Santa Isn't the Only Reason for a Parade

      Hola!

      About an hour ago I turned on my computer with the intention of writing a blog post. I didn't really have many interesting things to say until I began hearing a faint roar of drums coming from a few blocks away. My friends and I went to the window to see what was going on and found a parade passing by. We ran outside to watch the people dancing and playing Latin music using a variety of drums, what I assume was a Xylophone, and a few other instruments I've never seen before. The dancing was well coordinated and the music was great, but I wanted to know what was going on. As it turns out, the parade was a public health promotional tool. The message: get tested for HIV and use condoms. What a great way to get the public's attention! I wish we could have a parade about eating fruits and vegetables...

       I finally saw surgeries last Wednesday! One of the doctors in Maternity told me to follow one of the "Medico Internos", Marginee, because she knew some English. I was able to see 4 cesarean sections, 2 tubal ligations, a hysterectomy and some sort of laproscopic knee surgery. Surgery was interesting to watch, but I wished I had been able to ask questions about what I was seeing. Also, my knee hurt from volcano boarding, making it difficult to stand in the OR for long periods of time. This week is supposed to be my last week of volunteering...I couldn't find Marginee on Monday (I like to follow her around because if I really can't communicate in Spanish, English is there to fall back on) so I came home early and made a food guide poster for the health clinic using typical Nicaraguan foods as examples. On Tuesday, I found Marginee at 8:30 am. She had finished all her work already... entonces we went to the hospital library. She read a book in English and I read one in Spanish. The afternoon was highly productive as well, I browsed Avon catalogs with an OB-GYN. Thus, I think it's easy to understand and rationalize why I decided Tuesday would be my last day. 

         Today I went to Granada with Matt and Daniel (one of the November volunteers who is now coming to Costa Rica and Panama as well), because it would be Daniel's only chance to go. The plan was to try to see a movie (I was hoping for Harry Potter). I feel going to a movie in Nicaragua would be a cool experience. The movies were closed though. Maybe I'll be able to see Harry Potter in Panama City! The day was still good. I had an amazing piece of pecan pie and went to the Chocolate Museum again. Tomorrow I need to pack for the rest of my travels, bring my food guide to the clinic, and perhaps take some more pictures of Jinotepe. 

         Last Saturday we went to Mombacho volcano. It is an inactive volcano covered in cloud forest. I paid the $10 to take the truck up to the visitor's center due to my knee which still hurts. The others decided to hike. Two and a half hours later they reached the top, drenched in sweat. The hike wouldn't have been bad at first, but after a certain point the incline is practically vertical. There were 2 trails at the top of the volcano. I really wanted to hike the long trail but had to settle for the shorter trail with my knee still healing. We spent Sunday on the beach, working on our tans. 

        This may be my last post for awhile as we head to San Juan del Sur on Friday. If hostels have computers I can use, I'll most like write some stuff, I just won't be able to post pictures. Blogger has a page where I can see the stats of my blog: how many times each post is read, what browser it was read on, the countries people were in, etc. It's strange to think that random people might be searching for something and my blog turns up in the results. The stats show people reading in Canada (obviously), Nicaragua (probably me, haha), South Korea (Anisa I think!), the US and Peru. I can't seem to figure out who I know in the US and Peru that would be reading and it's made me curious! As long as its being read, that's good I suppose.

       Gracias por leiendo!

Maria

Teeny tiny Gecko we found in the house!

Mombacho's crator overgrown with forest

View of Granada and Lake Nicaragua from Mombacho

Inside the forest

Lookout point on Mombacho's Crator Trail

      

  

Note to Self: Stop Attempting Extreme Sports

Have you ever heard of Volcano boarding? Well, neither had I until I came to Nicaragua. Last weekend I went to Léon, a colonial city 2 hours north east of Managua. Léon is known for being the cultural capital of Nicaragua and one of the only places in the world where you can go volcano boarding. There are also a hand full of elaborate cathedrals and museums in the city. One of the cathedrals, Catedral de Léon, is the largest cathedral in Central America. It was massive and really was a work of art. Construction of Catedral de Léon was completed in 1747 after over 30 years of labour. Seeing the sign outside with the completion date made me think of how incredible it is that a building that large and elaborate could have been built in the 1700s. I wanted to check out a few of the museums on Sunday, but they seemed to be closed or were too far away to walk to.

