Proyecto CODESCO clases de inglés = va, Día de la Revolución

Between travelling on the weekends and what I have been doing at work, I feel like I am living two different lives. Last week at work was surprisingly slow. I say surprising because last Monday I found out that my organization and I would be receiving full funding for the grant I wrote to start offering english classes at the centre. When I enthusiastically told my co-workers this the didn´t have much of a reaction. They still seem to be confused about why full funding does not mean 1,000 dollars, and I had to explain yet again that we only needed 720.85 for our project, so that is all I had asked for. I am rather perplexed by the whole situation. Roles seemed to have reversed and while I am now anxious to get the project rolling, my co-workers seem to be a bit indifferent. It scares me a little because I don´t want to promise the youth of the centre anything that can´t be followed through with in the future. While I could go on venting my frustrations on the subject, I have a feeling that things are going to start picking up this week now that time is going to be more of an issue with me leaving in two and a half weeks.

My frustrations at work were easily forgotten as this weekend was a national holiday celebrating the success of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. After a FSD meeting in Managua on Friday I decided last minute to return with Tara to Chagutillo which is a town full of Sandinista enthusiasts. Chagutillo, located in the district of Matagalpa, is a small town concentrated on one street. The town has a strong sense of community which could be attributed to the fact that everyone seemed to be related one way or another. Friday night everyone gathered on the school basket ball court, a few people gave speeches in memory of the revolution, and the town band played for awhile. Tara´s host family was incredibly nice and had no problem with me staying for a few nights. Saturday was crazy to say the least. We got up somewhat early having been told that a few buses would be taking anyone who wanted to the plaza in Managua where everyone in Nicaragua would be gathering to celebrate the 29^th anniversary of the sandanista revolution. We were told to meet at 7; however growing accustom to Nicaraguan time we showed up 8:30 finally leaving at 9:30. Three vehicles left Chagutillo, two school buses and one flat bed truck that is typically used to carry cattle. The women and children went on one bus and the men spread out between the second school bus and the cattle carrier. Our bus was packed and Tara and I quickly found ourselves the entertainment for a group of four girls and a little boy. Pulling out of Chagutillo onto the main road that heads for Managua the enthusiasm that Nicaraguans had in celebration of the revolution was overwhelming. We joined a brigade of 500 or so vehicles that were shuttling people to Managua from the district of Matagalpa alone. People in shirts displaying Che and Sandino hung out of windows waving the Sandinista flag, two big stripes of black and red. Everything was black and red and people held up two fingers in the sign of peace which in this case also represented the two colours of the Sandinista party. Traffic was slow but everyone was alive in celebration chearing and shouting as other vehicles passed. We were finally starting to make some ground when our bus had to stop short, the bus behind us was not as quick to stop and ran into ours. Besides a few young kids who were startled by the impact everyone was fine and we kept on going. A few miles later the bus driver became concerned with the state of our bus and had us all get off and onto the cattle carrier that had also left from Chagutillo. Twenty or so minutes later we got word that a leak in our bus had caused it to catch on fire. We entered Managua three or so hours later. As we left the truck in Managua Tara and I suddenly found ourselves responsible for the five kids that we had been talking with. This proved to be a struggle throughout the rest of the day, trying to keep track of them in the massive crowed and keep them happy searching for bathrooms and food. The major plus was that having them with me made me stand out a little less especially since I was wearing a lime green shirt that didn´t really blend well with the red and black of everyone else. Throughout the day I was never able to suppress a level of discomfort for experiencing in a celebration that I really had no place in. The US was one of the main sources that led to the foundation of the Somoza dictatorship which is what this revolutionary celebration was against. Among the speakers at the celebration was Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, the president of Guatemala, the president of Paraguay, and others. Hugo Chavez was the key speaker and spoke for around an hour praising Fidel Castro, talking about issues that exist with the US, and about how the Latin American states are becoming increasingly united toward the dream expressed by Simon Bolivar. After Chavez spoke we headed back toward the buses and put the kids on a crowded bus heading for Chagutillo and decided we would prefer going in the cattle carrier that was much less stuffy. We started out sitting on the boards spread across the top of the carrier being soaked by rain, dodging tree branches from the top and avoided a drunk man yelling about some guy named Simon from the bottom. Not too far into the ride an enthusiastic revolutionaries started throwing rocks into our truck. Everyone quickly got off the top boards huddling on the floor for protection. One kid was hit pretty hard on the cheek but there were no other significant injuries. To sort out the affair we pulled into a bus station and there was a lot of arguing and I was pretty scared that a fight was going to break out. In trying to get out of the scene Tara and I moved to the far end of the truck but were called back by Joel (the other FDS intern in Chagutillo) who saw some guy attempting to rob another friend of ours. It was pretty crazy, the rest of the ride Tara´s guy friends from Chagutillo were pretty protective of us and we arrived back to Chagutillo at 1am drenched and tired.

