A visit from Luis, Christmas Break, and finally working in Achuapa

December 9^th – January 26^th

My last couple days in Nicaragua before my big trip to the States were pretty good. The Thursday before I left (the 10^th), I headed down to Managua for yet another appointment with my incompetent dermatologist. I showed up, having heeded her advice by applying a specific acid, only to have her tell me that the skin was “completely burned” and that she couldn’t do anything. Thanks for that sound advice Doctor, here’s 50 dollars. She did a minor burn on my foot that didn’t swell up like it normally did, so I wasn’t able to drain any of the liquid – thereby hurting me more, looking terrible and causing future problems. Though I was mad that the dermatologist once again failed to help me rid my foot of warts, I strategically planned the visit to coincide with Luis (my buddy from Chinandega who finished his service in July) coming back to Nicaragua to visit. He came in the following day around noon, so I hung out in the office until he finally rolled around.

Brie was down in Managua as well so all three of us headed to León to meet up with Brie’s neighbor for a night out on the town. Luis is pretty flashly (or at least he pretends to be – either that or he likes rubbing in our faces that we’re poor), so he picked up dinner and instead of our normal activity (well, normal for whenever I’ve hung out with him), we just headed back to our hotel and didn’t go crazy. However, Luis always has a “aw man, come on, you’re not done are you?” mood to him. So instead of turning in because we were tired, we all sat around and had a couple of beers before retreating to our room to have Luis go through watch a couple hours of music videos. There’s no changing him.

Since I was going to the States on Monday, I had to head back to Achuapa to pack a bag and secure my house. So after breakfast, Luis and I headed to Achuapa (somehow he was easily talked into going). It was the first time he’d actually been to Achuapa since the volunteer before me, but it was nice to get to hang out with him another day. I did the majority of what I needed to do (with the exception of packing almost all the important things I wanted to take home), and Luis couldn’t go without beer, so I made the rare exception and we had some beers and watched a movie.

The next day morning we left Achuapa and had a brief stopover in León while we waited for Luis’ girlfriend. Once she showed up, we went back down to Managua (I was flying out the following morning). After a couple hours, his girlfriend headed back to Chinandega and we went and caught a movie.

Between the horribly uncomfortable beds, the bugs and my constant worry that I would oversleep my alarm, I slept roughly 10 minutes the entire night. Finally when the time I was actually supposed to wake at rolled around (I felt like I’d waited months), I got ready and didn’t even have time to finish my short regimen before my taxi driver showed up (the best driver in the whole country). Not only did he pick me up at 4 AM, he arranged to pick up 2 other people that were out of the way, and bring us to the airport – and he did it all for 11 dollars. I don’t care what country you’re in, but that’s a damn good deal. He charges virtually nothing (so I always tip him double the fare) but only takes appointments due to being robbed 3 times by Nicaraguans. The result being the most trustworthy and fair taxi driver in the country.

Getting out of Managua was pretty much a non issue and I was issued a seat right away, but I had a short window of time to make my connecting flight to Colorado Springs (I wouldn’t have been able to fly into Denver for days), so after getting through customs (no weird looks, inquisitions, or anything!) I booked it for my gate, which of course was at the farthest end of the airport. Once at the gate, they had a ticket waiting for me and I discovered I was the only standby on the plane – because it was empty! So I was finally heading back home for the first time in a year and a half.

The culture shock started immediately after getting off the plane. Everything just bugged me. I wanted to get away from everybody; I rolled my eyes at people complaining about everything under the sun. Having been away from all the amazing “luxury” goods like running water (that’s drinkable!) and no flaming piles of garbage, I could find nothing to legitimately complain about.

The culture shock continued as soon as we started landing in Colorado Springs. I cried upon seeing Pikes Peak (I missed our mountains a ton, though I never really venture through them), and was overwhelmed with an undescribable feeling upon landing.

The majority of my trip went just like that. I enjoyed seeing everybody and experiencing all that I’d missed, but being away from it for so long made me realise that I don’t need the majority of it. My big conclusion was that aside from going back to study for my Masters (though I might do it somewhere where it’s a whole lot cheaper – like Europe or Canada), I don’t need to go back to the States anytime soon. It’s just doesn’t fit for me anymore. Sure I enjoy many things, but for the most part, it’s just way too overwhelming for me to take on a daily basis. They say that simplifying your life is what needs to be done in order to be happy, and I honestly couldn’t agree more. Maybe it’s just the culture shock, and I’ll get readjusted once going back in July, but there`s just too much “stuff” for me to handle.

