Second training site

Hola todos,

I am currently in my next trainning site which I am at for three days. I am almost done and will be going to my site on Thursday! I can´t wait. It is really hard to use a Spanish keyboard! Miss my computer but it is packed away. I really like my family here but time seems to be going really slowly and i just want to get started.

I have some great ideas for my site. I want to start a recycling program and trash collection. I want to build a park for the children to play maybe in the school. I want to plant more trees at the school and surrounding areas. There is a serious lack of trees and shade. I also want to get some other volunteers to start a small buisness compotition where youth from there towns come up with an idea for a product and how they could sell this product. Then they will come together and compete for the best product the winners get some money to start up their busness. I don´t know how this will turn out but I hope that I get to try it. I want to start a youth group the first few months there doing manualidades or crafts using trash. Like baselets, bags, earing ect. We have to do a youth group anyways so I might as well do soemthing like that. Let see what else. I want to learn more about the womans group in town and what they are doing maybe i can help out.

Classes I guess and going well but i don´t feel like I am going to get much out of it that i couldn´t get from the village. Maybe some pronounciation stuff that thats is about it. But that will be very useful so it is a good thing in the long run.

Finally a Volunteer!

Hey i got a new key board so now i can actually type which is amazing! I did my poem during the ceremony and i am going to copy it here so that those that can read Spanish can read it. Those that can't can have it translated for you or just make up what you think it says. The ceremony was great a bit long up fun. I am trying to get a recording of it and hopefully i can show it to you guys. That is only if i can get permission to post it. I don't want to break any security rules.

To night we get a thanksgiving dinner at one of the staff's houses which i am looking forward to. It will be a fun and alto of yummy food. There will be a talent show as well and I will be reading another poem. LOL. This time i didn't write it but i like the message that it says. I'll write that one down too. I will miss a few of the staff members here it will be hard being at post for the first few months.

I am not looking forward to the loneliness and the hardship of finding friends. I can't wait for the service to start though. It will be hard but i can work thought it. just forcing yourself out of your house everyday and get involved in things. To just go out and thrive. Which is easier said than done.

Poem for tonight:
who among up could deny that we were tested? But how look at us every person is stronger. Now there is something like light. Prosses is being made. We have removed the rot and we are strenghtening the foundations. There is much work to do and we all know what needs to be done. We can only do the work. SO let up get up early and stay late. Brick by brick and block by block let us get that work done. If we can picture it then it can be done. Ludicrous dreams followed by hours, days and years of work and then a reality that surpasses our wildest hopes and expectations.

Ceremony poem:

En mi Cuerpo de Paz

En mi Cuerpo de Paz nos separamos las Américas de Europa, quienes van al Caribe de África. Tenemos Ingles, tenemos Medio Ambiente, Salud, Agricultura y Pequeños Negocios… tenemos una categoría para todos.

Luchamos con el idioma, la cultura y con las reglas. Algunas veces nos sentimos como ¡gringo tantos!

En mi cuerpo de paz hay algunos que piensan ser Fuertes, pero cuando yo miro en sus ojos puedo ver inseguridades.

En mi cuerpo de paz hay algunos quienes van a juramentarse y algunos no. Algunos Cruzan esta línea y algunos no... Tenemos adultos, tenemos jóvenes, a parejas y amigos.

¡Pueden mirarse a lo largo y a lo ancho de Nicaragua!

Nosotros luchamos con nuestros proyectos, con nuestros sitios y con nuestras clases… ¡Queremos algunas horas de tregua!

En mi cuerpo de paz nosotros reímos, lloramos, callamos, y volamos; algunas veces nos preguntamos ¿que están hacienda aquí?

¿Pasamos? ¿Fallamos? Pero, solamente el tiempo va a decidir si podemos hacerlo por dos años.

En mi cuerpo de paz los aspirantes estábamos ansiosos porque llegara este día, sin embargo no sabíamos que el tiempo pasaría tan rápido.

Nosotros vamos a trabajar con doctores, maestros, finqueros y más. Vamos a vivir sueños grandes y pequeños. Vamos a luchar con reajustes, amigos y con un Nuevo horario

¡Vamos a recordar los mejores años de nuestras vidas en Cuerpo de Paz!

¡Gracia Cuerpo de Paz! ¡Gracias Nicaragua!

Sware in

Hey this is like a record I am writing alot of entries lately. We sware-in tomorrow! i did better than I thought I did. I got intermidiet low not the one they like for site so I still have to do the extra three days which I think will be fun. I will be in a village with other volunteers so we can all hang out. The last few days were charlas and some were very interesting like the AIDS one and talking about the embassy. Where we went the embassy today. They were very funny and i had a surprisingly good time. There was a place to get American candy and I stocked up. LOL.

