Team Clarkhelm's Nicablogua

San Cristóbal

2010-01-07T10:15:00.000-08:00

On a whim we climbed what turned out to be the highest peak (and active volcano) in Nicaragua. It was seriously difficult, and once we reached the top, I was sure we would be blown off into oblivion or die from sulfur inhalation. Fortunately we lived to speak of it.. and speak I will! It was unbelievably hard. We did not have proper equipment and as a result my pants ripped from the crotch to the knee and my shoe separated from its sole. I am glad we did it (high fives to Adam, Sonia and Perry), but I think I have learned something very important about myself— sherpa is out as a potential career choice.

Happy New Decade

2009-12-30T13:08:00.000-08:00

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy New Decade! We hope this letter finds you all prepared for the future. That is what is supposed to happen in 2010 right? The mainstreaming of flying cars, mind-reading computers, and teleporting machines? For an end to poverty and the eradication of disease? Or not. What is it that we as a human race have been dinking around with in the past 2010 plus a few million years? Well, we can at least send our sincere hopes that you will enter into this new decade with a refreshed spirit and a hopefulness that the world is inching its way back on track. Cheers to 2010!

It is a New Year´s Eve tradition here in Nicaragua to fashion an old man out of flammable material, then set fire to him at midnight... an out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new ritual so to speak. I must admit that when the ball drops this year and we stand like pyromaniacs with matches and a can of gas in hand, we are going to be a little reluctant to set fire to this carefully crafted decade. A decade in which we have graduated, graduated and graduated again, married, purchased a house, left the country, left that country, returned to the States only to leave again, joined the Peace Corps, traveled the distance of the Americas by bus, boat and stranger’s car, been robbed, been rescued, fumbled through a new language and learned to appreciate all the embarrassment, unease and wonder that has allowed these moments to ensue.

July 2010 is our official close of service date from the Peace Corps, and as we have opted not to extend our service beyond the two years, this date marks not just the end of Peace Corps, but also an end to our devoutness to wanderlust. We have spent much of our twenties abroad, and now we are at a point where a stable life in the United States, closer to family and friends, is an appealing next step; where careers and graduate school will ultimately replace the volunteerism and undocumented employment that has sustained us for so long.

So here is to a new decade and exciting changes.

Love,

Adam and Lara

Updates and such

2009-12-06T11:11:00.000-08:00

Friday we finished our 2nd annual León English summer camp. This year we solicited the help of three new volunteers from our department, a Nica professor and two University students. We had twenty-one participants of which twenty had perfect attendance and improved their English significantly. By the end of camp we were tired, but very satisfied with the results.

We have a new site mate! His name is Chris Ortega (no relation to the president) and hails from Los Angeles. He is a fellow English education volunteer. We are happy to have him here (and to pass him the torch in 7 short months).

Piñatas abound! It seems we have had an influx of invites to children’s birthday parties. This incredibly dangerous (blindfolded, sugar-filled children wielding blunt objects and swinging wildly) event is just one of those cultural obligations that has taken some warming up to, but has been a great opportunity to get to know the 12 and under crowd and their mothers. We are always the only childless adults in attendance, which earns us the largest slices of cake… y gaseosa también.

Other tidbits… We were host to the worldwide Peace Corps director who was recently sworn in by Obama. He came to our site and visited Adam’s class and met some of our co-workers. It was quite an honor to have him visit our site and to show him our projects.

In September we presented at the National TESOL conference in Managua. Then Lara went out to the Atlantic Coast (really it is the Caribbean, but they call it the Atlantic) to present at the Caribbean conference with a group of Nica professors and embassy folk. The east of the country is very remote, so it was necessary to fly in a small plane of death. Fortunately it withstood the journey and Lara lived to celebrate her 28th birthday weeks later in Miraflor, a nature reserve in the chilly north. Pasa came and we learned that she does not like a)cold whether or b)to be dirty. We had a great time, Pasa however shivered constantly and licked herself nearly bald.

Thanksgiving was celebrated in Managua after a 2-day all-volunteer conference. This year we were thankful for a few days of air-conditioning, hot showers and of course for the tax payers who made this all possible. We ate turkey at our director’s house with a group of 35 other PCVs.

On to Panama! That’s right, we are heading south in 4 short days for a little R&R with our good friends Andy and Liz. Stay tuned for photos.

Mamón Chino

2009-09-21T16:25:00.000-07:00

Mango season has ended and has been replaced by mamón season. Mamónes come in two varieties, normal (green shell, no spikes) and Chinese (spiky and red). No one can explain to me why the latter is called “Chinese” since they grow here and not in China. I liken it to our naming of Canadian bacon, French fries and Mongolian barbeque. Mamónes are eaten fresh and also used for juicing. To eat it, crack the shell in two by lightly biting it, then suck the clear, gel-like fruit off of the seed. To make it into a juice, pulse it in a blender with sugar and water. It is impossible to completely separate the fruit from the seed, so the seeds are put into the juice. An interesting fact about mamónes is that they leave grease-like stains on clothing. The taste is pleasant, kind of like a pine tree-flavored cherry that leaves your mouth feeling squeaky.

Pasa flings them around the patio because the spikes make them roll in unpredictable patterns, kind of like the cockroaches she likes to chase. You can see her in the background of the picture begging. I didn’t give it to her at first, so she brought me her empty food dish and barked her most pathetic, “Mamá, dame un mamoncito.” We’ve been working very hard on her Spanish. Her use of diminutives is quite impressive for her age... or so we’ve been told.

A day in the life...

2009-08-13T13:13:00.000-07:00

For all you tax payers out there, you might be interested to know just how a tiny, itty-bitty, almost non-existent portion of your hard earned cash is being spent in Nicaragua. We can’t speak for all the Gringos here, but here is what goes down on a day-to-day basis in León.

We wake up when our cell phone alarm rings at 6:30 am. One of us starts the coffee while the other waters the plants with water we store in 2-liter bottles, and picks up Pasa’s poop plastic-bag-over-the-hand style.
Let’s pretend it is a Wednesday, which means we don’t have class until 9:00 am, so we have a little time to read, tie-up the loose ends of our lesson plans, wash a few pairs of undies on the washboard and sweep and mop our dusty floors (it is an interesting fact that in Nicaragua no one walks bare foot, not even in their own home or shower. This is the case because houses are very open and not protected from the outside elements. Even though we mop 3 times a week, our house is also not fit for bare feet). Once the coffee is ready, we clean out two coffee mugs and kill the thousands of ants feasting on our seemingly clean countertop. Most mornings we drink our coffee in the back of the patio because the wall keeps it shaded until about 9:30ish, and our potted-plant garden is the best part of our house.

