I Love Private Hospital Care

About two weeks ago I got really sick and visited two hospital emergency rooms in the same day, something I hope to never do again. Two infections and a possible parasite later I really started to appreciate that if you pay extra you can end up in the private section of the hospital to receive immediate care. Just so nobody gets the wrong idea, the private section is not what I would call luxurious. The bed was pretty much a morgue stretcher covered by a threadbare sheet and no pillow or blankets.

My veins are really hard to find (don't do drugs, kids!) and I ended up getting stabbed with 8 needles for an IV before they found a vein in my foot. I have so many bruises on my arms I look like I'm in an abusive relationship. To the credit of the hospital, I don't know where else in the world you could get full blood exam results within an hour for $5 USD.

The worst part of the whole ordeal was that the day I got sick, there were people out in the streets rioting over the elections. Although I consider rioting a stupid activity, the actual people doing it are very strategic. There are about as many intersections in Managua as there are roundabouts. So if you block the roundabouts it becomes extremely difficult to get anywhere. I can't blame taxis for refusing to take me to the hospital considering the fact that I was throwing up constantly, looked like death warmed over, and living in a neighborhood full of hooligans. Considering my condition, I wasn't as persuasive as I normally am. My neighbor was kind enough to drive after I explained the situation, but not before shouting, "Oh my God!" when he first saw me walk/crawling to his house.

Nobody likes being sick. I will never in my life forget the sensation of being so incredibly thirsty, but not being able to do anything about it because I couldn't even keep down water. In some ways being really sick is a test to see who will stick around for you when you're at your worst. I want to let my Mom know that I received care on par with hers throughout the entire process from my host family and friends and work collegues. All in all, I'm no worse for wear and even came out of this experience feeling more loved by those around me.

FSLN Vs. PLC = Lauren Afraid She Will Get Hit With A Rock

So as probably none of you know Nicaragua had an election on November 9th. There are two main candidates involved; the FSLN (socialist) and the PLC (liberals, who I suspect are quite conservative). This country has so much political baggage that I don't even know where to start. The most important thing to know is that neither candidate is really worthy of election.

The day after the election in a national holiday. I was told this is because they need people to count the ballots but what actually happens is that men between the ages of 12 and 55 get together and drink, get angry about the corruption in politics, grab rocks and throw them at each other. Then the next thing you know everyone has tire irons and are destroying buses and cars. Then the fireworks start, followed shortly by home made mortar.

I had just gotten used to the pitch and noise level of the fireworks people around my house set off. Much to my dismay, starting with election night they began setting off fireworks louder and more fequently. My sleep has since suffered. At least my original fear that they were gunfights has been put to rest. I bet I could get someone to show me how to make a sweet gun out of household products, but I'm not friends with any of the revolutionaries. It's a real shame.

When people told me there would be rioting after the elections I figured 5 days maximum. How wrong I was. It ended up lasting 15 days!! Fifteen days of tear gas, rubber bullets, fireworks, gang violence and reworked transport routes because there were no buses and streets were shut down. The worst part was that it was the political leaders inciting people to violence. I waited during this whole time to see if anything would come up on any international news channel. Central America in general is very undereported. I'd be willing to bet that no one reading this post heard about the dozens of people beheaded by drug gang members on a Nicaraguan bus in Guatemala. There is better coverage of the latest soccer matches on BBC than on the deaths and injuries from this election or the flooding from hurricanes in the fall.

As violent as this whole ordeal sounds it is not actually very dangerous for people to walk around. You just have to be smart enough not to wear political colors or involve yourself with either group. Even as a foreigner I got frustrated watching these events unfold. The political situation in this country is a revolving door of corrupt leaders and election fraud. No wonder people are angry enough to throw some stones.

For a bit more information...

