Friday, August 30, 2013

Swine project and 30th birthday

Hello all.  Well, my 3rd year with Peace Corps Nicaragua has officially commenced!  Up until next August, 2014, I’ll still be here in Central America working the year away on further community projects and trying to make more of a dent with some of the families I've lived and worked with the past two years.  Luckily I do get a long, whole month break (required by Peace Corps for those that extend a 3rd year) that I plan on taking in December, to take advantage of Christmas time of course.  Then I plan on taking a trip to Peru with my friend Tina, who will be going back there after having already finishing her Peace Corps service to start a job there in the Amazon!  Yeah, totally cool.  So I’m going to get to have a month off at home, then take an “official” vacation to the Amazon region of South America.  So excited, to say the least! My trip home in December will be the first time I've seen my family in a year.  I haven’t left Nicaragua since I went home for Christmas last year. 


The next big project I've gotten started/planned for my community is an improved swine husbandry project.  Almost every family here has at least one pig they’re raising on their patios, whether it be to fatten up and sell or butcher themselves, or to breed and raise a litter of pigs to then sell or eat later on.  But the management of these animals is sometimes minimal at best, and since animal husbandry is my background, I thought it might be useful to help these families improve how they take care of their pigs.  The end goal is that the families are able to make more money off fatter and healthier pigs, and have better pork meat for sale/consumption.  So I’ve contacted a local animal health inspector that works for an agricultural government agency, and with him we planned and gave a training session last week, which is the first of 3 that I have planned for the rest of this year.  It focused on animal health care and some basic changes the community can make with their pigs to improve their overall health and management.  Luckily, 16 people came and at the end seemed to have enjoyed the session, which gave me a boost of energy to keep the project going.  The next activity I’m planning is a practical one where we all attend to some 2 week old pigs and give them some needed injections and also castrate the males.  Most people don’t castrate the males until they’re several months old, which is physically more demanding and is more painful and potentially dangerous for the animal.  So I’m trying to teach them that it’s better to castrate the young ones when they’re only around 2 weeks old, since they’re so much smaller it’s easier for the handler to do, it’s less painful for the animal, and they heal faster.  This is my one big personal project I have planned for myself this year, so I really hope the community is receptive to my guidance and that we can find useful ways to improve their swine production. 

The women’s baking groups have been getting more difficult to organize because so many people forget to come, or they don’t buy their ingredients in time, or various other reasons.  So I’ve decided to lay off a bit and let the women come to me if they want to continue learning new recipes.  I’m tired of working my ass off organizing the classes between 6 different groups, then having to remind each one of them individually a day or so before the class, then have no one show up the day of, or if they do show up they don’t have the right ingredients so they send someone to get them, which just takes up time during the class that we could be baking.  It drives me crazy how forgetful and irresponsible some of these women can be!  So, for my own sanity, I’ve told them I’m available to keep teaching, but they should contact me from now on with the dates and recipes they want to learn in the classes, which, based on their previous signs of motivation, probably means I won’t be teaching very many baking classes in the future.  But that’s okay; if they’re not motivated enough to get it done, then it’s not worth my time and effort.  I do have one last large activity planned regarding the improved ovens, however.  I’m working with a small business volunteer on a baking charla that discusses using the ovens to start a small business selling baked goods.  I’m planning on inviting every woman in my community, as well as 4 others in a nearby community where I’ve built ovens, to attend the charla and learn how to do a feasibility study on a particular baking product they think may sell in the community.  And then I’ll go from there and work personally with the women who actually take it seriously and show a real interest in using the ovens for income generation. 

