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!