Happy Holidays

My host family from Fatima! The shirt I have on I got as my gift from Secret Santa!




Merry Christmas!




My princessa!



Pinata in Fatima for Christmas



All the little graduates



Me!



My niece Marcela and I on graduation day!



This picture is from my last blog with the little priest schoolers in their graduation togas! This is my neice Aly.



Every time I sit down to write this blog I think to myself, I need to write more frequently so I don’t need to write so much to catch up. It seems I am never able to accomplish that. Where to start. Let’s start with my house and dog situation. It turns out that the house I wrote about last time is a dangerous area and there are three drunk men that live next door and share a bathroom with the house I would rent…NO GRACIAS! Next, I found a lady that had a big room to rent. It had it’s own bathroom (tiled with a toilet) and own entrance. It would have been perfect, except that it is far away from my family here and close to a bar and has a lot of random drunks passed out in the streets during the weekends. I was going to commit to it due to lack of options but it turns out that my sister that just came back from Spain owns the house next to my family’s house. Right now an aunt is renting it. I think she may have kicked her out to rent it for more money to me so I feel slightly bad. Anyways…she was going to rent it to me for 50 dollars a month which is pretty much the maximum we can afford. But it is worth it because her dad is adding a new room, put in a toilet, are going to repave the floors, etc. I was originally going to have to wait to March, but the aunt is moving out any day now so I am going to move in even though they will be fixing it up. The other thing that I just found out last night is that my sister that owns it wants to live with me. She traveled to Spain and is the rarely found independent Nicaragua woman. Her family here never lets her leave with friends or anything and it is taking a toll on their relationship. So she wants to move there with me! Which will be great because she has a TV (maybe we will even get cable), stove, chairs, dishes, etc (so I wont have to fork out money I don’t have to buy that stuff) I’ll still have my own space but won’t be lonely. She can be there when I go on trips to take care of my Princessa…and she is only going to charge me 30 dollars a month! It is going to be great.

On to my puppers, Princessa. I am so in love with her. I went to my training family for Christmas which I will talk about later. Anyways, my family in Quebrada Honda told me that it was okay for me to bring her back. After they said that it was a done deal for me since a puppy was the one thing I’ve always wanted! So I got back to my family in Fatimas house and said hello and she came running past everyone jumping up on me (and I was worried she had forgotten me). The next problem was transporting her 5 hours to my town. My sister told me to buy her a pamper and cut a hole in it for the tail…how embarrassing would that have been? Instead we just gave her food and drink really early in the day so she wouldn’t have to pee...or worse. We got off to a bad start when we tried to get on a bus that was passing and in a hurry I jumped on thinking shed follow me but she was terrified and slipped out of her collar and ran! She came back, I had to use my handy dandy pocket knife to cut a hole in the collar to make it a notch tighter. Then we took a private mototaxi to the bus station. We were the first ones on the bus to get a good seat, and once she was on she was an ANGEL. She sat on my lap and slept the whole way! I guess the hardest part of it all was all the stares I got from people. Not that I care but it’s just funny. People carry handfuls of chickens tied together upside down or pigs on buses without people thinking twice. But a dog on a leash sitting on someone’s lap…unheard of! At first I felt bad that I was uprooting her from the family and the freedom she had on the farm. But then I think of all the dogs that run around starving trying to avoid being kicked and am happy knowing she will never be hungry and will have ample amount of love. She was trembling the whole first night here. She didn’t know anyone, a dog tried to attack her, a herd of cows almost took us out, and then the loud bus with blinking lights terrified her (she had never seen one before). Since she was so scared I let her sleep in my room, well she wouldn’t stay on the ground so I gave in and let her sleep at the foot of the bed with me. Although I hope it isn’t a precedent like Lady and the Tramp because I would prefer not to get fleas. We went on our first walk yesterday which again is craziness to everyone else because she is on a leash. I technically don’t need to use it because she follows me everywhere. I use it because people hardly ever have their dogs chained up and they attack her! So every time we come close to a loose dog I just pick her up and cradle her like a baby until we pass them which would even be pretty ridiculous looking in the states so imagine what the people think here!

Time to backtrack. Last week I was supposed to go on a camping trip with the girl scouts but it fell through because the lady in charge got sick. Instead Jamie, Icia, Gus and I went out in Matagalpa to celebrate Gus’s birthday! It was a pretty fun night, and we found a hotel that is only 7 dollars, not even too expensive for Peace Corps standards. Then the next day I left to go visit Icia in her town, Esquipulas. It is a three hours bumpy bus ride from Matagalpa. Her town is much bigger than mine. It has internet cafes, banks, little places to eat, it just is hard to get to from all sides, basically in the middle of nowhere. I have the perfect location, small town feel but 30 minutes from a big city where I can find anything. Her family is really nice, and they had their town holiday (when it was founded maybe) So we got to go to a rodeo. I could barely watch, but in Nicaragua it’s all the more fun when people are getting trampled and thrown off. Icia’s host mom was screaming for joy, and slapping my leg every time someone got hurt! I just couldn’t help but think that the nearest hospital is 3 hours away if something really bad happened. Then there was a dance that night and we went with Icia’s younger sisters. The mom almost wasn’t going to let them go, but Icia and I convinced her to let them come. It was a lot of fun.


Then on the 22nd I left to go back to Fatima to visit my family. Minus not being in the states with everyone it was a great Christmas. Fatima is like my home away from home. Just walking in felt great. Everyone saying hi, knowing my name. I walked down my long drive way with anticipation to see my old family and they were sooooo excited. My drunk host dad came up and kept saying “My girl, my daughter, came back!” Plus he is convinced I am going to get married here and stay forever so after he has had a few bottles of rum he asks me about 20 times who my boyfriend is and when I am going to get married (he doesnt understand that I dont have a boyfriend) haha My host mom hugged me everytime I walked in the room for the entire four days. I visited with all the families, youth group boys, relatives. It felt great, like a home away from hom…pretty soon I will have that feeling here in Quebrada Honda as well. So for Christmas Eve my older brother that lives behind us with his family invited us to dinner. I asked what time and he said 11:00 p.m.! Every family in Nicaragua stays up till midnight and then lights of fireworks…just like the fourth of July. We used sparklers! Anyways, we had a great dinner. I gave them their gifts which was a enlarged and framed family picture of my older brother and his family (they just had a baby before I left, and it was their first picture of the baby) Then I made a collage of pictures for my family. My sister Ledys sat and kept looking at it for 10 minutes! My family bought me a pair of skinny jeans that are super tight on my bulging calves…I tried them on and my little brother started making that tssssss sound like a cigarette being burned out. I guess that’s the fashion here. Then my older brother and his family got me a pretty mirror to put in my new house. On the 25th we did our secret santa that we drew names for before I left. We got together with the neighbors, cousins, and friends of Letys. I made Christmas bingo to play with everyone. I thought it would be a little boring but they loved it. Unfortunately I only bought to presents to give to the winners and they were all disappointed to stop playing. Then the neighbor Angel (whose house we were at ) was like “well what can we raffle off from our house…or better yet we can play again for money!” haha instead we just did a different game. All in all it was a very merry, very snowless Christmas!

