I work out

Word of the Day:

los abdominales- ab exercises

Because I am lazy and hate mornings even though I go to bed before prime soap opera hour even starts, I have few choices for working out. It's dark at 6 pm here year round, which puts running out of the question since I'm not usually done with work until 5 or 5:30.

And so, my quest for a good workout option led me to San Miguelito's aerobics class. Led by the high school dance teacher, it's a group of mostly middle aged ladies looking to lose weight. My friend Kleydy and I are the under 30 outliers. It's a great time, even if the moves are not hip by modern American workout standards: I got mocked pretty soundly when I showed some of my slick routines to friends back home in December. I'm not sure how effective the aerobics is either, since I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that has lost any significant amount of weight and that was only because I was really sick. Although I think I'm definitely more toned now. Regardless, it gets me out of the house and feeling like a part of the community. And the music is amazing. Check out what I mean.

Wepa!- Gloria Estefan

Blue- Eiffel 65

TitanticTheme Song Remix

Sak Noel- Loca People

La Bouche- Sweet Dreams 

Lipps, Inc.-Funkytown

Pitubull ft. Chris Brown- International Love

Primitive accumulation

"Things you own end up owning you."

Tyler Durdin, Fight Club

Word of the Day

el chuche- thing, thingy, thingamagig, etc. (Nicaragua)

A giant whiteboard. SO. MANY. BOOKS. Teaching books, grammar books, children's story books in Spanish, the Bible, War and Peace. Newspaper. Notebooks galore. Binders. Weird spices. Weirder medicines. Plastic jugs. Cardboard scraps. Styrofoam. Tea. Plastic bags. Markers. Crayons. Solentiname wood carvings. Baby shower/wedding favors. Umbrella fabric. 

Despite having the preconception that I would be living so free from materialism and stuff during Peace Corps, I own a ridiculous amount of crap. That's the catch about living somewhere for 2 years: you need things. A lot of things if you're a teacher. According what you might expect from stereotypes about Peace Corps volunteers, a lot of my stuff is weird recycled junk that I have saved thinking that it will be useful for crafts or teaching materials. Additionally, there's all the stuff I've inherited from other volunteers as they have left, some of which is very useful and some of which I should use, but don't, like exercise bands for stretching. 

I am very frequently stressed out by my inability to keep all my stuff organized. I've bought 3 shelves and 2 boxes since moving in, yet all my crap still embarrassingly finds its way all over the floor as if it were water that couldn't be contained.

 And so, while I am stressed about having to leave soonish, I'll be overjoyed when I get rid of everything. Especially my hole-riddled, baggy, heinous clothing and English teaching materials. I literally fantasize about lying in my bed and having my surroundings be an Ikea catalogue level of spare. Course, when that day comes, I'll probably be sad because it will mean leaving and I'm not really emotionally squared up with that yet.

Straight edge

"I went to bed every night at 8pm and woke up at 5. You probably will too. "

I remember being terrified hearing these words from a former PCV right before I was supposed to start service. Straight out of college, I was still a night owl, who felt most alive after 7 pm and wasn't a huge fan of mornings. However,  I shouldn't have doubted my adaptability and should have taken these words as a prophecy: I am now officially as boring as I feared I would be, or perhaps even more so than I expected.

My second year of Peace Corps service has worn me out physically, with illness and heat and bratty children galore. It's sort of a miracle if I make it to 9 pm, and not at all surprising if I am passed out by 7. Especially now that I can't count on my favorite addiction, coffee, to fuel me through the day, due to my gastritis.* And the occasional beer to unwind after a long week? Forget about it.

I'm having a harder time psychologically dealing with the lack of coffee and alcohol in my life than I would like to admit. Mostly because the Peace Corps community por lo general connects over these two substances when we meet up. I feel less vibrant and fun. More importantly, while I'm not really physical dependent on either**, I feel more comfortable with these little vices in my life, in the sense that they are psychologically comforting during the ups and downs of Peace Corps and in the sense that it gives me a bit of a buffer against being a complete goody two shoes nerd.

On the other hand, it's kind of screwed up how I feel that these two things are such a big part of my life, considering I've only really been a hard core coffee addict for about 6 years and a drinker for even less time. I´m forced to connect to people without being able to rely on social lubricants. Every introvert's worst nightmare, but Peace Corps has made me far bolder than I used to be and I can handle it. It's a freedom I didn't want, but is probably for the best.

