business fair

so i have been working all year with a group of high school seniors in their entrepreneurship class. 13 student business groups were formed and last week they presented their hard work. the fair was a definitely a success...success defined here as "the fair happened." the journey was tough, but I felt such pride listening them to present everything they had learned during the year, watching them sell their products, and having the whole school participate.

things here certainly arent all calamity...

500 days of Nicaragua

one night during training I decided to number the weekly calendar in my day planner with all the days I had been and will be in Nicaragua. There were some long boring stretches during training.

Recently while I was in the peace corps office in Managua, I was scheduling and rescheduling several activities when I realized, !*$%, I’ve been in Nicaragua for exactly 500 days. That called for some serious reflection.

Here’s what I’ve learned, 500 days is TON of time, maybe too much. Maybe I should have left things sweet at 400. But 500. On my 500^th day in Nicaragua, I realized just how much I have learned and grown. How worlds away my mindset is now from what it was on day 1.

As my dad says, I’ve lost a lot of my idealism. This is true. I’ve lost a lot here since day 1. Lost inspiration and motivation. Lost a certain degree of hope for change. Lost a bit of the belief I once had in the Peace Corps as a whole. This is hard work. Or let me rephrase, the “work” isn’t necessarily hard work, but life here is hard work. What I’ve learned in 500 days is that to be a Peace Corps volunteer you need more dedication, more motivation, more support than in most other jobs, if only to get out of bed in the morning. Just “going” “doing” “being” is work. So I worked and I went and I did and I was…and it was tough yet totally possible and fully rewarding. Only when I found myself being completely stripped of a support system did I realize how trying this work was.

500 days is a lot of time. And I have gained much more than I lost. While my mindset my be, well, more “realistic” my life has been so incredibly enriched. I know now that I am one of the lucky ones. I have a family that loves and supports me no matter what. My close friends would do anything for me and vice versa. I have more love in my life than anyone really deserves. (unfortunately, most of it is in another country). Hey, I speak Spanish now, and that’s awesome too. I’ve done a lot of good work here in the past 500 days.

Im working harder now on making the rest of my time here, however long it is, the best it can be. Therefore, I’ve been keeping a list of things that make me happy, here are 500 of them (or as close to 500 as I could get…maybe closer to 100…please comment and add to the list things that make u happy…maybe we can get to 500).

**not in order of importance (minus number 1 maybe)

1. mom, dad, elyse
2. my dog ziggy
3. my friends
4. the gals
5. big dancing
6. coffee
7. denise austin workouts
8. eggplant
9. extended family
10. the jersey shore
11. the jersey shore (the TV show)
12. levi jeans
13. rainbows
14. mountains
15. skyscrapers
16. new mascara
17. languages
18. good music
19. bad music
20. pretty shoes
21. peanut butter and jelly
22. wearing brown and black together
23. washers
24. dryers
25. hot water
26. grapes
27. apples
28. apple picking
29. pumpkins
30. pumpkin picking
31. soy products
32. graffiti
33. smiles
34. chocolate
35. yoga
36. ballet
37. family dinners
38. laughing
39. Ziploc bags
40. Indian food
41. thunderstorms
42. dishing
43. spending money
44. saving money
45. talking to friends
46. strawberries
47. scarves
48. sharpie markers
49. surfers
50. spain
51. Spanish food
52. wine
53. flamenco
54. hippies
55. jippis
56. purple
57. lady gaga
58. dove soap
59. klean kanteens
60. gear
61. hot corn tortillas
62. frijoles molidos
63. people watching
64. kayaking
65. reading
66. yogurt
67. holding hands
68. hugs
69. cooking
70. experimenting
71. chai
72. jokes
73. cooking shows
74. bagels and lox
75. being barefoot

75 was all I had the patience for…keep it going.

recipes

Rainy season is here in force. Roads are flooded. Skies are grey. Things are just expected to get worse. Please bring back my lovely central American sunshine.

