A lot to catch up on....

I just read my last blog and I have a lot to fill you in on. First and foremost I think our greatest accomplishment right now is our youth group!!! Our guys and 3 girls are fabulous. We just finished our garden yesterday and it looks absolutely great! I cant believe how fast I am catching on with all the environmental stuff. We were originally going to make it in the school where one already was made but not maintained with the other group. But it turned out that our superiors said we needed to completely different sites. So we ended up making ours on my family´s property. Our first day consisted of macheteing and clearing the land, marking off our 9 by 5 meter garden, making a few beds to plant, make and plant the seed bed for tomatoes and green peppers, and the roof to protect the seedlings from the heavy rain. Yesterday we had to collect 26 sacos and find stakes from fallen wood and make a fence. We finished planting and making the other rows. The guys work sooooo hard, and are very knowledgeable about much of it. We have fun, joke around, dance, sing, and get the work done...they honestly dont want to leave. They are even being responsible and following the watering schedule and checking up on the garden. Our meetings are going great as well, they have tons of great ideas for our environment project. Gus and I decided that just having the structure of something in their lives and something to do makes it fun...they all show up every meeting without a problem! Last weekend Gus and I even went to go watch their soccer games on Saturday to show our support. Although they are already starting to get pretty comfortable with us. They keep saying ¨Karen we are all gonna go party, do you dance, we need to go out¨and suprisingly enough the oldest and most mature of them all professed his love for me already....crazy nicas. I just blew it off and told him hes a liar and that I dont believe him! What else am I supposed to do...how embarrasing! I also have the inside scoop with the guys because my host brother is in the group and so he fills me in on whats going on. They have this language they made up where every vowel in a word they say with the vowel i. Well it was pretty easy to catch on to, so they always talk about me and stuff and I just answer back with the language and they are SUPRISED that I figured it out. They think someone taught me.

New topic, for class the other day we went to go visit an elderly woman in our neighborhood. Which is actually quite a suprise because I remember on the coast I rarely saw an elderly person, here they are everywhere (I found out my dad is 70!) Anyways we went to go visit Senora Luisa with our 5 teeth...she is the most adorable and sweetest person ever! She told us about how Fátima was started and what it used to be like. The houses were made of pure grass and bushes, they ate from clay plates and cups made from the outside of a fruit called jicaro. She was so cute and reminded me of granny because she would be talking about things and then say ¨oh wait a minute I have that laying around here somewhere¨so we were able to see their old plates and customs. It was a great talk and it really gave me a great appreciation for the people of Nicaragua.

Family news: It makes me soooo sad when I think about the fact that I am only here for 11 weeks. The other day it was my host moms birthday so I went and got some cake and soda and suprised her (we ended up celebrating my fathers 70th bday too that was on the 19th) and we invited some neighbors and other family members over. They were so happy, and it was fun just sitting and talking with them all and answering 101 questions about WI and the USA! My little niece that is 11 years old comes over all the time to play UNO, and yesterday she brought me a paper that she made for me that was decorated and on the top it said ¨Hello Uncle Karen God Bless You¨ And then underneath she wrote in Spanish about how much she cares about me and wishes I could stay forever! Not sure if I mentioned on here how my sister and I tricked my younger neice and nephew that I am famous! I have this photoshop picture of me and Big Daddy with our faces on the cover of Austin Powers. I told them ¨yea it was just too tiring to always have people following me taking pictures in the States so I came here to have some peace and quiet since people here dont reconize me¨ They introduce me to all their friends as ¨mi tía famosa¨ (My famous aunt!) The mutt puppy in the house, Princessa, is my best bud. She follows me everywhere. My family gets a laugh every night when I sit down and princessa comes and sits in front of me and looks up. When I pat my lap and say ¨subete¨ (climb up) she jumps up and then uses her pack paws to climb up my legs and lay on my lap and fall asleep. When I finally have to go to bed and put her down she cries! My family keeps joking about and saying how they are going to give her to me to take to my site (and of course I secretly hope it happens) Heres a funny story. I was walking in the morning with my sister and she told me she was making me breakfast that day and I asked what we were having and she said pancakes so I was automatically excited! I saw that they acutally had syrup so I was doubly excited...until she served them to me. Let me tell you they sure know how to deep fry pancakes! It was a mass of char! hahaha...I told her next time I would like to cook them because we do it a little differently in the states and she asked me how and I said without that much oil. She was like ¨Oh I know, you put them in the oven!¨ I explained to her they can cook just fine and not stick with just a bit of oil or butter, so they are excited to learn how to make American pancakes ( I might even bring some chocolate chips to add) Another breakfast story that proves how caring my family is: One morning my mom served me this pasta rice egg concoction and my stomach couldnt handle it or my tastebuds for that matter. She asked if it was bad, and I just told her I cant always eat hot things in the morning because I am not used to it. The very next day she had cornflakes and milk for me! And you all know how picky I am about milk, so I was a little iffy. I asked if it came from our cow before I put it in my cereal. But it is pasturized and comes in a bag and is actually pretty good, so was pleased.

