Monday, December 31, 2007

Photos

Christmas Day with Maritz, Ledi, and Terling.
Segovian Mountains
Niko the cat staying warm under the oven.
Here comes the bus!

Maritza preparing pollo for dinner.

Photos

Hacienda Party!

Giving the peliguey rum before killing it.
Taking part in the skinning


Making Nacatamales on Christmas







31 de Diciembre 2007

The last day of 2007 and I´m celebrating on ¨vacation¨. Myself and 3 other volunteers have taken a trip to Matagalpa and are enjoying getting to know this cool misty mountain town. We´re also greatly enjoying the variety of foods we get to eat, like granola batidos, coffee ice cream, hamburgers, french fries, and beer! And we´re really looking forward to italian food and wine tonight!
Living in the campo and being so far from a city, unlike some of the other volunteers, has its advantages. When the 3 of us living in Nuevo Segovia make the 2 hour or more trip to a city, we really appreciate the small things like a grocery store with chocolate and peanut butter, having a burger and beer for dinner, being able to shop for things we need, and indoor plumbing. And the best part is always coming home. Although I always look forward to my ¨trips¨to the city, I love stepping off the hectic bus after a few loud days in town, to the peace and quiet of my community and being able to say ¨adios¨to the neighboorhood kids greeting me.
The last few weeks have brought more activity than the first few in my site. I´m not quite sure if I´m just getting used to not having much to do each day or if I actually have more activities. I think its a combination of both. I´ve been busy sharing ideas with my new counterpart, transcribing gardening information into spanish, using my creativity to plan for my first womens group meeting, thinking of resourceful ways to ward off chickens from eating my worms in my vermiculture project, getting my hands dirty planting more vegetable and tree seeds (25 vivero bags the other day!), milking cows, riding a borrowed bike around ¨town¨, and attending fiestas.
As Mancho and I were navigating our bikes down a washed out steep dirt hill, I couldn´t help but smile and think how this mode of everyday transportation here reminds me of a weekend mountain biking activity. I realized I was in the perfect place when I thought of how my daily routine here required me to hike through forests, mountain bike, and ride horses. All activities I would go the extra mile to do at home. And I even love riding on the buses here. Even if it means being completely over-the-max stuffed into a bus with my skirt flipping up everytime the handle of the emergency back door opened to let out pasengers.
As for parties, I was lucky enough to attend a graduation party way up in the mountains at a beautiful hacienda owned by the mayor of a local town. The hacienda required 2-3 hours of driving up amazing twisting & turning dirt roads high up into the Segovian mountains, crosing creeks and cow pastures to get there. We arrived and were greated by the owner with a rifle in one hand and a hand out to shake with the other, plus a toothbrush and toothpaste tucked into his shirt pocket. We immediately got into the killing of that nights dinner-a peliquey (sheep-goat cross). My friend and I were lucky enough to get our hands dirty and take part in the skinning and butchering of the animal. I was more than excited, to say the least, and got to dissect the heart and try to remember all those anatomical words I learned this last year.
Surely thinking the 5 year old ¨sheep¨was going to be tough mutton, I was surprised to taste the best meat I´ve had yet in Nicaragua. It must have been that rum they gave it right before the killing.
The rest of the night was filled with lots of food, drink, music, dancing, and horseriding. My first time on a horse here in Nicaragua (finally) and after accidently letting a bull out into the cow pasture, I quickly herded him back through the gate and out of the cows. Then proceeded down the mountain with the old vaquero on the back, arguing in spanish with another friend about the proper noises to command a horse.
I guess my spanish is improving. Poco a poco.
Christmas here was different and pretty uneventful. The 24th is the more celebrated day and includes women spending the day making the classic nica food ¨nacatamales¨. I enjoyed hanging out in the kitchen with the women learning and helping to make these softer, moister versions of a mexican tamale. Rather than being wrapped in corn husks and cooked, they are steamed in banana leaves.
Although women spend most of the day cooking, like we do in the states, the day ended without a big family meal and rather individuals grabbing a nacatamale and eating it alone at different times. Giving gifts is also not a tradition, which is fine with me, as I´ve always thought this was an over-commercialized part of xmas anyways. However, I really did appreciate those xmas packages I received from my parents this year. Mmmm....ghiradelli chocolate and photos from home. Christmas here also included (if you´re catholic) lots of drinking and partying late into the night. There were many, many bolos running around those 2 days. One of which arrived at our house horseback. Myself being so enamorated with horses ran out to ride his horse, but was stopped by my host family who wouldn´t let me ride off with a bolo. There overbearing protection is good at times :)
Since I´ve been training for a half-marathon here in March, I´ve been diligently running every morning. I accomplished a 50 minute run 2 days ago that I never would of thought possible for myself a few months ago. I now have so much confidence and faith that I´ll be able to reach that 13 mile mark in a few months! Anyways, on my morning run through the pine forest I spotted a vacant house that just might be mine in a couple of months. It´s a cute little adobe house with dirt floors tucked back into the pine forest with a yard of lemon grass, banana and mango trees, and the perfect place to plant a garden. The floors are dirt and the conditions are a little rough, but the peace and tranquility of the location are amazing. Up and down 2 hills, cross a creek and you´ve arrived. But its all still only a 10 minute walk to the carreterra, bus stop, local store, and my host family´s home. There´s some repairs that need to be done and not sure if it´ll be approved by Peace Corps, but I´m keeping my fingers crossed.
Getting this new place fixed up, working on my spanish, and planting huertos with the ladies should keep me busy over the next few weeks.
Happy New Year to all and hope you´re enjoying the cold weather and maybe even snow that I´m missing here!

