Asked to dance by a War Hero!

Look at that! It almost looks professional! Yes, that’s the same room that last week contained religious ornaments and mattresses. I’m still unsure whether I’m the right person for this particular little venture, and even less sure whether I’ll get through a class of spoilt feral adolescents tomorrow but at least we now have the tools to try! The covers are essential – the amount of dust is huge, and damaging, and the procuring of covers was becoming yet another stalling point so plastico! was the answer. I was wanting to use the second hand clothes from one of the many shops that sell them which would have fit with my life plan of never buying anything new but as I’d just bought a mobile phone (boo hiss) I thought it was a bit hypocritical and I don't have sewing machine.

I’ve just got back from the big city, Esteli – more dust on the road up through Miraflor, you’re covered in it by the end of the 3 hr journey – where I spent a weekend being a gringo and procuring other English teaching work. Oh, and dabbling in a bit of volunteering consultancy with Juanita, not-for-profit hostel owner and Spaced fan.

Ah, the wonder of being able to utter a phrase like “Tim got a miniature drumkit for his 5^th birthday” and have someone understand… Also met a couple biking round the world, fascinating conversations ensued about the world being broken and one half of the couple teased my woolly new-internationalist outlook so just like home really!! Aaaahh.

And, my first DISCO. After an evening of acoustic café activity largely without electricity, a group of us head to the Pan American Highway in the pitch black to find a cab to take us to a disco out of town. All the discos are out of town, because of the noise apparently but that’s hilarious as everyone in town plays music louder than this disco! Mobile adverts, Gyms, you name it they are all pumping the music out! Anyhoo, some shockingly bad 80s pop and some fair to middling Latin stuff accompanied my friends while they danced, and me while I drank rum. I was not for dancing that night, and even declined the offer (politely of course) of a very sweaty, enthusiastic war veteran.

So, back in Yali after some space, and yet more music blaring as I finish sorting the computer place. A selection of Ennio Morricone, Richard Clayderman and Acker Bilk is what has been assumed we all (the entire pueblo) want to listen to today. Blimey I’m starting to sound like my Dad. At least I can console myself with the fact that he hasn’t visited a Disco on the Pan American - yet…

"We're not in Kansas anymore Toto..."

Blimey. Where to start.

Yesterday morning I lay in bed from 5 til 8 having intended to get up at 5, but finding I had a sort of inertia. 5 is a perfectly acceptable time to be getting up it seems, and I´m finding going to bed at 9pm remarkably easy. But the getting up… I just don’t know what to expect when I go out there. And my room is nice and safe. So I left my room at 8, obtained some milk (more about milk later) for my granola and thought I´d do a bit of pant washing out the back. In order to give the project coordinator time to come up with a few more problems. I couldn’t quite bear to go back to the `computer` room and see it exactly as it was 2 weeks ago again. ..

Sure enough, the coordinator finds me washing my pants and tells me we have more problems. The electrician came, the price is very high, we have to get it authorized, the guy to authorize it is out in the campo, and when I ask what are the chances of us actually starting lessons next week – we don’t know. And we should have started this week. So I’m standing there in an outhouse, underwear in hand, and I’m thinking I’m an English teacher. How did I get to be talking to a guy about electrical cable with not a lesson of any kind – English, computing, whatever – in sight? And what do I do? Yup you guessed it. I weep. Then I hang my washing out and go back in the house, and a very friendly but incredibly fast talking family member starts asking me what to do with his laptop, as one of the drives appears to be faulty and he can’t get it to start at all. He’s asking ME?! So I give him advice. What the hey. I’m getting to understand how people get sucked into these fraudulent lives, when they pretend they’re doctors and stuff. They think I know loads, and that my Spanish is bad. Truth is I know nothing!! And my Spanish is bad!

