Mangos and cocos and rain

I thought when I started up my blog again that I would at least be able to keep it going for the short time I'm here, but it has been harder than I thought.  I was posting on weekends but since I moved houses I no longer have internet at home, and I don't usually have much time at the office.

I decided to move out of my host family's house when my coworker told me that the entire top floor of her house was empty because her family had decided to move to the bottom floor.  I thought it would be nice to have some more space, be able to cook for myself, etc., and it was.  However, only a couple days after I moved in there was a big storm and my coworker's house flooded.  I had gone downstairs to see if the family had any extra buckets I could put under a couple of leaks in the upstairs roof and found them trying to sweep and mop out their flooded house.  Needless to say, it was quite a bit worse than the couple of drips I had.  There was like 2 or 3 inches throughout the whole house and the more we swept the more water accumulated.  Somehow it filtered through the floor/wall from water that had pooled outside.  Flooding is a problem in Puerto when it rains, and there are several neighborhoods that flood with several feet of water because they are low-lying and there is nowhere for the water to go.  Most of the houses here are built on stilts for that reason.  After a few hours of sweeping they gave up and decided to move back upstairs, and they moved everything...the couches, fridge, stove, beds.  So now the house is definitely "cozy."  It is nice to have some company though.  They have two daughters, 3 and 7, who are pretty fun.  The house is also home to a lot of pigeons and rats... The noises they make inside the walls are kind of creepy so I am glad to have people around at night.

The longer I am here in Puerto the more I like it.  I've decided it is a really interesting place, and I wish I had some more time to get out and explore the region.  The other day I met a gringo who is apparently the only licensed tour guide in the region and he was telling me about all the places I need to go.  The fact that I work 6 days a week makes traveling hard, and things are really spread out over here.  He said if I hadn't been out to the rural communities on the rivers, which is the "heart" of the Miskitu culture, that I hadn't seen anything.  I would like to go, but I feel like not speaking Miskitu would kind of take away from the experience.  He also seems to have some different ideas about tourism and what tourists want to see, like for example he told me the night before he had taken a group of American students to slaughter pigs.  They do it in the middle of the night because there are less flies.  As we were talking a giant truck showed up full of pigs, and he was like, "you gotta see this!"  So I stayed for a few minutes to see them unload the pigs in the middle of the street in the market, and it was disturbing to say the least.  I think I'll pass on that kind of tourism.  I also don't like chicharron, which I guess is an integral part of the tour.  The gringo also introduced me to a couple old-timer expats who were gathered around, I guess they stick together because I had never seen them before.  There names were John Wayne and Old Bob or something like that, they seem like characters for sure.

Let's see...in other news, I started going to the gym with a coworker and another coworker's sister.  I had tried an aerobics class a while back but was kind of disappointed by it.  The gym is nothing amazing--I knew more or less what to expect because I had gone to the gym in El Salvador.  However, it has been fun to go, and... they have a fridge full of coconuts inside the gym!!!!  How amazing is that???  Pretty much the best thing ever.  Do some cardio, go drink a fresh, cold coconut at the front desk, then go lift some weights...  And they cost 7 cordobas, which is like 25 cents.  I LOVE this gym.

I have some new photos but haven't uploaded them, but here are some very old ones from mother's day, which was the end of May, when I spent the day with the girls at the shelter.  We made dulce de mango and painted nails.  Mango season seems to go on forever here, and it is awesome--no worms in any of them!!

I haven't written much about the shelter, and I don't spend a lot of time there.  I try to at least stop by to say hi to the girls every day though.  It would be really hard to be there all the time as it is emotionally draining.  I don't know how the women who work there do it.  And if things weren't already hard enough, there is now a girl who got grisi siknis, which is an illness that only affects Miskitu adolescent girls.  It is what is considered a "culture-bound syndrome."  I had stumbled upon an article about it before I came.  Apparently the girl has had a couple of attacks, only at night, but is now more stable.  Wikipedia has some interesting info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grisi_siknis

Today I spent the morning with the rest of the organization staff cleaning the shelter top to bottom, it was pretty dirty.  This afternoon I am taking some of the girls to an art class at the museum, so I have to run, but I will post some more pictures soon!

Palo de Mayo

The past two weekends here in Puerto I have gone to the Palo de Mayo or "May pole" celebrations, which are particular to the Creole population and take place all throughout the month of May.  Both events were very similar, consisting of a tree branch decorated with streamers and fruit, a choreographed dance performed by young girls, and then an all-out neighborhood dance party.  They were held in two different barrios, but the same group of young people dominated the dancing at both.  The palo de mayo is supposedly Afro-Caribbean and has something to do with fertility.  The celebrations are family-friendly and meant to "rescatar" Creole traditions, although the women at work tell me that they are nothing like they used to be.  The song in the video is apparently THE palo de mayo song, as it plays on repeat at each event and has been on the radio a lot since I got here.  I don't know what it says or even what language it is in.

The palo de mayo before the dancing started

The dance party!  People here are good dancers.

Last Sunday I also went to a nearby river at a place called Tuapi with Karen and some of her friends.  It was a pretty nice place, with tables and benches for cooking and hanging out.  The weird thing was that the water in the river was probably about 90 degrees--not quite hot tub temperature but close!  And since it was a hot day, it was not very refreshing.  I had never seen anything like it.  I went to a river in Costa Rica that was hot but it was shallow, and this river was really deep.  The bottom was hot to step on so there is definitely something geothermal going on.  I didn't get pictures of it, but I did take some pictures on the way there.  I was really surprised by the vegetation right outside of Puerto; it looks dry and almost desert-like whereas Puerto seems so tropical.  I am not sure if it is naturally that way or due to deforestation. 

