I had a couple rough days. The other day I threw up 6 times....everytime I tried to eat. I threw up in my house, walking down the street, in the back of my friend's store, and at another friend's house after dinner. The next day the puking had stopped but my body was aching so I was thinking malaria or dengue but decided to wait to go to the doctor until the next day because the puking had stopped and if I still felt bad I would go. Well, I felt better the next and did not go to the doctor and now I feel perfect so it was probably just something that got in my system and left shortly thereafter.

Yes, I have officially started my work mandate after finishing up my mandate and work plan last week. It is still not completely done, I need to put some dates in and a few more details on some things I will be doing, but I don’t need to worry about that right now because I have enough stuff on my plate. My mandate revolves around 2 main things: micro-credit and commercialization…sorry this may be a bit dry for some people. The micro-credit stuff is specifically to do with agricultural support to small farms. Basically the project consists of improving small farms called patios…very small farms. Anyways the patios get outfitted with the necessary infrastructure like a drip irrigation system, a water tank, fencing etc. and also with seeds and any production inputs, some fruit trees, some chickens etc. etc. The recipient of this stuff does not get it for free, he, or 85% of time she, basically gets a micro-credit loan to pay for this stuff and then they have to pay it back with interest and all that fun stuff. There are also similar projects for school patios, and then ones for larger farms for cooperatives that involve the building of water reservoirs.
So what am I doing in all of this? Well a few things. The 3 big ones are as follows. With the micro-credit aspect and I am 2 things. The first is research into ‘best practices’ of micro-credit and making it more specific to agricultural support. I have started on this, and I need to have a brief rough draft to send in their annual report in August. After that it will be a more long-term ongoing thing going more in depth.
The second to do with micro-credit which will also be ongoing is developing different organizational and monitoring tools for the micro-credit program. This basically means making tools on Excel to keep track of cashflows, and organize other aspects of the credit side of the program and then developing training sessions to give to the partner organizations so that they can implement these tools and use them.
The 3rd big thing has to do with commercialization/transformation of agricultural products as raw produce sold at the local market can only increase incomes by so much. This is mainly going to entail a feasibility study into the market for small transformation and commercialization enterprises in Nicaragua and also with regards to international markets. For example, there is one cooperative who were able to get a contract with Pizza Hut in Managua to supply the restaurant with the vegetables for the pizza. There is also some organizational stuff with this too. I have been working on a tool….everything is called a tool haha….to keep track of the costs of production for a certain quantity of each type of vegetable grown basically so that the model is formatted and there to use and all the partners have to do is punch in the numbers and they can see the costs of production. I am sure this is all very exciting for everyone isn’t it! The other thing I am working on right now is an archive with all the average monthly prices of different crops for the past 10 years and coming up with patterns and stuff so that projections can be made about when the price for each crop will be highest so it can be known when is the most opportune time to grow each crop. There are some major problems with this, mainly that any data on prices after 2004 does not exist because the government, the FAO, World Bank and anyone else who should be keeping track of this stuff are useless dumbasses who don’t do their job. Anyways enough of my work, I’m a huge nerd, I apologize.
On a more interesting note……
I MOVED TODAY! This is super exciting, I now have privacy and do not have to get woken up at 6am everyday. It is a 2-bedroom house with a porch, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, living room and a concrete courtyard outback to hang clothes to dry and sinks to wash clothes. It is pretty nice, and there are geckos that like to climb the walls and on the ceiling, they are pretty cute and harmless. There is a girl from montreal living there now, but she leaves in a month and after that it will be all mine. This morning I went around town to pick up furniture left behind from other cooperants who left their stuff at people’s houses. I got a bed, a desk, chair and armoires for my clothes which is all I need for my room. Anyways, this a good next step, it makes me happy! I will keep you posted as I start to domesticate it because the girl who lives there does not cook so there is literally nothing in any of the cupboards or cabinets. OH there is a badass 6 burner stove!!
Moving the furniture was interesting, we had a pickup and only wanted to make one trip so I’m not going to go into detail about how we kept the stuff in the back of the pickup and transport or where me and my friend had to sit because I don’t think safety abroad would approve (I don’t think they approve of students sitting on the roof of pickups holding armoires and mattresses back so they do not slide out the back of the truck) shh. At least I was not driving, I was told I was not allowed to drive so I had to settle.

There is some interesting stuff happening in Nicaragua right now. Daniel Ortega (the president) vanished form the country for 2 weeks and no one knew where he went and people were pretty pissed off because they was a hurricane and a tornado and there is a food crisis and he just took off without telling anyone. He was also supposed to talk at some UN conference or something on the food crisis and failed to show up without notifying anybody. Also, there is a political party called something along the lines of Reformed Sandinista Movement or something like that and Ortega said that they were not allowed to run in the election….this did not go over well at all as it is a pretty douche dictatorship type of move and not very in line with democratic principles. So the leader of this party who is an ex-guerrilla has been staging a hunger strike which has lasted 10 days so far. There are also lots of protests throughout Managua and a huge movement comparing Ortega to Somoza and people really getting tired of him becoming increasingly more and more of a dictator (sort of like Chavez, but Ortega is not liked by the people as much, even by FSLN supporters).

Tomorrow I am not eating rice and beans. I am going to subway and getting myself a footlong sub with chicken and bacon, onions, olives, lettuce, tomato, green peppers, honey mustard sauce and sweet onion sauce and it is going to be delicious and will cost a maximum of $5. I have to do some major shopping for food as there is nothing in the house but eggs and bread.

Anyways, I am going to stop talking because the phone is ringing and I am just rambling now anyways. I have sort of officially become the unofficial secretary of the second floor of the office. Any phone calls that come to the office go to the secretary…I mean Administrative Assistant who happens to be on the first floor (there are only 2 floors) and she phones the upstairs phone when any of the calls are for anyone on the second floor which is 60% of the people, yes, a full 7 people up here. The phone happens to be on a small stand between me and another guy but it is closer to me by about a foot so by default I have to answer it and then yell out for whoever it is. Although sometimes I just let it ring and get a ball of paper thrown at the back of my head as I make the other guy get it, like I am doing right now…muahahaha.

Have a good weekend everyone! Feel free to send me e-mails, and I am going to figure out a mailing address soon because I know everyone wants to send me ice-cream cake.

Oh, I forgot to tell you all about ym amazing trip to a waterfall. I will tell you about that next time I promise. It was the best day so far.
Ciao.