well, its been a few months since I've posted anything. I've since finished Peacecorps, traveled across Honduras and Guatemala, and have finally made it home! Thanks for following me over the last two years!

I've been spending the last few days here in the capitol, Managua, assisting in the training of the new group of health volunteers. It’s strange to see these new bright eyed trainees, eager, not yet jaded, full of questions and excitement. I remember those days when everything seemed so exotic and new. During training a friend and I would walk to this one gully at day break, or sun down to watch the monkeys there scramble in the mango trees, babies on back. This year, as mango and avocado season approaches, I find myself complaining about 50cent avocados, and 20 cent bags of green mangos. Those which once seemed new, shocking, or absurd have normalized, and I constantly have to remind myself that dollar watermelons, world class beaches, amazingly warm and open people, don't exist the world over, and I can't take any of the short time I have left here for granted.

Sunday I had an epic journey with friends of mine out to one of my rural communities. It involved my fourth time on horse back, me walking almost an hour too far, then back tracking almost 20 mins too far, and a really really sore backside. All worth it though!

Cashew nut/fruit. You can see the nut growing on the top, the fruit is edible, but will stain your clothes, and eating more than one made my mouth go numb.

This poor horse, it had new shoes on, and I guess had his front hoof injured, so I eventually rode solo, and the other lady found another horse.

cows drinking out of a hot spring water flow. The first time I walked through this creek, I kind of freaked out, because I thought that maybe it was contaminated run off from who-knows-what, but later found out there is a hot spring tucked away.

Carrying home a gift for my new god daughter!

Well I passed my first/last holiday season here in Nicaragua. I spent Christmas Eve Day with a nurse-friend of mine, and her family. We ate chicken with vegetables. Christmas day was spent on a river, cooking soup and swimming with other friends of mine. Here are some photos.

Christmas day soup, aka beef bones smashed with ax, boiled for hours, and with yucca, plantain, cabbage, and potatoes thrown in.

The river.

Christmas Eve dinner with some amazing people!

Christmas Eve supper!

It was a enjoyable break from the commercialism of the holiday season stateside.

Hello to all my loyal readers, I'm terribly sorry for my blog negligence, and have no real legitimate excuse for not writing, nor do I intend to try to invent one.

Let’s see the last time I wrote, I believe was mid October. Since then I've started coordinating with a US group called Power to the People in order to get solar panels installed in a rural health post, restarted (somewhat) my youth groups, helped facilitate an HIV/AIDS workshop with sex workers, been back stateside for Turkey day, and had my close of service conference which concluded with a surprise turtle hatching!

Where to start? Every year Peacecorps Nicaragua gives health volunteers money, set aside by the US government through a fund called PEPFAR (ya'll may have heard of it, it was controversial under President Bush) for HIV/AIDS education. (http://www.pepfar.gov/about/index.htm) We here in Nicaragua use the money for workshops. The volunteers in my area and I decided to focus our attentions on the booming sex industry. Since I live near the Honduran boarder, we have an abundance of traffic, mainly being commerce, with that comes exchange of money, lonely men, and women working to serve that demand.

Of the 30 women invited, about 13 made it, some of them bringing their children. One city in which we had half our invitees is a port town, and apparently a large shipping vessel from I believe Ukraine had arrived, meaning work. We had a variety of NGOs from the area come and speak about Gender, and Human Rights. Although I feel the workshop was highly flawed (bad communication between us volunteers and NGO's etc) I think we set a decent framework for the next volunteers if they choose to work with sex workers when it comes their time to have a PEPFAR workshop.

Here I have a picture of my almost completed world map. It’s been a larger project than I had ever imagined, but well worth the work. I've painted it in the municipality library where students have access to books and internet. My grand plan is to have a weekly trivia question in which students can hand their answers into the librarian, and I will give out prizes to those with the correct answer. I hope this will encourage curiosity and research skills. Vamos a ver

I originally had decided not to go home for Thanksgiving. Since I leave in April, I didn’t want to "waste time" by leaving for the US. But a couple weeks before I decided to go home, a group of volunteers, having had completed their 2 years of service, left. I was struggling with the loss of a huge support network I'd learned to lean on, that coupled with the discovery of a cheap ticket (Spirit Air!!) I packed my little backpack, and headed home. I pretty much spent a week sitting, eating, visiting with friends and doing some more sitting, and eating. Since arriving back in town, I think every 5th person has made a point to comment on how fat I am (Apparently my half pound is that noticeable, although I guess I'm flattered that many of the women here have nothing better to do than comment on the Gringa's weight fluxuations, it still is a cultural differencce I've never been able to adapt too).Anyway, I had a restful trip home, and returned to Nicaragua with recharged moral, and motivation.

Upon arriving back in Nicaragua we had our 3 day Close of Service Conference which consists of a reflection of our service, suggestions for the program, job hunting skills aka resume building, interviewing etc, and grad school searches. I came out of the workshop about as lost as I was going into it, but hey, at least I'm consistent...?