Learning Miskitu

I haven't actually learned a lot of Miskitu, but I have been picking up a few words here and there.  Many of the girls in the shelter speak only Miskitu and not Spanish, so they have taught me a few things.  I have learned some greetings--for example, "how are you" is "nakisma" to which you respond "pain," which is pronounced like "fine" but with a "p" because there is no "f" in the Miskitu language.  I was finally able to upload the video (above) of the same community charla I posted pictures of before, which shows how people mix languages (in this case Miskitu and Spanish).  I still find it mind-boggling that they are able to keep the languages straight yet use them simultaneously.

Movimiento de Mujeres video about violence and customary law

This video, produced by UNICEF, features the organization I am working for and my coworkers, and provides a background on the problem of sexual and gender based violence in the RAAN.  It also shows the shelter for victims that is located behind the main office building where I work.

First days in Puerto

On Saturday, I wet back to the airport in Managua and boarded a plane for Puerto Cabezas, which is where I'll be living/working for the next 2.5 months.  It is located in the Northern Autonomous Region on the Caribbean side, called the RAAN, and is the capital and principal urban area of the region.  The only way to really get there is to fly.  There are buses from Managua, but they take about 24 hours, if you are lucky, and there aren't many places to stop on the way since the interior RAAN is pretty uninhabited.  The plane was the smallest I have ever been on--only 10 seats, and until we got up to cruising altitude it was pretty bumpy.  The guy I sat next to had never been on a plane, which is probably not surprising.

The one with the door open was the plane I took.

The RAAN from the air, getting close to Puerto.

Puerto from the air, and that is the ocean on the horizon.

The view from my room at the house of the family I'll be staying with.  Those are sheep.

I will be working with the organization Health Poverty Action and their partner organization Movimiento de Mujeres Nidia White, supporting their joint sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) education and prevention projects.  The Movimiento provides "integrated" services to survivors of violence including legal, psychological, and medical services and they run the only shelter in the entire RAAN region that is available for survivors who are in immediate danger or who have no where else to go.  They also provide education and awareness-building services in the form of trainings to community health promoters, traditional leaders, and directly to community members.  I spent my first few days at work touring the facilities, talking with each staff member, planning with the Health Poverty Action coordinator, and observing trainings in the communities.  Yesterday we had a meeting with the entire team and with two outside consultants who were hired by the project to discuss the baseline study on knowledge, attitudes and practices related to violence that they hope to carry out in the next couple of weeks.  I think it was definitely the first time I had ever discussed indicators, variables, methods, etc., in Spanish!  It was interesting and productive, but unfortunately we didn't make it very far through reviewing the survey that the consultants had designed.  I found out that the statistical program they use here is SPSS, which is the only one I happen to know.

Outside of the Movimiento de Mujeres building.

Inside of the building.

My first impression of Puerto is that it is a pretty interesting place because of how culturally and ethnically diverse it is.  People here speak three main languages: Miskito, Spanish, and Creole English, and some people speak all three.  It was explained to me that although almost everyone is at least somewhat inter-mixed ethnically (between Miskito, Mestizo (Hispanic), Afro-descendent, and various other indigenous groups such as Mayagna), everyone has a single ethnic identity that they most identify with based on how they were raised and the primary language they speak at home.  All of the staff and most adults in Puerto can speak Spanish because that is what is taught in school.  However, when speaking with each other they move seamlessly between all three languages, and everyone seems to follow the conversation.  Needless to say, it makes me wish I spoke more that just Spanish.  Here is Puerto, the majority speak Miskito at home, including the family I am living with.  I have decided that I wouldn't necessarily have to be able to speak it because I could always respond in Spanish, but it would be helpful to be able to understand it.  So far it has been fascinating to just listen to Miskito because of the way it incorporates a lot of Spanish words, but also English words (e.g. family, "siknis").  

One of the Movimiento's educators facilitating a community workshop on types of violence and the new law against gender based violence in a barrio of Puerto.

The community members who came.

I tried to upload a video of the workshop so that you can all hear what Miskito sounds like, and Spanish speakers can hear how Spanish words and even entire sentences in Spanish are used in conversation...but it keeps telling me there is an error.  I will try again later.  

So far, I have been mostly eating with the family and the food has been pretty good.  There are not many fruits or vegetables though since most things have to be flown in from Managua.  They eat a lot of turtle here.  The other day I had it twice: once at lunch and then again at dinner mixed into spaghetti. It was different that any other meat I've ever tried, though not bad.  I am pretty sure sea turtles are endangered but people eat them anyways, as it is a traditional food here.  

!Nicaragua! Llegué.

I got to Managua last Friday.  The administradora from the Health Poverty Action office in Managua picked me up in the airport and took me to buy a phone and to the super, and then to the hotel.  My first day was thus eerily like my first day in San Salvador.  I of course went to Metrocentro to do my errands, just like I did in San Sal, the only difference being that I got a Claro phone instead of Tigo.  The hotel even reminded me of Sisimiles.  Managua, like San Salvador, is a sprawly city of malls.  The next morning before my flight to Puerto, one of the hotel staff took me on a tour of Managua's main attractions.  There aren't many.  Everything historic is located around the Plaza de la Revolución, which looks like it is in a constant state of construction. It is also right on the lake and nearby they have recently built a family-friendly park along the water with fancy landscaping, playgrounds, and kiosk-type restaurants that is called the Puerto Salvador Allende.  Sort of looks like an American amusement park.

This is now the main museum in Managua and no longer the national palace.

This is the old cathedral that was destroyed in the 1972 earthquake, along with the rest of the city.  Neither it, nor the city really, has since been rebuilt.  The columns are wrapped with Christmas lights so apparently it looks pretty cool at night.