Things That Made This Christmas Special

1) The water came back on on Christmas Eve morning (which is celebrated like Christmas day here), after being off for a few days.  Having no water always leads me to bathe in the river, which as it happens isn’t half bad.   I just have to keep an eye out for snakes.

2) My PC friends from neighboring San Ramon came in on the 23^rd to go hike and drink really good coffee at the ecolodge just up the road from my site.  It was great to speak some English and go hiking with friends!  I was also able to take my ‘bath’ under one of the waterfalls, which while a bit colder, beats my normal Christmas Eve’s Eve shower. 

Hiking up to the Ecolodge

While cold, it was definitely a scenic bath!

3) My family here has a small Christmas tree and Christmas lights in the living room of our house.  We were even able to set my iPod up to their speakers and listen to some English carols while setting them up, followed by carols in Spanish. 

4) I live very close to a pine tree reserve, and there are also several species of pine trees and bushes in my town as well (pretty strange to see in Central America).  But it’s great to be able to pluck a little piece of a branch from a bush in the front of my house and smell it.  It smells just like a Christmas tree/Christmas!

5) I’m currently a bit cold (I’m wearing jeans and a light jacket) at 68 degrees.  While that may be a drastic departure from the December weather I’m used to, it’s great to still be a bit chilly on December mornings, regardless of the actual temperature.

6) The rain up against the mountain in front of my house kind of looks like snow sometimes.  That coupled with the “cold” temperatures makes it almost a white Christmas.  Definitely beats the 20 below windchill in Chicago too!

7) I finally received a cell phone chip that will work in a place other than on top of the rock by the bus stop.  Now I can occasionally send texts from a corner in my room and sometimes call from my backyard.  It’s great, and arrived just in time to make it a pseudo Christmas gift.

8) Last Christmas Eve I was pestering my mom to stop taking iPhone videos at the family Christmas party, but I just came across them while going through pictures on my computer, and I’m definitely happy she took them now.  I have to say, Santa had some pretty good one liners last year!

9) The rumor of Christmas care packages.  I don’t even need real “gifts” anymore.  The mere rumor of getting a package gets me pretty excited!  The contents don’t even matter; my Christmas gift standards have gone way down (i.e. I’m really excited for the FLAVORED rehydration salts or hand sanitizer that my mom is sending me).

10) Watching a bunch of kids tackle each other over piñata candy in the casa comunal (community house) on the 24th.  It’s like fishing for children.

It´s like fishing for children

11) Poorly translated Christmas carols.  It doesn’t make sense to me though… they were in English to begin with…?

12) I’m planning on making a cake for my family over a wood fired stove.  I’ll have to get back to you on how this turns out. 

13) My host brother lent me gel to do up my hair in the typical Nicaraguan fashion for the 24^th.

My hair with A LOT of gel!

14) I was able to go for a dip in the town river Christmas morning.

15) And finally, I’ll be in a hot place surrounded by awesome looking volcanoes and a nearby beach for New Years with a group of PC friends.  I had wanted to go for a swim over New Years for the past few years, but this won’t involve a polar plunge in MN sub-zero temperatures, which is always nice. 

What a week!

Well, I’m currently lacking my normal creativity when it comes to this blog, so I’m just going to give a summary of my past week as it’s been pretty interesting!  I spent last Friday in my department’s capitol of Matagalpa with some other volunteers and celebrated Thanksgiving by going out to eat.  Nothing says Thanksgiving like going out to an Italian restaurant in Nicaragua!  Then Monday I headed into Managua for the next 5 and half days to see a doctor and for official work business.  I spent Monday and Tuesday night in a hostel, but then spent Wednesday and Thursday at this awesome place with the environment group that got here last year to exchange ideas.  There was a pool, awesome food, and we even had our own little houses with air conditioning! 

Our hotel pool!

