Robbing Happiness

Long delay….I know. I am going to update you first on my sad current situation and then go backwards. Stay tuned this week as there should be a lot of posts.

October 28, 2009, 3pm. I felt at peace, I felt proud, I just plain felt good. Earlier that morning, the ten best student businesses from the Granada and Rivas departments (states) competed for the right to prizes and a ticket to the national business plan competition in Managua. I had spent the previous month planning for this day, meeting with the students to review their business plans, walking the streets trying to raise money, calling judges, etc, etc. The regional competition along with the school competitions had occupied the majority of my time and mental efforts. But now I was back at my house, eating some hummus, and reflecting on the day, what went right, what could have been better. School would be ending in less than a month and freedom was just around the corner. Life was good. Actually, now that I think about it, life was great. I would even say that it the high point, the pinnacle of my Peace Corps service.

I had just planned a big time, successful event; classes were ending soon; the little kids’ basketball season ended smoothly; my relationship with Regina was great; I had spent a wonderful week in the United States with my friends and family; I had found a great work, social, personal balance and was very much looking forward to a strong, exciting finish to my Peace Corps service.

October 30, 2009, 7am. The high point of my Peace Corps service crashed as if it was the New York Stock Exchange of 2008. I arose from my bed noticing that there seemed to more light in my house that to what I was accostumed. I noticed the front door, slightly ajar, then as my eyes dashed around the room, I noticed that my bike was no longer there. My heart sunk, it couldn’t be. My fingers were crossed as I swung around to see if anything else was missing. The television, gone. My laptop, gone. I moved closer to my bed. Cell phones, ipod, no longer there. Fuck. This cannot be happening. I walked outside to notice the lock on my outside door was no longer there, taken with everything else, and as calmly as possible knocked on my neighbors’ door. Me robaron todo. I was robbed. My neighbor, the matriarch of the family, Wilma, could not believe it. That made two of us.

How did I sleep through this?!? I always thought if someone entered my house, I would wake up. They broke the lock, jimmied open the door, took almost all of my valuables, were literally one foot away from my bed, and I just slept peacefully through it all. Apparently neither did either of my neighbors who share walls with me. Obviously, these guys were good and had planned this robbery for some time. Still I felt terrible, sad, and upset.

As I took a look around my house one last time before heading to the police station, I noticed a little black sliver sticking out from under some of my books. My wallet! They did not find my wallet! I then remembered I needed to check for my passport, and luckily, it was also there along with my camara and a few other valuables safely hidden from eyesight. It felt like a lucky break amidst a sea of unluckiness.

 

So instead of heading to Masatepe to visit my host family, share stories and hugs with them, give them presents and Halloween candy, I found myself making the shameful walk to the police station around 730am. I met with an officer and began to make an inventory of all that was lost, realizing that they were just interested in the material items.

At this point, I was surprisingly calm (or not that surprisingly for those that know me) as I walked some investigators back to my house, only 2 and a half blocks away. They looked around, again took inventory of what was taken, and tried to look for fingerprints. We sat down around my table and they asked me some more questions and then called me a yanqui (an ignorant and/or derogatory term used for United Statesmen) after learning I was from the US.  I explained to them that I was not in any way or form a yanqui and that in fact I was from the South. This led to a further explanation of the civil war, yankee doodle dandy, and why you shouldn’t call United Statesmen yanquis. Did the cops appreciate this lesson in history? Not too sure but they did appreciate the donuts I got for them. Then after the cops made some sexist comments and lowered their level of professionalism, I realized that this was going to be a very frustrating process.

After they left, I realized that even more was stolen from my house. A pair of pants was stolen that was bedside (obviously with the intent of finding my wallet), two pairs of athletic shoes (both on the point of being thrown out anyway), and an orange towel (that they must have used to cover up fingerprints, footprints, etc). I do congratulate the thieves on taking the remote control for the tv. They can at least watch in peace. I mean not even they deserve to have to get up to change the channels, no one does.