At 8:00, regardless of how many chores are left undone, showers must be taken. Get out, towel off, and what do you know, instantly sweaty again. By this point the thermometer inside the house reads 90+, so the right-leg-left-leg ritual of putting work pants on is a bit of a struggle. 8:40 and we are out the door with water bottles and rolled up flip-chart paper to teach at UNAN, which stands for Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua, easy translation, University of Nicaragua. We walk about a third of a mile and catch the bus (an old American school bus) for 15 cents each. We both teach in the English department to students who will become English teachers. Adam teaches US History and Culture to third year students, and Lara teaches Techniques in the Teaching of English to fourth year students. We both finish at 11:00, and if we are lucky, our boss will drive us home for lunch. In Nicaragua, lunch is always eaten at home. Mostly, we have eggs, beans and toast or some variation of the food we eat in the US like pasta or tuna sandwiches. If we are lazy, we split a set lunch at the air-conditioned supermarket for about $1.50-$2 US.

Back at home, we finish whatever cleaning we didn’t do in the morning before Lara’s teacher friend, Sadia comes over to lesson plan, at which time Adam begins his 20 minute walk to a public high school called John F. Kennedy, or El Jon. By the time he gets to school, he has soaked through both his undershirt and work polo, but despite his disheveled appearance, begins co-teaching with his counterparts.

The public schools are painted blue and white, and consist of rows of cement block rooms with tin roofs and a central, flat, court-like outside area where students do what students do. Some schools have modest libraries and internet labs. Adam’s school is an elementary school in the morning and a high school in the afternoon. It is small, and there are one or two rooms for each grade, with about 40 students per room. Lara’s school is large, and each class has between 45-60 students. Students only go to school half day, either during the morning shift from 7-11:30 or in the afternoon from 1:00-5:30. Some public schools have a night and weekend shift for students who have to work all day. Many teachers work a morning shift at one school and the afternoon shift at another, which is a tough job because prep periods are not built into the daily schedule. Many teachers can only work one shift because home duties truly take a lot more time here. It is common for anyone who can afford it to hire domestic help. Prepackaged food is not affordable to the working class, and neither are washing machines, so everything is done by hand/from scratch. Many sectors in our city only have water from midnight until 5:00 am, so water gathering is a chore in itself. Just to give you an idea, a high school teacher earns from $150-$215 per month for one shift, an elementary teacher makes from $115-175 per month. A principle of a large high school (3,000 students) earns about $300. A full time domestic employee makes around $75 per month.

At 6:00 pm we meet at our Spanish class and take lessons from 6-8:00. Why do we take Spanish lessons you might be asking your self… well as you can see, not much Spanish is being spoken during our day.
This is a Wednesday, which tends to be more structured that say a Friday when we give a 3-hour teaching workshop twice a month to a group of about 35 English teachers from León and neighboring department, Chinandega. On Fridays we spend most of the day (with the exception of Adam’s 9-11:00 class) planning and making materials for the workshops. On the off chance that it rains heavily (like during the entire month of October for example), we abandon the day’s plan and frantically sweep water out of our home while the streets empty of people and animals and fill with rain and sewage. Where do the street dogs and horses go?

Recently, UNAN had a severe budget cut of 1 million cordobas. The English department was forced to lay off 34 adjunct English professors who taught all over campus in a program called English for a Specific Purpose. These teachers were responsible for teaching content specific English to the medical, law, business, tourism and science students. As a result of the layoffs, the department is using 4th and 5th year students like TAs to fill the positions. This has added an extra teacher-training component to Lara’s week, and she has postponed some of her duties at the high school to help with the increasing demands at UNAN.

Truly, our days are full. Even when we don’t have a lot scheduled, between meetings, planning with teachers, and the house work, we are always doing something. It is hard to explain why everything takes so much time here, but most of it has to do with limited resources and having to create a lot of what we do, eat and teach from scratch. Throw in a foreign language and a hot, sticky climate, and the days can get pretty exhausting (gone are the afternoons of swinging in our hammock... unless you are Pasa, who sleeps, poops and drinks water all day long). It has been a great learning experience, for example, to design workshops based on the assessed needs of teachers, but when the internet connection goes down in the entire city, and every printer within a mile radius is out of toner, it becomes a frantic game of back-up plans. Fortunately, people here are so forgiving and understanding that when trial and error leans more toward error than trial, we are still encouraged and supported by our Nicaraguan colleagues.

It’s not all work though, don’t think for one minute we don’t enjoy our 20km proximity to the Pacific Ocean, Nicaraguan hospitality or the occasional teachers’ karaoke night at the Malibu bar. At the least, when nothing else is going down, we spend the evening in our patio with a cold liter of Toña, a thick coating of deet mosquito spray and a cutthroat game of bananagrams.

This is all quite different than the Peace Corps experience we pictured (thatch houses and digging latrines), but we play the card’s we are dealt, and at the end of the day feel pretty good.

Back in Action

2009-07-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

Our two week trip went entirely too fast. We had a great time and were so glad to visit with all those we did, but also disappointed that our time constraints kept us from catching up with everyone we had hoped to.

We have returned to Nicaragua and to our Pepto-pink house with the red trim. The familiar feeling of living inside the lining of an upset stomach is comforting, but the heat is not. We brought a thermometer back with us and have been playing a rather masochistic game that we call, Guess how hot it is _________________ at ______ o’clock. For example, guess how hot it is where Pasa is laying at 10:00?

Go on, guess…

If you said 111° then you are correct! Could Pasa survive the Pacific Northwest? Maybe on a tennis court in the middle of August. Will everyone think us cruel pet owners if, at her persistent begging and puppy-dog-eyes, we leave her in a parked car with the windows rolled up?

It was a touch-and-go journey back, but after Joel’s stealth maneuvering of the Seattle interstate system, plane switching, cancelations and our fair share of dealings with rude North Americans, we made it back (with luggage mind you) no more than two hours later than our scheduled arrival. The next day we took a quick trip to collect our dog from our very gracious friends, Liz and Dianne, then attempted to beat the revolution day mobs through Managua and back to León. Easier said that done! See yesterday just happened to be the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, which had something to do with a guy named Rónald Erégan whom I have never heard of in my entire life.
Our neighbors were a bit standoffish at first, but once they realized to their relief that we were not new foreigners, but in fact “their normal gringos with ugly/pretty (depending on who you ask) new haircuts back from visiting their happy parents,” it was all smiles and enthusiastic questions, reminding us just how nice it is to be back in the land of hot.

State Side

2009-07-15T22:10:00.000-07:00

It is tough to say goodbye to this!
San Diego with P-Wil, Glenda and Tio Arturo
BREW*TOUR*09*PTOWN
Andy & Merrissa and the wedding venue of the Gods! Shouldn't everyone get married at a micro brewery?
The Olympic Rain Forest
Crescent Lake, WA

Los Padres/ Suegros

We are not dead...

