Yo...

I’ve been really busy lately with quite a few things. As you all know, I’m teaching business classes in high schools. In these classes the students have to form their own businesses (8ish students), create a new product and make a business plan with all of the facts/figures and intentions of the business. The culmination of the class is a competition between all of the student businesses in the country. First there’s a local competition at the school level, then a regional, and ultimately a national. The local competition was in September, and right now we’re in the midst of scrambling to piece together the regional competition. I’m in charge of the activity because I’m the only business volunteer living in the city where it’ll take place. It’s a lot of work, and among other things, we’re struggling to get funding to pay for the auditorium we’re using. Every day when I’m walking down the street, I have at least 2-3 people ask me for money. It's really tough being perceived as wealthy (because I'm white) but having to ask various businesses in the community for money...

That being said, I’m really looking forward to the competition. Because my students have only had a half a year of the class, they won’t be participating until next year, but the other students (from the volunteer that I replaced) from Ocotal definitely have a lot of potential.

I’ve only experienced one other student competition here in the OC – a science fair. I know I’ve already mentioned this to a few people, but I think it’s interesting enough to write about here as well. So, here goes: I show up to plan with my counterparts in one of my schools for class the following day and there’s a science fair underway. Out of curiosity (and lack of natural disasters in Nicaragua – the land of lakes and [active] volcanoes (not that I’m complaining)), I climb the steps to the classrooms where the projects are on display. I honestly expected to see the standard mix-this-chemical-with-that-and-poof!-a-volcano!-type projects, but what I got was beyond my wildest dreams. A solid 70% of these students, my students, had made home-made booze. I wasn’t brave enough to try the rum, but the 6 kinds of wine made out of various types of fruits were all too intriguing. I can’t say I’d buy it if it was in a store, but it honestly wasn’t all that bad…

On another note, I’m living in my new place a loving it. I live with 3 old women, 2 cats and a dog. It’s awesome. Some may say my future has presented itself about 30 years early… Anyway, the dog’s name is Suki, the dark grey cat’s name is Negro, and the light orange cat’s name is Chele (translates to ‘white person’).

Pitaya: awesome fruit
Guyaba: good fruit
Pineapples: we can still buy ‘em here for about $.50 US
Avocados: mmm mmm mmm…


I just got my absentee ballot in the mail. I was out of the country (in Ireland) for the last election, so I know how this all works…if there is a big enough spread between the candidates in the state of Minnesota, the absentee ballots won’t even be looked at. Hmm…assuming I’m living in the US for the 2012 election, I’m probably going to need a coach when I go to vote – I’ve never voted in the States.

Miss you all!

Pizza and Cheeseburgers

I don’t like spiders. I don’t like the way they look, I don’t like the way they move, and I especially don’t like the way they hide in the crevices of my windows:

This spider may not look big, but he is…or, uh, was, the size of my outstretched hand. I didn’t have the heart (guts) to kill him so I had to ask the woman that cleans the house for help. I was standing on my bed screaming while she was attacking it with a broom.

I went to San Juan del Sur last week for a few days with my girls, and we had such a good time. None of us have had any type of break since we started in May, so it was amazing to sit on the beach and do NOTHING. San Juan del Sur is the most exploited beach destination in the entire country of Nicaragua, with specific beaches for surfers (we hung out there a lot checking out the Australian boys). Because I’m so far north, it takes me at least 7 hours by bus to travel down south to enjoy the beauty of tourism, but it was worth every minute (standing on an over-crowded school bus).

The second we got there, we immediately went for mushroom and swiss burgers with curly fries. I can’t buy hamburgers in Ocotal, so I was in heaven. After we ate, we decided we should probably look for a place to stay considering it was the weekend of the Nicaraguan Independence Day and we didn’t have reservations anywhere. We ended up at a little hostel in a room with a beachfront balcony (there was barely enough room for 2 chairs on the balcony, but we made it work). We headed to the beach with full stomachs and our swimsuits and got a ride with a Swiss couple who had a car and a house close to one of the beaches. They dropped us off and we walked to the beach expecting to see it full with young vacationers, but there wasn’t a soul. Since we’d semi-hitched out to the beach, we had NO idea how we were going to make it back to town (it’s about a 25 minute car ride). We decided we should start walking up the beach to try and find people, and after about a kilometer, we discovered Playa Madera, or ¨the surfer’s beach.¨ We tanned for a while and once it was close to dinner time, we got a ride back to San Juan with some surfers.

