Merry Christmas!

I suppose it's about time that I update my blog again. Although I'm sure it won't be as interesting as it was during my stay in Somoto.

We're right at home here in Prince Albert with the Longlitz family. It feels very very bizarre not to be on my way home for Christmas. This will definitely be a difficult one for me, but knowing that I'm not the only person going through these difficulties makes me feel a little better. I have a great support group, as usual. And although any of us live far apart we have been managing some small kind of contact through our workplaces.

We are fortunate in the fact that the majority of our workplaces are located in the downtown core, making it very easy to visit over lunch breaks. Work has been slow, as the winter is downtime for the Canadian Red Cross. I have been manning the front desk sporadically, reading up on the kind of work the Canadian Red Cross and International Red Cross do, and working on my own small pet projects. Our Office manager, Sue, will be going on leave for January; so it is likely that I will take care of the front desk for the majority of that time.

I have already started forming plans (with the help of the Red Cross staff) for my second Educational Activity day. One of the employees at the Prince Albert, Canadian Red Cross is of Cree descent. She has many connections within the First Nations community in Prince Albert and is keen on helping me to incorporate some First Nation culture into my day. She made mention of cooking a lunch with all of the traditional foods she grew up with (moose, elk, rabbit, etc.). Another employee of the Red Cross has a husband who works in one of the correctional facilities, so there's possibility for a prison tour as well. I've lived in Kingston all my life, and have yet to see the inside of a prison.

Josue is doing well. As you can see, he's making good use of his blog. He is currently witnessing his first sample of real snow, and for the moment is enjoying it (give it 3 months). Chocolate has become a major part of his life over the past 4 days. In Nicaragua Chocolate is relatively expensive and of poor quality. I remember him saying that he disliked chocolate in Nicaragua, but he can't seem to get enough of it in Canada! His plan is to bring a large amount of good chocolate back to Nicaragua for his friends and family.

Christmas isn't widely celebrated in Somoto, so many of our Christmas traditions are completely Alien to him. He wasn't familiar with putting presents under a tree, and seemed to be fairly excited by the prospect of getting a picture with Santa (although we never carried through with that intention). I'm so glad that he'll be able to experience a Canadian Christmas. Mingling with family (even though it will be someone else's family) and absorbing all of the food and candy that you can manage.

Merry Christmas!

Josue's Blog

I've showed Josue how to make a blog of his own, and he has already made his first post. For those who are interested in checking out his blog, the link is: http://josuesiezar.blogspot.com/
It will all be in Spanish, so for those of you who want to brush up, here's your chance!
Note: Most online translators do not translate accurately. You will probably be able to get the gist of what you're translating, but quite a bit of it will come out as hilarious gibberish.

The Busy first week..

Two weeks until Christmas, already!! I'm just preparing myself for the strangeness of a Christmas outside of Arden. It'll be very interesting to experience family traditions outside of my own.

Not too many updates from our first week in Prince Albert. We've spent the week touring workplaces, meeting new contacts and getting to know our new host families. The Longlitz's continue to be great to us. I'm feeling very comfortable in their house, as is Josue (as far as I know). This will be the first week that the majority of the group will be seperated. Over the past three months only one day comes to mind where I didn't see at least one member of the group. We won't see each other until Friday. Hopefully once we become a little more comfortable with our surroundings we'll be able to meet up after work, for lunch, etc. Four days apart each week simply won't work. I suppose it will be a sample of the difficulties that we'll face being seperated at the end of the program...but let's not talk about that yet, we still have another amazing 2.5 months ahead of us.

Our work situation in Prince Albert is different from that of Somoto. Instead of working through one organization, each counterpart pair is working at a seperate organization. Included in the list of workplaces are: The Canadian Mental Health Association, The Salvation Army, The Red Cross, The SPCA, The Saskatchewan Research Council (dealing primarily with Forestry), 2 Primary schools, a day care centre, the hospital. Josue and I will be working at the Red Cross. Today is our first day of work, and I'm actually writing this during my lunch break. Our primary duties will be office related, but I hope to be able to learn a bit about their various programs in the area, possibly even to participate in those programs.

Sometime in the near future I'm going to try and post ALL of my photos on Photobucket.com I'll let you all know when I finally get to that. Tonight I'm going to help Josue make a blog of his own. I'll post both of these links on here as soon as I have them ready.
Well, my lunch break is coming to an end. Best wishes from Prince Albert!

Prince Albert, Saskatchewan

Once again, I'm sorry that I've waited so long to update my blog. The last 5 days have been a blur. We flew out of Managua at 12:50PM after a long morning of tearfull goodbyes and bus breakdown scares. It was the first flight for many of the Nicaraguans, and all handled it relatively well. We arrived in Toronto at about 8:30 only to be greeted by a large group of our families outside of the terminal, my Mom and cousins among them holding large "Welcome Home" signs. A pleasant sight to see having been away in a strange place for such a long period of time.