2009-06-02T13:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know that it has been a LONG time, but there is a reason... our computer has crashed. Now I know what you are thinking, but they don´t have internet anyway. Yes, that is true, but let me explain our normal blog process. 1. Take a really cool picture or find post inspiration over morning coffee. 2. Take out the laptop and upload the photo and write cheeky commentary. 3. Spell check so that our wit can be understood by less creative spellers. 4. Once everything is ready, go to the cyber cafe, upload the post with photos, and press the Publish Post button. Without a computer we cannot upload photos without contracting the computer version of H1N1, we cannot spell check in English, and we have to spend way too much time in the sweaty, porn ridden cybers that have a way of eating our flash memory sticks.

If anyone knows anything about a blinking question mark in a little file box inside a grey mac screen, let us know how to fix it, because NO ONE in all of Nicaragua knows what to do except for one guy who will sell this information to us for $500. And a quick tip to all... back up your photos, music and documents and avoid what Joel calls the blue screen of death. We have the blue screen of death big time and sadly did not back up. OHHHHHHH GOD NOOOOO (in the words of Gayle Wilhelm).

Reason 2 for not posting in a really long time- We are coming home for a visit! I can´t really explain how this is an excuse for not posting, but it has something to do with coming back with a used, new or fixed computer, and that we can just tell you what´s up, so no need to post. Right? The travel plans are as such... July 2nd we land on US soil, drink a sweet, sweet micro brew in the airport in Houston, then board a plane to L.A.. There we will kick it with the extended Wilhelm side at the first ever Wilhelmania family reunion (ok, it isn´t really called that, but I wish it was... will they make T-shirts?). From there we will head South to San Diego for some Wymania (Gayle´s side) to balance out the Wilhelmania. One the 6th we fly into Portland and break out our parkas, drink some proper micro brew, and spend a week with the Clarks in Salem. Then we head North and the party begins with Merrissa and Andy´s wedding. After which we will travel to frigid Olympia and Seattle for some R&R before we head back to Nicaragua. Then the blog will resume as normal, with a functional computer si dios quiere.

Better late than never

2009-03-01T14:30:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos of our Christmas/New Year trip to El Salvador and Guatemala. It was outstanding, but way, WAY too short. As it turns out, we didn't take very many pictures, and the ones we did take failed to capture the awesomeness that is El Salvador and Guatemala. So here is a mediocre attempt to share our vacation memories. The first two were taken in Sochitoto, El Salvador, and the last three are of Guatemala- Antigua and Lago Atitlan.

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Baptism

2009-02-16T12:15:00.000-08:00

This is a ridiculous post to recount a ridiculous event that could possibly be the highlight of our service to date. Saturday, on St. Valentine’s Day, our little Pasa was baptized. A (more or less) Catholic ceremony was performed so that we will no longer live in fear that our little mutt, or “eat when there is” as non-purebreds are called here, will hang in the eternal limbo of purgatory should the unthinkable happen. This might sound sacrilegious, and really I would have thought so too, except that this was instigated entirely by Catholic Nicaraguans who insisted that our site mate Jordan, Pasa’s now official Godmother, throw her a proper baptism. The neighbors brought the holy water and some tasty Nica baptismal food, and like the good Gringos that we are, we brought the beer and in honor of the baptized, rum raisin ice cream. In addition to the traditional sprinkling of water on the forehead, Pasa’s reproductive organs were repeatedly blessed to be barren (see photo). During the ceremony, Pasa was an absolute angel, for which she will be handsomely reward with a trip the doggy sterilization clinic to get a little insurance on her blessing of infertility.

Congratulations Uncle Sam

2009-01-21T14:12:00.000-08:00

Happy inauguration day (a.k.a. the only event more joyful than an open bar wedding reception)! Long distance high fives and hugs all around :)!

A Retraction

2009-01-13T10:17:00.000-08:00

Just days after our last post, Ron con Pasas took a 180 in her behavior and potty-training, and as it turns out she is not the spawn of Satin, but a rather decent pet. Coincidently, this change occurred right around the time that Emmy (who is well versed in the art of exorcism) came to visit. So Emmy, thanks a million for casting the demons out of little Rum Raisin!

Our Christmas/New Years photo encompassing many of our 2008 experiences (hammock, dog, facial hair, sweat, scant clothing, very pink walls).

We have added a few pics to the previous post, check ‘em out. Guatemala and El Salvador to come soon!

What we have been up to in November-December besides mopping up dog pee…

2008-12-24T13:50:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving Dinner in our home, no matter how much we say we are going to boycott this holiday, we can’t totally abandon the tasty tradition.
Summer school- The three of us León volunteers (Adam, Lara and Jordan) put on a two week English summer camp for twelve incoming high school seniors. We had a lot of visitors during the two-week camp, which greatly added to the success and motivation of the students. The camp was a lot of fun; we introduced them to American football, water balloon fights and line dancing amongst other things. The whole camp was conducted in English, which was a huge accomplishment for the participants. Adam playing Change 5 Things

The month of Gigantonas (don’t know it I spelled that right) is upon us. This is a loud tradition involving teenage boys with drums, a costume representing a Nicaraguan man and an enormous Spaniard woman. It begins EVERY night at 5:00, and lucky us, three Gigantonas live across the street from us!

Just a nice picture of our neighborhood.

The Puppy Post

2008-12-23T10:27:00.001-08:00

It is ironic that our last post was about not getting a dog, and this one is about the dog that we broke down and took into our loving home. She was a “gift” from a teacher that Adam works with. I am not going to say too much about her, because we might not keep her. “But why?” you ask, “she is so cute!” Yes, she is cute, until she bites, growls and pees all over the floor, then she is NOT cute, she is a bad, BAD puppy. On the flip side, she is very treat motivated and at only 9 ½ weeks can already sit, stay and come.

So here is a little bio on the dog we named Ron Con Pasas (Rum Raisin). She was born in a rusted out oven and you would be shocked if you saw her mom; she is a skinny little domesticated-street-dog-looking-thing. Her dad must have been the devil, cause little Pasa is surly the spawn of Satin himself. Pasa came to us with the normal set of Nica dog problems– flees, ticks and pooping live worms twice as long her body. Once we got that under wraps, we began proudly introducing her to the neighborhood and our summer camp kids. This may have been our first mistake in dog rearing, because here, dogs are for protection and protection only, and everyone wanted so badly to help in the process of making Pasa aggressive. She has been poked, shaken and taunted to the point that she could successfully guard a junkyard from intruders, all eight pounds of her. Despite our explanation that “we don’t want a brava dog,” we lost the battle, and are now working hard to reverse the brava-ness (aggressiveness). Strangely though, she is still the most popular thing in the neighborhood. One lady told me that “Rum Raisin is going to be the next mayor of León.” I just smiled politely like a mother who is unsure whether her child will grow up to be a mass-murderer or a raving success, I am hoping for the latter. So without further ado… Ron Con Pasas in all her hellish glory.

