trabajando

Ill start with a bit of background on Fundacion Fenix. Maria (the executive director) began the foundation after having developed her own “D.A.R.E.” type program here in Nicaragua. She would (and continues to) go to schools and teach teachers how to give the program to their students. While she and the director Karla continue to go do this, their primary focus is direct intervention. With the aid of the police they target gangs and working directly with the parents hold an intervention and invite the youths to come to foundation to learn a trade (currently they offer mechanics and woodworking) at no cost. On Friday we held an intervention in Zona 6 of Ciudad Sandino where we were able to talk to 20 plus youths and got them interested in the foundation. We hope that they will pass the word to their friends bringing more youths to the foundation but its hard to say how many will even show up. Another program offered through the foundation is microenterprise, they (specifically Karla) teach willing students how to farm, organically of course, and allow them their own plot of land on the property. Currently the students are growing pipian, a vegetable that outwardly resembles a white eggplant but on the inside is a similar to a squash.
The foundation is able to sustain itself financially through 40% donations and 60% they earn directly through the sales of produce, some grown directly on the foundations site. The way it works is we go to the Mercado Orientel (the largest market in Central America and easily the most dangerous place in Nicaragua) and buy bulk produce for very cheap. We then clean and package the produce at the foundation and then sell it to the grocery stores. What produce we can grow and sell we do but currently it’s the dry season so not much is growing. We are in the process of building a second better greenhouse, provided by a grant, where we plan to grow pipian. This past week we planted the seeds in rich soil flats so that they should be ready to be transferred into the greenhouse when it is finished.
Part of my work while I am here is to increase the percentage of income generated through produce sales by expanding their market. Currently they have produce stands with signage in 2 supermarkets, one in Managua and one in Leon. We hope to expand into the supermarkets of the neighboring cities of Masaya and Tipitapa. All of the supermarkets are owned by the National Police. This is a weird concept for me but apparently it exists in the US, Miami for example, but I am not familiar with practice. There are not many supermarkets here. There is Pali , which is a Walmart auxiliary and there is La Colonia which is owned by one of the 4 super-rich families, who in essence own Nicaragua. Fenix has opted not to involve themself with Pali, which I completely agree with and as for La Colonia their standards for produce are unrealistic for organically farmed products. We are happy to expand our relationship with the supermarkets of the police because it furthers this healthy system of reciprocity between our organizations and in turn it secures a loyal market.
I am absolutely loving it. I really enjoy packing the products or making the deliveries though this is only a very small part of my work and is not why they wanted a skilled intern. In the very near future I am going to be teaching 2 classes a day of basic English. Prior to my arrival I was really adamant about not wanting to teach English but after discussing it with Karla she made me realize that just being able to say “Hello” will offer these youths more opportunity and pay in the job market. I am a bit nervous but I know it will be good. Other work I will be doing with Fenix includes increased outreach with the police about the Fenix’s work with the intention that it will increase our sales and soliciting donations to expand the types of vocational training we currently offer. The next three months are going to full of a lot of work but Im confident, and most importantly happy.
Check pictures.

