Time Passing Quickly

My brother Nelson always says this phrase to me in English… “Time passing quickly” now it is all I can think of every time I think about writing this blog! There were days (especially while I had my cast on) that everything seemed to be moving soooo slowly, like the Spanish class would never end that day, like I had my cast on for ages…or we would never find out our sites…and now my cast is off, we have started a new cycle of Spanish classes and today I found out my site!

SISLE in Jinotega is my site. It is actually two towns, near each other. I will be the only volunteer between the two, and it is one of the bigger sites available for volunteers. My site packet says there is a lot of walking between sites (yay!) and a lot of different groups to work with. I will go on Thursday to visit my site for a week (kind of like a test run before I swear in).

 It would be an understatement to say that I am nervous…not that I do not like the sound of the site, because I do, but it is all so overwhelming. Right now I am feeling happy about the location, which is in the north, which has cooler temperatures (temperatures falling as low as the 60’s in the winter nights) and grows coffee and Cacoa. I am also looking forward to the established groups that exist.  For example there is a women’s group who has started to mill and sell coffee, and there are established community banks in both the towns, as well as an agriculture cooperative. What I am feeling uncertain about is my ability to be of use here…I feel completely insufficient for this town, especially since the site packet says "this is a well developed sites with high expectations for their volunteer" I am sure Peace Corps has their reasons for thinking I can handle it, but I don't know them right now!  I do feel like I will get the hang of it after a few months…and hopefully with 6 thousand people in my ‘community’ my Spanish will sky rocket! The other thing I am feeling a little “Trieste” (Sad) about is leaving my WONDERFUL family who I will now be really far away from, and leaving my whole training town and my training group. Our group could not be much more spread out across the country and even though Nicaragua is more like the state of New York and it seems closer, in reality travel takes much much longer, and we don’t have the income to travel or the time off to visit eachother often. I am really going to miss, what I have come to know as my support system here, both the Nica side and the Aggie side. BUT if anyone knows the silver linning of moving I would like to think it is me! And even though it is always hard to say goodbye, it is always a new door to more friends, more love and more support, so I just have to hope for more loving Nica family members and closer relationships with volunteers in my area!

This brings me to tonight! It is 11:30 pm here, and tomorrow I will have one of the busiest days I have had yet. I will start at 5:30am washing my clothes, then go to my neighbours house at 7am for a lesson on African Red Worms. Then Spanish class at 8am to noon. A quick lunch break and back to class until 3pm when we will go to another Charla, this time about meeting and working with our community counterparts. Then I will go to an American Diner here to eat a salad for the first time (this is really just for fun) Then we have a meeting with the leaders of  our youth group who were elected tonight to attend the the market competition we have been preparing together. (our product for the market competion is an acne soap). In order to compete in the competition at the end of the month, they have to complete and evaluate a market study, prepare the soap, make a flattering package and a suitable label to accompany it. They also have to try and sell the product and explain the possible gross income of the potential soap business. All of this is before I give an English lesson to one of my neighbours and then pack and clean my room, because I leave Thursday morning to visit my new site. And I have been reminded many times I HAVE to clean my room because another volunteer (who has been here a year) will be visiting while I am away at my site visit, to take an ‘update’ intensive language course ( I too, will do this in one year if I make it there)

Some of you are probably wondering why I am bothering to explain all of this….well

 1. So you know what my life is like here and 2. So you understand why I haven’t updated my blog in over 3 weeks/ checked me email. :)

I am not just a slacker correspondent and also the cast made it rather hard to get to the internet café! So I do have a lot to update you on but rather little time to explain it all. Here are the highlights and lowlights of the past 3 weeks…

Mix of high and low light….

1. For tech week we went to the border of Hondurus with a wonderful group of 6 aggies and another 5 agirucltural volunteers who have been here a year. We learned how to build improved stoves and ovens which decrease wood use (yay for the trees), and decrease smoke inhalation (yay for the lungs), We also made a biodigester which basically converts cow dung into gas and compost (yay for cows, gardens, your gas money, and the trees!)

The low light…

1. Getting super sick on my technical week, using an outhouse in the mud on crutches….sleeping on mats in a room with ten other people….

The high light

2. I got better! Everyone took such good care of me, I really bonded with people, and Peace Corps seemed to be impressed I made it through the other end of tech week!

Other low lights…

3. Not being able to fix my brand new i-pod which got water damage and therefore not having any of my books, or music or a camera
4. The stresses of training and learning a new language
5. Finding out I will have to leave my new family and friends
6. Realizing I have gained weight already…2 months in…and how it has turned into a running joke in my family that I will not be able to fit into the dress I brought for my swearing in ceremony when I become a volunteer…and how much joy they take in fattening me up and then grabbing my love handels (or as they call them here your ‘tire’) :) The thing is though, is that here being fat is consider beautiful so they really do mean it in a nice way!

Highlights

2. There is a tradition that for our last night of Tech week we all meet up in Esteli and the aggie volunteers who have been here for a year take us "trainees" out for a night on the town! I went dancing with all of the Agriculture volunteers …in a cast and crutches!
3. Getting my cast off last Monday and being able to walk without crutches this Monday
4. Getting tons of mail!!! A package from my mom full of goodies, pictures and letters from aunts and uncles, letters from friends and family! I really cannot say how much it means to get that stuff here, it is such a heart warmer/ long term smile provider.
5. Learning how to make tortillas with my sisters and then eating them warm with local honey (which they thought was the craziest thing anyone has ever done with tortillas and refused to try it)
6. Watching the youth give their presentations to apply to go to the competition, and seeing that we really are providing a learning experience in leadership and organization
7. Seeing my friend Vanessa who I have not seen in 3 years and then finding out I will be only an hour away from her on site!
8. Being introduced to AMAZING locally made chocolate!....And then spending half my weekly wage on that choclate
9. Seeing our “Huerto” (field) after 3 weeks of not being able to see it because I couldn’t  walk through all the mud on my crutches. What started out as a dry dirt field is now a green lush field of medium sized corn stalks, and big bushels of squash , 700 tomato plants and 3 rows of beans. We also harvested our first squash which I ate for breakfast this morning!

I hope this paints somewhat of a picture! And if I manage to add the pictures from my sisters camera you will see a couple pictures of the house and family activities!

So much love to all of you and I really do appretiate all the mail and emails and even though I can’t always reply in the same manner I hope you all know what it means to me! More later!

Alicia

This is a picture of an improved oven we made on tech week!

 My training week group, and me trying to hide my cast!

 A volcano we visited the week before, I climbed part of it with my cast, but it wasn't to satisfying..beautiful