Mason and Brenna's Peace Corps Nicaragua Experience

Em and J's Wedding in Crested Butte!

2008-07-19T09:18:00.003-06:00

We were lucky enough to be able to come home for this fun and beautiful wedding on June 8.

Such a beautiful scene!

July, Corinne, me, Mandy and Em celebrating Em's big day!

Clavo running his heart out in the Colorado Mountains!

Clavo LOVES the snow!

Zac, Nicole, me and Carol hiking in CB.

Some of the bridesmades at the wedding.

Less Then 5 Months to Go!

2008-06-20T17:43:00.002-06:00

Mason and I have already been back here in Nicaragua for a week. We had a wonderful whirlwind trip to Colorado for Emily and Jason’s wedding. We spent two nights in Denver, three nights in Crested Butte for the wedding, and two nights in Fort Collins. Clavo and Poster flew to the U.S. with us, where they are currently content. Clavo will be living with Carol for the next few months, and Poster is with my parents in Denver. It seems as though they are both happy little gringos, enjoying the comforts of carpet, couches, wet food, dog parks and comparatively cool temperatures. As an added bonus, we discovered in Crested Butte that Clavo LOVES the snow!
It has been great to be back here, living our daily routine of working until noon, eating, reading/sleeping in the hammock, maybe working some more, visiting friends, eating again and sleeping. Yesterday and today I have been pleased to see that my students have been doing an outstanding job of taking care of our school gardens. Today in one of my rural schools we counted 30 squash plants, 25 papaya trees, 3 cantaloupe plants, 2 tomato plants, 16 green pepper plants, 2 enormous mint plants, 1 oregano, 10 green bean plants, and 4 watermelon plants. The teacher told me they ate the first squash yesterday as a part of the school lunch. I am so proud of them for caring for the garden, because sadly, most poor Nicaraguans eat very few fruits and vegetables because they cannot afford to buy them. It was recently pointed out to me that in our town of 6,000 people, there are only 4 little vegetable stands, which is about enough to feed 300 people. The reality is, the daily diet consists of red beans, rice, and corn tortilla. They do consume fruit juices, but they always contain way too much sugar. These gardens are an ideal way to make kids excited about eating fresh fruits and vegetables, since they are growing them all from seed.
My rural students are from farming families, and in working with them in our gardens, I have learned a few funny superstitions. Today the students caught me pointing various times at individual plants and the fruit growing on them. Each time I pointed, they all reprimanded me in all seriousness because if a person points at a plant bearing fruit, the plant will immediately dry up and die. After accidentally pointing various times, I finally got the hang of it and started “pointing” at plants with my entire open hand. They seemed to like that. Other interesting Nica superstitions are: One must never bathe at night because you will get sick (Mason and I both bathe at night!). One must never open the refrigerator door at night, you will get sick. Cat hair makes women sterile. A pregnant woman must never watch a solar or lunar eclipse; she will immediately lose her child.
Mason has been playing in a basketball league every Saturday and Sunday night for the past few months. It took him a while to adjust to the Nica street ball style, and to the strange calls the refs make. Mason’s final game was this past Sunday night when his team (who was favored to win the championship) lost in the first round. The crowds have been steadily building every week, but Sunday night’s game was the most crowded yet, because the team who won the most games out of 7 would go on to the championships, and both teams each had won 3 games. Tensions were high, the sky was thundering like mad, and the excited crowd was overwhelmingly cheering for the other team, since they were the underdogs. The fans of the other team were extremely riled up, and trying to mess with Mason’s team. They even brought a “marching band” for an added effect. The game was moving along smoothly, despite the disruptive crowd, when suddenly a big guy on the other team decided he wanted to make some trouble. Out of nowhere the guy gave Mas a shove and Mas was taken aback. He didn't push him back, but also didn't back down and they had a little face-off and shouting match. Basically that’s all that happened, the game went on, there was a break for a fight that broke out in the crowd, and Mason’s team eventually lost by 2 points. It was a very heated game with a few other almost-fights and multiple technical fouls. Well, the next day all around town, the only thing people were talking about was the big fight the gringo got in at the basketball game! People were telling me they saw a fist go into Mason’s jaw, others say he lost his two front teeth. I even heard that the other guy had to go to the hospital for a broken nose! All of my students know about the rumble and they think it’s SOOO COOL! It’s funny how gossip spreads here, especially if it involves the town’s only gringo. It was alsoa funny way to end Mason's basketball season.
Thank you for reading, don’t forget to remind your friends and co-workers to please donate to our TRASH TREATMENT PROJECT!

Brenna’s Updated Reading List

2008-06-02T20:10:00.002-06:00

Since I’ve been in Nicaragua I have been lucky enough to have had the time to read 31 books. I find them in the Peace Corps book exchange in the Managua office, or by exchanging with friends. Here is an updated list of books I have read beginning with those I have read most recently.

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, by Kim Edwards. About a family torn apart by the father’s secret decision to give away their daughter born with Downs Syndrome. My rating:7
The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck. Amazingly, I had never read this before. It was of course a wonderful book, full of complex characters and tales of injustice. My rating: 9(East of Eden is still the best book I’ve ever read).
A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah. This is a first hand account of the life of a child soldier in Sierra Leone. Beah doesn’t hold back any gory details, making it a remarkably shocking and gruesome book, but it’s an excellent view into the destruction and suffering plaguing so many African countries. My rating:7
Freakonomics, by Stephen Levvitt and Steven Dubner. Levvitt is a young and brilliant economist who looks at common issues and asks unlikely questions, leading to sometimes shocking answers. The section that I found most interesting was how he links the falling crime rate of the 1990’s to the legalization of abortion 20 years prior, with Roe v. Wade. He claims that all of the unwanted babies that weren’t born would have begun causing crime (they would have been in their late teens and early 20’s), and because they weren’t born, the crime rate went down. This is just one of the interesting theories he discusses in the book. My rating: 6
On The Wild Edge, by David Petersen. This was recommended by Mason. In this book, the author describes his quiet life living in an isolated cabin in the woods near Durango, Colorado. He is a minimalist who prefers the company of the natural world to that of the city or towns. My rating:8
Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen. This book was so much fun to read! It follows a train-based traveling circus in the 1930’s. I loved the funny characters the fun pace and the interesting situations they get into! Rating: 9
The Old Patagonia Express, by Paul Theroux. This is the first Theroux book I have read, and I didn’t really like it. It’s his account of his travels by train from Boston down to Patagonia. The book was basically boring and depressing, which I guess well describes third world train travel. My rating: 4
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins. A must-read for all Peace Corps Volunteers, since Perkins was a PCV as well! This paints a bleak picture of the US’s imperialist ways, and how our government would and will do just about anything to protect our own interests. It involves the CIA (naturally), USAID (which surprised me), other government entities and multi-national corporations committing scandalous “economic” crimes to suppress third world economies. The truth is, these tactics still occur today. No wonder much of the world hates us. Are we paying for our past today? My rating: 9
The Miracle of Mindfulness, by Thich Nhat Hanh. Thanks to Mike Doyle for sending us off to Nicaragua with this book. Our copy is now underlined and starred and highlighted, it’s so full of good thoughts and practices. Its main message is to live and think in the moment. “Wash the dishes to wash the dishes, not just to get them done.” We should take our time with all that we do, and always do everything well. This book will be read many more times. My rating: 9
A Framework for Understanding Poverty, by Ruby Payne. This is a quick academic study on generational poverty, which I found extremely useful in understanding things here in Nicaragua. Poverty has the same characteristics worldwide. Nicaraguan poverty is inherently the same as Harlem poverty, or Indian poverty. She argues that poverty places a lot of value on entertainment, which explains the constant TV. watching, too loud music, and loud funny personalities. She also says people living in generational poverty don’t have planning skills, and discipline is not based on an expected behavior change. She argues that society (the system) is based on middle class norms that generational poverty cannot thrive in, because they don’t understand the rules. My rating: 7.5 (recommended to Peace Corps Volunteers and teachers).
The Power of One, by Bryce Courtenay. This was once my favorite book, so I decided to read it again. The story follows the life of young Peekay, a South African boy of English descent. I loved the characters that shaped his life, especially Hoppie, Doc and Morrie. My rating: 9

The rest of the books are listed in a previous blog entry. Click Here to check them out.

Hurricane Alma

2008-05-30T15:07:00.002-06:00

So, we lived through a hurricane last night! We're fine but have a hole in our kitchen ceiling and lost 2 1/2 trees from our yard.
We likely won't have power or water for a week or so as all of the power lines are blown down and all of the municipal water pumps are electric. At least we're going to the US in a few days. Hopefully all will be back to normal when we get back. Because of the electricity issue, we likely won't post for a while.
Enjoy...

The Strike Ended...

2008-05-24T08:41:00.002-06:00

... a couple of days after the last post. The whole thing lasted just under two weeks, I think. Most buses started up again last Saturday (17th) and all started up the following Monday (19th). So things were pretty much back to normal after that.
Also, since the last posting the rainy season has begun! On Tuesday evening it started coming down hard, once again turning our streets into rivers. We got a rain free morning Wednesday then it started once again that afternoon and rained until Thursday afternoon. A little sprinkle followed that evening and since then (it is now Saturday morning) we have just had lots of clouds but no rain. People are talking about another Tropical Depression so maybe we'll have more storms. I sure hope so.
I know that once the rainy season becomes a daily reality, I'll not be as excited about it and will wish for those hot sunny days that we used to have, but right now I want it to never stop raining. I love it! The town decided we had enough rain after two days to turn the water back on full time, so now we can shower and do dishes whenever we want! Now that we don't have to rush around in the morning filling up all of our buckets and watering the plants before the water goes away, we have a lot more free time. I don't know what to do with my mornings anymore. I'm sure I'll find something.
Hasta pronto

No hay transporte

2008-05-10T16:34:00.000-06:00

So, we’re in the middle of a nation wide transportation strike. That’s no good. Things change from day to day, but here’s the gist:

Starting last Monday (the 5^th) taxi drivers in Managua and a couple other major cities and some buses stopped running. The following day, almost all taxi drivers in the country, as well as almost all buses (between cities and within cities) and a lot of cargo transporters joined the strike. Since then, it has been more of the same. We, here in Malpaisillo, are in the middle of a major east-west highway in Nicaragua and usually have 20-30 buses pulling into town daily, plus the 3 micro-buses that are constantly going back and forth between here and Leon. Since Monday, not one bus has come through town. This has had a big impact in some ways and not much of an impact in other ways.

Probably the biggest impact is for people who don’t live in the town where they work. It is very rare here to own a car so almost everyone relies on public transportation. Many people in Malpaisillo (and lots of other communities) work in Leon and haven’t been able to go to work. All of the schools where I work are outside of town along the highway and many teachers live in town and are not going to work because they have no way to get there, so no school. Another major impact, since cargo transporters are also striking, is that a lot of the markets are out of food. We have been alright here because somehow people are sneaking in food every few days, but the prices have also gone up because of this. Some of our friends live in towns that have been without basic food supplies almost all week.

Why is this all happening? Apparently Nicaragua has the highest gas prices in all of Central America (around $5/gal) and those who work in transportation want the government to freeze petroleum prices. In effect, they are looking for the government to subsidize gas costs in order to bring them back down. The government says that there is no money to do that, and the only possible way they could try would be to re-institute the nation-wide power outages (for about 8 hours a day) that we used to have. That certainly isn’t a popular option. The transportation workers don’t want to raise their prices because they say that no one will pay and that they have already had to raise them a lot (example, when we first got to Malpaisillo in Nov 06, it cost 35 cordobas to get to Managua. Now it costs 58. That is a 66% increase in about a year and a half). It is hard to say whether people would pay higher prices or not because people just don’t have much money here. The prices have to be kept low, even if it means very slim profits, just so people can afford things.

Peace Corps has instructed us not to leave our towns because in some areas the strikers have set up road blocks and are harassing all cars. Their goal is to paralyze the country. There are also demonstrations in a few cities and lots of folks have been tear-gassed and/or arrested. So far, we haven’t had any reason to need to leave Malpaisillo, but if this goes on another week we definitely will. Although we are not in danger of running out of food yet, we have run out of some of the things we like to eat that we can only buy in grocery stores in Leon (oatmeal, wheat bread, peanut butter, spices…) where we generally go to restock once a week. Also, there are no ATMs here, so we could potentially run out of money, although I don’t see that happening soon, since we spend most of our money at the grocery store in Leon.

That’s what is going on here, but it gets better. Since late January, we only get running water from 6 am until around 1 pm each day. We have become accustomed to this and are used to waking up early to fill up buckets, do dishes and laundry and water the plants. After the water goes away, we just use the stored water to bathe and clean dishes. Well, for some reason, the power started going out again this week from around 8 am until 3 pm. We haven’t had power outages like this for about 6 months, so we were all surprised. Well, when the power goes out, the electric water pump for the town also goes out so the water stops running about a half hour after the lights go out. That means that we have only been getting water from 6 until 830 each day. That is barely enough time to fill all of our buckets that we emptied the previous evening and do laundry. Especially since we usually leave to go to work around 730 or 8 and then fill up water after. So for a good portion of this week we were sitting in the house, sweating of course, with no power, water, transportation and very little food in town. When we talk to locals about that, they add that there is also no employment and in many cases (because of the transportation) no school. What a mess.

We’re fine though. Our spirits (like the temperature) are still high. A bright spot upon all of this is that the Ramirez Brothers Circus is in town!! As soon as we saw them setting up, in a vacant lot in the middle of neighborhood, we knew that no matter how much we didn’t want to go, we definitely had to go. Now, I don’t know if you have ever been to a circus in the US, but aside from the big tent, this is nothing like that. First of all, there is one circular tent that is probably around 800-900 ft². Inside this tent are bleachers (2 x 4s resting in a rebar frame, no nails or screws, balanced on the dirt ground) and the “ring” where all of the action happens. The bleachers were packed full with probably 300-400 people and there was absolutely no ventilation.

The show started late (of course) with 3 little girls, probably ages 3, 5 and 5, wearing short skirts and high boots doing some sort of sexy dance to a reggaeton song being played way too loud through blown-out speakers. Now, to the casual observer, this may seem strange but we have learned that any gathering here is not official until there is extremely loud music played through blown-out speakers. If the music volume is such that you can talk to someone standing next to you, it must be turned up much higher. In addition, little girls dressed provocatively and dancing in ways they shouldn’t be are expected at most social gatherings, be they school graduations, birthday parties, holy week parades, summer reading club events or government elections.

After the little girls danced, a guy came out to do some tricks on a big trapeze-like swing that came only inches away from the heads of the crowd in the bleachers. After him was a clown act and then a young woman, dressed much like the little girls only the skirt was shorter and the bikini top was more like a small bra, came out to dance. Everyone hooted and hollered the whole time. After her a different girl, dressed similarly, came out to lip-synch a couple of songs and dance. Then there was a break. The second half was even worse. More clown acts, making sexual and racist jokes almost exclusively, and one of the dancing girls came back out wearing even skimpier clothes and not bothering to lip-synch this time. Also, throughout the night, there was a deer chained up in the corner that never took part in any act. So, aside from a guy on a swing, the circus consisted of crude clown acts and almost naked dancing girls. Did I mention that at least a third of the crowd was under the age of 12? When we left the circus, we (Brenna, our friend Greg, and I) were all disgusted by what had taken place that evening. Obviously, we have come to expect many cultural differences and we know that entertainment is different here than at home, but we were still appalled. What made it even worse is that there really isn’t anything here for people to do, so when something like this comes to town, of course everyone is going to go. Since we went, we have actually had some really good conversations with some folks in our town about what they think about all of this. Many people have told us that they also think it is disgusting and would never go to something like that. I’m glad we saw it, but I will never go to a circus in Nicaragua again. What a funny place.

I guess that will be all for now. Thanks for reading and we look forward to seeing some of you in CO in a few weeks. Please think about DONATING to our town trash project. And if you’re going to donate, don’t waste any time. We need to raise the $$ by the end of July. Thanks for considering it.

See you later.

What Have We Been Doing?

2008-05-02T13:54:00.004-06:00

Hooray! We finished planning our Trash Treatment project, and you can now read all about it AND donate online at the Peace Corps website. Just follow our handy link here on the right. Now that we have that out of the way, we have more time to concentrate on other aspects of our lives here. Mason and I are both doing the same sort of work in the schools this year. We started the school year off with making compost with the kids. The kids had fun watching it slowly decompose week by week. In the beginning they didn’t believe me when I told them that all of the leaves, grasses and food scraps would turn into dirt! Currently we are working on school nurseries and school gardens. So far only about 40 trees in all 4 of my nurseries have sprouted, mostly because there is a major shortage of water right now, and because the kids are for some reason not willing to water the 6 days of the week that I’m not there! I don’t know why it is so hard to get them to water, but they are just lazy. Even the teachers don’t seem to care sometimes. It’s really frustrating, especially since this is the second time each school has done these projects with me. Often, getting things done here is like pulling teeth.

About the water shortages… here in town we have had water rationing since early February. Our half of the town gets water from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. and the other half of the town has water in the afternoons. It was hard to get used to at first, but now we are just used to waking up at 6 with the water, washing clothes, watering plants and filling up buckets before leaving to go to work. At night we take “bucket baths,” by pouring water over our heads from a bucket of stored water! We used to think we were lucky because the house we live in has a toilet instead of a latrine, but without water most of the day, we have to flush it by forcefully pouring a pitcher of water in the bowl every time! Not to worry, the rainy season is fast approaching, bringing with it an end to all the dust and dryness.

We had a nice visit from Marilee and Nicole in March. We went with them up to the chilly rainforest called Miraflor. It was wonderful for us to be out in nature without sweating profusely as we do every day here. Unfortunately they couldn’t come down to Malpaisillo, because it was Holy Week (semana santa), and few busses were running. Mason and I went to Leon for Good Friday to watch the parades and processions. They have an interesting tradition (they actually copy Antigua, Guatemala) of making “paintings” on the street using colored saw dust. There are probably about 50 or so depicting typical scenes of Jesus, etc. They are all on display in the evening, and at night, the procession carrying Jesus and his friends trample all of the paintings as they walk by on the way to the cathedral. It’s an interesting spectacle.

Two weeks ago we went to our friend’s wedding. She married a Nicaraguan man named Lenin, and they plan on moving back to the States when she completes her Peace Corps service. She is the first of 4 girls in our group who are marrying Nica men! This past weekend we went to the beach town of San Juan Del Sur to spend time with our buddy Elliott and his family. His dad Jack treated us all to an afternoon sailing trip, which was spectacular. We sailed to a beautiful, isolated beach, and on the way home watched the sunset. Thank you, Jack!

