Diciembre en Fotos

1st Nica visit- Alyson and Scott!
San Juan del Sur
Hanging with Jesus in San Juan del Sur
Scott in a hammock with a perching cat
World AIDS Day Pool Tournament
Mom and Mad in Nicaragua!






Talented Nica Kids
Dancing with clowns
Kids @ the soup kitchen Xmas Celebration
sisters and aunt-last night...I swear I didn't cry.
Masatepe Host family kids
Our own private Christmas Day island
Mom and Sisters @ the Casa y Clinica!
Buddha Bar Granada
Are we in Nicaragua or England?? You'll never know...

Awkward Gringa Strikes Again!

This time on my bike! I was riding back to my house to grab a couple of things, following a triciclo (pedi cab), when I notice that the triciclero had dropped his shirt. I picked it up, wanting to help him out and rode my bike over to hand it back to him. You might think that the cabby would stop his bike cab in order to more easily receive his shirt. You thought wrong. He kept going. My job now was maintain my balance, continue to ride alongside the bike cab with one hand and pass him the shirt. I was doing well until I actually leaned over a bit to give him the shirt...my bike followed my lean and I ran right into the bike cab. The bike cab continued to ride away carrying his passengers to wherever they were going, while I continued to fall....in the middle of the street. And again, no one helped me. Don't get me wrong Nicaraguans are very very caring people, but for some reason when someone has a mishap in the middle of the street they do not care. They do stare, but they make no moves to help. The only person who made a reaction was this really drunk man who kept yelling to me, "Get up! Get up! You're in the middle of the street. Get up!" So helpful.

Xmas in Nica

I stood as close to the window as I could get, packed in tight surrounded by Nicaraguan families waiting for their relatives to walk off the plane. As I watched as each woman, child, man and family passed through security, I became slightly antsy and nervous that perhaps my people did not make the flight. Finally, after convincing myself that maybe they had all dyed their hair and had body transplants, I saw Carol, then Mom, then Mad and then Emma. They walked straight to the baggage claim and did not look my way. They had not seen me yet, but I watched them, willing them with my mind to stop looking for their suitcases and look through the glass window. At last, they found the last piece of luggage and turned to walk through the last security check before they could get to me. On their way out, they did look up and we saw each other. My emotions were out of control. My eyes teared up as we finally came face to face for the first time in 7 months. Man.

We headed outside where it had started to sprinkle a bit and waited for our cabbie, Moises, to pick us up and take us to Granada. Someone once said that "all great journeys start with a mistake"(that quote has been very roughly translated, by the way). Well ours did not start with a real mistake, but it did start out right from the start as an adventure. We piled 6 people, including Moises, and 5 suitcases plus carry-ons into the taxi, then get pulled over about 20 minutes into the trip. As my family does not speak nor understand too much Spanish, I think they were pretty nervous about the cop stopping us...fortunately it was just a routine checkpoint for taxis.

We continued on to Granada, sin problemas. Christmas Eve day, we spent with my training buddy, Nico, and his parents. We rented a motorboat and boated to our very own private island. Literally we had the whole island to ourselves, with exception to the restaurant owners and staff who actually live on the island. We were swimming in Lake Nicaragua off the shores of Granada (I wrote about the Isletas of Granada in a pervious post)…how fantastic. We just rented the island out for a couple hours, but if you wanted to buy an island all you would need would be $20,000 and perhaps a boat.

Christmas Day, my host family from training came to Granada and met us down by the water. It was so incredible to have all of these people so close to each other, even though they could not really speak. Through my translating, words exchanged here and there and body language, we were able to communicate well. My family and I then started looking for a rental car…we had not thought of it ahead of time that renting a car would be a lot easier than traveling by bus with all of their luggage. Lucky us that not one of the rental car companies in Granada had an automatic car available in Granada nor in Masaya. Our best bet was to make our way to Managua and try there…OR we could call up the random number I received from a hotel clerk who told me that his friend rented out cars. His name was Rafael and he was our last hope. We thought it to be a bit odd the way that we came upon Rafael, but decided to give it a try. After sitting in his living room, hearing about his family and talking car business, we were just about to give up hope, when a car pulled up. Our rental car pulled up. Our bright yellow Mitsubishi sports car complete with spoiler, loud rock n roll and remnants of marijuana smell, pulled up and we got in. With the windows down and the warm Nicaraguan wind blowing through our hair, we began our adventurous ride up to Chinandega. The ride started out fast as we got used to people staring at our hot and sexy car, but slowed down as soon as it started to get dark. We somehow got stuck behind every single slow vehicle that was on the road that night- a potato truck, a melon truck that we were almost positive was carrying a dead body and a truck so large and so overstuffed that it precariously sat on its wheels very close to tipping over. We decided to spend the night in Leon. With my fantastic sense of direction (ya right…I got lucky.), we ended up exactly where I wanted to at the Best Western in downtown Leon, settled into our room, ate supper and went directly to bed. The next morning, we finally made it to Chinandega and then to Corinto.

