¿Y Entonces...?

About a month ago, I helped set up for a health fair that we were going to hold in the community of Escambray. Long story short, I got ditched after two and a half hours of waiting for the ambulance to leave and I was very disappointed in not being able to participate, especially since I helped put so much work into the fair.

Last week, we had another Health Fair, in the community of Teotecacinte, the second largest community in the Jalapa municipality; it’s also, if you remember, sister city to Glenwood Springs, Colorado!

What. A. Day. We worked with 4 members of CEPS, 10 members of MINSA, 2 teens from the Casa de Adolescencia, the JICA volunteer and me representing Cuerpo de Paz and put on a fair in which easily over 400 members of the community showed up throughout the day. I was working with my main colega and the CEPS workers with the high school students (built by a Glenwood Springs professor!) about how to correctly put a condom on, family planning, and safe sex altogether.

Meanwhile, other people were talking about Chagas prevention, as well as testing those who thought they might have been bitten by the nasty bug that causes the sickness. We had three doctors performing HIV tests (by the end of the day, more than 70 tests were performed, and a lot of the patients were pregnant women, double win!), a nurse performing papsmears, and other doctors doing vaccinations for toddlers, babies, and general checkups for the population.

Speaking of vaccinations, we also had another MINSA representative performing rabies vaccinations for dogs! I was happy to see a constant stream of people bringing their pets all day to get their shots, and I’m excited that if and when I get my puppy (my training family in Carazo promised me one of the German Shepherd’s puppies once she has her first litter!), I know who to take it to in order to receive its shots.

It was a good, productive day, and I look forward to participating, and maybe even hosting, some more health fairs in the future.

THE DISCOURAGING: As a Health PCV, work comes and goes. Some days I’m extremely busy with work and other days, I have no idea what to do to fill up my schedule. Lately, I have been working day to day rather than planning out my week. I luckily have the Casa Materna and I try to go there twice a week to give a charla and be with the women; I also thought I could rely on my huerto project to keep me busy. However, while I was away in Masaya last month, that project fell apart. One of the doctors at the ProFamilia clinic wanted to keep the vegetables that we were growing for herself, even though from the very start we said we were growing them for the Casa Materna and if we were to sell any we would split the profits with the clinic 60/40 (they would have the 60%). Now, I don’t know the exact details of the argument, because I was gone, but she also complained that the teens who were working on the huertos were also eating some of the radishes. Granted, we had a lot of radishes planted, and the teens were doing all of the work; we say, if they want to snack on a radish, let them! They earned it! In the end, the project collapsed, because if she wanted the crops for herself, then she had to step up and take responsibility to care for the huertos as much as we were. When I got back from my Masaya trip, I was discouraged at that news. I was also discouraged that MINSA wasn’t helping support me in any projects I want to do, nor assisting me in my Casa Materna trips, especially since they are promoting it in every community they go to or any event they attend. Instead, they are expecting me to assist them in their projects, which I obligingly do because it fills my day, but I approached one of my colegas and told her that they have to at least meet me halfway sometimes.

THE HOPEFUL: With my free time lately, I have been going to the Casa Materna, and noticing that they had a pretty large patio to plant new huertos, I asked if that could be a possibility. They were all for the idea. I talked to one of my colegas from Pueblos Unidos, and after a meeting with the Casa Materna staff this past week, we are going to start breaking ground on a new huerto project benefitting the Casa Materna. We told them that we will prepare the soil and plant the seeds and all we are asking from the women (who are within their final month of pregnancy) is to water the seedbeds daily. Also at this meeting, we started discussing the possibility of creating a more sustainable stove since the one they have now produces a lot of smoke when cooking. I have recruited the Agriculture volunteer who lives in one of the Jalapeño communities, El Carbón, and she is excited to help out. I don’t know how much of a role MINSA will play in the undertaking of this new project, but if it’s solely Peace Corps (Cuerpo de Paz to the Nicas) and Pueblos Unidos, then that’s fine, too. I’m also going to start looking into funding for my idea of expanding the house to accommodate more women, comfortably, at one time.

THE LONELY: For the past week or so, I have been in a really hard-to-get-out-of funk. Maybe it’s a case of homesickness or maybe it’s a case of being a 20-something and trying to figure out life. Either way, I feel as if I have no one I can truly talk to, outside of my parents (thanks, guys, for everything you’ve done for me so far). I have some Volunteer friends who I talk to and we talk about what is going on in our lives in sites, what we miss from the states, what we’re annoyed with, etc, and even though we are all practically going through the same things, I feel as if I can’t let myself open up around them like I could do with a friend who has been in my life longer than just a few months. I want a friend who has known what I’ve been through and who I truly am, but thinking about what friendships I left back in the states, I can’t think of many people I can truly confide in.  I have been there and been that person who others can turn to in times of need and I put myself out there like that consistently, yet have not received anything like that in return. I’m the one reaching out and trying to maintain friendships while I’m the one who is also living in a different world for two years; I hardly sense that anyone is trying to reach out to me and it seems that I’m not part of their lives anymore. Out of sight, out of mind mentality. I’m not saying that I want people to put me in the center of their universes, but I’d like to be part of their lives in some manner; for people to care about me, to miss me. Two years is a long time and people grow up, change, and life happens.  I have been out of the states, away from my family, gone from what I know for 7 months and you know what? It’s hard. I wish it could be easier, but this is one of the obstacles I face of being a Peace Corps Volunteer and helping others in the world. So far, with my experience, I wouldn't trade it or take it back for anything. I look forward to the next 20 months here in Nicaragua and beyond for when I return to the states after my service, I’m just hoping they’ll be less lonely and full of new experiences to come. I know I’m the only one who can change my attitude and life around for the better; I can’t rely on anyone else for my own happiness, I have to be my own factor of change