Heaps

Hello People! I wrote this many weeks ago before I returned to Costa Rica but I have been super super busy and could not post! Ciao °!

March 7th
Greetings from Managua, Nicaragua!
I have been here for two weeks already! Time really does go by quickly.
The past 13 days has been an experience. I worked in a dump every day, cooked food for 600 school children, rode around a city in the back of a construction truck, went to a Nicaraguan gay discotheque more than once, attended Carnaval of nicaragua, got 2nd degree burns, drank fresco from a plastic bag three times a day, saw a cuban revolutionary musician perform (sylvio rodriguez!!) and met some amazing people.
I came to Nicaragua for my two weeks of independent study granted to me from my school. My plans were a little iffy before I left because communication is often slow around here. The goal was to do a photo project of the children that live and work in the city dump or just children of Nicaragua. It was pretty vague and i had a few organizations lined up but fortunately for me, I stayed with One for almost the whole time.
I settled myself Into the Managua packpackers inn which has been a great home for the past two weeks.
Most other travelers only stay for the night besides the few of us here for other things. Some interesting people have gone through here including some rambunctious peace corps volunteers. They just reinforced my desire to not join the peacecorps after graduation. They were so cliquey and worst of all racist. I couldn't comprehend how they could keep talking about "those mexicans" and "those arabs" while they are volunteering in Nicaragua for two years! It makes not sense to me. It makes me question their real motives to being a volunteer.
I became good friends with Shannon from the USA here working on her thesis for grad school on violence against women, Fernando a gay Guatemalan here helping Shannon out and Calle this crazy swedish kid who's been traveling through central america for six months!
So let me try to remember my days, they all kind of blended together and passed really quickly!

The bus ride was long (11 hours!) from costa rica. There were about 8 of us from school on the same bus but everyone got dropped off in Grenada except for Rachel and Me. We arrived in managua around 5pm on a saturday meaning one thing, no banks were open. This posed as a major problem for the both of us considering our independent study money was in dollars and not cordobas. We convinced a cab driver to drive us to both of our hostels for $6 which is pretty expensive now that I think about it. Rachel was staying at a house type place but actually ended up going back to costa rica three days later because she got really sick. I was dropped off at my hostel with no money and no idea what I would be doing for the next two weeks. Hooray for me! I guess that's why they call it independent study. I managed to walk down the street in the dark alone (against all warnings from the school and parents) to find some food. It was a steak place and the only thing veggie on the menu was a salad of course and it was $7!! Expensive for nicaragua (usually less than $1 for a salad)! I was told that managua was a dirty, ugly and very dangerous city but I found most of it to be opinion based and I actually like it a lot and really want to come back!

I basically hung around the hostel for most of the first day because I didn't know the city at all. Discovered the mall about two feet down the street after a lot of searching and the supermarket in the opposite direction. Careless me, I forgot my travel alarm clock in heredia so I had to find a watch with one so I wouldnt be late to work the next day. Got some food and went to bed really early.

I had no idea what I was in for in terms of work. All I knew is that I wanted to work in La Chureca, the community that lives in the city dump.
I don't really remember how I was put in touch with Deanna, but I am sure glad I was. Deanna is the co-founder and director of the Organizaion NicaHope. This might all be kind of confusing so let me break it down and stop tying in a daily schedule.

LA CHURECA
On the outskirts of Managua the poorest city in the poorest country in Central and South America is the city dump. It has been there since the 1960's right on the edge of Lake Managua. Every day hundreds of people go there to pick out whatever they can to sell, use or eat; mostly plastic bottles. Included in these hundreds are many children that instead of getting the education to help secure their future, are working in the trash heaps. Even small ones as young as three years old are helping their parents and siblings find plastic. The plastic collected is then sold to small dealers on the outskirts of the dump, which is then sold to central america and finally to the United States to makes new bottles for some aquafina. Most of the workers live in the barrio outside of the dump, aqaualinca. Around 175 families actually live inside in La Chureca. La Chureca is the slang name for the community of people that live and work in the dump. Literally people living among trash. There is a small private jesus school inside but thats about it. The children have blonde in the their hair do to lack of nutrition and many start huffing glue around the age of 8 to ease hunger pains. This is where I decided I wanted to do my work. My plan was a photo project of the children that live in La Chureca.

