A success!

No pictures again for this post, because I didn't have a chance to download the pictures from other peoples' cameras and my camera hasn't arrived yet. Mike (my roommate in Somoto) had his flight canceled so he will be coming to Somoto today or tomorrow.

The competition turned out to be a success, even if it was a very very long day for all of us! I want to post pictures so I can show everyone the kids' products and the great big smiles on all of their faces. We had 26 groups compete and we set them up under tents in a "fair" style in the sense that everyone could walk around to each group's table display. Our judges were Matt & Jessica, my fellow PCVs in Somoto (they are Health volunteers), Peter the Director of Operations for Fabretto in Managua, and Domingo a Nica who is a Coordinator for the SAT program (that is a whole other post to describe what SAT is, and it's not that test we take to enter college). They started at 10:30am going around to each of the tables to hear the presentation of each group, and to get a better understanding of their business plan. It took 2 hours 15 minutes to make the full circle and the kids were baking in the Somoto sun. At the time I was timing the presentations to make sure they didn't exceed 5 minutes long and I was there for support as the kids spoke to the judges. Having a fair made it much easier than having each group go up and present in front of a microphone! Next year I want the judges to be able to sit down and look at the business plans before the presentations that way they can prepare specific questions for the groups that will probably be the most competitive. The groups that are going on to the regional event are the following 3:

-Friends of the Environment: They create household items like candle holders, clothes hampers and bread baskets from plastic bottles (Somoto Oratorio)
-Defenders of the Environment: Organic fertilizer made by special worms (Somoto Oratorio)
-Cus-Nor: Organic coffee which the kids harvested, roasted, and ground (Cusmapa Oratorio)

These 3 groups I can work with pretty solidly and they all have a good chance of moving on to the national competition. The Palacaguina volunteer just recently quit last week, so I shall be helping her groups prepare for the Regional as well. Palacaguina is about a 40 min. bus ride away and the kids there also have alot of potential with their products.

After the Empresa Creativa competition we had a couple of mini-competitions to add to the "day of happiness" as my counterpart Sabrina called it. At first I thought this idea was kinda B.S. in the sense that she was trying to shove in more activities for no real reason at all, but for the reason that it would "make the kids happy". I prefer to keep things simple, but whatever, the kids got to watch their classmates recite poetry, put together wooden puzzles, and compete against each other in a couple of soccer games. Callie brought the Cusmapa band and they jammed some tunes as well.

We ended around 4:30pm and then the rest of the Fabretto staff, mostly from Somoto, wanted to have a dance party. I stayed for a bit, but I really wanted to get home and relax. Lauren and I ended up going out for (overpriced) pizza and beer, but it was a good celebratory meal. Nothing like pizza and beer to please a hungry soul.

A montón (very large) Thank You to Jan for sending me stickers and a postcard from Iceland and to Mom and Dad who sent me another package!

Now the rest of this week will be devoted to organizing the Regional Competition with Nikki (PCV Ocotal) and Matt (PCV Jalapa) and preparing my teams and the Palacaguina teams.

Oh yeah, did I mention how the rainy season has come? It has been pouring at least 4-9 hours each day and sometimes you can't even hear yourself thinking because the rain beats down so hard on the tin roof! Last night the power went out again and the water hasn't been on for the last 18 hours...so the kitchen has a stack of dishes that stink because I can't wash them. Course, Lindsay (PCV Cinco Pinos, aka the Boondocks of Chinandega) gets her water shut off 12 hours a day and her power turned off from 6pm to 5am! I guess it's just annoying when there is no schedule to follow for the power/water turn offs. I can handle no water at times or no electricity, but we never know when that will happen! A pain in the arse is tis!

Let me explain my living situation at the moment because I think it's sort of complicated still. In Somoto I live in the Fabretto Volunteer house with Mike (from Nashville, TN) who will tentatively finish his teaching English courses in November, he doesn't know if he will continue his employment with Fabretto yet so I'm not sure how much longer he'll be here. Also in the Somoto house on the week days is Don Freddy, the Education Coordinator in the Somoto Oratorio. He's about 40ish and his family is in Managua so he's not here on the weekends usually. Fabretto employees and other people come in and out of the house, so every week there are different visitors which makes it fun. In Cusmapa there is Lauren (from Albuquerque, NM) who teaches Critical Thinking and will be here for 1.5 more years, Callie (Missoula, Montana) teaches Music and Critical Thinking and will finish up around April I believe. Then there's the Español...Pedro Pablo (from Spain) who is trying to help Fabretto establish an evaluation program for the students aka sometimes Fabretto doesn't have an actual job for him (poor guy!). The latter list of people are my sanity in Nicaragua and definitely my very good friends here. I am very lucky to have a great support network here and they always seem to bring different viewpoints about life in Nicaragua and help me understand the Nica culture as well. Thank you to all of them for being my family in Nicaragua!

Changing subjects again I found another website, and Greg Schwartz helped me try it out so I know it works, for sending text messages to my phone.

http://www.ideasclaro.com.ni/sms/sms_form.php

So here's how you fill it out.
1) In Destino you put my phone number 8371113
2) In Origen you put your name
3) Codigo you enter the red numbers/letters below it
4) Mensaje you can enter up to 120 characters in the message
5) Click Enivar to send the message to my phone and a little window should pop up that says "Mensaje enviado" or something like that

If you are ever on the internet and bored, try to send me a text message! Aunt Anne, were those instructions clear enough? Haha, just kidding! Hopefully pictures will be up soon! Sorry! And I will get the pictures from the beach as well!