finalmente

en el nombre de dios y por la comprensión y la amistad entre la gente y las naciones, solemnemente me comprometo a trabajar con dedicación y entusiasmo en las tareas que me señalen, durante dos años o durante el tiempo que dure mi permanencia en el país.

prometo esforzamente por afianzar vínculos de afecto y solidaridad con el pueblo nicaragüense, mediante el respeto mutuo y una verdadera vocación de servicio.

por dios. por la patria. por la paz.

after 24 months from initially submitting my application to the peace corps, i have finally become a peace corps volunteer!  it involved 3 months just waiting to be interviewed, a year of waiting to finally be cleared for service, and then another 6 months of waiting to leave once i had my invitation in hand.  at some points i wasn’t even sure it was ever going to happen.  i thought that once i got on the plane, i was golden. finally on my way to peace corps service.  i arrived to find out that wasn’t the case.  i had become an aspirante del cuerpo de paz and the next three months were going to train and test me to make sure that i wanted to do this job, and to make sure they wanted me to do it. so it was no small feat arriving at this point.

about twelve weeks ago i had just finished moving out of my house and moving most of my possessions to my parents’ garage.  i was running around trying to tie up loose ends and buy some last minute supplies before leaving in the morning to head to DC to meet up with the rest of my training cohort.  i had no idea what was going to happen, and i felt incredibly nervous.  “why the hell did i think this was a good idea?” kept running through my mind as i thought about the life i was leaving behind. i trusted myself and the fact that i had made the decision in a much better, more reasoned, state of mind instead of the panic i was feeling at that moment. plus, this was the opportunity i could never pass up. i would have hated myself if i had turned it down. 

i managed to pack the important things of my life into three bags, said my goodbyes and headed to the airport. PC had always seemed like an awesome thing, and now it was a reality.  i realized the gravity of what i was doing.  i was leaving fairly comfortable life in the states to live in the developing world with much different conditions for two years. the adventure had started, and i finally was on my way to PC service after 21 months of waiting.

what exactly happened in training? tons of stuff. almost every day we had things planned, whether it was language class, tech sessions learning more about the curriculum we are teaching, actually teaching class, or working with a group of kids to form a microempresa and guiding them through the commercialization process. it was crazy. most days started at 8am and didn’t finish until around 6.

specifically with the youth group, we had about 12 kids who came twice a week as we discussed things like idea generation, market studies, costing, budgeting, marketing/packaging, plus “life skills” charlas about decision making and communication skills.  i went into the project not quite sure i had any idea how to guide these kids through this process, but it turned into one of the better parts of training and most fun.  i would joke with the kids and talk about how i love eskimo, a local ice cream shop here, and they thought it was hilarious. as a result they always joked with me about how i go to eskimo all the time. our group ended up taking third place in the competition between all the training groups!

during training i quickly realized that i have made 28 new friends. the intense process of training has brought us all together at a much faster pace than other friendships may develop.  we went through the same experiences, and were able to share our frustrations and struggles together.  especially with the business volunteers, considering we saw each other at least three times a week.

we were able to spend all weekend in managua after swearing in hanging out and celebrating this major milestone; all the while none of us wanted to leave the friends we had. it was comfortable to be with each other.  we celebrated finishing training and wondered what the next two years will hold for each of us. i think we all were anxious about heading out on sunday to our sites.  after spending such an intense time together saying goodbye to everyone was rough. still, we managed to head out on sunday on our own. we all were ready to get to our sites and get to work.

looking back, many of my worries from 12 weeks ago seem so far away. in a lot of ways it seems like i have been here for such a long time. i'm embracing life here in nicaragua.  it's amazing to think of how far things have come since arriving.  it seems like yesterday and an incredibly long time all at once. i don't expect this experience to be easy, but i expect it to be unlike anything else i've done, and something that most people only dream of doing. nothing worth doing is easy right? work starts at 7am. what will it be? no idea, but it will be an adventure. even more than it has been already. i’m so excited that this has finally come!

site

last monday was counterpart day where all of the new principals and local technical coordinators from the ministry of education came to managua and met with us to plan out what we were going to do during our site visit. well... that was what was supposed to happen.

the masatepe crew met up at 630am in the park to catch a microbus into managua, and then peace corps picked us up from the bus station and took us to the retreat center.  as we sat and waited for the sessions to start, counterparts started to file in. i waited... and waited... and waited some more...  we started the sessions and still no counterparts.  apparently there had been a mix up with letters and the word hadn't been relayed to the counterparts until that morning or even later, so i didn't have anyone come because it is about 4 hours by bus from my site to managua. it made planning really easy though!

the north side of the city from the mirador

freshly roasted, straight from the finca

so i hoped on a bus solo headed towards my site in the north. i got there around 1030 am and met up with the volunteer i'm replacing to show me around.  found my host family's house and started to get to know them.  they are very nice people.  there are two parents, maria and francisco, both in their late 50's, and two siblings that live in the house, eunice and francisco. both are in their mid to late 20's.  and then juan, the uncle lives next to me. wilbur, eunice's boyfriend seems to be around all the time too. they own a coffee farm up in the mountains, and only drink fresh coffee that they have harvested.  i am super excited to go up to the finca to check it out.  getting involved with coffee farmers is one of my side interests, so i'm excited to be living with some!

