Journey2Ocotal

Hot off the Press

2006-05-30T12:55:00.000-07:00

We haven't written much about our parent's visit to Nicaragua, since we were so busy traveling in the weeks following it. Anyhow, it was an amazing visit and we had a week filled with adventures. We went horseback riding, kayaking, climbed Volcan Mombacho, ate lots of great local food, and spent time with our host family and other Nicaraguan friends. Oh, yeah, and our dance instructor, Natan, gave a special merengue lesson for them, which was definitely one of my highlights! Impressively, they picked it up pretty quickly!

Anyhow, the visit along with current immigration policy debates inspired my Dad to write an op ed that was published in last Sunday's Pittsburgh paper. Check it out at:
http://www.pittsburghpost-gazette.com/pg/06148/693544-109.stm

Megan

La Esperanza

2006-05-29T14:22:00.000-07:00

So, we´ve been back studying at our school, Pop Wuj, in Xela for a week. Last week was a rough one for me--more illness. The good news is that after being mildly to moderately sick for well over half of our time in Latin America, I´m learning to enjoy life despite some physical pain and discomfort. However, I admit that I am eagerly awaiting being back in the US where I can have clean water and other health-promoting comforts.

The big news is that we have found a United Methodist Church just outside of Xela. We love the church and actually moved in with the pastor and his family yesterday. They already feel like family to us! The are very warm and loving! Also, they are acutally generous with food--which has been a slight issue with other families we´ve stayed with before. Not only that, but they keep sincerely insisting that if we don´t like any foods, just tell them. Whew! We like most of the food here, but when we don´t, it has put us in some very awkward situations.

One of the most comforting characteristics of the church here is that they are very socially conscience and willing to engage in dialogue about differing opinions. Guatemala, as most other Latin American countries, has been primarily Catholic since Spain colonized it. However, there has been an insurgence of ¨Evangelical¨ churches in the past few years. Here, this catagory is considered to include pretty much all the churches that aren´t Catholic, be they protestant, pentecostal, idependent, etc. The members of these churches that I´ve met have been very caring people, however their churches tend to focus primarily on matters of salvation and have rather narrowly defined doctrines. However, in our Iglesia Evangelica Nacional Methodista, yesterday´s adult sunday school topic was caring for the environment. Also, we joined their youth gathering where they discussed relationships, and it was soothing to hear differences of opinion expressed freely.

Aside from the pastor and his wonderful wife, our new family includes their 5 vibrant teenage and young adult children, as well as several street children whom they have taken into their home. There´s a whole lotta love and laughter in this house! We excited about what living in our new town, La Esperanza (translation: Hope)¨, will bring.

Hope you all are well!
Paz, megan

Sunrise from a Mayan Temple

2006-05-23T13:57:00.000-07:00

Buenas Tardes,
We just got back from an incredible week of traveling with Kari, Toya, Yasmine, and her cool cousin Nana-Yaw. I could probably write a tome about the week and our adventures (and misadventures--Yasmine´s wallet and passport were stolen on the bus to Tikal), but for brevity´s sake, I´m going to focus on our time at Tikal, an ancient Mayan city in the north of Guatemala.

We arrived late last Tuesday afternoon and proceeded to hike into the park to catch the sunset fron a temple called ´the lost world´. When we arrived at the temple it began to sprinkle. There was also an annoying guard (with a gun) on top of the aforementioned temple who told us that the park was closed for the day and that we would have to leave. After begging him to stay for awhile, we politely disregarded his request and climbed the next closest temple.

When we reached the top, a brilliant rainbow appeared on the horizon directly over the lost world temple. It was breathtaking and stretched across the entire horizon! We stared in awe for 15-20 minutes until another guard (also armed, but a tad friendlier) came and repeated the request to leave the park. We took this as our cue and left. The rainbow had been an incredible blessing, especially in light of us not being able to watch the actual sunset.

