Alexis in Nicaland

The List

2007-02-19T10:06:00.000-08:00

I know it has been over a month since I last posted anything on this blog. I blame my absence on the fact that I am leaving my site in just 9 days and have been slightly preoccupied. One of the things that Peace Corps recommends we do before leaving is make a list of all the things we are going to miss about our lifestyle in Nicaragua. Perhaps this list will give you all an inside view of what I love about my life here. This is what I have come up with so far:

1. My view and two hammocks
2. The boat ride to my site
3. The pace of life
4. Arctic Victoria beer
5. “Buenas!”
6. The solidarity of the Juan
7. The collective yell heard around town when “¡ya vino la luz!”
8. Jeiner’s bar
9. The flock of white birds flying by my porch each night at sunset
10. Being a member of both the Parrales and the Pilarte families
11. 4th grade
12. Being famous
13. My Nica friends (especially Jaira, Karla, Darling, Johanna, Ruth, and Cecilia)
14. Chocobananos
15. The hotel on Sunday afternoons
16. Being swarmed by children
17. Evening chats with Jhassuha
18. Nica 37
19. Rain on the roof
20. Saying “adios” to everyone I pass
21. Feeling like an integral part of a community
22. Peace Corps medical services and general support
23. Chavalo errand runners
24. Being my own boss and making my own schedule
25. “Ideay?”
26. Buying everything in individual units (just one egg, one beer, one stick of butter)
27. The absence of the concept of awkward
28. The ability to buy something for six cents (meneitos, pan simple)
29. People singing at full volume with no shame
30. How emphatic Spanish is
31. Knowing everyone
32. The sense of joy I get when my clothes dry in one day
33. Walking into anyone’s house at anytime with no previous notification
34. Quesillo, cacao con leche, maracuya
35. Not caring what I look like
36. Pirated DVDs
37. Trips to Managua
38. Granada and the Laguna de Apoyo
39. Calling all small children “pipito”
40. The affability and generosity of Nicaraguans

"Til Death Do They Part (Sort of)

2007-01-15T08:01:00.000-08:00

I don’t know the official divorce rate in Nicaragua but I can guess that it is extremely low. This is for one reason only: nobody gets married in Nicaragua. Usually people just juntar (trans. “shack up”) for a few years, have some kids, and then separate when someone else comes along. When people do get married, it is usually a civil procedure performed by a lawyer so that they can still get a divorce when someone else comes along. Very, very rarely a couple will get married in a church and in this Catholic country, this means ‘til death do they part. Of course, they still cheat when someone else comes along. So it is not surprising that throughout my two years living in Nicaragua, I have only been invited to one wedding and it was just a few weeks ago.

Given the rarity of such an event, there was no way I was going to miss it. Moreover, the bride and groom are close friends of mine: Ruth and Martin. They have been “shacking up” for 21 years and have two children together but for some reason decided that this December 26th they would finally be married. The curious part is that after such a long time, you would think they would be fairly certain that they will spend the rest of their lives together. But they still opted for the civil marriage. You know, just in case someone else comes along.

The wedding bore certain similarities and certain differences to the few weddings I have attended in the U.S. There were invitations, but they were handed out a week before the event. There was a time stated on the invitation, but of course the ceremony started two hours later. People came dressed in their best and in Nicaragua that can mean ironed jeans. It had rained all that day but no one was worried about the mud (the party took place outside) and everyone was in a festive mood. I’m sure a lot of preparation went into the event but no one was stressed, just out to have a great time.

There was dinner served but it didn’t signal the beginning of the festivities but rather the end for about a quarter of the guests who left immediately afterwards. And in true Nicaragua fashion that still manages to shock me after all this time and all these birthday parties and graduations, many people asked for plates of food to take home with them. They are served their rightful plate and then ask whoever served them for, say, two more plates for their kids at home who weren’t even necessarily invited! These same people usually ask for some of the balloon decorations to take home as well, which helps with cleanup but still strikes me as slightly out of line.

There was music but definitely not a band or even a DJ really. Ruth’s son just put on mix CDs and let them play. Early in the night, he played a great American 80’s mix. When Guns n’ Roses “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” started to play, my friend Gilberto leaned over to me and commented, “Nirvana es salvaje!” (trans. “Nirvana is awesome!) “Totally,” I responded.

There wasn’t a bar, but there was plenty of liquor. Bottles of rum were placed and replaced on every table where guests sat. This was my undoing. There was dancing and I definitely partook. In fact, yesterday Ruth told me she is glad I am leaving with a smile. When I asked her why in a mockingly horrified tone, she told me, “Because you stole the groom at my wedding.” While I find this to be a gross exaggeration, I did spend quite a long time teaching Martin to dance “gringo style” complete with spins and dips. We would alternately yell “Gringo style!” or “Nica style” and dance accordingly. He told me that “gringo style” is a lot more fun. When it comes to dancing, I have to agree. When it comes to weddings, “Nica style” definitely gives “Gringo style” a run for its money.

A Very Nica Christmas

2006-12-27T14:52:00.000-08:00

“Did Santa come to your house last night?” My best friend, Jhassuha, asked. “No,” I told her, “I never left a forwarding address with him so I don’t think he knows I live in Nicaragua now.” “Ah, you’d be surprised,” she told me. “Last night around 1 in the morning, he knocked on my door asking for you. When I told him you lived up that hill, he decided to just leave the presents here. He’s really fat these days, you know.” And with that, I was handed my first Christmas presents: a fake Puma tank top, green pearl earrings to match, and a previously opened bottle of imitation Vaseline hand lotion. I couldn’t have been more pleased. Somehow, even though it was 90 degrees outside and I was already sweating at 8:30 AM, it felt like Christmas.

I spent the rest of the day handing out the small gifts I had bought in Costa Rica for my friends and received several more trinkets including a keychain and a small jewelry box covered in lace and beads. Everything I received was made in China and can be found at the Dollar Store on Maple Avenue in Vienna, but I love every last gift. I was also able to speak briefly with my family in Virginia who had set up my childhood teddy bear to fill my place as they opened presents.

My host mother, Clarissa, invited me to a lovely family lunch and we ate nacatamales, a traditional Nicaraguan food made of pork (or chicken if you’re me), with tomatoes, peppers, and onions in cornmeal all wrapped in a plantain leaf. It was a delicious way to celebrate. Her father, Don Simeon, who is basically the godfather of Boca de Sábalos, was there and I asked him how his Christmas was treating him. He told me, “Every day is pretty much the same for me.” Normally, I’d have to agree with this sentiment but for me, this was an especially good day.

Back at Jhassuha’s we watched “An Eloise Christmas” on television and the house felt very festive with the purple and yellow garlands she had hung next to several large plastic Santa’s. We played all the Christmas classics in Spanish and made dinner. As we settled down to eat and watch a pirated version of Pirates of the Caribbean, Jhassuha commented on how lucky we are to have so much. I glanced down at our plates of rice, beans, plantains, and pasta salad, took in her small, sparsely furnished, wooden house with the funny decorations, and then looked at her sitting with her baby in her lap and her husband by her side and told her, “Yes. Very lucky indeed.”

You're Ugly But I Love You

2006-12-27T14:50:00.000-08:00

One of the main reasons I had for not going home this December was my desire to travel and see more of Central America. Most Volunteers in Nicaragua, upon finishing their service, cash in their Peace Corps-bought plane ticket home and use the money to travel back to the United States by bus, stopping in some or all of Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico. Since I’ll be leaving a few weeks early in order to attend big bro Jamie’s wedding, this won’t be an option for me. So, I took advantage of December vacation time to check out a new country: Panama.

We all know that I’m type A. I like things organized and planned and could never be accurately described as one who “flies by the seat of her pants.” But for some reason, despite the presence of a Central America guide book on my wooden bookshelf, I did practically no planning for this trip whatsoever. I brought the guide book with me to Managua to show it to my traveling companions but Jessica promptly lost it and it became a joke that we are such seasoned Central Americans, we have no need for frivolities like guide books. And so, without definite plans, tourist information, bus tickets, or fear of the unknown, four of us headed to Panama in mid-December.

Miraculously, we made it there a day later. Our friend Lara had highly recommended the archipelago of Bocas del Toro right across from the Costa Rican border on the Atlantic Coast, so that was our first stop. And our only stop. We loved it so much, we never wanted to leave. So, we didn’t. We just spent our entire vacation visiting different islands in the archipelago, taste-testing the different Panamanian beers (I choose Atlas), eating great food, and soaking up the Caribbean Panamanian culture.

The beaches were gorgeous: white sand and turquoise water. My 25th birthday was spent in a virtual Corona ad (but make it Atlas). Our only obstacle was opening our beers without the aid of a bottle opener. Palm tree bark is too soft to hold the top against and merely bang it off, so we set up an elaborate assembly line: Jessica and I held up the large piece of driftwood with rusty nails poking out, Aimee positioned the bottle with the top just-so over said rusty nail, and Ibert banged the tops off with a coconut. It was a ridiculous scene, something straight out of Survivor and perfect fodder for “how many Peace Corps Volunteers does it take…” jokes (hardy har har) but in the end, we got our beers open and felt an enormous sense of accomplishment. Guide books and bottle openers are for beginners and novices.

One of my main concerns about staying in Central America over the holidays was that it wouldn’t feel like Christmas. Well, no need for that preoccupation in Bocas del Toro. Their small central park was bursting with Christmas cheer. There was a large tree with wrapped presents underneath, gobs of lights covering every square inch of the park, and tinsel arches over every entrance. In the United States, a park decorated like this would come off as tacky, here it was simply endearing. Every day we came back to our hotel, the Panamanian owner was putting up more ribbons, more lights, or more tinsel. On our third night, there was a huge town parade complete with a Santa throwing out candy to all the kids (and us)! I’m not sure you can find this much holiday cheer anywhere else on the planet.

And we loved all the Panamanians we met. We never felt like anyone was out to swindle us, there were no children begging for money, and no men hissing at us on the streets; just really friendly people with beautiful Caribbean accents. The only exception occurred on our last night. As we were walking out to a sushi restaurant, a drunken man stopped me on the street, pointed his finger in my face and told me in English, “You’re ugly but I love you.” But really, because he ended on such a sweet note, could I honestly be offended by the first part? No, no, we loved all the Panamanians we met and apparently they loved us too, despite our ugly countenance.

So, Panama was amazing or at least the part of it that we saw and I highly recommend Bocas del Toro to anyone looking for a new vacation spot. Just don’t plan on going anywhere else in Panama because you won’t want to leave the archipelago.

Vete Papa Frita

2006-11-15T04:14:00.000-08:00

Doña Ruth is a true character. She has a successful restaurant right near the dock of my community and what can only be described as a “devil may care” attitude. She likes to drink and doesn’t try to hide it. Her husband is one of my favorite men in Sábalos, a handyman who always helps me out and never charges me a dime. Ruth likes to hang out with the foreign girls (that would be Sanne and me) and always invites us to eat and drink with her.

On Saturday night, we took her up on her offer and sat with her and her husband outside her restaurant, drinking and shooting the breeze. A few beers in, my wooden penis came out. I had it in my bag because I was going to give a condom presentation along with an educational session in the evangelical church that night but in typical Nicaraguan fashion, the charla got canceled. Normally, the presentation includes a power point slide show with pictures of people infected with the STI’s that the doctor describes. In order to present the slide show, the projector is needed and it was locked in a closet in the mayor’s office and the only man with the key could not be found in all of Sábalos (really. we searched for him). The doctor decided it was best that we postpone the charla, so I left, wooden demonstration penis in my bag, and a longing in my heart to spread the condom gospel to somebody, anybody.

Outside Ruth’s restaurant, I got my chance. It was a small audience of three (Sanne, Ruth, and her husband, Martin) but it can be argued that the smaller the audience, the bigger the impact. I also believe the beer improved my delivery and luckily, Sanne had her camera to document the momentous event. Of course, after booze-fueled talk of condoms, the conversation can only devolve so we were left teaching each other vulgar words in different languages. Apparently, in Danish, the phrase, “Vete papa frita, esta es una fiesta cerrada,” translation: “Go away french fry, this is a closed party,” is quite strong but obviously does not hold the same weight in either Spanish or English. We love it nonetheless and as drunken men sauntered up to Ruth’s still lit restaurant in hopes of having a beer, she shooed them all away with a simple, “Vete papa frita, esta es una fiesta cerrada.” They were all a bit puzzled at the phrase but got the gist and stumbled off to the sounds of our laughter.

Viva Daniel!!

2006-11-08T06:41:00.000-08:00

Those of you whom follow world news know that on November 5th, Nicaraguans held presidential elections as they do every 5 years. For those of you who don’t know, there were three main candidates. First in the running was Jose Rizo of the Liberales, the party on the right and the party that has been in power for the last 16 years. Second, we had Comandante Daniel Ortega of the Sandinistas, the leftist party responsible for the revolution against the Somoza dictatorship in the 80’s. Daniel (pronounced Danielle) was president of Nicaragua during the revolutionary years and is close with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro (read: not the horse the U.S. was backing). Finally, we had an uncharacteristically popular third party candidate, Eduardo Montealegre, who broke off from the Liberales, formed his own party and enjoyed strong support from the U.S. government. All the polls prior to Election Day predicted a close race between Daniel and Montealegre.

