After an unintentionally extended absence, I feel I should add something before the arrival of the parental duet. being absolutely swamped lately has been great. One of my teams won our regional business competitions and represented two departments in Managua. Two of my students were interviewed on national television, with their well spoken North American Professor (me). I was also interviewed in La Prensa, the widest circulated Nicaraguan daily.

As my second Holiday Season in Nicaragua arrives, I've got to reflect. I've pushed myself emotionally in ways I never thought I could, (in some cases too far) but learning from every step of the way. I have been getting worn down lately, to the point of thinking about returning even though I desperately want to stick around and finish my work. I think I've done good sustainable projects with my community, and I've got more lined up.

I'm starting to rebuild a school room in a town two hours north of me, a project which will include weekly environmental lectures. I'll be working in two schools next year with four teachers, and I'm studying for my GMATs. I still have seven months left to prove to myself and my community that I am as self-motivated and effective Peace Corps employee as I think I am.

After almost a year teaching business classes in rural Yalí, Nicaragua, I´ve found an emotional payoff. Each group of public school fourth and fifth year students spent the last couple of months organizing a creative business plan and presentation. The Institute and I organized a town fair for the competition. All students had to present their business to a panel of judges which passed around from booth to booth. There were hours of dancing, food, music and prizes. It was widely considered a success by the town, all of the NGOs, and government organizations were there to encourage the students daring efforts into the competitive world of business. Unfortunately, none of the students or parents were pleased with the competition evaluatinos and I was forced to leave for the night to let everything cool down. I thought it went well.

Our three best groups went on to compete in the regional competitions. A honey consortium, coffee packers, and a group of painters presented their business plan in front of a panel of primarily Peace Corps volunteer judges. The painters won it all! They are the one group chosen to represent the two-department regional competition. I thought my work with the business class was winding down, but it looks like it might just be getting started. They are phenominal artists, especially considering the meager resources, and scarce encouragement.

I´ve also decided to study for my GMATs, which my parents have been so kind as to finance. While hitching a ride down to pick up my books this morning, my driver and I ran across a man who had just fallen from his motorcycle. We carried him and his bike to the side of the road, to let increasing traffic pass. We got him in the back of the truck, and rushed him to the hospital. His wounds weren´t bad, but his leg was absolutely shattered, twisted in a devilish angle. Turned out the post office was closed anyway, and I spent the rest of the morning getting back to Yalí. Adventurous morning, no?

I´m currently watching some of my fifth year students reenacting some of Nicaraguan folklore in our computer lab/auditorium/biggest room we have. The kids are speaking really campesino (farmer) and have chickens and dogs. This has got to be one of the funniest specticals I´ve seen, which is good.

I´ve realized that I´m getting really sick of my host family. I´ve never lived in an environment that was so negative. If I were to write a book about them, it would be called, La Quinta Perdida. They live in their cumulative losses, and can´t seem to recover. I´m too poor to move out (which would necesitate a bed, posibly a fridge and a stove). I now know what its like to be poor and stuck. It´s like having a bad lease, a job that doesn´t pay, and a bad roommate all at the same time. I was hoping I would never do this, but countdown: ten months.

I finally finished my proposal for a project I´ve been working on for about three months. The Mayor´s Office, and a small community two hours north of my town and I are working to rebuild a once-dirt floored, open aired class room. The walls, and most of the corrugated zinc roof is up. Still, there is no floor, gaping holes in the corrugation, no windows, doors, or floors, much less chalk boards. Hopefully USAID will help us out with paying for all the rest.

Between getting that application in and working towards the first annual business competition, I´ve been quite busy. This October 2nd, all of my four classes of high school students will gather in the park to compete for the best business innovation and planificaiton. They have spent the better part of the year working on creative businesses that fill specific needs pertaining to the community. We´ve spent the last month writing the business plans. I´m actually quite proud of the majority, and can´t wait for the regional competition.