The only problem I had in my house was a night problem. The first week I slept great every night because I was so tired! Well one day I took a two hour nap during the day and couldnt fall asleep at night. That is the night I realized that I have bats that come into my room every night and are flying around! The first night I heard the flapping noises but was too scared to turn on my flashlight to see what it was. I just kept telling myself it was a bird or butterfly and that I was safe under my mosquito net. The next morning I asked my sister what it could be and she was like oh they are just bats! I didnt sleep well for about 3 nights having to turn my flashlight on every 20 minutes to scare them out. My host mother told me to hang a red cloth in my room to make some sort of a ¨trap¨and that they wouldnt come...obviously it didnt work. Finally I remembered that I brought EAR PLUGS! (And my family thought I broght some crazy stuff, it will all serve its purpose at some time) So now I sleep like a rock every night again. The beliefs that there are here are quite amusing, like the red cloth, you will be sick if you shower after 6, Gus couldnt look at the newborn in his family after his baseball game because he had been out in the sun all day and if he had seen the baby it wouldnt have eaten or slept in days, after giving birth the moms dont drink water for 40 days becuase if they do their stomach will stay flabby (they drink cereal milk), and I am sure I will find out more of their beliefs during my two years here.

School: I met with my teacher last Sunday to co plan our lesson for Monday. She actually used to teach Special Ed before working at the school now. She is really nice, and I think we are going to get along great. We had a very successful class on Monday about ecosystems, and biotic and abiotic organisms, and food chains. The kids are great...think I may need to make some discipline adjustments, with more positive reinforcement and praise for those that are doing well and sitting nice. My teacher slaps the ruler on the desk and yells stop making noise! Which works as well for about a minute. We will see where we end up, but already off to a good start! Well I think that is all for now, we might be going out on an adventure tomorrow, we´ll see. Also want to give a big thank you to Stacy and Auntie Jeannie for their cards, everyone is jealous that Im getting mail! Made my day! Miss you all!

Manual Labor! haha

Today I washed my first load of laundry by hand! It took me about 2 hours and boy did I find out about some muscles I didn´t know I had. My forearms are killing me and from ringing out my clothes the part between my thumb and pointer finger is almost raw! I dont know how a mom washes clothes for a family of 5 here! I am lucky though because my mom and sister helped me get my socks super white even though they were brown to start with! Yesterday we had our first technical meeting about gardening and I found out about a lot of other muscles I didn´t know I had. We were grouped in teams of 4 and had to make 3 elevated gardens. First we had to rake and clear an area, then we had to hoe, and dig dirt into a sifter to sift the dirt and shovel it into the sifter. We then had to add ant hill dirt, and ash to cleanse the soil. We did this three times for the gardens. It took about 2 hours...and we are were all soaking with sweat when we finished. ( I was really happy and thankful that I brought gardening gloves) Then we had to find sticks for around the garden to hang string to serve as a support, and we planted the seeds. Then we had a class about composting and we made our own compost! I am learning so much and I can´t wait to start my own garden and compost. It´s funny because I go to bed before 9 every night and I sound asleep in a matter of minutes. I also wake up at 530 every morning before my alarm even goes off. My sister and I walk every morning and do some exercises so that´s nice.

Thursday night we had our first meeting with our youth group. We heard from other groups that only 4 or 5 kids showed up. I was interested to see how our group would turn out. We had about 25 "youth" show up. It´s funny becuase here they define youth as anyone under 30. Its ironic because some of the guys that came are older than me, yet I´m in charge! So it was a great turnout. We had a ice breaker where everyone had an animal and they had to close their eyes and make the sound of the animal and find the other pair. We were thinking 10-15 year olds were going to come but it ended up they they were all guys in high school or college, so it was quite amusing. We only had three girls show up, but hopefully more will start coming. I ended up getting paired with Gus for ours ( i think I mentioned how we have to make 2 groups since we are advanced) it will help because he speaks the best in our group and has a guys mind that will help with ideas to get the guys motivated to plant a garden and make an art project! ( I think we are going to end up playing more soccer than anything else!