The following pictures are not for children's eyes.
Chelito: Get back here you sexy little beast!
Pasa: I thought you liked it when I play hard to get…

Smooch, giggle, giggle, smooch

Pasa: Put the camera away you perverts!

The Pet Situation

2008-11-14T22:39:00.000-08:00

We are dog lovers, this is true. However, we have fought hard against the urge to open our doors and let the street dogs flood in. This is mainly because we are thinking long term. What would we do with it after our two years is up? Who would watch it while we travel? What would Zoey think? But as hard as we try to say “no,” there are people all around us saying “yes.” We have been literally inundated with offers to take on a pet. We have heard everything from “but they are such good protection,” to “but it’s so hard to be a street dog.” Our site-mate, Jordan, has even hinted that she would love to become our dog’s God Mother.
Recently, I witnessed a nearly bald street dog, or rather a park dog since it lives in the park in front of the cathedral, giving birth with the help of a transvestite midwife (no lie). He/She even offered to sell me one for $100 American, because while the mother is a pretty nasty looking bitch, the father is a “purebred.”
“What kind of purebred?” I asked curiously.
“A black and brown one,” the transvestite responded, as I slowly pushed the crisp $100 bill back into my pocket.

Alas, still not pet to speak of, however we are thinking outside the box and trying to be flexible as the Peace Corps encourages. For example, street dogs are a dime a dozen, but what other animals can be adopted in a city of 200,000+ people (and an equal amount of dogs)? How about a street horse, because there just so happens to be a white one that eats the trash on our corner. Or maybe if Adam hadn’t killed the giant, blood sucking blue and grey tarantula that I found under a block in our patio yesterday, that could have become a loving pet, which we would have named Hairy or Fang after his most notable physical characteristics.
There are plenty of scorpions that would make for low maintenance pets. One of our friends, Elizabeth, found a very large one in her house. She was telling us about it with all the fear and anxiety that a six-inch scorpion invokes, and I asked her, “well what did you do?”
“I thought about it,” she said, “and then decided to get one of my plastic chairs and sit a safe distance away, then I smoked a cigarette and watched it until it disappeared.”
“Scorpians don’t just disappear,” I reminded her.
“Shhhhhh,” she silenced me, “I would prefer to believe that they do.”
It may be a Peace Corps cliché to take pictures of large spiders, but check this sucker out!

Election Bliss! (Warning, Political Content)

2008-11-09T11:06:00.000-08:00

Oh, you think we mean Obama? Nope, we are talking about elections, Nica style, and all the joy that comes with stained thumbs, charged political rallies (and speakers) right outside of our door, a 3-day alcohol ban and 4 days off of school.

Now on a more national note, after 8 long years YES WE CAN travel internationally without lying and saying that we are from Canada! When the taxi drivers assume immediately that we are from Europe because people from the U.S. “Can’t learn to speak Spanish (or rather don’t want to),” YES WE CAN! When our higher ups tell us that we should be honored to represent the U.S. abroad, for the first time in our adult lives, YES WE CAN! Joining the Peace Corps was not an easy decision for us because in doing so, we in fact became representatives of the U.S., government included. Three months ago, we had to swear an oath to the U.S. Ambassador, and when we did, we may have had a few toes crossed. But now, YES WE CAN serve the U.S. abroad and feel (dare I say it?) proud to be agents of peace and change. Is the United States “the greatest country on earth?” Of course not. That is as ridiculous as claiming that roast beef is the best food on earth, it is a personal preference, and we have seen enough to know that there are A LOT of flaws in the U.S.. However, with that said, the day after the election, people here in Leon, Nicaragua congratulated us on our new president, and we can’t help but believe that in our flawed country, there is a restored hope for humanity, accountability and equality. So, YES WE CAN come home after two years instead of fleeing to Canada like we had planned to do if the unthinkable would have happened.
So, with that said, we try try try not to make this blog political, and we apologize to anyone who might feel alienated by this post, but let’s be honest, if you know us, you’ve probably noticed that we are a smidge lefter than most. So let us rejoice now during this honeymoon stage, because once Obama takes office and the real work begins, I’m sure we’ll both start saying “Damn, I knew I should’ve voted for Cynthia McKinny!”

Here is something that I had every intention of sending into the Statesman Journal, but with all the restrictive procedures we have to follow as PCVs, I will just post it on the blog and call it good.

Ya Voté en the USA!

My husband and I wanted nothing more than to support our candidate during this historical presidential race, but what could we do? Canvassing our neighbors was useless, lawn signs and bumper stickers ridiculous (no car, no lawn for starters), and campaign contributions in the currency we are paid would have accounted for less than the cost of the stamp we would need to send it. We are Peace Corps volunteers serving in Nicaragua, and although we are countries away, this election could not have been more important to us. Our image as United States of Americans abroad is directly related to the government that we represent, so as we watched the election results stream in on a fuzzy television connection, be assured that were wearing our homemade campaign buttons and hoping for change, not just in the United States but it all of America. Obamanos!

(These are our opinions and do not reflect that of the Peace Corps or the U.S. government… at least not until January 20th, 2009)

October Update... AT LAST

2008-10-29T13:14:00.000-07:00

Another month down, 22 to go. Yup, we are kind of at that count down stage, which they say will pass. Things are good, there is no real reason to complain other than that the newness has worn off and it is slowly becomimg work as normal. I should mention though that “work as normal” here is far from our U.S. definition. Community integration is actually a part of our job description, so when we are walking around the city, talking to the owner of the paint store about how to eradicate the bugs who are feasting on our rustic furniture (see the book shelf photo), and eating ice cream at the director’s wife’s shop, we are actually on the clock.

We had about 18 days of school canceled during the month of September, which if you do the math leaves about 3 days of actual classes. We managed to stay busy enough with Peace Corps reports and planning classes that were sadly never taught. We put on another teacher workshop; this time the theme was pronunciation. A fun fact that we learned from our linguist friend, Anjie, is that the direct correlation between written English and spoken English is only about 20%. This makes teaching pronunciation quite tricky. For example, the vowel sounds in the words hot, caught, talk, awful, and bought are all the same, but with very different spellings. So Mom, that’s why I’m a bad speller, it’s not me, it’s English!