On our last night at the conference, which Peacecorps so kindly hosts at a beachside conference center, the turtle nursery on the property had a nest hatch. The 89 baby Olive Ridly turtles were placed in a shallow barrel, and held overnight so they could be released at low tide in the morning. I was told by staff that it is preferable to release the critters as the tide goes out, so that the pull of the water assists them, rather than throw them back on the beach hence helping to avoid baby drownings. The pictures I’m attempting to load shows one little guys pending dive into the water and the large waves ahead, the second one is crossing the sand in hopes of not getting lost. Those little guys are born strong, I was impressed with their strength and determination. Of the 89 hatched, only 9 will make it back to lay eggs. The others will be eaten, or drowned, or killed by human activity. Unfortunately many people see these nests hatch, and think, 'look there is an abundance of turtles, who gives a crap I want to eat them so I'm going to.." I have recently heard that of the turtle eggs laid, only 15 survive long enough to hatch, and of that 15% only 10% will live long enough to return to their original beach to lay eggs. I doubt that barely covers population replacement, let along population growth. Anyway it was an amazing and humbling experience. I was tempted to jump in the water and swim with them a ways, but decided they were superior swimmers and that breakfast had priority...

Well everyone, that’s all for now folks!

I've had a crazy week of traveling! These most recent photos are from an activity I coordinated with another volunteer to promote HIV/AIDS awareness. In the morning we hiked up a series of waterfalls, which because of the rains were stunningly full, and crystal clear. I for some silly reason which escapes me now, had decided against bringing a swimsuit but plenty of wading was to be had.

The activity was a billiards tournament. In between each round a small lesson is giving, one about what is the difference between HIV and AIDS, how you can get it and not get it. The importance of getting the test done, the laws protecting those who have the disease, and at the end a segment about condoms. Here in this photo I am demonstrating how condoms can stretch by putting a condom on this guys arm. He was a great sport. I kind of forced him to participate. Many complaints about condoms is that they don't fit, so this is kind of myth buster activity. So in order to win, in the final round the finalist have to answer correctly questions about the mini lessons given every time they shoot a ball into the pocket. If they don't answer correctly, they either loose their next turn, or the ball is placed back on the table. Normally the men are super respectful, and don't haze us.

Usually working with men, is highly intimidating, but these events have proven to be highly successful

ok so I have other photos, but theyre not on this flash drive... so these are from a long weekend to the beach, One night at a place called Playa Gigante, (named so because the point looks like a big giant´s foot) which is by far the most beautiful beach i´ve been to thus far, the other photos are taken from a church tower in Granada. The last photo is me in a chocolate museum. I dont get credit for any of these photos. A friend just was here visiting from the US, and these are her´s

This week we´ve been celebrating the independence of Central America. My town tends to go a little crazy, bringing in people from all over the country. Horses run through the streets, everyone wears plaid shirts, jeans, boots, and sombreros (I only have the jeans no boots or sombrero yet...). The local schools present their marching bands, and acknowledgements are given to students with good attendance, and grades.

I´m staying with a nurse for the week as my little room I rent is right on the park, and with all the noise, and drunkards, I decided it was in my best interest to stay away from the activity at night. She’s wonderful, takes wonderful care of me, and I know if I ever need ANYTHING she´ll be there. I´ve been spending more time with her family, and I adore her grandchildren.

Last night I helped butcher a cow before bed time. I was literary getting into bed when the nurse im staying with said her son had dropped it off. It showed up large chunks in two plastic sacks. They had partitioned it using an ax I think, and the thing was full of bone shards. An hour and a half later we had it cut into family sized portions ready for gifting. Today we got a chance to eat some of it, and it was worth the work.

(it didn’t bother me, I feel like if you´re willing to eat meat, you should be willing to also do the dirty work, though this wasn´t all that dirty, although my pj´s definitely needed washing after)

A friend from Peace Corps recently came down to visit and we gave a workshop to a group of women on how to process soy. It’s really cheap, easy, healthy and for the most part accessible. We made milk and ground meat.

Pictures to come soon...ish

New art class member. Do you remeber in elementary school making the stained glass windows with crepe paper and black construction paper. We did that today, and it was a blast, and made a huge mess!

Here is one of my youth groups. We are painting Wacalls which are like gourds once cleaned out and dried. We are hoping to sell them as wall decorations and flower hangers in order to save enough money so we can take a field trip to Leon so the girls can see their own museums and learn their own history. Most of them have never been, and the city is of huge historical and national importance.

here I am with the crew that I frequently visit. They range in age of 11 months to 12 years old. We watch cartoons together, play jump rope, and just the other day, one of the girls pulled three white hairs from my head. Thats true friendship. I´ve learned kids are fantastic when you can hand them off when they´re acting up.

This photo is from a march which was facilitated by a volunteer who lives north of me. myself and 4 other volunteers, along with their youthgroups participated in march through town against domestic violence.

Laundry day in the rainy season

youth group meeting. Don´t they look excited!

Workshop with 46 middleschool and highschool teachers, teaching teachers to how to teach HIV/AIDS in their classrooms. This is pretty much what I do. I walk around with a wooden dildo all day...

Well I´ll be finishing my time here in Nicaragua in March/April of 2011. Which leaves me only 8-9 months here. I have so much left to do!

To my faithful readers sorry I’ve been negligent recently. I really don’t have a good reason to give.

I’m getting worse and worse about taking photos. When I finish whatever activity I am doing I look back and think, damn it would be nice to have a couple photos.

Any-Who…

Last Friday a friend of mine invited me to visit her family who live outside of town in an extremely remote/rural community. Initially I had said I couldn’t go because I had a meeting the next day in another but closer community, but apparently the two communities are a short 45 min horse ride away so they were going to loan me a cousin and horse in the morning, so I agreed, what the heck, go see something new. We took the local public/private transportation out, a big white covered truck, about halfway to our destination. From there the truck continues its route in another direction leading away from my friend’s town. From there we set out on foot. It had been raining all day so the path was a muddy mess. We happened across her Uncle who walked with us a ways. My poor friend, always looking adorable had planned on her brother meeting us with horses, and was traveling in these cute little pink and white heals and was having a hard time navigating the path. I ended up carrying both our bags for a bit. When she was about ready to give up, her brother indeed showed up with two horses and we took off.