It also didn’t help that the entire trip I was sick with one mystery ailment or another (more on what it was later). I didn’t gorge myself with all the delicacies I’d hoped to because most of the time I just didn’t have the apetite, was on antibiotics, or I just didn’t want to because my preferences had changed (or tolerance – one to two beers and I have no interest in drinking more).

Even going to the gym was a shock to me. Here I was in a gym with everything I’ve ever needed. I get every monthly issue of Mens Health and now I finally had the opportunity to do some of the exercises that I’d seen. However, with so much equipment, I spent more time trying to figure out what it was that I wanted to do than I did actually work out. I also discovered, that while I’m in stellar shape now, I don’t have the strength that I used to. Being in Nicaragua has forced me to completely revamp my workout so that I need virtually nothing. Therefore, once in the gym, I ended up doing the majority of the exercises I would’ve done back in Nicaragua.

There was one thing that I couldn’t get enough of though – the snow. It was so great to have massive amounts of snow after not having any for 20 months. Furthermore, it was the first time I can remember that I looked forward to shovelling the sidewalk and driveway. However, even the excitement of the snow wore off as I was absolutely freezing the entire time I was in Colorado. Towards the end of my trip, I was really craving the constant heat of Nicaragua.

Another thing about my States routine was that I suddenly began to jog. Before I left for Peace Corps, jogging was a last resort to exercise, as I always preferred to be out there on my bike. But with 4 flat tires, none of my fun bikes were rideable. So for the first time in my life, I took running over my beloved bicycle (that’ll change once I get back!). Also, due to the time change (which was only an hour), I tended to wake up around 4 and go for a jog because I had no idea what else to do.

Overall the trip was a good one – I got to see most of the people I wanted to see, I indulged in practically everything I had been missing and I got the fill of U.S. culture that I needed to push me through 6.5 more months of Peace Corps.

The trip back was a complete miracle as I definitely shouldn’t have made it on any of the flights, but the great divine intervened and put me on the last seat out of Denver and made me the only standby going to Managua. It all worked out. I even met another volunteer in the airport in Houston, so we shared a cab and a room in Managua. All the parts of the trip magically came together when stastistically they probably shouldn’t have.

Once back in the Nicaragua, I spent a few days in Malpaisillo where Brie and I were able to indulge in the handful of goodies we still had from out trip back home. New Years was a nightmare and sleeping was near impossible, but we managed to survive it and not be exhausted the following day.

My first day back in Achuapa, the 4^th, I found that my dog had not died (I was worried he would) and everything in my house was safe in sound – though it was awfully dirty. However, my situation was pretty similar to the one I’d left – I had no actual work to do. I had planned to solidify my spelling bee project that I’m trying to implement in the elementary schools, but I just didn’t have the time. Furthermore, I’d anticipated that the NGO I was hoping would help me, was going to bail on me. Due to this, I had to be persistent in trying to meet with the boss of the NGO’s Achuapa branch. I went to try to meet with the boss every day for 2 weeks before he was A. finally there and B. not busy. While I waiting for the opportunity to schedule a meeting (that he would actually attend), I pretty much just sat on my butt and watch movies that Phil had hooked me up with when I was back in the States.

Also, during those weeks, I headed back to Managua for another appointment with my worthless dermatologist. I showed up, she told me the skin was too hard so she couldn’t do anything. Another 50 dollars down the drain. Thank you taxpayers. I formally requested to see the other dermatologist for the next time I come down to Managua. Brie and a volunteer from my group, Katie, were also in Managua that day, so we all went out to dinner. Surprisingly, Katie had the contact info for the USAID guy whose house we went to for Thanksgiving, so he picked us up and we went out for paella. He’s a cool guy and we hung out with him until around 1 AM. He sneakily picked up the tab at the restaurant (70 dollars!) and then convinced us to go to a “Young Diplomats” party at some uppity bar. We were reluctant at first, but gave in since he was so jazzed about it. At the young diplomats was everybody that worked at the embassy that was in their young 20’s, plus a group of students from Harvard. I’ll let you all guess how well they mingled with 3 Peace Corps volunteers. Luis was a good host and brought us around to introduce us to a whole bunch of people, but there’s really only so much we can talk about. We’re both government workers but with completely opposite mentalities. In spite of this, Luis stuck around and chatted with us for most of the time and picked up our drinks too. While I hate not paying my own way, it was nice to be treated to an experience like that.

