A Taste of the Next 2 Years

Hello again to family and friends and thanks for keeping up with my blog.  Once again I’ll try to throw in as many pictures as possible to keep things lively.  I really wish there was a way to completely transmit all the experiences I’ve been through so far because unfortunately my words rarely do it justice.

 At this point I've been living in my site, Quilali, for almost two months.  I have begun a lot of my work and have been finding plenty of ways to keep myself busy.  

For those who may not know this is as good of a time as any to explain the 3 goals that were set up for the Peace Corps, now 50 years ago:

1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

 That being said I've been finding that my job description goes a lot further than just working with the health centers but often expanding to explaining American culture and understanding that of Nicaragua.

I’ve been thinking for a long time on the best way in which to my experiences to those reading and I feel rather than trying to cover every little thing, I would do better to highlight a few of my experiences.  As you read please remember that these are maybe a quarter of my day to day life at best.  

This post covers the very end of my 3 months in my training town and my first 8 weeks or so in site.  The end of my time in training is highlighted with the finals in the tournament with my basketball team, a hike down into the Laguna de Apollo and swearing in.

This is a picture of my team:

 

Behind us is the little red moto taxi which we would all cram into to get to and from our games.  I know I look a lot bigger than them but…well it wasn’t as drastic as the photo makes it looks.  Either way we went to win a decent number of the games that we played and unfortunately I was unable to finish the tournament with them.  I will say one thing, basketball in the Nicaraguan Rec. League sense means very interesting games.  Rather than running plays, the majority of it is trying to emulate moves that they see on the NBA.  It’s a ton of fun and incredibly frustrating at the same time.

I also spent my last free weekend in my training town to go hiking down into the Laguna de Apollo.  It is one of the giant lakes that gives Nicaragua its famous phrase (Land of Lakes and Volcanoes).  It is located near Masaya and on its shores lie the jewel of Nicaragua, Granada.  This is a pictures from up above before we hiked down to the beach at the bottom.  Unfortunately I was so excited to swim that I forgot to take pictures of the beach itself.

In my site and during work hours a lot of my time is spent planning.  Planning lectures, travel, logistics, youth groups, further activities and fairs with the health center.

The following series of pictures is from the week of Easter (called Semana Santa) during which we were required by central control to do at least 600 rapid HIV tests.  So during a week where the majority of people are at the rivers and their “beaches” drinking and relaxing, we set up tests and went out to gently prod Nicaraguans into taking the tests.  This includes giving pre and post test counseling as well as dozens of lectures on HIV/AIDS, sexual reproductive health and whatever other topics the general public wanted information on.  At some point during the days of the our campaign my counterparts found out that I had never really ridden a horse before and that it was one of my goals in Nicaragua to travel around on a horse as part of my job.  They flagged down a passing campesino (farmer) on a horse and asked if I could ride it.  To get the laughs out of the way this horse was rather small...and completely out of my control
 

A truck get stuck in the river as it tries to cross over to the other side of the "beach"

Setting up in the morning for the rapid testing

The doctors and other health workers waiting for more patients in the blazing noon sun

Sometimes for a little while nobody would come, and then all of a sudden we would have a line of 30 waiting

Poor horse...my feet are almost dragging on the ground

A properly sized rider on the horse

Denis with the son of the driver crossing the river on a felled tree with me bringing up the rear

 

walking up to the house on the farm with Jan Carlos and Jarito (the two kids)

My second set of adventures was an excursion further into the campo (countryside) than I already live.  I took a ride in the back of a pickup truck out to the farm which my new host family operates.  I thought I was well isolated in my site, but it is nothing compared to the river fording, mountain climbing, out of cell phone range type of isolation I faced there.  It was absolutely amazing and I’m looking forward to spending a few more nights out there.  On a slightly different note, something I’ve learned about roosters, they don’t just crow at dawn, they crow whenever they damn well please…which includes every ten minutes after you try to go to sleep.

all the farm animals and Chipe the nephew of my host mom taking care of them

Jarol (Jarito's dad) chops down some sugar cane for us to eat

Jarol works as an agricultural technician at a Co-op, and is out inspecting some of the fields

Jarol and his partner take a load of platanos (plantains) back to the HQ

The view from the other side of the farm

 

This last sequence of pictures is random shots of lectures and work that I have been involved with in the past 2 months.

Giving a lecture on the management of chronic disease to a group of older patients and working on a month by month treatment option.

Trying to get the kids from one of my youth group to let out some energy by playing "human knot"

One of my counterparts in the middle of giving a lecture to a youth group about STI's

One of my youth groups giving talk on HIV/AIDS to their peers

The Doctors I had gone with out a Salida de Terreno (when we visit the communities)

Me giving a lecture on water contamination at the local school

The one fuzzy picture that has both me and the kids in it

Well unfortunately that's all I have for now.  Let me know if there are any specific questions or thoughts you had about Nicaraguan culture on my email nish.kishore@gmail.com

For those who want to send letters or packages, my new and hopefully permanent address is:

Nishant Kishore
Apartado Postal 21
Ocotal, Nueva Segovia
Nicaragua
Centroamerica

Thanks for reading and I really look forward to hearing from all of you!

By the way, this video is how we go on those visits out into the community to give lectures and work with youth groups.  It's probably one of the best parts of my day.