So at this point, I decided to act. I went to the company that manages the house I rent and told them what happened and that I needed more secure doors and the locks changed asap. Then I went to Claro and Movistar (the two cell phone operators here) in order to block my numbers. But first, smartly, I asked them to see if any calls were made from my stolen phones that morning. Sure enough, in the first big break of the case, the thieves used my Movistar cell phone to make around ten calls to three distinct numbers, one being the most frequently called. How stupid can you be to use a stolen cell phone?!? Thank you ladrones, thieves.

I took this list to the police trusting that they would be able to locate and identify the people behind these cell phone numbers in order to solve the case. Of course I also made a copy for myself should the police not do their job (as is the norm here).

November 4, 2009, 11am. As I write to you, the police still have not taken a single step in solving what should be an open and shut case. They literally have the best clue of all write in front of them and they have not acted on it. I spent this past weekend visiting the police station, buying new cell phones, getting new doors and locks, and going through the headaches that will be my life for the next few weeks. On Monday, I went to the Peace Corps office in Managua to see if with the help of our director of security, we could help speed up the process with the police. Julio, the director of security, has been very helpful up to this point and we made a lot of calls finally ending with the police chief in Granada agreeing to meet with me. I went to meet with him yesterday and now that he knows about the case, I am expecting results in the next day or two. If not, it will be time to take the law into my own hands.

So what does it feel like to have your house robbed while you are sleeping? Well, it does not feel good. I have not slept well the past few nights, waking up in the middle of the night and listening for every single creak, footstep, and sound. I have replayed in my mind the thieves standing right there beside me while I slept. I have realized that I am lucky not to have woken up during the robbery. The biggest thing lost in all of this is not measured in dollars lost; it is my peace of mind, belonging, and security.

 

So what’s the silver lining? Well, I had always wanted to live a minimalist lifestyle and I am now way closer to this. Also, I know that if needed, I could take out my credit card and replace all that was physically stolen it less than a day. Things are just things. I realized how sad it is for a poor person to have something stolen from them, knowing that it cannot be replaced. I have also realized that my neighbors do actually care about what happened to me, and understand that this means their houses and properties are less secure.

I also now know that if I want to continue living in poorer parts of the world, that my status of a foreigner will always and forever make me a target, and that I need to take proper precautions in order to protect my house, my things, and my peace of mind.

I went from a Peace Corps high to a Peace Corps low, all in the span of less than 48 hours. But no worries, I will be even stronger now from this experience and will continue to roll with the punches life throws my way BUT always remembering to know when to hit back.

Just saying hi

Just wanted to wish all the Jews out there a lshana tovah, happy new year. I had a good Rosh Hashana weekend that started and finished with lots of food and had a UF-UT football game sandwiched in between. I also took the plunge and decided to get cable for my house! So now I can watch lots of football and sports all at my convenience instead of going to bars, other people’s houses, etc. I also was a witness to a pig slaughter last week. Hope all is well and I will be in touch again very soon.

Is that bull heading for my sister?

If you add together a siblings reunion in Nicaragua, a cleanup of Lake Cocibolca (or Lake Nicaragua), lots of basketball, bulls running wild through Granada’s streets, lots of homework, and the start of two new business consults, you would equal what was my last few weeks here. And I believe it is a very worthy excuse for the delay between posts.

The last few weeks all started with the arrival of my little brother and sister for a Nicaraguan siblings reunion. My brother and sister, Louis and Sara, had already been to Nicaragua in December along with my parents, but wanted to make a special trip so “we can do all the things that we couldn’t do with my parents”. Fortunately, my brother and sister chose a very appropriate time so that this desire of doing adventurous things could be fulfilled.

