September

Ok! So I thought about breaking this up into smaller chunks, but then we had Internet problems for 3 days straight (typical Nica time), so I am just going to throw it all up here and happy reading! Morale of the story for this month is: Be gentle! It is a marathon of a service, not a sprint! And OOS (out of site) days are beautiful things!

Blog September

Or end of August first- had a successful first game day with the youth soccer teams-apart from everyone argueing about everyone else’s ages. My local communities of Cuatro Esquinas and Corozal, played really well and with minimum drama. Rushed to the cooking class at the cooperative where all the mother’s and sisters of the players wanted the recap of the game. Also got awesome milk cake-good day to be a PCV! Finished my day transplanting some mmore of my tester plants with my superstar youth and one of the captains of the 4 Esquinas team, Juancito.

Happy September! Had Corozal soccer practice, but cancelled when only 6 kids showed up. They seemed a little disappointed, but we agreed at the first practice that if they couldn’t field a full team within 15 min of practice starting, there is no practice. I also suggested combining practices with Cuatro Esquinas which they agreed might be a good deal. We’ll see. It may seem harsh to cancel practice, but it is also a lesson in discipline and commitment. The kids also know that if they tell me they won’t be at practice beforehand, I take that into account and do a headcount in my head of the kids who could even come to practice. Several other PCVs made the suggestion for the attendance rule and, from my experience with sports too, I have to agree with it.  Anyway, had time after to try to bake brownies but they didn’t rise very well (darn you unwarmed oven! And you metric conversions!) And today’s movie selection on the cable: Toy Story to Serenity to Green Mile to Kung Pow:Enter the Fist (I  know, quite the range!).  Most importantly, had my first PACA meeting. For those of you following at home, PACA is  Participatory Adult Community Assessment (or something like that) that all the PCVs are encouraged to do (especially Aggies who do work directly in the schools or hospitals). They include a community map, seasonal calendar and daily schedule. The idea is that you work with the community to complete it (they participate) in order for you all to assess what the community needs the most, which becomes the skeleton of your work plan as a PCV for the next 6- 12 and so on months. The warm-up activity I planned inadvertently showed that there is a literacy  gap in the community, but the community map and discussion about improved ovens went really well. So on average ok.

September 3^rd- First OOS (out of site) day and wow!! We are allowed 3 OOS days every month of service. These are mental health days or whatever we want to use them for (medical and tech transfers don’t count towards the OOS days- they are just for us to recharge our batteries).  I just went to Jinotega and spent the night in one of the PCV-recommended hotels. There was a real freedom being able to walk around in the anonymity of a city scape. I had a few notes of places to see and eat at from Lonely Planet, but otherwise I just wandered (in the daylight) and hung out in my hotel room for the night. Felt a lot like how I discovered all the cool nooks and crannies to NYC. There are also a lot of good souls in Jinotega- Ricardo, the hotel owner, the lawyer who helped me find the Centro de Salud, and Dona Angela who has a little no-name fritanga, or fried food shack, just one block from the hotel. It is also definitely cooler here- there was a breeze the entire time, like real air circulating with motion and the like! I almost cried when Ricardo opened the door to my room and showed me the real bed with a real tv with a real shower with real hot water. And I got mail!! Does it get any better!? Also met up with some other PCVs from Training, and underestimated the psychological break of speaking English and speaking Peace Corps with other gringos. Turns out we have a Volunteer Meeting on Friday, so I get to do it all over again. Parting image: a grandmother with her granddaughter sat next to me on the way home. They were headed to Wiwili (another 2-3 hours after my 2.5 to Praderas) and they didn’t have exact change for a snack, so I paid it and we started chatting the whole way back. She also shared all her food with me and I showed her granddaughter how to make the basic friendship bracelet. Peace Corps in a nutshell!

OK so something jumped on my bed and touched my foot last night and I had a super hard time getting back to sleep. Lidia says it is probably a rat or the cat that sneaks in from our neighbor’s at night. Why do we have rats if there is a cat that prowls at night?! Walked to the school to find out the professor wasn’t there, so they don’t have the art class. This is typical apparently.  Spent the rest of the day working on compost and garden with Juancito and Ruesbell, my youth superstars. We’ll see if the chickens can finally be stopped from invading the garden space. Both youth entered into a very philosophical conversation on impressions of the United States and why I don’t like being called gringa (in Nicaragua it is culturally appropriate to call to someone or get their attention by shouting out some physical trait, especially if you don’t know their names—imagine “Fatty, Blondy, Chinese”. I have told my youth that if you know my name, use it, and if you don’t know my name, I will introduce myself).