Next on my agenda, form my youth group, garden, and compost. Classes start Feb 2nd…can’t wait!!

Attempting to Integrate...

So now that I am in my new town, and I think I am going through culture shock again. I don’t have my friends living only a few houses away, I’m still getting acquainted with my new family, I don’t know my way around, I still don’t know too many people, and I have a latrine now instead of a toilet. So last week I have been kind of down, moping around the house. I am an outgoing person but it’s just so awkward to go up to people or different houses to give the same speech over and over “ Im Karen from Peace Corps I will be working with the environment here for two years and giving classes…etc” But just the other day I decided to leave my “pena” (a word they ALWAYS use here which means a bunch of different things but its like having shame or being embarrassed) at the house and I went out and started integrating myself. I went with a girl I know, Kioto, to the baseball field to find some guys to form my youth group. We have it on Wednesday so we will see how many show up. Then I met Kioto’s family and a few other community members. My other problem that I dread facing is that I am supposed to plant a garden, tree nursery, and make compost by the end of January. The thing is, that it’s hard work! I need to have the youth help me (but I don’t have youth yet!). The second problem is very crucial…the problem of water! I went to a town meeting last week to introduce myself and I sat through a two hour meeting about water and how the town is suffering. Basically there is ONE well that is pumping water to a pool up in the mountains and then from there it goes to the houses. So the houses that receive water need to pay monthly to upkeep the well and pump plus pay for the water they use. The thing is that the water doesn’t come to all the houses so some are paying their monthly payment but not receiving water. It’s a huge problem, plus it’s the dry season. How the heck am I expected to have a successful garden? I definitely need to look into drip irrigation to not waste water and maybe even some sort of project next year to put more wells in or something….

My other problem is that I want to eventually want my own house. I really enjoy my family here, they are extremely nice. The thing is I want to bring my puppy here and I want my own place to decorate and so I can have my friends visit. There seems to be nothing available. Two girls from the Girl Scout group took me to talk to a landlord who had a house available. Turns out the lady is renting it to her son now. Then we went to talk to one of the girl’s uncles who rents a house. Turns out just a few days ago he signed a year contract with workers that are constructing the new classrooms. But the good news is that he thought of a place that is empty. It is a house behind the church that nobody is using. The thing is, is that it belongs to the church so everyone needs to agree to let me use it. From the sound of it, they might only charge me for electricity and water. (if everyone allows it, so cross your fingers for me) It’s really big but needs a lot of fixing up. The best thing is that it has metal bars on all the windows and doors so it will pass the security check and be safer for me!

Back to integrating myself in the community. Yesterday was graduation of preschool and sixth grade which is a big deal here. It started at 11, I woke up at 8 to work on my Christmas cards. At about 9 oclock ten seminary guys came to the house to sing happy birthday to my host sister that just got back from Spain. I had “pena” because I was in my pajamas but of course since I am the honored visitor I had to be introduced to all ten of them. Then somehow I got stuck with them until 10:30 and I didn’t know how to excuse myself politely to shower and get ready for the ceremony. Somehow my sisters both escaped without me. One of them had a guitar and they all sang me probably about 15 songs. Telling me about what they mean, which ones are traditional etc. Then they asked if I could sing. I told them “of course I can sing, the question is can I sing well. And the answer to that is no!” Even though I said that they still begged me to sing something in English. This happens quite frequently when people want you to sing in English. I know tons of songs but being put on the spot like that it is hard to think of something. The only thing that EVER comes to mind is from the Little Memaid “Part of Your World” which seems pretty ridiculous to sing in front of 10 grown men. Then one of them says don’t you have a traditional song? You know what I came up with? “Take me out to the ballgame” hahaha. They loved it though. It amazes me how much the men here love to sing and that they sing so well. How come guys in the states can’t go around playing the guitar singing love songs?

There is no such thing here as separation of state and church. All public schools have a mass with their graduations. You want to know why? EVERYONE here is religious. They are either Catholic or Evangelical. It is crazy that people in the states have so much to be thankful for, yet always have an excuse to not go to church (myself included) And here people are living in complete poverty yet are the most faithful people I have ever met. The church is ALWAYS so full that there are at least 100 standing throughout the masses. So anyways, we went to the church for the mass which was nice. The graduates sit on one side and their parent on the other. Here in Nicaragua, the graduates of preschool wear the graduation toga and hat with a tassel. They were all absolutely precious. After the mass they are called up one by one to get their diploma. As the special guest I had to sit up in front of everyone with the teachers and director. After the children receive their diplomas they come to the head table to kiss us all on the cheek. Afterwards there was a piñata, soda (my first cup of the day), and cake for the kids and families. Afterwards I met up with the two of the school directors, and the sixth grade teacher. I soon learned NOT to eat breakfast on days of graduation. I went with the three of them to different houses of the students. At every house they serve you a heaping plate of food, cake and soda. You also have to sit and visit for at least an hour of course! It was fun because I got to know more families and students. The bad thing is that we went to 4 houses and therefore ate 4 times (you CANNOT refuse food or drink either). Finally, at the last house we asked if they could put the food in a bag to carry with us because at that point I couldn’t even look at food. After I left the directors and teacher I went back to my house because my friend Kioto invited me to celebrate at her house as well. I got there and finished the night of chatting with more people, dancing with all the kids, eating AGAIN, and drinking my sixth and seventh cup of soda. (Don’t worry I worked out the next day) It was a long day, yet successful because I was introduced to a lot more community members. (all the kids, even the ones I haven’t met all know my name now!)

The other thing that is going on in the town right now is the Purisma which is the celebration for the Conception of Mary. The celebration is for about 4 days and it consists of constant firecrackers and mortars I think (not sure what they are called but there are like bottle rockets just 10 times bigger) So all day yesterday I was jumping constantly from the sound of huge booms (nobody else seems affected or gets scared everytime one goes off unexpectedly). I felt like a parent on the Fourth of July. I wanted to yell at them to stop, but nobody else seemed to mind that 4 year olds were running around with firecrackers lighting them off 2 feet from everyone and that they couldn’t hear someone talking that was next to them. Just another difference in culture I suppose. My family celebrated the Purisima a little differently. The night before we spent 2 hours wrapping up packages of candy and presents. We woke up the day of the Purisimain a tizzy, we had to decorate, bake bread, set up chairs. They cut down branches of trees to make an arch over he entrances of the house. They made and altar for the statue of Mary and then about 300 people came to the house to sing and pray to Mary. At the end my family gave out presents to EVERYONE that came. Super generous My family said that in Matagalpa people go around from house to house and yell "Quien cuasa tanta alegria" and then they yell back "La concepcion de Maria" And the they give candy. So it is basically like Halloween just in honor of Mary. Talking with my family about the Purisima and how they celebrate lead into a discussion of holidays. I told them about Saint Nicholas coming at night to fill the stockings. They thought that was a lovely idea. They started talking about how here the kids don’t believe in Santa Clause. That they only have Santa in the malls to take pictures with. I told them we do that in the States too, and that we take pictures with the Easter Bunny as well. They asked me “What is the Easter Bunny” I told them it’s a big bunny that comes to the houses to hide the Easter eggs filled with candy. They thought it was complete craziness, we were all laughing. Well that is it for now, hope all is well in the States…miss you all very much!

