Melissa's Travels

My room in Sontule is Lovely, with blues walls and red trim and a bed with a nice yellow comforter, and a yellow plastic closet and cement floors and a dresser. Slmost like a real room. SUCH an improvement. And its bigger now. As for Esteli, I will be moving in with Jane soon, to save on rent even if just for a bit, until she finds a more permanent house, but even then I still might rent a room from her. It will be nice girl time and I can play with the baby! Although I am so little time in Esteli these days, I dont know if its worth it, BC I could leave my stuff in Isabels house here, and stay in a hotel, but I pay for convenience I guess. And its worth it. I do like comfort. and it will be half the price of my current house.

Dead birds
I was bummed because two birds died in the nets this week. It happens, but its rare, so lets hope these are the only two birds of the season. But to be fair, the first bird, which was a beautiful species, happened to the Frontiers people who are volunteer students who were working nets at the same time as me and I was helping them since they were inexperienced bird netters. I didnt take the bird out of the net, so who knows. It possible was injured before it fell in the net. Other bird being a cool hummingbird which I just cant identify. Nicaragua is hard because so many species look different from their descriptions in the guides because they are not described for nicaragua and there is geographis variation.
Same stuffed one of the birds. I wacthed, it was pretty grisly, and we left it by the stove to dry, so lets see what happens. It might not work out, but he gave it a good shot.

I have other stuff to do, but sometime I will write he long story of FORO and Frontiers, and self interested comanagin cooperative of the reserve who wont help you get permits unless you work with the, ie they are going to try and make it impossible for groups to work through the UCA, and it looks like they want to sink the UCA. Why do people have to work in competition?




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So much has happened in so little time!!!!

Good things first.

After many weeks of preparation, and going to the primary school once or twice a week, and after school rehearsals, we have sucessfully completed the environmental kids day. It turned out. Really nice, and I was very happy because so few parents came ot the planning meeting, but loads came to the event. First graders presented their posters on why trees are important, and second and third graders did a little skit about bats, and four fifth and sixth graders we did a skit about organisms that live in the grounds. My family helped me a lot, making popcorn and mango refresco, and generally helping with organization. Isabel and Henrry along with Nelson and Ivan and another friend Dona Rafaela did another skit on the environment, Nelson organized a few games, Juancito, a parent of a really sweet second grader named Darwing played guitar and sang, as did Francisco. We had a piñata, and all the kids went crazy, as always, getting way too close to the kid swinging the stick, and ready to lose an eye or punch out a competitor just for a piece of candy. The kids in 4-6^th grade had all made masks during class time with me, which was super fun and they loved it. It was great because I just let them choose their organisms and do their masks however they wanted, just bring creative. A big shout out to my friend Julio and Shion and their friend kirsty who helped me make masks for 1-3^rd grade. So now that the kids are all motivated, I am just going to keep working with 4-6^th grade by combining environmental education with the natural sciences lectures they have, and hopefully making sure Prof. Mercedes comes along and helps me out and maybe learns a few things. I want to give a BIG shout out to my friend Sara Scvronick, and Coralie from England for lots of help, advice and materials!

Second cool thing was my friends Shion and Julio visiting from chinanadega, where we had met while I was traveling with my friend Peleus. They are really cool and fun and I took them around Miraflor, and with Shions help, /I am going to try and make a compost toilet in Sontule at my house and maybe we can start some sort of project for it. He lent me a book, so Ill try making a muestra on my own first.

Third cool thing is that Sam and Njal are my new field assistants and working out great. Both really cool laid back guys, Sam more tranquilo and njal more payaso. Njal has all sorts of personality quirks, like making “um chikka” disco sounds and speaking in French when he means to speak English. He makes people laugh, and then they have started picking up his habits, like the disco sounds, and saying “boo-yeah”. Sam plays guitar and so does Njal, so they have been jamming a bit with Fran and Henrry, and otoniel wants to invite them to play with his band. Sam is a sporty guy and so has started playing soccer with the Sontule jovenes. One day all the guys working for me had an impromptu soccer game with Henrry and moncho, and they were all so cute and being boys and bouncing soccer balls off their heads. Only they didn’t have a soccer ball, just a semi deflated basketball they used like a soccer ball. Santos is really into soccer and was getting along really well with Sam until…..

