New art class member. Do you remeber in elementary school making the stained glass windows with crepe paper and black construction paper. We did that today, and it was a blast, and made a huge mess!

Here is one of my youth groups. We are painting Wacalls which are like gourds once cleaned out and dried. We are hoping to sell them as wall decorations and flower hangers in order to save enough money so we can take a field trip to Leon so the girls can see their own museums and learn their own history. Most of them have never been, and the city is of huge historical and national importance.

here I am with the crew that I frequently visit. They range in age of 11 months to 12 years old. We watch cartoons together, play jump rope, and just the other day, one of the girls pulled three white hairs from my head. Thats true friendship. I´ve learned kids are fantastic when you can hand them off when they´re acting up.

This photo is from a march which was facilitated by a volunteer who lives north of me. myself and 4 other volunteers, along with their youthgroups participated in march through town against domestic violence.


Laundry day in the rainy season

youth group meeting. Don´t they look excited!



Workshop with 46 middleschool and highschool teachers, teaching teachers to how to teach HIV/AIDS in their classrooms. This is pretty much what I do. I walk around with a wooden dildo all day...

Well I´ll be finishing my time here in Nicaragua in March/April of 2011. Which leaves me only 8-9 months here. I have so much left to do!

To my faithful readers sorry I’ve been negligent recently. I really don’t have a good reason to give.

I’m getting worse and worse about taking photos. When I finish whatever activity I am doing I look back and think, damn it would be nice to have a couple photos.

Any-Who…

Last Friday a friend of mine invited me to visit her family who live outside of town in an extremely remote/rural community. Initially I had said I couldn’t go because I had a meeting the next day in another but closer community, but apparently the two communities are a short 45 min horse ride away so they were going to loan me a cousin and horse in the morning, so I agreed, what the heck, go see something new. We took the local public/private transportation out, a big white covered truck, about halfway to our destination. From there the truck continues its route in another direction leading away from my friend’s town. From there we set out on foot. It had been raining all day so the path was a muddy mess. We happened across her Uncle who walked with us a ways. My poor friend, always looking adorable had planned on her brother meeting us with horses, and was traveling in these cute little pink and white heals and was having a hard time navigating the path. I ended up carrying both our bags for a bit. When she was about ready to give up, her brother indeed showed up with two horses and we took off.
So this was my first time on a horse. As a child I had been slightly-not-quite-terrified of horses. Don’t ask me why, I think it had something to do with their teeth and intelligent eyes. I like dumb animals; you can predict what they’ll do. Horses they’re smart and seemingly unpredictable. Well my friend jumped on, and me behind her. Man was I sore the next day, even though the poor animal was pure skin and bones, it was still wide enough to have me walking funny for a day or so after. Anyway the path was wet, and at points rocky and slippery, both riders of the horses constantly were reciting short prayers hoping the horses didn’t fall. We skirted around the base of a steep and jagged mountain/hill. They call them hills, but they’re nothing like hills in Maine. Maybe someday I’ll take a photo.
So we left at noon and at about 4 we arrived at her house. Dirt floors as expected, no light a small cement holding tank for water running off the mountain, houseful of kids, chickens, a fairly bravo (aggressive) pig, horses, and of course, dogs.

We ate a modest diner of beans, tortilla, rice, and some sweet corn-ish bread. The family was amazingly hospitable, and welcoming (unsurprising as I´ve decided that’s how people here are). That night we all piled into one tiny room which had 3 beds and a hammock for 5 people.

In the morning, I woke up at around 6 and got ready for the hike back. Apparently the river was too high for the horses to cross so I was to go back by foot. The community where I had my meeting is about a 2 hour walk over pretty rugged terrain. It had rained all night and the river was running high and fast. But nothing that I felt uncomfortable with, unlike my friend´s mother. She was on the verge of tears with fear that I would drown. I assured them I can swim and dove in backpack wrapped in a plastic bag in tow. I think because the mother can´t swim the river in general scares her, and to see this tiny little foreigner jump in was at about her limit.

My friend´s little 12 year old brother (Much too grown up for a 12 year old, I guess that happens when you´re the oldest male in the house after your father dies) walked with me along the river until we met up with the road. The path split off into a variety of other smaller trails, and I would have for certain lost my way alone.

When we arrived at the road, he had to hurry back as it had started to rain again, and the river was sure to rise more. I was terrified that something would happen to him because he had to cross the river from help me. I got a phone call the next day to say he was fine.

The children here learn to swim by watching others. No one teaches them, or tells them * `hey watch that your feet don´t get caught under the rocks and sucks you under.` Every year numerous children are lost in the many rivers, lakes, lagoons, and beaches of Nicaragua.

I took off up the trail crossing many streams. At one point I crossed one which was actually hot! I was freaked out thinking it was some factory which was contaminating the area and I had waded through it, but come to find out there is a vent nearby where the water is heated up thermally and runs off. I´ve made a point to try to get back there and check it out sometime.

Well after my two hour walk, blistered and borderline dehydrated I made it to the house where I was to have my youth group meeting. We talked about ¨making health choices¨ (hey the girls chose the theme, and mhmm that’s my work).

At around 2 I headed to the park to catch my bus home, and was informed that I´d missed it. I almost cried; it’s another 2 hour walk back to my town. As I started walking back someone yelled to me that the covered truck was running an hour late and by the skin on my teeth jumped on it and made it home.


The day didn’t end there, I had my host´s mother´s birthday to help cook for, and celebrate. Try as hard as they could no one could get me up to dance, or force the famous Flor de Caña into me (rum). Finally I made it to bed at 10. It was an amazing and adventurous trip for which everyone here was mad at me for (¨it’s not safe for a foreigner alone out in the middle of nowhere¨ they tell me, when actually its more dangerous when you’re in the towns because that’s where the dogs and the drunkards are)

It was worth the sore legs, to see more of where I live, and get to be out doors for a bit.