Also we got to sleepover at a hotel tonight and tomorrow for swear-in. I had the most amazing shower. Real shower with hot water and steam and pressure and did I mention hot water? It was heavenly. Then I had Chinese for dinner and walked around a mall that had alot of American stores it was a nice refresher. I'm excited for the ceremony tomorrow. I will be reading a poem I wrote at the ceremony in Spanish about Peace Corps. I'm very nervous and excited at the same time. More tomorrow.

LPI results

Well I did a bad job on my LPI or the language test or at least I think I did. So I will be staying back for more training. Joys I am sick of training I have been doing 6 months of training! At least I don't thing I will be sent home. Its only for like a week so in the long run it will make no difference. It's hard to imagin that training is almost over. Time went by really fast.

We finished our youth group project. It turned out really nice. It is of a mural I will put a picture of it on facebook. The sware-in is in one week! I can't wait. Now its just a bunch of charlas about technical, medical and security stuff. Boring but essential.

My Site

Hey all so my computer is acting up again. The keyboard is crazy some key’s will work others won’t very frustrating. Anyways I can still use it with the on screen keyboard. Let’s see a lot has happened since I last wrote. I stopped at my volunteer visit right? Well I had the second LPI or language assessment. I went up a level but not enough I was hoping to do better. I will just have work harder. Though things seem to be against me. I am sick and we have less classes and more technical training. I get my site on Fri. Then it is the site visit. I will be able to speak a lot then. I am really excited about this.

A lay out of my request:

• · A small site close to the city.
• · I want to do work with conservation.
• · I want to work with NGOs and community organizations
• · I want to work with youth.
• · I am nervous about teaching but excited as well

Talking about teaching I just finished my last class in training. My class gave me 2 gifts, a pencil eraser holder and a wooden turtle. They are both very cute and beautiful. I was touched and surprised I know it wasn’t the best teaching they had but the kids even asked if I was going to come back to visit. I felt loved.

On the other hand the youth group is not working out well. There were two weeks of no meeting because of rain and Peace Corp commitments. When we tried to have our next one, we only had 2 out of 20 people showed up. We need to get our product done in fact we are changing it to something easier. We are going to do stuff with plastic bottle flowers and a mural. We now have 5 people in our group, which I am more than happy about.

I got my site assignment I am going to a small town 45min from Leon. We had our site visit the other week. My site has 3,000 people but nit feels smaller. I have two schools that I work in one in town and one about 4km away. I didn’t get to see the one fare away because of the rain it was flooded. The teachers were great and I can’t wait to start working there. They already came up to me with a few project plans, a park, a trash collection and dump, they seem receptive to a recycling campaign but it is not really part of the culture to recycle. Everyone is very nice and helps me with my Spanish. I can’t wait to get started!

My family consists of all women again. There is my mom and a 21 year old and an 18 year old. The 21 year old has a daughter 5 and the 18 year old has a 1 year old son. The 5 year old loves me and the 1 year old is scared of me. The family is really nice and I feel very welcome there. I get to be a vegetarian here as well! My room isn’t anything to write home about. It’s small with no ventilation. So in other words it is very hot. Leon is one of the hottest parts of Nica. This should be fun come summer.

Went to the Laguna yesterday which was cool if the hike wasn’t an hour straight down and you had to climb back up. I felt like I was going to die. I will not be doing that again.

Volunteer Visit

Hi, Lets see, much has happened since i last wrote. I just got back from volunteer visit. Which is when we get to spend three days with a current volunteer shadowing them and learning about what it is like to be a volunteer. I stayed in a small village in Leon which is hot and humib. When i say small I mean small. There were like 700 something people in the village. I loved it! I felt so at ease there. It was silente, well as silente as you can get on a farm. But at least there was no radio blaring or horns honking and tv's. Heaven in my eyes.

The house was really small though and it was really crowded. There were four of us cramed in there. The house was a thatched roof with a garden in the middle which was cool but took up to much space. There were alot of biting ants and i think i am allergic to them. My feel swelled up and got numb after getting bit. I'll just have to carry around benadril from now on incase i get swarmed by them. No real deal just very annoying.

