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!