Oh, Nicaragua

I took my first official vacation in February with my two friends Sara and Melissa. We decided to backpack across the border and go to León, Granada, and the island of Ometepe. With a general sense of where we wanted to go, we met so many awesome people and got to know the backpacking culture a little bit. We met people from England, Canada, Germany, the States, Beligum, other parts of Europe, and tons of people from Israel. We even got to know the PC volunteer on the island of Ometepe (man, did he luck out to get to live on an island). We met some wonderful people that for me have made an impression that will last a lifetime.
In León we did what I consider the best part of the trip. We went volcano boarding on the volcano Cierro Negro. The volcano had last erupted in 1992 and was still very much active. Historically it had erupted every 10 years, so it is definitely due for some action. Like the name says, it´s completely covered in black rock, lava rock-which makes it one of the most beautiful things in nature I have ever seen. It was also one of the hardest things I have ever climbed (which isn´t saying TOO much coming from a Kansas girl), but none the less it wasn´t easy trying to haul a wooden board up a volcano with small rocks that sank with each step. Of course it was gorgeous by the time we got to the top—we could see for miles and miles. However, my previous balsy decision to take a “fast board” was regretted when I saw where we were supposed to slide down. No one wanted to switch with me either. So, after watching one guy go down the volcano standing on his board, I decided that I´d just have to suck it up going down on my butt. After the explanation on how to sit on the board, where to put my hands, and how to break, I decided that I wanted to start out breaking. The guide looked at me funny, but it´s a good thing I did because I think I had the fastest of the fast boards. Before I knew it I was going so fast that my breaks weren´t working anymore! I had to really dig into the rock (throwing it in my eyes and mouth) to slow down so that I wouldn´t die (maybe not really die, but that´s what I was thinking). Turns out that I made it alive and was totally ready to do it again-maybe some day. Melissa made it alright, as well as our newly-made friends, and then we were all watching my friend Sara go down. She was going so fast that we were cheering like crazy for her—until she wiped out. Everything was going fine until her board went sideways and she went rolling down the volcano. Complete silence--I was sure that we were going to be going to the hospital--and then she stood up and started laughing. None of us could stop laughing after that, and I will never let her live that down.
Granada was a completely different atmosphere than León. There were a lot more tourists and a lot more opportunities to spend your money. We decided to spend our money on a hike on another volcano and a zip-lining tour. We got to see quite a bit of beautiful flowers (including the 2nd largest orchid in the world), some little critters, and even the gas holes in the side of the volcano. I´ve been zip-lining before in Costa Rica, so it wasn´t completely new, but I had never done the monkey or the superman while strapped to a cable hundreds of yards above the ground. It definitely was a rush and what better than to do with my friends. I got to try salsa dancing that night too-that´s one dance here in Honduras that I don´t have down yet (not many people in my town dance salsa). It was a great night, normally gringas don´t have a hard time finding a willing Latino to teach them how to dance, so I picked up some moves.
The island of Ometepe was a totally different experience as well. It was a lot more tranquil and relaxing. It is also where I think I got the 2nd to worst burn in my life. What joy that was-and I still think that I am recuperating from it. Don´t worry, I had SPF 45, I´m just very white and didn´t reapply it enough—not to mention that I forgot I was taking medication that makes my skin more sensitive to sunlight (also forgot I was so close to the equator…opps).
In all, the trip went very well. We made it back alright and in one piece. We even survived the guys that jump on you at the border (people love to try and take advantage of foreigners who don´t know exactly what they are doing). It was a great experience that I couldn´t ever forget.

