Swine project and 30th birthday

Hello all.  Well, my 3^rd 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 3^rd 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 5^th and 6^th 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 30^th 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 30^th.  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. . .

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 5^th and 6^th 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 5^th and 6^th 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