Melissa's Travels

hi all

I am back stateside and currently residing at a friends house in Stony Brook while I search for an apartment. I will be INSANELY busy for the next few weeks until I finish a project proposal and large grant in November, and write un informe for MARENA back in nicaragua and send a bird list out to UCA-Miraflor. so please forgive me if it takes a while to get back in touch with everyone.
I know i have a bunch more stories, so I will put them up as I remember them, like the love of bad 80's music in nicagaua. That is the American legacy in Nicaragua: years of civil war and crippling poverty, and a love of baseball and Bonnie Tyler.

Hope things are good with all the people I love

Melissa

Chevalo: a young guy, or people say like Oye, Chevalo, like hey dude, whats up

Adios: like Aloha in Hawaii, it means hello or goodbye, or when the ssss is all drawn out, its like saying "hey baby" to a woman

Buena/mala onda: a good/bad time, fun/not fun to do or be with. Also cane be used like "como es la onda?" which means how is it going? or what are we doing?

Te le vaya bien: what you say when someone is leaving... it means literally may it all go well. More equivalent to good luck, or have a nice day, or enjoy yourself.

Da le pues or Da pues: equivalent to see you later, goodbye, chau, ciao, etc...

riales, pesos, cordobas: all mean money, although the official currency is cordobas.

Diga me: what you say when some one calls your name. It means tell me, but is equivalent to syaing how can I help you or what do you want.

all for now....

Here is a list of people so you can not feel confused when I talk about them later

UNICAM: organization working with farmers through the university on development projects

UCA Miraflor: Union cooperativa Agropecuaria, Heroes y Martires de Miraflor. A cooperative of familes in Miraflor that pushed for it to be created as a private reserve. They run it with MARENA, if you can say anyone really runs it. Its all very messy and confused. Land is owned privately and independently, but the run a cooperative milk industry, and cooperative coffee market. They had a microfund program whihc no one is paying back and is threatening to bankrupt the UCA, and they have a fledgling ecotourism office, which is treatened by a rich guiy who is going to build a big tourist center in Miraflor, with help from FORO, so UCA needs to get on the ball. Maggie Jo, an English woman, started an English language and capacity building program to help develop the ecotourism offcie, but everything is still a bit of a mess.

MARENA: Office of the environment sn parks in Nicaragua. They manage the natural resources of the reserve, but not the privately owned labnd, but you need to get permission from them to clear land, it doens even seem that they know what they are in charge of.

FORO: another cooperative working in miraflor, a bit of competition for the UCA. They seem a bit better organized, and are trying to get in on the ecotourism stuff.

Fundacion Cocibolca: My nicaraguan counterpart, they run Reserva Momobacho outside of Granad and Reserva La Flor. Jose Manuel works there, is an ornithologist, and the one who helps me with everything.

ALAS: Alianza para Areas Silvestres. The conservation organization that Salvadora Morales started. She was my inital contact in nicaragua, and a good ornithologist.

Dona Corina: runs Posada La Sonada en Cebollal, a community in miraflor. I lived there for a month intially. She is a n awesome independent Sandinista woman, and fantastic.

Don Antonio: runs a posada in cebollal as well, just as nice, if not niceer, and cheaper than Corinas, and is always complaining about her and how everyone is sent there and its unfair. A big whiner, and owes a HUGE amount of money to the loan program.

Chico Javier, Alex, Marlon: Guides that have worked with me. Marlon is also president of the Oro Verde cooperative in Sontule, and is not actually part of the UCA cooperative, buyt stuill works as a guide.

Henry, Juan Carlos, Edwin, Arlen, Elder, Yoder: Guides whom I know but never had the chance to work with me.

Robert, Marta, China, Jake, Hillary, Jane, Patricia, Deborah, Martin: English teachers, of which Jane, who was in Sontule, became a really good friend. and I was quite fond of Martin. He was a writer, and played very much the part of a English writer who trraveles the world and makes quite funny observations. Says he wrote a poem about someone obsessed with birds and used my story of how to mercy kill small birds as an inspiration


Francisco (Chico) Munoz: acting director of UCA, all around great guy, and self taught ornithologist

Erica, Nancy, Albertina, Isreal: All work in the UCA-miraflor office and all are super nice to me

Santiago: Guy who drives the early morning lechero (milk truck) that passes by Sontule

Pueng: Swiss guy of Cambodian origin who speaks seven languages and works with UNICAM. He was always going out, and whenever I saw him he was with differen people. Great guitar player.

Kristin: american girl interested in sustainable development who was taking a Spanish course there. Never got the chance to really talk to her, but we always planned too. Hope we do in the future.

Tania: Another cool American girl, also from Oregon, who works in botanical medicine and keeps coming back to Nicaragua

Dona lucia dn Don Rogelio: Marlons parents

Mayra and Marlon Mauricio: Marlons wife and kid.

