While staying in the hotel in Managua, I met some Peace Corps volunteers and got to talk to them about their experiences and service sites. I had breakfast with a volunteer serving in a town on the Pacific coast—he works a lot with people to improve their English skills directly involved with tourism, as 2 cruise ships arrive each month full of tourists. This was interesting to talk to him about.
I rode back to town with him and another volunteer who were giving a charla for us on sustainable development. This is a very big part of the Peace Corps—we don’t just show up in a country and try to change things and make everything “better”. We come to provide assistance, but the assistance we provide is usually not in the form of money or material things, but human assistance, equipping others with the skills they can use far after we leave. I enjoyed this charla very much because it really puts our work into perspective.
We also had a charla on safety and security which is always interesting because it usually ends up scaring us. They’re really trying to make us more aware of our surroundings and to not let our guards down just because we feel more comfortable in our communities.
I headed back to San Juan with Jessica after so I could buy some credits for my new Nica phone and get lunch. Let me know if you want to call me on that phone—you can use a calling card to call me so it’s not too expensive and it’s free for me to receive calls (I’ll have this phone with me most of the time). When I arrived home, I found another gringa in the house… She is one of my host family’s past trainees, currently working in the Environment sector and is almost done with her service (ends in October). I found out that she’s from Oregon too! She was really nice and we chatted a lot about Peace Corps stuff and great places to live/visit in Nicaragua. She actually married a Nica, I think this past summer, so that was a fun story to hear.
After a great lunch of traditional food (Indio Viejo), I headed over to the internet café to meet up with Jess and Kellie. We hung out there for awhile and then walked over to Catarina to visit the other trainees. We met up with Julia Elena and Melissa and chatted. Of course our real motive to traveling to Catarina was actually to get ice cream… There isn’t an ice cream shop (Eskimo) in our little town, but there are TWO in Catarina! We wanted to get a big ice cream and we were NOT disappointed. I fell into ice cream heaven when I was served my banana split, complete with gummi bears on top haha I’m not a big fan of gummi bears, especially on ice cream so I passed those on to Julia Elena and Jess. However, I did finish every last bit of my three scoops of ice cream (coffee, cookies & cream, and Neapolitan), banana, and chocolate syrup. I unfortunately did not have my camera with me to take a picture of this lovely display, but we all promised ourselves this would not be the last time to have ice cream banana bliss. We were all in ice cream comas after that adventure. It was necessary to sit and chat for awhile before getting up and walking home. We had a great time together—I love how close our group is and everyone is so friendly.
Well, we eventually headed home after a little rain passed through and I settled in to work on some homework. I later had dinner, which was a little small, thankfully, because that ice cream filled me up earlier. For dinner I had gallo pinto with fried cheese—their cheese is very very salty and an interesting flavor, but I have come to realize that it’s more bearable when fried, which is nowhere near healthy, but it will do. I also had plantain chips, which are awesome! They are made by taking really thin slices of plantain bananas (length wise), then they fry them a little, and dry them. I’m not sure if there’s another step in there, but it’s pretty cool how they turn out. They are very thin have a chip like consistency and kind of curl from being fried and dried, but they’re made from bananas so it feels healthier ;)
It was pretty warm that night and I was pretty sweaty from the day, so I decided to take a shower, and fortunately for me, there was water so I got to take a real shower!! It was cold water and I have to wear my flip flops, but I’m getting used to that. I pretty much did homework and read some stuff for the rest of the evening. I wanted to take it easy and get things organized for next week. Things were pretty busy with our visitors so I didn’t go to bed until about 11pm, which is really late here! The TV was still on and there were loud guys talking/shouting in the street, but somehow I managed to fall asleep. I think I’m getting used to the noise and because I use an eye mask, I have been able to sleep better—I started using one of these in Mexico for siestas and it really helps!
Today, I’ve been working on my graduate research. I decided that I should get working on that because I want to send out surveys to teachers in the states soon. I’m actually really excited and passionate about my research, which is definitely a good thing. This makes it more interesting, rather than a chore. I brought out the crayons and paper to “distract” the little ones while I typed away on my computer and wrote notes in my spiral. (If you want to include a spiral notebook with a personal letter sometime, it would be much appreciated) I think I’m going to study some Spanish too, because I feel that even though we try to stay away from language drills and lots of grammar, I’m sort of missing that aspect of my learning. I need some practice with that and then hopefully I’ll make these phrases more familiar so they’re fresh in my memory for use with real people :)
Sorry I don’t have any new pictures right now to add, but you can continue to check my Facebook page. I added some pictures and videos on Friday.
Pics:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2048879&id=51701128&l=b618ef13be
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