The main highlight of the weekend (besides the awesome 75 cent mojitos the bar at the hostel had) was our volcano boarding trip. Volcano boarding can mean one of two things- either riding down the volcano on a toboggan-like board or on a snowboard-like board. The hostel offered the tobogganing style of volcano boarding so that's what we tried. It sounds really cool, and it was. Well at least the hike up the volcano was. The volcano used for boarding is Cerro Negro, which is the youngest volcano in Central America. It is an active cinder cone volcano which spews rocks and ash out the top, and lava threw cracks at its base during an eruption. We hiked up the rocky side and rode down the side with small rocks and sand. The views from the top were INCREDIBLE and definitely worth it. After photographing the view, I looked over the edge where I was about ride down. SCARY STEEP. Myself and others wondered out loud why we had actually paid money to do this. I was horrible at surfing and I anticipated I wouldn't be to great at volcano boarding either. I was right, I fell off the board twice. The first time I twisted my knee and now I walk around with a limp. The second time, I did a few somersaults and scratched my arm and face a little bit. Unfortunately, although I rolled down the hill quite a ways, my board did not and I had to walk the rest of the way down.... I think it was about half of the way down! Not fun. Thus, I am going to stop trying things like this. I wanted to try it because it sounded really awesome and I didn't want to be the loser of the group who is too afraid to try things. Now I think everyone will understand when I sit out for these sorts of things...

On a more happy note, I have decided to cancel the two additional weeks I had already added to my volunteer program. David and Matt are going to be travelling to Costa Rica and Panama so I figured I might as well join them. Since I am already in Central America and have friends to travel with, I may as well see a few more countries. We're going to start the journey off in San Juan del Sur. The guys plan on surfing again but I'll just lie on the beach... maybe rent a boogie board. Then we'll go through Costa Rica to Panama. After seeing the Panama Canal and spending some time on the Caribbean coast of Panama (I think that is going to be my favourite part since I've never been anywhere with white sand and clear water!), we'll head back to Costa Rica and take our time coming back to Nicaragua. I'll be returning to Jinotepe for a night or two to grab my suitcases and then I'll be flying home on December 17^th! My trip is barely only half over. Crazy to think about. I'm really excited to travel more but at the same time it will be nice to return home after almost three months. I need to stop thinking about it though, or else I'll start craving conveniences such as a washer and dryer.

I am supposedly going to spend tomorrow watching surgeries so I hope that actually happens. I spent today in the Maternity ward, mostly talking vital signs with a student auxiliary nurse while the nurses sat around talking. I also walked around and wrote down words on the posters lining the hall so that I can look them up. I think my Spanish vocabulary needs some work!

Here are a few pictures from this weekend. I'm not sure of the names of most of the cathedrals so I had to leave them unnamed!

Maria

View from the top of Cerro Negro

There was an Iguana farm at the base of Cerro Negro

Gangsta Maymar

Catedral de Leon

The Miracle of Life

Hola Chicos y Chicas!

I began my volunteer placement at Regional Hospital Santiago in Jinotepe last week. I started off in the laboratory and ended up staying there all week. The lab was different than a hospital lab in Canada would be (or how I assume it would be based on the labs I have seen) because the technology used is decades behind what we have. However, this technology is what North America used to have and so it does the job. Rather than having one area to take blood samples and another for the lab technicians to carry out the tests, people actually went right into the lab to have their blood taken. Although I'm not 100% sure, I was under the impression that all of the lab staff are capable of taking blood samples, which makes for an efficient system. I spent most of my time testing creatinine and glucose levels, but I did a few hematocrit tests (I even tested the hematocrit level of my own blood!). Most of the people in the lab were really nice to me and still talk to me when I see them in the hospital halls. However, there were two students in the lab and I felt that they were not happy that I was there. I don't blame them either, because I felt I was taking away from their learning experience.

I spent Monday and part of Tuesday in Pediatrics. It was rather boring... I've come to accept that most of what I'll be doing at the hospital is just observing, but there just isn't much to observe in Pediatrics. The nurses take vital signs and give medications a few times a day but other than that, there is nothing for me to do or watch. There are also student nurses. They were nice and taught me to take vital signs. Some of the other nurses let me inject medications into a few kids too. I had to inject a syringe filled with 10 ml of solution into kids less than a year old. I've never been injected with 10 ml of medication at once but according to their screams it really, really hurts.

