As it comes down to my last couple of days here, I feel like I should say that it flew by, or it seems like I got here yesterday, or something equally cliche. But it doesn't. I feel like I have been here for a very long time! It's strange, when you start living in a new place the daily routines you develop. I am a person of habits and rituals and it starts early in the morning, when I stumble down the stairs to start the coffee machine at 5:30 a.m. After making my breakfast, I sit down with Rachelle's laptop to read the New York Times while I eat - and the cat, Robin, has a favorite ritual of sitting on the keyboard, blocking the news and trying to stick her paws into my breakfast.
From there it continues, seeing many of the same people every morning as I make the first branch of my commute, trying to avoid carts and baskets of vegetables as I traipse through the crowded market. Then there's the ride in the minibus, which often takes over an hour as we travel around town picking up different employees at their houses.
I am ashamed at how little of this blog I've devoted to Abigail. I spend every day from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. with Abigail, sometimes more time. That's a lot of time to spend with one person. Abigail is... how do I describe her? She's nineteen years old, but if you see her for the first time, you will think she's eight, until you spend enough time with her and see the nineteen year old come out in her eyes. During the mornings we do art therapy, read stories, do puzzles and legoes, and sometimes just sit outside watching the coconut trees or laughing at the little kids' antics. I also dress her, feed her lunch and snacks, change her diapers, do her hair. Abigail was born with cerebral palsy, which really doesn't slow a person down that much if they are given opportunities and treatment to overcome their difficulties. However, life hasn't been good to Abigail. She never was taught any way to communicate, and since she doesn't speak, the only way she can talk is with her facial expressions. She was abandoned and starving and barely alive when she came to the orphanage less than a year ago, weighing 26 pounds at age 18. Not only does she need a wheelchair, but one of her legs is fused together in a completely bent position from a severe burn, further limiting her movements. Luckily, she will have surgery to fix it in a little over a month. I hesitate to tell people details about Abigail since her story tends to make people sad, but she's not a sad person, nor is she unhealthy or suffering. She loves to work on everything I come up for her for that could pass as therapy, she spends most of the day grinning and is a very caring person who has giggle fits for no reason. I only wanted to share her story so that you have a better understanding of what I've been doing here, and who I spend most of my time with!
Other things I do at the orphanage are teach English to the two oldest boys, who are 12 and 13, and help with the other English classes as well. I play a lot with two kids who have special needs and are very high maintenance and high energy. I spent a lot of time drawing pictures for kids to color, and a lot of afternoons I just like to hang out with whoever is around.
After two months of this, I have become very comfortable there and have enjoyed it a lot, but I am a kind of exhausted that before this I didn't know existed. I sleep very well at night, but it's never enough time and vivid dreams probably induced by malaria medication keep me from getting any rest. That in combination with giving all my time, energy and listening to others has made me ready for a break.
It's funny because I've been complaining so much about being cold here, because it gets below 70 at night. I sleep these days with the windows closed, a sweatshirt on and three blankets on my bed... and it is warmer than summer was in Wisconsin. I'm not exactly sure what next week is going to be like, probably a lot of hot chocolate will be consumed. The weather here is absolutely beautiful though; right when the rainy season was supposed to end, we got a ton of rain from the tropical storms in the Caribbean, so it was just a mudhole here for a while. The first 48 hours that it didn't pour rain, I thought it was some kind of miracle; now it's been over a week since it rained! The skies are clear and blue and it's always windy; warm during the day and "cold" at night.
Last night, the power in the whole city went out for a while, so Rachelle, Megan and I stopped the Harry Potter movie we were watching and sat out in the courtyard, shivering, to look at the brilliant stars. They were beautiful.
Even though there are numerous things I love about my two homes, Washington and Wisconsin, and even though Nicaragua is the poorest country in Central America and has a poverty level exceeded in the Western Hemisphere only by Haiti, there are still many aspects of Nicaraguan life that make me jealous. Everyone is outside all the time, sitting on the sidewalk in front of their houses eating, chatting with neighbors or just relaxing. Everyone has time to walk without rushing, or sit in the market with acquaintances enjoying a cup of coffee. There are very few real doors on houses, just gates, so there is always fresh air and very little feeling of being shut out. Almost all the food is fresh since refrigeration is not a big thing here and neither is transporting food from other countries. There are many more things I could go on about - life is a struggle here, but it's a beautiful place.
After all this, I think it's a good time for me to leave. I haven't had really any time to myself in three months, I'm usually gone from the house for 10 or 11 hours every day and I'm getting pretty worn out. I'm ready to see my friends and family, and also, anti-American sentiments here are getting stronger every day. I've already received an advisory not to travel to or within Managua this Saturday unless it's essential, and I'm hoping things will have calmed down by the time I go to the airport early Sunday morning. Luckily, I have a ride from my house directly to the airport so I will be safe, but it seems like things are definitely escalating in a bad direction.
Well, sorry this was a ridiculous long blog entry about almost nothing in particular. It's past time for me to go running... will write more after my ziplining experience this weekend.

This past weekend, all of us took off our volunteer hats and became true tourists, heading to Granada for our first and only trip with everyone in the house. Yes, that's right, Cat, Leo, Uzair, Brett, Megan, Rachelle and I all spent an entire weekend together, and no one killed anyone else. But just barely. Xochilth, a friend of Cat's, came with us too. Xochilth's mom, Ines, is the housekeeper and cook in our house, so she is around a lot, but I'm not so I didn't know her too well. She is a riot and it definitely added an interesting dynamic not having anyone on the same level of Spanish/English proficiency in the group. Fun times translating.
Friday was a super relaxing day for me, which are few and far between these days. After sleeping in a bit and running 10k with Leo, I enjoyed a pancake breakfast and then spent a lazy morning wandering around town before eating an amazing lunch in the house and then heading off to Granada! Granada is a very old colonial city that was built by the Spanish, so basically, when you are there it feels much like you are in Spain! At least, what I imagine Spain is like. Huge churches, clean streets, big stucco houses in bright colors, and tons of restaurants and foreigners. It doesn't feel like the true Nicaragua at all, but is lovely just the same.
When we got to Granada, we headed out to take a boat tour of the 365 isletas (little islands) in Lake Cocibolca, or Lake Nicaragua, whatever you want to call it. It was super fun and interesting to see the islands and wildlife. A lot of islands are owned by Nica or foreign people with a lot of money, so that was interesting. They are very peaceful, especially in the evening when we went on the tour. We then had some delicious shish ke babs at our hostel and headed out for some dancing... unfortunately, it turned into yet another night where three hours after I want to go to bed, everyone else doesn't want to go back and in order to avoid walking through a big city alone at night I am stuck at some stupid club. Sigh... such is life traveling with a group.
The next morning Rachelle, Megan and I got up early and had what I think was one of the best breakfasts of my entire life. I won't go into detail about food too much but it was amazing. Then the group headed out to the Laguna de Apoyo, a lake formed by volcanic craters. The lake is in a protected reserve and no motorboats are allowed on it - it is clean, quiet and beautiful. The water is totally clear and very warm, one of the most beautiful places I have ever swam. I barely got out of the water all day!
One of the tourist highlights was the Masaya Volcano night tour. I have been waiting for this Granada trip since orientation week, and I was the only one in the house who hadn't been there yet, so it was all quite exciting. We hiked around part of an active crater that was smoking, which was a bit rough on the lungs, and then hiked up a trail to the top of the Masaya volcano (we had driven up most of it, so not that intense). We watched the sunset over Managua from there, then went down to some caves, one of which was full of bats and one of which we got to walk into. It was pretty cool because the roots of this huge pepper tree grew all the way through the walls of the cave and help keep the walls stable! Sweet! The last stop was to see some lava glowing in the dark. No big deal....
When we got back to Granada, I had a truly lovely meal with Megan, Brett and Rachelle. The tensions with certain other members of our house don't exist between the four of us, and we actually had some interesting conversations that I was able to contribute to which is not usually the case. (I hate listening to music with headphones, but with the whole group it's actually a habit I have gotten into quite frequently, let's just say). We went to a restaurant that was said to be the best pizza in Nicaragua, and while I haven't eaten much pizza here I'm pretty sure it's true. After that perfection, I went straight to bed.
Today after breakfast we spent some time touring the city, which is gorgeous and quite peaceful. We climbed to the top of the Cathedral tower, which provided us with a beautiful view of the city and was really fun even though we had to pay $1 (ridiculously overpriced for Nicaragua). While wandering around the park I met up with a street kid named Jose who I had bought breakfast for earlier that morning. He introduced me to his siblings and I was able to buy them some more food and hang out a bit more with my new adorable and cheerful friends. Yes, it is sometimes depressing to live in a country with so much poverty, but the atmosphere here is not nearly as hopeless as you would think, and I sort of have to learn to live with the fact that as only one person I can only make the most miniscule of dents in making the world better, and that sometimes I have to accept that that's all I can do for now.
Anyway, the other two girls and I walked down to the lake and ate fresh coconuts - people sell them with the tough shell taken off, you poke a hole in it with a straw, drink the milk out and then eat the coconut meat. It's delicious. It was SO hot in Granada! Like summer starting all over again.
This past week, the rain finally stopped, and it is heating up again. I think we have had now five or six days with only one rainstorm, whereas before last Wednesday it had rained every single day for over a month, I'm estimating probably about six weeks. The rainy season is supposed to be over, but due to the tropical storms in the Caribbean that I'm sure you have heard about (they are now heading North) we have been getting TONS of rain.
So tomorrow, I am heading back for my last week at the orphanage. Kind of hard to believe. I'm not starting to think yet about saying good-bye to the kids, but to be honest, I have been thinking a lot about getting home. I'm feeling ecstatic about the idea of seeing my family and some of my friends, and being able to talk to the rest of my friends on the phone at least. I'm sure that I will miss Nicaragua a lot, but it will also be good to just plain be home, blend in, have my own space, go skiing, and spend some time with family.
Well, thank you for reading, as always. and I will see some of you very soon! One week from now I will be in Chicago!