There were months and months of preparation leading up to the election. Pretty much every adult I know was trained to run or supervise the election process in various communities in my municipality. People stuck party propaganda posters to the sides of their houses, hung their party flags outside, and donned their party baseball caps. One morning after a night without power, we all awoke to find the entire town (sidewalks, gutters, and the dock) covered in spray painted messages about Rizo and the Liberal party. A quaint touch was that often, Rizo and his vice presidential candidate’s names were misspelled. Nice try, guys.

Many Nicaraguans feel very strongly about their party and as a result, there is high voter turnout. There are also many Nicaraguans who abstain from voting because they say that all the candidates are the same, that is to say, they’re all corrupt crooks who don’t do anything for the people. As Doña Melena, the woman who cooks at my host mother’s house, explained to me, “Politicians are like boyfriends, they promise you everything but in the end, they just fuck you.” Poignant words, I think, from a woman who regularly spits on the kitchen floor.

As Peace Corps Volunteers, we were instructed to stay as far away from the elections as possible. We weren’t to express any political preference or participate at all in the electoral process. When I asked if we could run mock elections (like between chocolate and vanilla) in the schools in order to teach about the democratic process, I was told no. Although the U.S. ambassador was more than vocal throughout the election process, we had to keep mum. That didn’t stop people in my community from trying to assign me a party. Whenever they asked whom I supported, I told them the Democratic party of the United States. They would then ask me if that party was on the right or the left. “The left”, I told them. “Then you’re a Sandinista!” They would tell me, despite my protests of impartiality.

A little more than 24 hours before the election (and for 48 hours afterwards), Nicaragua went dry. The sale of liquor was prohibited in order to prevent drunken violence and keep things calm. I found this to be a little paternalistic on the part of the government, I mean we are talking about grown adults here; arguably they should be able to control themselves. But at the same time I understood. Especially in the rural zones, Nicaraguans like to booze and shoot guns. Not the best combination when political passions run high.

Finally, the 5th, Election Day arrived and…nothing. My town was totally calm and it was like any other Sunday. In all honesty, I was a little disappointed. I was hoping for a little excitement, maybe a fight or two, something. I went up to the polling stations (all at the one school in my town) to check things out. People were lined up outside of the classrooms and some had told me they had been waiting for three hours in the intermittent rain and hot sun. Once they got inside to vote, their thumb was painted with a dark ink that doesn’t come off for days and they commenced marking their ballots with X’s and then stuffed them into cardboard boxes. I’d say it reminded me of our high school student government elections but even then we used scantron sheets. So, in a way, it kind of reminded me of Valentine’s Day in elementary school when we went around putting our valentines in the decorated cardboard shoe boxes of our classmates. But only if you had a valentine for everyone in the class, no one should feel excluded on Valentine’s Day.

Anyway, by 6 pm, the polls closed on Sunday. We had to wait until 6 pm on Tuesday to know the official results. This seems like a ridiculously long time to wait until you take into account communities like La Quezada in my municipality where people had to walk 6 hours just to bring their results to Sábalos where they had to be recounted before they were called in. And of course all the votes have to be counted and recounted by hand, which takes an incredibly long time. Because so many Nicaraguans feel so strongly about their parties, they are a good check on each other and according to all the international observers, it was a very transparent and fair election.

Finally, last night, the results were in and a winner declared. Daniel Ortega! Triumph for the Sandinistas!! My town is pretty evenly divided between Sandinistas and Liberales (Montealegre was supported more by city folk), so there were many very excited people shooting off fire crackers and playing their Sandinista propaganda music: “El pueblo unido, jamas será vencido!” translation: “The united people will never be defeated!” At the dock, all the children of Sandinista families were rounding up the children of Liberal families and throwing them in the river. I guess you could say that party loyalties run deep and start young.

Now, the Sandinistas have another chance at governance. Only time will tell how they perform this time around. One thing is for sure, after 16 years of the Liberal party in power, Nicaraguans wanted a change for the better. I hope they get it.

Attack of the Ants!

2006-10-21T10:40:00.000-07:00

First, I feel the need to justify my absenteeism. The electricity situation in Nicaragua is somewhat dire as neither the monopolistic power company, Union Fenosa, nor the central government have done anything to generate power sources within Nicaragua. That means no power plants, hydroelectric plants, wind turbines, solar panel fields, nothing. The end result? All of the electricity we use in Nicaragua is bought from neighboring countries and there is not enough of it to go around to all 5 million inhabitants. So, we have nation wide programmed power outages. Recently, in my neck of the woods, they’ve been cutting the power between 5 pm and 8 pm. Or just when I get home and would like to write a blog entry. So, there’s part of my excuse.

The other part is that my best Nicaraguan friend and her husband now live two doors down from me and they recently purchased a DVD player. So, when the power is not out, you will find me at their house in the evening watching such modern day classics as Snakes on a Plane, Con Air, or any of four Jet Li movies that came together on one pirated DVD (4X1!!!! The disc proudly proclaims). Is it any wonder I haven’t had time to sit down and type?

Aside from all my excuses, life here hasn’t changed drastically nor been particularly exciting. I did get to go on a fantastic vacation for a week with Greg to Costa Rica where we visited two beaches and the Arenal Volcano. I also had the freak opportunity to meet up with my good buddy, Brad Robinson, on that same vacation as he just happened to be in San Jose at the same time. Other than that, it has been work as usual.

There have been some setbacks with the trash project due mostly to the fact that no one in Nicaragua is ever where they say they are going to be nor do they do what they say they are going to do. It can be a little frustrating working under these conditions but next week, we should finally have the household inspections underway after a one month delay. The Condom and STI Awareness Campaign is going well as we just received the boxes of “free demand” condoms that we will distribute to all the bars and hotels in my site. The doctor with whom I work and I will also be giving an educational talk about the campaign’s content to a group in an evangelical church this evening. I am not entirely sure how my wooden penis condom demonstration will go over in a house of God, but when I expressed my concerns to the organizing lady from the church, she said I had the green light to present whatever I wanted.

Also this week, I was invited to be an honored guest (this means they announced my name and I got a special plastic chair at the front) at a ceremony in a nearby school honoring academic excellence. The ceremony was sponsored by a Nicaraguan bank and USAID and consisted in giving a backpack, hat, and t-shirt with the bank’s logo to the ten elementary school children with the highest grades. The boy with the highest average even got a bicycle! My favorite student of all, Deybi, received a backpack and I took pictures like a proud mother. The biggest surprise of the ceremony was the clown that came all the way from Managua to give us a show.

Now clowns are pretty regular birthday party fare for American children and I clearly remember having at least one attend a Gregorian twin birthday party. I also remember another birthday party featuring a folk singer, which was perhaps more than anything an attempt on mom’s part to show that there was still some of that girl who slept through most of Woodstock left in her, I don’t know. Anyway, for Nicaraguan children, the most exposure they have ever had to clowns is on television. So the clown was a big hit and as an objective observer, I can say he really was quite a good clown. The little girl sitting next to me was about six years old and after about a good fifteen minutes; she leaned up and asked me somewhat skeptically “So, that’s a clown, huh?” “Yes,” I told her, “That’s a clown.” She didn’t seem entirely convinced. About five minutes later she asked, “Can’t he take that off?” Referring to his outfit and makeup. “Of course he can.” “And he can walk around like that?” “Yes, he can.” I replied. Incredulously she continued, “With those shoes?” “Even with those shoes.” Finally, she sat back content and enjoyed the rest of his show.

In household news, another rat has taken up residence and I will be forced to cover my living quarters in rat poison and wait for the smell to come in order to remove (or ask a small child to remove) my victim. Also, while watching a riveting episode of Sex and the City last night with Sanne, my little wooden house came under attack. I looked to one end of the floor and realized it was covered in a dark, moving, stain. Upon closer inspection, I came to understand that the stain was actually thousands of small ants marching in to my house. Ants are not an unusual occurrence and often, when a small group comes in to clean up a spill on my kitchen counter, I leave them to do their work. I find them somewhat fascinating: an incredibly organized and efficient army of little maids. But this was different. We are talking about thousands and thousands. It looked like a small carpet. I could not figure out what they were after nor where they came from and in the end, drew a little Raid barrier around my bed, so they couldn’t visit in the night. Sanne filmed a short video with her digital camera because we were both incredulous and wanted physical proof of the time my house came under ant attack. As always, they were gone in the morning.

I suppose now that I have vividly described the ant attack, you all will believe me when I say that life has not been all that thrilling in Sábalos. But we make do.

The Nice Things People Say

2006-09-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

Being the fourth Peace Corps volunteer in a community has its advantages and disadvantages, one of the latter being the insecurity that I’m just the last in a line of many, the final American girl to prance around the street of Sábalos talking health in imperfect Spanish. Perhaps I’m making a big deal out of nothing (a storm in a drinking glass as they say here), but recent comments from various people have made me think that maybe I mean as much to them as they do to me. For those of you who are disappointed or angry (i.e. Nick) with me for not coming home until the end of my service, perhaps this will help you understand why I am trying to squeeze out every last bit of my time here with my (occasionally) loving community.

First there are the normal comments, like from Norma, my soy cooking partner, who tells me everyday how much she is going to miss me or from Maria Jose, a member of my youth group, who insisted I write down my U.S. home address now, in case she forgets to ask me for it when I leave (in six whole months). Then last night, I was chatting with my good friend Johanna, the daughter in law of my host mother, and she asked me what I would like for a present. I told her that her friendship was enough but when she insisted, I told her to buy me something representative of Nicaragua, a recuerdo, which means both memory and a gift that inspires a memory. She told me she would buy me a gold ring and when I protested telling her that was too much; she told me she wanted to give me something so nice because she appreciates me so much and because I am her very best and only true friend in Sábalos. As I am slightly uncomfortable around open declarations of feelings (as well as anything involving mood candles or the musical stylings of Enya, which have nothing to do with the story at hand), I quickly told her my ring size so that we could move on. It was, however, a very nice thing for her to say.

Then there is Gino, the absolute worst student in my adult English class, so bad to the point that I think he is either dyslexic or was consistently beaten in the head as a child. In the nine months that he has been in the class, he has made not one stitch of progress whatsoever. But he’s a very nice man and the other week he asked me how much money I needed per month to live in Sábalos. I always try to avoid conversations about money and how much I make, my parents make, how much my camera cost, or how much I can lend to someone, but as I started to be evasive, he quickly cut me off. He told me he was asking so that he could start up a collection in order to pay my expenses and keep me in Sábalos teaching English for a few months after my service is up. I had to keep myself from chuckling at the fact that he thought a few more months might do what the last year hasn’t been able to, but again, it was a sweet sentiment and I was touched.

Finally, during a meeting with the public cleanliness committee, we discussed a plot of abandoned land in the middle of town that has become a sort of impromptu garbage dump and various solutions were proposed to clean it up. Antolin, my neighbor and member of the committee, put forth with a big smile his grand solution: we burn all the trash and then give the plot to Alexis to build a house and that way; she can stay in Sábalos forever! And as tempting as a burned garbage dump is for the site of my future residence, I let him down easily, explaining the necessity of returning to the U.S. to continue studying.

Given all the sweet offers being thrown my way (I know, the torched garbage dump really does top the list), perhaps you’re all wondering how I could ever leave Sábalos. I wonder the same thing sometimes for about five minutes until I find another damn scorpion in my house. I’ve found and promptly killed three in the last two days and the little suckers really freak me out. Then you add in the unbearable heat, the unreliable Nicaraguan counterpart situation, and the mold that has (oh yes!) reappeared this rainy season but this time on my shoulder, and I quickly find my motivation to head back to my homeland come March 2007. Great packages from home reminding me of all I am missing serve the same purpose. Thanks so much mom, Mrs. Jessica Kelley Garrett, and of course the reverend Jamie Gregorian. Early in my Peace Corps service I was given the advice that packages with written messages about God and crucifixes on the outside are less likely to be tampered with at Nicaraguan customs. I relayed this information to my family and they really took it to heart. I always get a kick out of picturing my family members (remember: we’re mostly Jewish and this is why this is so funny), tongues in cheek, carefully drawing crucifixes and inscribing Christian messages on the boxes they send me. However, Jamie just took it to a whole new level, creating his own church for the return address, adorning every flap of the box with crosses, and writing messages in Spanish such as, “No Christ? No Peace.” Sorry Sábalos, but no amount of gold rings, small salaries, or abandoned plots of land can beat a package like that.

The Best Kind of Friend

2006-09-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

A lot of great, interesting, enlightening things have happened lately but the most wonderful to me at this very moment, is the return of my Danish friend, Sanne, to Boca de Sábalos. Sanne came to work with an environmental NGO in my community around the same time last year and when she left in November of ’05, she promised to be back to write her thesis. I held out hope for a long time but after months and months, I finally resigned myself to being the only foreigner in my site. Perhaps somewhere along the road of life, I accidentally helped a saint, a martyr, or a Hindi god, but somehow I’ve managed to build up some positive karma and this past week, Sanne finally came back! Tonight we had the opportunity to finally sit down (for four hours), put back some beers, and really talk about what has been going on in our lives (something we both needed to do). Normally, we speak in Spanish but tonight it was English all the way, more than anything to keep the nosy Nicaraguans at the nearby tables from hearing all the details of our fabulous lives. It was the best kind of night, with the best kind of friend. That is to say, someone who can truly understand where you are coming from and all the frustrations and joy that life in Nicaragua implies.

