March already??

I didn´t even realize it was March already until someone reminded me that my bday was this month! This past week has been pretty intense in training and although I am loving it I am ready to move into my new site which I will describe in just a bit.

This blog is harder to keep updated than I thought just because I learn and experience so much each day, so I´m going to try and summarize what has been happening these past couple of weeks!

We have been having classes daily and I just took my midterm exam and moved up a level in my spanish. I think I definetly learn much more vocabulary and grammer outside of class speaking with my family and neighbors. Although they don´t correct me as often as my teacher would, I learn how they really speak and learn the slang instead of learning book spanish. Nica is FULL of slang and they have like 20 words just to describe one thing.

We have also been receiving tons of presentations of different topics that we can use in our sites. The ones that have appealed to me the most are the HIV/AIDS, adolescent pregnancies, domestic voilence and nutrition presentations. I´m so excited because soy production is pretty well known here in Nica so when I get to my site I might work with that as well.

One of the most exciting trips I have been on is going to see a volcano in Masaya. We went right up to the top and got to look down into the hole. There was smoke everywhere and a really strong sulfur smell. I took tons of pictures and will try and upload them onto Photoworks soon! Nicaragua is known as the land of lakes and volcanoes and so far I have seen lake Granada and tons of volcanoes. Andrew´s host family took the 4 of us in my training town to see Granada which is a beautiful and pretty famous city here in Nica. It was beautiful with tons of brightly colored old colonial buildings and the lake was gorgeous. I has a city center with a huge cathedral and food and entertainment. Usually the entertainment consists of little Nica kids walking around with huge puppets called Gigantonas and singing. Lake Granada is the biggest lake in all of central america and it almost looks like an ocean just because you can´t see land in the distance. It has tons of little islands with spider monkeys, mango trees, and amazing houses that are ¨so expensive¨at $150,000.

So last week my whole training group took a trip to the north to the department of Chinandega to recieve AIDS presentations since it is AIDS week here and Chinandega has the highest rates of the virus in the country. It was an exhausting trip because we got little sleep and we were constantly moving around. We got to watch one volunteer who has been here for a year give an AIDS presentation in conjuction with a pool tournament. It was amazing...basically about 20 men (women aren´t really allowed in pool halls here) signed up to compete and in between each game they had to listen to a small presenation about AIDS that the vol gave. At the end of the tournament it was down to 2 people and the person who got the most questions correct about AIDS won a sum of money and won the tournament. I like the idea just because it is a way to educate the people while letting them have a lot of fun and in the end winning something for their participation. We also got to go to the beach which was great because at that point I couldn´t take anymore sitting down taking notes. I swam out pretty far with a couple other volunteers and at one point I looked back to the shore and the people looked like ants and then I figured I might be in trouble and started to swim back in which took me at least 15 minutes with tons of muscle work ha.

Soooo the most exciting part of all is that I found out my site and I received a description of the site with its history. My town is called Santo Tomas del Norte and it is in the northwest department of Chinandega. The municipality has about 7,617 people but my town only has about 800. It is about 5 hours from Managua and 4 from the Pacific ocean. Santo Tomas is one of the poorest municipalities in the country due to war and natural disasters. (Now I´ll just copy out of my book since it says it best and I have never been). Due to its mountainous terrain, Santo Tomas was a key battleground during the 80´s Contra War. The land is not very suitable for agriculture and deforestation has caused the topsoil to be washed away by rain. The municipality has tropical climate characterized by 6 months of rain and 6 months of dry season. 61% of the population owns shallow wells, which makes propogation of disease common.

In the 1960´s, most of Santo Tomas´inhabitants were employed in the cotton, sugarcane and banana industries. The capital production allowed the region to prosper. However, when the prices of those products fell down in the 80´s many inhabitants became unemployed. Poeple became ill due to poor environmental practices. The ill effects of abusive pesticide use are still noticeable today. Due to the high unemployment rate, many people from Santo Tomas have moved to other countries looking for better job opportunities. After the war, El Nino caused both hurricanes and droughts which lead to further property damage.

Basic public health coverage exists and medical personnel are generally available to provide prescriptions and some basic medicines. The most common ailments are diarrhea and respiratory problems. While 65% of families have latrines, 35% don´t have the means to deal with human waste.

Santo Tomas del Norte has some basic services such as electricity and telephone service. Two community wells provide water to the urban population.

Okay so that´s part of the description I have of my town. The volunteer there now who will be finishing her 2 years in march when I swear in has told me its a wonderful town and she has accomplished a lot of work there. Oh there is also a river about 10 minutes from my town and on the other side of the river is Honduras.

I´m so ready to start working but I´m going to miss my host family here in Carazo so much. It´s only a 5 hour trip so I plan to come back for holidays when I´m not able to make it back to the states. Bueno, I gotta run home for lunch. Love you all, besos y abrazos!