On Tuesday afternoon I hung out in Labour and Delivery. Nicaragua women are incredibly strong and could teach us a thing or two about pain. I saw three births! Two boys and a girl. All very adorable, but their heads appeared to be oddly shaped. This morning I saw two more births, but I spent most of the morning studying Spanish and waiting for the action to begin. I could go into details, but I won't to spare anyone with a weak stomach. I thought it was cool and I learned that I am not squeamish at the sight of blood. Watching births was amazing but I have quickly realized that this “volunteer experience” is not going to be what I was anticipating. Sure I am voluntarily spending my time in the hospital, but I expected the hospital to actually need volunteers. They don't, or at least not at the moment. They are functioning fine without volunteers. I think volunteers who are fluent in Spanish or actual doctors or nurses would be of some use, but as I am neither, all I do is watch and do a few tasks while the person who normally does the task watches me. I know having expectations when experiencing a new thing can be setting oneself up for disappointment, but my expectations were based on the definition of the word “volunteer” for the most part. The hospital does need help, but not mine. They need money and supplies. For example, the nurses in Pediatrics keep solutions for cleaning surgical wounds in used pop bottles because they don't have anything else to keep them in. The remainder of my expectations are based on the experiences of other volunteers I know. I have heard stories from/about others in medical volunteer placements, but they were at the San Jose Hospital in Diriamba. I am beginning to think that part of why I am not having a great time has to do with my hospital. Thus, I am going to go to Diriamba with David tomorrow to see how he interacts with the patients and staff, and to see the differences between the two hospitals. If I like the San Jose Hospital, I will switch placements.

I am sad that it seems like I won't get that awesome feeling of helping others and accomplishing something that wouldn't have otherwise happened but I will learn from this experience and there is value in that. I am hoping to see some surgeries soon (I was sent to go watch one but apparently I'm not allowed to at Santiago hospital...) and will have seen enough medicine by the end of the month to help me decide whether I want to apply to Med school after my Masters or not. However, a part of me does wish a health and medical placement was not an option here. Other placements, such as teaching English in schools, are real volunteer experiences, but mine has not been thus far. Another option would be to keep the placement as an opportunity, but let people know it is more of a learning and job shadowing experience than one of volunteering.

For anyone still reading after I babbled on about my placement, now I'll tell you about where I went last weekend. There are three new volunteers now and it's been a lot of fun having more people around. On Saturday, David and I went to Masaya to go to their famous market. I'd heard that the market has the largest selection and cheapest souvenirs in the country. The selection was large but I found the prices were not necessarily that great. I want to go back to Catarina now because there was nicer and better priced things there. As a whole, the Masaya market was HUGE! We even got lost in it a few times...

Then we headed to Masaya Volcano Park. The entire park is actually an active volcano that used to be a lot taller. There is currently one active crater but another area of the park could technically blow at any time. The view from the top was interesting, though I couldn't stay there long because of the sulfur dioxide the crater was omitting. After sunset, the other volunteers arrived and we were able to have a night tour of the volcano since we had a large enough group. The tour started off with a trip into one of the volcano's caves. This one just happened to be inhabited by thousands of bats. I used to love going through the Bat Cave at the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) when I was younger. The real thing was better, but little more scary and definitely dirty. The floor had a nice coating of guano (bat feces) and the moisture from the ceiling slowly dripped on me. As we walked into the cave, the bats retreated due to the shine of our flashlights. Once the group was all together, everyone turned off their flashlights and bats swarmed all around us. They didn't fly into me, but I could feel them close by and hear their wings flapping. We headed to another cave which was much longer. Once at the end, our guide stopped and began to tell us the significance of the cave. The area in which we stood was where children used to be taken to be sacrificed. Their bodies were then thrown into the active crater to appease the gods and prevent an eruption. It was considered a great honour for a family to be able to have their child sacrificed. The third and final stop of our tour was to a look out point. From here, I was able to see the flickers of the glowing magma deep inside the crater.

Andddd I spent Sunday relaxing on the beach! I find myself constantly forgetting what time of year it is because I am in a hot climate and am not in school!