The next day, we expected two more girlfriends to join us but we didn’t want to miss out on valuable beach time. We went back to the same beach and tanned until the last shuttle was heading back to town. We met up with our friends and went to this Italian restaurant that one of my Nica friends had recommended. It was a great suggestion – the pizza was fantastic! The pizza would’ve been great anyway, but it was especially delicious because pizza in my city is made from bread, ketchup, bologna and Nicaraguan cheese, so this was quite a step up.

More beach time the next day...and more pizza for dinner.

All in all, it was a much-needed escape from the realities of Nicaraguan life. Unfortunately, we still couldn’t spend money like tourists…

Funny story: there was a guy that offered me $200 US dollars for sex. Regardless of the fact that this is more than my monthly salary, I declined.

Miss you all!

I never thought I’d be riding my 6th grade school bus again...

Here in Nicaragua, the public transportation is oddly reliable, especially the punctuality of the buses. Nothing is on time in Nicaragua (yeah, make the joke, I fit right in), so this phenomenon is still beyond me. Along with the time-wise reliability, the buses really hardly ever break down. And this is strange why, you ask? These buses are retired school buses from the States. On short 30 minute journeys, the ride isn’t so bad, but when you are hungover and have to be on these buses for hours with no restrooms and it’s at 45 smelly people beyond capacity, like many prescription drugs, it can result in nausea, vomiting and blurry vision. Here’s a joke I heard the other day: Q:How many people can fit on a Nicaraguan bus?
A: Two more!

So needless to say, the bus rides can be really interesting…

Washing clothes here takes so much time. Like…to do an average load-size amount, it takes a minimum of 2 hours. It’s not easy work either – my arms are always super sore after a day in front of the stone washboard. You can look at an entire family and immediately determine which woman washes the clothes by the definition of her arms (notice I said “woman,” because men don’t do any work around the house in this country). As I’ve mentioned before, the food here is really unhealthy (triple-fried EVERYTHING), and I find it comical when I see women with arms that could clearly win just about any arm-wrestling match, with big round bellies to complement.

Just when I thought I could get away from Wal-Mart, they go and buy out Pali. It is just a grocery store, but you cannot walk into this store without seeing the sign for the lowest prices...ugh.

I think I’m going to move houses. I was out of town this weekend and when I came back, someone had gone in my room, worn one of my shirts (it smelled of beer/BO, there was glitter on it, and it was hanging the wrong way on the hanger), unplugged anything I had plugged in, and, what’s worse, is someone had eaten some my food. You all know how I feel about my food, so besides living with the racist dog, I think I have plenty of ammunition to dip out. Unfortunately, it’s far too expensive on my “salary” to live alone, so I’ve been in search of another room around the city, and I think I’ve found one. It’s on a dirt street that acts like a river the second it starts raining, but the room is really cute and I think I can paint my walls. I keep telling myself that I’m not turning into my mother, but I can no longer deny it: I’m excited to paint.

Here are a couple of other pictures of Ocotal:

Miss you all!

Sorry for the delay...

No one in Central America could access this site for about 3 weeks...but alas, I´m back. Ok, this is what I really wanted to title this entry:

Department of Sanitation + Nicaragua = ???

No one really knows. This country is pretty filthy. I´m not sure if I´ve mentioned this before, but there´s no environmental education here beyond the PCVs. People throw SO much trash on the ground, but what´s worse is they literally burn all of the garbage from their house in their yards each and every night...

