La Feria de Productos

Friday was the big day, and right off the bat, we hit a bump in the road. Our president and primary presenter, showed up at the meeting place in Niquinohomo to tell us she couldn't come. The day before the date of a school competition got switched to Friday, and she had to bail. It wasn't the best news to hear last minute. But after the initial shock, the group managed to rally, quickly trained a replacement, and continued to the venue in Ticuantepe as confident as ever. To me, they resembled the frat from Old School walking into their final examination, dressed to the T and walking in a horizontal line to flaunt their numbers. If I had been in another group, I would have been intimidated, as we easily had the largest group there.

I half expected our kids to freeze up when they saw the products and commercialization of the rest of the competition, but they continued to carry on as if it didn't phase them, and crack jokes. When it was their turn to present in front of the panel of judges, their presentation surpassed our expectations, and we left the stage more confident than before. Our strategy from the beginning was to let the kids explain their product and the group, and for that Ron said one or two words to introduce the group, and they tooki it from their. As we found out, we were the only group to really do that.

So when all presentations were over, and it was time to announce the winners, I admit, I had butterflies in my stomach. There's a big rivalry between the agricultural aspirantes and the small biz aspirantes, and there is a lot of pressure for small biz to win since it is a business competition. And of course there is a rivalry between training towns, and we had been dishing out a lot trash talk. As I said we had high expectations, and so did the kids. So when it was announced that we got fourth place, our group just went silent. Although never said aloud, everyone figured we'd be in the top two. It was an awkward reaction, because we didn't celebrate our "success" at all despite the MC's enthusiasm. It's worth noting that we missed the top three by .25 points, and first by 8 points. So at least it was close.

I'd be more ok with the results if I didn't know the back stories behing the top 2 finishers. Second place - a business group - more or less did all the leg work for their group over the ten weeks, if you can call a handful of 23 year olds a youth group. First place - an aggie group - from what I've been told gave the recipe to the kids (from a Peace Corps cook book) for their winning Banana Bread, and had scrambled last minute to put something together. That Banana Bread was damm good though.

Call me a bad loser if you want. But the youth in our youth group made every decision, every step of the way, and put together their own presentations.  What I took from the competition is that its not so much about the process, but all about the bells and whistles, or how much you can pull the wool over the eyes of judges to appear like you've got it together. So if you hadn't noticed by this point, I wasn't happy with the results, but ulitmately the kids were, and that's what's most important. I had a bunch of pictures to include, but for some reason I'm unable to upload them. I'll try again tomorrow.

This week also may be my last week of training. I potentially leave my home in Niquinohomo for the last time Thursday morning, and will be in and out of Managua all week. Thursday we get to tour the embassy and meet the ambassador, and Friday, pending any disaster, I become a full fledged Volunteer. Has close to three months passed already? Oh and I got a cell phone recently that has pretty good coverage no matter where I am, and if you call me I don't get charged a cent. So if you're interested in getting digits, let me know. Either that or send me your skype name and we can set something up.