*Warning: the following is disgusting*

The following morning, still full of paella, I had a funny feeling. It felt like I had gas. Not real bad gas, but almost like little bubbles of gas. I shrugged it off and went to the bathroom to discover that my problem wasn’t gas – I had a 9-inch intestinal worm that had finally made its way through my system. Then it all made sense – all my mysterious illnesses when I was in the States was because I had an intestinal worm for 5 weeks, and those gas bubbles weren´t gas at all – it was the head of the worm. I went into the PC office and told them about it and they gave me some drugs for it.

That day all the business volunteers met to discuss our business camp that will take place at the end of the month. Everybody was pretty distracted for the most part and we didn’t get as much done as we’d hoped, but we still got out at the time we’d hoped. Following the meeting, we worked on camp stuff (presentations and whatnot) and that night Brie and I took Jordan out for dinner to TGI Fridays. The food was amazingly overwhelming, but we did exactly what we’d set out to do – completely gorge ourselves.

Late that night, I had diarrhea a couple hundred times, which I knew wasn’t good. I ignored it for the better part of the morning before caving in and calling the med office. They sent me over to get a stool analysis and by lunchtime I discovered what my new problem was – a bacterial infection. Perfect – a worm one day, a bacterial infection the next. Healthwise, January definitely  hasn’t been a lucky month.

The next week I finally was able to meet with Mr. NGO boss man, and he put my spelling bee plan into action. We got an action plan to introduce my spelling bee to around 5 schools and scheduled a meeting. He called up the education superintendent for the municipality and scheduled a meeting with her for the following morning. However, my delegada (superintendent) was sick with what she thought was dengue, so she canceled the meeting and rescheduled it for Wednesday. Since I wouldn’t be able to attend (another camp meeting in Managua), the NGO boss said he’d take care of it.

When I got back to Achuapa, I discovered that the meeting went great and the delegada loved the idea of doing the spelling bee. However, since she’s still out of commission with her illness, I’ve been unable to meet with her to discuss the specifics.

I also attended my first meeting of agricultural workers via the NGO. I attended their intial informational session of the year where I was introduced to around 35 of them and we discussed what they are interested in so I can develop some business sessions. The meeting went well and I was put in charge of creating a bunch of business informational sessions for a group of agricultural workers that do not have businesses, which will then be combined with 30 more agricultural workers that do have a business (once we get to the presentations that are important to business owners).

Once I started meeting with the NGO, work really picked up. We’ll see if I can maintain this level of productivity in the upcoming month.

A bacterial infection, frisbee, a census, and too much orange juice

February 24^th

 

I didn’t have water the previous day, so I decided not to go jogging in the morning. However, on top of that, I felt terrible that morning. My back felt all weird, I had a headache, and a minor stomachache. What a pain (literally in this case). I headed to my class at my private school, and instead of having my counterpart teach like I’d planned, I taught the entire class. Oh well, there’s always the next class. I had a relatively normal day the rest of the day (minus planning with my counterpart from Los Caraos since she told me she wouldn’t be in the class).

 

February 25^th

 

My sickness continued, so I had to skip another day of exercising (this is driving me crazy). I just took it easy during the morning and then headed to Los Caraos for my class at 9. My kids wanted to do something fun at first, so we did a quick game before we started, then started the class. I asked them what we did in the previous class, and nobody had any idea. With that, fun Ricardo left the classroom and angry Ricardo that was going to give everybody a zero came in. For the most part, we made it through the class without too many problems, but the students were quite aware that I was not happy that they’d screwed around and not taken any notes. Afterwards, I headed back to Achuapa (for some reason I saw tons of turkeys). I wasn’t feeling great, so I pretty much laid low in the house until it came time to go eat at Esteban’s house. I felt pretty crummy the whole time and had a major craving for coke the whole time (I never drink soda). I figured it was because I was dehydrated, and when I got home drank a good amount of water before going to sleep.

