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
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
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.
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.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
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.
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.
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