Keeping Busy and Time Moving Fast

The rainy season has started here in Nicaragua, which means it’s time for gardens and tree nurseries in the schools! The tree nurseries I’m hoping to get done this month, and I’ve successfully made a garden in each of my three schools (well, we’ll see if they’re successes if we’re able to get any produce out of them) where we’ve planted different varieties of squash, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, and onions. We’ve also used the compost we’ve made in each of the schools in the gardens so I think that’s helped some of the plants grow. It’s really exciting because I only go to each of the schools once a week, so to see how much progress the gardens make every 8 days is pretty awesome. I’m also trying to help people with backyard gardens at their houses, one of which is the mother of one of my students. When I went to her house to see the space we were going to use, she showed me the seedbed her son had made with tomatoes and peppers after learning it in my class. Seeing that made me really happy because as an education volunteer, it’s often hard to see the fruits of your labor, or to know if anyone is really listening to what I’m teaching, whereas with agriculture or business there are usually hard products where you can say, “I did this.” So I’m glad my teaching is making a difference.

On May 30 of every year, Nicaraguans celebrate Mother’s Day, and every school celebrates and recognizes the students’ mothers in a different way. I was lucky enough to get invited to two Mother’s Day celebrations in the rural schools, both of which were celebrated with plenty of dancing, including traditional folkloric dances that the students have been learning in school as well as an open dance party for students, teachers, and parents (I of course participated). It was amusing how in one of the schools, this Mother’s Day party was considered to be this huge community dance party – the most happening thing on the block – so all these people started arriving on horseback and strutting their best Latin dance moves. It was pretty awesome. The students also read poems aloud and there were fun games for the mothers like balloon popping games, a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey-type game, and a piñata. Lots of good times.

Something else that’s been keeping me pretty busy has been a campaign I started regarding the celebration of “El Dia de San Juan” and “El Dia de San Pablo” the end of June here and in the surrounding communities. In order to reenact the decapitation of San Juan, it has been tradition to hang ducks by their feet, ride by on horseback, and try to pull their heads off. This is obviously no easy feat, so the ducks are, what I consider to be, tortured, for hours, one after the next. Apparently the tradition has been fading out, and most people I’ve talked to don’t agree with it or like it. So I’ve been collecting signatures from people in the community (it’s good that I’ve gotten to know a lot of people in high places) to promote an alternative to the use and mistreatment of these ducks. The purpose is not to get rid of the holiday, but to celebrate it in another way that doesn’t mistreat animals. I’ve brought the signatures I’ve obtained to a meeting with the municipal heads, and to my surprise, was commended and able to receive the signatures of 9 of the 11 members present. They suggested that my next steps are to continue collecting signatures before the next meeting, raising awareness about the issue, and then it will be up for discussion again. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback regarding the issue and the insistence on providing an alternative, and managed to land a spot speaking at one of the radio stations here during the slot for the mayor’s office. It’s not like I have a regular show or anything (although that could be something to think about for the future – to talk about different environmental issues on a weekly basis), but I talked a couple of times and the people who called in were receptive and seemed to agree with me. So we will see what happens in the upcoming weeks.

Next week my women’s high school soccer team was supposed to be competing in Matagalpa for the title of Department champions. It seems like a really big deal, but there honestly isn’t a whole lot of competition in women’s sports, and the other coaches are pretty active in pursuing these kinds of opportunities. I’ve taken more of a backseat with the coaching because I’ve been super busy and haven’t been able to go to practices, but it’s actually part of my job here to slowly phase myself out of projects so that they’re sustainable and can continue long after I’m gone. Nevertheless, the date for the match was never finalized until last minute, and despite my endless phone calls to find out, no one told me that they competed on Friday. I always was more of an assistant coach/trainer, but for a while I was running the majority of the practices on my own, so Im annoyed that no one told me when they were going and I feel kind of sad it never really was “my” team, and that they felt that they could go to Matagalpa without me. I’ve also really wanted to start playing again, but the men over 30 league that plays at night that I’m planning on joining hasn’t started yet. Every so often I need to remind myself I’m on “Nica time” here, and that if I dont endlessly follow up on things I will miss out because no one will inform me.

Lastly, these past couple of days I went to my old training town to give a talk to the new trainees about sustainable and gender development with this new Peace Corps “Guia” committee I joined. I was happy to be there again and visited my host family. I’m looking forward to giving future talks to the new environmental group that comes in in September.

The more time I spend here, the more comfortable I’m becoming and falling into being myself again. It was a huge step for me to take action on the Dia de San Juan issue because it seems like every holiday is celebrated with some form of animal activity, whether it be horse parades, bull riding, or duck decapitation, and I felt it would be hard as an American trying to raise awareness about something that’s so commonplace here. But after spending 6 months in my community already, I feel I’ve gotten to know enough people and been involved in a variety of things that people respect my opinion and are more than willing to help me. It’s a really good feeling, and I’m thinking my service can only go up from here.