So one thing that is very noticable about living in a new culture are their beliefs, which to an outsider (Me!) can seem quite strange. Here's an example. The other night I was invited to dinner with a family with whom I've made friends. We were in the back yard playing with the kids, when a small chicken, who'd been trying to roost in the trees fell out of the roost, and landed on its back. This caused quite the ruckus, between the kids, the adults, the dogs, and other chickens in the trees. The grandmother ran over with a plastic washbin, and placed it upside down over the little bird, and procceded to drum the tub with a stick, with the little bird inside. She would lift the tub up, and check on the bird, continue to drum, check on the bird, continue to drum. Finally I snatched up the little guy, and checked it for potential breaks, cleaned off his little bloody wing, and gave it some water. The grandmother took the bird back, and drummed over it for the final time. This time the bird opened his eyes, and was moving his head around (an atestment to the success of the drumming). A kid ran over with a box, and took the chicken to another house in the complex. I asked the grandmother why this system worked. She told me that the bird fell because it was full of bad gases, and that the drumming worked to expell the bad gases. I'm not sure if I belief that this worked, but nevertheless the little bird seems to be recovering.

Other beliefs, (in my opinion) are less mild, and in a way fairly dangerous. These tend to be seen more in the rural areas,and i'm not sure how wide spread they are. For example, Women, after delivering a baby can't shower, or eat fruits or veggitables, or meat, for a fairly extended amount of time. Another which I think contributes to the large number of skin problems that are found here, is that the people believe that you can't shower in the afternoon because your blood is hot, and the cold water will make you sick. Because the people don't wash the sweat, or dust, or dirt off your skin, skin problems are really prevelant here.

I mean, there are wonderful things about this culture, the people are amazingly friendly, but some of these beliefs, I just have had a hard time understanding, and really, can be frustraiting. I try to teach people the facts behind the beliefs, trying to show the bennefits of shower, or how you need to eat fruits and veggitables to repare the body, etc etc. But I imagine its hard to believe a foriegner (me) who doesn't really speak the lanaguage (me)when you've grown up in a society that confirms, and teaches these belief. I have to be careful to not be culturaly-centric, or condescending, or preachy. I just present the information, and hope that someone will use it.

Its easy to reflect on a new culture, but I've been trying to think of beliefs that we live by in the US. We have our supersticions, like dont walk under a ladder, or break mirrors, and knocking on wood, but these aren't principles which we live by. can anyone think of beliefs we have stateside?

Hazel

New back ground! Hopefully it doesn’t hurt anyone’s eyes. I think the black frames the pictures better, and supposedly uses less energy!

This weekend, I took a little mini holiday to the coast a little spot called Salinas Grande. I´m not sure who Salina is, and what she had that would be considered grande, I didn´t work up the courage to ask! I have a friend who lives there, and ex-PeaceCorps volunteer. Went went over the first couple steps of surfing, (ie staying on the board while paddling, actually way harder than it looks!) We paid a local guy to take us down the river, through the mangroves which was a phenominal experience. I forgot how much I love the environment and learning about our natural world, I had an environmental concentration to my undergrad degree for a reason! Our informal guide is a ranger-guard in the reserve where we were. He showed us how the mangrove trees are seeded in the ground, how the seeds are weighted, and have to land just so in the soil to germinate. He also told us there are crocdiles 5 meters long that live in the river (a bit bigger than our little outboard) but they´re afraid of the noise of the engines on the boats (I imagine that weren´t-no-fish-tale). Periodically sharks are pulled in from the fishing boats, and on discovery channel for the last week I watched many many shark attack dramatizations, I´m not gonna lie, I was a little apprehensive to be in water over waist deep. But it was a fabulous weekend, and when the turtles come to nest next month, I´m definately going to try to get back!


Oh the last photo was from a quincenera (not sure how to spell is) Its like a sweet sixteen they do here for the girls.

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.