Adam had some pretty substantial bumps form on his hands and his feet. As it turns out, he was having an allergic reaction to the vitamins we have been taking. Some people are allergic to penicillin; Adam is allergic to vitamins A, C, D, E and iron. Let’s hope he doesn’t get scurvy. Emmy, you’ll be happy to know that he is on a strict skittles diet to prevent this from happening.

We celebrated Lara’s birthday with a nice weekend get-a-way to a place called Selva Negra (Nicaragua’s version of Germany’s Black Forest). It is about a 4-hour bus ride from scorching Leon, in the cool and refreshing mountains between Matagalpa and Jinotega (damn the volunteers who call this wonderful climate home). We stayed at an organic coffee farm/hotel/restaurant. We enjoyed good food, coffee and hiking, and in general, a change of pace and scenery. Selva Negra has a great trail system, which we took full advantage of. After breakfast, it was our plan to go on a short hike up to the viewpoint. Since we didn’t have a map, we didn’t realize that we had in fact reached and passed the viewpoint. So we continued on, and on and on and on and got lost in the mountains until finally we ended up on someone else’s farm, who may never have seen white people before and seemed a little scared of us. When all was said and done, our short hike turned into a 5-hour vigorous trek through all of the trails Selva Negra had to offer, plus a few extras that we blazed ourselves, like onto the private property of local farmers. (Photo- Shade grown coffee)

We are happy to report that we have completed the final steps in the pineapple winemaking process. It is now strained, siphoned, and after a week of “resting,” siphoned again and bottled. It was a bit dry for fruit wine, so we added a little more sugar between step two and three, along with a pinch of rum to kill the yeast so that it wouldn’t make more alcohol out of the extra sugar that we added (it is kind of strong as it is). We began with about 5 liters, and somewhere between the straining and the bottling, we seem to have misplaced a few liters… into our bellies. It was such a success, that we have started a new batch of pitaya wine that should be ready in about 6 weeks.

Looking back, it turned out to be a busy month in comparison to September. Our friend Elizabeth came to visit from the only department hotter than Leon, Chinandega. We kicked it at the beach and cooked some tasty food. Then came a huge tropical depression, which meant that we had to contact all the volunteers in our department and tell them to stay put (we are the emergency action plan coordinators, basically that means we get a free cell phone and have to call about 20 volunteers to warn them of impending natural disaster, civil unrest or apocalypse). This past week we spent many days in Managua for Lara’s Peace Corps birthday present… a colonoscopia, that’s Spanish for camera up the butt. To make a long story shorter than her intestines, all is well and we were sent home a few pounds lighter. Last but not least, Adam grew a fantastic goatee! He even went and had it trimmed at the barbershop. It was a bit pricey, but he was treated to the works; brute aftershave, baby powder and an electric face massager that a man rubbed all over his face and neck.

Thanks for the packages, magazines and birthday wishes! We are now happy to report that our magazine supply is ample and should serve us well for quite a while.
Adam´s new look.

August-September Update

2008-09-11T13:33:00.000-07:00

The big news for the month is that we have moved into our very own house! It is a bit sparse inside, but it’s coming along. The neighbors loaned us a stove and insisted that we take advantage of their cable, which they offered to us at the reasonable price of $0.00/month. We haven’t even had a TV let alone cable in three years so we fought it, but they won and brought over the necessary cords, ladders and low and behold, we have cable. I kept reminding my self that cable is just a black wire if you don’t have a TV to connect it to, which we didn't have. Then out of nowhere, our landlady showed up at our door with an old TV. At one end of our living room is a bookshelf that Lara made from cement blocks and wood, at the other end, an old television sits on the floor connected to a black tube of TV life-support hanging down from the ceiling. We keep them separated because bookshelves and TVs are, by nature, mortal enemies. At night we hear the two arguing with only cockroaches to mediate. Yes, the cockroaches also came with the house. I don’t know where they hide in the simple, adobe structure, but they are big and hard to kill. We have put out poison, which promises to kill them in 48 hours, which in Nicaraguan time means 3 days. Television and pesticides in our new home?! I guess we left our ideologies back in the States :).

Other notable information is the early start to what looks like a powerful hurricane season. We had a fierce day of rain, which was a by-product of some distant hurricane, Gustav I think. Our house flooded, school was canceled and it looked as though the whole city was going to be enveloped in water. We were told that this is a pretty normal occurrence in September, and that it only gets worse in October. Last year, the volunteers from León and Chinandega spent a good portion of October in consolidation, which means that all the volunteers in the department go to a designated safe place and wait it out. Chinandega waited almost 3 weeks to be sent back to their sites. We are all on the Pacific side of the country, so we don’t get slammed by the hurricane itself (with the exception of Alma which hit hard about two months ago), what we get is torrential rain and flooding as the hurricane passes through. Hurricanes have always been a distant concept to us as Oregonians, so the reality of what Cubans, Floridians, Haitians, Texans, Caribbean Islanders and the like face every year is an eye-opening experience. Without the infrastructure that exists in the U.S., it is easy to understand how the effects of even minor storms can become severe.(Out our front door)
On a lighter note, what would Adam and Lara do with an abundance of cheap tropical fruit? Make fruit wine of course. Adam brought home four pineapples and a few feet of plastic tubing and we went to work chopping, boiling, sanitizing and constructing a fermentation device. In 8-10 weeks we should have about two gallons of tasty pineapple wine.

Last but not least, we participated in our first TEPSE, a time for teachers from the department to plan together, share ideas and discuss the national curriculum. We met the new delegate from the Ministry of Education and put on a workshop about the thrilling and stimulating topic, Teaching Prepositions to all Levels! Fortunately, we were able to work in the Beatles “Octopus’s Garden” and a little bit of the Hokey Pokey to spice things up. (This is a really nice private school called La Salle where the TEPSE was held)

(The patio at our last house, our room was the first door you can see on the right)

(Our new patio... it needs a little work)

Here is footage of Adam building a dam to divert water from our kitchen.

Limes and Fans

2008-09-11T13:14:00.000-07:00

Here is a little perspective on the skewed cost of living here that might be of interest to you economy buffs. Yesterday we bought a dozen large limes for 5 Cordobas. We also bought a reliable fan (which hopefully won’t break in four days like our other fan) for 800 cords. In other words, in Nicaragua a fan is 160 times the cost of a dozen organic limes. Imagine how many limes a Nicaraguan family would have to sell to buy a fan. In the U.S., I imagine that a large, organic lime is about $0.50, so a dozen would cost $6 and a decent fan is about $40. That means that a fan in the U.S. is less than 7 times that of a dozen limes. So why is it that a Nicaraguan lime farmer might be interested in leaving his country to work in the United States? Perhaps to buy his family an imported U.S. manufactured fan in the same market where he used to sell his limes so that they can sleep through 85-degree heat at night... in the winter. Instead of leaving his family and country, why wouldn’t the lime farmer just sell his limes for more? Then he could earn more money for his family and buy lots of fans, thus putting more money into the Nicaraguan economy? Because right around the corner is a store called La Union. The lime farmer has to compete with the lime prices at La Union and it just so happens that La Union is owned by Walmart. La Union has the option to sell local produce, or to sell produce from the U.S. which has been subsidized and shipped away in order to keep the lime prices high in U.S. Walmarts (of course they choose which ever is cheaper at the moment). I should mention that this is theoretical; a conclusion we have drawn from our lime and fan purchase yesterday and the fact that limes currently cost 6 Cordobas a bag at La Union.

