Every November, Somoto holds "Carnaval" which is a huge concert/party lasting from 8pm till 5am...or depending when everyone passes out. I don't think there is a large significance of this celebration so much as an excuse to block off the streets of Somoto and throw a huge charade. This year we had Las Nenas, Los Mokuanes, Los Paisanos, a couple Disco Moviles (DJs who play the top hits), and some Mariachi bands. Also this year we had around 15 other PCVs come to visit and party with us, mostly everyone crashed on Matt and Jess' floor next door, as well as the JICA (Japanese Peace Corps) girls from Somoto and Nica friends as well. Nothing epic happened this year, it was a great time to hang out with friends, dance to some non-reggaeton music (reggaeton is like spanish rap), and just have a Salvaje time.

Taeko!!!

Yuka!!!

One of my students, Anielka...and then Yuka again in the background.

I can't remember why Danny and I took this picture...but we look hilarious nonetheless

Henry, Me, Yuka, Danny

Matt why are all the faces you make for the camera so ugly?

It's Lake one of the Canadians! With Matt and Danny in the background.

Penny and I with the HOT Paisano singer!

Elise, Danielle, Jessie, Mike (a fellow UCD Aggie and EAP Chile), Me

PCVs...official sponsors of Toña...

With Henry my favorite student

Finally some eye candy in Somoto!

Here are some pix from 2009 that I wanted to share with everyone!

In PC Nicaragua every month we try to have a Trivia Night held in one of the major cities. This is from Oct, where my team "The Nubbins'" won in Matagalpa. Our team is made up of me, Jen (Biz 50), Niko (Health 49), and Nancy (Health 49)

A cute pic I took of Eddie while we were watching part of the parade in November.

Every parade is not a Nicaraguan parade unless you have a "gigantona" (giant woman) and "enanito" (little midget) dancing around to a drum beat.

The enanito

The gigantona

Another one of Eddie on his scooter at the house.

Eddie on the fair's wheel...during big events like Carnaval in November a company brings the fair games and machines. It's a place for ppl to take their kids, but sadly it's always ruined by the drunks getting thrown into the backs of trucks by the police.

For the Small Business Fundraiser every year we hold a cocktail party at the Holiday Inn. This event raises money for the National High School Business Competition, and we had a great turn out this year including US Embassy workers, PCVs from all sectors, and some Nica friends as well.

We are pretty, oh so pretty!

Nancy, Me, and Penny

All the Madrizers at the cocktail party...this is after the rain got us, hence why my hair is curly in this picture.

Here I am with a folkloric dance group from the Somoto Mayor's office.

I haven’t taken the time to thank the following people for packages, letters, birthday and xmas presents! How do I remember everyone…well, every time I receive anything in my post office box I write down who sent me something in my little notebook in the “Mail Received” section, and then I write that person back and note it in my “Mail Sent” section. In addition I try to describe what I sent so that I’m not sending the same postcard twice. If it wasn’t for my notebook I would be the most horrible penpal/friend/daughter/niece/etc.! I recommend this technique for anyone who likes writing and receiving mail! Especially for the Peace Corps Volunteers who ALWAYS complain about not getting anything in their mailbox. Don’t they understand they also have to want to write everyone who sends them stuff? Luckily it’s one of my favorite hobbies here, so I take time everyday to make or write cards. I guess that’s what happens when there is no TiVo to distract one with all the recorded TV shows. J/K Also, when I get home I can’t wait to scrapbook all my letters and pictures that everyone has sent me! My family took back with them all the letters I had received up until Jan. 3rd, so they are at home waiting to be put into an album. Everything that I pick up at the post office and get to open makes my time here so much more enjoyable. It all helps me realize the end is almost near and very shortly I’ll be back home seeing all of you. Less than 6 months!!! Semi-official end date is July 16th, 2010. And no I have no clue what I'm doing after PC...if you were wondering. My future plans change about 2 times a day.

Muchisimas Gracias to: -Mom and Dad (for the awesome vacation, bday and xmas presents, monthly packages and phone calls) -Gina (for bringing me 1st season of Glee, a book, and other miscellaneous things that I can’t remember at this very moment...oh and the package in Sept.) -Jan and Doug (for sending goodies with my family to Nicaragua, and lots of letters) -Mamow (for bday and xmas dinero, which I used to pay for my Scuba trip) -Uncle Bruce and Aunt Judy (for my bday and xmas present) -Aunt Anne and Uncle Mike (for new clothes that were MUCH needed and some smelly things from V.S.) -Uncle David and Charlene (for letters and emails) -Uncle Curt, Aunt Lisbeth, Ann-Charlotte, Ann Cartin (for the Clinique and earrings) -Ali Sambu (for the package filled with new music, magazines and wholesome goodies) -Rosine (for the package that included my all time favorite junk food [chocolate covered, peanut butter stuffed pretzels...dont even ask for a calorie count on those babies], hilarious bday cards, the fixings for her hummus recipe, spices and much more!) -Mel Yu (Big Bro) (for letters and all the junk food I could wish for…it was sooo yummy in my tummy) -Arielle (for the “Congrats” card…hehe…) -Amanda (for the letters including a picture and wedding announcement…even though I can’t go) -Sarah Ruiz (Patterson) (for the adorable pictures of her daughter and cards) -Dr. Jones (for the UCD card…oh the memories) -Dave Wagner (for keeping me up to date on his PC service in Panama) -Alison and Jesse Bjerke (for always sending me awesome cards like the Robot/Dog one!) -Allison (for also keeping me up to date about her PC service in Tanzania, I loved the xmas card!) -Kim Somers (Culver) (for the update letter) -Paula and Hugh (also for the update letter and picture…I’m very jealous of the Guinness) -Caitie (for the bday card and update) -Priya (for the xmas card in Dutch, and all the other fun friend cards all the way from the Netherlands) -John Aragon (for the hand made xmas card!) -Joey Martinez (for the UCD postcard, the decorated card and envelope, the letter that included chisme, and for surprising me with his letter) -Nozomi (for the Japanese food I plan to cook very soon!!! Yum!)

And now for your viewing pleasure...the animals of my house:

Layka the guard dog...but loves me to death. Sadly she is probably preggers again.

Like all cats Mitch will sleep anywhere and in anything! Watch out, sometimes he'll attack your feet!

Last year I went home for xmas because I was very homesick. This year I was so busy I didn't have time to think about being homesick, let alone the cold weather I only "sort of" missed. I figured it was time to head up to Honduras and spend my bday and xmas money to get diving certified at one of the most famous places in the world to dive. My plan was to meet up with Elaine, an old childhood friend who is currently PC Honduras, at her site and then head up north to the Island of Utila.

I got into the city before Elaine's site and missed the last bus to her town...ugh. So I called her and found out the poor girl had gotten dengue fever and was at the medical clinic. Dengue Fever is one sickness you don't want to get! Knock on wood I haven't gotten it and it's less common here in the north of Nicaragua...but basically from what I've heard your whole body is in such pain, like you ran 10 marathons, and you have no energy, similar to how mono affects you. Luckily I stayed at her host family's house for the night and continued my journey the next day.

I got to La Ceiba around 6pm after 2 annoying bus rides and waiting for 3 hours in San Pedro del Sula. I had NO clue where to stay the night, luckily a nice girl on the bus said her brother worked for American missionaries and they had some places to stay. Not only did I get my own cabin, but hot water and a huge bed for $10! Her brother also gave me a ride to the port the next day!

The whole situation ended up working out in my favor because the ferries didn't leave the day before, so I caught the morning one just in time. At the dock I ran into Elise, a PC Health Volunteer in my department of Madriz. Her and her friend Angela got stuck in La Ceiba for an extra night than they had anticipated due to the ferry siutation. It was nice to see a friendly face and make some new friends.

The ferry to Utila is a crappy closed up flat boat, unlike the Roatan Princess which was like on the nice ones that travels around the islands up in Washington. They give ppl barf bags for the rocky ride, but in my opinion it wasn't too bad at all. I actually read about 50 pages of 1984 during the 1 hour ride...people looked at me like I was crazy. Got to the dock, pushed through the crowd to grab my backpack and then met one of the Utila Dive Center staff members who took me to meet my instructor Fernando. Utila is not a big island whatsoever...but they still had a mini-van that took me to the hotel, which sadly is not located at the dive shop (the ONLY downside of UDC, but then again I got more exercising from walking...guess that's a plus). After dropping off my stuff Frenando took me over to the dive shop and gave me a tour, then I went back to my room to wait for my class to start at 4pm.

Elise and Angela were at a different dive shop than me, so sadly we were separated in that respect...but it was probably a good thing because I'm sure they would've gotten sick of hanging out with me ALL the time.

All Open Water Dive courses start with classroom work, and then you get in the water. For the next couple of days I watched the PADI video and studied my book, I also had to take some quizzes. Fernando and my other instructor Marta did a great job explaining the physics and principles of diving...especially the DON'Ts of diving.

Christmas Day the dive shop was closed, so I took pictures for Elise and Angela during their confined water dives. I also tanned on the dock, read a book and enjoyed the general splendor of the island. The night before we had gone out and partied till 4am or something like that...eat your heart out Santa!

On the 26th the four of us in the Open Water class got together for a classroom session and then we hopped into our gear for the first part of the confined water dives. They start you out at around 6 ft., then about 12ft. I'm glad that I did the course at a dive shop on the ocean instead of doing the confined dives in a pool...because one's buoyancy is soooo different in fresh water! The 2nd part of the confined water dive we couldn't see very well because there was alot of bottom sediment on the tarp they have weighted down right off the dock. It was so bad we could barely see Fernando and Marta...I had a slight panic attack and forgot how to breathe for a second. It got better after we swept the sediment off the tarp and I never had a problem again!

The next day we finished our shallow dives and then in the afternoon we went to our first Open Water Dive! We went to 45ft. and saw a moray eel and a leatherback turtle. We also repeated alot of the same exercises from the shallow dives, but this time deeper of course. The most nerve racking one for just about everyone was taking off the mask all the way, putting it back on, and then clearing it. I didn't like how my eyes stung...I was more worried about my eyes stinging than I was about getting water up my nose.

The 28th was the last day of the course, and this time we went to 60 ft...which is still pretty shallow, but it can get a little freaky just looking down into the blue emptiness. After a couple more drills and exercises we all passed our class and then got to enjoy the scenery of all the coral, fish, sponges, etc. It was amazing and I can't wait to do it again! Since I had the leave the next day, I got to do 2 fun dives (with Tom and Alicia) in the afternoon with one of the UDC divemasters. We once again did 60ft. and tried a drift dive which was something fun and new. After the 4 dives we were soooo pooped!

Later that night we all got together for pizza and beer to toast our successful completion of our certification. Instead of the ferry the next morning I took a charter boat with Elise and Angela from their dive shop, which was nice since it was a little later in the morning and we didn't have to fight the crowds. Thanks girls for waiting an extra day to travel back to Nicaragua with me! We got to La Ceiba, then ended up stuck in Tegucigalpa because of a 6-car pile up on the highway. The next day we pulled back into Nicaragua...ready to begin our next adventures.

Even though Elaine didn't make it (I was very sad about this), I still made alot of new friends and fell in love with diving. I can't wait to go back! Semana Santa (Holy Week) possibly?

I also recommend diving with Utila Dive Center, they were very professional, helpful, enthusiastic, and above all environmentally responsible. Thanks Fernando, Marta and the rest of the UDC staff for a great experience on Utila!

Waiting for the Tegus bus from La Ceiba.

Christmas Eve, on the dock at Alton's Dive Shop.

Beautiful sunset from the dock of Alton's Dive Shop.

One day I'll have my own yacht...

Elise and Angela are ty-ty from a long day of dive training.

Merry Christmas from Utila!

Members of my dive class, plus Dale

Tom, Alicia (PC Honduras), Lu, Dale (Lu's husband), Moi

Dive buddies! Lu from Alaska!

Me, Fernando (our instructor), Marta (other instructor), Lu, Tom, Alicia

"Be your favorite sea creature!"

Me: Pufferfish, Fernando: Himself, Marta: ?, Tom: Dolphin, Alicia: Turtle (you can't see her arms), Lu: Some sort of fish

Waiting for our dive gear at the shop.

The boats of UDC

Yay I did it!

Good job everyone! Remember kids, no peeing in your wetsuit...that's gross.

We almost forgot to take pix, but I ran (waddled) to grab my camera on the boat with my gear on and made sure we captured the moment!!!

Hey all, I'm very sorry for the delay on postings. From October till December I was running back and forth between Somoto and Managua just about every week. Then I was on vacation from Dec. 20th till about Jan 12th; it was hard to come out of vacation mode. The following posts will be in reverse order, newest events to oldest events...I figure it would be better for the ones that are fresh in my mind. Sorry for the inconvenience of backwards reading.

In addition my computer crashed at the end of October, so I wasn't able to write ahead on my blog. Sadly I lost all my recent documents and a couple of pix, but the good majority was backed up on my external HD. I was thankfully able to reboot it and reload Windows, so it will last me up until finishing in July...which is only 6 months away! I still can't believe I will be finished in such a short amount of time, it's the home stretch!

Enjoy all the new pix and stories! Happy 2010!

I want to write about the awesomeness of my regional event, but I'm going to do it when I get the next round of pix. For now, please enjoy the splendor which was the Madriz Regional Competition of Empresa Creativa. I promise to go into detail when I have the other pix!!!

Thank you to Kristen, Penny, Jennifer, Emily, Peter, and Lauren for all the help before and during the event! I couldn't have done it without you guys!

Kristen, my fellow Small Biz PCV in my department, and fellow event coordinator

Setting up tables...crap the tents are up yet!

Ahhhh, there they are...whew!

Purses made out of old clothes...to your style and tastes...

Café...always good to have!

Can't see them, but they are vases made out of bamboo.

How many times do we need to say that necklaces are not creative...

My girls from Cusmapa with their recycled glass jewelry...at least it's something different!

All 6 judges showed up...that's unheard of!!! How did we get so lucky! I swear I'm not scolding Kristen in the background!!!

Pretty sign that we will use for years to come!

Spectators came in and out, but at least it was open to the public!

The kids sitting around...come on guys, sell, sell, sell!

The choir from my public school came to sing some songs and the national ath

Profesor Ernesto led the choir with his guitar

More music by the Instituto Nacional de Madriz, bravo!

Krisly, age 5, a daughter of a Fabretto coworker, does a folkloric dance called "The Somoteño". She was soooo adorable!

The crowd couldn't get enough of her!

Some highschoolers singing "Colgando en tus manos", a popular Pop song at the moment. They really got into it and put alot of acting into the singing as well which made it fun.

Another folkloric dance by the House of Adolescents from the Mayor's Office of Somoto.

They were also very good and everyone seemed to like them.

Since the cultural acts were going a little longer than expected, the judges took a tour of the groups to ask some peliminary questions and get their hands on the products. Thanks Kristen for suggesting this! It worked out great!

Sadly we had a group make picture frames out of fomey that made it to regional. Technically fomey was banned this year, but we had to let them in...at least they had a good presentation.

Some of my Fabretto kids not looking very lively...I told them they needed to look approachable if they were going to sell more.

The Cusmapa girls explain aspects of their market (aka potential clients) to the judge from Palacaguina.

Coffee boys again.

Bamboo Vases otra vez.

No comment...

Yay more dancing by the kids from the Mayor's Office!

They wore their best costumes for the event.

We also had a group of little girls dance folklore and merengue. Here they are in their merengue outfits.

Each group had 7 minutes to present their Business Plan and then the judges had 3 minutes to ask questions.

My group from the public school, their business was a student-run restaurant.

Everyone seemed to find the Master of Ceremony energetic and entertaining!

We got through 9 groups in less than an hour and a half...amazing!

One of Kristen's groups from Palacaguina.

My brillant and very creative idea for trophies, clay piggy banks that we paid under $5 for and then I paid Anna $3 to paint them. Way better than regular trophies and way cuter!

Gold, silver, bronze for the first 3 places of course, then blue pigs for Best Presentation, Best Business Plan and the Most Creative Product/Service.

I'm so proud how well they turned out!

Thanks Emily (one of my bosses) for being there and helping with awarding the teams their trophies!

Emily and Kristen waiting for me to announce the 3rd place team, which was the coffee group from Condega.

The girls from Fabretto Cusmapa won 2nd place!

And the winner of the golden piggy is...

Oh wait...another shot of the MC...

The Bamboo Vases from Palacaguina! Congrats Kristen!

This group now goes on to the National Competition on November 12th in Managua.

At the moment there are a group of Canadians here in Somoto doing the Canada World Youth program. From what I understand a group of young Canadians goes to a 3rd world country for 3 months to do projects with Host Country Nationals (in this case Nicas) and then they go back to Canada all together to do a project there. It's an interesting and fun concept, and at the least it's nice to have a conversation with non-tourist gringos in town.

These pictures are from a night where they were supposed to host a concert to raise money for their Nica counterparts so they could pay for their medical clearance examinations. Sadly, another bar was having an event at the same time and not only was the entrance for the other event was cheaper, got you a shot of tequila with it and a dance show by "ladies of the night". Needless to say, the ladies won so the concert and fundraiser did not happen. But I did get a chance to hang out with them and dance a little to the DJ's tunes.

Shot-gunning cervezas...yeah, I'm past that college phase. I will admit to playing flip cup that night...and winning!

Gotta be fierce!

With Alex, my hair cut looks pretty good! Not bad for under 20 bucks!

It was supposed to be a Charlie's Angels pose with our cigars...I sort of blew it...oh well, still looking good!

When drunks sneak through the door you have to carefully kick them out or they'll whack you!

The last picture of the night.

I think I might win the prize “PCV Who Moved The Most During Service”, not counting moving from the U.S. to Nicaragua or training town to site, I have moved all of my stuff 5 times in the last year.

Move 1 – 1st Host Family in Somoto to Fabretto Volunteer House *September 2008

Move 2 – Old Fabretto House to New Fabretto House *November 2008

Move 3 – New Fabretto House to Dr. Carlos and Doña Vera’s fancy house *February 2009

Move 4 – Fancy house to Matt & Jess’s (temporary move for 2 weeks) *July 2009

Move 5 – Matt & Jess’s to Karla & Family’s *July 2009

I pray to the real estate gods that I don’t have to move ever again in this town! Like I said, not only is it a pain in the arse to find a good place to live, but it’s even harder to find a good family to live with who isn’t only interested in $$$$. After finding out I had to move and then being a couch surfer at my site mates’ house, I dreaded starting the house search…yet again.

Somoto is a small city, which translates: a small housing market. In bigger cities like Leon, Granada and Esteli, one has more options and a bigger area to work with. I have about 5 blocks by 10 to work with…granted a Nica block is about 25 yards más o menos (more or less). Outside of the town center there are more houses, but one doesn’t want to live where the paved roads turn to dirt. I wanted to stay more in the center, which is about 4 blocks by 6 blocks, so I could be close to everything and be in the nicer part of town.

So how does one go about finding a place to live without Craigslist or the local newspaper? Well, you ask around. Usually it’s best to start with coworkers and people you know around town. For example I started out with coworkers, the ladies at the post office, Somoto friends, and even a couple random people on the street. If those sources prove to be unreliable it’s best to go to local pharmacies and inquire within. Why the pharmacies? Well, first of all there is a family owned pharmacy on every other block and they receive business from the neighborhood…aka they are a great source for renting information, and the occasional gossip.

My room is a good 9 by 8, not including the bathroom and armoire area. I have one window that some air passes through, the floor is made of tile (like most others) and my ceiling is open which means I can see all the electrical wires running around. So far it’s been great, especially the fact that my bathroom is directly attached and I have another little space where all my clothes can go without taking up space in my room.

The house is made up of the store in front, three bedrooms on the right side, kitchen, semi-living room where the TV is and then on the left side which is apart is my room and Karla’s room. The only sounds I hear are the ones outside my window and most of the time it’s pretty quiet. My students are more familiar with the house, so they tend to stop by more often to chat which is nice. In addition, we have a leña cooking unit, which is a clay stovetop fueled by wood out in the backyard. In many Nica households this stove is inside the house which leads to many respiratory problems and these types of stoves are one of the leading causes of deforestation in Nicaragua. Many young trees are prematurely cut down and none are replaced.

The family here consists of Karla, who is about 37 and her two children Mario (12) and Eddie (5). Karla’s husband passed away last year due to a sudden heart attack when he was working in El Salvador. The cook/housekeeper Clementina also sleeps here most of the time. Sometimes Karla’s brothers Mario (35) and Byron (27) sleep in one of the extra rooms when they have work in Somoto, but most of the time they live in one of the outside communities of Somoto. It’s very interesting to me how here in Nica even lower-middle class families have housekeepers and cooks, and even hire other people to come and do the laundry. Granted most of the hired help probably makes around $50 a month, but still that’s a pretty big cost for a family of lower income.

Since I am without a washing machine now, I have decided to pay the lady Karla hires to do laundry to wash mine as well. The other day I had 40 pieces of clothing (underwear are 3 = 1 piece) and paid under $4 for the soap, softener and the labor. It is great for me because I don’t have to spend hours washing clothes, a chore which I truly loathe even with a machine…I’d rather do dishes. And at the same time it’s a wage for Arlen a woman from Santa Isabel, a community of Somoto. My clothes actually came out cleaner and smelling better than if I would have washed them. I’ll probably have her do my laundry two times a month now. The greatest part of the whole situation is everybody wins!

As for location, I’m a block away from where I used to live and I’m still right in downtown Somoto. Even better, if I need anything from the store I don’t even have to go there because Karla’s shop is 10 steps away from my room…haha, I’m soooooo lazy.

We also have a boxer named Layka and a cat named Mitch. Two months ago the dog gave birth to 10 puppies, 5 survived and were all sold at about 1 month old. This was her 2nd pregnancy and last time she had only 3 puppies…poor girl tripled the amount of offspring this time. They don’t know which dog knocked her up so the puppies might turn out to be oddly proportioned like so many Nica dogs are. I hope they turn out to be really cute! The cat is not so nice at times and likes to attack feet, but it’s still too small to actually hurt anyone with its bite.

Wiring across the ceiling, at least I have electricity though! You can see my tin roof, luckily there are no spaces in between the walls and roof. This means alot less critters come in! All my pictures on my wall! I love having everyone up there!

World Map that Tim sent me, I put where everyone is at right now with pink stickys! Can you see Allison all the way in Africa in Tanzania?

I put the postcards sent to me around the map, approximately in the area where they came from.

Lots of books and an empty wine bottle on the floor.

Desk, air conditioning (har har) and my beloved country's flag.

Where I sleep, sans mosquito net because it's not too bad where I live.

Peace Corps Map!

The two quotes I read everyday before I walk out the door. One is from Terri Kempton and the other from someone else who I can't remember at the moment...oops.

I've got everything necessary to sobrevivir (survive).

Bathroom on one side, closet on the other.

Yay for working showers! No hot water, but at least no bucket baths when there is water!

Having a closet is really nice and handy!

What Eddie, you don't want your picture taken?

Needless to say, that ended real quick...

Putting his sunglasses on one of the puppies.

Posing with our dog Layka and her puppies.

You can kind of see the rest of the house...I'll get some better pix soon.

And now he's in the bucket.

In his swimming pool.

And annoying poor Mitch.

Arlen taking a break from housework.

