Essa's (Vanessa's) Nica adventure vol. I

An overdue farewell

2007-12-27T18:21:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

I've been negligent to my blog...sorry. I've been home for almost two months now, and have been so visiting friends all over Arizona and California that I haven't had a chance to write my last blog entry. So, now that Christmas is over and everyone is comatose fromm too much food, I'll take this opportunity to wrap this thing up...

The last few months were busy finishing up projects with the kids, final youth group meetings and a pump test that the local water utility was very generous to donate for my thesis work...here are the guys who did two and a half days of work for me...

And the exciting part of a pump test...which you can see is about as fun as watching water flow out of a pipe all day:

So, turning to more interesting things - here are some photos from some of my despedidas - or farewell parties:

We arranged a trip to the zoo with the school kids for one final hurrah while I was there...here are the kids and moms piled into the truck to take us there:

Kids from the group I helped lead on a trip through the zoo...and the monkeys hoping for a cheeto from the kids:

After the education tour, there were several dancing numbers by some of the kids, speeches, and a little gift exchange.

A final shot of the kids and moms I worked with:

I made it to the opening season game for the Chicas Lakers - they awarded me the trophy we had one at a recent tournament:

And my good friend, and teammate, Ada planned a farewell party for me after the game:

This is my mixed origin group of friends - Nicaraguan, US, Swedish, and Finnish at one of our last get togethers:

So, that's about it. Guense and I left the country without any hang ups on November 2nd, as was lucky enough to have some good Peace Corps friends see me off at the airport. I have talked to a number of my friends back in Nicaragua...they are as gracious as ever and are really looking forward to my return (Spring break 2008)...

as am I.

2 months to go...

2007-09-02T15:15:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

I finally got to put together the video footage I took on the chemical volcano building day at the school last March...

Click To Play

Here are some pictures I took from Environment Week we celebrated at the school - we collected lots of trash, had a clean yard contest with members of the community, and learned about proper waste management and personal hygiene with some support from the government ministries of the environement and health.

Here's the whole school in front of the banner we made. It says, "We're responsible - we throw trash in it's place - do you?"

Peace Corps volunteer wedding fever

To date, 5 of the 14 elegible bacholorette Peace Corps Volunteers in my group have either married or are to be married soon to Nicaraguans. Could be a new record. Here's Lindsay and Luis after taking their vows...fun dancing followed!

Santa Lucia

A small group of my friends decided to take a weekend trip to a nearby beautiful town to take in the sites. There is some spectacular - and strenuous - hiking around the area. Most of the towns people have their plots of land they use to grow beans and corn, but we could see that they are using plenty of good farming techniques - erosion barriers, polyculture, and alternatives to burning fields.

Here's Fatima, Sarah (PCV), two of our many children guides), and Henry. Sarah came down from up north to my site to visit for a very busy weekend. Fatima and Henry are some of my best friends here in Nicaragua - Fatima is Nicaraguan and has finished her master's in sociology in Managua, and Henry is from Sweden, but has lived here for 6 years or so. He is finshing his degree on-line in permaculture. They have bought some land a few hours from the city and are currently having a house built. As their farm grows - using the farming techniques that Henry is learning about now - they would like to open it as a training center for other small farmers - focusing on more sustainable and lower impact farming. Currently, until Henry finishes up, they are starting a small scale jam business here in town.

Cactus along the way.

Henry told me these, in English, are called Ice Cream Beans. You don't actually eat the beans, but instead suck off the slightly sweet cotton candy like fuzz surrounding each one.

Some of the great views from above.

Noemi in our prison cell-like room for the night.

Hiking Volcan Telica

A tour operator in Leon offers a moonlight hike up one of Nicaragua's volcanoes - called Volcan Telica. It is still active, and it's last eruption was in 2000...I think? A bunch of us decided to go up it - here we are before starting out at about midnight. There were about 35 people in the group. It took us about 4 hours to get to the top, but really it's about 3 hours over almost flat land just to get to the base, and then one hour or so up.

Here's the same group at about 5 am. The big draw of the hike is to see the lava in the crater - it shows up really well in the dark. Unfortunatley, there was too much smoke coming out for us to get a glimpse down the crater. One of the benefits of hiking a volcano in Nicaragua is there are no safety restrictions - you could easily sacrifice yourself, or someone else, if you wanted to.

As the sun came up, we got a better view of the crater...it's very peaceful and quiet up there.

Crossing through one of the bean fields.

Finally, looking back towards the volcano.

Tisey

Alberto Gutierrez is an old timer practicing a forgotten art. He carves figures into rock walls near his home. Many show Nicaragaun historical figures, but there are also lots of wild animals and some religious alter type art as well. He's really a character - and he loves his work - he dedicates 4 hours every day to carving and has done so since the earlly 70s. He explained nearly every piece he's done, and after each explanation, would finish with a little self-depreciatory giggle.

When we were leaving Gutierrez's home, I sighted this strange "phenomena" in the sky...no one I've shown it to knows what it is...if you do, please write me!

Ramona's 19th birthday

My neighbor Ramona celebrated her 19th birthday and invited me to eat with them. She's on the far left, her husband is next to her. To my right and left are my landlady, Chilo, and Ramona's 15-year old sister, Elda. The husband usually only comes on the weekends, and Ramona and Elda and I share a backyard, so we've gotten close. That happens when you accidently walk in on someone in the latrine. It is good to have them near me because they always seem to be happy. I always hear peals of high-pitched Elda laughs coming through my walls.

Close of Service Conference

At the end of every group's service, Peace Corps holds a conference at the swankiest beach resort in Nicaragua for the soon to be RPCVs (return peace corps volunteers). All you can eat food and drink, and very very cold conference rooms. Logistics on how to get out of the peace corps is carefully explained ad nauseam. Everyone just wanted to get out to the gigantic pool with their Nica libres in hand.

Time is winding down for us here. Among our group, talk has turned from Peace Corps projects and living overseas challenges to what's coming next...

RSJ and UNAN

2007-06-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)

WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

El Castillo and the Rio San Juan

My friend Jose Luis came to visit from Arizona and we decided to brave the 15 hour boat ride across Lake Nicaragua to get a glimpse of the Rio San Juan. The river is a disputed border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica...in the past Costa Rica has treid to capture the area, no doubt for development. Nica is not having any of that and maintians control. The area is quite remote now, but was hopping at the turn of the centuary when it was a major thouroghfare for north americans traveling from the Atlantic to the Pacific. There is about a 20km track of land that kept Nicaragua from stealing Panama's fate. There were big plans for developing the waterway, but investors finally opted to put the canal further south. Since then, they say the Rio San Juan is better conserved now than 100 years ago.

Here's Jose Luis and I with two chavalos in the town of El Castillo. We played a little two-on-two until Jose Luis called it off claiming I had broken his toe. (it wasn't, but it was badly bruised).

El Castillo, a Spanish fort, was built to protect Nicaragua (which was under Spanish rule at the time), from, literally, the pirates of the Carribean. This river drains Lake Nicaragua, and the important colonial city of Granada sits on its shores.

Here's the Rio San Juan. I was a little disapointed in the lack of fauna...we only saw one monkey and one toucan. But I imagine those motor boats, which are equivalent to the fleets of old yellow school buses that transport people, chickens, and bags of beans from one town to the another have frightened them all away.

The flora was another thing altogether, as very dense rainforest flanks the banks of the river. Now these are impressive leaves (gringa for scale).

The only little sidewalk road in El Castillo, a town of about 3,000, I think. There are no cars, and we didn't even see any horses or cows, people just pulled their own little carts.

A Rio San Juan version of the family minivan.

University field trip

My counterpart and I arranged a trip to a local university, Universidad Autonomo de Nicaragua (UNAN), for the students of the rural school I work at. 19 kids from the community and one mother attended the trip.It was a great success, mostly because the university president loved the idea. He accompanied the children to and from the school in the private university bus, as well as on the tour of the university. Here they are in a question answer session.

They were all given a class on computers and the internet. I was impressed - they're all flat screen computers...we dont' even have those at my university!

Yassel, Fabiola, and Leisi, two are recent 6th grade graduates who are attending high school on Sundays. During the week Yassel works at her family's store, and Fabiola is caring for her sick mother. Leisi is still in 6th grade.

The president gave the kids a tour of his office, in which he has lots of Latin American articfacts and art that he has collected in his travels.

We got to watch a girls team practice Judo, and a couple of guys practice Tae Kwon Do. He talked about the university athletic teams they could join at length.

All in all it was a great visit...my counterpart and I are just hoping it serves to show the kids (and parents) that the university is not a far away, unatainable goal. It's only 7 km from their rural community.

Samana Santa and Chinandega

2007-05-16T08:58:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)

WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

Sanana Santa is an important week long festival in Latin American countries. There are usually lots of processions and parades, stations of the cross, and the church encourages people to reflect on Jesus's suffering. But one of my friends said at a church service, the priest was hoppin' mad at all the folks (the majority of the population) who use the week to get out of town, vacation, visit the beach, drink and make merry. I ended up working much of the week anyway, but did manage to visit a family that have a small ranch a few hours from town. When I got off the bus, the dad was waiting with a horse for me and we hoofed it about an hour to the farm.

What did we do at the farm?

Made 1000s of Nacatamales - almost like the tamales the northern Mexicans make, but folded in banana leaves instead of corn husks. The experience has made me go off meat when I saw a pig's eyeball - still in the socket - carried off by a diseased puppy. I didn't eat many Nacatamales after that.

We went to the river to swim.

They guys box - 3 minute rounds. Neighboring farm hands came from all around for the festivities.

Horseback ride.

Herd cattle.

Bronc ride - but these cowboys wear plastic flip flops.

There was also a dance - which the farm hands got all slickerd up for. There was no electricity, so the stereo was hooked up to car batteries and worked well for about an hour. So it was a short dance. In bed by 9.

Trip to the Northern Pacific coast

Noemí, Celine, and I, all volunteers from the central part of the country, made the trek up north to visit a couple of other long lost volunteers. They live in a department called Chinandega, which has a lot of volcanoes, dust, and heat. But they also have coastline. Here's the three of us with Sarah. Sarah lives in a small town only a stone's throw from the beach...but her trips there are limited because there is a major port not too far from there. Port means trucks and trucks mean truckers. They are some of the most anoying people in Nicaragua because of their endless piropos (catcalls) - the blond and blue eyed is so exotic that they can't contain themselves. It really gets on the nerves and I could write a whole volumes of books on how much many women volunteers hate it. However, one feels strengthened in groups, so we went together - got in some good swimming and good fish.

Who says there is no truth in advertising?

We went to the annual Food Festival in Corinto. Good fish and seafood, cold beer. Yum.

Some of the cultural figures and dances of Nicaragua:

The Gueguense character (and my dog's namesake).

They really like these traditional dances where the women balance things on their heads.

A few snapshots from the beach:

On our way back home, we stopped in and visited SandyKelly. (Although they are actually two people, they are married and people in their site actually refer to both of them individually as SandyKelly). This picture was taken from a newly constructed viewpoint in their town. In the background, the volcano Momotombo is visible.

SandyKelly have a Spanish version of Cranium - it was fun. But perhaps not quite as fun as Sandy is making it appear.

...but it's a dry heat??

2007-03-28T08:37:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education

WHERE: Nicaragua

WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07

WHY: La vida es un carnaval

The water crisis in my city is brutal now. We have used all the water in the 900 gallon water tank we have and are now buying 55 gallon barrels at a time. I have to admit I wasn't too stressed about it before since everyone told me water was always available for sale during the summertime. But it appears that there are less and less private vendors these days - turns out that THEY are having a hard time finding water outside the city limits. The price has gone up 25% since last month when water stopped coming from our taps once a week like it usually did (severe water rationing by the water company). We still have a month more of this...that is if it rains May 1. The good news is that pretty much every day, although it is as hot as blazes, there are clouds - and not just high wispy ones. I think the rains may come early.

Water scarcity forced my neighbors Ramon and Elda and I to go to a public well in town to wash clothes. The well is hand dug – there were about 15 kids, practially naked, bearing buckets and pulling up water. All the washing stations were full (there were about 12 or so). The women there washed like the wind! I was so impressed. They were constantly yelling to their kid to stop picking on the little girl, go hang up the washed clothes, get more water, don’t drink the water, stop crying, go get more soap etc. All this while working as fast as the spin cycle on a washing machine. I was glad that they were working fast since we did have to wait about 45 minutes to get two free stations. Ramona and I washed while Elda, the younger sister, kept our water reservoir full. It cost us 3 Cordobas (about 17 cents) each. I think we will probably be doing that for the next month… Saturday afternoons.

4 hours later...

Ecological footprint

There is a neat website on line, Myfootprint.org, which you can go to to find out how many planet Earths it would take to support everyone in the world if they lived as you live. There is a 15 or so question quiz, and it gives you an idea of how much you really do consume - it takes into consideration size of house, electricity consumption, ground and air transportation, eating habits, etc.

When I lived in Houghton, MI, I did the quiz and came up with 2.9 Earths. Here in Nicaragua, if everyone were to live like me, we would need 1.8. My friend, Gisselle - a native Nica who works with an NGO I work with, however, did the quiz too and came up with 1. Seems like the developing world need to start sending volunteers to the industrialized world to start teaching us how walk softer.

Chicas Lakers

We are halfway through our season and our team (in the bottom photo those sitting and in the very back), are is 3-1 (don't even get me started on the loss).

Here we are with the Chicas Oro (gold girls - there is a lot of gold mining where they live)...
I'm not sure why they are smiling - we just kicked their traseros.

Ground water monitoring

My friend Antoinette, who works for a Dutch NGO (SNV), put together a workshop for regional rural water technicians to begin a groundwater monitoring program in the rural sector. I helped by explaining the logistics of the program, and showing them a cheap, easy way to check the water level in a well.

Here they are learning how to choose wells to monitor.

Retrofitting the well for monitoring access.

Taking water level measurments.

Many of the wells are also contaminated with fecal coliform. Well owners should clean their wells periodically by putting a bleach solution in the wells...but many times maintenence goes by the wayside. This technician bought his own pool kit to make sure the water was clean enough.

Learning about Volcanoes

In the school, when I did a quick survey to see which natural science subject most interested the 3rd-6th graders...earth science came in last. Having spent countless hours looking at rocks and soil in my life - and knowing how exciting it really is !! - I decided to (hopefully) change their attitude about rocks and do a unit on volcanoes. We learned about the interior of the earth, and parts of a volcano. Then, we broke up into teams of 4 and made chemical volcanoes. I think they might like rocks (or at least science experiments) a little more now...

Each team build up a volcano around a plastic pop bottle which served as the magma chamber.

I suggested they could put little sticks for trees and rocks on their volcano. They took it a step further and each decorated their volcano with bouganvilla flowers. We could barely see the volcanos for all the flowers.

One of the teams and their be-flowered volcano.

Mixing the "magma" - vinegar, water, dish soap and bicarbonate.

The kids had a great time making and watching them erupt. Stay tuned for a video showing all the action!