The next morning, we awoke at 4am and walked to the tallest temple (about 200 feet) to watch the sunrise. It was probably one of the two best sunrises I´ve ever seen! When we reached the top of the temple, it was about 5am and still dark (and chilly). We couldn´t see much of anything, but after about 20 minutes, we began to hear the jungle wake up below us. At first birds started chirping and squawking and then howler monkeys began barking to each other across the park. It was wild being able to overhear this daily ritual.

After some time, the jungle grew quite again. It began to lighten some and we became aware that there were 4 other temples protruding from the vast jungle below. Pink poked through the horizon, but there were also many clouds. It grew lighter still and I began to realize that we were not going to see much of the sun that day. Then, below a patch of clouds, the sun emerged. It was bright orange and seemed to burst forth with incredible power, taking the collective breath from us and replacing it with awe!

Around 7am that morning, Megs, Nana-Yaw, and I walked to a remote part of the park. On the way, we saw approximately 25 monkeys--including both species found in Tikal: howler and spider. One of the most memorable sites was watching a mother monkey place it´s baby on it´s back and swing through a particularly treacherous patch of trees. During our time in the park, we also saw a great variety of colorful birds including: toucans, parrots, and red-headed woodpeckers.

Later that day, we went on a guided tour of Tikal that was super informative. From walking around on our own, it was evident that the Mayans were incredibly advanced. The tour, however, filled in a great number of blanks and demostrated just how important the Mayans are to history. To be brief, some of their contributions include an intricate system of canals and cisterns for storing and transporting water for a city that once had a population greater than 100,000. Beautiful and complex architecture including temples, residential areas, and administrative buildings (that have lasted for between 1300-2000 years). And an intricate system of mathematics and astronomy that shaped their spititual practices.

As I mentioned, I could go on for awhile about this experience. If you want to learn more, please feel free to e-mail us, or check out the following website which also has some great photos: http://www.tikalpark.com/.

Enjoy,
Paz,
Brit

Adios Nicaragua, Hola Guatemala

2006-05-10T13:59:00.000-07:00

Hola,
I can´t believe it´s been nearly a month since we last wrote. Sorry.....no one is probably even checking this anymore it´s been so long! If you are, we promise to start writing more frequently again.

Anyway, we arrived here in Xela (pronounced Shay-la), Guatemala last Friday evening. Xela is the second largest city in Guatemala (pop: somewhere around 150,000 people) and is located in the western half of the country in the highlands. We actually left Nicaragua last Wednesday, taking a chartered bus from Choluteca, Honduras through El Salvador (spent the night in San Salvador), before arriving in Guatemala City Friday around noon. You can check out the trip route by visiting this website: http://www.ticabus.com/mapa.php.

It was quite interesting to see the differences between the different Latin American countries as we passed through. Probably the most obvious difference was in each country´s infrastructure. For example, both El Salvador and Guatemala´s major highways are far more advanced than Nicaragua´s and even Honduras´. There is still a great deal of poverty, but these countries seem more developed in that sense.

The other glaring difference was the amount of green we saw while traveling northward. There are literally farms everywhere here. On the sides of hills, in between houses, even in fairly populated areas. It´s honestly been very refreshing to see such life and vibrancy again in our environment. As we have mentioned, Nicaragua was in the midst of its dry season while we were there, so the contrast--though probably more than normal--has been refreshing.

Tne ironic part of our trip is, although we left Nicaragua, it just didn´t want to leave us. Our last day there, we went swimming in a canyon. It was a beautiful, isolated place, but we now believe that it also wasn´t very clean. Just two days later, Megs got sick with a parasite and I developed an infection on Monday due to a parasite. Gracias a Dios, we´re both better now and it´s certainly nice to know that Nicaragua liked us so much. I just wish she´d found a gentler way to express her fondness.

Anyway, we´ll write more about Xela soon. We just started classes Monday and we´re still settling in.

Hasta Luego,
Paz,
Brit

Immigration Insights

2006-04-16T15:02:00.000-07:00

Feliz Pascua, or Happy Easter!