International Herald Tribune -- Election dipute sparks violence in Nicaragua
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/11/17/news/LT-Nicaragua-Election-Dispute.php

RTE News -- Violence in Nicaragua over elections
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/1111/nicaragua.html


PICTURE CREDIT:
A supporter of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) fires a homemade mortar toward supporters of Eduardo Montealegre, mayoral candidate of the Liberal Constitutionalism party (PLC) in Leon City, some 95 km (59 miles) west from Managua, November 16, 2008. Dozens of people have been injured in Nicaragua in post-municipal election violence, according to reports from local media. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

Consider Yourself Lucky Your Hair Does Not Look Like This

This is what the tropics does to my hair. Not that my hair was really all that under control to begin with.

Similarities?

The Problem With Having Siblings More Attractive Than You

The problem with having syblings more attractive than you get a lot of the following conversation:

LAUREN: Here is a picture of my sisters and my father.
MARGARITA: Your family is so beautiful. Especially your youngest sister.
LAUREN: I know! And she's skinny like Grethel (my skinny host sister).
MARGARITA: (Genuinely confused) I don't understand... She's so thin, and you're fat.
LAUREN : (Laughing) What can I say Margarita? That's life. Some people just get all the good genes.
MARGARITA: I agree.

Now, before you go thinking that that is such a rude or offensive thing to say there are a few things you should know about Nicaragua.

1. Nicaraguans are brutally honest.
2. There is almost no such thing as an offensive statement.
3. Margarita is one of the people I talk to the most in Nicaragua because she lives across the street from me and makes sure I don't get mugged on my way home from work. Because we are friends she has the right to say anything she wants to me.

After spending more than a year in total in some part of Central/South America I have grown very acostomed to this honesty and actually appreciate being able to reciprocate. To give more context to this conversation you should know that if I wanted to get the attention of the man who sells tortillas on my street I would yell "Hey, Fatty!!". I think the first few times you hear it it can be startling, but you actually get used to it. I find it pretty funny now.

My family who I miss so much!!

"That's the Devil's Holiday Lauren"

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the local small supermarket had put up the usual Halloween decorations like the life size pirate that says threatening piraty things and large mechanical spiders. Wanting a bit of time to figure out a costume I asked my Mennonite sister what they did for Halloween and received the following response, "That's the Devil's holiday Lauren! We don't celebrate that here." Despite my best attempts to tell fun stories of trick or treating with your snow suit on beneath your costume in Montreal I don't think I succeded in convincing her that I am not at all afiliated with the devil. I decided not to bring up the issue again.

So Halloween day comes and I notice that it is a pretty sensitive issue among people in Nicaragua. For days there were anti Halloween panels on television and shameless promotion of Christianity. I spoke to my confused friend Audrey who had spent 10 minutes staring at a news broadcast showing images of ocean waves with the face of Jesus fading in and out and creepy classical music in the background.

But... there seems to be another festival that takes the best of Halloween (costumes, singing, candy, general happiness). It happens on December 7th and is to celebrate the conception of the Virgin Mary. Everyone pretends they don't realize that they celebrate the birth of Jesus less than 20 days later. You go door to door and when asked what could cause you such hapiness you shout out "The Virgin Mary!!". Now this is a festival that I plan on participating in with a vengence.

Actual Conversation

This is an actual conversation I was part of. Managua has an earthquake like clockwork every 35-40 years. The last one was in 1972 and destroyed 90% of the city.

MY HOST MOTHER: I would really like to build a second floor onto this house.

NEIGHBOR WHO IS CONTRACTOR: Well, you're better off waiting a couple of years until the next earthquake. If you build now it will just fall down and most likely kill you.

MY HOST MOTHER: You make a good point.

NEIGHBOR WHO IS CONTRACTOR: At least if you build after the earthquake it will last you about 35 years.

(GENERAL AGREEMENT FROM THOSE LISTENING IN ON CONVERSATION)

Managua, the Venice of Central America

The only problem is that Managua lacks most of the charm Venice posesses and at least with Venice you are expecting water.

Anyone out there who has spent time in another country during rainy season knows that after days and days of rain, the sun cannot come out soon enough. I am writing to you now as the sun has come out after several days of crazy weather and hard rain. Managua, unfortunately, was not built with a great deal of urban planning in mind. Along with being built exactly on a faultline, it is also where all the water drains to from a fairly susbtancial watershed. It floods a lot. Very quickly.