Por Fin, I am finally an official VOLUNTEER

Me and my niece and nephew that made me the pinatas!



Well my second pair of sunglasses broke...this is a pic of me celebrating the night of swearing in...super excited!



Me and my host parents at the swearing in ceremony



The guys from Environment 51 looking all snazzy in their Nicaraguan shirts



Environment 51...we did it!



So I guess I have a lot of backtracking to do. First of all let me fill you in on a quite amusing experience I had. It was an ordinary night with the family and we all went to bed at the usual time, 9:00 pm. Then I wake up in complete confusion by a guitar and voices singing. I didn’t know where I was, what time it was, or what was going on. When I finally came to my senses I realized it was 11:30pm and there were people serenading me outside my window. First I thought, thank goodness I didn’t sleep in just my underwear (due to the heat), then I started thinking “can they see me”? My next thought was who the heck is it, so I layed there trying to identify the voices with no luck. Next thought was, what do I do?? I wasn’t sure if I should peek out my window and see or what... so I just layed there hoping they would stop...but that didnt happen. Finally I got up out of bed and tiptoed to my bedroom door to open it. Outside my door was my whole family giggling and whispering! They thought I was asleep with my earplugs in (that I used to use for the bats) and that I didn’t even hear them. So my brother and I started creeping around trying to peek out the windows to see who it was, and it ended up being two boys from our youth groups and a guitar player. My sister and I were laughing SO hard because I believe they were slightly drunk and were singing different words at different times! They were playing for about 20 minutes and I finally asked my host mom when they will leave and she said that I have to go out there and thank them. I said absolutely NOT! I begged my sister to go out for me and she wouldn’t do it, so finally my mom went out. It was so funny because we turned the light on and they stopped singing because they heard the door opening…just waiting for me to appear….instead walked out my host mom in her pajamas!!

Next topic, during our last week in Fatima we had a goodbye party with our youth groups. We arrived at the school (where we have our meetings) early to start decorating. Then the kids came and asked us if we could go to Ericka’s house. Ericka is a community member that is older and helped us with our youth groups. We got there and they had her WHOLE house decorated as a surprise for us! We played games, ate a delicious dinner they cooked, broke a piñata, danced, and said our goodbyes. Sad to leave, but it was a great feeling to know how much we were loved in the community.

Then on November 23, we were sworn in as volunteers. My host parents and the host parents of all the trainees were invited to a fancy hotel for the ceremony. We all had previously learned the Nicaraguan National Anthem, and we had to sing it all together at the conference! We also selected 4 volunteers to speak and they did a great job. Then one of my friends, Chris, surprised us all with a folklore dance that his sister taught him! It was a great celebration. Then of course afterwards we all went out to celebrate/spend our few last days together. Luckily there is a bar close to the hotels we were in that had a 2 for 1 special!

The day after our swearing in ceremony we had our All Volunteer Conference with all the volunteers in Nicaragua. It was a great 2 days and I learned a lot. I learned how to use cow and horse manure to create a biodigester that produces enough methane to cook for 5 hours a day (sure would save a lot of money on buying propane tanks) Also learned about irrigation systems, cooking, and how to make wine from the fresh fruits we have here! They had a few professional development workshops for us to attend. It got all of us a little nervous thinking about the future and grad school etc. So we all started mapping out our lives (even though we haven’t even started out two years of service) Here is my plan incase you were wondering:

November 2011-June 2012: Substitute teach
2012-2015- Teach in a Title 1 school (that will help pay my loans), grad school at Marquette through the fellowship program, live at home to save money
2015-Start applying for International Teaching

Before 2015 I have to find a husband that is a teacher and wants to travel as well so when we are teaching internationally we can raise our children to be bilingual (so keep your eyes peeled for me) Sounds like a plan to me, don’t you think? Haha

Thursday for Thanksgiving, we were invited to different houses of embassy families. I went to our Country Director’s house. He and his wife are wonderful people and cooked a delicious thanksgiving dinner for 35 volunteers!

And now I am here in Quebrada Honda! I am already in love with it. I went to the graduation of 6th grade in Villa Kokomo. It was a little awkward because they had me hand out the diplomas….? At first I thought poor kids are have pictures taken of them with me in them handing the diploma…they don’t even know me! But then after the ceremony they all wanted their picture taken with me. They teachers invited me to stay and eat with them. They are all really great, and really night. I really lucked out because a lot of the teachers are younger and therefore I am hoping they will want to learn new ways of teaching. For my birthday on the 30th I participated in their meetings that they have the last Friday of every month. They all invited me to go out to eat with them. So we traveled to Matagalpa to eat and dance. I remember being slightly embarrassed when I was younger when everyone would sing Happy Birthday. Well let me tell you it’s ten times worse here. They made me stand up in front of 30 of them and they sing a birthday song that is about 5 minutes long! They even bought me a present! How great are these two years going to be when they are already this nice to me the day they met me. It definitely helped that I busted out some dance moves to show that I can have a little fun too! My niece (Marcela) and nephew (Juan Alfredo) here are ALWAYS over at the house wanted to play with me. The night before my birthday we made Christmas cards and they wanted to help. Instead of making some for their families they made 2 for me and 3 for my family! They wanted to know all about my mom and dad and their names. So mom you have a card coming to you that says Feliz Navidad Doña Carol! Then they made piñatas out of cereal boxes and filled them with candy for us to break open on my birthday. I feel really bad for the boy because his father died and his mom lives in Mexico. He is already super attached and says to the little girl “She’s just like our mom isn’t she, she takes care of us, she loves us” So loving, they really made my day! And right now I am in Matagalpa city in a wireless cafe sipping frappaccinos with my two peace corps BFFs celebrating. Icia traveled 3 hours to come see me...so loved! I guess there is an AMAZING Italian restaurant here that we are going to check out. Thanks for all the birthday messages, texts, packages, and cards...they are truly appreciated!

Site Visit

The following are some of the pictures from our awesome Nica Halloween party!



Me with my awesome Halloween socks that Auntie Jeannie sent me!



RRRRRRRRR



Fatima crew!



