Well last week I was in quite a pickle. Because Washington had a few snow days recently, PC was behind on their processing. So Peace Corps WORLDWIDE didn’t get paid. Like everyone else, I had to pay my rent. Normally, I wait til the new months salary comes in (on the last Friday of the month) to pay my next month’s rent. Well, since the next months rent didn’t come in, I had much less to withdraw from in my account, especially because 2 months rent is MORE than one month’s salary. I literally had less than a dollar to my name. I went without fruits and vegetables for almost a week (they’re kind of expensive)!! Now this is what I’m talking about ! Finally I’m suffering a little bit. Ugh, what a relief. My brother, Matt, gave me $50 in silver before I left “In case things got crazy, money became obsolete, and I needed to barter my way out of the country”. I was hours away from exchanging that silver for cash! I just didn’t know what to do. I’ve never been so poor before. My parents talked about wiring me money, but it wouldn’t work with my bank down here. And I wanted to withdraw money from my savings account at home, but my debit card was expired. Bust. Finally I resorted to borrowing money from the owner of a café I frequent on a weekly basis. She lent me the money so I’d have enough money to travel this week to my conference. The day before I was due to leave, I traveled on a whim to Leon to see if we had gotten paid yet. Although we still hadn’t been paid yet, my “emergency” funds I requested from PC had come in (4 days late). So I was able to pay back the wonderful café owner, and travel.
6/March/2010
Jocelyn, Claire, Carla and I
Now I’m here on the Island of Ometepe. Yesterday we had 10 hours of meetings over grants and funds that are available for our potential projects. They talked about how to write a proper proposal, and the hoops you have to jump through to get funding. We visited a site here of a current volunteer to see his site, and talk about his grant work that he’s doing to make it more of a reality. It makes it seem more feasible to see some of the grants actually in motion, and makes me want to get the ball rolling in a couple months when I’m eligible. I’ve been thinking about a project with the library in town, or a project with nutrition. Both are very relevant projects, but especially the nutrition one would be quite the mountain to climb. People are so stuck in their ways, it’s not like in the states where everyone has their own traditions, varying family to family. Here, everyone eats the same, there’s not much variation. To give you an example, because I’m a vegetarian, people think I only eat vegetables…only. The typical diet here is so heavy in oil and salt…and sugar. There is such a problem with blood pressure because of it. The painful part is hearing people talk about the diet their doctor prescribed for them. According to what I’ve studied, and what I believe, it’s all kinds of wrong. If I can muster up the courage and energy, the nutrition project MIGHT work. I’d love to host cooking and nutrition classes with a little bit of food prep/sanitation mixed in. One thing at a time.
Me and some cows taking a walk on the beach
I was a part of those 10 hours of meetings yesterday, I gave a session on emotional and physical wellbeing. I focused on our idea of “control” and how we use that to lie to ourselves and make us feel better. Our “control” should be over something helpful to us, not harmful. It should not consume our lives nor should it interfere with daily functioning. For example: proper diet and exercise are a form of control. If applied in healthy moderation, this is a good form of control. But this form of control can easily take over our lives to become unhealthy. Any one of us can easily become obsessed about this and it can become a self destructive behavior, rather than a healthy lifestyle.. Especially with how we live in Nicaragua, it’s important to stress self awareness and responsibility. We don’t regularly have anyone checking up on us. We usually go about 2 months without seeing our bosses or our peers. I hope that talk allowed people to reflect on themselves and their lifestyle choices. Sometimes we all need a wake up call to remind us to keep it real.
8/March/2010
Awkward moment #1: “Ladies and Gentlemen, Miss USA…” was announced by a teacher that speaks some English as I arrived at school.
Awkward moment #2: Jocelyn texting “I haven’t heard from anyone that left on your ferry all day and I’m really worried! Please let me know you got home.”
Well what I was hoping she’d figure out was that all of our minutes on our phones had expired, (we all expire approximately the same time every month) so we couldn’t respond. And I’m pretty sure hers expired today, so hopefully she’s figured it out by now!
It was so nice being away from site for a few days! I’ve been cooped up for over 2 months in my little bubble! When I got back I was happy and refreshed. And of course, it’s always nice to be missed. The kids were excited to see me again, and asked when we are going to have youth group.
The trip home yesterday was, as usual, a complete pain in the neck. We started off by taking the smallest ferry EVER. This was the little tug boat that could. It’s the dry, windy season, so the lake was very choppy. The boat swayed side to side rather violently the entire hour of the trip. It was kind of like riding a horse the way you had to move your lower body to roll with the motion and not slide across the bench….or maybe more like riding a bull. When we got to the port, we found an Express bus to Managua. Sweet. We got on board, and left AN HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER. Rough. That ride took a couple hours, until the bus got a flat tire. All bus drivers here are master mechanics, so he had us going fairly quickly. From Managua, we had to take a taxi to another terminal, which a Nicaraguan woman and her baby helped us haggle for, as whites are usually overcharged. From the next terminal, I took the bus to my town and was finally home, about 7 hours later.
Rewind back to being on the Island this weekend….
Jocelyn, Carla and I ventured out to a nearby laguna at night, so we could see the stars nice and bright without any light pollution. We made our way arm in arm and Jocelyn’s headlamp securely mounted on her head. Of course, it was creepy, like the perfect setting for a horror movie. We made it to the laguna and sat down to chat and look at the stars. They were absolutely brilliant! It was so wonderful, there’s really no other way to capture it, than to see it for yourself. After a bit, we made our way back. As we passed a fallen tree, and leaves all over the ground, and a small tree sticking up through the trail, I thought to myself, “hey, we didn’t see a fallen tree, nor leaves on the ground, nor that small tree sticking up through the path on the way here.” I instantly felt a sinking feeling in my chest. I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want anyone to panic, and I also thought I could be wrong. Then Jocelyn said “Uh, guys, I’m just throwing it out there, but…” And I cut her off saying “AGREED, LET’S TURN AROUND!” We all stayed calm in the ABSOLUTE DARKNESS and retraced our steps back to the laguna, then back the correct way we came from the hotel. I just prayed that the battery in the headlamp wouldn’t go out, because then we’d seriously be screwed! It was such a relief to be back at the hotel and not in the pitch black jungle with lord knows what.
0 comments:
Post a Comment