Life's a garden. Dig it.

Adios

2008-09-21T21:10:00.010-06:00

There have been many times here that have been difficult, and I know that I won´t remember those as much as the good. So today, I made a list for myself just in case I was feeling really sad, I could remember what I really didn´t like. So here goes.
5. Being stared at when I´m walking anywhere, doing anything.
4. Being yelled at on the street, adiosssssss mi amorrrr, chelita, gringa, ect.
3. So much about the educational system that it could be its own list
2. The creatures..scorpions, rats, mice, spiders, tarantulas, cochroaches, yuck.
1. Sweating all day, everyday for 2 straight years! And smelling like it.

The bad doesn't even compare to the good, but the bad is a daily thing, and the good sometimes is more hidden. But here is what I will remember and miss, in no particular order.

Farah-the smartest little girl ever. She picked up English so easily and we spent many afternoons together in private English class. She is very creative, funny, and full of life. She invited me to her birthday party, we once took a 5 hour bus ride together on a packed bus and sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer like 20 times. I will miss that Farita.
My neighbors, not just these neighbors, but specifically bird. I am holding bird, or pajarito, in this picture, and this kid kept me entertained. The crying, the screaming, the AMAZING dancing, the spaziness of it all. I will miss bird. And speaking of spaz, I will also miss our next door neighbors, a family of 7 women and pobrecito Carlos.
My Telecentro English class. Some of these kids were in my community class for 2 years (Susy, Jared, Maried, Luis); others came and went. We had some good times, and we played a lot of UNO. We had a Halloween party, without costumes, we had a goodbye party before I went to the USA to visit for 2 weeks, and a welcome home party when I got back, and they also threw parties for my visiting family members. I think we actually just liked to throw parties, not learn English. This group of kids made my English class fun. I will miss Luis for never just calling once, but until I answer. I will miss Maried because she's fun and I really wanted to take her back to the states with us. I will miss Jared because she totally gets gringos and she always has something to say. She also helped me teach English to kids....that was fun.
My counterpart Henry. This is one dedicated, great, teacher. We had some great times teaching together for 2 years! We always spoke in English and Henry really took advantage of me working at INCH. It was great. Henry really made my service. I was lucky.
The gemelo. My best friend for 2 years. He is such a great friend, always doing things for me and helping me with things that I really don't want to do, i.e. chasing out an iguana that got itself stuck in a doorframe, killing a tarantula that was stuck in the sink, changing a lightbulb really really high up. You get the picture. In 2 years this kids English went from 0 to conversational. He also knows really great, useful phrases such as "Winner Winner Chicken Dinner" and "Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eater". I really feel that Jeff and I realized our potential as English teachers with those lessons. But really, the Gemelo is a great friend.
Williams. Thats right, with a s. One of my 5th year students, turned friend. He walked me home everyday when I was being stalked by a taxi driver. He was my Spanish teacher before my interview. Williams is really chill, really good at English, and also an amazing friend. He knows more vulgar words in English than I do.
And of course, I will miss all of my Peace Corps friends. I wouldn't have made it without them! The following is a collection of good memories!

I am currently at home in Minnesota, I just got home last night. It is scary to be back, no place to live, no job, no car, no money! But its also exciting and completely awesome. Jeff and I were given a early COS (Close of Service) date because of a family situation. Jeff is, however, still in Nicaragua for 2 more weeks. So here I am, home, a RPCV. (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer)

Peace Corps is like a rollercoaster; you're up and you're down in a matter of seconds. There were many days were it went from great to crappy, back to normal in a matter of hours. Was it worth it? Ya, totally. I learned a lot: spanish, about Nicaraguan culture, about Central America, and about myself. I am very greatful for this opportunity, and yes, I would do it again. I will miss it.
Adiooooos!

Nicaragua Independence Day 2008

2008-09-17T10:38:00.009-06:00

Nicaragua´s Independece Day doesn´t just celebrate the independence of Nicaragua, but of 5 Central American countries: Guatamala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. It´s a pretty big deal. To celebrate, there are parades the two days before Independence Day. The first parade is when all the primary schools march. But not all the students get to march in Chinandega because we´re such a big city with so many schools, only the TOP students. This means the students who have the best overall percentage in classes, the band, and then some baton twirlers. Our neighbors marched with their school, and they carried the school banner.
Our other neighbours also were in the parade for their school. This is taken afterwards, in front of their house. One was a baton twirler, the girl in the middle was one of the best students, and the little one carried the Nicaraguan national symbol.
The big day in the second parade-the parade for all of the high schools. This year 21 high schools marched in the parade. My school has 4,000 students, and a few hundred walked. First come the best of the best, wearing their very military style outfits, or maybe it looks more like a pilot. The best of the best carry the school banner, the school symbol and the flags for all the Central American countries that gained their independence on this day. Its a pretty big deal. And they have to buy those outfits!!! 500 cords! (40 dollars). The teachers walk behind all of the students, which is why we were lucky enough to get to walk too.
Me and my favorite students. Maried, Williams, Carlos, me, Ricardo, Mariela, and Rider.

Jeff and one of his students who is carrying the flag for Jeff´s school, Tomás Ruiz.
The chaos that is the parade.

Danica and me holding our school´s symbol. Danica is a new TEFL volunteer who is replacing me! Yeah!

Jeff school marched at spot number 14. This took place at about 10 a.m. We got to the baskeball court, where this all takes place, at 6:30 a.m. And it was hot. Really hot. Those poor kids in those pilot suits.
And here come Jeff and Elizabeth. Elizabeth is our new sitemate. She is working at Jeff´s school, and will replace him there.

All schools must do a presentation before they leave the baskeball court to march. Here is my schools amazing performance.
And we´re off marching. Thank god. We were the LAST school. Number 21! We left at 11 a.m.
I don´t think that I can fully explain the chaos that is the Indpendence Day parade. So you get there in the morning and wait all day to start. The baskeball court is filled with hundreds, thousands of students and other observers. Then you finally start walking. I was already drenched with sweat when we left. The march is about 2 hours long. The band plays and the girls dance throughout the march. The sidewalks are packed with people watching. People are sitting on roofs, the sidewalk is overflowing on to the street. Then people start walking with you, infiltrating the band. I was walking with kids and adults up on me the entire time. It´s actually scary. The police sort of try and help, but give up after awhile. I was kicking people out and moving people the entire time. It´s hard for the kids to play the drums when someone is standing right next to them. But that is what those baton twirlers are there for. They swing those things right out into the crowd to move them back and keep them away. That part is great.

That was our second and last Nicaraguan Independece Day celebration. I know for sure that I will never experience anything like that again. Tear.

El Chorizo!!!

2008-08-27T13:20:00.004-06:00

The weiner race at the Milwaukee Brewers game!!

In early Aug. we went to the states for 3 days for my brother´s wedding in Milwaukee. It was a lot of fun, although tiring. The day after the wedding we went to the Brewers game with my brother and his wife, Wendy, and a few of their friends. When it came time for the weiner race I cheered with all my might for mi amigo, el chorizo, but it was for not. He was too quick out of the blocks and could not hold, fading face the second half of the race. Que Lastima!

Fish Story!

2008-08-27T12:54:00.005-06:00

About a month ago I got the opportunity to go deep sea fishing. Our old sitemate, Ernie, who is working for Peace Corps now in Managua, invited me to go along with him and his dad, that was visiting, and another former PC volunteer from Ernie´s group, down in San Juan del Sur. This was the first time I have ever got to do anything like this, probably cause I suck at fishing. We went out with 2 guides and the 4 of us for the whole day. The guides provided everything, food, drinks, all necessary fishing equipment, etc. All we had to do is get ready. I was the 3rd person to get a chance to reel one in. The first two were good sized fish, but it took them maybe 10 minutes to reel them in. Just my luck when it was my turn I got what seemed to be a good sized one also.

Here is me working hard.
It took me a good half hour to get this fish in the boat. I struggled through fatigue, cramping, and my swimsuit falling almost all the way off me(nothing like showing your ass to everyone on the boat when you are trying to reel in the big one!), because of my weight loss here, but I didn´t let go of that pole. And the results were this...
It was a about a 70 lbs. wahoo. The guide said it was the biggest he had seen caught of that type. Talk about luck! After that we did not have as much luck catching fish, but I did get some awesome sea sickness after I caught my fish. Luckily Ernie´s dad is a doctor and he prescribed me 2 beers and a half a dramamine, which did wonders.
When we got back to port the guide cut up all the fish. We took about 1/6 of the meat from the fish I caught and brought it to a restaurant owned by a chef from California. He cooked it up with some veggie, mashed potatoes and a sauce on top. It was really good, (even Jenny ate some). Here are the catches from the day, minus one which is still in the boat. The two others are Mahi Mahi.
So that is my fish story for my lifetime. I am just glad that it was bigger than the one my dad caught ice fishing and mounted so I can tease him!

It´s been awhile

2008-06-24T15:37:00.004-06:00

Well, it has been quite awhile since we have written! Since our last blog, we have gone to the United States and it was glorious! I was so excited to go, and it lived up to its expectations. We did so many fun and great things. First, we went to our friends Courtney and Nate´s wedding. It was really fun and a great way to start off our trip. And it was the first time that we have looked nice for over a year and a half!
Courtney and Nate had a female minister. Our friends here thought that was strange. We don´t just for the record.
Later, we also went to my stepbrother Aaron´s wedding. Here we are with my stepmom Luann in downtown St. Paul. The twin cities are so great! We also had a really good time at this wedding, as it was also very beautiful. That tornado warning didn´t stop us, even if we were told to move away from the very large windows to the back of the room. There was still beer.
Aaron and Kara got married at the James J. Hill Library. When we got back we showed the pictures to our Nicaraguan friends who thought it was so funny and strange to get married in a library. They told me, more than once, oh you gringos really love your books! You even want to get married around them! If you get bored at the wedding, you can read. Followed by laughing by everyone but me. I tried to explain how beautiful it was, but it was lost in cultural differences.
Another favorite pasttime that we have missed was lawn games. Here is Jeff with Renee playing Bag-O. A favorite.
We also enjoyed our favorite local beer, Summit. We have really missed good beer, as there are about 2 options here, both leaving something to be desired. Unless you are a Miller or Bud Light fan, well then, you might be pleased with the beer here. Notice, I am wearing 2 sweatshirts. It was that cold!! (the following pictures are ripped off from Veronica, thanks!)
Jeff also taught some signs that are popular here in Nicaragua. We were remembering that goal number 3 of the Peace Corps is to educate US citizens about our host country. Jeff was on the clock here, giving a short charla on nonverbal communication. We did also go to Southside Family School and give a presentation on our experiences here in Nicaragua. This nonverbal presentation was not included.
We also relived some oldies, but goodies.
And we drank more good beer! Guiness, I miss you....oh, and I miss you too Shaun.
We saw a lot of family and friends and went to 2 twins games! We also ate out at all of our favorite joints. We had a really great time.

Since returning to Nicaragua, Jeff and I have both judged an English singing competition. I judged one for an elementary school where the second place winner was a little 4th grade boy who sang ¨My Heart Will Go On¨ by Celine Dion while wearing a suit and tie. Just thought I would mention that....

Well, at any rate, we are back in Nicaragua and we have 5 months left here. Our replacements are coming next week. And, just for the record, its still really hot here.

Update from The Chin

2008-03-10T11:17:00.012-06:00

School started which seemed to conicide with a decline in blog writing by us. So, here is an update as to what we have been doing these past 2 months, other the contemplate the educational system, as stated in Jenny´s previous blog. After we returned to Chinandega from being on vacation and working at the summer camp in Managua, we had about a week to prepare for the upcoming school year. The week before school started all the teachers (a couple hundred teachers) from the department of Chinandega come here to have workshops put on by the Ministry of Education. One of my counterparts happened to be one of the faciliators for the English teachers. He asked me if I would help him with some activities, so Jenny and I ended up presenting particpatory ideas to use in the classroom three days in a row. It was luck that my counterpart happened to be one of the faciliators and we got this opportunity to work with all the English teachers in the department. Yeah, objetive 2.2!!!

The school year at my school definitely got off to a faster start this year since I was already accustomed to my counterparts and the specific challenges that working here entails. But, one challenge that is always hard to overcome is when you do not have a classroom. At my school right now there are 4 different classes that share the basketball court, as shown by the photo, plus one other class that doesn´t fit on the court so they are off in the dirt. Talk about a difficult way to start the year. I work with my counterpart in the morning with 3 of these sections. It is almost impossible to do speaking activities because I can not hear/understand the students and vice versa. Luckily they are in the process of building the extra classrooms necessary and they should be done in April or May...I hope.

My counterpart David writing on the whiteboard in our classroom of 11th grade students (seniors here).

Besides our usual English teachings responsibilities we have been doing some "secondary projects" including cooking with soy and creating a garden and compost pile in our backyard. These are more for our own good and sanity.

Will cooking our "Chorizo with Soy"... It tasted a lot better than it looked!

Will actually bought the soy beans here in Chinandega in the market and then soaked them and got the meat (payana) out of them before bringing them to our house to cook with.

Not really a secondary project, but what would a blog be without a random picture of a parade that came by our house the other night. This one was for a private school that is near our house. Surprisingly, it had a religious theme!

Here is our amazing compost pile it even comes with free baby trantulas!!

Finished after a lot of help from our two friendly environment volunteers, Lucian and Will. We couldn´t have done it without you! Now we just have to wait for the fruits of our labor..peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, two types of lettuce, and melon...mmmm.

This photo is for Jenny´s dad because Jenny said he would never believe her if she told him that she picked weeds.

This is Paul. He is a health volunteer in Corinto. He didn´t really help with the garden, but man, can he supervise!

We have about 7 months left here and it seems to be going so fast. We still have plently that we want to accomplish....next up... making homemade mango wine!!
Oh yeah, and of course the English teaching and all our other projects and responsibilities.

Jenny´s had too much time to think...

2008-03-07T13:26:00.004-06:00

The other day I was thinking...why is it so much easier teaching here than in the states? Is it because there are 2 of us in the classroom? I do think that this has a lot of do with it, but not everything. So what else is it? I think it is so much less stressful teaching here. Maybe it´s because I´m a volunteer and I don´t have to deal with any political issues? Once again, yes, but this isn´t a big problem in the US, so it doesn´t really count. So really, why?

Then I got to thinking.....wait, I know nothing about most of my students, much less their names. But neither does anybody else. In the states, we are encouraged to find out why Student A is sleeping during class, why Student B doesn´t do his homework, why Student C is such a spaz, and why Student D copies incorrectly from the board. This is something here that teachers don´t worry about! However, I still do. Sometimes I´ll make comments to my counterpart, Hey did you know that Student B who never does his homework has a job and works all afternoon/evening? And he´ll say....mmmmm. Like, and your point is.....??? I realized that here, the teachers don´t think of this as part of their jobs. Well, I guess, because it´s not.

Some of this makes my life a lot easier. We can treat all students as equals. But the truth is, they aren´t. Why should 2 students who grew up in the states be judged on the same scale as the rest of the students in English class? Since nobody is diagnosed with learning disablities, that must mean that nobody has one, right? WRONG! It is amazing the amount of students who can not copy off the board without their papers looking totally crazy and illegible. But what do we do to help these students succeed? Nothing.

In the states, the schools are really different. Teachers are expected to be part of a committee, hall moniters, lunch moniters, homeroom leaders, counselors, motivators, and more. I realize that only the teachers that really care do the counseling and motivating, but I really feel like that is a large portition of teachers in the US. However, here, teachers are mainly instructors. I am speaking about me as well. Here, I walk into the classroom and I give a lesson. It is up to the student to decide whether they want to learn it or not, listen or not, take notes or not. If they do or not, no me importa. I try and create lessons that stimulate and motivate my students, but beyond that, nada. In the states, I will honestly say, that kid in the back is going to learn, and really try to achieve that. Here I think, those of you paying attention will learn! Even though, sometimes just paying attention isn´t enough for some to learn.

It´s sad really. Jeff thinks that Paulo Freire would be mad. However, most teachers don´t have time here to play the other roles of a teacher. Many teachers teach at one school from 7-12. A different school from 1-6, and yet a different school all day on Saturday or Sunday. This is way to much work to be doing a good job in the classes that you have. There needs to be big changes in the structure of the eductional system to allow the instructors here to really become teachers. There needs to be more teachers, more schools, and more class time for students. I don´t think that 7-12 really cuts it. Students need to recieve more classes, and be given more opportunties for other forms of learning in groups outside of school as well, or even sports teams.

