Proper hand washing and horse trauma

So this week I got to participate in my first health charla.  A few child and maternal health volunteers who live in Jinotega were giving this workshop to midwives about proper birthing practices, and were asking for some helpers.  So I showed up to lend a hand.  They invited 30 midwives from campo communities outside the city of Jinotega, and over 30 showed up, so it was a great turn out.  The health volunteers gave charlas on proper sanitary and hygiene practices while aiding with the birth of a baby, from topics ranging to proper hand washing to how to properly cut and care for the umbilical cord.  They also gave a talk on HIV/AIDS and a condom demonstration, which I really want to start doing in my site.  My part in the charla was during the roundtable demonstrations.  I was at the hand washing table, demonstrating how to properly wash one's hands with soap and water and use of alcohol (or the hand sanitizer gel we Americans so love to use).  It was an interesting day and I had a good time.

My favorite part was when they got an older campo lady to volunteer to come to the front and demonstrate how to put a condom on a cucumber.  It got a lot of laughs and giggles from the participants, but was very important to include in the charla.  These women shouldn't be embarrassed about this subject!  They help birth babies for a living, they should be able to talk about safe sex and HIV prevention.

Gardening is fun!

This week we also had a going away party for a volunteer who's finished her service and is off to Texas to start med school.  We'll miss you Lauren!  Seeing her leave makes me realize how little time I actually have in service here and all the things I'd like to do in my service before my time's up.  The irrigation project is still on-going.  We planted more seeds this past week in the garden, including pumpkin, watermelon, onion, more cucumber, and squash.  We're continuing with the 3-liter bottle watering system, which is working out pretty well.  Now we just have to find more bottles for all the new plants!  Hopefully once the new tomato seeds have sprouted we can transplant those where all the other ones have died and get the drip irrigation system up and running again. 

The ovens project is moving a little slowly.  The meeting with the women who are receiving ovens went well.  They're all very excited about this project.  Most of them were hoping to have their ovens done before Semana Santa (Holy Week, the week before Easter), but I'm still waiting on getting the metal barrels delivered from Managua.  Once those come in, hopefully this week, the welder can make the barrels into ovens and we can start the work.  I'm not holding my breath though.

I gave a charla to the 5th and 6th graders about basic gardening, hoping to get them more on track with the school garden project.  The charla went well and I think they're a little more informed on what I had in mind for the care of this garden.  I'm hoping to do more garden charlas around the community to get people in the mindset of maybe starting their own little patio gardens at home.  There's this square meter garden concept that I'd like to try with someone, where you plant 9 different things within one square meter.  It allows for a variety of veggies in a small, easy to maintain space.

"Bathing" in the river, as Nicas call it

Here's a funny story: this last week I walked over to a neighboring community with some friends to go swim in the river and visit with an older woman who sells vegetables from her little farm.  The river was cool and wonderful to swim in on a hot day.  Nicas just jump right in with their clothes on (which was fine with me, I didn't really feel like subjecting anyone to my white-ass bathing suit body), and then just dry off on the walk home. Since it was such a hot day we didn't want to walk home at high noon, so we hung out at Doña Dominga's house, drying our clothes in the hot air, before loading up on veggies to take back home.