The girl’s youth group has also kind of petered out a bit in the last month or so.  That’s partly due to a funeral that occurred a few weeks ago, where the activities of the 9 days of mourning after the funeral took up some of the days I had activities planned for the club.  Hopefully September will bring more time to get the club up and going again.  The school garden is an activity that’s just barely hanging on.  I don’t make much time to keep an eye on the 5th and 6th graders to make sure they’re tending to the garden (which they won’t when left to it on their own, of course), so the garden will probably die soon or just pittle down to nothing like all the other garden attempts.  We actually have various plants growing right now, including tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, lettuce, and a small tree nursery, but if I don’t show up every single time they’re supposed to work (which I can’t), then they don’t any work.  So needless to say I don’t have high hopes for those poor plants.

The girl's club's last charla: HIV
 July included my 30th birthday.  Early in the month I had a small get together with some local volunteers in Jinotega, but it was also partly a going-away party for 3 of them, including my friend Alicia.  The day of by birthday I was in site and Gloria, my host mom (or maybe she’s more like my hosts sister, since she’s only 8 years older than me), made my favorite chicken soup with dumplings, and we baked a cake and just ate yummy food.  Overall it was a mellow 30th.  Maybe next year it will be bigger because it will also be close to my official close of service.

Me with Gloria and my birthday chicken (she was made into a delicious soup)

This weekend I’m attending the annual Small Business sector fundraiser gala they have at a fancy hotel in Managua (Holiday InnJ).  It’s one of the few times of the year we get to indulge in big fluffy-pillowed beds in carpeted rooms with upholstered furniture and hot showers in nice bathrooms (where you can actually flush the toilet paper! although I still rarely allow myself to do it).  The ticket includes a really nice dinner with beer and wine, and there’s a raffle table with fancy gifts and a DJ providing dancing into the night.  I’m mostly excited about the yummy steak and dancing.  Not to mention it’s a reason to get all dressed up and actually wear make-up and heels (though those inevitably come off during the dancing part) and look like a pretty girl for once, instead of a dusty (or muddy, depending on the season) campo inhabitant.  Then, after the small biz gala, I’m heading back to the same hotel my group had our going away party at on the beach in Carazo to celebrate the AG 59 group’s year in service.  They’ve invited me and Paul (the only two aggies from my group who’ve stayed for another year) to celebrate with them.    Plus, during my time in Managua I’m planning on a much needed night out complete with a delicious sushi dinner, 2 for 1 margaritas, and a movie in an actual movie theater, and not on my mini computer screen by candlelight (don’t get me wrong, that’s quite enjoyable as well, just, ya know, different). 


I’ll sign off here.  Thanks to those who read my blog and send me occasional updates about your lives back in the States.  Don’t forget I’m here!  I know it’s been a long time, but that makes every e-mail and letter and package that much more exciting to receive!  I miss all you guys and am looking forward to coming back next year to start whatever the next chapter of my life will be.  But as usual, stay posted here. . .

Monday, June 3, 2013

School project and Fishing

At this point in my service all my fellow aggies from my group are in the process of finishing up projects (or are just killing time since they’ve already finished their work in their sites) and are planning for their trip back home to the States.  The official leave date for my group is the end of July, but some are leaving as early as the first week in June, depending on their grad school start date or a new job that’s waiting for them.  There are a few volunteers hoping to stay in Nicaragua and find jobs with local NGO’s, but I’m officially the only AG volunteer from my group that’s staying on as a volunteer for a third year.  So what am I feeling right now?  A little bit of loneliness that I’m not leaving with the group I arrived with.  A longing to be going home to all the things I miss about home.  An eagerness to start looking for a career back in the States.  Restlessness with the difficulties of the Nicaraguan culture.  But also motivation to have a productive and successful third year.  When I was preparing to leave for Peace Corps service, two years seemed like a long time to be away from home.  There’s the nervousness of having to leave the home and the culture you’re accustomed to and be immersed in a new language surrounded by new people.  But once my service started and my Spanish improved a bit, I began to realize how tedious and difficult it can be to get projects started and keep them going successfully in a two year period.  Now, after 2 years of service and finally achieving an advanced Spanish speaking level (yeah!), I still have such a long list of projects I’d like work on.  These past two years have flown by, and so trying to get projects done during this next year will go by even faster.  But it will help to give me more time to research jobs that I’d like to apply for while I’m still here.

