Winding down (and the death of a volunteer)

June 6^th – July 1^st

With little else to do, the beginning of the week was just spent in Achuapa doing the normal socializing and lounging about – my now super familiar routine. When Wednesday finally rolled around, I headed to Chinandega to meet with Luis. He went from being completely in love with Costa Rica to hating it more than anything in around a week…thus bringing him back to Nicaragua for a second go around in less than a month. Either way, it was still good to see him.

That day we met up with his former school principal for a lunch. We spent a good couple hours chatting and eating before heading over to his house a little later to pick up a “gift” he had for Luis – a bottle of rum. We killed some time later that day in the hotel before meeting up with a friend of his whom recently opened a business in Chinandega – with all the furniture that Luis had sold him when he left. We had a good time hanging out and even called our old TEFL volunteer friend who quit in my first couple months of service. Furthermore, a couple hours after hanging out some random guy showed up and starting drinking with us. A few hours (and drinks) later for the new random guy, and he said he’d drive me down to Managua the next day (I had to be down in Managua for training stuff). I reluctantly and apprehensively accepted this offer. I also didn’t think he’d actually come through when I needed to leave…even though we were leaving at the same time. Surprisingly enough, when I called him at 6 AM on the dot, he picked up and was at my hotel within minutes – very un-latino of him. It was kind of weird getting a ride down to Managua (its about a 2.5 hour trip in car) with a guy I’d met the previous night drinking and another guy who I’d never met in my life, but it worked out in the long run. Not to mention I saved around 3 dollars! I’m always up for saving.

I spent the day in Managua meeting with the new trainees and did a presentation on the business advising process, thus killing the whole day. Nothing too exciting. That night, Luis and I headed out to some local bars in Managua with the 2 guys I drove down to Managua with and the son of Luis’s former principal. It was a good time until the the booze brought out the anti-gringo in the guy who gave me a ride down to Managua.

The next day, following another series of presentations and work with the trainees, Luis and I went to have dinner at the son of his former principal’s house. The whole night we chatted with him and his wife about politics but in a totally intelligent way. The conversation lacked all of the fanatical irrationality that unfortunately is super prevalent in political discussion in Nicaragua. Unfortunately, tons of booze was consumed on the part of our host – our driver. Since we were WAY away from the hotel we were staying at, he had to drive us – and what a drive it was. Though it scared the crap out of me, we made it back.

I had yet another day of work to do with the trainees on Saturday and then headed to Leon where I met up with Luis for one final round of shenanigans. We’d planned on going to a movie, but…it just didn’t happen. We were just too beat – I even convinced Luis to go cheap on dinner. It was my first (and not the last) rotisserie chicken I’ve ever gotten in Nicaragua.

The next morning, I headed to Achuapa on the early bus so I could get there in time to get my house looking presentable by the time the trainee showed up for the volunteer visit. Little did I know, but the trainee was on the bus that left an hour after mine. So instead of showing up around 4 PM, he was there at noon – thus undermining my attempts to unwind and clean my house at the same time.

For the visit, I gave the trainee a rundown of how my life has been throughout my two years of service. He too graduated with a degree in Economics and was health crazy like me, so we definitely related on many levels. Furthermore, he was super laid back and was looking forward to not be bogged down with all the pressure of being in training. To keep things light, that night I made some Wang Chai Ferry sweet and sour chicken (check your local supermarket!) and topped it off with some delicious brownies (obvious thanks go out to a person that doesn’t even need to be named).

The next day, we woke up at around dawn so we could catch the morning Esteli bus so we could go to the waterfall near Achuapa (and thus avoiding the 5 km uphill hike to the entrance to the town it’s near). It was really great to go back there one more time before I finish my service (I’d gone last April), and it was especially good to see it during rainy season (though the mud was unbelievable). Roughly 5 and a half hours later, completely exhausted, we stumbled into my humble hovel. We were so beat that we needed a post-lunch siesta.

The last days of the volunteer visit, I hauled the trainee (Jonathan) to my class where we co-taught the class (we’re 3 months ahead of schedule – so why not?) so Jonathan could get some more teaching practice in before he heads to his site. On top of all that, we did some pretty good eating during his visit (my cooking skills are definitely getting better).

He took off that Wednesday, which would leave me with some downtime of my own…or so you’d think. Instead, my boss had me go to Chinandega to meet with the counterpart of a volunteer who had quit. She wanted me to gauge how she was doing in the class and get an idea of whether or not they’d be able to compete in the competition this year. My initial plan was to leave at noon…till I missed my bus. I left an hour later and ultimately rolled into Chinandega right around 5 PM.

The game plan had been to meet up with the counterpart when I got there, but after numerous phone calls and even a couple visits to her house, it seemed like it just wasn’t going to happen. I went and grabbed some dinner to kill time and resolved to stop by her house one more time before I turned in. As “luck” would have it, she was at her house and told me that “sometimes she goes out,” which is why she wasn’t at her house earlier. This was in spite of our conversation the previous day discussing exactly what we were going to do and when. Que será, será.

The next day the class went pretty much how I expected and the teacher even bailed on me in the middle of her class. But hey, she’ll get a replacement volunteer to help her out. Everybody also was under the notion that I was going to be the new volunteer for some reason, and thus offered to lend me a bike so I could take a tour of the town where the school was (a small town called El Realejo). I was in a rush, so I had to decline the offer and instead made my way to León to wait for my bus back to Achuapa.

Back in Achuapa (with a loaf of whole wheat bread – a first for me in site!) I got the same flood of questions/assumptions:

“Oh, you really want to go, that’s why you haven’t been around.”

“You’re bored of Achuapa, aren’t you?”

“You don’t like Nicaragua, do you?”

“You’re a vagabond.”

The list goes on. It bothers me that instead of looking at my 2 years that I’ve been in Achuapa, people tend to look at a short amount of time I’ve been outside of my town (even after explaining that it’s been for work related reasons). Instead of seeing the end of my service, my increased absence is associated with a lack of pleasure derived from my life/work in Achuapa. Then all the negative talk on their part makes me want to leave even more – I´m just of their negativity. It stresses me out.

Back in Achuapa, not surprisingly, I spent little time before taking off yet again. I kept as busy as I could to kill the time before I headed off to Managua yet again on Tuesday. There is a new “volunteer” in Achuapa who is working in the library for her summer vacation from college. She kind of got the raw end of the deal as the handful of other volunteers here with her are in huge cities around the country.

I kept reading and finished another book, Thunderstruck, which makes it the third book by Erik Larson that I’ve read during my service. Coincidentally, his book was the first one that I read when I got to Achuapa, and it’s quite possible that his book is going to be the last one I read in Achuapa.

Tuesday the 22^nd I made my way back down to Managua for another training session with the new volunteers. I’m park of the business advising committee, so basically my task is to convince them the idea of advising isn’t nearly as terrifying as it seems (I was so overwhelmed by it in training that I’d resolved to NEVER advise anybody during my service). While this time it wasn’t a training session, I visited 2 of the training towns to see how the trainees were doing with their “trial run” of business advising. Some were terrified, others were fine, and some didn’t even care. Nevertheless, everybody had at least one question that needed answering, thus rendering the trip useful.

