Another book

Go figure – of course I read another book (I should knock out another one before I leave).

The Secret History of the American Empire – A.

A book about the corruption and pressure that results in corporations essentially “running” the world. It scares the crap out of me.

Winding down (and the death of a volunteer)

June 6^th – July 1^st

With little else to do, the beginning of the week was just spent in Achuapa doing the normal socializing and lounging about – my now super familiar routine. When Wednesday finally rolled around, I headed to Chinandega to meet with Luis. He went from being completely in love with Costa Rica to hating it more than anything in around a week…thus bringing him back to Nicaragua for a second go around in less than a month. Either way, it was still good to see him.

That day we met up with his former school principal for a lunch. We spent a good couple hours chatting and eating before heading over to his house a little later to pick up a “gift” he had for Luis – a bottle of rum. We killed some time later that day in the hotel before meeting up with a friend of his whom recently opened a business in Chinandega – with all the furniture that Luis had sold him when he left. We had a good time hanging out and even called our old TEFL volunteer friend who quit in my first couple months of service. Furthermore, a couple hours after hanging out some random guy showed up and starting drinking with us. A few hours (and drinks) later for the new random guy, and he said he’d drive me down to Managua the next day (I had to be down in Managua for training stuff). I reluctantly and apprehensively accepted this offer. I also didn’t think he’d actually come through when I needed to leave…even though we were leaving at the same time. Surprisingly enough, when I called him at 6 AM on the dot, he picked up and was at my hotel within minutes – very un-latino of him. It was kind of weird getting a ride down to Managua (its about a 2.5 hour trip in car) with a guy I’d met the previous night drinking and another guy who I’d never met in my life, but it worked out in the long run. Not to mention I saved around 3 dollars! I’m always up for saving.

I spent the day in Managua meeting with the new trainees and did a presentation on the business advising process, thus killing the whole day. Nothing too exciting. That night, Luis and I headed out to some local bars in Managua with the 2 guys I drove down to Managua with and the son of Luis’s former principal. It was a good time until the the booze brought out the anti-gringo in the guy who gave me a ride down to Managua.

The next day, following another series of presentations and work with the trainees, Luis and I went to have dinner at the son of his former principal’s house. The whole night we chatted with him and his wife about politics but in a totally intelligent way. The conversation lacked all of the fanatical irrationality that unfortunately is super prevalent in political discussion in Nicaragua. Unfortunately, tons of booze was consumed on the part of our host – our driver. Since we were WAY away from the hotel we were staying at, he had to drive us – and what a drive it was. Though it scared the crap out of me, we made it back.

I had yet another day of work to do with the trainees on Saturday and then headed to Leon where I met up with Luis for one final round of shenanigans. We’d planned on going to a movie, but…it just didn’t happen. We were just too beat – I even convinced Luis to go cheap on dinner. It was my first (and not the last) rotisserie chicken I’ve ever gotten in Nicaragua.

The next morning, I headed to Achuapa on the early bus so I could get there in time to get my house looking presentable by the time the trainee showed up for the volunteer visit. Little did I know, but the trainee was on the bus that left an hour after mine. So instead of showing up around 4 PM, he was there at noon – thus undermining my attempts to unwind and clean my house at the same time.

For the visit, I gave the trainee a rundown of how my life has been throughout my two years of service. He too graduated with a degree in Economics and was health crazy like me, so we definitely related on many levels. Furthermore, he was super laid back and was looking forward to not be bogged down with all the pressure of being in training. To keep things light, that night I made some Wang Chai Ferry sweet and sour chicken (check your local supermarket!) and topped it off with some delicious brownies (obvious thanks go out to a person that doesn’t even need to be named).

The next day, we woke up at around dawn so we could catch the morning Esteli bus so we could go to the waterfall near Achuapa (and thus avoiding the 5 km uphill hike to the entrance to the town it’s near). It was really great to go back there one more time before I finish my service (I’d gone last April), and it was especially good to see it during rainy season (though the mud was unbelievable). Roughly 5 and a half hours later, completely exhausted, we stumbled into my humble hovel. We were so beat that we needed a post-lunch siesta.

The last days of the volunteer visit, I hauled the trainee (Jonathan) to my class where we co-taught the class (we’re 3 months ahead of schedule – so why not?) so Jonathan could get some more teaching practice in before he heads to his site. On top of all that, we did some pretty good eating during his visit (my cooking skills are definitely getting better).

He took off that Wednesday, which would leave me with some downtime of my own…or so you’d think. Instead, my boss had me go to Chinandega to meet with the counterpart of a volunteer who had quit. She wanted me to gauge how she was doing in the class and get an idea of whether or not they’d be able to compete in the competition this year. My initial plan was to leave at noon…till I missed my bus. I left an hour later and ultimately rolled into Chinandega right around 5 PM.

The game plan had been to meet up with the counterpart when I got there, but after numerous phone calls and even a couple visits to her house, it seemed like it just wasn’t going to happen. I went and grabbed some dinner to kill time and resolved to stop by her house one more time before I turned in. As “luck” would have it, she was at her house and told me that “sometimes she goes out,” which is why she wasn’t at her house earlier. This was in spite of our conversation the previous day discussing exactly what we were going to do and when. Que será, será.

The next day the class went pretty much how I expected and the teacher even bailed on me in the middle of her class. But hey, she’ll get a replacement volunteer to help her out. Everybody also was under the notion that I was going to be the new volunteer for some reason, and thus offered to lend me a bike so I could take a tour of the town where the school was (a small town called El Realejo). I was in a rush, so I had to decline the offer and instead made my way to León to wait for my bus back to Achuapa.

Back in Achuapa (with a loaf of whole wheat bread – a first for me in site!) I got the same flood of questions/assumptions:

“Oh, you really want to go, that’s why you haven’t been around.”

“You’re bored of Achuapa, aren’t you?”

“You don’t like Nicaragua, do you?”

“You’re a vagabond.”

The list goes on. It bothers me that instead of looking at my 2 years that I’ve been in Achuapa, people tend to look at a short amount of time I’ve been outside of my town (even after explaining that it’s been for work related reasons). Instead of seeing the end of my service, my increased absence is associated with a lack of pleasure derived from my life/work in Achuapa. Then all the negative talk on their part makes me want to leave even more – I´m just of their negativity. It stresses me out.

Back in Achuapa, not surprisingly, I spent little time before taking off yet again. I kept as busy as I could to kill the time before I headed off to Managua yet again on Tuesday. There is a new “volunteer” in Achuapa who is working in the library for her summer vacation from college. She kind of got the raw end of the deal as the handful of other volunteers here with her are in huge cities around the country.

I kept reading and finished another book, Thunderstruck, which makes it the third book by Erik Larson that I’ve read during my service. Coincidentally, his book was the first one that I read when I got to Achuapa, and it’s quite possible that his book is going to be the last one I read in Achuapa.

Tuesday the 22^nd I made my way back down to Managua for another training session with the new volunteers. I’m park of the business advising committee, so basically my task is to convince them the idea of advising isn’t nearly as terrifying as it seems (I was so overwhelmed by it in training that I’d resolved to NEVER advise anybody during my service). While this time it wasn’t a training session, I visited 2 of the training towns to see how the trainees were doing with their “trial run” of business advising. Some were terrified, others were fine, and some didn’t even care. Nevertheless, everybody had at least one question that needed answering, thus rendering the trip useful.

The next day we had the yearly idea exchange among the 3 small business groups that are in the country (2 current and the trainees) about best ways to run the competitions. The meeting lasted a few hours and then I headed to León with Jordan. That night was the first time I’d spent the night at Jordan’s house since she got married. It was also weird to start thinking about her being married. Her boyfriend is now her husband. It’s hard for me to make the transition. It’s also hard for me to believe that I now have friends getting married.

The next day, I headed back to Achuapa for another couple days in my town. Nowadays, my time is spent going around and taking pictures of the things that I’m going to miss about Achuapa, people/friends, buildings, etc. So it keeps me temporarily busy and also gets me out in the town. This is also a good thing since half the town thinks I’ve already left anyway (since I’ve been out of my town for multiple days every week for a while). In addition to taking pictures of my town, I’ve spent some more time with my sitemate since he’ll be all alone in the big scary world of Achuapa.

