The Bree

Saint Savior, The Savior.....thats the name of this place folks.

2007-06-16T18:47:00.000-07:00

San Salvador, El Salvador. That is where this blog entry comes to you from. Today is Saturday and this is how I got here......I left Maya Pedal yesterday and stayed the night in Antigua and left early this morning to begin the 2 day voyage through Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and to my final destination of Managua, Nicaragua. My brother comes into Nicaragua to meet me on Tuesday so the time came that I had to leave Maya Pedal and close one chapter of this journey and open a new one.
But before I take this blog journey out of Guatemala, let me tell you how I spent my last few days. First off, I went to visit Maximon. Who is Maximon? Well....I wish I really knew, and even around Itzapa if you ask 5 people, you will get 5 different answers...but here is a shot at who I think he is. He is a kind of Saint, a deity from Mayan times named Mam I think, who they then made into a Saint....and he has something to do with Saint Simon...as he is sometimes called San Simon. He also gas something to do with Judus Iscariot, but obviously Mam existed before those guys so he is a mixture I think. He is the kind of guy that has a good side and a bad side, and you definitely want to be on his good side. Anyway, the Catholic church does not recognize him, and he is quite controversial. His temple is in Itzapa and so I went there. At the temple there were lots of shamans doing rituals. They say that Maximon is a very human saint, so he likes the things humans like....alcohol, cigarettes, cigars...so that is what people bring him as offerings. The shamans were burning piles of candles, flowers, cigars, alcohol, sand, wood, all kinds of stuff and chanting over them. They were also smoking cigars. It was really quite a sight. I was mostly an observer, but I did do what everyone told me to do and bring him an offering. I took him some cigars and placed them at his feet as I made my wish. I wont tell what it was but it was a pretty good cigar so hopefully I came out on his good side.
On my way out of Itzapa, I was riding on a bus that was loaded down with people. There were 3 people to every seat and the aisles were full of people standing. It was pretty hot and I was getting a little grouchy when I heard the bus driver yell ¨ladies and gentleman please if you could do me a favor and duck down, we are passing the police, thank you¨, and everyone standing up in the aisles ducks down and squats. So apparently, it is illegal to have people standing on the busses, which is pretty much hilarious because almost every bus I have ever been on in Central America has had people standing in the aisles. So, anyway, I was surprised and looked at the woman sitting next to me and we both started laughing. And I wasnt grumpy anymore.
So, it was sad to leave Maya Pedal and I left feeling like I was so blessed to have found such a great place and get to hang out there for three weeks. My final reflections on my time spent there are that I had a rare and beautiful amount of time alone to read and think and look a walls and sunsets, and also that I was stretched and learned to do new things and I am proud of myself. I also leave feeling peacefully happy that there are cool, small, innovative local organizations out there doing incredible and cutting edge development work. For my last day, Johanna the secretary took me to the nearby city of Chimaltenango and we ate pizza...a real treat. We exchanged hugs and commitments to keep in touch and I hope I can keep up my end of the deal, I sure want to.
So today I spent 10 hours in transit, first 2 hours in a shuttle through Guatemala City and then 6 hours on a bus into El Salvador. Right now I am in the hotel and I have to say, I have only seen about a 3 block area of San Salvador, but it is the ritziest thing I have seen south of the Alamo. I got in at dark and didnt want to venture too far but I did make it to the nearby Sheraton Hotel to use the ATM and ate dinner at the Pizza Hut down the road...pretty snazzy, but just like in the US, despite being so famous, Pizza Hut actually sucks.
So today has been the day of surprisingly good songs being played on the radio. So far I have heard ¨Ïll be missing you¨ by Puff Daddy, ¨Can I hold You For A While¨ by Tracy Chapman, and ¨What I Got¨ by Sublime¨. Cool eh?
Ok so this is it I guess...next time I write I will be in Managua...yay! Managua feels somewhat like a second home to me, if feels great to be going back. Hasta Luego!
Bree

I´m too tired from writing this blog and downloading pictures to think of a title.

2007-06-10T16:02:00.000-07:00

So here is a new blog! And once again, I am beginning a blog by apologizing that it has been so long since I have written. It´s not necessarily that I haven’t felt like writing a blog, but I have been passing most days pretty similarly to the days before, so no new ground-breaking news. I have been volunteering at Maya Pedal for about 2 weeks now. Right now (Sunday) I am in Antigua Guatemala, a nearby touristy colonial city where I came to pass the weekend reading in coffee shops, looking at people and pricey souvenirs, sitting in the church, watching bad Ben Afleck movies, and internetting. Im back to work tomorrow morning.
I must say I am so glad I came here to Maya Pedal and it has surely been one of the highlights of any travel I have done so far. Each day I wake up early and start working on bikes. Once I was here for a few days and got enough skills under my belt to work somewhat independently I have really loved working on bikes. Maya Pedal gets old busted bike donations from the US and Canada, and most of the sales here are of refurbished bicycles for transportation. We also do some repairs for people that stop by with their bikes. So that kind of stuff is what I do. Maya Pedal also makes machines but I don’t do much of that….although I have gotten to try my hand at cutting metal with a big electric saw, and welding a bit too. I mostly leave the machines to Carlos, the technician because that is intense stuff. It is really cool to see someone who is so good at what they do, and to see what a little human ingenuity can do toward making such cool machines. So far I have seen bike powered blenders, corn dehuskers, corn grinders (for tortillas), peanut de-shellers, water pumps (up to 100 meters depth!), clothes washers, yay! If you´ll permit me for a moment…I´ll go on a soapbox about why pedal power rules!

1) First, pedal power is very cost efficient, the input is just human power which costs nothing, the machines are extremely durable with little to no repair costs 2) Pedal power is energy efficient. Now this goes a long way…I mean you aren’t bringing in energy from an outside substance to run these machines and there is no pollutants given off from the machines´ work. 3) With pedal power there is a more direct human connection to the product. You know the process it goes through, you know how it arrived in its´ final state…..as opposed to electric washing machines for example, where although you may use it everyday for your whole life, you never really know what goes on in that mysterious machine after you push the button. 4) Pedal power machines are available to people with limited access to electricity, and of course to those as well who have access to electricity, but find it advantageous to limit their usage. So that is a little bit about why I thik bike powered machines are awesome. Yay.
Last week a mother came into the shop while was the only one there and inquired about a bike for her 10 year old daughter. I showed her the collection of old bikes and explained we could fix any of them up for her daughter. She went away excited as we have a lot of descent bikes for little girls. I was alsp excited about the chance to fix up a bike for a little girl…something I have wanted to do since I got here. You see, here in Guatemala the majority of the population are indigenous people and they have beautiful traditional dress. The womens´ dress includes a long tightly wrapped ankle-length skirt. And this skirt my friends, is a very practical and good reason why women don’t ride bikes here. Also, it is kind of customary that only men ride bikes so even among women who are not indigenous, you don´t see many riding bikes. So anyway, I was excited when this lady came in and so I hope she returns and I can rebuild her a bike!
So the other 2 volunters that were here at Maya Pedal, George and Ola (married) left last week. Now it is just me in the the shop which is cool, I am just learning the art of being content while being alone. I read, I walk around, I cook, I set little tasks for myself. Today for instance is Sunday so I have a whole day of free time. This morning when I woke up I thought of all the things I was going to do; eat breakfast, walk around, sit in the church, have a hot chocolate, write in my journal, write a blog, have a coffee, eat lunch, read my book, read an interesting national geographic article I found in the hostel, eat dinner, go to bed exhausted after such a long day. So the speed is a little different here…and Im enjoying it. I am also entering into full planning mode as my brother Zak meets me in Managua in 11 days. We are going to hike volcanoes, swim in lakes, tour coffee farms, hike mountains, look at revolutionary sights, drink hot corn drinks, eat animals in their full forms, talk with Gloria, canoe, play cards by candlelight…..Im so excited I cant think about it too much or I´ll pee on myself. New topic.
Books read so far: Autobiography of Malcolm X, Autobiography of Rigoberta Menchu, and currently: The Invisible Man
Among all this excitement and good times, I did cry yesterday. I was sitting quietly looking at a beautiful lake when a lady walked by selling beautiful tapestries and I made the mistake of asking how much one was, although I had no intention of buying it. She replied that it was 250 quetzales…..about $35. I said they were beautiful but no thank you….and then this lady stayed there for at least 10 minutes, trying to sell this tapestry to me….it went a little something like this......
´´250 quetzalsis too much? Well Ill give you a better price…230, take it for 230. For you I will give a good price, 230 too much? Alright 220. Hand made you see, by me, it is my work, see the little birds, the volcano, for you 215…a good price. Come on lady, I haven’t sold anything all day….all day and nothing.´´
This went on until she was down to 70 quetzals, almost a third of her original price. It was a fair price for the tapestry, but just didn’t want the damn thing and I am on a budget and cant be buying tapestries all the time. So finally she gave up and walked away and I bursted out crying. I guess I just needed the release. We were both frustrated.

So I think this is it for now....all the blogging and picture downloading my little mind can take. Ill be checking email regularly (hint hint) so drop me a note. BYE!

