would have dinner with them once a week. When it was one of their birthdays, we would make a special crown for them to wear. Cheesy? Yes. But definitely fun. Olania and Leticia loved them. They thought it was the coolest idea ever and they pranced around the living room showing them off, and rubbing some of the glitter from the crown on their cheeks and foreheads.

Slowly, the invitees trickled in, to the sound of deafening reggaeton and bachata music. In Nicaragua, if the music is too loud to hear the person next to you talking, then it’s perfect. All the invitees came, and even Leticia’s mother came for the day (Leticia lives with her grandmother and her mother lives about 3 hours away. They rarely see each other). I was really touched when Leticia’s mother came up to me to introduce herself and to say how thankful she was that I was a friend to her daughter and that I had helped them organize this party. She said that she wouldn’t have missed out on this event for the world. Leticia had an extra glow about her that day, always hovering close to her mom and making sure she was comfortable and had a glass of juice at all times. This is her and her mom and brother below:

First, the enchiladas were served with mango juice – reggaeton music still serenading us in the background like a jackhammer… Then it was time for pastel – cake! I had made one chocolate and one vanilla. They had never seen a chocolate cake before, and after we sang and the mothers said their respective congratulations to their daughters, they tore into the cakes.

Then we played pin the tail on the donkey (apparently you’re never too old for this game) and then it was dancing time. A few awkward-looking teenage boys appeared out of the woodwork and the girl who was serving as DJ for the day started in with salsa, hip hop, oldies from ABBA and Air Supply, and Celine Dion. Midway through, Olania and Leticia found a microphone that hooked into the speakers and stood up in front of everyone (about 20 invitees in all) and said thank you to me for helping them have this birthday party that they wouldn’t have done without me. As the other girls around the room nodded in agreement, I got a warm feeling. I felt appreciated and I felt at-home with these girls, two things that have been somewhat lacking since I have arrived in Nicaragua. After taking probably 100 photos on my digital camera (they just couldn’t get enough), they continued dancing.

As I was heading out, going to catch my bus back home, Olania’s mom came up to me with tears in her eyes. “Thank you so much. This has been such a special day for Olania and I know she won’t forget it,” she said, pressing a tamale into my hand. It was the only thing she could offer me as thanks. I took it gratefully and said goodbye to all the girls (who were still dancing, having been joined by more boys), reminding them of our meeting the next week. I came back to my house that night feeling very satisfied. We had actually done something here in Nicaragua that went as planned! It even started on time! It was nice to know I had had a positive impact on the girls. I know these will be the moments that I’ll remember in the future as I look back on these two years.

A friend of mine was passing through Nicaragua last week, and I decided to take a few days off to travel to a few places that I hadn’t been to yet, but they have been on “my list” for a while.

First, we went to Ometepe Island. The island was in the running for the recent selection of the new “7 Natural Wonders of the World,” but since the winners were chosen by electronic voting and given that Nicaragua has spotty and sparse internet access, sadly Ometepe get enough votes to make it to the semi-finals. The island itself is, nonetheless pretty amazing. It is located in Lake Nicaragua, the largest lake in Central America (1/3 the size of El Salvador) and located on it are two Hershey kisses-shaped volcanoes, “Concepcion” and “Maderas.” The volcanoes are connected by a small isthmus, forming an hourglass shape. The island’s 35,000 residents as well as visitors must come and go by a small boat or ferry in a one-hour trip.

As we crossed the brown and windy lake traveling to Ometepe, the two volcanoes loomed closer upon us. The tops were shrouded in pillows of white clouds, which is typical, especially since it is rainy season.

