Our Trip to Nicaragua by Matthew's Parents

A Trip to Nicaragua by Matthew's Parents

Dave and I had an unbelievable experience visiting Jess and Matthew in Nicaragua this summer. We were there for ten days in August.

After arriving at the Managua Airport, it was hugs and kisses as Jess and Matthew met us just the other side of Customs. The flights from New Jersey to Houston and Houston to Managua were smooth. We left our home at 4 in the morning, and we were in country in time to eat lunch with Mathew and Jess.
We stayed at a beautiful hacienda-like hotel in Managua. At night after swimming in the warm pool, we sat on the veranda in our wicker rocking chairs. Palm trees all around us and the calls of some native birds…we knew we weren’t in New Jersey anymore!

We were fascinated and a bit alarmed by the method of providing hot water in the showers. Cold water passed through an electric fixture which heated the water quite warmly. The bothersome part was seeing the electric plug in the wall above the shower head.

We visited the Peace Corps office (El Cuerpo de Paz) and met some of the administrative people that make decisions that keep our kids safe. One item of interest is there is a bell hanging in the entrance of the Peace Corps. Volunteers ring this bell on their last day of service.

We grocery-shopped (we needed lots of goodies and drinks for our road trips) at a market run by Wal-Mart. They had everything. The prices seemed high. There were two categories of fruits, vegetables and meat. One was sold for in country and the others for exporting outside the country; these were the better quality. The price difference was painful.

The next morning we headed towards Somoto to visit Jess and Matthew’s home. We stopped at an incredible hideaway restaurant. We entered a small wooden structure and wondered what the food would be like. After placing our order we walked through an open doorway into an unexpected beautiful area of gardens, ducks, and a babbling brook. It was an amazing sight. A Scotsman and his Nicaraguan wife run the establishment; it is noted for its magnificent breads. We each ordered bread with various sides: applesauce, fruit, cheese, hummus, honey. Delicious!
We walked through the gardens after eating. The flowers, bushes and cacti covered the landscape.

We stopped for the night in Esteli. We drove up to the hotel and passed horse and ox drawn carts. The hotel had a stucco front and looked small. Again upon entering the hotel we were greeted by a two story building with balconies looking down upon a beautiful garden. Again unexpected.

Dave enjoyed an excellent meal at the hotel restaurant.

We shopped in Esteli…everything imaginable was sold in one shop or another. Esteli is noted for leather crafts. We grocery shopped and were introduced to Matthew’s favorite treat, chocolate milk in a foil pouch..a little tricky and messy to drink.

The best part of the trip for me was seeing where Jess and Matthew live and, of course, meeting Astro.

Somoto is a friendly, busy town. The storefronts are colorful. There is a beautiful church across the street from a lovely park. The market is a bustling center of fruits, vegetables and hanging meats. There, at various stalls, women will cook you a fine meal. Everything comes with rice and beans. We enjoyed that very much. A university is housed in buildings from a U.S. Marine presence in Nicaragua in the 1930’s.

We took a walking tour of Somoto, watched Astro run down the slide at the playground, and said “adios” (a hello greeting) to every person that passed.

The highlight of our visit to Somoto was a trip to the barbershop. Matthew wanted Dave to experience a real Nicaraguan extra special haircut and shave. It took one and half hours and five razor blades to complete the experience.

Dave’s face was shaved, oiled, lotioned, powdered,

massaged and was as soft as a baby’s bottom. Jess and I enjoyed watching and taking photos.

Matthew's turn...

Matthew and Jess introduced us to various aspects of their work. We cheered on Jess’s basketball team of young girls. We visited Casa Materna where women from the countryside, who will give birth in a month’s time, will stay to be closer to the hospital. We went to the health clinic built by the Irish earlier this year.

Somoto has a beautiful, new library with very few books for children. Students in my school bought a set of encyclopedias in Spanish for the children. Dave and I brought 70 children’s books. When we opened the suitcase, kids swarmed us, grabbing books. Within minutes they were reading, laughing and sharing the books. It was a wonderful sight!

We were fortunate to meet some dear friends of Matthew and Jess’s, Agnauton and Silvia, and their two daughters, Adriana, 10, and Ena Sophie, 5. They were excellent hosts sharing their home with us. The food was fantastic and we enjoyed watching videos together and playing Uno with the girls.

