Nicaraguan Dogs Need Help!

Living up the last moments of the weekend!

Today was really nice to be able to get out and experience some of the neat things going on in my region of Nicaragua. This morning my brother Ernesto accompanied me to Granada. I was finally able to get a cup of really good coffee. Although Nicaragua grows some of the best coffee in the world, the only coffee available in Catarina is instant coffee. This doesn't exactly fulfill my deep addiction for a quad shot venti latte. I can thank Starbucks for helping me acquire such an addiction. Ernesto, David, and I spent much of the morning walking through the market and seeing what Granada has to offer a Peace Corps Volunteer. Although it is actually one of the sights, Granada is known for it's high population of ex-patriots, and certainly it is more expensive to live in for the very reason that it is very popular for backpackers. Among some of the interesting images we found in Granada were dying dogs, clowns who defenitely make the children laugh, and an abundance of foods sold in the local market, some more appetizing than others. The trip was a nice day in a place that seems so different than where I'm living now. My brother enjoyed getting away, and I was able to take a deep breathe before heading back to Catarina.
On the bus back to Catarina I met one of the coolest backpackers I've every come into contact with. The Portugese Neuro-Surgeon decided that his days in the operating room were no longer satisfying his need to experience things he wanted in life. So without a second thought he decided he was going to spend the next 3 months of his life traveling from Costa Rica northward to Mexico City. He is a brillant young man with a promising future as a doctor, but he told me that neuro-surgery was just not for him. I don't think he'll have any problem finding his place in this world because he can speak Spanish, Portugese, Italian, English, and French. He defenitely has plenty of places to choose from when he decides what exactly he wants to do next. Needless to say I am defenitely planning a trip to Portugal to hang out with my new friend soon. There are great people out in the world, and it is cool to come into contact with them a long the way. In reality it reminds me that there really aren't amazing things to be done, but small things to be done by amazing people. I think I'm stealing that from Mother Theresa, but it sounds good.

The FAM...Or at least half of them.

Well today has been a long day. I usually sleep pretty well, but last night sometime around 1 Oclock in the morning the electricity went out as it often does. This occurance prevoked all of the stray dogs in town to go after one anothers food supply. The result was obnoxious dog barking and fighting that lasted more than two hours. I obviously was not able to sleep through the chaos, and in the window of time that I was tossing and turning I started to have a neurotic, incoherent, internal monologue in spanish that ultimately kept me up until almost 5 am. My alarm was set for 5:45, so you can imagine how excited I was to go catch a bus to the neighboring town where we were to recieve our lessons this morning. The first words out of my mouth this morning were "No Dormi Nada!" "Yo voy a tener un mal dia" "I did not sleep any" and "I'm going to have a bad day". When you set out with that kind of attitude it can be difficult to change things, but after teaching my 2:00 class this afternoon I felt like a million bucks. There is something that just feels right about taking a group of kids that don't know much about business or creativity and showing them that they actually know more than they ever imagined. I started my lesson by talking about products like cell phones which now have camera's, stereo's, and computers in them. I showed them my book bag which has a water cooler attached to it, and explained how all of these products were a result of someone's creativity. After doing my best to teach them about product development they all recieved a blank paper cut out of a shirt, shoe, or hat. Each student had 20 minutes to design their own product and then sell me their product in the market, and explain to me how they used their own creativity to inhance their product.

Sometimes it can be a real challenge to get the kids to think for themselves. They are very accustomed to just copying the ideas of others, or taking exactly what their teachers give them and writing it down word for word. The "La Empresa Creativa" course that we are teaching is geared towards a new style of teaching and pushes us to expect more from the students. The truth is that if Nicaragua has a future it is in the hands of the kids that are in our classes. Over 60% of the countries population are under 30 years old and less than 5% of the countries population is college educated, so we have to start now and show them a path to a brighter future. After leaving my class I felt renewed and made my way up to the soccer field to get into another game of pick up. There is just nothing like unwinding on the soccerfield with the everpresent Volcan Mumbacho staring at me as I soak up the last bit of sun on a Wednesday afternoon.

Soccer?

Today marks the first time in my life that I have every played a competitive game of soccer. After finally giving in to the temptation around me to involve myself in this competitive sport that I never even considered playing, I walked to the local tienda bought a new pair of soccer shoes, and a soccer ball. The soccer ball by the way immediately makes me the most popular person in the town. I rallied my brother, David the other PC Volunteer, and his brother and we made our way up to the Football Field. Oh yea, and Football is actually soccer everywhere in the world other than in the United States.


