All the people seem to love and hate
Everybody makes the same mistakes
Divided by these walls
Together we are one
We are the same blood
Currently listening to: Same Blood
Artist: The Academy Is...
Current mood: reflective
Good news! I am finally getting a camera! It is arriving here with Lori when she comes to join us from the States in mid-June. (For those of you who don´t know, Lori is my fellow colleague and the President of Salud del Sol). I have not seen it, but apparently it is an Olympus, and this means that I will be able to take pictures and (hopefully) post them! I am sure that the content of the blog itself has been interesting enough, but I am also sure that it looks quite boring without pics, and for that I apologize.
Thank you all for at least checking in and leaving comments. Know that I do read them and appreciate them, and they always make a day brighter by letting me know people are thinking of me. Facebook posts work too. Peace to you all, congratulations to those who are graduating, and good luck staying dry.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Sunday, June 1, 2008
A little rain must fall
Once again, hey all!
So things are still going smooth here. The difference now is that everything is very wet. Hurricane Alma (meaning ¨soul¨) has come through and hit Managua pretty hard, the capital city about 3-and-a-half hours south of us. It rained pretty rough here for a while, and made everything quite muddy, but I was more concerned for Vince, who is staying in Managua. They recieved 20 inches of rain and had flash floods. Homes were destroyed and people displaced because of it. Coincidentally, I have not actually talked to Vince since then, but I am sure he is allright.
Hurricane Alma came at an exciting time: El Dia del Madre! Friday was Nicaraguan (Latin American?) Mother´s Day, and it is a huge deal. People here understand how much work the domesticas perform, and gladly show their appreciation. Wednesday afternoon, starting at 3, was a meeting of all the mothers and their families in the community at the Solar Center. Or at least I expected a meeting. When I arrived in my work clothes, I was surprised to see every single one of them looking beautiful, all dressed up and formal. Concordantly, I borrowed a bike and, instead of making the 15-minute walk back to my house, sped there with haste, put on some nice clothes, and sped back to the center. Apparently I was to be a judge of a beauty competition for the mothers.
It was a fiesta! Children sang, danced, and shared stories, volunteers produced skits, and staff had the mothers play games. Then we announced the contest winners and all had a snack, and then the dancing begun. Of course, I couldn´t resist dancing. However, everytime I went to sit down or get a drink of water, one of the girls would pull me back up again. In the end, it was a blast, and went on until about 6:30 or so.
It was interesting to note that all the men and women have the capability to clean up so nicely. It doesn´t matter where they live, whether it´s in a city or in a house with no electricty in the mountains, a person can still clean up and be beautiful. The difference is, bugs and mud don´t bother the girls here, and that´s some +Cool Points.
CJ and I have cut all the wood necessary for the autoclave, and are just about ready to begin construction next week. It´s very exciting, and I am glad to be rolling ahead with the project. I am trying to have the women and staff participate as well. They can earn hours by working with us, and then use those hours to buy something from the Green Store, which could be clothes or toys or cookware, etc. Hours is an interesting and convenient form of monies for projects like this.
I have decided that I am about ready to teach the locals how to play Ultimate. I was waiting to pick up more Spanish, but it is almost time. I will make an announcement at tomorrow´s women´s meeting for Las Mujeras Solares, which occurs every Monday at 3PM, saying that I will be teaching a fun new game on the Wednesday following this Wednesday, and that they should encurage their families and friends´families to come on by. This is another mini-project that I am very excited for.
So things are still going smooth here. The difference now is that everything is very wet. Hurricane Alma (meaning ¨soul¨) has come through and hit Managua pretty hard, the capital city about 3-and-a-half hours south of us. It rained pretty rough here for a while, and made everything quite muddy, but I was more concerned for Vince, who is staying in Managua. They recieved 20 inches of rain and had flash floods. Homes were destroyed and people displaced because of it. Coincidentally, I have not actually talked to Vince since then, but I am sure he is allright.