Our last day was spent back in the hostel after learning how to build an oven near my training town.  I headed back to my site yesterday, and had an awesome day today (I’m typing this up a day before actually posting it).  This morning Anna, my PCVL (Peace Corps loves acronyms, but she’s a third year volunteer whose job includes supporting other volunteers in Matagalpa), came to visit to make sure everything was all right.  We ended up hiking up to Finca Esperanze Verde, which is the award winning* ecolodge about a 45 minute walk up the road (literally up, it’s pretty much all uphill).  We ended up talking to the owner and having some amazing organic coffee that was grown there.  In addition to the coffee we also got a great chicken lunch, and didn’t have to pay for any of it (the owner is awesome!).  We talked about the lodge, and the potential of helping out there in the future.  It looks like I’ll be able to go pick coffee next week, and will possibly be helping teach some people who work and live near there about organic gardening and other environmental topics, and will get paid in awesome food and transportation there.  I’m super pumped!  This place is on a mountaintop with an amazing view, so I’ll take any excuse I can get to go there!

Building the oven! I just got done mixing the dirt, water, and horse manure mortar mixture with my hands!!!

The view from the dining area at the Ecolodge near my house

This waterfall is just off the main road on one of the Ecolodge trails

            I also want to mention that I had a bit of a culture shock going to Managua.  I have no idea how it will be when I visit home next Christmas.  It was strange, I saw a movie in English, ate at a mall several times that had a giant Christmas tree and a Santa with some pretty hot elves that resembled Hooters girls than anything else, bought donuts and chocolate muffins at a place called “American Donuts,” had access to flushing toilets, and a shower that didn’t involve an oil barrel and bowl.   I also was able to swim in a huge pool one night and take a hot shower when I got out.  A HOT SHOWER!  Water pressure is a great thing!  All that being said, I was actually excited to get back to the campo (country)!  We even set up a mini-Christmas tree and Christmas lights while dancing and listening to Christmas carols in English and Spanish tonight.  It was great!

Setting up the Christmas tree while listing to Christmas music and Spanish and English

*Has won awards from Smithsonian Magazine and Virgin Travel in Ecotourism

Thanksgiving!!!

15 and a half things I’m thankful for this Thanksgiving:

1) I have a job that keeps my life semi-interesting.  I’ve done everything from help my brother harvest bananas in a forest on a mountainside to dance with the tortilla lady at a community meeting for a free notebook.

2) My years of watching the Discovery Channel are finally coming in handy.  Whether it’s about the leaf cutter ants in my backyard, remembering the episode about things living on bananas when people cut them down and for some reason still deciding to carry them up on my shoulder without checking them (I’m thankful I only got bit by one of the army ants), or knowing things about the Howler Monkeys I hear when I wake up. 

3) Pan dulce (sweet bread).  I’ve gone from just eating wheat bread in the States to only eating white breads coated and filled with sugar here.  It’s great! 

4) Telenovelas.  You really have to appreciate quality acting when you see it.  Plus I’m finally starting to figure out the plot of one of them!

5) My mosquito net.  It’s the cocoon that saves me from the things that creep, crawl, and bite at night.

6) I haven’t had a parasite or bacterial infection in a month and a half! I know this will probably jinx it, but I’m just happy it’s lasted this long!

7) The draft that results from the small gaps between the wood planks that compose the walls to my room allow for good ventilation.

8) I am able to hear the 70s and 80s songs that are regularly on the radio, being played in the busses, or on people’s phone speakers.  I heard the song “Funky Town” three times in the past two days.  Most of the songs here are in Spanish, but the market for bad 70s-90s love songs is through the roof.  It’s pretty great when a real masculine guys starts playing the Titanic song.

9) I get cold when it hits 70 degrees with a light breeze

10) I found a bug that looked like a bean in my rice and beans the other morning.  As long as I don’t know I’m eating it, it looks like I found a way to supplement my diet with more protein!

11) My Malaria medicine can give me some pretty awesome vivid dreams. 

12) I’ll hopefully be using a flushing toilet and will be showering with warm water (or anything more than an oil barrel filled with water and a bowl to pour with in the backyard) tonight in my hostel!