The next day we had the yearly idea exchange among the 3 small business groups that are in the country (2 current and the trainees) about best ways to run the competitions. The meeting lasted a few hours and then I headed to León with Jordan. That night was the first time I’d spent the night at Jordan’s house since she got married. It was also weird to start thinking about her being married. Her boyfriend is now her husband. It’s hard for me to make the transition. It’s also hard for me to believe that I now have friends getting married.

The next day, I headed back to Achuapa for another couple days in my town. Nowadays, my time is spent going around and taking pictures of the things that I’m going to miss about Achuapa, people/friends, buildings, etc. So it keeps me temporarily busy and also gets me out in the town. This is also a good thing since half the town thinks I’ve already left anyway (since I’ve been out of my town for multiple days every week for a while). In addition to taking pictures of my town, I’ve spent some more time with my sitemate since he’ll be all alone in the big scary world of Achuapa.

Come Monday, I put out the word that I was selling all my stuff – and by the end of the day, I’d “sold” almost everything. I say “sold” because nothing is truly sold until people actually pay me. Tons of people always say that they’ll buy things but then don’t come through with the money. So, everybody has until July 3^rd to pay me, but after that – it’s a free for all. The first person with the cash gets the goods.

Monday, while doing my rounds, I was invited to the teachers appreciation dinner at the elementary school where I started my spelling bee. Though I worked with 3 of the high schools, I really got more out of working with the elementary school simply because of the unconditional support I got from the staff there. It was good to hang out with the teachers and talk to them about what we’d done together over the last 2 years. It was also nice to hear them say they wouldn’t forget me because of the spelling bee, since no school in the whole municipality had ever done anything like that.

The next day, I continued selling my stuff and took some more pictures. It was going to continue that way until Jim somehow convinced me to go to the teacher appreciation dinner for all the teachers from Achuapa. It started out fine, and Jim gave me some good classified gossip. However, it dragged on and on and on. It went so long that I had to leave before food was even given out. I had to head to Managua the next day for my last medical appointments, so I still had to pack and eat (on top of going to bed early).

The next morning, I got into Managua around 8:30 and did the first of my med appointments. Why there was nothing exciting about the med appointments, I received some very sad news: John Harrington, a 75 year old volunteer business volunteer (from the group after mine) died on the 30^th. I went out for lunch with him the day before he was medically evacuated and he gave me his Spanish joke book and told me a bunch of stories about his life. He was a great guy and had an amazing attitude. If I have half as good of an attitude as he did at his age, I’ll consider my life a success. I was convinced he was coming back since his medically condition seemed so harmless. He’s the first Nicaragua Peace Corps Volunteer to have died. Sad times. He’ll be missed.

The start of July meant but one thing – I’m done with my Peace Corps service THIS MONTH. It’s hard to believe that something I wanted to do for so long is almost over. While I’ll miss the novelty of having this job (I mean, I can pretty much do whatever I want), it will be nice to have a non-government job afterwards. I’m really looking forward to continuing teaching. We’ll see where it takes me – you might be surprised…

And the book review:

Thunderstruck – A.

The third book I’ve read by Erik Larson. He really researches the hell out of every book he’s written, which I think is what makes it so interesting. He writes the story like a novel, but with completely factual information. It’s a refreshing way to dive into history.

I really forget how green Achuapa really is since I live in the town itself (I live around 50 meters from the antenna)

I really take for granted how beautiful Achuapa is. Same way I take Colorado for granted.

I forgot the downside of taking the hike during the rainy season - the mud.

The rainy season left the path kind of overgrown...

All the teachers from the primary school that I started my spelling bee in

I´m dying and surviving

June 12^th – June 13^th

I was still regaining my mobility these days and therefore took it easy yet again.

June 14^th

With my foot ready for action, I cleaned up my house for my trainee visit. The trainee visit, which takes place for every training group (I visited my buddy Luis in Chinandega for my visit), would be Sunday through Wednesday. The 2 other business volunteers (which coincidentally are both from Colorado) in León and I decided to take the trainees to the beach. Unfortunately, with my foot still in pain, I would be unable to make the trip. So instead, I just hung out in my house the whole day resting.

As if a sign by God that if I couldn’t go to the beach nobody would (even though I can’t swim), the weather in the city of León was bad, so the trainees didn’t go to the beach. The trainee that was going to visit me, Richard (yet another coincidence, 623 and from Santa Fe), decided to catch the noon bus to come up to Achuapa. When he showed up several hours later, we chatted it up on my porch for a good while.

Following a long and “positive energy” conversation, we headed over to my buddy’s house for dinner. I explained to Richard that upon coming to site, my cooking skills were very slim and I ate pretty poorly once I moved out of my host family’s house. Eating with my buddy and his family was literally my lifeline for a while. Without his family and my friend Johani, God knows how I’d be doing now – or if I’d even be here. However, in the recent months I’ve been learning how to cook more and more, increasing my independence, and ultimately my happiness with things in general. I could tell that Richard was really taking in all this “wisdom” (if that’s what you’d call it) that I’d been imparting on him, and that he was really looking forward to his service, after just a couple hours of seeing how distinct it is from training.

After dinner, we spent a good amount of time simply chatting with my friend and his wife. My friend and his wife were thoroughly impressed with Richard, particularly considering my (our) negative experiences with the couchsurfer who came to my house. Once back at my house, the conversation continued for a bit before heading to bed.

June 15^th

Since I had no classes the days that Richard would be visiting me, I arranged to teach an English class with Johani to my 4^th year students in my “big” public school.  After observing my class, and how I run the class with my kids, he seemed pretty taken aback at the amount of energy I had to put into the class to get positive results out of the kids – I guess the positive part of being a total livewire is that most of the time, I don’t even realise that I’m putting in a lot of energy.

I kept the schedule full by then dragging Richard over to my buddy Santo’s house. Right now I’m in the process of helping Santo through the steps required to open a cyber (and be able to compete successfully with the 2 other cybers in the community). I showed Richard everything we’d done so far (basic accounting practices and market study), and reviewed some parts of Santo’s business plan. By the time all was said and done, we were exhausted and headed back home for lunch.

Post amazing lunch (Richard is some sort of vegetarian chef genius), I brought Richard over to the cooperativa that Achuapa has to show him organic sesame seed oil that they process and sell to The Body Shop. Since I know everybody at the cooperativa, getting Richard a tour was a matter of walking in and saying I’d like him to see the process. He was super impressed with it, and particularly the fact that it is done in such a small town.

Following the tour, I took Richard on a lap around my town, showing him the enormous pulperias we have (Achuapa is a total anomaly on so many levels), and introducing him to the majority of my friends and contacts, which lasted the whole afternoon. Upon returning home, we were both exhausted and just chilled out for a bit. Unfortunately, a bit resulted in being just that as a handful of my students from my private school showed up for clarification on a class they didn’t understand (I offered 25% more on the exams of the people that failed if they stopped by my class and could demonstrate they understand the concept). What I anticipated to be around an hour turned into a 3 hour long tutoring session, which just exhausted me even more. To close out the day, Richard and his cooking expertise took over my stove and whipped up an amazing dinner, further convincing me that when I get back to the states I’ll be going vegetarian.

