Good news and bad news

January 27^th – February 21^st

With the end of the month rapidly approaching, I spent the 27th and 28^th wrapping up the details for my business workshops with the agricultural workers that I will start giving in February. Furthermore, I was super busy doing business advising projects around town and pulling together the final details for my part in the business leadership and creativity camp that the business program was going to be holding over the weekend.

The 29^th, I got up super early and over to the bus stop for the 5 AM bus out of Achuapa. At the stop, I met up with my two students I’d nominated to go and we embarked for the long trip to Selva Negra, the location of the creativity and leadership camp. El Sauce, the town an hour south of Achuapa also had two students attending the camp. However, since the volunteer there wouldn’t be attending the camp as well, I was to accompany the students he nominated. Sure enough, when we got into cell phone range, I found out I had 5 missed calls – all from numbers I didn’t recognize. Shortly thereafter, I got another phone call from one of these mystery numbers – it was the father of one of the students. Parents of both of the children were waiting with their kids in the El Sauce terminal and got on the bus to wish them goodbye, and to meet me (their “guardian” for the next few days).

I ended up taking a connecting bus with another volunteer and 4 students she was with, so the 10 of us set off for Selva Negra together. We got in early and took the hike into the hotel compound (around 1 km). There were a handful of other students that had arrived and the incredibly understaffed camp organizing committee – so I pitched in a hand signing everybody in. All in all, there were 50 students from all over the country that showed up…and didn’t talk to each other.

The role of the volunteer in this case was to facilitate introductions/interactions between the students. For some reason, practically every kid was incredibly shy and reluctant to take that first step. I sat with my top student and 2 kids from Estelí, but while the kids from Estelí were talking up a storm (including one student whom all the volunteers is the best salesman on the planet based on his presentation at the national competition), but my kid was super timid the whole time, then became himself physically ill due to the stress of being in a super new situation (and away from his family).

The first day of the camp (more like a half day) was really well, but once again it was hard for my kids to break the ice with eachother. This yielded me having to be a total clown all the time so my kids would start to collaborate. But when they finally started to click, the group took off.

I was in charge of a points activity that would award points to students for good behaviour, attendance, outstanding participation/creativity and other completely arbitrary things. I basically pulled the idea from Harry Potter and adapted it to our camp. The groups were broken into foods that are commonly yelled out by Nicaraguan street vendors. My group, the guineos (a guineo is definitely from the same family as the banana and can look similar to a plantain, be sweet or not and even look like a miniature banana that tastes like apples) ended up being an outstanding group (clearly due to the ostentatiously awesome food that represented our group) and finished second in the point standings.

While I’ve been teaching for over a year and a half now, being a counselor was a completely different dynamic. I was in charge of 9 kids that were all good students and/or were ones that took advantage/were interested in the business class we taught. It was amazing to see the group work together as a team (team work is a huge issue among my students) and develop their creativity on the spot without my direct assistance. Furthermore, they ended up writing a song about the business class, which they performed in the talent show. I was super satisfying with how the event went (aside from the only black mark when a wallet was stolen and a student sent home) and it just reaffirmed the desire to be a teacher – but what do I want to teach/study/etc?

COMING SOON – A PICTURE!

The week following the camp was the first week of February, which meant one thing – the start of the new school year. To make things even busier, I was scheduled to start my business workshops with a German NGO in town. Since I’m assuming a lesser role in the schools this year (I’m basically just planning the class with the teachers), I didn’t have to worry about scheduling the class, which is always a headache. Since my counterparts will pretty much be teaching the class by themselves, my schedule is fre up for some of the secondary projects that I’d like to accomplish before my service is over.

On top of the business workshops, I worked with the German NGO to make my spelling bee an official part of the elementary school curriculum. Since that was the biggest obstacle before, I now just have to lengthen the list of words, which I’ll be doing with the principal of the main primary school in town.

My other big project, which I’m still in the process of planning, is some sort of athletic event. My ideas are to do a competition for men and women where they have to do exercises using their own body weight. Following each round of exercises, I’ll give informational presentations about HIV/AIDS. Then after all the physical rounds, there will be a round where each participant has to answer a question about HIV/AIDS. That’s my ideal activity, but I’m not sure it’s entirely viable – if proper form isn’t maintained when doing the exercises, they’re easier. So in essence, I’m not sure how to avoid cheating.

