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!!!
Monday, November 15, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Opps, I’m getting worse and worse about updating on here. First, I want to give a shout out to the thoughtful people from whom I’ve received packages this month. My fantastic friends Shelby and Claire for the dance music, skittles, and the high class musings of gossip magazines. You two are the best. Also to Lucy Bailey. You really went above and beyond, completely raised the bar on package quality! And of course Mom and Katy! Mom, you always keep me so well-supplied up here. Katy, I promise I’m sending you a letter back tomorrow, this time for reals! Thanks to everyone, you’re making my site mate super jealous!
So just a glimpse back at the month. The San Carlos fiestas were in full swing a couple of weeks back. It’s a pretty big deal here. The celebration is essentially for Nicaragua’s Independence Day, but San Carlos also holds a big 3-day fishing tournament with competitors from around the globe. Ok, mostly just Costa Rica, but still, big deal. There was no class for the week and they set up a big stage and a bunch of tents downtown with all these food and beverage vendors. The winning fish of the tournament was 140 pds, which I didn’t see, but that sounds enormous. That’s within 10 pds of my senior year of high school weight…Ah, the skinny years. We also went to this beauty pageant/drag show called Miss Diversidad. There was a regular beauty pageant too, but the competitors were like 11, and I get creeped out by pageant children, unless they’re on TLC. So I didn’t go to that one. Anyways, the drag show was pretty amazing if only for the fact that it was in Nicaragua. Only a few cities in this country would have something like that. Yeah, there were only 4 or 5 competitors and the whole thing was a little poorly produced (whoever was in charge clearly lacked the ability to wrangle some trannies, turnover time was quite glacial), but I was impressed by the turnout, very much a family event judging by the crowd. Me and my site mates also got fake trashy tattoos, Myrtle Beach style. They were pretty hot. I got a heart with an arrow through it on my bicep. Feel free to take a moment to fan yourselves. It was literally done with some type of spray paint and stencil. Drag shows and spray paint tattoos, only the highest class for San Carlos!
Also of note, been to Juigalpa twice since my last post. Juigalpa is bigger and has more stuff than San Carlos, but is a bit closer than Managua, though still far enough that we get to spend the night. The first time I went there to pick up my new glasses. They’re blue and very chic…or kind of ugly, I can’t decide. The second trip was for a Peace Corps regional safety and security meeting. Since, our region only has about 8 volunteers, some of whom were on vacation, they decided to combine our region with others and have our meeting in Juigalpa. It was fun, we got pizza and went to this bizarre museum with mutated preserved animals and a Cyclops baby in formaldehyde. Seriously, that baby and his one eye still haunts me.
Friday was also very sensational. Me and my site mate had a wine, cheese, and Glee night here in my room. I had these delicious great cheeses that you can’t get here (thanks entirely to Lucy Bailey), crackers, this boxed wine that you can only get at one place here in San Carlos that is probably pretty shitty but tastes great when you haven’t had wine in forever, and we watched the last few episodes of Glee’s first season and the first two of this season! They took hours and hours the week before to download with the awful internet here, but so worth it. I guess I’m late on this, but Britney+Glee=Dreams Really do Come True. Such a great low key night. Signing off for now, the rain is ridiculous, which means my room is almost certainly flooded, so I should leave. I’ll try to post again in a couple of weeks, but I’m a liar about this, so who knows.
So just a glimpse back at the month. The San Carlos fiestas were in full swing a couple of weeks back. It’s a pretty big deal here. The celebration is essentially for Nicaragua’s Independence Day, but San Carlos also holds a big 3-day fishing tournament with competitors from around the globe. Ok, mostly just Costa Rica, but still, big deal. There was no class for the week and they set up a big stage and a bunch of tents downtown with all these food and beverage vendors. The winning fish of the tournament was 140 pds, which I didn’t see, but that sounds enormous. That’s within 10 pds of my senior year of high school weight…Ah, the skinny years. We also went to this beauty pageant/drag show called Miss Diversidad. There was a regular beauty pageant too, but the competitors were like 11, and I get creeped out by pageant children, unless they’re on TLC. So I didn’t go to that one. Anyways, the drag show was pretty amazing if only for the fact that it was in Nicaragua. Only a few cities in this country would have something like that. Yeah, there were only 4 or 5 competitors and the whole thing was a little poorly produced (whoever was in charge clearly lacked the ability to wrangle some trannies, turnover time was quite glacial), but I was impressed by the turnout, very much a family event judging by the crowd. Me and my site mates also got fake trashy tattoos, Myrtle Beach style. They were pretty hot. I got a heart with an arrow through it on my bicep. Feel free to take a moment to fan yourselves. It was literally done with some type of spray paint and stencil. Drag shows and spray paint tattoos, only the highest class for San Carlos!
Also of note, been to Juigalpa twice since my last post. Juigalpa is bigger and has more stuff than San Carlos, but is a bit closer than Managua, though still far enough that we get to spend the night. The first time I went there to pick up my new glasses. They’re blue and very chic…or kind of ugly, I can’t decide. The second trip was for a Peace Corps regional safety and security meeting. Since, our region only has about 8 volunteers, some of whom were on vacation, they decided to combine our region with others and have our meeting in Juigalpa. It was fun, we got pizza and went to this bizarre museum with mutated preserved animals and a Cyclops baby in formaldehyde. Seriously, that baby and his one eye still haunts me.
Friday was also very sensational. Me and my site mate had a wine, cheese, and Glee night here in my room. I had these delicious great cheeses that you can’t get here (thanks entirely to Lucy Bailey), crackers, this boxed wine that you can only get at one place here in San Carlos that is probably pretty shitty but tastes great when you haven’t had wine in forever, and we watched the last few episodes of Glee’s first season and the first two of this season! They took hours and hours the week before to download with the awful internet here, but so worth it. I guess I’m late on this, but Britney+Glee=Dreams Really do Come True. Such a great low key night. Signing off for now, the rain is ridiculous, which means my room is almost certainly flooded, so I should leave. I’ll try to post again in a couple of weeks, but I’m a liar about this, so who knows.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
It's September Already?
You know how in my last post I totally said how awful the night bus in Rio San Juan is and how never to ride it? Well, I’m either a hypocrite or a glutton for punishment, probably both. Since my last post, I’ve rode the night bus twice, TWICE! Both to and from Managua last week. Why, may you ask, did I need to take a 9 hour trip to Managua last week? Probably due to the fact that my glasses seem to be a magnet for bizarre accidents. Some of you may remember how I lost my first pair of glasses here in an unfortunate bus incident. We’ll call it the Great Glass Bus Incident of 2010. The losing of the second pair was certainly more my fault. I was walking back one night from downtown where I helped this lady who runs a center for women translate a document for USAID, but enough about my saintliness, so on my way back it started faintly sprinkling and I picked up the pace a bit. Suddenly, it just started pouring and I couldn’t see a thing with my glasses on, so I put them in my pocket and started to run. When I got under some cover I checked my pockets to make sure everything was there…and not so much. My glasses were AWOL, unfortunately at this point I had covered over 2 blocks running, it was pitch black, and still pouring down rain. There I was vision impaired and all trying to search the ground with my crappy phone flashlight in the rain for an hour. Needless to say, the search was fruitless. I even got my site mate Jess to give me some backup, but still nada. I looked again the next morning, but at this point I pretty much knew I was going to have to call the PC med staff. They told me I was going to have to travel to Managua to get my prescription filled and they would put me up in a hotel for the night. Since I was traveling all the way there, I figured I might as well spend as much time in air-conditioned bliss as possible, so I went on the dreaded night bus yet again to get in around 5 in the morning in Managua.
This time though, I decided to follow 30 Rock’s advice and traveled under the influence of medication. There was no Oprah, but the trip was a bit more pleasant. Managua was a great treat. My appointments only took an hour or so, and I was a bit nauseous the morning I was supposed to leave, blessing in disguise, they let me stay another night! I even got to go see Inception (so much tension, so good!). All in all, really nice trip. The way back was still medicated, but much stranger. There were little Tvs, so I got really excited. I can’t accurately describe the movie that followed, since I was in and out in my haze, but it seemed to be some sort of 3 hour early 80’s Mexican murder mystery musical. I guess the bus people figured they couldn’t top that, so it was the only movie during the 9 hour trip, but somewhere around hour 8, I hear some pop and metal grinding sound and the bus just stops. I took a 5pm bus, so it was sometime after 1 at this point, and the people start getting off and the bus driver starts getting out tools, and people starting talking about maybe sleeping there. We were in the middle of nowhere, at this point my mosquito spray had run out, and I almost started crying. After about half an hour, I literally started calculating if I could walk it back. Clearly an hour in bus even on that shitty road would still be like a 4 hour walk in the middle of the night, but in my desperation it was starting to sound doable. I was about at the point were I was calculating if I jogged some of it that thank Sweet Mother Jesus they fixed the bus! The rest of my last week was fairly uneventful. I had my site visit from my boss before I left for Managua and I think finally got my schedule fixed! My classes this week haven’t been superb or anything, but they’ve happened!
Things on my mind/minor bitch session “They” (the government, power company, I dunno) really need to get their shit together down here in San Carlos with the electricity issue. It goes out almost daily for indeterminate amounts of time, which isn’t always so bad, but Sunday/Monday it was out for over 48 full hours. The worst part is that when there is no electricity there is no water here. They generally only get water a couple hours a day anyways and fill up big buckets that we use for showers/dishes/laundry etc., but that ran out and I couldn’t take a shower for awhile, the dishes also started piling up. Not to mention it makes nights pretty boring, basically I sat around with my site mate in the dark till 8 and then went to bed both nights. The street in front of my house is also still under construction. This is the same street that was under construction during my site visit over a month ago, it’s not a very big street. In fact, they actually finished 2/3 of the street a couple weeks ago making it to about right in front of my house. Then, they stopped, and decided to start on another street. They just started working on our street again yesterday. There is still an issue with the dogs and dog shit everywhere, the roam the streets freely and wildly. I just know one day they’re going to turn all “The Birds” on our asses. Seriously, it’s like Bob Barker’s worst nightmare down here. Dogs just go around humping each other all over the place! Another ongoing problem is the trash issue, especially along the highway, people just straight up toss trash out the window. There is a great need for Captain Planet in Nicaragua. Either the real thing, or the animated recreations of his struggle against pollution. I’ll even volunteer myself to be one of the Planeteers (I was always partial Fire, but I’m flexible, just don’t give me Heart, that shit is weak).
Also of note, one of the classes I teach is literally held in a shed. The school has four classrooms, but apparently needs 5, therefore me and my counterpart are in a shed with no walls save for half a sheet of tin they put the whiteboard on and dirt floors. I was fumigated today as well. One minute my host mom was warns me that the men are coming to spray for bugs, so I go to get my money, not the best move in hindsight, cause next thing I know a man with what looks like a leaf blower and a mask comes in and fumes are everywhere, I got out as fast as I could, but those guys don’t mess around. The whole neighborhood was out in the street and everyone’s houses looked like they were on fire for 15 minutes or so. Anyways, besides the cancer I’ll be getting from that, I’m doing great overall. I need to start an exercise and Spanish studying routine, for reals I’ve gained pretty much all my weight back, damn you carbs and comedor lady down the street who serves so much deliciousness! I’ll keep ya’ll posted on my progress. Oh, and shout out to mom, dad, and Katy for the package/letter/cash, ya’ll are the best! I hope everyone back in the States had a great summer! I know I did! Oh wait, it’s not even the warm season here yet, I have to wait till November for that! Also I've had no luck putting pictures on here since May, it just isn't happening, so sometime in the near future I'll make a facebook album and make it public.
This time though, I decided to follow 30 Rock’s advice and traveled under the influence of medication. There was no Oprah, but the trip was a bit more pleasant. Managua was a great treat. My appointments only took an hour or so, and I was a bit nauseous the morning I was supposed to leave, blessing in disguise, they let me stay another night! I even got to go see Inception (so much tension, so good!). All in all, really nice trip. The way back was still medicated, but much stranger. There were little Tvs, so I got really excited. I can’t accurately describe the movie that followed, since I was in and out in my haze, but it seemed to be some sort of 3 hour early 80’s Mexican murder mystery musical. I guess the bus people figured they couldn’t top that, so it was the only movie during the 9 hour trip, but somewhere around hour 8, I hear some pop and metal grinding sound and the bus just stops. I took a 5pm bus, so it was sometime after 1 at this point, and the people start getting off and the bus driver starts getting out tools, and people starting talking about maybe sleeping there. We were in the middle of nowhere, at this point my mosquito spray had run out, and I almost started crying. After about half an hour, I literally started calculating if I could walk it back. Clearly an hour in bus even on that shitty road would still be like a 4 hour walk in the middle of the night, but in my desperation it was starting to sound doable. I was about at the point were I was calculating if I jogged some of it that thank Sweet Mother Jesus they fixed the bus! The rest of my last week was fairly uneventful. I had my site visit from my boss before I left for Managua and I think finally got my schedule fixed! My classes this week haven’t been superb or anything, but they’ve happened!