A lot of time, we hear a lot of complaining that there are no materials for teachers. And they´re underpaid. Welcome to the job of a teacher. Wherever we go, we will be underpaid! But materials, what do you REALLY need to inspire youth to learn? An imagination. Sure, some kick ass materials would help, but many times great materials go to waste because people don´t know how to use them. So maybe its better to do like we were told, to keep it smart and simple.

There is so much that really needs to be changed. But really, as a Peace Corps volunteer, what can I do? Nothing with these big, structural changes. But I can try and help teachers do the best that they can, with what is given to them. I can also help students who want to learn English, learn more. It´s a start.

Learning English IS FUN!

2008-01-28T13:07:00.001-06:00

Guess what? we are in the paper.
Its true. A photo even. You have to look really hard to find Jeff. He´s all the way in the back next to the drunk guy wearing a hat crooked throwing the metal sign in the air. Where am I? I´m at the store down the block with 8 students buying chips. Ya, we missed the fame for chips!

We spent 2 weeks living in Managua and working at a summer English immersion camp sponsered by the US Embassy. It was soooo much fun. There were 10 of us volunteers and almost 100 students, along with some Nicaraguan English teachers. It was the best experience that we have had so far teaching English, for us and the kids. Because it was total immersion, the students learned a lot in 2 weeks and improved what they already knew as well. The students were from all over Nicaragua. As volunteers, we got to recruit students from our schools. 5 students from my school and 1 from Jeff´s came to the camp. The students were then seperated into 3 basic groups and 2 intermediate groups. 4 of my students tested into the intermediate group, which made me proud. Here is me and my 5 students, plus one. They don´t look happy, but really we were having fun.
In the mornings, they had 3 classes, each 1.5 hours. I taught American Culture class with Caitlin and Jeff taught Speaking and Listening with Paul. Below is Jeff teaching about time.
In the afternoons we had sports or we went on fieldtrips. Here is Jeff with his fieldtrip group.
They also had homework time at night before dinner. The last night we had a talent show where the kids could show off. After that, there was a dance party, obviously. Here are 3 students who did some songs in Spanish. They´re really dressed up. I don´t think that American kids would dress like that to camp. Just a guess.
The last day was a ceremony where the US ambassador came to give out certificates. Then, just like regular camp, there were a lot of tears. Here are all of the teachers, coordinators, and the US ambassador (he´s the really tall guy in the back)

Vacation!!

2008-01-11T15:18:00.000-06:00

Starting with Christmas we began a 2+ week vacation with various people, including other volunteers, my dad, brother, and my mom. It was a nice break from everyday life in Chinandega and an opportunity to show my family,whom I had not seen in about 16 months, what Nicaragua is like. We traveled from Chinandega and the beaches up here and near Managua, to Granada and Volcán Mombacho, to visit my host family and buy some pottery in San Juan de Oriente, and down to the Laguna de Apoyo, among other places. Other than a few "traffic fines" paid to the local police (Remember, when you get into an accident here, you don´t get hurt, you die! Right, Andy?) and some missing luggage, I think everyone enjoyed seeing where we work and live. Plus, they got a chance to leave the cold and snow of Minnesota and Washington D.C.!

The first of two visits to Montelimar. This one for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Mellisa, Caitlin, and of course, Jenny. Talk about a different Xmas than what we are used to in Minnesota. Instead of snow we had pools and beaches and all the food and drink we wanted!

At the pool at Puesta del Sol Resort on the beach north of Chinandega with my dad, brother, and Jenny.

My dad, brother and I enjoying our balcony at Puesta del Sol.

Back in Chinadega in front of our house with my mom,Amy, Caitlin, and Caitlin´s mom who was also visiting.

My mom and I in front of the sign for Volcán Mombacho beforing we rode to the top. It was raining all the way up this very steep road to the top, I think that was only the second time I was ever really cold in Nicaragua.

Jenny and my mom looking out at Lake Nicaragua below from one of the viewpoints near the top of Volcán Mombacho.

Jenny, who is known for her love of church interiors in Nicaragua, standing inside her favorite in Granada when my mom was here.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-22T12:27:00.000-06:00

Feliz Navidad!

San Pancho!

2007-12-21T18:16:00.000-06:00

I left my comfy house with my flush toliet and shower for latrine and no running water life. Thats right, I went north! I went and visited the country, San Francisco del Norte, or San Pancho which is were my friend and fellow TEFLer Caitlin lives, just a short 5 hour bus ride north. It was a really pretty ride up there, and she lives in the mountains so it was a lot cooler too. I actually wore a sweatshirt, and was still chilly.

The mountains on the way there as the sun was setting.

On the way there, Farah, the girl I give private English class to, also rode there. However, when she got on the bus, 15 minutes after it left from the bus terminal where it starts, there were no seats. So I invited to her sit on my lap. There she sat for the next hour until I thought my legs were going to break off, so then she moved next to me on the seat, but I didn´t hear any complaints from the largish lady sitting next to me. We sang Rudolph the Red Rose Reindeer about 25 times, perfecting our delivery. She also told me some fairytales in Spanish. The five hours went pretty fast and then I arrived at Caitlins.

Here we are on the bus.

The next day we got up at 5 a.m. and it was FREEZING! We took the 6 a.m. bus, which is the last! bus for the day, and we rode 40 minutes to a different community where Caitlin is giving an English class. After we got off the bus, we walked 20 minutes on a dirt rode to the community.

Then we were given breakfast, we watched some Backstreet Boys videos for awhile, and then we went to class. The class was about 2 hours. After, we walked 20 minutes back to the main road, and waited for the truck that passes to give us a ride. It was an old covered army truck, packed with people and stuff. Here we rode for 40 minutes on a really crappy road to get back to San Pancho. My jeans ripped on the way up to the truck (in the bootie), so I am down one pair (my favorite).

Caitlin and her puppy in front of her house.

Another highlight of the trip was when Caitlin´s new puppy found a chicken foot and was chewing on it. Then, after it was taken away, she came back with the other. Her mouth has to be pryed open. She did not want to give up that foot, but really who can blame her.

The foot. Que asco.

Once again, it was taken away, but don´t worry, she came back with the head. It was sick.

So I got back today. Jeff was unable to come with me cause he had class on Wednesday. I´m sorry for him! He missed out.

Graduation! Worldwide AIDS Day! and more...

2007-12-06T17:57:00.000-06:00

Well since I have an amazing new camera, it takes me awhile to upload the new pics but here are some things that have been going on with us lately. First and most importantly, the end of the school year! Jeff and I both went to our graduations, which were long events, not unlike at home. However here, the graduate walks on stage with 0ne of their parents. When they get there, they get their diploma and sometimes their class ring is presented to them by the parent. And there is a photo taken with the person who hands you your diploma. At my school, 2 teachers give out diplomas for 2 sections of graduates. A section is like a class. There were 7 total. I was lucky enough to be asked to hand out diplomas with the principal for the first section of graduates. It was pretty cool. Also, I will forever be in photos with about 25 kids as the gringa teacher who handed them their diploma. Here is a pic of me and my favorite group of kids. They may not look like it, but they´re really happy.

Wendy and Igdali!

It was also World AIDS/HIV Day. Since we have a health volunteer in Chinandega, he helped the day´s celebration by putting on a full day of activities in the park, one of them being a game called Chimbombas Sexy, or Sexy Balloons. In this game, you and your partner have to pop balloons in interesting, somewhat sexy, positions. There were 2 teams. One of them were 2 health PCVs, Amy and Anna. Here is a photo of them really trying to pop that balloon. I am sure that this game would not be allowed in a park in the US. I invited some of my community class students to hang out. Luckily, all but one arrived after this game.
Since we are currently on vacation from school, I did a 2 week English camp. It was 2 weeks of class, everyday for 2 hours. I had about 18 students and I ran the camp at a house of the girl I give private English class to, she was the coordinator, and my co-teacher was one of my students from 10th grade, who is also in my community English classes. The students ranged from 5 to 12. I forgot that I didn´t like working with little kids when I decided to do this, and remembered on the 3rd day of class. I also forgot again how much I dislike them on the last day when they were way sweeter than any teenager has ever been. All in all, it went really well. We played a lot of games, obviously. On the last day of class they suprised Jared, my co-teacher, and I with a lunch and then a photographer came and took pictures of us with all the students. Many of the students ordered pictures of themselves with me and Jared. It was super cute, and there were even some tears on the last day. And I got some cool gifts! Oh, and I´m pretty sure they learned some English and had fun. Here is my class below.
Here is a picture of one of my students with her BINGO board. We were reviewing classroom items and animals. I know its really random, but just go with me on this.

Here is Farah, my coordinator.

Jared and me! The profesoras. Here accent is really good, which is one of the reasons I asked her to do this with me. When I told her that her accent was good, she said of course! She learned from me. That was sweet.
In other news, Chinandega now has air hockey! I took my class to play. I´m terrible in case anyone is wondering.
And Jeff is growing a beard. This is us with Dr. Pepper that a friend brought for us from Managua. Actually, he brought 10. It was a good day.

Baseball season´s back!

2007-11-15T13:25:00.000-06:00

Well the rain is gone and the sun is back! And it brought baseball season with it, gracias a dios. I think that we´ve only been to three games so far, but we have new lights so there are games at night, which are way more fun. We´ve seen all of the usual vendors, and even can crushing Steve. He´s aged since last season, and it looks like he´s got a new pair of sandals! It´s always good to start off the season with some new can crushers. Because of the new lights, and the winning, the stands have been PACKED and we were packed in. You become very friendly with your neighbors. Or in my case, maybe not so friendly. The last game we went to was a night game. It was fun, except for the 17 year old nerd behind me decided to blow his whistle straight for 9 innings. By inning 8 I had a killer headache, and by the 9th I just couldn´t take it anymore. Not to mention, this nerd desides to have a ¨who can blow their whistle the loudest and longest¨contest with some 9 year old girl. I couldn´t take it anymore, I turned around the yanked the cord of his whistle and it flew out of his mouth. I don´t know what came over me. Anyways, I just told him NO MORE. He didn´t blow that whistle again for the rest of the game.
Above: a day game in the seats that we usually sit in. Below: a night game on Halloween in the expensive nice seats where you actually sit in a chair instead of concrete stairs.

Other exciting events have happaned. Jeff and I went to the band competition (by band I mean really large drumline). My school, his school, and another private small school participated. The kids in the stands were throwing water everywhere and there were only 3 police officers around. 3. And really, nobody even thought about throwing anyone out. It was total chaos, and we left before they announced the results because fights were a for sure. However, the bands were really good. There is at least 200 people, which includes about 100 drums, maybe 20 other instruments, maybe, and a lot of dancing girls. The band is mostly boys playing drums, but they can sure dance with those drums on! My schools show was great. Jeff´s school featured a 40 year old man getting down and dirty with a 16 year old girl. There were some really questionable moves going on during their performance. I blushed a lot. Our 2 schools ended up in a tie. That was competition number 1. For competition number 2 it was our 2 schools and one other really large school from a town 15 minutes away. I got tricked into going by a student, I´m a sucker. It was way more insane than the first. There was juice throwing in this one, staining everything orange. It was super packed and really hot. Again, it was a really great show. Here is a pic of my school´s band, or part of it.
Below is Jeff´s school´s band, complete with dancing girls.
The school year is almost over. We just have graduation and I´m also doing a teacher workshop with my counterpart and we are done! Whoo hoo!

rain, rain, go away

2007-10-12T10:07:00.000-06:00

Coming from Minnesota, I thought I was used to severe weather. Well...I am, but the severe weather here is really different.

It hasn´t stopped raining for 3 days, and supposedly its going to get worse this weekend. There are floods in the northern parts of Nicaragua.....oh thats where we are. Volunteers in our department are being consolidated to the capital city, which is where I live, while other volunteers in the northern central areas are being consolidated to Managua. However, some volunteers are stuck in their sites because no buses are running because the roads are bad. Here in the city, it isn´t that bad. However, Jeff was in Managua for a dentist appointment, so he gets to stay in Managua since traveling is a bad idea.

Not to mention we haven´t had school in 2 days! As we have said before, when it rains generally there is no class. This hasn´t happened in a really long time, so it was a suprise to me all over again. Yesterday I woke up to really heavy rain, and then later got a text message from a student saying that classes were cancelled and all the students were going home. Luckily, I didn´t have to make the trip in the rain to find that out! Today, there was less rain so I took a cab to the school to find it totally empty! That was 16 wasted córdobas.

Other than that, the rain has just effected my life in other ways, such as I can´t do laundry. We have had a water problem here for the past 6 months, as in we rarely have it during the day during the week. They just built a new tank so now we always have water! Just after we started having water all the time, it started raining all the time. So, you can do laundry, but then you´ll just have a bunch of wet clothes cause nothing will dry! We just can´t seem to win.

Also, the walls in our house get really wet and everything feels damp all the time. Its pretty gross. Oh, and we have to wear the knee high rubber boots to go to the bathroom since we have a lake in the back of our house.

That is our life right now. Wet and moldy smelling. But I´m not sweating for the first time in 1 year. I like that.

Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying fall.

Happy Independence Day!

2007-09-17T12:40:00.001-06:00

Nicaraguan Independence Day that is.

To celebrate, there was a big parade in which all of the schools in Chinandega participated. Let me tell you, I had no idea how many schools there were until this parade, or until I waited for 2.5 hours for all of the schools passed, and finally my school started to march. Each school brings their marching band, which usually is heavy in drums, some dancing girls, the best students, some flags or other certificates that the school has achieved, and the teachers!

Here are the girls at my school, wearing bras made from corn. Corn is very popular in Nicaragua, and they are sometimes refered to as sons of corn...or something like that.

So I left my house at 6:30 to walk to the plaza with another teacher. Jeff left a little bit later, but not much. We went to the plaza where all of the schools are already lining up, um except for my school which hadn´t arrived yet. So we walked to the school and they were getting ready to leave, so we basically walked right back to the plaza. I saw Jeff, my counterpart, and some students. There I stood until 10:30. Well, I watched the other schools march off, and they each did a small presentation in front of the flag and the mayor and other important people who were standing on a stage, watching. All of the schools dressed in sort of a sailor/military outfit. (This is the band from Jeff´s school)
I´m really not sure why, but it was interesting. Also, the top students wore a sash with Excellence on it, and they wear white gloves. Manuel is the top student at my school, INCH. It used to be INACH, with Autonomo in it, looks like they haven´t changed that banner.
Anyways, it was really cool to see all of the schools pass and the bands play. I thought they were really good, even if I heard the Chinandega song 10 times.

Most of the teachers wear matching uniforms. My school and Jeff´s school didn´t really follow that too closely. His male teachers had pants made. My school was supposed to wear black and white, which about 25% of the teachers actually did. I was in the 75% that did not. So where most of the private schools looked really nice together, our two schools looked like a mismatched group. I guess in other years the government gives the schools money to buy the uniforms for the teachers, that didn´t happan this year. Here is Jeff walking with the teachers at his school.
My school was the last school to march, and let me tell you, being at the end of a parade is not fun. There was a mob that was behind us the whole time, and the 4 policemen who were behind us weren´t really enough to keep everybody from crashing into us, walking in front of us, or pushing us out of their way. I walked about 6 blocks with my school, which took 1.5 hours. My counterpart and I left after that. But I think all 125,00 people in Chinadega came to see the parade, it was that crowded. Here is my position, at the back following our drumline. We were leaving the plaza.

Jeff marched in the middle, right in front of his band, and behind the dancing girls. When the crowd got to close, which was often, the 11th grade students would cut them off with a rope or the dancing girls, who had batons, would suddenly twirl them and hit people with them. I think that thats pretty cool. I´m not sure if anything like that went on in front of me but I´m sure it did.

Anyways, it was really cool to walk in the parade. Everyone was really dressed up and proud to be there. It was a great experience and now everyone knows what the gringos that they see walking around do, they´re teachers!

NicaTESOL

2007-09-10T18:43:00.000-06:00

This last week we went to Managua for a conference of all English teachers in Nicaragua! And the best part, the conference was all in English, so I understood exactly what was going on. It was amazing. Anyways, it was 2 days of presentations by English teachers and professors from the Universities. Some were...better than others. There were over 800 teachers that came to the conferene and it was really well organized. Each day included 1 or 2 all group sessions, and 3 concurrent sessions. The conference ended with, what else, some typical dances, oh and a reggaeton dance as well, which always makes me blush and turn away. (there is a lot of thrusting)

My counterpart and I presented at the conference on, what else, English games! I think I will stick to always teaching about games because its easy and fun! We presented once each day, and it went well....until in the 2nd presentation I was showing how to play Tic-Tac-Toe as a review game with English. One of the participants, who had been participating a lot, screamed and I mean SCREAMED (okay maybe she didn´t scream, but it felt that way to me) that those WERE NOT the rules to the game and that I was being UNFAIR. It totally threw off the rest of my presentation. I calmly explained that those were my rules and she did not have to use them. And she probably won´t use them. Fine. Anyways, here are some pictures, but my camera is totally sensitive to light and doesn´t work well anymore. But here ya go.

