16 de Octubre de 2007

Well it´s been an interesting 2 weeks or so since my last entry. I spent 4 days last week at a volunteers site with 5 fellow aspirantes, learning lots of technical skills and just seeing what it´s like in a small community similar to where I´ll be placed. I almost didn´t make it to ¨tech days¨as I finally got sick and spent the Sunday before last throwing up and wishing I had never drank that glass of water at the restaurant the previous night. Since I was one of the very few that hadn´t gotten sick, I started feeling pretty strong and invincible and let my guard down. I was definately regretting it the next day as I was packed onto a hot bus winding around small mountain roads with my stomach full of nacatamales (my first ever here). Luckily I made it home without losing the contents of my stomach, but not without being harrassed by local men making cat calls as I was about to puke.
The next morning I felt much better and made my way to the departing site for our tech days. And of course, what was the first meal served to us there??? Nacatamales (think rice and pork stuffed mushy moist version of a normal tamale). Let´s just say I cant even think of them anymore without feeling slightly naseous.
Anyways, during our tech days we made an improved stove out of mud, horse manure, and bricks, planted a protein bank, made cattle feed from scratch (picking and toasting marango leaves ourselves), went on a scavenger hunt for plants and people, planted coffee trees, vaccinated more chickens, visited a waterfall, crossed MANY quebradas (creeks) knee deep (those Keens really came in handy), attended a community bank meeting, and showered in shorts and a tshirt in front of all the others, while controlling the water with my finger as it shot forcefully out of a pvc pipe coming from the rainwater-caught water tank.
The constant rain that week meant that we were constantly crossing creeks and either covered in mud or wet. I ended the week with Keen shaped dirt stained feet, but well worth it.
All that rain also meant that 24 short hours after returning back to our training towns we were consolodated to the peace corps office in Estelí and told we were all being taken to Managua because of the threat of tropical storms. At that point last Friday it had been raining in Estelí for 15 days straight and a large part of the Pan American highway south of us had crumbled. When I say crumbled, I mean that a huge chunk of highway just fell to the ground like a crater had hit it. So with all that rain and more storms coming in, Peace Corps felt like we were in danger.
We spent the first day and a half at a terrible ¨training center¨ with dorm beds and fried bologne and a hot dog bun for breakfast. But after being in the campo for a month, the running water, dry bed, and cable TV was a luxury for me. But it wasn´t really set up for all 40 of us for a number of days.
So on Saturday they moved us back to the beautiful Best Western hotel that we stayed at the first few days in Managua. I can´t tell you how much I appreciated all these amenities that I missed. I was in heaven with a hot shower, a sink and running water and a mirror, air conditioning, food (oh how wonderful it is to have vegetables, meat, and chocolate cake again), and a dry bed. Back in my training site, the night before I left, my roof started to leak right over my face in my bed, and things were starting to get pretty moist in my room with the leaky roof.
On Sunday, it was hard to believe that we were in the midst of a tropical storm as I layed by the pool and swam all day. Oh I even got to run on a treadmill and use some weights! And to top it off, I watched Gray´s Anatomy, in english, last night!!! It´s funny the things I´m doing here. I never would have enjoyed sitting in a hotel room watching cable TV and drinking crappy sugar filled soda at home, but for some reason, I´m enjoying it now. Maybe because it´s a small luxury that I don´t indulge in often.
Most of us were enjoying our surroundings, but also feeling quite guilty for being gone from our sites and families and living this very lush, un-Peace Corps life.
And now day number 5 here and we´re all feeling ready to go. Word from headquarters is that we will be here until Thursday morning as long as no more heavy storms come in. There has been a lot of damage to the highways from flooding. Semi trucks turned over, bean crops lost, homes damaged, and people injured.
Apparently the precipitation seen from the last storm that came through was equal to the precipitation from Hurricane Mitch. So Peace Corps decision to consolidate us was not for nothing.
And just so you don´t think all I´ve been doing here in Managua is enjoying the good life, peace corps has been keeping us busy with charlas and interviews and language classes.
Today we watched a documentary (in spanish) about teenage pregnancy in Nicaragua and discussed ways that we can help prevent this during our service. Tomorrow we are going to visit the Agricultural college here in Managua to check out their lombriculture program. And Friday we have our site assignments!!! After my interview with my APCD (ag program director) today, I have a good idea of where I´ll be going. I´ll let you all know next week where my home for the next two years will be!
That´s all for now. Hope everyone is doing well back home.