Happy Holidays To All!

We are spending Christmas this year in Panama City, miles away from any of our biological family, but close by to many of our new “family” in so many of the countries we have blessed to have been able to travel to and get to know the people. If in your corner of the world it is white and snowy, send some of that down to us!

In the meanwhile, we got a wonderful Christmas present just a few days ago- an update from La Florida where we did one of our favorite projects with some of the most wonderful people that you could hope to work with. The perfect situation of a community that works together and is striving to better their lives, but just needed a little helping hand. The biggest part of our nutrition project there was an aquaculture pond for raising tilapia, and their update was that the fish have grown so big they are ready to harvest! I think they’re going to sell some and eat some- increasing nutrition through added protein and getting money for other projects and to pay the teacher at the school and buy the next round of fish fry to rear. We’re happy to have been able to give a “gift that keeps on giving” and look forward to more projects like this that we can look back on and realize just why it is we do the work we do. And for anyone that has donated to The GROW Initiative, it’s also what you have given that is keeping on giving.

Santa Rita, where everybody knows your name

When we rolled back into Santa Rita the welcome back we received warmed our hearts and helped remind us why we do the work we do. Our last two days with the community were filled with visits and when it came time to say goodbye, we faced one of the saddest times of our trip. But one great thing about our grand journey is as we make friends in nearly every corner of the globe, and we always have our new “families” to go back to visit!

Everyone in Santa Rita was wonderful. Invitations were always coming to try this special Tica dish at my house, or come and visit my farm, or just kids coming over to play. As for our host “family” we couldn’t have dreamed of people we got along with better, from late night draft games to dance lessons in the living room to learning to cook the local favorites. When it came to teaching in the school or working with the women’s group on their recycling program it fit perfectly with the goals of GROW and we were happy to be able to help.

Our projects there turned out great as the people of the community took charge of all the work with us just giving the helping hand of funds and making sure they had thought everything through. They had to submit a proposal and do all the leg work themselves. Sadly because of our time frame this meant that we were gone before the recycling centers were actually built, but it is much more sustainable for community to do the work themselves giving them a sense of pride and responsibility to keep the program running. We’re just excited to get back and see it all. In the meanwhile, they’ll be updating us and we’ll be updating our website. We did other work in Santa Rita as well, and you can read about it all on the GROW website.

Buena Suerte!

So after finishing a great project in Costa Rica, getting a great update from our first project in Guatemala, traveling through some of the most beautiful country on our trip as we made our way down to Panama, another good project with a great Peace Corps volunteer in an awesome community, we decided we are going to write about of course….. Gambling! Panama City 2009! WHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

News on our other adventures is soon to come but unfortunately it takes thought. What doesn’t is a quick recap of a fun night. As Brooke and I were returning to our hostel after a tasty little veggie dinner in our newest location, Panama City, we decided to take a look inside a building named Fiesta. Surprised to find a casino inside we thought to ourselves, this is weird, let’s take a walk around. Even weirder was when we found a bowl full of quarters (a whole $4.25) sitting abandoned by a slot machine. After pulling off the nonchalant look around, sure that we were being set up for a developing countries first “Caught on tape” reality show, we played one quarter in the slot machine and headed for the roulette table. Too small of an amount to bet on red or black we laid down our money on a few different numbers and wouldn’t you know it, red 16 hit.

Were in the Money! Were in the Money! Well Ok, $12 is not so much of a retirement fund, but it did allow us to sit on the black jack tables for a good hour or so, slurp down a few free drinks (including one of the most delicious blended drinks, complete with an umbrella, I have ever had), and pretend just for a moment we are not living off of a combined $10 a day. But unfortunately, even in developing countries the house still has the odds and we were sad to see our money begin to leave just a fast as it came. So down to our last $3 we laid it on the black jack table and got ourselves ready to call it a night when an ace and a ten came calling us back in. We took our big win and decided to let it ride on the roulette table on red. After some confusion we actually put it on black and hit again. Whoooo Hhoooooo!

Amazing how excited two people can get over 14 dollars. And really, we don’t care that our big winnings will pretty much pay for a trip to the local grocery for a carton of free range eggs and small square of cheese back in the States, because tonight luck is with us and life is good. Hope everyone is having as lucky of a holiday season as we are. We love and miss you all

El Día de Gracias, a time for family

We certainly have a lot to be thankful for, and that list should start off this year with THANK YOU GINGER AND JON FOR COMING TO VISIT US! After 11 months without seeing anyone in my family, the sight of Ginger showing up at the airport in San Jose for a visit was wonderful! And so our Thanksgiving blog is a little late in coming, since the past 9 days they have been keeping us busy running all over Costa Rica and then we've been in the middle of nowhere without electricity for a few days. But in no particular order, here’s a thanks list that I’m sure is not even close complete as we are some very fortunate people.

