One Year

Hola a todos!

Sorry that I’ve fallen out of the blogosphere recently. I figured that my one year post would be good point to get back in. So here I am.

Its sounds incredibly cliché to say that’s it’s gone by “so fast.” But that’s exactly what my one year in country has done. Its soared by me with the velocity of a jet plane, leaving me little time to reflect on all the cargo it has brought with it. How do you reflect on an entire year’s worth of events? If you’re me, you make a list. So here it is: my top ten lessons learned in Nicaragua.  Some of them are silly, some are more serious, but all have been impacting in some way or another.

Be patient and flexible:  This has perhaps been the hardest lesson for me to learn.  I have never been a very patient nor a very flexible person. A lot of that has to do with my own personality, exacerbated by the culture of instant gratification promoted in the United States. Here things work differently and as a result take more time. A project that would take a week in the United States would most likely take two to four weeks here to complete. Sometimes, I have the ability to try and speed things up, but most of the time, I just have to accept that it’s going to take a certain length of time. Working in cross-cultural conditions also gives you a lot of patience in working with other people (you also gain a lot of communication skills).  Because Nicaraguans tend to not put an emphasis on planning, things are always changing and you have to learn to o be flexible and in turn adjust your own plans.

There are certain street foods that you shouldn’t eat, no matter how they it look: We all have that moment. You’re travelling, whether by foot, panga, or bus, and in your hungry state you get tempted to buy a delicious, but slightly sketchy looking street food. For some its sweet bread, others fried food, others still a local alcoholic beverage (which technically isn't street food, but for the sake of this blog post, just roll with it). You know what will probably happen, but you don’t care. So it does happen, and when it happens, it goes a little something like this: nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, repeat.

Failure brings more knowledge than success: One of the few things your Peace Corps service can guarantee is s failure. You will fail all the time here, whether it be a lesson that doesn’t go well, a project that never gets seen through, or an idea that you just can’t communicate in your limited Spanish.  Although they don’t necessarily advertise this fact in their website, this is awesome. It’s not that a service with little or no success is what I dream every night. Rather, I am simply rather learning to appreciate my failures more. As a perfectionist, it’s easy for me to get angry and upset over a failure, wanting to only dwell on it negatively. Through the many failures that have occurred during my service, however, I have gained in return a multitude of knowledge about what does and doesn’t work here, much of which I will be able to apply to future projects in the hopes that they turn out better than the ones before.

Enrique is just better in Spanish: Bailando (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUsoVlDFqZg), Loco (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxJtTPxliis) There. I think I’ve made my point. As much as I admire the fact that he’s been able to break into both the Latin and American music scenes worlds, I think it’s obvious where his heart is. Also I know that I have talked about this to some of you, but how does he not age? Seriously!? A friend posed the vampire theory and I’m starting to think she may be on to something…

There are few things better than clean running water: As a foreigner, Bluefields is strange to me in many ways. The strangest of all is the lack of water. When you live in a rainforest climate that includes a major river, water should be plentiful, and indeed it is, for half of the year.  During rainy season, it rains non-stop, sometimes for so long that a week goes by without being able to see the sun. Rain catchment systems fill and wells are no longer dry. In the dry season, it’s the opposite. You can go weeks without a single rain cloud filling the sky. Rain catchment systems no longer serve to provide water and wells are slowly running dry. Any water that is left is usually contaminated and unfit for drinking. Therefore, many families are forced to buy or beg (depending on your financial situation) water to drink, wash clothes, and bathe. Even despite a relatively “wet” dry season this year, people were running out of water before the rainy season started, my house included. In May, the water was only being turned on for an hour or two every day. For families of lower economic levels who lack the space or money to build wells or rain catchment systems, the situation is more drastic. Even during the rainy season, access to clean safe water is limited, sometimes non-existent. My hope is that even once I return to the states, I will not stop being grateful for the gift of cold, clean, and drinkable water.