más o menos asi (more or less like this)

The following photos represent bits and pieces of our daily lives here in Estelí.

Me and my composting worms.

This is the entrance to "Mujeres Ambientalistas" --my volunteer site. Below the sign is one of the directors and her daughter.

These two cuties I see on my way to "work" everyday. Its seems they are always outside their front door playing in the dirt.

When we travel, this is our mode of transportation.

We had a small birthday party for Jordan. The experience was very much like any birthday party we have had in the States,-the only real difference was the language spoken.


This is coffee. In our travels we have learned a great deal about coffee—from the dirt it grows in, to the final cup. We now have a much greater appreciation for that morning "cup o joe"! (AND——are even MORE committed to buying fair trade.)




This a the market where we buy most of our groceries. I LOVE it here. This is one of the things I will miss the most about living here——lots and lots of locally, organically (mostly) grown food.

This is my mom receiving a lesson on how to make tortillas

If we forget something at the market then the market comes to us.

The bakery also comes to our door. This is Jairo, he deliveres "pan dulce" to our doorstep every other day.

Watermelon smiles!



Greetings again from Nicaragua,

With more than seven and a half months behind us here in Estelí, Nicaragua it feels we are just now hitting our stride. We are forming friendships and it is now common to see people we know as we stroll about town. In many ways, it is beginning to feel like home. Nevertheless, the fact that we are foreigners is still an ever-present aspect of our existence.

Several things have transpired in the course of time since I last wrote. The following is a brief (ok! an attempt at being brief) recap of what fills our days here in Nicaragua.

The kids:
The girls have returned to school full time, and their language abilities continue to progress. Indeed, they—even more than Michael and I—are truly having an intense immersion experience. We can see in very tangible ways how much more confident they are after successfully assimilating into a new culture.It is a great source of pride for Michael and me. Even with all the mosquito bites, diarrhea, meltdowns, anxieties about the girl’s safety, and so forth, seeing the positive effects this experience has had on them has made our decision to spend our sabbatical in this way entirely worthwhile.

Me:
I continue to teach English to Devyn’s and Jordan’s classes twice per week. Given that I have no formal training in primary education, I have relied heavily on the expert advice of my mother and mother-in-law, both of whom are retired elementary teachers. To say that the teaching process that goes on in my classes is pedagogically effective would probably be an overstatement. I consider it a success if I can keep the kids from wounding each other and running about the room in a chaotic frenzy. As of late, I have discovered that I can keep them remaining sanely in their seats if I keep them occupied with arts and crafts projects (with instructions in English). I also bribe them. Some like to call it a “reward system”. I call it, “whatever works”!! ;-)

I have also begun volunteering with a women’s environmentalist project called “Mujeres Ambientalistas” (translation: women environmentalists). This project involves six women who live in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Estelí, making paper from recyclable and organic materials. They also work to educate the community concerning the benefits of recycling and composting—a difficult task in a culture where there are no organized recycling services and throwing your food wrapper on the ground when you are done with it is considered appropriate. With their paper the women make cards, envelopes, notebooks, bookmarks, and the like. With the proceeds of their work, they dream of one day being able to provide sustainable employment to single women who are fighting to provide for their families.

This project started fifteen years ago when a few women decided to clean up an area of unoccupied “green” space their neighborhood was using as a dump. Their goal was to set up a micro-enterprise in order to use the space for making compost—utilizing the “garbage” people were already throwing there—while also teaching the community what could be composted and what could not. Over the years, a few non-profit organizations sympathetic to their cause provided some funding for buildings and composting troughs. One group in particular showed them how to make paper using some of the same compostable materials (e.g. banana trees, vegetable peelings, and used paper products) and provided the paper making equipment. Today, the bulk of their efforts are devoted to making paper, but they still compost as well, using it for the benefit of the trees and plants on the yard.

I first encountered this group when I was searching for composting worms way back in the first few weeks we arrived. I so liked their products and their aspirations that I returned with each group of family members who came to visit us in December and January. During each visit, I learned a little more about their project. I had been looking for a volunteer venue to put my Spanish skills into practice and thereby to improve my language further, sooooo one fine day I mustered up the nerve to ask the women if I could help them with their paper making and educational endeavors. My salary, I explained, would be their conversations as we worked side-by-side and got to know each other. They happily accepted my proposal and warmly welcomed me into their fold. Little did I know at the time that making paper would turn out to be only one small part of my activities with these women and their project.

Shortly after I “became one of them,” as they put it, the women told me how disorganized they were with regard to business management practices. It seems the support they received in the past provided a great deal when it came to developing their business infrastructure, but fell short of providing any education about how to actually run and manage a business endeavor—especially one with the goal of growing its employee base (again, single women). I have since learned that this is very typical of many small “start up” businesses here in Nicaragua. The “managers” of this little enterprise haven’t had the opportunity to become educated about running a business, and thus they have little understanding of how to keep track of their sales and expenditures in a way that informs them about whether they are actually making any money—and how to use the money they do make to further their cause.

