Adventures

Brother, Mendoza, AND MORE!

2009-08-16T08:51:00.000-07:00

Many updates. I almost abandoned this blog but decided to at least give some highlights, since I think at least two people might occasionally check my blog. As a side note, I`m actually getting back to the states the 19th of August. I decided to come back early because my grandma broke her ankle and moved in with us while I was gone. This was too much excitement for me to miss so I decided to come back while she was still recooperating at our house. So if you`re anywhere nearby Orange County, let me know!

Alex (my little brother) ended up coming to visit! There was a significant period where I thought it wouldn´t happen--Shai and Jonathan both left the country thinking I`d be roughing it on my lonesome out here--but last Friday my parents told me Alex was going to come to Buenos Aires the following Monday, so I left Cordoba and took a 10-ish hour night bus (semi-cama, or half bed, which is like economy class on an airplane) to meet him in the big city. Stayed at a great hostel there called Pax.

After spending three days in BA, we took a 13-hour bus to Mendoza, a region that produces a significant amount of Argentina´s Malbec (a type of red) wines. We rode in style, on their first class cama (full bed) bus. Meals came with free wine and champagne, and they sponsored a game of bingo that had a bottle of champagne as the grand prize. (We didn´t win.) I hadn´t had a bus company offer bingo since taking Cruz del Sur in Peru, and I loved Cruz del Sur, so it was a nice moment.

We`ve enjoyed Mendoza. It´s a cute town with a happening downtown area, although the majority of people come here to spend time outside the city at the surrounding wineries. In Maipú (pronounced my-poo. i still find this a little funny.), around 10 wineries exist along a 12 km stretch of road so most people tour the region by bike. Two days ago we rented bikes and stopped by about 5 wineries, which was actually kind of fun despite the fact that neither Alex nor I like wine. By about 5pm though, a hot dry wind picked up. We were taking a tour of the oldest winery open for tourism when our guide found out the tourist police were coming to pick us up and take us back to our bike rental office since it was too dangerous to bicycle back.

These winds apparently only happen once or twice a year, but they cause so many problems that they caused the bus pass between Chile and Argentina to close. Alex and I are now stuck in Mendoza as a result. We were going to take a 10 hour bus ride on Saturday that went through the Andes to reach Santiago, our departure city for the States, but the road shut down and nobody knows when it will reopen. Luckily, we changed our flight so we now fly out of Mendoza instead of Santiago; it´s just too bad neither of us appreciate wine or else we could spend the next three days visiting more wineries.

That´s what´s going on right now. Before my brother and I met up, I traveled to Bariloche, a skiing town that doubles as a mountain mecca for ice cream and chocolate makers. After just two days, I had to get the heck out of there. I headed to Cordoba and spent about three days there. It was a nice enough city, although I had the best time when I left with another Californian on a daytrip to a desert ravine. It was gorgeous. Unfortunately, I lost my camera so there aren´t any pictures for it, though.

I come home in a few days, ending my 3 month Latin America adventure. I`m excited to see what will happen next. Thanks for reading my blog!

Iguazú, Buenos Aires

2009-07-27T14:33:00.000-07:00

The Iguazú Fallswere absolutely amazing. They´re a series of waterfalls located on the border of Brazil and Argentina that are larger than Niagara Falls. The park itself is also set up like Disneyland, which I actually really appreciated considering the poorly developed parks that we´ve been used to seeing. (By comparing it to Disneyland, I mean that the reserve put a lot of thought into the development and structure of the pathways and the organization of the site. All the paths were paved, with signs and park employees everywhere.) We got pretty wet trying to look at some falls called Devil´s Mouth. There was so much spray from the falls that the view couldn´t be captured in a photo, or at least a photo taken by me.

On a different note, today I heard Sigur Ros played in my hostel and it made me very nostalgic about being at Grinnell and holing myself up either in my room or the library on a Saturday, studying for midterms and finals. I remembered this just now because at the internet cafe I´m at, the song ´Call on Me´ came on, made famous by Titular Head.

We´re in Buenos Aires right now and have been here for a week. BA is such a great city! The ice cream really is amazing. It´s a derivative of gelato, brought over here by the thousands of Italian immigrants that made the city their home. We´ve met up with Shai and Jonathan´s family a few times (they have a whole slew of relatives that live here), and each time we´ve seen them, they´ve taken us out for ice cream. I´ve had it once a day the past three days.
They serve it differently here than in the states - you pick two ice cream flavors, one for inside the cone and another for the top, and then they shape the ice cream tip to a point so, if done correctly, it looks like the hair of a Troll Doll. These places also have about 30 flavors each, which apparently are all delicious. We went to one place in a hip section of town, Palermo, with Shai´s cousin and her husband, after they had us over for dinner. It was 12am and the place was going strong--we had a hard time even finding a table. A few families with their toddlers and young children were ordering ice cream and coffee as we sat. The shop didn´t close until 3am, and Joana, Shai´s cousin, said that the line for ice cream trailed out the door at closing time during the summer. (For the record, it´s winter here right now.)

Shai leaves on Wednesday, and Jonathan on Sunday. As of right now, I leave September 29th. I have no idea what I´m going to do once they leave! There is a pretty fierce rumor that Alex, my younger brother, will come traveling with me for a few weeks, which would be really fun. I´m thinking about working on a dairy farm either in Chile or Mendoza for a month or two. I really want to learn how to make yogurt and cheese. I´m also beginning to miss home (it´s true, Mom & Dad!), which is out of character since normally I get really involved in the places that I visit or live in. I´m looking forward to having down time in Irvine once I get back.

If any of you are heading to South America, let me know! My plans are really flexible at this point.

Now Argentina

2009-07-18T19:13:00.000-07:00

I´ve been super bad about updating! This is just a short post to commit myself to posting a real update. We were in the desert of San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, for about 4 days after having left Peru. We just left Atacama today on a 12 hour bus ride to Salta, Argentina, where we are right now.

We just got back from at an amazing meat restaurant tonight where we had the first red meat I´ve had in a really long time. It was delicious, and think $8 to split a bunch of ribs between two people. Tomorrow, we´re going to this Lebanese restaurant Shai´s really excited about.

Salta also has non-food related things to do, surprisingly enough. I´m hoping to check out this museum here that has the frozen body of a woman who was supposedly an Incan sacrifice. She´s supposed to be perfectly preserved--hair, clothes, skin and all. I don´t think Shai or Jonathan particularly care, but I´m looking forward to it. Then at 3pm, we embark on a 21 hour bus ride for Iguazu Falls. Apparently they serve one meal on this ride, so we´ll have to get creative about what food we bring with us. I´m imagining eating a bell pepper and a lot of yogurt. (The yogurt here is amazing! I´ve never eaten so much of it in my life.)

Food

2009-07-03T07:34:00.001-07:00

There are some things that we eat a lot of, here in our travels. Shai randomly gets cravings for apples and generally buys them in bulk from either a grocery store or the covered and usually crazy food markets. I´m trying to only buy my food from these markets, I love them so much. She also consumes a lot of this watery thing that people sell along the side of streets unrefridgerated. It comes in a plastic goblet with small chocolate balls on top, which you´re supposed to pour into the yogurt.

I´ve been on a quinoa kick and have tried to prepare it in different fashions, although I´ve really only had one success: quinoa with tomatoes, onions and garlic. I tried to cook this when we were in Arequipa, except with the addition of bell pepper. I bought two big, round peppers from the central market. I chopped them all up and mindlessly slipped a piece of pepper in my mouth as I was finishing, only to die from its spiciness. I had no idea that peppers that look decievingly like sweet bell peppers could be so horrifyingly hot. My lips burned for a good 20 minutes after eating it. They had black seeds, but I still don´t know if that was a sign or if all peppers here have them.