Our families; their loving support and for just being amazing people.
Our friends, also wonderful and supportive.
The fact that our camera lasted as long as it did (it just died)
The incredible projects we have found to do in different countries during our travels.
Our health (One entire month without runny belly!)
That we still find so much pleasure in the little things nature has to show us, no matter how many times we see the shy ferns or the leaf cutter ants, we always stop to marvel.
The automatic friends we have just by the fact we, too, were PCVs.
That we have the means to be living out our dreams and be helping others.
The hospitality of strangers. (Our new host families including those in Couch Surfing that open up their homes and their lives to us with no expectations in return, the people that pick up the funny looking Gringos with the huge backpacks on the side of the road and often go out of their way to get us where we are going, new community members that invite us over and cook us dinner, people that go above and beyond to give us directions, people we have amazing conversations with in the strangest of places, fellow volunteers, fellow backpackers, kind hearts and old souls)

One of the things we like best about traveling is not traveling

To unpack the backpack (ahh ha, that is where that passion fruit from three weeks ago was hiding… and smelling) and feel settled in somewhere is one of our favorite things. It seems we often go in stints- sometimes on the go a lot, and then we find a great spot to settle down for a bit. That’s where we’ve been the last few weeks, settled in Santa Rita de Florencia, Costa Rica.

Our first impressions of Costa Rica were a bit of a shock- no big fresh food markets, no street food vendors, nice buses, more expensive everything, people looking at me funny when I eat a perfectly good cheeto off the ground! Are we even in Central America still? We still enjoyed our jaunts to the touristy places of Arenal and La Fortuna, swimming in beautiful rivers in the shadow of a towering smoking volcano, but what we’ve really been enjoying is more “life in the campo.” So this has to start with a big thanks to my friend Emily, from back in Semester at Sea days. She lives in an amazing community where the people have all become her close friends, thus making it easier for other gringos such as us to come in and be welcomed with open arms. Plus Emily introduced us to our wonderful host family, who happen to be some of the most warm and caring people we’ve met in our travels. They immediately felt like real family and more than any other place really, we felt we could connect on a deeper level with them (even with our still somewhat broken Spanish).

We’ve had the chance to hold many charlas (special teaching sessions) with the kids from the local school, as well as with the Women’s Group and individual things like going to someone’s house to show them how to make their own fresh yogurt. Being in a place with lots of cows, and living with a family that has a dairy farm, we haven’t been lacking for fresh milk and so made cheese, cream, butter, ice cream… it's been great for keeping in line with our love of creating in the kitchen. When we haven’t been concocting things for our family, we’ve been eating their delicious cooking, though sadly it’s mostly so delicious because it’s all fried, and since our intestinal bugs have finally left us, our clothes are starting to fit again, for better or for worse!

Nights of playing their form of checkers, being challenged to arm wrestling, helping cement in a new sugar cane press in the back, get fish from the tilapia pond, teaching English classes… we have not been lacking things to do. We are thankful to have seen the real side of Costa Rica, the way the people live their day to day lives and to get to be a part of that.

So there’s something to be said for going slow (as you can see we’re only in CR after nearly 11 months of travel) and unpacking the backpack. We’re hitting the road again but are going to check out some more places that sound great, like two other fincas in southern Costa Rica- maybe we’ll fall in love with those too and unpack for a little while there…

Problems Communicating

So I was sitting by the front door at my host family’s house in Lagartillo, Nicaragua, studying the subjunctive past participle of the conditional future tense, when the four year old grandchild of my host mother walked out of the house, pulled out his “little hombre” and started urinating on the front walk and chair that happened to be sitting outside the door. I almost started to yell something but then reconsidered as I thought my jumbled garble I try to pass as Spanish might cause the boy to turn putting me dangerously close to the line of fire. Besides, the thought of coming up with the words to explain why this was wrong was way beyond my kindergarten level of conversing. So I pretended that I didn’t see or hear the action taking place five feet beside me and went back to my studying which to my amusement happened to be a story describing a little boy and a waterfall. And I would have been completely content with my lack of bravery if five minutes later my host mom hadn’t come out and picked up the chair in order to use it in the kitchen. Here my moral consciousness overcame my lack of wanting to speak and I blurted out, “NO, NO! Orinar! Orinar, el nino!” Now orinar is the verb “to urinate” which I know because I looked it up the day before after a very painful conversation where I was asking if it was alright to pee “orinar” in their back yard instead of using their very tricky composting toilet (another story). Now I know my sentence, or nonsentence, was terrible but I didn’t expect the response of a blank faced smile and nod that I use so often when I don’t understand what the hell someone is saying to me, as she continued to take the chair into the kitchen. With this fight too risky to give up on I collected myself and said very calmly, “Un momento, el niño orino (yes, I even used the past prederate form of the verb) in la silla. No esta bueno para usar.” It was perfect. I was so proud of myself and my Spanish; of course until I saw her reaction was the same smile along with a “si” as she continued on past me. Knowing all I could do to get the point across would be to demonstrate the action, I choose again to go back to my reading. To this day I still don’t know what happened in the kitchen after that. I like to think she understood my perfect Spanish and the chair was quarantined until a proper triple bleach treatment could be made available, but to be on the safe side I still have chosen to stand no matter how many times I have been asked to sit down and relax in this nice comfortable blue chair.

