My career according to an 8 year old

A gymnast that I coach asked me: "Miss Rachel, you are almost grown up. What are you going to be when you grow up?"

I explained my life ambitions in 8 year old terms. Then I asked her if she knew what that was called. She thought about it, and then she said:

"Of course Miss Rachel! You're going to be a peacemaker!"

My life is complete.

Honduras

I'm going to work in La Paz, Honduras this summer!

HAPPY 30th ANNIVERSARY

At 4:12 am we were awakened to what sounded like world war 3. In reality, it was just all of NIcaragua lighting anything they could fill with gunpowder to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the triumph of the Sandinista revolution...

Aside from that, things have been crazy, but amazing. I´ve done a really terrible job blogging, but I´ve made some great friends in host communities and talked to some insanely interesting poeple. Another good note, despite some drama, all my CBI´s are well on their ways. They include:

• Libico: This community is building chicken coops, and then buying 4 chickens and a rooster for each initial family. They will use most eggs for food, and when babies are born, they will pass on 4 chickens and a rooster to the next family, in an effort to create sustainable protein source within the community.
• Hilapo: This community is very rural and one of my most impoverished. The PMA, a governemnt agency, delivers food to teh school every two months and the mothers cook it for lunch, but the food has been stolen twice, so their project is to construct a storage facility with a lock to protect the childrens food, and hopefully add an open air stove/kitchen in the future so that the madres don´t have to carry the food long distances
• La Yosa: After some drama(as in Rachel and the town coordinator bumpingheads a few times) this community is forming a soccer team and a basebal team, and using the money to buy equipment and t-shirt uniforms
• San Francisco: This community has a lot of youth involvement and they are forming two youth soccer teams. They even went to the alcaldia to get the paperwork to enter the teams into the local league. We bough soccer balls and jersey uniforms with Amigos money, and I am SO excited to go to their first game. They named the teams Ämigos de las Americas, and the other one is the Ambientalistas. too cute.

Aside from CBI´s, we just had our youth encuentro, which was a huge success. The volunteers and youth from each community collaborated on a presentation to bring to the youth fair. I had some awesome presentations, from poetry to a song about the community. One community made pottery out of the natural clay that forms during rainy season in community. Another taught me how to make torta de pina, a pastry with pineapple filling that we sold as a fundraiser. All were awesome, but San francisco definately stole the show. They brought the school band and had an incredible drum line, plus taught my vols a dance to go with it. It was AMAZING!

Hmm... aside from that, I can´t believe that summer is halfway over! It´s going so quickly! I only have 2 more route weeks, which I am 100% looking forward to, and then of course the travel time afterwards!

*On a side note: thank goodness we are not in Mexico. In Michocan, there have been several drug cartel shootouts in small towns, which would be the community level of Amigos... I guess everything hapens for a reason, but keep Mexico in your thoughts...

Pictures and videos coming soon to a facebook near you!

Quote of the week

From a very wise community member:

¨Nadie es tan pobre que no se pueda dar, como nadie es tan rico que no se pueda recibir¨

translation: No one is so poor that the cannot give, no one is so rich that they cannot recieve

Photos

I put up pictures. Click the link on the right!

21 años!

It´s not everyday one celebrates a sober 21st birthday in a country where the legal drinking age is 18... but then again, its not every day that one gets to party with the best project staff ever in Matagalpa!

Basically, the b-day was a blast, from the cards made from nutella crepes at breakfast, to charla supplies and semi-anti-climactic baloons, to the virgin margaritas and bomb.com ice cream cookies cake, complements of the amazing in house chefs. I wouldn´t have wanted it any other way.

Thanks everyone!

Survey

Just a quick update, since I have to do budget and type up my community profiles before our staff meeting...

Route was an inredible experience. The fact that complete strangers welcome me into their home for a night alone is enough, but that they then accept volunteers for 5 weeks, free of charge is a testament to the hospitality of Latin America. All in all, the experience was a fantastic one, lots of challenging moments... but incredibly rewarding.

Look out for pictures.. coming soon!

The Whirlwind

Palabra del dia: Matagalpa: indigenous, various meanings; the most common ¨to the rocks¨

It´s day 3 in Nica and it has been crazy loco...

After flying upside down on a canopy tour, climbing Nicaragua´s most active volcano and sledding down it, and going to the beach, I have arrived in Matagalpa, which is amazingly beautiful.

Now the real work begins. The volunteers arrive June 24th, so we have just a few short days to get our bearings, survey the host communities, and plan briefing.

TO THE ROCKS!

On cramming one's posessions into a large backpack...

Packing.
That's what I'm doing. In reality, I've been packed all year, incessantly flitting between 5 countries in the past 365 days. Yet, every time its a new struggle. Whether its the sheer monotony of packing 3oz bottles of shampoo inside plastic baggies, or the fantasies of my location the next time I don my 'hug a tree' underwear, packing for me seems to be an interminable task.