Hey again! Okay, so I might, once I get home, make one last entry to let you know en masse how Panama went instead of telling everyone ten times individually. But this will be my last message to you all from Central America! I'm almost entirely packed and ready to leave tomorrow. Today, we had a birthday barbeque (Thanks, LJ) :) for my host sisters' cousin who lives a few houses down. It was really fun! There were about twenty of his friends and my sisters, my friend Ruth (who lives with that family), and his parents and me. The parents just kept bringing out food and grilling different kinds of meats (Ruth and I discovered that we had eaten just about every animal normally eaten by the end of the lunch: turkey, chicken, cow, and pig). It was delicious and fun and made a glorious last day. Also, the younger brother (the one not turning 18) kept throwing little pieces of tortilla at everyone and me and Ruth just kept watching people trying to figure out what was happening. Hilarious!
So tonight, Ana Laura (my roommate) and I and maybe the other sisters if they want, and Ruth are going to watch Facing the Giants in Spanish, and then our parents get home from Nicaragua sometime later. Then, I'm going to give them their host family gift and have a little goodbye ceremony probably, and then go to bed.
Tomorrow here's the schedule: leave my house at 5:15 (yes, a.m. because Costa Rica does not respect my love of sleep), meet everyone in my concentration at 5:30 at the program offices, leave by 6 for the airport, fly out of Costa Rica on our 8:36 flight. Then, we fly into Panama City and spend the first night there.
Tuesday morning (the 4th) we fly and then kayak to our respective islands (our group of 15 plus two leaders will be split between two islands).
We spend the next five nights (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights) on the islands sleeping in hammocks under bug nets and using the dock-outhouses.
Then, Sunday morning we kayak and fly back to Panama City where we get to know the city and the Panama Canal that night and all Monday.
Tuesday morning (the 11th) we fly to Guatemala City where we meet up with the entire group of 51 students and three of the leaders. We all fly together back to Miami for Tuesday night. Once in Miami, those of us potentially having scabies, lice, and internal parasites (oh yeah, that's a new one we just found out about the other day) will spend the night taking 30 minute showers slathered in the special cream, picking out lice eggs from each others' hair, and beginning to take our anti-parasite medication.
Wednesday (the 12th) we spend together doing who-knows-what and that night we have a big talent show.
And finally Thursday morning (the 13th) I catch my flight from Miami to Atlanta and then to the QC and am (hopefully) home by 5 p.m.!
So...there you have it. My itinerary, or at least what I know of it. So yeah! For now then, I guess that's all I can really tell you. I'm really excited to go, even despite the bugs and outhouse situation, but definitely keep up the prayers for this next week! Thank you for staying with me through all this! I love you and can't wait to see you all again soon!
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Second to Last
Hey again! I'm still hoping to get one more update out this weekend before we head to Panama, but since I have some free time on the computer I'm going to take advantage of it.
We have our grammar test tomorrow morning and then we give our creative presentations of everything we've learned and experienced so far on Friday. Then we have the weekend to hang out and pack. On Saturday, I'm going to go with some friends to a country club that Elizabeth's host family is taking us to. (Elizabeth is the only other Northwestern student here.) Then, I'll pack on Sunday. Actually, I've been wanting to pack for a while now, so waiting till Sunday just might kill me.
An update on the money situation: everyone received an extra ten dollars from the program as compensation for all the transportation costs we incur, so I'm doing a little better financially. However, it's still going to be tight.
Everyone here is pretty stressed out and nervous about going to Nicaragua and contracting scabies and lice, so if you could all pray that we handle it as well as we can, that'd be great. Also, we're going to be spending six days (five nights) on the islands with host families. We'll be sleeping in hammocks and using outhouses that are just shacks at the ends of docks. But the biggest worry is that we'll do nothing but sit all day and be really bored and therefore the time will drag by. So if you could also pray that our week there is amazing so we don't get so anxious to be home, that would be appreciated as well. Ok, well that's all for now. I'll let you know about Panama in my last blog! Love you!
We have our grammar test tomorrow morning and then we give our creative presentations of everything we've learned and experienced so far on Friday. Then we have the weekend to hang out and pack. On Saturday, I'm going to go with some friends to a country club that Elizabeth's host family is taking us to. (Elizabeth is the only other Northwestern student here.) Then, I'll pack on Sunday. Actually, I've been wanting to pack for a while now, so waiting till Sunday just might kill me.