This week was also Central America´s 188th year of liberty from Spain (September 15th). There were a lot of college age kids and recent grads around hanging out at the pool, and staying out until all hours of the night. Except for the fact that I live with small children and have to be extremely quite entering at early hours of the morning, I almost felt like I too was back in college. Except that my host brother playfully pointed a gun to my face the following morning interacting what would have gone down had I not been me. The gun fight in the mountains last night that kept me up until 5 in the morning didn´t help to calm my nerves. No one else has mentioned it, but it was the first time I had ever heard anything like that. Ever.

I hadn´t remembered for a while how different here is from there until I saw some of my sister´s reactions to Nicaragua. She took pictures of things I consider normal here, and somethings that weren´t shocking in a good or bad way. But even the roadside stands are of particular interest, and the bare-dirt floors, and the weak hand shakes. I´ll try better next time to warn and prepare. But to any visitors, expect things to be different.

I am really happy, though, that there is now one person who can prove that I was here, that I do work, that I really live in Nicaragua. Excuse my desire for validation. I´m not sure so many people remember I exist, including myself. And there is certaily no one but myself and my boss, and one or two other volunteers who know exaclty what I do. My host family doesn´t even care to ask.

After a marvellous visit by the Bean (whose bank account we drained--sorry!) I found myself drowning in responsibility. Living with the paranoia that things won´t be done the way I want them to be done, I find it hard to delegate. This means that if I´m not around, nothing gets done. When I got back, my director was angry, my classes were behind, and I had missed my deadline for my grant through USAID. I forgot to mention that I had a mysterious illness the week before the Bean arrived, and was incapable of getting anything done; there went my month.

Since then, I haven´t had reason to leave Yalí. I´m trying to get everything back on track before I have to justify it to my bosses during an in-service-training this weekend. That doesn´t mean I haven´t had time to enjoy myself, though. This weekend, the boys and I built a mini-mini-golf course in the front patio. We made flags and everything, and used a baseball and bat. There were more than a few hole-in-ones. Afterwards we all sat down to listen to Vivaldi´s Four Seasons and I read East of the Sun and West of the Moon--all thanks to Lena and her intellectual goody bag.

I never did extrapolate on my adventure to Colombia, an inability I attribute to extreme culture shock. Imagine if I had gone back home. My trip was great and even more meaningful because I got to see Rabe and because it will be my only out of country vacation for my two years in the Peace Corps. On arrival, there were some initial errands that had to be attended to , my favorite of which involved being pinched, pricked, and winked in a two minutes flat. I had to convince the Red Cross at the airport to give me a free yellow fever shot AND change the date to a week before. Thank God they were all girls, and I could charm them with my passable though accented Spanish, oh yeah, and blue eyes. Although to keep quiet in front of the boss, one of the ladies did pinch me, shortly before giving me the shot.

After said incident we were free to wander the streets of Bogotá. We site-saw during the day and hung out at Chris´s apartment listening to salsa music with his girlfriend Lorena at night. It is a beautiful city of 8-10 million people. Latin American cities have a knack for being ¨Big, but to an Uncertain Degree.¨ The huge metropolitan plain at 2640 meters above sea level bunches up into a cluster of skyscrapers before slamming headlong into impecably forested moutains which dwarf the city. The cordillera is gently crowned by a monastery on one side and a Mother Mary on the other.

Perhaps after being in Nicaragua for a year, any city could have brought me to tears. Saying that, the city is World Class, with restaurants of every style, ornate parks competing for space with Blackberry festooned suits, and enough museums that we had to cut not a few visits short. My next trip there will theoretically not be so rushed. It may be slightly more dangerous than Nicaragua, but it is a city; Jekel and Hyde in full gear.