Taken just before he stomped on my foot

Adding salt to the wound

At one point one of the girls ties a string around this loose horse's neck that was in the yard and jumps up on it's back.  They yell for me to come out of the house to look, since I had been telling them how much I wanted to go on a horseback ride at some point.  I just laughed and said no way would I ride that boney saddle-less horse with nothing but a string around it's neck.  But I did go up to pet the horse and help another girl up onto it's back.  At that point the horse took a step to the side and stomped right on my foot!  Practically barefoot in my chaco sandals no less!  It landed right on the cuticle of my big toe and tore the skin back.  I froze a second and didn't know what to say because I wanted to scream out in English but knew they wouldn't understand anything I was saying, so I immediately started pushing the horse away from me and finally yelled out "mi dedo! mi dedo!"  (my toe! my toe!).  Once I had him off me I hobbled over to a chair in the shade and sat down to examine the damage.  Because I'm so sensitive to finger/toe trauma I made sure to sit down quickly before the possibility of fainting could occur.  One of the women ran into the house and came back out with a cup of salted water which she immediately slathered onto my toe.  I didn't know what she was doing at first and asked what it was.  It didn't take me long to feel the stinging pain of the salt on my open wound and start shaking my foot to try and relieve the pain.  She told me the salt was the best to reduce inflammation and risk of infection.  I told her putting salt on an open would was one of the most painful things you could do!  Then I thought about how much rubbing alcohol hurts but how important that is sometimes, so I felt stupid for telling her that.  She assured me it was the best thing to do, and made sure to reiterate that later once the purple color left my toenail ("it would have stayed purple if I hadn't put salt on it").  Who knows, now I want to look that up as a treatment.  Everyone was laughing when I told them that I wanted to scream out in English.  They told me to do it anyways afterwards, so I did, yelling out "ahh my foot! He's on my foot!", and they all got a huge kick out of hearing me yell in English. The girl on the horse's back said she felt bad because she didn't know it was on my foot, but it obviously wasn't her fault it stepped on me.  Anyways, so it was super funny but super painful.  I've been cleaning it everyday and putting neosporin on it, and it honestly looks like nothing happened at all to my toe.  But it hurts still and I wonder if it got a little infected under the skin.

Pantasma mountains

Well, if I don't blog before then, have a great Easter everyone!  My plan is to hang out with various families in site who are going to swim in the river (a very popular/required activity during Semana Santa) and cook various traditional dishes for this particular holiday.  I hear canned sardines are usually eaten since meat is a no-no.  I'll fill you in with all the details (and food photos) next time!

~Sarah~

Ometepe and Inaugerations

March 9, 2012

So here I am in Ometepe.  That's the island on Lake Nicaragua that's basically two big volcanoes.  The  local population is about 40,000 people, and the island is very touristy with many hotels/hostels/fincas (farms) to stay.  I'm here for two days visiting with a couple of friends from the States.  We stayed in Granada one night, which is another very touristy place, but for good reason because it's really pretty.  Getting there was not so pretty.  Two days before I was to leave site for this trip I got a message that there was a road block on the highway on the way down to Managua due to a large group of protesters.  There was basically no way to pass through that area without having to get out of the bus, walk across the road block, and try to catch another bus on the other side.  I didn't want to risk getting myself into a potentially dangerous situation, so I took another route around the long way, to Leon, all the way to the Pacific coast and around down to Managua.  It cost me over twice as much as the normal trip would have taken, and what would have normally been a 3 hour trip from Jinotega to Managua turned into a 7 hour trip.  But at least I got there and met up with my friends.  Last night in Granada we stayed in a really pretty hotel in the middle of town.  We got up early to head to Rivas, where we catch the ferry to take us to Ometepe.  It is so windy at the port!  The ferry pulled in, bobbing and swaying, and we were all like, oh great, this is going to be a horrible 1 hour boat ride.  The water was so choppy and made me sick just looking at it.  But once on the boat it wasn't that bad.  It was very bumpy and choppy, but luckily my stomach stayed with me and I was hungry and ready for lunch when we arrived on the island.  I called for a taxi to pick us up and drive us to the finca we were staying at.  The directions said it was a 300 meter walk from the road to the finca, so I imagined a really long driveway or something.  It turns out it was a 10 minute hike up a rocky hill, and one of the girls had a rolling suitcase that she had to carry on top of her head.  I felt bad.  But the owner of the place met us half way and carried her suitcase for her the rest of the way.  The farther we walked, the more rural we realized this place was turning out to be.  When we got there the owner had us put our stuff down on one side of this barbed wire fence, apparently to be guarded by his dog while he gave us a little tour of the place.  He held his barking dog back while we all climbed through the fence to get in.  He showed us his house, which is a two story cabin with a common area downstairs and a kitchen that is open for use for everyone.  There was a cooler with ice in it that had some beers and cold water, but no bottled water for sale.  We were grateful to at least know there was a chance at some cold beers after that hot hike up the hill.  He showed us our cabin, which is also two story, but was not exactly what was expected based on the photos from the website.  There was a camping stove and sink downstairs, but there was no propane to cook with (apparently we would have had to haul that up the hill with us?), the dishes obviously hadn't been washed for some time, and the bedding was questionable.  But really, what do you expect from a rustic cabin in the outdoors?  The shower was out in the open, so you had to call ahead of you before approaching to make sure no one got a naked surprise.  The latrines are dry latrines, which means there's no water or even a hole to poop into.  All the waste and paper is collected in a big plastic bin and used for organic compost, so after going to the bathroom you have to add a couple scoops of rice hulls to the mixture.  I actually think dry latrines (called “baños secos”) are kinda cool and very eco-friendly, but you have to have the right mindset about it.  He also had a little “cine” area set up, which is a makeshift movie screen made out of a white sheet pulled tight on a wooden frame.  The area had a mattress on the ground and some hammocks to rest in.  We spent most of the afternoon there just sitting around drinking our beer, and this is actually where I'm writing this blog at the moment.  So overall the place was not exactly what we expected it would be.  There were some friendly guests staying there in tents, which is obviously cheaper than the cabin we had.  There were people from the Basque country and from Germany.  They all seemed like the “roughin’ it” type, with partly dreaded hair, hippie clothes and chaco sandals.  Because we weren’t prepared with enough bottled water (the owner told us the water was safe to drink, but you never want to take the chance) we only stayed one night instead of two. 

