Love is in the Air

The final weekend of Semana Santa I made my way back home to Chinandega for Holly’s wedding on Saturday the 31^st.   This wedding, unlike any other I have been to,  triggered something with in me and for the first time I saw for my own eyes what I would like to have one day.

As I pass Kim, Holly and her sisters on the way to prep for the wedding my heart skips a beat and I start getting excited for the festivities.  When I pull on to the Coco Loco property a wave of comfort and belonging engulfs me.  I was not sure if I was going to make the wedding on time with Semana Santa traffic and the stress falls from my shoulders.  Holly’s surfer friends greet me with white pore cleansing face masks as they play the guitar in hammocks on the front porch of their cabana.  Instantly loving Holly and Kim’s families and friends we head to where the wedding will take place at La Bahia owned by our friends Jimmy and Lisa just down the beach.  We walk in greeted by a beautiful ocean view and familiar faces.  Holly and Kim brew their own beer and made an amazingly hoppy beer for the occasion to accompany Lisa’s signature cocktail-passionfruit and rum.  Non-traditionally we all mingle over drinks with the bride and the groom before the ceremony.   Holly is wearing a simple white Marilyn Monroe style dress to her knees.  My jewelry ladies made a beautiful necklace of shells that covered Holly’s chest.  Her matching earrings and bracelet also have the same sea-foam beads that match Kim’s linen shirt.

Casually around sunset we all walk barefoot down to the edge of the property covered in birch trees looking  out over the bay where we surf.  Under a simple halapa Holly and Kim share their vows with each other, just them, no on else was involved in the ceremony.  Holly’s sister and Kim’s brother each share a special story about when they met their siblings’ spouse-to-be.  Their puppy Lobo was waits patiently in the half circle of folks that gathered around to witness the event.  At the couples signal he runs up with the rings tied to his collar.  Instead of “I-dos” Holly and Kim had made a wedding wine of calala, honey and gang to toast with.  We raise or hand carved glasses of jicaro seeds to toast to the couple's future together.

As the sun sets photos were taken, we smoked cigars and sipped our wine with the newly wed couple.  After the sun sets we make our way back to the pool for a candle lit dinner made by the amazing staff of Coco Loco.  They served fish tropical from the fisherman, nacatamales made by Victor’s mother, local leafy greens and much more.  Coco Loco's famous carrot-almond-cacao cake is served for desert just before the dance party. 

Jackie, Nikki and I make moves to get people going and before ya knew the entire wedding party is on the dance floor and the host Jimmy is pouring rum in to everyone’s mouth as he makes is way around the dance floor.  At one point the groom stops him abruptly and makes him par-take in his own activity.  One of Holly’s friends performs a break dance and every one has their chance to show-off inside the dance circle. 

Finally we make our way back to Coco Loco along the moonlit beach only to find ourselves back at the beach for skinny dipping.  The bioluminescence I had experienced on the Atlantic coast earlier in the week were even more intensified.  As we swim out to sea a continuous glow follows our bodies.

It was a beautiful wedding. It was small, simple, intimate, and real.  No unnecessary people were there or extra words said that didn’t need to be said.  Everyone felt the same about the bride and groom and the amount of love that they bring to the community.  Everything was connected, from the waves behind the couple as they married, to the brew served, to the jewelry made by local shells that Holly wore.  It was personal beyond words for everyone who came and shared the joy.

Semana Santa East Coast Style

This year Semana Santa feel on the last week in March which Noelle, Chalin, Ryan and I decided to treat ourselves to one last big trip.  We took off on Friday to Little Corn Island.  I had been twice before to spend a few days with my mom and Kevin when he visisted, but was never able to finish my Scuba Diving certification.  This time, I was determined and so glad I made the investment.  The four of us hippies had a sweet group dynamic and an amazing time together on this island of no shirts or shoes. The four of us snuggled up in a cabin at Casa Iguana enjoying basil mojitos and our own little private stretch of beach.  Granted this time around I didn’t linger on the beach as much I spent underwater exploring. 

