This is my friend Saretlly's baby Iker (ee-ker). I know, strange name, I think she made it up. He´s like 8 months old about and he´s the hugest baby ever. My family met him when they were here and now my Dad always asks if he´s blown up yet.

He doesn´t like to be held by anyone but his mommy. Which is fine with me...he weighs a ton!

Not alot new to say. The concert was kind of a let down. He only played for about an hour...and drinks were not free like we origainally thought! A couple people got some money stolen but nothing else. I didn´t get anything stolen- I only brought cash and I held it clenched in my fist the entire time!

October will not be too excting, I´m going to stick around Yali and see what kind of projects I can scrounge up . Monday and Tuesday we are having a HIV/AIDS training for the volunteer health workers from the surrounding communities. But November will be busy, I have to give a nutrition charla to the new trainees, I´ll be in Managua for a conference the week of Thanksgiving...and then it´ll be Dec. and time for my visit home! Now I just need to buy plane tickets...

Hope everyone is great!

Danielle

Ooh - It’s been awhile.

Two weeks ago we had our 5 month of service workshop in Estelí. On the whole it was pretty boring, just a lot of presentations, but I got to see my whole group for the first time in 5 mos so that made it fun. The next week was the celebration of their Independence Day, so there was no school and no work Mon or Tues, so some of went to the beach. We went to a beach outside the city of Leon. It was really pretty, but my favorite beaches are still San Juan del Sur and Ometepe, although they’re the most touristy.

I’m still going over to the little girl’s house to dance on Sundays (Jahaira is her name) but we have been dancing a little less lately and just hanging out, which suits me fine. Last time they taught me a board game called No Te Enojes (Don’t get angry) which is exactly like Aggravation!! They made the board themselves and play with beans, corn, and pebbles instead of little marbles. And they have this enormous block of wood they use for a die (?). They have a couple different rules but it’s almost exactly the same and it’s so fun! I might have to bring them the actual game when I come back after Christmas.

The other day the family bought a ton of corn so we spent the day making various things from it. I helped shuck and cut and then went with Nelly to watch it get ground. I can now say I have had an entire meal made from corn.

shucking with Yubelka and Nelly

grinding corn

Appetizer: Wirila with cuajada. (This is a big tortilla made with the ground corn. It’s different b/c it’s made with fresh “maiz verde” they say here, instead of from dry corn. Plus it has sugar. It’s really good.

Main course: Tamales. Again made with the maiz verde Plus milk and sugar. Then boiled in the corn husk. These are the ones we had on the bus, Mom,Dad,Aubree,Patrick


Dessert: Corn pudding. This was made by mixing the mais verde with milk and sugar again and then straining out all the corn, so it’s really like essence of corn pudding. Then I think it was cooked for a little bit. This I did not like so much.

Beverage: Pinolillo. Roasted ground corn+cacoa+sugar+water. An acquired taste

I finally bought a bookshelf (pictured below). It cost about $20 which is actually kind of expensive, but I have been searching for just this shade of God Awful Orange, so it was a must buy. It startles me every time I walk in my room, it’s so bright. Can you believe I’ve already accumulated this much crap?

This week I have an eye doctor’s appointment in Managua and this Saturday I’m going to a Daddy Yankee concert! I don’t expect most of you to know who that is and I‘m not a huge fan, but I think it’ll be fun. I wish I could say that I will take a lot of photos, but I’m not going to risk taking my camera. At the last concert some PCVs went to almost everyone got something stolen and one guy had his sunglasses stolen off his face.

Take care everyone!

Love, Danielle

Just thought this was hilarious and wanted to share. Sorry I missed you Mer! It´s good to catch up with old friends. It´s amazing what a difference it makes being able to see each other. I miss you all!!

I´m a bag lady...

I realized this the other day as I was yet again washing and preparing to reuse a little plastic bag from a pulperia. I've done that in the past with ziplocs and am still doing it (even though I brought 4200 ziplocs with me) but Ihave starting saving every little plastic bag that comes my way. And paper too. I cant bring myself to throw paper away because I might be able to reuse the scraps for something else, in my classes or something. Anything to avoid having to spend money. Also little bits of string...the list goes on. I guess i should say I´m a junk lady.

I finish this week with my sex ed charlas with the 5th grade and will start next month with 6th grade. It's been a fun experience although as soon as my newness wore off they turned into little hellions. And just because the teacher is present does not mean that they will help me with discipline. Usually they just kinda laugh and comment on how terrible the kids are acting. Pretty annoying. But mostly I've had a good time and I met a lot of new kids that can now yell out my name as I pass on the street. Better than gringa. Last night I went over to a little girl's house to meet with her and a group of her friends that had invited me over to dance. I thought they were going to be teaching me folkloric dances but what it really was was hiphop/reggaeton dancing. Do you remember that scene in mean girls when they pass thru the living room and the little girls is there doing some kind of booty dance video? Thats what it was like, five 10 year old girls (and me) booty dancing in the living room. With this group of boys and 2 women watching. Akward.

