UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON DEGREES EARNED:
BACHELOR OF ARTS (ECONOMICS)
AUTUMN 2007 (12/14/07)
MAGNA CUM LAUDE

Short version: I´m alive and in Granada. Everything went well, except for the part of the plan where I actually slept on the bus from San Jose to Managua. Oh well.

Long version:
When I boarded the bus, I found a quiet small man sitting next to me. After a couple of seconds of interesting mimes, I realized he was deaf and unable to speak. His name was Jose Alfredo Canales Cruz, from El Salvadaor. I know this because he asked me (in his way) to fill out all of his customs paperwork. I also know his birthday is January 21st, 1962 and his El Salvador passport number is C013292 because I have to write it 4 times on different pieces of paper. He smiled a lot. There was some information on the forms that I guessed at, because he couldn´t read or write. He also hums when he´s happy. He hummed at me while I was completing his paperwork.

At the border, half way through the trip, I realized Jose Alfredo could read lips, in Spanish. While waiting for all the customs baggage shuffling, we had an interesting conversation between Jose Alfredo, myself, a guy from the States and his El Salvadorian fiance. I took it as a compliment that my Spanish wasn´t horrible since he seemed to react appropriately to things I said in Spanish. He hummed when I said I was volunteering in Granada.

Arriving at the Tica Bus station, the Tica Bus employee said a cab to the next bus station should cost $1.50. The cab drivers were has $5.00. I got one to $4 and said the hell with it. The mini-buses between Managua and Granada were a trip. We waited until the bus was nearly full, and and soon as one person was dropped of along the way, the an employee of the driver started stalking pedestrians on the side of the road trying to get them to fill the seat while another employee yelled "Granada-ranada-anada-nada" out the door.

I struck up a conversation with the passenger sitting next to me, asking him where the bus stopped in Granada. 40 minutes later, I had learned that he was an Agrocological Engineer working for a division of the USDA (Yes, our USDA). I talked about economics and the enviroment and (I think) he talked about argoculture and the environment. When we arrived in Granada, Jose (yes, another Jose) helped me carry my bags to La Esperanza Granada. (a few blocks away) I think he decided to adopt me and make sure I arrived safely. He waited patiently while I talked to the Director here, went with me to check out the potential homestay, checked out my temporary hostel, and had lunch with me. While at lunch he received a call and 5 minutes later a co'worker showed up. They spent the next 20 minutes talking about agro things....I was fed and fading fast at the time. We exchanged email addresses and I think I will be visiting him in Managua during one of my free weekends. (Leann, he liked the locket and thinks you´re muy bonita)

(Small interlude) 2 Americans, frat types, just came up and high-fived me because I look and talk like a gringo. I suspect these will be the boys keeping me awake in a few hours.

The last task of the day (besides this email) was to walk around and find a hat. The sun is REALLY strong here. I have my fancy climbers watch, so I get to watch the altitude change as we move around. There are something like 10 active volcanoes around Nicaragua, so plenty of varied terrain. Yay ring of fire!

I´m staying at a hostel across the street from La Esperanza Granada. It´s on the main drag, and I was here last year with the UW Costa Rica kids. There´s a parrot here spouting silly things in Spanish. I missed orientation today, so I will be winging it tomorrow.

Hasta Luego

Here is the latest newletter from the organization where I will volunteer this Spring:

La Esperanza in Granada, Nicaragua
---------------------
Hard to believe that there are only 31 days in this month with all that has taken place. January has been full!

We have welcomed many new volunteers who have come to Nicaragua for the start of the school year in February. A multinational group, including U.K., France, Germany, Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Spain, Argentina, Canada, U.S.A., Australia – we had 30 people around the table at our volunteer meeting last Tuesday evening.

The children’s activity group has continued in the community center at La Prusia, summer school at La Epifania finished on the 11th January, and the high school preparation group had it’s last day on the 30th. Meanwhile others have been fully occupied shopping for the uniforms, books, etc. for the 74 children who will receive high school sponsorships in 2008, as well as getting their paperwork together, registration at the schools and all the other administration involved with such a large program.

