San Ramon

Greeting from San Ramon!

Its a little town near Matagalpa in the northern area of Nica. There are gorgeous mountains full of trees and fincas, aka farms. The vistas are beautiful. Last night after the two hour bus ride from Managua, and two different cabs, we practically hiked up the super steep driveway to the hotel. Needless to say we were all extremely out of breath. We had dinner, a quick charla, and prepped for today. This morning we woke up in this gorgeous, fresco pueblo had breakfast and headed out to visit a brigadista. The landcruiser ride there was a blast. We had to go up and down through hills and across at least three small rivas full of rocks. After our visit with the brigadista she showed us around her fincas. There are coffee plants, mango trees, lots of chickens, two natural wells, and so much more. I could definitely live in a place like that for the next two years. After our visit we headed back into town. The heading back consisted of an hour plus walk through rugged paths and the crossing of those three small rivers on foot. It was so beautiful and refreshing. It felt good to actually explore some nica nature. I took loads of pictures of the vistas and pasajes and hope to upload a few using a friends memory card reader within the next month sometime. After a well deserved lunch my group headed to the casa materna in san ramon to give a charla and just hang out with the ladies. There was actually only one embarazada staying there because the other 6 had gone into labor yesterday. They said it was because of the full moon. Anyway our charla went very well, but tomorrow we are headed to a different town nearby for the day to work in a casa materna with more embarazadas.

Next monday and tuesday is the mid term language evaluations and sometime next week is the site fair. Hopefully within the next two weeks Ill know where my site for the next two years is going to be. Im so excited and nervous at the same time.

Anyway I need to go but I hope to update again soon!

Miss you all!

Cheers and Paz as always

Finally an update

Buenas!

Im finally making myself sit down an write an update. Im still distracted by facebook as always but I dont have any pertinent homework to get done today. I mean theres always something to do but nothing due tomorrow.
So where to begin....well Im eating stale rosquillas right now. My family hasnt made a new batch since friday so im thinking tomorrow morning ill be woken up at 430 to the sound of pounding corn and kneeding dough right outside my bedroon door. Oh the joys of home business.
My week has been very busy but not too stressful. Everyone keeps saying how busy we are but I feel like i have more free time and less work than i did in college. My group prepared a charla on sunday for a womens group but only one lady showed up. Today we walked for over an hour going door to door visiting and interviewing pregnant women. We also invited them to our next charla, so hopefully well actually have an audience.
Today I gave my second charla in the centro de salud. Last tuesday I gave my first one on la higiene de la boca. My charla this morning was sobre larvarse las manos. If you dont know what those are you should look them up.
Its becoming really hard to say certain words and phrases in english now when ive been saying the so much in spanish. Por ejemplo (por example), casa materna, salud materno infantil y nutricion, y hay muchas mas. I feel proud that im beginning to think and dream more in spanish but its still hard at times. However, I usually get caught off guard when a nica starts talking to me in english. Often Id rather they just talk to me in spanish.
Obviously I still miss a lot of the conveniences of "back home" but its the little everyday things that make me love it here. Por ejemplo, when people say "por ejemplo." The way they say it is just so great and matter of fact. Its my favorite when im talking to my five year old nephew and he whips out "por ejemplo." I guess youd just have to hear it to understand. Other things that make me smile inside are seeing my clothes hang on the line in our little patio, watching my dad rotate rosquillas in the hornea (special outdoor oven), latino music videos, sitting in the park, looking at and talking about my nephews pet fish with my nephew (hes just hilarious. his new favorite thing is to do the egyptian pharoah dance move every time he sees me. last week his favorite thing was to mimic the expressions i had made during one of my spanish class activies (por ejemplo, estar enamorada y tener miedo)), staring at the catholic church, eating eskimo with my amigas, listening to my dad sing every verse of every birthday song after i only asked if the second line was feliz cumpleaños a ti like the first, watching old mexican movies with my mom, and seeing the random american tshirts and hats. Obviously there are many other little things that make me smile inside everyday, but those are just the ones that come to mind ahora. (Tambien, something that its cool and creepy at the same time is when random people ive met once remember my name and use it).
Things that have become normal:
-throwing tp in the trash rather than the toilet
-cold showers (even though i still dont like them)
-traveling only by crowded rundown microbus
-sleeping under my mosquitera
-having ants crawl on the walls of my cuarto
-using papelographo and marcadores every day
-telenovelas
-keeping money in my bra
-hearing yelling vendors in the streets
-being called chele, chelita, and amor pretty much everytime im outside my house.
Just to name a few.
I went to mass on sunday, and while it was entirely in spanish i really enjoyed it. The traditionality and orderliness of it is so comforting in my somewhat hectic life thats constantly pulling me in several directions at once. Its hard to balance my personal, professional, and academic lives when they are forcefully and intentially interwoven. Por ejemplo, most of my spanish homework consists of talking with my family about their lives and traditions, my ability to make effectiv charlas and giving them is directly related to my spanish speaking abilites, and my everday interactions for the relationships that I can use for health education. These seem extreme now and will be even more so when I move into my site.
Speaking of my site I still dont know where Ill be place yet. I kind of am hoping to be placed on la costa atlantica, but i heard that they will probably place the more advanced spanish speakers there. Most likely ill end up somewhere north central. Ill be ok wherever Im placed. Im just excited to get to my site and actually start doing "real" work.
OH, I almost forgot. I get to go to Volcan Masaya on Saturday. Its active, and Im so excited to finally see some nica natural beauty and hopefully photograph it. I still havent gotten my camera out yet, but I definitely plan to for this trip.
I should probably get headed home now.
I never know what to post in these updates, so if you have any questions just post a comment and ill answer all in my next posts.