Still enamored by both sides, I made the return trip. I had bought a flight out of San Jose, Costa Rica for half the price as a Managua ticket. Although, my lack of fine-tuned planning nearly put me on the streets on my way there and back. Leaving Nicaragua I hadn´t thought about where I was going to stay until I was on the bus to San Jose. I wandered the rainy streets long past sunset looking for any hostel with room. My return trip was marginally smoother, despite the fact that I hadn´t anticipated staying there another night. To my chagrin (though not surprise) the bus I intended taking home doesn´t run this year. Sorry.

This amongst other hang ups made my return trip lonely, sad, and inspiration for my last blog post. Bogotá is a beautiful, metropolitan hub, finely cultured, and stacked with gorgeous people. My flight to San Jose reminded me I was going back to Central America by sitting me next to an older lady who kept staring at me and invited me several times to stay the night at her house through sparsely teethed cackles. Crossing into Nicaragua was worse. Everyone seemed to have poorly capped teeth, words were increasingly swallowed, women stopped shaving there legs, people were generally less hygenic and in worse shape for their age, and trash was indsicriminantly tossed from any window.

But I suppose that is why I´m here. Less to shave peoples´ legs than to help plant the seeds of wealth building, and global integration (to a point). In a backwater country, breaking cultural barriers to market entry might be difficult, but that´s why I took this job in the first place.

I didn't realize what a shit hole Nicaragua was until I left it. As I write this there are students staring, and I think they might have understood the last sentence I wrote.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY USA!!!

Last night many of the volunteers scammed our way into an embassy party. There were little American flags everywhere, including inbetween our hotdogs, hamburgers, and potato salad. Fireworks were lit off over the embassy softball field to crown the evening. With the embassador to my left, and someone special to my right, it will be a while before I forget it.

Although...
In Niacaragua, where ¨There is more time than life,¨ I still manage to find myself wishing for more of it. Without my admition that it may be my essence to scramble for time, I emplore you all to lengthen both the day and the week. 36 hours. 9 days. Please. I ran out of an entire month to write a proposal for Peace Corps money to fix up a school in my municipality. My high school business classes are farther behind than any one else in my group.

Instead of working diligently to rectify the situations at hand, I´m instead on vacation. I´m preparing for my first and probably last time out of Nicaragua in my service. I will be in León srfing by this afternoon, and leaving for Costa Rica tomorrow. From San José, I´ll be flying to Bogotá, Colombia for the week to visit Rabe. I´m exciting about visiting my old college buddy, it´s been a long time and I can´t wait to see what kind of shenannigan´s have been undertaken. I also need to see some museums, galleries, culture, etc. Niacaragua, although beautiful, is lacking in certain fields of interest.

Even before this vacation, though, i´ve been on mini-vacation here in Managua. I have been helping with some of the new business volunteers´ training--although I almost missed it completely despite having them switch the entire training schedule to accomodate my trip to Colombia. No harm, no foul.

Back in Granada, I always seem to find a slow moment and free internet access: required ingredients for written word. The hot humid "winter" months (so named for the rains) have recently set the pace for work. Sticky. Slow. Exasperating. Fortunately, my breezy mountains are slightly cooler than Dante's Nicaragua. Sitting near sea level, I'm not sure how volunteers--or anyone for that matter--gets anything done.

Despite my relative climactic mollification, each one of my projects hangs by a thread. My business classes are a month behind at best. We have a parent/teacher meeting planned for this Monday. Perhaps together we can mitigate the homework strikes. At least I'll have a volunteer from the next small business development group in Yali to offer a hand. Most of my counterparts are less than interested in the prospect of more homework to grade, but I kept mixing it up and disorganizing the little organization we had. My job is not to teach the class, just to make sure it's technically sound. The necessity for a four section parent/teacher should be indicative of the level of impassability we've reached.

My secondary coffee project is once again on hold due to a pending change in counterparts. This will be my third. I've also taken so long working with my mayor's office, that I'm not sure we can get anything done before the end of my service next year.