Newly arrived volunteers have done a big clean up, both of the yards and the buildings in the four schools where they will be working, and planning has started by the group who will be teaching English in the schools. We are very pleased that we are able to continue this year with a program started in 2007 by two volunteers, Jiri Kaiser and Mariana Jaramillo. Mariana is currently in Granada again and is helping the group of three volunteers who will be working with groups of children with problems. We will also be employing Georgina Portabanco, a child phsycologist in 2008, as part of the recognition that as there are no facilities in the schools for children with difficulties it is an area where we need to try and help.

On the 16th January we moved our office (just to squeeze a little extra excitement into the month) – we are still in the Calle la Calzada, but have moved to the other side. The Central was good enough to let us stay for almost two years in their space. For anyone who has not been to Granada for a couple of years the development of the Calzada has made the street almost unrecognizable. It must be a tremendous boost to tourism as every evening the street is filled with outdoor tables from the many restaurants and bars that have opened since. The first three blocks from the park are now completed and work is progressing rapidly onwards towards the lake.

As for who’s new, and who’s who – we currently have Sonja Coquelin from France, Carlos Morales, U.S.A, Christian Cavalero, U.K., Laura Ochoa, U.S.A.,Michelle Vergeer, Canada, Sue Fine, U.S.A., Arnold Jensema, Netherlands who were here in 2007. New arrivals this month have been Miriam Leiderer, Germany, Chris Lang, U.S.A., Donnie Surdoval, U.S.A., Christina Clark, U.S.A., Tuulia Tormala, Finland, Brian Tipa, U.S.A., Kris Woods, U.S.A., Asya Dinets, U.S.A., Nienke Mapendo, Netherlands, Candida Perkins, U.S.A., Jessica Suarez, Spain, Vishal Haynes, U.S.A., Carolina Cabo, Argentina, Patricia Rousseau, Hugo Galvenius, Sweden, Robert Kerr, Scotland, Ellen Williams, U.S.A., Claire Hiller, U.S.A., Lana Lemke, Germany, Sibille Steiger, Germany, Jessi Bishop,U.S.A., and Don Porter, U.S.A.

Thanks and farewell to Nelson, Miren, Marieke, Martjin, Hanna and Kelsea who were here helping during the holidays, and to Gloria and Tjeis who had both been with us since November.

Once again we were grateful for the bounty of our wonderful donors. We received $500 Australian from Jerry Lomax and Helen Bruce, $300 from Denis DeMay (plus $100 towards our new office), $500 from Nova Fraser for local High School tutors, through volunteer Christina Clark we received $350 from the John S. and Amy S. Weinberg Foundation, %50 from Karen and Asuka Nakahara, and $150 from the Addison/Ripley Gallery. Paul and Carol Garcia sent $25, and we received $28 from Annabel Feenstra, $40 from Margot Giblin, and $50 from Rosemary Dipple all for children’s eyeglasses, $200 from former volunteer Simone Koehler, $200 from William Bevan and Georgina Litherland towards the classrooms at Las Camelias, 357 cordabas in donations given in the office, plus $20 and 500 cordobas we found when unpacking some school materials (!). We received lots of school materials and toys too from Kris Woods and Asya Dinets, from Vishal Haynes and from Colin and Francine Adams. And nearly forgot to mention some more wonderful books brought down by Dara and Brian, from Mary Ellen Picker.

New volunteers Tuulia and Brian made a great contribution too – they each gave one of their family a week’s salary for our school nurse as presents. What a wonderful idea, and one we are going to work at including on the website.

To finish, here is the month’s photo link http://picasaweb.google.es/laesperanzagranada/January2008

We have a terrific team of volunteers here, a few more arriving this weekend, and all are enthusiastic and set for a good start to the new school year.

Regards, Pauline.

LSAT: The LSAT test went better. I won't know my score for a couple of weeks, but I was less stressed this time around. The test didn't go perfectly, but I'm hopeful. We shall soon see.

Central America: I am returning to Central America for 4 months. The primary goal is to pound Spanish into my brain. I've found a non-profit in Nicaragua that I can volunteer at for free, which is nice since the budget is getting thin. I plan to spend 1 month in Costa Rica studying Spanish and visiting family, 2 months in Nicaragua volunteering in Granada, and 1 month traveling through Honduras and Guatemala. I'm excited about Nicaragua because the prevalence of English-speakers is much lower and I will have to rely on my Spanish. The volunteer opportunity will be working with school-age children in rural outreach programs. I might also get to leverage the Economics degree and work with a small business outreach program.