 

February 26^th

 

Today started really early for me – 1:30 AM. The water hadn’t come on forever, so when I saw that there was water, I washed all my dishes that had been piling up, and filled up every barrel and bottle I had. However, there was only water pressure in my spout on the porch, so I had to do everything from that one. When everything was said and done, it took me around an hour and fifteen minutes. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only reason I’d woken up – my stomach was killing me. My rule of thumb (which I’ve apparently forgotten) is if you have a stomachache that isn’t getting better, it’s not something you ate, it means you’ve got a little friend (bacteria or parasite) that’s living in you. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night (or rather, morning), and woke up feeling worse. I decided to take some medicine and got an incredible fever (103-104) and a pounding headache for a couple of hours. I laid down to get some rest and had some crazy semi dream. The only thing I remember about it is that there were dwarves that we had to save according to some law (I think it was more like some sort of protection act). Everybody in the dream was disappointed. Man, fever dreams are weird.

 

After waking up from that nonsensical dreamland, I went and laid in my hammock (I thought the fresh air might make me feel good). Instead, I remained immobile in the hammock as my fever, headache, and stomachache proceeded to kill me. Around 10 minutes later, my neighbor Martha told me that the electricity guy was in town (there is no office in Achuapa, so a guy shows up with a little desk he puts on the sidewalk where we pay the electric bill every month). My Spanish is horrible when I’m sick (because I’m focussing on everything but the outside world. So I grabbed my bill (I wasn’t sure if it was a water bill or electricity bill or if she told me there was now an electricity office – nothing made sense at the time), and stumbled across the park (with a obvious look of agony on my face). In the line, I found myself surrounded by my students, all waiting in line to pay their parents electricity bill. This meant one thing – they would talk to me.  I could barely open my eyes because of my fever and headache, so I just mumbled a bit, paid my bill, and went home. I realised that walking around actually made me feel a little bit better, so I took a shower and headed to the cyber (yes, I know it’s not moving around, but I did have to walk the half block there).

 

That experience left me feeling horrible, so I headed back home and watched a movie (Broken Flowers – there’s something about Bill Murray movies that make Peace Corps easier for me). I apparently wasn’t paying attention, because shortly after my movie was over, my computer turned off – the power had apparently gone off. Now with no power, I laid in my bed/rested for an hour before heading over to eat at Esteban’s house. At his house I just ate and left, as I still felt horrible. They all kept telling me I have a kidney infection because I have a fever and headache (yea, ok, whatever). I wasn’t up for too long before going to sleep (I think I went to sleep at 7:45 or something).

 

February 27^th

 

My sickness continued, but appeared to be getting better. However, since I was still unsure if I was dying or not (or if I’d diagnosed myself correctly), I held off on the gym for yet another day. Instead, I did a few errands and cleaned the house. I had a list of things to do (they weren’t too important, but they were still things to do), but everything on that said list took a back seat as I got a strange urge – to play Frisbee. I figured I needn’t find anybody to play with since all I have to do is step outside and ask any kid on the block if they wanted to play a new game. This is exactly what I did – and I taught around 15 kids how to play Frisbee for around 4 hours. Now when I’m super bored, I know the exact activity I can do that will kill heaps of time.

 

After Frisbee with the kids, I continued my errands and bought a bunch of food. Later that night, I threw a chicken in some water on the stove to cook while I hung out with some of the neighborhood kids and waited for Brie to show up on the last Achuapa bus. When she showed up, I began continued with my cooking lessons – fajitas. I had no idea that you could boil a chicken and it’d be completely cooked (WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THIS?), so I was one step ahead of the game by the time she showed up. After sautéing some peppers and onions, it was done (They never make it look this easy on those cooking shows). Not only that – it was amazingly delicious (I gave all the bones to Cual the dog – he’s now attached to me). I’m definitely going to be cooking chicken once a week at least (and even more once I buy some barbeque sauce). We watched the movie Zach and Miri make a porno which was hysterical. It’s definitely one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a long while. But then again, who’s to question the ways of Kevin Smith?

 

Oh, and today I’ve been in site for 7 months. Woo.

 

February 28^th

 

Originally, Brie and I planned on taking a hike to a waterfall in a community 5 kilometres from Achuapa (Largartillo), but I was still feeling a little strange due to my illness (I think it’s a bacterial infection). I woke up early and did dishes, filled up my barrels, and other things since the water came on. A little later however, I had an unexpected visit.

 

“Buenas.”