An update on the money situation: everyone received an extra ten dollars from the program as compensation for all the transportation costs we incur, so I'm doing a little better financially. However, it's still going to be tight.
Everyone here is pretty stressed out and nervous about going to Nicaragua and contracting scabies and lice, so if you could all pray that we handle it as well as we can, that'd be great. Also, we're going to be spending six days (five nights) on the islands with host families. We'll be sleeping in hammocks and using outhouses that are just shacks at the ends of docks. But the biggest worry is that we'll do nothing but sit all day and be really bored and therefore the time will drag by. So if you could also pray that our week there is amazing so we don't get so anxious to be home, that would be appreciated as well. Ok, well that's all for now. I'll let you know about Panama in my last blog! Love you!
Monday, November 19, 2007
Routine...but cheaper
I was thinking I should update since it's been a while, but really...I haven't done anything new. We're still in the same segment of the semester. Kylie and I are still working at the prostitution rehab center, but not with any of the women since they're only there Tuesdays and Thursday while we only work Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Mostly we just do office work, organizing and reorganizing and other things that make us feel like we're giving them more work just to figure out what to do with us. Grammar and literature classes are both really boring but we only have seven more classes, so that's encouraging at least. And this is our last week of volunteering at the rehab place (which, if I have neglected to mention is named Rahab Foundation, and if you don't know why, look up the story of Rahab in the Bible because it's a really cool story).
After this week and next, we head to Panama! I'm having very mixed feelings about this part of our semester. On the one hand, we will get to see the Canal and live with indigenous tribes and learn an indigenous language on their islands. We will get to sleep in hammocks and just live with these people for six days. On the other hand, we will probably get lice and scabies while we're there. Scabies, for those of you who are like me before this trip and have no clue what they are, are microscopic bugs that burrow under your skin and lay eggs. Then, you end up with little red bumps all over that itch really really bad, but if you itch them, you spread the bugs that are invisible to the naked eye. Then, once you get them, all your clothes, bed sheets, anythig you touch basically, is infected and will reinfect anyone else who touches them. So to get rid of this problem, we will have to shower for...I don't remember how long with this special cream all over our bodies. Then, we put all the clothes, etc. that were with us on the islands into a big garbage bag and tie it up. We either have to boil it, freeze it for 24 hours, or just burn it all in order for it to be un-infected again. Yeah. So you can see why most of us are dreading those six days a little bit.
In other news, I went shopping for Christmas presents this weekend and was too successful. I'm done with presents now, but also only have 24 dollars left for the next 24 days of my life. In case you're not doing the math, I'll help you out: that's a dollar a day. I thought about emailing my family and getting them to send some emergency funds or fixing my atm card so I could withdraw some if necessary, but after some thought, I've decided that this will just be another challenge to live through. I kept seeing beggars and homeless men sleeping under boxes on my way home from work today and I kept really wanting to give them some money and then realizing that I really don't have anything to give them! Then, I saw a man wondering the street without any shoes and I seriously considered just giving him mine, but they are obviously too small to help. Then, a man with one arm cut off at the shoulder came on the bus I was riding home and gave a little speech about his family not having any food and how hard it was every day and then he went down the aisle collecting change, and it almost killed me to not be able to chip in, but I literally only had brought enough to get me to work and back. The moral of this ramble is that in the end, I decided it would be one more lesson I get to learn while here if I just dealt with only having one dollar to spare a day. And as hard as I feel like that is, there are people who live on so much less. In Nicaragua, 80 percent of the entire population live on less than 2 dollars a day. Which is twice as much as I have, but I have a host family provide food and shelter and a study-abroad program that is giving me my education that definitely wouldn't have been taken care of by that dollar-a-day deal. Also, most of those people are supporting their parents or children or both.
When we went to Nicaragua, we visited the capital city Managua. I've already mentioned this part, but the part that I was going to save for the "Open at your own risk" entry (which obviously, I'm going to just say now instead...) is that while there we visited the city dump. 2,000 people live there. In the garbage dump. Imagine if Chicago had one place in the city where they all just dumped their garbage, and then imagine that there are 2,000 people living there. There is a school and a church there inside the dump, too. The parents and older children even work there. They collect anything that can be recycled and sell what they've been able to find to trucks that come every day to collect it. We sat on our school bus and watched out the window as two little boys ran around in their underwear barefoot across the garbage heaps. One of them had a real gun that he had found and was now playing with. Then, a man from that "community" came on the bus and we had a little question and answer time. He had moved his family there from the country because he actually made more money! In the dump, collecting recyclables, he could make about four dollars a day instead of the two he was making before. By the way, two or less a day is considered below the poverty level, but more isn't. That means that this man who made four dollars a day and lived in the city dump is NOT considered to be in poverty. That means he is part of the richest 20 percent of the entire country of Nicaragua. I mean, really stop to think about that for a second. Making anything more than two dollars a day in Nicaragua makes you richer than 80 percent of everyone around you.