I kept my promise of staying in site this month; I only went on 2 daytrips- one to Esteli and one to Jinotega to pick up a package (thanks mom and dad. katie-yours wasnt there yet, but ill go again soon, thanks!) In Esteli as I was leaving the Peace Corps office I met this retired couple that had come to donate us books. The man, Ralph, was from California and his wife Andrea is from Esteli. They were so nice and so excited to talk to me and invited me repeatedly to come for coffee or dinner to their house. Apparently she makes really good chicken mole, yum!! I would love to actually start up a friendship with them, Elise and I are thinking of going to Esteli this sat, I might try to find their house (thye gave me total Nica directions- from the banks 3 blocks west, 1 block north, no such thing as house addresses) I´ll let you know if i actually do it.

That´s all for now, sorry no pics. Hope you are all doing great!
Danielle

In Granada

I have been trying to do this for forever now, but the electricity keeps going out. It's August! Some of those weeks really flew by, others not so much. The 12 days my family was here went really fast, of course. We had a great time! It was so great to spend so much time with them and we got to see a lot of Nicaragua. The whole trip went really smoothly, except for a small hiccup when Patrick got turned away at the gate because his passport expired in a month. But he was able to get one expeditited and arrived the day after. The part I was most nervous about was renting a car and driving all over the country, especially since we were going to be doing the bulk of our driving on the day they were celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. Luckily we didn't have any problem at all, in fact I loved having a car again! So much more freedom and you get places so much faster. We were lucky though, I think, because I talked to a girl in my group whose parents were here at the same time and had rented a car and they had some trouble with the police. They probably couldn´t tell we were foreigners. hahaha


The Shays reunited

Because we had to wait for Patrick, the family got to see more of Managua than they wanted probably (it's not the prettiest city) and little glimpse into volunteer life. They saw the Peace corps office (i.e. the huge wall surrounding it) and we stayed at a hotel where most volunteers stay when they are in Managua. We ran into a couple of them, in fact. Then we headed to Yali. As soon as we arrived we got swooped in upon by my friend Saretlly who had wanted to make us lunch, but we arrived later than planned so it turned into dinner. We first had to go to my counterpart Johana's house so she could meet the fam, and she served us this very rich mango smoothie thing called cuznaca. So none of us were hungry for dinner but we all dug in anyway to be polite. I'm glad we went though so they could meet saretlly and understand the insanity i'm dealing with. She's more than a little crazy, in my opinion. But so nice.

The next day we walked around a bit and drove around a little then went to my host family's house for lunch. Again good food, but too much! And I guess it's customary that the host not eat with the guests but neither my host mom or saretlly would eat with us. they sat/stood and watched us eat. Both families really liked each other and were able to communicate enough to really enjoy themselves despite speaking different languages and having me as translator. We were going to stay another night in Yali, but after lunch there was really nothing left to see in the town and we couldn't go visit anymore people because they will want to give you food and we were sooo stuffed. Also the hotel was a little creepy... It was 2 rooms inside someone's house, in their living room. I went by today to see if they had Dad's toiletry bag that he left (they did) and saw that one of the rooms is actually used by a family memeber when there aren't guests and they just clean out all the stuff when there is!! haha So we left a day early and stayed in Granada and everyone was more comfortable.


USA meets Nicaragua

From Granada we took a bus to San Jorge, Rivas to catch the ferry to the Island of Ometepe. It´s an island formed by 2 volcanoes in the middle of a huge lake. We stayed there from Monday to Friday and it was great. Very beautiful and relaxing. Except for the day when we decided to hike one of the volcanoes. 8 hours later, completely covered in mud, we were not relaxed. In fact we were all in a pretty bad mood when we got done. Patrick tried to stay positive and win the Good Attitude Award (which I guess he did because Aubree and I were not even trying). The worst part was that everyone talks about this awesome laguna at the top where you swim, etc. But we got there and it was sooo foggy and freezing. You couldn´t see a thing. I figured out that hiking is pointless to me if there´s no view when you finish. But the rest of the stay was great.


View from halfway up the damn volcano we climbed. This was the best view, we should have turned around here


View at the top of the damn volcano we climbed. This
is the supposed laguna that it was too foggy to see.
The guy second from the left climed up barefoot!


the beach at ometepe

From Ometepe we went to Granada and spent the rest of our time there. We went to 2 more volcanoes (no climbing) and ate lots of great food and drank lots of great wine! Great vacation!



Mom and I getting drunk in Granada


So we had a great time, hopefully they feel the same! 6 months is the longest I've ever gone without seeing my family and for me it was a great relief to see them. From where I am it's easy to imagine that I am missing important happenings in their lives (which I am, but not to the degree I imagined) and it was good for me to see that none of us has changed dramatically and we're not missing out too much on each other's lives.