Things on my mind/minor bitch session “They” (the government, power company, I dunno) really need to get their shit together down here in San Carlos with the electricity issue. It goes out almost daily for indeterminate amounts of time, which isn’t always so bad, but Sunday/Monday it was out for over 48 full hours. The worst part is that when there is no electricity there is no water here. They generally only get water a couple hours a day anyways and fill up big buckets that we use for showers/dishes/laundry etc., but that ran out and I couldn’t take a shower for awhile, the dishes also started piling up. Not to mention it makes nights pretty boring, basically I sat around with my site mate in the dark till 8 and then went to bed both nights. The street in front of my house is also still under construction. This is the same street that was under construction during my site visit over a month ago, it’s not a very big street. In fact, they actually finished 2/3 of the street a couple weeks ago making it to about right in front of my house. Then, they stopped, and decided to start on another street. They just started working on our street again yesterday. There is still an issue with the dogs and dog shit everywhere, the roam the streets freely and wildly. I just know one day they’re going to turn all “The Birds” on our asses. Seriously, it’s like Bob Barker’s worst nightmare down here. Dogs just go around humping each other all over the place! Another ongoing problem is the trash issue, especially along the highway, people just straight up toss trash out the window. There is a great need for Captain Planet in Nicaragua. Either the real thing, or the animated recreations of his struggle against pollution. I’ll even volunteer myself to be one of the Planeteers (I was always partial Fire, but I’m flexible, just don’t give me Heart, that shit is weak).
Also of note, one of the classes I teach is literally held in a shed. The school has four classrooms, but apparently needs 5, therefore me and my counterpart are in a shed with no walls save for half a sheet of tin they put the whiteboard on and dirt floors. I was fumigated today as well. One minute my host mom was warns me that the men are coming to spray for bugs, so I go to get my money, not the best move in hindsight, cause next thing I know a man with what looks like a leaf blower and a mask comes in and fumes are everywhere, I got out as fast as I could, but those guys don’t mess around. The whole neighborhood was out in the street and everyone’s houses looked like they were on fire for 15 minutes or so. Anyways, besides the cancer I’ll be getting from that, I’m doing great overall. I need to start an exercise and Spanish studying routine, for reals I’ve gained pretty much all my weight back, damn you carbs and comedor lady down the street who serves so much deliciousness! I’ll keep ya’ll posted on my progress. Oh, and shout out to mom, dad, and Katy for the package/letter/cash, ya’ll are the best! I hope everyone back in the States had a great summer! I know I did! Oh wait, it’s not even the warm season here yet, I have to wait till November for that! Also I've had no luck putting pictures on here since May, it just isn't happening, so sometime in the near future I'll make a facebook album and make it public.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Site Report
Da na na na na na na na, Nicaraguan Night Bus! That ladies and gents needs to be the theme of ABC’s next big primetime dramedy. Starring that kooky former child-molester bus driver, the tell it like it is probably always drunk guy who seems to be a bus employee yet does nothing but lie down in different seats at random, and of course the sassy mom that thinks taking a 2ish year old on an overnight bus/breast-feeding on said bus is a quality idea. Guest starring the scared gringo who refuses to leave his seat at pit stops and strangely finds it hard to sleep while being tossed around like a rag doll and having rain constantly flying into his face. Ok, so it would probably be cancelled mid-season after failing to break out of its target audience of those 33-35 year- olds that prefer watching primetime TV under the influence of a bottle of pinot, but what a half season it would be!
No, but really, next time someone suggests that you take a night bus to Rio San Juan, don’t even answer, just walk away. Granted lugging like 3 big bags around half of Masaya than Managua beforehand didn’t exactly help matters. I made the cab driver in Managua give me his ID and then did this big show of making a fake phone call in Spanish and reading it to the fake person. Now it would have been safer to actually call someone, but who has the minutes these days! The bus from Managua to San Carlos left Managua at about 6:30PM and arrived around 3:30AM, and of course upon arrival I preceded to step in a bunch of mud, so my arrival at site wasn’t exactly glamorous. I was also too tired to really set up my mosquito net, basically I just threw it over myself and passed out. The next day though, was gorgeous, almost made taking the night bus worth it. I met my other site mate from health, Tucker, and another volunteer who lives pretty close, and we all went to this pretty lake/river lodge place to do a bit of swimming, sunning, and talking. The current was a bit strong and I got a bit paranoid of potential alligator attacks, but still a great time. Later that night we went to this “show”, but we had no idea what the “show” was. It was in their rec center thing and people were sitting there waiting so we just sat there, finally Poker Face came on and maybe 3 girls did this poor model strut (Tyra would not have been impressed) and then it was over. I’m guessing something came sometime after, but we weren’t holding our breath that it would get any better so we peaced. After that I got to know a touch of the real San Carlos night scene, the options are a touch limited by US standards, but the people love to dance!
The rest of the week was a big sloppy mess of scheduling. I tried to go to my classes Monday, and school was cancelled. Tuesday my class time had been changed and no one told me, so missed it. Wednesday, class at a different school was cancelled. Friday, my counterpart was sick. Thursday was really my only successful day. I actually attended a class and got some of my schedule worked out for this week, or so I hope. I also tried to make it really clear to all my counterparts that if there’s no school, please call me so I don’t have to take an hour bus ride for nothing. Not sure the message sunk in, but after a few more wasted bus trips and repetitions of this conversation, I’m confident progress will be made. There’s also 2 classes that are still currently scheduled for times I can’t attend, but again, progress!
The part of my week that wasn’t wasted going to classes that weren’t happening, was spent shopping in the market for essentials and just getting to know the city. Though, part of my shopping trip was for naught as the bread I bought and thought was bagged up well got attacked by swarms of ants in my prison cell that apparently also has a bug problem. Last Tuesday we had our regional meeting with all the volunteers from Rio San Juan to discuss important regional things. The meeting itself was pretty short and there aren’t actually that many volunteers in the Rio San Juan region (only the best), but it was a great chance to get to know who was in the area and to get PC to pay for part of our meal! There’s also an apparent bug swarm that comes randomly to San Carlos and other cities along the lake in the winter (this is their winter now). It’s like the plague coming in, one minute nothing, next minute thousands of these little gross flying bugs. They don’t bite or anything, but still, it’s gross. So leaving you on that pleasant note, I’m off to get ready for what I hope is class! Oh, here is my mailing address if anyone wants to send me something special (no pressure, I’m not living in poverty in a 3rd world country or anything), but just in case.
Apartado Postal #5
San Carlos, Rio San Juan
Nicaragua, Central America
You can send letters (love or other kinds), packages (kind of expensive, but…you know I´m worth it, I would suggest those big padded envelopes and make sure you value it low, like lower than 5 dollars, or I’ll have to pay for it anyways.) Things I wouldn’t mind if you feel an undeniable urge: books (used, I can even bring them back eventually), pirated tv shows or music, olive oil, skittles (ok, olive oil is ridiculous and I know nobody would it them, but I do miss it so). Seriously though, I don’t expect anyone to send anything (except you mom, your not getting off the hook), but if you did that’s how you send it. Until next time sweeties, think of me when you smell deet, it’s my constant odor these days.
No, but really, next time someone suggests that you take a night bus to Rio San Juan, don’t even answer, just walk away. Granted lugging like 3 big bags around half of Masaya than Managua beforehand didn’t exactly help matters. I made the cab driver in Managua give me his ID and then did this big show of making a fake phone call in Spanish and reading it to the fake person. Now it would have been safer to actually call someone, but who has the minutes these days! The bus from Managua to San Carlos left Managua at about 6:30PM and arrived around 3:30AM, and of course upon arrival I preceded to step in a bunch of mud, so my arrival at site wasn’t exactly glamorous. I was also too tired to really set up my mosquito net, basically I just threw it over myself and passed out. The next day though, was gorgeous, almost made taking the night bus worth it. I met my other site mate from health, Tucker, and another volunteer who lives pretty close, and we all went to this pretty lake/river lodge place to do a bit of swimming, sunning, and talking. The current was a bit strong and I got a bit paranoid of potential alligator attacks, but still a great time. Later that night we went to this “show”, but we had no idea what the “show” was. It was in their rec center thing and people were sitting there waiting so we just sat there, finally Poker Face came on and maybe 3 girls did this poor model strut (Tyra would not have been impressed) and then it was over. I’m guessing something came sometime after, but we weren’t holding our breath that it would get any better so we peaced. After that I got to know a touch of the real San Carlos night scene, the options are a touch limited by US standards, but the people love to dance!
The rest of the week was a big sloppy mess of scheduling. I tried to go to my classes Monday, and school was cancelled. Tuesday my class time had been changed and no one told me, so missed it. Wednesday, class at a different school was cancelled. Friday, my counterpart was sick. Thursday was really my only successful day. I actually attended a class and got some of my schedule worked out for this week, or so I hope. I also tried to make it really clear to all my counterparts that if there’s no school, please call me so I don’t have to take an hour bus ride for nothing. Not sure the message sunk in, but after a few more wasted bus trips and repetitions of this conversation, I’m confident progress will be made. There’s also 2 classes that are still currently scheduled for times I can’t attend, but again, progress!
The part of my week that wasn’t wasted going to classes that weren’t happening, was spent shopping in the market for essentials and just getting to know the city. Though, part of my shopping trip was for naught as the bread I bought and thought was bagged up well got attacked by swarms of ants in my prison cell that apparently also has a bug problem. Last Tuesday we had our regional meeting with all the volunteers from Rio San Juan to discuss important regional things. The meeting itself was pretty short and there aren’t actually that many volunteers in the Rio San Juan region (only the best), but it was a great chance to get to know who was in the area and to get PC to pay for part of our meal! There’s also an apparent bug swarm that comes randomly to San Carlos and other cities along the lake in the winter (this is their winter now). It’s like the plague coming in, one minute nothing, next minute thousands of these little gross flying bugs. They don’t bite or anything, but still, it’s gross. So leaving you on that pleasant note, I’m off to get ready for what I hope is class! Oh, here is my mailing address if anyone wants to send me something special (no pressure, I’m not living in poverty in a 3rd world country or anything), but just in case.
Apartado Postal #5
San Carlos, Rio San Juan
Nicaragua, Central America
You can send letters (love or other kinds), packages (kind of expensive, but…you know I´m worth it, I would suggest those big padded envelopes and make sure you value it low, like lower than 5 dollars, or I’ll have to pay for it anyways.) Things I wouldn’t mind if you feel an undeniable urge: books (used, I can even bring them back eventually), pirated tv shows or music, olive oil, skittles (ok, olive oil is ridiculous and I know nobody would it them, but I do miss it so). Seriously though, I don’t expect anyone to send anything (except you mom, your not getting off the hook), but if you did that’s how you send it. Until next time sweeties, think of me when you smell deet, it’s my constant odor these days.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Week 10/11
I’m a real volunteer! (To be said in your best Pinocchio voice) Yep, that’s right, they can’t take it back now, I’ve been sworn in as a volunteer. To get to fun times Managua week though, I had to make it through poopy hell week first. It basically went: take language test, give presentation, teach class, write paper, prepare your youth group for presentation, write another paper. Major flashback to college exam week, minus the coffee breaks, 10 packs of cigarettes, nightly waffle house trips, and dance party study breaks. Man, I miss college. Anyway, it was pretty awful, especially the class I had to give that Thursday. The location changed last minute and it went from supposedly teaching a class of 20 Nicaraguan senior year private school students, to wrangling over 50 Nicaraguan freshman year public school kids. Not only were these kids the completely wrong age for the material, but I had totally not prepared for a class that size. I ran out of materials and the class next door was so loud I had to scream like a crazy person just to be heard.
But if week 10 was like an exam week, week 11 would be the equivalent of beach week…without the actual beach…and with a whole day of AIDS lectures, who cares, it was magical. There were places in Managua with automatically flushing toilets, not many, but still, I felt like I was in a strange future world. We had our youth group competition Monday last week. Good times, I mean we lost and all, but the kids did a swell job and it was really fascinating seeing all of the finished products of each group. The competition was held at this odd mini-resort/restaurant/discoteca (I mean, why not?, right) so after the youth groups left we all got to have a few beers and go swimming. Tuesday we headed off for Managua and got to stay in a hotel for the whole week! With air conditioning! A pool! And hot showers! There was eating out! Italian! Sushi! McDonalds! God if there had only been a Bojangles. Get your asses out here, Bojangles! I basically had reverse culture shock, got a sunburn, and gained 10 pounds. It was fabulous. We visited the embassy again Thursday and actually got to meet the Ambassador this time. We had to address him as Mr. Ambassador, it gave me a weird thrill. Oh, and one of the embassy employees dropped this bit of information “Part of my job is to visit American citizens in Nicaraguan prisons, like the serial killers caught last week.” Just all casual like. None of us had heard of American serial killers loose in Nicaragua, and we were all like, say what! She went on “You would never know they were serial killers from looking at them.” Look at a picture of them right now online and tell me those people don’t look like serial killers. I mean I guess they could be covered in blood wearing a sign that says “I collect human hands” or something.