Eddie with Karla, reading one of the books from the Cusmapa house I brought with me.

Mario and I, he's at that "I'm too cool" teenager stage.

Karla and I

Setember 15th marks the Independence Day of Nicaragua, so what does that mean? Parades, drums, no school and lots of loud noises for about 2 weeks. I spent the holiday week up in Cusmapa with Lauren, which was a nice change since I had been in Somoto for many consecutive weeks. The students do a parade and then there are also dance and drum competitions later in the day. Nothing more to say about this holiday because that's about it in a nutshell!

These girls are baton twirlers, or gimastas...IMO it's just an excuse for little girls to wear short skirts and hooker boots, which is quite disturbing to me.

Gieselle in her uniform with the patriotic sash.

I was so happy when the drummers stopped practicing for this event...such a headache.

The cymbal player waiting for his moment of triumph! Other than that he just looked bored, poor guy!

Some students form the Oratorio in Cusmapa.

Danilo looked so handsome that day!

Norlan's little brother was running around and we snapped this shot of him.

Wilmer's brother (can't remember his name) wanted a picture with me.

Arlen, Wilmer's sister, and her friend

And again with me this time!

A cute picture of Marlon hiding away in the bushes.

More drummers...they just don't go away! Hehe..

...and more...

Everyone in the town was out watching the band and their baton girls, the building in front is the Catholic church in Cusmapa.

The students from the communities of Cusmapa, all lined up to march down the street.

And even more students...

You see what I mean...short skirts and high boots...

First: Happy Birthday Rosine! 1/4 of a century old!

Second: September is a busy busy month, hence no blog updates! But here are some new pix from the last week or so. It should make everyone temporarily happy for a couple days while I take some more pictures to accompany the blogs I've already written up.

But real quick, thanks to the following people:

-Mom and Dad for a care package that put me out of my misery so I could read the final Twilight book and a ton more useful items

-Jan for letters with stickers included

-Rosine for a ton of yummy goodies and new makeup!

-Tim for my new hand-made shoulder bag, chocolates, books and more

-Uncle David and Aunt Charlene for a box of sweets and goldfish, and letters

-Mamow for happy letters

-Amanda for the picture of us from frosh year and letters filled with fun memories

-Alexa for a surprise letter and her new addy in Portland

-Dave for letters from Panama letting me know I’m not the only crazy gringo in Central America

Marlon knitted this yellow hat all by himself and Lauren helped him with the ball on top. In the last week he's made 6 different ones so he can sell them to earn money to buy a cell phone, so he can call Lauren when she goes back to New Mexico. Very rare to see that type of motivation in Nica kids! Go Marlon!

Lauren bought a chicken from Wilmer's grandma in one of the Cusmapa communities, so we decided to stuff it like a Thanksgiving Turkey. Lucky this time to chicken was not killed in our back yard...I don't like the sounds the chickens make when they are about ready to die. In my mother's words: "Lovely..." (in a sarcastic, semi-grossed out tone)

Yay for stuffing! Lauren and I have a knack for altering recipes from the old "Joy of Cooking" book we have at the Cusmapa house.

On Tonight's Menu:StarterPotato and tomato soup with noodles Main CourseFree-range Nicaraguan fowl withBread stuffing with garlic, onions, and italian parlseySauteéd carrots with a sweet&sour passionfruit sauce

Another successful meal by Head Chefs Lauren and Katie! Clean up headed by Wilmer :)

I played chess against Wilmer and won 3 times. Granted he's only played a couple times and almost beat me twice...but give me a break I haven't played in years!

One word: Strategery

When you have whole coffee beans, grind it with your handy Hand Grinder! Dale!

Lauren knitted a fun hat last week and it found it's way on top of Engel's 6 month-old head!

Spreading the sauce that Lauren made on the pizza crust I made...yum! Thanks Vy for the apron! I love the Australian animals!

This article was written by Avi Richman who is in my Nica 47 Small Business Development group and perfectly highlights the B.S. we put up with in the public schools. Class gets canceled quite often and it's very sad that most Nicaraguans accept it as "well, it always happens...oh well". However, the "gringos" can only give their opinion on the ridiculousness of the situation so many times: we're basically talking to a brick wall. It will take the Nicaraguan population themselves to change this attitude about education and the value of the classroom. I appreciate all my primary and high school teachers so much and I hope you do too! Send one of your former teachers a thank you on facebook or if you're at a school event take 1 min. to say "hi" and "thanks!" Is Baseball more important than education? Written Tuesday, July 28, 2009

This past Sunday, Granada’s baseball team, los Tiburones (The Sharks), were once again crowned champion of Nicaraguan baseball with a huge victory in the deciding game of the best of seven series versus Estelí. However, amidst all of the celebration and joy in Granada, something else happened that should cause shame and anger in every single Granadian.

I am a teacher at four different high schools in the municipality of Granada, teaching an entrepreneurship course to fourth year students (there are five years in high school). After too many days of cancelled classes this school year due to infinity of bureaucratic reasons, this past Monday was the last straw. I feel obligated to inform all of Nicaragua (and those reading at home) that this Monday in the beautiful colonial city of Granada, all the schools were closed in order to celebrate the Sharks’ championship in a decision by the mayor’s office. I have had enough.

What kind of message are we sending to the students of Granada? That it is more important to have a day of rest/celebration instead of having class? What message are we sending to all of the students who this Monday traveled from great distances, walked over an hour, and spent precious money on bus fare, to arrive at their schools and receive an education; only to find the school administration telling them to go home because there is no class today? The wrong message if you ask me.

A nine year old boy who lives next door to me went to school on Monday only to return home five minutes later saying that there was no class because they (the school administration, teachers, etc) are all lazy (this sounds better in Spanish). A father of a student at the rural school where I teach told me that it truly is a shame that his kids were not able to go to class and was completely against the cancellation of class.

I am a baseball fan and I was present to witness Granada win the championship but I definitely did not need a day off the next day to celebrate. It seems to me that the mayor’s office in Granada did not think that Granadians were capable of celebrating the victory after the game on Sunday (the game ended at 2:30 in the afternoon) and Monday night.

Now let me tell you exactly what happened during the day on Monday in Granada, the day the schools were cancelled to celebrate: NADA. Absolutely nothing. I personally passed by the central plaza around 6pm to check on the celebration only to see that the celebration had yet to start (it finally started around 7). Guess at what time the vast majority of schools end? 6pm. So technically speaking, we could have had an entire day of class without one single individual missing the celebration. What a shame.

I am not against parties and celebrations, nor am I against the mayor’s office. I am for the education of the youth of this beautiful country and for making it a priority in the development of every boy and girl. I am for sharing my knowledge with the students and taking full advantage of the classroom hours available to me. Frankly, I am very concerned for the educational system of Granada if it is possible to cancel an entire school day for a reason so trivial such as Monday.

While I do not know exactly who the person to make the final decision was, I do know that such person should have strongly considered the consequences of a decision that impeded each child’s basic human right to an education and fomented the value of irresponsibility. Once again I ask you all: Which is more important, a day off from school to “celebrate” the success of a sports team or the education of Nicaragua’s future. The decision is yours.

Avi Richman, Teacher Granada, Nicaragua Tel: 89024993 / 89979839

Note: Since writing this article, I have been able to talk to many other locals in Granada about the decision to cancel classes, and have heard two different sides. There are many people who, like me, were against the decision and also believe that there are far too many classes cancelled. However, unfortunately, there are many others who just responded to me by saying “that’s just how we are” or “it’s always like that here, it’s tradition; we are not in your country”. These kinds of responses are just terrible and with these attitudes, the future looks bleak. So listen up those who still do not get it...please change your attitudes and please understand that the custom/tradition of cancelling classes here must be changed. Just because something is tradition or custom does not mean it is good. In conclusion, I just want to remind every single Nicaraguan teacher, parent, and citizen that you are the ones who must demand more of your schools, of your principals, and of your government. Please demand more of your education; you deserve it.

Two weeks ago Somoto had its Fiesta Patronales (it’s like how in Loomis we have the Eggplant Festival every year), which means it has a big party for its patron saint, Santiago. From Friday till Sunday all of Somoto was in party mode and the streets around the main park had food stands and a couple of random item stands. One of the signs claimed it was a “Rosquilla Festival” (remember Rosquillas are those donut shaped cookies make out of corn, Somoto is famous for them), but there were only 4 stands selling them. Course, they don’t tend to get creative and alter the original recipes very much…so they’re all about the same. Friday night they had dancing in the streets, but I was too tired to partake, especially after I had helped Anna all day with her artisan stand. I saw a ton of my students all dressed up ready to tear up the dance floor with their boyfriends and girlfriends…it was fun to see them all excited for the fiesta.

Saturday…4am…and the band marched down the street, awaking me from some vivid dream. Why do they feel the need to play in the wee hours of the morning? Ugh…well the band played on just about all day long through the streets of Somoto and they were sounding pretty good in the afternoon (less out of tune at least). Around 2pm there were floats decorated with palms, leaves and other plants and a smaller than usual Hipico (Horse Parade). These parades are always the same, so I don’t get too excited about them. I left my camera at home because that day I just did not have the urge to snap photos…disculpame por favor (forgive me please). At one point I turned to Yuka (another Japanese volunteer in Somoto) and told her the parades here don’t really excite me because it’s always the same and I wished there was more creativity. This Nica woman walking by me turned to her friend and said, “Did you hear what that stupid gringa just said?”…so I said to her in the sweetest voice ever, “Then why would you care what the gringa has to say if she’s so stupid?” Shut her right up…can’t people just mind their own business? I love parades, but it’s literally the same style and same music every time! Someone needs to stand up and say, “Hey let’s do something different!” I can understand if something is a traditional dance that it won’t change much, but this is a parade we are talking about…not a traditional ceremony from the time of the Nahuatl (the original language/tribe of this area). Hence why I always am encouraging my students to be creative in whatever they do!

Speaking of Horse Parades, I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but one of my dreams during PC service is to ride in a Hipico. Supposedly one of my friends is going to let me ride one of his horses in the Parade in November…more details to come when I actually see this horse. How exciting will that be!?

Saturday night, Yuka and I were having a couple of Toñas at the fair, just enjoying our leisure time. A couple of my students sat down to chat for awhile, which always makes me feel happy because they obviously must like me most of the time. Haha. Anyways, I ran into Sarah, who is following up on a water project that she wrote her Master’s Thesis on, and Laura, an Española (Spanish girl) that I had met last year. Laura came back with a group of environment students from Spain who is currently working on a latrine project, so they will be here till October or so. Yay for new friends! Anyways, it was great that I ran into them because they told me about a reggae band that would be playing at the Hotel Colonial, the same place I went to see Perro Zompopo in April. I was so excited! Not only for reggae music, but LIVE reggae music from an East Coast Nicaraguan band! At the concert I met some other españoles, a dude from Colorado, and the first person I’ve ever met from Romania. A great night of dancing and awesome music, sadly I didn’t bring my camera because I wasn’t sure how many people would be there and I didn’t want to take the chance of it getting stolen.

Random note: I encourage everyone to read “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan, I just finished it and it’s really good! It makes one think about our current food chain in the U.S. and how we could improve our eating habits.

Oh, and did I mention the fact how "everyone dies famous in a small town" ... check out the Loomis News article written about Elaine and I.

Famous Somoto artist Anna Planck, who is originally from Struttgart, Germany, but has made Somoto her home for over 20 years now.

Anna paints jicaros, which dry up like gourds do...very tough and durable. This jicaro shows the wind god of Esteli.

She creates original artwork made of natural seeds, coffee beans, jicaros, and flowers. The necklaces you see in the middle were made by some of my Cusmapa students for their business project. Anna was very nice to showcase the necklaces and earrings to get an idea of how much people would be willing to pay for the products.

More jicaros and guasimos on a string.

Anna's Somoto keychains and my student's earrings on display!

The earrings are made of recycled glass and natural seeds, the keychains are natural seeds with beads.

Jicaros painted in different styles, some are from another local artist who Anna might work with in the future.

More artwork...

More wind gods and the water god too...

Each frame contains an original work of art...what do you think? Is this artwork marketable? Would you buy it?

Some of her art includes old bottlecaps too!

Some of you might recognize the cards! She's one of my stationary suppliers to say the least :)

Rosquilla Festival - Somoto, MadrizAdita Bakery

Like I said, rosquillas are like hard cheesy corn donut-shaped cookies. Some of them have melted sugar on top which makes them sweeter.

You want to start a debate in Somoto, just ask anyone who makes the best rosquillas...there is no right answer. For regular rosquillas I prefer the Vilchez ones...

Yum! I'll bring a whole bunch back next time!

This was the extent of the vendors.

After the parade, Yuka and I went looking for plants and I wanted to find a new bracelet. We didn't find the plant she wanted and I didn't find a bracelet, but I did get a pair of new earrings made of coconut shells!

Later we hung out and had dinner under the tents...all of my students stopped by to say hi. Yuka had a good time learning some Nica slang! Note: Next post I'll try to get some pix of moi!

I think I’ve mentioned before that one of my hobbies, like many PCVs, is reading. I have reestablished my love for books and finishing one saddens me for losing a friend, but joy that I have really spent the time to enjoy everything it contained. One day I got bored and decided to record all the books that I have read since arriving to Nicaragua. I thought it might be fun to share what it is I have been putting in my head: about 50% has been fun reading, the other 50% more “food-for-thought” reading. Take note the books are not written down in the order they were read, but mostly by memory of what I had read. The last ones at the bottom represent the most current ones I have finished, since I had already written the list. All books I recommend are marked with *.

1. I’d Rather Teach Peace – Colman McCarthy

2. Wine & War – Donald and Petie Kladstrup

3. The Last Lecture – Randy Pausch*

4. The End of Poverty – Jeffrey Sachs*

5. How to Boil a Flamingo – Allison Vale and Alison Rattle

6. A Power Governments Cannot Suppress – Howard Zinn*

7. Twilight – Stephanie Meyer

8. New Moon – Stephanie Meyer

9. She’s Not There – Jennifer Boylan

10. Good in Bed – Jennifer Weiner

11. In Her Shoes – Jennifer Weiner

12. Prep – Curtis Sittenfeld

13. An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire – Arundhati Roy*

14. Skinny Dip – Carl Hiaasen

15. The Dirty Girls’ Social Club – Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

16. Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert*

17. Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz

18. The Reader – Bernhard Schlink

19. Mountains Beyond Mountains – Dr. Paul Farmer*

20. The End of America – Naomi Woolf

21. The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas*

22. Angels & Demons – Dan Brown

23. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – J.K. Rowling (this was a re-read)

24. Eclipse – Stephanie Meyer

25. The Omnivore’s Dilemma – Michael Pollan*

In progress:

1. The Wal-Mart Effect – Charles Fishman*

2. The White Man’s Burden – William Easterly* (1/2 way through!)

3. Harry Potter y la pierda filosofal (Harry Potter 1 in Español) – J.K. Rowling

In the bookshelf queue:

1. The Bottom Billion – Paul Collier

2. A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide – Samantha Powers

3. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

4. Siddhartha – Herman Hesse

5. The Odyssey – Homer

6. Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

7. 1984 – George Orwell

8. The Witch of Portabello – Paulo Coelho

Any recommendations for books I should add to my queue?

...let it in, for “adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it” – Horace

That is what the entire month of July was like for me, overcoming adversity. I remember my old softball coach Sean Erikson saying, “I implore you…implore you I repeat, to only think little pieces and overcome this adversity facing you”. Course, he was talking more or less in softball terms and the “little pieces” he referred to were the basics (don’t over-swing, think about winning or doubt the muscle memory accumulated from hours upon hours of practice) and the “adversity” was usually beating a team better than us. However, the same principle can be applied to life, when faced with a challenge it is better to conquer it using all the tools acquired beforehand.

So what the heck am I talking about? Why the huge metaphor? At the least, the month of July was a big test for me and my commitment to continue my Peace Corps service. I never really ever thought about giving up, but when everything seemed to pile up it did get to be a little hard I will admit. I know everyone wants to hear pretty vignettes about PC service, but I’m a realist and I would be lying to my faithful readers and myself if I always said everything was peachy keen. Don’t worry, the story has a happy ending!

The months of May and June were awesome months for me, I was always busy and my classes were for the most part on schedule. I was helping coach softball, met some new people, and also started advising some small businesses…I finally felt like I belonged here in Somoto. My last post was even titled “I Love Somoto!” The last week of June I received news that my Japanese roommate was going to end her service 6 months early and leave the same week for Japan. She had been sick off and on for a couple months and wasn’t getting any better. She figured it was better to terminate early and get well than take the risk to get worse. Also leaving in the same week was Martina from Canada, who stayed at my house in Somoto for a month for a short project. To make a long story short, the day after both Nozomi and Martina left (the 30th of June) I was told by my host family that they didn’t want to host volunteers anymore and that I had 15 days to find a new place to live.

At the least I was shocked and confused and asked for a more specific reason why they had made this decision. The only response I received was “we’re just too old and tired to take care of volunteers” and “you’ll find something else really easily”. I never wrote up a contract with them because I never ever thought this situation would happen, usually it’s the volunteers who decide to leave! I won’t lie to you, I was pretty upset that not only did I have to find a new place, but I had only 15 days. People here just don’t understand how hard it is to find a decent place to live, and to find a place where a gringo (foreigner) won’t get ripped off! I told my sitemates about the situation and they generously offered their extra room for me to crash in. So, on the 1st of July I moved all my stuff to their place temporarily…maybe it was a rash decision, but in my opinion it was for the best to get the heck outta my old place.

The next day I had to get to Managua so I could be at a training session on time the day after. Our training session was in my old training town of Niquinohomo and we had 2 hours to kill before our meeting, so I decided to go visit my old host family. I hadn’t seen them in 7 months and it felt really good seeing them and feeling like a part of their family again. I was pretty bitter about host families at that point and spending time with them helped get rid of my resentment. I ate a nacatamale while I was there, which is a tamale (you know the mushy corn thing) stuffed with meat, potatoes, rice, and beans, and had some of that really yummy Niquinohomo bread. I don’t know why it is that we can’t have good bread up here in Somoto! When I left I promised I’d come visit them soon again, hopefully in August I’ll be able to.

Along I went to our training session, which lasted 2 hours or so. The goal of the meeting was to share ideas for planning the “Creative Business” competitions we will hold in August and September. All in all it was a great session and I think my group and the new group got a lot of new ideas and useful information. We had lunch at the place we had our meeting and then I had originally planned to celebrate the 4th of July in Granada…but sadly I had to get back to Somoto and start looking for places. I was not a happy camper that I couldn’t celebrate the 4th! Actually, it turned out to be a wise decision on my part to get back up to Somoto…because that night I started feeling really rotten and had a slight fever (probably thanks to the nacatamale or the lunch, I’m not quite certain which one).

By the next day I felt even worse and every 20 minutes I either prayed to the porcelain god or sat upon its throne. I couldn’t sleep, wasn’t hungry and I couldn’t even take poor Astro (Matt and Jess’s dog) for a much needed walk. I took samples to the lab the next day and the diagnosis was amoebas (the first ever I’ve had) and a bacterial infection. What we do in this situation is call the PC doctors in the Managua office with our lab results and they prescribe the medication we need to take. So at this moment not only was I homeless, but I was yucky sick. This little hiccup put me about 4 days behind in my search for a new place.

When I was finally well enough I started the very annoying and painstaking search for a new room to rent. I had some prospects given by my sitemates, the ladies at the post office, some coworkers, and some random people I had met around town. In total I ended up looking at about 8 different places, none of them really fully matching my preferences, and had a breakdown because I was so frustrated. In the end I decided to move into a room about half a block away from where I used to live. The price is fair, I have my own bathroom, it’s bigger than the room I used to have, and I have a built in closet that takes up less space. The family consists of a mom (Karla) and her sons, ages 12 and 5, and the housekeeper lives here most of the time. Karla has a convenience store (pulperia) in the front, so whatever random things I need I can always buy from her. I’ve been here for 3 weeks and I’m still trying to get used to my living situation.

I feel a little more closed off and distant at the moment because I’m still wary to trust my new host family. I’ve never had a problem building relationships or trusting new people, but after being “evicted” I feel the need to take it a little more slowly and cautiously. Don’t get me wrong, the family seems very very nice…however, appearances can be deceiving. I don’t want to move again for the rest of my time here! I hope everything goes well and I hope to never again have to ask anyone in Somoto: “Do you know someone who rents rooms?”

I bought a fan and a big bucket for the shower because I need to have water ready at hand when the water shuts off, since we don’t have a tank that saves the water. I am also thinking about getting a small refrigerator because that is the one thing this family does not really have. There is one in the store, but the door is usually locked and I don’t have open access. Next Friday I’m going to Esteli (the closest big city to mine), so I’ll look at the prices while I’m there. I already looked at the prices in Somoto and everything is way overpriced! These are times that I really miss Craigslist where you can find a variety and get used stuff really cheap! Luckily I don’t have to buy a bed or any other furniture.

The other stressor for me was waiting for the administration to hire a new teacher for me to work with at the public school. It has been over a month since the kids have received my class because my other counterpart flaked on me for the rest of June and the administration drug its feet to find a replacement. Finally last week they did, and hopefully I will start working with her on Tuesday of this week. I felt bad for my kids when I saw them on the street and when they asked me why I haven’t been to class. I had to tell them it’s because I don’t have a counterpart teacher to work with. Legally I can’t give class by myself and I don’t have authorization to mark points off or give grades, so all I could do was wait.

On a positive note, the extra time I had from not giving classes I used by helping my small business owners. I’ve trained Anna some more on Excel, we’ve developed some promotional brochures, I helped her sell at the local fair in town this past weekend, and we also did research into how to get Fair Trade Certified (that is a whole other long post in itself). Her business has a lot of potential; she just needs to find a stable market to sell her artwork.

All in all, the storm is over and I can go about life normally, it was just a slight hiccup to overcome. Sometimes everything piles up at once, maybe due to karma or just chance. At the least, these situations help us grow personally and professionally. I have no doubt things will get better in a matter of weeks and I will become comfortable in my new setting. My fan that I just got helps make life beaut-ee-ful!

Thanks to:

-Mom and Dad for the care package and calling me to check up

-James for the care package and pix, and always saying hi to me online

-Jan for her letters with stickers included!

-Amanda for happy letters

-Dave Wagner for a letter from Panama

-Harriett for a surprise letter

-John, Danielle, Arielle, Nishma and Rosine for always sending me a message on Gchat or an email

Random pix:

My counterpart Brenda in Cusmapa with her 5 month old son Chrisnar.

Lauren working on the recycled glass jewelry project...more news on this later.

Little Manuel helping sweep up our back yard in Cusmapa.

Samuel and Manuel, two very eager helpers!

Break time with the animalitos (little animal toys).

This is the interview I sent to the Loomis News this week, hopefully there will be an article soon about Peace Corps, Elaine Hogan (PCV in Honduras) and yours truly.

I apologize for not posting in more than a month, July was a little crazy and I will explain in my next post this week. New pictures to come!

Why were you drawn to serve in the Peace Corps? By joining Peace Corps I felt I had the opportunity to represent the U.S. and show the global community that Americans care about those outside its borders. Many times the only impression other nations gain about the U.S. is through the media and entertainment industry, which is no where close to being representative of the entire U.S. nation. In addition, I wanted to learn more about development work and decide if that was the type of career I wanted to pursue.