At the same time, I'm completing my first year here in Nicaragua. I've been "In-Country" over a year and in Yali for over ten months. This tends to be the time most volunteers requestion their commitment. I didn't have any initial doubts, so I'm double loaded this time. I'm positive I want to stay here until the end of my service. I just wonder if I'm doing any good.

My first year in Nicaragua has now officially come and gone. I´ve had my official One-Year medical visit with nothing to report other than a wart that had to be brutally burnt off. My palm is still sporting an inch long whole, the depth of which I´ve never had on my body.

I´m currently typing in my Institute where I give class. We have a great set of computers where the internet has recently been reinstalled. The first year (7th grade class) is doing work, but not even pretending to behave by our standards. They are screaming, fighting, yelling, but somehow getting their assignment done. Our sence of workspace solitude does not exist here. I´ve just given an Excel class to teach all my classes to write professional surveys and market studies. Some of my sixteen year old students did not know how to click and drag. There is a huge gap between those who grew up in town and those who did not.


As I was walking from a planning session the other day, the lights went out. This is nothing out of the ordinary, and my cell phone is always enough to light the path. I quickly realized though that my cell phone drowned out a cacophony of flashing lights. There were thousands, no, millions of fireflies exploding sporatically their eerie greenish light. It looked like the grandstands of the olympics but without another light around. Occassionaly lightening in the background would drown out th stadium sensation, only to return it within seconds. Besutiful.

Simultaneously knocking on hard wood to evade the dreaded jinx, I whole-heartedly claim things are stellar. I have spent half of April out of Yalí. After a fantastic vacation, and two weeks of trainings and meetings, I´m finally ready to get back to work. I´m just not sure I´m needed. Empty Nesters around the world, I feel your paigns to care for and reprimand self-sufficient children realizing all too late that they were quite capable of solo success for some time. My business class miraculously went on in my absence. I´ve returned to hear some fantastically creative ideas for entrepreneurship here. I´ve come to the realization that after three months of not working with the coffee exporter, I don´t have a place. They simply hired a technician who outshines the old Starsky and Hutch of my counterpart and me.

I am happy to get back into the institute with newly invigorated teachers and students. The competitions for the students entreprenurial projects is arriving, and we´re all getting excited. Even my first english class to my coffee cooperatives in over a month was great. I felt it was so long over due, the phrase of the day was ¨It´s About Time!¨

There´s also been a decent amount of rain lately, which means Reading Weather for me. We´re actually in a great saddle between two climatic peaks. With the dry season waning, and rains a´comin´, there´s enough water to do laundry and still enough sun to dry it! After a long, and completely drenched hike the other day, I was very happy to have dry towels, boxers AND sweatpants. Hot coffee didn´t hurt either.


P.S. I´ve become so proficient at clothes washing, I broke chunks off of the cement washboard the other day! Too much stress, or Old Abe? You be the judge.

As I dab at my never ending snuffles, I am thankful I didn´t get them last week. After spending a couple of days I should have just taken as vacation days, I left on the grandest adventure of my Peace Corps career. We got down to Granada by evening and escaped to the volcano Island of Ometepe be noon the next day. Contending for a position as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, our brief stay on the island was an important part of the Peace Corps Nicaragua experience.

We stayed with a friend and made a sprint attempt to the top of the smaller of two volcanoes, Maderas. Turning the four hour hike into a two hour jaunt, we all felt deserving of the five pounds of rice we brought to the top--we no where near finished it. Within fifteen minutes of reaching the crater lake at the summit, two of us were swimming across. We got to the other end to find one of the most spectacular views I´ve been privy to see. We slowly made our way back, tighting with every stroke. Turning to each other half way back we said what we had avoided admitting: our legs were starting to cramp up. We stopped talking and just kept trucking, using mostly our arms. Making it back to shore--ten yards of mud and partially decomposed detritus--was painful. But we did it alive. By the time I got back, though, my legs had cramped up so bad, I had to crawl through the mud in front of a group of twenty canadian super-hippy med students. They proved to be some odd-balls, but at the time it was embarassing.