The biggest news in Nicaragua right now, besides my and Sanne’s fabulous lives and the upcoming elections, is an alcohol crisis (of sorts) in the northern department of Leon. Without ever having read a newspaper about the situation, what I know is that some people were brewing moonshine in Leon and using methanol as a main ingredient, which causes various physical reactions in people, the most definite and horrifying being death. So, dozens of people are dying in the north and I am pulling weeds from my “garden” when my landlord comes up and begins to help and chat about the situation. I tell him it is awful, a real shame. He tells me he’s not so sure he agrees with me. After all, he tells me, this is how life works itself out. I ask him to explain himself and this modern day Francis Galton tells me that with this new brand of moonshine, all of the drunks will die off. This, coming from a man who recently joined the local AA chapter and up until a few weeks ago could be found on any given night, teetering around Sabalos, telling his friends he is sleeping with their wives, which he is not. It must be said, however, that he is an excellent landlord. At the time, I couldn’t have disagreed with him more but recently had the opportunity to speak with a Spaniard who lives in Managua about the situation and he told me that not only did the anesthetist in the Leon hospital, after attending dozens of patients with methanol poisoning, drink the alcohol and die, but that also at one of the funerals for a methanol poisoned victim, the family passed around shots of the fatal liquor to all the guests. Perhaps I judged the opinion of my ex-drunk of a landlord too soon.

Two Mondays ago, we launched our STI/Condom Awareness campaign with a big meeting, cake, and disgustingly graphic pictures of infected genitalia. It was a success and the doctor with whom I’m working on the campaign and I will give the first educational sessions this week to the oldest high school students and the local chapter of AA. I always get excited to whip out my balsam wood penis for demonstrations, so I am as pleased as punch. In the afternoon of the same day, we had our first community clean-up for the public cleanliness project. I walked around with a group of about ten kids, picking up the garbage that litters the streets of my town. The grossest thing I picked up was a plastic bottle filled with urine, the most bizarre thing we found were 200 ant covered, mud encrusted ace bandages tossed behind the market, complete with ice packs that children were tearing apart and playing with. As I walked with my group of kids, they sucked on lollipops and drank colored sugar water out of plastic bags and then proceeded to toss their garbage on the very street we were cleaning! Of course I yelled at them but I think it demonstrates how very hard it is to change the littering culture. Step by step. Our group decided to cross the river to “the other side” in order to pick up there. There were two canoes waiting to take us across but the kids refused to go in any canoe that I wasn’t in. So, after playing musical canoes for about five minutes, we all finally crossed in one and the whole way screamed, “We are going to clean! Woooo!” with fists pumping and faces upturned to the unforgiving hot sun.

The 13th through the 17th was spent with my Peace Corps buds in various Nicaraguan hot spots. I also had the fortune to meet up with Kyle Whitehead on the last night of his vacation in Managua and briefly catch up. It was surreal but awesome to see a friend from home in Nicaragua. My fellow volunteers and I headed to Granada, the Laguna de Apoyo, back to Granada, and to Managua in our time together. I’ve spoken of Granada before (colonial city, beautiful, good restaurants, touristy, etc.) and it was a great break as always. The Laguna de Apoyo I had been to last year for a day trip but somehow had forgotten how incredible it is. It is a large crater lake with various hotels and hostels strewn around its edge and is quite possibly my favorite place in Nicaragua. If it hadn’t been for the annoying Canadian owner of the place we stayed at, who insisted that her hotel was nothing but a “tranquilo zone” when all we wanted to do was listen to a little music (and maybe shake our asses a bit), I may have never left. Because we couldn’t listen to music (although she thoughtfully offered us a guitar, which no one plays and which no one can shake their ass to), we had booze-fueled conversations about everything from missionaries to couples living together before marriage. The rest of the mini-break was spent in Granada (where you can, incidentally, shake your ass) and then decadently in Managua, eating at the nicest hotel in town. Every time I get together with the volunteers from my group, I appreciate and love them more and more.

Back in my site, we are organizing the household inspections and the next educational sessions for the public cleanliness project. Scraping the bottom of the health education barrel for what to talk to the kids about in the elementary school, I came up with First Aid and have been teaching them what to do in case of household burns and wounds. When I asked the first grade class what could cause deep wounds, I got the expected answers of machetes and knives, but had to admire their creativity when sharks also got put in the mix. The current batch of pregnant ladies in the Casa Materna is a lively and talkative bunch and we actually had a dynamic conversation about breast feeding. So, all is well in my little isolated corner of the world as I head into my final six months here. I’ve recently decided to stay in Central America for the holidays for many reasons, the main one being that every day I find myself wondering, “Where the hell did the time go?”

Like a Donkey

2006-09-04T09:12:00.000-07:00

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?

Never a Dull Moment

2006-08-23T14:37:00.001-07:00

I spent last week at a “project design and management” workshop organized by Peace Corps in the northern mountains of Nicaragua in an area called Matagalpa. For the first time in my 19 months in this country, I felt cold and not because I was soaked by rain. It is amazing to me that in a country as small as Nicaragua, there is such topographical variation. Where I live, there are palm trees, monkeys and humidity, in the north there are pine trees, raccoons, and cold winds at night. It felt great to wear a sweatshirt and socks, take a hot shower and wrap myself in blankets in bed. The workshop was great too.

On my way up to Matagalpa (a trip that lasts about 15 hours), I stayed at my friend Darling’s house. She is the accountant in the mayor’s office in my town but her entire family lives in a large city called Juigalpa about 9 hours away. She was visiting her family as well because Juigalpa was hosting their annual patron saint party or fiestas patronales. Every city in Nicaragua has a patron saint and once a year, the city celebrates their saint in the form of a week long party. I once heard that you could travel around Nicaragua continuously, hitting all the fiestas patronales, and never stop partying for an entire year. I haven’t been able to test this theory but I don’t doubt it is true. Nicaraguans like to party.

Normally, I am not a huge fan of fiestas patronales. They imply many drunken men, loud noises, sweaty crowds, and scary old carnival rides that are way past their expiration dates. Juigalpa is the city that serves the Nicaraguan cowboy population and as such, the fiestas also included a rodeo/bullfighting ring. I luckily bore witness to this dangerous and bizarre mixture of American southern and Spanish cultures from a rickety wooden stadium. On the field were dozens of drunks sitting and waiting with red banners that had varying messages from local businesses and politicians. Every ten minutes or so, a bull was released with a man riding it until he fell off. Then, all the drunks with their red banners would tempt the bull to gorge them. While I don’t agree with Spanish bullfighting, it is an art and can be beautiful. There was nothing at all artsy about this show and in fact, two men were killed by bulls earlier in the day. All I saw were a few dragged off in an ambulance to the hospital.

At night there was a huge fair with an impressive stage complete with a big panel tv above it, on which a Nicaraguan group played. There were stands selling food, beer, and other goods. I snagged a necklace made with a coin minted during the post-revolutionary rule of the Sandinistas, which I am pretty excited about. Like I said, I don’t really enjoy the fiestas but I always like to see the Nicaraguans enjoying them.

After the workshop, I got to briefly visit my friend Carrie and see the Peace Corps’ new office in Managua before heading back to my site. The trip back was nothing short of action packed and disgusting. Leaving the bus terminal in Managua, a drunken woman boarded and sat kitty corner from me. It wasn’t more than forty five minutes before she began puking and made the entire bus smell like cheap liquor. Not the most pleasant way to spend 8 hours. I made it to my friend Ashley’s site and spent all of 9 hours there before getting on the 6 am bus. All I wanted to do was sleep but the very talkative woman sitting next to me wouldn’t allow me to doze off. She kept telling me over and over her reasons for traveling and asking me the same questions. “So you’re headed to Boca de Sábalos?” She would ask. “Yes,” I would reply. “How much does it cost to get there from San Carlos?” She would ask. “55 córdobas,” I would answer. “55 córdobas?” She would ask. “Yes,” I would answer. “To Sábalos?” She would ask. “Yes,” I would reply. The line of questioning would continue like this without her ever asking for any new information. Normally, I love how friendly and talkative Nicaraguans are on public transportation (and in general). They just sit and talk with complete strangers for hours on end. But after having traveled 12 hours the days before, all I wanted to do was put in my head phones and close my eyes. Eventually I did just that but I wouldn’t be surprised if she just kept on chatting.

When we were finally about 15 minutes outside of San Carlos, we were told we all had to get off the bus and walk across a pegadero (really muddy area in the road where buses can’t pass) to where another bus would be waiting to take us in the rest of the way. Well, it turns out there was not only a pegadero but also an enormous pit in the road where they were doing some sort of construction. In order to cross this pit, we would merely have to walk across two thin muddy wooden planks, in the rain, with everyone pushing. Another amazing traveling idiosyncrasy of Nicaraguans is their impatience and rush to get on or off public transportation. They are never in a rush in any other aspect of their lives. And I can guarantee that they have no place to be. As soon as they are off that bus they will take their sweet time doing whatever they need to do or going wherever they need to go. Normally, the impatience and pushing just annoys me. When I am balancing precariously on slippery planks across a large pit in the rain, it scares me. Fortunately, I made it across without incident and rushed with the crowd on to the waiting bus.

There next to me, wouldn’t you know it, sat my friend from the other bus only this time she was not talking but rather had a washcloth held over her mouth. When she removed it, her tongue was protruding and she couldn’t control it or close her mouth. She tried to talk to me and to another woman but only muffled sounds came out. She stood up to get off the bus and fainted in the aisle. The people rushed her off to get some air (the bus was packed and suffocating) and I have no idea what happened to her. Luckily we were very close to a hospital; I just hope she made it there alright. I arrived a little freaked out in my site a few hours later and am happy to be back in Sábalos and in my routine without bulls, bus rides, vomit, plank walking, or ill women.

I do miss the cold weather, though.

Sunday Juice

2006-08-18T13:48:00.000-07:00

Today was Sunday, the only day of the week on which I don’t work and don’t feel guilty about it. Sure there are other days when I don’t work because school is suddenly and mysteriously canceled or because it is a national holiday but even on those days I try to work a little, perhaps prepare materials, read up on the next charla topic, or write up results from a project. Not on Sunday. Sunday is my day. I usually wash laundry, paint my toes, pluck my eyebrows, do a face mask, eat whatever fun snack I can find to indulge myself (usually jello), have a cup of chai tea, read, and escape a bit. In the afternoon, I usually pay a chavalo a cordoba to row me across the river that divides my town to “the other side” where my good friend Rosa Elena owns the surprisingly (for this area) beautiful hotel. There we sit and chat and I lounge in the hammocks on her large porch looking out on to the Rio San Juan and pretend just for a bit that I’m not in rural Nicaragua as a development worker but rather on an exciting vacation in an exotic locale. When I’m in my site for long stretches of time without leaving to visit more developed parts of Nicaragua (like right now…it has been two months), I believe it is my Sunday ritual that keeps me sane.

This Sunday was made even more funday-ish by the arrival of a package from Greg. Instead of jello and book reading, today was spent snacking on skittles and perusing Vogue and Elle magazines while Charlie Parker played over my portable speakers. I think I truly forgot where I was because at one point, I even wrote down the name of the designer of some bracelets I liked from Barneys. A little outside my Peace Corps budget I think. But there’s nothing like Nicaragua to jolt me back to my current reality (and the reality for most of the world). In the evening, I went to visit my adoptive family to eat dinner with them. I had told them about deviled eggs and promised to make them for the family to try. As I sat in the kitchen watching my good friend/Nica sister Jhasshua prepare the rice, beans and plantains the eggs would be accompanying, she told me this was the last of their rice and beans and that they wouldn’t have anything to eat tomorrow except for plantains and coffee. They don’t even have sugar. They’ll just be eating fried plantains and bitter instant coffee. All nine of them, including a two year-old and a one-year old. Here I was, just hours before worrying about how I was ever going to have enough money to buy all the pretty designer clothes and beauty products that cover the pages of the magazines as a returned Peace Corps volunteer soon to be saddled with law school debt, and some of the people who I care about most don’t have the money to buy rice and beans. You can take the girl out of upper middle classdom but you can’t take the upper middle class out of the girl.

The fact is, no matter how long I live here, no matter how many times I go out into the communities on horseback through knee-deep mud, use latrines, live with rats, have to purify my drinking water, bucket bathe, and sweat ceaselessly, I’m gone after two years. I recognize this. I’ll have had my adventure, I’ll have learned how the other half lives, and I’ll be back in the comforts of northern Virginia. I already know from my quick trips home how easy it is to fall back into my old routine and how after a few hot showers, all memories of cold bucket bathes wash away.

However, my two years won’t have been spent in a vacuum and I won’t simply make a photo album and pack it away in the attic to one day show my children the time mommy “roughed it” and promptly forget about all I experienced in Nicaragua in 2005 and 2006. That would be impossible. This is the stuff you carry with you. And although the plan was never to stay any longer than my Peace Corps issued two years and three months, the plan has always been to continue working in development or public interest fields. I just won’t be doing it in rubber boots and I’ll be drinking the water out of the tap.