What are your thoughts on the program?

Peace Corps has grown up a lot since President Kennedy inaugurated the program in 1961. We have goals set up by country and by each separate program within the country. The word “volunteer” I feel only applies to the part that we volunteer ourselves for at least 27 months of our life. Peace Corps service is not about living in a hut, reading a book in a hammock. We are working with the schools, NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), government offices, health services, etc. We work, we don’t just “volunteer”. It is an opportunity cost to not be earning a living wage in the U.S., but the work experience we get while abroad is invaluable to our development as professionals and U.S. citizens. I think in the future Peace Corps will offer more valuable professional training to its volunteers, which will create a stronger program with greater impact.

What do you do on a daily basis & what is your mission?

I am a Small Business Advisor and Educator, so my primary assignment is teaching in 4 different high schools and advising small businesses in my city. Every day I either co-teach (with a Nicaraguan teacher) entrepreneurship classes to 4th year highschoolers (15-17 year olds) or I observe the classes already functioning on their own (taught by Nicaraguan teachers) that the PC volunteer before me had established. I have an amazing opportunity to work with both the public highschool and an NGO called Familia Padre Fabretto. The NGO has an after-school program which includes the entrepreneurship class, so in 3 of my schools the class is actually an extracurricular activity. I oversee about 500 students, and the goal is for each of them to organize themselves into groups, develop a product or service, and little by little write a business plan. At the end we have a competition to see who has the best business plan and who was the most creative. The biggest emphasis of the program is creativity and planning! Kids are not encouraged to be creative, so I am constantly pushing them to think above and beyond the norms. We promote business planning because many times businesses open in Nicaragua without the owners taking into account the variable and fixed costs, start up costs, an evaluation of the existing competition, and most importantly recognition of a potential market.

This is where the other half of our assignment comes into play: small business advising. Current businesses usually have little knowledge of basic business practices such as accounting, marketing, and price fixing. I currently advise two businesses and have three more interested in learning more about how to successfully run a business. I’m no business expert, but I can help small business owners realize their actual expenditures, create a basic accounting sheet, or identify prices of their competitors. One of my biggest challenges is showing business owners that they don’t begin to make a profit until they have covered all their costs. Most believe that once they sell something it means money in their pocket right away!

In addition, my assignment is travel intensive, so I have to travel 2.5 hours by bus to one of my schools and 3.5 hours to another. The buses only run a couple times a day to these towns, so I have to spend 2 nights a week away from my home base. Luckily my NGO provides housing for me when I am working up in the highland towns, so I have a home away from home.

Would you recommend it? I recommend Peace Corps for someone who is ready for an adventure and willing to move anywhere in the world. If you want to gain experience in development and see how foreign aid works in developing countries, this job is for you! Be prepared to miss home sometimes, but usually one remembers that home will always be there to welcome you back. All PC volunteers have different reasons for serving, so talk to as many current or returned Peace Corps volunteers as possible to get a well-rounded idea of the experience.

What were you most surprised about? I was surprised how much networking would be involved with other organizations, meaning I work with more gringos (foreigners from the U.S., Europe and Japan) than I ever expected! Every day I run into foreigners from NGOs, international aid organizations (World Food Program, UNICEF), foreign government organizations (USAID, JICA), and religious organizations. Last week alone I hung out with Japanese volunteers, Spaniard university students, and fellow PC volunteers. I am certain the networks I have created in Nicaragua will help me in future job searches, should I decide to continue working within the development community.

Also, I was surprised to live in a city of 23,000 people, which includes access to a bank, internet, and a grocery store. However, a city does not guarantee constant water or electricity! We usually have water from 5pm till 8am the next day and the power can go out for days at a time.

How have you been received by the local people? Everyone in Nicaragua is always curious to know my story, where I’m from and what I’m doing here. Then after my story they will almost always share with me where their relatives live in the U.S. Sometimes they think I am from Spain, which is a great compliment to me because I’m obviously getting rid of my “gringo” accent. Nicaraguans are usually very giving people and will offer you a coffee with cookies, or invite you to come with them to visit their farms. However, there are some that see foreigners as nothing but banks, who are willing to hand out money or things. Even if I explain that I am a Peace Corps volunteer, they still don’t understand why I can’t give them anything. It’s a problem that all developing countries face. I’ve never received any anti-American sentiment, which I attribute to the fact that most Nicaraguans have family members who live in the US. What do you miss most back in the USA? I really miss my friends and family; going away has made me realize how much I love them and how much a support base they are for me. I know they are always there for me through phone calls, letters and emails, but nothing beats a family meal together or a cup of coffee and chatting to a good friend. If I had to say a “thing” I miss the most, it would be California wine! Syrah from Carneros in particular!

What is the single greatest lesson you have learned? I am so thankful for the education I received in Loomis! After teaching in the Nicaraguan public school system where the teachers are paid poorly, the students don’t have textbooks, class is canceled for no reason, and where there is little opportunity for extracurricular activities (especially for girls), I can feel nothing but deep gratitude for my teachers, coaches and administrators. What will you take with you at the conclusion of your stay? Patience! I think I will be so much more patient and I will be much calmer when things do not go to plan. Just this weekend the bus broke down halfway through the 3 hour ride down the mountain and I had to wait 4 hours for the next bus to come. One just has to accept unfortunate occurrences and realize that it’s not the end of the world. Life goes on and it’s not worth being upset over the small things! Yes it was annoying that I had to wait for a couple extra hours, but I eventually arrived at my destination.

What are your plans after Peace Corps? My future plans change every week and I haven’t quite nailed down what I’d really like to do. I finish in July 2010, so it would be great timing to start a graduate program. However, I don’t know what I want to study yet! I’ve thought about a Masters in International Development, but I’m not 100% sure. Some other ideas I’ve also considered are coming back and working in Washington, D.C., going abroad to France to study French, and the newest (and craziest) idea I have is opening a Central American Import store with a coworker who works with me at my NGO.

This Blog features pictures of Somoto and some randomness...

I would first like to thank the following people, all who have lately contributed to my sanity during PC service to say the least:

-Mom and Dad, for the early bday present

-Aunt Judy and Harriett, for the vacation offer in Costa Rica (I sadly had to work :( )

-Nishma, for The Wal-Mart Effect book and postcards (co-authored by Arielle)

-Arielle, for postcards (co-authored by Nishma) from their travels I’m missing out on (Boo!)

-Alison Vaux, for a care package of tasty treats and also included her wedding invitation (sorry I can’t come!)

-Allison Eriksen, for gummie worms and a letter…right before she left the states for PC service in Tanzania!

-Jan, for more letters of inspiration

-Jan & Doug, for a carepackage full of yummy goodies that will hopefully last for awhile!

-Vy, for a carepackage which included a Kangaroo Crossing apron (no more flour on my clothes when I make bread!) and a cute fuzzy koala from Australia

-Mamow, for more letters and always keeping me updated about things at home

-Priya, for letters all the way from The Netherlands that help remind me that my friends may be far away in distance, but they are always close to my heart

-Amanda for sending me her graduation announcement from UCSD (Congrats again!), and I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to her party

-Matt and Jess, for bringing me a ton of goodies back from the states and mailing a bday present to one of my friends

Some random epiphanies I’ve had lately:

-I’ve finally learned how to tell myself “it’s not your fault” when anything goes awry in my work and life in general here in Nicaragua. It’s a very hard concept to grasp, but I think I’m beginning to master it. All I can do is complete the tasks I have promised and follow through with my part. If others don’t do their part…not my fault about 99% of the time. I can’t make people work harder, change a failing system, or boss people around. The best way to create a ripple effect is to set the example and do the best I can.

-I don’t miss television that much anymore, yes it would be nice to watch my shows like Top Chef and Project Runway, but I don’t NEED them to relax at night after a day of work.

-I’ve been very good with mail and I’m proud of myself that I’ve tried to keep track of everyone who writes to me and everyone I write to. I even made a page in my notebook for “Sent Mail” and “Received Mail”. I hope to carry on this “lost tradition” of letter writing when I get back home.

-I just finished my 23rd book of PC Service, The Count of Monte Cristo. Having the time to read books again is so amazing! I recommend reading The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs and The White Man’s Burden by William Easterly to gain more knowledge about foreign aid and two very different views on how foreign aid should be handed out.

-If I go get my Master’s Degree in Sweden I won’t have to pay tuition!

-I’ve become pretty insensitive to the ants that are always in my food, the cockroaches in the bathroom that I kill with my sandals, and the surprise of the geckos running up and down the walls eating the rest of the bugs.

-What a difference my PC service is compared to when my Uncle Curt served in Turkey over 30 years ago, especially when I think about the accessibility of technology. For example, yesterday I talked to my Chilean host mom Eugenia and James, at the same time via Facebook chat, sent an email to Priya in the Netherlands, replied to my boss in Managua to which I received a reply 10 minutes later, and asked Alison how her wedding planning was going in Gmail Chat. All in under 1 hour or so…crazy!

Some pretty flowers in the backyard at my house.

I will have to get the names of them again.

View of Somoto from one of the Miradors (Look out point)

Pretty and green right now!

One of my students, Henry, who I am now mentoring. Great kid!

Pura Somotena

Men's softball game

Mother's Day dinner, I made lasanga from scratch. From the left: Don Carlos, me, Alegda, Jose Luis, Martina (from Canada), Dona Vera

Don Carlos shows off his sexy legs in his shorts...cracked me up! Did I mention he'll be 90 in January!

I love cute old couples! They were watching a TV show when I snapped this photo.

In May we said goodbye to our friend Callie, Fabretto volunteer in Cusmapa. She lived and worked in Cusmapa for over two and a half years and helped the Cusmapa Oratorio continue their music program. She will be missed very much by the kids, the other volunteers, and myself. Thank you Callie for all those late night guitar concerts, grandiose meals at the house, sharing bottles of wine (and guaro) with me and above all for teaching me how to open one's heart to Nicaragua. I will miss you chelona! Hmmm...a ride to Cusmapa would be lovely, right Pedro?

Riding in a truck is way better than the bus because I can take photos of the countryside.

At this time Madriz was still dry...yucky dust!

A random tractor that I assume is (slowly) working on the road.

On the road again...

In true Nica fashion, we had to stop for a beer along the way.

Pedro, Leonel and the other dude whose name I can't remember.

I heart Pedro as always!

Gotta love the cell phone towers in the middle of nowhere.

When I got there I was ambushed by chavalos (kids).

They performed a show using Lauren's baskets they found on the table...this is what happens when I don't see them for a couple weeks...they go crazy!

Everyone wants to show me they can balance the baskets on their heads!

Gieselle reminds me of the time Nishma had a basket on her head when we went to Isla de Pascua.

Hallelujah! Right Memo? Dariel is to the right.

Somehow the madness...imagine 6 kids jumping off the walls...turned into a conga line led by me...we then continued to go around town like this.

And then Pedro promised the kids we'd go to the river the next day...which made them even crazier!

Salud to Callie, we'll miss you chelona!

Bacanal, bacanal, bacanal (party party party!)

The next day...to the river!

I love the walk through the pine trees.

Swimming, swimming, in the swimming hole...

Callie and Mike, we didn't go swimming but we stuck our feet in. I'm scared to think what sort of yuckiness is in the water...after the cow poop and detergent from everyone washing their clothes in the river.

Sadly in the winter most of the horses and cows have their ribs showing because there is no grass and the farmers are out of money to feed them. Breaks my heart!

When you drive into Cusmapa this is what you will see.

One of the last walks for Callie into Cusmapa...sadness.

The beginning of Callie's Goodbye Desfile (Parade)

Lauren and Callie painted the kids faces as always. Marlon's face is hilarious in this picture!

I think Tony asked for a mustache as always...

Not sure who this kid is but he is adorable!

More chavalos, I think we had about 60 kids at the house at this time...maybe more!

Another adorable picture...

Yeeeeeee haw!

Me scaring little Manuel with the trombone.

The kids squashed me 10 minutes earlier, so I got them back!

The beginning of yet another parade around Cusmapa.

Up we go...

Callie worn her animal shirt drawn by the famous gringo artist Mike Zelek.

76 Trombones....well 1 at least...I played whatever song I could make up that day.

Mike carried Sarita our neighbor on his shoulders the entire time.

And down the streets we go!

It was a happy day in Cusmapa and we had beautiful weather in the background.

Surrounded by chavalos, Callie makes her last tour around Cusmapa.

The central park in Cusmapa with a statue of Padre Fabretto.

Anayencing, Callie, meI'll miss you very much Cal! Thanks for everything! Cusmapa won't be the same without you!

The first weekend in May I went to visit Jordan in Leon and met up with Katie too! They are both from my group and it was great to have a girls' weekend. We went to the pool, went out dancing, cooked, and experienced the Corinto Seafood Festival which turned out to be a flop. Oh well it was a fun weekend anyways! Leon is one of the spots tourists hit when they come to Nicaragua. Like Granada, it's an old colonial town and has countless old buildings and churches. It was also home to the Liberals during the Civil War of the 1930s. Factoid: My host dad's father was killed in that war when Dr. Carlos was only 6 years old. In addition, Leon is really really really HOT! I almost died there! Even at night it doesn't cool down very much...hence I appreciate the mountains of Madriz very much. We went out for Angie's birthday, a SBD 41 PCV, to a really delicious Nica restaurant in Leon. We were really surprised how good the food was! When two Katies are together they make Katii

Katie, Jordan, Katie

Just say NO!

Angie got to play the bongos for her bday

That was really good chocolate cake right Jordan?

DSL, "estás embarazada"...ummm, no...es que tengo panza, "pues que linda!"

Only in Nicaragua

Birthday girl Angie and Me

Hostess Jordan in her super cute apartment

Dianne was there too!

And around Leon the next day...the Leon Cathedral

It's pretty old...1500s I think

You can't come to Leon without posing with a Lion! ("Leon" is lion in Spanish if you didn't know)

GAWRRRRRRR

Good pose Jordan!

I've seen better cathedrals, but it was nice.

At the back of the Cathedral there was a nice garden.

The old bell...

A fountain...

We went to the disappointing Seafood Festival in Corinto the next day. Note to self: When Nicaraguans advertise a grand food festival, sadly it probably won't be that great.

The Katii again

The clock tower that Katie said was straight out of Willie Wonka

"It is prohibited to drop passengers off at the Victoria Brewery" - National Police

When Katie comes to your house, she cooks!

Today I wanted to post some pictures that just have to deal with regular life in Somoto. Granted the U.S. Ambassador doesn't come all the time, but we have random people like that visit the Oratorios all the time.

I have to admit, I live a great life with my host family and I really enjoy being around them. I will download actual pictures of them soon, currently the pix of them are in my camera...I've got a great one of Dr. Carlos in his shorts that I'll put up later this week.

Thanks to Jan and Amanda for sending me mail!

I have my own entrance...soooooo nice! My room used to be the waiting room for the Doctor's office.

#1, no I did not bring that huge elk rug from the U.S. to put on my wall.

#2 That rolly stand was given to me by Matt and Jess, thank you guys again! I love that thing.

My closet, luckily I'm not an accessories person.

Photos on the left side, so when I fall asleep I see all my friends and family, the blue poster Kristin made me while visiting in February, Peace Corps map, and PC logo I drew myself.

Thank you everyone for all the cards!

Drawings by the kids in Cusmapa.

My airconditioner is a fan by the window.

My bathroom, which is situated in the room next to mine (no one lives there usually), so I have my own sink, shower and toliet.

Hallway

Walkway in the garden

El Tanque: the reason why we never run out of water

Outside patio in the back of the house

The machine that has changed my Nica lifestyle forever...instead of 4 hours to do my laundry, it only takes 40 minutes. I love life!

Dora our housekeeper in the kitchen

Dining Room

Living room, yes we have cable (it's the basic 20 channels...so there!)

The living room that is next to an open patio

The sitting room that never gets used unless there are special guests

Some of my basil plants, they smell so yummy

Vanessa (8 years old) dresses up for the Ambassador's visit! She is my favorite elementary kid!

U.S. Ambassador Robert Callahan came to visit Fabretto in May. I've met him before and he remembered me, so that was nice. He is a big supporter of Peace Corps so I really like him for that. However, what Fabretto expositioned this day was not a reality of how the Oratorio actually runs. I understand they wanted to show the good that Fabretto has the capability of accomplishing, but I still felt they covered up the truth. All in all, it was a successful networking event for me and I now have contacts in the U.S.AID office and one of their contracting firms RTI.

He played ball for 2 minutes with the girls...sadly the girls NEVER play softball (I always try to get them out on the field), it was a staged lie in my book.

Nozomi, my Japanese roommate, made a strawberry pie one night! Yum! They are cultivating strawberries in Las Sabanas, about 1 hour into the mountains.

Lauren, Pedro, Me...friends make PC service bearable

Pedro (our favorite Spaniard) used to live with Callie, Lauren and I in Cusmapa. Now he lives east coast of Nicaragua in Laguna de Perlas and he comes to visit once in awhile. I miss Pedro!

My classroom during recess, so most of my students are outside at this moment.

Some of my students didn't have to go to school one day because they were helping in the "Teleton" which is an all-day fundraiser for disabled children (modeled after the Jerry Lewis Telethon); I gave them 20 cordobas ($1) which I thought was generous. The pessimist in me wonders how much of that money actually got to the national fund, not that my kids would steal, but I'm sure the people organizing it would get sticky fingers.

My counterpart Eric gets vaccinated during the Vaccination Campaign in May...my students wanted me to get it as well, I however said no

Surrounded by mountains, Somoto cools down at night with a nice breeze

Somoto: city of half dirt and half paved roads, on the whole it's not too bad

The Pan-Americana Highway that goes through Somoto

Chronologically this weekend was before In-Service Training, but I figured you all wouldn't mind! After coming back from Spring Break, I honestly experienced the worst week ever. My coworkers weren’t listening and weren’t ready to work when I was; my students were soooooo naughty and disrespectful, and the Nica culture in general just got under my skin. It was one of those weeks were I wished I was home in my queen sized bed, eating Thai food and out playing golf. It didn’t bring me to tears, but it frustrated the hell out of me the entire week.

However, the weekend of this horrible week turned out to be the best I’ve had in Nicaragua! It was one of Callie’s last weekends here, so she convinced me to come with her to Esteli…especially because we had a ride, can’t beat that! Esteli is 2 hours away by regular bus and about 1 hour away by car or expreso bus, southeast of Somoto. Sadly our ride didn’t show up due to dead cell phones, so we ended up taking the 7:40am expreso bus and ran into my sitemates Matt and Jess who were with their friend Dana, a doctor who was visiting for a month.

We all went our separate ways after getting off; Callie and I went to the cell phone store to see if they wouldn’t mind charging her phone for a bit. Luckily they did it for free and in the meantime we went looking for a dress and shoes for Callie’s trip to the states. The Fabretto Cusmapa Choir had a planned trip to Connecticut and New York and Cal didn’t want to look like a pauper, haha. After shopping for a bit and not finding much we headed to La Casita which is a restaurant outside of Esteli that makes its own wheat bread, hummus, yoghurt, brie and swiss cheese. It was started by a Swiss guy I believe? Maybe he still owns it, I can’t recall. The idea of the place is to educate others about healthy, sustainable eating, and they have a huge garden and nursery. It is a lovely place, all shady and made of natural, local materials. For $2 you get a mini-loaf of wheat bread, choice of hummus or cheese, with tomatoes and cucumbers. Callie and I hung out there for an hour or so and then made our way back to central Esteli.

Sometime during the day, I had decided I wanted to pierce my nose while we were there. I had been considering it for a couple months and finally the ideal time presented itself. I figured, hell might as well do it while I’m in Peace Corps because no one will mind and my students will probably find it “so tuani (cool) dude”. The cab driver took us to the piercing place he knew of, which is really close by our Esteli PC office. The lady didn’t have the type of stud I wanted, so she recommended us to a place that I always walk by on my way to the Las Segovias Supermarket. A Nica actually sent us to someone else, instead of convincing me to stay and pay her to do it! Fijense (Take note), that NEVER happens here! On the way Matt called me to see if we wanted to do a cigar factory tour. I said, heck yeah… “but can you give me like 10 min. to pierce my nose real quick?” Kind of a funny thing to say to someone, but they waited for us.

So we went to the place, which is also a tattoo parlor and the guy had exactly what I wanted. It was only $7 including the stud to get my nose pierced. At home it’s probably around $20 or something like that…I figured I got a darn good deal. Getting one’s nose pierced does not hurt, course he did put the liquid anesthetic on, but still it wasn’t bad at all. I knew my mother would not be happy about it, she’s very conservative about piercings. Maybe it will grow on her!

A little history about the Nica Cigar Industry…during the Cuban Revolution, all the Cigar Lords moved to Nicaragua to continue their trade. They ended up discovering the valley of Esteli was an ideal growing area for their tobacco plants. It seems like most of the families were about to keep their lands when the Sandinistas swept through seizing property from Somoza and any others who were affiliated with his family. Today, Nicaragua is the 2nd largest exporter of cigars to the U.S. next to the Dominican Republic. Matt had already done this tour with some of the guys from his health group, so he knows the guy who works there and we weren’t charged anything for a tour! There are about 150 employees during busy seasons rolling and pressing cigars, plus hundreds more out in the fields hand picking the leaves and hanging them to dry. The prettiest leaves are saved for the outside layer of the cigar.

After the cigar tour we had late lunch at our favorite Cuban Restaruant in Esteli where you can get a really cheap sandwich for $2. Luckily we able to shove down lunch before Leonel came with his truck and we got a free ride back up to Somoto.

Callie, Mike and I made dinner a couple hours later and then we headed over to the Perro Zompopo concert around the corner from my house at the Hotel Colonial. Perro Zompopo is one of the very few Nica bands that exist and who actually write their own material. Their name is after the geckos that are everywhere in Nica, climbing up every wall of the house and sometimes at night they scare me when they crawl out from underneath a card on my wall! We had our own “gringo table” because Matt and Jess reserved us seats the day before and we ended up sitting a couple tables back from the stage. They played for about an hour and a half, and then we all stuck around to take pictures with them and just hang out. It was fun to talk to the band and catch up with some Somoto friends I hadn’t seen in awhile.

All in all, what an excellent day! Great food, great customer service, great music…drama free - that never happens! It was a very uncharacteristic day for PCVs in Nicaragua to say the least.

P.S. I updated my Wish List finally!

These guys go everywhere in Somoto with each other, BFF

Best friends, best friends...

One of Callie's last weekends in Nicaragua...sad times :(

Getting one's nose pierced doesn't hurt at all

Sorry Mom, too late...damage done!

They also had an ocelot, a beautiful large feline found in Central America

I thought it was cute how the lions had cigars in their mouths as well...it seemed fitting since everyone on their staff was smoking a cigar: the security guard, the cook, the gift shop ppl, etc.

On a normal working day, about 100 workers are rolling cigars and putting them into presses

A cigar press

Thanks Matt for setting up the tour!

Cigars are rolled up and then put into presses

All ready to go and ready for shipping

The leaves are hand picked and hung up individually to dry, then they are hand packed into boxes like this. They then go into the rolling process...

We could barely stand a couple minutes in there...it hurts your lungs so bad!

Look who has also paid a visit...the Govenator

...and Rocky!

