As Christmas approaches and then arrives, I find myself wishing more and more that my family was here, or I were with them. Not my host family, not my training family, but MY Family. I miss you all a ton, and things can get lonely without the people you identify. Reading doesn´t take the edge off, you can only run for so many hours a day, eating makes you tired, drinking is expensive, and watching the Bears beat the Pack REALLY made me want to be curled up at home watching on the TV at home instead of my little TV in the pharmacy. I guess I just have to deal. As quickly as the holidays have come they will go. In the mean time at least the weather´s nice.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. I will wake up for an early run, come back and do some quick shopping before I attempt to cook Oatmeal and softboiled eggs for the twelve people in the house right now (a mere 4 more than usual). Soon I´ll be in the middle of a surfing vacation with warm waves crashing around me and fireworks above. I´ve got bigger fish to fry!

Love you all, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and an immensely Happy New Year

The slow creeping days of vacation I´ve been warned about are here. I miss my family and watching my host family get together with all the awkward moments, old stories and inside jokes doesn´t make things easier. Not being particularly emotional, I tried getting really drunk instead which resulted in nothing more than embarrassment and a very difficult run the next morning--training for a half marathon an hour south of me in the Ithsmus-Bound Cordillera Isabella.

I´ve spent plenty of time calling my counterparts and looking for new work with coffee cooperatives, the harvest of which has begun. I though I would see only an increase in work due to my connection with a large coffee exporter, but the opposite has been true. I woke up at four thirty in the morning to take a four hour bus ride for a ten o´clock meeting with a cooperative coordinator. How did that pan out? He wasn´t in the office that day. I called and or showed up at the coffee exporter office four days in a row. What happened? My counterpart was not in or did not call me back. I tried to take a two hour bike ride over a mountain with a faulty bike to find a friend to get my new phone´s user code. Where did I end up? Sleeping in his bed waiting for enough sun to ride back and talking to him on the phone because he wasn´t there.

Other than that, I´ve had a lot of time to run, yoga and read. I´ve been running through books faster than I ever have and listening to the same CDs over and over again. It reminds me of the Christmas breaks of the past sans Starwars on constant repeat. Oh and I´m wearing shorts right now.

This weekend, a friend of mine and Peace Corps set up a trip to Managua to eat Thanksgiving with the Deputy Ambassador of the US. After a long bus ride and a quick visit with my training host family and almost a month without leaving my site, I felt very Nicaraguan. As soon as we got to Turkey Day, it was a whole different story.

We spent the early part of the afternoon sipping on cocktails in the pool. We moved on to vino, turkey, garden-grown vegetables, cranberry sauce, apple and pumpkin pies, etc. All were done to perfection and covered with gravy. The afternoon was fantastic and quickly shifted to the tryptophan-enduced slump. We recovered for a second round then drifted off to sleep on big beds in air conditioned rooms with hot showers.

The next morning we continued to indulge until shortly after lunch when my buddy and I left. We were sated and beginning to burn from swimming in the hot midday sun. It was perfect. The Deputy Ambassador´s driver dropped us off to get cabs, but within twenty minutes I was back to the Nicaragua I know.

I´ve realized the reason so many Peace Corps Volunteers feel unfomfortable in there sites and when they return home, is an inability to adapt quickly. The transition from rich to poor, from powerful to powerless, and the reverse needs to be mastered. I will never be a Nicaraguan Campesino. I am a Chicagoan, born and bred. I am also a well adjusted employee of the United States living in Nicaragua. I function within the community perhaps not seemlessly, but functionally. I´m still the gringo, but I have no problem moving from world to world.

In the interest of the science of comfort I´ve picked up a new project. I spent this weekend at a hostal two hours north of Yalí. They are putting in flushing toilets, hot water showers and eventually internet access. None of this sounds like a big deal, but mixed with an integrated community and farm experience, it should be really cool. There are also petroglyphs about a two hour hike from Rancho Solentiname. I gave an impromptu class at a Polytechnical school, and we ended up dragging half the class along to see them. Horse back riding is a must, and some of the views were incredible. Needless to say, it was an amazing experience in an iconic setting.

Although I should leave analysis of the US elections to those residing in state, or those who at least cast their ballot, I can’t help myself. In my defense my parents did mail my ballot to me. Due to inherent inconsistencies of the Nicaraguan Post, however, it has yet to arrive. I am proud that our president elect is one of such international esteem as opposed to Voldemort W. Bush. I was also proud to have the concession speech in Chicago. I bragged to volunteer and Nicaraguan friends alike that ‘Those hundreds of thousands of people are watching Obama accept the presidency fifteen minutes from my house!’

Five days after John McCain delivered history’s most gracious concession speech, the Nicaraguan Municipal Elections broke out. There were no peaceful mass gatherings. There was no concession. Period. The FSLN Sandinista Party—reformed remnants of the Cuban-style-socialist-dictatorship still figureheaded by Daniel Ortega—stands accused of stealing the elections. The PLC Liberal Party is counting and recounting the election results in Managua, reminding me of the 2000 or 2004 US elections. Party leaders called their constituents to the streets en masse to protect or protest the election results, respectively.

