Lists, Runaway Horses, and Daniel Ortega

Greetings everyone, I hope that all is well wherever you are, wherever you call home. I put off writing another blog entry until now because I wanted to wait until I had something “interesting” to say. Then, as the days kept creeping by without feeling like I had lots to share, I decided that if I don’t write on this thing at least once a week, that people will quit looking at it altogether…so here’s an attempt to be interesting.

Week one in Nicaragua has now passed, and I have to say that I am overwhelmed by all that I have already learned, and all that I still have to learn. I have started keeping many running lists to help me keep things straight. The lists so far include a vocab list of new spanish words, a list of the multiple Nicaragua political parties (elections in November…yikes!), a list of things I miss about Kentucky and home in general, and a list of names of all of the peope I am meeting daily. Soon I will probably have to start a list of locations of the various lists that I have…ewww.

So, that being said, here’s what my week has been like. Everyday I continue to follow Eric, my guru job-trainer around, and we do odd jobs like sift cement (my arms are very sore), count medicine in the clinic, chase escaped horses back into the animal yard, answer emails from potential volunteers and volunteer delegations, visit families in the neighborhood, return coke and beer bottles for deposit money, go on tours of the city where I learn how to pretend like I can interpret murals and graffiti and statues…yadda yadda yadda. I am slowly starting to take over parts of the job without Eric’s direct oversight, which feels good, but I am relishing in the 2 more weeks I have before I am truly on my own. I have also started planning for the first group that is coming under my oversight…a group of doctors from Alaska. That should be a cool trip and we are heading up to the coffee plantation cooperative for several days to do some clinics and immunize some animals and stuff…yee haw.
Observations so far: Inheriting a new job is hard...inheriting a new family is harder.

I had my first driving lesson...and it went really really well. I was driving a ten passenger stick-shift van around the narrow dirt streets of our barrio as we ran errands. No horse-drawn carriages, cow herds, ladies with baskets on their heads, mo-ped riders, nor animals were harmed during this experience. I have to thank my parents for making me drive the dreaded vokswagon van as a teenager....it trained me to drive a stick in an oversized vehicle. Many Nicaraguan villagers thank you mom and dad.

It is rainy season here which means that almost every night it rains SO much, and about every other night is a torrential downpour that pours through the cracks in the ceilings, through the screen walls, drenches the “clean” clothes I have the clothes line, and washes away some chickens or small dogs around the property. Maybe it’s because the rain is truly stronger here, or maybe it is because the walls are screen and I don’t have the option of retiring to some indoor place to escape the storms, but I have a newfound appreciation for the power of rain.

I have been reading so so much in the past week. I have been trying to read the newspaper every day, as well as a book I got on Nicaraguan economic policy in the 90’s, as well as the book “Life of Pi”….reserved for when I just can’t read anything else about Nicaragua. Here are some of the headlines down here: People in the nearby city of Leon are dying by the dozens because of guaron (moonshine rum) that was contaminated by methanol (like 80 people dead so far….hundreds in critical condition). The November presidential elections are attracting all kinds of attention….Daniel Ortega, who was the leader of the Sandinistas during the 80’s is running for president and it looks like he will probably win. They have about 4 other serious candidates (and a couple more that aren’t so serious) that are running too. Politics is on everybody’s lips…it’s quite the buzz.

Today is the last workday of this work week because of the Nicaraguan independence day. We have a four day weekend so Eric and I are heading to the east coast. Now, that may not sound too exciting, but it actually is, few people make it to the east coast. If you look at a map of Nicaragua, almost half of its geography is made up of these two autonomous regions on the east coast…they are separated from the rest of the country by some jungle and un-navigable land. We are flying there (the alternative was a 12 hour bus ride followed by a 7 hour boat ride…on a river that is frequented by pirates that want to take our digital cameras, passports, money, and lives….so we opted for the flight). Supposedly, they speak english there and are mostly of African descent, play reggae music, and have a much more caribbean culture. It should be fascinating and quite a kickoff for my second week in Nicaragua. We leave Thurs. and get back Sunday.

I was talking to one of the volunteers here who has been here for a year, but has had to return back to the states 3 times because of unexpected circumstances. He was saying that it kind of felt like he wasn’t truly “totally here” in some way….that keeping too close of ties with home could keep your mind in too many places at once. I thought about that for a bit and decided that I don’t really think that being “totally” somewhere is something that sounds all that appealing to me, nor all that feasible. I mean, for years now my heart has been a little bit in a lot of places…Mexico, Cambodia, Germany, Ohio, South Carolina, Kentucky…allover the world, wherever my loved-ones are. So, what’s the point of being “totally” somewhere in mind body or spirit….I think I will stick to being scattered, but trying to be totally at peace amongst the scatteredness (probably not a word).

Well, this is it for now…no more philosophical ramblings. I will try to put some pics up soon, I know that’s what you want. There aren’t too many computers here that can handle pictures and digital camera hookups and all that…but when I get my hands on one (soon) I promise to get some pics on here. I love you all and thing about you a lot…for serious,

Peace,

Bree