More to come soon…

Goals and Accomplishments

Professional Goals for 2012

-work more with sex workers-perhaps open Casa Hogar-an office and clinic for the sex workers

-write School of Youth Health Promoters curriculum

-co-run the PCV community bank well, with Ash

-make the Youth Soup Kitchen a sustainable project

-more Movie Nights!

Cool Accomplishments of 2011

-I can speak Spanish!

-have played lots of soccer

-cooked an amazing Thanksgiving turkey with Lindsey

-successfully got my family in a hot yellow sports car from Granada to Leon to Corinto

-survived my 1^st (and probably not last) parasite and amoeba infection

-convinced the mosquitoes that I’m not worth biting

-made lots of amazing Nica friends

-have integrated the nose scrunch into my daily communications

-organized World AIDS Day pool tournament

Hopes and Dreams for 2012: made by me, Lindsey, Ashley and Nelson

Oh the Places We Will Go in 2012:

1. Bluefields (for Palo de Mayo)
2. Rio San Juan (volunteer visits and kayak trip)
3. Ocotal
4. Jinotega
5. Coseguina
6. Wendy’s in Honduras
7. Isla de Ometepe
8. Costa Rica
9. El Salvador
10. Corn Island
11. Hot Springs- Chinandega
12. Boaco
13. Sol-en-something islands
14. Somoto Canyon

Oh the Things We Will Do in 2012:

1. Climb Volcano
2. Volcano boarding
3. hang hammock on a boat
4. make wine
5. Flor de Cana tour
6. cigar tour
7. Join a basketball team
8. learn to box
9. do work in site
10. salsa en Leon and Managua
11. Linds-salsa in competition
12. garden
13. compost
14. eat tejadas!! Or any type of banana!!- Lindsey
15. have a fish fry
16. lose 5 lbs
17. do more yoga
18. go net and spear fishing
19. knit baby booties
20. continue development for “3 Sisters Hostel: A Place to Stay”
21. find boyfriends (but don’t get married…or pregnant)
22. learn to do salsa turns
23. make campo oven and bake food in it
24. help Dona Gloria with jewelry
25. do nothing more often
26. visit volunteer sites
27. go to coffee farm
28. visit finca (Fundacion Cohen)
29. watch Dirty Dancing and Havana Nights
30. PACA store competition
31. surf
32. corn field hide n seek
33. country club
34. go to new mall
35. streaking
36. nude beach
37. spa package at spa in Granada
38. make cuajada
39. make bread and pitas
40. Nica cooking- perfect Gallo Pinto
41. more Leon crazy nights
42. make choreographed dance and perform it
43. do khareoke at Lindsey’s house
44. learn to do the hot hip dance move
45. grow back Ashley’s big toe nail (more of a personal goal, but we will be on hand for emotional support)
46. be the best friends we can be
47. be superior in Spanish
48. go camping
49. go “real” ziplining
50. make chocolate
51. milk a cow
52. listen to live music at Espigon on Sunday afternoon
53. drink wine at sunset at Costa Azul

Guest Blog by Sister!

Unimaginable Differences

By Emma Lena

I am still in awe of the cultural differences I encountered in Nicaragua. I was only there a week and even though it felt like longer, it still wasn't enough time to see everything. You cannot imagine the poverty. I felt guilty even thinking about complaining about the no-flush toilet. The optimism these people have will make you think it's not a third world country. Everywhere we went, people smiled, greeted us, and invited us to sit with them.

My sister, Kate, is a Peace Corps volunteer in a small city, Corinto, on the coast. Although volunteers have been going to Nicaragua for 30 years, the Peace Corps celebrated its 50th anniversary just a few weeks ago. In Nicaragua alone, there are about 240 volunteers, working in health, business, environment, agriculture, and teaching English as a foreign language.