I´ve had this blog ready since 08-08-08, so it´s a little outdated, but here goes:

Here’s a couple of pics from swearing in:

After swearing in, a group of us stayed an extra night in Managua so we could hang out at a pool before starting our two year service term. Here’s a pic of the girls:

Things I miss:
My parents/family, friends, my bed, Jimmy John’s, good pizza, my closet, washing machine/dryer, wireless internet, air conditioning, cooking, a real bathroom, hot showers, TV in English, driving, strawberries, Chicago, Target, grocery shopping, Starbucks (even though I work with distributors here that sell directly to Starbucks...), Marshall’s/TJ Maxx, Lincoln Park Zoo, Hawaiian Ice, free nights and weekends, a salary, Wrigley Field, hot dogs, the beach, malls, trash cans, music.

Things I never thought I’d do:
Drink milk made from powder, get used to having bats in my bedroom, teach a class of 71 students, use bug spray every day…this category is difficult…

Anyway, things are going well here. I’m going to be a lot busier than originally thought; I guess it’s both a blessing and a curse. It’ll be good for me because I won’t have a ton of down-time to second-guess myself, but I’m going to be constantly worn out. I’m excited to get started on my projects, but I really need to keep working on my Spanish.
Screw hair straighteners - this is how we do it in Ocotal (or the OC, as I like to say...):

This is a pic of my new sister and me at Sky Dancing:

This place is so strange to me…it’s a club, but it has the weirdest mix of people…including some of my students – I probably wasn’t wearing the best outfit to run into a 15 year-old male student, eh? In my defense, everyone is supposed to be at least of the legal drinking age (18) to get in.


Ok, miss you all! More updates soon!

I´m a real volunteer!

Swearing-in ceremony:
Don’t read this if you’re grossed out my bodily functions. And if you do decide to read it, keep in mind that Nicaragua is the #1 country out of all active Peace Corps countries for diarrhea.

So we had to be at a hotel for swearing-in at 8:30am, but since we were already staying in Managua, the trip wasn’t nearly as hellish as our typical “find a way to get to Managua by 7:00am from your pueblos that are at least an hour-and-a-half away” ventures. So we get there for our family fiestas (chatting and a ceremony), and I felt great, which was a relief considering the previous few days had been spent very near a toilet. We got through the family ceremony with no issues…then came the actual swearing-in. Right before it started, I HAD to go to the bathroom. I not-so-calmly made my way down the hall to the restroom and there was a cluster of people (what in the US we may call a line) but since in Nicaragua people don’t believe in lines, I ran to the front and took the next stall. Anyway, after about 5 minutes, I determined it was safe to return to the ceremony. Upon leaving the bathroom, 2 Peace Corps employees came running toward me because apparently the ceremony had started, and the volunteers had already sung the national anthem of Nicaragua, and were almost done with the Star Spangled Banner. Luckily, I was fine for the remainder of the ceremony…but seriously, how embarrassing/appropriate…

Ocotal:
Unfortunately I had to change houses from the original family with which I was going to live because their daughter was going to go to school in Managua, but that’s no longer the plan. So, I have a new house, new family, and yet another adjustment.

I can’t complain though; I LOVE my new family and my new house. I live with 5 women (mom, 2 sisters (14, 18), cousin (20), pit pull (6 months)) and 1 brother (19). They talk faster than anyone I’ve ever met, and it’s not just because it’s in Spanish, I swear. It’ll probably be good for my language development though…well, that’s what I tell myself anyway.

Speaking of language, I was talking to a friend from back home today and this is how the conversation went:
Me: Yeah…um…we went to…uh…this this this place for dinner…and had a, um, beer or two.
Friend: Yeah…um…are you having problems speaking English?
Me: Yes.

It’s weird, learning a new language, because you always learn the most elementary words first, so when you want to talk in either language, you tend to go with the simplified version of everything. Apparently in my case, I can’t even make a sentence with basic vocab in English – I wonder what I sound like in Spanish…well actually, I’d rather not know. So, I’ve learned that I totally should’ve taken the GRE prior to this experience. I’m only three months in and already can’t speak English. When I decide to apply to grad school I’m going to have to explain in each essay for all schools why I matched the score of a 4 year-old in the vocab section. Eh, oh well.