*The exchange rate is approximately 20 Cordobas to 1 dollar

Invitations and the Like

2008-08-25T18:15:00.001-07:00

Leon knows how to celebrate! Fortunately for us, holidays not only render days off from work, but bountiful invitations to participate with neighbors and co-workers. We receive these invitations with a lot excitement and a fair share of anxiety. We have yet to turn down an invitation, but because we are still so new to the culture, we are clueless as to what to expect at these celebrations. Asking the inviter does little to clarify because Nicaraguans tend to be very hospitable by nature and genuinely just want us to come and see for ourselves. I also think that they enjoy the element of surprise and anticipation, thus leaving out details on purpose. Regardless, we are always left wondering, should we bring something? The host said 6:00, does that really mean 8:00? Will there be dancing? Will people throw fireworks at or around us? Will children and elderly folks be present (two demographics that are really hard to understand in Spanish)? Will they serve us cow-stomach soup? Will the party last two hours or all day? The only definite information we have is that we will stick out like soar thumbs, it will be assumed that we are brother and sister because here people think we look like twins (imagine looks of shock and bewilderment when the host says we are married), and immediately following this information we will be asked why we don’t have children (more reasons to suspect that we are indeed brother and sister and that the host has been misinformed, or that Americans are sick and incestuous. Always, ALWAYS, we have a good time, but that’s not to say that we don’t experience moments of awkwardness in the process.

Two weeks ago we celebrated La Gritaria Chiquita, or the Little Shout. We were invited to celebrate with a family, and then later to go see a co-worker’s band play. We showed up at the first party at 4:00, but realized that we were really early (4:00 means 5:30 I have since been told). Everything appeared calm and normal, nothing that would prepare us for the magnitude of La Gritaria Chiquita. All of a sudden, when the clock stuck 6:00, everyone ran out of their houses and lit off fireworks in unison; fireworks that would be very illegal in Oregon. Then the streets flooded with both children and adults running door-to-door shouting, “What causes so much happiness?” To which the owner would respond by yelling, “La asunción de Maria!” and give out things to the crowds of people forcefully jockeying for position at their door; candy and toys for the kids, and coffee, matches and house goods for the adults. Then, instead of saying thank you, you have to say, “Long live the Virgin!” It’s like Catholic trick-or-treating, only no one wears costumes and adults participate with equal enthusiasm as the kids. It’s great fun and quite lucrative. We scored two cups, a bowl, a colander, plastic tupperware, shampoo, six packets of instant coffee and about a dozen packs of matches. In addition, I got a change purse and ponytail rubber bands, and Adam was given two combs and a tennis ball. We also loaded up on candy and homemade eatables. We only did three blocks of houses, had we done a whole neighborhood we wouldn’t have to buy anything for the empty house we will be moving into shortly.

Then there was the concert. Again, we showed up naively early, but got in for free because my co-worker had invited us, which is Nicaraguan for “you don’t have to pay”. It seemed pretty dead until the band started to play an hour or so after we arrived. The restaurant/bar and the dance floor filled up. We weren’t aware at the time, but the band, Hermanos Cortes, is a popular dance/party band that plays all over Nicaragua. We are not dancers, but we were enjoying ourselves listening to the music and watching everyone else cut a rug like only Latinos can. Then, out of nowhere, my co-worker, who is one of the band’s singers, stopped the band and announced in Spanish that he was dedicating the next song to his two new American friends. There we were, sitting comfortably at our table, when everyone turned to look at the two Americans, coincidently the only two people in the room who had not yet danced. The pressure was on. We reluctantly took the floor and what transpired can only be described as a terrible, robotic imitation of the dance that we had seen everyone else doing with such ease and fluidity. A humbling experience to say the least, but we thought what they hell and stayed out there and danced the next song too.

Other memorable events include a birthday party for a one-year-old, complete with a piñata and a clown that looked like he came straight out of a Tim Burton movie. How children avoid grave injury from piñatas is beyond me. The way they do it here in Central America is with a pulley system and a set of ropes. Usually an older child or teenager raises and lowers the piñata, which is a paper-covered clay pot, while a blind-folded child swings madly with a blunt object. If any candy should fall from the pot (along with shards of clay), the other kids do not wait for the blindfolded child to stop swinging; they head straight in and fight each other for the candy while the pot continues to bounce and swing dangerously close to their heads. The effort put into this one-year-old’s party was impressive. The parents (Adam works with the father) prepared every last detail by hand, from the decorations to the invitations (he made ours in English) to the food. In contrast, yesterday we went to a birthday dinner for a very old women and it was one of the most touching and sincere family gatherings we have been a part of. We, as outsiders, were honored to attend.

Pictures can teach a thousand words

2008-08-21T12:17:00.000-07:00

If anyone has any magazines with awesome pictures and/or stories that you were planning to chuck, why not send them to the address below to be turned into much needed English materials. No pressure :). We used to get international Newsweek here, but it seems Peace Corps is feeling the squeeze of the economic situation back home and has tightened their budget.

New Address

2008-08-14T13:41:00.000-07:00

This is our new address, we can still receive mail at our old address in Managua, but this one is in León so we will get it a lot faster.

Adam Clark/Lara Wilhelm
Apostado Postal 366
León, León Nicaragua
Central America

That is all for now, more exciting news to come about our house!

The Longest Post Ever

2008-08-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

Word is good from Leon. We are into our second week, which doesn’t sound like much, but it seems like a gigantic leap from the sheltered days of training. Work has started, lives are being saved, and nations strengthened. We have yet to participate in the saving or strengthening, but we will be sure to start chipping away. (The logo on Adam´s T-shirt was designed by one of our mighty TEFL volunteers. It says Nica47 and has lots of hidden Nicaraguan pictures, like a Where´s Waldo.)

Three months ago, I swore that I would write down all the interesting little mundane notables that I neglected last time around; the stuff that starts off as unique, but ultimately will become normal and typical, then sadly disappear from our reality as soon as we return to the States. But alas, with good intentions, I have procrastinated until this very moment.

