Welllll after being sick for a few days with a rather unpleasant (aka miserable) kidney infection FINALLY i´m back, and by back I mean walking around because that feels pretty awesome compared to the last week. I´m not really looking for any sympathy notes here because I didn´t really decide it was necessary to ask for a doctor until five days of feeling "not so well" and two days of feeling "terrible" (as well as alternating between sleeping, having body shaking, teeth chattering chills, and sweating through my clothes...pleasant). I think I was in a fetal position for about 9/10ths of saturday and sunday...and monday and tuesday now that I think about it. But the doctor came to the house ($10), sent me to a lab for tests ($10 and a lot of pride lost when I couldn´t pee for about 1 1/2 hours-shyyy) and some antibiotics ($25) and now I feel great ($PRICELESS$).
So what did I learn from the past week?
-Do not get a kidney infection...they are pretty lame
-Being in bed for hours upon hours upon hours will hurt your neck
-Drinking liquids is good when your sick. Go figure.
SO now that I´ve wasted a week being sick, IT´S FINALLY HERE...I´m leaving for Lyon TOMORROW! I suppose you can gather I´m excited from all the capital letters but I CAN´T WAIT! First of all, because I´m going down with my friend Christine and her friend Ervin. Christine is the girl that I´ll be replacing at Las Tias...she had an unfortunate accident with her passport and has stayed here waiting for it to be renewed. Ervin is her friend from Lyon, he makes amazing jewlry and is super nice (first friend in Lyon-check!) and taught me how to make an ashtray out of a beer can-which is a sweet party trick but probably would be better if I smoked. Second reason for excitement, because I´m starting work on Monday. Can. Not. Wait. Okay I´m wildly nervous but I´ll cross that bridge when I get to it. Third reason of excitement...AHHH. So there´s this group in Lyon called Quetzaltrekkers (I have to give credit to my Mom for finding them on the Internet). They´re a group of volunteers and they organize day, overnight, and weekend hikes up the volcanoes around Lyon. All their money goes to...guess. Yes! Las Tias! Which is awesome. I e-mailed them a little while ago asking if they needed volunteers a few days a week (because apparently at Las Tias I´ll only be teaching 3 mayyybe 4 days a week) and they wrote back and said yeah! I can train to lead hikes up volcanoes or do promotion work for the club and oh mann I´m psyched. I´m calling it operation volunteer double whammie (you know, because they donate to the organization I´m working for, yeah I know...corny, forget it). So that´s about it for now. I¨m pretty psyched to be healthy and heading to Lyon. Hasta luego!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
In Which Alysse Actually Does Something Useful
First of all, I´d like to apologize for inadvertently using the word "anywayS" over and over again in the previous posts instead of "anyway"...I´m sure many other people were equally as outraged as my Mom (love you!) and I´m sorry for any offense I caused.
Anyways, so I started teaching this week. Well "teaching" is a stretch, it´s more like "assisting" right now. I leave for Leon next Saturday, and until then I´m helping Lise teach her classes. She teaches university students three days a week (a beginner class and an intermediate class) and university teachers two days a week. She´s a great teacher, lots of fun and very energetic. She acts stuff out a lot and uses a "talking stick" to make everyone participate...except in this case it´s a "talking stuffed animal cat", which of course is way more fun. Mostly I write stuff on the board, lend my stellar acting skills to mime words, and translate for people who don´t understand something in English. Translate? Well I try.
I´ll admit I was a little bummed when I found out that I would be teaching english in Leon. I´ve always had this strange notion that the idea of teaching english to people in developing countries is just a plot for America to slowly take over the world.(I´m just kidding, for any US government officials who are reading this...sort of). But all the kids and teachers had to fill out a form before entering class, standard questions about where their speaking and reading levels were at, and why they wanted to take the class and what they hoped to get out of it. I have to say 100% of the answers were NOT related whatsoever to the US. Most of the kids talked about wanting a better job, a better life. Wanting to be able to take part or work in international business, or tourism (to be able to display the pride they have for their country). English is such an expensive language to learn here. Most people who study it, have to forgo having a job in order to study (because most of the jobs around here require extreme full time)...which a lot of people don´t have the opportunity to do. So everyone is SO appreciative of the time Lise is giving to them. I think if I ever profusely thanked any of my teachers at the start of every class for the gift of her time and energy and love, they would keel over from shock. It´s really great to hear how excited they are to learn, and how hopeful they are what doors English can open for them in future careers or life in general.
Also, I never thought about how hard it is to learn english. I´m/He´s /She´s/Wouldn´t/´Cause. A teacher in one of the classes told me she said "focus" wrong one time (use your imagination) and since then she stopped speaking english because she was afraid of saying something else wrong. She said she never talks about the "beach" (add a T in there somewhere and you´ll get it), instead she´ll talk about the sea or the ocean.
