James' Peace Corps Adventure in Nicaragua

Umm I think I have a scorpion in my pants…

2008-09-12T13:13:00.001-04:00

So I have to start this blog off by saying we are officially entering scorpion and tarantula season. I will get into the good news on the pig project here in a minute but first I have a story for you. See I thought I was lucky after killing around six of each (scorpions and tarantulas) in my first 4 months here last year that maybe they were dying away. Maybe they had met their match and decided to leave this town. Well I was wrong…

Everyone always hears the story of their friend that went down to Latin America for a short little adventure vacation and gets one of the scary critters in their pants. But that’s the thing…it’s always the friends that it happened to. How reliable is a story when you hear it from a friend of a friend of a friend? Well you can all now eliminate those long stories…I had a SCORPION IN MY PANTS!!!

See I have been here over a year, yeah it has gone by fast, and I have seen the darn critters but they are always on the walls or crawling on the floor. I kill them and go on with my day, no big deal. Statistically speaking it is extremely rare to get one in any of your clothing. At most you might have two scorpions in your house at one time, however, they are usually in your roof or some place you will never see them.

Well this morning I woke up in an unmotivated mood and just wanted to sit in my hammock and listen to my ipod. Good music to forget the tough times usually does the trick. Well I felt a little twitch in my jeans and at first thought no big deal, we have been walking a lot lately working on the pig project, it’s probably just a muscle twitch. (Note- I am now literally creeping out feeling twitches all over)

So anyway, two seconds go by and I’m proud of myself, I’m working so hard that I’m getting muscle twitches. But then a thought starts creeping into my mind… ¨I really haven’t been working THAT hard that I should get muscle cramps¨.

Well now let me set the scene for you; it is eight o’clock in the morning. I am sitting in my hammock in my living room with my front door open. Kids are passing my house to go to school and I am freaking out tearing my pants off trying to find what the hell is in my pants. I get my pants off to find a freaking SCORPION in my pants. The kids then get to see the best part… I am chasing this scorpion around my house in my boxers with one sandal in my hand to kill the damn thing.

Big developments in the pig project…

So on to the boring stories, work is going really well. With the pig project I am working with a Nicaraguan governmental agency, which has been extremely disappointing. This organization is not run very well, always late or just doesn’t show up and always setting meetings without advising all included parties. Well finally they came through and decided to put someone in my community for the next three months so we can get this project done.

So for the next three months I have a lady out here working on the project with me. Last week we went around and interviewed all the members of the group, 42 in all, and checked out the locations they want to build their pig pens. This week we are putting in the four corner posts and distributing the materials. This means, cross your fingers, during this next month the pigs should be here! Needless to say I am quite excited to get this project going and the pig pens built.

Big ol update...

2008-07-31T16:01:00.001-04:00

So as many of you know I haven’t blogged in awhile, well the problem was the computer in my community was broken. However it is fixed now, so hopefully Ill get back to writing. This one is going to be quite long. The plan is first an update on what has happened in the last six weeks and then I’m going to write up a packing list.

Why a packing list? Well since I have now been down here almost 10 and a half months that means the next group of Ag volunteers should be heading down in a little over a month. This first year has flown by so quickly it’s incredible. Peace Corps does provide us with a packing list, however it is not sector or country specific, in other words it’s about worthless. So anyway in my planning last year it would have been extremely helpful. Also I think this ill give everyone else a little peak into what it takes to get by down here.

So up first the monthly update…

First off, the horse is still awesome. The only problem is I think I will put back on some weight because of him because it has definitely cut my walking in half. But that’s a good thing. I have been surprised though by two things though: First, I thought traveling would be a lot quicker. However, that is not the case. Let’s just say my horse is missing the gas peddle, the break peddle works great though. On the normal hour trek he cuts off about 10 minutes. I guess that’s good, however not quite my like my old Mustang. Second, riding a horse is still a workout, its not quite like sitting in a car. I’m past the point of finding new muscles, which is good. Now I would equate it to riding a bike, your first sore from trying a new activity and then it’s the pain from actually exercising. See you still get an abs workout from balancing in the saddle and a leg workout both when the horse runs; it is more stable standing, and also climbing or going down a mountain.

Second set of news, my host sister got robbar´ed. What is robbar´ed? Well, I would compare it to running off to Las Vegas and getting married back in the US, however, minus the marriage part. See here in Nicaragua there is a strict set of rules that the daughters live with their family their entire life, or until a guy sweeps them off their feet. This includes two options, the traditional way where the guy asks the father of the bride for permission to marry his daughter, or in this case robarr´ed. When the boyfriend robbar´s the girl he essential asks the girl to run away with him, the problem is the guy doesn’t have enough money or desire to get married. Being robbar´ed is slightly scandalous and disrespectful to the girl’s parents.

In this case the guy lives in my community and is the leader of my youth group, which made it quite the sticky situation. See the couple has been dating for several months and everyone knew they were going to get married. But, I guess they just couldn’t wait until September to get married. Why September? Well September is the town’s patron saint day and thus the day for all baptismal, marriage or other religious ceremonies. She claims they will get married in September; however, the interesting part is now the church has restrictions on the marriage. For example, unlike the traditional wedding the veil can not go over the face also I believe their will be restrictions on the wedding dress.

Let me take a second and explain the running away part. Well the girl is a teacher in a town that is about an hour away from me. They were supposed to have a teacher appreciation day and thus no school. However, instead of returning home she ran off to Estelí, the closest major city, with him and had his family relay the message to her family. (Easy to see the disrespectful part!) An interesting little side note is that his family member that told her family was the preacher of our church, essential the preacher helped him get away with this. Doesn’t seem too religious now does it, which comes first God or family? Being that she is a teacher she does not spend the weekdays in the community, however, when she does come home for the weekend it is to a new home. See they must live with his family now until he is finished building his house. So I guess the next two months in their life will be quite active, finishing his house and planning a wedding. I am excited though as wedding equals…big party!!!

Well on to the work update. Being as we came into the rainy season the beans have been planted and we are actually about only two weeks from cultivating them. It seems like its going so fast, but they need to get the second planting in so it sounds like it will be an extremely busy month coming up.

As for the bean cooperative, I believe we got extremely lucky. For most of the past six months we were seriously losing money, about 20 to 30%. However, the market took a strong turn in the past month and we ended up making about 15 to 20% profit. The problem was that the president overpaid for the beans we bought. I tried to explain to him that if we would have wait a week we would have doubled our profit, however being the new guy in town he was not wanting to listen to me. Part of me is happy that they made profit; however, the other part of me wishes they would have broken even as it appears they will stick to their current buying strategy.

See the market is quite easy to understand it is a pure supply and demand market. As they cultivate their beans and take them to the market the price goes down. As we get towards planting season and people eat all the beans, the supply goes down and thus the cost goes up. The president of the cooperative purchased the beans early in the buying season and thus paid a premium for the beans. This was good for public relations, everyone loves that they got paid a good price for their beans. However, it takes away from the profits for the cooperative.

How do we fix this? Well we can still purchase the beans early in the season; however these should be sold immediately. You don’t win with high price merchandise in your stock room. Then purchase the beans a month later from the markets when the price goes down, store them for five months and sell them as we go back into planting season. Thus, you have the farmers happy for getting paid top dollar for their beans and the cooperative happy for maximizing profits. Now we will have to see if they will put my ideas into work.

Good news on the pig project!

As you might remember one of my first projects was a pig project for the entire community. This project was extremely delayed as the person from the organization that was in charge of the funding was either fired or quit. Thus the project was put on the back burner. Well good news, a new person was hired and just this week they came out to the community and gave the first of three presentations on maintenance of the pig. The plan is one more presentation on how to build the pig pens and then we will start the construction phase. Once we receive the pigs then we will receive the last presentation on health concerns for pigs. (I can’t say this is a presentation I thought I would receive during my life but I must say I am excited to get to working). Thus it looks like the project will be coming together and I will be getting extremely busy with that.

Biogas project…

The biogas project has been a little slower. Right now we are researching the prices for construction materials. I am making them do this part so I can see how interested they are in the project before I front the money to go visit a site with the technology already in place. I figure if they are delayed in getting the prices they aren’t as interested as they say. The ball is in their court now…

Soccer field has crawled to a stop…

Well after two meetings to gather support to build the soccer field there was little interest in building the field. Thus I am still working on it however it is not project number one right now. Also, with the rains comes extreme weed growth. Right now, the land looks like the median of a highway that has been forgotten about for the last three years. I might just wait until dry season to get back to work.

Here’s some tips for the future volunteer…

This a combination of a list things I either brought down with me, have had friends bring down, or things I wish I had.

Clothes- As this will be what takes up most of your suitcase this is what I will talk about first. Bring clothes that are lightweight and quick drying. It is hot and during the rainy season it is extremely wet. Make sure all clothing is extremely durable, what an oxymoron that is but the truth is there are no washing machines down here. Thus, all clothes will be hand washed and thus beat up. After three months most of your clothes will have small holes. Plan for it and bring down durable clothing and extra clothing of things that wear easily, think socks.

Shirts- Bring lightweight shirts, I brought down two under armour shirts and I wear them all the time. Most Ag volunteers have at least a 20 minute walk to their site, or in my case an hour. Thus, the traditional cotton shirt is just way too hot. Also, bring a long sleeve shirt you can use while planting, whether your in coffee country or bean country it always good to get out in the fields some and to do this you need a long sleeve shirt.

Pants- The pants of choice for locals are jeans. I do wear shorts however I stick out like a sore thumb. One interesting note, many of the men wear dark colored pants, often times black. At first I just thought it was horrible fashion sense, not saying I have much fashion my self but come on…black colored jeans? Well since I got my horse I have found out why, see saddles are often tinted black and not to mention quite dirty. Well after an hour of riding, you pants are quite dirty and well black jeans do a great job of hiding that. So if you’re interested in getting a horse, a pair of dark pants isn’t a bad idea, I just don’t know if I would go as far as the black jeans.

Shoes- oh how crucial a couple pairs of good shoes and sandals are. You can buy shoes down here but besides from boots made in Estelí, which run for $50-100, the shoes down here are of poor quality or used. I brought down a pair of sandals for around the house, shower sandals, a pair of cross trainers, hiking boots and a pair of dress pants. Where I live it is extremely rocky, the land eats up shoes for dinner, the cross trainers lasted about six months.

Dress clothes- the manual calls for two or three pairs of dress pants, three dress shirts and a couple of ties. What a waste of suitcase room. While you do need to dress up for such events as swearing in, weddings or other special events these are few and far between. I recommend one pair of pants and two shirts, and screw the ties. This is more then sufficient. During training your family will do your laundry and you can easily find someone to do your wash in your community. I currently pay $7 per month for all my wash, bed sheets and all.

Rain Jacket- this is quite important. During the rainy season it rains EVERYDAY. Personally I think an umbrella is useless down here because the rain comes down in all direction and with extreme force. Thus an umbrella just won’t hold up down here; however some ladies do use them to block the sun.

Sweatshirts- I know most are thinking this is just unheard of down here in Nicaragua, its Central America. Well I can tell you the last thing I put in my suitcase was my favorite hooded sweatshirt, and that is one of the best decisions of my life. See I figured if nothing else it is comforting and I can use it for a pillow in dire situations. Well during the rainy season it gets COLD. I would definitely recommend one if not two sweatshirts. Many nights I sit in my hammock with my sweatshirt on and big smile on my face.

As for more of the comfort type items, as they say in the Peace Corps guide this is more important. You can buy clothes down here, they may be lesser quality or used, however you cannot find the latest copy of you favorite CD at the local Wal-Mart.

Water bottles- I would think for most of you its pretty obvious to bring a water bottle or two, I would recommend two. However, one thing to think about, I brought down two water bottles. The first is a traditional Nalgene, which you just can’t go wrong with. The second is a new fancy Camelbak, which I got for the fancy no drip mouthpiece. Well, it seems like the little kids like it as well as they are always trying to find out how the water comes out and thus trying to play with the mouthpiece, not the cleanest thing I have witnessed.

Computer, Playstation Portable, DVD player or other entertainment tools- I put my old computer in my suitcase knowing that during my two years down here it was probably going to die or I would just give it away if it was able to make it. However, on my first day down here I turned it on and it immediately died. What a waste of space and weight. For the first time in my life though I was lucky and the volunteer before me had a computer and left it in the community, thus I use that. Down here there is a really strong, shall we call it movie copying industry, and thus you can purchase most movies for only a dollar. Not a bad buy to get your mind off the fact that you’re in the middle of nowhere Nicaragua. I know other people have Playstation Portables or Gameboys and I can say I am extremely jealous, you can only read so many books before you get bored of reading. More then likely you won’t use these during training however they are life savers in the community.