An alternative to the aforementioned activity is simply doing a billiards tournament where the participants learn about HIV/AIDS inbetween rounds (I’m thinking of doing a round robin type tournament), then at the end of each round they answer questions about HIV/AIDS. This is an easier method to go about doing a big activity, but I’d rather incorporate a physical element to the project, hence my preference for the previous activity.

My last (and most recent idea) is to have some sort of women’s exercise group. We’d do circuit exercises with the idea of building endurance. Also during this time, I could teach them about proper nutrition (since most of the participants would 25+). I am more inclined to do this one because it’s been my goal to do some sort of physical activity since I arrived to Achuapa, but I’ve never been able to see one through. Hopefully I can pull something together.

During February, I planned classes with my counterparts (and got to know a new one that I’ve been assigned), as well as give 2 business workshops through the German NGO. The first workshop had sparse attendance, with only 14 showing up (10 of whom were women – this was huge and surprising). The workshop went great, and I encouraged those that arrived to bring others that would be interested. At the second workshop, 10 of the original 14 showed up, and all the women from one community brought two new people that really enjoyed the workshop. My attendance for the second workshop tallied in at 22, with 12 new people attending. So while we still didn’t reach the initial goal that we had while planning the workshops (we’d anticipated 30 people coming to the sessions), at least the attendance is improving. These first two workshops addressed the basics of choosing a good idea for a business before starting it. The workshops to follow will address the more important and specific parts of businesses. For these workshops, we’re anticipating to give 2 workshops a week.

The business program project specialist (she used to be a volunteer) came and observed my second workshop, which coincided with my last of 4 site visits we have throughout our service. She observed my workshop, gave some suggestions and we ate some lunch. Afterwards, we met up with the German NGO and discussed the possibility of having a business volunteer replace me in Achuapa. Since I’ve pretty much finished with the schools, getting a replacement volunteer will depend on work outside the schools. Since Achuapa is so small (the municipality has 13,000 people in an area the size of the Denver metro area), there aren’t a lot of work opportunities aside from the NGO. In my opinion, I doubt I’ll be replaced, but who knows, PC could throw a curve ball.

Following the meeting with the German NGO, we had a brief meeting with my counterparts and a representative from the Ministry of Education. With the meeting out of the way, I headed home to change and drop off a bunch of business manuals for the class. I said goodbye to my dog (he vomited right before I left), and I caught a ride with Emily down to Managua. Brie was down in Managua wrapping up things with PC (she’s gone in March), so we decided to go down to Nicaragua’s most famous beach town, San Juan del Sur, for the weekend.

The following day (the 12^th), we made our way down to the town, which is near the Costa Rican border. The game plan was to indulge ourselves for one last time before she left and did we ever. Since Luis left, alcohol has been something I’ve enjoyed on a monthly basis if that, so good drinks were definitely on the agenda. San Juan del Sur is also known for having really good food (I’m guessing because cruise ships pull in), so we took advantage of that as well. I got lots of fish dishes (including lobster pasta), none of which cost more than 8 bucks a plate. However, the highlight of these amazing plates was a shrimp and artichoke heart dip. I’ve never been a fan of shrimp (more due to a fear of the food when I was a kid than actually not enjoying it) and I’d never tried artichoke (see the previous reason), but it was out of this world. The restaurant overlooked the entire town and the ocean as well, which made the entire experience that much better.

Although I’m not a swimmer, we headed to the beach on the 13^th for a couple hours. San Juan del Sur is not only known as being one of the best surf spots in the world, but it also has some pristine sand beaches that for the most part are deserted (this can be good and bad, which I’ll discuss soon). The beaches that are worth seeing are actually located outside of the town itself, so we caught a truck out to one of the beaches. We got dropped off at Playa Maderas, which was gorgeous. We had a nice tree picked out to put our stuff at, but then some hippie surfer decided that of all the places on the beach (the beach was EMPTY), he too was going to take advantage of the shade of the tree. Thanks @$$hole. If living in Nicaragua has taught us anything, it’s to be paranoid. So we moved our stuff to some rocks by the water while we went and enjoyed the water for a bit.

