In the Land of Lakes and Volcanoes: Natural Disasters and Competition Season

Central America experienced a whole bunch of crazy activity in September. For awhile, I even considered renaming my blog to "Learning, Living and Serving in the land of Earthquakes and Erupting Volcanoes". On September 5^th, Costa Rica had a 7.6 earthquake that was felt throughout Nicaragua. I was teaching at one of my rural communities when it hit and surprisingly, we did not feel a thing. My host mom later told me that our entire house shook for 5 minutes. We were put on a Tsunami alert and continued to feel small earthquakes and aftershocks for the following few days. Lake Managua, which is very close to my site, produced over 17 tremors in only a 4 hour period. I can now officially say I've felt an Earthquake!

Managua, the capitol city of Nicaragua, is sitting on 28 fault lines and historically has a devastating earthquake every 40 years. The last two, in 1931 and 1972, were extremely devastating, killing over 10,000 people and leaving Managua without a city center to this day. Well, it’s been exactly 40 years since the last big earthquake. So, people were getting a little worried with all this activity.

The Cocos and Caribbean plates lie just off the coast of Central America and when they shift, the earth shakes, which not only causes earthquakes but also creates the risk of tsunamis and puts pressure on the volcanoes in the region. There are seven active volcanoes in Nicaragua, three of which are in my department, Leon. All this Earth moving activity was making the volcanoes get all heated up starting with Telica, one of the three active volcanoes in Leon. She started showing some stronger than usual activity on the 6th as the aftershocks from the Costa Rican earthquake continued. On Saturday October 8^th, while I was just about to start a full morning of laundry washing, I received an urgent phone call from my emergency Peace Corps contact telling me that Volcan San Cristobal in Chinadega had erupted and that I needed to get out of my site ASAP. So I threw all my dirty clothes back in my bedroom, grabbed a quick overnight bag, and caught the next bus to Managua, away from the erupting volcano. Around the same time as this volcano started erupting, Costa Rica had another 5.6 quake and things just didn't seem to be quieting down.

Volcan San Cristobal erupting

Picture of Volcano Eruption from Chinandega

All the evacuated PCVs from two departments stayed in Granada while Peace Corps kept tabs on the volcanoes and earthquakes. I was able to return to site after two nights but was told to remain alert and keep an emergency bag packed just in case. Volcan San Cristobal continued to erupt for days but it is located far enough from me, about 50 miles, that I was safe staying in site. Three other volcanoes were also showing signs of more than normal activity so we all remained on alert. I was diligently keeping my eye on Volcan Momotombo which I can see from my front yard. I told myself if I saw Anything funny coming out of the top of that thing, I would get on the next bus and skedaddle.

Volcan Momotombo from my site.

Fortunately, after about the 15^th, things calmed down and everything more or less returned to normal. It was quite the adventure! In regards to our host families and our communities, the Nicaraguan National Guard sent in trucks to evacuate the 3,000 people living within 5km of the volcano. People within 13km were highly recommended to get out. My family was safe living 80km from the volcano and only experienced a little smoke on the first day of the first eruption. Most of the smoke was blowing southwest, which is away from my site. The only causalities I heard of were a few cows who got hit by molten rock.

Map of initial eruption

Other September highlights:

The Ambassador of the United States, Ambassador Powers, visited my site! She came to see our wonderful youth center, Norwalk, and see the work my environment site mate Cindy has been doing with her students.

Ambassador Powers looks at student's recycled art

While I was evacuated from site, one of my host families dogs had 7 puppies. I enjoyed their company for 5 1/2 weeks. I named them all after Nicaraguan volcanoes, since they were born during the eruption, and spent my free afternoons out in the backyard playing with them.

Newborn Pups!

Telica

Azul

Cerro

Mombacho

*Warning, this story has a bad ending*

They all seemed healthy and happy and then sadly, they all started to die. I carried the last three survivors across town to the vet and got them medicine and stayed up with them for 2 nights feeding them syringes of re-hydration suero as they all died one by one. My little guy Blue, who I was planning on keeping as a pet, made it a week longer than his siblings. I thought he was going to be the lone survivor but he sadly passed away as well. I think I'm done with pets in this country... :-(

(sorry for the downer story)

Nicaragua celebrated its independence from Spain on September 15^th. My host sister and many of my students participated in a march through the town.

My host sister Linda on the right holding the National Flag

October brought in the Business Competition Season. Peace Corps Small Business Volunteers all work in the secondary schools teaching students business and entrepreneurship skills. The students create a business and learn about market studies, accounting, financing, and marketing during the school year. At the end of the year, the students put all of their work together to form a business plan and compete in a local, regional and national competition. We held the Nagarote local competition on October 25th. Ten teams competed and did an awesome job presenting their businesses. Four judges decided which two teams were the strongest based on creativity, business plans, finances, marketing and presentation. The two best teams advanced to the regional competition to represent our municipality.

First Place Team

Their cheese was delicious!

Second Place Team

Shirts with company slogan

On October 31^st we held the regional competition in Leon. The local government from my site donated money to provide a bus to take my two teams, my counterpart and I to the department capitol of Leon for the competition.

My two teams from Nagarote off to the Regional Competition!

My student’s didn't win, but I truly believe they learned So much that will benefit them whether they continue on at the University level or enter the workforce after they graduate this December.

The competition was amazing! We had great judges, great sponsors and two national television stations report on our event. They interviewed my Peace Corps co-worker Lauren and one of my students! It was on the national evening news!

One of my students being interview by National T.V.!

Lauren, a fellow small business PCV being interviewed

PCV's from Leon and our boss Georgia

My counterpart Georgina and I

On the 27th, Peace Corps Small Business hosted a Gala in Managua to raise money for our national competition in November. It was an awesome event with the Ambassador and other foreign dignitaries in attendance. PCV’s from all over the country came into the capitol for the event. We stayed in a nice hotel and enjoyed a fun, fancy weekend with sunshine, good food and good friends!

Nica 59 reunited!

Spending the day in the pool before the big event!

PCV's checking guests in

PCV Carly, my Site mate from
La Paz Centro, Julie and I at the Gala

On the Friday before Halloween, Masaya celebrated the Fiesta de los Agüizotes or Fiesta of the Bad Omens. During this festival people wear masks and scary costumes and there is a procession through the streets with live music and people blowing fire. We had a great time parading through the streets admiring the costumes and enjoying the good music.

Fellow PCV Laura, and RPCV Paul who served
in Peru and now has an NGO in Nicaragua

The school year is quickly winding down to an end. Only one more week of regular classes, two weeks of review and then it’s over! This semester flew by. I am excited to take advantage of my extra time in December and January to get more involved with the two NGO’s in my community before the new school year starts in February.