Merry Christmas!

Since many of you heard my Christmas plans and stories over the phone because you were kind enough to call, I am not going to bore you with it all over again! But here are some pictures of the process, along with the assignment the volunteers got from our local Peace Corps News paper called "Va Pue" which means "go well" and is a common Nica phrase. The assignment was to write a 500 word article about nacatamales and speed bumps...this is what I wrote

For me as a new comer to the process, making Nacatamales was like going 45 MPH in a 30 MPH zone, with a speed bump every block, never realizing the ride would have been more pleasant if you had just slowed down. In my family, Christmas dinner takes days to prepare, the pie dough is two days before, the desserts and breads the day before, and the meat starts cooking in the morning. We eat promptly at 5pm and are all in a food coma by the time Santa arrives. For this reason, I rose early on the morning of the 24^th  and went over to the house of my favorite family friends, thinking we would need to start this process bright and early, and as usual, they were not thinking along the same lines. When I arrived Cristian was in his work clothes, and Georgina was painting her nails. When I saw the fire was not even ‘encendido’, I knew I had gotten something wrong. I said, “Merry Christmas!” They said “Merry Christmas…pause…why are you here so early?” “I am here to start the nacatamales!” They said “oh well…mom is at the chapel, she will be delayed a while because there are 4 baptisms and 8 communions a long with the Christmas church service, and we can’t start without her…Speed Bump # 1... “Well can’t we start chopping vegetables or something” I ask? “We don’t have the vegetables yet, dad went to go sell the coffee harvest this morning so he can buy the ingredients” Speed bump #2.So we sit, watching Peter Pan, and painting our nails!

Finally, at 4pm I come back to the house and Candida is back from church…they are eating lunch and ask me if I want some, I say “NO! I want to save room for nacatamales” They all look at each other and laugh “those will not be ready for awhile” they say. I answer, “Well how long can they possibly take, we have all the ingredients now right?” Well,yes but Cristian, has to go to the mountains to get the platano leaves…we still have to kill the duck and get the pig lard…bump bump bump. After lunch they do kill the duck, and I am counting my lucky stars I declined lunch, I help pluck the feathers, which takes about an hour and half, then clean it, and chop it. These ‘steps’ are not bumps for them, they knew the process was tedious, as usual it was just me, bumping my head on the roof of the car, trying to drive too fast, in a slow zone! The whole family came over to help make the nacatamales and it we zoomed right along, assembling the nacatamales, layering all the goodies, wrapping them in the leaves and tying them up like presents. By 9pm the lavandero was clean and the nacatamales were snuggled into the great big pot. Like an impatient kid on Christmas I asked again, “so what time will they be ready”? Candida causally answered me, “oh we can check on them around midnight!” BAM, my head smashes against the roof, Final speed bump! My eyes nearly popped out of my head! “MIDNIGHT?” This final bumps, knocks me in line with them. I accept the rice they offer me to tide me over and we sit around eating rice, drinking rum and chatting. I put myself in the drivers hands, who seem to have had the journey planned out all along, because when midnight did role around we opened the steaming pot of nacatamales wrapped up like little presents, and we all hugged eachother, said Merry Christmas and I forgot all about the bumpy road and felt blessed to have been a part of the journey.

 The oven where I made Christmas cakes. This is an improved oven that the volunteer before me built.

 The duck happily splashing around in the mud, he has no idea what is coming! :(

 Jorge showing me the duck right before he goes to the corral to slit it's throat. Tarzan the dog is watching closely.

 The duck...ready to be put in the nacatamales

 Midnight, Jorge lighting the big pot of nacatamales so Candida can see if they are ready.

 My Nacatamale, finally ready to eat and soooo delicious. We made 35 of them but with the huge family they have, some people had to share.

 Jorge and I after celebrating christmas (they were also so amused by how tired I was!)

Candida serving up the nacatamales and my good friend Douglas in the background.

On the 25th I laid in bed all day sleeping, quilting, and watching movies on my lap top, I was so exhausted from the day before! I also spent a lot of time talking to all of you on the phone, and eating part of a cake I had made!