Since they left I have been trying to work hard here in Yali. I´m still not super busy but I know things will develop with time. I went to Esteli my first weekened back for Volunteer Trivia Night (I don´t even want to get into how my team was robbed of victory), but I'm going to try to stay in site from now until my 5 month in-service training in Sept. (day trips don´t count :) ) We´ll see how that goes...

Hope everyone is doing great!!!
Love, Danielle

I'm still here!! I wanted to wait until I had something interesting to write about before posting again. It took a couple weeks for that to happen :)

A bunch of people from my group all met up in San Juan del Sur to celebrate the 4th of July. Before going I was kind of dreading it because it's a 9 hr trip and expensive (for me) and all the other volunteers that I mentioned it to that had been said it wasn't that great...BUT I had a great time and I thought the town and the beaches were really beautiful. It's true it's pretty touristy, you could forget you're in Nicaragua, but I actually kind of enjoyed that part of it. I got there early on Fri. with Elise and Braden and we checked into our hostel and then went directly to the beach. The beach in the actual town is pretty small and really not that crowded because it's not good for surfing. It's in a little cove so the water is a lot calmer, which was perfect for me because I barely like getting in the ocean anyway (it hurts my eyes :( ). The sun was only out for about 2 hours and then it got overcast, but in that time I managed to get really burned on any place that sunscreen had missed. Nick, Penny and Craig got in later that day and we cooked dinner (spaghetti! with REAL tomato sauce, not ketchup) in the hostel and then went to this bar that had a fire on the beach and live music. It was really beautiful and Elise and I enjoyed our first taste of Tequila in almost 6 months!

Saturday we got up and had free pancakes at the hostel-you had to cook them yourself but so what- and then caught a ride to one of the surrounding beaches. It was about a 45 min ride on a poorly maintained dirt road and when we arrived we found 1 little restaurant and nothing else but an almost empty (and beautiful) beach. Then we remembered that we were still in Nicaragua. But more people arrived as the day went on and one of the hostels in town was sponsoring a 4th of July party so they brought out drinks and "BBQ". We left around 5 but not too long before we left they started giving out free rum shots, so I'm sure it got pretty crazy. We cooked dinner again (tacos!) and went out dancing. It never did feel very much like the 4th of July but it was really great to see all the people in my group that I haven't seen in months


Nick, Craig, Penny, Kerri, me, Braden, Elise


the almost empty beach on Sat.


Elise, me, Lorna


The weekend before that Elise and Braden came into to town and we all (w/ Owen) hiked to the cloud forest reserve Miraflor nearby. When I say nearby I mean in bus or truck which is how we planned to get there, but not one passed us as we were walking so we ended up hiking the entire way there, uphill (4 hours). I was already tired by the time we got there and so maybe not as thrilled with it as I would have been. But it was still really pretty.


in the forest


pretty hydrangeas -mil flores in spanish. One of my favorites!





view- you can see why they call it a cloud forest!


You've probably noticed that I'm only talking about the weekends and that is because not alot has changed in site. I'm still doing nutrition consults in the health center, and I've had a couple patients. I think they're finalle ey remembering that I'm there and referring people.Yesterday one of my bosses came with Danny the volunteer that I visited in Rio San Juan. He extended his service to a third year, but is also working with Peace Corps as a Volunteer Coordinator. He leaves not too far away in Matagalpa, so I think he'll be good support for me. Anyway they came to check up on me and monitor my progress (or lack thereof) and we had a meeting with Johana, my counterpart to address any concerns or questions she might have. It was a good visit and the best thing that came of it is that Johana and I decided we'll have regular meetingd to discusss my schedule and talk about project ideas. This is totally something we should have been doing anyway so I'm glad we're going to start that.

But that's going to be about it for July...Sunday I leave for Masaya and have a Spanish workshop until the 16th and then my family arrives!!! We'll travel around until the 28th, when they leave me, and then it will practically be August! I like it when it feels like time is moving quickly!

I hope everyone is doing great! It will be a couple weeks again before I post, I don´t want to waste family time on the computer! But we´ll take pictures!

Love, Danielle

Happy Father´s Day!!

I forgot to put it in the previous post and I probably won´t come again tomorrow. So,

HAPPY FATHER´S DAY!!

1 day early. I love you Dad! Can´t wait to see you!

Danielle

(a banner at the March for Life the other week)

Another month down and I have been a volunteer for 2 months now. I still don't have a very regular work schedule, or a clear role yet, but I´ve gotten more comfortable in the not knowing at least. In the mean time I´m just trying to enjoy myself and getting ready for my family´s visit in exactly 1 month!!