Sara and Louis arrived around midnight on Saturday night and we headed straight to Granada and to the fiestas patronales, patron saint festival, of Granada. The fiestas patronales take place annually around the 15^th of August and include the following: carnival rides, street parades with floats, bands, and dancing, a bull run, bull fighting, a giant horse parade, and lots of drinking. So we started the siblings reunion off on the right foot with a big brunch at an American style breakfast place and then headed to the bull run. Unfortunately we arrived a bit late and were only able to catch the tail end of the bulls running wild along the streets of Granada but I think it was enough of an experience for anyone. This annual tradition involves releasing various bulls along the streets of Granada and letting them run wild while thousands of locals (and me) run with them. The event culminates in a bull ring near the lake where some professionals but mainly really drunk young men try to ride the bulls without killing themselves. My siblings and I were able to bear witness to the bull fighting and all I can say is that I know they will never forget it. I think the official tally at the end of the day was two dead and many more injured.

The rest of the week was a bit more relaxed with Sara and Louis accompanying me to my classes and other work responsibilities. Of course we also fit in the time to take a night tour of the Masaya Volcano, go to Laguna de Apoyo (the prettiest lake I have ever seen), buy herbs and plants for my new garden, and take a two day trip to the island of Ometepe. Their trip culminated with the big street parade in Granada with floats, marching bands of high school students (some of them were my students) with very little clothing and lots of glitter, and other dancing groups. It is also safe to assume that a lot of alcohol consumption took place in Granada that evening. The night ended with us dancing at a local club and passing out from exhaustion.

My siblings departed Granada and Nicaragua but the parties carried on. Sunday August 16 was the hipica of Granada, or in normal language a giant horse parade. Just like every other festival or parade in Granada this one involves lots of drinking, lots of really loud music, and way too many people. The big difference with the hipica is that it includes thousands of horses strutting their stuffs down the parade route of Granada. Almost every major city in Nicaragua has their own fiestas patronales and also their own hipicas. If you are ever down here, be sure to check one out.

After enjoying myself tremendously during the fiestas and the sibling reunion, it was back to work. The competitions for my entrepreneurship course (La Empresa Creativa, the course that the Peace Corps business volunteers teach in Nicaraguan high schools) will be starting in around a month and my kids are way behind, as usual. My students are mainly behind due to a combination of cancelled classes, not doing their homework, and pure laziness. I don’t remember being this lazy in high school! Anyway, of course, it is the teacher’s job to make sure that everything gets done and so for the past two weeks along with my Nicaraguan counterpart teachers, we have been busting our butts trying to motivate the students to actually do their assignments. It seems to be working with some students but with others, well I guess we just need to try harder. Anyway, I will be sure to update you more about the student businesses and the competitions in the next post.

Next topic: If you have ever been to Nicaragua one of the first things you will notice is the complete filth that covers the streets and beautiful environment. Chip wrappers, soda bottles, old appliances, and millions of plastic bags, completely consume the ground. It is a fairly sad sight to see. And even more sad is the fact that the majority of Nicaraguans are contributing to this problem and do not understand why it is unacceptable to dispose of trash in the streets, to burn plastic, or dump their garbage in the lake. For a long time, I have wanted to formally start or help with an environmental program here. Finally I got a chance.

Overnight, I became an environmental expert. I was invited by an NGO to help organize a lake cleanup in a neighborhood in Granada and accepted fully knowing that I had little idea what I was doing. I had never educated anyone about the need to protect the environment but I knew I had the passion to do it. Still, I knew enough to know that just doing a cleanup is pointless if there is not an educational campaign attached to it so I studied up my Spanish environmental vocabulary and was able to give a few successful charlas, lectures, to the young kids about the importance of having a clean lake, clean water, and clean streets. In the end, we had a very successful cleanup while many volunteers, students, and parents helped to collect hundreds of bags of trash from the lakeside beach. I hope to continue this work more as the year goes on.

I also had the wonderful opportunity to begin a consultation process with two new small businesses. One small business is running fairly well while the other has yet to even open. Oscar Shoes, a small shoe factory of 15 employees, with the ability to produce around 70 pairs of shoes daily, was looking for some help and through various channels got a hold of me. Just yesterday, I met the owners, father and son, and began to learn all I can about the shoe making business. Based on our first conversation, it seems that they are looking to expand their market reach, improve their business organization on many different levels, and would like more capital to invest. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, we cannot do a lot with the financing help but the idea is that if I can help them organize themselves then the financing will be much easier to secure. Updates to come.

