Muletas y Llesos

Hi All!

If I spelled the title correctly it means crutches and casts…yes I already hurt myself.. I was playing soccer on Sunday with my Soccer team and we were loosing by 3 points and then I rolled my ankle over the tiny ball (they play with this tiny soccer ball that is more like a handball here, because the court is so small) and ended up getting a tour of two different hospitals in Nicaragua. But what I really want to share is the cultural experience of it all…I actually think I learned more in that day (in regards to new Spanish vocabulary and Nicaraguan attitudes) then I have in the rest of the 4 weeks.

It was really to bad the day ended like that because that morning I remember thinking I can’t wait to put all of this in my blog! What an amazing experience being on a soccer team is here! I woke up at 6am and had to be on the field at 7am. This was the opening of the season and a very big deal! Ofcourse in Nicaragua me being on time meant no one else was there…The coach strolled up around 7:15 in his Soccer Jersey and baggy track pants, walked me through the basic rules and handed me a ten page rule book in Spanish (wishful thinking on his part) around 8:30 all the teams were gathered.

In my town (which is pretty small, but there are smaller ones) They have 3 women’s teams, 4 men’s teams, and 3 kids teams. It is incredibly funny some of the names they come up with…(most of them being famous football teams “Madrid”, “Barcelona”, “Chelsea” and “Warriors” then the little guys being “mini warriors” and ect. I have pictures of the event but we all lined up in our teams and walked through the town in a kind of march. They were all decked out and had a DJ and microphones, we had a political speaker and prayer, it was a huge day of pride for the town, soccer is huge here! It is one of the only positive things youth have to do around here. From our youth group I have learned it is one of the youth’s biggest joys, and an incredible way to keep them out of trouble because it gives them something to strive for and be proud of. The team I am(was) on, is the defending champion so we got to play first. I actually really didn’t do that bad all things considered, and we only had 5 girls so I got to play A LOT. I was having an amazing time…and then I fell…it was pretty bad, I knew it when it happened and they were telling me so as well. There were about 100 people all around me, even though the game continued. An interesting thing about rural sports games in Nicaragua is people get hurt all the time, and no one stops for one second. I literally fell to the floor, rolled off the field and waved another one of my team mates in. They didn’t stop the game and they never do. It is so unlike the states where there is a time out called and the cameras all zoom in on the hurt person. There is also no medic on sight. My coach (who I think is 18 years old) was the one who kept saying I needed to go to the hospital and there were about 4 other guys yelling things I didn’t understand, when a motorcycle appeared…( this was my ride for the hospital) Thank Goodness Motorcycles are prohibited for peace corps volunteers and my friend Sarah was there keeping me totally calm, while calling peace corps medical, and at the same time explaining in Spanish that I couldn’t go to the hospital on a flipping motorcycle with a hurt ankle…AND repeatedly asking for ice (which no one wanted to give me because here they think that going from hot to cold is bad and that putting ice on an injury is dangerous…they also say you can’t shower after you exercise or eat) it has been a somewhat interesting experience showering based on all these little wives tales, between those in my busy schedule it can be rather difficult to find the time!

Anyway I went to the first hospital in the town bus…I remember everything so clearly, Here I am getting into this bus (with passengers in it b.t.w) and all of my town is watching me as I am holding back tears and sweating like a mad woman. Ice in one hand and my dirty shoe in the other, I waved goodbye to, literally, my whole town. My coach and Sarah came with me to the hospital (not before we dropped off the rest of the passengers on the bus). The hospital was an adventure in itself and thank goodness for my coach because we wouldn’t have been able to steer ourselves around without him. We got the x-ray and saw the doctor in record time. As they are trying to explain to me that my ankle is dislocated and they will have to “re-arrange it” (is the direct translation) and I am balling like a trawling and saying “Yo tengo meido (I have fear)! And I can not be tranquilla (Calm)” I think this “scen”e convinced them I needed drugs ( well that and Sarah hinting at it over and over again) They were about to give me an injection of what I understood as a rather heavy sedative, when Sarah’s phone rang. As I am pulling down my pants for the tranquilizer needle the Peace Corps doctor says “don’t let them inject you with anything, it is against Peace Corps policy!” “ wow that was close!” Anyway they decide that I have to go to the main hospital in the big city, which I do with the help of my coach who came the whole way, spent hours waiting around for me and ended up missing his own soccer game...He was so sweet and even though we had trouble communicating he calmed me down so much and I will forever be grateful!

