An open mind and a heart to serve: Back to normal, sorta.

I'm feeling much better now that I've been getting back into the swing of things. There aren't any classes at the public school right now until the beginning of August, but I've still had my community class and one of the Access groups.

This past week I had a neat opportunity to go visit some English teachers on Ometepe Island. My friend Monica and I were working at an Embassy camp for English teachers in January and met some cool teachers there, and some invited us to visit them. We took advantage of that and finally now in July, we made it to Ometepe and we had a blast!

It was quite a stressful morning the day we left because of some taxi issues and people bombarding me at the bus terminal trying to get me on their bus, but after we were together, everything went smooth and we got to our friend Sara's house. We were greeted with a welcome sign and balloons. It was really sweet :) Sara had already made dinner for us and we all ate together. Dimas, another English teacher, met us at the bus stop and walked with us to Sara's house. It was a nice welcome and we were glad to finally be there, since it took us just about 10 hours in travel time from our houses to her's, which included a few buses, a taxi trip, and a ferry across the lake.

We relaxed a little, but then it was time to party. There happened to be a free concert that night so they took us out and we danced the night away. I felt bad because her two kids (7 and 11) were there too, just hanging out on the side and they were clearly exhausted as we approached 11:30pm. Thankfully, we hit a good stopping point and I rounded everybody up to head home.

The next day we went to a local swimming hole/touristy natural springs water area. It was neat and they had a rope swing from a tree which I almost killed myself with, but thankfully I just missed the concrete and slipped into the shallow water. Needless to say, Monica did not follow me on the tree swing. I'm glad I went first, and I'm glad I didn't kill myself or get a serious concussion. After we were done soaking up the natural waters, we headed over to a nearby beach and played in the waves with the kids. It was actually a pretty clean beach and the water was calm and stayed shallow for quite a ways out there, which was nice for the kids.

Our next adventure was hiking to a waterfall on the other side of the island. We were supposed to leave early, but our transportation failed, so we ended up waiting around a couple hours before heading out. However, we took advantage of this "extra" time to walk around the park and take some pictures of the neat little town. Getting to the waterfall park entrance was an adventure in itself since the roads are horrible. And when I say horrible, I mean it. The road was so rocky that only one or two buses make that trip per day and we didn't many cars, only a couple of motorcycles and a few sad tourists on bicycles. Well, we got there and got in the park which had its fair share of poor roads and lots of steep hills just to get to the hiking part. The waterfall greeted us about an hour later, as sweat poured down our bodies. It was much cooler up there in the trees and the water spraying off the rock wall. The water wasn't too bad stepping in, but posing for a group picture right under the waterfall was numbing. We had our "photographer" take a few quick pics and then we all ran out of the small pool as quickly as we could. We enjoyed a nice little lunch of sandwiches that Monice & I had made, along with chips and cookies. Yum :)

Our last full day included another late start and transportation issues. A friend brought over a couple extra bikes so Dimas, Monica, and I rode the bikes over to a nearby beach and hung out there for awhile. The water wasn't too clean, but we stayed awhile and played in the sand. Later that afternoon, we found some transportation and went to a beach area and rented a few kayaks to take out as the sun was setting and then we just hung out on the beach and laughed the night away. It was a nice end to our last full day.

Getting off the island wasn't as rough as the morning we had getting to the island, thankfully. We said our goodbyes, hopped on a bus, and then waited for the ferry. We actually saw another PCV with her friend and chatted with them on the ferry ride. Our plan for getting off the ferry, going to the bathroom, and then finding a bus was shortened as the bus was parked right off the ferry and many people were running to get on, so there was no time for a trip to the bathroom. Oh well. The bus left quickly and got us on our way.

I got off in Masaya and that's where Monica and I parted ways as she continued to Managua. I wanted to take the shorter route and avoid Managua altogether since I had so much difficulty with taxis and I just hate dealing with them in general. So, I waited for my short cut bus and one passed by a little later and it was getting pretty full. It wasn't too bad besides the fact that I had my big hiking pack on. It wasn't stuffed to the brim, but it's basically like having another person strapped to your back when you're in a bus because it doesn't make passing by other people very easy. I eventually got a seat and my backpack sat on my lap.