I think I forgot to mention our transportation fun, so I´ll mention it now. There have been a bunch of transportation strikes throughout the country due to a few factors, none of which I fully understand but I´ll skim over anyway.
1) Some people (possibly indigenous) are protesting the privatization of water.
2) Local indigenous peoples are protesting oil drilling in the Amazon.
So we got into Arequipa from Ica at around 9am, after being on a bus for 13 hours. We checked into our hostel (Home Sweet Home - it was cute, although a little far from the center), wandered around the town for a good majority of the day, and got back at around 6pm to find out from someone sharing the dorm with us that the road to Cuzco was going to be blocked for a week starting the next day at 6am. We had been planning to hang out in Arequipa for a few days and then meander over to Lake Titicaca, from where we would head on to Cuzco. This was bad news, since it meant we wouldn´t be able to get into Cuzco for at least a week if we didn´t leave before 6am. I had been cooking the quinoa when we found out, so I hurried it up, threw the quinoa in a plastic bag (this wasn´t the first time) to bring with me, and we headed straight for the train station to find out what was going on. We ended up buying bus tickets for Cuzco that night and left at 8:30 pm, to arrive in Cuzco at 6am. So we spent 12 hours in Arequipa, after having traveled a total of 17 hours (Lima to Ica to Arequipa) to get there. And that´s how we got to Cuzco. (For the record, the blocade ended up not even happening. Tuesday was supposedly a nation-wide transport strike, which also didn´t happen. We´ve also heard that there are blocades occuring between here and La Paz, which is our next destination after Macchu Pichu, but who knows what´s actually happening.)

Today we´re meeting up with Josie, another friend from Grinnell who moved to Cuzco to become fluent in Spanish, and then we´re going to Chabad (an Orthodox sect of Judaism who has centers set up in popular travel spots for Jews) for dinner tonight to celebrate Shabbat (Friday sundown to Saturday sundown is special in Judaiasm, celebrated on Fri with prayers and dinner). I´m really curious about who these people are that run the center, who will go, what we´ll eat. It should be an interesting experience.

Cuzco Updates

2009-07-02T16:43:00.001-07:00

Shai and I yelled at a woman working at the tourism office yesterday.

Randomly ran into Ami Freeberg, a friend from Grinnell, on the street in Cuzco. We met up yesterday and made lunch, then went to a cultural dance performance last night and today we walked 4.5 miles around some really amazing Incan ruins just up a hill from Cuzco proper. I´ll add links later for info about the sites.

Went to a restaurant today with a menu in Spanish and in Hebrew with Shai and these Israeli guys we met. The other patrons appeared to all be other Israelis too. There are some buildings here that just have signs in Hebrew, targeting the many Israeli travelers that pass through. It´s actually ridiculous how many Israelis we´ve met on our trip.

Today I began a 5-word-a-day program for learning Hebrew. My words: peelpal (pepper), melach (salt), zifra (syphilus and also the name of a food dish), and I forget the rest. I´m pretty confident I´ll be fluent soon.

I´m awful at updating here, so I apologize! I´ll keep posting stuff, but I can´t guarantee a constant rate. Hope you´re all well!

Come Peru, Ica

2009-06-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

I´m sorry; I´ve been super bad about updating the blog since we´ve gotten to Peru! We were in Lima and I might explain that more later, but we had a really great time. Definitely the most beautiful city I´ve seen in Latin America so far.

We met up with Angie, a classmate from Grinnell who´s from Lima, and she showed us around her side of Lima. It was so great to see her and she gave us such a great tour. She took us to this outdoor mall built into ocean cliff, which was something that seemed like it belonged in Orange County but there´s probably no way in hell any company could afford to buy the property to build it. I´d never seen anything like it. I also finally tried lomo saltado, a typical Peruvian dish consisting of meat, tomatoes, potatoes and onions. We saw super cute botiques, the private school she attended, beautiful churches, her house. She also told us our (or at least my) most profound discovery on this trip: you can buy clothes in parts of Lima made by big clothing companies (Gap, Michael Corrs, Abercrombie & Fitch, etc.) for ridiculously cheap because the clothes are made in local factories. If any piece has some type of mistake, the clothing gets taken to one of these stores for locals to buy at super cheap prices. It´s like shopping at a thrift store, with boxes of clothes to sort through to find the gem in the sand dune (I hope that´s the phrase). So if you go to Lima and like to shop, you should find one of these stores!

We then took a 5 hour doubledecker Cruz del Sur bus from Lima to Ica , where we are now. (We´re following a path loosely called the "Gringo Trail," where travelers make a loop from Lima to Cuzco. This path breaks up the 24 hour bus ride between the two cities and enables us to explore more of Peru.) So thisbus was crazy, in a good way. They gave us a blanket, a pillow, dinner, and even provided a screened movie (Lady of the Lake), and a bus-wide game of bingo, which Shai and I did not win. They also offer bathroom assistance, particularly when one gets locked in their restrooms, which Shai discovered. The entire back of the bus heard Shai scream, "I´m locked in!" when she couldn´t figure out how to let herself out of the bus´s small bathroom. The attendant had to yell directions lound enough for Shai to hear her, which caught the attention of anyone who didn´t hear Shai´s initial pleas for help. It was hilarious. I crying from laughing so hard by the time Shai got back. Describing it, this situation really doesn´t seem that funny but trust me, it was great.

We just took a tour of a local bodega, or winery, and had some very sweet and very tasty wine. They produce pisco here, which is a type of hard alcohol used to make pisco sour, a Peruvian specialty. We´ll wander around Ica for an hour or two and then head to Huacachina to go sandboarding. At 8:30 pm we board another bus to get to Arequipa, a trip that will last 12 hours.

Back in Heredia

2009-06-10T09:11:00.000-07:00

Shai and I are back in Heredia, staying with my friend Coralia, who I met in San Ramón and stayed with me and my family for a week last winter break.

We had a monumental bus trip yesterday, one of many. We left Ometepe at 7am on a ferry to San Jorge, then took a cab to the Ticabus station. The woman selling tickets for Ticabus was ridiculously rude so we protested by leaving and decided to take a cab all the way to the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border and cross by foot, which was incredibly stressful the last time we did it. The system is ridiculous - there are no signs telling you which way to go and people try to charge you for the government customs documents that you can get inside for free. We survived it, though, and managed to get a bus to San José at 10:30 am. We got in to San José by 4:00 and met up with Coralia after having gotten a little lost in Heredia.

Now we´re just chilling out, eating oatmeal, and probably will go into Heredia today. I leave tomorrow at 4am for my cousin´s wedding in Wisconsin and then go home on Monday (my birthday) for my brother´s graduation from high school. Hopefully I´ll be able to see some of you guys when I get home! I´ll leave the following Sunday (21st) for Peru.

isla de ometepe!!

2009-06-07T18:03:00.000-07:00

So I made a quick dash to San Ramon at the last minute - I decided Friday morning to head there from Granada. It ended up being about a 6 hour bus ride and I got in at like 7pm. Nobody (minus Emma and Max, who I´ll get to in a sec) knew I was coming, so it was kind of fun just showing up. Emma and Max, both from Grinnell, were doing internships there so I popped by and visited them. The three of us left at 11am to get to la Isla de Ometepe, which itself was an epic journey that lasted about 7 hours and involved a horrific movie and some freaky driving.