Yesterday I went out cutting coffee and I took some pictures to show all of you the process! This is a big part of the season here, Cutting coffee is often what allows them to celebrate at all because they get paid a lot! This is the time of year when there is the most money and people go for weeks and sometimes months out into the big coffee plantation cutting for 10-12 hours a day. I was not that hard core by any means, and unlike most of them, I got a hot meal mid day from my "Nica grandmother" where as most of them have to eat cold beans, rice and coffee.

 My friend Douglas and I cutting coffee, sorry about the finger on the lens there! To cut coffee you work in rows, so when you get into the field you shout "who finished the last row? Then someone answers you and that is where you start, however they are not straight rows by any means, and I still cannot see the rows clearly, Douglas seemed to see it though!

 The tin closest to the tree was my "basket" it has to holes, with a belt running through it that you tie around your waist, Douglas had to big basket tied around his waist, then you empty your basket into the white sack. This is our harvest (the sack has coffee grains in it as well), I was so proud of it. But it turns out it was very unimpressive, We cut 1 bucket and 3/4's between the two of us. The women who were working next to us, cut between 4 and 5 buckets each. But in our deference I was just learning, and also trying to teach Douglas some English, while picking coffee in the rain!

 Here they are measuring the coffee, they do it by bucket, the big red sacks are those of the women who were picking. The older man is my "Nica Grandfather" he is in his 80's and still wakes up every day at 3am to mill the corn and start the fire. Today they will be running the coffee through a dispulpar to remove the grain from the berry. Then they will set it out to dry.

 This is my counterpart for the biodigestors, he is making the drying boxes for the coffee.

This is the corn harvest, from last season, the kids and I sometimes do summer saults down them, it is much more impressive in person! 

Much love to all and a very Merry Christmas!

Alicia

Yesterday

The yesterday's all kind of link together for me here. I think it was about a week ago where I had come up with a blog theme- that was going to be titled "yesterday"; the idea was  to explain how much the outlooks of my days can change from yesterday to today. However, now many "yesterday's have passed so I feel the need to give a bit of a summary of all my yesterdays.

One of the more unexpected things about my service here, is how many different places I can be in one work week. On my way to meet up with dad and the family at the airport, I spent a night in Managua to go to the physical therapist and get a check up on my ankle. The Physical 's office was some kind of mansion in Manauga. Sitting in that office waiting to be seen, with fancy shiny cars parked outside, I remember thinking "yesterday, I was in the campo watching the baby calves pass by my house, I can't believe I am in the same country!"

The top picture is the physical therapist office, the bottom picture is the baby calves who pass by my house every day around noon. This picture was taken while I was talking to my mom on the phone and could barely hear her because of the mooing and dogs barking at the calves.

I had this same out of place feeling  on the trip to Corn Island. The Atlantic coast alone is a world apart,  it is a different culture, a different language (where the main language is Creole in most parts) and it felt like i had travelled to a different country. I found myself feeling very un-equiped to steer Dad and the family through taxi, tipping and food orders as all of it is very different, from where I live.

The trip with dad was such a treat and I had such a good time. Something, that I did not expect however, was how hard it would be to change life styles so abruptly. Going from the countryside here to the biggest tourist destination in Nicaragua, is almost a bigger culture shock then when I got here. It took me awhile to get into the vacation groove, and similarly it has proven difficult to re-adujst to living here. When I got back to my house the little things that i had adjusted to re-shocked and re-surprised me. the bat poop on the floor of my house, where a bat has decided to spend it's nights on my laundry line, or people being late and cancelling appointments at the last minute without any warning. I am not sure I will ever really have a "normal" here. There is such an extreme contrast between the community lifestyle of a peace corps volunteer and the expat life style of a Peace Corps volunteer, hopefully someday my body and mind will become more able to quickly adapt to those changes.

The above picture is our resort on little corn island, and us (Dad, Ira, Evan Kira and Megan) sitting at the restaurant of the hotel playing cards and drinking.

