December

First of all, apologies for such a long gap in posting. Matt and I have had a very busy month and a half. That said, I thought I would do a quick post to bring you all up to date and let you know what happened in December.

As Matt mentioned in the previous post, we had a huge event in Somoto for World AIDS Day (December 1^st). Working together with my sitemate, we applied for money from a program known as VAST. VAST funds are funds made available to Peace Corps volunteers through the United States PEPFAR program, or the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief. The “largest commitment by any country to combat a single disease in history,” PEPFAR was enacted in 2003 during the Bush Administration and provides funding internationally to HIV/AIDS prevention programs worldwide.

Me, working on the banner.

Using funding from VAST and local organizations, we helped to organize a World AIDS Day Concert in Somoto with a well-known Nicaraguan artist, Perrozompopo. The band agreed to donate their time for the event and we set to work organizing a health fair the likes of which had never been seen in Somoto, including games like dart and ring tosses, informational health booths, cultural acts and our own, home-made condom mascot suit. We had roughly 300 adolescents attend the concert and health fair, and were able to measure before and after results, finding that they actually did learn from the event. It was the first time that local organizations had seen an event like this, the first time they had ever thought to evaluate to see if it actually work, and most importantly the first time that they realized the benefits of multiple organizations working together. All in all, a great success.

The start of a long weekend....it eventually becomes a large, man-sized condom suit.

And here it, looking more like a crayon than anything else...

But in the end, he turned out pretty well!

The health fair was a success.

And the concert also went over well (with our banner in the background!)

Just after that, Matt and I headed down to the beach for our Close of Service Conference. It was three days chock full of information about the logistics of leaving Peace Corps and how to deal with the inevitable of returning to the States and finding jobs. While the conference was very useful and the setting beautiful, I unfortunately spent most of it in bed with the worst chest cold of my life. I managed to lose my voice completely for the first time in my life the day before our final language interviews (where they evaluate our progress over two years). Needless to say, I had to postpone mine. We did however get to see some adorable baby sea turtles hatch at a hatchery right in front of our room and head out to sea! And in the end, Matt and I both ended up with a Spanish level of “Advanced-Mid”. Two levels down from native speaker, so not too shabby.

Look at how tiny the turtle is!

Another guy just trying to make his way to the sea.

Finally, at the end of December we headed home for the holidays to spend some much needed time away with family and friend in the states. It was a whirlwind trip, chock-full of movies, bowling, chatting and lots of food. (Matt managed to gain 10 pounds over the course of 10 days. Still not in the positive though – he lost 25 when he first got to Nicaragua!). Thanks to our families for a wonderful trip home (and to Mrs. Lyttle’s class for letting us come and share our experiences with them for a morning).

Professional bowlers at work...

But we know who the real professional is....

Some New Year's Eve fun.

So, December was a good month. We’ve now settled back in to things in Somoto and are frantically trying to finish up projects and begin to make plans for the readjustment back home. It will be harder than it sounds. Two years is a long time to spend in one place and I think that we are both starting to realize how much it feels like home. We’ll see what the next three months bring us. Probably a lot of hard work and a lot of mixed emotions.