Getting back into the Nicaraguan groove, 3rd World Soapbox, and Resolutions

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Well, here I am on my usual Monday trip to Somoto. Checking my mail and whatnot. Speaking of....

MAIL SHOUTOUTS!

A belated shoutout to my aunt Lori for a box of goodness that arrived right before I left for the States in December. The power bars and Starkist packets rock my world, as do the magazines! Thanks again!

And today I received...

A Christmas card from one cghiselli of Philly-NYC! My first Nican card, thank you dear.

Annnnnnnd a box of goodness from Mexico finally arrived from aabeyta, formerly of DF and now of Vegas. I cannot wait to get home and open it!

And in the States....

A Navidad card from one clandrus of Los Angeles, CA.

And (given to me out of the back of her jeep, but deserving of a shoutout nonetheless) a mountain of vegetable seeds from creiter of the Lake!

Okay, now it´s my turn to get stuff mailed.

So life is resuming in Moropoto. Lenin and I got in from our flight to Managua on Thursday night. We stayed in Managua, and took the earliest (7.15am) expresso to Somoto, and got to Moropoto around noon-thirty on Friday.

Friday and Saturday were spent cleaning my room, unpacking, and repartiring the gifts to all the family and our closest neighbors. Still a whole bag full for the inlaws in Wiwili, but that won´t get done until around Semana Santa when we head out that way.

$5 walmart ¨Missouri¨baseball caps are a hit, as are the $0.50 reusable Wal-Mart bags, and other things like the purses we bought used at Bear Market for the girl cousins and photos and old magazines and the metal glasses (a HIT mom!) and flashlights and shin guards for the soccer players and old hair barrettes that I don´t use anymore for the girls in the neighborhood and two small metal glasses for the neighbor´s two 2 year olds and..... well, we did good in the gifts department.

Now my clothes are washed and ironed and I blessedly have new bras and underwear and finally some ¨new¨old City Sports shirts to wear....

Lenin is at work. Back to hauling water. Bought dog food and rice and oil and onions. The electricity was never fixed, but the people are stealing electricity from other parts of the community. Stringing, swear to god, BARBED WIRE from transporters to the house so we can have lights and some music and TV, but not all at once.

This, by the way, is one of Nicaragua´s issues. That whole ¨lack of infrastructure¨thing. The majority of the houses are robbing electricity. Even when we all had electricity, only a few houses in my community actually have meters and pay a monthly bill. Which means, of course, that all the rest who are stealing electricity are not paying a monthly bill, and those who are legal are paying for the illegals, too.

Sound familiar?

I just don´t get it. The electric company should repair the stupid transporter because now the families who have meters, but have to steal so they have some lights at night, won´t be paying their monthly bills because their electricity is not coming through the meters.

I don´t know, it´s all a mess. I need to take a photo of the barbed wire that is strung across fields and through trees to the houses.

The bigger personal issue, though, is that my electric two burner stove uses so much electricity that it leaves the rest of the house without anything. So no cooking in my room. Good thing my computer doesn´t eat up so much electricity and I can still use it.

Okay, I´ll step down from my 3rd World Infrastructure soapbox now.

There are agriculture volunteers who have no electricity in the community, or potable water, or busses that stop at their doorstep several times a day.

On another note.... I was soooooo happy to get back to Central America and the balmy weather... but damn it has gotten cold! The differences are that it is a damp cold, and because the houses are open to the elements the wind moves straight through the rooms.

It´s like camping in damp windy 50 degrees.

In other news, I am super excited that it is finally 2010! Somehow, all things seem possible this year.

New Year´s Resolutions

--Dust off my Spanish dictionary and notebooks and study. Meaning, practice using new vocab and verb conjugations each month. I´ve got the present and preterite and imperfect and future down. Conditional? Barely. All the ways to use haber (besides the present) baffle me. Vos-tu forms, understand when spoken to me, but never use to respond. So, Spanish.

--Build improved ovens. Since the first one wasn´t built before Christmas, get it done this January.

--Continue to work with the Seed Bank and take photos of women with their gardens and of agriculture practices in Nicaragua.

--Plan and execute our bicultural wedding in the next 5 months!

--Take better care of my finances. I am excel spreadsheeting every single cordoba I spend for JanFebMarch to see where it goes. Transportation? Food, for whom? Me personally, Lenin and me, or Mamita´s kitchen? Cell phone minutes? Internet? Other random stuff, like paying my cousin to iron my clothes, or receiving packages at the post office, or going out with other volunteers.... So Finances.

--Continue English classes at the Moropoto school for 2nd year. New year starts Feb 2nd!

I think that is a sufficient list of stuff to get done this year. Next step is to put goal markers for each month. 11 months. Time is going to freaking fly. My god, January is almost over!

And on that note, it is time to sign off of here, go get a smoothie, and catch the bus back to the Mopo so I can open my box from Arielle that I got in the mail!

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Comments

[Wendy Brownell]

your blog
Molly, te quiero decir que me encanta leer tu blog. Cada vez que recibo un e-mail dejo todo para leerlo. Gracias por compartir tu vida, tus experiencias con nosotros. ¡Lo agradezco mucho! Que todo te vaya bien

[Cassi]

Boda
I love how you make your wedding sound like a covert operation!

[jeri]

3rd world soapbox
Hey... I will rant a little too!! You guys have better Internet coverage there than we do here!!! And we have electricity and water MOST of the time. I think part of our neighborhood infrastructure ws damaged in the earthquake last year, though. We won´t get 3g accesss until next month (so the presidential candidates say). The election is next month, too. You just happened to come back during what I was told in Nica was a record breaking cool snap. It was cool down here too so the landlord says. Let me tell you, when you are jetting across Lago de Nicaragua in a skiff in the mist, IT IS COLD! We even had to have blankets on the bed.Wah! At least our wind has died down....