The ultra-hippy vibe is marvellous, and I hadn´t been called Conservative in years. The narrow-minds of the extreme Left have found a haven on Ometepe. I´m happy they can find peace hiding away from the rest of the world: the literature, the research, the anecdotes that describe the world progressing because of capitalism. I´ve researched the etimology of words looking for a good combination. After already applying it to a scholarship application, I´m ready to say I support Regulated Capitalism. I believe in it, and I believe it works. Weather it come from the Left (opening and reforming socialist ideals to realities of free markets) or from the Right (responsible taxation and limited distribution of basic needs) I think it works.

The rest of the political discussion on the trip was dictated by a German companion whose uniquie view on Northern European Socialism was eye-opening. We were all interested and had our own swists on the story. We cruised in a private whip, a rare experience in Peace Corps, up North. We hiked around Estelí, and finally made it to Canyon Somoto. It was beautiful, filled with people because of Semana Santa (Holy Week) but Beautiful none the less. I got dropped of in Condega just in time to get my last bus back, and found myself home for a very late dinner.

Since then, I´ve been preparing for a training session my sector has with our teacher counterparts. We´ve also been inundated by a plague of large insects called the chicharra. If I hadn´t been convinced they were an annual epidemic, I would have sworn we harboring Jewish slaves in town. Their humming sound is so intense, it disrupts class in periodic bursts. They are beautiful in their all encompassing presence. I´ve never heald an exoskeletal creature of such girth. They are about two and half inches long, and longer in circumfrance. Their long, fine, paper-thin wings barely look like they are strong enough to support them in aerial transport. This could explain their frequent landings in inauspicious spots. Like my bed. It reminds me more of a mutant locust plague than a yearly occurance.

I´m also suffereing from some combination of allergies and a cold. They all tell me I´ve got gripe, which is a cover-all, non-specific set of symptoms I don´t believe in. I´ve spent more time in bed than I should have after a week of vacations. Cést la vie.

Happy Easter and Much Love

Transitions are always strange times. I feel like Peace Corps life can often be as big of a transition as Middle School. I´m losing my sitemate and getting a new one. Sometimes there are two volunteers in a single site and I have been lucky enough to be one of those. But just as my sitemate and I are starting to understand each other and work together really well, her service has ended. She´ll be going back to Portland, Oregon after an extrodinarily successful service as I put together makeshift vacations for Semana Santa. There will be a new volunteer moving into my town within the month. She seems really nice and I´m excited for a change, though still nervous that we won´t get along. It´s not like there are a lot of options if you don´t like your sitemate, though I have become more confident in my ability to deal with all sorts of characters successfully.

This week, I´ve been pretty busy planning my exams for the institute, saying goodbye to my current sitemate, planning Semana Santa, and planning for the rest of my month being packed with Peace Corps training sessions. I´m also realizing that I´ve been here for a little while. Having been in Nicaragua for almost a year and watching my sitemate leave I can´t help but think about what I´ll do when I leave. My time to ¨Plan the Rest of My Life¨ is waning.

None of this has anything to do with the reason for today´s commentary. I just felt my first honest to goodness earthquake in Nicaragua. I have to admit that the sensation was slightly numbed by feeling an earthquake in Chicago at four in the morning just before I left last year--minor geologic miracle. This one was still cool, though. I was sitting down to type in my buddy´s cyber when all the monitors and roofing started to shake. It was cool but when we went outside, we thought we were both crazy because it didn´t look like anyone else had even noticed. Turns out we weren´t crazy. In the last twenty minutes half a dozen people have come in to confirm this small quake. Keep in mind Nicaragua does have an extraordinary reputation for destructive quakes.

Half marathons are not that long. I suppose they are supposed to be completed in less than my 1:56. But at least I know what I have to do for next year.