13) I didn’t ‘have’ to run the Thanksgiving morning 5k after eating a bunch of deep-dish pizza the night before.  Every year it seemed like such a good idea…who can say no to Giordano’s? 

14) I didn’t have to watch my dad win the LVP (Least Valuable Player) award yet again at our annual “Toilet Bowl” Thanksgiving football game.  It’s about time he lets someone else win it!

15) My annual goal of not listening to Christmas carols before Thanksgiving was much easier without having the “Holiday Lite” starting carols the day after Halloween.   

The Half) The half is actually the longest one!  But seriously, I still missed home this week.  I have more traditions surrounding Thanksgiving than any other holiday, and it’s been hard to miss all of them.  This will be the first year since 1998 that I haven’t gone out for food at Bill’s Hotdogs with my Dad and brother the day before Thanksgiving, the first year since I was 12 that I haven’t gone out to breakfast at P.J. Klem’s and then played in the Toilet Bowl on Thanksgiving morning, and many others.  That being said, I am starting to feel more and more comfortable in my town here, and also have a good group of PC volunteer friends as well.  I know this is super cheesy, but I’ll end by saying that I’m thankful for all my family and friends that I’ve been able to keep in touch with at home.  I’m also thankful for my family and friends here in Nicaragua.  There are definitely days that are harder than others, but they are really making this feel more like I place that I can learn to call home for 2 years. 

So I took a bath in a river....

The last two weeks in my new site have been pretty interesting.  It’s had its ups and downs, which I’m sure will continue throughout the rest of my service.  I have, however, done a lot of really cool things.  Rather than bore you with all the details, I just want to say one serious thing, then I’ll get on to my normal bullet points go over some highlights to add to last week’s post. 

            Living in a small Central American mountain community has been a pretty humbling experience, and I’ve only been here for two weeks.  Before joining Peace Corps, I had many preconceptions of poverty and pretty much thought that anyone who lived in “shacks” must be miserable and live with a sort of resentment towards others.  While this may sometimes be the case, I have yet to encounter this in my town.  My host brother (Reynaldo) has been taking me around town to introduce me to family friends and other people to help with my integration.  Many of these community members live in what I would have previously referred to as “shacks”.  Wood siding with large gaps in between, tin roofs, poor lighting, small, and often black plastic filling in some gaps.  Not exactly waterproof, and often containing a TV.  Already I have come to realize that these are not shacks, not houses, but homes.  Everyone Reynaldo introduced me to has welcomed me into their homes and have been incredibly friendly, giving, funny, and overall proud to be a Nicaraguan and live where they do.  And they have every right to be proud.  Their community is incredibly beautiful, there is sense of community, they have persevered through some pretty hard times (in the 70’s and 80’s especially), etc.  I’m going to stop myself before I get all preachy, but I just wanted to say that not everything is black and white.  Alright, now to the bullet points…

Things I find myself saying around the house (translated into English):

• Well the pig’s in the house again….
•  GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLL!!! (got to love living room fútbol).
• That has too much sugar (ha, who am I kidding, I’ll never say that).
•  I’m headed to the bus stop boulder to send a text
• Sure, I’d love to color/play with you
• I’m too tired to play with you
•  Yeah…. I don’t know that word in Spanish
•  Looks like it’s going to rain again…
• I love the climate/ it’s beautiful here
• It’s cold! (meaning it’s about 70 degrees)
•  Well that’s an interesting bug…?

Things I’ve done or do here that I probably wouldn’t be doing in the states:

•       Go on sunrise runs on a dirt/mud mountain road
•           Bathe/wash my clothes in the river when we don’t have water for 3 days (actually a pretty interesting experience)

•        Douse myself in bug spray every time I have to use the latrine
•      Drink coffee with community members in their homes even further up the mountain (or drinking coffee at all for that matter)
•     Start an organic garden in my backyard (in November none the less)
•     Pick a coffee bean in my backyard
•         Take old school buses down a muddy mountain road for half an hour one way to use the internet (it’s such a beautiful drive)
•     Eat an average of 4-5 homemade corn tortillas and my weight in rice and beans daily (I have actually gotten to the point of craving them)
•      Drink pure orange juice from oranges that I helped pick in the backyard five minutes beforehand
•      Regularly go to bed before 9pm
•      Watch a Russian war movie subtitled in Spanish with a Nicaraguan Army veteran from the contra war.
•     Learning another language….well at least trying to.