Anyways, so I started teaching this week. Well "teaching" is a stretch, it´s more like "assisting" right now. I leave for Leon next Saturday, and until then I´m helping Lise teach her classes. She teaches university students three days a week (a beginner class and an intermediate class) and university teachers two days a week. She´s a great teacher, lots of fun and very energetic. She acts stuff out a lot and uses a "talking stick" to make everyone participate...except in this case it´s a "talking stuffed animal cat", which of course is way more fun. Mostly I write stuff on the board, lend my stellar acting skills to mime words, and translate for people who don´t understand something in English. Translate? Well I try.
I´ll admit I was a little bummed when I found out that I would be teaching english in Leon. I´ve always had this strange notion that the idea of teaching english to people in developing countries is just a plot for America to slowly take over the world.(I´m just kidding, for any US government officials who are reading this...sort of). But all the kids and teachers had to fill out a form before entering class, standard questions about where their speaking and reading levels were at, and why they wanted to take the class and what they hoped to get out of it. I have to say 100% of the answers were NOT related whatsoever to the US. Most of the kids talked about wanting a better job, a better life. Wanting to be able to take part or work in international business, or tourism (to be able to display the pride they have for their country). English is such an expensive language to learn here. Most people who study it, have to forgo having a job in order to study (because most of the jobs around here require extreme full time)...which a lot of people don´t have the opportunity to do. So everyone is SO appreciative of the time Lise is giving to them. I think if I ever profusely thanked any of my teachers at the start of every class for the gift of her time and energy and love, they would keel over from shock. It´s really great to hear how excited they are to learn, and how hopeful they are what doors English can open for them in future careers or life in general.
Also, I never thought about how hard it is to learn english. I´m/He´s /She´s/Wouldn´t/´Cause. A teacher in one of the classes told me she said "focus" wrong one time (use your imagination) and since then she stopped speaking english because she was afraid of saying something else wrong. She said she never talks about the "beach" (add a T in there somewhere and you´ll get it), instead she´ll talk about the sea or the ocean.
Monday, January 21, 2008
For better or for worse.
Oiyyyy. Thank god I´m back. I had a blast, and still have sand in my ears and a sunburn to prove it...but I´m happy to be back. I feel like Jinotepe is home right now. Not home home, but still a comfortable place where I know the people and how to get around and I can walk around the house barefoot and read all day if I want. That pretty much sums up my definition of home. Oh yeah and there´s actually food around. I guess in San Juan beer is an acceptable meal substitute, therefor being somewhere where I don´t have to sit around hungry when everyone else is pounding down the beers at 9am is quite refreshing! That being said...SAN JUAN IS AWESOME! I already have plans to go back next weekend with two other volunteers from the house. This time I went with one other volunteer, our friend from Jinotepe, my friend Tomas and his sister.
Okay so starting off, the trip there was really easy. An hour long ride on the microbus (which was filled to normal capacity due to a police stop down the road, ahh a full seat to myself...luxury) to Rivas and then a taxi ride to San Juan. I wish I could have taken a picture of the road from Rivas to San Juan...it looked like a scene from that movie/book Holes. There were foot wide, foot deep holes ALL OVER the road. I felt like I was on that wooden roller coaster at Six Flags, where you´re being jerked around so hard you start to go a little numb. Taxi drivers in that part of Nicaragua must need special training...The art of dodging potholes goes something like this: right side of the road, sharp veer to the left side of the road, veer to the right, offroading on the right side, big swerve to offroad on the left side, and on and on. It got to where it was smoother driving completely OFF the road than being on the road. Also, I think the taxi drivers would rather risk driving into an oncoming truck than hitting a pothole, because I felt near death so many times I´ve practically accepted it by now. So anyways, after a 30 minute ride on the paved potholed roller coaster of death we were finally in San Juan. We pull up in front of a surf shop (Arena Caliente Surf) and to my delight, we walked inside and it was a hostel for surf bums as well. I felt my cool rating rising the more surf boards I saw. It was awesome. Long haired, surfer dudes and dudettes lounging around, amazing murals and photos of surfers covered the walls, broken surf boards lined the walls. Bathing suits and wet suits hanging to dry on the line outside. Of course I was a total imposter, because I just wanted to take pictures of everything to show everyone back home this COOL place I was in, while this was just where they were crashing for the week or month. So alas, for the sake of "fitting in" I didn´t take any pictures and therefor I have no proof that I was in such a sweet place, so my cool rating is back down to zero. Anyways we hung around the house with everyone (the people we came with are related to/know a lot of the people there...which is why all of us non-surfers were staying there in the first place). A lot of the people were just around for a few days or a week, then heading on to costa rica or panama...there were a lot of people from the area, some Americans, a guy from Britain, etc etc...it was a mixed group but everyone was really nice and relaxed. Tranquilo is the equivalent to "chillin" in spanish and I think I heard it about a million times while I was there. I ended teaching some of them how to play beer pong, and I really hope that´s not my only contribution to Nicaraguan society while I´m here. That would be a little pathetic. We went out to a few of the clubs around town, some were really relaxed and tranquilo with surf videos playing on screens on the walls...and a few others were more american with 50 cent and ludacris playing and about a million white people hanging around. The thing about San Juan is it is REALLY westernized...a lot of bar and restaurant names are in english...most things offer both languages...there is an equal mix of locals and tourists. So being a blonde definitely didn´t make me unique in San Juan like it does in Jinotepe. We also went to a discoteque that played a good mix of salsa and modern music. I danced until I could barely stand up and then went to bed. Apparently 1:30 AM is a totally uncool time to go to bed. Most other people were just going out to the bars at that time, and I was woken up at 4:30 to Pink Floyd being blasted at a bar just down the street with 50 drunk people singing along. It was that song where the little children sing...something like "we don´t need no education...etc etc" and let me tell you, that´s sort of a creepy song to be woken up to.