Sunday Tara and I decided to take some time to relax and reflect in Matagalpa which is a beautiful city home to a lot of Sandino pride, a classy humble white cathedral, and some great cafes. I left at noonish for Jinotepe. When I arrived home my host family could help laugh at me because I was visibly filthy and they couldn´t understand why I would every have wanted to go to the plaza on the dia de revolucion.

Well, these entries seem to be getting longer and longer. I am on my lunch break and am writing this is kind of a rush so I hope it makes sense. I only have two more weekends to explore Nicaragua. I really want to check out Estelí in northern Nicaragua but am thinking I should probably be spending time with my host family one of these weekneds, vamos a ver.

Waterfalls, Coffee, Beaches, and Moe

So it has been a while since my last post. This week has been pretty crazy trying to finish writing my grant and I needed a break from computers and writing. But here I am at a computer again, this time in San Juan del Sur. The weeks are going by so fast and they are all so full of stories and moments I wish to share… I don´t know where to begin!

Last weekend for the mid summer retreat, I was the first to be picked up by our bus and then sat through a seven hour ride to Northern Nicaragua, past Matagalpa. I had no idea what to expect and was excited to find we were staying in a remote nature reserve in camp style bunk beds. It was beautiful! When we arrived Saturday night the small community of the reserve put together a welcome party for us which consisted of dancing in a small wood hut to Spanish music played through a radio. Because of the heavy rain the area gets we all rented large rubber boots, so to make the evening even more memorable, all dancing was done in large rubber boots. It was awesome. Sunday we woke up and went on an hour or so hike to an amazing waterfall. The hike definitely ranks up there as one of the most beautiful of my life. Our boots proved to be incredibly useful as the trail was at times ankle deep in mud. Drenched from both the rain and mist from the waterfall we then headed back to the vans for the 7 hour bus ride home. I think I spent as much time on the bus as I did at the reserve, but it was worth it.

Monday through Thursday I was plastered to a computer working on a grant to FSD for my organization. It is now done and we are waiting to hear the results which will be given tomorrow. Despite all the work I put into it I am not feeling too confident that we will be awarded the money. I had a lot of difficulty trying to work things out with my organization who did not really understand the process. Either way, I have learned a lot about the grant writing process and still have a lot of things that will keep me busy with my organization over the remaining three and a half weeks.

This weekend I have been in San Juan del Sur. This is another popular spot for foreigners but in a different way then Granada. In Granada you would likely see a group of older folks walking around in safari hats, cameras in hand. In San Juan del Sur you see more of the relaxed surfer crowd. Granada is a beautiful city but I liked the overall feel of San Jan del Sur better. On Friday I met up with the Masaya interns in Rivas and together we took a taxi to San Juan. The rest of the day consisted of beaching, drinking coffee, exploring, eating hamburgers, and dancing. Saturday, Molly’s Birthday, turned out to be the most amazing day I have had in Nicaragua so far. A few blocks from the beach in the heart of San Juan del Sur is a little cafe, Gatto Negro, that sells an incredible selection of books, store roasted organic coffee, and amazing gooey triple chocolate espresso brownies. The owners of the cafe are a very nice couple who decided they wanted a change of pace from their lives in the states. Because San Juan del Sur is a popular spot for backpackers passing through, surfers, and students trying to learn Spanish we met a lot of really interesting people from all over the globe. I could have spent the whole day eating brownies, drinking coffee, reading, and listening to other peoples stories which is exactly the break I wanted after a week staring at the computer. But as things always seem to work out as they do, a few of us where trying to decide if we wanted to meet the rest of the group at a nearby beach that was supposed to be a popular spot for surfers when a man came in to announce that they had planned a party for a group of orphans at another beach and were looking for people to help out and play with the kids. We decided to go and met the with the man, his girlfriend (a yoga instructor), and a retired nurse who called herself Moe. I went in Moe´s car and held her two small dogs (Mystic and Diva) in my lap as she pulled out of the gas station explaining that she had just bought the car and was not too sure how to drive stick shift, she reassured us that she would be her best but, “when you go with Moe you go with the flow.” Moe, who now lives in a yoga community in Nicaragua (not too sure what she meant by that), is definitely one of the most interesting people I have ever come across, I could use up this entire blog trying to describe her. After a bumpy 30 minute ride we pulled up to a beautiful beach. I do not remember the name, but it was a flat sandy beach bookended by tall cliffs, in the distance you could see the Costa Rican coast. Besides the orphans and various volunteers, the beach was completely deserted. It was amazing. We ate pizza and swam with the orphans and then watched as they all got a chance to smash apart a piñata. After the piñata a downpour didn´t stop anyone, including the kids, from lining up to do some yoga on the beach. Things like this can´t be expected or planned, it was so amazing and perfect.