*Gastritis is probably one of the most common sicknesses here. My friend Chelsea joked that it is a sign of how "Nicaraguan" I am now.

**Mmm that's probably a lie in relation to caffeine.

Reading Pico Ayer on a Ruteada

Word of the Day: Ruteada- a non-express bus

The hope of a Global Soul, always, is that he can make the collection of his selves something greater than the whole; that diversity can leave him not a dissonance but a higher symphony.

The newly mobile world and its porous borders are a particular challenge to a uniculture like [Japan], which depends for its presumed survival upon its firm distinctions and clear boundaries, its maintenance of a civil uniformity in which everyone knows everyone else, and how to work with them.

I had the surreal experience of reading Pico Ayer's "The Global Soul" while taking the 6 hour bus ride home last Thursday morning. There was a weirdly dreamlike aspect to reading about airplanes and nonplaces* and jetlag and all the vestiges of the modern world while driving very slowly past tin roofed houses, donkeys and bone dry cornfields in the sweltering heat. Mas tiempo que vida (there's more time than life) meets the runway. I've never been quite able to adapt to mas tiempo que vida, which was what put me on that particular bus in the first place: rushing home to give a class, trying to treat Nicaraguan public transportation as my personal helicopter to no avail. Just one aspect of the bi-culturalism that I've developed, although no where near as complex as the author's (born to Indian parents in England, raised between California and England, currently based out of Japan) or the many other "global souls" he comes across.

In so many ways, Nicaraguan towns like San Miguelito are the antithesis of the modern non-place. They are in a sense, receptacles of nostalgia, serving as a home to return to, accompanied by traditions to give one roots. Every tree, house, street corner holds a special significance for those in the know. Yet unlike the non-place, they are unevenly integrated into the capitalist framework of the 21st century. And so the citizens must look elsewhere for sustenance.

I wonder how much that will change. The tourism trickling into Rio San Juan challenges the "firm distinctions and clear boundaries" described by the second quote, just as it tries to bank upon the nostalgia stored up in its landscapes. But a greater challenge looms on the horizon with the "Great Canal" project. (Great articles here and here) San Miguelito will be irrevocably changed if the project goes through as planned, linked to the outside capitalist world at last, but at terrible cost.
Is there a "middle way" to enter the modern world?

====================================================================
*Places such as airports, conference centers, malls, etc. that are designed to be virtually indistinguishable and interchangeable.

Reading Reviews Volume 10

127. Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail- Paul Polak.
While Polak presents real solutions, namely small scale irrigation and treadle pumps that help the poorest of the poor, namely subsistence farmers, he takes a very simplistic "free market" view on poverty, claiming that lack of money is the only factor that really holds people back from development, which I found a wee bit one- sided.

128. Los detectives salvajes- Roberto Bolanos
The savage detectives, a pair of collegiate poets in search of a disappeared female poet from the early 19th century, end up telling a tale that goes all over the world, and like life, has no real point or no particularly satisfying ending, yet still makes for an interesting and reflective read.

129. Land, Power and Poverty: Agricultural Transformation and Political Conflict in Central America- Charles D. Brockett
This book is brilliant. Clearly and succinctly outlines agricultural changes in the region, looking at the role of market- oriented agriculture, revolutions and other exciting things.

130. Midnight's Children- Salman Rushdie
I've been on a big "Indian ______" writers kick. Liked it, but again, I'm big into magical realism.

131. What is the What- Dave Eggers
When I first heard about the concept of this book, telling the story of one of the "Lost Boys" of Sudan, I was kind of skeptical as to why Dave Eggers needed to write the story for him. But Eggers structures Valentine's narrative in a way that generates much more power and reflection about the ways life as an immigrant rivals life as a refugee.

132. Never Let Me Go- Kazuo Ishiguro
This novela starts off kind of slowly, almost boringly and then suddenly catches you off guard with huge moral questions. One of the best (short) books I've read in Peace Corps.

133. The Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City- Elijah Anderson
Brilliant, if a little repetitive. Desparingly, I found a lot of connections between inner city Philadelphia and the patterns of pregnancy among teenaged girls here in the chapter on relationships.

134. The Emperor's Children-Claire Messud
Sophisticated, funny and biting.

135. The Unbearable Lightness of Being- Milan Kundera (RR)
I read this in high school but found it much more powerful and relatable now. 

