Okay, here are the blogs from the last month. They should all be dated and listed below in order, be sure to read them in order as some of them refer to prior entries. I still have not received my camera, so no pics yet. Hopefully I will get it this week. I've got to go to Esteli wednesday to friday for a meeting about the English program. There are some American volunteers here who are retired teachers and they are going to be teaching a little seminar to help us. I am very greatful for this. As soon as I get the camera I plan to open a flker account where all my pics can be seen, I'll let you all know.
In other news, Callie and I are being eaten alive by zancudos. They are much like a mesquito but with a wing span that is about an inch and a half. The bites are painful and big, they swell like a mosquito bite but hurt worse and heal more slowly. Our ankles are covered with bites that are turning to big scars, and we even make efforts to wear pants and socks and repellant. They are still getting us no matter what we do. The scary part is that these are the pleasant little animals that carry Dengue. Many bites so far and all is still well. I think they will go away as the weather changes soon to the dry season. Apparently we've only got about another 3 weeks of rain left.
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Tuesday October 8th
A couple nights out in Managua. Saturday night we went out for Karla’s birthday. We dined, we danced, we drank our fill of Flor de Cana and soda, and witnessed the rare and unexplained birthday ritual of the Cream of Nicaragua. Yes, bizarre, very bizarre. For our evening of fun we went to dance at a nightclub in Managua (this place was very expensive even by American standards, too expensive for us and definitely for most Nicaraguans). Whenever someone has a birthday at this club there is an Asian man on staff who pulls them aside, gets up on a bar with them, dresses them in a Kimono, and sings the birthday song to the crowd in English (very odd, most Nicaraguans don’t speak English at all). Then, the odd and aged man grinds a bit with the birthday girl (there were 5 birthdays that night at the club, all women). The rest of the night the birthday employee sits and drinks red wine waiting for the next ceremony. Way weird, really.
Sunday night was the night of the big show. The national stadium is divided, basically, into two sections: the field, and the seated areas that are completely blocked off by chain link fences and locked gates. We were part of the poor crowd behind the giant fences. The main goal in our section, it seemed, was to make it into the other section. With this end in mind people rushed gates, bribed police and guards, and tore apart fences to crawl through holes. Drinking at a show in Nicaragua is much easier than at home. In Nicaragua you just buy an entire bottle of rum on the path in front of your seat, you can also buy cups, mixers and ice, then you just make your own cocktails all night. Fabulous.
All in all, great fun. I danced the night away, and I am not one for dancing either. Must have been the Managuan heat….since it deffinately was NOT the music, which I have not got much to say about. It was the Black Eyed Peas, really…enough said.
Most importantly, this weekend I met a group of good people in Nicaragua that made me very proud to be a part of the volunteer community here. They are all very welcoming, giving and sincere people and I am blessed to have met them all this weekend.
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Wednesday October 9
Upon returning to Cusmapa this weekend I decided that if I want to make some waves here I’ve got to start splashing around a bit. I’ve been hanging out in the manualidades classroom getting to know the kids and the teachers, I have suggested expanding the program there and everyone seems really interested. AltaGracia, the manualidades teacher seems very supportive of new ideas, so my goal this weekend and the coming week is to research what supplies I need to have sent here, and what supplies I can get here, and make a detailed list of ideas. Hopefully we can have a meeting sometime soon to discuss the best way to go about it. I feel a little nervous about starting this program since my Spanish is so bad, but I figure jumping right in is a good way to improve it.
Yesterday I suggested to the school’s director, Dona Paula, that we have an English class for the adults at the school, so the teachers can learn English. Paula seemed to really like the idea and said she’d ask around. Today one of the teachers asked me about the class, so I guess there is interest. I think it could end up being really great, I’ll get to know the other teachers, and the English program could be more sustainable if the locals were able to teach it themselves in the absence of American volunteers. I really hope it works out, if it does I will be forced to learn to teach English in a hurry, but I’ve been reading a lot about education theory, so hopefully I’ll be okay. I’m thinking that with an all adult class I won’t ever speak Spanish with them, so my lack of ability in the Spanish language hopefully won’t hold me back too much.
I taught my first English class solo today. Callie accidentally rescheduled her choir class at the same time so I had the class all to myself. It went SO well, I was very pleased. The kids were engaged, we learned and had fun. I think I was lucky though, because the weather is bad today so attendance was low…I had about 10 kids.