We coincidentally met up with Shai on the boat just as I was freaking out about how she and I were going to get back in touch. Now we´re all hanging out at this really sweet hostel where we´re paying $2.50 a night for a private room. We went kayaking today around this really pretty area. I might expand on this later, depending on internet access. Tomorrow Emma and Max have to leave, which is too bad, but Shai and I will head to another part of the island to see some really cool ancient petroglyphs. We´ll probably be staying here until Tuesday, after which I´ll head back to San Jose, C.R. to fly to Wisconsin for my cousin´s wedding.

What's red and white with stripes all over?

2009-06-02T17:13:00.000-07:00

A zebra with a sunburn!

Ha ha ha ha ha. I just remembered that joke. Coincidentally, I am also red all over - ridiculously sunburnt. We're in Mal Pais right now, which is this great beach town, and are staying at a really relaxed (and appropriately named) hostel, the Tranquilo Backpackers Hostel. It's got hammocks everywhere, tons of mango trees, free pancake breakfasts, free internet, and is right across the street from the beach (although separated by a mini forest). I actually just picked a mango off the ground right now. I might regret this decision later, but someone told me they were fine to eat as long as they weren't already split open. So we'll see how it goes.

I spent a good majority of the morning trying to clean my cooking oil-stained pack. It exploded in the taxi yesterday from Montezuma to Mal Pais. Oh gosh, I just realized I have so much to update you all on. I left my passport in our really awful hostel in Montezuma (Pension Jenny - don't stay there! It's just as expensive as a hostel on the beach but is incredibly dirty and bad.) and didn't realize it until we drove the 45-min passage to Mal Pais, so I had to go back to Montezuma, retrieve my passport (luckily Pension Jenny is honest even if it's not clean), and wait two hours for the next transportation to Mal Pais to arrive.

Now that we're here though, it's great. We were thoroughly disappointed with Montezuma, which was disappointing in itself since a lot of other people really enjoyed it. Sorry to everyone out there who's been and who liked it - I think we were expecting a real beach town and were surprised to find it so developed and so focused on tourism. Montezuma is this hippie town with yoga classes, wheat grass shots and organic ice cream stores, and vendors sporting rasta dreads. All of this seems to be for tourists, though. The signs were all in English and almost everyone working in the tourist industry speaks the language, which is really interesting considering that the majority of Costa Ricans don't know English.

So we left Montezuma for Mal Pais and have been really happy with it. I rented a boogie board today and went to the beach with some friends here. They rented a surf board and let me try it, and it was actually really fun! So I think tomorrow I'm going to swap my boogie board for a surf board and try it for reals. It's strange coming from Southern California and having this be the first time I've ever tried to surf. But after today's adventure, I'm pretty badly sunburnt on my legs.

The tropics have not been too good to Shai or me. In addition to our burns, we're also getting eaten alive by the mosquitos. Shai just doused herself in DEET, this miracle potion that protects us from these awful bugs. Last night, in bed, as I was blindly grabbing into the air with the hopes of killing the mosquitos that buzzed in my ear, I considered that the people sharing our hostel dorm would think I was crazy. I hit my face a few times, slapped my ear, and eventually retreated under my bed covers. I'm sure the battle will wage on when we cross the border for Nicaragua in a few days. Until then, I think we'll have to figure out a way to make peace here in Mal Pais with both the mosquitos and the sun.

From Mountains to Ocean

2009-06-01T22:00:00.001-07:00

Ziplining was awesome! Shai didn't want to go because she had already done it in Mexico, but Monteverde apparently is where ziplining was born. So it was great. The group I was in included 'Team Kickass,' which comprised three awesome guys in Costa Rica for a wedding, and people studying abroad from a community college in Philly. The experience was surprisingly not that scary - even though a hook is the only thing connecting you to a wire 450 ft above the ground, you feel pretty secure. So we all zipped around primary canopy forest in Costa Rica. I really didn't see anything at all except the treetops, which was still gorgeous. At one point, I thought I heard howler monkeys but that easily could have been someone being a jerk and mimicking their sound.

The most awesome and terrifying part of this whole ziplining experience, though, was the tarzan swing. The guy at our hostel talked to me for like five minutes about the different tarzan swings available. I felt like I was buying life insurance or something, he told me so much information. I must have zoned out because I was thoroughly surprised when we got to this point of the ziplining experience. The guide asked for a volunteer to go first and I naturally made sure I didn't even breathe loudly so he wouldn't pick me out of our 12-person group. Some girl in front of me raised her hand but no, he went straight for me. He probably thought I would shriek really loudly on the swing.

I walked up this giant platform (about three stories tall?) and was hooked onto this giant rope. The guy then tried to convince me to use both hands to hold on. In order to do that, I had to lean forward, off the edge of the platform, which I was not keen on doing since that meant I would most likely fall off this platform rather than control my 'jump.' Regardless, I'm pretty sure the guide pushed me off once both my hands were touching that rope. I didn't even think about screaming once I fell; the wind got knocked out of me so it wasn't an option. Once I almost hit the ground and the rope kicked in to yank me back up, I realized I was actually notgoing to die. So the swing turned out to be really fun!

That night, Shai and I met up for dinner with 'Team Kickass' at the Treehouse Cafe, a touristy but neat restaurant in Monteverde. The guys were all really cool. After dinner, we went to a bar to hang out and ended up sitting around this really nice bonfire for the majority of the night, and later were joined by a lot of other tourists (and locals who followed them) who were attracted to fire.

Yesterday (I cannot believe this was just yesterday), Shai and I woke up at 5am to catch a bus to get to the beach. I'm going to end this story here because I am tired, but hopefully it will be continued.

Nice failures

2009-05-29T20:01:00.000-07:00

Short post because the internet's slow. But we're in Monte Verde, C.R. right now. We took a guided hike to see the lava of volcano Arenal, but we didn't see anything because it was cloudy. Apparently if that happens, the tour company gives a free tour the next day but we had to leave for Monte Verde. The hike ended with a really sweet stop at natural hot springs, which were *amazing*!

Shai and I also tried to go to this cabaret show put on by the Monte Verde community, which was about 2km uphill from our hostel. We left at about 6:30 pm and it was already dark. After climbing up this super steep hill and having no idea where we were going, the fog started to roll in. When the windy road turned from paved to dirt and the sidewalk ended, we paused on the side of the road to check our bearings with our little map. The longer we waited, the thicker the fog got. We ended up just going back. This dog followed us halfway back and almost got run over at least twice. Really, this story is not very good. You had to be there - the fog seriously made everything more ominous! At one point we turned around and all we saw were the outlines of two figures walking behind us, as we're walking along this curvy highway in the forest. Creepy.

Tomorrow I'm going ziplining. I think Shai's going to a reptile museum and a butterfly garden. We'll also go for a hike. We're trying to decide where to go from here, but we're thinking Montezuma, a beach town in the Gulf of Nicoya.

Grinnell's grades are up. That's terrifying.

I'd love to hear from you all so feel free to send me e-mails or comments. (Thanks for the note, Jamie!)

We´re in store for a Volcano

2009-05-28T09:37:00.001-07:00

Shai and I left Coralia yesterday and took a 6 hour bus ride to La Fortuna, which is in the northern region of the country and located near the base of the Arenal volcano. This volcano erupted in 1968 after a 400-year dormancy and has been spewing lava ever since. La Fortuna is super touristy, but almost everyone speaks English, which is helpful for Shai. It starts to pour rain here by like 1pm, so I´m not quite sure how the tour is going to go down. I also only packed a pair of sandals, so hopefully nothing gross appears out of the dirt and attacks my feet.

Before taking a tour at 3pm today to check out the lava, we´re going to walk over to a watering hole because it is super hot and humid here! It´s the type of hot where you sweat when you stand still.

