January was a boring month last year and I was expecting the same this year since most the community leaves during the month because of vacation, work stops, projects stall, etc.  The grant is "one more step" after another and I am now only 97 days from COS and I still haven't even had the grant finally approved to the point where I can begin to get it funded.  There hasn't much almost any progress on projects but there has been a little happening outside of projects to update and an update on my latest travel to Nicaragua this past weekend.

Updates from the community

Before leaving the community last week, I had already donated almost every pair of glasses donated by so many people back in the States.  That means almost 140 pairs of glasses to around 80 people that did not have glasses before or needed a new pair.  At the start, I was overly generous with the glasses, offering some people 2-3 pairs assuming there was no way I would ever be able to find 140 people that needed glasses but surprisingly enough, as soon as word got out, more and more people would call me or stop me in the street to ask if it was true that I was giving out glasses.  I went to a mass at the evangelical church one evening and gave out nearly 30 pairs, visited nearly 25 houses, had countless people come by the house and still have people asking if there are any more glasses to give out.  This was a really great project to come back to and really helped pass January quicker and helped me get back into the grove in the community while also helping a lot of people here.  Thank you again to all those who donated!!

One of the bigger/important events over this past month was the "asemblea" held by the ADI.  As a reminder, the ADI is like the community government organization that coordinates with local government organizations, manages community funds for communal projects and usually the group CED PC volunteers partner with to complete projects.  However, each year, the ADI board (7-9 members) need to meet with a minimum number of rest of the members affiliated with the association, in our case...33 people.  During this "asemblea", the board goes over how the money was spent last year, discusses this year's work plan and how they plan to distribute the money.  The first two attempts failed because the ADI couldn't get 33 people to show up...22 the first time, 25 the second.  Additionally, without the asemblea and motivation from the community, the ADI decided that they would do no upkeep on communal land in order to demonstrate to the community the value of the asemblea and community organization.  This meant that the soccer field wasn't touched in over 2 months, the basketball court was completely overgrown and the bus stop plot was almost covered in weeds and grass.  Without the asemblea, the ADI wouldn't get any funds, they could do no projects and would be pretty much disbanded.  Olger, the president and one of the best counterparts here, said he would quit his position if the asemblea failed for the third time and I told Mark, my regional leader, that his third visit to the community (in order to vet the community for a new volunteer) would be pointless and that I would highly recommend PC no send a replacement volunteer for next year.  Thankfully, the third time was the charm and 34 people showed up...just incredible.  However, the ADI identified the bus stop and the medical clinic as priorities for money for this coming year meaning we have money to pay a contractor for the medical clinic project which is no longer a worry.

Nicaragua

That's another stamp in the passport and another country visited.  Last Friday, a buddy of mine, Jon, and I took a Nature Air flight from San Jose to Managua and spent a night in Managua.  The city was completely different from San Jose and the extent of poverty and little development reminded me of something out of a movie.  There were malnourished donkey carts all over the city, old taxis that shut off in the middle of driving (seriously, one shut off like 10 times), small homes made of metal along dirty highways and buses that look like they have been in use since the 1950s.  However, there were other parts of the city that were beautiful and according to some of the taxi drivers, the government is finally looking to invest large amounts into the development of the city and developing the country as a tourist destination (for good or bad).  We visited the government buildings, the president's house, and a really development port area that had tons of restaurants and bars.  Despite warnings from the embassy and articles online, I never once felt unsafe or got an anti-gringo vibe.  All the taxi drivers were incredibly friendly (they tried to overcharge me sometimes but nothing too crazy) and all were interested about the United States and about how I felt about Donald Trump.  

That Saturday morning, I arrived at the embassy almost an hour early because I was told there would be heavy traffic around that time...there was none.  I then took the Foreign Service Exam which consists of a multiple choice section on world history, US politics, geography, communication, technology, economics, mathematics, and statistics; a portion of about 60 questions of English fluency; a random section where you have to answer "Very often, often, sometimes, rarely, never" and provide examples to a random array of questions/situations.  Finally, you are given 25 minutes to write a 2800 character essay regarding a present situation or issue, which sounds simple enough until you realize how small 2800 characters is and how much information you want to include in the essay that you then have to omit.  The idea was to get a baseline idea of where I lay and whether it would be worth investing in additional study items and further attempts.  While I feel comfortable enough with the multiple choice and English portion, I completely bombed the essay portion...I will find out the results within 5 weeks.

After that so-so morning, Jon and I took a taxi from Managua to San Juan del Sur where we met up with two other PC buddies, Cisco and Matt who had just arrived before us from Costa Rica.  San Juan del Sur is located along the Pacific coast between Lake Nicaragua and the ocean.  It was a completely different vibe and feel than Managua (not surprisingly) and reminded me more of a developing Costa Rican tourist town.  You could see the development that is taking place (huge lots, housing complexes, remodeling old buildings), and the recent arrival of restaurants that are clearly catering to tourists (burrito shops, bagels, coffee and chocolate shops).  There is still very much a small-town coastal feel to parts of the town but the entire beachfront part is developed with restaurants looking to attract tourists.  We spent the next three days hanging around the town, went on a bar crawl, tried to organize a sunset cruise with an open bar (for $25 each...) but couldn't go because we needed a minimum of 8 people to go and only us 4 signed up.  The 4 of us agreed that with the additional investment that is supposedly being directed to tourism, Nicaragua could very well compete with Costa Rica and offer similar attractions and activities at a fraction of the cost.

That's the update for January.  Not a whole lot more to report outside of the trip to Nicaragua...The country director for all of PC Costa Rica is visiting the community on February 15th so I am going to try to use that date to push the community leaders to get to work getting the community looking good again.  Ryan comes again in under 3 weeks, COS conference in a month, Courts for Kids in 2 months, and then I'm off to Europe in under 100 days!!!

Thanks for reading as always!

-Conor