¿Y Entonces...?

My second grant-funded youth camp was a success! The camp entitled "We're Unique, We're Alive, We're Life" was hosted by myself alongside ProFamilia and had a lot of similiarities to the camp we put on in May, with a couple of upgrades.

We invited 50 teenagers from the Jalapa valley and held the camp at the same eco-farm in the community of El Limon, about 20 kilometers outside of the city (and cell phone range!). We arranged for a private bus to take myself and the campers to the farm while other staff would meet us there on motorcycles.

December is the tail end of rainy season and Nueva Segovian rains (more specifically Jalapeno rains) are nothing to be dealt with. To get to the community of El Limon, you must cross two streams that can vary in size depending on the time of year. The first stream was easy to cross, but upon approaching the second stream, the bus just couldn't do it, so all of us took our belongings and started to hike the final two kilometers to the camp site. Luckily, the truck from the farm (finca) met us and took us the final kilometer to the site. We're very lucky that the rain had decided to take a quick break during that time, too, because that was the only time we were to see sun until the end of camp the next day.

After introductions and a few warm up dinamicas (ice breakers, activities), I showed a video by the Nicaraguan teen soap opera network "Sexto Sentido" that I had received from Peace Corps. The short films portrayed four young men, just like any other Nicaraguan men, who were all susceptible about contracting HIV and who all had fear of taking the HIV rapid test. After that, we showed another short film on how women who live with HIV are treated and stigmatized in Latin American countries.

Following the films, we had a brief reflection and started to talk about HIV basics: methods and fluids of transmission, prevention methods and the numbers of HIV (at risk age group, populations at risk, departments at risk, etc) in Nicaragua. The participants then had to sit thru a quite comedic (yet educational!) demonstration of a condom, hosted by yours truly.

Lunch time broke up the morning sessions and let the participants rejuvenate. During lunch, our invited guest from ASONVIHSIDA arrived from Managua to give presentations about the Law 820, which protects those who live with HIV/AIDS from stigma and discrimination and present them with equal rights.

ASONVIHSIDA (Nicaraguan Association of HIV/AIDS) is a Nicaraguan civil association that is run by people who live with HIV. Their mission is "to develop actions to help further realization of human rights of people with HIV or AIDS in Nicaragua and ensure humanized comprehensive medical care and access to medication or treatment to help improve their quality of life." They travel around the country providing peer counseling on HIV and AIDS, self-help groups, counseling and psychological care, as well as training and lectures on the subject to the general population.

As a member of the Peace Corps Nicaragua HIVaids Task Force, I have had the opportunity to work with members from ASONVIHSIDA multiple times and invited them to take part in the camp. They fortunately said yes and sent a representative up to my Nueva Segovian camp to educate the participants about the Law 820.

After lunch, we introduced the ASONVIHSIDA representative and she took the floor, intriguing all the participants. She did a thorough explanation of the Law and answered many questions that the participants had. I was very happy that the teens were so interested and engaged in her presentation; all the while, she had not mentioned her HIV status.

Her presentation lead to another presentation by me, educating the participants about different forms of birth control. Above all else, I reiterated (as we all did during the camp) that though birth control is an effective way to prevent teenage pregnancy, it is vital to always use a condom to reduce risks of contracting HIV and other STIs. With that information, the campers broke into teams and did group work to define different words: sex, sexuality, gender, love and teenage pregnancy. They all presented their work and I was impressed of the in-depth work they provided.

Dinner called shortly after and after we had full bellies, we returned to the presentation area where our ASONVIHSIDA representative had one last, brief presentation to give before we ended the night with karaoke and talent show. As previously mentioned, she had not revealed her status to the campers, only myself and fellow staff knew she was living with HIV. She quizzed the teens about her presentation from earlier and decided to describe further what ASONVIHSIDA is. She then told them that she has been living with HIV for the past 7 years and went on to explain her story. I watched the campers' reactions and they were all shocked: wow, a person who lives with HIV can look, act and be just like me?! After her reveal, the campers flooded her with more questions and didn't lose an ounce of respect for her. I was relieved that they didn't shame her or treat her badly, because they all had the self-realizations that someone who has HIV can lead a perfectly normal life just like them.

The next morning, after warm up stretches, we had the campers fill out a post-evaluation of the camp, describing to us what they had learned and how they will further use that information in the future: educating their peers, their families, and what other goals they may have with relation to HIV.

Our favorite guys from the COMUPRED brigade came back to set up an adventure run that the kids had all been waiting for. This time, though, I didn't participate. You do remember it had been raining the entire time, right? At each station, the teams had to present their name, motto, and song as well as answer a question correctly about HIV information they had learned the previous day. After which, things got dirty...the obstacles were as follows:

1. Grabbing a chile-coated orange from a tree and eating it all as a team, without using their hands.
2. Jumping over a 2.5 meter fence without touching the wood planks
3. Creating a human caterpillar: each person gets down on their stomach (in mud and manure) and grabs the person in front's legs, with their legs being held by their teammate behind them and army crawling downhill to the river
4. Crossing the river on all fours
5. Running up a hill and walking together on two large wooden poles
6. Continue running up a hill and blowing a balloon full of flour till it popped
7. Running back down the hill to the river and eating a chile-coated pineapple in the water, without hands
8. Create a line and fill up a bucket using water from the front of the line, passing it back

The campers loved it and all got super muddy and dirty. After which, we all hiked back up the hill and put up a 100m zipline. As soon as I saw how high we were, I decided to opt out, but it looks like the teens all had a blast. Hungry, we all returned to the lodge and had lunch and our certificate ceremony. We had a representative from Oyanka, the Jalapa women's shelter, give one last brief presentation about how women who live with HIV, pregnant teenagers or other pertinent factors are discriminated against and asked the participants to step up and change the future of how we treat men AND women who live in such conditions.