Rechargeable batteries- I highly recommend these. Batteries are quite expensive down here and rechargeable batteries are just so easy. They are also great presents to give out to members of your community as well; they will love you and you also helping out the environment. Just keep the charger and they can bring you the batteries when they need charged.

Flashlight- flashlights are crucial as well. Those late night latrine runs are not fun when you forget your flashlight. I would recommend one classic handheld flashlight and one headlamp. Also make sure they take AAA or AA batteries so you can use rechargeable batteries.

Pocket knife/ multi-tool – I recommend bringing one of each. I use my pocket knife all the time, especially in the kitchen and a multi-tool can be used in an infinite number of situations.

Cell phone- many old cell phones work down here once you get them unblocked and put in a chip of a local provider. In most cities you can find places that unblock cell phones for as little as $10. Thus if you have an old cell phone sitting around it’s well worth bringing it down here to see if it will work.

Books- Bring as many as you can, yes Peace Corps has libraries for volunteers in Managua and Estelí. However, unless you like Danielle Steele and James Patterson these libraries are quite short on quality books. I brought five books and went through all five in my first week in my community, this is quite common too. Magazines are great as well especially during training. You do not need to bring a Spanish dictionary as Peace Corps provides you with one; we received a behemoth of a dictionary.

Money/ Credit Cards- First, credit cards are about worthless down here. I would recommend a debit card that has a low international fee. You can use them down here to take out money; which you will need if you plan on exploring the country at all. Peace Corps fund just barely cover the everyday costs.

Medical Supplies- Peace Corps gives us a great med kit and thus there is no need to waste space in your suitcase with medicine.

Dailies- while you can buy most stuff down here it can be of lesser quality or expensive. I went to Sam’s Club and stocked up on such things as deodorant, tooth brushes and tooth paste.

It's about time...

2008-07-08T16:57:00.003-04:00

Well this is going to be short because I need to catch a bus...but good news! I finally got my horse. I have had it for about 10 days now and it is a STUD! Ok well not a stud in the true definition but for down here it is a pretty damn big horse. He's around seven to ten years, didnt come with a birth certificate so im not positive, and is super laid back and well trained.
It ended up costing a little more then I wanted but still extremely cheap. In total around $300-$325. Im not sure on the exact amount because I am still buying him vitamins and other vaccines. See down here we are coming out of the dry season so hes a little skinny now so Im giving him some vitamins to bulk back up.

So what do you name a horse?

Well if you have any names send them this way. But, right now I am thinking of Sale, in spanish it is pronounced more like saleigh and means he leaves. I like this name for two reasons; number one, he is now my transportation or my way to leave the community. Second, many people remember the classic song "Mustang Sally". Many of you also remember that when I left the states I had to sell my old Mustang. Well now I can change this classic song title a little to come up with a name for my horse.
Other ideas are big red (you will see why below, check the pic) or Ed. You all remember the classic TV show Mr Ed.

Nothing creative...

2008-05-31T12:08:00.000-04:00

Blog 28 of May

Wow so it’s been a while since I last posted and while I haven’t been doing too much the country has been quite active. I know some of you are reading other peoples blogs so you have heard the news… There was a transportation strike for over 12 days throughout the ENTIRE country. So what does this mean? There were absolutely no busses or taxis traveling throughout the entire country. I could not leave my site for the entire 12 days, VERY boring, and most of the commercialization throughout the country was slowed to a crawl. This caused prices for everything to skyrocket and inevitable some upset people. The reason for the strike as I understand it is the drivers wanted a cap on the price of gas and also an increase in the gas credit that they receive.
Well as I’m sure you can imagine in a situation like this there was some rioting. Though as you remember I live in the middle of nowhere, with only two trucks, thus if I had no inclination to leave the community I wouldn’t have noticed the strike at all. However, as I was itching to get out of town the days wore on. But back to the rioting, it was mostly between the drivers and the police and rarely was violent; I believe it only reached violence two days. There was however some property damage, burning tires and other junk in the streets. It did make some big news though when they burned a couple of big rigs. That was some exciting news down here.
Anyway the strike is over now, ended the 17th of May, and most things are back to normal in the country. There are some rumors that the government is slow to put in their side of the bargain and thus there is a threat of another strike. But, so far this has not happened. It was interesting sitting here going through this. Just one year ago I was sitting in Richmond, VA with my car waiting outside to take me wherever I wanted to go. Often time I drove the 100 meter walk to my work, have I mentioned I am lazy? However, during this past two weeks to reach a real grocery store or internet I would have had to walk at least 4 hrs. Oh and I was quite tempted to do this. To think of all the differences that I am experiencing and I am only a three hour plane ride from the states.
So what did I do during the time in my site? I had plenty of time to study Spanish, to start projects in the community or to go meet the community members I haven’t really met yet. All great ideas, however, great ideas are not always achieved. Nope, instead boredom struck and I spend most of the time in my hammock and read a couple books in English. Unfortunately I did not have the computer the previous volunteer left me. I loaned it out to someone who said they had a school project, instead they took it to their girlfriend’s house 30 minutes from here. Then when their motorcycle got a hole in the tire they decided to walk back….without the computer. Thus no movies or playing the one game this computer has. But it was good because it put me behind in work and thus has got me working hard again this past week and a half.
I have started working on the soccer field more frequently. Let me clarify this, when I say I am working on the field I am not calling the local landscapers to come out and take care of it. I am actually out there raking the rocks, carrying the bigger rocks, making a fence. This work is tough and so far I haven’t had much help from the little kids in the community and the older ones are planting beans right now. Thus it is quite the slow process. However it’s forming some biceps and causing pain in areas I haven’t used since my glorious football days. I worked on the field two days the past week and had to slow down after I got a blister on my left hand. So I will take a couple days off and then get back to work after that.
Also, I have been pushing a larger project using biogas to cook with. With this project you build a box type structure using bricks and cement. Inside of this, mix cow waste and water to create methane gas. Cover with a special elastic type plastic that expand and collects the gas, which is perfect for cooking. Just pipe it into the oven and you can cook all day. This project could be very successful for many reasons. One the community will dramatically cut down the exploitation of trees for firewood, thus saving the environment. Second, the community will be cleaning up the street and other places that are covered in fecal matter, thus helping with community health. Third and one of the most important things, when you cook with wood there is an extraordinary amount of smoke. With methane there is none, thus cleaner lungs and less asthma. Thus a great project to push and I have had some great interest sparked throughout the meetings I have had.
Other projects, Saturday I had scheduled another cooking class. However, as with all meetings the presence of rain, or even threat of rain, can end any meeting. Thus I was left cooking by myself. I had a great menu planned, mango jelly and cough syrup. The mango jelly is great because there are a bunch of mangoes in the community. Thus the community can make some jelly and eat with the tortilla for breakfast, or possibly sell in the town. The cough syrup was more because people are constantly asking me if I have any cough syrup. Thus it was an opportunity for them to make it themselves without spending much money. I ended up making it on my own and made a half gallon and spent only $0.75. It is quite simple to make, essentially boil water with various leaves, garlic and cinnamon and then mix in sugar. The leaves have various vitamins which help speed up recovery time. So my plan is to give away the stuff that I made and hopefully it will work and inspire them to make it themselves.
Well like I mentioned earlier the beans are being planted as we speak. It has actually been a nervous period for many of the families here. Many were scared they were going to lose the crop they have planted. See the farmers have two options, get a head start and anticipate the rains and plant when the soil is dry or wait for the rains and then plant afterwards. Well in my town everyone plants dry, however this year the rains are extremely late, almost two weeks late. Luckily we had huge rains two of the past three days and it appears the beans will be good to go. However, if we had to wait another three or four days many people think the beans would have been lost and they would have had to plant a second time. So we don’t know for sure but it looks like we got lucky and everything will be alright.
Now to the exciting news, I have decided I am definitely getting a horse. It is not a matter of if, now it is just when… This though has been quite the developing story. See I finally decided about two weeks ago that it was a go on getting the horse. The first volunteer in my site had a horse, thus I was planning on doing everything the same as here. My plan was to use the same person to buy the horse and keep it in their farm land. Well after waiting a week, the person used the entire week to get wasted everyday, I decided I didn’t want to wait any longer. Thus I decided to ask the family that I stayed with my first month in town to purchase and store the horse. This actually works out better as their farm land is closer to my house and thus I don’t need to climb a mountain just to get my horse. Thus I talked to the father of the family, Pablo, and we worked everything out and he’s in the process of searching for the horse.
The plan is that I am going to buy the horse and the saddle and then keep it on his land. Thus he will be in charge of feeding it and all that. Then when I leave, I will give the horse and the saddle to him as a going away present. So far I have purchased the saddle and all the riding gear, just waiting on the horse. Being that gringos (Americans) get charged almost double the cost of thing, I ended up giving Pablo the money to purchase the saddle. I figured this was easier anyway because I know absolutely nothing about saddles and because I am going to give it to him anyways he would have a better eye for a good saddle. Thus I have a beautiful black saddle with a blue riding blanket, like I said just waiting on the horse.
So what does it cost to own a horse? Well depends on how big of a horse you want. Being that I am well built American, this means I am HUGE for Nicaragua. Thus, I need a big horse. Also, the trails that I will be riding have a roughly 80% incline thus I need a strong horse for this as well. First option was a horse on the small side, thus I turned it down. However, it was being sold for $150. In recent talks with Pablo we have decided that $175 to $200 should be enough to purchase a horse big enough for me. The saddle, spurs and various other ropes needed to ride the horse ended up costing a little over $75. Overall $275 will be my maximum costs, now tell me you can find a horse in the US for about that much money. Also, with Pablo feeding the horse I should only have minimal costs for vaccines and other small things.

******* Extra Special Critters Update

I just killed my first snake. Yup that’s right I killed my first snake. It was an epic and dangerous battle. I went out to my latrine, aka my closest tree, and sitting right there was a HUGE snake, like anaconda huge. I’m talking like 16 feet, and before I knew it, the darn thing was biting my ankle and we were in an all out wrestling match. I was gasping for air and fighting off its rib crunching squeeze. For a couple seconds it had the upper hand, until I poked it in the eye. As I was yelling for help I looked to my left and luckily there was a machete there. I grabbed the machete and I managed to cut it, and when it whenced in pain I managed to grab the head and take control. We rolled around in the mud for another five minutes before I managed to cut its head off. I was lucky and escaped fine, just a couple broken ribs and a nasty cut on my ankle.

Okay so I might have exaggerated a little bit, just a tiny bit. In actuality it was a two foot garden snake and I killed it with two rocks to the head. But it’s not the most fun thing to have to go to the bathroom and fight a snake first. So much for thinking that I might escape Nicaragua without seeing a snake up-close. I have seen snakes before but they were always eight feet away or more and running from me. I almost couldn’t believe my eyes as it was not running away. So now I’m just hoping this isn’t the start of the snake adventure. I killed like 4 scorpions and 3 tarantulas in my first three months here and then hadn’t seen either for over three months. That was until I just killed a HUGE scorpion a week ago. So yeah I’m hoping this wont be the snake killing month.

Photos...

2008-05-14T12:00:00.003-04:00

These first two photos are from when I made a Pinata with the 1, 2 and 3rd graders here in my town. I have mentioned before that I teach english classes to the 4, 5 and 6th graders. Thus the younger kids kept asking when I was going to teach them stuff, well teaching them english would be way too difficult so I made a pinata instead.
This kid here on the left is Everette, he is my neighbor and the sweetest kid ever. He is always hanging around my house and will do anything I ask him to do, such as run to the store and get me food (gotta love the child labor). However, he always knows he will get food out of it so it all works out in the end. The kid on the right is Eduardo and he is the biggest brat ever. They are cousins and neighbors so its amazing how different they are...
Here are the kids taking a whack at the pinata and hoping for some candy...
Here is the church in my town...
This is a picture of my host dad (the one from Las Tablas) speaking at the chuch. He is really involved in the church and is an overall great guy. The part I love though about this picture is take a look at the clock on the wall behing him....haha

Round two of cooking classes....

2008-04-25T12:14:00.000-04:00

First off I must apologize to my Aunt; she said I use some inappropriate language in this blog, haha. Seriously I do try to keep the language tame however; some stories just lose their flair when you lose the language. Sorry Aunt Jacque, had to call you out.

Alright some new topics, second cooking class is under the belt. This class I deemed quite a success as probably 10 women and over 10 children showed up. I’m teaching class about every two weeks so I’m trying to do two recipes per class. To me this is just easier and more involved then doing once recipe per week. As many of you know during cooking there are often times where you just sit there and stir noodles or wait for something to bake. Thus, I am trying to use two similar recipes that can be made at the same time and thus cut out the akward silences. Thus this class we made some Macaroni and Cheese and then a mix of some soy meat and some vegetables mixed with lots of spices.