My neighbor called me and telling me somebody was looking for me, so I poked my head out to find 3 people dressed in lab coats. They didn’t introduce themselves or say where they were from, so I stood there awkwardly for a bit until I figured I asked them if they wanted to sit down. They accepted the offer, and I grabbed some chairs out of my house and sat out on the porch with these mystery visitors. They told me they were doing a census for the Ministry of Health and were passing by each residence in the country. They asked me some basic questions, address, date of birth, level of education attained, job, and then some not so basic things. After their few questions, they took my waist size (80 centimeters! Or 31.5 inches for those with no idea), and my blood pressure (still 110/70), They also looked at the cleanliness of my porch/living area (good thing I cleaned the day before), and said they were thoroughly impressed. They were exceptionally pleased with my stored water with a top on it, “Ah, that’s one of our requirements to prevent the spread of disease and illness.” “Well yes, of course, that’s why I did it, I want to be a model citizen.” And that was that – I got the stamp of approval from the Ministry of Health. God knows what will happen now. They’ll probably draft me or something.

 

After my “visit”, Brie and I headed out to eat at one of the two restaurants in town. After the delicious food (and a stop by the biggest pulperia in the world to grab stuff for dinner), we headed off to Johani’s farm since every family member has asked me when I’m going to stop by. There we chatted with Johani’s sister Glenda, her mother, and father for a bit before heading down to the river on the farm. It was starting to get dark, so we stopped by their house one last time before heading back to Achaupa. Brie and I got the urge to make fresh orange juice in the morning (actually, I think it was my craving), so I asked Glenda how much 12 oranges would cost. She then informed me I wasn’t allowed to buy them, and that I should take 24. I reluctantly agreed and we headed back to Achuapa with pounds of oranges (amazingly sweet oranges no less!).

 

I played less of a role in the dinner but helped nonetheless – we had a sort of noodle dish with vegetables, eggs and peanut/soy sauce. It was pretty good, and SUPER filling. I was only able to eat a bit of it. We watched another movie (Rachel gets Married), for about an hour before we both decided we hated it. Off went the movie and we busted out a new dice game Brie had (Phase 10 – anybody heard of it?). It was nice to mix it up since Brie is the worst card (and monopoly) player on the planet.

 

March 1^st

 

I got up instinctively several times very early because I assumed the water was going to come on, and I could do my dishes and clean up. These endeavors were all made in vain though as the water was not on any of the times that I checked. So in addition to not having water, I was now awake despite it being 6 AM.

 

We woke up and made some breakfast, and I went to work on squeezing the oranges for orange juice. We were originally going to make juice out of 12 oranges, thinking it would make enough juice for two people. However, we had no idea what to do with the other 12 oranges, so I squeezed those too. By the time I’d squeezed all 24 oranges, I’d been making the juice for an hour. That was my first surprise. My second surprise – I made around 70 ounces of juice. I thought maybe I’d get a litre of juice out of the oranges, but never in my life did I think I’d get more than half a gallon of juice out of them. I downed a 24 ounce cup of it (barely), and just felt too orange-y to drink more (I would learn later that if you remove the peel before extracting the juice, you get rid of the certain bite/tang to the juice).

 

We just hung out the rest of the morning reading, rocking out to the Pixies, and played the dice game again (Brie won for probably the first time in her life – at anything). She took off at 2:45 and I bought some food and did a couple visits with people before heading over to Esteban’s house. After eating dinner, I went on a rave about the Max and Miri movie, so we went to my house and watched it (thankfully the majority of the jokes were still funny after being translated).

 

Good weekend.

Projects, Being Economical, Bacterial Infection, Cheating Students

October 25^th

 

With it being Saturday once again, this meant but one thing – internet day. Being said, the only way I can use the internet is to go down to El Sauce (at least until Wednesday!), so I caught the 8 AM bus out of town. It hasn’t rained for two days (miracle?), so I expected the roads would be better and we’d get there in no time. Well, I was right and wrong – the roads were crap (our bus couldn’t pass a field of mud about a kilometre outside of Achuapa, so we had to walk across the mud and get on another bus), but we still got to El Sauce in around an hour  - right on time.

 

I casually got caught up on the happenings in the rest of the world and answered all my emails, etc., when the power went out, thereby ending my internet session. I paid for the time I was there and then noticed something elusive on the owner of the cyber’s desk – a newspaper! “Where did you get that?” “Uh…don’t you live here? They’re everywhere.” He told me where I could get a newspaper, as well as a big gigantic bottle of water (5 gallons) and I headed out of the cyber. Immediately upon exiting, I saw that a bus going to Achuapa was at the stop…4 blocks away. I had no idea if it was just about to leave, but I certainly wasn’t about to wait to see, so I took off running after it. In the 4 block full sprint, I passed 4 mototaxis and a truck and on every block I had a handful of people screaming, “¡Dale chele!” I actually caught the bus, which unfortunately meant I forwent my opportunity to get a newspaper and water, but hey whatever.

