Site Placement!

Now that I’m finally settled and comfortable here in my training town, its time to get moving again.  Isn’t that how it always goes?

I’ve gotten used to having a family around 24/7 and there fore no privacy.  I’ve grown to enjoy the pounding of the heavy rain on the zinc roof at night while I sleep.  I love the obnoxiously loud Latina music in the mornings as I dance around getting ready for my day.  I can’t say that I’m completely adjusted to the food, but I’ve learned to make things I really enjoy and I live to douse everything in lime.  I don’t know how I’ll ever get by with out my daily dose of mangos and home made peanut butter.  I’ve grown to adore the convenience of the moto-taxis and the fresh breeze blowing in my face, providing relief from the heat.  For quite some time I’ve enjoyed the cold showers I take after my morning run.  I’ve grown accustomed to a mid-morning snack of a fresh baked pico(bread with a bit of cheese and sugar) from Panaderia Esperanza where Antonio greets me warmly with a smile on his bald head.  I have developed a habit of treating myself to a chocobanano (chocolate covered frozen banana) at night. It’s also been fun learning guitar right along side my host dad.

As sentimental as I might sound, I’ll have you know that I am ecstatic to be moving to another part of the country and leaving behind the reins of training, which are sometimes held way too tight.  I’m looking forward to buying my own food and cooking my own meals again.  I’m also excited for my own space!

Drum roll for my final site placement……….I got my first choice Chinandega city, which is the capital of the department of Chinandega! This region is in the northwestern corner of Nicaragua boarding Honduras to the north and the Pacific to the west.   Chinandega city is the 3^rd largest city in Nica.  The climate is hot and dry compared to the rest of Nicaragua, but I’m not worried.  It makes sense to put the gal from AZ in the hottest region.  I’m very excited to be about 15 mins from some great surfing spots and close to Nicaragua’s largest volcano San Cristobal.  Corinto is only 15 mins away and serves as Nica’s only port town on the Pacific and also supplies ample amounts of seafood to the region.  I actually requested that my site have access to fresh seafood since we all know just how obsessed I am.  The city is labeled as the most “Nica city” in Nicaragua, which I will find out more about what that implies when I get to visit next week.  Chinandega is home to several nonprofits and microfinance institutions like Promujer, CE Solutions, and Fundacion Leon, which I look forward to working with.  There are 32 Peace Corps Volunteers who call Chinandega home and five reside in the city with.  I look forward to making new friends and collaborating on projects.   Chinandega has the highest incidents of HIV and therefore provides an opportunity to work with fellow Health volunteers.  The city also boasts several gyms, some which specifically cater to women’s health and I look forward to possibly teaching yoga here.  I was also told that there are ample places for dancing Thursday through Saturday nights, which has me very pleased!

I feel extremely fortunate to have gotten my first choice and what I deem a perfect fit for my work and personal life as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  I’m looking forward to meeting my counterparts, supervisors, new host family and my new city all next week.  I’ll let you all know what I find waiting for me in Chinandega!  I am a little sad that the group of 22 of us is going to be split across the country, but I do look forward to visiting my friends in their new cities too.  We have one month left to enjoy each others company and make some more memories before we all split off.  I’m looking forward to celebrating the forth of July with my fellow volunteers hopefully at the lake with some cold Tonas and good food.

Training is flying by…

I can’t believe I’ve been in Nica for 7 weeks now.  I only have a month left of training and then I’m off to start my two years of service.  This past week has been crazy busy with interviews. We had full on job interviews with our bosses to determine our site placement and qualification for the job descriptions in the available sites.  Last weekend current volunteers held a “site fair” to inform us about all the different areas of Nicaragua and possibilities for our site placement.  We get to pick our top three sites that we would like to work and live in for the two years.  My bosses will then pair my previous experience, current work requirements, and my interests to pick the best site for me individually.

My top three sites…mind you I have never been to these places, but have been talking about them with previous volunteers and I’m going off of work descriptions.

·      Chinandega- This north western region of Nica is hot and dry boarding Honduras to the South and the Pacific Ocean to the West.  There is opportunity to work with NGOs and Micro Finance Institutions(MFIs).  Organizations that support women in business through loans and advising exist here.

·      Matagalpa- is in the northern mountains featuring a much cooler climate and a reputation for being labeled as Cowboy country.  It’s also a large city famous for producing coffee and leather.  This site also has ample opportunity to work with NGOs and the MFI FINCA.

·      Rivas- This department borders Costa Rica and is very warm and tropical.  There is Lake Nicaragua to the east and Pacific Ocean to the west.  Once again I would have the opportunity to work with women’s groups and follow up on loan advising for small business owners.