The rest of this month we plan on just working a lot and enjoying our tranquil life here. We’ve really grown to love our days here where we typically work only about 4 hours a day and either read in the hammock, work in the yard or hang out with friends. In so many ways, our lives here are much easier then they were in the states. Sure, the standard of living here is lower, but there is practically zero stress, a tight community of friends and a lot of laughter.

In the beginning of June we head home for a week to go to Emily and Jason’s wedding. The dog and cat come home then too. Poster is set to live with my parents and their cat (who is the center of my dad’s universe), and Clavo is going to be with Carol. There’s going to be a big empty space in our lives without them here.

Only 6 months to go! Things here are really starting to wrap up. Thanks for reading!

At Miraflor looking at the amazing variety of orchids.

Mas, Nicole and Marilee hiking among the old Oak trees in Miraflor.

Taking a cold dip at Miraflor.

A true Nicaraguan revolutionary, flanked by Che and Sandino.

Singing revolution songs around the campfire at Miraflor.

Mas and I enjoying the cold!

The best cook in Nicaragua, our host in Miraflor, Doña Corina.

Our Trash Project

2008-04-28T16:33:00.007-06:00

So, in case you didn't get the e-mail, out trash project is finally on-line and awaiting your donations. (Read more about our project here.) You can donate online by clicking on the DONATE TO OUR PROJECT link on the right. We did get news that the donation site is having some problems. Try there first, but if you can't donate that way, please call and make your donation over the phone. The phone number is:

Phone-in Credit / Debit Card Donation: (800) 424 8580, x2170

We (and the people of Malpaisillo) really appreciate your help with this. Also, time is somewhat of the essence, as we pretty much need to raise all of this money by the end of July at the very latest in order to complete the project before we leave in November. Without us, the funds get used for some other project in some other country. Again, thanks for your help with either a donation or by simply telling someone else about the project. We'll keep you updated.

A few random happenings...

2008-03-05T09:46:00.001-07:00

So, we’re working on the finishing touches for the solid waste treatment plant. We present the proposal to a board at the Peace Corps office this Friday (the 7^th) and if/when the project is approved, I think it will only be a matter of time before it is posted on Peace Corps’ website and anyone can donate. That is how this particular program receives its funding, by asking for donations from the private sector and organizations that we have contact with. Imagine if other government agencies had to find funding this way…

The President, Daniel Ortega (El Comandante) was here in Malpaisillo yesterday. It was the first time I have ever seen the president of any country. He came to inaugurate a recently rebuilt highway that passes through our town. It hadn’t been repaired since ’92 and Hurricane Mitch did a good amount of damage to it in ’98 as well. Now is great, with signs, school crossings and all. He came in a helicopter, which was quite a sight for many of the people here. Then he was taken to a stage set up just off the highway to speak, along with our Mayor and some other political figures from the area, and of course the first lady (who many people refer to as La Bruja, the witch. In fact I have been told by more than one person that there is a huge congregation of Central American witches and she is their leader.) who generally does more talking than he does and has been put in charge of various political organizations. The whole show started 1.5 hours late, and by the time that El Comandante took the stage and started talking we were ready to leave. We had to stick around though to hear what he had to say. I gotta say, I can only listen to a President talk about a highway for so long before I start to get bored. Especially after listening to a mayor, priest, first lady, state representative, representative from Central America’s version of the World Bank, and some other guy talk about the same highway for about 10 minutes each. So after listening to the President for 5 or 10 minutes we headed home to eat dinner and go to bed. Luckily, we were all just standing in a crowd along the highway, so not that many people noticed that we left. About 2 hours later, we heard his helicopter leaving, which reaffirmed our decision to cut out early.

That whole scene got me thinking, once again, about how those of us in “first-world” countries take so much for granted. Roads, for example. Imagine if our highways were dirt, or so full of potholes that it was better to drive in the dirt next to the highway. What if the only way into our town was a horse trail that gets flooded during the rainy season? I wonder how productive we would be, and how much we would know about the rest of the world, and how much we would value education. There are so many people here, and all over the world who live that way, and I think it is another one of those things that we never even think about. Roads really do serve to improve our way of life.

We got our cat, Poster, fixed 2 days ago. Our friendly vet came over to the house with a few supplies and did the surgery on our dining room (if you can call it that) table. We helped by holding Poster and also took a few pictures. Cats really make some strange noises when they are under anesthesia and having their masculinity cut off. The whole thing took about 20 minutes and we paid about $7.50. I wonder how much that costs in the US? It was interesting to watch, but I’ll spare the details. So, he is still walking around a bit confused, looking for something that isn’t there. He started eating again this morning, so that is good. During the surgery, when he was making all of those weird noises, Clavo went into big-brother mode and started whining and trying to help out Poster. We almost had to take more care of the dog than the cat that was being operated on.

Oh, one of my schools finally has water! They have always had a very deep well, but a few years ago, during a school vacation, someone came and stole the pump to the well, making the well useless. Somehow, they secured another pump, but not all of it. This particular type of pump basically consists of a crank-wheel at the top and a really long rope that loops down into the well through a PVC pipe out and around the crank-wheel. Every yard or so along this rope are little rubber pieces that have a diameter a little less than the inside of the PVC pipe. By cranking the wheel and pulling the rope and all these little rubber pieces through the tube, suction is created and as long as someone is cranking the wheel, water will come out. So, the pump that the teacher was able to get didn’t come with a rope, and that is the state it was in when I arrived at the school last year. I started talking to the teacher a lot about the need for water at the school, obviously for drinking, but also for all of the projects I wanted to do, like tree nurseries and vegetable gardens. After a few months of me talking about it every time I was there, the teacher raised enough $$ from the students’ parents to purchase and install the rope. That was great, except for one minor detail. The pump wasn’t attached to the well by anything other than the rope, so when the kids crank the wheel, the pump moved all over the place. They devised a method of getting about 5 extra kids to stand on it and hold it down while two of them cranked the wheel, but that only lasted so long before it was evident that if things continued this way, it would all fall to pieces. So the teacher told them to stop using the pump. That was about 6 months ago. There is a Spanish NGO that has a very large presence here in town and one of the things they do is build and repair pumps of all types. I took it upon myself to go and talk to them about fixing our pump. They agreed it could be accomplished fairly easily with a bit of welding and even better, they were going to be out in that part of the country (as in “rural area,” not “nation”) the following day. So they showed up at the school and fixed the well and it was really a cool thing to be standing next to the teacher while all of this was happening and watch her face. The NGO is charging a small fee, to cover materials and transport, but they are giving the teacher plenty of time to raise money from the parents of the kids (around 50 cents per kid for a total of around $11). Looking at that price from my point of view, it seems silly that it took so long to get all of this done and will take a few weeks more to get the money, but I have seen where these folks live and I see what their lives are like and that allows me to understand that this isn’t a small bit of change for them. For a few weeks I toyed with the idea of just paying for it myself, because even though I am a volunteer, I could afford that pretty easily. But I really believe that if they pay for it and it is not just another bit of foreign aid, they will appreciate it more and take better care of it. So, now we can water all of the trees we planted last year that are almost dead from the intense heat of the dry season. And the kids can drink water and wash their hands after recess. That day felt really good.

Speaking of the dry season, the heat is really setting in. It isn’t as bad as last year, but it is really hot. All day long. Last year February was much hotter than this year, but March is definitely feeling as hot as last year. It is getting to the point where nothing at all happens between 11 and 2 or 3 in the afternoon. The rains should come in mid-May, so we don’t have that long to wait, but April is always the worst. I don’t have a thermometer, but I’d guess it gets close to the boiling point of water during the hottest parts of the day. One interesting thing about the heat is that it takes our appetites away. I don’t know what that is all about, but a lot of times we have to force ourselves to eat lunch. I think last hot season is when I started losing a good amount of weight. I think it is because the act of eating makes us that much hotter. Really, just the act of breathing makes us hotter. But, we’re both really trying to live in the moment and not dwell on things we have no control over, so I’ll stop on this subject.

One last thing before I stop with this entry. When we were home for Christmas, we were introduced to a really fun version of the game Scrabble that doesn’t require the board and can be played by 2-6 people. They call it Speed Scrabble, or Take 4. We both liked this game so much that when we returned, I found a piece of cardboard and cut it into 100 square-inch pieces and made us a set of Scrabble tiles. I found the point values and correct numbers for each letter on Wikipedia. We have since passed a lot of time playing and have introduced many of our PC friends to this game. It’s really a great way to pass the time.

OK, that’s all for now. Our camera is broken, so no photos for a while. Enjoy!

Trash

2008-02-04T07:33:00.000-07:00

Mason and I have been working for almost a year now with representatives from the Malpaisillo mayor’s office and members of the community to address the growing trash problem the town faces. As anyone who has visited us here knows, we unfortunately live in a town where litter is commonplace, leaving all the plastic bags, bottles and papers to blow around uncollected in the streets. If it weren’t for all the trash, we would really live in a beautiful town. There are views everywhere of nearby volcanoes, and our town is filled with big, green fruit trees and colorful houses.

Of course, trash isn’t only a Malpaisillo problem; it’s bad throughout the country and the region. Malpaisillo collects the trash from homes and businesses (the few who are willing to pay) around town twice weekly, charging each household 10 cordobas a month (equivalent to $0.50). (Those families who don’t participate either dump it illegally on the edges of town, or they burn it in their yards). They then take what they have collected out to the official “dump” which is roughly two kilometers outside of town. Here the trash is simply dumped in a field and forgotten about. From time to time someone will come around and burn scattered piles. Over time, what’s left is littered plastic of all varieties scattered throughout a square mile radius. Obviously this style of dumping causes unimaginable health and environmental problems. The wind and rain quickly carry away vast quantities of trash back into town or further into the countryside. There are disease issues such as dengue and rodent-spread illnesses to worry about, as well as the air pollution caused by the burning of plastic and other toxic materials. Also, the ground that all of this trash sits on is primarily highly porous lava rock, below which sits part of a huge aquifer that supplies the town’s drinking water. So, all of the residue left over from the burnt plastic that hasn’t entered the air is filtered down through the ground into the aquifer. Also, this whole dump area is in an area proposed as a national park, on account of the nearby volcanoes and the few small sections of untouched forest left in this area.

During Peace Corps pre-service training over on the other side of Nicaragua, Mason and I went and visited a small town that has a very impressive and inspiring way of dealing with trash. The town is El Rosario, and they started this trash treatment plant only two years ago. Just like Malpaisillo, they charge the community for trash collection, which occurs twice weekly. The trash is then taken three kilometers out of town to their dump. Once there, two men with masks and shovels sort it into organic and inorganic trash. The organic trash (which is roughly 80% of the total trash collected) is put into neat piles which eventually decompose into compost. The inorganic trash is divided into plastic bottles, aluminum, glass, and other. The plastic, aluminum and glass are all recycled. A recycling company from a nearby city comes and buys it from them. The small amount of trash that remains is later either burned or buried.

The organic trash takes three months to decompose completely into compost. Once the compost is ready, a part of it is put into sacks and sold to local farmers. The rest is used right there on site as a part of their plant nursery. With their compost, they have an extensive nursery of fruit trees, ornamental plants and medicinal plants. These plants and trees are later used to reforest or plant around the community, or they are sold to individuals.

Naturally, Mason and I were extremely impressed by how well the trash was managed in El Rosario. It doesn’t smell, there are no flies, and there are beautiful plants everywhere! Their trash treatment plant is environmentally friendly, it provides jobs, and it is a source of income and pride for the community.

Here in Malpaisillo we have been working closely with the mayor’s office to try to duplicate the project here. We naturally have had many frustrations, but it looks like things are really beginning to take shape. Back in August we took three community members to El Rosario to meet with their mayor’s office and to tour the plant. After that trip, we took two mayor’s office representatives to a three day Peace Corps project planning training. There we sketched out the details and made a solid long-term plan. Things were progressing well for a while, then in October the big rains hit, and then there was Christmas, then the town parties, etc… Now that all distractions are hopefully out of the way, we are back on track. We met with a representative of the Millennium Challenge Corporation this week to see if they would be interested in funding the project. The Millennium Challenge Corporation is a $175 million grant from the United States government to Nicaragua which started last year. They are working only in our northwest region of the country, and they are interested in funding environmental projects like ours. Needless to say, we are really excited about the possibilities. We know not to get our hopes up too much, because true to Nicaraguan style, the pace has been slow so far, and it’s bound to keep being slow! We’ll keep updating the blog with the latest project developments. Enjoy the pictures…

A nice view of nearby volcanoes from the Malpaisillo dump.

More burning.

Notice that practically the only trash you see is plastic? That's because it takes over 500 years to disintegrate.

Mason, Justino and Raul found three 1-gallon jugs of a highly toxic sterilizing solution.

This was our ride out to the dump!

The plant nursery at El Rosario's trash treatment plant.

Baby trees in El Rosario.

Creative ways El Rosario is using discarded buckets.

Aloe Vera.

Each household who participates in their trash collection services gets a nice sign by their door so the neighbors can see!

The plastic bottles waiting to be recycled in El Rosario.

The mounds of organic compost.

Justino from our town taking notes while the two trash-sorters answer questions.

The Malpaisillo group in El Rosario: Raul, Justino, Maria, Mason and Brenna.

Mason's Books

2008-02-03T12:57:00.000-07:00

Well, Brenna put her books up here, so I thought I would too. Mine is much more technologically advanced, however. I have been using a site called goodreads.com to post my book reviews. There is a feature there that allows me to embed my book list in this blog. So, if you scroll down and look on the right, you will see that link. Enjoy!

Brenna's Book List

2008-01-20T14:49:00.000-07:00

January 11, 2008

Lots of people have asked me what I have been reading while here in Nicaragua, so here is a list of the books I have read so far. I have read a lot of really good ones, and because all of us volunteers share books, I have a lot more on my bookshelf waiting!

Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison. I rated it 6 out of 10.
The Mapmaker’s Wife, rating:7
Waiting, Ha Jin. Rating: 6
Four Corners, A Journey into the Heart of Paupa New Guinea, Kira Salak. Rating: 8.5
The Creation, E.O. Wison. Rating;7
Year of Wonders, rating: 8.5
Mountains Beyond Mountains, Tracy Kidder. Rating: 9
Cold Sassy Tree, Olive Ann Burns. Rating:9
The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende. Rating:9
Midwives, Chris Bojorhian. Rating:8
Skinny Legs and All, Tom Robbins. Rating: 7
Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond. Rating:7
Vinegar Hill, A. Manette Ansay. Rating:7
The Chosen, Chaim Potok. Rating:8.5
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig. Rating: 6
In The Heart of The Sea, Nathaniel Philbrick. Rating: 7.5
Love in the Driest Season, Neely Tucker. Rating:9
Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver. Rating:10
The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls. Rating:9
Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert. Rating, 9
Banker to the Poor, Muhammad Yunus. Rating:8
The Power of One, Bryce Courtenay. Rating:10. This is the second time I have read this book, it’s one of my all time favorites.
I am about to start A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner.

Please write me with any suggestions for future reading!

Finally... (its a long one)

2008-01-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

Jan 10, 2008

We’ve been back from the States for almost a week and we have been really busy with all sorts of little things since we arrived. Today, we are sort of taking the day off. As I write it is almost 2 in the afternoon, I am still wearing what I slept in, haven’t put in my contacts yet and have spent almost all day reading, listening to music, drinking coffee and eating. I love days like this every once in a while. I will have to leave the house at some point, though. We’re out of bottled water, which we buy in 5 gallon jugs every couple of days.

It has been almost 3 months since I last wrote… where to begin?

In mid-November, we finished up the school year, attending various pre-school and 6^th Grade graduations. The latter are a pretty big deal because a lot of the students won’t stay in school for their High School graduation. These graduations are another example of how we are sometimes treated as celebrities. We always get invited up on to the stage (even if we don’t work at the school and are just there supporting a friend) and at one of Brenna’s school’s graduations we were even presented with gifts (t-shirts) and Brenna made a short speech. These are usually followed by VERY loud music (if you can call reggaeton music) and dancing. That is usually the time I start thinking of ways to duck out and head home, which because of our “celebrity” status is always more challenging than it sounds.

Also in November was the annual Peace Corps All Volunteer Conference, a 3 day event in Managua. As you can guess, all of the volunteers in the country get together for a few days to give and attend workshops, catch up and learn from each other and agencies and professionals working here. After the daily meetings end, there is usually a good amount of fun to be had and there are many chances to swap stories and catch up with folks you haven’t seen for a long time. It was a really good time. Not coincidentally, the AVC ends on the evening before Thanksgiving and for Thanksgiving dinner, we are all invited to the homes of various PC and Embassy staff to enjoy turkey and football. Always a great meal, but especially this year after a solid year of Nica food behind us.

The weekend before the AVC, we went see Mana in concert in Managua. This was undoubtedly the biggest concert event Nicaragua has seen in a few years. If you are not familiar with Mana, they are sort of like the U2 of latin music: they’ve been around forever, they keep putting out hits, everyone knows them, very mainstream, etc. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, except for the 20 minutes or so after the show when we were trying to exit the baseball field where we watched the show with thousands of others through one door that led to a dark, hot, curvy hallway. The whole time I was thinking about news reports I’ve heard about crowds being trampled at soccer games and such. I was sure it was going to happen to us. Definitely one of the scariest things I have ever done.

After the AVC, we had a few days back in Malpaisillo and then my brother, Zac, came down to visit for about 3 weeks. He and I started off going to a remote beach in the southern part of the country for a few relaxing days of catching up, trying to surf and drinking beer. The surfing thing was a joke as we quickly realized that we couldn’t just “figure it out as we went along,” and quickly retired to sitting on the beach and sipping beer while watching the hermit crabs and waves and basking in the emptiness of our surroundings. On our last night there, we hired a guy from the hotel to drive us about 20 k north to a stretch of beach where 4 different species of sea turtles come to lay eggs. Nicaragua is very lucky to have 4 different nesting sites along its Pacific coast, and we were very lucky to be in that spot on that night.

Unfortunately for these sea turtles (most of these species are endangered) turtle eggs are a delicacy here in Nicaragua, revered for their power to make men more “potent.” Unfortunately for the local communities who used to thrive off of their trade, removing turtle eggs from their nests is illegal nowadays. After driving in the dark through someone’s back yard and then through a river, we found ourselves on a remote, unmarked 4WD road through dry tropical forest to one of Nicaragua’s nature reserves called Chacocente to try to get a look at the turtles coming ashore and laying eggs, we encountered 3 or 4 guys in the middle of nowhere, one of them on a horse. They we’re pretty insistent that we turn around and drive them to the hospital. They told our driver/guide, Wilfredo, that they were at the beach taking eggs and had been attacked by the army and the guy on the horse needed to get to the hospital because he had some sort of leg injury. Wilfredo explained to them that if he were alone in his own car he would be happy to take them back, but he was in the hotel’s truck and we were tourists who had paid for him to take us there to look at turtles. They seemed to understand that making a living here is often more important than anything, so they didn’t protest when we drove off.