Friday was the actual swearing in ceremony at this really fancy hotel that we didn’t actually get to stay at, but trust me, it was fancy. There was this really awkward part though where they called all the families up with the trainees to give them diplomas in front of everyone. Well mine and a few other trainees families didn’t show and we had to walk up there alone while the lady in charge of training goes “Oh, I’ll be your mom.” And most of us sat at this orphan table. Just another day in the life of me. Everyone went out Friday night to do some serious dancing. Sunday was kind of a downer though, they kicked us out of the hotel and most people had to head to their sites in all different corners of Nicaragua. Me and 8 others in the lower language groups are staying behind this week for “special” attention.
Although awkward family moment #2 in one week is why I’m now actually living in Catarina. So I went back to my San Juan house Sunday and everything seemed normal, but then Monday morning I sat around 20 min waiting on my teacher to come. Finally, I called someone in the office and they basically said someone really should have told you that your not supposed to be staying there anymore, your now living and having class in Catarina. Pretty much my host mom declined to keep me an extra week and no one told me and I guess my family was too non-confrontational to kick me out Sunday. Then, I had to pack all my stuff up, which is a lot, and drag my ass to Catarina at 9 in the morning. There are more roaches in my new house, but it’s closer to ice cream and she serves me cake for dinner, so….even. Either way, it’s only for a week, cause I’m headed off to San Carlos on Saturday! I’ll probably be expressed kidnapped on my journey, but I’ll make it one way or another. At site I should theoretically have a more relaxed schedule, so posting should become regular, we shall see, since I’m also planning on re-starting my workout program, which will surely be very time consuming. What with all that sitting around thinking about working out and such. Till next time, go dance in the rain, I did it this week a bit, cures all troubles.
I’m a real volunteer! (To be said in your best Pinocchio voice) Yep, that’s right, they can’t take it back now, I’ve been sworn in as a volunteer. To get to fun times Managua week though, I had to make it through poopy hell week first. It basically went: take language test, give presentation, teach class, write paper, prepare your youth group for presentation, write another paper. Major flashback to college exam week, minus the coffee breaks, 10 packs of cigarettes, nightly waffle house trips, and dance party study breaks. Man, I miss college. Anyway, it was pretty awful, especially the class I had to give that Thursday. The location changed last minute and it went from supposedly teaching a class of 20 Nicaraguan senior year private school students, to wrangling over 50 Nicaraguan freshman year public school kids. Not only were these kids the completely wrong age for the material, but I had totally not prepared for a class that size. I ran out of materials and the class next door was so loud I had to scream like a crazy person just to be heard.
But if week 10 was like an exam week, week 11 would be the equivalent of beach week…without the actual beach…and with a whole day of AIDS lectures, who cares, it was magical. There were places in Managua with automatically flushing toilets, not many, but still, I felt like I was in a strange future world. We had our youth group competition Monday last week. Good times, I mean we lost and all, but the kids did a swell job and it was really fascinating seeing all of the finished products of each group. The competition was held at this odd mini-resort/restaurant/discoteca (I mean, why not?, right) so after the youth groups left we all got to have a few beers and go swimming. Tuesday we headed off for Managua and got to stay in a hotel for the whole week! With air conditioning! A pool! And hot showers! There was eating out! Italian! Sushi! McDonalds! God if there had only been a Bojangles. Get your asses out here, Bojangles! I basically had reverse culture shock, got a sunburn, and gained 10 pounds. It was fabulous. We visited the embassy again Thursday and actually got to meet the Ambassador this time. We had to address him as Mr. Ambassador, it gave me a weird thrill. Oh, and one of the embassy employees dropped this bit of information “Part of my job is to visit American citizens in Nicaraguan prisons, like the serial killers caught last week.” Just all casual like. None of us had heard of American serial killers loose in Nicaragua, and we were all like, say what! She went on “You would never know they were serial killers from looking at them.” Look at a picture of them right now online and tell me those people don’t look like serial killers. I mean I guess they could be covered in blood wearing a sign that says “I collect human hands” or something.
Friday was the actual swearing in ceremony at this really fancy hotel that we didn’t actually get to stay at, but trust me, it was fancy. There was this really awkward part though where they called all the families up with the trainees to give them diplomas in front of everyone. Well mine and a few other trainees families didn’t show and we had to walk up there alone while the lady in charge of training goes “Oh, I’ll be your mom.” And most of us sat at this orphan table. Just another day in the life of me. Everyone went out Friday night to do some serious dancing. Sunday was kind of a downer though, they kicked us out of the hotel and most people had to head to their sites in all different corners of Nicaragua. Me and 8 others in the lower language groups are staying behind this week for “special” attention.
Although awkward family moment #2 in one week is why I’m now actually living in Catarina. So I went back to my San Juan house Sunday and everything seemed normal, but then Monday morning I sat around 20 min waiting on my teacher to come. Finally, I called someone in the office and they basically said someone really should have told you that your not supposed to be staying there anymore, your now living and having class in Catarina. Pretty much my host mom declined to keep me an extra week and no one told me and I guess my family was too non-confrontational to kick me out Sunday. Then, I had to pack all my stuff up, which is a lot, and drag my ass to Catarina at 9 in the morning. There are more roaches in my new house, but it’s closer to ice cream and she serves me cake for dinner, so….even. Either way, it’s only for a week, cause I’m headed off to San Carlos on Saturday! I’ll probably be expressed kidnapped on my journey, but I’ll make it one way or another. At site I should theoretically have a more relaxed schedule, so posting should become regular, we shall see, since I’m also planning on re-starting my workout program, which will surely be very time consuming. What with all that sitting around thinking about working out and such. Till next time, go dance in the rain, I did it this week a bit, cures all troubles.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Site Visit Week!
Week 9
Last week basically started out with this super long day called “Counterpart Day”, where everyone meets all their counterparts in Managua and everyone is orientated into how they are supposed to work together in the future. This is a bit deceptive though, since our real counterparts are going to be the teachers we teach our classes with, yet the people we met with for the most part were the principals of the schools where we were going to teach. It’s odd, because while we do need to be on these peoples’ good sides and will need to touch base with them from time to time, they really aren’t going to be a huge part of lives in site. Unless of course, they too become regulars of the local discoteca. Also, they put pictures of us on this overhead projector, and the one they keep using of me for things like this literally looks like I was just the victim of some brutal sexual assault or something. It’s disgusting. I think I had just finished taking my first language interview when the photo was snapped. Anyway, so the whole day was a touch awkward as we trainees had been instructed to speak only Spanish and “mingle” during the day. As some of you might know, my mingling with strangers skills leave something to be desired even in English. The only new people I ever meet at parties are the ones that hit up the bar/food area with a tenacity like yours truly. Besides my social awkwardness, I also had to deal with having 5 counterparts to corral. Most had 2-3, lucky me. Our hour-long planning session for my site visit and first month in site turned into a straight up hot mess. They pretty much wanted to talk about anything but. Whatever, I figured who would know the difference (Jesus).
One of the very few things we did decide was to meet in the hotel lobby at 6a.m. to travel back to San Carlos together. Unfortunately, my counterparts strolled down around 6:50 and we completely missed our bus. Oh, Nica time. The journey there takes about 8-9 hours in bus and let me tell you, it feels like it. For the last 4ish hours of the trip they’re doing extensive construction on the road and it literally feels like your on one of those horrid fair rides that just shakes and throws you around till you want to throw up. Good times. The worst part was that me and Jess had to take the same trip back Friday morning. That is one trip that should never be taken twice in one week. If anyone ever visits me (bitches betta!), I suggest coming up through Costa Rica, or waiting at least 6ish months for the road to be fixed. Moving on, after arriving around dinner time Tuesday, I met my new fam! It’s really a change of pace from the family I have now in SJdO. Instead of having 2 housemates and a worker woman, I have like 8 housemates, most of them not even family, and a German. It’ll be like living in a hostel. My new room frankly reminds me a bit of a jail cell. The only items of furniture are a small bed and a stool, the walls and everything are gray concrete, and the only window is so high you can only see the sky. I’ll have to make myself a real life shank for the yard and be sure to keep my guard up in the showers. I can feel you peoples’ jealousy from here! They are also doing construction on the street literally right in front of my house, so clearly the only option was to walk straight out the first night and fall into a large hole. At least my neighbor got a solid laugh out of it.
The rest of my trip was a whirl of busyness. I had to visit all of my schools and meet with all of my future co teachers to kind of plan out when our classes and planning sessions will be the first month. My schedule is a bit of disaster right now, seeing as I have 3-4 days a week where I do little to nothing and 3 other days where I won’t have time to eat. There’s also a potential problem where I have to teach classes at some of my schools that are in other nearby communities that don’t end until after the last bus leaves. My counterparts did indeed agree that yes, this was a problem, yet were pretty okay with not fixing it. So guess I’ll be spending a few nights a week sleeping in the trees with my monkey friends. At one school where I have two counterparts, the principal had my two teachers sit at opposite sides of the room, then told me to plan with them. So I was literally walking back and forth across the room trying to coordinate their schedules and they totally were not into the idea of moving some chairs around. It was more than a bit awkward being presented at my schools to the students as well. At one school I was presented around class to class and asked to say something to each class. This led to me giving an identical 2 minute speech about 10 times that always seemed to end with me apologizing for my shitty Spanish. At another school they brought each class individually into a room where they told me to sit in a chair and receive the standing students like I was some kind of elderly visiting royalty. This appealed a bit more to my vanity. My third school made all the students come into one big room and the director gave me this grand introduction, before asking me on the spot to give a speech about why entrepreneurship is important. The final school was having this big Day of the Flag celebration during my visit and after all the kids and teachers sang the Nicaraguan national anthem the principal basically goes, and here is a North American to say a few words. Which, if you know anything about Nicaraguan/U.S. relations historically, is more than a bit ironic.
If this post sounds a dash testier than my usual, it’s probably cause this current week is hellacious. I would kind of compare it to exam week in college. We have a bunch of presentations and papers due and I have to teach a class Thursday for an hour and a half. I did get to hear the Ghostbusters’ theme song on a bus the other day, so, feeling pretty solid. I’ll be writing to you good people again on the other end of this nightmare week, wish me luck, and hug a blonde, we’re worth it!
Last week basically started out with this super long day called “Counterpart Day”, where everyone meets all their counterparts in Managua and everyone is orientated into how they are supposed to work together in the future. This is a bit deceptive though, since our real counterparts are going to be the teachers we teach our classes with, yet the people we met with for the most part were the principals of the schools where we were going to teach. It’s odd, because while we do need to be on these peoples’ good sides and will need to touch base with them from time to time, they really aren’t going to be a huge part of lives in site. Unless of course, they too become regulars of the local discoteca. Also, they put pictures of us on this overhead projector, and the one they keep using of me for things like this literally looks like I was just the victim of some brutal sexual assault or something. It’s disgusting. I think I had just finished taking my first language interview when the photo was snapped. Anyway, so the whole day was a touch awkward as we trainees had been instructed to speak only Spanish and “mingle” during the day. As some of you might know, my mingling with strangers skills leave something to be desired even in English. The only new people I ever meet at parties are the ones that hit up the bar/food area with a tenacity like yours truly. Besides my social awkwardness, I also had to deal with having 5 counterparts to corral. Most had 2-3, lucky me. Our hour-long planning session for my site visit and first month in site turned into a straight up hot mess. They pretty much wanted to talk about anything but. Whatever, I figured who would know the difference (Jesus).