Thanks for reading this really long post and hopefully I'll have some better things to say about volunteering soon.

Maria

ps- 2 strange things about working in the hospital - I often see stray dogs wandering the courtyards, and most of the lab techs and nurses I have met are shorter than me (didn't think that was possible did you?)

Views from the top of Vulcan Masaya

Sunset over the crater.. It kind of looks like an eruption!

You can see a few bats flying by

Inside the sacrificing cave. I thought it was neat that tree roots extended into the cave

Surf, Sun and Sea Turtles

Best weekend yet! Matt and I headed to San Juan del Sur- the tourist and surf hot spot of Nicaragua. San Juan is in the department of Rivas and is about 40 km from the Costa Rican border. We stayed at Casa Oro which is the most popular hostel in San Juan. I met lots of cool people from the UK, Australia and some Canadians too! Casa Oro offers a Sea Turtle expedition as well as surfing lessons so I took advantage of both of those this weekend.

Friday night was the Turtle expedition at La Flor Reserve. After a presentation on sea turtles, we took a shuttle to the beach where our guide showed us turtles nesting, broken eggs, and we even found a few babies that had been from the first eggs laid this season. The guide had to take all the babies back to the office as if they were left on the beach while the adults are nesting, they would have been crushed. I had to constantly look around me because there were just so many turtles it was easy to get in their way. This experience was definitely worth the $25. The sky was also perfectly clear and littered with stars. It was as if the sky was a black cloth and Neil Buchanan was having an Art Attack with some salt.

Fun Sea Turtle Facts: 

• La Flor is one of 7 nesting sites in the world for the Olive Ridley sea turtle
• The Olive Ridley is the smallest of the sea turtles; the largest being the leatherback (about 5 of these come to La Flor per year)

• Turtles go back to the beach they were born at to lay their own eggs
• It takes the female 45-60 minutes to leave the water, dig a whole, lay her eggs, and return to the water
• Females mate with many males and store their sperm to fertilize her eggs
• Sea turtles have been around for 150 million years – since before the dinosaurs!
• Per 1000 eggs laid, 1 sea turtle reaches adulthood (besides natural predators, egg poachers are the biggest threat)
• All species of sea turtles are endangered
• Sea Turtles reach adulthood at 15 years old and can live for 100 years
• The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperature during incubation

On Saturday I spent a few hours working on my tan and swimming. The tan is coming along well and I'm quite the freckle face now. I even have freckles on my lips which I didn't even know was possible. In the afternoon I had a surfing lesson! I sucked. A lot. But not as much as I thought I was going to and I was able to stand up and everything. It was a lot of fun but my entire body is sore now. I plan on going to San Juan again in a month so go surfing again. After a relaxing day in the sun we joined in on the BBQ at the hostel and checked out some of the beach front bars. 

After returning to Jinotepe this afternoon, David and I went to the Hipica in a nearby town. An Hipica is a town celebration that every Nicaraguan town has. It means horse parade, so people come from all over the country to parade their horse down the main street. Then everyone just parties. It was hilarious to watch. 

Anddd.... tomorrow I start working in the hospital!! Eeeeee!

Olive Ridley on the beach

The best shot I was able to get. Special thanks to the guy that showed me how to use my camera on the fancy settings so that I could actually see the turtles in my photos!

Baby turtles!

Turtle count at La Flor. Please note, this September, over 73,000 turtles came to the shore!

San Jaun del Sur Beach

Sunset in San Juan

Hipica in Santa Teresa

There is Always Another Way

Buenos dias y feliz compleaños a mi hermana Leslea!

I am now in my last week of Español lessons and I still can't understand most of what people say to me so next week will be muy intersante. To help me get used to the sound of people speaking quickly, I'm listening to music and watching movies in Español. It seems to me that you can only buy pirated CDs and DVDs here. There are tons of street vendors selling them in every town and they usually go for 20 Córdobas aka $1. So far I've bought a few movies and watched them in Español with English subtitles. The house had a few CDs kicking around so I've put them on my computer. Most of them are really upbeat and will make for some awesome gym music in the new year.