I learned yesterday that October is supposed to be the rainiest month of the wet season, and so far I believe it. The dirt road that runs in front of our house resembles a river more every day. This weekend while we were traveling (we are lucky to have missed it) the rain was so much that there was no power at all for the whole weekend. It rained yesterday and all night last night, and it is raining right now, so the public schools were cancelled today and attendance at Fabretto is dismal, for students and teachers alike. It is also really cold. I don’t think I packed nearly well enough for this weather, I’m wearing my fleece and rain jacket everywhere, and I wear my fleece to bed. I guess it’s only for this month and then in gets really hot, so I think I can tough it out.
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Saturday Morning, October 13th
The rain has not stopped for more than a couple hours here and there since Tuesday morning when we got back to Cusmapa. That means it has been raining pretty much non-stop for over 96 hours. School has been cancelled until further notice at the Instituto (that’s the public school) and Fabretto might as well be closed because no one is coming to classes anyway (except for a couple of Callie’s ever dedicated choir students). The roads are terrible; the dirt road in front of my house is half river half road. I can’t imagine how buses are making it up the mountain at all, though apparently they are…luckily, since the road up here is the lifeline of Cusmapa. The air is so wet that there is a film of water on the floor and other surfaces; everything feels a little slippery and cold. My wet jeans and shoes aren’t drying.
People here are saying there has not been rain like this since Hurricane Mitch (that hugely destructive hurricane? Yes.). When Hurricane Mitch came the roads were out for two and half months and people started to go hungry since no food could make it up the mountain. We have our wonderful garden (though some of it has been destroyed by the rains, we lost a banana tree) to sustain us and we also walked around town to buy extra food just in case.
Ironically, our water is turned off and our tank is slimming, so we have to be careful how we use water this weekend so we don’t run out. That means no showering or flushing toilets, which we tend not to do anyway, so I think we’ll be okay.
In other news…..
Thursday morning instead of classes there was a teacher’s meeting, no one plans the meetings, so attendance is never complete and teachers miss really import info, as was the case with this meeting. At the meeting it was announced that all teachers are to have their entire plan and budget for the entire 2008 school year completed by Monday morning. Hmm, sounds crazy right? I thought so too, but after learning more it seems almost pointless to make a budget at all since there is no money to fulfill it anyway. I think there is even a “budget” now with a real dollar (Cordoba) amount attached to it that is kind of like a pretend budget…because it sounds like the money isn’t actually there. I don’t know, my Spanish is bad so I’m surely not getting it all right, but it all seems a little backwards to me. Nonetheless, Callie and I drew out a plan for the English program and I made at least a beginning list for a bare bones program for papermaking and wood block printing. We asked for everything we want and are hoping for the best. Until then I continue to guard my one white board eraser, that I bought myself in Somoto, since I may not be able to find another if I lose it.
Being forced to make a plan (however unrealistic) was positive in some ways since it gave me a clearer goal for the next couple months.
At the meeting I was especially happy to find out that almost every teacher at the school signed up to take my English course. They made a list and chose a time and gave me the day they’d like to start….I was completely surprised by all of it, I went to suggest the idea at the meeting and they all already knew about it! They made the class five days a week at 8am for an hour (before their other classes start). There are no other classes at Fabretto that are five days a week; mine will be the only one. What a pleasant surprise it was to see so many people sign up and with such apparent intent! I really hope that all 20 of them actually attend…at all, and consistently. I begin the class on Tuesday morning.
For my art classes I proposed a paper making program and a wood block printing program. The wood block program can start soon. I have some supplies that I brought with me from home, and others I think we can find in Managua (I hope, there is no art community here really, from what I can tell…universities don’t even have art programs, so supplies might be difficult to come by). The papermaking program will take more planning and constructing of materials, so it will not start until next school year. (This school year ends in about 6 weeks; the next begins in February.) This gives me time to work with Maximo, the gardener at the school who also maintains the garden at my house, to learn about local plants that may work well for paper pulp. It also gives me time to work with Adrian, the carpenter at Fabretto, to build a tank for water and paper pulp, frames and screens to pull sheets, etc. AND, it gives me time to experiment with all of it before teaching it.
I think the papermaking and printing programs could end up working really well together. We could print on paper that we make and ultimately sell our creations. I definitely think there is a market for hand made paper, especially if it’s marketed right (community development project…fair trade...indigenous materials…recycled materials….etc.) I think we could also make and sell cards, calendars, etc. as part of the printing program.
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Sunday evening, October 21, 2007
Callie’s birthday weekend in Esteli.
Esteli was great, I really like the city a lot and it is always fun to be there. There are a lot of fun things going on there all the time. As is necessary when going to Esteli, we had a lunch at La Casita and did all our grocery shopping for the next several weeks at our favorite grocery in Nicaragua, La Segovia.