Every night for an hour I play connect for and UNO with my sister, brother, and niece. They LOOOOOVE it. They play all night and in every spare moment, it´s been a great help to start converstations about their life and culture.

Nicaragua´s independence day is on Tuesday so yesterday they have the passing of the torch. I guess kids run with it through central america, and it just so happens that it gets passed on the main street outside of Fatima. The whole town was out on the main street with a band, fire works, and just craziness, and I was able to watch the torch be passed on to the next town. Perfect timing for us to be here!

A little more about Fatima and my life here. I´m actually surprisingly busy almost all the time, we´ve had some pretty long days here lately. There are no cars in Fatima. Instead there are boys that ride around on bikes. These bikes have the back tire and pedals and in the front there is a seat for people and two wheels and its covered to protect the riders from the rain and sun. They ride around all day picking up and dropping people off. I usually sit and read on my porch and listen to the roof crackling. It sounds like its raining but its really since the sun is so hot it makes the zinc roofs crackle. And in the background there is the sound of oil sizzling which is my mom cooking something, there is constantly a sizzling sound. My mom is so cute, she probably comes up to my shoulder and she will sit outside and sew on her sewing machine from the 1960s and make blouses for the kids. My dad I believe is 58 I think but looks much older, he sits and tries to teach me vocabulary like chair, and bucket (words I already know) but he thinks it will make me the best in our Spanish class! Too cute.

I just got back from Gus´s baseball game. I went with my sister and I guess I guy from the other team intentionally plowed him over when he was catching and he has a fat lip and bloody nose, and there was almost a fight. Then when I got there for his second game, the other team and their people all started fighting amongst themselves! So our team just left, it was a huge brawl...the guys here seem to drink all day saturday and sunday until they dont know up from down and just all start fighting, its part of the machismo. So we left, and after this I am off to church with my sister! Miss everyone!

Busy Busy Busy

I only have 30 minutes left of internet time so this blog might be a little disorganized but here are some thoughts and stories:

-I received my first card in the mail today! We had a technical meeting with all the communities in the environmental group and they brought the mail from Managua and I was one of the few lucky ones that is loved! So thank you again to Becky!

-Being in the advanced group we obviously have higher expectations. So it has just been really overwhelming trying to make all of our contacts with people for our projects. For example, we went early to the school at 730 to talk to the director of the school about helping teach classes, the director wasnt there so the teacher told us to come back in the afternoon. So we did, and the man there told us we need to talk directly with the teachers we are going to work with, so then we had to come back AGAIN after class to talk with our teachers. But the meeting went well and I am paired with a teacher named Mayra and she teaches 5th grade. (the other teach in groups of 2 or 4 but we have to do it by ourselves) Our other projects are to organize a youth group of 10-20 youth and have meetings twice a week that are 2 hours long. Again, being in the advanced group we have to make two youth groups and therefore only have 2 volunteers to each group instead of 4. With the youth groups we need to make a garden, have the meetings, make some sort of project or art piece from recycled materials, have Life Skills talks, and of course HAVE FUN! We also have to create a survey about an environmental problem in the community and interview at least 10 people in the commmunity (the others only have to interview 5) and tabulate our results and make a presentation. Our 4th project is to work with an organization and support them and help facilitate their meetings. Luckily a host mother is in charge of the health org so we are going to help go house to house and check on people and their medical needs...this is all while we have spanish class, family time, relaxation time, and time teaching! Very busy!

-5 of our volunteers are quarantines for suspicions of swine flu! so its a huge deal for the Peace Corps. The doctor just gave us an hour talk of all the precautions, what to look for, steps that will be taken if we are infected, etc....Is it becoming a big issue in the states?

-I helped my mom cook the other night to learn...it seems pretty easy, they just throw everythign in oil! bananas, cheese, eggs, rice, anything! They also give me heaping plates of food, I tell them to give me half, but they still give me tons. So finally last night I asked to serve myself and had a normal portion of food and they think its only a very little! the animals of the house have already learned that I am the one that is going to sneak them food so they just sit around me when I eat waiting patiently! Its so funny how they all interact...the cat loves the puppies and is playign with them and licking them. Then you throw the chicken in the mingle and they are all trying to eat from the same plate, the puppies growl, the cate sneaks in the chicken starts pecking at them...very amusing! The topic of using the bathroom numero 2 is a high frequency topic here, so I figure I might as well mention it. Some of the group members have the runs, I have the complete opposite! I seriously thought I had appendicitis because I had the worst stomach aches and on my right side...but I think I just need to use the bathroom, guess we´ll see!

