Pulseras y Dengue Fever

Hello again! Seems like I´m only going to be able to get to the Cyber once a week. Training has definitely picked up like crazy. I typically wake up around 6am (more like 4am when my 3 year old host brother wakes up and starts yelling "Donde esta KATIE!" outside of my room), attend Spanish class or a series of Charlas (lectures) from the Peace Corps until lunch, attend more Spanish class or Charlas until 3 or 4pm, prepare for the night´s activities (like our Youth Group), eat dinner around 6pm, watch a telenovella (soap opera) and go to bed by 8pm. The days here are long and packed, but they are definitely a lot of fun.

Last night, we had our fourth youth group meeting (and were observed by our trainer), in which we started our recyled art project. With the kids on Tuesday we had decided that we were going to make pulseras, or bracelets, weaved from plastic shopping bags that are all over the streets of our town. We figured a few kids would bring one or two bags and we would spend most of the time teaching them how to make the bracelets....INSTEAD they showed up with TONS of already made, intricately weaved bracelets that they had been practicing making all week AND one kid even made a piñata out of plastic bags and bottles!!! We also had 22 kids attend the meeting. We basically sat back and let the kids who knew what they were doing teach the others. It was awesome. We are hoping to make even more in our next meeting and perhaps figure out how to write Nicaragua into the bracelet, like those cool tourist bracelets you can by all over the world.

Tomorrow is a day I am not as excited for. We are going to the school at 8am with the fifth and sixth grade students from the local school (hopefully they show) to make our school huerto (garden). Although I know this is a great thing, it is supposed to pour rain tomorrow because of the hurricane on the Atlantic coast, and digging in the mud will make an already challenging day even worse. Oh well.

Other than that, I am finally feeling like my Spanish is somewhat coming to gether. I can use complete sentences (most of the time) and am actually able to apply what I learn in class with my family and friends at home. Next week my training group of four is going to be split into two separate groups, and I am going to be placed with a fellow trainee who I consider to be a much better speaker than me. I am definitely happy to have been placed with her, but I will have to work to keep up.

Can´t remember if I have mentioned my bud Sissy yet. She is the four month old kitten living in my house. She is a pretty funny/sad little character. Her "job" acccording to my family is to catch mice, therefore she barely gets fed. I have taken to sneaking her food under the table and feeding her almonds in my room, as she is so skinny I can´t stand it. She also sleeps in my lap during class. This is becoming a slight problem, however, as she waits for me outside of my room, the bathroom, sits at my feet at the table, etc. Not only is my family catching on, but she is going to be one sad kitten when I (note: my food) leave. I am also her sole guardian in the house against my host brother. He tends to pick her up by one leg, kick her, hold her upside down, the list goes on. He does the same to the dog, but she´s a bit tougher.

A few more things to add to my list of strange things Nica´s love/do:
1. point with their lips (as in they make a kissing face and point their lips in a direction, rather than their hands)
2. they are obsessed with the 80's...I spent 3 hours last sunday watching 80´s music videos with my host nephew...
3. they are equally obsessed with Michael Jackson (and therefore like wearing white shoes, tight pants, etc)
4. every man must make some noise or comment about every woman who walks by or he is no longer a man
5. beans must be eaten with EVERY meal...no exception to this rule

That´s all for now!! Xoxox

Ya

Week two has flown by. Sorry it seems to take me a week to blog, but time truly does move quickly with the Peace Corps taking you here, there and everywhere.

Tuesday started the week off strong with the celebration of the Nicaragauan Independence Day. My entire first week I listened to school bands furiously banging their drums, and finally I understood why. Note: my town has be prohibited from large fiestas and parades due to excessive drinking and general trouble with the police. So, on Tuesday we took a short bus trip to the town next door and watched the parade. Four of my family members attend the private school in this town, Sta. Teresa, and are therefore part of the parade, so we moved throughout the crowd to watch them. In Nicaragua, parade watching is not quite the same sort of enjoyable, relaxing experience it is in the US. Rather, it is pushy, hot, and very crowded. The crowds move with the parade, walking in between dancers and drummers as they see fit, and shoving mercilessly. At first this is disconcerting, but once you get the hang of it, it is pretty fun to be a part of the parade.

Thursday and Friday were equally tiring, but necessary, days spent in PC training, learning about organic pesticides, how to protect against Malaria/Dengue (I´m screwed), and all sorts of other things. Thus far, our training sessions have been a bit overwhelming, as we haven´t had the chance to put many of the gardening lessons into practice, but soon enough we will have the opportunities to try out what we are being taught. As for getting sick, it is inevitable, I just hope it´s not Dengue or Malaria.

One aspect of training that is going exceptionally well (so far) is the youth group that my fellow trainees and I have started in our pueblo. Our first meeting only brought in about 8 curious 21 year olds, friends of my "nephew," but thankfully due to some door-to-door pleading, Jehovah Witness style, we were able to rangle 15 kids at our second meeting, including THREE girls. Granted, the majority were either my extended family members or friends of my nephew, but they seemed to really enjoy themselves and be very excited about our recycled art project and future activities together. Hopefully, this will be a lasting and sustainable project.