Tomorrow we leave La Fortuna at 8:30 am for Monteverde, via a strange route popularly known as ¨jeep-boat-jeep.¨ You take a van to Lake Arenal, where a boat meets you and takes you across the lake. Once you cross the lake, a van meets you at the other end and takes you to Monteverde, which is one of the most popular nature reserves in Costa Rica. I´m curious to see it, mainly since I had read academic articles about the tourism there when I was studying tourism in Costa Rica with my class on sustainable development.

I´ll probably update after Monteverde. I feel like I really haven´t had all that much to update about yet, but hopefully this will soon change, and won´t include stories about getting our stuff stolen at the local watering hole or being abandoned on a boat in Lake Arenal. Only time will tell!

Heredia, Costa Rica

2009-05-24T12:59:00.000-07:00

I got into Costa Rica safe and sound! I´m staying with my friend Coralia, who stayed with my family and me in December when she toured Soka University, a college founded by the SGI sect of Buddhism. We had a sleepover last night at Coralia´s friend´s house with her friend and a girl from Soka University who´s studying abroad here. Everything´s going really well! It rains for much of the day. This is a really bland post but I want you all to know that I will occasionally be posting updates about the trip! Tomorrow Shai gets in and I have no idea what will be in store for us after that. It will be exciting, whatever happens.

Experiential Learning Trip to Nicaragua

2009-02-14T11:10:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't posted in an incredibly long time, but I was told to update at some point with a "where am I now" type thing, and I actually have news that you might be interested in!

I'm planning a trip for students at Grinnell College to go back to San Ramon with me and do some experiential learning over spring break. It's been an incredible process and I've already learned so much, despite not even having left yet. Nothing currently exists at Grinnell like this, so it's been an exciting journey of meeting people incredibly motivated to help pave the way to establish a formal, concrete relationship between the college and the community after a few years of connections via its students. I hope that this trip will continue for years to come, and will contribute to a sister city-type relationship between Grinnell and San Ramon. In particular, I hope that professors will supplement class coursework (whether in development studies or ecology) with trips to San Ramon to deepen the applicability of Grinnell's educational experience and provide real-world examples for textbook knowledge.

I'll post the project description from various funding applications I've filled out.
Taken from my Center for Peace Studies funding application:
During Spring Break 2009 (March 16th-27th), a group of eight Grinnell students will volunteer in San Ramón, Nicaragua, which is located in the Northern region. (The spots were highly competitive – twenty-two people applied for seven spots.) We will specifically be working with a community organization run by women, el Centro Promocional Cristiano por la Paz y la Vida (CPC). CPC also runs its own micro-lending office, a pharmacy, a health clinic (which was created through efforts of Jamie Zwiebel ’08), a community tourism office, and educational services for women and youth.
We will be in Nicaragua for 10 days, staying with homestay families organized by CPC. Our work will involve Finca La Hermadad, a primary cloud forest reserve that is home to howler monkeys and sloths. Our primary service project will be to work in the park, cleaning existing trails and clearing new ones. The reserve stems from the efforts of a shade-grown coffee plantation owner to preserve the local environment in light of increased deforestation in the region. Many farmers surrounding La Hermandad decide to clear primary forest and farm their property to garner an income from the land. Thus, the reserve maintains a quickly-disappearing environment that has yet to be examined by biologists—to this day, no species list has been created for the region’s cloud forests. The farmer lacks the economic resources to maintain the reserve, however; thus, any help would be much appreciated as he wishes to make the reserve available to locals who lack opportunities to see the surrounding natural environment.
As a group, we will also conduct interviews with recipients of microloans to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats within the microloan industry in San Ramón, Nicaragua. This project would bolster the microloan industry that has enabled individuals—women, in particular—to economically gain control of their lives. The interviews would be meshed into a document, which would be presented to CPC and to the recipients of microloans, thus placing emphasis on the voices of recipient populations. We will also take a tour of two women’s artisan cooperatives which are funded by microloans.
This trip builds upon the community’s pre-existing relationship with the college through its students and student groups: most recently, I held an internship in sustainable community tourism with CPC during the summer of 2008; Social Entrepreneurs of Grinnell (SEG) is currently lending CPC a microloan; Jamie Zwiebel ’08 studied abroad and worked with CPC, fundraised to help construct their health clinic and also created a sewing cooperative through a Davis Project for Peace in the community during the summer of 2007.

After a rigorous application process in which 22 students applied, a total of 7 were selected to participate in this trip. I've been able to acquire $3190 of funding as of now, which is incredibly exciting. This will make the trip cost about $350 per person, not including myself. That's less than the cost of the plane tickets. It'll be great!

When we get back, we'll be making at least three presentations on campus: first, we'll present to the campus at large to describe the trip and how it went, and second, we'll talk about microfinance in the region at a conference hosted by the Wilson Program. Third, we'll present to the college's board of trustees to describe the trip and where we'd like things to go from here.

I'll update after the trip. Maybe a little bit during as well, if we have time. If you want more information, feel free to send me an e-mail or post a comment and I'll get back to you.

I'm home!

2008-08-17T19:02:00.000-07:00

I totally forgot to tell you all - I'm home! I've been in the States for about three weeks now. I was in Irvine, CA with the fam and now am in good ol' Grinnell, Iowa. Nicaragua adventures are over (for now) but senior year adventures are about to begin.

However, I don't think I mentioned the orchid project that I was working on in my last few weeks at the internship. It ended up becoming the most important thing that I helped out with. I'll explain it more in another post some day - or you could send me an e-mail / note about it. Basically, we are going to create an orchid reserve for the indigenous orchids of Matagalpa, while also serving as a reserve for the ecosystems in general. There will also be medicinal plants, which are really popular in the area. So I'm home but am still trying to help them find funding sources for the project. If any of you know of any orchid enthusiasts that might be interested, please send them my way.

Sandinistas

2008-08-07T16:21:00.000-07:00

(I started writing this post while in Nicaragua but couldn't complete it at the time.)

The father of Marfa´s children, El Apache (nickname), asked me last week if I wanted to go to Managua on Saturday, July 19^th, to see the revolution rally. I didn´t know what he was talking about, so he explained the event to me: on July 19^th, 1979, Nicaragua got rid of their dictator, Samoza, so this day has become a national holiday and every year Sandinistas throughout the country flood in caravans to the Plaza in Managua to hear speeches and rally together. I accepted and brought along my friend Jacqueline, who works with me in the tourism office. We went to the basketball stadium, which is where everyone was supposed to meet in order to go to Managua – they provide free transportation for the rally and the majority of buses skip their normal route and take people to the Plaza.

While we were waiting, we both got free hats that say FSLN (the Sandinista National Liberation Front and modern iteration of the Sandinistas) and someone else promised me a bright red FSLN shirt. We ran into El Apache, who was sitting in the back of a white truck that had two giant (4-foot tall) stand-up speakers and a microphone sound system hooked up. Revolutionary music blasted. He invited Jacqueline and me to ride with them in the truck, which would lead the way for the San Ramón caravan to Managua. We were both pretty excited since this meant we would avoid the sticky heat and crowdedness of the bus and instead enjoy the scenery and music of the truck. Jacqueline snagged a Sandinista flag for me, which we both enthusiastically waved until a group of guys standing next to the truck attempted to steal a flag that was attached to the car. Jacqueline immediately hid the flag behind our jackets so that nobody would forcibly take my souvenir.