 

I rolled into Achuapa at 11:30, a mere 3.5 hours after I left. This was by far the quickest I’ve ever gone to El Sauce and returned, and I’m pretty sure it’s the fastest I could’ve done the trip since there are only a handful of busses that go to Achuapa everyday. Proud of my achievement, I went home and made my standard rice and beans and mixed it up with an orange. Then began my ‘cielo razo’ installation.

 

As I mentioned at the beginning of the week, I got the mini-super to give me a mountain of egg cartons because I wanted to create a soundproof (or at least that’s what I’m aiming for) barrier so my house doesn’t sound like an engine room every time it rains. I put a bunch of egg cartons together, but then it dawned on me that I had no idea how to go about attaching the egg cartons to my roof. Not only that, but I had no idea how I’d be able to elevate myself so I could touch the ceiling. I sat in the dark thinking for about 30 minutes (the power went out in Achuapa when it went out in El Sauce), when I finally got an idea – I could use string to support the weight of the egg cartons. As for a ladder, I had no idea, I had a table I could use on some parts, but since my roof is slanted, that wouldn’t work in the higher parts of my room.

 

I went to my neighbour’s house to see if just maybe, he might have a ladder. “¡Sí, como no!” He then pulled out a wooden ladder than bore a striking resemblance to all the ladders you see in those old cartoons – wooden, bent, nails hanging out, etc. While the ladder would work against the walls, I told him it wouldn’t work in the middle of the room. He then advised me that it would ‘definitely’ work – I just needed to get some big sturdy branches to tie to the sides of the ladder. Fear embedded deep into the back of my head by this point, I brought the ladder back to my house to try it out. Surprisingly, it worked pretty well, and I was able to utilise it minus the whole ladder splitting in two and I expected. Nevertheless, this project is going to take a TON of time, so I was unable to put a huge dent in it – until another day.

 

I went over to Rene’s bike shop afterwards to just stick with my normal routine. Everybody always asks if I’m lonely living all by myself, and today was no different. This time however, he asked who was cooking for me, “Well…I am, and I’m terrible at it…step by step I’m learning.” He then told me his mom would gladly make me some dinner that night, so he’d give me a call.

 

I’d been rocking out in my house working on the various projects I’ve have going when I saw that I’d missed Rene’s phone calls. Being ‘economic’, I just walked to his house (around 50 feet from my house), and found his mother-in-law sitting in front. I sat down and chatted with her for a bit before Rene showed up on a bike with a heaping plate of food. He, his wife, and daughter headed over to his mother’s house and left me there watching Grease with his mother-in-law. I downed the food, asked her to thank Rene for me, and headed home…only to make it to the corner.

 

On the corner, my buddy Christian was sitting in front of the Claro building with some 13 year old, so I figured I’d join them. The Claro building is a place where many go to at night (I’m guessing because a huge light illuminates the whole intersection), and tonight was no different. There I spent the next 2.5 hours chatting with tons of people that would stop by, talk, and take off. Most of the time, I chatted it up with the Claro security guard and a number of my friends who were there. I also got caught up on all the sports action that goes on in the town. Not only that, but now I’ve got a ton of people interested in a bike race, weight lifting competition, marathon, biathlon, etc.

 

October 26^th

 

Today was not a remarkable day.

 

I’ll spare you the details save a summary:

 

I woke up and did my normal deal then spent the majority of the day working on my ceiling again. I ran out of egg cartons, but also lacked a ladder to ‘install’ the egg carton rows to the ceiling. Therefore, after I’d put them all together, and in the process, found tons of red little bugs crawling in the egg cartons (that side is going to face the ceiling when they’re installed), I resorted to just staring at the ceiling. I really had no means to do anything more, so it was just a matter of trying to figure out a way to touch the ceiling without something to bring me to that height. After realising the Fantastic Four were a mere anamoly only made possible through via computer animation, I threw in the towel and decided to enjoy some of the sunshine made possible by the complete absence of clouds.

