Home Sweet Home

I've been quite busy the last few weeks.....finally. I have a lot of updates, so bear with me.
I just moved into my own house and am super excited to finally settle in and really unpack and make it my own. I will be using the Christmas ornaments and many pictures that you all sent me to decorate.
I slept on my new bed last night and it was heavenly. The first time I've slept on a real mattress in the past 5 months and my back is thanking me today. I'm slowly acquiring all the furnishings of my house because let me tell you it's pretty darn expensive to furnish a house, especially on a Peace Corps budget. I splurged and bought two beds, so anyone that would like to visit will have their own room and bed....hint hint. Luckily, my host family and neighbors are extremely generous and are lending me lots of things to furnish my house. Each day I'm amazed by the hospitality and generosity of everyone I've met here in Nicaragua. People may not have much, but that doesn't mean that they're not willing to share what they do have with others. For example, every time you visit someone you're guaranteed to be given food and/or drink - which I'm thankful for, but also means that I'm going to have to make sure that I have something on hand at all times for my visitors. And the other day when I was moving, my host mom told me what's hers is mine and it's very true. The tables, chairs and other furniture in my house all belong to her. I will never be able to thank her enough.
I'll keep you posted on how living on my own goes because even though I'm pretty sure I'm capable of it; everyone here has quite a few doubts. I'm quite far from the standards of a Nica woman. They're convinced I don't know how to cook and occasionally drill me with questions on how to prepare rice or beans; and I'm sure they will be dropping in on me to see what I'm cooking and how I'm cooking it. The other day I was helping my host mom prepare dinner and I was informed that I cut tomatoes incorrectly, I didn't know that was possible but apparently it is. I try to tell them that I can cook, but I can't cook Nicaraguan style. Maybe I'll just survive off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and oatmeal for the next two years, I can't mess those up, can I?
Besides moving, I've been keeping myself busy by having manualidades (arts and crafts) classes and English classes with kids every day. They all love coming to the classes and I'm grateful because otherwise I would still be sitting around doing nothing. At first I was only offering manualidades twice a week in the mornings and all the kids wanted to have classes all day, every day. At first I was a little hesitant, but they don't have anything to do when school's not in session, nor do I...so I gave in. The attendance has been really strong and they even want to continue having classes in the evening when school starts. I can't tell you how much I love it! I taught them to sing "head, shoulders, knees and toes" the other day while learning body vocabulary. I'll have to take a video of it to show all of you how quickly they're all learning. There are a few moments where I can't help but laugh because the pronunciation sometimes leads to a completely different word. For example, we were learning animal vocabulary and bear sometimes sounds like beer for some of them; and even better (not better, but funnier) is the word beach sometimes sounds like bitch - I had to emphasize the precaution with that word and if pronounced differently it results in a bad word which only lead to questions about more bad words. AY! They all want to have quizzes each week, so I give them little quizzes and told them that for their test they have to talk to my brother in English when he visits because I don't want to translate for him for a whole week! HA!
I've finally started running daily. I held off for a bit because I wanted to get to know more people in town before they see me running around; unfortunately I held off a bit too long because my endurance wasn't where it used to be. I try to run around town, but I can't go very far without someone stopping me to talk or by having herds of children come out and start running with me. So sometimes I resort to running laps around the baseball field (which is really boring) and then sometimes get talked into practicing with the baseball team. That's a spectacle.
My host family got a new puppy. It's adorable, but I've been reprimanded because I pay attention to it and hold it and let it fall asleep on my lap. Unfortunately, it likes me more than them. To prove their point, the other day they told me to get up and walk around the house and the puppy followed me and then jumps around my feet until I pet it. Oops! I'm secretly hoping that it will follow me to my house and end up living with me, their other dogs ended up sleeping on my porch last night.
I'm really starting to feel comfortable in town. More and more people now know who I am and use my name instead of chelita, gringa, muneca, etc. I have friends even though most of them are either kids ages 6 - 15 years old or members of the baseball team. It's really looking up and I'm excited that school will be starting soon!
Thank you everyone for all the cards and packages! The packages that were intended for Christmas are finally rolling in and I love it! Miss you and love you!

2012

Sorry for the delay between posts, but you know how the holiday season goes....actually I really have no excuse because unlike back at home I didn´t have to do Christmas shopping, I didn´t decorate a tree, I didn´t even really listen to Christmas music.

