LOVIN' LIFE

Me and the ladies out for a drink and some live music



My Princesa taking a little siesta



There always seems to be dishes to wash





My contaminated water storage pool...I use the coffee strainer 3 times a day to get the mosquito larva out...neighbors think im crazy



Princesa and Nica...ebony an ivory




The big toad...when it was alive



This would be the poor shriveled up dry/dead toad, the puppies found.



So yes, I will admit I have a bit of a mouse problem in my kitchen. The thing is, they arent eating my food, they just live there. Well one day I saw one scurry behind my makeshift table which is really the cardboard box from my fridge so I shoved the box against the wall ad killed it. Who needs mouse traps when you can do it with your bare hands....I just wish they werent so cute...anyways this may very well be the mouse that he dogs brought in.


So I am definitely all settled in to my house. I have the walls decorated with pictures, and everything I own finally has it’s place. Still looking into making a shelf for my food in the kitchen but other than I am settled in. I finally finished making my compost in my backyard which is a story in itself. Here it goes, at first I wanted to dig my hole right behind the big cement “pool” I have to store water. That way I would have to look at the plastic in my backyard that covers the compost. Well I asked my sister if there were any tubes behind it and she told me there weren’t and that it would be a good place to put it. So a few weeks ago I took the shovel and the “barra” which is like a metal crowbar thing that we use to loosen the dirt and started hacking away at the ground. Before you knew it I heard a crack and saw this white thing chip off. The tube was still buried but part of it chipped off. No water came out so I figured it was just an old tube or something, and continued digging. I should have told someone either way but figured it was fine, and put a rock in the tube just incase it was still a tube that was used. Well in my town I only get running water every other day from 9am to 10am. This is why I have the pool thing, to save the water. Well the next day I was doing laundry and at 9 oclock on the dot water started spraying out everywhere from the ground! Turns out it IS a tube that works! It is the tube that leads up to the faucet that fills up the pool. And since the crack was on the ground, all the water shot out there instead of going up to the faucet! I screamed for my host dad to come…he tried to shove something in the tube to make it to stop (my rock I put in there obviously didn’t work) and neither did anything he tried because the pressure was too strong. So instead he turned the water off using a knob that controlled the water. What a nightmare! Luckily I didn’t damage the tube itself, just the “elbow” part that connects the vertical tube to the horizontal one so it was easy to fix. After that I decided I wanted to steer clear of that area so I started from scratch the next week in a new area and was digging and sweating for an hour, but in the end my neighbor and nephew came over to help me and we were able to finish it! Let’s see if it works now…I also transplanted my tomato plants and they seem to be growing nice and healthy, hopefully I will have some fresh tomatoes to pick in a few weeks. I think I am going to plant some eggplant next. Anyways, back to my little cement pool that I have. It is great that I have that to store water but it is also a problem. It is dirty on the bottom with leaves and whatever else blows into it. The water is full of particles and has mosquito larva in it! Mind you this is the water I use to bathe, wash my dishes,etc. I fill up jugs with clean water from the faucet every other day to use in the kitchen for cooking and teeth brushing at least. But every other day the pool fills up with water and it is never even close to being empty for me to scrub it out and bleach the whole tub. I have to figure something out soon before I have a huge mosquito problem and end up with dengue fever. Cleaning….that takes up quite a bit of my time here. I have to sweep about 2-3 times a day. It is just so dusty here and leaves are always flying in my house somehow. I have to dust every day as well. Dishes, my least favorite are a constant thing here. I can’t just fill up my sink and let them sit for a week. First of all because I don’t have that many dishes to use. Second of all, I don’t have a sink! Haha, so after cooking and eating I pile up all the dirty dishes and trek to my backyard to wash them (with my contaminated water!) and then bring them back.

Next topic, my secondary project. As I mentioned I found the school that offers classes to kids with special needs. Well I started 3 weeks ago and go every Monday morning. They decided to have me work 1 hour in the morning one on one with a girl that has hydrocephaly and can’t go to school and then 2 hours back at the school in the classroom. Children with hydrocephaly have excess amount of fluid between their brain and cranium. In my girl’s case, Milagro is her name which means miracle, they didn’t put the shunt in to drain the fluid soon enough so her head just kept getting bigger and bigger. She is five years old, her head is about 4 times normal size, but she is the SWEETEST most adorable girl ever. I’ve only worked with her three times but I am already seeing progress. Right now we are working on numbers. She loves counting, singing, throwing a ball from her bed, and moving her little arms and feet everywhere! So this poor girl is stuck in bed and laying down because there is no way her tiny little body can support her head. So I got to talking with some people at the organization that are physical therapist volunteers. One of the guys, Arno, is from Spain and has worked with her only a few times and was supposedly looking into finding a chair for her. Well I found him and asked him about it, and he hadn’t started yet. So Arno, a man from the states, and I went to the warehouse that has tons of used equipment that ironically is shipped from a lady in Madison that collects used wheelchairs, crutches, etc. I spotted one that looked her size and could recline. It was perfect. The man from the states, David, fixed it up and put on a new head plate that can support her head. David and I got to talking and I asked him where he was from and it turns out he is from Minnesota. I said well look at that we are neighbors I am from Wisconsin. He said he knew Wisconsin well, he has a daughter that goes to Madison and one that goes to Whitewater! I said “NO WAY, I went to Whitewater” He went on to tell me that his daughter goes there because she uses a wheelchair and it is very accessible. Again I said “NO WAY, I probably know her, what’s her name?” Turns out she is someone that I worked for! What a small world hey? Well he took me out for dinner to hear all about my project and the Peace Corps. Unfortunately he is going back to the states, but it was great to meet such a great guy giving his time here…and I know he is going to continue to make a difference from the states to support the organization. Well on Monday the wheelchair was ready to go so in the afternoon after working with Milagro in the morning and the class from 10-12 the Spanish volunteer and I hauled this wheelchair to her house which I don’t think I mentioned is up a 80 degree incline! I am winded walking up there on my own in the mornings…with a wheelchair and being sick I thought I would die! But we made it, and she loves the chair! At first she wasn’t sure about it, I think it was because she just woke up from a nap but then she said “Let’s play!” The grandma who is her main caretaker started laughing, happy that Milagro already recognizes me as the teacher that comes to play only after three hours of working with her! So all in all Monday was a very successful day.