At around 10 am, Lolo (the man wielding the microphone and apparently responsible for organizing San Ramón’s caravan) addressed the buses, trucks and motorcycles parked behind us, saying it was time to leave for Managua .Thus, the procession began. I discovered how many people were traveling to Managua when we met up with a caravan from anther city. Both in front of us and behind us, all I could see was a line of buses that continued past the horizon. When we drove through towns, clusters of people along the side of the road cheered and waved their Sandinista flags. I learned that the appropriate response to this was to return the cheers and the waving of the flag, and sometimes to include a genial wave of the hand. I felt like a town beauty pageant contestant, waving at my adoring fans from my fortress of a float. I had to remind myself that we were celebrating the demise of a dictator, not a beauty pageant victory. It took us around 4 hours to travel 130 km to the national capital.

Once there, we parked in what looked like the town dump, scenically located next to the Lake of Nicaragua. There were two guys that jumped on the truck with Jacqueline and me, so the four of us separated from the adults and headed off to find Jacqueline and me a bathroom. We stopped at a random house on the main street and asked the teenager who opened the door if we could use their restroom. She hesitated for a second and asked specifically if I needed to use the bathroom, and Jacqueline nodded vigorously, hoping to speed the process along. The girl seemed to like the idea of helping out a foreigner so she let us both through. “The bathroom is through the kitchen. Be sure to close the door and watch out for the pig,” she warned us as we hurried through the house to the back. We opened the back door to discover a large mud puddle, the pig, and their bathroom. The bathroom consisted of a wooden three-walled structure with a hole in the ground and a plastic ‘guiding device’. I was really surprised by the bathroom – I guess I was rather naïve to assume that bathrooms in Managua would have flushing toilets. This was a step down from the toilets I was accustomed to in the countryside, which shocked me.

Jacqueline warned me to watch my bag as we approached a huge fairground, where hundreds of people were selling balloons, jewelry, toys, food and hard liquor. I couldn’t believe how many people were there –red and white, the colors of most people’s t-shirts, consumed the landscape as all I could see were bodies milling around. One site said there were around 400,000 people there, which floors me. I’ve never seen so many people in my life.

It was incredibly surreal being part of this massive crowd of people. I just stood, listening to the layered sounds of revolutionary music, cheering and singing voices, and this creepy, slowed-down recording that rasped, “Viva Sandino” that randomly played. Whenever I heard it, I felt like I was in a horror film. There was a huge stage in front of us, where all the high-and-mighty of Nicaragua stood socializing, talking on their phone, or taking in the view of the crowd. One girl up on stage apparently wasn’t used to being in the limelight since she snapped a picture of herself with the hoard of people in the background, watching her. We saw Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s president, at the event. However, when Hugo Chavez appeared on the stage, I was starstruck. Apparently he and Daniel gave speeches that mentioned America’s imperialism, but we left before the speeches began.

After standing and sweating (it was really hot) for about two hours, we left at 6:30 to head back to the truck. It was nearly impossible to squeeze through the crowd – we formed a hand-holding chain so that none of us got lost. We dodged giant mud puddles and slipped by peripheral fist-fights to break out of the crowd. I let out a sigh of relief when we had reached an opening and wiggled my hand free to wipe off the sweat. On the main street, there were still hundreds of people milling around and at least a dozen who had completely passed out on the side of the road, serving as an obstruction to the passers-by. We got to the truck safe and sound, although my friend Frederman came back a little lighter as someone had snatched his wallet during our trek back to the truck.

The drive back was beautiful – I laid down in the truck bed and rested my head on Jacqueline’s stomach while looking up at the stars. Lolo, the guy who wielded the microphone, went a little loco for the Caballo, a type of rum in Nicaragua, so by the end of the night he was trying to grab my feet and tie my shoelaces together.

I really want to go back next year for the 30^th anniversary – it will be phenomenal.

Masaya and Piropos

2008-07-25T14:30:00.000-07:00

So much to update you all on. I´ll start with my weekend trip to Granada and Masaya, which I think was about two weeks ago. It was a blast – hung out with my friend Liz who had been in San Ramón for a bit, her friend Rose and three of their friends from their community, which is about an hour southwest of Managua.

We all met up with Meredith for dinner, one of my friends from Grinnell who is working in Granada as a coordinator of a volunteer organization. I think we were all feeling like we needed a break from gallo pinto, so we grabbed some pizza. Liz, her friends and I went to a club and danced essentially the whole night, left at around 12:30 am and caught a cab. I thought we were going back to the hostel but we ended up going to the lake near Granada, to another bar there and danced some more. We returned at 4 am and I experienced one of the scariest car rides of my life. I won´t describe it here – I don´t want to worry my parents. Met up with Mer for breakfast, saw her sweet pad, and don´t you worry Mer, I have the photo right here to prove our reunion actually occurred.Mer and me in the central plaza of Granada. (We were looking at the flip-out screen of my camera.)

Piropos
I´ve gotten used to people yelling, Chelita preciosita, mi amor, I love you, bye (yes, they say bye here as a pick-up line. As I mentioned a while back, here they say adios as a ´hi´ in passing, so because adios means bye in English, they´ll switch it up sometimes and use that as well. The same applies for ´Te amo.´ I´ve heard I love you a lot as well.) . I usually don´t respond, pretend like I didn´t hear or don´t speak Spanish, and keep on walking without maintaining eye contact. On one occasion, I failed to demonstrate complete disinterest, which sparked a series of events that I will discuss.
A man down the street owns a few buses, one of which was being repaired. Starting about three weeks ago, every time I would walk by the bus (heading to work, come back from work for lunch, going back to work after lunch, and come home from work for dinner), the crew of mechanics working on the engine would whistle and one mechanic in particular led the group in these serenades. I didn´t even know what any of them looked like because I always avoided glancing, so as not to fuel their fire. One day when I was walking back to work after lunch, their boss was standing outside checking up on them. When he noticed me, he told me that I had an admirer and referenced the very expressive mechanic, I laughed and told the boss that I knew. The mechanic yelled at me as I was walking away, Te amo mi amor. The next day, I was trying to text my friend Liz as I walked by the bus. Once he noticed I had a phone, he yelled after me to give him my number. As usual, I kept walking.
I told Doña Marfa about this admirer and she told me that she knew one of the mechanics working there, and that if it was the same mechanic that she knew, that he was a very respectful, sweet, thoughtful guy. A few weeks ago she popped a tire and a young man stopped to help, gave her his carjack and then with her until she could find another tire; he told her he worked as a mechanic down the street. She told me that when we walked by the bus on our way back from Juana´s house, she´d check him out and tell me if it´s him or not. So we walked by and we almost walked completely past the bus when I heard, ·Mi amor give me your phone number.· I didn´t respond and kept walking with Marfa, but she turned around. ·Son, this girl lives in my house and I´m responsible for her. I don´t give her permission to give her number to people like you.· Silence passed and it seemed like she had physically hit him. We kept walking. Earlier I had explained to her that men in the US that whistled and catcalled were considered rude, and she said that here, there´s a type of catcall that is rude but the majority is not. – Marfa, does he have bad manners?- She laughed and nodded. We ate dinner at home; as she was cooking, she said, ¨Well, when we walk back to Juana´s house, I´ll just doublecheck in case it really is him.¨ Apparently she was having second-doubts. When we walked back, she yelled at him to come over; he hesitantly walked towards us. ¨Do you remember me?¨ she bluntly asked him. He nodded without looking her in the eye, ¨Of course. Did you forget my favor so quickly?¨ She immediately apologized and explained that she couldn´t see well and that he had been neatly dressed when she initially met him, so he looked different now that he was all dirty; she also said that it was her job to protect me so she had to be cautious about boys. ¨So you like my daughter Marissa?¨¨Yes, I really like her – I love her. Don´t you worry though, she´s good – she never stops when I say things to her.¨ He asked her if I was free to meet up this weekend and she said yes, and that we were going to Selva Negra (a popular forest in the area) tomorrow and invited him to come with us. He couldn´t but said that he could give us a ride back. She nodded and then told him that she didn´t have a cellphone but that I did, and prodded me to give him my number. So after all of this, Doña Marfa made me give my number to the guy who I had been avoiding. He coyly turned to me and asked, ¨Oh, you have a cellphone?¨ As if he didn´t know.
Somehow we made plans to meet up on Sunday to ´pasear´, or joyride. It was a 3-person date – we drove around and ended up at a bar, where we got rather tipsy and then had a group discussion about why I didn´t like this boy or Nicaraguan dating rituals. During this conversation, he asked me to marry him and told me that he was poor but that he could provide for me. All I could do was laugh. As we were leaving, Marfa introduced me to a former representative to the national government, whom she had worked with on the Sandinista campaign. He asked for my e-mail address and my number, promising me a photo of Sandinista.
Luckily that was the last of the mechanic, although I ended up feeling a little guilty for being so blunt with him. However, that was definitely not the last of the Nicaraguan men. I might even say that it was the beginning.

