End of Nicaragua, Week 3

This upcoming week we have a lot going on. One of our big activities is to hold a class on Monday on an environmental theme. I will be co-teaching with another trainee, Lara, for a 5th grade class on an animal-related topic. The class is 45 min long, and somehow our Spanish teacher managed to talk to too many teachers, so now we´re running 2 classes, back to back. Oy. Im definitely nervous, since my Spanish level is not yet up to par, but we have a book to work out of with different topics and ideas for class activities. The students are not very well disciplined either, which should be interesting. After many attempts, we finally got to observe a class at a local school yesterday. Many times a class will randomly be cancelled for a teacher being sick, it being his/her birthday, its raining too hard, etc. So it was really difficult to get things started. This will most likely be the situation in my future site.

Tomorrow we have another youth group meeting in the afternoon. At the meeting, we will be choosing another project to work on, besides the garden. The status of the garden right now is questionable because of the massive amount of rain we´ve been getting (a lot even for the rainy season, because of many storms coming through). The rain has definitely put a damper on things since people don´t like to go out when it´s raining. The one bar in town has tables outdoors, so everytime I have plans to go out with someone in my family, the plans fall through. But tomorrow, pending that its nice out, we have plans to go to the beach, or lagoona, nearby. The water is too polluted to swim in but apparently the beach is relatively clean. I will try to take pictures. Hopefully the weather cooperates. Then, in the night, my family is taking me to Managua to go out dancing (FINALLY)! I´ve been dying to go out, since training is pretty tiring, so hopefully all works out this weekend.

In other news, I found out that theres 2 current PCVs (Peace corps volunteers) living in my training town. One of them happens to be a vegan (yay)! So Im going to try to get together with them at some point in the week. We have a lot to do next week so hopefully theyll be time for some fun.

Photos

I want to eventually put all my photos on KodakGallery, but since the website is giving me problems right now, here are a few to appease those of you anxious to see who Im with and where Im living!

Street market in my town

My walk to Spanish class

Two of my fellow trainees
(from left: Kendall, Steph)

Making an organic fertilizer
(From left: Steph, Lara, my grandfather)

With the youth group making the garden

My street

My host brother, Douglas (pronounced doog-la ha)

More of my host family (the woman is my sister, Marcela, and the little girl is my other sisters daughter, Ellen Camila...I still have to get a photo of her. The boys are extended family)

My host sister, Teresita (little Teresa)

My host brother, Luis

Douglas & Ellen Camila

Luis & Ellen Camila

My host mom, Oralia, w/ her granddaughter and niece

My grandparents (who live with us)

A group of friends

This is what goes on in the middle of Spanish class (aka LOTS of noise)

Mailing info

Hey all! Nothing new to report, just wanted to do a quick post with some pertinent mailing info. If you ever want to send me a package in the future (in a padded envelope), write either or both of the following sayings on the outside:

"Jesus vive"
"Dios te bendiga"
and if youre feeling really ambitious, you can even put religious cards on the inside. Apparently this increases the probability of getting the contents of the package into my hands :)

Much love!

Nicaragua - Week 2

So its week 2 here in Nicaragua and it already feels like Ive been here for months. Independence Day weekend was fun. There were lots of festivities - a parade with kids from all the schools marching and dancing, a traditional folkloric dance, and of course, spending time with my host family. There basically isn´t much to do here besides spend a lot of time with my family. Ive been actively seeking out places to go dancing but they basically dont exist anywhere nearby.

Lets see what else is new...I went to a soccer game (my third one so far including 2 of my town vs another in Nicaragua - professional games, and one of my brothers games). The games are fun and people are really intense...the fans can get really roudy. I went out the other night to a bar with my host brother and his friends, and one of the other trainees, which was fun. Since theres not much to do here, going out to a bar becomes the highlight of your week!

Today we had an interview with the director/manager of the environmental program, basically just to go over our resumes and assess our strengths. Thinking about my future site continues to make me nervous, but I try to take each day one day at a time and not get too worried. Im sure with all the training we´re getting things will work out (I hope!).

My days have been continuing with Spanish classes and technical/medical talks on Wed, Fri, and Sat morning. Im not really sure if my Spanish has improved much but I feel more comfortable speaking and I think Im able to understand more.

We met with our youth groups yesterday (as practice for what we will actually have to do at our sites). We´ll be starting our garden on Saturday, growing probably tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, and maybe squash and/or watermelon. Its nice that we have this as a sort of practice for the ¨real thing¨, since I dont really know what Im doing (we had about a 2 hr talk which is supposed to be sufficient for successfully growing veggies). But hopefully the kids/young adults (most of them are actually in their 20s) will get something useful out of it since Nicaraguans dont really incorporate many veggies into their diets, and it can serve as an additional income source. The youth group will be meeting 2 times per week and we´ll be coming up with an additional project initiated by the group members (could be something to benefit the community, sports, art, etc), besides the daily or weekly maintenance of the garden.

