Amber Alert!!!

Please be on the lookout for Flat Stanley. He's about 6 inches tall and 2 mm wide. Hewas kidnapped from the Somoto Canyon while swimming and was last seen floating north down the river.

Estas pegado con gripa?

So the energy thing is truly out of control here. Now we down to only 2 hours of working energy a day during the week but surprisingly Saturday and Sunday the energy stays on all day! What is that?!? So because of the energy shortage work is slowing during the day and generally is going on all night till like 2 am because I only have a week and a half before my report is due to the main office and I go to Managua to get some sight seeing done.

This week we ordered some ballet folklorico dresses from the “manualidades” teacher (that’s like a home ec class where they learn to sew, to cook, make piñatas, etc.) Evette. One of the teachers is going to show me a dance that I can teach the girls for WorldFest this year. They’ll enjoy that. Yesterday the preschool kids were doing a dance with a boy and a girl and at the end the boy went down on one knee and swept the girl back into a dip over his leg. It was so cute! But of course I didn’t have my camera with me because I was walking through the classrooms finding students to survey. Every time I need the thing, I end up leaving it behind. Boo unpreparedness!

Today I have to go make some copies of the survey because tomorrow I go to Cusmapa. This is my final trip to outside centers, but because the phone lines there are messed up we could barely hear each other as I was trying to make sure that they had everything ready for us. I hope everything goes according to plan because I don’t have the time to go back. Cusmapa is another trip up the mountain, this time for 2 solid hours! We’ll see how it goes. At least this time we are not staying overnight so hopefully I will not freeze or be attacked by spiders again!

The center started this week on creating a new building that will house all of the upper grades. It will be finished in January 2008 in time for the new school year here, hopefully allowing the center to provide educational services to more students. This center alone provides food and educational services to 380 students.

The weather here has turned cold at night, although the days are still relatively warm. This Thursday is a holiday here; it’s the celebration of the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution, a huge deal here, so I am not sure what is going to happen; parades, parties, music, etc. My fellow workers at the center have decided that we will take the day to go to El Gran Cañon de Somoto. Here’s hoping we make it in a taxi and that it will be hot so I can get a nice tan! I am still with the “gripa” but I am not going to let a little thing like bronchitis slow me down at this point. Also, I hurt my foot when I slipped in the bathroom and banged into the stair that leads into the shower, but what’s a sprained ankle in terms of everything else that I have been through?

The Flat Stanley race seems to be heating up, and I have other pictures to add in the mix but the internet is bogged down here because of outages so I will just let you imagine and temble in fear! See you soon friends, slightly more than two weeks left to go.

¡Team Chicos en la casa! (In the house)

I say take that to everyone! Flat is working to bring Food for Peace! Can you beat that? I don’t think so! Team Chicos has stepped up to the plate and there’s only more to come from here. I think the race is starting to heat up and really it’s anybody’s game now! (Ok, too many metaphors). On a side note, has anybody noticed how Flat Stanley looks a little crazy? I noticed that he is kind of googly-eyed and he only has one eyebrow! Really it’s kind of creepy for a children’s book character.

And the road to Quebrada Honda is still scary…

In the distance the mountains that you see are Honduras.


This is the road outside of Quebrada Honda.


Don’t worry I haven’t contracted some other horrible disease and ended up back in the hospital, that is not why I haven’t been around. Instead, I took a journey back up to Quebrada Honda. Surprisingly it was more scary this time then the last time around, but mainly that’s because we were traveling in a light weight Toyota truck that I literally had to hold my breathe and pray that we would make it up that winding, steep, dirt road to the center. I had two “becados” (scholarship students) with me who had to help me with administering the surveys to 50 parents and 50 students. Although I was riding in the cab of the truck scared to death we might backslide down the mountain into oblivion, the ride for them was much worse as they were in the back of the truck the entire bumpy ride.

When we got there only bad news awaited us. Although it was 8 am in the morning Tuesday, the power had been out since Monday at 2 pm so there were not able to print copies of the survey for us to administer. Also, there was no water since Monday. In addition, the kids didn’t have school so there were no kids to survey. All in all Tuesday was wasted time as we sat for most of the day and really only worked for about 2 hours administering surveys to the 30 parents who showed up. That means for Tuesday we had to administer 70 surveys in 4 hours because we were leaving early in the afternoon to return to Somoto.

