Today I worked with one of the doctors in one of the surrounding communities. This community hadn´t exhisted before 1997, when Hurricane Mitch hit. this hurricane comepletely destroyed entire communities. Do Japan, and the red cross of Spain came and built this community from scratch. They also, within the community for three years taught the families parenting skills, self esteme activities, hygine activities, and what not. The school there has the best discipline, and highest sucess rate. The children are more independant with their daily activities, and the grounds are well kept. The families had to ¨buy¨ the houses, but at a reduced cost. The town has wells, electricity and what not.

The doctor with whom I traveled with today has a def son. He can hear a little bit, with the aid of a system that looks like the little ear insertable headphones. In the school in this community there is another little boy of the same age, also with speaking, and hearing problems. They were introduced for the first time today, and immediately became friends. When we left, I could tell that their brief introduction had been important. You could see on their faces how much they just wanted to spend time together, with someone else who understood them. We then went to the family of the second boy, and gave the mother a sign langauge book, and the doctor gave a really wonderful talk to the family about motivation, the importance of family support, and meaning of learning. Both sets of grandparents were there with the little guy´s mother, so everyone in the family has the same information, and can hopefully all pull together to help the son. It was a really amazing experience to be part of, and its refreshing to see good work being done, especially on such a personal level. I think sometimes the really helpful and meaningful work can get lost in the masses, and is sometimes hard to see.

Hazel

Hello again!

All here in Nicaragua is well, hot as normal. My online psycology course will be done in 2.5 weeks, which im looking forward to. I knew it would eat up a bit of my work time, but I didnt realize to what extent. I´ve enjoyed the class though. I´ve started looking for a spanish tutor again, but will have more independant time to study spanish once this class is over. Nothing really exciting to report. I´ve been in the schools teaching again. Last week I taught Oral hygiene to 68 3rd graders, Nutrition to 87 2nd graders. I think the nutrition charla was hard for the kids to understand. I tried to break the theme down to its basics, and to use lots of visuals, but they still seemed confused. I´ll have to re-evaluate my approach to teaching more complex and new topics to the little kids. I went to the prescholar and reviewed handwashing with the kids, which was fun. One little girl turned three, and so we celebrated with a pinata, candy and music. That little girl could dance and wiggle in ways I can´t even imagine. I also went to a quincenera. Its like a sweet sixteen in the states, its a big celebration with fancy dresses, cake and music. It was a fun experience, but around 10 all the town drunks stumbled in, and it was interesting watching the women trying to convince them to leave.

I´ve also started looking at new places to move to. My host family has been working out Ok, but I´d like to have my own space, and more control over what I eat. I just feel different, less energy, and I think its a combination of the food, the heat, and lack of exersize.

For the last couple weeks, a teacher from the US, my age, has been staying here and working. Its been really nice to have someone around to speak english with, at the cost of my spanish, and to just talk to. The peacecorps also has placed another volunteer in my site, who is in the Small Business sector. He seems really nice, and helps me alot with my spanish. Its kind of wierd to have another american around full time, but I think we´ll be able to partner up on projects which will be alot of fun. The volunteer he replaced was here for 3 months with me, but I never saw him. This actually worked out really well for me, because I ended up making lots of friend in the community rather than spending all my time with the other volunteer.

thats all for now!

A group of kids who live a few blocks away. One actually was the previous volunteer´s host sister, so shes really awesome about my spanish.

The landscares are from north of my site, close to the Honduran border. I was up there doing some work, and we stopped for a photo op. Its very agricultural, and mountainous. Life is hard out here, as for example, the 10 Kilometer drive from San Pedro del Norte to the nearest town takes at least an hour, due to the conditions of the roads and the vehicles. Public transport here is pretty decent, thus far reliable. Sometimes scary since road rules aren´t abidded. The main means of transport are old school busess which are brought down here from the US. They´re sold in the US for about 15,000 dollars then sold down here for 25-36,000 dollars. (If I understood the driver correctly)

OK lots of photos. The last few, are a series of cooking one´s (in backwards order, they happened to upload that way, and im to lazy to re-load them on perhistoric compters) That dish is called umm...Guerila or something like that. Its sort of like a tortilla, except its thicker, and sweeter. Its sweet corn mash, with sugar and a touch of salt. The paste is then poured between two palm leaves and cooked on a ceramic plate over fire. Then it is served with soft salty cheese, and what they call crema, its thick, and somewhat like sour cream, but less sweet. It was an amazing dish, (uber fattening, which if you can tell by the one shot of me painting the health center is starting to catch up with me)

All is well. We´re back into another hot snap. I was told by some Hawiian missionaries that it was over 110 the other day, where they were working on building a school. We have alot of missionary groups comming through here, it always catches me off gaurd to see a group of gringo´s cruising the streets.

