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 3^rd 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 3^rd 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~