Mount Somoto

I can´t believe as of yesterday I have only 1 month remaining in Somoto! Which means in exactly 1 month I will be back in Canada to start the Canadian portion of my journey, where I will be volunteering in Prine Albert, Saskatchewan. But in this remailing month I look forward to the new experianes, and new lessons I am learning every day. Each day I can feel my spanish improving, which was one of my biggest goals that I had set for myself before entering the program.

Well the day will eventually come when I have to leave this wonderful place, and I dont need to dwell on the moment, I just need to focus on the ¨now.¨ But, for now I am going to write about my experiences as I usually do.

This new story starts a day after the epic boxing match of mass proportions:

So I knew it was going to be a busy and exhausting weekend before it started, because I had my Boxing Match, and early the next morning we were heading out to climb the biggest mountain i Somoto, which surprisingly has no name, so I will refer to it as Mount Somoto. We woke up early the next morning at 7pm to pack our lunches and bags for the long journey up the mountain, but little did we know how long of a journey it would be.

So about 10 of us officially started the march at 7:45am, I use the word march because we stil had to walk to the mountain. After about 30 mintues we started the uphill climb towards the mountain. This uphill hike lasted about one hour and thirty minutes.

This picture is one we took during the climb to the base of the mountain. Yes i do know that is sideways, and no i do not know how to fix it, so you´ll just have to tilt your head to see it. The guy to my left is one of the Nicaraguans in our group. But that is not what makes him interesting. He was one of the only Nicaraguans selected to compete at the Beijing olympics. He competed in the 200m sprint. He managed to place 9th, and he was eliminated by Usain Bolt, who was sprinting in the next lane. anyways back to the mountain climb!

once we hit the 2 hour mark we were informed we were still an hour hike from the base of the mountain. This is when we lost about half our group because they were too tired to make the rest of the climb. Now we were left with only 5 people remaining who were left to climb the mountain.

So 3 hours after we left home we managed to get to the very start of the mountain. It was a pretty vigourous hike. It had lots of steep paths that were vey narrow. But the views were spectacular, as you can see by the picture below.


It took us exactly 2:30 hours from the base of the mountain to reach the summit of the mountain. I took this next picture about 100 metres from the top, because from the very top you couldnt see anything because there is so much plant life and trees that seeing anything is impossible.


Those little cluster of houses and buildings you see in the bottom left is our little town of Somoto.

We managed to reach the summit at around 1pm, where we all ate like 6 sandwiches each because we were so hungry from the hike.


This last picture was taken from the very top of the mountain, told you you couldnt see anything. But this is the team of us who managed to make the exhausting but unforgetable trip up the mountain. (photo cred goes to the sherpa guide)


Well you might think this story is finished because we are at the top and everything is all happy, but if you think that then you would be sadly mistaken, becuase we still have the trip down the mountain.

Our guide decided that we would take a different path down the mountain than the way we went up. So we followed without questions. We ended up hiking down a path down for about 20 minutes when it suddenly ended. So we had two options, either go back up and go the same way down, or we were making our own way down the mountian. We opted for the latter. Armed with sticks in hand we had to beat the plants out of the way to clear a path for us down the mountain.

This was probably one of the most fun things we did. I actually felt like an explorer of some sorts. Well we managed to get down the moutain in about two hours. No remember the mountain is still about 3 hours away from Somoto.

So we had been walking and climbing for about 8 hours now, and we still had the walk to Somoto to go. And to make matters better it had just started to rain, well at least it didnt rain while we were climbing.

Well we walked two hours towards Somoto, and by this time we were exhausted, and none of us wanted to go a step further. This is when we called Luis´s father who thankfully picked us up in the pouring rain, and dropped us all to our respective homes.

So the official time for how long the climb took us 10 grueling hours.

M.I.A + Boxing MAtch

So its been a week and a hlaf since my last post, and alot has happend since then. When I last left off, I was writing about how I had a boxing match. And since that time I have:

• Done the Boxing Match
• Climbed the Biggest Mountain in Somoto
• Volunteered at a Fair to help send rural area kids to university
• Done All my work throughout the week (Palmiras and Agriculture stuff)
• And yesterday I just got back from Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, where we also took a trip to the beach!

So if you were wondering why I havnt posted in the last little while you can read the above list and see why for yourself :)

So in this post I am not going to bore you and myself by writing about all that in one shot, so I am just going to write about the boxing match, and this time I actually have pictures!

The day of the boxing match was a pretty nerve racking day, but also one of the most relaxing days I have had. I woke up fairly late, and fairly late in Somoto means like 9am. I think the nereves really kicked in right when I woke up. It was hard to imagine that I would be in the boxing ring in less than 10 hours time.

But I tried to relax myself by going though my usual routine. I ended up playing chess with Luis´s brother Emir, and I lost to him twice in a row. I was hoping that when I lost, that was the only losing I would do that day.

So a little intermission:
I started writing this post exactly 6 days ago, and I stopped exactly at the end of the last paragraph. The reason I stopped there is because the power went out. The power was out for a full 4 days. Here in Somoto when electricity goes, so does running water....uh oh! Well Lucky for me this much of the post was saved.