NicaHope
I am not really sure how I got in contact with Deanna, the director at NicaHope, but it was through a bunch of other organizations. She and the organization really helped me make value of my time in Managua. NicaHope is a new organization that Deanna and some other people started a year ago, though many of the programs just started this past month! It is a vocational program set up for the people that live in La Chureca that will hopefully lead to jobs in the future. There is a computer literacy program, jewelry making, business class, accounting, blacksmith, auto mechanics and computer repair. They also have set up a free lunch program at the public primary school in aqaualinca in order to try an increase attendance. This school is where I spent most of my first week. The children that go to the school live outside of the dump but most of their families and some of them work there. My job was to see how the lunch program was running because it was newly established. I worked with the volunteer mothers every day cutting and serving for hours. It was quite an experience. I was able to give Nicahope and the mothers some input mostly about organization so things would be easier for them in the long run. For example, setting up buckets for the children to put designated ´bowls,spoons, etc. in when they were done eating. It made clean up so much easier.
NicaHopes most advanced project so far is the computer literacy program. Hired professors come and teach children and adults from La Chureca how to use a computer and windows for the basic classes and some hard stuff for the advanced classes. I sat in on a few and they are really quite interesting and try to make it fun for the younger kids by incorporating games.
I made many trips with Deanna and others into La chureca throughout my time there.

ETC
The second week I was supposed to join a group of college students from Virginia on a trip with orphannetwork but that didn't really go as planned. I met up with them on their 2nd day in Managua and went to a church service...sort of. We went to a refugee camp that was set up many years ago after hurricane mitch for the people who had their houses destroyed, mostly on the edge of aqaualinca. The church service was singing and then after we just hung out with the kids there all day and had a carnival sort of thing. It was fun but it got annoying after awhile being with 200 students from different schools in virginia. It was basically, pick one kid to be "your kid" for the day. So it was weird. I also joined them the next day on a trip to El Canyon an orphanage well.. in the Canyon. We painted a wall and played with the kids. It ended up being similar to the day before as in.. picking out kids. I did not like this concept and hanging out with so many people so I ended up going back to NicaHope to spend the rest of week there.

Dia De Luz (Day of Light)
Before I left for Nicaragua I had been in brief touch with a guy named Brad who founded an organization called Love, Light and Melody. Little did I know that he happened to be a member of the late 90s craze rock group, Distpatch, whom many of my friends back home really enjoy. They broke up a couple years ago but recently had a reunion for some zimbabwe benefit in New York. So Brad, or Braddigan as his solo stuff is known as, held a big concert in La Chureca last year called Dia De Luz, and lucky for me It was happening again on my last day in Managua. The point of the day was to talk to the people who work and live there and then end with a concert and hang out with the kids. While all this is great it was really really awkward to see about 600 gringos marching through the dump. I felt almost as though a lot of it was patronizing and uncalled for. The people seemed to enjoy it and I suppose that was the point. I got really sunburned and by sunburned i mean a whole layer of my skin peeled off.

I met this amazing woman while being in Nicaragua, named Alejandra. She is a single mother with 7 kids under the age of 9. All of them beautiful and happy. The photo above is of Olondra (9) the oldest, John (9 months) the youngest, and Brittany (8). They live in probably the worst spot in La Chureca,right on the edge of the road near where everything is dumped. Alejandra now works at Nicahope as a cleaning person but also a program organizer because she recruits a lot of people to go to the programs at NicaHope. While this is better than her old job of working in the dump, it is still very hard for her to support her family. I loved playing with her kids and just having conversations with her. It really made me question all that I learn and beleive in.
I have worked with nonprofits and social justice groups for a decent amount of time and have always learned that implimenting long term programs such as vocational centers is the best way to alleviate poverty. I still strongly beleive this, but meeting alejandra and the people of La Chureca makes it so hard. There are immediate needs that are not being met such as shoes to be able to goto school and a bed to sleep in. How will the long term ever be accomplished if there are these immediate needs in the way? I cant answer that because I know handouts are not the way to go but a lot of me just wants to do it. Its a really difficult internal struggle that Im going to have to deal with because I know I will be working with these causes for the rest of my life. The people that I meet are just amazing. hmmm

On a more scholarly note, I have a lot of fantastic pictures and my project is going to be great. I think I might go back to managua during portfolio week if I finish early. Thats my goal.