The most touching and heart-wrenching experience was our visit to a health clinic held in the countryside. Taiwanese doctors and dentists, who travel to Central American countries, set up a clinic in a school. People left their homes as early as 4 in the morning to walk to this clinic. Some would be seeing a medical professional for the first time in their lives. Jess and Matthew acted as interpreters. Many people cannot read but needed to understand the medicine directions.
Dave and I spoke to many of the English-speaking doctors. We also had great “conversations” with young children. Somehow with our meager Spanish and their eagerness to understand us, we had an amazing time learning about the children’s families and lives.
One item to note is that although the wait was long and the weather hot, each person waited patiently in line; we never heard a child complain about the wait or the heat. All were dressed in their very best. Little girls wore their newest dresses and lace-trimmed socks. This was an important day. Nicaraguans care very much about their appearance.
We stayed for several hours and learned so much about the people, their culture, their warmth; about Jess and Matthew’s work.
The rest of the trip was “touristy”. We visited several big cities: Leon, Granada, Masaya and Managua. Driving was interesting. Often we had to wait for some cattle to cross the road…at their pace.
Driving in Managua was as frightening as in any big city. Basically the roads to and from the cities were fairly well-maintained two-lane highways.
In Leon, we learned about the Sandinistas, Ruben Dario (Nicaragua’s Robert Frost/Walt Whitman/Carl Sandburg), and climbed to the top of the cathedral roof. What a view! In every direction we could see volcanoes. Dave wanted us to be sure in which direction was New Jersey.
We stayed at a most fantastic hotel and met the American who owned it. It was a paradise place.
In Masaya, famous for its craft market, we shopped for souvenirs and gifts.

In Granada we walked to the mouth of a volcano and traveled into the earth into a bat cave. We visited the volcano during the day and night. What an experience.
We needed gas masks to travel to the other side of the volcano. The fumes are toxic.

Our next stop was a tiki-kind of hostel. There along a beautiful warm lake (a former volcano) we swam, ate bread and cheese and fruit and relaxed for a day.

The final leg of our tour was an all-inclusive paradise resort. We had a gorgeous warm pool one hundred steps away in one direction, and the Pacific Ocean one hundred steps in the other direction.

It was heart-breaking to say good-bye to Jess and Matthew, but we know they are happy: they are doing important work; and they have many friends. We love them and are very proud!We encourage everyone to plan a trip to visit Matthew and Jess. Experience Nicaragua…its welcoming, friendly people; its dramatic and volatile history; its colorful and lively culture.

Jess the Incredible Photographer

As promised, here are a few of the great photos Jess has taken over the past year. She's got a special knack for kids, but the butterfly photo is too good to not post! Look out, National Geographic!

Additionally, the organization Matt used to work with in Albany, Food Pantries for the Capital District, is now offering a fantastic calendar featuring recipes from the best restaurants around Albany. Matt helped put the calendar together last year and took some of the photos that go with the recipes. The calendars are being sold for $10 each, and they are of great quality. Please take a look! www.foodpantries.net

Thanks, everybody!

A Weekend at the Beach!

As mentioned in the last post, Monday was one of Nicaragua´s biggest holidays, with the celebration of their patron saint, Mary. Called the Purísima, all of the catholics get together at houses, churches, and little alters set up in the streets to pray together. Afterwards, the hosts of every service offer little bags of goodies to the visitors. Goodies include 1 foot sections of sugar cane, palm fronds tied into various shapes, and all sorts of other treats. After the services, kids run from house to house singing and chanting to the homeowners. If the people in the house approve, they pass out even more sweets. It´s kind of like Halloween and Christmas caroling all rolled into one. I wish we could tell you more about it, but being that Monday gave us a 3 day weekend, we bolted out of here as soon as work was over on Friday.

Jess and I haven´t taken very many vacations around Nicaragua during this first year of service, so we´ve made a goal to see a lot more during the second year. Even though we don’t get paid very much and don´t have a car, it´s still easy to get out and see the country. There are plenty of buses, with fairs ranging from 10 to 85 córdobas (50 cents to $4.25). To get from Somoto to the beach outside of León takes about 5 hours of riding, 3 different buses, and cost each of us about 100 córdobas ($5). A dollar an hour isn´t too bad!