Bree

Fire Fire

2007-05-28T17:06:00.000-07:00

Monday Monday, so I just finished a nice day of work beginning a new week here at Maya Pedal. I got to Maya Pedal last Thursday I think and so I worked Friday and Saturday (half day) and then headed out to nearby colonial city of Antigua to be a tourist for the weekend...I figured 36 hours was too long to entertain myself in the bicycle shop so off I went. I spent most of Saturday afternoon looking at other tourists and walking around admiring the city, watching a movie, taking it easy in coffee shops, etc. etc. On Sunday I signed up for a tour group to hike nearby volcano Pacaya. We left at 2pm and took a minibus to the volcano where it was a 3km hike up and some awesome volcanic action at the top.
After signing up for the tour, I asked the tour guide if it would be alright to hike in my sandals and he told me absoultely not. So, I decided to get some more opinions and asked the other tourists in the hostel who had done it....and their response was that my sandals absolutely would not make it. You see, this is an active volcano, and supposedly very high up it got really hot and very sharp with the volcanic rock and my feet would burn and sandals rip into shreds.
So what is a girl to do who has only got one pair of shoes and a tight budget? So I headed to the market....where I triumphed victorious and emerged with a six dollar pair of knock off high-top converse all-stars....ready to tackle that damn hot sharp volcano.
So the volcano was awesome, once to the top, we could feel the heat pouring out and smell the sulphur (sp?) as well. Once to the volcanic part it was very difficult to walk as the only footing was very sharp volcanic rock that was hot as crap. There was lava rushing down the volcano and I was a little on edge to be honest, especially once my all-stars started melting and my feet starting burning. But I made it off with time to spare and ready for the hike back down. All together it was a beautiful hike and a nice relaxed weekend. I even got to do the hike with some nice people from Korea, Israel, France, Argentina and New Jersey. I did a little shopping and bought some luxury items to bring back to San Andres for the week....ketchup, mustard and coffee.
So today the work at Maya Pedal was very exciting as well. I finished building my first bike, although I had much help and guidance from the other volunteer George, and nevermind that when the kid came to pick it up Carlos (runs the shop) had to take the whole bottom-bracket apart because I had put something in backwards....nonetheless, a victory. Then this afternoon, I got to try my hand at welding as someone ordered a tricycle. I am not sure how welding helmets are supposed to work but I found it very difficult that I couldn´t see anything at all with the helmet on until the torch was shooting fire everywhere. The way the helmet works is that everything is black in the little window, and then once the fire starts, everything lights up and you can see what you are welding. I know the helmet is supposed to protect your eyes from the light...but wouldn´t it be more efficient if you could see to begin with so you knew what you were lighting on fire? I asked Carlos why the helmet was so dark, and he said it was because there were no batteries....so maybe batteries would fix this problem. Anyway, so I welded this afternoon and was super stoked about that and glad to be building a tricycle. (Just so you know....this is no kiddy tricycle, this is an industrial tricycle, for carrying loads of stuff....just to clarify)
So this is most of the action from these parts. I am half-way finished with the autobiography of Malcolm X which is so far very interesting although he has been a hustler in Harlem for about 200 pages at this point. Today on the bus ride home I heard some Brian Adams which also lifted my spirits and reminded me of another reason I am lucky to be an American, no matter how far from home we are, our music is alwasy very close by. So before I go I´ll leave you with perhaps the most impressionable sight of the weekend.....as the bus was pulling out of the station to bring me back to San Andres for the week, I spotted a young women running for a bus balancing a huge basket of about 15 pineapples on top of her head, with a baby strapped to her back, and doing it all in high heels......whatta woman
lata!

Bicycles and International Friends...yay!!!!

2007-05-24T08:48:00.001-07:00

So last time I wrote I had just finished a weekend in Chiapas, and after that, Jessica and Edwin and I passed a great Monday and played all day since it was Edwin´s birthday. We went to the movies and ate a great lunch with his family that consisted of more chicken dishes than I could imagine in one place....Edwins favorite food. We spent the night at Edwins family´s house and sat on the roof for hours drinking wine, talking about politics, life, telling jokes and enjoying our last night together. My wonderful friend Mckinley sent my package super fast and I got it on Monday, so I got up Tuesday morning at 6am and headed south to guatemala.

So today I am in Antigua Guatemala, and just had a great breakfast of coffee, scramled eggs, toast, potatoes and bacon....yumm. I am in good spirits and going on day three in Guatemala, so far it has been an adventure and let me tell you, Guatemala is a beautiful country and incredibly colorful. The womens clothing is so colorful, the landscape is so colorful and here in Antigua, even the buildings are colorful. I spent a long day on Tuesday leaving Tuxtla and Jessica at 6 am for the Guatemalan border. Once to the border, I crossed and waited two hours for a bus headed toward Xela. While at the border I met a really cool Belgian girl named Catarin and we stuck together for the rest of the day finding busses to Xela, finding out we were left off in a place that was not Xela, finding out how to get to Xela, and then finding a nice hostel in the evening. In the hostel I met a nice Israeli girl named Noa and she said she was going to Antigua the next day so I jumped along and Wed we spent on busses in route to Antigua. I will be leaving Antigua in about 3 hours.

So why am I going so fast in Guatemala? Well because I decided that I really wanted to get to Maya Pedal (the bicycle volunteer place) as early as possible so that if I really like it, I have the option of staying as long as I can. I talked to them on the phone yesterday and they sounded really positive, and I am really excited so I am heading out today to the town where Maya Pedal is, San Andres Itzapa, which as far as I can tell is super small...I cant find it on the map but I did see a bus yesterday with San Andres Itzapa written on it so I think thats a good bet.

So I dont know what internet will be like there...hopefully there will be a little internet cafe and ill update soon, telling of all the magical bike experiences i am having. Unfortunately, there will be no internet pictures but if you want to go to the maya pedal website maybe you can get an idea of what im doing...www.mayapedal.org

So, one thing I have been surprised by down here is how many travellers I have met who are on the road for a LONG time. Catarin the Belgian girl for instance, has been on the road for two months and will be travelling for a year....starting in mexico and ending in argentina. One of the british guys i met in the hostel lastnight started in mexico and has until december to end up in Peru. So...those of you that think I am crazy, compared to most people down here, I am an amateur.

So this is it for now....not too exciting of a blog entry but i will write more bicycle adventure packed entries later...love you!
Bree

The Weekend Chiapan Stye

2007-05-21T08:57:00.000-07:00

So today is Monday and I am checking email, washing clothes, calling my mom, reading tour books....all the detail kind of stuff to catch up after a big weekend. This weekend Jessica and I and her boyfriend Edwin went on a little excursion and had so much fun....here is what we did.
So Edwin has a car and we decided to go first to these secluded wonderful lagunas called Lagos de Colon. We drove about 3 hours through the awesome Chiapan landscape of sheep on the hillsides, rolling green-covered mountains, and family farms. We arrived at the lagunas and spent the afternoon jumping off of trees into the water, playing in waterfalls and swimming. The water of the lagunas was the purest and brightest blues I have ever seen....turquoise fresh water...ahhh.
So after the lagunas we headed to San Cristobol and spent the evening out on the town. We went to the local hipster bar and saw all the other dirty backpackers and drank mojitos and listened to good music...a fun time. On Sunday morning we decided to visit some of the smaller indigenous communities in the mountains.
So we headed to the communities and I have to say that this was one of the coolest things I have seen so far. These indigenous villages are very independent and while they welcome tourists to look around, they are pretty clear about who rules. I felt triple foreign in these villages which was cool. They spoke indigenous languages, wore traditional clothes and have very different customs. Also, they were very small....I mean some of the women were probably not four feet tall. We went into the main catholic church in the town and it was unlike anything I have ever seen. There were saints lining the walls and Jesus and John the Baptist and all the normal stuff, but then there was also pine straw allover the ground, people doing rituals with candles and coca-cola and live chickens (yes...live chickens...but alive for how long I dont know). It was wild, and awesome, and nice to be reminded how many new things there are out there.
I hope to go to Guatemala in the next couple of days. I am awaiting a package from my friend Mckinley of some stuff I left with her when I was in Mexico City....important stuff like my camera charger and glasses, dufus. Anyway, so if it gets here soon....ill be off soon, if not, then i wont be and may explore Chiapas more.
Yes Carrie, I am reading The Namesake and lastnight we watched the movie Seven Years in Tibet....truly good movie, and I recommend it.
Alright, this is it for now....peace!

