I can't believe it's almost over...

 Here are some of the supervisors at the Laguna last weekend.

It's starting to hit everybody that volunteers only have two weeks left in community.  (I stay almost two weeks after they leave - 6 days on the project and then I'm here for a week as a tourist.)  I'm too tired to write a lot right now; we did not have any free time this weekend because we are starting on paperwork for closing the project, and a group of AMIGOS training directors came here to visit and see how the volunteer experience is in action, and so we spent today hanging out/preparing/prepping them for their upcoming two-day community stays.  

Since I don't have the energy or brain power to write anything intelligent, I'll put up a few pictures of some of my volunteers and me.

The craziness continues

I went out on route a little late this week (Tuesday afternoon instead of Monday morning) because I got really sick on Sunday, and spent all of Monday lying on the couch at Staff House with a fever and headache and nausea.  Yuck.  Luckily it didn't last long.  Seeing all my volunteers was so much fun this week; it's so weird that we're post-midterm now.  Everything just goes by so quickly!  

Today I went to Managua to try to retrieve my package from my parents that has been stuck in customs for 3 weeks or so now (NEVER use DHL - they are hopeless.  Some people on staff got packages via Fedex or regular mail and those all got here).  I was told on the phone that customs close at 12:30, so we (Meredith, who kindly accompanied me, and I) rushed and got there at 12:10, only to find that the DHL desk actually closes at 12, and no one from DHL was there anymore.  So our 1 hour minibus ride and then 20 minute taxi ride was for nothing.  But I refused to go back to staff house empty-handed, so we went to the big mall in Managua (the mall for the rich Nicaraguans, where everything is priced in US dollars) for a while and splurged a bit - I got 3 summery dresses and one tank top.  Today is the first day I've worn anything sleeveless all summer, because I didn't really think to bring cooler clothes for the weekends at staff house.  So it was a good expedition after all.

Tomorrow we have our second day off as staff, and we are going to the Laguna de Apoyo again, which I am very excited about.  However, I am less excited by the 10 secondary medical school applications I have to do - ugh.  But I am grateful that I was asked to do the secondaries.  There are 4 schools I haven't heard back from yet, but the 10 that did e-mail me all asked for secondaries.  Right now, it's 31 essays in total that I have to write.  Honestly, I don't know where I'm going to find the time.  I'll definitely make a stab at some of them tomorrow at the Laguna, but that's not an atmosphere that's very conducive to working.

Despite being busy all the time, life continues to be wonderful.  I love every minute of being here in Nicaragua.  Sometimes I don't want it to ever end.  I do, however, wish I could have gone with my wonderful parents and brother and sister on their trip to Lake Tahoe this past week.

Much love to everyone back home and elsewhere who is reading this blog.

Maya

Past week on route

Only one major piece of news: 

Because of the political mess in Honduras, the Honduras AMIGOS projects that were supposed to start on June 30 got cancelled.  So our project is getting 9 more volunteers (who will only be able to do half the project, of course.)  I am getting one more on my route, who will take the place of the girl who went home.

My heroine moment of the week:

I rescued one of my volunteers from a large spider in his room.  It was about 4 inches across and ran really quickly.  Luckily, there happened to be a machete in the room... I did the job quickly and painlessly though.  

The funniest thing I saw this week:

I was in Rivas trying to figure out some logistics for midterm this weekend, and I was about to walk by a nice, air-conditioned office building or something of the sort.  A young man in his 20s with a white collared shirt and nice slacks walked out of the building right in front of me, carrying a young goat, which was cradled in one arm.  He hopped on a bicycle resting on the sidewalk and rode off with his goat.  Oh Nicaragua.

The funniest thing that happened to one of my volunteers this week:  

My volunteer was riding on the handlebars of her host sister's bicycle because it had rained a lot that day and the streets were covered with huge mud puddles, and she wanted to stay dry.  Everything was going fine until the bicycle got stuck in the mud.  The volunteer's host sister hopped off the bike to a shallow spot and barely got her feet muddy; my volunteer fell backwards, butt-first into the mud.  And the worst part is that it's never just mud in the streets - it's mud mixed with cow poop, horse poop, goat poop, and god knows what other kind of poop.  Ew.

Love,

Maya

Some photos

Sorry - photos are long overdue.  Here are a few.  I haven't even taken that many on my camera.  Some of the other staff members have more, which I will try to steal soon.  Jacy had some project/route photos that were good but of course, his camera got stolen in the whole kidnapping fiasco.  Bummer.

Here is all of staff.  From left to right, Miles, Kate, Adam, Clara, Jacy, Jillian, me, Meredith, Lindsay.  What a wonderful family we are.  Clara, Jacy, and Jillian are senior staff; the rest of us are project supervisors.