Anyway, enough development guilt, back to Sunday. While for me, the big news of the day involved the return of leggings (what?), for everyone else in my community, the big news revolved around what happened in Buena Vista about an hour away. According to what the rotund police capitán has told me, two men were drinking when one realized the other had stolen two of his horses. At first, this did nothing to deter the men from their Sunday ritual of downing moonshine but soon enough things spiraled out of control. They left the bar and went to a little store where the former horse owner ordered two bags of juice (everything here is drunk out of clear plastic bags: juice, soda, etc. The baggies are cheaper than disposal cups) and loudly declared, “I want two juices. I’m going to give one of them to this son of a bitch before I kill him.” Then the man turned and shot the horse thief four times. The thief died and the killer fled. When the police capitán finished this story, I couldn’t help but ask, “So he (the thief) never got his juice?” The capitán who was smiling and slightly laughing during the entire tale began to laugh much harder, slapped his knee, and replied, “No! He never got his juice.”

Chocobananos

2006-08-08T15:02:00.000-07:00

Education can be a thankless task. Especially health education with children you only see once a week. Sure, they can tell you all the times their hands should be washed but are they actually putting the soap and water to good use? Maybe they know that their latrines, food, and water barrels should all be covered when not in use, but does that mean they are? When you are a health promoter, the hardest part of the job is not teaching the material, it is effecting behavior change. The most disheartening part is knowing that many times, when the children go home, they do not put into practice what they learned that day. The most mysterious part is not really knowing if your education efforts paid off or not. Realistically speaking, a child of eight years old won’t take the initiative or have the resources to find a cover for the seat of the latrine. What we tell ourselves as volunteers partly because it is true and partly because we often need a reason to keep on going, is that we are teaching these children for the future. Maybe at eight they can’t cover their latrines. But at twenty eight when they have their own homes, we hope they will remember the lessons they received, cover it up, and prevent cockroach and fly infestations. Most of the time that hope is all we’ve got.

But on a few rare occasions, we’re given a little more to go on. And a little positive reinforcement goes a long way. This week I was waiting in the health center to talk to the director about a condom awareness campaign he wants me to head up, when a woman from a nearby community where I also give health charlas started chatting with me. She had her six year old son with her and apparently since I started teaching in his class in February, he’s been coming home and talking about me. The woman told me that the first time, he came home and excitedly told her about the skinny, pretty, white woman who came to his class to play with the kids. I was flattered but a little let down, the problem with playing fun games and singing songs and dancing with the children is that they often only remember the “fun stuff” and not the actual material, although I try to make that as fun as possible too. However, she continued to tell me about how every night before he heads to bed, her son tells her, “Alexis says we should brush our teeth before bed,” and then he brushes them. My face lit up when she told me this. They actually listen to me and remember what I teach them! She kept right on, saying that before every meal, her son washes his hands because, “Alexis says we should wash our hands before we eat.” My heart soared; I’d really gotten through to this child! She put the icing on the cake and truly made me the happiest Peace Corps Volunteer ever when she finished by telling me that whenever her son does forget to wash his hands, she simply has to remind him, “what does Alexis say?” and he runs off to do it! Ahhhh, it was a good morning at the health center.

Not quite as blissful was my first meeting with the youth group I am facilitating with a doctor from the health center. The Ministry of Health encourages each health center to have an adolescent youth group and teach them about life skills, family planning, STI’s, etc. After not really complying for over a year, my health center finally put me and a social service doctor in charge of forming and running the youth group. With the help of several teachers, we selected and invited 16 students to come participate. Now, Nicaraguans are notorious for showing up late (half an hour is the norm and to be completely expected and planned for) but when the designated hour of the meeting came and went and only four kids had shown up, I got a little worried. Finally, after half an hour, seven had shown up. I considered rescheduling but the kids that came really wanted to have the meeting, so we did. It went well aside from the sparse attendance.

I later found out that perhaps part of the reason the other adolescents didn’t show up was that our meeting was held on Athlete’s Day or Día del Deportista. I didn’t realize it was Athlete’s Day probably because I’ve never heard of such a thing. But I wasn’t surprised. There are days of the year to celebrate every single type of person you can imagine in Nicaragua. There is obviously Mother’s Day and Father’s Day but there is also Child’s Day, Teacher’s Day, Nurse’s Day, Sandinista’s Day, right on down to Athlete’s Day. Athlete’s Day, it turns out, originated when Denis Martinez, a Nicaraguan baseball player who made it to the MLB, pitched a perfect game while playing for the Expos in the 80s. Perfect game pitched, national holiday announced.

I also finished an amazing history of Nicaragua’s revolution and the entire Sandinista decade called “Blood of Brothers.” The author lived in Managua for five year during the 80s as the New York Times bureau chief and tells an incredible tale. Unfortunately, the book is out of print but can still be found in online bookstores and I highly recommend it to anyone interested at all in Nicaragua or anyone interested in reading a great book. I’ve often commented that my Peace Corps service has made me more emotional. Perhaps it is a result of being so far away from all my loved ones or living in a society where sappy and cheesy music and television shows rule, I don’t know. But I cried about four different times while reading this book. I also cry while watching commercials now though, so it doesn’t take much…

And finally, the most important recent development: chocobananos are back! Here, many women for lack of employment, skill sets, money, or money making husbands, sell food on the streets or out of their homes. This food is usually quick, cheap, and unhealthy, the Nicaraguan rural equivalent of fast food. One of my favorite snacks that doña Esperanza sells on the street are buñuelos: fried ground yucca and cheese balls covered in honey. But the menu isn’t limited to buñuelos, pretty much anything that can be fried and fit into a clear plastic baggie is sold. Slightly healthier options are the chocolate covered frozen bananas women often sell out of their homes (and freezers). No one has been making chocobananos for a while now but one of my good friends, doña Cecilia, just bought a fridge and has put them back on the market. Now, for about six cents, I can enjoy a frozen chocobanano everyday! And when you live in a world devoid of air conditioning in which you start to sweat profusely as soon as you dry off from your bucket bath, this is music to the ears. Even more than, “Alexis says wash your hands.”

Mona Gente

2006-08-03T17:52:00.000-07:00

I’d first like to thank everyone who wrote me concerned emails after my last blog. Luckily the sun has come out and it is amazing how a bit of heat on the skin and brightness in the sky can makes things seem that much better. I really do appreciate knowing that so many of you were concerned and that so many of you read this blog!

About two weeks ago, I returned from a weekend in San Carlos where we held a goodbye party for Greg, the small business volunteer who has finished his service there, to find two dead rats in my house. At last the rat poison worked! But how the hell was I going to get the little stinking bodies out of my house? Well, whenever you don’t want to do something yourself in Nicaragua, whether it be bringing up a heavy suitcase from the dock to your house, running down to the nearest little store to buy matches, or sweeping out the rat corpses in your house, you call for a chavalo (little kid) to do it for you. The little chavalo errand runners are quite possibly my favorite thing about this country. They make life so much easier. Of course you pay them but I can assure you the cordoba (equivalent to 6 cents) you spend is well worth the service.

I have my favorite errand runner, Kevin, who lives right across the walkway from me but if Kevin isn’t around, all I have to do is stand outside my front door and call out, “who wants to do me a favor?” and I have about five small children at my service. Of course it was the morning when I found the first rat, so Kevin and all the other chavalos were in school. Always one to quickly problem-solve, I called out to Kevin’s 11 year old sister, Rosa Elena, instead. She quickly came over, laughed at my squeamishness and swept the rat out of my house and off my porch into the vast weeds that lie below. For this job, which I considered very valuable, I paid her thirty cents. About ten minutes after she left, I found the other rat beneath a bucket underneath my sink. This one was bigger and smelled a lot worse and there were ants eating it. I was immediately disgusted and ran to the door to call out to Rosa Elena once more but something stopped me. The revolting task turned into a personal test and I decided I had to go this one alone. I would sweep the reeking rat body out myself. After all, I’m tough, in the Peace Corps, and it would only require a few quick flicks of the broom.

After five full minutes of mental and physical preparation coupled with deep respiration, standing with the broom in my hand, staring at my task, I decided I was ready. I began to drag the body out. I have never smelled anything that awful. And I live in a land of latrines. Turns out, those flicks of the broom? Not so quick. With every flick, the rat just did a little log roll. So, along my floor we went: me broom-flicking and letting out small groans of disgust, it log-rolling. Finally, I got it out. Mission accomplished! I wasn’t as proud of myself when I graduated from college.

In the school, we talked about diarrhea, which is always a fun topic with small children. I ask them what bad health practices can cause diarrhea and they shout out, “Mangos!” “Sweet milk!” Well, that too. In the Casa Materna, I taught the women about their reproductive organs using the felt body and felt cut outs that the previous volunteer, Keisha, left me. They are a great tool; the only problem is the vagina, the birth canal, is enormous. Without really meaning to, I made the women die laughing when I told them that the felt woman’s vagina was really, really wide. It took a while to calm them down afterwards.

I also had my third meeting with my high school girl’s youth group. It is a small group of just 5 friends between the ages of 13 and 15. I am forming a much bigger, more formal group with aid from the health center as well but with slightly younger adolescents. With the smaller group, the idea is to be more casual and provide them with a mentor of sorts, someone older in whom they can confide (me, because I had the ideal adolescence!). This meeting we baked banana bread, talked about self esteem, and the latest on the telenovela. During our gab fest, my elderly neighbor knocked asking for the usual bucket of water. The new water system still isn’t functioning but I collect enough with all the rain to spare him some. As soon as he left, the girls starting talking in low voices about how he is a mono, or monkey. I am always extremely amused when the topic of mona gente (monkey people) comes up and play the fool and ask as many questions as I possibly can all the while containing my disbelief and laughter. Most Nicaraguans believe (and this includes relatively educated ones) that there exist people that can turn themselves into monkeys in order to steal things from others. They run from roof to roof at night and the next day, are converted back into humans. Most Nicaraguans have seen them with their own eyes or at least know someone who has. And everyone knows a story about the one time when their uncle Pedro caught a mono, managed to cut it with a machete on the arm before it fled, and then saw an alleged monkey person walking around as a human the next day with a cut on her arm. I am not kidding and neither are they. I would also like to clarify that while there are monkeys that live near me, they do not inhabit trees in populated areas. There are no monkeys walking around the streets much as I would like them to. No, apparently they are all running across the roofs of Sabalos at night, robbing everyone blind!

Dark Days

2006-07-19T08:54:00.000-07:00

When a group of little six and seven year-old, uniform clad first-graders run towards you as you pass the fenced-in schoolyard with nothing but pure excitement written on their faces, screaming your name, and asking, begging to know the next time you’ll be visiting their classroom and you find this annoying because they should know by now that you always come on Tuesdays, it is a clear sign that you’re having a bad week. I usually try to keep an upbeat attitude when it comes to correspondence with home and especially when it comes to this blog, but last week was pretty awful and there’s just no way to sugar-coat it.

Sure, the kids were attentive and participatory during my malaria charlas and the women in the Casa Materna also responded well to all of my charlas there, some even telling me they were definitely going to get PAPs done after I explained the exam to them. We had another successful soy cooking class and I taught my women’s group to knit. My girl’s youth group had another fun meeting and my English students actually did their homework and did it well. The grant check arrived in Managua and we can hopefully start the trash project next week. By work standards, it was a good, if not great, week here in Boca de Sabalos.

But it hasn’t stopped raining for ten days. My clothes hardly dry and when they do, they smell and are slightly moldy. There’s tons of mud everywhere I go. Despite how often I mop my floors, dirty water enters into the space where the walls don’t quite meet the floor every time it pours down rain (several times a day). I’m already sick of the rainy season and there’s 4 months left to go.

From what I can tell, at least two rats have decided to settle in my house. No longer able to deal with their little beady eyes staring at me, the slight heart attack I have every time I see one appear, or the fact that I awoke to one not six inches from my head the other night (I take back anything derogatory I ever said about my mosquito net. It is the greatest fortress in the world and my salvation), I decided to go all out and spread rat poison throughout my house. I did this despite all the stories I received from friends in town about what happens when you put out veneno. “Oh Alexeees,” they tell me, “You’re going to smell the worst smell and then when you find the little rat bodies, they’ll still be moving. Not because they’re still alive, but from the maggots that are living inside of them.” I know that it is a truly revolting image I’ve just painted but I actually recounted my friends’ comments with more tact than that with which they were originally stated. And now you all know how desperate I am to get rid of my new roommates. However, it seems they are intent on staying (and incredibly resistant) because although all the poison has disappeared, they continue to plague my house and my soul.

On top of the rain and the rats, I’ve also been dealing with bouts of nausea (perhaps because of the rats?) and neither I nor my stomach has been quite right for the last few days.

Really, though, bad weather, rodent infestation, and stomach unease isn’t the end of the world. No, the end of the world came on Thursday when I quickly got to check my email and found out some of the most heartbreaking news I’ve received in my 24 years. A week earlier, a friend of mine from college, David Magoon, died tragically when he fell from his apartment’s fire escape in Boston. Even as I type the words, I can’t believe it. And I hate that I am so far away, I hate that I find these things out so late, and mostly I hate that these things happen at all.

