Women's Leadership Camp at Coco Loco

As you can probably tell by previous posts, I spend a good chunk of my time at Coco Loco located on Chinandega's coast volunteering at their nonprofit Waves of Hope.  This is where you can typically find me on the weekends surfing and advising my women's jewelry group.  This past weekend another Waves of Hope volunteer, Jillian, and I decided to host a women's leadership camp at Coco Loco.  Jillian was a previous Peace Corps Volunteer is Macedonia working in youth development so we immediately had the same ideas of how we wanted the camp to run.

We targeted young ladies between the ages of 12 and 18 and now looking back I didn't realize how big of a range that was and how the various ages differed.  Yet I'm also amazed how well everyone got along.  We had four fun filled days with fourteen participants hitting all ages and even sneaking in some little sisters around 10 and 11. Our topics included leadership, decision making skills, goal setting, effective communication, healthy relationships, the cycle of violence, at home beauty recipes, self-esteem, reproductive health and preventing teen pregnancy along with yoga and other activities to burn off some energy.  I completely forgot how much energy teenagers have!  I would consider myself a high energy "go-go-go" kind of person, but I was exhausted each day.  Thursday and Friday we just had sessions in the afternoon starting at 1 pm so the gals didn't miss school.  Saturday we started at 9 am and after a full day we hit the beach after dinner for a bonfire where the girls shared their favorite part of the camp and what they were taking away from the experience.  At some points during the camp I wondered how much the girls were really getting out of it as I'm used to teaching an older crowd with a longer attention span.  I invited my site mate Lindsay, a health volunteer to come out and I noticed during the preventing teen pregnancy talk some of the youngsters would disappear out of embaressment for a bit, but eventually find their way back out of pure curiousity.  Around the bonfire as they roasted their marsh mellows for smores I got the real scoop on what was going through their heads.  I was really touched to hear that everyone had a different part of the camp that deeply effected them.  Jillian and I even had girls approach us individually to talk about their personal experiences.  I was also pumped to hear that all of them really enjoyed the yoga! One of the more touching moments was when we all sat in a circle and talked about how the machista culture has effected our lives as women.  This machismo mentality tends to foster the mistreatment of women as they are viewed as inferior to men.  We talked about how women need to unite and are more powerful in numbers.  They recognized each other as someone in their community to rely on and trust, they are now more of a team than ever.

I should have guessed that having the girls spend the night would turn in to an all night sleep over party.  We hauled mattresses up to the open air yoga studio to create one huge bed where the girls continued to put on fashion shows and scream throughout the night every time thunder or lightning hit.  It took me back to my slumber parties as a youth and remembering how I never wanted day break to come so the fun wouldn't end. Fortunately we had a banana chocolate pancake breakfast planned bright and early at 6 am.  Over the coarse of the camp the girls had envelopes posted on the yoga studio walls that they had decorated where others could put "kind words".  This self-esteem activity was really neat as everyone got to read all the nice things that others said about them over breakfast.  The first pic below was taken after breakfast at about 7 am, some older girls had already left to head to Sunday classes in the city so you can see how young Nicaraguan teenagers look compared to Americans.  They are generally really petite and skinny until the rice, beans, and fried foods catch up to them.  Don't they look so young?  It really blew me away the first day of camp when I had this vision of what teenagers would look like!

Anyways all of this would not have been possible if it wasn't for the lovely people Jamie, Ben and Earl who started Coco Loco and Waves of Hope two years ago.  Their dedication to improving the community and providing opportunities to local Nicaraguans is amazing!  These three canadians have put a new spin on community development.  They employ all local Nicas at Coco Loco and hand out numerous scholarships for students in the area who are helping to give back to the community.  The Waves of Hope volunteers help out in the schools and give english class.  Waves of Hope is in the process of building a high school as they just finished their primary school a few months ago.  But what's more is the locals are all friends and we are all on the same level.  I surf with the chef of the kitchen, Caludio, in the morning and we sit down for drinks after dinner together.  A local surfer Elton who is extremely talented also comes over to paint a wall at Coco Loco and we all watch surfing videos together over dinner.  I guess I'm trying to say that this place has it right, local Nicaraguans and North Americans working right along side each other to make a difference in the community sustainably.  I consider this place my second home outside Chinandega, but really it's where my heart is.  Pro surfer and friend Holly Beck also has paired up her women's surf retreat with Coco Loco to give back to the community.  Watch a video on Jamie and how Coco Loco and Waves of Hope operate on Holly's website.  Also you can read more about Waves of Hope at their website where I recently posted a blog about my women's jewelry business that I'm advising.
 

7 am after breakfast- No one wanted to say goodbye!

Decision Making Activity where the girls had to put themselves in tough situations and present their reasoning and thought process to come to their decision

At home beauty!  I'm about to apply and avocado and honey face mask!