Which isn’t true actually. The one useful thing I did yesterday was take the administrator of the cooperative to the internet café (thank god that internet café is there. Thank god.) and search for accounting freeware. We found 3 programs she thinks might be useful, I’ve downloaded them onto a memory stick and installed them on the computer in the office and she’s going to have a play. You’ve no idea how hard it is to find free software in another language about a subject you know nothing about! But we did it somehow…

So. Back to the morning. I pull myself together and think well I can at least check the computers one by one and make sure they’re all configured the same. So I go over to the building, and the priests aren’t there. And the computers are being kept in the priest`s quarters for safe keeping. So once again I have nothing to do.

So I draw a big picture of a computer and label it with Spanish and English words. And then I go home and watch tv. My home, whilst a little crazy like all families, is friendly and comfortable. We have Grandma, Mum, 2 boys 6 and 12, and an uncle. The uncle is the one that talks unfeasibly fast. The Mum, same age as me, is more than happy to talk to me about all sorts and is extremely patient when I don’t understand. And last night I paid her back by doing English with her. Wow, I got to teach English. Hurrah!!

And there are more opportunities in that regard. A possible training session with the teachers here in Yali, who are a mix of locals and Peace Corps volunteers. And some self study groups near Esteli who are using the Nest Trust Book but would like a teacher too. And the aforementioned Priest, who eventually came back... And a week long intensive course in June for the school teachers of Ometepe.

And, by end of day yesterday we had a computer up and running, a lock on the door and were halfway to getting the printer to work. Which, I think, is pretty rapid movement in these parts.

Milk. The Family I live with have a house in Yali, and also a farm nearby. They have cows, and every day there is a great big vat of milk out back in the kitchen. And, as well as selling it to other little shops, they sell it out their back door. A steady stream of people wander along with strange shaped bottles and get a refill. This morning, a young girl turned up and got a lesson from grandma in maths in working out how much 3 litres would cost, and then a little lecture about how you need maths in all of life. I think. She could have been talking about something entirely different but I like to try and fill in gaps!

And the best thing about the house - it´s this close to the internet place...
















...But then everything's pretty close in Yali. If I was a local I'd stand in the middle of the basketball court in the town square and shout people's names, and see how many I could get to come running. Not a good idea for me right now, as I get stared at enough...

Birthday

Yup. I had good food. And beer. and there was someone playing guitar. So, small, and a bit different, but it had the basic elements of a rebs birthday.

I´m in Yali now, having finished my spanish classes - it´s about time I did some work I think. I just have to wait for the electrician to come and make powerpoints, and get the computers out the boxes, and make sure they work, and clear the room of excess mattresses and odd ornaments, and get someone to acquire 3 more desks. And advertise the classes. And none of it is really within my control. That's fine! Its not like Im the kind of person who needs to be in control of stuff!!

hmmm.

The art of the TeleNovela

When I first arrived in Nicaragua I was quite offended by the telenovela phenomenon: awfully acted soaps that are played in many countries and dubbed into the right kind of spanish for the area and are set in odd, nothing times and places to appeal to as many people as possible. I`m quite a fan of crap telly, but this was something else. However, thanks to the Alma Gemela theme tune my opinion has wavered...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTG6Qvmqm-k&feature=related

It was on in my family´s house in Matagalpa every day at half twelve, and it grew and grew on me... best enjoyed quite loud, and you should sway along with it. The episodes can also be enjoyed on you tube too...

The Weekend - San Ramon

Haven´t described the weekend in San Ramon yet!

Another teacher came down from Jinotega and we took ourselves off to A nice Albergue to be touristy and talk English. And the Albergue really was lovely... and what´s more it´s been set up by the community with some external help to raise and provide funds for projects in San Ramon.

We also explored the centre of San Ramon which is small bur quite lively, and visited a women´s co-operative in one of the surrounding communities that makes recycled paper.

The walk to this co-operative was superb - coffee plants, strange moss on trees...

And then the next day, we visited a great waterfall. So, all in all a marvellously touristy weekend.

Dos Fiestas! Spam Kebabs and Lasagne

Well my bad day got better, as they often do. And, one positive point out of the depressing bit is that I got to use the word for ´depressing´- which had been alluding me until now!