My sister works at a youth clinic next to the hospital. It's small, but the work they do is amazing. All the youth and women that come to the clinic really trust her and she's already become a Nicaraguan. She also works at a soup kitchen, which runs solely on donations which aren’t always reliable. Compared to places like Father Bill’s in Quincy and the Pine Street Inn in Boston, it is small and a lot more crowded, but it’s still open and doing well.

Kate is lucky compared to other volunteers when it comes to living conditions. She has four stone walls, a real roof, and a window. This is not common in Nicaragua. Even the areas frequented by tourists are full of begging children and starving animals. Something I never got used to was how inexpensive everything was to us. We bought large glasses of wine for $2 and our Christmas dinner, which included steak and drinks, cost $80 for 8 of us. For Kate, wine is a luxury, and when we brought her to a laundry mat, she was overwhelmed with happiness.

Although I wouldn’t want to live there, I didn’t want to leave. Old women were walking around with these beautifully colorful and intricate aprons, carrying baskets of fruit and bags of milk on their heads. They walked through the streets at 8 in the morning, screaming, "Leche!" It was 80-90 degrees every day and I drank soda from a bag. Everywhere we went, people stared and smiled. A little girl asked to take a picture with my aunt and sister because they were white. We were like freak shows at a carnival. One thing we had to get used to was the noise. During December, people are shooting off fireworks and other extremely loud noisemakers constantly during the day. There was not a moment of quiet all week, except maybe when we were sleeping...maybe.

Being in the Peace Corps and living in this way is something so foreign to most Americans. While there I got a small taste of what it is like, and although I believe I adapted well, being there for 2 1/2 years is something I cannot imagine. I admit I loved the bucket showers, but I did not love the cold water. If you do not filter the water there, you could get a parasite. Here in the United States, even the poorest people have hot water and electricity.

Despite all of this, Nicaraguans have free health care, free education, and they were the friendliest people I have ever met. The whole country is beautiful and I cannot wait to go back in January 2013 to visit her again.

GUEST Blog from MOM on keeping in touch with your PC volunteer

lindsey in chinandega invited me to write a guest blog ( a while ago) about staying in touch with your peacecorp person, family or friend. my daughter kate has been in nicaragua just over a year, and in corinto about 9 months. lindsey had noticed when she visited kate, that kate always had new cards or pictures on her wall or refrigerator, from me, her sisters, my sisters, her father, the grandmothers, and various and sundry friends.mail to nicaragua is not bad, most letters and cards arrive in 5-6 days up to 2 weeks, all for $.98. we'd include photos or sometimes checks. packages are a different story. they'd arrive in a timely enough manner, 10 days to 2 weeks, but a 4-5 lb package that i could mail to vermont for $4-$5 will cost $40-$50 to send to nicaragua. we found a cheaper way to send things. if you know a pcv who's coming home to visit, you can mail a smallish item much more cheaply to that person's us address, and they can carry it back. kate came home early in her service and did bring two items back, one very small, and one not so small (maybe size 15 sneakers.) seriously, she was happy to do it. we also stay in touch using the peacecorps cell phone, which is great, (very different than communication with a pcv in niger that we knew of who had to take a 4-6 hour trip from her site to a phone). you can get international phone cards here, but success getting through varies greatly. also i don't usually get the total minutes that i'm promised, and often get cut off mid call. its about half the cost if your pcv can call you from a call center. skype is another great and free way to communicate with anyone in nicaragua. its actually free if they have internet, and low cost if they need to buy time at the call/internet centers. some smoothie cafes have free wifi, i've heard., if your pcv has a computer. whats great about skype is that you get to see your person and the sound is like they are in the room with you. so we dont really feel like we're so far apart from kate. one last note: if at all possible, visit your peacecorps family member or friend. it was hugely important for me, and for kate, to see and for her to show us where she lives and works, and for us to meet a lot of the people that she lives and works with. i had a pretty accurate picture in my head of her house and somewhat accurate picture of the towns in nicaragua but the reality overwhelmed me. kate's sisters, one of my sisters, and i had a truly fabulous and unforgettable christmas in nicaragua.

Lizards on My Face

As the title of this short post says, a lizard fell on my face/neck yesterday.