#27 Island Life for me

Book your plane tickets ladies and gentlemen.... I will be living in Moyogalpa on the island of Ometepe for the next 2 years. This island was in the running for the 7 natural wonders of the world and is oh so sexy. I'll be visiting my site and future family/coworkers next Monday for the whole week and I'm sure I'll have much much more to say about it after. In my info packet they talk about hammock pavilions, crystal clear springs, volcano hikes, and sunset/rise viewpoints. Hotels also cost about $10 a night (tops). See you on the island : )


I was googling my site and came across this cool photo-blog from a few bikers who did a great job showing off the island http://volksonbikes.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html

#26 Crazy Week

I had said that this past week was ridiculous and I was not lying. Between Monday and today, Sunday, we’ve done the following:

• Met world famous ceramic artists living in my town
• Received a packet with all of our potential sites and interviewed with our bosses regarding our top choices sites
• My Nica father’s mother passed away and we went to her wake/funeral
• Had a language proficiency exam
• (Still) Celebrating Father’s Day and [The town’s] Saint’s Day
• Hiked around an active Volcano
• Befriended a millionaire Nica Businessman

A previous volunteer from the 90s has been working with the top local artists in my town to sell their pieces for, often, the thousands of dollars that they deserve. He is visiting this month and showed us around the town and introduced us to several artists. The work they do is jaw dropping and I will show you pictures the next time we speak with them.

Our packet of sites… our home for the next two years is in there. Unfortunately there are 20 sites and we won’t know until Wednesday at 3:00. The anticipation is intense and seems to dominate conversation daily. My top choices are: 1^st = Island life living in the middle of the huge lake in Nicaragua (o0o0o0o0o0o), 2^nd = Rivas, a nice medium sized town close to beaches with plenty of work to keep me busy, and lastly Diriamba, similar to #2.

The passing of my Nica grandmother was the most culturally interesting experience I’d had thus far (until the celebrating of Saint’s Day). My grandmother had been severely sick for 3 nights prior to her death and my house was filled, even more than usual, with people I didn’t know supporting my family. The night of her death, there was a wake at her house. The four of us Peace Corps trainees tagged along with my mother and upon arriving at the house, we were four of about 200 or more consoling my father and his family. We walked through a tunnel of curious stares to the house where the black coffin sat in the middle of the one bedroom house with a glass opening over the head of the body. I hugged my Nica dad and his sister then waited outside followed shortly by my sitemates. More and more people came carrying bread and buckets of coffee, sitting in hundreds of plastic chairs, eating and talking. There was music, a sermon, and prayers for about an hour all the while the four of us exchanging the same looks describing how mind boggling our lives were at this exact moment.

The next day was our language proficiency exam/interview, where we were all told that we were on track to ‘graduate’ with the required Spanish level. Woo hoo, we’ve all been working our asses off in the whole Spanish thing, so that was really good to hear. During our interviews, a parade of people carrying my Nica grandmother’s casket walked by towards the church prior to making their way to the cemetery.

The music started that same morning, probably around 4 or 5 in the morning. From that time, until this very moment and throughout today and tonight, a marching band and fireworks have literally been passing/exploding near my house at least once every hour playing one of three songs on repeat. I wish I were exaggerating because then that would mean I’d have been able to sleep or nap like a normal person since Thursday. There is this big canopy of sorts thing that they’ve been collecting and hanging fruit and flowers from since Wednesday. They have also set up two stages on my street with an absurd amount of speakers to perform concerts at night where the street turns into Woodstock for a few hours. During the daytime there are violent traditional fights with bull penis tendons turned swords between males and females, children and adults. They all get sloppy drunk, brutally fight, and celebrate afterwards. They likely wake up the next morning with huge lashes all over their body regretting the day before. One of my cousins can’t see out of his left eye because of this fighting. Oh Nicaragua.

            Prior traditions: hanging a live rooster by his feet as cowboys race down the street trying to snag its jerking head off (I thought this was historic, until this morning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnwI0_XXCoQ ); Burying live roosters neck deep, handing a blindfolded man a machete and have him dance in the garden of rooster heads; Dog fighting; Cock fighting. All these can be seen on the nightly news that literally has zero censorship rules regarding even the most gruesome of news.