So this was my first time on a horse. As a child I had been slightly-not-quite-terrified of horses. Don’t ask me why, I think it had something to do with their teeth and intelligent eyes. I like dumb animals; you can predict what they’ll do. Horses they’re smart and seemingly unpredictable. Well my friend jumped on, and me behind her. Man was I sore the next day, even though the poor animal was pure skin and bones, it was still wide enough to have me walking funny for a day or so after. Anyway the path was wet, and at points rocky and slippery, both riders of the horses constantly were reciting short prayers hoping the horses didn’t fall. We skirted around the base of a steep and jagged mountain/hill. They call them hills, but they’re nothing like hills in Maine. Maybe someday I’ll take a photo.

So we left at noon and at about 4 we arrived at her house. Dirt floors as expected, no light a small cement holding tank for water running off the mountain, houseful of kids, chickens, a fairly bravo (aggressive) pig, horses, and of course, dogs.

We ate a modest diner of beans, tortilla, rice, and some sweet corn-ish bread. The family was amazingly hospitable, and welcoming (unsurprising as I´ve decided that’s how people here are). That night we all piled into one tiny room which had 3 beds and a hammock for 5 people.

In the morning, I woke up at around 6 and got ready for the hike back. Apparently the river was too high for the horses to cross so I was to go back by foot. The community where I had my meeting is about a 2 hour walk over pretty rugged terrain. It had rained all night and the river was running high and fast. But nothing that I felt uncomfortable with, unlike my friend´s mother. She was on the verge of tears with fear that I would drown. I assured them I can swim and dove in backpack wrapped in a plastic bag in tow. I think because the mother can´t swim the river in general scares her, and to see this tiny little foreigner jump in was at about her limit.

My friend´s little 12 year old brother (Much too grown up for a 12 year old, I guess that happens when you´re the oldest male in the house after your father dies) walked with me along the river until we met up with the road. The path split off into a variety of other smaller trails, and I would have for certain lost my way alone.

When we arrived at the road, he had to hurry back as it had started to rain again, and the river was sure to rise more. I was terrified that something would happen to him because he had to cross the river from help me. I got a phone call the next day to say he was fine.

The children here learn to swim by watching others. No one teaches them, or tells them * `hey watch that your feet don´t get caught under the rocks and sucks you under.` Every year numerous children are lost in the many rivers, lakes, lagoons, and beaches of Nicaragua.

I took off up the trail crossing many streams. At one point I crossed one which was actually hot! I was freaked out thinking it was some factory which was contaminating the area and I had waded through it, but come to find out there is a vent nearby where the water is heated up thermally and runs off. I´ve made a point to try to get back there and check it out sometime.

Well after my two hour walk, blistered and borderline dehydrated I made it to the house where I was to have my youth group meeting. We talked about ¨making health choices¨ (hey the girls chose the theme, and mhmm that’s my work).

At around 2 I headed to the park to catch my bus home, and was informed that I´d missed it. I almost cried; it’s another 2 hour walk back to my town. As I started walking back someone yelled to me that the covered truck was running an hour late and by the skin on my teeth jumped on it and made it home.

The day didn’t end there, I had my host´s mother´s birthday to help cook for, and celebrate. Try as hard as they could no one could get me up to dance, or force the famous Flor de Caña into me (rum). Finally I made it to bed at 10. It was an amazing and adventurous trip for which everyone here was mad at me for (¨it’s not safe for a foreigner alone out in the middle of nowhere¨ they tell me, when actually its more dangerous when you’re in the towns because that’s where the dogs and the drunkards are)

It was worth the sore legs, to see more of where I live, and get to be out doors for a bit.

I recently went to a town called Bluefields which is out on the Atlantic coast. at the end of May they have Maypole festivals ¨Palo de Mayo¨. So myself and three friends made the 11+ hour trip out there.

our 5 hour bus ride between Managua the capitol and the river town of Rama ended up lasting 9 hours rather than 5 (involving tires coming off and being plugged, door jamming so no one could get in or out, I was luckily trapped outside in the pouring rain, and at some point I woke up to smoke which no one seemed to be terribly concerned about). From Rama its a 1.5 to 2 hour boat ride up the river.

The feeling one gets from the Atlantic coast differs drastically from the Pacific where I live. For starters the area was invaded by the English rather than the Spanish and remained fairly autonomous for a decent stretch of time. Also many ex slaves landed there as well as mutinied slave ships, who then mixed with the local population. They also had a large Chinese population when the area was a successful trade/shipping area.

anyway thats enough history.

On Saturday was the huge procession in the street. Each burro of the city had their own group represented who would dance and their recently nominated ¨princess¨ was presented. The parade ended with each group presenting a specific dance and the princesses competing for the title of Miss Bluefields. Well we decided that we wanted to see the whole parade and started asking around ¨where does the parade end¨? Every one we talked to kept saying, at the coconut tree. The what?! There has to be hundreds of coconut trees in this city, considering they put it in everything, beans and rice, chicken, shrimp, bread etc etc. We happened to run into two of our bosses who are from Bluefields and we asked them. They weren’t sure either so they called a friend. The phone call went something like this ¨Hi, how are you…hmmhmm…. So what time does the parade start… mhmmm… and where does it end…wait, where?!... Which one? ¨she turns to us and says, Ya so she says it end at the coconut tree but she doesn’t know where that is. The only way it seemed to find this mysterious coconut tree would be to follow the parade.