For us, one of the most enlightening parts of our Nicaraguan experience has been gaining a deeper understanding of the desire emigrate to the states. From seeing various news clips, we understand that immigration policy has become a key issue in the states (millions marching!), so it´s probably a good time to share our new perspective. We´d love to hear your reactions to this entry.

A Life and Death Issue
A common conversation topic here is people´s desire to travel to America to work. It seems that the majority of people we know here have expressed a desire to travel to the US for work—not necessarily permanently, but at least for a few years. A close friend of our host mother recently quit her job and paid a $3,000 fee to be successfully transported to the US. Last week, she called Karelia from Mexico to tell her that she had been caught and that her transport had made off with the money!

We also know of at least two people who were deported after living illegally in the US. Additionally, we know of several families of whom the father or father is currently working illegally in the US. One of these men entered through Mexico and went for nearly a week without eating. To be very clear, we never realized the degree to which people here view immigration as a life or death issue.

Standard of Living
To give you a deeper understanding of why people are willing to risk so much to get to the States, let us give you an idea of the financial situation here. Approximately 85% of Nicaraguans live off of less than a dollar per day. School teachers here make anywhere from $30-60 US dollars per month and other full time jobs and store workers earn around that level too. A professor makes about $100 a month. The hospital doctors here make around $200 a month--which is why they´ve been on strike for the past three months. (The only people working at the hospital are nurses and doctors who take only urgent emergencies).

So, you can begin to understand why working for a minimum wage in the States would be so tempting. In one day, a person could earn what the average Nicaraguan earns in a month! In just a few months, you can make enough money for your family at home to live far more comfortably and enjoy greater opportunity for financial/personal success. Many people therefore view emigrating as a necessary sacrifice for supporting their family.

However, US visas are nearly impossible to obtain. It´s rumored that over 100 Nicaraguans go to the US embassy in Managua to apply for a visa every day . On average, only 2 or 3 are approved. Approved or not, you have to pay a $112 application fee! Our question is, what does the embassy do with all this money? That´s approximately 4 million dollars a year! The cost is obviously supposed to act as a deterrent for applications, but when you consider that people here view immigration as a survival issue, it´s not surprising that so many still apply. Apparently it is just a little easier to get a temporary work visa for Spain.

Solutions?
Obviously, the best thing would be if Nicaraguans could receive more reasonable wages in their home country. Therefore, the US could help fund the sustainable development of Latin America—to use our dollars and expertise to help improve the infrastructure here so as to better equalize the standards of living between the US and LA. We´ve now been to several locations around the country and everywhere we go, we see signs explaining how Japan and the European Union are collaborating with local governments to build roads, reforest, improve water systems, ect. The US is notably, and for us, embarrassingly absent. It´s true, there are over one hundred peace corps volunteers here, but we could be doing so much more. Japan and the EU don´t even share the same continent as LA and they still see the value of supporting the development here.

This further highlights the irony of the money the US embassy earns from visa applications every year. If we poured half that money (2 million) into Nicaragua, it would be a good start. Besides, after how the US-backed Contras bombed their towns and killed many thousands of Nicaraguans in the 1980s, we owe them.

Besides the financial situation, it makes us reallize what a privilege an American passport is. We can travel just about anywhere in the world if and not worry about getting a visa. Here, they can travel to bordering countries, but if they want to go to a more developed country, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible. Speaking of traveling to other countries, our Journey to Ocotal is about to come to an end. After a week of traveling with our parents, we are headed to Guatemala on May first to continue our studies and experience another part of Latin America. Our new address will be:

Centro Pop Wuj
Primera Calle, 17-72, Zona 1
Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

Daly Pues,
Brit and Megan

We are the Champions!

2006-03-31T09:15:00.000-08:00

Last night was definitely a night to remember! The final game of the series lived up to the usual hype of all deciding games and, when it was finished, we found ourselves the champions of the Ocotal Adult Bball League.

