Happy Holidays

I hope everyone has been enjoying the holidays! In Nicaragua, Christmas is pretty much celebrated by everyone, since the majority of people are either Catholic or Evangelical Christian. Christmas Eve is the big night - people spend time with family, go to mass, and eat and drink the night away until the wee hours of the morning. I wouldn't really say it's that much different from any other day, since family is always over visiting, just factor more food into the equation. We made nacatamales, a traditional nicaraguan food, made of corn mass, a bunch of spices, tomatoes, and meat (mine were veggie), wrapped tightly in a banana leaf and boiled for several hours. Other than basking in the holiday spirit and visiting with neighbors, not much has been new. I went to a nearby river yesterday and went swimming with the family of a volunteer's boyfriend, so that was fun. We brought a bunch of food and made a big soup right on the water's edge. I've also gone to a friend's farm, which basically whenever anyone invites you to their farm, it's like they're inviting you to a party. They killed some chickens (sad but very common here to kill the animal fresh from the farm) and made a soup (Nicas like their soup). I like that my town has a mix of nice mountain views and a tranquil environment with a more developed center. It's nice to mix it up. So overall, the last week or so hasn't been too productive work-wise since pretty much everyone has been on vacation, but at least it's been an interesting cultural experience. I'm making plans to talk to the new mayor after new years about maybe getting an eco/agro-ecotourism project going in town, since I was reading about similar projects in other small towns in my Lonely Planet travel book. I think it would be a good boost for the local economy, since many people are unemployed, and also a good way to capitalize on the beautiful environment that surrounds the town (and maybe provide an incentive not to litter it with trash). I also at some point in my service want to do a trash-burning awareness campaign, since despite the weekly trash collection in town, people continue to burn their trash just out of habit. There is some teacher-training that's going on mid-January in which I will most likely be participating. Until then, I'm just continuing to visit with teachers and will hopefully begin to plan for the upcoming school year.

Have a happy new year, all! To a great 2009...

graduations, lots of food, and matagalpa

These past couple of weeks have been pretty busy. Contrary to my most recent posts, where the highlights of my days were the half-hour walks to the internet cafe and doing laundry (yes, really), I have made some more friends here and been invited to a number of events. First, I went to a couple of graduation ceremonies and parties, one in which I was introduced and got to sit (awkwardly) up in front with the other teachers. The graduations here take place in the churches (separation of church and state?) so that´s something quite different than you´d see in the states. Àlso, they do graduations for preschool, 6th grade, and high school. Everyone is accompanied by a family member/friend as they enter into the church and their name is read 3 times throughout the ceremony (when they walk in, get their diploma, and leave), making it painfully longer than it needs to be. But it was definitely a new and interesting cultural experience. I have also been visiting with many of the teachers with whom I´ll be working, and have been invited to lunch and dinner with some of them on several occasions. I feel like I´m practically never eating at home, which makes a nice change to the usual rice, beans, and tortilla. I´ve been actively looking for a house so that I can move out as soon as my 6-week minimum host family living requirement is up, and have found a couple of options - just waiting to speak with the owners and hopefully I´ll be set! Lastly, I went to Matagalpa this weekend with the women´s soccer team to watch their departmental championship game (which they won...by a lot). Let´s just say the competition really isn´t there, which is unfortunate because I see the team having a huge potential to grow and improve. They don´t practice regularly and with jobs and other responsibilities they barely play. But I wanted to go to the game to introduce myself to the players and possibly work with them as a trainer in the future. Starting up a women´s soccer team was one of my goals before I came here, and although a team already exists, I would still love to have the chance to work with them. Other than that, just taking each day at a time and trying to continually work on forming a youth group and getting a tree nursery started. The concept of keeping to a schedule doesn´t really exist here so it´s been hard to get much accomplished working hand-in-hand with the mayor´s office. Keep the letters, emails, and phone calls coming - all are always much appreciated! Thanks for reading.

address correction

correction: this is my new address (although I doubt it´ll be a problem if people have already sent stuff):

Carolyn Smalkowski
Apartado Postal 113
Matagalpa, Matagalpa
Nicaragua
Central America

Over one week through!

I´ve survived the first week in my site! Woohoo! Slowly I´m meeting people - family and friends of my host mom, and teachers with whom I´ll be working. Last night one of the teachers who the previous volunteer introduced me to invited me to dinner. She cooked some lovely vegan food for me (spaghetti and tomato sauce, a local potato-like veggie, rice, banana ¨pancakes¨, tomatoes, and coffee) and I was very appreciative. Literally going there for dinner made my day, because she´s a really friendly and open person. Her family is very poor but the fact that she invited me over for dinner and made a special effort to cook me vegan food meant a lot to me. The previous volunteer has spent a lot of time with her so she understands the purpose of Peace Corps in sharing experiences and different cultural traditions. I plan on visiting her often. She´s also helping me find a house - I like her neighborhood because it´s close to lots of neighbors and has a nice view of the mountains, AND its within my budget. The living standards are definitely pretty low but it´s all part of the Peace Corps experience. I think it´ll help me to live more simply and appreciate the company of others.

Yesterday I also went for a nice walk/hike through a farm with my host mom´s son and his kids. The views from my site are pretty gorgeous, and slowly I´m getting the chance to see more and more. My family was visiting a farm today to buy and slaughter a pig. I was invited but I gladly declined. There´s certain things I just won´t do, no matter how Nica I try to be, haha!

I feel like my Spanish is getting better. These first couple of months are a good time for me to practice speaking, listening, and studying new vocab in my downtime. Learning Spanish fluently was one of my goals before coming here, so I´m really going to put in the effort to make that happen. I´ve also found a spot to practice making a compost and am working with the mayor´s office to form a youth group and start a tree nursery. These are some of the projects I will be doing before school starts in February. In the meantime I also plan on visiting different teachers daily to get to know them and possibly start planning for next year.

Overall, since yesterday things have been better. Just meeting one nice person who wants to be my friend has helped me enormously. I think over time these relationships will ultimately help pull me through service.