Little Mark has been born, healthy and well. Congratualtions, Alec! Being so far from the excitement back home, I feel slightly removed from it, but I´m happy that I´ve been kept abreast of the situation. Lee-Ann´s students also found an old book that Susy Ramos gave me years and years back. I write to them more or less every week, and they sounded so excited to be using the same book I used.

As my half-marathon quickly approaches, I have lost the ability to avoid stress with the occassional piece of chocolate or even more rare... cigarette. Better for it. I found myself running to the next department, Estelí the other day. I was told when I got there that I had already run 15 km. Running the way back, the my only thought was pride that I was running more than a half-marathon (21 km) in one day. Once I got back, I was told that I had only run 16 km in total! Disappointed, but no where near defeated, I´m still cross training daily.

Saturday, I found myself hiking uphill with my sitemate and a group of girls I teach. In a defiant act of masculinity, or perhaps testosterone based stupidity, once lost I would not allow the group to rethink directions. Instead I took out my trusty machete and slashed our way through the cloud forest, uphill--ughhh!--until we reached the summit of one of the tallest peaks in Yalí, El Volcán. After being called cochón (faggot) repeadetly the week before, it was an even more necessary and invigorating Indiana Jones experience. The entire top of the mountain was covered in thick vines and pillowy, green, lichenous trees. It looked more like a movie set than reality. We found an easier way down once at the summit, but low and behold, I came to the rescue again! Forced into service, I killed a snake for the screaming masses of helpless damsals.

The next morning I found myself handwashing (per usual) all of my days garments, just to give myself a little gender balance. I then ran up to the base of El Volcán and tacked on my usual hour of Yoga. I´m not sure if I´m going to be in shape for this mini-marathon, but I´m sure trying.

I walked four hours yesterday through some of the prettiest parts of the world. There were parts I had passed in bus before and never really had the chance to just stop and stare at. There were flowers by the side of the road I had never had the time to smell or pick. I climbed a hilltop on a great divide from which the views abound. The tallest peak in the Municipality, Cayansimil, played peak-a-boo from behind passing mists. The misnomer El Volcán stood proud and tall on the other side of what seemed to be the infintesimally small town of San Sebastian de Yalí.

After a beautiful day of adventures, I was afronted by further frustrations. The Peace Corps requires work reports every so often to make sure we are actually volunteering our time and efforts. The new design has been unserviceable to say the least. I have now written the report twice and on my third attempt this morning, could not even open the file. This, after making the best out of what would otherwise have been an idle weekend. I went to a community to work on a promised and highly anticipated business plan with a local entrepreneur. Needless to say, the business plan hadn´t been touched. We pushed through and developed some of his ideas anyway. The weekend did prove productive, but enlessly frustrating.

Compared to the world standard, North Americans are active, timely, and easily annoyed. We are perplexed when others don´t fit into our norms of acheivement, aptitude and motivation. When things don´t work, I make them work. There´s often a large amount of inner turmoil and frustration, but things happen. I am critical, demanding, always certain, goal oriented and motivating. I am an Alien in Nicaragua. I am American.

Unlike last year, this year has already been a whirlwind of events, problems, possible solutions, work, and fun. This last week alone was indicative of the schedule and the year I have chosen for myself.

I restarted classes Sunday night with my youth group and it went well. Monday I started classes, had the evening off, but was out by eight o´clock with my jeans still on. I made one of my teacher´s cry in the institute and we subsequently had a huge blow out that started in front of students, followed into the office and finished with two intermediaries and some more tears. I had classes in the day and started my English classes to two coffee cooperatives at night--all of which went surprisingly well considering my morning.