The second small business (well micro is more like it) does not yet have a name or even its first sale but excites me greatly. This is because I worked with the two would be owners when I was working at Opportunity International. Isabel and Mariela, two typical lower class mothers, have worked for various textile, fashion, and sewing business their entire lives and now would like to start their own business. They already have the knowledge, already have the ideas, already have some great contacts, and now just need to put together a business plan and look for a little bit of money. This is where I come in and where hopefully I can help. If anyone is out there that would be willing to invest in this business once we are fully organized, send me a note. Also, surely I will be promoting their products within the next few months so stay tuned and keep your checkbooks open (really credit cards nearby because who uses checks anymore).

In the midst of all this work I still have had plenty of time for basketball, both coaching, reffing, and playing. The Falcons, the team that I coach, now has a record of 1-3 and has an average offensive output of about 8 points a game. Did I ever tell you that I was an offensive genius?!? As distracted as the kids can be sometimes (one of my kids ran off the court in the middle of the game because his father came to watch), it is an absolute joy seeing them enjoy themselves and learn the game of basketball, a game that I love. The kids definitely love playing but sometimes I think they love the fact that they have uniforms and juice and cookies after every game even more. Basketball Team Photo

As a final note, I will be back in the United States on September 3 for my cousin’s wedding and am very excited for a REAL VACATION! Peace and love.

Disgust and Mystery during the Rainy Season

The rain has definitely picked up over the last few weeks and it seems that hardly a day goes by where there isn’t a quick downpour. It actually reminds me quite a bit of Jacksonville, Florida during the summer months. However, when it rains here, almost all activity stops as daily life is practiced outdoors. Even inside you are not safe from the rain as most structures have leaks and the rain can also make it absolutely deafening as it pounds on the tin roofs.

The deafening rain and swirling wind hurling rain through the open windows can also provide a challenge to teachers. Imagine teaching a class where the kids cannot hear you and everyone is huddle in the middle of the classroom away from the walls so they will not get wet. Well, this is a very frequent scenario here and happened to me just the other day. Whereas most teachers would just give up and wait for the rain to settle down, my class surged forward. How do you think deaf and mute people learn? I just started writing everything on the board, expressions such as open your notebooks, copy what I am writing, and word problems where the students had to figure out the break even point for the given business. My students thought it was so funny as I continued with the class, but hey, no excuses, right?

Which transitions me quite well to my next point (funny how that works). In Nicaragua, there is infinity of excuses for canceling class. I thought I had seen it all during the past year. Rain, student appreciation day, teacher appreciation day, the students were tired, parties during school hours, band practices during school hours, not enough kids showed up, not enough teachers showed up (there are no substitutes here), teachers’ meeting, parents’ meeting, students sent out to receive health lectures, do census surveys, and find illiterate people, etc, etc, etc. And on “normal” class days, the students would come for an hour or two and then go back home. Mondays and Fridays are generally taken as half days here. And through all of this I more or less kept my mouth shut and just complained privately to my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers. But no more can I keep silent.

On Monday, July 27, by local government mandate, all the schools were cancelled in Granada in order to honor Granada’s baseball team who had just won the Nicaraguan championship the previous day. I actually went to the game and it was a ton of fun (people dancing on the seats, brass bands playing, fights among opposing fans, water and beer being thrown around after every run scored). Most people celebrated after the game and surely some into Sunday night but the only celebration that took place on Monday (the celebration day) started at 7 at night meaning that there was absolutely no reason to cancel classes. Not to mention, tons of students showed up at school on that Monday not hearing the news that school was canceled, only to be turned away by school administration (I also showed up). It seems to me that celebrating a baseball victory is just another excuse to let the teachers, students, and public officials to have the day off.

On Tuesday, July 28, I proceeded to write an opinion piece about my disgust with the decision and tried to get it published in the national newspapers to no avail. Still, the point remains that Nicaragua needs to take a closer look at the value that place on education and the message that they send to all of the students when they allow class to be canceled for every irrelevant festival and trivial cause.

