Maria Reina

I think I have officially fallen in love with Palacagüina. I know it’s only three weeks in and I’m sure problems will arise and our relationship will be far from perfect, but I have no doubts about being commited to this beautiful and sleepy mountain village for the next two years. This past Saturday was our fiestas patronales and the town transformed into a joyous and bustling party town.



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.

I constanlty tell myself that I will start writing out the details of my life to keep this blog interesting but it doesn´t seem to happen. I think that part of my process of keeping sane in training was to spend time typing up emails to my family and friends on my laptop in my room. So maybe it´s a good thing that I almost don´t have time for that anymore. I feel like there is always something I should be doing, even if it´s just sitting in the room, observing the craziness of my new family and friends interacting. Which is what I always feel like I´m doing. Just observing. And while I´m completely happy to just be observing for now, I wonder if there will come a time when I am a more active participant in my own life. That definitely sounded more dramatic than I intended but what I mean is that even though I have found friends and am always busy, I´m not really doing anything other than following around these friends and listening to them talk. And sure, I join in on the conversations if I have something to add or if I am asked a question, but most of the time I´m just desperately trying to keep up and understand most of what they are talking about. I´m really happy doing that. It makes me feel involved and like I am finding my place here. But I just wonder when I will find my place and what it will be. It´s unsettling when I think about it so I guess it´s lucky that I don´t really think about it much.

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.

Training takes up the first three months of Peace Corps service. It’s a very strange period of time where you get used to living in the new country and begin to understand what life here will be like yet at the same time you feel completely sheltered and everything you do is planned. While I was desperate for training to end, now that it is over I miss certain aspects of that life. So in the spirit of my nostalgia for comfortable training life, here are some of my favorite pictures of my family and friends from my training town.

Inspirational Quote from Peace Corps

‘Go in search of your People:
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

Fiestas Patronales are all the rage in Nicaragua. Every town has its own patron saint and when the day comes to honor that saint, the town goes all out. And not just for that one day. Like most holidays, Nicaraguans try to stretch out the party for as long as possible. I was lucky enough to experience the fiestas in my training town before moving out. The actually date of the party was July 24th but there was something going on for about 3 weeks before. I often wondered if they never got tired of carrying Santa Ana around the streets. I also wished they got tired of setting off fireworks at 4 am. The final weekend of the fiestas was absolutley amazing. The best part was seeing my 10 year old host sister and her cousins dressed up in beautiful marimba costumes and dancing all day long with the parade throughout town.

I wouldn’t mind if Americans celebrated the way Nicaraguans do.