To my bleoved friends and family,
Yet again, I must grovel at your email addresses' interwebbed feet, imploring their understanding and forgiveness for the extended lapse between spell-binding posts. But if they don't find them as rivetting as I do, I implore NOTHING.
For a while, I didn't write because nothing terribly new or exciting was happening. I was living a very similar life to the one I had told you about in the other blogs. (I hate referring to them as blogs because it sounds so cliché and carries with it a hipster connotation I'd rather avoid, but I'm stuck with it.) I was giving charlas to various groups of youth and patients in centros de salud, as well as recieving training from the PC staff. I did go to the beach closest to my training town, which was awesome. You can always fin people playing socer on the beach here. Can we take note, America? In this time I also went on a visit for 3 days to the pueblo that I was officially assigned to live in. I didn't want to write or mention that yet because I wanted to wait until I was actually living there and got aquainted with it before I described it. And then after that, everything started happening so quickly I hardly had time to breath, much less write. So I'll start there.
After successfully finishing training, getting all the required shots, passing the oral language examination, and sufficiently demonstrating my ability to "integrate" myself into an excessively accepting community, the PC bussed us all to the embassy in Managua for a talk from the ambassador himself and swearing in. The ambassador's talk was extremely entertaining, and provided a fresh, albeit decidedly one-sided take on the Ortega administration that is currently in power. Also noteworthy, the embassy provided us with bagels and cream cheese as a snack. Both are extreme novelties in this little pocket of the world. I'd almost forgotten they existed. (And as a side-note to the note that I probaby shouldn't have deemed noteworthy, I probably consistently went 3 months at a time in the U.S. without even thinking about bagels or cream cheese, but the awareness that they are almost completely unattainable here makes you want them more.)
The next day was swearing in day. Everyone dressed up all fancy, putting on their shiny shoes. A whole bunch of people gave speeches, to which I listened very little. We had to sing ours and the Nica national anthems. I memorized most of the Nicaraguan national anthem, because I do stuff like that. Then we repeated the oathes, and BAM!, I was in. Feels like you saw the ceremony yourself, right? The next day most of us killed relaxing in Managua before we had to go to the sites we would be seizing life in for the next 2 years.
And now for the first, and probably only, interesting part of this post. My site is called Potosí, and is located in the department of Rivas. Wait. Before you waste 4 valuable minutes of your lives on Google, let me tell you, you will be able to find almost nothing on Potosí, Nicaragua. Potosí has about 2,000 people in a town approximately 5 streets by 7 streets. In the whole county there is about 15,000 people spread out pretty thin. It is the definition of a small town. Admittedly, I was somewhat disappointed when I discovered I was going to a small town because of my social contact obsession and because everything is more convenient in bigger towns. But as with anything you have no power in deciding, I'm starting to recognize some of the benefits to my site placement. In no particular order: 1) The central plaza and soccer feild is right in front of my house. Granted nothing is very far, but it's still convenient. It is the only roofed soccer feild I've ever seen outside of the U.S., and even has lights for night play. And for clarification, it is the cement, "fútbol sala" feild, not a grass feild. It also has basketball hoops that hang down from the ceiling. We play soccer or basketball almost everyday, and some of the guys offered me a spot on a sala team they are starting. It pays to be a gringo. 2) It is extremely easy to meet peole in a small town. You can only avoid someone for so long in a town this size. I started out with all the guys at the soccer field and in the centro de salud, and am branching out from there. Other volunteers from smaller sites always tout the feeling of acceptance and ease of integration that come with smaller sites, which I am starting to recognize. 3) The geographical location is fantastic. Potosí is a 10 minute taxi ride from the department capital of Rivas, where any shopping or breif escape can be executed with ease. It´s also located fairly centrally on the Panamerican Highway, making the whole west coast pretty accessible. Furthermore, Rivas is right next to the island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. Ometepe, as it´s called, you should look up because they tell me it´s absolutely amazing. It is a huge volcano that sticks out of the lake with picturesque beaches on every side. I´ll give you more details when I go, which should be soon. Rivas is also only an hour away from the Pacific, and the city of San Juan del Sur. SJdelS is known worldwide for it´s surfing and beaches and is probably the most