June 16^th

With the endless engagements finally over with, Richard and I were able to take it easy this morning. We lounged around a bit and headed to the cyber to get caught up on the happenings in the world where things actually do happen. Later on, I talked to him a bit more about the sorts of secondary projects I do in my site. For the most part, we spent the majority of the day relaxing and I introduced him to various contacts I have in the community.

June 17^th – July 21^st

Over the last month I’ve been super busy with Peace Corps functions, being sick, and teaching the last classes of my business class that my students need to participate in the local competition in Achuapa.

After Richard’s site visit, I taught the rest of my classes for the week and headed to Managua that Friday to prepare for the site fair for the new business group. I was to present the potential sites from the department of León, and Luis was to present those from Chinandega. However, Luis didn´t want to do the presentation for Chinandega, and coincidentally, the person who ended up replacing Luis for the presentation was Brie. That works out.

The meeting itself lasted around 30 minutes and wasn’t a great use of time, but there was really no other way about it. We had to work with other people from other departments on presentations and it just saved money that would’ve been spent on cell phone money. The rest of the weekend I spent in Achuapa before heading to Malpaisillo on Monday to make my trip to León the following day a little bit shorter. Monday in Malpaisillo was fine, and I spent the majority of the time at Brie´s house screwing around since she was doing work in Managua.

The following day we had our safety and security meeting in León. The meeting, which happens every year, was the exact same presentation as before but with the national police saying that crime in every single municipality in León has dropped. What they didn´t mention was that their definition for what gets recorded as a crime has changed as well. While it still gets prosecuted as a crime, it needs to carry a certain monetary value (around $500) to warrant being recorded as a crime.

While all this was nice and interesting, since the morning, I had a wicked headache that turned into a super high fever, bone pain, and having all my muscles virtually lock up. It was a weird sensation, but I figured it was just because I slept poorly (since my exact symptoms had happened in the past after sleeping in a weird position). I really couldn´t pay attention during the presentation, so I just put my head down on the table and tried to relax for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, my fever and body pain didn´t subside by the time I headed back to Achuapa that day.

Upon arriving back in Achuapa, there were no lights in Achuapa. After a quick planning session (when the lights finally came back on), I went straight to bed since I felt absolutely horrible. The following day I had the plan to volunteer as a translator to a southern Baptist medical brigade that was in Achuapa. I´d already volunteered on Monday, and wanted to help them in whatever way I could (since they had no doctors who could speak Spanish). Unfortunately, upon waking up I discovered that I felt roughly the same, if not worse as I did on Tuesday. So I was rendered virtually incapacitated the whole day with severe body pain and a super super high fever. I figured I´d be good to go by the time Thursday rolled around (a day in which I was to take my final trip to Chinandega to visit Luis). Due to my mystery sickness (I was under the notion I had malaria or dengue), I was unable to teach on Wednesday, but taught Thursday although I felt pretty poorly. I wasn´t about to let a sickness stop me from going to Chinandega to see Luis, so I caught the last bus out of Achuapa for a hopeful party weekend with Luis.

Despite ignoring my sickness, I got to Chinandega and continued to feel like total crap. Luis came up with the brilliant suggestion to drink, so I had a beer. Of course, drinking just made me feel worse, so one drink was all the partying I did that weekend. We went out and got steaks (that’s good for fevers right?), and then headed back to Luis´ house to do my site fair presentation (which would the following day, Friday).

Like the previous 3 nights, I had incredible chills (even though it was 2 million degrees in Chinandega) and drifted in and out of consciousness from 11 PM until I finally ¨woke up¨ at 7 that morning. Luis and I grabbed a licuado (another bad idea), and I went to the bank to set up and online account, and bought some picos (a León baked good specialty) before catching a micro down to Managua. The plan was to go to León for just Friday, do the site fair Saturday, then go back to Chinandega for more partying – but something just wasn´t right. I scheduled a medical appointment for when I got into Managua and was immediately sent to the lab to do a million lab tests. The tests showed a ton of things that were irregular, including blood and proteins in my urine – perfect. Instead of going to a movie, like I planned on, I instead took the awesome and exciting trip to the hospital.

At the hospital we met up with the same surgeon I met a year ago when I was hospitalised in August. My blood pressure was super low and I had a super high pulse (around a hundred or so), and I had a bunch of weird symptoms. I got an ultrasound that showed nothing out of the ordinary (surprise surprise – just like last time), but we were able to rule out appendicitis (again) as well as kidney stones (thank god).

The following day (instead of doing the site fair) I was sent to get an MRI, a thorax x-ray, and another ultrasound the next morning. The MRI was normal, but the ultrasound showed swelling in my intestines and there was a bunch of swelling around my stomach as well. Nobody knew why, so I went and did a bunch of tests that afternoon. With the mystery behind my sickness still…a mystery, I had to stay in Managua over the weekend – so much for my Chinandega party.

That Monday, after more tests, Peace Corps told me to sit tight for the day and they´d see what else they could test me for. The subsequent step was to send me to an infectologist – something I never knew existed (and initially thought was a joke). Not surprisingly, after doing his tests, the infectologist couldn´t diagnose me with anything either.

¨From these tests the only thing we know is that you´ve had an infection¨

¨Well when did I have this infection?¨

¨We don´t know.¨

We did some more tests and I returned the following day for him to tell me the following – ¨Yea, I don´t know what you want me to tell you, because I don´t know. Just stay in Managua for the next couple of days.¨

So Peace Corps sent an inquiry to Peace Corps med staff in Washington D.C., and I stayed in Managua until our LEC meeting that Friday in Olla de Barro (near my old training town of Masatepe). The LEC meeting wasn´t really all that useful for me since I´d already organized a competition, but for the new trainees (the meeting was with all the business volunteers), it was pretty good.

I spent the night in Malpaisillo (the problem with doing anything in Managua is if I can´t get out by around 1 PM, I can´t get back to my town), and finally, I headed back to Achuapa the following day (after being away for 10 days and losing 12 pounds). Fortunately, during this whole time that I was sick, all my schools were on vacation, so I missed absolutely nothing in my town. Up until Thursday, everybody would still be on vacation, so Brie showed up for a visit for a couple of days.

Come Thursday, I had classes in my public school, taught the last section (marketing) to the 10 kids that showed up. Also, since I missed out on my party weekend in Chinandega, Brie and I conspired to surprise Luis, and I showed up to Malpaisillo (where Luis was working on a presentation with Brie) to hang out with Luis and Brie together for the last time.