Saturday was a big anniversary for La Segovia, so when we showed up to do our shopping there were tents and bands, free food, raffles, and, most importantly: free beer. We each had several while we shopped, it was magnificent. La Segovia has the best wine selection around, so Callie and I decided to stock up our mountain home. We can’t buy wine in Cusmapa and you can’t get it in Somoto either, so we went all out in Esteli. We talked to the grocery manager and got him to give us a bulk discount on our entire purchase for buying a case of wine. It worked out great!
To celebrate Callie’s twenty third birthday we had dinner at a delicious paella restaurant. The paella was amazing, a real treat. The meal was way too expensive for our budgets, but for a special occasion we all justified it. The restaurant is a charity in Esteli that contributes food and money to help street children. They have a spacious dining room to accommodate large groups, as there was last night. A big group of Evangelical missionaries were dining and drinking, and we had the unfortunate experience of talking to them for a while. Poor Callie got cornered by the creepy and drunk minister who took immediately to preaching his nonsensical Evangelical mumbo-jumbo to her. After that experience we were all ready for a couple drinks.
We hopped a couple cabs to El Samaforo, a night club on the edge of town. El Samaforo is a giant club that is all open air. It has a big stage for bands to play and two dance floors. Last night there were two bands that played. The first was a group of young guys from Ocotal that were great. They played a fantastic cover of Another Brick in the Wall. It was a Nicaraguan version of the Pink Floyd song with higher tempo, louder bongos and acoustic guitar; it made the song fun and new.
Drinking at that bar last night I think I spoke the best Spanish of my life! A couple drinks and suddenly I could understand what people were saying and actually respond. It was great! I speak drunk Spanish marvelously!
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The rain in Cusmapa and its victims.
Monday October 22
Classes at the public schools have been cancelled for the entire week because of the rain and the damage to many homes in the area. Many roofs are caving in. A headline in one of the newspapers said that Daniel Ortega has announced that the destruction and death from the rain and the hurricane last month has put the country in a state of disaster. I think the headline said there have been several hundred deaths related to the rain, and there are surely many more that are undocumented. There have been a couple in Cusmapa alone, and I’m sure there are more than I know.
Two of the deaths in Cusmapa were the cousins of our students and friends, Anyelka and Jubelkis. They have lost three cousins this year. The one earlier in the year was sick and went to the health center where they gave him a bad shot that killed him. The girls did not know what he was sick with, but did say the injection was mala.
Last week, the second, a twenty year old cousin of theirs slipped on one of the wood planks that you have to cross to get over the giant cement drainage ditch that runs along our street. He hit his head and drowned. This happened in the very, very early hours of the morning, so it is unclear weather he was sober or not. The ditch is four to five feet deep and has no guard rails at all, the plank that functions as a bridge is about sixteen inches wide, rickety, and slippery. I worry for the kids who play next to the ditch everyday. I am surprised I have only heard of the one accident there, I wonder if there have been more.
Callie and I have wondered if anyone on the scene at the drowning knew CPR. The girls told us they took him to the health center but when they got there he was already dead.
The last, yesterday, was a three month old baby that died of pneumonia. Anyelka tells me that because of the rain they have nothing dry in the house and that the water is leaking into the house through the walls. I don’t think they had dry clothes for the baby. I wish they would have asked us for a blanket, we would have given them one.
I think a community emergency health seminar would be an incredible idea here. Callie has been talking some about it and when her mother, who is a doctor, visits this January she may teach one. Teaching this community first aid and CPR would be so incredibly helpful for them I think. It is terrible that they do not have a place where they can go for dependable and safe medical attention. I even question the competency of the doctor employed by Fabretto that works at the school (a different “doctor” than the one at the Cusmapa health clinic). Check out Callie’s blog for her experiences with him, like when she was stung by a scorpion and when she injured her ankle. (callieinnicaragua.blogspot.com).
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10-27-07
Saturday Morning, the day after our first dinner with Mayerling and after completing the giant fish in manualidades
Yesterday we painted the giant fish. Marcos did not come to class a single time the entire week and thus missed the creation of his brain child. I am sad and disappointed by this.
The fish ended up being a fun and creative project that the kids really enjoyed. The final product is dynamic with all colors, many materials, many shapes, lines, and textures. The body curves slightly and appears to be turning in the air, it moves gently on the cord it is suspended from.
From beginning to end the kids were busy participating. They bent and secured the wires, they applied and taped the cardboard and paper, they got their hands wet in the papermache and applied it over the entire body. Yesterday, they painted the entire surface first one side red and the other purple, then afterwards applied all other colors and patterns. They painted with rags, small brushes, and their hands. After the painting energy had died down the last remaining student glued on a wire mustache and made paper stars that she stuck to the wet paint.
