More Interesting Happenings, Thoughts and Explanations

1. Marango- a very nutritious plant that can grow very very tall when not cut. The leaves can be added to any meal to boost up the amount of nutrients you are eating. We grow this at the comedor and use it in most of our meals.

2. Some Current Enemies of Mine- flies, small pesky bugs, too much oil, salt and sugar, cockroaches, the Yankees, rats

3. Breast Milk- there is a lot you can say about breast milk and the importance of breastfeeding…unfortunately I was not trained on this. Because of my so-called artistic ability, I have been recruited to make a large poster highlighting why new mothers should breast feed. While talking to a “wise” friend of mine about this, his response was, “well…you have breasts…”-like that somehow makes me a breastfeeding expert. Although he is right, mine have never been used to feed anyone, therefore I will have to rely on books to give me this information.

4. Apparently I have had a cough and a congested head for the past week because I walked in the rain once without a jacket and in flip flops.

5. There is a Sherwin Williams here in Chinandega! I’m thinking a nice lilac will be a good way to brighten up my new home.

6. We have 3 computers in the Casa y Clinica-they are all broken.

7. Tuani/Salvaje- both really awesome and fun words to say that mean “cool”

8. There is no real translation to Spanish for the word awkward…many times I have wanted to use that word.

9. Whoever said that the winter/rainy season here would be much cooler…you have obviously never been to Corinto.

10. Go BRUINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday, Wednesday and Friday: the children come to eat: babies, families, 16 year old mothers with their 2 year old babies, barefoot boys who live on the streets…there are usually anywhere from 20 to 35 children who come to eat. 3 out of the 27 meals there are in a week seems so little in comparison to what they need. Speaking to a very skinny little boy the other day, I asked, “When you are not at the comedor, how many meals do you eat a day?” His response was, “one…sometimes two” It was sad. There is not much else to say about it-I would like to do more, but cannot really give food or money. From how I have described this boy, you probably have a picture in your head of how he looks and acts. You may be picturing one of those children from the heart-wrenching TV ads for the Feed the Children program. At first glance, from the eyes of a stranger, you would be correct. But once you introduce yourself, you will receive a huge hug, lots of laughs and a beautiful smile. Once you start playing with him, you will realize that he has so much energy and creativity. You’ll find out that at the age of 8, he can make you a kite that actually flies, dragging its long tail behind it; or weave you a giant fishing net. This child, while small, has a big heart. All of the children who come to the comedor do. They show it by helping to clean before and after meals, by stacking chairs or by passing food out to the other children. They draw pictures of beautifully rainbowed houses by flowing rivers, spaceships and aliens attacking the world (in the most positive way possible) and eating me and Christian (they do actually like Christian and me-the kids that is, not the aliens). While they may sometime say means thing, ask too many questions or do things that they shouldn’t, they are children and they deserve a childhood. Some days I do get frustrated-having 10 jovenes asking at the same time for their toothbrushes, while another 5 are busy throwing rocks-my patience is tested. Always closely following an annoying episode, a child will ask or do something so child-like, so hilarious, that I cannot help but laugh and continue to dole out brushes and paste. Although I cannot personally give more food or money, hopefully with the help of toothbrushes, aliens and games; I am giving something.

Its Raining Men!

June 7th

Just kidding...but it is raining...a lot. It is officially the raining season. The rain falls hard off and on today, with thunder rumbling not too far away. I sit in the living room, enjoying hte cool breeze that is a stranger to the department of Chinandega. Last night I even slept in long pants and socks...and I was not sweating. This is something I had not experienced yet here in Nica. As I sit in the house with my host sister and mother, the rain continues to fall and the street begins to fill with water. It has been raining hard for about 40 minutes now. There is a dog standing on an island of dry land in the middle of the street. On both sides, where the street dips down, the water reaches half-way to my knees and has a current strong enough to carry a bottle or stick from one end of the street to the other. People bike by in bright yellow ponchos and walk with umbrellas. I half expect someone to float by in a rubber raft, but this does not happen. I am still waiting. In some places the water has risen over the curb, but it does not flow over into our house. Our hallway though, is full of buckets catching rain water from the many holes in the roof. My host family just puts the buckets where they need to be and go back to their novela-this is normal for them. For me though, the rain filled street and the way Corinto is transformed, still intrigues me. I could stand out on our covered patio and watch the rain, the running river our street has become and the people going by, for hours. My heart does go out though, to the poor dog, still standing on the island, just waiting for his home to return to normal.