Don’t get me wrong. These women are very impressive. They work hard, and not just at making paper! Actually, making paper and compost is but a part-time job. They also care for children and parents, and carry the load of cleaning, shopping and cooking for the family. Most of them have other full-time jobs as well. One, in particular, helps her husband make horseshoes out of rebar—an extremely labor intensive task. They barely scrape together a subsistence living. They live in mud and scrap board houses, live off of beans, rice and tortillas, have no healthcare, and, like I have said, have had little or no opportunity for education. The fact that their paper making efforts are aimed at one day helping single women humbles me.

These hard-working women still hope to improve the productivity of their project. The more I got to know these women and learned about their project, the more invested I became in their “dream”. I suspected that perhaps there might be things I could do beyond just making paper to help them get a little closer to their goals. With their enthusiastic permission, I began to delve into several other activities in addition to making paper. For example, I have been working to link these women with services to help them reach (or at the very least, get closer to) their business goals. I have done some work on the computer, typing up advertisements and organizing materials (like vender contracts, price listings) to help them promote their products and explain their cause to the consumer. I have helped them write a letter requesting permission to sell their wears at the weekly fair. I have also written another letter asking the local government to officially deed the land to them. As it stands now, they only have squatters rights. (I hired my Spanish teacher to help me with this process. It was a great way for me to provide my Spanish teacher with work, receive a Spanish lesson, and get something done on behalf of these women’s project all at the same time). I continue to scout out and make contact with the “touristy” sites in town that might want to purchase their products for resale. And I am working to link the directors of the project with Nicaraguans who can teach them business administration skills, computer skills and marketing ideas. (I could provide some of these services, but I believe it is more important and far more effective if Nicaraguans are assisting other Nicaraguans in these types of endeavors. Wherever possible I sidestep being the person “in the know” because there are just as many Nicaraguans who desperately need the job, who are fully capable of offering the same information.) . In the words of my South Carolinian friend Bob Morgan, “I am just happy to be here, and God will’n I can help the team.” ;-)

As we plug along and I become more aware of the obstacles (almost always related to their poverty) to their business’s success, I realize again and again the need to “address first things first”. For example, before we can link these women with someone who can teach them some basic business administration and computer skills, we will have to schedule eye exams for at least two of the women—and then find them glasses. For the longest time I thought they couldn’t read. After a little time, and a bit more directness on my part, I found out they can read—they just can’t SEE!!! And they can’t afford to seek treatment. (Like I have said in previous blogs the poverty here is great. One of the everyday consequences of this degree of poverty is that the poor are forced to choose between food OR medical treatment. Eye care is considered a luxurious extra.) I am also talking with the women and gathering as much information as possible about them and their project in hopes of one day writing up a grant proposal or micro loan application. I have already located a possible grant source, but like I said before, first things first. First, they need to be able to see; second, they need to be linked with education and services; and third, we need to get better organized—and so on and so forth.

These are just a few of the examples of where my volunteering with these women has directed my energies. I really enjoy working with such people who, despite their own poverty, strive to help others they perceive as even worse off than themselves. Needless to say, I am getting far more education than just conversational Spanish. I have no idea how much I can accomplish with these women and their project in the next four and a half months, but I do know my life has already been enriched far more than anything I have or will have offered them in our short time together.

Michael:
For the first six months or so, all of us were relatively healthy. We should have knocked on wood or something, because that came to a screeching halt when Michael got very ill and was diagnosed with Hepatitis A. He is now doing fine and on the mend, but it took quite a bit of effort to get from doctor to laboratory and back again several times—and to understand what they were all saying to us. It was an extreme form of “learn your medical Spanish,” we’d rather not have to repeat. The confusing part of all of this was that Michael had been diagnosed with Hep A nearly twenty years ago. Presumably, the disease is a once-in-a-lifetime deal, and therefore Michael had to undergo many more tests than otherwise might have been necessary while the doctors tried to figure out what he was suffering from. In the end, all that anyone could figure was that either he had been misdiagnosed years ago—odd, since the symptoms and lab results were exactly the same—or that he was in fact a strange case in which the disease had occurred twice.

We feel very comfortable with the quality of care Michael received during this time. In fact, our own HMO in the States would probably never have authorized the numerous tests ordered and the amount of face-to-face contact time we had with the doctor. Moreover, Estelí is something of a Mecca for homeopathic medicine. Medicinally speaking, there is no cure for Hep. A; one must just wait it out. Having said that, our doctor here recommended some dietary alterations and homeopathic herbal remedies that we believe have sped Michael’s progress. (Again, we learned first hand how prohibitively expensive medical care is for the poor.) Again, we’re grateful that he is doing much better and, fortunately for Michael, his job is to sit around and read all day, something he can do with Hepatitis or without. ;-)

Well, that about sums up the gist of what keeps us occupied these days. When we are not doing the aforementioned activities we are hanging out with friends, playing games, strolling about town, cooking, cleaning, reading, traveling, and studying Spanish (me). As always, thank you for your interests in our journey this year, and we very much look forward to sharing all the nuances and details with many of you upon our return. Until next time! (Hasta luego!)
-Kelli