Me and Icia celebrating Halloween



My Nica friend Luis



My brother hiding from the picture, but this is where we wash our cloths



My sister sweeping the kitchen


Well I will be a sworn in volunteer in just a couple weeks. I can’t believe how fast training as went by. It is a bittersweet time. I am really excited to start my service but am sad to leave my fellow Peace Corps Trainees and even more my family here in Fatima. It’s going to be another culture shock to readjust to being on our own in our sites. Luckily I am fortunate to have a great site. Last Tuesday we met our counterparts. I was pretty nervous because I have a male counterpart. My the volunteer I visited had trouble with hers, because he was always busy and didn’t really give her much advice or guidance. Most of our counterparts, including mine, are directors which means they are in charge of the base school and all the neighbor schools which could be a total of at least 10 schools. So as you can guess they are pretty busy. Well my guy is 34 and used to be a teacher. He kinda creeped me out at first because when asked by our training director what he thought about me his answer was “PRECIOSA” and the training director was like “Ummmmm….I hope that is with respect” So I was a little nervous as to how things were going to go. After seeing him interact with the other teachers and what not I realized it’s just his personality and wants to be well liked. This will work out in my favor because he wants to go the extra mile to make sure everything works out for me. He took me to meet all the teachers, the leaders of the community, counsel of parents like a PTA, the head of the education in matagalpa, heads of two of the main NGOs I will work with, showed me around Matagalpa, took me to the post office, bank, the mayors office, to meet the police and let them know that I will be staying in Quebrada Honda for 2 years, ect. All in all he really made sure everyone knew who I was, that they respect me, that they know I am not coming with hands full of money, that they know my primary jobs, to take care of me, to visit me, show me around etc.

Quebrada Honda: My first thought when entering on the bus is that I thought I was in an “up north” atmosphere. The plants seem less tropical and more like WI plants. The town is surrounded by beautiful mountains. It is a lot like my training town in its small feel aspect. Just a lot of houses on dirt roads. The “center” of the city is the school and a health center. The people are mainly coffee growers. Which might I add they have the BEST coffee! There are also farmers. It isn’t uncommon to see cows being herded down the street or men riding on their horses. ( I already talked to my host mothers father who is the cutest old man with his cowboy hat, boots and belt buckle and made him promise to teach me to ride a horse!) On the farm across the street from my house is a pool! I guess it is about a dollar to swim in it, but I am going to try to make friends with the owner and see if I can offer a monthly rate for unlimited use.

Schools: I am working in 3 schools. The base school is in Quebrada Honda. They have high school in the morning and elementary in the afternoons. They have high school for adults on Saturdays so they can work during the week. The other school I work in is about 3 km up the road in a community called Villa Kokomo. I fell in love with this little community. There is only primary that is divided into a morning and afternoon group. I then will be working in a multigrade school 3 km up the road the other way. I didn’t have a chance to visit it. But from the sound of it, it’s just a room with 1st-6th grade all together and one teacher. Just like your typical one room school house, should be quite the experience.

Teachers: It is Nicaraguan culture for people to nod their heads and say “yes we would love to work with you and make gardens” but really not have any intention of actually doing it. I have been able to gauge peoples reactions and body language and I think the teachers are truly excited to work with me…it’s just going to be hard to choose the six teachers I will work with. I already went to three of the teachers houses in Villa Kokomo. The one thing I absolutely love about Nicas is that they are the most generous people you will ever meet. I went to one of the teachers houses which was literally a shack with two beds in it, one for her and one for her two sons. She sent her sons to go buy some soda to share with us. No matter where you go they offer you coffee, bread, soda, whatever they have. Sometimes it’s hard though because you visit three houses and have to drink three huge glasses of soda and then have to pee! That’s the other thing here, there is no such thing as a quick visit. Every new house I go to visit I sit and chit chat for at least an hour. It really builds the confianza with them.

Students: The kids here are all just dying for love and new fun things to do. I went to EVERY classroom to introduce myself and tell them a little about myself and work. They had already heard I would be coming and they had poems, songs, dances, letters, cards, and speeches all prepared for me. After one hour of being in the school they are all yelling ADIOS PROFE KAREN and holding my hand to walk me to the bus. They are all kids from smaller towns and therefore I feel are much more respectful and maybe a little calmer too. It’s just going to be great working with them all. Two of the girls from the high school came up to talk to my counterpart after my presentation to ask if they can pick me up at my house to take me around the town. Turns out they had a meeting of GUIA which is basically Girlscouts! They are a new group with about 12 girls that are 14 and 15. The leader is 24 like me and they sing songs, dance and play silly games. They are attempting to reforest and plant trees at the health center. Although, right now they are buying the saplings from a store. I told them we could make our own tree nursery and they are just super excited to work with me. I had the opportunity to go to two meetings. I even led a few activities. They are going to be a great group to work with.

Organizations: There seems to be so many problems in Nicaragua, or sometimes things seem so helpless because it is an endless vicious cycle in certain aspects. But then there are some programs that just blow my socks off and are working so great. Such as the Quinchos for example. In my new site there is an organization called Infancia sin Fronteras (Infancy without borders) and it is funded by Spain. It is basically a soup kitchen for children. They have these soup kitchens in Quebrada Honda and Villa Kokomo. They offer lunch to 300 kids a year, offer daycare services and preschool, medical attention, have a garden, arts and crafts classes. I met the head of the program in Matagalpa and he is a very enthusiastic man that is happy to have extra support.

House: My new house and family is pretty great too! They are pretty well off for the community. They own a little store which is nice because people are always coming and going so it is easier to meet people. My host parents are both very involved in the Catholic church in the community and were really happy that I am Catholic. They own a vehicle and have a maid which is quite a big deal. There is the mom, dad, a boy that is about 14, a girl my age, and then they have another daughter living in Spain. Their nieces and nephews are always over as well.

Experience: So the Saturday before I left it was the confirmation of 32 youth of the community (two are from my GS group) and the bishop from Matagalpa came to confirm them. After the dinner the bishop and the people accompanying him dined at my house. There was an extra spot open at the table and my host parents insisted I sit there (even though its THEIR house) They said I was special. So I had the opportunity to dine with the bishop of Matagalpa, quite the privilege huh! He was very kind and gave me his blessings and said he was very happy to see such an enthusiastic person working in the community.

All in all my site visit was great, and I think it will be a very successful two years! Now I just have to deal with the craziness that is the end of training…..and having to leave my host family….

Picnic, Police Encounters, Garbage Dumps, and....SITE PLACEMENT!

So the pictures are out of order, it might help to read the blog first and then look at the pics...the others are from our garden and my volunteer visit that I wrote about last time! ENJOY!

One of the boys from La Chureca taking a bath!

Me Icia and Walter from the mayors office that made our whole field trip a complete success

the puppers!

Happy campers after a full day of work...what an accomplishment

finished product...minus the plants that we have growing now!

yep thats me working hard!

sifting the dirt and adding ashes to change the ph step number 2

some of the muchachos

putting up the fence! Step number 3

our garden step 1

me and carolyn

floating around!

Agua Fria where we went swimming

out dancing!!