touristy part of Nicaragua. I'm probably checking that out soon too. 4) My host family is very nice. Doctora Maria Brenes is my host mother and a very nice woman. She lives with her brother Domingo, who I rarely see because he is a preist or pastor or something and stays elsewhere primarily, her sister Lourdes, her other brother Juan José, and his two daughters Carla and Katthy (pronounced kah-tee). Carla is 19, studies law on Saturdays in Granada, cooks for me, and her boyfriend all but lives with us. Katthy is 17 and in her final year of high school. I help her with her homework a lot, especially English and physics. We also have 7 dogs. It´s a bit. Everyone is super nice, easy to talk to, and someone is always home, which I like. But the best part is that we live in three separate houses that all share a patio/backyard. And that's the best part because I actually have my own house. In reality it's more like a separate room, but I have a little divider to make a sleeping area and a living room. It has its own bathroom with a toilette and shower, and they even provided me with my own couches and desk. It has itsown door to the street. I esentially live on my own when I want, or have a room in a house, should it strike my fancy. 5) The city of Rivas is known as the Cityof the Mangos. I had no idea so many varieties of mangos existed, but let me assure you, they do. And they are delicious. Ad the trees are everywhere. There's more mangos than anyone knows what to do with. That's all I have to say about mangos. 6) I share my site with another voluteer who is a super nice guy. He introduced me to his friends, and I jacked them so they are now my friends instead. Kidding. But it's also nice because he's puertorican and a native Spanish speaker, so I can continue to practice my Spanish with him, or get a break from it and go to English if need be. Plus he's already been here for 3 months working with environmental education and can show me around a bit. Additionally, there are two other volunteers from my training group who are very close. So a break from Spanish wont be hard to find, I just hope it doesn't interfere with my ability to learn it the way I want to. Which is fluently. 7) The fact that Potosí has less people means less going on. Less going on equates to less distractions from work. Since I have a lot of power over my schedule and the effectiveness of my service here, less distractions is definitely a good thing. Plus, as stated before, Rivas is very close should I require a mental health break. Not to mention, my effectiveness is largely dependent on my being viewed as a professional in the community, and I'm sure that would be tough to maintain in a party atmosphere. 8) Along those lines, Potosí has a lot of work opportunities. A huge challenge for health volunteers is finding programs to work with and new audiences to reach with their overflowing information. But in my case, there are a lot of pre-existing programs, youth groups, organizations, etc. that have already expressed interest in working with me. This makes getting started much easier and will also facilitate in branching out from there. I was going to include what exactly I do here in this post, but it's already long enough as it is and I'll have a more complete answer by the time I write my next one.
A couple downsides: It may get boring. Like poke-your-eyes-out boring. But then again, it may not. I may find ways around it so that I'm rarely bored. I recently picked up reading as a hobby, and it's been working out really well for me so far. There's also no gym here, which I was hoping for so I could maintain some definition. Not looking good. Literally and figuratively. I'm so clever. It's also pretty hot. Granted April and May are the hottest months and all of Nicaragua is quite warm during this time. Power consistantly goes out, but even that's not that annoying, assuming it comes back within a couple hours. Which it doesn't always do. There's typically no water running in the mornings. We lost water to almost the whole department of Rivas for 2 and a half days, which was rough. I keep a big bucket of water in my shower for such occasions, but it wasn't enough. It was actually kind of an exciting experience. The next one wont be.
So those are the goods and bads off the top of my head. Not too shabby. I'll keep you posted on more as I discover them. But regardless, while it wont be terribly convenient, and downright difficult for more than I'd like, they are the challenges I expected and even sought when I decided to join the PC, because I feel like that's what will make me grow as a person.
I really hate leaving it on that note, but I don't want to stall on posting this anymore. BY THE WAY, if you want to send me anything, I will thoroughly enjoy any letters written me, books I deem worth reading, and gifts. You can send it all to:
AP #100 Suc Rivas
Correos de Nicaragua
Rivas, Nicaragua
I have no idea how much it will cost you. Also, this blog was kind of all over the place, so if you have any questions or if I left out obvious information that you're dying to know, please let me know on here of on Facebook and I'll try to inlclude it in the next one.
<3 U, MIZ U,
Nick