She also gave us Christmas Eve presents: Snickers bars and apples! The skies conveniently started to rain even harder, making us wait longer to leave, but as soon as the rain let up, we all piled into trucks and drove the few kilometers into the community of El Limon where the bus was waiting for us to take us back home.

I'm very happy that I had the opportunity to put on two successful grant-funded youth camps during my Peace Corps service. It helped me reach out to youth I may have not met outside of the institute in Jalapa and opened their eyes to new experiences: first aid training, meeting people who live with HIV, getting in-depth information about the illness, etc. I hope that ProFamilia can have this type of success with future camps, whether that includes a Peace Corps volunteer or not, but this is the kind of work that Peace Corps promotes: sustainability. Based on what I saw with my counterparts, I have no doubt that they will have no problem replicating this camp again in the near future and have just as much fun as we did in May and December.

There's a TON of photos! Check them out at the public album HERE!

Since the half marathon in June I've been keeping myself busy, but laying off huge projects (until December 21st when the next half marathon is taking place!). Let's explain this in bullet points and pictures, shall we?


* I helped choreograph two songs with primary school teachers for the Día del Maestro/Día del Padre (Teacher's Day/Father's Day) assemblies. They went off swimmingly and we all had a blast!

First of all...I'm happy to introduce you all to my new puppy, Pípe Jalapeña:

1. ON WITH THE SHOW!

The running bug hit me a little more than 2 years ago. When I found out that I was going to be a health volunteer in the Peace Corps, one of the things I wanted to do was start a running group in my site. Luckily, I was introduced to one of the most progressive, get-stuff-done Nicaraguan counterparts upon arrival and was invited to teach Zumba at his gym.

Last year, I told him I was running the Fuego Y Agua race on Ometepe and that struck his interest to find out that I like to run.  He, too, is a runner but wasn't able to participate in that race, nor the half marathon in Jinotega. Between those two races, I came to him with an idea to create a race in Jalapa for the members of the gym and the community and he was all for it.

I started right away asking companies like Gatorade and Nike for sponsorship, and though a lot of those contacts were "swing and a miss" I got a couple of "hits" from companies like Thorlos and RoadID (who donated socks and bibs/race packets, respectively). I also contacted my mom in the states and she was able to spread the word to some of her coworkers, who generously donated money that we will use to buy shirts for the participants. Over time, business owners of Jalapa donated things too, like transportation, prizes and water that were to be used on race day.

We set up a registration website for those who had internet access, which also allowed for Peace Corps Volunteers to sign up and participate as well. I found used a half marathon training guide that we posted at the gym that the members could look at and properly train for the race over 12 weeks. As the weeks went on, the members of the gym became more weary of running such a large distance. 21 kilometers is 13.1 miles! Though I've run that distance multiple times, it is still a scary number! My counterpart and I discussed and decided it was best to add two more races, one of 14k (about 9 miles) and one of 10k (about 6.2 miles). With those three races in total, more interest rose with the community.

The time grew nearer, and on June 14th, the day had arrived to start the race weekend process. We had 43 people signed up to run and on registration day, an extra 6 struck interest in participating as well. Though not all 49 people showed up, we still had a great turnout of 31 runners: 16 in the 10k, 6 in the 14k and 9 in the 21k! We had a short orientation about proper "fueling" and what food to eat the night before as well as went over what will be happening on race day the next morning.

The day of the race, we all met up at the park at 4 in the morning. We had a bus take the participants to each starting line and then returned to Jalapa to set up the finish line. At each starting line, we had a responsable ("person in charge") who led warm up stretches and was the official time. When their clock struck 5:00am, they started running.

I had a business PCV friend come in from the department of León to help me with organization and logistics and I don't know what I would have done without her help! We set up the time sheets for each race, got my camera ready for the "photo finishes" and waited for the runners to start coming in. We didn't have to wait long! The first finisher from the 10k came in only 55 minutes after starting! After she finished, people kept coming in left and right. One of the best things I'll look back on fondly is that after finishing, the racers didn't want to go inside and stretch; rather, they wanted to stay outside and cheer on everyone who was finishing. I was so touched (and kind of relieved to not have to teach yoga! I've never taught it before!) to see the sense of community they all had.

More runners came in and people who had finished stuck their hands out for high fives and cheered loud; no matter it was 6:30am on a Saturday morning! At about 8am, all of the participants had finished their races and we had a quick awards ceremony. We thanked all of our sponsors, donators and volunteers...because honestly, it would not have been such a success without them.

My counterpart's brother had custom made trophies for the first place winners of every race, and we presented those along with the other prizes for the top 4 finishers of every race. After the awards presentations, I was ready to say one more gracias a todo, but my counterpart took the mic away (the local news channel was there filming for a presentation later that night...I'm trying to get a copy of it!) from me.

From a tightly wrapped jacket, he pulled out a beautiful glass plaque that was dedicated to me. It read (translated from español):

After not leaving Nueva Segovia for a solid month and working that entire month, I decided to give myself a treat and take a mini vacation with some friends to the department of Matagalpa (where else?!). We met up with another volunteer whose sister was visiting from the states and we all went to a beautiful waterfall right outside of the city and had a lovely day sunbathing, picnic-ing, and ended the night having wonderful Italian food and hanging out at a lounge.









Back to the grind this week helping with different career fairs hosted by fellow volunteers, then off to Managua the following week to present some charlas to the new Health trainees. I can't believe that I'm  officially an "upperclassman" out here, now! The Health volunteers that welcomed us to the country all just finished their service in March and we're now the big dogs in charge. Man, if that first year out here didn't fly fast enough, I can't imagine how many times I'll blink this second year before it's all over!