Projects for the year

2007-02-20T15:44:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education

WHERE: Nicaragua

WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07

WHY: La vida es un carnaval

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Through the eyes of an 11-year-old

Joel, a neighbor kid of mine, knew I liked to go to the hot springs outside of town...so he and I planned an afternoon to go. However, he didn't know I liked to lounge around the water for a few hours like a cooked spaghetti noodle. He thought this was too boring (especially since the water was too hot for him to enjoy). So after 15 minutes of putting up with him whining, "Vamanos YA!" (Let's go already!), I finally gave him my camera, two sets of batteries and told him to take all the pictures he wanted. Here are some of his shots...

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Man on the street

One of many carpinters in my neighborhood, Julio, poses with a rifle he's putting toghether for a client. It was the first one I've seen him work on, as mostly he displays bedframes, chests of drawers, and tables in his front year. But he says he sells a number of these every year.

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What am I doing these days??

Back to school
School's back in session, so I've started back to the rural school as well. Here are some of the afterschool youth group kids all decked out in monster masks they made after we read, Donde Viven Los Monstros (Where the Wild Things Are).

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New neighborhood reading group

I've started a reading group for some kids in a barrio near mine. Reading is not a Nicaraguan pastime (in large part because a fun book to read is hard to find around here), and any and all activities that promote reading among the youth are encouraged. They love story time...

Louis eats up story hour...he's quiet and shy and doesn't go to school since he lives on farm far away from a school. But he plans on coming to group while he's in the city spending a few months with his grandparents.

Esmaralda is the daughter of one of my friends from the neighborhood. I vist with her mother, Mina, on my way back from walks with Gueguense in the campo. Mina has a quick wit scarce around these parts, which, when I can keep up, leaves my face hurting from laughing so much.

This is 5-year-old Insolent Israel - his older sister gave him the nickname when we were playing a name-remember game (more for me than for them). I can't really understand what he says when he talks to me, but luckily all the other kids interpret for me.

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Story hour at the library

I've also been working with the local library on trying to get a story hour going for primary age school kids in the city. So, the librarian and I visited about five different schools last week, and I read Clifford the Big Red Dog about 28 times to packed classrooms of 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders. We are hoping for a lot of participation and have set up a little reading room (apart from the study area) in the library.

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The thesis

Finally, my evenings are filled with data processing as I've now got 3-months worth of well data from my thesis project. I'm trying to put together a presentation on my work so far for the local Dutch NGO that is supporting the work, the water utility (which has been drastically downsized since Ortega took power), the town hall, and the agricultural extension agency. Many thanks to my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers who are helping with the field work!

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While doing all these activities, I'm finally really enjoying my time in Nicaragua. The first year was pretty tough adjusting to the culture, finding friends, and a place to belong. But, I think I've finally found contentment with it all (well, most of it). And now as I look at the calendar, I can only hope these last eight and a half months move m-o-l-a-s-s-e-s s-l-o-w. . .

Dos mil siete

2007-01-31T22:07:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval.

A smattering of pics from my gringo visitors in December and January. Happy new year!

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Banana boating...

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New Years in my town (my dad and little sister visiting)

Zip line canopy tour

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Convento San Francisco museum

No cityscape in Nicaragua is complete without the ice cream man.
A Nicaraguan artist's rendition of the stations of the cross at a local church...

Life before the conquistadors
And after
Ancient pottery
Pre-Colombian stone statues found on an island in Lake Nicaragua.
Evidently these are games the natives played. This is before the Spaniards brought them Boggle.

These are skeletal remains of someone that were discovered in the last renovation of the convent. His identity is still a mystery.

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Nicaraguan coffee harvest

Moonrise
My cousin Carol

The bus we decided not to take...

Tierra del Fuego

2006-12-24T12:36:00.000-08:00

Click to Play

Groundwater research Nica style

2006-12-10T05:26:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: To get some sort of master´s degree out of this gig...

My entries may have been a bit lacking in substance lately, but not because I haven't been doing anything. It was finally time to put my 6-month-in-the-making master's thesis project plan (officially titled, "A pump test method for rope pump wells to forecast seasonal changes in yields") in action. I've spent the last few months meeting the folks in the community where I was planning to do my thesis project, doing surveys, sitting wells, doing lots of calculatin' and figgeren', and outfitting wells so that the tests can be performed without damaging the wells or leaving the well users without water during the tests. This entry shows the process I went through to get things set up and a bit of how the pump tests have gone thus far.

Without getting to deep in details, the idea was basically to do a series of pump tests (evacuating the well to measure recovery, or how long the well takes to fill up again) on rope pump wells. This information can be used to determine well productivity, which may change during the course of the dry season, as the water table drops since it's not being recharged by rain. The wells are simple and widespread across rural areas of Nicaragua and Central America. The pump mechanism looks like this:

So after figuring out how much water I would extract each day from the well, I had to have a place to store the water so that it would not go to waste, as well users rarely use hundreds of gallons at a time. I bought 290 gallon storage tanks for each well I was testing. The stars were aligned in my favor the day I planned to do the tank and pipe installations, as all the materials I had ordered were in (minus a few trivial things), the technician from the water utility, Eduardo, showed on time, and transportation was not too difficult to locate. Here some of the workers are placing cement blocks upon which sits the tank.

After the tank was set up, Eduardo wanted to see if we could run electricity for the drill out to the well from the nearest house. So he set up this amazingly precarious contraption to try and splice the wires. I told him I didn't want to spend my grant money paying off his hospital bills.

Having failed at that (not because he fell, the line was dead), we resorted to the hand drill, with the help of the well owner, Don Esevio.

We ran about 60 feet of PVC pipe into the well, to ensure that the probe used to measure the depth to water would not get entagled in the ropes. To finish up, I can't remember what Eduardo's doing here...christening by fire...or a bit of witchcraft??

The first well was an adrenaline pumping event- at least for me as I saw my months of preparing unraveling before my eyes as we found roots had penetrated the well and almost prevented us from being able to push the PVC down as far as it needed to go. But, Eduardo persevered (I tipped him amply).

Taking a break from the excitement, I made some bread with the Isabel, Maria, and Maruca:

We installed pipe in four different wells, this one serving the local chapel. We had to supspend work as we were within a hairs breadth of getting shocked by lightning.

Eduardo, Gilberto (another well owner) and I took refuge in chapel, which was threating to float away in the deluge...water was streaming under the door on the right.

After having done a preliminary test on all the wells, I found one was too productive to measure (we couldn't pump fast enough (as the pump has a maximum rate of 5 gpm) to get the water table to drop). I was worried that this would set us back considerably, but with the help of one of the local well users and his sons (Jose, Jose Jr., and David) and their antediluvian purple beast, we were able to get to town and buy all the necessary equipment to outfit a fourth- hopefully less productive- well.

A few weeks later, John, my advisor from Michigan Tech, showed up and helped us take measurments. The two guys pumping, Jose Jr. and Alvaro, are local hires to help pump the well and dump buckets into the tank. They make the work more fun by telling jokes. I'm pretty easy to make laugh, but consternation was all I could muster after hearing this one - Q: What did one banana say to the other banana? A: We're pure potasium.

Is anyone laughing?

Noemi, another Peace Corps Volunteer, came and helped too. She quickly got bored counting buckets (the crayons were a quick easy way to keep track), so she turned it into an art of organization...

With all the Purisima activities at the chapel, we gathered quite a few spectators while doing our tests before mass:

Below is a plot of the data we took during three pump tests on one of the wells. I'm a little disappointed that the pumping regime I had planned would not yield expected results...it won't allow me to extrapolate a trend for groundwater behavior over time. But, all is not lost, as we are still able to determine productivity and we'll just have to do pump tests over a span of months rather than days to see changes in productivity with drop in watertable. In any case, reproducibility is good!

So, the next steps are to monitor depth to water table in the four wells, and do more pump tests over the course of the summer (until the end of August or so).

Stay tuned for the next entry - John and I embark on a sailing adventure to the Island of Omotepe, home of two active volcanoes in the middle of Lake Nicaragua, to make some contacts for future projects...

President elect Ortega

2006-11-20T08:29:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

So, the election excitement is over and life's back to normal...but we did have an exciting one with the predicted split liberal vote , making way for Daniel Ortega, the Sandanista candidate, to take the presidency. In my conversations with people, there are all over the board on their reaction. Those that are unhappy worry that Nicaragua will return to the same situation in the 80s (war, land redistribution, food rationing, poor quality food, astronimical inflation rates), cause the already miserable economy to worsen, and inflame relations with the US. Not to mention they are not happy that his wife is a recognized witch (which, according to one woman, explains how he won the election.)

The fact that he has taken office makes Peace Corps Volunteers ponder our future here, as the last time he took office in '79, he kicked the Peace Corps out. I'm a little worried, but it is doubtful that will happen this time around, as he keeps reiterating that he is intent on having a good relationship with the US and vows to keep the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement on track. In any case, it is a good lesson for all us PCVs on what living in a politically unstable country is like. No wonder few Nicaraguans make long term plans around here - if it's not the hurricanes or malaria that get you, it's a radical change in government.

These past few weeks I've been busy getting my thesis project started. As one of the tasks, I sat of the wells I will be studying for two days in a row. I wanted to get an idea of how much water the well users extract. It was pretty boring, and I know the locals think I'm crazy, but they did invite me to a birthday party that eveing, so they couldn't have seen me as too weird. One of the days was washing day - below is Isabel washing clothes for her dad and two brothers. She uses an old piece of culvert (I think) that the highway department blasted out when the redid the road a few years ago. Only the women washed, but the boys pumped the well and made sure they always had enough water.

Here's Maria and her daughter washing on their more primitive rock - they use the barbed wire fence to hang the clothes to dry.

In other parts, where there's enough surface water, they commonly wash right in the river.

Day of the Dead

November 2nd is the day of the dead, and everyone visits the cemetary to clean and paint the graves (they usually pour cement slabs over the graves), and decorate them with flowers. The day is festive, though not rowdy, and the priest came to give mass.

Halloween

My neighbor Jose Luis, and his stepdaughter, Liz Carmen, spent Halloween evening with me. We all sat around my Halloween candle that my folks sent last year, and Jose Luis told ghost stories...he swears they are true. They always involved meeting someone who had died and came back to protect someone from something.

Some of the Nicaraguan old and young:

The old switcheroo

2006-10-29T13:56:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

Just today, less than a week since Jose Luis launched into his schpiel about how he will vote for liberal candidate Montealegre to see, perhaps, a change in the politics in Nicaragua - and how he didn't believe Ortega would do anything good for the country - he tells me (as we fumigate the latrine for cucarachas) that not only will he vote for Ortega, he will also act as the local elections monitor here in town for the Sandanista party !!

He laughed when I cried,"¡No jódas!" (loosly translated as, "are you kidding me?")

"What can I do," he asks, "I'm a Sandanista at heart."

Presidential campaigns

2006-10-27T05:59:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

Lots going on in Nicaragua right now with the end of the school year approaching, impending doom of water scarcity accompanying the summertime months, and the presidential election. Perhaps I exaggerate the second point, but everyone keeps scaring me saying we'll only get water once a month since this year's rainy season was anything but rainy. The truth is I do have the means to buy water from private dealers - at the scandalous price of 55 gallons for $1. 20. While that doesn't seem like much to us, the government run water utility sells the same amount for half a cent. Peer pressure will be the thing to contend with...how can I buy barrels of water for myself while my closest neighbors, who can't afford that, look on? Being rich in the eyes of my neighbors is...uncomfortable. Anyway, we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

As part of a PCV duties, we must participate in the training of the new groups that come in. Naomi, Sarah, and I were chosen to give a presentation for the new Environmental Education group on working with NGOs and community groups. We had a great powerpoint presentation ready to give, with lots of slides of our work, and, wouldn't you know it, the school we were out lost the electricity just before we arrived (Nica is in rolling blackout mode to cut costs). So, we had to rely on a laptop with 32% power to show our stuff. It was a debacle, but we adapted as best we could.

Fortunately, the same fate didn't befall me as I presented my thesis project to representatives of the local water utility, mayor's office, and NGO I'm working with. I garnered support from the mayor's office in assisting me with introducing me to the community members I will be working with, and from the water utility in helping me outfit the wells for the study. It went well, though last I heard from my NGO partner, we could be stalled until after the election, as some paperwork is getting held up at the mayor's office. Trying to find a way around it...

Going to be spending a lot of time here in the next few months...

At the homestead - here's Jose Luis. Maybe he got a half price deal on the shirt...

I bought a cake for the family to celebrate the fact that the water tank was finished and also to thank them for all their help getting me settled into the house. It took about two weeks for Jose Luis to finish it, so it was quite the undertaking. With some persuasion, I finally got the people at the pastry shop to write, "Feliz Pila Nueva" which means, "Happy New Ferrocement tank."

The presidential election is next Sunday! Though I am prohibited by the PC to attend any political rallies, I do talk to my neighbors and friends about what they think the outcome will be. Some are noncommittal, others staunch Sandanista or Liberal supporters. Jose Luis, though he says he's supported Daniel Ortega (the Sandanista candidate who held power after the revolutionaries overthrew the US-backed Somoza regime in the 70s), in the past 4 elections (in which he won only the first), he will vote for the Eduardo Montealegre, who the US supports. Basically, he says he hopes that things will change for the better, and is tired of hearing Ortega loop into his anti-gringo rhetoric time and time again. He says he knows Nica needs good relations with the US - so much of their economy is dependent on US aid and commerce. At the same time, I don't feel that he is terribly hopeful that Nica will see any real change if Montealegre wins. He reminds me of the grouchy donkey in Orwell's Animal Farm.

In any case, here are some pictures of what propaganda in Nicaragua looks like. The red and black Sandanista flag mounted in a tree is ubiquitous throughout my department...

Here are some campesinos putting up posters and painting telephone poles in support of Montealegre

All bus stop shelters are fair game for whosever party gets there first. This is for Rizo, who is another candidate with ties to ex-president Aleman who was accused and convicted of embezzling millions of dollars. Some anti-Sandanistas fear that the having Montealegre and Rizo as liberal candidates will split the liberal voters, and lead to the election of Ortega.

A Daniel Ortega billboard in Managua. The stern figure with the big hat behind the dancing lady is Sandino, who was very instrumental in getting the US military out of Nicaragua in the 20s - he is revered to this day, not only for this feat, but also because he was killed by the first Samoza dictator.

Finally, an Eduardo Montealegre billboard in Managua. There are a few more candidates in the running, but they will take a small percentage of the votes. I have a friend who finished his PC service about a year ago. He is back now as an elections monitor through the Carter Foundation. A few weeks ago when I asked who he thought would win the election, without hesitating he replied, "Ortega." This is an exciting time to be in Nicaragua!

Tour the new casa

2006-10-16T17:43:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

Okay, got my pics of my new digs up finally. This is Jose Luis cleaning out the water tank:

Auxiliadora helping me paint one of the two rooms.

