I had so much fun it made me sick....

I have officially survived my first Nicaraguan Semana Santa. The first half of the week was pretty normal because most people were still working up until Thursday. Wednesday I went to the beach with a local NGO where I teach English. We fished, we cooked, we laughed, and I even played some soccer. It was a thoroughly awesome day.

This is the director, Rafael, wearing a ridiculous hat and showing off the catch of the morning:


Some shots of the fishing net:




Cute kid:


and the BBQ (this NGO is partnered with an organization in Germany so we even had super tasty German sausages, mmmmm):


Thursday I met up with some friends from Managua and we headed to the center of all things Semana Santa: San Juan del Sur. We spent the day on a nearby beach watching surfers and then enjoyed some of the night life.

The group at Playa Maderas:


A beautiful sunset on the beach:


Friday through Sunday was all spent running around the local beaches not far from my house. At one point I actually saw a temperature gauge and it was 40 degrees celsius which is, bum ba da bum, 104 degrees! Holy crap was it nice to be at the beach. More highlights:

Chillin on my back porch:


Lots of people at a beach that's normally deserted:


Out with friends:


Overall it was quite the week of celebrations. So much so that virtually no one showed up to school on Monday so we gave one class to a group of 8 students and then left. I also now have a cold. The week also ended on a bit of a sad note because one of my neighbors passed away on Saturday night, supposedly he fell and hit his head but that doesn't sound like the whole story to me. This guy lived next door to the NGO I mentioned above about a block from my house, he was always a little off his rocker but definitely quite the character. My first conversation with him went something like this:

Mario: German!!!
Me: No, actually I'm American.
Mario: Welcome to my country, here's a gift to remember it by (gives me a rubber band).
Me: Thanks.
Mario: Would you give me your ring to remember you by?
Me: Um, no, this ring is very important to me. I'll give you your rubber band back if you want though.
Mario: No, keep it.

That was quite some time ago, recently he took to simply yelling "Hola, Chela" (Hello, whitey!) at me when he walked past my house. He shall be missed.