January Feria

This month was full of crazy experiences-it was the month of my town´s fair. I still haven´t quite decided whether it was a good idea, but in December I volunteered to be part of the fair committee. I went to multiple meetings during the weeks prior to the fair, and indured many cat fights and lively discussions. Even though it was tiring at times, it was totally worth it when the fair came. I got a cool shirt to wear around and a badge that got me in free to all major events (my sitemate Joe was a little bitter about not having one for himself—but when I offered to let him use mine for some reason he didn´t think people would buy it…weird). People from all around Victoria-people who lived hours away—came to Victoria. The main road was completely filled with stores and tiny restaurants, and people never started leaving until the wee hours of the night. There were banners strung everywhere and there was always music being played (usually “te aaaamo, te aaaaamo, te aaaaaammmmoooo”). We held children´s games (maybe not quite as cool as pig riding at the Johnson County fair—btw my sister Shelley won that once), soccer games, a cow competition, a horse parade, jaripeo (bull-riding), karaoke nights, a Miss. Victoria pageant, and tons of fiestas. The children´s games were one of my responsibilities, and they always turned out pretty well, it was just hard when 60 kids would want to play at the same time. The soccer games were pretty popular, not that anyone should be surprised since I am living in a Latin American country, but they were great because we had teams travel to play against our own team. Due to my extensive amount of dancing, I wasn´t able to get up in the morning to see the cow show and horse parade, but I heard they were pretty cool too. Jaripeo was definitely a little more mellow than what we are used to in the States, but nonetheless it was worth watching. I think my favorite part of this event was when one of the bulls, which they had been working so hard to piss off, broke out of the pen and ran at a big group of us. I´m not sure I´ve ever had an adrenaline rush like that—but I feel like I had a taste of what it might be like to run with the bulls in Spain. Well, maybe.
It was always a treat when it was karaoke night. The typical singer was a drunk guy that took a break from his card game-they usually had a hard time standing none the less trying to pronounce words in a comprehensive sentence. However once in a while our ears would get a break and a person with some talent took the microphone. The pageant was a lot of work. It took us all day to decorate for it, and the rest of the day to walk through the program with the girls. Totally worth it though. I was very happy about the results—my good friend Sindy won, and that was after my lessons on how to walk down a runway. Which, as I should give credit where credit is due, was not because of my extensive experience modeling, but the Victoria Secret modeling shows that I saw once or twice on TV. Worked though!
I have to say that I think my favorite part of the feria were the fiestas or dances that they had at night. There was a dance every night from Tuesday till Saturday 9-3am, and you bet that I went to every single one. Now, by the time I got to Friday I was switching between my heels and flats, and on Saturday I didn´t even try it. Even though my feet were completely dead by the end of the week, I don’t regret any of it. This is also how I gained my nickname, la bailadora, or the dancer. On Wednesday, which was the big dance of the fair, the committee had a band come in from San Pedro Sula and so we had live music all night. I had so much fun that night and was twirled around so much that I lost my two favorite rings and even my earrings! I was pretty sad about it the next day but it was totally worth it, hands up.

sorry!!

hey everyone,
I know I'm a horrible blogger because I haven't written in about 4 months, but I wanted to let you all know that I am going to be updating it very soon! I'll talk about Christmas, New Years, Victoria's feria, my Nicaragua trip, and the work I'm doing now. Thanks for your patience!

Getting on with the holidays

Things have been going pretty cheque in Victoria these past few weeks. I had my sitemate and a friend (Elizabeth) come over for Thanksgiving. We started cooking at 10am and didn't get to sit down to eat until around 9pm. Obviously, we were pretty busy-but well worth it. Almost just like at home except there was no turkey and I couldn't quite get the deviled eggs like Grandma's or the green bean casserole like Aunt T's. No worries though, I was in a totally different country so what can I expect?
It's strange to be in a tropical climate when it's almost Christmas time-kinda missing that bone chilling air at the moment. However, there is a lot of Christmas cheer in Victoria, just the other day people in the community started getting together at night to do Christmas carols. It's called the Posada, and they do it everynight until Christmas. It's very cool, and everyone has a fun time watching me trying to sing to songs that I don't know. We've also had quite a few fiestas or dances- those are usually a great time and I am completely exhausted at the end of the night, or morning...around 3 or 4 am. Since my normal bedtime is 9pm, I try to take a power nap before- sounds pretty pathetic to me. Oh well, asi es la vida.
I am going to be spending Christmas in Victoria as well. My host family will actually be in another part of Honduras visiting family, and my sitemate will be traveling, so I might just be solo- not truely though-I don't think the friends I have in Victoria would let me spend Christmas by myself. I've heard a great deal of awesome stories about Christmas in my site so I'm excited. I'll probably stay in Victoria for my birthday as well, then travel to Lake Yojoa to celebrate the new year with some Peace Corps friends. All plans but we'll see if Dios lo quiere.

¿Wanna help?

¡Saludos!