The young Nicaraguans who are in much better shape than I was at anytime in my life were poised to run us all over the field. The only request they had was that we play each game for 5 dollars. Just so you know 5 dollars is equal to approximately 100 Cordobas which would surpass the amount of money that many families make in one week. Not to mention It's more than 10% of my weekly pay. Besides I didn't think it was a good idea to mix gambling, my competitive nature, and the fact that I am trying to build bridges not burn them. Either way after sitting out one game we finally had our chance to play against the winning team. My team of five consisted of 2 American non soccer players, my Nicaraguan brother who is less athletic than I will be when I am 60 years old, and 2 guys who could barely match up with the worst 2 players on the opposing team. This made us the clear underdog.

After going down 2-0 in the first several minutes a fire started burning inside of me. I suddently felt that SOCCER was something I should naturally be good at. I mean what have I ever not been good at? At least this was the question I asked myself, so humor me for a minute. On the very next play we broke up the field and one of my teammates centered the ball to me. Without a flinch I struck the ball perfectly so that it went into the upper right hand corner of the goal. Of course my immediate reaction was to scream GOAL!!!!! as loud as I could despite the fact that we were still down by one goal. What happened in the next few minutes I couldn't even believe. I scored the next 3 goals as we stormed to a 4-2 lead. Each time I scored the celebration became more obnoxious. By this point many of the school girls had began watching and giggling at my on field celebrations. Furthermore much of the crowd will be in my class tomorrow afternoon when I show up to teach.

The game only got more exciting as I realized after scoring our 5th goal that we actually were playing first to ten. This posed a minor dilemma since I was already ready to throw up the rice and beans I'd eaten for lunch. Nevertheless I dug deep into the reserve tank and reminded myself that this was one place that I could gain some respect. Soccer is very popular here and they didn't care whether this was my 1st ever competitive game or my 101st game. We went down 9-8 on two really bad goal keeping errors at which time I demanded to take over as goalie. Immediatelely after making this executive decision I was able to stop two shots on goal, and preserve a final chance to get back in the game. After one save I found one of my team mates streaking up the field completely free of defenders, and so I threw the ball as far as I could landing it just ahead of his sprint, just as he reaached the ball the goalie started after him to try and stop the shot before it got deep into the zone. Just one great cross step later my team mate Orlando had an open shot on goal that he walked in to tie the game at 9-9. Of course I wouldn't even be telling this story if we hadn't won the game in dramatic fashion.

The most amazing thing about this afternoon is not that I played competitive soccer for the first time in my life and won on a last second goal, but that this morning I was sour. I couldn't seem to get excited about anything. This is really how fast the tide can turn. In the morning I can be struggling to spit out a few sentences in spanish, and by the afternoon I can be celebrating a victory on the soccer field with my new friends. It just goes to show that every moment be it good or bad will pass and open the door for something new and never before experienced. And for these and many other reasons I absolutely love every second of every minute of every day.

Mom, Dad, and Ernesto

Religious Parades are something that I am starting to get used to here in Nicaragua. Nearly every month of the year is a celebration month for one of the many patron saints. The various peublos in Nicaragua each celebrate a Saint at a different time during the year. These festivities are characterized by very loud noises. It is not uncommon to awake at 3:30 in the morning to a full 20 person marching band playing their songs in between explosions of home made fire works. This would seem unusual in most parts of the world, but you must remember that many of the citizens that are over the age of 30 years old in this country can remember days when the explosions were not homemade fireworks, but gun shots and bombs in their streets. From 1978 until 1985 Nicaragua was in a constant state of 'WAR". Thousands of Nicaraguas children were killed, and many families fled so that their children's lives could be spared. Today we celebrate with many of the same sounds and the excitement that floods the streets on the days in which Saints are being celebrated, I must admit can be contagious. Although, it does cause a little frustration when it comes before 6:00 am on a school day.