One of the very few things we did decide was to meet in the hotel lobby at 6a.m. to travel back to San Carlos together. Unfortunately, my counterparts strolled down around 6:50 and we completely missed our bus. Oh, Nica time. The journey there takes about 8-9 hours in bus and let me tell you, it feels like it. For the last 4ish hours of the trip they’re doing extensive construction on the road and it literally feels like your on one of those horrid fair rides that just shakes and throws you around till you want to throw up. Good times. The worst part was that me and Jess had to take the same trip back Friday morning. That is one trip that should never be taken twice in one week. If anyone ever visits me (bitches betta!), I suggest coming up through Costa Rica, or waiting at least 6ish months for the road to be fixed. Moving on, after arriving around dinner time Tuesday, I met my new fam! It’s really a change of pace from the family I have now in SJdO. Instead of having 2 housemates and a worker woman, I have like 8 housemates, most of them not even family, and a German. It’ll be like living in a hostel. My new room frankly reminds me a bit of a jail cell. The only items of furniture are a small bed and a stool, the walls and everything are gray concrete, and the only window is so high you can only see the sky. I’ll have to make myself a real life shank for the yard and be sure to keep my guard up in the showers. I can feel you peoples’ jealousy from here! They are also doing construction on the street literally right in front of my house, so clearly the only option was to walk straight out the first night and fall into a large hole. At least my neighbor got a solid laugh out of it.
The rest of my trip was a whirl of busyness. I had to visit all of my schools and meet with all of my future co teachers to kind of plan out when our classes and planning sessions will be the first month. My schedule is a bit of disaster right now, seeing as I have 3-4 days a week where I do little to nothing and 3 other days where I won’t have time to eat. There’s also a potential problem where I have to teach classes at some of my schools that are in other nearby communities that don’t end until after the last bus leaves. My counterparts did indeed agree that yes, this was a problem, yet were pretty okay with not fixing it. So guess I’ll be spending a few nights a week sleeping in the trees with my monkey friends. At one school where I have two counterparts, the principal had my two teachers sit at opposite sides of the room, then told me to plan with them. So I was literally walking back and forth across the room trying to coordinate their schedules and they totally were not into the idea of moving some chairs around. It was more than a bit awkward being presented at my schools to the students as well. At one school I was presented around class to class and asked to say something to each class. This led to me giving an identical 2 minute speech about 10 times that always seemed to end with me apologizing for my shitty Spanish. At another school they brought each class individually into a room where they told me to sit in a chair and receive the standing students like I was some kind of elderly visiting royalty. This appealed a bit more to my vanity. My third school made all the students come into one big room and the director gave me this grand introduction, before asking me on the spot to give a speech about why entrepreneurship is important. The final school was having this big Day of the Flag celebration during my visit and after all the kids and teachers sang the Nicaraguan national anthem the principal basically goes, and here is a North American to say a few words. Which, if you know anything about Nicaraguan/U.S. relations historically, is more than a bit ironic.
If this post sounds a dash testier than my usual, it’s probably cause this current week is hellacious. I would kind of compare it to exam week in college. We have a bunch of presentations and papers due and I have to teach a class Thursday for an hour and a half. I did get to hear the Ghostbusters’ theme song on a bus the other day, so, feeling pretty solid. I’ll be writing to you good people again on the other end of this nightmare week, wish me luck, and hug a blonde, we’re worth it!
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Monkeys!
Week 7/8
I’m getting worse and worse at posting on this thingy. First off, the not as interesting not as super exciting news that I’ll be sharing in a bit. Our youth group finally got their shit together and made some damn candy! What, what! I was really starting to think we were going to show up at the competition with like some shit we bought and repackaged at the local shop, but no, the girls did it! Our product is basically this green chewy candy made from a local leaf and fruit. We’re going to start making it in fun shapes like stars and hearts. It’s pretty exciting stuff. Also, I finally got to go down to the Laguna near where we live for the 4th of July. It was a really fun to just hang out with the other trainees. The water felt great and the scenery was breathtaking. Overall, one of my better 4ths.
Okay, now the good stuff. So, Tuesday we had this little info-session about nothing of real importance, only where we’re living for the next 2 years! Yes, we indeed got our site assignments at the grand site presentation ceremony. I call it a ceremony cause they make the whole thing super dramatic, just how I like it! First, they kept us waiting for awhile, then told everyone to put on the map where they thought they were going, with the winners getting a chocolate prize. Then, they announced each site one by one and revealed who was going there, before changing your placement on the map. I decided to guess one I didn’t really want so as not to get the old jinx. Turns out it was a solid plan. I didn’t receive any chocolate or for that matter my #1 choice. Instead, I got my #2 choice out of all 24 sites! For the next two years, I will be living in San Carlos, Rio San Juan!
San Carlos is woah far out there from the PC office, basically it’s like 10 hours from Managua and 30 minutes from Costa Rica. Is that a Costa Rican vacay I’m foreseeing? Yes, I think it just might be. San Carlos is also a port city at the interchange of the San Juan river and Lake Nicaragua, so I shouldn’t exactly be hurting for things to do. Did I mention this is one of the few lakes in the world with fresh water sharks? Will make for exciting swimming! I was also reading in my packet about all these awesome wildlife preserves and islands in the area that sound dreamy! This is a site where they wanted to send two business volunteers, one (me) to work more with the high schools, and another (Jess) to work primarily with the university there. Also, I’ll have a site mate from the Health sector. I’m pretty excited, hopefully they’ll be fun travel and dance buddies. Oh yeah, I didn’t mention the two famous dance clubs, one of which is especially found of American 80’s music. You couldn’t pry my cold dead body away from that shit!
We’re visiting our sites next week for 4 days and I am beyond pumped. While I think we are taking a bus this time, there is also a boat that leaves from Granada for San Carlos, and I really want to take it. You can hang a hammock up and sleep and there are movies to watch and air conditioning. It sounds very vacation like, yet affordable. To me though, the most exciting part of living in Rio San Juan is the monkeys! There are said to be many, and people keep them as pets! Yes, please! I’m planning on getting one once I get a place of my own and having it be my little servant. His name will be Alfred and I’ll get him a tiny little tuxedo to wear. When I get home from work, I’ll yell “Alfred, why is my cocktail not waiting!?!” Alfred will be a bit lazy and total drunk, so I’ll probably have to scream “Make me my goddamn martini, Alfred!” a few times and maybe slap him around a bit before I get my service. Eventually, I’ll be forced to get another monkey named Cinderella, who will clean up after Alfred when he ends up in puddles of his own vomit. Soon, she too will start to drown her sorrows in rum and gin. Basically, by the end of my service, I plan to leave behind like 10 alcoholic monkeys. It will be magical! I still can't figure out how to actually get pictures on here anymore. It worked early on, but is getting funky the last month. Maybe a new cyber is the fix, or I might have to save the pictures elsewhere. I definitely want to write a post after I get back from my visit to the jungle! Until then, everyone go treat yourself to something tasty, you deserve it!
I’m getting worse and worse at posting on this thingy. First off, the not as interesting not as super exciting news that I’ll be sharing in a bit. Our youth group finally got their shit together and made some damn candy! What, what! I was really starting to think we were going to show up at the competition with like some shit we bought and repackaged at the local shop, but no, the girls did it! Our product is basically this green chewy candy made from a local leaf and fruit. We’re going to start making it in fun shapes like stars and hearts. It’s pretty exciting stuff. Also, I finally got to go down to the Laguna near where we live for the 4th of July. It was a really fun to just hang out with the other trainees. The water felt great and the scenery was breathtaking. Overall, one of my better 4ths.
Okay, now the good stuff. So, Tuesday we had this little info-session about nothing of real importance, only where we’re living for the next 2 years! Yes, we indeed got our site assignments at the grand site presentation ceremony. I call it a ceremony cause they make the whole thing super dramatic, just how I like it! First, they kept us waiting for awhile, then told everyone to put on the map where they thought they were going, with the winners getting a chocolate prize. Then, they announced each site one by one and revealed who was going there, before changing your placement on the map. I decided to guess one I didn’t really want so as not to get the old jinx. Turns out it was a solid plan. I didn’t receive any chocolate or for that matter my #1 choice. Instead, I got my #2 choice out of all 24 sites! For the next two years, I will be living in San Carlos, Rio San Juan!
San Carlos is woah far out there from the PC office, basically it’s like 10 hours from Managua and 30 minutes from Costa Rica. Is that a Costa Rican vacay I’m foreseeing? Yes, I think it just might be. San Carlos is also a port city at the interchange of the San Juan river and Lake Nicaragua, so I shouldn’t exactly be hurting for things to do. Did I mention this is one of the few lakes in the world with fresh water sharks? Will make for exciting swimming! I was also reading in my packet about all these awesome wildlife preserves and islands in the area that sound dreamy! This is a site where they wanted to send two business volunteers, one (me) to work more with the high schools, and another (Jess) to work primarily with the university there. Also, I’ll have a site mate from the Health sector. I’m pretty excited, hopefully they’ll be fun travel and dance buddies. Oh yeah, I didn’t mention the two famous dance clubs, one of which is especially found of American 80’s music. You couldn’t pry my cold dead body away from that shit!
We’re visiting our sites next week for 4 days and I am beyond pumped. While I think we are taking a bus this time, there is also a boat that leaves from Granada for San Carlos, and I really want to take it. You can hang a hammock up and sleep and there are movies to watch and air conditioning. It sounds very vacation like, yet affordable. To me though, the most exciting part of living in Rio San Juan is the monkeys! There are said to be many, and people keep them as pets! Yes, please! I’m planning on getting one once I get a place of my own and having it be my little servant. His name will be Alfred and I’ll get him a tiny little tuxedo to wear. When I get home from work, I’ll yell “Alfred, why is my cocktail not waiting!?!” Alfred will be a bit lazy and total drunk, so I’ll probably have to scream “Make me my goddamn martini, Alfred!” a few times and maybe slap him around a bit before I get my service. Eventually, I’ll be forced to get another monkey named Cinderella, who will clean up after Alfred when he ends up in puddles of his own vomit. Soon, she too will start to drown her sorrows in rum and gin. Basically, by the end of my service, I plan to leave behind like 10 alcoholic monkeys. It will be magical! I still can't figure out how to actually get pictures on here anymore. It worked early on, but is getting funky the last month. Maybe a new cyber is the fix, or I might have to save the pictures elsewhere. I definitely want to write a post after I get back from my visit to the jungle! Until then, everyone go treat yourself to something tasty, you deserve it!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Week 6
Week 6
So I didn’t get to post last week, but if you had constant penis fights going on in front of your house all week, I highly doubt you would have found the time either. Yes, this week was the annual festival for Saint San Juan (Is that a saint? I just go by what I’m told) in San Juan de Oriente. Apparently, this is a huge deal here. They cancel their classes (not our Spanish classes though, PC takes no holidays!), and basically get drunk all week, shoot off noisemakers, have parades constantly circling around the town, play music 24/7, and randomly decide to stage fights with bull penises as their weapon of choice. I’ve been told they spend weeks preparing these bull penises so they are extra effective in battle. It really must be a fulfilling experience to see your bull penis in action after all that hard work. So basically last week I was trying to sleep thorough band music at 4a.m, stepping over passed-out drunks on the way to class in the morning, and running away every time I saw a bull penis fight coming. Seriously, they are gross. Guys get bloody and really should seek medical attention afterwards. This one guy had all these slash marks on his face. There can’t be anything worse than a bull penis to the face. I’m not sure how many times I’ve used the phrase bull penis in this paragraph, but I will stop now. Bull penis. Okay, last time, promise. Gringo tourists even came, which was kind of a bizarre sight to see in our small town. The tourists were even doing weird touristy things like taking pictures of the chickens in the street. Must have been city people.
We also had our language interviews this week and received our site packets! My language level has progressed 2 levels, but I need to advance one more level in the next 3 weeks, or else you people will be seeing me sooner than expected! No, I really should be okay, but cross your fingers during week 9. The site packet and site fair were probably the best parts of the week. The site packet is just a list of all the potential cities our group could be placed in with descriptions about each city and the job we would be doing there. Everyone got crazy excited when they brought them out, like fatties at a Ryan’s kind of excited. At the site fair we got to go around to different stations and ask questions. We have our interviews tomorrow with the people in charge to tell them our preferences. I’m trying not to get my hopes up for a few of them, but it’s hard. Clearly, they can’t put you exactly where you want to go, I just hope they don’t send me somewhere I really don’t want to go. My top choice right now though is Corinto, Chinandega. I won’t get into why right now, cause I’ll probably start envisioning my life there and…..damn, too late. I am debating the merits of begging during this interview, perhaps weeping, I’ll keep it on standby, just in case There’s several others I really like too, though. We find out next Tuesday, I think, so I’ll just go in expecting the worst and hoping for the best. Leaving you now with that nugget of wisdom. Later people!