So I think that, given the circumstances, I am allowed to feel a little down. Even enough to reveal that life here in Nicaragua isn’t always funny or anecdotal or the stuff that while gross now, will make for funny stories later. Sometimes life here can be tough. I’ll just try not to take it out on first-graders.

It's Baaack

2006-07-08T09:30:00.000-07:00

Along with the good times, we volunteers experience a lot of bad feelings while in the service of the great and mighty Corps. Often we feel depressed, lonely, isolated, useless, underutilized, underappreciated, vulnerable (Jess’s word, not mine, and used to defend her make-out session with a married man in her site), and annoyed although not usually on the same day and hopefully not all that frequently. But of all the negative feelings we entertain during our two years, for me the most recurrent and most insidious is disgust. Disgust at people spitting on their floors, at their filthy finger nails, at women cooking without washing their hands, at people defecating outdoors, at the lizard eggs and crap I am constantly cleaning up, and at the cockroaches and large spiders who have made themselves at home inside my house.

I was also pretty grossed out by the biting ants that decided to take up residency in my bed despite the fact that my sheets were only 4 days old and I never eat in bed. I tried killing them all one by one but kept waking up from my nightmares that they were crawling all over me when a new one would bite me. I realized my nightmares were justified the next morning when I found one crawling around inside my underwear. Finding out that your mosquito net is not the asylum, the safe harbor, the greatest fortress in the world that you thought it was is somewhat akin to discovering the truth about Santa Claus or that your parents aren’t the foremost experts on everything (you’re the exception, Hrach).

All this being said; I’m pretty accustomed to being disgusted at this point in my Peace Corps adventure. However, for me, there is no greater disgust than that I feel when I see a rat running amok in my living quarters. And I felt that tonight. That’s right, after a 6 month hiatus, it appears my house is once again inhabited by a large black rat and I couldn’t be more grossed out. I don’t know why the sound wave machine isn’t keeping it out. Perhaps it is just able to dodge the device’s conical sound wave emission. Perhaps the thing never worked, the rodents were just on summer vacation. All I know is that when I saw it tonight on several occasions I screamed so loud that had my music not been blasting, I’m pretty sure my neighbors would have come running. God help me and please strike down the rat.

On a lighter, funnier note, this week I’m talking about acute upper respiratory infections in the schools. The biggest problem right now at the Health Center is pneumonia, so this week’s class was aimed at defining respiratory infections, targeting their causes, and discussing preventions and cures. To do so, I talked with the kids about the respiratory system using a picture of laminated lungs taped to my chest. When I asked the deviant first grade class (there are two, one made of the good kids, the other of the delinquents) what the organs I had taped to my chest were, I got a variety of answers that went something like this: “Kidneys, a brain, kidneys, BOOBS!!!” These kids usually make me laugh but this time I found myself needing to take a few seconds to compose myself. I’m not sure why a six year-old shouting out “boobs” was so funny, but if you had been there and seen the earnestness in his face, you would have died laughing as well.

Happy Birthday America!

2006-07-08T09:28:00.000-07:00

Most Peace Corps volunteers never make it down to my neck of the woods, for that matter nor do Nicaraguans. Every time I’m in a large city in the north of the country, I eventually end up talking to some Nicaraguan who can’t believe how far away I live and gasps at the horror of having to travel there. Granted, most Nicaraguans don’t have the money to travel too often but that’s not what keeps them from coming to the Rio San Juan. It’s just too damn far away.

Things being as they are, we volunteers down here decided to start the tradition of a 4th of July party in “the Juan” (as we call it) in order to get our friends to visit us that “maybe one time” they had always promised. This past weekend marked the second annual 4th of July bash in the Juan and it was all we could have hoped for and more. People traveled up to 20 hours in order to make it down.

It started on Friday in my site. 14 friends arrived on the last boat of the day and although I had forewarned my town about the upcoming invasión del gringos, I’m not sure that they were prepared for the sight of so many Americans with backpacks walking down the main (and only) street of Sabalos. We looked like we were on parade and it was quite the spectacle. Everyone came to my house for drinks and snacks and to check out what has been dubbed as “the best house in Peace Corps Nicaragua” mostly due to the incredible view overlooking the river from my porch. We ate dinner at my host mother Clarissa’s hostel and divided between her house and mine to sleep. When we all filed into her dining room, some of my favorite local boys (Deybi, Junior, Miguel, Jeremias) were waiting for us and counted each of us off. They just couldn’t believe how many foreigners were walking in and as the number grew, so did their incredulousness: 12!! 13!!! 14!!! Oh my God 15!!!

The following morning we headed to Monte Cristo River Resort, about 15 minutes down the Rio San Juan from Sabalos and the site of our annual party. We started the weekend off right with Bloody Mary’s and continued on with swimming, beers on the dock, dance party (Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy on constant repeat), horse back riding, trivial pursuit, vulgar never have I ever games, and good food. Once again, it was a hell of a party. Happy Birthday America!

On Monday, half the group headed home and the other half headed to Los Chiles, my buddy Jessica’s site. Jess and the United States share a birthday, so the idea was to continue the celebration in her site with a piñata. The first problem was the lights went out around 6 and didn’t come back on until about 10. The second and much graver problem was that Jess, Christina, and Russell all got violently ill and for a while just sat in a circle outside vomiting until they decided they needed medical attention and headed to the Health Center for IVs. Poor Jessica celebrated her birthday not only throwing up but also having the nurse prick her three times with an oversized needle (they were all out of regular) before finding a vein. Back at the place we were staying, we didn’t want the piñata to go to waste, so we beat it until the candy and shards of ceramic went flying. Yes, ceramic shards. Flying. The piñata, the child’s plaything, had a ceramic dish in the bottom and when it finally opened, the pieces flew out. I asked the owner of the hostel where we were staying what was up with that and she simply replied, “That’s how we make them here. It’s so the piñata is weighed down.” But isn’t that dangerous, I asked her. “That’s how we make them here.” She replied with a tone that invited no further discussion of the safety practices employed by the Los Chiles piñata-makers.

Perhaps not the best way to end a fabulous weekend but definitely a memorable one!

Back on the Chain Gang

2006-07-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

After a three week hiatus (immediately upon returning to Nicaragua, I attended a maternal health workshop in the northern city of Matagalpa), I have settled back nicely into my site and my Peace Corps routine. Everyone for whom I brought back gifts was pleased and grateful and of course, some people I barely know wanted to know what I brought back for them.

My house was in good shape although littered with spider webs and lizard crap (amazing how much the little guys can produce in such a short period of time) and surprisingly, no one stole the hammock I have hanging on my porch, although my little neighbor Jordy did steal a plant from my garden. Luckily, another little neighbor, Kimberley, told on him and the plant was quickly restored to its original location.

All of the kids are on their mid school year vacation, which means they are constantly over at my house coloring. I have no problem providing them with a little diversion or at least an activity that doesn’t involve them sitting in front of the tv watching Dragon Ball Z all day but when they start to fight over the crayons, I start to wish I had never let them in. Or smiled at them. Or let them know I was home. I tell them I am not the crayon police and that they will have to sort it out themselves but as someone who was consistently wronged by her twin brother as a child, I know how frustrating it is when adults refuse to intervene and resolve whatever little battle is being waged at the time.

In work related news, my USAID grant has been approved and we are just waiting on the check to start it up. The goal of the project is to increase awareness of the trash problem we have in our community and get the citizens of Boca de Sabalos to start properly disposing of their trash through use of the trash collection service we are lucky enough to have rather than burning their garbage or throwing it in the river. We will attempt to achieve our goal through an education campaign, radio program, clean-up days, and household inspections. We’ll see how it goes. Also, Normita (little Norma) and I gave more soy cooking classes this week at the Casa Materna. Although I’m not sure how many of the pregnant ladies are actually replicating the recipes in their homes out in the further communities from where they come, more and more women from my site are attending the classes and buying soy to cook for their families. So we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.

The new water system still isn’t functioning, hopefully in July what we were promised would be installed by May will finally be operating. Also, the word on the street is that we are still slated to receive a cell phone tower in Sabalos, which would mean I could receive phone calls anytime and wouldn’t have to travel two hours to do so. The problem is that the owner of the terrain where the phone company was going to put the tower died and his widow doesn’t have any documents proving ownership of the land. In the end, getting cell service in my site will be kind of a mixed blessing because I know from other friends who have gone through it that once cell service becomes available; everyone in the community has an intense desire for a cell phone and feels the false need to buy one. Cell phones are out of the price range for most people in my town and cell phones in Nicaragua don’t work on a plan system, they require expensive phone cards. A one dollar phone card gets me about 5 minutes of talk time. This is not an expense most Nicaraguans can afford. But, like DVD players and tv’s before that, cell phones are a status symbol (as they were in the U.S. in the 90s before they became ubiquitous) and will become a priority. A family might have a dirt floor but that doesn’t mean they don’t watch their favorite pirated Steven Seagal DVDs on their LG television every night. They may only eat rice and beans for all three meals but that won’t stop them from using their new cell phones to call neighbors they could just as easily have talked to by walking the one block to their house. That’s technology in rural Nicaragua for you.

Absolutely No Place Like Home

2006-07-03T09:06:00.000-07:00

My brief trip back to the United States began oh so appropriately when Hrach picked me up late at night at Dulles airport and we chanted “U.S.A! U.S.A!” for the first five minutes of the drive home. They say that living abroad usually causes a person to have more disdain for the United States as they come to see the country as the rest of the world does: a bunch of obese, ignorant, reality-tv watching, oil guzzling despots who have way too much money and eat way too many hamburgers. Well, if this is the trend, I’ve bucked it. Everyday that I live in Nicaragua, I love the United States more. I love the cultural variety, the carpeting, the road signage, and the hot water showers. I love wireless internet, customer service, Whole Foods, and couches. I love wine, the fact that men don’t hiss at me on the street, washing machines, and expressing myself in my native tongue. I love my motherland and I now appreciate it only as one who has lived in a third world country for a year and a half can. It felt really good to be home again.

I readjusted to my environment my first day home with a haircut, pedicure, and quick shopping trip. Gone were the apprehensions I had about facing the mall in December, bring on the consumerism and the materialism, if it’s part of the U.S.A., I love it. I caught up with my oldest, dearest friends, Emily, Lauren, and Lisa, and prepared to go to Atlanta. In three short days, I was able to catch up with Taylor, Adam, and Katie (and let’s not forget Jeff Dinos!), attend Raine’s gorgeous wedding, spend quality time with Kate, Sara, Natalie, Devon, Mary Stuart, Ridgely, and Keats, and finally fulfill my dream of visiting the World of Coca Cola museum and taste the what everyone claims to be the nastiest coke product ever: the Italian ginger ale, Beverley, which in comparison with the popular Rojita here in Nicaragua, is somewhat enjoyable.

Once back in Virginia, Hrach and I headed to Charlottesville so I could take the LSAT. All of the Northern Virginia testing centers filled up 4 months in advance but I also figured that taking the test where I once flourished or at least passed as a student couldn’t hurt. It had been two years since I had last been in Charlottesville but rather than feeling overwhelmingly nostalgic for my college stomping grounds, I felt completely at ease as if I were simply returning from fall break. Sure, now there is a Target on route 29 and the new sports arena looks awesome but the Corner remains the same as does the Rotunda, which I guess should be expected when you attend a University that is also a UNESCO world heritage site. The test went smoothly enough (still waiting on the scores) and about six hours after entering the Mechanical Engineering building, I reunited with Hrach and we quickly hit my favorite college haunt, the Virginian bar, to celebrate.

Upon returning to sunny Vienna, I was reunited with Greg and for the remaining week I was home, we engaged in various activities (like watching the World Cup and going to the zoo) between meals. Gone also was the food poisoning and general stomach discomfort I experienced in December, bring on the pad thai, the eggs benedict, the samosas, the sandwiches, the paella, the pasta, and the bagels. Classify me as an American glutton. I couldn’t care less. I tried on my bridesmaids dress for Jamie’s wedding and Nick also came home for two days and we had a lovely evening courtesy of Judy on the patio with our oldest pals and for Father’s Day, the entire Gregorian clan was together.

Finally, it was time to depart. It was a quick trip home but it was packed with great visits, catch up phone calls, delicious meals, and quality time with the people I love most in this world. Thank you to all of you who made the effort to see (or at least talk to) me. It made me miss you all even more but I am also grateful for what I have to come back to. And luckily this time, gone were the tears as I flew back to Central America. After all, there’s only eight more months to go!

It's the Little Things

2006-06-01T15:13:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the recent absence of blogs. It is due in part to the absence of internet in my site (someone forgot to pay the bill) and in part to the absence of anything notable or interesting happening to me.

Two weeks ago, my fellow group members and I traveled to my favorite Nicaraguan city, Granada, for a Peace Corps in-service training with counterparts from our sites. On our way up, Jess and I were lucky enough to sit behind a girl who ended up puking out her window and right into ours. The weird thing was she was fine for the majority of the bumpy dirt highway and only got sick once we made it on to the paved part of our twelve hour bus ride. I won’t lie, getting thrown up on is not cool but Jess and I may have overreacted a bit, screaming out loud and ducking behind our seat and jumping into the aisle to avoid it like it was hot magma. Just vomit, not molten lava.