I´ll spare you some of the details and say that the first half was not our best effort. The Spookers had clearly strategized after their overtime loss and came with a solid gameplan for victory. They outrebounded and outplayed us, leaving us behind 60-50 at halftime. As I mentioned previously, because they are so experienced, the Spookers are a very tough team to beat from behind.

We started the second half more aggressively, but it didn´t pay off at all with the score. Halfway through the quarter, we were actually down 16 points. Our defense was shabby and they were beating us down the court for easy baskets. We called time out and decided to start forcing the ball underneath to me to try and take advantage of our size advantage. We also switched defenses from zone to man-to-man.

Both strategies proved fruitful and we cut their lead back to 10, 84-74 by the end of the quarter. We remained hopeful, but knew that we had a huge gap to close and not much time to do it in. That said, let me pause and say that the fourth quarter was one of the most magical I have ever played!

As I recollect, it seemed like every whistle, every ball, every shot went our way. For example, I think I collected at least 15 rebounds just in the final quarter, many of them offensive, which led to easy put-backs. The crowd was also overwhelmingly on our side (rooting for the underdog) and roared with every basket we scored. And our defense was superior.

We pulled even midway through the quarter and it was neck and neck the rest of the way. They were in foul trouble, and we ended up sealing the victory from the free throw line. The final score was 106-101. We were estatic and met at midcourt to celebrate. We´d swept in and stolen the game in the last possible moment!

Afterwards, we gathered at the captain´s house (his family owns a fritanga, or restaurant) for a celebratory meal and rum. It was a blast and we didn´t return home until 1am! The perfect end to a March filled with basketball madness.

Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did, we´ll get back to regular reflections on Nicaragua next week.

Ciao,
Brit

Quick Updates

2006-03-29T11:41:00.000-08:00

Two pieces of very exciting news!

1) First, the most important news--we just learned that Megs received a full scholarship to study at Erickson! Thank God! We are now even more excited about Chicago being our next stop!

2) As promised, a basketball update. Last night was a big game. We lost game 2 on Thursday evening and then while I was gone for a weekend trip to Leon, we lost again, putting us in a 2-1 hole. So last night was do or die. Somehow, we ended up winning 111-106 in overtime! A crazy and very intense game. That leaves tomorrow night as the deciding game. We´ll have to see how it all plays out.

Hasta Luego,
Paz,
Brit

My March Madness

2006-03-24T08:21:00.000-08:00

Note: The following entry will probably be enjoyed most by sports enthusiasts.

So, here we are in the ides of March. NCAA tournament time in the States (oh, how I´ve missed watching the upsets and unpredictability of the tourney). Anyway, in between checking the internet for scores and updates, I´ve had a little madness of my own I´d like to tell you about.

The local basketball league I play in started the playoffs (or semi-finals as they call them here) last week. We began with a best of five series between the top four teams in the league. We (Monseñor) finished second overall and were therefore paired with the Sixers--a team that we lost twice to during the regular season. The Sixers are a scrappy sharp shooting team with one player taller than 5 foot 10 inches and we were basically outhustled during the first two games.

Surprisingly, however, we rolled through the series with little resistance from them. We have been playing much more as a team of late and it was a combination of that and the Sixers self-destructing. The first game 2-3 of their players were ejected due to arguing with the refs! Talk about madness! I guess with any good adult sports league, pride is what´s always on the line.

Not surprisingly, the number one seed in our tourney, the Spookers, also swept their series against the fourth place team (Texas), setting up a showdown between the top two seeds. The Spookers are a very balanced squad loaded with veteran leadership (read the Celtics and Lakers of the 80s). Apparently the Spookers have won 9 of the 15 championships in recent memory. The neat part is, our team was just formed this year so it´s quite an honor to have made the finals so quickly.

The series began Tuesday night we the Spookers heavily favored. They even trotted out flashy new uniforms to show off their powerhouse status, including mini-versions for some of their cheerleading children. Fortunately, our hot streak continued and we led by 8 after the first half (there is no scoreboard so we are constantly petitioning the scorers table for the time and score). The second half was extremely intense and physical. We pulled ahead initially, but they mounted a strong comeback and by the end of the quarter we were only up 9.