Here is a picture of me and my 2 counterparts. Frank, Henry, me.

Here is Henry giving an example of Memory which we use in our class to teach vocabulary. I swear this picture is not posed.
Henry and I before we presented.After the conference on Friday evening, we had a going away party for our boss Deepa. She is married to a guy who works for the embassy so they are moving to Africa for his next assignment. Our TEFL group is really a bunch of nerds, us included, so we put on an Acto which is what all schools do for each holiday. It always starts with the national anthem, check, sometimes a poem, we had that too, a reggaeton dance, yep we had that!
and we included some skits for enjoyment. It was fun. Here is our entire, minus one, TEFL group with Deepa and the Nicaraguan flag that we signed.

Hey Julio Cesar!

2007-08-25T10:13:00.000-06:00

Julio Cesar,

We were surprised to hear from you on our blog, but glad we got your support! We don´t have your email address, but we would love to hear how things are going in the US. Our emails are:

Jenny
lies0049@umn.edu

Jeff(Chepe)
pilon_jeff@yahoo.com

Hopefully you are studying your sports trivia along with your regular studies.

-Chepe

English Festival

2007-08-21T12:59:00.000-06:00

Last week, I was lucky enough to get to judge my schools English singing competition. I also got to do this in training in Catarina, so I felt qualified. That, and that I speak English I guess were my qualifications for judging others on their singing.

Every year most, if not all, secondary schools in Nicaragua have an English singing competition. It is to get students excited about English, and it works because they students are REALLY into this competition. I helped numerous groups practice their songs in the weeks before the festival. Anyways, the music teacher, another teacher, and I were the 3 judges for the competition. 27 groups participated, not counting one group to kick off the festival and another to close the competition who were not being judged. Thats right, 27 groups, about 5 minutes a piece = 3 hours. 3 hours of students singing. Popular choices were Eternal Flame, Backstreet Boys and Air Supply. The winner was a 9th grade boy who sang a Backstreet Boys song and 2nd place was a girl in 11th grade who sang I Will Survive, and she really was awesome. She even had backup dancers, though they could have used some of her pizzazz. I personally thought the winner should have been one of my students who sang Everything I Do I Do It For You, but he ended up in 4th. Really though, he sings and pronounces really well and should have been 1st or 2nd. I think I was more upset that he didn´t win than he was.

The crowd during the competition was something to see. The students, all 600 of them, were screaming and they also brought noise makers and signs to support their friends. That part was fine, but half of the time I couldn´t hear, which made it tough to judge. When I boy sang really well, ALL of the girls screamed and cheered. What was worse however, was when there was very sexual dancing going on onstage between boys and girls. I was blushing and couldn´t watch, but the other teachers didn´t mind as much. They´re used to it. I couldn´t watch. Below are some pictures, not of the sexual dancing, but of some of my students.

Here are two of my students who sang We Are the World to kick off the festival. I like Anthony, left, because he sweats more than I do and it makes me feel better about myself. But seriously, it was really really hot in that auditorium packed with 600 students. Anthony is on the left and my BFF the gemelo is on the right. Here is the whole group singing We Are The World. They are all in one of my 11th grade classes.
The gemelo singing his part.
Darwin (who I think should have won) holding the mic for Anthony.
It was a really fun time and we raised enough money for all of the English teachers to go to the TEFL Conference in September where my counterpart and I will be presenting! All in all, a success!

Daily Life

2007-07-26T15:40:00.000-06:00

Everyday pictures of us. Me cooking stir fry, well it sort of tastes like stir fry anyways. Anytime Chinandega has broccoli we get really excited, and buy it. I don´t know who this counter is made for because I am about the same height as most Nicas (or taller) and this is really ridiculous. Who is that tall that cooks in Nicaragua? Certainly not men.
Jeff sitting in the rocking chair, chillin´.
Jeff ¨mowing¨ our backyard.

Me washing.
July was a crazy month. It was the month of our fiestas patronales so there was something going on every Sunday of the month. Yesterday was the actual day of the patron saint and we had the day off. There was a lot going on in the park, like fair rides and even more plastic stuff being sold than normal. I bought a candy apple and almost ripped out each and every one of my new 15 fillings. I´ve never eaten anything so sticky in my life. It was delicious though.

One month to go until we have been in country a year. Before we came, I read a lot of blogs and a lot of the time the girls complained about the cat calling and hissing of the men. They talked about how it bothered them and I thought....get over it, grow used to it, and similiar things. Wow, there is no way of knowing how much it will drive you nuts until you are actually here. I hate it. There are days when I dream of punching people in the face when they hiss at me. Once and student said ¨Goodbye my love¨to me at the school. He wasn´t in one of my classes and didn´t really know me. So I walked up to this kid, I had had it that day I think, and told him that he could call me Profesora instead of my love and that he needs to have more respect for me and women. He was super embarrassed and apologized profusely. I wish I could do this to every man that offends me, however I would never make it to school because I´d be giving small charlas the entire way. Today when I was walking home, I was lucky enough to hear ¨Hey baby. I love you. I want you. I want to f**k you.¨ But what can you do. I have to live here for more than another year and if I say something back to him I could be putting myself in danger, especially since I sort of stick out around here and he is bound to recognize me the next time he sees me walking around. You can be having the best day and then hearing something like that, or even less offensive, can bring you down to a really low low. Just like that. Its so offensive and I´m super sick of being sexually harrassed whenever I walk around. They even do it when I walk around with Jeff, but not as bad. Anyways, thats just me venting.

August is coming! And with the end of August means we´ve been here for a year. Whoo!

Hípico!

2007-07-16T18:38:00.000-06:00

Each city in Nicaragua has a patron saint that goes along with it. For Chinandega, its Santa Ana. Along with each saint comes the fiestas patronales, which is a large party for the city during the specified week(s). Our celebration just started this Sunday with a hípico, which is a horse parade. Well, its not just any horse parade, its a parade Nicaraguan style! Which means...lots of drinking. So, everyone that wants to participate gets their horses ready to parade down the main streets, with music, floats, etc. Preparation includes drinking for most everyone, including the riders and supposedly the horses too... People line the streets to watch the horses pass, drink with their neighbors, etc. Also, what makes it more exciting is that as the horses pass, they dance!, yes dance, by moving their hooves one at a time, kinda like hopping on one foot only with 4 in the case of a horse. Add to this bands playing music, motorcycles driving next to the horses, floats with women dancing on them, the occassional fireworks, and the possibilities of a really drunk guy wandering in front of the horse and you got yourself a hípico!
This was the second one that Jenny and I have been to, the first being in Jenny´s training town. But since we are a large city, there were a lot more horses and they were a lot pretty and larger. Some were supposedly worth upwards of 40,000 dollars!
And you are thinking to yourself...this sounds kind of dangerous. And it can be and we saw this first hand yesterday. After eating at a place on the route where the horses were going to pass shortly, we went across the street to a bar that had set up an outside tent with tables and chairs for the customers to sit at and watch the horses pass. So, one rider (drunk obviously) and their horse stops in front of the tent with the seating to talk to his friends and try to get his buddy(also drunk) to get on the back of the horse with him. Bad idea! Horse is not into it at all, and starts to buck his back legs...at the area where everyone is seating! The horse ends up connecting with an unsuspecting man, who is enjoying his beer at the table, in the face! Lots of blood to say the least and probably some missing teeth. As this happened we were standing probably 10 ft. away! Which shows you...don´t drink and ride!

Minnesota Rocks.

2007-07-11T16:41:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I totally ripped off this article from someone elses blog. Thanks Erik. But I thought it was interesting.

Study: Midwest leads in volunteering
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press WriterSun
Jul 8, 12:35 PM ET

The spirit of volunteerism is thriving in the heartland, but not so much on the coasts. Midwesterners are more likely to volunteer their time than are people elsewhere in the United States, according to a government study being released Monday. The highest rates were in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, where more than four in 10 adults volunteered.

"It's really about Minneapolis' commitment to the quality of life," said Michael Weber, president and chief executive of Volunteers of America of Minnesota. "If you look at the entire society, it says we will give back to the community and take care of our society.

"The Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency, used Census Bureau data to determine the share of people age 16 and older who had volunteered their time in the previous year.

The study provides three-year averages, for 2004 through 2006, for the 50 largest metropolitan areas.

Minneapolis-St. Paul was followed at the top by Salt Lake City; Austin, Texas; Omaha, Neb.; and Seattle.

Las Vegas had the lowest volunteer rate, 14.4 percent. It was joined at the bottom by Miami; New York; Virginia Beach, Va.; and Riverside, Calif.Nationally, 26.7 percent of adults in 2006 said they had volunteered in the previous year.

That compares with 28.8 percent in 2005 and 20.4 percent in 1989. More than one-third of the people who volunteered in 2005 stopped in 2006.

"Volunteering has a leaky bucket," said Robert Grimm, an author of the report. "Many times people drop out because the activities are not challenging enough or they're not substantial enough.

"In Minneapolis, Weber said his organization works hard to make sure activities are well organized, meaningful to the community and rewarding to volunteers. "The person goes away saying, `I feel good, I made a difference today,'" Weber said.

The study said several demographic and social factors appear to contribute to higher volunteer rates:
_Short commutes to work, which provide more time to volunteer.
_Home ownership, which promotes attachment to the community.
_High education levels, which increase civic involvement.
_High concentrations of nonprofit organizations providing opportunities to volunteer.

Volunteering can have a "positive, substantial impact on the life of a youth" or it can help an older person remain at home instead of moving into a nursing home, said Grimm, director of research and policy development for the federal agency.

"Volunteering is not something that's just nice to do, it's necessary to solve important community problems," he said. Les Kuivanen of Minneapolis volunteers at an elementary school with other retirees from the manufacturing company Honeywell International. The retired engineer said volunteering is more rewarding when the activity matches his skills.

Kuivanen and other retirees teach students about electricity and magnetism. He said it is important for young students to learn about science and technology, maybe drawing interest in a future career choice.

"I wanted to volunteer because I wanted give back," Kuivanen said. "It's fun to golf and fish and hunt, and I do all that. But I wanted to do something that I thought was needed, to help others."

Se fue Ernie...y la luz y agua tambien!

2007-07-10T20:16:00.000-06:00

Ernie is gone! Now we are here with 2 sitemates that were not here when we got here which means....we are the next to leave (unless someone goes home early, of course)!

In the spirit of Ernie leaving, I would like to tell a story about Ernie. One time, he was on a bus. He was kind of tired so he yawned a really big Ernie yawn. The woman in front of him happened to sneeze in this exact instant, amazing I know, and the liquid from her sneeze went right into Ernie´s mouth. Disgusting. Maybe it was cause he yawns like this:

Anyways, bye Ernie! We´ll miss you.

In other news, the electricity and water have been going out like crazy! It is insanity to know tht you live right next to a big ocean and you don´t have water. Every day we lose power at 7 a.m. and it comes back around 2 p.m. The water goes with the electricity and comes back around 5 p.m. This is our current shedule, but who knows when it will change. In Chinandega, each sector is on its own time schedule, so sometimes you can walk around the city of find a cyber or a photocopier with power.

The whole country is facing this crisis. It stinks. How can you get done what you need to get done? You have to plan ahead, which I´m not that great at. And last week we have virtually no water all week. Thats not good when you don´t store water, as we didn´t because we almost always have running water. Nobody knows when this insanity will stop, but its all over the front of the newspaper and everyones talking about it. Some people say in August things will go back to normal, but this is Nicaragua so when they say August that means...October, maybe.

Thanks for all of the birthday wishes! 27 sounds so old.

Teacher´s Day!

2007-07-05T10:27:00.001-06:00

Last Friday we had a celebration at both of our schools in honor Teacher´s Day, which seems to be a holiday only in Nicaragua (although it should be everywhere). When we both got home we discussed our experience and realized that they were a little different. At Jenny´s school the celebration was pretty typical, dancing etc., but not that many students showed up and it was fairly underwhelming. Whereas at my school the students really seemed to get into it. I got there a little after it had started and one of my counterpart showed me where all the teachers were sitting, right in front of the stage in a few rows of chairs surrounded by the students. So, not thinking about it I grabbed a seat in the front row, which was surprisingly empty.... We had a student MC who announced the different acts from the different classes, you know the usual folkloric dances and poems.

Then, on to the reggaeton! The next, ooh, 8 dances were mainly different choreographed reggaeton dances with a little salsa mixed in. For those who don´t know reggaeton is a newer genre of rap music(a combination of raggae roots and rap), more or less, and is HUGE here Latin countries.
Best part for the students was when they would come off the stage into the area where the teachers were sitting and dance in front/with/for the teachers as the sat there. A little embarassing... I tried to occupy myself with as many things as possible, i.e. my camera and my glass of pop so as to not get dragged into anything more embarassing. I also enjoyed the fact that after one of the songs where the girls came and dance in front of the teachers I looked back at my counterpart who was sitting in the backrow (obviously) and says to me ,"You nervous?" with a smile.

After the celebration ( called an acto in Spanish) there was food for the teachers, pelguey, which is some sort of goat/sheep combination that my school always cooks for important events. I had it at a different event at my school and its good, but I was too hungry so I skipped it this time. But in the end I got to go home with a gift from the students and they had a lot of fun.
On top of that earlier this week both of our community class that we have at a place called the Telecentro gave us presents for Teacher´s Day. We each got traditional Nicaragua shirts which were really cool and which we were not expecting.
Jenny with my class. Our Telecentro classes had a ¨field trip¨ to the park to get to know each other a little bit better. After class, they presented the presents. I was at home planning, but they came by our house to present me with the shirt after class.

Service Rocks!

2007-07-05T10:13:00.000-06:00

I have been thinking a lot about volunteering lately, and why some people feel it is part of their duty to give to others, volunteer, or have a socially conscious job, while others don´t. Anyways, I feel very strongly about service, and a life of service at that, so I wrote this article for our quarterly publication. I´ve been doing a lot of reflecting lately. Not much else to do when theres not electricity at night. Jenny

“Ask not what your country can do for you; but what you can do for your country.”
John F. Kennedy, Jr.

·Do you love the volunteer life style and the high it gives you?
·Do you feel like you need another year to “figure things out”?
·Do you enjoy measuring life in increments of 1-4 years (i.e. College: 4 years, Peace Corps: 2 years, Grad School:15 months)?
·Are you going to really miss being part of a community when you leave?
·Before you left, did anyone ask you “Why are you leaving when there’s so much to be done here?” and you thought….good point?

If you answered yes or maybe to any of these questions, READ ON!

Before joining the Peace Corps, I served for 2 years in AmeriCorps, which has been called the “domestic Peace Corps”. Much like the Peace Corps, you dedicate a length of time (couple months to one year) to volunteer in a specific project in a specific community for a living stipend. However, unlike the PC, you get to choose the program AND the community with whom you work (in most programs). You also get an education award (approx. $4,750) that can be directly applied to most loans or tuition at most universities.

I joined City of Lakes AmeriCorps in Minneapolis, Minnesota. There, I co-taught in a middle school, taught after school classes, recruited and trained volunteers, went to many group retreats, coordinated a summer youth leadership group, facilitated many service learning projects, was a big sister through Big Brothers Big Sisters, filled out reports, made life long friends, met my husband!, affected at least 1.8 peoples lives, volunteered my time, energy, and knowledge to give an extra hand, and felt good about myself for the first time in my life.
I also learned a lot. I learned about my community, how to be a productive member of society, how to talk about diversity, how to give countless life skills classes, how to see myself as a leader, how to work in a group, how to lead trainings, how to do one million icebreakers, name games, teambuilding activities, and energizers, and most importantly I learned a lot about myself.

When people have found out that Jeff and I did AmeriCorps, they are usually interested and some have expressed interest in joining when they get back to the states. I have been asked “Would AmeriCorps be a disappointment after doing the Peace Corps?” more than once, and we always answered “Ya, it probably would”. But after spending more time in the Peace Corps, I’ve thought a lot about my answer and have changed my mind. They are two very different and separate experiences. When I joined the Peace Corps, I thought I was taking a step up. I now realize that what I did was take a step sideways. I feel that while we offer a lot to the communities that we are working in, what I have learned in both programs is what is truly valuable to me and will stay with me for the rest of my life, and they are very different.