The power came back on Tuesday at 4 pm. But, still all the surveys couldn’t be printed because they didn’t have enough paper. They printed the youth surveys so that we would have them for Tuesday, but we had to hand write all the questions (3 copies of 27 questions) so that we could ask the parents and then used the codebook to write the answers on a separate piece of paper. Those parent surveys still have to be transferred to the survey form, because anyone just looking at them will not understand anything that it says without seeing the questions and the codebook!

The water never did come back on Tuesday. So, on Tuesday night, there we were, me and my two trusty assistants walking up the mountain to the outdoor latrine before we went to bed and then walking back down through all the slushy mud and rain covered chicken poo. Yeah, fun times! Finally, when we went to brush our teeth we realized we would have to do that outside as well with bottles of water. Have you ever had a moment where you realize how ridiculous your life is and you can’t stop laughing? Well, I had that moment standing outside our bunker in Quebrada Honda brushing my teeth and swigging bottle water to spit into the bushes. Me and the girls couldn’t quit laughing once we started and tried to avoid choking to death on toothpaste, but overall it was good just to let go with a great big belly laugh!

That night we stayed in the little house they have for the staff slightly up the road from the center. When I say house, you should read barracks. The room had a bunk bed (I slept on the bottom and the two becados slept on top, the joy of being the one in charge), and a table. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling but other than that there was no electricity so I couldn’t charge the computer or anything else for that matter. I didn’t sleep at all because it was freezing cold so high up in the mountains. All night I tossed and turned trying to get warm and the metal from the bed was digging into my back. I woke up cold with a crick in my neck and my back, but at least I didn’t get bit by any of the 20 spiders I had to kill around my bed!

The water finally came on Wednesday morning for only an hour, and by the time I got my turn in the shower, it was gone and I couldn’t even go use the “old school” shower outside (read bucket of water) because the water hadn’t been on all the day before and the guys used it up! Boo no electricity which causes no water!

So, on Wednesday we finally got the surveys done. It was down to the wire though. We were still surveying at 2:45 and they were picking us up to traverse down the mountain at 3:00. We finally got our last parent and student done in time for the truck to arrive to bring us back.

The ride down the mountain was even more terrifying as it had rained pretty heavily all day and the road was sludge. We slid around several curves as I prayed fervently that we didn’t run into any chickens, dogs, horses, cows, cars, people, etc. while hurtling towards Somoto. Unfortunately for my becados it started to drizzle on the way back to Somoto and they had to pull a tarp over their heads because of the rain, so the ride back was not fun at all for them.

We made it back to the center and I made it safely to the house. I slept really good last night, even though it was plenty cold here in Somoto. Unfortunately for me the water went out during the night! So this morning was another exercise in the utter ridiculousness of my life as I had to “shower” (I use the word loosely here) with a water bottle that was literally freezing cold since it was in the freezer because my refrigerator doesn’t work. Not a happy start to the day!

Also, the power went out by the time I walked to work, so there is little actual work going on here. Since there was no power last night I couldn’t charge the battery and when I got to work I couldn’t charge it either. Not so much with constant energy shortages and I could get a whole lot more work done...Ha like that's gonna happen at this point.

Speaking of which, they really should stop abusing the rural areas this way. If the power goes out in Managua, it’s usually for a couple of hours. But up in Somoto, Quebrada Honda, and Cusmapa (the more rural mountainous region of the country) the power is going out everyday for hours. This week the power has been out for 6-8 hours a day. We are paying the biggest price for the energy shortages here.

So friends, I have only 21 days until I return home. Can you believe it? I can’t. 3 weeks to administer 150 new surveys and 50 replacement ones because they changed the questions. So all in all I have 200 surveys to do, 2 reports to write, a newsletter to create, and a pen pal program to finalize. Nothing major! Here I go, here’s hoping the energy holds up enough to get it all done!

Let's save the bees please...

Today I decided in the interest of not being burning hot (and foot pain of unknown origin) that I would wear my chonclas (flip flops) to work. Which would have in fact been fine, if not for the fact that several women along my route were throwing water into the street utilizing a bowl! I don't know why, but I do know that it made my route very muddy thereby making the chonclas not the best shoe for traversing the long walk to the center. Then as I neared the turn to the center a suicidal bee dive-bombed by hand, which I saw happening in a sort of slow motion so I slapped it down, hah take that evil bees of the world!