We were driven and got to hike around the national park of Masaya to see the Volcano Masaya. The smoke from the mouth of the volcano made seeing anything/breathing nearly impossible. Dope to be that close to an active volcano .

 

Afterwards, while waiting for the bus, we met a humble (not so much) lawyer/businessman from California who has lots of land here in the hopes of building homes and hotels to attract tourists. We walked to his nearby house and saw his 40 acres of pristine naturally beauty and a home in the works. He wasn’t lying, the views were gorgeous and for $10,000 an acre he got one hell of a deal. It is now valued at $75,000 per acre just 15 years later.

We have today, Sunday, off to rest and I hope to get my integration on by chatting up those artists I mentioned earlier, or perhaps go on another field trip with my family to meet more of their family in other towns. Who knows. 

#25 Bull Penis Fighting

This is what is going on in my town right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RijCTQV4IU8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqnVsirsGYg

Those swords are not normal swords, they are tendons taken from the penises of bulls being whipped around by drunks. It started yesterday (Thursday) and will continue through to Sunday only stopping between 5am and maybe 10am.

There are also 2 stages set up for music and dancing literally outside of my house with each stage having enough speakers to fill Madison Square Garden let alone my 2x3 street town. I'm not going to be sleeping whatsoever.

I also started reading Harry Potter in Spanish and am PUMPED to re-read the series again, this time in another language. This week has been absolutely ridiculous. More to come.

#24 Class with Orlandito

If you change the end of any word in Spanish to finish with -ito it changes the word to mean like a smaller version of whatever the word is. Orlando --> Orlandito means little Orlando. Hermano --> Hermanito means little brother

We were learning the vocabulary of the human body the other day when Orlandito came in to say hello. We then used him to help us visually learn body parts.

#23 Volunteer Visit

My volunteer visit to Ocotal lasted from Sunday morning to Wednesday evening. They send us to visit a volunteer about one month into training for a few reasons: to see their work, how they have integrated into the community, side projects, life after training, and most importantly a well deserved break (we still had essays and journals to write along with a pack of questions to fill out during this so called break). Overall, the trip was informative and interesting encouraging me to plow through training because life definitely calms down and picks up once we get sworn in.

My trip north sounded far easier than it ended up being. My bus schedule changed when I got to the station and ended up taking 4 separate busses having to find 3 different bus stations during the mix up. Once we drove a little north, the populated and polluted streets were replaced with lush green mountains (hills) and the weather cooled down a bit. We got to watch Blue Crush 2 (classic) and experience a blown tire in the second lag.

Arriving in Ocotal, I met my Volunteer, Paul who has been in Nicaragua for about a year. He introduced me to a Health Volunteer I would be staying with who lives across the street from him. It was already late by the time I arrived so, the three of us chatted for a bit, ate dinner at the home I was staying at, had a quick bucket bath and went over to a bar in Ocotal to watch the Mavericks win in the Finals.

In the early morning, Paul and I hopped on a bus and went about 25 minutes north to meet with another volunteer and a farmer who Paul buys fresh coffee from. We went to the farm of this man and he showed us his home and farm that sits on the side of a mountain. Here is his driveway (dirt path on the right), oven, kitchen, and house: 

we did some weeding of the hundreds of sprouting coffee plants and made our way back for some lunch. That afternoon, Paul took me to another town where he had a meeting to meet with two ladies interested in improving their businesses. He gave a mini business lesson, fielded some questions, and tried to plant some seeds in these ladies’ minds. It was interesting to see how busy he was with such a variety of work. I can tell that he is a very active volunteer from all the projects he’s been involved in and the plans that he has. There was supposed to be another meeting regarding a community bank, but the bus arrived an hour late and by the time we got to the meeting location the man was not there.

Tuesday started with a high school entrepreneurship class in another town north of Ocotal. The class was loud with kids talking nonstop, students walking in and out at their will, and passing notes. However, Paul explained to me that the students do the work and actually have learned leaps and bounds. Paul had said that this was his best class. [His worst: He teaches at a private school where the kids have zero discipline and a general sense of entitlement which the teachers reinforce because they are scared the parents will take the kids out without paying. The teachers wouldn’t help Paul with the students and Paul couldn’t handle them all on his own, so he had a meeting with all the parents of the kids and told them to talk to their children and teach those punks some discipline.] I think that’s a wonderful story. Watching this class and teaching at my site has made teaching the thing I am definitely most excited for once finished with training.