So I didn’t get to post last week, but if you had constant penis fights going on in front of your house all week, I highly doubt you would have found the time either. Yes, this week was the annual festival for Saint San Juan (Is that a saint? I just go by what I’m told) in San Juan de Oriente. Apparently, this is a huge deal here. They cancel their classes (not our Spanish classes though, PC takes no holidays!), and basically get drunk all week, shoot off noisemakers, have parades constantly circling around the town, play music 24/7, and randomly decide to stage fights with bull penises as their weapon of choice. I’ve been told they spend weeks preparing these bull penises so they are extra effective in battle. It really must be a fulfilling experience to see your bull penis in action after all that hard work. So basically last week I was trying to sleep thorough band music at 4a.m, stepping over passed-out drunks on the way to class in the morning, and running away every time I saw a bull penis fight coming. Seriously, they are gross. Guys get bloody and really should seek medical attention afterwards. This one guy had all these slash marks on his face. There can’t be anything worse than a bull penis to the face. I’m not sure how many times I’ve used the phrase bull penis in this paragraph, but I will stop now. Bull penis. Okay, last time, promise. Gringo tourists even came, which was kind of a bizarre sight to see in our small town. The tourists were even doing weird touristy things like taking pictures of the chickens in the street. Must have been city people.
We also had our language interviews this week and received our site packets! My language level has progressed 2 levels, but I need to advance one more level in the next 3 weeks, or else you people will be seeing me sooner than expected! No, I really should be okay, but cross your fingers during week 9. The site packet and site fair were probably the best parts of the week. The site packet is just a list of all the potential cities our group could be placed in with descriptions about each city and the job we would be doing there. Everyone got crazy excited when they brought them out, like fatties at a Ryan’s kind of excited. At the site fair we got to go around to different stations and ask questions. We have our interviews tomorrow with the people in charge to tell them our preferences. I’m trying not to get my hopes up for a few of them, but it’s hard. Clearly, they can’t put you exactly where you want to go, I just hope they don’t send me somewhere I really don’t want to go. My top choice right now though is Corinto, Chinandega. I won’t get into why right now, cause I’ll probably start envisioning my life there and…..damn, too late. I am debating the merits of begging during this interview, perhaps weeping, I’ll keep it on standby, just in case There’s several others I really like too, though. We find out next Tuesday, I think, so I’ll just go in expecting the worst and hoping for the best. Leaving you now with that nugget of wisdom. Later people!
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Week 5
Week 5
Possibly, my best week ever! Not in life, that would be a rather bold statement, but if my five weeks in Nicaragua all had a battle royal of awesomeness, week 5 would probably give a firm bitch hand to weeks 1-4. Sunday, we began our volunteer visit journey. I went to Telica, Leon to visit Peter. Telica is only about a 10 minute bus ride from Leon, the second biggest city in Nicaragua after Managua. To get there I had to take a microbus (basically a van) from Catarina to Managua, then another slightly bigger van from Managua to Leon, then a real bus (by that I mean an old American school bus, cause if I haven’t it mentioned before, that is what all their buses are).
The micro from Catarina to Managua was a little bit like Way too Fast, Way too Damn Furious! If in that film there was a minivan with no seatbelts going about 100 around all these super sharp turns, switching into the wrong lane and playing the kind of game of chicken that nobody wins. At one point a rock was thrown from one car at our van breaking part of a window causing some glass shards to fly around. People screamed, but I’ll be damned if our driver slowed down. After that, I put on my sunglasses and decided to go to my happy place, Olive Garden. The ride from Managua to Leon was a dream by comparison. Air conditioning, beautiful scenery, and the best of Celine Dion. Listening to “My Heart Will Go On” whilst cruising through the tropics; that my friends, is what dreams are made of.
Almost as soon as I arrived in Telica around 11a.m., I met Peter, and the conversation was basically Peter: “So do want to go to the beach, or” Me: “YES!!!”. So he called up some other volunteers and 4 of us ended up going to the beach a little after noon. The other two were environment volunteers named Rachel and Peyton. This was actually my first time in the Pacific, a little rough, but fun. We ate at this cute little beach bar and I got a cheese burger and fries. I was most likely making inappropriate noises during my consumption of this meal. We stayed at the beach till almost 6 before taking a bus to Leon to meet some more volunteers at a bar for dinner and to watch game 5 of the NBA Finals. There are apparently a lot of PC volunteers in the Leon area. It was awesome getting to hear a bunch of different perspectives on the life of a PC volunteer.
Monday morning we watched a little 30 Rock on Peter’s computer before eventually going to meet one of his counterparts for a planning session. This counterpart was really on her game, so Peter didn’t even have to do much of the planning. Peter had another class at 3 which gave us some time to go to these hot springs that were about 10 minutes from his town. The scenery was beautiful as there are a plethora (look at me with my SAT words) of volcanoes in the area. The springs were cool too, unfortunately there was this drunk and/or mentally retarded man who would not leave us alone. We kept asking him in Spanish to go away, telling him we didn’t have money or cigarettes. Then, I think he wanted a picture of me with his cell phone, and while I know I could easily be mistaken for some glamorous celebrity, we should be able to still be able to travel in peace. Finally we just left and I didn’t get to take any pictures, but trust me, it was pretty cool.
Other things we did before I left Wednesday. Visited Peter’s old host family, there was a puppy, I wanted to steal it. I observed a couple more classes, one excellent, the other totally crazy with the kids talking the whole time. Tuesday night we went to see a movie in Leon at one of the maybe 4 or 5 movie theatres in all of Nicaragua. We saw “The A Team” or “Los Brigados A, Los Magnificos.” It was in English, but had Spanish subtitles. The movie was pretty good, didn’t love it. There was nothing not to love about the movie theatre experience on the other hand, with popcorn and air conditioning. After, we went to another bar and watched game 6 of the NBA finals. If your thinking this trip sounded suspiciously like a vacation, it basically was. Also, I probably spent way too much money, and before we got paid Friday had about 3 dollars to my name.
The trip back went mostly without incident. I decided to walk back through Catarina on the way to San Juan and investigate the Cookies n’ Cream ice cream there again. Still not sure what makes it so good, further investigation will be required. The things I do in the name of science. Thursday, we had these small group sessions on stress that were essentially bitch sessions where everyone just complained about what was bothering them. I’m always up for a solid bitch session, so participate I did. Friday, we had some more charlas and such, also they brought us Papa John’s pizza for our lunch. I’m not going to even play like I didn’t shamelessly grab one of those garlic/mostly butter things to take back to my table. A bunch of people from different training towns met later that night and went out to this really cool bar along the highway that played mostly techno music. Bundles of fun. It was decided that this will be our new Friday thing.
Today we got to go to the Masaya Volcano as a group. There were some beautiful views and a very strong sulfur smell in the air. For once, I actually brought my camera too! Though, this internet is having problems uploading them, so I'll have to post them next time. Just use your imaginations for now. Till next time people, keep it classy!
Possibly, my best week ever! Not in life, that would be a rather bold statement, but if my five weeks in Nicaragua all had a battle royal of awesomeness, week 5 would probably give a firm bitch hand to weeks 1-4. Sunday, we began our volunteer visit journey. I went to Telica, Leon to visit Peter. Telica is only about a 10 minute bus ride from Leon, the second biggest city in Nicaragua after Managua. To get there I had to take a microbus (basically a van) from Catarina to Managua, then another slightly bigger van from Managua to Leon, then a real bus (by that I mean an old American school bus, cause if I haven’t it mentioned before, that is what all their buses are).
The micro from Catarina to Managua was a little bit like Way too Fast, Way too Damn Furious! If in that film there was a minivan with no seatbelts going about 100 around all these super sharp turns, switching into the wrong lane and playing the kind of game of chicken that nobody wins. At one point a rock was thrown from one car at our van breaking part of a window causing some glass shards to fly around. People screamed, but I’ll be damned if our driver slowed down. After that, I put on my sunglasses and decided to go to my happy place, Olive Garden. The ride from Managua to Leon was a dream by comparison. Air conditioning, beautiful scenery, and the best of Celine Dion. Listening to “My Heart Will Go On” whilst cruising through the tropics; that my friends, is what dreams are made of.
Almost as soon as I arrived in Telica around 11a.m., I met Peter, and the conversation was basically Peter: “So do want to go to the beach, or” Me: “YES!!!”. So he called up some other volunteers and 4 of us ended up going to the beach a little after noon. The other two were environment volunteers named Rachel and Peyton. This was actually my first time in the Pacific, a little rough, but fun. We ate at this cute little beach bar and I got a cheese burger and fries. I was most likely making inappropriate noises during my consumption of this meal. We stayed at the beach till almost 6 before taking a bus to Leon to meet some more volunteers at a bar for dinner and to watch game 5 of the NBA Finals. There are apparently a lot of PC volunteers in the Leon area. It was awesome getting to hear a bunch of different perspectives on the life of a PC volunteer.
Monday morning we watched a little 30 Rock on Peter’s computer before eventually going to meet one of his counterparts for a planning session. This counterpart was really on her game, so Peter didn’t even have to do much of the planning. Peter had another class at 3 which gave us some time to go to these hot springs that were about 10 minutes from his town. The scenery was beautiful as there are a plethora (look at me with my SAT words) of volcanoes in the area. The springs were cool too, unfortunately there was this drunk and/or mentally retarded man who would not leave us alone. We kept asking him in Spanish to go away, telling him we didn’t have money or cigarettes. Then, I think he wanted a picture of me with his cell phone, and while I know I could easily be mistaken for some glamorous celebrity, we should be able to still be able to travel in peace. Finally we just left and I didn’t get to take any pictures, but trust me, it was pretty cool.
Other things we did before I left Wednesday. Visited Peter’s old host family, there was a puppy, I wanted to steal it. I observed a couple more classes, one excellent, the other totally crazy with the kids talking the whole time. Tuesday night we went to see a movie in Leon at one of the maybe 4 or 5 movie theatres in all of Nicaragua. We saw “The A Team” or “Los Brigados A, Los Magnificos.” It was in English, but had Spanish subtitles. The movie was pretty good, didn’t love it. There was nothing not to love about the movie theatre experience on the other hand, with popcorn and air conditioning. After, we went to another bar and watched game 6 of the NBA finals. If your thinking this trip sounded suspiciously like a vacation, it basically was. Also, I probably spent way too much money, and before we got paid Friday had about 3 dollars to my name.
The trip back went mostly without incident. I decided to walk back through Catarina on the way to San Juan and investigate the Cookies n’ Cream ice cream there again. Still not sure what makes it so good, further investigation will be required. The things I do in the name of science. Thursday, we had these small group sessions on stress that were essentially bitch sessions where everyone just complained about what was bothering them. I’m always up for a solid bitch session, so participate I did. Friday, we had some more charlas and such, also they brought us Papa John’s pizza for our lunch. I’m not going to even play like I didn’t shamelessly grab one of those garlic/mostly butter things to take back to my table. A bunch of people from different training towns met later that night and went out to this really cool bar along the highway that played mostly techno music. Bundles of fun. It was decided that this will be our new Friday thing.
Today we got to go to the Masaya Volcano as a group. There were some beautiful views and a very strong sulfur smell in the air. For once, I actually brought my camera too! Though, this internet is having problems uploading them, so I'll have to post them next time. Just use your imaginations for now. Till next time people, keep it classy!
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Week 4
Ugh, I’ve been having a spot of computer trouble lately. Hopefully, the situation has been resolved. This week has also felt crazy busy. I taught a class Thursday, which sounds a bit more impressive than it was, since I used a lot of visual aides and such. Either way, the combination of nerves and heat made me sweat a small pond. Also, we’ve been having a bit of youth group drama. We have to start this youth group at our local school to take part in a business competition as part of our training. Well the group needs to pick a product to sell and it’s caused a dash of division in our young ones. One group wanted postcards and the other this candy made from a local leaf. I was kind of hoping for some Gossip Girl like confrontation, where people get yogurt dumped on their head and banned from the steps of the Baptist church or something, but alas, the post card group kind of just stopped showing up and the problem sort of solved itself. These people need to watch more trashy tv.
We also got to step foot on American soil again, at the U.S. embassy that is. It was pretty, and we got a lecture on food security, which I guess was interesting, if your into that type of thing. I kind of was hoping we would get more of a tour though, or at the very least a cocktail party. I always imagine those are the types of things that happen at embassies. On the way back I had an extremely pleasant bus ride where I was shoved standing into this corner and some guy put a power saw by my foot for an hour, like that was an okay thing you can do.
Other interesting things this week. I had cookies and cream ice cream here the other day, it was heaven. I mean I know they use full on fat and probably a butt load of sugar, but I have no idea what else they use to make it so good! I’m not even a huge cookies and cream fan back in the states. Perhaps crack? There was also this odd parade Tuesday where primary school kids ran around the streets in random costumes. One kid was dressed like an old person, some were wearing crazy animal masks. Just in the middle of the day, for what I was told is some holiday called day of the children. I saw a bizarre chicken/mutant walking in the street the other day, that literally looked like an aborted fetus. People here also wear these American shirts, and they have no idea what the writing says. I’ve seen little boys with shirts that say “I’m a Proud Big Sister“, and an old woman with this Cancun shirt that said “I’m shy, but I have a huge dick”. It’s kind of awesome. The noise thing here is still bizarre to me. They shoot these bombas all day and night that are basically fireworks without the pretty lights. Just smoke and noise. All the time. Sometimes I feel like I’m in the middle of the American Revolution or something. Last night I heard what I swear was some kind of traveling band. This noise started getting louder and louder and it was like trumpets, drums, symbols, saxophones, the whole she bang. At 5 in the morning.
