nica nicky

Adios, Mundo

2009-04-30T21:52:00.000-07:00

The final post, as written on my flight back home...

As I write this last post, I have already left Nicaragua. In fact, I am currently on the plane, probably somewhere over Mexico en route to Houston. And that means that after a week of progressively more difficult goodbyes, yet another good thing has, in fact, come to an end.

After telling myself all week that I was ready to go home, it was much harder than I expected to finally leave our house in San Isidro once and for all. I think it finally hit me as I locked the door and waved goodbye to one last neighbor kid while saying ‘Adios, Mundo.’ I said that because the boy’s name is Mundo (short for Edmundo), but as I said it I realized the greater implications of that final goodbye. After all, in Spanish, ‘Adios Mundo’ means ‘Goodbye, World’, and I really was saying farewell to the little world that I’d been a part of over the last four months, a place I hadn’t realized existed half a year ago but will now miss so much.

For anyone who has studied or volunteered abroad, gone to college, moved to a new city, or just plain grown up, it’s a familiar story. Places once considered foreign and new – where you cried because you didn’t know anyone and you missed your old life – can, in even a very short time, turn into places that later make you cry when you have to leave them. In other words, they can turn into ‘home.’ At age 23, I have already experienced this phenomenon many times over, with ‘homes’ in Cedarburg, Milwaukee, New York, Chicago and now Nicaragua. And it is because of these other experiences of the changing definition of home that I leave Nicaragua momentarily sad but also confident that I will stay connected to this place well into the future. Already, my Skype buddy list has doubled in the last week as I’ve promised to ‘estar en contacto’ with all my friends from work. My suitcase is currently filled with jewelry made by the children of the NicaHope project which I plan to sell back in the States (prepare to be asked!) I have already begun discussions with Fabretto about ways to stay involved, such as through the Wisconsin-Nicaragua partnership I wrote about awhile back. Finally, every goodbye I said over the last week ended with me saying ‘I’ll be back in November’- and not just because it’s easier to say that than to say goodbye for good. I really do look forward to spending a week back here next fall/winter, as well as future trips for years to come.

In closing, thanks to all for reading this blog and sharing this amazing experience with me. While it does feel a bit sad to say goodbye to ‘Nica Nicky,’ 'Chi Nicky' is excited to be back with all of you very soon.

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Last pictures here and here

A few thoughts from the last day...

2009-04-29T15:28:00.000-07:00

Today was my last full day here in Nicaragua, and it's been a really good if bittersweet end to the 4 months here. Just thought I'd jot down a few thoughts from the day. Don't worry, blog readers...this will not be my last entry. I'm planning on posting one more from the airport tomorrow to close things out.

I started out the day going up to one of the San Isidro schools one last time. I had actually brought one of the cooks up there a camera from home, and I wanted to teach her how to use it. I was worried because she told me it 'didn't work' and that she'd need to buy a battery recharger to use it, which made me feel bad. However, I figured I'd give it a look and see if I could fix it. It was another one of those moments of realizing what we take for granted in the States. It turned out that she thought the camera was broken because she just has never used a camera and didn't know how to load the batteries, take pictures or access the photos to view them. Within 5 minutes of me looking at it, we were already using it. I think she was excited about it, and it was cute because she asked to take a picture of us together so that she'd have it as a memory.

I then rode back to the office with Roger, one of the Fabretto drivers who has taken really good care of me over the last four months. He was asking me about what I will do when I get back to the States and we were talking about where he lives and where I live. He told me he wanted to show me pictures of his family before I left, and then he said that he wanted to ask for one small gift from the States if/when I come back. I said sure, thinking he might ask about more 'dog food' (since I had shared puppy chow with him in the past). Instead, he said he'd like to see a picture of me and my home. I thought that was pretty cute...and since I actually have a lot of pictures on my computer, he and I did a little show and tell this afternoon (he showed me pictures of his family, and I shared pics of Chicago and my family).

This afternoon the receptionist here at the office, Dona Lucia (another person who has been a tremendous help to me) came by to give me a going away gift. They were two hand-embroidered pillow cases that say 'remember Nicaragua' that she had made for me by a relative. It was really sweet.

Other than that, there have just been a lot of goodbyes spread throughout the day. The big last hurrah will be tonight because we are having a little despedida happy hour with the office. After that, I'll probably say goodbye to the neighbors, do one last big ice cream run with the roommates, and hit the hay before my day of traveling tomorrow.

While it is really sad to say goodbye to everyone here, I am getting excited about heading home too (minus, perhaps, the part about flying to Houston amidst this crazy flu pandemic). There are a lot of fun things coming up this summer and I'm ready to get back to Chicago to see family and friends.

Off to happy hour I go...I'll be back tomorrow for the final entry, and then I'll see you all soon back in the States!

So what did I accomplish?

2009-04-28T09:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had my final meeting at work to hand over my last output and plan for the future. It was a good time to reflect on what, exactly, I accomplished in four months volunteering for Fabretto.

As a first priority, I created an Excel workbook that compiled the nutritional content of various typical Nicaraguan foods. By entering the quantity, in grams, of each one of these ingredients, you could see what percent of daily nutritional requirements were covered in total, as well as how much it cost.

From this tool, I made a list of raw ingredients that would best provide 40-50% of all required calories, vitamins and minerals while keeping to our budget of $0.30 per kid per day. I used this list to then build a 2 week menu of 10 nutritious, typical Nicaraguan plates, including vegetable and chicken soup, scrambled eggs, burritos, Indio Viejo (a stew), and Arroz a la Valenciana (a rice dish with chicken and tomato).

Once we had our final menu, it was time to implement it. I created several files to support this process, including a recipe book, an Excel workbook with the quantities of ingredients needed based on the number of kids eating, and a sheet that pulled together all of these ingredients into a consolidated order.

More importantly, we held a series of orientations and training sessions with cooks, administrators, warehouse managers and other key nutrition program contributors to explain our goals, introduce them to the new menu and teach them how to prepare the meals.

In addition to ensuring a healthy daily meal, the standard menu is also a key first step to centralizing purchasing within the organization. Knowing what each school is serving each week and what ingredients go into those meals allows Fabretto to know, at a macro level, the total amount of each ingredient it uses weekly by region. This information will be critical as negotiations with suppliers continue, because Fabretto should use its high volume as a bargaining chip.

Finally, beyond the menu, I also helped put together some data to give Fabretto a comprehensive view of just how much its nutrition program costs annually. Beyond the $0.30 per child they spend to buy food weekly, there are also costs associated with warehousing and transporting donated food, running the kitchens and administrating the program. This information is important for two reasons. First, Fabretto has recently begun moving toward a school sponsorship model of fundraising where possible. This means that Fabretto looks for donors to sponsor all the costs associated with a whole school, including supplies, salaries, and the lunch program. To know how much it costs to run the nutrition portion of a school, then, Fabretto needs numbers like these. The second use of the cost data is for allocating restricted funding received. If Fabretto gets a donation to cover the nutrition program, it should be able to use those funds to cover the various aspects of the program – not just food but also transportation, labor, etc. Without a clear picture and explanation of those non-food costs, though, this kind of allocation is difficult.

Some people have asked me if I’ve accomplished all I had wanted to at Fabretto, and that’s a hard question to answer. I would say that the projects described above represent about 2/3 of what I set out to do on day one, and that was back when I was only supposed to be here 3 months. However, that was also back when I didn’t quite realize the extent of the task at hand or the [slow] pace at which it would move. Once I readjusted my expectations in light of certain hurdles here in Nicaragua (sometime around February), I would say that my goals were close to that which I actually accomplished. The one project that I would have liked to see further along, however, was that of centralized purchasing. The menu that we’ve created is solid and at a price per child that is close to the budget. However, it does not save Fabretto much if any money over the level they were spending before. The real cost saving opportunities lie in taking the next step and negotiating with a handful of large suppliers for better prices and volume discounts. I would have loved to push those negotiations further than I did, but it became apparent to me early on that composing a list of potential suppliers was no easy task. Without many connections here in Nicaragua, and with few suppliers online, it was hard for me or the other volunteer that I worked with to really make much progress on this front.

The good news on the purchasing, though, is that the new volunteer that is coming in May to work on nutrition will be able to focus on that more than I ever was. With another person pushing along the progress already made, I’m fairly confident that Fabretto will be buying at reduced prices from centralized providers sometime this year.

The Last Weekend

2009-04-27T07:21:00.000-07:00

After some 15 blog posts on my various weekends here in Nicaragua, I have finally come upon the last. It goes without saying that the time has gone unbelievably quickly. However, I also find that, thinking back on weekends past, I’ve really done a lot. I’ve traveled to Granada, Leon, Laguna de Apoyo, Ometepe, Masaya and the beach. I’ve visited four of the five markets here in Managua, including the biggest in Central America. I’ve washed my clothes by hand on a washboard. I’ve had nights of going out and nights staying in and playing scrabble, crocheting, making dinner and eating Eskimo. In short, I’ve had a lot of fun weekends, and my last weekend no doubt continued this trend.

Friday night after making dinner at home, Kelly and I went to Caramanchel, the bar with the hammocks and wine, to see a concert with our friend Rosario and some of her other friends. We got there relatively early (since, to be honest, we had no idea when the show started) which was good since we got a table and got to see both of the opening acts. The main group finally came on around midnight, and it was a relatively young/new rock group that has become one of the most popular here in Nicaragua. They definitely put on a good, high energy show and we had fun dancing until pretty late.

Saturday was a big day for errands and cleaning in preparation for my despedida party that night. It actually worked out pretty well because our neighbor, who has a car and a PriceSmart card, helped us out with a bunch of it. Having direct transportation like that versus taking buses and hailing cabs probably cut a few hours off of our day and was well worth the $5 I paid him to do it.

First we went to PriceSmart on a hunt for, among other things, an ice cream cake. PriceSmart is a wholesaler much like Sam’s Club, and I have to admit that going there was like stepping back into the States momentarily. The set-up was exactly like a Sam’s Club at home, right down to the people with their sample tables in the aisles and the restaurant with greasy food and soft-serve beyond the check-out.

PriceSmart itself was kind of a disaster of a trip. We did score a huge 1.75L bottle of rum for a pretty good price, as well as 6 pounds of candy for the piñata, but beyond that it was all trouble. First, I couldn’t bring my bag into the store so our neighbor had to run it outside to some bag checking station. Then we realized they didn’t actually have ice cream cakes, just ‘cold cakes,’ which are easily confused with ice cream cakes because the words are the same in Spanish (queque helado). It was a bit of a maddening process to come to this realization too because I must have asked two or three people if they had ‘queques helados’ only to be led to the same place over and over where there were cakes kept in a fridge (not freezer) that were clearly not made of ice cream.

After we ruled out the cake, we went to the check out where I found out I couldn’t pay with my credit card, only cash, and also threw away the receipt that I would later realize was necessary for us to show at the door when we left. Then we got soft-serve (obviously) which gave me a brain freeze and made Kelly want to throw up. I also took out money at the ATM which, much to my dismay, came out in dollars instead of cordobas. In all my frustration over the mix up, I walked away from the ATM without taking my card back, which I only realized when our neighbor brought it to me after he took out cash. THAT would have been trouble if I’d left my only bank card/source of money sitting in the ATM. Then, just to really put the icing on the cold cake, we almost pulled away before realizing that my bag was still at the bag check. What a trip!

From PriceSmart things went a lot more smoothly – we got my piñata at the market and found a cake at the bakery chain in town. This cake, too, was a cold cake rather than an ice cream cake, but it ended up being the best cake I’ve had here in Nicaragua so that was okay.

When we got home, we finished getting ready for the party. By six we had about 15 of the neighborhood kids over anxiously awaiting the piñata. While we got it set up, they played with all the new games, which they LOVE, and which made me realize that Don’t Break the Ice, while a crowd favorite, is the most obnoxiously loud game ever created.

Soon enough it was piñata time, and the kids went CRAZY for it! I was literally beside myself watching the whole spectacle – from the kids begging for a turn to take a swing at it to the kids literally hurling themselves on the ground to scoop up the candy. It may have been one of the ten most dangerous things I’ve seen here in Nicaragua…and I’ve seen families of five riding on motorcycles. But, I guess that piñatas are dangerous by design, given that you have one kid swinging a stick near 15 others who are all gunning to get the candy out of the very target of the beating.

After an hour of the kids’ party, we were ready to clear them out and get ready for the adult party. My friend Rosario brought the pizza, Joe and I picked up the case of beer we bought for the occasion, and the people started coming pretty close to the 7:00 start time. There was a mix of neighbors, co-workers, and other volunteer friends, and it probably amounted to almost 20 people in all. We had a really good time hanging out and dancing…it was all I could have asked for in a despedida, and a great semi-last hurrah.

Sunday was basically spent doing work and packing around the house, though there was a glimmer of excitement when Kelly and I did Zumba (or rather, Kelly did Zumba and I showcased my inability to do any form of organized dance/work out). I also had my last Sunday night fritanga, which was good but made me nervous at the time since we had to go to a different place than usual. Joe described the experience as 'rolling the dice' because apparently they'd gotten parasites at this fritanga place before which, of course, made the food really appetizing. It's been 12 hours though and I feel fine so I think the dice landed in our favor.

The Kids are Back!

2009-04-24T07:24:00.000-07:00

After two weeks of basically gathering dust (except for the one night when Kelly, Joe and I played), the new games at the house finally got some use last night when three of the neighbor boys came over. The kids were sitting outside on the porch, and I told them that we had some new games. They immediately jumped up and ran to the game shelf (below) to check out the new toys.

Not surprisingly, the first game they pulled out was Don’t Break the Ice, and they really got into that one since a) they are young boys and b) the game involves pounding/breaking things.

Next we played Chutes and Ladders, my personal favorite. We had some problems with this one though, which I blame partly on my inability to explain the game without knowing the word for chute/slide in Spanish. It took a long time for the kids to figure out that you can’t climb slides or slide down ladders. They eventually got the hang of it.

Kelly taught them the third game, which was the always classic Candy Land. I hadn’t opened the Candy Land box prior, so it really brought back some memories to see old friends like Lord Licorice and Grandma Nut.

While I'm on a picture kick, here are some random shots from Ometepe that I never posted.

The Goodbyes Begin...

2009-04-23T12:23:00.000-07:00

Here in Nicaragua, goodbye parties are called despedidas, and they are muy popular. I’ve been planning one such party for this weekend with my friends in Managua, but I got a little surprise in Cusmapa yesterday because the administrator and a few others had an impromptu goodbye party for me as well.

On Tuesday, when I was talking to her (Sabrina) on Skype about the meeting in Cusmapa yesterday, I mentioned that I was sad because it would be my last visit. She said “Oh no, we have to throw you a going away party.” I told her that wouldn’t be necessary, but then we kept teasing about it yesterday.

At one point yesterday afternoon, I had been working in a different part of the office and walked back into administration unexpectedly. When I did, a girl was carrying a vase with some fake flowers in it, and when I looked at it, everyone in the room made a face at me like I wasn’t supposed to see. I covered my eyes, laughed, and then promptly turned bright red. Over the course of the rest of the afternoon, I saw people occasionally bringing in treats and sodas, so it was pretty apparent some sort of party was going down.

At the end of the day a huge herd of people (about 50% of whom I’d never met, humorously enough) came into the office for a ‘meeting’ and, of course, when I went in I found, instead, a going away party for me.

The director gave a little speech, everyone sang me a Spanish goodbye song, I gave a little speech (which was a little hard on the fly and in Spanish!), they passed out the sweet bread and sugarlicious soda, and a good time was had by all. It was definitely a thoughtful send-off, and it made me excited for round two on Saturday!

Top 20 Things I'll Miss about Nicaragua

2009-04-22T07:21:00.000-07:00

As I head into my last week here in Nicaragua, I thought it would be fitting to mirror the entry from one of my first weeks here about what I missed about the States and instead list off what I will miss about Nicaragua. I have to admit that some of the things on this list were not some of my favorite parts when I first got here.

20. Doing dishes? – There are some definite benefits of a dishwasher (not the least of which is sanitation), and this past Monday when I looked at the huge pile of dishes that hadn’t been washed because we ran out of water, it did make me sort of angry. Still, I have to say that in general, washing dishes with a little Simon and Garfunkel playing in the background at the end of the day has become pretty therapeutic for me.

19. Low prices – This one is pretty self explanatory…all my groceries for a week cost $10-15 dollars, and rum and diets are $1.50 at the bars every night of the week.

18. Pirated movies – Paying a dollar for all the latest releases from the States is awesome…even if you stumble across a dud now and then (like my copy of Confessions of a Shopaholic which is, inexplicably, dubbed in French) or have to watch on a laptop.

17. Endless summer – This is a mixed one for me – part of me will really miss having it be beach weather all the time…especially when it’s winter back at home. I still like the seasons though, and since I have the good fortune of coming back for summer and then fall (my two favorites), I don’t have to give this one up just yet.

16. Taxis without meters – Since you set the price of the cab ride at the beginning, it doesn’t matter how much traffic you sit in or how far you really end up going. I don’t look forward to watching the meter tick away back in Chicago…especially since the base fare is more than my average total fare here in Nica.

15. Cross country bus travel – I have to say that comparing work travel between home and here, I actually might prefer busing it in one of the Greyhound-style express buses over air travel. No security, no hassle, no early morning taxi rides. Only downside: no reimbursable $10 airport breakfasts and $5 airplane snacks.

14. People selling stuff everywhere – I still laugh every time someone passes selling fish, fruit, or rocks out of the back of their truck. It’s an essential part of my Saturday morning.

13. Kids/neighbors stopping in at random – As my roommates said the first few days I was in Nicaragua, it’s kind of like college the way the neighbors just float in and out of our open door. I’m sad to admit that I don’t even know most of my neighbors in Chicago, and I bet few of them would play ‘Don’t Break the Ice’ with me.

12. Cooking – I am going to try to do a lot more cooking once I get home, but the reality of my life as a traveling consultant still doesn’t permit much Monday through Thursday.

11. Market shopping – Even though the crowds, heat, and fly-attracting hanging meat can be a bit annoying at times, it’s still generally more fun to shop this way than at the Jewel.

10. Pulperias – Having about 8 tiny convenience stores within a block of our house comes in handy big time when you need eggs…or ice cream. That brings me to number 9…

9. Eskimo & Flor de Cana – There is both ice cream and rum in Chicago, but it is not as cheap or, dare I say, as good, as the Nicaraguan counterpart.

