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!