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!