After all that drama I am told it is a second degree sprain and that the problem is my ligament. I now have a giant blue cast on my leg and use my crutches to hobble back and forth to the outhouse. All in all I am doing well and just want to continue with training and get the cast taken off. Although, it has definitely been an experience, and at times is incredibly irritating, but people visited me lots on Sunday and Monday night to see how I was doing, my family here will not let me help with a single thing and someone is constantly around telling me to sit down and put my foot up, and my youth group all loved it because they got to sign my cast (which was a different concept here, because they wrote on masking tape and signed the tap, then stuck the tape on the cast…I think they did not want to mess up the pretty blue cast, Nicaraguans tend to think like that).

Which brings me to my youth group! Which I have to talk about! They say your lows are low and your highs are high and I feel like it couldn’t be more true! I will admit I have my lows but tonight I had a high that I really want to share with all of you!

Just for a brief background. I am in training. We have training for 3 months, in which we must improve our Spanish to a passable standard, we must plant and care for a vegetable garden and successfully carry out making composts, fences, natural pesticides and such for the garden, we must try and integrate with our community and learn their customs, and we hold youth group meetings twice a week, where the ultimate end goal is to produce a product made from locally available materials that will be entered into a contest with all the other youth groups, in which each group has to present their market study for their product, and has to have sold and packaged their product successfully.

This has been the focus of our youth group and we have had some amazing youth group meetings where everyone participated and presented their ideas and successfully voted for a product. But tonight we had to give a motivation meeting (or “charla”) not related to the product, and we chose to speak about goals…This also happened to be the Charla that our agriculture coordinator decided to come to and we were all not only nervous but also just exhausted. (I am not sure I can clearly explain how busy we are, and how little free time we have, and I don’t really see the point in wasting the blog space!)

Anyway, the night started off as usual (crazy) and we had  problems before with their being to many people in the school grounds who weren’t supposed to be there and were causing damage to school property so we started a check list for entrance. Even though our meeting starts at 6pm no one gets there until 6:20pm and the gate isn’t even opened until 6:30pm. Then we have to stand outside and check people off and wait for the mass of people who always show up at like 6:45pm. We had two exercises, the first was to write your goals for one year and your goals for five years and some people did and shared theirs, but they all took it really seriously, which was encouraging. Then we played basically hot potato but hot cabbage and each layer of the cabbage had a different question about life goals and interests. Everyone go into it, people really answered and listened, one little guy (who is always really energetic and kind of a distraction) had to answer what he was good at, he thought for awhile and then said “break dancing” and proceeded to get into the middle of the circle and break dance. We had people say they wanted to be doctors and international aid workers, or architects. People talked about how they respected their parents and why. As usual, I couldn’t understand everything because it was in Spanish but it was still incredible! After we had them all draw a life map of what they have accomplished and what they hope to accomplish. They took it so seriously and really enjoyed it, some of them presented nervously and the others came up to me latter to show me and explain to me how they wanted to accomplish their goals.  When we finished we were pretty much exhausted but we had to talk to our boss who had been observing…I was pretty nervous…there was a big pause and some light conversation and then he said “guys, that was amazing…this is why we are here…this is one of the best charlas in a youth group I have seen!” It was incredible! We were on cloud nine! He explained how some of the kids had shown how much peace corps influenced them in their drawing, how many of them wanted to learn English or believed they could achieve bigger things. It was a really proud moment for me. I can’t begin to explain what an emotional roller coaster training has been, it is crazy busy, and stressful, we are working with so many different groups and situations and most of the time it is hard to know which way is up, but it is moments like these that make it all worth it and remind us how much joy is yet to come in our final site placement.

We have been told these next three weeks are the hardest and the most stressful, so keep sending me those positive thoughts and know that even if I don’t get a chance to write I am always thinking of all of you and sending you all love!

Lots of love!

Alicia

 p.s I don't have any pictures right now because my camera is out of commission (hopefully, only temporarily) 

Mailing

This is my address- things take about 10 days to get here. Better to mail things in soft packages and not anything to valuable cause they sometimes get stolen

Love to you all!

PCT Alicia Harvey

Cuerpo de Paz~ Nicaragua

Apartado Postal # 3256

Managua, Nicaragua, Centro America

Two weeks of rice and beans

Hi all,

I am  two week into training. I am in a small town near Jino Tepe, about an hour outside of Managua, called Guiquiliapa (sounds like whiskey – li - Apa) I live with a wonderful family of 8 sibling. They are all grown up and most of them have kids. The father Don Eugenio is 67 years old and still walks 4 km from house to field every day and works really hard. I can’t stress how lucky I feel with this family I love them. The two sister are like my mothers here, they take such good care of me. When I had my first case of "Nicaragua" and liquids were coming out of me all over, they helped me clean up, nursed me back to health and took me to the clinic. 