We set off for Maderas beach that morning with a bunch of the people from the hostel (another death defying drive on a road that was more like an obstacle course). I decided not to surf that day because it was a little expensive and I was already planning on coming back the next weekend. It was an amazing beach though!! The waves were awesome, everyone was either surfing or body boarding and the beach seemed to go on forever. I got burned in the hour that I was in the water and therefor earned the nickname "little lobster". Awesome. Of course I forgot my camera again, therefor have no pictures...but like I said (stolen from Arnold), I´ll be back.
That night came the most bizarre part of the trip. Afer showering I was informed that I would be attending a wedding. I think one or two of the guys at the hostel were invited, and somehow felt that they needed a entourage of 8 to accompany them. So we drive up to the MOST INCREDIBLE hotel I have ever seen. Picture a hundred white sandstone cottages with red clay roofs scattered along the side of a hill/mountain with beautiful winding staircases connecting it all. It was truly magnificent. We walk up to where the wedding was and it´s half way over, we sort of stand to the side as they finish up the "you may now kiss the bride" part. The wedding was outside on a patio, there was one of those pools that looks like it goes on forever, it didn´t have walls, and it had the most breathtaking view of San Juan at sunset. There were a million twinkling lights all around and WOW it was just spectacular. Then we all clapped and drank passion fruit cocktails and ate chicken concoctions and chatted. I felt like I was on that movie wedding crashers...it was so strange to be at this amazing wedding and ohhh yeah I don´t know anyone here. But that being said it was beautiful. So I figured we were just there for hor dóeurves and would be leaving soon but then they ushured us all to the huge dining room (outside again with another pool) for dinner. WHAT? Okay I´ve only been to one wedding in my life so maybe I sort of think they´re a big deal...but they´re sort of a big deal. I don´t even remotely know who these people are and yet I´m toasting to them at their reception dinner. Strange. But I hadn´t eaten all day (no I don´t take part in the "beer instead of turkey sandwich"...I´m not that Nicaraguan yet I guess) so I was up for a little dinner. I got a little sick of the joke "lobster for the lobster", but I was eating lobster so I got over it. Dinner was delicious, we were deemed the most fun party at the wedding by one of the wedees fathers (wedee? person who is being wed?) and I think when I offered to take a picture of him with the group, we made his night (or maybe it was the 10 coctkails he had).
It was a lot of fun mixed with a little drama. Not to get too much into gory details but let´s just say that in Nicaragua, one is not flippant with the feelings of others--by penalty of severe scoldings by family members. I have learned that "casual dating" does not exist in Nicaragua, therefor will no longer be taking part in any flirting with, talking to, looking at, or dating while I´m here. I was "spoken to" for about an hour in spanish by the sister of a friend we had come with with no speaking skills to defend myself besides "No quiero luchar" (I don´t want to wrestle)...it´s about as close as I could come to "I don´t want to argue" which I hadn´t anticipated needing to know while here. Anyways here´s where my whole family is smiling and shaking their heads and saying "Ohh Alysse". End of gory story.
I had a great time at the wedding but strangely it made me really homesick. The couple was from the states, so most of the people there were American and it just made me think of my family. I´m missing my cousins wedding while I´m in Nicaragua and I was imagining my whole family at her wedding having fun and dancing and toasting her and it bummed me out a little. Because I´m not working yet (I start tomorrow, thank god) I feel like I´ve been on vacation for two weeks...and two weeks is about the length of time I like to be on vacation for. It´ll be good for me to start working and put my energy into something. Í´m not leaving for Leon for another two weeks, but the other woman I´ve been taking lessons with is volunteering here in town for her stay. She´ll be teaching english to advanced english students at the university nearby, as well as the teachers who teach them, and I´m going to be her assistant. I think she wants me to be a bridge between her and the students, because I have a little better grasp of spanish. If they don´t understand something in english hopefully I can help out there, and just help out in other little ways. She´s taken a course in teaching english as a second language, and reading over her lesson plans and hearing her ideas has given me a few ideas for my school as well. Granted I´ll be teaching in a different environment but I think the next two weeks will be sort of like training wheels for me, where I´ll be able to observe her in a classroom before being thrown into one myself.
Anyways, that´s about it...I miss everyone!