Let me back up for a second here. Earlier that day I had heard something about the army being at Chacocente and that we may not be able to go there. I asked Wilfredo about it and he said not to worry (tranquilo, hombre). Apparently the problem with access was due to an army truck that had run into a guy’s house as they were cutting through his aforementioned backyard. We were fine, according to Wilfredo, because that house belonged to his girlfriend’s uncle and he would surely let him pass through. We didn’t think to ask what the army was doing there, but now we knew.

We eventually made it to the ranger station and encountered a ranger who immediately told us it was too dangerous to go down to the beach to look at the turtles. My first thoughts had to do with the tides, or snakes or maybe the average Nicaraguan’s fear of the water, but he went on to explain that the national police and the army were both down there battling with egg poachers and we may get mistaken for poachers if we went down. We were given the option of waiting for a couple of hours to see what happened, and since we had driven all that way and paid, we decided to have a seat. We listened to the communication radios between the ranger stations and the folks down on the beach for an hour or so and finally we were allowed to go down to the beach. We were lead by one of 5 or 6 college students from a university in Managua who volunteer to patrol the beaches at night and study and protect the nesting sites. Apparently that group is generally the only group of people patrolling the beach, but 2 nights before we got there they had encountered a group of about 70 villagers all armed with machetes and clubs who told them that they were going to take the eggs and there was nothing the unarmed students could do to stop them. That night, they took several hundred eggs and the next day the army and police showed up.

So we got down to the beach and could see lots of flashlights and hear commotion a couple hundred yards down the beach. That was where the fighting was. We stayed far away from all of that and were able to see a few huge turtles and even sit with one through the entire process of digging its hole, laying the eggs, covering them and then digging a decoy hole a little ways away to fool egg stealers before heading back to sea. It was one of those experiences that I will never forget. After we left that turtle, we were checking out a few others when we saw some flares being shot off from the skirmish area and even heard some gun shots. Wilfredo immediately hit the deck and stayed in a crouched position for the rest of the time we were on the beach. We headed back up to the ranger station and then back to our hotel. It was a crazy night and I think it was a really cool “welcome to Nicaragua” experience for Zac. Of course it was a bit complicated for him by the fact that he doesn’t have a lot of Spanish under his belt, although he definitely learned a lot while he was here.

Back in Malpaisillo, we just hung out for a few days before heading on our next adventure, which was a bike trip from one of our friend’s site to another friend’s site along the old railroad line. It was about 35 k and we were a group of 6. We were carrying a bike pump, patch kit, various tools and lots of food and water. The patch kit came in very handy, as Zac had 5 or 6 flats on the bike he was riding. We definitely had an adventure that day, as there were multiple non-existent bridges and at one point we had to detour through a corn field and negotiate a couple of barbed wire fences. I should clarify about the bridges. They were bridges for the railroad, but since the rails are no longer there, they are now just cement supports spaced about 10 feet apart with downed trees or 2x4s between them. They were fun to walk over carrying really heavy bikes. Again a really fun adventure.

A little later that week, we woke up early and headed to a beach town about an hour and a half from us. Our plan was to rent kayaks and check out this cool mangrove forest there and that is what we did. Along the way we stopped at an island where sea turtles also lay eggs and we got to see some babies that had only hatched that morning. This beachfront has a full time guard who patrols and collects eggs once they are born, later re-burying them in a grid system in front of his guard tent so that the nests can be more easily protected and studied. When the eggs hatch, the baby turtles are collected and held in a bucket until evening, when the guard walks them down to the water to set them free. This saves a good number of the babies who would be picked off by birds on their way down to the water. As you’ll see in the photos below, we got to hold the babies. They were so cute!

Also while Zac was here, we biked to and hiked up our local active volcano, Cerro Negro with some friends. We enjoyed that trip a lot and as always, ran down from the summit in about a minute and a half. For more about that mountain, see previous entries.

Just before my bro left, we went to visit my friend Elliott who lives in the beautiful site of Santa Lucia, Boaco. While there, we did some great hiking to a big rock outcrop overlooking his city. On the way, we encountered a group of about 15 howler monkeys and sat watching them for a half hour or so. We sat down near someone’s farm to eat lunch and a local rode by on his horse and stopped to chat with us about the area for a while. Before leaving he gave us some of the best oranges I have ever eaten in my life. Later we came upon a mountain farm that grows coffee, beans, limes, oranges and grapefruits. We stopped to ask for directions and some oranges and received both. We were a bit unclear about the directions the chavalo was giving us, so he accompanied us through some fields for a while to where we could see the trail we wanted. That kid had the best voice I have ever heard. It was as though he was going through puberty that day only and his voice was permanently cracking. We were lucky to find him that particular day.

After enjoying the views from the top of the mountain we headed down the other side and at one point encountered a solitary howler monkey who seemed to have a beef with us. First of all, I have never seen a solo monkey, so that was odd. Secondly, he kept howling at us and breaking off branches and dropping them to the ground while he was looking at us. He started coming closer through the forest canopy above us and Elliott and I got a little scared. He was obviously agitated that we were there and was trying to piss us off. He kept dropping big branches and howling at us. Eventually we took off, but he followed us and kept us in view for a few minutes at least. That was another one of those experiences I’ll never forget. Zac got some video of that one and I’ll try to get it from him and put it here in a future post.

Also, while at Elliott’s, we may have seen a man die. It was at a rodeo and he was riding a bull, which is the only event at Nicaraguan rodeos. He hit the ground unconscious and immediately, without checking anything a guy runs up and starts giving him chest compressions. Obviously he had no idea what he was doing and quickly a ring of people about 4 deep had formed around the bull rider. The announcer kept asking if anyone there was a doctor, nurse, or knew anything about health care. We decided to stay out of it. The people in the crowd continued drinking their beers and watching. The guys behind us casually muttered “Ese hombre esta muerto” (“That guy is dead”) as they crushed their beer cans and ordered more. Eventually they carried him out with one guy under each knee and one under each shoulder. No head support at all. The rodeo ended a bit later with the escape of some of the bulls and by the time we walked the couple blocks back to town people had already told us that the bull rider was fine, dead, injured, in and ambulance and unconscious. Apparently he was also someone’s cousin. Who knows what really happened.

After this trip, Brenna and I headed back to Malpaisillo and Zac went to Granada to spend a few days testing his Spanish. We spent a few days at home, and then we said our goodbyes to folks in our town and flew home to Colorado for the holiday season.

I must say, I LOVE THE USA! Everything is so clean and organized and quiet. It doesn’t smell bad and no one stares at us. Everyone is in a car and the roads are so smooth. So many food choices. So much happening, all at the same time. So comfortable.

I’ll keep this section brief, because I think that most of you reading this were there. We ate a lot of really good food, spent some good times with lots of friends and family, went backcountry skiing, remembered what beer really tastes like, were cold, took hot showers and used washing machines.

On our 3^rd day back in the States, we went with 9 friends to a backcountry yurt near the Cameron Pass area. We skied in and spent two nights there, skiing during the days and eating, drinking, conversing and playing scrabble at night. It was a full moon that weekend, but unfortunately it was too cloudy for us to do a full moon ski. We skied out on Christmas Eve and drove about 4 hours down to my Aunt’s house to spend Christmas with my family. Brenna’s parents were supposed to drive up and meet us on Christmas day, but we had a white Christmas and the roads were terrible so they stayed in Denver. By the 26^th the weather had improved, so we went to their house in Denver to spend a few days with them and some of our Denver friends before heading back up to Zac and Nicole’s house in Ft Collins for New Year’s Eve. It was a very mellow night with the 2 of us, Z and Nic, Brian and Tracy, Ryan, and for a bit, Shane. Good times. While in the Fort, we also went to a housewarming party at the home of some other friends, Robyn and Darren, where we were able to catch up with lots of folks. Also, mom arranged for a private yoga class for us and one day Brenna went to the gym while Z and Brian and I went skiing.

In Denver, we both went to see our rolfer for an hour of pain and healing. We people watched at the Cherry Creek Mall for a bit and generally just hung out.

Again it was really great to see and spend time with all of our families and friends. We had a great couple of weeks and are looking forward to going home again in June for Emily and Jason’s (who we also got to see and hang out with twice) wedding in Crested Butte!

Now we’re back and have spent a lot of time the last few days visiting people and catching up and telling stories of what the US was like and giving gifts that we bought for our friends here. There are also a lot of projects we wanted to do in our house, like planting things and yard work, that we didn’t want to do right before we left. Also, since we got back, we have been having some water issues and have only had consistently running water for about the last day and a half. Our first few days were intermittent, with a few hours here and there of running water. Everyone we ask has a different story as to why that is. Some say the town pump is broken, others say they are rationing. I don’t think we’ll ever know. All we can do is be prepared with our multiple buckets full of water.

So that is all I have to say. Look at the pictures below. I promise we’ll update more frequently so that these posts aren’t always so long.

Enjoy!

This is Brenna and I riding through town. This is a typical way for two (or more) people to get around on only one bike.

Zac and I with our best Nica faces while we enjoy some tasty ice cream in town.

Bucketful of baby turtles.

They let us play with the very recently hatched turtles, but we had to wear rubber gloves. They're so cute!

A pig wandering into the ocean. he got tangled up in the anchorline of this boat for a good 5 minutes.

Zac walking in after a hard day's surf.

The turtle we sat with as she laid her eggs. What an amazing experience.

Z enjoying some hammock time with our huge cat, Poster.

Brenna reading in our backyard.

The dog and drying laundry in our side yard.

On our bike ride back from Cerro Negro, we stopped at a tiny pulperia in a tiny town and had the best Coke and bread ever.

Here we are in the USA, with our friends on a backcountry ski trip. We spent 2 nights in this yurt.

Wearing coats! Snow! Cold! America is Great!

Me riding on some bags of cement in the back of a bus on the way to the beach. It was the only open seat.

On a beach called Popoyo, in the southern part of the country.

Jessica, Brie, me and Greg crossing of the many "bridges" of the old railroad line.

Zac, fixing a flat.

This man offered to help us fix our flat tires, but didn't know how. Then he showed us his shotgun, for which he had no ammunition. Quite a funny guy. He also wanted Ibuprofen and offered to buy our bikes from us (regardless of the fact that we were at least an hour bike ride from anywhere).

Brenna and Zac holding the baby turtles.

Zac running down Cerro Negro. So fast!!

Storms, evacuations, disease and vacation

2007-10-31T15:07:00.001-06:00

Friday, October 19

As you may have heard (although it is unlikely, as I doubt much news from Central America reaches the USA), Nicaragua has had a bit of rain in the last month or so. First came Hurricane Felix around a month ago. It was predicted to hit Honduras from the Caribbean but slammed into northern Nicaragua and caused a huge amount of damage. There are still thousands of people without homes and drinking water. Entire towns were destroyed. In that part of the country, it is almost completely rainforest and rivers, so there are no roads to wash out, but that also made evacuation very difficult. There are no volunteers in that part of the country, so none of us had to worry about getting out. I hope that that made some international news.

Much more recently, we had a very long and slow tropical depression with about a week of non-stop rain. It didn’t really seem that bad, but as the rains continued and rivers slowly rose bridges started washing out, land started sliding and sections of road started disappearing. We realized that another nice thing about our site is that it is flat and there are no rivers nearby (although in the summer, we would kill for a river to swim in) to flood. Last Friday, the 12^th those of us in the Department of Leon were evacuated to the department capital of Leon (kind of confusing that most departments and their capital cities share a name here). Peace Corps has a very planned out and well executed evacuation system and by Friday evening, Brenna and I were a hotel in Leon with about 15 other volunteers. We had some pretty hard rains for the next few days, but kept busy spending time with the other volunteers, playing cards, eating good food, watching TV and taking hot showers. By Monday, the weather seemed to be clearing up and we figured that we would be going back home. We were wrong, as apparently there was another huge storm system that was building and with the ground already saturated, there was a lot of worry that there would be more flooding and more highways washing away. So we stayed and waited. Oh yeah, the hotel has a pool too, so we swam a bit. Finally on Wednesday we were allowed to come back home. We returned to the house just as we left it, although some of our things had started to mold (a few clothes, towels, anything made of leather). I had left a pair of shoes outside to dry (ha ha!) about a week earlier when the rain started, and we returned to one of the shoes with a plant sprouting on it. I’ll put a picture below. As I write this (on Thursday night) there are still a few volunteers from Leon that can’t go back to their sites because they have rivers or are in landslide prone areas. Who knows how long they’ll be there.

Fast forward to October 30…

Since writing the above, we were evacuated again. This time only for 2 nights because of continued rains. So, over the course of 8 days, we spent 2 nights at home and the rest in a hotel in Leon. The poor pets. They missed us a lot.

After spending those 2 days evacuated, my mom, aunt and cousin arrived in Managua to visit us for a week. We spent the first couple days at a very nice resort on the beach in San Juan del Sur, a touristy area on the Pacific very close to the Costa Rican border. There we enjoyed great food, the beach, pools, comfortable beds and of course, the company of family. After indulging ourselves for a few days, we all headed to Malpaisillo so they could see what our lives were really like. The rains had stopped and the sun had come out by the time we returned, making it hot and humid. Of course my Colorado family noticed this much more than we did. Mom, Alyson and McAlyn got to meet a lot of the people we spend time with and they went to one of my schools with me. Next, we went to Granada and relaxed a bit more. While there we also took a guided hike through a cloud forest on the dormant volcano Mombacho. I felt like they enjoyed seeing a forest type that is completely different from anything back home. I’ll put some pics of that below as well. It was really a great week that we spent together. I feel like my family has a slightly better idea of what our life down here is like and it was really nice to spend time with all of them and catch up and give and receive hugs. Thanks again for the visit and also for all of the wonderful American snacks you brought us (Clavo thanks you for the dog treats).

So, during the couple of days that we spent in Malpaisillo with my family, we had been hearing that there were quite a few people being affected by an outbreak of Leptospirosis, which is some sort of bacteria. The PC doctors had warned us that this could happen after the amount of rain that we received (a common health problem after big storms like this is that many people use latrines or “outhouses” here instead of toilets and with too much rain water, those latrines overflow and can easily contaminate drinking water supplies) and to be prepared to start taking antibiotics. Well, after leaving and going to Granada we noticed that Malpaisillo was on the front page of the national newspaper 2 days in a row and was one of the 2 towns nationwide with the highest number of cases of this illness. The last I heard (a couple days ago) 9 people had died nationwide and a couple thousand were affected. The interesting thing about this is that Leptospirosis is easily curable with simple antibiotics. The initial symptoms are fever, nausea and diarrhea, so many people here just assume that they have the flu or a cold and don’t go to the (free) health center. We are in no danger whatsoever here because of our (or, more accurately, the Peace Corps doctors’) knowledge of this sickness and how to cure it. Yet, multiple people have died in our town, schools are closed for at least a week (this seems to be a typical reaction to any sort of headline-making event) and everyone is scared. This is one more example of the amazing level of ignorance that comes with poverty. PC has e-mailed us quite a bit of information about Leptospirosis and almost all of the things that people in town have told me (or I have occasionally read in the paper) have been directly contradicted by our doctors. Life here just continues to amaze me.

As I live here longer and continue to experience more and more, I occasionally find I approach an understanding of why things are the way they are, but generally I just end up more confused and with more questions.

Completely changing topics, we had a meeting today with our town’s Environmental Commission. We have lived here in Malpaisillo for a year now and have been invited to many of these meetings (at least one a month). The problem is that every single time we have gone, only about 5 people have shown up of the 40 or so invited. We then spend about 15 minutes looking at our planners trying to decide when we can actually have the meeting in the following weeks. Oh, and we have to sit around for about an hour and a half before we can do this because generally, no one shows up for anything until at least an hour after it is scheduled to begin. So, this morning we headed out at 9:15 for a meeting scheduled to begin at 8:00 (we’re learning!) completely expecting to get there, wait around for 30 minutes or so, and then plan the next meeting. We sure were surprised when we found about 12 people there and another 6 or 8 came in the following 10 minutes. We actually had a meeting with the Environmental Commission! The project underway at the moment is the planning of the city’s Environmental Plan. There is a large amount of aid money ($175 million) here now in Leon from the US through something called the Millennium Challenge Corporation (they have a webpage outlining their work in Leon, google it) and they have provided funds and a guidebook (and possibly some training, I honestly don’t know much about it) to all of the municipalities to create these 10 step environmental plans. Our job today was to work on steps 4-6 of this plan so we had members of the mayor’s office, NGO’s in town, community leaders, agricultural people and others discussing the environmental challenges our community faces and the potential solutions to deal with those challenges. I can assure you that, unless you are reading this from Nicaragua and are also a PCV, all of this took place in a manner that is very far from how you are imagining something like this taking place. I’ll not go into too much detail for fear that my sarcasm may be seen as being overly negative or offensive. That is the last thing I want. Imagine that on that first day of kindergarten, your teacher never told you about rules, listening, not interrupting, etc., and that every day of the remainder of your school career was like that. Also, your teachers and family members are products of this system and therefore everyone sees it as normal (the funny truth here is that everything I am writing about here is normal for all of them. I am the one here who is the outsider and feels like everything is incredibly abnormal, inefficient, wrong and hopeless. They would likely be thinking the same things if they tried to come and live our lives in the States.). So, by our standards, many folks here don’t act the way we think they should when in group settings like meetings, presentations, classes, etc. It would be considered weird if someone’s cell phone rang and they didn’t answer it (including the presenter). On top of this, the two guys in charge are trying to conform to a set of matrixes and group exercises that were given to them by an outside source, and they have no training in facilitation, education, or working with groups. We were all divided up into 4 groups and given these different charts and matrices to complete, relating to what we saw as the major environmental problems (except that they had already determined the top 4 problems, so we could only work within those 4) of Malpaisillo. We then presented our work to the other groups and moved on to the next task. Six hours later, we parted ways with 3 more steps of this “plan” completed and a tentative exact date for our next meeting. I just wonder if anything at all will come from all of these meetings and the work these people are doing. I have decided that my input in things like this doesn’t really matter and it is really interesting to just observe all that goes on and try to figure out what I can.

Again, I don’t mean any of this to be negative or offensive or anything like that, it is just my perception. And I feel like we always write about really cool stuff that we have done or people who have visited, so maybe I should write more about the things that aren’t happy and fun. Wow, that sounds really depressing, not my intention.