Within a one week period I had been in the campo of Nicaragua working in my community groups where everyone understands or pretends to understand me, to the big city of Managua nervously going to medical appointments by "safe taxis" and to American looking malls with other volunteers who are in the city for one reason or another, speaking English and struggled Spanish (because no one seems to understand my Western/Countryside accent in the city), then to the airport and corn island where when I speak Spanish they reply in perfect English and i find myself feeling incredibly useless and unsure of what to do with all my free time and all the luxury and relaxation offered to me. Going from gorging on delicious American Bacon burgers to traditional gallo pinto but with an Caribbean twist of coconut oil, instead of vegetable oil. Then just when I am getting into the vacation groove of laying on the perfect white beaches tanning, reading books, not worried of what "my community may think of me?" I have to go to my In Service Training (IST) where all the agriculture volunteers from my group and the previous group are re-united and we learn about how we can improve projects, start new projects, monitor our attitudes and those of community members. When I got to the meeting, I was late because I decided to stay with the family an extra  night in the hotel and enjoy one more night of tourist luxury.

When I came into the meeting all the volunteers look drained and there is a presentation going on about how to solicit funding for specific projects, such as improved ovens, stoves, and biodigestors ( I had to pay attention because I am in the midst of this same application process) but man! What a brain crunch! I sat down and tried to focus in the dimly lit conference room with yellowing walls, and fluorescent lighting running my hand through my salty hair and touching my slightly pink chest, remembering that... Yesterday, I was jumping of the dock of corn island before getting into the long boat to take us to the main island's airport, which was an incredibly small boat and there were giant towering waves of the rough ocean, we were all laughing at the roller coaster ride which was our transport to the airport- and when I got to the airport I had to rip open my back pack and quickly change into different clothes (that weren't soaking wet from the ocean). I my community I could never be so spontaneous nor so free- because it would be considered very inappropriate and unprofessional, also no one in my community can swim even though it is on a great big lake!" Yesterday, I was free as a bird and now I am sitting in a conference room trying to focus on budgets and grant applications, with salt in my hair and a giant duffle bag full of goodies from the states.

Above, my little sisters playing in the Hammock and below us all hanging out in the motel where we stayed for the conference.

During the day of the conference you had to be professional and focused but at night all the volunteers would get together and we would all laugh and chat IN ENGLISH! When the conference ended and I got back to site, it was just a real change 180 degrees. People were so shocked by my quantity of bags, and the new fridge I bought from a volunteer and had transported in taxi- everyone wanted to know what had my dad brought me, how much did it cost? How much did the fridge cost? How much did the taxi cost? would I give it to them when I was done with it after my two years of service? Basically, privacy was gone, and with all my gifts I felt very spoiled and guilty for my week of luxury coming back to my community where most of them won't spend in a year what we did in a few days...There is no magic solution to these feelings, the reality is I live every day with one foot in yesterday's luxuries and the other in a poorer reality, but wanting both groups to accept me and to connect those world's some how.

Believe it or not, the above was an attempt at a summary, the real blog entry I wanted to make was about Yesterday, where everything felt like it was going wrong, but I ended up getting to do and see things that i had not planned, and waking up the next day remember how negative I had felt yesterday but how good it seemed looking back on it.

So yesterday, I had a meeting to go see a biodigestor with my counterpart. I had seen him in the morning to confirm and he said for sure yes! When I went to his house he was not there and we did not end up leaving until two hours later. I was so annoyed and felt like the day was a total loss, but it ended up working out better than i could of imagined! He took me to a part of town I didn't even know existed and I met a family I did not know, who not only already has a biodigestor but had paid for the whole project themselves, and would like my support in getting it back up and running. We had to walk there and it was a beautiful walk, coming up on the huge lake of Apanas which turns out is only about a 30 min walk from my house, and a great place to go running, when my ankle heels up! He showed me around to the new look out they are building there and introduced me to some families that live near the lake. All of this is still considered part of my community, sisle, and a part I did not even know about! The whole walk we discussed different project ideas he had, he showed me different types of coffee and how you can tell when it is ready to harvest or when it is already past its optimal harvest time! Basically, it was just one of those really awesome moments, where I felt like I was living the dream and getting to experience something very few people would! And to think I started the say all frustrated because my Women's group cancelled on me at the last minute and I had to call the Peace Corps office and tell them that even though the reservations had already been made the women were not going to show up to the trade fair, and then I thought my community counterpart for the biodigestor project had blown me off- I had just felt so deflated and hopeless, but by the time I went to bed I was glowing from a nice healthy walk in a beautiful area, with great conversation!