Now that I actually have something to write about -

This weekend was quite amazing, a highlight of my trip so far! Rachelle, Megan and I woke up at 4 on Friday to leave the house in the dark to catch the 5:15 bus to Masaya, where we hopped on a bus that I thought was going to Matagalpa but we misheard and it was actually going to Juigalpa! (completely in the opposite direction). Luckily, the kind souls on the bus figured it out before we did and got us on the right bus heading North.. These are chicken buses, abandoned school buses from North America that are completely crammed with people and the goods they are taking to some market or another to sell. The drive up was stunning, and the closest thing I can compare it to is Central/Eastern Washington. Huge, steep hills, most of the vegetation short, almost no people, just fields and mountains. It is beautiful! and looks nothing like any part of Nicaragua I've seen so far. There are even pine trees!

We arrived in the city of Matagalpa when it was still early. Matagalpa is, also, unlike anything I have seen in Nicaragua. It has a very gritty, cowboy-town ish feel, but is actually a big city and is built into the mountains so you can see rows of houses stacked up on the hills surrounding the main downtown area. SOOOO pretty! We didn't see much at first though, because we took off for a small town called San Ramon, where we made arrangements to visit a small community nearby. We hiked up a dirt road to meet our guide, a girl about our age dressed in a pink skirt and shirt and pink sandals who still managed to look very clean after we left the road to hike up a trail through a field and crossing a river, the only way to reach the village. We met the girl's family and put our backpacks in a room off of their house where we would be staying. After a short tour of the tiny village, population 280, we ate lunch at the local school teacher's house and then spent most of the afternoon relaxing and wandering around. Several naps were included as we hadn't slept much the night before! After dinner, we practically went straight to bed.

The next morning, we all woke up around five but took the rare opportunity to linger in our beds for a couple hours longer. After breakfast, we headed out with two girls from the village to learn about coffee harvesting. We picked coffee for about an hour, putting the small red fruits in baskets tied around our waists. Then we walked to a roofed area with several levels of cement tiers and learned how the coffee is processed. It's kind of hard to explain so I will tell you in detail if you want to know, just ask me and I will try to remember!

Basically, this community along with a few others in the area have transformed their coffee farm into a fair trade cooperative and they host tourists for the extra income and so that people who enjoy drinking coffee can see how it is grown and processed.

We then went on a hike, first stopping to taste cacao fruit (the plant that chocolate comes from) and then continuing to a lookout about halfway up a nearby mountain. It was raining the whole time and we couldn't see the whole view due to clouds, but it was beautiful nonetheless. We climbed down a muddy bean field back to the house, where we packed up, ate lunch and started the very muddy hike back to San Ramon.

After a bus ride back to Matagalpa, a long walk, and asking for directions about 17 times (a good average for every trip) we found a nice, quiet hotel off a park. After some much-needed showers, we found a great restaurant that had huge appetizers big enough for dinners, and sat up on a balcony to watch the lights on the hills while we ate. We stopped at a bakery to try some local desserts, then passed out while watching Sleepless in Seattle in our hotel room - little piece of home! Today we wanted to visit the famous coffee museum in Matagalpa, but it was unfortunately closed for renovations, so instead we walked around the city, enjoying its uniqute beauty.

Public transportation in most areas of Nicaragua is remarkable, but if you don't live in a main city and want to travel somewhere far like Matagalpa, it can be a bit difficult because of schedules and transfers. We thought our only options for getting back were sleeping in Leon tonight, which would involve both arriving and leaving in the dark, or taking a taxi in Managua to a different bus station, which is extremely dangerous. Luckily, with advice from a friendly hotel owner and help from the bus operators, we were able to figure out a way to get back to Jinotepe the same day, in only four and a half hours, for a little over $3 without risking our safety at all. We got super lucky on this trip and it renewed my appreciation for the very helpful people of Nicaragua! Without assistance from strangers, I would be perpetually lost here.

So, I really enjoyed this relaxing vacation from my busy life in Jinotepe and experiencing a new and very unique place. Of course I can't end a blog entry without talking about food, so I will just mention a few things. In La Pita, the village where we stayed on Friday night, we ate delicious and very traditional Nica food that was more fresh than we were used to, since we were on a farm. Beans, scrambled eggs, fresh tortillas, and coffee were the main staples. The coffee grown in this region has a unique flavor I've never really tasted before and it's obviously delicious. But the flavor highlight was in a grocery store in Matagalpa, where we found whole wheat carrot bread and locally made yoghurt cheese spread with eucalyptus, garlic and pepper. I know, what?! And then there was the local variety of dark chocolate bars with coffee, and chunks of freshly cut coconut for sale on the street. My palate is still in heaven.

It's really hard to believe that in two weeks from right now, I'll be in a quiet suburb of freezing Chicago having dinner with my grandparents. Even though I'm loving this country and this experience, I will be ready to go home and have already started looking forward to it.
Tomorrow will also be great, as I am staying home in the morning to register for my classes at 10:30, so I can sleep in an hour and a half later and still have time to go running before breakfast with the rest of the house! And then relax more after breakfast, before hopefully getting all the classes I want and then sending obnoxious e-mails to the housing people trying to get my spot in my house back.

Sorry for once again writing a novel, but at least it gives you all something to read right?
Much love and buenas noches.
-Suzanne

A few recent Nicaragua cultural highlights.

