last week was the best week i have had yet as a peace corps trainee! it was our tech week.. five other aspirantes and i went to see how a volunteer in san isidro, matagalpa lives.. in our time there we learned how to build an oven, stove and biodigester with simple, available resources.. it was great to see how laid back life will be here in another month.. we were lucky enough to be in the mountains for the week.. the community had at least 300 people spread out along the dirt road leading up the mountian.. the culture is different there as compared to the city, even the small pueblo that i am in now offers many more opportunitites.. not meaning to imply that the people in the city are happier.. for a homework assignment we were sent off in the community to practice our spanish by talking with anyone we encounter and inquiring about a typical day for a person living in the campo.. i met a farmer named antonio.. hell of a nice guy.. as i walked by his house i greeted him and stumbled through asking whether or not he had time to talk with me about his lifestyle.. before i could finish the sentence he was on his way to grabbing a plastic chair stacked behind him.. (everyone has atleast 3 or 4 plastic chairs on thier porches for opportunities to talk with anyone willing).. he invited me to come in and sit.. we talked about his days and how they revolve around his farming; he owns 15 manzanas.. which is a great amount for a poor farmer ( a manzana is 100 paces by 100 paces) and primarily works with corn and beans.. i played with his 3 year old also named antonio and helped him peel his mango, i talked with his daughter, who has 9 years as she sat in the hammock across the room.. as we continued to make conversation more and more children began to gather in the doorstep because it isnt everyday a gringo is in their villiage.. upon leaving antonio insisted i take a mango with me for the walk back to the house i was staying in.. i politely accepted his gift and before it was said and done i had a sack filled with every type of fruit he had in his back yard.. on the way back i encountered a kid named laker.. only to later find out that he is named laker because his dad likes the los angelos lakers--
the last night of tech week all of the trainees met up in the city of esteli for a few lectures and more importantly to start our site selections and get an update on our language progress.. so far i have moved up 2 sublevels and only need to move up one more in order to swear in here in another month.. so that is great news! as for the possible sites i went back on my gut feeling and told them to place me as rural as possible.. one of my choices has just 25 families living up in the mountains and i know i would be able to see the honduras border from there .. another site is amongst a bunch of different coffee farms .. also in the mountains.. to sum all my selections up i wouldnt be surprised if i do not have access to the internet, dont have running water, and have very poor, if any cell phone range.. and candles may be the closest thing to electricity i can get... however it is a very rare find to have all of these things missing.. i will know my site on july 5th!
i spent all day on saturday reading a book and talking with the family becuase it downpoured the entire day.. it was the perfect relaxing day i needed after tech days.. yesterday, after mass of course, we headed to the beach and i got to swim in the pacific all afternoon! it was incredible.. although it would be nice to be posted up along the coast and able to surf any day.. im pretty sure that ill be headed to the mountains.. today i started week seven of training meaning i had a new spanish teacher as well! Nidia is great.. I will be learning much over the next few weeks! hope all is well for everyone reading this!
much love,
maclaine
Monday, June 27, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
a bit of an update
Just after i completed the last blog session, a fellow trainee and i went out east of town and found some wild monkeys! it was great.. they swung from branch to branch trying to follow us only to satisfy their own curiosity. in order to find these guys we had to crawl down into a dried up river and walk for a bit.. we found a yellow snake a little longer than the length of my leg and the thickest part of him was about the size of my lower leg... walking only 10 minutes in one direction from my pueblo i am able to be completely surrounded by nature!.. spanish classes are going well.. little by little i am learning and i think within a few more months ill feel comfortable trying to start up conversations that are slightly more complex than the typical ice breakers..
our garden has started to grow and we are going to be transplanting tomatoes and peppers this weekend!.. our youth group is coming along great and we are getting ready to do a market study to find out the demand for our mango pineapple jam.. tomorrow morning we are headed to masaya to hike a volcano and then have lunch.. i still have not made it to the pacific coast but im sure that is around the corner.. looking over lake nicaragua is quite the site as well.. you can definately tell what a beautiful city managua used to be..
i am getting to know all of my fellow aggies better as well.. i think we have a pretty good group! the last 5 weeks i have been in La Paz.. it is great but i cant wait for next week!.. i am headed to a small rural community in matagalpa.. apparently i am going to be in the mountains.. i am going there with 5 other trainees to learn about technical agriculture skills.. i know one of the main projects we will be doing is building more efficient stoves for women who would like to start a business selling bread or other food.. we will be building them with current volunteers and they are made of dirt, horse shit, and a few other random ingredients!.. also we will be working on making drip irrigation systems.. im sure there is much more but that will be part of the surprise.. next friday we have our site fair,... where all the volunteers present available sites and we choose our top 5 or 6... the following monday we find out where we will be placed for the next 2 years.. then in week 8 we take off individually to our sites to meet our new host families! so although things have started to slow down, there are still many things on the plate for the next few weeks..
coming down i knew i was just going to tell the peace corps to put me as rural as possible and hopefully in the mountains.. turns out i have had a slight change of heart.. although i would like to be rural, the grammer is terrible and i know that my already broken spanish would have slim chances of improving.. also all of these other aggies are wanting to be in the mountains.. so although there is still a strong possibility i could be in the mountains, i could just as easily be placed in the hottest part of nicaragua... being chinandega or leon.. i do not know how close to the beach an ag volunteer can be but i can hope for the best.. also esteli is an absolutely gorgeous place that i could find myself quite content. i guess ill know in a few weeks.