 

My short jaunt outside to enjoy the weather turned into a 4-hour chat session with my buddy Ervin outside his house instead. Over the next 4 hours – we discussed why I insist on being so cheap on my trip with my friends from Europe next week (because I don’t make a percentage of what you do, that’s why you spent 1,500 on your week trip to Ometepe and I’ll probably spend 20 in 3 days), talked with everybody who passed us on the street, and I lent my bike to his son and told him I was charging him dinner for the bike rental (and this tactic actually worked).

 

Sundays are generally pretty laid back days, but man, in a small town like Achuapa, they’re REALLY laid back.

 

October 27^th

 

“Why do the kids need to learn how to spell? When are they going to have to know how to spell?”

I’m dumbfounded. “Have you not seen any of the signs in town with spelling mistakes????” (which is a huge number).

“But the kids have never learned how to spell before in curriculum.”

“Why do you think we’re doing a spelling competition? Because they’ve never had to do anything with it in the past.”

“Oh! Now I understand!”

 

Aside from giving a class to my 4^th year kids at San Sebastián (they were typically terrible), my main activity for the day was planning for the final rounds of the spelling competition in the primary school. As is painfully obvious above, while planning for the subsequent rounds with the 6^th grade teacher and the directora of the school, we got into a conversation over why the kids even needed to learn how to spell. “So your country doesn’t live in poverty for the next 500 years,” is what I wanted to say. However, I put it in a more tactful manner in saying that you only had to walk 50 feet from the school to see businesses with spelling mistakes in their signs. Education is the key to development. Ignorance I’ve found is a huge, huge obstacle to development, however it is not one that cannot be overcome. It’s just that there are many things within a culture that inhibit development, and you have to have to use pretty stark examples to prove how something you want to do might be better than the way things are currently being done.

 

Good learning experience today. When I was first questioned about the practicality of a spelling bee, the first thing I thought was, “Oh no, I didn’t do a community analysis! This isn’t something they want to do! This isn’t sustainable!” However, after getting past my initial flippant thoughts, I was able to chalk up the importance of this activity, and thereby (potentially?) rendering it a sustainable activity. I’ll be around next year to do the activity again, so maybe we can get this bigger and more inclusive. Maybe, just maybe, this could turn into an activity the community continues when my service is over?

 

I also read a lot today. I just finished a book called “Prague.” The entire book, I was waiting for the characters to be jaunting through the cobblestone streets that I journeyed down on a daily basis 2 years ago. Even though the cover had a lovely painted cover of Karlovy Most, there are just several references to Prague (in comparison to Budapest, the setting the entire book), and at the end of the book, a character finally shows up in Prague – then the book is over. I read the entire book with the premise that you know, it’d be about PRAGUE. But no, nothing. I feel mislead.

 

October 28^th

 

Today I had a plan – that plan was not to sit around my house reading like I did the previous day. I intended to go out and talk with people. No matter what my intentions are, they always tend to not go according to plan though. This being said, I started the day out by going over to Rene’s bike shop to hang out and talk with people. However, today for whatever reason, I never really was able to get involved in the conversation.

 

I abandoned my plan to be social and instead bought food and returned to my house to read. For whatever reason, whenever I do some reading, I do it in huge chunks – big in the sense that I finished 2 books in the last two days. Socialising was obviously not in the cards, so I just decided to let things come at me as oppose to go out seeking a specific outcome/result.

 

I was to tutor Johanni at 1, so after making a standard Goggins meal (beans, bread, orange), I headed to the Institute to meet her. I always get frustrated helping her with her homework because her professor at the university is so inept when it comes to teaching it drives me crazy. She’s one of the worst excuses for a professor that I’ve ever witnessed in my life. Her teaching consists of handing out packets of specialised content that doesn’t help the students at all. Then to make things worse, she says, “Make a lesson plan out of this.” She doesn’t provide directions, guidance, or anything. I wish nothing but bad things upon her. Nevertheless, today’s tutoring session was one of the more enjoyable ones. After being pissed off about her incompetent professor, I just taught her a bunch of vocabulary and we worked on her pronunciation. Then it turned into a class helping me with my pronunciation. For one reason or another, the class then turned into me teaching her Czech and how to pronounce Czech words. On a positive note though – she’s really good at Czech pronunciation. Since I mentioned that, I want to take up studying German and Czech (again) with my free time (anybody who wants to send books to help me study would be awesome). Maybe Johanni could study Czech with me. With all the people who speak German here (2) and Czech (2), why not take advantage of the opportunity to become tri/quad lingual?

