Marathon on Ometepe Island

A year ago this past Sunday I would have been dragging myself out of bed in the dark in freezing cold Philly to run the annual half marathon.  This year I traded my half marathon for a 12k on a tropical island in the middle of the largest freshwater lake in Central America.   Let's review, 30 degress vs 80 degrees, beautiful volcano vistas vs dirty Philly streets, beautiful freshwater lake vs polluted Schuylkill river.  Not a bad trade!

The two volcanoes of Ometepe

The island of Ometepe is actually the creation of two volcanoes, one active and one dormant, emerging from lake Nicaragua.  You have to take a ferry ride of about an hour to reach its shores.  When I set foot on the island it was clear that the atmosphere had already changed to much more tranquilo. My first night there we hopped in a jeep with my buddy Zac's host family and headed to the other side of the island where my good girlfriend Noelle resides in Altagracia.  It just so happened to be Altagracia's fiestas patronales which is basically the celebration of the anniversary when the town was founded.  Matt, Noelle's man friend from the states was also visiting which was a real treat meeting him.  We also ran in to Noelle's friend who she studied abroad with in Argentina thus adding Hank and Liz to the group.  We proceeded to join in on the festivities which in my opinion were really well done considering the props you see below came to the island on a ferry.....

Thursday night's gang

The equivalent of a Nica rave

The next day Noelle's host family insisted that we all celebrate Noelle's birthday together at Ojo de Agua which is a beautiful natural spring.  Her family treated us to lunch and cervezas as we chilled in the spring's cool waters.  The island had a perfect vibe of welcoming foreigners, but yet not too touristy which was refreshing.  You could buy a coconut to drink its water and then find a nice local with a machete to chop it open to eat the meat after.

Ojo de Agua

The next day on the island was a mix of trying to catch a bus to hike a waterfall that just never came, typical Nica transportation and exploring our options on the island.  We ended up finding ourselves in Charco Verde which is a natural reserve where one can visit the lake's shores and see the lagoon for which it is famous.  We took a little hike where we encountered some monkeys and an amazing view of the lagoon and the far off main land of Nicaragua.

Lagoon at Charco Verde

Pre-race night rolled around quickly and the eleven of us running bunked up in a funky hostel in the port town of Moyogolpa where my buddy Zac lives.  The highlight of that night was the beautiful sunset over lake Nicaragua.

Sunset at the port

Race day was like unlike any other organized racing event I've been to in the states, but lets face it, I am in Nica on an island in the middle of an enormous lake.  The race that was supposed to start at 7 am finally commenced sometime after 9 when they finally drove everyone out to the various starting lines in cattle trailers.  I'm not going to lie and say that I rocked it, because quite frankly my lack of training and constant dehydration here led to a slow race.  The course was approximately 7 miles of Nica back country with cows in the road and motos zooming by handing us water bottles.  I did get to run by the larger volcano Concepcion during the race where a few volunteers camped out to snap photos of us running in front of it.  Over all it was a lot of fun and we raised some good money for Zac's youth group in the Moyogolpa community.  Looks like I'm going to have to start training nice and early for the Jinotega half marathon coming up in February.

Volcano Concepcion

These next couple of weeks are jammed packed as I head to Managua to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with an Embassy family and then a yoga/surf retreat in San Juan del Sur.  I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and can't wait to see you all in the states in about 3 weeks!

En Vivo! (Live on TV)

Apart from the presidential elections life has continued to be eventful here in Chinandega.  This past week my highschools have been administering their final exams which means my job in the schools is winding down.  I am still diligently working with my one group that will be advancing to the national level of the Business Competition in Managua on November 29th with their business plan Noni's Tea.  We met each day this week to revise their financials and better their business plan.  Many consecutive days infront of the computer working with my kids scored me shoulder rubs and braided hair :)

A highlight of the week was my appearances on a local TV talk show with two of my students!  The program addresses social issues within Chinandega and the neighboring region of Leon.  It was quite an experience for me and my students to be able to explain my project and our work together over the past several months.  It was also great publicity for their product!  The link was previously posted on Facebook by one of my students, but you can also access the video below.  Feel free to fast forward over the commercials and music videos, but I think they give you a taste of Nica culture if you're interested.  Please excuse the audio as it is of Nica quality.  Also note my over use of the word "entonces" which is pretty much a filler word equivalent to "umm" for when I get nervous.  Enjoy!