I think this is way too long, so I’ll cut it off now. Enjoy the pictures below, and if you live in CO, we’ll be seeing you soon!!

The typical way to get to and from work.

Mom, Alyson, McAlyn, Brenna and Mason at an overlook on Volcan Mombacho.

Look for the small plant growing out of my shoe.

This is what happens to Birkenstocks during the rainy season. I think there are a few different species of mold there.

Mas and mom on the beach.

Our guide on Volcan Mombacho showing us one of the many types of bromeliads that grow on the trees there.

This butterfly has transparent wings!!

McAlyn standing over a steaming sulfur vent.

This is the fruit of a species of palm called bamboo palm. As you can probably guess, it looks a lot like bamboo.

Brenna and mom on Volcan Mombacho overlooking the isletas in Lake Nicaragua.

Here is our cat, Poster, not really sure if he wants to mess with this beetle. It is HUGE. 3 1/2 inches long, 1 inch high and about 1 1/2 inches wide. And it flies. When we first saw it we thought it was a bat. And yes, that is inside our house.

October 11, 2007

2007-10-11T09:54:00.000-06:00

Mason hard at work measuring trees with his rural school kids. They recently transplanted the trees, and they are doing great with all the rain!

Here we are celebrating our host mom Gloria's 40th birthday!

It's been soo rainy lately! The month of October is the big rain month, and we haven't seen much sun since the month began. This is a picture of the street in front of the house after a big rain. The kids are swimming in the street!

Oops... the same picture again!

This is a cool picture of the big catherdral in the city of Leon.

Here are our neighborhood kids with their band. They just use old car oil bottles and sticks, but they are good! They try to copy all of the official school bands that have been preforming recently for the independence day celebrations.

This is me with my good friend Hogla. We spend a lot of time together cooking for our husbands!

This is just a typical campo house.

Here are two of my cute little fourth grade students at one of my rural schools.

Our town had a hipico celebration, which is a day where all the beautiful well-trained horses of the country come to Malpaisillo to show off and have a competition. The horses are taught to "dance" and they are awarded for the best dancing horse! This guy brought his donkey to the festival and decided to dance on top of him! He eventually fell off.

Here is a shot of the independence day parade. Each school came with their band, and they all congregated in the market for a show of folklore dances and singing.

The high school band with the festival "queen" in the background.

Here's the hipico dancing through the streets!

The Fight of the Year

Last Sunday we were returning home from a nice day at the beach when we came upon a chaotic parade in the streets. We found out it was in honor of St. Jeronimo, the saint of partying, drunkenness and debauchery. As with every Saint honoring parade, they had an image of him sitting on a bed of fake flowers that they were carrying above their heads. Usually the image of the saint is life sized, but this one was smaller then a barbie doll! This procession was also different in that every participant was loud, drunk and dancing. It was sure a sight! We followed them around for a while and eventually made our way home.
We were home for just 5 minutes when the parade of roughly 100 people made its way in front of our house. Right then and there a fight started between two notorious local enemies. Things quickly got out of control and before we knew it, about 4 fights were going on in various places in front of the house. It quickly turned into a mob scene with people running to get away, and even more people running to get in on the action! We watched the whole thing safe from behind the bars of our gate, but it was quite scary. Rocks bigger then my head were the main weapons, and we saw two people get carried away by friends. One pregnant woman got knocked by a rock in the head and had to be taken away in a tricycle taxi. It all died down after about 5 minutes, but it was definitely a scary thing to watch. Ironically, we had a new and impressionable volunteer who is still in training visiting us, and this was his first taste of life outside of his training town!

A Day in the Campo

Yesterday I spent the day visiting my students who attend one of my rural schools. I biked out there in the morning expecting to make some quick house visits and be back by lunch. Little did I know I would receive 4 lunches and make it home at 4:00! I rolled in to my student Keli’s house at around 8:00, and was promptly given a tour of the chickens, goats, ducks horses and cows. The countryside around here is so lush and green right now, and the day was perfect to be outside. We sat and talked with her mom inside her dirt-floor house for a while until we went to visit the teacher next door. I stayed there for an hour or so, talking politics with her husband while we had cuajada, (a local cheese that they make at home. Similar to goat cheese in flavor.) tortilla and sweet coffee. They have a wonderful garden where they grow corn, beans, squash, peppers and melons. We sat there just having a laid-back campo morning looking at the volcanoes in the distance. You may be surprised that I drank coffee, but you must understand that you cannot turn down anything anyone puts in your hand! Luckily it was really milky and not too strong.
After promising the profesora I’d be back for lunch, some kids and I grabbed bikes and took a single-track ride to another student’s home to pay a visit. Once we got there, I was promptly handed a plate of tortilla, cuajada, and another cup of coffee. I obediently ate and drank while everyone watched in silence! As we are sitting in the yard, one of the women of the house began preparing lunch. She grabbed a chicken by the head and with little effort proceeded to twirl it around swiftly. After about 5 turns, the neck was broken so she let it go. It was quite strange to watch a dead chicken running around like mad flapping its wings all over the place! Once that one was good and dead, she simply did the same thing with another one. They then cut off their heads and let the blood trickle down, which the dogs were glad to lick up. When all the blood had drained out, they dipped the headless chickens in boiling water to soften up the skin for plucking the feathers. The feather plucking was surprisingly easy. What struck me as odd were all the other chickens that were clucking around all the fallen feathers trying to eat them! A strange form of cannibalism, if you ask me.
The woman with the chickens brought one over to me so I could see a bite mark on its neck. She said that it had been bitten by a snake the night before, so they decided to kill it. I asked about the snake, and she shrugged it off, saying that her father killed it with a machete and they took it off to the woods. My student’s little brother suggested we go see it, so we took a five minute hike out into the wilds beyond their farm. The kid looked around for a while, and then brought it out. I guess my coffee buzz made me extra jumpy, but when I saw that thing I screamed and ran! I swear I had never seen a snake that big in my life. It was as thick as my leg and when we held it up it was much taller then me. They say it was a boa, and I believe them! It was beautiful, and it was quite sad to see it dead.
After that visit, we went on to four more houses where I was fed again. At around 12:30 we made it back to Keli’s house for lunch! Yes, I somehow stuffed it down. Luckily a chicken stole the tortilla from my lap so I didn’t have to deal with eating that! We sat there for a while until I remembered the lunch I promised I would eat at the profesora’s house! It must have been late afternoon by the time I got there, and they were all in hammocks and sitting around listening to the radio. She promptly served me a heaping bowl of chicken vegetable soup. By some miracle I ate most of it, and then two flies fell in the bowl (another miracle), saving me from having to finish it!
I had a wonderful day out there full of caring, giving and sweet people. They sent me home with tortillas, two heaping bags of cuajada and heaps of homemade candy called cajeta. They are all so simple and kind. Next time I visit I will come prepared with an empty stomach!

Clavo

Well, the bandages are finally off and the poor thing is hobbling around all over the place. He’s happy and energetic, and the limping doesn’t seem to bother him at all. His leg is definitely a bit deformed, but hey, he survived! When he is standing he only puts weight on his good leg, leaving the other one hanging in the air. People have taken to calling him gay because of how he stands. The kids’ favorite word for gay is gaytorade. I wonder why that one never caught on in the States!

-Brenna

Clavo the clavo.

2007-08-23T13:29:00.000-06:00

August 20, 2007: Clavo’s bone is still broken and wobbling around. We have tried a lot of vets here in town and they each have given us wrong or bad advice, which has further prolonged his suffering. Two days ago I was riding with him in a Tricycle taxi and the driver told me his father is a “witch doctor” who could heal Clavo. Apparently he learned from his father who was well known for his craft all over the country. The driver told me we could go to his house and see if his dad could help. I decided what the heck; it will be interesting if anything. So we get there and the man is in the shower. A few minutes later someone else comes out and tells me in all seriousness that the dad refuses to work on Clavo because Clavo’s soul will go into the body of the next person he works on. So I pleaded with them and finally the man comes out and decides to do it, though against his beliefs. I put the dog on my lap and he gets to work. He first gave me an old pair of tighty whiteys to hold around Clavo’s snout in case he tried to bite! The man pulled a lot on his leg and Clavo hated it, but finally it was over. They put four pieces of some sort of strange bark on each side of his leg and wrapped it up. He said to leave it on for a month, and the leg would heal. Also they said not to get it wet to keep bad spirits away. To make a long story short, after the ordeal we were home for a few hours when we saw that his paw was gigantic and swollen, so we immediately loosened the bandage and probably undid all the work the healer did. We’re taking him to a real vet in Leon tomorrow.

So Clavo has been looking for trouble once again. Everyone tells us his name (slang for trouble-maker) has been well deserved recently. We went to Leon for the day yesterday and left the dog and cat outside in the backyard. We figured Clavo wouldn’t try to get out since last time he tried to escape an iron fence fell on his arm and he broke a bone. Well, we got home yesterday afternoon to find the cat solo in the backyard. We both of course immediately set off on the trek of the enormous backyard calling his name and looking in every possible space. We saw no sign of him or of where or how he could have gotten out. So we naturally came to the conclusion that he got stolen. In the States that possibility would never even cross our mind, but here it is unfortunately commonplace, especially if the dog is healthy looking. People tell us they steal dogs and cut their ears and tails and make them mean. So knowing all that we get back in the house and I sit down on the hammock and have a good cry. I’d call it a break down. Once I was over that, we decided to hop on the bikes and begin a search, hoping for the best, but knowing the whole time someone had grabbed him and was now claiming him as their own. That wouldn’t be such a horrible prospect if the people here actually fed and took care of their animals. We both imagined him tied up in someone’s yard wasting away from a rice-only diet, being eaten alive by ticks and getting kicked around here and there. Not a happy thought.
So we spent about two hours up and down streets asking everyone we saw about him. No one had seen him, which we thought was strange because since he currently has a broken bone, he walks really strange and is very noticeable. As the search went on, the number of searchers grew. By now, Clavo is well known in the community. We take him everywhere with us, so most people know him. Mas and I often joke that people like him more then us because we walk by and people say, “Clavo, Clavo, Clavito…” and not a word to us. So by the time it was dark, we had about 12 kids on bikes and on foot, plus everyone we knew in every barrio of Malpaisillo. Unfortunately, Clavo was not found last night, and we went to bed worrying about him.
One nice thing that came out of all this was the help we received from everyone. We went home after the search and within minutes we had a stream of friends at the house trying to cheer us up. We didn’t say goodnight to the last friends until 11:00. They knew that by keeping us company we wouldn’t be all alone and thinking about the poor dog. We woke up this morning feeling crummy, but I managed to get out of the house and bike around again for a few hours. Mas stayed home to wash clothes. (We can only wash in the mornings these days because the power goes out at 7:00 every day and a few hours later the water goes out too.) After a few hours of no leads, I pull up to the house to find our old neighbor at the front door talking to Mas. She came to tell us that CLAVO CAME TO HER HOUSE! I was so happy I cried right in front of her! She said he showed up and went right under the bed. So we went to our old house and there he was, crying like mad when he saw us. We discovered two huge wounds on two of his good legs, which lead us to think he had quite a night. He’s now safe at home and the whole ordeal is over. Now we just have to find a decent vet to fix his bone…

August 21, 2007: Well, that good vet was thankfully found. We owe a lot of thanks to a fantastic vet at Leon’s veterinary school, Dr. Daniel Morales. This man is the first vet we have consulted (he’s the fourth) who actually knows what he is doing. Early in the morning he took one look at the foot and told us to go get an x-ray. Well, easier said then done, as we soon found out. The first place we went refused to x-ray him because he is a dog. So after much searching, we found a place that was willing but they of course had no power until 2:00. (Yes, even a medical clinic in the city of Leon is affected by the power-outages.) We found a nice restaurant to wait with the dog for four hours, and then we went to get an x-ray. By the way, the whole day was really rainy due to hurricane Dean out in the Caribbean, so getting him in and out of taxis all the time was a mess! The lady at the x-ray clinic almost refused to help us because he didn’t have a muzzle, but we convinced her that he is nice and she finally agreed. The x-rays were easy and once we got the results it was obvious even to a three year-old that he had some very broken bones. Both the radius and the ulna were badly fractured, and he had developed a lot of calcification due to the fact that the breaks happened so long ago.
Off in the rain we go, back to the Doctor’s office. By now it’s around 4:00 and of course, once we get there, he is gone. They offered to let us leave Clavo there in their operating room overnight. We left him there and headed back to Malpaisillo, where our sweet site-mate Brie had soup and quesadillas waiting!

August 22, 2007: Mas and I headed in to Leon bright and early to arrive at the school at 8:00. The first thing we did when we got there was let the dog out for the longest pee I have ever seen. We think it was over a minute and a half. The doc told us his plan, which surprised even us! He explained in great detail that since so much time had gone by since the fracture occurred, he would have to operate. He planned to take out the mass of tissue that had formed, as well as cut a centimeter off his radius bone since it was healing improperly. He would also put in two nails (clavos in Spanish!) and then wrap it all up. So we said okay, and four hours and $100 later, Clavo had gotten himself into another clavo and now had two clavos in his leg! He’s home now resting and sleeping off the anesthesia. We’re not looking forward to all the stares and questions once the neighborhood gets wind of what the gringos did to Clavo!

It´s been a while

2007-08-12T18:56:00.000-06:00

Yes, we are still here. I know it has been quite a while since we posted anything, but we’ve been busy so back off!

For almost the entire month of July it seems as though someone was visiting us from the US. First, our friend Marilee came to see us and spent a few days in Malpaisillo helping us out with some projects and getting to know our friends. We left her in Granada where she stayed to study Spanish for some time and we met some other friends from back home (and Chile), Mandy and Pablo, who were traveling in Costa Rica for a while and came up to Nicaragua to see us for a weekend. We came back home only to be visited a few days later by our other friends from CO, Jacqueline and Mike. They spent a few days in town with us, helping us plant trees at a local high school and they also went to some of our schools with us. After a couple of days with them here, we headed to the island of Ometepe (in Lake Nicaragua) where we again met up with Marilee and Ryan, who had just flown in to join her and us for a little over a week. So the six of us spent a weekend on this island where we stayed at a hostel/organic farm and were able to climb a dormant volcano covered with rainy cloud forest called Volcan Maderas. After this trip, Jacqueline and Mike flew home to Denver and Ryan and Marilee went to other parts of the country. We went back home to work. Some days later, we met up again with Ryan and Marilee to climb another volcano (this one active) called Telica, which is really near our town. That was a great trip, spending the night on the slopes of an active volcano and being able to peer straight down a couple hundred meters into the crater. They say that if it is clear and dark you can see lava in the crater, but when we were there it was putting off a lot of sulfery smoke and we saw no lava. Still, it was really cool. After this, Ryan left, Marilee went back to Granada to study Spanish and we went back home to work in our schools and whatnot. A couple more days later and Brenna’s parents came to visit. With them we spent two days here in Malpaisillo where they got to meet many of our friends and students. We then went to a beach town called San Juan del Sur for the weekend and then headed to Granada for a couple of days. It was really great to see both of them and also really nice to stay in some nice hotels and take hot showers and eat good food for a few days. When they left, it was really sad for both of us. I think they may come back down next year though.

So, we came back to Malpaisillo and immediately had to move to a new house. Our landlady decided that she wanted her house back and we knew all of this ahead of time and already found a new place. We just had to move our few things over there. Apparently, the day before we cam back to town, there had been a big storm and the town water pump had broken. They said it would be out for about 3 days. We had been gone and had hardly any water in storage (a fact of life here is that the water could go out at any time and almost everyone has some water in storage) because our water rarely goes away, in comparison to other Nica towns. So we had to move from one dirty house into another dirty house without being able to really clean either of them and without being able to clean ourselves at the end of the day. Needless to say we were really dirty and sticky and we felt bad about leaving our old house with a partially mopped floor and a toilet that could have been cleaner. As we neared nightfall, somehow Brenna heard about a big well just outside of town where people were going to fill up water. She quickly grabbed every bucket and jug we had and jumped on a triciclo(a three-wheeled bike taxi) to fill up the water. She was gone for about a half an hour and when she returned she was soaked and had about 15 gallons of water for us. Showers!! Apparently there was just a huge gushing water flow at this well and throngs of people desperately filling what they could. The owner was theoretically charging people, but it was the family of one of Brenna’s students so we got our water for free. The next day the water came back and we were able to clean a few things. (Oh yeah, we had been traveling for so long before all of this happened that almost all of our clothes were really dirty and we were unable to wash them.) Within a few hours of the water coming back I was doing some yard work in our HUGE new yard (more than an acre) and I accidentally stepped on our main water line (1/2 inch PVC pipe running above ground) breaking it in half. There went our water. We quickly found out from the neighbors who could fix it (after about 7 people came over to look at it) and luckily this guy only lives a few houses down. He’s a high school kid of course. He told us what we needed to go buy from the ferretería (hardware store) and he sent a neighborhood kid to his house to bring his tools. Within an hour it was fixed and we were back in business. Also that day we paid another neighborhood teenager to clean up our yard with a machete. A lawn mower could have taken care of it in 20 minutes, but since there are no lawn mowers here this kid spent about 5 hours swinging a machete. He charged a whopping $6 for a half days work. Once the yard was all clear of the weeds we discovered a huge pit in the back where the owner put all of her trash. Since the city just takes all of the trash it collects and burns it, we are thinking that we will use this pit instead. Sort of a personal landfill. We are thinking that environmentally it will be better than burning, since almost all of our trash is plastic (we compost everything else).

Speaking of our new yard, I love it. We have so many trees and there is so much potential for making gardens and doing cool things back there. There are approximately 7 mango trees, 15 papaya, 25 plantain, 4 orange, 2 lime, 1 cacao, 3 avocado (too young to fruit) 2 tamarindo, 2 guava, 1 cashew (I planted that one), 1 almond, 1 nancite (a little fruit that everyone here loves, but I have yet to meet a gringo who thinks they are anything but disgusting), 1 mamon, and a couple of other non-fruit trees. We have already made a few compost pits where we put all of the leaves that fall constantly (since there are almost no seasons here, leaves are always falling and growing) and our kitchen waste. We have plans to make a vegetable garden soon and also have some worms and will start to do some work-composting. I hope to take a lot of what we do in our yard and share that knowledge with my students and our neighbors. Also, with all of those trees in the yard, I was finally able to sting up a slack-line in the yard. As if people didn’t stare at me enough.