This past weekend I went to visit my friend Elise (my Anna in Peace Corps that I have mentioned before) in her site San Juan del Rio Coco, Madriz. It was very mountainous and beautiful like Yali, just a little bigger. It was the weekend of their Fiestas Patronales wich absolutely means there must be an hipica(horse parade). We set out to go watch it and, as has been our experience as gringa ladies in Nicaragua, were totally taken care of. We were searching for food and were almost immediately handed tickets for plates of food that all the people around us were paying for. It was very tasty, too- steak with some kind of pesto sauce and rice and beans. And although the raw meat was being held in a tub underneath the table before being cooked, with no sign of refrigeration in sight, you just can´t turn down a free meal when you make 5 dollars a day. After we finished eating we set off to find a good shady spot to watch the parade when this nice truck with 2 men inside pulled up and asked if we´d like to cruise around in the truck and watch. Again this is not something I¨d normally agree, too, but the rules change in Nicaragua. You can´t say no to an air conditioned car ride. You just can´t. So we went, following a long line of cars, to supposedly watch the hipica, but in the end we missed the whole thing. I think the horses started a little bit behind us and we only saw a couple at the very end. But we fully enjoyed a very comfortable car ride


( the one shot I got of the hipica. I think the sky in the background is the coolest part of the picture.)

Anyway the visit was really fun, but I probably won´t go often- it took me 5 hours to get there and 7 to get back. Mountain roads are rough.

Last Wed and Thurs I went on an outing with the Health Center to some really distant communities to do some more baby weighings. We stayed in the Health Post in La Rica and each went on foot house to house doing the weighings and talking about the flu (still) and diarrea, etc. It was tiring, but fun and I felt good because I participated alot more than I have in the past.



(a shot of the view as we were walking to the communities)


(washing machine :) )

Not too much else has been happening. I have been a sick for a little while (yes, I think it was the water and I have switched back to purified agua) but I´m feeling better now. My host mom made crepes today and they were sooo good. She called them pancakes, but they were crepes-rolled up and everything. She put the popular Nica cheese cuajada, mashed with sugar insde and it was really tasty. Sugar and cheese sounds strange but it was gooood. And finally, as I watched Nelly pour at least a half cup of sugar into the pitcher, I figured out why I like milk to drink here, but not at home. Sugar makes everything better.

Can´t think of much else, I hope everyone´s doing great

Love, Danielle

Sadly, I don't have amazing stories to tell you all about the tubing trip. My friends told me it was great- unfortunatley I was up the enitre night before with diarrhea and didn't get to go. But here´s a picture of what I missed. Thank God it looks totally terrible. Sike (psych?)




A couple pieces of good news- the high school got internet this week, which means FREE INTERNET!! Apparently they have had it before and then lost it and now it´s back, so hopefully it stays. We'll see what this does to my productivity, Lord knows I can waste time on the internet. The other news is that I started on yesterday giving nutrition consults at the health center. I'm just gonna start out doing it once a week and see how it goes. This week I didn't see any patients at all, but I think with a little more time the staff will remember I'm there and start sending people to me. I just spent the time working on this project I started, to make a reference book of all the foods common here and what they contain, what they're good for, etc. Then I can leave it here for the Health center or other volunteers.

I went to a couple outings with the health center last week to some really far out communties to do baby weighing sessions. THere is a national program called Programa Comunitaria de Salud y Nutricion (PROCOSAN- Nicaragua loves using anagrams(?), but it's not neccessarily the first letter of a word that's used, might be the first syllable of one word, one letter from another word) that facilitates monthly weighing of babies 2 and under to track their weight/health. It's a good program and we didn't see any underweight babies, which surprised me. we saw a couple who had lost weight, but were still within an acceptable weight range. Here's a picture that pretty much captures the general reaction of all babies being weighed.




I went running last week for the first time in Yali. I feel great having done it, but I thought I was gonna die during. Hills are hard! And Yali is located in a narrow little valley so there's really no way to avoid them. I went on Friday with Owen and for awhile there was this man on a bike kinda riding along beside us. On one of the particularly terrible hills, he started saying to me " You're not gonna make it are you, you don't want to do this do you?" and to owen "she's not gonna make it" until Owen had to tell him to get lost b/c at that point I had lost my abilty to speak, or just couldn't spare the breath. But I felt great when it was all over and went again on Sunday by myself. If I can keep convincing myself that the last time wasnt that bad, I'll keep going.

Alright it's Nica Time. I don't think I have talked yet about the Como No phenonmenon. It's this--Nicaraguans like to form questions in the negative. Whereas we would ask "DO you want want coffee" " Do you want to go to such and such", etc. Nicaraguans will ask "You don't want coffee", or "you're not going to go tomorrow" even if there's no evidence to the contrary and it's all so you can answer with Como No. There might be sign on a store that says SE VENDEN Posiciles, (Popsicles are sold) but people will come up and ask "NO hay posicles", and the reply is "Como No" (enthusiastically). It's a service they do each other I think, form the questions in the negative so the other person will have the pleasure of saying ¿como no?, and it'll come around to them again at some point. It's like paying it foward. But it really confused me at first, because I thought people were trying to discourage me from doing whatever it is they were asking. Like "You don't want to go, do you?"