It's Sunday morning and I am getting ready to go on a hike down to the Laguna near my house. It's about an hour hike down, and after sitting in the sun for several hours it's always a little longer getting back up. The weekends are usually very relaxing. Last night one of the other Peace Corps Volunteers had a birthday party and we also spent the day at Volcan Masaya which is one of the most active volcanoes in the world.
Today is fathers day, and the US Open is on television in the U.S. I can imagine a nice, warm, Sunday afternoon of laying on the couch watching Tiger Woods and other great golfers slug it out while the burgers cook on the grill outside. I recieved an email this week that the HEELS are back in the College World Series, and beach trips to Wrightsville would be a weekly necessity by this point. These are just a few of the things that come to mind on a Sunday far away from home. The truth is that while it may sound like home sickness it is really just part of the cultural adaptation process. I love so many things about the life that I left behind in order to understand how others live. Nobody ever said this was going to be easy, and although it is the most exhilirating time of my life it is at times very challenging. Family and friends are so often taken for granted, but when you have to experience life without them around you start to realize how they are in so many ways the fuel for your life. Unfortunately those friends and family can't always give you the purpose that you crave in your life, and sometimes your pursuit of purpose can take you away from them, but on the other side of it all is the time when you get all of those relationships back and you have gained a new perspective on life a long the way.

Welcome to Catarina!

Allright, well the long awaited first blog entry from Catarina, Nicaragua is here! I have told many of you that internet connections are really slow here. That information is true, but naturally I was waiting for the anticipation go grow so that when I finally released the first blog entry we would have somethings to really get excited about. The photograph above is a picture of the nearby volcanoe and laguna where me and my friends pass time on the weekends. The school that I am teaching in sits at the top of a hill and the photograph was taken from that very spot. My family here in Catarina is a traditional catholic family with strong values and great love for one another. They have taken me in as one of there own, and although I'm sure at times they are second guessing their decision, for the most part they seem pretty happy to have me around.
Pictures have a tough time telling the story of what my days are like here. In the mornings at around 5:30 or 6:00 I wake up to a refreshing bucket shower. Within minutes of bathing I usually have a wonderful breakfast of beans, rice, eggs, and several cups of instant coffee. At 8 oclock I start class, but I usually spend an hour or so trying to finish up the homework I put off from the night before. After four hours of learning spanish in a 1 on 2 setting I return home for lunch. The afternoon consists of either talking with community business owners, or giving lessons in the secondary school, IN SPANISH! I can only try to paint the picture of an open air classroom with 50 students ranging in age between 15 and 18 years old trying to listen to the cocky american give his first 45 minute lesson in Spanish. Let's just say their is plenty of room to grow...
The weekends never come to soon because I'm usually exhausted and looking forward to the break. I have managed to join the local basketball team in Catarina which plays in a competitive league in a local city. When I say competitive I mean referees, fouls, 4 quarter times basketball. The excitement level in these games is like nothing I've ever experienced in all my years of competitive sports. OK, maybe there have been a few moments that exceed the Masaya Basketball League, but as far as I'm concerned this is ACC hoops at it's best, and let me tell you I hold my own out there.
On Sunday I was given the opportunity to know the source of my food a little more intimately. I knew something was up when a chicken had been tied up to a bench outside my room for two days but I didn't think much of it. I made the mistake a few weeks ago of joking with my mama that I'd like to learn to prepare Arroz y Pollo at some point. Well, what I didn't realize is that this would involve first killing the chicken. So naturally after I had slept in until about 9 oclock Sunday morning the entire family was gathered outside of my room awaiting what would be my next lesson in how different things are in Nicaragua. My intitial reaction when confronted with this opportunity was to back down, but with my little nephew Alex staring up at me and gesturing with his arms as though he himself were ringing the neck of the chicken I just couldn't say NO! So after the legs of this poor animal had been tied together I was shown how to hold the neck. Without thinking of what was really going on here I closed my eyes, squinted in fear, and let loose slinging the chicken into a wind up that I'm sure only prolonged the suffering of what would become in three hours my lunch. Of course after all that I assumed the hard part was over, but I was sadly mistaken. The process had only begun, we had to of course remove all of the feathers after bathing the dead chicken in boiling water, and then the slicing and dicing began. Intestines were removed and it turns out that the stomach is actually a fine piece of meat once you've separated the lining from the eatable section. So after about an hour of prep the chicken was finally ready to go into the stew of vegetables and rice that would feed our entire family for just one simple meal.
It is experiences like this that I am starting to really enjoy. The beauty of the simple things that happen every day is starting to win me over, and the people albeit difficult to understand at times have really stolen my heart.