Extracurricular activities

No school for 2 weeks has its benefits and its disadvantages. This last week there was no school for the parades and festivities relating to Independence Day, September 14th. Have I told you funny people about the constant drumming that has been going on right across the street from my house, and according to my colleagues, all around Nicaragua? Well if not, these kids pound on their drums like it’s their favorite sport. It really gets on your nerves after about a month. The point of all this ear harassment is to practice for their competition that was held on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday up until about 4pm, I was like, shit yea, I can hear myself think; that was until the pounding commenced and I learned that there was to be another competition held with students from other parts of Nicaragua this Monday. I don’t really mind too much, I have really grown accustomed to this sort of obnoxious behavior, and really with my lack of stereo etiquette in college I really should not have any qualms with an hour or two a of this in the middle of the day.

This is the Drum Competition

As I said last time, I am making some vegetable gardens. This has proved to be very difficult work, especially because of the earth that I am working with. My backyard is a lovely space that is conducive to a nice garden of sorts. The only problem is that after I removed a few trees, their roots started to rear their ugly little tentacles. The mud is saturated with water making it heavy and extremely sticky. This has made it quite a work out for me in this brutal sun. I melt like gummy bears in the microwave! Can you say farmers tan! I wore no shirt the last two times, and luckily was too tired to continue for extended periods of time which almost certainly would have brought on massive burns on my ill equipped gringo skin. I bought almost all the necessary materials for my bocashi compost. These include:
1) .5 % yeast
2) 27% Cow manure
3) .5 % molasses
4) 2 % semolina – feed for animals
5) 2 % ashes from wood
6) 27 % soil
7) 14 % Carbon (I’m using burnt corn husks)
8) 27 % un burnt corn husks

This mixture hopefully will make the soil good enough for my thumb to be super green; although I think I have a natural knack for growing things! This should take 2 more weeks, at which point I will be able to plant my seeds. I still don’t know yet what exactly I’m going to plant, but I think cantaloupe, watermelon, and chili peppers are essential, maybe some pot, just joking, Peace Corps wouldn’t like that.


the begining

Day 1


It was Hot, plus i thought you´d like some eye candy


all cleared

I played soccer 2 times this week across the street from my house at the school. I just joined one day and to my surprise I had a sweet gol. The next day was a different animal. It was muddy and raining; everyone was playing barefoot and sliding around, myself included.

On Saturday my host mother climbed 5 ranks in her police unit for her soon to be completion of nursing school. She skipped 9 years of work by obtaining her degree. You’d think these benefits would be more apparent to the majority of the population of Nicaragua, but education really isn’t looked upon the same way we look at it. At the after party lunch event I met a perfect contact.

My Peace Corps job description dictates that I should take on various other secondary jobs. The recommended jobs include but are not limited to: working with youth groups, tourism, women’s groups, microfinance institutions, and advising small business. Well holy mierda, guess what this guy does. He owns a microfinance institution that gives consultations to its clients, has a youth group, a women’s group that makes jewelry, helps with a nature preserve to bring in tourists and to top it off this guy has a few books, and my favorite I think will be his book of jokes. Anyway I hope to really take advantage of this guy, so I am going to meet with him this week to be a nuisance until he hooks me up with some jobs I want. I mean lets be serous for a minute, I’m free educated labor, who doesn’t want that?

Today I finally was able to participate in some softball. We took a cab to the fields 25 minutes away only to find out that our team was playing at the big river port that is about 5 minutes away. While there are limited sports venues in this country and especially in the Branch, (El Rama) I thought this shitty little softball field was quite cool. It is inside the national port of El Rama. We had to go through a security checkpoint before proceeding to our game. We were late of course and missed the first game, but luckily we were playing a double header. There were cranes and huge boats 30 meters from third base with hills and the river in the surrounding views. I sat the first 2 innings being the new guy and all. Then I was subbed into second base. I thought I was a pretty good baseball player in high school and a good softball player in college, but today I showed that practice really makes perfect and lack of practice makes you like me. I was 2 for 2 batting with a double and 2 runs. The highlight was my pickle going home with a guy on first and a grounder to the shortstop I decided to go for it. I went home and faked back to third before my cheetah like dash home. I had a great inside slide with my right foot dragging across the corner of the plate just evading the catcher’s high tag. It was controversial but in the end I was safe for the run. In the field, I didn’t let any ball by me. What I did do however was heave the ball into the ground 3 times. I was furious with my inept throwing abilities. The hat saw the dirt on 2 separate occasions! I blamed it on me not playing for 4 years, but seriously 3 times is uncalled for. In the end it was a blast and I can’t wait to keep playing with these older guys that named the team, el juventud (the youth). Haha. We lost the game 13 to 8. The other teams had legit uniforms and we were a scattered bunch with half the team smashing cigs on the sideline. I wouldn’t want to be on any other team.

The day continued with a fun outing at our local baseball field, to watch a game between the El Rama Indios and some other team from a small community out in the middle of nowhere. I left early to study some Spanish, but it was fun none the less. Also, best part of baseball here; beers are the same price in the stadium as they are anywhere else in town. I was really happy to see how into the game the community was; the stadium was packed with a few hundred people.

Did Alabama dominate once again, yep! Roll Tide.

Hope the beautiful Bay Area is treating you well, and the south and Midwest. Where ever you are at really! I miss Jamba Juice and Tombstome pizza. So if you want to send some money so I could make up for this deficiency with the only thing that could possibly fill it, Traveling around Nicaragua, I am all for that!

Adios!