On having friends everywhere.
One of the only advantages to looking different from everyone else is that people tend to remember you. Rachelle and I headed back to a local beach on Sunday for some delicious fish and a day in the sun. The transgender restaurant owner we met one time, six weeks ago, exclaims excitedly over our arrival, kisses us on the cheeks and proceeds to treat us with VIP service the entire time we are there. This has happened to me several other times and I LOVE the feeling of having friends in different parts of the city and region. I have to say the lady who works at the ice cream place around the corner from my house probably knows me the best though...

On the negative of being a tourist.
People like to overcharge you for things. A lot. On the bus to the beach, Rachelle and I were joined by a group of Peace Corps volunteers who are living in nearby areas. We enjoyed chatting with them about our very different experiences, one of these being that they are barely allowed to leave the areas where they are in training. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember how much the bus was and the driver took that opportune moment to overcharge all of us. GRRR. Rachelle and I were somewhat frustrated and later blamed the Peace Corps volunteers for being six people and talking so loudly in English on the bus! Not a big deal though in the scheme of things.

On food that is common.
Helado in Spanish literally translates to ice cream, but in its most common use refers to a snack that we enjoy almost every afternoon at the orphanage and that I have come to love. Helado is milk mixed with a little sugar and cinnamon and some other ingredient, like chunks of coconut, frozen in a small plastic sandwich bag. You bite off the corner of the bag and suck out the slushy deliciousness as it melts, then chew up the coconut and eat it. YUM.

On food that is not common.
Peanut butter is a main staple of my diet at home and the only food I have really been missing. After seven weeks of dreaming about peanut butter, and not having any, this week it miraculously appeared in the local supermarket. Let's just say that I am currently in peanut butter heaven and will refrain from sharing the rate at which I am consuming it....

On danger in the showers.
I thought that the water completely stopping in the middle of your shower was the worst thing that could happen in that area, until I accidentally touched one of the wires that heats the water in the showers with electricity. While the water was running.

On the danger of walking.
It is utterly and completely imperative in Nicaragua to watch where you are walking, at all times. Not only is there horse poop in the streets and giant cockroaches on the kitchen floor, but there are giant holes in the middle of the sidewalk. This morning, I was trying to walk through the market to go to work and a man shoved a squirming pig right in my face, trying to get me to buy it, so enthusiastically that to avoid getting kicked by a pig I stepped in a pile of garbage, almost slipped and fell, and got slimy stuff all over my shoe.

On rice.
I am really enjoying the food here. Really, I am.
But I am probably not going to eat one bite of rice for at least 8 months after I get home.

On things that I am currently excited about.
I have to cook my own breakfast since I eat before everyone else, but I still get to use whatever food is around the house and I am really enjoying making delicious, elaborate breakfasts for myself and planning them the night before.
This weekend, almost everyone will be gone, and Friday night Leo and I are going out for pizza and then Saturday night he is leaving and I will be AAALLLOOOONNNEE. Words cannot really express how excited I am to be by myself for like 24 hours.
The weekend after, Rachelle and I are planning an epic trip to a city in the north called Matagalpa and surrounding areas to experience the roots of the fair trade coffee industry firsthand. I'm hoping that it will be an amazing and educational experience.

There are many more but for my faithful blog readers, especially my wonderful parents and grandparents, I thought I'd add some interesting stuff for you to read today!

Love to all, remember to always be grateful.

In one of my developmental psychology classes, we learned that little kids can tell who spends a lot of time with other little kids and who doesn't. I'm pretty sure this is true. I don't know when in my life it was decided that I was a kid person, but it just happened. I'm not sure if I have a choice in the matter. The kids at the orphanage would follow me around all day if they could and a couple of them have gotten really attached to me, insisting that I come play with them right this second and that I pick them up whenever they want (mostly 4-7 year olds so i am getting my arm workout) After an entire day of this, I get home usually covered in chalk, marker, dirt and drool; my hair is usually done in some interesting style and today I have a beautiful manicure done by a six year old (a bribe for doing her homework; mostly I just have chunks of nail polish stuck to my fingers) The other day I got about seven hair chopsticks stuck at strange angles in my hair and forgot about them for the entire trip home, as if I don't stick out here enough already.
After days like these, I get back to my house and Elisa, the 9-month-old daughter of a couple who lives in my house, shrieks with joy when she sees me. She has recently decided that I am her favorite person and never gets tired of me, and I cannot figure out why. Last night, while Cat and Rachelle were getting tattoos, she pulled me around the house in circles and refused to go near anyone else, including her parents. Sometimes when I pry her off of me she starts crying, and so my life from when I wake up until Elisa goes to bed at night is being clung to by small people. Not that I mind, but it just strikes me as funny how without even trying I am the favorite human being of so many children right now. It's kind of nice, but also strange and very exhausting - I'm so glad that this is not permanently my life yet!
Well, I guess that didn't have anything to do with Nicaragua, just my current life as a climbing post.
Leo and I went on an intense 10k multiterrain run complete with sprinting intervals today so I am quite worn out and have a few new scrapes and blisters. it was so fun though. Definitely looking forward to a weekend of doing nothing!
I just ate way too many cookies and I'm off to bed.

WOW what a weekend... okay two weekends since I haven´t written in a while. Both were very volcano-filled. I´ll start with last weekend.... We took the new volunteers back to Mombacho to, of course, walk up the road to the top (the truck is for wimps.) This time we got to sleep up there, in a dorm on the top of the ranger station on top of the volcano. It was awesome!!! It was freezing, and we got to go on a night hike to see a species of salamander that only lives on this volcano and only comes out at night. Cool huh?! It was a very quiet, relaxing evening as it was only our group, a couple of rangers and two science researchers staying up there. In the morning we got up early, had breakfast and hiked the "Puma trail" which takes about four hours and is lots of climbing around on slippery rocks. The top of the volcano was completely covered in fog this entire time so you couldn´t see anything! We learned a lot about the biology of the volcano and about its unique ecosystem. We ended up taking the truck down because we were all so tired, but not without a stop at the coffee farm halfway up the volcano. YUM!
My legs barely had time to recover when we left early Friday morning to go to Ometepe Island, which is in the middle of a huge lake called Lake Nicaragua or El Lago Cocibolca (I´m pretty sure it has some other names, too...) We stayed in a very nice little place far out on the island with a great view of the water and BOTH volcanoes that basically make up the island. Cat lived there when she was a volunteer two years ago so we got to meet her host family. On Friday afternoon we hiked up to a waterfall and swam there, but we left too late so we ended up finishing the hike in the dark. It was pitch black by the time we got from the trail to the road back to our hotel, and we were in a very rural area so there were no lights anywhere, plus it started thunderstorming and raining! It was an adventure for sure.... we made it back though, in time to eat dinner and crash.
The next morning we got up early to hike up the Maderas Volcano, the smaller of the two on the island but not to be underestimated! Warning Dad: you will be jealous. Cat and Megan turned around about halfway up but Rachelle, Brett and I hiked up to the lake on the top with our guide. The top half of the volcano is basically like rock climbing but with roots and vines instead, a full body workout of pulling yourself up! On the way down, it poured, so the mud made it even more challenging. There were lots of falls and near misses but it was quite fun and very beautiful, although unfortunately I don´t have many pictures due to the treachery of our climbing. It was true jungle and there was a lot of swinging on vines involved. Now, though, I can barely move and have lots of scrapes and bruises! I have to wash my sneakers to get all the mud off and then duct tape them where they ripped, so it´s a good thing I will not physically be able to run for a few days. I think that I will have to leave early to walk tomorrow morning, as I am moving significantly slower! It was definitely worth it though, an intense but beautiful weekend.
Rachelle and I just cooked a simple but delicious dinner of burritos with lots of veggies and for dessert we made fried tortillas with mango ice cream... totally an experiment but probably one of the best things I have eaten in my life. Ahhhh so good!
I realize that I have not written that much about the orphanage so far which I apologize for, I will definitely have to do more of that soon. It´s tiring but I am definitely enjoying it. More to come later when people are not staring me down waiting to use the computer....
The next two weekends I am spending in Jinotepe, in the hammock, watching movies and drinking coffee. I am very, very much looking forward to it... adventures are great but I need a rest!
More to come soon.

