Nica French Toast! I AM IN HEAVEN.

It is Tuesday night and I have had a completely amazing week so far. Where to begin . . .

French Toast! This weekend I took my first mini vacation to Ocotal, Nueva Segovia. One of the girls on our training group, NICA-52, turned 23. So, a bunch of us traveled up north to celebrate. Well Jenny, I had an amazing time, but let me tell you the highlight of my trip happened on the way back. In order to get back to Jinotega from Nueva Segovia you have to change buses in the department capital of Madriz. Let me just tell you, it is a little piece of heaven. Esteli is sort of an artsy little town. There are few fun restaurants, yoga studios, things you don’t really expect to find in Nicaragua. But, the best part of Esteli is a tiny little coffee shop with free internet and you guessed it, French Toast. This is the first time I have had a ‘breakfast food’ in Nicaragua besides eggs or gallo pinto. To be honest, those just don’t count.

That was fabulous and my week just kept on getting better! On Monday I went out to a community in the mountains to weigh babies with PROCOSAN. PROCOSAN was created by MINSA in order to basically create a census annually of babies under two years of age and make sure they are healthy well fed kiddos. So health workers, NGO’s and the like go out house to house in the campo, survey families and weight babies. It is not only fun, but incredibly rewarding. A lot of these children are malnourished, have diarrhea problems and poor overall health. But, their mothers are so eager to change that. They listen to everything we have to say and want their babies to be as healthy as possible. Some things are hard, like having the resources to find clean water and keep away parasites. Others are changeable though, like putting more fat into their diet, cutting out coffee, increasing the use of breast milk. We are going back to the same community in a month to see if anything has changed. I’m really hoping we can see some tangible differences.

Then . . . today . . . I spent my morning in a workshop on sex and gender, the roles of parents in their children’s lives. And, this afternoon I went to a bunch of NGO’s to check out their monthly schedules and catch up. Needless to say it went well. I’m starting to feel a little more integrated into my community. I like it.

Oh, and to finish it off (I promise) I am super excited to start a little side project, yoga for pregnant women. I’d like to start teaching yoga at my Casa Materna* a few times a week. It would be a great way to relax and give the women at the Casa Materna a little something to do. So if anyone has any idea who I should write to in order to get 15-20 yoga mats donated I would love your advice!


*Casa Maternas are community homes, usually in department capitals, where pregnant women are encouraged to go 1-2 weeks before their due date. The ministry of health in Nicaragua is pushing institutional births. With women living in a Casa Materna they are guaranteed medical attention during birth and access to a health center or hospital. This is important because over 1/3 of the pregnant women in Nicaragua are adolescents. That means a huge percentage of births here are high risk. With the use of Casa Maternas in Nicaragua, the death rate and medical complication rate has dropped dramatically for pregnant women.