Tomorrow we head off on our separate volunteer visits. It’s where each trainee goes and lives with a different volunteer for 4 days to see what life as a real volunteer is like. Mine is Peter and I will be in Telica, Leon. I’m pretty pumped cause there’s both a volcano and a beach nearby, and he told me to bring hiking boots and a swimsuit. Not too excited about traveling tomorrow though. It’s a three hour bus ride, which I know will mean getting straddled by multiple strangers for three hours while other people try shoving tasty treats at me to buy that I know can only lead to diarreaville, and that is a township I visit far too often as it is. I know, no pictures or bar graphs again! But I’m bringing my camera to Leon and will take bunches! Until next time lovely people, I miss you all!
We also got to step foot on American soil again, at the U.S. embassy that is. It was pretty, and we got a lecture on food security, which I guess was interesting, if your into that type of thing. I kind of was hoping we would get more of a tour though, or at the very least a cocktail party. I always imagine those are the types of things that happen at embassies. On the way back I had an extremely pleasant bus ride where I was shoved standing into this corner and some guy put a power saw by my foot for an hour, like that was an okay thing you can do.
Other interesting things this week. I had cookies and cream ice cream here the other day, it was heaven. I mean I know they use full on fat and probably a butt load of sugar, but I have no idea what else they use to make it so good! I’m not even a huge cookies and cream fan back in the states. Perhaps crack? There was also this odd parade Tuesday where primary school kids ran around the streets in random costumes. One kid was dressed like an old person, some were wearing crazy animal masks. Just in the middle of the day, for what I was told is some holiday called day of the children. I saw a bizarre chicken/mutant walking in the street the other day, that literally looked like an aborted fetus. People here also wear these American shirts, and they have no idea what the writing says. I’ve seen little boys with shirts that say “I’m a Proud Big Sister“, and an old woman with this Cancun shirt that said “I’m shy, but I have a huge dick”. It’s kind of awesome. The noise thing here is still bizarre to me. They shoot these bombas all day and night that are basically fireworks without the pretty lights. Just smoke and noise. All the time. Sometimes I feel like I’m in the middle of the American Revolution or something. Last night I heard what I swear was some kind of traveling band. This noise started getting louder and louder and it was like trumpets, drums, symbols, saxophones, the whole she bang. At 5 in the morning.
Tomorrow we head off on our separate volunteer visits. It’s where each trainee goes and lives with a different volunteer for 4 days to see what life as a real volunteer is like. Mine is Peter and I will be in Telica, Leon. I’m pretty pumped cause there’s both a volcano and a beach nearby, and he told me to bring hiking boots and a swimsuit. Not too excited about traveling tomorrow though. It’s a three hour bus ride, which I know will mean getting straddled by multiple strangers for three hours while other people try shoving tasty treats at me to buy that I know can only lead to diarreaville, and that is a township I visit far too often as it is. I know, no pictures or bar graphs again! But I’m bringing my camera to Leon and will take bunches! Until next time lovely people, I miss you all!
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Mother's Day, Interviews, Constipation, oh my!
Days 17-23
What a week! Last Friday seems like forever ago, I really need to keep up with this more. I was totally going to take pictures of my town on the way over here, but it’s raining, of course, since it rains for at least 2 hours a day, every day. At night it seems to rain even more. It rains crazy hard too, so the streets basically turn into these mini-rivers, and everyone in town loves just standing at their doors and windows watching it. Or maybe they just love the priceless entertainment of silly gringos sloshing around in thigh high water wearing completely rain-inappropriate attire. Anyways, so last Friday night me and Peter from San Juan were supposed to meet some of the trainees from Catarina to travel to Nicinomo for a party at this restaurant one of the trainee’s families owns. If that sounds complicated, it’s way worse when you consider that at the time only one of us had a cell phone. How did people get things done before cell phones? Pre-planning? Land lines? Physically looking for people? Who knows, I can’t even wrap my head around it. Long story short, communication issues occurred, half us didn’t know where to go, so a few of us just ended up drinking some beers in Catarina. Oh well, it was still fun, but the restaurant we were in kept playing obnoxious American rap music and like Kenny Rodgers so…I don’t even want to talk about it.
Saturday was a off day for us last week, what what! So all of us San Juan volunteers decided to go shopping in Masaya with this volunteer we had met earlier in the week. She’s been here for 9 months so it was the perfect opportunity to shop in a big town with someone who had some experience. The main market there is crazy, I felt like we were in Aladdin or something. We also walked around the more touristy part of town and got some American style pizza (or is it Italian style?) either way it was delicious! I also purchased a cell phone! My number is 505-861-75589 (I don’t really know where to put the dashes, telephone numbers here have a different number of digits). If you want to text me, I can receive them for frizzle, but don’t always expect a reply, this boy is on a budget. I also got a big fat sunburn from the Masaya trip since I forgot to wear sunscreen. God, I hate being pale. When is that coming back in style?
Sunday was Mothers’ Day, and that is a huge deal here. Kids had school off Friday and Monday in celebration and the churches do all these activities. I kind of had a headache though Sunday afternoon and my host mom told me they were going to be at church for at least 3 hours, so I quite literally told her I couldn’t do it. Afterwards, she kept going on about how she saw one of the other trainees there, and I was like, thanks, I get it, I’m an awful son for not going to church on Mothers’ Day. Then, we had pizza from Catarina. I’m starting to think pizza is kind of the go to food for classy occasions.
Monday feels insignificant, so I will not discuss it, except to say there was this crazy woman in the street who set up some speakers and decided to scream incoherent things for at least an hour. I don’t want to talk about what I wanted to do to this woman, but it involves the tennis racquet I own, yet currently have no use for. Thanks, mom.
Tuesday, my bowels said, I’m not done with you yet! Except this time I was super constipated. I blame the plantains. We’re not really supposed to self-medicate, but I told my sister I needed some damn laxatives. Those cramps were not playing around. The next day, Wednesday, I felt highly unstable, so of course we had to travel a bunch. \I found out I’m giving a class with a partner…for 45 minutes…in Spanish…next week…awesome. That has disaster written all over it. So we went to the school we are teaching at in Masaya for a little pre-teaching visit. We have to give our classes at private schools during training, because apparently the new minister of education here isn’t a huge fan of gringo organizations and won’t let trainees give classes in public institutions. This is a new policy. We also walked to Catarina for a technical training session. So I put in a Med-Kit request there that said “something for constipation”, I almost put laxatives, but I didn’t want them thinking I was one of those laxative bulimics. Is that a real thing? I don’t know, I’m sure some people try it.
Today was a pretty full day too. This morning the San Juan and Catarina volunteers had to travel to Masaya to observe a PC volunteer teaching in the classroom. The volunteer was really nice and answered a lot of our questions. The students though, seemed to spend most of class staring at us and laughing, so I’m not too sure of what they got out of it. In the afternoon we had a little interview with the woman in charge of training, Naomi, and also got our evaluations from our professor. My evaluation with my professor was kind of stressful, it was all in Spanish, and she kept going on about me needing to ask more questions during class, so of course during the evaluation I started asking all these questions that really had nothing to do with the evaluation itself. She brought it on herself. I think my interview with Naomi went really well, though. I felt extremely enthusiastic, but for some reason started to veer towards crazy town, yet kept it in check. Like at one point I did this crazy laugh, and went “oh, lord!” With a kind of southern black woman inflection. I have no idea why. I never say that. Also, maybe it was her bubbly personality, but I felt the strange urge to tell her things I knew I shouldn’t. For instance, I almost went on this bizarre tangent about animal abusers and how sometimes I have these intricate fantasies where I torture them dramatically, then thought, “wait, this is both unrelated to the current topic, and bat shit crazy.” So I didn’t. To wrap it up, I pinky promise I’m going to post twice next week, that way these posts won’t be unmanageably long. Like this one. That I’m pretty sure no one will make it through. I mean, it’s like a short story. Sorry to the two of you who made it this far.
What a week! Last Friday seems like forever ago, I really need to keep up with this more. I was totally going to take pictures of my town on the way over here, but it’s raining, of course, since it rains for at least 2 hours a day, every day. At night it seems to rain even more. It rains crazy hard too, so the streets basically turn into these mini-rivers, and everyone in town loves just standing at their doors and windows watching it. Or maybe they just love the priceless entertainment of silly gringos sloshing around in thigh high water wearing completely rain-inappropriate attire. Anyways, so last Friday night me and Peter from San Juan were supposed to meet some of the trainees from Catarina to travel to Nicinomo for a party at this restaurant one of the trainee’s families owns. If that sounds complicated, it’s way worse when you consider that at the time only one of us had a cell phone. How did people get things done before cell phones? Pre-planning? Land lines? Physically looking for people? Who knows, I can’t even wrap my head around it. Long story short, communication issues occurred, half us didn’t know where to go, so a few of us just ended up drinking some beers in Catarina. Oh well, it was still fun, but the restaurant we were in kept playing obnoxious American rap music and like Kenny Rodgers so…I don’t even want to talk about it.
Saturday was a off day for us last week, what what! So all of us San Juan volunteers decided to go shopping in Masaya with this volunteer we had met earlier in the week. She’s been here for 9 months so it was the perfect opportunity to shop in a big town with someone who had some experience. The main market there is crazy, I felt like we were in Aladdin or something. We also walked around the more touristy part of town and got some American style pizza (or is it Italian style?) either way it was delicious! I also purchased a cell phone! My number is 505-861-75589 (I don’t really know where to put the dashes, telephone numbers here have a different number of digits). If you want to text me, I can receive them for frizzle, but don’t always expect a reply, this boy is on a budget. I also got a big fat sunburn from the Masaya trip since I forgot to wear sunscreen. God, I hate being pale. When is that coming back in style?
Sunday was Mothers’ Day, and that is a huge deal here. Kids had school off Friday and Monday in celebration and the churches do all these activities. I kind of had a headache though Sunday afternoon and my host mom told me they were going to be at church for at least 3 hours, so I quite literally told her I couldn’t do it. Afterwards, she kept going on about how she saw one of the other trainees there, and I was like, thanks, I get it, I’m an awful son for not going to church on Mothers’ Day. Then, we had pizza from Catarina. I’m starting to think pizza is kind of the go to food for classy occasions.
Monday feels insignificant, so I will not discuss it, except to say there was this crazy woman in the street who set up some speakers and decided to scream incoherent things for at least an hour. I don’t want to talk about what I wanted to do to this woman, but it involves the tennis racquet I own, yet currently have no use for. Thanks, mom.
Tuesday, my bowels said, I’m not done with you yet! Except this time I was super constipated. I blame the plantains. We’re not really supposed to self-medicate, but I told my sister I needed some damn laxatives. Those cramps were not playing around. The next day, Wednesday, I felt highly unstable, so of course we had to travel a bunch. \I found out I’m giving a class with a partner…for 45 minutes…in Spanish…next week…awesome. That has disaster written all over it. So we went to the school we are teaching at in Masaya for a little pre-teaching visit. We have to give our classes at private schools during training, because apparently the new minister of education here isn’t a huge fan of gringo organizations and won’t let trainees give classes in public institutions. This is a new policy. We also walked to Catarina for a technical training session. So I put in a Med-Kit request there that said “something for constipation”, I almost put laxatives, but I didn’t want them thinking I was one of those laxative bulimics. Is that a real thing? I don’t know, I’m sure some people try it.
Today was a pretty full day too. This morning the San Juan and Catarina volunteers had to travel to Masaya to observe a PC volunteer teaching in the classroom. The volunteer was really nice and answered a lot of our questions. The students though, seemed to spend most of class staring at us and laughing, so I’m not too sure of what they got out of it. In the afternoon we had a little interview with the woman in charge of training, Naomi, and also got our evaluations from our professor. My evaluation with my professor was kind of stressful, it was all in Spanish, and she kept going on about me needing to ask more questions during class, so of course during the evaluation I started asking all these questions that really had nothing to do with the evaluation itself. She brought it on herself. I think my interview with Naomi went really well, though. I felt extremely enthusiastic, but for some reason started to veer towards crazy town, yet kept it in check. Like at one point I did this crazy laugh, and went “oh, lord!” With a kind of southern black woman inflection. I have no idea why. I never say that. Also, maybe it was her bubbly personality, but I felt the strange urge to tell her things I knew I shouldn’t. For instance, I almost went on this bizarre tangent about animal abusers and how sometimes I have these intricate fantasies where I torture them dramatically, then thought, “wait, this is both unrelated to the current topic, and bat shit crazy.” So I didn’t. To wrap it up, I pinky promise I’m going to post twice next week, that way these posts won’t be unmanageably long. Like this one. That I’m pretty sure no one will make it through. I mean, it’s like a short story. Sorry to the two of you who made it this far.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Most of week 2
One of the local artists places 
Where we usually have classDays 11-16
It feels like it’s been awhile since I posted on this thingy and this post will be long, sorry. So I finally caught the GG finale from last week and my host family probably thought I was going bat poop crazy in my room for an hour. Yelling American obscenities, cackling gleefully, screaming “What!“ over and over at the end! All I’ve got to say is, Chuck Bass better not be dead!