I´d like to paint a picture of my trip home from work today to show you a bit about Nicaragua.
I left the orphanage with two other women who work there, Silvia and Evalin. Both live in Jinotepe so we travel together every day. We walk down the long path framed with coffee plants to the main road, made of dirt and lined with coconut trees and farm fields, and start the trek home. There is public transportation here but it´s not constant, so we usually walk as far as we can before a bus passes, which is sometimes all the way home. We pass a man perched on his wooden wagon pulled by two huge oxen. The road, though well populated at this time of day, is very quiet except for the whiz of bike wheels and the sound of horses grazing.
Children walk lazily home from school and the day is slowing down for everyone. No one walks at any kind of hurried pace, and for vehicles it´s impossible to go fast. Recent rains have made the road even worse, and maneuvering around trenches, ditches and mudholes is the only way to drive through here. Even walking can be treacherous as it´s easy to slip, trip or fall into a hole.
We pass a few open fields that consistently hold afternoon soccer games, usually dodging balls flying across the road. Passing one spot, Silvia and I laugh about the scene here yesterday when a rooster walked directly in the path of a bicycle and appeared to get crushed by the bike, but when the dust cleared and I dared to look for the dead bird it was strutting away missing only a few feathers.
The poverty is more evident here than in cities, but in a much different way. There is much more hope in rural poverty than in urban poverty, much more of a sense of purpose and having something. The houses in this area between Jinotepe and San Jose are all very small, cinderblock with tin roofs, but most have hammocks outside and you can often hear celebratory music playing from some prized boom box inside. Dust is everywhere, but it still has a remarkably clean feeling. Every single house has at least ten chickens. One of the most dilapidated houses on this route has a pathway leading up to it that is always covered in flower petals.
After walking for about forty-five minutes, a truck belonging to some business passes and we manage to hitch a ride, all three of us squeezing in the cab. The driver skillfully covers the rest of the dirt road and drops us off at the entrance to the Pan-American Highway, as he is turning the opposite way to go to Masatepe. We walk down the side walk, hoping to avoid the second rainstorm of our walk but knowing it is inevitable. Evalin and I turn off to take a new route through town that she is going to show me, passing her house.
As we walk through the outskirts of Jinotepe, it starts to pour again, but a rainbow makes it slightly more appealing. We walk with Evalin´s neighbor and her three kids. One of the boys carries a coke bottle full of milk, the other casually swings a huge machete around, barely missing their little sister who walks between them. I turn on the street that heads to downtown Jinotepe, saying goodbye to Evalin and continuing past more trees, more horses and more cinderblocks before the top of Santiago Church looms ahead and the buildings start to look familiar. I head to the market to catch the last vegetable sellers, as I have only had rice and beans the last two days. There is only one decent avocado left in the market and the seller knows it. The elderly woman tries to get me to pay 30 cordobas for this avocado. We settle on 20, which is 1 dollar, a lot for an avocado. She tries to convince me to pay 15 now and come back and pay the other 5 tomorrow, but we both know she´ll remember me and can easily throw tomatoes at me or something if I don´t pay her. I´m too tired to bargain more and after buying a massive carrot and tomato, hurry out of the market past people covering their vegetables, loading up carts and sweeping up garbage. I walk the last three blocks to my house and arrive at 5:45, barely beating the twilight.
I left the orphanage at 4:00. Welcome to Nicaragua.

I had intended to write in here yesterday but I was too exhausted to even type! Quite a bit is new, over the weekend Rachelle and I went to Leon to meet Jackie Chan and his friend April. It was definitely a fun weekend and we also ran into a couple of Israeli guys that we had met on a bus in southern Nicaragua the weekend before, which was pretty random. It was quite the culture shock because Leon has a lot of foreigners and a lot of foreign influence. There is an enormous cathedral that does not look much different than ones I saw in Vienna and there are even international restaurants although they all certainly have their Nicaraguan influence. We stayed in a very relaxing hostel full of trees and turtles... and backpackers. I have a few words to say about what the traveling community refers to as the backpacker crowd. usually nice people, but frustrating to me. I have little patience with people in their twenties, and even thirties who go to other countries and then proceed to spend all of their time and money getting drunk because they don´t want to deal with responsibilties or their own countries. I just want to say to them, stop drinking and DO something with your life! It was a fun weekend, though. Very beautiful city and lots of good food, I ate so much!!
Also a note, had the smoothest and easiest public transportation experience so far this past weekend, even though Leon is the farthest away I have gone. The buses between Managua and Leon have semi functional air conditioning, and the two different routes between Managua and Jinotepe have absolutely stunning mountain views. It was great.
We have three new housemates, Megan, Uzair and Brett. All from Canada of course, and all are nice although Uzair is crazy. It is funny to see their new perspectives, for example, they are convinced they will get sick from drinking any tap water and Uzair tried to convince me that we were going to get mugged while walking to the supermarket this evening. I did have a very nice conversation while at dinner with Megan and Brett the other night. Every other foreigner I have met while here has basically tried to make me feel guilty for being from the U.S., but I had a great conversation with these two just about comparing our countries politically and socially and they were very interested to hear about what it was like to be in college when Barack Obama was elected which is always something I am willing to talk about! So that was nice.
Yesterday was my first day at the orphanage, which is called Tierra de Juda (Land of Judas). On the first day I woke up at 4:30 a.m. not feeling well, but that was the only rough start. It has been fun, but tiring, especially since yesterday my friend Silvia and I decided to walk back to Jinotepe (over an hour and a half, but a very beautiful walk on dirt roads). My main job during the mornings is caring for a girl named Abigail who has cerebral palsy. Unfortunately, she did not really receive proper care before she came to the orphanage last year so she has no communication abilities because she can´t speak. One of my jobs is to try to teach her basic communcation by pointing at pictures of food, drink, emotions, etc. I´m definitely hoping to get somewhere with that as right now she just thinks the pictures are hilarious ...... anyone who has any expertise in this area, I´d love some pointers! Otherwise, I will just be taking care of her basic needs and reading to her and hanging out and stuff like that. In the afternoons I am helping to teach English class, which is just pure chaos and mostly I just cause a major distraction and act as an involuntary climbing post. I will also be sometimes shadowing the psychologist who works there. It is a fun place to be and a very nice facility on a beautiful land in a rural area. It is definitely an adjustment getting up at 5:45 in order to make breakfast and walk 20 minutes to meet my ride after a month of relative laziness, but at least it´s light out.
I am getting used to almost every aspect of Nicaragua, I think, and yesterday I saw the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life outside of the tarantula exhibit at the zoo (and yes, it beats the one that hangs out on the seawall at camp) and this morning I was quite proud of myself when a cockroach the size of my thumb almost ran over me in the bathroom and I did not even flinch! (although I did jump about a foot five minutes later when a gum wrapper fell on my foot and I was sure it was a cockroach....) All in all adjusting to living here has been quite easy for me, and it is only the lack of home that is the challenging part. Oh yes, and when I get home I am making a meal that is entirely spinach and peanut butter and bagels and just eating that, I´ve already decided. I´m not going to say that I want to stay here forever, because I think that in six and a half weeks I definitely will want to come home, but I feel as if I´ve definitely been living here for a while.
Well... that is all. It is too far past my bedtime! More to come about the 29 kiddos consuming my life and about sleeping on top of a volcano this weekend.
Adios,
Suzanne

