October/November Fun

Blog Post

Looks like I indeed was a dirty little liar last time, I mean there was almost a Costa Rican vs. Nicaraguan war since my last post. Ok, so I was probably never in serious need of setting up my own little bomb shelter, but there was a disarming number of Nica military helicopters flying through our border town (I counted like 5 passing over during one of my classes last week) and one day all the big wig diplomats from Managua came down to make important “land” decisions that I don’t really understand. Costa Rica supposedly doesn’t even have its own military, but I guess no one here really believes that.

Actually I wasn’t even in San Carlos when that mess first started. The last Tuesday of October was spent traveling away on a boat for a little/almost 2 week work/vacay trip. Let me tell you, that boat ride is supremely better than taking the bus. In terms of quality, it’s like riding a magnificent unicorn instead of sickly old person. They had air conditioning indoors, a tv (granted it played really weird movies about like cage fighting and stuff), plenty of walk around space, a decent bathroom, and best of all places to hang hammocks. I got one just for the trip, and while the trip was a ridiculous 15 hours (2 pm Tues-5 am Wed) I spent the vast majority of it in my hammock. First on the agenda for my trip was gorgeous Grenada. If anyone is still reading my blog since I started (doubtful due to my irregular posting habits) , you might remember Grenada is where our group started out as little trainees for our first few days in Nicaragua back in May. This time me and some other volunteers were there to help with the Grenada entrepreneurship course competition. The competition went extremely well, especially this balloon arc I made that no one seemed to adequately appreciate. My voice had also decided to leave me the day of the comp, so I was walking around sounding like I had stage 4 cancer. It was still a ton of fun though, and I learned a lot of things I can help bring to the Rio San Juan competition next year. One of the judges even owned a hotel and let us swim in his gorgeous pool afterwards. A few of us stayed on in Grenada through Halloween, which left us with a few days to see the city. I bought a couple of shirts at this place for like $1.50 each, ate at Kathy’s Waffle House 3 times, and ate a burrito literally the size of my forearm. There was an exciting little Halloween party to attend Saturday where I got to see a lot of volunteers I hadn’t seen since July, living where I do, basically in Costa Rica. I dressed up as a Nica high school student. All the public school students in the country have identical uniforms and my hair was all gelled up too, since Nica teenagers must consume at least 75% of the world’s supply of hair gel.

On Sunday I stayed in Managua due to medical appointment I had Monday morning. Nothing serious, just that my skin isn’t really made to see sunlight, much less live in the tropics. I also stayed Monday night, because Nica 53’s language workshop in Jinotepe was Tuesday through Saturday morning. The workshop went well (mine level is at least good enough not be sent home! Success!), though having all that class was exhausting after months of going without. Saturday night was the big cocktail party fundraiser for the national entrepreneurship competition in Managua. Definitely, a great excuse to get all dressed up and get my dance on. Then, next thing I knew, my trip was over and had to head back and be a real volunteer again. I won’t lie, it was kind of a shock. I also again had the worst bus luck. I sat next to two different people during my 8 hour trip. Or I guess I should say 3, cause the first 2 were a mom and tiny child pair. They smelled like old fruit and the kid kept grabbing me and throwing his toys at me. After they departed, this teenager with crazy eyes sat down next me and would not stop giving me those crazy eyes throughout the whole time he was on board. Those eyes were like that blonde woman from the Real Housewives of New York level of crazy.

Anyways, the week of class when I got back felt rougher than usual to get through. Fortunately, I had the San Carlos Carnaval that took place this past weekend to look forward to. There were tons of people here and lots of arts and crafts being sold, even real life fireworks! Not just the kind with only noise like they usually use! Unfortunately, I had this really bizarre incident one night. It was the Friday the event started so things weren’t as crazy as Saturday, or so I thought. This one man decided to get super plastered by around 9pm, and he was not a friendly drunk. I was sitting there all classy and friendly at a table outside on the main street one minute talking with some of the German volunteers that live here, next thing I know everyone is jumping hurredly out of the way of this runaway fight that smacks right into our table. As some of you might know, my reflexes are not exactly cat-like. So I got up just in time to miss them knocking over my chair, then just as I was turning around to talk about how crazy that shit was, the drunker drunk decided he would rather fight me, grabbed me in a headlock from behind, took me down onto said main street and then wouldn’t let me get up. The whole time I was just yelling “Not the glasses!”, as I was almost positive Peace Corps wouldn’t pay for another pair so soon after losing the last ones. Luckily some people pulled the loon off me and I was left only with some scrapped up knees and a neck scratch. The police took the guy away and hopefully he is currently enrolled in AA, but more likely he’s passed out on the side of the road somewhere. Nicas kept coming up to me after, talking about how crazy it all was. So I guess I built up my street cred. Gotta go, I’ll do an after Thanksgiving week post though to catch you up on all the happenings. Unless I’m lying about that again, which, probably. Can’t wait for the fam to visit in just 1 month!!!