So now to continue my story:
I arrived at the boxing gym at around 6:00pm, and the fights were scheduled to start at 7:00. During this time the people started to pile in. I estimate there was about 200 people there to see the fights that night. I wont be so bold as to say they were all there to see the ¨professional Canadians¨ Just before the first fights were about to start, I was introduced to the Head Coach of the Managua team that drove 3 hours for their fights. Apparently this guy, whose name I canot remember used to be one of the top boxers in Nicaragua. Now he is one of the top female coaches. Below is the Picture I got to take with him:


After this picture was taken, all the boxers were asked to enter the ring, where all the Coaches and teams were introduced to the crowd. There was 4 teams, Managua, Estele, San Juan, and my home team Somoto. Once all the competitors were in the ring and all the introductions were made the crowd was instructed to stand for the National anthem. Unfortunately they didnt play the Canadian anthem, I was kinda hoping they would play the anthem for us, but it was not to be, and anyways I had more pressing matters at hand...or fist.

We were to be the 2nd fight of the night. I dont really know what happend in the first fight, cuz at that point I wasnt really paying attention, all I remember is that the crowed wasnt really into it.

Well it was our time to go up, it was time to see if all my training had paid off. For some reason at this point the crowed erupted, when they found out the Canadians would be going up to fight.

I really dont remember much of the fight to be honest, I was far too focused. All I do remember of the fight was I managed to get the first really good punch in of the match, which connected right to my opponents face.

I also managed to knock him to the ground in the 2nd round. And in the break between rounds I was drinking water and I didnt want to swallow it, so I decided to spit it out. And just as I was doing so, a little girl ran right beside ring and got all the water from my mouth right on the top of her head, I thought that was hillarious. By the third and final round I was exausted and you could tell that both of us were exhausted by how slow we were moving. The final bell finally rang to signify the end of the match.


I really like this picture because of all the cameras you can see behind me. It almost looks like im somewhat important. Well by the end of the 3rd round I had a feeling that I had won. But we had to abide by boxing tradition and meet at the center where the refereee holds the arm up of the winner.




Then the anouncers voice then adresses the crowd. And to increase the suspense he pauses for a full five seconds before he anounes the winner.......................................

after the heart wrenching seconds he finally anounces the winner, ¨Kalil Berani¨

Dammit, No one ever gets my name right!!! But it was still a win, and it was a win by 9-6


Unfortunately I dont have a picture with my arm being raised, that pictue is on someone elses camera. But you´ll see that one eventually!

That definatly brightened my day considerably and made the post fight beers taste that much better, but before the post fight beers I had to watch the other fights of the night and support team Somoto.

The fights were all girls fights, since this was a girls tournament.

The first girl from Somoto faught a girl from Managua, and won the fight in the very first round. Ahe came out with soo much power and dominance that the opposing coach was forced to throw in the towel after the first round for the safety of his fighter.

The second fight for Somoto was a hard battle, and went right down to the wire. It went the full three rounds. Late in the 3rd round the Somoto girl made a strong left hook which caught the other girl right in the jaw. But after the punch the Girl from team somoto, was seen to be in considerable pain. But she pushed hard till the end of the round, were she took some hard blows. But at the end of it all the Somoto girl was declared the winner. Once she exited the ring she painfully pulled off her glove, and her wrist was declared to be broken; but that didnt stop her from doing a celebratory dance!

and the third and final fight for team Somoto, was the biggest fight of the night.
Another really hard fought match. After the first round the crowed could tell this fight would be right down to the final bell. In the second round team Somoto took some hard hits and it looked like she was out of it in the second round. But once the 3rd round started she was firing on all cylinders, and in her first or second punch she sucessfully broke the other girls nose. Which caused the visiting team to need a few seconds to patch up the bleeding. The other tem would need two of these such breaks. But unfortunatly once the final score was read it was 9-8 in foavour of the visiting girl. Too bad the night didnt for a perfect somoto record.

Well After this night I was really exhausted and got one of the best sleeps ive gotten since being here. And I went to sleep knowing that I won my first ever boxing match, and it was in Somoto Nicaragua!

Frist Boxing Match

Told You Id start to get lazy!

But its probablly better off that way since I havnt really had anything new to write about. Your prolly bored of me going on and on about Palmira. So I have decided to tell you about another exciting thing in my life.

So I have told you that A friend and I have joined a Boxing Gym in Somoto.... right? Sooo this Saturday will be our first offical match!! Sounds Big right? Well its bigtger than just big, its pretty frikken huge! Our names were announced on the Radio. Theres actually a flyer thats out right now, that claims that we are proffessional boxers from Canada. Thats a bit scary since I know for a fact that I am not a professional boxer, and I have only been doing this fora month. Oh...I forgot to mention, this fight will actually be on TV!!!

Here is one of the flyers which I was given, it is not the offical one but it gets the message across!






So ya ya I know I made it sound like we were the only ones boxing. But I also have a feeling that we will be the main event! I keep getting that feeling, maybe its because the flyer says Boxeo Professional Internacianal Masculino. Im really glad it specifies Mascualino because it says in big writing Femenino. And if you noticed people actually have to pay to come watch...no one has ever had to pay to come see us!

So funny Story that I ust heard like 30 seconds ago:
So my Supervisor wasjust in my house and I was talking to him. He told me that he was talking to the vice mayor of Somoto today. When the supervisor told the Mayor that he was Canadian, the mayor said, ¨Oh theres professional Canadian Boxers fighting here on Saturday.¨ So our supervisor said, ¨Ya they are part of my Group, and they are more or less professional, but less is more likely.¨

So it looks as though we have a lot to live up to for this match if the people of Somoto are expecting professional Canadian boxers.