So I'm sitting down with my tea to read everyone else's travel blogs and realized I should probably write in mine! Happy October everyone, once again I am jealous of those who get to experience fall in North America, I miss it.
Since I last wrote, I turned 20 and a half (exciting, I know.) Got a letter (thanks Dad!) Tried to improve my snacking habits, learned how to play the marimba (ish) and planned all the rest of my weekends while I'm in Nicaragua!
I've realized that my Spanish speaking skills have been getting a lot better, comprehension not so much. I am so glad that I will be working with kids as they are so much easier to understand! And it's not just listening, either. Today I got out a container of yogurt and started eating it before the expiration date caught my eye. 5/11/09.... uh, that was, like, five months ago?! I was a little concerned before Leo reminded me that dates are written differently in Spanish and that 5/11/09 is actually November 5, not May 11..... whew!
Today was my last day at Los Pipitos. That was not so much a volunteer experience as a learning experience for me. It helped me a lot with Spanish, and I learned some cultural stuff as well. For example, there is a song called the Moralinda that must be some traditional folk song of Nicaragua... I will have to look it up, but anyway, I learned not only a dance to it but today I learned how to play it on the Marimba! I also got to hang out with the music class, mostly playing hand drums. It was really fun.
I am extremely excited to start volunteering at the orphanage on Monday. I have already sort of become friends with the English teacher there, Sylvia, which I think will make it a lot easier to start out. That's really what I came here to do and I am looking forward to it so much. I will be very tired and busy, but that's what I'm used to anyway.
This weekend Rachelle and I are going to Leon to meet up with Jackie Chan and have a little September volunteers reunion.... apparently Leon is the second hottest city in Nicaragua, so we're pretty sure that we are going to suffer immensely, but it should be worth it. I'm really looking forward to visiting a bigger and more international city, mostly for the food. Nica food is great, but it's hard to eat very similar food all the time and some variety is really exciting. Plus when I am eating on my own in a place like that it's easy to eat only vegetarian food which will be really nice... I am sticking with the meat eating and ate beef AND pepperoni in one day last week, but that is ending as soon as I leave Nicaragua! Gross!
This weekend is also terribly exciting because three new volunteers are getting here tomorrow. That is basically all we have been talking about for two weeks, I hope they are actually cool people... it's going to be a huge difference going from two volunteers to five! Plus one of them is a girl so Rachelle and I will have another roommate.... in our 8 person dorm suite thing.
Okay, it is well past time for me to finish writing a list of 100 spanish verbs (only one more day of Spanish class) and go to sleep!
Hope everyone is doing well. Send me e-mails!! I love them!

I´m sitting here in the house enjoying the cool air from a hurricane force rainstorm, in my long underwear shirt (side note it´s at least 72, but feels cool to me!) and sipping my favorite Nicaraguan beverage, fresco de cacao (basically cacao, milk, and cinnamon. tastes like chocolate milk but better!)

This weekend was really great. Cat and I left early saturday morning for San Juan del Sur. We found a nice hotel there, $10 each for a really small but very nice room for the three of us. We spent most of the day swimming, lying in the sun, reading and chatting with a restaurant owner that Cat is friends with. When Rachelle got there we had a delicious early dinner of some amazing fish (of course) and went for a swim before the sunset. We had an equally relaxing evening chatting on the beach and then went to a bar called La Iguana for some dancing. That was a strange experience because the majority of the people there were foreigners and we actually did not stand out at all! We met some nice people from England, Australia, Seattle, etc. and definitely had fun. After a good night´s sleep we set off in the morning to find breakfast and stumbled across a coffee shop called El Gato Negro (The Black Cat). It was a hippie-ish coffee shop and bookstore and some readers of this blog will definitely appreciate the connection I felt to this place so similar to the beloved Black Cat in Ashland... wonder if there is any connection? Anyway, I´d list it on the better breakfasts I´ve had in my life, so I have to describe it. I had a bagel with cream cheese, egg, cucumber, onion, tomato and avocado on it. Those of you who know me well can probably picture how much I was drooling, and that was actually ON the menu - someone thinks like me! In addition I had fresh squeezed orange juice, with no sugar or any crap like that in it, a big plate of fresh fruit and amazing coffee. I WAS IN HEAVEN.

Okay enough about food. Unlike my unfortunate sister on this same beach last summer, I did not get stung by a jellyfish nor lose my swimsuit as a result while at San Juan del Sur, BUT I did have the cool/terrifying experience of seeing giant manta rays flying towards my face. While about to jump into a wave, I suddenly saw through the clear turquoise water a huge manta ray riding on top of the wave flapping its wings (whatever those are called). It was actually surfing! It´s kind of hard to read the emotions of manta rays but it was blatantly obvious that these sea creatures really enjoy surfing, you could almost see the elation in their flat little ray faces. They are harmless but I have to say it was REALLY terrifying seeing them in the waves flying towards me!

Overall it was a relaxing weekend and Cat and I figured out with all the stuff we want to do while I´m here I will only be spending 2 more full weekends in Jinotepe. I´m very excited and am currently working on planning a weekend in the mountainous, quiet Northern region. I´m even more excited to start work at the orphanage on Sunday and to be really busy.
I can´t believe that I´ve been here for almost a month already. Time is starting to go a lot faster - already on Friday there will be new volunteers! It´s funny because I feel like I am starting to fit in here but the truth is I´m not - I still am such an oddball in Jinotepe. The weird part was, even just being in the tourist town of San Juan del Sur felt like culture shock after just three weeks. It was like, wait, someone is speaking ENGLISH to me?! These people LOOK like me? I already know that going back to the states is going to be sooooo weird.

It´s really cool to be somewhere else for long enough to be familiar with it, but it has also made me appreciate some things about home more, among them seatbelts, NPR, recycling, peanut butter, and my house - how it´s dead silent at night, with a fireplace and no cockroaches and the radio with six different bluegrass stations on it. I think that is part of the point of traveling though - to get to enjoy somewhere new and exciting and then to be able to have a deeper appreciation of where you live too. At least for me.

Some interesting perspectives I have noticed recently: talking to a couple of Israeli guys and Cat on the bus, and they all said they hated Costa Rica. All of them had been, and none of them liked it! I was surprised because even though I knew right away I wanted to come to Nica and not go to Costa Rica, I thought it was supposed to be some kind of paradise, but all I´ve heard here so far is that it´s not that great, and I was surprised.

Also something that is pretty frustrating that I realized I haven´t discussed is the amount of sexual harrassment of women that goes on here and probably in a lot of Central American countries. Women are basically viewed as a lower life form. It´s the kind of thing where I wonder if I had grown up here if it would seem more normal to me. It actually doesn´t make me that angry because it´s the way the culture is and you can´t just get mad about stuff like that because then you will be angry and not enjoying your travels. But, it is very weird. The machismo attitude, blatant sexual harrassment of all girls and women every day on the streets and statistics of domestic abuse are staggering to someone who grew up in a society where women are both respected and powerful in comparison to much of the world. I feel extremely lucky, and also highly appreciative of all of the guys I know back at home! It´s reassuring to know what I won´t have to deal with walking down the street back at home.

So, basically, what I´m learning is that there is no place in the world that´s better than any other despite what everyone seems to think. There are things I like about Nica a lot more than the States, and a lot of things about home that I never thought to be grateful for until this trip. It´s also made me want to go a lot of other places, because this has been the only long-term international travel experience I´ve had before. But it´s also made me want to spend time with my family and at home too. I´m not about to say that this is a paradise and that I want to stay forever or just take off across the globe with my backpack - I have met many who are doing that - but for now I am enjoying it a lot and definitely getting better at Spanish gradually.