First days in site

            Well, I’ve been at my new site for a few days, and it’s already been quite an interesting experience.  I’ve been observing classes at one of my schools, went on an awesome 3-hour hike with my host brother in the mountains around my town, and more!  I haven’t really been able to go out on my own yet, and won’t be able to for at least the next month or so.   That aspect has been a bit difficult to get used to, but I’ve definitely been getting a lot of reading in, and have also been practicing my Spanish a lot (my site is relatively safe, but my family just doesn’t want me walking around before I know everyone for security reasons).  I haven’t been bringing my camera around to avoid looking like a typical gringo tourist and because I really don’t want to have anything stolen from me my first week in site.  If I had my camera on that 3 hour hike it would have likely lasted at least another hour, and this blog post would be all pictures.  No words can express how beautiful the hike was, so I’ll try and keep its description short

            We started off on the main road, and hiked up to the pine tree reserve (yes, there are plenty of pine trees in my town!).  We hiked through that for a while, which consisted of many more inclines than declines, but also had plenty of places to rest and look out over the mountains.  It was a bit later in the afternoon, so the sun was hitting the trees and mountains perfectly for the last hour and half of the hike.  From there we continued into a farm area, where there were mainly coffee plants and banana trees, but also looked like a rainforest at times.  Our final destination was an Ecolodge called Finca Esperanza Verde, which had one of the most amazing vistas/miradors I’ve seen in Nicaragua, or anywhere for that matter.  It definitely helped that the sun was just hitting the top of the closest mountain peak.  The lodge was started by two PC volunteers from North Carolina in the past, and now is a running Ecolodge and organic farm that grows everything from coffee to regular veggies.  To finish off the afternoon we walked back down another road and made it back to my house in about half an hour just as the sun was finally setting completely.  Before we left I had just asked my host brother to walk me around to help me get to know people, and that’s what we ended up doing.  It was pretty great!

            Finally, I just have a list of things I’ve gotten used to here so far.  Disculpe (excuse me) if I’ve mentioned these before. 

• Showering in the backyard with ice cold water (scratch that, not sure if I’ll ever get used to that one)
• Having the 2 family pigs block my exit or entrance to my room

• Sleeping on a very thin colchón (meant to be a mattress, but more like a thin mattress pad).  It’s actually not that bad!
• No Internet in town!! If I want to use the Internet, I have to take a bus half an hour into my municipality.  It’s nice to be less connected.  I just type out all my e-mails and blog posts in my room and bring them into town on a flash drive.
• Rice, beans, cuajada (type of cheese), freshly homemade corn tortillas, occasionally eggs from our chickens that roam around my house, and sugary fresco (drink).  Not much variety, but it’s all pretty great and filling!
• The outhouse… it became so much easier when I abandoned the hover. 
• There’s one Catholic Church and four Evangelical churches in my town of less than 800.  I’ve learned to just stay clear of the topic of evolution (even if the teacher that is teaching epochs in time asks you what you think). 
• Lodo… otherwise known as mud.  In a month it will become polvo (dust).  If you ever visit me, you’ll definitely become familiar with one of those two words. 
• Wearing tube socks whenever I wear shorts to hide my tattoo.  Yes, it looks as funny as you’re probably imagining. 

I now know where I´ll be living for 2 years of my life!