To try and get back in the game, the Spookers started pressing us full-court. We were a little rattled but held our composure until their bubble broke for good. With us up by about 10, I drove to the basket and got fouled. The guy who fouled me got really upset and slammed the ball down. He received a technical foul, which made their bench go wild so that another technical was called on their team. I ended up receiving 6 straight foul shots--of which I calmly sank 5, helping to put the game out of reach. After the game Megs said, ¨That was one of the most intense games I´ve seen!¨

So, we´re up one game to none with 4 more to play. Yesterday, when I looked in the mirror, I saw that I had a black eye from some inadvertent blow to the head during the game. See what I mean about madness. In all my years of playing basketball, I can´t ever remember getting a black eye from a game! I´ll keep you posted on our march to the Championship. Game 2 is tonight.

Cuidase,Brit

La comida

2006-03-17T17:58:00.000-08:00

Today I´m going to talk about one of my all-time favorite topic, food and cooking. It´s actually an interesting topic to broach at this point in our journey because frankly, we´re starting to get a little tired of it (as you´ll read, it´s a little repetitious). With the level of hunger and poverty here though , it´s a fact we try hard not to focus on.

So, breakfast is easily the simplest meal of the day. Most Ocotalians eat a piece (or 2) of bread along with a cup of cafe con leche (and sugar). We have therefore tried to supplement our breakfasts with peanut butter (thanks Mom and Dad), an occasional egg, and soy milk. Also, our host mother regularly cuts up fresh fruit for us in the morning (local tangerines, bananas, and pineapple). Mmmm!

Lunch is the largest and most extravagant meal here. It usually includes meat (chicken or ground beef) prepared in a sauce or gravy, coupled with the staples: rice and beans. Since Megs is vegetarian, she receives an additional item--typically potatoes, a small salad with tomatoes and onions, soup, or boiled veggies. Every lunch also includes fresh (and often warm) corn tortillas made by the next door neighbor. For me, the highlight of lunch is often the fresco du jour. Frescos are fresh, cool drinks/juices made by Kareljia using a blender. Our favorites so far include: jugo de pina, jugo de mango, and cacao con leche!

Dinner is a little dressed down and utilizes the components from lunch in a slightly different way. For instance, Kareljia combines the rice and beans into a traditional Nicaraguan standby, gallo pinto. If there are left over tortillas, she makes repochetta by folding one in half and frying a piece of cheese inside. It´s delicious and strangely enough, reminds me of eating Fritos as a kid. If there are no more tortillas, then we usually have a fried egg with the gallo pinto. Some nights we´ll have fried ripe plantains (tejadas), which are sweet and soft and delicious. To drink, we have something called avena, which is essentially 2 teaspoons of instant oatmeal mixed together with a teaspoon of sugar and a cup of purified water. It´s actually quite good.

So, now that I´ve covered the basics of the food here, let me share a couple of reflections. 1) because the tap water is not the safest and soda is less expensive than purified water, many people here are chronically dehydrated. The program director actually said that kidney problems are a gigantic health issue here later in life. 2) I realized the other day that I have only seen 2-3 overweight children here--period! I can´t believe it didn´t register sooner because it is a stark contrast to the US where one out of every three children is obese. Nevertheless, it is clearly a result of the fact that there isn´t ever an excess of food here. That and the fact that people really ride their bikes or walk everywhere.

3) There isn´t a huge emphasis on seasoning food here. I don´t know if it´s because adding seasonings costs more (although I believe it´s a negligible cost), or if it´s just not an established culinary practice. It has definitely contributed to our getting a little tired of the food. I never realized just how much a little seasoning enhances a meal. They do use garlic and at times a savory herb called chickory (which tastes remarkably like cilantro). And our host mother has also also occasionally bought salsa, which our host father literally poured on each meal, leaving us with only a spoonful. I figure he must really be craving some seasoning after eating here for so many years!