The coconut Tree

I recently went to a town called Bluefields which is out on the Atlantic coast. at the end of May they have Maypole festivals ¨Palo de Mayo¨. So myself and three friends made the 11+ hour trip out there.



our 5 hour bus ride between Managua the capitol and the river town of Rama ended up lasting 9 hours rather than 5 (involving tires coming off and being plugged, door jamming so no one could get in or out, I was luckily trapped outside in the pouring rain, and at some point I woke up to smoke which no one seemed to be terribly concerned about). From Rama its a 1.5 to 2 hour boat ride up the river.

The feeling one gets from the Atlantic coast differs drastically from the Pacific where I live. For starters the area was invaded by the English rather than the Spanish and remained fairly autonomous for a decent stretch of time. Also many ex slaves landed there as well as mutinied slave ships, who then mixed with the local population. They also had a large Chinese population when the area was a successful trade/shipping area.


anyway thats enough history.


On Saturday was the huge procession in the street. Each burro of the city had their own group represented who would dance and their recently nominated ¨princess¨ was presented. The parade ended with each group presenting a specific dance and the princesses competing for the title of Miss Bluefields. Well we decided that we wanted to see the whole parade and started asking around ¨where does the parade end¨? Every one we talked to kept saying, at the coconut tree. The what?! There has to be hundreds of coconut trees in this city, considering they put it in everything, beans and rice, chicken, shrimp, bread etc etc. We happened to run into two of our bosses who are from Bluefields and we asked them. They weren’t sure either so they called a friend. The phone call went something like this ¨Hi, how are you…hmmhmm…. So what time does the parade start… mhmmm… and where does it end…wait, where?!... Which one? ¨she turns to us and says, Ya so she says it end at the coconut tree but she doesn’t know where that is. The only way it seemed to find this mysterious coconut tree would be to follow the parade.
So we followed the crowded streets. Each barrio that we went through had a distinctive feel to it; you could feel when you´d passed from a Mosquito barrio to a Rama, or Spanish to Creole. Finally we came to what we believed was the end of the parade, because we had started to turn back towards the park. Where is that damned Coconut tree!? We´d been walking/dancing for a couple hours were dehydrated, happy and tired. Finally we asked someone standing near, where the parade ended. ¨Here was the response, in the barrio of Cotton Tree.¨

We had our one year workshop last week. It consisted of two and half days of meetings, and trainings, varying from themes such as behavior change, to working with sex workers.
One of the sessions which struck me as the most interesting was the workshop on diversity of sexuality. We talked about GBLTTTI (formerly known as GBLT). I´ll break it down for those of you less versed. G is for Gay, men who exclusively have relations with other men. B is for Bi, which is someone who has sexual relations with both male and female, L is for Lesbian, women who exclusively have relations with other women. The first T is for transsexual, which is an individual who self identifies as the gender opposite of their biology but still maintains their biological parts, aka a female who still has all her reproductive organs and breasts but 24 hours a day identifies as a male. The second T is for transvestite, which is someone biologically of one gender but identifies depending on the setting as the other gender in periods less then 24 hours a day daily. For example a male who when in the house and at work dresses and identifies as male, but when she is with her friends in a more comfortable setting will dress and identify as a female. The last T is for transgender which is where an individual has had one or more operations to remove or add parts from one gender to align themselves more with the gender in which they identify. ¨I¨ is for intersex, or individuals born with reproductive organs of both genders (formerly known as hermaphrodites).
These concepts are misunderstood in the USA, let alone taught here in Nicaragua. Many individuals who are of a non-heterosexual sexuality are often pinned as being sex workers and their reputations in the communities are very negative. The main factor for this reputation is discrimination (duh). These individuals try studying, or applying for jobs and are almost always rejected. Therefore many individuals have low education levels, low self esteem, and no work. Because of these factors amongst others many are forced into becoming sex workers for lack of options.
Another ¨category¨ of sexuality was presented to us. HSH hombres que tengan relaciones sexuales con Hombres, or men who have sex with men. Here this is not considered gay, I´ll explain.
Here if a man is ¨giving¨ he is maintaining the role of a man ¨aka insertion¨ while as the person receiving is assuming the role of the woman therefore is the ¨gay¨ person so to speak. It is almost impossible gather numbers of people who fall into one of the above categories, specifically the ones which can be more hidden such as gay lesbian and HSH. Yet in the information presented to us we were given a case study town, in which the numbers of HSH far out numbered any other GBLTTTI.
Now you might be wondering, wow Hazel way too graphic, or Big Deal but this is all quite relevant to my work. If the culture here is so inflexible as to have men having sex with men but aren´t gay, or makes sexuality so tabooed as to be something no one can talk about in contexts other than abstinence, can we expect people to use the information given to them when we teach about per se HIV, or STDS or Pregnancy? (Ok I´m not trying to say the HIV is gay issues ok so don´t even go there! I’m trying to connect lack of personal sexual understanding to healthy sexual practices)


I was speaking with one of my counterparts about GBLTTTI upon returning to my site and she impressed me with her openness and willingness to learn (She always is impressing me). She asked many pertinent questions and didn’t judge me on my opinions which very likely are different than anything she´d heard before (aka people are born wired one way; this all being something out of our control). I think that the overall population here may be much more receptive and open to the information than I´d expect. While this theme isn´t one of my direct work objectives, we´ll see how and if I can incorporate it into my work.