Overalllll....
It was one of the best experiences ever being on my own and trying to figure everything out. I really think my spanish improved a lot in two weeks and I feel like I can go anywhere alone now. The feeling of seeing and doing things for myself and just being independent was awesome. Every experience at this school just makes me feel so accomplished and I learn so much. Yay!

An Adventure

Last Thursday I departed for a three(turned four) day field trip and I had the most amazing time. This was by far my best Costa Rican experience to date. There is so much to say that I think I am going to write in chapters. Here we go...

Chapter One: Dr. Grant, my dear Dr. Sattler. Welcome to Jurassic Park
The Journey began with a very long trek (4 hours!) to the coast of the country. To get there we had to drive through giant mountains and rain forests. I don't really have many words to describe how spectacular it was besides a visual. Imagine the classic film of Jurassic Park , and the children sitting in a giant tree and a brontosaurus reaching his neck over to eat some leaves. While driving through this lush green place, i really expected some velociraptor to jump on top of our bus. I found out later on that Jurassic park was in fact filmed in Costa Rica... go figure.
We contunued on through the jungle and then all of a sudden BAM! there we were right next to the beach. Litteraly rainforst then beach. I read a sign that said "in the midst of the jungle at the edge of the sea". perfect.

Chapter Two: Come, Mr. Tally Mon, tally me banana
Upon arrival in Limon we were quickly rushed off the bus in order to eat a fast lunch because we were late. Some free time was throw in there and Rachel and I proceeded to get lost somewhere by the park next to the sea as it started to pour and I mean POUR rain. The bus was supposed to meet us down by the park but it wasn't there so we got pretty wet. Eventually after some exploration on my part, the bus was found. Turns out it just hadn't arrived and everyone else was lost with us. We were then dropped off at some sort of community center where a man told us the history of Limon and growing up in the afro-carribean community. Then we had our own personal concert by a calypso band. They played classics such as Day-O and Matilda. They were so amazing! Unfortunately this was a pretty short visit and we had to get back on the bus for another long trek to the indigenous community of BriBri.

Chapter Three: 107
Sleep was my first activity in the BriBri community since we got there pretty late in the evening. Friday Morning there was a 6am wakeup call and I basically wanted to Die. The days activities were to be based on what class we were taking. Holistic health had their own agenda while the people in Indigenous peoples, including myself, would be divided. The first was going on a one hour boat ride and a treacherous hike to visit a women's tourism project. While that group ended up illegaly crossing the panama border by boat in order to play in a really cool waterfall , I still feel like my experience was Incredible. There were only six people in my group so it made for a good adventure. We ventured down the mountain a little ways to the watsi community. There we first went on a walk through the forrest with a watsi girl learning about different plants and what the watsi use them for. She told us that in her parents youth women were the powerful people of the community. They were the leaders and the ones that everyone followed. Then of course some preistly person came in and converted them all to catholicism and women are now looked upon as less than men because "the bible says so". ugh. Following that escapade, we walked over to a mans house where he showed us everything to eat and do with plants in the area. It was so cool. He made a rope bracelet, that is now around my wrist, out of palm leaves and dyed it with different seeds/fruit. He showed us this awesome tree that has really sharp spikes all over it and then showed us the spikey seed of the plant. If you scrape off the spines on the seen then plant it, the tree will grow bare! So interesting.

We continued across the road to the "father" of the watsi community. By the way the watsi are basically one big family of great great grandkids, aunts, cousins, brothers, etc. We entered a building that was one of the typical inside/outside kinds and had no idea what was coming. In the corner there was an old man sitting in a chair whom looked to be about 80ish. The woman we were with introduced him as her grandfather and said he was the only one in the community that knew the traditional dance and song of the watsi. The tradition had never been passed down. She needed participants but lacked males because there were only two in our small group , so she scurried to some other houses and rounded up some guys including our weirdo bus driver (he liked to bark at me and sneak up behing me and try to scare me). I cant really explain what happened next but the men formed a circle holding onto each other backs and started movin in a circular motion while the old guy sang. It was also a call and response and sounded so cool. After about 5 minutes i was pushed in under the old guys arm and my friends seths arm. Considering seth is the tallest person I have ever met (6, 6) and the old man was half the size of me, I was in a little pain. The circle continued with all the girls involved for quite awhile. It was such a fantastic experience. We found out soon after that this guy was 107 years old!! 107! I couldnt beleive it, that just made it so much more incredible. I was standing in a room with 5 generations at least. After the dancing we were served traditional food in GIANT leaves! It was so good and I couldnt even finish. Then we followe the old man down the road to a path. We were invited to his home. Walking down the path we all of a sudden saw a river and some metal stuff. We realised then, that there was a giant bridge we had to cross. Again, think back to jurassic park. Long, very long rope and plank bridge. It was so scaryy! See photo above. I really thought I was going to fall into the river way down below. It was all worth it in the end because we got to hang out in this guys home which was on stilts! The floor was all made of bamboo type stuff and wow, we all wanted to sleep over. Hammocks, chairs, no shoes, so cool. We were sad to leave our new, more than a century old friend, but we did and had another adventure in store for the rest of the day.
We headed over to a womens co-operative that makes chocolate! We got a little sampling of how it was made and then of course got to eat a little bit of it. Chocolate is not good raw in case you were wondering. Back to the hotel for a speaker from the association and another short night of sleep.