So, an update on what I’m currently working on: The school donation project from Fillmore Elementary school in Lompoc is still going.  I finally got someone from my site with a truck to help me haul the 20 pre-school desks from the carpenter’s house in the next town over to the primary school in my site.  He’s currently building two teacher’s desks that were bought with the donation money that I hope to have at the school within the next few weeks.    The chalkboard in the pre-school classroom was installed and recently painted this past weekend.  And soon I’ll be organizing the oldest students to help me paint the world map mural at the school with paint bought with the donation money.  I plan to also paint a map of Nicaragua later on with the extra paint from the world map. 

The new pre-school desks

Painting a new chalkboard in the pre-school classroom


Of the 6 women’s baking groups I originally formed, 3 are still organized and regularly show up to the classes I give.  Recent recipes have included focaccia and ciabatta bread, bread rolls, chocolate chip cookies, and pineapple cake.  The other 3 groups have kind of fallen apart due to lack of money or just lack of organization to keep showing up on the dates we set.  But now that the rain has started there will be more money coming in with the crop harvests so I hope to start up again with all of the groups in the coming months. 

One of my women's baking classes, making pizza

I’ve started a girl’s youth club, which they’ve named “Club Las Estrellas”, or The Stars Club, and have given two charlas so far.  Some meetings I give an official life skills talk (health topics, making good decisions, communication skills, etc.), and other meetings we just do fun activities like dance or games.  I’m planning on inviting “specialists” to some of the meetings to make them more official, like nurses from the local health center to talk about birth control methods, and also other Peace Corps volunteers to help me facilitate certain topics.  So far the 8 or so girls that have participated have seemed to enjoy the discussions and willingly participate, and I’m hoping to attract more attendance in the coming meetings to build confidence and education in the community. 

An old project I’m trying to get going again is the primary school garden.  The 5th and 6th graders have a class called Orientación Técnica y Vocacional (OTV), which means Technical and Vocational Guidance.  It focuses on agricultural activities like school gardens and tree nurseries, so I’m using that class period to organize the school garden with the teacher and students.  If you remember my blogs from the previous years, I haven´t had much success motivating the students to maintain the work in the garden, and we haven´t had many vegetables come of it.  This time, through the OTV class, I´m trying a new strategy of having the 5th and 6th graders compete against each other for the best half of the garden.  The winning grade that works the hardest and hopefully has the best harvest will of course win a prize (of which I haven’t decided yet) and that will hopefully motivate them to keep up the work and actually take an interest in getting a good final result.    

The 5th and 6th graders in starting their new garden


Something fun and totally un-work related I did recently was go fishing! I went with Paul, my fellow Pantasma volunteer, and one of my Nica friends from my site, Nely.  She knows a guy whose cousin has a row boat, so we took it for a little spin around the lake.   Lake Apanas is about a half hour’s bus ride from my site, and so three of us decided to try our luck at fishing the other weekend.  Nicaraguans don’t use fancy fishing poles.  They use nets or a simple flat piece of wood to wind the fishing line around to catch fish.  We didn’t have any bait, and figured we could just find worms along the lake side.  When that failed, we were given partially cooked corn to stick onto our hooks, which was a total joke, but it was all we had.  It was also highly comical because the boat had multiple leaks, so water was slowing trickling into the bottom of the boat and we had to use a plastic bowl to occasionally scoop it out.  Nely can swim but had never been on a boat in a lake before so she was nervous and kept a close eye on the water level that was seemingly threatening to sink us.  Paul very gentlemanly did all the rowing while us girls sang songs and changed the lyrics to fit our current fishing adventure situation, like “pasame la pana, quiero botar el agua” (pass me the bowl, I want to toss out the water) or “quiero sacar pescado, para cenar delicioso“ (I want to catch some fish to have a delicious dinner) set to the tune of “Preparame la Cena” by Calle 13 if you know the song.  It was funny and a fun day, which ended with a huge rain storm as we were paddling back to shore.  Needless to say we didn’t catch any fish, so on the way home I quickly jumped off the bus at a local venta and bought some fish to take home and fry up for dinner.  Although it was delicious, it would have been much more rewarding to have caught it ourselves.  Maybe next time. 