I haven’t showered in ::cough::incomprehensible number::cough:: days because it has been so cold here and being dirty just seems better than taking an icy cold shower.

Here’s a vegetable soup recipe that has been sustaining me for the past few days- nothing new or innovative, but delicious:

2 large onions chopped

5 small carrots sliced into coins

4-5 large celery stalks

1 cup dried lentils

1 cup chopped squash

1 tbsp. salt

black pepper and parsley flakes for seasoning

1 tbsp. olive oil

1.5 liters of water

sauté onions carrots and celery in olive oil with half of the salt. Cook for 5-10 minutes until they become translucent. Add water, more salt, pepper, parsley flakes. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 1 hour. Check to see if the seasoning is correct. Add lentils, let cook for 15 minutes. Add squash, let cook for 15 more minutes. Good to go.

New recipe I’m experimenting with

1 cup quinoa

3 cloves garlic

1 eggplant

lots of fresh spinach

olive oil

½ cup plain yogurt

1 tbsp. curry powder

pinch of salt

black pepper

red pepper flakes

cook quinoa with salt and 1 clove of garlic in the water. Apart: Sauté spinach, eggplant, and 2 cloves garlic in olive oil with a pinch of salt. Add yogurt, curry powder, red pepper flakes and pepper, let cook for a bit. Put eggplant and spinach mixture over quinoa.

UPDATE: I was NOT happy with how this quinoa dish came out. If you want to experiment and give me some tips let me know, it was kind of flavorless.

Coming soon: student business fairs…reading circles...

The hardest job you’ll ever love.

Someone, somewhere coined that phrase about peace corps. Ask the me of 3 weeks ago and I’d agree. But that was lifetimes ago, and I find myself realizing it’s certainly not the “job” I love. The job is a job…is a job. I go to work. I come home from work. I worry about work. I’m frustrated by work. I could do that anywhere in the world. Not to mention, I work for the united states government and though we are buffered from most things “political,” everything else that u might imagine going along with working for the government, well, does. No, no, it’s not the work.

I thought maybe it was the adventure. New and exotic. Places to explore. Doing something different. The foreignness of it all. The delicate balance between altruism and hedonism that only other peace corps volunteers could ever understand. Quickly though, I realized that adventure could turn hostile.

Nicaragua quickly turned hostile. Without going into the details of accusations, investigations, and interrogations, the adventure turned nightmarish, and I felt like I just was not wanted here anymore. It was something I never, in all of my dreams of a peace corps future, could have imagined. Things seemed to be crumbling.

Then the ground fell out beneath me, and your finding me here in this blog, still falling. I’ll reassure for friends and family at home that my physical wellbeing is fine. Unfortunately, for a variety of different reasons, several members of my peace corps group, Nica50, including some of my closest friends (not just from Nicaragua, but in the world, in the universe) are now back stateside. It hurts how much I miss and worry about some of them. We were, we are family.

I wish that everyone and no one had to realize what I did.

I realized it was the people that make this experience everything that it is. Oh, “duh” you say. So I wont delve into the mushy or obvious. This is a realization of the luck I have in my life to have the strongest, funniest, greatest, prettiest, most wonderful friends. Period (written out for emphasis). I’d put my group of friends up against any of yours. Any day.

So if I had to, or decided to end my experience here in Nicaragua earlier than expected, I’d leave with that.

Now im back in Jinotega, where nothing has changed really, but everything feels different. And I will leave you to navigate the labyrinth of this truly nebulous blog as I navigate that of regaining the faith I once had in what I was doing. Suerte.

rapid fire run down...

of work, fun, frustrations, nicaland, etc.