Video of Live Interview

Despite how busy I may seem there is plenty of time for reflection.  When I got to thinking the other day about my work and my time here I realized that I have been living in Nica for 6 months as of November 11th!  I can not believe how fast time is flying by, but I couldn't be happier with my work and  progress thus far.  Every day is completely different from the previous and new experiences continually pop up on my radar.  I continue to expand my spanish vocabulary as well as my views on the world and our development.

I feel very lucky to be able to escape almost every weekend to the beaches of Chinandega to surf.  I actually bought my first surf board for a whoopin $20!  It's a beater, but she'll do for now!

Nica Election Controversy

As you may know this past Sunday were the Nicaraguan Presidential Elections.  The Sandanista candidate Daniel Ortega will serve five more years as Nicaraguan's leader.  I am not writing this post to give my opinion on the elections and their outcome, but to simply inform you on what has transpired over the past week.  To show my unbiased, I am attaching several articles that will allow you to understand more about the controversy of the elections that took place and form your own opinion.  If you would like my insight please email me and I will be glad to discuss, but this blog will remain neutral.  I want to share this information with you because I feel that it is important that America is well informed on what is going on in a country where we have played a great part in their history.  My presence here in Nicaragua also has made me well aware of the example that I as an individual and we as a country set for developing nations.  The first article below was brought to my attention by a fellow volunteer and I believe it is very well written so please take the time to glance over why we should care about Nicaragua's political state.

Why Nicaragua Matters to The U.S.

The recent elections has provoked celebration as well as violence amongst the Nicaraguan people.  Read below to find out why.

The Facts about the Elections

Nica Culture at it's finest!

This past week has been a cultural experience to say the least!  Last Wednesday November 2nd Nicaragua celebrated dia de los muertos(day of the dead) while canceling class and shutting down businesses.  Since I did not have any work on my plate with classes being cancelled due to elections, I decided to partake in the activities.  I have to say that Nicaraguans do not take this holiday as serious as their Mexican counterparts up north.  Those of you from Tucson have seen the parades, flowers, skeletons and the amount of food which makes dia de los muertos so famous.  It is similar here in the fact that Nicaraguan families will visit the graves of their deceased loved ones to clean, decorate, and lay flowers on the grave.  Some families will burn candles, sing songs and even bring a priest by to say a prayer.  Of course if you forget you're own priest there are several wandering through out the cemetery along with the "cleaning boys" who can be hired at a moments notice to tidy up the tombstone.   A traditional food that is sold throughout the streets is Bunuellos, which are much like fried donuts made of yucca.  My site mate Lindsey and I decided to make our way to the cemetery and along the way found ourselves purchasing the donut like treats and some flowers to place on a yet to be determined grave.  As we walked through the cemetery we decided we would look for the most intriguing grave to place the flowers on, but on our way we ran in to several community members we knew and had to awkwardly explain ourselves since we obviously do not have any relatives in the Chinandega cemetery.  We thought we had finally found our favorite tombstone which was elaborately adorned with a white arch and just as we were about to place our beautiful bouquet, the real family actually walked up!  We made some quick comments on how beautiful the gravesite was and ran off to place our flowers on an unmarked grave figuring we would dedicate them to all the unknown graves who would not be receiving flowers from family that day.

On Thursday I was walking back from the post office where I had just picked up a birthday care package from Aunt Kim(Thank you!!!!!) when a judge from one of my competitions offered me a ride home in her truck.  Reina and I got to chatting and turns out she is in charge of all the concessions at the Chinandega baseball stadium.  The professional baseball season has just officially started here and its a huge deal!  Reina invited me to attend the Leon vs. Chinandega baseball game that night and got us the best seats in the house, for free!  The game started off pretty all American with a few cans of beer and a hot dog when the electricity simply went out in the middle of the second inning.  I was thinking about how a back up generator would have been convenient, but that just doesn't exist here so instead the band played right on through and the Nicas did what they do best for entertainment, set off fireworks!  At one point I thought the grass was going to catch on fire, but we pushed through a half hour of darkness to make it in to the fifth inning only to experience the same incident all over again.  I couldn't help but laugh hysterically and be proud of the Los Tigres fans that surrounded me for their loyalty.  All in all it was a great experience and Chinandega beat Leon 5 to 3.