First the soy meat was a mix of success and failure. Soy is tough to cook with because it literally has no flavor or a slightly bad flavor, thus you need to use a lot of spices to make it taste good. Also the texture is not the most enticing, you never hear anyone craving some soy. This is why you don’t see it on too many menus back in the US. But anyways, this is also what made it difficult to cook here as Nica´s do not see the value of spices and thus don’t purchase them. Well I managed to use some cheap spices and lots of chile and the crowd was about 50-50 so I take that as a success.

Well the Mac and Cheese was a huge success. I know many of you are thinking that this is the easiest thing in the world to make but remember that they only make rice and beans here. Thus it’s a cheap easy alternative to rice and beans. Oh, and that’s another thing I am trying to emphasize in this class is that there are dinner alternatives to rice and beans which costs the same or less money. I think the main reason rice and beans are such a staple is that they grow the beans here, thus they have what equates to an unlimited supply. I am trying to demonstrate that they can sell these beans and use the profit to make a dinner that costs less. Well I think it was a 100% vote in favor of the good ole American classic.

Oh and I actually had a request for the recipe on how to make Peanut Butter, thanks grandma for reading. Anyway it’s amazingly simple and even easier for you people back in the states with electric grinders. First you buy unsalted peanuts without the shells. If you’re making just for yourself a half pound should be good, for a larger family go for a whole pound. Second, toast the peanuts on the stove top. You do this for a couple reasons, one it helps bring out the natural oils of the peanut and second toasted peanuts taste so much better. Once you have finished toasting the peanuts, grind the peanuts. Depending if you like smooth or crunchy you can change how long you grind the peanuts for. Then you just mix the peanuts with either sugar or honey to sweeten the peanut butter. My recommendation is to use honey as it allows use to use less oil and I think a better flavor. Then add oil to help the spreadability of the peanut butter. (Yes, spell check is telling me that spreadability is not a word, but you know what I like it so Im leaving it). There you have it, can´t get much simpler then that for a product they charge an arm and a leg for in the grocery store. Three simple ingredients and you get heaven…

Ladies and Cowboy

So I was thinking the other day of interesting little tidbits I could include about Nicaragua and it hit me as I was walking into the bathroom. See I walked past the ladies bathroom, easily translated as Damas. Usually I don’t even look at what’s written on the door, rather I only look for that universally known picture for a men’s bathroom. Well I happened to look up and saw ¨Cabelleros¨ which caught me a little off guard. See the translation for male would be ¨Hombre¨ or ¨Masculino¨ among many other possible choices. Cabellero instead means… Cowboys. Yup, I can truly say I am a Cowboy, I have finally accomplished my goal of when I was three years old!

Bullriding

I know I have mentioned it before as a spectator sport. Well, I walked out of my house last week and heard a group of guys making some noise about 100 feet from my house. I thought what the heck, why not check it out. See it was a Tuesday afternoon and work had been finished for the day so there wasn’t much to do. Well boys will be boys, and boys in the campo of Nicaragua ride bulls for fun. They aren’t like the bulls back in the states, rather large cows. But, yes they do give a good ride and need a large pair to hop on. However, as we are over 40 minutes from the closest hospital, bull riding will remain a spectator sport for me. Oh, and for you that believed me about a month ago when I said I actually rode a bull, you gots to be crazy!

Visitors

Well you know every once in a while you hear your doorbell ring and you think, who in the hell is ringing the doorbell; either that or you think ´I didn’t even know we still have that annoying thing´. Then you open the door and you see two little dorks wearing short sleeve white dress shirts and ties, and yes matching pocket protectors. You wonder if they are coming to fix your computer or what and then you see they are carrying bibles. Yes it’s the infamous Jehovah’s Witnesses, well im sorry to inform you that even out here in the middle of nowhere Nicaragua you cannot escape them. I know what your wondering right now is how do you translate Jehovah into Spanish, well it’s the same, Jehova, I know this because they asked me to read from their bible and it was the only word I understood. (A little side note, God in Spanish is Dios, can someone answer me why ´the Creator´ of all has to translate his name in different languages, don’t you think he’s a little above that?)

Anyway the Jehovah witnesses here are not dressed in the traditional white shirt and tie, instead I was greeted by one beautiful girl and what appeared to be her mother. Oh and yes both were Latin American. So I was tempted to ask if I convert if the daughter can stay and teach me the good book. But no, instead I was a good little boy and pretended like I didn’t understand Spanish, which is at least half true. It’s funny sometimes when I don’t want to be part of a conversation I can just claim I don’t understand and easily get out of it. Anyway, its funny to then hear the mother figure tell the daughter in Spanish that I am a foreigner. Like duh, I’m sitting here in the middle of a community where my skin is much lighter then everyone else’s and I am a good six inches to a foot taller then everyone and she’s not quite sure if im a foreigner. I just about cracked up, it’s amazing they actually believe I live out here and can’t speak Spanish. So back to the point, you can’t get rid of them you just have to live with them.

(Please don’t take this as putting down the religion, rather take it as the funny story that it is. I don’t think I have any Jehovah’s witnesses reading this blog but if there are, I have nothing against the Religion. As a matter of fact I couldn’t tell you anything about the religion.)

What is that eating my flowers?

So I know a lot of you reading this have gardens or flowers and sometimes complain about insects or on rare occasions deer eating your prized flours. Well today I think I managed to top all those stories. Today I am sitting in my hammock and I hear something out in my yard. Not a big deal as there are usually some chickens or dogs who enter my yard and look for some food. As I never really have anything they like to eat they usually are just passing through, not a big deal. Well this thing sounded a little bigger then a dog and was eating what sounded like my flowers. Well take a minute and go back to the picture of my house... look closely and you can see that to get into my yard you have to climb four stairs. Well I get out of my hammock, and as you can guess when someone ends your relaxing time your not the happiest camper. Well I go out the front door and I am greeted my a big fat ass, yes a COW climbed my stairs and was eating my flowers, did you know cows can climb stairs? I sure didn’t.

Well that was only my first problem as now I have to figure out to get this huge thing OUT of my yard. See there is only one entrance and exit, the front gate, and when I walked out of the house I spooked the stupid thing and it walked away from the exit. My first thought is where are some of those little rug rats that are always bothering me, the same ones that leave my front gate open to let this thing in. Of course, none in site, which ended up being a good thing as no one was there to laugh at me trying to get this cow out of my front yard. So after about five minutes of me waving my arms like a crazy man and hitting it with a couple small rocks if finally left my yard. Just another experience I will never have back in the good ole US of A.

On a sad note…

I gave away my puppy, Torpe. See I was given it as a gift from my host family. In total here were four puppies, the family kept one and gave away the other three. Well four days ago the families puppy died, thus the eleven year old daughter was quite sad. Being that they only live two houses away I offered to give them my dog. I figure this saves me three headaches, first I am out of my house a lot for Spanish classes and visiting friends and thus the family was taking care of the dog quite frequently for me anyways. Second the cost of food is quite expensive as she continues to grow and third the cat and her were beginning to fight a lot as the kittens are starting to grow and roam the house. Well the girl was quite happy to have a new puppy and quickly accepted. So I figured if she’s just two houses down and going to a good family it won’t be a big deal.

Well my puppy is quite prized in the community and that same day four people heard that I gave them my dog and asked the family if they could have the dog. They immediately turned down all the offers. However, the next day they decided that the dog was too accustomed to my house and would just keep coming back to my house. Thus they decided to give it away. The family they gave it to is a good family, the wife is the youngest sister of my counterpart. Her parents are actually the previous volunteers host family and thus when I visit them she is usually there. However now instead of lying around my house all day she will be working in the fields. Luckily the dog is still in my community but it’s a good five minute walk from my house…

Send some more questions or writing prompts in…

Questions, Questions, Questions...

2008-04-06T17:06:00.001-04:00

So here are the questions that I got….

School
Do the kids wear uniforms?
Yes, the kids all are supposed to wear navy blue pants or skirts for the girls and white shirts. However, in some of the poorer towns such as mine the dress code isn’t enforced.

Do they go a normal day?
The kids (grades 1 through 6) have school from 8 am to 12:30 Monday through Friday. The high school age students have the option to do the same, however, where I live most high school age kids work on the farm or in the house and thus choose to go only on Saturdays which go from 8am to 2pm. Don´t ask me how this equates to a full week of school otherwise though.

What all do they study?
Generally they have five classes; Spanish, Geography, Social Sciences, Math and one other class I can´t think of. The high schools also teach English.

How many are in their classes?
In the school in my community there are 50 kids, thus they divided them into two classes. One teacher teaches first through third grades and another teaches fourth through sixth.

Do you have any girls you are interested in?
Short answer, yes, the Latin ladies are quiet attractive. Long answer; dating routines, language and the lack of in-depth conversations have thus far ended any real pursuits.

How are your pigs coming?
Pig project has been incredible slow. We were supposed to get the pigs around March, this has been delayed and the latest I have heard is that we should get them sometime this year. I’m hoping that we will start building the pig pens in the next two months but who knows. Nicaragua bureaucracy has put a whole new definition to the word slow.

What do you do in a normal day to day routine?

Easiest answer is there is no daily routine, however I´ll try to give you something of an answer.

8:30 am Wake Up
9:00 am Eat breakfast, usually some oatmeal with raisins and honey or a jelly sandwich.
9:30 am to 11:00 am Study Spanish or read a book. (I have now read 24 books in 4 months, so you can tell which one I do more of.)
11:00 am to 12:30 Two days a week I go to the school and help out. With the older class I teach English classes. With the younger class I do various activities such as making a piñata or help out the teacher any way I can, which usually ends up just trying to keep control of the class.
12:00 to 1:00 pm Visit a family that just happens to be eating lunch. This is where I get my daily intake of rice and beans.
1:00 pm to 3:00 pm Walk around the community talking to families and playing with the kids. Also, try to throw out ideas to various families for future projects and seeing what interests people.
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm Go to my host families house to watch a Latina America dating show. The show is actually based out of Los Angeles but is in Spanish and usually has some pretty attractive women. Thus I am killing two birds with one stone, practicing Spanish and remembering what a TV looks like.
4:00 pm to 6:00 pm Visit other families in the community. If I have a cooking class or an activity with parents then it would take place during these hours.
6:00 pm to 7:00 pm Make dinner and usually entertain some of my neighbor’s children. About a week ago the truck to my community stopped coming to town, thus it looks like there will be a lot of spaghetti dinners in my future. Also, Ramen Noodles have reappeared from my college days and I have learned how to cook some pretty good dishes with soy meat, including sloppy joes or hamburgers.
7:00 pm to 8:00 pm Play some cards or pool (surprisingly there is a make shift pool hall here).
8:00 pm to 10:30 pm Hang out in my house and listen to some music, watch a movie on the computer the previous volunteer left me, or read a book. Luckily they don’t really enforce any pirating laws, thus you can get movies for around one dollar and they usually are pretty new movies.
10:30 pm Bedtime

How many animals do you have?
As of right now, I have one dog, one cat and three kittens. The kittens though will be given away as gifts here in three weeks. I also decided to give my dog the surgery so she wont have puppies but that wont be for another 4 months.

Are you still allergic to animals or with everything down there are you just more accustomed to the allergies?
Surprisingly my animals don’t bother my allergies. Don´t know why but I definitely checked into it before I took ownership. Its weird, but in different locations allergies can be more active then others, or so I have been told.

Do they celebrate Easter?
Easter is a HUGE celebration down here; everyone quits working in the fields or takes the week off from work. For the most part it is a religious celebration; however, quite a few people take the time off to head out to the beaches. This has become quite dangerous actually as over 70 people died during Easter week in Nicaragua this year. See most Nicaraguans can’t swim, also some use this time to drink absurd amounts of alcohol. The combination of these two, led to around 30 people drowning. The liquor led to another 20 people dying in alcohol related violence and 10 people died in car accidents. Thus, we are advised of these dangers and most volunteers stay in their sites. Religious activities in the sites include about 10 church services throughout 5 days. The biggest day in my opinion was Friday where the community meets at the church and the men carry a large cross throughout the community street to symbolize Jesus carrying the cross. This terminates at the church where they proceed with church service. They then do this all over again in the afternoon with the women carrying a much smaller cross.

Is there TV or Radio?
Yes, about 30 to 40 percent of the families in the community have a TV, however TV´s only have about or 5 channels. Some people throughout the community do have radios but needless to say there is not great reception, thus it is more the minority then the majority. Also, it is usually only the people that got big stereo systems to blast their ranchero CD´s.

Do people play music – guitars and things?
Guitars are quite expensive for the average family down here, thus the only people in my community that have them are the people that play in the church band.