Okay so starting off, the trip there was really easy. An hour long ride on the microbus (which was filled to normal capacity due to a police stop down the road, ahh a full seat to myself...luxury) to Rivas and then a taxi ride to San Juan. I wish I could have taken a picture of the road from Rivas to San Juan...it looked like a scene from that movie/book Holes. There were foot wide, foot deep holes ALL OVER the road. I felt like I was on that wooden roller coaster at Six Flags, where you´re being jerked around so hard you start to go a little numb. Taxi drivers in that part of Nicaragua must need special training...The art of dodging potholes goes something like this: right side of the road, sharp veer to the left side of the road, veer to the right, offroading on the right side, big swerve to offroad on the left side, and on and on. It got to where it was smoother driving completely OFF the road than being on the road. Also, I think the taxi drivers would rather risk driving into an oncoming truck than hitting a pothole, because I felt near death so many times I´ve practically accepted it by now. So anyways, after a 30 minute ride on the paved potholed roller coaster of death we were finally in San Juan. We pull up in front of a surf shop (Arena Caliente Surf) and to my delight, we walked inside and it was a hostel for surf bums as well. I felt my cool rating rising the more surf boards I saw. It was awesome. Long haired, surfer dudes and dudettes lounging around, amazing murals and photos of surfers covered the walls, broken surf boards lined the walls. Bathing suits and wet suits hanging to dry on the line outside. Of course I was a total imposter, because I just wanted to take pictures of everything to show everyone back home this COOL place I was in, while this was just where they were crashing for the week or month. So alas, for the sake of "fitting in" I didn´t take any pictures and therefor I have no proof that I was in such a sweet place, so my cool rating is back down to zero. Anyways we hung around the house with everyone (the people we came with are related to/know a lot of the people there...which is why all of us non-surfers were staying there in the first place). A lot of the people were just around for a few days or a week, then heading on to costa rica or panama...there were a lot of people from the area, some Americans, a guy from Britain, etc etc...it was a mixed group but everyone was really nice and relaxed. Tranquilo is the equivalent to "chillin" in spanish and I think I heard it about a million times while I was there. I ended teaching some of them how to play beer pong, and I really hope that´s not my only contribution to Nicaraguan society while I´m here. That would be a little pathetic. We went out to a few of the clubs around town, some were really relaxed and tranquilo with surf videos playing on screens on the walls...and a few others were more american with 50 cent and ludacris playing and about a million white people hanging around. The thing about San Juan is it is REALLY westernized...a lot of bar and restaurant names are in english...most things offer both languages...there is an equal mix of locals and tourists. So being a blonde definitely didn´t make me unique in San Juan like it does in Jinotepe. We also went to a discoteque that played a good mix of salsa and modern music. I danced until I could barely stand up and then went to bed. Apparently 1:30 AM is a totally uncool time to go to bed. Most other people were just going out to the bars at that time, and I was woken up at 4:30 to Pink Floyd being blasted at a bar just down the street with 50 drunk people singing along. It was that song where the little children sing...something like "we don´t need no education...etc etc" and let me tell you, that´s sort of a creepy song to be woken up to.
We set off for Maderas beach that morning with a bunch of the people from the hostel (another death defying drive on a road that was more like an obstacle course). I decided not to surf that day because it was a little expensive and I was already planning on coming back the next weekend. It was an amazing beach though!! The waves were awesome, everyone was either surfing or body boarding and the beach seemed to go on forever. I got burned in the hour that I was in the water and therefor earned the nickname "little lobster". Awesome. Of course I forgot my camera again, therefor have no pictures...but like I said (stolen from Arnold), I´ll be back.
That night came the most bizarre part of the trip. Afer showering I was informed that I would be attending a wedding. I think one or two of the guys at the hostel were invited, and somehow felt that they needed a entourage of 8 to accompany them. So we drive up to the MOST INCREDIBLE hotel I have ever seen. Picture a hundred white sandstone cottages with red clay roofs scattered along the side of a hill/mountain with beautiful winding staircases connecting it all. It was truly magnificent. We walk up to where the wedding was and it´s half way over, we sort of stand to the side as they finish up the "you may now kiss the bride" part. The wedding was outside on a patio, there was one of those pools that looks like it goes on forever, it didn´t have walls, and it had the most breathtaking view of San Juan at sunset. There were a million twinkling lights all around and WOW it was just spectacular. Then we all clapped and drank passion fruit cocktails and ate chicken concoctions and chatted. I felt like I was on that movie wedding crashers...it was so strange to be at this amazing wedding and ohhh yeah I don´t know anyone here. But that being said it was beautiful. So I figured we were just there for hor dóeurves and would be leaving soon but then they ushured us all to the huge dining room (outside again with another pool) for dinner. WHAT? Okay I´ve only been to one wedding in my life so maybe I sort of think they´re a big deal...but they´re sort of a big deal. I don´t even remotely know who these people are and yet I´m toasting to them at their reception dinner. Strange. But I hadn´t eaten all day (no I don´t take part in the "beer instead of turkey sandwich"...I´m not that Nicaraguan yet I guess) so I was up for a little dinner. I got a little sick of the joke "lobster for the lobster", but I was eating lobster so I got over it. Dinner was delicious, we were deemed the most fun party at the wedding by one of the wedees fathers (wedee? person who is being wed?) and I think when I offered to take a picture of him with the group, we made his night (or maybe it was the 10 coctkails he had).