On a more somber note, yesterday there was a suicide in Yali, which makes the third one in the month and a half that I've been here. They've all been young men that hung themselves. I'm pretty sure that alcohol was involved in all of the deaths, which is definitley something that needs to be adressed here. Alcoholism and suicide, both. (I wrote that yesterday and today they announced that we having a "March for Life" tomorrow to raise awareness about the alcohol/drug problems here. Way to go Yali)

I put some random pics below


This is what it does in my room when it rains. And that's just when it´s beginning. And that´s my bottle of Agua Pura-that I no longer use. I´ve gone local and started drinking the tap water!


This is my host mom Nelly with the flower arrangements she made out the roses in the back yard. I told her people pay alot of money for those in the States


This is the shrine my host mom makes every 21st of the month. This one is a little more elborate because it was some other special saint day.


This is me with some of the Health Center staff after our volleyball game at the AIDS fair. We did not win but everyone had to pose with the trophy anyway. This is one of like 84 pictures that people took, even people that didn´t play. I guess they really like trophies.


Alright I don´t want to make this too long--I know my mom has a short attention span! :)
I hope everyone is doing great!

Danielle

Another week down and as of the 15th I have been in service for 1 month. 23 more to go! hah I went to Leon at the end of last weekened with my host mom Nelly to help move my 2 host sisters into a new apartment. Luisa Amanda just turned 21 and is studying odontology, I think (odontologia?, she pulls alot of teeth is what I gather) and Yubelka is 17 and is studying law (you can start college here as early as 15). She gets alot of crap from the family because she has apparently gained 40 pounds or so since starting college. They way they nag her to lose weight and comment on her eating you would think they are slim and trim themselves (They're not. Except the 6 yr old, he's a normal weight). But she seems to take it in stride, it's a different thing to be called fat here than at home. But Leon was nice, but HOT, and it was really fun to be in a big city with young people that dont have babies :)

I still don't have a lot of work going on in Yali-we had an AIDS fair in one of the communities on Wed. and had a volleyball tournament and activities dealing with AIDS education. I actually knew very little about what was going to happen, I just knew I was supposed to play volleyball. That's the problem with not having mastered the language, the details are always a bit sketchy. It went pretty well, and it was fun to play volleyball, although I spent half the time being annoyed at the way they play. I am trying to get started giving nutrition consults in the Health Center to pregnant women and mothers of young children. I have asked if I could have a space in the Center to do that once a week and the Director said she would look into it. So...we'll see how that goes, I'll probably have to ask a couple more times. In preparation I've been trying to research some of the foods that are abundant here, that I don't know anything about. For example, chayote- never heard of it before coming to Nicaragua, but it is in the gourd family and a good source of Vit C. So there you go.

I made another friend this week, or she made me I should say. She was friends with the volunteer before me and I saw her in the park on Tues. and she invited me to her house and today I went with to her mom´s house...I think I´ve been adopted. Her name is Saretlly and I spent the better part of today with her and her family and I´m exhausted. I usually have little breaks from listening to Spanish and trying to speak. But it´s good to have another friend.

I´m going to Somoto this weekend with some other volunteers to a canyon that is supposed to really beautiful with a river that you can tube!!!! I´m so excited!

I found this quote on someone else's blog the other day:

"In a sense I think all of us, each in our unique way, are being called upon to find out who we are and to live that authentically, in the service of this world."

I liked it because I feel it expresses a large part of why I wanted to join the Peace Corps (aside from travel and learning another language) which is to find out who I am, what I am, my place in the world, while at the same time giving back to it in my own small way. Hopefully I can live up to my own expectations :)

I'll leave you with this Nica-ism that I learned the other day. To say that someone is cheating on someone you use "pegarsela" which literally tranlates to "sticking it to them".

(a not very good picture of the church in Yali)


(the kids and grandkids of my host parents in Yali, with a traditional Nica b-day cake, biscocho. Closest thing would be like a pineapple upside down cake)


HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!
I hope you all had a great one. I'm definitely wishing I was at Mandola's Vineyard with my family!

So I have passed a little over 3 weeks as a volunteer. Its definitely been slow and I've passed a lot of akward days either wandering around or attending meetings in which I'm not quite clear what my role is. I know that I will continue to feel more comfortable and involved here as time passes...if I just keep trying. The biggest surprise for me so far has been the education level of the people that I work with. They are all really knowledgeable and well-trained. Which is great, just unexpected. It has made me wonder why I am here and if I can really do anything more than what they're doing. But maybe I don't need to do anyhthing more, I'm just another set of hands, another mind, another person trying to help. Which is fine, just not the way I was originally looking at it.