semana santa

a.k.a. vacation. Karen, Rachel and I made our plans to venture to the Carribean side of Nicaragua for Semana Santa because we figured we wouldn’t have the time to make the trek at any other point during our internship. Our ultimate destination was the Corn Islands and while there are multiple daily flights between there and Managua we decided to take the super cheap but significantly longer way which also allowed us to see more than just the islands. Our trip began at 9pm from the bus depot where we took a 6 hour ride to El Rama. At 3am we arrived only to have to wait until 6am for the daylight and for the panga (boat) ride down the river to Bluefields. We all fell asleep sitting up watching some dubbed Penelope Cruz roco. Around 5:30ish we ventured over to the docks to make our ride. It was unreal the amount of people waiting. We were some of the last to board, which didn’t seem to be a problem at first. After 2 hours of riding we then arrived in Bluefields only to be told that the panga headed for Pearl Lagoon, our first destination, had left 15 minutes prior. The dock manager said that he could get us on a panga to Kukra Hill and then we could take the bus from there. So we did that ride for another hour. Once we arrived in Kukra Hill we allowed other pushy passengers to take the first 3 waiting taxis. Mistake. The bus to take us to Pearl Lagoon left 15 minutes early (which is totally absurd for this country) and we soon discovered that it was the only bus that day. We sucked it up and got had on an over-priced cab ride, which we tried to barter down but he wasn’t having it (one guy literally drove off).
We reached our hospedaje around 1pm utterly exhausted (15 hours not including the bus ride from home to the bus station) but ready for some sun and food. First we had beers at the hostel were the waitress gave me chicklets for change (throughout the trip this continued to happen, it’s a Caribe thing). We ate lunch at the Queen Lobster under a palapa which had literally been constructed finished that morning (while eating two gentlemen were working on a second). We started chatting with them and they offered us a cheap panga ride to a beach up the way. There we met a very interesting man who spoke English, Spanish, Miskito, Garifuna and Sumo and fought in the revolution for Somoza’s army when he was only 14. Even though Spanish is supposed to be the primary language, everyone on the Caribe speaks creole or Jamican sounding English. Its near impossible to understand at times. Everyone listens/plays to reggae and by the end of the trip we were singing to all of the hits.
In the morning we set out for Orinoco, home to the highest concentration of Garifuna’s in Nicaragua. It is a rich culture and we were excited to go there. However we waited eating Coco Bread and drinking presto coffee then watched as the panga from Bluefields enroute to Orinoco did not stop to pick us up. A guy approached to offer us a ride with him since he was also expecting the panga to stop. So we spent the next two hours on the Puerto de Laguna de Pearla drinking rum and California, a juice drink of pineapple and coconut. Finally arriving around 1pm we spent the day walking around the small town which had no cars but allows their cattle and horses to roam freely. We met some locals who showed us around a bit and played some music for us. The took us to a house of a woman who makes the traditional Garifuna bread made of cassava then later took us to another person who makes moonshine and sold it to us in a used pepsi bottle. We sat outside our hotel with the boys laughing and drinking and listening to the music from the bar until the electricity shut off at midnight (they don’t have power from midnight to noon every day).
The next morning we woke around 6am for our panga at 7am to take us back to Bluefields to catch the ferry to Corn Islands. We arrived around 8:15 to find out that the ferry doesn’t run on Tuesdays and that we must spend the day and night in Bluefields. We too quickly found a hostel called the Lobster Hut (recommended by Lonely Planet but not by us) and set our stuff down. It wasn’t until after we paid that we realized how gross the place was. No running water, backed up toilets, a sink that drained onto your feet and a very creepy owner. It felt like we were in hotel of “the shining” at times. We made sure to spend the day out in Bluefields so we hung at the park, ate some very fresh Pico bread, bought liquor and snacks for the island, played on the internet and finally went to the casino to use what we found to be the only place in the city to have tolerable bathrooms and running water. Since we were in there we figured we might as well play some slots. Finally its time for bed and my room smells like an ashtray and we are next door to a club that plays music until 3am.
8am Wednesday morning. Out of creep hotel, packed, tickets in hand, ready for a leisurely four hour ferry ride to paradise. The boat was packed and somehow we managed to get seats in the air-conditioned room. The first 2 hours we watched “wrong turn” dubbed in Spanish then stopped just inside of the lagoon to get gas or papers signed, we are sure what. Then we hit the high seas. Karen and Rachel left to sit outside because the AC kept going in out. They were drenched within minutes but it was still kind of fun. Then an hour later the sickness started kicking in. I put my head down and took a nap only to awake an hour later thinking we were almost there. Then I talked to the woman next to me who explained that its 4 hours on the high sea making the whole trip 6 hours. Within the next hour I notice a worker (who I named the bolsa-hombre) whose job it was to pass out little black plastic bags for people to yak in and take the full ones to the trash. The boat was being tossed around and when I looked outside I kept expecting to watch someone go overboard. It was hell. Getting to hear Karen and Rachel’s account of outside was marginally worse because people were just yaking on the floor and they had their feet in vomit just about the whole time. Four pm we arrive in Big Corn and must wait for another panga to take us to Little Corn where our hotel is. We immediately started making plans for our return trip to be on a plane because there was no way any one of us was getting back on the vomit boat. I still find it hard to believe.
Little Corn was amazing. The water was beautiful, the sun was bright and we had a great time. It made it worth the torment we went through to get there. It a small island and you can walk the perimeter in about 2 hours. We stayed on the east side but the town and dock is on the west. Our eco-hotel is owned by two former Fort Collins, CO residents who fell in love with the place. We drank Caesar’s, which is a Canadian Bloody Mary that made Karen (a Canadian) very happy and spent lots of time in the sun. On a walk to the north of the island we were able to see a baseball field funded by a “cocaine philanthropist”, this is an individual who finds a bag of cocaine washed ashore, sells it and uses the money for community improvements. We later found out that the paved sidewalks and the dock were also funded by cocaine philanthropists. We stayed until Sunday morning when we took our final panga ride back to Big Corn to catch a 70 minute flight back to Managua.