So we followed the crowded streets. Each barrio that we went through had a distinctive feel to it; you could feel when you´d passed from a Mosquito barrio to a Rama, or Spanish to Creole. Finally we came to what we believed was the end of the parade, because we had started to turn back towards the park. Where is that damned Coconut tree!? We´d been walking/dancing for a couple hours were dehydrated, happy and tired. Finally we asked someone standing near, where the parade ended. ¨Here was the response, in the barrio of Cotton Tree.¨

We had our one year workshop last week. It consisted of two and half days of meetings, and trainings, varying from themes such as behavior change, to working with sex workers.

One of the sessions which struck me as the most interesting was the workshop on diversity of sexuality. We talked about GBLTTTI (formerly known as GBLT). I´ll break it down for those of you less versed. G is for Gay, men who exclusively have relations with other men. B is for Bi, which is someone who has sexual relations with both male and female, L is for Lesbian, women who exclusively have relations with other women. The first T is for transsexual, which is an individual who self identifies as the gender opposite of their biology but still maintains their biological parts, aka a female who still has all her reproductive organs and breasts but 24 hours a day identifies as a male. The second T is for transvestite, which is someone biologically of one gender but identifies depending on the setting as the other gender in periods less then 24 hours a day daily. For example a male who when in the house and at work dresses and identifies as male, but when she is with her friends in a more comfortable setting will dress and identify as a female. The last T is for transgender which is where an individual has had one or more operations to remove or add parts from one gender to align themselves more with the gender in which they identify. ¨I¨ is for intersex, or individuals born with reproductive organs of both genders (formerly known as hermaphrodites).

These concepts are misunderstood in the USA, let alone taught here in Nicaragua. Many individuals who are of a non-heterosexual sexuality are often pinned as being sex workers and their reputations in the communities are very negative. The main factor for this reputation is discrimination (duh). These individuals try studying, or applying for jobs and are almost always rejected. Therefore many individuals have low education levels, low self esteem, and no work. Because of these factors amongst others many are forced into becoming sex workers for lack of options.

Another ¨category¨ of sexuality was presented to us. HSH hombres que tengan relaciones sexuales con Hombres, or men who have sex with men. Here this is not considered gay, I´ll explain.

Here if a man is ¨giving¨ he is maintaining the role of a man ¨aka insertion¨ while as the person receiving is assuming the role of the woman therefore is the ¨gay¨ person so to speak. It is almost impossible gather numbers of people who fall into one of the above categories, specifically the ones which can be more hidden such as gay lesbian and HSH. Yet in the information presented to us we were given a case study town, in which the numbers of HSH far out numbered any other GBLTTTI.

Now you might be wondering, wow Hazel way too graphic, or Big Deal but this is all quite relevant to my work. If the culture here is so inflexible as to have men having sex with men but aren´t gay, or makes sexuality so tabooed as to be something no one can talk about in contexts other than abstinence, can we expect people to use the information given to them when we teach about per se HIV, or STDS or Pregnancy? (Ok I´m not trying to say the HIV is gay issues ok so don´t even go there! I’m trying to connect lack of personal sexual understanding to healthy sexual practices)

I was speaking with one of my counterparts about GBLTTTI upon returning to my site and she impressed me with her openness and willingness to learn (She always is impressing me). She asked many pertinent questions and didn’t judge me on my opinions which very likely are different than anything she´d heard before (aka people are born wired one way; this all being something out of our control). I think that the overall population here may be much more receptive and open to the information than I´d expect. While this theme isn´t one of my direct work objectives, we´ll see how and if I can incorporate it into my work.

The newest project in my town is massive improvements to the public water supply. I haven´t been able to find out for sure who is funding it, but it appears to be through public and private funds domestic and abroad.

The idea behind the project is to provide the population with a reliable 16 hour a day water supply from 6 am to 10 pm. It is supposed to be completed in August of this year. Until then our dusty streets have been torn up, and on the right side is a 2.5 foot wide trench (as prone to falling as I’ve become I’ve yet to fall into this!)

But of course with all things there is a catch. Yesterday I was sitting in the muchly appreciate air-conditioned library talking to one of the mayor´s office tech guy. I asked him if they were planning a sewage system to deal with the new influx of water. He stopped what he was doing, calked his head to the side a little contemplating my question and responded almost surprised that they don’t have plans to but perhaps in the future.

While having a reliable and healthy source of water will improve to quality of life for all by reducing water hauling allowing washing to be done when convenient rather than being restricted to 5 am when there is water, it also has a huge potential for hygienic disaster.

As the system is set up currently I have a general idea. People´s toilets and latrines go into personally dug holes, while as dirty wash water for the most part gets thrown out into the street, thrown on patios to keep dust down, or onto plants. Kids play in it, animals walk all through it then traipse the dirt into the house. Already we have dirty water running in the streets, with only 2 hours of water almost daily. Currently residents can be fined if they are caught throwing grey water into the street or other public places, but the residents don’t always have an option depending on their living situation. And with 14 more hours of water daily, I’m concerned that we´ll have more excess water, aka more breeding places for dengue/malaria carrying mosquitoes (I accidently said the other day rather than dengue and malaria I said meringue... see what happens when you don´t speak English for a while!(well I thought it was funny at least)).

We´ll see how this all turns out, if anything it will give me a new branch of work in the up coming months.