8. Speaking Spanish – I still continue to struggle with my Spanish in some contexts, finding it frustrating to communicate in the same way I can in English. Still, I am proud of how far I’ve come with my Spanish and will miss daily opportunities for practice and use.

7. Our porch – There’s nothing like waking up in the morning before it gets hot and sitting on our porch reading or watching the world go by.

6. Accessibility of the beach – It’s probably not surprising that the ability to hop a bus and be at the beach in 45 minutes makes my top ten.

5. Hobbies – At the risk of my Chicago life sounding quite boring, I have to say that before coming to Nicaragua, I did not read, draw, write or crochet nearly as much as I do now. Like cooking, I hope to keep these hobbies up, but realism tells me that when my free time begins to disappear, so will at least some of these hobbies (I am, however, hoping to be that consultant who crochets on the plane).

4. Having roommates – As someone who has always preferred to live alone in the States, this one even surprises me a little. I have remembered how fun it is to have someone to come home to and vent about your day, watch a movie with, eat dinner with, and so on.

3. Blackberry-free living – I have mentioned to a few people that recently, I have been hearing ghost blackberry vibrations as my mind turns to going back to work. I’ll think I can hear the vibrating sound (the one that tells me that I have an email from work), and then realize, to my relief, that my Blackberry is thousands of miles away. Not for much longer…

2. Sleep – Nine hours of sleep a day minimum is a luxury I haven’t had for years. I will miss this dearly.

1. The people – Not surprisingly, I have met some really fantastic people here – from neighbors to co-workers to other volunteers. And of course, as always seems to be the case with short experiences like this one, I feel like I am finally starting to get really close with people just as it is time to leave. Thank goodness for Skype to keep in touch in the interim and, with any luck, a trip back to visit later this year.

My second-last weekend

2009-04-19T15:58:00.000-07:00

It was a nice quiet weekend in Managua, which was a good change from all the traveling I've been doing as of late, but also bittersweet as I realize it is my second to last one here in Nicaragua. While I'm ready to go home in a lot of respects, it will still be hard to leave this place. I'm already thinking about when I'll be able to get back here for a week.

Friday I had my last meeting with the cooks and administrator in San Isidro. I'm going to miss that group since I've spent a lot of time working with them, my nearest neighbors. It was a good meeting too, so I feel pretty good about where things will be left when I'm gone.

Since I was up in San Isidro, I got to head home a little earlier than normal, and was also able to stop by Kelly's knitting class for a visit. They were dividing up the mounds of yarn that I brought back from the States, and they seemed excited to use it to start their new projects - booties, purses, flowers, and other crafts Kelly has taught them.

Friday night we went to an El Salvadorian restaurant for pupusas, which are tortillas stuffed with cheese, chicken, beans, and other goodies. We met our friend Jason there and had a good time hanging out until they just about kicked us out.

Saturday I made some french toast for us for breakfast (I think I have finally mastered most of our breakfast meals - pancakes, banana pancakes, french toast and gallo pinto). Then we went to an organic market just outside of town to get our groceries. They didn't have as much as we were expecting, but what we did buy there looks really good and fresh. Combining that with some other ingredients we'd purchased throughout the week - including a bottle of wine - we also had a killer dinner of BBQ chicken quesadillas with guacamole.

From there, Kelly and I had an impromptu girl's night (even though Joe was around too). First we attempted to make some premixed cookie mix I brought from the States without an oven. We pan fried some and made others in the crock pot. Neither really turned out like cookies, but it was processed goodness nonetheless. Then we made foot baths and did pedicures while sitting in our rocking chairs crocheting. It was quite the picture (we took a picture too, but I don't have it yet). I'm happy to report I learned a few new things about crocheting too. First, I found out that the knot I've been doing all along - which I thought was correct - was, in fact, my own misinterpretation/invention. I still like how it looks, so I'll call it the Knicky Knot (cheesy, I know) and keep going with it. I also learned how to crochet in circles, and I made a (sort of) hat. I'm hoping to learn how to make flowers before I go too...we shall see.

After girls night, we played some of the new games I brough from home, including Don't Break the Ice and Chutes and Ladders. We had some good laughs playing games made for ages 3 and up.

Today (Sunday) we were supposed to go on a trip to the beach with our neighborhood but it never ended up happening. Instead, Kelly and I came to a hotel where you can use the pool (and wireless internet!) for the day for a small fee. It's been a nice relaxing day of reading, emailing, swimming and tanning. I am definitely going to miss having a little piece of paradise like this within a few minutes of my house. Lake Michigan will have to work!

Since I'm doing my grand final tour of the north this week, I'm not sure how much I'll be able to write before Friday. I'll be back with a few more entries before the end, though, no worries.

I think I'm ready to go back to the El

2009-04-17T07:10:00.000-07:00

As you know, my morning commute here in Nicaragua is pretty different from what it was in Chicago. There's no El, no taxi, and no airplane...just me and 8 of my closest friends in the back of a pick-up truck.

There's always a little more adventure associated with my Nica commute than my Chicago commute, but today was really quite exceptional. Shortly after we got on the main highway heading for the office, we stopped at a stoplight. As we were waiting, a couple young kids came up and started begging for money. One of the boys, who was no more than 10 years old, had a plastic pistol, which I found a little disturbing. One of the guys in the truck was asking him something about the pistol and sort of teasing him. The boy's reaction was to pick up a rock the size of a baseball and hold it above his head, threatening to throw it at us in the truck. Great.

The man who originally taunted the boy was trying to talk him out of it and distract him while we waited for the light to change. He was fairly successful until the very end when the boy, seeing that we were moving, chucked the rock at the guy's back. Fortunately he couldn't throw very hard, and we were already on our way. Or so we thought.

Unfortunately, the light changed again before we could get out of the intersection. We turned around to see that the boy had recovered the big rock he'd thrown before, and was once again marching toward us with it held over his head. Fortunately, as he got close to us, one of the other guys in the truck grabbed it out of his hand. Unfortunately, that just prompted the kid to find other rocks, this time smaller, which he began firing at us in rapid succession. Again, thankfully, the other Nicas in the truck were able to catch or block them, so no one got hit and people even got a laugh out of the whole thing. Still, as we were pulling away, I thought "Only in Nicaragua would this happen and people find it funny. You can't make this stuff up."

Into the Home Stretch

2009-04-15T06:48:00.000-07:00

After another long day of traveling, I made it back to Managua late Monday ready to embark on the ‘home stretch’ of my Nicaragua experience. I came back bearing many gifts, almost all thanks to the generosity of family and friends back home. My suitcase was full of yarn for Kelly’s knitting group, spices for our kitchen, games and art supplies for the neighborhood kids, and a little bit of Easter candy…for me.

The roommates came to the airport to pick me up which was really nice because they helped me with my luggage and caught me up on the happenings from the week prior.

The biggest news story out of San Isidro was a bit of a disappointing one. Last week small amounts of money began disappearing on days when some of the neighborhood kids were over. Joe and Kelly finally isolated the culprits down to three, and it took until last night for them to find the guilty party, but the case has now been closed. Unfortunately the kids who were the troublemakers will have to earn their way back into the house and earn the ability to play all those fun new games.

The other big news was that Joe and Kelly broke down and bought a blender so that we no longer have to borrow the neighbor’s all the time. It’s been spaghetti sauce and milkshakes galore ever since. I think the blender usage has actually already surpassed the grill though, to be fair, one is a lot easier to use than the other!

Other than those two developments, though, I’ve basically just fallen back into the same routine as before I left. I was back at work yesterday and had a meeting with the Director and COO to discuss use of my last few weeks and plans for next steps. It sounds like there may be a ‘new Nicky’ coming down the pipeline too – but this woman has a nutrition degree from undergrad and an MBA from Kellogg, so she’ll probably put me to shame.

Last night I returned to bucket showers after a week of being spoiled with water pressure. The one point of good news, though, is that it’s gotten so hot here during the day that the water we save in buckets from the night before actually is still quite warm by the time I use it to bathe at night. How convenient!

At any rate, I know how quickly my last few weeks here will go, and, while part of me was ready to stay Stateside after my nice trip home, I know that I need to soak up all that Nicaragua has to offer – the good and the not-so-good – because I won’t have the opportunity for much longer.

P.S. Not to overkill on soliciting donations since I sent out an email to many of you already, but I just wanted to put out a reminder that I am trying to raise money for health and nutrition programs at Fabretto through Razoo pages that a co-worker and I created. Links are below - donate if you can. Thanks!

Nutrition:
http://www.razoo.com/widgets/1f516f7d-1724-479c-9f09-bcb42dd62613

Health:
http://www.razoo.com/widgets/39e7b7f1-9886-4303-91d1-3a35af327c5f

Planes, Trains and Automobiles: Managua to Cedarburg

2009-04-10T14:00:00.001-07:00

It's been awhile since my last post, so I figured I should check in with an update. There is a fair bit to share, too, since it's been a whirlwind week. I started out last weekend in Managua, then traveled from Managua to the island of Ometepe via truck + ferry for a three day vacation, then flew from Managua to Chicago, spent a night in the city, then took a train to Milwaukee, and got a ride home to Cedarburg. Therefore, this post is technically coming from my parents' kitchen, and not Nicaragua, but I think that's okay just this one time.

The trip to Ometepe was really nice and relaxing. I went with my roommates and another one of our friends, and it was a good, laid back group to travel with. Our friend Jason had another volunteer's truck for the week, so we were able to drive from Managua to San Jorge, the port where you leave to go to Ometepe. We then brough the truck on the ferry and crossed Lake Nicaragua to the island.

Ometepe is a pretty interesting place. The lake that surrounds it is the largest freshwater lake in Central America - if I recall, it's the same size as Puerto Rico - and it's also the only freshwater lake with sharks. The island has two volcanos on it, one inactive called Maderas and one active one called Concepcion. The place where we were staying was closer to Maderas, and to get there we had to drive a good hour by dirt road. Suffice to say it was pretty remote, which ended up being a good thing since it was a peaceful trip in spite of the usual chaos associated with traveling during Semana Santa.

We did lots of relaxing on the trip - reading in the hammock at our cabana, swimming at the tiny beach down the road, eating and drinking at the hotel restaurant, and sleeping. However, on the last day there (Tuesday), I decided to be adventurous, so Kelly and I signed up for the horseback riding tour to see monkeys. It was about as wild as you'd expect for a morning riding horses in a place where helmets, safety waivers, etc. are not widely used. In fact, the lesson that they gave us at the beginning of the trek was "here's how you go left...here's how you go right...kick them to go...GO!" It turns out that the critical 4th component of that lesson - Stop! - would have come in handy because within seconds of getting down to the end of the hotel driveway, my horse decided to start galloping full-out for about 5 minutes. It was a little frightening, but eventually I got Ballo under control and it was actually a nice ride. Seeing the howler monkeys was especially cool - I think we spotted about 10 in all.

After Ometepe it was a quick turn around to get ready for the trip home. I had an early flight out the morning after we got back, so I finished the last of my packing, arranged for my neighbor who has a cab to pick me up early in the morning, and then tried desperately to sleep in spite of the heat that now stays around all night in Managua.

The trip home itself was pretty uneventful, with the one minor bummer of one of my bottles of rum breaking in my bag on its way to Miami and soaking all of my clothes in booze. Fortunately nothing was damaged though. Getting back was also a lot less shocking than I had expected. I think I'll be really glad I came home for a bit, because it's a good warm-up for the final return, plus I got to bring back all kinds of souvenirs now and can take some things from the States back to Nica too.

So far my mini vacation here in the States has been really nice and made me excited to come back to friends and family more permanently in May. I've also been doing quite the tour of my favorite foods that I've missed, including Ian's pizza in Chicago (in case you're not familiar, they make things like Mac N Cheese pizza, and it's amazing), Kopp's for a burger and Custard, all you can eat crab legs, and so much more!

Since the blog is not called Wisco Nicky, I suppose that's enough of my adventures at home. I'll be here until Monday, and I'm sure my return to Nicaragua early next week will be busy, but I'll be back with more stories (and pictures from Ometepe) soon!

Checking in...

2009-04-01T08:29:00.000-07:00

For all the loyal blog checkers out there, I wanted to just quickly say that I'm alive. It's been another really busy week, so apologies for not writing more frequently. I think it's finally setting in for everyone that I only have a few weeks left (myself included), so the work is just getting piled on. Add that to the extreme heat here - probably well over 100 degrees daily - and I haven't been an extremely happy camper this week.

However, I do have LOTS to look forward to in the next week and a half. On Friday, we are supposed to have a party with some of the other volunteers and neighbors at our house. We've been talking about doing something like this for awhile, but it looks like we'll finally get it together this week. It should be good practice for my goodbye party, which is coming up soon as well!

This weekend is technically the start of the week of vacation for Semana Santa here, so I am heading off to Ometepe, which is an island in the Lake of Nicaragua with two volcanos on it. It's supposed to be really beautiful, and I'm staying in a place that is fairly remote, so I'm excited for some swimming, horseback riding, volcano climbing (maybe) and just relaxing in general. Still to be determined if a few friends from Managua will be joining or not - but hopefully that will work out for at least part of the visit.

I plan on getting back from Ometepe Tuesday evening. Wednesday morning (bright and extremely early), I will be heading to the airport and then back to the States for Easter. I'll be stopping through Chicago Wednesday night (if you're around and want to grab a drink, let me know!). Then I'll be back home in the 'burg Thursday through early Monday. I'm really looking forward to being home for a bit, catching up with everyone, unloading one round of souvenirs to make room for more, and stocking up on some things to bring back to Nicaragua for the home stretch.

Because of all this excitement, I probably won't be posting much over the next week. Once I get home, I can put some pics from Ometepe up or, better yet, I can see many of you in person and share the stories!

Thanks, as always, for reading - looking forward to being back Stateside very soon.

Beach weekend...aka heaven

2009-03-30T10:51:00.000-07:00

Our big volunteer trip to the beach finally arrived this weekend, and it was truly worth the wait. It was probably one of the most relaxing weekends I've had in awhile, and certainly a favorite from all my time here in Nicaragua. It was so generous of my friend Rosario to share her family's amazing beach house with us for the weekend!

The trip started on Friday night after work with the core group of people that stayed at the beach the whole weekend. It was Rosario, me, Kelly, and then two volunteers who are living in Cusmapa right now, Monica and Pablo. They are both from Spain and are here working on a project for a joint national park between Honduras and Nicaragua.

After grocery shopping and a few other stops, we didn't get to the beach until after dark. Then Kelly made some delicious pasta with alfredo sauce, and we played Uno and talked well into the early morning.

I'm really glad we got there Friday night, even if it was late, because waking up on the beach Saturday morning was awesome. We had plenty of time to read in the hammocks, swim in the ocean and the pool and just relax in general before the big group of Saturday visitors came. They were some of Rosario's friends from growing up, as well as visitors from Miami who work with an NGO called the American Nicaragua Fund. They stayed until sunset, and then it was back to the five of us. We had ambitions of going out to the disco nearby, Camacho's, but everyone was tired from the full day in the sun (and I was, surprise surprise, sunburned). We ended up just calling it an early night.

Sunday was generally more of the same - reading, lounging, swimming in the ocean, etc. Rough life, huh? One major highlight from Sunday, though, was that we walked over to the fishing boats near the house and bough some fresh fish for lunch. Per usual, Kelly worked some wonders in the kitchen and it turned out to be a really delicious lunch. We also had some other visitors for the day. A couple people that work at NicaHope, which is the Fabretto extension project in the dump, stopped by for a few hours, so that was fun too.

All in all, there's not too much to report on from the weekend because so much of it was just lounging and relaxing. That's what made it so great though! Also, I have lots and lots of pictures to share, which should fill in the gaps. Here are the ones from the beach, as well as some older ones from Cusmapa last week, as well as the dance party we had with the neighborhood kids awhile back that I stole from Kelly. Enjoy!

You're eating what??

2009-03-27T14:18:00.000-07:00

Since I've gotten some complaints about my lack of blogging this week, here's one more post before the weekend.

Today was yet another one of those glorious days when I received a little slip of paper from the post office saying I got a package. Even though some of the excitement was lost because of the fact that I knew exactly what was in it (since I pried it out of my mom), that also ADDED to the excitement because I knew it was one of my favorite treats. Puppy chow!

Whenever I get things in the mail, I have made a point of sharing some of the sweets with all the people who help me get to the post office. I think this tradition is actually working in my favor, because I've been able to get there more and more easily the more cookies I give to the receptionist!

At any rate, when she told me I had a package and said she was wondering what kind of 'galletas' (cookies) would be inside, I said, "Actually, it's not cookies, it's..." and then I realized that I was about to tell her it was dog food, since I can't think of a better translation. She made a face, and I told her it wasn't really dog food, just that was the name. "Trust me, it's good."

When we got to the post office, I found my puppy chow and immediately opened it up. For better or worse, the Nicaraguan heat had melted it, so you couldn't see the powdered sugar any more and it was all stuck together. It was also coming out in sticky clumps, and generally didn't look that appetizing. I told the driver, "Since you helped me get my package, I want to share some of this with you. It's...puppy food." I'm sure that between looking at the melted goo and hearing me describe it as dog food, he was probably like "Gee thanks, I should have had someone else drive!"

Still, when he tried it he said it was very "rico" or delicious. The receptionist loved it too, though she had the same initial reaction as the driver. In fact, even when I told a few of the Americans that I got puppy chow, they had no idea what I was talking about. Must be a Wisconsin thing. Regardless of where it came from, though, it's one of my favorite inventions of all!

Thanks for sending, Mom!

Training in el Campo

2009-03-27T13:58:00.000-07:00

Sorry that I’ve been MIA from the blog the second half of this week after starting so strong Monday and Tuesday. We had our menu training in the communities of Cusmapa Wednesday and Thursday, so I was up in the north from Monday night on. I’ll make up for it today though – a double entry, including this really long one about training in the campo.

Monday evening I took an express bus to Somoto, which was a pretty long 3.5 hour ride in an old school bus. I felt a little tricked too, since all the ‘express’ buses I’d taken in the past had been like Greyhounds until this curve ball. School buses were not made for distance travel.

Tuesday morning it was time for yet more fun in school buses, this time riding from Somoto up north to Cusmapa on those rocky mountain roads I love so much. The ride normally takes about 1 hour by truck, so I was quite stunned (and mildly alarmed) to find out that the bus trip was over two hours. It was a slow, hot, dusty ride which left all of us inside the bus torn between opening the windows to get some air moving and closing them to keep the dust clouds out.