136. Bridget Jone's Diary- Helen Fielding
Oh, so people everywhere are a pain in the ass to single women. Great. I was hoping it was just here.

137. Claire of the Sea Light- Edwinge Danticat
A story of the life of a young girl in Haiti that weaves in the stories of many characters, some of whom are embedded in small town nostalgia while others live bi-cultural lives. For me this book is so important for thinking about Haiti as a complex place, beyond the despairing headlines.

138. The Lowland- Jhumpa Lahiri
Interesting to see Jhumpa Lahiri throw politics into her tales of cross cultural life, a little dramatic compared to her other books, but with the same attention to characters' emotional development.

139. A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present- Howard Zinn
A cynical read that nonetheless gives hope for resistance.

140. Swamplandia!-Karen Russell
Narrated from different members of a family living in the Florida swamps, this book kind of hits you from nowhere and gives a sense of place better than any other.

141. Banker to the Poor: Micro Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty- Muhammad Yunnus
Interestingly detailed about how the Grameen bank got started. Yunnus' image of the "Museum of Poverty" is one of the most powerful human rights statements of all time.

142. Uncommon Grounds- The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World- Mark Pendergrast
This book could have been 300 pages shorter and been much better. While I learned a lot of interesting facts about coffee, I didn't need to know about every single merger or marketing technique that ever happened in the coffee industry. A less misleading title would have been "The History of Coffee Marketing..."

143. The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia- Peter Hopkirk
Irresistible tale of imperial quests.

144. Intersex (for lack of a better word)- Thea Hillman
Think the gender binary is a clearcut thing? Think again.

145. Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War-Deb Olin Unferth
A sarcastic, hilarious mishap filled chronicle of the author's treks in Central America with her Christian boyfriend searching for meaning in their college years.

146. The Female Brain- Louann Brizendine, M.D.
While this book downplays nuture in the formation of gender roles and frequently makes sweeping generalizations but offers interesting insights of the role of hormones in shaping development and emotions.

147. The God of Small Things- Arundhati Roy
Boom. It's fascinating the way this book narrates what will happen from the very beginning yet doesn't make sense til the end, while inventing a multicultural vocabulary that navigates the space between child and adult. 

148. After Revolution: Mapping Gender and Cultural Politics in Neoliberal Nicaragua- Florence Babb

Mapping Gender and Cultural Politics in Neoliberal Nicaragua

By Florence E. Babb

- See more at: http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/books/babaft#sthash.ORd2W7eH.dpuf

A much more readable and anthropological account of basically the same story told by Nicaragua without Illusions: Regime Change and Structural Adjustment in the 1990s, fleshed out through a gender lens. I found the final chapter on memory in the capital city of Managua to be really illuminating, in revealing the layers of meaning that can be found in an urban space. 

149. The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls and the Search for Home- Pico Ayer
One of the best books I've ever read about "the modern age." While the dizzying array of characters almost sounds made up or at the very least exaggerated, Ayer's insights into human relations, capitalism, citizenship and belonging are poignant. 

150. The Devil's Highway- Luis Alberto Urrea
A heart-rending story of immigrants coming from southern Mexico to the United States along the "Devil's Highway," a punishing desert. What I found most unique about this book, in addition to its unique prose style, was its balance and the way it fairly portrayed all players.

151. Born to Run: Superathletes, A Hidden Tribe, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen- Christopher McDougall
I read this to get motivation to start running again. While this story was inspiring and funny, and made me miss the craziness of fellow runners. However, there was something off- putting about reading this right after Devil's Highway. Why do we lionize one group of people for insanely risking their lives in search of nothing but glory yet punish another group in search of survival for their families?

152. La Casa Verde (The Green House)- Mario Vargas Llosa
Another challenge read in Spanish, tying together 3 different story lines in Peruvian settings ranging from jungle to sandy city, with a cynical message about the elusiveness of love.

Salty Poem #2

Worshipping the Disney Princesses

Back in the day, I'm sure every house had a picture of Mary on the wall
But I wonder if in a few more years they'll be supplanted by images of the Disney princesses
So white, so sparkly, so wonderfully helpless
Sacrificial virgins for the magnificent new age of commercialism
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

World Cup

Sports events bring out complicated emotions for me. Sports were a huge part of my life growing up: soccer, swimming, then cross country and track. I have a huge respect for the way sport can challenge, provide an outlet and teach collaboration and perseverance. This is constantly in evidence here (although sadly mostly for boys) with daily pickup games of soccer, baseball and volleyball in the streets or on one of several small concrete courts around town keeping kids out of trouble (or more out of trouble than they would have been otherwise). On the other hand, I find allegiances to teams and statistics and big money and ridiculous sexism sort of against the ethos of what sport means for me. All these big ideas are also just a cover for the fact that I'm such a spaz that I can't possibly sit still for an entire game of nearly anything if it's not live.

Given all this, the World Cup football fever that hit Nicaragua provided an interesting time for me.
For about a month, any midday walks were accompanied by the sounds of far- off cheering wafting between houses.  I suppose this is what it was like when television was first invented: everyone tuned to the same station, living the same moment.

I approached the World Cup with my usual faker's approach to things that are slightly out of my league (no pun intended) or my interest level, a skill that I have honed during Peace Corps. But I was swept away. Due to school winding down for the semester with lots of cancellations, I watched a lot of the games with Nica friends and fellow PCVs and got a lot more drawn into it than I expected. When it got down to the last few games, I actually wanted to go watch the games, and not just to be with other people.

A side benefit was that for the first time in my service, I had an actual topic to talk about to men, even if it meant I had to bs knowing players names and the outcomes of past world cups. I can only imagine how different things would be if World Cups were a permanent thing. Anytime someone would ask me yet again if I have a boyfriend, married, etc., I could totally just deflect with "Did you see the _________vs. _________ game? Wasn't it crazy?" Sigh.

Of course, the World Cup, like an global sporting event, is representative of so much of the good and bad in the world. The FIFA #Say No to Racism posters plastered around the stadium that apparently didn't want us to say no to the kind of institutionalized racism or classism that enabled the very venues for the event. The irony of teams made up of a rainbow spectrum of immigrants who wouldn't normally be welcomed but for their athletic ability. The narrow sliver of the world that was actually able to "come together as one". The massive outpourings of emotion for ultimately meaningless events that would change the world if they were directed at anything that actually mattered like education, climate change, poverty, environmental destruction.

But after all, it's only a game. It solves nothing, but maybe it brings us a little closer together, even if only in shared memories and maybe that's enough to hope for.

I don't hate men (only a little bit)

During my PC service, many people, particularly those back home, have commented: "Wow, Emily, you seem incredibly bitter and hateful towards men."

While I can't entirely deny the charge (I'm so justified!), I have had some incredibly positive experiences with (Nicaraguan) men, which have previously been vastly underrepresented on this blog.
And so...a quick attempt to rectify that!

My male counterpart English teachers: Jonathan, Rafael and Antonio
We've had our ups and downs and misunderstandings (cultural and literal) in our nearly 2 years of working together, but my counterparts are good people. They have worked so hard to improve their English, their teaching strategies and to welcome me into their school communities. We've had so many interesting discussions along the way, about myriad topics, in both languages, that have challenged and changed our points of view. I'm proud to have them as co-workers and friends.

The school guard- Rudulfo
Since I'm at the school a lot, Rudulfo has always been really helpful. He and I occasionally have random chats about life in Nicaragua, about his family, about life in the States and much else. He's got a curiosity about many things that keeps me on my toes.

Our TEFL bosses-Greg and Donald
Our Peace Corps Nicaragua TEFL team had/has some talented bosses who know how to support us through thick and thin.

CEPS
Picture a bunch of built Nicaraguan men giving lively charlas about using condoms and you have CEPS, a sexual health organization out of San Carlos that uses the technique of peer to peer education. 2 Legit 2 Quit! They helped us out with our opportunity fair and they are my personal heroes!

My (fake) Dad
My host Dad is a big jovial guy who's always been really friendly to me. We've always have pretty much the same conversation when he comes over. He's been to the States once or twice for cattle ranching things, so sometimes we talk about that, or the weather. Then, he tells me I look really skinny, not like when I first got there, and asks me for weight loss tips. I tell him to drink lots of water, avoid fried food and walk more.

Students
Some of them are awesome, and totally not creepy!!

And while he isn't Nicaraguan, he still counts!
My (real) Dad
I appreciate my father so much more after being here. Not that I didn't know he was a great guy before, but he comes out pretty darn favorably when compared to a lot of Nicaraguan fathers. I'm so lucky that he has been supportive of me in all of my endeavors, even those that have taken me really far away, letting me do my own thing and make my own mistakes. I'm eternally grateful for his guidance and love.