Moving to a lighter note, this past week I was able to visit my Nicaraguan family who hosted me during training. I consider them the closest thing I have to family here in Nicaragua and try to visit them about once a month. Yet, two months had I passed since I had last seen them so as soon as I got a chance I hopped on a bus. I always have a great time when I visit them, just talking with my host sisters (ages 7 and 15) and my host mother and generally nothing happens worthy of writing.

However, this time I actually gave a zero-interest loan to my 15 year old sister so that she could start selling prepaid cell phone minutes to the public. This is a very common business here and you make about $1.25 for every $10.00 of minutes sold. My sister’s only roadblock in opening her business was a lack of capital so I being the big brother happily provided it. It was not much money (even on a Peace Corps salary) and she has two months to pay me back. Worst case scenario, I cut off her arm after the two month period has expired (at least this is what I told her).

Continuing with the lighter/happy updates, I was able to finish two Spanish novels in the past two weeks (my second and third Spanish books ever), “Five Weeks in a Hot-Air Balloon” by Julio Verne, and “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho. Fairly good books and I can observe the Spanish side of my brain growing by the hour.

In really exciting news, my real little brother and sister are coming to visit me tomorrow, Saturday, August 8. They have already been here to visit me along with my parents this past December, but this time we are parent free, which means hitchhiking, rooster fighting, bull running, volcano climbing, good times.

And on a final more mysterious note, over the past week or two when I wake up in the morning I have noticed an area of my house that is bombarded with little, tiny pieces of poop. I am talking an area of two square feet with about 20 tiny pieces of poop on the floor every morning. The other day I tried to clean the ceiling of all the spider webs but yet again this morning the poop was there. I am thinking that it could be bats but have never seen a bat in my house. Any ideas? This truly is a mystery for the ages.

La Liga de Barrio Begins its Inaugural Season

Get a rebound. Get back on defense. Hands up. You can’t run with the ball. Pass it, pass it, pass it…pleeease. For those of you who have ever coached or played basketball before, these commands should sound very familiar. In the past few weeks, I have been able to learn all of these expressions in Spanish and have had the pleasure to repeat them all more than ten times while coaching my neighborhood basketball team, Los Halcones, The Falcons.

In the past month, a small group of locals, a Dutch woman, and yours truly have organized a youth basketball league (La Liga de Barrio in Spanish) for Granada from almost scratch and this past week we had our first official games. The league was designed in order to teach kids between the ages of 9-13 about basketball, the rules, how to play, and to let them have the experience of being involved on a real team. The league also provides an extracurricular activity to keep kids out of trouble and keep them in good physical and mental health. Not to mention, the more important lessons that sports can teach us all such as discipline, listening skills, teamwork, self-confidence.

What started out as a disorganized group of 3-4 neighborhood basketball teams a month ago has transformed into a seven team league of organized teams, with a schedule, uniforms, coaches, referees, the whole nine yards. Three weeks back, we had an open court day where all the kids and teams were invited to come and register. Two weeks back, we had our first unofficial games. Last week, we played three official games with the results being, 20-1, 17-12, and 5-2. Yeah baby!

I personally have been involved in basketball all of my life, as a player, a coach, and a referee, and having the opportunity to watch a whole bunch of kids learning the game brings warmth to my heart and many smiles to my face. Have you ever seen kids play basketball who have little to no experience? If not, let me describe it to you using a metaphor. It is like watching a colony of ants swarm to a piece of sugary cake; only that the ants are the kids and the sugary cake is the ball. The kids run without dribbling, attack the ball even when their own teammates have it, and shoot the ball without even looking at the basket. It is truly fantastic. You cannot help but smile and laugh along with the kids who are having a great time.

As the season goes along, we will definitely improve as a team and surely every single kid will improve as well. In the meantime, we are all enjoying the experience and trying not to laugh too hard while a kid just straight up runs with the ball. By the way, this week my team, The Falcons, plays Las Águilas, The Eagles. May the best bird win.