Fishing with Paul and Nely, bucketing water out of the boat

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Semana Santa and Stoves


This month is my Ag group’s Close of Service conference, when Peace Corps puts us up in a hotel in some nice town (my group’s going to Granada) and we’re given presentations on how to re-adjust to the US lifestyle, looking for jobs once we’re home, and dealing overall with ending the 2 year saga we’ve been experiencing in this foreign country.  Plus there are medical check-ups and other paper work to start filling out to officially end service at the end of July.  I’m the only one from my group who is staying for a full 3rd year, but I still go through all the same COS conference activities.  I assume I’ll have to do this all again for real next year when I’m actually preparing to leave.  It’s going to be weird participating in all the “end of service” activities with everyone when I’ve still got one year to go.  But I think I’ve made the right choice in staying.  Like my last blog stated, I’ve been getting really busy and have started many little projects that I should have started a long time ago.  So I think having the 3rd year will be very productive for me.  And really, it’s like they always say, “it’s only one year out of the span of my entire life”, so it shouldn’t seem so daunting.  If these past 2 years have seemingly flown by, I’m sure only one more year will pass in the blink of an eye as well. 

The improved stove and oven I built at my house
The ovens project is finally all done!  I’ve now successfully completed 20 ovens in my site.  I’ve also completed two improved stoves, one at the house of the woman who received the very first improved oven by the previous volunteer a few years ago, and the other at my own house for my current host mom. After some initial problems with the heat flow through the stove, it’s up and running great and my host mom is cooking on it for every meal.  I’m so glad to have built something that works so well and has an immediate positive affect on the cooking habits of the family.  She’s using significantly less wood to cook and there’s virtually no smoke.   There’s a lot of interest in making these new stoves now that I’ve finished the first two.  People have been visiting to see the new stove and are asking me about the price of materials, so I feel that I have a lot of stoves ahead of me.  I’ll also be attending (instead of teaching this time, which takes off some of the pressure) a stove workshop in early May, and will be required to bring along a community counterpart to learn about stoves with me.  I’m sure at that point I’ll already have built various stoves in my community, but it’s always nice to get official training on a certain project and be able to bring along someone from my community to help me promote the project more.  Plus, people just love the chance to leave their site and go visit someplace new for once. 


River side during Semana Santa
The last week of March was the big Semana Santa week here in Nicaragua, which is Holy Week.  In the States, most families only celebrate Easter Sunday, but here the culture is very religious and they have the Wednesday through Saturday before Easter Sunday free, like spring break.  All the buses stop running, so I’m basically stuck in site since I decided to stay.  Many volunteers take off and head to the beaches or do some traveling, but it’s a dangerous time to travel due to the many robberies in touristy areas and drunk people driving around, so I find it’s best to just stay in site.  Most everyone who decides to actually leave the house goes swimming in local rivers to cool off during the heat of summer, but last week it actually rained pretty hard a couple days in a row.  I had hiked over to a neighboring community with some local friends and we went swimming in a non-crowded part of the river on a hot day.  That was the only time I left the house during the week.  I read a couple books and basically spent a lot of time in my hammock taking naps.  It was good in that sense, but annoying in the sense that nobody does anything during that week so I couldn’t do anything either.  But now we’re into April and I’m back to work and busy like I like to be. 

