Hello to all my loyal readers, I'm terribly sorry for my blog negligence, and have no real legitimate excuse for not writing, nor do I intend to try to invent one.

Let’s see the last time I wrote, I believe was mid October. Since then I've started coordinating with a US group called Power to the People in order to get solar panels installed in a rural health post, restarted (somewhat) my youth groups, helped facilitate an HIV/AIDS workshop with sex workers, been back stateside for Turkey day, and had my close of service conference which concluded with a surprise turtle hatching!

Where to start? Every year Peacecorps Nicaragua gives health volunteers money, set aside by the US government through a fund called PEPFAR (ya'll may have heard of it, it was controversial under President Bush) for HIV/AIDS education. (http://www.pepfar.gov/about/index.htm) We here in Nicaragua use the money for workshops. The volunteers in my area and I decided to focus our attentions on the booming sex industry. Since I live near the Honduran boarder, we have an abundance of traffic, mainly being commerce, with that comes exchange of money, lonely men, and women working to serve that demand.


Of the 30 women invited, about 13 made it, some of them bringing their children. One city in which we had half our invitees is a port town, and apparently a large shipping vessel from I believe Ukraine had arrived, meaning work. We had a variety of NGOs from the area come and speak about Gender, and Human Rights. Although I feel the workshop was highly flawed (bad communication between us volunteers and NGO's etc) I think we set a decent framework for the next volunteers if they choose to work with sex workers when it comes their time to have a PEPFAR workshop.

Here I have a picture of my almost completed world map. It’s been a larger project than I had ever imagined, but well worth the work. I've painted it in the municipality library where students have access to books and internet. My grand plan is to have a weekly trivia question in which students can hand their answers into the librarian, and I will give out prizes to those with the correct answer. I hope this will encourage curiosity and research skills. Vamos a ver




I originally had decided not to go home for Thanksgiving. Since I leave in April, I didn’t want to "waste time" by leaving for the US. But a couple weeks before I decided to go home, a group of volunteers, having had completed their 2 years of service, left. I was struggling with the loss of a huge support network I'd learned to lean on, that coupled with the discovery of a cheap ticket (Spirit Air!!) I packed my little backpack, and headed home. I pretty much spent a week sitting, eating, visiting with friends and doing some more sitting, and eating. Since arriving back in town, I think every 5th person has made a point to comment on how fat I am (Apparently my half pound is that noticeable, although I guess I'm flattered that many of the women here have nothing better to do than comment on the Gringa's weight fluxuations, it still is a cultural differencce I've never been able to adapt too).Anyway, I had a restful trip home, and returned to Nicaragua with recharged moral, and motivation.

Upon arriving back in Nicaragua we had our 3 day Close of Service Conference which consists of a reflection of our service, suggestions for the program, job hunting skills aka resume building, interviewing etc, and grad school searches. I came out of the workshop about as lost as I was going into it, but hey, at least I'm consistent...?

On our last night at the conference, which Peacecorps so kindly hosts at a beachside conference center, the turtle nursery on the property had a nest hatch. The 89 baby Olive Ridly turtles were placed in a shallow barrel, and held overnight so they could be released at low tide in the morning. I was told by staff that it is preferable to release the critters as the tide goes out, so that the pull of the water assists them, rather than throw them back on the beach hence helping to avoid baby drownings. The pictures I’m attempting to load shows one little guys pending dive into the water and the large waves ahead, the second one is crossing the sand in hopes of not getting lost. Those little guys are born strong, I was impressed with their strength and determination. Of the 89 hatched, only 9 will make it back to lay eggs. The others will be eaten, or drowned, or killed by human activity. Unfortunately many people see these nests hatch, and think, 'look there is an abundance of turtles, who gives a crap I want to eat them so I'm going to.." I have recently heard that of the turtle eggs laid, only 15 survive long enough to hatch, and of that 15% only 10% will live long enough to return to their original beach to lay eggs. I doubt that barely covers population replacement, let along population growth. Anyway it was an amazing and humbling experience. I was tempted to jump in the water and swim with them a ways, but decided they were superior swimmers and that breakfast had priority...






Well everyone, that’s all for now folks!