Four people were murdered in Managua as the streets erupted in a violent spectacle, a caricature of Nicaraguan politics. Even here in Yalí, the warm, eerily quiet and visibly tense election day boiled over in a 2 am rock fight. Broken up by the army two hours later the exchange resulted in a mere two injuries. One young man was shot in the leg, and an even younger women lost her front eight teeth. Although a 48 hour prohibition was placed on the country, booze was well stocked and may be held accountable for significantly lowered accuracy.

No one will ever know if the elections were truly fraudulent, due to a lack of extra-party—not to mention international—observations. This factor does not help the tainted claim of ¨Free and Fair Elections.¨ In Managua the Friday before the elections, drinking cocktails with US Ambassador Callahan, hitting up the poshest nightclubs in Nicaragua, I barely considered the political trepidation. I love the seamless contradictions of being a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Although interested and bound to informing those interested of the goings on here in Nicaragua, the subject is already passé. I lost the first draft of this blog in a botched file transfer, but just couldn’t let myself get by without explaining what happened in the Nicaraguan elections. I’ve gotten over them and now I’m really excited about my future projects. I’ve started a series of accounting presentations with my coffee farmers and I will be working with the Mayor’s office to promote tourism to local petroglyphs and waterfalls. Today I’m having a deservedly comfortable evening creating my first business exam in Spanish for my high-schoolers. My site-mate and I even made smores and tea to celebrate pure relaxation. She knits as I absently type.

Although being a PCV is a string of stereotypes, every one has their own experience. Today nicely represented my general modus operandi. I spent just enough time shaving before an icy shower to remember how much nicer hot showers are on such cold mornings. My hot breakfast and coffee waiting for me more than made up for the previous temperature offense. I co-taugh my three monday classes without incident, the first being at 7:15am.

My coffee counterpart called me on my return at 11 am and informed me I was needed. I led our new technician on an unexpected adventure to the misty mountain of El Volcán, where I introduced him to one of my favorite farmers in our group. His wife happily fed my avacados, cuajada, and tortillas, and of course coffee. Post return I relaxed and finished a Michael Pollen book on American eating habits. I rearranged my clothes drying inside and practiced yoga for an hour or so as the rain picked up. I briefly picked up another book before eating my gallo-pinto, tortilla, cuajada, and coffee dinner. Of course, I did none of the cooking or cleaning, but rather ran accross the street to the cyber where I waited 14 minutes to upload this very page due to the ever heavy rains.

As it turns out, members of the superfamily Hymenoptera vespoidea can pack a punch for their size. This superfamily includes all wasps, between which I can´t decide the culprit. About two and a half hours into a four hour hike to a nearby lagoon, I trapsed into the wrong side of the tracks. A pure black wasp stung the upper inside of my right calf, and it swelled almost instantaneously. I slept through it last night, but today walking to and from the institute was a serious problem as I can´t quite command my right calf muscle to flex. By the end of my classes, my calf was red, hot, and swollen to the point that my sock was cutting circulation off. I talked to my doctor/host sister and called the PC medical office. Making a compromise of the two advices, I´m now on an anithistamine, pain-killer, antibotic slurry. Yumm...

Don´t worry, the rest of the hike was beautiful. I didn´t let a swollen calf get in my way of enjoying the all powerful Mother Nature.

The evangelical priest that started the prayer service didn´t know the family name, much less that of the little girl. At seven years old she at least deserved someone remembering her name. Not the priest, the following eulogizer, nor I remembered her name. After an hour and a half of claiming that this already forgotten girl was never really of our world anyway, but rather--like all of us--a possession of god, the torch was passed.

The diminuitive white box, which had oddly been the focus of the sermon, was angled and prepared to be filled. Cal and salts were tucked between liners, although their combined aroma sacked the room. The angelic body was picked up by a slight woman and put into the freshly painted box. The woman then picked up the blood soaked pillow as though uncertain what to do with it. It was soon removed with the bed she had been imbedded in pre-box.

My four friends and I sat awkwardly in near-silence downing coffee and rosquillas. As we left, we stopped in front of the box. Nothing but a piece of clear plastic seperated the living world from her. I was expecting a manicured face, like the open caskets at home. Instead, her nose and mouth were stuffed with cotton gauze to keep the fluids in place. Her forehead still bore the three marks that most undoubtedly left her unconcious long enough to drown in the rocky rapids near town. Rain spit at us on our way home nailing home a reminder.

* * * *

After my pleasantly soaking Thursday morning run, I ran into a couple of friends on their way to work. It was the birthday of two twins, and I balked a sweaty hug to the one present. We talked about the potential of going out that night to celebrate, despite the terrential downpour. Hours later, my counterpart called to tell me that we would not be leaving town nor would the coffee producers be coming in for our usual work. There had been a man and a young girl washed down stream from the nearby fiord, truck and all. I walked to my friends store, whose older sisters were having the birthday. They all told me they would be going to the vela, (a late night observance of the recently dead including unending eulogies, rosquillas and coffee) instead of celebrating the birthday duet.

It was their second cousin who had been washed downstream. Her uncle had been driving at around the same time I was running. The girl had been found on that very friends´--her second cousins´--family farm. The Uncles´ jeans were found with C$11,100 from their recent frijoles crop. Not knowing that the Uncle was to be found at the end of the weekend, bloated, and with his eyes eaten out, we all went to the depressingly unattached service. They tried to cross a swollen river I´ve crossed time and time before, and in worse-off trucks. The rain had been beautiful and ceaseless for weeks. Tragedy was now tacked on as Mother Nature´s reminder that ravishing beauty can be deceptive.