Cheers and Paz to all

oh facebook

I would've actually had time to post today but facebook was just so distracting. Life in Nica has been pretty much the same every day except for all the concerts last week and fiestas on the weekend. Im getting a lot busier with preparing charlas, surveys, etc. I thought that when I was busier I would think of home less, but its actually the opposite. I really just want a cheeseburger, mac and cheese, and a nap on jareds couch while watching a netflix movie. I guess my life in the states was busy but in a different way. My down time there was spent just relaxing, but here even my relaxing requires thinking (to understand the television, talk with my family, and be careful how im perceived simply just walking down the street). Right now im preparing my first charla to give in the centro de salud next tuesday. Ill be a ten minute somewhat interactive presentation on oral hygiene focusing on hygiene for pregnant mothers and infants. Ive gotta go research some more. Hopefully Ill get to post a longer update soon.

no tiempo

Im not taking time to update today, but ill gather my thoughts and hopefully post on monday.

Segundo Semana

Hola Amigas y Familia!!!!

I made it to the ciber again. Mis compadres y yo are going to try to make it a weekly habit so that week can keep our families and friends up to date. it only costs about 15 cordobas per hour (less than 1 u.s. dollar - the exchange rate is roughly 1 dollar = 22 codobas). Life in Santa Teresa has been very fun so far. Of course I miss the states, but i really enjoy the pace of life down here and the lack of snow. Primarily I miss the familiarity of the states. Its much easier to life and function every day when you know whats expected of you and communicate easily in any setting. My spanish is improving poco a poco as they say down here, and im beginning to be able to form sentences a lot faster. I really love the people in Sta. Teresa. For the most part they are all extremely friendly and patient with us cheles (a common nica name for white girls. Each day we learn more about the health issues facing pregnant women and their children. Next week we are meeting with a group of women from one of the local churches to beginning discussing topics we can give them three charlas (short talks or lessons) on.

