Like a Donkey

It has been a hectic two weeks. My USAID funded “public cleanliness” project (this is what we say in Spanish. It is more euphemistic than “trash” project) is well underway, which means I have been working like a “donkey” or a “black” (this is what they say in Spanish. It is not at all euphemistic and quite offensive). I have literally been working 10 hour days, which is a lot for a volunteer of an organization whose 3 pronged mission statement focuses two entire prongs on cultural exchange (that is, chatting.) But it is all going quite well. We have bought all the materials for the project: trash barrels, signs with messages that say “Keep this area clean” and “Don’t Throw Trash Here,” wheelbarrows, rakes, brooms, machetes, and other various tools for the trash collectors to use in their daily functions, we will record our first radio message this week, and we are in the midst of planning our first big community cleanup.

We also gave educational sessions to each of the 3 sectors of my community with a total of about 60 people showing up. The sessions were imparted by me, the police captain, and representatives from the mayor’s office, a local environmental NGO, and Nicaragua’s Ministry of Natural Resources. We introduced the project, talked about the importance of classifying our trash, explained how the trash collection functions and should be utilized, and emphasized the necessity of paying for the trash service, taking care of the trash barrels in the street, and keeping our dogs, pigs, and cows from knocking them over and rooting through the garbage. At the end of each session, we raffled off a “basic basket,” which contains rice, beans, sugar, cooking oil, and soap. This prize, of course, was the main reason people came to the sessions and big thanks go out to my Aunt Barbara and Uncle Steve for helping to fund these baskets.

In order to invite the community to these sessions, I went door to door handing out invitations (about 100 houses) and got to see parts of my community I had never seen before. Granted, my community is small. We are approximately 1, 300 people and the majority of those are children. We only have one street with a bunch of cement walkways sprouting off of it. My community’s population exploded (relatively speaking) all at once and the result is a very disorganized layout, a city planner’s nightmare. I find it charming in a tree house city/hidden passages kind of way. Anyway, I know all of the walkways but I didn’t know all of the houses off the walkways, way off into the muddy abyss, accessible only by precariously placed wooden planks and platforms. Now I do.

In other news, the 14th and 15th of September, two of the most important days on the Nica calendar, are coming up. We celebrate Nicaraguan independence and the Battle of San Jacinto on these days with smoke bombs, parades of school children, and local marching band competitions. The marching band consists of drums and what I can only guess is the glockenspiel. My dear father, Hrach Gregorian, played the glockenspiel in the Watertown Mass. marching band and used to proudly tell us that he was the only one you could hear on the high notes of the Star Spangled Banner. Well, that’s all the band is here: percussion and high notes. Along with the band, a group of about 25 girls dance the palillona, a combination of baton twirling and dirty dancing with the batons. The band and the girls have been practicing twice a day since July and in the evening, they practice in our town’s multiuse court and everyone gathers to watch their progress (I personally haven’t been able to note any). But regardless of how well the band plays or the girls dance, it is exciting for the kids participating and the town rallies around them. In a place where high school football or basketball games with cheerleaders only exist in pirated DVDs from the US, it is nice that these kids have the opportunity to participate in an organized, coached, group event with the community supporting them.

This past Saturday, my best Nicaraguan friend’s baby turned 1 year old! There have been certain mileposts marking the passage of my service along the way but the fact that baby Joshua, whom I first met when he was still in his mother’s womb, can walk, eat solid foods, and had his first birthday, really drives home the fact that I have been in my site for a year and five months (and that I will be leaving soon). Turns out, first birthday parties are a big deal here, of course much more for the parents than for the child who won’t remember a single thing. There were typical kid birthday party aspects that reminded me of home like the goody bags and balloons, and then there were the slightly off aspects that reminded me that I was living in Nicaragua, like when I asked how to hang the streamers and was told to simply glue them to the wall. Just put Elmer’s glue right on the wall. Take the bottle, twist the cap, and smear glue all over the interior wall of a house. In the end, the party was a success as only one kid got whacked in the head with the piñata stick and the birthday boy cried only for about 80% of the party. He did look adorable in the little green sneakers I bought him, though.

Other than that, the latest inconveniences are that there have been country wide electricity cuts due to an energy shortage, which means from 4pm to 8pm every day we are without lights, my digital camera has broken for the second time in my service (word to the wise: avoid Nikon Coolpix 3200 cameras), and my “NGO worker” Swiss Army watch’s special plastic band has torn in two, forcing me to tape it together everyday with electrical tape and leaving me every evening with a sticky, tape residuey, left wrist. Turns out that leather watch bands mold, fabric bands get stinky, and plastic ones tear in two. What can you do?