Most of week 2

One of the local artists places

Where we usually have class
Days 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.