Quick Update

A quick reference of Nicaraguan cities for those of you
back home. My site is 1 hour east of Palacaguina.

I have spent most of my weekends this month traveling around the country, and I am now totally broke. I went to Managua at the beginning of the month for medical appointments, but made the most of it and enjoyed an amazing Italian dinner, played pool in a billiards hall, found a new cribbage partner SO to Aaron, and spent some much needed time with fellow volunteers.
Then after another week in site I spent some time in Estelí, discovered some beautiful restaurants, and visited various members of my host family. The following weekend I spent on my family’s farm baking Rosquilla and pizzas and then it was off to Matagalpa. 

My host aunt and I making rosquillas together. Rosquillas are cookies made from corn flour and cheese. We were filling these ones with a tasty vanilla,  cinnamon filling. Rosquillas are a Nicaraguan favorite and are generally eaten during Semana Santa (the week before Easter) but here in Madriz they´re a year-round treat.

The monster of an oven we were working with. You can imagine the amount of smoke this thing made... all day long.

The Pizzas! They turned out delicious! 

In Matagalpa I met up with a large chunk of my training group. I hadn’t seen any of them


The sloth in the wild

since we went to site two months ago. It was really nice to catch up with everyone and we enjoyed an adventurous waterfall called Cascadas Blancas. We thought you could swim in it, but as soon as we saw it we quickly realized that wasn’t an option. What we did do was cooler than swimming though, we walked behind the waterfall, which felt like what I would imagine being on the beach for a hurricane would be like, and explored the cave behind it and smaller waterfalls surrounding it. On the way out we saw a sloth, the first one I had seen in the wild. Later that night we enjoyed really good food and great conversation.



Cascadas Blancas, Matagalpa

As for my new life in site and my daily work go, life is good; I still spend a lot of time in the health center and the casa materna but I am starting to do more activities on my own. I am currently working on a community analysis survey in order to figure out what’s going on in my community and where my work could fit in best. I have already interviewed the Red Cross, some of my health center staff and the local Pueblo Indígena staff. I found out 85% of my municipality population is indigenous. In the coming weeks I plan to interview a few people in the mayor’s office, the local police, and religious leaders, more of my health center staff, as well as local families. Aside from the community analysis, I continue to go on salidas, or visits, to the rural communities. Last week I went with nurses and other staff to apply abate in order to combat the dengue epidemic. Right now Nicaragua is on high alert for dengue. There have already been over 1,500 cases of Dengue in the country and 4 deaths, and we’re only just beginning dengue season (the rainy season). Dengue is spread between humans by mosquitoes. Abate is a chemical in little pebbles that kills mosquito larvae and eggs, so we put it in all standing water we find. With running water being unreliable here everyone is accustomed to storing extra water in giant cement pilas or barrels. This provides the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. The abate doesn’t harm other animals or humans if we don’t drink it in large amounts. In the next few weeks I hope to get back in the schools and start teaching some sex-ed classes, as well as working more diligently in the casa materna. My birthday is coming up in 2 short weeks as well, so I think I might be getting a group together to go to the Somoto Canyon.