Degree: I have completed the course-work for my BA in Economics from UW. Sooner or later I expect to receive officious-looking paper stating this fact, suitable for framing.

Karate: Is going well. Our class size has stabilized, around 14 students. We promoted our first student to Brown belt at the last test, which is exciting, and puts a little pressure on me to prepare for my Black belt.

Contact Juggling: I have taken up contact juggling as a method to exercise my shoulders. It's fun and slightly addictive. Search youtube for "JCJC" to see an amazing demonstration from Japan.

Girlfriend: I'm dating a teacher-turn-student who I met at the bus stop. She's cute.

Current Mood: cheerful

http://info.ikea-usa.com/IKEAMailListRemoval/

The Seattle Central Community College mails a quarterly bulletin. If you are in a house, you can call the main information line at 206-587-3800, which is the main information line. Ask for the PIO (Public Information Office) and they should be able to remove you.

If you are in an apartment (like me), you will have to contact your post office and tell them to hold the publication. According to Rachel Sealy at Seattle Central, this is a positive thing, because the post office returns the undelivered bulletins, which are re-used at the school.

You can find your post office at http://www.usps.com/

Greetings,

I receive too much junk mail. It is a waste. Since it is time consuming to many to actually find the phone numbers/email addresses/physical addresses that a person must contact in order to remove themselves from junk mail, I am going to post them here and tag them so that others may benefit.

-Jimmy

[Economics]
Almost finished with my degree! I took an A-Term class this summer, Economic Game Theory, which I enjoyed a lot. Dropped out of Advanced Macroeconomics when I came to the realization that there are better things to do with your summer than study the affect of interest rates on bald white men. I will finish this fall I have one 400-level economics class and 2 300-level math classes to take and then I can apply for graduation.

In other news, I'm taking the LSAT (law school admissions test) again this December, I'm going to use some of my time off this summer to study for it. I will also be studying for the GRE as my back up plan, in case I don't get into the law schools that I can afford.

[Chito-Ryu Karate]
I passed my Ichi-kyu test (1st degree brown belt). The next test will be for Black Belt. Currently we have Kyoshi Davenport, our most senior instructor visiting, so I am learning a lot from training with him. It's somewhat intimidating when a man built like a mac truck can kick you in your head faster than you can move it, even when he tells you where he is going to kick. As for the school, things continue to go well. Our overall enrollment has dropped a little, which is good, since last year we had too many students to give them the attention that first-year students need. 

[Work]
... is overrated. I do some of it next year.

[Hands]
The hands have mostly stabilized. They still flare up when I use them a lot, but I've found ways to change what I do to reduce the impact. 

[Latin America]
I'm planning to return to Central America next year. I plan to spend 2 months studying Spanish and 1 month travelling. I would like to visit some places in South America, but if I fly into Costa Rica where my adopted family is, it will not be feasible to travel very far into South America. 

Current Mood: happy

(Pictures here)

2/9/2007          Drive to Puerto Viejo

Feeling better today. Amazing what 3 consecutive days of 14-hours of sleep will do for you.

The drive with Inti to Puerto Viejo was a lot of fun. I enjoyed talking with him and interviewed him for 45 minutes with Tiara. I was sad to see the Dole shipping port right next to a beach that turtle use for laying eggs, but I also know that such things happen everywhere in our world. The sloths were awesome. AWESOME. After visiting the sloths in the cages, we went to the main building and met Buttercup, the ambassador. While we were standing around, she reached out as if to shake hands with her and a couple of us took her up on the offer. Chaim was the most trusting and let her crawl out on his arm, and I Was privileged to be on the right side when Buttercup completely left her chair and held herself from Chaims hand; the pose was perfect. Both of her hands (paws? Claws?) were holding onto Chaim’s fingers and her legs were almost straight out, like she was doing the splits. With her permanent smile, she looked totally adorable and content at the same time. I can totally understand how the family that started that reserve became enamored with los perezosos.

The trip through Cahuita National park was also amazing. Seeing a sloth in the wild, a yellow eyelash viper and many, many white-faced monkeys was amazing. Speaking of adjectives, I need a thesaurus myself. Walking along the beach next to the rain forest and seeing all the trees with their visible roots was incredible también. Snorkeling on the point within the protection of the dead reef was also cool, but it made me sad to see the reef in shape bad shape, knowing that such occurrences are everywhere and we’re the cause of it.