Callie found a big one, a couple of those I'm sure will give you lung cancer

Worse taxi-dermied deer head ever, the eyes were real marbles instead of marble eyes...can you say "creepy"

I'm sure my mother is so proud of this picture! Cigar and new nose piercing...you can barely notice it... I know at least my Uncle Mike will get a good laugh out of it!

Ozzy with a good Nica cigar and the national beer Toña, can't get more Nica than that!

The only photo I could get of the band playing

Me (can you say Carrie Bradshaw hair?), Rhythm Guitarist, Dana, Jess, Callie

Sound dude whose chair we stole, Me, Lead Guitarist, Ian (thanks for popping in there), Jess, Dana, Callie, Oswaldo

Me with the Lead Guitarist...totally can't even remember their names, I'll get back to you on that one!

Callie, Lead Guitarist, Me, Jess, Lead Singer, Rhythm Guitarist

The girls with Perro Zompopo!

Dana, Me, Lead Singer, Jess

Ian, Health 46 in Cusmapa, poses with random Nicas

From one artist to another, Matt autographs his CD and gives it to the lead singer of Perro Zompopo...oh yeah my sitemates kick ass!

Yay! I'm actually darker than a Nica! Wicho is my first host mom in Somoto's nephew.

Two weeks after Semana Santa 3 out of my 4 counterparts came with me to Managua for 2 days for a workshop dealing with the material we teach (if you recall we call our curriculum “The Creative Business”). When I signed up for Peace Corps I would have never have thought we would bring our coworkers to workshops! I’m pretty sure most countries do that, but I will ask Elaine, Becca and Terri to see if they do/did that with their coworkers as well. The workshop was a chance for new teachers and their volunteers to receive further training on the hard topics like “Break Even Point” (where you calculate how many products or services you need to sell to cover your fixed costs, therefore “breaking even”…Econ 1A), as well as express frustrations with the program itself. We also did team building exercises and talked about the Competitions we will be having in August through November (Local Competitions to National Competitions). One thing I really got out of the workshop was a deep appreciation for my counterparts! There are psycho counterparts out there and mine are not included in that group!!! Of course I have difficulties with them at times, but nothing compared to what some of my fellow PCVs have to deal with. Thank goodness I was blessed with really great counterparts who care about the material and care about teaching the kids. I think all 3 of my counterparts learned something important and in addition they all participated in the discussions during both days. It was great to see the SBD 47 group, the 13 out of 20 of us that are still left!Quick shout out, thanks to Mom and Dad, and Tim for the care packages, and to Mamow and Jan for letters!

Luis and Brie from the SBD 44 group (they came in 2007) explain the current situation of Nicaragua's businesses and economy in general

My Fabretto counterparts, Gilda and Maria Jose...Brenda from Cusmapa couldn't come because she has a new baby

A training session on different viewpoints...Goggins from my group is in the middle

Emily (2nd boss), Naomie (head trainer) and Georgia (boss) talk about being Pro-Active and nipping problems in the butt...before they get out of hand and ruin work relationships

All of my counterparts participated!

Gilda and Maria Jose with Georgia

You can tell a Nica took this pic

Katie explains how to do the Tangrams, a fun activity for any age

Putting tiles together to make shapes...we call them Tangrams

Lindsay and I wanted so badly to do it for them because we could've done it faster, but it was fun to let them do it on their own.

My counterpart from the Instituto (Public H.S.) Erick

Sam, from Somotillo, and I

Team work is what counts!

Training town buddies!

Emily, our Project Specialist, gives out the Certificates of Participation

Certificates of Participation...with a PC stamp, that is key, or else Nicas consider it to be invalid...nothing in this country without the stamp!

Yes yes I know it’s been over a month since I’ve posted! Sorry Mom, Dad and everyone else! It’s hard to get all the pix downloaded and then write captions on top of that…hell I live in a 3rd world country, give me a break…lol. So, beginning of April I decided to use my birthday and xmas money to spend my Semana Santa (aka Spring Break) in Costa Rica and Panama with my friends Michele and Kristin. Remember Kristin was nice enough to come visit me in Nicaragua and we succeeded in meeting up a month later for some more fun! Both Michele and Kristin studied with me in Chile from June 2006 til December 2006, to this day it still amazes me that I was able to meet up with them. Michele currently teaches English in Costa Rica and the last time I talked to her she really enjoyed her job because she only had to teach intermediate level and not beginning or advanced. In addition, the Costa Rican gov’t has invested a lot of money in English programs so their population can serve the needs and interests of tourists and foreign investors. Maybe one day Nicaragua will have a little extra money to start a program like that, however in the near future that probably won’t be possible. I left Managua on TicaBus (a “luxury” bus…I put it in quotations because the air conditioner didn’t work and there was a hole for a toilet) around 12 noon and made it to San Jose, Costa Rica around 10pm. 10 hours seems really long, but it wasn’t that bad at all and went by quite fast. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m so used to 2-6 hour bus rides as it is, so another 4 hours didn’t seem like anything. The border crossing on the Nica side took forever (surprise surprise!), but it’s nice to take a company like TicaBus across the border because an immigration agent comes to the bus and does everyone’s at once instead of standing in a line. If you cross the border without a bus or vehicle, I think one might be in for a 30 min. dusty and janky walk. Suggestion, spend $24 bucks for the trip to San Jose (one way, so in actuality it was $48 round-trip), it’s worth it! Also on the border you’ll find a ton of people exchanging money, venders, beggars and thieves of course. I met a girl who was living in CR and working as a counselor at a retreat-type rehabilitation clinic for messed up youth. Also a Chechnyan family from Germany, and the daughter was doing her internship at the German embassy in San Jose, CR. We had some laughs at the border about Nica quirks and the differences in between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. I shared my chocolate chips cookies with all of them and they shared a ton of fruit and crackers with me. The best reason ever to make friends on the bus: food sharing! I didn’t know how far away Michele’s house was from the bus station, so I got off early at the airport and got ripped off for a taxi ride…but I made it safe and sound. Note: take TicaBus all the way to terminal then ask taxi if they have a “maria” (or meter) on…if yes then take that one! Her apartment ended up being closer to the bus station than the airport, but I made it there ok and that was all that mattered. Michele and Kristin met me, we went to the apartment and Michele was so nice to make me some quesadillas. Then of course we decided we had to go enjoy our Saturday night! Disfrutéla yah! We went to a mall-style strip of bars and clubs called “El Pueblo” (The Town), did some tequila shots, went dancing…including playing the role of the “crazy gringas” and danced on the stage with the MC. It was good times to say the least and reminded us of our many nights of debauchery in Chile. Tear… The next day we (included in the group was Michele’s awesome roomie Layne) took a bus at 10am (we kind of sprinted there), to get to Puerto Viejo, a 4 hour ride to the southeast coast of CR. Along the way with the Semana Santa traffic we were stopped by a mudslide for an hour or so. While waiting for them to clean it up, I explored the side of the road which presented the edge of the beautiful green and lush rainforest. Even in the “dry” season it is beautiful! Blue butterflies were all over the place, small streams flowed…and guess what…there was no trash on the side of the road to be seen! Unlike it’s neighbor to the north, Costa Rica does a great job of preserving the beauty of the country and educating its citizens. I hate scolding Nicas all the time for throwing trash on the ground, maybe they won’t do it again after I yell at them, but there still needs to be a national campaign. Even when I went to Corn Island there was so much trash lying around! And the sad thing is, it’s not the tourists that leave trash, it’s the locales! Drives me nuts…anyways, props to CR for stepping it up! The mudslide was cleaned up and off we went! Puerto Viejo is one of the few spots on the east coast of Costa Rica that is developed for tourism. The Pacific side of CR is much more developed, aka more expensive too, but we wanted to do the east side for vacation. We stayed at this enormous hostel called Rocking J’s which is right on the beach and looks like a refugee camp. One can rent a hammock for $5 a night, a dorm for $8, pitch a tent for $4, or rent one of the suites. We had made a reservation for a suite, and we ended up getting “The PIMP Suite”…think we were excited, you betcha! I think the hostel can hold up to 250 people or something! We took it easy on the beach and had a simple dinner at a soda (equivalent to a diner)…I had amazing fish for less than $4. Also you will see pictures of the death of a crab we tried so desperately to save…I am an evil person and laughed when it was crushed by the car. If I can get the video on YouTube you will hear my evil witch cackle, sorry I couldn’t help it. The next morning we headed for Bocas del Toro, Panama. The bus for the border left before 7am, which put us at the border around 8:30ish. Getting out of CR is easy, getting into Panama was a headache! I was told I had to have a return ticket from CR to Nicaragua, not a ticket showing I was leaving Panama! Basically at the border they can rip off backpackers because usually they can’t prove that they are “leaving” Panama…lame I tell you. So, if you go to Panama, print off a fake plane ticket showing you are flying out of Panama City within the 90 day limit you have in the country. If you don’t, then you buy their rip-off crappy bus ticket for $11 bucks, plus if you are a U.S. or Canadian Citizen you have to buy another lame “Tourist Card”…because “well, the U.S. charges $100 to Panameños”, oh good job, so you get $5 off us (way to stick it to us!). Yes I am still bitter about it, especially after explaining I technically have a Nica citizen card. Since I was traveling on a U.S. Passport, I was still subject to the Card fee…Peace Corps Panama does not have to pay that fee and they are on U.S. Passports, sadly I gave up arguing and just paid it. I did manage quite a few Spanish swear words in there though…my Spanish is awesome when I’m pissed! Anyways, did I mention the eastern border is a creepy bridge and we all thought we would fall through the cracks of the boards!? We all made it in one piece though! On the other side are guys hustling tourists into mini-vans charging ridiculous gringo prices like $14 a person for a 40 min. ride to the port. The cheapest way to get to the port is to take a bus from the border, then another one to the port, which would equal about $2. We negotiated $6 per person to the port, and then it’s a set price of $4 for the boat one way. Bocas del Toro (Mouths of the Bull) is a clump of islands in Panama and is the first tourist destination one hits when crossing from the eastern side of CR. After waiting forever for the boat to fill up, we were finally on our way to Isla Colon, the main island of Bocas del Toro. We were lucky to get to the hostel Mondo Taitu and find that they had 4 beds available! No one was accepting reservations when we had tried the week before because it was a holiday week, and thank goodness we found spots so easily. It ended up being cheaper than we were anticipating, only $10 a night…not bad for Semana Santa. We dumped our packs in our room and headed out to Aqua Lounge, a bar/hostel right on the water. One takes a $1 water taxi ride to get out there and it is definitely well worth it! We sunned and had Cristal, one of Panama’s national beers, we jumped into the warm and very clear ocean. I picked up the spiky star fish, as you see here Layne had me pose with it on my face…hee hee. The next couple days we caught up with Michele and Layne’s coworkers (Mark, Andrew and Casey) and went to various beaches, went dancing where there was Ladies’ Night (aka free liquid courage) and had ourselves a damn good time! Bocas del Toro is best known for its beautiful beaches and nightlife…warning to travelers who don’t like gringolandia (Foreigner Land), don’t come to Bocas if you don’t want to be surrounded by a ton of them. There are always a ton of Israelis and they always have hookah…hence I always bum some off them…good times and apple flavor is yum. The 2nd night at Bocas we had 80s Night Power Hour, so we put our side pony tails on and had our shot glasses in hand. For those of you who don’t know, Power Hour is when you take 1 shot of beer for every minute of one hour. Sorry Mom, I know I’m talking about partying, but that is what Spring Break is about and I never get to party in my site. If you haven’t experienced Power Hour or Century Club (100 shots in 100 minutes), make a fiesta out of it! Driving through the parts of CR and Panama that I saw, one can definitely see the difference in the level of poverty that is present in these countries in comparison to Nicaragua. Granted, I work in Cusmapa the 2nd poorest part of Nica…so I really see the worse of the worse. But most houses appeared to be constructed of concrete and have tin roofs, even in the poorest parts, instead of adobe huts with thatched roofs. I had a great time with the girls and I can’t wait to go visit Michele again! I have a feeling Kristin will be back down to visit me soon…maybe as soon as September!!! Eso espero! Thank you so much to Michele and Layne for hosting me, to the boys for the amazing despedida dinner, and to Kristin for helping organize another successful adventura (desde 2006).

Waiting for the rock slide to get cleaned up...

Buses are nicer in Costa Rica!

I told ya it was called the Pimp Suite!

I love swimming in the Atlantic!

Save the crab!

Still alive...

But not for long! Poor guy...oh well it's called natural selection...

Crossing the janky Costa Rican border into Panama

The boat ride was 40 min

Just a cool old ship I took a picture of

Bocas del Toro!

Aqua Lounge, the bar/hostel right on the water!

A starfish tried to digest my face!

You can have a beer and jump off the dock into the ocean...it was heaven.

Layne demonstrates the ridiculous size of the bugs

After trying to get a sandwich from the truck without chicken, Layne had to settle for chips the first night.

First full day we went to Isla Bastimento

Pose, pose pose!

Clear waters and the beaches didn't have a single piece of trash! Very different from Nica!

Harvesting coconuts...it never gets old

Kristin is a veteran coconut-opener

The feet come in handy when pulling the fibers off

Layne models how to drink coconut milk...

A turtle I made in the sand

That is as artistic as I get

Spring Break 2009!

The moon up high on Isla Colon

"Panama...ah ah ah": we all kept singing that Van Halen song!

Before Power Hour! The dude in the black shirt (Tanner) is from Truckee and went to H.S. with Dick Hess, small world!

Me, Michele, Katie, Alyssa

The beginning of Power Hour!

Some people got really into dressing up

Side ponies!

Kristin, did you drink all of that!?

These types of boats are the ones that take you to different islands

We saw dolphins!

A nurse shark that was enclosed in a cage at the restaurant we were at...poor guy!

A wrapper was blown into the water so Andrew was the epitome of socially responsible and got it out using a large piece of bamboo that was lying around

Mission accomplished! Good work Layne and Andrew!

Red Frog beach, sadly we didn't see any Poison Dart Frogs

Ladies Night at Aqua Lounge!

Some girl was doing sit-ups during the party, so some of us joined her by showing off our favorite exercises: Alyssa with jumping jacks, Layne with lunges, and Andrew with push-ups. The girl stopped after we sort of made fun of her...heehee

Blondes have more fun!

Playa Drago, very still water on the north shore of Isla Colon

Casey proves the fact that "Americans always carry small, obscure instruments with them when they travel"...the ukelali added to the beach mood

There is one spot on the beach that is covered with starfish

Great pic of the 4 of us

Last day in Panama!

Casey, Mark, Michele, Me

Good call on bringing the frisbee Layne! Cheap and free entertainment!

Even the dog from Rocking J's wanted to play

The night before Easter, we were waiting for the clubs to open up at midnight. On Good Friday and the Saturday before Easter Sunday, one cannot buy alcohol anywhere...it's against the law.

Like I said, it looks like a refugee camp

Punta de Uva (Grape Point) in Puerto Viejo

A homage to our Chile girls were weren't able to make it this time: Tracy, Nishma, Mack Dawg, and Arielle

Message to my family and friends!

Always have to have at least 1 jumping picture!

Casey showed us up!

We rode around on beach cruisers the last day, it was great exercise

The last night of our vacation in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica it rained...Casey and Mark pose with some crazy kid from Sac Town who went to Suck State

The Costa Rican national slogan: "Pura Vida" (Just Life! Like a reminder to just go with the flow)

On the bus ride back we entertained ourselves by doing the Night at the Roxbury head bob to "What is Love"

March also marked the celebration for the Anniversary of the death of Padre Fabretto up in the mountains of Cusmapa. In Nicaragua you try to celebrate as many peoples' deaths as you can possibly remember. I've already lost count of how many people I've met and who have died during my service, it's alot more than home put it that way. For the celebration the town had a feria (Fair) and a King & Queen Fabretto competition amongst the highschoolers. At first they were only going to do a Queen, but Lauren and Callie pointed out that it should be a competition for both sexes and not an "exposition" of young girls.

Some of our highschoolers also wanted to particpate in the fair selling their wares. One group made cookies, another made popcorn balls, the boys had their fresco (juice) stand, and we also had their knitted items out. The night before I helped Lauren with the kids and we baked and cooked for a good 3 hours. I taught the cookie group how to read a recipe and follow the instructions (including the meaning of amounts of ingredients), and they turned out pretty good. Lauren made a point to the kids that they should only use ingredients that they can find in Cusmapa. In addition, we made them calculate their costs and estimated earnings to arrive at their Equilibrium point (where you sell enough to cover your costs). This was a good opportunity for my students to continue to practice the basic skills they had learned last year during their competition. The fair lasted all day and the kids sold most of their items, except for the knitted items. The interesting thing was that none of the families that "have money" (or extra money to spend is better to say) showed up to the fair. It was a community event, but many do not come to mingle with their "riff-raff" neighbors...pretty ridiculous in my opinion.

Making cookies! Oatmeal raisin and plain oatmeal.

Yum!

Lauren writes down all the ingredients and the total cost.

Memo and Eric were being "hams" as my mother would say.

The kids showed me their jumproping skills...I shared mine as well.

Gieselle has the biggest smile out of anyone!

Jump around! Jump around!

Popcorn balls: there were 4 other groups that sold them too. The girls got a little discouraged, but managed to sell quite a few.

Rigoberto claims to have made this purse...we think he had alot of help from his mama since she is the one who crochetes and Rigo can only knit. He's a great knitter don't get me wrong! A+ for creativity!

Making frescos with a variety of fruits: watermelon, canteloupe, pinapple, and orange.

The girls man their table and we worked on customer service skills. "Thank your customer", "Advertise your product"...I probably sounded like a broken record at the end of the day...

Our fresco boys! Great sign and they did it all by themselves!

The knitting group, who also sold enchiladas (Nica style: fried tortilla with cabbage and some cheese, topped off with some "spicy" vinagre mix)

Popcorn ball girls, who got sad they weren't selling and left their booth for long periods of time. Sometimes we had to chase them down!

Cookies? Galletas?

Cusmapa Knitters

They had 3 tents set up to shield the sellers and patrons from the sun.

Padre Fabretto: 19 years since your departure, Cusmapa remembers you!

Marlon (english teacher in Cusmapa) and Jorge (music assistant) were in charge of the tunes.

The view from outside the tents.

The bus station converted into the main stage.

This girl wrote an essay about the Padre all by herself, she is one of Lauren's students.

Selwin, one of my 2nd year highschoolers, won King Fabretto...he is one of those very happy, excited, talks too loud and I have to tell him that I hear him just fine!

So what did we do with the extra juice? We bought it, poured an entire liter of Ron Plata in it, and made the closest thing in Nicaragua to Maverick Juice.

Fun picture of me!

Callie took this one of Ozzy, very artistic!

Did I mention that I'm teaching myself how to play trombone? The kids were watching me through the trees and then I went over a blasted them! They thought it was hilarious!

This is the place where Ozzy spit, right in front of the walkway...I then proceeded to scold him for spitting in the same spot where people walk, and then he responded that it was fine because he spit outside. Mike cleared up the entire situation by making a sign that says "Careful/Caution"...dios mio!

Callie and Ozzy before the concert at the church where I had my debut performance on trombone in the song "One Love" with the Cusmapa choir.

Streets of Cusmapa....

"I have often walked, down this street before...but the payment always stayed beneath my feet before..."

Mike looks at the Catholic Church in Cusmapa...aka the only social highlight for women.

This little piggy when to market...

Livestock wandering the streets is not a rare sight.

Mike who do you see?

Chavalos! aka Children!

More Chavalos!

I forgot to mention they had cock fights to celebrate the weekend as well.

Love this Callie face!

Mike and Pablo, our new Spanish dude, watch the barbaric sport.

I really don't like chickens, but I still feel bad for them that they are used for killing to the death! Makes me ill.

I took this picture to show the male dominance of the sport...one female (not including the gringas) out of 50 men.

Yummy barbarque!

The spectators try to catch a glimpse at the "bull riding"...why do I put it in quotes? Because they were female cows that didnt buck or do anything! Poor girls!

Pablo enjoys his barbarque, Nica style!

After vacation I had to go back to Granada for the Agriculture-Business Workshop, so Freddy, Byron and I took the 6am bus to Managua and were picked up by a Peace Corps contracted bus to take us directly to Granada. It's so nice when I don't have to take a taxi!We had 2 days of workshops and then a exposition fair which showed some of the newest Agriculture technology, introduced us to Micro-finance institutions and was a great time in general to network around. I think Freddy and Byron got something out of the workshops, for example they are excited to start up a community bank and maybe even construct a biodigestor in Cusmapa. Also, they want to make a barrel oven to harvest smoke fertilizer...I'm not sure how that works yet but I'll get back to you on it. Why did we have the workshop? Well, since food security is a huge topic right now, and the next Business Group that is coming in May will also be accompained by the new Agriculture Group...PC Nicaragua is trying to make stronger connections with the Ag and Biz sectors. Smart! Also, it was a great time to share ideas within the two sectors and across the different departments (areas). Networking is never a waste of time in my book! Speaking of Agro-Biz, hopefully I will be working with another counterpart to help a coffee coorperative in Las Sabanas to write their business plan and help them get business basics down. More to come on that subject after Semana Santa (Holy Week, aka Vacation!) Biowaste solutions: a washer, toliet, and biodigestor

This biodigestor uses cow poo and water to create methane gas to power a cooktop.

Coworkers Freddy and Byron attended the event with me in Granada and Managua. I think they learned something from it!

Solar ovens, I remember making these in frosh tech. The bag is on of those Reynolds oven bags.

Freddy and Byron listen to the solar oven explaination.

A livestock grain mixer, it mixes vitamins and whatever grain the farmers use. In my area, most livestock don't receive feed and are left to graze on the few blades of grass left during the dry season. The attitude: "well, they'll just get fat again during the rainy season"

A molido, or mill, is used to grind grains or corn. I see them most used for grinding corn for tamales and pinol.

Another molido, I wasn't sure why these were better than the others I've seen. Supposedly made of better quality materials...whatev...

Freddy checking out the agriculture equipment.

Coffee toaster, I think they said it cost around $1,000 (U.S. Dollars).

Water pumps or "bombas", these wouldn't work in my area because we don't have enough river water to go around. Other parts of the country can utilize these for most of the year.

This bomba can irrigate up to 4 manzanas (I think that's what I heard), which is 12 acres I think?

The water, supplied by a river or stream, acts as the motor and then it can pump the water to the fields.

Lindsey sells her community's (Cinco Pinos) jams and canned veggies.

Brie and her counterpart sell beeswax candles, from the department of León.

Lindsay checks out the coffee products from San Rafael del Norte, where another member from our group Patrick lives. In the background is his counterpart.

Patrick's counterparts and their coffee.

This coffee project is sponsored by USAID (United States Agency for International Development), whose signs can be seen everywhere in Nicaragua.

My boss Georgia makes some purchases and then called me "pinche" (cheap) because I didn't buy anything...I had no money left from my vacation in Corn Island and Granada!

Solar panel made by a women's group in Nueva Segovia. Nikki works with them.

The Peace Corps table presenting the different programs that Peace Corps Nicaragua offers.

Mission statement of Peace Corps Nicaragua.

Water filters, only $21 that can rid Nicaraguans' drinking water of parasites, amoebas, worms, and other harmful external agents in the water supply.