See ya!

PS I know my name is spelled wrong in the flyer, but I assure you its me!

The Aftermath

So as you might know I have started my musical career and had my first ever gig, and we performed infront of at least 300 people. I have a picture of the crowd but its on someone elses camera so I will post that when possible. This was my first time ever performing infornt of people, and man oh man this was a big crowd. I didn´t know that the crowd was going to be that big, because on the other 2 nights of the festival it was not that busy. I guess they all just wanted to see me really badly. The band decided to get a practice sesh in before we performed, and by practice sesion I mean we split a bottle of rum to cool the nerves. I think I was still shitting my pants even with the liquid courage.

So our set list was:
hallelujah - Leonard Cohen that was performed by Shayne and Catherine

The Weight - The BAnd performed by Shayne, Ian, and myself Singing Back up: Catherine Vilma

Brown Eyed Girl - Green Day performed by Shayne and Myself backup: Ian and Catherine

Stand By Me- ??? performed by: Shayne, Ian, and Catherine backup: Yours Truely

So let me give you a break down of how the songs went: hallelujah was done incredibly as both Shayne and Catherine have incredible voices, and probably was one of the best songs of the night.

Then came The Weight. Here I was playing guitar and I was responsible for singing a verse. Well it went pretty ok, except for the fact that my mic conked out as I was singing my verse, If you watch the video youll see the mic just cut out mid way through. But the other band members made a god save and sang the rest into their mics.

Well after the mic mishap we got everything fixed, for out next song which was brown eyed girl, and that went off without a hitch. It went really well. And my guitar managed to not break a string during the intro I got to play :)

Stand By Me was our last song, and I did not have my guitar for this song, but I did get to oin in the chorus. This song was also done really well.

Well thats my breakdown of the perfrmance, Hopefully in the next post Ill have pics and videos for you. And if you want my autograph youll have to wait till December!!

OOOH and today me and a fellow volunteer decided that we are going to teach an english class every monday! I think thats pretty exciting! I just dont know how Im going to go about doing that. Well Ill try and keep everyone posted, and if you have any questions about what Im doing here or nething give me a shout!!

Fiestas Patronales 2010!!

So this weekend has been a pretty busy week here in Somoto. Right now it is the Fiestas Patronales, and it lasts for 3 days, and these people I assure you these peolpe know how to party. I guess anyone would when beers are only $1.00

Friday we went to the central area of Somoto, and of course a few beers were necessary to start off the night. Then usually around 7pm the entertainment starts. Theres a ton of loud music, and people dancing ther local dances etc. Everyone has a ton of fun, I´d even say a little too much fun! There are a ton of drunks here in Somoto, and some of the drunks even enjoy dancing. On Friday there were 4 drunks, all of which were of the male gender. And they started dancing together, and when I say together I really mean together, on of the guys was resting his head on the other guys shoulders, and they were doing a slow dance, kind of a waltz. It was very interesting, and quite hillarious, and it was to the point where people stopped watching the band and watched the guys dancing. The funny part is that they were actually very good at dancing and their steps matched eachothers almost perfectly.

This brings me to Saturday night...so last night we got to go to the arena and watch the gladiators!...ha no just kidding. But we did go to the arena to go watch bull riding. I thought it was really really cool. I have never actuallygotten to see anything like that, and it was really interesting to see something that is part of their culture. I´m sure this was notthing compared to the bull riding you´d find at the Calgary Satmpede, but all in all it was a pretty solid night.

So the most exciting news of all, which I am kinda excited for and kinda very nervous for is....well for this festival the town has invited us to play music in the closing ceremonies for the festival. So 3 of us will be up playing guitar and some of us will be singing. I am pretty nervous cuz there is about 200 people watching and I have both a guitar solo and a singing solo, which is really scary to me. I know I dont have the greatest voice, so its making me even more nervous. If youve noticed how jumpy this post is, its prolly cuz my mind has been focused on tonight´s performance. Hopefully by tomorow there will be a video or at least a picture of the performace.

Ill post soon, see ya! and wich me luck cuz I will sure as hell need at much of it as I can get!

What I do!

Sooooo, you know I have been working in Palmira Thursday and Friday........you do know that dont you because you HAVE been reading my blog right?? Well for those who do know you must be wondering, ¨What the frig does he do there for the remaining 5 days?.¨

Well for the frigging days that are Tuesday and Wednesday I work in the town of Totogalpa. And in Totogalpa there is a school named Tepochcali. And behind Tepochcali the are crops that grow out there. A few of our group members are assigned to work and fam the fields. At the beggining we were given a plot of land in which we have complete and total control over. We have to first clear the land. Dig up the grass. After that I dont know cuz im not a farmer! But I´ll definatly learn. We even get to choose what sort of vegetables we will grow there. So now you know what i do for 4 days of the week. Ill tell you about the other days in a later post.

So lately Ive been talking about how The group and I are frequently in the paper, and I have not offered any proof as of yet. Well heres the picture that was posted in the article:

Yay isnt that cool! any ways heres the link to the article so you may read it, although it is in Spanish. For you keeners you can translate it using google translator!!!

http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2010/07/19/nacionales/31976

Well im off to bed had a long day of working the fields, and went to the boxing gym again today!