Strange things happen during rainy season. Your definition of 'soaked' changes from more or less wet to completely drenched. You triple plastic bag everything. You wear shorter skirts with the mentality that at least there is less fabric to get wet. You become irrationally jealous of people with cars who drive by completely dry, not a hair out of place. You don't even notice less than a foot of flooding. Everything you own molds... earrings, your wooden hangers, your bedsheets, etc.

At first, you are very sensitive about smelling like mildew, but once you get on the bus and realize everyone has the same fragrance, you accept the inevitable.

Government of Canada Taking Cues from Yzma

In a world where you can do just about everything over the internet, applying for my overseas ballot was a bit of a shock to my system. First you have to fill out a form to show that you are eligible to to vote and send it to Canada. The government then sends you a ballot, and you fill it out and send it back. In case any of you are unaquainted with Nicaraguan mail, it is not the fastest mailing system in the world (although not nearly as bad a other mail systems I've sent stuff from). The ballot itself was complicated too since it has to be put inside an evelope, that needs to be put inside another envolope, that needs to be put inside another envolope**. All of these envelopes had sealed themselves by the time I got them, making my ballot look incredibly tampered with. I wonder if after all that trouble my ballot was even counted considering it looked like someone hacked it open with a saw. I must admit I went into a bit of a depression following the Canadian election considering how little policies were explained and the cheap shots between parties. Alas, my favorite politician, Stephane Dion, has stepped down as leader of the Liberal Party. I console myself by listening to Jacques Brel.

** I'll turn him into a flee. A harmless little flee. Then I'll put that flee in a box. And I'll put that box in another box. Then I'll mail that box to myself. And when it arrives. A HA HA HA HA!!! I'LL SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER.

My Job...

So it occured to me that I have been here a month and not told most people about my blog, or what I actually do for my job. Even though I have had the best intentions about sending out email updates I must confess that working 11 hour days does not leave a lot of time for communication. So here it goes... I work for MEDA (Mennonite Economic Development Associates) an organization based out of Canada that works in about 15 countries around the world. They have an office in Nicaragua and run microfinance projects as well as an agricultural development project called PRODUMER. PRODUMER is a project that works with sesame seed farmers to present them with better technology, cropping methods, market access and financing. It has been running for 6 years so far and will be ending in March 2009. My job is to write a report that evaluates the gender component of the project by the end of January 2009. So far I have been working crazy long hours on a bunch of different things, one of which is the semi annual report that has to be handed in by the end of October. Everybody knows that interns work ridiculous hours for little pay, so I feel like my expectations have been met in that area. So far I am enjoying my job but have had no opportunities to get out into the field and actually speak to farmers, who are located in three different departments (same as provinces) along the Pacific coast. I have become very well aquainted with one Central/South American phenomenon know as "The Meeting That Will Not End" aka a "reunion" in Spanish. As much as I love to have a good chat with a cooperative president, 8 hours is excessive. While there are many things I really like about Central American culture, these unlimited meetings are killer. Especially when you have several in a row.

Pictures: In the office with fellow interns (please do not look too closely at the Us Magazine that I am reading... I work really hard, I swear). Also, a shot of my office from the outside.

Fun Facts

1. Replacing the horn in a cab with a cat call noise makes it that much more interesting to drive in.
2. The neighborhood I live in was named after a contra guerilla commander. It is also where they relocated all the guerillas after the revolution.
3. The quickest way to lose the respect of your co workers is to sing 'The One' by the Backstreet Boys as part of a duet in a kareoke bar.
4. Passionfruit juice and ice tea taste delicious together.
5. It is so hot and humid here that envelopes seal themselves.
6. It is a bad idea to walk through doors if you do not know what is behind them. You might end up in a chop shop and facing a lot of men holding very large guns.
7. If you are lucky, your car will not blow up when you leave it running while filling up gas.
8. Soup is always delicious, no matter the temperature.
9. It is a bad idea to leave your clothes to dry outside when your neighboors are burning garbage because then your clothes will smell like plastic and bacon at the same time.
10. 85% of all the street food snacks/meals you buy will be the best food you have ever had.