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

11 de Diciembre

After my last post, I got extremely sick again and spent the whole night and next day in bed. Today I´m still struggling with whatever it is I have and awaiting lab results, which like the veggies, are hard to get around here. After missing the bus this morning, I started the hour long walk to town with my sample in my backpack. Second time in 2 days and after arriving, found out that the doctor at the lab is on vacation! About ready to give up and just live with this bug in me for another week, I decided to try the health center, which normally doesn´t service foreigners. But being very friendly and courteous, they decided to run the test for me...thank you Centro de Salud de Jicarro! Hopefully this time I won´t have cryptosporosis, like my last bought of illness in Managua. Did I mention I almost missed my big swearing-in ceremony because I was trying to drop off a stool sample at the hospital in Managua and then racing across town, arriving with only 10 minutes to spare! But I made it and also made it onto nationally televised TV, with the rest of the PC group and US ambassador. And I was well enough to celebrate that evening with the PC group. Managua was a good trip...2 weeks of luxury and eating well. But I was definately ready to leave when it was over.
As for life here, things just seem to take longer around here. Kind of like the simple errand to get milk this morning. I remember back in Salem walking 4 blocks to the mini mart and picking up a gallon. Not here, my milk errand involved a 15 minute bike ride, 2 houses, a chat with a seƱora, and milking the cow myself by hand. It definately made it worth it!
Although I´m still struggling for things to do here, I´m starting to work with a guy in the community named Mancho. This week we are going to the homes of the different women for me to meet them and view their patios, which are actually large yards where they grow all sorts of veggies and fruits and plants and keep their animals.
Mancho is a great guy to work with, he´s really excited about working with me and trying new things, he already has tons of medicinal plants growing, a vermiculture project, he makes wine that he exports to Spain, and is in his first year of vet health worker training. Yesterday he showed me all his manuals and vet books, which were made by an american vet for the organization he works for here in Nicaragua. All of the books are in spanish of course, but I get the general jist of it and its great to be exposed to vet medicine again...it makes me so excited. In January, a team of americans are coming to finish construction on the lab in his patio, which I´ll be a part of and also helping him learn and work in the lab. I´m also really excited about this.
Also working on planting a garden with my host mom. It all sounds so simple but things take so much time here. For example, we have to build a fence for the garden to protect it from the chickens but finding the materials to build a fence without spending money they dont have takes time. And getting water throughout summer is a challenge, as is finding a container for the worms to make compost (I think I´ll be using an old tire that I learned to flip in training).
So I´m staying busy for the mean time and meeting new people each day and of course, improving my spanish.
And looking forward to the beach trip for New Years!

Thursday, December 6, 2007

06 de Diciembre

What´s new now? Trying to get out into the community and meet new people. Hard to do when my host family is so great. And especially hard to do when my communication skills are limited. But I started a community map yesterday, which means I have to walk around the community and plot all the houses and resources. The minute I stepped out my door, I ran into one of the kids I know who took me to the neighbor´s house. A little awkard to walk up to a strangers with no real reason to be there. But being the warm and welcoming Nicas that they are, I was immediately offered a seat and we chatted for at least an hour and I´m returning today to gift them some vegetable seeds and start a garden with them.
Also looking forward to the garden I will be starting with my host mom and the lombriculture project I´m starting also (a worm compost for the garden).
I now realize why Nicas in the campo dont eat very many vegetables, they are damn hard to get. The nearest market with veggies is 2 hours away. So unless you grow them, you´re limited to tomatoes and onions and the occassional truck that drives by and sells fruit.
I made a friend the other day that is about my age and shes super friendly and talkative and from Managua, which means her spanish is MUCH easier to understand. Also, I met the woman that bakes bread in the community and visited the nearby river for some jumping and playing with the dog and my 8 year old host brother.
And I´m lucky enough to have 2 other PC volunteers close to me, so we meet every week to express much needed feelings that are so hard to do in spanish with our nica friends.
Thats about all for now. One of these days I will post about my time in Managua.
Adios

Saturday, December 1, 2007

01de Diciembre

Wow, December already. Its hard to believe when its hot and sunny outside. It just doesnt feel like its getting close to christmas.
So much has happened since my last entry, but I just never seem to have enough time at the computer to write. So this is a shortened version with more to come.
Ive been in my site now for 1 week and I´m much happier here than in training. Life is much slower...tranquilo. No more spanish classes (although I try to study a little bit everyday) and running around to different training classes.
Ive been spending most of my time this last week getting settled in and hanging out around the house, meeting different people that come by and those who live in the casas of the errands I run for my host mom. I do admit, though, that Im getting a little bored. The american in me wants to go, go, go. Im trying to enjoy this slower pace of life-reading in the hammock, chatting, and just relaxing. Its hard to just sit and chat, though, when my language skills only carry a basic conversation. Also, reading is not a common practice for Nicas. They prefer to just sit and talk.
I have done a few activities this week. I learned how to make mazapan, cuajata (a type of cheese) from fresh milk, helped milk a cow by hand, made my own coffee, dried marango leaves, played with the kids, attended a couple graduation parties (one of which was ended by drunk fighting and gun firing), met some new people, bonded with the cat, desgranared a lot of corn, and explored a couple new towns nearby. I also had the chance to watch a small bit of the bean harvest yesterday, which is all done by hand, and very labor intensive, using lots of hands, backs, and horses. And also ran errands by bike, by foot, and by ox cart.
Thats all for today.