January also marks the end of baseball season here. Los Tigres is the name of Chinandega's professional baseball team and this year we made it to the finals. Honestly it's not saying much since there are only 8 different baseball teams total in Nicargua. We were up against Managua for the championship and I got to go to game 4 out of 7 in Chinandega! It was an awesome experience! I have never seen the stadium so packed with 5,000 of the most obnoxious fans. The noise was overwhelming as the entire city was engulfed in the game. In fact it was a total bonding experience with my community. I ran in to all three of my judges from my local business competition, some of my local surfing buddies and my Peace Corps Doctor in Chin amongst several other people I knew. We cleaned up in the last inning with Chinandega 8 and Managua 6. At the end of the game everyone rushed the field with Nicarguan flags as fireworks filled the sky. That was by far the most exciting game of the series, but I'm sad to say that we ended up loosing the championship title to Managua. There is always next year!
School does not start up again until mid February so I have been working on my relationship with the NGO Pro Mujer. After six months of building this relationship I'm finally working with them! No surprise I already have a strong relationship with my counterpart(aka boss) Anexis and met her entire family, that's just how business goes here. Gotta get in with the fam first! This week has been dedicated to getting to know the staff and their different roles. I will mostly be working with my counterpart Anexis who is the manager of the Chinandega branch of Pro Mujer as well as the credit consultants who make sure that the women's businesses are sound enough to receive micro loans. I will be helping assess these women and administering training before they even start the micro loan process with Pro Mujer. Today I observed community bank meetings while women elected each other for such positions as president and treasurer. So far everyone is extremely friendly and all the offices have air conditioning! This is huge! I'm coming up on the dead of summer or dry season here which is hot, dry and dusty. Apparently I will be begging for rain by April. I don't think I will mind escaping to the Pro Mujer offices come mid-afternoon in dead of summer.
Baby Thais, or my "niece", grows bigger every day and seems to bring my family even closer. I honestly thought that I would be annoyed with a baby int he house, but I don't even notice when she cries. If anything she just brings more joy to the household and more family comes over to visit.
These last couple of weeks with no classes has given me time to work with my kid's club at Coco Loco. I paired my kids with Norma, the jewelry lady that I have been working with to improve her small business, so they could learn the art of jewelry making. Even the boys got in to it! I also did yoga with the kids. Granted the class lasted about half an hour due to their attention span, but they all loved it. I stole a few moves from your yoga book mom, thanks! Not sure if you all are aware, but my mom published a book on Yoga for special needs children from a speech pathologist background last year. Check it out on her website.http://yogatherapy4children.com/products.html
It was very applicable since you can imagine that several of the children I work with from the poor rural areas of Chin have several different issues ranging form attention deficit to mental retardation. Obviously their parents can't afford the proper therapy or attention these kids need and I love being able to help them in any way that I can.
I've also been working with Norma, my jewelry lady, and we have made great strides on her jewelry business. She now has a new pay structure for employees which we created together as well as new pricing for her items. We took a look at her unitary cost and calculated how much she needs to charge to break even and then maintain her business. Last but not least I found a great little jewelry store in Chinandega which features items from all over Latin America where we put her jewelry on consignment. This store owner who lives in Panama absolutely loved her work and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it sells and creates another avenue of income for Norma. If anyone is interested in buying some jewelry for yourself or for a small shop back home, please let me know! I'm going to try and see if I can set Norma up with Nest, a network for exporting women's artisan work to the states. You can even check out the store on Facebook as well, it's called Chrekes.
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