One negative about this huge yard full of fruit trees is that it is relatively unprotected from the outside world. There is a barbed-wire fence, but that doesn’t really hold back anything but livestock. So, we are spending a good amount of time telling the neighborhood chavalos (kids, but much more naughty than normal, US kids. Although it is all cultural and they are usually sweet and respectful, just in a different way. Also they usually have a slingshot.) that they can’t just come into our yard whenever they want to hang out and climb our trees to get fruit. They are slowly learning to come to the door and ask permission to take our fruit. I have no problem giving it to them, I just want them to learn to ask and to say please and thank you. Also, with lots of fruit trees come bats. We have a couple living in our ceiling. Not much we can do about that though. We also have a big iguana that lives in our ceiling. We hear him running around occasionally, but don’t know what we can do about him. We don’t want to kill him, despite the advice of the neighborhood chavalos with slingshots who would love to make soup out of him, seriously. He sure does drive Poster (the cat) crazy.

Clavo was a bit unsure of the new yard at first and the first few times we left him, he escaped from the yard and was in the street in front of the house when we came back. We have a big iron gate leaning against a tree that separates the front yard from the back and he tried to jump over this gate to escape again and it fell on his leg. It weighs somewhere around 80 pounds and he yelped and cried and didn’t know what to do. It swelled up and he hobbled for a day but seemed to be ok the next day. Later he and the cat were playing and Clavo went to pounce on him and he landed wrong on that leg and started yelping and crying louder and longer than the first time. This time it swelled up more and stayed that way for quite some time. This was about a week ago and he still isn’t using that leg. It is swollen a bit and looks deformed. We have had 2 vets look at it and both say it isn’t broken. We gave him some anti-inflammatories and also used the Nica method of making a tea from mango leaves and chamomile and swabbing that on the injury. I think that worked better than the drugs. So he hobbles around now and spends most of the day lying down in the corner. He is scared to go out now too. We hope he heals soon and can start to enjoy this big yard to play in.

One last thing in this way-too-long entry. We have been slowly trying to work with the mayor’s office to build a new trash management facility here in town. As I mentioned earlier, they collect trash and take it to a spot outside of town and burn it. Most people, however, don’t pay the monthly fee (less than $1) for this service and burn their own trash in their yard or in the street. Or they pay one of the triciclo drivers to take it somewhere away from there and throw it out. During training, we visited waste treatment system in a little town near our training towns that really impressed us. There they separate the trash into organic and non-organic. With the organic (80% of the trash they collect) they make compost and worm-compost. With the non-organic (the other 20%) they recycle the glass, plastic bottles, paper, cardboard and metal. All the rest they bury. We have been talking with some people in the mayor’s office about this facility for some time and finally we were able to visit it with 3 members of the mayor’s office earlier this week. They were all very impressed and are excited to try to do something like that here in Malpaisillo. We are very excited about helping them with this challenge, although we realize that with the speed in which things happen here, it will likely still be in the planning phases when we leave next November. At the site we visited, they also use their compost in a huge tree nursery that they have started there. They grow all sorts of trees (fruit, ornamental, hardwood…) and sell some and use some for municipal projects. They also sell their compost to local agricultural producers and they sell the worms from their worm composting to others who are interested in starting worm-compost projects or to people who want to use them to feed to chickens. It is a really progressive idea that makes a lot of sense and could help with a lot of the trash problems here over the long term. We’ll keep you posted.

I think I’ll conclude this entry now. But first I want to thank all of our visitors and everyone who has sent us care packages and fun things from home (especially those beers that Ryan brought down!). Adios, and enjoy the one time of year where it may be hotter in CO than in Malpaisillo. Happy 30^th B-days Zac and Nic! And also happy b-day to Ryan and to Mandy. Congrats to Brian/Tracy and Dave/Jill! Maybe we’ll have to come home unexpectedly for some weddings?!?

A lot of pictures

2007-08-12T18:12:00.000-06:00

Brenna's real family meets her host-family from training. It is interesting that even though Nicas seem to be generally happier than Americans, they don't smile in pictures.

Two women carrying a fruit called mamones in baskets on their heads. That seems to be the best way to transport large items here.

Marilee brought us our wedding gift from Zac and Nicole, which is a journal in which many of our friends and family took a page or two to write nice things and put in pictures. Here we are looking at it for the first time. To all of you who contributed, Thank You!! We love it and can't stop looking at it.

Here we are in Granada with our friends Mandy and Pablo. They were traveling in Costa Rica and came up to spend a weekend with us.

Our friend, Mike (Miguelito) from home and his girlfriend Jacqueline (not pictured) came to visit and while they were here they helped us plant some trees with some of Brenna's students.

Some of Brenna's students.

Ryan brought me a package that contained 13 beers from Fort Collins breweries. It was the happiest day of my life! I have never wanted to kiss a man more.

This is taken from the porch of the hostel/farm that we stayed at on the island of Ometepe. The volcano you can see is called Concepción and is the 2nd tallest in Nicaragua.

Ryan and Marilee on our hike up Volcan Telica. We stopped halfway under a huge mango tree for snacks.

Mason and Ryan with the crater of Telica behind us. We camped in that green patch you can see between us. (Ryan and Mar... notice the culebritas.)

Ryan standing at the edge of the crater.

A street scene in Malpaisillo. You can see Brenna, Mort and Clavo talking with a friend of ours and her daughter.

Me and a chavalo called Andres.

Karen and Mort with some of the kids at our old host family's house.

Mort, Karen, Francela, Cela and Gloria Elena. Old host family.

It didn't take Mort long to fall asleep in the hammock while visiting our host-family for lunch.

A typical bus scene in the market. The bus pulls in, people get off and on, ladies run up selling drinks and snacks, triciclos take the unloading passengers home and then the bus leaves.

Mort with a bunch of Brenna's students.

Karn and Mort rode with Brenna to one of her schools. Apparently it had been a while since Karen had been on a bike.

Here are Brenna and I enjoying margaritas in one of three infinity pools at the Pelican Eyes resort in San Juan del Sur on the beach. We spent 2 nights here with Karen and Mort. This is what the Peace Corps is all about.

best way to

Link to pictures

2007-07-24T12:51:00.000-06:00

So, July has been the month of visitors, hence the lack of postings. One of our friends, Ryan, just returned home after spending 10 days in Nicaragua. Here is a link to some of his pictures.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ryan.sanders.miller/Nicaragua2007

Enjoy!

¡Honduras!

2007-06-30T11:09:00.000-06:00

So, we recently spent a week in Honduras to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary. We first went to a town called La Ceiba on the Carribean coast and stayed in a jungle lodge next to Pico Bonito National Park. Here we did a half day crazy rafting trip on the Rio Cangrejal which was beautiful. It was non-stop rapids and everyone but Brenna (including both guides) got thrown in at one point or another. Following are a few pics of that area.

Here is the national park, pure rain forest, with the Rio Cangrejal running through. Pictures never do a place justice.
A view from across the river of the lodge where we stayed.
I, Mason, also went on a zip-line canopy tour through the jungle with some Brits and Aussies. It was a really cool way to see a forest. This picture is a guy named Rob from England.

After the jungle, we caught a ferry out into the Carribean to spend the rest of our time on Utila, one of the Bay Islands. There are 3 islands that cater mostly to SCUBA divers, as they are all surrounded by an immense reef systen that reaches all the way to Belize. Utila is the smallest and cheapest. It is geared toward backpackers and people who want to get certified to dive cheaply. It is generally the least expensive place in the world to get certified. Utila reminded us of a mountain ski town witha different sport. Everyone is there only to dive. Your bartenders and waitresses are also divemasters. I think the oficial language is English, although not like any other English you have heard. Everyoe who lived there seemed to speak both English and Spanish. There is also that cool Afro-carribean feel to it to. Cool place.

Here is Brenna on one of the only 2 small beaches on the island. Look at that water. The town sits on a cove and you can see the other end of town behind her.

I went diving a few times and since it had been a while since I last dove, I went with a Divemaster the first time and we went over a few things underwater before swimming around to check out the sites. This is Tom from London, who was my divemaster on 4 dives, double checking my gear. Aren't wetsuits sexy on me!

Unfortunately, I don't have an underwater camera, so the above picture is the closest you get to my diving experience. The reefs were beautiful, fish colurful and plentiful, and swimming with a turtle for a few minutes is a wonderful experience. What a mellow creature.

We spent a night or 2 at a nice little hotel hotel on the beach where this cat (we named him Bruiser) quickly became our friend. There aren't cats this big in Nicaragua.
Here is Brenna in front of the beach hotel. The houses reminded both of us of the southern US.
One day we rented bikes and rode to the north end of the island where no one lives. The old dead coral chunks are everywhere, likes rocks on a country road. This is the end of the island where there are waves (no surfing though) and most of the better dive sites are here as well.
Obligatory beach/coco shot.

There is a really cool hotel/restaurant/bar/work of art on Utila called The Jade Seahorse. It is beautiful and odd and really a fun place to look around. We spent one night there. Above and below are pictures of the grounds. Every litle detail is artistically decorated. Amazing.

Part of the gardens and a little gazebo.
Old coral built into a walkway.
Here is the walkway from the treehouse bar to a seating area.
Here we are enjoying a sunset on our last nigh on the island.
We spent a good amount of time sitting on docks looking at the beautiful water.

There you have it. We really had a good time in Honduras and it was great to get away for a week and see a different Central American country. I can honestly say that I didn't think about my schools or my town or really about being a Peace Corps volunteer while we were away. Pure relaxation. Aren't vacations great...

What can I send you?

2007-05-24T18:31:00.000-06:00

Hello everybody...

It has been great to hear from many of you and we are happy to report that the rainy season has begun, so now instead of always being hot it is either raining, cloudy or kinda nice. Although, it is also much more humid now. Also, we are seeing that living in a town with mostly dirt roads is just as bad in the wet season as it is in the dusty season. Our street turns into a chocolatey looking river during each storm. I find myself wishing for a kayak...

The rainy season generally means that it isn't nearly as hot as it once was, which leads to many changes. For example, I (Mason) have started running again, we don't wake up to sweat in the mornings, our clothes take more than 45 minutes to dry on the clothesline, sometimes we sleep with the fan on "low," we only have to take a "cool down" shower once a day. It is getting nicer, but many locals warn that this is going to be a very strong rainy season. It has, apparently, started much stronger and earlier than usual, and all of the hurricane experts are predicting a big year. In case you are unaware, hurricane Mitch destroyed much of the country in 1998, so there is obviously a big hurricane fear for the people here. So far, we are really enjoying the rain, but if it continues as frequently and as strong as this week has been, I'm sure we'll gladly welcome the end in October or November.

So, many people continue to ask us, "What can we send you?" or "What do you need?" or things like that. We are exremely grateful for the wonderful magazines, candy, snacks and other random things that people have sent. These things really do help us out a lot. Even if it is a month or two old, it is really nice to lay in the hammock and read a U.S. magazine, or eat some sunflower seeds or other things (Hot Tamales). So, over the last few days we just wrote down any little thing we could come up with that would be nice to have. I'm sorry if it is a bit long. Also, some of the things probably just aren't practical, but we can dream...

Food/snacks: Craisins, cous cous, quinoa, almonds, pecans, tahini, parmesan cheese, Annie's mac & cheese, trail mix, apricots, sunflower seeds, dark chocolate(not Hersheys), m&m's, cookies, hot tamales, skittles, macaroons
Beverages: Gatorade powder, Tea, New Belgium beer
Things for pets: Dog chew bones, one of those thick pieces of rope with a knot for a pull toy, pig skin things, any sort of animal treats
Things for kids: colored pencils, easy puzzles, marbles, kid's books in Spanish, basic school supplies
Periodicals: Climbing, Rock & Ice, National Geographic, The Economist, Runner's World, Rolling Stone, Mountain Gazette (free), High Country News, interesting newspaper articles
Other: DVD's, an air conditioner, cash, visitors, letters, funny things that we would never think of

And, here are some pictures:

We climbed Cerro Negro again recently. Here is Brenna and some other people in our group descending the mountain. It is not as fine as sand, but not much coarser and the best and most fun way to descend is to run. I have decided that it is the closest to skiing that I will have while we are here.
Here is one of the banana plants that we planted in the yard. The leaves grow straight up out of the middle all rolled up like that and then they unroll to become these huge leaves.
The requisite pet picture. Here Clavo and Poster are playing under one of our rocking chairs.

Some of Brenna's students in school. This is a typical shot of one of our classes. Except that this girl has markers (they're Brenna's).
This old lady walks by our house every morning. She has to be at least 200 years old. Her upper back is almost completely horizontal. Really nice lady.
On this trip to Cerro Negro, we went down into the crater. It is full of plumes of sulfur smoke and chemically stained rocks. This shot is from in the crater looking up to the rim.
Here are some of those chemically stained rocks. Its like those crystal making kits we had when we were kids, except these smell like rotten eggs and are really hot.
This is the group of people that we hiked up there with. We were 3 Americans, 2 Spaniards, 3 Swiss and 5 or 6 Nicas. We're sitting on the rim looking northeast. If it weren't so cloudy you could probably see the ocean behind us.

Nicaragua is Funny

2007-05-02T20:00:00.000-06:00

Here's the kitty curled up in Clavo's food bowl! She's tiny!

Here's Mason and our friend Raul watering our big and successful tree nursery.

This is a photo of some of our Peace Corps buddies carrying in multiple buckets of water into Elliott's house. We got it from a nearby well because his town rarely gets running water.

1. April was the month of mangoes. They were everywhere, so many that people wouldn’t take them as gifts! So what does an innovative and slightly bored Peace Corps volunteer naturally do? Yep, we made a whole gallon of mango wine. We simply had to step into our backyard and collect about 25 mangoes, boil them with some raisins and put them in a sealed gallon jug with some yeast for 8 days. The seal didn’t quite work, so thrifty Mason simply patched things up with some well chewed bubble gum. We took the first drinks with our friends this past weekend and found it to be a huge success.

2. Going to the bus terminals is always such a funny experience. There you will find for sale anything and everything you never wanted, but somehow the vendors make you feel bad for saying no. Our favorites are the plates of fried pork rind and salad walking around on the top of some woman’s head. We also laugh at the woman who makes laps around the waiting busses screeching, “Agua helada, gaseoooooosaaaa…” (Ice water and sooooodaaaa…) Somehow each inquiry always ends with “amor,” no matter who they are talking to. “Que te doy amor? Jugo, fresco, gaseosa? Que te doy?” (What do I give you love, juice, soda? What do I give you?)

3. See through tops. This is such a strange phenomenon. Women young and old seem to think that wearing see through shirts is highly attractive. Sure, their bras are nice and lacey, but do we really need to see them? And their fat rolls? The funny thing is women will do anything not to let their bra straps show because that’s slutty. But showing the entire thing? No problem!

4. Nicas have an extreme fear of the sun. This is an unlucky fear, given that they live in one of the hottest places on Earth. They will do anything not to expose themselves to the sun. Umbrellas are essential for walking around mid-day, as well as shoes, socks, jeans and long sleeves. I don’t know how they do it. And they don’t sweat! Then there’s Mason and I. We sweat from just sitting down to eat a bowl of oatmeal. Or just towel drying is too much work sometimes, and I’m wet with sweat before I even dry off!

5. Nicas love to gossip. Sometimes it’s funny but usually for us it’s quite boring. Everyone knows everyone’s business, and if someone is walking down a different street then usual, there’s something to be talked about for days! The downside of all this gossip is that it carries over into the workplace and can really hurt careers. Sometimes Mas and I think we are living and working among little kids, because that is often how they act.

6. High heeled shoes are the only way to go here with the Nica ladies. They don’t seem to notice the dust and rocks and puddles everywhere, and they just go for it. It fascinates me how they are able to stay standing while also maintaining clean feet! I go out for five minutes (in Chacos, which the Nica women eye strangely) and my feet are black!

7. Nicaragua wouldn’t be so charming without its scores of chavalos. This is the term for kids here, but we like to think of them as little Dennis the Menaces all over the place. They are everywhere! They stroll into our house unannounced, they hang from the trees, they eat our mangos. The other day we were sitting on our front porch enjoying a rare sweat free evening while watching a group of chavalos play a game of marbles in the street. We both commented on a certain chavalo who completely fit the role: He was absolutely filthy, shirtless, he had a huge bloody gash on his back that he didn’t notice, he was barefoot and he was yelling strings of insults at his friends. Ahhh, chavalos…

8. I’ve had more then one lucky occasion to chase chickens. They are everywhere (like chavalos) where they shouldn’t be. I’ve gotten quite good at cornering them and holding them upside down by the feet to return them to their owners. Maybe Mas and I will get lucky enough to be given one as a gift. Our friend Sandy was recently given a fighting cock as a thank you gift! He named him Tyson.

9. I’ve become quite proud of my hand-washing abilities. I'm not talking about washing my hands, but washing clothes with my hands. I actually kind of enjoy my daily clothes washing time at the pila (sink).

10. Reggaeton. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, it is a new type of music that is supposedly a mix between reggae and hip hop. It is all the rage with all ages. We’ve been to many a party where the reggaeton is blasting so loud you can’t even hear the person next to you speak. It also makes the average bus ride a whole lot better when you’re sitting next to an abuelita (grandmother) moving her lips to the lyrics.

So there you have it, Nicaragua is funny. Thanks for reading…
Brenna

A lot of pictures

2007-05-01T15:01:00.000-06:00

This posting is really just a bunch of pictures. We have been pretty busy lately, building nurseries at our schools and giving classes and attending and giving trainings and what-not. Hopefully in the next week or two one of us will actually write something to put on this blog, rather than just posting a bunch of pictures. We'll see.

Enjoy...

So, a few months ago we received a huge package from our friend Brian, that was awesome. Lots of CDs, magazines and an amazing dog bed for Clavo. Clavo took to it right away and spends a lot of time there. Here he is on his new bed, chewing on a bone. Thanks Brian!

This is me at a fritanga (mostly fried food that people sell in the streets) stand in León. These are very common and usually feature tacos, enchiladas, gallo pinto and all sorts of other fried goodies. Note how much bigger I am than the woman standing in front of me.

We went to León for Good Friday because they make really cool colored sawdust "paintings" in the streets. Here is a group putting the finishing touches on theirs. There were dozens of them over many blocks of street and that evening, they had a parade in which they just walked right over all of them.

Here are members of our old host family at their daughter's baptism. Francela (the baby) was baptised by the priest and her madrina (mother-in-law) who is hoplding her in this picture. Her parents (Javier and Cela) are on either side and her aunt (Gloria Elena) is the 5 year old at the bottom.

This is a parade that passed in front of our house the Sunday after easter. We still don't know the significance of this day, but the parade was pretty big. Parades here are mostly just members of the community walking through the streets. There is usually some sort of music system or a band. This one also had a statue of Jesus and fireworks.

