Officially a PCV

As of a week ago Monday I am officially a PCV instead of a PCT. We finished training and swore-in on November 23rd. The next two days was the All Volunteer Conference, where all 170+ PCVs in Nicaragua got together to talk about the meeting´s theme, food security, and to share ideas about projects, good recipes, etc. I learned that making hummus in a blender instead of a cuisinart, and without any sesame tahini, is possible. Hopefully I´ll try it out soon. Despite chowing down on two containers of hummus I found in a Managua grocery store, I am still having withdrawal.
A couple weeks ago I met with two people from Wisconsin who have been working on a Sister City Project with some nearby communities. They have built schools and latrines and are currently focused on getting materials and snacks to the primary school kids and training the teachers. They want me to help with the teacher training. It should be really interesting. The communities are really poor and isolated. The teachers in the school live in my town and commute there for the week--travel between here and there is limited and complicated. The teachers arrive on Monday afternoon, teach on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and leave on Friday morning, leaving the kids with 3 of 5 days of class...if they´re lucky.

The U.S. ambassador in Nicaragua talked to us on one of our last days of training. He was surprisingly frank about U.S.-Nicaraguan relations (they´re not the greatest). It was fascinating to hear his side of the story and compare it to what I hear from the people I live with or see on the news. The upcoming presidential elections in 2011 will be interesting to say the least.

My last day at home before becoming a PCV my host mom decided to help me make one of my favorite concoctions-chicken, broccoli and pasta-though I was mostly just doing what she told me to do. I´m pretty sure she doesn´t think I can cook. It was entertaining. First, we used chao mein noodles. The chicken was boiled and then shredded (I left it in too big of chunks, my host mom shredded it again after I finished). She cooked the broccoli (with celery) until it was mushy. Then she proceeded to re-cook/fry the chicken with mustard, 1000 island dressing and (I think) chicken sausage. It didn´t taste too terrible, and everyone actually liked it, but it was a far cry from anything I´d had in mind. Nonetheless, they were convinced it was Italian food...but also kept calling it ¨chao mein.¨ The next night all of us PCTs were in Managua and went to a real Italian restaurant for dinner. I got pasta with broccoli and tomato sauce...and the USAID guy who was there with us paid for everything!

I saw an old woman wearing a shirt that said ¨Everyone loves a drunk girl¨ the other day. I´m not sure where they find shirts like that, but they´re everywhere. I like to assume that no one really knows what they mean.

Monday is the Purisima, or Immaculate Conception. From what I´ve gathered, it´s like Halloween, but you have to sing for your candy, it´s not just for kids, and it´s religious. We´ll see...