All three sites are really different, but have great job descriptions and I would thoroughly enjoy all of them, if my bosses deem them suitable.  Basically they informed me thatI was recruited to work with nonprofits and I want to for fill that task along with supporting women in business and working with an MFI.  I find out where I’m going this Wednesday so I’ll keep ya’ll up dated!

Amongst all the work, I have also been having a lot of fun.  Last weekend we made the hour long hike down to Laguna de Apollo.  This lake was once an active volcano that filled with rain water after it became dormant.  The water is crystal clear and full of minerals.  We spent the day on the shores of the lake sun bathing and eating mangos.  It’s so amazing to have a secluded little paradise with in hiking distance of our training towns.  The scenary was breathtaking and we will be returning to take advanage of its beauty.

This Friday I attended the Fiestas Patronales in San Juan de Oriente where four other volunteers live.  My cousin David came with and a big group of us split a bottle of rum while we roamed the streets making new friends.  Around nine a Columbian band started to play and people crowded the stage while we drank and danced.  An hour later at the other end of the street where another stage was set up a Mexican band started to play.  The bands went back and forth like this until the early morning.  It was awesome to be able to speak Spanish the entire night and get some salsa in!  I had my latest Spanish interview this week and Im officially at theIntermediate Mid level which is where we need to be to swear in as a volunteer!  Im excited to see how much I improve in the next month!

Pearl Lagoon

Sounds like its straight out of a Disney movie no? Maybe there should be pirates involved? Well there was no Johnny Depp, but there were dreadlocks involved!

Before I go in to my visit to Pearl Lagoon I’ll quickly recap the last two weeks!  The Sunday before last, several volunteers attended an annual festival called Hipica in the neighboring city of Massateppe.  The famous festival drew people from all over the department to drink in the streets while a parade of Nica’s most wealthy horsemen gallivanted through the streets.  Everyone was completely hammered, even some of the horses.  Several of the stallions were trained to prance or “dance” as some like to call it.  The difference in wealth between the classes here in Nica is drastic, but this was a true display of street drunks juxtaposed to the wealthiest Nicas that could afford horses as a recreational activity.  I indulged in the cerveza and my first popusa, which was amazing!

The following week was extremely busy as I prepared to teach my first class to Nica students in Spanish!  Pedro and I taught an hour and a half of Entrepreneurship Curriculum to the equivalent of high school seniors here.  I couldn’t have imagined things going any better.  The students were completely engaged and able to regurgitate all the information we taught.  Success!

Finally I went on my volunteer site visit.  This is when you visit another volunteer at their site to observe their projects and get a taste of what volunteer life is really like after training.  Low and behold I was one of the lucky two that got to make their way to the Caribbean cost for my visit!  I traveled the farthest out of all the volunteers, and I mean far, about 14 hours total one way by bus and boat.

Imagine my shock when my panga(small boat) pulled up to the wharf in Pearl Lagoon while people of African descent spoke Creole, I struggling to decipher this strange dialect of english.  My attempts to communicate in Spanish were just returned by my new friend Amy with “gal you done reached here finally”.  The fresh water of the Lagoon surrounded the town on three sides while streets of white sand mapped out this small community.  A gorgeous Moravian white church stood erect in the middle of town while horses grazed freely with their colts.  The very first thing Amy and I did when I “reached” was go straight to Aunt Betty’s to drop my stuff and go buy fresh fish!  I thought I was going to die, it had been way too long since I had eaten seafood and I was in for a real treat.  Not minutes later Amy took me to her house to met her mom(Ms Velma) who insisted I indulge in some coconut water straight out of the coconut off the tree in their back yard!  By afternoon I had enjoyed fried fish, coconut rice and beans, coconut candy, coconut bread and coconut water.

Moravian Church

Amy cutting open my first coconut

I would compare the hospitality that Ms Velma and her household showed me to the deep south.  I was literally adopted for five days as they prepared amazing meals of fried seafood, plantain porridge, fried chicken, potato salad, Rondon stew, coconut delights and fresh baked goods. 

I enjoyed an afternoon with Nga(the volunteer that I came to shadow) and her boyfriend Cuyo eating pineapple and drinking coconut water while baby chicks,  a monkey, kittens, dogs and horses roamed about.  I have to say the Nica Atlantic coast is very different from the Pacific in the fact that animals roam free and are all well fed by their owners.  Cuyo, who is also the town vet, took me horseback riding through the Savannah for a few hours which was absolutely beautiful.  We traipsed through swamp, rivers and tall grass while I attempted to speak in Creole.  I’m kicking myself for not bringing along my camera.