So, because we haven´t been to the beach on vacation yet, and because Astro hasn´t been to the beach in his whole life, and because it costs $5 to get there and $9 a night in a hotel, we decided to spend our 3 days at in a little costal fishing village called Las Peñitas. I´m not really sure what the translation of peñitas is, so I can´t offer you that little insight. Sorry. The town itself, however, has about 1,000 residents who make their living off of fishing and tourism. As for fishing, they bring in all sorts of ocean creatures from big red snappers to lobsters to little rock scuttling crabs. You could buy a 4 pound steamed lobster with garlic butter anywhere along the beach for $7.50. Amazing!

As for the tourism, the beach at Las Peñitas has about 200 feet of sand between the hotels and the water and stretches to the north and south as far as the eye can see. To the North (on it´s way to Corinto, a big shipping town, and then El Salvador) is another fishing community that´s a little more developed called Penoloya. To the South (towards Nicaragua´s most popular beach, San Juan del Sur, and then Costa Rica) is a protected wildlife reserve called La Isla del Venado, or the Island of the Deer. A lot of visitors come to explore the island by boat. While we didn´t get a chance to do it this trip we were told by the locals that you can see a bunch of different birds, deer, of course, and alligators as long as a pickup truck. We didn´t feel it was smart to go exploring with Astro. As brave as he is, he probably looks like a plucked chicken to alligator. We did walk along the beach side of the island with was completely uninhabitated. The only way we knew we weren´t the islands first visitors were the sparsely scattered footprints. Google Earth Las Peñitas, look a little south, and let us know if there is anybody on the beach – I´d be surprised.

So, Astro, Jess, and I found a room at a beachside hostel/hotel, called El Oasis.

There was a resident old dog there named Chinga, which means something like ¨stubby tale¨. As you know, Astro also gets comments on his chinga, so he and this dog were immediately good friends. They ran around the beach from dusk to dawn the two days we were there, with Chinga showing the Astro the ropes of beach-dog-living.

Jess and I read a lot, walked a lot, and even tried our hand at a little surfing and boogie-boarding. The surfing didn’t work out to well, but by the end of the second day we were boogie-baording waves from 50 feet out in the surf to right up on to the sand. It was very exhilarating, to say the least. We ate classic Nica food most meals, but found a great new restaurant in town that served pizza and chicken fajitas. That was a real treat.

All in all, our 3 days at the beach were fantastic, and were well worth the dusty, hot, and bumpy bus rides. We´re heading back to Las Peñitas with Jess´s parents over Christmas, so this weekend also served as a scouting trip for their visit. Plans for that trip include a trip to the island, exploring the beach, and, of course, more boogie boarding!!

Festivities!

The last week or so in Somoto has been a good time. Last weekend was the annual Somoto Carnival. About six blocks were stationed off and in the center there were four stages with different bands playing music. There was food and beer and lots of people.

Apparently nobody enters the carnival before 10 or so, even though the gates are open at about 6. So, Matt and I had a bunch of local volunteers and their friends over to the house to eat and have a few drinks before we headed off to the festivities. We made tacos for 14 and had a great time. The only bad point of the evening was that a few of us were pick-pocketed. I lost about 100 cordobas (5 bucks) but that’s it, and it was my own fault. I had had a few drinks and I put the money in my back pocket, so it was easy for someone to grab. Not too smart.

Yesterday, for Thanksgiving, we also had a few volunteers over to the house and had a wonderful Nicaraguan take on the traditional Thanksgiving meal. We had chicken (turkey is hard to come by) with rice (rice was just easier than stuffing), beets, carrots, challote (a Nicaraguan vegetable), apple salad, a dish with eggs and cheese, mashed potatoes, apple crisp, and (thanks to a package from my mom!) pumpkin pie! I think that I felt more full yesterday than I have in all of my time in Nicaragua…

Thanksgiving crew
Discussing the finer points of tacos before making our way to the carnival.
A couple of volunteers preparing for the long night ahead.

First Project Done!

So, finally one of the big projects that I have been working on is done! For the first 5-6 months of my service, I had been working with a colleague, writing a sexual and reproductive health manual for adolescents. The organization with which I have been working, Horizonte3000, has been educating adolescents in Madriz for the last 3 years, on topics from Self Esteem and Gender Awareness to Pregnancy Prevention, Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV/AIDS. The projects funding runs out as of December 31, and so in an effort to make their work more sustainable, the organization has trained some adolescents to continue as health promoters in their communities once the funds are gone and work is done.

