AVC, Thanksgiving, Farm Visit

Every other year, Peace Corps puts on an All Volunteer Conference (AVC) for all of the volunteers in the country (between 150 and 200 of us) to attend (used to be every year but was changed due to budget cuts). The conference gives volunteers an opportunity to attend different crosssectoral information sessions to help them in their service, including learning about biodigestors, community English classes, current events, HIV/AIDS projects, gardening, and starting a business, among many others. This year’s theme for the 2-day conference was “A Crosssectoral Approach to Food Security”.

Just to give a quick background, the standard definition of food security is when all people have sustainable access to sufficient food to lead a healthy and productive life. Personally, I feel that “food security” is the new “green”. It’s becoming a hot topic all over the world and especially in Nicaragua because of its importance in helping Nicaraguans have better access to, availability to, and healthy utilization of food, thus helping to alleviate poverty. The purpose of AVC, thus, was to get a dialogue going about where we as volunteers fit into the picture. As an environmental education volunteer, for example, making composts to improve soils and vegetable gardens have a clear connection to food security. Also, planting trees to protect the soil and water table help with food security. Agriculture volunteers clearly have a direct connection. Health volunteers help to promote a healthy lifestyle with locally available products. And so on… Also, there were tables with beautiful local products, recycled art and jewelry being sold that were made by different women’s and youth groups. Overall, I felt it was a really interesting and productive conference. It made me see how important my work is here and got me motivated to do some crosssectoral exchanges with other volunteers.

For Thanksgiving, volunteers had the opportunity to have dinner with an embassy family or with one of the Peace Corps staff members. I was put with a group of 30 that ate at the ridiculously expensive and beautiful house of a Foreign Service agent in Managua. For the exception of the turkey, the food was vegetarian and vegan, which I was really excited about since it’s not the typical Thanksgiving I’m used to. It was so nice to eat such a variety of vegetables and other foods that can really only be found at major supermarkets in Managua. We played “Apples to Apples” and chatted among good food and wine. Overall, it was an excellent night.

This past week, I spent a few days relaxing on a farm in my town. I rode horses (which I wasn’t very good at because I don’t like kicking the horse), did a little bit of hiking, swam in a river, ate some oranges and nectarines fresh off the tree, learned how to make cuajada, a type of cheese (ironically), and played some baseball. It’s such a different life out in the “campo”; it was a nice change to the somewhat faster-paced life in the “city”. I went to sleep at 7 PM and woke up at 5 or 6 AM. It got pretty chilly at night and I was cold for one of the very few times in Nicaragua. I wouldn’t say it was exactly a comfortable vacation since I still needed to use a latrine and was constantly covered in mud and smelled like a cow, but definitely a different experience.

This week my family comes to visit and stays until after New Years which I’m super excited about! My first visitors! It’ll be a nice change to last year around the holidays when I had just come to site and was feeling kind of lonely and not yet like a part of my community. It should be a relaxing and fun time visiting different parts of the country, and finally getting the opportunity to show my family where I’ve been living for the past year.

That’s all to report for now! Hope everybody has a happy holiday and new year! Will write again in 2010! ~Peace and Love~