This is it- freshly painted. My house is as wide as the door where you can see Gueguense's head peeking out to the first window. Auxiliadora and Jose Luis live in the other yellow house to the left.

The living room/kitchen. It's really nice because I live on a dirt road that basically turns into a footpath not far from my house, so there is virtually no traffic. You'd think that would make it quiet, but there are several neighbors who engage stereo wars, so at times it does get pretty noisy.

My kitchen corner.

Princess Vanessa's bed

You might notice a lack of closet space. Yeah, there is none so everything is pretty much out in the open. Makes it feel kinda cluttered. I did take out the 28 pounds of Peace Corps handbooks that I wasn't using back to the office in Mangua and that has helped a bit.

More soon!

Home again

2006-10-11T16:54:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

I've been back in Nicaragua for almost a month now, and getting back up to speed with work, settling into my new house, and getting my thesis project up and running have dominated my time. My hand is much better now - doesn't hurt at all and is only slightly deformed.

As usual, I've had difficulties uploading all the pics I want to, so until I get it figured out, you can check out the ones below:

My new backyard - I decided to get away from the hustle and bustle of the main highway that runs through town and am now about as far away as I can get while still in the city. It's much smaller, too, which helps cut down cleaning time. The owners, Auxiliadora and Jose Luis, live right next door - so close we can talk to eachother through the walls- are really great and have helped a lot in getting my house in order. I gave up some amenities (toilet and shower)- I now have a latrine and share a stall for bucket bathing in the yard with a neighbor, but did gain a decent sized yard for Gueguense to play in. No well either, like I had at the last house, which will make this summer harder (they say sometimes they go up to a month without water), but Jose Luis spent 2 weeks fixing a 1000 gallon ferro-cement tank in the backyard, so I'm sure that'll help out a lot.

I got a cold last week, and Auxiliadora came over often to chat while I was laid up in bed. She made me breakfast one day - eggs and beans, and demanded that I drink her sure-fire cure to the common cold: A tea of lime juice, honey, cinnamon, garlic and onion. Sounds rank, but the honey and lime dominated so it was pretty good.

This is Megan - she is a new volunteer going through training and she came to spend 4 days with me as part of her training. I think she though the highlight of the visit was the food - she was thrilled to get a break from the typical Nica fare her host family gives her and eat lentils, oatmeal, and tikka massala.

While Megan was here, we went to the school and did a science experiment on what happens when hard boiled eggs sit in used motor oil. (Relates to oil spills and their effects on ocean ecosystems). If you want to know what happens, give it a try at home...

Here's a couple of the 1st graders (David, Fernanda, Azucena) diggin' "Clifford- El Gran Perro Colorado"

Our garden project is coming to an end (as the school year - ends in November). We had...umm...moderate success. The only things that grew really well were pipian, a type of squash. Evidently, 6 had grown really large, and the day before they were going to harvest them, some hungry campesino came in the night and stole them all. This one grew a week later...

Victoria, a woman who lives near the rural school, and her daughters run this little guirila (see bleow) stand that caters to passing busses and Peace Corps Volunteers (meaning me) working in the area.

Every time I go out their they are sitting there, shucking their 1000s of corn cobs. They get up at 3am, which gives them time to prepare enough the tortillas and cuajada for the morning rush of busses going to some of the pueblos in northern Chontales.

This is Victoria's granddaughter, Carla, displaying the guirila - a hot corn tortilla with a slab of salty white cheese. Sustaining and tasty.

Guense's getting bigger!

I have more pics of what my new house looks like, and will try to get them up soon. Thanks for all the cards and packages (Dad, Kathy, Katie and Craig - Guense loves his new toys...so much that he finally seems to have abandoned what remains of his paint roller.)

Back in the USSA

2006-08-31T10:40:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: Life is a carnaval.

On the eve of completing a year in Nicaragua, I returned stateside to visit my friend Debbie and work on my masters thesis proposal back at Michigan Tech in da UP (see map above). Originally, the trip was planned for one week. After having gone through an ugly 6 month period of reverse culture shock upon my return from living in Spain a few years back, I wasn't sure how I'd feel coming back from Nicaragua. I guess I can sum it up by saying I got a bit teary when I caught sight of an overall and flannel clad Minnesotan at the airport in Minneapolis. Good to be back...

Here's Debbie's newly rented house in Houghton. She is finishing up her PhD and will be beginning her post doc next month.

To blow off some steam, we hand a small impromtu gathering/dance party Monday night that ended at 5 am...ahhh, good to be a student.

The party portal-shot (thanks to Jesse (now in East Timor), whose many, many portal shots made me come to really appreciate them).

Debbie has two dogs and two horses - we were able to enjoy the amazing beautiful UP weather horseback riding a couple of times. (That is not Debbie's derriere...).

Debbie's post-doc research will in large part be conducted in Central America. And, at her request, I covered every item in her house with post-it notes with the item's name in Espanol. Here's la silla and el perro.

Sushi featured yet again in this blog... John, our advisor, and Gregg (Debbie's soon-to-be-new-boss) and their families came over for sushi one night.

Another geology prof in the department, Bill, has a little island off the coast of the Keweenaw Peninsula...complete with cabin and sauna. It was beautiful and tranquil, and the lake was (barely) warm enogh to swim in.

The portage bridge, pride of the Houghton-Hancock area, behind long-time resident Curt, his dog, Fish, and newly arrived Colombian-born Miriam, here to do her PhD.

So as idyllic as all this looks, I did get wound pretty tight one day working, and chose the wrong wall to vent my frustration out on...the result:

So I'm now on medical hold and will remain in Houghton for a few more weeks until the doctor clears me. I'll take advantage of the extra time and with my remaining hand, feed my face on much missed pastys and bratwurst.

Greek letters are a challenge with the left hand...pictures are easier. Notes from my last meeting with my advisor:

Hope all's well out there, learn from my example and find a healthier way to release the devil within.

8 months in site

2006-07-30T16:41:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval.

Leon for Allie and Jade's good-bye party___________

With a vey sad heart, we said good-bye to our good friends Allie (in the bright pink) and Jade, who decided Wyoming's call was too strong to resist. We got together for a good-bye party in the department capital...though I'm smiling here, I was a soggy wet rag when we parted ways at the bus station. We agreed to get a cup of coffe at the Muddy Waters Cafe in Laramie when I get back...

At the hostel, all of the pinche (cheap) volunteers pack into the room of the volunteers that decided to live large and get a room with air conditioning. Here we are glued to the TV watching "Along Came Polly." Allie phrased my sentiments exactly when she said, "I didn't like watching TV until I came here."

Our beautiful hostel. At one point, I was thinking, I wanna live here...I can't believe how much I took art for granted before I got here. It's really interesting to me to feel surprised and in a way, relieved, when I find myself in a beautiful garden or building...I don't necessarily note the lack of art when it's not there, but in the moments when I do find it.

A political statement we found near the central park of Leon:

While there are those that vent their dislike of US politics, there are many that understand that the country offers lots of possibilities and don't want to jeopardize Nicaragans' chances to take advantages of them.

John's visit and Boaco__________________________________

John, my advisor, came to Nicaragua to help me with my thesis idea (which he made much more manageable - whew!), present preliminary findings of the geophysical work he and his students did in Boaco last December, and, unknowingly, help me out of a low I was having a hard time coming out of. He let me whine and complain all I wanted...by the end of it, I was sick of listing to myself enmired in my own personal pity party. As you can read or have read in the following post, I've finally decided to do something about it by improving my friendships here for a little support.

Here we are presenting the work to an attentive audience:

John and I with our good friend Moises, who works for the Partners of the Americas, and Erin - a student from New Mexico that just completed her masters on surface and groundwater quality in Boaco. She also presented her thesis the same day (her results: contaminated due to lack of sewer treatment plant).

We "treated" Moises to a sushi meal in Managua. He had never had it before and was brave (or maybe it's the machismo thing kicking in) as he sucked down a baby squid. He said his favorite was the tempura, but didn't dig the fish egg rolls.

Moises snags one of the "Managua Rolls" (not really sushi) - they taste just like expensive chicken McNuggets.

Boaco's fiestas patronales (patron saint parties)______________

I went to Boaco for a couple of days for the fiestas - the family John and the Michiganders stay with there gave me plenty of grief when John and I last came since I never come visit though I'm only a few hours away. I really like the family, just get absorbed in life in my site...the church was decked out with colorful flags, and there was a parade.

I'm not sure why they are dressed as they are, when I asked the old man, he said they were commemorating the explusion of the Moors from Spain. Hmmm...I certainly didn't see any processions like this when I was in Spain...the Nica's must have added a new world flair. And maybe they Spanish are trying to forget that part of history...

I also went to a little, though kinday scary in a rusty way, fair they had during the fiestas. I did go on the ferris wheel (which in Spanish, is a Chicago wheel), despite the fact that the little car ride (in the lower left of the photo), had to be push started by two Nicaraguan fair workers. As I was watching the goings on, I was thinking that that could be a really good book idea - a year in the life of a third world carnie...something to do after Peace Corps??

My friend Fátima and the two Melvins:
They even tried to sucker us into playing a game to win a blender, TV or iron.

In any case, I enjoyed my time in Boaco, though things got kinda strange later that night when I barely escaped a cat fight with a woman who thought I was out on a date with her husband (a nephew of the family I visited). I managed to get away with only losing a few strands of hair. Lesson learned. Stay far, far away from men. Even when out with families.

My first Fashion Show ever__________________________________

Certainly didn't think when I signed up for the Peace Corps gig I'd get the oportunity to go to a fashion show...not something I'd be inclined to do in the US, but I have to say I really enjoyed it just because it was art. Appreciation of art and creativity appear to be too luxurious yet for many Nicaraguans...and with reason as the tickets cost almost $2.50!

I went with my friend Yvette.

All the designers and models were locals.

I leaned over to Yvette when the models came out donning swanky, metalic-y attire with anteanna and feathers sticking out of their hair to tell her that I felt like we were in Paris...she said, "or on Mars."

Before the show, we got a concert by the native Nicaraguan Carlos Mejia Godoy. He and his band (los de Palacaguina) really are impressive and I was excited to see him live as I have some of his music. He is a jack of all trades - not only is he a national icon as a mucisian, he is the owner of Toro coffee (a Nicaraguan brand coffee bean), and is the running mate for a Sandanista presidential candidate for the November elections. It was a great show, though the Toro coffee paraphanalia was a bit much for me. He was really pushing it way too hard - there were free samples, he talked about it between songs, and at the end he said "Viva Chontales! Viva Nicaragua! Viva Café Toro!" Whoa, there cowboy, it's a drink, not a country.

WNBA (Women's Nicaragan Basketball Association)___________

So, I joined up for to be on the Chica Lakers basketball team. We had our first game today after two 5:30 am practices (in which only two others besides me showed up). We won, though with little thanks to me. It was so hot and humid and I'm so out of shape I could barely drag my rear from one end of the court to the other. It's great to be doing something I know how to do instead of all the new things I've been tackling lately. The only thing is now I'm a center instead of wing...

(bottom row) Itshel, Olinda, Walkiria, Indira, Aracely, Melissa, (top) Ada, and La Gringa.

Making amigos

2006-07-29T08:49:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval.

Once again, I am plagued by technical problems with uploading pics...I hope someday I can put up all the ones I want to!

In any case, in the past month, I've been focusing more on making friends here since though work is going well, the lonliness was starting to get to my head. It takes a lot of time to make friends...after 8 months of being in my site, I am finally starting to be able to joke around easily with the little shop owners, stop and talk to people as I walk through town, and feel like I'm more of a part of the community. I don't think it would take so long in some of the smaller communities many volunteers are in, but my site has around 60,000 folks, and is the department capital, so there's lots of people traveling in from the satellite communities - lots of activity and new faces every day.

Getting a puppy has helped a lot with getting to know neighbors and people in the street - almost everyday as I'm walking through town I have someone I don't know ask me about Gueguense. (I'm thinking, how do they know his name and only refer to me as La Gringa??). It's also helped a lot with the piropos (catcalls) from the men in the street, which was really getting to me. Now instead of making a comment about me, they say something about him - its a real relief. I was actually considering dying my hair a mousy brown color for a while there.

Getting to know the community takes a long time. When you do errands, you don't just do what you have to do, it helps a lot to stop and talk to the shop assistants and owners. You buy some eggs at the local mom and pop shop, and you sit with them, have a coke, and talk about the weather or the upcoming fiestas patronales (patron saint party) for 20 minutes or a half hour. So, I think if I could do it over agian, I'd have stopped working so much at the beginning of my service, and just visited with everyone a lot more. But, it's hard to do that when you're a busybody anglo-saxon with a certain hardwired puritanical work ethic.

I will try tomorow to put up the pics of what's been going on - here are some random ones:

Mark, Marissa, (two voluntees that live nearby) and I watching a bootleg copy of Crash at my house:

The following three pics are by Celine - I really like them and think they're not only great shots, but great to show what Nicaraguans look like:

Bean planting started last month. Here's Erwin, a guy I met while doing some field work on water resources, planting. With the big stick, he makes a little hole in the very rocky soil, throws three beans in it, covers it a bit and moves to the next about 6 inches away or so. The following photo is the "field" - really the side of a hill - that he must plant full of beans:

An enormous cow I stumbled upon in the field.

The bus from Boaco:
York, a volunteer in El Salvador and with whom I went to school last year with at Michigan Tech, helped me andMaria, another volunteer from El Salvador get in touch, as she was coming down to Nicaragua for a conference. So we hung out for the weekend in Granada - being tourists for a change - eating phad thai and waffles, swimming, and sleeping a lot. She has lots of interesting stories since she's halfway through her third year of PC and has had 4 different sites. It was also really interesting to see how her service was so different than mine just because of how different we look. I have a hard time getting people to take me seriously somtimes for being a blonde female with cat eyes (that's what they call those with light colored eyes), they ask me a lot for money, help getting a visa, etc. On the other hand, she is constantly mistaken for a Salvadoreña, and talks about the fact that many of the people don't really value her or her work since she doesn't look like a gringa. She thinks that perhaps they are kind of disappointed with her since she looks just like they do.

The hot springs are once again in service now that the rainy season has started. Celine and I went for the afternoon. This photo captures the essence of life in the tropics :

More pics soon!

New addition

2006-06-30T13:18:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval.

Sorry for the hiatus folks, but life got kinda complicated there for a while. Back on track and updating what I can (having technical difficulties with blogger, so I couldn't upload all the photos I wanted). In any case, I've been working away on writing my masters thesis proposal entitled, "Monitoreo de agua subterranea usando el red de pozos con bomba de mecate". Yes, amazingly enough I am writting it in Spanish (and English) as the Dutch NGO I am working alongside and I will be presenting it to local government officials, the Nicaraguan USGS equivalent (called INETER), and ministries working in water resource management. In English, it's "Groundwater monitoring using a network of rope pump wells". I won't bore you all with the details, but keep your fingers crossed that all goes well in the initial presentations. That's been taking up a lot of time as I try to get well information from the water utility here in the city - on one occasion, the hydrologist actually told me, "we used to monitor wells for the city, but when the government changed, they burned all those reports". Keeps it interesting.