- Entrepreneurship classes at the high school are going...maybe not well but going. there isnt much sanctity to class time in nicaragua, so my students are about a month behind in our course due to: earth day, mothers day, international day of the book, international women's day, impromptu teacher conferences, census work, rain, etc. but the kids are hilarious and im happy to be there catching them up.
- Intro to small business classes with my adult students...fun, fine, will end in july and i think i'll have lots more free time.
- just started taking aerobics classes at a gym in jinotega with my sitemate lauren, a new PC health volunteer. every weeknight from 630 to 730 i am witness to the hilarity of a 20 something, hot shot instructor high kicking and flexing while 20 or so nica women try desperately to follow along. semi-required attire for the class:

- finishing up a 2 month marketing workshop with a group of university students at an NGO in town. group started at 8, now we're down to 2. cant complain to much tho, if those two keep showing up, so will i. they have requested a human resources workshop next, we shall see.
- it's rainy season now, flies and mosquitoes, and therefore diarrhea and dengue are out in full force. aside from one wrenching and retching 24 hours spent in my bathroom, i have been spared the worst of it. at least the rain has brightened the mountains to a lovely hue of green once again after the brown summer months.
- starting what looks to be a promising business advising project wit nt women who come into the bigger cities to give birth at the hospitals. they provide them with a place to sleep, some food, and education sessions on things such a sexual rights, domestic violence, breast feeding, etc.) they are looking to start some new income generating activities and im gonna try to make sure they arent losing money in the process.
- the new small business peace corps group arrived about a month ago, weird to not be the new kid in town anymore. been contemplating this 1 year in country mark a lot lately. its a crappy place to be at first. asking what have i done? what can i do? did i really do that? whered my sanity run off to? but its also a nice little accomplishment, and i do believe year two will be just as delightful and delirious as the first.
- went back to america to celebrate my grandma's 90th birthday. got to see friends and family and it was just the most wonderful :)

- still teaching a wonderful little weekly english class to a group of 6 university students. last week we played simon says to practice the body parts.

BEISBOL! JONRON!

installment two of my little photo project with juan carlos...
when left to their own devices what do nicaraguan boys find more interesting than anything else, why baseball of course.

welcome to jinotega

here's a quick video tour of where i live in nicaragua. the picture quality isn't so great, and neither are my film editing skills (i'll leave that to elyse) but i guess you can get a little better idea of the life i'm living here.



p.s. video content was taken by my counterpart who was working on a project about waste management for a class. as we all know, peace corps volunteers are not allowed on motorcycles.

fotos

so i have started working/mentoring/meeting with this boy named Juan Carlos here in my site. i met him a few months ago through a couple from California who was here working with the organization Circulo de Amiga (an NGO i think i've mentioned in previous blogs). After they left they asked if i could continue to work or check up on him. i've just started meeting with him, so we'll call what i hope to be a continuous blog series, the Juan Carlos Photo Project. I dont like to take pictures, he does, so i gave him a little job, show my family and friends at home where i live. hopefully every few weeks i'll have a few new pictures. I'm also working with him on some basic photo editing in iPhoto, here's what we got so far:

juan carlos went up to a town called San Rafael de Norte, a little north of jinotega, and took some pictures of a lovely church there...





here are a few photos of his two younger brothers and mother, he is the oldest of 6 kids...





im still trying to find somewhere with fast enough internet to upload my video tour of jinotega, so far no luck, but the search goes on.

Have you ever…

…Lived in a world of utter extremes? Gone from scorching hot to freezing cold? Blissful to depressed to hopeless to laughing harder than you thought was ever possible? Where having a freshly made, still hot tortilla can make you smile all day, and a simple misunderstanding or missed opportunity is nothing short of devastating? Not really been sure if you LOVED or HATED something/someone/somewhere

…Manifested these extremes with only the simplest qualifiers? Where everything is either the most or the best or the least or the worst. Superlatives for the world. With nothing in between, except perhaps for the bizarre.

…Operated on HIGH…always? When everything is important, life altering, impactful…and you find love quick, frustration even quicker, confusion of course…

…Existed with seemingly no restrictions or consequences? And you and only you are responsible for setting these nebulous, impossible, irrelevant boundaries. And you and only you can enforce them. And only if you want to. And who cares if you push or even demolish them.

