My last two weeks in Nica

So much has happened...the revolution celebration was last saturday and thousands of people were at the plaza celebrating, some of my friends went and said that the President spoke and a bunch of the presidents from other latin american countries were there like, from paraguay, guatemala, honduras, costa rica and venezuela as well as the wife and daughter of Che Guevara. He is a augusto Sandino are huge revolutionary figures here. Their faces and names are on everything here.

That day, I spent it with a friend named Anabelsy and her family. She actually work with FSD as kinda a program assistant and is 22 years old and adorble, she speaks english but is very shy. I am happy we spent like 8 hours together sharing pictures watching La Patito Feo, a show with the famous song here Patito feo. That and the Divina song is very popular, I hear them both at least once a day. She has three sisters, and since I have none it was really fun talking with them and getting to know them. It felt good speaking in spanish the whole time.

This week, I went to evaluations of my organization that happens twice a year and every department reviews what has happened in the last semester, in the last six months. I definitely feel like I know my organization very well which makes it even harder to leave. We watched two inspirational movies (in english with spanish subtitles which was nice for me) called the Secret about the secret of life and one called the Cosmic Universe. They bohth really related to our work in being motivated in life and forming connections since the whole world a universe is connected. It was interesting too, at the start of each day we all help hands in a circle and prayed. I am not very religious but I participated and it was very intense, religion is a huge part of their lives here. Wednesday night I went out with Fanny, she is one of the granddaughters of Doña Maura, my host mom. She is so adorble and I love hanging out with her. We went to see the movie Hancock at plaza inter, one of the centers in managua, and we shopped around. She is 23 and so sweet. She was like I am free, she has a two and ahalf year old son named gabriel who she cares for while the father works all day but since mauricio, the father has this week off for vacation she was able to go out with me. Then we had pizza hut dinner which was a treat for her since she mostly eats gallo pinto too. Since i invited her out, i felt like i should pay and since I can and have the means to, she was very grateful and I am gonig to be so sad to leave her. Especially since we are still jsut getting to know eachother now. If I coudl bring one person home with me, I would bring her!

Then after dinner I met my friends at a nice mall called Las Galerias where we all went to this club called Moods. Needless to say it was ladies night and I paid nothign the whole night it was amazing! There were like ten of us and it was a blast! Though I was tired the next day!

Today Friday, we have out last meeting in Managua with the entire group of FSD and all the interns. It is for a talk we are having on the Novemeber elections in Nicaragua. Then we will all eat together after and probably go out again.

Since this is my last week I have plans almost every night to see everyone I knwo and say goodbye. I also ordered a chocolate cake today for my family to celebrate the last night before I leave. Saturday night I have plans with Gabi and Lesbia my coworkers for dinner and dancing in Managua. Sunday morning I am going to church with Fanny for the first time then I want to do some shopping in the market with her. I want to buy some presents for people here. Like the neighborhood kids play soccer with this old deflated ball, so I want to buy them a new one and like a new toothbrush for Osmar, my host brother since he loves brushing his teeth. Then monday I am goin again to las comarcas with my supervisor nelly and then am going to her house for dinner. Tuesday I am eating dinner at Fannys house just to spend more time with her. Then another coworker convinced me to go out to dinner with her on wednesday and thursday is jonnys birthday, a cousin of the house I live in and that is also my last night so we will eat cake....sad.

Well, have a good weekend!!

The Update!

So I am in Masaya right now and sooo much has happened. Ometepe was good I was with
emily and we had fun together and met a bunch of cute guys, Austrailians who gave us a ride from one side of the island to the other and another cute Nicaraguan who let us ride in the back of his camioneta (truck). There was not a whole lot to do and the weather was ok so we didnt really want to climb either volcanoes but we did do some hiking and went to ojo de agua, this little swimming water hole. Then wade and angie met us at monkie island an awesome hostel with a cute old nica man running it with his family and it was two dollars a night for stay in a dorm room, it was awesome.

Then i came home straight from ometepe and everyone else went to San Juan Del sur
because i had a fatty mirgrane. So i spent sat night in my bed crying,
i felt so horrible. i wanted to throw up even though my stomache didnt
hurt and i talked to my dad which was nice adn I felt a little better. Later that night Doña Maura gave me acetomenofin and i felt a lot better but it was really
really bad. then julie, the director of service learning at USF, the
woman who sent us here, came to Ciudad Sandino randomly. We knew she was in
managua and visiting but she was supposed to stay with emily the next
day. She is also a board memeber of FSD. so she ended up staying at my
house for 2 days, though and she doesn´t speak a lot of Spanish so i had to be with her helping communication. Then she saw my organization and fell in love and saw where jolie and em work too. She is awesome, a single woman who is almost 40 she runs marathons...So monday i painted a mural at the hospital in CS since we did not have class...well i spent the majority of my time painting a tooth on the ortho room. That was fun.

Julie said she thinks i have the best spanish and i was happy, but then
again she doesnt know spanish so i dont know how that works. then
monday when julie was with jolie and Emily, I went to masaya to shop and
take a break from CS. i got a shirt that says gallo pinto on it i love
it! I think it is super funny because gallo pinto is the traditional dish her and it is just beans adn rice, really nothing special but they have shirts with a picture on it. I also had the best pizza at the plaza with wade in Masaya.

what else...yesterday, thursday, the english professor didnt show up
so i took ALL her classes ALL day. it was amazing. i had no plans but
we worked on vocab and pronounciation playing games like hangman and
simon says. then with the older groups i just talked to them about my
life and the US adn they were all really interested. i was exhausted
after but it felt really good. i am really still trying to make the
most out of my job but it is hard, especially since my project did not get funded
and since i took all last week off. so i dont feel super productive.