Thinking ¨finding oneself¨ applied only to wanderlust beatnicks, I ignored its implications. However one phrases it, one of the biggest parts of growing up--exacerbated by living abroad--is finding a way to anchor oneself. Without family or friends, there is no discernable point of reference. One is left with a matrix of previous perceptions and pretentions on which to build, but there is certainly no architect but myself.

After my recent vacation to the fabulous colonial house my friend is sitting in Granada, there were things that I had missed. I put off one meeting and completely blew off another. With the excuse of the fiestas patronales further complicating lengthy bus travel, I was easily let off the hook. After a week of no classes, and having forgotten to mention to anyone that I was judging a competition an hour South of me instead of giving class the following day, I had come back to a mess of my own making.

This tension was compiled by senseless jealousy that all of the guys in my group had found a girlfriend or at least a playmate. By yesterday morning I was sour and an hour outside of town at a coffee farm. The whole day became consumed by a beautiful rainstorm. With no chance of escape or making it to our second appointment, my counterpart, the producer and I buckled down to work. We got all the paperwork immaginable out of the way by the afternoon.

The rain begrudingly halted as though it had run out of water but not the energy with which to dispell it. Conversation had turned to native plants. Our host took us out to his modest plantation while fog and clouds silently unzipped themselves from one another. I stood on the flatbed of the truck smiling as we passed under trees spewing Spanish Moss-like barba del viejo. I smiled so hard I found myself laughing at how miraculous the spectacle was: thousands of glossy coffee plants dwarfed by monstrous trees bedragled by barba del viejo. This is my Nicaragua.

Being unanchored as I am and thus subject to every emotional squall, I find it hard to remain politically neutral. Peace Corps policy is officially neutral, and we volunteers are obliged to follow suite. The Danielista* party headquarters are directly across the street from my humble abode. Sandanista songs about ¨Killing the Yanqui¨ and ¨Kill the Gringos¨ play day and night. Those don´t bother me because they are often coupled with Michael Jackson or Stairway to Heaven. What does bother me is that my host mother lost her job as a high school teacher last year because of being Liberal. My host sister and counterpart will be losing the same job this November because she will vote Liberal.

*US backed Somoza dictatorship overtaken by socialist Sandanista party in1979. By mid 1980´s, the Sandanista party--headed by Daniel Ortega indefinately--had increased public welfare and infrastructure, though was no less oppressive than Somoza. The Contra army began in the town two hours North of Yalí, La Rica. With US support and unneccesary ruthlessness, it overtook the Sandanistas. Free and fair elections have been held since 1991. Because of a party split in the last elections, Daniel Ortega won the presidential seat for the old Sandinista party, FSLN (mockingly called the Danielista Party). The FSLN has since disabled the participation of various political parties. They have also rigged the upcoming municipal elections through dislocated polling and obvious gifts to party members. Weekly, the FSLN blatently delivers livestock or construction material to party members.

On a more regional note, Latin America is becoming an even more interesting place to live than usual. Bolivia and Venezuela have recently asked their respective United States embassadors to leave. The American government stands accused of encouraging the Bolivian seperatist movement. Venezuela has followed suit to show solidarity. Nicaragua, being economically reliant on Cesar Chavez, often takes political hints from Venezuela.

Venezuela does not have Peace Corps Volunteers, and Bolivia is not accepting new ones after a recent political misunderstanding. So we will see how the remaining volunteers are dealt with as a lithmus test for any potential embassadorial changes. Honduras is also pending the expulsion of their US embassador, which puts even more regional pressure on Nicaragua to tow the line.

With no current gubernatorial changes in motion here, life will continue as normal. Even in the worst case scenario--if the US embassador to Nicaragua were to be removed--we volunteers won't necessarily leave. It will just leave us a little less political cushion.

In the meanwhile, I will continue to eat my gallo-pinto and cuajada. As a matter of fact I am currently on a little vacation in Granada, a tourist destination where a volunteer in my group lives. The former Captaincy-General of Guatemala, which included Nicaragua at the time, gained independence from Spain on September 14th. Hence, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica celebrate Independence Day at the same time. We are about to grill and have a guys night out to celebrate like we celebrate our independence: cultural exchange?

A week of scorching days can so easily be sedated and forgotten by one good afternoon of rain. The rising and re-rising dust is replaced by low lying clouds. Everyone sits on their porch, dances to otherwise loud music rendered inoffensive by the rain, and enjoy whatever solitude is gained by incliment weather. Good rainstorms are the Nicaraguan equivelant to a foot and a half of snow: too much to voluntarily leave the house, but not legally enough to close school. Nearly falling victim to the utility of a good excuse I forgot about tomorrow´s class until after dinner.

Before the rain I had a great melding of both my worlds. My institute is funded by the coffee exporter I work for. Today the exporter invited all of their local growers, recognized students, and school officials for a thank you and a presentation. I got a little thank you, the type given to a relative for warm wool socks on christmas. Although I think I´ll be fine without wool socks for the duration of my service, my fleece pants and long sleeve shirt feel just right. Even goldilocks would be jealous.