I headed back to Achuapa the following day to do some errands and work for the weekend. That Sunday, I got back on a bus, and went to León to have one last party day with Luis. However, being summer in the States, all the hostels in León were full which resulted in us staying in a small hotel (a nice one at that!). Brie was in León as well due to a meeting the following day, so we all stayed in the hotel that day. I had no money from being in Managua for so long (where I spent half of my monthly salary in a week), so I had my American card with me. It was here, with 20 cordobas (one dollar), that I discovered that my American debit card didn´t work. It was retained because some company in the States was hacked and my card number was stolen. So my card was cancelled without my knowledge – great. Luis and I avoided this problem by heading to the movie theatre where we met up with Brie who also had similar issues.

After watching the horrible movie (worst ever?), I headed back to our hotel and skyped my bank. There they told me of the issue with my card, and I was able to talk them into reactivating my card for an hour so I could withdraw money, thus ending my nightmare. Brie, Luis, and I headed out for dinner that night one last time before parting ways with Brie. Afterwards, Luis and I went to a bar (that may or may not have been a gay bar) and reminisqued about all the stupid, irresponsible things we did over the last year. It was a good time, and to conclude the night, I threw up in the road (I hadn´t drank alcohol in 2 months). The next morning, with Luis´ rocking chair in hand (he gave me one he couldn´t bring home), I caught the morning Achuapa bus.

I did some more organizing for my competition while in Achuapa the following days before heading to El Sauce on Wednesday the 15^th, to say goodbye to Irene. When I showed up, she had everything packed up and was moving out of her house. For around an hour we sat around and chatted for awhile before she had to go. Before she left, Irene gave me a toaster oven that was owned by the volunteer who lived in Achuapa before me. We figured it was only appropriate to return it to the town it started out in.

After my classes on Thursday, I once again got back on a bus and headed to Malpaisillo for the night since I had to be in Managua on Friday to go back to the hospital (a follow up appointment for my plantar warts). Here also, PC Washington had gotten back to me where they told me that it is suspected that I have familial Mediterranean Fever. It´s a genetic disease that tends to happen with people from the Mediterranean area. After consulting all the symptoms, it makes a lot of sense. Oh well, things like that happens. Following my appointment with the dermatologist, I was still able to walk, and I headed back to Malpaisillo. What a day.

Still mobile, the next day, Brie and I headed to León for the day to go see the new Harry Potter movie and to meet up with Jordan who had just gotten back from Colorado. The day went well, and Jordan picked up some Colorado maps for me. Of course, the latest Harry Potter movie made absolutely no sense to me (having not read any of the books and only having seen the 3^rd movie).

I headed back to Achuapa on Monday (the 20^th) and got back into business. Unfortunately, my laptop keyboard is halfway broken (I can´t use some of the keys), so we´ll see how journalling goes now. I´ve been able to exercise a lot more since I haven´t been sick, which has made me a lot more balanced than I have been in the last month.

The return to Masatepe, Volcan Masaya, and Avi´s birthday

June 11^th

Everytime I start a post with “Well, today wasn’t anything special…” it always ends up being a sizeable post, but I don’t think that will be the case this time around.

I woke up at 5 AM this morning for whatever reason (after going to sleep at midnight), did some exercises, and ate some breakfast (which amounted to 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with a banana). I sat around for about an hour and packed my bag while Luis rolled out of bed and got ready so he too could go to Managua. Him being as pinche or rather economical as me, we opted to walk to the bus stop instead of paying 10 cordobas a piece to take a taxi there. Luis was going to go to a different stop in Managua, so I parted ways with him about 8:30 for the microbus ride to Managua. The ride went by a lot faster than it did on the way to Chinandega for some reason. I don’t know why exactly, it could be because I’m more accustomed to sitting around completely mindless without anything to distract me from daydreaming (since bringing anything flashy like an Ipod is a bad idea on the bus, I’ve learned how to waste hours sitting and staring). But for whatever reason it was, it was uneventful, and I even got to see a huge volcano at the northern coast of lago whatever (consult your geography books – it’s the volcano to the north of the big lake which is situated immediately to the north of Managua). I arrived into Israel bus station just as the bus to Masatepe was leaving, so my trip home was that much faster without the wait.

I got home without incident and went home to find our maid, Argentina, and only her. None of the other volunteers from my group had made it back to Masatepe yet, so I laid in the hammock for a couple hours, laid in the bed for an hour, and walked around the town mindlessly. Now that I’ve gotten over the fear (that my host mom instilled in me) of drinking Nicaraguan milk, I headed to the grocery store where I bought and drank near a liter of milk, and bought a bag of crackers. Combined price you ask? Why a mere 75 cents for the two. I don’t really understand prices here, for some goods the prices are ridiculous (Snickers for example), for other things (Rum for example) the prices are insanely cheap. How about a happy medium?

I took another nap after gallivanting around the town before Jordan came over. We briefly talked about our experiences on our volunteer visits before she decided to head back home. The rest of the night consisted of me teaching William completely useless words in English (like polyamorous), and teaching him random useless words/phrases in German and Czech. I’ve got him to the point where he can’t tell what language a word comes from. How shameful of me.

An uneventful day for once (that can be reflected in a journal entry!)

June 12^th

I slept really well last night and woke up refreshed as opposed how I normally wake up with somebody turning on the TV on taking a shower. Just to add to the stressless way to wake up, I did some exercises – what better way to start the day? I woke up relatively early (with regard to when I had to show up to Jordan’s house for a meeting), so I did exercises for around 3 hours to kill time. I’m still trying to figure out a way to kick my ass like I can in a gym. So far I’ve just resorted to cement blocks in a bucket, and lifting the bucket. I’m sure I’ll become more resourceful the longer that I’m here.

After breakfast, I headed over to Jordan’s to discuss with one of the language facilitators how my volunteer visit went. We all drew pictures to describe how our experience went – and my visit was completely different from everybody else’s. Everybody was worried about me visiting the guy in Chinandega, because nobody likes him. He knows this, I knew it, but we got along great. But back to topic à everybody drew pictures of all the beautiful things they saw and experienced, you know – the kind of Peace Corps stuff you read about. Me on the other hand…what did I draw you ask? Well, I drew pictures of all the food I ate, cable television, high speed internet, cheap prices, the supermarket, but then I doodled the discipline problems in the school I observed. Everybody enjoyed their visit in our group with the exception being Avi who spent most of his trip sick from some bad tomatoes. Don’t worry, he’s alive and well now.

After that meeting, I was kind of left disenchanted with the Peace Corps experience. We all discussed all the bad things that had gone on during our visits (in addition to the great points), but for some reason I had a low point. This revolves around my uncertaintly regarding my ability to teach high school students a topic I am still learning, and maintaining discipline in a class that doesn’t care. Additionally, I’m worried about being able to stay motivated and positive when my students are continually disinterested in what I have to talk about. That being said, I’m really looking forward to the opportunities I’ll have working in the community as oppose to in the classes. Outside of the class, people are more interested and engaged, if only because it’s not mandatory and there are no grades. Furthermore, I’m not restricted to teaching the curriculum, and will be able to branch out and do things I’m interested in. That being said, I’ve reached a crossroads. I’m unsure whether or not I’d prefer a city or a smaller community.

