Coming To America

HI

So just a quick little tidbit because I am tired - On Wednesday we found out where we are going for our volunteer visit. This is not where we will be for the next 2 years, but rather just a short 4 day stint with a current volunteer so we get the feel for what being a volunteer is all about. I of course, am being sent as far as I possibly could. I am going to Jalapa, Honduras, I mean Nicaragua, but in that general vicinity. Anyway, I´m actually glad because I get to check out more of the country on my visit, and I met the hombre that I will be visiting, He was at the conference making tasty treats; he make the jams and jellies. I leave Monday morning and will be gone till wed night.

Also, as if I wasn´t busy enough, yesterday I received a call from the technical trainer with instructions to go to the local public school to ask permission to teach a class on next Thursday. So with this weekend completely full and my volunteer visit till Wednesday I won’t really have that much Time to prepare. But no worries, I will do well. I taught a class this Wednesday day that went alright in the Private school. I was told that I need to not read from my note cards so much, and I need to use more visual aids, so that’s what I’ll do for round numero dos.

Today was pretty tranquilo. We all went to Managua for a little lesson from volunteers about classroom management. They served a slider with mayonnaise for brunch and, as all of you who really know me could imagine, I refused. After that I went to America. We went to the U.S Embassy to hear a lecture about food security from this expert. He had a fantastic job, and by my count had been an advisor in Guatemala, Egypt, Peru, Azerbaijan, and Hungry. These are just the places mentioned in his speech that was quite informative and interesting. He basically stressed that when we work with the producers of food and the consumers while we try to increase wealth we should focus on the demand side of the equation. We have a conventional wisdom, especially when thinking about malnutrition and food scarcity, to think solely on the production side, i.e. we only need to produce more to fill the needs of the hungry. He preached that we need to focus on connecting potential suppliers with concrete buyers at this level so the risk of production is diminished and when the buyers are identified the potential suppliers can start to produce and if need be this is when these NGO´s can help with capacity building and expert advice pertaining to production, quality control and distribution. I have to say I agree with him. Now there are many more points he made that would probably make this a lot clearer to you the reader, but overall it was pretty Twany.

Well, I have to go do some stuff as usual, PAZ-Out

Peanut Butter Delight

Hello,

This week was busy like usual. We had to do workshops on Friday and Saturday. The workshop on Saturday included a guest speaker that was a former volunteer in Nicaragua. He spoke to us about the business climate in Nicaragua and the foreseeable trends, political functions relating to trade and commerce and what he considers should be the main focus for this country to lift itself out of poverty. The workshop on Saturday included both the agriculture and small business groups. The workshop was to promote inter group resourcefulness and cooperation and collaboration. We worked on food processing and storage techniques that included: canning, dehydrating, sterilizing, pasteurizing, smoking among other techniques. I found this to be a pretty interesting and useful class. the remaining 3 hours of class were really fun. We made jam from the local fruits, crushed peanuts, salt, honey, sugar, and oil to make incredible peanut butter, homemade pesto from some leaves that apparently grow anywhere in Nicaragua and are scientifically one of the healthiest plants on the face of the earth, gram for gram when looking at nutritional content of potassium, iron, vitamins b, c, d, calcium and others I'm sure, but cannot remember. We also made banana fritters and some soy products. The day was a tasty treat.

Today - I'm going to do homework, since I have to prepare for a class on wed. I meet with my counterpart on Monday. Other then that nothing out of the norm. On Wednesday we find out where we go for our site visits. This is not where our future sites will be, but rather the sites of current volunteers that we will follow for 4 or 5 days so we can see what being a volunteer is all about.