Are there books?
I brought down five books with me, which I went through in my first two weeks at my site. We do also have a book exchange in the Peace Corps office however good books do not stay on the shelf for vary long. Thus, it is usually better to exchange books with other volunteers.

Also, look for some pictures included in the next blog, I am going to get some pictures of families in my community, the school, church and a picture of my community from the mountain above it. Send me an email if there are any other things you would be interested in seeing pictures of.

Finally getting some work done...

2008-03-29T12:28:00.001-04:00

Well first off I would like to thank the people that did send questions, even though I only received like 3 or 4 emails of questions. I was surprised to hear from some family that I haven’t talked to in a while, which for me is awesome. It definitely a moral booster to know that people are actually interested in what I am doing down here. Anyway, I will answer the questions next blog, I am going to save them and take them back to my house so I can give some more thought to them. Also, I was talking to a friend and she came up with the idea if you don’t have any questions per say another idea is to send me writing props.

See the problem that I am having is that now that I have lived down here 7.5 months (yeah, I can’t believe its been that long) things that were outrageous back when I first got here have become normal. For example, I was eating dinner at a friends house the other day and right in the middle of dinner two chickens started making a whole lot of noise and looked to be wrestling about five feet away from me (well if you didn’t know, they were doing the dirty and only the cock makes noise. The female chicken can´t make noise). Anyway unless I was thinking about my blog postings at the time it wouldn’t have even caught my attention.

I know you all are eagerly awaiting the results of my cats pregnancy so without further ado, I am happy to announce that I am the proud father of three ugly kittens. Easter morning, or I should say from 11 pm the night before Easter until 2 am Easter morning, my cat gave birth to 2 little male kittens and 1 female kitten. One is actually kind of cute but the other two have no chance of losing the ugly title. But anyway I must admit I was naïve enough to think the poor little cat was going to make a little noise and then three little cute balls of fur would walk out and it would be a good time. I would have a couple little fur balls that I could play with and they would chase after string. No, it was three hours of screaming and ill just say bodily fluids. Luckily the kittens never cry and I have found homes for two of the three.

So I am actually happy to note some progress in job side of things, yes I do get in a little work down here as well. This week I just started a women´s cooking class! Its exciting because like I have noted before most of the women only cook rice, beans, cheese and sometimes add a little meat. The goal of this class is to improve on a couple of things:

1. The variety of foods being consumed
2. Cooking while using less oils and salts
3. Getting the women together so I will have a base of women that I have built trust with for future projects
4. Increase use of local foods that are often ignored because they do not know how to cook them

So with that said I had my first cooking class yesterday. Thursday, I went around and talked to around 15 or 20 women who all acted very excited and told me that they would be there for the class. As typical Nica fashion goes, the class was to start at 4 pm and as 4:30 comes around I find myself still sitting alone in my house. Not a good sign but as many Nica´s come to meetings upwards of an hour after the start time it wasn’t unexpected. So at 4:30 I bribe a couple of the little kids outside my house to go hunt down some of the women that I have built trust with to get them to come. Much like in the US people don’t want to be the first person to attend, however, once they see one person show up then they follow them in the door. Well twenty minutes roll by and before you know it there was twelve women (okay 4 women, 6 teenagers and 2 kids) are all gathered around for cooking class to start.

First day I decided to make peanut butter and then use the peanut butter to make two different deserts. Who wouldn’t come back after making deserts? So anyway we learned during our training how to make peanut butter, however there is a large difference between learning how to do something and then taking that and trying to teach a big group of people how to make it. Let me also note here that I had to teach them how to do it in SPANISH!!! Well surprisingly it went extremely well, well except we added a little too much salt to the peanut butter. Go figure one of the two things I am trying to eliminate we go and add too much of, and yes all the women let me know of this fact.

But anyway the peanut butter was a little salty but overall pretty good, and the deserts, oh the deserts were delicious. A note, I have had less then five deserts here in Nicaragua and only one in the last four months so my taste for deserts may be a little off. First we made some no bake cookies that were peanut butter and oatmeal among other ingredients. Delicious! Second, we made some peanut butter fudge, however with this we are waiting for it to set so tomorrow will be the big tasting day. But early sights are looking like it will be quite scrumptious. So class lasted about an hour and fifteen minutes and I think it was a good start and we will just have to see how it goes from there.

So now I got three funny stories for ya…

First is a story that is quite old, however, I just haven’t got around to posting it. For this story we will have to go back to church, actually the second time I went to church is when I picked up on this fact. Well I am sitting in there in church not really understanding anything, like I have said before I go more to try to understand country Spanish and also so that I can meet as many of the people from the community as quickly as possible. So I am sitting there daydreaming off into nowhere because I get bored pretty easily. So im sitting there and I come back from my daydream when I notice the collection person coming around. Like a lot of churches he has a bag attached to a stick he can extend down the aisles. But as I am sitting there I realize that I recognize the bag, it was purple with gold letters on it….

I sit there and think to myself, this just can´t be they don’t have that product here. Let me note here that I was in no way shape or form inebriated in any way. But as I wait for the person to come closer I sit there and read the words nice and slow…

CROWN ROYAL!!!

For those of you who do not know what this is, yup it’s a mighty fine whiskey. Not quite sure but I think that’s a nice little promotion to break church rules. Ha!

Anyway lets move on to story two, breast feeding. People back in the US think it is scandalous when women breast feed out in public, that park bench is soo taboo. Well here there is no shame in whipping it out right in the middle of a conversation. I can’t tell you how many conversations I have had with breast feeding mothers. Once I was having a conversation with a women and here three year old daughter just ran on up and pulled the breast out for a quick drink and then ran off, sort of like the water break during football practice. Im sorry, but this just never will become normal for me. But when I had thought I had seen it all, the news managed to shock me.

See the news here is known for being risqué. Every nightly news you see someone that was attacked by a machete about to die being interviewed ¨why do you think the guy attacked you and cut off your left ear¨. So it shouldn’t have been a big surprise what was on the news.

So the story is about a single mother of four kids who is struggling to make ends meet. Not that strange of a story back in the US, and definitely not hot news here either for that much either. But the touching side of the story was that two of the kids were 6 month old twins. So the closing shot of this family…can you guess it. Yes, the two older kids are playing in the back ground as the mother is feeding her kids (yes, one per twin) in the forefront. Oh and did I mention that it wasn’t like a risqué magazine cover back in the states with the two kids acting as a bra. No, they managed to zoom in just to make sure that everyone knew EXACTLY what the two little ones were up to. Yes I had to pick up my jaw off the floor.

So the grand finale, like I have mentioned before some things that should be crazy are normal now. For example, a two hour walk to get to the highway to go into town. See my truck didn’t come into my community on Wednesday and I needed to get into town. Thus my only option was to take the two hour hike to the highway. Well I get about an hour and fifteen minutes into the walk and I feel something brewing in my stomach. Well let me tell you a little something about the shits down here. Once you notice something brewing its not like back in the US where it just pops up to say ¨Hey when you get out of your meeting or anytime you get a chance today Id like to go for a swim, just let me know¨ no down here they aren´t that jolly. Down here they are more like ¨You have exactly five minutes to get your nice little bum on the closest latrine before I ruin you week, no make that your life!¨.

Well when your out in the middle of nowhere Nicaragua there are no latrines around, thus I was faced with two dilemmas; where to go and what to use for toilet paper. Lets use a list to attack these two problems.

1. For some reason I was more worried about toilet paper, so lets start there…
Well luckily (or so I thought) I had a notebook with me. I thought some higher being was with me on this one, who hasn’t heard of the notebook paper coming in to save some poor chaps day. Well I am living proof that all those stories are LIES. I am here to tell you that if you are going on a hike, or a long walk for that much, where your not around a bathroom. Do yourself a favor and pack some toilet paper, it doesn’t take up that much room. Shit you can put it in your pocket if your worried about conserving space. So yeah notebook paper doesn’t quite fold like toilet paper, the corners don´t just move out of the way for your pretty little toosh. No the corners are there to fight, and I haven’t read any laws that say rear ends are immune from paper cuts, and I will attest that law would never be able to pass. I will just leave it at that all my back packs were just stocked with toilet paper.
2. Where do you go…
Well once again I thought a higher being was with me on this one. See being in the middle of Nicaragua the road that I was on has roughly one person walk on it per hour, at the most. So I wasn’t worried about people walking up on me, rather I was searching for the most comfortable area. I watched survival shows back in the states and remember a show that said you can use rocks to simulate a toilet. Thus, I decided there was no better time to try out my knowledge, well I should have tried to hide a little further off the road. As I am finishing up giving myself enough paper cuts that would make a secretary have pity for me I hear a sound behind me…clip clop, clip clop. Yup, here comes a cowboy, and no it wasn’t a night in shining armor. The best part I learned throughout our twenty minute conversation that followed was that I was only the second gringo (American) this guy had ever seen. Thus he was quite interested in what I was doing. Needless to say it was not my finest hour…

Well I hope you all have a good weekend and keep on rooting for my TARHEELS!!!

And the dogs name is.....

2008-03-08T11:54:00.000-05:00

So I haven´t really got many questions so I am just go ahead a fill you in on the last couple weeks of work (or lack of work) and some other random thoughts that I am having. Also it is easier to take the questions that I did get and take them back to my house and include them in my next blog. Oh and just a little heads up that there are some four letter words that follow, I have edited them so a lot are five letters, however if there are any youngin´s reading have your parents read it first…

First off, the long awaited naming of my new dog. I actually decided to go with a suggestion my brother gave me…fluck (minus a letter, Im guessing you all can guess which one). It´s awesome because I can get mad as hell at the dog and no one down here knows that I am cursing it out, they all think its his name. Take for example the other day, my dog took a shit in my living room, I responded by saying “Where did you learn that, your mother? Flucker” Of course I am sitting here cracking up and no one else understands why. Or another example the other day I went for a walk with my dog and she was walking really slow so I told her “Hurry up, Flucker”. Once again I was cracking up, locals not so much. But I guess that the whole point of it.

Well I hope you all know me well enough that I didn´t name my dog Flucker, Im not that mean…well not quite. Instead I decided to go with a Spanish name because the locals have enough trouble with my name I didn’t want to torcher them with two English names. I also avoided all the cliché names like Nicaragua or extranjero (Spanish for foreigner) because well I am not sure that I am going to bring it back to the US with me so a dog named Nicaragua that lives in Nicaragua just isn’t quite catchy.

So without further ado…her name is Torpe. Yeah go get your Spanish dictionaries out, it means clumsy in Spanish. See my dog is the runt of the litter and thus is a little slow to say the least. For example I put food in her dish and she is sooo clumsy and in a rush to eat that she knocks the bowl upside down and has the food all over the place including on top of her head. It is hilarious to watch and not to mention watching her walk, her back legs never seem to want to follow her front legs so shes always walking in a zigzag patter, yeah its hilarious too. Also I put her down on the ground to walk with me to visit other houses, I then walk forward five feet and call her to follow me. Yup, she turns around and walks the other way. (Should I take this as a sign she doesn´t like me?) Anyway, Torpe it is. I also like it cause it sounds like torpedo which she is anything but.

Other news on the animal front, my cat is pregnant. Yes I fill like enough time has passed that I can safely announce it to the world without jinxing the babies, haha. Anyways I am not really excited about this as I just don´t want to have to deal with baby cats. I know that there will be plenty of people that want baby cats but its just that well there aren’t any so called good and caring homes to give them to as most people here treat there animals pretty poorly. Also, I have to deal with the whole deciding when is a good time to separate the babies from there mom. Anyways not looking forward to it and its also making me think about getting a little procedure done on the dog but I can´t see myself doing that, I guess I just see it is not my decision as to whether an animal should have babies are not. It´s funny cause this discussion is very big down here among Volunteers as there are many pets down here that are gravely underfed, however I just don´t see myself has deserving of the power to eliminate the possibilities of my dog having babies only because I don´t want to deal with them or another family isn’t just to have my dogs babies, or whatever million other reasons there are for doing the operation. Well I have already said more then I wanted on that so I am done with that.

I am really excited because I just started a project in my town, it’s a project I never thought I would have started because I was against it coming down here but anyway I went ahead and started teaching English classes in the school in my town. I am teaching the equivalent of 4th, 5th and 6th graders and although I have only taught two classes it seems like it is going to be an awesome experience. I must explain why I was against it in the first place, my original opinion (and still somewhat my opinion) is that it is arrogant of us as US citizens to come down here and teach English to the locals because we deem it a superior language. Well my opinion hasn´t changed on that, however, I became bored at the lack of work that I was accomplishing.