A Long Week

So a new post has been a long time coming, but I´ve had a very tiresome week and I just plain didnt feel like blogging. Ive done alot this week, so embrace yourself cuz I think this one is going to be a long one. So my post will be in chronological order, or as close as I can get it. So the first thing im going to write about occurs exactly a few days after my last post, or something like that so Ill call that monday.

So it is monday night (I think) and our whole group gets invited to a political rally. This rally was held by the Sandanista government, which is the current government in power at the moment. Before I go on about my experiane at the rally it is important to understand a bit about the country´s rich political history. I am going to give you only the basics, because I do not wish to make a mistake and ruin the legacy.

Before democracy existed in Nicaragua, there was a different type of government in power. Nicaragua was run by Anarchists. These anarchists were known as the Somozas. They held power from 1936 to 1979, they passed power down the familty line. Their rule angered many people in Nicaragua, which led to a start of a National revolution. The revolutionists called themselves the Sandinistas. They got their name from Augusto César Sandino who lead a revolt against the Americans whom were occupying Nicaragua in the 30´s. AFter many years of revolt and guerilla warfare, the Sandinistas took control in 1972, and they held control until 1990, where they were beat by another democratic party; but today the Sandinistas are in power.

That was a very basic synopsis of the revolution, and many key parts have been skipped over so I suggest reading up on it if you ever find time. Now back to monday and the rally. When I heard about the rally I assumed it would be a bunch of old people that would be in attendance, as it would be in Canada. When I went there I was amazed to see that the maority of the people were under the age of 19. Many were over that age, but everywhere I looked there were kids. The revolution of Nicaragua was lead by the young, and politics remain an important part of their lives. It is possible to have a converstaion here in Nicaragua about politics with a 15 year old child. A 15 year old in Canada probably couldnt name 3 political party´s. A 20 year old prolly coudlnt name 4 without including the Mirajuana party in their selection. The point being is the children are taught about politics and their country at a very young age, and is something our country who also has a rich political history should also be doing. Final point, they take pride in who they are and where they came from.

So tuesday and wednesday were pretty boring days. I wake up at 5:30 am and play soccer till about 7am. Then I go to work at the INPRHU office. By the time I get home I am ready to go to sleep.

Thursday of course is Palmira day, and once again we help constuct things. This Thursday we help build their adobe houses, which is very slow and strenuous labour. Each brick has to be made one by one by mixing mud shoveled from the ground and water to make it sticky. It is they put into a mold which makes 2 bricks and has to be left in the sun to harden. We made bricks and we laid them, over and over. There is no such thing as cement to seal the bricks in place, the same compound use to make the bricks is used as sealant. A very labour intensive day, but a very satisfied feeling follows.

So that brings me to today. Usually Fridays are INPRHU days as well, but this friday and every other one we again will be going to Palmira. We are going on fridays as well because a mother of 6 has recently been left by her husband, which means that the building of her house will rapidly decline with the loss of the main source of labour for her family. As a special favour to her, our group will be going to Palmira every friday to continue to build her house. Also they have asked our help in the production of the comunity centre in Palmira which half the group will be responsible for on Fridays. My responsibilty lies with the mother and her house, and today we were making the adobe bricks once again. The group of about 7 or 8 people worked for 3 hours today. In that time we were able to create only 28 bricks. They say to comletely finish the house 500 additional bricks are required. At a rate of about 9 bricks an hour, thats a long ass time to make a house.

Each day I try to have a new sort of experiance, somedays itll be interesting and not worth mentioning, and others will be a bit more intriguing. Today I decided to get a hair cut and a shave at a barberia (barber) this may not be interesting to you, but to someone who despises shaving it sure intrests me. First the barber tried speaking to me in Spanish, but my spanish still isnt that good, so I used my counterpart Luis as my translator. He asked me how I´d like my hair and this is the first time in about 3 years I´ve gone to a different barber, so I didnt even know how to answer. My counterpart was able to explain it too him, and we were on our way. I assumed the haircut would be very quick, but the barber took meticulous care of his job and about 30 minutes and 50 cordobas later ($2.50) he was done. Next came the part I was most interested in, the shave. He first used a brush to apply baby powder to my face, then made a concoction of some sort in a water bottle. It didnt really lather like shaving cream but it did the trick. He then took a new single razor out of the package and inserted into the device that those old school barbers have. He started with a steady hand on my cheeks and jaw. At this point I felt very calm and the process relaxing. The spanish music played from a boombox in the corner only furthered my relaxation. Again with meticulous care he worked. He then got to my neck, and it got me thinking; this guy has a razor blade to my throught, and once slip could render me bleeding on the floor. So at this point I tensed up a bit, but then his meticulous care calmed me down once again. This process again took him 30 minutes, and again the charge was 50 cordobas. So in total it was 100 cordobas which is aporximately 5 dollars canadian. I ended up getting a good hair cut and an experiance I´d never be able to get in Canada for 5 dollars. And I ended up tipping the man another 50 cordobas, which was half of what he asked for. But I felt it was well deserved since he didnt slice my throught open. As I left he only asked for once thing, he asked me to send a magazine from Canada back with Luis when he returns from Canada in 5 months, which I will gladly oblige.

Sorry for the long post and the lack of pretty pictures, maybe next time!

Peace!