above my community counterpart, and the view of the lake from the look out they just built is below

my battery is out i cant finish editing sorry i hope you all get it!
So you never do know what tomorrow will bring!
Lots of love to all
Alicia

pictures of the past few weeks

At the end of October, right after my birthday I had my language taller- which is where we all get together again and have a week of language classes to help our Spanish continue to improve. We had classes near my first host family, so I went there and visited with them! It was soooo wonderful to see them again. I may go back in January for little Gladicita's Brithday. Above is Nelson and I, and below is Mari and I, they are brother and sister.

Last week I had my third Kids group meeting where we discussed opening a community bank together, to fund some of the craft projects they would like to do. Here are some pictures of that day, this meeting actually went really well, and I felt really happy afterwards (which is not always the case!). The older girl in the orange T-Shirt is my friend Georgina, I am always at her house, every Sunday we make chicken soup together and her parents take really good care of me.

This week I had a meeting with the two women's groups who don't get along, it was supposed to be all day and I knew I had to provide food to keep them from getting even grumpier! I asked Georgina and her mom to help me with the food and they ended up making the food for me, when they realized I was paying for out of pocket, they wouldn't even let me pay them for their work! They are wonderful!

I was a really tough meeting and I ended up walking home in the rain crying, feeling so alone and very unsuccesful, I had to stop by their house to drop off thier dishes (So when I got their house I kept trying to hold back the tears), but the second they hugged me, it all just came out. When I apologized they told me not to worry, they loved me like a daughter and a sister and that I should cry if I need to cry. They cheered me up and we ended up eating rice with milk! It is sooo good, kind of tastes like tapoica pudding!

Anyway, Georgina is the one I am trying to get a scholarship for, she is 23 years old, really bright, but they can't afford to send her to school and she has no source of income. She agreed to help me with the kids group, which has been an incredible help! In the first pictures she is telling them to settle down and make a line ( for some reason they listen to her a lot better than me! :) )

Here is the demonstration we did. The tin can is their bank and the amount they will have if they all save together, the other red thing is a mini house, that is the amount of money they will have if they just save by themselves. It is 5 cordobas every month (there are 23 cordobas in 1 dollar). I also explained the importance of saving your money and we did math sums of how much we would have if there were 20 kids saving 5 corodobas every month for 2 months or 6 months or 1 year. Then we talked about reinvesting our money in activities that earn such as raffles or selling food. They go into it even if they are very rowdy!

Here are some pictures of the kids as a group, the ones with name tags on their shirts (if you can see that) are the group leaders! I assigned 6 kids in the group to help me with the meeting. They all had task names like "the Sticker" (this kid helped me stick up flip charts) , we had the "mail person" who had to go around collecting all the pieces of paper, we also had a "silence maker" (very important!)

This last picture below is a picture of a cabbage field. I just thought it was neat. Cabbage has a high price here because it has to be watered, unlike corn and beans- the main staple here.

My Peace Corps Experience so far: Theory vs Practice

November 2, 2011

Yesterday I had a rather difficult day, that made me realize all of my theories about my Peace Corps service, were beautiful but very different from the practice.

The day started with a meeting with the women who own and work in the Mill. This mill is a Peace Corps Legacy, it was started by the first volunteers in my site, strengthened by the second volunteer and now the idea is that I will add the finishing touches…it is a beautiful concept…in theory.

In theory, you may think (like I did, as did my bosses) that this group has to be really strong if it has lasted this long, working together, paying it’s bills and making a profit) and you would be right, they are a strong group in their abilities, they know how to run the mill and do a great job of it. The thing is underneath all of that, they don’t trust each other and they don’t communicate well. They were so eager to work with me because they want me to come in and resolve their conflicts, like I am the teacher of a classroom or the babysitter. The hardest thing about that, is that I thought that is what I was going to do as well, I love telling people what to do! (when I think I know what is best for them), the thing is I don’t have the answers. I wish I could do it for them, I want to feel useful and feel like I am doing a good job contributing to this Peace Corps legacy. The truth is, I have no idea what is right for them, and if I enforce a rule that everyone is unhappy with that will just mean the second I leave everything will fall apart- that is not sustainable and not my goal.