Come Monday, I put out the word that I was selling all my stuff – and by the end of the day, I’d “sold” almost everything. I say “sold” because nothing is truly sold until people actually pay me. Tons of people always say that they’ll buy things but then don’t come through with the money. So, everybody has until July 3^rd to pay me, but after that – it’s a free for all. The first person with the cash gets the goods.

Monday, while doing my rounds, I was invited to the teachers appreciation dinner at the elementary school where I started my spelling bee. Though I worked with 3 of the high schools, I really got more out of working with the elementary school simply because of the unconditional support I got from the staff there. It was good to hang out with the teachers and talk to them about what we’d done together over the last 2 years. It was also nice to hear them say they wouldn’t forget me because of the spelling bee, since no school in the whole municipality had ever done anything like that.

The next day, I continued selling my stuff and took some more pictures. It was going to continue that way until Jim somehow convinced me to go to the teacher appreciation dinner for all the teachers from Achuapa. It started out fine, and Jim gave me some good classified gossip. However, it dragged on and on and on. It went so long that I had to leave before food was even given out. I had to head to Managua the next day for my last medical appointments, so I still had to pack and eat (on top of going to bed early).

The next morning, I got into Managua around 8:30 and did the first of my med appointments. Why there was nothing exciting about the med appointments, I received some very sad news: John Harrington, a 75 year old volunteer business volunteer (from the group after mine) died on the 30^th. I went out for lunch with him the day before he was medically evacuated and he gave me his Spanish joke book and told me a bunch of stories about his life. He was a great guy and had an amazing attitude. If I have half as good of an attitude as he did at his age, I’ll consider my life a success. I was convinced he was coming back since his medically condition seemed so harmless. He’s the first Nicaragua Peace Corps Volunteer to have died. Sad times. He’ll be missed.

The start of July meant but one thing – I’m done with my Peace Corps service THIS MONTH. It’s hard to believe that something I wanted to do for so long is almost over. While I’ll miss the novelty of having this job (I mean, I can pretty much do whatever I want), it will be nice to have a non-government job afterwards. I’m really looking forward to continuing teaching. We’ll see where it takes me – you might be surprised…

And the book review:

Thunderstruck – A.

The third book I’ve read by Erik Larson. He really researches the hell out of every book he’s written, which I think is what makes it so interesting. He writes the story like a novel, but with completely factual information. It’s a refreshing way to dive into history.

I really forget how green Achuapa really is since I live in the town itself (I live around 50 meters from the antenna)

I really take for granted how beautiful Achuapa is. Same way I take Colorado for granted.

I forgot the downside of taking the hike during the rainy season - the mud.

The rainy season left the path kind of overgrown...

All the teachers from the primary school that I started my spelling bee in

I´ve read some more books

I´ve yet to write about what has happened this month because my keyboard is broken…and so is my backup keyboard. I´ll write an entry when I´m down in Managua next week. But until then…

The Final Solution – D.

The only reason I don´t give this book an F is because I could understand it. The problem is that I didn´t care. Particularly towards the end. As if I didn´t care enough about the plot, at the end of the book, his twist makes the whole story all the more pointless. Terrible book. I hope he ceases writing for the rest of his life.

Digital Fortress – A.

Unlike The Final Solution, this book was amazing. Like other Dan Brown books, it was super fast paced and kept you on the edge of your seat. A great book. Maybe Chabon and Brown should meet up to discuss the proper way to write books.

E. Coli but not E. Coli

May 14^th – June 5^th

While Friday nothing exciting went down, things finally started rolling on the 15^th. I woke up and caught the 5 AM bus to León, only to find that there were 3 busses instead of one. It turns out that 2 of the busses were for the university students. “If you’re in a hurry you can take the expreso,” is what I was told by one of the bus workers. I was all about getting to León even earlier until I saw that the bus was completely packed, “I’m not in that much of a hurry.” So instead of expediting my trip (and standing up for 3 hours) I took the slower bus. It turned out to be an advantage because the bus was completely empty. So though the bus went slower, at least I was more comfortable.

Once in León, I made my way for the post office, knowing that a couple of weeks before Brie had sent a few boxes. Luckily they were there, so all stress related to lost mail/waiting for the mail is now a thing of the past. Once unloading my boxes in my hotel room, I headed over to El Convento, the hotel where my friend Jordan was going to get married later that day. Since neither her family nor her friends from the U.S. spoke Spanish, my job was to help them out with translating and whatever else they needed. By 1 PM, everything was set up, so I set out to the market with Jordan’s brother and her friend to get them some Nicaraguan souveniers. In spite of my bargaining skills (people just get pissed off at me) Jordan’s brother and friend were still able to walk away with a handful of souveniers.

Afterwards, I headed back to my hotel and got dressed before meeting up with Jordan’s brother and friend at their hotel for a few pre-wedding drinks. Ronald (Jordan’s soon to be husband) showed up for a bit before we all hopped in a cab and went over to the hotel where the wedding was going to be.

Jordan and Ronald had some pre-ceremony pictures before the ceremony started. When the ceremony finally did start at 5:30, around 50% of the invites weren’t even there (they were all Nicaraguan). Following the ceremony (where Jordan crying ended up making me cry), all the people that hadn’t showed up somehow made it to the dinner on time. Go figure. The rest of the night was good fun and I was even pulled out onto the floor by marimba dancers. I was super embarrassed, but there wasn’t much else to do but just go with it. The night finally ended around midnight, and after bringing Jordan’s family back to their hotel, I headed back to mine where I collapsed from exhaustion (I can’t even remember the last time I’d been awake so late).

The next morning, I grabbed breakfast while I waited for Carla (Brie’s old neighbor in Malpaisillo) to come to León to pick up stuff that Brie had sent her. It was good seeing her and I ended the meeting by saying, “Well since I don’t know if I’ll see you before I leave…” to which Carla responded, “You’ll see me again, it’s a surprise.” I was confused, but knew that if Carla was in on some surprise involving me, Brie definitely was too. Still, I had no idea what it could be.

Since my boss Georgia asked if I’d help out the new technical trainer on Monday, I headed to Managua that afternoon. As luck would have it, I was able to catch a ride to Managua with the Luis, the USAID guy whose house I went to for Thanksgiving. This was perfect since I had an enormous bag full of stuff that Brie had sent me.

Monday morning I headed to the PC office to help out the tech trainer. He was running late so I decided to check my email, when suddenly I got a phone call from Carlos, a friend from Chinandega.

“Don’t even tell me you’re in Achuapa again.”

“No way, I never want to go there again.”

“Ok, well what’s up?”

“Luis is coming this week, we should meet up in León.”

“What?”

Luis was coming to Nicaragua? There’s no way. When he came back in December, he couldn’t wait to get out of the country – he even rescheduled his plane ticket so he left a week earlier than he had planned. It was just too ridiculous to hear that he was coming back to Nicaragua, and since it’s not uncommon to here ridiculous gossip from Nicaraguans, I just forgot about it.

I went with the tech trainer to Masaya to ask permission for the volunteers to practice teaching there just in case they don’t get permission to teach in the public schools. We spent the majority of the morning doing that and then headed to a few of the training towns to see how the trainees were doing after their first weekend in Nicaragua.

By the time I got back to the office, it was roughly 5 PM. I tried to schedule some medical appointments in the subsequent days, but it turned out that the office was full up, so I’d have to go back to Achuapa the next day. I headed back to my hotel and watched TV for a few hours with my roommates before I started drifting off to sleep. Around 8 I got a text message from Luis – “I’m in Nica call me.”

Though completely exhausted, I threw on some clothes and headed over to the hotel where Luis was staying – The Hilton (typical). We had a couple beers and made a short plan for the week. He was going to be in Nicaragua until Saturday morning, so we decided to make the week a despedida party (send off party).