Well everyone, I’ve officially visited my new site that I will be living at for the next two years.  I’m still in training for another two weeks or so, so it was only a four-day visit, but it was enough to prepare me for my service.  Every volunteer’s service is different, and living situations are dependent on where your site is.   My site, for example, is in the ‘campo,’ loosely translated to out on the farm.  I will be living in a tiny pueblo of less than 800 people about a 30 minute bus ride from the closest town with indoor plumping and paved streets.  It was a bit of a shock when I first arrived, but after four days I started to see myself being able to call my new house home.  The luxuries I’ve gotten used to in my training site here, such as indoor plumping and an actual bed have been nice, but I will truly start living the life of a PC volunteer on November 2^nd!  So now I guess the only thing left to do is to give you a bit of a tour of my new house incase anyone ever wants to visit! 

The view from my town

 When you walk into my front yard, you have to step over the constant stream of water flowing down the hill (caused by rain or people up the hill washing various things).  The front of my house consists of a dirt floor porch, an entrance to the living room, the kitchen, and my room on the left.  If you walk in the living room, you will see two tables on your right, and a few plastic chairs on your left.  The tables on your right have a TV, stereo, and phone, and also serve as my dining room table.  Next to the chairs on the left is another card table, and two doorways to my host family’s rooms.  One has a door, and the other a sheet.  The kitchen looks to be a more recent add on, and is through the living room on the right.  The kitchen consists of a wood burning stove (a concrete platform with two holes above where you can put your pots/pans.  Our kitten usually hangs out on top of the wood pile below the stove table.  To the left is the slanted wood plank where you can cut meat and veggies, and also do the dishes.  The water then runs down the plank to a bucket outside the house.  There is also a bench in the kitchen too.  To get the backyard you can walk around front, or take the door through the living room.  In the backyard you have the currently out of service outhouse (have to use the neighbors for the time being), a random shack that maybe once was a chicken coop (our chickens just run around free in and around the house), a pig pen with two pigs, a previous volunteers garden, and the little partly enclosed area for doing laundry/showering (by cover of sheet and towel).  Also, word to the wise, if you ever plan on using the outhouse at night, bring a flashlight.  Our clothes line is barbed wire, so never fun to run into.  For some reason it took me two times to figure that one out. 

My pigs in the backyard, right near the ´shower´

And finally, my room.  Well…I’ll just show a couple pictures of that.  I do have my own room though, so that’s nice! I don’t have my own bathroom like I do now, or a mattress thicker than about a centimeter, but it more than I was expecting when I applied to the PC, so I can’t complain!

            Overall, I’m pretty excited, a bit nervous, and pretty much ever other emotion you can think of.  I live way up in the mountains, and it is absolutely beautiful!  My site has a nice dirt and gravel field to play fútbol, and plenty of coffee plants!  I definitely need to practice my soccer to get up to par with host brother and his friends, but until then I’m just going to have to get used to getting schooled by a bunch of ten year olds (well, to be fair, one of them was twelve).   And while this is not relevant to my site visit, something I learned today in my training town is that you should always wear sunscreen when going to church.  You never know when you will end up going on a half an hour parade through the streets of your pueblo with a band and people dancing around a statue of the patron saint of your town locked to the top of a table.

Free Money! Great, now that I´ve got your attention...

            Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve written in here last.  Not sure how many loyal readers I had, but to those that were, sorry.  I distinctly remember telling at least Jessica Hemmer (aka Hammer) that I would write in here at least once a week, but as of now I’m not sure if that’s going to happen.  Once every two weeks maybe? We’ll see.

            Anyways, I first thought I’d write about swimming in a volcanic crater, going to the beach, or perhaps the parasite babies (eggs) I had in my intestines that hatched on Monday morning (which made me the father to many unruly children).  But who wants to read about that.   It was when I was washing my clothes that I finally decided on what to write.  Everyone has to wash their clothes, so I figured I’d teach you how to wash your clothes Nica style. 

            Step one: Go to your patio (aka backyard) and put all of your clothes next to the lavandera.  One side is filled with water, and the other has a washboard.  You want to place your first piece of clothing down, fill a bowl with water and then pour it on your article of clothing.  In this case, I took a picture of my shirt.  I usually only wash my underwear and socks (my host mom washes the rest), but I figured you would all appreciate me not including a picture of those.