Anyway, I hope that explains the background to how I was feeling yesterday, walking home from the meeting where half of the women hadn’t even shown up (for the third time) and where I had announced to the women who were present that I could not solve their conflicts for them and I was not going to enforce any rules for them, so that if they wanted me to do my job (improve the business of the mill) then they needed to show me they were willing to work together first, by composing their own set of rules. I said after they had done that they could call me. It was a really hard thing to say, I felt very unhelpful. When I used to dream about my service I thought I was going to be helping people- it turns out that the best way to help people sometimes is to help them figure it out themselves, which does not give you the warm fuzzies inside.

I started thinking about how different the theory of my service was from the practice. I mean I knew I didn’t have all that many skills, but I thought my university education, Peace Corps training, and world experience would provide a unique perspective that would allow me to enter into situations and solve problems in the community that they could not solve because they were to deep into it, or didn’t know of available resource. The practice is SO different, first of all my education and world experience don’t have much room for application in the countryside of Nicaragua. In fact they do not have much interest in the places I have lived or the other cultures I know about, most of the time they are just trying to get me to understand their culture, get on their page. It also turns out that most of the knowledge I have that is helpful, is stuff I have learned so far or that other volunteers or community members have told me. In training we learned to help facilitate discussions and problem solving. The thing is that it is really really hard! Sometimes I rather just do it for them (but the thing is I can’t). So here I thought I was going to be this super helpful superhero PCV- who had new ideas and opened new windows, and I find myself at the same obstacles they are at, and unable to change anyone’s circumstances with the flick of my magic western educated wand.

Yesterday was an eye opener, because I had to change my perspective and to move away from the theories I had held so dear. I realized all of my projects are going to have their frustrating bumps, I also realized (just like in the states) I don’t always love what I do. For example I have a kids group which in theory I thought I would love and that it would be a breeze for me; I mean I like kids, they like me I have a lot of experience with them- right? NOT Right- it turns out holding a kids group of 20-30 kids is a whole lot different then babysitting two, and that you have to be even more organized with a kids group then an adults group- in short, in practice a kids group is much more work then I thought it was going to be, and not as much fun. I think in the end it will be rewarding but I also have realized they are just bored, and they want the foreign girl to come play games entertain them and bring them goodies, which obviously I can’t do, and don’t want to. But the thing is there are also some who just want to learn, learn new things, learn about the world, where I am from what we do there, they want to learn crafts and sports and they just assume that I know how to do everything (an can explain it in Spanish)- which leaves me feeling totally useless and trying to figuring it out as I go.

Another thing is that I thought I would have so much free time to read, exercise, write blog posts do personal projects –turns out not so much. One of these personal projects I started when I got to site was saving ALL my trash, with the idea of seeing how much trash, I a conscious consumer, produce in one year. Isn’t that just a beautiful concept?? Well, now that I have been on site for over 3 months I am wondering whether I can really maintain this for a year. See the theory was, I know we westerners produce a lot of trash, and I have always been conscious of that, but I have never experienced visually what this quantity really is. I figured this was a perfect time to do this, because unlike in  the states, here in the countryside, no one collects your garbage, there is not even anywhere to take it to. People either throw it outside behind their house or burn it. The tree hugger in me does not like either of these options- but I realized I couldn’t really criticize my neighbours for doing it just because I hate looking at the garbage and smelling it burn because it is that concept of Not In My Backyard, that has lead us in the United States to send our trash away without giving it a second though, as long as it is not our problem we are happy, but the thing is all that trash goes somewhere! By me collecting my trash I am aware of how much I am creating and have an incentive to reduce my production of trash and reuse what I can.

