Eyyyyy Mammaaaaa!

Hola! I´m trying not to start this post off with something as lame as ¨Well it´s been a crazy few days¨, but I guess that´s about all I have. Maybe after a few more spanish classes I´ll be able to say that in spanish, which would sound much cooler I´m sure. My orientation class this afternoon was pretty short so I have the rest of the day to explore. Today was essentially a geography class, all about Nicaragua. Unfortunately my brain turns off upon hearing the word geography (which I´m sure is not a suprise to anyone whose ever heard me try to list all the states on the east coast), but I´m sure I sucked in some information anyways. The other woman in the ¨class¨ has studied up on her Nicaragua geography already so I´ll just tap her fountain of knowledge when I need to. I guess for the rest of this week it´s 4 hours...FOUR HOURS...of spanish in the morning, and then these mini classes in the afternoon. Yesterday we took a bus to Masaya, where there are huge markets of any souvenir or any trinket you could ever desire. Change purse made of of frog skin, head included? They´ve got it. Painting of Nicaraguan man peeing? They´ve got it. I didn´t get anything but I´m sure I´ll be back. The real experience was taking the bus. We walked to where all the buses park in Jinotepe. They have big school buses, which are apparently very slow, and smaller ¨microbuses¨. We took one of the microbuses, which I guess is what most people take to go anywhere around Nicaragua. They have a guy that sits near the door of the bus who shouts out of the window where the bus is headed, and sometimes the bus will stop to let someone off and the guy will jump out and walk up and down the street trying to find someone who wants to take it. I think they crammed about 20 people onto the bus, to the point where the guy had to hang on on the outside of the bus. Pretty cool. I don´t know how I´m ever going to take one myself but apparently that´s the ¨test¨for passing orientation at the end of the week...getting yourself to a certain town in Nicaragua. Should be interesting. When Jake comes to visit I´m going to have to travel a far way to Managua to pick him up at the airport, involving taxis and multiple crazy buses SO my main motivation for learning all of this is to actually be able to make it to the airport and impress him with my amazing transportation and navigations skills-which is one thing I certainly have never posessed.

I feel I should talk about the food at some point. I´m sure my family is interested whether I´ll come back having (a) gained 10 lbs or (b) lost 10 lbs. The answer is (c) gained 30 lbs. The food is fantastic! Lots of beans and rice, like I expected. But so much other stuff too. It´s nearing on the fruit season now, so all the fruit is so fresh and fantastic. Pineapple, papaya, plantains, bananas. I guess in a few weeks I´ll be able to buy about 20 mangos for less than a dollar. Something crazy and awesome like that. I went over to Raquels house the other night for a good bye party for a friend of hers, and her mom had made this dessert that was out of this world. I forget the name but it had yucca and cheese and was topped with this sugary cinamoney thing. I wish I knew the names of things so I could describe them better, but for now my favorite dishes are delicious meat and vegetable thing, yummy squash and white sauce thing, bean mushy awesome thing, and rice. Good stuff. Street vendors are everywhere here too, selling little cookie type things and meat and plantain concoctions and sweet potatoe looking things. I haven´t gotten any of those yet but they look delicious and not particularly nutritious.

I really like it in this town, Jinotepe, but I still feel a little weird that I´ll be here for the next month, and not in the town where my volunteer placement is. It´ll be better in the end, because I´ll have 4 hours...4 HOURS...of spanish every day...EVERY DAY...but hopefully I´ll find something to occupy my time. One of the volunteer cordinators here said that he thinks they´re going to find places around this town that I can check out and volunteer at. There´s a girl staying here who´s looking for an apartment, I don´t know if i said this before but the place i¨m staying is a hostel too, and she knows the town really well so I´ll probably ask her this week if she knows of a place to volunteer at short term.

The only thing I´m having a hard time getting used to is being a blonde chica in a small Nicaraguan town. For all the attention I´m getting I feel like I forgot to put my clothes on before going out. Any stereotypical thing for a man to say to a woman is fair game ¨"Eyyy mamaaaaa, ess papppiiiii" is my personal favorite. I don´t feel unsafe here, everyone is so nice and friendly. But there´s friendly and then there´s friendlyyyyyy, and I don´t know who I should smile at and be friendly to back, and who to just ignore. It´s not as much as an ego booster as one might think haha...I feel super concious of the fact that I´m different...but I´m sure I´ll get over that...or maybe I´ll get so tan I´ll blend in, but probably not.
Allright well I guess that´s about it...I´m already planning a million weekend trips I want to take in the next month. Top of the list is San Juan del Sur, which apparently is a great place to surf, which I would love to learn. That would be badass.
Chaooo.