Nica friends enjoying the river during Semana Santa
Sanding and varnishing the pre-school chairs

The school donation project from my aunt’s elementary school in Lompoc is well underway.  With the help of the principal I located a carpenter to start making 20 little desks for the pre-schoolers.  I also bought a large plastic bin for each teacher and filled it with all kinds of materials like colored pencils, erasers, coloring books, markers, craft paper, staplers, and crayons.  They’ve requested certain things and I took two trips to Jinotega filling two big plastic sacks each trip with supplies for them.  I’ve also bought 3 bags of cement to make the chalkboard for the pre-school classroom, and have just started buying the paint that will be for the world map mural project.  Hopefully I can buy enough paint to do the world map plus a separate Nicaragua map for the school.  I’ve had many kids come to my house and begin to ask me where the United States is on a map of Nicaragua.  It’s just so unfortunate how little knowledge most people have of where their country is located in comparison to the rest of the world. 


Well, wish me luck on not freaking out when my whole group leaves to continue their lives back in the States (or wherever life takes them after Peace Corps) and I've got another year to complete!  I will not cry, I will not cry. . .

~Sarah~


Friday, March 1, 2013

Baking group and other February activities


February has been one of the busiest months of my entire service!  I feel like I’m finally getting things done that I’ve been wanting to do since I started my service over a year and half ago.  I’m so close to finishing my second ovens project; only two more ovens to build and one improved stove.  I’ve been waiting for the families to collect their portion of the materials (some take painstakingly longer than others), but the end is in sight.  I hope the stove demonstration turns out well and the community becomes motivated to buy their own materials for the stoves.  I’ve told them I’m not going to be supplying any more money from Peace Corps funds to pay for the improved cookstove technologies, so if they really, truly want an improved stove to improve the health of their family, they’re gonna have to pay for it.  Stoves are much cheaper than the ovens and honestly, I think, much more useful as well.  I’ve talked up the stoves quite a bit and word on the street seems to be that there is a lot of interest in the community to make stoves. 

I’ve started one baking group with 5 women who have ovens.  We held our first class last week, starting with banana bread (this has become a popular recipe in my site among the women who I’ve made ovens for).  I had each woman bring her own ingredients for one recipe, plus one stick of firewood to contribute to heating the oven, and it was a success!  The breads turned out great and each woman took hers home to share with her family.  From what I’ve heard the bread didn’t last long once they got home.  In the next class we’re planning on making a pizza (also a very popular baking activity in my site due to the ovens).  I have a second baking group scheduled to hold its first class next week, and a third one pending (I’m still in the process of finding a date that works for all of them).  Between all the 20 ovens in the community I hope to have at least 4 baking groups formed within the next month. 

Baking banana bread

My first baking group

Two days ago I gave a charla (an educational talk) with a group from another sector of my community about starting a community bank in their part of the community.  This is something I tried to do over a year ago with no success.  But 11 people showed up to the charla yesterday and are all interested in starting a bank.  The next challenge is if they’ll all show up at the next meeting to choose the committee and make the official bank rules.  This is the step in which I’ve failed in the past.  It’s hard for people to take the next step in any project I try to start and actually show up to future activities.  And a big problem I always encounter is that people will always tell me to my face what I want to hear to put me at ease, but never actually make the further commitment.  I can’t tell you how frustrating this is!  But I have faith in this new bank group.  Most of the women of this part of the community are also the ones participating in the second baking group I’m starting.  Also in motion is the re-forming of the current community bank I’ve been working with the past year and a half that had some major problems this past cycle.  I’m working with them to start up the bank again with some improved management techniques and behavioral changes.  

I’m also moving steadily forward with the school materials donation project from my aunt’s school in Lompoc, California.  It’s been hard to coordinate time to visit the local principle to plan the order of 30 new desks for the pre-school classroom.  But just yesterday he told me he found a carpenter who can make us the desks for a good price and has placed the order to have them made.  Once the desks are made and paid for I can buy the remaining items to be donated to the school, which include a chalkboard for the pre-school classroom and various teaching materials and cleaning supplies for the teachers. 