My job is awesome

2008-07-04T19:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a pretty rewarding day to be working in the tourism industry – a coworker and I created two new tours for the brochure that I made, so today we did a run-through of the first one. In the morning we hiked a hill that has a view of the city, and then we caught a bus to a nearby town that has a gold mine that was abandoned because it flooded. We had to cross a river to get to the mines = this photo shows a bit of the precariousness involved.

I think something like 600 people died total, including mining deaths and deaths related to the flood. In some parts of the mine, the water goes up to around 4 feet. Needless to say, I had water in my shoes for the rest of the day. We saw a few bat corpses hanging from the walls, a few live bats, snake sheddings, a tarantula, and a cave crab inside the mine. I felt like Indiana Jones, seeing the bat skeletons, covered in cobwebs. I’ll add photos of them. I carried my camera in a plastic bag and held it on top of my head so it wouldn’t get wet. We continued down the passageway of the mine for about 30 minutes, but someone heard rushing water further on and thought it wasn’t smart to keep going, so we headed back. We ate lunch outside the cave. My host-mom packed me some cheese, avocado, a boiled banana and a potato-like thing, Delenia’s mom packed her a bunch of tortillas, and we bought cuajada at a store before embarking on the mines, so we had an eclectic picnic between the four of us that were there. The three people I was with were all tour guides, although we were missing the other 10 guides who were supposed to come.

We saw this lizard while waiting for the bus that never came to take us back to San Ramón. We walked half the way and then hitched a ride with a group of people.

After the mines, we returned to San Ramón and hiked to Finca La Leonesa, a ranch that also has mine ruins on its property, where we received a tour. We saw a few different mine shafts, the abandoned and destroyed house of the owner, and walked a lot. The trails were really slippery and muddy, as it had started to rain, and we were climbing up and down hills so it felt a little dangerous, but we all survived and I was the only one to actually fall. When I fell, we were on our way back from seeing a waterfall on their property and I slipped on moist rocks. After this tour, we walked up the hill and crossed a bridge, which consisted of three felled trees and wire on either side. I initially assumed the wire was barbed wire, since that’s the only type of wire I’ve seen down here (and there’s TONS of it), so I didn’t think they were very useful rails until I discovered that you wouldn’t puncture your hand by using them to balance yourself. I was slightly concerned about falling since my shoes were covered in watery-mud, but it was fine.

Today we did the second tour package that my coworker and I created: this included going to Finca La Hermandad, a shade-grown coffee cooperative that has primary rainforest (I think cloudforest is also applicable but I´m not sure) and is trying to promote itself as a tourist site, but doesn´t have the resources right now; a waterfall called La Lima; a tour of the town; and a visit to a jewelry workshop run by a few women from a nearby community, in which they make jewelry from local seeds. We weren´t able to do all of it today because it was raining and the truck we had access to didn´t have gas for a while, but we did the most important parts.

I´ll have you know that I wore the same pair of jeans from yesterday, even though they still weren´t dry and there was mud caked around the ankles. That was one of the best wardrobe decisions I´ve made on this trip.

In the morning I left with a few of the guides for El Plomo once we found out that the truck didn´t have any gas. The workshop was closed so we stopped by the house of one of the artisans, who then opened up the workshop and explained what they did. We left pretty quickly and headed out to Salto La Lima, a somewhat nearby waterfall. We walked down a dirt road for a while and then turned to the left, ducked under barbed wire, and walked through muddy pasture to the river. We had to walk up the river to get to the waterfall and the rocks were ridiculously slippery - I had to bring my less-athletic shoes because my other pair was still soaked from the day before, and they had no grip so I ended up taking them off and gritting my teeth while stepping on rocks and twigs and thorns. I thought we were going to go swimming but the current at the waterfall was really strong, so we hung around there for a bit and then headed back. At this point, it started to rain. The route was already precarious and ¨thrilling¨without rain, so the extra water definitely intensified the experience. Salto La Lima. My friend Delenia was thinking about jumping in but we discouraged her.

There were a few moments where I imagined what my funeral would be like. At random parts of the river, someone strung barbed wire across so we had to duck under barbed wire while balancing on these slippery rocks. As I´m recounting this outing, it doesn´t sound nearly as... adventurous as it felt. It started pouring once we got back to the pasture. I put on my sandals and every few steps the mud would engulf one of my sandals. Once we got back to the dirt road, I was grateful not to be walking on rocks but instead we had another problem - pure mud for the majority of the walk back to town. Cows and horses often take this path and they loosen the dirt, so with the rain it just became a muddy river. Içm pretty sure that we´re going to cut the trip to Salto La Lima since the center would be responsible for any injuries, and I´m sure there would be injuries.

Yet again we returned to Casa del Niño soaked. I thought we definitely weren´t going to Finca La Hermandad since it was raining so hard, but Theresita said that we should all return at 2 pm (it was 12pm at the time) so we÷re energetic for the hike. I went back home and ate lunch, and during this time it began pouring even harder than before. I was just happy I was inside, but I was beginning to hate the rain. It knocked down our clothesline and launched all my newly-washed clothes into the dirt.

So we went to Finca La Hermandad, equipped with boots, and hiked through the rainforest in the rain.

A view of the coffee plantation at Finca La Hermandad.

It actually was really awesome, although I fell once and almost fell countless times since it was so muddy and the paths were so slippery. There was one point where I had a streak of almost-falls, so everyone was giving me advice on how to climb up this one part and someone warned me not to grab onto the tree for support because it had spines, and when I lost my balance, my hand immediately went for the tree so I had to force myself to not grab onto it and just hope I didnt slide back down the hill. I couldn´t help but laugh at how ridiculous it seemed, hiking in primary rainforest in the pouring rain. The ride back was pretty cold, needless to say. We were all in the back of the truck with the wind blowing in our faces. Thankfully it had stopped raining by this point. Yet again, we were all soaked and I was caked in mud.

I am pretty darn sore from the past two days, and am relishing in not being wet right now as I was either soaking or walking with mini-lakes in my sneakers for around 6 hours yesterday and 6 hours today.

The coolest part is that this was for my job!

Masaya, tortillas, more on mosquitos, and pregnancy

2008-07-04T19:51:00.000-07:00

Lots of updates. Masaya was great – I spent nearly the entire time shopping. Before I talk about Masaya though, I have to talk about the bus system here. Or mainly the bus stops.