A horse is a horse, of course of course

So after 33 years and 10 months I have finally ridden my first horse. Well riding might be too strong of a word, but I was definitely on top of a horse that was moving (sort of). As you probably have gotten from the other stories of Lagartillo there are no cars here; only los caballos (horses). Most families tend to have a least one or two for transportation and work, and my family was not different. Although their brave stallion was 20+ years old, he was a good old worker and a good old pal as I spent a Saturday and Sunday along side him helping to weed red beans, pick fruit, milk the cows and chop and carry wood for the stove. At the end of a tiring day I was commenting on the use of the horse to my host father and mentioned that I had never ridden one. This was the only time I saw one of the sternest faced men I have ever met laugh out loud as he told me what I can only imagine translates into “well gringo, today is your lucky day.” So without any instructions he motioned for me to hop on and then smiled as I tried to figure out how this was to be done. Seeing enough cowboy movies I figured I would pretend I knew what I was doing and I put one foot in the thing-a-magigi and threw my other leg over the side severely hitting what no guy wants to hit. Not a good start.

My host dad then walked away to tend to some cattle that were going astray while I tried to figure out how to take the parking break off this thing. After five minutes (seemed like an hour) I was still sitting in the exact same place. I tried everything! English, Spanish, “open sesame, Heeyah! Heeyaho! (Spanish for Heeyah), kicking (softly), patting, horse whispering, scratching behind the ears and …… Nothing! I was finally looking around for a carrot to dangle when out of no where my host father popped out of the forest, hitting the horse with a branch full of leaves and WE WERE OFF! I guess first, second, and third gear were broken because we went straight into forth, as the horse galloped along the densely forested path. Again my “little guys” were not happy. I felt like a mix between Luke Skywalker in the Ewak village and Indiana Jones as I was trying to hold on for my life while keeping my hat from getting knock off on all the low lying branches. Again, it may have been a problem with my Spanish pronunciation or maybe this horse spoke German, but none of my commands were working. It was at that point that I heard my host father yelling “No! No! Derecha, derecha! (Right, right!)” as my horse distinctly decided to go down the left path. I felt like I was on that kids ride at Six Flags where the friendly singing frog puppet tells you to “stay away from the Marsh, don’t go in the Marsh,” as your boat makes a wrong turn into the not so friendly dragons mouth. But like the ride, everything turned out alright as my horse finally stopped at a stream and gently bent down to take a sip of water, like this is what he was planning the whole time.

Although an Olympic dismount followed by a kissing of the ground could have been in order, I decided to stay on and after a short time and with my own (much smaller) branch in my hand, the horse and I made or way out to the dirt road. The rest of the ride it was still clear who was in charge (hint: not the one that can do calculus), but I think an understanding was reached. The horse would choose when to go, when to stop, faster or slower, and which path to take, while I had the responsibility of yelling out a command after the horse started doing it. It worked perfect, as only Robert Redford knows how we ended up back at the house just in time to see my host father arrive from the apparently “correct” direction with a big smile on his face.

Something To Ponder

Often I question what is “developed.” This past week I lived amongst a community that has no running water, no indoor plumbing (bathrooms), no cars, and no regular electricity which meant of course, no TV, refrigeration, computers or cell phones. Things that if you took any one of them away from us in the States for more than a weekend camping trip we would seriously consider it a test of our survival. However the people in Lagartillo seem to be doing just fine. The aspects of their lives that we consider as undeveloped seem to have helped this community along in a direction that may be far more advanced than our own. True, while we have the convenience of high pressured hot and cold water close at hand in any part of the house and yard (I am counting 15 water valves, including toilets in the modest house I grew up in) our water comes from a treatment plant where it is pumped full of chemicals before traveling miles and miles to our house where we pay a ridicules amount of money for something that literally falls from the sky. In this community the water comes from a spring close to the pueblo and is connected to multiple centrally located stand pipes. Some houses are able to run hoses to these stand pipes, but everyone is close enough to be able to carry enough water to use for the day. Others use their roofs to collect rain water and usually store it in a cistern under the house. The water is clean, chemical free, close, and dependable. Everyone here knows exactly how their system works and so if there is a problem they can quickly fix it. While it is easy to miss an indoor bathroom 10 ft away at 2:00am in the morning, the view of the stars as you look up while fertilizing your favorite fruit tree (yes urine in small quantities is a great fertilizer) makes up for the convenience. When not using the backyard there is a double pitted composting toilet system that every house in the community has adopted. In short, this clean, OK smelling sanitation facility takes what can be a major hazardous waste product in the States and turns it into food for the earth that provides the nutritious fruits and vegetables that make up the diets of most of the people in the community. Horses replace the cars which also means the replacement of traffic jams, road rage, car accidents, car and gas payments, and insurance. Just think, if the next time you wanted to replace your old clunker all you had to do was go to your neighbor and borrow his mustang and some months later you had a free new little car that instead of omitting carbon dioxide as a waste product, omitted fertilizer.

While the community doesn’t have conventional electricity, most of the houses have small solar panels that only provide enough electricity for low voltage lights in the evening. This means that their TV consists of watching the children chase a cow around the streets, cooking with neighbors or just sitting down and having a good conversation. And while some nights I say I would give it all up for a half gallon of ice cream, the truth is, not having a refrigerator means fresh delicious food everyday. It is still under debate which is better. The loss of connectivity without a computer, cell phone or TV means a stronger connection with family and friends. Those that are close to you are always there to lend a helping hand making the onerous tasks we need a thousand machines to do for us, all become manageable.