all of my trainees love the fact that it takes about 12 hours for my mustache to grow in so now i, along with a few other trainees, have a mustace ready to start curling over my top lip any time now.. everyone has either gotten a buzz cut or a short haircut since we have arrived.. there are suprisingly still some nicas with long hair.. much of our youth group loves the song {in da club) by 50 cent.. ha.. so remembering my middle school days they were extremely impressed when i rapped most the song to them.. same goes for marvin gaye´s song (sexual healing) and anything by celine dion or michael jackson.. ha.. many of the kids love their hollister outfits just like thoses in the states..
the last few weeks have been great.. i am playing more games with my family and we have been talking all about our pasts. i have taught them to dance to a few bob marley songs that i brought down.. they love bob ha.. and they have taught me to act like i know how to dance! all in all it has been a month i couldnt trade for anything..
a few weeks back i went to bed around 930 not feeling the greatest.. i figured everything would be fine in the morning so i tried to sleep .. around midnight i found myself with nothing but a headlamp and underwear on trying to unlock the back door so that i could vomit up the goat soup that i had for lunch.. ha .. in the process of regurgitating the soup and gallo pinto i had for dinner i was alerted by my stomach that we had an emergency on the other end of body.. after doing the same thing in reverse order in the morning, i skipped classes the next day and slept the whole day away in our hammock.. looking back now that mental break from class couldnt have come at a better time.. sure i have great days.. and there are also days when i wonder if i am even able to learn the language.. there are days when i become frustrated becuase we are doing more team building activities and there are days that i couldnt feel more blessed (which are most days)! there are days when i am discouraged and wonder what difference can i make here.. and there are days i wonder if these people want help.. with all that i know i am only a trainee for now and i have a long ways to go.. the one thing that is certain thus far is that when i sit back and examine the big picture, i couldnt feel any luckier to have the opportunity to be apart of an organization that has the sole purpose of promoting friendship and peace with people around the world.
hope everyone is doing well and ill try to get back on this after returning from tech days in matagalpa!
much love,
maclaine
our garden has started to grow and we are going to be transplanting tomatoes and peppers this weekend!.. our youth group is coming along great and we are getting ready to do a market study to find out the demand for our mango pineapple jam.. tomorrow morning we are headed to masaya to hike a volcano and then have lunch.. i still have not made it to the pacific coast but im sure that is around the corner.. looking over lake nicaragua is quite the site as well.. you can definately tell what a beautiful city managua used to be..
i am getting to know all of my fellow aggies better as well.. i think we have a pretty good group! the last 5 weeks i have been in La Paz.. it is great but i cant wait for next week!.. i am headed to a small rural community in matagalpa.. apparently i am going to be in the mountains.. i am going there with 5 other trainees to learn about technical agriculture skills.. i know one of the main projects we will be doing is building more efficient stoves for women who would like to start a business selling bread or other food.. we will be building them with current volunteers and they are made of dirt, horse shit, and a few other random ingredients!.. also we will be working on making drip irrigation systems.. im sure there is much more but that will be part of the surprise.. next friday we have our site fair,... where all the volunteers present available sites and we choose our top 5 or 6... the following monday we find out where we will be placed for the next 2 years.. then in week 8 we take off individually to our sites to meet our new host families! so although things have started to slow down, there are still many things on the plate for the next few weeks..
coming down i knew i was just going to tell the peace corps to put me as rural as possible and hopefully in the mountains.. turns out i have had a slight change of heart.. although i would like to be rural, the grammer is terrible and i know that my already broken spanish would have slim chances of improving.. also all of these other aggies are wanting to be in the mountains.. so although there is still a strong possibility i could be in the mountains, i could just as easily be placed in the hottest part of nicaragua... being chinandega or leon.. i do not know how close to the beach an ag volunteer can be but i can hope for the best.. also esteli is an absolutely gorgeous place that i could find myself quite content. i guess ill know in a few weeks.
all of my trainees love the fact that it takes about 12 hours for my mustache to grow in so now i, along with a few other trainees, have a mustace ready to start curling over my top lip any time now.. everyone has either gotten a buzz cut or a short haircut since we have arrived.. there are suprisingly still some nicas with long hair.. much of our youth group loves the song {in da club) by 50 cent.. ha.. so remembering my middle school days they were extremely impressed when i rapped most the song to them.. same goes for marvin gaye´s song (sexual healing) and anything by celine dion or michael jackson.. ha.. many of the kids love their hollister outfits just like thoses in the states..
the last few weeks have been great.. i am playing more games with my family and we have been talking all about our pasts. i have taught them to dance to a few bob marley songs that i brought down.. they love bob ha.. and they have taught me to act like i know how to dance! all in all it has been a month i couldnt trade for anything..
a few weeks back i went to bed around 930 not feeling the greatest.. i figured everything would be fine in the morning so i tried to sleep .. around midnight i found myself with nothing but a headlamp and underwear on trying to unlock the back door so that i could vomit up the goat soup that i had for lunch.. ha .. in the process of regurgitating the soup and gallo pinto i had for dinner i was alerted by my stomach that we had an emergency on the other end of body.. after doing the same thing in reverse order in the morning, i skipped classes the next day and slept the whole day away in our hammock.. looking back now that mental break from class couldnt have come at a better time.. sure i have great days.. and there are also days when i wonder if i am even able to learn the language.. there are days when i become frustrated becuase we are doing more team building activities and there are days that i couldnt feel more blessed (which are most days)! there are days when i am discouraged and wonder what difference can i make here.. and there are days i wonder if these people want help.. with all that i know i am only a trainee for now and i have a long ways to go.. the one thing that is certain thus far is that when i sit back and examine the big picture, i couldnt feel any luckier to have the opportunity to be apart of an organization that has the sole purpose of promoting friendship and peace with people around the world.
hope everyone is doing well and ill try to get back on this after returning from tech days in matagalpa!
much love,
maclaine
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