Well, I haven´t written in a while, nor do I have a decent excuse, other than overall general laziness.

Hmm what to update, art classes are starting to taper out, I think the boys have decided they´d rather play soccer than paint, which is fine, it gives me time to start working with a girls group. I´m still trying to get the soccer league up and running. I´ve been begging the mayor´s office since February to help me, but everything is terribly disorganized, they want an NGO to donate everything so they have resources before they start, whereas the NGO wants there to be an actual league to donate the materials to before they´ll give us anything. So we´ll see how I tackle this seemingly-simple-soon-to-be-complicated road block. Also today I’m going to price house paints, because I want for my youth group to paint world maps on a few of the community schools.

Hopefully next month I will be having a HIV/AIDS billiards tournament. This is run like any old tournament, but between rounds, I´ll be giving mini-lessons about VIH/SIDA to the participants. In the final round, every time a ball is put into the hole, the shooter has to answer a question about VIH/SIDA. If they answer incorrectly, they either loose a turn, or the ball is taken out and placed back on the table. This means that everyone has to be paying attention to the lessons in order to answer to the questions.

I recently participated in a 3 day workshop building improved stoves in a neighboring department with some friends of mine who are serving in the agriculture sector.

Many people here cook in stoves constructed out of half barrels with a grill. They are extremely inefficient because they loose a lot of heat, and unhealthy because the smoke stays either in the house, or at face level, therefore the women and children are breathing this smoke all day long. Sometimes trash is used to cook with rather than wood because wood can be very expensive. These improved stoves are made out of brick, horse poop, and water in which a plant called pitayah has been soaked. This plant is a cactus of sorts that crawls up trees and has a wonderful bright pink fruit that makes you pee pink (which is kinda cool, its brighter than beet pee!) anyway this cactus once chopped up, soaked, and squeezed makes kind of a modge-podge type glue which is used in the adobe. Rebar is used to maintain the holes in which the pans and pots will sit. Aluminum sheeting is used to build the chimney, and ya, tada you have a stove. It’s a rather simple process that can save families money from wood and health bills and in the long run save lives

(something like 1.6 million people die each year from smoke induced respiratory problems, aka 1 person every 20 seconds).

old stove

I´d post the after photos, but I didn´t take any oops!

So my friend invited 60 families to participate. Part of the commitment of the participants was to attend 3 or 4 meetings in which she taught them about the environment, benefits of the stoves, waste disposal, and maintenance. To conclude the classes, all were expected to attend a two day workshop in which on the first day they would participate and observe the building of the stove, and on day two they would each build their chimney and rebar frame so they would be prepared to build their own stove in the following months. The supplies were all donated by friends, and family through an online site that Peace Corps maintains. (If you´re interested, here´s the link, you can browse current projects and donate money to volunteers around the world. http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors)

Well being the nature of the culture here, only about 35 of the participants had sufficient attendance to receive the materials, and 5 others were border line. Still, the participants are expected to help in the building of 1 stove other than their own, and if they don´t my friend will be taking the materials back. Because of the nature of foreign aid here, and remittances being sent from the states, there is a sense of entitlement which for the most part tints the culture here. One thing we try to do is give ¨hand ups¨not ¨hand outs¨. So by requiring the participants to actually participate, means they have to be held accountable, and if they don´t there are actual repercussions. Many times NGO´s or missionary groups come in, do all the work, and leave, removing any necessity for the community to participate. This in turn creates a culture of dependence on the foreign aid. Instead of the people looking for opportunities or even better creating them, they wait until someone comes in and does it for them. This as far as I can tell is fairly common throughout Central America. It may seem harsh, taking someone´s stove from them, but unless people are willing to contribute and be held accountable, then no long term meaningful change can occur. Until the people can re-learn to help themselves and become independent, there is little hope for growth and development. (In my opinion).

My reading list is slowly growing I’m up to 50 books (more or less I wasn’t keeping count at the beginning) since January 2009. Any one read any good books lately?

Last week was the week of Semana Santa, which starts Palm Sunday, and ends on Easter. No on works and the streets become a open party zone. So rather than enduring the constant, somewhat socially acceptable sexual harassment by drunken machismos, myself and a few other volunteers headed down south to the jungle. It was intended to be a 4 day kayak trip down the river, but lo and behold a majority of my group after the first day decided that paddling was too hard and quit. Only myself and another female volunteer wanted to continue, which as single women is quite unsafe (people in groups up to 6 can stay in the ranger stations along the river for free, but they´re manned by men who only leave the station once every 6 weeks, and are very isolated). So we convinced two of the guys to stay in with us for a couple days and hang out around the ranger station we were staying in as a compromise between quitting and continuing.

Crocodile

Instead of using school buses (they don´t float!) on the river they use these modified boats. Cram as many people in as humanly possible, chickens and probably other small livestock. On school buses vendors will run to the windows to sell food, water, or anything else, this too happens on the boats. At one point a smaller boat pulled up alongside and ta-da tajadas and bags of water were being sold. (Tajadas are platanos cut lengthwise in thin strips and fried much like plantain chips just longer)

Ranger station/miliatary post we stayed in

The Rio San Juan

Headed into the jungle on a little side river with the intent to catch some fish, we only managed a couple small ones and a turtle.

its quite a different world down in the south. It rains pretty much daily, its humid but not terribly hot (in contrast to my little town)where as where I live its hot, dusty, and only rains in the rainy season (which we will be entering at the end of this month).I´ve been surprised by the ecological diversity of the country. We have the coffee and chocolate cool mountainous regions of the north, the jungle to the south, cloud forests in the north/middle of the country, the bread basket of the country in the south west, the hot desert lowlands with a ridge of active volcanoes running through it (That's where I live!) and then the flat cheese region of the east, I'm not sure exactly what the Atlantic coast is like, but I´m under the impression its mangroves and fishing communities. We have beaches with nesting sea turtles, and lagoons which have taken over extinct volcano craters. We have two huge inland lakes which, if you look at Nicaragua on a map, is quite a domineering feature.