Paul is a few years older than I and joined the Peace Corps after earning a law degree and becoming a lawyer. He was able to teach me about Nicaragua’s rich history and discuss with me the current political state of Nicaragua that is actually fascinating and shocking. Book recommendation: Blood of Brothers. We spent the afternoon talking until we had to go to a vocational school in a distant corner of Ocotal where 15 20-somethings were learning about business plans. Upon successful graduation from the vocational school and their newly instituted business program, graduates will be candidates to obtain loans to start new businesses of their own (financial loans are extremely difficult for aspiring entrepreneurs to come by in Nicaragua).

Traveling home, a few of us made a pit stop in the capital city to go to a mall, have some American food, and see Hangover 2 in a wonderful air conditioned theater. Yum.

#22 Granada

Last Saturday my family took Jake, Julian, and myself to Granada for a little afternoon delight. An hour and a half on the public school busses later, we arrived in the chaotic behind the scenes streets of Granada. We took another minibus to the lakefront park of Granada through bumpy roads filled with street venders, dirt, and interesting odors. The park was seemingly uneventful, here is a video from the beach with the family: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxyy5GONk8A  and here are some pictures 

After, we went to the central square area of Granada where there are beaufitully colored buildings and a radiant yellow church. There was a marching band practicing, drug dealers peddling, and plenty of gringos getting their tourism on. Granada overall wasn’t as interesting as I had expected (hence this nothing of a blog post) and seemed like a clean band-aid of tourism placed over a generally otherwise impoverished town. The next day I would be on my way to Ocotal where I would get the opportunity to live with a current volunteer and find out what life is like after training. That post will make up for this.

#21 That's a big mango

I updated with pics and a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtHgFaKqDas), check out below

I realized I'm not going to catch up on the posts from below and give you more details about them. I'm sorry. I'm constantly doing some sort of work for one of the million projects the Peace Corps has us working on, so just let your imagination take you past those bullet points.

Next week (Sun-Weds) we are going to visit a volunteer at their site and shadow them for those days. I'm going to northern Nicaragua to a town called Ocotal in Nueva Segovia. They say it's a bit colder up there, which I'm ecstatic about. There are also some mountains woo hooo... I like mountains :D

Tomorrow, Thursday at 7:45am I'm (co)teaching my first Entrepreneurship class at the local public school. I actually feel relatively comfortable with my material and speaking this whole Spanish thing in front of 40 high school seniors. No big deal. My spanish has been getting consistently better and I am now able to view the language as a sort of puzzle and while I talk I have to quickly put the pieces in the right places before the words leave my lips. It's turned into a fun game.

Look at the size of this Mango. I climbed the tree and picked it myself.

Also funny story. well two. Last night I spoke with my parents about religion and told them both my parents were Jewish and their eyes lit up and they became so happy because Jews are the chosen people and have a one way ticket to heaven. Or something like that, my Spanish is still on the fringe. But now I know a very easy conversation to have is just bring up religion and they bust out all the guns showing my passages from the bible and various biblical books. 

The other day at 4:25am a parade followed by a full marching band walked through my town and just marched around for a solid hour or so. no big deal. this place is loco. love it.

#20 Week at a Glance

This week has been relatively busy, hence the lack of posts. I'll write a full post tonight and post it next time I get internet access.
This past week:

• We went to Masaya to watch the Barcelona/Man U game. Explored the city, got Frosted.
• We had our first real youth group meetings. We now have a solid 15+ teens showing up.
• We finished 3 weeks with our first teacher. Next week starts weeks 4-6 with a different teacher.
• We had several technical meetings to prepare for our jobs once at our permanent sites.
• Trained with the agriculture volunteers at a farm, learned several easy and interesting recipes (including: wine, soap, chocolate, bean fudge, Marango - this magical nutritional herb, cough syrup) all made from raw materials found in Nicaragua. 
• Met with the professor again to write our lesson plans because I'll be teaching a high school senior class on Thursday : /

I know there are more. Thanks for stopping by!