pasante

There is much to report on. I met the other interns and the local FSD staff on last Sunday-ish in Masaya which is the artisan capital of Nicaragua. I hadn’t really expended too many thoughts about the other interns prior to our meeting and didn’t know if I should expect a friendship from them but at most I hoped they would be tolerable. As it turns out Karen and Rachel are both fantastic easy going interesting individuals and we’ve already planned our Semana Santa together. I am grateful that I am so lucky. Or maybe not. So far I can honestly say that I haven’t met one person I didn’t find interesting and perhaps that’s because it takes a similar like-minded individual to work or travel in a place like Nicaragua.
Orientation week (4 days) was filled with many lectures on Nicaragua both in Spanish and English in topics such as history, health, politics, culture, economics and sustainable development. I am not sure if I could pick a favorite lecture but I was amazed at how little I knew about the colorful culture and their infamous history. Politically its divided into the Sandinista’s (FSLN) and the Liberals (PLC), Im not sure yet where I stand or what each party intends to offer the Nicaraguense because every person is biased and both the parties are loaded with corruption.
Mi familia is large but I like it that way. Maria the matriach is strong woman with three living children, 2 died in accidents. One of her daughters, Marta, lives here with us and she has three daughters Anisa (20’s), Rosaura (20) and Gabriella (10) who also live with us. Anisa has 2 children Austin (10), Andrea (2) and Rosaura has one daughter Diana (3). There is also Maria’s husband Manuel (who I cant understand a single thing he says), Marta’s husband Renaldo and Anisa’s husband Walter. The men minus Manuel keep weird hours and I see them rarely. I suspect they might have other families since that’s a cultural norm but I’m not going to ask. I still cant figure out what Maria does for work, something about bartering down and buying products then reselling them but Im not so sure. Anisa I also don’t know much about because she doesn’t leave her house. Marta is a student of something and Rosaura will start school in May to major in Philosophy. We also have a Gallinero (hen house) with hens, ducks, chicks and ducklings. We only eat the eggs from the chickens and they eat both the ducks and chickens. We have 2 Chocoyos (parrots) that never shut-up and one german shephard-ish Oso. Dogs here are nothing like they are in the US. Strictly utilitarian to guard the property at night, never played with and rarely allowed to roam around the property during the day. Its very weird to not be able to pet a dog when they are in your house.
In a family this large there is not much down time. I rarely have a moment to myself but Ive been enjoying it. If I’m not playing with Andrita or Dianita on the patio then Im in the street with Gabriella and Austin and a slew of other neighborhood children (Luisa, Merlin, Nelly, Bernie, Enrique) or Im sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs with Maria, Marta and Rosaura just talking.
That’s the latest. I started work today but I will report on that in my next post. Once again go to facebook for pics.

