Questions

The questions, the questions, the questions. They don’t stop, no matter what age or occupation. Did you buy that? Is that yours? Where are you going? Are you going to leave today? Where are you going today? When is practice? Are you going to eat? Are you going to wash your clothes? Why are you doing that? And my least favorite How much did that cost? Initially, it’s frustrating. I already went through 3 months of Training where I had to explain myself, and I was fortunate that my host family kept it pretty simple, even tolerating my weird shower and exercise habits. If you take the time to reflect, you might see that it’s a different way of trying to understand a stranger. Most of the time, it’s easier to directly question an act that’s happening right in front of you, then buck up the courage to ask about a cultural norm. To ask or question in general or actively requires confidence, and when you have lived with the same people in the same place your whole life, you have absorbed most standards and norms. And there is this person. I have to admit to having forgone asking a question, hoping that pure observation with answer my query on its own. Culturally, it’s more appropriate in the States to be passive and just accept; this is what we are taught in most schools. You don’t know, but you are going to be taught, so just wait. Since my community and I are not on the same page culturally, they are not guaranteed that I will explain myself. And they may have waited to see if my actions would explain themselves and found that I’m just too weird and whatever I’m doing is just too out of sync. And the repetition of the same questions simply reinforces the degree of the weirdness of whatever I’m doing, or it’s age appropriate for the youth who just don’t always listen the first time.  I should be glad there are questions; questions express interest and curiosity and, most importantly, caring and a desire to understand. When the questions stop, then I should worry.

Corn

The Inuit have more than one word for snow

Nicas have more than one word for corn; there’s elote, or the baby of the family, Chinese corn

There’s chelate, just as sweet as it’s States counterpart

There’s maiz, the crop itself derived from the original latin species name

And the products vary too;

There’s tortilla, every morning, noon, and night, pat pat pat flat

There’s guerila, sweeter corn crepe style

There’ atoll, cream of corn (with sugar of course)

And tamales, both dulce and nacatamales, the heart and soul of Nicaraguan cuisine

Is an ear with two leaves stalk standing tall, until doubled over in the field to dry

It feeds everyone and everything, little kernels of gold

y, and Fried or the Fried the Salty and Everything in Between

The Sweet, Salt

Rice has salt, beans have salt, cuajada is salt

Rice can be fried, beans can be fried, cuajada and platano too

So can eggs and every kind of meat

You also get soup on the warmest days of the week

Salt in the soup, which is already instant

My host grandfather has a heart condition and the medico says no more salt: good luck

And then there’s the sugar: every drink has sugar

Coffee flavored, tang flavored, fruit flavored sugar,

But the amount I put in cookies is too much

And if you have it sin azucar it’s simple

Three weeks in already!

No worries. this is my first time being able to figure out the funky cyber schedule in the alcaldia´s )mayor´s)office. Think Jinotega will be the better bet. Time flies in these first few weeks. Already did the carretera walk house to house visiting and a lot of people already knew all about the gringa! Two of the youth from the soccer team the volunteer before me formed want to help me coach the boys youth league that might be forming. I{ve got about 4 communities and 40 boys from 11-15 yrs old wanting to just play ball. And there is also the men´s baseball keague to shcok with my ability to throw and catch a ball even though I{m a girl! Shock!
ESJUSA wants hornos... big time!! Edwin (host dad) thinks I´m crazy for trying to start a garden in August, but it´s a little one! Nelson, one of Lidia´s sobrinos(nephews), died in a motorcycle accident, so my first weeks here were for the funeral ceremonies. There are nine days of praying at 3PM and everyone comes and hugs and sings and says the Rosary faster than I ever thought possible (and that is coming from an Irish Catholic).  Still working on my first official meeting with the cooperative to talk about the plan fot the oven and other projects that might serve to better the community. Lidia and Edwin seemed to think everyone was really busy with the harvest season and whenever I ask them when is a good time, they keep pushing the date back. Lidia was also really timid about accepting the monthly stipend for food and whatnot. Isi´s (host sister) birthday is this Saturday!! Hoping to bake cookies or a cake.  She´s awesome! The Community Bank is still going and Isabel (Bank treasurer) and I have gone to a bunch of brigadista meetings together too (everything from sexual rights to early child stimulation (think music therapy)). In the first week I definitely hit the [you´re not in training anymore] wall hard and quickly needed to learn to slow down and enjoy the community. I also learned that people don´t go outside from 10-2 unless they cann´t help it and have learned to follow suite. And sun parasols and a God send!! Besides these new found pieces of wisdom, there are so many organic moments that just happen and lots of interested people. All in all, this is a great place. Hope to add pictures and fill you in more later.

Site Week details...and you don't have a boyfriend!?

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?!

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!!

 And it's beautiful! Like "everything the light touches" Lion King beautiful!

 The view from my backyard! In the middle of a valley.

 Yours truely

 Scenery on the 6 k walk

 Some of the community women baking a cake in the cooking class they have with the oven

 The new bridge to get to Praderas. Used to have to hope and pray you had good botts, truck or horse

 The cooperative

 Me and the host mom! She rocks!

More scenery!!! Love you all!

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.