The actual workshop was interesting and relevant to our work. The majority of us stayed in Granada the night it ended and went out on the town. Because Granada is a city unlike any other in Nicaragua (a haven for ex-pats, backpackers, real estate investors, and old white men with a penchant for young Central American girls), I felt the need to take advantage of the opportunity to put back drinks such as mojitos, martinis, and vodka cranberries, and by the end of the night pulled out my new “break dancing” party trick that I’ve perfected while here: the coffee grinder. This is a move I learned around age 7 in a Flint Hill Elementary School gym class and it certainly requires none of the skill necessary to participate in a “You Got Served” type break dancing competition but it serves me well and has become an indicator for my friends here of when Alexis has “gotten there.”

Back in Sabalos, it is the same old, same old. The 30th was Mother’s Day, which is a pretty big deal and may be the most important day of the year. The kids have the day off from school and everyone else only works a half day. The most popular gifts are made of fake flowers in plastic vases straight from China. I bought some of these for various women who treat me like a daughter as well as hideous flowered photo albums, and another popular gift: underwear. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to this custom. Whether it is a child’s piñata, a teenage girl’s 15th birthday party, or mother’s day, underwear is always a go-to gift.

The really exciting news is that I now have water in my house due to the monsoons that have begun. At least once a day, the sky opens up and it pours for a good 20 minutes straight. It’s great because we finally have some source of water, it cools the place down for a bit, and I’ve always heard rainwater is great for washing your hair. The bad thing is once the sun comes back out, pounding down on the sidewalks and roofs, my entire town turns into a giant sauna. The power goes out just about everyday midday, so just once it really heats up, we’re deprived even of the minor relief of a fan. But, I can flush my toilet and shower every day so I won’t complain.

Also, the Chino just recently came back from Managua with…broccoli! This was a huge surprise as we normally just have access to tomatoes, onions, carrots, peppers, and the occasional brown stick of celery. I introduced my adopted family to stir fry and they loved it. In fact, my little Nica brother keeps asking me when he can eat the little trees again. I also found out upon visiting my friend Karla that she has an extensive pirated DVD collection that she rents out of her house. Now, we’re not talking about “Frankenfish” or any of the normal crappy action or horror movies that most Nicaraguan’s enjoy. She had “Capote,” “Memoirs of a Geisha,” and tons of other good finds that I would easily have rented in the US.

While I’m sure that bathing with rain water, eating broccoli, and having access to movies that are six months old aren’t things that garner too much excitement in the U.S., here they add up to a great two weeks. And of course the best news is that I’m coming home for a visit in just a week!

And I'm Dirty

2006-05-15T15:14:00.000-07:00

How is it that the saying goes? “You never appreciate what you have until it’s gone”? Well, thanks to my experience in Peace Corps Nicaragua, I can now say that I fully appreciate the previously taken-for-granted, now sorely-missed, natural resource that is water. Because it hasn’t come to my house for over a month. And I’m dirty.

Back when we were little, we spent a few days on Martha’s Vineyard in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo without water. That seemed fun, like a game of “roughing it.” Perhaps my parents didn’t feel the same way. I do remember driving to a red pump to get water for the house so that we could bathe, clean, and flush the toilet but that seemed like an adventure. Maybe my current situation will seem similarly exciting in ten years when I wax nostalgic about the Peace Corps. But not now.

I’m not the only one in my town with this problem. Actually, everyone has this problem. We are lucky enough to be the recipients of a new water system and soon enough we will all be on the receiving end of potable water that comes 24 hours a day. This is a huge and wonderful change from the water that used to come every other day for about 45 minutes (and you’d better hope you were home when it came to fill up your buckets and barrels) and which, when tested, was shown to contain a decent amount of fecal matter and was, as such, not potable (although people drank it untreated anyway and then complained about getting parasites). So, while I’m excited about the new water system, I’m not excited about the time it is taking to put it in place or about the fact that the old system was completely damaged in the process. And while everyone in Boca de Sabalos is suffering from the water shortage, I seem to be adjusting least well. No one else has a problem bathing and washing their clothes in the river, but I just can’t do it. Especially not after the women who do so come back telling me about leech-like creatures that stick to them and the feminine itch they get after being in the water too long. No thank you.

So, in the meantime, I’m paying someone else to wash my clothes, buying bottled water to drink and cook with, and bathing with rain water. I won’t get into the toilet, but for the first time, I wish I had a latrine. And the funny thing is that whenever anyone complains about the water, someone else always says, “It’s just until June when the system is ready.” Well, on May 9th, that doesn’t seem like much of a consolation to me.

Perhaps I’m adjusting so poorly due to the fact that I am wasteful and don’t use things economically, for which I am often admonished my adopted Nicaraguan family. For example, when it came to the mop head that was left to me by the previous volunteer, which was filthy, sticky, and had tiny lizard eggs in it, I opted to throw it away and buy a new one for $2. This is what anyone would do, right? Wrong. I was being wasteful. Just today I was discussing the problem of deer over-population in northern Virginia with my good Nicaraguan friend. I explained how often deer cause car accidents by jumping out of nowhere into main streets. She asked what happens to the deer carcasses after an accident and I told her I didn’t know, I supposed that the highway authority came and collected them. Once again, I unknowingly demonstrated my and most of northern Virginia’s wastefulness. She told me that if she ever hit a deer with a car, she would pick it up, throw it in the back and bring home a hearty dinner to the fam. What could I say to that? One woman’s road kill is another woman’s feast.

Otherwise, life is back to normal after the departure of my parents. This week in the schools we are talking more about nutrition and singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.” The women in the casa materna are learning about the importance of breast feeding, family planning methods, and a little bit about female anatomy. In English class we’re doing gerunds and in the mayor’s office, we are making the final changes to our USAID grant proposal in hopes of receiving the funds at the end of June. My telenovela only keeps getting better and the flowers in my garden are growing. It’s business as usual.

Hrach and Judy Take Sabalos

2006-05-15T15:12:00.000-07:00

This past week was spent in the company of my parents and it was great to be with them and see Nicaragua through a whole new lens. On Friday, I traveled down to San Jose to meet them. There was a German tourist staying in my town who was going my way without the handy skill of speaking Spanish, so I became his guide. I didn’t really mind because I prefer traveling with someone else, that way you never lose your place in line when one of you has to use the bathroom. He was a real piece of work. He was 40 years old and had traveled the world on Germany’s dime. He doesn’t work because he has mild epilepsy and so receives subsidies from the German government. Once we crossed the border into Costa Rica, we met up with another tourist, a French man, and instantly my two traveling companions clashed. The German kept making digs about how rich the French dude was, while the French man made frequent comments about how much more fulfilling it is to travel Central America when you speak the language (which the German didn’t). Eventually, I just put on my headphones and tuned them out.

The next day, I met my parents at the airport. There’s nothing I like better than airport greetings. Granted, they were better when you could actually wait for the person at their arrival gate instead of outside behind a glass wall as was the case at the San Jose airport, but it was a wonderful reunion nonetheless when my parents finally walked out. There’s nothing quite as comforting as having mom and dad by your side. We picked up our rental car and headed out on the road towards the Pacific Coast to playa Tamarindo, which the lonely planet guide book recommends in order to “embrace the shameless joys of a booming gringoville,” exactly what I wanted after five months in Nicaragua. It ended up taking about 5 hours to get there and this included the little stop we made when we were pulled over for speeding (98 in a 60 kph zone) and bribed the cop to let us go, which he did. Now, I would imagine that if I were to bribe a cop in the U.S. and my parents were to find out, they would be highly displeased. However, when I did it in Costa Rica in Spanish, and saved us from wasting a vacation day at a court, I was patted on the back and named Miss Intrepid Traveler of the year. A title I think I rightly deserve after oh so bravely asking the cop if “rather than wasting a day at a court, couldn’t we just pay you directly?”

The beach was all I imagined and more. We had a beautiful view of the ocean from our room and I ate caprese salads and drank mojitos to my hearts content. We swam in the pool, in the ocean, and walked along the beach so that Judy could collect every halfway decent seashell she came across. Judy and I also spent an afternoon at the spa and did a little shopping. All in all, we had a wonderful couple of days except for the fact that both Judy and Hrach got terribly burnt and began to peel before we left the hotel. In fact, Hrach’s entire forehead peeled off at point and he had to wear a hat from then on. As we left Tamarindo, we realized the gas tank was on empty and basically drove on vapors with windows down for an hour. To our little white Kia’s credit, it got us through 40 km on dirt roads to the gas station all the while pointing to E on the gas meter. It was quite a relief when we filled up and could turn the AC back on and not entertain private notions of exactly what we would do if we did run out of gas in the middle of nowhere Costa Rica. We made it back to San Jose in one piece due to Hrach’s commendable driving skills as he was able to pass multiple lumbering trucks on a winding, hilly, two lane highway.

The next morning at 5:30 AM we boarded the bus and slept for most of the 5 hour trip up to the border crossing. We got on the boat that took us from Costa Rica to Nicaragua on the Rio Frio and my parents were both more than a little alarmed at the amount of cargo that was piled onto the little boat not to mention the amount of people, including some who just sat on buckets and sacks in the aisles. We saw monkeys and all sorts of birds along the way and my parent’s enthusiasm reminded me of how beautiful the scenery is, even if I do get to see it everyday. We made it to San Carlos in the early afternoon and Judy branded it “the ugliest city she has ever seen” and marveled at all the “collapsing shacks.” Luckily, we got on the last boat to my site thinking it was the second to last because Nicaragua had pushed the clock ahead one hour while we were in Costa Rica, where they don’t change their clocks all year.

Before I continue with the events of the week, I do have to take a moment to expound upon the bane of my existence, that is to say the hour change in Nicaragua. It is completely unnecessary because we live so close to the equator and because no electricity is saved. The only thing that comes of it is a ton of confusion and people going by either the “new hour” or the “old hour.” So, every time there is a class or a meeting or any event that happens at a certain hour, it must be specified whether it will happen at the new or old hour. In a country where everyone shows up half an hour late to everything already, providing an excuse (“oh, I thought the meeting was at 4 o’clock the old hour”) only leads to fiasco. My friend Jim’s host father was so bewildered by the hour change last year that he wore a watch on each wrist, one with the new hour and the other with the old hour. Most of us just subtract or add an hour one way or the other but the two watch system simply worked better for Don Alfredo.

Once in Sabalos, my parents were able to finally see where their hija had been living and working for the last 13 months. We stayed at the hotel in my site and Hrach proclaimed it the most relaxing place in the world due largely to the fact that there is nothing to do there but relax. They saw my house, my health center, and the mayor’s office, met my adopted family and friends, watched me give a charla in the casa materna and in the primary school, and they were given a Nicaraguan folklore dance recital. They were witnesses to the constant small-voiced chorus that follows me wherever I go: “Alexeees, Alexeees,” and were consistently told how young and good-looking they are. All in all, it was a good two days. The only pitfalls occurred when Judy was served a whole fish with the head and scales still attached, when she and I took out a long and difficult to maneuver canoe on the river Sabalos and ended up going in two complete circles in front of the dock to the amusement of several town members, and when Hrach tried to memorize anything in Spanish, especially the sentence “my daughter works for the Peace Corps in Nicaragua.” We went over it about 25 times and I guarantee he still can’t say it correctly! I finally bid them farewell on Saturday morning and luckily it wasn’t too hard because I will be seeing them again in less than a month when I go back to the U.S. for two weeks. But I miss them nonetheless. Thanks again and I love you both!

Semana Santa

2006-04-22T15:07:00.000-07:00

The week before last was semana santa or holy week. In order to celebrate this religiously significant occasion, all of Nicaragua got drunk and went swimming. The oceans, rivers, brooks, streams, and puddles were filled with drunken Nicaraguans. Accordingly, a handful of volunteers and I headed literally for the hills. We all traveled up to Nueva Segovia, one of the most northern departments of the country where we celebrated the engagement and forthcoming departure of our friend, John and his Nicaraguan fiancée, Jessica.

In order to get to Nueva Segovia, it is necessary to travel 16 hours in boat/bus from my site. Luckily, I broke it up and did not attempt the entire trip in one go. Regardless, I had my fair share of transport “adventures.” My first and favorite was the money-collector (cobrador) on the boat whose t-shirt read: “Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me.” Whoever the Myrtle Beach vacationing redneck that donated that shirt to goodwill was, he deserves a pat on the back.

Then I boarded the nightmarish old American school bus that travels 14 miles an hour for 7 hours on unpaved, dusty highway. While I am used to this grueling physical and emotional trial and can usually just zone out, I was put to a further test when a woman with a bucket full of chicks boarded the full bus halfway through the trip and decided to stand in the aisle right next to me. And to hold the bucket of chirping baby chickens right next to my ear. For three hours. This was, obviously, extremely annoying but as testament to my cultural adaptation and newfound patience my immediate thought was: “What else can you do? If you have to transport a bucket of baby chickens, you gotta transport a bucket of baby chickens.”

