An afternoon of pottery making and stark realizations

Kevin: “who would have guessed six months ago that we would be sitting here today hand making jewelry out of pottery with a group of Nicaraguan high schoolers?” 

Here in Nicaragua, I’m living in a town of artisans.  My small business youth group has decided to use the resources of their town to create their project for our small business competition.  We spent the afternoon working on our prototype while snacking on a bag full of fresh bread from the corner store and listening to backstreet boys on one of our student’s cell phones.

While a group of the kids sat in an empty classroom trying to hand drill small holes through pieces of broken pottery, the other group of kids and I walked around town to visit a handful of artisans to ask them to donate broken pottery to our project.  While walking from home to home of different artisans, we ended up going to the home of one of my students.  We have 11 students in our youth group but 4 of them are our all star kids.  One of them has stuck out from the first day.  He is teaching himself English and is well on his way to fluency.  I am extremely impressed by his intelligence, drive and bubbly personality. 

Walking around San Juan soliciting ceramic donations from local artisans 

Walking through our town we made a right-hand turn down this tiny dirt path I’ve probably passed a dozen times and never noticed.  I started realizing that this little slippery dirt path goes a long way back.  Before I know it I am passing shacks on the left and the right and I realize I am in a part of town I didn’t even know existed.  The poverty back here just took my breath away and literally made my stomach hurt.  These people are my neighbors.  I was in shock.  This is where my all star student lives?  He comes to school every day put together, clean and with his homework completed and this is his home?  The people here are generally poor but these houses took poverty to a whole new level.  I’ve spent 6 weeks working with this kid, I had no idea.  How in the world does he live back here?  We finally arrive at his home, a structure with no doors; just cement openings into a one room ‘house’ with dirt floors.  A curtain separates the single ‘bedroom’ from the rest of the house.  There is no bathroom, no kitchen.  His parents happily invite us in through the door less entryway and they give us tools and pottery to use for our project.  After showing interest in the pottery making process, the dad jumps into his spinning wheel, starts spinning the wheel with his foot, takes a clump of clay and in less than three minutes forms a gorgeous vase with his bare hands.   It was simply amazing.  I made him promise to teach me how to make pottery.  He said it would be his pleasure and that I am welcomed to return any day to learn.  I asked him if he was serious and then promised to return soon.  I am definitely going to take him up on his offer.  This place amazes me every single day.

36 days...

36 days… that’s how long it took me to get deathly ill here in Nicaragua.  It was only a matter of time.  Slowly one by one we were all ‘catching’ it… that dreaded stomach bacteria that seems all but inevitable here.  No matter how hard you try it will eventually catch up with you.  Well it did and it was really horrible.  I think it was the cabbage and veggie salsa in the fried plantains I ate from a street vender… it was so yummy!  But goodness I know better than to eat food from street vendors!    102 degree fever, aches and pains, all types of bodily functions gone wrong, but we all survive.  I named my killer bug Crazy Carlos…. Seemed appropriate.  Thank you antibiotics for being so wonderful!  My host mom took such great care of me.  I so wanted to express my gratitude but in Spanish about all I could say to her is “mucho gracias” which just doesn’t cut it for all that she did.  I would love to say “you are a life saver!  Thank you for your kindness, lemonade rehydration salt concoctions, hugs, and attention while I was sick.  Thank you for calling a mototaxi and taking me to the clinic to turn in my poo sample and for holding my hand while I got blood drawn and getting me a discount and I really appreciate it” but… “mucho gracias” will just have to do because I just don’t know how to express all that in espanol.  But I can tell all of you in my fine English just how thankful I am for my wonderful host mom.  She even climbed under my silly mosquito net to rub my legs and feet and put my socks on.  I was so incredibly thankful for her love.  Dona Melania you are the Greatest!    

Church in villanueva, chinandega

I had an awesome volunteer visit in Villa Nueva, Chinandega.  I stayed with a volunteer named Ronald and his host family.  We visited the schools, the local government and local business owners.  I assisted Ronald in his class in the high schools, we saw a local baseball game, biked to a beautiful lake connecting his town to the next town and I got my nails painted with an awesome volunteer who also lives in Villa Nueva named Ashley.  Ashley is a health volunteer and I was able to sit in on her women’s group where she taught local women about the importance of nutrition.  It was so cool!  I can’t wait to have secondary projects where I can teach women and youth nutrition and health charlas.    

River between Villanueva and Las Pilas

During the peak of rainy season the two towns are
completely cut off from each other

:-) Fancy nails

View leaving Villanueva, Volcan San Cristobal -
The highest and one of the most active volcanoes in Nicaragua.
Last eruption was in 2008

I learned so much about the realities of life as a volunteer.  Out there they have a lot more freedom than we have now in our training towns.  Freedom to do their work without a lot of oversight, freedom to create secondary projects that they feel will best suit their community and their own personal interests and they have the freedom of flexibility.  But thinking about being alone out there is also a bit scary.  During my visit I was introduced to the realities of down time… in training we are kept extremely busy but as a ‘real’ volunteer there will be days where we spend half the day figuring out what to do with the other half of the day… and no matter how many schools you’re teaching in, NGO’s you’re working with, women’s groups you’re running, youth group projects your involved in, community banks you’re overseeing, soccer clubs you’re starting, businesses you’re advising these days are just inevitable. So what do you do to entertain yourself, alone in a small town with very little to do for two whole years…?  And even on busy days where I am working from 7am to 6pm, I will 99% of the time be in my house for the night with the door locked before dark… what do I do when I get a burst of energy at 9pm?  Dance party alone…?  In my training town I have three other trainees just a few doors away.  They are close by if I need anything or if I get bored or I have a favor to ask.  Out there I might not have any other volunteers around.  Here Peace Corps staff is only a quick drive away… out there they could be hours away.   These are all new realities that I will have to embrace and adjust to in the next few months.  Basically I am going to be completely on my own which is exciting and a bit terrifying.