Me and Carolyn out dancing

Volunteer visit in Matiguas with Carolyn and her boyfriend

giving our presentation

cooked lunch with our spanish teacher Darling (she was the best ever)

Me, Icia, and Jamie

dirty feet after a wonderful finca party

champions!

water balloon volleyball...geory and I kicked butt

banana relay...it was really hard!

me getting ready to dominate at the banana relay

my house

My sister and I

My puppy princessa


Again, I have so much to catch up on. Last week Sunday we had a finca party which is basically a picnic. One of the host families invited all of us volunteers to their piece of land outside the city. After walking under the scorching sun for 45 minutes I started getting more and more annoyed with the idea of a picnic under the baking sun. It was totally worth it! The family had s grill to barbeque, we all brought a dish to pass, someone made veggie chili, and another group but the ingredients to make s’mores! The family had Nica games all planned out for us. We formed two teams. I was the captain of Team Awesome and Gus was the captain of Team Eggplant. First we did your usual sack race which we won. Next we had waterballoons and we had to pair up and put the water balloon in between the chest of the pair and race down and back around and pass the waterballoon on to the next pair without using hands. I think we lost that one by a hair, but it was hilarious to watch! One of the pairs dropped the balloon so they had to be “punished” They had to stand in front of us all and the winning team all had waterballoons to throw at them, and they weren’t allowed to move. After that we had a “volleyball” game with the waterballoons. Each team was in pairs with a sack and the waterballoon was on the sack and we had to pop it over to the other side and they had to catch it on their sack. Geory and I kicked butt at it, and won it for our team. The final game was the best. They told us to pick four people that had big mouths. We didn’t know what it was going to be, but nobody was eager to volunteer so I did it along with three others. Then we saw that they had bananas hanging from a clothesline. We had to peel it with our mouths without touching it…HILARIOUS. It was really hard actually, I didn’t do so well. The whole banana ended up falling off. Overall, Team Awesome prevailed and won bragging rights. After that we ate our lunch, and then I brought Catch Phrase so we had a pretty intense game of that amongst us.

So over the past couple weeks we have been planning a field trip with our youth groups to visit a bigger city Jinotepe and see their garbage dump and recycling projects. We went last Thursday to the Alcadia which is the mayor’s office. To get things accomplished here is quite a process so we knew we had to be patient. We stuck to the Nicaraguan standards and had two letters (thanks to the stationary Auntie Jeannie sent!) written out stating our purpose. It’s interesting how they do things here. It’s all fluff, you start with an opening sentence that goes something like “ Almighty mayor, I hope this letter finds you good in health and that you are successful in your daily activities” Then there is a paragraph stating what you want so we told them we would like to have a tour of their recycling project on Wednesday the 28th. Then there is a closing statement wishing him well and how we hope for a positive response to our petition. We write two letters exactly the same. They keep one and then sign and date the other to give back to us as proof that we came and what not. It is pretty much IMPOSSIBLE to actually meet the mayor so we were ready to wait a few hours with our books. It turned out that the secretary was SUPER nice. She spoke a little English and I think was just really excited to practice with us. She told us not to even bother with the mayor and connected us with a man named Walter Guzman. Turns out that he wasn’t going to come in that day but she persisted and got him on the phone and told him our plans. Then she says to me “Miss come” and handed me the phone….I freaked out! First of all it’s hard to understand some people especially on the phone and 10 times harder to understand when a busy street with horns honking right outside the window and 100 times harder when there is a call beeping in so I only hear every other second. Luckily I got the gist of what he was saying and he sounded really nice. He said Wednesday the 28th sounded great, but we needed to come back on Monday the 26th to talk out the details. Icia and I went back on Monday at our appointed time and of course he wasn’t their. I knew things were going too well…he did show up though, better late than never right! Well this man is fabulous, he is intelligent and very passionate about his work. He had the great idea to show the kids the dump in their town and their project that fell through and failed. Then take us to a neighboring community and show them a project that is working successfully. Next step, find transportation: Our technical trainer, Katie, who is awesome suggested that we can take the Peace Corps bus so that was relatively easy. Then we had to see which of our youth was going to come. About 5 from our group committed and 8 from the other. The thing in Nicaragua is that the people always say “yes, yes we can come, we will be there” but they say it to save face and really it’s hard to tell if they mean it or not. To make this super long story short it was a HUUUUGE success! We had 24 youth, the whole mini bus was full! Walter showed up on time, gave a GREAT powerpoint presentation, we saw two dumps that aren’t working and contaminating the rivers. Then to a dump that is a model dump for all of Nicaragua. They are separating organic and inorganic, making compost, and producing worms. They then use their compost to plant gardens. They sell the plastic bottles, the compost, the worms, and the plants, it was AMAZING. And even more amazing was the interest our youth took in it. The majority of them haven’t left Fatima, let alone seen a garbage dump. The looks on their faces, their questions, their interest, their maturity…spectactular! I am so proud that we made it happen, our trainer came along too and she couldn’t believe it either….just couldn’t have gone any better. Now are youth have their minds turning and know that it’s possible…maybe their will be sustainable changes in Fatima.

Our other great success, which may be another long story so I’ll try to make it short. There is an organization in the neighboring city, San Marcos. It is called Los Quinchos. It’s an organization to help children of the streets. A big problem in Nicaragua is kids of the street abusing glue. They sniff it and eat it to rid themselves of hunger temporarily. They all live in poverty with abusive or negligent parents. This organization has safe houses in three major problem areas in Managua. The boys can enter if they say they are going to kick the habit. Once they prove that they want to change their ways of life they enter the program. They have a farm in San Marcos and the office. The boys live on the farm and the girls live in a separate area. During the week they work on the farm and learn a trade such as making hammocks, farming, raising cows, etc. On the weekends they have art, pottery, dance, sports, and cooking classes. They also have a library with computers available to the community and the kids and attached is an Italian restaurant (they are funded by an Italian NGO) that is open Fridays and Saturdays and have live music. The boys work there as well. After the boys go through the phases of the safe house, and the farm, they then go to Granada where they have a house and they live there for a few years and work in the town and gradually assimilate back into society with their learned trade. Children enter at ages 5 or 6 and when they leave they are 17 and older. Another thing the organization does is goes to La Chureca (look it up online) It’s the biggest garbage dump and it’s in Managua. There is a community in the dump. They started a project there where the children can come and receive class, do arts and crafts, bathe, and have lunch. I have heard horror stories of this place. I have heard that there are people living there with their houses built into the garbage. Families prostitute their young daughters to the garbage truck drivers so they can get first dibs on the garbage. Well we had the opportunity to go with the Quinchos. We left early with a man named Bismark who goes everyday. We walked in and I felt like I was in a movie…you know like the ones of the future when everything is desolate and everywhere you look is overgrown and trashy looking. Of course it smelled potently horrible. We walked through, witnessed the people scavenging through the garbage looking for plastic or aluminum to sell, food, and clothes or shoes. The project is great that they have there. They have a big cement hole in the ground like a pool for the children to swim and bathe in, music, shelter, and caring people. Some of the ex-Qunichos go everyday to help…it made me want to cry seeing the young men that have survived and changed their lives around in turn helping the poor little boys living in garbage. We were able to walk around in the dump and it was just unbelieveable. I’m not sure how big it is, but it had to be at least 5 miles or more. Then it’s RIGHT next to Lake Managua, which is completed contaminated. There are cows that walk around and eat the garbage and plastic. Pretty sure the people will eventually drink their milk. There are mothers walking around with little babies in the fumes of it all. It was hard, but I’m glad I had the chance to do it. When we tell our Nica friends that we went there they are all in disbelief.