estoy aqui

here I am in nicaragua and its still hard to believe. i arrived at about noon on Sunday expecting a ride. i realized somewhere over missouri that I hadnt clearly finalized the plans with the owner at the language school for the pick up, getting very necessary details such as "who should i expect to pick me up" or "what will they be wearing". After customs I looked around at the mob of sign holders to see if one of them had either a hat or a t-shirt or a sign for the language school but none did, so i took a taxi. knowing very little spanish i negotiated and was able get a similar rate to what i would have paid the school. We take off for the roughly hour car ride (which i had expected) to the Laguna de Apoyo. We get to the entrance and i had expected to see signs but of course there are none, so the driver asks someone for directions and we proceed to drive up and down and around the laguna's unpaved and rock ridden ways searching for the elusive escuela only to discover after about 35 minutes of searching and asking nearly 8 people for directions,in the 90 degree weather that we had passed it 4 separate times (granted it has 2 separate entrances and only one has a sign which faces one direction). I meet Pablo, a resident biologist and school director, who gives me the run down for the week: times we eat, internet, sleeping arrangements, class and activities schedule.

monday i awoke at about 4am to many unusual noises only to spend the next two hours pretending to sleep in the hopes that if i pretend hard enough that i might fall back asleep. no avail. so i got up at around 6 and got myself ready for the first day of classes. i met my profesora for the rest of the week, Gloria, who proceeded to tell me all about the customs and culture of Nicaragua. the most surprising was the wide practice of "amante's" which is essentially taking a lover. its common practice for men around the age of 40, 50 (real surprising, eh) to get themselves an amante and when i asked gloria if it was the same for women she said no. however, after talking with Jeffrey, the owner of school, he informed me that Gloria is a bit rigid and that most women get themselves an amante, its just not sung about. so there. after classes Gloria, another student Cecilia, her profesora Aura and myself went for a hike. needless to say it was hot but totally worth it. first we saw some howler monkeys in the distance, then we found some helicoptero's (which seemed much more fun than the ones we have in u.s.) of which we gathered a bunch for Gloria's 2 sons. we got some nice views of the laguna and talked about some of the native wildlife and plants. after that i went for a dip in the laguna, had dinner and passed out at around 9pm.

tuesday 4am now known noises which are monkeys, dogs, birds and by 6 a bus is honking the entire time is descends into the crater of the laguna, takes a 20 minute break, honks for 5 minutes to let people know its leaving and then some more again as it ascends the crater. so i stopped pretending to sleep and got up, ate some gallo pinto (which i could easily eat for every meal for the rest of my life), drank some fresh juice and got to class. during my class we saw a native squirrel that looked very similar to guiseppie, my sugar glider, but they are a bit bigger and not able to glide. after classes another student colleen and I walked cecilia to another hotel down the road to get a massage from Julio who is blind but learned the trade through an organization that specifically focuses on teaching massage to blind people. how truly amazing is that.

wednesday 4am monkeys, dogs, birds, trucks, people, noise. didnt matter so much because i woke up at 5am to go bird watching. we saw mono's galore and even almost got some poop thrown at us. the greatest thing that we saw was the Guardabarranco which is the national bird of Nicaragua (i attached a picture). the colors are unreal and even though it was far away i could manage to spot it. i was able to see another later in the day in the garden where gloria and i sat for classes but i didnt have a camera.

thursday 4am, need i relive it? you get it. thursday dinner was a real treat. Juana, the cook, first made chicha which is very traditional drink throughout central america. in nicaragua its served cold, unfermented and made of corn, sugar and water with some red food coloring to make it look just like pepto bismol. also she made a mash of quequisque which is similar to a manioc and tastes, well, like spam. i dont think jeffrey appreciated that comment but tasting like spam isnt necessarily an insult at least i didnt mean it as such. after dinner i wanted to watch a movie so pablo set up the tv and a few of us watched a movie called "La Isla de Ninos Perdidos" (the island of lost boys) which is a documentary about a group of inmates who take a special film making course, aimed at rehabilitating the inmates. each were able to make there own films and also help one another make the films. it takes place in 2001 in nicaragua's largest prison "La Modelo " located in Tipitapa and if its on netflix i highly recommend watching it.