For starters, here in the far off land of Nicaragua, single portions of natural juices and coca-cola are sold in clear plastic bags, like the way we buy goldfish in the States. There are two varieties, one with a straw tied in and the other, which I prefer, tied shut. In order to drink from the latter, one must tear a little hole and suck the beverage out as though they were breastfeeding. Delicious! My favorite sack of juice comes from a fruit called a pitilla (I think I butchered the spelling), which looks like a bright purple artichoke. I have never seen it in the States, but someone said that it does exist and is called dragon fruit. Try it, but be warned that your pee may turn magenta. Selling juice and soda by the bag is also commonplace in Honduras, there you can even get a bag-o-beer. Other liquids sold in bag form include chocolate milk, coconut, mango, pineapple, a Pepto-Bismol looking corn drink and different blends of banana.

Every morning, I start my day by rubbing bodies with 25 other commuters in the back of a pick-up truck. It is like a normal pick-up, except with a metal frame, two wooden benches that seat about 10, all covered by a large blue tarp. A man hangs off the back yelling out the rout to the people on the street. He also must announce the stops to the patrons inside, as it is impossible to see through the blue tarp. A ride will only set you back 3 Cordobas, roughly 15 cents. Two days ago I had to run and leap onto the truck, which is something I have always dreamed about doing, and is absolutely as awesome as it looks it the movies.

Washing clothes by hand is really hard. The way it is done here is in a cement basin with a grooved section, a place for water, and a smooth part (see photo). The bright side of washing by hand is that clothes get way cleaner than they do in the washing machine, but the down side is that the fabric breaks down faster. Back home, we are accustom to a proportionate amount of stains to rips, that is how we know our clothes are old and it is time to buy some new digs. But here it is not so cut and dry. Should Adam buy new undershirts if his current undershirts are sparklingly white, but with tattered, stretched out necks? Do I invest in new underwear even if mine look like they just came out of the package missing the elastic? Dirt + holes = shopping.

We have a new address (our old address will still work in the off chance that you just sent us a briefcase with millions of dollars inside). It is a P.O. box shared by the volunteers in the department of Leon. We are lucky to be in the capital of the department because the post office is in our city, some volunteers have to travel 3+ hours to get their mail. The reason we share a P.O. box instead of just having mail sent to our respective homes, is that addresses do not exist in Nicaragua. Streets do not have names and houses do not have numbers. Regardless of the attempts to create such a system, locality remains based on landmark and loose cardinal direction, which isn’t specific enough to support a residential post service. For example, the address we used to find our house once we got off the bus with our backpacks and sacks of Peace Corps books was: Pink and white house, ½ block west of the old folks home (just an example, not really our actual address as we are prohibited from posting our exact whereabouts on our blog… I know, strange huh?!). As there is only one retirement home in Leon and not very many pink and white houses west of it, we found it without too much trouble. When we lived in Honduras there was a pizza restaurant in the gas station on the highway. Hands down, they made the best pizza, but is was far away. Fortunately for us, they delivered. At first it was a challenge to explain where we lived, but after a while they grew accustomed to our accents and all we had to say was, “Send it up here in the house of the Gringos.” An hour later a pizza would arrive. We take street names and house numbers for granted in the States, but it is actually a marked sign of a developed or developing country.

Something else that is remarkably different here is that food is not wasted. We were invited to eat fish soup with a co-worker at the beach last weekend. They brought out our soup in huge pots; I’m talking like 2 percent of the Pacific Ocean was swimming around in my bowl and another three percent in Adam’s. In English we traded, “there is no way I can eat all of this” remarks, but then attempted the impossible. We were seriously sweaty (soup in 100 degree weather) when we admitted defeat and felt guilty at the wasted food. But the family was not offended; they simply put the soup back in the boiling pot and served it up again to someone else. Even if we had been sick, which we weren’t, any germs that we may have passed to the soup would be killed once it was heated again. This makes more sense than tossing good food down the drain. Because almost everything is made from scratch by someone, throwing food away seems extra wasteful and rude. Many people have pets and/or livestock in their backyard, so in the case that food is mangled or otherwise unfit for human consumption, it is passed on to Fido, or to the chicken or pig that is potentially the next meal.

I like intentionally thinking about the differences between Nicaragua and the U.S, because honestly, that is the fun part of being abroad. In the end, our clothes get washed, I get to work at the same time whether I sit in the front or the back of the truck, and milk is fine from a bag. None of the differences we have yet to experience have presented unmanageable challenges, so in order not to forget the uniqueness, I’m doing what we do in the age of technology… blogging. And yes, two weeks in site qualifies me to list off cultural distinctions and make profound societal observations ;). (Brandy, the tiny dalmation that we live with. We will steal her and make millions of dollars breeding miniature dalmations. Have you ever seen such things?)

Picture Explosion

2008-07-26T09:37:00.001-07:00

Blogging has been a bit of a challenge in our training towns because it takes a really long time to upload photos, and let's face it, posts without pictures are just not as fun. Sooooo, since we are in a fancy hotel in Managua today with pretty fast internet, this blog is going to be heavy on the pics and light on the commentary.

TEFL 47 at the Swearing in Ceremony

The new (and only) Leon, Leon volunteers. We are pumped to be serving with Jordan who is in the small business sector.

Adam's host family

The youth group from Adam's town took on an ambitious project to turn this field into a park and picnic area. They planted 40 trees which were donated by the mayor's office.

Lara's town's youth development project... making a carrot shaped piñata. Wait, there is more. The four of us (in the picture below) were invited to be judges at the high school English singing competition (the students have the option of taking a written exam or singing an English song in front of the whole school). The winning team or individual goes on to compete at the departmental level. So, for our second youth group project, we helped the winning team master the profound lyrics of "Man I Feel Like a Woman," which they performed with a choreographed dance at our youth group ceremony.

The Dolores training group- Ryan, John, Elizabeth and me. Ryan was medically evacuated today for a rotator cuff operation.

Lara's host mom

Small Business and TEFL next to the world's largest bottles of Toña, oh and the Pyramids of Giza. You didn't know they were in Nicaragua?

A discussion about healthy relationships

Kicking back at our favorite spot, The Greenhouse. Training is officially over and tomorrow we all disperse to different parts of the country. We are going to miss all of the incredible friends we have made. Hooray, we are real volunteers now and we finally get to live together again!

Drum Roll Please

2008-06-28T17:12:00.000-07:00

Our site for the next two years is...
León, León. It is the capitol of the department, located on the Pacific. We will be about 30 minutes from the beach, at the base of a volcano, and little more than an hour from Managua. León is home to the largest and oldest university, and is known as the most liberal city in Nicaragua. Does that fit us or what!? The only downfall is that it is a rather touristy city, thus expensive for our itty-bitty Peace Corps budgets. There are a lot of resources for us, NGOs, schools, the university and other volunteers, so we will be busy and happy! Come and visit!!!