Today May 30^th is Mother’s day here, which is a very big day here, everyone has off work and there are a lot of festivities. The sisters are the youngest of the family. Their mother died tw years ago. Maria is 32 years old and Claudia is 24 years old. They are wise beyond their years and we laugh together every day. Today we decided Maria is my relaxed mother and Claudia is my uptight mother, and it is good because I need a balance! Claudia has a 15 month old girl called Gladicita, named after their mother who passed away. She is so sweet and gives me hugs and kisses everyday. Ofcourse, nothing fills the void of my two little guys in California or my own mom taking care of me when I am sick, but they sure make a great second best!

I was nervous at first about have 5 brothers and the macho culture of Nicaragua, where men cat call and I have heard do not respect women as equal, but, in my family it is not so at all. They are the sweetest brothers. Two of them live at the adjoinging house and the other three have houses further down the road. They all come visit every day as do their kids and their wives, and they all patiently listen to my broken Spanish and make conversation. Even after the father and the youngest brother David (22years old) have worked in the field all day and are rendered exhausted they still ask me how my day was! These men are really incredible, I have so much respect for the whole family. David is studying pharmacy two days a week but also works with his dad. Nelson (the only one who can say a couple phrases in English- and when he see’s me never fails to say “Hello my sister” also works all day with the oxen in the field and comes home and washes the dishes! Everyone has their own unique qualities but I hope from this sample you can see how diverse my family is here and how contradicting they are to some of the cultural assumptions!

As for me, I mostly find myself really busy. I can hardly find time to hang out with my family (let alone help out at my house here) We have class almost all day, and usually have community activities like youth groups, or sports games at night. Therefore, I am finding myself waking up earlier and earlier just to have some time to myself, to either study Spanish, or exercise or wash myself. 

I have been thinking how I would be able to explain what my life has been like here, because it has been so regimented, there are no big adventures to speak of right now, just daily activities. I thought that the best way to explain it would be to do an activity we had to do for Spanish class. A day in the life of Alicia.

Between 5:30 and 6 am I wake up (or as they say in Spanish, I rise myself from my bed) and stumble out to the outhouse.  I think part of the reason I wake up so early is just because I need to pee! (and the guilt of knowing that the other members of my house have already been up for 2-3 hours with the dogs, the oxen, and the damn roosters) -Any of you who thought roosters were beautiful and romantic must never have lived near any. Miracurasly my sleeping self has adapted and they no longer wake me up. But you should all know roosters do not just crow once in the morning like a nice alarm with a snooze button. NO, one crows and then the other one responds, and then the neighbour’s roosters on either side respond and by the end the whole freaking town is cock a doodle doing. – sorry for the side note-

After I wake up. I have to sit and wait 15 minutes because my sisters think it is bad to shower after just waking up, after just having eaten, after just having walked or run or worked (pretty much you always have to sit and rest before you shower) Sometimes I do a short yoga tape in the living room in the morning or I do some Spanish homework. Then I go to the shower which is near the outhouse and we have running water every other morning, so on days we have running water I wash my hair and on the others I just do a bucket bath. The water is always cold which is wonderfully refreshing!

After my shower I get dressed, eat rice beans, and juice for breakfast. Sometimes with eggs and a tortilla and I go to my Spanish class. I have Spanish class from 8am-12pm. It is held in one of the other volunteers houses (there are 4 other aspiring volunteers in my town and we are all in the same lanuage level, Novice-mid) Spanish class is the most important thing in training because we have to move up three levels in Spanish over three months in order to be sworn in to become volunteers for the Peace Corps.

I go home to eat lunch at 12pm. I always eat beans rice and something fried, either chicken or eggs, or bread. Then I try to help do the dishes (which I am usually not allowed to do) or I do homework or take a siesta. Then it is back to class from 12-4pm where we walk around the town and learn about trees and talk to members of the community. These classes can get rather redundant but I think I am learning a lot.

At 4 pm we usually go to the park to play soccer with the girls team (which I am now a part of- we have our first game on June 5^th, there are eight of us in total). After we hold a youth group meeting two days a week from 6pm (really no one shows up until 6:45pm) to 8pm (really no one leaves until (8:30pm). Our youth group project is a competition with other aspiring volunteer youth groups in other communities to make a product using natural resources and market it for sale in small towns in Nicaragua. The youth seem really into the idea!

On the weekends we always have one full day of technical training (composting, running a community bank, making natural fertilizer, ect.) and one day of working in our community gardens on site.

This has been my life for the last two weeks. I have learned so much! Including how to wash my clothes on a washboard ( what a work out) how to pee in chamber pot (part of the reason I just hold it and wake up at 5am) and soooo many other things.