The four girl supervisors on the roof at Tepeyac, our lovely briefing site (which turned into our week-long health and wellness retreat...)

This is my whole route performing their "route gift" at the end of briefing.  They wrote a really nice song, and two (!!) of my volunteers brought guitars with them.

Hmm,  I had a few more but they aren't uploading; I'll try to put some more up later.

I had a pretty crazy week.  I suppose the biggest event was that one of my volunteers went home early, which is too bad, but it was the right choice for her.  I was sad to see her go, but it was a relief, for me as well as for her, of course.  

I also had some other complications this week - one random woman in one of my towns spread some rumors about how the volunteers were demanding purified water and special vegetarian dishes.  They were lies, but they meant I had to take an extra trip out to investigate.  

In another town, one of my volunteers is extremely homesick, but is actually doing quite well.  Last weekend her partner called staff house because she was having a panic attack; now she does not remember most of what we talked about on the phone.  When I visited her this week, she expressed feeling homesick, but she seemed to be in control of it.  She was very happy to see me. 

Getting back to staff house was really nice.  I always love seeing staff after being out on route.  Yesterday I made chili and cornbread for dinner, which turned out well.  I almost lit myself on fire with the oven while making the cornbread though.  Basically, I lit the oven with the lighter, but when I checked it later it had turned off.  So I tried lighting it again, but a bunch of gas had accumulated in the oven, so this huge blue cloud of flame just exploded into me (this is what the people sitting in the dining hall told me it looked like).  It was just very high pressure gas as a very high temperature for a fraction of a second that smacked into me.  It didn't even singe my hair (luckily), but it was kind of scary.  

Today we are going to start planning for midterm break for the volunteers, which is next weekend.

Maya

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Sorry I've been MIA for the past week and a half. I'll explain why shortly, but first I'll say the positive things.

The Good:

Everyone is healthy and safe.

The volunteers made it out to communities on Wednesday - we got them all successfully dropped off.

The volunteers in one of my communities, who I visited today, are doing great - they're happy and got started on their projects right away.

The Bad:

One of the volunteers got sick on the plane coming in last Wednesday (9 days ago). He turned out to have swine flu. It wasn't a big deal at all, but the whole project (volunteers and staff) was quarantined at our briefing site for a whole week under orders from the Nicaraguan ministry of health. Briefing was only scheduled to be for two and a half days. So staff scrambled to fill the huge amounts of time with activities and such, and it went quite well. However, it cost AMIGOS a huge amount of money and Jacy (the project director) a huge amount of time and effort changing plans, transportation, arrangements etc. So volunteers did not go out until two days ago.

More Bad:

During Briefing, which was in a town about 20 minutes from Granada, where staff house is located, staff house was broken into. My laptop and valuables were locked in the back room, so nothing of mine was stolen. However, three staff members had their laptops stolen, as well as several other things (cash, ipods etc.) We discovered this when we got back from our week-long quarantine.

The Ugly:

Jacy and Clara (the senior project supervisor) got flash kidnapped on Wednesday, at around the same time Jillian (the assistant project director) found out the house was robbed. Jillian was just about to tell Jacy on the phone about staff house getting broken into, when the phone was taken out of his hand in the cab he and Clara were in. A very large woman sat on him and pinned him down, and a man restrained Clara's hands. Pistols were pulled on them, and they were forced to close their eyes, and were driven around for 3 hours, from ATM to ATM. Jacy was forced to make withdrawal after withdrawal from his (personal) bank account. The crooks also took all their cash and valuables, of course. They were molested some (hit/slapped, pinned down, threatened). But they are okay now, and of all the people that this could have happened to, I feel like they are some of the most equipped to handle such a situation. All of staff (except two supervisors who were out spending the night with volunteers in community) spent Wednesday night in a nice hotel, just to relax a bit. Jacy and Clara are doing well, but of course, the events shook us all up a little bit. Everyone will just be a little more careful from here on out.

On a more positive/optimistic note, I am happier here than I have ever been before. There is nowhere I would rather be and noone I would rather be with. My fellow staff members are the most amazing people I have ever met. I really hope that I will feel this happy again someday after my summer is over.

Love,

Maya

Mailing Address

If you want to write me a letter (no packages!), here is my mailing address.  Postage is 98 cents from the US.

Amigos de las Américas

Maya White

Avenida Avellano del Colegio

Professional Maria Auxiliadora

1 cuadra y media al Sur

SILAIS

Granada, Granada

Nicaragua, Central America

:)

Town Survey

I just got back from 4 days of town survey - spending one day and night in each of my four communities setting things up for the volunteers.  Here is a list of some of the more interesting things that happened:

• I inhaled 3 bugs in about 4 minutes, and ate a countless number that landed and died in my food.
  