It was a lot of fun mixed with a little drama. Not to get too much into gory details but let´s just say that in Nicaragua, one is not flippant with the feelings of others--by penalty of severe scoldings by family members. I have learned that "casual dating" does not exist in Nicaragua, therefor will no longer be taking part in any flirting with, talking to, looking at, or dating while I´m here. I was "spoken to" for about an hour in spanish by the sister of a friend we had come with with no speaking skills to defend myself besides "No quiero luchar" (I don´t want to wrestle)...it´s about as close as I could come to "I don´t want to argue" which I hadn´t anticipated needing to know while here. Anyways here´s where my whole family is smiling and shaking their heads and saying "Ohh Alysse". End of gory story.
I had a great time at the wedding but strangely it made me really homesick. The couple was from the states, so most of the people there were American and it just made me think of my family. I´m missing my cousins wedding while I´m in Nicaragua and I was imagining my whole family at her wedding having fun and dancing and toasting her and it bummed me out a little. Because I´m not working yet (I start tomorrow, thank god) I feel like I´ve been on vacation for two weeks...and two weeks is about the length of time I like to be on vacation for. It´ll be good for me to start working and put my energy into something. Í´m not leaving for Leon for another two weeks, but the other woman I´ve been taking lessons with is volunteering here in town for her stay. She´ll be teaching english to advanced english students at the university nearby, as well as the teachers who teach them, and I´m going to be her assistant. I think she wants me to be a bridge between her and the students, because I have a little better grasp of spanish. If they don´t understand something in english hopefully I can help out there, and just help out in other little ways. She´s taken a course in teaching english as a second language, and reading over her lesson plans and hearing her ideas has given me a few ideas for my school as well. Granted I´ll be teaching in a different environment but I think the next two weeks will be sort of like training wheels for me, where I´ll be able to observe her in a classroom before being thrown into one myself.
Anyways, that´s about it...I miss everyone!
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Still alive.
I think my brain is fried from writing too many e-mails...that and I´ve hogged this computer for an eternity so this will be short. San Juan del Sur this weekend, surf city...it´s time to test my natural abilities to "ride a wave", which probably will result in about a gallon of water up my nose. Chaooo.
Monday, January 14, 2008
How to Not Get Run Over By a Horse
Okay so looking back over the cheesy-ness of my last post, I realize why everyone thought I was going to come home having smuggled an orphanage in my suitcase...Anyways..
Top 10 Things I´ve Learned So Far in Nicaragua
1. Washing your own clothes is HARD. In the past hour I embarked on the adventure of "washing by hand" with a bar of Dove body soap and a stone ridged surface, and let me tell you, I have a whole new respect for washing machines. I realized I have absolutely no idea how to wash clothes, and I´m sure my clothes would tell you right now that they are not, in fact, clean. If nothing else, the amount of soap still caked on them while they´re drying on the clothesline will give everyone else the dove scented illusion that I´m not a slob...I´m just glad I escaped the rainy season-that could be a sudsy disaster.
2. People can still get colds in Nicaragua. Two people in the house had colds this week-luckily I escaped. Somehow that amazes me, I thought colds were reserved for miserable times where the ground is grey and slushy and snow got into your clogs so your socks are soaked.
3. People can still get COLD in Nicaragua. Brrrr. Okay I´m sitting here in shorts and a t-shirt but I swear, it can get chilly to mildly brisk out here. Especially at night. Althought I keep being warned that when I move to Leon I´m going to shrivel up and burnnnn.
4. There are so many festivals here that they have to reserve dates for them, so that two don´t occur on the same date and everyone can attend all of them. And everyone does.
5. I´m mildly addicted to quesidallas con pollo. Knowing my eating habits I´ll probably eat them every meal for two weeks and then never eat a quesiadilla again.
6. I love countries where people kiss on the cheek every time they meet/see one another. It´s awesome, I just want to walk around calling everyone "Mi amor" and make them all friendship bracelets.
7. People aren´t always staying at you because you´re the only blonde within a 10 mile radius of the town, sometimes it´s just because your fly is unzipped. Oh how embarassing.
8. To insult a Nicaraguan, call them "Tica" (it´s what Costa Ricans call themselves), to insult a Costa Rican, call them "Nica" (what Nicaraguans call themselves). Hopefully someone is as amused as I am that these rivaling countries have rhyming nicknames.
9. Who needs paper advertisements or festival invitations or obituaries when you have a car with a huge megaphone on top that will drive through town and shout all of the above about 10 times a day.
10. Roosters don´t crow only at dawn. Apparently that´s a myth. Roosters crow from about 1am on...and on and on and on and on.