Went to the Centro de Salud to get a rash checked out. After looking away from his iTunes account for about 5 seconds, he determined it was scabies (which the PCMO or Peace Corps doc decided against). Was a little impatient after that fiasco, so ended the Charcon soccer practice early. Luckily biking the 7 miles round trip to Chacon is balancing out the rice poundage J Definitely getting a gallo pinto gut, of maybe a fried cuajada gut, but there is definitely a gut.

Got a little frustrated today with my host mom when she told me I could only use water to wash my laundry and it was just that there wasn’t any soap in the house. It felt kind of like lying, especially since we all know how clean plain water gets clothes. Laundry here is an aerobic activity, pushing and pressing the clothes against a concrete slab with corrugated concrete smaller ridges.  Picture coming soon. Had the first combined practice with Corozal and 4 Esquinas to resounding success. Able to do more drills and have a better game with more kids. And the community rivalry doesn’t seem to be too bad. After the rash and the laundry issue, it is hard not to think of all the different ways in which everything can, and probably is, getting contaminated, but c’est la vie! Also makes you realize how sterilized everythi9ng is in the States. It is also incredibly hard to self-advocate for your health when you are the only one in the household getting sick.

VAC meeting- Friday in Jinotega!! And even better, got to meet up and chit-chat with other PCVs. All of them are also in Jinotega from all different sectors. We met up for dinner after the meeting and I started to develop a sense of norms and actual expectations from those who have more experience in PC. Got back just in time for the 2^nd PACA meeting. The seasonal calendar is pretty sweet!! To address the literacy issue, I offered to scribe for the group this time and we discussed seasonal factors for the community (think crops, availability of money and materials, school calendar, etc.) for about an hour and a half. The care packages and getting to see other PCVs definitely was a huge pick-me-up. My other host-sister, Lidia Jr., is off to Spain. Apparently she is going with a tourist program, which confuses me even further as to the socio-economic status of my family. But the other PCVs, especially Sarah and the Health ones, were like meeting big sisters.

Taking a tip from all of my academic life and a couple of the PCVs and keeping a to-do list for the week and an up-to-date calendar. No water for the last couple of days. My family is a little superstitious since both times I’ve left, water or electricity has gone until I get back. Freaky! The guys actually took the truck with big buckets and rain barrels down to the river to fill up. Apparently, a truck drove over the one pipe that connects the whole system, but the pipe also wiggles out of place when there is a lot of rain and the river overflows. Back to bucket baths! Good news-at least one dead mouse down!! Hung out at my grandma’s house for most of the afternoon after church. My host grandfather has been in and out of hospitals for the last several weeks and it was an all too familiar sight of family surrounding his bed and checking on him. Also getting used to the IOU system of the pulperia-small-town business! I think my host mom is a little less stressed now that her father is home and her daughter is safely in Spain. Going to admit I am also relieved, but moreso because I won’t have to worry about walking in on her and her boyfriend on my way to my room. Also got to shadow Edwin, my host dad, while he did his bookkeeping for the corn harvest, so I have a rough idea how that works now (ag finance 101 of profits, costs, inputs and outputs). Also starting to answer and ask questions with the same curt and short style that I receive. It’s actually culturally appropriate.

Still no water, but most everyone has returned to their routine before they had running water. The power went out for about an hour around 5PM, but I took that time to do some yoga outside. The darkness let me see the whole of Praderas in the distance, sporadically lit by camp and kitchenfires and a lot of lightening bugs. Have been learning to be easier on myself by taking the last couple of morning to catch up on the New York Times Dad sent. Even cut out some pictures to tape-laminate later for a potential English class. After watching how my host brother did it, I made an awesome egg omlet mixed with rice and melted cuajda. Talked to one of the neighboring women about moving into the house next to the CICO, or preschool, to the tune of Power Rangers and her daughters playing in the background. And for the 100^th time, “you don’t have any children? Or boyfriend? Fiancé?”

