La Centroamerica, and family

I have posted stories and information about various things that have happened on my trip so far, but I haven't put up any photos yet of basic details from my life! So here is a quick tour of my neighborhood, la Centroamerica, and photos of my host family.

Home sweet second home!

One of my favorite things about my neighborhood: I walk past this huge tree growing in the middle of a residential street every day on my way to the bus stop. In the States something like this would have been cut down long ago, but here it serves as a shady point of reference for all of the relative directions that people use (two blocks north of the tree, half a block west). And it's beautiful!

Trees like this with dangling roots/branches are very common in Nicaragua. This one is a few blocks from my house.

This is my Abuelita Nica, Naty, dancing a traditional Nicaraguan folk dance for my friend Amalia's 21st birthday. 

And this is my host sister Xochilt, left, and host mom Irene, right!

To the beach!

 

 

 

The travelers take over San Juan del Sur!

Last week was la Semana Santa, or Holy Week, when classes are canceled and people (generally) don't have to work, to celebrate the time leading up to Easter. Or... the time when everyone goes to the beaches because it is way too hot to stay in the city. And that is exactly what we did.

Daphne, Johnny, Me, Ellie: Day 1

Lunch?

We spent four days and three nights in San Juan, attempting to sleep in but failing miserably because everyone was always blasting reguetton at 7:30 am, swimming in the warm (!) Pacific Ocean, relaxing on the beach and cooking in our practically on-the-beach hostel. On the second day, Ellie and I took a touristy six-hour boat trip solely because we wanted to go snorkeling, and that was part of the deal they offered. It turned out, the main focus of the trip was surfing, something that we... had never, ever done. There were only four of us on the boat, plus our two local guides. The two other tourists were practiced surfers, and we had to learn quickly because our tour guides anchored the boat a solid 300 yards offshore, threw our boards in the water and told us to jump in. Thus, we picked it up quickly! After a few exhausting and hilarious hours attempting to stand up on our boards in the shallows near the shoreline, we paddled (slowly but surely) back out to the boat and went on a little fishing trip (see below), followed by snorkeling where we couldn't really see anything interesting. Not what we expected, but by far the best day!

No, I did not exaggerate my fish stories, thank you... We caught that, took it to a restaurant where they cooked it up for free, and shared it with 12 people!

Our lovely home for three nights

The famous San Juan del Sur

Ellie was already in Nicaragua doing research, and she came and spent all of Semana Santa with me. We met our first day of college!

With Xochilt, the best hermanita en todo el mundo!

I will be back next year!

La Bastilla: Jinotega

Bananas!

Seeing as I have thoroughly abandoned my blog for the past three or so weeks, here is a quick photo update of the weekend that we spent in the mountains of Jinotega, in the northern part of Nicaragua.

We stayed at La Bastlila, a school for high school-aged kids, where agricultural skills are taught for one week in the classroom, and the next week is spent working in either the school's garden, raising/tending to the pigs, cows or chickens, or working in the guest lodge, learning tourism skills.

We worked alongside the students in whichever fields interested us the most: I spent the first day working in the garden, and the second helping tend to the cows.

La Bastilla is a school for students from low-income/rural areas, so to avoid charging tuition to attend the school, the products of the students' work are used to run the school: eggs, milk, vegetables and pigs are sold in town and all the profits are used to run the school. Money from the EcoLodge also goes towards running the school.

The view from the EcoLodge, where we stayed for three nights

...which was fully solar-powered

Not a bad view!

The EcoLodge

Hard at work, doing some non-organic farming!

Day 2: Taking care of the cows

There were a few chickens. As in, 900. Literally.

After-lunch break! Days are a lot longer when you wake up at 4:30 to take care of the cows.

Our last night, with some of the students from La Bastilla. We were so sad to leave!

A quick recap...

So I had big plans to update my blog today (at last), and post photos from the past two weeks that are long overdue. But, while I finally have fast enough internet to load photos, my computer won´t recongnize the USB I have the photos on.

Story of my life here.

If it´s not one thing, it´s another.

But so it goes, and I hope no one was too desperate for a photo update. So much has happened in the past two weeks, I don´t know where to begin!

About two weekends ago, CIEE spent the weekend in the mountains of Jinotega, at a school for high school aged students, where we got to work with pigs, chickens, cows, vegetables and coffee, alongside the students there who were learning agrarian skills. That story will have to wait for photos, although photos won´t even do it justice. Let´s just say that all of us were reluctant to go back to Managua that weekend. 

