I have been in Managua now for the past four days. Today may be the day where I have the chance to leave and go to the department capital of Chinandega.

I had come to Managua to give a charla with my counterpart and we traveled through torrents of rain and witnessed flooding on both sides of the highway. Farmland looked like swamps and the microbus had to slow down and wade through flooded sections of road. Upon our arrival I was informed that the department of Chinandega was in a state of emergency and all of the volunteers were being “consolidated” to the department capital of Chinandega City… unless they were in Managua whereupon they would stay there for the duration of the consolidation period.

Im so sorry that all of those that have been following my blog with any interest have been sitting around and waiting… and waiting…. and waiting.

I am less sorry about not updating photos, there is some money involved with pushing those kinds of bits and I am very cheap nowadays.

Lastly I am somewhat sorry for the state of my english presented to you here today. As my Mother or Sean can attest to you, it aint what it used to be. These paragraphs may read well, but it will have taken waaaay longer than it should have to write. The direct consequence of “complete immersion” is that while my spanish has improved, my english has raced downhill to meet it. I´m not worried, Im just trying to be cheeky so stop biting your fingernails Mom.

So I have officially settled back in here in Nicaragua with minimal difficulty. As many of you know, I was in the United States for the awesome wedding of Todd and Amee. The weather was perfect and due to my current living situation, I think I was the only dude who wasnt annoyed by the bugs. The food was great and greatly missed. An extra special shoutout to the day I ate tomato sauce and meatballs for two different meals.

Eric made the event extra awesome by meeting me in Miami and traveling with me up to Virginia. We checked out some vineyards with pops around the Charlottesville area.

As of the writing of this blog entry, I am not only alive, but very well. It seems that I have one of the more robust Gastro-intestinal tracks in my group. I have either not been exposed to a parasite, or they are no match for the killing power of my immune system. Mom, I don´t know what you fed me as a child but I want the recipe.

My spanish has also been improving, things are coming to me without as much work and I am starting to understand what they hell they are saying in the Reggetón Jams. Once I get studying on my grammar I expect even more gains. Perhaps I will understand what the chavalos and ancianos are saying to me. Ojala.

The family visit was a success with the maximum amount of sights seen within a weeks time. I now know that I will not pursue a career of Nicaraguan tour guide until there is some serious repaving on the roads around here. The fam seemed to enjoy themselves, especially in the company of my other host families. Great memories. Jillian will be posting the pictures on her flickr account pretty soon so you guys can play visit Lucian, the home game!

I have been really busy lately with official Peace Corps stuff like additional training and planning so I have been out of site for a while. It is nice to get away and enjoy some “american” time with the other volunteers. My life is not about to become any less hectic either. We are starting teacher workshops this week where volunteers share teaching techniques to Nicaraguan teachers around the department. This should give me some practice on giving charlas before I start my real work. I think that I´m also going to put a bookshelf together so therewont be a mess in my room when the family comes!

I just want everyone to know that I went start to finish with a pot of boiling water and that saying is false.  Let me know some other cute witticims that I should debunk while I have tons of time on my hands.

Also, today I taught a 3rd grade class the American ABCs to practice standing in front of class. I feel that it went well.  Here´s to practice!

Here is what´s new.

I have a vivero (read:reforestation) project in its planning stages.  This shall be a working triumvarate between the primary school, the mayor´s office, and the military.  All have pledged their support thus far and the initial figures for the tree count is around a thousand.  I expect the number to dwindle as we nail down some more of the specifics, but no matter what this should be a large project!  Our main goals are shade (including the river which has the problem of drying up because it evaporates) and direct consumption like fruit, medicial, and firewood.

I am still slowly getting my permanant life together.  I purchased a bed and a fairly large table for my personal space which is still not ready.  This will explain why there has been a bit of a backlog for mail since I dont really have the surface area to organize myself.  I´ll give a general shoutout to everyone who sent Christmas wishes to me I received your mail and will get back atcha´.

This is going to be a short post.

Happy New Years!

The house is coming together pretty well and I getting a head start on some secondary projects.  The first one is gross and wonderful because it turns gross stuff into wonderful stuff.  Let me explain.  Vermiculture is the process of using earthworms to eat organic matter and turn it into humus, which is worm castings or dookie.  This value added soil greatly improves soil it is added to and will reduce the need for fertilizers.  The additional worms that come about through reproduction can be fed to livestock, especially chickens.  The literature says that if fed a worm (high in protein) every day, a chicken will eventually go from laying an egg every three days to every day.  That is huge if we are talking about self sustainance farming.  That could be the tipping point between breaking even and having a surplus to sell.

Ok folks, I have a local mailing address!

Lucian Reynolds

Cuerpo de Paz

Las Pavanas, Somotillo

Chinandega, Nicaragua

Central America

 Also, I have new pics up.  Check ‘em out.

www.flickr.com/photos/lucianreynolds/

What´s more is not only am I still alive, but you can call me because I have a…

 Cell phone!!!  The most ridiculous annoyance of American Culture now lives in my right front pants pocket.  But it´s simple and functional and its prepaid so when you call me its frizzzzllleee.  Here´s the trick, if you want the number you must call my mother and ask for it…  I am not about to put it online for Jesus knows who to see. 

Managua…

Shit.

I’m still in managua….

There is an all volunteer conference right now so every volunteer in the country is together.  If that’s not party worthy I don’t know what is.  Also, worry not about Thanksgiving because I will be eating with an Embassy family.  I can’t say that it will taste like normal thanksgiving at the Casa de Reynolds because our normal fare can be slightly untraditional.  Mmmmmmm.

Here is an article on our swearing in ceremony in the National newspaper

http://www-ni.laprensa.com.ni/archivo/2006/noviembre/18/noticias/politica/157084.shtml

With the usual pomp and circumstance we stood, walked down the line, shook the right hands, and emerged as volunteers.  I have taken pictures of the Ceremony and the befores and afters and I will steal some more from other volunteers as well.  Yes I have a mustache in the pictures but all of medio ambiente decided to grow ‘em so enjoy while it lasts! I am uploading as we speak so you early birds shouldn’t hassel me.

 www.flickr.com/photos/lucianreynolds/

 I should be picking up a cell phone today so you will be informed shortly to what the number will be.  Yaaaaaay!