I noticed it first as I would ride between farms. The long lines of foliage drying in the countryside. Beans hung up on barbed wire--which is used for everything including clothes lines. In town trucks filled with bean sacks rumble through. The once quiet cooperatives and otherwise vacant storefronts are bustling with sack after sack of beans. Each bag is emptied out, dried, sifted, and bagged for sale. The cosecha primaria, or first harvest is in full swing. This is the biggest harvest of the year and I´ve got court-side tickets.

Today I went out to the family farm with my host brother. It is a hundred or so meters above Yalí, and only three kilometers down the road. We hiked along a beautiful creek upstream from Yalí and up to the plantaciones. As we approached I heard repeated dull thuds. The workers pull the lightly dried bean pods onto a tarp and beat them mercellously until every bean has been freed from its husk. They discard the empty husks into a second pile. They stand on the beans, a slowly but surely growing hill of dark red kidney beans. I hiked around the farm for a few hours, and when I returned, the beans were bagged. My host brother was putting away all his paperwork and protecting his meticullous calculations. The pile of dried, beaten, sorry husks are set to an immediately roaring blaze.

We drove back to town just as it began to drizzle. I realized that almost every field with the tell tale burned look of beans in cosecha had an equally large blaze going. The air was filled with smoke. There were smoke lines coming from every farm and hillside in view. It became apparent that this was becoming an all encompassing experience: the town is alive, the hills become burned, and all of this is viewed between whispes of smoke and dilapidated trucks.

Its a whole lot of work to get one plate of beans. Fortunately the farmers minimum wage--usually supporting an entire family--of $2.50 a day keeps the prices down.

As I walk up to the steps of my house, my host sister calls out cochino... vago, cochino! amongst smirking laughs. I must look strange covered in mud, drenched to the bone producing ear after ear of pinolo--a native corn which Nicaraguans proudly derive their auto-appellative, pinolero--highlighted by juicy purple kernals. My horse hair covered jeans were a task to remove being plastered to my thighs for the last several hours.

I left this morning with an adventure in mind, although not really sure what the adventure would entail. My guides were a couple of girls that work in the nearby Mini-Super, my favorite oximoronic store on the main--and only for that matter--square. We hiked off the roads I had walked up, and found our way through a valley. We passed by two familial houses, accumulating a cousin and a horse at the latter. We hiked up to a mountain ridge and hid under the generous boughs of trees during the first downpour.

We could already see our destination: a small laguna which had recently been cleaned out of detritous material by a local cooperative. The cousin was a very well informed and politically aware high school dropout. His questions were pointed. His interest in the US political and immigration system was inspiring even as I explained the difficulties of nationalization.

We walked on to the Laguna, behind which was a gorgeous field. Jack Nicklaus could not have designed a better golf course. Horses ran wild and bonsai-esque trees grew as though divinely planted. As one of the girls and the cousin explained that this field and all the fields around it had been their childhood playlot, and the laguna their kiddie-pool, I became lustingly envious. It began to absolutely poor as we talked about politics, and educational and professional obstacles typical to Nicaragua. The mountains seemed to open up a new, even more impressive view with every turn.

On our return, I deftly took the horse down the mountain. They all said I needed the practice with a younger, more bravo horse. Of course a mountainous hike with ocassional precipices is the only time to learn. We dropped the horse off at the second house and continued on foot. The dense rain lightened up just as we realized that the little streams we had hopped over hours before had become fjording nightmares. Once my shoes knew no return, the cousin took me to pick corn from his grandfathers plot. He taught me how to pick sweet corn, pinolero, and cubano. We shoved as much as we could into our bags and went to catch up with the girls. As we got into town it began to rain again, as though one encore was not enough. I said my good-byes and thank yous as the rain let up, and walked up to my porch. My host sister called me a little piggy, a little piggy who just bums around town, never content to stay in one place. Vago, cochino!

My counterpart and I rolled out of a coffee farm this Thursday just as the clouds started to settle in. We didn´t talk the whole way back. Two bunches of ripe coffee beans at the end of the farm flaunted their crimson jackets. Each hung low, proud, and bountiful, like a miniature Buddha. We rose out of the valley as the clouds slid down to meet us heavy and wet. Surrounded by green, two auburn trees blushed to reveal their deciduous tell. I could see the main road up ahead as a striking black bird with two robust red stripes landed and watched our departure.

I went to my first Yalí funeral. I ended up walking the half mile between the church and the cemetary with the sister of the deceased. She weeped, and I did my best to give her water when necessary. Her boyfriend and best friend hadn´t been able to come, so she was happy that I was there, even though I´ve only known her a month. She ran off, and one of her other friends and I found her crying against the hot, black hood of a flat-bed truck. As she cried onto both of our already sweaty shoulders I felt like I was actually supposed to be there. Today at the final Mass for her brother, that sentiment was reinforced. We sat with the Father and the closest family eating lunch afterwards.

In between those events I went diving off of a ledge called ¨El Salto¨ with my first visitor, a volunteer from the Japanese version of the Peace Corps, JICA. The dive was about four meters and at first made me nervous. I first encountered it the day before while hiking to a farm to learn how to horse back ride. Im getting used to it.