On to a happy topic. I had a great weekend. Friday night me and three other girls went out to a local cantina in the nearby town. We ran into three other trainees. The cantina ended up having live music and we all danced all night! Saturday night we went to the Quinchos dance class, and then at night we went to their Italian restaurant with our Nica friends and danced again. Sunday Gus had a big baseball game. There are two teams in Fatima, the veterans and the new team. It was also the first game of the playoffs. The whole town was their to watch, and even though he lost…he played great. Another trainee came over to watch and on the way she dropped her phone out of the moto taxi, when she went to go look for it all the taxi-bike guys told her that this guy Manuel took it. So Jamie and her Nica friend went to his house to talk to him and he was like yea I have it but I found it, I didn’t steal it. So long story short, the police ended up coming. Jamie and I hopped in the police truck and were on our way to find the guy. Do you think they care about the phone? Of course not. The first thing they say to us is “We are all single, are you?” I started laughing so hard, how surreal. The one went on to tell us he really works for a different city but is subbing in. That we should come and visit him, and why we haven’t yet. They continued to say that we should call them (kind of hard to call when they aren’t doing their job to get her phone BACK) We picked up the guy, the mom was screaming and yelling. We took him to the police station. He said he gave it to some lady he doesn’t know. And basically nothing was resolved and poor Jamie is still phoneless.

Paragraph about Nica boyfriends: The guys here crack me up. I am still getting love letters from a youth group member saying he is going to look for a million ways to conquer my heart. My brother ALWAYS talks about his love of Icia and thinks I have a crush on Gus’ little brother so he talks to him about me and comes back with gossip about what the brother says. We also met this fun group of guys in the bigger town and one drives a moto-taxi so it’s convenient because we always have a free ride! Luis, the guy that has a crush on me gave me his soccer jersey! I actually wore it last night during our soccer game and I yet again scored the first goal so it must have been a lucky jersey. But yea, they seriously think they are our boyfriends and we’ve all had numerous guys say they will come visit us wherever our placement is. (pretty sure it’s the nica social norm of saying things you know you won’t commit)

Finally, last paragraph. We got our site placements!!! We have all been pretty nervous about it. I was more excited than anything. I just didn’t want to go to Chinandega which is super duper hot and humid on flat ground. I didn’t mind any of the others. Turns out I got my FIRST CHOICE!! It was meant to be, because when they handed out the packets last week I flipped through the sites and I saw the one for Quebrada Honda and I was like I wanna go here. It’s the exact size I want. It has about 2,500 people. Yet I am only 10 minutes from the capital city of the department, Matagalpa. So I will be able to work with NGO’s from the cities. I will have other volunteers close by. The two organizations in the town are Soup Kitchen for kids and Handicap International!!! I preferred to be a first volunteer instead of a replacement even though it wasn’t top on my priority list, and I am. They also have team sports and I’m in a mountainous region so it’s cooler! Matagalpa is also known for their coffee and chocolate…I mean seriously it just couldn’t get any better!!! Oh but it does, there are eight volunteers in the department of Matagalpa. Gus and Icia from my training town that I really get along with are going there and then another girl that I’m with a lot is only 40 minutes from me…what a sigh of relief! I just can’t believe that our training is almost over…these past two months just flew by. The two years are going to be over so fast. My host family here keeps asking if I am coming back for Christmas. I also got in touch with Tamara and Dona Julia from the coast and they thought for sure I would be coming for Christamas! I told them I can’t travel until March. Lucky for me though Julia is coming to Managua in December and Tamara is coming for a week in January. Johndar and Selmira come often so I know I will see them soon. Just want to thank everyone for their text messages (Julie VanL, Megan, Ramsey, Aly aka youdontme, Steph, Victor, Katie, Stacy) And packages and letters ( Mom and Dad, Auntie Jeannie, Becky, Kristina, Auntie Jomarie, Megan, and Stacy) And emails and facebook messages, your support means so much to me and I am so thankful to have you all in my life…miss and love you all much!

What a WONDERFUL Volunteer Visit

The Peace Corps expects us all to be flexible, but the thing that is great is that they reciprocate the flexibility. They know how important the volunteer visit is, so they arranged to have me leave Saturday and return Tuesday. I loved every second of it! It actually worked out in my favor because we had a meeting at Volcan Masaya that Saturday so I had someone drop me off right at the bus terminal in Managua instead of having to take a bus there, look for a taxi, negotiate a price, and find the bus terminal. I also had the whole weekend to enjoy myself!

Day 1- Saturday
I found my bus without a problem, as I already said I was dropped off at the terminal. It is a 3 hour bus ride from Managua to Matiguas, Matagalpa. Even though the buses are rickety, pretty uncomfortable, and to say the least pretty scary I was in love with the ride because there was beautiful scenery. Matagalpa is in the mountains and the landscapes are breathtaking. Plus, it’s always entertaining to people watch on the bus. They come on with huge sacks of oranges, chickens, and pretty much anything you could think of. Then there are the vendors. At the main stops you have boys and women the same running after the bus as it is slowing down and climbing in the back door selling their goods as quickly they can. It’s mass chaos. People yelling “Quesillo, rico quesillo, quesillo, quesillo” or “GASEOSA, GASEOSA HELADA, GASEOSA” they sell everything, cheese, candy, soda, juice, chicken, fruit, enchiladas, fried plantains. I actually enjoy it, cause you never know what fried goodies you can find! Then within the 2 minutes they all someone get off the bus with all their buckets full of stuff and we are off again. I made it to Matiguas in one piece and the volunteer was at the market waiting for me. Her name is Carolyn and she is from New York. She’s been living in Matiguas for a year and is doing the same thing I will be doing. We got along great, and I am sure we will remain in contact. We stopped to eat at a small restaurant by her house which was delicious and only set me back 20 cords (1 dollar). Then we went to her house which was absolutely adorable, it made me sooooo excited for my future house. It was only two rooms, rather small, but painted in pink and coral. She had ceramic tile floor, and a shower with great water pressure. The downside is that she has a latrine. I originally thought that I could deal with a latrine. I mean I’ve used outhouses before on girl scout camps, and don’t have a problem using the bathroom in the woods if the need arises….but boy let me tell you I really don’t know if I can handle it! The thing is, I heard of these cockroaches stories that they crawl up your legs and what not if you sit on it. Well silly me looked down the latrine and sure enough there are hundreds of huge cockroaches, and even close to the top too (especially at night) I refused to sit on it, so therefore my leg muscles are now that much stronger. Having this as my daily exercise wouldn’t be a horrible thing, it’s just that going #2 just doesn’t work very will with the hover method…needless to say I couldn’t go for 4 days. New topic….