After the long trip (it took 14 hours just to get across lake Nicaragua on the way down excluding bus time and other boat time) I´m ready to get back to work.

So today I gave another art class, and in the afternoon went to the Casa Materna sat around for an hour waiting with a psychologist for a meeting to start, only one participant arrived so it was a no go. The art class was a blast. The previous one hadn’t gone so well. Trying to get 11 year old boys to sit down and paint shades and tones.

Yesterday was much more interesting. I was in one of the rural communities, where I have the only remnants of a functioning youth group. Myself and the five girls met to plan a class about “How to make a good decision” which we were going to give in the high school.

I’m not going to lie, I was highly skeptical. I thought it was a highly condescending topic, and to compound the problem I have absolutely no Spanish vocabulary to tackle the topic. I can talk all day about pregnancy, the stages of pregnancy, warning signs of complications, HIV/AIDS, the importance off vaccinations, and nutrition all day long, but this topic. Na-uh.

We had the class in second year in the high school, the students aged from 14 to 15. In the main activity we had the class of 45 students break into 6 groups. Each group was given a scenario to think about, come up with your options, and choose one. For example one card said something like “you and your friends are out at a fiesta. They are drinking beers, but you don’t want to because they always make you feel sick. Your friends insist that you drink, otherwise you’re not a ¨Real Man¨ what do you do?” Maybe the students didn’t understand the assignment, but none of the groups seemed able to complete the assignment.

In this specific scenario the boys decided that they needed to drink because they didn’t want to loose their friends. That was it. End of discussion. Not one of the 8 kids in the group could come up with a single other option. It took a lot of poking on the teachers’ part to get any conversation going. It seemed that one person would come up with one option, and that’s as far as they got.

I think the problem was that I took for granted that A. I’m older and with things like problem solving I’ve had more experience than your normal high school sophomore B. In school here its copy- paste- regurgitates- repeat; creative problem solving has no space or funding in the schools. C. I have minimally functioning Spanish. I’ve gotten really accustomed to the deer in the headlights look that I get all the time. The combination of the three, my arrogance in assuming (what’s the saying, when you assume you make and an ASS of U and ME) that this was easy, and my lack of real understanding of their understanding, pretty much hindered the activity. I caught up after class with one of the teachers who was participating, and she said it went really well, that I just need to learn the vocab (damn Spanish! You think after a year I’d have this figured out). So maybe if I can organize, and maybe learn to break the steps down into more basic steps I can maybe reach at least a couple of the 45 students, and that alone I feel, could give me some more meaning to my being here.

Food.

My body seems to have pretty much adjusted to the food here. I will get cravings for beans and rice, and my body doesn’t crave as much as it used to the fruits and vegetables that were readily available back home. There has only been really on food that didn’t sit with me well. It’s called Mondongo.

In my first few months in site, I went to visit a nurse that I work with. They were eating Mondongo soup. I had a hard time with its smell let alone even eating it. It was this stinky tough oddly colored meat floating in a sparse broth accompanied by a couple vegetables. Trying to be polite I quietly gagged the hard rubbery/sponge like substance down. I swore to myself that I would never again put my self in a Mondongo-eating-situation ever again.

Well yesterday I went to visit with my old host family, and to my great disappointment, they were eating, ta-da, Mondongo soup. I had forewarned my host mother that I previously had a traumatizing experience with the said soup. She informed me, that this soup had been properly prepared and that ¨you don’t eat Mondongo soup from just anyone.¨ We had walked a few blocks across town in the blazing heat (we’re getting into summer here high 80s 90s at night) to the mother in law of her daughter who cooks and sells beans, cheese, tortillas and on this specific day, mondongo soup.

So there I was sitting terrified at the table (Apparently I wasn’t doing such a great job at hiding my contempt for the soup) sipping at the broth. When people make soup here, they keep the vegetables and meats in large pieces that are taken out of the soup and placed on a plate to cut up and eat. The first thing out the broth was the Mondongo. It sat there squishy and white doing everything but tempt me. I finally worked up the courage to try the meat once it´d cooled down and assumed a more solid form, and to my surprise, hey it wasn’t so bad! The soft squishy brownish-purple part isn’t the best, but the white rubbery bit actually tastes kind of like chicken. So I guess the take away lesson from Mondongo is that hey, sometimes you just get a bad first impression, and it never hurts to give it a second chance.

Oh I didn’t mention; Mondongo is the stomach of a cow. It has to be prepared and cleaned properly or else it comes out hard and stinky, when you want it to not smell and be nice and soft. I’m not going to order it when I go to a restaurant, but if it’s offered up as a free lunch, I now know that I’ve got at least a 50/50 chance I can stomach it (no pun intended).