The next stop, I decided to take a bathroom break because I figured I had a little time before my Boaco bus would come. I paid the price, received my wad of toilet paper, started heading to the latrines, and then glanced back as I saw a bus pull up. I checked to see where it was going and of course it said Boaco. Ugh. That never happens when I don't have to go to the bathroom! Well, I skipped the bathroom and ran to the back of the bus, along with about 20 other people. The bus was extremely packed and this lady was trying to carry a giant suitcase on with her instead of putting it on top. Yeah right. The guy took that from her immediately. I was holding on to the back ladder as people pushed in the back, and the bus started rolling forward so I jumped off and started walking away because I was not going to be riding on the back with a backpack on. The bus guy came over and asked me why I was leaving, as if the bus wasn't obviously overflowing with people. He ensured me that there was indeed space for me and pushed me in the back and closed the door behind me. Well, at least I was on I guess. The guy sitting near me asked to take my bag and put it behind him, which was nice, and lucky for me, a lady in the seat right next to where I was standing, got off the bus about 10 minutes later and gave me her seat :)

The bus never really cleared out until we got into Boaco. I even held a lady's bag on my lap so she wouldn't have to hold it while standing. She really appreciated that. I love being able to do that for people whenever I can because I've seen people do that for others and some have even done it for me. It's just a nice thing to do and I hope that if I do it more, other people will see and do it too. The funny thing about this though is that people do this with their babies too. Yep, people will hand off their babies to strangers to hold their little ones so they don't have to juggle a baby, a bag, and grab the bar to balance. I've been handed a baby of two before and I was just surprised in their trust, but also happy to help.

Ok, so I got back to Boaco finally and was so excited to take a shower and get my laundry ready for when Frank came to wash all our clothes, but wait. There was a giant tank in our living room, the kind they use to store water on the roof and some kind of rubble in front of the house. Apparently they took out our pila (the thing that holds the water) and were going to replace it with a tank, but couldn't do that all in one day, so NO WATER.... Ugh :( Frank was already on his way with a bag full of clothes and I was sweaty and tired from traveling. Not cool. Well, we tried to figure out some way to get water, besides buying those jugs of purified water which would be super expensive, but gave up for the evening and just got dinner and hung out.

The next morning, my awesome counterpart Edwin, came by the house in a taxi and asked for all our buckets and went and got them filled with water to bring back to the house! Wow! What an awesome guy! So, Frank & I set to getting our clothes washed, but unfortunately our washing machine is a little funky and as it was set to "fill", it drained the entire first bucket of water we poured in. Seriously?! Good thing we had more water and my host mom told us how to change it to let the water stay in and then turn in it on when it was already full. Ugh again. Well, we eventually got it going and then had to reload some water for the rinse cycle. I think between pushing all the buttons and turning it on and off a few times, it didn't quite so the full cycle because it "washed" too quickly. I don't think everything got washed as much as it should, but the clothes sat in soapy water for a good 10 minutes so that was enough to get most of the dirt out :)

After the stressful washing experience, I decided to take a "shower", which actually means dumping water over myself with a bowl from a bucket of water. Some people have to do this everyday, so I'm glad I haven't had to do it too often.

Frank and I then set out to do some shopping. We were going to make chili so we needed some cooked beans since cooking beans takes so long here, but we couldn't find anywhere that had any, maybe because it was Sunday? Edwin to the rescue. After we got home from picking up everything else from the store, Edwin secretly dropped off a bowl of cooked beans at my house. I could not believe it. I definitely owe him one!

We ended up making a delicious chili and some yummy cornbread. Also, Frank was super excited to see that our grocery store had butternut squash (very rare for these parts), so we took some home and cooked that up too. I invited Edwin over, but he didn't have his phone on him and didn't get my messages until later. Bummer. We shared out delicious creation with my family though and they appreciated that.

Today Frank had to head back to his site and it makes me feel like today is Sunday, because our schedules are all out of whack and he usually goes home on Sundays... Anyway, it was so nice having here since it's been awhile since he's been able to come to Boaco. He's been working super hard on his "summer" camp for his project, but now that's over.

Today is Jasser's birthday and I made a cake for him, which he is pretty excited about. We're going to celebrate tonight, but not exactly sure what we're doing yet. I'm supposed to have my community class this afternoon, but we can't find a school that's open since all the vacation stuff, so we might have to postpone it... That's not too out of the ordinary though.

Other news: we only have about 15 weeks left here, which is 3 1/2 months, but I'm using my chain week system :) I really can't believe it! I'm super excited, but that means I gotta a lot of things to do in a little bit of time. Let's get things going! I wanna get over to Frank's and help him with his world maps so he doesn't stress out too much about getting those finished. It would be a fun project to help out with and I've never been to his schools before.

Well, that's all for now I guess. Enjoy a few pictures from my trip: