Varias Cosas

UNO!: So I decided to bring Uno cards down to Nica with me (thanks mom!).  The kids in my family love it.  It’s really quite a sight.  3 Americans all too old to be playing uno (and gringo for that matter) and 4 Nicas arguing over the rules, pointing and yelling at each other.  Needless to say, it’s a lot of fun.

Youth group: As I mentioned earlier, as part of our training with need to start a youth group.  Our second meeting was Thursday (while I was incapacitated/spending long sessions with la latrina) but it went really well.  There were 18 kids and some had some great ideas for products and services.  Hopefully we can run a SWOT analysis with them and start creating our business plan for the big competition in July!

Family Tree: A good get-to-know-you activity with my family was showing and then creating family trees.  I drew my tree and showed them pictures of mi familia y novia (they thought you ladies were very bonita.  Winner).  The next night, I began the process of deciphering how large and complicated Nica families are.  Long story short my family is huge.  Like if you combine Luvy y Carlos fam’s together it’s getting close 60 people.  And that’s only the people who are alive, the deceased don’t get a spot on the tree which I thought was sad.  Anyway, about 15 of them live on our plot of land and another 15 live a block and a half away (Yes indeed 15 other people are using my same shower and latrine).  The most common professions are artisans (paint wooden things like yo-yos), chuffer de mototaxis, maestros, and bread makers (yummo).  Here’s a foto of a foto of me and my Nica fam.

Which one of these is not like the other?

Roommate: I got a roommate!  Yup, his name is Maurice the murcielago (bat).  Now I love Christian Bale’s raspy Batman voice as much as the next guy (“SWEAR TO ME!”) but this is a little much.  At some point during the night he flies into my room (the walls aren’t connected to the ceiling) and defecates on the floor.  This has been going on for the past 4 nights so if any of you could put me in contact with the Scarecrow or Joker, I’d really appreciate it.

Lagoon: What our tiny rustic pueblo may lack in indoor plumbing does make up by having quite a nice lagoon several kilometers away.  We hiked down and spent a wonderful Memorial Day swimming and soaking up the sun (I was apparently a sponge for the strong Nica sun and am now tasty medium rare).

Lagoon de Masaya

Shout outs: I have to give props to the super nice people who mailed me letters: Lexie and Michelle.  THANKS!  I’m sure the letters from the rest of you were held up at the post office and I’ll get them on soon…

Nica week 2!

Tuesday we went to Masaya we went to Masaya (big city) to observe our first class.  Try to picture this.  The classroom is huge because there are about 55 students.  It’s hot because well, it’s Nica.  And there’s this tiny nica teacher and a tall gringo named Matt.  It was awesome and intimidating at the same time.  I’m totally going to go all “Stand and Deliver” Nica style (Great flick, rent it.).  We lunched at in the central parque and ate delicious ceviche (more on that later bum bum BUM!)

Wednesday was the standard language class in the morning and technical training in the afternoon.  After the training we went to the local mirador for a group foto.  They wanted to charge the 21 of us $1 per person to enter (which is ridiculous, see previous post to understand the value of a dollar) so we refused.  They we saw that the bus rate was only 2 cordobas (aka 10 cents) and asked if we could get that.  And got a stupid-americans-shake-of-the-head “no” which we see way too often.  Not to be detruded, our group lined up in bus form and the guy in front honked his imaginary horn, rolled down his imaginary window and we “wheeled” our way in.  Here’s some fotos of BizNa$ty 56 (yes we’re that awesome we have a team name).

The Business Crew

We're serious about entrepreneurship

Came home ate and was SUPER sleepy so I tried to go to bed.  If you haven’t caught my obvious foreshadowing thing rapidly go downhill from here.  Let’s push this into Thursday

Thursday so approximately at 12:01am I begin my intimate relationship with the latrine.  I was nauseous, had the chills and all around felt like my intestines wanted to succeed from Peteland.  I don’t want to provide way too much information so I didn’t vomit but did do something that would earn a “crapton” of points in scrabble.  And repeat that action every 4 to 5 hours.  I literally did nothing beside lay in bed and visit my dear new friend “la latrina” (see, it’s femaine) until 7pm.  At that point I decided to treat my body like a walking pharmacy and glup down pills by the dozens.  Several multi-vitamins, Tylenol, Dramamine, oral-rehydrates, and antibiotics later I coma-ed and woke up…

Left shower, right latrine

Nice amenities right?

Friday LATE!  Slept through my alarm and have 3 minutes to get to the entrance of our town.  So I dressed (my socks were on inside out) and took a mototaxi and caught the peace corps mini bus.  After a mostly uneventful training seminar (found out I don’t have parasites, but I’m still a little skeptical) I talked with my sitemates and found out they were all sick too!  Ceviche = 4, Trainee = 0.  Still drugged up but feeling better I ate some food and went to bed.

Saturday Woke up early and went to my host uncle’s finca (which is a tropical farm?).  I walked around for an hour eating crazy fruits that don’t exist in the States.  Then 12 of us biznastys met up in Masaya to watch BARCELONA!  For those of you who may not know (and I will reevaluate our friendship if you didn’t know) I’m a bit of a FC Barca fanatic.  They game was mind blowing, I highly recommend watching the reply if you missed it.  Anywho, FCB beat Man U 3-1 so I’m clearly beyond ecstatic at this point.  Walked around Masaya for a while and bought a cake for mi mama because Monday is mother’s day down here.

Sunday Oh Nica, you silly yet awesome country you.  So I decided to attend a rodeo in next town over.  Words struggle to explain the absurdities and overall ridiculousness of this event but don’t worry, that won’t stop me.  Let’s break it down.  First of all, it is constructed in this VERY temporary fashion:

I thought I was going to fall through at any moment

Next notice the quantity and completely unnecessary men in the ring.  Don’t worry, they are not professionals.   They are just your typical Nicas.  Please note that some were even kind enough to wear red shirts, in the event they weren’t already obvious enough targets.

Rodeo Nica style!

Quite impressive actually

Yeah, I did that

At a loss for words?  Me too.  Till next time!

Costos

I think it’s important to understand how cheap things are here.  Before I left, I heard a lot of talk of “Oh the dollar isn’t as strong as it used to be, America is falling behind”.  Or maybe that was just Donald Trump (is that madness still going on?  You know I’m not coming back if he get elected, right?).  Beside the point.  Here is a quick visual math conversion.

The official exchange rate is 22.something cordobas to the dollar.  If you can believe it, Nica bank hours are even worse than the US’s (they close at 2pm) so I had to have my money “changed” with the coytes in the street (how gangsta, right?).  My $20 USD got me 420 cordobas.  Not bad right?  For those of you whose math is not they’re strong suit (you know who you are) that’s 21 cords to the dollar.  So here’s some quick prices I’ve run into:

12oz beer in a can (drinkable with some lime juice, probably coors light quality) = 20 cords = $0.95

1 Liter (how many ounces are in a liter??) of beer = 40 cords = $1.90

Bread in any form (and quite good) = 5 cords = $0.24

One way, hour long, nonstop, minibus ride to the capital = 23 cords = $1.10

One way, 35 minute, decommissioned school bus ride to Masaya = 8 cords = $0.38

Hour at the cyber café = 13 cords = $0.62

A whole pineapple or avocado = 10 cords = $0.48

Mailing a letter to the USA = 10 cords = a pineapple = $0.48  (Boom transitive property)

3 Liters of Fanta = 32 cords = $1.52 (not a really good price—our town is expensive)

Ice cream bar = 7 cords = $0.33

Cell phone that I’ll be using = 380 cords = $18.10

Flashlight, 2 D Batteries and a mirror = 80 cords = $3.81

Fish ceviche with fresh avocados, carrots, onions, lettuce, and tomatoes = 60 cords = $2.86

Half liter of fresh banana, orange and pineapple smoothie = 40 cords = $1.90

Eating rice and beans twice a day every day = priceless (no seriously.  It’s so cheap it’s less than $0.01)

Now that doesn’t go for everything.  There are some things (two) that I’ve found are more expensive here:

Printing fotos (no one has cameras, or computers or printers)

Iphone = $800 (they don’t even bother putting it in cords but if you want to know = 16,800

What I ACTUALLY do

Ok to show you followers that I do more than eat fruit and lounge in hammocks, here are the work related things that I’ve been up to.

Attending class:  Every weekday, I have class.  At 8am I meet at Kate’s house (one of my fellow trainees) and practice Spanish in her host family’s carport.  We cover a whole host of random topics ranging from salutations to cookware.  Our profe is Alvero.  He’s employed by the Peace Corps but a citizen of Nica and speaks zero English.  He’s an ok professor; focuses solely on business and doesn’t find my jokes very funny.  Class goes nonstop till noon when I get an hour for lunch.  After my rice and beans, it’s back to class from 1-3pm (but recently class has been running as late as 4:30pm).

