granada

Here is a photo to give you a sense of what the city of Granada looks like, architecturally, but to get a real, personal sense, imagine a layer of sweat on your body, lots of heat, stray dogs at your feet, etc. And there you have it.

Anyways, a bit of notes on life so far:

It's expensive here! Well, not expensive of course, but not as cheap as one would think it would be, and definitely not relative to the level of the economy here. Granada is supposed to be more expensive than other Nicaraguan cities, but they all are apparently pricier than one would expect. Or at least what I had expected. For instance, at restaurants, we are spending sometimes close to what we would spend in the US. Damn tourists.

We were fortunate to make friends with a scorpion the first night we arrived, after we were alerted in the middle of the night by the barking dog we are watching. I was too tired to be scared so we got the broom, slammed it down onto he scorpion and killed it (I think). Funny how ballsy a lack of sleep will make you.

Not to brag, but we played baseball the other day and I hit a home run and our team won. Ok, so we were playing a team of 10 year olds, but that doesn't take away from the glory I felt at the time and still feel now. It was so much fun - baseball is huge here and we played on a trash-filled, dirt field in the barrio with some kids from our school. We're totally locals. Big props to Anita for running full force into the field of garbage to get the ball that was overthrown to her. I've never seen such dedication.

Our body clocks have adjusted nicely as we now go to sleep at 9pm at the latest and wake up at 6am. It's impossible to sleep past that time, due to heat, the fully-risen sun and barking dogs. Who knew I was such a grandma. Actually, I did know that. So. Pathetically, life as usual - no change there.

The best part of the day - showering. Which happens only at certain times of day because they turn the water off in the morning after 6am, more or less, and don't turn it back on until about 3pm-ish. It does two things: makes a good excuse for not doing the dishes after breakfast, and makes you that much more excited for your shower at night. Honestly, it's the highlight of our day after being out all day. Although I feel bad for anyone who has to smell me until then.

Another adjustment here: our lack of nutrient intake. Due to our volunteering budget, we are trying to save money on food, which lead us last week to a nightly cuisine of pasta, and this week we have moved up in the world to dinners of rice and beans, which are actually delicious when you add a few spices and olive oil and eat it with tortilla chips. Oh and by the way - we got the beans for 25 cents at a local little store behind someone's home. A find, right?

That's it for now. I don't want to overwhelm you with our stories all at once, so more to come later. Plus more photos. You can see what I've got so far on my flickr site which I'll be adding as I take them.

Gotta go take my shower now!

clase

Our classroom! Pretty impressive, if I do say so myself, that Anita and I got all this stuff set up in our makeshift classroom. In this photo the kids hadn't arrived yet, clearly, but you can imagine 8 kids, very attentive, ecstatic to be there, hanging on to every word we say...you get the picture.

perros

Sooo....apparently dogs and I don't get along in this country.

This dog in the photo? Hated me. Right after what you see here in the photo, it aggressively barked at me, and it's friends came out and barked at us and chased us off. I pictured an Alfred Hitchcock "The Birds" moment, but instead of birds, with dogs. I swear it felt like there were 20 that were coming after us.

Also, we are living with a dog who annoys me. Which is weird, because dogs almost always don't annoy me. I don't even want to pet it! I'm kind of mean to it!

What's happening here - I like kids and I don't like dogs! It's opposite day.

nica vida

Hola de Nicaragua! That's a demonstration of the level of spanish that I can speak, apparently. I know I like to brag about having my minor in spanish at BU, but apparently I've forgotten most everything that I learned. Oh well. It's coming back to me little by little, but I'm sure people are getting sick of my usual response of a blank stare when they speak to me. I can get my words out relatively well (meaning, in broken spanish) but when it comes to understanding, it's not so easy. I knew I should have litsened more to those spanish podcasts before I left! Dammit!

But alas, here we are, and I'm writing after having just finished our first class of photography. How it works is that Anita and I will be teaching a group of nine kids on the weekends. We went into it without knowing too much, so it came as a sort of surprise when we found out we would be the actual teachers, doing it by ourselves (considering my lack of teaching experience and my hesitation towards actually liking children), but it was actually really fun, I have to say. I'm growing up! The kids are so sweet, they learned to speak slowly with me, and we had a nice adventure out into the barrio where we all took portraits of each other. The kids are really into it, which is great for us. Makes our lives easier. And the people are so friendly and warm towards everyone.

Anyways, backing up a bit...we arrived on Sunday to hot hot weather. It's not as horrible and humid as I had prepared myself for (which is my tactic - always prepare for the worst and you will never be disappointed. And yes, I do realize that makes me a negative person. Oh well.) but it is definitely very very hot. We met with the lady in charge of the organization, she brought us into the city where we had a nice dinner outdoors with some of her friends here, and got a taste of what it's like. Granada a lovely little city (more like a big town really) with colorful one-story buildings and lots of happy people. Everyone is out and about, not dying of the heat, apparently. We will have to learn their secrets.

We spent the week orienting ourselves, having coffee and meals at the cafes, wandering the town, and we took a quick one day trip to Laguna de Apoyo (which is what this photo shows - it's a crater of a volcano that has become a lake. Or something like that). It's a beautiful spot known as the place people go to have a break from the city and escape the heat and it was definitely that. Until, that is, we took the ascending 3 hour hike, that took way longer than that (I am not in shape I guess?), in a forest of trees that blocked ALL wind, creating a cocoon of heat and mugginess, if you will. It was an uphill battle to the top, and I found out that there is someone in this world who sweats more than me, and that person is Anita. And she is proud to admit it. Although not happy about it, as we both ended up with wet clothes and lots of dirty sweat once we reached the top (you're welcome for the visual). But oh well. I am actually quite proud of us and our adaptation to the constant sweat and heat. Or rather, we haven't adapted, we just try to ignore it. Therefore I will stop talking about it to forget about it right now, as I am sweating profusely and I stink terribly. But moving along...

Anyways, much to catch up on and I think I will write in small doses so I will be back in a bit with more anecdotes. As always with traveling there are some funny things to report. So get excited and stay tuned. Well, not that exciting. But will be worthwhile to read, I think. Ahhh so much pressure now.

en route

I know it's been a month since I've posted and I'm not going to give excuses again, or say that it won't happen again, because clearly it will, so I'll just dive into things. I'm at the Miami airport right now, finished with a red-eye (never fun, especially with a screaming baby and turbulence) and meeting up with Anita here before boarding our flight to Nicaragua. But first, a few observations of the Miami airport:

No moving walkways. What? My bag is heavy and I just had to trek across the whole airport. I am a lazy American and feel I deserve one in every American airport!

Lots of spanish speakers. I feel that if I was more delirious than what I am after barely any sleep, I may think I was already in Nicaragua.

Lack of Starbucks. All I want is my coffee and it seems all there is are only au bon pains and weird cafeteria breakfast places. Don't despair - I did find one, but again, this is America - wouldn't there be Starbucks' everywhere? I feel like I'm already in a different country.

Anyways, next I'll be writing from Nicaragua. Hopefully not too hot, despite the 97 degree constant weather I've been seeing on weather.com. And hopefully a bit less nervous about the whole language barrier. I'm counting on the fact that it will all come back to me. Right?

(PS. Please excuse my grumpiness. Most likely it is due to my lack of sleep)

Until then!