During this time I was checking into the schools and watching classes to see if I could give some classes to kids about various environmental subjects. I must note that in total the school is 50 kids for six grades with only two teachers, thus 25 kids per teacher, each teacher teaching three grades. Well while the teachers were great, the kids just weren´t simulated by the subjects. So anyway before class I was asked by one of the teachers would I be interested in teaching some English, I answered that I could teach them some greetings and other words. Well during class the teacher asked the students who is interested in English class, all twenty five hands shot off like rockets into the air. Thus, English class started and its looking like it will be a two day a week adventure. So far we have had two classes under our belt and the kids don´t want to leave school when I am done teaching. This has been really exciting, especially because I can use it to give classes on other subjects. Also, who knows but it may get them more excited in other classes as well.

Well now I am going to post a couple rambling thoughts, things I have been meaning to post, however, just haven’t had the time or care to put it on the blog.

The concrete floor is really starting to grow on me, the other week I was sick with a sinus infection. You know where your coughing up flem, well the concrete floor is awesome because you can just spit it right out where your sitting and sweep it out the door when it dries up. No need to worry about that nice carpet getting ruined.

I can curse all that I want, see “bad words” have no significance in Spanish. Its sort of like the saying “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around did it really fall” (ok I probably butchered the saying but I don’t have to remind you that internet isn’t the easiest thing to come about out here in bumble…. Nicaragua). So back to the story If I say a curse word in English and no one understands it is it really that bad of a word?

It is perfectly fine to be late anywhere you go, well anywhere but church. See everything here runs late, meetings are always 30 mins to an hour after the decided start time. The truck that takes me in to town always leaves 30 min after its supposed to, even though my dumb ass is always 10 minutes early. Then when the truck comes back into town, its supposed to leave at 1, yeah that means that sometimes it leaves at 130, sometimes 230, sometimes 330 or sometimes just never shows up. Yeah that’s a bitch when your sitting there waiting for over an hour and then you realize your screwed and its not coming. So you gotta find trucks that are going to near by towns and then walk to your town. For me this often includes an hour bus ride followed by a forty minute walk up a mountain with my 15 to 30 pounds worth of groceries and pet food and any other bs I need to take out to my house. But anyway back to the point, don´t be late to church. Church never starts late. Show up two minutes after start time and the whole congregation is looking at you (Yeah its only 30 people but its intimidating). And yes I have now walked into church late twice.

You can´t buy green bananas, they just won´t sell them to you. I walked into the town grocery store, which is nothing more then a families living room where they sell vegetables, chips and soda. Well I walk in and ask if they have bananas, and of course the sixty year old lady couldn’t understand me so I asked again, again poor little lady couldn´t understand me. So I look around and see the damn bananas and point to them and say can I buy four bananas (no, I was not angry yet). She turns to me and says they don´t have any bananas. Well she must have read my face (I have never been known to hide my emotions well) and then says they aren’t for sale because they are green. I didn’t know what to say so I just walked out and haven’t gone back for over six weeks, but I don’t hold grudges so its all good.

The people down here are the nicest, sweetest people you can meet, until you try to get on a bus with them. Holy shit they turn into like American Gladiators when they fight for a bus seat. Its crazy, they wait for over half an hour for their bus to come in and then they storm the bus so they get a seat. Im serious, nails come out, old ladies start swinging their purses, kids are storming the back emergency entrance. This is all before the bus has come to a complete stop. It’s the craziest scene imaginable.

There are no calories down here, rather there are units of energy. I don’t have to count my evil calories down here, rather I get to count how much energy I get to use today.

You would never imagine how many people you can fit in things. I have seen hammocks that can comfortably fit me in them be filled with four grown adults. I have rode in trucks with 30 people in the back. I swear its almost a game to see who can fit the most...

Oh and add two more scorpions to the count…

Finally, GO HEELS!!! Beat dook.

Couple more pics...and a new dog!

2008-02-15T18:19:00.004-05:00

So I decided to add a new pet to my list of animals here...and its a dog. Its a girl and is really cute, only a month old and clumsy as hell. But the important thing is that I dont have a name for it yet so I need some help with suggestions, either send me an email or post a comment with an idea for a name.

The last picture is of the bull rink for the bull riding...my friend has a picture of me riding a bull but he is emailing me that so it should be up next blog post.

Finally, I am running out of things to post about so send me an email of questions and I will post some answers to what everyone wants to know!

Hope all is well...

Some pictures for you....

2008-02-06T16:47:00.000-05:00

Well first I must apologize cause they are not in order but it will take too long to reorganize and its taken me over 1.5 hours to get these up...but here ya go...

This first picture is my lovely living room, here you can see the elegant couch and chairs. Also in the pic you get a quick look into my kitchen as well. Basically my house has two room, this is the kitchen and living room and then there is the bedroom that follows. Got my nice little hammock here for reading and relaxing and the bookshelf on the left there has all my work shit.

Here is my bedroom, quite simple. Got my dresser and closet, just outside of the picture is a little table that I have all my dailies on.

Here is a picture from the outside of my house. The bedroom is a side room of to the left of the house. I have a small yard to the right, where I have a shower and latrine. I am also in the process of planting a garden so I didn´t take any picture of that area.

The next two picture are from a youth group beach trip I took some kids from my community on. I managed to stuff 23 kids into a truck and we drove for 3 hours to the beach. We did manage to stop in Leon on the way for a museum and also to see the biggest church in Central America. It was an awesome trip as none of the kids had ever been to Leon before or seen the ocean. All the kids were asking ¨why are there waves?¨ and ¨why is the water salty?¨.

Anyway, this is also a pic of one of the girls that I lived with for the first month I lived in my new site, she has helped me a lot with Spanish. She also has the best name ever ¨Meleidy¨.

Here you can see the beach in the backround and the overcrowded bed of the truck. In total we stuffed 20 kids in the bed. The girl standing up in pink is another of the girls that I stayed with the first month, her name is Damirel.

This is my neighbor and fighting buddy, his name is Everet and is the most well behaved little kid I have met. Which is saying a lot as most kids down here are brats. Anyway, because he is so well behaved he always gets what he wants, so when you tell him no it is absolutely hilarious because he just doesnt understand the word ¨no¨.

Here is a picture of the Peace Corps Director in my site. If you don´t remember what I look like I am behind him in the white shirt. Yes, my hair is completely short, and no I don´t like it.

Here is the Nicaraguan police that came out to protect the Director on his site visit. Which is a joke because my site is like the safest place in the entire world. But I was going to ask one of the guys to borrow a gun for a picture but I chickened out.

Here is a Tarantula that was in my house, it is one of three that I have killed in my house.

Here is a scorpion that was in my house, one of four that I have killed in my house.

Here is a picture of my cat, the big one, and her kitten. The kitten I gave to my sitemate Marlena as cat food is rediculously expensive down here and I didn´t want a second cat. But she is cute none the less.

Oh the month of January...

2008-02-06T13:08:00.000-05:00

So what a crazy month this has been! As you all know I have not posted in a month and that’s for a couple reasons. Mainly though Peace Corps rules don’t allow me to leave my town overnight for my first three months in my site, thus I only have roughly four hour to get everything I need done in town. This includes grocery shopping, eating (need a little meat in the diet), answering emails and checking up on the happening in the world (aka SPORTS). Also, to upload pictures takes just under an hour. Thus when I do update the blog it is usually one of the few things that I get to do while in town.

Anyway, the month started off with the New Years celebrations. This was an exciting time as roughly twenty of the other Ag volunteers that I trained with all met in a beach town for four day and relaxed. We enjoyed some time in the beach but not after a little scare. The first fifteen minutes we were playing with a football in the water when my friend felt a sting in his foot and it was bleeding profusely. After talking to the people in the hostel we were staying at we found out that what stung him was a sting ray (Yes the same thing that killed the Crocodile Hunter) immediately after that he was sent to get the poison removed from his foot. After a day of total pain and a week of walking with a limp he is now fine, however, needless to say everyone entered the water a little slower for the next couple days. But overall it was a great trip, great seeing everyone and some amazing sunsets as you saw in the pictures.

The next major event was a visit by the Peace Corps Director for the entire WORLD!!! He decided to make a four day stop in Nicaragua for some meetings with the government and to check on the volunteers. Well during his time here the PC Nicaragua directors decided to have him visit two sites. Well lucky me, my site got picked for one of the sites for him to visit. See here we are working on that bean project that I have mentioned before, however the PC Nicaragua staff loves this project because it involved cross sector work between volunteers. I help the town with quality control and Ag practices while a small business volunteer comes in and helps with business and selling practices. Before moving on I want to also mention that immediately after leaving my site he returned to the capital of Nicaragua to have a meeting with the President of Nicaragua, yeah I like to say I am about on the same level as the President of Nicaragua.

So anyways back to the story, we are told that there will be three PC vehicles coming and we are supposed to entertain the Director and eleven other high ups for roughly an hour. Thus, myself and the business volunteer set up a presentation accordingly. We start with a welcome by the community, a brief history of the volunteers, a talk on the bean project and a quick mention of our future pig project. It was set to go all smoothly, which for a small town in the middle of nowhere Nicaragua is almost impossible to do when you have three big SUVs rolling into town. (I know I have mentioned before that there are only two trucks in the whole town, thus when three big white SUVs come in needless to say they are noticed.)

Now the quick little hour of my life turned into a HUGE circus. The PC staff failed to mention that they were also bringing a bus of news people. All four news channels in Nicaragua brought in reporters and cameras, two newspapers had reporters and regional news channels for Central America also brought in news people. It was a bonafide circus and I’m supposed to be one of the ringleaders. Well it all turned out well and the town got all excited as they all got to see their pretty little faces being interviewed on TV, however it was a freak show for me the little volunteer who doesn’t know enough Spanish to give an interview.

One interesting thing I learned on the Directors visit though was the difference from a translator and an interpreter. See a translator takes things and translates them verbatim (or as much as possible given the difficulty of that some words just don’t translate or can translate multiple ways) and there is the title of interpreter. This is a glorified word for a person who interprets what one person is saying in one language and translates it to another language who doesn’t speak the original language, they supposedly are better at translating the meaning of what the person is saying. So why is this important? Yup, the director of Peace Corps does not speak Spanish (Side note: I find this incredibly interesting as most volunteers, sorry I don’t have time to look up the statistics, work in Spanish speaking countries.)

So, I am giving a short little ten minute speech about the upcoming pig project to the Peace Corps Director. However, lucky me it has to be in Spanish because we have some community members present and thus we don’t want to alienate them. So imagine this, I am sitting there thinking in English, translating it in my head and then speaking in Spanish. Now, every half sentence or so I have to stop so this fancy little interpreter lady can translate the sentence to English. So I’m sitting here trying to maintain where I am at in the sentence and trying to make sure she is saying what I am thinking in my head…and guess what…she is twisting it ever so slightly, but this small little twist in changing the meaning of the presentation. Essentially her interpretation was giving the benefits to the people in the project but not emphasizing that the people are representing families. Small little tidbit but to me it was quite large, as there are 55 people in the project but they represent over 70 percent of the families in the town, or roughly 280 people. So what are you supposed to do? I’m sitting here thinking to myself, should I just stop the Spanish and speak in English or is that too blunt, and what happened to this whole part that she is an interpreter when she cant even interpret an American speaking Spanish. I know it was probably my fault I think a highly paid interpreter should pick up on this small little interpretive detail. So yeah if you can’t tell I am not a big fan of these famed interpreter types.

The third and final big event of the month is the Fiesta Patronales, or Party for the Patron Saints. See each town has a Patron Saint and every year they celebrate the Patron Saint, yes there is actually religious celebrations but I think it is more of another excuse to party. Sort of like our Halloween, everyone has heard of some good excuse for the holiday but no one really knows why it now promotes little kids to dress as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and beg for a trick or treat (when was the last trick ever given out?). Anyways back to the story along with a couple small religious ceremonies there is also a huge fair like area set up (think state fair).

However this is also accompanied by lots of beer drinking and BULL RIDING!!! No we don’t have Nascar down here, instead we have beer drinking and bull riding. Well this year my community leader is one of the nine sponsors, thus I have been trying to go to as many of the events as possible. Three weekends, bull riding every Friday, Saturday and Sunday Night. I had other plans the first weekend, however the second weekend I managed to go to two out of the three nights. It was quite the spectacle, but also a lot of fun as well. I am not quite sure on this but I believe a mixture of the bull riders are professionals, while the other half is people from the stands that want to ride. Or this is at least my assumption as several of my community members attempt to have me ride a bull. I try to get out of this by telling them that this year is only for learning to ride horses and we will see what next year brings…

Back to the fair part of the events, one thing I learned the first night that I went was that they build tents for several bars around the fair area (which is about the size of a football field). The fair area has various food vendors and little games set up in one area and fair rides, farris wheel and tea cups set up in another area. Well quite the surprise for me was that these bars they set up are a big hangout for homosexuals and cross dressers. This was quite the surprise as well they are quite the cultural taboo here in Nicaragua and seeing them next to bull riding, I guess I just don’t quite see the connection there. Anyways it was a blast, we left for the fiesta around 3 pm and didn’t get home until 1 am, which in Nicaragua time is like 6 am in the USA as most nights they are in bed around here at 8pm.