When I tried scuba diving the last time I was on Little Corn I immediately feel in love with the underwater world.  There is an immense difference form snorkeling and free diving versus floating at the ocean bottom amongst sea creatures and their habitat.  Since I’m typically in to more “high impact” sports I wasn’t sure if I was going to get hooked or not, but my obsession with the sea took over.  The mermaid in me found complete serenity floating over the coral reefs and ducking under shelves and arches searching for sea life. Some of the highlights where encountering a ancient female sea turtle with the enormous amount of barnacles on her back revealing her age.  On that same dive we saw Dolphins before diving down and could hear their clicking noises underwater and enormous puffer fish with one eye When I was finally certified I went on a night dive which proved to be magical as  we turned off our flood lights to see the bioluminescence which were activated with each kick of my fin.  I swam amongst various sea turtles that decided to leave the comfort of the caves in the coral as I passed over them.  My last dive Chalin and I went with a dive master who was hunting Lionfish with a spear gun since they are not native to these islands.  As he killed and collected more fish the blood started to attract other creatures, two of them being Nurse Sharks.  As they tracked the sent you could see their bodies twitcing back and forth.  It was a feeding frenzy as the dive master fed them the fish one by one of the end of his spear.  Even though he was handing over their prey dead, the sharks still acted like they were on the hunt which was amazing to see as we floated only feet above them.

The diving was truly amazing, but Noelle and I got a sweet snorkel sesh in as well where we saw an enormous Eagle Ray. When I wasn’t pruning in the salt water or on the boat I was playing volleyball, chillen, or stuffing my face with amazingly fresh seafood. 

The four of us conveniently were in the same place as far as pursuing grad school after Peace Corps and agreed that this would be our last shebang before hunkering down to save for school.  In fact the night we decided to go all out with a big group and eat at the nicest place for dinner was the evening I checked my email on Ryan’s phone to find out that I had been awarded a merit scholarship to USC cutting my tuition in half!  The trip was an awesome chance to process all of these changes and opportunities before me.  We drank well ate like Kings for no more than $8 a night.  We indulged in margaritas, crack Pina coladas, run down seafood soup, lobster, coconut bread French toast, pork ribs and so much more.

I left Little Corn with a clearer view of what my next few years were going to look like and finalized that I could live with my buddy Chalin at USC after 5 nights of living on top of each other in our little cabin.

ChatSalud

Since January I have been working on a social impact project called ChatSalud, which was started by a group of Peace Corps Health Volunteers.  I can't take credit for the innovative idea as that was all health volunteers, but I was asked to get involved in ChatSalud to leverage my finance background and sort out the project's finances.  

 ChatSalud is a free and anonymous text messaging service to educate rural and urban Nicaraguans on safe sex practices, HIV AIDS prevention, and reproductive health in rural areas via text messages.  One thing that was surprising to me when arriving to Nica is that everyone has a cell phone, whether they have electricity or not.  It’s pretty common to bum electricity off a neighbor or business to charge your cell phone and everyone has one.  There fore about 90% of Nicaragua can be reached via their cell phone and have service to access ChatSalud.  Users text a message to the mainframe and then receive a menu with a list of topics they can read about via text. The user and system keep going back and forth in a "pin-pong" like fashion until the user is satisfied with the information.  Of course these text messages and mainframes cost money so we have been working on getting investors to buy in.   We believe this system will be extrememly successful given that one of the largest barriers to sexual health education is “pena”.  This Spanish world does not directly translate well to English, but basically means embarrassment.  Nicaraguans don’t like to talk about subjects such as sex, sexually-transmitted diseases, or contraceptives.  Also most rural Nicaragua communities are so small that every one knows everyone’s business.  If a young girl were to walk to the health clinic, every one in her town would know and possibly start roomers.  We hope ChatSalud’s anonymous system, to the point that we can’t even see the number texting in to the system, will help break down this barrier known as pena.

We have already had buy-in from a company called CRONOs who has sponsored servers for the mainframe.  Also one of the largest cellphone service providers Claro has agreed to sponsor all incoming and outgoing text messages, which alleviates a huge expense.  Several Nicaragua universities have provided student programs to help set-up the system and keep it running in a sustainable manner. The next step was to meet with NGOs in Nicaragua that work in the health, women's rights advocation, HIV AIDS and technology sectors.  To name a few that were present: Red Cross Nicaragua, Pro Mujer, ASONVISIDA, Teran Foundation.  We met a the Word Bank where Nishant(ring leader) presented ChatSalud and how we hope to launch a three month pilot to start.  Everyone was extremely receptive and thought it was a great idea!  We formed committees to share responsibilities such as management, content development and advertising as we want this project to eventually be owned by Nicaraguans, not us volunteers.  It was amazing to see about 30 of Nica's most influential business men, NGOs, and academics gathered around an oval table at the World Bank! It's been amazing to be a part of something so entrepreneurial and innovative in the social sector.  Sadly I won't see the project all the way through since I will be leaving soon for grad school, but I hope that I find myself looking at a similar opportunity to get involved in the future in the social impact space.

