Catchin' up!

Oh hey guys! I know, I know, I'm late, but is that really anything new?
I'll do my best to catch you up on life here over the next few days. Today is all about the overview, less about the snark (although I love snark). Also it's going to be stream-of-consciousness, sorry! Photos to come soon, I forgot my camera cable but I'm going to try to buy one tonight!

I'm here in sweet home Managua, Nicaragua for three months. I'm "working" (more on the quotation marks later) for Profamilia, the local affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. It is a Nicaraguan organization, but it seems like most of their money does come from the IPPF. They have a network of 16 clinics throughout the country, that provide comprehensive care (men, women, children, endoscopy, tying tubes, dentistry, psych, gyn, paps, paps, mammograms, colposcopies, paps...) They also do a lot of the regular planned parenthood things from the US: youth groups, domestic violence survivors groups, political advocacy, etc. The youth groups are pretty cool, sex ed isn't taught in schools at all so each clinic hosts a group of 10ish young teens who learn about tried and true health class classics like: your changing body, STDs, why getting pregnant sucks, and sex vs. gender. Notably absent is any coverage of LGBT issues--that's an issue I'd like to press but I'm gonna bite my tongue until I have more of an understanding of the organization.

The organization is awesome. Right now, my internship is not all that awesome. My Spanish is just not up to the level it needs to be. Because of that, I've really just been following people around, basically shadowing for the last two weeks. I've seen alooooooooot of paps. A lot a lot of vagina, oh baby. But I've also seen a lot of other procedures and participated in youth groups. So I'm kind of starting to go crazy during the work days. I'm working on it tgh--I've been talking to my boss about ways I can do things in English like write grant proposals or reports for funders. Hopefully that will work out!

I'm also working my booty off on this Spanish thing. I've been in class for four hours a day, 5 days a week, plus studying in the evenings/weekends. I'm getting a lot better--but I have a really long way to go.

My living situation is pretty rad. I'm staying in a house owned by an NGO called Companeros, which hosts groups of Canadian and American students, church members, etc for service learning trips. They have adopted a barrio in Managua and they are building libraries, schools, houses, water supplies, etc. My two roommates are great, they are both employees of Companeros, and both Spanish speakers. Mayte is from Spain, she has lived in Canada and Austria for a while and then worked here as a physical therapist for disabled children before joining Companeros. Dalena is from the Carribean region of Nicaragua, where people are of African descent and speak Creole (I can sometimes figure out what she's saying when she goes into Creole mode). Mayte is my toughest Spanish teacher--we go all Spanish all the time and she tells me when I mess up, which is so necessary. Dalena and I cheat, we speak mostly English, which gives my brain a delightful break after a day of solid Spanish. I should step it up though!

Mayte and Dalena have been great, I get to live like a real adult Nicaraguan with their help and their friends. It's a totally different (in some ways good, in some ways bad) experience from the one I had staying with a host family in Hyderabad. We have a housekeeper, we go to the mall, we watch American movies, and last night we ordered pizza (no, it's no Papa Del's). At the same time, the bar/restaurant we went to last night was owned by a local folk singer (Carlos Mejia Godoy, check him out), I just got done scrubbing my white coat on a washboard (not easy), and I eat at the comedor with the nurses every day. And NO ONE at work speaks a lick of English.

More to come soon, more details, more fun!