Although jealous of many of the summer photos I have seen of waterside fun, concerts at dusk, etc., my biggest regret is that the internet here is not strong enough for me to upload any more pictures to show you. At least I have internet access, though. My air conditioned class room right now is a comfortable place to type. There are pine trees around the Institute, and my new buddies are painting the walls outside right now. I call them my buddies because the local futbol team has taken me under their wing as a kind of social interest. I don´t think they know what I am yet. They may just be following the adage ¨Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.¨ Who knows, though.

Whatever it is, they have helped me feel slightly more normal in an abnormal environment. I´ve played soccer with them a few times and we throw the football around every couple of days. We had beers and listened to hip hop and reggaeton the other night on the corner in front of my house. They tend to be some of the more influential people in town, both socially and financially--one of the guys is a lawyer who lived in Arizona and Virginia for a few years--which might come in handy down the road. Yali having had previous peace corps presence has made my references a lot more stable.

After the most dilerious fever I´ve ever had burned off my stomach bug, Yali has been action packed. I´ve gotten my running and yoga routines down, supplemented by whatever activities the lads are up to. This is my second week of co-teaching classes, and one of my professors is already showing her own flare and interest. My youth group looks like its going to be focused on the environment and eco-thourism, and we´re going on a hike to view the town on Sunday. My training is done and my coffee counterpart and I will be hitting the dusty trail to help certify our micro-producers next week. I still seem to have time to read, play the guitar, play cards with the boys I live with, and help some of the kids from the Institute sing in English. That acutally reminds me I have a session with them in four minutes.

I hopped on the six am trip to the departmental head to arrive by about eight thirty this morning. Above the windshield one old sign read a list of ten commandments of behaviour in english--including ¨Don´t smoke¨ just to highlight the fact that these buses have been around since before indoor, or minor´s smoking was banned--while right next to it read Dios Salve. The dilapidated fleat of old school-buses the country relies on for transportation is in some ways charming, despite the obvious dangers of overcrowding coupled by a host of functional and aesthetic maladies. Between that and the rag tag old pick up that my counterpart and I will be driving around in three days a week, I´ve got my transporation needs set out.

I spent this week visiting coffee farms. They look no different from the normal woodland until you realize that every leaf under the sparse canopy has uniformly glossy, rippled leaves already budding the granos de café. Although it will certainly fade, I´m enamored with this beautiful process. I´m working with super-small time coffee farmers to certify them for Starbucks, which is very similar to FairTrade, but without the organic component. This week has been a bit of an eye opener as to what Nicaragua is like away from the touristy center where we trained.

The week beforehand was fun, and American, and airconditioned, and summery. Our swearing in ceremony was bookended by charlas to whom few paid attention and a few days in a hotel together. We went to expensive clubs and restaurants, strolled the malls of downtown Managua, and talked endlessly in English about who we were before arriving inNicaragua and to whom we espoused to be during and after our services. They were fruitless conversations that made us all feel a little bit better about letting go for a long time.

As a fellow Volunteer mentioned yesterday, Jinotega is the understated beauty of Nicaragua. Clouds being burned away from the valley by the early morning sun is striking, even for those of us who have a hard time remembering the extensive facets and potentials of beauty. That doesn´t mean that these two years won´t be a challenge. There will be no one asking me how I feel. There won´t be anyone telling me ¨It´s OK,¨ or reminding me that despite the daily ego hits, there are things I´m good at. I´ll miss those little crutches, but I´m as ready as I´ll ever be.

P.S. All the hippies claiming that Starbucks, the WTO, and any large corporations with their manufacturing or farming in developing countries are evil empires: try living in a developing country. I fully support those developments because they are feeding hard working families. Their are certain steps that every economy must go through to reach wealth. What are you doing to help? Don´t protest these processes and delay the betterment of workers rights. Instead protest trade barriers to get more money to the world´s poorest employees. Remember the economy is not an equal sum game.

After one of our Peace Corps brethren was told he could not be sworn in as a volunteer next week, a group of us went to a beautiful vista overlooking the Laguna de Apoyo and Granada. The Mirador and the view we´ve come to know clouded over as we watched a storm approach. The black stillness of Lake Nicaragua was replaced by an undulating dark grey. The twinkling lights of Granada went next as the clouds consumed whatever they passed. We sat in the drizzle watching the lagoon disappear before ducking under someone´s house or restaurant, we couldn´t tell. I couldn´t help but connect with this pathetic fallacy. I am even leaving the small list of things I have become comfortable with here for the mountains of the north woods.

Currently reading ¨Into the Wild¨ makes me feel comparatively sane. I am still nervous.

After getting back last night I decided to call the old Deuce, my former employer. I felt like I was back there, and maybe that´s what I wanted. When I woke up, slightly hungover, I realized familiarity is a crutch. Its alright to miss it sometimes.

Well this is my town. It is as charming as it is secluded, although for the first couple of weeks there´s a British gal in my host family´s home. I guess she got there first, so its more her family than anyone elses. She´s really cool, though and so is my site-mate. We ended up back at our training sites after almost a week of being in-site and i felt like there was ready to move on. We still have to complete our youth group project which theoretically will be going to a local orphanage and at least spending some time with the kids. But I have not been compelled to work on it. As a matter of fact all I can think about is what I´m going to be doing in my site for the next two years. I know I shouldn´t rush this process but I can´t help myself... I´m excited!