Technical training:  Every Wednesday and Friday after language class, we have technical training with all the business volunteers.  We meet at a restaurant that’s in a central location for everyone.  For a couple hours we discuss everything from reporting to Peace Corps HQ to how to discipline the kids in our soon to be teaching classes.

Health and safety training:  Every other Saturday, we meet in Managua (quite a hike) for ‘everything else’ training.  This is with all of Nica 56 so it’s the only time we get to see our Agriculture buddies.  It was a lot of fun to see everyone and talk about who’s gotten sick and who has internet, a pool, and a 50inch tv in their host house (I hate you Harry).

Youth group:  We, the four of us in Nandasmo, are also responsible for starting up a youth group.  The objective is to get kids ages 15-20 and do a business plan competition.  We had our meeting and 11 jovenes showed up!  It’s a good start but a ton of work to plan and facilitate everything.

So needless to say, I don’t have a lot of free time.  Typically the only free time I have is my 30 minute run and if I’m really lucky, an hour at the cyber to talk with all of you.  The rest of my time is spent bonding with the host family and doing homework (barf).  It’s a lot of work but I’m still really enjoying everything thus far!  To show how little free time I have, can someone let me know if the bulls made it to the finals?  Viva Chicago!

Randoms

Sorry that I temporarily abandoned you my beloved followers.  Training has been busy, it’s like they think it’s a job or something, sheesh.  Kidding, I’ve been working my butt off.  But I’ve included the more interesting tidbits.

Chickens:  I hate them.  Alive that is.  They LITERALLY live in my front yard and have zero regard for my sleeping pattern.  These foul fowl (see what I did there?  Homophone, boom.) don’t just crow at sunrise like all good cartoons have taught me.  No readers, they will cluck cock-a-doo-doodle-doo all day and night if they feel so inclined.  If it was culturally acceptable, I’d punt one into a Guinness record breaking longest chicken flight.

Spanish hiccup:  Hanging with the nica family one night and I hear three LOUD chirps.  The dialogue was as follows: “what was that?  A bird?”

They casually reply, “No, it’s the ‘scorpios’.”

 “Scorpios?  Are there a lot here?”

“Si, there are many”

“Ay!  Dios mio!”

After a very awkward series of charades, I find out the ‘scorpios’ are these 2 inch long lizards that live ALL over our house.  They are also the EXACT same color of the concrete walls so I’ve been unsuccessful in capturing one on film for you all.  So, while they do make obnoxious noises, they do eat mosquitos so they’re ok in my book.

Spanish Win:  One night I totally started saying my nightly prayers in Spanish.  “Dios, muchas gracias para todo que me da: mi salud, amigos etc…”  Until I got to some difficult word and had to stop and say, “Silly pedro, God doesn’t speak Spanish…”

Eating:  I know I already dedicated a whole post to eating but I had to add these tidbits.  I literally ate back to back meals of 100% carbohydrates.  Potatoes, rice, and the dense corn tamal pisque.  I feel like I’m carbo loading to run a marathon (and therefore have started running again in the humid 80 degree weather.”  Also, knives don’t really exist.  So in the event I’m lucky enough to get something that need to be cut, I pick it up.  OH!  I almost forgot.  I do this all in a rocking chair without setting my plate on a table.  Impressive huh?

Tranquillo:  Everything here is much much slower.  Example, hammocks are very popular.  I cannot even begin to describe how awesome it is lounge in a hammock during the midday heat after eating enough starches to fuel me for a week.

Regalo:  The best way to assimilate myself into any different culture across the globe is done with one simple question, “I’m a huge fan of Barcelona, y usted?”  Boom, instant conversation.  A couple nights ago, I pulled this card and the daughter of the man I was talking to ran into the house.  She came back out with this and said “Regalo para ti”.  AWESOME!

Rain rain RAIN!:  I don’t think I can accurately describe how hard it rains here.  I live in a house with a zinc roof that is only 8 feet tall at some places.  It literally sounds like a war is going on.  I’m not sure if you can see it in the attached foto but you can physically see the rain POUR down.  It’s crazy.

