End of Year Activities and Home Leave Vacation

Happy New Year everyone!  I've had a wonderful start to the new year, and I hope all of you have as well.  But let's back up a bit, since I haven't written a blog post since August, apparently.  

Grabbing a screaming little pig for the iron injection lesson

As I previously mentioned, one of my project goals for my work in site this last part of my Peace Corps service is to do a swine husbandry improvement project with certain interested families.  To get that ball rolling, I organized a general swine health charla in my community and invited all the families close by that currently raised pigs in their homes.  Of about 30 families invited, 16 people showed up, which is pretty good actually.  I organized the charla with a local animal health inspector that works for MAGFOR, the Nicaraguan Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.  He specializes in pigs and is the inspector posted to my area of Pantasma, so I got in contact with him and found him to be very helpful, which is very refreshing after having negative experiences with other governmental workers in my area.  He did most of the talking during the charla, using a power point presentation I made with his help, and overall I think it went really well.  The people who attended were interested the whole time and I think appreciated hearing his expertise on the matter, even though almost all of them no doubt have received similar animal health charlas sometime in the past.  But they did ask lots of questions and told me after that they were happy I arranged to have him come and talk.  So that got my hopes up that this project would be beneficial to the community and that I’d get some motivated families involved. 

Community members injecting a pig with iron during the practicum

The next activity I planned, as an accompaniment to the health charla, was a pig practical, where the community members were invited to come and learn hands on how to castrate young male pigs at 2 weeks of age and also inject them with iron, which is a deficiency all pigs are born with.  Only 8 people from the first charla came to the practical, and not one of them had ever castrated a pig that young before, since that’s something they usually do when the pigs are already 3 or 4 months old.  It’s usually done by the family that buys the pig from the family that raised it, so the family that raised it never bothers with castrating them in fear the pig will die from it or just because it’s not their normal pig-raising routine.  I’m trying to teach them it’s recommended to castrate them at 2 weeks because it’s safer for the pigs, the wounds are smaller and heal faster, and some hog farmers claim a castrated young pig will grow faster and sell sooner.  I organized the practical with another community member who is a MAGFOR community promoter who has participated in many swine health workshops and raises and sells pigs in various communities.  I actually didn’t even know this guy was a swine promoter, and neither did many of my neighbors who participated in the first charla, so I was a little disappointed that he hasn’t made more of an effort to support his fellow neighbors and their swine husbandry methods.  Part of me inviting him to help me with the pig practical was to try to get him more involved in the community and actually put his wide experience to good use.  I’ve also learned from some neighbors that he and his family don’t really get along with some of the neighbors, and that made me realize why he doesn’t really get out much to share his knowledge. So through this project I’m working on I’m going to try to get him more involved as much as he’s willing to.

Then in October I planned a second charla, this time on swine nutrition.  The same MAGFOR inspector who helped me put on the health charla came to help me with the nutrition charla, which was helpful, but less people showed up to this one, only 7, including the community promoter, but he only came because he convinced me to have it at his house, which in hindsight wasn’t the best idea since I later realized how many families didn’t get along with him and refused to come to his house when I invited them to the charla.  That upset me, but now I’ve learned my lesson and will continue to have all future meetings in a neutral place.  After the nutrition charla we went right into the practical and made a home-made swine diet with dried and toasted corn and beans, chicken bones, salt, and some ash, which we prepared in a big pot in the kitchen over the firewood stove.  At that point many of the participants were obviously tired and uninterested and wanted to leave, but stayed just to please me.  I could tell that no one was actually interested in making this type of diet for their pigs in their own houses.  They have their routine and they don’t want to stray from it if it means making any kind of change.  I can’t tell you how frustrated this makes me!  They come to the charlas and say they’re interested in improving the lives of their animals and making more money in the end, but won’t change any of their household habits that directly relate to the care of their animals. 

Painting the Nicaragua map at the primary school

In October, to kill some time, I decided to paint a Nicaragua map at the primary school, near the world map mural we painted in June.  I took a week and basically drew it out (following a grid system) and painted it myself, just to make sure it was done just the way I wanted it, and because it was small enough that having some kids help me would be difficult.  So now the school’s one side facing the road has two bright and colorful maps to enjoy.  I hope to someday actually put them to use and do a geography charla with the school kids and put them to good use.  So far I haven’t seen any of the teachers jump on that idea. 

Both maps completed at the primary school!