Visit to nearby farm__________________________________________

Celine's favorite farm family invited me and one other volunteer, Jenny to their home for a day. I've met the family before and am old news to them. The real attraction was Jenny, who, after Celine showed the family a picture a few weeks ago, really, really wanted to meet her since she is of Korean descent. She has "ojos chinos" (chineese eyes), and had never seen a reall live Asian person before. Celine and Jenny spent a lot of time trying to get them to appreciate the difference between Chineese and Korean. Here's their home with a beautiful blooming malinche tree:

The view from the kitchen - we helped make corn tortillas with Chepita, the mom, on their wood stove:

Chepita making her very tasty rice pudding - she planned this especially for me since I've been trying to make it for years without success. She made it look so easy:
Celine and I swimming at the local poza:

The guys can play checkers incessantly; on the right is the dad, the other two are his sons. Other than that, they have a radio and a tiny TV (they were watching Flipper when we arrived.) They run it off a car battery. Every three days they walk the battery to the dirt road (quarter mile), give it to a bus that passes by. The bus driver drops it off a place that specializes in charging batteries for the campo folk in the nearest town. The next day, they wait for the bus to pass by and drop off the charged battery.

After quite a bit of coaxing, we got the family to play the guitar and sing some songs. Chepita, however, has no part in this, and does very little visiting outside of the kitchen. She even stays in the kitchen even when she's not cooking - even though we are all in the living room. Her role is very established.

This is not part of the family, but Francisco, who accopanied Celine and I on a walk we took the following day.

Youth group__________________________________________________

I invited the boys from the school to the normally all girls youth group to make checker boards out of, well, garbage. I brought cardboard to make the boards, and had local mom and pop shops save their bottle caps for me. It was a real spacial challenge for some of them, and I nearly pulled out all my hair, but in the end, they all got one.

Güegüense_______________________________________________

Probably the biggest news of the month is that I got a puppy. I'm still amazed I did it, as I am a huge committment-phobe, dislike extra baggage when I travel, and have had no success keeping even a basil plant alive in the past 5 years. But, some of Celine's neighbors were trying to unload him as he was eating too much, they said. I thought perhaps some companionship in my house would help me through some of the lonley times here in Nicaragua. The first week, though was kinda rough as he was so sad being separated from his mom and brother, and then I gave him a super shot of de-parsiting medicine which wiped him out for a few days. So, instead of cheering me up, he was depressing me.

But, that's all behind now and I can't keep up with him...especially when he has to pee. I named him Güegüense (prounounced whe-when-se), which is a traditional character from a 17th century Nicaraguan play. Roughly, it's about the Spanish conquistadors being continuously duped by a character named Güegüense, who represented the indigenous people. Even today he is reveared here in Nicaragua since he was especially adept at pulling the wool over the eyes of those strong-minded Spanish (in a cunning, funny way) who were trying so hard to civilize the natives. His most famous line is, "I will agree, but won't do what I agree to." To this day, this mentality pervades Nicaraguan culture, and has frustrated efforts of transparancy-loving gringo politicians, non-government organizations, and Peace Corps Volunteers alike.

Here's Gueguense with his favorite toy - a paint roller.

Okay, gotta close for now...pretty sure Guense needs to be let out. He agreed he wouldn't pee in the house while I was gone, but, yeah, right, like he's not going to??

Eco-parade

2006-05-29T13:48:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: To see this tarantula come shooting out of my tennis shoe after I unsuccessfully try to stuff my foot in his newly chosen home.

The "Save the Trees" parade we've been planning over the past few months finally happened. It was BIG! I was worried no one would show...but there were probably about 700 students! We walked all around town with banners, little saplings and plants, some even brought their parakeets. It ended at the steps of the cathedral in downtown, so we got quite a bit of exposure.

This banner says, "Other countries suffer water scarcity. We should care for our rivers."

"Life in your hands - protect the forests"

"We protect forests because they make the rain possible, give homes to animals, and give man food and medicine."

Fry Oscar addressing the students. He's the prinical of the Franciscan school, and the one who originally came up with the parade idea.

There was cultural dancing, music and singing as well. This girl and the others dancing with her are from the local orphanage. They are commonly invited to city events to perform.

The best dressed 6th grade class that showed up:

After the parade, the trees were planted at the cathedral.

Visit to Celine's house___________________________________

Over the weekend, I spent a few days in Celine's town. I needed a little bit of downtime and a break from my community. It rained a little bit:

Some of Celine's neighborhood kids and I got a hankerin' for some tamarind fruit...so we shook some out of the tree in her yard.

A common sight on the roads into town:

Small bank project____________________

After getting the lowdown on how to do a small community bankat the Peace Corps In-Service training, my counterpart and I were inspired to start one with the 12 teachers under his direction. It's an internal short term savings and loan designed for members to save monthly and take out small loans. Here's Wilder in my house preparing the presentation.

Wilder making the pitch. I could see cordoba (Nica currency) signs flashing the the teachers´eyes as he spoke.

Pics________________________________________

My friend Marisol and her daughter Erlinda came to help me paint a few walls in my house. This was supposed to be "dark salmon", but it turned out more like "sherbert orange." In any case, it's better than the current shade of "alcatraz cement." I also finally bought the obligatory hammock for my house. Right after I hung it up, I laid down to try it out, and it works well because I woke up an hour later.

Too late to save this one. The upper left I took last December - and the lower right is how it looks now.

I managed to capture these little flowers in my yard before the deer came and mowed 'em down.

It's hot and muggy right now. The rains have come, though they are pretty sporadic yet. However, it hasn't taken much for the green to take over the charred land - it practically happened overnight. The mosquito population, unfortunately, also quadrupled overnight...

In Service Training

2006-05-09T18:33:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

Summer’s panorama of spindly leafless trees growing from carbon black dirt is the photo negative of a shapshot of the midwest’s snowy winter landscape. With the ground at its driest, farmers have lit up the land in an attempt to rid the fields of weeds and prepare the land for crops and better grazing for the cattle in the months to come. At night, live red scars blaze across the blackness, and during the day, smoke plumes dot the land, as if the natives were engaged in lively dialogue. The charred ground is dotted by whispy shrubs and scrubby trees that refused to burn, and wispy cows and scrubby horses that refuse to die.

As though the earth were spontaneously combusting the Córtez trees, which have taken root in the valleys, burst into flaming yellow flowers. They seem to fly in the face of summer’s best attempt to slowly return every living thing to dust. And although it appears that summer has mother earth beat, the flowers announce that she has won the battle withthe scorching season as they bloom just before the winter rains.

In Service Training _______________________

Most volunteers are located in hot, arid zones , and perhaps PC Nica knows it as they plan our yearly week long training at the end of the summer when it's at its most dastardly. All of the Environment group and counterparts were invited to the Selva Negra, a more or less self sustaining organic coffee farm in the department of Matagalpa - up in the north and in the mountains. The farm was founded by a handful of German settleers in the late 1800s and they've expanded operations into resort accommodations and flower cultivation. As the land is private, it's been protected from the rampant tree cutting wiping out native forests of Central America.

I was thrilled to head up there thinking I could hike around the mountians and explore for monkeys...but when I got there I realized we had solid meetings from practically sun up to sun down. Nonetheless, we did manage to have some fun.

My counterpart, Wilder, and I...we took this one about 10 times, since he had the hardest time actually smiling for a photo (although he smiles all the time in real life). Some of us on a monkey hunt in the wee hours. We didn't see any, but we heard their eerie calls. It was creepy.
One of the more fun talks was on using recycled materials to make arts and crafts. Here we are bending bottle caps...
Oragami samuri hats...
Bottle cap checkers...

After the training bit, Noemí, Allie and I rented a couple of horses to explore the farm.
Here's all the Enviro Ed group with our country director, Todd. He's unfortunatley leaving Nicaragua next week to head up Peace Corps Guatemala.
Fiestas patronales in Villa Sandino__________

I went back to the Villa to help celebrate Mike's birthday (he's the grillmaster). It also happened to be the week of the patron saint party, which was timely.

We had a potluck at Marrisas's place -

And went to the bull riding competition. The action was so slow inside the ring though, that I liked watching the people more...

Kids at the school__________________

Still clearing the ground for the garden - we planted the seeds in the seedbed we made a few weeks ago, and within 2 hours the ants were all over it. We'll see how bad the damage is in a few weeks...

A photo of the after school youth group of girls. They agreed on the name of Rebeldes (the rebels) which is also the name of a popular Mexican soap opera revolving around high school girls.

Random pics_______________________

Semana Santa - Easter week

2006-04-23T10:03:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval.

Semana Santa __________

I took advantage of Semana Santa to visit Noemí in her site about
3 hours north of me. It's much cooler there - and her town is tiny! The cicadas are deafening at this time of year - we practically had to yell at eachother at times to talk.

Here's a market scene from the town where I had to change buses:

There are vehicle roads on either side of her town, and a few very rough ones within the town limits, but mostly there are just trails going from house to house and to the church. There are no stores - some people convert one room of their house into a little shop where you can buy staples. Otherwise, you have to travel the 15K to the market. Here's he road out of town.

The reservoir that was built to serve the town of Cuapa (where the market is). It's just outside of Noemí's community.

Noemí and her chavalos (little boys) in front of her alegre house. It was painted this lovely shade of orange just before she moved in. The interior is just as alegre.

The view from Noemí's front door.

Li li is on the left, and is the mother of Nico, which is Noemí's hound.

Making pasta....
This is Noemí's neighbor and best friend in her community. She's making pinolio, a type of corn based drink that we had with our beans and rice.

Moonrise

This is the church. The town is predominantly Catholic, though the Evangelical's are busy doing their work in the community. The church was nearly destroyed in Hurricane Mitch in '98, and only parts of the original structure are remaining.

The front facade is original, though now it has a zinc ramada-like roof, and they've run out of money, so it's pretty much open air.

An altar that was built in celebration of Semana Santa.

One of the women helping to build altars at the church.

View from the church doorway. The peak is where, evidently, a long time ago, someone saw the devil. The priest put a cross up there and now, every May 3rd, the townspeople go up there. I'm sure at one point it was a religious event, but now we've heard that the purpose has changed over the years...now there's more guaro (rum) drinking than bible reading.

On one of our walks we saw a perezoso (lazy bear or sloth!) Noemí pases is every time she goes to one of her schools. I really wanted to see one while I was here in Nicaragua. We were hoping it might wake up so we could see its face, but no luck. It just slept. It was in the same position an hour later when we walked by it again.

Doña Reina's house_________________________

Within the rural community where my school is, there is a woman, Doña Reina, that is helping us create a school garden. Evidently, a Dutch NGO came through the community about 8 years ago, to teach the people how to reforest and garden. They gave the people some training, tools, and seeds, and Doña Reina is the only one who has stuck with it. She is very knowledgeable and a great resource for the school. I love going to visit her - below shows two boys on the trail to her place. One has to ford a stream (which can turn into a raging river during the rainy season) to get to her house. She uses the roots of a huge tree to navegate the stream embankment. A feat she thinks nothing about as she nimbly picks her way either barefoot or with plastic flip-flops

Here is their house. Doña Reina is in the white, and her daughter (also Reina) is taking clothes off the line.

She was kind enough to give us some tomato, squash, and carrot seeds from her supply for our garden.

Her tree nurseryThis is the chocoyo that sits on a branch outside their house sqauking incessantly .

Kids __________________________________

Céline lent me a couple of her oragami books her aunt sent her from France (of course, they were in French) and in my youth group, the girls made chats. They had a great time - and then we played semaforo rojo - semaforo verde (red light green light).

I've been working with the library and the local Franciscan school plan a save-the-trees parade. Last week, I worked with a group of 11 San Francican students - we walked around town visiting all the high school classrooms inviting them to participate in the parade. They are excited about the project, and are hoping for a large turnout.

Next week - In Service Training...we are going to be having the 4-day event at a coffee farm up north in Matagalpa. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone from the group and getting out of the heat!

Vegetable gardens and water resources

2006-04-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval.

Had two very busy weeks. And hot too. April is the height of infernal heat in central Nicaragua...

In any case, I worked with a rural school in starting a vegetable garden. The first team of kids cleared out some very clay rich soil in the playground - these kids know how to weild machetes like kids in the US weild joysticks (are they still called that?) The second team built a structure to plant seeds on. It will protect the seedlings from hungry ants and chickens. We will transplant once the plantlings are strong enough to thrive in the poor soil and be henpecked every so often. The third team of kids ripped off the latrine lid...justice was served since the principal happened to stop by that day.

I'm involved in a water resource inventory project in a nearby subwatershed near my city. It is lead by a Dutch NGO, but with the hopes that the BLM equivalent agency will run with it in setting up their watershed management plan. It will also help farmers in the watershed work together in protecting their water. Representatives from each of the ministries involved in land management were there, and we spent a few days learning about the project and how to do an inventory.

Here's Freddy explaining to a local group of farmers what the project entails. We needed a small group of farmers to lead us to all surface water sources in and around the community so we could GPS them, and, if possible, measure surface water flow. It is purposly done in the driest part of the year, since scarcity is such an issue here.

Here's Oscar telling people the inventory is the way of the future...or something along those lines.

Community members making a sketch of the land - later to be used as a field map.

Here are our volunteers measuring stream flow - there was running water in only two streams, and only in certain points along the way. Our highest flow was 5 gpm. The community relies on wells, since obviously surface water is so scarce in the summertime. In the past, even the wells have dried up, but since there was so much rain this past winter, they aren't hurting too much. One of the shortfalls of the inventory was that, due to complicated well set-ups and time constraints, we couldn't measure well productivity.

Under the mango tree...most of the river beds suffer from deforestation, so shaded areas like this were scarce. That was one of the conclusions of our inventory - more attention needs to be put into the reforesting the watershed.
There were a couple of younger guys along for the ride - Pelón (meaning "the bald one") carried our high tech streamflow system.

Back at the office working late into the night to complete the maps for presentation to the community. Stress was high as the days were long and I think people felt like there were too many cooks in the kitchen. But we got it done.

Our map...
Presenting the maps to the three communities in the watershed. There was opportunity at the end for the community members to suggest ways to protect, and better utilize the watershed. A couple of them included re-activating well committees to better maintain wells, and form an integrated committe off all three communities to make their voice heard at the city town-hall. Conservation measures include reforestation, not burning fields, using erosion reducing barriers, and not taking rocks and soil from riverbeds.

One of the main problems was that the farmers that showed up to the meeting were not the people that own the land - most of the land is owned by the city-folk who don't live there. Also, one land owner built a distribution system directly from a spring to bring water to his cows, but now the river has dried up so no one else can benefit from it. As far as I can tell, no one is officially allowed to own water around here, but those with money do.

The national water utility has agreed to test a few wells in the community...it is know that one well has high arsenic, and the people know only to use that well for washing.

The project ended on Friday, and thankfully we have Semana Santa (Easter week) to recouperate - we have all week off!