Team building excersize!  The girls had to fit all team members through a different part of the web to get to the other side.  Planning a strategy a head of time was key!

Jillian is with the girls in a big not and they are trying to make their way in to a circle with out letting go of their hands.

Palo de Mayo

The last weekend in May I traveled across Nicaragua to the Atlantic Coast to celebrate Palo de Mayo in the city of Bluefields.  I know what you’re thinking, Bluefields?  That’s not Spanish?  Precisely.  I bet you didn't know that Nicaragua has the largest population of African descent across Central America.   The Atlantic coast is heavily influenced by the English who developed the Eastern side of the country when the Puritans first founded colonies along Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast in the 17th century.  They also brought with them an enslaved populations of Africans to work on their plantations.  Enslaved Africans form Jamaica also later sought freedom in and around Bluefields after the British emancipation in 1834.  This area became a destination for free blacks from the British controlled Caribbean.  There fore the people of Bluefields speak english and creole, but a special kind of creole that has developed over the years and is spoken no where else.  Common phrases like “alright, alright, alright”(popular greeting), “ya done reached”(you have arrived), “lick-a-bit”(referring to a small amount), and many more phrases fill the streets as I walk past southern plantation looking houses and picked fences.

A large group of volunteers united and organized events over the long weekend such as a happy hour, parade watching party and a trip to the keys off of Pearl Lagoon.  Saturday was our big day of cultural events.  We kicked it off by visiting the central park where vendors, which were thick homely black women, served home cooked meals that they had been slaving over all morning.  The key ingredient in the Atlantic coast diet is coconut.  Everything from bread to soup here is riddled with coconut.  I had a plate of gallo pinto cooked in coconut milk with lobster in creole sauce and yucca cooked in coconut broth.  A stage was set up in the park where traditional Atlantic coast dances were being performed.  The costumes  are made of brightly colored fabrics and typical leave womens’ midriffs exposed.  These dances are much more provocative than what you find on the pacific side.  There is an overwhelming amount of booty shaking and grinding performed by all ages.  Later that afternoon the party really got started with the Palo de Mayo parade.  This holiday is focused around fertility and there fore the fertility dance is performed by several different groups as they make their way through the street of Bluefields.  This consists of several women surrounding a fertility tree, or in this case a large branch, and wrapping strips of fabrics around its branches while making some freakish grinding moves as well.  Over all it’s a great show and we couldn’t help but join the crowd and party through the streets.  At one point in the parade there were young men spraying spray-paint in to the air and lighting it on fire, awesome for the environment I know, and one of them happened to have a University of Arizona shirt on!  You know what I’m talking about, the gigantic blue and white “A” on a red T-shirt.  I totally flipped out, chased him down, and took a photo with him.

Lobster and coconut gallo pinto

Go Wildcats!

Hanging in the park

After the parade we found ourselves back in the park, but this time ten times as packed and with cold beers in our hands.  After a dinner of more typical east coast food, we made our way to the most popular and shady reggae club called Four Brothers.  This was my first experience with dance hall reggae and it was a blast!  Everyone was grooving and chillen to some serious beats, but the trippy thing was the lights were so low the corners of the club were left black and all you could see was the bar lit up.

The next day we rose early and painfully to take a small boat up the coast about an hour to Pearl Lagoon.  If you recall from my previous posts, I visited this place a year ago when I visited another volunteer during training and absolutely fell in love.  The people in Pearl Lagoon are some of the most friendly and warm folk I’ve ever encountered.  Animals run the white sand streets freely and English has basically vanished leaving only a very thick creole in its place.  Unfortunately we did not loiter long in Pearl Lagoon as our main goal was to reach the keys about an hour off its coast.  Twelve of us including our guide Jimmy took off to sea in a rather small panga.  After fighting the waves to push our way out of the lagoon we finally made it to the crystal clear carribean waters.  We parked our boat on a tiny island with nothing on it but us.  There we cooked a famous Atlantic coast soup called rundown.  The “run-down” comes from the act of the fish, shrimp and other seafood that is boiled on top of the stew and the flavor runs down in to the yucca, plantain and root veggies that are drowning in a coconut broth.  The flavor is absolutely amazing and for a seafood lover like me, heaven.  After bathing in the clear water, walking three times around the island and hunting for what coconuts existed on such a tiny piece of land, we headed back to Pearl Lagoon.  This was just a taste of what is took come when my mom visits in July and we head to Little Corn Island!  Can’t wait!  That night we took advantage of our last meal of coconut shrimp and listened to a fellow volunteer play some reggae on his guitar.  I actually fell in love with his music and bought the CD from his band back home called Reviva, check out their song Illegal!

The key

Alicia and I on the boat

The trip was quite long, totaling 14 hours of travel by bus and boat, thankfully I broke it up over a few days getting there, but it was a rough one full day of travel back home.  In the end it was all very worth it! One Love!