As part of this, Horizonte wanted a health manual, with information and ideas for educational activities that could be left behind with the kids throughout the department So, we decided to write a manual that was packed full of information, but also a little bit fun. What we came up with was a manual that is full of colors and pictures and takes some of its feel from a few Latin American Teen magazines.

In the end, it was far from what I envisioned in the beginning. The ideas that I had were a bit radical for a Nicaraguan project, and so the manual isn’t nearly as much of a Teen Magazine as I had originally wanted, and there were two of us working on the content and design, so the style had to be a combination of our ideas. And after making sure that everything was perfect, the printer messed up a lot of what I had spent endless hours designing. But, given that the project started and ended in a time period when my Spanish wasn’t great, when I wasn’t yet comfortable enough with my colleagues to negotiate well and I wasn’t yet familiar with Nicargua or Madriz, I consider it a success.

Now, its time to spend some time in transition. With the coming holidays and the leaving of my primary project partners, I am pretty sure that December and January will be slow months as I again try to get some projects off the ground, working with new counterparts and new organizations. Ive just started communicating with MINED (the department of education) about a possible project with teachers and health classes in secondary school, but we are a ways from that actually happening yet. But who knows.. we will see what the new year brings in terms of work!

Fall comes to Nicaragua

Yes, you read that right. We seem to have entered Fall here in Nicaragua, and only a few months behind New Jersey and New York. Jess and I are bundled up every night with long pants and sweatshirts. There’s a chilly wind every morning that doesn’t go away until 11am. Our backyard is covered in beanpods, leaves and branches. Really, it’s probably only 60 degrees or so, but that is virtually pneumonia temperatures after living a year in the heat.

You won’t find us complaining, though. It’s great to actually have to sleep under blankets at night, and the smells of the season remind us of home. It seems like everybody up there has already passed that stage, however. We hear about a new snow storm moving in on different volunteers’ homes every week. A bunch of volunteers heading home for Christmas are starting to second-guess their decision.

The sad piece of the season is that this weather marks the end of the rains in Nicaragua. The beautiful grasses and flowers are all starting to dry out, and the mountains around our house are a little less green every day. It’s sad to think the countryside is going to return to the way we first saw it when we arrived in Somoto last March. At least we won’t have to worry about a muddy dog running through the house.

Jess and I went to Managua last weekend for a Peace Corps meeting. Unfortunately, the political turmoil that came after the elections isn’t over yet. One party has rejected the results, claiming various instances of fraud around the country. The other party says they should just stop being sore losers and give up. There’s been some marching in rioting around the country, but it’s been at its worse in Managua. We get news on TV, radio, and in newspapers of confrontations all over the city. Thankfully, there was a lull in the violence during the weekend Jess and I were in Managua. We were able to go to a mall near the Peace Corps office and see the new James Bond movie. Earlier in the day, however, people had been launching morters (big loud fireworks that really don’t do much damage) at the mall parking lots. They said they were doing it to protect the building from attacks from the other party. We’re still trying to figure that one out…

Last night on the news we saw a group of teenagers trash a news truck that was parked near a demonstration meeting point. It’s sad to see for a lot of reasons, but mostly because the violence is so needless and really won’t accomplish anything. So far, there haven’t been any attacks against foreigners or Americans, so we just sit tight and hope it all gets resolved soon. We are very safe in Somoto. All of our friends, neighbors, and co-workers are as saddened by the violence in Managua as we are. We also know that Peace Corps and the U.S. Embassy are monitoring the situation and keep us up to date with important information. If anyone out there is interested in updates, you can take a look at La Prensa Newspaper (www.laprensa.com.ni) or the U.S. embassy site (http://nicaragua.usembassy.gov).


So, enough sad stuff. This weekend is Somoto’s big yearly event: the Carnival. They will close off a good 10 blocks of city streets and will fill the area with 8 stages of music, a bunch of food, and all sorts of other interesting things. We’re looking forward to participating and seeing a bunch of friends who will be making the trek to Somoto. We’ll let you know how it goes!

Traditional Nicaraguan folk dancers.

A Nicaraguan bull on his way to the Rodeo. This is as close as they let us get. Good choice...

A recent visitor to our house. It´s tough to see size here, but this guy was about 3 inches long. Astro battled him to the death, and kept us safe.

