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!