I have so much more to say, I hate to leave on that note but I think my group is leaving! Ill have more updates after our independence day on monday and how observing class went!! Miss you all!

My Family

Everything is going great so far! I don´t think it´s hit me yet that I will be down here for 27 months! We had our last meeting at our retreat and received a HUGE bag full of materials and books to read. It felt like the first day of the semester, completely overwhelming! I can´t imagine what it would be like to have all of that plus need to learn the language. I was placed in the advanced group with three others. I am the youngest, there is an older woman, a 37 year old lady that looks my age, and a guy thats 27 that reminds me of Stephen. I´m happy with my group and my teacher. We only have to do 3 weeks of Spanish class (insted of 11) We have class for 4 hours in the morning at my house and then 2 hours of Spanish in the community working on technical skills. After the 3 weeks we are free to do what we want in the community, youth groups and in the school. After our last day we dropped everyone off at their communities. We were the last city so it was fun seeing everyone meet their families and seeing the different places where people lived. I was actually the last person to be dropped off (it was a 4 hour bus ride) we arrived at night and as we were going down my driveway I thought that we are in the jungle for sure! Turns out they have a farm! There are two puppies! One is a black and white pitbull that is only 2 months old called Snoopie (they pronounce it Esnoopie) and a small tan dog that is 4 months old. They have a big pig, a HUGE cow, a cat, and of course tons of chickens! My house is nice. It has three bedrooms, an indoor toiliet and shower (needs to be flushed with a bucket), and my kitchen is a mud floor with a fire to cook. My family consists of the mom Maria who cooks great and is really nice. She speaks really fast so it´s hard to understand her at times, the dad´s name is Abraham but he hasnt been around too much. The older brother, Jairo, lives next door with his wife Rosa and their two children Linda, 10, and Eurie 7. I then have a sister Ledys who is 25 and we´ve already become great friends. She helped me decorate my room with pictures and made a makeshift closet for me, which is a string tied from one wall to the other and I hang my clothes over it! Then I have a little brother, name Yader who is 16 just like Mark. He is a little shy but I watched the Spain soccer game with him so I`m sure he will open up more. As I said our house is tucked away in the ¨jungle¨ it´s acutally quite a paradise, there are mango, banana, and palm trees everywhere the prettiest flowers you have ever seen and exotic butterflies flying everywhere. I was placed in a small community called Fatima it´s close to the city San Marco if you look on a map it is close to Masaya and Jinotepe. There are only about 1,500 people in the community. I went walking with my sister yesterday and there really isn´t a center area of the city. Although they do have a health center and a soccer/baseball field. She took me to the "big" store to buy shampoo which was actually a small store that is found all over Puerto Cabezas. Ledys then took me to meet her aunt and uncle who have a boy with a disability. He is nine but is stuck in bed. He has cerebral palsy, cognitive delays, he can´t talk, and can barely lift his head up. It was hard to see him and his loving parents that haven´t had any other children for fear they will have difficultities too...just knowing that he is pretty much stuck in bed, with no services or proper equipment. He can´t chew food and is a strict liquid diet. Children like this use a G-tube in the states but that would be too dangerous here (if it´s even an option?) because it would get infected quickly. He is the cutest kid though and his birthday is coming up so I want to get him something special! I look forward to seeing him some more. There is also and organization here where people with disabilities can go to get help with their personal cares I think and Ledys aunt is in charge of it, so maybe I can start some kind of project to help them or something, we´ll see. I also found out that my sister Ledys had a 4 year old daughter that got really sick and from my understanding died 4 months ago. They took her to Managua but they couldn´t treat her. It is sad that there isn´t a high quality of healthcare here and a lot of deaths that could be prevented...anyways, after I am done here in the cyber cafe I am off to church with my host mom. They are envangelic faith, but she was happy I wanted to come. I had my first ride in the mototaxis here...I´ll take a picture! Well they are outside waiting so this is it for now!

Great, just Great!