Cabin at La Brisa

"Ojo de Agua" volcanic swimming hole

The next day we headed to this volcanic spring called “Ojo de Agua” were you had to pay $2 to get in but had all the time you wanted to swim in the beautiful water.  It was a very worthwhile place; I’d love to take anyone there that comes to visit me.  After a nice cool dip on a hot day we took a $20 taxi (did I mention this island is really touristy and therefore a rip-off?) to the port city of Moyogalpa and stayed in a hostel for the night.  We treated ourselves to some delicious margaritas and (lake) fish entrees at a restaurant on the main drag and had a good time getting tipsy on our last night of the short trip.  On the trip home I took the long way around again getting back to Jinotega to try to avoid the road block area, and then found out later that the road block wasn’t up that day, so I could have saved myself all that extra time and money.  Bummer.  But I finally made it back to site 11 hours’ worth of buses later.  

Volcan Concepcion

The sunrise coming up over Volcan Concepcion

March 16, 2012

So now that I’ve been back in site I’ve been a pretty busy volunteer.  The drip irrigation system is up and running, kinda.  The first day back in site from my trip I set up the whole system with my group of jovenes.  It wasn’t hard to install, but as I’m finding out it’s hard to maintain the system’s flow of water.  The slightest inclination of land makes all the water fill one side of the tubes and so only the lower plants get good water dripping.  Plus the tomato plants that we transplanted to be watered by this project are looking really sad and droopy.  They’ve only been in the ground two days, so I’m hoping there’s time for them to perk up a bit, but it’s been hot enough during the day that I’m afraid for them.  Plus, it’s been a pain trying to coordinate who from the group can water when, because not everyone is available every day to haul buckets and buckets of water from the stream to the big 200 liter bag that waters the whole system.  Then once the water’s flowing you have to walk around and check all 250 little micro-drip tubes to make sure each little wilted plant gets its water.  Lots of troubleshooting and head-scratching going on.  And lots of annoying sighing on my part.  I feel bad that this project has become kind of a pain in the butt, because if we’re not successful then I feel like I’ve wasted all these kid’s time and hard work getting the project going.  It’s still just the beginning, even though we’ve really been at it a month getting the land ready.  Today we planted some squash and started using a new method that I’ve never seen before.  One of the kids in the group told me about drip irrigation using a 3 liter soda bottle, where you just cut off the bottom, tie it upside down on a stake, and unscrew the top just enough so that a little drip forms and slowly waters the seeds over a few days.  Then you only have to fill the bottles as needed, and not necessarily every day.  So we planted 12 squash and set up the bottles this morning.  Hope it works! 