And last but not least there is food. When it comes to food it is really amazing how efficient we are in America. The amount of meat we are able to produce on our chicken, pig and cattle farms, considering the minimal amount of land use and short time constraints, is absolutely amazing. Then the way that we are able to package it up so that it in no way resembles an animal, transport it insanely long distances and preserve it for unlimited time periods is truly a great example of human ingenuity winning the battle against nature. And I won’t lie; my mouth waters when I think of a boneless Alaskan Salmon cooked perfectly on a gas grill with spices from China, and India, vegetables from Chile, cheese from Europe, and a glass of wine from Australia. Yummm! But then you have Lagartillo. Not nearly as efficient or exciting considering every single meal I have had here has consisted of at least one part beans and another part tortilla. However, to complement the fresh daily made tortillas and beans that come form their own farm, is fresh fruits and vegetables, either from their backyard or their neighbors, fresh daily made cheese from a cow they milked that morning (remember no refrigerator) and coffee they picked and roasted themselves. Only on special occasions do they eat meat, which comes from at least all the way across their back yard where the chickens are running around looking for grubs in the back of the pig pen. There are no chemicals, no preservatives, no use of petroleum in transportation or feed, no use of detrimental packaging or pollutants from animal waste, or energy wasted on preservation. There is only a fresh delicious meal and a close, almost spiritual, relationship with the food that you are consuming. It really is a beautiful thing.

So as I finish hand writing this, blowing out my candle, and heading for bed at a late 8:30 PM, I will lay there and listen to the tranquil sounds of the countryside and ask myself again, “which country is the one that needs developing?”

Beautiful Nicaragua

We are currently sitting on a platform in a tree with a view of Lago de Nicaragua, Volcan Concepcion, and behind us is Volcan Maderas, (the two volcanoes that jointly make up the double sphere island of Ometepe). It is a good time to take stock of our time spent here in Nicaragua. So besides our “Life in the Campo” we’ve had our share of beautiful cities as well, starting with Leon. An old colonial city reminiscent of San Cristobal de las Casas or Xela (though way hotter!), Leon has a magical feel to it with its ancient churches, remnants of a not-so-distant war, museums, markets, and festivals like the one we arrived at the tail end of, eating festival food while bathed in the lights of fireworks.

Our time spent in Leon was made all that much better by the fact that we ran into old friends from our days in Guatemala. Also on Couch Surfing, they became our hosts (along with the rest of the Quetzeltrekker household, the great organization that leads hikes up volcanoes and gives all proceeds to helping street kids). We also got to work with Sonati collaborating on environmental education projects and materials- thanks Noni for everything and best of luck in all your endeavors there!

We found our new “tostada lady” aka a wonderfully kind woman with the most delicious of food for a price so low you feel like someone must be getting ripped off somewhere. In this case it was boiled, mashed yucca with a topping of some kind of saucy meat thing and pickled cabbage with some chili sauce on top, all wrapped up in a banana leaf. Delicious, enough for two people to split for a breakfast and only $.75. If that wasn’t our feast of choice you could probably find us at a street frangetta where you can get a wide array of friend deliciousness.

Esteli, Jinotega and Metagalpa are all beautiful cities in the mountains of northern Nicaragua. Especially nice when you’ve come from the sweaty, hot coast to the cool mountain breezes. We got to check out some great NGOs and help on some projects, plus hike around in Selva Negra which was beautiful, or our trek up to the cross on the slopes of Jinotega. Plus dine on some Salvadoran pupusas since we were starting to miss them :)

After a fly through glimpse of Managua trying to track down my passport (still in transit, thanks immigration) we arrived in Grenada to the hospitality and probably the strangest of our CS experiences with Jonathan. It’s a beautiful city where it was always the little unexpected things that were the best- like stumbling upon a kids’ baseball game, or a rehearsal for a musical, or the kid in the park selling cashews that wanted to arm wrestle me. Life is random.

Now life on the farm has slowed down the pace yet again. It’s hard not to just sit back and appreciate all the beauty nature has to offer when you have the kind of views there are here. That is when you have the time to just sit back, when you’re not planting or digging or mulching or swinging a machete, plus the time working at the community center. So life is busy as always, but great. So we’ll sign off now to appreciate the bugs and the beauty and the sounds and the stillness of it all. Wherever you are, slow down as well and take it all in.

The Other Side (backside) of Traveling

So when I turned to Brooke and told her “I have to get off this bus!” her first thoughts were that my conversation with the 17 year old know-it-all missionary beside me was not going so well (which is wasn’t) but that a simple seat change would be a simpler solution than getting off a bus we just paid 50 Cordovas for in the middle of nowhere in the rain. It wasn’t till I asked her where the toilet paper was that she saw the panicked look in my eyes and immediately understood the direness of the situation.
“Top of my bag!”
Damn! the zippers caught in the rainfly!
Can’t you hold it? We are in the middle of nowhere.
(No answer. . .Must concentrate on the zipper.) Ahh got it! I will meet you in Matagalpa!
What about your pack? Do you have enough money? How are we going to find each other? Its raining!
(No answer)

It is really amazing how after all the problems I’ve had communicating to bus drivers over the last eight months, I didn’t even have to finish my jumbled non-English or Spanish sentence before the driver had stopped the bus and opened the door. They say it is remarkable how much you can communicate with your eyes and perhaps that is what this was. Or maybe it was the fact that I was frantically trying to gather up the flowing role of toilet paper that to the entire buses delight was following me down the isle. In the end we will never know.