The fish now resides suspended from a cord in the corner of the comedor. Everyone can see it ever day when they go to eat lunch. It has enough space to turn in the air so both
Mayerling is a Cusmapan woman of 21 years who is not married and has no children. She has dreams to study and travel. She is a rare, rare bird in these parts. Callie and I invited her over for dinner yesterday. We cooked her a dinner of Thai red curry and rice with peanuts, raisins and coconuts....a bit of a change from the usual Nicaraguan diet of beans and white rice. I don’t think she cared for the food at all, but politely choked it down and declined a second serving.
The dinner ended up being a great time, I got to practice my Spanish a ton and Mayerling was hillarious all night. Callie and I experienced our first dirty jokes in Nicaragua, which Mayerling told one after another. Every one Callie and I looked at each other in disbelief...both thinking: did she really just say what I think she said??? She will be invited back for another evening muy pronto.
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11-4-07
Friday was the Day of The Dead.
Saturday afternoon in Somoto Callie, Mike and I took a long stroll through the cemetery. The cemetery in Somoto is large and spread out, it spans over several small hills and as you walk through it you walk towards the mountains that are spread out before you. The coronas from the holiday were on all the graves, hung over crosses, spread out on the ground, piled on graves stones. Live and fake flowers covered the ground. Much of the overgrowth that normally crowds the graves during the rest of the year had been burned. There was candle wax soaked into the charred grass at the foot of many sites where the lights had been maintained for several days consistently. All colors can be seen at a cemetery after the Day of The Dead. The graves themselves are painted in every color, blue is by far the most common, and all the flowers and flower coronas make for a lively and brilliant sight. The graves are a mix of wealthier family plots with statues and small church-like tomb structures to small crosses made of two planks nailed together, all side by side. There are graves of old wood, concrete, tile, and sometimes small marble statues; they vary from names hand scrawled in paint to long titles inscribed in stone.
As you walk through this cemetery the feeling is not at all like the serious and austere mourning you feel in the United States. It is a place that has a thin veil of mystery that barely clouds the abundance of energy and life that the people here maintain in their relationship with death.
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Bus!
After a night of debauchery in Somoto, Callie, Mike and I left Saturday morning on an early bus to Esteli where we needed to go to the bank and our favorite grocery store. We were all a bit tired and had hope for seats on the bus and wishes for, at a minimum, music at a low volume. None of our hopes were fulfilled.
To paint a better picture of a bus in Nicaragua.... Imagine an old American school bus that was retired in the States ten to twenty years ago, was shipped to Central America, repainted and wired for music with a simple cd player and big speakers. The seats are torn and sometimes patched vinyl, the windows mostly work, but some will not open. There are racks on the roof, where not only bikes, food, mattresses, furniture, and other items are placed, but where people often ride when the inside is too full. There are two, if not three with a child on someone’s lap, people in every seat, and the aisle crowded with people leaning against or hovering over you. People carry on plants and chickens in addition to their backpacks and grocery bags, these items cover the floor of the aisle and fill the overhead racks. Others come on and get off at many stops selling sandwiches, rosquillas (maize and cheese baked yummies), rosquitos (same as rosquillas with sugar), tajadas (plantain chips), and other snacks. In the cities the wares are often expanded to cell phones and cell phone accessories, odd assortments of electronic equipment like headsets, and batteries, water in bags, and candy. The music is usually very, very loud. There are the same five dance-remixes of eighties hits, an abundance of Michael Bolton (who everyone here strangely loves), spoken-word evangelical rhetoric, LOUD reggaeton (not to be confused with reggae), wailing romantica, and if you are lucky, ranchero. I often hear the same song three if not four times in a single ride.
This was our ride Saturday morning. On this particular bus the driver seemed to be in a bit of a rush and was driving through the many curves in our road at an excessive speed. One of these curves he took too fast and a large truck coming from the opposite direction caught the back side of the bus breaking out the windows in the second half of the bus, banging in the back corner and breaking the back door. This happened very quickly and loudly, glass dust burst into the bus in a large cloud showering the people closest to the impact with small pieces of broken window. Luckily, no one was hurt, everyone was just startled. The truck that hit us did not even stop, and at first it seemed out driver was not going to either. After a couple hundred yards he pulled off to the side of the road where everyone got off the bus. After standing around for a little while waiting to see what was going to happen, everyone just got back on the bus to continue the journey. The three of us decided this was not the best idea and instead demanded our money back (received only half) and flagged down the next bus headed our way. We stood, still shaky, for the other hour of our trip, amidst the screeching and moaning of a woman singing of her sad, sad love affairs, all of us taking account of the lifting of our illusions of safety on these roads.