So you can understand why I don't really feel entitled to complain, and maybe you can even understand why I'm kind of excited to experience this. It's not even going to be that hard compared to peoples' lives who actually have to survive on that much forever. I'll just have to skip a few things and not buy comfort things every few days. No bottle of Coke for the bus ride home. No special Thanksgiving dinner Thursday night. No more bus rides if I can possibly walk. (The walk to class is only forty minutes and I'll save almost four dollars by not taking the bus!) But really, that's nothing compared to anyone who actually has to struggle through life. This doesn't mean I'm not going to complain about it every once and a while, but it does mean I'll sober up a lot faster. :)
Anyway, so that's the newest facts of my life so far! I'll try to get in a couple more updates before December 3 because that's when we leave for Panama and I doubt we'll have an internet access then until I get home. (Especially since I have no extra money to spend at the internet cafes!) So I'll let you all know what's going to happen with that.
I'm getting really excited to see everyone again soon! Have a great Thanksgiving and especially remember everyone who lives on so little a day. Maybe donate some food to a soup kitchen or invite a homeless man to dinner. I know you can find at least a couple in your area. I love you all and can't wait to see you again!
After this week and next, we head to Panama! I'm having very mixed feelings about this part of our semester. On the one hand, we will get to see the Canal and live with indigenous tribes and learn an indigenous language on their islands. We will get to sleep in hammocks and just live with these people for six days. On the other hand, we will probably get lice and scabies while we're there. Scabies, for those of you who are like me before this trip and have no clue what they are, are microscopic bugs that burrow under your skin and lay eggs. Then, you end up with little red bumps all over that itch really really bad, but if you itch them, you spread the bugs that are invisible to the naked eye. Then, once you get them, all your clothes, bed sheets, anythig you touch basically, is infected and will reinfect anyone else who touches them. So to get rid of this problem, we will have to shower for...I don't remember how long with this special cream all over our bodies. Then, we put all the clothes, etc. that were with us on the islands into a big garbage bag and tie it up. We either have to boil it, freeze it for 24 hours, or just burn it all in order for it to be un-infected again. Yeah. So you can see why most of us are dreading those six days a little bit.
In other news, I went shopping for Christmas presents this weekend and was too successful. I'm done with presents now, but also only have 24 dollars left for the next 24 days of my life. In case you're not doing the math, I'll help you out: that's a dollar a day. I thought about emailing my family and getting them to send some emergency funds or fixing my atm card so I could withdraw some if necessary, but after some thought, I've decided that this will just be another challenge to live through. I kept seeing beggars and homeless men sleeping under boxes on my way home from work today and I kept really wanting to give them some money and then realizing that I really don't have anything to give them! Then, I saw a man wondering the street without any shoes and I seriously considered just giving him mine, but they are obviously too small to help. Then, a man with one arm cut off at the shoulder came on the bus I was riding home and gave a little speech about his family not having any food and how hard it was every day and then he went down the aisle collecting change, and it almost killed me to not be able to chip in, but I literally only had brought enough to get me to work and back. The moral of this ramble is that in the end, I decided it would be one more lesson I get to learn while here if I just dealt with only having one dollar to spare a day. And as hard as I feel like that is, there are people who live on so much less. In Nicaragua, 80 percent of the entire population live on less than 2 dollars a day. Which is twice as much as I have, but I have a host family provide food and shelter and a study-abroad program that is giving me my education that definitely wouldn't have been taken care of by that dollar-a-day deal. Also, most of those people are supporting their parents or children or both.