The trip so far

2007-05-18T16:00:00.000-07:00

So it is time for another blog entry...I am on day ten of my current Central American adventure, tucked in an internet cafe in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico. Tuxtla is the capital of the state of Chiapas and is where my friend Jessica lives and works as an english teacher. Here is a quick recap so far.
For the first 5 days I was with my friend Mckinley, and we took Mexico City and nearby Cuernavaca by storm seeing old Aztec canals, Diego Rivera murals, a lost Chinese tourist, a duck in the city square (second biggest in the world), and other exciting things too. Mckinley headed north after 5 days to begin a new life and job in Guadalajara working for a tequila company and I headed south to see Jessica and continue on my eventual route which is mostly south.
I have to say, I do love Chiapas and think it is by far my favorite part of Mexico. I think it is only normal that I like it because it reminds me a lot of Kentucky, which I also love. Chiapas is the poorest state, it is mostly agricultural and rural, and also has incredible biodiversity and a breathtaking landscape. Yesterday I visited San Cristobol which was the center of the Zapatista uprising and has become somewhat famous for that. A few days ago we went on a boat ride through a nearby canyon and I saw cacti growing on the side of a mountain and a crocodile and also the site of where in the 1500´s the entire indigenous tribe of the Chiapa (sp?) jumped off a 1000 meter mountain and committed suicide so as not to be slaves to the Spanish. Intense eh?
Today here in Tuxtla we went to the zoo....which I will say was awesome....it features only animals native to Chiapas and it is set up kind of like a controlled wild habitat, so animals that will not eat you are just running around...rodents of all sizes, many birds, all kinds...just running around your feet and flying around your head. Of course the jaguars and 6 feet long crocodiles are a little more separate. thank god.
Jessica teaches from 7-9 in the morning and from 5-9 at night. This means we can play all day and I have the evenings to myself for a few hours while she teaches. Each night I have gone to the central park and watched live marimba bands and people dancing...it has been nice.
I have also had some time to read and I am reading a book about India by Jhumpa Lahiri (pulitzer prize winner) and have read some really interesting articles in national geographics Jess has lying around....articles about the Jamestown colony and introduction of invasive species, about oil companies in the Niger Delta, and one in depth but very informative article about heart surgery.
So in other backpacking news, I made the decision to spend a chunk of my time volunteering in Guatemala. My friend Shane recommended to me a very interesting organization called Maya Pedal that uses bicycles to empower local people. Much of what they do is repairing old bikes to give people for transportation, but they also do a lot of innovative work with bicycle powered machines like bicycle powered blenders and clothes washers etcetera to meet the needs of the community. I think I will spend about 2 weeks there but as the theme of this trip has been....i am open to changing that plan. I will probably head out of Mexico in the nest 5 days or so....we´l l see.
Sorry I cant put pictures on the blog right now...internet cafes leave much to be desired when it comes to downloading digital photos. I have access to internet pretty regularly so drop me a line and let me know whats up......hasta luego....baby

Bree

ps....here is something funny. In Spanish, the word ¨governor¨ is ¨gubernador¨so when Jessicas english students try to say governor, they translate it in their heads as ¨governator¨. They will be talking seriously about politics, and refer to someone as the governator. Jess told them there is only one of those...ha. I think that is hilarious....i hope you do too.

More Adventures of......La Pata Libre

2007-05-08T12:35:00.000-07:00

So if you remember the little story I told about "La Pata Libre" when I came back from Nicaragua, then maybe you'll understand the title of this post. Here's a refresher in case we're at an impasse. I had a pet duck in Nicaragua, we bonded. We were going to eat the duck, but then it flew away, and I was secretly so happy and felt that possibly this was a sign for my life...that I was on the right track, although things were a little hairy there for a while. In Spanish "duck" is "pata"....so I am tackling life these days as La Pata Libre...in solidarity with my non-eaten Nicaraguan duck friend, and other ducks around the world.

So.....we have ducks of our own. A month or so ago, Ben decided he wanted ducks. He wanted them for eggs...so he researched and got the perfect kind of duck...Khaki Campbell's. They are good layers, they dont fly much and are altogether very chill, like us. So we ordered them in the mail, and a week ago we got a call from the post office saying our ducks were in....so we went and got 5 little beautiful day old birds, brought them home, rigged up a cage in the kitchen, and that is where they are to this day. The photos are of their firest day in the backyard and the cage in the house. They are growing so fast and spend about half of their lives sleeping, and the other half split between several activities which include trying to swim in the water bowl and knocking it over, pooping, peeping, eating, and looking cute.

So all is coming full circle in this blog entry. We have ducks of our own....and the Central American part is being revisited as well. Yes, as I am typing this, I am waiting for Ben to get home so he can take me to Louisville where I will spend the night and then fly out tomorrow for Mexico City. I will spend 2 months travelling around, ending up in Nicaragua and seeing many things between Mexico City and Managua, Nicaragua. My little brother Zak will meet me for my last few weeks and we will frolic around Nicaragua like happy little ducks and I will show him everything I loved and we will find new things to love together. I am super stoked.

Then I am back to Lexington in August to start my new wonderful job at Kentucky Refugee Ministries organizing adult education, literacy, cultural orientation, job placement, international form-filling out...and lots of other exciting things. For the first time in a while, I will say I have a bit of a plan.

So I will be updating this more regularly now that I have more stories to tell and since many of you will have limited ways of getting ahold of me. Love you much,
Bree

Firsts

2007-02-15T22:21:00.000-08:00

A week of firsts.

First time I have seen a real gun

First time I have seen a real gun shoot an animal in the back of the head

First time I have watched someone go through the process of rupturing an appendix

First time I have tried to chop wood

I'll explain….in order.

So the status on the goat that I talked about in my last entry is that she did not recover, the calf died, and so we had to put her to sleep. John and Julia and Ben and I went down to check on her this weekend and she wasn't doing well, couldn't walk and was delirious. So in their expert opinions, John and Julia decided to put her out of her misery. So, I acted like I wasn't freaked out when John took a well-aimed shot and sent her on to more pleasant times in goat heaven. Afterwards I acted like I was checking out something in the distance…but really I shed a tear for that little goat. After John shot her, Julia did an autopsy and tried to discover what exactly went wrong. Her suspicion that another calf might be inside was unfounded, but we did find an extremely large bladder which I suspect meant she had some sort of infection. I can sympathize because I'm prone to bladder infections as well. If only I had known, I could have shared some of my wealth of cranberry drinking products.

On to human health complications. On Tuesday John was having a horrible time with his stomach and complaining of abdominal pain. We didn't know what it might be, so we gave him expert advice…you know "c'mon John, try to take a shit," "put this heat compress on it"…."walk it off." After a couple of days an increased pain and some other twists in the story that I won't include, Julia finally insisted he go to the emergency room. And there in the emergency room folks, is where they discovered that John's appendix had burst and as the doctor explained "exploded into pieces." Yikes, poor John. So he had surgery and was in the hospital for two days. He just got home today and we have set up a mini hospital room up in the living room. Lesson: don't ignore abdominal pains, it could be your appendix about to burst into pieces.

I tried to chop wood. It was pathetic. The axe man-handled me. Oh well.

Other than that…all is well, we are babysitting another dog this week which brings the total count up to 9. Goats are doing well…eating grass, looking sweet, searching for higher ground….like Stevie Wonder

Rainy Day Blabber

2007-02-09T17:11:00.000-08:00

So I forgot to post this picture earlier...kind of hilairous huh? It's from a few weeks ago in Colorado. I never claimed I was the most experienced skiier on the course that day...but I will say I was the most fashionable.

Welp...can't say that I have too much to say, but it's been raining for about 8 hours and I just finished complaining to my mom on the phone about how bored I am....and she scolded me for not writing on the blog. She was right...so I'm gonna take this opportunity to blabber. Thanks for reading.

I finished reading a cool book that I am ready to recommend to anybody ready to learn about something they probably know nothing about. Enough suspense? Okay...the book is called All the Shah's Men. It's about the US-backed covert coup and overthrow of the Iranian prime minister Mossadegh in the 1950's. Now it may sound like a relatively particular situation that you could go on with your life without knowing the details of. But....the things is, this book explains so much about the current situation in Iran and the middle east and why there seems to be a lack of understanding between middle eastern and western cultures. It sheds light on how extremist governments have come to power in Iran and other developing countries and why the US is not viewed as the friendly giant. Anyway...it's good.

Ummm...also I want to make a general call to see if anyone would like to travel in Central America any time between immediately and May. Even as little time as a week is welcomed. I am stirring the idea of going back to the Nicaraguan area since I have some unfinished travelling business and a free airline ticket. Any takers?

So something I am learning out here on the ranch is how brutal nature is. It's true...and it's something that really has to be experienced to be understood. Today Julia went to check on the goats and she found a mother-goat giving birth to an infant. It was pouring down rain and the process wasn't going so well. The kid had been stuck with only its head outside of the mother for a long time (maybe hours) and its head was swollen to almost twice the normal size. It's eyes were swollen shut and the tongue swollen and hanging out of its mouth. Julia pulled the kid out and later John and Ben went back and carried the mother and kid to a drier area under some trees. Picture this...Ben with the adult slung over his shoulders and John with the kid in one hand and the placenta in the other. The mother was "completely stressed out" according to Ben and seemed to have another kid inside of her that will probably come soon. We'll see if the shade of the trees will help things pan out in favor of the baby and mother both. Julia's the real goat expert though and she didn't seem too optimistic. Nature can be cruel....but I guess that's the way it has to be. Yesterday we found one of the dogs chewing on an aborted deer fetus. Hmm.

So on a lighter note.....I ate a whole box of graham crackers today in one setting. I had forgotten how good they are.

Alright....I gotta run, I have to pretend like I am helping to cook dinner. Mostly that consists of moving things around in the kitchen while other people cook. It's not easy being this smooth.
Bree

If you don't try hard in school you may become a gondola singer in Las Vegas

2007-02-01T20:58:00.001-08:00

It's blog time again. There's so much to catch up on, as an unusual amount of stuff has happened in the last few weeks. Currently. Ben and I are in northern California, right outside of the city of Ukiah on the ranch with our friends John and Julia. Last time I wrote we were in Colorado and so I'll catch you up on what happened since then.