The most major change these past few weeks happened last weekend, when nothing in particular happened except that I suddenly began to feel like I actually live here. All of a sudden I realized I have fallen in love with this country, and I am already dreading the end of June when I know I will have to say goodbye to my life here. Five months is not enough time! I have started to make friends with people who aren´t exchange students (what?? anyone who has studied abroad will probably understand what a big step that is), Spanish is getting easier and easier to understand and speak, and I can now haggle for a taxi like a pro.

So the last two weeks in a nutshell... I learned to use a machete, saw a night sky with more stars in it than I ever thought possible, started volunteer work with an organization for at-risk youth (more to come about that one), learned a little salsa, got a cold, got better, randomly ended up playing soccer with special agents from the US Embassy in Managua, became a Nicaraguan history nerd, and officially settled into my life here, at last.

It has been a good two weeks.

Climbing volcanoes in my spare time...

Last weekend we took a CIEE trip to another volcano, this time Volcan Mombacho, an inactive volcano near the colonial city of Granada, about an hour outside of Managua.

Mombacho has been inactive for a long time- I don't know how long it's been in years, but in the time since its last eruption an entire jungle has grown and thrived inside of its cloud-filled crater. It was cloudy, green and chilly- I felt so at home!

Overlooking the tree-filled crater of the Volcan Mombacho

The CIEE girls: Amalia, Daphne, Brigid, Me & Tiani, just before heading up the mountain

Wandering around on Mombacho...


As much as I like living in Mangua, getting outside of the city is always the best part of my week. The nature here is incredible!!

First Day of School... But not really

So Monday was technically my first day of school here at la UNAN, but I didn't actually attend any of my classes. I had my schedule all picked out, and was ready to take "Teorias de la Etnicidad" at 11:30, and "Sociologia del Desarollo" at 2:40. I showed up in the classroom I had been told to go to for my Teorias de Etnicidad class.... deserted. I stayed there until 5 minutes after the scheduled start time, when a janitor came in and started mopping the floors. Apparently, I had the wrong room.

Okay, no big deal, I still had my second class that afternoon. At 2:30 I found building 62, where my Sociology class was supposed to be held. My classroom door was not only shut but gated, locked and shut. Hm. Maybe I was in the wrong building? So I went to the building next door, and joined the students filing into the classroom, sat down, and got ready for class. What do you know? I found myself in a technical writing class... Definitely not Sociology.

So I excused myself, went back to the first building, and looked into every classroom in search of Sociologia del Desarollo. And guess what? I was in the Math department.

Worst

first

day

ever.

So after talking to the CIEE staff here and having them make a few calls on our behalf, all of us have gotten our schedules straightened out now. Today I finally found my way to Teorias de la Etnicidad (8 buildings over from where I was on Monday), and it was great. The professor and students were very welcoming, and it looks like it will be an interesting class.

I am also taking a seminar class on current events, and one CIEE class, "Revolucion y reforma neoliberal en Nicaragua," which starts this evening.

So after the most ridiculous first day of school of my life, things are settling down. Thank goodness.

The first two weeks

Managua is amazing! It has been a little over two weeks since I arrived, and I realize I haven't written anything about what has been going on so far. So, a brief update:

The photo to the left is a view of Managua taken on one of my first days in the city.  It's always hot here, the roads are dusty, bumpy and full of litter, but the vast majority of women I've seen wear high heeled shoes, skinny jeans and tight, brightly colored shirts. Not exactly what I expected when I packed all shorts in my luggage, and threw in a pair of jeans at the last minute, expecting to wear them only a few times. It's a good thing I brought them! Wearing shorts above the knee or dresses isn't advised on the city buses, which I have been riding every day to get around the city.

To say I've been eating well would be an understatement.The food here is amazing: the photo at right is from a restaurant we ate at on the second night here, but typically I've been eating three meals a day with my host family, which include fresh mango, banana, melon, pineapple, homemade tortillas, gallo pinto (rice and beans), meats, fresh juices, and a million varieties of fried bananas  I love it.

I live with a family of three women, a grandma, mother and daughter. I don't have a photo of the entire family yet, but my host grandma is named Natividad (Mami Nati), my host mom is Irene, and my host sister, in the photo, is Xochilt. They are super sweet, and although I can't always understand what they are trying to tell me, we get along well. Last weekend my host mom took all of the girls in my exchange program to Granada, a small city near Managua, for the Nicaraguan Poetry festival.

Me, my host sister Xochitl, her friend Dulce, and Daphne, one of the girls in my exchange program, with some of the people in the parade though central Granada at the Poetry festival...

Brigid, Dulce, Amalia, Daphne, Me and Xochilt in Granada

Parade in Granada...

Parade masks....

Smoking and dancing during the parade...