My plans to start my own animal projects haven’t officially started yet, but I have been working with a woman from an NGO who has already started a laying-hen project with 24 women in my site.  By chance this woman sought me out to discuss doing an oven project with some women that she’d been coordinating with, and during our conversation she mentioned she was working on this chicken project.  So I jumped on the opportunity to participate in the charlas her group was giving to the community, and I’ve offered my services to the women in my community participating in the project to help them in their various activities, such as giving vaccine charlas and helping to coordinate future chicken activities within the group.  Hopefully by participating with the women who are already receiving chickens from this NGO I can learn and plan how to form my own chicken projects with other families in the future. 

Yet another project I’m hoping to start soon is a girls youth group.  I sent 5 girls from my site to two different camps earlier this month that were put on by other Peace Corps volunteers that dealt with youth leadership and girl’s empowerment topics such as self-esteem, making good life decisions, and other women’s health topics.  When the girls came back they seemed to have had a really good time and learned a lot of important life skills, and I’d like to continue their education in the community through a youth group.  One of the girls who attended the youth leadership camp asked me to help her plan and give some charlas to the 4th, 5th and 6th graders, complying with her promise from the camp to educate others about what she learned.  So yesterday we gave an HIV and early pregnancy charla for the primary school.  This same girl and two others from my community are also participating in another local project that teaches youth how to give charlas, and I’m hoping to include them in helping me form a girls youth group in the community where we can do various activities that range from women’s health topics, life skills, games, dance, and maybe art or whatever else the girls would like to do.  I don’t want it to be all serious charlas that’s going to bore them.  I hope to make it a fun group that girls will want to be a part of. 

As if all that isn’t enough, I’ve also started the pen pal letters between my local school and my aunt’s class in California again, and English classes at my house with a few girls that live close by.  I haven’t had the time to coordinate starting the dance classes again, but maybe with the formation of a girl’s group I can cover that area. 

Whew!!!  So that’s what I’ve been up to the month of February.   I feel great and very productive.  It’s so much better to stay busy and feel like things are finally happening.  At this point I’m very happy that I’ve been accepted to extend my service because there are obviously so many things to work on! If I keep up this work pace this next year and a half will fly by for sure.  The hardest thing is getting new projects started, but I feel like once they get going and take hold it won’t be so stressful, hopefully.  

More updates later!

~Sarah~

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Christmas vacay and the Nicaragua National Zoo


Happy belated New Year everyone.  The first month of 2013 is over already, and it's crazy to think I've been in country now for a year and 9 months.  Spending Christmas at home in Santa Barbara was great.  It was my first trip back to the States since I left for Nicaragua in May 2011.  I spent time with my aunt at her elementary school in Lompoc and did a photo slide show presentation of my service for many of the classrooms there.  Her school did a penny drive to raise money to donate to the primary school in my site for some much needed materials.  So I think the kids and teachers there were very interested to see where their donated money was going to and what my community looks like.  I also got to see my two cats (who are living with my aunt) and snuggle with them again.  They remembered me and that's all I really hoped from them.  Overall my visit home consisted of a ton of amazing food (Brie! Chocolate! Nuts! Appetizers! Pizza! Sushi!).  Every meal was absolutely delicious and I was basically totally spoiled and taken out to dinner multiple times.  Not to mention trips to the drug store and Trader Joe's to pick out goodies bring back.  And washers and dryers!?  Oh my God, have I been missing those miracle machines!  You just throw your clothes in and they wash and dry themselves?!  And in less than 2 hours no less!  Magic I tell you.  And water faucets and shower heads that pour water on your hands and body using no hands.  And toilets that flush, without the need to pour a bucket of water down the hole.  And putting toilet paper inside the toilet bowl?  Unheard of.  My sister didn't hesitate to remind me that in America we don't put our toilet paper in the waste basket next to the toilet.  Americans are so spoiled.  I miss being that spoiled. 