Friday we celebrated my site mate Lindsey's host cousin's birthday.  I know what you're thinking, there have been way too many birthday celebrations, but this one is quite different.  So for this particular birthday Lindsey's family decided to kill a Peliwee for the celebration.  What is a Peliwee you ask?  Well it is a cross between a goat and a sheep. This animal has a delightful flavor when marinated and grilled!  The whole process of buying, slaughtering, and then preparing the meat is a party in itself.  I choose to join in after the slaughtering.  After consuming massive amounts of Peliwee meat right off the bone along with tortilla, salsa, and beer the real party began.  It's a tradition in Lindsey's family to dress up, dance, and sing to entertain and EVERYONE participates.  I should preface this by stating that Lindsey's host sister is a dance teacher and there fore has a plethora of ridiculous costumes on hand.  We cleared out the main entrance to the house which was also decked out in blown up condoms instead of balloons(Lindsey is a health volunteer) and backed up one of the taxis from her mom's taxi business to blast the ranchero music.  The first performance brought tears to my eyes as one overweight short host cousin stuffed our makeshift balloons in his shirt and went as an older lady while another skinny birthday boy dressed as her old decrepit husband with no teeth.  They continued to dance with each other in a very inappropriate and vulgar manner for the crowd's enjoyment! At one point someone handed them each a Peliwee leg bone to sing in to. The next act was Lindsey and I singing to rancho music and the way it works is you start out singing and anyone can put just about anything on you from the costume box.  So by the end of the song I looked something like the picture below with a blown up condom as my microphone.  You can just imagine the rest of the night....

Lindsey y yo bailando

The opening act

Cookin the Peliwee Nica style on old tire rims with a grill on top

I bet you can't guess what I did Saturday?  yes!  another birthday celebration, but this time at my house!  It was my host bro Jose's 25th Birthday so we cleared out the living room for dinning(which later became the dance floor) and cooked a massive pot of Paella!  I was ecstatic when I saw my host bro and his girlfriend lug in pounds of shrimp from her dad's shrimp farm!  We all ate a mid day meal of paella and started the party by teaching my bro and Nica friends how to play drinking card games such as horse race and Kings.  I have to say my grandma was the life of the party asking me why I wasn't bringing her rum shots like everyone else and why we aren't friends on Facebook? seriously grandma?  Cake was not necessary as Jose prefers his rum....

Pot looks way bigger in real life

Jose's birthday cake

My entire familia, host mom is to my right, bro and girlfriend are to my left, sister is kneeling in front

Lindsey and I shakin our booties for the second time this weekend

Today was election day here in Nicaragua.  I escaped the mess by heading to the beach to surf, but returned in time to see the city break out in chaos as Sandanistas rallied in the streets.  At around 11 pm 66% of the votes were for Daniel Ortega foreshadowing a Sandanista victory.  I watched as my host brother and friends grabbed their FSLN t-shirts and flags and joined the cars and motorcycles flooding the streets honking and screaming.  I sat on the porch with my host mom and sister watching even young kids rally and carry on.  Do they even really understand what they're cheering for?  Ortega did a very good job of targeting youth in his campaign, but it really scares the heck out of me that these are the future leaders of this country.  I try to avoid this topic of discussion with my family, but on this particular night we ended up talking about the lack of education, but we are not in agreement on why it is lacking in this country.  It's now 12:30 at night, the fireworks are still blasting off and the Sandanista theme song is ringing in the streets.  Truly an experience to be here in Nicaragua for yet another Sandanista victory.

Work hard, Play hard and then throw a Nica b-day party!

I don't really even know where to start.  These past two weeks have been some of the most fun and stressful of my service here so far.  Let's start with the fun stuff!

Cocktail Party!  So all these business competitions that I have been rattling on about eventually amount to one large national competition in Managua where all the top teams from each department compete with their business plans.  How does Peace Corps pay for this you ask?  Well we throw a ridiculously large party!  This years theme was a masquerade!  Over the last few months I've been selling tickets to other volunteers, Nonprofits that I work with and community members to this extravaganza that we put on at the Holiday Inn in Managua.  We had well over 200 people including several members of the US Embassy.  I mentioned in my last post how my host sister and mom took me dress shopping, well this is what I ended up with.  Not too shabby eh?  Note that I am extremely sweating from the ridiculous amount of salsa dancing that Julian and I just performed.  There were hired performers, but Julian and I in our buzzed state figured we were up to par and just joined in.