The water is filtered through a clay pot and presto, cleaner and healthier drinking water. We have these in the Fabretto houses.

Various water supply parts.

Another molido...

Pump demonstration with sprinkler.

The Eco-Fogon, a cooktop that uses less wood to make heat and in addition has a chimney to pass harmful smoke out of the house. ($99)

Notice it's a barrel with metal legs and an iron top.

Another Eco-Fogon, also uses less wood and it multiuseful with it's flat service instead of having 2 holes to put pots or pans.

Inside are bricks and sand, it helps keep the heat in.

The Eco-Fogon poster which shows the various styles.

They also make better ovens for baking!

Shows their efforts to reforest Nicaragua since about 70% of the population still uses wood as a cooking fuel.

Also at the fair were Micro-Finance organizations; Freddy, Byron and I used this opportunity to find out how we could help our student groups get more funding/loans.

Bayardo (The Agriculture Volunteers' Boss) gives out certificates to the participants. Dale pues Freddy!

Good job Byron! Bien hecho!

Team Somoto, notice how professional I am dressed. I dress nicely ALL the time, fijense!

Thank you to Mom and Dad for the packages, Gina for a package, letters and cards, Amanda for letters, Mamow for letters, and Jan for letters.

This is an article about Carlos Fernando Chamorro, member of one of the most famous Nicaraguan families. His mother was president in 1990, beating out the Sandinistas and becoming Nicaragua's first female president. In addition, the article talks about current Nica gov't censorship on the press, as well as political actions of current president Daniel Ortega. Take 15 minutes and read because it will give a little insight to the current politics and policies of the modern Sandinista gov't (remember FSLN is the acronym for the Sandinistas).

The Chamorros, a Nicaraguan journalism dynasty

At any time during service there is a chance that a country's program will get canceled due to unrest. Herein lies the case of Madagascar:

http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.media.press.view&news_id=1437

She lives! I greatly apologize for the delay in photos and stories...February was a crazy crazy month and March has proved to be the exact same. I had my camera stolen in February, which also helps explain for a lack of photos :( However, my parents sent a new one down with my friends who came to visit me. Thank you so much mom and dad!!!

February marked the start of school, so I have 6 classes at the public school which is located on the opposite side of Somoto from Fabretto's Somoto Oratorio. I work Tuesday through Friday at the public school, the rest of the time in between the classes is spent in the Somoto Oratorio (remember that is the NGO). At the public school I see each class for 1.5 hours one time a week, with 4 classes in the morning and 2 classes in the afternoon, spread throughout the week. It's exhausting with 40+ kids in a small classroom but I'm confident they will learn something this year. More to come and lots of pictures of these kids!

The intent of this post is to put up some pictures so everyone knows I'm alive, I am writing about my adventures in more detail for the next post...basically everything will be the abridged version at this moment. Don't worry, I have so many more pix to post to accompany the stories!

More exciting for me was a vacation with some girlfriends who studied abroad with me in Chile, way back in 2006. Kristin flew in first and I picked her up at the airport, then we took a bus back up north to party it up in Esteli for 2 days before Nishma and Arielle came in. We went out and partied with some Nicas, drank some fabulous Flor de Caña 7 year rum, and hiked to Estanzuela Falls nearby. It was great to salsa it up again and we had fond memories of our salsa class at the Universidad de Chile with our gay Cuban teacher.

Kristin and I on the bus up to Esteli! Start of an adventure!

The hike was pretty easy...

Kristin strikes a pose on the trail!

We didn't have to walk up one of the big hills thank goodness!

Behind Kristin lies Esteli

The falls weren't at their full power since we are in the dry season, but still pretty nonetheless.

I braved the chilly water, it felt nice.

Nishma and Arielle flew in 2 days later and Kristin and I traveled back to the airport to fetch them, to then fly off to Corn Island on the Atlantic side. I have a whole other story for this that involves Arielle freaking out and me thinking "thanks Nicaragua for once again messing things up".

Boarding passes...they are very hard to get apparently, even if you have a little thing called a reservation!

Corn Island here we come! Shot of Big Corn.

Merriment in the 12 person plane, though I thought we were going to crash...what is it with me and being paranoid in small planes?

The one beautiful day (out of 3) that we were able to enjoy few winds and a gorgeous ocean.

Arielle and Nishma with our new friend Minnow, the dog owned by Carlos the hostel owner. In Arielle's hand is part of a water bottle we used for drinking homemade Nica Libres.

What to do on an island? Pick coconuts and eat them!

Dale pues Kristin!

The one beautiful sunset we got to enjoy.

The view 10 ft. from the front of our cabaña. $40 a night, couldn't beat it!

Just keep swimming swimming swimming...

EAP Chile 2006 reunited...but still missing Michele, Tracy and Mack Dawg

How lucky to get 4 out of the original 7 together!?

Peel that coco! It's harder than it looks actually!

The Dutch are everywhere? Why can't I run into Priya then? (Priya is my Dutch friend!)

So after Corn Island we headed off to Granada after our plans were foiled to go to Ometepe Island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. But things always happen for a reason I guess...we stayed at Hostel Oasis in downtown Granada (Dad remember, I'm talking about Granada and not Grenada which is an island. Granada is a colonial city of Nicaragua.) for 2 nights. The first day we were there we were recovering from a long travel day from Corn Island and having some tea and coffee when a nice girl asked to sit down with us. Turns out, our new friend Stephanie was studying abroad in Costa Rica and was at the hostel with the 3 others in her group and their study abroad "director". Turns out, they had a truck to drive everywhere...so we were able to ride around with them and hit 4 major tourist spots in less than 10 hours. We had a great time and we thank them a million times over for bringing us along!

First we hit up the Masaya Volcano...from the left, the girls, new friends: Ryan, Don, Court and Steph.

Arielle you aren't the shortest!

Why do chicks love Jesus? Or, "the hills are alive..."

Nice pose as always Nish!

Janksters! That one is for you Mack Dawg!

They have quite a few rangers at the volcano, very good to see!

Next...Laguna de Apoyo

This shot reminds me of Van Halen's "Jump"

With my 3 partners in crime!

Teaching the eastcoasters about the "Thizz Dance"

She was just in a posing mood that day...

Again the Fab 4!

This is Court's modeling "look"...Blue Steel was already taken...

Try to catch me Ride n' Dirty! Arielle's hair mixed with mine.

More truck shots! Thanks Jon for the bruises on my nalgas (he hit a couple hard bumps, more than one let's just say)

Boat ride in the Granada Isletas!

The Isletas, or Little Islands, are privately owned by various people and you can see how nice some of them are. Some vacation here, some actually live on their little island, some rent it out, depends. The islands are located right off Granada in Lake Nicaragua. It's sad how dirty the water is, but it was still gorgeous.

Got some good sun! I'm a couple shades tanner!

Another fancy house bridging 2 islands!

Gives a little bit of an idea of the variety of sizes.

The guide also took us to see the resident monkeys! One just came abroad and hung out for a bit! It looked through my bag, climbed on Arielle, violated Nishma and wrapped it's tail around Kristin.

She was laughing really hard!

Volcano Mombacho, which we didn't get to visit, but it was very pretty in the distance around sunset.

Thanks again to Jon, Court, Steph, Don and Ryan!

We then headed up north so the girls could see Somoto. Mike made us a great dinner and then the next day we just chilled out in town. On Monday we went to the famous Cañon de Somoto!

Work it, work it!

Before getting to the Cañon, you have to hike a bit!

Wow factor #2, as Matt my sitemate describes it.

Kristin "borrowed" an innertube so some of our stuff wouldn't get wet in the crossing.

Thanks to Kristin, Nishma and Arielle for coming to visit me and bringing me lots of goodies! I miss you girls so much! Thank you also to Mom and Dad for sending me replacement stuff that got stolen, to Jan and Mamow for more letters, and to Priya for sending me a card!

Happy late Bday to Greg, the World's Tallest Leprechaun!

Later this week: Stories from my vacation, Agriculture-Business Workshop, the School Year in general, and future plans.

I know I haven't posted anything lately, but I want to pass along Callie's most recent post (Fijense, I said "pass"):

http://callienicaragua.blogspot.com/2009/02/nicaraguan-health-care-where-hospitals.html

Because I work with the Ministry of Education aka the Nicaraguan Government, I cannot express certain viewpoints in this blog. In the past, there have been PC programs that have been shut down because PCVs went too far to share their opinions in a public forum. I can, however, pass information on to my readers and allow them to be the judges.

This week I met with my new counterpart and he seems cool so far. He's my age and doesn't put up with crap from the kids. I also moved into a new room with a new host family! They are the sweetest old couple, in their late 80s, and already in 3 days I've heard the phrase "During the U.S. occupation..." aka so awesome to get to hear some great stories (from the 1930s and on)!!! This weekend I'll post the pictures from San Juan del Sur and Dayana's 15th Bday.

Please read the following articles in my post!

"Obama repeals funding ban"

And this is exactly why I voted for Obama, to repeal very bad decisions by a closed-minded and obviously Christian-based Bush Administration. The NGO I work for does not allow us to talk about safe sex, condoms, STIs, or birth control options. The teachers are only allowed to give classes on the rhythm method and abstinence, because why?...a major donor is a Catholic organization. These people have traveled and worked in the same poor communities as I do daily, yet they do not understand that even though they send food, clothes, and supplies, they are blocking this children from receiving a sex-education that is desperately needed to help the community rise from poverty. All they do is put a band-aid on the problem until the kids reach puberty and then we see 3 out of 4 girls in Cusmapa pregnant by age 15. Now, I see this system continue to cycle this problem, yet they keep teaching abstinence because if the teachers refuse, funding gets cut.

Now imagine a government giving aid only to foreign programs who teach abstinence only to poverty and AIDS stricken nations! That's exactly what the Bush Administration did for 8 years! What I see happening in the mountains of Nicaragua was happening all over Africa and Latin America, and yet were there any improvements to the communities...my guess is NOPE! Thank you Obama for cutting off this horrible ban that my tax dollars were supporting for almost a decade.

An article about Nicaragua's recent change (in 2006) in law to inact a blanket ban on abortion.

Also in the news last week, which made Callie and I scream with delight, was the Presidential Order to close Guantanamo Bay. After all the

Here is another great article by Human Rights Watch, I would recommend that everyone become familiar with this NGO's website and news briefs as well:

U.S. Makes Steps to End Torture

Maybe next in the news we'll see ratification of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) or the Kyoto Protocol, since no administration has had the "cojenes" to sign either of them (in the case of the ICESCR, every administration since Carter has refused to take the issue to Congress). If you need a reminder on any of these International agreements, google search or wikipedia it for quick reference.

So, these among other things, were reasons why I voted for Obama. I knew he would make drastic changes like these and he is following through! Last week I got to watch the concert for Obama, as well as the inauguration, on our crappy cable network we have. The concert was luckily not dubbed too bad, and when Garth Brooks came on and sang "We Shall Be Free" I started to cry. Not only has the song's message ALWAYS had an impact on me, but it gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. I was sad no one else was home to watch the big inauguration day with me, but it was probably better they didn't have to watch me cry again. I was just so happy that there was hope that things would change in the U.S. and that that change would diffuse to the entire world. My favorite two quotes were:

"This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions -- that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America."

"And so, to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more."

Ok, sorry Mom that was my political announcement for the day, I know you want to hear more about what I'm doing. Next post will be filled with pictures from Dayana's 15th birthday (Quincinera) and my trip to San Juan del Sur this weekend!

Thank you Jan and Mamow for sending me mail!

Ahhh, 2009 has come to greet me in Nicaragua, it will definitely be a New Years to remember for years to come. I celebrated with the Cano Family in Ciudad Sandino, just outside of Managua. It's a bigger city than Somoto, but dirt roads are very common in the center of town meaning it's not quite as developed as Ocotal or Esteli which are cities near me in the north. The celebration started around 7pm with a dinner at Fatima's house, a family friend in town. Dinner was supposed to be served at 7:30pm, but we didn't have it till almost 10pm! I was starving, even though I had cooked lasagna for the Canos for lunch around 2pm. I was a good guest and brought a bottle of 7 yr. old Flor de Cana rum and it was probably gone within 40 min. The Nicas I was with definitely like to party hard! The kids and I were kind of bored and we danced a little bit, the adults were dancing like crazy and finding their inner-childhood I guess.

After Fatima's we went over to Amelia's sister's house on the other side of town to continue the merriment and dancing. I was taking in the scene and was in a more pensive state rather than a wild party mood. The reggaeton or bachata music was up loud in EVERY household, fireworks (the bottle rocket, cherry bomb type, aka bomb sounding ones) are going off right and left, hanging from the trees are pinatas and scarecrows. The scarecrows were the representation of the "old year" and they are stuffed with firecrackers and gasoline. At midnight, the old men are burned to signify the ending of the old year. I was looking around the entire time for a house fire to start, but I guess that wouldn't be possible with a tin roof and a concrete structure, right?

I was bored around 11pm, so I bought the kids some fireworks and we lit off sparklers and little fireworks. The entire celebration made up for not having 4th of July fireworks this year. We danced until 3:30am and finally the kids convinced Freddy and Amelia to go home. They didn't want to leave! For my first New Year's away from home, it was a blast!

Vera takes her turn at the piñata, it surprisingly lasted longer than 5 min and I think about 10 kids got to hit it. That's a record!

This is probably my favorite picture of me in Nica! Who would turn down a super-sized roman candle and a Toña?

The firework that cost me 4 Cords or 20 cents.

Dayana, even at 14 years of age, loved the fireworks! I thought she might be too cool for them...but I was wrong!

I'm not sure what kind of look this is, but it's funny.

The kids had nothing to do! A pack of sparklers was less than a dollar, I had to buy some. Turned out to be a great idea and everyone had alot of fun with them!

Vera wrote me down as one of her friends in her new "Me and My Friends" book I gave her for Christmas. How cute is that?

Really cute fluffy cat named Sam...who I later found out died 2 days later from eating a poisoned rat...sadness!

Hombre Viejo (The old man) who represents the old year...he was burned!

Freddy Jr. and I at one of the Cano's friends' house.

Dancing the night away with Allan, a family friend and high school teacher.

The Cano Family: Amelia, Freddy Jr. Dayana, Don Freddy, Vera

Dayana didn't smile in this picture :(

Freddy Jr. and I

The Cano family's cat Deborah gets a bath from Vera...she wasn't very happy.

The following pictures are ones from various parties in which I was paraded off as the "white" relative of the family. They were very proud to show me off! I met about 30 family members and probably 40 family friends and was invited to a whole bunch of celebrations throughout the year. I'm so happy no one asked me to be the godmother of their child, though I heard through the grapevine that one of the cousins was going to ask me. That would be nice, but problematic since the godparents are the ones who "spoil" the kids...I don't think that would be a good role for me to take on. I see disappointment in the future with accepting a title like that!

A family get together at a neighbor's house on the 30th of Dec.

Me writing thank you notes, which should be getting to everyone in a couple of weeks. I need to bring a rocking chair back with me to the states!

Alejandra, the birthday girl and Vera's godsister, who's party was on the 2nd of January.

I drug Allan's son Jorge out on the dancefloor...I swear he was happier than he looks in this picture!

Give a group of Nicas a can of Pringles and they can be entertained for hours! The following pictures are what happened when I showed them how two Pringles can make a duck beak...which I can not be credited for originality, it was the Pringles commerical when we were kids that showed us how to do it. After demonstrating the Pringle duck, there was humorous quacking that lasted for about 2 hours at a birthday party!

Fatima, a family friend, was the first one to find it hilarious...then everyone else followed suit.

Allan's new name is Donald Duck

Here Amelia was portraying Daisy Duck

The mother of Donald Duck

Dayana had no shame to show off her bill as well.

When I arrived to the airport on the 29th, I went straight to Ciudad Sandino to visit my "adopted Nica Family" aka Don Freddy's family (the Canos). Before I left for the states they invited me to come and spend New Years with them so I wouldn't be alone in Somoto. I would have found something to do in Somoto, but I figured it was better to try a new place and hang out with the Canos. The next day they took me to Xiloa, a volcanic lake (we call it a laguna) nearby. It was a beautiful 80 degree day and perfect swimming weather! I was so excited to go swimming! Surprisingly the water was pretty clean and I even gave the girls swimming lessons. It was so nice of the Canos to invite me into their home and take me on a trip with them. They are a rare find in Nicaragua, a family who does everything together despite a modest living.

The first lifeguard tower I have seen in Nica! They are only there during the busy times like holidays.

There are little huts you can sit under to enjoy the view and have a picnic.

Another shot of the laguna

And another...

You can see the old parts of the volcano all around.

From the left, me, Vera (11 yrs. old), Freddy Jr. (18), and Dayana (14)

We did the "ok kids, now you can get thrown off Katie's shoulders", I've always been the "base" person ever since I could lift my sister up.

Dayana and I

Teaching the girls how to float, very important!

Almost a chicken fight, but more just a pose for the camera

I even got Freddy Jr. to get on my shoulders, the kid only weighs 125 lbs or so!

Relaxing under one of the huts.

Shot of the group

Another pretty shot of the laguna

Another cute shot with the Cano kids.

Vera had alot of fun taking pictures with my camera, I let her go nuts with it

One of the nearby mountains at sunset, I love the clouds so much here!

“It may be that the satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I’ve gone and come back, I’ll find it at home” – Rumi The flight from Managua left at 7:30am and we got to Houston around 10am or so. I then had a 7 hour layover! Ugh! So, as soon as I got off I went straight to the newsstand to buy a Cosmo and a Wine Enthusiast, I couldn’t have been happier! Then a couple minutes later I found Auntie Anne’s Pretzels, where I indulged in a pretzel (duh) with some nacho cheese sauce. Yum to say the least! My gate was pretty far away (Houston is huge!) so I took a seat and took time to enjoy my new magazines. The Wine magazine got a huge interesting looks, I’m sure people were wondering why a 24-year-old girl in holey jeans, a bleached out shirt and flip-flops was reading about wine! Might I mention that I was also carrying around an ugly bright green bag with pottery in it, so among the Louis Vuittons and Chanel bags I looked kinda pathetic. I finally got bored and went out to find the bar I had passed earlier. It was such a relief to be around people speaking English, people who were taller than me, the sound of the football game on the TV and I especially did not feel like anyone with the chromosomes XY wanted “something else”…if you catch my drift. I ordered a Fat Tire and a bacon cheeseburger (it would’ve been more American if I had ordered a Sierra Nevada) and watched the Titans lose to the Texans! Haha Mike’s team lost! I talked to some nice people and they were interested about me being in the Peace Corps and about Nicaragua, so that felt good to know that maybe the general public continued to support President Kennedy’s dream. Finally the flight came and I arrived to Sac Town to cold cold rain! I guess I brought the rain with me! I hope this year we get plenty, last year was just pathetic. Thank you Mom and Dad for flying me home, it was the best Birthday and Christmas present ever! Luckily they brought me a sweatshirt to put on as soon as I got off the plane freezing in my sandals and sad shirt. It was crazy that just 8 months ago it was May and I was leaving for Nicaragua. Here I was again at the airport back at home…it was one of those surreal moments of life. It’s cliché, but time does fly by really fast! Before I know it will be July 2010 and I will have completed my service. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but living in Nicaragua and being in the PC has made me miss home, my family, my friends, for the first time in my life. I think when I studied abroad in Chile I didn’t miss home because it felt like I was always on vacation. In Somoto, I truly live and work there. The ride home in the car felt like a dream and I jabbered away with Mom and Dad about the trip and life in general. I can’t describe how great it felt to step inside the house and walk on soft carpet again, sit in front of the gas fireplace, watch TV in English, take a hot bath, and sleep in my queen sized bed. Just picturing these things in my head makes me miss home right now. My sister did remind me when I was home that I can always come back whenever I want and that no one would think badly of me. I love her for telling me that, it helps put me at ease and affirm the fact there is no real pressure for me to be in Nicaragua…I am here because I want to be. Later when I talk about my time in Ciudad Sandino I will come back to this theme. Being home calmed my mind and soul and put me in the Christmas spirit. It’s hard to get into the spirit when the weather in Somoto is an average of 82 degrees with humidity. To put on my UGs and my peacoat again to shield me from the cold felt amazing! The rain in Nicaragua is so different; it’s a humid and hot rain that comes rolling in whenever it feels like it. I can feel the high pressure before the rain comes, but I can’t smell it. At home in California I can smell it. I miss the changing of the seasons, especially when summer turns to fall. Maybe I attribute that time of year to some great memories of football games, homecomings, golf seasons and the red/orange splash of colors. It was so great to reconnect with family and friends for 2 straight weeks. Sometimes I was stressed out because plans changed and I had to cut some time out of “visiting hours” with some of you. At the least, I’d like to thank the following people for making my time at home very meaningful and very hard to leave: -Mom and Dad, for taking Gina and I to San Francisco for shopping, eating, and Phantom of the Opera, for flying me home for 2 weeks, for the great new wardrobe and other presents, and for hopefully forgiving me for being unnecessarily overly dramatic at times. -Gina, for all the great xmas presents that I use all the time now, for being a great sister who I laugh with and quote movies back and forth. -Mamow, for inspiring me to always keep faith, a positive attitude, and keep busy, no matter what age. -Nana, for hanging in there and singing xmas carols with me. -Aunt Anne/Uncle Mike, for the great beer and being the life of the party as always. -Aunt Judy/Uncle Bruce, for the See’s candy and cookies that I ate on the plane and for spending time with me. -Jan and Doug Brown, for taking me to a super yummy lunch at Lucille’s (I’m craving a pulled pork sandwich right now), listening to my crazy Nica stories, and sending me back with goodies. -Rosine, for being my best friend, taking me out to lunch, buying me See’s candy, and sending me back with some useful and yummy xmas gifts. -Greg, for spending lots of time with me and sharing xmas with my family. -Danie (and Millie), for our Sex and the City slumber party, Cosmos, and pizza! -John, for taking me to the wine bar and out to a really great Mexican dinner, and of course for making me laugh like always. -James, for giving me really big hugs for the 2 short times I got to see him, and the See’s candy. -Natalie, for lunch at Cheesecake Factory and for being a patient listener. -Chad, for calling me back when I was an emotional mess and a great conversation about life. -Kimmy, for a great haircut that will grow out really well for the next 19 months! -Allison, for the yummy cookies and the hour of catching up in Sac Town. -Sarah and June Lehmann, for stopping by the house to spend some time with me. “Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” (Thank you.) – Marcel Proust Another interesting difference between my two homes, I dream so vividly and clearly in Nicaragua, but when I was home I didn’t dream at all. Sometimes I’ll have I’m still confused about what it means! Is the reason because I am always meditating in deeper thoughts in Nicaragua when I have nothing else to do? Am I more stressed out? If anyone has any other hypotheses about my dreaming, let me know! I left early in the am on the 29th, and I didn’t cry until getting into the security line…probably a mistake because they looked at me like I was some sort of psycho! Luckily I sat down across from a nice girl from Yuba City and she started talking to me which helped me calm down. It’s funny how a complete stranger can help one forget a moment of sadness. I think I was sad because I had such a great time at home and I really do miss everyone a lot at home. I know everyone will always be there, but it’s not the same 3,000 miles away. Somoto is my home, but it’s not the same home. I know I am happy in both places, happy in different ways that are indescribable because it’s a feeling in my heart rather than a list of reasons why. I’m very excited to see what challenges 2009 will present me. I have a feeling this year will probably be the hardest work year of my life…with 500 students and 4 counterparts to train and 2 local competitions to plan and the regional competition. I know I know, KT, don’t whine! Look past the obstacles and see the successful completion of the school year right?