However, as great as it was visiting the States, my time here in Nicaragua will continue even longer than originally planned because I've been accepted by Peace Corps to extend my service for a 3rd year!  That's right, so instead of closing my service this July to complete the normal 2 years of service, I'll be staying and continuing my work in my same site until July of 2014.  I'm just one of two volunteers from my agriculture sector group that was accepted to extend.  I feel very lucky that I was chosen to stay.  It gives me assurance that the work that I've done so far in my community has been valuable, and that Peace Corps believes I can continue doing good work in the future.  It also puts a fire under my ass to get some bigger projects going that may take longer to get going than the original 6 months I had left of my service.  Because really, at this point, I'm only half way through my 3 years of service.

My goals for my third year are to start some animal husbandry projects with local families that have chickens and pigs in the house (which is basically everyone) and perhaps some families that have goats and sheep (which are very few) and help them improve their basic animal care techniques, like having a solid vaccination schedule and improving the diet of their animals.  Animal care is pretty much my entire background, and yet I haven't done any projects relating to animals in my service so far.  I'm starting to read a lot of animal care manuals I've found here that are in Spanish (it helps to know the Spanish terminology of animal husbandry vocabulary) and have been talking here and there with some local families I'm close with to get a better idea of their interest in working with me.  I think at first I'll start with some basic vaccination activities and then go from there.  Ideally I can help start a small household egg-laying business with some families, or improve the nutrition and weight of pigs sold for butchering. 

Lots of piglets in my site!


The other project I'm currently working on is starting some women's baking groups.  I have people asking me all the time to teach them how to make a chocolate cake or to show them how to use their ovens, so I figure I could start doing monthly classes with different groups of neighbors and each class teach a new cake or cookie or bread recipe, and maybe some will become interested in selling the baked goods to make money.  I'm also currently building the ovens of the second ovens project I started last year.  I'm still missing bricks for half of them and hope to find a place to buy them in the next few weeks, but at least at this point I’ve finished 4 of them.  Six more to go! 

Three days after arriving back from my trip to the States my friend Jodi came to Nicaragua to visit me for a week.  We visited Selva Negra, a cloud forest in the department of Matagalpa where I also went with my family back in June, and we hiked around the mountain in the rain.  It's a really beautiful place and I would go there anytime.  She spent two nights in my site and got to see the house and community where I live, then we spend the last part of the week visiting Granada, the oldest city in all of Latin America.  We visited the Nicaragua National Zoo, where I hadn't visited yet, and did some shopping in the markets of Masaya, known for their artisan crafts.  The zoo was actually nicer than I thought it would be, although most of their big cat and monkey cages were inadequate.  I couldn't believe how many big cats they have! We counted, they have 30 big cats at that zoo, including jaguars, lions, tigers, pumas, ocelots, and margays.  There were too many cats per exhibit, and the exhibits were small and practically pure cement and bars.  There was one chimpanzee that was all by himself locked off his exhibit into a small holding cage, where he apparently was told to live by the vet because he was mentally ill and aggressive.  Another baboon lived on his own as well, in a small cement barred exhibit with nothing to do.  The smaller monkeys, including white-faced Capuchins and spider monkeys, had relatively more space, but still little to no enrichment or even plants and greenery provided for them.  The good things about the zoo were the variety of animals presented and the amount of local species available for education and conservation projects.  I'd love to plan a field trip to the zoo to show the people and kids in my site the variety of animals they have in Central America, including the chance to see other animals from all over the world, like the tigers and lions (they call their local cats “tigres” and  “leones”, not understanding that lions only come from Africa).  



Visiting neighbors in my site



Me and Jodi at the Nicaragua zoo with a couger























Check out my photo page for more pics: sarahinnica.shutterfly.com

~Sarah~