After Colorado and hanging out with Maggie we headed west and made some stops in Utah. We visited Arches National Park where we were both blown away by the beauty of the landscape. I am putting up some pictures and all of the ones with the rich red landscape and arches (hence the name) were taken there. We knew Utah was going to be a bit like another planet, I myself was a little worried about being brain-washed into marrying a man with several wives and trailers, but Utah turned out to also have the landscape of another planet. There were extreme red cliffs and deep caverns and jetting rock mountains. After that, we drove farther west and stayed a night in Zion National Park. Zion blew our minds as well and we saw interesting wildlife like moose and hiked around without seeing any other hikers. We decided that despite the cold temps, winter is the time to see national parks because you have the whole place to yourself. In Zion, Ben was itching to camp and against my better judgement we pitched the tent and slept out in the 10 degrees. I almost burnt my face off as I was trying to get myself as close to the fire as possible. I actually thought about barbecuing myself because it seemed to be the only option for warming up. But anyway, I made it through the frigid night (although when I woke up my hat and sleeping bag had frost on them). It was truly beautiful. So, Utah gets two thumbs up. And I think they would be pleased…because two is better than one.

Ben has an aunt and uncle that live in Los Angeles so we made that our next destination. From Zion we headed southwest and passed through Las Vegas. Ben wanted to blast through, but as we got closer, the excitement inside of me kept building and we agreed to stop for a couple hours. We did a crash course through the Venetian and Cesar's Palace and the Belagio. Vegas is truly the weirdest place on earth….actually, I don't think it is really on this earth. We had a lot of fun laughing at Vegas….one of the most hilarious sites was the man whose job it is to ride around on the fake canal around the Venetian Casino and sing opera songs. We bet a dollar and won two cents…so we were in an out of Vegas and only out 98 cents.

We got into Los Angeles and for two days Ben's aunt and uncle rolled out the red carpet. His aunt Judy showed us all around and we got to see so much including little Ethiopia, the University of Southern California, the farmer's market, Venice beach (fully equipped with men in speedo's working out on the beachside gym at muscle beach), went out for dinner and drinks in Pasadena and got stuck in a LA-style hour and a half traffic jam. After all that big city excitement, we were off from LA and headed north toward the ranch. We camped a couple of nights on the beaches and made tuna and soup on the back of Ben's pickup truck in downtown Santa Cruz as people with purple hair and leg warmers gave us frightened looksa. We made it to the ranch last Friday.

So what are we doing? Well here's the long and short of it. Our friends John and Julia are living in northern California on a ranch that is owned by Julia's family. The property is 4,000 acres and includes rolling hills (more like small mountains really) and lakes and redwood forests. John and Julia have taken over managing the property which is a huge job and are also starting their own goat business. So Ben and I have been lending our hands and learning about the goating and ranching life. One of the most stretching experiences was the morning new went horseback riding. I have been horseback riding several time in my life…but it has always been on a trail and with a horse that lives in a barn. John and Julia's horses run wild on their 4,000 acres and so we went out on the four-wheelers to "catch" the horses before we could ride them. I was a little uncomfortable and John kept telling me "just be calm and confident and they will respect you." I spent most of the afternoon trying to fake that I was calm and confident but in the end I'm pretty sure the horse wasn't fooled. It was good that they gave me the senior citizen 25 year old horse that was too old to try any games with me.

So usually we work during the day and eat wonderful food and read books and magazines at night. Julia makes cheese and the dairy products flow like water here. John has some homemade beer and sauerkraut that we munch on and Ben has reintroduced us all to the wonderful world of grits. I finished reading a wonderful book recommended by my mom called Angela's Ashes and have been reading lots of John and Julia's collections of the New Yorker magazine and listening to internet broadcasts of NPR. Maybe all that politics is having an affect on me since lastnight I had a dream that I pushed George Bush into a pool and then said some things to him that I can't really repeat but had something to do with how I envisioned his conversation going with Saint Peter at the pearly gates. I'm thinking about working on one of the democratic candidates' campaign and I haven’t narrowed down who it will be yet…but I'm leaning pretty heavily toward Barack Obama. What do you think?

So hopefully that gives you a bit of an idea what I've been up to. I'll put some pictures up on shutterfly that document some of our trip. We haven't really taken any pictures of our time here at the ranch, but I hope to do that soon and put them up as well. As for how long I am staying, I really have no idea. Ben and I are both planning to stay until we feel like moving on….so we'll see when that is.

So this is it for now….let me know what's going on with you all, and until next time, I'll be herding goats and bathing inconsistently.

With love
Bree

Cali-for-ni-a

2007-01-18T12:39:00.000-08:00

west-coast, WATCHOUT!!!

It's true....Ben and Bree are conquering the west-coast. We headed out of Lexington on Monday with the Mazda truck, a new $65 topper, and an unknown route and an unknown day of arrival at our final destination of Mendecino California. Ben has some friends who live on a goat ranch in northern California and so we had to ask ourselves, is there anything we could be doing with our lives right now that sounds any better than playing with goats? The answer was definitely a no...so we are California bound. We passed through St. Louis, and Kansas at record speed and have spent the last day and a half with our friend Maggie in Breckinridge, Colorado. In St. Louis, we didn't want to pay the $5 to park at the arch, so we did a "rolling stop" and snapped individual pictures with the arch behind us, and we were back on the road. Once you reach Kansas, you actually enter another time dimension where you feel that each passing hour may actually be an eternity. There were several roadside attractions advertised including the birth place of Bob Dole and Arlen Specter, the "world's largest prairie dog", a "36 inch live donkey", a "giant van gogh painting", to name a few. Maybe we are losers...but we decided the most exciting part of Kansas was actually the continental breakfast at the Holiday Inn. (I'm talking waffles, fruit loops, boiled eggs...)
Anyway, so we got to Breckinridge Colorado and have been hanging out and loving the scenery and freezing our arses off. We went cross-country skiing yesterday and are recouping today. I think we're headed to Moab Utah tomorrow. Hope all is well....give us a call! Ben's cell is 502-389-8982 and I dont have one. Peace!
Bree and Ben (although Ben had nothing to do with this post)

times they are a changin' (and aren't they always)

2006-12-21T15:57:00.000-08:00

Hello friends and family! Happy family, winter, and good smelling times (you know...cinnamon, apples, pumpkin...yummy things)
So, I am back from Nicaragua, and chilling (literally) in Lexington Kentucky until the 25th (Christmas day!), and then I head down to South Carolina to spend Christmas with my family. I am really enjoying friends and family so far and I am reminded that I like this time of year so much.
So, a little bit of business. I have had some changes in plans. I came to Lexington on the 16th of December and about two weeks before that, I quit my job at JHC in Nicaragua. Here's the long and short of it. So, basically, I butted heads with the organization almost immediately after arriving. At first, the issues were small, mostly my perceptions of awkward and unhealthy power dynamics among white American staff and the local people that they worked with. As the months went on, I struggled with my role there, and went back and forth between thinking I could really learn from them and have a "good experience," and thinking that I was compromising my values by staying there.
In the weeks before I came home, I had some very serious conversations with the JHC people about my issues with them and perceptions of unhealthy power-dynamics and what kinds of things I was not willing to compromise on. In those meetings, the incredibly dillusional, ethnocentric, unprofessional, and emotionally unbalanced nature of the JHC crew really became clear and I decided packing my bags might actually be the only option. Let me also mention, that there were 6 other amazing volunteers who were also struggling just as I was with what we were experiencing at JHC. In the end, we all left JHC and cut our volunteering time short. We all left because of individual reasons, but we all left feeling confident of our decision and very disappointed that there are organizations like JHC allover the world pushing their agendas on people.
So it's back to square one for me, I'm looking around for the next step which may include some variation of getting a real job, getting a fake job, travelling, vagabonding, reading, or any combination of the previous options. I'll keep you updated....maybe on this very blog.

So, for those of you that will see me or talk to me soon, I will very likely talk to you a lot about Nicaragua. I have a lot to share about a wonderful country and the incredible people I met there. JHC was such a small part of my overall time there. I learned so much in my 4 months in Nicaragua and I cant think of another place that has quite such a special place in my heart. I have thought about going back in January, but I'm not sure that is the best option for me. Something I came to peace with in my time there is that the world is full of beautiful cultures, but I can't be in all of them.

If you would like, someday I will tell you about the time that I ate the neck of the rooster during my going away party, or how I killed several scorpions, or how I got a pedicure of a snow-man on my toe, or how I celebrated the holiday of "Purisima" by carolling at the alters to Mary set up by people living in my neighborhood. I hope you will ask to hear these stories and more, and that you will then tell me all the stories that have taken place with you since we last talked.

Until soon hopefully, love you all,

Elections!

2006-11-08T11:21:00.000-08:00

Elections here, elections there, elections everywhere! So to all of you that wrote me interested in what went on in the elections down here...this is Bree's official election blog entry. Can I just start by saying how impressed I was to get so many emails, even amidst a heated election at home. So first, here's how I personally spent the election weekend.

