Thanks for being so patient with me. It's been almost a week since coming back from site, but time flies by in Training. Only about one week left of Training too!! Wow! Anyway, the details on my site are as follows: I am going to be living with a host family for at least the 1st 3 months. This is Peace Corps policy for security and cultural integration reasons. I am going to be living with the Gadea family in Cuatro Esquinas, Pantasma, Jinotega. Pantasma is just north of the big lake. Travel plans are as follows (already had to do this once, so this is just for reference): from Managua there is an express (3-3.5 hr) bus to Jinotega City, then a 2.5hr bus to Praderas (the cowboy frontier town that is 6K from my site) then a 10 min bus or truck to Cuatro Esquinas or my house. Will only have to make the trip with the big luggage one time, hopefully. My host mother is also my main counterpart (PC language for the person I will be working with). I also have an INTA (Nicaraguan Agro-Tech Institute) counterpart, but the INTA office has been closed in Praderas for the last several years. There are two other Agriculture volunteers in the Pantasma area and my Agriculture Assistant Director did his service in Pantasma too (I actually visited his family and they are the nicest people and want me to visit all the time!!).
My host mom is in charge of the cooperative ESJUSA (started as a revolving fund for the community and then developed into a board of directors and then a cooperative). It's now a self-sustaining entity that funds other small projects in the community. My host mom is also a member of a microfinance group in Jinotega called Aldea Global. They are funded by an organization in Massachusetts (small world right?) and the rep I spoke to is a big fan of the Red Sox. My community is invested in microfinance and cooperatives because the closest bank is in Jinotega City and there is a bad history of accounting and signing guarantees to your land or your harvest, etc.
My family has a farm of 12 manzanas (1 manzana=1.74 acres) of granos basicos, so corn, rice and beans. They also have pigs, chickens, a duck with clipped wings that hisses, and a few cows. They are on the more affluent end of my community, but everyone has some land where they grow their own food (don't need to worry about localvore here). My site has not had a volunteer for 2 years, but they still remember Jessica!! I was actually able to text her to set up a time to get brought up to date. She said that the community was already texting her to let her know about the new gringa. My family already thinks I speak very good spanish in comparison to the last volunteer that came last year during site week but did not pass his Language Exam.
It was only a week, but I met most of the socios or members of the cooperative. I also walked to Praderas and back to meet the alcaldia (mayor), alcadita (little town leader of CE), the police chief, the priest, and the head of the Health Center. They were all very welcoming and it was amusing to introduce myself to everyone when they already know my name through the chisme (gossip) grapevine. The local youth have asked for a youth group, a youth garden, and official soccer team with uniforms. My host father, part of the board of directors, is open to the idea of uniforms too and Jessica had two girls' youth soccer teams. I have two host sisters; one who is 19 and working in Esteli to become a vet and the other is just 18 and just married. She and her husband live in the same house as us and he works on the farm. I also have one host brother, Bladimir, who is 11, and loves to watch Disney cartoons on our cable tv. I get better signal in site than I do in my training town. Bladimir and all his friends have class in the morning and then they are all free to play soccer until they drive the cows out to pasture. Bladimir also has to get up about 5 to take the corn down to the Molino (grinder) to make the masa (dough) for the morning tortillas.
Which brings us to food...June, July and August are some of the poorest months when everything is planted and people are waiting to refill their silos. So it was a week of rice, beans, tortilla and cuajada, the salty cheese that most Nicas make if they have cows. It makes the milk go further, but it is definitely an acquired taste (that I luckily have). Luckily, my host family is open to my cooking for myself on some days and they already have an improved oven and huge stove. My younger host sister is a housewife and asks me if I want to eat whenever I go through the kitchen and she is very excited to teach me how to make tortillas. I definitely feel that my lovely diet after night classes at Teachers College (yea tortillas and refried beans and cheese).
There will definitely be rainy day activities and there will definitely be times when I need to be comfortable with just sitting in a plastic chair and watching what happens. There will be time to read, make bracelets, and time to go from house to house just visiting. It is comfortable silence culture but since I'm the cool new thing in town, everyone is too shy to talk to me directly, but they all want to stare. I did not realize how accustomed I had gotten to my training town where there are at least 4 other trainees so I'm not that strange in comparison, but in site I'm "the gringa." And, as a funny note, the biggest shock moment for my community is that I'm 23 and "no tiene un novio?!"/ You don't have a boyfriend?!
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
Site Week
Hey all! Just got back from site and only have a few seconds to get the pics up. Will fill in details later, but are the basics. My host family is awesome. My host mom is in charge of a cooperative that has already funded ovens and silos. They've got more than 24 acres of corn and rice right now, they've also got beans and cows. It's a 6K walk to Praderas the nearest town and more than a 5 hr round trip to Jinotega city, but it's beautiful!
And there are two puppies!!
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Drumroll!!!!
:) Just got my site----drumroll----I{m in Cuatro Esquinas in Pantasma, Jinotega. You{ll probably only be able to find Jinotega, the main city, on the map or google. Mom and Sean already took a google map satellite tour of the city. It{s actually the same place where my Agriculture Specialist did his service and he loved it! There hasn{t been an Ag Volunteer since Ag 48 (we are Ag 59) but she was awesome too- helped with a silo project, community bank, cooperative, a women{s soccer team, and improved ovens. Big shoes to fill but really excited. Peter hass described it as the Frontier town to the agriculture corridor, so everyone comes into the big city from the boonies and up in the mountains to resupply and fix their appliances---you know, like Vermont! Going to have to get used to coffee though! With a 3 bus ride to the nearest city, I{ll be falling behind on internet activity soon enough. Will be out for the next week on site visit anyway.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)