It was fantastic to be able to touch base with family, even though we didn't have much time to visit. By the time we were all checked into our hotel room and ready to go it was 11:00PM. We gave Josue a late night tour of Toronto, the primary destination being the CN Tower. He was, of course, blown away. I'm glad that I was able to give him a small glimpse of our largest city. Being driven around such a large city was definitely a first for him, as there's nothing comparable within Nicaragua.

The next morning (after our 3 hours of sleep) we were off to Saskatchewan. After another grueling plane ride to Saskatoon and a sleepy bus ride we were in Prince Albert. My kind of town! With a population of 30,000 people, Prince Albert presents a small town atmosphere not unlike the kind I grew up within. The cold was a shock, being -15C upon our arrival (From 30C to -15C overnight for our group). We went directly to meet our families, some of which were already waiting for us at our meeting place.

Our host family, Rob and Elaine Longlitz have done a great job at making Josue and I feel right at home. We live in a beautiful log house outside of the city limits which Rob built himself. They have a 19 year old son named Tyler who I have yet to meet (he's on vacation in Mexico), and another son named Cody who went through the Canada World Youth program himself (Ukraine/North Battleford. Funny thing is that North Battleford is only a 2hr drive from Prince Albert). Cody goes to the University of Calgary, and I won't be able to meet him until Christmas.

I was more than a little bit worried about Josue in his adjustment to both the cold and the Canadian way of life, but he appears to be doing very well. He seems to like the cold, the food, and is interacting well within the community.

Well, I think Josue is waiting for the computer, so I'll elaborate on the past couple of days in my next post. It will be far easier for me to update this blog as I now have internet access within my home.

Last Week of Activities...

The day after our Final camp was the Carnaval. The biggest party of the year within Somoto. The Carnaval features party bands from across the country, and many people travel from all over Nicaragua to attend. The Party ran from 9:00PM-6:00AM. I stupidly let myself be talked out of attending. I regret the fact that I didnt go even more because of the fact that most of the other Canadians were in attendance. They all had a blast. I´m sure that I´ll be trying to make up for missing the Carnaval for the rest of our program.

Yesterday was our final excursion. We visited the department of Matagalpa, and Matagalpa city. It took us a long three hours to arrive in Matagalpa. Upon our arrival we visited the farm of a familiar INPRHU employee. He gave us a full tour of his land, and allowed us to sample his produce. He had Cacao, Guava, Mandarins, and Lemons the size of a baby´s head. Afterwards he gave us a big plate of Squash and Honey, and a potato like vegetable with cream. Delicious, as usual.

After the farm we made a brief stop in Matagalpa city. Among the Nicaraguan cities which we´ve visited, it´s probably the one which presents the most North American lifestyle. Marta explained to me that it was the most important northern city in Nicaragua, producing a large portion of the country´s exportable goods, coffee being the most significant.

We arrived in Matagalpa central park, just in time for the lighting of the large Christmas tree. We didn´t have much time in Matagalpa city, but the Christmas spirit was definitely present. Kind of a strange thing to experience without the cold and snow.

Last night INPRHU hosted a potluck dinner for all of the volunteers and their host families. Great food, great music and great company. It was our first opportunity to mingle with all of the families together. I´m really hoping that I´ll be able to reproduce some of the interesting foods which I´ve sampled in my time here. I believe the dinner was our last planned activity, and that the next couple of days are reserved for departure preparation.

I would like to acknowledge INPRHU for making this exchange possible for us. They´ve been more than accomodating, and have done a fantastic job at making us feel welcome within Somoto. INPRHU is providing a one in a lifetime experience for both the Canadian and Nicaraguan volunteers. I already feel like I have bettered myself over the last 3 months; maybe a little more humble, a little more mature, with a better understanding of culture and international relations. I feel that, having experienced life as a Nicaraguan I can use some of their customs in my day to day life in Canada. I hope that after the duration of the program the Nicaraguans are able to do the same with some of the things that they´ll learn in Prince Albert regarding the Canadian lifestyle.

Over the next four years INPRHU plans to plant a tree for every Nicaraguan and Canadian volunteer who participates in the program, with each volunteer´s name attached. Although I hope to come back to Somoto in the not too distant future, the idea of returning to see my tree in 30 years along with the trees of my fellow volunteers will surely summon a fair bit of Nostalgia. I´m envious of all the volunteers which will be able to participate in this exchange over the next four years. Although they are not yet aware of it, they are in for a hugely rewarding experience. This is probably my last post while I´m in Nicaragua. Next stop, Toronto!