This past week, we went on a CIEE trip to the Volcan Masaya, which is about thirty minutes from Managua, and is one of the most accessible active volcanoes in the world. We drove up to the base of the crater, and then climbed to the top of the peaks surrounding it. Once the sun had set, we hiked into lava caves long ago created by the volcano, which were once used for sacrificial ceremonies, and were able to peer down into the bottom of the crater and see the lava glowing red inside of it!

At the lip of the crater of the Volcan Masaya

Moonrise atop Volcan Masaya

Video panorama from the top of highest peak of the Volcan Masaya


All for now... I will try to stay much more on top of my blog in the future! Catching up on two weeks' worth of activity in a new country involves more than I thought... all for now! Hasta pronto!

Arrival

It is 7:32 PM Managua time, February 9th, 2011. I could not be any more ready to go to bed!

From what I have seen of Managua so far, I think I will really like it here. The city itself is busy, dusty, and infinitely confusing. On our van ride from the airport to the center, we zipped past men and women selling water in plastic bags in the middle of the highway, several horse-drawn carts navigating the fast-moving roadways, and young children who would dart out to wash our windows and tap on the glass, hoping for payment.

The center we are staying at is peaceful, especially compared to the little bit of the city we saw briefly today. We eat our meals prepared by the staff here on a covered porch, surrounded by green foliage. Air moves freely through the open windows of the house, keeping it cool and letting in the sounds of crickets and the occasional loud motors from outside.

Tomorrow we will explore the city with the resident staff, learn how to use the public transportation system and purchase pre-paid cell phones. Aside from the 2 hours of sleep I got on the plane and my half-hour hammock nap this afternoon, I have not slept at all the past two days! Off to bed now... and it's only a quarter til 8. What a day!

At the airport

I've said all of my goodbyes, packed months worth of clothes into a single duffel bag, and I am almost on my way. Sitting at gate B15 of the SeaTac airport, with about 10 other travelers who are also here two hours before their flight to Houston leaves, I don't really feel like I'm going anywhere.

I suppose I'll have to believe all of this is real once I get off the plane in the 90 degree Managua sunshine... but right now I don't feel like it's true! I'm mostly a little exhausted from a hectic day of last-minute running around and packing (...and re-packing). I'm also a little bit torn, leaving my friends and family here in Seattle: admittedly, I teared up a little when hugging my parents and boyfriend goodbye outside security. They stayed and waved to me as I got my bags re-checked by Security Man when I forgot to take my laptop out of the bag and run it through on its own... Traveling with fancy technology is new to me! What can I say?

But anyways, here I am. I am almost a caricature of a typical Seattelite, with my Birkenstocks, flannel, spare flannel, and REI hiking pack. I am feeling better and better about this trip by the minute, and now I just hope that the next hour and a half until boarding passes quickly...

All for now! More to come...

R.

Getting closer!

A week and a half!

A week and a half until takeoff, a statement which simultaneously sounds amazing and horrifying. A week and a half! Regardless of how I feel about that statement, that week and a half will pass, and soon I will be in Managua, Nicaragua with four other girls who are probably as unprepared as I am.

Which reminds me! Yesterday I had my online orientation for the Managua program, and I learned that five girls, including myself, will be in the program. It's like my FIG all over again! (When I started college, I joined a Freshman Interest Group which was made up of something like 14 girls and 1 guy, and many of us girls from that group have remained close throughout college). Managua looks amazing, and the local staff seem like good people.

Soon I'll start the ridiculous task of packing a six month supply of everything I need into a single duffel bag and hiking pack, and then I will be on my way.
 Hasta luego.

One Month Til Departure

Exactly one month from today --on February 8th, 2011-- I will embark on my six month direct exchange at la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Nicaragua, in Managua. As of now, I know nothing about my future host family, the other students in the program, or the courses I will take at UNAN. My Spanish is fairly rusty, having been put on the back burner since the end of my Freshman year of college. I am currently a Junior.  

...I may be extremely unprepared for all of this.

Knowing so little about what lies ahead is both terribly exciting and, quite frankly, slightly terrifying. I recently began a writing in a journal that I plan to keep during my time abroad, and as I began writing in it for the first time, I sat back and and reveled in the fact that right then, on the first page of that blank book, I had no way of even imagining the people, places and events that will fill the rest of its currently quiet pages.

Before I can find out what lies ahead, I will be soaking up all the grey skies, coffee shops, great friends, rain drops and secure comforts that I have spent the first twenty years of my life surrounded by in the Pacific Northwest. I will miss Seattle, but I am ready for a few new places, though currently unknown. 

Impatiently yours,

RM

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware." -Martin Buber