So no need to go into detail about what happened next except for it was in that time that, after swearing off any street food, raw fruits and vegetables, and anything but bottled water, I finally realized that I have no idea where I am, I have none of my stuff (except for a half undone roll of toilet paper), and it is raining. But as I came out of the not so well covered woods and saw the bus still there, the look of embarrassment was only slightly overcome by the look of relief. And to my surprise, my walk back on the bus was not topped off with standing ovation from the crowd (as it would have been in the U.S.) and all of a sudden, life was good again. And of course the first thing we did when we finally got off the bus in Matagalpa and were greeted by countless stands of hanging meat and beautiful stalls of fresh fruits and vegetables, was walk up to the first parrilla (grill) we saw and ordered some more delicious street food and a nice refresca (blended fruit drink) with extra ice, please.

(I will start off by apologizing if there was not enough warning before what could be aptly named the Poo Chronicles, but a blog like this or similar stories have been a long time coming. The truth is, while this may seem a little crude to those of you back in the states, especially compared to our normal beautiful, happy waterfall blogs; but amongst backpackers and Peace Corps Volunteers in developing countries this is probably the second most popular conversation; right behind talking about the food that is going into our bodies. Poo is certainly not taboo. And while we have many witty anecdotes and stories and different headings for this type blog, this one seems like a good one to represent the little less glamorous side of it all. For the rest of the chronicles you will just have to wait.)

El Campo

When one thinks of the most rural farming communities in central Nicaragua, thoughts like quiet, slow, and even boring might come to mind. And if you consider that 7:30pm is late for bed and the quietness that you not only hear but feel at that time may fool you into believing that these adjectives ring true. But unfortunately this time does not last long as someone forgot to tell the roosters, hens, pigs, birds, dogs, cats, cows, and horses about the quite hours and by 4:30 or 5:00am the hustle and bustle of farm life has begun. Locking yourself away from the action is rarely an option as everyone in the community knows exactly where you are and what you are doing. So early wake up calls of little children poking their heads in your window or in some cases around the partition of your shared room, practicing their adorable attempts at an English “good morning” become the norm. This wake up is soon followed by the first of numerous visits from community that are just stopping in to say hello, ask you questions, tell you about a meeting that may or may not happen later today, or to bring you some great new food (often some slightly different version of corn product) that you have to try.

If you can somehow pull yourself away from the multitude of conversations you have in your house, on your doorstep, on your front porch, in your driveway, and every 20 feet as you walk down the road, you can make your way in to the fields and find that peacefulness you originally envisioned as you look out over amazing vistas on property that would be a premium in the U.S. but here is just ordinary farmland.

All these wonderful things are exactly what happened to us as we were able to spend time with two amazing PCV hosts in their very small pueblos. Our days spent with Travis and then Laurie had us seriously asking the question “want to do Peace Corps again?” thinking about how wonderful it would be to do Peace Corps again as a rural agriculture volunteer.

There are certain aspects of rural farm life that we are certainly going to miss when we leave here. When you become part of a community you gain this connection that for good or bad is always with you. While in the U.S. people would erect privacy fences so they don’t have to have any interaction with neighbors, when Laurie moved in next door to her old host family, her “mom” chopped down all the bushes between the homes saying “so I can know what you’re doing.” Not exactly being nosy (though everyone in the campo knows everyone’s business) but to keep an eye out as a protector of sorts. In the campo people look after one another. You have a wide range of an extended family and living alone here, especially as “the gringo” does not really mean living alone, and that is a good feeling.

Other life in the campo happenings:

Great food
Climbing fruit trees
Roosters, hens, pigs, birds, dogs, cats, cows, and horses
Fresh milk
Making cheese
Baking in traditional hornos (clay ovens)
One or two or a million mosquitoes
Amazing hospitality
Gossip
Making peanut butter and soy milk from scratch
Celebrity status
An address that is simply “The Gringo”
Trips to the outhouse
Carrying your water
Sleeping and waking with the sun
Gardens
Fresh greens and veggies
Constant visitors
Amazing vistas after walking through farm fields
Great conversations
Extremely hard conversations
TONS and TONS of adorable children

A quick look at El Salvador

As usual a quick “fly through” plan of seeing El Salvador has turned into a month long all out head first dive into an amazing culture and people that is still incredibly too short. It doesn’t seem possible that each day, complete with a new experience, could be a slight bit better than the untoppable previous experience, but that is what we keep seeming to find. Unfortunately though, while many events of the past month have inspired us in ways we never thought possible, that little spot somewhere deep in the brain that controls the blog inspiration of witty anecdotes and exaggerated stories has not been tapped. So that being said, I am going to try to explain this last month in El Salvador through a technical bulleted list (not quite as exciting) that can be expanded on in the future or in the least, verbally exaggerated over a couple of cocktails once prompted. So here is El Salvador:

• A crazy boarder crossing followed by a 8 hour chicken bus ride and hitchhiking that brought us to the small pueblo, Jauaya.
• A lapping up of new smells and tastes as we tried everything we could at a food festival that had us asking “do you think this could be heaven?” Then highlights were trying conejo (rabbit) and rana (frog).
• A beautiful hostel (Anahuac) that was the perfect first look at a country that prides itself on its art.
• Hikes to four gorgeous waterfalls.
• A trip through La Routa de Las Flores, complete with beautiful crater lake hikes, inspiring artistic villages, great hitchhiking, tasty new food, and crazy trees to climb.
• After being picked up hitchhiking, being invited in to a local’s home and sharing cookies and coffee and a great conversation.
• Great hospitality and a great stay in a tiny village with Marcus, a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) / Couch Surfer (CSer) that opened us up to the PCV network we got to tap into from then on.
• A epic day of hiking, rain, floods, and waterfalls (including crossing a raging river clinging onto cables that stretched above from bank to bank)
• Our first of many tastes of the local pupusas (El Salvador’s national dish, corn tortillas filled with beans and cheese, topped with pickled cabbage and salsa, or some version thereof- delicious!).
• Playing softball with the local women (pretty funny)
• Another great stay at a PCVs house on the southern coast, Barra de Santiago. Thanks Meredith!
• Children giving us candy and attempting to give Brooke their earrings (unparalleled generosity)
• More pupusas
• Spent a late night searching for turtles nesting and FOUND ONE! A meter long green sea turtle (an endangered species) that laid 110 eggs, some right in our hands.
• A backdoor, wonderful hike in Parque National el Impossible lead by local PCVs, jumping off waterfalls and incredible scenery including an ancient cieba tree it would have taken 8 people to ring around it.
• An eighty-four year old man (local) making us (tourist) take 75 cents for bus fare instead of walking.
• Staying with PCVs / CSers, Wendell and Chad in La Hachadura
• More pupusas
• Being hosted by a local CSer, Jose, and his family in San Salvador.
• More pupusas
• Walking around the crazy markets of San Sal, going to museums and enjoying the city.
• Independence Day Party with Jose and friends, not the most traditional food as we bbq’d burgers, but they were delicious!
• Latisha’s generosity. Another great CS experience.
• Playa del Tunco, with an unexpected meeting of an old friend from Guatemala, fantastic lightning storm, surfing.
• Being hosted by another great PCV / CSer, Brian, in his pueblo Jocoro.
• More pupusas
• Beautiful Perquin and PCV Linsey
• More Pupusas
• An awesome hike in San Fernando to a huge waterfall with Brady, including illegally crossing into Honduras, Zelaya style, but all we had to do was hop back across the river to be back in El Salvador.
• Informative yet heart wrenching tours of museums and battle grounds of the mostly heavily affected area of the Salvadoran Civil War.
• The start of another GROW Initiative project – this one starting an Environmental Education Program and teaching English to adorable Salvadoran children at Amun Shea in Perquin. Check out www.GROWInitiative.org this week for more on the projects
• Incredible views, meals, and people, compliments of Ron and the Perkin Lenka Hotel, the founder and main supporter of the Amun Shea School. Thank you once again Ron!
• Teaching about the environment, purchasing recycling receptacles.
• Cooking with the staff at the Hotel Lenka
• More pupusas
• Field trips to the dump to see first hand recycling and composting (over 70 children in all)
• Teaching about and starting a composting program
• Lots and lots of hugs from the children
• A good project finished
• Sad goodbyes

So that was our time in El Salvador in a nutshell- too small of a nutshell to do it any justice, each one could have its own blog! But we’re in Nicaragua now and there’s more to see and do and you have to have priorities in life. As always, the pictures tell it better than we can so check them out!

Our Wonderful Hosts

Our amazing experience in El Salvador was 100% due to the wonderful kindness and hospitality of the people we met there. These photos are some but not all of the “gente amable”, that took us in and treated us like family. Thank you all, we will miss you dearly.

You know its a good day when. . .

You know it is a good day when pop into the present moment and find yourself sitting on a beautiful deserted beach, a cold beer in hand, talking politics in Spanish with a Garifuna local and a Honduran business man. Actually the story is even better because just two hours ago you thought the morning had started off terrible and the twelve hour travel day you had ahead of you was going to be more of the same. But then it happens. A drop-off at the wrong bus park on the opposite side of town from an overpriced taxi leads to us walking down the highway with our backpacks and complete stranger who was merely pulling into a fastfood restaurant to grab some breakfast stopping to see if we need help. Actually Jorge (the Honduran business man) was not a complete stranger, as he had been on our ferry from Utila (our home for the last seven weeks) to the mainland of Honduras. All the same, he didn’t have to stop. But he did, and as “luck” would have it, we were going to the same city, San Pedro Sula, a four hour drive into Honduras. And then it just got better and better. One of many great conversations about local culture and a discussion of an interesting medicinal moonshine (called guifiti) that is made in the small Garifuna villages along the coast, led us to taking a detour in our plans and a stop in one of these villages for Jorge to visit a friend. Unfortunately, Jorge’s friend was not around; however, the beautiful deserted beaches outside her house and the delicious fruit trees in her yard alone made it well worth the trip. After a really nice walk down the beach an emergency trip to the bathroom (could have been seen as a negative) led us to the perfect small restaurant and the start of this story. And of course as our luck would continue, the local Garifuna happened to make some of the best guifiti in the area, of which he was happy to let us try, complete with the great tales of how and why it is made.