This week I started giving art classes to a small group of kids in a friend’s house. I originally wanted to have 2 girls and 2 boys, but unfortunately the mothers of the little girls’ wouldn´t let them leave the house. Boys here really have a lot more freedom, girls are taught at a very young age that their role in the world is really cooking, cleaning, and making and taking care of babies. I´ll have to swing by the houses today and talk with the mothers again. The class though, went well. The boys were pretty punctual even! We learned color theory, and practiced mixing colors and making color wheels.

last week my counterparts and I celebrated the Febuary birthdays (Meaning Mine! and one of our work friends Juanita) I like food. I like sharing food, so heres a photo of the food we ate.Beef, rice, plantains, and a small tomatoe salad.

Sometimes it’s just really hard to decide what to write about. Sometimes I´ll have an idea, and by the time I make it to the library to type it out, it’s gone. Other times I´ll have a whole blog posted, and it won´t feel right, just doesn’t click, so it doesn’t get posted. I guess that’s the nature of blogging.

I recently had some friends and family send down some art supplies. Today I’m going to binding some small sketch pads for a group of about 6 children, and then tomorrow, all going well, I´ll be starting art classes! I´m hoping to start with color theory, then moving onto shades and tones, then next shapes and forms, etc. Each kid will get their own book, and little paint set (which will be returned to me after each class to the guys don´t destroy them) but over all I want this to be a space for creativity, self identity. Here these aren´t really focused on. The kids copy and paste in the schools and don’t have access to the resources for artistic creativity. We´ll see how this goes!

Anyone have any good lesson plan ideas?

Hazel

For the first day of school, the kids had an acto which is where they put on a couple cultural numbers. Here are two of the first graders performing, they were adorable. I think the little guy on the right is in the running for the cutest kid in the world. He´s the grandson of a friend of mine (all my Nicaraguan friends are atleast 30).

Doing the right thing.

This morning I went to my health center, and was talking with one of the nurses when we heard this grunting-huffing sound. She gave me an inquisitive look, and I said, oh it must be one of the dogs outside (of which there are a plethora of and they´re always making strange noises of sorts fighting over food etc.) We heard it a couple other times soon thereafter and I again blew it off. I looked out the window and saw nothing. She decides to go and investigate and come to find out it was a man laying outside our window convulsing. As the nurse later told me, ¨that thump was a human body hitting the ground¨(which I didn’t hear) I felt horrible. This was something serious and I had dismissed it partly from lack of experience (It was and odd sound) partly lack of interest, and partially lack of curiosity. Now I would label myself as an interested, curious, and to a lesser extent experienced person, yet I passed on a very legitimate opportunity to do the right thing. How often do we miss opportunities like that, without even knowing? This isn´t an isolated experience either, I vaguely remember similar things, passing up on helping someone (It’s not my problem) when a small action like handing the lady vomiting on the bus a plastic bag rather than changing seats, would take little time and thought on my part, but would make a huge difference in the other persons day.

When the man was carried into the center, I went back to the nurse and told her how terrible I felt, and she just smiled and gave me a hug.

The other night I went to visit with me neighbors. I love going and sitting with them out front of their house, just talking. I asked them about some local beliefs and I thought I’d share.

So This is very much like our ground hogs day. They say that the first 6 days of the year will paint the 6 months of winter. So for example if the first day is cloudy, then we´ll have a good may with lots of rain, but if the second day is sunny then June will be dry, so and so forth. It was surprisingly like our ground hogs day. It’s interesting how cultures have developed similar traditions such as these in order to help the locals determine when to plant and perhaps to give people some hope for the upcoming growing season.

Also they told me how every November a huge flock of birds passes over head, usually to high for the naked eye to see. My neighbor told me, ¨And the beautiful thing about this is that they fly in a circle over head, ¨ pointing to the sky making a circular motion with her finger, ¨ is stay there and wait until all the other groups have arrived, and then they continue on their journey.

Saturday a friend of mine´s son celebrated his 11 birthday so my self and the other Peacecorps volunteer in my site went over to celebrate. We ended up jump roping, playing limbo, and magical chairs in the house. It was a blast. Initially I was worried that it was going to be boring, but my site mate was brilliant in that when he came to Nicaragua he brought with him jump ropes, singles and for double dutch. its really great with all the kids! I would never have thought to bring something like that. I have a kite, but there are too many powerlines for it to be a safe activity.

this picture is myself, the birthday boy, his mother and a family friend.

Me in a skirt! unheard of!

went on another weekend excursion to the north western tip of the country to hike volcano cosiguina. 4 volcanos down, many more to go.

well any way, I guess I should let you know that I am indeed working, even though my photo posts seem to show differently. I´m currently waiting for the school year to start so I can recruit for my youth group projects. Still working with pregnant women in the casa materna, when we have clients.

Procession in town to celebrate the fiesta partronales.

Statue of Jesus in the proccession

First communion.

Well I've made it back to Managua, where I will be staying for a few days for some refresher spanish lessons, and one year medical exams. I had a night return flight, which I must say is quite stunning, flying over an active volcanic landscape in the pitch dark. At first I was wondering what was on fire. This large red area seemed to be exploding with orange red flames, too bright and large to be a building. A few moments later I realized, hey!! those are volcanoes. Quite a amazing welcome back!

(I borrowed this picture from google images, I can't take credit)

Hello all!

Ive made it home for the holidays. Its almost a surreal experience. Because I when I left last year the temperature was simpler, and because nothing really ever changes here, it almost feels like Nicaragua was just a short vacation or something, because the world I'm walking back into is pretty much identical to the one I left.

Im having a hard time explaining my time abroad. As many of you know Im a cynic, and its possible I've been painting my experiences rather strongly with the negative brush. But thats really not the whole reality, as you probably know from my previous readings.