In these meetings I was talking about, I've been noticing the way all Nicas take notes. They all have these full size hard back notebooks that say ACTAS on the front that they use to take notes. And everyone takes notes in complete formal sentences. Instead of writing the date and some bullets of important points, people will write something like" On this day the 8th of May we met in the Health Center with various Organizations from the municipality of Yali to discuss..." and thats just the intro. All the rest of the meeting is documented as such - by everyone- and then at the end everyone passes their book around and everyone in the meeting has to sign it.
My site mate, Owen, and I tried to make banana bread lastSat. night-and we were almost sucessful except that we forgot that in Nicaragua they use Celsius..not Farenheidt. So at 300 degrees C this bread was charred. Also we had to bake it in a bowl. But the top was salvegeable so we ate that and let my family try it. My mom said it was rico but the rest of them just smiled and picked at it. They'll eat an entire fish- tail, fins, scales- fried, but they think banana bread is strange. But next time we know how to bake it and we're gonna splurge and buy nuts, definitely worth it.

(the part that was completely charred plastered to the bowl below, and the part we salvaged above.)


Its been raining alot more lately, especially at night. I've found that the sound of rain at night is not quite as comforting on a zinc roof. But I'm getting used to it. At least it drowns out Arnold the Pig oinking around all night next door.

Besides Owen and my family, I have made 1 other friend in town, named Lisbet. She's 22 and she owns and runs a little restaruant in the main sqare. She's really intersesting, it's rare to find such an independent Nica woman. I mean she still lives with her family, but she has her own income and she's not married and doesn't have any children. And she's about to finish a degree in finance. But she is easy to be around but she just keeps talking even if I don't respond much more than a smile and nod and she's really patient when I don't understand. I usually just sit and watch her cook and listen to her talk about whatever. But shes going to teach me to knit as soon I get the stuff from Grandma. (Thanks Grandma!)

So I'm just going to keep trying, keep working on my Spanish and start planning for my family's visit in july!! It's really good to have that to look foward to. I hope you're all doing great!!

Love, Danielle

First Days

Hello..I arrived safely to Yali on Wed. evening and spent the next 4 days settling in. I started to fell a little lazy, but my counterpart Johana (the lady from the Health Center that I will be working with) told me not to come until Mon--so I didn´t. Today I went with some of the nurses and health workers to the outlying communities for the vaccination campagin that is going on this month. I am not allowed to stick people (which is fine by me) so I was in charge of giving the kids drops of Vitamin A and polio vaccine. It was a slow day, I think it´s going to be a while before I feel useful here. I don´t have a specific job title or resonsibilites, which means I have to be more of a self'starter--which I´m not that good at. But the director of the PC Health Program is coming for a meeting tomorrow with me and my counterpart, so I think that will help me.

Before I forget, I have a new address, which I put on the right side where the other one was. AND after April 22 (Wed) you have to dial an additional 8 when you call me, so 011 505 8847-1991. Weird I know.

Not much has happened...I went on a 6(!) hour hike on Sat. with my sitemate. It was beautiful, we climbed the tallest mountain in the area, and well worth it, but I was soo tired. During and after. I was going so slow at the end of the climb, I felt like such a wimp. Also I was sick. I´ve had allergies or a cold (or gripe as they say here, their all encompassing word for any cold symptoms) for about 5 days, but it´s starting to get better. Or the runny nose part is, now I have a cough due to cold. But I got to walk through jungles of beautiful coffee plants and I was really hoping to see some monkeys, but I didn´t. Umm what else...is it possible that I´ve never had rice pudding before? I´ve had it twice in the last 3 days and and i luvv it! I don´t know if it´s a Yali thing or what, but I hope so. So all in all I feel good here, but can definitely see that it´s going to be awhile before I ¨know¨what I´m doing.

I hope everyone is great and I´ll post some pics of Yali soon.
♥Danielle

Danielle Lewis, PCV

I'm official!! The ceremony was pretty short and sweet, thankfully. All the families came and the first half was a dedication to them for caring for us for the past 3 months. It was really nice and and a couple of the parents talked and one of the volunteers talked. Then the second half was the actual sweraing part. We had to sing the Nicaraguan national anthem then the US anthem and then take an oath in Spanish from the director of the Ministry of Health and then one in English from the US Ambassador to Nicaragua. Very formal. But now I'm a volunteer! Now we have the rest of the day free and I splurged and bought a bottle of wine to celebrate!! ($10, ouch)

Here is Elise getting ready to chow down on our cake.