Palmira 2

Its Saturday at 1:10, and I woke up at 12:30pm today. This is the latest ive woken up in a good 3 weeks. The only reason I woke up was because of the sound of the vuvuzelas (sp?) comming off the TV to signify the start if the game between Germany and Uruguay. If you would like to know I´m cheering for Uruguay, because if they win i´ll be able to say France tied to the third best team in the world, a small consolation.

Im definatly not here to talk about soccer, but that was the first thing on my mind, so now down to the real business. As I´ve said before we go to a place called Palmira once a week. Although INPRHU is still on holidays we still maintained our commitment to go to Palmira on Thursday. Our job was to help them construct a structure that would allow the people to plant seeds to grow vegetables to support themsevles. A construction was needed because the seeds had to be planted above ground becasue if the seeds were on the ground the seeds would be eaten by animals. I unfrotunetly dont have a picture of these structures because palmira isnt really the place for a camera. The structures closest resemblance was a table. I will take you through the building process.

The first step was to create a hole in the ground about half a meter in diameter and about 3-4 feet deep. We had to make 6 of these such holes. This was by far the hardest task of the day. This was made difficultdue to the fact that we were digging the hole with a metal rod that was kind of like a spear. I thankfully had help from the lady´s husband who was able to create the hole in half the time I was able to. By the time I finished my 3 holes I was responsible for my hands were bloodied and blistered, as were all of the volunteer´s hands that were helping.

The next step was to put a thick stick in each hole that were strong enough to use as a base of the structure. These sticks that were in the holes had to end in a ¨Y¨shape so that there can be sticks that would fit into the Y. I forgot to mention the holes in the ground created a rectangle shape. So after our sticks were put into the ground the structure now looked like:

Y Y Y

Y Y Y

Then we had to put sticks in to conect all the base sticks together:

Y--Y--Y
I I I
Y--Y--Y

Hopefully those crude drawings make sense to you. Next we had to nail them all in. Then to create a platform for the pots. We had to lay alot of sticks across the current structures. That would be alot of ¨I¨s. Since we were getting our sticks diretly off a tree some were too big, so I had to use a machete to cut them into the proper size.
So now our structure looks like:

Y--Y--Y
IIIIIIIII
Y--Y--Y

Now was one of the most interesting things I saw. As youve porlly read Ive been saying pots alot. But if youve read enough of my blog I like to leave interesting things to the end. The pots were actually old tires that were cut in half by a machete. These people are so poor they have to use old tires to plant their seeds. While me and the husband were working on the structure, the wife was digging a hole in the ground to make dirt to put in the ¨pots¨....GGOOOOOOOOAAAALLLLAAASSSSOOOOOOO (Uruguay just scored 2-1). Well ive just watched the replay, pretty nice goal but now ive lost my train of thought.

FUUUUUCCCKKK germany jsut scored, I think this blog is turning into my comentary on the world cup. So ill stop while I am ahead.

So back to my work in Palmira, this structure took us almost 3 hours to build. But it was an unbeleiveable feeling when we were finished, we could see tangible results of what we had worked to accomplish. Now in three months time, if everything goes well these people will have grown vegetables that they will be able to eat to support themselves. And we will continue to go to Palmira every thursday untill we leave in September.

That is one of the biggest goals for us in Palmira is teach the people to support themselves. It goes on the theory: give a man a fish he´ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish he´ll eat for life.

p.s if you dont know what palmira is read my previous post on it!

A few Pictures

Hey guys postings have been a bit slow lately because lately I havn´t done anything note worthy. INPRHU the host organization we are working for is on a one week vacation. They are on a vacation becuase accroding to Nica law all workers must have a months worth of holidays. Most employers give their employees their month vacation in one stretch, but since INPRHU is such a pivotal organization they cannot give a month vacation in one shot, they break it up into random weeks.
So this week has consisted of one press conferance with the group. So I got on Nica news for the 2nd time in a week. But I managed to miss my apprearances both times ugh!! I only had one line the 2nd time, ¨Buenas Tardes Me llamo es Khalil Bheriani y yo soy Canadiense¨i am really really worried that I might have said Buenos instead of Buenas, theres a difference, but ill never know if i got it right.

I have been pretty tired lately, I have been going to sleep at 9pm everynight, I havnt done that since grade school, but I have been waking up at 7am everymorning aswell.

Today I went to a boxing gym for the first time, and the trainer there is a volunteer trainer and he does it for free. The trainer doesnt speak a word of english, and my spanish is still pretty bad so our converstaion had alot of hand actions. He doesnt really smile much either. But he still seemed really nice, and he had me sweating buckets by the end. Typing right now is a bit of a struggle cuz my arms feel like jelly.

Since I dont really have much more to say I have decided to post a few pics:


I dont know if you can tell what that is infront of us. But if you guessed inukshuk you would be exactly right. Id like to call this picture, OMG Canadians in Nicaragua. But as ive mentioned in another posts we have girls who are Inuk from Nunavut. The girl on the right is one of the girls from there. We went to go visit the local lake about 20 minutes from Somoto. There was lots of rocks there so the Inuit girl, Makkitu, decided we should make an Inukshuk, what a way to show our Canadian pride by building the very thing that represented our country at the Vancouver 2010 olympics. This was taken about 4 or 5 days ago, I wonder if it is still standing?

Well if you remember my post from 2 days ago about me climbing a waterfall, this would be a picture of that waterfall. Unfortuneatly I cant think of a witty title for this one, so just pretend I have one. I know this picture isnt very clear, but if you look in the top left you can see a bit of the big waterfall which I got to repell down. Too bad I dont have any pictures of me doing this as it was too wet in that area for me to risk giving my camera to someone in that area. This place was absolutely gorgeous and I think the whole group of people will go back again in a few weeks time.