Its wonderful to be able to communicate in my native language,Im actually more of a talker now than I was before, Im just catching up! My vocab in english has become slightly diminished, but it should go back up as I need to study for the GREs (UUUGHHHH!). Another thing that I hadn't anticipated was that when you can't communicate you loose a little of your personality, so its nice to have the whole Hazel back.

Happy New year everyone. When I feel more inspired I'll write more.

So this weekend I took a well needed mini break. A friend and I are down in San Juan del Sur for a couple nights relaxing on the beach (Did I mention how sweet of an assignment Nicaragua is?). We splurged on a surfing lesson and I was standing after only a few tries. We stayed in the white wash, we actually werent ontop of any breaking waves, but I think we¨ve got a solid start. Surfing has always been something that has interested me, but never imagined myself ever doing. Its fun!

Sorry, no pictures!

I went north on friday, and helped build an oven with another volunteer. (i´ve decided that I´m now an honorary Agriculture volunteer). These ovens are really awesome because they do a few interesting things, they cut back on wood used because they are more efficient and hold heat better, are cheap to build, and last for a long time. Also the design releases less smoke, therefore reducing lung problems in the household. These ovens are constructed using bricks, an old steel drum, rebar, and mud. Cement isnt used because it doesnt hold the heat as effectivly and its expensive.

Dec 1 is World HIV/AIDS day. I had planned activities for that day in the center of town, all of which flopped, (due to a variety of things like I had a conference and was out of town the week before, my co-leader in the health center lost her father that week, and it took 2 months for the mayor’s office to even receive my letter asking for help, let alone responding to it) so I was a little disappointed. The next day I traveled out to a rural community where I have a small, but active youth group. We´d planned a presentation in the park for 2.30 pm. (Of course that really means 3.30)

So we got set up and waited and waited, and no one came. We had maybe 5 mothers and their kids, and I´m not really sure that I wanted to give condom demonstrations to 5 year olds, not really umm... pertinent yet. So we decided to start anyway. By the end of the day we had over 100 people show up. The doctora who works in the health center came by and saved me from my terrible Spanish and helped explain how HIV works, the difference between HIV and AIDS. In my site we have 16 cases of HIV in all the communities, and have had 4 deaths this year. My part of the country has over 1000 cases, and the country as a whole has well over (I think) 8000 cases. Those numbers I think were an eye opener the town’s people. After the little presentation we had maybe an hour of games and prizes (thanks to an NGO in Managua that donated the hat, towels, condoms, etc etc). The girls and I did condom demonstrations to over 100 people, I thought it would be more embarrassing, but I learned quickly how to laugh at myself.

This was a game where we tied balloons to people feet, and they had to stomp them. When a balloon was popped the person was supposed to answer an HIV/AIDS question, but that didn’t quite work out.

Here we had a competition of two pairs to see who could put the most water in their condom. This activity is designed to demonstrate how much condoms can stretch. A commonly heard complaint against condom use is that ¨they don´t stretch enough to fit¨.

The little town’s cultural alliance performed some traditional dance for the group, and we ended the day with a dance competition.

I finally feel like my projects are working out, yesterday was a huge morale booster that was well needed.

This is the virgin mary surrounded by lilac like flowers. This is in honor of the Purisima, which is celebrated from Nov 28 until the 8th of December. I´ve been told that it is a celebration of the Virgin, and the activities focus on children. Here the children sang bible songs (this was set up in the government run health

center)and we handed out oranges, rice pudding, and candy.

Lunch, beans, rice, steamed veggies, and salad- surprisingly colourful meal!

I recently had a friend visit which was amazing. We spent one week in my site, and the secon week treaveling.

This is a view from where we stayed on the Island of Ometepe. This island is in the middle of Lake Nicaragua, the largest lake in central america. It actually even has a sustainable population of bullshark. There are two mountains that form the island, we climbed the smaller one which is actually behind us so you can't see it in the photo.

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View 2

I really like the contrast between the red roofs, green forests, and blue mountains.

This above photo is of the guid we had, we succesfully eluded him the whole day, he was rather obnoxious, and less than obvious about his interest in me. (it was awekward he'd tell me how much I look like his sister, then tell me how beautiful I am and do something like rub my shoulders or try to play with my hair.. ewww!)Here he asked me if I really needed glasses so he gave them a go, and realized yes, I am rather blind.

This photo is of me returning a work call, I love that my office can be on the side of a volcano to the tune of howler monkeys.

Coffee beans growing. perfect climate for them, and its amazingly tastey.

A couple of the ferries that take people to and from the main land.

A view of the bigger of the two volcanos which we didn't climb. This one is active.

We volunteered for a day on a permaculture farm (not still 100% clear on what permaculture is exactly, it involves farming modeling naturally exhisting ecosystems,and landscapes) we had the honor of chopping down banana trees which machettes which was a blast! The trees only live for a year or two bearing fruit at which point they're cut down. Each tree gives birth to around 8 new trees after being chopped.

So becareful of hornets when cutting down groves of banana trees, I got caught in the action of being stung.

Path through banana trees

View from volcano Maderus.

This is the lagoon in the middle of the volcano. Beautiful and errie.

Myself and my friend! (she said I can post her picture...!)

Muddy feet!

This bug was huge! about the size of the palm of my hand, its clinging onto the top of a fence post.

When we were in Granada we visited a animal clinic which speys and neuters pets for free.

Sunset from the coffee farm

I've become somewhat interested in Volcanoes, and here is an interesting online book from the USGS about volcanoes. http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/volc/cover2.html