4) Finally, coming from someone who has something of a background in food safety, at times, it´s been difficult to watch food be prepared here. There is a basic awareness of food safety for sure. For example, they cook a big pot of beans one day and then reheat (boil) them every 5-6 hours to keep them fresh until they are gone (usually takes 2 plus days). There is also a big emphasis on cleanliness and hygiene. But we´ve struggled with how to handle critical situations that stem from cultural differences. For instance, just this week, we learned that our family had been unplugging the fridge at night to save money. The problem was, there was eggs and meat inside at risk of spoiling. We decided that this was beyond our health threshold and spoke with our family and the program director and eventually came to an agreement.

Anyway, this has been a really long entry. Hope you enjoyed it. Please write with any comments and questions.

Peace and love,

Brit

Los animales

2006-03-07T09:03:00.000-08:00

So, let me back up a minute and tell everyone about our first night here. We arrived exhausted and pretty much went straight to sleep when we got in to our house. However, at about 1am, I awoke to a loud roar of screams. It was the sounds of high-pitched roosters crowing and dogs barking and howling. There was also a significant about of wind, causing tree branches and other things to scrap against our roof. I sat up for a couple of hours wondering what was happening, thinking maybe there was a storm outside or some huge dog fight. However, it turns out that every night here is like that. Nica roosters begin crowing loudly at 10 pm and continue until about 6am. Luckly, we don´t have any pets in our house, but most of our neighbors have roosters and dogs. I didn´t think I´d ever get used to the noises, especially because they are so very loud, but somehow we´ve both learned to tune them out.
Some of our fellow students here are staying with families who have chanchos (pigs), gallinas (roosters), perros (dogs), parakeets, ducks, hens, and other animals living in their yards. The dogs are cute, but sufer from really bad flees usually.

Anyhow, I am happy to have no pets. Cats jump on our roof and often roam through our little jungle of a backyard. We also have cute little lizards in our house that climb the walls, eat the flies, and make a cute chirping sound. To my amazement, the mice here can also climb walls. Luckily, we don´t see mice nearly as often as we see our lizard friends.

In the town, we see a few donkeys on the streets, often carrying hue piles of wood on their backs. Outside center city, closer to our house, we find an occasional cow roaming the street.

There are also a fare number of interesting insects. Ants are everywhere and very fun to watch, as they carry huge scraps of food and leaves. The cochroaches and spiders are more bothersome. One morning, Brit found a fist-sized turantula in our shower, and Karelia called a neighbor over with a big stick to smash it.

Sorry for the big gap between entries. Brit and I were both sick last week with parasites. We were both better for Brit´s big birthday fiesta at our house last Saturday. Kari, Latoya, Karelia and I cooked all day for the party and we had about 40 people there that night. Kari and Toya also made a GORGEOUS quilt for Brit by hand! It´s wonderful to be here with good friends--old and new.

Hasta Luego,
Megan

Thoughts on everyday life

2006-02-22T12:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was our 1 month anniversary here in Ocotal and we´re definitely starting to hit a rhythm. It´s so hard to write about our time here because so much of it is a) completely different than our lives in the states or b) interesting stuff that has somehow become so normal for us after being here for a month that it seems kind of routine now. I realy wish you all could come down for a day just to experience it b/c I don´t feel like I´m able to caputure our journey with words!

Neverthless, I´ll try to paint a little bigger picture of our lives here. So, inaddition to being very friendly folk, Nicas are also known for their humor. Many people here are bromas (jokers) and not a day goes by without us playing, or being on the receiving end of several practical jokes. It´s kind of like April Fools Day every day! For example, the other day I returned home from class to find my host mother and father waiting for me at the door. When I walked in they said in a very serious voice, "We heard that you told the program director that you and Megan want to live with another family." (totally not true). I replied, "No, I don´t know what you are talking about. Is this a joke?" But they kept on pulling my leg for 2-3 more minutes until they finally busted out in laughter.