Danni and I finally got to have our Sex and the City movie night! With Cosmos of course!

Allison and I, recalling fond memories of Spanish classes at UCD.

Gina and I in on the terrace of Macy's in SF, looking over the plaza.

The family in front of the SF buildings

Gina, Alexa my cousin, Me

Great Santa Aunt Anne!

Gina is a member of Real Madriz's soccer team now!

Yay for cooking supplies to take back to Somoto!

Dad finds another use for the ceramic artisan bowl from San Juan de Oriente...no comment.

Mom got her favorite movie, Something's Got to Give.

The last day Mike, Freddy, and I were at the house together we decided it was a good idea to celebrate the end of the year by having drinks and singing karaoke at the Somoteño (that’s the place Callie and I had won the karaoke contest the week before). Freddy’s wife Amelia was up for the week visiting and she is always down to party! Only a couple of my Fabretto coworkers made it out, but we made the best of it. I once again sang karaoke, this time “Hotel California” per the Nicas request (it’s one of the few songs they can recognize in English) and I did ok since it complimented my natural alto voice. At the end of the competition, all the competitors go up on stage and the audience votes by applause for their favorite. I was the ONLY one who went up there…no one wanted to take me on! I was waiting up there with the MC named Leo and I was dancing around “yay I won I won!” and then the owner basically saw that it was me and pulled a fast one. I was told the competition was no more and they were going to raffle off the 6-pack that I CLEARY WON! It was lame, I was looking forward to free beer. I guess the owner has decided to impose a “gringo rule” since Callie and I swept the “competition” the previous week. Before we left I wrote an angry note to the owner, it made me feel better. The night turned around in my favor when they announced another dance competition. Some random Nica guy asked me to dance and even though I knew he’d be a horrible dancer, I had some beer to win! We only went up against my coworker Sonia and her partner, another random guy. They were WAY better than my horrible partner and I, but guess what winning card I hold? Oh yeah, I’m white with blonde hair and blue eyes. DING DING DING, Winner by default! Luckily they didn’t raffle off that 6-pack this time and I got 3 beers (I had to share with my crappy partner). The highlight of my night was dancing with Don Freddy…I’m sure about everyone I saw when I was home got a chance to have this video shoved in their face by me. I'll try to post it online soon, I can't do it at Fabretto because video feed is blocked :( Two days later I hopped a bus to Managua, stayed the night at the Backpacker’s Inn for 8 bucks close to the PC Office and made my way home to Sac Town! Luckily a cool dude named Jose who was staying in the same hostel room was on the same flight as me so we shared a cab to the airport and he was really nice and paid for me. Thanks Jose!

Finally a good picture of Mike and I!

Don Freddy and I take a break from dancing.

Baile! Baile!

I'm probably singing right here, very normal for me to break into song whenever.

If you remember from my last post, Mike and I were invited to celebrate the First Communion of Sergio one of our students at the Oratorio. After a celebration at their house on the weekend of the Purisima, they have a parade and all the kids who received their First Communion dress up once again in their outfits and march around the town. We had to swim through the big crowd a couple times to find Sergio as well as Flor, our old neighbor and student. Finally we found them and took plenty of pictures and I even took some of my older students who were also going through the ceremony. I believe First Communion at home usually occurs around the age of 10? Here it seemed to vary from age 8 to age 16. After the parade there was a 3 hour long mass that we DID NOT stay for…hell no! At the least, it was fun to participate and experience a Nica cultural moment.

The girls dress in white...how pretty!

One of my students, Yobelki

The man of the hour, Sergio!

Nothing says "pure" like the drunk guys passed out on the side of the road while the kids march by!

Note: I have more pictures to post, but my computer is acting weird so I can only post 4 at a time. Hopefully tomorrow it will be solved!

A whole bunch of pictures from the 2nd Annual Fabretto Competition!

I stole these from the Somoto Oratorio camera yesterday.

Our MCs, Sonia and Fatima who work with me in the Somoto Office

Me giving a short blurb (unprepared...ugh) about Empresa Creativa (Creative Business)

Our cultural act from Quebrada Honda...it's like a requirement for any Nica event...I'm not really a fan because it's the same every time and it's basically stolen from Mexico (copy cats!)

Octopuses made out of a glass bottle and yarn, cards made with recycled paper and a custom stamp: Cusmapa Oratorio

Norlan and Brenda from Somoto, showing off their cross stitched burlap bags.

2nd place team who made organic fertilizer using special worms and cow poop.

Same dudes

The logo for their company: Defenders of the Environment

From the left, Peter (executive of Fabretto), Jessica (Somoto PCV Health), husband Matt (Somoto PCV Health), and Domingo (works with a rural community project in collaboration with Fabretto)...a big thank you to them for judging!

Lions made of yarn, from Quebrada Honda

While the competition was going on, the kitchen ladies and some helpers got the refrigerio ready. We had Arroz a la Valencia (Rice with Veggies and meat), some white bread and a Nica-type fresco (aka juice with a TON of sugar)

A sign showing off the Somoto groups working on their projects.

Byron our Fabretto garden coordinator checks in with the kids. The Fabretto garden had a display out.

Other teachers walked around helping out the groups as the day went on. Carmen, in the pink on the right gave the Cusmapa teams a pep talk.

Necklaces made of string and craved wood from Cusmapa.

The Somoto group made bread baskets out of coke bottles, wire and sewed the other parts.

Same group made a clothes hamper with larger coke bottles and wire. They need to work on the color though...

Fabretto garden teachers and the veggie stand! Radishes, eggplant, celery, grapefruits were some of the things they brought.

Cusmapa groups show off more bags and bracelets.

Roomie Lauren from Cusmapa chats with the Cus-Nor coffee group, 3rd place.

4th place Cusmapa team who made bread with the funky manjar, aka jelly stuff.

The kids were set up under 5 different tents that were donated for the day.

The decorations, as you can see in the background were from the plants in the yard and some Fabretto employees stayed at work late to make the strands and cut outs.

More bracelets...I hate seeing bracelets but at least they had something.

Knitted yarn bags, Lauren taught them how to knit and they took that skill and created their own business. She always drew the logo on their shirts! How cute are they!

Cajetas, which are sweet carmel-like candies made from milk and sugar

Cell phone holders with sayings sewed on them, Quebrada Honda.

The Winners!

Satin pillows wrapped all pretty from Quebrada Honda

Picture frames and baskets made of foam and plastic

Bamboo houses and lions made of yarn next to them, from Quebrada Honda

My boss Georgia with her newly purchased cojine (pillow), she was a little iffy about the colors the kids chose!

The judges mark their points for the 26 teams participating...poor guys!

Cusmapa girls explain how they created their hair ties.

Matt and Jess give out awards to winning teams, next to them in Doña Chena the Directora of the Somoto Oratorio

The kids get refrigerio, or lunch...finally around 1pm!

Time for sports in the afternoon!

Spectators fill up the Oratorio

Coach Anival helps out the girls teams.

Everyone who played soccer got a gold, silver, or bronze medal. Somoto boys won and the Cusmapa girls won.

The Somoto girls got bronze, but they were happy. Pictured here in the middle is one of my counterparts, Maria Jose.

Just some pictures from the competition (more to come promise), the Somoto Oratorio, and one more of the house.

The team that baked bread stuffed with a sweet sauce called "manjar", which is not the same as Argentine manjar, it looks like purple goop and tastes like melted marshmellows.

3rd place team that will continue to Regional, Cus-Nor who made their own organic coffee! This team is from Cusmapa.

Your tax dollars at work! USAID gave Fabretto funding this past year, not sure how much, but I can assure you they are working harder than other federal tax dollars!

In front of the Somoto Oratorio, the kid on the left is named Juan Josue and he's not one of my students but I love him to death.

The living room, with my entire wardrobe drying on the clothes lines. Jan, notice the hankies, I use them all the time!

Well maybe not the restaurant, but Mike and I brought Chipotle to Somoto...let alone Nicaragua! This is just one example of the fine cuisine that the Fabretto volunteers and I always seem to create. It was such a success that Mike and I have eaten Chipotle burritos for dinner twice and once for lunch...we can't help it, we miss really good Mexican food. Below the Chipotle pictures are shots of the kitchen at the Somoto Fabretto House.

Chef Mike prepares the Carnitas

Carnitas...well almost...didn't have enough time to slow cook it, but it was damn good protein in my tummy!

My Chipotle Burrito before the big roll-up!

Oh Chipotle goodness how I miss thee...

Mike shows the world how to eat a Chipotle burrito!

Our spices that help us turn bland Nica food into something amazing! Thank you again to Mom & Dad and Rosine for supplying with much needed spices!

Our sink...almost dishes-free! The silver pot usually holds extra water for washing dishes if the water goes out and we also use it for pastas.

The kitchen, complete with mini-toaster oven and fridge.

The kitchen stove top which sits on a table, hooked up to a tank of gas. Notice the bucket to the left, that's our clay pot water filter, we're not sure if it filters out lead yet...but at least it gets the bacteria and amoebas out!

No pictures again for this post, because I didn't have a chance to download the pictures from other peoples' cameras and my camera hasn't arrived yet. Mike (my roommate in Somoto) had his flight canceled so he will be coming to Somoto today or tomorrow.

The competition turned out to be a success, even if it was a very very long day for all of us! I want to post pictures so I can show everyone the kids' products and the great big smiles on all of their faces. We had 26 groups compete and we set them up under tents in a "fair" style in the sense that everyone could walk around to each group's table display. Our judges were Matt & Jessica, my fellow PCVs in Somoto (they are Health volunteers), Peter the Director of Operations for Fabretto in Managua, and Domingo a Nica who is a Coordinator for the SAT program (that is a whole other post to describe what SAT is, and it's not that test we take to enter college). They started at 10:30am going around to each of the tables to hear the presentation of each group, and to get a better understanding of their business plan. It took 2 hours 15 minutes to make the full circle and the kids were baking in the Somoto sun. At the time I was timing the presentations to make sure they didn't exceed 5 minutes long and I was there for support as the kids spoke to the judges. Having a fair made it much easier than having each group go up and present in front of a microphone! Next year I want the judges to be able to sit down and look at the business plans before the presentations that way they can prepare specific questions for the groups that will probably be the most competitive. The groups that are going on to the regional event are the following 3:

-Friends of the Environment: They create household items like candle holders, clothes hampers and bread baskets from plastic bottles (Somoto Oratorio)

-Defenders of the Environment: Organic fertilizer made by special worms (Somoto Oratorio)

-Cus-Nor: Organic coffee which the kids harvested, roasted, and ground (Cusmapa Oratorio)

These 3 groups I can work with pretty solidly and they all have a good chance of moving on to the national competition. The Palacaguina volunteer just recently quit last week, so I shall be helping her groups prepare for the Regional as well. Palacaguina is about a 40 min. bus ride away and the kids there also have alot of potential with their products.

After the Empresa Creativa competition we had a couple of mini-competitions to add to the "day of happiness" as my counterpart Sabrina called it. At first I thought this idea was kinda B.S. in the sense that she was trying to shove in more activities for no real reason at all, but for the reason that it would "make the kids happy". I prefer to keep things simple, but whatever, the kids got to watch their classmates recite poetry, put together wooden puzzles, and compete against each other in a couple of soccer games. Callie brought the Cusmapa band and they jammed some tunes as well.

We ended around 4:30pm and then the rest of the Fabretto staff, mostly from Somoto, wanted to have a dance party. I stayed for a bit, but I really wanted to get home and relax. Lauren and I ended up going out for (overpriced) pizza and beer, but it was a good celebratory meal. Nothing like pizza and beer to please a hungry soul.

A montón (very large) Thank You to Jan for sending me stickers and a postcard from Iceland and to Mom and Dad who sent me another package!

Now the rest of this week will be devoted to organizing the Regional Competition with Nikki (PCV Ocotal) and Matt (PCV Jalapa) and preparing my teams and the Palacaguina teams.

Oh yeah, did I mention how the rainy season has come? It has been pouring at least 4-9 hours each day and sometimes you can't even hear yourself thinking because the rain beats down so hard on the tin roof! Last night the power went out again and the water hasn't been on for the last 18 hours...so the kitchen has a stack of dishes that stink because I can't wash them. Course, Lindsay (PCV Cinco Pinos, aka the Boondocks of Chinandega) gets her water shut off 12 hours a day and her power turned off from 6pm to 5am! I guess it's just annoying when there is no schedule to follow for the power/water turn offs. I can handle no water at times or no electricity, but we never know when that will happen! A pain in the arse is tis!

Let me explain my living situation at the moment because I think it's sort of complicated still. In Somoto I live in the Fabretto Volunteer house with Mike (from Nashville, TN) who will tentatively finish his teaching English courses in November, he doesn't know if he will continue his employment with Fabretto yet so I'm not sure how much longer he'll be here. Also in the Somoto house on the week days is Don Freddy, the Education Coordinator in the Somoto Oratorio. He's about 40ish and his family is in Managua so he's not here on the weekends usually. Fabretto employees and other people come in and out of the house, so every week there are different visitors which makes it fun. In Cusmapa there is Lauren (from Albuquerque, NM) who teaches Critical Thinking and will be here for 1.5 more years, Callie (Missoula, Montana) teaches Music and Critical Thinking and will finish up around April I believe. Then there's the Español...Pedro Pablo (from Spain) who is trying to help Fabretto establish an evaluation program for the students aka sometimes Fabretto doesn't have an actual job for him (poor guy!). The latter list of people are my sanity in Nicaragua and definitely my very good friends here. I am very lucky to have a great support network here and they always seem to bring different viewpoints about life in Nicaragua and help me understand the Nica culture as well. Thank you to all of them for being my family in Nicaragua!

Changing subjects again I found another website, and Greg Schwartz helped me try it out so I know it works, for sending text messages to my phone.

http://www.ideasclaro.com.ni/sms/sms_form.php

So here's how you fill it out.

1) In Destino you put my phone number 8371113

2) In Origen you put your name

3) Codigo you enter the red numbers/letters below it

4) Mensaje you can enter up to 120 characters in the message

5) Click Enivar to send the message to my phone and a little window should pop up that says "Mensaje enviado" or something like that

If you are ever on the internet and bored, try to send me a text message! Aunt Anne, were those instructions clear enough? Haha, just kidding! Hopefully pictures will be up soon! Sorry! And I will get the pictures from the beach as well!

Which means "a lack of writing"...sorry that I have not posted in almost 20 days! Oh the horror! Next week my roomie Mike is bringing me my brand new camera, since my old Sony died on me finally, so I will definately be more inclined to update! Pictures make posts so much more fun to read and it gives a visualization of my experiences as well.

This week I'm running all over hell's half acre trying to help the kids finish their business plans...which is quite a nightmare at times, but they are slowly understanding what I mean when I say "Your graph needs to add up to 100%, instead of 240%". Seeing the inability of these kids to do these simple charts scares me to death when I have to teach this to 300 public school kids! They are learning factoring in math class, yet don't know what the function of a pie chart is, OR how to even create one! I believe I started these kinds of graphs in the 3rd grade with Ms. Betts, we were 8/9 years old and knew how to make a graph. Ugh...another gliche in 3rd world education I guess. It will present an interesting challenge.

Next week on Tuesday the kids have their competition, about 150 of them are competing for 3 groups to go on to the regional competition in Ocotal (about 40 min. away from Somoto). We are having a "fair" where the judges and the public walk around to all of the tables and can buy the kids products and be judged. It's also a day of fun for them afterwards, as we are having some sports competitions, music competitions, brain-teaser competitions, etc. after the fair. It wasn't my idea to put these other activities in the day, but it was my counterpart's. Personally I think she is turning the whole thing into a dog and pony act...but a wise RPCV informed me that I should let her go with the flow as she will be the one to ultimately carry on the Empresa Creativa program. The kids also get lunch, certificates that I made for them, and a pat on the back I guess. Hopefully it will all run smoothly.

This weekend I'm headed to the beaches of Leon for some camping and relaxation after an already long work week. I'm going with Callie, my roomie and co-worker/co-Fabretto volunteer from Cusmapa, and her boyfriend and we're meeting up with her friends in Leon. It should be lots of fun and I have a little extra money for the end of the month which will be well spent! We get paid next week anyways, and my rent...well, let's just say my rent is less than $10 a month and then a small amount paid toward gas, water, and electricity. Not bad right? The only downside is having to share the house with Fabretto employees, both Nica and gringos coming in and out. But I'd rather spend less money now and go on awesome vacations later!

Hope all is well at home and please be excited for the following post full of pictures and stories of this weekend and next week.

After having these past two weeks kind of kick me in the butt, I'm more than ready to bounce back. Sorry if that last post sounded like I was on the verge of quitting or something...some of you emailed me asked if everything was ok and to keep my chin up. Thank you for those notes and emails of encouragement!

Yesterday marked the end of these two hard weeks when I was surprised with not one, but two packages at the post office! A huge THANK YOU goes out to Jan and Rosine!!! Opening the boxes made me so happy and I am so lucky to have people at home who love me so much.

After getting the boxes I headed over to the Somoto Oratorio to talk to someone about me living at the volunteer house in Somoto, since I haven't found a place yet. I was again elated to receive good news that they would love for me to occupy one of the rooms and if they move houses I am more than welcome to move with them. I will be living with another Fabretto volunteer named Mike and a couple Nicas that come in and out during the week. It's great because my rent (if my boss reads this yes I am paying rent) will be soooooooo much less this way and I will never be alone, there will at least always be another gringo or Nica around. Another reason why I'm so happy is that Mike and I both love to cook, so I'm sure I won't be going out very often nor will I ever have to cook all by myself. Cooking is such a social event for me, it's just not the same without someone else there to eat with.

So with these two great events, today (Saturday) I felt so much better waking up and my body has almost gotten rid of this cold virus I have. That was the biggest downer of this last week, being sick and just feeling yucky all of the time! I hate being sick! Don't worry, Katie is all better and picked herself back up. We all need our down times right?

Other news, I'm working on getting invitations out for the competition which will be on September 30th and securing some sort of financial support from the community for helping buy prizes. It should be a great opportunity to meet some community leaders and try to get some community involvement. It'll be harder to get a ton of ppl to come because it will fall on a work day, but maybe we'll get a couple people to come. I'm more worried about getting donations for prizes since alot of the businesses here in Somoto aren't very big and most NGOs don't have alot of extra funds this year due to the economic slowdown. But with a positive attitude and an open mind anything is possible right!?

Tomorrow I start moving my stuff...yay for my own space! I think I will feel better with a room that I can actually settle down in and be a part of the house and not just a temporary guest! This next week I'm also going to be trained on the Community Bank session so I can train new Nica PC trainees. Should be fun and I get to hang out with Joey in Esteli!

Ok ok, this week wasn't THAT bad...but it still took a toll on me. It was just one of those weeks where I ask myself, "Am I really doing anything here?". I think (especially after my previous post) that I have moved into what they call Culture Shock Phase 2, so therefore I am at a low point on the "Culture Shock sine/cosine type wave". What happens is like a sine/cosine wave one goes up and down for certain time periods, so does our cultural adaptability. We hit high points where we love where we are or what we doing and then slowly we can dive down into "WTF" mode and wonder what our purpose is by living amongst others who are different from us. At the moment (according to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_shock ) I have hit the "Negotiation Phase" where I am balancing the old and new ways of life.

Like I said before, this whole experience will make home seem that much sweeter in two years! I hope that little problems back at home will literally disappear because of the small significance they actually would have. For example, do I really need to get upset because I missed the Discovery Channel's Shark Week? No...oh wait, there's this lovely device called a DVR recorder :) Haha, yes I'm hilarious, but I think I kind of made my point. I hate the question that Nicas ask me here: "What are you going to do after 2 years here?". How the heck do I know what I'm doing after tomorrow? 2 years...come on people! I don't understand it! I'm here, right now, let's do something in this moment and not wait for some higher power to give it to you on a silver platter. Who knows if I will want to stay in this country? Who knows if I will want to go back and live in California? Quien sabe maje!? (Who knows dude?) For a people who can never seem to plan ahead, they sure are preoccupied with my future after 2 years.

This week will mark 4 whole months here in Nica! Only 23 more to go! Don't worry, I'm not counting...yet. Most volunteers would agree probably that the first 6 months are the hardest because it's about settling in and learning your site, finding out who you are as well I'm guessing. PC is nothing like study abroad in Chile because I was always on vacation every other weekend and going to places like Argentina and Easter Island. Here in Nica I could go places on the weekends, but I foresee that as a better idea for next year when I am better settled in and when everyone else has their own places so I can sleep somewhere for free. Up here in the north, we don't have as many things to do as say the Masaya area, but that gives me the opportunity to kick back and find another way of relaxing. Being by myself a good percent of the time gives room for reflection of the past, present and a little bit about the future. This is the first time in my life where my phone doesn't ring with 20 calls a day, maybe 2 a day now, and where I don't feel the need to be present at certain social scenes. My life before this was comprised of going here and going there...now I have time to take a look around at the true speed of life, well at least the Nica speed of life.

Yesterday we had our Madriz volunteer meeting, but we went to Esteli instead of Somoto because there are better cafes and restaurants, and I rode the bus with Matt & Jess who are my site mates in Somoto. We took the 10:00am bus, hoping to get into Esteli in less than two hours and then 10 min. into the ride the bus stops and they open the engine hood up to pour a couple gallon jugs of water into the coolant tank or whatever (sorry Dad, I couldnt tell). Matt, Jess and I knew what this could imply, either A) The trip would be augmented by 30 min. at least B) The engine would burn up rolling down the hills or C) We would have to get off and take another bus. We get going again and at the fork of the highway where one part goes North to Ocotal and the other goes west to Somoto (aka the Emplame) we of course pull over and the engine is still overheating. Great! Just great! We have about 1 hour and 40 min. to get to our 12pm meeting, it's not the meeting we were worried about...it was getting lunch that we worried about. Meetings never usually start on time anyways in Nica...good ol' Nica time (I hope I don't come back home thinking that a 10am meeting means 10:30am!). So the engine is busted and everyone starts getting off, of course we follow suit. What happened to us next is very common when it's gringos vs. Nicas. The guy was handing out 20 cordobas (about $1) to everyone because we paid 25 cordobas to go from Somoto to Esteli, and Jess & I were waiting to get reimbursed while Matt ran up the road to save us seats on the next bus (which turned out being way full). Well, this pinche (cheap) Nica gave us back 55 cordobas instead of 60 and told me that it cost 7 cordobas to get to the Empalme. When I asked him why we got charged the gringo price, he said it wasn't and that's what everyone was getting back, as I watched him give 20 cordobas to the guy next to me. I got pretty angry, yes it's 5 cordobas (aka 20 cents) but still that's messed up. I argued with him for a couple of minutes, but I just gave up because as PC would tell us (and common sense) in the end it's not worth it. So, I left with my words of "digraciado huevón" (unholy A-hole), "pinche Nica" (cheap Nica), and I was going to add a couple other words but I was too mad. I got over it in about 5 minutes as we waited for another bus, and we got onto an Expreso (these buses cut time in about half) to Esteli and all was good. We do get reimbursed for our bus trips to meetings, so at the end of the day the 5 cordobas didn't really matter that much. Luckily I shouldn't have to take that bus again if I don't want to.