I was very surprised at the lack of development on the island. I had expected to see a very touristy and commercialized area, but was met with a typical rural Nicaraguan environment. I found the cheapest hostel (aka a family’s home) I’ve ever stayed in there for just $3/night! The residents seemed like a very tight-knit community and were very hospitable. It made me think of my hometown in Alaska which is also located on a small island in the shadow of a volcano. When tourists arrive on cruise ships to visit our town, it’s not uncommon to hear the complaints of locals lamenting the fact that these foreigners come and “take” our fish, crowd our streets and in general, ruin the ambiance of small island living. The residents of Ometepe however did not seem jaded by all the light-skinned, backpack-lugging foreigners wandering around their little oasis. Most were very friendly and hospitable. The majority of the roads are unpaved and as we walked around the dirt streets past dozens of adobe homes, I saw that people still lead traditional lifestyles despite the thousands of tourists who come to this tranquil place each year. Most people made their living fishing, growing corn and beans or bananas. The island itself is still very undeveloped and wild.

We climbed Volcano Concepcion (1610 meters) which is the larger of the two volcanoes. Its last activity was in 2005. The climb took us six hours round-trip and we went with a guide and some other tourists. The trail was surprisingly well-kept, steep and surrounded by green vegetation. Along the way our guide pointed out several species of insects, butterflies, flowers, trees and we even saw (and heard) a few howler monkeys lurking in the trees above us. The trail was pretty tough at times, and another girl on the hike who had a bacterial infection (aka lots of diarrhea) didn’t quite make it up to the top (we started worrying about dehydration when she stopped sweating). She stayed behind as the rest of us trekked on above the tree-line and were rewarded with a beautiful view of the lake and the island beneath us. It was a rare day with few clouds, and we enjoyed the surprisingly cold breezes that refreshed us at the top.

Another afternoon in Ometepe we rented kayaks and paddled out to “Monkey Island” and got up-close views of some relatively tame monkeys that permanently lived on them. I think they used to be old pets and they must be fed by island residents, but we also heard numerous warnings about their sharp teeth and short tempers, so we didn’t get too close.

Being out in a kayak also gave me a great look at the symmetrical Volcano Concepcion.

After returning to “mainland” Nicaragua from our peaceful time in Ometepe, my friend and I decided that one volcano just wasn’t enough and we decided to climb up Volcano Masaya, which is right outside of the capital of Managua. The active volcano is located inside of Masaya Volcano National Park and last erupted in 2001, spewing hot rocks 500 meters into the air. Masaya was a much easier climb than Concepcion (the paved road might have had something to do with it) but the heat was scorching. There were few trees since previous eruptions had destroyed the forest and we had to hike in the hot midday sun. No matter how much sunscreen I applied, it was immediately sweated off.

Our work was rewarded at the top as we viewed the Santiago Crater, the main attraction; a smoke-emitting, gaping wonder. The smell of sulfur filled the air and the park guides warned visitors to stay at the top for no longer than 20 minutes because the toxic fumes. There is also a cross located at the top of the volcano, placed there by the Spaniards who viewed the active caldera as the “entrance to hell.”

To end the trip, I had to stop at the famed artisan markets of the city of Masaya, right outside of the Volcano National Park. Most of the markets are tourist traps with high prices, but I was able to get some “inside information” on where to buy cheap hammocks (a must-have souvenir from Nicaragua). After perusing numerous colorful woven hammocks of all shapes and sizes (some “family-size” hammocks could fit up to seven people!) I finally picked out a comfortable-looking striped hammock that should be the perfect place for lounging on the front porch of the house that I plan on moving into.

HAMMOCK

Yes, that’s right, at the end of this month, I should finally be moving out of my host family’s place after five months with them and into my own house! It’s a simple, small house, no toilet (just a latrine) and there are quite a few improvements to be made (such as putting in a fence to keep the neighbor’s chickens out and a good paint job), but I’m excited to have a place to call my own. More updates on that to come…

Hijos del Maíz is a term you’ll hear Nicaraguans proudly referring to themselves by. “Children of the corn.” Corn is the traditional staple of their diet and literally in every bite they eat. The harvest time is approaching (late August to September), and the whole community is involved. Men and boys are out in the fields planting and harvesting, the women and young girls are cooking, cleaning and sorting the harvest, and everyone participates in the eating. The corn harvest is probably the most important of all. It is often only done once a year (while red beans, the other main food, are harvested twice). The corn crop is dependent on the rains that fall during the rainy season here (May-October). Too little rain can mean that some villagers go without food for part of the year. Because of their shallow roots, too much can also spoil the crop. Agriculture work (corn, beans and coffee) employs the majority of men in the small villages here.

