Spoiled in Boaco

Ok, so I was kinda nervous about my site, especially hearing that it’s cattle country and very hilly. The bus ride here was not bad, although there was a small hole in the floor of the bus where I could see the street below. It took about 2 hours to get to Boaco from el Mayoreo in Managua and my counterpart, Argelio (early 40’s?), was kind enough to come to the bus terminal in Boaco and pick me up in a taxi to help me with my bags. That was a relief considering we were supposed to catch a taxi by ourselves and take all of our bags with us to our instituto to meet our counterparts. Well, Argelio said he would take me to my host family’s house first, but I said the address was in my bag. He said that didn’t matter, and then I remembered that our counterparts set up the host families, but I guess it could have been my other counterpart who did the arrangements. Anyway, we arrived and I met my new host mom Carmen (Andrea Carmen) and my host sister Hazzel, and my host dad Alfonso, which was not on my paperwork so this was a surprise, but a good one. I found out that my host dad is actually my counterpart’s brother. Keeping it in the family. This was nice though because then I knew that I was in a good place, besides seeing that the house was really nice.


They let me choose my room out of two rooms and I chose the second one just because they said it was a little cooler, but then I changed because I realized that it was extremely small and didn’t have room for a dresser or bookshelf. I kind of felt bad moving because they had to take some stuff out of the room, but of course, my counterpart and my host parents told me it was no problem at all. So I didn’t notice how great this room was at first and how spoiled I am right now. My room has an attached bathroom (flushing toilet, sink with water, and a shower with showerhead), a ceiling fan, a bright light (so I’m not left in the dark), a full length mirror (I only have a small hand mirror in San Juan which I use in a poorly lit room so it basically doesn’t work), and this is something I almost don’t want to say…a TV. I’m not sure if it’s staying in my room, and quite frankly I don’t really need a TV in my room and it seems just a little too luxurious for a Peace Corps life. So, I might take it out of the room, unless there isn’t sufficient room for it anywhere else, then I guess I will just have to watch TV in my room :)

So after I moved my stuff in my room, Argelio wanted to take me to the Instituto to check things out and meet the directora. The school there is in pretty good shape and there are about 900 students. It doesn’t seem that large though, and the classrooms looked fairly small, so I’m not sure exactly how many students are in each class. We looked around for the directora but she wasn’t there—this seems pretty common with schools that I have visited. Anyway, we walked around a little and I peeked into the computer lab, which is huge! Then I met the small business volunteer that’s here in Boaco, Steven. Peace Corps told me he was going to be here until next July, but my counterpart said he has already been here for 2 years, so I’ll have to clarify with him. I was hoping to be able to work with another volunteer and thought it might be fun. We’ll see!

So, we finally saw the directora and Argelio begged her for a couple minutes. I said thank you for the opportunity to be there and I was kind of tongue tied as I had not prepared what to say. I was a little frazzled from the travel and the whirlwind of meeting a new family. Anyway, she started saying that she hadn’t received information about when I was coming or something and she sounded a little irritated so I didn’t like how that sounded. Argelio said a few things and I think everything is clear now. Oh well. There was a funny thing though: the directora asked me name and I said Megan, which Argelio repeated a couple times to himself to practice. Then, Argelio asked to tell her my last name, so I said McCann. He then repeated, asking for my last name. So I said it again. Then he asked me the same thing in Spanish (tu apellido?), which I’m not quite sure why I would need a translation, but maybe he thought he was saying the wrong word in English. I then repeated my last name for the first time and he said, “oh it’s said the same.” I repeated it again very slowly, and he said “oh, parece similar” (it sounds very similar). I chuckled and then he asked me to write it on a paper. He then read my name out loud a couple times and told the directora to practice too. This was hilarious. I guess I didn’t realize how much my first and last names sounded alike. P.S. I found out later that the directora is Argelio´s ex-sister-in-law.  She is his ex-wife's sister.  One of the representatives from MINED (the ministry of education) has the same name as Argelio, so I'll have to check if they're also related haha

After the school visit, we took the school bus back into town and we ate lunch at my house. I had some rice and beef, which I believe I will be having fairly often here in cattle country. I’m not a big meat eater, so that should be interesting.

Argelio left for awhile so I could get settled in, and then he returned to show me around the town a little. We walked to Boaco arriba (upper Boaco) which has quite a staircase. There is a road that you can take that doesn’t have stairs, but it’s still at a large incline. We made it up to the top and it had a beautiful view.

We walked over to the church and he showed me around, and then we went to the park which was right in front of the church. He offered to buy me ice cream, so of course I said yes. We sat on the patio for awhile and chatted. He speaks pretty good English and loves to ask questions. He then took me over to the Pali (supermarket chain here) because I wanted to check out what they had. He bought some plantain chips and we shared those in the park. I felt so spoiled yet again. It started to sprinkle so we headed home.

My family is so kind and I’m excited to be living with them. I hope they don’t mind me staying for 2 years… I guess we’ll see! They helped me put up my mosquitero and told me several times if there is anything that I need, just to ask them. I’m excited to get to know them more :)