And with that I hope this two and a half page entry will suffice for a month of not posting and hope that I will be able to post more frequently in the future.

Some more pics for ya...

2008-01-03T15:11:00.000-05:00

This first picture was taken a month or so into my time here. We hiked for roughly 3 hours up and down mountains to come to this amazing waterfall. Luckily I am now only 1.5 hrs away from it and my friend lives right next to it, so when anyone comes to visit my site we can definately check it out.
This pic comes from out training days. Eight trainees went to visit a volunteer for three days and when we got their we were greeted by the school children who put on a little play for us.
Another picture from tech days, this is a picture of five of us working on vaccinating chickens. It is a cool thing you can do with a youth group to makes some money and take the group on a trip. Which is an awesome thing as many of the children or adults of out comunities never get to see other parts of Nicaragua.
This is another picture of my sitemate Marlena. During out training days we got into a little mudfight (Yes I won, like always!).
So you wonder what I did for New Years! Here is a little tease, this is sunset on New Years Eve down here in Nicaragua. Ill give you some stories next time...

Hope all is well and Happy New Years!!!

So what does it really mean...

2007-12-27T17:19:00.000-05:00

So this is the blog post to clarify some things...What does it really mean. I have realized that as I post stuff I am not clarifying the difference between how it is in the US and how it is Nica style...

Roads- Yes I do have road access to the Pan American Highway, which is quite nice. However no it is not paved and yes it definately has a lot of manure (both cow and horse) guiding the way. A little funny side note is that my town just completed a two week project where EVERYONE in the town helped out to expand it to a 2 lane road. The funny part is that we only have two vehicles in the WHOLE town. Thus it is now safe that if the two vehicles do meet paths they can cross safely.

Water- Yes I have access to safe drinking water, no I do not have sinks or a hot shower still. Instead I have a water spicket in my yard (much like the old time wells) in which I get all my water (shower, cooking and drinking).

Electricity- Yes I have electricity, however it is only two light bulbs and two electrical outlets. Also, while the President here has assured the public no more blackouts this year (yes he said this with only 15 days left in the year) our power already went out again last night. Blackouts are a regular thing here.

Wake up call- Yes I made the mistake of telling my host family that I could sleep through anything. Now i get the delight of a wake up call every morning at 6am. Oh but this is not a normal wakeup call they blast ranchero music (which is a lot like the worst music you could ever think of). They turn their radio as loud as it can go and think that I can hear my little wrist watch alarm. Yeah it wasnt working....but luckily I am living on my own how.

Shower- Yes i get to take wonderful cold bucket baths...but I also never mentioned that my shower is outside and only has 2.5 walls. Yup its a great show for all the little kids playing outside there with me.

Polisima- this is an event held every december for about 15 days in which the community honors Mother Mary. To do this everyone in the community celebrates at one person's house and the house changes every day. Well no families have any money for decorations, instead they tear down all the decorative plants in their front yard to amass a shrine to the Mother Mary. It is quite amazing the shrines they create, however it leaves their yard a complete disaster. Yeah Im thinking this tradition wont be starting anytime soon in the US.

Meat- Yes I get meat about 2-3 times per week, which is most then many families that I live with. However, I have not seen meet thats not attached to the bone. Oh how I crave a filet mignon.

Living Room Furniture- No there are not lazyboys and definately not couches. Instead we use hammocks (yup those are comfortable) but for chairs we get to enjoy those good ole plastic chairs that many people use for deck furniture back in the states.

*A little side note- once again I am still loving it down here. I do not post this as a slam against Nicaragua. However, I am just posting it so you get a more complete picture of what I see everyday.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Some more pics for you...

2007-12-05T12:55:00.000-05:00

This picture shows David, but more importantly what most of the area around me looks like. Like I have mentioned I am surrounded by bean fields but also what you can see better in this picture is I live in the mountains. This is good and bad, first its absolutely beautiful. However it absolutely sucks to walk anywhere. Like I said in the pic below my closest site mate is Marlena, she is only 2 miles away, however there is a huge mountain I have to walk and can take up to an hour and a half walking back from her site.

Here is a picture taken from a project we just completed yesterday. We went to one of my neighboring volunteers sites and built an improved stove that will used less firewood, thus saving the environment and the family money. In this picture is David and Marlena, they are the two closest volunteers from my training group. Marlena is a 2 mile walk while David is only like an hour and half by a bus.

Here is the swearing-in picture I mentioned in the last blog. The joke is that we all greased our hair back for the swearing in ceremony, along with the greased hair many of us decided also to sport various facial hair styles. Well lets just say that the PC thought it was our way of being professional and dressing up and thought we were one of the best mannered ag groups in awhile. Sorry I dont have a picture of the whole group as the picture that I have is quite fuzzy and you cannot tell who each person is.

Here is a picture from my youth group going away party. There were four volunteers that worked with this group: myself, Greg on the upper left, Ivy is in the upper middle with blonde hair and a tiedye shirt and then Sarah is in the lower right with the tiedye shirt. This was the group of volunteers who lived in my training town and had spanish class with me. Unfortunately because of health problems Greg had to terminate his service early and return to the US. He was a great friend and will be missed over here.

This is a picture of my host family. Yes that is my first Nica shirt as they say, first shirt given to me down here in Nicaragua. It was a gift from my sister, Eymy. Eymy is the one on the right, then my host mom Marisol and my little sister Fatimah.

The big update!!!

2007-12-03T12:03:00.000-05:00

Well its been a little while since I last posted so I will try to update you with as much as I can. Ill apologize in advance because it will definately ramble and it will definately have bad english. Sorry!

Anyways in the last three weeks I have sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteers, went to a conference of all volunteers in Nicaragua and have now moved into my permenant site for the next two years. Yes, I am now officially a resident of Nicaragua, how crazy is that. Only two years ago I didnt want to speak spanish for the rest of my entire life, only four months ago I couldn't even ask a question in spanish but now I am sitting in the middle of nowhere in Nicaragua and relying on spanish to survive....its quite startling at times.

Anyways its been a great three weeks, during the swearing in I got to hang out with all my friends down here for a week in Managua. It was good having everyone together but we had meetings everyday from 7am until almost 7pm at night when you include dinner. Also our hotel was near the airport which means that we were near no places to do anything fun. So most of the time we hung out at the pool, which was fun but when you have been out in the country for the past three months you just want to get out to a bar once in awhile. I got some nice pictures from the swearing in ceremony though as we all had to get dressed up and the ambassador from USA was there and spoke. All in all it was a pretty cool event. I will explain some more when I post some pictures of the event.

The all volunteer conference was fun meeting other volunteers. I acutally have a friend that is down here from UNC so it was good to see a friend from back in the states. But also it was a cool event because we could see projects that other people are working on that we can do in our site. Also people were selling things that they made in their villages so that was a good chance to pick up some small things for the new site.

So now the important stuff....THE NEW SITE!!!
My new site is really awesome. For the most it is really well organized which is great because lots of groups want to work with us. Thus I already have two projects set up..

Bean Project
My town is a bean town, they grow red beans. Thus they got a group to come in and support the building of a bodega, spanish for essential a building of silos, thus the town formed a cooporative and has began buying and selling beans. This is a great practice as during parts of the year the price of beans can triple. For example right now the price of beans is 15 cordobas per pound, while only 2 months ago the price was 3-5 cordobas per pound. (A side note the exchange rate is 18.5 cordobas per dollar) So with silos the group can buy beans when they are really cheap and then sell them once the price goes up. The bad part of this project is that only one person has a truck to transport the beans, thus he is the person in charge of making the sales. Now the only way to make sure he is not keeping the money for himself is to get a bill of sales, pretty simple and logical. Well the problem is that the town trusted him so much that they havent ever asked for these bill of sales. Also, when your tripling your investment most people are just happy to have the money and dont ask questions. Well the town noticed that he has accumulated quite a bit of wealth (which I think most of this wealth is because he has a brother in the US that is sending him money), but anyway the town decided they wanted to see the bill of sales for the last month. Well lucky me he doesnt have any and all hell broke loose. My first week here I am going to a meeting and there is all this yelling back and forth and my spanish is not good enough to understand all that is going on. So the gist that I get is that they questioned the guy and he said he has never received bill of sales, he then questioned the group who could make a bigger profit then he has been making, which of course no one can because no one has a truck to sell the beans. So the way I am taking it is that they just wanted to call him out and he will have to get bill of sales from now on. Anyway this meeting was like four days ago and everyone is all friendly so I dont think anything major is going to come out of it. I guess when you live in a town of 400 people you cant be mad at people for too long!
So my part of this project is to work with them on business projects and for the long term they want to export the beans so I will be working on figuring out how to do this.

Pig Project.
This will be more of my project that I will work on. Essentially the town was given money to start a project of reproducing pigs. There will be 55 families in the community divided into 11 groups, 5 families per group. Each group will be given funds to build a pig pen and also be given a pig. There will be 10 female pigs and 1 male pigs. Right now the breed of pig in my town is not very good. On average they have between 4-6 babies per litter. The new pig that we will be getting (Yorkshire for you piggy fans out there) has 10-12 babies per litter. Thus over the years we will have quite an influx of pigs that we will then sell or eat.

So those will be my two main projects, on top of these I will be working on making new stoves that use less firewood, painting world and Nicaragua maps on the local school, working on gardens and etc.

Other updates:

Horse update- I think I have mentioned before that the best transport in my town is by horse, thus I have started talking to a couple people in the town and told them I want a horse. They said they will start looking but I told them to hold off until January. My month of December is extremely busy and I also dont want to give off an impression of a rich american.

Cat- I was given the cutest little cat by the volunteer before me. She keeps my house free of rats, scorpions, snakes and all the other fun stuff. The only problem is she has like 9-12 babies a year. So I will be giving out a lot of free gifts to the community.

Two funny stories....
Beans, beans and more beans.
So like I said before I live in a bean town. This is good because beans are expensive and thus if I didnt live in a bean town I probably wouldnt be eatting beans right now. But with that said I am at the other extreme. I have beans and coffee for breakfast, I have beans and a tortilla for lunch, and I have beans and chicken for dinner. At times I feel like Im on Survivor for how many beans can I eat in a week. I have scientific proof that I can eat over 21 lbs of red beans in a week (7 days a week, 1 lb of beans per meal, 3 meals per day). Anyway the bad part of this is that I am pooping a lot like a deer now, except its not pebbles is beans coming out. The good part is beans are selling for a lot now so it is an extra source of income.

A little roll in the carpet...
So I know my family is really big in weekend projects but my new family beats any project I have ever seen done. See the the families are really poor down here, thus many have dirt floors. Well my new family that I am staying in has a dirt floor, and well I am not quite sure why (Perhaps there was a little hill forming that I didnt notice, or they wanted to creat a put-put golf course in living room, not quite sure) but this weekend my mom broke out a bucket of water and the machete and went to town on the living room floor. For over an hour she was rearranging the dirt and what not and when I returned home an hour later there was a "new floor" in the living room.

The big update!!!

2007-12-03T12:00:00.000-05:00

2007-11-03T15:56:00.001-04:00

Like I promised last week, here are some pics. I will post an udate next week with how my site visit went...
First pictures is of all the Nica 45 volunteers. This is the all the volunteers that I came with and comprise 21 ag volunteers and 19 environmental ed volunteers...
This is my amazingly cute little sister. This picture was taken when she was about 1.5 months old and she is now around 2.5 months. She is my amigita which translates to little friend...
This is a picture of my sister... and I know she would kill me if I put this picture up here but the thing is Nicaraguans are not big fans of pictures unless they have time to get all done up for them. Well I didnt feel like waiting... Anyways this is taken in a cave we visited with our youth group.
This is another pictures from the youth group hike... In Nicaragua a youth group generally includes ages from 15-25, so yes some members of youth group are older then me!

Here is another pictures from the trip looking out from the caves...

Anyways expect some more pics shortly as I only have one more week here in my training town and then head to Managua for two weeks and I should be able to get more pics and an update of my site visit on here.

Oh what a week it was...

2007-10-20T16:54:00.000-04:00

Maybe it has actually been two weeks or more since I have last posted. Sorry but it has been extremely busy, this blog will be quite long to make up for it. So there are going to be three parts to the blog...

Tech Days- this is where I went to visit a volunteer for four days and learned what I will be doing as a volunteer.

Flooding in Nicaragua- this is where we got evacuated from Esteli and got hooked up in a nice hotel in Managua for four days.