Once in Cusmapa, it was time to start planning. Fortunately, the team there is really on top of things, and they somehow managed, in just a few days, to pull together 3 training sessions in the remote communities with nearly perfect attendance– no small feat when dealing with a rural crowd that has limited access to phone, internet, cars, etc.

That led into our first training session Wednesday, which was quite an experience. We packed up the truck around 9:00 am – bringing ingredients to do cooking demonstrations, the cook from Cusmapa, me, my teammate (Mike), the administrator (Sabrina), the doctor (Victor), and a few other miscellaneous helpers. Most everyone had to ride in the back of the truck standing, which I can tell you, after doing it yesterday, is not too much fun with all the bumping around we did. Then, we headed off toward the location of the training and, along the way, picked up teachers, warehouse admins, and a small sample of the various mothers who volunteer in the kitchens. In all, it would be a group of about 25 from 5 different communities, and some of the ones we picked up along the road had walked for over two hours just to get to the point where we met up with them. That’s some pretty incredible dedication, especially considering many of them were volunteers!

Once we arrived at the school, we did a quick overview of what we planned to accomplish, and then hit the kitchen. The ‘kitchen’ that I’m referring to actually ended up being in the home of someone that lived near the school. This generosity also impressed me – people in these communities have so little, yet this family opened their house to us and let us use their water, pots and pans, fire, salt, dishes, etc…for almost 6 hours!

At first it was a scramble to find the things we needed – there were forgotten ingredients (my bad), there was a lack of utensils, and the space felt cramped for the size of the group. However, thanks to the hard work of many people present, we were able to get everything flowing smoothly in no time, and it ended up being a really productive day. We taught all these people about 5 new dishes, fed them all lunch (sadly, there weren’t enough spoons, so we ate the rice and stewy mixture with our hands!), and had time to discuss how they would share what they learned with the other moms in their communities. After all, as I mentioned before, there is no single cook that works these kitchens – instead, there are about 40 mothers that volunteer each month. Therefore, for this new menu to work, it’s critical that the information from this training be transferred to the others. I’m fairly confident it will happen too, because those that attended were really excited about what they learned, and they each put forth a plan for how they would train the other mothers going forward.

There were a few other moments from the day that definitely stuck out to me. First, when we handed out the menus and the attendees saw the dishes we were going to make, they seemed really surprised and delighted to see things like chicken, bananas and flour as ingredients for the menu. At first they seemed doubtful that they would be able to receive these ingredients since they haven’t in the past, but when we assured them that, as part of the new menu, we’d be ordering these things for them, they were really happy. Such a simple change, but I think it will have a major impact.

Second, we bought sodas for the group for with the lunch, and I ended up stuck with the bottles. I was asking if there was somewhere I could get rid of them, thinking along the lines of recycling (or, let’s be serious, garbage, here in Nica). When I said “what should I do with these,” referring to the bottles, there were countless people that wanted them for some use or another. It’s sort of recycling of a different kind, and something that is very common here in Nicaragua.

Finally, at one point we visited a boy in one of the communities who has been sick for over a year with something that prevents him from moving most of his lower half. It was likely a stroke, though it’s not clear because whatever medical attention he has received in the past has been largely lost in translation through parents that haven’t understood, haven’t been able to read the doctor’s notes, etc. Plus, that medical attention has been extremely limited. Fortunately, Mike and others are trying to help this kid get to a doctor in Managua now, but I’m sure there are many others like him out there that are in the same position, unable to get help. Talking to his parents, who talked about the whole situation very matter-of-factly in spite of the gravity of their son’s year-plus condition, it made me realize that this kind of thing is probably just an accepted matter of life out here, where the closest medical specialists are countless hours – and dollars - away. Hard to imagine coming from the broken but still robust health care system we have in the States.

------------

Day 2 (yesterday) was a lot like the first day but with a longer ride. As I alluded to, this time I braved the ride in the back of the truck both ways, and let me tell you, I’m feeling pretty bruised and battered after the fact. I think we stood for about an hour an a half each way, bumping around on every turn while packed like sardines with, I’d guess, about 30 people plus chickens in the back at one point.

It was another really productive, encouraging training session. Just like the day before, I was amazed to see how engaged and hard-working the mothers were. They were taking notes, asking lots of questions, helping cook, cleaning up dishes, getting huge jugs of water that they carried on their heads, and so on. I couldn’t so much as start cutting a carrot before someone was begging to do it in my place. It was really incredible. I also felt like these mothers and teachers appreciated the fact that we were bringing training to them. They kept reading the recipes and menus we gave them over and over, and they told us multiple times how grateful they were. That was cool to see.

I also felt like this trip was a great capstone on my experience which, although not over yet, is undeniably drawing to a close. It was a really great team effort, with the doctor, administrators (who were just trained on this same menu less than a month ago), and the rest of the team chipping in to really support our messages, talk up the menus, and encourage implementation in some of the most remote communities in all of Nicaragua. I feel good about leaving because I know things are in good hands and while I’m sure some breakdown will be inevitable, I have a lot of confidence in the perpetuation of the menu and the coinciding messages of nutrition and cost savings in the majority of the schools.

In conclusion, after a week that, while productive and rewarding, was also hot, dusty, and exhausting, I couldn’t be more ready for my weekend at the beach.

Mini Vacation – León and Las Peñitas, Part 2

2009-03-24T07:19:00.000-07:00

Sunday, after a nice breakfast in the courtyard of the hotel, I hit up mass at the Cathedral. Then I packed up, checked out, and headed for the beach. Opting to save myself the $25 the hotel wanted to charge me for transport to Las Peñitas, I instead opted for the bus. I would learn several times over why that $25 may have been a worthwhile investment.

While the beach only lies about 15 miles from León, the ride to get there ended up being over an hour because the road is all torn up on account of construction. It was unbearably hot, though there was a decent breeze on the way there. The bus was also packed, though as I learned, a bus being packed is a relative concept. On the way there, the bus seemed full but I did have my own reasonably-sized seat to myself. On the way back, however, we were in a normal school bus, and I have never seen one packed so full. We sat three to a seat on both sides (that’s right, the same seats which were full with two children in them when we rode these buses to school now had three adults plus bags). In addition to the rows of six people across, there were also two people per row in the aisle! I got a seat next to the aisle, which meant I had no breeze. I was also sandwiched between two winners. On my left, there was a girl who somehow, in spite of the zoo going on around her, was sound asleep, and kept nose diving into my back/shoulder as her head bobbed from side to side. On my right was some guy who had apparently been swimming in his jeans, so I had wet denim smushed up against me the whole time. Nice. Like I said, that $25 may have been well spent. Live and learn.

Still, even in spite of the bus ride that was like this:

With views like this the whole time:

It was still worth it for this:

And this:

And this:

Even with just a couple hours to spend at the beach, I was able to squeeze in an Oceanside cocktail, a heaping, delicious lunch of fresh shrimp (complete with heads), and a toe dip in the ocean. It was definitely a too short taste of the beach, especially for all the rigamaroll to get there, but I also like to think of it as a teaser for next weekend. A big group of us volunteers will be spending all of next weekend at one of our co-workers beach houses, and now more than ever, I am psyched to hit the waves!

Mini Vacation – León y las Peñitas, Part 1

2009-03-23T07:08:00.000-07:00

OR

How I met Chepito Areas

I’ve gotten to the point in my trip where I’m frantically trying to check off my list of ‘Places to see in Nicaragua’ before it’s too late. Therefore, even though I couldn’t find any travel buddies to accompany me, I decided to take a trip this weekend to the colonial city of León and to the nearby beach area, Las Peñitas.

The journey began Saturday morning after yet another successful batch of panqueques made by yours truly. I took a microbus from the university, and it was a generally pleasant, if hot, hour ride, which, once it finally ended, left me realizing I didn’t have any plans for where to go upon arrival. I had assumed, incorrectly, that the bus would take me to the main part of town and I’d just hop out and start exploring. Instead, it took me to the market, so I quickly found another cab and asked them to take me to the Central Park – the only place I could think of off the top of my head.

Once I got to the Central Park, I began wandering. I found a cute little café overlooking the park and had lunch there. With a bit of time to gather my thoughts, I was also able to formulate a plan for the rest of the visit. First, I went to the museum of modern art that Joe and Kelly recommended, and it was a really pleasant surprise. Museums – especially art museums – can be pretty hit or miss for me, but I was really impressed with this one in León. The setting was beautiful. It appeared to be an old mansion complete with many gardens, pools and fountains. The art was also very cool, with lots of local pieces, a good mix of old and new, and even a couple big names (i.e. Picasso). Plus, since I was with my favorite and most like-minded travel companion – myself – I was able to go at my own (fast) pace.

After the museum, I went to check in at the hotel. It was yet another beautiful, refurbished old mansion, and the rooms were complete with a hot shower (which I used at every opportunity), air conditioning (which I used at every opportunity), cable and wireless internet. The price was also extremely reasonable, though after my sweaty walk to get there, I would have paid anything for the shower and A/C.

By now, you are probably wondering when I’m going to get to the part about how I met Chepito Areas. Some of you who are not ‘hip’ and ‘in the know’ may also be wondering who Chepito Areas is. Don’t worry…I’m getting there.

After perusing countless tour books and brochures, I found a great restaurant for dinner. Not only did it have an awesome outdoor patio with twinkle lights and candles, but it also had Italian food, which I’ve been craving for a long time but especially since I started reading a book about Italy this week. While the creamy shrimp pasta I had was basically to die for, the highlight of the visit was not the food, but the celebrity sighting. That’s right, at dinner I met Chepito Areas, the Nicaraguan percussionist who used to play with Santana! Initially I thought it was pretty cool, but the whole thing was also rather ridiculous. First, the way I met Mr. Areas was by him coming up to my table and saying “Hi, where are you from? … I’m from the States too – San Francisco. I was in Santana.” Then he handed me his business card which says he is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame percussionist and features the band’s logo. Sadly, the business card was previously used, because on the back, there was a long message that went something like this: “My love, I love you and I want you to call me. I love you forever. Chepito Areas, your love. Cell: 3326300.” After I got the business card, Chepito invited me to not one but two parties because, apparently, his post-Santana gig is being a promoter in León. The first party was called “Hot Bling Party” featuring D Money and Baby J and it was the cheesiest invite I’ve ever seen. I also got a personal invite to his birthday later in April – I just have to ‘call him’ to get the details. Maybe that message on the back of the business card was meant for me!

With all the Santana excitement, plus the three glasses of wine at dinner, I decided to call it an early night and just hang out in my hotel and watch some basketball/SNL before bed.

More on day two tomorrow. And in the meantime, pics from León here.

Tidbits from the Week

2009-03-20T10:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I decided to make a feature of this Tidbits entry, though no promises how long it’s going to last. It’s harder to scrape together all these random thoughts in a week than you’d think…

Sweeping sweeping the nation

I’ve been aware, for some time, that people here in Nicaragua are pretty big fans of brooms and sweeping. Whenever I visit our schools, I’m sure to see a handful of students with the task of sweeping the common areas (mainly outdoors). I also will often see people sweeping piles of garbage together in the street (which is done before it’s burned – lovely). Finally, my personal favorite is when you drive by houses where people are outside sweeping their front yards – yards that are made out of dirt. I don’t even understand that last one, but I guess it fits with the nationwide sweeping obsession.

This week, I saw the love for sweeping taken to a new level when not one but two of our small neighbor girls came over and, while the boys were playing, decided to start sweeping our yard/house/garden. Even after we told them they didn’t have to do that and could stop, they just kept going. I guess it was helpful enough though…minus the fact that the dust they swept in the air promptly blew back into the house with the wind, just like always.

Honk if you’re Nicaraguan

One of my favorite parts of Nicaraguan driving is the use of the horn, which is not for any of the same reasons as in, say, Chicago. In Chicago, it’s commonplace to hear frustrated drivers honking in traffic jams and at stoplights because someone is not moving fast enough. You hardly ever see this kind of road rage-driven honking in Nicaragua, even though traffic is often a complete disaster. I’ve also never heard anyone do this in other situations I’d deem logical, such as when there is a herd of cows blocking the road and not moving. Most Nicas choose to just sit through this patiently rather than hitting that horn.

However, this is not to say that Nicaraguan drivers don’t use this fine feature of most automobiles. They do – quite frequently in fact – though for completely different reasons. First, one thing that I had to adjust to when I got here is the fact that EVERY cab driver honks at you when you’re standing on the street to get your attention. It gets to be pretty annoying car after car, since, to me, it should be obvious I’m not looking for a cab if I’m not hailing one and have ignored the previous six honking cabs to boot. It’s even more obnoxious when you are actually in the cab, though. The thing with cab drivers here is that they will frequently pick up multiple passengers en route to your destination. This generally bothers me since it ends up slowing down your own trip and packing the car full. However, it bothers me even more because when a cab driver is looking to fill the car, you have to listen to that same frequent honking from inside the vehicle.

While the cab honking really annoys me, the other frequent use of car horns here entertains me to no end. I haven’t quite put my finger on how to describe it yet, but I think the best explanation is that the honk seems to say “If you don’t watch out, I’m going to hit you, and I don’t want that to happen.” Here are a couple examples. If you’re driving down the road and there are people walking in it, you give a couple of honks to tell them you’re behind them and get them out of the way. If you’re passing a car on the highway, you honk to say that you’re doing it. You also honk to tell people in the other lane that you’re passing – which probably is not a bad idea. When I get back to the States…and I guess also when I have a car again…I might bring that one back with me.

Pictures from Cusmapa!

Here are some pictures from my trip up north, as well as a few other miscellaneous leftovers from earlier.

Challenge of the Week - Lunch in Rural Cusmapa

2009-03-19T15:45:00.000-07:00

While it may not have been apparent from the frequent blog postings this week, I’ve been in the mountains (or mountains-ish) since Tuesday. I stopped in our schools in Esteli and Somoto heading up north to check on the lunch programs there, and then yesterday I finally got to Cusmapa where the real work still needs to be done. The rural communities of Cusmapa are the last schools where we need to implement the new menu, and we really saved the best, and probably toughest for last.

As I’ve learned throughout this process, each of the schools we have is a little different, and each has its own special circumstances. For that reason, when I get to a new school now, I generally just try to figure out what the challenges will be rather than being surprised by their existence. I also knew coming up to Cusmapa that it would be one of our most challenging sets of schools, running almost even with the dump in terms of special needs.

Cusmapa is unique because the outlying communities of the main school we serve have 36 different schools in all. They are all quite difficult to reach, requiring passage on rough mountain roads, generally by truck. As I learned yesterday, we also have a few schools that you can’t even reach by truck…and I learned this the hard way because we had to carry books and furniture to one of these schools as part of our rounds. As always, I assumed I was a lot stronger than reality and offered to carry an awkward medium sized box of books that probably weighed 40 pounds. I made this offer before I realized that to get to the school, we needed to walk about a quarter mile on a downward sloping, rocky mountain path and also across a river in 90 degree heat…and I realized mistake a bit too late. I got about 100 yards and basically gave up. Thankfully, the much stronger man behind me offered to trade me the books for a big bookcase (which was lighter and less awkward), so I was able to make it. Barely. When I got to the end of this journey, I realized that this was the same path that all my menu ingredients needed to take each week…absolutely crazy.

Another big challenge in these schools is the fact that there is no electricity. That means no lights and no fridges, which would also mean no chicken if it weren’t for the fact that we’ll be able to have them just make the chicken on the day of delivery. There is also no gas, so everything is cooked on a fire. Finally, and perhaps most challenging of all, all of the cooking is done by volunteer mothers – generally two of them per day. There is no constant, paid cook like at the other schools, which will make training on this new menu quite challenging. I’m still working out exactly how we will spread the learning to all those volunteers, but that’s a project for another day. Another day soon, I suppose, since we’re going to try to do the training next week.

Overall, I’m really excited about the implementation of the new menu in these schools because I think it has the potential to make the greatest impact over the current meals. Next week will probably be a challenge, but we have a good group of people from Cusmapa to help with the implementation, and I think everyone is pretty excited.

One other fun aspect of my trip to the mountains was that I got to stay at the big guest house with a group of high school students that were volunteering for the week. While I was, at first, pretty nervous to relive the awkwardness of high school, it was also really cool to see a bunch of other young people up here helping out. I think visiting the mountains for a week with a bunch of your classmates would be a really awesome experience.

If my narrative has not sufficiently captured the interesting reality that is Cusmapa, don’t worry – I’ll post some pictures soon.

Domestic Goddess

2009-03-18T13:00:00.000-07:00

After my big day Sunday when I finally did my own laundry, I topped off my most domestic week ever on Monday by cooking my first full meal – by myself! – here in Nicaragua. This was a challenge/feat I promised myself I’d undertake before I left. However, after two months of ‘training’ under cooking masters Joe and Kelly, I felt I was ready now, even with a month and a half remaining of my trip.

The rules I set for myself were as follows – I would allow minor assistance with prep work like cutting, and I was able to ask questions about how to prepare the dishes as I went. However, all the actual cooking had to be done by yours truly.

The menu I selected was a pretty simple standby of ours, but also sort of gourmet if I do say so myself. I made Nica style rice, which involves frying it at the beginning, cooking it with water like normal, and then finishing it off by cooking with a plastic bag on top (something I’ve never fully understood, though I think it serves to steam it and possibly also add plasticides). I also cooked a type of squash called ayote with sage butter – made with sage from our garden – and onions. I finished it off with tostones, or fried plantains.

In general, the meal turned out pretty well, though as the eternal perfectionist, I was not satisfied with a few aspects. First, the rice ended up being a bit too oily, which was okay but kept it from turning out as fluffy as normal. Second, the tostones did not turn out as crispy as they should have, which was a real disappointment because as of the last dinner (the one where I burned myself on the oil), I had really perfected them. I blame it on the multitasking, something I never fully appreciated until I had to pull all the parts of the dinner together myself.

So where does that leave me in my quest to really learn how to cook before I get home? I have set a few more challenges for myself, the completion of which will, hopefully, really seal the deal. First, I will work on perfecting the rice over the next few weeks. We have it almost every night, so it will be easy to get some practice in. Second, I am going to do another self-created cooking challenge before I go where I prepare some new recipe that we’ve never done before (since the squash was, technically, pirated). Finally, I will attempt to make a Nica style meal for family (and friends if you’re lucky) when I get home. By ‘publishing’ that last line on my blog, I’m sure I’ll be held to that promise when I get back. Buen provecho!