I Need To Go Grocery Shopping

If you're not careful, all you'll end up eating for breakfast is pudding, or worse yet, a really bad smoothie.

A Post Actually About Agua In Nicaragua

During my time here I'm staying with a host family. It's working out really well so far. There is one problem, though, and that is that the neighboorhood I live in is really poor. This means that we don't have running water all day. This has been a bit of an adjustment since there are so many activities that I forget require water that I can't do during the evening after I come home from work. Just think of all the tasks that require water during your day, and think about condensing those activities to occur between 3 a.m. and 8 a.m. A normal day looks something like this... Just about everybody gets up in the morning (6 people including myself) before 5 a.m. and begin the mad scramble to either cook your food, take a shower, wash your dishes or wash your clothes. There is a laundry machine at my house but it is used very sparingly because of the cost of electricity. Keep in mind that only two taps will work at any given time, so if you have the water on outside while you are hand washing your clothes and the kitchen sink running, there will be no water in the shower. Since I have to be at work for 7 a.m. I need to leave the house before 6:30 a.m. and I need to make sure that I boil rice for lunch, wash a few clothes, clean myself and do my dishes from the day before all before I run down my street to try to catch a cab. And trying to accomodate everyone else. I'm not the best at multitasking to begin with, and I find it especially difficult to do when the sun has barely risen. Even since I've been here there have been some mishaps involving taps left on by accident. Someone will turn on a tap, have no water come out, and forget to shut it. Then, at 3 a.m. the water will come back and, while everyone is sleeping, flood the kitchen floor or the bathroom, or the backyard. Having grown up in a three bathroom house I never had the experience of fighting for bathroom time complicated even more by this countdown to when there will be no more water.

Managua: Figure it Out...

As most of you know, I am currently stationed in Managua for 5 months completing an internship with MEDA. There are a few things you should know about Managua to understand what living here is like. I was a bit aprehensive coming here as it had been described to me before I left as, "The ugliest capital city on earth". Even then I considered it a bit harsh... But I can see how the city might be lost on someone who doesn't spend a lot of time here. I have compiled a list of all the things that seperate Managua from other more logical major cities.

1.The streets have no names. I mean at all. An example of an address would be "That old tree in San Judas, 2 blocks south, 1 block east" or "Where the Pepsi building used to be, 3 blocks towards the lake". Since this is a decent size city (over 1.5 million) I find it pretty impressive that everyone knows where that big old tree is in the neighborhood of San Judas.
2. The city is built on the shore of Lake Managua. This lake is so polluted that the Japanese offered to buy it because it would actually be profitable to sift out the heavy metals from the sludge at the bottom.
3. There are cattle and all forms of vehicles on the roads at all times.
4. There is no downtown. In 1972 a major earthquake hit and pretty much leveled the city. Instead of rebuilding it they built in semi circles around the old town so all the roads run in a crescent moon shape heading from east-west.
5. The cathedral also got destroyed in the earthquake in the 70s. When they did rebuild it they chose the cheapest architectural model they could find. This was actually the model of a mosque. It was actually mostly financed by the guy who owns Domino's pizza. The best part is that as soon as the structure was completed, a Pizza Hut opened up accross the street. Sometimes, you just can't catch a break.
6. There are 'sandanista' (or socialist revolution) colors everywhere around the city. On all the telephone poles and walls, traffic lights and posts.
7. You can buy anything you want at an intersection. You name it; cell phone chargers, cashews, water, newspapers, sunglasses. You could potentially never get out of your car for everyday needs.

I'm sure this list will continue to grow as I continue to live here. Getting used to the city has been difficult since you have to change how your brain normally references things. Instead of remembering street names you remember statues, big ads and funny looking glass buildings to get an idea of where you are. Managua really is not that bad of a city if you spend any significant amount of time here. There are also a lot of comforting places to go to, like really nice nicaragua coffee shops that have wireless. There is even a cafe run by a Luxemburgian-Indian that makes curry occasionally. While most backpackers come here and promptly leave, it is worth the visit. I'm actually enjoying it more than I did Panama City, so that's definitely a start.