And now, the eagerly anticipated answering of How to Not Get Run Over By a Horse:
This Sunday there was a horse parade in the town over, Diriamba. Another festival?? Shocking, I know. We got there about an hour after the parade was supposed to start, and of course it would not start for another hour and a half ("Nica time" they call it, and I like it because I´ll probably never be late for anything while I´m here). At first I didn´t see why it was a horse parade, because there were no horses, only people in cowboy hats walking around drinking beer. Once the parade started, whoah. The only float they had was sponsored by one of the two beer companies, Tona, and had a bunch of girls dancing in cowboy outfits. Other than that it was horses...tons and tons of horses. Rowdy horses. Crazy horses. Bumper horses. These horses would prance and dance and swing around and trot into the crowd and bump into each other and walk backwards and walk sideways and anything you could imagine. I don´t know how many times I would turn from talking to someone and BAM nose to nose with a horse, actually most of the time it was nose to ribcage or nose to butt. It. was. insane. Added to the fun of playing mosh pit with horses, to walk anywhere you had to walk withhh the horse parade. Not on the side, but dodging in and out of all the prancing dancing looney horses. Cabaillos en espanol. So how do you avoid getting run over by a horse? It´s not easy and I´m sure many broken foots will testify to that. You can literally push it out of the way, or throw someone else in the way of it, or if you´re agile enough you can zip between them. It was a pretty exciting adventure...until How Not to Get Run Over By a Horse was replaced by How Not to Get Pick-Pocketed. The total losses of the group I was with was one wallet, one camera, and one phone. At one point we were just standing by the side of the road watching the parade when a tornado of fists and bodies struck. Everyone was pushing and falling and after 30 seconds when it calmed down, cameras and phones were gone and everyone blamed everyone else when the guy who took it probably slipped away. Bummer. I´m glad my purse was wedged into my armpit. Safe.
Top 10 Things I´ve Learned So Far in Nicaragua
1. Washing your own clothes is HARD. In the past hour I embarked on the adventure of "washing by hand" with a bar of Dove body soap and a stone ridged surface, and let me tell you, I have a whole new respect for washing machines. I realized I have absolutely no idea how to wash clothes, and I´m sure my clothes would tell you right now that they are not, in fact, clean. If nothing else, the amount of soap still caked on them while they´re drying on the clothesline will give everyone else the dove scented illusion that I´m not a slob...I´m just glad I escaped the rainy season-that could be a sudsy disaster.
2. People can still get colds in Nicaragua. Two people in the house had colds this week-luckily I escaped. Somehow that amazes me, I thought colds were reserved for miserable times where the ground is grey and slushy and snow got into your clogs so your socks are soaked.
3. People can still get COLD in Nicaragua. Brrrr. Okay I´m sitting here in shorts and a t-shirt but I swear, it can get chilly to mildly brisk out here. Especially at night. Althought I keep being warned that when I move to Leon I´m going to shrivel up and burnnnn.
4. There are so many festivals here that they have to reserve dates for them, so that two don´t occur on the same date and everyone can attend all of them. And everyone does.
5. I´m mildly addicted to quesidallas con pollo. Knowing my eating habits I´ll probably eat them every meal for two weeks and then never eat a quesiadilla again.
6. I love countries where people kiss on the cheek every time they meet/see one another. It´s awesome, I just want to walk around calling everyone "Mi amor" and make them all friendship bracelets.
7. People aren´t always staying at you because you´re the only blonde within a 10 mile radius of the town, sometimes it´s just because your fly is unzipped. Oh how embarassing.
8. To insult a Nicaraguan, call them "Tica" (it´s what Costa Ricans call themselves), to insult a Costa Rican, call them "Nica" (what Nicaraguans call themselves). Hopefully someone is as amused as I am that these rivaling countries have rhyming nicknames.
9. Who needs paper advertisements or festival invitations or obituaries when you have a car with a huge megaphone on top that will drive through town and shout all of the above about 10 times a day.
10. Roosters don´t crow only at dawn. Apparently that´s a myth. Roosters crow from about 1am on...and on and on and on and on.
And now, the eagerly anticipated answering of How to Not Get Run Over By a Horse:
This Sunday there was a horse parade in the town over, Diriamba. Another festival?? Shocking, I know. We got there about an hour after the parade was supposed to start, and of course it would not start for another hour and a half ("Nica time" they call it, and I like it because I´ll probably never be late for anything while I´m here). At first I didn´t see why it was a horse parade, because there were no horses, only people in cowboy hats walking around drinking beer. Once the parade started, whoah. The only float they had was sponsored by one of the two beer companies, Tona, and had a bunch of girls dancing in cowboy outfits. Other than that it was horses...tons and tons of horses. Rowdy horses. Crazy horses. Bumper horses. These horses would prance and dance and swing around and trot into the crowd and bump into each other and walk backwards and walk sideways and anything you could imagine. I don´t know how many times I would turn from talking to someone and BAM nose to nose with a horse, actually most of the time it was nose to ribcage or nose to butt. It. was. insane. Added to the fun of playing mosh pit with horses, to walk anywhere you had to walk withhh the horse parade. Not on the side, but dodging in and out of all the prancing dancing looney horses. Cabaillos en espanol. So how do you avoid getting run over by a horse? It´s not easy and I´m sure many broken foots will testify to that. You can literally push it out of the way, or throw someone else in the way of it, or if you´re agile enough you can zip between them. It was a pretty exciting adventure...until How Not to Get Run Over By a Horse was replaced by How Not to Get Pick-Pocketed. The total losses of the group I was with was one wallet, one camera, and one phone. At one point we were just standing by the side of the road watching the parade when a tornado of fists and bodies struck. Everyone was pushing and falling and after 30 seconds when it calmed down, cameras and phones were gone and everyone blamed everyone else when the guy who took it probably slipped away. Bummer. I´m glad my purse was wedged into my armpit. Safe.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
So I am officially oriented to Nicaragua. My "test" yesterday was:
1. Go to the market and buy a chayote ("What the heck is a chayote?" you ask...it´s green and lumpy and delicious...sort of like a squash)