Still feeling quite sorry for myself, I went again to find Martha Villareyna - who had accidentally double booked me, as there was an employee leaving for Spain and they were having an office party. So I was invited! And there was no talk of coffee so I am none the wiser, but I have experienced a very friendly 'works do' in Nicaragua. Which included a good 20 mins of impressions of the rest of the team - how they walk, talk and dance - by the sweet looking woman in the right of this picture... it was bloody hilarious! And many many speeches, far more expressive than any we could come up with in England. So I practiced my Spanish, ate a good spread (rice, spam sausage kebabs and a good salad) and went home caring less about the possibility of being eaten alive. And the added repellent of a newly erected mozzie net seemed to work last night... fingers crossed. Gracias a Dios for earplugs eh.

And the second Fiesta - plans are afoot for a small gathering to celebrate my cumpleanos on Friday evening. As the restaurant that does good italian food is very expensive for those on a Nicaraguan wage, and I only have about 4 friends and don´t want to alienate half of them, Jeanette is going to cook Lasagne and pan con ajo and we will drink beer and make merry to celebrate my birthday. Wow, 2 parties in one week! I´m making the most of it as I start work in Yali on Monday...

"Infraestructura? No hay..."

Well. I awoke this morning to find I had quite a few flea bites. A new phenomenon, and I have a suspicion that I know how they got there... I also found a mouse poo, in my bed, and a few more on the window sill. I am of the opinion that the heavy rain drove a little chap in through my glass-less window last night, and he brought with him fleas as a gift. And left them. I'm dealing with this, practically and mentally, and no es el fin del mundo but it looks to be one of those days cos I also had a spanish lesson in which I found out that there doesn´t appear to be a system in place, with either charity or government help, to pay families a sum of money to foster children. This was in a conversation about a song we´d listened too about street children... and we´d got to that subject through talking about the big glue sniffing problem amongst very young working children.

So, my flea problem is in perspective, but somehow I don't feel better. And I long for the nonsense conversations in offices in Tower Hamlets about infrastructure organisations. At least we have one to talk shit about.

To school and back again

Lots of last week was spent walking up and down the same road to school and back. And studying. Studying is tedious and doesn't make good copy, and Luke has told me "we need more, and better, photos on the blog"... so here goes.

Journey starts here, just outside my house - and there's a lovely big yellow US reject sitting there too. Then I walk 6 blocks down this road...

You should just be able to make out a little white sign above the road - that`s the turning where my school is. How exciting! And, every day, I walk past....

THE FARMER'S MARKET!! El Mercado Campesino. Who have good avocados. And then, I sit and have a lesson with someone like Wilcon here. Who is pretending to look studious because of the photo but is very friendly.

And, just for good measure, here's another bus. They look good don't they. In actual fact they and the roads combined are so bumpy that a good sports bra is necessary. And you do leave your seat.

That'll do I think. Must study! I'm trying to stay calm but it's hard when I know in a week I'm going to have to use it to teach... and I still struggle over the simplest of things. Hey ho. Vale la pena as they say...

Coffee. Segundo Parte

I went to Martha Villareyna' s house for tea! The third time I popped into the office she was there, and incredibly enthusiastic. So on Thursday evening I put my skirt on and a top that isn't brown or khaki and purchased chocolates to proffer. She in turn took me to her place in a loverly 4x4, showed me her home, and gave me this amazing hard candy they make from sugar cane on her sister's farm. And we did her homework together. She also explained a little more about her job, and I`m going back on Tuesday for more info!! And more beans rice and plantain. Yum.