In Peace Corps I learned…
“Life is calling, how far will you go”
That when I swore in we got a cute little Peace Corps pin.
The difference between llegar and venir and that you really shouldn’t use venir when you are at your neighbor’s house and you are talking about your students coming over to YOUR house. That’s a time for llegar. Move 5 steps to the right, okay cool, NOW you can use venir.
How to make tostones, gallo pinto, and my own spaghetti sauce. Also to cook when I have running water, and to eat out when I don’t.
How to sneak in a life skills charla to any youth gathering. Oh, and what in the world a charla is.
How to live on $250 in a developing nation.
How to work with very driven, motivated, and goal-oriented Peace Corps volunteers. Also how to work with Nicaraguans in their country.
The importance of free food.
Volunteers will always break rules (i.e. NOT wearing a bike helmet).
The words to countless Mana and bus songs.
To NOT say yes to everything right away otherwise I might burn out, and I’ve got 2 years!

In AmeriCorps I learned…
“Getting things done for America”
That when we swore in we got a hooded sweatshirt, a t-shirt AND a cute little AmeriCorps pin.
That I am a Southwest, which means that when I work in a group I want everyone to come out happy (the process is what counts!) but I also like our work to be orderly and organized.
To NEVER bring hummus, veggies and pita bread to a potluck otherwise all we will have to eat is hummus, veggies and pita bread.
That HAVING a youth group(after school class) is the important thing, no matter what the topic is (knitting anyone?), because most youth mischief happens during the hours of 3-6 p.m. (in the U.S.)
How to live on $640 in a developed nation.
How to work with very free flowing, open thinking, and concerned AmeriCorps volunteers. Also, how to work with and develop youth leaders.
The importance of free food.
Volunteers will always break rules (i.e. driving students home from activities).
That Jeff knows the entire “Freedom Medley” and enjoyed singing it daily.
To say YES to everything because I have to finish my 1500 hours, and I only have 1 year!

AmeriCorps might not be right for everyone. However, I think that as RPCVs we should keep volunteering when we return to the states, or wherever it is that we end up. There’s so much work to be done and luckily, there are so many different ways to give: twice a week, once a month, once a year. Choose one! You’ll feel better about yourself, keep in touch with humanity, get to share your knowledge with others, and learn new things. Just make sure you choose the one that’s right for you. Here are some links, though I realize that they are biased with what I enjoy, there are so many more important and amazing organizations out there. Good luck and “keep on keepin on”! Peace.

Did you know....?

2007-07-01T14:39:00.000-06:00

A lot of famous people were in the Peace Corps. Even some who you wouldn´t expect:
(thanks Jasmine´s dad)

Joanie Laurer left home at age 16, and went to Spain under ascholarship with the United Nations. By 1987, she had graduated highschool in Spain. She spent the next five years at the University ofTampa and graduated in 1992 with a double major in Spanish Literature. Subsequently, she joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to CostaRica to teach literacy. After college, Laurer began to regularly enter fitness competitions.

In 1996, Laurer competed in the New York City regional of the FitnessAmerica Pageant. Laurer met World Wrestling Federation employees Triple H and Shawn Michaels in a bar in 1997. Struck by her appearance, they helped herget into the WWF. She made her WWF debut on February 16 at In YourHouse choking Marlena. Her original role in the company was as Chyna, the laconic bodyguard of Triple H and later D-Generation X. She oftengot physically involved in Triple H's matches during his feuds withGoldust, Mankind, Owen Hart, and The Rock by executing a low-blow (anuppercut to the crotch). At WWF No Way Out of Texas in 1998, shebecame the first woman to be stunned by Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Youth Group

2007-06-15T14:40:00.000-06:00

Jeff and I have started a youth group! We meet once a week for an hour and a half in the evening. Our group is English based...okay English intensive, but we´re also going to learn about important issues such as self-esteem, HIV/AIDS, and teamwork....but in English! We´ll see how this goes. We have had two meetings so far and we have 25 youth! More say they want to come, but we´ll see. We originally wanted 15 students, but there was a lot of interest, and over time, people will probably stop coming and we´ll reach 15. We meet in our living room and it gets really hot with all of those bodies there. Each week, we rent 20 chairs to accomodate the students. We charged a one time fee of 20 cords (about 1 dollar) to buy and whiteboard and to rent the chairs everyweek. Each chair costs 1 cord to rent. Here is our living room filled with students and bikes. The first two meetings have gone really well. The first meeting was 21 boys and 4 girls, but the second time 2 more girls came. We´re slowly working our way to a better representation of women! Our first meeting we made a community map and talked about whats important to us, and why they drew certain things in their community. We arranged this activity by neighborhood, and a lot of different neighborhoods were represented. I was pretty suprised by this. We also went over the basic idea and outline of the class. Two TEFL trainees were visiting us during this time, so they also helped out with the group work at got to be part of the class for one day. Here is Jeff working with some students on their map, sweating!

The second time we taught directions, and how to give them. We did this all in English and it went really well. The students all preformed really well and understood what was going on. Then we played a game to end the class. Both classes went really well and we are enjoying ourselves. I think the students are also having a great time because they talk to me about it at school the next day and they want to bring more of their friends and family. I´m really glad that we waited to start a youth group because we got to get to know the students first, and then start a group where we could target interested students. I don´t know why English is so popular, but students here (okay, not all buy many) love to learn English and they are very motivated to learn. Our youth group consists of students from my school, students from Jeff´s school, friends or family of some of these students, and students from my TeleCentro class. The ages range from 15-23. Here are two brothers. One is a student at my school and the other is in my TeleCentro class and has graduated high school! They´re both super nice, but I don´t think they look like brothers. Anyways, thats our class! We´re continuing with directions next week. Our overall general theme is tourism because thats the greatest use for English in Nicaragua. I´m hoping to do some sort of tourism brochure in English as a project, because of course I love project based classes. I´m also going to have some of them teach our kids English class in the future.

Everything else is going well here in Chinandega. Ernie is leaving us soon, but he´s being replaced by another business volunteer. This weekend we are having the brunch despedida for Ernie. Can´t wait to eat all the yummy food!

Hurray for not being sick!

2007-05-31T14:39:00.000-06:00

Well it was just earlier this week that I had my first normal poo in over a month. Being sick for a month really wears on you and to be honest I have really been feeling pretty crappy about living in Nicaragua. I haven´t really had strong urges to come home until now. We are working on our 7th month of service right now and it´s been rough, well at least for me. Being sick and hot and not exactly THRILLED with my job, all amount to Jenny (me speaking in the 3rd person) wanting to come home as fast as possible. Not to mention I found the perfect job for me at a charter school located on craigslist. Thats right, I was even looking for jobs at home.

But just as I thought I couldn´t take the heat anymore, it started raining! And my illness went away and I could finally EAT! Speaking of the rain, when I talked to Ernie about the rainy season, he said ¨Its not like it rains EVERYDAY.¨ Well guess what, it has rained everyday since it started. Hard a lot of the time too. I don´t mind yet. I´m sure it will get old after awhile, but right now it makes me really happy. It´s so much cooler!

And speaking of the rain, when it rains really hard, they cancel school. It floods really fast here so when it is downpouring the streets flood in a matter of minutes. Its amazing. Jeff and I have recently taken some pictures of the rain that we will post soon. The walkway between our bathroom and our living room floods instantly and we have to wear knee high boots to go to the bathroom. Its kind of fun, only because I´ve never HAD to wear rain boots before.

So now I´m feeling better and life in Nicaragua seems normal again. It´s funny what being sick can do to you. I have decided to write 10 reasons why I like living here, because once again....I like living here. Here goes.

1. Our neighbors our awesome!

2. I can wear sandals all year round.

3. I can eat mangoes out of a bag when I feel like it (if they are in season of course)

4. I shower outside (sort of) which I assume I won´t be doing again when I live in the US.

5. I get to learn another language and it doesn´t cost anything! (except for 2 years, 3 months)

6. Most everyone is really nice to me and wants to be my friend.

7. I don´t have to drive. I can walk almost everywhere.

8. I get to meet some really amazing people that I would never have had the chance to meet otherwise, including other volunteers and of course Nicaraguans.

9. I am a specialist at what I do! (there aren´t too many other native English speakers at my school, actually I´m the only one)

10. Many people WANT to learn English. This makes our program a little different from others because people are constantly wanting our help. Nobody ever looks at me and says....so what are you doing here? We have so many requests we have to turn people down. Its great (for us).

So there you go. They are in no order. Tomorrow evening we are having our first youth group meeting. We have space for about 15 people. About 60 have expressed interest. To cut down on our students we did the following:
we charged 20 cords (1 dollar) for the class that we are going to use for a whiteboard. We are ONLY speaking in English. Its at night at our house which is kind of far for many students. So we´ll see how it goes. Hope it doesn´t rain!

how to lose weight in eh, 2 years and 3 months

2007-05-25T13:28:00.000-06:00

Well I have contracted my first bacteria! And IT DOESN´T WANT TO GO AWAY! About 3 weeks ago I was feeling sick, couldn´t really eat and had diarrea in the mornings. So I went and did some poo samples and it always came back saying NO PARASITES (but in spanish, obviously) But the Peace Corps kept making me do more samples! So I went to Managua to give a training to the new TEFLers and I got really sick the next day! So I went and did another poo sample in Managua this time, and it turns out that I have a bacterial infection. So lab guy in Chinandega wasn´t doing the correct test and so he didn´t find the bacterias! This was a problem that could have gone away in 3 days, but instead I got to keep it for 2 weeks. Lucky me. So I got the medicine and thought all would be fine. I finished the meds, and still have problems! I still can´t eat very much and have diarrea in the mornings. (I know everyone wanted to know) Its not very much fun. So I´m sure more poo tests are in my future. I don´t know why this bacteria is hanging out for so long. It will not die. My stomach must be a very comfortable space. However, I have lost about 5 pounds. My neighbors make remarks about this all the time. Sos muy delgada! Glad to know they thought I was sort of fat before. So maybe its not the greatest way to lose weight, but Jeff and I have both decided, or it was decided for us, to take this route. We look at pictures of Winter Jeff and Jenny and talk about how fat we used to be! Those were the days when we could eat good food! In case you´re wondering what I am craving the most.....in order
1. Cheese Fondue with bread and apples
2. gorgonzola cheese!
3. Thai food
4. fancy lettuce. I love a good salad, and I hate iceburg lettuce!!!
5. pesto...oh how I love pesto
6. cheese, cheese, cheese
7. ceasar salad
8. red onions
9. a good sandwich, with fancy mustard, fancy lettuce, and a red onion
10. Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew, Cherry Coke, anything with caffinee that isn´t coke or coffee would be nice

When we were in Managua, I had hummus! It was soooo amazing. I would add that to my list above somewhere. I love hummus! So we can get most of this food somewhere in the country, it just costs more than we have in our living allowance! A lot more....but it is so worth is once in a while. Okay, I´m done talking about food now. Can you tell I haven´t really eaten much in 3 weeks?

Thanks Kara and Steve for the candy. It was gone in 3 days!

Pictures from Jeff´s School

2007-05-22T19:25:00.000-06:00

More photos of Jeff´s school: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=4n2mtqx.7vsv15nx&x=1&y=60aqm

Here are some amazing photos from my school, Instituto Tomás Ruiz Romero. My school is a little smaller than Jenny´s, about 1,500 students compared to 4,000. We have classes in the morning,7th -9th grade, and the afternoon, 9th-11th grade. We also have classes all day on Sunday, for non traditional students, but I do not help with those.

This is the front entrance to my school where the security guard hangs out.

This is our "concha", which is used for assemblies, soccer, basketball, and it used to be 2 classrooms before they finished the new classrooms.

11th grade students in one of my classes hard at work.

We got Punk´d (Nica style)!

2007-05-04T11:06:00.000-06:00

Yesterday afternoon I was in my house when I recieved a text message from another volunteer that went something like this, "I just saw you get attacked by a monkey on tv! ha!" So, when Jenny´s dad and stepmom were here we went to Granada. We were walking down one of the streets, everyone was smiling and staring at us, which is not usual since we are gringos. Then all of a sudden a gorilla jumped out from behind a car and did a somersault towards us! Well, not really a gorilla but a man dressed up like a gorilla. Jenny´s dad did give him credit for a very realistic growl.
So I ran one way, Jenny and her parents ran the other. Jenny said she was very close to kicking the guy. And luckily for everyone´s amusement they were videotaping it and it is now being broadcast throughout the country. We have already recieved two messages from other volunteers that saw it on tv yesterday and the teachers at my school thought it was hilarious.

Dad and Luann come for a visit

2007-05-02T17:21:00.000-06:00

Last week we got more visitors! My dad and Luann came down to Nicaragua. And they liked it! (I think) Except for all the trash in the streets of Chinadega, which I heard that my dad DID NOT like. Altough, who likes that? So we spent two very hot days in Chinandega where we went to dinner at my counterparts house and had traditional Nicaraguan food. It was really good and my counterpart speaks English very well so it went smoothly. Thank god. On Monday, dad and Luann came to my English class at the TeleCentro where the students were ready with questions......sort of. Some of their questions were a little weak because they were so nervous but they did a good job. They were soooooooo excited for them to come. They brought mangoes, coke, and cookies for my dad and Luann and they wrote Welcome Jenny´s Parents on the board...in English! And it was perfect. I was very proud! I totally taught them about family vocab!!!! They were really cute and super excited to have visitors.

Afterwards, we went to Granada and the isletas tour. Thats where we were during this picture. For anyone coming to Nicaragua, it costs about $200 to $250 cords for an hour, don´t let them charge you more. Anyways... We went to Monkey Island with our driver who was really well prepared for tourists and really nice. He and Jeff shared a front seat of a taxi on the way to the boat. They became fast friends because or in spite of this close contact. Anyways, back to Monkey Island, the monkeys that were planted on this island for us to look at, are very used to people and want to come aboard and eat. As did this monkey below. Her friend, who is a he, also wanted to come onboard but I was told hes kind of mean and agressive, so they tried to avoid this and raced around with the girl monkey on top of their boat trying to get her back to the island while the male was trying to get on the boat. It was the highlight of this isleta tour for me. We all yelled and cheered them on, and I was glad they didn´t come on our boat.
Then we went to Pelican Eyes in San Juan del Sur and I was in heaven. You don´t have to leave the compound and you get to eat delicious food and drink normal drinks whenever you want. AND I love to swim in their pools. It was glorious. We swam all day long. This is an infinity pool. They have 3!
Afterwards, we went to Catarina, San Juan de Oriente, and the Volcan Masaya. This time, we took a car to the top even though my dad begged to climb up the volcano.
Here we are! (cute purse, huh Katie?)
I like volcanoes. We don´t have any in Minnesota. Afterwards, we went to Managua where we got to stay in the most comfy beds ever at the InterContinental. I love them. They also have really great bathrooms with hot water that comes out normally...sort of a luxury in hotels in Nicaragua. Well we had a great time.....and then we had to come back to Chinandega.

At first, I really really really really didn´t want to come back. I was clean and comfortable ALL WEEK and I was coming back to sweat, dust and dirt. I thought readjusting would be really hard, but by the end of the next day, I was used to it again, maybe I even missed it a little. I was happy to see people that I haven´t seen in a while and now all is well. But coming back from vacay is hard. But, after some whining, I guess I´m glad to be back in the Chin. No, I am glad to be back.

A day in the life

2007-04-19T19:29:00.000-06:00

Since we only write about our fun and interesting experiences, you must be wondering what goes on during an average day, so here goes.

I wake up, usually sweating already. I brush my teeth, wash my face, put on a polo shirt and pants and walk to class. Its about a 25 minute walk and the time that I have to be there at varies by day. Usually at 8:30. On my way to school I am usually harrassed with cat calls or statements about the color of my skin. For example, oye chelita, GRINGA!, chelita preciosa, muñeca, gatita, chelita guapa, and the occational PROFE! or profesora from a kid who knows me.

I either go to one or two hour and a half classes and co-teach with my counterpart. I have 2 counterparts. With one I teach 11th grade, and with the other we teach various grades.

I walk home at noon. When I get home around 12:30 I eat lunch. Then I take a shower. Sometimes I check my email. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I wash my clothes. But I always plan my afternoon classes. At 3:00 I walk to my 3:30 classes. On MW I teach at the TeleCentro which as airconditioning so that rocks. On TTH I teach at Chinatlan, and I teach 2 classes back to back. Therefore I am either done at 5:00 or 6:15...depending on the kind of day it is.