Although the Garifuna village was certainly the highlight, our luck continued along the rest of our travels throughout western Honduras and into El Salvador. Our views of the trip changed and now the negatives seemed to just float away, while each additional positive confirmed our good fortune. Missing other (right) buses led to quicker trips on wrong buses, great conversations, and beautiful views. A chance meeting of a Peace Corps volunteer led to cheap hotel and great night of watching an exciting Honduran futbol (soccer) match with some very friendly locals. The trip fittingly ended with another stranger sending his kindness out in the world through a memorable free ride in the back of his pickup just in time for us to make the food festival we had traveled two days to get to.

So now whenever something is going completely wrong we are not going to let it upset us. After all when one door closes another one opens. And when it does, who knows, you might find a “Jorge” standing on the other side.

WE´RE BACK!

Not back in the States, but back on the blog. Sorry about the short hiatus but we are no longer in Guatemala and actually not much longer in Honduras. Yes, Honduras, coup or not! Well, we’ve been here over 7 weeks now so the coup is probably old news anyway. It seems like once we are stationary in a place for a while, somehow we are even worse at things like keeping up with our blog. Less travel time, but all in all we are busier than ever! We just "graduated" and are officially now Dive Masters. Parrots Dive Center here on the Bay Island of Utila in Honduras has treated us well and we will be sad to leave tomorrow. While diving has been the main focus here, we have had the opportunity to explore some of the beautiful island, volunteer a little (Brooke on the Coral reef and Donny helping educate locals and tourist about Dengue Fever. See www.GROWInitiative.org later this week for more info), and meet some great new friends. So those from Honduras reading this we thank you for your hospitality and hope you continue enjoying your incredible journey underneath the sea. Check out below for a day in the life.

A Day in the Life

A typical day for us at Parrots Dive Shop on Utila, Bay Islands, Honduras where we have been the past 7 weeks:
Wake up 6am, make a delicious breakfast that is generally some version of rice and beans (we are on a budget after all). 6:30, start assembling gear for the morning divers, carry the tanks, load up the boat. 7:00, divers arrive. Help everyone get their kits together, load all equipment in the boat, give the briefings and by 7:30 you’re taking off.
We get to the dive site and start getting everyone in the water. When you hop into that crystal clear blue, the refreshing cool of the water pulls you out of that last bit of sleepiness still lingering. Once all buddy checks are done it is time to descend. It’s an Open Water Course you’re assisting on this morning which means brand new divers, their first time in the open water seeing the fish and the corals. Through the obstruction of their half water filled masks, you can still see the excitement in the eyes, yet some apprehension as well as they struggle to attain "neutral buoyancy." Kneel on the sand to do some skills, then the real excitement begins. It is time to explore the reef. Picture holding on to someone’s fin to keep them from making a rapid assent to the surface after dropping their weight belt, while with your other hand you’re holding on to another student’s tank valve telling them to put air into the BCD. Your broken strapless mask that you exchanged a student for is rapidly filling full of water and is in danger of falling off if you stop sucking in the air and now salt water with your nose. The fins, that because of equipment shortages are two sizes two big, are also coming lose while your two students that can swim are wondering off chasing a butterfly fish. But amazingly enough you some how gain control, start your slow breathing again and say to yourself, just another crazy day at the office. The students eventually start to get it and you surprisingly find yourself smiling as you see all your class gliding through the water. When the dive is done and you get to the surface, everyone is excitedly talking at once about all they saw and how they felt and no one seems to remember the chaos and the near hart attack they almost gave their divemaster.
Now on to the boat, pulling up gear and students like Jaws is on the way. Change out all the tanks, it is time to dive again! Same routine, but this time a little smoother and you can see the students’ comfort level in the water rising. Once dive 2 is done we reach back to the dock at Parrots, unload all the gear, wash it, put it away. We’re on an afternoon boat so no need to take off all the other equipment just yet.
About an hour and a half before we need to start preparing the gear for the afternoon fun divers. Time to get in some (never ending) reading of our Dive Master book so we can prepare for our class and exam this evening, this time it’s on the physics of diving. Need some lunch as well so we go out and get baleadas, the local fare of a flour tortilla with refried beans, cheese and onions- delicious and about US$0.50.
The afternoon boat goes just about the same way, gear on, take off, everyone in the water and go down. But this time it’s certified advanced divers, which means we get to make deeper dives and we’re visiting a wreck. No skills to do so we are just searching for creatures- and we see a lot! A huge green moray eel, schools of colorful fish, lobsters trying to hide but their antennae sticking out from the rocks give them away. Topping it all off on the second dive we see two spotted eagle rays. Everyone on the boat ride back is excited and we still have a few hours of sunlight left to enjoy over the water.
After cooking up some fresh (like caught that day fresh from a crazy local named Zorro out of his wooden canoe) fish for dinner and eating as the sun goes down with new friends that are here for diving and some "old" friends that are fellow DMs here at Parrots, it is time to finish getting ready for class. Finish the homework and our mentor goes through the highlights of the chapters. Check our answers, take the exam and whew, we pass (actually we aced it because we are by far the biggest non partying nerds here). Another thing checked off and we are that much closer to becoming actual DMs.
To finish off the night we go for a beer at Tranquila. Having a bar right next door with good music, you don’t have to go far to go out. It’s been a long day though, so fairly early to bed as we have another dive in the morning. So we walk the 50 feet back to our door, that of the Dive Master room and pass out.
So that’s basically how it’s been going. Except now there’s been none of the studying and exams as we are official Dive Masters and actually working now! Many days it’s not so many dives, or maybe we’re in "confined water" right off the dock with new students. Some days we see only the fish we are very used to everyday, though they still are spectacular. Other days we get treats from the huge to the tiny like a manta ray, a nurse shark, rays, a nudibranch, octopi. Days with less diving, sometimes we get to explore the island, like the bat caves, or hike up Pumpkin Hill. Life is good and we have enjoyed our time on Utila, but now it is time to move on- an occasion both happy and sad. It’s on to El Salvador next, so stay tuned!
(and as always, check out our Picasa Web Albums, pictures tell it better than our blog ever does!)