If I live in a city:

I’ll have a lot of the amenities that I had in the U.S., it will be more like life in the U.S. and less like a stereotypical ‘Peace Corps experience’. Nevertheless, there are more opportunities in cities (at least this is my perception), because there are more people, more youths, and more organizations to work with. However, therein lies the disadvantage to living in a city – more people. With more people, you lose your sense of community; you won’t have a close relationship with all the people in your community because life is more hectic and city-like. If you live in an apartment like the volunteer I visited did, you have no neighbors. I can definitely see some me encountering some obstacles integrating in the community where there are so many people.

If I live in a smaller community:

I’ll be able to meet many people in the community (if not all of them), and this will directly affect tons of related aspects of my next two years. Knowing all the people will yield free meals, better safety in the town, better trust among the community members, and everybody always says ‘hi’ to everybody in the streets. This is an aspect that is totally absent in a city. However, life in a small town brings several disadvantages. With a smaller community where most people know each other, I’ll be more prone to gossip. If I feel like going out to a bar a night and having a beer, people could see me there and I could be labeled a drunk. In turn, I’d lose trust with the community. Additionally, there are less people to work with, and potentially fewer opportunities to do something I’m really interested in with the community members/youths.

I just can’t decide. Initially, I was completely convinced that a city was for me, but now I’m not so sure. I have my program interview next week (my last interview before my site placement), and right now, I think I’m leaning towards telling our program director that I think I’d be better off in a city (even though I’m convinced they’ve already decided where I’m going). Basically what it boils down to is that I’d like to go somewhere where my work revolves around working more with the community as oppose to teaching. But hey, PC will tell me what I’m going to do, and that will be that. As strange as it is to say, I’m pretty sure they know me better than I do when it comes to deciding where they’re going to place me. They’re aware of my interests, strengths, weaknesses, counterparts, and also know what all the potential sites are.

Moving on…

The rest of the day, I just organized my life (it fits in a binder!), and headed over to the bank where I waited in a 47-person line to withdraw money. I still haven’t received my pin number for my debit card, so I had to resort to this method. I must have waited in line for an hour and 15 minutes since they only had 2 tellers working. When I finally got up there, I told her I wanted to withdraw money, and after a bunch of formalities, she asked me where I lived. Fortunately, I’ve become versed with how directions are given. So I told her my neighborhood, which number street I live on (first, second, third, etc), and then how many varas (this translates as ‘sticks’) that I live from the corner. It’s a totally different way of giving directions, but I strangely didn’t bat an eye and rattled out my paragraph-long address to her.

I was sporting quite an interesting ensemble as I was wearing khakis, a golf shirt, a bright yellow cycling hat, and sandals, but when have I fit into a crowd – I’m just expressing that inner Goggins. This yielded me being gawked at during my stroll through town today, but whatever; I’m a celebrity here anyway. With there being 5 white guys in the whole town, I kind of stand out anyway.

Jordan and I had a youth group meeting this afternoon that ended up being a youth-less group. So…we’ll have to do something about that in the future. Aside from all that, I had major nostalgia for my bikes. I was going so crazy that I hopped on his broken, barely standing bike and just sat on it while supporting myself on a wall. I just needed SOME feeling of a bicycle, something that my body would recognize to get my bicycle fix. Some day’s I’m just dying without a bike, but this too will pass (God I hope so).

June 13^th

I woke up wicked early this morning (5:20 – gross) to get to Managua for training at 7:30 this morning. I had a hearty breakfast of huevos rancheros, bread, and my daily glass of milk, and then headed to the Jordan’s house so we could go catch the bus to Managua. We were walking to the stop as the bus came roaring down the street, and fortunately we were able to hop on. As luck would have it, Avi and Owen were on the bus that pulled up, so at least we were all together on our almost now habitual journey to Managua.

We were some of the first people to show up, so we were able to relax in the volunteer office and read/steal the Newsweek magazines that we get for free. Also we were able to use the volunteer computers/exploit the high speed internet that is absent in all our our training sites (the cyber’s in our towns are pretty mediocre). The office also has an ENORMOUS library with books that volunteers have already read available for free. It’s not even a book exchange! It’s like a free bookstore! I ended up grabbing the book Into The Wild (you might have seen the movie), and stealing around 7 Newsweek magazines. Last time I stole a bunch of Newsweek’s they all disappeared or I threw them away and never ended up reading them. But hey, I’m trying to stay on top of things. At least I’m world news savvy anyway. In fact, I just heard that they invented running water! Finally, the world can rid themselves of bucket baths.

Our training session involved an assessment of everybody’s volunteer visit to discuss things that went well, and things we took away from the visit. I already laid out in yesterday’s entry how I feel about the placement process now and won’t elaborate any further. Now I’m just sitting back and letting things happen. I’m resourceful and adaptive; I’ll make it work no matter where I am.

Since we were in the PC headquarters for our training sessions (this is a first), we needed to go somewhere to eat. However, PC just told us to bring money (75 cordobas) to buy lunch. Now, of course you all know what happened – economist Richard kicked in. Like hell I was going to spend 75 cords on lunch (even though they apparently gave us money for this). So what did ‘pinche’ Richard do? That’s right, I bought food at the store last night. Not just that – I bought wheat bread (100% integral! Whatever that means), and honey to go along with my peanut butter that I bought while I was in Chinandega. I’m an eating machine, so I made myself three amazing PB and Honey sandwiches and packed 4 bananas. PC brought us to this huge shopping mall in Managua that was like a ritzier version of Cherry Creek mall – it was disgusting. It was full of Americans too, fat ones, eating their McDonalds/Quiznos/Pizza Hut– even more disgusting. Most people spent a boatload for their meals, but not me! My whole decision to bring my lunch was subject to severe scrutiny from my host mom due to my cheapness. This in turn resulted in me getting in a huge argument about how me bringing my lunch was a million times better than eating the crappy food in the food court (if you’re wondering what food court is in Spanish, it’s ‘food court’), not to mention a whole lot cheaper.

(No transition) But back to the main theme for today – training. In addition to reflecting about our volunteer visit, we had a presentation about how to work with small businesses. Then in the afternoon, a small business from volunteer from Nica 41 (who has to be a just a little younger than you Gram), gave us a presentation about how to teach La Empresa Creativa to people outside of a school setting. They gave us a bunch of scenarios and how we intended to teach the given group, when we would teach them, what methods we would use, how gender roles could affect things, etc. This is basically what training breaks down every time we go. It’s generally the same thing with a slight variation/twist to keep things interesting/give us the idea that everything they’re telling us is new and different. Either way, we pushed through for another ‘successful’ (what an ambiguous term) training session.

After training, Peace Corps dumped us in front of UCA (a university in Managua) and told us to go home. However, little did we know that we couldn’t actually go directly home from where they left us. After much discussion and confusion, we found that we could make our way home via this other city that is near where we live (I’m making Peace Corps give me a 5 cord (about 25 cents) refund since I had to take an extra bus to get home.