On a side note today was my host fathers birthday, so a very happy birthday to him, he told me that hes turning 15 today. He fancies himself as quite a joker!

Anyways Buenas Noches!

Waterfall

So today has been one of the best days to date...I think thats a recurring theme of this blog. I have only been here a few short days and I feel that each day is better then the next.

Today My counter part Luis, another volunteer Charles, and his counterpart Selim and I went on a trip to outside of Somoto. Our travels took us about 40 minutes out of our way. I dont think ive ever talked about how we get around in Somoto. So before I continue I will take a bit to talk about it. Well in Somoto everyone drives pickup trucks, because it is necessary for the dit raods and bumps. The pickup part of the truck serves the purpose of transporting people. So whenever we go anywhere we have to pile people into the back of the truck. I think we managed to get 11 people in the back so far, but they Somoteñios say they can get 17 people. Its frikin nuts. It also hurts the buttox when you hit every bump.

Well bcak to the story about today. We sat in the bcak of the truck as usuall. And well our plan was to go see a waterfall. This was a severly bumpy road and my legs were like jello at the end, during the trip one of us fell out of the truck. I wont name names to save his dignity....and no it wasnt me!!!! Well we got to the waterfall and there was the International news station of Nicaragua waiting for us. They were there to film the interactions between the Canadians that got invited and the Somotans. So I was very lucky to be invited on this excursion.

Well I saved one of the most interesting parts for this paragraph: We could actually climb the waterfall to the main part of the waterfall. It was gorgeous, it was one of the brightest days ive seen here, and the weater was hot, and the water was cooling, a perfect combination, and a perfect start to a great day. Yes this is just the start.

Well once we got to the main part of the waterfall, where the water poured at a 90 degree angle. One of our guides pull out climbing equipment. The news crews had followed us up until this point weilding their cameras and filming equipment. Look like they would film us repeling down the waterfall. It was about a good 50-60 meter drop from the top of the waterfall. I was one of the four who got a chance to repel down the waterfall. We climbed to the top of the fall from the side. As we got to the top we found out we´d be dropping down two people at a time. Looked like i would be dropping down with my Canadian friend charles. We named ourselves team Canada as we were the only Canadians in attendance. The experience of dropping down the waterfall is incredible, it was such an adrenaline rush, and indescribable in its totality. As we dropped down all eyes were on us, including film crews. It was an incredible day!

Just to summ everything up...
1.Got on Nicaragua National News...so if you watch that look out for me.
2. Climbed a Waterfall
3. Reppelled Down it

Absolutely Breath taking

C ya Around.


O ya ps just a side note for Ayesha who apprently reads this everyday, I met three girls from Spain. One of them is from Mallorca and she got drunk with....... u guesed it Rafael Nadal at a party there. Thought You would like that!

Palmira

Yesterday we made our first trip to Palmira, which is a very poor town about 30 minutes away from Somoto. For the duration of the time in Nicaragua the group will be going to Palmira every Thursday. There we will help build Adobe houses, these are houses almost completely made of mud. Many of the people who will be living in these houses have been living their lives pretty much in a tent. The efforts for this project are initiated by INPRHU, which is Canada World Youth´s contact here in Nicaragua.

On Thursdays we will be put into teams of two, One Nicaraguan from INPRHU and one Canadian from CWY. Each team will be resonsible for assisting 2-3 different families. The purpose of yesterdays trip was to get introduced to the families we will be assisting.

My partener and I are responsible for 2 families. Well one ¨family¨ only consits of one woman who is aproximately 45-50, who lives alone with her sickly dog. Her living conditions look very dismall, and even more dismal was her supply of drinking water. The only drinking water the woman owns comes from the rain that falls out of the sky. Which is the same for all the people living in that area. This woman has a tiny field of corn, and we well be helping her grow her corn, and plant more and plow some more land for her, as she is too sick and weak to do it herself.

The second family is a Single girl who is 18 years old who already has three kids. Two of her kids one 7 and the other 5 are currently attending the local school, so I did not get the chance to meet them. She also has a 7 month old baby who I also did not see. It is sad to see this woman and the living conditions she was under. This has been the biggest shock for me since coming to nicaragua. This is true poverty.

The saddest thing about Palmira was looking at the drinking water that they used to use before INPRHU stepped in and provided them with a means to collect rain water. This water was mucky brown, there was mud, dirt, and mierda (shit), in the water. The water was so disgusting, I would not even try washing my hands in it. To think that they had to drink this water. I wish I could show you a pciture of this at this moment, but unfortuneatly I cant, but hopefully I will be able to post one next time.



I strayed away from my idea of themes, as this experiance was very important to me, but I feel this will often be the case. So sometimes my post might be about my day, maybe a specific theme, some will be happy, and sometimes somber as this one was, you will just have to come back to see.

Adios!

The Simple Life

Buenos Dias (good morning)

I have been living in Somoto for 2 short days, and as I said before I could already write a book. So what I have decided to do is write about things in themes, if I told you exactly what I did everyday you would get bored and stop reading, if you havnt already. So today I have decided to write about my experiance with my host families and my day to day life here in Somoto. This is in no way a complete representation of their life, and definaty not a representation of Nicaraguans in general, but I feel their life is inspirational none the less.