This is the crew from Santa Teresa, only 2 members from the family could come so Elise, Nick and my moms came and Jessie's 2 sisters came. I finally have some pictures of my mom-she's the one in the yellow pants. Aubree-do you recognize this dress?? It's the one I bought for your rehearsal dinner! haha Thankfully it still fit. And the picture below is some girls and I at the hotel before swearing in.

Almost there!!

I"m writing my last post as a trainee!! We swear in this morning in Managua and I will finally be a volunteer! I can't believe I've been here this whole time and haven't even gotten started yet.The ceremony is this morning, done by about 11am I think and then we have the whole day to celebrate!! Then Wed. we head to our sites and the work begins. I'm getting a little nervous about that...I know it will be slow going at first as I'm getting to know people. I'll feel pretty uselss in the first couple weeks as I try to define what my role will be in the community.

My host family gave me a really fun send off on Sat. The whole family plus some uncles/ cousins went dancing at this club in Glorieta and a lot of other trainees came as well. It wasn't a sad as I thought it would be to leave, but I feel pretty sure I'll see my host family again. I still don't have any pictures of them because my camera has been dead, but it is charged now and I'll get some pictures of my mom today at the ceremony.

I posted some pictures that I stole from other people, the top one is of our youth group ceremony. My sister is the second one from the right. And the picture below is from when we went to the beach a couple weeks ago.

Alright I have to start getting ready, if the internet at the hotel keeps behaving I'll post pictures of the swearing in ceremony! Love you all !!

♥Danielle

Laguna

I don´t have anything prepared for this blog, or alot of time but here are some pictures from our trip to the Laguna Apoyo yesterday. It´s a big lake in the middle of a volcano crater. It was beautiful and perfect for swimming. It´s really nearby, I´m bummed that we just now went to it when we´re about to leave...but it was a little expensive for 35 cents a day budget or whatever it is. I went with some girls in my group- Hana, Hazel, Amanda, Jessie and Elise(not in the picture). I didn´t realize when we went that we were actually going to be swimming (alot of "swimming" sites in Nicaragua are really dirty) so I had to swim in my bra and underwear, but it was totally worth the emabarrasment. My bra was fine, passable, but the pink and white granny panties I was wearing definitley screamed underwear. But who cares I´ll never see most of those people again.

So we leave in a little over a week for our sites and I think for the most part everyone is sooo ready. This week is Semana Santa, which all the Nicas make a huge deal of, but so far it´s just been a lot processionals (i.e. a fake Jesus riding on donkey with crowds of people and brass band following.) Apparently there is one every day. Yippee. I´m about to get together with some people and and eat avocados and drink rum in the park. It´s avocado season and these are the best avocados I´ve ever had. Delicious. And rum is always good. I hope everyone is doing great and that everyone has a great Easter!!
♥Danielle

I got back fom my site visit yesterday! It was really great. The town is really beautiful, in a valley and surrounded by mountains. I went on a hike one day with my site mate, Owen, to a big stone cross above the city. It was a nice, pretty quick hike and gave a great view of the town. Apparently there are lots of outdoor attractions and pretty lagunas, rivers and stuff like that nearby. The pictures below are me and Owen at the cross with Yali below--I have pictures of the actula cross, but I'll put them on later.

The town is about 7000 people in the city center, I think, and there are lots of surrounding (very poor) communities. It has a cyber (!) and a pool and my host family has a hot water shower head!!! Noone here has hot water heaters, not even the hotels. To get hot water, you either heat it on the stove or you have an electric shower head, that heats the water as it comes through. It is so nice, esoecially in the mountains, where the water comes pretty cold. I'm definitely gonna be spoiled while I'm living in this house. It's just a man and woman- they have kids but one is married and the the other two study in Leon and arent home very often-so it's pretty laid back and I'm pretty sure I'll have my own bathroom when I go to stay, like in Teresa, and that is very rare. I only have to stay with them for 6 weeks, but it seems like I want to stay there longer, as long as I get to cook some of my own meals.

One of the days I went to one of the surrounding communities and watched while one of the nurses did like a census kind of thing. They go house to house (on foot, hiking-it was hard work) asking how many people live in the house, they record the state of the house, what it's made of, how many rooms there are, what they do with their trash, what health problems they have. It was really interesting and eye opening b/c these people are poor. We went to about 15 houses and every single one them had dirt floors, the majority had 1 bedroom with on average 5 inhabitants, about half had no toilet or latrine at all, and almost everyone complains of respiratory problems and headache because they all cook on their wooden stove inside the house which lets out tons of smoke and no one drinks water. Below is one of the ladies we talked to--when she was asked how much schooling she had had, her answer was "I don't know anything" and as we were leaving she showed us her ID card and asked us if we could please tell her how old she is. (69)

Anyway, I'm very excited about my site and ready to get started!! 3 more weeks!Tomorrow we are going to the beach to hang out and then next week is our last reall week of training where we have work to do, and then it's getting ready to swear in!