My town held their annual Corn Festival this past weekend in honor of this important vegetable, and I was blown away by the sheer number of foods that you can make with corn. There is at least one if not more corn products included in every meal here.

As part of the festivities, a “Corn Queen” was selected. Eighteen young girls from the surrounding communities paraded up on a stage decked-out in dresses and hats fabricated from corn husks and kernels, dyed different colors.

The contestants had to perform a traditional dance and also were asked to name the ingredients in several typical Nicaraguan corn foods as a test of their corn knowledge. What did the winner receive? You guessed it: corn (and some makeup products).

There were vendors at the festival from all the 24 surrounding small communities selling just about every possible food made with corn known to man. I’ll show you a few.

First, tamales. These are probably familiar to many Americans, since they are also part of traditional Mexican food. These tamales pictured below are sweet- mixed with sugar and cream. Other variations include adding beans, pork, chicken… They are wrapped in corn husks.

This is another variation of tamale called nacatamal. It has the same corn meal base, but also contains rice, tomatoes, onions, potatoes and pork (or chicken). They are wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in a large pot over a fire. The final product is an entire meal in a little leaf-wrapped pouch. They are sold for about 50 cents.

This dessert is called atol. It is basically a corn starch pudding with cinnamon and sugar. It is usually served chilled.

This food below is very similar to atol and is called atolillo. It is thicker and served in squares like a brownie.

This food is called buñuelo (boon-way-low). These fried corn meal and cheese balls are soaked in a sugar cane and cinnamon sauce. They’re best when they’re hot and fresh.

This pink drink is also made from corn (just one of many corn beverages here). It is called sosolca or chicha. It is made from ground corn and sugar and a hot pink dye gives it it’s color. Most drinks here are sold in plastic baggies like these; you tear a hole in a corner and suck out the contents. Another popular drink here made from corn is called pinol and is made from toasted ground corn and cocoa and cinnamon. Nicaraguans also refer to themselves as “pinoleros” – strongly identifying themselves with this national drink.

And of course we can’t forget tortillas. There are two main types of tortillas made from corn here- the more prevalent ones are made with mature corn and most households make at least 30 a day as they are eaten at every meal. However, the tortillas pictured below are made from baby corn and are called guirila (wee-ree-la). They are thicker and have a sweeter taste. They are eaten with a white fresh cow cheese called cuajada. It’s similar to mozzarella, but a little more salty.

And good old corn-on-the-cob made from corn picked that day. The easiest for on-the-go eating, it’s often sold by walking vendors on buses.

These are corn meal and cheese baked rings called rosquillas. They are typical of the northern region where I live in Nicaragua and there are hundreds of little rosquillerías - rosquilla shops - that compete to make the best ones. They are made in the salty version and also made with a cane sugar topping to make a sweet treat. They are eaten with coffee – you’re supposed to let the rosquillas soak in the coffee to soften them, eating them when you’ve emptied the cup of liquid.

Indio viejo (“old Indian”) is also a traditional Nicaraguan dish. It’s a cheese and corn meal-base soup with chicken and vegetables. It’s very thick and filling and very salty. It’s often made in very large pots to serve many people (such as at a party, funeral or wedding).

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little tour through Corn Country. This list I’ve created of Nicaraguan corn foods is certainly not comprehensive. Who would have thought that all of these things could come from one plant? While my job here as a Health Volunteer is to advise Nicaraguans on a balanced diet that includes fruits and vegetables (as you can see, their diets have a strong base of carbohydrates), it’s hard not to appreciate the sheer variety of foods they can squeeze out of this simple grain.