At the more popular bus stops, people standing at the stop will accost the bus, wielding an assortment of food products and shouting about them. They’ll take advantage of any window spaces and shove their products up to the windows to catch the attention of the people in the bus. The people will either walk around with their arms almost completely vertical to have their food be eye-level with the passengers, or they’ll have bowls with their goods and rest them on their heads. (This is a really popular means of carrying things – I see people carrying stacks of wood on their head in San Ramón all the time.) “Onions, onions onions onions,” “Chancho con yuca chancho con yuca chancho con yuca,” (pork and yuca, tradicional Nicaraguan food)“agua helada agua helada agua helada.” The food will range from bagged produce (like onions, garlic, tomatoes) to prepared cooked meals and desserts. The first time this happened on the way to Masaya, I was in awe – one guy selling produce climbed on one of the tires of the bus to better grab the attention of the passengers. A bus employee tried to swat him off the tire but the guy didn’t get down until the employee pushed him off.
Some will enter the bus at these stops and then walk down the aisle selling their goods. Often they’ll ride the bus and sell their products for some amount of time and then get off at a random stop, whenever people stop buying their food.
I’m sure there’s other stuff to do there but I didn’t know of anything else, so after I found myself a hostel I went to back to the market, which I had discovered initially when I first got off the bus. The bus station is located directly behind it, so you’re forced to enter the market, which consists of corrugated tin and plastic bag ceilings and wet/muddy ground. I bought 10 pairs of shoes in this market, which is pretty ridiculous considering I was only traveling with my school backpack, so I had to shove all of them in there.
A 12-year old boy from a “gang” (okay, a group of about 6 younger boys) stole fruit from me on Saturday afternoon. I was walking back from shopping and had bags in one hand and then this weird fruit that looks like something from a Dr. Suess book. (The fruits are green and look like limes but have soft pink insides, and grow on branches. They’re sold in bunches so it looks like a bouquet of pom-poms on sticks.) This guy approached me and said, “Can I have a branch?” Before I could respond, he said, “Or the whole thing?” and attempted to grab them all from my hand. I immediately recoiled and grabbed the majority of the fruit back from him, but he was left with one branch. This was the first time I’d ever been “mugged”, and I had some alien fruit taken from me. This actually scared me, too! I would have given them the fruit (and I eventually did), but to have it forcefully taken from me offended my sense of self. This shock at being affronted quickly mixed with a sense of guilt – these boys likely lived on the street (which was confirmed when I left my hostel the next morning) and when anyone resorts to stealing food, it probably means they’re having some bad times. I didn’t even want the fruit. When I left the next morning I saw them sleeping on the stoop of the building next door, using cardboard as blankets. I dropped the fruit by the head of one of the boys, likely the one that had approached me the day before.
Going back in time, on Saturday night I wandered around until I saw a restaurant with a neon-light sign as I figured this was a sign of establishment. I wanted to live it up, be waited on, and not have people attempt to talk to me at dinner. It’s rather ironic because I ended up eating dinner at this Mexican restaurant with a fellow solo English-speaking traveler, who was using the money saved from graduating college a year early to backpack from Guatemala to Panama.
On Sunday, I went shopping and then left at around 9 am because I wasn’t sure what time the buses stopped running.

I got back at around 2 pm to find my host-mom sitting at the kitchen table with Chago, my host-brother who lives across the street, and a piñata. Or rather, the two of them were making a piñata of a traditionally-dressed Nica girl, except Marfa decided to make her a “chela”, with blonde hair and green eyes.

All of Friday night I helped my host sister, who’s a lawyer that works in property rights and workers’ advocacy, with a Power point presentation for a talk on Saturday about the benefits of unionizing, so I asked Marfa how it went and she said that no one showed up. Apparently this was one of the few jobs that my sister had received that gave her a paycheck, and because no one showed up she doesn’t get paid. This morning at breakfast I found out that her primary job, working as a land and employment lawyer for a farmers’ cooperative, is all volunteer. Apparently she couldn’t get to work yesterday because she didn’t have enough money to pay for transportation, which costs about $0.50.

Last night, I crawled under my mosquito net and discovered a mosquito waiting for me inside. I spent about 5 minutes attempting to kill it – it’s really hard once the net is set up because you only have soft vertical services to smoosh them against, and they usually fly away before your hand can even get to them. So once I couldn’t see it anymore I gave up trying to search for it. I quickly discovered I had bigger fish to fry –a beetley-pill-bug type thing clung to the inner walls of my mosquito net. I stared at it for a while and it didn’t look like it had wings so I tried to grab it to put it outside my net. It didn’t have wings but it jumped, and it jumped right at my head. I tried to smack it but instead I hit my face and quickly discovered I had given myself a bloody nose. All sorts of things happen out here.

The mom of a friend of mine makes and sells tortillas. Many women have microbusinesses in which they sell food here; they’ll make cuajada (a really popular cheese that from my experiences so far, you only eat with tortillas; my host-brother’s wife makes cuajada, and it seems like almost every other house sells it, too), tortillas (my next door neighbor makes tortillas, so every morning I hear her pounding out the dough), fast-food at night-time, etc. I found this out when I was working with another friend to create a new tour and she was telling me that the tour of San Ramón stopped at my friend’s house so that people could learn how to make tortillas. So yesterday we were supposed to do a run-through of one of the new tours that we had made but of 13 guides, only 2 people showed up so we ended up not going, but instead I went to my friend’s house and made a tortilla, which was pretty sweet. I don’t understand how they can work in that environment all day though – they use a wood-fired stove, which creates TONS of smoke. I could barely stand outside of the building because the air was so dirty, let alone in it. Her mom then fed me lunch, which consisted of a glass of Coke and two tortillas with cuajada.

We haven’t had water for the past week, which, for us, means that our hose doesn’t work. The ironic part is that we run out of water when it starts pouring –we lose water when water comes. The rain either moves around the tubes in the water purification center or the center has to shut off the pipes to reclean the new water. Either way, when we get a lot of rain, we don’t have any water. And I feel like most of the time, we don’t have water. The water that we currently have in the bathroom exists as a thin film on the bottom of the big green bathing bucket, which I have come to be sketched out by as I spotted little worms in there yesterday. I asked Marfa about the “little snakes” (I didn’t know how the word for worm) in the bucket and she nodded and said that they must be mosquito larvae, and nonchalantly said that she should empty that out. I think they’re still there. I’ve also made allies with a spider, who I am hoping will help me in my quest to kill the mosquitos in my room. In mosquito-related news, today was the second time I’ve seen a fumigation car go by. It’s this white truck with a giant motor in the back that spews out this gas to kill mosquitos. It’s really loud, but the sound of the truck is the only warning you have that they’re fumigating. I didn’t even know what it was the first time I saw it and Marfa essentially dragged me inside, telling me that it was dangerous to breathe the fumes. I wonder if everyone else outside knew that.

It seems like pregnancy is an entirely different thing out here. My host brother came over and was looking at pictures that I had stuck on my mirror, and there was one of me wearing a dress that came in above the hips (an empire dress?), standing with my family. He told me, “You look really pretty here – you look a little pregnant,” as if looking pregnant was a part of my looking pretty. I’ll blame the pregnant-looking part on the style of dress since it doesn’t curve into the waist. I thought it was interesting though, that in the US it’d be an insult for someone to say “You look pregnant in this picture,” whereas here it’s either a comment or a compliment. My host-mom was looking at pictures that I had and asked me if someone was pregnant in one of them. I laughed and was surprised that she had asked that since in the US, if the person isn’t pregnant someone could take offense at the thought. Yesterday I was wearing a shirt that was the same style as the dress, where flows below the chest. I was standing next to my friend Delenia (whose mom makes tortillas), who was sitting down, and she put her arm around my waist, rested her head on my stomach, and rubbed my belly with her other hand. I think I laughed and then she said that she heard the baby kicking, and pretended that I was two months pregnant. I had no idea what that even meant – I was learning about pregnancy from a fifteen-year old. I’ve realized that pregnancy is somewhat a taboo subject in the US, from my experiences here. It seems like almost everyone past the age of 18 either has a kid or is pregnant – I’ve started asking new friends that I make if they have any kids, since it’s so common.

