Saludos a Todos!
Before I say anything, I'd like to mention that you may want to read this post in a few sittings as there is a ton. It has now been a month since I have been in my community of Las Salinas. It's definitely been a good time so far but I must say, my patience will have reached the level of impenetrable by the time I leave Nicaragua. I have decided that I can't go on the Internet more than once a week or I get seriously overwhelmed. Life in this community is just too slow-paced for me to keep up with anything online and so I'm going to keep it that way. While the slow speed of everything in this community makes me happy a lot of the time it also is where my patience is growing dramatically. So basically the mission of the Foundation for Sustainable Development is to create projects and initiatives that the community members can sustain on their own after the interns leave. Hopefully these projects will improve the environment, generate income, or build capacity. However, while this is definitely the right approach to take, it is also the one that the community members want to take least, because it requires them to actually do something rather than have something done for them, which is what most volunteer organizations do. For example, when my work started the week after I arrived in the community, I started with computer classes, which I finally decided to quit because they were wasting my time in the community and not accomplishing anything. The kids figured out how to use the computers after a few days and then just went to play games. However, I was still giving these classes three days a week for the entire day. So I talked to my supervisor and said that I know I am an intern at the library but just because I am an intern at the library doesn't mean that I need to spend all my time at the library when there isn't very much to do there. They agreed to let me stop the computer classes and focus all of my efforts on other projects in the community. As I had predicted, these projects are different than the ones I tried to start before.
First and foremost, I started work on creating a miscellaneous store with a women's collective in the community of mothers whose children come to the library. None of the women work and so they would like to be able to have something during the day to generate some income. So I held a meeting and told them that I have the ability to write a grant for up to 800 dollars for a sustainable project in the community. Their idea is to create a miscellaneous store where they can sell cheap basic products, bread and other bakery items, and art made by local artisans. With the help of this women's collective, over the next few weeks, I am going to write a grant to the Foundation for Sustainable Development for the funding of this micro-business. FSD's grant-writing process is extremely complex including more than ten pages of justification for the project, a business plan, a budget outline, and resumes of all the members involved. Also they don't approve any projects that don't include any capacity-building so it will be my job to figure out a way for there to be something educational in this business. Hopefully there will be a new business when I leave the community. My second project is based on cleaning up the community and getting the community members to take advantage of the truck that comes every monday to pick up trash in the community so the community members won't have to throw all their trash on the ground or burn it. This project is going to go in conjunction with the daily environmental hour I am starting at the school, where I am going to teach about the importance of protecting the environment. The idea of this project as a whole is to hopefully leave the community with a functioning recycling and compost system to sustain. However, I have a long way to go before that happens. My third project is the photography project I talked about before that will document the history of the community through photography as well as interviews with the owners of the salt mines and the oldest members of the community. There is also talk about two more projects: starting a community garden and selling the produce at the miscellaneous store as well as holding consistent movie nights to raise funds for the store or simply to give people a chance to sell homemade items.
I finally figured out that if I don't make myself a "NEEDS to get done list" every week, I will get lost in the slow-paced life of this community as well as in the Foundation for Sustainable Development's essentially structureless internship program. Looking back at all of this and the fact that that I was able to set up all these projects on my own, I almost feel happy that I was sad last semester because it prompted me to do something new from which I am learning a ton of skills that will be extremely valuable for the rest of my life. Also, this program really seems like the best gap between Amigos and the Peace Corps, which is eventually where it looks like I'm headed. Plus, I've secured my credit for this internship with an independent directed study I'm doing next semester.
Anyways, on to the fascinating stuff, where should I start? So every weekend I've been in the community, I've gone to a discoteca on Saturday night that residents from around the area go to. The dances here are really interesting. Basically, you can't go on the dance floor without a partner and you always keep kissing until you're off the dance floor. Although you guys are going to think I'm crazy for saying this, I think this a lot better than what we have in the states. There isn't any awkwardness and people like me who never get any action don't have to dance by myself and watch miserably while other people hook up on the dance floor. Also, it's nice that beers and the entrance fee are both only a dollar. In fact, the only people who dance by themselves at discotecas here are the other gringos. A bunch of gringos live on the beach nearby, surf every day, and come to the discotecas on the weekends. It makes me laugh because apparently they buy local girls motorcycles or cars so they can get with them. This may be an urban legend, but it is still hilarious. While I have met a few cool foreigners who are working on the organic farm down the road in my community, a lot of the gringos here piss me off majorly. Especially after going to a dinner at the exclusive, gated, beachfront mansion community of Rancho Santana and San Juan del Sur, which is basically a city made up of gringos and enormous houses that I'll mention later, my opinion of gringos here has dropped even lower than it was before. I mean who the fuck do gringos think they are to exploit poverty and build enormous mansions in a country where 50% of the population lives on less than two dollars a day without making even the slightest attempt to give anything decent back to the population? I mean I guess they provide jobs, but still it seems fucked up to build mansions walking distance from dirt roads with chickens, pigs, cattle carts, and beggars. Also, these expatriate communities of Rancho Santana and San Juan del Sur are basically made up of people who barely even make an attempt to integrate into the local culture. They hang out with other expatriates and speak English all the time. I wish I wasn't so judgmental of this, but I just don't understand the point of going to a foreign country if you don't want to integrate into the culture at all. Anyways, I need to stop ranting.