When we went to Nicaragua, we visited the capital city Managua. I've already mentioned this part, but the part that I was going to save for the "Open at your own risk" entry (which obviously, I'm going to just say now instead...) is that while there we visited the city dump. 2,000 people live there. In the garbage dump. Imagine if Chicago had one place in the city where they all just dumped their garbage, and then imagine that there are 2,000 people living there. There is a school and a church there inside the dump, too. The parents and older children even work there. They collect anything that can be recycled and sell what they've been able to find to trucks that come every day to collect it. We sat on our school bus and watched out the window as two little boys ran around in their underwear barefoot across the garbage heaps. One of them had a real gun that he had found and was now playing with. Then, a man from that "community" came on the bus and we had a little question and answer time. He had moved his family there from the country because he actually made more money! In the dump, collecting recyclables, he could make about four dollars a day instead of the two he was making before. By the way, two or less a day is considered below the poverty level, but more isn't. That means that this man who made four dollars a day and lived in the city dump is NOT considered to be in poverty. That means he is part of the richest 20 percent of the entire country of Nicaragua. I mean, really stop to think about that for a second. Making anything more than two dollars a day in Nicaragua makes you richer than 80 percent of everyone around you.
So you can understand why I don't really feel entitled to complain, and maybe you can even understand why I'm kind of excited to experience this. It's not even going to be that hard compared to peoples' lives who actually have to survive on that much forever. I'll just have to skip a few things and not buy comfort things every few days. No bottle of Coke for the bus ride home. No special Thanksgiving dinner Thursday night. No more bus rides if I can possibly walk. (The walk to class is only forty minutes and I'll save almost four dollars by not taking the bus!) But really, that's nothing compared to anyone who actually has to struggle through life. This doesn't mean I'm not going to complain about it every once and a while, but it does mean I'll sober up a lot faster. :)
Anyway, so that's the newest facts of my life so far! I'll try to get in a couple more updates before December 3 because that's when we leave for Panama and I doubt we'll have an internet access then until I get home. (Especially since I have no extra money to spend at the internet cafes!) So I'll let you all know what's going to happen with that.
I'm getting really excited to see everyone again soon! Have a great Thanksgiving and especially remember everyone who lives on so little a day. Maybe donate some food to a soup kitchen or invite a homeless man to dinner. I know you can find at least a couple in your area. I love you all and can't wait to see you again!
Monday, November 5, 2007
Edition 7
Hi again! So...for those of you who are curious, the "open at your own risk" blog is still coming, but it's a little deeper than the usual entry, so it's taking me a while to get it just right. But I still wanted to update you on what's been going on.
We finished the first section of classes and had a four day fall break. Everyone split into groups and did their own thing: went to volcanoes, beaches, went zip-lining, swimming, hiking, etc. I ended up in a group of six and we went to a little retreat in the Cloud Forest. It's like a rainforest, but at a higher altitude so everything's a little different. From the name, I'm sure you could guess that there's a lot of fog and clouds that roll through the valley. It's awesome, you can literally watch the clouds roll over the tops of the really tall hills (they're not quite mountains). There's a young couple that live in the retreat building. The wife went to Northwestern actually and then she met her husband through this study abroad program! They were really fun and were really excited to have us there. We helped with some projects gardening and stuff one of the days. Another day, we hiked up to a cool view point. Another day we hiked 4 kilometers (not quite 3 miles) to two waterfalls that were incredible. And just to make myself feel better...I need to clarify that this was not a normal hike down a nice little forest trail. This was almost 3 miles of some rough trail, a few stairs, but mostly a path cut through random places where you had to climb rocks and cling to tree roots so you didn't fall down the short cliff. It wasn't life-threateningly dangerous, but definitely not easy to do. We were pretty exhausted, but then we walked another two miles to this really great bakery run by a Canadian woman and her daughter. She was so sweet and since we were with the couple from the lodge, we got to eat free. We left her a huge tip, but still! It was great!
Probably the most interesting part of our weekend, however, was the bus rides. To get anywhere if you don't have a car, you have to use buses, even if it's across the country. So we were supposed to meet the group for the 2:30 bus, but we had to buy groceries for the trip and we had problems and the end result was that we didn't make it until almost 3. So we bought tickets for the 3:30 bus instead. However, the bus didn't come and didn't come...finally Sarah (the girl living at the lodge) went to ask what was going on and they said there was a landslide and all the buses were screwed up. The woman told us we had at least until 5:30. So Melissa and I went to get food for everyone, but when we got back we discovered that our bus had come and gone. However, the 4:30 bus was there so we jumped on and rode that for an hour. Then, we got to the part where a bridge was washed away because of a landslide, so we all got out and walked for a couple miles in the pitch black in the mud on the side of a highway to a different bus on the other side. Then we rode that one for another hour and got to our stop. David (the husband) met us there in his van and drove us all a half hour down to the bottom of the valley where the community is. So that was the trip there.
