So I was going to wait till I got back from my site visit to write about it, but I decided that I was too excited and wanted to share my experience now!
I've been in Somoto since Saturday...that makes 3 days. And as of today I absolutely love it!
Somoto is a city, but it's not like any U.S. city I have ever seen. It has about 30,000 people but there are no tall buildings, no major business offices. It is more like what Americans picture as a town in other countries. It's surrounded by mountains and has a beautiful view no matter which way you turn to view the horizon. Even better, it gets really green starting around May and is very lush and spirit lifting apparently...I can't wait to see that! The climate right now is pretty warm during the day (I wear a tank top and skirt or shorts) and fresco or chilly at night. We will have a very hot and rainy season starting in about a month and running about 5-6 months.
The first night I arrived I felt quite overwhelmed. The host family I am staying with now and that I will be staying with for the 1st 6 weeks of service as a volunteer lives in let's just say humble conditions. My room, I found, was pretty much a hole in the wall. It was quite dirty with no place to hang my clothes and my bed is basiclly a wooden box with a very thin (1.5 inches thick) mattress that has been used beyond it's days. It's quite uncomfortable and I will definitely have to buy a new mattress so I don't worsen my back problems. So I was a little disappointed to find my living conditions like this.
But then it got worse. Night came and so did the mosquitos...and I forgot my mosquito net so I had to deal with them trying to attack me all night. Plus, I am living in the land of insects. There are giant (harmless but nonetheless scary) ants that climb all over the walls and on me while I am sleeping.
Then the first night as I am laying in bed trying not to think about the giant ants, I hear a weird airy noise coming from above. I turn on the dim light that's in my room to find that a BAT has slipped through the crack between the wall and the roof and is now trapped in my room and hovering frantically above my head....don't try and imagine the terror...you just can't until it happens to you...and I hope it never does.
So in my moment of fear and panic, I decided that not even prayer would help this situation...the only thing that would was me believing that what I could't see or hear couldn't harm me...so what did I do...I turned the light off, closed my eyes, covered my ears, and hid like a 4 year old under the covers and tried to go to sleep. to make a long story short, I woke up the next morning in one piece...with a slightly achy back and very tense muscles.
I have also made amends with the curious and numerous lizards that climb all over our walls. They eat the giant bugs that scare me so we're cool now. I just wish they wouldn't capture and devour them right in front of me in the kitchen while I am trying to eat my dinner of beans, sour cream, and tortilla...yeah it wasn't the best "welcome to our home" dinner, but my host family did what they could. The meals have been better since, in case you were concerned. and I found out today there is an awesome smoothie place right near my house so I am super psyched.
I probably have been giving Somoto a bad wrap up to this point...which is bad, because I really like Somoto. these are just some common things people have to deal with when living in certain parts of certain countries. (I don't want to say 3rd world or Latin America because one can have different experiences in those and not just one like this).
Somotans are great people. Everyone's been super nice (including my Somoto host family) and they are pretty fun to hang out with. Oh and they love to dance AND they can dance pretty well. my host brother who is in his late 20's took me with him and his friends to a local club and we had a blast. I saw nica men that cuold dance, and I learned an important lesson...Somoto men are freakin gorgeous (as are the women). so that's a positive.
I also got to see the apartment that I will most likely be staying in permenantly after my initial 6 week host family stay... it's huge and has a backyard with lemon and guayaba trees and a patio and plenty of space to start a garden, have barbeques, and host meetings for my youth or women's groups. It will be super sweet to have friends and family stay at when they come to visit and I will have a nice kitchen set up with a stove, refrigerator and everything. And the current volunteer is gonna give me her nice mattress for free (she is super nice and even more amazing) and her bike which will come in handy. I am also gonna buy a hammock from another volunteer finishing her service and some chairs and a table.
I can't wait to make it my own and have some get togethers...I'm gonna learn to cook (with veggies and fruits from my own garden) and have great parties and reunions with locals and fellow volunteers. the past volunteer liked to keep it more to herself but I just see it as a great way to be social and make connections with friends and the people I will be working with.
Why do I love my site the most though? because of the work I will be doing...
On Friday I met with one of my counterparts in Managua. Counterparts are Nicaraguans that work in health and will be my main co-workers...we'll collaborate on projects together and be working side by side throughout my two years. The counterpart I met on Friday was awesome. We hit it off right away...our personalities are very similar and she's very fun and great to work with. She is in charge of social communication at the medical administration office where I work and is in charge of the two groups of youths that run the health programs on the 2 radio stations in town...so I will be working with her quite a bit on putting together a radionovela (soap opera for the radio with teens) about health topics with those youth groups.
Another major part of my work will be training youths to be health promoters in their communities. But I won't be doing this in the city of Somoto much...rather I will be going on "salidas" or day trips to pueblos and very very rural communities 1-3 hours away and giving training sessions to teens there on sexual and reproductive health as well as self esteem and communication (and other topics important for teen health) so that they can then form youth groups in their small communities and teach them the life skills that they have learned.
So a major part of my job will be creating and facilitating these training sessions, but also it will include evaluating how current and these future training programs are working and making suggestions to the community health education team on how they can improve them.
We went out on a salida today to a community called San Lucas and I participated in my first training session. It was pretty amazing. The kids from the campo are pretty inspiring. They walk up to 2 hours to get to class every day and have to walk home that distance too. After our training session we drove a few of them as far as we could on their journey and it was eye opening. They really do live isolated from so much and it was so interesting to see how the people live and what they go without on our journey.
For the first time in my Peace Corps experience I feel like I have seen the true face of poverty and understand clearly why I am here. I have seen the people I can help, the people I am compelled to help, the people that would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it although that is all that they have, the people that will teach me more about life than I could ever teach them about health. It's been a very eye-opening and mind-transforming day and I feel a 110% more motivated and understanding of my purpose and potential as a volunteer and future international health worker. And I am sure that every day will bring more learning experiences, more understanding, and more inspiration.
Aside from these major training and radio projects I have mentioned, I also can work on secondary projects if I wish and get involved with the community in other ways. Some of the ideas I have had so far include:
joining the local women's softball team;
starting a youth or women's group to do gardening and teach about the importance of fruits, veggies, and a balanced diet (in my backyard garden of course);
teaching the women at the "casa materna" (a short stay hospital like place for women with high risk pregnancies who will be delivering soon) to crochet and making blankets for their soon to be newborns, meanwhile casually chatting about important health topics such as the value of breastfeeding and child nutrition as well as family planning and sexual health;
starting a reading group for youths at the local library;
taking bi-weekly trips with friends and locals to the nearby canyon where there is fishing, water sports, and rock climbing;
visiting friends in Ocotal and other nearby cities and watching movies with them every few weeks;
and of course throwing barbeques in my backyard from time to time.
I also really want to get back into arts and crafts and will likely be asking for people back home to send me some supplies I can't find here in Nicaragua (cross stitching sets for example).
Well that's it for today. This entry really doesn't do justice to what I have seen and learned recently about my new home and my newly understood purpose here, but hopefully future entries will help paint a more complete picture.
Until next time...I'll end by repeating the title quote which is appropriate for how I'm feeling about my PC experience right now:
"Not all those who wander are aimless".