Se compra bolsas plasticas usadas

2009-03-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

We have a new cheap form of entertainment around the house. For her crocheting class, Kelly has been trying desperately to collect clean, colored plastic bags which she uses to make plastic yarn. For whatever reason, she hasn’t had much success getting the women in the class to bring plastic bags even though there certainly is no shortage of them around Nicaragua. Every time you buy anything, you get a bag. Just last week, I bought lunch, a soda, and two items from a bakery, and I got a bag for the lunch, a bag for the soda, a bag with cups for the soda, two bags for each baked item and a bag to hold the two baked items together. That’s six bags right there!

Kelly finally came up with an idea to get more bags – offer to buy them from people in the neighborhood for a small fee. On Sunday, she made a pretty sign that said “Used plastic bags bought here. All colors, no transparent” and hung it on our fence. Neither of us thought much of it at first, but it has turned into hours of entertainment.

Since there isn’t always a lot going on in the neighborhood, just the fact that there was this new sign hung on our fence has created quite a stir. EVERYONE passing by stopped to stare at it, and we watched all the initial reactions from our kitchen table. Some people just read it quickly and moved on. Others stood squarely in front of it and mouthed every word with squinted eyes and confused looks. A few have started to walk past and then backed up to check it again. Our personal favorite was one kid who read the whole sign, his face getting either angrier or more confused with every word. He got to the end and gave this look that said “Nice try – ain’t doin that” and walked away.

After about an hour of these mixed reactions, none of which produced any bags, Kelly and I were discussing options for what might increase awareness. I joked that we could stage a press event where I would bring a handful of the appropriate bags – big, clean, colorful, etc. – and she would hand me the payment of 2 cords ($0.10) every 10 bags. Then we’d shake hands, smile for photos, and the word would quickly spread around town. Not 10 minutes later, we got this chance without me having to act it out. One of the neighborhood kids came up with his 10 bags and Kelly paid him as a handful of other neighborhood kids watched. Then one of the other boys literally ran from our house back to his to collect bags. Some time later, another kid stopped by to get the details because he’d heard from the second kid that we were collecting them. Then that same second kid came back with another 10 bags. At this rate, Kelly should have plenty for her class by the end of the week…and we should get plenty more laughs in between.

Happy St. Patty's!

Another weekend - the countdown rolls on

2009-03-16T07:14:00.000-07:00

Time here in Nicaragua continues to move quickly, with another weekend done and gone to prove it. We hung around Managua most of the weekend, but it was still relatively busy (hence the long post).

I left the office early on Friday afternoon to head over to one of our schools by the dump to do training with the cooks there. I brought one of the really talented and charismatic cooks from the other Managua neighborhood, Catia, and the two of us worked with another Fabretto volunteer, Jason, and the two cooks from la Chureca, Karla and Ide. Jason and I have worked together closely on the menu and he is on board with it, at least in theory. However, we both understand that there are many challenges that stand in the way of actual implementation, including lack of water, insufficient funding, too little help in the kitchen, space constraints, and so on. Still, we want to start making slow progress toward an eventual improvement and, as such, decided to begin using a modified version of the new menu in the schools for next week.

This plan was, unfortunately, met with a bit of resistance from the cook in Acahualinca. It’s understandable that she would feel overwhelmed – she is currently cooking for almost 800 kids a day, and there are days when she has virtually no help to do it. Adding another layer of challenge on top of the existing day-to-day difficulties would make me argumentative as well. Still, our intentions were good and we tried to communicate that we understand it will be a process that goes “poco a poco” or little by little. Also, some of the complaints that were expressed about how the kids will not eat certain kinds of food (especially the donated foods) are the same kind of complaints I’ve heard from other cooks in the past. However, it was good to have Catia there because she was able to vouch for the fact that, when prepared properly, the kids at her school eat just about everything she serves. After she whipped up some of her delicious creations, and after more encouragement from all of us, I think we got the cooks on board, more or less. There are still big challenges to address at those schools, but getting everyone on the same page and improving morale is probably a big step in the right direction.

Friday evening Kelly and Joe cooked up some deliciosa chili, which hit the spot even for someone who generally prefers her chili on 12 degree rather than 90 degree days. Then we had some adult beverages and did craft projects, two activities that are as much at odds with each other from a fine motor skills standpoint as it sounds. I made a pair of earrings to give a friend of mine at work for her birthday, and they turned out pretty well.

Saturday Kelly and I went to Masaya to do a handful of errands and to check out the big craft market they have there – the same one we visited last weekend but at a more leisurely pace this time around. There was a lot of really nice stuff for sale, so I was able to get most of my remaining souvenirs to bring home. I’m going to have one heavy suitcase to bring back with all the pottery, jewelry, baskets and rum.

After the market, we had lunch in the central park and managed to finally, after much hunting, find a copy of Slumdog Millionaire. Then we went to the other market in the town to buy our fruits and vegetables. I have to say it was one of the more miserable experiences I’ve had at a market here. All the fruit and vegetable vendors seemed to be located right across from the raw meat vendors, and in 95 degree heat, I can tell you that that is not a good place to be.

Since Kelly and I both failed on one of our missions for the day – replacing our missing watches – we ended up getting back to Managua later than planned. We had to quick shower and get ready, and then we were off again. We headed to one of the really upscale parts of Managua for a fundraising event for NicaHope, the outreach project of Fabretto that does all the work in the dump. It was at a really chill outdoor bar/restaurant that had great tiki and candle lighting. They had a band playing from the Andes – complete with a guitar, drum, and several different kinds of flutes – and they were selling all the jewelry they make. There was a decent number of other volunteers there, including our friends Rosario and Jason and two girls that were visiting from NYU who help sell the NicaHope jewelry. We all had a good time and went out after to yet another fancy part of town. All in all, it was a fun night, but a bit surreal seeing the really upscale, Americanized parts of the city that contrast so starkly with the rest of the country.

On Sunday I had intended to go with a big group from Joe’s school to help clean up a lake nearby. However, I just couldn’t quite stir when my 7am alarm went off, so I opted to sleep instead. I was then awoken at about 9 by what sounded like a herd of high schoolers in our living room. What a surprise – it WAS a herd of high schoolers in our living room, the very same ones that were just leaving to clean up the lake at 9 because the bus arrived 1.5 hours late. Typical.

Instead of cleaning up a lake, I decided to instead attempt to clean up my clothes. It would be my first time doing wash here, which I promise is not as unhygienic as it sounds. My clothes have been cleaned several times before, but only because I paid one of the neighbors to do it. It took me until now to work up the nerve to do it myself using the following state of the art equipment:

I have to admit it was not anywhere near as bad as I’d anticipated. I guess that by way of closing the washing machine at home and pushing a button, I had it in my head that a lot of magical stuff was going on inside there that would be quite difficult to replicate without the machine. It turns out, though, that washing clothes is really just a matter of swishing them around in some detergent, scrubbing and rinsing (who would have thought), so it was actually pretty easy. Also, since I promised myself I would do wash this way at least once during my time here in Managua, I’m happy that is off my list. Now I just need to cook one full dinner without assistance (which is on the calendar for tonight!), and I’ll feel pretty domestically complete.

Tidbits from the Week

2009-03-13T11:41:00.000-07:00

I decided to put together this collection of random thoughts from the week, none of which were long enough to be a stand alone entry. Perhaps it will become a regular “feature” of my blog (though having a feature would make this blog sound much more professional than it really is).

Missing processed and/or American food

This tidbit is pretty self explanatory. In many ways, I have grown to really love many aspects of food culture here in Nicaragua, such as going to the market for fresh fruits and vegetables, eating a home-cooked meal every night, learning to cook and even eating rice with most every meal. However, eating this kind of food every day represents a major shift from my life in Chicago, where I ate out virtually every meal, had countless options representing food from around the world (or at least the American take on it), and had plenty of delicious, processed snacks at my disposal. And there are times when I really miss this stuff. Just reading the words Chipotle and Noodles on my friends blog (thanks Bourne!) has left me thinking about those two restaurants all week and craving a carnitas burrito. Also, the few times that I’ve gotten processed snacks from home like granola bars and cookies, I’ve literally eaten them handfuls at a time. I find this especially concerning because I hope I will have more restraint when I get home or I’m going to gain 50 pounds.

More adventures in teaching English

I guess word has gotten out on my AWESOME (read: horrible) English teaching ability, because the students are lining up…well, sort of. Okay, in reality it’s just two co-workers who are from my neighborhood that I’ve been helping out, but it still feels like a lot since I’ve had little sessions three times this week with mixed success. I think there are a lot of factors playing into why teaching English has proven so challenging for me - a native speaker, once model student and sometimes aspiring teacher. The biggest of all, though, might be the poorly structured and utterly confusing books. I asked Tania, one of the two women I’m helping, to use her book yesterday to prep, and I was baffled by the questions in it. For example, there was one section where you had to unscramble the question to understand question structure. However, instead of using normal, everyday questions, they used these:

partners/How/have/had/you/many
believe/life/you/Do/in/death/after
anything/ever/stolen/Have/you

What?? It seems like there are more useful questions you could be teaching beginning students than these, no? I wasn’t even sure I was unscrambling them right they seemed so absurd!

A good way to enforce rules

Today I did my big monthly trip to the bank (a little different than going to the Chase ATM in my office building once or twice a week). After I got money out of the ATM, I went in the lobby to wait for my friend to finish. The lobbies of banks here are pretty strange to me in general, because there are multiple armed doormen who control the entry, they are air conditioned to the point of being like an icebox (I guess that’s like home), and they are just generally very formal and orderly. Anyway, as I was standing and waiting, my phone rang. This always makes me very excited because I hardly ever get calls here. I picked it up and was staring down as I talked. As I was staring down, I noticed from the corner of my eye a large gun approaching my face (don’t worry, it wasn’t pointed at me). The armed security guard, in a not so friendly tone, asked me to stop talking on my phone. I guess it’s not allowed in the bank lobbies here. Needless to say, I literally ran out of the bank, apologizing profusely, and will never make that mistake again. I guess that’s one way to enforce even petty rules that works well around here.

St. Patty’s in Nicaragua

St. Patty’s Day is a pretty big holiday back in the States, especially when you are between the ages of 20 and 30. I’ve been talking to a lot of people about their plans for the big party, and I am really jealous of most. At the top of the list are those co-workers of mine currently working in Ireland who are both partying it up with colleagues from across Europe this weekend and then getting the day off on Tuesday to watch the parade. My sister will also be in Ireland for the big celebration, so she’s lucky too. Then you have Chicago, which is a pretty good party in and of itself for the States. The river will be green, parades and parties will be happening, and everyone will be drunk off green beer for at least 12 hours on Saturday. Last but not least, you have Nicaragua – a place that, based on my weak attempts to describe St. Patty’s day to a co-worker that were met with blank stares – does not seem to celebrate at all. That is, except for the two Irish bars in Managua that my roommates tried to hit up last year only to realize that the celebration had been moved from the real St. Patrick’s Day to the Saturday before. We’re going to be out and about on Saturday, so we might try to hit up those same bars for a little celebrating. Still, I a have a feeling it just won’t be the same…so have a few green beers in my honor, won’t you?

Thanks for reading!

I missed my chance at the 1,000 hits mark, but just wanted to thank all of you for checking in on me via this blog. I’ve gotten a lot of nice feedback, and I’m happy to be able to bring all of you along on this adventure with me, if only vicariously. Don’t forget to send emails too - even though you know every detail of what I’m up to, it’s still nice to hear from the homefront.

That’s all for now – have a great weekend, and happy St. Patty’s!

It would have been so much easier with email...

2009-03-12T10:39:00.000-07:00

My latest project here in Nicaragua relates to two of the schools that serve the dump communities. We are trying to improve their lunch program, since they are associated with Fabretto, but it will be more of an uphill battle there than in many of the other schools. There are several reasons for this. First, the schools are HUGE. They serve lunch to a combined total of 1,400 kids, with one serving 800 alone. The comedors (lunch rooms) for these schools are about the same size as the comedors in San Isidro, but for 2-3 times as many kids. The storage and cooking space in them is also equally tiny.

The second big problem there is help. The model for all of the school kitchens is typically to pay one cook and then enlist mothers of the students to help out each week. This system works well enough in most of the smaller communities, but for whatever reason - perhaps lack of accountability - it has not worked so well in the dump. Therefore, there is often a major shortage of people in the kitchen trying to turn out 600-800 plates of food a day.

Finally, the cooks have not been trained in the schools, so they don't always know how to work with some of the ingredients we use (namely some dehydrated beans and soup that we get donated and soy). Therefore, I would like to take one of the cooks from San Isidro to the schools at the dump to help teach them. However, the process to coordinate this, which I attempted this morning, was the inspiration for the title "It would have been so much easier with email."

Because the cooks, who I actually need to communicate with fairly regularly, do not have email or phones, most communication with them needs to be done in person. All I needed to do today was ask two people if they'd be available for training Saturday. To do that, I first took a bus to the furthest school. By bus, I mean the loaded high school bus that packs about 125 kids when capacity is probably 75. Then I ran into the first kitchen and asked the cook if she'd be available. From there, I took one of the moto taxis to the school closest to my house and ran in to talk to that cook. Finally, I waited for the bus driver to come by, this time on a motorcycle, and then got picked up by him and went in to the office. As an aside, this was my first motorcycle ride in Nicaragua, and it was fun, if a little nervewracking.

After all of that chasing this morning, it turns out we are changing the date of the training, so somehow I need to get in touch with the cooks all over again. I have no cell phone charge, and I'm at the office now. Should be interesting!

Nica Time

2009-03-10T14:13:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I lost my watch. While I was swimming before breakfast on Sunday, I took it off and left it with all our stuff on the table. However, we ended up leaving the restaurant pretty abruptly because a group of about 30 Nicas invaded our quiet space, and in the shuffle, I managed to forget my little Timex.

I was pretty upset about the loss at first. I'm really reliant on having a watch in general, but it's especially important here in Nicaragua because there aren't clocks in many other places. Additionally, like many other things, watches are hard to come by here. I'll probably have to make a special trip to Mercado Oriental (the big one) just to find a replacement.

However I can't help but think that, after more than two months here in Nicaragua, it might be fitting for me to be watchless after all. I've come a long way in adjusting to the slower pace of life, or Nica time, from when I first arrived, and maybe I'm ready to make the next leap. After all, it's not like I can't figure out the time if I need to - I have my phone, my computer and my alarm clock with me about 70% of the day and can use them to figure out what time I need to wake up and when to wait outside for my ride to work. Beyond that, maybe checking my watch compulsively every 5 minutes while in line or waiting for a bus is something I could actually live without. I'm going to give it a week to see...

Laguna de Apoyo, Round 2

2009-03-09T07:37:00.000-07:00

As the number of weekends I have left in Nicaragua dwindles (only 6 more!), I find myself trying to pack more and more into each one. This past weekend was no exception.

On Friday I left the office early to go to Kelly’s crocheting class. It was fun to see the group in general – about 25 very talented ladies that are making much more than uneven coasters after only a few classes. It was also a special day because, as I mentioned in my last post, we were celebrating the day of Nicaraguan women. Kelly bought a cake and soda for the occasion, and it was a nice little party.

Friday night we had a full house with several of Kelly and Joe’s friends in town from other parts of the country. I helped with cooking, and I’m proud to say that I single handedly made the tostones, which are fried plantains that are a staple here in Nicaragua. They turned out really well, and with only one minor casualty (I did, unfortunately, burn my hand pretty badly on the oil, but it was worth it).

On Saturday, Kelly, Joe and I embarked on an overnight trip with two of their other friends – Callie, another volunteer from Cusmapa in the north, and her boyfriend Oswaldo. First we headed to Masaya where we had a few musical errands. Callie bought a beautiful handmade guitar and needed to place an order for a small, ‘travel size’ marimba to bring to the States when she takes the Fabretto choir there in a few weeks. I also had the chance to go to the “Gringo Market,” which is the craft market with lots of nice, artsy souvenirs for tourists. At the market, I was on a mission – against my better judgment given the two days of traveling ahead of me, I was in search of a hammock. Fortunately and unfortunately, there were many to choose from. In fact, it was a dizzying assortment of almost-but-not-quite-identical options, each with slight differences in yarn thickness, color, price and acceptance of credit cards and none with the perfect combination. However, just when I was ready to give up, I found one that had most of what I was looking for. Without a second thought, I bought it. Immediately after, as I attempted to navigate the market while holding the hammock (which includes a three foot long wooden piece), I regretted my purchase.

From Masaya, we had plans to go to the Laguna de Apoyo which is the beautiful volcanic lake I visited a few weeks ago. To get there, we piled all five people plus a cab driver, a ukulele, a guitar, a hammock and five backpacks into some sort of dilapidated Geo Metro and we were off. We were headed for the “Proyecto Ecologico” – a place that was included in our guidebook without proper name or address. After a few failed attempts to find it, we landed on our best guess – a hostel that cost $5 per person and could best be described as ‘minimalist.’ The rooms themselves had nothing more than beds. There was a hammock hanging in front of the house that looked like it was made of dental floss or maybe from the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean” it was so worn out. Also, we got that $5 rate at a discount because the bathroom by our house was out of service. Not a problem, said the owner – we could just use the functioning bathrooms in the nearby main house. All we had to do was walk over – and walk past two of the biggest German Shepherds I’ve ever seen, the same ones that ‘greeted us’ when we’d first arrived in a way that almost made us run the opposite direction. It turned out that throughout the entire course of the weekend, every time we tried to pass, the dogs would bark with the same “I want to kill you” tone that they’d first used with us. It definitely added an element of adventure to every trip to the bathroom.

Jokes aside, though, the place ended up being pretty nice for $5 per person. Also, as a major added bonus, there was a hook hanging above the dental floss hammock that perfectly hung my brand new hammock, so I got two full days of use out of my new purchase. It almost made up for the hassle of carrying the thing around.

We also made good use of the new guitar – with such a musically talented group (myself excluded), we didn’t need an iPod because Callie played a bunch of classics (Beatles, Rolling Stones, John Denver, and various Nica artists) that we all sang along to.

After a good night on Saturday, we woke up Sunday and went out for breakfast. One of the best parts about the restaurants around the Laguna is that you can swim while you wait for your food because every restaurant is right on the water, so that’s exactly what we did. From there, we moved on to another more secluded area of the beach and swam, read and relaxed the rest of the day. It was really nice, though I got a lot of sun (again) and the swimming wore me out. By the time we made it home, we were thoroughly exhausted…I fell asleep right when my head hit the pillow.

The luxury suite

Contrasting my bright new hammock with the flossy old hammock

View from our 'porch' - not bad!