All that being said, it turns out in practice living with all your trash is really difficult. Last month I got to the point where I had to divide it into plastics and papers, candy wrappers, and toilet paper (yes that is right toilet paper). My biodegradable compost I just throw out the window and in about a week’s time something has eaten it or it has decomposed, the toilet paper is also easy because you can just bury it and it decomposes, but the wrappers of foil and plastic are really starting to pile up. I am not sure if I will have enough space in my little house to collect it all for a year, or what I will do once that year is over and I have a year’s worth of trash. I also have a stack of used tea bags I have no idea what I am going to do with, but they are there, waiting for some little project, and making me realize how even tea is pretty garbage producing with it box, bag, string, card, and package. Once again the theory was great, the practice is a little gross but I am going to keep it up for a bit longer and see if I can’t turn it into an art project with the kids group, killing to birds with one stone! J

There are so many more examples that have fallen into this category of Theory vs Practice; that I was going to lose weight on a beans and rice diet, or for that matter that I was going to eat only beans and rice for two years, that I was going to read a whole bunch of intelligent books, , that I was going to have all these different kinds of successful community groups, that I was not going to fumigate my house or my patio garden…Well, it turns out, I don’t want to eat beans and rice every day and do not have to, and that I still like treats and eat to many of them when I am frustrated or sad (and just because they are harder to get here doesn’t mean I don’t find ways of getting them as a matter of fact it becomes a sort of mission), and I still like watching tv shows (also hard to get but another mission I pursue actively) and will choose tv shows over reading “War and Peace” when I have the option , and that I was against fumigating in the states because no insects ever bothered me and visited me in my bed, and that “community groups” are a beautiful thing in theory but a rather frustrating thing in practice.

If nothing else after two years I will hopefully have another perspective to add to my tool box and see the practicality

More birthday pictures

Photos from my birthday celebrations

 My birthday cakes I made with one of the families from the mill

 Me with my new shirt that they gave me for my birthday after one of the girls did my make up!

 getting my make up done

 my friend doing my make up

My birthday partner with the pinata we made together

 The birthday was a winnie the pooh theme, I made the cake on the right

 Me eating chicken soup with the elders, pretty big honour to be sitting at that table!

Me e

My Work

As usual my internet time is limited so I haven't had time to edit this! Sorry to all the teachers out there and hope it is informative!

My Work

A couple weeks ago I was talking to my mom on the phone explaining what I had done that week, apparently she was not to impressed considering I was visiting a volunteer friend for the second time that week… “She said it doesn’t sound like your working much” she ofcourse meant no harm by it, she was just stating her observations. I spoke to my volunteer friend about it afterwards and she said “living here is work” This could not be more true! That particular week I had been at her house twice because I had missed my bus to site and could not get home, and returned a second time with a bacterial infection and a desire to use her flushing toilet. None of this was work- just life- the unpredictability of it, keeps you on your toes and makes you be fast adapter.

My work hours here are nothing compared to the states, I don’t count the hours of work I am doing, and determine my productivity, instead I try to do one productive thing within my community everyday. This can range from going to speak to the women who own the mill about how they can improve their business, or why they are not getting along, and trying to understand more the dynamics of the group, a productive day can also be getting to know someone in the community I did not know, and setting up a future meeting with them. One day I went to a community meeting, where they are doing a needs analysis of the community and talking about the yearly production of food here, their strengths and weaknesses as a group, ect., this is like hitting a gold mine for me, because everything they are discussing are things I need to know to develop do “my work” and to try and bring projects to my communities that are going to be sustainable and useful in the long term. Other days however, I will spend the whole day cleaning my house, doing my laundry, carrying my mattress outside to “sun it” in an attempt to kill whatever little critters are living in there and eating at me in the night, then I will make lunch, and go visit a family for a couple hours, teach one of their kids some English, and go to bed. Which day is more work? Honestly they are both so difficult in other ways. But what I love about “my work” is that it changes every day. One Monday a month I go plan with my local agricultural government agency counterpart, to try and discuss what projects we can work on together. This is a requirement of the Peace Corps for in site planning, and I am lucky that my counterpart always gives me good ideas and feed back, however traveling there takes all day, even though in a car it would only take 40 minutes, I have to switch buses and wait for an unknown period of time for the buses and the meetings which are not punctual. The silver lining? My friend Vanessa lives in this town, and is one of the closest volunteers to me. She gives me great advice about balancing all the aspects of being a Peace Corps volunteer and maintaining your sanity and never fails to rejuvenate me.