It was a long weekend, the election was on Sunday but everyone had Monday off of work as well. So, the way elections work here is that each party has a team of people allover the country who "work" the elections. These workers are citizen observers from all parties that all work together to monitor elections. The sisters in my house, Margarita (31) and Lila (29) each worked the elections for the MRS party. So, for the weekend, Gloria (my host-mom) signed up to be the regional cook for the volunteers working the elections. That meant we (Gloria and I) were in charge of preparing 4 meals for 50 MRS election workers during the weekend. It all started Friday night when we packaged beans and rice, cheese, and coffee for fifty. Gloria and I created an assembly line and boxed up the meals. When people stopped by and commented on how hard we were working, Gloria told them how good of a packager I was "because she has worked in restaurants." Anyway, so 24 more hours of almost continuous carrot chopping, bean and rice sorting, chicken thawing, and coffee tasting, in the end we packaged over 200 meals for MRS election workers. Gloria explained to me that they have always worked in the elections. Several times they have done this same job for the FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front), before they withdrew their support. This is her way of contributing to the democratic process and really it was a great way for me to feel like I did something too. On Monday, while everyone awaited the results, everyone in the house was anxious. Gloria said her rheumatism was acting up because of stress and so she made some relaxation herbal tea that we all drank. The votes here are paper ballots so the results trickle in...in a painful process really that keeps everyone glued to the tv for days at a time. At mid-day on Monday we took a break and watched Lord of the Rings.

So, now it's Tuesday night (when I wrote this blog in my journal...it's actually Wed morning as I'm typing it). The results are in...well mostly. Over 90% of the votes have been counted and everyone is accepting that Daniel Ortega has won. The second place candidate already gave a graceful defeat speech, and there have been no real charges of fraud. Daniel won with about 38%, with the next guy Eduardo Montealegre (the US brain-child) with 29%, and then the rest split between the other 3 candidates. This country is basically split between people who love Daniel Ortega, and people who hate him. As the polls show, 38% love him I guess, and 62% hate him. But it was fair, it was democratic, and the Nicaraguan people chose their president in a heated election amidst incredible intimidation from the US. About 75% of the eligible population voted. This is how democracy works folks...people getting out and voting...the US should be ashamed of our average 45% of voters. As I write this blog in my dark room in a barrio called Ciudad Sandino, the sounds I hear are the inevitable roosters, faint screams coming from the horror movie my family is watching in the living room, and someone nearby is also shooting off fireworks and blasting the perpetual John Lennon "Give Peace a Chance" chorus that is the soundtrack of the FSLN (Ortega's party). People are celebrating…well at least 38% of the people.

What do I think this victory means for Nicaragua? Well I only wish I knew...everyone's pretty much waiting to see what will happen. Some people are convinced that peasants will get titles to their land, that education financing will increase, and that they will begin tackling the enormous gap between poverty and wealth in the this country. Others (about 62% of people I reckon) are holding their breath, hoping the Chinese owners of the sweatshops they work in won't pack up and head out (leaving them unemployed), hoping that they won't have lines at the grocery stores with empty shelves, and hoping that the money their family sends them from the US won't be cut off. It's kind of quiet here...everyone's waiting.

Basically, here are some thoughts of Ortega. I can't say this is “what I think of Ortega”, because that's too committal...but here are some thoughts. Ortega has come a long way since his defeat in 1990...and even farther from his FSLN victory in 1980. Ortega was president of the FSLN throughout the whole revolution of the 1980's, and then in 1990 the people elected a US-friendly neo-liberal president after a decade of crippling US economic sanctions and war. Since then, he has remained the powerful force behind one of the biggest parties in Nicaragua (FSLN). For the past 16 years since Ortega's first presidency, Nicaragua has had one US backed neo-liberal president after another...and the common theme has been that they have robbed funds from the people (including millions of Hurricane Mitch relief money) and turned Nicaragua into a tax-free playground for multinational corporations that are drawn here by cheap labor. My nica sister Lila has a college degree and works 40 hours week at a sweat shop, earning $80/month. Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the hemisphere (second only to Haiti), 78% of the people live on less that 2$ a day. The neo-liberalism of the past 16 years has been a load of empty promises.

So during the past 16 years, Ortega has been pulling strings and collaborating with power-elites (often times the very ones that were stealing money) in order to rewrite the laws that would someday favor him in an election and he's also kicked people out of the FSLN party that speak out against him. His personal fortunes seems to be continuously growing (substantiated by the 5 mercedes benz SUV's parked in his driveway). He even underwent a "religious conversion" (sound familiar?) that won him the support of the catholic church. Basically that conversion just entails an anti-abortion platform and throwing "gracias a Dios" around in his speeches...but I digress.

So, he won...fair and square...and sometimes I have hope that he will be different than the presidents of the past 16 years. That maybe he will restore some dignity to Nicaragua, and try to chip away at the ol' poverty block. Maybe he'll have some solutions of how to do this that will fall outside of the abomination that is "trickle down economics." Some of his supporters say that he just played the last 16 years smart...making friends with the devils on many occasions, so that he could end up where he is right now, as president, where he can do something good. Machiavellian politics at its best I guess (you know..."the ends justify the means"). And then there's the US factor. People are still scared. And although lots of people feel betrayed by Ortega, the overwhelming reason why people are scared of him...is their fear in what the US will do. What if they put up an embargo (like they did in the 80's)? What if they cut off the aid? What if they cut off the money people send us? AHHHH!!! So we'll see. I personally, think that things are different now than they were in the 80's. Nicaragua, regardless of who its president is, has few economic options. We are in an era where poor countries not only have their hands tied by rich countries, but also by institutional financial structures like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. There are strict "free market" restrictions imposed on these countries that provide no wiggle room. Ortega has already vowed to cooperate with international investment and to continue participation in CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement). So as far as I'm concerned...it's gonna be neo-liberal business as usual for now.

So having said that, why is the US so fired up? Because the US acts like an ass sometimes. If the US would just open their eyes and smell the friggin sweatshops, they would see that Ortega has changed a lot, and is looking more and more like someone they would support. Whether you see that change as a good or bad thing, well that's the big debate I guess. Did I mention that Ortega's vice president is a former leader of the contras? (those who faught against the Sandinistas in the 80's?) Yeah...how's that for "reconciliation" for you? That's been Ortega's whole campaign...peace and conciliation. we'll see.

Final thoughts: I'm partially disillusioned, I don't think the best person won (Edmundo Jarquin with the MRS)...but the worst people did not win either (Montealegre or Rizo). I hope Daniel Ortega has just been acting like an asshole for the past few years so he could get in power and really shake things up in a good way. I am glad that Nicaragua stood up to the US after an election filled with intimidation and threats, I hope that the US is learning one country at a time that "democracy promotion" includes accepting the decisions that democratic countries make. I'm also glad I will be listening to John Lennon for the next year.

That was the end of the election blog:
So guess what. So, my family recently got a new tv, a gift from a cousin, and this one has a dvd player. So for the past week i've been watching movies. But for some reason, the family only wants to watch horror movies. In the past week i've had my mind horrifyingly filled with mother's drowing their children to extract the evil deamons, chinese women who see dead people, and most recently, a exorcism thriller. About 30 minutes into the exorcism thriller, I decided it was enough, I excused myself to go to my room and read. But, as I moved a skirt out of the way to make room for newly folded clothes...guess what i found..a scorpion. The scene was surely something that would have fit into any of the horror movies I've watched this week. I've learned to be comfortable with a lot in Nicaragua...pelting rabid dogs with rocks, sharing my living space with mice, bats, bull frogs, but I will not...I repeat not...tolerate scorpions. After several hard blows by a sandal, I triumphed victorious, but I'll probably sleep with the light on tonight. oh my god.
much love..bree

Best Friends and Fallen Revolutionaries

2006-11-02T07:27:00.000-08:00

So I guess it’s time for another blog entry. Sorry it’s been a while since I wrote a real entry…I could offer some half-hearted (or half-ass as my dad would say) excuses but the reality is, I just haven’t felt much like sitting down to write a blog and then the past week I have been showing around my friend Jessica. If you are reading this, it means you didn’t give up on me…thanks for that. Today I’m feeling blogish though and long-winded…so here goes.

