Thursday, May 29, 2008

i´ve survived my first hurricane...

well, i´m surviving it right now. it´s only a category 1, but it´s pretty crazy. i guess it´s the first tropical storm of 2008 - hurricane alma - and it´s about the size of the entire country of nicaragua.

did i forget to mention the fiesta we went to..? the one where the bouncers wouldn´t let us leave..? yeah, that was pretty cool.

next week we start teaching in classrooms...in spanish...we need to fill 45 minutes with material while keeping 15-16 year olds entertained. my first class is on tuesday, and needless to say, i´m more than a bit nervous.

ok, must get back ´home.´

oh, and ps, i love the letters. keep ém coming!

Saturday, May 24, 2008

another day in san juan de oriente...

I can’t believe I’ve only been gone for 2 weeks – it feels like ages ago that I was waiting until the last minute to pack for this adventure. Which, by the way, I did a crappy job of doing… But anyway, this is where I live:


Yeah, that´s a volcano.

My room temp was about 80 last night, and I was definitely wearing sweatpants. They say it typically takes a person 2 weeks to fully adjust to a climate, and I’m pretty sure I’m close to achieving that goal. That’s not to say I’m not sweating in the 95% humidity, 95 degree heat during the day, it’s just a small milestone of the many to come…hopefully.

My host family is awesome. We can’t really communicate that well (maybe that’s why we all get along..?), but we most definitely try. It’s interesting, living with a family, because I haven’t really lived under someone else’s roof for a solid 6 years. I can’t say I miss the “where are you going?” and the “what time will you return?” questions, but I imagine it could be much worse. Oh, and I just found out that my family has a finca, so my host brother and I are going to check out the mango groves and avocado trees after my classes today. Yeah, I have classes on Saturdays.


These are two girls that live with me:


Speaking of food, pineapples are white here, not yellow. They’re just as sweet, but somehow quite a bit more tasty. They seem fresher, just like the avocados (which happen to have bright green casings here). I drink freshly blended juice for breakfast and dinner each day. On the contrary, I’ve never had so much fried food in my life. Gallo pinto, although really only rice and beans, is fried, and we consume that at least twice each day. Oh, and I think I had an omelet with hot dog the other morning, but it could’ve been some other form of mystery meat. Back to the fried food topic - I’m pretty sure that if my host mom wanted to attempt to burn down our house, she’d have enough grease in the kitchen to give it a wicked shot. Wait, does concrete melt..?

Oh, and sorry for the atypical vocab word - did I mention that one of my current sitemates is from Boston..?

So I sleep under a mosquito net, which makes it difficult for flying beasts to penetrate my sleeping bubble. Inevitably, one or two find a way in throughout the course of my 7-hour toss-and-turn-fest. The other night though, it wasn’t the dengue-carrying, malaria-spreading fiend that attacked me – it was a spider that was hanging out in my sheets. And where did this frisky little spider bite me, you ask? Let´s just say it wasn´t on my legs or feet...
Whoever said that roosters crow in the morning was so wrong. Last night, for instance, the roosters started in at 10:30pm, and stopped at around 7:30am. Nonetheless, it´s still a beautiful country:



This is a lagoon that was formed by a volcano - once we finally got down there it was amazing, but the hike back up was treachorous.

Oh, and one of the guys in my group is named Avi. Every time I see him I say “Avi-ously.” I’m really annoyed with myself for doing it, but I just can’t help it…luckily he doesn’t hate me…yet.

More soon!

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Spanish class for how many hours a day?

6. Need I say more?

San Juan de Oriente is great so far. The people here are so accommodating, and besides the occasional cat call, I have nothing negative to say about Nicaragua. Well, maybe the heat...

There is a transportation strike going on right now, so we cant do much besides wander around our town. If youve seen anything about it on CNN, Im sure it was about the one violent act that occured. Honestly though, I couldnt feel safer where I am right now.

Ill update ASAP.

Oh, and I totally had pancakes for breakfast the other day. Score.

Miss you all!

Sunday, May 11, 2008

i like rice and beans

I arrived at my host family’s house yesterday with a greeting from my Spanish teacher. Yeah, that’s right, I’m living with her parents. No pressure to learn the language from my new sister or anything…

I’m living in San Juan de Oriente for the next few months of training. It’s a small community of about 4,000 people. There are 3 other trainees that are living within walking distance, and about 4,000 little ceramic shops in between my house and the nearest trainee. No lie. Even better, here is what comes up if you wikipedia the name of the town:
"The patron saint festival in San Juan de Oriente celebrates the birth of John the Baptist on the week of June 24. The celebration consists of many processions with statues of John the Baptist, fireworks, and most famous of all "chilillo" a dance/sport where two "chinegros" use dried bovine penises fashioned in the form of a saber complete with leather handguard to whip their opponent. After a few seconds somebody in the costume of a yegüita (mare) enters between the two people ending the bout. While no winners or losers are declared, the hard whipping does leave marks or scars."
...
The weather is hot. And by hot, I mean disgusting. Everyone is constantly sweating – even the locals. The humidity is stifling and I’m pretty sure that all of my clothes, shoes and books will be moldy within the hour. It rained last night which cooled my room from 89.9 degrees to 86.8. I expect I would’ve slept well with the 3.1 degree drop in temperature, but the roosters started in at 2am, after the dogs had been incessantly barking since about midnight. There were fireworks going off all night which were so loud they sounded like gunshots through my half-open window. I kept having dreams that I was getting up to grab my earplugs, and somehow never made it to my “closet.” Speaking of my room, my mosquito net is pretty cool. It’s this really ugly shade of green that compliments my skin tone perfectly.

We have running water every other day, and have electricity every day after 11am. I’m not sure exactly what “running water” means here, because the toilet doesn’t flush and we bathe with buckets.

Food: for lunch yesterday I ate rice, beans, chicken and potatoes. For dinner we had gallo pinto (beans and rice), with bologna tacos made with homemade corn tortillas. I know it sounds strange, but they were pretty good. For breakfast I had rice and beans in a tortilla. Maybe I’ll just update the food section if I ever eat anything other than rice, beans or tortillas...

The kids here are adorable, and so photogenic. I want one.

More soon.

Love and miss you all!

Friday, May 9, 2008

san juan de oriente

safe and sound in a beautiful country...

i'm moving in with my host family tomorrow - they live in a relatively small community called san juan de oriente. the town is known for the pottery, so i'm super pumped to get my hands dirty if given the opportunity. oh, and my nica mom makes her own peanut butter and all of the other trainees are super jealous.

my computer is dying, so i'll write more asap.

miss and love you all!