This past weekend I left the community for the first time since I've been here to go to San Juan del Sur, which as I said before, is basically a gringo backpacker harbor town about two hours down the coast. I originally left just with my host brother Franklin but ended up running into the foreigners that work on the organic farm in the community who we tagged along with for the rest of the trip. After getting a room at a guest house in San Juan del Sur, we went down to the beach where we had some Toña, which is the most popular beer in Nicaragua. Afterwards, our group expanded to include some friends of the foreigners I knew. Everybody was going to a huge music festival that was going on that night so they said it was alright for us to just tag along. This brought us to a mansion on the hill overlooking the harbor, where a few of the people in our group were staying with a friend. I later found out that thier friend is the niece of the wife of the last president of Nicaragua who apparently owns the mansion. I could tell the whole time that Franklin was just in awe of everything at the house. Afterwards we went to the music festival in the town and drank a bunch of cheap beer. It was a blast even though the Nicaraguan rock n roll was awful. It was so weird that almost everybody at the concert was a foreigner and everything was in both English and Spanish. Franklin told me that he felt like a total minority there, even though it was in his own country. The next day we walked all the way down the beach and up to the huge statue of Jesus that overlooks the San Juan del Sur harbor. It was absolutely gorgeous, but unfortunately I still haven't found the time to upload my pictures because I have over a thousand now and it's gonna take a long time to upload. I forgot to say that I've been working on various photo projects on my own, but I'll get into that on some other post. The next day I did the one thing that really made me so happy to be in Nicaragua, which was riding on the roof of the bus back to Las Salinas. The ride from the provincial town of Rivas to Las Salinas is about an hour and a half down a dirt road so the bus goes pretty slow. The roof is marked on all side by bars to carry fuel, tires, packages of food, chickens, and whatnot. However, due to the fact that there are no police who actually give a shit, people can ride on them as well, which gives the guys a better way to hiss at the girls walking by. Haha. Taking in the wind, the sun, the beautiful scenery, and the branches I had to dodge every once in a while, I felt so unbelievably great to be here in Nicaragua!
Paz a todos,
Zack
Monday, February 21, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Las Salinas de Nagualapa de Rivas de Nicaragua
Saludos a todos!
I would like to welcome you all to my wonderful, small, dusty community of Las Salinas de Nagualapa de Rivas de Nicaragua (or just Las Salinas which is a lot easier). There is going to be a lot in this blog post so you may want to separate the reading into two sessions, if you are that interested in following my blog. Since I don't even know where to start I guess I'll just start by saying a random fact. I have taken almost 600 pictures since I have been in Nicaragua, which has only been since January 15th. I have no doubt that I will surpass the 2000 mark while I am here or maybe even the 3000 mark as one of the projects I am doing in the community is partially based on photography and I have a four gigabyte memory card, which holds about 3500 high quality photos. However, due to the fact that I don't have a personal computer, it is somewhat difficult to get the time to upload all of my photos to the computer so I haven't had the chance to put my photos on this blog. I will definitely put the best photos up on this blog and eventually all of them on facebook.
So speaking of the project I am doing in the community, I am more actually doing a number of different projects. They are all being run through the library I am working at. The library I am working at is about a one minute walk from my host family's house and has been undergoing a few different changes recently. First of all, five old school macs were donated to the library by some organization in the states (I have to ask my supervisor what it is and I'll let you know on my next post) and were just installed the week I arrived in the community. Second of all, the first missionary group to ever come to the library since it was built a number of years ago (again, I have to ask my supervisor and I'll let you know on my next post) was here for three weeks and just left on Monday. Basically this means that the kids who come to this library have been seeing lots of gringos and flashy technology all in a short period of time. The gringas from the Evangelical Christian missionary academy in Arkansas were teaching classes to the kids who come to the library even though hardly any of them spoke a word of Spanish. Although this doesn't make any sense to me, the kids seemed to enjoy it because they received one on one attention from these gringas and were able to learn about five words of English during those three weeks, which I am sure they have forgotten already. I just want to rant for a moment and say that development workers who don't speak a word of the local language should not be teaching English. One, because there is a severe limit to the amount that they can teach and two, because it is a serious waste of time as the ones learning English will forget it immediately as they aren't using it in their daily lives. The only time when teaching English is justifiable is when the people teaching it will be teaching it for a while and those who are learning it can use it regularly, which is not very often in rural communities in the developing world.
