Catching up...

Well I am clearly not the most diligent blogger, but haven't had too much to report. I have been in my site since August 3rd. I have been trying to adjust and meet people within the community which is a slower process than it should be, hampered by my at times faulty Spanish. It is getting easier including the Spanish. My host family is wonderful. My host mom is a local health volunteer and she performs a lot of first aid within the community. My host dad is a farmer who also sits on many of the local agriculture committees. There are three kids, a nineteen year old university agriculture major, a thirteen year old boy, and a ten year old girl. The community is very small and most of the members are somehow related so I have many other host family relatives to keep me company. The community is only about 100 people and we are bordered on both sides by communities of 400 people. During my service I hope to work in all three communities.
As an agriculture volunteer, one of my goals is to work to improve food security. I have started a few things with that in mind. I began a youth group at the beginning of September. We decided to have two meetings a week and we will have four different themes, if you will, gardening, English, sports and cooking. We planted a garden and made a compost pile. The compost pile was especially fun. We formed two teams and each team was responsible for gathering one of the two main ingredients which are cattle manure and dry leaves. The kids were racing up and down the road with sacos (Spanish- all purpose sacks) and shovels. One group played it smart and grabbed a wheel barrow (that was not my group). The garden was enclosed to protect it from the chickens that think the whole world exists for them to eat and crap all over. We planted carrots, cucumber, tomato, and peppers. The peppers and tomatoes were planted in a small seed nursery for later transplant and really flourished. The carrots and cucumbers, not so much. The ants had a feast and ate all of the seeds. My host brother retaliated by killing them off with pesticide. I had hoped to use more organic methods but I decided to let them handle it for now and next time around (when there is more water and things are easier) to try something different. But even if I didn’t particularly like the methods the garden is looking great right now. All the peppers and tomato plants have been transplanted and the plants are very healthy. Angel, my host brother, even dug another row and plans to plant potatoes this weekend. The compost is done and we’ll be spreading that in the next couple of days.
Another thing I did with the youth group was a tool Peace Corps suggests for trying to get to know your community. I divided the group into guys and girls and asked them to draw the community as they saw it. They also put notations of places they frequently used and places that they do or do not like. The last question was what is missing in the community that they would like to have. The answers to all of these helped provide me with some ideas for my service. The three ideas they had for what could be added to the community were a library, a sports field, and reforestation. I also hope to explore the possibility of making the youth group into a 4-H group as that is something that would give it some structure and I have personal experience as a former member.
I had my first community meeting with the women. Well, actually it was a second attempt at a first meeting. The first was thwarted by rain; no one goes anywhere when it rains. Wish we could use that excuse in the States. I introduced myself and asked what ideas they had for improving the community food security. They like the idea of a cooking group. Which is great except that I am a lousy cook. The most difficult thing I made in the States was Hamburger Helper. However, my host mom and I have been testing some recipes when we have the time and ingredients so we will probably start there. We made peanut butter yesterday and it tasted pretty good. The first time we burned the peanuts and the result was awful. We have also experimented with soy products, and breakfast foods. Felicita, my host mom, especially loves pancakes. For the first women’s group meeting we are going to try to make jams, one thing with which I actually do have experience. We found a papaya that a neighbor had. As I am going into town for my mail (and to post this on the net) I am going to look for some dragonfruit or pineapple.
Outside of the goings on in my site, I just had my three month week long Spanish training session. Those of us who came in with lower level Spanish met with Peace Corps language facilitators once more to pick up where we left off three months ago when training completed. It was a great opportunity to learn some of the more complicated verb tenses that we didn’t have a chance to explore with teachers before. But 32 hours of language in four days was a lot and by the end my head felt a little full. The annual Peace Corps cocktail party hosted by the small business sector happened to be last Friday, the same day our classes finished and since we near Managua we all decided to attend. It was fun to get dressed up and stay in a hotel for a night (hot showers!). Our all volunteer conference is coming up in the days before Thanksgiving so we will actually have that opportunity again soon. I am going to be busy for the next six weeks. I am trying to move into my own house and the only available one has trees growing in it, so quite a bit of work there. I will be talking to the school teachers this week about possible future projects plus the women’s and youth meetings. Also I might be planning a trip back to Iowa for the holidays, so lots to do!