Taking it Rural

My readers I’m sure have picked up by now that the city of Chinandega where I live is a large city.  It doesn’t mean that it is on par with even a small city in the U.S. by any means, but it has grown a ton since I arrive almost 2 years ago.  We now have a mall with a food court, movie theatre, casino and restaurants.  Two Nicaraguan “5 star” hotels have been built for businessmen and tourists to stay in luxury.  We now have a few cafes and nice restaurants with air conditioning, one of them being a sushi joint.  This may not sound like a big deal to you, but it is for Nica!

Chinandega’s growth is exciting, but it has also voluntarily pushed me to take my work more rural.  I was already traveling frequently to rural beaches to work with the women of Artesenia del Mar and Waves of Hope, but I’ve stepped up my traveling in the new year.  I have been working with Pro Mujer Micro Finance Institution to take my trainings up north to train rural women entrepreneurs in business management skills.  In addition I am also working with the NGO CSMMO, which is basically Chinandega Services for the Movement of Women in Business(translated).  I blogged about them back in the beginning of the year when we elected several women’s cooperatives to receive foreign funds based on their goals to reinvest in their coop. 

Now I am traveling with a Nicaraguan counterpart Candelaria to visit these cooperatives in different parts of rural Chinandega and Leon to offer 2-day workshops.  The women self-organize in their community to host the training and offer lunch to the 20 women invited.  We performed our first training in Jicaral, Leon inviting women from two small communities focusing on self-esteem, the meaning of being a women in society, goal-setting, client service, marketing, accounting, budgeting and saving over the span of two days.  As many of you know, this was my passion before ever coming to Nica, to empower women to take control of their lives and create a future for themselves and their children.  I have become even more passionate about this type of aid after arriving in country and witnessing just how negative the effect of machismo can have on Nicaraguan women.

I loved getting to know these women over the two days, personally getting to know them, their lives, their goals, and being serenaded by an 80 year with a heck of a voice.   At one point we played a version of musical chairs to keep the women from falling asleep in the heat.  Picture women ranging from age 18 to 80 running around to grab the last seat and at one point breaking a plastic chair because they jumped in to it with such force.  It was one of those moments down here where everything almost freezes and I take a step back to look around at my setting of lively Nica women, the wilderness around us, the smell of baho cooking for lunch and the sound of bachata playing in the background.  My mind flicks back in time to what I thought Peace Corps would be before accepting this position and I smile, knowing that the decisions I have made have helped me to create this reality.

I won’t know how many of the women will actually implement what I taught them or if their financial situations will improve, but that’s the nature of the work.  I think after two years I’ve finally become OK with that and realized it’s the experience for not only myself, but for them that matters most.  I know that I loved sitting around over lunch and talking and listening to music.  I know that at the very least they walked away with a better idea of how to track their expenses, a design they created for branding their business, and a goal to work towards.  I had to travel 2 hours each way on a sweaty school bus to get to them each day, but it was so worth it.  The cooking was awesome and I am always well taken care of when around Nica women.  At the end of the training the woman who hosted sent us out in to her yard with a long stick to knock fresh cohote fruit out of her trees to take home.  It reminded me of when a piñata finally breaks and candy goes spewing everywhere as we scrambled to not let the fruit linger on the ground for too long. Cohote is a small green fruit that can be sweat/sour depending on its ripeness, but always better when rolled in salt.

Before I knew it I was back in Chinandega in time to make dinner and then head to the city of Leon in a microbus for salsa dancing with the Chinandega Salsa group.  It was almost culture shock to go from a rural community to turn around and be at a salsa dance club in the city of Leon just hours later surrounded by foreigners and Nicaraguan University students.  That has been the nature of my service here.  I have been lucky to have opportunities and experiences to appreciate everything this country has to offer.  I am really going to miss working with the women, natural beauty, waves, salsa, traveling, friends I've made, food and so much more.  It finally set in that I have created my reality here.  I have created a new life that will be hard to uproot once again.