So on to where I come into play. The first week starting in the community was really slow because of the missionary group that was working in the library and was taking up all of the time there. However, they left on Monday and I have had the library to myself this whole week. It has been my job to bring the kids who come to the library daily up to par with these computers, which you could imagine is difficult especially consdering that none of them have ever even used a computer before. So I have been working on a manual for them which details everything from what a mouse is to what the icons on the computer are. It's been pretty tedious but hopefully I'll be done with it by the end of the week and library will have a permanent manual in their collection showing people how to use a computer. It's funny that computers are where a vast portion of all the technology that is changing the world lies and billions of people don't know how to use them. I guess I'm doing a good thing by teaching a few people how to use them. Anyways, as I said before, that is not my only project in the community. Currently I'm working on starting a project with the youth in the community based on photography and cleaning this dusty town. The first part is going to document the history of the community by interviewing the owners of the salt mines this community is named after. I will also interview the oldest members of the community who have seen all of the massive changes in the community throughout the past century. Afterwards we are going to make a book putting all of the history and pictures together to put on display at the library I'm working at. Meanwhile, I'm working on another project with the youth that basically encompasses cleaning up the community and showing pictures of the community before and after the clean up to encourage people to not throw their trash on the ground, which is what everyone does. Basically, my idea is that I believe that one of the reasons as to why so many people throw trash on the ground is that they don't see the community as having any aesthetic value. However, if I teach them about how beautiful this community actually is through photography, then they'll be less inclined to throw their trash on the ground. The youth in the community certainly think this is an issue, but I do need to search for more people who want to be involved in the project. As this idea is somewhat idealistic, you'll probably see some changes in exactly what I'm doing by the time I do my next post. PS if you have any old digital cameras sitting around at your house, the library and I would love to see them. Send me an email at ZOstiller@clarku.edu if you would like more information.
The community sits about a mile away from the vast coast line of the Pacific Ocean where numerous surfer joints lie along the beach. It's interesting because the coast line is developing extremely fast while the community still stays in poverty. In fact there is one place called Rancho Santana along the coast about two miles away from my house that is filled with enormous mansions owned by rich expatriates from the Western world. It's about five minutes walking distance from dirt roads with chickens, pigs, and cattle carts. I guess that is Latin America for you. The beach is absolutely gorgeous though. The waves are up to ten feet high and the beaches are mostly spotless with a few surfers here and there. My host brother took me on a hike up to a ledge overlooking the beach and the ocean where we watched the sunset. If only it was a girl I was with...Anyways speaking of sunsets, I have seen the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen in my life here in Las Salinas. Especially looking over the salt mines and watching the sun reflect in their pools of tide water. My host family is wonderful. I have five host siblings. 15, 17, 20, 22, and 28 so there are a bunch that are around my age to keep me company. I have spent a significant amount of time lying on the hammocks at the house feeling the heavy gusts of wind blow through my hair while I read Acts of Faith, a 700 page epic about aid workers in Sudan during Sudanese Civil War that has kept my attention pretty fully since I got to the community. I have read more than 400 pages since I got here. As for the "Viva la Revolucion" and "Viva Daniel" graffiti I have seen everywhere, I finally figured out why there's so much. The government pays people to paint them on building walls even though the government really isn't that popular. Haha.
I love and miss you all,
Zack
I would like to welcome you all to my wonderful, small, dusty community of Las Salinas de Nagualapa de Rivas de Nicaragua (or just Las Salinas which is a lot easier). There is going to be a lot in this blog post so you may want to separate the reading into two sessions, if you are that interested in following my blog. Since I don't even know where to start I guess I'll just start by saying a random fact. I have taken almost 600 pictures since I have been in Nicaragua, which has only been since January 15th. I have no doubt that I will surpass the 2000 mark while I am here or maybe even the 3000 mark as one of the projects I am doing in the community is partially based on photography and I have a four gigabyte memory card, which holds about 3500 high quality photos. However, due to the fact that I don't have a personal computer, it is somewhat difficult to get the time to upload all of my photos to the computer so I haven't had the chance to put my photos on this blog. I will definitely put the best photos up on this blog and eventually all of them on facebook.