Nelson: Marlons borther in law and best friend who worked with me and is amazing and helpful and is a super fast learning, and loves the work.

Ivan and Daniela: Marlons brother and his wife, I got to be pretty good freinds with her, and dint get to say goodbye, which wasa bummer

Dona Teres: Woman who runs the great hotel Gabrinma in Managua where I always stay. She is great and stil does yoga and is very socially conscious and essentially raised her kids on her own, and I met her son and his friend from Spain.

There are more, but my fingers are tired

love
me

Turns out Isabel puts cuajada, or milk curd in everything. And oil. One day my food tupperware turned on its side, and I found about 1/4 cup of oil in the plastic bag holding. No kidding. And when I opened it up to see what was leaking, thinking it must be some sort of guiso, it was just the excess oil draining from gallo pinto(rice and beans) and fried plantains. Gross.
The cows got into the corn 4 times this year, so it is a bad year, they will probably have to sell a cow to have enough food for the year, because they will have to buy corn. And so they are using up all of the young corn that was knocked down that they cant store for later, so it has been a lot of elote, and these young corn tortilla like things called wiwiri, which I used to like, but now I am sick of, and cuajada, and a corn porridge, and I never want to eat corn again.

Also nicaraguan food:

rosquillo: a shortbread-like biscuit made from cornmeal and either cuajada or vegetable shortening. Every region does it a different way. In Miraflor its pure cuajada and they bake them up soft. In other places its pure manteca and they make them small and bake them up real crispy like crackers. Some are sweet with brown sugar in the middle, and some are just plain. They are thick and substantial and good dipped in the sugary black coffee.

Nacatamales: Tamale with a gross pork and vegetable mix on the inside. And not just because I am veggie. Literally saw Jane pull out a piece of prk with hair still on it.

Quesillo: Tortilla with a flat round piece of cheese, some pickled cabbage, and a sour sauce that seems kind of like watery sour cream. Sounds bad but is good

Teas and herbs: When I was sick, letvia and Isabel were always making me tea, and heating up water with herbs in it for me to bathe, and rubbing Zepol( like vicks vaporub) on my back, and generally taking fantastic care of me.

zapote, sapote, mamones, nancite: random fruits, some of which are good, some of which are not. Mamones are like dry lichee nuts. I like them, but I think they have to grow on you. Be careful how you say it thought because momon is a bad word, mamon, is the fruit.

Thats all i can think of for now...


Love
Melissa

Yeterday I said goodbye to the family I stayed with, and I will miss them so much. They were so great, and really took care of me, and went out of their way to help me. Whenever I was doing anything, like cleaning the poles I ended up losing to give back to Salvadora all clean, they would just pick and start helping. And they stayed up with me all night to help pack. Or at least Dona Isabel and Letvia. So here are some snipets

Dona Isbabel: Acting president of the womens cooperative. She has seven kids, and the youngest is a year older than her grandson Brian. She has the most patience of any mother I have ever seen because this kid is bien necio ( stubborn and often obnoxious, throws tantrums, and I think ahs a learning disability. She would get up when i did just to make me coffee in the morning, and loves to chat. She has high blood pressure, but still uses mega salt in the food. She is always offering to help me with stuff, and tells funny storoes, and is a big talker and patient with my spanish. She is very proud and concerned about her kids and admits to being a reganadora (a bit of a nag). Works SO hard, up at 4am, grinding corn, making tortillas, washing clothes, separatying beans, watching the kids, hauling water......women by far are the hardet workers of the world.

Don Chico: Big strong Dad type. For the life of me I have the hardest time understanding his Spanish. And seems he has a hard time understanding my Spanish. Funny. He has bad arthritis and had a bit of a limp, but can still charge up a hill twice as a fast as me without losing his breath. Hes a very awesome affectionate dad, also with a lot of patience. From him I have learned the correct osunds to make when shoshing dogs off the porch, which is sdifferent than for the ducks, and how to move cows. But the cows dont listen to me so much, they just stare. He always sharpened my machetes.

Francisco: The second son. Worked in Costa Rica, is married to Letvia and has Brian as a son. Worked with me a few times, is very sweet and funny and looks good working without his shirt off. He likes to play baseball and is a pitcher on the Sontule team. Bit a of machista though, though I never would have guessed . see below

Letvia: Perhaps my favorite. Franciscos 20 year old wife. The sweetest thing, and a bit lonely because she has no friends nearby and her family is a three hour walk away, and she grew up in a house whewre lots of people passed by, and now is very isoalted, just her and the kids and Dona Isabel with fran working all day. And he was in Costa Rica working once for three months, and now he might go for 6. She is just the sweetest, and was always cleaning my room, and di my laundry every day. Everyday when there wasnt rain I had clean clothes! and she is very pretty and shy, and would just come into my room to talk sometimes. She was almost crying when I left. Francisco is really jealous and wont let her go to Esteli on her won and wouldnt let her come out and work with me if other men were working. She was really interested in what I was doing, and helped me repair nets. Whatever I was doing, she came by to help. Before I left the woman took out all my bags and backpacks and washed them. I have never had travel bags so clean. She is also a good mom