CECOCAFEN has about 11 co-operatives under its wing. Those 11 co-operatives are about 2637 coffee farms. There are four different markets for coffee, and only one of those ´markets´ is the Fairtrade market. (I forgot the others. I`ll check on tuesday.) They are able to sell about 60% of their coffee as fair trade, therefore with a guaranteed minimum price. The market's not big enough for the whole 100%. The other 40% - the price goes up and down. But, obviously all their farms have to be ceritified fairtrade, to be able to sell some of this coffee in the Fairtrade market. So the Fairtrade premium is spread over 100% of their farms to go into education, better methods etc, but they're not selling all their coffee at that price. And, what's more, and if I haven`t got this right I'm sure someone that knows will say, that means that other buyers actually buy coffee from Fairtrade farmers for a lesser price...? For example, they sold to Starbucks this year. But not in the Fairtrade market. So Starbucks got 'Fairtrade' coffee cheap? It's all confusing. I'm going back on Tuesday, let me know if you have questions!

Another teacher and I had a great weekend out in San Ramon which I'll tell you more about soon, but during that time we saw a number of coffee families belonging to UCA San Ramon, which in turn belong to CECOCAFEN. And I can tell you that life's still no breeze on a Fairtrade farm. Beautiful surroundings, but houses are small and basic, and life's little luxuries do not abound.

DISCLAIMER: my Spanish is shakey. Take my facts with a pinch of salt! In case anyone is actually reading this for fact. And I suggest you don't...

Quick things:
I have used Gaya's yoga mp3s. Very zen.
These backpacker-y velcro sandals are the most useful single item i have ever bought. Can't believe I shunned them for so long.
Flying biting things like me. ALOT.
Beetroot and Lemon Juice tastes nice. try it.
It's impossible to escape that 'Umbrella' song.

Monday. I feel like Louis Theroux...

After a bit of nervousness on Sunday, I settled into the homestay okay. The process was helped by God, who it seems in these parts has a penchant for loud fireworks. Jeannette, mother for the next 2 weeks, told me they were for a specific celebration at the local church and a procession too. I popped off to have a look... I can report that it was a fairly plain affair compared to south american and spanish standards, ordinary looking people following a pick-up with a picture of Jesus in it. And - at the back- the DISCO MOBIL guy in his truck blasting out hymns, who only the day before I had seen doing the same around town with adverts for colgate or something! Diversify your client base, that's the ticket.

After my first lesson today I decided to follow up a suggestion from a previous worker that the Manager of CECOCAFEN really wants to practice speaking English. She trades with the US and Europe so uses it alot, and obviously she has an interesting job so I´d love to speak to her. So, and this is the Louis Theroux bit - I just wandered around til I found the office (you have to do this here, there are no street names - seriously) and walked in and asked for her. She wasn´t there, obviously but I left a message with her assistant who was also interested in a bit of extra english in return for much coffee info. The gaul of me! Don't know what's come over me. We will have to wait and see what comes of it.

So... Will Martha Villareyna accept Rebecca's offer of English? Or will she take one look at her and dismiss her as a dirty backpacker? Find out...soon...

By the way if you´re on the list of people that gets told everytime i write something and you don't want to be - let me know. You know me, I don´t like to be a bother.

Oh, and more admin - there really is no point in sending anything by post apparantly, but if you have a burning desire to try i do have an address i can give you. There are also virtually no postcards here either - strange but true. x

Coffee

Hello! First things first - i can get email now. Got in through the back door.

I still haven´t explained the coffee adventure in Yali, just before i left for Matagalpa. We were just wandering about looking for breakfast when we bumped into Noel, president of aforementioned Co-op in Yali. He´s standing in front of his shop with a great big vat of milk, doling it out to anyone who arrives with something to put it in. Of course MaggieJo knows him, we get to talking, we go in for coffee and a chat. Upon discovering that I´m off to Matagalpa for 2 weeks in an hour´s time, and coffee processing season is nearly over for another year, he decides that we must go 'ahorita' - right now, in the truck, to his processing place. We will be back in time for the bus in an hour. So, the Nicaraguans can move fast when they want to!! And was I GLAD he did. There he is look, standing with MaggieJo looking at the first step of the process...

Because it's a special processing plant (or Beneficio). As well as the normal de-husking, washing, drying business...