So speaking of the project I am doing in the community, I am more actually doing a number of different projects. They are all being run through the library I am working at. The library I am working at is about a one minute walk from my host family's house and has been undergoing a few different changes recently. First of all, five old school macs were donated to the library by some organization in the states (I have to ask my supervisor what it is and I'll let you know on my next post) and were just installed the week I arrived in the community. Second of all, the first missionary group to ever come to the library since it was built a number of years ago (again, I have to ask my supervisor and I'll let you know on my next post) was here for three weeks and just left on Monday. Basically this means that the kids who come to this library have been seeing lots of gringos and flashy technology all in a short period of time. The gringas from the Evangelical Christian missionary academy in Arkansas were teaching classes to the kids who come to the library even though hardly any of them spoke a word of Spanish. Although this doesn't make any sense to me, the kids seemed to enjoy it because they received one on one attention from these gringas and were able to learn about five words of English during those three weeks, which I am sure they have forgotten already. I just want to rant for a moment and say that development workers who don't speak a word of the local language should not be teaching English. One, because there is a severe limit to the amount that they can teach and two, because it is a serious waste of time as the ones learning English will forget it immediately as they aren't using it in their daily lives. The only time when teaching English is justifiable is when the people teaching it will be teaching it for a while and those who are learning it can use it regularly, which is not very often in rural communities in the developing world.
So on to where I come into play. The first week starting in the community was really slow because of the missionary group that was working in the library and was taking up all of the time there. However, they left on Monday and I have had the library to myself this whole week. It has been my job to bring the kids who come to the library daily up to par with these computers, which you could imagine is difficult especially consdering that none of them have ever even used a computer before. So I have been working on a manual for them which details everything from what a mouse is to what the icons on the computer are. It's been pretty tedious but hopefully I'll be done with it by the end of the week and library will have a permanent manual in their collection showing people how to use a computer. It's funny that computers are where a vast portion of all the technology that is changing the world lies and billions of people don't know how to use them. I guess I'm doing a good thing by teaching a few people how to use them. Anyways, as I said before, that is not my only project in the community. Currently I'm working on starting a project with the youth in the community based on photography and cleaning this dusty town. The first part is going to document the history of the community by interviewing the owners of the salt mines this community is named after. I will also interview the oldest members of the community who have seen all of the massive changes in the community throughout the past century. Afterwards we are going to make a book putting all of the history and pictures together to put on display at the library I'm working at. Meanwhile, I'm working on another project with the youth that basically encompasses cleaning up the community and showing pictures of the community before and after the clean up to encourage people to not throw their trash on the ground, which is what everyone does. Basically, my idea is that I believe that one of the reasons as to why so many people throw trash on the ground is that they don't see the community as having any aesthetic value. However, if I teach them about how beautiful this community actually is through photography, then they'll be less inclined to throw their trash on the ground. The youth in the community certainly think this is an issue, but I do need to search for more people who want to be involved in the project. As this idea is somewhat idealistic, you'll probably see some changes in exactly what I'm doing by the time I do my next post. PS if you have any old digital cameras sitting around at your house, the library and I would love to see them. Send me an email at ZOstiller@clarku.edu if you would like more information.
The community sits about a mile away from the vast coast line of the Pacific Ocean where numerous surfer joints lie along the beach. It's interesting because the coast line is developing extremely fast while the community still stays in poverty. In fact there is one place called Rancho Santana along the coast about two miles away from my house that is filled with enormous mansions owned by rich expatriates from the Western world. It's about five minutes walking distance from dirt roads with chickens, pigs, and cattle carts. I guess that is Latin America for you. The beach is absolutely gorgeous though. The waves are up to ten feet high and the beaches are mostly spotless with a few surfers here and there. My host brother took me on a hike up to a ledge overlooking the beach and the ocean where we watched the sunset. If only it was a girl I was with...Anyways speaking of sunsets, I have seen the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen in my life here in Las Salinas. Especially looking over the salt mines and watching the sun reflect in their pools of tide water. My host family is wonderful. I have five host siblings. 15, 17, 20, 22, and 28 so there are a bunch that are around my age to keep me company. I have spent a significant amount of time lying on the hammocks at the house feeling the heavy gusts of wind blow through my hair while I read Acts of Faith, a 700 page epic about aid workers in Sudan during Sudanese Civil War that has kept my attention pretty fully since I got to the community. I have read more than 400 pages since I got here. As for the "Viva la Revolucion" and "Viva Daniel" graffiti I have seen everywhere, I finally figured out why there's so much. The government pays people to paint them on building walls even though the government really isn't that popular. Haha.
I love and miss you all,
Zack
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