Once united with my fellow Peace Corps buddies, we confronted the reality of traveling on a day in which everyone else in the country is traveling. Every bus that passed us was packed so full that people were hanging off the back. Not too long ago, the cobradores would allow passengers to ride on top of the buses but recently this has been deemed too dangerous. Better to let people barely cling with one hand and one foot onto the back. So, we were forced to hitch, which I get an enormous thrill out of and which is commonplace in Nicaragua and generally safe if performed with common sense and in a group. We broke up into two groups of 5 and began what became a two-hour ordeal. Finally, we flagged down a very friendly NGO worker and were on our way. The only slightly bizarre thing about him was his notion that the fields we passed were burning simply because the sun was so hot. I asked him if he thought it was due to spontaneous combustion and he said that yes, sometimes that was the cause and other times it was glass. Like from a bunch of magnifying glasses lying on the side of the road, I asked? Exactly, he replied.

We eventually made it to the capital of Nueva Segovia, Ocotal, and met up with the remaining volunteers who had made the trek. On Thursday, we were all bussed to the party, which took place at what can best be described as a botanical garden with a sweet dance floor and many tents with tables set up underneath. It was a gorgeous day and the food was delicious and we had brought all the necessary ingredients to make bloody mary’s. All told, there were probably about 30 Americans and 60 Nicaraguans and we had an amazing time. I hope this doesn’t come across as elitist (although it is) but these were upper crust Nicaraguans and it just felt so nice to mingle and interact with them instead of the rubber boot wearing, machete wielding, machisto campesinos who hiss at me as I pass them and with whom I have very regular contact due to the economic realities of my site. Perhaps if I didn’t live where I do, I would have a very different view of Nicaraguan men. Perhaps not. Anyway, we spent the following day on the farm of Jessica’s family’s friends surrounded by the mountains of Nueva Segovia. It was the Nicaraguan equivalent of visiting someone’s mountain home and it was the perfect way to relax, chat, and nurse our hangovers.

On Easter Sunday since neither the Easter bunny, nor peeps, nor Cadbury’s eggs exist in Nicaragua, a group of us decided to head to the nicest hotel in Managua, the Intercontinental, for a champagne brunch. It was amazing and we took advantage of every minute that passed during its 4 hour duration. We ate sushi, lobster tail, veggie lasagna, zucchini stuffed with olive tapanade, tandoori chicken, salmon, cheeses, crepes, crème brulee, chocolate mousse, tiramisu, and plenty of champagne. It rounded off a perfect semana santa.

Now before you all go jumping to the conclusion that living in a third world country doesn’t seem all that bad and that maybe, just maybe, you too might want to join the Peace Corps, I’ll share my last transportation experience on the return ride back down to the Rio San Juan. Again, the bus was full and there were people standing in the aisles. Luckily, I had a seat but this time, rather than a chicken bucket, I had a man who decided that rather than hold on to the bar above his head to keep his balance as he stood, he would grab on to the back of the seat in front of me. End result: his armpit on top of my head for the entire sweaty 7 hour ride. Now, I don’t care how culturally adapted or patient I become, sweaty armpits swaying back and forth over my head are and will always be, just plain nasty.

Beauty and The Chino

2006-04-05T08:34:00.000-07:00

As usual, I had a pretty laid-back weekend in Sábalos. I did, however, go to the big party on Saturday night. Normally, I try to avoid the parties in my site, I never have fun and just end up avoiding the drunken men and repeatedly checking my watch to determine when I have put in enough “face time” so that I can get the hell out of there. But this party was going to be different. It was to be held on the multi-use court and there was to be a beauty contest between girls from the different high school classes including a bikini portion! This was something I couldn’t miss.

I went with my closest girlfriends, Claribel and Jhassua, and I decided to actually dress up a bit and wear dangling earrings and high heels. In the past when I have put a little effort into my appearance, I have always regretted it once the catcalls began. But this time, I received no unwanted attention. Perhaps all my barking at the men has finally paid off.

We entered the party just before the girls came out in their bikinis. To my surprise, they were each escorted by a guy from their class and to my greater surprise; the Chino was one of the escorts! Now, the Chino is not actually Chinese, he’s Taiwanese and he’s the oldest son of the Taiwanese family that lives in my site. However, I’m pretty sure no one else in my town knows that they’re Taiwanese (or that Taiwan exists for that matter) and they don’t help to clarify matters as they call themselves Chino and have it written on the side of their general store (Store The Chino). Even if they didn’t adopt this nickname, it would be bestowed upon them. Nicaragua is not the most politically correct place and it is common practice to call people by their apparent ethnicity. Thus, black people are negros, white people are cheles, and all Asians are chinos.

There are four members of the Chino family: the father, who is called Chino, the mother, who is China, the oldest son, who is also Chino, and the youngest son, who is called Chinito. Honestly, no one knows their real names. Perhaps for those of you who live in multicultural societies it is difficult to imagine a place where everyone is the same ethnicity and there is virtually no variation. But that’s Nicaragua, which means I stick out like a sore thumb and so do the Chinos. My site is pretty far out there and not very accessible. It’s certainly not the first place people come to when they decide to immigrate to Nicaragua. But for some reason, the Chinos came here. The parents don’t speak Spanish very well but they have a favorite joke with me: Whenever I buy something in their store, they quote me the price and then double it, laughing about how since I’m a gringa, I can afford it. It’s our little foreigner joke.

Anyway, back to the beauty contest. In the end, it wasn’t even a beauty contest. The girl who won was the girl who raised the most money for her class through selling tickets. So, these kids pranced in front of the big crowd in skimpy bathing suits for nothing. Well, almost for nothing because I couldn’t stop laughing hysterically at the entire scene. Now, my town is not the poorest place in Nicaragua. Practically no one has a dirt floor and there are no houses with walls made of plastic sheets, which are common in this country. We’re still not a rich community but you wouldn’t have known it from this party. There were tents set up throughout the multi-use court with strobe lights, rotating colored lights, the DJ had his own huge tent complete with 6 amplifiers and there was a tent filled with refrigerators for all the beer that was being sold. I danced all night with Jhassua and we consistently had to refuse the men that came and asked us to dance. Of course, in Nicaragua it is much easier (and crueler) to turn a man down. Once these guys get up the courage to ask, we simply wave our index fingers back and forth and turn around. This is the symbol for “no.” And it’s as simple as that.

Alligators, the President, & Heads Up, Seven Up

2006-03-31T15:42:00.001-08:00

It has been an eventful week. Last Sunday, two volunteers from the departing group came to visit on their grand tour of the Rio San Juan. On Monday, we headed down the river with five other friends to visit a wildlife refuge called Indio-Maiz. We stayed at the pretty hotel there and hiked around looking at the howler monkeys. That night, after we had finished eating, the hotel owner’s son called us down to the river in order to see all the alligators that had come out to prey. There were about five enormous alligators within flashlight view and the whole scene by the river seemed straight out of Peter Pan (but none of these alligators ticked).

On Thursday, the president of Nicaragua, Enrique Bolaños, came by helicopter to my site to inaugurate several different locations. One such location was the Health Center, which is now two years old. Somehow it didn’t quite look right that the president was cutting a ribbon in front of a building that already needs a new paint job. My whole town had banners hanging everywhere welcoming the president and commending various roads and buildings that the government had funded. The Japanese ambassador accompanied the president and so there were strings of Japanese and Nicaraguan flags draped all over the place. However, many of the trash cans that are normally on the street were removed since they are unsightly resulting in tons of plastic bags, ice creams wrappers, and plastic soda bottles accompanying all the other decorations welcoming the president to my site. Beautiful Boca de Sabalos.

On a different note, I always get a huge kick out of the kids in my town and this week was no exception. I’ve always found them to be particularly creative with the toys they produce out of trash. For example, they crush two liter bottles and use them as toboggans to slide down the cement walkway on the hill that leads to my house and one future toy impresario came up with the plastic coke bottle filled with rocks on a string idea that revolutionized toy trends in Sabalos. Every kid had a coke bottle filled with rocks trailing him for about two weeks. This week, I was headed up to the mayor’s office when I saw two eight year old boys standing a few yards apart, each with a large disassembled cardboard box held as a shield in front of him. On the count of three, they ran as hard as they possibly could into one another and then fell over beating each other with the cardboard flaps. Once they tired of this, they got up and went back to their positions to smash into each other all over again. Another day, I walked by two much smaller children, probably about 4 years old, sitting in a cart on the side of the road. They called out, “Alexis!” and just as I was about to say hi back, they screamed, “We’re little!” Laughing, I told them they were correct, they are very little. Finally, on Wednesday as I was headed to the school, I passed a little boy that lives at the end of the walkway near my house and he yelled out to me, “Alexis, its pretty!” When I asked him what was pretty, he shouted, “You!” and then ran off giggling. This is probably the only compliment I have ever accepted from a Nicaraguan male with a smile on my face.

After giving all the kids their weekly dose of higiene lessons in the schools, I played American classics "Simon Says" with the younger grades and "Heads Up, 7 Up" with the older grades. Simon Says was slightly altered to fit my lesson, so maybe "Alexis says brush your teeth" didn't quite do the game justice. The kids loved heads up, seven up, though. I kept telling them not to peek with a grin because throughout my childhood I always cheated at any game that involved keeping your eyes closed. Mothers marveled at my placement of donkey tails, children squealed in delight as I cracked open the piñata, and I always knew who put my thumb down in heads up, seven up. So, who am I to tell Nicaraguan children not to cheat?

Alligators, the President, & Heads Up, Seven Up

2006-03-31T15:42:00.000-08:00

Like a Pack of Camels

2006-03-22T15:07:00.000-08:00

First and foremost, I must share the most exciting news of the last few weeks: avocado season has arrived in Nicaragua! The avocadoes here are enormous, about the size of a nerf football, they are ubiquitous, and pretty damn cheap to boot. This means I will be snacking on avocado salads, guacamole, and a new chilled avocado soup recipe I found for the next four to five months. In the U.S., I never paid much attention to which produce was available during certain times of year mostly because we are able to buy virtually everything in supermarkets year-round and also because I rarely cooked, but now I know the thrill of seasonal crop yields. And they are indeed thrilling.

Every four months a new training group of volunteers arrives in Nicaragua. First come the health volunteers (like me), then the small business volunteers, and finally the agriculture and environmental education volunteers. Accordingly, every four months a group of volunteers departs and there is a big going-away party (or despedida) for them at the beach. As some of my good friends are leaving with this group, I headed to this party with my buddy Jess on the 10th of March. Given the amount of dust on the highways right now, we decided to go on the big cargo boat that crosses the lake of Nicaragua instead of taking the bus. The slight inconvenience of the boat is that the journey takes 15 hours; from 3 pm until 6 am the following morning. The upside is the boat has food, bathrooms, places to string up hammocks, and a tv with dvd player on which Nicas watch all types of awful movies. Jess and I set up our hammocks and were also accompanied by funny Spanish travelers, one of which never told us his real name but instead insisted on being called MacGyver.

The ultimate party destination (and where all the Peace Corps despedidas take place) in Nicaragua is called San Juan del Sur. It is one of the touristiest areas of the country and is also a current hotspot for investment. A cab driver told me that his plot of land, which he bought 5 years ago for a little over 500 dollars, is now worth over 100,000 dollars. Perhaps not the most reliable source, but it paints a general picture. After a day spent in the sun, we headed out on the town. Upon meeting up with other volunteers, I thought I recognized a friend from home (or from Charleston to be exact). So, I did a double take but figured there was no possible way. But it looked so much like him. And it was him! Michael Kauffman, one of Nick’s good friends from college was sitting at a table filled with my Peace Corps friends! The small-worldliness of it all was incredible (his girlfriend is good friends with one of the departing volunteers and they were in Costa Rica for law school Spring Break and so came up) and we got to hang out all night and the following day. Now, most volunteers don’t drink much on a regular basis in their sites, so when a big group gets together to celebrate, it can get a little ridiculous. People act like it may be their last chance to drink and so they try to get in as much as possible, somewhat like a pack of camels filling up their humps at the watering hole before the long trip across the desert. It may not be the healthiest thing, but it makes for a fun night!

The following day, about 30 of us headed to a more secluded beach, called Majagual, to continue the celebration. The ocean was perfectly refreshing, the only drawback being the groups of jellyfish (appropriately called medusas in Spanish) that took to attacking us. Luckily, I came away unscathed. As the day wore on, we engaged in heavy discussions of “would you rather.” Some highlights included, “would you rather have suction cups for hands or wheels for feet?” or “would you rather have a soundtrack to your life always playing or the ability to spontaneously break into group dance?” Pretty weighty issues to consider.

Back in my site, I’ve been working hard on finishing up a grant proposal that I’m writing in conjunction with the mayor’s office. We’re soliciting funds from USAID for a trash project in my town. Unlike many parts of Nicaragua, in my site we’re lucky enough to have a trash collection service that comes around twice a week. However, like in most parts of Nicaragua most of my fellow community members still litter like crazy, burn their trash, or throw it in the river. What our project aims to do is improve the current collection service, educate the community about the best ways to dispose of their trash, and generally work on behavior change. Of course this is all pending approval of the grant and I can’t even begin to explain the frustrations of trying to impose deadlines upon Nicaraguans combined with the red tape of writing a government grant proposal. Every day something new pops up: people don’t show up to meetings, the electricity goes out, we need the signature of someone who is in Managua for the week, or someone simply forgets to do the one duty they were assigned to do. I figure, at the very least, it’s a good learning experience. If I can manage to write a grant proposal under these conditions and in Spanish, think of all the amazing things I will be able to accomplish in my life. Like, I don’t know, filing taxes!