The next morning, we caught a micro to León. Luis stayed in León while I headed back to Achuapa to drop off my stuff and get some new clothes for the week. Back in Achuapa I got the typical “Que cara más perdida” business from everybody (essentially “whoa it’s been a while since you’ve been here). With the game plan now radically changed, I just spent the night in Achuapa, grabbed clean clothes, and hopped on a bus back for León the next morning.

In León, I reassumed my Peace Corps life in Chinandega circa December 2008. This life involved always going out with Luis since he lacks anything that even remotely resembles cooking skills. Oh the days of “balance”.

We went out to lunch with Carlos and soon thereafter went out to a bar, followed by another bar, another, and another. While at first glance it may seem to be, this was not a college-like bar crawl. It was a Luis philosophical bar crawl – fewer beers, more comtemplative conversations that became even more out there the more beers you were into it.

Around 6 PM we’d had enough and decided to wander around the corner to the movie theatre. “Case 39? Yea, sure, whatever.” We were pretty apathetic about what movie we went to, but afterwards we’d definitely reached a consensus – it was terrible. But it’ll balance out right? Maybe it already had?

The next day, we went out to breakfast and spent the morning in the hotel reading. We were going to meet up with Carlos before driving out to Las Peñitas, a beach outside of León. A hotel there, Hotel Suyapa, is known for its seafood…so we continued the spending spree. Unfortunately the food wasn’t as good as I’d remembered, and the lobsters that we’d ordered ended up being 4 small ones on a plate. It was nice for the first few bites, but was just too filled with…stuff/flavor/etc. for me to enjoy it.

Following our lunch at Suyapa, we drove back to León where Carlos dropped us off at a bar we went to the previous night, “I’ll see you guys in a bit.” Carlos can be a bit flaky, so we didn’t really expect him to come back. The night was even more tranquilo since we just drank a bit and went to yet another crappy movie before turning in.

While we’d planned on going for filet migñons in Chinandega for lunch, we decided to be budget conscious (though Luis wasn’t quite working on the budget I was) and just go out for breakfast instead. It was unbelievably hot in León, so the only viable option was to go back and sit in the hotel room with A/C until we got kicked out at noon. Once out of the hotel, we headed to the bus terminal. Luis headed for Chinandega for his last night in Nicaragua before he headed to Costa Rica, while I made my way back down to Managua for our COS (Completion of Service) staff presentations.

The presentation was basically a video of everything that we’d done in our service that is shown to the staff members that attended. Following the presentation, we went to the country director’s apartment for his traditional COS spaghetti dinner. While at the dinner, I completely gorged myself and spent the majority of the time chatting with my program boss about how my service had gone.

Following the dinner, Sam (another volunteer in my group) and I headed to the office to work on a presentation we were going to give to the new trainees on Saturday morning. It was just an introduction to the advising process that the trainees will be doing in training, so our PowerPoint presentation was only 3 slides long. Despite its short length, we didn’t finish until around 10:30 – and we had to be at the office at 6:30 the next morning for the presentation.

Despite having a panic attack after waking up at 3:30 AM (and not getting back to sleep), I made it to the office ontime, albeit without breakfast in me. It was definitely the most out of it I’ve felt after waking up (at least since I’ve been here). When our time to present finally rolled around, our presentation was a grand total of 15 minutes long. Not exactly worth the panic attack, but así es la vida.

After the presentation, I grabbed lunch at the cheap place over by the office and then headed to León. I was offered a free room in Managua, but I can’t get back to Achuapa until the afternoon if I stay in Managua, so I decided to spend the night at my trusty hotel in León. Before heading over to the hotel, I stopped by the grocery store to grab food for dinner. I always take advantage of the trip to the grocery store by getting tons of bananas (ones from the States since they’re bigger and sweeter) and a yogurt drink.

I’ve never been one to eat slow (everybody probably knows that), but after drinking the yogurt drink I felt terrible. “Huh…” I thought. The last time I had experienced pain after drinking a milk beverage was when I drank 2 liters of milk in an hour. That was overconsumption and clearly stupid. I’d drank a full yogurt drink many times before, so it couldn’t be that right? As I’ve mentioned in the past, an upset stomach in Nicaragua is never an upset stomach – it’s a little friend. I was afraid of that, but I made it through the night without serious problems.

Back at site is when I started encountering problems. “Could it be that I drank too much water?” I’d only had diarrea in the past when I drank 2.5 liters of water in one sitting, and that definitely wasn’t the case. Things just got worse and worse through the day as well as that night. That was enough confirmation for me – I clearly was hosting a tiny little buddy.

I got ready and resolved to go to the cyber, recharge my phone, then give the Peace Corps doctors a call. However, when I got over to the cyber, I discovered that Claro (the phone company – a horrible one at that) had cut the service because they were doing repairs. Great timing Claro. I had to call the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) and I had to wait until the sorry phone company got their act together. I sat around the whole morning waiting for the phone connection to come back, but I didn’t really feel like giving my stomach companion more time to wreak havoc on my insides. I headed over to the lab and asked him what I test I needed to find out if I had unwanted friends. With that knowledge, I headed home, got a “specimen” and went back to the lab to drop it off.

An hour later the verdict came back – Entomaoeba Histolitica and Entomaoeba Colí. I could only speculate what that actually meant unti I could call the doctors, but my first reaction was not good. “Oh my god! E coli!?!?!” The phone’s were back online around 1 PM, so I headed to the cyber to do some research. Apparently the amoeba that I had is commonly mistaken for the scary kind of E coli because it’s from the same genus (or something like that). However it is something I needed to take care of. A short call to the doctors later and I had my prescription – 42 pills taken over 13 days. Holy Jesus. That’s the first sickness I’ve ever had where I’ve needed to buy half the pharmacy to cure me. One of the medications was easy to take – a whole bunch of pills once a day. However, the second medication called for one pill every 8 hours for 10 days. I was planning on being in Managua on Wednesday, so I let PC buy those pills.

I started feeling better after the first treatments, which was a relief. Unfortunately, the entire time I was in Achuapa (Monday through Wednesday) we had power cuts 2 days, and phone cuts the remaining day. This really wouldn’t have bothered me were I not be so close to leaving the country. I feel this is what really prepares us to leave our PC service. We’re mentally preparing ourselves to be able to eat and drink whatever we want safely in the states. On top of that we’re looking forward to have everything at our fingertips. When something like power cuts/water cuts/phone cuts happen, it throws off the dream we’re living in our heads. Furthermore, I had tons of work to do (I’d been requesting work from my bosses since I have nothing going on in site) and I couldn’t do any of it without any power. So instead I taught a class about making graphs in my private school – terribly difficult to explain I realised. I figured it was common sense, but it appears not.

As I’m sure I’ve well established, I’m not a fan of traveling from Achuapa to Managua the morning of some event. I’m just exhausted the whole day. So I took off Wednesday afternoon and spent the night in a hotel in Managua.

Thursday morning, I headed to the office to do the mountain of assignments I had. Looking at all the work I had to do, it was almost as if I was in the States again – I had to fill out an evaluation form for the leadership camp we did in January, update my journal, call my landlord about my broken bathroom sink, tidy up my spelling bee rules/list, prepare the presentation I was going to give that afternoon, and work on my new assignment that I’d been given at the last minute – give a workshop on the business course to 53 teachers in Masaya the next day. I think the only time I’ve had nonstop work like that are the days of the business competitions – in other words – a handful of days in my entire service.

While it was good to have the work to do, I was reintroduced to the deadline stress that I had forgotten about so long ago (particularly since the mentality in Nicaragua is anything but “we have to do this right now”). Or who knows, maybe it really wasn’t a lot – just the combination of work and the 8 million pills I was taking. Whatever it was, it felt good to be productive again.

Incidentally, our presentation that afternoon was canceled because the trainees didn’t have any questions about the business advising process, thus eliminating the point of me coming down to Managua in the first place (if it hadn’t been for my last minute workshop, I would’ve taken the trip for nothing). With the worry about the business advising session over and done with, Katie Earle and I worked on improving our presentation for the workshop for the rest of the afternoon (thus keeping us out of the rain too!).