 

My tutoring session was an unbelievable 2.5 hours, so I headed to the gym afterwards. It wasn’t until I got out of the gym that I finally had the good conversation I was seeking at the beginning of the day. Freddy (the guy who made my bed), and I ended up sitting on the corner and talking for the next hour and a half about life in general, places I want to go in Nicaragua, etc. Freddy is a real tranquil guy and whenever I get in a conversation with him, it always tends to be a long drawn out one. Perfect.

 

Lesson for the day – let the experiences come to me.

 

October 29^th

 

Upon waking up this morning, I realised something – I definitely had something living in my body. I thought this the previous day and was going to see what happened, but nothing ended up happening. However, come nighttime, my stomach made it clear that it wasn’t quite happy. On top of that, whenever I ate anything, I felt extremely full. I’m just talking about eating a mountain of food, but a small glass of oatmeal and water and I was full – it sure felt like I ate a mountain of food. I decided to finally give in and call the PC medical officer (PCMO from now on) to see what she recommended. “Do you have a private lab in Achuapa?” “Who are you kidding? No way. We only have a MINSA health center.” She told me to go over to the health center, give a stool sample, then give her a call when I got the results.

 

The lab specialist at the health center told me to come back after 10 (about an hour later) to get my results, so I headed home and did some reading (this is reading week apparently) while the battle between my stomach and continued. Since I am in Nicaragua, I waited 20 minutes longer before heading back to get my results. When I got to the health center, the lab specialist gave me a very unassuming and vague piece of paper.

 

1er Nombre: Ricardo                   2do. Nombre: Goggins

Examen Microscópico: No se observa parásito

Digestivo: Bacteria – abundante

 

So the result was that I had no parasite (like I thought), but I had a (as another doctor told me) a “monton,” or “mountain” of bacteria in my system – a bacterial infection. A quick call to the PCMO later, and she told me to go get some Cipro tablets (antibiotics). For 6 tablets, I paid the whopping sum of 27 cordobas (about $1.35) – not too bad.

 

I went home, popped a Cipro and went back to reading. A little more than 20 minutes later, I could feel the tides being turned – I was beating the bacteria! I say this in a positive way, but the negative was that it hurt like none other…but I was winning! Esteban (my counterpart at San Sebastián) showed up a little later to tell me class was cancelled (again), so he just wanted to let me know.

 

The rest of the day, I battle in my stomach continued. So in addition to reading, I went to the gym (wow – stupid, stupid idea), and I hung out at Esteban’s house for most of the night (got free food out of it!). While I did score a free dinner out of going to his house, my stomach would have none of it – half a tortilla later, I was full.

 

At least I’m getting rid of the friends in my stomach before Claudia and Giulia come Sunday (aka I won’t be sick during my entire week of vacation).

 

October 30^th

 

Come morning, I was feeling pretty good. “Must be winning.” I thought to myself. Me – 1, Bacteria – 0, Parasite – 0 (this is a running tally).

 

I supervised an exam in my 4^th year class at I. San José today, which was bittersweet. The kids realised they couldn’t cheat with me, or rather…as easily, because they still tried – really hard. One girl I caught had her notes in her hand – it was the last page of the notes. When I took it and said, “What the hell is this?” She told me they were her Spanish notes, except for that last page…with all the answers to the exam on it. I wanted to give her a zero, my counterpart wanted to give her an 80. Eventually I talked her down to giving her a 50%. Me – 1, Students – 0. Another kid was trying the entire class to cheat, and I was onto his game so I kept my eyes on him the entire class. When he was the last student left in the class, he got desperate and asked me to give him one answer. At first I told him no, then I decided to have fun with it. I then went on a huge long tirade in English, saying a string of random things just to see how he’d react. He didn’t know how to react at first, and neither did any of the other students in the class. After I rattled on about all sorts of things, like swimming pools, he finally just asked me to give him one of the answers in English. So I told him what to write down, “Carrots. C-A-R-R-O-T-S.” And he went right ahead and wrote carrots on his paper. After he turned it in, I let him know what it meant, and he was laughed at by the class, and by me.

 

I felt like crap after this and spent the rest of the day reading and I also tutored Johanni for a couple of hours.

 

Tomorrow I’m going on vacation!