Another interesting day to day fact of life here is the water situation. We are fortunate to live in a house with a toilet, shower, sink, and running water. However, there´s no guarantee we will always have water to perform everyday functions (like washing). That´s because the local water authority regularly turns the water on and off during the day for neighborhoods around town (they apparently communicate this info via the radio, but we´ve yet to catch on completely). There seems to be a fairly regular pattern: water in the morning (before 8am), water around lunchtime (12-2), and then again after dinner (6pm on). But you never know....for instance, today I was in the shower and all soaped up when the water just vanished! I had to cover up with my towel and run for the room with the bucket and extra water to finish washing! The locals all have pilas, or large cement vatts for storing water in case they need it when it´s turned off. That´s the water that most of our clothes and dishes are washed with. The pilas will become especially important in the coming month or so when we are in the heart of the dry season (summer) and the WA turns off the water for 2-3 days at a time.

That´s all for now, gotta run to class. Hope you´re enjoying the blog so far. Please feel free to e-mail or reply/comment directly to us on blogger.com. We´d love to hear from you and respond to any specifc questions.

Much peace,
Brit

2006-02-15T16:49:00.000-08:00

So, our weeks are flying by here. Our familia is wonderful about giving us constant encouragement with our Spanish. Every day they are impressed with how much we´ve learned. It´s great to have enough vocabulary and grammar to joke around with them! We really enjoy their company.

We started dance classes last week, and are catching on pretty quickly, with lots of individual attention from Nathan, our dance teacher. He´s a very talented dancer and teacher. We get quite a work out in class! We´re planning to make our first trip to the disco this Saturday with the other students, so I´m pretty excited!

The music here is an interesting combination. On the same radio station you´ll here Bon Jovi, the soundtrack to Grease, Spanish covers of recent American love songs, 70s rock, losta 80s music, some 90s, salsa, merengue, bachata, and lots of reggaetone. It´s pretty random, but I kinda like never knowing what I´m going to hear next.

Last weekend was amazing! We went with some other students to a cloud forrest nature preservation/cooperative farming area called Mira Flor. We stayed in cabins on a farm owned by a very incredible woman named Corina. She was a wonderful hostess and chef. The food was Nicarauguan gourmet! We also went on some great hikes to waterfall and I climbed the inside of a 300 year old hollowed-out tree called Matapalo. It´s actually a tree that grows around another tree and eventually kills that tree, creating the hollowed-out inside.

So, on non-Nicaragua note, we have some pretty exciting news about our future! Brit just received notice that he will be getting a full ride to Garrett Theological Seminary when we return!!! It´s a pretty huge blessing, so thank you to all of you who have been praying for us!

Megan

2006-02-06T15:26:00.000-08:00

Buenas Tardes,

Yesterday marked our third week in Ocotal. Overall, the time here has been amazing! The first week felt like paradise. Although we struggled mightily to piece together sentences about what we wanted to eat, the excitement of the journey and the newness of our surroundings made up for any initial frustration.

That, and what many of the locals call: gringo liscense--unspoken permission to make countless mistakes without Nicas taking any offense. For example, the third day we were here I tried to tell our host mother that I appreciated her thoughtfulness and instead said that she was very pensive.

The highlight of the first week was a fiesta we had to celebrate two birthdays (including our good friend Kari´s). The night was filled with dancing and a combination of local and typically America dishes. Somehow, LaToya pulled off a batch of incredible lasagna (a serious culinary feat considering the ingredients are quite rare here in Ocotal!). We also spent a lot of time getting to know our family. Our favorite interactions are directly following meals. During that time, we often joke and chat with Karelia and Chico (our host mom and dad) for a half hour or more.

The second week was far more challenging. Last Tuesday, Megs started feeling under the weather. After some tests, we learned that she had a parasite--pretty shocking for us, but quite commonplace for this part of the world. It was a frustrating and exhausting road to recovery (not easy to need medical care but not be able to clearly express symptoms or understand diagnoses or prescriptions), but thankfully Megs is doing much better. She was well enough to watch the Steelers win the Super Bowl last night (Go Pburgh!) in a local restaurant with other program participants and about 30 Peace Corps volunteers. :) Hopefully she´s gotten that aspect of our trip out of the way!