Friday morning, my task was to haul an enormous box of handouts and a projector to Masaya. To make things even merrier, Katie called me early to tell me that the school had no laptops, “Could you bring a laptop too?” Crap. I was wary about hauling all this valuable equipment (and equally valuable handouts!) in a bus to Masaya, but I didn’t really have a choice. Initially, it appeared that I couldn’t even get a computer. However, all my apprehension was alleived when I found out I could borrow the technical trainers laptop and he would take me too and from the charla. There went all my worries out the window.

The ride over was smooth sailing until some kids threw a huge rock onto the roof of the PC SUV when we drove under. However, after seeing there was no damage, we continued on to pick up Katie and her counterpart before arriving at the high school in Masaya.

Katie had given a workshop before already, so she had some expectations on how things would go, but I was clueless. Fortunately things went along without a hitch and we even had 3 trainees observe our workshop (for whatever reason). Afterwards, we grabbed some food, and Katie and I palled around with the tech trainer while he ran errands (I waste the whole day for a free ride – it beats being kidnapped).

Saturday, I headed back to Achuapa. Despite being the day before Mother’s Day, there were no microbusses that were going to León. This is always the case on Saturdays – you’d think they’d take into account that weekends could be popular travel days (in contrast, on Wednesdays there are always microbusses and they’re always parked and waiting).  Could it be because nobody wants to work until Wednesday, and then only until Friday? Quite possibly. I’ve certainly seen stranger things here.

It was good to be back in Achuapa. First, because I’d been traveling so much the past 2 weeks and been sick on top of that. Second, even though I’ve had nothing to do in town, it’s nice to at least soak up those last Achuapa experiences before I leave (who knows when I’ll be back to visit?) On top of the novelty of the “Achuapa experience,” I recently had a new influx of money. Peace Corps owed me around 100 dollars (about half my salary) in refunds and I got them all. So instead of having to make a budget out of my normal amount of salary – I’ve got around 2 times the amount of money I normally have. This meant but one thing – I was going to be eating chicken. Not only that, I decided I’m going to eat chicken every day of the month. Why not? Before this month, I’d bought chicken in Achuapa less than 10 times. I’m tired of depriving myself of protein. I’m going to splurge. That will get me big and beefy by the time I go back to the U.S. Nobody will even be able to tell I was in a third world country – “You look like you’ve been eating well,” they’ll tell me. That’s right, “That’s the power of saving.”

On top of my big plans to be a chicken glutton the entire month, I was getting back into my workout routine. The lack of exercise and poor eating had really taken a toll on my body – but that’s nothing that one week in the Luis Cabrera Gettin’ R-r-r-ripped program can’t fix, even though the name is a misnomer.

Though I was finally back in Achuapa, I didn’t really have anything to “jump back into.” The most exciting thing that happened was me tackling books and then reading anything on it that I’d never read before. One book, The Final Solution, is written by a Pulitzer prize winning author, but I really can’t stand it. Every time I get done with a page, I have flashbacks to my IB English classes from high school. There’s even an interview with the author in the back where he talks about how people said the novel is dead. Supposedly, he has been dubbed the next American novelist. Now half way through his superfluously worded aberration of a novel, I can see why the novel did die – all these literary elements distract the reader from capturing the most important part of the novel – the story. For every noun, he throws in 75 adjectives and adverbs to make his book more “cultured.” The only thing it does is turn his boring story into unintelligible garbage. I want the facts, and I want REAL language. You live in the present day – write like it. Get with the times buddy.

Another way I’ve managed to kill time has been the overwhelming number of Peace Corps reports that I’ve had to do. On top of that I’ve got my own “professional” documents to work on. First on the list (actually the first one I actually completed) was my resume. I spent a good 2 hours working on it trying to improve it. I sent it off to Brie to edit it, and one hour later I had nothing that even remotely resembled the one I’d given her. But hey, that’s why you get things edited right? Next on the list was my site report. The site reports I had before going to Achuapa weren’t very good, so I did my best to give all the information about Achuapa that I never had. I poured a good 5 hours of work into that stupid report, but at 15 pages long, it should provide plenty of reading material for the next do-gooder that shows up to try to reteach Achuapa to make the wheel.

Essentially book-less, I cracked open a book about meditation that I’d already read. It has a real calming effect on me when I read it, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to clear my mind a bit. A couple pages in and something falls out of the book – 400 córdobas, or about 20 dollars! I’d totally forgotten I’d put the money in the book. Whenever I leave Achuapa I always hide my money places. Since books are great places to store valuables (I know one student in Achuapa that reads for fun) I’d stuffed my money in the book. The idea behind putting the money there was because I always forget where I hide things. The books name Mindfulness was supposed to remind me to be mindful about having hidden a bunch of money in the book. Who knows how long the money has been there, but now I’ve got even more money to enjoy my last days in Nicaragua. Nothing wrong with that.

Then, as if god was determined to balance out my good fortune, I get a phone call from Luis on Friday. He wasn’t the biggest fan of Costa Rica, so he’s coming back to Nicaragua for a week. Since his last visit left me close to bankrupt (as well as any other time I’ve ever hung out with him), I apparently will need the newfound fortune this coming week. I’m going to have to use a lot more fiscal discipline if I don’t want to end up penniless for the last 2.5 weeks of June. So looks like I’m going to probably tap into my reserves. There’s only so many times I’ll be in my last days in Nicaragua anyway.

The other big “shocking” news is that I discovered one of my favorite students is pregnant. She hadn’t been in school for a few days, so I stopped by her house. One of her family members told me that she has a medical appointment in León and then another one in the Achuapa medical center today. “Why would she go to two hospitals?” Then I found out that she’d been out of school because she’s pregnant. It’d been a while since I’d been so worked up about something. She did so well in my class last year. She went from having a 40ish percent in the class to getting an 85%. Other professors would tell me how much she likes my class and how it motivated her to do well in her other classes. It was a great feeling to see that it had that impact on her.

However, come this school year, she has been horribly lazy and without the interest she brought to the class last year. I don’t know what changed for her, but it’s a shame. Being from a small town in Nicaragua and not having her high school education is disastrous enough. Throw a baby into the mix and it becomes official – her life is over. In Achuapa, the number of people that stop studying high school because of problems and end up making something out of their lives is close to zero. Most people get their high school diploma (you can go to just Saturday classes, one day a week, and still graduate in 4 years – that’s definitely not a quality education), but since they’re not accustomed to being pushed, or pushing themselves for that matter they don’t study. If they do want to study, they typically don’t have the money to study regularly. If they manage to scrounge up enough money to study on Saturdays in the university, they graduate in 6 to 8 years. 6 to 8 years for a bachelors degree! I want to do something though, so I think I’m going to give her the manual that we have for the class. This way, should she really hit dire straits, she can review what she learned in my business class, and start a creative business.

So disappointed.

During all this nonsense, I finished two books:

Gomorrah – B.

A book about the Naples international crime network. It was pretty remarkable to see how much reach the Naples “mafia” has. It was also interesting to see how much influence it has all over Italy. The author was put under police protection after reading the book, so I guess he hit a nerve. Judging by what he wrote, I have little faith that he won’t get knocked off. The book was enjoyable, but for a section he would talk about stuff and then follow it up with “I know this and I can prove it. I have seen it.” That’s great buddy, but I understood that the last 18 times you wrote it. I was annoyed by this and had to put the book down for a couple days before finishing it.

The Lost Symbol – A.

Luis gave me this book on his random visit to Nicaragua, and I flew through it. Whereas he didn’t like it, it has a ton of symbolism in it and talks about religion in it, which I like. Pretty much just like the Da Vinci code (it’s written by Dan Brown as well). Also just like the Da Vinci code, I was always unsure what was fact and what wasn’t because he sites historical information – but is it real information or fabricated? Someday I’ll remember to look this stuff up.

And some pictures since I´m generally lacking them in the blog:

Jordan and Ronald before the ceremony

Katie Earle and Luis

Cutting the cake

Carla with her bag jam packed full of the stuff Brie sent

The mutant carrot I bought - it cost a dollar!