The lavandera

            Step 2: Rub the bar of soap into the article of clothing, followed by pouring a bit more water over it.   After this, you must use every muscle you have to grind it into the concrete washboard.   If your host mom or neighbor happens to see you doing otherwise, they will happily correct you.  Now I bet you’re thinking, that can’t be good for your clothes.  All I have to say to that is my favorite pair of jeans finally saw their last Nicaraguan wash cycle today.  (That being said, I am still very grateful that I don’t have to wash the majority of my clothes myself…it’s quite the workout).

            Step 3:  Once you are losing your breath washing a pair of underwear or shirt, it’s time to wring it out and put it in another bucket of fabric softener and let it sit either for a few hours or overnight.

The essential fabric softener stage

            Step 4: Well, I’m not completely sure what step four is.  Every time I’ve done my laundry it just magically appears on the clothesline the next day.  I can imagine you just have to rinse and wring dry before putting it up. 

            Not a step: This washing method may be a bit harder than at home, but it uses a lot less electricity (just to pump the water you use), and if you know what you’re doing (I don’t), usually less water.  And thus concludes another life lesson that most of you will never need to know.  Glad to help J

But wait, there’s more!!!

Tired of using too much water when you shower?!  Is the water in your shower just too hot?! OWWW! Then I’ve got the thing for you…. BUCKET SHOWERS!! They are everything you dreamed of and more.  If you are dying to learn how to bathe in cold* water with a bowl and a bucket, this is one post you’ll not want to miss.**  And if you read it within an hour of me posting, you’ll receive an additional paragraph on what to do when they shut the water off.  Visit the website at the top of you’re screen for more info.  Do it now, before it’s too late!!

*Lack of water heaters=refreshing

**We’ve acted out one too many infomercials in class, there’s not actually going to be another blog post on bucket showers; I wouldn’t put you through that too after this.  

Well, at least I have some pictures...

Well, I have been having some trouble with technology, and while I can not open up the blogpost I typed up last night, I do have the pictures.  They are all from the visit I made to see another volunteer for a week in San Rafael del Sur!

The broken pier I climbed up.  It used to be the private pier to the Nicaraguan dicator Samoza.  Not the greatest idea in retrospect, but it was still pretty cool. 

Another cool shot of the beach

Working on  the oven that we built

The finished product

A Lesson in Patience

          I (most likely) will co-teach my first class on Thursday, but instead of planning out that lesson right now like I should be doing, I’ll work on this lesson instead!   Basically the objective of this is to teach a lesson in patience based on my experiences of the past week or so.  So first comes story time (please read past the first paragraph, I swear it’s not just me complaining the whole time).

            Alright, so I started off my week by having my 4^th grade co-teacher tell me she didn’t have time to work with me.  Later that day the director our school ordered us to plow over our garden and start again, despite the fact that we had spent several hours planting days before and the seeds were already germinating.  That night I came down with… I’ll just say I did not get much sleep.   The next morning (Tuesday) I woke up feeling pretty lousy and crabby.  After taking my temperature I went to the doctor in my pueblo and figured out I had a bacterial infection and parasites.  During the week I’ve also been developing some kind of allergic reaction (maybe flea bites) similar to a poison ivy rash on a leg and arm, plus a bit more in other areas (for the second time).  On Saturday I figured out there were more issues with my class, and my cell phone was stolen. 

            Okay, so yeah, this last week sounds pretty miserable right?  Wrong!   I actually had a pretty good week!  Shortly after getting frustrated with the one teacher I switched to a super friendly 3^rd grade teacher to work with.  With the garden, we all came to realize that while frustrating, this is his school that we are working at, and we have to work together (we also now will have two different gardens, but now ours just has a really good barbed wire fence).  As for getting sick, it’s pretty unrealistic not to expect getting sick when moving to a new country.   I’m not a huge fan of the rash/maybe flea bites, that I will admit.   The new issues with my class schedule worked themselves out (with the help of Environmental Sector PC staff) by the end of the afternoon.  I can also live without a phone for a few days.  Not thrilled to have to buy a new one, but at least I had my iPhone (acting as my iPod and camera) and bus money was locked up in a different part of my backpack.  There were also many other times during the week when I was allowed to spend time with other volunteers and have a good time!

