Random Pictures

This is a sign on the way to Jinotepe picturing Daniel Ortega. It is praising the fact that it has been 30 years since the Sandanistas took control from Somoza. The graffiti says ¨moclin¨, meaning dirty old man that touches little boys inappropriately. Ortega is definitely not loved by all.

This is our street with the pulperia (small store) on the corner. The guy in the Titan´s jersey is Raul, my host brother.

My host mom, Isolina and her granddaughter Mallerli (she´s four).

Our backyard is huge and contains tons of plants like peppers, bananas, yuca, oranges, etc. There are also medicinal plants. (try to ignore the undies on the line)

What I look at while brushing my teeth each morning and night.

We have two sinks outside and four washing areas. The one of the far left is where clothes are washed and I brush my face and teeth. The one with the red bucket is where the dishes are washed. The one you see on the far right is where shoes are washed. The one not pictured is for mops and other house cleaning uses.

My closet

My bed is covered with the mustard colored mosquito net. It takes up practically the entire room and I leave it up all the time. Before I go to bed and tuck it under my matress, I check to make sure nothing is in it. The net has been great for keeping the bugs away (I get bit less here than in TN).

The kitchen- we wash the dishes outside in the sink. You see the big jug of water... that´s for the gringa in the house. All my food and drink must be made with purified water.

My spot at the dining room table is the head spot. At first I felt REALLY weird about this, but now view it a bit differently. It is nice to be between the two people talking so that I can hear better and understand more conversation.

The front door and wall that seperates the dining room from the living room. My host dad built this house.

This is my host family´s house. Here we have the living room with tv, sofa, armchair, coffee table and 4 rocking chairs.

Behind and to the left of the people is a mototaxi. These go up and down the Panamerican Highway between Dolores and Jinotepe transporting people, people with sacks of potatoes or whatever, pigs, chickens, etc.

This is somewhat normal to see here- cart pulled by oxen or horses. Sometimes you´ll see a man pulling the cart.

My life rocks!

My life rocks for so many reasons. Please let me share a list with you.

-We got our medical kits from Peace Corps. They contain just about anything you could want and they are refillable. Including the following. (I hope you can read the fine print)

• I understood a joke my host dad told me and was even able to comment appropriately on it! This is huge considering he is really hard for most people to understand.
  
• I have a fantastic counterpart, Tania, and we had a very productive planning session. (Even while she was breast feeding her 1 ½ year old son)
  
• I’m done with my Rabies shots and don’t have to get any other vaccinations.
  
• Our second youth group was 100% better than the 1st. We sang Hokey Pokey and decided that we will sing in English for our final project. One group wants to do a rap song with a didactic message and one groups wants to do “We are the World” by Michael Jackson. He’s REALLY big down here.
  
• I learned a valuable lesson about attitude, frustration, and approach with the youth group.
  
• I’m healthy and able to run, eat and sleep well.
  
• I can finally understand the twins more than 70% of the time. The other day we talked about their favorite Barbie movie. Elementary, but definitely a start.
  
• My host family and I get along and they give me hugs.
  
• The other PCTs are amazing and fun to be with.
  
• Spanish classes are less frequent so I have more time for independent study. On one of our last days we played a game in the park. It was definitely "Watch the gringos" hour.
  


• I’ve stopped sweating so much and the weather has changed a bit. The other day I actually wore a long sleeved t-shirt. It kinda feels like October weather in TN.
  
• We just finished our first three weeks here! On one hand it seems like I got here yesterday and on the other it feels like I’ve been here months. I am beginning to feel much more comfortable.
  
• I talk with my family in TN consistently and even call some friends.
  
• Katie’s package is in Nicaragua. Peace Corps will deliver it to me on Wednesday. I’m so excited to get my first package and am dying for Wednesday to come!
  
• My hair is currently in a ponytail. Granted it looks a bit like a dog's butt, but it´s out of my face.
  
• My host mom now lets me help in the kitchen. Today I cut and washed the vegetables for beef stew (everyone in the family had a task) and she showed me how to make coffee.
  
• I learned how to wash clothes the Nica way.
  
• I had a great conversation with my host mom about wedding customs. We flipped through a 2004 issue of Weddings and we were both amazed by the extravagance. She was showing me the types of dresses she can make. She’s phenomenal on the sewing machine and says she’ll make my Swearing In dress.
  