My neighbors gave me one of their dove eggs to eat. Below shows it along side a regular chicken egg. They taste the same. Nicaraguans don't typically eat dove eggs...it was just lying around.

Volunteer visiting

2006-03-26T10:52:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval.

A summary of my weekend visit up north to see Allie and Jade - two volunteers living in a little town by the name of a tree Allie has yet to see. It's a lot hotter and dryer up there and kinda reminds me of Arizona. They have all but given up on the battle against dirt, as a chicken walking by creates clouds of powder-fine dust that envelop their home. But, they have learned to accept it without complaint - that and waking up at midnight to fill water containers for the next day. Here's Allie preparing dinner at her sink.

Cashew fruit - eating the fruit has an incredible drying effect (Lacey - but there's NO alcohol!) in the mouth. It's okay, but I wouldn't eat a lot of them.

We stayed inside most of the weekend, as it was too hot to be out and about. It was good to have some new folks to act as sounding boards - and really interesting to see how our views on development work are evolving after 4 months of doing it. We did go for late afternoon bike rides around town, and I caught this pic of the old and the young...

Allie and Jade and their neighbor's cat that has adopted them.

Kids waiting for the bus - caught this as I was headed back home from their site.

Stopped off in Managua to help plan the next In-Service-Training meeting that will be in April. 5 or 6 volunteers and the Environmental Education specialist help organize the event.

This past weekend, my friend Noemi came from her site to visit. We decided to walk from my site to Lake Nicaragua. It's about 12 miles and took us about 6 hours. It did get pretty hot, but we were fortunate to meet a woman half way selling watemelon. She shook her head when we told her we were walking and sighed, saying, " I don't know why these foreigners like to walk so much...". Others we told, were incredulous and exclaimed the popular refrain, "¡Ni quiere a Dios!" or "Not even God wants that!"

Noemi helping herd some straggling cows along the way.

We were rewarded with this, the Mirador Vista Bonita - restaurant and swimming pool overlooking Lake Nicaragua. Made it all worth it.

Grubbin' on the guapote:

I introduced Noemi to my friends that own the farm nearby. Nica sandwich flanked by white bread...

Had a pick up basketball game with the four of my neighbors. It was more like wrestle-ball...no jump balls, no traveling, no double dribbles - stongest wins. I did find I could dominate on the inside (for the first time in my life), and Julito and I won two of three games.

3 months in site

2006-03-12T12:54:00.001-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval.

Work stuff _________________________________

Work is going well – we strarted working on planning a community educational campaign for rational water use. As of now, water is delivered to the city and is rationed by the water company. Different neighborhoods get water at different times – the other day some friends of mine said they were up from midnight until 3 am filling barrels for use in the following week. At my house, there is a well that is used to supplement the city water. But, for most people, water is a problem in the summertime. People suffer more from diarrhea and dengue in the summertime – due to drinking suspect water, not enough water for washing hands and bathing, and stored water where mosquitoes can breed.

However, within a few years (si Dios quiere, as they say here in Nicaragua (if God so desires)), a 22 km long aqueduct will bring water from Lake Nicaragua to the city – sponsored in large part by the Korean government. This should solve the water scarcity issue. So, to prepare for that, the city officials want to begin a campaign to educate people to use water wisely. (Though I think the projected 40% increase in price will help convince people too…).

I worked with the head of the municipal environmental education committee to sketch out a rough plan – beginning with a survey to determine which campaign methods have been most effective in the city in the recent past. We held our first committee meeting of the year to polish up the survey and determined how to distribute it. I was pleased with the turnout at the environmental education committee meeting – and it was good to finally do something rather than just watch! I didn’t take any pictures, because I’m still a little worried of looking like a tourist at commission meetings, but to give you an idea – I did a powerpoint presentation in an air conditioned room at the local agriculture college where we all drank Cokes out of a bottle and ate Ritz crackers. Sounds a little like seminar at Michigan Tech, not Peace Corps in the second poorest country in the western hemisphere.

We were supposed to present our plan at the Environmental Commission today, but the meeting was cancelled. (I did get invited out for a pelibuey lunch, though – in part to make up for the cancelled meeting and in part to celebrate “Women’s day” Do we have that in the US? Pelibuey is a a delicious cross between a goat and sheep.)

I also met with a representative from the EPA equvalent institution to find out what they are doing to complete a watershed management plan for a river north of the city. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management equivalent institution is planning another WMP for the river that passes right by the city…I still don’t understand how they decide who does what, and why two different institutions are doing the same thing in different areas…but I guess that’s all part of the fun. Perhaps it’s because the river to the north is affected by multinational’s large scale gold mining operations and that’s why EPA-like people are involved, whereas the river going by the city is more affected by agricultural and ranching activities, thus calling the attention of the BLM-like people.

Farm visit__________________________________

I met a great family, (Cesar-pop, Xiomara-ma, Yvette-daughter and Alex-Yvette’s baby) that took me out to their farm this weekend. It’s located about 10 km outside the city – in the foothills of the Amerrisque mountains.

There is no electricity at the farm which makes it peaceful, at least when the roosters aren’t crowing. Though Cesar’s family doesn’t live there, there’s another family that lives there and work the land – small scale farming and ranching. They don’t pay them anything, but the family is allowed to eat whatever they grow or extract from the cows. Cesar had environmentally aware role models (grandpa and dad), who taught him not to burn his fields or chop down trees, and the importance of having a latrine (there are still many rural familes that don’t have latrines). Thus the farm is like a little ecological preserve – on a walk we saw three guardabarrancos (national bird) and two little owls (pygmies??).

Unlike most of the rivers in the foothills, theirs does not dry up in the summer – no doubt due in part by his good land management. They saddled a horse for me and I got to tool around the countryside.

On my ride, I found an old Sandanista military base – now deserted. Cesar said that the Sandanista soliders used to steal their cattle – needless to say, he’s a middle of the roader leaning to the right. He’s of the mindset that, “for this world to work, we need rich people and poor people. If everyone were rich, there would be no one to work, and if everyone were poor, there would be no one to work for.” He also had a nice metaphor using cogs – “if we were all the same size, the machine wouldn’t go – there’s got to be all different sizes.” He also sees the economic demise of Nicaragua coinciding with the fall of the Samoza dictatorship – which was taken down by the Sandanista revolution in 1979.

Some of the farm animals...

When they started cooking, I thought they were preparing for the Sandanista army to come back...

Monkey hike _________________________________________

On Sunday I went with Celine and some of her friends that live on a rural farm near her town on a beautiful hike to see monkeys. She had been before and saw about 20 – but we weren’t so lucky and only saw one lazy one sleeping high in the tree. But, it was worth it for the hike.

If he had been awake, maybe he would've looked like this...

On the home front___________________________________

At my house, things are shaping up slowly – I have a composting barrel, and after I explained what it was for my closest neighbor and friend (and landlady), without any suggestion from me, asked if she could throw her organics there too. She also said she wanted to plant a garden. (Am I in the Peace Corps? This is too easy…) I also have my kitchen “sink” (if you can call it that – it’s a behemoth cement structure with a washboard) hooked up to a hose so that all my greywater is used to water the trees and plants around my house. Every so often Patricia (landlady-friend) and/or Chayo (her mom) come up to the house for dinner. I made a salad with Thai peanut sauce a few weeks ago and they dug it, so the other day I had them over to show them how to make it.

I also set up my guest accommodations...

Development debacles

2006-02-19T15:17:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: To see the second smallest orchid in the world!

As my friend, and current East Timor PCV, Jessie, said, “This is not your father’s Peace Corps.” One element of American life that PCVs thought they’d most likely get away from when they signed up is technology. But here in Nicaragua (and East Timor too, I gues) cell phones are fairly common, internet cafés are present in major cities and some bigger towns, and I’ve even seen a few kids clutching iPods as I go bumping down the dirt road on the bus.

This has led to a number of interesting conversations with other PCVers about what happens to a population when development steps are “skipped.” (It's the best way I can think to phrase it...though who knows what if there really is a right order.) A few examples:

1. On a walk to a nearby hot spring, I stopped to visit this family pictured below. They live in a very humble adobe home with a dirt floor. I didn’t get too far into conversing with them before the mom asked if I could give them some clothes for the youngest girl (it’s very common to ask for handouts around here). I told her I couldn’t, and repressed the urge to ask how the dad can pay for a cell phone if there’s not enough money to clothe the children.

2. Though this may be more of a case of mismanagement of funds, it still serves to exemplify skipping steps. The local library has a photocopy machine that a Northern European NGO donated a few years ago. They were supposed to charge for photocopies and use the money to buy new toner cartridges. But they say the money got shuffled somewhere else in Town Hall, and now the copy machine stands useless.

3. I spoke with a few people at MAGFOR (equivalent of the US Forest Service), about the “No burn” law, which I talked a little bit about a few weeks ago. They have a very sophisticated method of tracking down farmers that burn their fields - a branch of the office has GIS capabilities and can retrieve satellite images of the region that can be used to pinpoint the origin of the fires. Sounds very cutting edge, except for the fact that the whole plan breaks down because there is never enough gas to transport a ranger to the guilty-farmer’s fields for investigation.

_________________________ . . . __________________________

In other news, Gigglia is back from Managua. Although she’s qualified to teach primary school, she’s spent the last month working in a Korean factory sewing clothes. Not sure what the weekly pay rate was, but I do know she worked 12 hour days, 6 days a week, having Sunday an optional day of rest. On the weekend, she was paid 60 cents an hour (which would buy about a half dozen eggs or 2 cups of milk). After I did that calculation, I felt justifiably mad at foreign sweatshops. Then, I calculated what another friend of mine made doing a 12-hour shift at a local bakery – he made 15 cents an hour.

Nothing is black and white.

_________________________ . . . _________________________

While confusion reigns out there in the real world, Julito and I made papier-mache lampshades while Willie practiced the drum:

Some images I caught on that hike to the hot springs:

Gold is not what's at the end of the rainbow...

My cell phone has been sadly quiet these past few weeks - and a few people have emailed that they're having problems getting though...not sure what the deal is, but, the cell phone company can't find anything wrong. So, I guess I can just suggest keep trying!

Bullriding Nica style

2006-02-12T12:33:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

Kinda longwinded last week, so I'll try keep this entry short and sweet. I've been helping in the natural science library - we're writing a couple of grants to support a white paper recycling project in city as well a book-mobile to serve the rural schools around the department. I can tell the librarians are pretty frustrated with the local government support...I get an earfull each time I go visit them. The reliance on NGOs and the gov't is heavy. I've introduced the idea of a bake sale to the librarians...they seemed open to the idea...we'll see...

I've also been working with the local equivalent of the Bureau of Land Management who is in charge of developing watershed management plans for the area, and have been asked to do a presentation for the Environmental Commission (if there still is one...our monthly meeting has been postponed twice this month).

I thought I'd post some pics from the rodeo Celine and I went to last weekend in her town - photos thanks to Celine.

Usually the bull rider gets his oportunity to ride the bull until he gets thrown off...then he gets lassoed to remove the cinches...

then the "toreros" do their thing with their red capes or hats.

Half the spectators (usually doublefisting men) are IN the bullring, and when the bull comes close, they climb the fence to escape a gorging. Because of all the people, it's sometimes hard to see the bull.

Even the icecream salesman hangs out in the ring. People throw their trash and empty bottles into the ring - serves as amunition to launch at the bull.

A well-equiped bullrider - chaps and a hockey helmet. Perhaps a little liquor, too - to make him "braver" the locals say.

Thanks for all the packages! I feel like Christmas finally came - one ever increasing necessity for those inclined to send care packages...nag champa insense. One of my friends thinks there must be a dead dog around, because every so often the breeze brings a whif of something rank into my house. So, until he decays...

El Nancital and Horses on parade

2006-02-05T19:20:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

The day after I dropped off Gregg at the airport, the city’s environmental commission began a week long clean –up. There is once-a-week garbage pick up in the community, but during the event, a garbage truck cruised different neighborhoods picking up accumulated trash in homes and yards. A popular way to announce or advertise around these parts is to mount a set of speakers on a vehicle and drive slowly through the streets repeating the message...typically accompanied by lively music. It’s used for everything from selling vegetables, to announcing registration at the college, to inviting people to so-so’s funeral. Though I hate these vehicles, I did get talked into jumping on to one to encourage neighborhood participation at ear-splitting decibels. I have to admit it’s more fun to be on the deliverer’s end than the receiver’s. Here are a few members of the environmental youth group and environmental commission setting things up:

Below are some scenes from the outskirts of the city. In light of what I wrote a few entries ago about trash and people's ability to throw it away, I guess I should clarify a bit by saying usually apathy strikes those in transit. For that reason, the city center is dirtier because people are walking around. For the most part, homes are farily clean to spotless, with of course some nasty exceptions (think night after frat party with cucarachas) - just like in the rest of the world (except for maybe Germany).

Must've been a big party...

This banner above is posted on the environmental youth group building. It says, ‘Our neighborhood working in the clean-up campaign. The water crisis is due to agricultural and cattle field burning and trash we throw in the streets. For our children’s future, let’s avoid these activities’. The water crisis is soon to come. As of now, water is delivered on a rotational basis – each neighborhood gets water for a few hours or day every 3 or 4 days. But further into the summer (April, May), I’ve heard that period stretches to 8 to 10 days.

The water crisis relates to field burning in that the age-old traditional practice increases soil erosion (among other evils), which in turn reduces the ground’s capacity to absorb water. So, instead of rainwater slowly infiltrating into the soil and being released into rivers over time (say months or years), the water rushes straight to water ways and evacuates the watershed much quicker than it would naturally. Burning fields also can get out of control and burn down neighboring forests, which act to retain water and soil. Since this practice has been passed down from generation to generation, and more and more land is converted from forest into fields, the ecosystem is changing rapidly. I haven’t really figured out the direct link between throwing trash in the street and the water crisis, but in any case it’s bad. That was kind of lecture-like, but I thought it might need some explaining since it wasn’t obvious to me at first. (How can you help without joining the Peace Corps? Buy shade-grown, organic coffee, for one – no pesticides to pollute and shade means trees are growing over the coffee plants).

My association with the environmental youth group also got me invited to participate in a Finish NGO workshop on a cluster of fifteen or so islands in Lake Nicaragua called Nancital. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but was stunned when I saw 130 members of the community, all ages, both men and women, pack into the one-room school and, under the leadership of a Dutch anthropologist named Jan, and a handful of local agronomy university students, break up into groups and complete Rural Participatory Appraisal. I’ve learned a lot about them, both at MTU and in Peace Corps training, and knew it was expected of us to do them with our communities. Seeing so many participants astounded me. (I think Jan has a good relationship with the local priest, and since everyone goes to mass...).

The tools help community members identify their needs – essentially the different groups (all men, all women, mixed, youth) are asked a bunch of questions related to natural resource availability and how it’s changed over time, types of sicknesses and when they are most common throughout the course of a year, what a typical day schedule is, what kinds of material goods and human resources are available in the town, etc. Some subjects are discussed by multiple groups (for example, both the men and women groups were asked to draw a map of the community) to see how the different groups percieve the subject. Later, a member of the group must present the information to everyone at the meeting. After all this, the NGO can help direct the community’s efforts into reaching some of their goals.