Enjoying the litting things! For those that ever try and eat ice cream in Nicaragua, eat it fast!

            It’s all about perspective.  I’m not trying to sound all preachy and say that I’m perfect at this. There were definitely times when I was ticked this week, but getting worked up about things will not make the situation any better and only make a bad situation worse.   Obviously most people reading this aren’t living in the same situation I am, but I think it’s a valid lesson to be learned.  Back home I definitely had issues with patience sometimes, and I really think my past three weeks here have helped me out a lot!  It’s a work in progress, but I’m glad I’m getting this all in during training before I’m sent off to be on my own for two years! 

Yes, there’s more!! What lesson would be complete without a quiz?  A couple of the answers can be found in the above (novel of a) blog post, but most are not.  All answers can be found at the bottom.

Quiz:

1. Finish the sentence: Watch out for that ________ !:

a. Pig            

b. Horse      

c. Rooster/chicken                    

d. Cow                     

e. Goat

f.  Stray dog

g. Duck

h. Drunkard

i. All of the above

2. When running in short shorts you will:

a. Actually feel strange wearing a glorified loincloth

b. Get catcalls and weird looks

c.  Have your host mom laugh at you

d.  All of the above

3. How do you say  “I don’t understand, can you slow down please” in Spanish:

a. Hola!

b. Yo no entiendo, mas dispacio por favor!

c.  Yo quiero Taco Bell

d.  Why are you asking me?! 

4. Circle all of the things that make noise at night (past a bedtime of 8:30-9pm):

a. Roosters

b. Dogs

c. Night club

d. Evangelical Church

e. Kids

f. Rain on the tin roof

g. I’m just crazy, it’s all in my head!!

h. Adorable, but unhappy 9 month old host niece

i. All of the above

5. Fill in the blank: Nighty night, don’t let the __________ bite!

a. Fleas

b. Bed bugs

c. Monster under my bed

d. Anyone’s best guess between a and b

6. If a kid in your garden starts swearing at you in English, what do you do?

a.  Tell him that he is being inappropriate and politely ask him to stop

b.  Realize that nothing you say will stop him (especially don’t know how to say much)

c.  Kick him out

d.  Ignore him until he stops

e.  d because of b

7.  Your training staff just told you that you need to start integrating into your community more by starting to talk to people as you walk down the streets.  On your first attempt to start a conversation unaided by friends or your host family, who do you approach first?

a.  The friendly old couple sitting on their porch

b.  Your neighbor who just helped teach you how to wash your underwear and socks

c.   The woman who you only realize may or may not have been a drug dealer or prostitute several minutes after saying you don’t have any money but it was a pleasure to meet you

d.  The friendly woman you buy bread from at the Pulpería

8. What name brand clothing do you see most in Carazo, Nicaragua?

a. Hollister

b. Hollister

c.  Hollister

d. Hollister

e.  All of the above

9. If you are supposed to co-teach a class with a teacher that never smiles and says she  doesn’t have enough time to co-plan with you, you should:

a. Do whatever she says, she has a wooden machete on her desk she uses as a pointing stick

b. Eventually switch to the super friendly third grade teacher in the afternoon before talking       it over with the first teacher.

c. While observing the class just sit silently next to the kid pretending to shoot the toy gun              and try not to make eye contact with the teacher.  Maybe then she’ll respect you.

d.  All of the above

10.  Despite the few negatives, you will:

a.  Grow to look forward to seeing horse or cattle draw carts in the street during class

b.  Figure out that the majority of the population is very nice and hospitable

c.  Learn to sleep through the nightly chorus of strange sounds (either that or buy earplugs)

d.  Love it in Nicaragua!

e. ALL OF THE ABOVE (hint, it’s this one!)