This is a picture of the map of the city and the cathedral:

Agua in Nicaragua

*** Please note the title of this post has nothing to do with the content

I know that I have been a very bad blogger in the past, but since I am contractually obligated to blog for my new job I hope to be posting about once a week. I arrived successfully in Nicaragua on Saturday the 30th of August after a layover that lasted way too long in San Salvador, El Salvador. It is currently very warm and rainy here.

South American Jaywalker: Fearless

Although I try to avoid jaywalking as much as I can in Panama, sometimes it’s just not possible. David is one of those times. It’s a city that I went to twice during my first month here. David is in the province of Chiriqui and it borders with Costa Rica. The first time I went I caught a lift to the beach and had my first chance to swim in the Pacific. The experience was a bit surreal because there was this little hut on the beach that was blasting a cello concerto by Hayden. Getting there was also interesting since the road required a 4x4 vehicle and we only had a 10 year old Nissan Sentra. There were definitely times where I felt the road bump up against my feet on the floor of the car. I also went to Boquete and did a tour of a coffee plant. I also did a supposedly “short” hike (actually 3 km each way on a shady trail) to a not so impressive water fall during which time I managed to unknowingly insult a one legged man from Iowa. There was a special flower and coffee fair going on in Boquete at the same time. I enjoyed the flowers, but was a bit coffee-ed out from my tour in the morning. I also learnt that 2008 is the FAO year of the potato!!! Anyway, the place turns into a bit of a mad house at night when the whole fair turns into a reggeaton dance ground with some serious base. At the hostel I was staying at I saw a posting for this indigenous cultural event that was happening the week afterwards. I decided to go, even though it’a a 14 hour round trip. The festival was a cultural showcase for the Ngome Bugle Indians who are the largest (and probably have the most diluted culture) of all indigenous groups in Panama. As I should have guessed, it took a while to get started. There were a couple of cool highlights. The first was a story written by one of the Ngome Bugle women. Talk about lost in translation. It was said first in Ngome Bugle, then translated into Spanish and then translated into English. I didn’t understand the Spanish and really didn’t understand the English. The story started out with a worthless husband leaving his wife and kids at home to go drink. From my experiences in Panama, this seems to be a recurring theme. The moral of the story ended up being something along the lines of don’t leave your children alone at home. The second was a game a traditional game organized by the men. This was something to watch in itself because they hadn’t really planned anything before. The stages of confusion, fighting over rules, team separation and then actually playing the game took about 20 min. Coming back on the bus was one of the coldest experiences of my life since they air condition the busses here like you wouldn’t believe. Sadly, the movies they show on busses here are not as bad as the ones in Ecuador. I have yet to Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jean Claude Van Dam. The best part was that I got to wish my sister Elizabeth a happy birthday!! See quote below…

LAUREN: Hey Elizabeth, I called to wish you a happy birthday!
ELIZABETH: Oh, thanks Lauren.
LAUREN: But I don’t have too much time. My bus is leaving in a few minutes so I’m going to keep talking to you until I see it drive by. If I hang up abruptly it’s just because I’m chasing it down.
ELIZABETH: That is so ghetto.
LAUREN: The saddest part is, I’m not even lying.

6 Easy Steps to Carnaval

For all of you who were not able to celebrate Carnaval as they do in Panama (which is pretty much everybody), I have provided an easy checklist of items to make sure that you can recreate it yourselves.