I have another week and a half here and then we have our swearing in and I´m released into the wild. My site is spectacularly beautiful as you can all see from my video below. I met with a youth group I´ll be working with and afterwards they walked me up to a mountain just outside of town (with my extreme suggetion). They were really cool and really nice. My counterparts all seem very similar in this light, and because I am the first business volunteer in the site they are also really excited.

I will be teaching classes in the institute in town as well as to the youth group. I will also be teaching a refined and distilled form of the business class to a group of fifteen local coffee producers. My counterpart and I will be working closely to make sure they follow our business development models and become certified for broader exportation. As excited as I am, it can be upwards of an 8 hour commute from Managua, and 3 hours from the nearest supermarket. Hope you all enjoy this little nugget of Jinotega beauty.

After seven weeks of training, I´m finally starting to feel comfortable in my town. My family and I understand each other, I know the prices and routes the buses run. I know the local paper vendors, bartenders, and other people its good to know in town. That cooshy life will be over July 18, and after a week of swearing in and preparing, training will be over and I will start my work in my permanant site: San Sebastián de Yalí, Jinotega, Nicaragua, which boasts a bustling population of 6,000. As soon as I am comfortable at one site, I´m off to the next one, my real one!

Yalí is in one of the poorest and most remote regions our hemisphere has to offer. It is way up in the mountains for Nica standards, although the summits are just a little higher than the base level for Denver. The town is one hour from the nearest paved road and nearest person from my sector, three hours from the Department Head (Jinotega), and six and a half hours from the capital city (Managua).

Now, before you make judgements, there are seventeen other volunteers in the department from other sectors, including a health volunteer in Yalí itself. The countryside is supposed to be spectacularly beautiful and pristine, and my packet reads:
¨If you like to hike, this is your site!¨ I will be teaching high school students La Empresa Creativa, a business class designed by the Peace Corps and the Ministry of Education. I will also be teaching the LEC to 80 local coffee producers and helping them with their practices. There is also a fantastic opportunity to work with the local government on a project promoting ecotourism. It is not going to be easy without paved roads!

Anyway, after figuring everything out, this is exactly the type of site I wanted. I want a tight knit community where I will feel that I am making a difference, and am given the space for some introspection and personal development. That sounds a little lame and even a little selfish, but then again, isn´t everyone?

Sometimes its the really little, lame-ass things that make a big difference. Today, my site-mate and I went to a local orphange, which is really not local because its forty-five minutes in a mototaxi down a dirt road. We talked to the directora about having our youth group in town collect books for them only to find out that they lacked even basic necessities: fruits, vegetables and bread. We took a tour around the clean, though modest faciltities. Every door we opened held children calling every woman in the room mami, clinging to our legs, reaching to be picked up, held, talked to, and loved. I found myself with a child on my hip in every room. A two-year old named Manuel reached for my face. He grabbed my nose, pulled my lips and tugged on the flesh of my gruff, unshaven chin, over and over again. I never would have stopped him. I didn´t want to. I explained to him that it was my beard, and that one day he would have one too.

I still don´t love kids, but I found it hard to leave every room. The youngest, like Manuel, cried after spending only minutes together. I realized that these kids need a lot of loving, maybe more than this life can offer them. On the ride back, I didn´t know what else to do but joke about it. All I could say to my site-mate was ¨I can´t believe that kid tried to stick his fingers in my mouth!¨

Saturday night at eleven o´clock I hear running and general chaos between my little apartment and the main house. Thinking it a family problem that has nothing to do with me, I roll over. Not a minute later, my host mother is pleading my name outside of my door, obviously in tears. In nothing but my boxers I run out to see a huge blaze not fifty yards from my doorstep. My host mother is telling me her brother-in-law´s house is on fire, and I hug her out of instinct.

I run back in to grab clothes and glasses, but by the time I run into my host father he has already given up running buckets of water across the street. The girls and my host mother are out front repeatedly screaching, ¨They never come! The firemen never come!¨ It was something I would hear over and over for the next forty minutes. By that time, two houses, a construction company the family also owned, and the boarding house of a japanese volunteer away for the weekend are in a forty-foot blaze. The exploding cans and equipment in the store continuously explodes making the scene reminiscent of war. The firemen have to come from the next department and return to it everytime they need more water. There is no hyrant in my town. The fire continues until about one-thirty in the morning. In the mean-time one man is carried onto our porch with a burned leg. He yells for water, which I get for him from our kitchen, although by the time I get back outside the story has unfolded. My host family tells me he dropped boiling paint on himself while trying to steal it from the burning store. He is hauled away by paramedics as I narrowly avoid what would have been my second appearance on national television. ¨Only in Nicaragua¨ say the girls, ¨Only in Nicaragua would someone do such a thing.¨ I almost regailed them of the looting in the States during the Rodney King Riots or Hurricane Katrina. In a country where agony and suffering are the only memorable history, I thought it better to bite my tongue.

Last week I went on what we call our Volunteer Visit, where we aspirantes go to visit active volunteers for a couple days. I ended up with a really cool guy and I hope my site is as full of activity as his. He has a couple really cool projects with a pineapple coop and with nature reserve guides. Speaking of which, this week we get our site booklet which shows us our posibilities. We get to look at the different sites and even get to list our preferences, although the descision is ultimately made by our APCD (Assistant Peace Corps Director). There are many an acroname I have omitted from previous blogs, so consider yourself lucky.