Answer Key:

1. h

2. d

3. b

4. i

5. d

6. e

7. c

8. a

9. d

10. e

So, I hear you want to start a Central American garden!?

Who hasn’t thought of starting a garden in Central America?  Below is a list of advice I have for you on breaking ground for your garden.  As of now, my idea is to have installments of this as we proceed with the garden, but we’ll see if anyone is still reading this that far along.  And a quick disclaimer: while it may sound like I’m trying to recruit an army of child laborers, this all takes place in a school as part of their curriculum and participation is purely voluntary.  And yes, apparently machetes are allowed on school property. 

1) First and most importantly, don’t be ashamed that the elementary schools kids that are helping you are much more efficient at clearing the land than you are.  They may laugh at your machete grass clearing technique.  If this happens hand the giant knife to the 11 year old to do it for you.  This leads me to my second point…

2) If you think that your machete is too dull, it most likely is.  That being said, once again, hand it to one of the kids.  Basically what I’m trying to get at is that a lot of these kids like working with, and are very skilled at using machetes. 

3) Playing charades can only get you so far.  Try to learn at least a bit of Spanish before you try and get kids to help you.  If you don’t, you’ll get a large crowd watching you, but not many helping.   Even if your Spanish is horrible, they tend to understand what you mean when you couple it with over exaggerated hacking motions when trying to demonstrate that they need to clear the grass. 

4) Be careful.  Too many kids (and volunteers) swinging machetes and hoes around a 6m x 7m plot can be a bit dangerous.  With this considered, bring more than 1 hoe and 1 machete. 

5) Entice them with candy.  Yes, I know I sound like that creepy guy who drives around schools in a windowless white van, but it really does work. 

6) If you happen to look down and see a large bug that may or may not be a spider, don’t freak out.  Remain calm and calmly brush it off.  Freaking out will lead to mocking laughs. 

7) As cool as they may be to watch, you don’t want to start a garden near leaf cutter ants.  I think this one’s pretty self-explanatory (we actually considered this one before we started).  

8) Try to time it while the drummers are practicing.  It is entertaining and provides a great beat to work to. 

9) As hard as it may be, accept that the kid wearing the Cubs shirt is doing more work than most of the other kids. 

10) If all else fails, talk about baseball, they love baseball.

Working on the huerto (garden)

The (almost) fully planted garden 

I hope this helps you in your pursuits of creating a school garden in Central America.  

It is definitely the rainy season!

I have to say, getting stuck in a Central American open air market during a torrential downpour at dusk was definitely an experience to remember.   Let me start from the beginning.  All of the environmental sector trainees, myself included, had just gotten back to Jinotepe from a gardening glass in an old former school (the school would be a great backdrop for a horror movie).  Anyways, before taking another microbus back to our individual training towns, we all decided to go buy our Nicaraguan cell phones.  It definitely takes longer than you’d think for 20 gringos (not a derogatory term here) to buy cell phones.  So after about an hour or so, we were ready to head back, but the sky was looking pretty ominous. 

            As we started to run to the bus stop, the sky burst open.  By this point we were in the middle of the market, and it was hard to stay dry despite being underneath a roof (well, kind of).  After a couple minutes, we somehow ended up in the entranceway of someone’s house for a good five to ten minutes.  Once the rain died down a bit, we made our way back into the market.  By this point it was starting to get darker, and we were a bit lost.  Luckily we had our language teacher to help us out a bit, but we were still wondering the streets for about ten minutes in the rain trying to get back to the main road.  This whole time I was pretty excited that I was actually cold, which doesn’t happen much with the warm tropical climate.    

            Well, we ended up finding our way back to the bus stop, and made it back in time for a late dinner with our host families.  The whole time we could not stop laughing, and I know I at least was pretty amused by the whole situation.  You’ve got to love the rainy season, I know I sure do! 

A blurry picture of the Jinotepe mercado

Claire shared my mutual excitment for getting caught in a rain storm

Unsuccessfully trying to keep my backpack dry