Chapter Four: Paradise Found?
Saturday was another distant drive, only not so much. We went down the mountain and again exited the jungle to find the ocean. We were in the small beach town of Puerto Viejo know for the best wave on the carribean side of the country. Its tourist season, but there were not too many tourists. Most of the gringos actually lived there. It a mixture between the hippies that moved to live on a commune down there in the 60s and the west coast surfers that came down for the waves. Their offspring make for a pretty interesting bunch. They are a bunch of dreaded, surfing, art selling hippies. Totally cool! They also all speak spanish so its pretty interesting. I feel like it would make a great independent study. somday. Anyways, before we hit the beach my group went to talk to man named sunnyboy. yes, sunnyboy. He is an elderly man of afro-carribean decent that has lived in puerto viejo his whole life almost. He told us his thoughts of the discusting marina they are going to build next year in the bay. This bay is beautiful by the way and pretty soon it will be filled with yachts and everything that comes along with that. He also showed us around his property and the interesting plants that he had. After, we went to the beach! How many schools take you on a field trip to the beach? We went to manzanillo beach which was right down the street from puerto viejo like 15 minutes. Beautiful! I have always hated beaches but for some reason this one just called out to me and i actually swam in the ocean! Imagine that! Maybe it was that I felt like I was in a little piece of paradise with the beach and the palms trees and basically just the surroundings. A few hours of sitting on the sand, it was time to head back to Heredia. My friends and some other people decided to stay behind for some extra beach time and exploration of puerto viejo. Whitney, Jim and I got a room at hotel puerto viejo, a hostel right in the center of town. It was pretty entertaining. That night we went to the local dance place and rocked out and met some cool tico friends. Sunday morning we all got up early to spend the day on the beach. That is where I met Scrat. Scrat is a 5 year old boy who looks like he came right out of a dumpster. Okay not that extreme but he has blond dreaded hair, freckles, walks around in just his bathing suit, missing a tooth and has staph infections all over his face. He speaks only english because his family is from louisiana or something. His parents are nomadic hippies whom had been living out of rockin Js (the hammock hostel) for the past month or so with Scrat and his baby sister. Oh his name is scrat because he picked that name and so his parents decided that would be it, totally hippie-like. Cutest kid, I wanted to take him home. Its a shame his parents dont really look after him. I really wanted to give him some sort of ointment for those staph infections. I hope he is there for me to hang out with when I got back. Dont ever let me become like his nomadic hippie parents.
So beach was fun and beautiful and the bus ride back to San Jose was horrible, but it was all worth it. Now I cant wait for my wheaton friends to visit me in two weeks so I can show them this awesome place!

This field trip really made me appreciate the education I am getting. I would not be able to do the things I am doing without being at this school. They really let you be independent but also have structure. And I am learning things first hand. How often in a traditional school would I get to go on a field trip like this and actually meet the people and see the things I am learning about? Not very often.
Okay thats enough for now. Ciao!

Long Time no See

I realize it has been a good three weeks since I last updated. Things here have been crazy! I've been busy with a lot of writing, planning and well...hanging out. Last post I was planning on attending my host sister's birthday where she turned 32! That was a fun time and everyone was up until 6am! Her friends were pretty interesting characters.
I don't have much time to update right now because the center closes in ten minutes, but I was finally able to upload the video of my house. I didn't really feel like talking the three weeks ago when i created it, so don't worry if there isn't any sound.
A longer update will follow tomorrow.
House Tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HKo2m6uVvY