the rest of the city. my house is near the radio towers in the middle

i have a small room in the back of the property next to juan.  the biggest thing that i noticed when i walked in was that the shower doesn't have a roof. it just has 3 concrete walls about 5.5' high and a shower curtain. i've decided it will be like camping... every day. haha. my rent will be about $55 a month and i can cook for myself.  i was very clear about that in all of my site preference sheets. cooking is relaxing for me, and i feel like i have accomplished something after.  i can also eat with the family if i want and just pay on a per meal basis. i'm pretty happy with the arrangement... even if my shower doesn't have a roof. i guess i can just save water when it's raining?

the central park

so my site! it was a little smaller than i was expecting, but i think it is a nice size.  it is nestled in the hills on all sides.  it is gorgeous to look out and see the hills surrounding the city.  my house is located about two blocks from the center of town, which is very convenient for getting around. i like my house here in masatepe, but it has been frustrating at times because it is so far from where most everything is going on. i feel like i can't go out after dark sometimes. speaking of that, it seems relatively safe too. the main part anyways. i was warned of several sectors on the outskirts of town that are dangerous after dark. 

fridays are apparently remittance day. later there were
plastic chairs lined up in the street while people waited.
i also like this picture because it shows several
 different modes of transportation in the city.

there are plenty of NGOs based in the city. i visited the two main ones that i have been assigned, plus two others. there are several others that i want to go meet once i get back in two weeks. i don't think i'll be at a loss for work.  all of them are working on rural income generation projects, which is really cool stuff. i'm excited to do some cross-cutting work with other health and nutrition projects too. 

i wasn't able to meet as many of my school counterparts as i would have liked.  this coming week is "winter" break for the kids, so schools canceled class on thursday (makes total sense). i was able to check out two sections of the entrepreneurship class though, and the kids seem pretty interested in the material as well as the teacher. i also tried meeting the two representatives of the ministry of education four times each, but they were out on community visits every time i came. 

my new ride!

the volunteer i'm replacing was moving out while i was visiting, so i hung around with him some, and he showed me around since my counterparts weren't there. i also was able to benefit from him not wanting furniture and other random things like clothes hangers, shelves, and, most importantly, a bike! $32 and i have a sweet new ride to get around town. it is complete with rain guards and a basket too!

here are some other random pictures that i forgot about from before:

georgia and yacarely before giving us our site packets

the norteños

these guys weren't as excited, but they put on a good face.

the postit notes for all of our locations!

site assignment!

training continues day by day. i am counting down the days until i become a real volunteer, or it kind of feels like until i become a "big kid." 20 left, if anyone wonders.

last week we had our site assignment session where we found out where our new homes will be for the next two years.  we all were very anxious about where we would be going.  i got my first choice! it is a department capital in the north of the country. a state capital in the states would be a good way to give a reference point for it's role in the country.

i'll be working primarily with three teachers in two schools doing some follow-up work from what the previous volunteer did. from what i am told, this will be maybe 4 classes a week or so (there are more but i don't have to go to every class) plus some meeting with the teachers outside of class to go over planning and course content. just to be clear, the course i'm talking about is emprendendurismo (entrepreneurship), a course that used to just be a peace corps thing, but now has been folded into the national curriculum and is required of all high school seniors.  the idea is that we can help give them some skills to start their own business, and thereby create an income source, or have some other skills to be a good employee for someone else's business. sounds simple right? it's not, but that's the idea of what we're trying to do in the schools.

i've also been assigned to main NGOs working in the community. the first, movimiento comunal nicaragüense (MCN) is a national network of community-based organizations that provide training, accompaniement, and legal advice to community groups (the spanish challenged can read here). specifically they want help with designing and conducting training workshops on business management skills, establishing a participatory methodology to provide technical assistance, design promotional materials, and help strengthen current credit policy for the microcredit program.

the second, acción contra el hambre (ACH) is an international ngo working on a comprehensive natural resources manangement project in the region to reduce the impact of climate change and increase the resiliency of vulnerable families (again, english version here).  my responsibilities will be identifying groups with potential income generation activities, coordinating with other agriculture volunteers in the area to build 20 improved ovens to start bakeries, SWOT analyses and feasibility studies, market research, and assistance writing simplified business plans with the beneficiaries. i am really excited to start baking classes. :D

that's the big update on where i'll be. the rest of training continues to just chug along.  i've finished the 6 classes of required teaching in the schools, we just have a business competition left with our youth group, and a few more tech sessions.  things are starting to wind down!  or up i guess depending on how you look at it...  on monday i meet the principal of the school and the MINED (ministry of education) technical coordinator for the department and then travel with them to somoto on tuesday.  i'll be there until saturday checking things out, meeting other people, and just getting a lay of the land.  i can't wait!