Orientation in Esteli

2009-03-06T06:11:00.000-08:00

I'm back in Managua today after a pretty successful and productive day in Esteli yesterday. We had our big orientation/training session with all the cooks and administrators from Fabretto, and everything went as well as could be expected. Turn out was good - we had about 20 in all. Everyone arrived at around noon, we had lunch delivered, and then the Director kicked things off by stressing how important the nutrition program is to Fabretto. After that, I ran through the presentation for about an hour, and my Spanish held up for the most part. Then we had a discussion, which was a lot less controversial than I was expecting (we'd heard there were some administrators coming with complaints, but few actually ended up speaking up).

Finally, two of the cooks I've worked with a lot in San Isidro (where I live) did cooking demos. One made salpicone de soya, which is a typical dish here that's normally made with ground beef and flavored with onions, peppers and lime. That was really tasty. The other prepared the dehydrated beans that we get as a donation. A lot of people told me at the outset that these beans tasted really horrible and that the kids wouldn't eat them, but I think it was just a question of preparation because the ones yesterday were outstanding (and everyone agreed).

A few other highlights/interesting bits from the day included making yet another Wisconsin connection, and the ride home. On the first topic, I was introduced to the new English teacher in Esteli for the first time yesterday, and he had a very unique story. It turns out he moved to Wisconsin (specifically, Waupaca) when he was in high school on a scholarship, and ended up meeting someone there, getting married, and starting his family in Waupaca. He lived there for something like 20 or 30 years, but then something happened with his Visa this year (I didn't get all the details there), so he had to move back to Nicaragua. His family will be coming shortly after. The most interesting part of the whole story, for me, was that while his English was very good, it was funny to hear the mix of Nicaraguan and Wisconsin accents overlayed on it. He definitely sounded like someone from 'up nort' in Wisco the way he pronounced Waupaca and a few other words. What's also funny is that I probably sound the exact same way...

The other funny part of the trip was the ride home. Esteli is, by bus, about 2 hours from Managua. However, we had the 'good fortune' of having a Fabretto truck available to get us home. Unfortunately, we crammed 10 people into this truck, which ended up being pretty tight. Also, we made stops for food on the way home, and then ended up driving everyone to their houses directly. The first person we took home lived way out of the way, and to get to her house, we ended up first driving through a market (which was a disaster) and then on these extreme back roads that I'd never seen before in Managua. We were bouncing all over the place, and I think it added an extra hour on our trip. What should have been 2 hours ended up being 4.5. It was a long day!

Today is another day in the office, and then I'm off to join in on Kelly's knitting group. She's having a party because it's the national day of women, or something like that, so there will be cake! Then this weekend I think we're going to the beach, so I'm sure I'll have more stories on Monday. Happy weekend!

Why I'm thankful I learned English as a child...

2009-03-04T05:54:00.000-08:00

Last night, my friend Mariela from work came over to the house. She wanted to practice English pronunciation with me, Joe and Kelly because she is taking an English class at the university. I happily agreed to help her out – I mean, how hard could it be to teach English? I speak the language; I should be able to help someone out with a little pronunciation, right? Wrong…sort of.

It turns out that I take a lot of things for granted as a native English speaker – things that are hard to teach because I didn’t learn them from a book. Instead, I learned how to speak the language from immersion – reading, writing, and speaking in a way that has amounted to years and years of continuous, subconscious practice.

When you learn English (or any language) that way, it is hard to explain some of the oddities and rules of that language because you’ve never thought about them yourself. For example, just looking at pronunciation, we spent some time discussing the fact that letters have many different sounds in English, which is different than Spanish and something that is quite difficult. In Spanish, the general rule is that “o” always sounds like “oh” and “a” always sounds like “ah.” However, last night as we were going through some practice sentences in English, I realized that the same does not apply in English. In the word “do”, “o” is pronounced as oo, which is the same as in the word “you” and “two” even though the spellings are completely different. It’s also hard to explain why in the word “so”, which looks exactly like “do” except for one letter, has an “oh” sound rather than “oo” but the word “sue”, spelled completely differently, rhymes with “do.” Dizzy yet?

There are also sounds in English that are different than sounds in Spanish – sounds that a Spanish speaker may never have had to form before. For example, since “h” is silent in most Spanish words, sounds like “th” and “sh” are not used in Spanish words. That makes the pronunciation of something even as simple as “the” difficult for someone like Mariela. This, too, was hard to explain or get past. I would pronounce “the” like normal, and she would say something more like “duh” (which, admittedly, is how some native speakers pronounce it. Da Bears). Then I’d repeat it the same way as I’d said it before, and she’d repeat it the same way as she’d said it before, and on and on. I’d try to show her how I was making the “th” sound but beyond that, it’s really a matter of practice. I get it, too, because the sound “rr” in Spanish, which you are supposed to roll as if purring, has never been easy for me. No matter how many times I hear someone else make that sound, it still doesn’t come naturally for me.

In short, it turns out that teaching English is not as easy as I thought it would be, and it made me realize things about the language that, though obvious when pointed out to me, never really occurred to me before.

Planning orientation + cookies!

2009-03-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

The two big stories for the day are the Orientation I'm planning for this nutrition program, and COOKIES! I'll start with the latter, because it is more fun.

A few days ago, I got one of the much anticipated notes from the post office that said I had a package. I thought it was a box I was expecting from my mom, so all day I was dreaming about granola bars (chocolate chip, so they WERE dreamworthy). Much to my surprise, though, when I got to the post office, the return address on the package was not my parents' house, but my Grandma's house, and the little sticker for customs on the package said 'Cookies.' Both of my grandmas make some of the best chocolate cookies in the world, so I was really excited. I've been sharing them with people here all day, and there were enough that I can still take a bunch home for breakfast the next few days! Grandma, if you're reading this via a print out from my mom, THANK YOU! :)

The other big story is that I've been working pretty hard this past week to put together a presentation for a training that we're having. We're inviting the administrators and head cooks from all 5 schools to a meeting in Esteli (the place I was last week) this Thursday. It's been quite the experience trying to pull an event like this together. Yesterday I had grand plans of getting a lot of the logistics worked out, only to realize we had no trucks available to drive people, the power was out, the internet was down and I had no charge on my phone. Can't do much planning when all of those things happen at once. I ended up having to wait until today - as in, two days before the actual event - to work out the final pieces. Fortunately, 24 hour notice for a major meeting is considered a lot of lead time here, so that worked out in my favor.

It is also dawning on me that I'm probably going to need to give most of the presentation...it's supposed to be about an hour long, and all in Spanish. Eeek! I have done an impromptu version of it in Spanish here while showing it to some co-workers, so I'm sure I'll survive, but it will certainly be interesting. As long as I stay away from bus food and avoid getting sick this time, I should be okay. Wish me luck!

Weekend Update

2009-03-02T10:48:00.000-08:00

Another good weekend in Managua, another weekend update. It’s a long one to make up for the slacking last week, and also in anticipation of the same slacking this week.

Friday wasn’t too exciting – I survived my bus ride home from Estelí without incident, thankfully, and then I slept off the last of my bug for about 14 hours.

Saturday I was feeling much better – confirmed by the fact that I had ice cream for a mid-morning snack at about 10:30 am. During the day, I caught up on some work from Friday and opted to stay around the house because there was a march for democracy going on in Managua so downtown was crazy. Kelly went though, and it sounded like quite the scene – not really in a good way. While I won’t pretend to fully understand the politics here in Nicaragua (mostly because there is a long history to learn), I do know that the march, while originally intended to be peaceful, ended up dividing along party lines and, based on how Kelly described, it disintegrated into chaos. She and her friend left when people started throwing rocks and lighting fireworks at other people (probably a smart decision).

Saturday evening some of the kids from the neighborhood came over and we had an impromptu dance party, which was really cute. Some of our little neighbor girls sure know how to dance! I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise to me though – they live in the house where the reggaeton starts blasting at 6 am every school day. I’ll have to try to get some pictures of the congo line I was leading from Kelly because it was pretty funny.

After the kids left, we headed out with one of our friends from Fabretto, Rosario, to a concert. It was a Nica band that Joe and Kelly had seen here before, and it was at a place called Art Café. There were a few things about getting there that were funny and typically Nicaraguan. First, I was worried because Rosario didn’t come until about 8, and the show was supposed to start at that time. However, she later told me that she did that on purpose, since shows never start on time here. She was right – the band came on no earlier than 10 pm.

Also funny was how we went about finding the bar. As you know, addresses here are based on landmarks, something which is always challenging if you don’t know where the landmark of reference is located. For example, last night the Art Café was located ‘in front of the Las Palmas park’…okay, but where is the park? 2 blocks south of the Catholic church…okay, but where is that? You get the picture – it can be a bit like a scavenger hunt. Fortunately Rosario knew roughly where we needed to be, but once we got to the neighborhood, we were a bit lost so she asked some people at a gas station for directions. As I’ve learned, Nicas love to give directions, but they are very bad at doing so and often just tell you that you’re going the right way even if you’re not. We followed the directions from the gas station attendants and had no luck so we asked someone else. It took three more tries from there to actually get it right, but we made it eventually.

The show was pretty good – chill environment, and we met up with some other volunteers that Joe and Kelly knew, so that was fun. After the first concert, we went to another bar that had a very cool atmosphere. It was mostly outside, with lots of big old trees that had hammocks hanging in them (which I loved!). They also had wine, a special treat here in Nicaragua. All in all, I was in heaven. However, you can imagine that with the combination of me, wine, and a hammock, I also got pretty sleepy pretty fast, and that’s when the night ended.

Sunday was a pretty standard day of working, going to the market, and getting ready for the week. It was also really hot (like, 95 degrees), which I think will be the norm for the rest of my visit. On Sunday there were two food related highlights. For lunch, we bought Sopa de Res (beef soup) from the neighbor that normally sells fritanga. It was really good, but difficult to eat. That’s because soup here is a little different than at home. In Nicaragua (and, I think, some other Latin American countries), soup is really broth with a whole meal sitting in it. For example, today the beef soup had a half a corn of cob, whole vegetables, and a huge hunk of beef on the bone. You need a fork and knife for soup like that. The other food highlight was dinner – a nice summer meal of hotdogs, cucumber salad, potato salad and plantain chips. Mmm.

At any rate, it was another nice weekend. Now for another busy week - I am supposed to be running a training on Thursday with all the cooks and administrators. Should be interesting!

Paseo en Esteli

2009-02-27T11:37:00.000-08:00

Once again, apologies for not writing much this week. Things have been really busy with work and traveling, but it's keeping things interesting.

Yesterday morning I took a bus to a city 2 hours north of Managua called Esteli. We have a school here, and we are attempting to do a pilot of our menu in this school next. I had meetings with the cooks and administrators here, and they were pretty receptive. I also met up with one of the other volunteers who I have been working with on this project, and it was good to be able to work in person for once rather than over Skype.

The second half of our day was a bit of an adventure because we are in the process of trying to find some new suppliers for all of our schools for things like chicken, eggs, vegetables, etc. It's not an easy process when you have to base the search on word of mouth and guesswork at the market, but I think we did have some success. The big chicken supplier here in Nicaragua, Pollo Estrella, has chicken and eggs at lower prices than we are getting now, and they will deliver to all our northern schools. So hopefully that was a win.

We also stopped at a cigar factory here in Esteli because the cigars here are some of the most famous in Nicaragua. It was a strange little place - they had lots of pet monkeys and birds, and you could see people rolling the cigars through one of the open doors. There was a picture of Arnold and Stalone smoking with the owner, so I figure they must be pretty good - I bought a few to sample.

Next we went to dinner at a Cuban restaurant in town that is very famous. Apparently there are a lot of Cubans in Esteli who fled here during the revolution there, so the place was very authentic. We met up with one of the English teachers who used to work for Fabretto there, and she was really cool. Then we all went to the movie "He's just not that into you" (Simplemente no te quiere) at a theater here. The theater was pretty much like one at home, but it was fun.

Unfortunately, the trip ended with me getting sick (really sick) from something I ate. I can no longer boast about my perfect track record! It's been an interesting day since I'm trying to get back to Managua but don't want to get on a 2 hour bus back until I'm sure it will be uneventful. That's enough details on that topic, though.

Have a good weekend, and I'll try to be back in full force next week!

Logistical update

2009-02-24T14:57:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the string of short blogs. It's been a bit of a busy, and partially frustrating week. In fact, I almost entitled this entry 'One Step Forward, Three Steps Back' because today was one of those days when I felt like I lost instead of gained ground. It's a long story (and that 'Three Steps Back' post might still be coming later this week!), but basically I visited some of the other Managua schools today, and they are going to be tricky. Compared to the schools I had been visiting near my house, these schools are huge - 2 to 3 times the size (one with 750 kids), but with little storage capacity to match it. There are also problems with water availability, kitchen help, infestations...etc, etc. I'm going to need to give all of this some thought tonight...and then crochet some more coasters to blow off steam.

Anyway, rather than dwelling on all those issues for now (since I'd like to try to keep the tone of this blog largely positive!), I thought I would give a quick update on logistics.

As many of you know, I officially extended my stay here in Nicaragua for an extra month. I think it will be really important for me to stay here since this roll-out will definitely still be in progress at the end of March, and I'd like to see it to semi-completion. So, my official return date will be April 30th. You can mark your calendars for the homecoming party that first weekend in May (I think).

I am also planning on keeping my original plane ticket (more or less), and coming home for Easter since we have holy week off here. I'll be around Milwaukee/Cedarburg/Port/Saukville most of the time between April 9 and April 13, and may try to make a Chicago appearance too. Hope to see many of you then - and, of course, I'll see all of you in May.

Happy Fat Tuesday!

My two big accomplishments this weekend!

2009-02-23T13:15:00.000-08:00

It was a pretty quiet, low key weekend in general, which was nice. We finished our Arrested Development marathon, I hung out by a hotel pool one day (you can pay to use them for the day here), we had some Fritanga (street food) and played Scrabble.

However, there were also two noteworthy accomplishments to report! Let's just say, I'm becoming pretty domestic during my time here (thanks Kelly!)

1) I made banana pancakes. Yes, you read that right, I actually [attempted to] cook. The pancakes didn’t turn out quite perfect at first. I had a hard time with the flipping, and I don’t think the original proportions were quite right. I did manage to keep 3 of the 5 in tact, though – one for each of us, so that worked out. Also, they tasted delicious, whole or not...and fully cooked or not!

2) I learned to crochet. Kelly taught me how, and I made my first project – a 3 inch by 3 inch, uneven square…just what I’ve always wanted! Put your orders in now - they would make great coasters, and at this rate, you could have a set of 6 by the fall. I can tell it’s going to take some practice, but I am starting to get the hang of it and I enjoy doing it.

If this keeps up, I might be the next Martha Stewart by the time I come home! Or, at the very least, I'll be able to make more for myself than just Lean Cuisine.

A typical day in the field...

2009-02-20T15:17:00.000-08:00

Since I have been slacking a bit on the blogs this week – mostly because I’ve been busy with ‘field trips’ to the schools here in Managua – I thought I would write a quick post before I leave for the weekend about what, exactly, I do when I visit the classes.

So, I started the morning walking to the school nearest to our house. I like going to this school, because it’s only 10 minutes away, on the paved road, and the cook there is fantastic. Today, I was going there because I needed, rather urgently, to talk to this cook to create some recipes for the pilot program next week. I arrived and, in typical Nica fashion, she wasn’t there because she had a doctor’s appointment. It wasn’t really her fault because she didn’t know I was coming – but she didn’t know I was coming because so few people here have good phone reception, access to the internet, etc. so communication is always a challenge.

Since Kathia wasn’t at the first school, I decided to leave for the second school. Normally, I would either walk (though it’s a grueling mile plus walk, up hill, on a dirt road in 90 degree heat) or take one of the moto taxis (which I love!). However, today, it just so happened that the Fabretto bus was passing and, since I know the driver, I decided to hop a ride. What a nightmare! The bus was completely full – two to a seat, people standing in the aisles, and people standing on the stairs. I made my way as far as the spot next to the driver and then hung on for my life. I was basically holding on to the device that is used to open the door, so every time we stopped to pick up more people (yes, there were still MORE kids to pick up), I had to find something else to hold on to besides this moving target. It was a free ride, but I think it cost me a few years off my life.

Once I got to the next school, I talked to one of the mothers to try to get some recipes. Again in typical Nica fashion, the ‘details’ she gave me for this recipe were pretty vague. I was rushing to try to write down everything she was saying in Spanish, and most of the instructions were things like “add enough water”, “salt to taste”, “make a sauce”, etc. I’ll have some work to do to turn that into a working recipe.

After this school, I walked up to the farm. On my way, I almost fell down the hill about three times since I was, stupidly, wearing flip flops, and by the end I was completely dirty. Another shower wasted.

At the farm, I tried to get information about the agricultural calendar in Nicaragua because we want to try to be somewhat strategic about when we buy various fruits and veggies. The price of tomatoes, for example, can change almost 3x over the course of the year depending on the rain, cultivation, etc. Unfortunately, this was another case of me struggling with my Spanish and trying to get more details than “It costs more in the dry season than the wet season.” I was largely unsuccessful, so I moved on.

The next stop was a third school where I was going to drop off the updated menu. Since there was no moto taxi in sight, I walked about half of the way and got yet another sunburn.

After a successful drop-off, I decided to stop for a snack – a frozen banana with chocolate, or chocobanano. The kids love these, and I know why, because it was delicious and only cost $0.05. I also got chocolate milk, which I spilled all over myself just to make sure I REALLY looked like a disaster by the time I got back to the office.

After all this back and forth, I finally met up with a co-worker who was going to give me a ride back. However, what was supposed to be a ride getting me back around 2 instead, AGAIN in typical Nica fashion, got me back here by 4. So, I’ve been rushing around all afternoon to finish work before the truck leaves and I lose my internet connection till Monday. Sigh. As you can tell, it was another crazy day!

Gracias a dios – hoy es viernes! (or TGIF, more or less) Have a great weekend!

Halfway point...ish

2009-02-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

As hard as it is to believe, today marks my six week ‘anniversary’ here in Nicaragua. It’s the halfway point of my 3 month commitment, and it’s a point that I had a hard time imagining 6 weeks ago. Back then, after emerging bleary eyed from a 9 hour day of traveling, I was whisked off to a house in the middle of nowhere with no TV, a toilet that flushed with a bucket, stiff mattresses, and lots of strange dogs. I counted every minute that ticked by on my watch and went to bed at 8 pm feeling exhausted, bored, and overwhelmed. How would I live here for 3 months? Why didn’t I come down to see this place before committing to spending a quarter of a year here?

