The Little Things

I guess I win the worst blogger ever award. I've never been much of a writer. Anywho, everything is pretty much the same here. I thought I would share a bit about life as a PCV. Life here is a series of random occurrences. Last Friday, for example. I had a youth group meeting in the afternoon. We did an activity to encourage diversity. I put a post-it with a symbol on it on the back of every kid. They could not see their own but they see those of everyone else. Then I simple said organize yourselves. Of course they put themselves in groups by symbols. Triangles here, circles there. But a few kids had random symbols that didn't fit anywhere so they were left out. Then I pointed out that I did not say how they should organize themselves and there was no reason for them to exclude anyone. Next, we talked about what we should do for Mother's Day. We're going to put on a short program with dances and songs by some of the kids. To be figured out better, later. Lastly we did an English activity. I gave each person an activity in Spanish to perform, running, dancing, jumping, etc. Of the other kids, the first to name the action in English would get a point on our point board. Which completely started as bribery, a way to keep them interested and showing up. Now I realized today it can be both incentive and remonstrance. Sometimes they like to try to get a rise out of me by using bad words in English. Every time they do it now it is a lost point. I have so much respect for teachers. Those were all of my planned activities for the day but that was not sufficient (according to them). So we played the local version of London Bridge which ends with tug-of-war. Then duck, duck, goose. I often feel twenty-four going on ten here. Then they tried to trap me in the Health Center to try to get me to sing any song by Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams, or Troy Bolton (a character from High School Musical, this was coming from the nine year old and I managed not to say I'd rather kill myself) in English. I managed to escape but not before treating (or punishing) them with a few choruses of We Are the World. It's hard to resist that much begging. Do I have an explanation for this? Not really.
Another thing I cannot explain coherently to all of you. We recently crossed international borders for Wendy's. Yes, the restaurant with the pig-tailed girl. We were all dying for a Frostie. It was during Holy Week, Semana Santa, when very little work gets done all throughout Central America. Most people go to the beaches and we heard they are miserably crowded so we decided to go to Tegulcigalpa, capital of Honduras and get Wendy's. Our own little Harold and Kumarian adventure. Managua has many food chains but it is lacking both Wendy's and Chilis so we conquered both. Life is definitely the little things.
I wanted to say a big thank you to United Methodist Church in Dayton. A collection was taken at Easter for a project in La Mora and your generosity is overwhelming. The sports equipment that was collected at Christmas is being put to good use. I keep all of the items in my room and they knock on my window whenever they want something and then return it by nighttime. The ideas for the donated money at this time are a library/youth center and school gardens to improve nutrition. I'll do my best to keep you updated on our progress.

Getting Back into it...

And I'm back. I was in the States for the holidays, twelve days, maybe twelve and a half since I had to stay a night in Chicago on the way back but I made it just fine. It was nice to touch down and immediately ditch the sweater I had. I spent New Year's at the Laguna de Apoyo with other volunteers and it was beautiful. The Laguna is the best swimming hole in the country and was once a volcano that sunk a very long time ago and became a lake. We stayed in small actual villas which was very cool. I also toured quickly the colonial city of Granada on my way back up, a popular tourist destination. Beautiful architecture and good food but it definitely did not feel like being in Nicaragua so I was glad to get back to site.
La Mora was exactly where I left it, everything is pretty much the same here. Unfortunately too many days spent speaking English had a detrimental effect on my Spanish but I have been getting back into it, even starting some novels in Spanish for practice. I went to a birthday party the day after I got back and found out what I had thought was very odd Kool-Aid was corn liquor- guaro. Oops. I handed the rest of mine off after I found that out. I would prefer not to accidentally get drunk in front of people I want to respect me.
I started the youth group meetings back up. I also started a small competition, practically bribery. At every meeting there will opportunities to gain points and at the end of the month the person with the most points will win a prize. We had two small races. I gave them Post-its with body parts written on them in English and they had to put them on their partner in the correct places. We had a good laugh especially when the wind came up and they struggled to keep them on. The second was a relay race of crab, bear, rabbit and seal walking/ jumping. To finish they had to answer a question correctly about Nicaragua. But the best part came when I unveiled some of the donated items I brought back from the States (thanks to my family and the Methodist church). Many of the items are still in the PC office in the city of Esteli because with the forty minute walk from the bus stop I simply couldn't carry them but I did bring two Frisbees and three baseballs back. Soon I was ducking to avoid being hit in the head with those same baseballs and Frisbees. On Saturday, we went down to an open pasture and I taught them the game Ultimate Frisbee or as I called it in Spanish “platillo al maximo”. I am pretty sure they liked it because they have played it every day since, usually just in the road with four people.
I also found some recipes for chocolate cake and banana bread that I will be trying out this week with some of the women in the community. They recently built ovens with the help of a cooperative but people in the community still buy a lot of the bread that is brought in from other cities. I also just filled out an application for tree seeds with an online non- profit Trees for the Future. February is best month to plant trees, starting them out in small bags and then planting them in the ground at the beginning of the wet season in May. That's all for now, take care.