A tree covered in brilliant yellow flowers. We don't know what kind it is, but they drop their leaves then flower a few weeks later, but the flowers go away after a day or two, leaving only bare branches again.

A baby chicken got into our yard (not uncommon) and Clavo had the best time trying to play with it. I ended up returning it to its owner after I saw Clavo put it entirely in his mouth a couple of times.

Last week we had our yearly In-Service Training for a week at a beautiful hotel in the mountains of Matagalpa. Here is Brenna and I with our counterpart, Melva Castellón, who is the principal of one of Brenna's schools.

We visited our friend Elliott for his birthday and went on a hike since he lives in a rather hilly region. These are succulent type plants growing right out of a rock. They were beautiful.

Elliott's town, Santa Lucia, Boaco, is surrounded by mountains. Here are a couple of our friends on top of the one we hiked to. Elliott's town is below.

There is Elliott, who is now a year older. I checked out the cliffs behind him with binoculars and think that there could actually be some rock climbing potential there. I'm sure it will never happen though.

Our friend, Jessica, relaxing after the hike. She's from Long Island and had never worn Chaco's until this hike.

And finally, a picture of Brenna with our new cat, Poster. She is about 3 or 4 months old and has gained a lot of weight in the 3 weeks we have had her.

Video from the top of a nearby volcano

2007-04-27T16:59:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone.
Follow this link for a video that we took from the top of Cerro Negro. We'll try to put up more videos soon of more common things, like walking through our house, or shopping in the market, or other things. Let us know what you want to see.

Pictures

2007-04-06T21:15:00.000-06:00

Here I am in our house showing off the first fruit of our mango tree. The majority are still green on the tree, but the ripe ones fall to the ground and they are so good. In this photo I'm enjoying a piece of our mango with some homeade tamale wrapped in a banana leaf.
A glimpse of local life. There aren't many good jobs out there in Malpaisillo, so the men spend their time shining shoes or getting their shoes shined. Mason's planning on getting his flip flops shined soon.
This is in our friend Sarah's (right) site in the beautiful, cool mountains of Matagalpa. Note the sweatshirts- people in Malpaisillo don't even know what a sweatshirt is! We went up there for a day with our friend Meghan (left).
We went on a fabulous jungle hike near Sarah's town. The path crossed through the trunk of this tree. You can look up inside it all the way to the top! The trail ends at a stunning waterfall of which there are no pics because it was showering us with water. We got in and took a refreshing dip.
A nice nature scene along the path, taken from inside the previous tree.
This says "Danger Mines (meaning land mines)" They even have special yellow caution tape for this situation. A subtle reminder we are still in northern Nicaragua! Remnants from the Contra war.

We helped a local environmental group plant over 1,000 seeds in their new tree nursery! We have three varieties of trees we hope to spread around the municipality in a few months. The other chele (white person) in this picture is our friend Greg whose site is about 45 minutes from us.
Here is the complete nursery. Lots of little bags full of dirt and seeds. They all have sprouts already!
Many trees in the area are giving seed now, so Mas and I went and collected a bunch from a giant tree called Guanacaste. We had to take the seeds out of the pods, which was a large task made much easier with the help of 6 neighborhood chavalos (kids).
Our little town market, where the busses to and from Leon pass daily. Yes, the busses here are generally old school busses from the USA. The big shadows on the street are from our favorite tree in town, the giant Cieba. It easily shades the entire market. A main source of employment for the men are triciclos. They wait for passengers to get off the busses and they give them a ride for 3 cordobas anywhere in the town. They end up spending most of their day waiting around, but they definitely get some exercise here and there!
Another favorite pastime... Sitting around. These people can sit for hours without noticing the time go by. This photo was taken at the bar in our market. Its the only place to sit down while waiting. (Notice they are all wearing pants, and it sure isn't cold.)

Video of Clavo

2007-03-11T12:53:00.000-06:00

Hey everybody...

Here is a link to a video of Clavo playing with a pig. Now that I know how to use Google Video, I'll try to do more.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7717041434593463288

Adios.

Some more pics

2007-02-26T11:48:00.000-07:00

This is a woman selling fish in the market. They all have these fly-swatter type devices that they fan back and forth all day long. She also had mussels, crabs and shrimp.

Here are 5 of the 6 guys from our group (one was in Panama having surgery for a broken nose...long story) enjoying some sweet waves at the beach.

Mason and Brenna at the Super Bowl party.

Mason unwrapping his birthday present from Brenna. We use plastic bags for everything! And yes, I do have a beard and wear "wife-beaters" now.

26 Feb Update

2007-02-26T11:33:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone…

The days are slow but the weeks fly by. I can’t believe we’ve been out of the USA for 6 months already! We’re pretty busy now that we’re both in the schools. Also, we’re working with a couple of different NGOs. One of them wants our help building a vivero (tree nursery) and with the other we have plans to start an after-school program for “at-risk” (they even have that term down here) kids. Brenna is working with that second one much more than I am. They are at the very beginning stages of being an NGO and are spending most of their time looking for money and trying to get organized. Those things seem to take a greater understanding of the Spanish language than I have now. Also, the two of us are really trying to work on different projects to be a bit more individual. I am planning on starting a conversational English class for the High School English teachers in town. Some speak well and others don’t. I think that if I can teach the teachers better English they will then be better teachers and the idea of learning English in the High Schools will be more successful.

Also, we have our work in the schools. I will try to build a vivero at two of my schools. I’d love to build one at the other but there is no water. Maybe I’ll try to get the bomba (pump) on the pozo (well) fixed instead. That poor school… They have no shade, power or water and it’s so hot and dusty. There are only about 20 kids (1-6 grades) in the whole school and there is one teacher. My teachers still don’t understand why we don’t have schools like that in the US.

Now we are going to each school at least once a week and giving classes about the environment. We are both starting with trees because we want to build viveros and with the rainy season a few months away, this is the time to get started planting seeds. It is amazing how fast everything grows down here. I planted the seeds from a papaya that we were eating about 5 weeks ago and I now have 22 baby papaya trees from 4-6 inches tall. I also have an avocado tree that sprouted about a week ago and is now 5 or so inches tall. It’s really cool to see an avocado tree grow. I took the seed from one that we ate and buried it with the pointy part up and the top 2-3 cm sticking out of the soil. I did my best to keep the soil moist. Oh yeah, I also scratched the seed a little bit with a knife before I planted it. Slowly over 4 weeks or so the seed split in two and now a sprout is coming out of the opening in the seed. It’s too bad that it won’t give fruit for another 8 or 9 years (in the Peace Corps, we call that a sustainable project). Oh well, at least the papayas will be giving fruit in a year or less. I plan on planting a few papayas in the yard and I will regalar (give as a gift) the rest to friends and neighbors. I was never a big papaya eater before, but they are all over the place down here. The fruits are huge too! We’re talking a couple of feet long. It’s pretty cool to be eating all of these fruits and vegetables that we don’t regularly, or ever, have in the States, but I really miss berries. Aside from that, we have most of the same fruits as home plus a whole lot more. I’m hoping to plant a couple of banana trees in the yard, but they are different because they don’t come from a seed and I will have to break off a piece of a currently growing banana tree. We’ll see…

I’m running out of thoughts here, so I’ll give you some pics. Hasta luego.

Here are my papayas and avocado. They are planted in the bottom half of soda bottles, which are easy to find in the streets here.

A close-up of the avocado.

We climbed a volcano the other week called Cerro Negro. This is the view looking North from the summit. On the left border of the pic, about 3/4 of the way up is a darker spot. That is Malpaisillo. Notice the black lava flows from the most recent eruption in 1999. Pretty cool.

This is another volcano close to us called Momotombo. A volunteer lives here, on the shores of Lake Nicaragua. We hope to climb this soon.

Another view of Momotombo with an old fishing boat.

11 February 2007

2007-02-11T19:03:00.000-07:00

Mas and I are entering into our third week of classes, and after about two and a half months here in Malpaisillo we are finally beginning to get a routine down. We each have three schools which we travel to by bike. Most of them are really small, poor and rural, which makes for an interesting experience. For one of my schools that is about 4k away, I ride through a dry ditch and go along a path that passes through two peanut farms. The school is just in a small patch of trees surrounded by farmland. I love it! That school is so poor that many kids don’t even come with shoes on, and a few even have fleas bouncing around in their hair. I plan on beginning the process of starting tree nurseries in two of my schools this week. The third school (mentioned above) has no water, so no nursery. The kids bring water bottles, but by about 11:00 their water is gone and they get really tired and thirsty.

There is a pozo, (well) at my other country school. It’s actually the community well, but it is right next to the school, so when we need water, we give them a big bucket and they fetch us water. The process is really cool. There is a horse that a small kid is usually riding. The horse is attached to the rope that holds the bucket at the bottom of the well. The kid gets the horse to walk about 50 to 60 yards, and up comes the bucket full of water. They have to do this for EVERY bucket full! Everyone in the community!!! Needless to say, just getting enough daily water is a lot of work in itself.

Speaking of water, now that we are fully in the dry season, it is becoming quite scarce even in our community of 8,000 people. The town’s water pump is about 2 miles out of town, so the water travels pretty far through underground tubes to get here. The problem now is that there is not enough water pressure for all the water to get to all parts of the town. About half of the town is slightly uphill from the pump, so they hardly ever have water. I’ve been told that the upper third of town only gets water from about 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. This is just likely to get worse for them as the dry season continues. Meanwhile, down on our side, water is very reliable. We’re just lucky we chose to live where we do! Our Peace Corps site mate, Jon, on the other hand is one of the unlucky ones. He’s presently looking for a new house!

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately working with a group of six community members who are trying to start up a non profit here in town to help kids at risk. We have a number of children who have been identified as high risk, meaning they are involved in prostitution, drugs, violence at home, etc… Most of them don’t go to school, but sell little trinkets in the streets instead. In the worst cases, their parents force them into selling and if they don’t make a certain amount of money every day, they are beaten. Some of these kids fall into prostitution in order to bring enough money home at night. There are about 25 of these kids we have identified, so the plan is to have a “cultural center” three days a week with various educational and recreation activities available for them. We are in the planning stages of the project now, and currently looking for funding, which is looking like it will take a long time! I’m learning a lot with this, and I find it quite exciting trying to build this idea up into a functioning and beneficial activity.

We’ve also been spending quality time cooking, reading, doing yoga and walking the dog. We’ve made homemade yogurt, mayonnaise and peanut butter, and we just bought some soya beans to make our own tofu! We’ve got a heck of a compost pile going, and Mas has about 15 baby papaya trees and two avocado trees. We also planted 4 coconut trees recently. As soon as the compost is ready we’ll plant our tomato, cucumber, pepper and lettuce seeds. We love having a dog, he makes us laugh and we fight over who he loves most. (Me). We have been showered with awesome care packages lately, wow! Thanks everyone! It feels great to know you are all thinking of us.

For all of you cold people in Colorado just know that while we can’t ski, we’ll be spending next weekend at the beach for Mas’s birthday. He’s so used to having winter birthdays he says it feels weird to be planning a beach trip in February. Pretty nice though. Adios, pues!

2007-01-19T10:07:00.000-07:00

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Pictures... finally. Forgive the lack of order.

2007-01-18T11:49:00.000-07:00

This is the area that leads from the living room out to the kitchen/bathroom. Our bedroom is on the left. I think we'll call this our "courtyard." Sometimes there is a hammock hanging there and that old shower curtain on the left is Clavo's bed.

Here is our old host-sister Gloria Elena. She just turned 5 and she is holding her sobrina (neice) Francela who is almost 3 months old now. Francela's dad, is shown singing in the bottom picture.

We went to a beach once with our old host sister Francis and our friend Greg. Here they are walking on it.

I think this was Christmas Eve and you'll have to enlarge this and look closely to see it, but that ball of light that all of the chavalos (kids) are running from is a guy who puts a huge box over his body covered with fireworks and runs around in the streets. In the US he would need years of training, several permits and probably firefighters on hand. Here all he needs is someone to light him up.

So, we used to go to the baseball stadium and play frisbee with kids fairly often. One time Brenna said, "Do you think you can throw the frisbee over that wall?" It didn't make it, but luckily there is this random stairway that I could stand on (I'm about 20 feet off the ground) and we found three long branches that I tied together to get the frisbee (I wanted to just climb up and relive my pre-PC rock climbing days, but the tin roof was overhanging about 4 feet and the tin wall offered no purchase for my Chacos). The frisbee was about 6 meters away. Maybe you can see it in the picture, but I'm not sure. It was a good thing we weren't doing much in the beginning, as this took about an hour.

Here is our "bathroom" with the shower on the left and the toilet on the right. This is much nicer than many volunteers. Most have a latrine and no shower (a bucket). The doors were hastily built just before we moved in and don't really close.

Here is a look at the sweet closet I built in our bedroom. Very complicated construction. This took days.

Our kitchen. A two-burner hooked up to a gas tank and some dishes. We keep all of our food in big plastic boxes because of animals, and actually this is all covered up now at all times with a sheet to keep the dust off of the dishes. All of this came with the house.

We share a patio (yard) with our landlady's family and they have a chanchito (baby pig) tied up back there who Clavo likes to play with. Also notice the pile of burned trash in the foreground.

Yes, sometimes I even eat dinner in the hammock. This photo is a month or two old at our old host-family's house. That is a typical Nica meal of gallo pinto (rice and beans mixed together with oil), queso (a chunk of salty, squeaky cheese unlike anything we have in the US that I know of), and pan (bread). Most people eat this three times a day every day. Needless to say, I was ecstatic to start doing my own cooking when we moved into our own place.

Here is our sala (living room) before we moved in and painted. That open window faces the street.

Another view of the living room. The previous picture was taken from the doorway you can see in this picture. Our bedroom is back there. Yes, the house came with 4 sillas abuelitas (rocking chairs).

Here is a similar view after we moved in and painted. You'll notice our two hammocks. Also, we have pictures of the wedding and our previous life hanging on the brick wall in the background.

Same as the first house picture (above) only with paint.

Me standing in our front door. Notice the dirt street. We throw our waste water (from laundry and dishes) on the street to keep the dust down. If you click to enlarge this one, you should also be able to see Clavo in the doorway with me.

Here is Clavo in a box on a bus. We were transporting him from his old home to our new house, a trip that took 3 busses and about 4 hours. Isn't he handsome?

A scorpion on our bedroom floor. (1 of 3 so far) Including the tail it is probably 6 inches long.

Here is a tarantula being attacked by a huge wasp. That tarantula is about the size of Brenna's hand, so the wasp is huge! I'm not really sure what the wasp did to it, but it laid there and looked dead for about an hour and then I picked it up with a shovel to move it (it was right outside our back door) and it started running around.

There is a holiday here called Purisima that celebrates the virgin Mary. People go from house to house and shout ¿Quien causa tanta alegria? (Who causes all this happiness?) and the people reply: ¡La virgen Maria! and then they sing and the people give them candy or other goodies. Here are some guys singing at our neighbors house. The one on the right was our host brother, Javier.

January 12, 2007

2007-01-13T17:16:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year everyone! This is Mason.

We’re settling in to our new house and new town and are starting to get a little busier. Clavo (the dog) is gaining weight and growing up so fast. He already knows how to sit, but doesn’t care to come when we call him. We talk to him in both English and Spanish, generally choosing the word with the fewest syllables for what we want to say (sit (1) vs. sientate (4) was an easy one). He has numerous chew toys and as you may expect, he prefers the random things he’s found in the yard to the 2 toys we have bought him. He also is getting old enough to finally have a small pair of huevos (balls) which we will get taken care of soon. If we contribute nothing else to this country, at least we’ll know that we haven’t added to the huge canine population surplus.

Speaking of animals and the new house, so far we have found 3 scorpions (1 dead, 2 alive), 1 mouse (dead), 1 snake (alive, I think it was a Boa baby) and 2 tarantulas (1 dead, the other we thought was dead, but maybe it was just stunned… It’s definitely dead now though.) in the house. And we’ve only been here 9 days! If only we had a cat to take care of all of these things for us... I think we may have one in a few weeks, as the lone survivor from the savage dog attacks is still hanging on to life and is now old enough that it has opened its eyes.

The funny thing about those dog attacks (see our previous post if you don’t know what I’m talking about. Not the attack on Brenna.) is that the dogs who did the attacking are about the size of your average house cat in the States. The only macho (male) in the group is named Pinky and he has a terrible case of short-man-complex. They’re all ugly as sin too. One of them, misleadingly named Princesa (Princess), has an underbite and barks like an old rusty truck trying to start up on a frigid winter morning. The other one, also incorrectly named Bella (beautiful) is small enough that I could take it out in one swift kick if I were wearing the proper footwear. I have had cats in the past (remember Boyfriend?) that could easily take out these dogs.

So, party season is starting to wrap up. It all started in November with the elections (school was out for 8 days to signify the importance of that event), followed by promociones (graduations) from pre-school, 6^th grade and colegio (high school), then Purisima, a holiday celebrating La virgen Maria (The virgin Mary) that is most similar to Halloween, on Dec. 7. Then we had Christmas and New Years. In the first weekend of January are the fiestas patronales (celebrations of our patron saint) in our town. There are various events such as concerts, dances, horse races, venders selling a bunch of crap like in the US, rides, booths where you can win a stuffed animal. It was a lot like a carnival or county fair at home. A couple of nights ago our town had a huge concert to celebrate the New Year and inauguration of the new president. I think this concert also marked the end of the party season. Also, school starts soon.

In a couple of weeks, all of the volunteers in our department (like a state) of Leon will start traveling to each others sites to give teacher talleres (workshops) for two days every other week. We will be presenting 4 different topics:

1. Teaching about VIH - SIDA (HIV – AIDS)

2. How to work with parents / parent groups

3. How to use huertos (vegetable gardens) as a multidisciplinary teaching tool

4. Starting and maintaining community banks

Hopefully we will reach about 400 teachers in all. I think that these talleres will be a lot of fun and also one of the ways that we are promoting sustainability in our projects. If theses turn out to be a good thing, which I’m sure they will, I may look into doing some just for the teachers in my schools on a regular basis in the future.

Also, since the students return to class on the 29^th of Enero, (January) we will soon be busy observing in the schools and starting to prepare our own charlas (lessons) to give to the students. The overall process of our work in the schools is that we observe for a while, then start teaching a few lessons about the environment here and there, using interactive and participatory teaching techniques. Ideally, the teacher will be watching us teach our lessons and after a while of this we will start co-planning and co-teaching with them in an attempt to pass on our knowledge of different teaching techniques and theories. After all of that we spend a good amount of time observing them and coaching them on their teaching. Within all of this, we can also take time to teach them strategies for classroom management, learning styles, etc. Also, keep in mind that we will be working with kids from 3^rd to 6^th grade, so our environmental lessons could be as simple as the parts of a tree, or the water cycle. It’s not like were teaching conservation biology here.