So three more days of Spanish class, next weekend I start what I really came here for... Leon this weekend should be a lot of fun. That´s all for now but hope you all are doing well! Send me e-mails, I love hearing from all of you probably more than you realize: setaylor@pugetsound.edu

I haven't updated in a while, but figured I better since apparently in Mom world if you don't write in your blog every two days you must have died..... sorry Mom!
Let's see.... on Sunday we went to La Maquina, a small nature reserve pretty close to here. The highlight was splashing around in the waterfalls there. It wasn't deep enough to swim, but just getting in the water was great! We hiked around a little bit too, but the trails didn't really lead anywhere. I would go back just for the waterfalls!
This week has been pretty routine. Spanish class in the morning still, but it has gotten SO frustrating that I end up wanting to hit my head against the wall. I feel like I am hardly learning anything but still stumbling over speaking Spanish! Afternoons at Los Pipitos have been a lot better for practicing Spanish, especially with the little kids because they expect me to be fluent so they talk to me a lot more than the teenagers who expect me not to know any Spanish. I still can't really figure out the idea behind the school, because even though it is for kids with disabilities, a lot of the kids seem so high functioning that it makes you wonder why they aren't in school on a weekday afternoon. It's basically just a place for them to hang out, dance, do art, play marimbas or basketball, whatever. It's been fun, but more of a cultural exchange/learning experience than volunteering for me.
Yesterday was pretty fun, since Andreu is leaving tomorrow morning we had a party last night. Rachelle and I went to the market after breakfast and got tons of tomatoes and avocadoes and spent the morning making salsa and guacamole for our contribution. Andreu and his friend got freshly caught fish from the coast and we had pasta salad and two desserts... it was a FEAST. I literally could not move by the time I went to bed, but it was really fun. Usually everyone just grabs whatever is for dinner on their own time, and it was great to have everyone in the house together for an evening.
This weekend Cat and I are going to San Juan del Sur, a small beach town, and meeting Rachelle who is already there. it will be the first time I've stayed somewhere besides the house, so I'm excited for that! I'm even more excited for next Friday, when Spanish class is over and Rachelle and I are heading to Managua to meet up with Jackie Chan since he's done with his rainforest placement. The three of us are spending the night in Managua and then heading to Leon for the rest of that weekend, and after that is when my work at the orphanage starts. Also, three new volunteers are coming next friday so there's a lot to look forward to!
So, overall I'm enjoying it, but definitely missing a lot of things from home. The internet was down for a couple of days in the house and it made me realize how much I rely on it for comfort. Talking to my friends, online TV and the New York Times website have kept me sane in the evenings when I would be missing home and school much more. Also have been reading tons of good books and enjoying some amazing restaurants in Jinotepe which has helped too.
well, I just realized that I forgot to do my spanish homework for about the sixth night in a row so I better go catch up on that. I'll try to write more often - in the meantime, send me e-mails, I love getting them!
Love to all.

Hello again! This week started out as relaxing to the point of insanity, Monday and Tuesday we basically did nothing. Wednesday we started up Spanish classes again and I went to Los Pipitos, the school, in the afternoon. I don't really understand this place yet, as there seems to sometimes be only one group of students there at a time.... and on that day it was five teenage boys who were all deaf. I can't even begin to explain the communication barriers there, and for some odd reason I ended up making Christmas cards with them... fun, I guess, but a little strange.
Thursday we had Spanish all morning and then the plan was for Leo and me to go to Fundacion Proyecto Mesias, which is the orphanage where I'll be working in October and November. We had some vague directions, so we took the bus to El Rosario and tried to ask from there. No one had the slightest idea what we were talking about, but they pretended they did and told us to go BACK to Jinotepe and take another bus. Since we had plenty of time, we took a cab back to Jinotepe and went to the bus station to ask there. The bus drivers there also pretended they knew where we were going and gave us instructions, so we got on a bus and then realized that they were going to charge us 25 cordobas (a little over a dollar, or equivalent to a desination that is about three hours away or more) and were trying to rip us off. Around that time Leo also realized that his work cell phone had been stolen in the cab, so we got off the bus, chased a few cab drivers around before realizing that was hopeless, and went back to the house. On the way back we encountered a pickup truck with a guy in an enormous Homer Simpson costume standing in the back, dancing.
It was a very weird day.
So today we were determined to make it to the orphanage, and after a very long, frustrating and boring Spanish class, we ate lunch and I put on my one nice shirt and we started off again. We took the bus to El Rosario another time and this time walked into the village and started asking around. As we walked further away from the Pan-American highway and into more remote areas people became more and more familiar with what we were looking for. We probably asked about seventeen people for directions and followed what they said and walked, and walked, and walked and walked down dirt roads through coffee plantations and past banana and coconut trees. We'd been instructed to walk down the road at "Los Cocos" which means the coconut trees... well Los Cocos is actually just a turnoff of another dirt road that has no coconuts anywhere near it, whatsoever. We walked for about two hours in a very rural area before we finally got to the orphanage. It's a beautiful place, with two big buildings and a few smaller ones, as well as big trees and a playground. It was such a relief to make it there finally. There are no signs for anything in Nicaragua, and the only way you can find things is trusting whoever you ask for directions!
We had a meeting with one of the administrators, Patricia, and while Leo talked to her about the orphanage another staff member gave me a tour. There are 29 kids there right now, and from what I can tell they are ages 1-12. There are a few with very severe physical disabilites, and others requiring special education who actually go to school at Los Pipitos during the day, so I probably won't ever see them when I'm there. I didn't get a chance to talk to many of the kids except for a group of two-year-old boys with whom I had quite an extensive conversation, but all of the kids I saw were very smiley and sooooo cute!
I'm really excited to start helping out there - I start on October 5th, so in about two weeks. Some very good news is that I get a free ride there every morning with a group of women who work at the orphanage and live in Jinotepe, and then they all get a taxi from the orphanage back to Jinotepe in the afternoon, so I can go with them and that is 10 cordobas (50 cents). So I am not going to get a bike, I just have to be at Los Pipitos at 7 am every morning to go with them... which is about a half hour walk from my house = leaving the house at 6:30 every morning. Yikes!! Well, it will be worth it.
Hard to believe that I have been here for two weeks and it is already the weekend again, time goes faster as I get more adjusted. I have already found my favorite hangout spot in Jinotepe, Momentos, which is a smoothie/snack/cafe place with DELICIOUS treats, and it's in a really cute alley so you can hang out there at this big tables outside and drink your smoothie or cappuccino or whatever. I am also very excited to sample some more of the amazing restaurants in the town over the next two months. On Sunday we are planning to go to a nearby nature reserve to hike and swim in a waterfall! So I'll definitely be writing about that soon.
I finally had my first wipeout while running... unfortunately, in this city if you fall on your face while running there is not an ounce of hope that no one saw you! so embarrassing! I have some pretty impressive bruises and a very sore arm. Not fun, but I'll learn to pick up my feet more I guess! I'm just glad there were no major injuries involved.
Well, I'm off to take a shower to wash off all the dirt and sweat from hiking on dirt roads all afternoon! It has started getting cooler here in the evenings, at least I think it has, so that's really nice.
Until next time!