09-11: The head of the church for Nicaragua was in Praderas today, so I stayed far away from the sardine act that was church this morning. After a week of preparing my own food, 7 days is now my new record for health. Planted another almacigo with Juancito and Dona Coco, his mom. They are awesome, patient, tolerant, easy-going, and I wish they lived closer to the rest of town!! Also worked with the son of one of the cooperative members who needed emergency English help. The TEFL program in Praderas is mainly giving out paragraphs, lectures and essays to be translated with little vocabulary support or scaffolding, so the students usually go home and huddle around a collective dictionary and look up each individual word. Frustrating to say the least. I just made a word list of basic prepositions and this student was flying with new-found confidence. Note to self- investigate helping teach English classes in Praderas a few days a week!

Learned something new-apparently you have to guard corn at night. The bags of corn that have been harvested must be watch from dusk until about 9 so no one steals them. The whole collection and shucking process is pretty amazing to watch- the guys methodically place bags all around a given area close enough that they can talk but far enough that each is responsible for a different section. Young guys pick up the corn the others have bent and ripped off the stalks. I cut my finger on just one (don’t have Nica working hands!) but they do this for about 7 hours with food included. They get money per bag, so they are constantly asking each other how many. They then get a huge shucking machine similar to the industrial ones in the States, that spits the husks high into the sky into a pile that they just leave in the field. The cows are then let loose to eat whatever they want of what’s left, with the red and white line of bags of corn lining the ridge.

On another note, I have become addicted to leche con café: still not a huge fan of the flavor or frequency of café, but there are people who have figured out the leche, or creamer, with a little bit of coffee, is the fastest way to my heart, or sweet tooth. Sad note though, I decided to cancel the Praderas and Charcon youth soccer teams. The last two practices for both no one has come and I am sitting around the field for 30 minutes before having to bike back to 4 Esquinas. It’s great exercise, but not a good use of time with a group that is not my direct community.

Have had two successful ECA or art classes with the 4-6 graders. I have showed them how to draw animals and modes of transportation and they love it. Based on the teachers reaction and facial expression, she likes it too. Feel like there is definitely a raport building there. There is also an overlap of students and soccer youth which helps. Still is too funny watching my players forge the river on the horses on the way to practice. I snapped when one of the dogs stole a tortilla out of my hand, moreso because I really don’t want to have to make the trip to Managua for rabies shots.

09-14 Actually got the courage to ask my host-mom if she was mad at me or if there was a reason she hasn’t been talking to me for the last couple of days (girly sounding I know, but culturally this could be the beginning of a landslide). Fortunately she said nothing is wrong, but unfortunately culturally she probably won’t come right out and directly say anything to the contrary. One PCV told me this is one of the most frustrating aspects of the NIca culture, but I would argue that this happens in the US all the time. Gender stereotyping for a second, it’s more of a girl thing. After the guys shucked all the corn, they piled the bags onto a caretera, or ox drawn cart, and dragged it up the hill to be weighed. I walked to Praderas to pick the bus up to Tamalaque, where another PCV lives, for a seed swap and just to visit too. I will never complain about the accessibility of my site again. There is only one bus to Tamalaque and it is at 11 and the last bus to leave is at 4. You only have about 2-3 chances to go anywhere, and these are relatively new given that they just built a bridge within the last year to the community (they had to forge the river like Oregon Trail before that).

09-15 Rained all day!! Really quite impressive!!Parade today!! All the kids from all the schools gather in Praderas in groups for their respective schools or band groups and perform up and down the streets of Praderas. Officially, today is the festival celebrating independence from Spain, but let’s be honest, shaking your spandexed booty and beating a drum is shaking your booty and hitting a drum. Loud and fun! Nicas love their marching bands! Most of the kids, including my host brother, had missed the last two days of school to prep with extra band practice. But they were all soaked by the end. Got up with Sarah, the volunteer from Wale (40 min away) and we are both thinking about doing oven projects. The whole setting reminded me of some local 4^th of July celebrations, with the sketchy ferris wheel and the adults attempting to commemorate the event while the kids are looking around every which way because no one can really understand the Charlie Brown teacher voice on the microphone. Funny!