1. Dress in bathing suit and skimpy clothes on top.
2. Find a small child’s blow up wading pool. Fill the pool with water. Poor dirt and garbage into the water. Leave it in the hot sun until it develops a funk
3. Get a water bottle. Fill this waterbottle with an alcohol of your choice. Remember: it must be something that you will still want to drink once it is very warm. My preferred option/the only thing I could afford was Clight juice powder mixed with water and vodka (doesn’t actually taste good, but it is consistently bad, so you know what you’re getting).
4. Get 15 of your closest friends to stand in the pool with you. You must be so close that you cannot move very well.
5. Get one of your friends outside of the pool to hold a pressure hose, another to blast generic reggae and dance music, another to put rum inside a water gun and another to stand next to you with an open can of beer.
6. Dance to music with all of your friends. Simultaneous to this drink from your water bottle and get pressure hosed. In between drinking from your waterbottle, have your friend with the beer poor it all over you and your friend with the water gun spray rum in your mouth.

And that my friends, is Carnaval.

This is a picture of a float during a night parade.

Lauren + Palm = Bad Lab Report

In January we took a field trip to Isla Barro Colorado, which is a famous island created when the canal area was flooded. I mentioned it in the first update I sent out. I'm told it was the first tropical nature reserve ever created. Our lab exercise was less than glamorous since it involved crawling on the rainforest floor to collect seeds from palm trees and avoid ticks. The most impressive thing on the island were probably the howler monkeys. When you first hear them, you're convinced that a really gruesome murder is taking place very close to you. Then, when you find out they're just monkeys you're convinced that they must be enormous, when they're really only small and cute. It does take some time to get used to the idea that something so small can make that much noise. They're kind of like small children that way. This is also where I went kayaking around with crocodiles. To be fair, I tried to use the canoe, which would have been safer, but after Rachel and I finally dragged it into the water (it was old and really really heavy), we found out it had a hole and then had to drag an even heavier canoe (now full of water) out of the lake. I'm pretty sure I took a couple of years off the life of my back. It was also a painful (literally) reminder that I have no upper body strength. I will stop abusing parentheses now and put captions on my pictures.

Note: My camera battery died on the boat ride to the island so I don't really have any pictures. To simulate being on the island imagine a tropical forest. Since that is pretty much all it was, this will suffice.

Bottom: Sunrise on the canal. We got on a bus at 5:00am to get to this place
Top: Crocodile!

Sloth: I iz not a sin

Parque Nacional Soberania is a national park about a 15min drive from my house. While it is a perfectly beautiful park, we have a complicated history since it is the site I did my individual project for my biology class. I based my project on plant identification not realizing that there are thousands of different plants present on the grounds. This fact, coupled with my lack of plant knowledge made this project long, arduous and completely inaccurate. On the positive side, I saw a really cool sloth and coaties there.

Top left: This is a crappy picture of the sloth I saw. It's at the bottom center of the picture and is upside down. Look hard. You'll see it.

Top right: Random lizard that was nice enough to pose for me

Bottom: Leaf cutter ants. They form these highways of leaf bits they carry on their backs.

My house...

This is a post dedicated to my house and where I live...

So, I live in Panama City on the outskirts in a place called Ciudad del Saber (that translates to city of knowledge). It's a nice place to live because it's safe, but kind of creepy because it is full of rich, white scientists and other professionals. I discovered the bakery awhile ago and now realize that it will be my financial downfall. Between the passion fruit juice and quesitos I don't even know how much money I've dropped there. It's also expensive. But delicious. Anyway, I live with 5 other roomates. Four are from McGill and one is Panamanian. The four girls from McGill are in this picture.

Some of the awesome things about my house include:

1. We have 6 giant chef knives and only one cutlery knive

2. We get FM Corazon on the radio

3. Our garlic press looks like it was made in the 1930s

4. I live within a 5 min walk of the bakery, school and my internship office

5. I am able to make biology jokes with my roomates (Ex. trying to find out if Louis Philipe is a niche, or guessing the trophic level of decomposing animals)

6. We live close to this awesome looking tree that must be hundreds of years old.

This is a picture of my house.

This is a picture of my room that I share with Nina.

An update?

So... I'm trying to become a better traveller and actually let people know what I am up to, as well as post pictures. I'm pretty late getting started, but hopefully within about a week I'll have posted all the places I've been to add some pictures. Wish me luck!