Julian and I sweating just a tad

I was really impressed how well my fellow volunteers cleaned up.  I'd say we are a pretty decent looking bunch after hot showers and some primping in state of the art hotel rooms.  We had a great time on the dance floor and took advantage of the beautiful pool for the rest of the weekend.  It had been about a month since my entire group had gotten together so this was quite special.  We did a little birthday cake and sushi dinner with the group for an early b-day celebration as well.

So now that I've covered how we are paying for the national competition let's take a step back to the regional level of the competition.  I am living in Chinandega which surprise surprise is the capital city of the Chinandega department, which puts me basically in charge of planning the regional competition where teams from all over the department come to compete.  I have spent the last few weeks running around in circles finding venues as my first one fell through, confirming judges and making sure everything is in order for the big day.  All in all everything worked out really well and competition day went smoothly with very few hiccups!  I'd say all the hard work paid off when the results of the competition came through.  If you recall a few posts back I had a local level competition where a group with the product of Noni's Tea won first place.  Well they also took second place last Thursday at the regional level, which means we get to move on to the national level!  I am seriously so freaking proud of these kids!  Their presentation was flawless and their finances stellar(duh).  I wouldn't expect anything less from my kids.  We spent several hours the day before the competition rehearsing their presentation.  I felt like I was back in high school with them as we became restless and they broke our serious streak by demonstrating their version of yoga poses while we downloaded ridiculous music to sing along to.  They keep me young, this is for sure!  My other team that was competing in the competition took third place and I am also very proud of them.  Unfortunately their product of melon jelly will not be advancing to the national level, but we identified two investors in the Chinandega community who want to help get their business off the ground, success!!!!  This for me is the number one goal for my students.  I would rather have my students identify investors and real life opportunities than focus just on winning a competition.

We're going to the national level!

Still winners in my eyes!

So in hind site, the regional competition wasn't as stressful as it was fun, but a lot of hard work that really did pay off.  I felt like I had a lot of people to please and it all ended up working out.  It could be described as party planning on steroids, which I admit I kind of like the challenge.  I also made some great connections to business owners in my community whom I think will be assets to my service here over the net two years.  Speaking of business connections I finally had a formal interview at an NGO called Pro Mujer where I hope to sign a contract to work with them over the rest of my service, more to come here.

The best part yet was the day after the competition when Lindsey, my site mate, and I celebrated Halloween/Our Birthday's!  Lindsey's b-day is 2 days after mine on Nov 1st and we both decided we love Halloween and ourselves just too much to not celebrate!  So while I was stressing about my regional competition some how I found the time to co-plan and host another party the next day.  There is just no better way to let loose and celebrate victory than with rum, pumpkins and good friends!  Two of my really good friends traveled from afar to be present for this night along with all the other volunteers of the Chinandega region.  My brilliant costume idea was to dress as a tourist which wasn't all that hard here.  A skin tight hawaiian dress paired with a fanny pack, clip on water bottle and safari hat did the trick!  I felt like the party was a good mix of volunteers, my Nica friends and family.  After flip cup and a pumpkin pinata(2 of my fav things) we headed out to a club to dance the night away.  My salsa teacher showed up to help us show off our moves and my host brother came just in time to see me completely hammered on the dance floor and drive me home!  

Birthday girls with Darwing our dance teacher

My Biz Group compadres who made the trek(Sam and Kelli)

The birthday weekend didn't end there!  Saturday a group of us spent poolside enjoying liters of cerveza and recapping the shenanigans of the night before.  Lindz and I did a group birthday dinner Saturday night and recovered for the real day on Sunday.  I spent my birthday morning at the intramural soccer league finals game.  My friend Walter's team made it to the finals so we were there to support as the game went in to over time and then on to penalty kicks.  Team La Colonia ended up winning with Walter bringing it home with the final point!  The rest of the day was spent poolside with margaritas and ceviche.  That night my Nica family and friends helped me cut a tres leches cake and serenade me with my own guitar.  I got a pair of green wooden artisan earrings and a pink bracelet from my host family and a wooden artisan toucan from my brother's girlfriend Nahima which came all the way from Rio San Juan where she works. We all then made our way out for some more dancing, as if I could ever get enough!  Jose, my host bro, taught me a new word this weekend, vacanal, which is used to describe people who like to party.  Yo soy vacanal along side my host brother so its all good.

Last but not least, my english youth group made my birthday special as well tonight.  We played a few games and ate cake.  I was given deodorant spray(hint hint?) and a leather bound address book.  Over all I feel very loved by the people around me in my life here in Nicaragua.

 Walter and Trophy

Birthday Serenade