Carolyn has a Nica boyfriend named Norvhm who was super nice, and lucky for us he has a car! We got ready and strapped on our dancing shoes to head out the local dancing club. It was me, her, him, and then his sister and her friend. We had a ball. I had a lovely drunk old man ask me to dance. I agreed and then soon found out that looks can be deceiving and this elderly man sure had some moves!! He was jumping, hopping, and shimmying all over the place. We were definitely the entertainment for everyone in the club. I am sure they were thinking “hahaha look at that gringa trying to dance with him”. Then they had about 8 songs in a row that were all 80’s. They played the Bryan Adams slow song Everything I Do, and I felt like we were back at sophomore year homecoming because as I looked around at everyone dancing, 9 out of 10 couples the woman was at least 3 inches taller than the men!

Day 2 Sunday-
We slept in after our late night out. We went to the brand new soccer stadium at 10 to watch Norvhm and his team play. The stadium was amazing, the background was the mountains. Unfortunately his team lost, but afterwards we went to his house. We visited his family and they had a delicious lunch made for us. Everyone we visited (her neighbors, 3 teachers, his family) all fed us! I didn’t have to pay anything for food. Which got me thinking…maybe I won’t have to learn how to cook in my site after all. I can just go visit different people around 5’oclock when it’s dinner time! After lunch Norvhm drove us up the mountain to go to a place called Agua Fria. It was a half an hour ride up this horrible and scary rocky mountain road. But finally we arrived to a beautiful river, pool and a waterfall. They all jumped in right away, but I was a little nervous. The water wasn’t dirty per say but you couldn’t see the bottom either and for some reason I have this phobia of touching the bottom of lakes and such when I can’t see the bottom. Finally they convinced me it wasn’t mucky or slimy so I got in and it was absolutely great and refreshing. They all climbed this tall rock and jumped off. Then we swam under the waterfall…an afternoon well spent. After that we went back to her house and cooked a curry with lentils. Norvhm taught us how to play the local card game Desmoche.

Day 3 Monday-
I was able to see first hand why projects take so long to accomplish and why we need to be here 2 years to make sure our projects are sustainable. In the states our motto is “Time is Money” Here they think more along the line of “Theres’ more time than life” They cancel class here for any reason they can possibly think of. So Monday class was cancelled in her school so we couldn’t go. Instead we made plans to go to a local NGO called Ayuda en Accion to meet with a person that is in charge of some youth groups. Carolyn already had pitched her idea to a woman in charge there about working with the youth groups to make project for World Wide HIV/AIDS awareness day. As we were walking there the lady we had our appointment with was leaving the office on her motorcycle. She stopped and apologized that she had to leave but that she was done working for the day. As it turns out they continued to talk briefly about the idea. She originally told Carolyn she’d love to help out and that there are youth groups. Now she is saying they just formed the youth groups and they are way out in the country and they aren’t going to start projects until next year. Then we went to the mayors office to work with another environmental person. We had an appointment to work together, but when we got there she said “Oh sorry, we don’t have electricity there is nothing we can do today” Carolyn persisted and came up with the genius idea to maybe write something on paper and later type it up. It ended up being a really successful meeting because we wrote a letter to the directors of all the schools reminding them that it’s illegal to burn trash and that they have to leave it out for the garbage truck to pick up. Supposedly it’s completely illegal to burn garbage in Nicaragua. And can you guess what the consequence is if you do?!? Jail time 1-5 years and a fine of anywhere between 1,000 and 50,000 DOLLARS!!! Just goes to show how much the laws are enforced here….craziness. Later that night we visited all her teachers to co-plan. All three of them fed us! They were all very nice and had adorable children. Again it just makes me that much more excited to meet my teachers.

Day 4 Tuesday-
We got up early to catch the bus to her multigrade school out in a small community. The school was literally 2 rooms and 2 teachers. Kindergarten-3rd grade was in one room and 4th-6th were in the other. The bus came by late so we arrived 45 minutes late to school and all the children were waiting outside the gate for us. They all kissed us goodmorning on the cheek, even me! They were so well-behaved and excited to learn. I think that the difficulties of teaching in multigrade classrooms is better than teaching in a single grade room in the cities just because there seems to be much more respect and interest in the small communities. At 1 I had to catch the bus back to Fatima. It was a long 5 hours of traveling back. I sat in the back of the bus thinking it would be better because not a lot of people were back there….BAD IDEA! Remember on fieldtrips in grade school everyone would want to sit in the back because it is bumpier and more fun….bumpy rides in Nicaragua are NOT fun. We ended up losing a tire, and had to stop for half an hour to fix it! Then a man kept coming through the back door while we were moving! I couldn’t figure out why this was or how it was even possible. Finally I realized he would leave out the front door, climb to the top of the bus to grab someones bushel of goods to give them as they got off and then ride on top for a bit to not waste time climbing back down, he would climb back down in the back of the bus and enter through the back. Talented.



Back to life in Fatima. Our youth group is still awesome. I think it is our greatest success and the thing I enjoy the most. Our garden is growing! Only two of our plants didn’t grow. We had a little trouble with pests but we made a natural pesticide and put it on the plants and it seems to be helping. We just constructed our trellis the other day for our cucumbers to grow and climb up on. It looks absolutely fabulous. We FINALLY started our recycled materials project. We are making paper mache flower vases out of used paper, toilet paper rolls, and flowers out of chip bags. Gus wasn’t too excited about starting it just because its arts and crafts and we have a bunch of older guys. But we always seem to forget that they love anything we do. There isn’t anything else to do in Fatima other than hang out in the streets and talk, so any type of structure or activity is great for them. We paper mached three balloons with a layer and they wanted to keep doing more but we ran out of paper! As we were constructing the projects the boys were asking me “Are you sure you cant stay and do your two years here, we don’t want you to go” I rest assured them that it’s a training town and that they shouldn’t worry because more American girls will come soon. They told me they wouldn’t be as great as me, I laughed and said you never know they might be better. Then they were pushing it a little too far. Maybe it was my fault for leaving my dress on after my group presentation but they kept asking me to model the dress and “da una vuelta” like turn around for them. Of course I didn’t give into their antics…silly boys.

Then the other day we finally had the soccer game! Gus and my youth group against the other youth group. Guess who scored the first goal? That’s right, me! Pretty sure the boys had to blink a few times to make sure it really happened (my brother is still talking about it) We had an absolute blast, it probably helps that our team won 5-4!