When I get home, we eat dinner. Then we have a number of options. We can either read, play cards, umm....sometimes watch a movie on the computer, um, we play cards...., sometimes prepare a lesson plan or materials for the next days classes, study spanish, or hang with the neighbors. Then we go to bed between 9:30 and 10:00.

Last night the 3 of us got a salsa lesson from our neighbor. It was fun and a break from the ordinary. Jeff and I are planning to practice and become salsa masters. We´ll see how that works out.

Just a taste of an ordinary day, which most days are! Did I mention I sweat all day long and worry about how I smell?

Climbing San Cristobal

2007-04-16T13:20:00.000-06:00

Well, yesterday we climbed the tallest volcano in Nicaragua, San Cristobal which is located in the department of Chinandega. (where we live, lucky us!)

Jeff and I got up at 4:15 to fill our water bottles, eat a little bit of oatmeal and put on our hiking clothes. A white t-shirt turned out to be a bad idea, but I didn´t realize how dirty I would be by the end. We walked over to Ernie´s house to meet everyone else and left in Javier´s truck. It took about an hour to drive there. We picked up our 18 year old guide on the way, watched the sunrise and we were ready! We drove until we couldn´t drive any further, for a stupid rock and I grew to hate on the way back..., and we started hiking at about 6:15 or so.

Here is a view from the car on our ride over.
Early on the boys and guide seperated from Annmarie, Javier, and me. It was fine, we hiked at our own pace, and I sweat A TON. My clothes were soaked in about an hours. SOAKED. And I was already really really dirty, but not as dirty as I would become. So at about 9:30 we made it half way up, up to this base area where you can see the point of the volcano. About this time I was wondering what I had decided to do.

Well the boys seemed to run up the remainder of the base, Annmarie and I took our sweet time. There was 2 times where I really thought I wasn´t going to make it. Halfway up the to the point, everything turns to volcanic rock and you take one step and slide back 2. It was frustrating and sucked. Then about 100 meters to the top, there is all of this cactus and you feel like you are in a video game trying to avoid everything and make it up to the top. Well, finally we made it, and were rewarded with a stunning view of the crater.

The crater, though it smelled pretty gross.
We stayed up there for a while, took some pictures, had some lunch, and then headed back down which was by far the worst part. This picture is Javier, Jeff, Travis (our new sitemate), Ernie, and Paul (who is new to Corinto).

So we started to head back down, and everything slides out from under your feet. All the rock, and your feet so I spent the majority of time on my hands and butt. But not everybody had so much trouble as I did. I couldn´t stay on my feet and fell, and fell, and fell. It sucked. I was sooo unhappy. Luckily, once you make it down the peak part, it just turns into a normal hike down, instead of some super steap, volcanic rock ridden hell. This is Jeff and I once I made it down the peak part. We still had about 2 hours hike down from here.
So we countinued down, and once it was getting flatter all I could think was WHERE IS THE DAMN CAR? I thought that for about an hour I would say, until finally it appeared and I was so happy. We rode home, and arrived at about 5 making this a 12 hour journey. When Jeff and I got out of the car our neighbors about had a heart attack and laughed really hard at how dirty we were and how I couldn´t walk normal. I think they were impressed.....

It was totally worth it. Would I ever do it again? Hell no.

Burning Up in Chinandega

2007-04-12T10:46:00.000-06:00

After a week of traveling with our friends visiting from MN, we are back in Chinandega. Luckily, everyday we are greeted with the ever constant heat of the sun. I feel like I am back in Arizona, minus the air conditioning. I don´t think there is a moment when I am not sweating. Our vacation was a nice break from the heat and chance to show Nicaragua to our friends. I think that they had a good time here, although the buses were overwhelming and tiring, even for me at times. We visited San Juan del Sur, where we got to visit some beaches that you had to take a dirt road to and were unbelievably beautiful, Granada, including the isletas and the laguna de apoyo, and for Todd, Ben and I, Matagalpa, we got a break from the heat and got to relax in the mountains and visit a coffee plantation. We had an easy week getting back to school, there was no class on Monday because most of the students don´t show up the following Monday after vacation. Then on Tuesday at Jenny´s school they started to strike and my school followed Thursday. The teachers are asking for more money and supposedly it is a nation wide strike, so we will see how long that lasts! Sunday is going to be another exciting day as we are hiking Volcan San Cristobal, the highest point in Nicaragua, with some other volunteers and our friend Javier. We have to wake up at 5 a.m. and it is about an 8 hour day in total! Hopefully we get some photos from the top.

Se fue la Carrie

2007-03-23T10:40:00.000-06:00

Well the time has come and Carrie has left us! But we had our fun times while she was here, including a ton of despedidas (going away parties). How many you ask? Well we had the...

Movie Despedida--the sitemates went to Leon and we saw a movie, though Ernie and the two of us saw one movie and Carrie saw another.....

Birthday/Sitemate Despedida--we went to Managua for the Intercontiental Brunch (fabulous!) we planned it not realizing it was the same day as Jeff´s birthday, so we later renamed it Birthday despideda.

Nica 37 Despedida--we all went to San Juan del Sur for Carrie´s entire group despideda. This involved swimming in the pool at Pelican Eyes, my favorite part

2 Chinandega Despedidas--Jeff and I didn´t make it to either one of these because we were at our language taller. We were sad about that.

And finally........

Pizza Hot Despedida--this was on Carrie´s last night, and us sitemates went out to eat Pizza at our beloved Pizza Hot!

And the time came, and Se fue la Carrie. She is being replaced with another health volunteer, but really can Carrie ever be replaced???

Its strange to think about your service in the terms of other volunteers leaving. When we joined the Peace Corps we never thought we would be sharing this experience with other volunteers. We thought we would be stuck in the middle of nowhere, far far away from the closest white person. But, that is not where we ended up...at all!...but we´re happy about it! I love having sitemates. However, we never thought about the fact that people come and go and you have to get used to seeing good friends leave before you do. It´s hard! And in 3 more months we will be losing our other sitemite Ernie which is too much for me to think about right now.

Anyways, we will miss the Carrie very much!!!!! Good luck in Maine! Bring a sweater.

Teaching in the TeleCentro

2007-03-07T17:21:00.000-06:00

Me teaching in the TeleCentro. Its a room at my school that offers classes for free to the community. One of my students was reading their paragraph in this picture.
Jeff teaching at the TeleCentro. Students are reading a dialog. We both teach here at the TeleCentro. They also let me use free internet on days that I teach class! Now thats an incentive!

Things are going well for us. Time is just flying and we are really busy teaching and preparing lessons. We will be starting some teacher workshops this Friday. We are traveling around Chinandega and giving these workshops to teachers with the other PCVs in our department. Other than that, life is just normal. Most days are just...normal now. However, we are very excited to have visitors soon! Time flies!

Why Nicaragua remains a 3rd World Country

2007-02-19T14:37:00.000-06:00

I now know why Nicaragua is a 3rd world country. It´s hot. It´s really really hot and most places don´t have air conditioning. I worked for 5 hours straight today, which is slightly unusual, and I am realllllllllly tired. Like, can barely stay awake tired, but you can´t take a nap. You know why? It´s too hot. Too hot. I think that if first, air conditioners were installed everywhere, then everyone would work longer hours and get more done. Although, do I really want to work more hours? Scratch that last idea. But really, less work here takes more energy.

I finally have a schedule!!! It´s been a month since school started and today I have a permanent schedule. Also, my counterpart and I planned an entire month unit today together. We are doing a unit on story telling and using the simple and progressive past. I think that it should be fun. I am working mostly with the older students at the school which at first was intimidating, but now I really like it. Today, a student asked me about 15 questions in English. And they were good questions too, not just ¨what is your name?¨. It was pretty exciting. So things are going well. I am also starting a new English class today for adults. And the best part about it, it´s in an air conditioned room.

Also Jeff and I went to a birthday party for one of my 14 year old students (in my NGO English classes). It was really fun! We sat around with the men and talked about interesting subjects and they taught us some new Spanish words. We also drank rum with them (obviously because that is what you do here), which makes our Spanish that much better! It was a really great time and we met new friends. I also learned a new icebreaker that I plan on using back home with students.

The first week of April (Semana Santa) Katie, Ben, and Todd are coming to visit us! Katie wanted me to put it out there that if you have anything you would like to pass along to us, she would be happy to bring it for you. You just have to email me or Jeff for her email address/phone number. I´m sure Ben and Todd would love to do the same. 2 weeks later my dad and stepmom come! April is going to be an exciting month filled with travel and vacationing. We are really looking forward to it. We miss everyone and hope you´re all doing well. Also, Congratulations to our friend Kelly who is engaged!!!!!! Felicidades.

Worst Moment of the Week

2007-02-16T09:48:00.000-06:00

Nothing beats waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, opening the door to go outside to the bathroom and finding a dead rat at your feet! Scared the hell out of me, which in turn scared Jenny. We are such city people. Anyways, the next question was what to do with the rat. So after much arguing , I put on some shoes, just in case it came alive again, strapped on the head lamp and got my trusty broom ready, while Jenny inched towards the dead rat holding a bucket which I was going to sweep the rat into. Also, Jenny did this while covering her face so she didn´t have to see the dead rat. After a few tries (he was a heavy sucker!) i got him in the bucket and took the bucket outside and tossed the rat into the middle of the street for any lucky dog to retrieve. The best part was that since he fell from our roof, might have been pushed might have been suicide we don´t know, his blood splattered all over Jenny´s sandals that she uses to shower. So she ended up getting a new pair of sandals out of the deal! And our site mate Carrie says that rats don´t fall....

Happy Super Bowl Sunday!

2007-02-04T10:59:00.000-06:00

Thats right, we´ll be watching the Super Bowl tonight with our sitemates, eating wings (well I won´t be doing that), guacamole, and homemade salsa! We´ll even be drinking Toña beers which in the only kind of beer that we know anymore. It sort of tastes like Bud Light....I think. Maybe we´ll even do the betting the with the grids and the numbers, I don´t know, it´s all to fantastic to think about. However we will be sitting in Carrie´s room with 2 beds, an ity bity TV (sort of the opposite of Joel or BJ´s) and plastic chairs. But it´s going to be awesome. So think of us tonight when you´re all having your great parties with all of that delicious food. And FREEZING because its so cold in Minnesota!!!

Thanks to all of those who sent recipies with a special shout out to Renee and BJ for their incredibly fast response time.

We went to the beach yesterday. It´s about 30 minutes away from our site. It was a nice time. We did some swimming, some eating PB & J sandwiches, some drinking beer. It was a nice little Saturday that we had. I however did burn my nose despite putting on sunscreen 30 minutes before I went in the sun, proper application. The sun is just so strong here!

We have started working and teaching and the week went by sooooo fast! We are hoping that this is what the rest of our service will be like! Can you believe that we´ve been gone for 5 months already! If nobody had plans for February 24th we will be celebrating Jeff´s Birthday at the beach and the disco if you´re interested. We´re celebrating late because our sitemate Carrie will be out of town on Jeff´s BDay weekend! So you know if you´re doing nothing that weekend and happen to have 1,000 extra dollars hanging out for airfare, come on down!

We miss everyone a lot! Love, The Pilóns (it wears in accent in Spanish)

Request

2007-01-31T15:44:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone! I have a small request.

We are getting bored with the food we can make, already! It isn´t much. I was wondering if people had any good recipes that they can send us via email. I will tell you what we can always get and isn´t too expensive and you can send me recipes! Sounds fun huh?

Things we can get for cheap!

Veggies and Fruits
Tomatoes, Avacados (soon), Oranges
Onions, Potatoes, Limes
Green Peppers, Mangoes (soon and can´t wait!), Apples (kind of pricy)
Carrots, Bananas, Watermelon
Squash type veggie, Plantains, Lettuce (iceburg)

Spices-Spreads
Salt, Cilantro, Jalepeño Peppers, Soy Sauce, Chicken Boullion
Italian Seasoning, Peppe, Garlic, Oil (veggie oil), Suger
Ginger, Sour Cream, Milk, Butter, Peanut Butter
Jelly

Grains and Meat and other
Rice, Red Beans, Ketchup, Oatmeal, Coffee
Pasta, Chicken (on the bone), Tomato Paste, Bread

Things we cannot get

Cheese! Well we can get Nica cheese, pero NO ME GUSTA, okay actually we can get Mozzarella but its kinda pricey
a oven! don´t have one!
I´m thinking of buying garlic oil though its kinda expensive
We have one pot for cooking pasta, rice, sauces and a frying pan for stir frys, cooking chicken, sauces

So we know how to make spaghetti sauce, salsa, rice and beans, and ghetto stir fry with only soy sauce for the sauce. So send us recipes!!!!! Even if it has an ingredient that you don´t see here because we can get more, it may just not be on the list or its expensive. Thanks!

Rants

2007-01-30T14:26:00.000-06:00

So...I was in the middle of typing an amazing blog when the lights when out. Only for a second! Just enough to lose my blog. This is not the first, but the second time today that I have been using the internet when the electricity has gone out.

Anyways...Jeff forget to tell the most amazing part of the emergency room visit. We hailed a cab on the way there and told the guy we were going to the hospital. Usually someone would think, hospital, quick something must be wrong with somebody. But not our cab driver. Just a normal drive for him. After we got in, he started backing up and yelling on the window to his friend. His friend was having problems hearing him so this went on for quite some time. Carrie, our sitemate, finally mentioned that maybe we should get going because we were going to the HOSPITAL at 10 at night. So we drive, slowly. About 50 yards away he turns on the interior light and starts shuffling through his CDs. Apparently it is best to pull up to the emergency room with just the right music playing. Of course one cannot shuffle and drive at the same time, so again, this took some time. Luckily the perfect music turned out to be Guns N Roses November Rain, thank god. I don´t know what would have happaned if we had driven up to the door with Reggaeton playing. Disaster avoided.

So we´ve been here for 5 months and somethings are becoming all too normal. Sometimes, we think, would we do this in the US? Will our parents and or friends be embarrassed when they come to visit? For instance, now when standing in line, if a line exists, I stand right up on the person in front of me. Don´t want any distance between us or 12 people could sneak in front of us. Also we now drink out of the same glass, soda can what have you, and share forks and spoons with our sitemates. I point with my lips instead of my finger. My feet are always always dirty and I continue to wear flip flops. I don´t shave my legs for long periods of time. We drink soda with every meal. And we don´t do this, but our friend Kat eats everything with her hands. I think she has forgotten how to use a fork. I think that this is maybe going a little too far. (just kidding Kat)

So school has officially started. My school has decided to put off making a permanent schedule for the teachers, so we are going by last years schedule for the next 2 to 3 weeks until we get that. However Jeff´s school seems to be on top of it and is starting classes. That makes sense on the first week of school, huh. So far I have just been observing English classes and going around helping groups. I also help with pronunciation.

Other than that, things are going well! And remember all of you who were going to send me tampons...that would be nice right about now.

Thanks to BJ for a rockin´ package. Frisbee has already been used, and food eaten.

New experiences

2007-01-29T10:48:00.000-06:00

As Joel pointed in his email to me everyday there are new experiences for us and this week was definitely no exception. Saturday night started out with an exciting trip to the emerency room of the local hospital. I was having pains in my stomach so the PC doctor thought it was best that I go and get it checked out to make sure it wasn´t an appendicitis, which it luckily wasn´t. The PC doctor told me, "dont let them put any IVs in you, just have them check your appendix", which doesnt make a person nervous about what is going to happen to them when they get there at all... So they said my appendix was fine, but then they wanted to keep me overnight and give me fluids and/or the equivalent of Zantac in liquid form, which I objected to very strongly. So they let me go home and gave me a prescription for the pills. I bought 10 of them for the equivalent of a $1.50 total! When we were at the emergency room we didnt see anything too exciting, only one head injury and she came out all wrapped up so barely any blood. But the total cost of the of the visit equaled 0 dollars, which was nice. Plus, they had A/C in the examining room! Other firsts this week include, Jenny and I celebrating our 1st anniversary on Sunday. We went to Rostipollo (equivalent to Applebee´s in the US) for dinner, not the fancy dining experience you expect for your anniversary, but very expensive here and I knew I could eat the food without upsetting my stomach. Also, today is the first day of classes! Jenny is at her school right now, she teaches in the AM mostly, and I am going to my school in the afternoon. From what we have been told not much teaching goes on the first week of classes, its most organization (syllabus day, im sure...) and we will probably get to go home early. It is officially the time to earn our Peace Corps stipend!!

New Home Pics

2007-01-15T17:25:00.000-06:00

Pictures of our House!

Our sitting area complete with bookshelves! And of course a beautiful painting that came with the us, lucky us (so did the rocking chairs!)
Jeff caught in his natural state of cleaning. Here is our hammock where we spend many hours, and of course our plastic table and chairs.