Now, update about my Girl Scouts. On February 28th we had a meeting in Matagalpa. I was in charge of giving two presentations about leadership and the environment. I didn’t really know what to expect but I came prepared best I could. My group from Quebrada Honda are all girls ages 15-19. We got to Matagalpa and about thirty 8-12 year olds showed up! It was a pretty big group but of course it was still great. We started with our troop chants and some group songs that I am still learning. There are 5 women that are either my age or a little older that are in charge and are all great. For my leadership presentation I started by handing out post it notes to all the girls and they were to write the first thing that comes to their mind when they hear the word leadership. What it means, what a leader is, or what characteristics a leader has and then post it on the board. We talked about all the definitions about being a leader and how we can be leaders in our communities, etc. Then I had them split up in groups and they each got a scenario and they had to act out what a leader would do in the situation. One was about going to a party (for the older girls), one about making fun of someone with a disability, one about the teacher leaving the classroom and everyone starts fighting, one about people throwing garbage on the ground, etc. They loved it and their acting was great. Then my friend Kiotho did a presentation about self-esteem which was interactive and fun as well. Then I finished up with Environment. In pairs they had a short scenario about something bad in the environment and how they as Girl Scouts could change it. Then we brainstormed all the different things we can do in our communities to help the environment. Then on March 7th we had cultural day. Each Girl Scout troop had to make a different food to share and present a dance or song. We all met in Matagalpa and then a dad of one of the girls drove us in his truck about 30 minutes outside the city up to Jinotega where I thought we would be hot with the sun but it was the exact opposite, I froze all day. Everyone presented their foods and dances. When it was my turn I told them I made Rice Krispie Treats. They all said “WHAT?” I explained what treats means in Spanish and then told them that Rice Krispies is a type of cereal but since it is not here I used cornflakes. Well the girls couldn’t get enough of my corn flake treats and all wanted the recipe. As for my dance I originally wanted to do the cupid shuffle but I didn’t have it on CD. So I decided to do some air guitar to Bryan Adams “Summer of 69” But since we were on this farm in the middle of nowhere there wasn’t a CD player so I didn’t get to do it. After the food the owner of the farm (which by the way they say farm here but its really a hunk of land someone owns, it doesn’t have animals or anything, its more of a forest when they say farm)…anyways the owner is an old man that was super knowledgeable of all the flora and fauna of the tropical forest. We hiked around a bit and learned about all the plants and trees they have. The farm was beautiful, although I wasn’t able to enjoy it that much because I was sick with the flu and then on top of it I was frozen to the bone all day. Next time I know to come prepared as a Girl Scout should!

Last update: Icia came to visit me last Thursday and Friday. She has a puppy as well, so she brought her along. Her name is Nica. She is a girl as well so her and Princesa would get along for a while and then start fighting. Well after their first morning together they finally got used to each other and were bonkers all day. The first day Icia was doing some shopping in Matagalpa and I was at home with the dogs and I saw that Nica had something in her mouth, turns out it was a dead mouse! I made her drop it, and put it in the garbage. Well my “garbage” is a plastic bag on the floor so later that day when Icia was back she was like what is in Nicas mouth? I said “Well I hope its no the dead mouse from the garbage” Sure enough it was, falling apart in three pieces on my bedroom floor. She wanted to keep eating it, but Icia grabbed her collar screaming and trying to look away because she thought she was going to puke. I was trying to get rid of it, but couldn’t pick it up with a plastic bag because it was falling apart….disgusting! THEN…the next morning the crazy dogs woke up at 5 am wanting to play. I opened up my back door, they continued running in and out and in and out all morning until we finally got up at 7. I sat up in bed and noticed there was a big black thing on my floor but I couldn’t tell what it was through my mosquito net. With a closer look I realized it was a huge dried up dead toad that they must have dragged in! (by the way, I have a picture of the same huge toad alive that I saw a couple nights earlier) I blame it on her dog! The worst thing Princesa ever dragged in was a bag of chicken feathers that is still all over my backyard that she likes to chew on. So all in all our dogs are gross but definitely keep us laughing. Then Icia and I decided we needed to eat. Well her and I both are not cooks. I suggested that we make gallo pinto which is the main food people eat here which is basically rice and beans mixed together with a bit of fried onion. Doesn’t sound too difficult does it? Well I already had cooked beans, I asked her if she knew how to make rice, she said she hadn’t a clue, nor did I….well we tried it out together and surprisingly made a pretty decent gallo pinto. I told all my Nica friends that I made some gallo pinto and they just laugh at me. At least my diet consists of more than cereal, bananas, hard boiled eggs, and grilled cheese now!