While jumping through some waves for a bit, our paranoia peaked again as we saw some guy sitting on the rocks near our bag dressed in street clothes. He was definitely not there to go swimming. So we headed up to our stuff, grabbed it and headed for another part of the beach. While passing him, I gave him an “adios” (the equivalent of ‘hey’) to which he didn’t respond. That didn’t bother me as much as the machete that I saw he had in a holster around his shoulder. Yea – he wasn’t there to swim. Post seeing the crazy-psycho-machete wielding guy, we found another tree at the end of Playa Mathilda. This new part of the beach gave us a huge expanse of beach to ourselves. There was never anybody within 300 yard of us the entire time. It really makes the experience. Now I can understand why people go to beaches. The 14^th, Brie and I made our way for Malpaisillo after a quick stop in Managua and I went back to Achuapa the following day.

Back home, I planned with my counterparts and also did some business advising. I’ve been trying to be a little more aggressive in the advising process (see having the expectation that changes will be made). I’m approaching it this way so I can stop advising the people that are just talk and won’t actually do anything. During this time, I also spoke with my boss about the ASBO project that we have in training. The ASBO proect is the advising practice that we do when we’re trainees. She asked me to look over it and make suggestions a couple weeks ago and we finally found the time to talk about it. Overall, it sounded like she agreed with the majority of my suggestions to improve the business advising aspect of training.

Furthermore, since our business course is now part of the national curriculum, she asked if I’d be interested in doing a workshop with teachers in Rio San Juan – the last part of Nicaragua that still has a tropical rainforest. I’ve never had the time to go, so having the opportunity to go while actually working would be great. I’ll get to see what all the hype is about. She also asked me if I’d be interested in extending my service for 3 months to help organize the competitions around the country towards the end of the year. I could extend in Achuapa, or I could do it in another city or town. I just became aware of this opportunity, so I’m going to think it over. Maybe it could happen.

Finally, to close out on a sad note – Buddy has died. Apparently he died the Thursday I left Achuapa. When I returned home on Monday I was simply told, “Buddy sends his regards.” He was apparently seen lying on the ground next to the primary school before they hauled him to the dump. Nobody had any visual confirmation or could tell me what happened. Poor Buddy. He always had the worst luck. Hopefully he’s running around in doggie heaven now, albeit a lot more comfortably than he did while he was alive.

PICTURES TO BE UPLOADED LATER

Selva Negra and Evacuating my house

April 30^th through May 3^rd

After being told time and time again how beautiful and amazing it is, I finally went to Selva Negra this weekend. Selva Negra is located about 12 kilometers out of Matagalpa (roughly in the middle of the country), and is a farm nestled in the mountains outside of the city of Matagalpa. We got the direct León – Matagalpa expreso bus which dropped us off in Matagalpa around 10:45ish (about 2.75 hours after leaving Malpaisillo). Upon entering Matagalpa you notice one thing, it’s super cool there. This is saying something because before going there, I had yet to feel “cool” in the last year. From Matagalpa, we hopped a bus to Jinotega and got off at the stop for Selva Negra, where an old army tank sits at the entrance of the forest.

Following a gorgeous 1.5 km walk to the hotel, we arrived at the entrance of the compound, which was followed by another uphill jaunt to arrive at the restaurant/office. Strangely ehough, it actually did look like Germany.

All in all, you go to Selva Negra for is two things – the atmosphere and the food. The 2.5 days we were there, the temperature was always between 50 and 70 degrees, a lot of the time there was a light mist, and it was EXACTLY what I needed after a year in scorching León temperatures. We took a tour of the farm (they make all their cheeses, grow all their vegetables, and all the meet comes from their farm as well), saw the coffee fields, and the facility where they process their coffee. I was really surprised to see how big the farm was (they have 200 permanent workers) and all the things they do for their workers/do to make the farm sustainable. The farm sports solar panels and a hydroelectric generator, biodigestors, a worm farm, and is all-organic (meat, vegetables, fruits and coffee). We checked out some of the numerous hiking paths that they had around the farm through their cloud forest. According to their map, it supposedly takes hours upon hours to hike around the paths, but we covered the majority of the trails in about an hour. Go figure. One of the highlights of the trip was the amazing food in the restaurant – amazing cakes, cheeses, salads, and  incredible German sausages, potatoes, and sauerkraut.

We left Selva Negra the 3^rd, and on the way back to León, our bus stopped in Sébaco, a literal highway town/city. For whatever reason though, Sébaco is known to have some of the best vegetables in the country, and we realised this when all the vendors hopped on the bus selling them. A roughly 5 lb bag of beets ran for 50 cents and 12 bell peppers (not measly Nicaraguan chiltoma bell peppers, but actual bell peppers) ran for 50 cents as well. With food prices climbing so much lately, it was amazing to see such great quality being offered for so cheap. I’ll definitely be back.