To get back to San Jose, you have to just flag a bus down on the highway, but they won't stop for Gringos so Sarah got a guy they knew to give us a ride and flag the bus down for us. However, when we got to the top of the valley where the highway is, we gave him our money and he took off. So we were like, um...now what? We waited for an hour contemplating the best way to make a fire when it started to get dark. But then the bus came and we did manage to flag it down, although we all had to stand in the aisle for the first half. So we rode the two hours back to San Jose and made it home safely.
Then, we went to our homes and met back up at this really cool Italian restaurant to celebrate my birthday. It was really fun and we got to go to a dessert place afterwards and I got cherry cheesecake, so definitely a successful birthday. Then, my parents called me and we got to talk for a little while that night, too.
And that's pretty much my fall break! Now we're starting our concentration; I'm in the Language and Literature concentration and we had our first grammar and literature classes today. They were pretty boring, but there's only ten days of them and one's done! Tomorrow Kylie and I start working at a prostitution rehabilitation center, so I'll let you all know how that goes. Thanks for reading! I love you!
We finished the first section of classes and had a four day fall break. Everyone split into groups and did their own thing: went to volcanoes, beaches, went zip-lining, swimming, hiking, etc. I ended up in a group of six and we went to a little retreat in the Cloud Forest. It's like a rainforest, but at a higher altitude so everything's a little different. From the name, I'm sure you could guess that there's a lot of fog and clouds that roll through the valley. It's awesome, you can literally watch the clouds roll over the tops of the really tall hills (they're not quite mountains). There's a young couple that live in the retreat building. The wife went to Northwestern actually and then she met her husband through this study abroad program! They were really fun and were really excited to have us there. We helped with some projects gardening and stuff one of the days. Another day, we hiked up to a cool view point. Another day we hiked 4 kilometers (not quite 3 miles) to two waterfalls that were incredible. And just to make myself feel better...I need to clarify that this was not a normal hike down a nice little forest trail. This was almost 3 miles of some rough trail, a few stairs, but mostly a path cut through random places where you had to climb rocks and cling to tree roots so you didn't fall down the short cliff. It wasn't life-threateningly dangerous, but definitely not easy to do. We were pretty exhausted, but then we walked another two miles to this really great bakery run by a Canadian woman and her daughter. She was so sweet and since we were with the couple from the lodge, we got to eat free. We left her a huge tip, but still! It was great!
Probably the most interesting part of our weekend, however, was the bus rides. To get anywhere if you don't have a car, you have to use buses, even if it's across the country. So we were supposed to meet the group for the 2:30 bus, but we had to buy groceries for the trip and we had problems and the end result was that we didn't make it until almost 3. So we bought tickets for the 3:30 bus instead. However, the bus didn't come and didn't come...finally Sarah (the girl living at the lodge) went to ask what was going on and they said there was a landslide and all the buses were screwed up. The woman told us we had at least until 5:30. So Melissa and I went to get food for everyone, but when we got back we discovered that our bus had come and gone. However, the 4:30 bus was there so we jumped on and rode that for an hour. Then, we got to the part where a bridge was washed away because of a landslide, so we all got out and walked for a couple miles in the pitch black in the mud on the side of a highway to a different bus on the other side. Then we rode that one for another hour and got to our stop. David (the husband) met us there in his van and drove us all a half hour down to the bottom of the valley where the community is. So that was the trip there.
To get back to San Jose, you have to just flag a bus down on the highway, but they won't stop for Gringos so Sarah got a guy they knew to give us a ride and flag the bus down for us. However, when we got to the top of the valley where the highway is, we gave him our money and he took off. So we were like, um...now what? We waited for an hour contemplating the best way to make a fire when it started to get dark. But then the bus came and we did manage to flag it down, although we all had to stand in the aisle for the first half. So we rode the two hours back to San Jose and made it home safely.
Then, we went to our homes and met back up at this really cool Italian restaurant to celebrate my birthday. It was really fun and we got to go to a dessert place afterwards and I got cherry cheesecake, so definitely a successful birthday. Then, my parents called me and we got to talk for a little while that night, too.
And that's pretty much my fall break! Now we're starting our concentration; I'm in the Language and Literature concentration and we had our first grammar and literature classes today. They were pretty boring, but there's only ten days of them and one's done! Tomorrow Kylie and I start working at a prostitution rehabilitation center, so I'll let you all know how that goes. Thanks for reading! I love you!