 

Homemade (American) oatmeal cookie and chocolate cake!

Training is going by So quickly.  This week we have our mid-service language interview and our site preference interview… both are Extremely important so this week is going to be slightly stressful.  I think I’ve narrowed the 14 sites down and picked my top three choices but it is so Hard to attempt to decide what sites will be the ‘best’ for me for the next two years of my life.  They are all so different and unique and who knows what really will be the best for me… but I’ve picked my top three choices and I am preparing to defend why my educational background and skills are best suited for those sites.  Then, they get to make the decision.  Sometimes I wonder if they let us ‘chose’ our top three sites just to appease us.  Do they have us all pinned to sites already?  Possibly.  Either way at the end of the day two people are deciding where I will be spending the next two years of my life and I don’t know if what I say to them will really make a difference… but I will still try!  I think I will be relatively happy with about 10 out of the 14 sites… a few of them are so rural I think I would lose my mind… ha so I am PRAYING I don’t get assigned to those ones.  We will know soon enough.  Site assignments are coming SO SOON.             

Enjoying some much needed down time at the Mirador

My training group

By the way!  My Sweet sister Rachel sent me a letter this week with baby Jack's adorable birth annoucement!  (Thanks sister!) It only took 14 days to arrive and only cost her ONE dollar!! So, feel free to send me love notes... it's really nice to get mail here :-)

Hannah Tarrien
Cuerpo de Paz ~ Nicaragua
Apartado Postal # 3256
Managua, Nicaragua, Centro América

One month down, 26 to go.

I've officially been in training for month.  It hasn’t gone by fast or slow… it felt like a month
 

Days when I love the food.

I’ve had days where I love Nicaraguan food and days where I absolutely crave my dad’s flavorful cooking.  Days where I love living in this little sleepy town where I go to bed at 9pm and days where I wish I could go out past dark and maybe even go somewhere at 10pm.  There have been days where I feel like I am coming a long way with my Spanish and there are days where I’ve completely hit a road block.    

Moments when I want to live in my Mosquito Net

There have been nights where I’ve slept like a baby and others where Nicaraguan musicians decide to serenade the community from 2-6 am.  There have been days where the heat and the mosquito’s get the best of me and days where the rain cools everything down and the air is crisp and clean. There are moments where my host mom is talking at me for 5 minutes straight and I just smile and nod because I have absolutely no clue what she is saying and then there are times where I actually understand enough to get the gist of her story.  

My host sister Daniela with the pet turkey and parrot

It’s the little things that make all the difference, like learning how wonderful a chocobanano is at 1pm when it is blistering hot or simply using a sentence and seeing that the other person actually understands what I am trying to say.  

My adorable front porch

I love evenings spent on the front porch with my host parents reading newspapers and snacking on bananas and mangoes or playing card games with my little sister after dinner.  I love the moments in the kitchen where 9 of my host family members are happily yammering away as I sit there watching them and taking it all in.  

Our Youth Group

My training group and I have made significant progress so far.  We formed a youth group of 11 high schoolers and taught them a life lesson ‘charla’ about the importance of planning for their futures.  

Getting the students to participate

They have also picked a product to create, market, and present at our small business competition at the end of training.  They have a blast laughing at our Spanish mess ups and kicking our butts in soccer.  

'Baking' cookies!

We’ve gotten to know the school director, the business teacher, and some local business owners.  We co-planned and co-taught our first class of 11^th graders.  We’ve learned how to make soy milk and soy meat using limited resources and we learned how to bake using only a stove top.

Overall things are going great.  I continue to learn so much about my community, Nicaraguan culture, and my project goals every single day. 

Mmmm Cookies!

This past weekend, 7 other trainees and I hiked down Laguna de Apoyo which is only a 15 minute walk away from my house.  It is a volcano crater that has warm, clean, beautiful water.

This Sunday we have our volunteer visits.  This is where every trainee will go visit a current volunteer for 4 days.  We get to stay with them and essentially shadow them to see what a volunteer’s life is like.  I am excited to mix things up, experience a new part of the country, and get a good gist of what exactly the next two years of my life will look like.

I know some of you are wondering what it is I do every day.  As a trainee my usual schedule looks something like this: 

6:30am wake up and eat
8:00am – 12pm Spanish class
12pm – 1pm home for lunch
1pm-3pm practical Spanish class
3-6pm varies

Monday afternoon we co-plan with the business teacher. 
Tuesday mornings we teach in the high school. 
Tuesday night and Saturday afternoon we have meetings with our youth groups. 
Friday from 8-4 and Saturdays from 8-3 we have technical training with all 14 business volunteers.
  

            

Somehow, I forgot to mention last post that my family welcomed my beautiful nephew Jack into the world on May 11th!  He is healthy and beautiful and we are extremely blessed.  

Congrats Rachel and Brandon :-)