The village was a bit spread out with tons of animals and farms. There was alot of errotion problems. I went to the school with my volunteer and observed him teaching two classes. Then we toured the village and spoke with people there. I was very excited i understood most of them! Afterwards we had his youth group and played soccer. We had food that wasn't meat which i was craving. I really want to live in a house by myself with in a family consetion. I feel like i will be more comfortable and sain in that situation. I'll have to talk to PC about that. I can make my own vegetarian food. I really think i will be one when i get home.

My spanish is slowly improving i guess it is hard for me to tell but i'm sure i am. I understand how it is supose to be but when i try to speek it it comes out all wrong. Very fustrating. At least i can understand everyone even if they can't understand me. I can only get better and will improve greatly when i get to my site. I can't wait I'm soo excited to get started.

Love you all and miss you though not as much as last time. Hope all is well for you guys in the states. Until next time.

P.S. I get PIZZA for lunch!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Problems in Nica

Hello from Nicaragua. Life is hard right now. Spanish has been kicking my butt. I fear i am not learning enough fast enough. I know it's one step at a time poco s poco but i can't help be get dicuraged. It is not what i expected it to be. Even though i don't know what i expected it is not this. The people are great and i'm having fun to some extent but I'm not falling in love with it like in Niger. Don't get me wrong i'm not close to thinking about quiting. I just don't feel as prepared to be successful here as i did in Africa. They say that Nicaragua's training is the best i have not found that to be the case. I can't quite tell what is wrong with it though. I just don't feel prepared technically to teach. I'm sure a lot of my droughts has to do with language though. I have little to no confidence in my Spanish abilities at this moment which is really hurting me.

I now have a class alone for Spanish to help me improve. It is working but i still have along way to go. I can't tell if I'm getting better or not which is frustrating. My new teacher is good and very patient with me. I have a lot of assignments of going and talking with people in the village to gain my confidence. It's scary but very effective. I hope to make a few new friends doing this. I'm also talking more with my family :) I will get there soon i know.

Our youth group is going well we had less kids this time around but that is to be expected since some of the kids were skipping class to go to the last one. We had to change our project a little bit. We are going to make a mural instead of a playhouse out of bottles. It takes a lot of work to make this happen and we only have a month to get it all done it. The kids seem excited none the less.

I taught my first class last monday. It went better than expected i taught it on recylcing and did a game with clay which the students loved. It would have been better with most language background. I'm beginning to see the true importance that language has on my work. The kids got it eventually. I do my next on in two weeks on the carbon/oxygen cycle. Fun which i find is hard to do in english so this should be interesting. I just need to prepare more at least i have more time to do so.

I want to take the time to write about some problems i have noticed in Nicaragua. I would love comments on how i might be able to fix them or help. Also just comments in general on what you think.

Environment
1. Deforestation: The farmers are cutting down trees for farming and making a living for their family. The land that they are using is not fertile and this is the only way they know how to make a living. They use slash and burn. There is also areas that are suppose to be blocked off for conservation that is slowly being sold.

• Possible solutions: Teach farmers other farming techniques, replant trees

2. Trash in streets: Before plastic banana leaves were used as plates and were thrown on the ground this is fine then since it just decomposed. Now they use plastic and still throw it in the streets. There is little to no garbage cans present and the children think it is funny to do so. They have a trash pick up but i don't' know how much it is effecting the trash. Not all villages have a pick up.

• Solutions: Create more trash cans, teach about recycling, do projects using recycled products

3. Polluted water: There is a lot of sun off from erosion and waste. The factories dump waste into the water. The villages dump waste in the garbage. The rivers and lakes are all contaminated and some are incapable of handling life. There are some areas that drinking water is not possible because of chemicals or lack of freshwater. Salt water and fresh water are mixing.

• Solutions: Teach about waste control, teach about the importance of clean water

Social

Teen pregnancy: There are many 15-18 year old having baby with older men or boys in their schools. Parent are afraid to let their kids go out and many girls an locked in the house. They use of contraceptive is frowned upon. Parent will not buy contraceptives for their child yet they also don't want to be grandparents. Sex edu is taught in school with a focus of abstinence but i am unsure how much is taught in homes.

• Solution: Teach parents how to talk to their children

Drowning: Many children drown because they can't swim even though there is alot of water in and around Nica. There are not many body of waters in villages and children/adults alike can't swim

• Teach swimming lessons if water is available, teach about water safety

Obesity: It is considered healthy to be overweight. mother worry when their child begin to loose weight and many of the foods are fattening. This is part of the culture of Nica. Their is little to no exercise done by Nica's.

• Teach cooking classes, teach about exercise and the importance, healthy living

Any other ideas? I'm all ears. Love and miss everyone.