Daniel Ortega is speaking at this huge plaza celebration tom. for the revolucion anniversary. I dont know if i wanna go, itll be hectic with drunk dancing people crowded together in the center of Managua. whats

hah there is this joke with my supervisor at the school, her name is Nelly, the director that she wants me to stay in nica she wants to adopt me and marry her son because i have lighter skin than his gf. LIghter skin her means you have more money, though that is not always the case, but it is what people generally think. I think that is one of the major reasons people always stare at me on the streets here. Same with any foreigner.

All my friends here all ask when I will come back and im like i dont know i havent thought about it.

Three Buses, Two Taxis, a Boat and a Motito Later...

After about six hours of public transportation, Emily and I finally arrived to La Isla de Ometepe on Wednesday after lunch. We had so many adventures...and the pictures will tell all when I put them up! We stayed in Charco Verde the first night, A place near Merida the second night (at Hostal Monkie Island) then near Balgue the third night. Angie and Wade met up our second night, which was great. None of us saw what we expected...the island is very spread out and outdoorsy. There are no real towns by any means but beautiful views nonetheless. I think my favorite part was climbing up this viewpoint called Mirador Del Diablo, either that or the old Nicaragua man who was talking to me on the boat ride over (they call the boats Lanchas) and he would repeat everything he said to me every ten minutes...he had a little short term memory problem, but I learned a lot about the Island!

I got home Saturday night and actually had a huge migrane and felt really really bad but I am doing much better now and Julie Reed, the Director of Service Learning at USF (the woman who basically create dthis program for us and who sent us here)is visiting us all here. So she is staying with me at my host family´s house. It is great to be able to share this with her and then take back our experiences to SF to talk about them.

Well, I am going to Masaya today, since we are still on vacation from class. Wade lives in Masaya and it is known for being an Artesan town. They sell amazing hammocks too so we will see what I come back with!!

La Cooperative Guadianes del Bosque

This weekend, all the interns took a six hour car trip to Jinotega, south of Managua. They told us it was cold there, but we didn´t know just how. We only stayed for about 24 hours (twelve of which I was sick throwing up, but I am better now) but we got to experience the real Mountains of Nicaragua. They were misty and beautiful with cow herds on the sides of the mountains grazing all day long. Everyone took a hike up to a waterfountain, though I was sleeping off my stomache bug or the bad food i ate, everyone said it was amazing. There was so much mud there too and it rains about 11 months of the year. It was great to see another part of the country but I was happy to come back home. Scarlet and Mauricio made the trip great too, they are the program director, Maria´s, kids. I have this week off, as mentioned before, so I will head to La Isla de Ometepe this week and meet up with everyone again on Saturday in San Juan del Sur which is about an hour from the island. Emily adn I are excited to see the lake the island is on and soak up the sun!!

How Time Flies and How Traveling is So Much Fun

Already onto my next weekend adventure. This week I worked with Gabbie, the psychologist and Isabelita, the Director of my organization, and we had introduction workshops for the new women and children´s refugee house program that was just created. It will be great, we had meetings with psychologists and the new director of the house that will be educating and rebuilding the lives of girls who have been victims of violence and have no where to go. I have been really excited to be part of this project. After those workshops this week, on Friday I am really excited to take a school field trip with the primary students at the private school I work at. We are going to the Zoo in Managua, so that will be exciting. Also, tomorrow is the 4th of July and my friends and I plan on celebrating in Managua with some fireworks after work. I doubt there will be anything special going on here but we all feel like we should celebrate it. Then on Saturday, all of the interns in Nicaragua though FSD (about twenty in all) are meeting early in the morning to go to Jinotega, in the northe of Nicaragua, for a mid term retreat and evaluation. It will be an ice weekend visit to catch up with everyone and see how everything is going. After this weekend and all the excursions and festivities, I luckily have semester vacation from school and get the whole week off. Emily, who also works at a school, and I want to go to La Isla de Ometepe. It is supposedly like the 7th wonders of the world or something and is the largest island in a lake in the world I believe. So we will spend four or so days there, and it is pretty close to San Juan del Sur so who knows, mayeb we will go back there. Well, I am really excited about this next week and then when I come back from Ometepe, I will only have about three more weeks left! wow that´s wierd. I feel like I have been here a while, but could totally stay for longer....

Hope you enjoy the fourth of July!!

A Chapter of Insipiring People

After my adventures and experiences from Cambodia and Thailand learning about devastating social issues, and Spain, experiencing Europe and Spanish, then to Washington DC getting to know my government and foreign policy and now to Nicaragua working in the sustainable development world, what else do I have to write about? I will be home in a month and go straight into boring Resident Advisor work in the dorms on my campus of University of San Francisco. So while looking for funds for my organization here in Nicaragua and realizing that my time here has reinforced my desire to work in public service abroad, I would like to start a new chapter of my blog writing about inspiring people in the past and present. This really started with my blog entry a few weeks ago about Maura Clarke, but I would like to continue writing about great activists and their contributions to soceity and humanity. So when I get back to the states I will start. I will just write about the people´s lives and what strikes me about their work.
Here is a primary list of inspiring people:
Hermana Maura Clarke
Ella Baker
Paulo Freire
Octavio Paz
Oscar Romero
David Batstone
Greg Mortensen
Jamie Zeppa
Dorothy Day
Paul Farmer
Olga Murray