Happy Independence Day! Today it is just the holiday in Nicaragua because it's a celebration of when they kicked some crazy guy out of Granada after he took over and declared himself president. Tomorrow is the anniversary of Central America getting their independence from Spain, so it's the holiday here as well as in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica. Pretty crazy ... there has been a lot of loud partying going on outside the past couple of nights, and this morning it was quiet around town because people weren't going to work, but there were some people busily sweeping all the garbage out of the streets and some kids excitedly running around in band uniforms. There was a MASSIVE parade, actually, it is still going on - TONS of marching bands and dancers for a town that is one third the size of Appleton! I went and watched for a while and felt very sorry for all the marchers in their elaborate uniforms as it is quite the toasty day. The group that rehearses on our street every morning was last in the section that we watched, it was exciting to see them in their costumes and recognize some of the kids. There was a lot of confusion, distraction, moms walking into the middle of the parade to give their kids coke or gatorade, teachers pulling kids back into formation, confident four-year-olds leading groups of adult dancers or musicians... it was pretty awesome.
Yesterday Leo, Rachelle, and I took a sweaty bus ride to La Boquita, a beach about an hour away. It was beautiful and lots of fun, although I am unfortunately quite sunburned. We swam a lot and the water is VERY warm, it was strange to the two of us PNW dwellers (Rachelle is from Vancouver) who think of the Pacific ocean as freezing and full of algae. It was like a bathtub! Then we ate freshly caught fish, which was delicious and unfortunately had the head still attached (I practiced some selective vision), swam more, and read a lot before taking the bus back. Somehow that day left me COMPLETELY exhausted today ... our morning run was actually a leisurely 6 a.m. walk as we never even started jogging.
Last night I went to a restaurant that is going to be my new haven... my dinner consisted of spinach squash ravioli and pitalla (local fruit) cheesecake and while it was a little over $10 and therefore EXPENSIVE in the Nicaragua range, I will definitely be returning to sample at least the rest of the vegetarian and dessert menus. Heavenly. We also went there on a previous night and ended up talking to some college students who spoke fluent English, which is nothing short of surreal these days.... it's an exciting place, though very small and basically an indoor garden. I also ended up watching the Packers game on TV there while I was eating my dinner and was able to explain that that statdium was really near where I live... the main comment I got was "hace mucho frio alli" (it's very cold there). Well, compared to here, many places are cold and most days I find myself dreaming of winter in the north country!
In other news, we are pretty sure that the cat, Robin, is pregnant with kittens... additional evidence lies in the strange orange cat prowling around the roof every day. That could add some additional entertainment to a house that already has an 8 month old baby! Who, by the way, is in the precise stage in which babies like to throw all their possessions onto the floor during meals and proceed to screech until someone picks them up. She's a cutie though.
And then there is the armadillo that lives in our ceiling - yes armadillo, it's been spotted - and is nocturnal and runs in circles all night above our room. Oh wildlife...
Well, the rest of today and tomorrow will consist of being really lazy before my normal routine starts on Wednesday. We have a couple more weeks of Spanish - I guess two more, to be exact, and volunteering at Los Pipitos, which begins Wednesday. On thursday I will go to visit the orphanage and then start there sometime in October!
Love to all,
Suzanne

Well the very long post I wrote didn´t save itself.... oh well, what else is there to do on a Friday night in Jinotepe when it´s pouring out and you have free internet?
It´s thunderstorming and raining more than I thought it was possible to rain... the house actually flooded a little bit ago, but the water´s going down now. It´s so nice because it makes the air so much cooler and cleaner, and I´m actually wearing a sweatshirt and just had some hot tea! I feel a lot more at home now, haha.
Yesterday after a long morning of verb conjugations we went on an excursion to a nearby town, Catarina, and walked up to this awesome viewpoint that looks over a lagoon but you can also see all the way to Granada and Lake Nicaragua. It was the most tourist-y place I´ve been so far, which was a bit odd, but it had a ton of school kids, horses, music and food and was very relaxing. We sat in the shade and had a lesson about the history and politics of Nicaragua, then ate traditional "pupusas", a food from El Salvador that is basically melted cheese in a tortilla. YUM! We caught the big chicken bus back, but there were probably 120 people on it. A school bus... it was insane!
This morning after a short Spanish class was the "amazing race"... basically a test of everything we´ve learned this week to end orientation. There was a list of things to do, such as bargaining in the marketplace, mailing a postcard to Canada, taking pictures of yourself with a police officer and between two churches. It also involved hitchiking to Diriamba (the next town over from here) and other such adventures. Lots of fun! It ended with us sprinting back to the house, soaked from the rain. Still don´t know my way around Jinotepe, but I´m learning.
Jackie Chan left for his placement on the Atlantic Coast in the rainforest this afternoon. Catherine and her boyfriend Andreu went with him - it´s a 2 day trip to get there and they are staying to help him get settled in and then coming back in a week. So for the week it´s mostly just me, Leo, and Rachelle, plus the family that lives here. We are going to the beach on Sunday and then monday and tuesday are national holidays, Wednesday I start at Los Pipitos and Thursday I am going to visit the orphanage for the first time! It will be nice to get into a routine. I´ve been here for exactly one week (to the minute, actually) and I can´t tell if it seems like longer or shorter than that.
One of the ways that I really wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone and experience another lifestyle is to not be a vegetarian for the time that I´m here. So far it´s been really hard! I´ve been thinking a lot about why I love fish but eating chicken or beef, not to mention pork, is a completely revolting thought. I´ve just gotten so used to not eating meat over the last ten years... so far I have been doing pretty well, I just have to not think about it and go to my happy place especially when I have to eat red meat... AHH. It´s a good experience though, because in places like here having meat is a lucky and healthy thing. And it´s also confirmed the fact that I definitely will be a strict pescatarian for the rest of my life.
That´s about all that I can remember to write about... tomorrow will be bike shopping and lots of relaxing time. Facials are the plan for the evening... wow this really is a new experience for me!
Love and miss you all,
-Suzanne

Well hello again! I just finished doing my first laundry in Nicaragua ... think that sounds simple? wrong. There aren't washing machines here - everyone washes their clothes on a "stone wash" which looks like a sink with ridges and it's made out of stone. and you scrub all your clothes with a bar of soap and then try to rinse them by pouring water out of a container. I'm pretty sure there is some technique that I'm missing, but at least some of my clothes don't smell quite as bad now... hopefully I will continue to gain skill in that area. I gained a ton of appreciation for Nica women who wash clothes for their ENTIRE FAMILY.... I will never again complain about having to carry my laundry down three flights of stairs to put it in the machine at school!
The last few days we have had a lot of Spanish class and some other cultural and geography classes. Yesterday night we went out for a walk and I got a "batido" or milkshake made with banana and pineapple... sooo good! It brought up an interesting point because I was going to order one with strawberry but Catherine pointed out that it is powdered strawberry flavor because strawberries aren't grown here. One of the amazing things about Nicaragua: if you buy fruit, you buy it from the person who grew it right here in Carazo (the province/county we're in). If it doesn't grow here, you don't see it. If you go to a restaurant, you're supporting someone's family business, not a chain company. It's much, much easier to eat locally and sustainably when you don't have strawberries right in your face when you go to the grocery store, or any other fruit that came from a long distance. That's just the way food is here - you go out and get it and support the local community and you know basically where it came from.
I'm not learning too much in Spanish class yet, but it should get more personalized after this week. I was able to practice a lot this afternoon because Leo and I walked to the school where I'm going to be volunteering to meet the teachers and see the school, and he made me talk in Spanish the entire walk out to the outskirts of Jinotepe. The school, Los Pipitos, is for children and teenagers with various disabilities. It's a beautiful, peaceful place with lots and lots of artwork all around. I also got to learn more about the orphanage I'll be working at, and I'm going to visit there on Thursday. I'm super excited for both! It's going to be really quiet around here after Jackie Chan leaves in a couple of days, so Rachelle is going to come to Los Pipitos with me after Spanish class for a while. It will be good to be busy... I brought five books with me and I am almost finished with the third. After five days. That probably won't surprise my parents... luckily there are a TON of other books here to read, so I won't be bored.
Brazil is playing I believe Paraguay in soccer right now and soccer is ALWAYS on TV.. it's like the Packers in Wisco but waaaay more intense and every day. I'll have to start watching it more!
Well it's almost 9, so I may start getting ready for bed... It gets dark by 5:45 every night so it always feels much later. And then it is light by 5:30 in the morning! We go running at 6 every morning, and I am always awake by 5:15, so I've been going to bed pretty early.
To all my friends at UPS, I hope classes are going wonderfully and to everyone in the Midwest please enjoy the fall colors extra for me because I miss them!
Adios,
Suzanne