A lot has happened in 6 weeks though. At home (which is what I now call that house in San Isidro), I have adjusted to Nicaraguan life. I no longer wake up before my alarm to strange noises. I no longer count the minutes before bed because I am usually busy with other things –cooking, dishes, watching a movie on the computer, reading or talking with the roommates and neighbors. I look forward to my cold, low water pressure or bucket showers, probably because I need them so desperately! Most importantly, the simplicity of life that originally bored me is now one of my favorite parts about living here.

I think I’ve also come a long way with my Spanish, especially in the last week. I’ve started thinking and dreaming in Spanish. I move between English and Spanish in conversations, emails, and even on Skype without thinking twice any more. I’ve held meetings for work in Spanish, and I no longer struggle to understand the majority of the Nicaraguans with whom I communicate. I think I realized just how far I’ve come yesterday when I was on a trip with one of my co-workers, someone who has been my friend since the very beginning. I remember when Tania and I went to lunch on my first day. We decided to eat at the restaurant rather than bringing the food back, so for an hour, I struggled awkwardly to make conversation with her. I was having a hard time even communicating the basics and finding the words I wanted in Spanish. Compare that to yesterday, when she and I talked for almost an hour and a half about everything from when I split my pants in Cusmapa to whether or not she wants to have more children. It was a definite sign of progress.

Finally, I feel like I have learned and contributed a lot at Fabretto since I started, and things are getting even more exciting now. I have finally completed my standardized menu, which covers 40-50% of all nutritional requirements for only $0.35 per child. I have visited almost all of our schools and talked to cooks and administrators to understand the current state of the program – what works, and what doesn’t. I’ve also helped lay the groundwork for centralized purchasing. Now comes the exciting part – actually implementing all of these new programs. We are rolling out pilots next week in two of the schools, and we hope to have the new menu in all the schools – about 25 total – by mid- to late March. Then we will start our centralized buying for the second quarter.

So where does that leave me? After 6 weeks here in Nicaragua, I’m ready for 6 more, and then some. I am hoping to extend my leave of absence from work for one more month and stay here until the beginning of May. That way, I can see these projects I’ve started closer to their end, finish all the traveling I want to do, and truly avoid any chance of seeing snow again this winter. I’ll keep you all posted on if and when that gets finalized. As always, I’ll also keep writing as I continue my Nica adventure.

My Fantastic Granada/Laguna Weekend...Part 2

2009-02-17T10:43:00.000-08:00

Sunday was another busy day in Granada. In the morning, I did my own walking tour of the city with Valeria and Octavio, two of Enrique’s kids. It was a good chance to take lots of pictures – especially when we went up in the bell tower of one of the old churches. This also proved to be an interesting experience with the kids. I was nervous enough about climbing the tiny winding staircase myself, never mind the fact that I was also responsible for two high energy children. It all went pretty well though, minus, perhaps, the part when they started shrieking when they rang the bells in the tower. It was loud though, I’ll admit it.

After the bell tower, we walked through the central square and down to the house of the children’s grandfather where I got to see his chickens. Then it was time to leave Granada.

From Granada, Enrique drove me to a place called the Monkey Hut at the Laguna de Apoyo. There, I met my roommates for an extremely relaxing day by the lake.

The Monkey Hut is a hostel that also sells day passes to hang out by the Laguna. They have snacks, a kitchen you can use, hammocks, tables, a pier, inner tubes and a raft – basically everything you could want to enjoy a day at the lake. In fact, it reminded me a bit of camp or of trips up to the Northern part of Wisconsin though, as my mom and I discussed, it is a little different because Laguna de Apoyo is a volcanic lake with thermal vents that is surrounded by mountains and palm trees. So, not quite like Wisconsin after all, but incredibly scenic and beautiful in its own respect. The pictures don’t really do it justice, but they do give you some appreciation of the accommodations. In all, I think I spent almost 4 hours swimming in the water or floating on a tube and I loved every minute of it, even if I did get a bit more sunburned.

Rounding out a weekend of yummy food, we had some awesome Hummus that Kelly made for lunch while we were at the hut. Then, on our way home, we stopped for pizza at a local chain called Valenti’s. According to the locals, this chain isn’t that good – they prefer Pizza Hut and Domino’s (so, not sure I really trust that advice) – but the pizza really hit the spot. Plus, I got to have cold pizza for lunch yesterday!

All in all, it was a great weekend, and the best part is that both Granada and the Laguna are less than 1.5 hours from Managua via microbus. I definitely have plans to return to both places before I leave.

More pictures!

My fantastic Granada/Laguna weekend...Part 1

2009-02-16T07:12:00.000-08:00

So as the subject line suggests, I had a pretty busy but awesome weekend here in Nicaragua. Since I know some of you (Kurth) don’t like long posts, I’ll break this one into two parts.

On Friday night, my roommates, another volunteer and I went to the house of the Director of Fabretto (who is also Joe’s cousin) for a dinner with a group of the organization’s major donors who were visiting from the States. The house was in a part of Managua where I had never been, and it was beautiful. The dinner itself was a little bit of a culture shock after being in San Isidro for so long – and I was also out of practice as far as networking goes. Still, the food was really delicious, the other volunteers were good company, and they had an open bar (with Diet Coke!), so I was a pretty happy camper.

On Saturday, my manager Enrique generously offered to take me to Granada, the colonial city where he lives, to take a tour and stay at the house. It was a really nice visit, and as you’ll see from the pictures that I will post, Granada was beautiful.

First, in the late afternoon, Enrique took me, his wife, his three kids and his cousin to Lake Nicaragua to take a boat tour of the tiny volcanic islands, or isletas. This was a real treat because it was so relaxing and beautiful as the sun went down over the Mombacho volcano.

One of the major highlights was that we got to stop on one of the islands and walk around. It turns out that our boat driver, who was a friend of Enrique’s, is in charge of watching many of the islands because their owners rarely use them. In the cases where he has an especially good relationship with them, they also allow him to use the islands whenever he wants. As you’ll see in the pictures, this is a very generous offer, since the scenery is unbelievable. On this particular island, there was a picnic area and there were also two natural pools. Enrique’s kids, who apparently love to swim, were especially excited about the latter, and they stripped down and jumped right in! They couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to join them, and I told them that I was too old to swim in my underwear with strangers and/or co-workers. One other side note – when I asked how much it cost to own an isleta, I was told they were ‘very expensive’ – $80,000 for the most expensive of all. While that is a lot of money, especially by Nicaraguan standards, I’d say it’s not a bad price for a little piece of heaven.

After the boat tour, we took a walk downtown Granada and got some Fritanga (grilled food) at a hostel that was owned by another of Enrique’s friends. The city was bustling because there was a big international poetry festival coming to town, and we saw many foreigners on the streets. I enjoyed people watching in general, and found the city to be reminiscent of Europe, which makes sense since it originated as a colony of Spain. I would like to make a return trip on my own some time when the city is a little less busy to do some more exploring (and get some gelato!)

Pictures of day one are here...enjoy!

Stay tuned for the second half of the weekend tomorrow…

Field trip...and why I hate the horse next door

2009-02-13T06:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I spent the day at the Fabretto schools in San Isidro with my roommate Kelly. While I had visited the schools on a few other occasions, this marked the first time when there were actually students in attendance…lots of students.

The day started bright and early with my 5:30 alarm. We left the house a little after 6 to make the one hour walk to the school. It was a good work out, but a little sticky with the heat that has now set in here in Managua.

When we got to school, I went with Kelly to her first English class with the 4th graders. The kids learned how to say “What is your name?”, “My name is _____”, “Where are you from?” “I’m from Nicaragua.” It was fun to be a fly on the wall in the class, and I even got to participate in one of the activities. All of the kids wrote their names on a name card using the new phrases they learned, and then Kelly took their pictures to help learn their names. It looked like this…

…and this.

(Since you can’t read it, it says “My name is Nicky. I’m from the Chicago barrio”)

After seeing the classes, I spent most of my day thinking about lunch. I spend most of all my days thinking about food, but in this case, I’m referring to it in a more formal sense. I was asking questions and observing cooks to get a full understanding of the lunch program that I’ve been working on for the last month or so. It was really good to get a better handle on the quantities of foods they serve – things like 30 pounds of rice for 250 kids or, to make a fresco (fruit drink), 70 oranges and 10-17 pounds of sugar. As I had already suspected, I learned that they use a lot of oil in the cooking – too much, really, from both a cost and health standpoint, so that will be one challenge to overcome with the new menu.

In addition to observing, I also got to help serve the kids. They were really cute (preschool through 6th grade) and also really entertaining. I saw one kid drinking her chocolate drink out of her half-eaten hard-boiled egg, and another eating off of her plate while it sat on her lap, about a foot from her mouth and under the table. Kids do the darndest things.

After a good day at the school and an early return home, Kelly and I went to the Palí – quite literally, the Nicaraguan version of Sam’s Club, owned by WalMart – to stock up on ingredients for one amazing quesadilla dinner. I think it may have been my favorite yet, which is saying a lot since Kelly is a really good cook!

In all, it was almost the perfect day. Almost. However, one incident at the house last night did put a damper on things. It seems that my horse-neighbor is annoying in more ways than just having a human cough and living 2 feet from my bed. Our neighbors informed us this weekend that horses also attract…tarantulas. Apparently they’d found nearly a dozen in their house (gross!). It freaked Kelly and me out then, but since we hadn’t seen any, we didn’t worry too much. That changed last night when a big tarantula came out from the desk at the house. I will now be checking my sheets and shoes even more carefully, and let’s just say that if I find one of those spiders in my bed, you won’t have to read about it here because I will be on the next flight home! Sorry if that grossed anyone out but hey, it grossed me out too and I'm living it.

On that note, Happy Valentine's Day!

A Few Observations...

2009-02-11T12:39:00.000-08:00

It's been a little bit of a slow week. After all of the birthday parties we had the last month, we're in a dry spell. The excitement of the grill has also worn off, and I've already consumed most of the contents of the care packages from yesterday in the last 24 hours (I miss processed food!). Finally, everyone in the house seems to be sick with something (I think I have a cold), so we haven't been too exciting lately. However, there were a few random observations today that I thought were worth sharing, so I figured I'd do a quick post.

Observation 1: Exceeding Vehicular Capacity

I've noticed for some time now that Nicaraguans have a tendency to cram a lot more people into/onto typical modes of transportation that seems like a good idea. If you recall, way back during my first week here, we fit 7 people into some sort of Geo Metro-esque cab and could barely make it over speed bumps. I have since seen many other similarly packed cabs, so apparently that's the norm here.

I've also done my fair share of riding in the middle 'seat' in the front of trucks, which really isn't a seat at all. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that everything is stick shift here, so you have to awkwardly keep your legs out of the way of the drivers so they can shift gears.

However, the example that gets me every time is the number of people they will cram onto bikes and motorcycles here. I'll give you a hint, it's more than one. I've definitely seen my fair share of triple riders, but today I saw something unbelievable. An entire family that lives on my street rode on the motorcycle to school. One kid in the front, then the Dad, then two more kids, and then the Mom. They were completely squished, and I couldn't believe my eyes.

Observation 2: Depressing News

In the States, a lot of people (including myself) complain that the news is either too fluffy, too depressing, too slanted, or some combination of the three. While I don't have a great read on the Nicaraguan news media yet, I did realize, while watching a few stories at lunch today, that it seems to be a lot more depressing/graphic than ours. They had a couple different reports of people being hit by buses (eek!) or getting in car accidents, and the shots that they used to cover them were of the bodies. I was shocked! The people were, thankfully, covered with some cloth or tarp, but they spent several minutes at a time filming them, and you could even see their feet hanging out and blood on the pavement. I'm glad they do a better job respecting victims' privacy back home...and probably will face away from the TV at lunch from now on!

Sorry to end on a bit of a downer there. More fun posts to come though - tomorrow I am spending another day at the school near my house. I will even get to eat lunch there, which seems fitting since I've been working on the meal program for so long. I also have some travel plans for the weekend which I'm excited about...so stay tuned.

Mail!

2009-02-10T06:58:00.000-08:00

It turns out that, in spite of all my whining about the address system here (or lack thereof), I have actually been able to receive mail using the office address. And it's AWESOME!

First, about two weeks ago I received a postcard from my good friend Aaron...from Thailand! That was a total surprise, and I had to show it to everyone in the office.

I also got Valentine's cards from my parents and my Grandma (thank you!) and a package from my mom with some MU trading cards and a flag (go Marquette!). I'll be supporting the team from all the way down here in Nicaragua.

Then today, I got a note that said I had to go to the post office to pick up a package because, apparently, it was too big to bring here. There, I found some yummy snacks from the States (including chewy chocolate chip cookies!) from my sweet friend Karen. It made my day! Even though I ended up sharing most of the cookies with all the people that were involved in me actually getting the package, the few that I had were delicious!

So in conclusion, thank you to everyone who has been so thoughtful as to send me mail during my first month here. For those who have not, there's still time! My address is below :)

Nicole Roden
c/o Asociacion Familia Padre Fabretto
de la ESSO Mitrab
500 metros abajo
Managua, Nicaragua

(Yes, that's right, my official office address is based on how many meters 'below' the gas station we are located)

Mercado Madness

2009-02-09T06:37:00.000-08:00

It was another good weekend here in Nicaragua, with not one but two trips to the market! On Saturday, Joe and I did a short day trip to Masaya, which is a pretty little town about 30-45 minutes from Managua. We caught a microbus at the major private university in Managua – the UCA – which was cool to see. The area around it definitely had a ‘collegey’ feel, with lots of activity, vendors, posters, students, etc.

In Masaya, Joe took his Ucayali to a guitar shop to be fixed. It definitely was not your typical guitar shop though – it was tucked back in between some houses, and was basically just a barn with a dirt floor where the owner made these beautiful custom guitars for about $100 dollars.

From there we went to the market and got the usual supply of fruits and veggies. We also scored a bunch of movies – Benjamin Button, Burn after Reading, the Changeling (note the Brangelina theme), Harvey Milk and Charlie Brown. That should keep us busy for a week or two!

I also picked up my first sunburn of the trip at the market. After whining Saturday morning about not getting enough color here, I got my wish…though red was not the color I had in mind. All the kids have been teasing me about it too – maybe because people here don’t usually burn like us gringos.

Sunday we started the day off with an impromptu parade, if you can call it that. At 8:30 am, we suddenly heard drums and a siren. Everyone ran out to the street from our neighborhood, and shortly thereafter a band walked by playing all sorts of instruments. They were followed by members of the local soccer teams – it turns out this little show was all to kick off a new season of soccer. All in all, it lasted about 5 minutes – just your typical Nicaraguan randomness in the street.

The second trip to the market was also on Sunday, and there was one big ticket item we were looking to buy. I told Kelly and Joe I would get them a grill to mix up the dinner options. Logistically, I wasn’t really sure how we were going to get a grill from the market to our house – at least the kind of grill I was imagining. However, I soon realized that the giant Weber grill I had in my head was not the kind of grill typically used in Nicaragua. Instead, the grill we ended up with looked like this, and cost about $4.50:

It might not look like much, but we couldn’t be more excited. It’s certainly an upgrade over using the neighbors’ grill which, by the way, is made of a hub cap and the front part of a fan. And to break it in, the inaugural meal was cheeseburgers, onion rings and a cucumber salad which I made all by myself. It was delicious!

The Nicaragua-Wisconsin Connection

2009-02-05T08:40:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, I love Wisconsin. As many of you also know, I am currently in Nicaragua. What some of you may not know, though, is that these two places are connected more formally than just by me liking them both a lot, or by the fact that there are red Green Bay Packer hats all over the mountains here.

During the Kennedy administration, in parallel with the economic Alliance for Progress in the Western hemisphere, a people-to-people partnership was created between the United States and countries/cities in Central and South America. As I was surprised and pleased to learn early in my research of Nicaragua and Fabretto, Wisconsin and Nicaragua were paired as part of this alliance. I’ve joked several times since that it’s a fitting match based on my experiences in both places. In particular, people in both Wisco and Nica are very friendly, many of them farm, and all of them try to deep fry just about anything they can get their hands on.

The partnership between Nicaragua and Wisconsin is manifested in several ways, and I got to witness some of it in action earlier this week. A group of about 30 Wisconsinites from around the state ranging in age from high school to 80+ came to visit a school here in Nicaragua that is aptly named ‘The Wisconsin School.’ They brought books to start a library at this school, and then were continuing their tour around a handful of ‘Learning Centers’ scattered throughout Nicaragua where, every year, a group like this one would teach different skills (sewing, electric work, etc.) to the locals. I was invited to meet up with them at the Wisconsin school because the meal program at this school is supported by Fabretto (and Nica Hope), and because I am the token Wisconsinite volunteer.

It was a bit of an overwhelming experience for everyone involved because the group came in a huge van with big windows that made it look a bit like a fishbowl. Also, the Wisconsin School supports a community in Managua that lives in the dump, so the poverty in this area is very extreme. Combine that with a big bus of ‘gringos’ (white people), and I think there was quite a bit of dual culture shock as we made our rounds.

Still, I was happy to see so many people from my home state taking an interest in helping Nicaragua. Apparently the Wisconsin Chapter of the Partners of the Americas is the most active in the country, and they certainly seemed anxious to help out on this trip as well.

If all of this has inspired any of you back home in Wisconsin (or anywhere!) to get involved too, I do have one final bit of information to share from my time at the Wisconsin School. Like many other projects of Fabretto, the Wisconsin school is seeking sponsors for students that attend. Sponsorship costs $30 a month and provides one child with a uniform, school supplies, lunch, etc. There is more information here at this link, and I’m happy to also answer any questions if you are interested in donating. http://www.nicahope.org/main/?cat=3&p=9

Thanks in advance!

Sewing Kit Needed

2009-02-03T15:24:00.000-08:00

Since it turns out I do have some internet access up here in Somoto, at least while I’m at the school, I thought I would jump on and do a post because, to be honest, it was sort of an interesting day.

The plan, initially, was that I was going to get a ride up north in one of the Fabretto vehicles because there was a visitor coming from Spain this week. The schedule for his visit, up until yesterday, was to leave from Managua today – Tuesday – and pass through Somoto around lunch. Based on this information, I specifically planned a meeting here with a Peace Corps nutritionist in the afternoon.

In typical Nicaraguan fashion, I found out yesterday, about 20 hours before the meeting, that the Spaniard’s flight has been changed and the car wouldn’t be leaving until Wednesday. Since both my manager and I had meetings scheduled for today, we decided we were going to take the 10:30 am bus up here instead.