As I spend more time here, and become more comfortable with the language, certain words stick out. My current favorite, and the word most widely used in Nicaragua as far as I can tell, is "ya." Literally meaning "already," the word can be used for just about everything. Some examples:

Dinner is ready, "Ya, Katie" (pronounced KAH-tie)

Your dog is trying to get food or lick your hand, "Ya, Ya" (Cut it out!)

Your kid is banging his spoon on the table, "¨¡Ya, insert name, ya ya! (Enough already!!)

The TV show ended, "Ya" (It´s over)

Kids are running through your garden, "¡ YA YA!" (Get the fuck out!)

Essentially, this is an quick, effective word that can be used almost all the time to convey that you are tired of something, want it to be done with, etc. The only problem is I tend to say "yea, yea" a lot when listening to people speak and hope that this isn´t being misconstrued as, "ya, ya, enough already, stop talking." I usually catch myself and switch to si or bueno, but yea is a hard habit to break.

Some other small but interesting quirks I have noticed living in Nicaragua (and had not anticipated):
-all teenage boys and young men want to look like Cristiano Ronaldo...faux hawks (hair always gelled), capri pants, tight shirts, etc...
-Avril Lavigne, Justin Beiber, and Lady Gaga (this one I get) are really big down here...Avril, what?
-young women almost exclusively wear jeans...dresses are for grandmas...I guess I will be a grandma because it´s freakin hot down here and jeans are miserable...

I´m sure there is a great deal more, but it is seriously hot in the cybercafe, so I am off to find an icecream vender (the only cold thing around). Write me lots of e-mails : ) xoxo

A Week in the Life

Greetings! Sorry it has taken so long to update!! Although time seems to move slowly here and no one is in a great rush to do anything, I can´t seem to find a moment to spare. I can not believe I have already been here one week. This country is truly starting to feel like home, and I finally feel like I am catching on to the language (at least a little bit).

My family is wonderful. They are smaller and quieter than most, but I think this is a very good think. My immediate family is only a mother, father, and three year old son, so except for the normal antics of a three year old, our house is fairly calm. They do, however, have a VERY large extended family, who takes over most of the surrounding neighborhood. This is wonderful as I can live in a quiet house, but have lots of fun family members to visit and hang out with. My 20 year old  ¨newphew¨ Reynaldo hangs around the house the most, as he is very close with my parents, so he tends to be the one I go to most often with questions on what really is said or culturally acceptable in Nicaragua. Most of the volunteers, including myself, have found that it is easiest to talk with Nicaraguans of similar age, as they are interested in similar topics and tend to slow down more and enunciate.

My host padre is also very interesting, however, as he is an organic farmer. He is extremely helpful in teaching me methods for composting and farming in Nicaragua, as it is no easy task, and I am definitely a beginner. Along with significant language classes, we have started recieving lessons in gardening and environmental issues, which is what I am most worried about picking up. Yesterday we worked on creating seed beds and transplanting. This is not only labor intensive work, but impossible when in Spanish. I barely get it in English. Hopefully I will catch on...

The Spanish classes we attend are incredible. Peace Corps absolutely has their act together when it comes to this. We have one language facilitator per 4 students in one community. Classes are three hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon used to apply what we learned in the morning within the community. Essentially the lessons are everything I always wished school could be. We come in and ask any questions we have about what a word or phrase is that we may have heard the night before or something we are curious about, and only learn useful relevant vocabulary. I feel as though I am learning so much, as I immediately apply what I am taught in the community or with my family. I have no choice but to speak Spanish, and therefore am slowly but surely picking it up.

Even though we are learning we are still the constant butt of jokes around town. Most of the time it is very funny, but I think we are going to have to learn to laugh A LOT at ourselves. For example; in the first youth group meeting we attempted to have, in which we mangaged to gather 8 youth (mainly 21 year old males coming to check out the new muchachas in town) one member of our training group declared that she likes to ¨montar los caballeros¨ ....ride cowboys....I should mention that she is 65 and hilarious...She often provides much needed comedy around town, and although it involves our group being laughed at, it also gives us the opportunity to introduce ourselves and explain why we are in town.

By the way, the name of my town is Guisquiliapa, pronounced Whiskey-lee-apa. It is a very small town outside of the slightly larger town of Jinotepe. It is very easy to travel between the two towns in either the two microbuses or two taxis that go between them throughout the day. It is extremely cheap, and both the taxi drivers and bus drivers recognize us and honk when they see us in either town and ask if we need a ride. Needless to say, we stand out.

Overall, I am loving my time down here. I currently have a bit of a cold (el gripe), but I don´t think it is anything very serious. My host mother believes it is because I take showers at night (which is really 6:00 but for them that´s night). My family is also able to hear everything I do at night, as our house is somewhat like one giant room with partitions, as none of the walls reach the ceilings, so my mother already knew I had el gripe by the time I woke up. They also know that I sleep talk quite frequently and ask me in the mornings about my dreams. There is very little privacy here. Oh well.