It´s sort of an indoor outdoor plan with the bathroom area being more outdoor than indoor.
Here is the spider that we found in our sink. It was gross. Luckily, almost every time that we find a really big spider, tarantulas, our friend and spider killer Lucian happens to be there to take care of the problem. Yes, he has killed more than one for us. Isn´t it gross?

Us! Happy to be in our new house. We even bought speakers so we have music. And a place for you to stay when you come visit! This was on Christmas, with our bottle of wine to celebrate the holiday!

laaa gelatina la gelatina la gel-a-TINA!

2007-01-15T16:59:00.000-06:00

So we have gone to our fair share of baseball games to cheer on our Chinandega team! We went yesterday after a large break in the action because of several different reasons. As we were sitting there, I realized that I not only enjoy going to the games to watch baseball, but also for several other reasons.

First, there´s the baseball hat that we wear and we get to feel part of something. As we walk to the stadium, Carrie and I sporting our hats, we get a LOT of comments. Some cheering on the team, some rooting against them, others sexual harassment, but it feels like game day when it happens. Next we get to the stadium, Carrie talks to random guy who works there. Sometimes we even talk to some of the American players before we go in. When we finally get in, we wait to see the cast of usual characters. We have the quesillo lady who sells her quesillo and always gives Carrie the ¨hola chela¨and the look that says, you know you´ll be buying some quesillo from me later on. We also have Mr. Pasteles who sells pastries out of a garbage bin. He usually shoves them in your face, but the sales tactic must be working because he was totally wearing a new hat the last game. It was even a fitted, nice baseball hat. Also we have the band. They always succeed in getting us pumped up, even if we sing the same 3 or 4 songs throughout the entire 3 to 4 hour baseball game. They have a guy who is sort of like the conductor who stands in front and leads them. He is always really excited to be there. Every game we also see a guy about our age who looks like he might, might be Asian. There aren´t too many different ethnic groups in Nicaragua, so we usually spend about 10 minutes discussing if he is mixed, completely Asian or completely Nica. We have the mani con chile boy who sells peanuts (with chile! they´re good) and we always comment on how cute he is. One of my favorite parts is watching all of the necio chavalos in the front, who are always fairly dirty, playing and being really really annoying and loud. Here, we always wonder how they got in, and why someone doesn´t kick them out, but the crowd ends up throwing their eaten orange rinds at them, or sometimes plastic bottles which I think is hilarious. We also have the vigaron girl who sells her vigaron in a voice that says, save me from my misery. We have Mr. Gelatina selling jello in the familiar voice that we have missed because he wasn´t there last game (WTF?) not that I would ever buy jello in a plastic cup to eat. And our favorite Steve. Oh Steve. Hes about 10 years old and collects beer cans. We call him Steve because the first time we saw him he was wearing a shirt that had his name on the back, obviously Steve, obviously not originally his t-shirt. Then next time, he was basically wearing the same outfit as Jeff AND they have the same haircut, totally long lost brothers. But Steve was wearing nicer shoes than Jeff. Yesterday we noticed that Steve had on some new sandals, so business must be good in the can crushing industry.

Lately, we have been wondering if we are in somebody elses cast of characters. Do people look around to see if we are there every game? We hope so, but who knows!

Grapes

2007-01-04T20:15:00.000-06:00

Bueno. So Jeff and I have been teaching some English classes. He has an advanced group, we share a youth group, and I have a basic group. My basic group is a group of ladies who work at an NGO or have a friend who does. I never thought I would enjoy teaching English like I do with the youth group and my basic group. My ladies are the best. They range in age from 13 to in their 40s. There is 9 of them. We laugh a lot, they learn a little, I hope, and I learn a lot...about teaching. I am hoping to continue this class for 2 years because I always leave feeling really happy to be here. Our youth group happans on the same day before my class, and today we had 15 kids! They are from ages 6 to 13. The class starts at 3.30 and I get there at 3.20. The kids are always sitting in their seats, looking at the board ready to LEARN. It´s refreshing, but it also throws off my game a little. I get so flustered that they´re all there...waiting for me. Today we learned the song Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, and the people working at the NGO commented the rest of the day about the song. Good times. Who actually ever thought I would be standing at the head of a class singing? I would NEVER do that in the US. That is for elementary school teachers! But here I am...singing. When we were learning about fruit, the kids had a really really hard time saying grapes. It was acutally pretty funny. And super cute. It really sounded nothing like grapes...probably how I sound when speaking spanish! Anyways, thanks for everyone for writing and keeping in touch. Hope everyone had a great holiday or 6 (as we have in my family)! Va pues.

new mailing address

2007-01-03T10:26:00.000-06:00

Here is our new mailing address

Jenny and Jeff Pilon
Apartado Postal 115
Chinandega
Nicaragua
America Central

Please use this if you are going to send anything to us because then we dont have to go to Managua to get it. Also if you want to have a better chance of not getting search draw crosses on the envelope or write ¨ Dios te bendiga ¨.

All Star Weekend..err... Tuesday!

2006-12-21T10:22:00.000-06:00

So tuesday was the big All Star game for the Nicaraguan Professional Baseball League. It was foreigners vs. Nicaraguans. We got there early and paid extra for the nice seats(first row between home plate and the dugout), which cost the equivalent of $3. When we got there at about 5 the stadium was almost full because there was a home run derby before hand, which we didnt know about. And now the best part... the game was supposed to start at 6pm, that time came and went and we continued to sit..in the dark now, with everyone else in the stadium. Sitting, sitting, random music, manually operated disco ball flashing on the field, lots of people not involved in the game loittering on the field, etc. At 730 , after many failed attempts to get the lights to work, they had to call the game. They just could get the lights in right field to turn on. There are 4 stadiums in the league and they chose to have the All Star game at our stadium at night, even though this was the only stadium that hadnt had a night game this season, so they didnt know if the light worked correctly. Overall, it was a nice 3 hours of sitting in a stadium in the dark. We got to meet some of the other US players that play on the other 2 teams and after the game was called we went out and loittered on the field, Jenny ran the bases, and we took a photo with on of the other US players. Ahh you gotta love All Star weekend!

Happy Holidays!

2006-12-19T10:15:00.000-06:00

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM CHILLY CHINANDEGA!

Ketchup!

2006-12-15T13:55:00.000-06:00

So did you know how different ketchup can be? Here in Nicaragua it's called salsa de tomate and its groooossss. I think anyways. I would rather not dip my ultra greasy fries in it. I actually like to stay far away from it, but Nicas put it on everything, including sandwiches.

Today Jeff and I came to Managua to get the remainder of our bags from the office. We quickly ran to McDonalds for lunch, which is something in the US that I usually would run away from, not to. And right now I'm even reading Fastfood Nation, but we talked about it and decided fastfood rules do not apply when you live outside of the US and only eat it every so often(its super expensive!). And here, it tastes like a little piece of home. Anyways, Jeff opened the ketchup and I said.."Is that REAL ketchup or Nica ketchup?" to which he said "It's McDonald's ketchup". And ya know what? He was right! McDonalds ketchup tastes different than any other ketchup. It has its own special taste, and it tastes great! Its sort of sweet, but not too sweet. I definately enjoy dipping my fries in it. Anyways, that was the first time I had ever noticed that it tasted different than normal ketchup. I actually think it might be better.

Anyways....time is moving, slowly. We have been enjoying some Chinandega baseball games. There are some Americans on the team, and a Canadian, as well as Nicaraguans, obviously. We even met some of them and hung out! Soon we are starting some English classes at an NGO, 2 adult classes a youth group, and Jeff is painting a mural so it looks like we might be more busy. Not that it would be hard to be more busy than we are right now. We've been doing a lot of hanging out, getting to know the Chinandega. I've actually gotten pretty used to not doing much. But things are going to change!

I can't believe its December and all we do it sweat. Happy Holidays! I really miss real December. And and to all of the comments about us being pale....you feel like your face is cooking when you are in the sun here so we try and walk in the shade as much as possible. If I am in the sun for more than 20 minutes, my face looks like a tomato, and thats with sunscreen. Plus, we're not nearly as pale as everyone in Minnesota!

randoms thoughts...

2006-12-07T09:48:00.000-06:00

After being here about 4 months i have observed many things that are different here from the states, some call these moments culture shock...i now consider it normal.

Did you know...

that you can drink almost anything out of a plastic bag, including gaseosa (pop), refrescos, milk, etc.. just add straw and tie.

or that by shrunching your nose, it means you dont understand what the other person has just said to you.

that you are prone to getting sick if you shower at night, after exercising, or by walking on tile floors barefoot.

that lines arent always necessary.

by slapping your index finger with your middle finger like you are packing a tin of chew you can emphasize everything, and literally everyone can do it..except me.

theres more but my English ability is leaving me the more I speak in Spanish...

Pictures

2006-12-04T11:15:00.000-06:00

This weekend we went to a wedding of a volunteer and a Nicaraguan, well we went to the after party anyways. Here are some pictures!

Here are our sitemates, Ernie and Carrie! Ernie usually doesn´t look quite that happy.

Ernie and Jeff doing a photo Nica style! (sans smiles)

Me and Kat.

We´re now volunteers!

2006-11-24T15:18:00.000-06:00

Pictures http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=4n2mtqx.8h5y4jfh&x=1&y=l436g8

Hey and Happy Thanksgiving!

We have had a crazy last 2 weeks. We had the last of our training in Managua and then we swore in as volunteers. At our swearing in we got to shake the Ambassadors hand, and our host families were there and it was a pretty big deal. It was also at one of the fanciest hotels in Managua. Afterwards, we went on vacation to Granada for the weekend. The first night we were all tired so we went out to dinner and chilled at the hostel. The next day we went to the Isletas and basically went on a tour of the rich and famous of Granada. There are hundreds of these little islands and you get some dude on a boat to drive your around and look at the islands. There are some islands with restarants on them. It was pretty fun. That night we went to some fancy restaurant that was awesome and afterwards a cool bar where to danced and drank rum into the early morning hours. It was a great time. Then 5 of us had a slummer party in our room, because as always, Jeff and I get hooked up with the great rooms and while everyone else was staying in bunkbeds with 15 other people, we had our own private room and bathroom with 2 queen beds. So obviously, people were showering in our bathroom and staying in our room.

Anyways, afterwards we went back to Managua for a few days for the All Volunteer Conference and then Thanksgiving. The All Volunteer Conference is once a year where all volunteers in Nicaragua come to Managua and go to trainings for 2 days basically while staying at a super nice hotel with warm water and nice beds. The first night there was trivia and Jeff and 3 other guys ended up winning. The sports category was really hard but I think Jeff actually knew all of the answers as I´m sure that he has told you in emails. He was the only person that new the bonus question in the sports category. The second night there was a talent show and then following that, a dance party, obviously....

For Thanksgiving about 15 of us went to our APCD´s(boss) house for a vegetarian Thanksgiving, which was really good and we had a great time. Don´t knock the veggie Thanksgiving! We had all of the fixings and seriously it was really good. She is married to someone at the Embassy, so there house was awesome too. We arrived at our site today and will be here now for 2 years. However, when we got here our host family was not here, so we´re roaming around Chinandega right now waiting. But that is what has been new with us for the last 2 weeks. It was really sad leaving all of our new friends when you don´t know when you will see them again. But here we are, alone in a big city, and I guess we will make new friends! Will post pictures soon!

Hooray for not being sick, and hooray for packages!

2006-11-09T17:07:00.000-06:00

So the last week or so has been filled with many exciting events for us. Earlier on last week I was blessed with the gift of a bacterial infection in my stomach, which made me feel sick like I cant remember. I didnt know that i could throw up that much and have diarrhea at the same time! Luckily I was in contact with the Peace Corps doctor throughout the night. That night I also got to experience going to a Nicaraguan laboratory where they took my blood and a stool sample, they had to open for me. My mom was great and was with me the whole time and afterward she went to the town Jenny lives in to get the antibiotics and also to bring Jenny to me. I appreciated that a lot, although Im sure Jenny would have rather been sleeping then cleaning up after me all night.:) But then next day I got picked up and brought to Managua for more blood and stool sampling and i got to spend the night in an air conditioned hotel room with hot water! Which would have been great except for the fact that i felt horrible, I think Jenny got to enjoy it a little more than I did. But, I figure what is a better way to lose 5 to 10 lbs then to have a bacterial infection and not be able to eat for a day or so..right? A couple days after my sickness we had a very important day, Counterpart day. That is the day where we go to Managua and meet our counterparts and the directors of our school, and then at the end of the day we go up to our sites to visit for the week. Ours is about a 2 to 2 and half hour ride in a microbus. Luckily i got to ride backwards the whole time and and stare at some other guy... But overall the site visit went well, both of our counterparts were really nice and excited to work with us as were the directoras of the schools. Our house that we are staying at for the first 6 weeks there is very nice, we have our own door to our room and even have cable in the room. Im sure Jenny has already written some of this but Im too lazy to look over what shes written. I think for the first time in my life I got to experience riding on a bike with another person all around Chinandega, including downtown. I got to sit on the frame of the bike with my legs to the side and Jennys counterpart pedaled. Jenny was on the bike with the other teacher, and boy could these guys manuever through tight spots with us on the bike, we didnt fall once, which is more than would be said if Jenny and I would have shared a bike! So training is just about to wrap up, we go to Managua next weds. and get swore in Friday. After thanksgiving we are off to our sites permanently! in between swearing in an leaving for our site we have an all volunteer conference which is supposed to be a lot of fun and we get to go as a group to Granada for the weekend. Not too shabby a reward for all the work we have put in in training. Tommorrow we have our final language interview and i still need to move up one sub level, so Im hopeing for the best!

PS. we got like 7 or more packages yesterday, which was amazing... So thanks to Jennys mom, my mom, kara, Mike, and Laura.. i think thats everyone.

Where did Gilmore´s hair go?

2006-11-02T17:57:00.000-06:00

So, I saw the Halloween pictures, thanks V, and thought, where did Gilmore´s hair go? Then I thought, are BJ and Tina dating? Why doesn´t anybody let me know about the cool stuff? Maybe Jeff knows and isn´t telling me. I don´t know, but would like some answers.

Speaking of hair, Jeff is thinking about buzzing his hair because A. he needs a haircut, and B. its really hot in Chinandega. What does everyone think?

Anyways, we are here, visiting our site for 4 days. The internet is way faster and the computers are WAY newer. Here are the top 10 reasons why I love Chinandega so far

10. The internet and computers are better, obviously.
9. We have our own room in our house with its own entrance! And keys!
8. We have our own bathroom
7. We have cable IN OUR BEDROOM
6. The water in the shower in the own private bathroom that I mentioned, it´s warm!
5. We live in a big city with everything you could want. Even a Subway. (sandwiches)
4. People don´t stare at us as much or shout crazy things at us, AS MUCH, because they´re kind of used to seeing gringos...but that doesn´t mean it never happans.
3. Our counterparts are cool AND speak English
2. We are close to the beach and volcanoes
1. The other volunteers in our site are really cool, the family that we live with is nice, and we now have a cell phone.

So it doesn´t really sound like we´re in the Peace Corps, I know. That´s what Jeff and I were thinking after our first night here. However, on our second day here we walked to Jeff´s school and through a neighborhood that made us remember, oh ya, we totally are. We could only go to the outside of my school because it is the headquarters for the upcoming elections. Nobody is allowed inside, so I will have to wait to see that until a later date.

So, yesterday my counterpart and another teacher picked us up at our house to show us around town. They each brought their bikes with them and told us it was too far to walk to we have to ride on the bikes while they pedaled, which is totally normal here. So it was more or less our first time meeting these people and we hoped on that middle post on the bike, and had one of my feet on the front peg and the other hanging off the same side, so I was sitting sideways, like how ladys used to ride horses a long time ago. These guys drove us all around the city like this, which was a pretty intimate way of getting to know someone! And hard work for them! My booty really hurts today though.

We are returning to our training sites tomorrow! If you would like our cell phone number to give us a call, let us know! Jenny

Photos

2006-10-25T17:12:00.000-06:00

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=4n2mtqx.5ra377zp&x=1&y=-h7nres
Here is the link to the kodak gallery where I have posted some pictures, more to come! These are from the first few weeks, many of them are already on the blog.

These pictures were taken at a baptism/birthday party that we went to. We played pin the tail on the girafe, and of course there was a piñata!

Paul Rocks!

2006-10-24T19:24:00.000-06:00

Paul pretty much rocks. Paul, letter number four, pretty impressive. Kelly has yet to email me 3 times, not that I´m counting or comparing.