Seriously though on the subject of bees, they are disappearing. Albert Einstein said, if the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination. No more plants. No more animals. No more man. Well here's the thing people, bees are disappearing! Some people attribute this phenomenon to cell phones and the increased waves which disrupt their mating patterns and ability to fly (hence the suicidal one that ran into my hand). Many people (including myself) have turned to cell phones instead of regular land line phones, making the estimate of worldwide cell phone users over a billion.

Others put it down to pesticides and chemicals. But whatever the reason, the fact is that we should be taking it seriously. A New York Times Article claims that bees pollinate over $14 billion in US crops and that current bee losses are being reported from 30 to 70% around the country. You can read the full article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/business/27bees.html?ex=1330232400&en=3aaa0148837b8977&ei=5088

Bees are not something that I think about in the course of my everyday life. Nor do I pretend to have a great interest in saving them as a species, but I realize, as we all should, the grave danger we risk by destabilizing our natural environment to the extent that species are dying off. Whether it is the bees or the birds or bears or fish, every creature has a part to play in the ecosphere that is our world and as technology moves forward it must do so in a naturally sustainable way.

I don't pretend to be a big naturalist or environmentalist mainly because my allergies keep me away from nature as much as possible. But, even I understand that we need to make changes or our world is not going to survive us. We are the cause of so much destruction including deforestation, toxic dumping, and now the loss of the bees. What are we willing to give up for the world to survive? Not just for the future generations, but now we are talking about for us, because if what Einstein said is true and our survival depends on the bees, we need to make a concerted effort to repair the damage that is being done. So will we give up our cell phones, our microwaves, our toxic chemicals? How much sacrifice are we willing to make to ensure our survival, not just that of some unknown future generations? I believe we can combat this loss of bees but we need to make a strong commitment. As with so many issues that we struggle to address, the question remains how much are we willing to give and to give up?

Electrical issues...

When I first came here, a lot of people warned me about the electrical outages. But surprisingly in the first couple weeks of my trip they didn’t really manifest. So, I didn’t worry about them. I thought the power problems were exaggerated and I didn’t really think about it. I bought a flashlight, but it was no big, right? Wrong.

In the last few weeks, the power outages have become a huge problem here. They are short more than 150 megatons of energy. There are daily rolling blackouts throughout the country. And there has been at least 2 days in the past 2 weeks with no energy all day. Yesterday the power went out from 9 to 3. But most often it goes out for 4 hours or less. For the last week I have been going home early, not in a “woohoo I don’t have any work to do” way, but in a “boo the electricity is out again and I can’t do any work” way. Boo! Mostly for the last week the power has gone out at 4 pm (or around about that time) daily. Sometimes it lasts only an hour, but more often now, it stays off until 9 or 10 at night.

I may have mentioned this before, but when I was in the hospital, the power went out (yes in the hospital too). They don’t have separate generators so they can’t control the power any better than anyone else in the community. The government has finally stepped in signing a contract to purchase additional power and to build additional generators for the country, but who knows how long it will be before they see the effects? In Cusmapa for example, one of the rural areas I will be visiting, there are no street lights because there was a power failure at one of the transformers and the power company refuses to repair it. Many people have told me that you must have a flashlight in Cusmapa to see at night because the streets are pitch black. The government so far has done nothing about repairing the street lights, nor are there any plans to do so as yet.

So, I lead you through all of this to say on Tuesday night after being depressed from sitting in the dark for so long. I finally went to bed. But, I couldn’t sleep. It was really hot and there was nothing to do to cool down. Then round about 9 pm, I here music screaming at me from across the street:

“I'll be there for you
These five words I swear to you
When you breathe I want to be the air for you
I'll be there for you
I'd live and I'd die for you
Steal the sun from the sky for you
Words can't say what a love can do
I'll be there for you”

Yep, you got it Bon Jovi, “I’ll be there for you.” This place trips me out. One day they are booming big ranchero music, then Bone Thugs and Harmony, and now Bon Jovi. It definitely cheered me up and I fell asleep to the sounds of the Crossroad album.