The entrance to Selva Negra

May 4^th

I rolled into Achuapa around noon and immediately noticed one thing – all the farm lands just outside the town were flooded. This was particularly noteworthy since we’d had one significant rainstorm since October (but it happened about 6 weeks ago). The first thing I thought had happened was a water main burst, but since we have running water for around 4 hours a day, I threw out that idea.

When I finally got home, my neighbors told me that they had horrible rainstorms the previous two days and they hadn’t had power in two days either. This was super surprising since May is when the rainy season starts (but it never really picks up until September). When I opened the door to my house, I found that my house had flooded. I figured it was due to the half-window I have in my kitchen, so I decided to deal with it later.

I went and grabbed lunch at the comedor, then came back and finished off the Alan Greenspan biography. In the midst of this, it started to rain – hard. Normally, I wouldn’t even bat an eye, but it was more like a hurricane rain. It was so ridiculous that I first had to abandon my porch after seeing my neighbor’s yard struck by lightning, then I became aware of the river-like leaks I had coming through my roof (so this is why my house flooded!). As the rain got worse, so did the amount of water coming into my house from anywhere it could (and even places I thought it couldn’t come through). It got to the point that I had no other choice and abandoned my house. With no better option I went over to my buddy’s house and hung out with him and his family.

Looks like I got a busy day ahead of me…

The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World – B-. In Greenspan’s biography the book is broken up into two parts – the history of his life and how he came to be who he is, then his analysis of the economy and forecast of how things will be in the future. The part about him was great, I flew through the 400ish pages without even batting an eye. However, when he started discussing the economy and whatnot, he started getting really dry and it all had the same tone. Basically, the way he approaches the problems of today is by saying, “It’s not my fault.” Good book if you stop before he starts getting defensive.

Swine flu (don´t got it) and more training

 April 16^th

I was able to give my classes and get back in the flow of things (minus the flowing of the bodily fluids). Aside from that, I took it easy (doctor’s orders).

April 17^th

Friday’s I do nothing when I’m in site and this lived up to it.

April 18^th – 19^th

This was the first time I’d spent a weekend in site without a visit from somebody. I’d forgotten how little there is to do on the weekends, particularly when I don’t have any plans myself. It was brutal, but I made it.

April 20^th

I stopped by the elementary school to talk with the principal and a few of the teachers in an attempt to do a chess club. I got a tentative start date for the club (next Tuesday), and being the birthday of the principal, I bought her a juice box to show I’m not a miser all the time. My counterpart at my private school also got the OK to go to our Peace Corps workshop in Managua, so I tied up all loose ends since I’m heading out tomorrow.

April 21^st

My counterpart and I caught the 4 am bus out of Achuapa (the first time I’ve ridden it in months). We rolled into Managua around 9:30 AM (can you see why I dread going to Managua so much?), and caught a cab to go to the PC office. The training staff wanted to do some interviews with us to get some feedback on things they should do with the incoming, so I dropped my counterpart off in the volunteer lounge and did the interview. I picked her up around 20 minutes later and she told me that all the Ag volunteers in the lounge were just talking about all the delinquencies they’d been involved in (she’s an English teacher). Whoops on their part.

From the office we headed to the hotel Peace Corps had arranged for the taller. Magically, I was able to get to the hotel from the office for a dollar a piece (apparently nobody else had gotten there for any less than 2.50), which tells me that my ability to drive a hard bargain in Managua is pretty good (I did get 2 dollars from the airport to downtown instead of the normal 10-20 dollar price when my parents came in). I was one of the first volunteers to show up and just crashed in my room until lunch was finally served at noon.

By noon, most of the volunteers had arrived by noon, and we went to eat up by the pool. I ate with my counterpart and her two roommates (2 counterparts from Somotillo, Chinandega), and this would be how things would go the rest of the taller. The amount of food they gave us was scant, which left everybody who left super early in the morning to arrive (like my counterpart an I) incredibly starving. The afternoon’s charlas were informative for my counterpart and I feel she got a lot out of it.

Come nighttime, most of us just hung out for a bit before heading to our rooms and sleeping.