Just another size comparison if the fridge and 8 cans of tuna fish weren´t enough for you to tell

The wedding ¨favors¨ from Jordan and Ronald´s wedding

6-inch slug!

I’ve been reading a lot lately

I’ve been reading up a storm again.

Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle – A.

This book is about a 48 year old PCV from the 1960′s. I loved it because it was the first Peace Corps book I actually related to. It didn’t totally glamorize our job as Peace Corps volunteer, but instead focuses on the endless amount of failures we inevitably tend to encounter despite our best intentions. For me it was the most “real” portrayal of how life is. He conveys the frustration  that no other book I’ve read about PC has been able to do.

Tao 365: Daily Meditations - A.

I was on a religious book binge for a good long while and this was one of them I tackled. The more I read about Taoism, the more appealing it becomes.

The Wisdom of Hindu Gurus – B.

Like the previous book, it wasn’t really that much to tackle. However, it’s one of those deep books that makes you think and puts a nicer face to the whole religion game.

COS conference, a busted knee and another book

April 5^th – April 13^th

The 5^th was my last day in Achuapa before heading down to Managua for my COS conference. I got my stuff together in the morning, did a semi workout (it’s tough with one good knee), and went to the German NGO to talk to the director. Unfortunately he wasn’t there, and I ended up chatting with the security guard and an ice cream vendor for 2 and a half hours. While I’m in the middle of my lunch, my site mate Jim stopped by. Apparently the ice cream vendor told him that I’d said a business volunteer would replace me. This is typical gossip that occurs in Nicaragua – there’s no basis behind the gossip. The ice cream vendor took a conversation about bicycles and my future plans and turned it into a volunteer replacing me. Who knows why this always happens? After lunch I did some studying for my final language interview, but unfortunately, following my last study session, I screwed around the rest of the day playing video games.

As much as I dread waking up at 3 AM to catch the first morning bus, I didn’t have much choice. I’m constantly paranoid that I’ll never give myself enough time that I always play is super safe. It’s a formula that hasn’t failed me so far, though it does leave me quite tired. I didn’t have to be in Managua until Wednesday, but I scheduled a doctor’s appointment to take advantage of my trip there. I hate going there if I don’t have any other reason and it results me in being able to relax as oppose to being super worried about time.

My first appointment was at the dermatologist, followed by a meeting with an orthopedic specialist (is that what they’re called?). The dermatologist was running late (as least she’s consistently unreliable), so I headed up one floor to the orthopedic doctor for my appointment (Peace Corps scheduled the appointment with him 30 minutes after my first appointment knowing the dermatologist wouldn’t show up on time – you know you’re unreliable when…). Seeing the orthopedic specialist was a completely different experience, and it reminded me of going to see a shoulder specialist in Denver. I was instantly brought into a room, and the nurse asked me some basic questions before the doctor showed up.

When the doctor came in, he asked me what was the problem was, I started explaining to him what happened. When he saw that I had no idea what the medical vocabulary was, without a pause, he started speaking to me in English. He busted out a model of the knee and said I have a problem with the meniscus under my knee – it was just like a medical visit in the States! I got in and out of his office in 15 minutes flat. When I went back down to the dermatologist office, she was there waiting for me – that’ll teach her. My appointment with her went exactly as I hoped it would, “I don’t see anything, it’s all healthy skin.” Finally, after 11 nightmarish months, my plantar warts are gone.

Wednesday, I had an appointment with the medical office to let them know what the doctors told me. It was decided that I should get an MRI since it’s the only way we’ll know exactly what the problem with my knee is. Unfortunately, the soonest I could get the MRI would be Thursday, and I’d be at my Close of Service conference. They scheduled my appointment for Monday, which meant I’d have 3 days to kill and lounge about until my appointment.

Following my appointment that morning, I did some last minute preparation for my language interview. One thing had always confused me (when to use direct object pronouns for people), so I set about finding out when to use it. The language facilitators couldn’t explain it to me very well, neither could my project director, nor could the specialist. I resorted to searching the Internet in hopes of stumbling across something that would clearly explain exactly when it was used. Though I’d looked online multiple times in the past and never found anything, some magical Spanish site from Colby has the perfect explanation of how it worked. This came 3 hours before my language interview and allowed me to solidify perhaps the most unpolished part (grammatically) of my Spanish.

While I was studying, my friend Katie showed up with her boyfriend Luis (the USAID guy whose house I went to for Thanksgiving). He invited me to his house for his birthday party on Saturday, which was perfect since I had to be in Managua until Monday. When they took off, I continued studying for a bit before realizing that there was only so much I could absorb at the last minute.

I’m not sure if I was nervous about the language interview or not. I’ve always got tons of energy and sometimes that makes it difficult to determine whether I’m nervous or just excited. I knew I wanted to just get it over with so I could find out how the quality of my Spanish is now that I’ve spent roughly 2 years in the country. I was so ready to do the interview I even tried to do it a little early. Somebody had beat me to it, but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise – I would now have the last language interview.

I had my interview in a room that was recently constructed over the last year. I’m not sure what the purpose of the room is, but to me it seemed to be built as more of a cell than anything else. I don’t think it’s actually used for anything either. Just for inquisitions it seems. To make the room even scarier, my language interviewer, Rosibel, was sitting there with her stack of prompts next to her. While it has never been officially confirmed, volunteers have always speculated that receiving a card means that you aren’t covering all the bases with grammar. The prompts correspond to language levels and ask you questions like, “You’ve been robbed. Go to the police and explain what happened.” The thinking is, if you don’t get a card you’ve been blabbing enough to accurately decide what level your Spanish is – so that was my goal.

My interview started out talking about what sorts of work I do, projects I’ve done in my town and what I’ve thought about my service. Somehow, it turned into a raging conversation about development, the importance of education, and the role of NGO’s in development. What made it great was that it was a 2-way conversation; instead of some hypothetical speech I had to give to an unknown audience. After a while, the tape recorder clicked, indicating we’d run out of tape. “We’re out of tape, but just keep talking.” I kept talking, but on the inside I thought that this was good news. Not only does the language interviewer evaluate the Spanish level, but 2 other facilitators also listen to the tape to determine the appropriate level to classify the speaker. Without a tape how would they do that? Had she already decided? We continued our conversation for a while, talking about the problems that NGO’s have before she told me that she used to work for an NGO. So it appears that I stumbled upon an appropriate topic. I thought it went well, but she wouldn’t clue me in as to what she thought, “You’re not at the lowest level” is what she told me. I’m terrible at waiting.

Peace Corps put all of Nica 47 (my group) up in a hotel and told us we’d be leaving for the COS (Completion of Service) conference the next morning – but they never said when we’d be leaving. The whole night, we all ran around trying to figure out what time we had to be at the office to leave. Some said 7, some said 8, and others said they weren’t going to wake up early. We checked some emails that were sent to us months ago, and according to the email we were leaving at 8. That was enough for most, so we decided that was the time and went to sleep. Apparently later that night another volunteer called the vice director whom told us that we were leaving at 8.

The next morning, I couldn’t sleep past 5:30, so I just went about my business headed to the office to drop off my stuff from Jordan. Sure enough, there was the bus ready to take us – we were supposed to leave at 7. A memo would’ve been nice. With the extra time, Jordan and I headed to the bank and went back to the office while volunteers casually sauntered in for the next hour. A handful of us rode with one of the staff members down to the location of the conference in Pochomil, a beach resort on the Pacific.

Following our terrifying ride down there (several times we were going 100 mph on a road paved with stones), we started the conference around 10. We discussed the number of things that go into the COS process. There are so many forms and signatures we need, it was daunting enough for many of us to consider extending, so as to avoid the paperwork. That night there wasn’t any craziness that ensued – instead most just sat around talking.

The next day, I woke up super early (what a surprise) and since the sun still had yet to come up, I ventured out to the beach. It was an enormous and pretty much empty beach, which meant that were I to drown, that would be it – but hey, how many times can I enjoy the ocean by myself? The water was the perfect temperature, but the tide was super low – or so I thought. Waves would come in, and the water would be up to my chest, then the waves would go back out (creating a wicked undertow) and leave the water around my ankles. I dawdled around there for a bit before deciding I’d probably be swept off and eaten by sharks if I stuck around. Post “swim” I did some morning exercises and yoga. I never thought I’d say it, but it’s kind of nice being able to wake up and stumble out to the beach to exercise.