Also, if anyone is looking to adopt an animal, come to Nica. They are all very skinny and in need. The kitten living in my home is supposed to get her food by eating mice, but she is too tiny, so I feed her almonds I brought with her. Somewhat of a problem as she now follows me around and I´m afraid my family will find out. I also plan to bring a dog home with me eventually. They are all so loving down here and just need to be fed. Think about it!!

Ok, I will try to update sooner next time, and with more flow to my thoughts. Hasta Luego!

Boat Trip on Lake Nicaragua

So, back in the day a (still active) volcano exploded to form islands throughout Lake Granada. The Peace Corps was kind enough to send us on an awesome boat tour around these islands, most of which are the vacation compounds for very wealthy Nicaraguans.

A gorgeous flower the boat driver picked that smelled a lot like a gardenia and was the length of my arm...he revealed it like a magician with a cape, as it looks like a stick at first then bursts out like a bouquet.

The large mountain-looking thing in the way background is actually the volcano with clouds around the top...it's whole top is blown off, so it is flat on top.

Again, the peak in the distance is the volcano (COOL). Also, there are the only freshwater sharks in the world in this lake. According to our Environmental Tech. Trainer, this is because the lake was once connected to the ocean, and as the water from the ocean slowly (over thousands of years) drained from the lake, it was again very slowly replaced with water from the rivers. This gave the sharks time to adapt. I thought they were small sharks, but they are bull sharks, meaning I will never be swimming in this lake, ever.

Trouble. Monkey, monkey Island.

Very friendly monkeys who were not afraid to climb into laps and search pockets.

Beautiful homes along the lake.

Calor o Caliente?

Orientation has been a whirlwind!

It all started in Washington, DC where we were given a one day intensive overview of the Peace Corps expectations, our expected behavior and protocol, and other safety/heath issues. To be honest, we participated in so many activities and reviewed such a wide range of concepts it is hard to remember back to everything that took place. What I do remember is that by the end of the day I had met and talked with just about every other trainee and felt completely comfortable with a group of people who, only hours before, had been complete strangers.

A complete surprise during our first orientation day is that there is another Providence College graduate in my group!! Not only is she from PC, but she was also an Elementary/Special Edu. major...What a small world. Although Megan is a 2009 grad, it is still surprising that we had never met before, and didn't know about one another until our first meeting in DC.

Thankfully, I am not the only Education major/teacher who has never taught Environmental Science before. In fact, the majority of the trainees here are elementary school teachers who have no experience with Environmental Science, so at least we are all in this together. It has become more and more clear that although this will be no walk in the park, our training will be incredible and we can do this.

So far we have been completely spoiled in Nicaragua. We have been staying in a gorgeous hotel in the town of Granada (also a beautiful city), where the staff has been feeding us 3 delicious meals a day and there is an awesome swimming pool. This will definitely not be the Peace Corps lifestyle we should come to expect, but it is a nice environment for us to get to know one another in and not be completely overwhelmed in quite yet. Training each day has definitely been exhausting, but the information is crucial and we have been dying to hear it. It seems that each day we learn a little bit more about exactly what the job will entail, where we will be living, and what our lives will be like. The trainers have no qualms in telling us exactly how difficult our jobs will be, the challenges we will face, and the possibility that we may not be hired at the end of training. Awesome.

That said, I took my first language exam yesterday, as well as a practice class (for three hours) today. They placed me in what seems to be an intermediate level (I am definitely not the worst one here, but no where near the fluent speakers that are kicking butt). I made the common mistake today in my class of saying that it was "muy caliente" outside instead of "muy calor" only to have my teachers giggle and look politely aside...I had a feeling this wasn't quite the right way of saying that it is very hot outside, but figured I got the message across, until a fellow trainee whispered that I had just told the class I was "very horny." A good way to get to know my new teachers. Well done, Katie. Luckily, it was a good opportunity to demonstrate my ability to laugh at myself and move on. I think this will happen quite a bit when I move in with my host family.

On that note, we were FINALLY told who are host families would be today, after many questions about preferences, allergies, etc. I am in a family with a 34 year old mama, a 43 year old papa, a 3 year old son and their 18 year old nephew. I am very excited to be in one of the smaller families, as some of the homes housed up to three generations and seemed fairly crowded. At the same time, I am glad to have host siblings in the house to practice my Spanish with. I can not wait to meet them tomorrow morning.

The next three months are going to be very intense, as we will have Spanish lessons five days a week for six hours each day (broken into 4 hours in the morning of lessons and 2 hours in the afternoon of application in the community). We also have to undertake projects in the community; such as, creating a youth group, planting a garden/composting, and teaching lessons in the local school (ALL when I am still working with limited Spanish...yikes). I am hoping that this is all currently intimidating much like getting all of your syllabi on the first day of classes, but then when you actually get going it flies by...let's hope.

For now, my biggest concerns are picking up the language and getting to know my host family. Hopefully by my next post I can report that I have a lovely host family and that loads of high school Spanish have suddenly come flooding back into my brain (that has yet to happen). Oh well.

Adios!