Christmas was a bit of a bummer for me since I was without my family and friends, but I really appreciated the phone calls, cards and packages that I received from everyone back at home. My waistline doesn´t necessary appreciate it since I devoured many of the goodies within a short time span, and don´t worry I did do some sharing with my host family and the neighborhood kids in my English class; but I did selfishly keep my favorites all to myself, like the peanut butter M&Ms (thank you Nick and Emily).

After Christmas I traveled to the beach to celebrate New Year´s in style, especially since if this really is the end of the world what´s better than a beach celebration?! It was lots of fun and even more fun since I didn´t suffer any sunburns while I was there. After 24 years, I´m finally learning I need to apply sunscreen practically every hour to avoid redness or gaining any color at all since the first thing my host mom said when I returned was that I didn´t have much color. Another downside to the trip, I was terrible in the sense that I didn´t take my camera out once to take a picture, at least we have Facebook where you´ll be able to see some pictures from the weekend (that is if people ever post the pictures).

Everything was going really well I was ready to come back to my site, but as I was getting off the bus I literally tumbled down the stairs and fell onto the pavement in the middle of the crowd of people waiting to load the bus. I suffered a scraped knee and some embarassment, but I´m also wondering is that a sign I shouldn´t have returned? I could have easily stayed on the beach skipped a sunscreen reapplication or two, maybe gained some color and enjoyed some more delicious ceviche; but no I´m back in the mountains where it´s much, much cooler than the beach and I´m wearing jeans and long sleeves. I´m slowly getting back into my routine of manualidades classes and English classes and more reading in the park. Just waiting for one more month until classes start up again and I shouldn´t complain because time is surprisingly going by rather quickly. Instead of 27 months of service, I´m down to 23....

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. Thank you all for the warm wishes, cards, calls and packages. Miss you and love you all!

Really, really?!? En serio....

Disclaimer: I don't want to sound culturally insensitive, but these are just some things that continue to befuddle me...

1) Boarding buses is like a rat race, every time it's like the bus is the last bus and if you don't get on it you're doomed. I've literally seen people elbow other people to get into the bus first. I always lag back a little bit and I'm always amazed when I get on to see that half the bus is empty and there are still plenty of available seats. Yet, the other day I finally understood why people push, shove, and fight their way onto the bus because I didn't and unfortunately had to stand the whole hour and half back to my town.
2) The amount of oil and sugar used everyday - urgh. My host mom informed me the other day that the last bit of the gallon of oil used in dinner had lasted 20 days. What?!? In the States, I've bought a container of oil, much smaller than a gallon, and have had to throw it out before using it all because it's been so old. Also, adding sugar to bottles of milk? I don't really think it's necessary and maybe without the sugar, the dental hygiene would improve too.
3) Cold showers! You all think that Nicaragua is this hot and humid tropical country, but in the mountains it's chilly at night and in the early mornings. I don't look forward ice baths and I haven't acclimated yet, because everyday I get out of the shower someone in the house says "Tiene frio" (You're cold) and everyday I reply through chattering teeth "Si" (yes). Also, another thing that doesn't have me excited about my cold showers. I was reading a fitness magazine the other day that was discussing the issue of how your body acclimates to routines; it was discussing the importance to changing workout routines in order to avoid plateaus, and exemplify this they stated, "if you plunged yourself into ice cold water everyday your body would adapt by building a layer of subcutaneous fat to protect itself from the cold" LOVELY!
4) My mom reported that Wisconsin doesn't have snow yet and it was in the 40s the other day. Seriously, the one winter I skip and it's not even really Wisconsin winter. Last year at this time I had already had to shovel my car out of several feet of snow, multiple times; and suffered through bitterly frigid temperatures. We joked that when I come to visit in July there will be snow, and if that happens then I'll actually start to believe my host family's belief that the end of the world is December 21, 2012. Prepare yourselves!
5) Ramen Noodles are a delicacy. Except they are referred to by the brand, Marchuen. And they are eaten with ketchup and crema. I do feel kind of bad about how I responded to my family's questions about the food, but I did tell the truth. They wanted to know if I tried them, how much they cost, etc. I told them that you can buy a pallet of them for about $5 and a lot of college students eat them because they're cheap. I don't really like them and I especially don't want them with ketchup (I didn't really say the last part, but it's the truth).
There are many other things that still surprise me in good and bad ways, but these are just the fresh topics of this week.
I hope you're all doing well. I miss you all. I can't believe that Christmas is only 10 days away :( I really wish that I could be home to celebrate with you all. Again, enjoy all the Christmas time goodies for me.