Hurricane Alma came at an exciting time: El Dia del Madre! Friday was Nicaraguan (Latin American?) Mother´s Day, and it is a huge deal. People here understand how much work the domesticas perform, and gladly show their appreciation. Wednesday afternoon, starting at 3, was a meeting of all the mothers and their families in the community at the Solar Center. Or at least I expected a meeting. When I arrived in my work clothes, I was surprised to see every single one of them looking beautiful, all dressed up and formal. Concordantly, I borrowed a bike and, instead of making the 15-minute walk back to my house, sped there with haste, put on some nice clothes, and sped back to the center. Apparently I was to be a judge of a beauty competition for the mothers.
It was a fiesta! Children sang, danced, and shared stories, volunteers produced skits, and staff had the mothers play games. Then we announced the contest winners and all had a snack, and then the dancing begun. Of course, I couldn´t resist dancing. However, everytime I went to sit down or get a drink of water, one of the girls would pull me back up again. In the end, it was a blast, and went on until about 6:30 or so.
It was interesting to note that all the men and women have the capability to clean up so nicely. It doesn´t matter where they live, whether it´s in a city or in a house with no electricty in the mountains, a person can still clean up and be beautiful. The difference is, bugs and mud don´t bother the girls here, and that´s some +Cool Points.
CJ and I have cut all the wood necessary for the autoclave, and are just about ready to begin construction next week. It´s very exciting, and I am glad to be rolling ahead with the project. I am trying to have the women and staff participate as well. They can earn hours by working with us, and then use those hours to buy something from the Green Store, which could be clothes or toys or cookware, etc. Hours is an interesting and convenient form of monies for projects like this.
I have decided that I am about ready to teach the locals how to play Ultimate. I was waiting to pick up more Spanish, but it is almost time. I will make an announcement at tomorrow´s women´s meeting for Las Mujeras Solares, which occurs every Monday at 3PM, saying that I will be teaching a fun new game on the Wednesday following this Wednesday, and that they should encurage their families and friends´families to come on by. This is another mini-project that I am very excited for.
***
So everything above was written on Sunday, and it is now Wednesday that I am finishing this up. This is because the power cut out as I was halfway through, and would not be back on for the rest of the day. A testament to the hurricane I referred to earlier.
I did tell the women that I will teach Ultimate next Wednesday, and they liked the idea. CJ and I have also been working on the Solarr Autoclave, constructing and putting everything together. My hands are stained with paint from the work I have done today. I would also like to thank Matt and Pete for helping me out with the construction, and Roberto for giving me some wonderful input into the autoclave. Our business, which I mentioned in the first blog below, is also really taking off. I have a few other ventures in mind that would be much simpler and quicker to start up than the autoclave, which I hope to share with my teammates and work on maybe as a side project. Once again, I urge you to check out www.saluddelsol.org for the latest improved website.
An interesting story: apparently when Robert first arrived here, coming from Scotland into Guatemala, and then here, he had heard of Las Mujeras Solares and asked for them. However, he mispronounced it and asked for ¨mujeras solas¨, which means ¨single women¨. The locals were... confused, to say the least?
Spanish lessons are also really picking up. We are getting into some of the stuff that I really wanted to know, such as how to say verbs in past and future tenses, etc. Because, once I know this, I can apply it to almost every verb I learn, and at least get a better sense across than what I probably currently do. However, my Spanish is going really well. I am able to converse pretty well with most of the locals, especially the kids. My weak point, as anywhere, is being able to hear what they are saying; to pick out the different words, etc.
So, after three days, I have finally finished this blog. I think it´s about time that I get going again... I am looking for a few things here in Ocotal, then I am going to go home for dinner. After dinner, I am helping a girl study for her English test tomorrow. I also learned a pretty cool game during class today that I hope to play with Robert and Scarlett tonight, which is to write down (in Spanish!) a place, famous person, object, color, and animal that all start with the same letter before anyone else can. It is a great way to excercise vocabulary. I expect Scarlett to beat us everytime, because she´s been speaking the language for 11 years (cheat), but then we can ask her what a certain word was, and so on.
They told me everyone would get sick, but no sickness for Daniel yet. Score.
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