April 22^nd

Today was the big switchover for phone numbers in Nicaragua. Now every cell phone has an 8 before the number (so now my number is 505.8.924.9465), and all landlines have a 2 before the number. However, Claro providing the most god awful service in the world had their system “fail,” which resulted in anybody who didn’t have money on their phone being able to make calls to anywhere in Nicaragua or the world for free. Oops Claro. You screwed up. Due to the free phone calls, right when my alarm was scheduled to go off, I got a phone call at 6:30 AM, which I mistook for my alarm. After realising I was being called, I’d missed the call from the girl I use to teach English classes to in Achuapa (before she started blowing off the class). She called me back, and I talked to her a bit before heading to breakfast. At breakfast, like before, I ate with my counterpart and her roommates from Somotillo.

The days charlas were long, but by the time they were over, I felt my counterpart had a good understanding of the course, which will be necessary when I pass over more responsibilities to her in the future.

After our charlas, the volunteers got together and discussed what they were going to do for the 1 year in country anniversary, followed by the 1 year in site anniversary. I say “they” because I’m not going to participate. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the volunteers in my group, it’s just that I don’t care to celebrate being here a year, particularly since it’s not hard. Another reason is that nobody in my group is in my “support network,” or rather, when I am stressed out, I don’t give any of them a call. Just how it goes I suppose.

I ate dinner again with my counterpart and her roommates, and all the volunteers except me headed to a bar in Managua. I was too cheap and didn’t care to drink that night, so I just stayed in, hung out and went swimming with a handful of the counterparts that night. Good times.

April 23^rd

The counterparts all headed back to their towns today leaving us volunteers for an evaluation session of the workshop that morning. Afterwards we headed back to the office (I grabbed a ride with our project specialist), where we proceeded to lose 2 white boards on the highway (one disappeared, but the other landed in a median in the middle where somebody, who we initially thought was stealing it, brought it over to us.

At the office, I had a medical appointment to do another test to make sure I didn’t have my million illnesses and also to find out what the deal was with my foot (I’d been under the assumption that I had ringworm). I turned in all my refund forms, and headed to the doctor. After a quick look, I found out I have planters warts. Not just one, but seven. Then I have a regular wart on my other foot. What a pain in the ass. When I go back to Managua for my one year check up, I’m going to get them all removed (apparently I will have some issues walking since there are so many in the same area). FUN.

I tried to get back to site, but by the time I rolled into León, it was already 5 PM and the last bus to Achuapa had left more than an hour before. I wasn’t going to stay in León, so I got a little closer by heading to Malpaisillo instead.

April 24^th

I hung out with Brie and her neighbor Carla (even got a free lunch from Carla) and since Brie was sick, she couldn’t go to Achuapa. Luis was going to go to Achuapa as well, but after finding out that Brie wasn’t going, his enthusiasm nose-dived as well. So I just stayed in Malpaisillo another day.

April 25^th

We did nothing today.

April 26^th

I did some reading and checked out the news to see this swine flu is really exploding around the world. I wondered if or when Peace Corps was going to say anything about it, particularly given our proximity to Mexico, but so far we haven’t heard anything from them. I headed back to Achuapa on the last bus that night.

April 27^th

Still no word from Peace Corps on the swine flu. I got a new TV series (Entourage), so I just watched it the entire day. What a great waste of time. It’s too hot to do anything anyway.

April 28^th

We finally got an email from Peace Corps saying that we could potentially be consolidated to our sites and to be on alert. Furthermore, they will be distributing Tamiflu and masks through our EAP coordinators that will be handed out soon. Aside from that, I just kept watching Entourage (I finished 3 seasons in 2 days – awesome). Those of you that know of cool TV series should send them to me. Those kill lots of time.

April 29^th

I taught my class in Los Caraos today and discovered that our TEPCE workshop that is at the end of every month was being rescheduled again for the following Monday. Furthermore, classes on Thursday will be cancelled (one of my schools hasn’t had my class for 3 weeks already). To make matters worse, apparently, the Ministry of Education hasn’t paid any of the teachers for the last 3 months. The information I got from my counterparts is that if they are not paid by MINED tomorrow, all the teachers in the country will go on strike Monday until they are paid. This is bad, bad, bad news. I was worried about missing time in class to begin with, and now I have to worry about a teacher strike cancelling my classes for god knows how long. Since I don’t have class tomorrow, I’m going to head out to Selva Negra (the Black Forest) for the weekend. I’m staying at a hotel run by 4^th generation German immigrants that have a coffee plantation, as well as a ton of hiking areas. Supposedly the area looks exactly like the Black Forest in Germany. You can check it out at www.selvanegra.com.