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Condega (read after #6)
Ok, so I just wanted to talk a little about the community I lived in while in Nicaragua because it impressed me so much. I already talked about what kind of town it was, but also while we were there, we got the chance to visit a LOT of organizations that they ran. We visisted an organization that helped women in all kinds of problems from violence and abuse to helping them raise children. There was a school for deaf and mute children to live and learn sign language. There was an art school. There was a rehabilitation center for adolescents addicted to drugs or alcohol. There were lots of little shops and places that helped each other out. We visited the library and a little museum. And the reason I mention all these places is because the government has nothing to do with them! I mean, think about that difference! In the U.S. we depend on government funding to solve soooo many problems! In N, even the library was just run by donations and a volunteer librarian. I think it´s because the government in N has had a pretty unstable and unreliable history, so the people have no choice but to just take care of their own problems and not depend on government funding. But I was still constantly amazed by the people. So that is just a small glimpse of how amazing the people and their sense of community is in Nicaragua. :)
Numero Seis...
Hola again! Okay so this blog is just going to be about what we did in Nicaragua, and unless you´re feeling adventurous I´d skip the blog entitled "Open at your own risk", for obvious reasons I think. :)
So we left for Nicaragua (which is a awkward word to type so from now on I´ll address it as N) early early on a Monday morning. We rode a big tour bus for nine hours with only one stop and two border checks that weren´t too big of a deal. (It´s amazing how powerful you realize just being a U.S. citizen and having a U.S. passport is.) The first three nights we stayed in a outdoor dormitory style housing (it´s reallyhard to explain so if that´s confusing, ask me to explain better later) in the capitol city Managua. Managua is known world-wide as one of the top...two, I think ugliest capitol cities in the world. And it earned that title. It´s dirty in a typical big-city way, but also it´s just not pretty in other way. But we talked to a politician and got to visit the National Assembly, so that was pretty cool. We also went to a restaurant called Dona Blanca´s (dona = lady or ma´am) owned by...Dona Blanca of course and served traditional Nicaraguan food. I discovered a fruit that is only found in N that they only use as a fruit drink called Pitaya and it was awesome!
Then, on Thursday morning, everyone split into groups of five or six students and went off on their own to different communities literally all over the country. I went with 11 other people because five of them lived in a community farther north than my group, so when we got off the bus they went on for another hour. So we all hopped on an old school bus and rode non-stop for three hours with three people to a seat and some even standing in the aisles. Oh, and it was raining so we couldn´t have the windows open. Yeah. Finally, we got off in my town called Condega. This was by far my favorite part of trip. I spent six nights with a host family in Condega, this "big" town with a small town feel. It was so cute. There were couble-stone streets where real cowboys rode their horses around and everyone walked and said hi, God bless you to everyone else even if they didn´t know them. It was safe for me (even as a blonde woman) to walk around at 1 in the morning, although I never tested this, my host mom just said that I could. And I´ll talk more about the community later but I´m just focusing on what we did for now.
My host mom, Julia Maria Tercero, owned a little store at the front of the house that random cousins were constantly working for her when she wasn´t around. The dad was Marvin, the 12 year old son was Marvin Jr, and the 4 year old girl was Mili. They were incredible and so generous, which was actually a theme in everyone´s Nicaraguan experience. Just to give you an idea of this I´m going to go off on a little tangent. We all brought our host families gifts, and I brought the kids some pens and little cute post-it pads (thanks, mom, by the way) and when I gave them their gifts, the mom said, oh wait! I have something for you! And went to the store and just pulled out a cool necklace that her friend had made and gave it to me. Later, she had a really cool shirt on and I complimented it. The day we left, she brought me one just like and said she had a few that she had bought in El Salvador and this one was for me. THEN, later on the way to a different part of N we were in a taxi and there was a woman selling little animals to hang from your rearview mirror. The taxi driver just knew her from always driving by and she came over to show him the stuff. He was looking at a little deer and I said some comment about it being cute and he just bought it for me! Okay, back to my adventures, but it´s really important to realize that practically all Nicaraguans are just like that! They don´t care what it is, they´ll just give it to you.
