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 3rd- 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 2nd 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 100th
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 4th 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!
