Hola,
It has been awhile (has it?) since my last blog update. I tend to lose track of time here and time takes on an entirely new dimension in Nicaragua then in the US. Anyways, lots has happened in the past week or so.
Last weekend I had friends come down from Granada to visit which was lots of fun. As a result I spent a lot of time on the beach and out at night! My friend Olivia (who was amongst those who came) will hopefully be coming down here soon for language school. My friend Niklaus (the other swiss friend) just left SJDS this week so now I am all alone again! But thats ok because it has given me lots of time to try and figure out my job...
So last week, I finally met my boss here. It took a loooong time to nail her down as she is crazy busy and no one appears to have any kind of a schedule here. In the process of talking to her I was made aware that the main thing that I came here to do no longer exists! Fantastic. I had a million little projects in the pipeline but the majority of my time was to be focused on montoring and evaluating a project called healthy mothers/healthy babies and going around with the doctor collecting data and information to create the system. Well, that program no longer is going on! I was like, well what am I going to do? She was like, you can teach english. I was thinking, actually NO I cant!! I am not down here for shits and giggles I am here working on a master's degree, that I might add, is very expensive! I think she could tell I was in shock/upset so she suggested I meet the other doctor in the clinic and we could figure out some projects. The whole time I kept thinking, could I not have been told I had no job PRIOR to moving to NICARAGUA!?!
I met the doctor, Doctora Ana Medina, who is really great. She is only 28 so it is cool working with someone so close in age. We have met a few times and are going to be doing these health chats "charlas" once a month. We have already gone over a lot of what we are going to talk about and how we are going to do it. It is nice because she is very formal and wants objectives, goals, tests of the participants pre and post, GANTT charts (a development thing) and other stuff that generally here is just ignored and people just want you to show up and talk. So that has been good getting involved on something that is actually concrete and measurable. But, when I told her I needed 30-40 hours a week of work, her jaw dropped. Literally. Then she laughed. She explained that that would in no way be possible. Again, my world coming down around me when I thought I had shit figured out!
The next day after feeling very pissed/upset/dissapointed/depressed/discouraged/every other emotion, I decided that I needed to go sell my skills around SJDS. The problem with that is that there are A LOT of Westerners down here who want to help and volunteer and have really good intentions but just lack the skills/training to actually make a difference or help. So trying to explain to organizations that yes, I do indeed know what I am doing and will not just flake out in a week if its not fun (very common here with foreigners) but that I HAVE to be here for my master's degree, has been the hard part.
First I went to an organization called Casa de La Mujer and they want me to give health chats there. So I will be working on plans for that over the next few weeks. I was still really upset because although I am ok with giving health chats, its not what I came here to do. So I decided yesterday (after reading a former volunteers blog that was here a year ago) to go to the centro de salud (the public/free gov't run health center) to see if they could use me as a labor partner/doula type person as that was what she was doing. Usually, women who are single end up giving birth alone in the clinic, so the former volunteer was filling the role of a partner. I told the director what I wanted to do and he didn't really seem that interested. Then he asked me what it is that I do in the US/came here to do. Then I explained about my former monitoring and evaluation project and he got really excited! The centro has two projects right now where they are trying to collect data and evaluate the effectiveness of the programs but are having issues because they do not know entirely how to do it and are understaffed. When he told me that I was unbelievably over joyed! One of the programs funded by UNICEF is to promote breastfeeding (both initiating breastfeeding and increasing the length of time) and it is brand new and they would like me to go around talk to women and help collect the data, create the targets and etc... I am so excited! The other project is a high risk maternal mortality project. They are targeting women that have a high risk of death (for one reason or another) and are trying to get them to come in for care and help them with birth control options. Here is the problem: I have to get government certification to work on these projects. That is where I am at now. The director didn't think there would be a problem, but...it is Nicaragua and you just never know. So, cross your fingers I get certification so I can start! If not, I have no idea what the hell I am going to do...!
Right now I am sitting in my apartment without any electricity. No electricity=no fan. Losing electricity and/or water is a near daily occurence. I have come to realize that living without electricity is MUCH easier then living without water. It is especially fun when you have a head full of shampoo in the shower and the water goes out. I have an "emergency" jug of water for situations such as these that I have to use. Usually when the water/electricity goes out it is for a short period of time, maybe 30 min. Sometimes, its all day. For example, this morning we lost water. It came back on shortly thereafter. We haven't had power in at least an hour. I was thinking, maybe I will go to the beach to cool off. But then I thought, what if when I come back I have no water and cant shower? I have plans at 2:00 to go to an orphanage for kids with special needs with my language school (they are going as an activity and I asked if I could go). It was 12:00 when I thought about going to the beach for an hour or so before the orphanage. But, you never know when the water will go out/come back on and if you are on a tight schedule, you cant take chances! Sometimes it is really crazy the way that I have to structure my day and things I have to think about that would never cross my mind in the US. But, such as life in Nicaragua!
Ok, I think thats about it. I hope you enjoyed this novel. This was especially long because I typed on my laptop before using the internet, so I didn't have to worry about time. Hopefully I will talk to some of you soon on skype!
PS: Get skype!!! My name is kimberlycalkins.
Hasta luego!
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