The day I got back from my volunteer visit, I really felt at home here in Masatepe. My home here and my host family felt really comfortable. I think I may have some trouble moving on. I´m happy where I am, in the close proximity of other aspirantes and in a great town/family/institute. I even had my father´s day conversation while dangling my toes in the lagoon of an inactive volcano, which made me appreciate my setting even more. Teaching is getting easier, although our youthgroup has taken a turn for the worse. The kids seem uninterested. I do feel like I´m getting a little bit better with them, although not sure if it´s too late.

Just photos

Well I think I´ve started to talk about what a complete 180 this has been for me, but it´s starting to sink in fully. I´m enjoying myself here, but there are just things I miss. You have to watch your back at all times here, and one just can´t take a walk at night here if stressed out. There are just certain pleasures of American adulthood that I have had to shelf. I miss the night life, which was fun here during our Fiestas Patronales, but has since disappeared. I miss the ability to have a hot or cold shower then cuddle up in whatever temperature setting I want! I miss being an adult: doing my own laundry, cooking my own dinner, leaving whenever I want, talking to whoever I want, doing whateverI want, and going wherever I want. Most of the things I miss are small things. Although I love my host family, I miss all of you who are reading this, you who make me comfortable and at home: MY friends and MY family. Thank you for always being there in the past if I didn´t say that before I left, and I hope some of you will still be there for me when I get back. Sorry to sound possessive, but that´s how I feel today.

Here I have had fun and learned a lot of things, but cultural differences can be frustrating, just as much so as a Nica would have in the states. The fact that no one talks to there children about condoms and then get pissed of at their kids when they get pregnant. The occassional lack of individuality and the desperate need for family. At the same time, I imagine they think of us as monsters for kicking out our kids at the ripe old age of eighteen! Well the first quarter of the 11 week training is enjoying the novelty, and the second quarter is feeling the initial culture shock. That´s where I am. The rest of training is usually getting settled in. After training there is apparently further culture shock and further settling in. I´ll keep you all informed don´t worry... Oh and I promise at some point there will be photos, but i haev simply not had time yet, sorry!

For those select few interested in world wide weather patterns, you have probably noticed the tropical storm ¨Alma¨ passing over Nicaragua right now. For those of you who are normal, that´s what´s up. School got cancelled almost nation-wide and there has already been one man killed. Despite these weather patterns and a serious lack of sleep last night due to an incesantly leaky roof, I got to meet the Embassador from the US in Managua at the Embassy while seeing a little presentation from them. On top of that, when I got back home I started to get restless. I couldn´t help myself and I went on what I think is about a six mile run to the nearest town there are more aspirantes in. My family thought I was crazy, as did my fellow aspirantes... I love to play in the rain!

I almost forgot... I wanted to briefly explain my living situation. I got the pimped out pad, by the way, and many of my fellow aspiranted have expressed some jealousy. My family has two parents and four children my age under the same roof. All six are university educated, on in the proces of it... astonishing by any yardstick. There are three bedrooms, a front room, a dining room, with full cable tv, and a kitchen. I have a seperate apartment behind the house with enough room for shelves, my bed, a dining room table and chairs, as well as my own bathroom with (cold) running water and a flush toilet. Now water doesn´t work all the time, and there are two leaks in my roof, but I really like my place. The concrete walls and tin roof are exaclty as I expected, but you barely notice them.

The tin roof, though is noticeable when it rains really heavily or when an iguana fall on the roof and scurries off. If I didn´t have to leave for my fukll service, I don´t think I would change anything about my current situation.

So I taught my second class today, which was fun. We did an activity called My Life in Ten Years. I´m going to f¡nish reading them all tonight and I can´t wait for it! Anyway, I thought I´d throw down another episode cuz I had a bad ass weekend. So Saturday was started off with 7:45 rendezvous for a nine o´clock class in the capital (standard approach considering that our classes have started at eight o´clock every day since we´ve arrived). My group is apparently not taking anymore classes because we are in the ¨Advanced Section.¨ I don´t buy it for second and almost wish we could take more classes. Although I suppose this is one of those first things the peace corps does to force you to learn on your own.

After class on Saturday I went home, had my gallopinto (Local mixture of rice and beans famous throughout Nicaragua) and went to the local market to buy a new shirt. It ended up being an interesting adventure weasling our way through mange-infested dogs. I bargained my way into a pretty cheap, decent shirt, though... mission accomplished. I went back fully intending on going to one of our towns biggest parties of the year, but promptly passed out. The next morning I woke up at seven thirty to go on a nine thirty hike down a trail in a near-by town with some fellow aspirantes. We hiked down to la Lagoona de Apoyo, which was gorgeous. Some fourteen of us spent the midday in the sweltering sun, enjoying the water in profoundly deep volcanic abyss. We took the bus back to Masatepe and had a traditional dish called bao. Bao is a rich mixture of platanos maduros and verdes, carne, and yuca steamed in a banana leaf. It´s served over rice with a vinegar rich salad... ricisimo!

After that I met up with a bunch of out of town aspirantes to watch the bull-fight/rodeo barrera. The entire afternoon was framed by a downpoor of tropical proportions (funny, huh?) I bought a beer, and a local drunk bought me another. From what I understood of his slurring, he liked Americans and wanted his son to learn English. I doubt any of that will come to fruition, though.