The other difficulty of the week was learning that Bryce, a friend from Erie had unexpectedly passed away. Bryce was the Snider kids´s stepfather and we are very concerned about them and their mother right now. It is extremely difficult to be so far away from the kids and not to be able to comfort them in person. We aks that you keep the entire Snider-Jordan family in your prayers.

To end on a lighter note, I have decided to come out of basketball retirement and have joined a local league here. So far, so good, despite a great deal of soreness on the days after games. It´s been a great opportunity to practice my Spanish! I promise to write more of how it happened soon (it´s a funny story).

Peace,
Brit

2006-01-30T14:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was our one week anniversary of living in Ocotal. It´s difficult to articulate just how much information we have absorbed during that time!! It´s a constant flow of new words, phrases, foods, customs, ect. We are progressing poco y poco (little by little) which is both rewarding and overwhelming, depending on when you ask.

One of the most obvious, but disturbing discoveries of the week has been the extremely low standard of living here. For a variety of reasons, Nicaragua is the 2nd poorest country in the western hemisphere (behind Haiti), which means many of the amentities we take for granted in the States are absent.

For example, the vast majority of locals burn their garbage. Most cannot afford trash removal, so there is often a steady smell of smoke throughout the day. On the one hand the trash is not going into a landfill, but the smoke is also terrible for the long term health of the environment (especially because they burn everything, including plastic).

Another disturbing result of the poverty is poor access to education. There are several schools here in Ocotal, but many classrooms have 60 to 70 children in them! Schools are technically free, but due to funding shortages, families are forced to pay for their children to take certain tests and pass to the next grade. In more rural areas, there are sometimes no teachers and the school building is often condemned.

On the other hand, there is a strong sense of community and family here. Our host mother visits her mother daily and friends-family regularly stop over to chat. Also, because many people do not own cars they walk or bike everywhere. Finally, the food is extremely fresh and locally grown.

I´ll write about more specific experiences soon. For now, I wanted to paint a brief picture of our new reality.

Until then, que la vaya bien...go well!

Peace,
Brit

We made it!

2006-01-22T14:37:00.000-08:00

We arrived last night in Ocotal. It´s a beautiful town nestled in the mountains. To correct my estimate from before, Ocotal´s current population is actually about 31,000!

So, it´s been an overwhelming, but exciting first day here. Our travels wore us out (up at 2am to catch our flight, layover in Costa Rica, and then a 4 hour bus ride north from the capital, Managua).

Our host family is very warm and welcoming. Chico and Karelia and our host mother and father (although´in terms of age, they are more like our brother and sister). They have 3 children, Marlo (13), Kevin (8), and leslieraquel (2). Leslieraquel is absolutely precious...and, to be honest, at about the same language level as Megs and me! It has been a struggle to communicate for sure. So much to learn......

We´ll write more soon, but just wanted to let people know that we´re here! Thanks for thoughts and prayers.
Much peace and love,
Brit and Megs

btw, Go Steelers!

Packing....almost out the door!

2006-01-19T20:01:00.000-08:00

It's 11pm on 1/19 and we leave for Nicaragua in approximately 30 hours. Final packing and preparation are under way and we depart for NYC tomorrow afternoon!

Thankfully, we're mostly just tying up loose ends. And that's nothing for us, considering we've been living out of our suitcases for much of the last 3.5 months. :)

To fill you in a bit on what we're up to, we will be in Ocotal, Nicaragua for the next 3 months learning Spanish, teaching in a school, and getting familiar with Latin American culture. And, as Megs likes to emphasize, salsa dancing at least 2x/week!

After that, we may stay in Nicaragua, or we may travel to Guatemala. Either way, we'll be close to the equator till late June.

We won't have much in the way of communication besides e-mail, so we figured this would be a easy way to keep in touch with lots of friends and family.

So, the adventure begins.....we'll be in touch soon,
Peace,
Brit