Speaking of fall themes, here´s Jess discussing the finer points of indigenous corn production with another Peace Corps volunteer.

Here´s the old cathedral in Managua. It´s right on the lake and one of the few buildings to survive the 1972 earthquake. It isn´t used anymore, but sure is pretty. The sign on the front is political propaganda from the elections. It says, ¨The Nicaraguan race know about fighting and honor.¨ It´s a Sandinista sign.

We thought we were leaving leaf raking behind, but alas, our backyard is covered.

Astro chewing on a branch near a pile of bean pods and leaves in our backyard.

Election Day

A picture Jess took of a girl who attended a recent event of ours. Jess has some incredible photos of Nicaraguan kids. One day we'll have to do a blog post of them...


Jess and I were able to go to a large city near Somoto, Estelí, to watch the presidential elections. Here in Somoto we have friends with CNN in Spanish at home, but we really wanted to watch the elections in English. It turned out several other volunteers in the area had the same thought. So, we ended up spending the night at Luna International Hostel, where we got a private room for $16 a night. About 25 Peace Corps volunteers and a few foreign travelers all huddled around a tiny TV, flipping back and forth between CNN, Fox News, and BBC News. To be honest, most Peace Corps volunteers in Nicaragua are Democrats, so it turned out to be a pretty good time. The Hostel is owned by a British woman who cooks excellent food at a café across the street from the rooms. Jess and I enjoyed meat lasagna, a hamburger and French fries, a side salad, and a bottle of Nicaragua’s newest beer, Victoria Frost, while waiting to hear the results.

It was great watching the elections with (a) people who have the same politics as us, (b) people from all over the country who could tell us what it’s like to vote in Indiana, Virginia, and Tennessee, and (c) people who are experiencing the same sense of disconnect that we are. I try and check the headlines on news websites every time I have a chance to get on the internet, but we all missed the kind of energy that you can feel in the States during an election. Some people had been back home recently and talked about seeing all of the campaign signs on people’s front lawns, or the bumper stickers on the highway. Most of our news and information from the outside world comes second hand from other volunteers or from Nicaraguan newspapers, where we are reading speeches in Spanish that were given in English and then translated to Spanish. You can imagine that a little bit of the luster is lost in the process.

Overall, it was a fun night for everyone, and, thankfully, it actually ended fairly early. We were all in bed by 11:30 (remember, we’re an hour earlier that EST down here).

When we got home on Wednesday, we were reminded that Nicaraguan elections are also taking place this week. While the president isn’t being elected this term, all of the mayors around the country are up. They serve for a 5 year term and cannot run for reelection, so the system is a little different than ours in the States. While Nicaragua has several major political parties, a law was recently passed prohibiting most of the smaller parties from participating, so this year it’s going to be a showdown between the long-time and very bitter rivals, the Liberals and the Sandinistas.

The Liberals, despite their name, could probably most easily be aligned with the US Republican party. They are pro-business, pro-trade with countries like the US, and tend to be against social programs. They really don’t talk about “moral issues”, as they do in the States. Things like abortion and gay rights are prohibited by the Catholic Church, and therefore not even up for discussion. Things like stem cell research won’t be taking place in Nicaragua for a good long while, so there’s no need to discuss it.

The Sandinistas are the remnants of the party that famously overthrew a (Liberal) dictatorship in 1979. They ran the country for 10 years, and then were ousted in 1990 by an alliance of opposition parties. The Sandinistas, and their leader, Daniel Ortega, have been fighting ever since to gain back political power. They’ve always been in control of Nicaragua’s agriculture and transportation sectors, as well as the army, but they haven’t held the presidency since Ortega lost in 1990. Well, in 2006 Ortega won again, but chose not to live in Nicaragua’s Presidential Palace because he felt that it was “El Pueblo, Presidente” (the people are the president), and therefore he didn’t deserve the luxurious mansion that more than twice the size of the US White House. Most people say he didn’t want to move because his house is nicer.

Anyway, the Sandinistas are big into social programs and used to embrace Communism to the utmost extent. Their heroes are Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Sandino ( a local boy and the origin of the name), and the ever-present Che Guevara. While they toned it down a bit for the last election, the Sandinistas of the 80’s promoted Cooperative living and farming and managed to build in army that could field 250,000 soldiers if needed. Today’s Sandinistas have strong ties to Venezuela and Bolivia, but still are on good terms with the US as well as the European Union, both of which give millions of dollars in aid every year. They tend to promote social programs that work towards equality of socio-economic classes and poorer rural communities.