This weekend we ended up staying in Jinotepe and going on day trips. On Friday night we went for drinks at a bar called “Friends” that is just around that corner. They actually have a picture of the cast of Friends drinking Toña (one of the two Nicaraguan beers, the other being Victoria) on their sign. On Saturday we wandered the market and then headed to Huehuete, which is the beach associated with Jinotepe, about 45 minutes away. Huehuete was deserted when we arrived so we quickly claimed a spot on the beach and headed into the water to jump in the waves. I've swam in the Atlantic Ocean many times and I do love it, but I must admit that warm water and not having to worry about jellies was rather delightful. After our swim we began to work on our tans... until a huge wave came and washed over us. We were pretty far back from the water so the wave came as a shock to us unsuspecting sunbathers.

Since our towels were soaked and the beached was deserted, we took a short walk to find some shells. Long story short, I noticed a man walking close to where our stuff was and I had a bad feeling about it, so we headed back and guess who's bag was missing?!!? Mine! We spent the next hour or so searching for it by asking the locals if they'd seen the guy. A white girl being robbed was obviously the most exciting thing that has happened there in a while and the people were all very nice and helpful. My bag was then found and all that was missing was the equivalent of $6 (I had taken my camera on the walk with us). All is well that ends well, so we joke about it now and had a pretty interesting adventure for only $6. The best part is actually that Matt and David actually had nicer looking bags with more money and valuables in them than mine, so I suppose we are all really lucky that the guy was dumb.

On Sunday we went to the small town of Catarina, which has a view point of Laguna de Apoyo. It was a foggy day so my photos are not as good as they good have been. There was a booth collecting a toll to enter the viewpoint. For Nicaraguans, the price was 2 Córdobas and for foreigners, it was 20 Córdobas. You may think we should have just paid it, but the principle of charging visitors to your country 10 times more than everyone else is just wrong. Not exactly a good way to encourage tourism. David always says “There is always another way”, and of course, there was. We walked down a different street and found another entrance to the same lookout and didn't pay anything. When we had walked close to the original entrance, we noticed the toll guy looking at us and he knew we hadn't paid. Too bad for him, he couldn't leave his post to chase after us! Catarina also had lots of stores with handcrafts so I did some shopping... now I really want to go to the Masaya Market (the biggest handcraft market in the country) and have a shopping spree. The only problem is I don't know how much I will be able to fit into my suitcases when I'm packing to go home!

As usual, there are some pictures of the weekend below!

Maria 

Huehuete Beach

Catarina's Nintendo Club!!

Laguna de Apoyo

Mountainous Matagalpa

Hola,

      I must say, I am very impressed that I am posting about this weekend only a few days after the fact for a change! It's strange to think I've only been here for 2 and a half weeks. It seems like so much longer! Spanish is starting to get a bit easier but there is still a ton to learn. I understand most of what I am learning, I just have a difficult time remembering it all. I just don't have a natural flare for language. Tomorrow I am supposed to visit the Jinotepe health clinic (one of my placements) to meet a doctor and start learning how to take vital signs. I am also in the process of making a Nicaraguan food guide for the clinic. There is such a large variety of cheap, fresh local produce available but the people here do not eat a lot of fruits and veggies at all! It's funny since in Canada we have the opposite problem - people want to eat more fresh fruits and veggies but the cost and the fact that most of them are imported makes it difficult. 

       This weekend we went up north to Matagalpa City in the department of Matagalpa. It was a 4 hour journey but most definitely not a boring one. Watching the scenery as we drove by was much more interesting than driving in most parts of Canada. Plus it is pretty neat to think that I traveled across a country for the equivalent of $3.50. 

       Matagalpa was not a touristy place at all but we had a great time relaxing and taking in the views. On Saturday, we went to Monkey Park, which had some animals, such as monkeys, hiked up a hill and watched a free concert put on be a Honduran orchestra. They played "My Heart Will Go On". It was delightful. On Sunday we wandered around and ended up watching a local baseball game. 

       As you can see from the pictures below, Matagalpa is in a valley. The area is known for it's coffee and cacao plantations. There was even a coffee museum! I bought some of their locally grown coffee and I think it is safe to assume that it is going to be great coffee. We could have gone on a plantation tour but it is not quite the right season for that right now. It's the end of the rainy season (and man did it ever pour today) and the dry season starts in mid-November. 