This last weekend was filled with loud noises, music, and lots of people due to the festival. While noisy it provided some distracted from what otherwise might have been a boring couple of days. As I said before Im becoming more competent and confident in Spanish so each day i talk with my host mom and family a little more. She keeps telling me that if I talk more and ask more questions I will learn faster but at the same time its only my first couple weeks and the language will come in time. On saturday I found out that it was extremely politically correct to bring uno to nicaragua. In fact my host sister owns it and loves to play it frequently. My host brother kept giving me the wild draw four cards and when they realized i never had yellow cards they picked that on a wild. Boy did they enjoy laughing at me when i had so many cards i had to make a pile on the table. Needless to say I didnt win that round. By that point in the day I was so fed up with Spanish that I spoke
English with Carlos (boyfriend of my host niece) as much as possible.

Sunday was very slow paced like saturday. I spent most of the day reading, studying, watching tv in espanol with my host mom alicia, and taking a nap. However in the evening my host sister asked me if i wanted to go to a baptisma with her. Her husband Juans neice had just been baptised and they were having the traditional post baptisma fiesta. It was at a house just around the corner from my house and when we got there virtually everyone was dressed in white. I however was not but was assured that it was perfectly fine. I was introduced to far to many friends and family members to remember, but it was a lot of fun. As typical of nicaraguan fiestas there was lots of good food, latino music, and of course dancing. Just a forewarning that there may of may not be a video of me attempting to salsa dance with a new “friend“. So Im apologizing in advance if it ever goes public.

Anyway Ive been on the computer for over an hour, so i should probably wrap this up.
I miss you all and hope to post again soon to keep updating you all on my life in nicaragua.

Below is a schedule of the rest of my week
Miercoles = morning class, trip to diriamba for more vacines and a group class
Jueves = typical day of classes
viernes = trip to managua at 5.30 am for a full day of sessions with both groups
sabado = trip to (not sure which city yet) for another day of sessions on maternal and infant health.

Cheers and Peace

A Whole New World

hola from santa teresa, carazo. í´m not going to use caps or much punctuation because i´m paying per minute and it´s a lot easier to type this way. i really am enjoying my time here, but i´m not gonna lie it´s hard. every moment of every day except for when i´m studying, reading, or journalling is in spanish. oftentimes i don´t understand my family´s questions so i really don´t talk as much as i would in english, but each day gets exponentially better. there are two other pc trainees or i should say aspirantes in my little town. in our stolen moments of speaking english we´ve communicatd that we´re all having the same difficulties with communication. my family is extremely accomodating and friendly so i´m slowly learning the customs and language. today during one of our activities julianne (one of the three in santa teresa) had to ask my host mom Alicia about me. Alicia said that she wishes i would speak more so that i could learn even faster. i looked at my host mom and we both laughed a little. she knows its hard for me but its good to know that she cares about my learning. she has had 13 aspirantes live with her in the past, so i guess she knows what she´s doing. yesterday i met el novio (carlos) of my host niece (denisa). he´s from santa teresa but he speaks almost perfect english. it felt so wrong to speak to him in english but it helped clarify some words i´d been wondering about. he said that i spoke spanish much better than many of the past aspirantes. and that after these few months i´d be speaking almost fluently. it´s so hard to comprehend that right now, but each day i am getting significantly more confident. right now i´m in una libreria in santa teresa. i have no idea how much this costs per minute but i´m hoping its not too much. each day during the week i get up around 6:30 and eat breakfast at 7. i usually have bread, some kind of rice and beans, and a fruit. the coffee is good but its made by boiling water and mixing in coffee and lots of sugar. so far i´ve tried everything i´ve been served. most lunches consist of more rice and either beans or chicken and veggies with a refresco (water mixed with super sweet fruit flavored juice stuff). it´s kind of hard to describe but just imagine a smoothie that isn´t frozen. i usually just have water for dinner. oh, another interesting thing is that there is a huge watercooler container with purified water just for me. i feel like i should have to use separate water but its just one of the many peace corps rules. i haven´t written any letters yet because i have yet to find a post office but hopefully by next week i´ll have gotten a chance. my room or cuarto is actually pretty big and i share a bathroom with my host brother but he isn´t there very often because he works in jinotepe ( the biggest nearby town). he has a motorcycle so i´m so upset that it´s another peace corps rule that we can´t ride them or should i say no puede manejar o andar una motocicleta. i´ve met a lot of people in sta. teresa but i´ve been really bad at remembering names so far. hopefully they will start to stick because knowing the community is one of the most important parts of integration. my family makes rosquillas for a living. they look like little cookies but they taste more like crackers. this morning i woke up to the sound of dough being pounded flat and rolled out on a table right outside of my room. it was so cool to be able to witness first hand how they´re made. i guess they´re really popular in sta. teresa. another thing that i always get a kick out of is when my family asks me about something i like and then it magically appears at the next meal. it´s really nice that they care so much but it makes me have to be really careful about what i say i like. when i told alicia that i like hamburgers i made sure to specify that i only eat them occasionally and that they aren´t good to eat all the time. i definitely don´t want them to go out of their way to get things like that for me. my sister julisa and her esposo juan own and operate an ice cream and sorbet shop aka un eskimo right next to my house. actually they are connected as are most of the houses on a given block. picture the main drag of any small town where all the buildings are connected. mi casa is acrossed the street from the park which is in the center of the pueblo. therefore there are always lots of people walking by and stopping in to say hi. right now there is a festival going on for sta. teresa so this weekend we are expecting losts of people from surrounding town. it´s so strange to have a small carousel and ferris wheel right outside my front (and only) door. i attend spanish class from 8 to 12 each morning, return home for lunch, then have more class from 1 til usually around 3:30. the morning sessions are usually more formal while the afternoon sessions involve visiting different places in sta. teresa, meeting important community members, and practicing what we learned in the morning. This week classes are at Natalie´s but next week they´ll either be at my house or julianne´s. anyway i should probably go and get back to attempting to talk to my family. adios!