Masaya it is

2008-06-28T11:38:00.000-07:00

So I just got to Masaya, the supposed cultural capital of Nicaragua. I´m only going to stay here one night and I don´t even know when the buses leave tomorrow, but I figured I have to see it. I decided to come here yesterday morning, so I talked to my host-mom and she told me what bus to take, so this morning I got myself to the station, sat on one bus for about two and a half hours and another for about 45 minutes and here I am! I popped on the internet to find myself a place to stay. Wish me luck getting home tomorrow! One website said the only buses in Masaya on Sundays leave at 6am for Managua, but I´m hoping that´s not true.

I dislike mosquitos

2008-06-25T18:34:00.000-07:00

By dislike mosquitos, I mean I hate them. I feel like itçs fitting to post about them as I discovered about 15 mosquitos perched on my mosquito net when I entered my room to display it to my boss and the two Aguemayo people. They were going around to four homestay houses that weren-t with any organized program to see their conditions and to see if their organization could help improve them. So after they left my room to talk in the living room (which is all but a hanging hawaiian-print sheet away from my room), I remained and attempted to slaughter the pests. I felt like Buster from Arrested Development when he was running around the living room trying to get the pigeon. "It stepped on my pillow!" I realized I was having no success attempting to pinch them off my net, so I had the genius idea of trying to clap the bugs to catch them. I didnçt think this thought all the way through and immediately regretted the tactic after a ridiculously loud smack resounded throughout the house while the NGO people were attempting to record an interview with my hostmom.

If any of you are in need of business cards, the organization that I-m working for (Centro Promocional Cristiano por la Paz y la Vida) collaborates with a women-s cooperative who makes recycled paper and I-m trying to get them to start a business in printing business cards with the recycled paper. Send me an e-mail and we can talk.

I am still really enjoying my work and my coworkers. I wish I had more time so that I could do more with the organization. I`m still working on the brochure for their tours offered. I donçt think theyçve given any of these tours yet, but hopefully after this promotional material is created, there will be a huge rush to San Ramón.

Here are some pictures from my birthday.
This is my hostmom. That morning she arranged flowers for the party.
This is my house all done up for my birthday party! We had carne asada, which was grilled on that grill in the photo and then placed on a banana leaf after it was cooked. Normally my host mom parks her bright yellow car right in front of the door, so this isn`t what I normally see when I arrive home.
My birthday party! My host-sisters all chipped in and bought me a birthday cake!

I provided alcohol for the celebration, since it was my 21st birthday party and all. I easily could have bought this beer at the age of 15 here, but the gesture was more symbolic than anything. Almost everyone in the photo is in my family.

A week of trips

2008-06-24T11:18:00.000-07:00

I had one of the most glorious "showers" here ever, due to the room-temperature (compared to the usual cold) water that my host mom gave me. I´ve started walking or doing something outside in the morning so that the water doesn´t shock me too much, although I still involuntarily gasp after pouring the initial bucket of water over my head. Today I didn´t go into temporary shock, which was enjoyable. So after having such a great shower, I was very disappointed when an hour later on my walk to work, I managed to get mud on my leg. I can´t even stay clean for an hour. This is rural Nicaragua in the wet season.

The past week I really only worked about two and a half days. On Wednesday, I accompanied Theresita, my boss, and two Nicaraguan representatives of the InterAmerican Alliance to La Pita, a women´s recycled paper workshop. It´s located about 20 minutes away, although with the state of the road, you have to factor in the time that your car will get stuck trying to come up from the riverbed. (Yes, we had to drive under a bridge and through a creek to reach La Pita, and the driver spent about 10 minutes trying to drive up the slope to get back on the main road since his truck kept getting stuck on this set of rocks. I remember he slammed on the gas pedal to get the car going and we could just hear the sound of his tires spinning and the engine revving.) The women in La Pita make paper out of the trunks of banana bunches; because of this, the paper has a sweet smell. They make cards, notebooks and bookmarks with dried, pressed local plants.

Thursday, I went with two Spanish people from an NGO called Agüemayo and the group of tour guides to Finca La Hermandad, a cluster of shade-grown coffee plantations that are attempting to preserve primary rainforest that falls on their properties. Finca La Hermandad currently lacks the resources to fully develop itself as a tourist site, but they´ve begun the process with the creation of a hiking trail. We saw a family of monkeys, a sloth, some type of lizard, two different types of orchids (Aunt Sari, you were right!) a great panoramic view of the town and surrounding areas and we experienced muddy/slippery hiking trails and massive ants that bite. I´ll load pictures at some point.
Here`s one that I happened to have on my flashdrive. I love the guy`s face in this picture! He`s one of the tour guides at the center where I work.

Friday, I sat in a town meeting in which San Ramón´s tourism commission unveiled their tourism plan.

Sunday, I went with Theresita, the two Agüemayo people, and two other Spanish people staying in town, to check out Rio Wabule, and the Genetic Reserve of Pine trees. Neither of these sites have been developed for tourism yet, although there is hope that they will be. Theresita wanted me to go so that I could offer my opinions on the two sites. Rio Wabule was great. It´s this gorgeous river/canyon, with some small waterfalls and beautiful scenery. I was rather bored by the Genetic Reserve, as all it is right now is a pine tree nursery. They haven´t built trails or any touristy components in the forest yet because they don´t have any funding. It was interesting, though, to see what tourism sites are like in their early stages, and to experience not-so-great tourist sites. Theresita took this picture of me while we were there.
Here`s a picture of the canyon.

Today I`ve been working all day on developing a brochure to advertise the various tours that the center offers.

Today is my host-sister´s birthday, so after work I`m sure we`ll be celebrating. My hostmom made this semi-alcoholic drink this morning that was thick, creamy and pink with green chunks. I`m not making it sound very appealing but it actually was rather tasty. So we`ll be having that and I think tortas for dinner. She had originally wanted to revive indigenous traditions and kill an entire pig at the party and then cook it, but she got sick and hasn`t been feeling up for the endeavor.

I´m on my lunch break right now and I have to run home to eat before I go back to work, so I should end this here.

This is a photo of the neighborhood where one of my hostsisters lives. I took this while hiking one morning.

Oh boy

2008-06-19T17:53:00.000-07:00

I just had an awkward experience, which might blossom into further awkward encounters. Before I start with that story, I rode on my first motorcycle! I really liked it. Now to the story.

Our neighbor, known as 'the man who owns the pool' (I think it´s the only one in San Ramón), stops by a lot and works with Marfa (my host mom) on the Commission of Tourism in San Ramón. I met him my second day here and we´re friendly with each other. He gave me a ride on his motorcycle to my hostmom´s daughter´s house, where he was going for a meeting about tourism and I was going to meet up with a friend who lives near her. About fifteen seconds into the ride, he said that he wanted to explain to me the good characteristics that I have. He told me I was friendly, decisive and I don´t change my mind, and that I´m sensible with my decisions, and that I´m intelligent, friendly, etc. As we got closer to my sister´s house, he told me that I might not understand what he was going to tell me but that the men here treat women like objects and only choose to date women because they have nice bodies, but that he´s not like that and that´s why he was telling me these nice qualities that I have. He´s 45, married, and with kids. It´s just awkward. Hopefully he was just being nice.

A sad day

2008-06-18T18:09:00.000-07:00

The one friend I made here is now leaving! Her name is Liz and she is going to Managua first thing on Friday morning.