The irrigation project is just one garden I’m working on out of three.  The school garden’s the 2^nd one.  I’ve started a committee of students, teachers, and some parents to try to keep the organization and communication going with the garden project.  So far I’ve had help from two parents preparing the soil and planting cucumber and tomato seeds.  The seeds have sprouted and are growing!  Yay, so we’re getting somewhere.  Then I talked with teachers to make sure they organized a watering schedule with the classes each day.  So far it seems to be working.  Except that the 6^th grade teacher approached me the other day about giving a workshop on basic garden care for the school so they might actually know what they’re doing.  I felt bad for not bringing that up earlier and having a simple garden charla about how to tend to the seeds while they’re germinating and the overall plans for the future of the garden.  So that’s the next item on my list, besides continuing to make sure the plants are getting watered.  Hopefully I can give that class next week sometime. 

The 3^rd garden project I have going is at my own house.  I’ve started a small little plot with tomatoes and lettuce.  I plan to plant pumpkin and watermelon next.  My backyard is a tough one for gardening due to the overabundance of shade. There’s about a 3 hour window in the late afternoon when the sun shines fully on the garden area, so hopefully that’s enough.  I transplanted the tomato and lettuce two days ago, and they’re still alive so far.  It would be so great and fulfilling to have a successful home garden that supplies its own veggies.  It’s a personal Peace Corps goal of mine. 

Yesterday was the big inauguration of the local empresa (ag business co-op).  The community has been preparing for the party this whole past week, constructing brick entrance pillars, painting the logo on the office wall, painting the whole wherehouse, building a stage for the ceremony activities, and preparing and cooking a huge luncheon (which included the butchering of a cow).  The activities started at 11am and went until about 2pm, and consisted of various officials speaking about the success of the building and organizing the group.  There was a theater group from another community that did some skits which were really weird but funny (I mostly understood them), requiring a lot of the guys to dress up as ladies, which just looked ridiculous.  But it kept the crowd laughing.  After lunch they moved the huge speaker system inside the bodega (wherehouse) for some dancing.  I went home to catch up on some things, but got dressed up and came back at 7pm to dance the night away.  It was fun and there were lots of people dancing, but as expected, as the night went on the drunker became the men.  Which means they start to get pushy when they want to dance with me.  I mostly danced with people I knew and trusted, but later on it got to the point where there was a group of about 4 or 5 men just standing and kind of stalking next to me and whoever I was dancing with, waiting for the break between songs to all rush in together and start grabbing and pulling at my arms to try to get to me first.  I had to just keep pushing people away and trying to yank my arms out of their grip.  I decided it was time to leave at that point.  Luckily a family friend (who doesn’t drink) was outside the bodega ready with a flashlight and walked me home, making sure I locked the gate behind me.  It was such a nice gesture after having to deal with the drunkards inside. 

Tomorrow I have a meeting with all the women who are part of my oven project.  I finally received the money for the project to start making the rest of the ovens.  I’m going to coordinate getting supplies and making sure they each know what they need to do help with their oven.  I’m hoping to get the rest of them done (I have 7 more to do) in April. 

That’s the gist of what’s been going on lately.  Just a reminder for any care package ideas: dried fruit and nuts are always super special, plus boxes of mac’n’cheese, granola bars, non-refrigerated cheeses (Laughing Cow brand comes to mind), candy (chocolate!!!), instant hot chocolate and oatmeal/cream of wheat, cooking herbs and spices, crystal lite-type powdered drink mixes (citrus flavors are my favorites), interesting books you’ve read and want to get rid of, and I’d love to get some new veggie/herb seeds for my home garden.  But there’s a good chance they’ll get inspected and confiscated, so if you do send seed packets please try to wrap them tightly so they can’t be easily heard.  And always remember it’s better to send packages in those yellow padded envelopes instead of boxes as they have less of a chance of getting inspected.  

Oh, and some last minute fun news, I'm finally getting a fridge!  I know, I'm an Ag volunteer living in the campo and I should be roughing it with a pit latrine and a dirt floor.  But lucky for me I have a flushing toilet, a cement floor, and now a mini fridge.  But hey, it was available to me (I bought it from a volunteer who's leaving) and it will make cooking much more interesting and varied.  So that's it for now folks, stay tuned. . .

~Sarah~