So, I have to say, I never really appreciated Entergy before, but I definitely do now. While we might pay a lot for our electricity (my bill this month was $90 and only Bean and Mo are there and hopefully they are not using up every light in the house) at least it’s fairly reliable and we don’t have to worry about throwing out our food every couple of days (which I have had to do three times here because of all day power outages).

I also have to say that this trip has made me infinitely more grateful for all the things that I have and has made me realize that we need to do more to spread our good fortune to others both in our country and outside of it. So when I thank God for my blessings, I will remember to thank him for the things that I take for granted including knowing that the light switch will always work.

Only in Nicaragua...

Today I saw some things that made me wish I carried my camera out in my hand while walking to the center. Unfortunately I can only describe them but a picture would have been awesome!

First, I saw a dog who liked just like Mo in the face except he was totally bald everywhere except his head!

And then best of all, I saw a delivery driver taking a nap in a maca hanging underneath the bumper of his truck! Gotta love it!

¿Mira bella que buscas?

So finally, I am feeling tons better and I can talk about more exciting or at least fun things than poor healthcare and education systems. So when I was in Managua, we went to an open air market called Wimble (not sure about the spelling on that) that had great wares of all kinds. There were beautiful rocking chairs, jewelry, shoes, clothes, wallets, you name it and it was there. I wish I had another whole suitcase to fill because there was so much cool stuff there that I would like to take home with me. As you walk through the stalls, the vendors all cry out for you to come inside and see their wares. ¿Mira bella que buscas? Pregunta me, yo tengo aqui, pasa, pasa. It’s a little overwhelming having tons of people fighting for your business, but you get used to it, and it's nice to have everyone calling you beautiful! As you can see from the following photo, there is a lot of high quality leather goods many featuring images of Nicaragua, Ruben Dario (a famous Nica poet), or my favorite thing to find, El Che (who is apparently hugely popular here). I really want to find a leather diary, so hopefully when I go to the large open air market in Masaya I can find one that I like.

This week throughout the illness I still managed to get some important pieces of my work here done. On Monday we completed the parent surveys in a stunning choreographed madness that took two hours to complete 50 surveys with my five helpers. Parents attended a “reunion” basically a meeting to help them understand the program better and I shuffled groups of 5 in and out of a room where my five “becadores” (scholarship students) helped to record the parents’ answers to the survey questions. The power went out, but that didn’t deter our little group and instead we moved head on completing all the surveys with five minutes to spare. I wholeheartedly couldn’t have done it without the help of the students so I bought them some caramellos in thanks on Tuesday. I also got the final list of kids for the pen pal program and we will be moving forward with that project after next week’s school vacations. I will help the kids here to make a video diary that will help them to introduce themselves to the kids in the US. I am really excited about this project and the staffer who moved to the main office will continue to work on it after I am gone so that the kids can keep in touch.

On Thursday, the school simultaneously celebrated the transfer of one of the office staff to the oficina central in Managua and teacher’s day. There was great food (which I finally got to eat since the doctor took me off my liquid diet and allowed me to eat real food again), fun, music, dancing, and games. It was really great to see the staff let their hair down and enjoy teacher’s day. As I have said before teacher’s here make less than $200 a month and don’t receive many benefits. But on teacher’s day they were happy just to receive a small gift from the school honoring their work and each teacher made a little speech about why they were there. It was really motivating to see that they genuinely cared about the kids and the program and they believed that they are making a difference. I hope to remember this moment in the future when I feel like I am not appreciated for my work. As these teachers showed me, it’s not about the gratitude; it’s about the work itself and knowing that you make a difference. Working with kids can be discouraging sometimes, but on teacher’s day none of that was evident, only the great dedication, camaraderie, and support that this group of teachers had for each other and the work that they did. As you can see from the photos below they had a great time. First they played a game with two teams where they couldn’t step outside of lines on the floor and had to complete various requirements like lining up males on one end and females on another. The best exercise was trying to pass a ring down the lines of the teams using only pencils in your mouth, no touching. It was a hilarious exercise that took over 20 minutes to complete and engendered much yelling and cheering as the two teams were highly competitive. Finally we ended with lots of dancing and music before heading home for the night. I have great video, but can't get any of it to load online because the internet is so slow here so I will have to share it when I get home.