So one of my best friends, Jessica Wendt, came to visit me for the past week. She rode 3 days worth of busses down from Mexico, where she is living right now, and so for a whole week I got to show someone I love about the place I am growing to love so much. It was so nice to have someone here for a week that really knows me. The other volunteers and my Nicaraguan family and co-workers are all so much cooler than I could have ever hoped for…but the place in my heart that best friends fill just can’t be replaced…it was sweet. So, I convinced the JHC people that I had a lot of errands to run this week so I got to spend a good chunk of time showing Jessica around Managua and she was such a good sport. On her second night here a bum approached our car with a threatening chunk of rock in his hand and she told me “I hate this country, I always feel scared.”…but then last night after only a week she said “I can’t believe I only have one more day left, I’m really going to miss Nicaragua.” That’s how it is here…it looks rough on the inside but once you try to understand it a little, you realize that this is a beautiful place and that the people are amazing. I’m glad Jessica is awesome enough to have given it that chance…and now she’s one more cool person who likes Nicaragua. If you want to read the entries she added on her blog about her time here in Nicaragua, it might offer a cool fresh perspective…her blog is www.jessicawendttomexico.blogspot.com

I took a couple days off from work last week so we took a long weekend and went to the northern mountain town of Esteli. In Esteli we toured the city a bit and enjoyed an outdoor folk concert and the local Heroes and Martyrs Museum. The museum is run by a network of over 300 mother’s who lost children in the revolution so it is full of old photographs, memorabilia, letters, uniforms, the works. After a day in Esteli we took a bus for an hour up into the mountains to stay for a few days on a biological reserve. The place was amazing…our little wooden cabin was so quaint and the weather was very cool. At night we had on sweatshirts and were wrapped up in blankets enjoying hot coffee and tea. I can’t explain how much I needed that cool weather… I felt like I relived a thousand Kentucky fall evenings on that mountain. Anyway, so we hiked around and saw some of the most amazing views I’ve ever seen. I made the comment to Jess that I felt like I was in The Sound of Music or on Macchu Picchu…she said she thought it was definitely better than either of those. Anyway, we did some yoga up there…some of which is hilariously documented in the photo page. So for the rest of the weekend we walked across babbling brooks and watched oxen and cows and horses, wild birds, farmers working their land, and children carrying water. I’ll try to post the pictures later today because they are so nice. If any of you come visit…I will probably take you to Esteli.

A Change of Pace: Election News:
So I know I talk about the elections a lot on here…that’s because I’m obsessed with them. I’m obsessed with the elections because it is unbelievable how I am learning so much about what democracy looks like for many developing nations. And also I really want you all to be experiencing this with me. Anyway, democracy…whatever the hell that even means. Anyway, so Jeb Bush is apparently obsessed with Nicaraguan elections too. Last week Jeb Bush took out a full page ad in the newspaper here reminding Nicaraguans that he is the governor of Florida, and that he is watching. Here is an excerpt of the ad…“Florida is also home of hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans that love liberty. Many of whom arrived in Florida during the bloody decade of the Sandinista government, not only to escape totalitarianism, but also in search of better economic opportunities for their families. On the 5th of November, the Nicaraguan people have to make a great decision, whether to make a tragic step towards the past, or a step into the future. I hope that en these elections the people will use this opportunity to break the suffering of the past.” Unbelievable really….a full page in the newspaper, with his signature on the bottom, printed on official letterhead from the office of the government. That is so blatant…it’s just wrong, and a gross abuse of power. Shame on you Jeb Bush. I am putting a picture of the article with my pictures. Last night on the news, a US republican representative from California, Dana Rohrabacher, was interviewed and he threatened once again, that if Daniel Ortega is elected, then the millions of dollars sent home by Nicaraguans working in the US will be cut off. Why? Because it could be funneled to terrorists. That’s right…terrorists. As we were watching the news Jessica told Gloria (my host-mom) “don’t you worry, that senator is a nobody….I’ve never even heard of him, it doesn’t matter what he said.” Gloria explained to us about how it didn’t matter who he was…all anyone has to say is that they are a US republican congressman and people get scared…because they know that is the party that is in power right now in the US and therefore is equivalent to the whole government for them. But it goes further, you don’t even have to be a current politician…..you could even be an ex-politician muddled by scandal like Oliver North, who was here last week supporting one of the candidates. It never stops. People are scared of the eagle. (Here is where you should picture and evil eagle in your mind…one with beaty red eyes…maybe fangs too…oh my!)

Here in Nicaragua, 5 days before the election there is an electoral silence, which means the politicians cannot speak about political issues or distribute propoganda. So, since the election is the 5th, lastnight was the official last day of the election and so there were huge rallies allover the country to close the campaigns of the different political parties. The party that my Nicaraguan family is voting for (the Movement for the Renovation of Sandinismo) had their rally in downtown Managua. Jessica and I dressed up in our bright orange campaign shirts (fitting since it was halloween) and marched downtown…it was awesome. We also went through the parade for Daniel Ortega’s party too. There were dump trucks outfitted with flashing Christmas lights, dogs wearing campaign banners, families riding on bicycles (to clarify, that means one family on one bicycle), and plenty of black and red banners waving to the spanish version of the Beatles’ “Give Peace a Chance.” I was standing there and thinking, no one other than Jessica will ever understand how exhilarating this is…the whole town was out, people were celebrating and going crazy. My heart was beating fast and I almost cried from so much emotion and then the thought crossed my mind “I’m never leaving Nicaragua.” (don’t worry mom, that was a heat of the moment thought….im coming home). This Sunday is the election and so I am going to stick around here and help prepare food and stuff with my family here. One of my host sisters is working to patrol some voting booths. We are going to make traditional food and celebrate (nervously) all weekend. Today is also Day of the Dead, which means we are working a half day and then people will flood the cemeteries to bring flowers to the graves of loved ones and make sure the graves look nice. I am going to try to take some pictures without looking like a weird morbid tourist…but that’s probably a lost cause.

So since it’s been so long since I wrote a blog, I have some stories from the last month that I want to share…most of these are straight from my journal. Some are pretty old but thanks for waiting.

October 15th. I went to this outdoor folk music festival yesterday. It was a memorial concert for the death of Che Guevara. They were remembering and honoring Che and also Carlos Fonseca who is the Nicaraguan revolutionary equivalent of Che. Carlos Fonseca died right before the revolution started in 1979 but he was the philosopher and leader. Anyway, so the concert was really nice and there was a lot of good displays…representatives from the Zapatista’s in Mexico and different citizen groups from the area. I couldn’t help but think how strange it was for me to be there though, and how different a Che memorial concert is for me than it is for the people of Nicaragua. Che Guevara is probably the most famous international t-shirt character of all time. Why t-shirts love Che so much, I don’t really know. I think it must be because there is something inside all of us that glorifies a revolution, glorifies that kind of strength that rises from the oppressed. But revolution has a much different sentiment here in Nicaragua. Here they are proud of their revolution, but it was a very painful time too….so so so many people died here and in the end the revolution did not succeed. It was strange to be at the Che concert singing about revolution amongst a group of people who actually fought one. It was strange because I knew I was the odd one out, the one that didn’t get it… but the one most likely to buy the t-shirt. (which I did not by the way…buy a t-shirt that is)

October 18th One of my neighbors had a birthday party…she turned 13. It was the typical boys on one side, girls on the other, and blasting reggaeton (latino rap) to drown out the awkward adolescent tension in the air. Anyway, so for some reason, the gringas (2 other volunteers who live nearby and myself) were designated to be the party starters and the mothers insisted that we get people dancing. So we each got paired up with a 4 foot tall 12 year old boy, and we danced. With their heads hitting the height of our breasts and their clammy hands on our wastes, we awkwardly tried to find the right mix of booty shaking and self-constraint. It was a sight but I can say we officially got the party started, and broke a few hearts in the process.

October 20th I’ve been learning about natural medicines from my host-mother Gloria. She has slowly introduced me to how mystical she is. It started when I got a cold and she fixed me an herbal tea of chamomile, lemon, honey, and homemade rum. My mind kept flashing back to a month or so ago when people were dying from moonshine rum contaminated with methanol. Anyway, I’m alive and cold and methanol free. In the weeks that have followed since the cold incident, I have seen her fix a natural concoction involving aloe for a neighbor that has cancer. She also shared with me that one time she cured a friend with hepatitis, and another time she cured a child with measles. She even shared with me once this ritual she does each night with a bucket of water that blesses and guards the house overnight. So, as I learn more about remedies, magic, and spirits and such, I’ll keep you updated.

October 22nd Gloria also sells used clothes out of our house. There is a sign on the outside of the house that reads “We sell USA clothes.” Every few weeks, Gloria shows up with a load of clothes to sell and she hangs them up in the living room for display. She gets the used clothes from the nearby market and people from the neigborhood come by and buy things from her. Well, yesterday we got 100lb. of US women’s lingerie to sell. So, lastnight we passed the night giggling and trying on lingerie…the favorite of which was a thong pair of panties with a rat on the front and a furry tail on the back. Some of the neighbor women came over and Gloria has two grown daughters so there were 6 women in the house and once the power went out, we continued on in the candlelight. I learned quite a bit of new Spanish vocab lastnight…none of which is appropriate to share on public internet domain.

So this is all the stories for now….there are many more to tell but there is a general understanding that a blog should only be so long. Other stories I’ll one day tell you include how I got an oversized vehicle stuck in the mud in the barrio and how I bribed a cop out of giving a ticket. There is a volunteer coming down in a few weeks and if you have things you want to send me, the best way to do that is to send stuff to her in the states and then she’ll bring it down with her. If you’re interested let me know and I’ll give you more info. Thanks to all of you who are writing me emails and commenting on here and letting me know how things are going. Thanks also for your patience, as I can’t always write back so quickly. Alright, until next time, love you all,
Peace
Bree

PS thanks also for not judging me for my excessive comma use

Skillz

2006-10-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

I did it! I have picture uploading, website creating, direction following skilllzzz. If you click on the link to the right, I believe you will find a few pics. Now that I know how to do it, I hope to have some more up soon. Love you all!
Bree

Little House in the Barrio

2006-10-03T11:30:00.000-07:00

Greetings again after a couple of weeks off from blog writing. I’ve been thinking about what I might include in this entry because for now at least, the travel adventures have slowed down and I’m getting more of a taste of the day to day Nica life (that’s what Nicaraguans called themselves…Nicas). For those of you in the states, I envy your ability to walk outside and enjoy the fall-time. There are two seasons here, rainy and dry. Right now we are entering the thickest part of the rainy season and I miss the changing leaf colors and beauty of the fall. You’ll have to share your fall-time stories with me.