The Passion of the WWF

2006-03-08T16:30:00.000-08:00

It stands to reason that in a country where the two major religions are Catholic and Evangelical (that is to say, Christian and more Christian), Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” would be a major hit. Now, I avoided this movie in the United States and so obviously had no desire to watch it in the home of die-hard Nicaraguan Catholics. However, when one of the families I’m closest with (with whom I watch my telenovela Monday through Friday) was watching it for the third time in two days, I finally got sucked in. It was quite possibly the most graphically horrifying movie I have ever seen. Whereas in the U.S. parents would try to bar their children from watching torture, here the mother kept calling her two year-old back into the room to watch a bloody, mangled Jesus being crucified whenever she strayed. All the children, age’s two through fourteen were instructed to watch and not allowed to leave the room. Perhaps that was more disturbing than the movie itself.
I’ve actually just come from watching tv at the same family’s house but tonight the subject matter was slightly different. Rather than Jesus on the cross, tonight we watched the WWF’s Royal Rumble straight out of Miami. It is safe to say that Nicaraguans are not too discerning in their tastes when it comes to televised entertainment. Case in point: the popularity of Steven Segal movies. Anyway, in the Royal Rumble, every thirty seconds or so, a new wrestler enters the ring. Since this all takes place in Miami and since I’m from the U.S., every time a new wrestler entered the arena, the kids asked me, “Do you know him?” I would tell them, no, I don’t know any WWF wrestlers. 30 seconds later, “Okay, but how about him?” Nope, not him either. I effectively explained to them the meaning of “white trash” (part of my mission as a Peace Corps Volunteer is to share the culture of the United States) and it turns out there is an equivalent in Nicaraguan Spanish: jincho. As my friend explained it to me, people who are jincho don’t have very elevated tastes and are a bit ignorant. Her example: a girl who wears a short skirt with socks and shoes. I said, yeah, white trash is something like that.
This past week I ran two successful soy cooking workshops with my friend Norma. The first was held at the Casa Materna where one of the 14 year-old pregnant girls I’ve become close with couldn’t help but pet and touch the blonde hairs on my arm and the other was held at the home of a member of my women’s group. We’ve never had so many people come to a women’s group meeting! If you cook something, they will come. In the schools I talked about microbes and the importance of sneezing and coughing into the crook of your elbow and washing your hands. I used glitter to represent the microbes and the kids walked around shaking each other’s hands and passing glitter back and forth. I felt like they were getting the point (it is pretty straightforward after all) until at the end of the charla in several classrooms kids asked me, “and now what do we do with this glitter all over our hands?” I told them that was kind of the point, they would have to wash their hands. In the end, most of them just brushed it off. I’m obviously affecting a lot of change!

La Famosa Alexis

2006-02-25T09:42:00.000-08:00

I think that most Peace Corps volunteers go into their service expecting to be somewhat of a celebrity in their sites. I guess I just never realized how far my celebrityhood would go. Nicaraguan schools started a new school year at the beginning of February and this past week, I started up again giving health talks (or charlas) in the primary schools. Nicaraguan public education is grim, at best. It basically consists of an undertrained, underenthusiastic teacher reading out loud from a textbook with tons of hyperactive children in uniforms copying down what she says, word for word for five hours a day. Naturally, when I come in with colorful posters, games, songs, and interaction, the kids get excited. Really, really excited.

So, last week, when I entered the school yard during recess, the kids went wild and a group of about ten bum-rushed me. Before I knew what was happening, they were upon me, hugging me, pulling me, and tugging at my shirt and messenger bag. I almost fell over at one point. It was insane. I felt like David Hasselhoff in Germany. They were all trying to drag me to their respective classrooms. It’s nice to know I’m appreciated, but this went almost too far.

Back in my house, things are only slightly calmer. I’m currently studying to take the LSAT in June. I’m not sure that I want to go to law school but I do have the most free time I’ve had since I was about ten years old, so I figured I’d take advantage and study for the test. The Kaplan book I brought back with me from the U.S. lists some of the possible distractions a person might face on test day. Well, perhaps in June I might have to deal with construction, some girl with a hacking cough, and sub zero air conditioning but all of that has nothing on my current studying conditions. As I took my first practice test last week, I only took my fingers out of my ears long enough to fill in the ovals. My neighbors right across the sidewalk were blasting their Sandinista propaganda music while across the river, I could hear the keyboard music and groans from the Evangelical church (Ayyy Señor, si Señor). Throw in some dogs barking, roosters crowing, and babies crying and you have the full soundtrack by which I study.

Over at the casa materna (or maternal waiting home), I learned that my first child is going to be a girl! When I arrived to give my charla on breast feeding, the pregnant ladies were busy foreseeing the sex of their soon-to-be newborns. Using a sonogram wouldn’t be nearly as much fun or possible, so we used a sewing needle suspended from string. The string is held with the needle suspended over the woman’s open palm. If the needle moves back and forth, creating a line, it’s a boy. If the needle starts swinging in circles, it’s a girl. When we tried it out on me, the needle moved in circles, so that answers that. I’ll probably name her one of the popular names down here: Mylady or Derling.

And finally, it seems I have been converted into a “novelera” or someone who watches telenovelas. It’s true, I’m addicted to one soap opera called, “La Mujer en el Espejo,” or the Woman in the Mirror. It’s about this woman who turns ugly at night and is beautiful during the day but if she’s sees her reflection, she and anyone else who is watching, see her ugly side. She works at a makeup corporation where she’s a chemist and has an ongoing flirtation with her engineer boss (who has ridiculous blonde highlights) and of course the fear is that he’ll find out her secret! It is so addictive, I can’t stop watching. I used to look down on soap operas in the U.S. but now I realize what pure genius they are. The Peace Corps is definitely causing some positive changes in me.

Home Sweet Home

2006-02-22T08:38:00.000-08:00

In Peace Corps training, we were taught that our service is a lot like a roller coaster. We were told we would experience periods of joy and success as well as periods of failed projects and frustrations. In a way this is true, but as a friend described it, the rollercoaster ride isn't something we experience over months but rather every single day. In other words, from one minute to the next we could go from feeling on top of the world to feeling like we're in some sort of Central American hell. The last couple days perfectly illustrate this.

I left Managua on Monday morning and en route to my site, my wallet was stolen right out of the messenger bag I had on me. Luckily, I realized it quickly, got off the bus at a major city on the way (Juigalpa) and was able to cancel all my Nicaragua debit cards as well as contact home to cancel my debit card there. I lost about $35, which isn't much money but is an amount I can live on in my site for over two weeks. The thing that stings the most is that my UVa student ID from 2000 was in the wallet and I had been so proud of myself for keeping it for so long. It was the old school kind, before the pictures went digital, and I felt a certain ridiculous attachment to it. But, in the words of the all-knowing Hrach Gregorian,"There is no room for sentimentality in the third world."

After being waylaid in Juigalpa, I had to catch a 3 AM bus in order to make it back to my site for an english class I had planned. I can't even really begin to accurately describe how gross it is to wake up at 2:30 AM in order to get on an old school bus and ride down for 7 hours on unpaved highway, but maybe you all can imagine it. As my luck continued, a wonderfully machisto man sat down next to me and offered me his pillow as long as we could share. I told him we wouldn't be sharing and he said that was fine, I could use his pillow and he...decided to use my shoulder! As we bumped along, his head kept purposefully landing on my shoulder and I kept shaking it and moving it to get him off. I was really in no mood to deal with this at 3:30 in the morning. Wouldn't you know it, about 15 minutes later, the bus broke down. We all had to file off and wait in the dark until another crowded bus picked us up an hour later. This bus also broke down at one point but the men onboard were able to fix it and I arrived at my destination extremely dusty but in one piece.

So far it may seem that my rollercoaster was only heading down, down, down but finally at 2 pm, I made it back to my site. As I headed up the hill to drop off my bags in my house, I was accosted by three of my little friends: Maybelline (yup, that's her name), Magdalena, and Yarixa. They all started hugging me and touching my bags and right when I was about to tell them not to do so, they gave me colored pictures of Power Rangers that they had made me in my absence and started chanting, "rah, rah, Alexis! rah, rah, Alexis!" over and over again. So we all made the trip up to my house chanting and pumping our fists in the air and I arrived triumphant at my front door. Finally, the day was getting better.

Back in the center of town, I met some white guys in the street (not a common occurrence). They were from the Discovery Channel UK and were shooting a program on fishing in the Rio San Juan. The name of my town is Boca de Sabalos (mouth of the sabalos) and a sabalos is a tarpin. Apparently, some of the best tarpin fishing in the world goes on right outside my house! So, they invited me to dinner at the hotel in my town and we had a nice night on the water. If any of you are ever in the UK and happen to catch a show called "The Fishing Ambassador," think of me. I met him. The Fishing Ambassador!

Anyway, the last few days were rough but ended on a high note and I guess the lesson is that I should never leave my site. At least not until I head to the beach in a few weeks!

My First

2006-02-19T13:16:00.000-08:00

So, after 13 months of living in Nicaragua, I decided it was time to hop on the "blog" train and start this puppy up. I know I stopped writing mass emails after I left training in April and went to my site. It's just that every time I tried to compose a new email, I kept asking myself if it was really interesting enough to impose on people's inboxes. Now, I don't have to impose a thing and people can check in on me as they see fit. A perfect solution. I have to give full credit to Jessica Kelley for my blog endeavor because I enjoy hers so much and found it really easy to just copy everything she did. Thanks Jess!

I'm currently in Managua, in the Peace Corps office with my good buddy Carrie Shumway and we are going to be picked up in about an hour by her "rica nica" roommate to go to a nice mall where we will eat Subway for dinner and see a movie. This is my peace corps lifestyle! I came up to Managua last week in order to give a training session on reproductive health to the group of new health volunteers and made a little weekend out of it. I'll be heading back to my site tomorrow.

Part of the training the new group receives is a visit to a currently serving volunteer's site. So, last week, I got to have a visitor for a few days. It felt a little bizarre to play the role of the knowledgeable volunteer, since I feel like I'm still pretty new at this game but I hope I was able to impart some sort of peace corps wisdom. She and I spent a lovely Valentine's Day together, we took a little canoe ride down the rio sabalos that cuts through my town. I paid my kindly old neighbor man with huge glasses 20 cordobas (a little over a dollar) to row us down and back only to find out he isn't all that kindly. As we rowed along, I asked him how much it would cost to buy a little dugout canoe for myself (something I've been thinking about investing in since I got to my site) and he told me he could make me one for 800 cordobas (50 dollars). I thought this seemed fair enough until we passed a woman and her son in just the type of boat I would like, and he told me he sold her it for 300 cordobas. When I asked him why I would have to pay so much more, he told me it's because I'm a gringa and I get paid in dollars. Now, I get paid in cordobas but the logic still makes no sense to me because whether I were to get paid in dollars or cordobas, it would be the same amount. I suppose in his eyes, dollars are equivalent to little bars of gold. Anyway, I told him there was no way I would buy a canoe from him and I told him he was way off when it came to how much I get paid. He just replied, "no lo creo." He didn't believe me.

As the canoe ride ensued, we passed my house, which overlooks the rio. He told me I lived in a palace, which came as a surprise to me. I had always thought of it as a nicaraguan shack, but one man's trash is another man's treasure. He asked how much I paid in rent and then offered to sell me all the wood from half of his house so I could build my own. As he explained, his wife had taken a lover and he knew it, he was no fool. So, he was selling off her half of the house. As tempting as the offer to dismantle my neighbor's house was, I declined and told him I was perfectly happy in my palace. Of course it was a little uncomfortable to be privy to such private information about my neighbors but as my friends later told me, he tells everyone who steps foot in his boat about his wife's infidelity. They said it's his own way of letting it all out and he's been telling everyone for weeks! I'm glad I was able to be part of his therapy.

I came up to Managua on Thursday, gave the training session on Friday morning, and then headed up to Carrie's site, the great city of Chinandega, where they have recently set up a little race track around the central park for kids to ride power wheels on. For about 50 cents, a little chavalo can rent a corvette or a grave-digger jeep and race around. It's pretty much the coolest thing I have seen in Nicaragua. As we walked to Carrie's house on Friday night, we were almost run over by a little guy trying to figure out how to make his car go forwards. On Saturday, I took the trip up to Villanueva, to visit another friend, Kerry. As I waited for the bus to leave, two 6 year old boys hopped on and started singing songs about sinners in high pitched voices as they clapped loudly in my ears. I have never been more tempted to give money to Jehova's witnesses. Kerry's site is a great site and it's nice to know that all my peace corps buds are living in good places (although not all have power wheels).

So, all is well and never dull in Nicaragua and I hope this blog was interesting enough that you all will actually keep reading it!