They’ll be voting this week all over the country, and while the Liberals seem to have a good chance in the Southern cities of Managua, Granada, and Leon, they really don’t have a snowball’s chance in a microwave of winning in the north, where we live. Just to give you an idea, in the last mayoral elections (2003) 9,000 Sandinistas voted in Somoto. What to guess how many Liberals? 3,000. You can imagine who won.

Elections are run much differently here than in the States. There are rallies and posters and t-shirts, but they also love to drive up and down the streets in caravans to show support for their candidates. We had a Liberal caravan go by on Sunday and the car horns, music, shouts and fireworks all coming from the backs of pick up trucks was pretty unbearable. Jess and I sat in our patio, where most of the noise couldn’t reach us. Poor Astro had to hide under the futon for most of the day. He doesn’t like fireworks.

Sandinista rally participants.

The Sandinistas rode by today, and the pictures below were taking right outside our door. The Sandinista caravan probably had about 200 motorcycles, 50 bicycles, 75 cars, and 40 busses and trucks. Each one seemed ready to topple over with all of the weight. It was an experience for sure. We’ll be sure to fill you in on who wins in Somoto once the results have been counted next week.

OK, ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS FROM MRS. LYTTLE’S CLASS

How is Astro? Can we see more pictures of him?

Astro is great. He has fully healed from his car accident, although the toenail hasn’t grown in completely yet. He amazes people in the streets with his ability to “speak” both English and Spanish. We’ll try and get some more pictures up of Astro and his antics. He has a lot of dog friends here because he is a very friendly dog. Unfortunately, most of the dogs here are abused and malnourished, so they aren’t into playing as much as Astro is.

Astro was going to run for mayor, but he didn't meet the height requirments. Here he is with a few local supporters.

One of Astro's newest friends.

This is one of Astro's best friends, Hubert. Hubert and his mom, Humphrey, like to eat the weeds that grow next to our house.

Pondering life's mysteries...

What do you do all day long?

Matt spends his mornings in the local health center working on new bulletin boards for the different health posts. The themes are things like diabetes, breast feeding, and HIV. In the afternoons he goes to a rural community around Somoto and has meetings with groups of kids from 10 to 20 years old.

Jess recently finished writing and illustrating a health guide for youth living on the Nicaraguan border with Honduras. The guide covers a lot of things from communication between peers to teen pregnancy, which is a big issue here. She is starting a new project that will hopefully re-work the health class curriculum in the schools in Madriz.

What sports to people play in Nicaragua?

People here love soccer and baseball. They are the long standing traditional sports of Nicaragua. There are even a few Nicaraguans in Major League Baseball in the US. Sports like volleyball and basketball are growing. Older men love billiards. People ride bikes all the time around here, but it’s really just to get around.

What’s up?

Things are normal around here. Jess and I are going about our lives and looking forward to Christmas. We’re going to try and get to a beach for a few days sometime in November. Astro is going to come, too. He’s never been to the beach. It’s tough to believe we have been here almost a year. We pass a lot of time reading, watching movies on our laptop, and walking in the countryside. We also cook a lot of breads and special recipes that we share with our Nicaraguan neighbors.

Are there lizards in Nicaragua?

Yes, a lot. Some are very big (2 feet long), and others are about the size of a mouse. They mousey sized ones actually live in all the houses. On any given night Jess and I see about 5 on our walls. They eat bugs like mosquitoes and make a very loud “CHIRP CHIRP” kind of noise. There are also fun birds like the guardabarranca, the national bird, and even roadrunners!

Lizards that climb all over your walls and eat mosquitos!

Bigger lizards are all over, too. This one lives by a pool at a hotel in Managua.

What do you eat?

Jess and I eat a lot of the stuff you eat in the States, but we have to create a lot of it from scratch. We have started eating a lot more of the Nicaraguan staple meals, like beans and rice, because it is a lot cheaper. In an upcoming post we’ll outline food in more detail.

OK, that’s all we’ve got for now. I hope this posts aren’t too long, but we’ve got a lot to say!

Matt at a recent event.

Jess and a few other Peace Corps volunteers with a local counterpart at a recent event.

