Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Maria Reina
Friday was a product fair in the park. Every class of 4th and 5th year students was responsible for a different typical Nicaraguan food. In addition to all of that, there were local coffee cooperatives, artisans, and performers. Everything in town was closed that day other than the fair (including the school, which I can rant about but am trying to be positive and not worry myself about classes being canceled at least two Fridays every month). It was an amazing feeling walking through the booths and hearing all the students call out to me to try their food. I also feel very well versed in most food now. I tried Pozol, Atol, Runpopo, Muntuca, Chicha, and by midday I thought I might burst.
I was amused by the booth that featured chickens and pigs. Walking down the street any typical day in town you come across chickens and pigs and other animals yet many people stopped to take pictures of the pigs in the pen. Including me.
This is Maria, my best friend in town, with Cristian, the most adorable little three year old I have ever met. I spend the day walking around the fair with them as Cristian begged to touch and try everything.
I definitely came to this town at the right time.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Karla
The person I spent the most time with during my first three months in Nicaragua was my 10 year old host sister Karla. She is one of the funniest people I have ever met and a giant drama queen. She always thought she knew the answer to everything and loved to explain to me everything about Nicaragua. We have a relationship very much like real sisters; I love her to death and sometimes can´t stand being in the same room as her.
Here is a video I took of her one of the last days of training. We were making a cake with left over batter from our youth group. After an hour of refusing to be filmed she decided that she did have something to say. This video captures her personality perfectly: she is cute and enthusiatic and then starts complaining and fake crying. For those who can´t understand her, she is talking about how we are making a cake. When I say her name, she has just started talking about how I am mean because I have nothing to decorate the cake with and it´s so horrible that just has to start crying.
Now that I´ve been away from her for almost 3 weeks, I miss her a lot more than I thought I would.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
Inspirational Quote from Peace Corps
Love Them;
Learn from Them;
Plan with Them;
Serve Them;
Begin with what
They have;
Build on what
They know.
But the best Leaders
When their task is
Accomplished,
Their work done,
The People all remark:
“We have done this
Ourselves.” ´
Lao Tsu, China, 700 BC
Youth Group
One of the main projects of our pre-service training was starting and working with a youth group. Our group started out pretty rough; two kids showed up to the first meeting and none came to the second. But we rebounded nicely and, with the help of a nice teacher at the school, soon had a great group of 15 kids who we met with every tuesday and thursday afternoon. The ultimate goal of the youth group was to develop and produce an agribusiness product using local resources. Two Fridays ago we had a product fair at a local restaurant and each of the 10 youth groups had a table to show off their finished product and have a short presentation.
I think that our group probably experienced more difficulties in preparing for this fair than most. Without one amazing girl, Helia, I doubt we would have even had a product to present. We somehow managed to pull it together and made some delicious banana and coconut flavored cake. Five kids came to the product fair with us and it was adorable seeing how nervous they were to present in front of everyone. I can’t quite describe how proud I felt watching these kids talk in front of everyone and answer tough questions from the judges. Although they were disappointed we didn’t win, I think they all learned something from the process, which I had doubted for a while.
Our last night in the training town, we met with the group and took them all over to the local Eskimo (ice cream shop). We bought them all ice cream and gave them certificates and seeing how truly grateful they were had quite an effect of us. They wanted to take pictures with all of us and asked for our email addresses and phone numbers. A few of them said some really nice thank yous as we left. So much of our training experience was rushed and chaotic and stressful that we had forgotten to think about what the kids experienced.
Fiestas
I wouldn’t mind if Americans celebrated the way Nicaraguans do.