Directions:  Reason #87235 why Nica blows my mind.  Directions and addresses.  Not a new or strange concept by any stretch of the imagination right?  WRONG.  In my town, there are none, zero, zip, nada street addresses.  Instead, and I’m 100% not kidding, this is how I tell people where I live: “North of the Catholic church and next to the artist Xiomara and enter through a gate made of wood and the house is in the back.”  Is this real life or the 18^th century?

Prized possession:  I thought you, readers, should understand what I consider my most valuable possessions here in Nica.  (Insert your guess here).  No, you’re wrong.  It’s not my laptop, ipod, or even bug spray.  In fact, I would not be able to live without my water bottle, ear plugs and flashlight.  Water bottle, because I drink the equivalent of lake Nicaragua every day and I’ve never seen the temperature dip below 78.5.  Ear plugs because it’s SO LOUD at night.  Between the chickens, dogs, music, rain, voices, fireworks, and tv I would not sleep without them.  And flashlight?  Well, you know I use a latrine right…?

That’s it for now.  I promise to include some of the actual work that I’ve been up to so you know your tax dollars are going to good use!

Iron Chef Battle Nicaragua—Secret Ingredient: Boring

I’ve had a lot of questions about what I’m eating.  I’ll break it down by meal: breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Desayuno: Is the smallest meal but, is by no stretch on the imagination, small.  The past two days I’ve had a mountain of fruit salad including pineapple, banana, watermelon and cantaloupe.  A side of sweet bread or fried eggs is probable as well.

Almuerzo: Big but not quite Spain-gorge-yourself-till-you-want-to-vomit big but big nonetheless.  Rice and beans are staples.  As in, I’ve been here for a week and ALWAYS had them.  It’s now a game I play called “What will my rice and beans come with today?”  I’ve had chicken, beef, plantains, cheese and meatballs.

Gallo Pinto sopa

Cena:  Is shockingly similar to lunch.  In fact, I’m pretty sure she makes a metric gross ton of rice and beans and serves them again.  But sometimes she’ll mix up the form.  Now since it’s the rainy season (winter) we’ve had soup twice.  Tonight’s version was a gallo pinto soup with two hard boiled eggs.

Carlitos enjoying his chicken and meatball soup

The food is edible in nearly all instances. Minus an overly salted cheese, I’ve eaten everything on my plate.  No iguana or genitalia yet…(knocking on my small wooden table)  That being said, not everything is great.  What I mean by that is it’s BORING.  I can handle the food.  I can even handle the same food repeatedly.  What is beginning to drive me crazy is the lack of taste.  Besides salt and a couple onions, it’s been the equivalent of eating, well, rice and beans every day.  I’m not complaining though.  I’m getting plenty to eat and with my one-a-day vitamins I’m staying healthy!

Make me jealous and tell me what you’re eating stateside!

More about my host family...

My madre, Luvy, is the homemaker.  She looks after the ninos (which includes me even though she’s only 5 years older than me).  In addition, she prepares all three meals, washes the clothes (by hand in the event we have water), and cleans.  She’s super nice and probably the easiest to understand

Carlos (the elder) is the breadwinner.  He works at a cooperative bank in Granada (a 40 minute moto ride).  He’s nice and jokes with me a lot.

Carlos II is in 5^th grade.  He doesn’t talk too much but I can tell he’s a little devil just waiting to see if I’m cool or not.  He doesn’t like studying but told me he wants to be a lawyer.  Bit of a disconnect if you ask me but who am I to judge?

Alondra doesn’t do much except look adorable all the time which she is quite good at.  She is still scared of me but honestly if a tall gangly gringo started living in your casa, how would you feel?

Fun game for you, reader.  Guess Peace Corps or summer camp.  Staying up late and telling scary ghost stories.  If you guessed summer camp, you’d probably be correct.  Strangely enough, Peace Corps is a perfectly acceptable answer too.  They told me two stories: one about a dog that is black when it’s evil and good when it’s white and the other was about a pig that turns into a man (clearly had a bit of trouble understand these…)  If you know any good leyendas from the States that I can share, let me know!

My training site!

Dear reader, you win.  Several years ago, if you would have said, “Pedro, you’re going to be living in a four “room” house (2 bedrooms, kitchen and a living/dining room.  Please note the exclusion of something resembling a bathroom.) with four other people I would have probably laughed.  If you said that I will enjoy the experience overall, I would recommend that you seek professional help.  Welcome to Nandasmo.  I live with Luvy, (28) Carlos, (29) Carlitos (10) and Alondra (3).  Their home is maybe 12 feet by 60 feet and is really just one big room broken down into 4 different sections.  My room takes up almost half the house and is really awesome while the 4 of them sleep in one tiny room on an equally tiny bed.  It’s set away from the community on a dirt road surrounded by shacks on sides.  I can't explain why, but I'm really liking it.  Every bone in my body is screaming "Pete, you hate camping.  You like hot showers.  You don't like pooping in the woods."  Yes this is all true.  But my family is super nice and accommodating.  I'll put up some pictures this week!  Nos vemos!