However, we took a tiny break in San Marcos (the city we were left off in), and a group of us all hung out in the central park there and just relaxed/reflected on how training is going. It’s not that what we do during training is particularly difficult, but all of it combined with your entire world being in another language is just mentally exhausting. I’d say everyday I spend time reflecting about what I’m doing with my life, and I’m still trying to convince myself that I’m here.

No matter how vivid of a picture I try to paint, I can never quite convey how Peace Corps makes you feel at the end of a day – it’s something I’ve never felt before. It’s not that it’s bad – I love it. You really can’t go a day without working on something, be it Spanish (you’re always working on this), a project, a youth group, preparing a class, or doing some reading, you’ve always got something going on. It’s definitely a good experience for someone who can’t sit still.

June 14^th

Today everybody was excited as we got to see the TEFL volunteers, and we got a ‘diversity charla’ at Volcan Masaya. Unfortunately, Peace Corps fooled us and made us undergo a formal-like charla (albeit in informal dress) before heading to the volcano, but that’s something I can live with. It was your standard diversity charla with the ‘who has done this’-type questions, but it was relatively painless.

After the charla though, we all headed to the volcano in our Peace Corps party bus. Douglas, the driver of the party bus, appeased us with his traditional blasting music which we enjoyed on the hour long ride to the volcano. Just to keep things Nicaraguan, we crammed almost every volunteer on the bus that was made for 20 (there are 37 of us). It made things a lot closer, helped us bond, and just helped us adapt to the Nicaraguan bus riding experiences. We’re just practicing – this is training after all.

We arrived in the park and took a brief tour of the museum (which included all the exhibits that you were never interested in when you were a child). They gave us 20 minutes for the exhibit, which was more than enough. After another break (and handing out of Oreos – a Peace Corps Nicaragua standard), we all piled in the bus for the ever-so-slow trip up to the top of the volcano.

Upon our arrival I was disappointed to find out that you can’t actually look into the volcano. It’s not super steep, so you can’t just look into the volcano and see lava like I was hoping. There is just a huge sulfur cloud that billows out of the volcano indefinitely – and it shows up in every picture. We all palled around for the next 2 hours, took picture of the huge hole in the mountain, and found a point on the volcano (windy point) where we all just sat around an talked for an hour. The land surrounding the volcano is lush and green, which provided a nice backdrop for our day to just hang out.

Peace Corps, being the generous folk they are, told us they’d drive us back to our training sites. So we all piled back into the van and headed back to our respective cities. Unfortunately for all of us, we were stuck behind a school bus most of the way that was carrying just about every object you could imagine on top of it (including the front of a school bus). To make matters worse, terrible Nicaraguan drivers continually cut us off, which are all too common on the roads here. While it took a tad longer to get home, it provided us with more time to socialize with each other – particularly the TEFL volunteers, which we rarely see (well, as much as we want to see).

After chilling out at home for a bit, eating lunch (at 3 PM), I did some exercises then headed over to the house of Perry, a TEFL volunteer in Masatepe. My initial game plan was to hang around for 3 hours…but as I have learned time and time again in Nicaragua, plans are worthless. We all had a good time (roughly 24 of us showed up), and I definitely got home at 11:30 PM. The time was extended a bit as I felt obliged to walk a group of my friends to the bus stop so they could get back to their respective cities. Everybody was worried about me, but I’d rather be responsible for myself getting the crap beat our of me as oppose to having somebody get assaulted as a result of my neglect/laziness. Fortunately (but not surprisingly), I got home without incident, and have to get to sleep soon as I’m waking up early tomorrow.

Oh the life of the Peace Corps.

The weekend and my volunteer visit to Chinandega (Long post, take a breath)

June 6^th                 

Today I followed my new routine (which I’ll eventually break), of doing yoga in the morning. It has been raining at night hardcore generally, so my opportunity to keep up my jogging habit has always been thwarted. Furthermore, I haven’t been able to go out to my broken swingset to do my pull-ups. So since I was up at 5 AM (once again, for whatever reason), I busted out my yoga mat (aka my sewn together double sheet) and proceeded to once again kick my ass. In light of how completely exhausted/sore I’ve been after doing it, I considering rethinking the way I’m going to exercise.

Anyway, after working out, I had a quick lunch, got dressed, and headed over to Jordan’s so we could head to San Marcos for training. It really feels routine to walk up to the highway from our house and just hop on some bus now. I don’t even flinch and think about how different it is from the U.S. anymore. So the bus showed up when we were walking to the highway, and we ran and jumped in the back door of the school bus as it was driving away (it reminded me of Paraguay!). Jordan got on first, but when I got on, there didn’t appear to be too much room to sneak in, so I ended up riding about 30 seconds hanging on the ladder on the back of the bus. Eventually I was able to squeeze my way into the back of the bus – and amazingly 2 other guys along with the guy who shuts the door was able to as well. Almost as soon as I got on, I became super cautious about guarding my valuables. I’d decided not to bring my backpack today for this reason alone. We had packed about 120-150 people on the school bus, so it’s not much room to lay down the law if somebody touches your stuff – but I got lucky. There was a guy standing in back of me, and another guy standing in back of him. This man had a backpack and was ‘going to open it’ when his hand somehow made his way from his backpack, up my leg, and toward the opening of my pocket (where I was carrying tons of stuff today). Unfortunately for him, I caught him and might have broken a finger, I wasn’t sure. He was eager to get his hand away after I proceeded to severely injure his wayward hand, and promptly jumped off the back of the bus at the next available opportunity. Vagos.

Training today was at Ave Maria college in San Marcos, and was run by University of Alabama, but has since changed to another prominent university, whose name I can’t remember. It’s the nicest schooling establishment I’ve seen in all of Nicaragua, and all the students who attend, do all of their classes in English. Apparently, it’s one of the best high schools in the region.

Being the prompt American’s we are, we made it through the gates and to the place where we were to have training without any assistance, nor holdups – a sign of growth! We were also the only volunteers who were able to do so. The makings of a champ à right here.

Training involved teaching us how to facilitate youths and what types of strategies we could use when we get to our sites. The TEFL group showed up as well, but unfortunately they split us up for the morning session. It’s always great to see them because we all get along so well. Still this surprises everybody who works at Peace Corps, as every Nica group in the past (which is composed of 2 or 3 groups of volunteers – in our case, SBD and TEFL) has always hung out with their own group and not gotten along with the other groups.

The afternoon session taught us about health emergencies, and how to handle various situations. This provided us with many ideas I had not even considered to do, such as giving numerous people Peace Corps numbers to call in the event that you’re incapacitated and need to contact them. The session last session was what everybody showed up for – to find out where our volunteer visit was going to be. As is per usual, they dragged it out and made us wait to find out where we were going, but we speeded it up by not having any questions and thwarting their plans to keep us waiting. I was the second person in SBD to find out where I’m going for 4 days next week – Chinandega, Chinandega. It’s the department capital in the northern most department on the Pacific side of Nicaragua. It’s also known as the hottest place in the country, or as Josh Berman (author of the Nicaragua guidebook) said: “Did we mention it’s hot in Chinandega? It’s so hot in Chinandega, you can expect to break a sweat in the shower. This is what it feels like to be a rotisserie chicken.” So now you all know what sorts of temperatures I’ll be expecting. They told me I was going there, and my first reaction was “Oh noooo it’s so far away.” However, since it’s one of the biggest cities in Nicaragua, it’s on one of the main highways (I think there are 2), and thus, the trip from Masatepe to Chinandega should take around 3 and a half hours.