#19 Now with pics :)

*** Several people have been very generous and sent math material for my brother! No more are needed right now, please hold on to your philanthropy as I'm sure I'll have more requests in the future ; )   (When they arrive, I'll be sure to give some shout outs)***

The weeks are speeding up now. I just took my fourth dose of malaria medicine on Friday, meaning we have finished 3 weeks in Nicaragua. I’ve had another busy, interesting, eventful, and (of course) hot week here in little San Juan de Oriente.

Last Sunday, I think around 10 or so of us were told about a path to the lake in my town (you can see it in the background of the group shot in a prior post). We were told it was a lengthy steep downhill hike, but were still surprised when we arrived at the lake about an hour later with tired ankles. Besides two Nica’s, we had the whole lake to ourselves, which made the natural beauty that much better. After our hike I was looking forward to that refreshing water, but the water, like Nicaragua, was predictably warm. We played around for two hours or so before heading back to town. A sweaty hour later we were back in my little town and burnt red from the sun. We all immediately bought some Gatorade and ice cream, chilled for a minute and went our own ways. Check out some photogs 

 Mother’s Day was on Monday the 30^th (I think my host dad said a week ago that May 30^th is his birthday… oops i forgot…), and Nicaragua goes big for their mothers. On Sunday afternoon, after the field trip to the lake, my mom took me to a Mother’s Day presentation thing in a corner of my town that I didn’t know existed. I usually say okay to things I don’t really understand when my parents invite me places and this was no different. When we got there, I walked into a seated crowd of about 400 women all staring at yours truly. Get jealous. The show included some traditional Nica dancing with extravagant dresses, a biblical story involving a baby being born without arms or legs (or something… I started laughing because I thought it was a joke but my mom nudged me saying nuh uh), a poem about the moms, and obviously some singing.
Since they were all staring at me when I walked in, I took a photo of them as I left:

I’m asleep, it’s 3:15 AM when the neighbors feel it’s a good time to play some music. We are talking a full blown live band – horns, guitar, drums, vocals – at full volume lasting until 4:45 AM. This is not unusual. Cars drive around with full PA systems tied to their roofs. Nicaragua is loud. Often.

Monday was the actual Dia de Las Madres and we didn’t have class because of it. In the morning I accompanied my mom to the elementary school where one of my brothers had to sing with his class to all the moms of the town. Each grade did their own thing and the moms were so proud of their little chicos. Mateo, Jake and I did some last minute gift shopping and went to the neighboring town and bought flowers for our moms. Our gifts were greatly appreciated, but we had no time to rest because we had to change and meet up with a professor to do some lesson planning for the classes that we are going to be teaching this coming week.

We spent a few hours with Professor Gerardo at both Mateo’s and Gerardo’s house talking about the entrepreneurship course that we’d be teaching.   [Quick insert: this course was started by the Peace Corps 10 years ago to teach business practices and have students ultimately compete their business plans in a national competition, and the course has recently become part of the national curriculum for all juniors and seniors in Nicaragua. One of our jobs here is to train the teachers to excel at teaching the course.]   We had a little difficulty with the Spanish, but it worked out and the teacher was excited to receive the material and seems to be looking forward to starting the course. We meet again on the 5^th to write our lesson plans down do real work.

Lastly, Monday evening, I attended my first church service here in Nicaragua. A few highlights:

• All the brothers, sisters, and children were called to the front and when I stayed in my seat the guy on the mic made sure to say Zac, Zac come to the front.
• Everyone started hugging the moms, I joined hugging all these strangers I’d never seen before, I realized they were hugging their close family not just everyone, I walked to my mom gave her a hug and my cousin laughed at me.
• The Pastor spoke with me for a solid 25 minutes about life in Nicaragua, tried to explain Zacaria’s character from the bible, told me about the American missionaries who paid for the construction of the church, etc…

The service was a little softer than I was expecting, especially hearing how fierce the other churches are when walking around the town. I may go again. Maybe I’ll come back a religious nut… haha no.

Not bad for two days.