All I can say is I'm absolutely loving it! We had a few minor set backs such as a delayed flight in Miami. It was delayed 2 hours because other incoming flights were delayed, then it was delayed due to lightning. For a second we thought we would never be able to leave! Luckily I brought Apples to Apples in my carryon so we had an entertaining game of that (I won!) I was also chosen as a personal greater for the world wide director of Peace Corps when he arrived at his gate in Miami. He was just sworn into office on August 24th and flew to the Dominican Republic (where he served) and then was supposed to meet up with us in Miami to fly with us to Nicaragua. Unfortunately, he switched flights due to all the delays. Finally, we were able to fly to Nica. I slept the whole way because I was deprived of sleep. When we arrived in Nica we had our personal greeters who are volunteers that have been here for a year already. They had signs and everything waiting for us. The one thing not waiting for us was our luggage! Since our flight was delayed they sent it on the wrong plane and it ended up in Haiti!! So all 38 of us had no luggage! And silly me did not pack anything logical on my carry on. I was so determined to make the weight limit that I shoved everything heavy in my carry on (as I mentioned in the previous entry) So that was quite a disappointment, yet humorous at the same time. Geting off the plane and stepping outside was like a breath of fresh air...it just smells like Nicaragua here! On our way to the retreat center everyone was just taking it all in, I was just thinking this is my home away from home. I forgot how much I love this country and am so grateful that I was placed here. We are staying at a retreat center and meeting all of our training staff. Everyone is SUPER nice, and the group is getting closer and everyone is just great. Today was a long day, although not nearly as long as yesterday. We were able to meet the world wide director, we had our language interviews so they can place us in the right level, medical interview, visa pictures, banking papers, rabies shots (which were surprisingly not bad at all), distributed malaria pills and mosquito nets, security and safety talks, project overviews, etc. We also had a chance to play some basketball and eat some great food. We actually just watched the world wide director on the news station here and he talked about us and what we are doing here so that was pretty exciting. Now we are all in a room about to watch Bizarre foods with Andrew Zimmerman-the Nicaraguan episode! Tomorrow we get to meet our host families in the afternoon, I am REALLY excited for that. The Peace Corps is extremely put together, on top of things, organized, best organization to volunteer out there...so far everything is going fabulous!

Airport/Hotel

Well I can already tell that this 27 months are going to be interesting and exciting to say the least. It already has been a pretty humorous start. I arrived to the airport nice and early and checked my luggage. Good thing I weighed my luggage about 100 times this past month because my one suitcase weighed 49.5 pounds and the man at the kiosk said “well you can’t get much better than that” (the weight limit is 50 pounds). My parents have been poking fun at me for a bunch of different things, for instance I packed an “eggbeater” (what they call it) which is actually a hand mixer. Yes it may be a bit frivolous, but if somehow I learn quickly how to make some fabulous cakes, banana breads, and pancakes it could definitely be my little “in” with the community. They also think it’s funny that for some reason I never take tags off anything. (they said the fake plant I bought 2 years ago still have the price tag on it) Well back to the airport, I am going through the long line at security and finally it’s my turn and I take my shoes off and guess what, I still have the tag on!! How embarrassing! Just wait, it gets better, I barely get my laptop out of my laptop case because its stuffed so full, I had to take my peace corps folder out first to get it out. Then I put my backpack through the x-ray machine and there were three ladies looking at the screen discussing something and I just thought oh boy what did I pack that isn’t allowed. Sure enough the lady brings out the backpack and asks who it belongs too. After she saw me she was like “whoa do you use a backstrap with this!” Then she said she needed to look through it and I tried to warn her that once she opens it it’s going to all fall out and she was like oh boy this is going to be fun as the granola bars came tumbling out everywhere. I asked what they saw that looked suspicious to see if I could explain it. She replied with “well there is just sooooo much stuff in here we can’t see ANYTHING” So she had to pretty much unpack it all and then realized it was just the most random items such as a poncho, battery charger, books, cds, dvds, I had boxes of jello in there for my family, granola bars, a bed sheet (they’re heavy so I put it in my carry on), hiking boots, uno cards, and a hair straightener to name a few. So I was stuck for 10 minutes attempting to repack everything! Hopefully that doesn’t happen when we leave from D.C….guess we will just have to wait and see.

Now I am in my hotel, I got in a taxi and checked in without a problem. Luckily my room was available at 11:00. Then I went off for a walk to find where my friend Becca works, I found it without a problem but when I walked in and asked for her they asked me which suite she worked in. She just gave me the address of the building so I had no idea, the man told me to look at the board and sure enough there were about 200 suites in the building. So it was a lost cause to try to have lunch with her, instead I stopped in the national geographic museum and saw the leopards and lions exhibit and then had subway. We can start with our registration in about 40 minutes so I think I'm going to iron my clothes for tomorrow and readjust my backpack so I don't have issues tomorrow!