Aracelli: In 6th grade and the second youngest child. She is very shy around me and sweet, but she is quite the family ham, and could be an actress. She would go around singing at the top of her lungs, and imitating Celia Cruz, but if she caught me looking would get all shy and stop. She liked to sit by me when I was working, and would never go to bed until everyone did, and would sleep on the floor, on the bench, in a chair, in whatever uncomfortable place she found. She is an incredible help to her mom, and when I asked her where she prefered to go to secondary school, Esteli or Ceboillal, she replied Cebollal, because then she oculd live at home and help her mom.

Brian: Fran and Letvias son. 2 years old. Him and Kevin would always run around yelling "cha cha". which is me, the muchacha. We tried to get them to ay my name, and now occasionally Kevin says Misha. Brian is crazy and weird and pretends hes a horse and crawls around on the floor making noises ytou make to make a horse go and hitting himself on the but like a rider would do to a horse. Whtever thing he finds he pretends is a horse and rides it. He puts anything he finds on the floor into his mouth, and like to run around naked. He bangs on my door when I am home yelling "chacha", and yelss "aDios Chacha!" when I leave the house. He is always dirty, and after Annie and I played the frog joke on him, he always comes up to me and lifst up his shirt and goes "Chacha...rana" and then points to the ground, and we chase the frog around. He also gets all excited and crazy and then bites people. Makes me think him and Gaia would be great friends

Kevin: Isabels youngest, at three, who was in the hospital for months as a baby with pneuimonia and other things, and spent months naked under xray treatment. Isabel claims this is why he didnt speak untila bout a year ago, and even now has very few words. Brain essentially taught him how to talk. He still uses a bottle, and is constantly calling for pacha (bottle). He wakes up a lot at night and cries and wakes me up, and yells "puta mama, puta pacha" Apparently otoniel, another brother, taught him puta, and now he uses it all the time. He loves me though, and calls me chacha mia. And when Robyn was here, I was his chacha, and Robyn was Brians Chacha. He finally got to saying my name, and now calls me Misha. And all the day before I left, he was playing his toy guitar and singing "Adios Misha", and when anyone would say, play your song for Melissa, he would start singing the song again, which was essentially just Adios, misha, over and over again. He chases ducks off the patio going puta patas, and was always dirtier than brian, and played ion the dirty greasy kitchen water, and loved wearing no pants. He was often in boots, a tshirt, and no pants. But he was often in foul moods and didnt want to talk to anyone.

monos: The boys have never seena monkry before, and I dont know how it got started, but the family uses monos (spanish for monkey) to keep order. So anytime they would do something bad, someone would say the mono would get mad an bits them. Or that if they went into the bodega, to be careful of the nmono, there was a mono in there, and they would run out. I had monos in my backpàcks and in my room, to keep the kids from touching my stuff "Cuiddao Brian, Melissa tiene un mono en la mochila, no la tocas". And they would tease the kids and tell them there was a monkey in the corner or ina shadow and to go hit it or kill it, and they would go all crazy to try and do so. But sometimes it backfired because Kevin couldnt sleep becaue he thought there was a mono in the room, and would call the cat a mono, and chase it out.

I love them and will miss them

So hey

Finding stuff
Found my bag with the address book. Turns out one of the girls working in the office found it and put it in a filing cabinet for safe keeping but didnt tell anyone, and then was out of the office for a week. So I found it

Losing stuff
My firend Salvadora lent me poles for 5 nets and when I got on the bus from Esteli to Managua they were with my pile of stuff, but when the bus got to Managua, they were no longer there. I was bien aflijida, but talked to Jose Manuel (Of Fundacion Cocibolca, my counterpart organization, and all around great helpful guy), and he told me where I could have poles made. Sucks because I spent all this time WAITING for her to get me the poles because I dont have the money to buy new ones, and now I have to buy some anyway. Hmmm..but anyway, working in the forest I used wooden poles cut from trees a lot and those worked out okay.

I also lost my yoga mat the same way in Honduras. Left it in a taxi. I am a loser. This is why I should not have children. I will leave them on a bus in South America and someone will steal them and sell them on the black market.

Hi

Still desperately need to play catch up on the blogging, but I stayed out way late last night with the Cheles ( Jane, Tania, new profs Jake and heather) in a mini goodbay party, and woke up late today..

Official notice, I desperately need all your addresses!! I lost my address book!


Love
Melissa