Day One

I left Grand Rapids, MI at 6:45am today. I spent my 30 minute flight to Detroit talking to a very interesting older man. He did something with the military/teaching college classes. Coincidentally enough he's been to Germany and visited Paul's American Restaurant (my uncle's restaurant). I got into the Detroit airport at about 10 to 7 and had to book it from gate A47 to A8 to make my flight to D.C. I made it there with plenty of time and even stopped for one last iced coffee. While waiting a few minutes to board I spotted several other people who looked like they might be headed to the Peace Corps too. I was right about at least 2 of them. I eded up sitting next to a guy who was headed to staging to leave for Panama with the Peace Corps. It turns out both the Panama group and my group to Nicaragua had their staging at the same hotel at the same time (separate sessions of course). The group to Panama is all English/Education volunteers and my group is all either Maternal and Child Health (like me) or HIV/AIDS Health promotion. After taking the airport shuttle to the hotel I had plenty of time to regroup and get lunch with a few of the other girls headed to Nicaragua before our registration at 12:30. Registration and staging was long and intense but also very fun. We just kept re-emphasizing that "we're a family now," and it's true we really are and will continue to be. We got done around 7 and a group of us headed out to dinner at Uncle Julio's (tex-mex). It was delicious last meal in the states. After I got back to the hotel I hopped in the shower preparing to get to bed before 10. However, when I got out my roommate told me that our flight to Miami had been canceled and we didn't have to be anywhere until 10 in the morning. That's why I actually have time to write this now. My roommate Kim, whose laptop I'm using, is from Oklahoma City.

I think the best part so far has been meeting 45+ other people who are experiencing the exact same thing as me. I don't feel like the only one anymore. They've had the same questions, struggles, and anticipations as I have. We also all get along really great so far despite the large group size. I think it's mostly because we have soooooo much in common.

Anyway, that's about it for now. The next time I post I'll fill ya'll in on how the flights to Managua worked out and the impact this delay will have had.

-Peace and Cheers-