Silver lining...

My last few entries haven't been the most positive and optimistic entries, so in order to avoid being a negative Nancy I've been able to find the silver lining to my extremely boring life.
In my desperate attempt to find something productive to do with my time I started talking (indirectly - typical Nica style) to my counterpart to try and find out if I could have a space to start some English classes or youth group or something. Maybe I was too indirect because she then decided that I will be starting a manualidades (arts and crafts) class. It's not my first choice, but it seems like everyone in town is super excited about it and I can use a classroom for my space, so I ran with the idea. I left her office feeling pretty pumped and it kept getting better because I ran into some students in the park and asked if they would be interested in joining my class and they were so excited we spent the rest of the afternoon making invitations (that's right, pretty official) and they passed most of them out that day. Woo Hoo! Now I'm hoping that they actually show up on Monday and that they will be pleased with my friendship bracelet supplies. I'll keep you posted.
Another uplifting moment is before I leave the park each afternoon I go around and pick up a few pieces of the abundant trash strewn everywhere; luckily I'm indirectly teaching through example because the students notice and quickly join in by picking up a few pieces too! Slowly but surely I may be able to make some changes to people's littering habits (fingers crossed).
And finally I have a lot of people asking for help with improving or learning English, so I may have another venture on the horizon. I'll actually have something to do a couple days out of the week, YAY!
Now in other news, the Purisima was this week. It's kind of like a Catholic version of trick or treating. There are houses throughout town that have shrines of the Virgin Mary decorated outside their homes and groups of people come around singing and chanting until the people come out and give everyone treats, like oranges, bananas, sugarcane, candies and chicha (a fresco made from fermented corn, cloves, cinnamon and is color of pepto-bismal). It's not my favorite fresco so I often pawned that off on any child that was standing next to me at the moment. And how could I forget fireworks. But fireworks aren't really all that special, unfortunately they have lost their appeal because I'm pretty sure I hear at least one bomba everyday and I still jump every time I hear the boom. So I hope I've painted a nice picture for you and if you're interested in experiencing it in real time come visit me next year on December 7! Hint Hint: I would like visitors, really anytime you don't have to wait until December.
Another highlight of my week: I watched ELF on TV. I love that movie so much and it just reminds me of Christmas and home, so I was elated to see the opening credits while flipping through the stations trying to find anything other than a telenovela. I did appreciate watching the movie, but I still can't fully adapt to movies/TV shows dubbed over in Spanish. They just lose some of their appeal, for example cotton headed ninnymuggin just doesn't have the same spark in Spanish - it's literally lost in translation.
I've been in site for almost a month now, and I really am enjoying it more and more each day (even though I do wish I had more productive things to do during the days). I'm beginning to recognize more people; I hear my name shouted while walking down the streets more often; and I'm starting to feel more comfortable in the community. The best day was probably the day of the Purisima - I was walking home and a whole truck bed full of kids started shouting my name, and while I was walking around "trick or treating" I would randomly hear my name shouted from different houses and corners and some kids even ran up and gave me hugs :)
I hope I've put enough of a positive spin on my experience in site to make up for my couple negative posts earlier. I promise I'm not crying as much as I used to and even though I miss home and everyone there I'm feeling good about where I am and hopefully where I'm headed.

Can I fast forward to February already?

So it´s been a week in site and I´m already wishing that time would go by more quickly. There were some highlights to the week, which I´ll get to later, but most of my days consist of me sitting around as reported earlier. And what makes it even worse is when people ask me what I´m doing, NOTHING! Just today I had someone tell me that I´d better do something otherwise I´ll start gaining weight just sitting around all day, Thank you sir! Even if I wasn´t already concerned about gaining weight from the carb loaded diet I eat everyday, or from the fact that I know I´m a big waste of space at the present moment by not doing really anything productive I still would´ve been offended by the comment.