One of the island homes:

The community:

The women's group drawing a map of the islands:

The men's group talking about state of the islands natural resources (fish, water, trees, etc):

Youth group talking about type of work people do on the islands (the result: fishing, tiny shops (which are really just rooms in someone's house) where people sell odds and ends, and day laborer... nothing else):

Result of women's group talking about sicknesses and frequencies of each kind:

Our "ride" with Volcan Concepcion in the background:

In this case, Nancital’s economy is pretty much only supported by the fisherman, who sell their fish to markets in nearby cities. The problems are that the fish population is declining, and the road the dock that serves Nancital is horrendous. So now less fish is sold, and fewer buyers travel that road to reach Nancital. Another problem is that the government built a health center, but there are no doctors or nurses – and no medicine. And there is a school, but only a pre-school teacher. On the other hand, there’s hope to bring in some money by making it a popular tourist stop…from the islands, one can see four volcanoes emerging from the lake, and with the sunset behind them, the view is breathtaking:

These were just some of the outcomes of the workshop. I hope to go back to see how the process progresses. And to eat more guapote:

When I got back from Nancital, I attended a big ho-down in a low-income neighborhood of the city, sponsored by the municipal government. It was to celebrate the city’s 128 anniversary and to inagurate three new garbage trucks donated by Japan, and 100 houses donated by the national housing commission. Of course there was music and traditional dancing.

The girls dancing are from the city’s orphanage.

One of the houses donated to the needy:

On the weekend, I went to visit Celine, where her community was in full swing celebrating the town’s patron saint. The party lasted a week, and was kicked off by a hipico – or horse-parade, I guess. People come from all over – including lots of rich Nicaraguans who’ve moved to the States – to show off their fine horses. Celine and I concluded it was much like the middle-age man showing off his shiny cherry-red Ferari. The horses are taught to dance, but it’s a far cry from what the famous European Lippizaners can do. The horses are taught in such a cruel way that it looks more like they take frantic steps to avoid getting a crack of the whip, or probably worse. Nearly all the horses' eyes were rolling, and there was lots of bit champing, agitated tail switching, and sweating. So, being an ex-horse owner, it made me kind of sad.

We also went to a rodeo and watched the bull-riders. Again, another field day for PETA. It was humorous, though, to see all the drunks staggering around the ring (as anyone’s allowed to go in). Celine even got great footage of one of them, posing with a red cape, get tossed high up into the air by one of the bulls. Too bad I can’t post video…

Unfortunatley they didn't show up too well in this photo - but this cowgirl wears stilletos.

Parting shots:

¡Feliz Cumpleaños!

2006-01-23T15:38:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

This past week was a busy one - Gregg from MTU came to visit and to make sure I'm actually working. I guess he thought I wasn't working hard enough because he made me sit down and do volcanic cloud emissions stuff with him. On my birthday, at that!

We did go to Managua to meet with the Peace Corps office about the future Michigan Tech students and Peace Corps Nicaragua. And we also visited INETER, what would be the equivalent of the US Geologic Survey, to get maps and discuss potential collaborations. We also got sushi (that was my idea).

I had a few more meetings last week with the environmental commission and the watershed subcommittee...but no one showed up in the latter. It was better for me though, because I had the oportunity to talk one on one with the committee-head about what projects they are doing, what they want to do, and ways I might be able to help. There is lots of talk about protecting the Rio Mayales watershed, in which the city is located, and which feeds Lake Nicaragua. And it seems that the efforts are concentrated in rural areas, where agricultural activity, erosion, and deforestation have impacted the river.

This week was also my 30th birthday - (January 19th, so you can put it on your calendar for 2007). Unlike many 30 year olds, I'm pretty happy about it - I hear it should be a good 10 years... Patricia planned a party for me, which consisted of her family, Gregg, and Celine. My day started off with a bouquet of flowers the family gave me as I was leaving for my 8 o'clock meeting - the rest of the day the boys came by giving me flowers...

A troop of kids came up to my house to sweep, wash windows, and decorate with palm fronds and balloons. All the while Gregg forced me to look at graphs and satellite images...

Around nightfall, they brought up a grill to my patio and Patricia cooked up some tasty carne asada that we ate with corn tortillas and cabbage salad.

The boys avoided a candle crisis by performing a search of my house that would make any DEA agent proud. A reminder to me that nothing's sacred, nor private.

Gigglia and Willie, whose house I used to live in, came to the fiesta too - the next day they moved to Managua, though. Looking for work...

Celine and yet another Michigander trying to learn the latin dance moves...

They did like my music, salsa, merengue, bachata - the fact that I only had 2 Nicaraguan songs didn't bother them...we just played both of them every 10 minutes.

On Friday, Gregg and I walked about an hour and a half to some local hot springs. Do I live in paradise or what!? Our first exposure was scalding, so we had to go down stream. Which was good because we found some nice mud pits. Tell me I'm not glowing after the mud mask...

Thanks to everyone for the birthday greetings - Lacey, I got your package!

Marathon meetings and arachnids

2006-01-14T17:57:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: I like spiders

Things are picking up workwise, as I attended the first environmental commission meeting of the year (which lasted 7 hours!) on Tuesday. There were representatives from the mayor's office, ministries of health, agriculture, natural resource management, various local NGOs, the army, different neighborhods, and your friendly Peace Corps volunteer.

At times the frustration was palpable - at one point one of the engineers launched into a 20 minute diatribe against the community and their lack of participation in the government-led environmental awareness campaigns. The most evident, and one that gets on everyone's nerves is TRASH. No one seems to be aware of what trash is and why it should be placed in a trash can. Everywhere people throw their plastic bags, broken bottles, candy wrappers, and whatever else that can't possibly be re-used in the street. Certain parts of the city are worse than others - still struggling a bit on my approach to the subject with my friends - I guess example is the best.

The longest presentation was given by a lawer drawing up new legislation for the local sanitary landfill (which was constructed a few years ago, but needs to be re-hauled). In it, there are provisions for separation of trash, organics, and recyclable materials. It was exciting to see that being considered here in Nicaragua...but I can't help wondering if people still don't seem to recognize trash long enough to put it into ONE receptacle, are they ready to discern different types of refuse to be thrown into one of four receptacles? For now, the plan is to have a pilot project in the city center - with the young environmentalists club leading the education campaign, and then going out from there. They are still considering the idea of separation at the landfill as well... (Thanks to Alex and Jim at MTU for assigning theTesopaco landfill design project last spring so I could participate in the conversation.)

In the law discussed, we also talked at length about fines for dumping trash illegally. Some thought the lowest fine of100 Córdobas (or about $6) was way too steep. (To put it into perspective, one of my friends worked for a while at a local bakery - he worked a 12-hour shift for just over $2 a day.) So that was lowered to 50 Córdobas (almost two days labor with the example given). The real question is, does the city have the personnel to enforce these laws and ensure the fines are actually paid? It seems to me that the government is progressive, but enforcement and manpower are severely lacking.

There was also a presentation on the no-burn campaign led by the ministry of natural resources. It's common here for farmers to burn their fields in the summertime to prep them for planting (I still haven't really figured out why - to rid them of weeds and pests, I guess - and doesn't ash add potassium or something to the soil??). The burning leads to quicker soil erosion rates, and puts forested land in danger if the fires get out of control. Not to mention it's bad for air quality.

These were the two topics covered in depth, besides that there was an evaluation of the commission's activities for 2005, as well as the call for new ideas for the coming year. That meeting seemed to be the jumping off point for me, as now I am signed up on the watershed and environmental education subcommittes, and I am now a member of the young environmentalists group, (though now that I'm pushing 30, do I still qualify?).

I also attended a meeting with the Mediateca - the natural science library. We are coordinating environmental educational activities with a rural school about 8 km away. I hope to be involved with them in planning activities for earth day, arbor day, and other tree-hugging related holidays.

That was a lot of talk and no photos - sorry, but I'm happy to finally being doing something work related besides just introducing myself. My participation is minimal at this point - have lots to learn about how things work...

I moved into my house - Julito, 11 years old and son of Patricia, is my right-hand man. He is still helping me organize stuff and do minor repairs. He is also teaching me to play cards and helping me learn to make Nicaraguan food- in this photo he's preparing tostones, a type of fried starchy banana.

Julito, Jeffery, Keren, Juliver - all Patricia's kids, on my front porch cracking open almonds (that the bats drop - they only eat the fruit on the outside), and coconuts. They are all lamenting the fact that summer vacation is over and school starts in 17 days...

I also have finally located a drum teacher! I met Mario (far left) when I came for my site visit (his family and I went to the hot springs). He is in an Evangelical contemporary band that includes a conga drum. So Gamaliel has agreed to help me. I had two lessons this past week and have been playing an hour at least every day (no doubt much to my neighbors' chagrin).

This is my most recent houst guest...I hesitated in posting this photo in case it dissuades any potential visitors...but it's pretty spectaular.

TP for scale -

Muchas gracias everyone for the Christmas packages - they finally arrived! A note...thanks to Grandpa Crill, I have enough chocolate to last me until next Christmas ... so if you're going to send me something, better send books instead.

It's a very Reggaetón Christmas

2006-01-03T10:20:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)

WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education

WHERE: Nicaragua

WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07

WHY: La vida es un carnaval

Almost the entire Nica-39 group met in Granada to celebrate Christmas together. We had about 3 days for vacationing and found that Christmas is not the big deal it is in the States. So, it was a relaxing break in a hostal where the only unexpected visitor we got on Christmas morning was a roach. Noemi is good at taking care of them, though...lucky for me.

The owner of the hostal we stayed at hosts a free Christmas dinner for all the guests - meat, rice, bread, salad and a typical Christmas dessert called "sopa borracha" or "drunken soup". It's cake swimming in rum. The food was great, but I can't say I was a fan of the dessert - I would've rather had pumpkin pie.

One of John's parting gifts from Boaco was a bottle of Nicraguan hooch (rum based, of course) called "morir soñando" which means "to die dreaming". He generously gave me half the bottle, so I spread the Christmas cheer with the other volunteers. In true Nica style, the dinner party soundtrack included lots of Reggaetón - a mix of rap-hip-hop-reggae with an unmistakable rhythm and whose videos always feature scantily-clad-gyrating women.

Seeing this flooded me with nostagia for the original Granada - in Spain, and where I lived for two years and learned Spanish. It is located in the Alhambra - originally a mosque and where the Muslim's ruled Spain, and converted into a Christian summer home when Isabel and Ferdinand took over. Fortunatley, much of the original architecture has been preserved. The plaque says, "Give him a dime, lady, for there's nothing sadder in the world than being blind and living in Granda."

The contemporary art scene is alive in Granada - these pictures were taken at the Casa de Cultura. Besides these studios, there are also photography exhibits and a small concert hall.They host summer art programs for children, as well.

A couple of artists - the top one is also in a heavy metal band. Most of his art materials are sent to him by his mom who lives in the States.

On Christmas morning, a group of us got up early and hiked around Volcan Mombacho. There's no record of eruption in the history of man, but there are small fumaroles where steam is constantly emitted. It's pretty close to the Volcano Zapatero on the island of Omotepe (located in Lake Nicaragua), which did erupt a few months ago. Here's Volcan Mombacho from Granada:

We were lucky to find a family living at the bottom of the volcano that didn't mind feeding us Christmas breakfast - bread and butter, rice, a chicken salad of sorts, and coffee. Their house is actually an old bus that they built around. They also offered us the leftover pork from Christmas dinner for lunch.

The visitors center near the rim. It's also a hostal and restaurant. It was obligatory to have a park guide to take us on a 4-hour tour of the rim and cloud forest. He was really good and even located one of the smallest species of orchids in the world - it was maybe a half centimeter tall and has a bigger leaf growing behind it to protect it from strong winds. I tried to get a photo, but I lack the photo equipment. Mombacho is home to howler monkeys, tree frogs, rare birds and sloths. Unfortunately for us, none of them like to be seen.

Noemi and our guide - much of the hike was like this - walking through a verdant tunnel. It was cool, damp, and mossy.

Here's a view from the top - these are the isletas (little islands) of Lake Nicaragua - just outside of Granada. There's supposed to be a great boat tour of the isletas - saving that for my next trip...

A view of volcan Zapatera, on the island of Omotepe. This is the one that erupted not too long ago.

Though the fauna was scarce, the flowers were abundant...

Didn't get to see any sloths, but there we lots of spiders and insects.

I thought this ant's girlfriend would be happy to see him..

Back home - I think I've found a place to live - just down the street where I'm currently renting a room, and part of the same family. Patricia (there's a picture of her with John and I on a previous post) and her family live in a house close to the street, and the house I hope to live in is located on the same property, but set back aways. Its been abandondend for a few years and needed lots of cleaning up. I was astounded by how much Patricia's kids wanted to help out. They must have spent about 25 hours in all helping me sweep, scrub, shovel, haul, and cement in holes. Still have to get the ok from the Peace Corps security officer, but I can't see how he'll shoot this one down. It even comes with a guard dog, that evidently they won't let me refuse. Pictures of Ursalito next time.

Julito playing with the family deer... besides this pet, there are a number of doves, parrots (but they're not too noisy), dogs and puppies, 2 geese, and 2 huge pigs. Seems like it would be noisy, but I think the key is that there are no roosters.

On the 30th, I went to visit Celine in her town - about an hour or so away. It was her birthday so I thought I'd take her some cookies - there's one one public phone in her town so I couldn't let her know I was coming (besides, I wanted it to be a surprise). Turns out she woke up not wanting to spend her birthday alone and got on a bus for my town. So we missed eachother...when she got to my familie's house Patricia told her I had gone to see her - so she jumped on a bus for home, just as I had done..in the end we met up en-route as our buses skidded to a halt to let me change buses and join her.

Here's Celine on the overlook of her town - it's got about 1400 people, and I would guess 5 times that number of poultry. Can't believe the din all those birds make - we could hear them from here!

Some random pics...

So, you all will have to stay tuned til next year for pictures of New Year's festivities - I was too tired from hiking all over Celine's town to stay awake until midnight. Sorry.

MTU Gringo Parade

2005-12-19T08:52:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

Had an exciting Gringo packed weekend...as I mentioned before, my advisor, John and nine MTU students are here in Nicaragua for a few weeks. They took the weekend off, and I joined them for a little tour around some of the highlights. Above is a picture of Volcan Mombacho - still alive and kicking.

We started off the weekend with a party at Melvin and Amparo's (Amaparo's in yellow below) home, where John and I stayed last year when we came to visit. In true Nica style, they brought in live music, tons of food, and cleared the living room for dancing. I didn't bring my drum (which I'm still determined to learn!), but I did get to play along with some claves.