Saturday we had another destination lecture of sorts, this one in a famous restaurant called the Olla de Barro. We didn’t actually get to taste the food, so I’m kind of unaware as to why we met there, but I had some tasty cheap crackers that were probably made in America. The lecture mostly dealt with the small business advising portion of our job. I still don’t think I’m qualified to be giving experienced business owners advice. Though, in Nicaragua, apparently many small business owners lack basic accounting knowledge and other practical managerial skills that might seem obvious to us, like putting up signs and such. I still don’t know how many Nicaraguans are really desperate for some American blonde 20 something to come in and tell them all the stuff their doing wrong. Saturday night was fun, though. San Juan is pretty and the people are nice, but it’s not exactly a happening place. Most of those working are artists. There are no real restaurants or bars, just this sketchy billiards place where old drunk men come out at night and we figured this wasn’t quite our scene. Just wait though, we’ll probably be regulars there in a month. So us San Juan de Oriente trainees walked to Catarina and met the trainees that live there for a few beers. When we got there without really thinking about it I go “I haven’t had a drink in over a week, it’s been like 5 years since I could say that!” which is really only something you should say at an AA meeting, but then to my relief a couple other people seemed to agree. They’re probably secretly planning my intervention right now.
Sunday was peaceful, until after church, when shit hit the fan, literally! No, just kidding, that would super nasty, but I did get pretty sick. First, I agreed to go to church with my host mom…a Baptist church. The pastor was really friendly, but talked in a really low fast voice that I couldn’t understand and I think I totally agreed to go to church every Sunday and the lord only knows what else. Seriously, I wasn’t catching a word he was saying and just kept smiling going “Si, ah si, estoy de acuerdo(I agree).” So for all I know the pastor is now expecting my first born and a hymnal solo during the summer solstice. Then during what seemed like a passionate service he kept mentioning my name usually followed by something about children, money, and the President of the United States. I wasn’t sure at the time if I should look offended or pleased, so I settled on contemplative. After, someone brought out these brochures with, I kid you not, something called Operation Andres, that has something to do with recruiting new members. Now I don’t want to be paranoid, because Andres is a decently common name (though I have yet to meet anyone here going by it) and these brochures were printed up all professionally, probably in a different city, but it is more than a little odd that they started a new program aimed at getting more people in their church called Operation Andres the first time the new American named Andres comes to their church! Creepy, I hope they don’t do something Baptist level crazy like paint the steeple in my blood! Joking…kind of. Anyways, so all during this service my stomach was like, screw this. So I really didn’t eat dinner and just went to bed around 7:30. Maybe an hour and a half later I was throwing up stuff I don’t even remember eating. Sorry for the graphicness, but for the rest of night I was diarrheaing (new verb) to the max. Meanwhile, it was pouring down rain and my bathroom is outside…fml. I achieved at best 3 hours of sleep and was in no mood to trifle with the next morning. My Spanish teacher told me to rest and call the doctor and the doctor told me to rest and take this medicine and drink the hydration mix, all of which I was already doing/about to do. So I slept over 4 hours, ate a few pieces of carrot and celery for dinner got some work done and went back to bed.
The next morning (Tuesday) I felt refreshed. I ate an egg and half a piece of toast and for lunch I had practically normal portions. Yesterday, it rained, again (it’s been raining almost nonstop since Sunday), but, yesterday, it really rained like no one’s business. I was practically swimming to class in almost knee high water at certain places. We had to travel back to Masatepe for a 2 hour lecture on Nicaraguan Economic History in the afternoon, it was almost as fascinating as it sounds. The worst part of the trip was when we were getting on the bus to Masatepe. The other San Juan trainees and I were meeting our teacher at the bus stop and she decided as she saw us approach that we needed to immediately catch the bus she was right next to. Unfourtunately, I was at the time across a large highway from said bus. So me and another trainee sprinted across the highway in the pouring rain trying to avoid becoming road kill. As I was getting on last through the back of the bus (in Nicaragua people enter the bus through all different parts: front, side, back, it’s all fair game) the bus started going. These buses are old American school buses by the way. So I had one foot kind of on the bus, one foot in the air, and one hand desperately hanging on to the open back door. Now these buses take off pretty fast and are pretty crowded, so the driver couldn’t really hear my screams of protest. This random man started helping/possibly trying to kill me by closing the door whilst I was still only half inside. the door was flung into my face before closing partially back causing the glasses I was wearing to fall behind onto the street, I then flung myself inside and the door was closed for good. All this occurred on a moving bus in the pouring rain. I emerged from this public transportation nightmare mostly unscathed (a bruise on my cheek and a scratch on my leg), but my poor glasses are lying somewhere on a Nicaraguan highway. Don’t worry, I have a backup pair, and will now try and refrain from entering moving highway vehicles. The best part of this was the whole time I was hanging on the back of the moving bus, the other trainees and my teacher had wriggled to front of the crowd without looking back and were all like, “Where have you been, why do you look pissed?” when I found them later. I so should’ve caught the next bus. We totally caught a break on the way back and got a private ride in a jeep with some of the Peace Corps staff on their way to Managua.
Today we went back to Managua for the first time since getting off the plane. It’s a little over an hour the packed bus, not so much fun at 6 in morning, unless your idea of fun is forcefully having to dry hump with 10 sweaty strangers. The rest of day was nice, though. All of Nica 53 got to see the Peace Corps office for the first time, we were in air conditioning all day, and we got a free lunch. Totally worth the dry humping in my opinion. Tomorrow night some of us are going to this party at a restaurant one of the trainee’s families owns in Nicinomo a couple of miles down the road. Should make for a fun end of the week! I posted a few pictures, but I really having been taking my camera around with me lately. I’ll try to be better next week.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Oh, you can title these things.
Days 7-11
Nicaragua is so loud! If its not barking dogs (dogs roam the streets in mass) or crowing roosters (always the subtle one, I told my host sister today how my favorite food is rooster), its blaring music or people screaming. The Baptist church next door (I can’t escape them!) was still raging at my grandpa bedtime of 9. Then at 530 in the morning someone was banging a hammer. Maybe I’m alone in the opinion that there is no construction work worth doing before 7a.m. I’m getting used to it, but thank sweet mother jesus for my earplugs, or I would never sleep.
For the last few mornings, I have been getting up early to run. It’s pretty bizarre jogging here though. The scenery is gorgeous, but Nicaraguans don’t jog for exercise. So most of the town that’s up just laughs at the silly gringo jogging around the town as I go by.
I’ve adjusted to the food easier than expected. Besides the avocados and mangos (So plentiful! So delicious!) , I generally just eat things without thinking too hard about what they are. There are vegetables here that I didn’t even know existed. I had a soup a couple days ago for lunch that had like 10 different kinds of vegetables in it, the only one I recognized was onion, so I’m calling it onion soup. The cheese isn’t very good in Nicaragua, but they have so many different kinds of delicious frescas. Yesterday, I had a pineapple and something else one. Not exactly sure of the ingredients, but it was pink, and tasted like pink things should.
This week as a whole has been pretty exhausting. We have Spanish class for like 7 hours a day and then there’s always PC (shout out, Rachel, sometimes I confuse myself with the PC thing) readings and assignments to do after. Also, trying to speak in Spanish for most of the day is mentally draining. The heat isn’t helping. It’s not so much the actual temperature (which I’m pretty sure has been a little over 100 in the afternoon for most of the week), but more so the lack of air conditioning. There is none. That seems pretty obvious, but it’s hard to imagine until you’re sitting inside and it’s still 100 degrees. At whatever moment you read this, I will be sweating, it’s a fact. I do love how we have class outside, literally in the jungle. Paradise.
Today we had a field trip of sorts to Masatepe where all the trainees met up to get rabies shots and talk about dangerous diseases with the medical staff. We headed back before noon so we could still have lunch with our families, because nothing gets your stomach grumbling more than talking about scabies and diarrhea. This afternoon me and the other San Juan trainees walked around town and chatted with local artists. We met some amazing people who had been making ceramics all their lives. Most of them sell to galleries and such in the States (I’ve taken to calling it the States, it makes me feel worldly, deal with it). My plan next week is to start posting on Mondays and Thursdays, those are the best days for me to hit up the cyber café near me. I forgot to load up the pictures from my camera this time, opps. I’ll have extra next time.
Nicaragua is so loud! If its not barking dogs (dogs roam the streets in mass) or crowing roosters (always the subtle one, I told my host sister today how my favorite food is rooster), its blaring music or people screaming. The Baptist church next door (I can’t escape them!) was still raging at my grandpa bedtime of 9. Then at 530 in the morning someone was banging a hammer. Maybe I’m alone in the opinion that there is no construction work worth doing before 7a.m. I’m getting used to it, but thank sweet mother jesus for my earplugs, or I would never sleep.
For the last few mornings, I have been getting up early to run. It’s pretty bizarre jogging here though. The scenery is gorgeous, but Nicaraguans don’t jog for exercise. So most of the town that’s up just laughs at the silly gringo jogging around the town as I go by.
I’ve adjusted to the food easier than expected. Besides the avocados and mangos (So plentiful! So delicious!) , I generally just eat things without thinking too hard about what they are. There are vegetables here that I didn’t even know existed. I had a soup a couple days ago for lunch that had like 10 different kinds of vegetables in it, the only one I recognized was onion, so I’m calling it onion soup. The cheese isn’t very good in Nicaragua, but they have so many different kinds of delicious frescas. Yesterday, I had a pineapple and something else one. Not exactly sure of the ingredients, but it was pink, and tasted like pink things should.
This week as a whole has been pretty exhausting. We have Spanish class for like 7 hours a day and then there’s always PC (shout out, Rachel, sometimes I confuse myself with the PC thing) readings and assignments to do after. Also, trying to speak in Spanish for most of the day is mentally draining. The heat isn’t helping. It’s not so much the actual temperature (which I’m pretty sure has been a little over 100 in the afternoon for most of the week), but more so the lack of air conditioning. There is none. That seems pretty obvious, but it’s hard to imagine until you’re sitting inside and it’s still 100 degrees. At whatever moment you read this, I will be sweating, it’s a fact. I do love how we have class outside, literally in the jungle. Paradise.
Today we had a field trip of sorts to Masatepe where all the trainees met up to get rabies shots and talk about dangerous diseases with the medical staff. We headed back before noon so we could still have lunch with our families, because nothing gets your stomach grumbling more than talking about scabies and diarrhea. This afternoon me and the other San Juan trainees walked around town and chatted with local artists. We met some amazing people who had been making ceramics all their lives. Most of them sell to galleries and such in the States (I’ve taken to calling it the States, it makes me feel worldly, deal with it). My plan next week is to start posting on Mondays and Thursdays, those are the best days for me to hit up the cyber café near me. I forgot to load up the pictures from my camera this time, opps. I’ll have extra next time.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Day 3 through 6
Starting today (Saturday) I plan to make shortish daily journal entries on my laptop and save them to my flash drive so when I go to the cyber café I can just post these little treasures on here. Yesterday started out with a little lecture from the head PC security guy about a bunch of super scary ways we might get robbed/attacked. Some of the current volunteers talked about how some of their group mates had been express kidnapped and such. They say it’s honestly really pleasant for a kidnapping. Later we split up into 8 person groups based on our Spanish levels for a 3 hour session. I’m in the beginner med/low group and it was sadistically pleasurable to see other trainees struggling as well. We also received our training town assignments and 4 person groups. I’m in San Juan de Oriente with Peter, Jordan, and Angela. Pretty excited about our group potential. The day was capped off by a surprise boat tour of these little islands around Granada with these amazing houses (I think the President of Clemson’s brother owns one. Katy, you need to get on that.) There was a bunch of wildlife including this diva monkey who just loved having his photo taken. Afterwards, we went out for one of the Nica 53’s (we’re the 53rd training class to come through Nicaragua) 21st b-day. He’s the youngest of our group.