Then this morning, AGAIN in typical Nicaraguan fashion, I come to find out that the 10:30 am bus to Somoto that I was planning on taking with my manager did not actually exist. First someone tells us that the only bus to Somoto left at 7:30 am (we are finding this out at 8:45). Then we find out that there is in fact a 9:15 bus (it is now 8:50), so we decide to take that one. We finally get organized to leave around 9:00, and I am still in the car at 9:30, sure that I am going to miss the bus.

When we finally make it to the bus station, it turns out that there is a 9:45 bus to Somoto, so we make it just in time.

Then I split my pants…twice.

In a funny/sad turn of events, I first ripped my jean capris when I was getting out of the car to board the bus. They got caught on something and ripped up the seam from the ankle a few inches. Not a huge deal, but not a very professional look for my meeting.

I get to school and change into black capris instead. Bear in mind, this is now pair 2 of 4 pants I have along for the week.

We then loaded into the pick up truck to pick up the nutritionist. Once we got to Yalaguina where she lived, I moved from the front to the back (because I now love riding in the back of pick up trucks), and as I stepped in, I heard the second rip. This time, it was in a much more embarrassing location than the first, so when we got back, I had to walk awkwardly past about 20 students to change into my third outfit for the day. Thankfully, it is difficult to rip a jean skirt, and also very unlikely that I will destroy all of my pants in one day, so I think I’m safe for now. Still, what a day!

Thankfully the meeting with the nutritionist was a good one. She had some interesting tips on how to add Calcium to the diet (the most interesting of which was sardines – yuck!), and it was good to get her blessing on the work I’ve done so far.

Here’s hoping that tomorrow things go a little more smoothly and my pants remain in tact.

Another Managua Weekend

2009-02-02T11:26:00.000-08:00

We had another relatively chill weekend here in Managua. Friday night I came home from work to find the neighbors drawing with chalk on our patio. It was an impromptu birthday celebration for Julissa, one of the neighbor girls. Within 5 minutes of me walking in the door, Julissa came running up to me to give me a birthday treat. She kept calling it a ‘pollito’ which I didn’t understand until I finally unwrapped the cupcake. On top of the cake part sat a frosting chick (pollito) that was probably 3 inches tall. As I think I’ve mentioned before, the frosting here is very dulce (sweet), so as I bit into the cupcake, hoping it would be funfetti and Betty Crocker frosting like at home, I quickly realized I wouldn’t be able to eat much of my birthday treat without wincing. However, we did have fun taking pictures of the cupcake and the kids. Once I let one use my camera, Pandora’s box was open and we had a full-on photo shoot. Here are the pictures – I’m sure you can guess which ones were taken by munchkins based on the height of the camera.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=nicole.roden&target=ALBUM&id=5298284814803618513&authkey=9ZI0bgsH4i4&feat=email

After the kids left, we just hung out and watched some Arrested Development and ate popcorn, both of which made my day.

Saturday Kelly and I went to the market with one of the neighbors, Alegda. Mercado Oriental was a different market than I’d been to my first week, and it was a very cool but intense experience. It turns out that Oriental is the largest market in Central America, and it’s a bustling place on a Saturday morning. Several times, as I struggled to keep an eye on the other girls while fighting my way through rivers of people, carts, and vehicles, I thought to myself, ‘this place is just like Times Square…minus everything else about Times Square except the crowds.’ We loaded up on tons of fresh produce – enough to feed the three of us for a whole week for about $15. At the market, I also had my first chance to drink like the Nicas do – out of a plastic bag. I got one of the small bags of water that they sell everywhere around here. I also got a little chocolate milk that was delicious (and may start a new addiction for me).

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful – I read book number 5 for the trip, helped with cooking and dishes, and did some work. I also packed because this week I’m going back up north from Tuesday through Friday. I’m excited for another trip up there – school will be in session now, so I’m going to try to observe some of the cooks as they prepare lunch for the kids. I’m also meeting with a Peace Corps volunteer who has nutrition background to see if our menu looks good to her. Finally, we’ll be visiting the commercial Fabretto farm in the area as well as some other large farming operations. We’re starting to think about our food purchasing strategy so we want to begin talking to suppliers and evaluating prices and options. Should be cool! I'm not sure when I’ll have internet access or how much I’ll be blogging, so this could be it until Friday. Have a good week!

Top 20 Things I Miss About the States

2009-01-30T07:48:00.000-08:00

I’ve been here a few weeks now, and I’m happy to say that I’m definitely feeling pretty well adjusted to daily life in Managua. However, I have been mentally keeping a list of the handful of things that I miss a lot about home and will be especially excited to return to come April. They are sort of in order, but I really miss all of it quite a bit (especially #1).

20. Year-round precipitation - the dry season/wet season extremes here are pretty intense.

19. Universal acceptance of credit cards – I have used my card twice since I got here…not exactly racking up the points!

18. A Chase ATM on every corner – getting to the bank is a bi-monthly occurrence and requires a cab ride.

17. Garbage cans – seeing garbage laying all over the streets and grass gets a little depressing after awhile.

16. Addresses – I think I’ve already discussed this one in depth.

15. Quiet between the hours of 6 and 8 am – though the dogs and wood chopper are an interesting alternative to an alarm.

14. Cell phone reception – At home, I rarely receive incoming calls unless I put my phone outside.

13. My bed – Oh pillow-top mattress and down comforter, I miss you.

12. Hot, daily showers – Pretty self-explanatory, and perhaps too much information on the frequency side of things.

11. Running water – Storing up water for a whole day during the three hours it runs at night is a chore.

10. Clean water – Never realized how much I took this one for granted before getting here. We do okay at home with our purifier, but not having clean water is an unfortunate reality for a lot of people here.

9. Semi-reliable public transportation – I will never criticize the CTA again.

8. Sidewalks and Street lights – Now I know why packing guides suggested you bring a flashlight here.

7. Being able to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without worrying that the flush bucket might not be full – Again, self-explanatory.

6. My dishwasher – Since I am pretty useless in the kitchen, I’ve designated myself as the live-in dishwasher, a task that usually takes at least 30 minutes every night.

5. Air conditioning – I know all of you in the Midwest don’t want to hear about it, but it is HOT here and getting worse…and it’s making me grumpy!

4. Not itching perpetually from mosquito bites all over my body – Yeah, there are a lot of mosquitoes here.

3. Language fluency – Not being able to express myself to co-workers and neighbors who only speak Spanish has been extremely frustrating at times, though I like to think I’m learning.

2. Not worrying about mice in your bed, scorpions in your shoes and lizards in your bathroom

1. All of you!

Have a great weekend – and please watch the Marquette game and Super Bowl for me and send updates!

Feliz Cumpleaños

2009-01-29T06:43:00.000-08:00

Last night, we celebrated my roommate Joe’s 24th birthday, and it was a really nice, fairly traditional Nicaraguan party with lots of the friends in the neighborhood. We had a big dinner, cake, and then we all just hung out, had some drinks and talked/joked around for the rest of the evening.

Some of the highlights of the night included:

 The fact that Joe requested gallo pinto – or rice and beans – as his special birthday dinner when we basically have that every night. I have to admit though, combining the two together and cooking them ‘gallo pinto style’ versus separate really is quite good.

 The community involvement in the celebration – one of the neighbors brought over some tostones (fried plantains) for an appetizer, another let us use her grill to make the carne asada, and others brought the cake and some music to share.

 A ten minute long argument over how to make guacamole between Kelly, who makes it like we would in the States with tomato, cilantro, etc., Henry, our Nicaraguan neighbor who insisted that was all wrong because here they use eggs in their guacamole, and Pedro, a Spaniard, who had a third opinion that I now forget. The whole thing was pretty heated (and hilarious) though.

 Listening to both a rendition of Happy Birthday sung by Spanish speakers but in English (so heavy on the accents) and another version by New Kids on the Block circa 1991

Overall, it was just another really fun night, and I’m glad I was here to celebrate.

Nicaraguan Sales Channels

2009-01-28T10:42:00.000-08:00

One of the aspects of life in Nicaragua that has surprised me the most since I’ve been here are the many sales channels used that are not present in the US. Sure, there are malls and big supermarkets here just like home. I’ve even seen a few RadioShacks, which I find shocking because I am generally amazed that store is still open anywhere, much less in Nicaragua. Beyond these more common avenues for business to consumer sales, though, there are many other approaches that I find to be extremely unique.

First, one method that I encountered the day I arrived in Managua is that on some of the busier roads, you will see all kinds of people standing in the middle of the street or in the median peddling various goods. There are people with bowls on their heads that have partially peeled fruits for sale. There are people that string car accessories across tree branches in case a driver realizes, suddenly, that his or her car doesn’t have any floor mats and must buy them right there on the road. Finally, there are even people that come right up to the cars to wash your windows if you don’t tell them otherwise. It makes for an awkward transition when the light changes and they are still wiping down the windows.

In addition to the street vendors, there are also pulperías on every corner in more rural towns. Pulperías, from what I can tell, are basically just any tiny mom and pop stores that sell a variety of convenience items out a little window in the front. They have cards for phone minutes, sodas, eggs, sugar, and even ice cream. The last of these has, obviously, become a major problem for me - one store just down the road sells these Fudgecicle-like chocolate ice cream bars on promotion for 3 cords, or about $0.15. I have a bad nightly habit of wandering over there! It’s funny because I remember the first day I told my Dad that I was able to buy phone cards right across the street. I thought of the images it probably conjured up in his mind – of this big Best Buy right across the bustling street where I live. Quite the contrary, I assure you.

While I find the first two examples of unique sales channels to be pretty interesting, the most entertaining of all for me is number three. Any given weekend, I can expect a number of random vendors to drive by on the main road next to our house offering a host of different things for sale. Most often, I hear ‘advertisements’ for fruits and vegetables over the megaphone that most of these trucks have. The men talk so fast that you can’t hear what they’re selling or what the price is – it’s like an auctioneer rattling off the going rate for oranges (naranjanaranjanaranja). My roommate also told me that he’s seen people go by with furniture or, best of all, with huge boulder-like rocks. His quote was something along the lines of “It’s not like I’m sitting here thinking, ‘Yeah, I totally need a giant rock, I’m so glad you came by!’”

First Day in the Field

2009-01-27T10:27:00.000-08:00

After many days in front of my computer here in the office, I finally had my first real chance to get out in the field and start interacting with some of the people that will be involved in the execution of this nutrition program. This morning, I took one of my favorite little moto taxis (literally a cart built around a motorcycle that rides like a go-kart and goes up and down the road by our house) to visit the school in San Isidro. I would have the chance to speak with the director, three of the cooks, and a few other administrators and get some questions answered about the current program.

I had a little surprise when I arrived at the school because, after confirming several times that my co-worker was going to join me (including one confirmation this morning before I left), Enrique was nowhere to be found. After waiting fifteen minutes, I decided to just dive into the discussions and hoped he would arrive. He never did show up (another meeting came up, though I was not informed), so I ended up conducting the whole hour long meeting – almost entirely in Spanish – by myself. Fortunately, everyone was very willing to help and I think it went pretty well. I got a lot of good information on how much food they use every week, where they buy it, how the store it and how they prepare it. I’m also excited to go back and visit again next week when the kids are in class, because I think observing the cooks in action will give me an even better understanding of the program as it’s currently run.

I’m back here at the office now eating lunch which, if you’re curious, is the same thing I order every day from a restaurant down the road. Rice, beans, some sort of lime-flavored beef that I don’t actually like that much but always order because it’s the only name I can remember, a delicious cheesy fried potato thing, and a Coke Light (Mmm!). I only mix it up on the days they have lasagna, which are rare. It’s probably for the better too, because last time someone picked up lasagna for me, it also included a huge pile of rice and the potato – hello carbs.

For anyone still reading after that interesting account of what I’m eating right now, I have posted some more pictures from the weekend staycation. Enjoy! http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=nicole.roden&target=ALBUM&id=5296031668783233345&authkey=8_S8foc6v2s&feat=email

My Weekend Staycation

2009-01-26T06:05:00.000-08:00

It was yet another fun and fairly packed Nica weekend. On Friday after work, Kelly and Joe invited me to meet up with some other volunteers living in Managua. The group – 6 people all volunteering with an organization called Jesuit Volunteer International – wanted to celebrate one of the girl’s birthday with dinner and dancing. It was really cool to meet a new group of people and see another part of town.

Dinner itself was an adventure, with two foods I had not yet tried in Nicaragua – pizza, and fritanga, or street food (specifically a fried enchilada, fried plantains, and beans and rice). The latter has the reputation for being delicious and also full of parasites, so when I’d originally heard the menu, I was relieved that pizza would be an option. When we got there, though, orders had been crossed a bit and either Kelly or I had street food to eat. Since Kelly’s been sick a few times already and had a long bus ride ahead of her the next day, I figured I’d take my chances and try the fritanga myself. It was quite good, though I was nervous the whole time eating it after one of the JVI’s told me, semi-sarcastically, that “it probably wouldn’t make me sick.” I’m happy to report that I think I escaped parasite-free. The place we went out to after was also fun. It was very open and breezy, and as always, the Nicaraguan rum lived up to expectations. I’m still pleasantly surprised every time I see that we can buy a bottle of rum for the table with a soda for mixing for about $5.

After a good night Friday, Joe and Kelly left early Saturday morning to go up to Cusmapa. Since I’d already been there last week and needed to work Monday, I stayed back. I decided earlier this week that I probably wouldn’t feel comfortable at our house alone for the whole rest of the weekend, so I decided to head for a hotel. The whole thing made me feel a bit guilty at first – the Intercontinental does not exactly qualify as living the simple life of a volunteer – but I got over it pretty quickly once I arrived, took a hot shower and found my way to the pool. Don’t judge! In all fairness, though, it surprised me how much of a culture shock it was to be back in such a modern environment after only a few weeks away – a sneak preview of the even bigger shock I’m going to have come April, I’m sure.

As for some of the interesting parts from my ‘Staycation’, I went to the Cathedral in Managua for church Sunday. It was quite the experience – the building itself is a huge concrete structure with dozens of domes on top of it sitting in the middle of a field. It looked more like something that would belong in the Middle East than Nicaragua. The path leading to the church was about a quarter mile, and all along the way there were vendors selling just about everything – water, rosaries, food, etc. Once I got inside, the scene was even more unexpected. I think it was probably the biggest turn out I’ve ever seen at a church. My initial ballpark estimate of 8,000 has been revised downward somewhat (I was never good at estimation), but the real count of 1,500 – 2,000 was still pretty amazing. On top of the crowd, the music being played over an elaborate and modern speaker system consisted of a lot of keyboards and drum backbeats (the kind that they have stored on keyboards) and the whole crowd was clapping. There was a film crew there for the whole thing too – apparently the mass is broadcast every week. All in all, it was quite the production. And I still failed to understand 80% of it.

The other highlight was a tour I took with a driver from the hotel. It was really good to finally get out and see Managua, and I’m glad I did it in the safety (and air conditioning) of the hotel car. I took a lot of pictures, which I’ll post later this week with captions to fill in the details. However, there is one story from the trip that I found really funny and will share here.

At one point, we were standing in one of the public areas near Lake Managua and the guide was telling me the history of the place. After he’d finished, I noticed some animals just walking around in the middle. While I’ve grown accustomed to this sight in the more rural parts of town, it seemed pretty out of place right in the center of the city. I couldn’t really make out what the animals were, but they looked like goats, and I asked the guide to confirm. We then proceeded to have a 5 minute Spanglish conversation trying to get to the answer. The guide first said they were ‘veil’, which he spelled out several times. At first I thought it was a Spanish word I didn’t know, but when I realized it was English, I immediately thought he must have meant ‘veal’ – not technically an animal, but hey, who am I to judge someone else’s language skills. Since I still have never figured out what veal actually is and mistakenly think it’s sheep most of the time, I asked him if that’s what he meant. He said no, but then said the word for sheep in Spanish (oveja), so I repeated the word ‘sheep’ again. This seemed to spark recognition for him, and he repeated the word back to me – sort of. However, the way he said it sounded more like profanity (sh*t) then anything. I figured I misheard. Then he proceeded to list off examples like “black sh*t” and “white sh*t” and I had to stop and correct him before he started using this word in front of other Americans. Finally, after all this back and forth, we determined that the animals were, in fact, goats after all. Having grown up with a few pet pygmy goats back in the day, it turns out I know a goat when I spot one. I guess the guide had forgotten the word in English altogether – hence the mass confusion. I thought the whole thing was funny – both the language part and the fact that, sure enough, there were a bunch of goats right there in a plaza where Pope John Paul II had spoken only a decade or so earlier. Pretty typical Nicaragua.

Mouse Trap

2009-01-23T07:08:00.000-08:00

It’s no secret that my house here in Managua is slightly full of insects and critters. I’ve mentioned many of them already – the lizard, the giant bugs, and the horse next door (which does not, technically, qualify as being in the house). However, there is one house guest (or, as it were, group of house guests) that I haven’t talked about much – the mice.

I was aware from the first day that we might be dealing with some little ratones here and there. Shortly before I’d arrived, our cupboard where we keep all the dishes and dry groceries had to be cleaned out because some mice had gotten into it. We’re now extra careful to keep the doors shut.

I don’t think I realized the full extent of the problem, though, until after living in the house for a couple weeks. Not a night goes by that we don’t have a mouse sighting. They’re very quick – you’ll basically just see something darting across the floor out of the corner of your eye. One night, a mouse came jumping into the house through the window (the window isn’t extremely high, but it was still pretty amazing). Finally, much to my dismay, I was informed yesterday that Joe and Kelly saw another little rodent heading into…my bedroom.

These are no ordinary mice – they chew through anything (including, it appears, concrete) and they’ve licked countless mousetraps clean without being caught. As a result, the mouse hunt is being stepped up to new levels. However, Joe seems to be set on finding both a creative solution, and one that doesn’t necessarily kill the mice (?!), so we’ve had an entertaining few days watching him construct a mouse boobie trap. Sadly, the latest news this morning was that they had once again stolen the cheese and avoided the trap.

Joe and Kelly have tried a lot of things in the past, but the cat ran away, the traps don’t work, and we’re afraid to use poison because we don’t want to be finding dead mice all over the house. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Trip to Northern Nicaragua – Part 2 of 2

2009-01-22T06:29:00.000-08:00

After our long drive and night of relaxing on Sunday, Monday was a very full day. We started out the morning with trips to some of the rural communities surrounding Cusmapa. It was definitely an interesting experience on many levels. First, the commute itself was quite an adventure because the roads, if you can call them roads, were even more rustic than the ones we’d taken the day prior (paired with the fact that we were on a mountain, it was a bit scary!). The Land Cruiser really lived up to its name on those rocky paths.