My host family´s day starts between 4:30 (hey look found the colon buttton) and 5:30am. My host father generally wakes up around that time to go to work. I still do not know what he does as my spanish is not good enough to ask that question. Me and my host brother Luis wake up at 5:30am to go play soccer with the locals at central park. Central park consists of one basketball court and a fountain in the corner. We end up playing soccer on the hard court with two small nets. There is no diving here, because if you do you will pay the punishment of a bloody knee, this is real soccer!

We play soccer till about 7:30-8:00, back home I would still be asleep in my bed wasting life away. We then get back home, and by that time my host father is back home from work, and breakfast is waiting for us. I am very lucky to have such a caring host family, I am yet to even wash my own dishes. I really wish I could thank them properly, my thanks consists of alot of smiling and saying Gracias profucely, and I feel that is not enough for their hospitality. After breakfast it is almost time for the first world cup game of the day, and this is a full family ordeal. The whole family sits infront of the TV and watches, even Luis´uncle comes over to watch. Currently they are watching the Korea and Paraguay game, the score is 0-0 if youd like to know, and korea just had a really good chance.

Usually once the game is done Luis and I head over with the whole group of volunteers for meetings. Luis says hi to everyone he knows on the way, which is pretty much everyone. Cars even honk in salutation. It is quite incredible to see how tight knit this community is.

I find the people here very caring, and each of the vounteers from Somoto are very helpful and constantly trying to assist the Canadians to learn spanish. My spanish is getting better, so hopefully when this is done I wont sound like a complete idiota!

My host parents have an everyday tradition, at around 5pm they bring two chairs outside and they go out just to breathe the fresh air. This is something that many people do not do in Canada, we always have to be doing something, but in this case they enjoy the solitude of doing nothing. It brings about a calming air.

In Nicaragua all clothes are washed by hand and it is very rare for a family to have a washing machine. My inpiration for this post and the title came from something Luis said to me. He told me on the first day I moved in that he does not have a washing machine, which was what I expected. He then said that maybe in december when his family has a reunion they would get his mother a washing machine as a gift. Who would ever truly say in Canada that a washing machine is a gift. It is something that we expect. This truly shows how simple their lives really are. I have no doubt in my mind that my host mother would be extatic by this gift. This has brought me many appreciations for the things we have at my house.

Well here ends my description of ¨the simple life,¨ but as promised the picture of the day plus a little description...relax just a bit longer!


This picture was taken at a look-out point on the out skirts of Somoto. I have so many pictures from this spot that I had no idea which picture to pick. I picked this picture because I really think it really captures the beauty of this plae but also shows some of the living conditions. The building on the left is someones house, and the thing on the right is the washroom. I just think this picture says alotabout this place...what does it say to you?

Host Family

¿¡Que Nota Caballo!? (that means whats up dude)

Well now I am currently in Somoto in the cassa (house) of the family I am staying with. I have been in Nicaragua for 2 or 3 days now, weve been so busy that I honestly cant tell you the date right now without checking. In those three days I have gone through an orientation camp at a school with dorms, so both the Nicaraguan participants and Canadians have been staying there. We have gotten to know eachother, but it is very difficult to speak because of the language barrier. But it is increddible how much english the Nicaraguans can speak, it is almost embarassing how bad I am at spanish. Well i have only been learning for a few weeks now. I am living with a Nicaraguan guy named Luis Enrike and to describe him in short he is a soccer maniac. He is so crazy that he is waking up at 5:30am tomrow to play soccer, he is taking me with him, so hopefully I dont embarass myself too much. I am really tired right now and I dont feel like writing more, there is so much I could say right now that I could already write a book (not that I´m planning) Well one more thing, this place is spectacular, Somoto is right in the mountains and the peaks just graze the clouds. Since im not doing a picture of the day today you can google image Somoto and see for youself the beautiful scenery.

Buenos Noches!
Khalil

First Post From Nicaragua

¡Hola!

Guesss What? Im in Nicaragua, and this is officially my first post right here. We arrived in Managua, Nicaragua yesterday after a long flight from pearson airport. We left there at 11am and we had to stop over in San Salvador, El Salvador for a period of 5 hours. In that 5 hours we found out just how cheap the servecas ( beers) are. We finally arrived in Managua at 730pm...im using a spanish computer and I cant find the colon button :(

Any ways you might be wondering...well at least I hope you are where I have been the last 5 days, because didnt I leave 5 days ago? Well Id like to apologize, I didnt actually leave for Nicaragua on that day. Although I did start my journey. We spent 4 days at an orientaion camp at some camp ground in Halton. I have met incredible people, and in those 4 days I feel like i have known these people for years. These fantastic poeople I have met all share the same values about life and what we want to accomplish on this trip. And even though we share the same values, we all come from differnt walks of life, some of us are from toronto, ottawa, Vancouver, we even have 3 participants from Nunuvut and a Participant from NWT, and that shows how multi cultural we really are.

Now a little more about Nicaragua, well the second we stepped off the plane it was pouring buckets, well thats what you get from coming to nicaragua during hurricane season. Currently I am staying in a hotel called Maraca Inn, and on each and every wall you will definatly see a lizard. This morning the sun is out and birds are singing (a little too ,much I might add) and we will be leaving for Somoto in 2 hours to finally meet our host families and see the comunity we will call our home for the next 3 months.