We had our meeting at Café Luz, one of those places catering to the gringo population of Esteli and the wanna-be "posh" Nica college crowd. I finally had my first really good tasting cheeseburger in Nica and it was amazing! They even put paprika on the french fries! And there was dressing on the salad! ¡Gracias a dios! (Thank god!) Not bad for 5 bucks (not cordobas). Our meeting was to talk about new PC policies and to address any concerns we might want our Madriz representative to take to the national meeting that will take place in 2 weeks. Nothing too exciting to write about.

However, the stir up yesterday was that a member from my SBD 47 group was ETing (Early Terminating) his service and he was on his way to Managua this weekend. We all have our own reasons for doing PC and we all have our own reasons to keep going. Also, we take what we want out of our service and no one can say we are right or wrong for those movtivations. I see PC as a service to my country and a resume-building experience. I will find out if 3rd world development is the career path I'd like to pursue or if living abroad the good majority of my life would suit me well. Others see PC as a personal growing experience, a chance to see another part of the world, etc. None of us harbor the same ambitions! I am sad to see him go, he always provided a good laugh for me during training and I could always count on him to provide a realist insight on whatever was going on. I wish him the best of luck and I can't wait to see how many kids he ends up having in the future!

Another event that happened to me this week was the lack of communcation between the public school and myself. I had asked on Tuesday if there was anything going on this week that I needed to know about and I was told "no of course not, nothing special this week". Little did I know that the monthly teachers meeting was this past Friday and my counterpart sort of "forgot" to tell me! So I get all dressed and ready to give class at 7:45am...and no one was there! I had to ask one of my students why there was no class! Now I know no matter what, every last Friday of the month there is no school due to these meetings...live and learn. My day became productive after that as I went to the mail box to grab letters from Jan and Mamow (thank you!) and went to get a key copied for the Cusmapa Volunteer house. After that I went to work on Fabretto's Empresa Creativa Competition which we are going to have on September 30th.

The Competition will take place in Somoto in between the student business groups at the 3 Fabretto Oratorios. Right now I am looking for judges to evaluate the students' groups and choose the top 3 to go onto the Regional Competition, sending out invites to important community members, and sending out donation letters to get money for the prizes we would like to give the top 5 groups. During September, the competition will rule my life! I'm sure the volunteer before me had a little bit easier time because he didn't have to find funding and he was already 1 year at his site and knew more people. It will be a challenge, but it presents a great networking opportunity for me and I am excited to get to know the city leaders and NGOs better (Mom remember, NGO stands for Non-Governmental Organization...like Rotary!). At the competition the kids have to show the judges their business plan and product. In their plans they have points like a marketing strategy, know who their target market is, calculate a "break-even" point for costs and profits, etc. The judges will base their decisions on creativity, clarity of the business plan, quality of the product, as well as presentation skills. I believe at the moment we have 25 student groups who will be competing! The kids at the Cusmapa and Quebrada Honda Oratorios are really on top of things, while the kids at Somoto sometimes don't really seem to care. All in all I think we will have a great community turn out and the kids will have a great time.

After this week I don't have housing but I think there might be a big possibility for me to pay to live in the Fabretto Volunteer house in Somoto. I have to talk to someone this next week, but it's pretty empty right now and there shouldn't be too much of a problem. I found a place for $70 a month, with water, gas, and electricity included but I'm not sure how much I really like it. I want to keep looking at a couple more places around town before making a decision.

The weather hasn't been too bad here...yet. Of course there are thunder storms about 5 days a week, but they usually come after 4pm and don't last too long. The street next to the Cusmapa house is still unpaved, so I still have to tromp through mud on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Luckily I brought my rain boots up there to stay so the mud isn't as bad when I wear them. The only downside to the rain is when I have to walk 20 min. up the hills to Quebrada Honda and there is no other mode of transportation available! Knock on wood it hasn't poured on me yet, but I know it has to be coming soon. Course, if it's pouring, the kids don't come to school...so there would be no point to walking in the pouring rain...unless it's pouring when I'm walking back to the bus stop (aka the side of the road)...ugh.

I am 3 for 3 on getting packages ok (knock on wood) and the religious writing seems to be working! Thank you Mom, Dad and Gina for sending me those packages! I'm trying to ration the chocolate...but can't say that I was able to on the licorice, I forgot how much I love it.

I caught a little head cold this week, so I'm trying to rest and sleep it off the best I can. I should probably find some herbal teas so help out and keep the sugar level to a minimum. It's so hard to keep the glucose away with all the rice, corn tortillas, etc...I definately miss the healthy California life style. Granted I do the best I can, like make homemade spaghetti sauce and stir fry, but the quality of the fruits and veggies the majority of the time is not the same. Even the avocadoes, though cheaper, have less meat in them and the seed is bigger! They don't grow the Hass avocadoes that I love :( And finding Roma tomatoes is like finding a needle in a haystack. Hopefully I can find some seeds or have Mom and Dad bring some down in January.

Hope all is well at home and the heat is slowly fading away! I will definately miss the crispness of the Fall air rolling in...though we've got another month or so for that.

Sadly I still don’t have a true established weekly schedule, which means I don’t have a blog writing schedule worked out yet. I have written the last three entries in the last 2 weeks and have yet to publish them…sorry! Today you will have the pleasure of reading all 3 and I hope they entertain you to say the least.Today’s topic: Moments in Nica that fall into 3 categories (Good, Bad, Ugly). I would like to explain some experiences that make me feel my two years here will be amazing, some that are annoying but I can deal with, and others that make me want to hop a plane right now back home (not really, but it’s a hyperbole).The Good-Watching a man jump out of a bus to save a child from being crushed by a semi-truck on the other side of the road…shows that the Nicas care about their countrymen-There is always an invitation to someone’s house for dinner or coffee…Nicas want to get to know the gringa and are always free to talk-I met a guy named “Tupac” in Cusmapa and at first I thought it was a joke…turns out to be a Bolivian/Peruvian name, didn’t know that!-A women’s cooperative makes baskets out of pine needles and thread…I just think it’s a neat product and it looks really nice on a table (I can’t wait to send this before Christmas so you all can have a really cute decoration)-The clouds are so big and fluffy, even bigger than the ones we have in the Sierras, and when there is a thunderstorm it shakes the entire house…those storms will make the ones at home seem like pathetic drizzles-Going to the karaoke place called the Someteño in Somoto and listening to all the horrible sounding English songs sung by Nicas (I wanted to tackle a guy while he was singing “Hotel California, yeah it was that bad)…course when I sing anything, they go nuts and I instantly make 10 new friends at once-People are still valiant enough to give up their seats on the bus for mothers with children and frail older folks…Nicas have some sort of social decency!-Having blonde hair and blue eyes immediately has celebrity status perks like being able to dance with the cutest guy in the place (sadly these are very rare a find), being recognized on the street, my kids listening to me a little bit more intently than their regular Nica teacher…overhearing kids bragging that they have the “Chela” teacher gave me sort of an ego-Rosquillas are found plenty in Somoto, they are dry cornmeal cracker-type things mixed with cheese and then formed into mini donuts…I love how they cost less than 10 cents for a bag that can last a couple bus rides in my purse-In Somoto you can always ask local personality Tololo for a song or two on his guitar in a restaurant, on a park bench, or on a doorstep for a couple Córdobas…he sometimes gets annoying but he has definitely grown on me-At 5:00am in the morning the Mariachis continue to play on at the bar…good to see musicians so enthusiastic about borrowed music from Mexico :)-Kids never fail to give me a million hugs!The Bad-My kids asked for my phone # the first day I met them…wtf mate, I’m their teacher!-Since I am “Gringa” everyone wants to practice their English with me, whether it be during Business Class or on the street…sometimes I just lose patience with this and I want the conversation to end immediately-Everyone likes to yell the few words they know in English (aka “I love you”, “How is you?”, “Goodbye”), thinking this will spur instant conversation or that I will show them more attention…the accent tends to hurt my ears-That celebrity status I was talking about, well it sometimes gets old….yes, I am “chela” aka “white person” and thanks so much for pointing that out to me because I hadn’t noticed that before-I have a new perfume and it’s called OFF!...two words: mosquitoes suck-Can’t be too friendly to the opposite sex, even if it’s a 60 year old man…he might fall in love with you!...can’t I just make friendly conversation without someone asking for my #?-No one has change for the equivalence of a $5.00 bill…you run a business, carry change for God’s sake!-The “Love” debate, how everyone can fall in love at first sight even though probably 90% commit adultery, have 5 girlfriends/boyfriends (mainly it’s the boys who have a million girls at their disposal), or have 10 illegitimate children…wouldn’t Nica children see this atrocity and not want to commit the same acts?-Nicas are probably on the average fatter than Americans and don’t understand why so many of them have diabetes…oh I don’t know, maybe because they deny cream has fat or they dump half a bowl of sugar in their coffee every morning?-Our housekeeper in Cusmapa didn’t know the earth traveled around the sun…I’m not sure I want to cry because it’s sad or sigh because of the educational systemThe Ugly-The bus breaking down on the road, getting flat tires, or not leaving at all…we need better Nica mechanics and it’s just plain annoying when I’m trying to transport cold groceries for a 3 hour bus ride. Also if there is a schedule, stick to it!-Nicas asking me to buy them things aka the lady at the grocery store who wanted me to buy her an ice cream….uh NO! Not only does it have no nutritional value, but she had a handful of other groceries…did she REALLY need that ice cream? Fine then, by it yourself!-Nicas asking me to give them things that I am wearing (that are mine), aka my only pair of earrings when they are already wearing earrings…I have yet to understand this part of the culture: “You are gringo so give me what you have, even if I might already have enough, because you are white and already have too much”-I am seen walking around with a coworker who is around my age, so instantly he becomes my boyfriend and it is the talk of the town…come on people, what grade are we in? Like 7th?-The dogs, horses and cows are so underweight and malnourished…makes me appreciate the SPCA at home!-No gratitude is shown, nor is showing up at a house uninvited and empty-handed for dinner in poor manners …I made a really nice dinner for Lauren’s birthday and we all chipped in to pay for it, then 4 Nicas just roll in and expect to be fed without saying Thank You!!! This part of the culture I shall probably not get over! Say thank you, is it that hard? I’ve met people at home who don’t have a lot and they are the most thankful people ever…but here if you have nothing, you don’t have to show gratitude because duh you don’t have anything! Drives me nuts! Maybe because my parents raised my sister and I to say thank you for EVERYTHING! I appreciate this value now very much!At least there are more Good than Bad or Ugly right?

Today is one of those ordinary Nica days where it starts raining at night and when you wake up it is still raining. And what does rain in the morning usually mean in Nica? No class.

It makes sense for Somoto that there isn’t any class because probably about 50 percent of the kids walk anywhere from 40 min. to 3 hours to get to class every day because they live out in the campo. It’s not like at home where we get dropped off by our parents on their way to the office at 7:30am or simply park our cars in the lot and walk under an umbrella to class. First world vs. third world. But then again, this could be a place that gets no rain at all right? We haven’t had real rain since I’ve been here, about 2 weeks, and I could see that most of the river (I guess it’s more a creek) was already dried up. And this is winter right now! I thought we’d always have water in the creek!

I forget how California, more specifically Northern California is so different from most places in regards to water supply. We rely on the winter snow and rain to supply with water for the summer, but not just drinking water…water that allows us to take our gasoline powered barcos (boats) and drag our kids along in an innertube. We whine when not enough snow fell during the year because now we can’t escape the heat as easily. But at least not yet (knock on wood) there hasn’t been a major shortage right? Course I’m not at home and I can’t answer that question. I’m more worried about our crops and vineyards in California not having enough water to irrigate quality produce and wine grapes!

Back to Nica time, I guess it’ll be a productive day for me: write this blog, get some letters written to leaders around the community about our Empresa Creativa competition in September, and read this new book I got from Callie (Fabretto volunteer in Cusmapa) called Eat, Love, Pray (I recommend this book for any woman!). This morning I woke up at 7:00am hoping to take another cold shower and I wake up to find that not only is it raining, but there is no electricity and no running water. Ugh! I smell like OFF! bug repellent and I’d like to wash it off! Maybe I’ll catch some rain water and shower with that. My new host family has a shower faucet so they don’t save the water in big old oil drums like my old host family did. It’s nice to have the cold water come out of the faucet because it warms it up a bit, yet annoying on days like these when I really wouldn’t mind taking a bucket bath just to get the yuck off of me.

I’m with a new host family in Somoto till about the 2nd week of September and then I am allowed to move elsewhere. They are nice, but it feels like more of a business contract with them rather than being part of the family like I was back in my training town. However, my host mom got ahold of her friend who has a house for rent and hopefully I’ll be able to see it soon. It’s not going to be as expensive as I thought renting in downtown would be, but I’m still going to ask around the city and see if there are other options. Right now I don’t feel very grounded because I lack space! I have my room of course, a 10 by 10 room approx, but there is no place to hang my clothes or even begin to organize my life for 2 years! I have my whole life thrown onto the extra bed and the rest in my suitcase. I know it will be better soon; I just hate being partly stressed out because I have no room to be organized.

My kids at the Somoto Oratorio on Monday told me they didn’t care about the course anymore and they didn’t want to compete in the competition on September 25th. So, I had no ambition to teach this course to these kids who could care less about the course or the fact that people at the Oratorio actually care about them. There are so many resources these kids receive at the Oratorios but so many of them fail to actually use them to the fullest extent. They are more worried about chatting on their cell phones, buying Doritos-type chips, and spreading chisme (rumors) around the classroom. Yes yes, I remember that is how teenagers are back home but then again the majority of the kids from home (I mean Loomis home, not the U.S. in general) aren’t trying to rise above poverty. And the thing that kills me is just seeing the wasted potential of these smart kids!

This kind of goes along with the attitude of “Si Dios Quiere”…which means “If God wishes”, which is very shocking to typical “Western thought”. It is one of the aspects of the culture I shall have a hard time getting over. For example, it’s very common to hear “I’m going to the store today” and then “if God wishes” is put at the end of the sentence. (I’m going to the store if God wishes) To me, of course you will go to the store…if YOU want to go or have the motivation to walk the 2 blocks to the market! Or maybe even scarier is the phrase such as “I’m going to college after I graduate high school, if God wishes”. So, basically instead of working hard in high school on one’s grades, many of them choose to do mediocre work and hope that a higher power will grant them this wish. Sometimes I feel many Nicas are just waiting to be saved by something higher up, so they have a poor attitude or poor motivation to work…or if they have a job, they don’t seem like they want to work. Another example, some markets I walk into look at customers and basically roll their eyes because they don’t really want to help them. Why work then? Why be in business? Don’t you want my money? We are so used to customer service and giving GOOD customer service at home, I really miss that! I mean, is a smile so hard to make when a customer walks into your shop? Another volunteer mentioned an interesting comment: “Nicas like to ‘play’ the roles of life…for example, ‘I work in a bank and I am playing banker’ or ‘I own a market so I will play owner of this shop’”. A very true comment and a very sad comment at that.

I thought of a couple more things, especially after looking through the Cusmapa Volunteer spice cabinet.

Most of the spices I could find here, but the quality is horrible. So if you can just chuck on of these in a package, that would be awesome!

Spices I would love to have sent (written in the order that I use the most):

-Ground Cinnamon

-Chile flakes

-Ground Nutmeg

-Cumin

-Ground ginger

-Bay leaves

-Italian seasoning

-Ground all spice

-Mustard seed

-Fennel seed

-Spice packet to make Chili too!

Some other small things I thought of:

-Stickers (all kids love them!)

-Uni-ball pens, or nicer writing pens

-If anyone can find a light-weight wooden mortar & pestle, I would be forever grateful

-Cooking books

-Cranberry supplements (to keep the urinary tract nice and healthy)

-Vitamin C vitamins

-Tampons w/applicators (I know this sounds gross but it costs $5 for a pack of 10 tampons here! Please help!)

Thank you again to everyone who has asked me what I need!

On the subject of packages, I have a couple recommendations for decorations so maybe there might be a decreased chance for Nica customs to snoop through it.

-Make sure everything is listed on the packing slip

-Put religious Mother Mary, Jesus, Cross, etc. stickers or drawings all over the box

-Write phrases like "En Dios Creo" and "Jesus Te Ama", or any other religious phrases you can think of in spanish or english

Why am I suggesting this? Well, hopefully they will be more superstitious to steal anything out of the box if it seems like a fellow Christian has sent it. Not sure if it works, but it's worth trying right? It sucks that the Nica post office does that to people! My letters have even been sliced open and then they have had the nerve to put a stamp that says the letter came "broken". Right...like we believe all the letters my friends have sent have come broken...in the same spot too!!! There's too words to describe that sort of shadiness...B....S....

Once you mail a package from home let me know so I can approximate the 3 weeks or month it should take to get here. Thanks again to everyone! I miss you all so much!

"A dream is a wish your heart makes!" (It's the only thing I could think of ok, give me a break)

Ok ok, I’m finally giving in and writing a wish list since I’ve had the chance to see what I can and cannot buy normally up here in Somoto. I hope no one thinks I’m a greedy, whiney person for making this list…I tried to be as specific as possible and I am definitely not expecting to get everything. I will love anything that anyone sends me! I will take anything because I am not picky and I am very thankful that you all asked what I wanted/needed.

Things I would really really like and cannot get here:

-Almonds (roasted and lightly or unsalted are the best, Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods usually has good deals)

-Soy nuts (roasted and lightly or unsalted as well)

-Tapatío (or Cholula; Mexican hot sauces that have a little more flavor than Tabasco – someone please send me this, I’m dying without it! En serio!)

-Fiber bars (anything that has a good amount of dietary fiber, it’s really hard to get here)

-Cayenne pepper

-Kosher salt

-Pepper grinder (I used to find these at the dollar store in Davis, it’s a normal sized spice container but it has a grinding mechanism on the top, there is also a salt grinding one as well), if this can’t be found, would love some good whole round pepper balls

-Spice packets (Fajitas, Tacos, Brown Gravy Mix…McCormicks, Lawrys or whichever is fine!)

-Beef Jerky

-Dark Chocolate

-Licorice (red or black)

-Wheat flour

-Wheat tortillas

-Wheat pastas (notice a trend…anything wheat!)

-Sourdough bread (not sure how this could transport, anyone have an idea how I could make it?)

-Trader Joe’s crunchy peanut butter

-Asian-type noodles: glass noodles or rice noodles for cooking Thai food or Chow Mein, anything is better than the ones they have here

-Wasabi paste (can find easily at Nugget, Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods)

-Curry paste (I can’t remember the brand I used to use…Thai Kitchen maybe?)

-Ziploc Bags (sandwich and gallon size)

-New Pictures of you all! Old Pictures with me are awesome too!

-If you have any music you want to share, I love getting new tunes

-Postcards

-Books you think I would like or books that are definite “must reads” for any mortal soul

Things that are here but are really really hard to find, poor knock-off quality, or really expensive:

-Crest toothpaste (with Baking Soda if possible, this might sound silly but I swear Colgate has a monopoly in Nicaragua)

-Sharpies or other permanent markers

-Old kids books (that might be just laying around your house, attic, garage, closet, etc.)

-U.S. Map

-Incense, I have a burner, I just need more sticks of any flavor

-Redken hair product Ringlet 07 or Bed Head (TGI) Curls Rock

-Magazines: Cosmopolitan, The Economist, People

-Nutella (I know it’s a long shot for this one, but I’ve been having a major craving!)

-Rye crackers

-Graham crackers

-Cake frosting (the confetti one is definitely a favorite!)

Thank you so much to everyone who has sent me mail already and I can’t wait to get mail at my new home! Next time I go to Masaya I will definitely stock up on plenty of postcards and start mailing them out to all of you.

Yay now I can receive mail directly and not have to have the staff from Managua bring it to me, or go to Managua to get it!

Katie Payne

Oratorio Mamá Margarita

Apartado Postal 5

Somoto, Madriz

Nicaragua

Central America

Please remember to send it Air Mail, "Por Avión" or it might not get to me.

Also, some of you have asked me how to send text messages to me from your US phone. If you put a + sign in front of my number, you should be able to send me texts. For example type my cell phone # like this: +505-837-1113 and that should work!

Another cool thing is that you can send me text messages through this website:

http://plexinium.com.ni/?x=sms&pais=ni

It is free to send a text message from this website to my cell phone! I can't reply, but it's nice to get a message on my phone once in awhile. So if you are bored at work and you're on the net, please just say hi and tell me about your day, or whatever you would like. You don't need the 505 of the number when you enter it in the space, it's 837-1113 ... cool huh?

Also, Happy Birthday to Michele Rod today and Happy Birthday to Ali Sambu mañana! We're all getting old right?

I can't put any new pictures on because there is something wrong with my camera or card, so I will post some of Me and Michele, and Me and Ali!Michele and I at Machu Picchu December 2006

(Sorry Ali, since you've disabled your facebook pictures I couldn't find one of us, and all of my old pix are on my external HD right now...sorry!)

John (TEFL) and I in front of our PC Nica "crest" before Swearing In aka Judamentación

So Nica 47 finally made it through training and were sworn in as volunteers on Friday July 25th, 2008! Hard to believe 3 months went by so fast, even though during 8 hour charlas we thought Swearing In would never come.

I stayed in Managua from Wednesday till Saturday afternoon, I could have stayed Saturday night but I opted to leave ASAP which turned out to be a great idea (less money spent and got to go on a field trip on Sunday morning). Wednesday and Thursday we had more charlas all day long, but luckily one charla was getting to hear Ambassador Paul Trevilli speak and then have a Q&A session with him. He actually only has 2 weeks left here and then a new ambassador will be coming in. Diplomats are usually switched around every 3 years in hopes that they will always remember what country they are serving (the U.S.) and not cling on to the host country. Makes sense. There were alot of questions from the group about Foreign Direct Investment and what the U.S. mission is doing about the promotion of democracy. I asked him how he felt about constantly moving his kids and wive around the world, to which he replied that it made them a very tight knit family and feels his children have a very amplified view of the world.

On Friday morning all of us jumped out of our beds around 6:30am to start getting ready for the 9:00am ceremony and then we drove to the InterContinental hotel down the street. The 9:00am ceremony was a thank you to our host families and Avi and Scott did a great job with their thank you speeches. Each family received a certificate which we signed and then we took pictures up front with our mamas or whichever family member came to the ceremony. Afterwards we had really good refreshments and took some group pictures. Around 10:00am or so the Ambassador arrived and we were quickly coraled into the room by PC Staff (I guess he arrived early?). What most surprised me was the amount of press that came to the ceremony, but they mainly came to bug the Ambassador. Still though, they shoved plenty of cameras in our faces during the ceremony and one of us had an interview (approved by the PC Country Director) with one of the national news stations.