Probably the biggest change for me over the past 2 weeks is that I moved off of the CDCA property and into a home with a nearby Nica family. I am living with a 50-something woman named Gloria, and her 2 twenty-something daughters. This has surely been the best part yet of being in Nicaragua because I feel so much closer to the people and the culture. The house is about a 10 minute walk away and I moved in about 2 weeks ago. My room is in the back of their house….I have to walk through the chicken yard to get to my room and I have an outdoor bathroom that is also back there. I couldn’t really be more pleased because the room is just separated enough to give me some privacy but I still get to eat and hang out and watch soap operas and political shows with the family. Gloria is super chatty and actually has been very involved in the community and in politics in Nicaragua. She only graduated from elementary school but she is a fireball and I love to just sit and have her talk my head off about politics. When I walked in the first day, I had to smile at the three pictures that made up the decorations on one livingroom wall…a portrait of Fidel Castro, A portrait of Che Guevarra, and a precious moments poster of the Lord’s Prayer…so Nicaragua. The first couple of nights in the house were rough. With all the cats fighting on the tin roof, I almost never fell asleep. Then, around 3 am the roosters started cockadoodle-doodling, and then I had to pee so bad but couldn’t because the evil dog Natasha was growling at me when I tried to walk across the yard to the bathroom. So, although an empy Gatorade bottle I found in my bag did help with the peeing thing…there was little sleep to be had. Let me just mention that Natasha always has a broken rope about 2 feet long around her neck that just drags behind her…eeks. Also, whoever made up the terribly inaccurate rumor that the rooster crows at dawn, has obviously never slept anywhere near a rooster. The truth is that the rooster starts crowing whenever the hell it wants (but usually around 3 am)…and will not shut up until it wants…or someone makes it into a soup. I recently got some earplugs which have worked like a charm but now the new challenge is finding an alarm strong enough to penetrate them at 7am.

Being in the homestay also has brought me much closer to some of the real issues that Nicaraguans are facing now, issues that are important to them in the upcoming presidential elections. Right now electricity and water are big issues…basically there is hardly ever any of either. The electricity is usually out for most of the day, and often comes on around 6pm, goes back out around 7pm, comes back on around 9pm, and may stick around for some of the night. The water on the other had…generally comes only about 11pm and stays for a few hours. So, that directly translates to a lot of water conservation, lots of filling up buckets in the night, and also limited toilet flushing (if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down). I’m taking bucket showers and reading by candle light…I’m kind of like Laura Ingles Wilder….starring in Little House in the Barrio. Speaking of candlelight…it’s amazing how much a candle actually does light up a room…we only use them for smelly reasons in the US but here, when it’s completely black for miles…you light one little candle and the whole house is visible again…it’s pretty cool.

Nicaragua is truly a fascinating place, while there have been a lot of personal hard times already, times when I doubt that I am doing anyhting here but getting in the way, I think I can say with moderate conviction that I am indeed learning (something) and becoming a better person. Perhaps the overarching, overwhelming “slap you in the face” reality of my time here so far has been how different “national sovereignty” looks and feels from the point of view of a developing country. Nicaragua is the 2^nd poorest nation in the western hemisphere, and although in their past they have seen brutal dictators, socialist revolutionary government, US marine occupation, and neo-liberal democratic governments…things haven’t changed all that much for the people who make up this country. Something like 78% of the people are still living on $2 or less a day. The US is heavily heavily involved here, although we may pass a whole year in the US without ever seeing a snippet on the news about Nicaragua. With Nicaraguan presidential elections coming up in November, the US is putting the pressure on the Nicaraguan people to vote for a candidate that will be acceptible to the US. The US ambassador is in the news daily threatening (or “giving advice to”) the people about the way to vote. Two US senators visited last week, Donald Rumsfeld is here right now (for a meeting of regional Secretaries of Defense). Some of the threats have been that if Nicaraguans don’t vote the way the US wants, the US will cut aid to this country. Also, the US will have to “reconsider” the immigration status of millions of Nicaraguans living in the US (and sending home millions of dollars to their families). All this under the guise of “democracy promotion.” Think about that irony…promoting democracy is not done by threatening people how to vote...that’s democracy manipulation. Also, I’m no expert…but in my international law class I’m pretty sure that it’s clearly stated that foreign diplomats are not allowed to interfere in local elections…but we all know international law is a joke for the US. Just in case you want a breakdown on candidates for the election in November, here it is.

Daniel Ortega: FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front). Leader of the 1980’s revolution. The US is real scared of this guy…he’s in the boat with Chavez, Evo Morales (Bolivia) and Lulu (Brazil). US threats are almost entirely toward him. He is the front-runner in the poles right now. He has changed and sold out quite a bit since the revolution which has lost him a lot of traditional Sandinista supporters but has also gained him some more moderate votes.

Edmundo Jarquin: MRS (Movement for the Renovation of Sandinismo) This party is made up of former Sandinista’s and other break-off groups that think the FSLN is corrupt and sold out. I like this guy….so does my Nica family. He goes by the name “el feo” (the ugly) because he is kind of ugly.

Rizo and Montealegre: PLC and ALN: Two similar neo-liberal candidates with similar platforms and promises to bring jobs bla bla bla…more of the same shit as now….but the US like them.

One other dude with 1% of the vote…not a real issue.

So there…sorry if you didn’t want that…but I was talking to my brother lastnight and he gave me hope that people might actually like to know. Just in case you wanna dig in more, a really good engligh website is http://www.enviomag.com.ni/

What else….still trotting along around here. I have recently found so much joy in a Barbara Kingsolver book I’m reading called Prodigal Summer. It’s set in Kentucky and has so many references to places so close to home for me…the Hunt Morgan House, Euclid Street, Franklin County etc. Besides it being a beautiful book, it has been so good for me to get my head out of fiery Nicaraguan politics for a while. I also finished a book called Confessions of an Economic Hitman, which was really awesome and tuched on a lot of development issues…if you read it be prepared to be depressed though (unless you’re a jerk).

Lastnight I mentioned to my host family that I really missed riding my bike but that the Americans here told me it was dangerous to ride one here. They told me that was hogwash…and as long as I stick to good roads and daylight, I’ll be fine. So they let me borrow an old beat-up cruiser bike they had in the garage. Today I brought it to work and asked one of the construction dudes if he could fix it up. I should have paid attention to Ben and Shane’s bicycle tinkering a little more...they tried plenty of times to teach me. Oh well, now I’m paying for it.

So, this ends the blog entry that is so far the longest, least perky, most opinionated, and most unlikely to be read in its entirety. I am working on adding pictures in that shutterfly link to the right. Check back periodically and see if I’ve had any success. Thanks for keeping up with me. Love you all,

Bree

"I dee kara tum wah"..read on for the translation...

2006-09-20T20:04:00.000-07:00

Back from the caribbean coast! (actually, for those of you who care...and you should, it's called the Southern Atlantic Autonomous Region). It's true, it's Monday, and I'm just coming off of a four-day weekend thanks to Nicaraguan independence day. In case you haven't been keeping up, here's a recap of the plans....Eric (the other volunteer) and I headed to the Caribbean coast to the Southern Autonomous Region for the weekend. We flew for logistical reasons (see previous entry) and spent 3 nights and 3 days hopping around islands and trying to take in the culture...which I will go ahead and mention, was way different, and way cooler than I could have imagined.

First things first though, let me explain a little something about the plane that took us to the coast. We knew it would be a small plane because it's a domestic trip. I've been on small planes...no problem...or so I thought. We got to the check-in desk, I presented my ID, did the routine, and placed my bag on the scale..like normal. Then, the desk lady said "and you too." "Me too what?" "Get on the scale with the bag." "You want me on the scale with the bag?" "Yeah, we have to know how to distribute the weight in the plane." "Riiiiiight."

So, I got on the scales, already suspecting this would be a bit smaller of a plane than I had anticipated. The trip in numbers: 20 ft. long...that' how long the plane was. 14 people...that was its capacticy (including pilots) I could have sneezed on the pilots back, he was right in front of me. As we were taking our seats, I figured this was the one flight in my life where I was going to read the emergency instruction card and check under the seat for the flotation device. I reached under the seat to see if the flotation device was there the same time that the Nicaraguan man next to me reached for his. Neither of the devices were there and he turned to me and said "oh well, someone must have stolen them." Riiiiiight.

Anyway, so the flight was pretty easy and I occupied myself by trying not to throw up or have an anxiety attack...but I did get a little nervous when the pilot whipped out a map of "The Nicaraguan East Coast" about 10 minutes before landing. He was orienting himself and turning the map while he looked out the window. I thought, "are you kidding me, do you need directions...I'm outta here (if only I had a flotation device)?!" But that's enough of that...on to the good stuff.