After the session we all parted ways and went home. I did my normal nightly schedule of doing nothing/pretending I’m doing something productive, and visited the bakery. Aside from that, I tried to figure out how much it costs to make a phone call on my cell phone and was still left extremely confused and no closer to figuring it out than I was at the beginning. In the past 4 days, I’ve made calls of:

15 minutes for $1

20 minutes for $3

31 minutes for $5 (twice)

And last night I made a call of 58 minutes for…34 cents.

What?????? They charge us per minute to make calls, but I can’t seem to find a common factor in any of the above values. This is a total crapshoot. It seems like if I make continuous 15-minute calls, I’ll get the best bang for my buck. But chances are, the next 20-second phone call I make will cost me 10 dollars, so who knows. 

Eventually I’ll figure it out.

June 7^th

Today was my down time day since tomorrow I’m headed to Chinandega. My game plan for the day was to get rid of my ridiculous 500 Cordoba bills so when I’m on my visit, I don’t have to pay for a dollar bus ride with 25 dollars. So after putzing around for a little bit in the morning, I headed over to the Palí supermarket to buy toilet paper and food for my trip tomorrow. I ended up just getting a pack of gum, yoghurt, and toilet paper…so…I didn’t get much for my 3ish hour bus trip. Damn! Being cheap gets me again! I sauntered back to my house just in time for the first game in the Euro Cup, and watched that for a bit. Luckily, even though we got rid of cable, I’m still able to watch the games.

Some volunteers from another town showed up in Masatepe, so I met up with them and spent some time walking around town with them. After which we headed over to Avi’s house to get in my rocking chair time. As I mentioned previously, it has become a past time for virtually every volunteer, and it’s really something you look forward to – particularly when there are other volunteers to chat up. It’s just a bit of the Nicaraguan culture that has rubbed off on us.

I got back in time for lunch where I got my long awaited serving of rice. I don’t know why, but I’m always looking forward to having rice and beans every meal. The only thing I can attribute this to is that eating it ensures my digestive system stays in good working order. One of the guys in our group had to have an enema because for one reason or another, his body decided it wanted to be constipated for 8 days. Lesson learned from that – eat my rice and beans. Mmmm!

I ended up watching the second game of the Euro cup, reading a book, and I finally scratched the surface of my enormous movie collection that I brought with me. When I started drifting off, Jose, the head of Peace Corps security showed up (I forgot he was coming) to check out the area that Jordan and I were ‘aggressively followed’. So he picked us up where we learned that last night some volunteers were robbed a knifepoint but thankfully were otherwise O.K. Then we headed to the police station where Julio had a police officer ride with us while we told him how we got home. Aside from forgetting how we got home, it went all pretty well, and he drove us back to Jordan’s house. Jordan and I talked for a bit just about how stupid we felt that Peace Corps security had to check it all out for us, when suddenly Julio showed up again. “Hey, we think we found the guys who were going after you.” Neither of us quite understood, as we never gave a description of these guys or anything. However, they had cruised the last street (the street we have to walk to get to the institute we teach at), and they had found a group of guys that has been a problem in the past and he wanted to see if we could identify one of them. We drove up along side some of them and we’re able to identify any of them. However, among the second batch of ‘chavalos’, sure enough, there was the guy I’d been yelling at just a little more than a week ago. The police officer wanted to arrest him on the spot, so they drove us back home, and if all went according to plan, they went and arrested said bad guy. Wow.

The rest of the night just involved packing and using up all my cell phone saldo again. I just don’t get it. I could probably make millions by starting my own cell phone company here in Nicaragua and having easy to understand rates, good customer service, and even provide good promotions!

So there you have it folks, I’ve devised a plan to stay here my entire life. Anybody want to help me finance this operation?

June 8^th

Today, I woke up at midnight after one of the trainees that got robbed called me to get the numbers of all the trainees in Masatepe. Ultimately, I woke up wicked early because of the excitement associated with finally getting out of my training site. I woke up early like I normally do, so I broke into my routine – I did some hardcore yoga. I may be losing weight, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that prevent me from exercising. There is one downside to this – I’m always starving.

But whatever.

I ate my breakfast, double checked my things, and headed to the bus stop for the first step of my trip to Chinandega. I was going to meet one of the trainees in the park, so I showed up 20 minutes early. We were going to rendezvous with Avi and take the bus together…but 8 AM rolled by, and the bus showed up, and I was the only one there. Avi was moving at Nica time (But I wasn’t really surprised), and I hadn’t heard anything from the other trainee (David).

I saw one of the trainees from Nandasmo, Liz, prancing around the central park in Masatepe, and called her out. Apparently she was catching the same bus and for whatever reason had ventured into the town. She hopped on the microbus and drove 2 blocks before we ran into Katie Earle. Finally, one more stop in Masatepe yielded 2 more trainees that were heading in the direction of Managua. All those trainees were headed for Leon (or thereabouts), so they got off at a different bus depot.

My bus stop was Israel, the end of the line in Managua. It was actually a million times better than I ever imagined it would be. I’d seen far worse in Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina. There is a minibus that goes directly to Chinandega which I got on and waited. They don’t leave until it’s completely full, so I ended up waiting for about 20 minutes. Coincidentally, in these subsequent 20 minutes, Avi and David showed up, and we ended up taking the bus together to Chinandega.

The ride to Chinandega was relatively uneventful, but you could definitely feel the temperature getting hotter the closer we got to Chinandega. I had to hop a taxi to the volunteer’s house who I was going to visit, so I followed his vague directions and headed into Chinandega. I didn’t mess things up like I thought, and ended up finding him sitting on the sidewalk outside his apartment helping out some of his students. To put it lightly – this is far from the Peace Corps experience I ever expected to see.

He lives in an apartment above a business in Chinandega in a really nice neighborhood, just down the street from the meeting point in the event of a rise in the Peace Corps security level. Mostly everything about it is like a normal apartment (minus the presence of an actual kitchen). He’s got a TV, cable, a Playstation, some furniture, minifridge, microwave, and can’t cook just like me. To make things even better, tomorrow morning he’s going to be getting a high-speed internet connection. Basically, I wanted to know how to handle finances when I got to site, and he provided me with some very logical wisdom regarding how to handle the finances. Incidentally, he also studied econ in college (Syracuse in case you wanted to know Gram), and is totally pinche like me. He said that leaving your site and traveling around really eats up your salary, and that there’s no problem if you don’t leave your site. You can live really well if you just stick around you site.