Drinking coco water with Nga's boyfriend Cuyo

Sunday morning I visited a “farm”, which is the equivalent to a rainforest.  There were pineapples, coconut trees, breadfruit trees, banana trees and much more.  Amongst the towering trees I spotted a howler monkey and a baboon.  I also spent an afternoon walking along the beaches of the indigenous village of the Miskitos with their village leader, observing their simple lifestyle and learning about their history.   While we were there Nga bought fresh crab to add to our lunch of Rondon soup, which is a coconut broth with plantains, yucca, rice, banana, fish and crab.

Amongst all the fun I also taught classes with Nga in the local high school, observed vocational business classes with high school grads, attended a working women’s group meeting and observed her co-planning with her counterpart Amy.  Over all I’m really looking forward to life as a volunteer after training is over. I made some amazing friends and hope to return to the village of Pearl Lagoon where I feel I have a second home with Ms Velma and Amy.

Nica Initiation

I’ve been officially initiated in to the Nica culture and I don’t mean to allude that I received a diploma of any kind.  That’s right my friends, I have a parasite!  A few volunteers and I went in to Masaya last week for an amazing lunch of ceviche and tropical smoothies.  Around 8 pm the following evening I knew something was up.  Let’s just say I spent most of Thursday night not in my bed asleep, but attached to the toilet in some way.  All four of us in my training town were hit hard!  We all showed up to language class the next day with a pale and queasy look about us.  After a few days of intense antibiotics I’m feeling back to normal!  One blessing in disguise was my inability to eat greasy or fried food while taking my meds, in turn improving my diet immensely by adding a new variety of fresh fruits and veggies!

By Saturday we were in good form for the futbol game. Viva Barcelona!  A group of us volunteers went to a sports bar in Masaya, which was recommended to us by my host dad.  We watched the game on flat screens standing out amongst the Nica locals.  Rum and coke is the typical hard drink here and lucky for us Flor de Cana(Nica rum) was on promotion ha ha!  The guys have also started a little tradition you may know as icing……but we call it frosting here.  Basically when someone is least expecting it someone purchases a Smirnoff Ice or in our instance a Victoria Frost(nica style) and typically sneak it on to their seat when they’re in the bano.  As soon as they discover the gift they have to get down on one knee and chug.  So far the guys are just frosting each other, but we’ll see how this progresses.

This last Monday was Mother’s Day and naturally a huge holiday here in Nica. I was granted a long weekend with a chance to explore my town of Nandasmo instead of language class on Monday.  Pedro and I hiked down from our town’s Mirador to Laguna de Masaya for a swim.  The Laguna was once a volcanic crater that filled with water and looks just like a lake.  The water was warm and the sun blazing.  I celebrated Mother’s Day at home as well with a large home cooked lunch of carne asada for the ladies and a trip to the ice cream parlor a town over with my family that night for Eskimo, the only brand of ice cream here.  I also treated my mom to a pineapple cake, which I purchased at the most fabulous bakery in Masaya!

I think I may have mentioned that we have started a youth group in my town.  The objective of the group is to create a sustainable small business that utilizes the local resources here in Nandasmo.  We have had a consistent group of about 15 youth of all ages at our meetings and contributing which has been truly amazing. Tonight we voted on what product we want to make for our small business, which will be a version of recycled materials to make decorative candles with artwork on aluminum.  It’s hard to describe really, so I’ll post pictures eventually.  We start our business plan next week.  The youth are really engaged despite our broken Spanish.  Having language class almost everyday has improved my Spanish greatly, but I also feel like living with a host family makes me aware of just how much I really don’t know.  The seven-year-old daughter loves me despite my inabilities and continues to join me when I do yoga in the evenings at my house.

This week I also observed a class at the local school where we will be helping to implement the Entrepreneurship class I talked about previously.  Observing the class was a real eye opener as the children were tardy, disrespectful and received no help from their half asleep teacher!  I have my work cut out for me! Class planning starts on Monday and I’m teaching a class with Pedro to high school seniors either Tuesday or Thursday, wish me luck!

Oh I got a cell phone this week! It’s no iPhone but feel free to text me, its free! All you have to do is visit the Claro website and text my number from there! (Instructions on my contact page)

 or call me at +011 (505) 8701 8514.  Nica fun fact: doesn’t matter how poor you are, everyone here has a cell phone, if not two. It’s free to receive calls but costs to make them. There are two cell phone companies Moviestar and Claro.  I have a Claro family plan through Peace Corps, which means I can call/text all Peace Corps Employees/Volunteers for absolutely free, but not a Moviestar phone, weird.