First we sang the Nicaraguan Natioanl Anthem and then the Star Spangled Banner, where I pulled out my fake broadway singing voice (AKPsi and Rosine knows what I'm talking about) and got a couple compliments afterwards actually. I'm naturally an Alto II, so when I sing the Soprano part I have to make it a little operaish to make it sound good. Then, we gave an oath of service (in spanish) to serve the Ministry of Education to the best of our ability...blah blah... Then the Ambassador went up to say a couple of words and give us the oath of service to the U.S. (same one the military gets, or any other public service, except you place "PC" in place of "Army" or whatever agency). After that we were officially volunteers, oh and each one of us had to stand up in front of everyone and say our name, where we were from and where we would be working for the next 2 years. Our Country Director said a few words after this and then we were finished! They had a big cake for everyone and the guests gobbled it up within a matter of 10 minutes or so. It was an amazing experience to say the least and I felt so relieved to have made it past the training and start the next 2 years of my life. I consider myself so lucky to be a part of PC and to have the chance to serve my country. Some do not get this opportunity due to pre-existing factors like spouses and kids and real life jobs. I can only hope this service will turn me into a more humble person and that I will continue to see a positive side in even the darkest of situations.

Elizabeth (TEFL) and I looking very sexy with our cruly hair! Mine wasn't quite dry yet...no blowdryer!

Song of the Day: "Reach out and touch somebody's hand" -- Not sure who sang it, but I remember it from our 3rd grade play in Grace Betts class.

This was drawn by a fellow Nica 47 in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language if you forgot the acronym), it shows some of Nica's finest attributes: lakes, volcanoes, coffee, fruit, etc.I wanted to begin this post with a little game I call “Imagine if…” The purpose of the game is not for me to complain about my life here, but sort of as a self reflection of things that would have bugged me back in the U.S.

-Imagine if…every time you had to go to the bathroom you had to walk outside and would be greeted by the biggest cockroach you’ve ever seen in your life that’s stuck right on the wall by the toilet.

-Imagine if…that toilet didn’t flush 98% of the time because water only comes for 3 hours each day, so to flush you have to pour water down the toilet (and sometimes the water goes out for days at a time, aka this week no water for 4 days)

-Imagine if…your water had to be stored in old oil drums because sometimes you don’t know if the water will disappear for a couple of days without warning.

-Imagine if…large ants (like you would find in the forest) crawled all over the house and were especially fond of the kitchen table crumbs.

-Imagine if…your kitchen was fueled by 3 inch diameter sticks that had to be replaced at least 8 times a day.

-Imagine if…your only transportation was a crowded bus where you get pushed and shoved, or you have to jump off the back, or the dude next to you smells like major B.O. (and there’s a 2 hour ride ahead of you…yuck!)

These are just a few of the daily tribulations that face Nica PCVs (well more specifically me), but I’m sure there are PCVs who have it a million times harder in respect to water, weird bugs, fuel, etc. Please don’t get me wrong, PC Nica is pretty cushy in general and for us Business Volunteers it’s especially cushy compared to the Ag Volunteers who are really out in the boondocks.

Thinking about the things listed above makes me appreciate home so much and makes me appreciate an even cushier life in the U.S…or hell, the cushier life in Loomis right? I mean Loomis is like Pleasantville (and Del Oro was like “Highschool Disneyland” as Aunt Anne would say), it’s a bubble I grew up in where nothing bad ever happened and life was never hard. I knew no hunger, I knew no violence and I never doubted that my parents always loved my sister and me. Life was amazing growing up and it still is amazing for me. It kills me to see kids who have no shoes or who beg on the street or who receive a bare minimum education or…the list of sad things goes on. But, why am I here? I’m here as a representative of my country, to exchange ideas across cultures and help out where I am wanted by the people of Nicaragua. Yes development is a part of PC, but I believe the main focus of my service is showing Nicas that we are alike and different at the same time. I’m not here to tell them to change anything, I’m here to collaborate with Nicas to create innovative ideas to fit their education model, their cultural model, their business models, etc.

Let’s see if I can explain this in a concrete example…try to follow me here. For example, there is no right or wrong way to catch a fish. However, there are more efficient techniques to catch a trout which many men/women developed through trial and error or maybe through the study of trout behaviors. But then those techniques would probably not be the same for the native perch in Lake Nicaragua, where Nicaraguans have developed other types of techniques. Maybe what could make their techniques better is bringing in a professor of fishology (yes I know that’s not the correct name) from who knows where and then he/she could collaborate with college students and fisherman to conduct a research project. Maybe that project will provide inspiration for those students to study further on about migration patterns or threats from pollution that would effect the fish population.

So, that’s how I see PCVs…we are here to inspire others to think creatively about the problems surrounding them. We are not here to dictate CORRECT answers, there is no such thing. I am here as a role model for young adults: at 23 I have a college degree, no kids, no husband, and I always have future goals. I am here to teach themes like self-esteem, goal setting, and leadership to these young adults, just like I did when I was a camp counselor at Camp Menzies. Same lessons apply here as they did to my teenage girl scouts. Inspiring these kids to see they have the ability to not get knocked up, to not be machistas (aka have respect for women), that if they have innovative ideas there are resources to help develop their ideas further. For example, I’m sure most young girls have no clue that MINSA (Ministry of Health) gives out birth control and condoms for free, or students don’t know of the countless NGOs who give out scholarships or small business grants that many times go unused. I’m here to teach them about the resources that Nica already has and how to utilize those resources to the fullest extent.

Now, me being a realist I can see people asking me: “But how can they do these things if they are most preoccupied with feeding their families?” Well, I can tell you how surprised you might be if you saw how many kids used the 20 cents their parents gave them to buy unhealthy Dorito-type chips instead of saving it in a jar like my dad did when he was little. I feel like people aren’t starving here like in other countries, but the quality of life is far from perfect. I also understand that Nicas don’t like/don’t know how to save money because they are always afraid their money will be taken away from them, either by the Cordoba falling or the government taking it away. Of course they are afraid to save! It seems like the Nicas who are serious in saving their money do so in U.S. dollars because they have more confidence in the U.S. currency. I guess it makes sense since the dollar has more purchasing power than the Cordoba…I think that’s the correct economic term (ahhh, how I miss International Econ).

On a happier note, we swear in next Friday and then Saturday I’m off to my site! This next week is pretty busy for us! Monday we take an all day field trip to the north east in the department of Matalgalpa to visit an Ag volunteer’s project. Tuesday we say goodbye to our families and head to Managua for the rest of the week. Wednesday and Thursday we have charlas (seminars) that last all day. Friday we get to party a bit, that shall be a great ending to the first 3 months! Sorry if this post was hard to follow, it was sort of sparked by a couple of thoughts I was having on a very crappy bus ride home last week. Next post I want to talk a little about the Sandinistas in Nica.Thank you to Jan and Mamow for more letters and to Mom and Dad for sending the packages on the way.

Great news! I weighed myself at the med office and I’ve lost at least 14 lbs. since arriving to Nica (less than 3 months)! Pretty incredible considering carbs and fried food are shoved in front of me every single day, but it’s all about moderation and sweating a lot! I still have a daily routine of taking my plate back to my host mom and scraping off at least ½ of the food on my plate. She still thinks I can eat 3 pieces of chicken, plus 2 scoops of rice, plus 5 fried pieces of bananas, plus a salad, plus 2 tortillas, and finish it off with 2 glasses of juice. I don’t think so! Maybe I can eat 1 piece of chicken, ½ a scoop of rice, 2 fried pieces of banana, a salad, ½ a tortilla and 1 glass of juice. Thank goodness I do get enough fruits and veggies, but once I have true control over my diet I’ll be able to get a lot more healthy stuff in my body. I’m excited for the Soy Chorizo one of the stores sells in Somoto! Eggs in the morning with chorizo and some Tapatío on top…yummy!!!

Dietary fiber and iron are the hardest nutrients to get into my body at the moment. Everyone is probably saying, eat more beans then! Eat more gallo pinto! Oh yeah, have I mentioned that I hate hate hate gallo pinto!!?? Gallo pinto is the mixture of red beans and white rice, aka the main staple to the Nica diet. I can’t stand the sight of it, never have, never will. Watch, as soon as I get back to the U.S. that’s all I’ll ever want to eat! Haha, wouldn’t that be hilarious!

I could kill for a good bottle of wine right now. Over two months and no wine, that’s like a record for me after the age of 19. I’m partially surprised I haven’t had any withdrawals….haha, just kidding. Course my mother swears that wine slows down her metabolism, therefore it must slowdown mine. Hence, that must be the reason I have already dropped the weight so fast right? I’d say it’s the good 8 hours of sleep I get every day (when the stupid bombas don’t wake me up at 5am), the non-stop sweating, and the lack of snacking in between meals. I guess cutting out my weekly Grey Goose Martinis and Newcastle brews helped too, but I think cutting wine out of my diet would have a minimal effect. I’ve seen some OK Chilean wines in the grocery stores but they just don’t look like they are worth C$140 (over 7 bucks), which is ½ of our weekly allowance. Plus, I would have no glassware to enjoy my wine. I have seen a wine store in Managua that I have been meaning to hit up, maybe I will when we are there in 2 weeks. I’ve also heard that the supermarkets in Estelí have a decent selection, so it will only be a short time before I am reunited with my grape juice friend :) Woe is me right? So for all of you who are in California, please enjoy a glass of wine for me! Just make sure it’s not White Zinfandel (or any other pink wine, unless it’s a true Rosé), any wine out of a box, any wine sold in quantities greater than 750ml (unless it is a true Magnum size), any wine that is called “Charles Shaw”, or any “wine” that is called Boones Farm…that stuff is not wine!

I know a lot of you have been asking me what I want/need, but the truth is I haven’t reached that point of desperation quite yet. Once I’m in Somoto I’m sure I will start having some major cravings.

Training is sooooo close to being done!!! I’m sad to leave my family but happy to not wake up for class every day. Course, I’ll be waking up every day to teach class...I’m sure I’ll miss our language classes after a couple of weeks in site.

Sunday marked the beginning of Fiestas Patronales in my pueblo and I was not a happy camper to wake up to the celebration at 5am passing by my house! The procession was a very loud and off tune marching type band followed by at least 100 bombas (potent cherry bombs that burst in the sky) right above my house. I was sort of hating life at that moment. But, luckily I was able to fall back asleep till 7:30am when the band just HAD to pass by again! I had to get up this time but thank goodness my mamí was complaining very loudly about the “malditas bombas” as well. I understand that the people in my town want to show they are really really happy about the arrival of Santa Ana...but really, do they have to do it at 5am? Don’t they care about other people sleeping? The answer is a firm no. I would love to go into the “fatalism” topic I have yet to type up but I know my brain cannot finish certain opinions without me sounding like an ethnocentric maniac. In the next couple of weeks I will compose a commentary about the presence of religion in daily life in Nica, using more objective anthropological wording instead of blantent subjective opinions. Anyways, this celebration with the band and the bombas will continue until the 26th...meaning for the rest of the time we are in training. Good times right!?

Ok, enough for today, enjoy the pictures below. Miss you all! Hope the fires are better! My bosses (from the left), Head Trainer Ashley, APCD Georgia (my direct boss), Project Specialist Erick (2nd boss), Trainer Ernie (former PCV)

Me and Matt (one of the TEFLs)

La Canchita (Little Pig) playing with a toad during the rain, she is so cute!

Our youth group, or whats left of them

I apologize for not updating in over 10 days, yikes! I guess that shows that my reliance on daily technology is starting to fade, course I have to add that my computer screen has been acting up on me and sometimes when I turn it on I can’t see ¾ of my screen because the colors are all pixilated. Today it seems that it wants to be nice to me. I think maybe the humidity got to it the one day I forgot to put it in its big Ziploc bag!

So last week was spent in Somoto, Madriz (city, state) my new site! We started out with Counterpart Day last Tuesday in Managua where the majority of our counterparts came to meet us for the first time. I say majority because not all of the counterparts came, I was supposed to have 2 come but only one of them showed up. I preferred only having one counterpart at the all-day meeting because I got to know her on a one-on-one basis a little more easily. Ay, I don’t think I’ve explained what a counterpart actually is! So a counterpart is a Nica you will be collaborating with for the next 2 years in your site. Since teaching is the main part of my site, I will have 3 counterpart teachers at Padre Fabretto and 1 counterpart teacher at the Instituto. However, a lot of the people that came to Counterpart Day were principals (directors/directoras) or heads of departments at the NGOs we will be working at. The counterpart that met me last week was Sabrina who is head of secondary education at Padre Fabretto. I won’t be teaching with her in the classroom per se, but she will be my connection to the organization and if I ever have any problems she is the one I will go to. I don’t really consider her my boss, but more of a consul and a work associate. Thank goodness we get along great and she’s only 30 years old and she always has such a great level of positive energy. I know we will have a great 2 years working together. My counterpart from MINED (Ministerio de Educación) didn’t show up, but that’s ok!

On Wednesday I traveled at 5:30am with Sabrina to Somoto via old school bus (I’m waiting for the day when I see Placer Union School District or Loomis School District painted on the side, since the majority of buses are old school buses from the U.S. If I do see one, I will definitely take a picture) and around 10am we arrived at the intersection of Somoto/Ocotal. This intersection takes you west to Somoto and the Honduran border or north to Ocotal and the Honduran border. Anyways, for over a week there had been a strike of farmers right in the middle of the intersection so no vehicles could pass through. The farmers were protesting an unfair loan by a bank and by blocking this intersection they thought they were “sticking it to the man”. Well, in my opinion the only people they truly hurt were their own countrymen who couldn’t get their goods to Managua to sell or families who had to walk 5 km with babies to get to a cab on the other side of the strike. Another pointless strike and I’m certain it will not be the last. Continuing, we unloaded 1 km away from the strike and walked past the angry farmers to take a cab the rest of the way to Somoto.

Sabrina and I went directly to Oratorio Padre Fabretto in Somoto so I could see the school, meet most of the staff, and talk to the director. I was already pooped from the bus ride, so I really had to pull out that “I’m happy and excited to be here…hell no I’m not tired” look! It wasn’t very hard to put on a smile after I started meeting the 40+ employees at the Somoto Oratorio (there are over 120 employees in the 3 Fabretto schools I will work at) and after I saw how cute the kids were. In the afternoon I spent a good hour with Oliver (the departing SBD volunteer that I will be replacing) and we talked about the ins and outs of Somoto, the schools, PC service in general, and his travel plans after he closed his service on that Thursday. It was sad to watch him say goodbye to all of the staff at Fabretto and to the kids…some of them were crying! That to me shows that a volunteer has made a difference in some way, when the kids and staff are crying! I spent about 3 hours at the Somoto Oratorio then it was a long bumpy ride to the Quebrada Honda Oratorio, you know only 2 hours out in the boondocks!

I met the staff at Quebrada Honda and spent the rest of the afternoon observing classes, taking a tour of the school, and chatting it up with my new counterpart Hilda and the director. The director is originally from Managua and he was originally a student of Padre Fabretto (the actual dude), now he helps other children daily. I didn’t get his entire story due to the lack of time, but he did make me a nice warm cup of “atol” which is kinda like hot pudding. The atol helped get rid of the coldness running through my body, I was dumb and didn’t bring any of my closed-toed shoes to keep my feet warm…I had no idea how cold it was going to be in Quebrada Honda! So here I was in sandals, a skirt and my UCD sweatshirt freezing in 60 degree weather! Maybe it wasn’t 60, but the wind and the rain were sure cold! From QH, Sabrina and I took another bumpy ride to Cusmapa to spend the night…I was so pooped!

That night I was actually cold and I really wanted my flannel PJs that I left at home, thinking I would never need them ever in Nicaragua. Boy was I wrong! I had 3 blankets, my sweatshirt on, my jeans on, and my socks on to keep warm. Course, I guess I haven’t explained how all of the houses have at least a 2 inch space in between the roof and the walls. This means that cold wind can enter during a rain storm, this means that it’s not rare to get birds or bats in your room at 1am (oh yeah, I’ve had bats in my room!), and I guess the reason there is the space is to allow the heat to escape during the summer? It makes you appreciate a non-tin roof, air conditioning and central heating! Anyways, I was cold again but I got some sleep somehow! In the morning we headed to the Cusmapa Oratorio where I met another 40+ staff members, whose names I forgot the next second because there were so many of them! I took a tour of the school, worked with Brenda my counterpart on a lesson plan for when I come back on July 30th and got to use the net for a bit. I also got to talk to Chele (which translates to “white man”, people on the street call me “Chela” all the time, but it’s also used to describe Nicas who have white skin) who is in charge of the gardening/farming program in Cusmapa. They have 2 green houses, a fertilizer making station with earth worms, and an impressive collection of plants varying from apple trees to hothouse tomatoes. I also got to see the woodshop that has most of the same machinery as Del Oro H.S.’s classroom back at home. From what I got from the website, the machines were donated by a guy from the U.S. around 2001 and he frequently comes back to Nicaragua to teach woodshop. How they got these machines here, I’m sure it was quite a logistical equation. In the afternoon Sabrina, Brenda, myself and some of the kids trekked a couple minutes outside of the school boundaries to get to the nearby Laguna and then onto a lookout of the mountains between Madriz and Chinandega. It was that moment when I saw the mountains that I realized I was placed in one of the most beautiful parts of Nicaragua! I’m sorry I have no pictures to show, I decided against taking pictures (and I lacked the ambition as well) during my site visit because I knew I would be taking tons in the next 2 years.

After the long day at Cusmapa we took the Fabretto truck back to Somoto in the dark and the rain. I finally got to see the house where I would be hosted for the first 6 weeks in my site! I will be living with one of the teachers from Fabretto and her husband who is a pediatrician. The room isn’t bad, I prefer my room in my training town, but it is a nice secure house. They have 2 dogs named Bobby and Trimulon (no idea what the name means), a cat with no name, a parrot that likes its head scratched, and two doves. My new host mom said she’d be more than happy to help me find a place to rent and she said while I’m finishing training she would definitely make some phone calls to some friends. Supposedly there is a house for rent right around the corner, but I won’t hold my breath. I spent the next day at the Somoto Oratorio because no one was at the Instituto since the kids and staff were on vacation. So during my site visit I didn’t get to meet the director or my counterpart from the Instituto, which presents an interesting challenge for my first day of work on July 29th. On Saturday Sabrina took me on a tour of Somoto the city to show me key points and help me begin to develop a sense of bearings (is that correct English?). I saw the central market, the mayor’s office, the police station, the central park, the Catholic Church, some worthwhile eateries, and some cheap places to shop. It was a very productive day to say the least!

I’ll talk a little bit about what Padre Fabretto does and a little bit about the history, because it’s truly an amazing NGO. Also, there is a great website to check out: www.fabretto.org so please if you have time check it out! Padre Fabretto was an Italian priest who came to Nicaragua in the 1950s, bringing his passion for helping the poor and mentoring children. He went to Granada, Estelí, and finally settled down in Somoto where he saw a desperate need to reach out to the poverty which plagued the campos (campos are farms, but you can think of boondocks). He started the Oratorios in Somoto, Quebrada Honda, and Cusmapa with the dream that all of the children who sought education, clothing, food, and a loving home would be able to have free access whenever needed. Today, the Oratorios serve as an after school program where the teachers reinforce subjects taught in the MINED classrooms, offer technical classes like woodshop and computation, where the kids can get at least 1 good nutritional meal, and most importantly offer a hope to these children to rise above poverty through the skills acquired over the years. Fabretto also provides uniforms, shoes, backpacks, and all the other necessary school supplies. Programs start at Preschool and go all the way to the University level and most of the University students earn scholarships to study during the weekend and help out at Fabretto on the weekdays as teachers.

So what will I be doing at Fabretto? On Mondays I will work at the Somoto Oratorio with María Jose my counterpart and I will continue where Oliver left off with Empresa Creativa. At this moment in the school year all of the students at the Oratorios are getting their products ready for the local competition, so I will be helping them with their business plans and product ideas. (I’ll be sure to explain the competition in another blog) I will also be helping with the Critical Thinking (Pensamiento Critico) class, where the kids work on solutions to problems around the community, work on their career planning and just practice “thinking outside the box”. On Tuesday mornings I will teach at the Instituto and introduce the “Life Skills” part of the Empresa Creativa, themes such as: How to compose a resume, looking at one’s life in 10 years, a review of how to calculate percentages, and many more. This part of the LEC (the Empresa Creativa book) is supposed to prepare them for the actual class for the following school year. As soon as I’m finished with my classes in the morning I hop a 2 hour bus to Quebrada Honda Oratorio to co-teach with Hilda until 5pm, where then I hop on a bus to Cusmapa to spend the night. I wake up on Wednesdays in Cusmapa and head off to co-teach all day at the Cusmapa Oratorio with Brenda. Are you following me so far? Haha, I know it’s kind of confusing.

Oh, I’m sure you all are wondering where exactly I stay at when I’m in Cusmapa!? I stay in the volunteer house called “Casa de los Mangoes” where I will live 2 days out of the week with other Fabretto volunteers. Fabretto is a NGO registered in the U.S. and Spain, so there are American and Spanish volunteers who will be coming in and out during my 2 years of service. This is great for me because I can’t possibly go insane due to the lack of contact with “gringos”, and granted the Spaniards are usually pretty friendly as well. So, I live 2 days a week in Cusmapa and 5 days in Somoto…an experience apart from many of the other volunteer sites. I’m excited for this set-up because I will never be sitting on my butt!

So, this is the only killer of my schedule, but it can be changed next school year. I have to teach at the Instituto at 7:45am on Thursdays, which means I have to take the 5am bus from Cusmapa! Ugh…that part I’m not excited about! Well, at least I know how to have energy at that time of the morning, thanks to 8 years of early morning band practice in high school and college. Bless my days of band nerdiness right? After my one class on Thursday at the Instituto I head right over to the Somoto Oratorio where I will help with English classes and Empresa Creativa. The English classes were sort of thrown onto me, but they needed some spaces filled for some of the classes because a Fabretto volunteer just recently left for the states. Until they get another volunteer to take her place I will be filling in for 5 classes. I really don’t mind since it is temporary and I can consider it as a secondary project at the moment too. Fridays are made up of teaching at both the Instituto and the Somoto Oratorio all day. Let me put my schedule in a more readable format, for breath of knowledge for all:

Mondays: Somoto Oratorio, teaching Empresa Creativa

Tuesdays: Instituto in the mornings, take bus to Quebrada Honda around noon, teach at Oratorio Quebrada Honda during the afternoon, take bus at 5pm to Cusmapa, and spend night in Cusmapa

Wednesdays: Teach at Cusmapa Oratorio all day, sleep in Cusmapa again

Thursdays: Take bus back to Somoto at 5am, teach at Instituto at 7:45am, and teach Empresa Creativa and English at Somoto Oratorio for the rest of the day

Fridays: Work at both Somoto Oratorio and Instituto

Saturdays/Sundays: We technically work 7 days a week, so I’ll probably go to Ocotal or Estelí to go to the bank or just hang out in Somoto. I’m sure my weekends will also be used to travel around to surrounding communities, visit the Canyon of Somoto, and maybe have an occasional glass of wine…god do I miss wine right now.

Technically I work with both an NGO and the Ministry of Education, and I am really excited to see both sides of an educational system: a non-formal school system and the official school system. Oh, and another great perk of working at Fabretto is free access to internet! So I have no excuse to not update my blog every week, no excuse at all! And not only is it free access but it’s wireless, so it will be even easier to bring my laptop and write to everyone.

“Yellow brick Road” – Elton John

I’ve heard this song so many times on the bus in Spanish and lately it’s been stuck in my head!