So although this was a much more active weekend than usual, I just realized how different my life is. I thought this weekend and my allocation of free time might highlight that. I never thought I would turn down a party cuz I was tired, and I never thought I would be teaching high schoolers... My next couple of weeks will more than likely be filled ith a lot more reading, so feel free to send the books! My e-mail is ogreynolds@ameritech.net if anyone wants to send any direct questions.

I never thought I would ever do what I did today, but it was really cool! I am teaching a business creativity class to high school students and today I taught my first class. Except for completely forgetting the spanish word for delivery (a crucial part of one of my examples) the class went great. The kids listened to me, I gave them a couple exercises and I was even hindered by being stuck in the library for that first session. I realized at the end of class some of them were elated and others disappointed that I had replaced their sex-ed class! Apparently the director, with whom I had spoken had not informed the professor of my arrival.

I forgot to mention a couple of things yesterday, so I´ll try to fill in the blanks. We´ve had a whorl-wind couple of weeks. Since my arrival here in Masatepe, I haven´t sat down long enough to write this all out. So here goes...

There are four volunteers here in my town, one of which is my college friend Jordan, with whom I lived abroad with in Spain. Neither of us can beleive it, but it makes sense cuz we were both in the "Advanced Language" group. Although considering my linguistic faults today in class, I´m not so sure I fit that category. We´ve given four presentations to the four classes we will teach, and we´ve gotten two youth groups together between us. Yesterday, another aspirante (translation for pre-volunteer trainee popular amongst nicaraguans) and I met with our youth group and had a field day. We did dizzy races, capture the flag and the ever cooling and electrifying water balloon toss.

On top of all that I´ve been trying to assaimilate to the culture, etc. The family I live with has been great and so has the peace corps staff, I couldn´t have asked for more. Maybe more time before I started teaching classes, but that is neither here nor there. I can´t wait until those of you who have had to go through teacher certification read this! I´m less than two weeks off the boat and I have a class and a youth group.

I have gotten my fair bit of mosquito bites, but nothing too severe cuz we´ve got these nifty little lizards that live inside and munch on all our bugs. Their downside is that they make a squealing noise that sounds (I lie not!) much like a crying child. I´ve even managed to eak out a workout routine my host family suggested. I have only done it once because before that I was running to the nearest town, but this one´s intense. I run down hill about three kilometers to la Laguna Masaya and bust my hump to get back into town before class. It´s so hot here during the afternoon, I´ve learned a new definition for early just to be able to run. I get up at five thirty on my run days and either way I´m in bed by ten o´clock every night! The few exeptions have been when we´ve gone out to the fiestas and I´ve gotten back at a staggering midnight... And no matter how much you sleep, you´re still tired all day cuz its so hot.

Don´t know how else to say this but the poverty is staggering at times. Most days when I´m with my college educated host family, I almost forget it. But the moment I walk outside, or worse, a diseased and shriveled old man walks in the house to beg for food, I am reminded that this ain´t Kansas anymore. I´ve completely stopped smoking, too, which is good. But it was quickly replaced with the lingering smoke that permeates everything: for the most part, trash is not disposed of the way we think of disposal in the states. This is an amazing country with some serious short-comings. I will return later this week to fill in some more gaps, but I´ve got to get back home, eat some dinner, knock out, and do it all again!

Synopsis of my first days

I´ve been here in Nicaragua for almost two weeks now. Just so we´re all on the same page, I left Chicago May 5th to Washington D.C. where we had our pre-training three day. We left on Wednesday morning for Managua, Nicaragua, the history-infused, though tattered capital. On arrival we were notified that while in-flight, what would be the nations longest transportation strike in history had been initiated and we were on our first level of alert. We were essentially on lock down. The next level, which would have brought all Peace Corps Volunteers to their departmental capitals, never happened. As a matter of fact the strike ended after twelve days this friday night and there is now a plethora of fresh produce on our table. During the strike it was impossible for anyone to get such normally consumed goods.

It is now 6:20 on Monday, May 19th, and besides this political battle, which I report on only to appease the masses who would have found their only news on Nicaragua as such, I am rather enjoying myself. I live with a fantastic family with four children 18 to 25, and a goddaughter of eight who is simply the cutest thing in the world. The 18 and 21 year old girls love taking me to the fiestas patronales which our town (just outside of Masaya) is in the middle of celebrating. There has been no end to the fireworks, which for the most part are entertaining, until a cascade of colors goes off in your room at 5am. The traditional music and dance has been an ongoing festivity as well.

I was caught off guard the other day, though, when instead of the big-band-type local music I was accustomed to was replaced. I was awoken by the sound of a funeral procession across the very narrow street from my family´s house. The music was simple and sad. It was familiar perhaps only for the fact that it elicited the same funerary awkwardness found anywhere.

Besides that I have gotten a chance to run with the bulls though the main streets to the barrera, which is somewhere between a rodeo, a bullfight and a drunk tank. For the most part people are taunting them, but the bulls do get their retribution at times. The town has been packed with people and there has been something to do every night. It has been an interesting way to start my time here. From Chi-town to Nica-town, I´m loving looking at Sox stats, stay in first place! Hope all is well at home... love and miss you all!

PS: If interested, Nature 0, Owen 1: I rocked a huge spider the other day... buenas noches arana.