All Volunteer Conference, Turkey Day, and Somoto Carnaval

It´s been a wild couple of weeks here in Nicaragua and the hits just keep on coming. We apologize for not updating the blog recently,o but maybe after reading this post you´ll understand why. Last week Jess and I went to Managua to participate in the 2009 All Volunteer Conference. This is a time when every single Peace Corps volunteer in Nicaragua gets together to learn about other projects going on in country. On Tuesday morning over 170 volunteers arrived at Las Mercedes Hotel in Managua. The conference only lasted until Thursday morning, but it was several months in planning, as Jess can attest to. She was on the steering committee that organized the whole show.At AVC we had a chance to catch up with friends, meet newer volunteers, and plan for future projects. Our group, Health 46, is now the longest serving group in Nicaragua, which means we´re the next to head home. Also at AVC was a group that swore in as volunteers just a day before the conference started. So, we really ran the whole gamut of time in country. Also, every sector was represented at AVC. We´ve mentioned before that there are 5 different types of volunteers in Nicaragua:
- Health (us)
- Environment
- Agriculture
- Small Business
- Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL)

Jess and I were able to walk around and see the kind of work these sectors are doing and imagine how their projects could be incorporated into the work of the health volunteers. For us, some of the most exciting projects are being done by the Agriculture sector, where improved stoves and ovens, biodigesters, and drip irrigation are all the rage. If anyone is interested in those ideas, let us know and we´ll put up a separate post.

The theme of AVC was “Food Security in Nicaragua.” Therefore, we were trying to tie in each sector’s work with the idea of improved food security. Jess led a session on cooking with soy, where she make all sorts of different veggie burgers. Another volunteer in the same session showed us how to make butter and buttermilk from scratch!

Another big piece of AVC was professional development. We had visitors from all walks of life who talked about their careers and the possibilities that lie ahead for returned Peace Corps volunteers. As you can imagine, that was particularly interesting for our group, as we´re all starting to polish up our resumes for March.

After AVC all volunteers had the option to spend Thanksgiving with an American family that works at the US Embassy. Jess and I, and about 15 other volunteers, ended up at the house of Richard Sanders, the Deputy Chief of the US Embassy in Managua. While the US ambassador is in charge of relations with the host country, Mr. Sanders is basically in charge of all embassy operations. He has an incredible house on a hill in Managua from where you can easily spot several volcanoes and one enormous lake. It was beautiful. Since we´re all so far from friends and family it was very nice to be able to spend some time speaking English and enjoying American traditions. And the food! We had a monster buffet that included all of the following:

- Turkey

- Mashed Potatoes

- Stuffing

- Gravy

- REAL cranberry sauce

- Eggplant Parmesan

- Meatloaf

- Vegetables

- Pumpkin Pie

- Lemon Meringue

- Brownies

- Ice Cream

- Cookies

- And more that I can´t remember but can still taste…

Friday morning Jess and I got up super early (4am) to get back to Somoto in time for work. We also had a lot of house cleaning to do. Saturday was Somoto´s famous Carnaval and we wanted to make the most of it. We invited a bunch of volunteers to our house for the weekend. Saturday morning we all went to the Canyon, and for the first time ever Jess and I made it through all 7km of hiking and swimming. It took about 7.5 hours in total. After the Canyon we all took a rest and got ready for Carnaval, which is a very famous Somoto tradition. Every November Somoto invites some of Nicaragua´s most famous bands to an all night music fest. 6 city blocks are fenced off and 8 separate stages are set up for the bands. The music started at 8 and didn’t end until somewhere near 6am. Jess and I only made it to 3 in the morning, but that was better than last year. Here are some pictures of the day:

These are the signs that were recently put up at the different canyon entrances. Hopefully they are the start of better protection of the area.

This is our Gringo Train just starting to enter the canyon. We walk for about 2.5 hours before finally cooling off in the river.

Here's Jess and our sitemate, Katie. Looking good, ladies!

This is fellow Nica 46er and married man, Kory, contemplating the route ahead.

You have to scurry your way back and forth across the river. A lot of fun, but it gets tiring!

This is our Peace Corps group, Nica 46, minus 3 people. We came into the country with 19 and now we're 14. With four months left, it's safe to say we'll all make it!
Here's a video from inside the canyon. This is the last part of the hike and the first part of the swim. You can see we had the option of lifevests or innertubes. The little boats were just for bags. Pretty exciting!

After a long day in the canyon, here's the group getting ready for carnaval. You can see the white blur of Astro, who was upset he didn't get to do the canyon. No doggie lifevests here...

Good friends were made at Carnaval, here's Kory and I with a couple of Nicaraguan friends.

So, as you can see, we´ve been very busy. Tuesday was a huge day for Jess. It was World AIDS Day (all over the world, surprisingly) so she organized a concert here in town. Jess was able to get a fairly famous Nicaraguan group to agree to come to Somoto and give a concert for free. We had an informational fair focused on HIV and then a concert from 5 to 7. Overall, we had an attendance of about 400 people. Look for more on this event and pictures later in the week!

Here´s some more photos for the Astro and Yoda book: