On Wednesday (July 2) Maria went to Leon to visit Tricia, Tara and Jessica. The first 2 women work in the city of Leon teaching English at a school run by CEPAD, the Council of Protestant Churches in Nicaragua (http://www.cepad.org.ni/eng/index2.html ). Jessica works outside the city in the rural community of Chacraseca, which was right in the path of Tropical Storm Alma when it came ashore in late May. Part of her assignment there is also to help with disaster relief projects. She works with CIEETS, another Nicaraguan protestant organization that does agro-ecological projects and theological education in Nicaragua.

Leon, Nicaragua’s second largest and second oldest city (founded in the early 1600,s), has a number of museums, art galleries, and buildings with colonial architecture. Within view of an impressive range of 6-7 volcanoes, it sits on the country’s flat Pacific coastal plain. That low elevation means that it is #1 in Nicaragua when it comes to heat (see Tricia’s journal entry).

Because school starts each day for Tricia and Tara at 7 a.m., their days start around 5-5:30. They either walk or take a public bus to the school, where they get their teaching assignment for the day. That varies to include different levels and whether or not they team-teach a class. By noon they are finished for the day and return home.

Since Nicaragua’s mid-year two-week school vacation is in July, normally Tricia and Tara would not have classes to teach. However, Maria helped them explore some options, and they decided to organize some additional vacation English classes for two hours each day during the first week. The next week two groups of students will have a dialogue competition in English. Since the mid-year school vacation falls at a time when parents don’t have work vacation, students are usually glad for a study option that is preferable to staying at home the entire two weeks.

Maria also visited with both families. Tara’s family (see her journal entry) lives outside of town, although her father works in the city’s municipal offices. Her mother is a teacher. Tricia lives in the city, where her mother works with a musical group and frequently with different work brigades that come to Nicaragua from abroad.

Thursday morning (July 3) Tricia and Tara took a 45-minute bus ride to the countryside with Maria to visit Jessica in Chacraseca. At Jessica’s house they met her mother, a community leader who works for CIEETS. In the words of Jessica, her mother “cooks, cleans, and sews (for her own family and for others), she pulls water out of the well, she kills and de-feathers chickens to eat, and she never seems to sleep.” Together they enjoyed a lunch of arroz aguada, a thick rice soup usually flavored with onions and tomatoes. Like the homes of students in Boaco and Ometepe, the floors are dirt, but meals are served at lunchtime to whomever happens to be in the house at the time. The house’s electricity had been knocked about by Alma, but was now back (see Jessica’s journal entry).

One of the CIEETS projects is to reforest a former sugar cane field with 2,000 trees. Jessica helps in the tree nursery, clears land for planting seedlings, digs the holes for planting, and waters the seedlings.

True to form in the campo, her day starts at 5:30 a.m., and work with the trees starts at 6:00. Field work ends sometime before noon, and then after lunch the rest of the day is spent helping her mother with housework. One of the jobs is getting the ‘raw material’ for the house’s biogas stove (see photos).

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Journal Entry from Tricia, “Leon’s Environment”

When I think of the natural world surrounding me here in Leon, one word inevitably jumps into mind: hot. Really hot. Many native Nicaraguans, as well as my trusty Nicaraguan tour book, told me that Leon is nestled in the hottest part of the country. Given this information, I feel as though I should have been more prepared. I had temporarily forgotten how hot Jinotepe had been, before the rains started, but now I remember.

Other than that, there really isn’t much to complain about. The landscape surrounding the city is gorgeous, like many other parts of the country. Yesterday we went outside of town to the finca [farm], which is owned by someone related to my family. It was pretty and green and crawling with cows and goats and horses. However, in the campo [countryside], more so than the city, I could see devastation caused by that lousy tropical storm. Many trees had been torn up, walls and roofs of houses destroyed, and many previously clean water sources that were destroyed have yet to be renewed.

Currently, I would say that recovering from Alma is a predominate ecological concern for the people of Leon. Much of the damage has yet to be cleaned up or rebuilt, and many people are too concerned with their day to day survival to do much about it.

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Journal Entry from Tara, “Becoming a Daughter”

However difficult the transition and adjustments have been for me coming to Leon and maneuvering frequent changes in schedules as well as other confusions, my host family has helped me pull through.

I have been overwhelmed by their generosity. They insist that I use their cell phones to call my U.S. family at least once a week. Yet they allow me to wash my own clothes and dishes.

They give me my own space but include me in things when I don’t appear to be doing anything else. This is actually more complex than it sounds. I always want to participate in anything that goes on, so I try to make myself available as often as possible. But obviously there isn’t something every moment of every day, and when I get bored I have to carefully monitor the time I spend reading so that I don’t close myself off too much.

Obviously our relationship isn’t perfect. I still have trouble communicating (especially when they mumble or use regional slang), but we spend a lot of time together.

I have caught on to the daily routine but I am still often surprised by an activity or guest that I was unaware of.

And, as with my Jinotepe family, I wish I could communicate my full range of emotions and personality. For this I have come to rely more on non-verbals, such as facial expressions and games. Physical activity – especially with my siblings and other children – has been very helpful for me in creating bonds.

One way or another, bonds have been formed thus far. Last night I was introduced, to a new person, as “nuestra otra hija [our other daughter], Tara Mendoza.” This meant a lot to me. The new last name came about partially as the result of a general inability to pronounce my actual last name, but still it’s good to know that, as they say, as long as I’m here, I’m a Mendoza.

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Journal Entry from Jessica Fridley, “Life without Electricity”

When I got here the electricity was still out from when [Tropical Storm] Alma came through (which was the day before Mother’s Day in Nicaragua). It was fine with me. I didn’t know life in the campo with electricity anyway, and I liked being able to see the stars in the evening. The only downside was the fridge didn’t work and the only water we could drink had to be brought in from Leon.

The day before Nicaragua’s Fathers Day the water came back on for everyone, and some people in the community got their lights back (but not us). We got our lights back the day after Father’s Day.

It was pretty exciting. All the lights were turned on, the TV worked, and cell phones could be recharged. Since radios are battery-powered, it wasn’t that much louder with the TV, but people talked less and just sat and watched TV more.

When I’m trying to sleep at night, I like it better without electricity, but at any other point in the day I could go either way. That is good because the lights randomly go out at times.

Living here without electricity and with dirt floors I wonder what kind of house/apartment I’ll live in after college. I’ve always been down to earth and not wanting a big place to live in. I do know that I want a working bathroom (tub and shower) and a garden of some kind, even if it is in pots on the window.