The 2^nd day of sessions went by super slowly and I didn’t get as much out of it as I’d hoped. It was all about resumes and trying to figure out what you wanted to be. There were exercises to figure them out but the problem was that I sit around doing those sorts of activities everyday. It seemed to me that they needed to think about who their audience was before they did the sessions, because it obviously wasn’t considered.

When the days activities had ended, we ate dinner before taking part in a bonfire on the beach. At first, the bonfire was anything but. Nobody was out on the beach except for those that were going to the drink table. Eventually, the majority of the group came down and things really got wild. By the time the night was over, there were black eyes, bruised bodies, sore necks, headaches, and sore stomachs. These pains clearly carried over into the morning, but at least we didn’t have any sessions. We lounged around the whole morning recovering until the Peace Corps bus showed up around 1 PM. Most people were put up in a hotel, but since I was going to stay at Luis’ house, I had nowhere to go. I had to sit in the office waiting for 7 hours before I could finally leave for Luis’ party.

I arrived at the party with a couple other volunteers around 9. There were a handful of people there, but for the most part it was pretty empty. As more people showed up, I reaffirmed what I already knew – I don’t like parties. Or rather, maybe it’s not that I don’t like parties; I don’t like the social environment of parties. The party had a lot of Peace Corps volunteers, a lot of embassy employees, GI Joes, and a handful of others. Most of the groups just stuck to themselves, which is unfortunate. All the groups live completely different worlds (in the same country!), so it’s hard to relate. It’s not an atmosphere that is conducive to understanding others. Or maybe I’m just bad at mingling. That’s definitely possible.

Sunday I spent the majority of the day lounging around Luis’ house with 4 girls from my business group. One of them is getting married, so they were going to have a bachelorette party that night. Since that wasn’t going to take place till later that night, we watched trashy TV for most of the day, periodically taking a break to eat a pupusa from the previous night. We also got to take advantage of the washer and dryer that Luis had – the first time I’d been able to do that in Nicaragua since last August. It was great to see all my clothes shrink back to the size they used to be. Around 6, I headed back to my hotel where I improvised a dinner with the only vegetable I found in the store that could be prepared in a hotel room – can of tuna with oatmeal and a tomato. Not exactly a 5-star dinner, but it beats the diet devoid of vitamins that I’d had the majority of the week.

Monday morning, I headed over to the hospital for my MRI. Everything went smoothly (though having an MRI for the first time was quite an experience – I felt like I was in a videogame), and I got back to the office with enough time to eat lunch before I left Managua. I can’t stand doing the Managua-Achuapa trip in one leg, so I debated staying in León. However, since I’d planned on going to Chinandega to revise the business advising training sessions, I couldn’t afford to lose another day. By the time I rolled in that night, it was 7 PM and I was exhausted. Fortunately fresh produce had been delivered that day, so I was able to eat a healthy dinner.

My first full day in town I went to the German NGO to talk about things we’re doing and where I could contribute on other projects. What starts as one small conversation always seems to turn into an epic discussion with the director, so instead of a 20-minute visit, I spent the good part of 2 hours talking about things we could do. I also found out that I got a “superior” rating on my language exam. All those hours I spent studying paid off. I don’t know if there is any sort of advantage to testing out at the highest language level, but it’s something that I really wanted to get, for myself if for nothing else. That afternoon, I got the lowdown from Jim about things that had happened over the past week I wasn’t around (including talking about the PC head of security – he drove a PC vehicle off of a bridge near Achuapa. He only survived because of the roll cage). People were also apparently going crazy because they hadn’t seen me for a week. The rest of the afternoon I spent reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers.

Outliers: The Story of Success – A. The 3^rd book I’ve read by Gladwell, it was a good one. I enjoyed it more than Tipping Point but would place it behind Blink. He’s got a great ability to take something super complicated and put it into language that’s easy to follow.

April 14^th

Originally, I’d planned on going to Chinandega today to start developing the business advising training sessions. However, since the head of our group couldn’t meet, I got to maintain my presence in town for a little bit longer. Little did I know, it will be a short while before I leave again – I called the PC medical office to ask about the results of my MRI. When they got back to me half an hour later, they told me that there was nothing wrong with the meniscus or other tendons, but I had a lot of bruising and a “bag.” The doctor couldn’t explain to me what that was, but I’m guessing it means I have fluid buildup in my knee and that’s what’s causing the pain. Since she couldn’t tell me what the next plan of action is, she made an appointment for me with the orthopedic specialist. So I’m going back to Managua on Tuesday. Hopefully we can get it figured out quickly – I miss being more active.

Having finished Outliers, I cracked open another book, The Handy Religion Answer Book. It reads like a textbook, but breaks down the principle differences between the 7 biggest world religions. For whatever reason, this sort of material has really interested me since I’ve gotten here. However, since I don’t blindly believe in something simply because somebody tells me it’s so, I still have yet to find a path that really appeals to me. I’m hoping that with further reading, I can find something that suits me. So far the religions that are more like ethical systems are the ones that appeal to me. They’re also much more religiously tolerant – why aren’t the rest?

“Because they’re WRONG.”

Right, of course. How silly of me to overlook that.

Another book under my belt

The Blue Bear – B+. About a Alaskan tour guide and the friendship he formed with a Japanese photographer. A good book, but there was something about the writing style that just didn´t click with me. I just can´t put my finger on it.

Melons, cookies and raises

March 9^th – March 14^th

The incredible amount of free time I’ve had lately has left me restless. I decided that I definitely couldn’t tolerate it until I’m done with my service, so Tuesday I headed to the German NGO to see what else I could do. I broke down my plight to the director of the branch (I’m bored out of my mind!), so he gave me a rundown on some things they were doing. He called in the agronomist (the NGO rep that has been “supervising” my workshops) as well as another guy who has a bunch of women’s groups. We came to an agreement to start 2 other workshops so I can have activities 3 of 5 days of the week. I’m also going to start helping them with their “League of Knowledge” that they’re organizing (my spelling bee is incorporated into this). That should keep my anxiety at bay.

Thursday I had my 4^th session in my business workshop. Attendance had really tapered off as the sessions progressed, so I didn’t expect much more out of this session. To my surprise, this time around we almost hit the attendance we’d anticipated from the beginning (29 people). On top of that, 13 of the people that came were new. That in itself has been a positive thing about the workshop – I’ve always had a handful of new people everytime. So while we were hoping to reach 30 people with this workshop, there have been 39 individuals who’ve received at least one session of the business workshop. I feel this is one of the reasons why we’re going to start 2 more sessions – the interest is there.

Unfortunately after the workshop, from a work report point of view, I ceased being productive for the week. I finished reading The Tipping Point (from the same author that wrote Blink) and continued my daily melon binge. I’ve always had a tendency to inhale a mountain of food whenever it’s in front of me. Because of this, I’ve tried to offset the disadvantages of this by having mountains of fruit and vegetables on hand at all times. I still haven’t figured out how I’m financially affected by it (I’m eating a whole canteloupe or watermelon daily), but it definitely holds me over for a while. On top of that, I started using the steamer that I got from Brie when she left (I call it a colander, but apparently it’s something different). While it worked the first time I used it, I had no idea how long to let the vegetables steam, nor did I know how much water to put in the pot. As a result, I burned the pot but got some delicious steamed carrots. It’d been so long since I’d had steamed vegetables that it created a sensory overload for me – so much that I steamed another carrot and ate it. The next go around, I used an old tuna can to elevate the steamer so I could avoid burning the pot again (though when I burned it the first time, the first thought through my head was, “Mmmm…that smells delicious…oh no…”). The huge influx of fruits and veges has my body very happy though – there’s tons of fiber in it.