2. Buy a postcard at the libreria santiago
3. Go to the post office and send the post card to Canada.
4. Take a motobus to Catalina, go to El Mirador and see the site (volcano on one side, sweet lagoon on the other...it was beautiful)
5. Take a cucaracha to San Juan de Oriente (cucarachas are these little three wheeled contraptions that have a top and no sides)
6. Get yourself back home.
Sounds goofy to have a test but I guess the point is that if your group gets miserably lost, or comes back with a papaya or sends their post card to China...maybe you shouldn´t be on your own. But I PASSED, don´t worry.
This week was pretty eye opening. A girl that is staying at the house, Andrea, took us to meet a family she´s really close to. She´s actually getting an apartment around Jinotepe and looking to start a girls soccer league around here, which is great. She stayed with this family a while back, and taught english lessons out of their house. I was really overwhelmed by how kind and extraordinary this family was. They live in one of the poorer barrios, where they have to bring water from the road to their house. I guess they were some of the first people to live there, and first lived in a small wooden hut. The father is a carpenter and works with glass as well and he actually built the house they have now around the wooden hut, and then took out the hut when he was finished. It´s still small, a kitchen and two bed rooms, but it´s one of the nicer safer ones in the barrio. They were so welcoming and kind, words really can´t do them justice. Their daughter is fourteen and is a luchadora...wrestler, as are their sons and nephew. They go to all her matches and said that it´s good because it keeps her away from trouble and might get her away from the barrio, wrestlers sometimes travel around when they´re good enough. They invited us to one of her matches at the end of the month...so I think we´ll go be her cheering squad. The mother is truuuuly amazing. She went door to door in the barrio and taught the adults to read and write. She lets the kids in the barrio come to her house and have little dances, so that they´re somewhere safe. She worked in one of the sweatshops around here, testing chemicals for two years, until they found out that one of the chemicals she was testing causes cancer and asthma and other things. She has asthma and was sick for awhile and now works in a textile factory. It´s amazing...everyone here has a story. And most of them include working extremely hard for little money, sickness, sadness, hunger...and yet everyone is still so kind and proud. When we left they told us that they were our friends, and their house and family was open to us at anytime...and they were so genuine. I´m getting a little sappy here, but it´s just inspiring to meet so many people who have spirits strong enough to surpass obstacles that would break most others.
1. Go to the market and buy a chayote ("What the heck is a chayote?" you ask...it´s green and lumpy and delicious...sort of like a squash)
2. Buy a postcard at the libreria santiago
3. Go to the post office and send the post card to Canada.
4. Take a motobus to Catalina, go to El Mirador and see the site (volcano on one side, sweet lagoon on the other...it was beautiful)
5. Take a cucaracha to San Juan de Oriente (cucarachas are these little three wheeled contraptions that have a top and no sides)
6. Get yourself back home.
Sounds goofy to have a test but I guess the point is that if your group gets miserably lost, or comes back with a papaya or sends their post card to China...maybe you shouldn´t be on your own. But I PASSED, don´t worry.
This week was pretty eye opening. A girl that is staying at the house, Andrea, took us to meet a family she´s really close to. She´s actually getting an apartment around Jinotepe and looking to start a girls soccer league around here, which is great. She stayed with this family a while back, and taught english lessons out of their house. I was really overwhelmed by how kind and extraordinary this family was. They live in one of the poorer barrios, where they have to bring water from the road to their house. I guess they were some of the first people to live there, and first lived in a small wooden hut. The father is a carpenter and works with glass as well and he actually built the house they have now around the wooden hut, and then took out the hut when he was finished. It´s still small, a kitchen and two bed rooms, but it´s one of the nicer safer ones in the barrio. They were so welcoming and kind, words really can´t do them justice. Their daughter is fourteen and is a luchadora...wrestler, as are their sons and nephew. They go to all her matches and said that it´s good because it keeps her away from trouble and might get her away from the barrio, wrestlers sometimes travel around when they´re good enough. They invited us to one of her matches at the end of the month...so I think we´ll go be her cheering squad. The mother is truuuuly amazing. She went door to door in the barrio and taught the adults to read and write. She lets the kids in the barrio come to her house and have little dances, so that they´re somewhere safe. She worked in one of the sweatshops around here, testing chemicals for two years, until they found out that one of the chemicals she was testing causes cancer and asthma and other things. She has asthma and was sick for awhile and now works in a textile factory. It´s amazing...everyone here has a story. And most of them include working extremely hard for little money, sickness, sadness, hunger...and yet everyone is still so kind and proud. When we left they told us that they were our friends, and their house and family was open to us at anytime...and they were so genuine. I´m getting a little sappy here, but it´s just inspiring to meet so many people who have spirits strong enough to surpass obstacles that would break most others.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
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.