Site Assignment- Yes I know where I will be living for the next two years...read below to find out.

TECH DAYS
So tech days is an opportunity that we have to go visit a volunteer for four days and we get to actually participate in stuff we will be doing as volunteers. For my tech days I went in a group of eight people to a town called La Chinea. The rumor that I heard is that it gets its name because some farmers were plowing a field and the found some old China handmade plates hidden in the soil. Thus, when other people were saying where they were going it was the place they found the China, which in spanish is La Chinea.

So during these tech days the volunteers site is right near a twenty foot wide stream that we got the joy of crossing atleast four times per day. This was not funny as I did not have good footwear for this and as it rained everyday the river got higher and more rapid as the days went on. To top it off six out of the eight of us came down with some bacteria, and yes I was one of the lucky six. So I had the joy of 4 days of diaharria. Luckily it is all better now and I am back to 100% healthwise.

So back to the tech days, during these days I learned a lot of useful information for my job. Including how to build ovens (yes oven that use wood not electrical) that use less wood. One oven we made cost a whole $20 and the other we just used dirt, thus it was free. Both oven took a full day to build and were quite interesting structures. (If you want more information most a comment and I will add more detail next time.) After that we worked with some youth groups and made some organic insecticides and fertilizers.

FLOODING IN NICARAGUA
As some of you are starting to hear on the news Nicaragua is having some SEVERE flooding. It literally has rained here for the past two weeks or more. Included in these rains were two tropical storms. Thus all PC personnel in the north were evactuated for four days to the capital Managua. It was actually kind of funny because all four days we were in Managua it was sunny, however up here in the north it continued to rain. Well we returned to Esteli on Thursday and are back living with our families. However it continues to rain here everyday and like I said there is severe flooding, mudslides and lots of roads have been washed out.

How does this affect me? It really hasnt effected me much except the sky is always gray, I always have my rain jacket and my shoes are always muddy. Where we are in Esteli there hasnt been much damage per say. Most of the damage and true flooding is still to the north of us in Chinendaga and other cities. The sad part is that three out of the four hats I brought with me have started to mold, yes it is truly a sad day. Luckily my Nica mom is coming to the rescue and has washed them to get rid of the mold. They should be back in business once they dry...which could be another month.

So now to the exciting part....

MY SITE ASSIGNMENT!!!
Before I say my site I want to go into the process a little. First what happens is we have a meeting where we learn of all the possible sites. We get to see pictures of all the sites and get a page on each site describing the site, weather, projects and etc. We then list our top three and have an interview with the person in charge of all the Ag Volunteers in Nica. At this meeting we talk about our qualification and previous experience. This is also where we lobby for the site we really want. Well there were 21 sites and 21 volunteers (however we have one married couple so only 20 sites are going to be used). Thus after the interview the Ag Director goes back and puts all the puzzle pieces together and 3 days later we know where we will be living for the next two years.

So without further a do....I will be spending the next two years in La Trinidad, Nicaragua. La Trinidad was my number one choice for many reasons. First, it is only 10-15 minutes from where I am living now. Thus I can visit my host family whenever I want and I am also only 30 minutes away from the city of Esteli. While the city of Esteli isnt the prettiest city, I have become very well acquainted with it and I like spending some time here. It is where I use the internet and also have a PC office so I can meet other volunteers here. I am also excited because I have another person in my training group who will be only 2 kilometer or 1.5 miles from where I am living.

Second reason while my site is perfect is that there is currently a volunteer at the site. There were only five sites to choose from where we will be immediately replacing a volunteer and La Trinidad is one of them. Thus I have some projects already set up for me and also more importantly I have a house set up for me. This is awesome because I can buy the bed and all that other stuff off the current volunteer and not worry about having to haul new stuff to my site. (Did I mention that the method to haul stuff is on top of a school bus?) Another nice thing is that the house has fruit trees and other amenities already growing so I will get the fruit of others labor. Third reason, the projects that are set up involve agribusiness which is right down my alley. The major project right now is exporting red beans to Costa Rica or the US. Now that doesnt seem like much but right now the process involves around 4 middle men and the community wants to eliminate all four of these middle men. So needless to say it should be interesting.

So yeah it has been an exciting two weeks and on top of that I have realized that I can hold conversations in Spanish, so it has been productive too. I will try to update this blog more frequently from now on but no promises. And remember if you have any questions you can always email me (hollinsj@gmail.com).

In closing a little something to think about...Payless Shoes Store is expensive down here!

Almost a month in Nicaragua....

2007-09-26T18:58:00.000-04:00

This is going go be a very short blog because I dont have much time...

1. Cooking Nica Style- this weekend I started to learn how to cook like a Nica. Sounds easy, its mostly rice and beans but the tough part is cooking over wood. You must control the heat of the fire while at the same time keeping the smoke out of your eyes. It can be quite intertaining watching a gringo (foreigner) attempt this. Anyways, I learned how to cool tortillas and rice. I also learned to cook some other stuff but those I had already known how to cook.

2. Testiculos- Yes the word is very similar is spanish and english. My Nica Mom wants me to try Testiculos as the rumor down here is that they make you stronger. Well I gracefully denied and informed my Nica Mom that I believe I am strong enough already. Haha it was quite the interesting conversation, she even got her aunt who was visiting to try to convince me as well. Anyways I have put my foot down, no testiculos or tomates. I did try Rinon (cow kidneys) and Titiles (Chicken Stomach, I think). They actually weren´t too bad although I dont plan on eating them again. Oh a quick side note, no this is not typical Nica food, however I think my family wants me to try it all before I leave so why not.

3. Tarantula- I had a big ole spider in my room the other day so I asked my Nica Bro what it was...yup it was a small little tarantula. I found out that yes they do bite but not bad, but luckily my bro killed it anyways before I had to ask him to get rid of it.

4. Medical superstitions- there are a lot of interesting medical superstitions down here. I will get into more later but two really surprised me this week that deal with my baby sister. First, my sister wears a red wristband. I asked my other sister why the red wrist band and I was informed that a red wristband, yes it has to be red, on babies helps keep them healthy and avoid illnesses. I guess we will have to see if it works.

The second one is that fathers who work a lot are not supposed to hold their babies. This is because when the father leaves the baby will miss them. If they dont listen the father will get sick. I actually was told this tale when the other day when I saw my Nica father hold his daughter for the first time since I have been here. It was the only time I saw him hold her, and then that night my father got terribly sick and was vomiting and what not. Well he traced it back to holding his baby daughter earlier that day. Amazing!!!

Anyway more next time as I have to run, and remember these are not stories of all Nicas but stories of my experiences.

A Typical Day in Nicaragua?

2007-09-11T17:10:00.000-04:00

So I got a couple responses asking what a typical day is. Well the easiest answer is there is no typical day down here. But there are some common occurences so I will try to give you what I look forward to each day.

A typical Monday through Friday...

Wake up at 630am...yeah I know everyone is laughing here but the days are completely different here and for some reason I cant sleep much past 630, maybe its the going to bed at 830pm that helps.

I start off my day with a trip to the latrine and follow it up with a cold bucket shower I talked about last blog. They have not improved at all, I am tempted to break out my solar shower to have nice warm showers however I dont want to be that rich american coming to visit so I have not broke out the solar shower, computer nor camera(s).

I then usually have breakfast waiting for me around 715 where I eat and talk to my Nica Mom and and baby sister. The conversations are starting to get better as I learn more spanish. Today we talked about jobs, both here and in the US, and yesterday we talked about dating and marriages in Nicaragua.

Then I head to spanish class from 800 am until 1200. I have spanish class with 3 other aspirantes (not a volunteer during the first 3 months)

Sorry but I have to run...out of internet.

Next time I will talk about after lunch and also the weekends...

Made it to Nicaragua!!!

2007-09-08T17:42:00.000-04:00

So I have now lived in Nicaragua for 10 days and a quite exciting 10 days if I may say so. First off there is no way for me to explain this experience in words or pictures but I will try my best. I apologize for any wandering thoughts, haha.

Im sure most of you are worried about the hurricane so I will start off with that. I am totally fine and the city that I live in barely even noticed a hurricane was anywhere near us. We had a good rain for one night but that was it, and since we are in the rainy season it was not that out of the ordinary. I only have one channel on TV down here and it is mostly in spanish so I am pretty unaware of how bad (how many people died?) the hurricane was. I know it wreaked havoc on the east coast but that coast is pretty scarcely populated so that is a small blessing. But anyway all is fine here and we were not affected. PC did consolidate the volunteers across Nicaragua but the trainees are all together in one city so all was fine.

The first three days were in probably the nicest or one of the nicest hotels in Nicaragua. It was a guarded compound in the heart of Nicaragua and was absolutely beautiful. We got to meet all the volunteers and have 3 days of meetings in Nicaragua.

We then moved to our training site, I moved in with a family of 5. I have one brother that is 20, one sister that is 14, and one sister that is 19 days old today. It has been absolutely great. The dad and brother work ALL the time and I almost never see them. I have learned much of my spanish from my sister who eats lunch and dinner with me and sometimes my mom. My mom owns a pulperia which is kind of like a corner store that has the basic necessities. They are quite popular around here as the city that I live in has about 200 people and we have like 4 pulperias. Anyways from what I see our family is pretty well off as we have a fridge, microwave and 12 inch tv. We also have a seperate house which has bedrooms for my brother and myself and a large living room. The tough parts are the outdoor latrine and bucket showers (which I will talk more about below). For security we have two LARGE dogs, one german shepard and one doberman. As I am the new guy they havent taken a liking to me yet but are starting to not bark as much or as often as at first. They are both caged in a small pen that is between my house and my parents house, and because the food, brushing my teeth, bathroom and exit to the community are all in my parents house i have to pass them quite often.

Through the first eight days of living at my sight I have learned quite a few things, this list is quite negative but is more hilarious then anything else. I truly am enjoying my time here and have adjusted quite well, and sometimes it takes humor to get through some of this stuff. So here is a little list...

1. If it is raining and you have to pee you are shit out of luck. Bathrooms are latrines here and you must walk out side to them. Rains here are not sprinkles they are downpours.

2. The warm refreshing shower in the morning comes from cold buckets of water. The showers here are not warm and not refreshing, haha. Instead what we do is take a 10 gallon bucket of water and do the old fashion take a bowl and rinse off and then soap up and rinse off. One interesting thing about the Nica culture is that they believe that night time showers are colder then morning showers and thus strongly encourage you to take a shower in the morning. We are living near Esteli in the North, mountainous part of the country. I can literally see the heat coming off my body when I am taking a shower.

3. Drinks down here are extremely thick. I have had many drink they use blenders for and throw in either rice or cereal. The taste good but are not much for the traditional USA refreshing drink. Not to mention I havent even seen a beer here since I have moved to my training site.

Overall it is quite interesting and has been a lot of fun meeting everyone. Hope all is well wherever you are...

Welcome to Nicaragua!

2007-08-30T13:09:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that I made it safe and sound to Managua, Nicaragua! We have already gone through a day of training and will continue here for two more days before heading to Esteli. I woke up this morning and had no clue where I was, it was quite startling. Anyway this post is going to be short as I have to head to my language interview so PC can assess what my skill level is currently. The interview is set to last twenty minutes and I will be amazed if I know more then five minutes of Spanish. Hope all is well in the states and I will be able to check my email fairly consistently for the next 2 days while I am in Managua.

Quick note... My brother pointed out that I had my email address incorrect in the last post. I have since corrected it but just in case the correct email is jhollins@gmail.com.

One last night in the USA..

2007-08-28T23:38:00.000-04:00

So tomorrow I will arrive in Managua, Nicaragua. The last month has been a blast: from going to baseball games with my brother to boating with my grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins. Then, I finished up the month with visiting my mom and relatives in Illinois and down to Charlotte, NC to watch some dirt track races with my dad and say good bye to my step-mom and brother. It has been a great trip seeing everyone and got a chance to do a lot of fun things. But, all that will now come to an end as I head to a whole new world in Nicaragua.

I have now gone through two days of training here in Washington DC. Each day I see new challenges that I never thought of, however, I stay steadfast in my excitement to arrive in Nicaragua and take in the new challenge. I will arrive in Managua tomorrow around 11:00 am with 38 of the most amazing people I have ever met. The kindness and warmness shows through with every volunteer I have met.

After arriving in Managua, Nicaragua tomorrow we will have a three day retreat. During this time we will receive training on survival Spanish, vaccinations and knowledge on safety and security. We will also be tested on our Spanish knowledge and placed accordingly in our home stays. After the retreat the Agriculture volunteers, around 20 of us, will head to Esteli where we begin our home stays with 11 weeks of intensive training on language, job training, safety and security. During this time we will be staying with a local family and training with 3-4 other volunteers for 8-10 hrs per day. After we complete this training we will be sworn in as PC Volunteers and will receive a site all to our own. Wish me luck and feel free to send me any questions or comments that you have, you can do this by email (hollinsj@gmail.com) or post a comment below (thanks Sam and Bryan, although I'm guessing it was more Sam).