Saturday my sitemate came over and we made some chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies. They turned out really well and I downed more than I’d like to admit, thereby countering any health benefits I was getting from eating all the fruits and vegetables. I was better than I normally am with a plate full of cookies though…but this was only because I gave away 7 of them so I wouldn’t eat them. Sacrifices. You see what Peace Corps does to you? Well, to me anyways.

I spent Sunday putzing around and dealing with the power sporadically going on and off throughout the morning. Unfortunately for me I was in the cyber a couple of times that this happened. The big news from today was in the form of an email from the director of Peace Corps. Our readjustment allowance that we earn for each month we’re in Peace Corps, which right now is $225 was increased by $50 a month to $275. I’d heard rumors that this was in the mix, but never thought I’d benefit from it. In addition to that increase, the pay given to extension volunteers was increased to $375 a month, permitted they extend for longer than 3 months. Poor Brie never got to take advantage of the increase in either. While the increase is super late in my service, it’ll still put 200 extra dollars in my pocket by the time I leave. Nothing wrong with that.

My big hope now is that I finish Peace Corps without any medical problems. I’ve still got the plantar warts that I’ve had for almost a year now. Now I have some sort of rash down on the same foot. I’ll be incredibly happy when the day comes when I don’t have any sort of illness going on. If I’m lucky it’ll happen when I’m still a volunteer so I don’t have to go to pay for it.

The Tipping Point – B+. While I liked the material in the book, it just wasn’t as a big of a hit with me as his other book Blink was. He talks about what is needed to create an epidemic, or in other words, to make something stick. Well, for me his book lacked the stickiness that his other book has. It was definitely interesting though.

When I woke up one day, the dogs next door were going beserk. This puppy was curious, confused and scared. When I opened my gate, he ran into my house and snooped around.

After 18 months of throwing this in my shower after dumping water in the toilet, I finally broke my plastic bucket. Brie was right.

My neighbor´s baby Adriana. Definitely the happiest baby I´ve ever met, though it isn´t reflected in the picture. The camera was a new thing for her.

At least Cual is there to keep me company

February 21^st – March 4^th

After running a few errands the morning of the 21^st, I ran to Malpaisillo for the day to drop off some books for Brie. The entire week I was super busy with planning my business workshop, planning classes with counterparts, and going to the TEPCE (the monthly teachers planning meeting). The workshops continue to go super well – I had 8 people from one community show up to the workshop for the 3^rd time in a row. Their attendance has been so consistent and they show such interest that I’m considering going to their community to help them out. This session was great because the level of understanding was huge. The main theme was doing a SWOT analysis (analyzing your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), which I had them practice. First they were to do a personal SWOT analysis, then one for their community. There was such an astounding amount of communication that I didn’t even need to jump in to clarify information. It was definitely the best class I’ve taught to any group of people.

The positive thing about having great sessions like these is that it encourages more people to show up the next time around. All in all, I’ve had 26 people attend the workshops; the great thing about it is that most of them live in tiny communities outside of the main town and can be the ones to share these new skills. They’re becoming teachers and they don’t even know it.

The TEPCE was as unnecessary as it always was. The ministro got on the radio, said the same things he always does (including that the ministry has no money) and all the teachers said the message was as worthless as it always was. We’d spent 2 hours listening to the ministro and discussing his message before we got to plan. Planning itself was super fast and I was out of there in a mere 15 minutes, ready to hop the bus to León for the weekend.

I got into León in the early afternoon and hung out for a bit before meeting up with Brie, Katie Earle and the guy she’s dating – Luis. Luis, coincidentally enough, is the guy whose house I went to for Thanksgiving. He’s a person I never expected to see after the meal, but continue to see. He’s a cool guy and it’s fun to show him the Nicaragua that we know as volunteers (the embassy has so many rules that it’s definitely not the same).

We went out for a good dinner (Brie’s last in León) and went out for breakfast the next morning as well. The break, while nice, was short as we headed to Malpaisillo around noon to organize stuff for Brie’s garage sale (since they don’t exist here, she called it “Se vende todo” (everything is sold). The Saturday we just hung out for one last day of doing nothing in Malpaisillo. Come Sunday, we had the sale, which lasted until the late hours of the night.

The next day we woke up early to get Brie’s dog ready (she was sending her to the States that day), so I went and woke her up for the last time in Nicaragua. This was also my send off for Brie as well. What seemed as forever away had finally come upon me – so we said goodbye and I got on my morning bus for Achuapa, albeit with my sunglasses on.

It was weird being back in my town having said goodbye to Brie. Her and Luis were my best friends in Nicaragua, and without them around my options for things to do outside of my town are very limited. The way I see it, I’ll be spending the majority of my last 4.5 months in my town, but I’m sure I’ll be called in to give training sessions when the new volunteers get in in May.

The day Brie left I woke up super early to go jogging so I’d be able to call her before her plane took off. When she finally left, I was definitely sad – my regular phone contact was gone. Nevertheless, I stuck through it and did some of my errands, all of which ended up being in vain. I thought the day was pretty so-so, it definitely couldn’t have gotten worse – or so I thought.

The following morning, while going to the park to work out, my neighbor asks me, “Did you go to the viewing?” (I guess it would be viewing since the literal translation is ‘candle’)

“Viewing? The viewing for who?”

“Polita. She died yesterday”

So that was it, things got worse – my old host mom died too. Nobody had told me, so I missed the initial viewing. I was mad and sad during my whole workout, so I decided to stop by her house for an hour before I headed to my class. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one with that idea. Furthermore, I didn’t even have class – the school canceled all classes for the day due to her death. Not even that, but all the NGO’s and even the mayor’s office closed for her funeral. I’d stand a better chance of finding open businesses at 9 PM on a Sunday. It was amazing to see how many people showed up for her funeral. She knew absolutely everybody and was widely known for her kindness. It was also the first funeral I’d ever been to where I’d be conscious that I actually cared for the individual who died (I remember going to my great grandpa’s funeral, but I was more interested in the blue hot wheels car I’d brought with me).

I thought I’d be able to keep it together, but I completely lost it in a way I’d never seen myself before. I didn’t know I was so emotional. So I spent the good part of the morning crying with all the family members before heading back home for a quick letter I had to do. After finishing it, I headed back to the house to spend time with my host mom one last time. There were 7 truckloads of flowers for her funeral and we all marched to the church for the ceremony and then to the cemetery where they buried her. It was here that I spoke with the principal of the elementary school. She told me that Doña Polita (as she was affectionately known to everybody) loved me because I was the only person who didn’t want anything from her; I just wanted to care for her pets. Her children from the States were also present and told me that she would always tell them about me. I’m glad I made as much of an impact on her as she made on me. She made the transition into Achuapa so much easier due to her kindness, her pets and her amazing house. Definitely the saddest day of my Peace Corps experience so far – but an experience I got to share with my community.

March 5^th – March 8^th

Now without my traveling out of my town and whatnot, I have more time for things like journaling.

The day after Doña Polita’s funeral, the feeling in town was really morose. I decided to mourn another day so I just stuck around my house. I did some reading, watched some movies and just take it easy. The positive thing is that canteloupes and watermelons are super prevalent in our shops now. A huge canteloupe costs a little less than 75 cents, and an enormous 6-7 pound watermelon is a dollar. As a result, I’ve been eating one a day.

That day, after buying tortillas for lunch, I came home and went into my room to grab something when I heard a “tap tap tap” on my tile floor. “What the hell is that?” I turned around to find Cual – so I gave him some food and he hung out for a bit.

He just came and found me

Always happy

Saturday and Sunday I did some business advising at a few places. It’s nice to see that some of the businesses are trying to make changes. Some I’ve been visiting for months and still have yet to see a change. Others I’ve seen one minor change that took forever to make. That being said – persistency is a must.

Saturday I went to the house that is on my jogging route. She’d requested I help her lose weight, so I showed up with a resistance band and taught the lady some exercises that she can do in her home. For me, it allowed me to see how difficult it will be to start the women’s exercise group. People here want to lose weight, but they don’t want to put in the effort to losing it. She wouldn’t try to do the exercises correctly. So now that is an issue with the group. I’m going to talk with some of the women I was going to invite to the group to see what they think about the exercises before I decide to go forward with the idea. Sunday, I headed over to Johani’s farm for a few hours. She wasn’t there, so I hung out with her two sisters and their kids to chat for a bit.