Jill and Gary picked up the Palo de Mayo right away - one of Nicaragua's traditional dances that comes from the East coast. The East coast is made up of people mostly of Afro-Carribean descent (many fled slavery and landed in Nicaragua), and the dance is high energy, kinda savage, and very suggestive. There are movements to tone-down the dance a bit, as evidently in the last few years, it's gotten even wilder.

Fatima and I - she's Melvin and Amparo's helper. I tried to pick up some dance moves from her...but I lack the 19 years she has behind her.

Local live music (Houghton's Koskinen would fit right in)...

Tried to pick up some moves from her too...

I wasn't the only one trying to learn how to dance. Fatima's a great teacher, but she's not a miracle worker, John.

Tango is not traditional Nica, but they lovedGary and Katy...

We left Boaco on Saturday morning and headed to Volcan Masaya

This isn't the best picture, but this is what an active volcano looks like...evidently there is a species of parakeets that use the caldera as their breeding grounds. Sulfur doesn't bother them, I guess.

This is a view of a dormant volcano that is right next to volcan Masaya

Masaya has a great museum too - information on geology, geography, ecology, and anthropology.

Onwards to Granada!

We found a Spanish restaurnt there in Granada - we shared some great tapas - jamon serrano, queso manchego, spanish olives...made me all nostalgic. The woman in background is the owner and is from Barcelona.

Here's Debbie and I at Catarina overlooking Laguna de Apoyo. We went down to the lake afterwards and had a swim before heading home.

Swimming, Purisima, Water Treatment Plant

2005-12-16T07:22:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: I needed more time to make cookies.

Lots to catch up on! Last week, Gigglia's nephew, Rafael, was in town and he and Keren (a niece) and I went to a waterfall nearby called La Palma. It was beautiful and secluded. Photos do more justice than my words:

After a meeting I had with the local natural science library, which I will be working with, I gained the confidence of the librarian and she agreed to let me take a book to read to the kids in my house. Libraries here aren't like in the States - it's more like a resource center since they don't let people take the books home. We had a long talk about how to promote reading with kids...reading is really not a pastime here, so not only do kids not do it, rarely do adults either. Hopefully reading this Richard Scarry book with me will encourage Larry to like reading!

These are the three kids in my house - William (or commonly called Willee), Larry, and baby Elias.
I went to a Purisima service (to celebrate the Immaculate Conception) in the rural community of Quebrantadero (where the school I'll work with is located). It was about two hours long and they said the entire rosary! Afterwards they gave out little bags to the kids filled with oranges, candies and juice.

My counterpart and I went to visit the municipal tree nursery. I'm hoping to spend a week or so there to learn more about planting trees in January, and possibly bring the students from Quebrantadero here for a field trip.

Vermiculture...

I'm going to get one of these for my house to remind me of AZ!

John, my advisor from Michigan Technological University, came down to nearby Boaco with a gaggle of engineering students to do some geophysical studies in groundwater exploration. I hung out with them for a bit in Boaco, and John came to Juigalpa to see my site. They are also doing a blog for their project here - check it out at: http://attnicaragua.blogspot.com/

John, my friend Patricia and I:

Work stuff! John and I went on a tour of Juigalpa's well field and water treatment plant. We were fortunate to have an engineer at ENECAL (the water company), accompany us and get us aquainted with the aqueduct project that they have planned to begin next year.

This is the water quality laboratory on site at the treatment plant. Every hour the water is tested at various points in the treatment process. They also say that the Ministry of Health does random checks on water quality througout the town. I am able to drink the water here (well, I drink the water everywhere in Nicaragua) and have yet to be sick. Not true of other volunteers however...

Some parting shots - the first was taken on the way to some local, undeveloped, hot springs. There not too far from Juigalpa...so perhaps that might entice some of the reluctant to visit me?? The second is a sorghoum (sp?) field in Quebrantadero. They say they make tortillas out of it...
Between all these activities, I've been trying to keep the house stocked with cookies! I've made 3 batches since I got to Juigalpa, and each batch is better than the previous one. Hot springs and homemade cookies? Whose NOT going to come visit me??

I've got a few pictures of the baby turtles (thanks, Noemi!), but I'm having a hard time putting them on the blog - you can still see them by going to:

http://www.snapfish.com/share/p=655161134753827315/l=71392537/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

and then clicking on "Nica Nov 05" to view the pics. Enjoy!

Nica home tour

2005-12-04T15:08:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

Got real estate on the mind as I look for a house to move into in 5 weeks. I tell everyone I know I'm looking for a house to rent, but they keep wanting to show me rooms that people rent out. It's hard to get across that I want my own house - mostly they ask "Won't you be scared?", "Won't you be lonely?", "What do you want to do with all that room to yourself?". I'm still hopeful - it's been done before...Interestingly, they charge rent by the Dollar, not the Cordoba.

So, to continue with that thread, I thought I'd give you all a home tour of the house I'm currently staying in with Gigglia and her famliy (which has grown since I visited a month ago). Her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend have moved in, so now we number 7 (including me).

From the yard - looking east (clean, huh?):

From the yard - looking west:

The living room
Living room:

This is a view from the porch:

My room:My room (on the bottom shelf, you can see a pic of one of Gigglia's nieces that was born in and lives in the States):

This is the bathroom, and though it needs paint - it's clean and that's all that matters! Compared to lots of other bathrooms and latrines I've visited, this is great.

Kitchen:

Kitchen again (I paid 40 cents for that pineapple!)

Gigglia, William, Adiran, Adriana, and Jose's room. (Two are young kids):

The back porch - we have metal workers behind us which was really annoying at first (but not as annoying as the roosters), but I'm getting used to it.

Back yard - the tower is a storage shed and on top is where water is stored - we currently get it every 3-4 days, and have yet to have any real water supply problems. I drink from the tap and haven't had suffered any consequences.

Other view of backyard, today I saw a kid pop his head out of that black water tank (it's empty).

I skipped a few rooms - where Ketel (Gigglia's sister) and Larry, her 6 yr old son sleep. Also, there's an extra room with a TV and ironing board, and they have a storage room. So, with all those rooms, I don't know why they pack so many in one. I guess Gigglia's hoping that Adrian and her boyfriend won't be staying long...
Besides looking for housing, I've met lots of people at the mayor's office - the vice-mayor, as well as several engineers that work with the environmental comission. There was also an end-of-year party with the entire env. comission, which was a great opportunity for me to meet everyone - there are representatives from different neighborhoods,NGO's, the dept of health, and the dept of environmental protection. It was kinda awkward at first, but after the meanest game of musical chairs I've ever played (I didn't win), we all loosened up. We had several "dinamicas" is what they call them here - icebreakers, I guess. I have a meeting scheduled with the mayor for Tuesday. Sorry I haven't taken any pics of these folks yet, but it seems too touristy to whip out the camera when I go in for a meeting.
I also was invited to the 6th grade promotion of the rural school I will be working with when school starts up again after summer vacation. There were 16 graduates, between the ages of 12 and 16 maybe, from about 5 rural schools. All I can say is that everyone looked uncomfortable with all the formality. No one smiles for photos here - how long does it take a culture to move through that phase? I know we did it in the US for decades, but that was for technical reasons. Some people must, as I often hear people saying "Diga wheeeskey!" (instead of the English "Say cheese!")...but rarely do I hear the photographees say it.
A note to potential phone callers - in a brilliant move, I left my cell phone in a taxi, so don't bother calling it. PC will be getting me a new one soon. I'll notify you all of my new number as soon as I get it.

Peace Corps Tourists

2005-11-28T15:56:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

Many apologies for taking so long to update - we've been playing tourist for the past few weeks - there were many times I heard one of my fellow PCVs ask "Are we still in the Peace Corps?" I even had qualms about showing you all what we've been up to...I mean, I know you're all expecting photos of me hauling water, eating my 100th plate of gallo pinto, suffering from dengue...

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Playa Coco

The day after swearing-in, we were treated (in part - we did have to shell out some cash too) to a weekend vacation on the Pacific Coast - just north of the border with Costa Rica. They put us up in posh accomodations, and one evening we went to a nearby beach to see baby turtles hatching and heading out to the sea. (I forgot my camera that night, so I'll post some friend's pics as soon as I get some). It's quite a sight to see 80 little turtles crawiling out of a hole in the sand...we'd all coach them along as they crawled across the beach. I'd always get a stap of empty nest syndrome as they caught a wave and took off.

We also got to view one big turtle come ashore and lay eggs. The guide said that within the span of three days, 50,000 turtles come to lay eggs on the beach. They often destroy other nests that were previously laid because there's so little space to accommodate them all.

The beach has it's share of soldiers there to protect the eggs from poachers - turtle eggs are a delicacy around these parts...

Our accomodations for the weekend - oo la la!

These are some of closest friends from training - Marcy, Jade, Allie, Noemi, and Celine. Miss them already! The rest of the pics show some of the highlights and scenery from the trip:

Endless Summer - starting in November...

So Celine and I discovered our newfound love of body boarding. Holy cow - what have I been doing all my life!? I can't believe I'd never done this before! My only experience with boards and waves was an attempt to surf with my cousin when I was maybe 13. (Remember that, Glen?) I never really enjoyed the beach - I'm not supposed to be in the sun, kinda sandy there, and who likes salty water? But, body boarding truly was an enlightening experience - can I even go as far as to say "transcendental"?

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All Volunteer Conference - Managua

Every year, all 160 some odd volunteers get togehter at a super nice hotel in Managua. Volunteers give talks on projects they've done, tricks they've learned along the way, share ideas. We also had various NGOs and aid agencies come give talks. (Learned all about the controversial DR-CAFTA initiave from USAID.) I actually did get pic of President Bolanos (but it didn't turn out so good - see below) - and I got to shake his hand. He went to the University of Missouri - how 'bout that.

The press were all over Ambassador Traveli after he gave his talk. He's on the news all the time because people want to know his perspective on the approaching election (November 2006). It'll be an exciting time to be in Nicaragua. Daniel Ortega, a die-hard Sandanista, is vying for a spot on the ticket - though it could mean quite a shake up for Nicaragua and international interests, he's lost the last three elections, so I don't think people are too concerned.

Peace Corps Nicaragua Staff. I'd say maybe 90% are local hires.

We also had a talent show to close out the conference. Above is a picture of Nola - she has been in Nicaragua for 3 years, and just got an extension for a 4th. She works with deaf children up north. She also has a column in the PC Nicaragua publication called "Hola from Nola". Volunteers in the department of Chontales (where I now live) did a parody of Phish's "Farmhouse." We didn't win. =====================================================================

Thanksgiving

Todd, our Country director, invited about 20 volunteers to his house for T-giving dinner. Had the best cranberry sauce ever...as good as it was, I'm sure I'll appreciate it even more in a year. In my excitement to eat, I didn't get a pic of the spread. But this is what was left over...

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In Site! Finally!

The day after Thanksgiving, we took off to our sites. Sunsets here are as beautiful as in AZ...

On Sunday, some friends invited me to the local swimming hole called "El Salto" (The Jump) - I didn't do any jumping. I'm too chicken.

Smart cat...

This past week, I've had a few meetings with folks at the mayor's office, as well as the natural science library. Things are moving along, but I have a feeling it'll all come to a standstill soon as things close down for the month of December and Xmas. Settling in pretty well here and exploring running paths early in the mornings. It's pretty hot already, but not unbearable.

More soon! Hope all's well out there!

Swearing-In

2005-11-18T13:17:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)

WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education

WHERE: Nicaragua

WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07

WHY: La vida es un carnaval

We spent this last week in Managua having endless logistial sessions...but now we know EVERYTHING there is to know to be effective Peace Corps Volunteers. (Ha)

We hung out all week at the "Casa Grande" (the Big house), which was rumored to have been giving to the US Ambassador in the 70's by one of the Samoza dictators. Who knows if it's really true. It really is big and in a few years, will house the US Ambassador. It was built in the 30's (and is one of the few buildings to have survived all the hurricanes and earthquakes that have plagued Managua) on a big hill overlooking Managua and Lake Managua.

Here's the Nica 39 Environmental Education group all dressed to kill. All 19 that arrived two and a half months ago have sworn in - we didn't lose anyone! Oh, and I lied about the President, he didn't come. Never was scheduled to. Oops. But he will be attending the All Volunteers Conference next week. I'll try and get a pic.

Here's my training town group - Marcy, Celine, Noemi and me!

Maura, Nazareth and Mihail attended the Swearing-In, along with all the other training town families.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm....blue frosting....

So, we're now officially volunteers - not just trainees. This weekend our training group will be headed to Playa Coco, where, if we're lucky, we'll be able to see turtles laying their eggs. Keep your fingers crossed. Then, it's back to Managua for the All Volunteers Conference (with Pres Bolanos - I promise ), and Thanksgiving dinner with an Embassy family. After that, we are scheduled to head off to sites and actually BE volunteers.

Adios

2005-11-14T15:38:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

I wrote a letter to my best friend, Lacey about leaving my training family, which I did this morning...thought I'd post an excerpt that I think is interesting. Hmmm... seems pretty strange to be quoting myself...

"So, I said goodbye to the family early this morning. We left at around 6 am, and it was sad – Nazareth got out of bed to say goodbye, which I was in a way hoping she wouldn’t – just made it all the more difficult. Just as I gave Maura a hug, she started to get teary (llorosa, in Spanish in case you wanted to know). It just tore me up. This whole time I was here, I couldn’t help but make comparisons between myself and her daughter, Claudia, who is Nazareth’s mom. She left about two months before I got to Nica and went illegally to the US. I know we look at those traveling to the US illegally as sketchy, or perhaps get uncomfortable talking about it, but being down here has given me a totally new perspective on the topic. This experience with the family put a real face on the issue. This is not a thug from the border – this is a woman, in her early 30s, with a college degree, and a young daughter who is looking for a better life for herself and her family. And, she’s found it in part. She is sending stuff home - money, clothes, toys for Nazareth. But in another way, it breaks my heart because Claudia doesn’t get to participate in the raising of her daughter, and she works 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in a restaurant in Miami. I know she wants her to come to the US, but who knows when that will happen. Or how?Maybe it never will, as Claudia may come back to Nicaragua...

So how do Claudia and I compare? Yeah, our situations are vastly different – I’m not illegal, and I don’t have to work like a dog. And I’m safe, and more or less viewed in a different light than Hispanics who don’t speak English are in the US. But, I am new to the country, and am having my share of culture shock and difficulties. I told Maura in a thank-you letter, that I felt that Claudia and I are experiencing similar challenges and that my transition was made so much easier by the fact that I had Maura and Nazareth to keep me company, care for me, worry about me, teach me, and make me laugh! "

Week 11 - Home stretch!

2005-11-12T08:50:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa) WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education WHERE: Nicaragua

WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07 WHY: La vida es un carnaval

Okay, we finally got a breather before the last stretch of training! I don't know what I'm happier about - the break, or the end of training. Tomorrow we all say goodbye to our training host families, it'll be hard leaving Nazareth (who actually told Maura she wishes I were her mama - someone pass me a tissue...) and Maura, who has been incredibly helpful, warm, loving, and supportive. But, they know they can always come see me in my new home - and they are prepared to let me crash out there whenever I need a change of scene.