Sorry the blog entries are few and far between but as you can see I don’t have that much time!

These pictures are of my life here.  The first of a technical training where we are using machetes to chop up compost. Kesiah and Sarah are in my training group community. The next is the first rain here, a huge deal as it had not rained in 6 months. It is loud and beautiful and one of my favorite things here. The enxt is little Gladicita, Kesiah and I on our way to our training site, my two sister/ mothers Maria two the right and Claudia to the left. Finally my other two group members Sarah and Brett.

Hopefully the next entry will be sooner than two weeks!

Much love to all!

assignments, reading, and normal BM's

Hello all!

The first good news of my first update in Nicaragua is that everything appears to be running smoothly (BM-wise and additionally).

The first night in D.C. I stayed with Dad and Ira which was really nice! Things were pretty rushed after that- being the social butterfly I am, I of course tried to get to know everyone. It was a long day of information overload and trying to connect with "these people" who I would be working and living with for the next two years.
I never ended up going to sleep because we had to check out of the hotel at 2am and I had to re-pack another 4 times (after seeing what some of the guys had brought I was ashamed into taking some stuff to Dad's house and leaving it there!) Anyway, after about a 32 hour day I was able to sleep on both the plane rides which were each 2 1/2 hours (see how close I am, you can totally come visit!!!)

We got here and started training and doing social 'ice breakers right' away! I really like everyone so far. We all are so like minded and everyone seems to be really supportive.

I am going to keep this short because at this point there honestly isn't much to tell! I don't really know much about what to expect yet. Today we got assigned both our language groups and our host families for the next 11 months. I will be living with a big family of 6 people. We have our own rooms with locks on our doors but the idea is to "integrate" get to know Nica culture and people by learning from our host families. Everything I have heard is that training is hard and exhausting! We have 6 hours of language training a day. Then we also have technical training which includes gardening and composting, youth development, cultural integration, and community banking project. That is pretty much all I know right now! I will give more detail when I have some kind of clue!

But I am safe and happy and healthy and miss all of you already, but am trying not to because I know that the challenges are going to get bigger and will be missing you!

Now there are three other people who want to use my computer so gotta go! Sorry about the broken message ( hopefully- better than nothing)

p.s These pictures are from my friend Ryan Hubbard

California_ New Mexico_Nicaragua!

True to my style I continue to wander around the country. As one can see I never did another blog entry after the job search....CLEARLY it went really well!? NOT.

The choices seemed to be either competing for a job I did not really want or going back to school to study something I wasn't sure I was interested in. So, I took the LSAT and applied to the Peace Corps to do a job I really did want to do! The application process was mostly just long, I got frustrated many times with people asking me "what are you doing now in Southern California?" and me replying "babysitting...and waiting to hear back from Peace Corps" 6 months later we have my assignment- Peace Corps Nicaragua working in agriculture and Food Sustainability! I am excited to focus in on food, Spanish, and do what I probably love most, helping people and connecting with them!

The sad part was I had to say good bye to people I loved very much, some who can email me, (if they can find the time) and others who are so small they may not remember me in two years. Luckily, I have been knighted Tante (Aunt in Dutch) and ultimately Godmother to the youngest little guy!  Now, I know I will be in their lives forever (and kiss them an embarrassing amount when they are older)!

So, I said goodbye to California and I drove to my mom's house not without pulling over to spend the night at the Grand Canyon! Take note this is the third MAJOR road trip CC and I have made together and I am starting to develop a really love for the old gal who has never looked worse, but still gets me where I need to go!
The drive was actually a very fitting way to start my emotional preparation for the Peace Corps. I cried a lot as I drove away from my extended family (while adjusting my radiator and forcing CC to accelerate to the riveting speed of 65miles/hour). As I drove alone though I realized I was so lucky to have so much love in so many different places. Even though I am not always on top of my correspondences,  I love all my friends and family regardless of how long it has been. I seem to be capable of just growing more of it every place I go, and I know I will find friends in Nicaragua who I will love as well. Also, being alone, really isn't so bad. I am pretty awesome! I like my own company (although it gets old fast, and I was REALLY thankful I still had texting capabilities in the great outdoors!) Saying my first good-bye's and watching the sunrise in the Grand Canyon was a good preview of what I think it will be like to leave for good- a mixture of sadness and adventure!

For those of you who don't know, I already have a friend in Nicaragua, she is serving in San Rafael del Norte and  has already sent me an essentials packing list! Which has inspired me to start packing (which basically entails dumping all my stuff in the living room and my brothers room (while my mom is at work) so I can start "sorting" and "organizing" (well my version of organized). I leave on May 10th which seems far away, but really isn't at all!