That´s pretty much all that´s been going on! Not too exciting, but life here is muy tranquilo (calm), so most of the time is spent sitting in a rocking chair relaxing and conversing (in Spanish, of course). I hope my actual site is as good as this one, in terms of my family, food situation, and access to transportation, internet, etc. But I guess everything takes time to get used to and I´ll have to wait 2 1/2 more months to find out! Hopefully I´ll be much more patient when I return to the states, since the key theme here with pretty much everything is patience. So we shall see.

Keep the updates coming and thanks for the comments, as well! I will try to start taking pictures this week and post them. I don´t have a thumb drive but I can see if I can borrow one from someone or buy one. Patience, everyone! ;) Much love.

8 minute update!

Hi all,

I have 8 minutes left on the computer so Im just going to write fast. All is going well here. My host family is really great and I truly enjoy their company (and can practice my Spanish)! Sunday is a national holiday here (Independence Day) so Im sure therell be lots of fun festivities going on. In the coming weeks, we need to prepare for service by getting together a group of 15-20 yr olds and starting a community vegetable garden with them. In the meantime, theres just been lots of reading and Spanish classes - nothing too exciting. Ill try to update more early next week!

Thanks for reading! :)

Masaya Masaya Masaya!

Hello all! Lots of updates. Today is my second day with my host family. Im living with a host family about an hour south of Managua, the capital. There are 3 other trainees in my training town. My host brothers and sisters are all in their 20s so theyre fun to hang out with. Last night one of my host sisters and her boyfriend took me out to dinner at a restaurant nearby, which was fun. Tomorrow I start official training, which is 3 days of Spanish classes in the mornings and afternoons, and 2-3 days of technical and health and safety talks. It seems like Ill be super busy with classes, reading up, and practicing mi español! Its amazing how tiring it is spending an entire day trying to speak and understand another language, especially when youre not in class and have to try to decipher the different accents, etc. Hopefully Ill get more comfortable with my Spanish!

The situation with my host family - much better than I had anticipated! Im living with what appears to be an upper-middle class family. We have electricity, running water, a toilet inside (which is really exciting), tv, dvd player. My vegan diet isnt a problem which is SUCH a relief (the family had hosted a vegetarian before so this wasnt much different). I dont even know how many people are living in the house haha because yesterday I met my host mom, 3 sisters, 2 brothers, grandfather, grandmother, aunt, uncle, husband of my sister, 2 dogs, cat (named Meow hehe)...the list goes on. But I have my own room, at least.

Some amusing/strange things Ive encountered so far (which I think youll also enjoy):

The addresses - For example, my address is something like "where the train station used to be, 2 and a half blocks north, on the left". There are no street names (some have hypothesized that Nicaragua was the inspiration for one of the band U2s hit songs, however I think they were trying to be a little deeper than that).

Running water - Last night around 8 pm when I went to brush my teeth, I discovered that no water was coming out of the sink. I inquired with my host family about what had happened and, after laughing, had told me that between 7 pm and 4 am the water is turned off (most likely to conserve what little water the country has), and so I have to use the water from a bucket.

Oil, oil, and more oil - pretty much everything here is fried in oil. Rice and beans, plantains, french fries, vegetables. Dont expect me to be a reasonable weight upon my return.

Im sure therell be many more things Ill come across in the future and Ill be sure to fill you all in.

Overall, Ive learned a lot more about the Peace Corps and feel that its really a great program. Not only do they really try to make the community projects sustainable, but they take good care of us. Through 3 months of Spanish classes, plenty of technical training, health care, and a huge support network, I feel much more confident about my decision and coming months.

I made it to Nicaragua!

Hi everyone!

So I made it here to Nicaragua after a loooong day of flights and orientation. I'm currently at a hotel in Managua until Friday, then I'll be off to my training site where I'll be living for the next 3 months. I'm excited about taking Spanish classes (I'm a dork)! However, right now I'm incredibly exhausted and very overwhelmed by all the information that is being thrown at us. It definitely doesn't sound like it'll be an easy 2 years and 3 months...

Keep the emails, etc. coming!!! I really appreciate hearing from everyone and the encouragement and love is what is getting me through the rest of the day. I was feeling pretty down until I came online and saw all the wonderful messages I've been getting from people.

Feel free to comment on my blog as well (just click the "comments" button below).

Hearing from volunteers who are currently serving, I will most likely have an internet cafe in or near my training site, so I'll try to come online at least once a week. I'll be living with a family and 3-4 other environmental education volunteers will be in my community. I'll keep you all updated as I learn more about what's going on.

Miss you all and please stay in touch!