I finally found out how boys in Nicaragua go about asking a girl to be their girlfriend. I got home from class one day and my brother had this note and flower for me. It was from a boy in the other youth group that I don’t think I have ever talked to. The note said something along the lines of “I was looking in my garden for a rose as pretty as you but I couldn’t seem to find one” And then there was a rose with the letter. I couldn’t help but laugh. Then my brother finally got enough guts to write to his love, Icia the other lady in our group that looks my age but is 37. It was the prettiest poem I ever read, but he was like Karen you have to give it to her. I was like no you have to, it’s from you. Then he continued to tell me that boys here will declare their love through a poem or what not and NOT sign their name. They have the delivery person say who it’s from (this is incase the girl is mean and shows everyone and embarrass the boy) Then at some point in the future, either that same day or a week later, the boy personally comes up to the girl and asks if she liked the poem and if she loves him back. I was like WHAT, so this guy is going to come up to me in PERSON! Yader just started laughing and said yes, and that’s okay if I say I just want to be friends. So every night he is gathering up his courage to talk to Icia.

We had some great meetings yesterday. We learned about all the different things we can make for ourselves or to use in our classrooms from recycled products. Then we formed groups and made our own creation. My group made a styling purse from the wrappers of chip and cookie bags, a strap made from bread bags, and then it had a coin pouch, sunglasses holder, and it snapped shut with use of bottle caps! Who ever thought I could be creative!? The other thing that is great excitement within our group is that we finally got our packets of all the available sites that we could go to for our two years. Volunteers from all the four departments came to talk about the benefits and negatives of a big city vs. small pueblo, being the first volunteer vs. replacing someone, working with NGOs vs. forming new groups/projects, living with host families vs. getting own house. Then they had poster boards and pictures and food from the four different departments to talk about the sites and what each site has to offer. I am trying to keep an open mind but there is one site that I really want. I found out that 4 other girls want it too, so I just need to keep an open mind. The one I want to go to is a town of 2,000 people. Although its only 10 minutes from a big city. Its in the mountains and one of the NGOs in site is Handicap International. Sounds perfect right? Although the Peace Corps has its own rhyme and reason for their placements so I have to trust their judgement. We find out our sites the last week in October and then the first week in November we have a week site visit to meet the community. I can’t believe how fast training is flying by…we only have about 3 weeks left in Fatima and it makes me sad…

Last thing. Our group all tested at advanced so we don’t have Spanish class anymore! It’s a good thing and a bad thing. We are going to have TONS of time now, but we have some plans. We want to tour the Zona Franca which is basically a sweatshop that makes clothes for Target. We also are trying to organize a fieldtrip for our youth groups to go to a larger city, Jinotepe, to see their recycling facility. Hopefully we can do a little bit more traveling as well. Well sorry this is so long. I was going to attempt to add pictures but the wireless isnt working at the little cafe so I couldnt use my computer. Maybe next time. Hope everyone is doing well!!
Miss you!

Bummer...

So this was the week that we were supposed to go on our volunteer visits. I had quite the trek all the way to Matagalpa which is in the middle of the country. On Saturday, the day before we left, we had a training on how to make natural pesticides. I was standing in the sun, feeling my lower legs burning, yet I was freezing and covered in goosebumps. I knew something wasn’t right, but I shrugged it off. I had the same symptoms, achiness, and chills the weekend before and they eventually got better. Finally near the end of the day I asked our mother figure, Constance, to feel my head to see if I had a fever and she freaked out cause I was burning up. We told our supervisors and they told me to call if the fever continued. So when we got back to my town Constance helped me take my temperature and it was 102/103ish. I felt awful, and called the medical office. It was a Saturday after lunch and they were worried that none of the labs would be open, We found one that was open in the city next to us thankful (the thought of riding an hour on a bus to a larger city made me cry) My host mom and Constance went with me. The doctor was very nice. It was interesting though because he drew my blood right out in the waiting room which hurt pretty bad because my skin was already super sensitive from the fever. The medical office also wanted me to do a urine test. He walked out with a tiny plastic bag (pretty sure it’s their national product). I didn’t know what to think, because I struggle with peeing in a cup let alone a flimsy plastic baggy. To make matters even better, the clinic was part of his house so I had to use their family bathroom which was a site to behold in itself! On the bright side, there was no other lab work so we got my results back pretty quickly, he diagnosed me with classic dengue! My red and white blood cells were pretty low but still in the normal range. I was happy that they found something, but I didn’t feel horrible as I thought dengue would feel. I have just been tired and achy. My fever was gone the next day, I just have pain behind my eyes. I went to get more blood work yesterday and everything is fine. The doctors think it was just a virus or something. We will see, I just hope this isn’t a weekly thing that happens. And it just sucks because everyone else got to go on their trips and I sat around sleeping and sweating for 3 days I was going to go to Casona to watch the Packer game last night but it was pouring rain out. All in all, it’s just been another experience to add to the list…and no worries I feel fine now!

Bummer...

So this was the week that we were supposed to go on our volunteer visits. I had quite the trek all the way to Matagalpa which is in the middle of the country. On Saturday, the day before we left, we had a training on how to make natural pesticides. I was standing in the sun, feeling my lower legs burning, yet I was freezing and covered in goosebumps. I knew something wasn’t right, but I shrugged it off. I had the same symptoms, achiness, and chills the weekend before and they eventually got better. Finally near the end of the day I asked our mother figure, Constance, to feel my head to see if I had a fever and she freaked out cause I was burning up. We told our supervisors and they told me to call if the fever continued. So when we got back to my town Constance helped me take my temperature and it was 102/103ish. I felt awful, and called the medical office. It was a Saturday after lunch and they were worried that none of the labs would be open, We found one that was open in the city next to us thankful (the thought of riding an hour on a bus to a larger city made me cry) My host mom and Constance went with me. The doctor was very nice. It was interesting though because he drew my blood right out in the waiting room which hurt pretty bad because my skin was already super sensitive from the fever. The medical office also wanted me to do a urine test. He walked out with a tiny plastic bag (pretty sure it’s their national product). I didn’t know what to think, because I struggle with peeing in a cup let alone a flimsy plastic baggy. To make matters even better, the clinic was part of his house so I had to use their family bathroom which was a site to behold in itself! On the bright side, there was no other lab work so we got my results back pretty quickly, he diagnosed me with classic dengue! My red and white blood cells were pretty low but still in the normal range. I was happy that they found something, but I didn’t feel horrible as I thought dengue would feel. I have just been tired and achy. My fever was gone the next day, I just have pain behind my eyes. I went to get more blood work yesterday and everything is fine. The doctors think it was just a virus or something. We will see, I just hope this isn’t a weekly thing that happens. And it just sucks because everyone else got to go on their trips and I sat around sleeping and sweating for 3 days I was going to go to Casona to watch the Packer game last night but it was pouring rain out. All in all, it’s just been another experience to add to the list…and no worries I feel fine now!