Ocotal is beatuiful.For example, last night we were hanging out at a bus stop having a few beers (common, i guess), and the stars were absolutely incredible. I felt like I was at the IMAX watching a really good movie about the universe. I even saw a shooting star. The only thing missing was Morgan Freeman narrating...

Sorry there anren´t any photos this time. I´ll make sure the next ones are good...

low-town...

that´s what we call ourselves...because we can´t speak spanish...

i can´t get the videos to upload (the connection is too slow), but here´s a picture of the bull penis fighting - interesting, eh? these fights break out absolutely anywhere within a crowd of people, and many innocent bystanders get whipped with a long piece of leather. i´m really glad i never got in the way.


ouch.

so, ocotal, nueva segovia. i visited my new home a couple of weeks ago, and i really do love it. my counterparts are relatively apathetic and don´t really care about my business curriculum, so that will definitely be a challenge, but check out the view from my town. as you can see, i´m situated in a sort of valley. we´re pretty much protected from the rain (unless there´s a hurricane), and it´s generally fairly hot...good thing there are three eskimo stores.

while visiting my new home, i stopped by all 3 of my schools - two of which are in ocotal and the third is in totogalpa (south of ocotal in the department of madriz). the directora in my school in totogalpa is AMAZING. she´s super excited to have a volunteer working in her institute and with her staff, but she was even more excited to introduce me to the single teachers at the school...probably the most embarrassing moment so far in nicaragua.

i´m also going to be working with a women´s solar panel group, as i mentioned before. i visited their "offices" too, and it seems like a really successful operation so far - i´m ready to get involved. my only fear is that i´m going to dedicate way too much time to this group a.k.a. not having time to sleep. the schools are my first priority, so i need to keep that in mind when working with them, as hard as that may be.

there´s a few really cool restaurants in ocotal as well, and an amazing central park. mom - you´d totally dig all of the different species of plants, trees, viney things, etc.

a little piece of history - ocotal was the first place to get bombed in the western hemisphere. and guess by who..? yeah, the US. unfortunately, given the nature of this blog, i need to stay away from political commentary...so i´m just going to post another picture of ocotal:

pretty, eh?

love you all! miss you!

my new home for 2 years is...

ocotal, nueva segovia. it is nowhere near a beach - sorry, micah.

ocotal is the department capital of nueva segovia, which borders honduras. it takes about 4 hours to get there from managua. ocotal is a bigger city (per nicaraguan standards, but still no movie theatre), and my secondary projects are going to be really cool: i´m going to be working with a group of female entrepreneuers marketing their solar panel products, and i´ll also be working with ADRA teaching the LEC course to adults. as far as work in the actual institutos, i´ll be teaching 9 sections of la empresa creativa (aka the business course) in 3 different schools, and each of my classes will have more than 50 students with the largest class at 71. talk about a full classroom.

i´m heading to ocotal this week to spend time with my counterparts and meet the directors of my schools. i´ll also be meeting the group of 27 women from the solar panel business, and ADRA is going to give me a presentation one day this week as well. i´m looking forward to it all, but it´ll be more than slightly overwhelming. the family i´m going to be living with for the first 6 weeks sounds pretty cool, but i guess i´ll find out on wednesday. from the sound of it, my rent is going to be pretty expensive, so it´ll be an experience trying to stretch each cordoba to the max. oh, and most rent here is set in US dollars, which really sucks, because somehow the cordoba is actually depreciating against the dollar.

here´s the scorpion i´ve been talking about:

mangos, nica style:

next time i write, i´m posting all the info about las fiestas en san juan. i´ll post pictures, and hopefully videos of the bull penis fighting, i´ll talk all about the band (complete with trumpets and drums) that roamed the streets starting at 4am and happened to LOVE sitting on the corner next to my bedroom (and just when i was getting used to the roosters...), and i´ll throw in some info about the saint too, i guess.

miss you all...