Shopping Madness

So today was a day off for us and it felt so nice to make our own agenda. Jess, Kellie, and I went to Masatepe so we could get money from the bank, since that’s the closet bank. We also had another hidden agenda—we wanted to shop and get some ice cream :) We accomplished both of these things. We went to Pali because that’s the supermarket here and it always has great things to find. Our next stop was the panaderia right across from the bank which always has delicious pan dulce (sweet bread) or bread with cheese baked in the middle…yum! We then found a big outdoor market so we had to check it out. We chatted with this nice lady about earrings and bought some since they were pretty cute and only 5 cords (25 cents). We walked around until we found the meat carts and headed back before we got sick.



Masatepe has a nice central park and we walked by that over to the ice cream shop. We got sundaes and enjoyed each other’s company. Next was a mission for Jessica to find a dress for Swearing-in. We visited all of the little clothing shops—used & new to check things out. Jess and Kellie got shoes, but I just picked up a couple snacks. After no luck for a dress, we headed back toward home and went to Catarina. We visited with Julia Elena for a little and then went shopping again. I found some cool little souvenirs—I’m a sucker for those things! We didn’t find a dress within a reasonable price range (remember Peace Corps volunteers are not rich) so we headed back to San Juan.


There is an artisan fair this weekend in San Juan and it was set up by the time we got back in town so we cruised through a little before heading home for lunch. After eating, we planned for our teacher workshop that we had today and then we went back over to the fair to check out more things. Our jovenes told us that they would be dancing, so we wanted to support them and watch. It took quite awhile for things to get going, but we eventually got to see them dance. After all the dancing, there was a pottery competition—there were 4 artisans and they each had their own pottery wheels (and these are manual ones). It was pretty cool to watch them make the pottery and the news was there interviewing the artisans. We headed back home before it got too late because we were definitely exhausted from all the shopping and sun!

wedding party



our jovenes dancing in the artisan fair



Making pottery

 

 
 
Today we had our teacher workshop and we were expecting at least 30 English teachers from the area to attend.  Instead, only 2 showed up.  Sad.  On the positive side, our counterpart came!  I was a little surprised, but we were pretty proud that out of all the counterparts, ours came :)  It was a good experience for us to present our topics anyway, and refresh our minds for teaching.
 
We walked around Masaya after and then did a little shopping in San Juan to get some traditional Nica blouses.  I think I'm done shopping for awhile because this definitely does not fit into my Peace Corps budget.  Oh wait, we ordered our Peace Corps polo shirts today which is gonna cost me a pretty penny...  I'm really excited for those though because we've been waiting since the first few days in Granada when we saw the PCV's sporting their PC polos. 
 

I can’t believe it, but Swearing-in is just 8 days away!  I have been here for almost 3 months now and I’m going to be an official Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV).  I’m so excited, but we still have a lot of things to get done this week.  We have a lot of meetings and on Thursday we are going to visit the U.S. Embassy.