After my amazing six day adventure with my adorable family (especially the little girl who was so patient with my Spanish and couldn´t say her "r"s so that was an adventure in itself), I met back up with my group of 11 people and we headed back on bus for four hours to Managua. Then, we got the taxi to the other bus stop where we rode a large van to Granada, a really old city. Old in the cool, antique kind of way. The buildings were incredible and beautiful, but we were only there in a hostel for one night.
Then, we went to Masaya, another fairly large town with some really cool artisan markets. I was walking around with a small group of friends and we decided we were going to get some ice cream. We went to the little vendor and as we´re trying to buy our stuff, there were a few little kids asking us to buy them some. We thought, ok, we can do that. But then we looked past them and saw another ten kids playing at the playground, and then even more on the street beyond that and we realized that news would spread fast and that we´d end up buying ALL the ice cream, so we told them we couldn´t. But then we ate the most guilty-feeling bowl of ice cream I´ve ever had in my life.
Then, we headed back to Managua to that same dorm-type place for our last night in N. The next day, last Friday the 19th, we left really early back to Costa Rica and got home late that afternoon.
I spent the weekend pretty much just relaxing and hanging out with my Costa Rican family. Now we have this week and weekend and next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday pretty much entirely dedicated to finishing our big opinion essays and group presentations. Then, we have the next Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off for fall break. A lot of groups of people formed to go to the beaches or things like that, but my family is planning to come back later for vacation so I didn´t really care to do any of that. I was going to just spend time with my family, but then I found out about a girl going to volunteer with a turtle conservation group on the west coast, so we formed a group of four of us and we´re going to do that! I´m so excited and the program directors said they´d be willing to fund a lot of our expenses, so it´s a double bonus!
After that break, we break into our concentrations. There are 51 students here from universities all over the U.S. and we´re broken into 3 concentrations: business, cultural studies, and Spanish literature and language. I´m in the lit. and lang. part. So we´ll have four weeks of that (which I´ll explain more about later). Then, each concentration goes to a different country for the last 8 days of the program. Then, we all meet back in Miami for two days. THEN, I´m on my home for Christmas break! It´s so close, but I don´t want to get excited yet and miss this. I´m loving every second here, but also missing you all, so it´s hard to stay focused on the moment.
So that´s all for my basic life schedule, but here´s some things you can pray for!
·That I will be able to stay in the moment no matter how close home gets.
·That everyone will stay healthy and in good spirits.
·That I will have patience with my family here in the next six weeks that we´re together. (They ask me how I´m doing every five minutes and it´s starting to irritate me...) :)
·Also, pray for my friend Emily. She´s a student at Northwestern studying in Uganda right now and it´s way more rough than we have it here. She´s loving it, but pray that it stays that way!
Thanks for reading and sorry these get so lengthy! I´m trying to be concise and tell you everything and it´s practically impossible to do both! I love you!
So we left for Nicaragua (which is a awkward word to type so from now on I´ll address it as N) early early on a Monday morning. We rode a big tour bus for nine hours with only one stop and two border checks that weren´t too big of a deal. (It´s amazing how powerful you realize just being a U.S. citizen and having a U.S. passport is.) The first three nights we stayed in a outdoor dormitory style housing (it´s reallyhard to explain so if that´s confusing, ask me to explain better later) in the capitol city Managua. Managua is known world-wide as one of the top...two, I think ugliest capitol cities in the world. And it earned that title. It´s dirty in a typical big-city way, but also it´s just not pretty in other way. But we talked to a politician and got to visit the National Assembly, so that was pretty cool. We also went to a restaurant called Dona Blanca´s (dona = lady or ma´am) owned by...Dona Blanca of course and served traditional Nicaraguan food. I discovered a fruit that is only found in N that they only use as a fruit drink called Pitaya and it was awesome!
Then, on Thursday morning, everyone split into groups of five or six students and went off on their own to different communities literally all over the country. I went with 11 other people because five of them lived in a community farther north than my group, so when we got off the bus they went on for another hour. So we all hopped on an old school bus and rode non-stop for three hours with three people to a seat and some even standing in the aisles. Oh, and it was raining so we couldn´t have the windows open. Yeah. Finally, we got off in my town called Condega. This was by far my favorite part of trip. I spent six nights with a host family in Condega, this "big" town with a small town feel. It was so cute. There were couble-stone streets where real cowboys rode their horses around and everyone walked and said hi, God bless you to everyone else even if they didn´t know them. It was safe for me (even as a blonde woman) to walk around at 1 in the morning, although I never tested this, my host mom just said that I could. And I´ll talk more about the community later but I´m just focusing on what we did for now.