Hello again!

I´m back to site after almost two weeks away. It’s actually refreshing to be back. It’s not quite home yet, but it’s a place I can call mine. I´m still looking for a house or apartment to rent, as I still live with my host family. I´ve a couple leads, we´ll see where they go.

My psychology course has been taking up a lot of my time. I knew it would be a lot of work, since it’s a condensed 7 week course rather than 4 month semester course. I do feel bad that I´ve missed work to study, but right now I don´t have many projects up and running, so I´m not actually missing much.

it´s interesting though. Some of the basic concepts I’ve learned I´ve been able to loosely apply to my observations here. Some of the lack of discipline of the children, the position of women in society etc etc.

Not a whole lot to report. The situation in Honduras is fairly heated still. The exiled president or ex president (depends on who you talk too) is here in Nicaragua today staging his re-entrance to Honduras from the northern Nicaraguan city of Estelí. Our boarders have heightened security, and there’s talk of potential armed conflict between protesters, armies, and the two political sides (those who supported the coup, and those who don’t). I doubt anything serious will happen, but nonetheless peacecorps has us on alert, and keeps us regularly posted on any new events (by e'mail, lucky for me I have internet access here!)

Any who I hear its raining in Maine still, although that sounds wonderfully refreshing. I actually sweat through a pair of pants the other day; I didn’t even realize that was possible...)

Adios!

Hello All!

Not much to report since writing last. It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster as of late, moral going through the roof, and then bottoming out. Mainly the frustrations have been revolving around language right now. We just had a 4 day language workshop, and I realized that I've taught myself many things wrong, and now need to unlearn, and re-learn certain things.

So I had a talk with someone the other day about world outlook. I was explaining how some of the people in my town have small world views (can you blame them; they don’t have the luxury of travel). We got onto the topic of people I know who really like learning about the world, they read national geographic, watch the news etc etc, but really have no interest in traveling. The lady, with whom I was talking, said that the world would be a more peaceful one if people would be interested in knowing more about the world than their own little bubble. Yes I know Americans sometimes we can think and act like we are the center of the world (we actually are in some ways I guess) but it seemed that she was saying that because people don't have interest in traveling, are ignorant and uninformed. I was rather insulted (although just a few years ago I would have said the same thing). Just because someone isn't interested in travel doesn't make them more ignorant than anyone else. I know plenty of people who travel and aren't any better than those that do. I think if someone has smelled the smells, eaten the food etc etc, maybe have a clearer image of a certain place but that doesn’t make them more informed. For example, I've traveled to a variety of countries, but that doesn’t mean that I know anything about the people their. She seemed to be blaming Americans for purposely choosing not to travel, and to stay ignorant of the rest of the world. (Is that a bad thing?)
I guess being from the US travel really is more of a luxury for us than those in Europe. We don't have access to cheap travel, or lots of cultures all clustered together. I was rather put out (you all know how I get sometimes...) Conversations like this constantly re-confirm my "Americanness" which is something I wasn't really conscious of before my service here. And ya know what, its pretty good to be an American.

Oh here is an NGO that works in my site

http://www.amoshealthandhope.org/Health_for_all/Home.html

I've only met with them a couple of times, but I really like their ideas about international aid. They don't give handouts. They give information And trainings. For example their working on bringing down midwives from the US to train midwives here. This knowledge is 100 times more valuable than handing out new equipment that may or may not be used. They also have some nice pictures on their website which are worth checking out.

That’s all for them moment!

Yesterday was a rather exicting day. I went to one of the healthposts in one of the outlying comunities. Normally this is rather boring. I give a talk about the influenza, and nutrition to the people waiting for their appointments, and talk with the locals (when they can understand me!). We had a guy come in with a pretty deep accidental machette cut, and I was able to asist with the cleaning-closing of the wound. I was a little whoosy,but it was a good experience none-theless. The poor man had to walk quite aways to get to the health post. His friend, who accompanied him, didn´t know to put pressure on the wound, so he lost quite a bit of blood. If we hadn´t been at the health post that day (they´re not staffed everyday we dont have the resources for that) I don´t know what he would have done. The community is somewhat isolated and transport sporatic.

After the nurses taught me how to give injections, and when I arrived back in town to the health center, I was able to observe-give basic assistance, to a birth!

The birthing proccess in life, is terrifying, and beautiful all at once. The young mother, (20 with her second child, the first by ceaserian) had a difficult time because the baby had his arm up around his head. But it was amazing to see the proccess, (definately not anything I want to go through anytime soon) but I never quite understood the sacrafice a mother has to make, physically, mentally, etc etc in the pregnancy proccess. Its something I knew about, but didnt quite understand.

any how, thats all for now!


Hazel