NICA!

So Tuesday morning at the ungodly hour of 8:11 I flew to Washington to meet up with the rest of my trainees.  There were 47 of in total.  We spent the day doing ice breakers and getting basic information.  It was nice to be around so many other people who have similar interests (hippies unite!)  Orientation finished at 7 and I had nothing to do till 2am when we had to check out of the hotel.  So naturally, I pulled an all-nighter.  Ryan and Angie were nice enough to drive into the city and take me out dinner.  Then we proceeded to have the best send off possible, drinking and staring at national monuments.  At 1am, I took my last hot shower and began the trek to Nica!

Once we arrived in Nica we bussed to our orientation site in Managua.  Everyone was super tired so not too much to report.  Tomorrow I’m finding out where I’ll be living the next 11 weeks!

Fiesta

On my antepenultimate (awesome word, right?) day in the states we decided to party like I'm not going to see everyone for 27 months...  And it was awesome.  Spanish tapas restaurant with 50 close family and friends then a naperthrill barcrawl.  Highlights include:

• Random guy buying me a shot because he was impressed I was serving my country.  Thanks sir, and I hope your trifecta bet on the derby went well!
• Walking around with my new Dora the Explorer backpack because, well.  It seemed like a good idea.
• Getting multiple shout outs from the DJ at features who also invited me to his place in Honduras...I politely declined.

If I didn't get to say goodbye to you, reader, well, GOODBYE!  I'm leaving for DC in 16 short hours.  I leave you with the last Stephan foto for the time being...

Cha cha cha changes

I thought it'd be interesting to take some basic stats about home and myself and see how they differ after 27 months

USA:
Gas price by my house--$4.37
Google news top story--"The secret SEAL team that took down bin Laden"  (Last night at pub trivia, one of our competitors was named, "Knock knock...Who's there?  SEAL TEAM SIX!"  My team was aptly named "War and Peace Corps")
Top 2 iTunes singles--"Rolling in the Deep" by ADELE, "Just a Kiss" by Lady Antebellum
Top box office movie--Fast Five (I'm embarrassed, America)


Me:
Weight--146 lbs. (Lean, mean, peace spreading machine)
Push-ups in 1 minute--58
Sit-ups in 1 minute--32


Feel free to start betting on how emaciated or chunky I'll be two years from now!

Contact Info

Now I'm sure you're all wondering, "But Pete, what if reading your blog isn't enough?  Do I have to use smoke signals and carrier pigeons?!"  Never fear, I present you with several options.

1. EMAIL  I have a new email address, pstephan2@gmail.com.  In the event my treehouse in the rain forest has internets this will be the best way to communicate.
2. INSTANT MESSAGE  In the event emailing doesn't fulfill your necessary Pete quota, you can Gchat me.  To do this: send me an email and voila!  I'll gchat and/or video chat you when the rain forest internet gods permit me so.
   
3. PHONE  Say, hypothetically, you miss the soothing sound of my voice, I have a new phone number: 630.909.9063.  This is my VoIP number.  That means you can call, text, and leave me voicemails like a normal phone and I'll respond when I'm not too busy making human sacrifices at Volcano Nicaragua.
4. SKYPE  In case California has an earthquake/tsunami as is all the rage right now and causes google to stop working, I may hop on skype now and again.  Add me to your contacts: peter.j.stephan.
5. FACEBOOK  Duh?
6. SNAIL MAIL  All else fails and you have money to burn, you can physically mail me things.  Keep in mind it takes about 5 weeks and people will open my mail and steal stuff.  My address until August 10th is:

PCT Peter Stephan
Cuerpo de Paz ~ Nicaragua
Apartado Postal # 3256
Managua, Nicaragua, Centro América

 And last, but certainly not least, YOU CAN COME VISIT ME!  I know Nicaragua may not be the most desirable or comfortable vacation destination (hah) but I promise it'll be funnnnnnn!  The Peace Corps permits me to have visitors starting in October so start saving those vacation days!