Another fun fact: I am often called "pelo de elote" (hair of corn) for my blonde hair which bears a strong resemblance to the hairs on a stalk of corn...

Back when I was in the 2.5 month-long Peace Corps training, I was required to teach at least five classes to primary and secondary schools. The classes would be over health-related topics, but starting out simple, since we were still getting our footing here in Nicaragua. It was more of an opportunity to work up our confidence leading a classroom in another language and becoming familiar with the education system here.

One of the classes that I gave was to a group of 10-13 year-old kids about “self-esteem and life goals.” Although it sounds like a somewhat mundane topic and maybe even unnecessary, it is exactly these simple ideas that need to be imparted to youth here. Low self-esteem often leads to behaviors such as drug use, teen pregnancy, not using a method of family planning, dropping out of school… All the same things it can cause in the United States, however since we are in a developing country, the effects are augmented. As for life goals, most kids here don’t plan if they’re even going to go to school tomorrow, much less what they want to be when they grow up. It is important to get these children to cultivate a high self-esteem and keep their life goals in mind as they develop.

The class went well – I worked in some fun games like hot potato and musical chairs to get the message across. The kids loved it. The education system here is very formal and usually consists of the teacher writing up on the blackboard and the students dutifully copying down word-for-word. Sound like fun to you? Kids love it when Peace Corps volunteers come in and bring new ideas and games to them, although sometimes it can be difficult to get them to participate. Some might be so shocked when I ask them to draw a picture of their favorite animal, or to act out a role play, they might withdraw into their shyness, not knowing what to do. It usually takes a bit of time before kids will open-up to more non-formal education methods.

When we were talking about life goals, I had each of the kids take out a piece of paper and write on it what one of their goals in life was. I said they could write whatever they wanted – it could be about their future career, their home life, their friends, their physical abilities, their education… They carefully concentrated on their work, barely looking up. When they started passing them in to me, I saw that many had decorated their papers with little drawings and used different colored markers to elaborate the words. Some had even folded up their papers into little designs. As I walked home that day from the school, I started reading through their goals. What I found really surprised me and made my day (actually, my week). I’ll give a few examples below of what they wrote, in their exact words, to show you a glimpse of the youth of Nicaragua 

-I want to be a Doctor. I also want to be a Secretary.

-I want to be a worker.

-I want to be a singer. (this one was surrounded by flowers with the girl’s name written above)

-I want to be a firefighter, no… policeman (complete with a drawing of a policeman and a gun).

-I want to be a doctor. Or if not, a teacher and carpenter, also I want to be a secretary and a baker.

-I want to be a professional (there were lots of this one).

-I want to be a professional lawyer.

-I want to get my bachelors degree and work as a cashier. (?)

-I want to get my associates in nursing.

-I want to be official.

-I want to work in Spain to give money to my mother.

-I want to be responsible.

-I want to be the boss of a military base.

-I want to have a good family and be a good mother and a good cook.

-I want to study.

I hope some of those made you smile; it made my heart smile to read those sincere and ambitious responses. It made me realize that these children have actually thought about their future, and they desire more than perhaps their parents or grandparents did (who are often illiterate, and in the case of women-have no formal education or profession). I just hope that most of them will be able to realize those goals.

Working with youth here is often a Peace Corps volunteers’ main focus. In any given culture, it is the youth that are more open to new ideas and are more likely to change negative behaviors. They also accept us foreigners just as we are, whereas in the adult population, we might face scrutiny or mistrust. I’m going to have a meeting with my town’s mayor next week to discuss youth group possibilities in the future. I’m hoping to secure some funds. I envision reactivating the youth group program that was once vibrant in this community. (A previous volunteer in this community installed a “Teen Center” in town for the youth to use). Wish me luck as I go forward with this!