…Acted completely recklessly, stupidly, but never had more fun? And in doing so, recognized a lack of faith even when “Dios quiere” was the mantra that got you there
…Spent most waking moments battling entirely opposing emotions, each felt with equal force? So you can’t help but question you own sanity…always.

…Been closer to and farther from your dearest loved ones simultaneously?

…Felt foreign?…always?...been early? always?

…Tried to build meaningful and consequential relationships in a different language? When even superficial chit chat can be a struggle. And then succeeded in doing so? And then broke it…

…Realized the knot in your throat and the water behind you eyes at the sight of an impossibly beautiful sunset? From total, unpolluted, never-before-felt, purest of pure awe

…Experienced, in your own joints, the strain of trees as they reach for the sun?

…Climbed through the clouds in a school bus?

…Changed more in 10 months than 24 years?

…Explored?


i guess that's what peace corps will do.
(ps. just got my camera back, working on the video tour)

2010 update

the new year has really just begun for me, I’ll call December and January a “lull” in my peace corps service, as it is summer vacation at the schools and at best I can say I was bored, at worst it was nearing melancholy. The transition from 2009 to 2010 has really been pulling at all of my emotional and irrational strings. It ended and began in saying adios to my students, a wild trip to the beach, a bittersweet trip back to New York, a final upheaval of our entrepreneurship curriculum, the end of a tumultuous relationship and now finally the dust is starting to settle.
In talking business, January brought lots news for the small business program here in Nicaragua. The ministry of education has finally adapted peace corps’ entrepreneurship course (formerly called “la empresa creativa”) into the national curriculum. This means that every senior in every high school in Nicaragua will be required to pass a course entitled entrepreneurship in order to graduate. It has been the goal of the small business program since the inception of La Empresa Creativa, so we all feel the excitement. It doesn’t really impact my work, aside from the fact that I am working with older students (which after 2 weeks of classes is proving to be a blessing; seems that the extra two years of school bring with them a maturity that any teacher can be thankful for…ie. I don’t want smash my head against a wall after each class). Fortunately I am working with my same counterpart from last year. We haven’t really gotten into the swing of things as she was out of town for a workshop during the first week of actual classes, but that just gave me some quality time with the kids.
Also, at the end of January Peace Corps held a 3-day leadership and entrepreneurship camp for our students. Each small business volunteer got to bring 2 students to Selva Negra, a hotel/nature reserve/organic farm about 15 miles south of my city. I co-facilitated 2 sessions, one on Leadership and what defines a leader, and the other on good listening skills and maintaining a positive attitude. All of the kids seemed to have a great time. For many it was the first time they were away from their parents overnight, or away from their hometown in general. There was even a campfire complete with s’mores ingredients on hand.
This was the first week of classes at the adult school I work at, so we are just working on introductions at this point. No updates there, aside from the fact that I am happy to be back.
I have laid the groundwork of what could be a really fun side project for me. At the end of January one of my bosses came up to Jinotega for me second site visit. While she was here she wanted to observe a class/workshop/training, and since my classes at the high school hadn’t begun, I worked with a local NGO and had a session with a group of high school and college girls. A few girls approached me after the session expressing their interest in continuing, so now I am working on making it a series of marketing workshops.
The weather is getting HOT here in Jinotega, and supposedly just going to get hotter as the summer wears on. I guess the cool mountain air couldn’t stick around forever, I am in central America and should probably get used to the heat, though the browning mountainsides aren’t nearly as comforting a sight as the lush green of November. I used to go for walks when I was stressed or needed to clear my head, but now the outdoors just aren’t as appealing. Rumor has it there is a pool in Jinotega, so I am on a mission to check that out.

be on the lookout for a video tour of jinotega, i'll be posting it soon.