The bad things

Santos basically freaked out on me and last week on the patio after I critiqued him three times on something to fix in his paperwork, and suddenly, he just handed me all his papers and binoculars and quit. Just walked out. Without showing me where his nests were, without saying why, and all super pissed. I guess I just criticized him one too many times, but I have been much more chill this year, and he worked for me last year, and he knows how it is, but I have decided hes a spoiled brat, who is too orgulloso to handle being wrong, all the more difficut since so much criticism comes from a woman. Swear to god, if it had been a man giving him so much trouble, he wouldn’t have walked out like that. Im the freakin boss, you know? I have to correct them. He said something to Lesbia on his way out the door about how hes tired of people who have a lot treating poor people badly. Now that just straight up hurt, because, its just not true. Like he had to quit work because I am insufferable and prejudiced. But somehow this was all ok last year. Njal thinks he probably wanted to quit and go back to Costa Rica to work and was just looking for a pretext. And maybe so, but even after Francisco rode to his house, an hour a way to ask if he could come back to show us the nests, he refused. So now hes a vindictive jerk, because he knows how important it is to me to know about the nests, especially since we have collected some data already, and spent time on these nests, and that I cant use them unless the information is complete. And I was paying them to find nests anyway, so we have lost some and so its like I paid him for nothing. On top of it, I now might lose the whole area he worked in, and at the very least will be behind because he worked that area all last year, and knew where the bird territories were and knew where to look for nests. The good side is that another former worker comes back from Costa Rica in two weeks, so hopefully he can work. Because at this point, I just don’t have the time to train anyone. But I just cant lose that area. It’s the only part with good forest. I almost wanted to cry.

In more bad work related news, Eduardo says we cant work on his farm. Says we damaged the fences. Thats BS, hes just being difficult. Maybe he wants money. Maybe he didnt like that Santos was working. Which, apparently, was suddenly a big issue this year, since I could have hired someone from the community. But Santos worked last year and NOBODY said anything. I had a meeting with the coops and asked about probelms, suggestions, etc, and NOONE said anything. Just all chatted behind my back until word gets around. Maybe now that Santos has gone he will let us back on.

Sad things.

Nando, the sweet old man who lived at Doña Lucias and Don Rogelios, is in the hospital. He has been there for two weeks and they just operated. Only I found out, they did not operate to do a biopsy on the stomach tumors he has, they just did a bypass so that he would be able to eat something, and there for be more comfortable until he dies, which seems inevitable at this point. So hes dying, and he knows it. I am sad. And I am angry because I don’t think hes getting the best care possible for the medical people. The good thing is is that he has lots of family and friends visiting him and caring for him. Even his errant son, with whom he doesn’t have much contact, has come back to be with him. I have gone to visit him. He is very thin, and hasn’t eaten in two weeks, they haven’t even given him anything, just glucose drip. But he seems in good spirits.

I have told many stories a out Nando, hes the one with the teeth he puts in for special occasions, and the halo of white hair with catches the light at celebraciones when he takes his ever present baseball cap off. Hes the old man that like to give the chele girls big hugs, and I was never sure if it was just wanting contact, or slight lecherous, or just that he fancies cheles and likes to hug us because we are fat and soft, and friendly. I will keep visiting him, and hope he feels better and is comfortable and not in pain.

Look how I spend way too much time on bad things…..

More good stuff

I have been getting up every day at 3:30 or 4:00am, and while that is not so fun, there are some benefits. For instance, one morning, Sam and I ate breakfast on a hillside, watching a beautiful sunrise deep red and clothed in hazy clouds breakthrough into full yellow light and bathe the valley in that lovely tropical glow

Last night I went out with Otoniel and Juanita and baby Zaira to Semaforo Rancho Bar. It’s a lot bigger now, with HUGE rancho roofs thatched with palm leaves. We saw an awesome band called Café, which was a pianist and two guitarists and a bongo player. There is just a rule that any band with a good bongo player is a good band. Just lovely, and such good interpretations of meringues and romantic songs with a more acoustic feel. Like MTV Nicaragua Unplugged. Made me think of the great band I saw with Ashley in Mexico, at a Nautical themed bar with dark wood and low lights and good tequila.

More fun Nicaragua expressions:

De plano?- Seriously?

Simon- yes

Enhuevado- angry

Ahuevado-sad or upset

A huevo- with a lot of effort

Clarin or clarin de Guerra: claro, which means yes or of course

Baño de zopilote- when you only have enough water to dunk your head, or bathe very quickly, like a how vulture bathe

Events

I think global warming is going to screw hard time with tropical countries. All anyone can talk about right now is how the rain is late, and there might not be rain until June, and what are they going to eat. The people who planted right after one rainfall, think more would come, but didn’t, are going to lose their crop, which means no food, and also losing all the seeds for next year. Major problem.

In other news, deforestation is so widespread in western Africa, hat the Saharan winds are carrying thousands of tons of topsoil over the Atlantic Ocean. This dust storm is going to make landfall with Nicaragua and Honduras next week, and its going to “rain dust” and people with respiratory problems should go outside and no one should play sports. Should really only affect the Atlantic coast and here in the north we shouldn’t get anything too bad. This is the first time I have heard of this, so I am thinking there just must be a LOT more dirt, so that its not all lost in the Ocean, and some makes it this far across away. Sometimes I wonder whats the point of what I do. Sometimes I think we have irrevocable F***ed up the Earth, and now just wait for all the suffering and demise of our species. Depressing. But maybe if everyone got the picture and started trying.......like dont buy wood from Africa....

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