So the Southern Atlantic Autonomous Region is autonomous for a few reasons, one being it's physical geographical separation from the rest of the country, another reason being because of its distinct cultural differences (there are other reasons too...I'm no Nicaraguan expert though.) They people are mostly of African decent, mestizos, or indigenous groups. They speak english creole, spanish, and indigenous languages...all of which you'll hear in the streets. When we first got off the plane in the main city (Bluefields), the first thing we noticed were the bright colors. The houses were all painted bright pastels and they were on stilts. The housing looked like a scene out of Jamaica or the Bahamas...not stereotypical Nicaragua. The village is right on the coast and has a distinct beachside culture. We spent the day walking around and taking it in...we watched a domino tournament, ate fish, and were the awkward white people sitting in the corner of the reggae club.

The next day, we set off in a "panga" (motorboat canoe) to a small island called Pearl Lagoon where we set out on foot to follow the road (the only road) to wherever it would lead. We walked for a bit and met a man who was also walking, he was a Miskito indian and invited us to come to his village for some coconuts. We walked with him and chatted about the life of his people, politics, and his future plans. When we got to the village (called Awas), our friend ran into his house, grabbed a little rope, came out and then shimmied up a tree (with a mechete)...and then two little coconuts fell from the tree....and then he shimmied down. Have you ever seen someone shimmie up a tree?! I had not....did I mention this guy was like 60? So to make a much more interesting story short, we decided to return the next day and spend the day in the Miskito village of Awas to learn about the people.

So we returned bright and early the next day to a breakfast that awaited us of coconut bread, fried fish and coffee. We toured the village, which took about 15 minutes because it was so small. The Miskitos in Awas live on the water and there are about 30 families in all. They all have one or two room houses made of wood planks and the houses are lifted on stilts. We then set out with our friend to visit the farm where the Miskitos work. Once we were ready to head to the farm, all the children had gathered around and so a few lucky ones got to come in the canoe with us to the farm (oh yeah...it was like a 30 minute canoe ride). So we set off in a wooden canoe, with a sail made of tied together Hefty bags...and a crew was nine people total....Eric and I, our guide, and 6 kids...ranging from lik 4-10 years old. There were kids stuck in both corners and under the seats...well not really, but you get the point.

So on the farm we got to eat avocado, banana, yuca, guava, and lots of new fruits that I pretended like I understood the names of. The people don't farm for a living, they just use the food to feed their families...they say they don't have anywhere to sell the fruits....but they do fish for money. All of the people are fishers and farmers by trade.

So after we got back from the farm, we had a lunch of crab-soup and played with the kids all afternoon. We were pretty much hand-game missionaries....spreading the gospel of "rocks paper scissors" and "thumb war." The kids don't speak english or spanish, they only speak Miskito so the sounds of the afternoon were the kids singing "one two three four, I declare a thumb war"...but instead it came out more like "wah too tree fah, I dee kara tum wah"....precious

So....to make a four day weekend email friendly, I guess I will stop there...oh but one more thing, the people on the island play music all day, music is coming out of all the houses. The sounds were reggae, reggaeton, and classic country...that's right, classic country. As I lay in the hammock one night, I realized how small the world is when I rocked to the classic country refrain "kiss an angel good morning, but love her like the devil when you get back home." (Someone...anyone? anyone else know that song?...probably only George)

So more recently, we have gotten 4 new long-term volunteers this week. Besides being excited because they are all super cool, it is also fun for me to have more volunteers to coordinate, being that I am the "volunteer coordinator" and all. So here's the low-down....one girl just graduated from UNC and is here working in the clinic for the next year. Another girl graduated from school in Rhode Island and has been working for a union in DC for the past year and she will be volunteering with the women's sewing cooperative. One girl just graduated from Oxford (yes, a Brit) and is working as the office assistant. The other girl is working on her Master's in social work and recently finished up the Peace Corp in Honduras working with women's agricultural stuff. So...what does all this mean? I am surrounded by fabulous women..interesting, smart, motivated, and willing to split beer with me.

Just as a side note…Ben Abell (my boo…my boyfriend that is) was on the front page of the Kentucky Kernel (the UK newspaper) for some cool stuff his farm is doing. You should check it out…it was Monday's edition (the 18th) and the article is about farm fresh food. http://www.kykernel.com/

Alright....this is it for now...hope all is well with everyone...lots of crazy stuff going on out there. Today I read in the paper that Thailand had a coup, that someone tried to kill Somalia's president, and stuff is still heating up with the Pope doing his thing...yikes. From here, still more politics, the electicity company is robbing the people and they will likely kick it out of the country soon, there is a gas shortage too (but Hugo has vowed to help with that), and they are arresting the people in charge of the methanol moonshine rum. Other than that....I'm just playing with monkies, love you all
Bree

2006-09-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

Lists, Runaway Horses, and Daniel Ortega

2006-09-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

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

Day One...Nicaraguan style

2006-09-06T16:10:00.000-07:00

So I made it...alive and well, going on my 24th hour in Nicaragua. I have had a few emails from people making sure I made it, so here is a quick post to update everyone. I got here lastnight, and was met at the airport by Eric, who is the current volunteer coordinator at CDCA. I will be taking over his job in three weeks, when he leaves. So, basically today I just followed Eric around as he explained to me everything he did...from telling me which keys go in which doors, which CDCA employees are quirky, and the best way to bribe a cop when you are pulled over for traffic violations...it was a lot to take in, but I am convinced I will someday know up from down and be competent in this job. The compound that I live on has many different buildings, the main house, which houses the permanent members, a volunteer dorm (where I live) a guest house, a women's sewing cooperative, and some permanently broken-down vehicles that have been turned into things like "the medicine warehouse." There are many pets...including two monkeys.
Today I ran some errands like going to the xerox store, I toured the medical clinic, and worked on some small construction projects. One thing that I wasn't nervous about before but now am, is driving. I guess I will have to do a fair amount of driving around town, and the streets are chaos here. If you aren't dodging a lady selling coconut water in the middle of the road, then you're dodging a dog with 2 (or less) legs, or 5-6 people all on the same mo-ped. I'm not really looking forward to that aspect of the job...I'm not even a good driver in the US. Oh well.
Today I did bust some bluegrass out on the other volunteers that are here now...overall it was a good reception.
I'll leave you with this comforting observance. Before coming down I was a little unclear about the role of the religious or Christian component of this organization. I knew they hosted a lot of churches, were a faith-based non-profit, and had some religious funding sources, but i also knew that they are not evangelical or prosteletizing (sp?). Anyway, so this morning at breakfast I enjoyed and was comforted by two magnets on the refrigerator. One said "Jesus called, he wants his religion back," and the other magnet had a man kneeling before Jesus and said "Jesus would slap the shit out of you." For whatever reason, I thought, hmm....I think I'm gonna fit in just fine. Love you all,
Bree

Almost to Nicaragua...

2006-08-28T07:28:00.000-07:00

Greetings friends and loved ones! (but friends ARE loved ones...so, greetings loved ones!)
I hope that this blog reaches all of you in good spirits and that you can say that the world is treating you well today. I created this blog so that I would be able to keep in good touch with all of you when I go to Nicaragua. Although I'm not too computer savy, I figured a blog might be a good way to get the job done. This way, you can check on me as often (or rarely) as you would like. I will certainly still have email as well.
So, most of you are probably thinking, "haven't you left for Nicaragua yet?" And yes it's true, my departure has been a bit drawn out. I think it was about a month and a half ago that I made the decision to leave the beloved Lexington and head south for the sun, sweat, and Sandinistas of Nicaragua. I finished out a fabulous Kentucky summer by working at the refugee center (which was so cool that it hardly ever felt like a job), floating down several creeks, eating fabulous farm food, giving (and taking) numerous not-so-final goodbye hugs, and taking a fabulous vacation to North Carolina. Now I'm in South Carolina (where my parents live) until the 5th of September...when I finally fly out to Nicaragua. If you want to call me before that, I will be over-eating and watching bad television but will be available to chat in the meantime.
So what will I even be doing in Nicaragua? Well, there is a lot that I will find out once I get there, but here's what I think I will be doing. I will be doing an internship for an organization called the Center for Development in Central America. It is a super-cool organization that focuses on many development projects around Managua (the capital of Nicaragua). There are a lot of things going on including an agricultural cooperative, a women's sewing cooperative, health clinics, etc. They depend on a lot of volunteers, groups and individuals that come down from the U.S. to help with various projects. The groups are mostly university, church, and citizen groups I think. My job will be as the "volunteer coordinator" and as the title suggests, I will coordinate the individuals volunteers and the groups. My understanding is that my responsibilities will include plenty of things like changing the dorm linens, pretending to know Nicaraguan history and giving tours, pretending to be a construction forewoman, making a fool out of myself as a translator, being a general liason, and of course...being a fearless leader (unless dealing with alligators, bears, or large birds somehow becomes part of the picture, then I'm out).
If you are interested in learning more, the organization has a really comprehensive and user-friendly website, check it out at http://www.jhc-cdca.org/
So there's my story...I will post again when I have more interesting things to write about. Much love....Bree