2/10/2007        Bribri

Visiting the Bribri today was a wonderful experience. While I enjoyed crossing the river in the boat and taking the local bus to the drop-off point, the experiences I will cherish are the ones with the kids. We were told that the kids are very shy, so I was very consciousness of how I might positively interact with them and bridge the linguistic and cultural divide. When we walked up to the first house on the hill, I crossed a log that was about 12 ft in the air; the Bribri kids ran across it in oversized rubber boots with no effort what-so-ever, but I took very cautious steps crossing it. I wanted to see if I could do it, but I also wanted to show that ‘us Americans’ could do the same things they did. Luckily I didn’t die.

While I was at the house, the kids were climbing on the outside of it during the presentation of cacao and plantains by their parents. I poked a couple of the kids in the belly so that I could interact with them a bit. As we were leaving, the kids were playing amongst themselves, and I hung around and let our group pass. The kids were throwing pebbles and twigs at each other, and I ‘tattled’ on one by pointing to the other to indicate who was throwing the pebbles. Some laughed and then we started up the hill to exit; I ran up the hill (yay big legs) and actually made the kids work for a second to catch me, but I was completely out of breath at the top, and they just made fun of me. Walking down the hill toward the main village, the kids were throwing pebbles at me too, and hit me in the head once. I turned around and pretended to be angry, and they scattered. I turned around to walk again, but was paying attention to their foot steps, and when they got close I turned on them and chased them up the hill…they were all laughing and screaming and I was able to catch the youngest one (1 point for the 32 year old, 20 points for the 10 year olds). After which they ran past me down the hill, and I figured the odds were minimal that I would kill myself, so I chased them down to the point where the log-crossing was again. The group from Washington headed to the right to go another way, and I started to go that way, but the kids called out in Bribri and I figured I couldn’t lose face and avoid the log.

I went to cross the log and felt my legs shaking from the running up and down the hill. The kids crossed first and were on the log on the other side; I figured they were waiting for me to start the cross and that they were going to jump and shake it, so I used some hand gestures and shooed them off the log before I crossed. The oldest one of the kids mocked my hand gestures and it was cute. After this we cut through the Bribri houses again. The kids took off running and I followed them down the hill. I can only imagine what it looked like to the rest of the group, me chasing a bunch of kids down the hill. I was caught the youngest one again, and went after the others, but the all scattered in different directions. I had a lot of fun doing it. About this time, Iniga, the girl with the red ponytail holder, came up and pinched me. I interpreted that as her saying that she wanted to play too, but I really needed a break. I don’t remember whether we went to the conical church before or after eating, but regardless, when we were in the church  and it was time to get perform the kids, I was able to get some of the kids to join us, and I think the others followed. I went for the Bribri in the orange shirt first, the young one that I had caught and lifted up into the air. After that Wadum called out for me to get the rest, and I think Jennifer Levy and some of the girls were also grabbing the kids and pulling them into our songs. I would love to know what they thought of our songs; I think we probably looked like idiots…which is actually a good thing in my book.

After eating, we played soccer. I jammed my toe hard on Alejandro’s knee, but damnit, he didn’t score then. It’s still purple as I write this (3 days later). After the soccer game, somehow we started spinning the kids. I think Jennifer or myself started it, but I don’t remember. I have some precious memories of Iniga giving me a huge smile as I spun her around and around. I offered her a hug to Iniga, but I don’t think they give them in her culture. I used Jennifer Levy as an example, but Iniga wasn’t into it. On the bus ride back, while everyeone was passed out from the days adventures, I really enjoyed sitting in front, listening to the sound of the bus, watching the jungle go by, thinking about the days events.

Thankfully I have a couple of pictures to go with this memory. I plan on having a nice framed portrait made of our group picture and to send it with via Inti when I return.  

2/11/2007        Return to Heredia

Today was much less eventful. We all slept in; I avoided the frat boys last night while my toe avoided the dancing girls; I hung out on the beach.  Today we went to another beach and snorkeled supported the sunscreen industry. Wadum was able to see an eel and tried hard to point it out to me, but without contacts I couldn’t make it out. Today was probably the best tay for snorkeling I’ve had here. The water was very clear, but tragically the reef was mostly dead. Some fish were still hanging around; some trigger fish and others I recognized from the fish store.

Current Mood: cheerful

I live. The flight was fine. It{s warm and sunny here.