Why the Peace Corps?

2007-08-16T14:01:00.000-04:00

So its less then two weeks until departing for Nicaragua and I wanted to take a chance to explain why I am joining the Peace Corps. As you can imagine I have been asked this question almost on a daily basis, and yet I have not been able to come up with a concise two sentence or less answer. That's because there are WAY too many positives that I will gain out of this experience. Learning Spanish, helping out people that truly need it, traveling a new country, testing my skill and determination. I could go on and on about all the things that intrigue me about this experience I am setting out on, however luckily at the end of our 80 page book on Nicaragua that the PC gave to us there were several welcome letters. One of these stood out to me as why I want to join so I will share that with you.

On a quick side note, I am not planning on running away and never coming back. I want to take this chance while I am young and unattached to try to make a small difference, try to help people out that truly need it while growing and challenging myself. I have plenty of time to settle down and climb that corporate latter, now just isn't the right time...

With out further ado here is the passage, and I do apologize to the author as I did cut out several sentences as to make it shorter and more relevant to my interests.

"The most important quality that a successful aspiring Peace Corps Volunteer should have is a willing attitude. One should be ready to adapt to another culture without a lot of resistance. You must maintain your thoughts and ideals, but have an openness to them maybe changing a bit and that being just fine.

Things are going to be awkward, uncomfortable, and just plain weird, but go with it. It will all mean something in the end. Maybe realize that you may not change the world, but you are going to make an impression. You will see poverty like you have never seen before, but those poverty-stricken people will become your neighbors and your friends. You will spend many days drinking coffee with them, sharing food with them, and talking. You will teach and you will learn. They will give you warm tea when you are sick. They will teach you how to wash your worn-in clothes on stones. They will take you to hidden rivers and waterfalls. Many will listen to your advice about planting trees, taking birth control, or not throwing their trash on the ground. They will correct your incorrect Spanish. They will smile at you when you have a bad day and toss you some inside joke that will make your struggles disappear for a moment.

In the midst of all of it, you will be a better and stronger person. Have a great time and savor all of it. This experience, your Peace Corps host country, and most of all, the people in it, will influence you in ways you can never imagine."

—Annie Burtch

You can find the full letter by following the link provided in the last post.

All about Nicaragua..

2007-08-02T14:57:00.000-04:00

Nicaragua, where is it, what is there to eat, whats the weather like? I know many of you are asking these questions, I know I was when I received my invitation to serve in Nicaragua. Luckily we received an electronic book from the Peace Corps that is about 80 pages long, through my reading I have shortened this to 2 pages for you. So enjoy reading the struggles I get to look forward too including living on rice and beans, learning Spanish and the luggage requirements (yes, we are only allowed to check 80 lbs of luggage).

History of the Peace Corps in

Nicaragua

Nicaragua probably derives its name from an Indian chief, Nicarao, who ruled part of the area at the time of the Spanish Conquest. The first Peace Corps Volunteers arrived in Nicaragua in 1969. Volunteers provide assistance in areas such as education, vocational training, rural nutrition, rural waterworks, agricultural extension, cooperatives, and municipal development.

Agriculture is the cornerstone of the Nicaraguan economy. The principal domestic crops are corn, beans, sorghum, and rice. Cotton, coffee, sugar, bananas, and tobacco are the principal export crops. Additional export products are beef and shrimp. The combination of unemployment and underemployment exceeds 50 percent. The U.S. Marines introduced baseball to Nicaragua in the early 1900s, and it is now the national sport. Most communities have baseball teams and weekend games.

Government

A 1989 accord permitted free elections in 1990, in which Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, known for her conciliatory nature, became president. Nicaragua has experienced relative peace since 1990, and the country has celebrated three successive free elections to date.

Nicaragua is an independent republic with a democratically elected president. Presidential elections are conducted every five years. In the most recent election (November 2001), more than 90 percent of eligible voters went to the polls in an unprecedented demonstration of hope and faith in democracy, electing Enrique Bolaños as president.

Environment

Nicaragua is the largest of the five Central American republics, with a land area of almost 50,000 square miles (slightly smaller than New York). It is the least densely populated of the Central American nations, with a population of 5.3 million (July 2004 estimate) and an average annual growth rate of 1.97 percent.

The climate varies with the region, but Nicaragua generally is hot and tropical, with cool, comfortable nights and a very short dry or cool season. Known as the land of lakes and volcanoes, Nicaragua has a diverse environment including highlands, lowlands, tropical forests, lakes, and two oceans. Lake Nicaragua is one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world and contains such aquatic oddities as freshwater sharks.

Agriculture Volunteers generally live in small, remote communities (as few as 200 residents) concentrated in the northern region of the country. Most(but not all) Volunteer homes have electricity, and most have running water. However, both electric and water service may be intermittent.

Food and Diet

The staples of the Nicaraguan diet are beans, rice, eggs, dairy products, meats, and foods made with corn. A wide variety of fruits and vegetables are grown locally, from cabbages and carrots to pineapples and papayas. As a result of the endemic poverty in Nicaragua, most Nicaraguans’ daily diet consists of gallo pinto, a mixture of red beans and rice fried in vegetable oil, which might be accompanied by corn tortillas, cabbage salad, a small amount of meat or chicken, or locally made salty cheese.

Transportation

Most Volunteers travel in Nicaragua on commercial public buses, flatbed trucks, bicycle or foot. . For the vast majority of Volunteers, traveling to and from site entails a ride in an old school bus, which may be overcrowded, slow, and sometimes unreliable. At more rural sites, Volunteers may be required to travel in converted flatbed trucks, as the rough terrain makes bus passage impossible. Volunteers are not permitted to own, drive, or ride on motorcycles or to own or drive other motorized vehicles at any time during their service. In very few instances, Volunteers also own or rent horses to travel from home to isolated communities and farms.

Health Issues in Nicaragua

The most common health problems among Volunteers are upper respiratory infections and diarrhea. Some gastrointestinal problems can be avoided by boiling drinking water and thoroughly washing fruits and vegetables before eating them. Two additional major health concerns in Nicaragua are malaria and dengue fever.

How much luggage am I allowed to bring to Nicaragua?

The Peace Corps’ allowance is two checked pieces of luggage with combined dimensions of both pieces not to exceed 107 inches (length + width + height) and a carry-on bag with dimensions of no more than 45 inches. Checked baggage should not exceed 80 pounds total with a maximum weight of 50 pounds for any one bag.

People and Culture

The majority of Nicaraguans can best be classified as mestizo, a mix in which neither the European nor the Indian cultures predominate. The official and predominant language in Nicaragua is Spanish. More than 90 percent of the population belongs to Christian denominations. The traditional social structure of Nicaragua has been essentially colonial, with a small number of wealthy landowning families at the top and a broad peasant class at the bottom. Despite the country’s economic growth in the 1970s, the emergence of a middle class, and the decade of socialist rule, there are still stark inequalities in the distribution of wealth.

The country’s educational system, a major avenue for economic and social mobility, recently replaced the traditions of classicism and intellectualism with vocational training. Thus, the lower class now has a somewhat better chance for economic advancement. The literacy rate is estimated at 68 percent.

Nicaraguans are warm, generous, and friendly. Despite the tensions between the United States and Nicaraguan governments in the 1980s, the Nicaraguans are open to receiving Peace Corps Volunteers into their communities and homes. Their hospitality is humbling.

If you do want to read the entire book the website is http://www.peacecorps.gov/welcomebooks/niwb524.pdf.

41 Days till Departure! Where will I be...

2007-07-16T19:14:00.000-04:00

In case anyone wants to see me before I leave this is my travel plans for the next six weeks, as you will see its extremely busy but hopefully I can see everyone before I go.

Wednesday, July 25. Last day at work (How sweet it is...). Only downside is this is also the day I will be selling my car. So long to the Mustang, my first car, kinda sad.

Thursday, July 26. Moving all my furniture back to Charlotte.

Friday, July 27. Flying to St Louis, Missouri

Saturday, July 28. Cardinals vs Brewers at Busch Stadium. This will be my last Cardinals game, also last sporting event, for 3 years.

Sunday, July 29. Driving to Memphis for a week. If anyone will be around Memphis let me know because we will be hitting up Tunica for some Gambling and also Beale Street for some country music and some "scenery".

Friday, August 3. Drive to Nashville, Tn for a family reunion and a chance to see the Grandparents one last time.

Tuesday, August 7. Flying to Moline, Il to visit my Mom. Hopefully finish buying all my supplies for this adventure.

Friday through Sunday, August 10-12. Hopefully going to University of Illinois to visit friends and check out the school my Dad is always raving about.

Saturday, August 17. Flying back to Charlotte, NC to visit friends and Dad.

Tuesday through Thursday, August 21-23. Hopefully one last throw down in good old Chapel Hill. That is if I can convince my parents to let me "borrow" the car. This is where the reality of not having a vehicle is setting in.

Monday, August 27. Let the Peace Corps Experience BEGIN!!!

So as you can see these next six weeks will be extremely busy but hopefully I can see everyone one last time before I leave.

I'm going to Nicaragua!!!

2007-07-15T19:53:00.000-04:00

So after a six month long process of applying and medical clearances I received an invitation to serve the Peace Corps in Nicaragua!

This was quite a surprise, let me take a chance and inform you a little more about the application process...

First step is sending in an application; this includes a resume, two essay explaining why you want to join and then a very long survey about past experiences.

Second step is an interview; this is where you meet a RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) and discuss if you have the skill set required to join. The RPCV then discusses possible programs you could serve in and finishes by nominating you (essentially recommending you for a program) to serve. I requested Latin America, however because of my lack of Spanish and the number of applicants that request Latin America this was not a possibility. I believe that the statistics show that over 2/3 of volunteers request to serve in Latin America. Anyways back to my nomination, I was invited to serve in the Pacific Islands in the Agribusiness field.

Third step is receiving Medical Clearance. This is a lengthy process including a dental checkup (five fillings later), medical checkup, vision checkup and months of waiting. Luckily the doctors said I was healthy enough to go, must have tricked them!

Final step is to receive an invitation (job offer). This is where my story gets interesting as I said above I was under the impression that I would be sent to the Pacific Islands. After reading four books on the pacific islands (let me note, this is more reading then I did during college), I received a call from a Placement Officer for Latin America. She informed me that the officer for the Pacific Islands was out of town for Fourth of July and she would see if she could process my information. She closed by asking if I had any Spanish training and asked me to fill out an extra form on my agricultural background. The next day I received an email saying that I would be receiving my invitation in the mail shortly, this was all the information I would receive until I would get the mailing. Now you would think that with the technology that we have today I would not have to wait for Fed Ex to deliver a package that would notify where I would spend the next 27 months of my life, however thats the way it goes, let the excitement build...

A week later I received my invitation to serve in Nicaragua! On Friday, July 13, 2007 I accepted my invitation to serve as a Agricultural Rural Development Extensionist. I will start my training near Esteli, Nicaragua on September 1, 2007 which will be followed by two years of services at a site to be named later on November 16, 2007.

The Peace Corps is an amazing experience, let me go through the process of what I will be doing over the next 27 months.

August 27-29. I will spend two days somewhere in the US (probably Washington D.C.) where I will meet all the other volunteers that are going to Nicaragua with me. This will probably be a group of around 20 and according to Peace Corps statistics will be roughly 60% female! During these two days we will receive more immunization we will need during our service and also finalize all paperwork for our service.

August 29 or September 1, 2007. I will start my Peace Corps journey by flying into Nicaragua.

September 1-November 16, 2007. I will be stationed in a small community near Esteli, Nicaragua where I will focus on learning three things; Spanish, Cultural Training and Job Training. From the reading I have done it looks like I will be in a group of around four other volunteers for Spanish learning, I should have about 10 other volunteers in my job training courses and then all 20 volunteers will come together for cultural training. During the cultural training we will all receive safety training and more of those dreaded immunizations. During this time I will also visit current volunteers and will put our training to use for a couple days helping and shadowing the volunteer.

Around November 16, 2007. On this day we will be sworn in for the first time as Peace Corps Volunteer, until now we have been a Peace Corps Trainee. At this time I will also find out where in Nicaragua I will be serving my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

November 16, 2007. I will pickup and move one last time as I will be assigned several projects and also a Community where I will live.

Well, I hope this gives you a quick glance of what my life will be like in the next 27 months. I will definitely follow up the next six weeks before I leave with posts explaining more about Nicaragua and also a better idea of what I will be doing.