In case I don't get back to the cyber in time-- Happy Birthday Everett!! Love you!

♥Danielle

San Sebastian de Yali, Jinotega

...is where I will be living for the next 2 years!! We found out Mon. where we will all be placed and I think for the most part everyone is pretty excited. I got a site that was one of my top 3 choices, so I am very happy. I don't know a ton about it- but it is in the mountains ( coffee country!) and there are about 7000 people in the town and about 12000 in the municipality. I will have a site mate named Owen who is a Small Business volunteer and he doesn't leave until Aug 2010 so hopefully we'll get to work together on some stuff. Elisa has visited Yali and she really liked it- so hopefully so will I. It's cold though, apparently. I'm going to have to buy some more clothes. Or just put on all the ones I have!

I'll be the second volunteer there in recent years and the girl that is leaving did alot of work with maternal/child health and nutrition, so I'm really excited about that! And she's a really good drawer and is leaving me some of her charla materials! Yay! I am a terrible drawer. Also she apparently has a larger board game and puzzle collection that she's going to leave me, so it sound slike I'm pretty set. We meet our counterparts on Fri. with is the person appointed to us that we are supposed to colaborate with on projects. And then we leave with them and travel to our sites to spend the week meeting alot of people and checking out the town, etc. We come back on Thurs. and it's all downhill form there. Not too long and I'll be done with training and on my own

Below is a picture of me, Amanda, Elisa and Lorna being very excited to recieve our sites



So I have been thinking this whole time that I might be one of the few that escape the curse of the female volunteer in Nicaragua and avoid gaining weight from all the sugar, oil, and starch. That was until this weekend. Listen to what this little gordita ate: I've told some of you how my host mom often gives a bowl full chocolate sandwich cookies for breakfast ( I would call them Oreos, but are soo not). That's what I had Sat. morning, then for lunch we had...lengua!! ahhh. It wasn't that it tasted bad, it was just that it still had taste buds on it. With a mountain of rice and beans, of course. Then that night, I had 3/4 of a whole avocado, a big mound of gallo pinto ( rice and beans fried with alot of oil) and wait for it...breaded and fried bologna!!!! But it was delicious and I ate it all! So needless to say I'm feeling a little chubby this week. But I'm doing well and I hope you all are too!! Take care

♥Danielle

OK Dad, I used a shoelace

So I brought a lot of stuff with me to Nicaragua. Among the 4 of us, my family and I managed to cram in 100+ lbs of junk into 2 suitcases, a backpack, and a bag. I've 3 types of lighting devices, every size battery there is plus chargers, a year supply of plastic bags, a sewing kit, extra makeup, extra toiletries, more tampons than I have used in my life yet...if for some reason I am am unable to reach any kind of store for my entire 2 years in Nicaragua, I will still be fine. So you can imagine my annoyance at 4 am, the morning I left, when my dad is behind me shoving more things in my bag as I'm trying to lug them out the door. "I found a couple shoelaces that you might need", he says. Of course we all laugh at him and I'm pretty sure I've made fun of it at least once since being here.



So I hate to have to admit that I used a shoelace!! I dropped my headlamp and the little thing that holds the batteries in broke. I have medical tape that I tried first, but that just wasn't cutting it, so I tied a shoelace around it and it works great! Thanks Dad!

So I still didn't take any pictures of my family like I promised but I have a picture of me and Elisa and of a couple of the kids in the youth group. The sassy girl in the pink in the 2nd pic is my host sister Maria Isamar.

I did think up a couple things to say about Nicaragua:

-It is true that they say "Adios" in passing on the street, instead of hola or whatever else

-No one ever points at something with thier finger. You point with your lips. Even if you are mid sentence and you want to talk about that girl over in the corner you just pucker your lips in that direction and keep talking.

-Everyone has a name that is not their name. It might be based on their appearance, something they sell, something they once did... for example there is the pelon-the bald guy, the dienton-the person with the big teeth, la divorciada-the divorced lady, and of course gordita, chelita, gringa all of that and poor Nick gets alot of Chino and chinito and all that.

It is true that people eat rice or beans or both at pretty much every meal and there's alot of frying going on. Lunch and dinner must include a bastimento which is either a tortilla, bread, platano, or guineo( a platano like thing, but smaller and absolutely no flavor. like a stick of starch) Rice is not a bastimento, unfortunanately.My favorite combo so far has been pasta, with a side of rice and a tortilla. And they drink coke, coffee or supersweet (but freshly made) juice at every meal. Not a lot of water gets drunk. And it is customary to drink hot drinks with hot food. Mondays most people eat soup for whatever reason, and usually people drink coffee with it.

So there's a couple of observations. I hope you all are doing great. We are all going to Chinandega this week and are all pretty excited for a change of scenery (and the beach!) Take care!

♥Danielle