• I approached and conversed with a group of late teen/early 20s boys, who were incredulous that I A) spoke Spanish, and B) wasn't intimidated by them.
  
• I went on a bike ride from one end of a community to the other on a bike several sizes too small and with highly dysfunctional brakes.  The road was a minefield of rocks, gravel, mud puddles, sand, and branches.
• I saw the sun rise over the volcano on the Island of Ometepe while standing on a gorgeous secluded beach.
• I drank coffee for the first time ever, although it was mostly milk - "cafe con leche", the milk was fresh from the family cow.
• I spoke with a doctor in Nicaragua about what going to medical school and being a doctor in Nicaragua entails.
• I saw a little boy on a bicycle herding cows.  And on the topic of cows - their mooing will never cease to entertain me.  It's the funniest noise I've ever heard, and even the baby cowies make the same, deep noise.
• I had a meeting with the only woman mayor in the whole province of Rivas.
• I drank beet lemonade.
• I played volleyball for two hours with the Nicaraguan national champion 10 and 11 year olds.
• I talked to 2 little boys and a little girl ages 3-6 who were walking along the highway carrying jugs of water to their houses from the nearby well.
• I passed two bulls that were strolling down the road eating the mangos that had fallen from trees.
• I took a bucket bath in the dark.
• I watched about 100 kids form a massive pile with arms of legs protruding from all sides after breaking a pinata.  Then I helped pass out drinks and cookies to all of them.
• I played peek-a-boo with a very giggly mentally challenged adult man.
• I dozed off on a bus and smacked the bridge of my nose on the metal seat in front of me when the bus jerked to a stop - I now have a purple bruise on my nose.
  
• I found 11 host families, set up about a dozen meetings, arranged schedules at 4 health clinics/posts and 6 schools for my future volunteers, and was offered beds and meals by total strangers for the whole time I was on survey.

I didn't take pictures because I didn't want to come off as a tourist.  But I will take some soon!

I am now back at Staff House, and we have a ton of work to do - right now, we are planning the workshop for the youth counterparts that is taking place tomorrow, and then we will be preparing for volunteer arrival!

Maya

Funny story on the bus

We (staff) went to Masaya today to see the arts and crafts market there.  It's about a one hour bus ride from Granada.  Often vendors get on the buses for a few minutes and try to sell their products.  On our bus ride back, an extremely energetic man got on the bus and spoke (very loudly and quickly) about pills he was selling to help with "flatulence, and digestion, and the breakdown of fats in the pancreas, and flatulence, and bloating feelings after you eat, and flatulence..."  He also looked directly at us, and pointed when naming certain conditions.  Apparently I need to watch out for colon cancer.  I'm sure it was much funnier to watch than hear about.  He must have yelled the word "flatulencia" at least 15 times.  We were all bowing our heads down below the seats in front of us, trying to stifle our hysterical laughter.

Welcome to my summer 2009 Amigos blog!

Saludos de Nicaragua!

This summer I have returned to the Amigos organization for the third summer. This time, however, I am serving as a Project Supervisor. I arrived in country two days ago, and got all set up in Staff House with the other project staff (pictures coming soon, hopefully). Staff House is located in the city of Granada and is amazing, as are my fellow staff members - I think everyone is going to get along really well. It is hot all the time here, and incredibly humid. Also, there have been very intense rainstorms/thunderstorms both nights so far - I love it!

This morning, I found out the four communities I will be supervising (I will have 10 volunteers total). All four are in the province of Rivas, which is directly south of Granada. Two of the communities are brand new to Amigos (have never had volunteers there), and one is huge - about 8000 people and very touristy. So I will definitely have some challenges. On Monday I start town survey, which will last 5 days and involves going to each community and getting everything set up for the arrival of the volunteers - host families, contacts, emergency safety plans, meal schedules, work schedules etc. The volunteers' main projects are working in the understaffed clinics in their communities, giving workshops and presentations on health topics in the clinic waiting rooms, and also holding classes for children and youth (also on health topics).

In addition to lots of preparation and planning, I am also busily working on finishing up my medical school primary application. In fact, I have been spending all my downtime doing this, and also working on it before everyone else wakes up/after they go to bed. But it's almost done! Yay! I'm also still trying to finalize a list of schools to apply to.

I am very excited to go out to the communities!  I'm sure I will have a lot to write about after town survey.

Feel free to drop me a message. Also, I will post my mailing address soon - I love receiving handwritten mail!

Maya