I am going to try and be good about blogging but not every day ( I know even my mom) won't read it every day!

Love to all!
Alicia

Reality-Jobs

The procrastination is over. I can no longer say I will start applying for jobs after an exam or a visit or a road trip- The Time Has Come. Unfortunately.

I started applying for jobs today, and it is just a scramble of impersonal websites and emails to anonymous people on Craigslist.

What am I looking for? I have no idea!! I am looking at both volunteer positions and paid positions in my field. The problem is the paid positions all require experience...therefore, I fear that volunteering may be the only way to get my foot in the door.

It is not that I mind volunteering, it is just that right now I also need an income (even a modest one) and the job I have lined up is looking like it may fall through...the reality of being a grown up!

So I know I have been silent for a long time and this may seem out of the blue but everyone keep their eyes and ears open for jobs that scream out ALICIA.

That is the only type of label I can really put on the job I am looking for. I promised myself that I would not limit myself to a location, so I am going to try and search every place for some amazing job and until I get that I will simply work less amazing jobs that hopefully pay something!

Sending all my love
Alicia

Southern California!!

We are in Big Sur. We stopped driving at around 1 am last night. Our plan was to drive through the night (we always have these hardcore notions...and then we become "responsible") I blame our incredibly irritating conscience on our incredibly influential mothers! :) We are always saying stuff like " I know my mom would say..." So we stayed at this ridiculously  expensive campsite where we were able to feel safe setting up our tent in the dark and used the 'clean' bathrooms and took showers (which were actually coin operated so we only out in 50 cents and washed up very very quickly (it was pretty impressive).

The reason for this crazy late night was that we had once again tried to do everything we could fit in at Yosemite National Park. We went on a 6 hour hike, which not surprisingly was actually after we had discussed it would not be smart to do a 10 hour hike and then try to drive all day. But you have to understand that the 10 hour hike was to half dome which was why it was so appealing! But Elena talked some sense into me (as usual) and we had a beautiful hike to two amazing waterfalls that were I think the biggest I have ever seen. Because we left for the hike so early we actually were able to miss most of the crowds which we saw when we came down. After everything was said and done we started the hike around 9:30 ish and finished around 3:30 ish. But what was stressful was all the stuff before and after. We woke up at six to get an early start and drove the hour from our campsite to the Yosemite Valley which was really breath taking in the morning. When we got there it was really hard to figure out where to go, there were a lot of signs and poster boards but actually we agreed that all of it just was unorganized and made it more confusing. In the end we had to take a shuttle bus to the head of the trail and it took us AGES to figure out which one to get on. At the top of the second water fall at 1800 meters, we REALLY wanted to try and hike to half dome (or at least see it) so we asked some people and they said if we hiked for another hour or two we would for sure see it! So after our lunch on the edge of the water fall on top of a granite slab we started hauling our bums further up the mountain in search of Half Dome (or as Elena now calls it Super Dome) but after an hour we had still not gotten a spectacular view and we had run out of water...and Elena was getting a head ache which sounded like the beginnings of altitude sickness. So we sat down and tried to decide whether it was a good idea to keep going or not...and our mothers and fathers voices kicked in...we decided it was not worth seeing the view if we felt horrible! So we turned around! And what a good decision that was! As we started descending we realized how far we would have to walk back DOWN without water and as Elena's headache started going away, I started getting one (probably from not enough water). The hike down was fun and a real confidence booster because there were all these people near the beginning of the trail about 1/5th of what we walked complaining that they were already tired...so basically we are superstars! When we got of the sardine packed bus that brought us back to our CC we sprinted to her in joy (not an exaggeration) and ate all the amazing food we had gotten in San Francisco at Trader Joe's! ( Thank You Phil and Joyce).

CC had her own troubles which I am not going to get into but we are now car experts and have been able to solve most of her problems with a little help from friendly passers by. Elena drove us out of Yosemite like some kind of super hero and forced me to go relax and rest because I had a pounding head ache and felt nauseous from way to much sun and heat and not enough water. Not only did she stake care of me but also CC as her fan kept wiggling out and Elena had to literally tape the car back together! I took a couple Tylenol's and was miraculously healed (the magic of western medicine). We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner and I took over driving for a few hours while Elena slept, until we arrive in the beautiful Big Sur (well we assumed it was beautiful because we could hardly see 5 meters in front of us!) So we have to go drive six hours to a shopping mall near LA and make up for all the rugged out doors time we have had in the last couple of days with bear boxes and water less hikes!
love to all!
E&A
p.s this unedited again because we really need to get on the road!