After hanging out for a bit with him and his friend, we headed over to some restaurant where we got a steak, which was incredible. It kind of set me back as it was 40% of the money PC gave me for food, but whatever. I also hit up one of the supermarkets here where I found more American goods than I would in Safeway. I even found Skippy and Peter Pan peanut butter. I bought a box of cereal, a bag of milk, and 12 bananas for my breakfast tomorrow. If I get placed in a city like this, I don’t think I’ll ever leave Peace Corps.

I also finally realized why no PC volunteers ever told me what they made. The cost of living is so much different from the U.S., it’s totally ridiculous to even think about. That has been a cultural thing I have grown to learn. You really can’t put it into perspective.

This experience is great though. Being a PCV in a city is more like just like living in a regular city as oppose to the stereotypical PC experience. It’s a city, so the economic demographic is completely different from that in small towns and the countryside – a good thing to experience.

June 9^th

Today was going to be my first ‘official’ day observing Luis today. He’s got a nice apartment, albeit a very unfurnished one – so I slept on a sleeping pad on the floor. Fortunately, the apartment lacks most of the bugs you find in Masatepe simply because it’s a city location (with the exception being the cockroach that we killed tonight).

I woke up at my typical time of around 5:30 and tried out my first Peace Corps city breakfast – corn flakes and cold milk. It was amazing. It made me feel like I was back in the states again, what with being able to enjoy my comfort food. It was almost like I’d totally regressed to what it was like to live by myself. I had my bowl of cereal (the cheapest box – imported from Miami), a couple of bananas, and some jelly on my whole wheat bread. It was absolutely amazing.

Luis and I headed to his class around 7:30 and caught a cab over there. We got to his school around 7:45 and hung out for a bit while the students all arrived. His institute has around 250 students and is significantly smaller than the school I teach at in Masatepe. Nevertheless, being in a huge city, the school is a WHOLE lot different than Masatepe. Most of the students who attend his school are kids who have been kicked out of other schools because of discipline issues. It was good to see his classes and how he dealt with such issues as I got a good idea of how I’ll handle the situations in the future. I’d really like to be placed in a big city like Chinandega, so being able to see how students in the city act was a real eye opener, but not discouraging at all. I really think it would be a great opportunity, and being a city person, I think it’d be the perfect situation for me.

He had 2 classes back-to-back, and then a planning session with his counterpart when school was over. Luis and I headed over to another institute that is down the road to speak with some people about figuring out when he was going to start teaching 2 classes over there. The institute where he’s going to start teaching new classes is enormous, and is the second biggest school in the entire country. It was a whole lot different, but I’m not too worried about something like that as all Nicaraguan students generally all have the same feeling towards schooling – so bring it on.

We got back to his school at around 10:15 and had to wait until classes were over so he could plan the next class with his counterpart – unfortunately this involved waiting 2 hours. We got pretty bored after a while, and with 10 minutes to go, Luis said, “Forget it, I’m not going to wait for them to ring the bell, I’ll do it myself.” So ring the bell he did, and we met up with his counterpart where we planned the class. It was a relatively easy topic, so planning the class took roughly 10 minutes, and then we were headed back to his apartment.

As it was lunchtime, we wanted something to eat while we watched the Euro Cup, so we went over and grabbed some fried rice at the Chinese restaurant that is down the block from his place. Once again, not what I expected from Peace Corps…but I’ve got no problem with it. We enjoyed our Chinese food and watched the Euro Cup before taking a short siesta. Following his siesta, we headed over to the laundromat to drop off Luis’ clothes. We headed over to the bar in the central park to wait for his clothes to dry. He’s a lot like me with regards to his personality, so we get along pretty well. 

After spending about an hour there, we headed to the supermarket, got some milk, picked up his clothes and headed back to his apartment. It was the director (principal) of his school’s birthday today, so we headed over to his place to give him a gift. Luis lived in his house for 5 months before finding his apartment, so he has a really good relationship with him. Just as soon as we arrived, we were invited to stay for dinner, where we were promptly served chicken, rice, beans, avocadoes, eggs, and tomatoes – a good, hearty Nicaraguan meal. Unfortunately, after dinner is began to rain like crazy, so we just hung out for a bit and read the paper. It was then that I realized how unfortunate the economic situation in Nicaragua is right now. Inflation for the month of April was the highest it has been since 1999, with a rate of 19.7%! To think I was concerned about the rate of inflation in the U.S., this doesn’t even compare.

It didn’t stop raining, so we had to run home in the torrential downpour the 9 or so blocks back to his apartment. Now it’s just relaxing for the rest of the night.

Hopefully I can get a city for my PC site! I find out my site on June 27^th, so it’s getting pretty close. I’m starting to get pretty excited.

June 10^th

With all the formalities I had to deal with on the volunteer visit completed on the first day, I didn’t have anything to do the second day – little did I know that was the game plan.

Luis was getting his high speed internet installed (on a Peace Corps salary!), so we needed to wait for the guys to show up. The cable network is 2 buildings away from his apartment, so we can literally see them when they’re walking to his house…but, this is Nicaragua, so promptness isn’t exactly expected. Nevertheless, at 10:20 on the dot they showed up…but didn’t really do anything, as they stood around and chatted for an hour and a half before leaving without finishing the installation of the internet. We called them back and they told us that they would show up…sometime today. In other words, we had more time to kill. I somehow stumbled upon an Italian movie with Spanish subtitles that was absolutely amazing at around 10:45, and the movie finally ended at 3 PM. The movie ended and we had absolutely no idea what it was about, nor what it was called. It was amazing though and helped us kill more than 4 hours (after some research online, we found it was called La ragazze di San Frediano).

In light of spending most of the day watching this random movie (with 3 minutes of commercials that came on after every hour), we threw away all the good time to walk around the city. This is fine though as Chinandega isn’t a tourist town at all (this is obvious once you get here), and it doesn’t really have any noteworthy attractions. However, I still love it and hope PC sends me to a city so I can get this type of experience (even though it’s nothing like I expected).

We headed over to the ministry of education to pick up a business proposal for a grant that Luis is applying for, and then headed back to his apartment. This was the only thing related to work we did today, but it was good to learn about. Peace Corps provides a grant of $2,000 for every volunteer when they find a project that is worthy of such a grant. In order to receive the money, the organization (in this case, the institute he works in) prepares a sort of business plan with a total breakdown of why they need it, how much it will cost, and what steps they will take to implement their project. 

On the way home, we stopped by at the other (there are 3) supermarket that is Chinandega, and this one was the most like America of them all. They even had milk CARTONS. It was great – I bought some peanut butter and a box of juice, and we headed back to Luis’ apartment to wait for the internet guy. We went and sat on the corner across the street from the cable building and talked with the street vendor. After around 20 minutes, we just went and got them to install the internet so we could go do something.

After it was all squared away, we were tired of sitting in the house (especially after watching an epic movie all day), so we headed down to the park…to sit in the outdoor bar. We hung out with Luis’ friend Fernando for about an hour then headed back to his apartment where I ate my last bowl of cereal (mmmm….), a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and watched an hour of the Simpsons.

I’m headed back to Masatepe at 8 AM tomorrow morning, but I’m ready for it. This whole visit was a real eye-opening experience.