In addition to that, two local non-profit groups have asked for our help. We may or may not be starting to build a vivero (tree nursery) with one of them. We are now trying to do a compost project with them so that we will have good soil for the vivero. It’s moving slowly. The other non-profit is trying to get a lot of projects going and initially sought us out looking for monetary support. After we told them that’s not what we do, we’ve decided to help them organize and have started planning to help them with an after-school project for kids. As I’ve mentioned in the past, things move slowly here, so we’ll see what happens with these projects. Also, we’ve met a handful of people who speak English fairly well, so I’m thinking about having a weekly English conversation hour at the house. Brenna also will likely do some sort of reading to kids group at the library. We are now trying to not always do everything together, so people will see us more as individuals and so my Spanish will improve.

I keep hearing about the huge storms dropping the fluffy stuff on Colorado and am definitely jealous of all of you who are enjoying frequent turns in the nieve (snow). Also, I recently received a CD of pictures from Zac that had pics of hiking in the CO fall, canyoneering in Utah, and Grand Lake. Looking at those, I found myself tearing up a bit. I really miss all of you and the mountains and wilderness. I’m not at the point of homesickness, and I’m definitely enjoying life here, but I do miss the old life. It’ll still be there when I come home. I really hope there are storms like this next season, when we are planning to come home for a visit.

If you want to read about a great trip we took just before leaving home, click here to read my friend Dave’s narrative and see his great pictures.

I promise more pictures are on the way… Thanks for your thoughts, e-mails and care packages.

Que les vayan bien.

Mason's Book Reviews

2007-01-13T17:07:00.000-07:00

So, I read a lot down here and have been keeping a log of what I've read. I thought I'd share with you in case you are looking for a good read. Enjoy:

The Mapmaker’s Wife, Robert Whittaker

So, I read this book right when I got here (Sept.) and I am writing this now in the middle of January so forgive my lack of detail and possible errors… This book is about the scientific voyage of a team of Frenchmen to Ecuador (formerly Peru and a French colony) to measure a line of longitude (or is it latitude?) at the equator in the 1600’s. This was huge scientifically as there was still debate as to the shape of the Earth. Some thought that this young Newton fellow was crazy with his suggestions of gravity and a resultant spheroid Earth with a slight bulge at the equator. Some argued that if gravity worked the way Newton suggested, then the earth was actually indented at the equator, which may sound crazy now, but this is the way Science works. These Frenchmen set out to settle the debate once and for all, and to achieve long-lasting glory.

This expedition was a massive undertaking and was really the first scientific work ever done (at least by us educated white folks) in the Americas. The list of discoveries and scientific firsts that were accomplished by this team could fill the page and honestly I don’t remember them all. Nevertheless the amount of the things these men accomplished is breathtaking. I do remember that this team “discovered” both cinnamon and rubber and introduced them to Europe (and therefore civilization).

Their work took them something like 6 years, many more than they were planning, and when they were finished they all went their separate ways. One of the scientists fell in love with a local Peruvian woman (hence the title of the book) and lived with her for a few years, but always dreamed of taking his family back to his homeland and living out his life there. He decided that he would head down the Amazon, from Peru/Ecuador – a voyage that had only been attempted by 4 or 5 people in all of history – just to see if it was do-able and then return for his wife and head back down the Amazon. He planned on being away for a year and a half. He miraculously made it to the Amazon delta and sought out refuge in French Guyana (I think) where he had to wait for some trans-Atlantic paperwork from his homeland in order to pass back through Portuguese and Spanish land. After something like 9 years (and 20 years after leaving France) he was still waiting (they had government bureaucracy / ineffiency back then too) and had started a new life in some sort of business that I can’t recall right now.

His wife, on the other side of the continent decided that she would make the unprecedented trek to her husband, and so she went for it. Along the way she encountered outrageous obstacles and the death or abandonment of everyone in her party. After losing her boat, she was forced to walk through the wild Amazonian jungle where she was exposed to all sorts of flora, fauna and insects that crawled and chewed on her constantly for weeks and even months on end. At one point she laid down to die, but then somehow found the strength to get back up and continue for another six weeks! Her journey was amazing.

The scientific and cultural history in this book fascinated me. It is very well written and you will learn a lot from it and at the same time become captivated by the hardships endured by everyone in the book. I thoroughly enjoyed this book both as a scientist and an adventurer. Read it.

RATING: 8.5/10

The Jungle, Upton Sinclair

The classic novel about the horrible injustices on all levels of the Chicago meatpacking scene in the early part of the 20^th century. Many people read this in High School or University history classes, but for some reason I never did. This book is the predecessor of books like Fast Food Nation and that one about the pride of Arkansas, Wal-Mart (I can’t remember the name). Although it is a work of fiction, it is based on the actual working conditions of the meatyards and the lives of the immigrants who made them run.

Based around one family of Polish immigrants, this book exposed the impossibly hard lives these people lead (and many still lead today) because of the system into which they tried to make their lives. Reminds me at times of the current situation in Nicaragua or for those who try to make a new life in the U.S.…

The innerworkings of the entire industry are uncovered, from the stockyards and the killing floors to the canning rooms and political corruption. This work of fiction provoked political change almost immediately upon its release, although after also reading the aforementioned Fast Food Nation, I'm not sure how much we have really progressed.

If you haven’t already, you should read this.

RATING: 8/10

Mountains Beyond Mountains, Tracy Kidder

The story of Dr. Paul Farmer and his quest to rid the world’s poor of unjust suffering because of a lack of access to health care. Farmer started his quest as a medical student at Harvard where he spent most of his time in Haiti working with Tuberculosis. He only returned to campus to take exams and ended up setting up a clinic in Haiti. Throughout the years, he has transformed the area surrounding his clinic and has gone on to shake up the world of public health policy, especially in the area of TB treatment. This book chronicles his success in Haiti, Peru, Soviet prisons and other areas of the world.

He is a truly humble and massively intelligent person who is fighting the good fight seemingly with no regard for his own life and well-being. He travels constantly, is always working, doesn’t sleep or rest enough and has no personal time. But at the same time, he gets results. He started the non-profit Partners in Health and is causing the public health community to rethink its strategies and methods.

Farmer is very driven and should be admired for his hard work and dedication. I think the author did a good job of showing that and also a good job of showing that maybe Farmer is a little too dedicated. This is a great read and is very inspiring. It’s a great thing to read during Peace Corps service, although the sustainability of his work (one of our primary goals) is questionable. Reading this will show you just how much difference one person can make in the world.

QUOTES: “We should all be criticizing the excesses of the powerful, if we can so readily demonstrate that these excesses hurt the poor and vulnerable.”

RATING: 7.5/10

The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan

Pollan, a professor of writing and avid gardener, looks at how plants have used humans as an evolutionary tool, playing to our desires in order to be more successful species or to increase their “fitness.” Specifically, Pollan examines four human desires: sweetness (apple), beauty (tulip), intoxication (marijuana) and control (potato). The intro is really good, but the excitement it generated didn’t really pan out. There is a lot of history in this book, including a lot about Johnny Appleseed, and the tulip’s role in the economy of the Netherlands. I often found myself getting bored in those first two chapters although they were quite interesting overall. The following sections on intoxication and control (through genetic engineering) I found fascinating.

Even though this book wasn’t as interesting as I’d hoped it would be, it was still good. I think I just got my hopes up and thought it would be something it wasn’t. It is a very interesting plants-eye view of our world, showing that plants have manipulated us just as much as we’ve manipulated them. Plants that have satisfied our desires have greatly increased their numbers and their habitats. And after all, increasing numbers and habitats seems to be the evolutionary goal of all life.

After reading this, I am really excited to start gardening.

RATING: 7/10 (although the marijuana and potato chapters get a 9)

The Creation, E.O. Wilson

Written by one of the most respected and accomplished biologists of our time (one of Time magazine’s most important people of the 20^th century), The Creation is written as a letter from Wilson to a fictional member of the clergy, Pastor. It is an appeal for science and religion to put aside differences and work together to save The Creation (Earth, life, the biosphere…). There are lots of facts relating to biodiversity and the rapid loss of it since the agricultural revolution. His main argument / talking point is that humanity should be ascending toward nature instead of away from it as the majority of humanity has been doing.

Wilson, raised as a southern Baptist in Alabama, hopes to take advantage of the common goals of religion and science (stewardship, humanity) to reverse damages to the Earth. He clearly outlines what he thinks needs to be done and how it can be accomplished. His writing is easily understood and he has a gift for simplifying scientific ideas for the comprehension of those not familiar with them.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone. Anyone interested in the ‘teaching of evolution vs. intelligent design’ debate should particularly read the last chapter (165-168). I wish I were smart enough to share my thoughts on the topic that clearly. I also love that he always capitalizes the word Nature. My only complaint, which is both personal and petty, is that for me, someone who has studied and taught these topics, I wished he would have gone deeper, although I realize that would be self-defeating in this book. Great read that left me feeling very positive and excited to get back all of our childhood roots of finding endless joy and wonder in Nature.

QUOTES: “Do you agree, Pastor, that the depth and complexity of living Nature still exceed human imagination? If god seems unknowable, so too does the rest of the biosphere.”

“It is not the nature of human beings to be cattle in glorified feed lots. Every person deserves the option to travel easily in and out of the complex and primal world that gave us birth.”

“…While most people around the world care about the natural environment, they don’t know why they care, or why they should feel responsible for it. By and large they have been unable to articulate what the stewardship of Nature means to them personally.”

RATING: 8/10

Clavito and Telica

2007-01-06T11:53:00.000-07:00

So since we have written last, Hannukah, Christmas and New Years have all passed. We would like to wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year. Our Christmas was much different than any Christmas we have had before. Here they celebrate Christmas Eve more than Christmas day. We ate a meal of Gallina Rellena, or stuffed chicken for dinner with the entire family. Many family members were gone visiting family in Managua and Costa Rica, but many others came from elsewhere to be here as well. There were piñatas all around the town on Christmas Eve. Each neighborhood set up a piñata on a street corner and the kids got to play and make a mess. It was fun for them because the candy from the piñata was probably the only Christmas present they would get. Christmas day was just like any other day here. We called all of our family back home and felt pretty homesick after because everyone was together and happy!

The days following Christmas we began moving into our new house. We painted for a few days, which really did the house a lot of good. We live in a little place with the bedroom and sala (living room) indoors, and the kitchen and bathroom outside. It’s perfect for us. We share a giant yard with our neighbors and their two dogs. One of the dogs stays tied up all day, because he is bravo (mean). One morning when we were still moving in we came by really early, and the dog wasn’t tied up. Well, he saw me standing in his yard and took a mean dash toward me so fast that I only had time to scream before he bit me! He got me right on the calf. I was lucky because I happened to be wearing jeans that day (which is really rare for me to do in this weather, but we were planning on traveling to a colder place later in the day). He didn’t break the skin, but gave me a good enough scare that I started to cry in front of the entire family who came out to watch! So now that dog stays tied up ALL the time but I still sneak a cautious look his way quite often!

In a period of just a week and a half we found and lost a cute little kitten, and acquired a dog! The kitten found us one night at our host family’s house. Its owners had left for a Christmas trip and forgot about it. They never fed it anyway, so we adopted it. We bought it food, cuddled with her and named her Telica (after the volcano we can see from our town). We left on vacation for New Years for 4 days and when we came back we were told that the three ugly short dogs that live there ate her. We were pretty sad about that news. She was such a sweet little cat! So now we have a box of Super Gato and no one to eat it. The grandmother of the host family has a cat that just had two kittens that are so young their eyes are still closed. She told us yesterday that we can have one when they are ready. So today we went over there and she told us that the dogs ate one of them this morning. Now we are banking on this one remaining kitten to survive the dogs. It will be a miracle if we can ever get a cat! Mason has never wanted to kill an animal as bad as he wants to kill those three dogs. They really have no endearing qualities at all.

Clavito is finally with us here in Malpaisillo. Now that we live on our own, we are able to have a dog. He has adjusted really well to his new life, and we’re really enjoying making a spectacle of ourselves walking him around town on a leash! All the little kids yell out his name when they see him coming. They love him because he’s manso (friendly) which is really rare for dogs around here! We took him on three different buses to get him here. That was an adventure in itself! People here are generally afraid of dogs (rightly so, if you ask me) so you can imagine how happy they were to have him near them on an overcrowded bus!

We’re loving having our own place, and we’re quickly realizing how much work it is to keep it clean. Fighting with the dust of Nicaragua is not a good idea! Yesterday when I was sweeping I found a dead tarantula on the floor! It was really cool. Mas and I spent the entire day washing clothes and cleaning the house. We think we’ll have to devote an entire day a week strictly to house work! A lot of the work is splashing buckets of water on the street to keep down the dust. Little things like that really add up!

We had a nice New Years trip in Granada. We met up with our good friends from our group who we hadn’t seen since swearing in. It was a good time, but we were really happy to get back to our new house and friends in Malpaisillo. Thanks for reading this long entry, and take care!!!

Christmas in Malpaisillo

2006-12-21T18:08:00.000-07:00

So, things are going well here. We make it through our days slowly... reading, chatting, walking around town, meeting new people. Today we officially found a house to move in to on our own and will do so in a few weeks after we make a few security updates (new locks and bars on the windows). We'll post pictures.

We have come across a youth group (sort of... most are late teens or early 20's, and there are only about 4 regular members) that is forming as part of a national club of youth environmentalists. This could potentialy be a great secondary project for us. We told them we know how to start viveros (tree nurseries) and that really excited them. They want us to help tham make one. So, the other day we gave them a class on composting and we are going to meet in a couple more days with all of our weeks worth of yard waste and kitchen scraps to start a big communal compost pile. The idea is that we will make compost for a few months and then use that soil to start our vivero in March. Everything grows here and compost happens much quicker too. So, we're pretty excited about this forming project. We really weren't expecting to do much work until school started in the end of Enero (January) so this is great. Hopefully we can help this group get more organized and grow and do good things for the town. We'll keep you posted.

Christmas is in a few days, but neither of us are really in that christmas (or hanukkah) mood. Maybe it is because we are away from our families and friends, or because it is in the 80s or 90s every day, or because there are no department stores or TV commercials trying to get our $$. Who knows, but we want to wish anyone out there reading this a great holiday season. Especially all of you in CO who are surely going to have a white christmas with that huge storm you just got. Enjoy a few turns for us.

We'll give you some pics soon...

Tranquilo...

2006-12-16T16:10:00.000-07:00

Hi friends!
Isn´t it the strangest thing that when you have nothing to do it´s that much harder to get anything done? Since arriving at our site over three weeks ago, we have pretty much done nothing! The Peace Corps just happened to place us here right when the school year ends. So as teachers, we have no job for the next two months. We´ve been filling our time rather well, I should say. Our typical day consists of a good three to four hours of what we have termed, ¨Hammock time.¨ We love hammock time. Many a books have been read, Spanish has been studied, even some games of chess and cards have been played in the hammock. But, deep down we still are ambitious Americans, so we go out exploring looking for activity on occasion. This will consist of playing ulitmate frisbee with a group of ¨chavalos¨ (kids), buying an ice cream, going to the vegetable market, or our favorite- checking our e-mail. I´ve also taken to going to some dance aerobics classes in the little gym here in town. I embarrass myself every time, because the class is basically just a lot of hip shaking, which white girls are famous for not knowing how to do. Mas and I have also been running on the country roads in the mornings before the sun gets too hot. Oh- and we´ve made it to the beach once and we have plans to go again soon. So we do get things done!
We're quite proud of one great accomplishment. We have joined an environmental youth group that is just starting up. They are excited to work with us and we have already begun training them on how to compost. We have plans to make a giant tree nursery in the future. Mas and I think that if it weren´t for us, they probably would never have organized into much.
We also officially found a new house! We will move in the day after Christmas. It´s got a living room and a bedroom, and the kitchen and bathroom are outside. We also have a great big yard that we share with our neighbors. They will take care of us and be like a family to us. We´ll send pics soon.
So, we find the days flying by just like at home. Life here is definitely slower but we are adjusting to the relaxed pace.

Our Address

2006-11-29T18:26:00.000-07:00

Mason Wiebe or Brenna Brooks-Larson
Apartado Postal 366
León, Nicaragua
Central America

This will be our address for the remainder of our time here. It is just a PO box about 45 minutes away from our town. As always, if you send a box it will take longer (around a month), so try to fit what you send into a padded envelope and that should take about a week. Of course if you want to send a box worth of stuff, we're fine with that. Not sure about letters, but I'd imagine they are about a week as well.

On a totally unrelated note, I still can't find Hot Tamales, Skittles or Red Vines anywhere down here.

PEACE

Internet in our town

2006-11-27T19:00:00.000-07:00

Unlike most Peace Corps volunteers, we have 4 cyber cafes in our town. Por eso, we will likely be able to update this more frequently and will have greater access to our e-mail.

Have any of you heard of Gmail talk? I think anyone with a Gmail acct can use it and it is just like Skype. Por ejemplo, if you are logged on to gmail and I am too, we can click on something and , assuming we have a microphone and speakers, we can talk for free. If any of you know more about this, let me know because I'd love to use it to talk to you guys.

Thanks for your comments and we look forward to more. Mom, to answer your questions, we aren't supposed to move out until the first 6 weeks is over. I hear people do it though. Also, we have to have the PC Security director come and approve our house before we can move in. Our family here is the same that was mentioned in this entry that we posted a month or so ago when we were here visiting. My time is running out soon.

Adios...

Más Fotos

2006-11-27T18:20:00.000-07:00

Me with my host mom and sister from training. This was taken at the swearing-in ceremony.

Here I am giving a speech in spanish. To my left is the Director of PC Nicaragua, the US Ambassador and the director of the Ministry of Education.

The ladies of medioambiente from our training group. Notice how many more there are than us caballeros.

Here are the handsome men of medioambiente (environment) at the
juramentación (swearing-in ceremony). We know we look good.

We´re home now

2006-11-25T15:30:00.000-07:00

So, after 11 weeks of training and a week in hotels in Managua, we are finally in our site, Malpaisillo, with all of our stuff. We are living with a host family for these first 6 weeks and we're looking for a house to move in to. School gets out for summer this Friday, so we won't have much to do in the way of teaching until February, but we have plenty to do as far as getting to know the town and language (at least for me).

During that week (actually 8 days) of hotels in Managua, we had our swearing-in ceremony. I was chosen to deliver a short speech thanking everyone and summing up what we did in training and what we have to look forward to. I was quite nervous as there were over 200 people there, including the US Ambassador, the Director of Nicaragua's Ministry of Education, various reporters and cameras, and the whole thing was in spanish. Afterward I was pretty happy with myself. Oh yeah, I also had a moustache during the entire speech.