Next week is the final push - lots of meetings in Managua with those folks in charge of PC logitics and whatnot - and Friday we all swear in. It should be exciting with all the host families present, embassy peeps, as well as Senor Bolanos, the president of Nicaragua. Time to get all slicker'd up and put away the red shirt and kakies that you all see me in in every one of the photos I post. I promise I do change every so often.

The photos below were taken from my site visit last week:

Here's me doing the laundry. Though I want to say it's not THAT bad, I've only been doing it for about two weeks...I'm sure I'll end up hating it. A lot of PCVs hire a neighborhood woman to do it for them...will I befall that same fate?

Yet another homely pic - here I am making gallo pinto (the typical rice and bean dish) with my host...person (she's only 6 years older than I, so I don't really want to call her mom). Her names Gigglia - she's holding baby Adrain, who is actually her grandson. She cares for both of her grandsons as her daughter, 19, lives with her boyfriend and evidently didn't want to take responsibility for the kids. It's kind of an atypical situation I gather. In all, I live with Gigglia and her sister Ketel, Gigglia's grandsons Adrian (6 mos) and William (2 yrs), and Ketel's son, Larry (6 yrs). I'll try to get a family photo up soon. Both the sisters are divorced, and Ketel works outside the home. Their Dad is in Miami working in construction and he sends them dinero. I feel really comfortable with Gigglia and Ketel, and though they are busy, they have a pretty extensive family,so there's always someone to guide the gringa around and show off the town's sights.

This is our living room...and the only real room except the bedrooms. There are a few rocking charis, a TV, and a fridge. Oh, and the baby's hammock.

Here's Larry with his favorite kitten. Behind him you can see all the plastic bottles that are filled whenever the water gets turned on by the water company. In the rainy season, this neighborhood gets water every other day, but in the summer, it comes once a week or so. The family has a large storage tank, so I don't gather it's too problematic except during severe droughts.

Around town...this is the central park gazebo.

The Catholic church.

I also got a tour of the town's zoo. I have to say it made me kinda sad. The animal's cages are very small, and though they are clean, there is just not the funds to re-create an appropriate habitat, as we are accustomed to seeing in the US. Many times animals are caged individually. I should note though, that around the monkey cage, a wild one was hanging around on the oustide visiting those inside.

Who's on whose team?

Some of the spectaular scenery on the edge of town - I'm hoping to do lots of exploring down there in the valley and around the Amerisque mountians in the distance. However, I've found that hiking for fun is largely the white-mans' pastime than Nica's don't really share, and trails seem hard to come by. Most roads just lead to someone's house. We'll see. I have a couple of years to figure it out.

Yeah, that's a carrot pinata. The rural school I visited put on a big welcoming reception for me...kids sang and recited poetry, and afterwards there was a pinata. There are three teachers, and about 40 students at the school. So the classes are multi-grade, with pre-school alone, younger kids and then older ones. The school was only about 3 years old, and in great condition. It's very clean, and it looks like the teachers put lots of effort into their teaching with lots of posters and activities. They have new latrines, and even two 1000 (?) gallon tanks for rainwater collection off the roofs. During the dry season, the community really suffers as the valley drys up. I think UNICEF and possibly USAID have helped the school quite a bit recently.

Here's the kids scampering for candies...

Last Sunday, Rafael, who is Gigglia's nephew hooked us up with a family (that has a car) and we drove to a nearby hot spring. As you can see, they develop them a bit differently here - more like a big warm Olimpic pool. Not as hot as I'd like, but worth the effort and buck and a half to get in. There's rumored to be some un-developed ones just a few k outside of my community, but that they run hot and not-so-hot. But, they're free.

Okay, folks. Thanks for tuning in once again. Hope all's well with everyone!

Week 10 - Site visit

2005-11-09T11:43:00.000-08:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

So this is going to a boring text-only entry, sorry - no time to download pics. Our group has dispersed to all parts of Nicaragua to visit their sites! It was a much anticipated week during training, as Spanish class and technical training is getting old.

So last Saturday we all set out for our sites. I will be living in one of the larger communities in the department of Chontales. My site visit has been successful - the family which which I will be living for a while is great. (More about them when I post photos).

According to my site report, I am slated to work with the mayors office/environmental comission on a community-wide water development project, as well as help put together a proposal for a sanitary landfill. They are also interested in developing some type of water treatment facilities for the businesses here. I also met with an employee of MARENA, the equivalent of the EPA, and we talked about a watershed conservation project he is involved in at the moment.

Through the Department of Education, there are work possibilites with the local natural sciences library that serves the community and schools. Additionally, I have been assigned one rural school located a few miles away to help integrate environmental education into the curriculum.

So, there seems to be lots of possibities here! Everyone I met with was very warm and helpful...though the community seems big right now, I'm sure that as soon as I start making friends, it'll seem more like home.

So, back to Managua for a week-long wrap-up...

Week 8 - Tropical Storm Beta

2005-10-27T13:50:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

So we just recived word that our plans for site visits (scheduled to start tomorrow) were just cancelled and instead all Peace Corps volunteers and trainees are being called in to Managua. Evidently a tropical storm is on the way - and is predicted to be a hurricane when it arrives in Nicaragua within 24 hours. It seems hard to believe considering we've had nothing but warm sunny weather for the past two days...but the Nicaraguan gov't will begin evacuating flood prone areas this afternoon.

Keep us all in your thoughts - hopefully this will be the last big blowout before the end of the rainy season!

Week 7 - Town profile

2005-10-23T12:13:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

Just in case you are already forgeting what I look like!!

So, I thought I'd give you all a better idea of where I've been living for the past 7 weeks. The town has a population of about 5000 (I think), and though I haven't traveled all it's streets, these pics will at least give an idea what the town looks like. It's on the fringes of the department capital, and I think a lot of people travel the couple of kilometers to work in that city. But there are several little mom and pop shops, an internet, and...I guess that's about it. I really only have about two weeks left here, as in the next month, we'll be doing site visits, and training wrap-up in Managua.

This is the central park in the town - serves a common meeting place and playground. This is where I saw a strange animal up in a tree which I still don't belive I've positively identified. It had the body and tail of a cat, but with shorter legs, and a head like a porcupine, but it's head was green (!!) with huge black spines coming out of it. Any ideas??

This is the Catholic church. I've noticed that there are a number of US and Canadian Evangelical missionaries coming into the town and setting up shop. There are quite a few families jumping on the bandwagon - all four of our host families are evangelical.

This is one of the paved streets in the center of town. I would hazard to say maybe a third of the towns streets are paved like this...the other are still dirt.

This is one of the roads out of town - and Noemi and my preferred running route. The paved part is only about a half mile long, then it turns to dirt, but with all the rain, it's been too muddy to run on. So we go back and forth between the end of this road and the cemetary.

Here's that same road during a rain shower.

Noemi and I see these cows being herded every morning.

The owners of this home lived in the US and either saved money and came back, or have some kind of business set up there. That afforded them to build this mansion - it even has AC. Though it doesn't show in the photo, there are high steel bars all around the home.

One of the dirt/mud roads.

This is an example of what the rains do to roads - it would be better to travel this one in a canoe.

One of the houses on the outskirts. It's built on the slope of a river bank. Seems tenuous to me, but the view is spectacular!

A couple of homes on the outskirts.

Just to show that the sun DOES come out occasionally in October!

In other news...Nazareth is practicing to become a teacher...

And I've made a second round of peanut butter! You can buy it in the department capital, but it's uber-expensive. I buy the nuts in the market, toast them, and take them to be ground at the local mill. I add a bit of salt and honey. My PB making experiments have turned out way better than my baking ones. Maura now loves peanut butter, but Nazareth has her doubts.

Weeks 5,6-half way!

2005-10-16T09:12:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)

WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education

WHERE: Nicaragua

WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07

WHY: La vida es un carnaval

Water water everywhere! We're half way through the rainiest month of the year - I've been living with wrinkly fingers for the past two weeks... Things are finally starting to dry out a bit. The constant rain has passed, and now it only rains a few hours a day. We are fortunate, though that we haven't suffered any natural disasters as El Salvador and Guatemala did. I saw on the news that Nicaragua is sending emergency relief funds to El Salvador. Seems like everywhere Mother Nature is reminding us who's boss...

We're about half way through training - and the second half should fly by with placement interivews, the site fair (where we learn about the communities we'll be serving in), our site assignments, and site visits! Everyone'sexcited to learn where we'll be living for the next two years. We're all kind of like kids counting down the days until Christmas...only 10 more to go!

In week 5, all trainees got a three day visit with a volunteer currently serving. I visited Marissa, who has lived in the department of Chontales for about a year. It's about 4 hours east of Managua. She was a great host and showed me all around her town and the surrounding area.

Marissa taught me to make tortillas - funny thing to learn from a fellow gringa. Though we did eat Nica food most of the time I was there, we also made french toast one night for dinner - with Aunt Jemima syrup. Who says the Peace Corps is tough?

Cultural misunderstanding no 349: Marissa graded the pictures her students had drawn that day about " A World Without Trees." She drew a star on the top of each one, like many primary school teachers do. When she finished, Cilas,one of the neighborhood boys who was hanging out at the house came over to take a look, sighed, and said "Todos faltaban estrellas" (They all forgot to draw a star).

The landscape is breathtaking in Chontales - the rainy season lasts around 9 months - which accounts for the million and one shades of green. We were lucky though, while I was there - it hardly rained at all. I guess, though, I should mention that my definition of rain has changed since I came to Nicaragua. Sprinkles doesn't count. Neither does any precipitation that lasts less than one hour, regardless of how hard it is.

Marissa's friends own a ranch nearby and they took us horesback riding for a few hours! Yee-haw! This is Efrain and I. My horse doesn't have a name - they just call it "la yegua" - the mare.

Some of the amazing flowers that we came accross on our ride:

One of our training days entailed of a visit to a local organic farm near Managua, run by a woman named Rosario. Here she is explaining how to turn organic matter, ash, soil, and cow poop into compost.

Her farm is very succesful particularly because she has a deal with a local Korean restaurant. They provide her with seeds, and she supplies them with vegetables. Besides learning composting techniques, we also learned how to make natural pesticides.

Check out the adventicious roots on that bad boy:

Rosario's farm not only had exotic vegetables, but lots of local plants and trees. I've seen cacti here and have yet to understand how they survive in such a water rich environment. Hmmmmmm...

Natural, renewable, AND sustainable:

You can check out more pics at:
http://www.snapfish.com/share/p=169301128120076839/l=61847040/
otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Thanks everyone for cards and letters - keep them coming!

PC training - Week 4

2005-09-30T14:47:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

Here's my training group - Celine, Noemi, Marcy, and me! We average about two Eskimo ice cream cones a week.

Nazareth and I painted our toenails one night. She told me the brownish color I chose was feo (ugly), but the only other options she had had glitter in them. Six year olds tell it like it is.

Though Maura thought I was crazy to take this photo - I wanted to show you all what a typical meal looks like. On the left are maduros - fried sweet bananas. On the lesft is gallo pinto (literally "spotted chicken" - for the color, not what's in it). It is made of beans and rice. I get this every night, and some days for lunch too. There are fried corn tortillas, a salad of cabbage and carrots, and finally a piece of salty white cheese. Maura is a great cook!

We made chocolate "chip" cookies this week. There are no chocolate chips, nor brown sugar, but appropriate substitues were found. These pictures show our round 1 results, and then the ones we had more success with after we tweaked the recipie. Nica flour, brown sugar substitue (called "dulce") , and baking powder all all different than what I'm used to.

Our training group did did one more charla in the schools - I did mine on the time it takes different trash to decompose. It went well and everyone was surprised when they found out plastic takes 500 years to disappear. We talked about choosing responsibly and trying to reuse and recycle.

Good news - Maura took one of the roosters to the mataderos (butchers). Hooray! Only three more to go! They like to hang out right outside my bedroom and crow all night.

Classes are finally getting a bit more challenging - we've made it our goal to get through all the forms of the subjunctive tense - something none of us have ever had good lessons in. We're also working on breaking bad habits we've formed over the years of getting by with what we know.

On Sunday, we will all be heading out on our own for a three day visit to a town where a current volunteer is serving. Everyone's looking forward to a break in training, a chance to see more of Nica, and what a volunteer actually does.

Thanks for all the emails! I've put all September photos up on Snapfish - check them out at:
http://www.snapfish.com/share/p=169301128120076839/

l=61847040/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB
You'll have to create an account first (it's free) and then click "view photos." I hope it works...

PC training - week 3

2005-09-24T15:28:00.000-07:00

WHO: Essa (aka Vanessa)
WHAT: Peace Corps, Environmental Education
WHERE: Nicaragua
WHEN: Sept '05 - Nov '07
WHY: La vida es un carnaval

I started with the Peace Corps about a month ago - but I just found a computer to recognize my digital camera! I hope I can keep this blog going for the next few years, but it depends on computer access once I get placed in my site.

I think the fun is just beginning. I've been in my training town just outside of Managua, the capital city, for about 3 weeks. I'm living with a great host family and my days are packed with Spanish/Culture classes, technical training, chewing the fat with the locals, and trying to stay clear of mosquitoes and sopa de mondongo (beef intestine soup - the photo shows the before picture - not going to show me after).

Here's my wonderful host family (minus one)
(L-R: Petronio, Nazareth, Maura, not pictured is Mijail)

This was taken on the first night of the rolling blackouts - Nica's answer to the rising price of diesel. We lost power every evening for a few hours last week.

Petroni0 runs a small store out of the house, and Maura takes good care of us all and keeps the peace between 6 year old Nazareth and 15 year old Mijail.

This is my hermanita, Nazareth, jamming on the Djembe. She is Petronio and Maura's grandaughter. She teaches me lots of Spanish and I'm sure she's destined to be a poet - her sentences flow so beautifully!

Mihail shown to the right - he works almost every day at a local mechanics shop. He likes to watch an American progam recently created about buiding cars. He also got me hooked on "Pasion de Gabilantes" - a Colombian super cheesy soap opera. The only problem is sometimes it rains so hard (as its been doing for the past four days) on the tin roof, that we can't hear the TV at all.

Kids in my barrio - they play outside in the street a lot, and LOVE the digital camera.

This is our training group working on a "vivero" or tree nursery. We have technical training on weekends usually, and they are lead by current volunteers. There is a big push for tree nurseries because Nica, like most of Central America, is suffering the effects of deforestation.

I also just gave my first "charla" or talk on deforestation last week to about 30 - 6th graders in my training town. It went well and though I wasn't looking forward to going back to the classroom as a profesora, I was impressed by the student's attentivness, particpation, and formal thank-yous at the end of my lesson. Hopefully my experience in the classroom will erase all the bad memories created as a substitute back in the States!

Some future trees!

Marcy, Noemi and I (PC trainees) and Marcy's host family at Catarina. A popular local tourist
trap with a beautiful view of a caldera lake.

Waterfall at a local privately owned national park called "La Maquina".