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.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
HERE!
I can´t believe I´m actually here. I don´t even know where to start. My flight and getting through the Nicaragua airport was a breeze. I was picked up by the country coordinator of my program as well as a girl Christine. Christine is the one who I´ll be replacing in Leon, with the family she stayed with and the program Las Tias that I´ll be working with. I feel so much more prepared already, but I´m thinking that the placement will be NOTHING like what I was expecting. Apparently I´ll be teaching english, and because almost all of the kids that come to the center are from the streets, attendance and attention levels are pretty horrible. Aside from that though, she said they´re a great group of kids…I´m hoping that I´ll find some way to keep them entertained enough to come more than twice a week. This girl ended up working with a Habitat for Humanity type group down there so there´s definitely tons of other stuff to get involved with. But I won´t actually be in Leon for another MONTH! I have a week of ¨orientation¨ training here in Jinotepe and then I stay for another three weeks for pure language training. I´ll be anxious to start working, I know, but I already love it here so I´m sure I´ll be fine. The town is great, so busy and colorful. The place that I´m staying is SWEET. It´s a big building, two floors. The second floor is all dorm type living, where we all sleep. The first floor has the kitchen, a few other rooms, the office etc. But there´s this big square garden in the middle…and everything is so open here that there´s no walls separating the garden from the rest of the first floor. The breeze is so nice, plus it just feels cool being able to be outside and inside at the same time.
There´s only one other person doing the orientation with me. She´s an older woman from Canada, but she´s a trip. Everyone else is younger, around my age or a little older, but she fits right in. Theres another guy staying at the center, he´s been here for four months and is working at the hospital around here. Apparently in Nicaragua you don´t need any schooling to put in IV´s or stitch people up, because that´s what he does most days. Apparently IV´s are easy, you just “stick the needle in”. I really hope I never get sick here. This house is also a hostel, so theres a group of engineers without borders people staying here, plus a few other people.
They had a welcome dinner for me and the other woman last night at this little Mexican restaurant down the road, and I think I got my first tast of how everything really works around here. We were all sitting around eating (delicious) and drinking (there are only two beers here in Nicaragua, and I´m pretty sure they fill the bottles from a keg in the back) when cops started walking in the place. There were a few outside and one starts arguing with the owner. We found out later that the cop was seeing if the owner has a permit to serve beer, and wanted a bribe to look the other way. After walking around town today and seeing cops lounging on the stairs of buildings and chewing on banana leaves, I´m starting to understand that perhaps law enforcement is not taken quite as seriously as back home.
I went over to Raquel, the in country coordinators house after dinner to hang out with Christine and Raquels sons. Her sons were all punked out and Taking Back Sunday was playing in the background while they took shots of cheap rum. I have to say, I felt like I was back in high school again.
Tomorrow starts language training, hopefully I´ll start feeling less like a useless tourist. I think maybe I was a little foolish in thinking that buying a Spanish workbook at the beginning of last semester and letting it contribute to the pyramid of unread books on my desk was going to help me out over here. I did manage to navigate through the town and make it to this internet cafe, only getting lost once, which I think is pretty fantastic. My next great adventure will be making it home.
There´s only one other person doing the orientation with me. She´s an older woman from Canada, but she´s a trip. Everyone else is younger, around my age or a little older, but she fits right in. Theres another guy staying at the center, he´s been here for four months and is working at the hospital around here. Apparently in Nicaragua you don´t need any schooling to put in IV´s or stitch people up, because that´s what he does most days. Apparently IV´s are easy, you just “stick the needle in”. I really hope I never get sick here. This house is also a hostel, so theres a group of engineers without borders people staying here, plus a few other people.
They had a welcome dinner for me and the other woman last night at this little Mexican restaurant down the road, and I think I got my first tast of how everything really works around here. We were all sitting around eating (delicious) and drinking (there are only two beers here in Nicaragua, and I´m pretty sure they fill the bottles from a keg in the back) when cops started walking in the place. There were a few outside and one starts arguing with the owner. We found out later that the cop was seeing if the owner has a permit to serve beer, and wanted a bribe to look the other way. After walking around town today and seeing cops lounging on the stairs of buildings and chewing on banana leaves, I´m starting to understand that perhaps law enforcement is not taken quite as seriously as back home.
I went over to Raquel, the in country coordinators house after dinner to hang out with Christine and Raquels sons. Her sons were all punked out and Taking Back Sunday was playing in the background while they took shots of cheap rum. I have to say, I felt like I was back in high school again.
Tomorrow starts language training, hopefully I´ll start feeling less like a useless tourist. I think maybe I was a little foolish in thinking that buying a Spanish workbook at the beginning of last semester and letting it contribute to the pyramid of unread books on my desk was going to help me out over here. I did manage to navigate through the town and make it to this internet cafe, only getting lost once, which I think is pretty fantastic. My next great adventure will be making it home.
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