More Fotos

The library that is being built by my office-it will be a space for the youth of Corinto to come to look up information for school projects, health questions etc...The inauguration will be early July!

Oh you know, just a horse hiding out on the hospital grounds.

Carlitos

La Casa y Clinica team! From left to right: Doña Socorro (cook at the comedor infantil), Evan (ex PC volunteer who I am replacing), me!, Xiomara (my Nica counterpart), Doña Johanna (cook), Carlitos (Johannas son) and Christian (German volunteer and my coworker).

Doña Marcia, Evan, Xiomara y Christian at an HIV/Aids fair in the park in Corinto-in about 4 hours we tested 40 people.

Splish Splash

I know I already wrote a blog about how I have been doing my laundry, but what could be better than a video and some photos! It usually takes me 35 to 45 minutes to do a decent amount of laundry...make it an hour or more if I have to wash my sheets and towels.
This is the pila that I use to wash my clothing...you use a huge amount of water washing, but since it is the rainy season now, water is not something that we will be running out of soon!

Seafood Fest Especial 2011

Having attended food festivals before, I basically knew how this one would work. You buy tickets and these tickets will get you a plate of food, in this case, seafood. The amount of tents and stands with different types of seafood was almost overwhelming! Each tent had more or less 6 to 10 different seafood dishes, including ceviche, fried fish, breaded shrimp, shrimp in tomato sauce, fish soup, fish lasagna, fish cakes, shrimp cakes and of course-rice and beans. While I understood how to attend a food fest and how to eat at a food fest, I never had experienced all of the hard work and food preparation that actually goes into making a festival successful. I had also never really cooked or worked a lot with fish...that is...until now.
Friday and Saturday night, I spent with fish. Friday night began at about 6 pm with shrimp shelling. This job was fairly easy and did not leave my hands too smelly. Shrimp shelling and gossip telling was followed by onion cutting. I actually LOVE chopping onions, so I was disappointed when they told me they just needed the onions cut into quarters... Anyway, this job was also enjoyable. Next we had a dinner of fried fish, straight off the pan, with salad and bread-absolutely delicious. The shrimp we had been cleaning was being prepared for ceviche mixta-Ceviche mixta combines fish cubes and shrimp, which ends up being cooked by lime juice-the acidity of lime juice somehow makes the fish not raw. You then mix the lime cooked fish and shrimp with ground up celery, tomato, pepper and I think a little bit of chili. The ceviche is served with club crackers and tastes fantastic. This is a really great dish for a hot day because the fish is so fresh and cold. yum. The next task began at about 8:30 pm. This job was tedious, detailed and made my hands cramp up after about half an hour-de-boning fish. Did you know that fish have about a million or so tiny tiny bones in their small bodies? Millions. Each of those tiny miniscule spines have to be removed in order to make fish cakes. We spent about 2 hours removing these bones and when I left with my host sister at 10:30, there was still a huge amount of fish to debone. The people who actually were cooking all of the food were up until midnight, slept for about 2 hours and then woke up to start cooking. They cooked from 2 am until 2 pm...crazy. The next morning I arrived at the house at about 7 am to help cook. After peeling limes, it was time to use that annoying deboned fish to make the fish cakes. That same ground up celery, tomato and peppers mix that was used for the ceviche is added to the fish. You also mix in flour, rice, eggs and salt. You mix it all together with your hands until it is a sticky consistency, like that of a hamburger. A fellow fish de-boner and I formed (and to be honest I am not sure of the exact number) at least 150 fish patties. To say the least, my hands smelled like fish for 2 whole days and I even dreamt of fish on Friday night...My life for that weekend was taken over by the fish of Corinto.
Sidenote: If you hate fish, I recommend not coming to visit the last weekend of April, beginning of May, because your life will also be taken over by fish.

Finally Fotos of My Life

Site placement!

Alessandro.

masatepe brother and sister Gisselle y Josue

Masatepe girls

Masatepe youth group!

shaved ice postre

Nico y los chavalos from the neighborhood-very attractive style

Traveling in crowded old schoolbusses is a pretty amazing experience

Laguna de Apoyo

My room in Corinto

Xiomara-my counterpart and her daughter Ayling selling jewelry at the seafood fest!

Where I work-La Casa y Clinica de los Adolescentes

Finally volunteers!

This is where I live...

If you click on the photos you can enlarge them!! And now that I have figured out how to post pictures there will be more to come!