4th graders checking out the new Nica map

My delicious chicken soup lunch with the teachers and staff

In November the school teachers had a surprise lunch for me at the school to thank me for my work organizing the donation project and painting the two murals.  They also said it was a small “despedida”, or goodbye party, for me before I left for my 6 week vacation.  I almost felt like they thought I was leaving for good!  But I had told them many times it was just a long vacation, and that I’d be back to finish my service next August.   They made my favorite campo meal, chicken soup with vegetables and dumplings, and they made me play pin the tail on the donkey to win the gift they bought me, which was a silver turtle hair clip.  The whole thing was really nice and made me feel special and appreciated. 

 

My "despedida" from the teachers before leaving for vacation

After leaving site, but before flying home, I spent Thanksgiving with 16 other volunteers at the US Ambassador’s house.  Each year volunteers get invited to have dinner with US Embassy families, and I was one of the lucky ones, again, third year in a row!  The dinner was so delicious and I was one of three volunteers to actually stay the night at her house as well.  She’s a very nice lady, Ambassador Phyllis Powers, and I appreciated her hospitality. 

 

Thanksgiving dinner at the ambassador's house

Hanging out with friends, human and animal alike

That was the last big activity I did before I left for my month of home leave. At that point I was unmotivated in site and could only really focus on my vacation.  The whole month of December I spent in California, doing various things.  It was actually a really busy time.  I spent much of it with my best friend Tina, who I hadn’t seen face-to-face since May 2011 when I first left country for Peace Corps.  We had only been able to communicate via e-mail and some brief and very badly signaled Skype sessions, so it was great to finally get to see her again and talk and talk to our hearts content.  The first trip we did was up to Fresno to visit the Chaffee Zoo and see some friends we hadn’t seen in years.  We stayed with our friend Jodi in Reedley and Nannette in Fresno.  Our old roommate and fellow co-worker Chris came down from the Bay area and toured the zoo with us.  There’s a new sea lion exhibit that had been built since we’d left, and I got to see some of the animals I used to take care of, like the elephants.  Tina and I also got to see some of our bellydance friends we used to dance with, which was really nice. 

Meeting the one-horned rhino at the SD Zoo with a pregnant Elisa

After Fresno we spent a few days in Santa Barbara and saw a movie (Gravity in 3D) which is nice since I rarely see movies in theaters these days.  Then it was off to Escondido on the train.  I stayed at Tina’s parents’ house for about a week, and we went to the San Diego Zoo to visit our friend Elisa who works there with the koalas.  It was great day at the zoo, like always.  I also got to meet Tina’s new nieces and nephews that had been born since I’d left.  There’s 4 new kids in her house!  We also attended a San Diego Peace Corps Association holiday potluck and get-together.  I met an RPVC who had just left service in Nicaragua, but I had never met him in country. How weird to meet someone from your own PC country back in San Diego! 

After spending practically half the month with Tina (which was so great!), I took the train back to Santa Barbara on my own, then spent 4 days with my aunt in Solvang.  She’s been taking care of my cats for me, so I got to see them again and get some well-needed snuggles in.  I also visited the elementary school where she teaches 4^th grade, and gave various classes a photo presentation of a project in my local Nicaraguan primary school that they had funded.  So they got to see pictures of all the materials their donation paid for.  I took a side trip up to Paso Robles to visit my friend Liz and spend some days with her.  We did some wine tasting and went to a live show at SLO Brew, an old haunt of ours back in our college days.  It was super fun!

I also got to visit my dad for a day.  He drove down to Santa Barbara from San Jose and we had lunch.  He’s grown his hair long like back in his hippy days, but I guess that’s not surprising.  It was nice to see him and catch up on the past year. 

 

Me, Mom and Sam on Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve and Day were both spent at my parent’s house, with my mom doing most of the cooking.  She and my aunt bought Mexican tamales for Christmas Eve, which were so delicious.  I love Nicaraguan nacatamales, but they’re just so different than the tamales I grew up with.  Christmas Eve was a little crazy because the house was so crowded full of family and friends that we couldn’t barely have a solid conversation with anyone.  But Christmas Day was mostly just our close family members so it was much more relaxed.  My mom made BBQ pork loin, the yearly tradition for a while now.  All the food overall was so delicious and I’m sure I gained weight from all the goodness all month long. 

After Christmas I only had a few more days to spend with my family since I was off to Peru with my friend Tina for 2 weeks!  I’ll leave that blog for next time, and try to get it posted in the next few weeks. There's so much to catch up on!  This one was long enough, don’t you think?

Thanks for reading, and if you are, please don’t forget to send me a shout out and let me know how you’re doing.  When you live in a different country for years it’s nice to hear from home every once and a while, regardless how short or seemingly unimportant the info may be.  I love hearing from you!  

~Sarah~