I had been worrying about my amount of work before my mom mentioned it, and again after she did, and now more than ever because my supervisor will come next Tuesday to see my progress and I am supposed to present my community groups projects and my assessment of them and how we can move forward. This is more than a little nerve racking! I am really hoping that it all goes well- because there are some days when I feel like I don’t have time to do anymore- and other days when I feel like I am not doing enough. So what are my project?- Here is a rough outline of what I am starting to focus in on-

I have a kids group with the local elementary school here, and so far we have drawn up a community map, listen the projects we would like to do and started thinking a little bit about geography and doing a world map together. The biggest hit was when we decorated eggs and elected group leaders.

I am working with the women in the mill who have worked with Peace Corps for 5 years. They are having trust issues within the group and the mill is not earning very much money. With them I am working on creating a structure that they can work under when there are no longer volunteers here. This group is one of Peace Corps prodigies that they always boast about in presentations, it was started by a married couple who got women together to do a community bank, it is incredible how long it has lasted and I just hope I can strengthen it and give it the time it deserves while continuing to work on other projects as well.

There are several community banks in the area, I am most closely working with two of the banks, but am hoping to work with two others who right now are being supported by an NGO. Community banks are formed by community members, who pay a quota every month and are therefore able to draw from a bigger savings pool to borrow money and pay it back with a reasonable interest rate. These are incredibly useful to agricultural communities who often do not have access to banks, and do not always have a steady source of income. There are a total of 15 community banks in the area I work and although I would like to help them all it is very difficult to be in 15 meetings at the same time. Additionally many of them have NGO support, therefore I am trying to support the ones that do not. The two I am most closely working with are completely different. One has 45 members (that is a lot!) and has been running for 4 years they are really used to running it as savings and lendings bank but are not making income by doing money earning things with what they are saving. They also are having a problem right now with a loan that was supposedly paid back but does not show up in the cash box or the accounting records- this is my biggest challenge for the moment. The other bank is 7 people and they live in an area of town without electricity which greatly limits their ability to raise money with their savings- they would like to invest in a mill but are not able to because there is no electricity- now we are discussing raising either pigs or chickens and selling them for a higher price. This is a newer initiative, they have been running for 2 years, but the cool thing is they have been totally independent without any outside NGO involvement. I am really excited to see where this group will go and if we can make it as successful as the women’s mill group.

I am also working on examining the biodigestors in the community. Biodigestors use pig or cow manure to trap gas and power stoves. This has huge environmental and health benefits as it decreased manure leakage into water systems, decreases the use of firewood and eliminated smoke from the cooking process. It sounds great Right!? The only problem is that there are already existing biodigesters within the community and all three of them that I have seen are no longer working…I have been told that some of them never worked and that other worked incredibly well but were then punctured or damaged in some way and were never repaired. My challenge is to get the existing ones up and running and try to pick people who will maintain them for longer.

Along the lines of biodigestors I hope to work on improved stoves, that also decrease smoke inhalation and don’t require as much firewood. This however might be well in the future since I do not have an established group nor do I know how to make one yet.

I am also giving private English classes to about 6 youth in the community. I probably give  a 1-2 hour lesson every week, depending on whose family I am visiting and if they have completed their assigned homework from the week before ( I do not help students who do not do their homework)

I am also hoping to do a set of canning and food preservation workshops with a number of different families who already have small home gardens and are interested, however this idea has really only been discussed and not organized since most people are harvesting right now, and it would be hard to make it happen right away.

Possible resources I could use from the states: Probably the biggest thing would be art supplies, they are really hard to find here, I am talking big canisters of paint, crayola crayons, paint brushes, world maps, coloring books, glitter, decorations, markers. Anything really, but think about quantity because there are a lot of kids in my craft groups! The other thing would be yarn for knitting or old fabric for a quilting group. Also if you find any Spanish English dictionaries, the ones here are not great and really expensive, I have kids sharing right now but it would be great to have a bigger supply. If you are interested in sending the kids supplies send me an email and let me know what you are thinking of sending so that I can coordinate. Also my dad is visiting at the end of November so if we can get it together fast enough, maybe he could bring it, which would greatly save on shipping costs. No pressure though, I will be here for two years and I am sure that I will come up with many more things to ask for! J

Lots of love to all!

Alicia