Dropping Anchor

I have been at site for three months now, and though I am still struggling to find my niche here, I have carved out a bit of a schedule which has helped me keep sane, and avoid the common temptation of new volunteers to ensconce themselves in their rooms reading book after book until they have left a pile of novels in their wake. 

Nicaragua seems to wake up at around 5:30 am, at least that is when the chickens outside my room begin clucking and I can hear abuela splashing water around to start cooking and cleaning.  I usually, with a kind of futile stubbornness, stay in bed until around six, telling myself that I might be able to sleep for a bit longer, but by that time my host family is pounding out tortillas, blue smoke from the cooking fire is drifting through the crack between the wall and ceiling of my room, and there is no reason for me to pretend that I will sleep anymore.

A little before eight I set out for the health center, greeting the people I know, ignoring the catcalls, and avoiding the many puddles of mud.  When I arrive at the health center there is always a huge group of people waiting for appointments, which makes it difficult to give educational talks to them since I inevitably end up yelling across the waiting area to be heard.

Then I play this game I call "Keep busy, or Fake it."  It involves sitting in my shared office and either preparing materials for charlas or reading one of the many Peace Corps books on how to be an effective volunteer.  Sometimes I write out a blog entry in my notebook to type out later in a cybercafé...just an example.  This game does serve a purpose though, as I am visible to the staff and patients, so they know me better and are more willing to work with me.  As I start to involve myself in more projects though, I am spending less time there pretending to work, and more time out in the community actually working.

After lunch, and after I have sweat to an unprofessional degree in the tropical heat, I head to the Casa Materna to hang out with perhaps my favorite people in site-the pregnant ladies.  I really do enjoy spending time with them as it is time to just sit and chat with the women.  I often give little talks on nutrition or breastfeeding, and lately I´ve been trying to teach them how to crochet, but most of the time we just sit there enjoying the company and teasing each other.  One of the doctors at the health center said to me once that he liked to go over to the Casa Materna to joke around with the women, and, more often, have them make fun of him, because there is nothing more beautiful than a laughing pregnant woman.  When he said it I thought he might be right; it really is wonderful to see a woman, one hand on her back, one on her baby belly, laughing happily.  I think that is why I enjoy my afternoons so much, the woman in the Casa Materna don´t seem to be as shy as in other regions of Nicaragua, and we are able to laugh together, which is a beautiful thing.

By the time I arrive home, my host family is stationed around the tele, flipping through a variety of shows, occationally landing on a news program, which is one of my few opportunities in the day to actually catch up on what is going on in the world.  But, at this point I am exhausted, and I usually retire to my room to knit or read, and fall asleep by eight.  That might seem a bit early, but that is my daily schedule, which my mother assurred me would not be boring to read, which doens´t seem like to best precedent on which to base a blog post but there you go.