A trip to Managua

This weekend I made a trip to Managua to take the Graduate Record Exams (GRE´s). Jess and Astro stayed in Somoto and I went down with another volunteer who lives near by, Ian. We´ve been studying for a while now (it´s a good way to pass the time) and we felt pretty well prepared to take on the test. We thought we´d spend Friday in Managua, just relaxing and making a final peruse of our vocabulary lists before the big day on Satuday. We had no idea how much of an adventure Friday would be.

We left Somoto around 7:30 on an express bus to Managua. The express buses leave every few hours and take about 3.5 hours to make it all the way to Managua. The first hour is spent weaving through the mountains. The views are great: big cliffs overlooking corn and tobacco fields and very green mountainsides. After an hour you come to the city of Esteli, known for its leather shops and cigar rolling. I know those two industries aren’t exactly the most ideal, but hey, it´s a living for these people. In fact, a few of the cigars rolled in Esteli are ranked in the top 10 cigars in the world, so they must be doing something right. After you pass through Esteli, the third biggest city in Nicaragua, you start the long decent out of the mountain range and into Nicaragua´s Pacific plains. It takes about an hour to get out of the mountains and you have to wonder how good the brakes on your bus are every time they make a hairpin turn, passing a slower vehicle with little regard for what might be just around the corner, coming the other way. Let´s just say these drivers keep it interesting. The final hour and a half of the trip are spent on level ground, cruising through the agricultural heartland of Nicaragua. You can see for miles in any direction, and a clear day always offers great views of the Pacific volcano chains. Once you hit the suburbs of Managua (the first is Tipitapa, hee hee!), the picturesque scenery is replaced by dirty streets, boarded up homes and buisiness, and a whole lot of humidity. By the time you pull into Managua´s Mayoreo Bus Station, every commuter is ready to get off the bus. Normally, at least, that´s the way it works. Our trip on Friday, however was different.

We made it about a half hour into our trip before traffic came to a standstill on the windy mountain road. The road snaked around the base of all the mountains, and while we couldn’t see directly past the turn ahead, the road was clearly visible wrapping around the next mountain peak, on the other side of a valley. Over there we could see driver after driver out of their cars – never a could sign. Our driver killed the engine and sent the cobrador jogging up the road to check out the situation. We waited for about a half hour before we saw him sprinting back towards the bus. Excitedly, he told the driver he found a spot way up the road, where we´d be cutting a 70 of the vehicles who´d been waiting longer than us. Of course, we made our move. Cutting is a big thing in Nicaragua. The locals will step in front of you every chance they get and only go to the back of the line when someone speaks up. Jess and I speak up a lot. Anyway, our school bus made its move. We zoomed by all of the shouting waiting drivers, plowing down the lane normally reserved for oncoming traffic. Finally, after passing a good 2 or 3 miles of traffic, we sneakily slid into an open space between 2 tractor trailers. Amazingly, we even passed the express bus from Somoto to Managua that left a full hour and half before us. Clearly, people had been waiting a while. From our new spot in line, we could clearly see why.

About 10 o´clock the night before, a boulder about the size of a minivan came tumbling down the mountain side, effectively planting itself directly in the middle of the two-lane highway. The boulder alone didn´t cause much of a problem and traffic passed without incident through most of the night. It wasn´t until 5 am when a tired tractor trailer driver smashed right into the boulder, destroying his cab and only slightly shifting the boulder into the left hand lane. So, from 5 in the morning until we arrived at 9, the tractor trailer blocked one lane, and the boulder blocked the other and nobody got through. The great thing about Nicaragua is Ian and I were able to get out of our bus, walk up and touch the boulder, examine the smashed truck, talk to the driver, joke around with the fireman, and even buy an ice cream cone in the shade of the stationary trailer. Perhaps you are asking, ¨shouldn´t their be flares, and police officers keeping people away, or dangerous equipment attempting to move the rock?¨ The answer is no, no, and no. They don’t have flares here, the police were wolfing down ice cream before as it melted on their uniforms, and the only things going after the boulder were a couple of guys with picks and sledgehammers. After about an hour of just hanging out and watching the incredibly slow progress, Ian and I finally some initiative being taken by the highway officials. The found a truck a few cars back that was willing to hook up chains to the truck, wrap them around the rock, and try and pull it out of the way. The first attempt was a failure, and the massive truck only skidded out any time the driver gave it some gas. Attempts 2, 3, 4, and 5 ended similarly, despite the growing number of people sitting in the truck bed, attempting to add the necessary weight to keep the truck from losing traction. Finally, somewhere between attempts 9 and 10, with around 50 people hanging on to the truck wherever they could, the rock budged, and started moving along the highway, digging up a 1 foot wide divot in the pavement. The crowd was full of cheers and shouted, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of the scene in Gulliver´s Travels where the army of townsfolk succeeds in tying town the giant.

