Preparing to Launch

As the date of the trip gets closer and closer I become more excited everyday. My excitement has intensified over the past few days specifically because I have started to review all of the footage from last years trip. And it looks amazing!

I am working with Vincenzo and Sam in the video group and we are putting together two videos before we leave and then two videos when we are down in the rainforest. The two videos we have begun working on are short informational videos on leaf cutter ants and the Rio San Juan. I have also begun to look through some photos from last year’s trip to post for the updated social media plan. The social media plan is to make a new Instagram page that will have posts every week and will look to grow an audience to raise awareness of the Makengue Project. Another aspect of the plan is to link the Instagram page with the Facebook page in order to make posting more efficient. The video group will also make an updated promo video which will display the beauty of Makengue as well as its importance and significance.

I cannot believe how fast the date is approaching! We depart the country in just 10 days and by looking at photos and videos recorded last year, I know this trip will make memories that last a lifetime.

Crunch Time

We will be leaving for Nicaragua in just a little over two weeks and we’re all casually freaking out just a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely excited to go as I’m sure everyone else is. However, the deadlines of each of our projects are quickly creeping up on us and we’re really starting to feel the crunch for time. Personally, I’m working on putting together a day for teachers to come to visit Makengue and learn about the rain forest as well as topics and strategies for their own lessons back with their students. The main stressor that comes with this project is that it cannot be fully complete until we arrive at Makengue so that I can get a true idea of what the day will look like. This gives me from March eighth (our first full day at Makengue) until March twelfth to finalize and adjust any plans that I had made prior to that time. Speaking of which, March twelfth is my birthday so I’m set to have the most stressful and enjoyable birthday of my life.

Although I am super stressed about all of the things that are going on right now, I do feel like everything is on pace to work out and work out well. Our group’s work ethic seems to be all there and we seem to all be heading towards success in our projects. Speaking of the group, I’m glad that we are in the group we are. We all seem to mesh really well and we get closer every week which is great because we have to deal with each other for a week in Nicaragua. Also, none of them seem to detest my hilariously poor jokes yet so that’s a plus.

All in all, the approaching date of departure is bringing with it a combination of stress and excitement. Both of those factors are only going to grow with time. We’re currently in the time crunch but I honestly think that it’s going to be a fun one despite the overall stress of the situation. I look forward to continuing work on the project and to my time at Makengue and the great experiences and opportunities that will come out of both of them.

More to Come

What’s up y’all?  We only have twenty three days until our trip to Nicaragua!! I don’t know about you, but I am really excited. I am ready to take on this new experience, new challenge, new reality and new inspiration. Every person in this world has a dream whatever their nationality, their ethnicity, or their social status. Since I was young, I too have had a dream and that dream is to travel around the world, meet new people, create unforgettable friendships and memories. I especially want to travel to countries that are underdeveloped and under-appreciated, and for me Nicaragua fits with both of these categories.

When I first got the acceptance letter to go on this amazing trip, my feelings perfectly fitted what Charlotte Bronte once said:

“I sat down and tried to rest. I could not; though I had been on foot all day, I could not now repose an instant; I was too much excited. A phase of my life was closing tonight, a new one opening tomorrow: impossible to slumber in the interval; I must watch feverishly while the change was being accomplished.”

I felt blessed and I felt as if the rain on my parade had stopped, the sun started to shine, a melody started to rhyme and the change was ready to flow into a bright moonlight and that moonlight is ready to ignite the fiery hues of my passion. Okay, I will stop the cheesy lines now.

Anyway, to go on this trip my group and I have been preparing a lot. We have been developing environmental lesson plans for elementary school kids as well as for primary and secondary school teachers. We are going to help them teach lessons on how  important and valuable the rainforest that they are living in is. Moreover, we plan to play environmental interactive games with both the kids and teachers. My job in this group project is to do external research on published lesson plans in books and on the internet. Everyone in my group works really well with each other, so up to this point every single detail of the project has being going great!.

Photo from The Guardian

This week, we had to do a reading on gender and sexuality and the women’s movement in Nicaragua. The article addresses the ways in which Sandinismo has affected the Nicaraguan women’s movement. Sandinismo did raise the profile of women as political actors, but that was not enough to undo sexism. Here’s a bit of somewhat current news on the topic: Nicaraguan law update ‘piles pressure on women to face abusers.’

U.S. Botanical Gardens Visit

Almost as if we were simulating a little adventure in Nicaragua, our group went to the US Botanic Garden near Capitol Hill. After quickly running to the restroom and converging back with the group at the entrance, we all stripped down our layers because of the immense heat – which is interesting to note because its not going to be the same heat level or humidity abroad.

We met Ari Novy, the Director of the Garden, who also happens to be a fellow New Jerseyian. He ended up going to Rutgers for his graduate degree, which eventually fostered a discussion about his work in invasive species, specifically the comparison between South East Asia and China and the East Coast of the United States, and their endemic problem of introducing species not native to the area. It was interesting to learn more about such topics, since I took AP Environmental Science in high school, and invasive species was an extensive topic we studied.

We all took a lot of pictures and learned from our *private* tour that a lot of what grows in the Garden can be found in Nicaragua. After all of that information intake, I’m excited to get back into the classroom and continue doing research to gear up for Makengue, which we leave for in a month and two days!!!

A Collection of Experiences

I’ve been thinking a lot about Nicaragua recently. I find these random little ways to connect it to my life right now and constantly create new ideas and expectations of what it’ll be like there. This is simultaneously making me more excited and a little nervous (in a good way) for the entire trip as well as smaller parts of it.

Just the other day, I was on a media fast in which I was allowed to use absolutely no form of media whether it be mass media or personal media. It was a weird experience having nothing but work and the people who spent time around me to entertain me. Although it doesn’t exactly reflect what it will be like in Nicaragua (duh), I feel like I understand now what exactly the lack of an ability to use my phone or other sources of media for spring break will mean and I’m slightly more ready for what’s to come.

Another thing which stood out to me recently was how different even DC is from my hometown of Lansdale, Pennsylvania when it comes to weather and climate. With the recent blizzard and other forms of winter weather, I’ve seen how different the climates really are and how differently each place reacts to different weather patterns. Through this, I’m forced to think back to my first couple of weeks here when it was just nothing but endless heat and humidity which would cripple anyone from home but was completely normal here. Again switching places, the climate and weather in the rain forest of Nicaragua is bound to be immensely different from anything that I have ever experienced in my life. It should be an interesting new challenge for me to deal with on this new adventure of mine.

I look forward to creating a lot of new experiences both in preparation for the trip and on the trip itself and I hope that they help me to experience and understand things that many people do not. I’ll be having one of these new experiences tomorrow as we’re all going to the United States Botanic Garden. I’m really excited to see everything which is there and hopefully learn a lot of new things. Most importantly, I have a couple of great bad plant jokes to make thanks to a list which my mom sent me. I’m excited for where tomorrow and the rest of this journey will take me.