Today began with the Business and Agriculture groups splitting up in two different buses to be taken to our training families. It was kind of sad to say goodbye to some of the agriculture people, cause we’ll really only see them a few times in the next 3 months. San Juan de Oriente was the first stop on the way and I was the third person off the bus, so it was kind of intimidating having 20 something people watch me meet my new family. I have a host mom and host sister. They have a store at the front of their house so there are always people coming in. The food has been delicious, though I’m not always sure of what it is. I do know that I’ve eaten a crap load of avocados. Communicating with my host mom is mostly a game of charades, but my host sister does speak a little English. I go by Andres here. They can’t really pronounce Bayless, instead they say Payless. My host sister goes oh, los zapatos! So there is a distinct possibility they think my family owns a large shoe company. The worst thing so far (besides feeling like a mentally impaired orphan at times around my new house) is this damn rooster. If you thought that roosters only started crowing at daybreak, you would be very wrong. The one that lives next to my room likes to warm-up around 1 in the morning. I’m already plotting ways to get rid of him. Poison? Knife? Breaking his neck? We’ll see. Though judging by his size, he could probably take me.
Today in class we walked around the city and found all the important sites. It was way too hot, but now I know where the police station, schools, and shops are. The next 11 weeks will be extremely busy. We have class Mon-Thurs for 7 hours a day, then on Friday and/or Saturday we go to other cities for different safety or technical activities. Even at night we have a good bit of homework. I did find Survivor in English on my host family’s tv last night and watched the whole finale! It made me feel so much better, though Parvati really should have won! The next one is check it, IN NICARAGUA! What are the f-ing odds! Until next time, mis amigos, I miss you all!
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Day O
It feels like it’s been forever since my last post (in America!), but really it’s only been three days! Tuesday was kind of fun, well not most of it, compared to Wednesday though, which we will get to, it was a dream. The flight from Cola was early, got up at 4a.m., but problem less and the airport had free wireless. All airports should really have free wireless, cheap D.C. and Miami bastards. Anyway, got to D.C. actually a little early, and was definitely the first Peace Corps person to try and check in that morning. Left the bags with some niceish hotel workers and met Katy for a little breakfast (thanks for the skittles and starbursts!) and made it back to the hotel. Still couldn’t check in (apparently this is one of those swanky hotels that are booked solid in the middle of the week for no apparent reason), by this time though there were a couple other volunteers there to meet and share paranoid fears with.
We had this really long orientation session where we did things like draw our feelings on giant sheets of paper with a group, seriously that was mostly what we did. I’m one of like 3 Southern people here, one Mississippi, one North Carolina. Some Florida’s, but that doesn’t count. Afterwards, the people in charge gave us way more money than we really needed to go out and eat wherever. So some of us decided to hit up Georgetown for our last supper. Really fun, lots of wine and beer, Katy came by. Dinner was definitely the highlight of this long day. We got back around 11 so we could get a nap in before our 1 a.m. checkout time.
Day 1
This day was hella long. We had to checkout of the hotel at 1 so we could take a bus to the airport at 1:30. The airport was closed, so we all just laid around on the floor and played cards and what not. No free wireless…assholes. Why did we get to the airport before it was open? That is a stellar question to which apparently no one knows the answer. We herded thorough eventually for our flight to Miami. I slept in fits for pretty much the entire flight and felt slightly less bitchy upon arrival. The Miami airport is really nice, but not quite nice enough to enjoy staying in for over 4 hours which is what ended up happening.
First, right before boarding was supposed to happen, the man came on and was all like “there are some mechanical problems we are working on, so slight delay” to which I thought slight, take your damn time! Then he came back on and goes “so we’re going to think about it for another hour.” While the airport staff was pondering whether or not our lives were super important or just fairly important, we played more cards, no free wireless…really Miami, I expected more from you. I guess the hard thinking airport staff didn’t want our blood on their hands, so they decided to change our plane and we all herded across the airport to another gate. We waited there for awhile, before boarding. Just as I laid my head back against my seat for some rest, someone came on the intercom to tell us to all get off for “security reasons” so we all exited the aircraft with much pissiness, though at this point it was kind of funny. Finally we got on the plane where I discovered a damn crying baby two rows behind me. If that had kept up the entire flight, I might have lost my shit, but luckily it only lasted like 15 min or so.
We all excitedly looked out our windows upon arrival, and Nicaragua looked fantastic from the air. A bunch of PC staff greeted us at the airport and we took an hour bus ride to Grenada, which is lovely. The hotel we are staying at is pretty much paradise. We had a couple hours of information sessions and dinner, before they let us go. Most of us hit the sheets early, I went to bed at 9 when I realized I was staring at a wall for over 5 uninterrupted minutes.
Day 2
Such a refreshing sleep. We had to be at breakfast at 7 and some people went jogging at 6. I was really planning on it, don’t roll your eyes, but then I didn’t, which sounds like most of my stories about exercise. There were some current volunteers around, which is fantastic, since they just went through what we are going thorough very recently. This one girl told me about how poor her Spanish was when she got here and how she was placed in the beginner low class, which is the lowest, but now she’s pretty much fluent. She’s my inspiration. We had lots of information sessions today and got a whole pharmacia worth of medicine. We also had our individual Spanish evaluations. This went pretty much as expected. The evaluators spoke no English and my lady soon realized I spoke no Spanish. I mangled her language for several minutes before resorting to my blank stare method. So then she would point at basic things like my shoe and a chair and I was all over that. Except for body parts, that section of vocabulary completely left me. That sounds like not a big deal, but she pointed to like 10 different ones, as my hopes of beginner high or intermediate low class went fluttering out the window. I’m not extremely concerned about it though. I’ll just have to show improvement to an intermediate medium or high level by July to pass training.
Later, some of us walked around the city. We took a few pictures and I’ll try to attach some of mine. The city is beautiful, but really hot in the afternoon. Due to my extreme sweating situation, some other volunteers asked how my run went when I got back. To which I replied, quite well, before chugging two bottles of water. I just took my malaria pills, so I’ll keep you posted of any weird dreams I might have. One of the current volunteers said hers’ were all sexual, so…I probably won’t keep you posted on those. I didn't proofread this so...sorry. Adios!
It feels like it’s been forever since my last post (in America!), but really it’s only been three days! Tuesday was kind of fun, well not most of it, compared to Wednesday though, which we will get to, it was a dream. The flight from Cola was early, got up at 4a.m., but problem less and the airport had free wireless. All airports should really have free wireless, cheap D.C. and Miami bastards. Anyway, got to D.C. actually a little early, and was definitely the first Peace Corps person to try and check in that morning. Left the bags with some niceish hotel workers and met Katy for a little breakfast (thanks for the skittles and starbursts!) and made it back to the hotel. Still couldn’t check in (apparently this is one of those swanky hotels that are booked solid in the middle of the week for no apparent reason), by this time though there were a couple other volunteers there to meet and share paranoid fears with.
We had this really long orientation session where we did things like draw our feelings on giant sheets of paper with a group, seriously that was mostly what we did. I’m one of like 3 Southern people here, one Mississippi, one North Carolina. Some Florida’s, but that doesn’t count. Afterwards, the people in charge gave us way more money than we really needed to go out and eat wherever. So some of us decided to hit up Georgetown for our last supper. Really fun, lots of wine and beer, Katy came by. Dinner was definitely the highlight of this long day. We got back around 11 so we could get a nap in before our 1 a.m. checkout time.
Day 1
This day was hella long. We had to checkout of the hotel at 1 so we could take a bus to the airport at 1:30. The airport was closed, so we all just laid around on the floor and played cards and what not. No free wireless…assholes. Why did we get to the airport before it was open? That is a stellar question to which apparently no one knows the answer. We herded thorough eventually for our flight to Miami. I slept in fits for pretty much the entire flight and felt slightly less bitchy upon arrival. The Miami airport is really nice, but not quite nice enough to enjoy staying in for over 4 hours which is what ended up happening.
First, right before boarding was supposed to happen, the man came on and was all like “there are some mechanical problems we are working on, so slight delay” to which I thought slight, take your damn time! Then he came back on and goes “so we’re going to think about it for another hour.” While the airport staff was pondering whether or not our lives were super important or just fairly important, we played more cards, no free wireless…really Miami, I expected more from you. I guess the hard thinking airport staff didn’t want our blood on their hands, so they decided to change our plane and we all herded across the airport to another gate. We waited there for awhile, before boarding. Just as I laid my head back against my seat for some rest, someone came on the intercom to tell us to all get off for “security reasons” so we all exited the aircraft with much pissiness, though at this point it was kind of funny. Finally we got on the plane where I discovered a damn crying baby two rows behind me. If that had kept up the entire flight, I might have lost my shit, but luckily it only lasted like 15 min or so.
We all excitedly looked out our windows upon arrival, and Nicaragua looked fantastic from the air. A bunch of PC staff greeted us at the airport and we took an hour bus ride to Grenada, which is lovely. The hotel we are staying at is pretty much paradise. We had a couple hours of information sessions and dinner, before they let us go. Most of us hit the sheets early, I went to bed at 9 when I realized I was staring at a wall for over 5 uninterrupted minutes.
Day 2
Such a refreshing sleep. We had to be at breakfast at 7 and some people went jogging at 6. I was really planning on it, don’t roll your eyes, but then I didn’t, which sounds like most of my stories about exercise. There were some current volunteers around, which is fantastic, since they just went through what we are going thorough very recently. This one girl told me about how poor her Spanish was when she got here and how she was placed in the beginner low class, which is the lowest, but now she’s pretty much fluent. She’s my inspiration. We had lots of information sessions today and got a whole pharmacia worth of medicine. We also had our individual Spanish evaluations. This went pretty much as expected. The evaluators spoke no English and my lady soon realized I spoke no Spanish. I mangled her language for several minutes before resorting to my blank stare method. So then she would point at basic things like my shoe and a chair and I was all over that. Except for body parts, that section of vocabulary completely left me. That sounds like not a big deal, but she pointed to like 10 different ones, as my hopes of beginner high or intermediate low class went fluttering out the window. I’m not extremely concerned about it though. I’ll just have to show improvement to an intermediate medium or high level by July to pass training.
Later, some of us walked around the city. We took a few pictures and I’ll try to attach some of mine. The city is beautiful, but really hot in the afternoon. Due to my extreme sweating situation, some other volunteers asked how my run went when I got back. To which I replied, quite well, before chugging two bottles of water. I just took my malaria pills, so I’ll keep you posted of any weird dreams I might have. One of the current volunteers said hers’ were all sexual, so…I probably won’t keep you posted on those. I didn't proofread this so...sorry. Adios!
Monday, May 10, 2010
So just watched "Dancing with the Stars" for the first time and now viewing GG for the several hundredth. America! Is it so wrong that I'm more than a little concerned about missing the apparently epic (according to certain internet sources) finale? Is it too much to hope that my Nicaraguan host family are avid Gossip Girl fans who are at this moment planning a big GG finale party for this upcoming Monday night? I don't think so.
Tomorrow (at 6 a.m. Yay!) my plane leaves for DC where I will meet all the other Peace Corps volunteers headed to Nicaragua. Then we have some horrid schedule where we check into the hotel at noon, do some sort of seminar till 7, and then check out of said hotel at 1 a.m. to head over to the airport for a flight that doesn't leave till like 6:30 a.m., which is just disgusting. They must have their reasons, though. I guess I'm all packed, but really packing for 2 years of your life is pretty much a crap-shoot. I'm super nervous/excited about this trip. Mostly concerned that my lack of Spanish and/or lack of roughing it experience will make this a mess. At the very least, me trying to run around a third world country where I don't speak the language should be high comedy. I'll try and keep up with this blog fairly regularly, should have internet for the next few days at least during training. We're in a hotel in Managua till Saturday. Make sure you leave comments every once in a while if you're reading, so I know I'm not just writing this to myself! Need to start getting ready for bed. Love you all!
Tomorrow (at 6 a.m. Yay!) my plane leaves for DC where I will meet all the other Peace Corps volunteers headed to Nicaragua. Then we have some horrid schedule where we check into the hotel at noon, do some sort of seminar till 7, and then check out of said hotel at 1 a.m. to head over to the airport for a flight that doesn't leave till like 6:30 a.m., which is just disgusting. They must have their reasons, though. I guess I'm all packed, but really packing for 2 years of your life is pretty much a crap-shoot. I'm super nervous/excited about this trip. Mostly concerned that my lack of Spanish and/or lack of roughing it experience will make this a mess. At the very least, me trying to run around a third world country where I don't speak the language should be high comedy. I'll try and keep up with this blog fairly regularly, should have internet for the next few days at least during training. We're in a hotel in Managua till Saturday. Make sure you leave comments every once in a while if you're reading, so I know I'm not just writing this to myself! Need to start getting ready for bed. Love you all!
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