Hope everyone is keeping well, sorry about any spelling errors I am writing really quick, Ill keep you posted

Buenos Dias, Buenos Tardes, y buenos noches (if you dont know what that means think truman show)

Khalil

Leaving Tomorow

Well the day has finally come...well almost, I am leaving tomorrow at 4pm, and after that you wont see me for 6 months. I know poor you! but remember you can always follow my travels right here on this blog. And for the days you really miss me and theres not a new post, you can read everything all over again, or just creep my photos on Facebook.

One thing I'm really bad at is taking pictures, so I have decided that I will take a lot more pictures then i usually do. What I plan on doing is hopefully I will take one meaningful picture a day and I will post it on my blog, and it will be called picture of the day. Knowing me I will get lazy and it'll end up being picture of the week then picture of the month, but hopefully that doesn't happen.

Lastly before I leave I'd like to thank everyone who donated, and for everyones on going support. I am grateful for all the positive comments I have received, and it really motivates me. (clearly not on this blog thanks Nirali for your one comment!) Also big shout out to Ayesha for checking this blog everyday even when theres no new post!

See you all on the Flip-Side (i think I need a better ending catch phrase but itll do for now)

New Orleans Trip

So this next post is quite unrelated to my trip to Nicaragua, but I have decided to blog about it just to get some practice and since it was an amazing experience.

On Thursday morning I had to wake up at 3:00am...yes am! to drive down to buffalo to catch our 6 am flight to New Orleans. We landed in New Orleans at around 11:15 central time, and the heat was incredible it was 40 degrees Celsius and more factoring the humidity. We then took a car to Morgan City, which is an hour outside New Orleans. For those of you who are following the Oil Spill crisis going on down there the city is one and the same. All hotels were filled with American Military who were there trying to fix this problem.

My first great experience in Morgan City occurred in a small local restaurant, called Sussie's. Their specialty was crawfish as some of you may know Louisiana is known for their seafood (is any one actually reading this?). For those of you who don't know what they are see picture below.

For us Canadians who have never seen crawfish, trying to eat one was quite a daunting task. This is when the quirky small town folk came over to help us. We were clearly and utterly confused as how to eat these delicious "critters" as we called them. They taught us how to properly peel and eat the crawfish, they even fed us. The meal was wonderful, and I advise anyone visiting morgan city to visit Sussie's to not only eat a delicious meal but to enjoy the company of the locals themselves.

My next big experience was when I arrived in Downtown New Orleans, when I was visiting Bourbon street. The sights and sounds were incredible. Out of every bar and club was music blasting for the world to hear. This is not just music played from CD, but live bands people with real talent. The streets were packed with people of all ages (well supposed to be 21+ but I doubt that holds true) some smashed out of their minds and others there to enjoy the sound of music all around them. One thing was for certain, the people of New Orleans love their music, but ill get back to that a little later.

The next day I took an early morning bus tour of New Orleans, this bus tour focused on the destruction Hurricane Katrina caused in the summer of 2005. It was amazing to see that its effects were still clearly visible and that they are still trying to build their city back up. We saw many houses who still had roofs missing on their houses. They say only 80% of residents have returned to their homes after the hurricane. Some of the houses do not even look safe to live in. It makes me fully and truly appreciate my messy apartment.

My most amazing experience of them all was in a little Jazz Café by the name of Palm Court. There I saw a trumpeter named Lionel Ferbos who plays there every saturday night from 7-12. The most amazing thing about this gifted man was that he is currently 98 years of age. He will be turning 99 this August. His music was incredible, and with every blast in his trumpet you could see the passion and soul he put into it. He even sang, and as frail as he looks his voice had the power and effect of a much younger man. This man should be an inspiration to us all, and I was truly inspired by him, and I hope to have as much verve for music that this man has. New Orleaners are known for two things, their sea food and their music.

During my trip I got to hear all sorts of music ranging from country to jazz, to blues, to rock. This is truly the passion that unites them all. This really rekindled my passion for music and for live performance, and it puts to shame what we in the Lady gaga era call music. This passion and love I saw for music in this city was genuinely beautiful and I hope to visit very soon.

I would like to wish Lionel Ferbos depicted below a very happy birthday, and hope to one day again see him perform.

Hopefully there is some one who made it this far down this long posting, and if you did I would like to thank you for being so patient. Also congratulations to Ghana for being the first African team to win a world cup match on african soil, hopefully Cameroon will be the 2nd tomorrow.

Hopefully the next posting will be direct from NIcaragua, only 5 more days till I start my journey.

Take Care!

Introduction to my Trip

About 2 weeks ago I decided to embark on a journey with Canada World Youth. Canada World Youth (CWY) is a volunteer organization which sends youth from all across Canada, to destinations across the globe, and to a domestic location.

On my journey I will be sent to Somoto, Nicaragua for 3 months to complete voluntary projects and assist the community as much as possible. I will be leaving for this leg of the trip on June 19th. Which is exactly 10 days from now, but those 10 days can't go fast enough. On the 2nd leg of my journey I will be going to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, where I will be assisting a native reserve. I will be returning back home to Toronto around Mid-December. (Don't miss me too much!)

During my time in Somoto I will have limited access to internet, but I hope to keep everyone updated via this blog and Facebook.

Oh ya, World Cup is starting up this Friday so I would like to end this post by saying:

Allez Les Bleus!!!!