...They also in this beneficio re-use the water, and then when it's dirty clean it using a sort of 'reed bed' system of three lakes. By the time the water gets to the third, they are testing at the moment whether they can grow plants and raise fish - and if so, the whole thing will be successful. This is fairly unique in coffee plants, I´m told, and this is the community that´s right at the beginning of starting tourism. I think the hippy tourists will lap it up, no?!
(By the way. Do you raise fish? is that the right verb? I´m losing my English!)
Below are the gutters where the water runs to be pumped back up. I have more pictures but I'm not sure how much of the story they tell so I'll hold back til I know more... And ALL THIS before 9am in the morning!! Santos is the excited looking guy above, in the drying section. I think he'd make a great guide. Vamos a ver!!

Friday. Yali to Matagalpa via Jinotega.

There´s another teacher based in Jinotega named Bonnie that MaggieJo wanted to catch up with and I wanted to meet, so yet another stop off on the way to Matagalpa. BUT now I´m here, MaggieJo is gone, and I´m waiting to start being a student of spanish for 2 weeks. Hurrah! Wow. That whistlestop tour was the best induction I´ve ever had - and I´ve been inducted by Cath!

Oh - Tower Hamlets people - Juanita (in Esteli) lived in Bow for years, and her brother lived in Hanbury Street. Knew Tower Hamlets well... also wants to talk about volunteer issues when I go back to stay in her Hostel. Small world eh - the Volunteer Centre is on Tour!

Thursday. Yali.

I´ll let a website that got there first show you the main square, the church and a couple of other views...

http://www.manfut.org/jinotega/yali.html

It´s very small, and after 2 days I was already recognising faces. Gustavo (at the Co-op, coordinating classes) explained much more that first evening we were there, and helped us find a room at the HOTEL YALI - and here is my evidence that every day has not been a Best Western day. Photos of shower and sink - my room was off to the right.

And, a small misunderstanding nearly led to us not staying there at all... Just as we were doing the deal to agree the rooms, there was a short power cut. We decided to go off to get some food, and then ended up staying out a bit longer to drink beer (tasty, 2 kinds, goes down well in hot weather) and talk about Gustavo and his part in the revolution. Maggejo, he and I enjoyed talking about history, and putting the world to rights, so much that we didn´t get back til - ooh, 10pm... The place was locked up with no one in sight! Much knocking on windows ensued, employing the help of the little man with a big gun guarding the place too. I have a feeling when I get back to Yali my days are going to start early and be over at sundown...

Wednesday. Esteli to Yali with the Padre

More waiting in Esteli - the assured lift from another Yali Co-op guy didn´t come through, and eventually we got picked up by the priest of the district of Yali. Never a cooler priest have I met - jeans, t-shirt, groovy smile... He drove us up through the Miraflor reserve (getting still higher and greener all the time) in his 4x4 at a pace that sometimes caused us to entirely leave our seats. And I discovered through talking about this experience that the word for roller coaster seems to be "Russian Mountain" - but no-one knows why. I was also surprised that I was able to use the word for priest so soon after I´d read it in my Spanish copy of the Alchemist- I knew I might, but I wasn´t expecting revision to happen that quickly!

So we arrive late afternoon and get straight down to business. I´m to teach computing to the members of the cooperative and their families, which means farmers from Yali and surrounding area of coffee and cattle. Some may be in English, some in Spanish, and there may be English classes too- but they´re covered at the moment. As they´re explaining a little of what the cooperative does, I just about understand that they are working on particular types of fodder for cows that is drought resistent, and how artificial insemination has improved the number of calves born. I think... I also thought for ages that there was alot of talk of apples and I wasn´t sure how this fitted - until it was explained that the word also means a measurement of land slightly bigger than an acre. How was I to know??!