So the spider in the bathroom was around AGAIN on Sunday morning, at about 5 am. I went to go and pee and there is was, on the wall across from the toliet. I obviously knew that he did not want me in there, so I went back into Jeff´s room to ask him to kill it or at least come and look at it because it was so huge. He whined, and said he was scared and didn´t want to. He didn´t even want to look at it. So he told me to ask his host mom to kill it for me. Which I did, because she was obviously sweeping the house at 5 am. She is about 5 feet tall, maybe weighs 100 pounds, maybe, and is almost 70 years old. But she stapped that sucked with the broom and crushed the hell out of it. It was amazing. No fear what so ever. I wouldn´t even step foot into the bathroom, but then again, I didn´t have a broom. What are we going to do when we live by ourselves with no Nica mom to take care of us?

Also, on the food note, the other day my friend Kat ate over for lunch. It was pretty much the most exciting thing thats happaned this week. Something different. Anyways, we ate something that I have had before. My host mom knows I don´t eat red meat, and I have questioned some of the meat before this, but it is always pollo, well thats what she says. So after lunch our spanish teacher asked what we ate and I said pollo, and Kat so no way that was not chicken so we asked my mom and she had to tell the truth, it was lamb. I was crushed. I was just going to say that was my first time eatting lamb, but I think that I have had it before in a gyro. Anways, I wonder what else I have been eatting that I don´t even know about. I knew chicken wasn´t supposed to be brown, but I didn´t think that she would actually feed me non chicken. Oh well, it helps me go to the bathroom because it upsets my stomach. So there is an upside.

I also had another language interview and I am now at intermediate mid which is the level we need to stay here. Yeah! I started at novice mid fuerte, which means that I was almost to novice high but not quite, so have moved up quite a bit.

Hope everyone is doing well. Tomorrow is hump day! Jenny

That´s using your head

2006-10-21T12:59:00.001-06:00

One of the projects required of every training town is to start a youth group and do a project during our 11 weeks of training. After a few failed attempts at different projects, the group decided that with the time left (4 weeks or so) they wanted to start a soccer league and have a tournament. So they got everything organized and got 12 teams together with about 2 days. So our youth group went from about 3 kids at its lowest point to roughly 70 now. We play twice a week at the local baptist church which has a basketball-soccer court. The court is a little small so we play with 3 players in the field and a goalie for each team, and we use a size three ball. Oh yeah, and on 3 of the four sides its surrounded by 20 foot tall fences, its kinda like a mix between a steel cage match and soccer. The kids that play are between about 13 and 18, except for Tony and I. But dont worry its not like we are better than these kids... i now understand better way the US struggles in world soccer, these kids are good, or maybe its the fact that ive never played organized soccer. Either way, after two games the team that Tony and I play on has 1 loss and a tie. We even have a ref who gives out yellow and reds cards (and there´s usually a few every game), hes a teacher for the school and he comes and does it for free which is a great help. The highlight so far for a lot of the 60 or so people watching was in our first game, when with in the first three minutes i had the ball kicked directly into my nose. Its one of those ¨oooooh¨for the crowd type moments. Surprisingly there was no blood and i dont know how my nose didnt break, but after a few seconds i was able to mumble to the ref ¨listo¨and i played the rest of the game with a very numb face. We actually have our third reg. season games tonite depending on if it rains or not and if we have power.

Paul, thanks for the continued mailings, i cant find your new email address so you will have to send it to me again.

Semana 7

2006-10-20T19:17:00.000-06:00

Today is the first Saturday that we haven´t had some sort of training activity in a month I think. It was great to sleep in a little bit, as much as we could. I´m pretty sure Jeff´s host mom was cleaning the bathroom at 5 o´clock this morning. It was still pitch black.

It has been raining here for a week straight. I don´t remember when the last time was that I saw sun. Because of this, I have a lot of dirty clothes. My host mom asked to wash them and I said no because it was just going to rain on them. When it rains on clothes after they´re washed, they smell really gross. But she insisted, and now they have been hanging wet in the rain for about 4 days now, really streched out, probably more wet now then right after she orginally washed them, and they will go right into my dirty clothes basket because they will smell so gross and I won´t wear them. I really don´t understand the point of washing them in the first place.

The last week we haven´t had electricity during the evening. There have been a lot of dinners in the dark. It can been nice however because we talk a lot more. But we haven´t really gotten a chance to use the internet because of this.

Jeff and I are coming to the end of training! We will be here all of next week, then we go and visit our site, Chinandega for a week. We have to cut our trip a day short because the election in the following weekend. But then we are only in our site for one more week, off to Managua for 2 weeks and then living for 2 years in Chinandega. I can hardly wait! I will really miss some of the friends that we have made, but am eager to make new friends that will be living near us. Also we will be living with the director of Jeff´s school for the first 6 weeks. That could either be really good or really bad. I´m going to go with good.

This morning I took my first bucket bath! I just found out that my family purchased a tank that holds water for a week and is connected to the bathroom and the kitchen. The bought it when they found out that I was coming! This is why we have always had water when nobody else does. Anyways, we are staying at Jeff´s this weekend so I took a bucket shower. It wasn´t too bad until I was almost done washing my hair ready to soap up and I looked down and there was the biggest spider I have ever seen, sort of hairy, right behind the bucket. We stared at each other for a minute until we decided that the shower wasn´t big enough for both of us, then I decided to get out. Soap was not as important as my evacuation I decided. Jeff didn´t believe me and went to investigate, but sure enough the sucker had disappeared into the shadows of Jeff´s bathroom, and let me tell you, its the darkest bathroom I´ve ever been in. Neither of us were too excited to use the bathroom for the rest of the morning. The spider was definately not the kind of spider that would die on one smack of the shoe. That guy was a survior, and really big. Ehh.

Other than that, the only really exciting thing was watching monkeys from my bedroom last weekend. Jeff and I could see them playing in the trees. That was kind of fun. Mainly this last week has been a ton of work on teaching, our youth projects, spanish class, and I have a teacher workshop that I am working on for next week. That is really all of the excitment. Lots of spiders and work. Talk to you all soon! Thanks to my dad for the book on Minnesota which my host family looked at for an hour and for the 3rd letter from Paul with CD. Pretty much, Paul rocks! Talk to you soon. Jenny

Vamos a vivir en.....

2006-10-09T20:34:00.000-06:00

Because Jeff and I are married, and the ONLY married couple in our group, there was really only one site for us. It needed to be in a place that there are enough schools to work with and we will each have our own seperate jobs. Because of this, we found out WAY earlier than anyone else. The rest of our group has to find out the sites, Wednesday, rate their sites, Saturday, and then wait 2 more weeks to find out where they are going. One more reason it rocks being married. So we are going to live in.....the city of Chinandega! I´m sure nobody reading this knows what that means. Neither do we really. I DO know that it is HOT. It is usually referred to as the hottest place in Nicaragua. They only have 2 seasons, dry and drier. It usually stays around 90 degrees or upper 90s throughout the year I hear. However, we are close to many beaches (15 mintues by bus!) and volcanoes for those interested in visiting. We are also close to the famous city of Leon. I also tried to look for some websites about Chinandega, but there really isn´t info on the web about it. Not even that much in the Moon Handbook, the only book on Nicaragua. However, Chinandega is trying to increase their tourism, and are even coming out with a tourism guide book in November. When I get my hands on some info I will let everyone know. We will be visiting Chinandega in a couple of weeks for about 4 days.

Finding out where we were going to live for the next 2 years is pretty much the most exciting moment of our trip so far. Other than that, a few funny or interesting things have happened. One day while taking the bus, a man got on with a machette. They are very common for ¨mowing their lawn¨ ie. cutting grass, and other purposes such as clearing a path on the road less traveled. Anyways, he had to leave it at the front of the bus by the driver. I enjoyed that security check. I think that taking the bus here is the most entertaining thing ever and I always am exciting when we have to go anywhere by taking a bus, which is everywhere we have to go. Everytime something amazing happans. Today, Kat and I went to Masatepe, and I bought two t-shirts for $4. That was pretty cool. She bought one also. I find myself buying clothes that I probably wouldn´t wear in the US. Maybe I would wear them, but they wouldn´t be my first choice.

On Saturday, our group went to visit Volcan Masaya and then we went to a cave afterwards. We saw some bats. It was pretty hot out, but the views were amazing. Of course, I forgot my camera. The air on top of the Volcan was really sulfery and it hurt to breathe after about 2 minutes. That was on a very high point directly looking into the Volcan. It was pretty cool. We didn´t get to hike it however. There is a road that you get driven up. I am hoping to hike a volcan before we leave. And in Chinandega there are 2 cool Volcanoes, so I am in luck!

Other than that, things are pretty chill. My youth group is painting a mural on Anti-drugs and we are working with a local artist who is super nice and really really helpful. The mayor is also very helpful, but he is my cousin. And Kat´s too! What a small world.

I changed the setting so anyone should be able to post comments now. That´s for you Beth. I would also like to thank Luke and Sara(h)....sorry...for sending us candy and postcards. We devoured the entire bag of KitKats by the end of the training! Thanks!

Twins ¿que paso?

2006-10-05T17:12:00.000-06:00

Why have the Twins lost 2 games in the playoffs. I am really disappointed, even from thousands of miles away. I still use the internet to see what is going on with the Twins and I am DISAPPOINTED two days in a row!

Yesterday Jeff and I were planning on watching the game because it was on cable in Granada, but NO LUZ. So no TV. Another disappointment! Yikes, one minute left. More later.

Granada is HOT!

2006-10-03T21:57:00.000-06:00

Well Jeff and I have officially found the center of the sun. It's named Granada, Nicaragua and it is always blazing hot. Not to mention that not having water is a regular occurance, so though you're sweating and dirty, doesn't mean you get to shower! Though I should mention that I am totally a spoiled brat and we almost always have water at my house...even though some of the other part of the pueblo doesn't....I do! Haven't had to take a bucket shower yet, though I'm pretty sure thats all Jeff has taken expect for here, my house, and maybe twice at his house. See what I mean? Spoiled rotten.

Also interesting are the rolling blackouts that occur here because Spain owns the electric company or something....and I guess I don't know if they're rolling because they seem to go out at the same town all over the country, but once again, I'm not really sure about that either. I guess the times that there will not be luz {which everyone refers to electricity, simply...light} are published in the newspaper somewhere but I have yet to see this or know anyone that knows when the luz will be out. But when the luz comes back on at night when its dark, its like the greatest thing thats ever happaned and people scream and cheer they are so excited. It's a mini party every night.

Well as stated above, we are in Granada visiting another married couple who are actually volunteers and have been living here for roughly 3 months now. It is exciting getting to visit them because where they are isn't that far away from us obtaining...they have just recently gotten out of training, well 3 months, and I can't wait to be there! They work in schools so we got to observe those and they are very different from each other, the United States, you name it. We had some interesting experiences. At one of the schools we went to observe, the class that was supposed to be taught by the volunteer we were with got cancelled because the students in 4th year(about 11th grade)went on strike. So we didnt get to see any teaching at that school. But at another school that we went to with him we got to see one of the best behaved classes i have seen anywhere, US included. There were about 30 students in the class and they all were engaged and participating. Hopefully we get classes like that when we get our assignment! But Granada is amazing, just not much to do if you don't have money, and we are in that category. I don't really understand what people do here if they are backpacking and don't have much. However, that said, 20 bucks would go a really long way, we just don't really have that much money. Jeff and I are making about 15 dollars a week right now. Thats right, be jealous. Even AmeriCorps pays better than that! However, I guess we're not really doing this for the money. If we were, we would be in for a big surprise.

We are hoping to watch the Twins game tomorrow as the volunteers we are visiting have cable. We watched the Yankees v. Tigers game tonight once the luz came back on. But, we head back to our training pueblos tomorrow. We have free internet until tomorrow afternoon so now is your chance to write us and get a quick reply back! Hope to hear from everyone. Go Twins.

mmmm..pizza...

2006-09-30T17:39:00.000-05:00

yes.. today we broke down after training and went this restaurant with a few other trainees and had the most wonderful 3 pizzas ever. It was a nice break just to have something familiar. Afterwards was also fun, because we got to sit on a bus at the bus station waiting for it to leave for like an hour. We were able to make it home just in time for the youth group meeting I was supposed to have with the kids in my town, which ended having to be reschedule anyways. Tommorrow is exciting because we get to go on our volunteer visit together. We are going to visit another couple so that be good to get that perspective also. Its only about an hour bus ride for us, but some of the other trainees are going to visit volunteers in areas near honduras and have to ride on multiple buses for as long as 8 hours. Everyone is really excited to get out of there training town and experience some parts of Nicaragua. Hopefully we will have some new pictures to put up after the visit.

-Jeff

p.s. kara and paul we got both of your letters yesterday so that made the day a little more exciting! thanks!

When it rains, it pours!

2006-09-26T16:54:00.000-05:00

Me, Jeff, my dad and bro swimming in the laguna!

A picture of Volcan Mombacho which you can see from my site.

My backyard. This a view from my bedroom window...minus the bars on the window. It is also where the monkeys live! Theres at least 3 that I have seen.

Jeff and his training group, Loehrl and Tony.

Uploading photos to Blogger is hard work and takes a long time so please forgive me that these come in waves of 4 or 5.

Anyhow, right now it is the rainy season, until the end of November, early December. It is usually really nice in the daytime and really really rainy at night. Its good because it totally cools it off and it is easier to sleep. Also, I go walking with the other 2 girls in my site in the mornings, and it is cool then too. However, when it rains at night, you cant hear anything because of the tin roof. It is crazy loud. Also, I have 3 smallish holes in the ceiling in my bedroom and when I wake up in the morning, there is generally a small to medium sized lake next to my bed. Gracias a Dios it does not rain in my bed!

Also, Jeff and I have been given so much more work lately which actually is good because it makes the time go by so much faster. The first 2 weeks were the slowest two weeks of my life and actually I was really sad for the majority of the time. However, now things are going much faster and we are doing so much more. I have started planning a teacher workshop with 5 others that will take place in 4 weeks, one of the weeks which I will not be here! I'll be visiting another voluneer with Jeff. Thanks for all of the planning time.....but Im sure it will turn out great, everybody here is pretty motivated and excited.

Well, thats all for now. Glad to see that the Twins will be in the playoffs. Wish I would have brought my Twins T-shirt to wear around. Miss everyone and cant wait for visitors. Im already ready.

Semana 4

2006-09-25T15:15:00.000-05:00

another week, another cordoba, as the saying goes... Things feeling pretty normal here, i already feel as if this is home. This week is really busy everyday as we really starting getting into things: working on our youth group project, observing english classes at the secondary school(instituto), 6 hours of spanish a day, homework, and then traveling to other cities for training 2 days a week. My family is great, My "parents" are more like grandparents, they are in their 60s. They are really good at talking slow enough so I can understand while still talking about complex things. I sit and talk to my father on the front step a lot. Hes got lots of time to talk to me because hes retired and he tells me about the history and different time periods in nicaragua, the politics, whatever. Last weekend when Jenny came to visit he took out his guitar and played a little for us while it was pouring outside. At the end of this week is the big volunteer visit. Jenny and I get to go visit another volunteer together somewhere in the country. We dont find out till friday where that will be though.

As for my parents, i dunno if you have tried to call me again, i know the phone works cause it rings often, but it is located in the shop so let it ring a lot. If it still doesnt work, I will give you Jennys families number because i know that works, and i will be there this weekend some, so you could call me there.

More photos

2006-09-24T16:59:00.000-05:00

Me and Kat at the famous Mirador.

Jenny hangin out a Jeffs in a rocking chair...rocking chairs are everywhere!

Jeffs room! Mosquito net and all.

Some pottery sold in Jeffs house.

The front of Jeffs house.

photos

2006-09-21T17:02:00.000-05:00

jenny and the other volunteers in her town, laura and kat

front of jennys house

jennys family

This is a picture of the laguna de apoyo from the top, we hiked all the way down to it, as noted in earlier blogs.

More training, just what I need...

2006-09-20T16:40:00.000-05:00

I think that I have not really worked for the past 3 years, but instead sat in the same 3 or 4 trainings 20 times each. My AmeriCorps friends know what Im talking about. Yeah you do. Okay, so its been different trainings, but yet, they all seem so related and similiar. How many different icebreakers, energizers, and teambuilding activites can there really be? Im being to learn, not that many...but here they are called something else, but so similar. However, we have NOT played shake a tailfeather yet, which I am waiting for so I can figure out what to call it in Spanish.