      One thing I learned on this trip was that Nicaraguan cities do a great job at hiding the poverty they contain. As we climbed down the mountain (or hill...) we hiked, we passed houses that had walls and roofs made of sheet metal. Despite the living conditions, the kids in these neighbourhoods were playing and laughing. As we walked by they laughed and waved at us yelling "Gringos!". (A Gringo is a white person, though usually in Nicaragua we are referred to as "Chelas". Gringo is more common in Costa Rica.) It was really cute. 

Honduran Orchestra

Matagalpa City Cathedral

The many, many hills/mountains... I really don't know what to call them!

Translation: Throw garbage out the window! Why not have a garbage can and ask people to put garbage in it as they leave?

View from our hotel room

Scenery as the bus takes us back to Managua from Matagalpa

Thanks for reading and buenas noche!

Amor,

Mary

Granadagranadagranadagranada!!!

Hola amigos! I seem to be falling behind on my bloggingness...

         For Thanksgiving weekend, myself and my fellow volunteers, David and Matt, went to the old Colonial city of Granada. Granada was a lot hotter than it is here in Jinotepe, but thankfully there was a lake nearby to cool off in. 

         We arrived in Granada late Friday afternoon. It was about a 45 minute drive from Jinotepe in a minibus, which cost us 16.5 cordobas, so about 75 cents each. The minibus has two employees, the driver and the money collector/door opener. The door opener is my inspiration for the title of this post because all minibus door openers yell out the name of their destination really quickly (to the point where I can't understand what they are saying) to try and get passengers.

          Once in Granada, we headed over to the main area with lots of hostels. Granada is relatively touristy and know as a party city so a hostel was not hard to find. We stumbled upon a little gem called "La Casita". For $4 US a night I got a bed in the dorm, free coffee, kitchen access and a really sweet patio to hangout on. Staying at La Casita was a great experience as the patio provided us with a place to socialize with other travelers. We met a few guys - Jon, Eran and Gal- who had been traveling for a long time in South and Central America. They had some interesting stories and hearing them made me wish I could take 4 months and travel all of South and Central America.. I'm thinking I will do that in a few years time. Maybe I will start my journey by taking the yoga instructor course somewhere. 

          After checking into the hostel we ventured to the Chocolate Museum!! Obviously, I had been anticipating that part of Granada ever since I heard about it. The museum had samples of chocolate tea, which was tea made from cacao husks. It smelt exactly like chocolate but only had a delicate chocolate taste. Nevertheless, I thought it was delicious and bought a bag so that I can make it once I return to Canada. I also bought a bunch of chocolate bars. My favourite is 50% cacao with pieces of coffee beans mixed in. 

        On Friday night we went out for $1.50 mojitos. I also got a taste of Flor de Cana, Nicaragua's world renowned rum. We all spent Saturday basking in the sun at Laguna de Apoyo - a lake in a volcanic crater. The scenery was breathtaking and the water was incredibly clean and about 85 degrees F. To make the day even better, I didn't get a sunburn. I actually got a bit of a tan. Woo! Now I really can't wait to go to the Pacific beaches!

         The Merded Church tower is known for being the best place in Granada to watch the sunset from. Unfortunately, we were not back from the Laguna on time but I did manage to capture this shot as we rode back into the city. 

           Once back in our hostel, we met Liz and Dean who are from the US and doing a semester abroad in Costa Rica. We went for drinks at some Nica bars, watched the locals dance salsa and were jealous of their mad skills. After hearing about Costa Rica I really want to take a long weekend trip down! It's more expensive than Nicaragua but I think it would be worth it, so I may go at the end of November. 

           We spent Sunday wandering Granada. There were lots of pretty churches and nice views at Lake Nicaragua. Just before we caught the bus back to Jinotepe I realized that my chocolate had melted a lot...hmm... 30 degree weather+ chocolate. Why did I not think of that in advanced? Thankfully, the freezer back at our house saved my chocolate and it is edible once more. 

        Here are some pictures from Granada.

         Adios amigos!

I am soooo doing that!

Chocolate Museum!

I totally thought chocolate contained caffeine....

Viewpoint at Laguna de Apoyo

Parrot at the restaurant we ate at

Eran, Jon, Gal and Matt by the lake

Liz and I at the bar