After swearing-in, we got to go on a weekend vacation to a beautiful eco-tourism / coffee plantation resort in the mountains of Matagalpa called Selva Negra (translates to Black Forest and is supposedly reminiscent of that region of Germany). It was actually cold there and beautiful. Monkeys all over the place and lots of trails through the thick jungle like forest. If any of you come to visit, we'll try to go there.

We returned to Managua for the all volunteer conference for 2 days and after that we got to enjoy a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with American families down here. Some folks got to go to the Ambassador's house, or the director of USAID, or PC staff members from the states. We went to the home of the Press Officer for the Embassy. She is really cool and is about our age. She's from Colorado and has worked in Columbia and Mexico. She cooked an amazing meal. My best yet here. It was really nice to be able to participate in an American tradition with other people from my country. This year I was thankful for many things that I no longer have that I took for granted in my day to day life in the states. There are so many conveniences there that we don't even realize until we don't have them.

On another note... we got a phone, so you can call us if you want. I don't want to put the number here for the whole world to see, but you can get it from our parents or shoot us an e-mail if you wish.

Hasta luego...

new photos!!!

2006-11-21T20:12:00.000-07:00

This is a typical country kitchen. The women cook over fires, because propane stoves are too expensive. This lady was cooking a giant stew for a festival for the patron saint of the region. On that day, all of her neighbors from the countryside would stop by her home with their bowl and spoon, and she would feed them. It's tradition to sing a song asking for food, and people go from house to house all day! There were two other giant pots of stew as well! We ate some and it was good but we got stomach aches. (Typical reaction!)
This is me with my friends Susan, Jackie and Meghan. Susan's host brother made the costumes for us! They are typical Nicaraguan fiesta dresses.
My host mom and dad, Christina and Guillermo, after they voted on Nov. 5. They stain their thumbs so they can't vote twice. The ink takes days to come off!
Here I am with my puppy! Clavito. (It's Nicaraguan slang for naughty!) We love him.
This is Mason with the director of one of his schools. We have to ride bikes to some of our schools. This photo was taken about 2 kilometers outside of Malpaisillo. The volcano chain is behind them. You can see Momotombo way back there. Peanuts are growing in the field.
Here I am with my wonderful host family. Don Guillermo, Cristian, Dona Cristina, me and the little cousin Pedrito. Nicaraguans rarely smile in pictures, so they look unhappy, but really they are the happiest, kindest people!

Photos again (remember you can click to enlarge them)

2006-11-13T15:39:00.000-07:00

Yes, that is Brenna on a horse. She is in front of one of her schools which is about 12 K away from our town. With temperatures always in the 80s or 90s, that makes for a long bike ride. This is what most of our schools look like. Just a few big rooms, half cinder block and half windows. All are blue and white (like the flag) and almost all have metal roofs.

These girls live in my training town and are very cute.

So, I have a moustache (bigote) now. All of the guys in Environment are growing them for swearing-in. It will be gone ASAP after that.

Mas likes Hot Tamales...

2006-11-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

...and he has a mustache. Pictures are on the way. How is everyone? We miss you all a lot, and really appreciate all the packages and e-mails. We're through the elections, and everything ended up being nice and peaceful. The day of the election was so intense and eerily quiet. People were just waiting to see what would happen. The results started coming in at around 1:00 a.m., when I naturally was awoken by the noise. Rockets, gun shots and car horns, along with hundreds of screaming voices let me know that Ortega was ahead. And that's the way it was all night long! The next days were really peaceful as well. They had feared riots and violence, so we gringos were all on lock down for about four days, but all turned out well. We're actually lucky the Sandinistas won because if they would have lost, there probably would have been trouble. On monday night when it was official that he won, there was a wild parade of fanatics in the street. They packed at least 30 people into each pickup, 10 people into cars with about 5 sitting in the open trunk! Hundreds of cars raced down the highway with flag waving loonies practically spilling out! It was quite a sight!
So here we are waiting for January 10th when Ortega takes power officially. We're actually not really worried about our futures here, because he seems to have calmed down a bit. He may end up doing some good things for this country. We all know it desperately needs a change. In his campaign he promised a lot of things that sounded wonderful, and the people are really depending on him to follow through.
Mas and I only have 3 more days with our host families. I love mine so much, I know it will be a hard goodbye. At least they will be only a phone call away when we need them. Mas made his family pasta with peanut sauce a few nights ago, and I made mine a chocolate cake and oatmeal cookies! It's fun to get them away from the everyday rice and beans for a change! In just 6 days we swear in as official Peace Corps Volunteers!!! We're feeling ready and proud to be a part of such an important organization.
Here's kind of a funny story to give you all an idea of what life is like here. I went over to Mason's house to spend the night with him two nights ago. At 1:30 in the morning I woke up because I had to pee. The bathroom is outside in the back patio (vey common here) so I had to unlock the back door and go outside. I did it as quietly as I could because the night was so quiet. The dog was back there saw me(she was pregnant) and started to bark, which made the whole house wake up. I went back inside and she stopped barking after a while. But her barking made a dog down the street start, and he went for about 15 minutes. Then, his noise made the roosters wake up, and they started going. By now most of the roosters around the town are doing their thing, three dogs are barking, and the baby a few doors down starts crying. Then we hear some whining from the dog in the back. It turns out she had her babies right then. So needles to say, one person waking up to simply use the bathroom turned into half the town waking up and 7 newborn puppies!
We love you all! Carol and I wish more people would make comments!! We've got lots of great pictures to add. Hopefully tomorrow you'll see them.
Con amor,
Brenna

Malpaisillo, Leon!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-11-01T14:48:00.000-07:00

Hola!
This is Brenna for the first time!!! So here we are visiting our site, the place we will call home for the next two years of our lives. It´s a small town of 6,000 people called Malpaisillo, in the department of Leon. Malpaisillo translates into ¨bad little country.¨ It´s kind of a funny name. We are located in one of the hottest parts of the country, which will definitely be our biggest challenge. We´re on the edge of Nicaragua´s volcanic chain, and we have a view of about 6 of the 11 volcanoes from right outside of the town. So the bike rides to our little schools are very beautiful! Our town is surrounded by volcanoes and fields of soy, peanut and corn. It reminds me a lot of parts of the Texas hill country, with volcanoes instead of hills. The people have been nothing but friendly, which has really made us feel good.
Mason will be working with four different elementary schools, and I will have three. His are all a good bike ride outside of town. His farthest is a 18K bumpy, hot, dusty ride to a tiny countryside school on the base of the beautiful and very active Cerro Negro volcano. My farthest school is 13 hot, dusty and bumpy kilometeres away! School is from 7-noon, so the ride in the morning will be great, and the way home will be soooo hot! I actually wore long sleeves yesterday on our bike ride because the sun is so intense. The students in these schools are so wonderful. These are the families who live in the middle of nowhere who have to bike long distances on tiny country roads just to get to school. They can't afford uniforms or shoes, and they come to school dirty, but somehow they make it. The teachers are remarkable too. They make less then $100 a month, and they walk or ride through sun and rain for miles to teach these kids every day. It´s a shame that a lot of kids who live out there never even go to school, or they drop out early. Many families can´t even afford the notebook and pencil.
Our town seems to be a very laid back and happy place. I think we´ll fit in well here. Most of the families are broken due to the large ammout of mothers or fathers working abroad. Many are in Costa Rica and the US working as cooks, gardeners, construction workers, etc... There are NO jobs in this country. The economy is so bad that most families have at least one person sending money from abroad. That is how our host family here survives, and it is how this economy stays afloat. In our family there are 5 people and a 5 day old baby living off the father´s wages as a gardener in L.A. He payed a coyote to cross the border 14 years ago. My mom here has lots of stories of people she knows who have died crossing the border from Mexico. These people are our family and friends now, so it really brings the immigrant situation home for us.
Politics... Things are heating up big time! The presidential vote is in 4 days, and there is really no idea of what will happen. It´s seeming like it´s 50-50 between communism and democracy. It´s a really historical time to be here. Many people are very scared, and people are just holding their breath. The newspaper reports that Daniel Ortega paid for thousands of Nicaraguan students studying medicine in Cuba to come home and vote. It´s all very scandalous and dirty.
I guess that´s all for now. We´re having a blast and just enjoying what comes our way every day. Thanks for folowing along! -Brenna

Did somebody say care package?

2006-10-25T17:22:00.000-06:00

List of goodies for care package (in no particular order)

...Dark Chocolate
...Magazines / Articles (Mountain Gazette, Yoga Journal, Climbing, Economist, Discover, Rolling Stone, NOT Newsweek (we already get that)…)
...Hot Tamales and/or Skittles and/or Twizzlers/Red Vines
...Sudoku
...Cranberry flavored Emergen-C
...iTunes Gift cards
...Burned copies of good CD’s or DVD’s (SNL, Simpsons, Seinfeld…)
...Pictures of you having fun (we’d love to be able to show you to our new friends)
...AA and AAA batteries
...Good books or suggestions
...Any random fun things that you can think of

**We are in no way implying that you should send us anything. We are simply responding to many questions about what we would like if we were to hypothetically receive packages. We will have a PO Box soon (likely by December) and we’ll let you know. Until then, any mail can reach us via: Cuerpo de Paz, Mason Wiebe or Brenna Brooks-Larson, Apartado Postal 3256, Managua, Nicaragua. Be sure to write Air Mail on anything.

More pics again...

2006-10-25T17:07:00.000-06:00

So, the other day we saw some monkeys in the trees on the side of the road. Pretty cool since I´ve never seen monkeys outside of the zoo. I know this is a pretty bad photo, but I had to use the digital zoom.

This is a drainage flowing into Lake Nicaragua. Pretty polluted.

Here is a group of us that went to Granada. That´s Lake Nicaragua in the background.

This is a picture that Brenna took of a kid in her town. I really like it.

10.22.2006

2006-10-25T17:05:00.000-06:00

This weekend, 6 of us went to Granada. It is a great colonial city on the shores of Lake Nicaragua. It’s pretty touristy, but not so touristy to be annoying. It was the first time we really went anywhere just to wander around. It felt really good to get out of our training towns for the day. Training is starting to wear a lot of us down. Every day is so structured and we are always either in language class or one of a seemingly endless supply of meetings or workshops. It was nice to have a break. I’ll put up some pictures later.

In a couple of days we will learn where our site will be, and then we will go visit it for about a week. During that time we will meet the people we will be working with, the family we will stay with for the first few weeks in site, and probably other important people like the mayor and the police. We will also try to look for a house to live in, and for places to buy things like beds and refrigerators, etc.

When we get to our site for good (a day or two after Thanksgiving, which I think we get to have at the embassy) the PC will give us a settling-in allowance that will help us buy necessities such as a bed and stove, etc. After that we will receive a monthly stipend from the PC that will be about the same as what a teacher here makes (you don’t even want to know what that is in US $). The stipend will be enough to pay rent and buy food and take buses.

Speaking of buses, they are the primary form of transportation here. Most people don’t have cars. In fact it is quite rare to own a car. Buses run to almost all of the towns. The majority of them are old school buses from the states. They are still big and yellow with the same seats and sticky floors. Some have been painted, but some still say things like “Tulsa Public Schools” on the side. There are also quite a bit of “microbuses” which are a bit bigger than mini-vans, but which hold on average 20 passengers, not comfortably. Also, on most buses, there are no scheduled stops, just a beginning and an end. Just let the driver know if you want them to stop and they will, even in the middle of the highway. I am able to get off right in front of my house. Also, if you happen to be standing on the side of the highway, and you signal, the bus will stop for you. This system, combined with the state of the highways here can make a 7 kilometer trip take 30 minutes.

It has been raining for the last 8 days, mas o menos, and because of that I have no clean clothes. Here is why. All of the laundry here is done by hand and then dries on a clothesline. If it is raining, then the clothes don’t dry. I tried hanging a few things in my room, but with the humidity brought on by the rain, they never dried and now smell funny. There are many things like this that make me realize how nice we have it in the States without really knowing it.

I gotta go. Thanks for all of your e-mails.

Another round of pictures.

2006-10-22T15:55:00.000-06:00

This is our friend Elliott. He lives with Mason and he´s posing here with the puppies his host-dog had a few days earlier. I think he´ll take that one to his site with him.

This is the active crater of Volcan Masaya. We went there a couple of weeks ago. It is a national park and we were able to tour the area with a guide. We also got to go into some caves that were formed during one of the eruptions. I think the last one was in the 1700s.

Here is another photo from the top of a cathedral in Leon. The volcano in the distance is called Mombotombo.

This is a tasty fruit called pitayah and it really is hot pink. It grows on a cactus-like vine that grows on a jicaro tree. It looks a bit like an artichoke, but the leaves arent edible. It makes a great juice with a bit of sugar and some lime juice.

What are we doing here? 10.16.06

2006-10-20T14:34:00.000-06:00

Peace Corps has 5 different sectors in Nicaragua: Health, TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), Small Business Development, Agriculture, and Environmental Education. Brenna and I are in the Environmental Education (EE) sector and we will primarily be working in elementary schools.

Our goal is to work with teachers in at least three schools and help them to incorporate environmental curriculum into their classes. In the beginning, we will be observing classes and eventually we will teach classes about the environment. Ideally the teachers will observe our teaching and learn from us because the next step is to co-plan and co-teach with them, and finally observe them using the new teaching methods, strategies and curriculum that we have taught them. We’ll see how well it goes.

We will be working for two school years, so we will definitely get to know the schools and teachers. Here, the School year begins in late January or early February and ends in late November. So, we will get to our site just as school is ending for the “summer” and we will have a couple of months to try to get to know the community and get an idea of the people we will be working with. This will also be a great time to work on my Spanish.

Down here there are a number of environmental issues, but in most communities the major concerns are deforestation and what to do with trash. Both of these problems are greatly compounded by the economic situation of the people here. Many people are only able to think about making sure they have enough food for their families, so anything else takes a backseat. Many forested areas have been clear-cut to make room for cattle grazing and trees are also cut down for firewood, as many families use woodstoves to cook their food.

I always think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (basically that people have certain needs i.e. food, shelter… that must be met before others can be achieved i.e. fun, nice things, education, self-actualization) when I see the environmental challenges facing this nation. I think that until people don’t have to worry about food and clothes and shelter, it will be very hard to convince them to stop cutting down trees for firewood or to stop throwing their trash in the streets. I know that all of these problems can eventually be worked out with education, but that is another thing that costs money, which most of these people don’t have. I guess that is where our work comes in…

Check back for more rantings or random Nica tidbits.

Hasta luego.

More pictures

2006-10-15T14:26:00.000-06:00

Here is a really skinny dog. They´re everywhere. Most of them have owners, but dogs here are seen more as guards than companions.

Brenna took this picture of medicinal herbs for sale in the market here. Everyone I´ve met knows all of the plants and which ones are good for which ailments. It´s very interesting.

This is the church in my town at sunset. Most towns have a Catholic church attached to a park in the center of town.

In front of my house. Those are my host nephews and a friend with their new cow. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

These two perritos are Pimienta (in the back) and Clavito (up front) and they belong to Brenna´s host family. This picture was taken right when we got here, so they´re a bit bigger now but just as cute. I´m pretty sure we are going to take Clavito with us.

I recently found out that you can click on any picture and make it bigger. For that reason I am making them smaller on the screen because it is faster. Enjoy!!

2006-10-13T19:17:00.000-06:00

This is a view from my front porch. The volcano is called Mombacho, and the City of Granada is on the other side. I love having this view every day.

Here we are on top of a church in the city of Leon. There were great views of the Nica volcanoes from up there and it´s the biggest church in Central America! Pretty cool. And if you´re into poetry, the tomb of Ruben Dario is inside.

We've finally started a blog...

2006-10-13T18:25:00.000-06:00

Hello and welcome to our blog. We hope to add to this often so that we can keep you all updated with our lives as Peace Corps Volunteers in Nicaragua. We are both Environmental Education (EE) volunteers, so we will be working with teachers, trying to help them infuse environmental ed. into their classes. We will also be involved in various other projects, but we’ll have to wait and see what those will be.

Right now (early October) we are in training. Training varies depending on your language ability, so Brenna and I are having completely (almost) different experiences. Since she was practically fluent in Spanish before coming here, she had only 2 weeks of language class and I think it was pretty informal. I, on the other hand, could put together maybe one or two sentences at a time that consisted of no more than 5 words.

It is amazing how organized it is. There are three different sectors in our training class: EE, Agriculture, and English (TEFL). We were first split up by sector, and then by language ability. So all of the Ag volunteers are training in one part of the country, all of the TEFL in another part of the country… Then, in each sector, we are further grouped according to our Spanish ability. So I live (during training) in a town with 2 other EE trainees who spoke almost no Spanish before this. Near our town, all of the other EE trainees live in 4 separate towns with people of similar abilities. We get together with all of the other EE trainees every Friday and have meetings and classes all day, and also in the afternoons on Wednesdays. All day Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and half a day on Wednesday, I am in Spanish class.

Class is non-formal. There are 3 of us and most days we have 2 teachers. The focus is really on us being able to communicate and interact with the community. We spend the vast majority of class speaking. We also walk around town and practice talking to different people. A huge chunk of our learning comes from just talking to our families, since they obviously don’t speak English. I really am amazed that I’ve only been here for 5 weeks and I’m already able to carry on conversations and do things I didn’t think I’d be able to do with my language ability. It’s really exciting.

Another aspect of training is the technical side: teaching and doing environmental activities. We have spent a bit of time observing in elementary schools, and I even taught a 45 minute lesson in a 3rd grade class! After only 4 weeks of Spanish class!! The people who were already fluent have taught more than that, but they don’t have the whole language obstacle to overcome. We (the other trainees in my town and me) have also formed a group of 6th grades with whom we have built a vivero (tree nursery). It is quite small; we planted 50ish seeds and about half are growing. It is mostly just for practice, but we hope to have the kids transplant the trees elsewhere after we leave our training town and go to our permanent sites.

Speaking of our permanent site, we will find out in about 2 weeks I think. I am not allowed to say here specifically where we will be ( it’s a Peace Corps policy to protect our safety), but if you want to come visit or are just wondering, we’ll let you know some other way where it is we will be living. Right now during training, we are living in the Department (like a state) of Corazo, which is in between the big lake and the Pacific Ocean. No, we haven’t been to the beach yet, but we plan to soon.

I’m running out of time, but I think we’ll be able to update this more frequently in the future. Be sure to e-mail us if you have any specific questions.

The picture above is of some kids in the park in my town. I'll try to add more later, but it takes a while.