Our training in the Peace Corps Nicaragua is community based, and weve been told its an amazing training program. Community based means that you have your language classes in a house where you live, you work in the community doing a youth group and we work/observe the English teacher in the pueblo. As part of our training, we are required to start a youth group in the town that we are training in. Those of us who are learning spanish, slowly, get to work as a group to complete our project. The group is supposed to be roughly 10 or 15 kids and you are supposed to complete a service project. We have 10 weeks to do this. However, you are gone for 2 of the weeks on site visits. It is week 3 and our first meeting was this Monday and we only had 6 teens show up to our first meeting. Most of them were family members that we bullied into coming. Because we didnt have very many kids, we are having our second meeting tonight to try and complete what we started on Monday. Hopefully, more kids will show up. Our project is based around drugs. Not doing them, but prevention of using as we explain to the kids who giggle every time we say were doing a project on drugs. We were told that it is a problem in this pueblo, and then again that it isnt and by others that yes indeed it is. So, we think that is what we are going with.

Also today we had our first meeting with the English teacher at the middle/high school which is one and the same. Actually, weve observed him once but we were there to talk to him about when we were going to work with him, what he wants from us, what we need, ect. So we get there and low and behold, he did not come to work today. My second encounter with Nica time. So we left a note which Im sure is hilarious because its probably terrible spanish and were supposed to be educated people working with him to teach English....yet we speak spanish like 5 year olds. Such is life.

I was going to upload my pictures today but I cant find the port on this computer which is fairly newish and I dont know how to ask. Im sure I looked ridiculous as I looked for it for like 10 minutes as well. Im sure theyre thinking, what is that crazy whitey doing?

Also one note on the food...I really like the rice, however I found out that eatting a lot of rice and beans and plantains is NOT nice to your digestive system. I think that I almost never go to the bathroom, which sucks because I have stomach aches all the time. And I really dont like most of the veggies here, or the cheese, or eggs. I have been known to be somewhat of a picky eatter. I feel bad because I dont want my Nica mom to think that I dont like her cooking, but I really am just picky. She has stopped feeding me the cheese because I never eat it. Imagine the saltiest cheese in the world. Now a little saltier. That is what the cheese tastes like to me. I would kill for some white cheddar right about now. Or Thai food. Or Stir Fry. Or the Pasta Fresca from Noodles. Or that tofu that Beth cooked at Menogyn. But beans and rice, not that bad, but not that nice for my digestive system at the same time, if you know what Im sayin...
Peace.

Dennys I miss you!

2006-09-18T15:34:00.000-05:00

Oh how I miss the Minnesota Twins. I get to see the stats in the paper sometimes and even saw a few minutes of a game at my house! Thank you for all of the updates. Its just not the same hearing about the excitement and not getting to be there. I miss the Twins, Bert, the hormel row of fame, Twingo, dome dogs, more dome dogs, and free tickets.

Last weekend was full of fun. Jeff and I went to Masaya with my fam. Masaya is the next biggest town near my pueblo. We went to 2 mercados. One was the old mercado which was really clean, selling arts and crafts, food, clothes, and hammocks. The other mercado, known as the mercado, was full of whatever you could wish to buy. So many shoes and clothes, mosquito nets, shampoo, watermelon, fish, and more. Everything. When people own a pulperia, a small store, they go to this mercado to buy all of there supplies. It was interesting, and kind of scary at the same time. There were so many people jammed in there and you could be robbed very easily.

On sunday we went to the family farm which is much more like a jungle than a farm. There are coconut trees, other fruit trees, an avacado tree, and many many many plants. We drove there with my dad who is an amazing driver. He puts the car in neutral when we are not going up a hill. Its sort of scary actually. But on our way back from the farm, we got a flat tire. Fixing it included trying to put on a different tire which I am still unsure why we didnt use it, trying to blow up the flat tire with a pump that they tried to get power by connecting it to a power line, going into some random persons house to use the power, which wasnt strong enough, and finally walking home while my dad rolled the tire to the next biggest town to have it fixed and put back on the jeep. All in all, this took about 2....3 hours. But everyone was in a good mood the whole way through, and it was more funny than anything.

All in all, a good and productive weekend. Only a few hours a day of sitting and doing nothing, and going to bed really early. Jeff and I got to sleep in a twin bed together, which actually is more comfortable than it sounds. The monkeys decided to take the weekend off and didnt wake us up at 5:30 like they usually do. That was sweet of them.

brief musical update

2006-09-17T16:03:00.000-05:00

For all you Air Supply fans out there, book your flights now!! At the end of the month they will be playing in Managua. There are commericals for it here all the time. Unfortunately, its 80 US dollars!! Who knew that Air Supply could charge that much. But it is true that you get a buffet dinner with that price, so I am assuming its a pretty large buffet. I dont think Jenny and I will be going, since we make about that in 1 month! And Luke, if you want to send us a check in cordobas please multiply whatever you were going to send in US dollars by 17, so its actually worth more than a few bucks!

mosquiteros and more!

2006-09-15T16:07:00.000-05:00

This thursday and friday are special days here in Nicaragua. Thursday was the celebrating of the battle of San Jacinto, which I was told was similar to our Alamo except for the fact that it was the Nicas fighting off the Yankees. Friday is Independence day for all central america countries except Panama, i think. Early in the week, we had the torch for independence come through our town, it was a nice addition to viewing the torch in that we were also without power. there were a lot of people running with the torch carrier, it got a little hectic by the church so the police that were driving in a truck in front of the torch carrier had to take the torch for a bit. The torch goes all the way through all the countries in central america, im not sure if it was going up or coming down though... Life is good, some of my favorite activities including being able to take a nap in the hammock in my house after a long day of Spanish class or watching people from my front steps in one of the rocking chairs. Surprisingly im not thought of as lazy, as far as I know, that would be reserved for another volunteer in my site, Tony. I live on the calle principal (the main street) so i get to see a lot going on. Spanish classes have been going good, i can tell that im starting to relearn things little by little, but its definitely a big process. People here speak with a lot of slang, and the also don´t use the Tu form of verbs that often, only Usted or the vos form, only Nicaragua and Argentina speak without the using the Tu or so ive been told. Other than that, i am slowing learning the bus system and where the different cities i have to go to are. So far i havent gotten really sick, except from the Malaria medicine we have to take. Paul, im sure you already heard this from Jenny but thanks for the letter, when i figure out how to buy stamps or send a letter i will do so too. Hope everyone is doing well Win Twins!

hot dogs and more.

2006-09-13T16:25:00.000-05:00

This week is the week of Central American Independence. What a week! Yesterday morning I was awoken to fireworks, which are just as loud, but not as pretty, at 5:45 in the morning. 15 minutes later, a marching band walked by my house. So I got up to see it and I´m pretty sure that I was the only one. The rest of my family contintued to sleep. And no neighbors were outside..stupid gringa! Basically, I have sen 3 marching bands today and heard so many bombas, as they call these fireworks.

Also, some spanish words rock and should be added to the English dictionary. My favorites so far are chunche...a word that can be used for anything you want when you can´t remember the word you are looking for. Hand me that...chunche. Enana which supposedly means short but I used it to describe myself to my nica mom and she laughed at me and told me it was a word that was used to describe short people, midgets even though that word is not PC. At least thats what I think she said....
Hot dog said with a spanish accent is also amazing. But then again, so are hot dogs. I think I could be a ¨vegetarian¨ but eat hot dogs as well as the only meat. But only on the grill, never boiled. Or cold. That just gross (Andy B.) Maybe boiled if I was desperate, or hungry. Or bored.

Things are going well. We learned about Degue today which apparently 1/7 of Peace Corps Volunteers in Nica get. I´ve got to say that I´m not really looking forward to it. Sounds pretty horrible. We also learned about Malaria and as long as we take our pills for the next 2 years we should be fine. Usually.

V: tried to email you but it gave some message that I didn´t understand. Also, I would like to email everyone reguarly, but my email is really really slow most days. I WILL do it though. The next 2 days are holidays so we will be in touch after that. Nothing will be open for those days. I would also like to say that Paul Stootman, tall paul, was the first person to send us mail so he pretty much rocks. And I would like to give a shoutout to another PC trainees mom, Lucian, because shes a reader! Hey Lucians mom! Hope you´re doing fine with your son being gone. Alright, 1 minute left. Talk to everyone soon!

Jenny

hardest walk of our lives

2006-09-10T15:00:00.000-05:00

Hola! This was our first full weekend in nicaragua. We are lucky enough to get to spend the weekends together. We trade off familys so that we don´t have to put economic hardship or show favoritism to either family. Yesterday, we went on a walk to the laguana near my town. Me, Jeff, another volunteer, my dad, and brother. It was our first encounter to nica time. We were supposed to leave at 9 which actually ended up being more like 10:30. no worries. So we start walking and its through this forest, jungle mountain. Soon, i realized that this was going to be a lot harder than I had thought. It took us about 45 minutes to get down this mountain and we walked over this really slippery fruit on the ground...keep in mind this is down a mountain of slick mud and rocks...with plants around you that you have no idea. Is it poison ivy? Maybe its something i don´t even know about yet. So we get down there, we are soaking wet with sweat. It was dripping all the way off my nose and head. I really needed a sweat towel. I sort of felt like Shaun. We go in the water and it was amazing. It was like HOT the first 3 inches or so and underneath was cold. Which was amazing. We were there for about 1.5 hours. On our way up we decided to take the long route which was on a road. We walked for about 30 minutes straight up. It was so hard. Then we ran into a friend of the other volunteer who gave us a ride within 30 minutes of our town. Then we walked for another 30 minutes straight up. It was seriously the most difficult walk of my life. We then hitched another ride with someone my dad new, thank god or we might have died. My nica brother and dad were fine but us gringos were hurting! But it was super beautiful and totally worth it.

We are doing well. This is the staring of week number 2, I can harding wait. Our spanish is better, but still terrible. Hasta luego!

Jenny and Jeff

My new home!

2006-09-04T15:59:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. I have gotten my placement for the next 3 months. I will be living around the Masaya area in a pueblo. I have 2 sisters and 2 brothers. One of the girls is the cutest little girls that I have ever seen! Seriously, ever! The food is good. Alot of beans and rice, and more rice dishes. And chicken. And really good juice. My mom and dad are really nice but they speak soooo fast. I feel really dumb. I don´t understand what people are saying to me...they don´t understand what I say. It´s really hard. But, I am lucky enough to have 2 other girls in the same town that I am in. They both live about 5 minutes away, walking. We have our spanish classes in each of our respective homes.

My room in my house is really nice. I have a mosquito net, a dresser, a bed with 2 pillows, a cute window, a lock on my door that doesn´t work right now. The bathroom is right next door with a flush toliet. Yeah! Jeff is right down the road in another pueblo. I haven´t spoken to him since I was dropped off at my new house 2 days ago. I´ve actually been a lot more sad that I thought I would be about it. It´s really hard hanging out with people who don´t speak your language all day long. I am really tired by the end of the day. And we´re not supposed to speak english with our friends in our town. But obviously, we do. There is so much to say that I don´t know the words for in Spanish...since I don´t know most words in Spànish! I also feel sort of like an alien. Everyone stares at me, I sleep under a mosquito net, I don´t speak the language, they have to boil their water for me, I don´t eat certain foods. It´s wierd.

There is an internet cafe close to my house. It is twice as cheap to use it for one hour than to call with a calling card for 15 minutes. Dad: I tried calling you 4 times. 3 from the hotel collect and once while I´ve been in (edited for sercurity). It says that your number is disconnected. The house number! So I don´t know what to do.

During training, we go to spanish classes 3 times a week for 6 hours a day. 2 other days are technical training. I dread the weekend when I have to hang around and not understand much for 2 days straight! However, on sunday I took a walk with my brothers and sister and we say the laguna by my house. Its really pretty because it overlooks a volcano and another town. We went their today with my group as well.

Well that is it for now. I am going to try and upload some of my pictures. Hasta luego!

Jenny

first day in new town

2006-09-02T17:28:00.000-05:00

hello again!

i am writing from (unable to say for security reasons), which is actually the town Jenny lives in. One of the other volunteers, Loehrl´s mom brought us here, because we are not allowed to walk around town alone since we are new. I live in the town called #####. It is literally a 5 minute walk from Jenny´s town. There are 3 volunteer in my town and 3 in Jennys town. We are grouped by language ability so obviously Jenny and I are in the 2 low groups. But we are learning a lot. My new family is very nice. They have had 15 volunteers stay with them in their lives and my mother is the mother of our language teacher. The town I am in is town worldwide for its pottery and it is pretty much a complete artisan town. My house has a store connected to it that sell some of the pottery that my father´s brother makes in a different house in the San Juan de Oriente. We had our first language class today, Survival Spanish. All of our classes are with the other peace corps volunteer in town in eachothers houses. Its a lot of work, but im excited about it. We have spanish 3-4 days a week for 6hrs. and technical training on our TEFL stuff 2 days a week. Foods been good so far, my mother, Ana Maria, cook a good meal with chicken and rice for lunch, and im looking forward to dinner because im always hungry. The fruit here is amazing also, all different fruits that would never be in Minnesota. Today, when we were waiting to come to Catarina to use the internet, another volunteer, Tony, and I spent some time sitting on the outdoor patio in rocking chairs eating a fruit called mamones, which i cant really describe but its pretty sweet. We also have many juice made from tons of different fruits, including pitayaha, which is bright fusia(sp) its unbelieveably bright. Thats all I can think of right now, tonight will be my first night under my mosquito net in my cama de matrimonio. hope all is well, go twins!

Jeff

And one more time today...

2006-08-31T20:45:00.000-05:00

Hey all. I have a quiet space and a little bit more time to write now. So far Jeff and I have been going to training, training, and more training, shots and malaria pills (which taste sooooo gross)! We are having a really great time and we are certain that the time spent away from each other during our training months is a good idea and will be well spent. We can do weekend visits to our seperate host familias. And we will know that many more people in Nicaragua.

Today we took a trip into Managua to go to the PC office and we also got to drive around a bit. Managua is sort of like LA..real sprawled out with no real downtown. Except for LA has a downtown...and theres way more garbage hanging out..and more tin roofs...so maybe its not so much like LA. We also saw a totally totally dead dog on the median. It was amazing. It was super stiff and bloated. Thats never happaned to me before. Jeff was pretty excited. However, we will not be spending much time in Managua. We have heard about the wonderful training site that we will be going to which is near Masaya, we just don´t know the exact town...yet. That will be figured out by our Spanish language test that we took today in which I just stared at the interviewer and stumbled over some really bad phrases that probably sounded nothing like Spanish but instead some valley girl trying to speak something similiar too, but not quite Spanish. That has for sure been the worst part of the trip so far. Other than that, we are having a great time. Everyone is really cool and so excited to be here. Its very refreshing.

parents: I was going to call home tonight but the calling cards aren´t working or something so I will call when I am with my host family. There will be more to talk about then too. I will know where I will be for the next few months as well as be able to give a phone number to reach me at.

Well that is it for now. I will try to take some pictures soon and upload them for people to see how pretty Nicaragua is. This was totally the right choice for us and we couldn´t be more excited about the journey in front of us. I haven´t cried yet (except for a close call when reading Shaun and V´s email) which everyone knows is a really big thing for me. I even cried when eatting Arbys for the last time.
Please, write! We miss everyone tons.

Jenny
and Jeff!

We've made it!

2006-08-31T07:18:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! We only have a few minutes but we wanted to say hi and that we have made it to Managua safe and sound. So far we're having a great time as the peace corps is much like the early days of AmeriCorps..except for everyones really really exicted and its turned up about 10 notches. DC was great. We got to visit Andy and Wendy and had a great time. LOTS of safety training. I'm sure we'll be posting some pictures of us in bike helmets in no time soon.

We got to Managua yesterday after 2 hours of sleep on the plane. We are staying in an awesome resort with hot water and clean drinking water...and a casino where we will try not to lose all of our cordobas. Shots in the arm have been fun so far and we cant wait for the intra muscular ones today!! For all those going to Sam and Jil's wedding have fun, we will be moving into our new homes with separate host families on Sat. which will be pretty much just like going to a Jewish wedding in MN. Hope to hear from you soon, BJ quit sending me forwards, I only get to check my email once a week!! Have a good week, talk to you soon!

Jeff and Jenny

Address

2006-07-31T11:11:00.000-05:00

We're getting ready!! Here is our address during our first 3 months. Airmail takes about 2 weeks, and if you're sending packages, it's recommended that they don't exceed 2 lbs. and are in padded envelopes. Boxes will be stolen.

Jenny and Jeff Pilon
Voluntario del Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 3256
Managua, Nicaragua
Central America