(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