My host mom, Julia Maria Tercero, owned a little store at the front of the house that random cousins were constantly working for her when she wasn´t around. The dad was Marvin, the 12 year old son was Marvin Jr, and the 4 year old girl was Mili. They were incredible and so generous, which was actually a theme in everyone´s Nicaraguan experience. Just to give you an idea of this I´m going to go off on a little tangent. We all brought our host families gifts, and I brought the kids some pens and little cute post-it pads (thanks, mom, by the way) and when I gave them their gifts, the mom said, oh wait! I have something for you! And went to the store and just pulled out a cool necklace that her friend had made and gave it to me. Later, she had a really cool shirt on and I complimented it. The day we left, she brought me one just like and said she had a few that she had bought in El Salvador and this one was for me. THEN, later on the way to a different part of N we were in a taxi and there was a woman selling little animals to hang from your rearview mirror. The taxi driver just knew her from always driving by and she came over to show him the stuff. He was looking at a little deer and I said some comment about it being cute and he just bought it for me! Okay, back to my adventures, but it´s really important to realize that practically all Nicaraguans are just like that! They don´t care what it is, they´ll just give it to you.
After my amazing six day adventure with my adorable family (especially the little girl who was so patient with my Spanish and couldn´t say her "r"s so that was an adventure in itself), I met back up with my group of 11 people and we headed back on bus for four hours to Managua. Then, we got the taxi to the other bus stop where we rode a large van to Granada, a really old city. Old in the cool, antique kind of way. The buildings were incredible and beautiful, but we were only there in a hostel for one night.
Then, we went to Masaya, another fairly large town with some really cool artisan markets. I was walking around with a small group of friends and we decided we were going to get some ice cream. We went to the little vendor and as we´re trying to buy our stuff, there were a few little kids asking us to buy them some. We thought, ok, we can do that. But then we looked past them and saw another ten kids playing at the playground, and then even more on the street beyond that and we realized that news would spread fast and that we´d end up buying ALL the ice cream, so we told them we couldn´t. But then we ate the most guilty-feeling bowl of ice cream I´ve ever had in my life.
Then, we headed back to Managua to that same dorm-type place for our last night in N. The next day, last Friday the 19th, we left really early back to Costa Rica and got home late that afternoon.
I spent the weekend pretty much just relaxing and hanging out with my Costa Rican family. Now we have this week and weekend and next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday pretty much entirely dedicated to finishing our big opinion essays and group presentations. Then, we have the next Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off for fall break. A lot of groups of people formed to go to the beaches or things like that, but my family is planning to come back later for vacation so I didn´t really care to do any of that. I was going to just spend time with my family, but then I found out about a girl going to volunteer with a turtle conservation group on the west coast, so we formed a group of four of us and we´re going to do that! I´m so excited and the program directors said they´d be willing to fund a lot of our expenses, so it´s a double bonus!
After that break, we break into our concentrations. There are 51 students here from universities all over the U.S. and we´re broken into 3 concentrations: business, cultural studies, and Spanish literature and language. I´m in the lit. and lang. part. So we´ll have four weeks of that (which I´ll explain more about later). Then, each concentration goes to a different country for the last 8 days of the program. Then, we all meet back in Miami for two days. THEN, I´m on my home for Christmas break! It´s so close, but I don´t want to get excited yet and miss this. I´m loving every second here, but also missing you all, so it´s hard to stay focused on the moment.
So that´s all for my basic life schedule, but here´s some things you can pray for!
·That I will be able to stay in the moment no matter how close home gets.
·That everyone will stay healthy and in good spirits.
·That I will have patience with my family here in the next six weeks that we´re together. (They ask me how I´m doing every five minutes and it´s starting to irritate me...) :)
·Also, pray for my friend Emily. She´s a student at Northwestern studying in Uganda right now and it´s way more rough than we have it here. She´s loving it, but pray that it stays that way!
Thanks for reading and sorry these get so lengthy! I´m trying to be concise and tell you everything and it´s practically impossible to do both! I love you!
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Quick Update
Hey! I don't have much time to give you all a full account of Nicaragua, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm back safe and healthy in Costa Rica again. Also! I found out that you CAN send packages if you so choose as long as they're smaller than 4 pounds. Just fyi and a little hint to the fam. :) Anyway, it was awesome and I loved my host family tons! I fully intend to go back someday! I'll give you better info later! I love you all!
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