Guatemala, Once Again!

So we ended up back in Guatemala… somehow the forward progress of our trip-around-the-world isn’t happening so much. But Livingston and Rio Dulce were lovely and worth the visit. We went through another border crossing, but this time not by land or air, but by sea. Drenched to the bone by the time we reached Livingston a Guatemalan style statue of Liberty welcomed us in. We had left Belize behind to get a mix of cultures back in Guatemala which we found the instantly as we set foot on dry land. Hard to believe it was the same country we had entered from Mexico nearly 4 months ago, Livingston has more of the flavor of the Caribbean than Latin America. Greeted in a mixture of Creole, Spanish and English all things felt reminiscent of Jamaica like Belize had.



Amongst those familiar things- Seven Alters, a beautiful river going out to the sea with cascading waterfalls into blue-green pools to cool you off on a swim.

As Livingston is only accessibly by boat, we hopped on another one to head out- this time to Rio Dulce the town along Rio Dulce the river. Starting out steep sided with green forests crowding in on you, the river opens up so wide you would think you were in a great lake. Along the way we found beautiful hostels to compliment a tranquil setting.

Once again Guatemala has treated us well and is truly a country we are going to miss.

Today's our 6 month travel anniversary!

WWOOF!

No, we’re not barking, just basking in our first true WWOOFing experience- WorldWide Organization of Organic Farmers experience that is. Fortunately and unfortunately, we have started off spoiled. Village Farm and Tanya and John are wonderful. What started as a correspondence way back in November, having heard about Village Farm though the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Network, we have been anticipating this stop off on our world-tour-extravaganza for quite a while and the anticipation was well worth it.

Amongst endless great conversation over some of the most scrumptious food I think we will eat over the whole course of our travels, we learned a lot about organic farming, especially in the tropics, plus the wonders of trees like neem and moringa. We picked mangos, bananas, breadfruit, avocados, plums, pineapples and all sorts of different vegetables- some of the fruits we made jam out of, delicious! Much time was spent trimming cacao trees- the tree that produces the delectable thing we like to call chocolate. We got to taste the finished product of the fruits of our labors- a Maya Gold chocolate bar from Green & Blacks. Go out and get one and you’ll be eating from the same trees we so lovingly trimmed.

The one drawback was that the bugs were even worse than at La Florida! We had been warned and before we even arrived, we were covered head to toe in clothing to ward them off, and yet by week’s end we were still covered in bites! The greatest reprieve was the end of the day with time on the dock as the cool breeze blew (too hard for any bugs to be flying!) and the sun went down amongst good conversation and looking out over the Bay of Honduras as manatees peeked their heads out of the water to get a look at us.

At the end of our inspiring week at Village Farm we were about to get on a boat heading back to Guatemala, but as fate would have it we detoured to yet another organic farm- Maya Mountain Research Farm. More or less a WWOOFing experience, this was technically an internship in which we continue our education as to tropical agriculture and organic production. We got to help in planting and harvesting, learning and teaching (like advice on their aquaculture pond), and working on the “cob house”- cob being a traditional building material/method of using clay, sand, water and fibers and building up the walls one layer at a time.

MMRF differs slightly from most organic farms as their main focus is on permaculture and agroforestry. The farm has many different fruits and vegetables and some animals, all working in a symbiotic relationship with each other to make the farm sustainable without the use of pesticides and fertilizers and provides a very healthy impact on the earth. One of the best ways to describe MMRF and their permaculture practices is in this example: a crescent of pineapple is planted just downslope of a breadnut tree. The pineapple holds the soil and all its nutrients helping the tree to grow better. The soil also provides a perfect habitat for leaf cutter ants who feed on the leaves of the bread nut. The chickens feed on the leaf cutter ants and fertilize the tree and the pineapple helping them to easily grow strong enough to support the ants. And of course the eggs and the meat from the free roaming chicken is unbeatable. Everything is diversified so one disease cannot destroy your whole farm and all byproducts are use to strengthen, not weaken, other parts of the agricultural process. A big difference from a chemically laden pineapple orchard or the testtube chicken farm. Pretty cool, huh? We are learning a lot of great things that hopefully we can pass on as the countries get poorer and food scarcity gets greater.

Almost everything we ate while there came from the soil that surrounded us (a notable exception being the delicious pizza night, no cheese producers here). The long and short-term interns Liz, Ashley and Lincoln were great and really made our week, and of course Chris, the man behind the farm of MMRF plus his two little girls. And one of the best things- hardly any bugs! (sigh of relief) It was still quite hot and humid, but that was easily helped by taking a dip in the river that borders the farm, one of our favorite things to do.

So the south of Belize certainly treated us well thanks to the lovely hosts at Village Farm and MMRF- thank you so much and keep up the good work!