¡Hola from Jinotepe! Yesterday was quite an adventurous day as Rachelle, Jackie Chan and I decided to go to climb the volcano Mombacho. We got up early and stopped at the grocery store to get a few snacks, though no real food since it was Sunday and everything was closed. Then we were introduced to the public transportation system here in Nica. The "chicken buses"are basically very old school buses that are cheaper but stop just about everywhere, and the "express buses" are big vans that go a little faster. We took the big bus out to the volcano, so we waited for the bus to leave for around an hour and then it was a two hour trip.
Eventually, we got off at Mombacho and hiked up to the park entrance. Even though there is a cheap fee for going up it "a pie" (on foot), and we decided that one would be a good option, that doesn´t mean that it is a sane or reasonable way to go to the top of the volcano. We got some strange looks, but we thought that they were just trying to get us to pay more to take the truck up. Wrong! We really were crazy. We decided it was worth it, though, and a great way to see the mountain and the area. There was a shade-grown coffee plantation about half way up that was really cool to see. We didn´t hike around too much up top because we had already spent a lot of our day getting there, but we did see some really awesome lookout points and beautiful rainforest. By the time we hiked back down, it was 5 pm and we were hungry, exhausted and had lost a great amount of body fluids from sweating so much, so we accepted a reasonably priced ride from a mini taxi (like a scooter, but wider so that three people can just fit in the back - it was really fun!) This somehow only took about 20 minutes to get back to Jinotepe. hmm... Jackie Chan majored in film and TV in college, so he always has his huge video camera out and is performing some ridiculous antics. Rachelle and I all but abandoned him on the volcano because this takes quite a bit of time. I´m looking forward to seeing his film. I also got a lot of Spanish practice yesterday since I had to translate for all three of us! That was good though.
This morning I skipped the 6 a.m. run to sleep in, but sleeping in really does not happen here as the city is fully awake by 5 and there is so much noise outside it´s impossible to sleep through it. After breakfast (every morning we have rice and beans, toast with guavaba jam, eggs, fresh fruit, and delicious and I MEAN DELICIOUS coffee), we had our first Spanish class.... Leo is a good teacher but the other two have had zero Spanish and I have been taking it for ten years and it is my minor in college. Ugh... it was a long four hours. I did learn some new vocabulary though and am learning some Nicaragua-specific linguistics. For example, here they say "vos" instead of tú. I´ve been told that after this week when it is just Rachelle and me taking Spanish (Jackie Chan is leaving to work in some rainforest place on the other side of the country) it can be a lot more individual and adjusted to our levels. In the afternoon we took the bus to the Masaya market, which is this huge market that sells EVERYTHING, including local artesanía... I have no idea what the English word for that is, but it`s all beautiful. I´m planning to buy a hammock there eventually but today was too overwhelming to buy anything! There was also a little too much raw meat there for my comfort level, haha.
Next Monday and Tuesday are national holidays - all of Central America got their independence from Spain on the same day, so the 14th and 15th are Independence Day all over Central America. We still have Spanish class, but I won´t start work until Wednesday -although I´m not sure how that will work because I also have a meeting with my second work placement on that day. I´m excited to find out where both places are. I´m hoping to buy an inexpensive bike to ride to work every day so I won´t have to take the bus, but we´ll see how far away the orphanage is.
Well, I forgot what else I was going to say... sorry this is not terribly interesting or educational yet, and pretty long, but since I can´t talk to you all every day and ramble on then, this will have to be the story of my life! I am really enjoying it, but also missing school a little bit still... but that´s okay, it will be even better to go back knowing more about the world and being away for so long.
Please e-mail me to tell me about your lives too! setaylor@pugetsound.edu
I´m off to go read in the hammock - still one of my favorite activities.
Love to all!

Hola! I arrived in Jinotepe, Nicaragua last night. As most of you know, I hate flying, so that part wasn't super fun - we flew nearly through 2 thunderstorms between Houston and Managua, but also got to see the full moon over the Gulf of Mexico so that was beautiful. When we were flying over Nicaragua, it was mostly dark except for the moon reflecting off of this HUGE lake, and we were starting to descend and suddenly Managua appeared out of nowhere with a trillion lights. Leo, our Spanish teacher, met me at the airport. He is a friendly younger guy whose airport meeting tactic is not to stand in one place with his sign but to try to pick out the BaseCamp volunteers and then slide directly in front of them with the BaseCamp International sign right in your face and then wait for some familiar response. It was even funnier watching him do that to random twenty-year-old girls on my flight after I found him, trying to find the other girl he was picking up. The drive back to Jinotepe took us through some of the rougher areas of Managua, the windiest area of Nicaragua (literally, the wind was insane and has pushed over trucks) and up a lot of elevation. It was a beautiful drive and a great introduction to the country even though it was dark. Here, stop signs are basically meaningless, seatbelts often don't exist and the roads around here are pretty much exactly like your basic two-lane county highways in Wisconsin but no one really cares what lane you're supposed to be in. You basically just drive wherever you want to until a car is coming the other way and then you move over. Interesting...
There are two other volunteers here at the moment, both of whom also arrived yesterday. Rachelle is my age and from Vancouver - she's staying here six months to work in a hospital. Jackie Chan (that is actually his name, I am not lying) is 25 and is staying for a month to work on a rainforest preserve on the other side of the country. There is also a young couple with a baby girl living at the house, along with Leo and Catherine who is our program coordinator. And a cat, Robin, who slept in my bed last night. It is a big colonial house with a courtyard in the middle. The 8-person bedroom that Rachelle and I share seems like a ton of space after this summer, but there are 2 more girls arriving in October. My favorite part of the house is napping in hammocks, which I have already done multiple times.
When walking or running in Jinotepe, it is a difficult balance between watching your feet to make sure you don't step in horse manure or break your ankle in a pothole and trying to pay attention to everything in the market or on the street. It's a quiet but busy town - quiet being a relative term, as I woke up to the egg seller on the street at around 5:30 a.m. and our morning class was interrupted by the high school marching band. This is not the marching band that we are used to seeing - it is all percussion and the baton twirlers dance with their hips more than they twirl the baton, even the girl in front who was about five years old. They are LOUD and have a great rhythm and practice in the streets in the middle of the day, every day. There are also a lot of oxen carts and horses in the streets, as well as bikes, taxis, cars, buses and a lot of people walking.
Forgot to say that out of the three of us volunteers, I am the only one who speaks any Spanish at all, which is a big confidence booster and definitely gives me a leg up as I am of course the shyest one by far, but knowing Spanish really helps. Somehow, all the household staff knew that before I got here so they are excited to talk to me, which is sweet, and it made everything from customs to ordering in a restaurant much easier. I guess I just assumed I'd be behind everyone in language, but I feel pretty comfortable with speaking and understanding it here.
So that is about it for now... I might actually head to bed as I didn't sleep much last night and the three of us are getting up early to go take the bus to a volcanco called Mombacho and climb to the top. Should be exciting! Spanish classes and orientation start on Monday and then a week after that I start work, which I am VERY excited for. I just want to get started and meet the kids.
I'll try to write in here as often as possible with a combination of my personal experiences and cultural insight on Nicaragua and maybe some interesting Spanish vocab words for those of you who are interested.
Buenas noches!

I'm pretty excited about making this blog, but so far I have not much to write as I am still in Appleton! I leave from Chicago on September 4th, but this is a fun experiment to start now (to avoid packing). All I have left to do is go to the doctor and pack. And organize my life, maybe put some trail clothes in the laundry...