Tired— but still trigger happy

Hello again,

We all continue to thrive as we turn the corner on our last month here in Nicaragua. We have begun the process of shifting gears in our minds from being people who live in Nicaragua to people who are now just visiting for a short while.

The kids are holding strong on the health front, despite the fact that they have continued to contract and survive various and sundry viruses. We figure their immune systems are going to be as strong as oxen when we return. At least we are hoping so. I am utterly astonished at their language abilities, AND extremely jealous. Despite the fact that they have enjoyed their year here in Nicaragua, they are very ready to return home to the United States. They miss their friends and are weary of being “foreigners”. I can relate. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to “blend in”!

Michael’s sabbatical studies are moving along really well. He has accomplished a huge amount of research and feels well prepared for teaching with a whole new verve. And the framework and approach of a future book have come fairly clearly into view. Although he can always see a mountain of other books to read, articles to write, and curricula to plan, he considers this year of sabbatical a great success.

I continue to work with the Mujeres Ambientalistas. I have learned since my last posting that there is a word for what I am doing. It is called “development,” and I am really loving it. I have made great strides in my own learning goals as well. I am conversing with them and helping teach some basic business skills—in Spanish. Now, mind you, I didn’t say I do it well. Thankfully, I have my Nicaraguan counterpart with me to round out my basic outline, but I am making myself understood, and I can’t even begin to describe how good it feels to look back on my first few months here (struggling in anguish over trying to communicate) and see how far I have come.

I could write forever about this project. It consumes most of my time and a great deal of energy. Some fantastic things have happened and the women continue to move ahead with hope and excitement. If circumstances were different, I could easily make the choice to stay here and continue working with this group indefinitely. However, there are other things ahead for me back in the States. What those things are exactly still remains unknown, but I am hopeful—if not also a little frightened—as I complete a chapter in my “book of life” and prepare to begin another. That said, I plan to return for a visit, hopefully with a group of others who might like to offer some short-term service to this very inspiring group of women. Anyone want to sign up? ;-)

This month I have spent all my energies elsewhere and have little left for composing even a semi-articulate blog. Thus, I am opting to send you a bunch of pictures with a bit of commentary. I figure those are all anyone really cares about anyway, verdad? (Right?) ;-)

One of our most recent excursions was to a coffee farm with some friends who live in Managua.

The farm also had a few horses. This one had a young colt.




The girls after a hike on the farm. Its pretty humid here. Just in case you are wondering about the big knot on Devyn’s head—she took a header into a wall after jumping on the bed (NOT something we parents gave her permission to do). She is fine now.


In addition to the coffee plants, there were also lots of bananas ready for the picking, and as you can see the girls got their fill.


These were some of my Mother’s Day gifts from the girls. The “puppet show” (box) is a good example of what can happen to a child’s imagination if she has fewer toys. This box had a slit in the top, so Jordan made it into a puppet show theater. Pretty creative, huh?


This is Frida and Devyn showing off their Mother's Day Masterpieces.


This is Yessi and her cousin Maria Guadalupe. They are daughters of two of the women who work for the project. Yessi and Maria enjoy hanging out with me at the project. For Mother’s Day, they wanted to make a special cake for their moms. We had a little baking party at our house, and this was one of the end products.


Here come the puppies. I spend a lot of time at the “paper factory” (where the Mujeres Ambientalistas work), and when the kids are not in school they love to join me and hang out with the director’s daughter and the zoo of animals they have. One of their many dogs just had a litter of puppies, and there is always a new flock of baby chicks wandering around. As you can imagine, the kids are in seventh heaven. (A side note about the puppies: They are cute, but they and all the other stray dogs that wander the streets have reinforced in our in minds why spaying and neutering domestic animals is a FANTASIC idea—for a whole lot of reasons that I won’t enumerate here (some of which might gross you out).








Like I said in a previous post, I have been working with a women’s project called Mujeres Ambientalistas (women environmentalists) While practicing my Spanish, I have been trying to connect these women with services and venders that will help them expand their business and promote their environmental goals. So far we have had “charlas” (classes) related to team-building, accounting and production costs, computer operation, and setting up an email account. We have a number of other classes along these lines planned for the next few weeks. Through some donations from my family, we have been able to employ some Nicaraguans to help us with this process. These pictures are of some of the classes. They represent some of my best moments here in Nicaragua. Helping to facilitate these women with their goals has been and continues to be a terrific experience. The whole process has not been easy—it seems development is a complicated and messy endeavor, but completely worth the effort.

Here I am, introducing the basic outline for the information my cohorts and I would be presenting. If I look wet in this picture, it’s because I am. I got caught in that downpour (see below) on my way to class.


The rainy season has returned. I got caught in this downpour on my way to the project.


This is Melanie. She is a champ of a Peace Corps volunteer. She is an accountant and has been teaching business administration classes to Nicaraguan high school students for the past two years in Estelí. I have solicited her help on a number of endeavors while working with this project.


This is Indira, my language teacher, friend and, now, my colleague in helping to provide these women some new skills. In this picture she is explaining an accounting concept. Indira is a big part of my life here. I could not picture my Nicaraguan experience without her.


I mentioned before that one of the best days I’ve had here in Nicaragua was when we got glasses for some of the women from the Mujeres Ambientalistas project. Here are Doña Cándida and Doña Augustina with their glasses on, ready to take notes for class.


Here the women are familiarizing themselves with an old keyboard before we all headed to the cyber cafe for a lesson on operating a computer and opening an e-mail account.


It was very fun for me to watch these women experience the Internet for the first time.


In this picture we are having a class on the color wheel—how to mix the three primary colors to get all the colors in the world. I am hopeful this information will help them make paper in a wider variety of colors.


These are pitayas. These fruits (aside from making a very tasting juice) really mark the time for us. When we arrived they were in season, then they went out of season, and now they are back again. This fruit signifies we have been here long enough to see seasonal food come and go. Just look at the bright fuschia color. It has got to be packed with antioxidants. I am going to miss them.


Devyn has learned to hang out on the front porch chatting and eating junk food like a true Nicaraguan.


Michael—doing his work.


The girls are watching t.v. and comforting each other while they recover from some virus that really wiped them both out for a while. This experience has really bonded them together.


Remember the “mystery poo?” Well, here is our culprit. I nearly stepped on this guy one night when I had to get up and get one of the girls a drink of water. We showed him to the door and asked him to do his “business” elsewhere, though we welcomed him back to eat his fill of bugs in the house anytime he liked. ;-)


That about sums up what we have been doing since I last wrote. Until next time.
Paz,
-Kelli