Now I’m looking at only three and a half more weeks. The time is going by so fast it is hard to believe.

It's the 4th of July!

This past weekend I ended up traveling between Jinotepe, Masaya, and Managua. On Friday during our FSD intern meeting in Managua our director, Maria, announced that FSD has decided that 6 organizations (out of the 16 organizations that various interns are working with) have the opportunity to apply for a 5,000 dollar grant as well as the 1,000 dollar grant in order to implement larger projects within their organizations. Two out of the 6 that apply will be awarded the grant. CODESCO R.L, my organization was one of those selected to apply. I don´t really have a sense yet of how this is going to play out. I returned to Jinotepe Friday night only to find that my host mom had left for the weekend, so it was a very quiet house with me, my host brother Yasser, and my host cousin Jesse. I lost miserably in a few games of chess, struggled to stick with a spanish film, and then called it a night. Saturday I left early for Masaya to meet up with various FSD interns for a little exploration and touristy affairs. When I traveled to Masaya last weekend to meet up with the group before heading to Granada I made the mistake of taking one of the school buses instead of the smaller micro buses. The school bus had stopped every 5 minutes or so, making my travel time nearly 2 hours when it should have been 40 minutes. So this time I learned and took the micro bus which was much more direct. I also learned from experience of my prior trip to Masaya not to wonder through the new market in search of a street once dropped off at the bus station area. The major bus station in Masaya is located directly behind the new market, which is a crazy maze of small shops (Otivalo times two) selling everything! you can imagine. I can not express the relief I felt when I finally was able to find my way out of the market. When I got off at the bus station this time I was pleased to discover that if you turn your back to the market, the street is right in front of you! This was a good lesson in the fact that it is not always you best option to follow the crowd.

The old market is a more central location in Masaya in a old colonial castle looking square and exists as one of the major places for foreigners passing through Nicaragua to purchase various trinkets. Going through the shops I almost found myself getting upset when I would ask the price of something and they woud respond in english giving me the dollar price not the cordeva. After a lunch with some fellow interns I headed back to Jinotepe in time for dinner. Sunday I took an early bus to Managua to meet Tara in La Casa de Cafe en Metro Centro. I sat down on the bus to Managua and was getting settled in the unfortunate middle seat when a woman and her daughter sat down to my right. The girl instantly called out `Profi` gave me a big hug and kiss. Turns out is was a girl, Eveling, who goes to the coorperativa. In Managua Tara and I enjoyed some real coffee, none of the instant stuff, and some (relatively speaking) expensive food. It was refreshing to take some time to relax and compare experiences. Tara is in Chagutillo, a small town in the northern part of Nicaragua which she describes as a breading ground for revolutionaries. It is amazing how different our experiences are. Monday it was the dia de los miestros, so I did not have to go to work... took some time to read among other things.

On Wednesday I gave a survey to the youth to assist in the writing of my grant. I waited until I was home to read their responses. I felt like it was christmas morning as I poured through the sheets of paper, their responses moved me in a way that is hard to express. Among the questions were, how many people do you live with, who works in your home, what is the total income in your home per month, in what do you like to use your money, what are you dreams for your future, from one to ten what how important of english to you, and more. Everyone circles 10 in terms of the importance of english.

I had planned on sharing the results of the survey with the people I work with in the coorperativa yesterday, Thursday, however I was not able to make it to work waking up very sick. In the morning I was feeling to sick to stray far from the toilet and could not make it downstairs to talk to my host mom. I was sitting on my bed when my host mom knocked on my door out of breath from hobbling up the stairs... she was followed my host aunt, brother, cousin, and great aunt all crowding into my tinny room asking about what I had eaten over the past few days, should they call a doctor, they promised that they had washed all the vegetables... Throughout the day I wasn´t able to get very much rest because people kept coming in giving me various drinks, crackers, soups, tea... by the end of the day all the shelf space available in my room was crowded with food that I was not able to eat. I was feeling so miserable that I did not even think to call the coorperativa and tell them that I would not be able to make it to work. At about 5:30pm I was just starting to feel much better when I answered another knock on my door only to find the directors of the coorperativa standing before me. I was very surprised and sorry that I did not think to call them. Woops. It was very nice of them to check up on me though. I am appriciating Nicaragua culture more and more. You would never find your bosses knocking on your bedroom door in the US to make sure you were feeling ok.

I am feeling much better now and trying to rehydrate. As for weekend plans. This weekend in the mid summer retreat for the FSD interns. A bus will be picking me up at my house at 6am tomorrow and then going on to collect the interns in Masaya and Ciudad Sandina before we head to Jinotege, Nicaragua for a few days.