friday 3am ants on my legs, lessoned learned: dont eat sweets in bed, no matter how much you think you cleaned up theres still gonna be one little crumb and those creatures are some kinda scavengers. last of day of classes. bitter sweet because as exhausted as i was i really enjoyed getting to know gloria and truly appreciated her patience and talent for teaching. after class a few of us got in the car for the last activity. first we went to Diria and Diriomo, the pueblos of the brujos and brujas. essentially these two towns are the the host to many clarevoyants which Lorenzo (a professor from the school and our tour guide for the afternoon) said are just a bunch of ladrones (robbers). so he didnt even stop the car, just pointed and drove a few blocks then took off. then we went to three miradors (lookouts) to get some great views of the laguna. all of them were incredible and i probably took too many pictures.

friday before bed i realized i had brought earplugs and decided to use them and wait a relief. saturday morning cecilia, colleen and i woke up early to catch that obnoxious 6:30am bus to spend the better part of the day in Granada. we managed to get our transfer and make our way from the drop off point to the city center. by 7am i was already drenched in sweat. we walked past an amazing historic hospital that is supposedly being rehabbed (but i didnt see any construction). had i not thought that cecilia and colleen would've left me i wouldve gone inside because it looked magical. we proceeded to meander our way towards the city center, centro parque (im not making it up) and along the way stumbled into a non-profit hammock weaving organization, that takes at-risk youth and teaches them the trade. i bought a mini-hammock and i have no idea what i will use it for but ill figure something out. after we had breakfast in the centro parque, we went off to find the san francisco convent which had a beautiful view of the volcano, mombacho. under the impression that this was just a beautiful building we discovered that it was also a cultural center, having both contemporary and pre-columbian art work. next was the mercado. imagine chinatown but with cars, moto-taxis, buses, horse-drawn carriages and cyclist barely clearing you if you stepped into the street to walk by somebody. it was insane. alex would love it. i had a good time there but i really wish i could have been able to ask more questions about the local street fare and other mysteries of the market. soon enough. at about 1:30 in the high heat we decided to find a bar and en-route stumbled upon the Monkey Hut, a hostel. colleen had remembered that they brought people to the laguna most days and we were able to secure a ride back to the laguna when the driver returned for the pick up. we rode in the back of the pick-up truck and once we were off the main highway, panamericana, the driver informed us we were allowed to stand up. stupid or stupendous, a little of both we made it back and im exhausted.

tomorrow i leave for masaya for a week of orientation. im nervous but cecilia said to me that "anyone that ever did anything great was just a little scared". i can only hope to be as amazing as she is at 65.

desde la semana proxima, go to facebook for the pictures.

estoy lista

Im here in Cincinnati working on my last 20 or so hours in the U.S. This first post is for those of you who I have not had the opportunity to explain the who, what, where, when and hows to.

Sometime in October I decided that I needed something different. Knowing that I eventually want to go back to school and knowing that I need some other experiences I began researching volunteer and internships abroad. I stumbled on the Foundation for Sustainable Development and immediately felt connected to their mission. So I started studying spanish and applied. They were the only program that I applied to (not my best plan) so with the fear of failure in my right pocket I didn't tell many people about this potential opportunity (the laws of jinxing it was in my left pocket).

Here I am, unjinxed and packed. I will be spending my first week in Laguna De Apoyo getting some intensive spanish language training. Its a nature reserve about 20 miles South of Managua in between Masaya and Granada. From there I will return to Managua to meet up with other FSD interns and spend a week in orientation orienting. After that I will move in with a host family just outside of Managua in Ciudad Sandino and begin working with Fundacion Fenix .

thats my brief. I look forward to yalls comments because at $2.00/minute I probably wont be talking to any of you on the phone. I do have free texting and im on skype user i.d. krluggen.