The truck dragged the rock a few hundred feet down the road, and the highway workers rolled it into the drainage ditch on the side of the road. Finally, traffic was able to move again. We rolled out of their about 20 minutes later, but it didn´t look like anyone had even begun to tackle the issue of the tractor trailer dead in the middle of the lane. All we know is when we drove back through Sunday, it wasn’t there – and that´s pretty quick for Nicaraguans.

The rest of the trip went off without a hitch. The GRE´s went well and Managua was uneventful. I ate a BK Whopper Junior with bacon and cheese. It was incredibly delicious.

Sorry there aren´t any pictures of the boulder or the Whopper Junior. I didn´t bring the camera, but don’t worry, next time we go on an adventure, we´ll be sure to bring it along.

Hi to Mrs. Lyttle´s class! Responses to your questions are coming in the next blog post!

Hello to Mrs. Lyttle´s class!

We just wanted to write a quick hello and say that we are still awaiting your letters. When they get here, we´ll be sure to write a response!

The Pageant Queens

Another long gap in our posts – sorry. We had a slight accident with the computer (involving a very excited dog, a long computer cord and a hard, hard floor). It seems that the fan on the computer has broken. So after being turned on for about 3 – 4 minutes, the computer overheats and shuts itself off. Not very conducive to writing blog updates.

Anyway, just to update everyone out there, things have been moving along at a Nicaraguan pace in Somoto. The days seem long lately. Most start early, with a hint of sunshine, crawling along to afternoon, when the rains come. The rain just makes things seem even heavier and more slow. Plus, the project with which I am working is winding down (they officially end in December) and with the rain, Matt is having trouble traveling to the outlying communities, so work also seems slow. But, we both have project ideas in mind and are excited for the coming months, when the rain starts to come less and less.

Last week, we did have a successful event, one in which Matt and I worked together. Horizonte 3000, the project with which I currently work, had their last encuentro, or conference, for young girls/women in outlying communities. Ninety young women between the ages of about 13 and 25 came, as did a number of other PC volunteers from communities around Somoto. The theme of the event centered around rights, and it consisted of 2 days filled with training sessions and cultural activities.

Matt and I were asked to give a 3 hour session on sexual and reproductive rights. For those wondering what this means, we discussed with the girls rights such as the right to decide when and with whom to have sexual relations, the right to decide to abstain, the right to decide when and with whom to have children, the right to elect to not have children, to have a career, to receive a sexual health education, etc…

A ´lluvia de ideas´(literally a ´rain of ideas´) that we used to discuss what a ´right´means to each of the girls involved in the charla


We decided to take a fun approach with two out-of the box activities: a beauty pageant of sorts, and a mock-court, Judge Judy style. The girls were each given a reproductive or sexual right, and instructed that they had to make a sash and then parade in front of their peers, explaining their representation of the right, the importance of their right and the implications that violation of this right had for women, including themselves. At the end, we gave every participant a crown that said ˆ I am the queen of my sexual and reproductive rightsˆ.

Our girls, hard at work....

The beauty queens

We then elected a judge and members of a jury from the group. The remaining girls were assigned roles in mini skits, which they had to present in front of the judge and jury. The judge and jury were entrusted with delivering a decision to the parties on trial, informing them of their rights, and in cases, who was in violation of the rights of the other.

The judge, jury and those ´on trial´

Matt and I considered the event an overwhelming success. The girls seemed to enjoy the different take on the traditional material (many of them have received lectures on the material in the past, though in a less dynamic way). I was really proud of the girls, watching them work together to discuss the intricacies in the cases that we presented to them, and deciding among themselves what rights a woman was entitled to and what decisions she had available to her in her life. Entonces…until next time!

Me, two other volunteers (Ian and Leanne) and Enrique, from Horizonte 3000

Matt and Enrique fighting in front of Law 230 (anti-violence law)