When they say don´t have expectations, that means the internet as well!!

Well, I jinxed the internet. Our cyber cafe has been inexplicably closed for several days now, so yeah. Hopefully it´ll be functional again soon, but for now I will only have access once or twice a week. I wrote most of this entry on Sunday.

Transpo!!

Anyway, the transportation strike is over so I've been learning to navigate the local transportation system. Because we live in the boonies, the first step to go anywhere that isn't within walking distance is to hop in a taxi. The taxis run a set route from here to Jinotepe, the departmental capital city, for 5 cordobas, about $0.25 per person. In Jinotepe you can catch a bus to pretty much anywhere in the area for cheap. Our group classes are held in Diriamba, so we know the right corner to stand on and wait until a microbus pulls up (they're little van like things that hold about 12 people comfortably and lots more uncomfortably).

Pretty much all the buses and microbuses have their destinations written on the windshield, so it'll say Jinotepe – Diriamba for example, but in case you don't see that part there's always a guy hanging out the window yelling the destination. It takes a careful ear to understand them sometimes, since Diriamba Diriamba Diriamba!! turns into Dyambadyambadyamba!!! Then they stop along the way to pick up more passengers or drop people off. Today I went with another sitemate and her host-mom to Masatepe to visit one of the small business volunteers and get more practice traveling around.

Pueblo Planning

Now that I've been to a few towns of varying sizes, it's become very clear that towns here are based on a particular system of the Central Park and Church. The central location is always a one square block park, generally with a play area for kids and possibly a basketball court or other sports area as well, and across from the park is the Big Catholic Church. In Minnesota they say you need a bar and a church to make a town, here it´s a church and a park.

Youth Whatnow?

I've gotten a few questions about what it is I'm doing with this youth group thing, so let me say a little more. We´re working on this independent of the school, so there are no teachers involved. The mayor´s office is helping us though, because they´re connected with some of the youth organizations in town and know everyone anyway. So right now we´re working on getting a project chosen and started. Looks like we might be helping to clear an area and plant some trees for a new park in a little settlement of about 50 houses not far from El Rosario. I go from being very optimistic to very pessmistic on this venture.

The Big Picture

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by everything, and sometimes I feel good about it all. Changing our planned time for the youth group meetings will free up time that we can use to start co-planning and co-teaching at the school which is difficult to schedule. Training is intentionally difficult, much like the application process, to weed out people who aren't in it for the long haul. The days are long but I'm slowly adjusting more to the noise and I'm pretty used to the food now too. When I'm not exhausted, things are a lot easier to handle :)

The host family also continues to be good, the power was out this morning so I was chatting with my host dad who, much to my surprise, has read the autobiography of Isadora Duncan – the mother of modern dance!! Latin American men are famous for their machismo, and all I've heard so far about Nicaraguan men is that they're all liars and cheaters. Listening to some of the other trainees talk about how uninvolved the men in their families are makes me all the more impressed that my host dad and brother-in-law spend so much time with their kids/grandkids. The whole time we were chatting, my host dad had his little granddaughter playing in the hammock with him. And as soon as he gets home from work, my brother-in-law is playing with one of his daughters.

Sidenote: we do usually have electricity, but it's gone out two or three times this week usually as the result of a strong rain though I don't think it rained last night. It is, however, raining a whole lot right now, so we'll see what happens tonight. The water, on the other hand, comes and goes. I think it works more often during the day when I'm not home, but we keep two big barrels out back full of water for washing clothes, dishes, and ourselves. I did get to take a real shower last week for the first time when the water was actually on, but generally it's bucket baths (take a 5 gallon bucket of water, use a smaller scoop to dump the water over your head, wash, rinse. I can bathe using less than ¾ of a bucket!) and dumping water in the toilet to “flush.”

In closing, I missed two weddings this weekend, so congratulations to Rosie and Nic and to Steph and Burt on what I can only hope will be happy lives spent together!