The poverty in Cusmapa was about as striking as the views, and the part about it that was perhaps hardest to process was the fact that it was so remote. We had a hard time getting there with one of the best trucks on the road, so you can imagine that there are not many trucks passing through some of these parts. Unbelievably, I still saw signs for Coca Cola in most of these towns, but no doubt the process to get soda to these villages is not an easy one.

While this anecdote is not actually from the trip, I think it definitely gives an idea of what these people’s lives are like compared to ours. Kevin told us about a volunteer who was living in a remote village here in Nicaragua much like the ones we were visiting in Cusmapa. He was down by the river washing clothes with the women and began to tell them about the magical machines that we use in the States for washing clothes. The women were on board with the idea and thought it was great, but they had one big question – how do you get the washing machines down to the river?

One of the highlights of the whole trip was when we were able to hear some members of a Fabretto choir perform. They were extremely energetic and did many great numbers including both Latin music and a rendition of U2’s ‘One Love’ that the amazing music teacher re-wrote in Spanish.

After Cusmapa it was time to start heading back to Managua by way of several other towns where Fabretto has schools. We were making good progress toward Somoto when I could hear a very loud ‘swooshing’ sounds from the tire. After all the off-roading and rock climbing that the Land Cruiser had done, it had a flat tire…and so did the spare. Given the area that we were in, the whole ordeal was resolved relatively quickly, but it did put a little kink in the plans.

The rest of the school visits were much the same given that the classes here are out of session until February for the equivalent of summer break. It was cool to see the campuses, though, and to just get a full appreciation for the reach Fabretto has. Monday night we went to a dusty cowboy-like town called Ocotal and stayed in a hotel for the night. That was yet another treat, even if it was a lot simpler than a Westin, and there was more hot water to be had!

Though it was a whirlwind trip, I had a great time up north. I hope to be able to return once classes are in session to get an even better idea of what Fabretto is doing for children throughout Nicaragua.

One last thing before I sign off. I got a Picassa account up and running, which I think will be an easier way to share photos than through the blog. The link is here for my first album, and I’ll put up other links as more are added. Just copy and paste it into the browser. Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=nicole.roden&target=ALBUM&id=5293837881286970609&authkey=rKoEwQVN6fg&feat=email

Trip to Northern Nicaragua – Part 1 of 2

2009-01-21T06:26:00.000-08:00

I’ve just returned from a really great 3-day trip to the northern part of the country, and I have lots of stories and pictures to share. For the sake of suspense and attempted brevity, I’ll spread the trip over two entries.

The adventure began Sunday afternoon. At the Crown Plaza Hotel, I met up with the other people who would be traveling with us to the mountains – Rachel, Claudio, Marcello and Kevin. All in all, it made for a pretty interesting group. Rachel and Claudio worked for an organization called Cross International, based in Florida. Cross provides support for hundreds of Christian non-profit organizations and projects through funding and food donations. Many of the staple food items Fabretto uses in its meal program for the kids come from Cross.

Rachel graduated the same year as me and worked in the high pressure newspaper business for a couple years before joining Cross. Now she is a writer and photographer for the organization. It was nice to have another girl along, and good to hear from someone who’s recently left an 80+ hour a week job to pursue, among other things, a social life!

Claudio was also a very interesting person – he was born in Brazil, speaks seven languages, has two Masters degrees and, best of all, he did an exchange program in high school that took him to beautiful Fon Du Lac Wisconsin! We had a good time talking about my favorite state. [As an aside, this was not the only Wisconsin connection either – I saw red Green Bay Packer hats all over the north. Apparently the Christmas edition of the hats didn’t sell well, so they donated about 2,000 to Nicaragua and I saw them everywhere. Go Pack!]

Marcello was born in Argentina, has a background as a veterinarian, and was working with Fabretto on improving the water supply (quantity and quality) in some of the rural pueblos that it serves.

Finally, Kevin is a Chicago native and a product of a Jesuit education at Georgetown. He came to Nicaragua when he was 21 years old and worked with Padre Fabretto for a year before he died. Kevin then took over as Director and has lived here since – 20 years and counting.

We all piled in our trusty Land Cruiser and headed off for the north. It didn’t take long to feel like we’d left the hustle, bustle and heat of Managua behind. The scenery changed quickly and soon the mountains began to appear. They continued throughout our 4 hour drive, becoming more and more a part of the drive itself right through the point where the pavement ended and we were driving on some rough mountain roads. I have to admit it was a little nerve wracking at first, because it was really high, but the views were incredible and we had a good driver. Also, it was also all worth it to see the sunset when we arrived in Cusmapa.

Our first night in Cusmapa was low key but very nice. The house where we stayed is a beautiful volunteer house that Fabretto maintains for groups. It slept about 20 people, had a huge living room, kitchen and dining area and, best of all – running water and hot showers! Pair that with good food (pasta, prosciutto, olives, and wine) and the fact that temperatures were the coolest since I'd arrived in Nicaragua (I was wearing a jeans and a sweatshirt!)and I was a very happy camper.

Since this entry is getting long, I’ll end with some pictures. More to come from days 2 and 3 tomorrow!

Learning to Cook

2009-01-16T13:20:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday everyone! Since I will be away from the computer for a few days here between the weekend and the trip up North, I thought it would be good to write a little something now. Also, apologies in advance. I was only able to get one of the two promised pictures last night (the horse is harder to capture than you would think). Since I was not about to have my last post of the week be just a picture of the bathroom, I figured I'd choose a different topic.

While I'm here in Nicaragua, I'm hoping to pick up two (life?) skills that I feel I've been lacking for awhile now. The first is the Spanish - I'll give an update on how that is going after a little more practice. The other thing I'd like to learn is how to cook.

Many of you know that I am desperately incompetent in the kitchen - at least without a little direction. Add to that the fact that the few things I do know how to cook - left overs, Lean Cuisine, pizza, anything on the grill, and take out - all require either an oven, a grill, my mom, or a nearby restaurant - and I am completely lost when it comes to feeding myself here in Nicaragua.

Fortunately, those wonderful roommates of mine do know what they are doing in the kitchen, so I am not going hungry by any stretch. Also, because dinner is such a process here in Nicaragua - lots of chopping and prep work, and many dishes to be done by hand after - I am getting involved in it a lot more as a way to pitch in around the house. I'm hoping I will pick up a few tips here that I will be able to bring home with me.

In terms of what kinds of food I'll be learning to cook, it falls into a few main categories. Rice and beans are a staple at literally every meal. Gallo pinto, as the mixture is called, is often served with lunch and dinner, and can also be made for breakfast. We also cook a lot of vegetables at home because Joe has a garden and the produce at the market is great. Throw in a little meat here are there, and you have the basic composition of every dinner here in Managua. It's nothing too exotic, but I generally enjoy it and have found a few favorites. For example, my roommate makes a tuna salad with plantains that is delicious (I don't even like tuna), and they also make tostones, which are fried plantains that taste a lot like chips.

Since all of this writing is making me hungry, I'll sign off here. Be back mid-next week with stories from my trip!

Survived Week 1!

2009-01-15T15:04:00.000-08:00

Well, I’ve officially crossed the one week threshold her in Nicaragua! It’s a milestone that, while not terribly long, is still an important one in my opinion. In fact, it’s amazing how much you can learn about and adjust to a new place in just a week. There are still surprises daily – for example, yesterday my desk spontaneously became infested with some sort of flying beetle and I had to evacuate – but in general, I’m falling into a routine pretty quickly. It also seems like such a long time since I was last battling the subzero temperatures of the Midwest. Friends in MKE, CHI, MSP, etc. – stay warm, and don’t worry about me. It’s at least 80 degrees here!

Given that I am now in the daily grind, I don’t have too much to report. However, I am really excited about this weekend because I will be making my first trip out of Managua. I am getting a tour of some of our schools in the north, which means I’ll get to see the mountains. I’ve heard it’s absolutely beautiful up there, so I will be taking lots of pictures.

We’ll be going to Cusmapa, our northernmost school on the Honduran border. I think that will be eye opening because it is the region with the most extreme poverty of all those Fabretto serves. One highlight there, besides the scenery, is that some of the women in this region make beautiful baskets out of pine needles as part of a Fabretto program (http://www.fabretto.org/baskets.htm). There are some here in our office and I love them, so I’m hoping to get some souvenirs.

From Cusmapa we’ll travel south to Estelí, a cowboy town known for, among other things, fabulous cigars. There is also another Fabretto farm near Estelí which we’ll be seeing. Should be a whirlwind tour, but a good one. I’ll write much more when I get back next Wednesday!

While I’m basically tapped for posts for the week (barring anything crazy tomorrow), I’ve had many requests for a picture of the horse and the bathroom (seriously, people?), so I’ll see what I can do. Stay tuned...

Where the Streets Have No Name

2009-01-14T11:14:00.000-08:00

As I’ve told some of you already, one of the things I’ve found most interesting and challenging about living in Managua is the fact that there are no street names or addresses in many parts of the city. To get around, people either a) actually know where they’re going (and we all know that isn’t me, even in the States) or b) use landmarks, measures of blocks, etc. to get and give directions. This system really threw me for a loop the first few days I was here.

For example, one of the first pieces of information I like to have when I move to a new place is the address of my home. Seems like a simple enough request. However, when I asked my roommates and co-workers to help me out with this information, I not only got different answers from everyone, but was also surprised by all of their responses. There are no numbers or street names, so my address is some variation on ‘al lado de la escuela Cristo Obrero’ – or, next to Cristo Obrero school. Try typing ‘next to Cristo Obrero school, Managua, Nicaragua’ into Mapquest and see how much good that does you. Needless to say I won’t be receiving much mail at home. Fortunately, the office has a slightly more concrete address associated, so if anyone wants to mail cookies, you still can.

I think the reason I have a hard time with the lack of addresses is because I feel like it really limits my mobility and independence. That, plus the fact that the public transportation system is about as transparent as the address system, means I have to rely on my patient roommates for all my traveling needs.

It’s funny because I was actually discussing this topic last night with my roommate Joe, and that conversation was the inspiration for this post and the title. He told me that the U2 song ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’ was actually written about Managua, which I thought was really cool. I promptly Googled the song this morning and, much to my dismay, realized that, while no one seems to know for sure (except Bono himself), the song is probably not actually about this city. Instead, it’s either Ethiopia, Belfast, New Mexico or heaven depending on whose opinion you read – take your pick. Still, it would be an apt description of Managua, and it’s just another item on the list of adjustments I’ll be making while here.

Home & Work

2009-01-13T12:27:00.000-08:00

Since I'm sure some of you are now tiring of the long posts I've been writing and because, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, I thought I'd post a little virtual tour of mi casa y oficina here in Nicaragua. Sorry, I was not able to get a picture of the horse next to my bedroom or of the lizard. Still, it should give all of you an idea of my daily life here. Also, note that the people I live with did a really great job of fixing this place up and adding paint, tapestries, pictures, etc. I can only imagine what it looked like before. Anyway, enjoy!

Labels going down (because I'm having problems with blogger): Front of house, Living Room, Kitchen, Kitchen Table, Office, My Desk, Morning Commute (in the back!)

Mi primer fin de semana -or- My First Weekend

2009-01-12T08:12:00.000-08:00

After a weekend away from the internet (which, amazingly, I survived), I’m back to writing today. I figured I’d give some highlights from my first weekend here in Managua.

The people I live with, a couple named Joe and Kelly, have been really great so far, helping me get acquainted and including me in their plans. This weekend, some of their friends from the States (which is how I now refer to home) were also here which was fun.

On Friday night I had my first experience with going out to the bar scene in Managua. Just like at home, we started out by pre-gaming at the house. Rum is the drink of choice here which, as many of you know, is PERFECT for me! It’s also extremely cheap – I got a bottle of some of the nicest dark stuff for $5. I think I’ll need an extra bag just to bring home rum when I leave!

After drinking at the house, we caught a cab to the bar. It was 5 of us from our house, plus two neighbors, a father and son (talk about an eclectic group), and the cab driver in a single, tiny cab the size of a Yugo. Ridiculous. It was almost kind of a disaster because there are speed bumps everywhere here, and with all that weight in the tiny car, we almost got stuck on top of one!

The bar itself was really nice – though, as I’ve told some people, it reminded me a bit of a wedding because it was a big open area with a bunch of tables surrounding a dance floor. A lot of older people were hanging out at the tables spectating while we danced, and they also brought in a live band later in the night.

We met up with some friends of Joe and Kelly’s and they both were really good dancers – between the two of them, they tired out all four of us girls! The music at the bar was another highlight. It was a mix of Reggaetone (a favorite here) and really bad old 80s/early 90s music. I heard La Bouche, a few Jock Jams classics, and Grease Lightning. It was hilarious.

After our fun night on Friday, Saturday was a typical day of errands. We went to the bank and to the Mercado. The market was really cool because there was so much fresh produce. My roommate Joe was a pro at bargaining with the vendors, so that was fun to see. Saturday night we just took it easy because the girls left on a trip to the Atlantic coast. I don’t know if I’ll make it there myself, but it sounds really interesting. Because it’s so close to the Carribean, I guess it has a totally different feel than the rest of the country. Unfortunately, it’s a 10 hour trip to get there, mostly by bus.

Sunday was a good day too. I went to my first Spanish mass. There is a church literally right across the street, but it only has one mass – at 7 am. Since the birds/dogs/motorcycles/horse usually wake me up by 6:30 though, not a huge deal. I couldn’t understand much, but the setting was great because it was a beautiful, breezy morning and the church is pretty much wide open.

In the afternoon Sunday, we decided to get out of the neighborhood because it was really noisy. The local team won a soccer game and everyone was celebrating. They had a trophy that was bigger than me, and they pulled out these huge speakers (also bigger than me) that they set up right outside our house. We had to escape the Reggaetone, so Joe took me to the Fabretto School where he works.

I assumed it was ‘right up the road’, but it turned into a hot, dusty, blister-filled 1.5 hour walk – one way! It was cool to see the more rural area though. The school was beautiful. I also got to see the Fabretto farm where they grow pineapples, plantains, coffee, avocados, organic chickens, and much more. It was beautiful and really peaceful, and I saw a gorgeous rainbow while we were there. Unfortunately, I have no pictures to show for it because I’m bad with using my camera, but upon the request of many people, I will start to change that ASAP.

Last night we cooked a traditional Nicaraguan meal – beans, rice, and fried plantains that looked like chips topped with fresh tomatoes. I also got to use my Spanish for about a half hour straight with my neighbor. He told me I have the accent of a Costa Rican, something I found funny and random but took as a compliment because at least he didn’t say I sound like a gringa!

It was back to work today, and the workday is actually ending now so I have to catch my ride. To close though, I’m glad to hear a lot of you are reading the blog. Keep the emails and gchat messages coming too! Just know that I don’t have access to Facebook at work (can you believe they block that here too?!) so while I can read your messages, I can’t respond.

Take care, and I’ll check back in later this week…with pictures!

My work at Fabretto

2009-01-09T15:03:00.000-08:00

While I don't intend on posting multiple blogs a day like it may appear now, I figured I'd take some time while I'm waiting for my ride to leave to give a bit of an overview of what I'll be doing here, now that I have a better idea myself.

I'm officially helping with a complete analysis of their meal program. For the first piece, I'm working on understanding the nutritional requirements for school-aged children (as published by organizations like the WHO and PAHO). Then, I'm matching that against the three food staples that Fabretto currently provides children, all of which are donated. They have rice with soy, a vegetable soup mix and refried beans (from, if you can believe it, Taco Bell - I love those beans!)

Once I see how these three staples stack up against the requirements, I need to start finding the holes and trying to figure out how to fill them. It will be a bit of a challenge because they need non-perishable and inexpensive foods in large quantities, and the main deficiencies I'm already noticing are calcium and protein. May have to get creative there. Suggestions welcome!

After I look at the menu, the next piece will involve a cost analysis of the logistics for this food - both to see if they can do better on pricing and timing of deliveries, and also to get a better idea of the true cost it takes to move a container of rice for the purpose of budgeting. Should be interesting - while I did one logistics project at work, I'm no expert on lean processes and just in time. Should be a learning experience.

Mixed in with the actual number crunching, I will be spending about 1/3 of my time on site looking at how the meal program is run (and playing with kids!) I get to do a trip up to the mountains in a couple weeks too, to see the schools there.

All in all, I'm extremely excited about the work I'll be doing here because I think it's really interesting and important. It should make up for the fact that I'm waking up with random critters in my house!

Estoy en Nica!

2009-01-09T05:57:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to write a quick post that, after a long day of traveling, I made it here without much trouble yesterday afternoon. As would be expected, it's been quite the adjustment process since. I've been using my Spanish a fair bit already - some of which is coming back, and some of which will take time.

The accommodations are modest to say the least - it's a bit like camping but with a roof, some locks, some lights and a toilet (but you have to flush it with a bucket of water most of the time because water only runs for a few hours at night). There was a lizard in the bathroom when I woke up, I've already been warned to knock out my shoes in case there are any scorpions in them, and there is a horse that lives next to my room which I can hear every now and then. Suffice to say, things are a little different than life was back in Chicago and staying in Starwoods.

Time also moves more slowly here without things like TVs, Blackberries and 80 hour work weeks. That, too, will take some time for me to get used to. I'm starting up my job today and finding out more about the project I'll be working on, so I'm excited to have that to work on and pass the time.

In short, it's been an extremely interesting first day here in Nicaragua. While I'm still nervous about things, miss home often and occasionally wonder what I'm doing here, I think it's going to be good once I get settled. Stay tuned...

P.S. Please send emails - I have good internet access at work so I will be pretty responsive if you write!

Nicaragua Bound

2009-01-06T14:25:00.000-08:00

Friends and Family,

As many of you already know, this Thursday I will begin my three month leave of absence from work in Managua, Nicaragua. I'll be volunteering with Fabretto Children's Foundation, http://fabretto.org, doing a nutritional and cost-based assessment of the daily meal program provided to the children.

While I'm not sure exactly how much internet access I will have, I am going to try to keep up this blog while I'm in Nicaragua so I can post pictures and let you all know what I'm up to.

I'll miss everyone while I'm gone, but I'm sure it will be an adventure and an amazing experience. See you back stateside in April, and enjoy the winter!

Nicky