Things are moving right along in Victoria-keeping busy and getting the ball rolling. The baseball tryout was great, we had more than 50 kids come. It was a little overwhelmed, but I am so excited that so many have the interest. Therefore, instead of picking 20 kids for one team, I decided to form 3 different teams. Anyone have any old baseball equipment they don´t need? :) I have what one would call a varsity team, JV, and C team. We have temporarily named them the Medias rojas (Red Sox), Yankees, and the Cubs. Joe (my sitemate) and I thought about naming the C team the Royals to commemorate my Kansas heritage, but I thought naming the C team that name would only reemphasize what the real Royals team is lacking. So, it´s the Cubs instead. I´ll probably be practicing 3 times a week soon so they will keep me busy.

I have just recently figured out that if I had some friends or family from Kansas come visit me they´d probably laugh at the sight of me walking around in my community. I have become good friends with my host family´s dog Lucky. He likes to follow me around to my office, to meetings, and has even gone running with me. I don´t mind of course, and I think it´s pretty cute. What I just figured out, however, is that he looks a lot like Dorothy´s dog Toto in the Wizard of Oz. Kinda weird, huh? A Toto wanna-be following the only Kansas girl in Honduras (or at least 1 of the very few). Maybe I´m just easily amused nowadays...

If anyone is interested, my reading club is in need of some books. Books in Spanish would be preferred, but books in English would also be great (I´ll be teaching them a bit of English). Also, any sort of school supplies would also be welcome-we´re going to be doing a variety of artistic/creativity projects that would require some crayons, glue, scissors, etc. I just had a parents informational meeting and everyone is very excited about this project. This makes me very happy because I know that I have the support of the parents.

Adiós y ¡que tenga buen día!

The happenings in Victoria

Well, after a month and a week in site I have definitely had my share of interesting experiences-and I have had some questions about what I am actually doing right now so here is a little list of the projects I am currently working on.

Baseball team- probably will have 2
Rompiendo el Silencio (Breaking the Silence) : a Domestic Violence eduation group of women
Grupo de Adulto Mayores- Elderly person's group (we do arts and crafts, support group sorts of things)
Pregnant women's club- I am working with the local clinic and I am going to start giving "talks" or charlas to the women about health concerns and life skills (self-esteem, caring for children, nutrition, etc).
High School Counselor- I am working as a high school counselor for the graduating high school seniors helping them with scholarship information, resumes, career decisions, finding a job, etc.
Club de Lectura- or a Reading club- This is a brand new project but I hope to teach this 20 3rd graders how to help others to read and then we can go to the poorer parts of town during the school break and read to other children.
Life Skills talks- School is almost out so I won't be doing this for awhile but I was giving life skills charlas in the high school and elementary schools. I have been plans when the school year starts up again (Drugs and Alcohol, Sexuality, Making good decisions, communication, how to be a leader charlas, etc)
Escuela para Padres- Teaching parents how to talk to their children about Sex, Drugs, Alcohol, how to disclipine, teaching your values, etc. I haven't started this project either because it is still in the planning stages, but it will be started soon I hope.

There are many other projects that are going to be starting at the beginning of the school year, and I know it's going to be crazy. But i'll keep everyone posted as to other projects I will be starting.

Also, I am planning on doing a bake sale to raise money for my baseball team to travel and play against other teams in Honduras. Does anyone have any good receipes or baking ideas they would like to share? Please email me and let me know!!

Kinda like in Romancing the Stone

So, everyone remembers the bus in the movie Romancing the Stone with Michael Douglas....they were going through Colombia on a very interesting and somewhat scary bus. I have been asked a few times if the buses here are like that. I would say no-- typically the buses are the old yellow school buses from the states that have a sub system installed with all sorts of pretty grafitti on the inside and outside. Normally those buses don't break down like the one in Romancing the Stone.
Well for all of those who were half-way excited that I might be riding on buses like that down here I have to say that I rode on one that was border-line "Romancing the Stone like." This bus wasn't as nice as the other buses I was used to... the seats were falling apart (falling off the brace and had giant bites taken out of them) and I swear I kept feeling something crawl over my feet. Also, because of the massive rain fall we have been experiencing, everytime we came to a big mud-covered hill we had to all go towards the back of the bus and jump to try and give it more leverage. People were laughing at me because I guess my face showed that I was a little nervous the bus would get stuck or breakdown from the abuse it was taking (it was going to be dark in a few hours and it would be bad to be stuck out in the middle of no where). I didn't think this was too great because I was at the time experiencing a bit of motion sickness from the back and forth rowing motions... and, to top off the experience, there was livestock as well. Yes, I was sharing the bus with chickens. No pigs though. So all of you that were so excited about the possible magnitud of my experiences, I hope this one satisfies you for awhile.