The Long Absence

2008-06-21T17:00:00.000-07:00

We realize that we have done a pretty terrible job updating our blog so far, but hopefully once training is over, we will become much more consistent. A lot has happened since we last posted. We had our first hurricane, Alma was her name, and though she was but a wee little hurricane, she seemed damn strong here. We had days of torrential rain and flooding. We were held captive in our houses and classes were canceled, but I (Lara), fashioned a boat out of palm leaves and paddled my way to Adam’s training town for a weekend of damp, clammy clothes that still haven’t dried. The other bit of gloom (before the happy news of course) was the bacterial infection with a side of UTI, or should I say Toña with an order of contaminated plantain chips? Fortunately, I was promptly taken to the laboratory and filled with antibiotics, so I am good as new.

They have been keeping us very busy. We were out of our training towns for most of last week visiting volunteer married couples. For some reason, Adam and I were sent to different volunteers in different parts of the country (two other guys from my town were sent together to the same volunteer, figure that out), but we survived and had nice visits in our respective cities, Adam in Masaya and Lara in Chinandega.

Last weekend we went to an event called a hipico. I have no clue how to translate this event into English because I’ve never seen anything like it. It was a big parade of dancing horses with a mix of sober and not-so-sober people riding them. Apparently, it is possible to train horses to walk sideways and run in place and do cool stuff like that, who knew?! We are pretty sure they were feeding the horses club drugs though because they were all sweating profusely, foaming at the mouth and had glow sticks tied to their tails… ok, the glow stick part is a lie, but everything else is 100% true. If you ever have the opportunity to attend a hipico, do not pass it up!

We also went to a volcano called Volcán Masaya and hiked around a bit. Here are a few pictures. Unfortunately, we do not have any photos of the horse rave, so you will have to take our word for it.

Emmy, we have a triplet!!!

Address

2008-05-22T14:15:00.000-07:00

Adam Clark / Lara Wilhelm
Voluntario del Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 3256
Managua, Nicaragua

Letters are pretty reliable and take about a week to get here. So are packages, but we heard that a good trick is to use the small bubble envelopes (perfect size for things like almonds, photos and dark chocolate), and to address it to Hermana or Madre Lara Wilhelm or Padre Adam Clark and adorn it with religious stickers or crosses, no one wants to mess with a clergyman´s package!

Our First Gigantic Spider

2008-05-20T17:05:00.000-07:00

We spent this weekend together in El Rosario, Adam’s training town. It was a happening weekend for this little town of 5,000. We were awoken at 4:00am to a marching band celebrating either a patron saint or political party, we are still unclear as to which. We put our earplugs in and fell back asleep. At 7:00, Adam opened his eyes to a less pleasant sight, a giant spider, really, really giant, though it was not a tarantula. Not that either of us are in love with tarantulas, but we have at least been informed that the tarantulas here cannot harm humans, however, this spider of tarantula size, we had no idea. We fled the room and sequestered the spider-hunting skills of Adam’s host father. After what seemed like an eternity, Adam and Pedro caught the bastard and squished him on the sidewalk. Hurray! They all had a good laugh at our reaction. It turns out that this spider is also not harmful to humans, and lives to eat the malaria carrying mosquitoes.

The other big news, El Rosario had a representative in the famous countrywide dance competition called the Travolta. Nicaragua does it right, a Saturday Night Fever themed dance contest held in Managua with a grand prize of a motorcycle. The contestant happened to be Adam’s host cousin and the host brother of another Peace Corps Trainee. 15 fans packed in a mirco bus and went to Managua to cheer him on. They returned with sad news that Onis (the name of the contestant) was second, but that he was truly the best and that the contest had been rigged. For those of you who are wondering, he danced to the song that goes “Dancing, yeahhhhh….” It really was a fantastic representation of the movie.

It was a nice weekend for us to be able to spend time together, meet Adam’s host family and the best news ever… the transportation strike ended!

Here are a few photos of Adam’s host family and the Travolta outfit / Adam’s house.

Sad Day in Adam & Lara Land

2008-05-09T18:50:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow our 3 month separation begins. We head off to our training towns in the morning to meet our host families with whom we will be spending the next 11 weeks. We are each in small language groups with three other volunteers of similar Spanish abilities.

Managua

Pre-Service Training Begins

2008-05-07T19:34:00.000-07:00

Hello from Nicaragua! After three days in our previous nation's capital, we have finally arrived in our new nation's capitol, Managua. We are staying at a swanky hotel and are bound to the premisses for the next four days. Not that we are complaining, this place has AC, a pool, good food and lots of eager trainees from different parts of the US.

Now for the complaining... We have conformed! GASP! It was not by choice and we went down kicking and screaming. Fortunately, hair does grow back and noses can be re-pierced. Ultimatums aside, we have made a commitment and knew from the beginning that we would have to be open to change in order to see this through. The locks are gone :(. Adam no longer looks like Jesus, Beck, Oasis, James Blunt (or pretty much any British musician), Bleaker from Juno etc. Did I miss any? Now he looks an English Sheep dog who has enlisted in the army.

The last of the nosering

D.C. was short, though at times it seemed long. The icebreakers were plentiful as were the flip charts. Highlights included an efficient monument tour with Jared, conversation and beers with Craig (both fellow North Salem Vikings), and meeting our new PCV friends.

We will be updating frequently about our upcoming experiences and impending 3-month stint in separate host families/towns. Please leave us comments if you feel so inclined, we love hearing from you all!

The Pre-Post Post

2008-03-27T23:57:00.000-07:00

Hello friends, family, fellow PC folks or whoever you may be. If by chance you stumble on this newly created site, this is a post to let you know that real posts will be coming in the near future. Until then, here is the brief lowdown. We (Lara and Adam) will be leaving for some unnamed U.S. city on May 5th, 2008. From there we will be flying to Nicaragua on the 7th, all of which is subject to change. We will be spending 3 months living with host families (yup, plural, we both get one) training, learning the Nica lingo, and adjusting once again to life away from home. Then we swear in (not yet sure what that entails) and then we are sent to our sites where we will be TEFL teacher trainers for the next two years.

Right now we are busy finishing up our jobs, finding a renter for our affordably priced and conveniently located home in downtown Salem, Oregon, and drinking as much delicious Oregon microbrew as we can stomach before we go cold turkey... or should I say warm Toña.

Needless to say, we are excited to be returning to Central America. We always hoped we would go back, and now is our chance to return with open hearts and minds. We will miss everyone so much, but remember, the invitation is open to anyone daring enough to bask in the warm sun with a bottle of Flor de Caña and a plate of fried plantains.

Peace and Love,
Adam and Lara