Come Monday, I paid my water bill and headed to the cyber. The quality has been horrible lately and the signal crashed a few minutes after I’d arrived. Now unable to go to the cyber, I went to advise a friend of mine to see how he was doing with a new accounting scheme I showed him. He told me that his wife didn’t like it and they liked another one. I looked at the way they were doing it and realised they had just changed one of the headings on the format I gave them – but hey, as long as they’re doing it, that’s all I care about. We got to talking about his business a bit more when he mentioned that he was looking to take out a loan to improve his business. The lightbulb went on for me right here, “Have you ever thought about doing a community bank?” He thought a community bank was something official at first, but after a few minutes of explanation I saw the idea sink in and his eyes lit up. “What an incredible idea!” I ran home real quick and grabbed a book I had for starting a community bank and we starting talking it over. He’s super pumped about the idea, so we’ll see how it pans out. Hopefully it does. He’s always been super interested in everything I’ve taught him about businesses so far, but he’s never been so captivated by an idea until I told him about this one.

I tried to stop by the German NGO to give them my workshop photocopies that afternoon but they were in a meeting for the whole day. With those plans abandoned, I checked the other cyber in town to find that it was operational, but full. I started walking home when I ran into the two kids that went to the leadership and creativity camp we had in January. One of them had just transferred to the private school in town and was beginning to see the error in his ways. In spite of this, they were both super excited about the class and were shot some ideas off of me.

I headed to the cyber a bit afterwards and met up with some students at my hours at 4. One of them was from earlier and brought a student from his group to discuss ideas. We hashed out options for 2 and a half hours before dinnertime rolled around. All in all, they were still in the same spot they started in – without an idea. They said they’d come back another day though, so they’re bound to come up with something if they’re putting in this much effort at the beginning of the year.

That night, I found a huge scary spider on the wall!

This will haunt me forever...and maybe even bite me. Who knows?

I busted out my killing broom and went at it. The first shot appeared to have killed it, but I had no idea where the body was. I walked back around into my room to find it there on the wall. So it was a fast spider – no problem. I can be fast too. The second shot seemed to do it. “Yes! To hell with you spider!” Then I picked up the broom to find nothing. There was no body to be seen, though I think I saw a wayward leg. But the conclusion – the spider escaped. I didn’t sleep too well.

In other news, I’ve read another book (I read it a while ago but I forgot to put it down:

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince – A. Thus far I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the Harry Potter series. This book was definitely darker and not as upbeat at the end. I’ve started the last book, but have thusfar stopped because it becomes SO dark. Lovely children’s book? Not anymore.

December and a huge tarantula!

December 1^st – December 6^th

This week was marked by a lot of nothing. I finished the 4^th book of Harry Potter and started the 5^th one, but overall nothing much happened. I thought that this year, now that I’ve started reading a lot, I wouldn’t be nearly as bored as I was last summer. Initially (for the first week I guess), it was starting to look that way – but then I had a week where I was actually in my town the whole time. I thought things would start get rolling and I could start making plans following my meeting with the boss of the Achuapa branch of Visión Mundial. Although, I’d made the meeting long in advance (so as to avoid having to reschedule for the 5^th time), the boss once again was not at the office and will not be there until the 9^th. Whereas I’d been looking forward to working with the NGO due to the millions of dollars they have at their disposal (I think they have around $5 million for just my municipality), it appears that realising any of the objectives that I’d discussed with the boss will be tough. I’m always ready to get started, but they waste so much time blowing people off that, while hopeful, I think the idea of working with them is more of a pipe dream. If I had to sit around and wait for other people to get their act together, I’d have done absolutely nothing during my service thus far. That being said, if I am once again unable to meet with the boss on the 9^th, I’ll just resume with my projects without their help.

On Thursday, I started off my day much as I have since vacation started. I kept checking information on flights back to Denver, and have a rough idea of when I’ll be able to do it. I also got an email from a potential couchsurfer asking if he could stay at my house that day. I said that’d be fine and went to grab a bag of ice cream (basically it’s an ice cream ball in a sandwich bag). Once back in my house, I enjoyed my ice cream for all of 5 minutes before the couchsurfer showed up. Apparently he’d been en route when I’d sent him a message saying yes. I was caught off guard, but got everything set up for him. Initially, he’d planned on heading up to Largartillo and seeing the waterfall there. However, the sun changed his plans and he just hung out in my house the whole day writing postcards.

That afternoon, I went to the primary school graduation where I was a “special invited guest”. This meant that even though I showed up late, I got a great seat and a handful of “shout outs” from the school administration and the vice mayor. Another perk of being a special invited guest was the dinner we got as well – it pays to be special. My site mate, Jim, was super eager to meet the couchsurfer, so we both went to my house following the graduation.

Jim and the couchsurfer, a French guy named Frederic, chatted it up for a while before while I killed time eating a few oranges (nothing else to do in the summertime). Once Jim took off, Fred and I made some dinner. Midway through our meal, Jim was back saying that his host mom wanted us to come over to chat. We spent a few hours at the house that mainly involved me cracking jokes the whole time with his host mom and a former student of mine. Fred and Jim killed the time practicing their Spanish listening ability as they said very little in the few hours we were spent there.

The following day, I did a handful of chores and the couchsurfer intended to go to Largartillo after lunch. He took off to go catch the bus and I decided to start reading…only to have him show up 5 minutes later saying that he’s going back to France. Apparently he had some issues with his girlfriend, and he couldn’t stand waiting 3 weeks to resolve the issue they had. So instead of hanging around Nicaragua for the rest of his vacation, he decided to change his plane reservation, packed his bag up in 30ish seconds and hopped on the bus to León. From there, he was to go straight to Costa Rica to catch his plane back home. Definitely the most drastic reaction I’ve seen in a while.

Come weekend, I did nothing (and it started getting to me). I also got the gossip about me from Jim. I imagined that people would tell him would be what people would tell me – that I’m always angry and eat a ton of eggs. However, the message that seems to stay with people is that I’m super cheap and that I’m strong. While it’s nice to see that people have neglected to mention my negative characteristics, it’s also interesting what things they have remembered about me, and what they’ve chosen to tell others. It will be interesting to see how things change in the years after my Peace Corps service.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – A+. A terrific book that I flew through. Out of all the HP books, it’s my favourite as it didn’t have a cop out fight scene in the end (as I felt the last 3 had). I also liked that it’s taken a dark turn.

December 7^th – December 8^th

These two days, I was hoping to accomplish a number of things, but it was impossible. Both days were official holidays (as if they needed more days off), so the cyber was closed (still haven’t made my plane resevation and I’ll be leaving next week) and the NGO’s were closed as well. The only thing that you could count on was that fireworks would constantly be shot off all day and night. The only other thing I could bank on was that my neighbor’s dogs would be barking all night long. To make matters worse, I found out one of the dogs is pregnant again (that will be the 3^rd time in 11 months).

With all this time to be unproductive (not exactly the type of time I was really lacking in my schedule), I did a ton of reading in the 5^th Harry Potter book. Furthermore, my new sitemate stopped by a few more times to ask more questions about Achuapa and things to do. I wonder if I was as worried as nervous when I showed up. I honestly can’t remember my initial feelings about my ability to do my job. I wonder if I would’ve approached my entire service differently if I had had a sitemate when I showed up for the first time. I just keep telling him that he just have to get past the first 3 months, and the rest is cake.

The highlight (or scarylight?) on these two days occurred when I was lying down in my bed talking on the phone…when I saw a gigantic tarantula on my wall:

Gross. Spiders.

Tarantulas definitely have some dexterity to them, so I was worried about how to get rid of it (I definitely wasn’t going to leave it running around my house – I have had nightmares). Ultimately I resulted to a broom, and with one swift smack, I took him down. Thank god – I always think that spiders will tell all their spider buddies what I did if they’re able to get away, then I’ll be attacked by an army of raging spiders. Yuck, spiders.