day two

Buenos,

Today is the officially the fourth day! The time is flying! I have been able to experience so much and have become a lot more comfortable in the environment and with the culture. I would say that Sunday was hands down the hardest day because I was running on no sleep and the fumes of coffee, good coffee but none the less coffee.

So lets start from the beginning of the day on Monday. After some much needed rest, we had a later start to the day with the girls from Ripple Effect we headed out into the villages. The two places that we visited was jijuana and siscle these are both about a hour and half out of the major city of Jinotega. The point of these trips is to view our project sites that empower women of all ages. These two villages have used our community organization techniques and our micro-business loans.

We began that Monday with a trip to Siscle, and was that day full of alot of new information about the culture and the little stories we don't hear in the states. For example in this group they named themselves the Divine Women, and some scandal occurred within the original 14 of the Divine Women... About a year ago is when they first started they had a co-op for grinding coffee and roasting. Then when a peacecorp volunteer tried to reorganize the way the group was structured they fought and the group split. The numbers was now 7 and 7, one group got the grinder and the other the roaster. They spoke about the vast division and we have one woman that is in both groups and wont talk about the break.

Kind of interesting to see on the ground here the different disputes about things that make what we fight over so small. They lost a roaster now that means that they have to hand roast their coffee beans that means hours of work to get maybe $2! I fight about weather or not I get a parking spot in my driveway because I have to park outside my gate. It really puts things in perspective.

This day was by far my favorite because of the loss of culture shock, I never realized the amount of shock you receive in a new culture. Wow!