Let me explain Co-operatives... There are individual farms. Then there are groups of individual farms called cooperatives. They work together to ensure health, education, good farming methods etc. Then there are Unions of these cooperatives - in Nicaragua, called UCAs. THEN - there are organisations that are the third tier, selling coffee abroad etc. One example is an org called CECOCAFEN. As yet I havent worked out where Fairtrade fits in, or the sessional workers that come from other areas of the country to pick coffee at seasonal times. But hey- it´s not been a week yet!

Managua to Esteli. "We´re Jokers..."

...So I hung about at the hotel with bell boys and inflated prices the morning after I arrived. MaggieJo was to finish a meeting and pick me up in a combi minibus with cooperative workers from around the north of Nicaragua. This she duly did, and I realised my trip had begun when she wandered into the foyer with 2 guys and introduced me in Spanish. After a moment´s suprise I realised that yes this was perfectly normal as we are in Nicaragua. This has happened a couple of times since - I just forget, and wonder why people are speaking in a funny language. We then had a beautiful drive, which started dry and got greener, and passed a few lakes and mountains, to Estelli. And I listened to a bunch of very sweet coffee workers making hilarious jokes which I didn´t understand, so I spent alot of that journey with a confused smile on my face. The times they spoke directly to me I understood more than I expected, so I know that they are all jokers cos they told me so. With 2 new words in fact. And later, in Esteli, Juanita (Jane but she´s lived here a while...) told me one of the reasons she liked Nicaragua enough to stay, make a baby, and open a hostel is because of the humour... "Grown men will fall off a horse laughing at something". I´ll be back to Esteli another time as its ´near´to Yali, but I had quick scout around an it is pretty and friendly. No time to stop though - on to Yali!!

(Virgin Media Still Annoying From Over Here!)

Grrr. the internet here in Matagalpa doesn´t think that virgin media exists. So I can´t get to my email at the moment. I`m wondering if its cos they think I´m looking for virgins? So all I can do is blog. Hey ho, I´ve got 4 days worth!!

Important stuff - my insides are normal, if you know what i mean. I have seen Yali. I have been hugely frustrated by work based things. (So I´m obviously fine!!!) I have had to use the phrase "I have a boyfriend" after almost exactly 24 hours here. I have used so much spanish even before I start my course... and feel like many conversations are through cotton wool. I also feel like I am in a constant state of "just bumped into an ex" - you know when you always have exactly the right thing to say 10 mins after you needed to say it? Every bloody conversation, the vocabulary comes filtering through when I´ve walked away!

I´ve seen 5 different places in 5 days, so it´s sinking in slowly. I´m now in the same place til 20 April so I´ve got a bit of time to think, breathe and even get bored... I shall update in stages so you don´t!

BEST Western

Wowee. Managua airport is definitely not Lima. I was expecting the same huge quantity of people pushing and offering and shouting, kind of like the Beatles were in town. Much quieter... And the whole thing was made ludicrously easy by the fact I had a reservation at the expensive hotel, meaning I was shepherded through customs anyway. I do however think even I could have managed to walk across the street to the hotel instead of being taken in the comedically short shuttle bus... bags in the boot, wait 10 minutes for the other three guests, drive further into the car park, round, and out of the security gates... and pull up immediately on the other side of the road. But after 20 hours of sitting, queuing, taking my shoes off and explaining my reasons for travel I was happy for the lovely treatment!

Over a beer by the pool (this is temporary luxury... i can´t afford 50 quid every night for 5 months...!) I heard from Maggie Jo a bit more about Yali. They are a relatively new cooperative, who have recently joined the nearby coffee union in Miraflor (where this whole project started). They are also a cattle cooperative, and their first project was for artificial insemination to improve their cow stock. Interesting. I shall come back with ideas for Mr Fearnley Whittingstall... I´m off up to Esteli this afternoon, and then further up to Yali tomorrow to find out more, and then before the weekend will have met 2 other teachers from Jinotega and Matagalpa to hear how their teaching is going. By monday I´ll be in Matagalpa doing Spanish lessons, with loads more knowledge about what´s going on... see you then!

Pictures are of the hotel dining area and pool... just checking out my sexy memory card usb thingy. it works luke!

x