So in addition to my sitting around, I attended a wedding on Saturday night which was a nice experience. I only knew the one person who invited me and I of course felt out of place like every other day here. I really didn´t pack for the various special occasions that I´ve been invited to. I wore a dress which compared to the Nica women was very casual and I was also told I wasn´t wearing enough makeup. But, in my defense even in the States when I wear makeup I don´t even wear enough for Nica standards. The wedding was very pretty and everyone was very nice until they made me dance. URGH, my face turned to a classic shade of red as I was pushed onto the dance floor and it proceeded to get redder as more and more people gathered to watch the gringa dance. What felt like an eternity and an inferno on my face, the song finally ended and I snuck off to sit down at my table. After the wedding there was a birthday party which I attended for a short while. I came late and one bottle of rum had already been disposed of before I arrived, if that paints a picture of the state of the guests. It was an experience. I had a man tell me in drunken English that I look like Barbie and have a nice face, which he proceeded to repeat over and over along with his life story. It was a fun time and all of these events are helping me meet people in the community, which I´m thankful for and they are all very nice and welcoming; it´s just too bad they all work during the day while I sit in the park with nothing to do.

I also attended a 2 year old´s birthday party on Sunday. Kid´s birthday parties are always fun, but they always have the exact same procedure: soda, food, pinata, Eskimo (ice cream), cake - and the cake is your signal to leave, literally it´s handed to you on a napkin and you gather your belongings and enjoy the cake at home. I chose a seat a little too close to the pinata and there were some kids aggressively trying to break the pinata, a blindfolded child with a broom handle and wildly swinging pinata overhead = a bit terrifying.

This first week passed by relatively quickly, but I had 3 events to attend to and was able to celebrate Thanksgiving with PC Volunteers by feasting on coffee and Nicaraguan food. Hopefully many of my weeks will have highlights and events that make the days pass by because when I have my family telling me that I can come home at anytime it´s only too tempting when there´s nothing for me to do.

La Linsi

Spanish to English translation: The Lindsey
That's right! For those of you that have heard/seen my high school graduation announcement and the typo that stated "Come celebrate the Lindsey" it's somehow followed me all the way to Nicaragua, Thank you Mom and Justin!
Lindsey seems to be quite a difficult name to pronounce for anyone outside the US, but I'm trying really hard to pronounce it with a Spanish accent so people will actually call me Lindsey and not Nancy. I don't know how Lindsey translates to Nancy, but oh well.
My new site is going.......well it's going. I don't have anything to do in my site because school is on "summer" vacation until February so I'm spending most of my days sitting in the park reading books and having gaggles (I know it applies to geese, but I like the word) of children surround me and quiz me on Spanish/English words. I've successfully finishing a book in record speed of 2 days, I may need to purchase a bigger library.
My rat problem may be better. I haven't seen any but I'm still awakened in the middle of the night by bumps in the night and unfortunately my puffy bags under my eyes are getting worse and worse by the day. Well I'd better go, I'm going to try and mail Steve's free trade agreement goods, I hope they make it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I really wish I could be there to celebrate with you all! Please enjoy extra helpings for me because while I'm eating my rice and beans I'm going to imagine it's turkey and other Thanksgiving fixings. I'm imagining the scene from HOOK where they have any imaginary food fight.....watch the movie and you'll understand.

Swearing In

It's official! I'm officially a Peace Corps Volunteer now! This has been a crazy, crazy experience thus far. Our hands have been held this whole time and now it's sink or swim time, we're being let loose into the wild. Will I survive?? I sure hope so.
I have been overindulging in everything delicious this weekend. We've been lucky enough to spend the weekend in a hotel, but unfortunately my shower still reminded me that I'm in Nicaragua. The water was still cold and I had about 5 tiny streams of water to wash with. But, that's the only thing I'm going to complain about because we got to eat in a food court and wander aimlessly around a mall - I was confused as to where I was, I almost thought I was back in the States. Today was by far the best because we were able to enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner, which was fabulous!! I'm suffering from a food baby right now because I fully enjoyed all the Thanksgiving goodness, including the obligatory slice of pumpkin pie! I'm slightly regretting all the food that I ate, but at the same time it was so delicious and it wasn't gallo pinto so I couldn't stop myself. Now tomorrow will be a cold slap back to my Nicaraguan reality when I move to my site and return to my three times daily serving of gallo pinto. :( Hopefully this touch of home will tide my cravings for a bit until the next time that I can indulge in delicious gallo pinto free food again.
I could and should write a lot more about the ceremony, but I'm still suffering from my food coma and that's all I can actively think about right now. I will say that it was amazing and I'm very proud of myself and my fellow volunteers for the commitment and adventure that we're about to embark on. And we made it on the Nicaraguan news, I think that it will make it onto YouTube and I will definitely be posting that as soon as I can.