About Me

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Nicaragua
I am a Small Business Development Volunteer in Nicaragua.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Coffee black and egg white!

I am writing right now from the peace corps office in downtown Managua. Why i am here? Well, I am sick again, for the 7th time. I am awaiting the staff right now to go get a feces test at the local hospital. Its no big deal, but i am pretty sure its a parasite or bacterial bug hanging out in my stomach. I feel lucky though, because every volunteer has these bugs and once we get 'em, we most likely dont get them again, so in retrospect, its good to get them out of the way. But onto better things, I GOT MY SITE...I know where i will be stompin for the nex two years. DRUMROLL..dadadadadadaaddadadadaddadadd....San Ramon, Matagalpa. Its a small town set in the mountains in the midst of tons of coffee farms. I only wish i had some pictures to show you.
I got to visit my site last week for 5 days...So far so great. Is definetly a small town, set in a valley only about 12km outside the big city of Matagalpa. I will have a site mate by the name of Elizabeth, who is a senior citizen who teaches english classes to the locals. But more importantly i will be working with an NGO on ecotourism. I am really excited about it. It is really well funded and highly planned out. It is part of a 3 year plan and its about a year in. So i will be there for the final two years of the plan. Basically How it works is the government of Luxembourg sent two ecotourism experts to Nicaragua to develop plans on implementing and improving all aspects of tourism in Nicaragua. As part of their plan was to develop a coffee route, throughout all of the mountainous coffee land in the middle of nica. My town (San Ramon) is on this route. Called La Ruta del Cafe. But specifically I will be helping in developing the website, brochures and marketing techniques for the pueblo of San Ramon. Promoting the Local restaurants, local artesans, coffee harvests, local music, etc. On top of the eco tourism stuff, I will be teaching two sections of the Business course developed by Peace Corps called "La Empresa Creativa" or the creative enterprise.
Overall i am very excited and i feel very fortunate to work on such a meaningful project.
Oh and on another note,,,,training is almost over!!! I cannot wait. July 25th!! mark your calendars. Joey Robinson becomes an official volunteer in the US Peace Corps.