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!
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
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!
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