I gave class Wednesday morning before packing my bags and heading out to Jinotega. I spent the rest of the week helping translate, eating way too much and drinking until way too late with another trade mission with delegates primarily from England, but also comprised of Australians Danish, Americans and Japanese. During the week, I also found out my Mother might never be able to see my ailing Grandmother again because of family disagreements. I had gotten over the fact that I may never see my grandparents again, but I was dead set on having my parents tell them to their faces I loved them as often as they could. On top of that, the only girl I´ve met in nine months who I thought I might ever click with decided we didn´t click so well afterall. Someone I work with pulled a rather Mrs. Havershamesque move, both encouraging me and warning me of the impending doom. I´m now exhausted and just want to go home. Being an absolute vagrant, though, I´m not sure where that is. Right now I´m going back to the bed I´ve been sleeping in for the last few months. I will arrive fifteen minutes before I have to give class because I missed my noon bus to Yalí having not prepared for it beforehand.

Sitting in the institute where I give business classes, I realized I was getting in the way more than helping. We are putting together the schedules for the year and I may have worn out my welcome. I don´t want classes on Mondays or Fridays because the majority of a seemingly endless cascade of holidays, reunions, and meetings fall on those days. I´ve made my point and now type away my morning waiting for the debates to finish and the white papal smoke to arise in decision.

My schedule last year was clear and I spent the majority of my day (and night) reading or looking for other projects. This year, I will have to micromanage my schedule to make sure that I give due time and effort to each pending project. My main projects remain giving business classes and helping certify farms to sell to Starbucks. I´ve finished two projects during the vacations: painting the world map in the primary school and translating for the Japanese/Korean Trade Mission. I also have a host of other side projects I´ve recently started or will be starting soon. Amongst them are supporting Yalí´s struggling tourism industry and giving English classes to professional coffee cuppers in Yalí and Jinotega.

I´m excited to get the year started as all of it depends on the schedules of my primary projects. My recreational activities have naturally been spurned in the process. I have found myself halfway or almost done with four different books, all of which I started thinking I had all the time in the world. My budding interest in my Catholic heritage—no doubt to my parents´ content—has had to take a backseat. I even stopped running for several weeks because my schedule and my traveling simply didn´t allow it. The hyper-tradeoff is just being realized, and I´m sure its full impacts are not quite felt. This week I´ve been running between propaganda drenched trainings at the institute, meetings all over town, and touch-up-work on our world map—all of which needs to be done before classes start next Tuesday. In the meantime, I´ve found solace in reading Harry Potter to my eight-year-old host brother every night after dinner. So perhaps I still have more time than most.

After spending the majority of December stagnating, activity has improved. After my vacations, I found myself facilitating my sitemates dream of painting a world map on the grammar school. Two weeks ago we got the mayor´s office here to pay for the project and pumped most of it out. Although some fine details still await attention, the majority is done. I had to leave early to join a trade mission in Jinotega City. The group was a mix of Japanese and Korean coffee buyers and ¨Cuppers,¨ or professional tasters.

From Monday through Thursday I dutifully translated from Spanish to English, from which the two English speakers translated to their respective native tongues. Amongst the coffee plants, were presented Western proclivities to Eastern accuracy. We travelled over some of the best coffee producing lands in the world. As such, I even got to show off Yalí and a friends farm to the delegation. I learned that there is a lifetime of information to learn about the mystery of coffee as some of the world´s most discerning cuppers were just learning about its production for the first time. Caffeine is a drug just like any other... it has its mysteries and its romances, its temptations and entrapments.

Sometimes the only thing someone needs from stress is a little escape. I got to see other volunteers and had a very positive vacation. Returning to my little room, I breathed a sigh of relief. The boys were excited to see me back. I continued my position as their superman by bringing home smores. I taught the lads to heat up marshmallows over the stove. They were elated and spent most of the next morning plotting how they were going to get more marshmallows. Today I went on a three hour hike with my sitemate. She´s not the best hiker, but a good conversationalist, which made things funner than my solo venture would have been. That´s how I enjoy myself here in Yalí. I read, relax, hike, run, and do whatever work I can find. I missed it.

With the world economy in the tank, this is the perfect place for me.