• When I go running or walking in the streets, I recognize people and am able to greet them and talk for a bit. Everyone is very friendly in Dolores.
  
• I played a street game with the neighborhood kids last night. I was thinking of the movie Wayne’s World. “Game on!”
  
• We watched the Sandlot (“FOREVER”) and The Ugly Truth (we bought it for $1 on the street) this week. You know how much I love a good romantic comedy.
  
• I’m starting to know my way around Jinotepe- the larger city close to mine. Dolores is no problem; it’s only 4 blocks by 6 blocks big.
  
• People here wear lots of shirts in English, but don’t necessarily know what they mean. Here are some examples:
  -Nica girl wearing “Blondes are the life of the party”
  -Grandma Nica wearing “Tap Dance” with a picture of a beer tap and a pint of brew with tap shoes.
  -Young Nica guy wearing “I’m pro-choice for the Heisman”
  
• I’ve been able to live comfortably on the PC budget of $20/week.
  
• I can understand the radio announcements. However, I’m not sure if this is an accomplishment considering I hear the same ones at all hours of the day and night blaring from huge speakers in the back of trucks driving in the street. I dream about them… maybe this goes on the negative list.
  
  I feel so fortunate that my first few weeks here have been so great, successful, and fun. Not everyone is having the same experience. One of our 19 trainees is being sent home on Tuesday. We are getting two different stories from him and from PC, but the issue revolves around the fact that he cannot hear well. We all hope that he can stay, but it doesn’t look promising.
  
  My Spanish has also been improving a bit. Here is one example of a learning opportunity I recently had. The four Dolores trainees were in class with Damaris and we were talking about University in the States, how expensive it is, and how people pay for it. This is how the convo went:
  
  Me- “Yo tuvo una vaca” (I had a scholarship*)
  Steve- “Qué hiciste con la vaca?” (What did you do with the scholarship*?)
  Me- “hmmmm…. No entiendo” (I don’t understand.)
  Steve- “Vendió la leche or la vaca?” (Did you sell the milk or the cow?)
  Me- “O… Yo tuvo una VECA.” ( Oh, I had a scholarship)
  
  Note to self: VECA= scholarship, VACA= cow
  
  I hope you all had a great week!
  
  BTW: If you would like to read Elizabeth’s blog, it is http://lizinnicaragua.blogspot.com/
  Steve’s is http://stevenmcarpenter.blogspot.com/
  

Belly Full- Finally!

I’m sitting here with my belly full listening to the church karaoke across the street. It’s the third time this week and I’m catching myself singing along. They are really loud with lots of clapping and they have the same clapping issues as we whitties do. Today was a good food day. Isolina fixed chicken on the bone with vegetables and soy tortillas for dinner and an oatmeal drink. For lunch the four PCTs in Dolores went with our Spanish teacher, Damaris, to Liz’s house. Her host mom, Doña Cristina, cooked yuca topped with pork rinds, shaved cabbage, tomato and beets. It was random and the pork rinds weren’t my favorite, but I absolutely love yuca. Breakfast was my usual: cherry jello with bananas and coffee. I like to start my day off light after a nice jog.

I have a chance to write tonight because both Isolina and Francisco are at church, and for once I don’t have Spanish homework. Tomorrow is our last day of daily class and I am wicked pumped. It will be so nice to have time to go to the market with Isolina and help her around the house, read the newspaper and discuss it with Francisco, watch a movie with Alexander in Spanish, and work out a bit more in the mornings. Don’t get me wrong, it has been great to ease into life here with my gringo safety net. But I feel like I am ready to dive in to my family. This comes at a time when I’m really starting to get into the classroom for co-teaching and co-planning. Steve and I also just started our youth group- which is story within itself… for another day.

When I first started this blog tonight I heard a little thunder. Now it is coming down so hard it sounds like the roof will collapse. That is one thing out Nicaragua, when it rains it pours!

So I wanted to take a moment to tell what I am thankful that I brought to Nicaragua:
· Wrist watch- I use it every morning when I run to know when to turn around and run back.
· Computer- it saves me a ton at the internet café (which we call the Cyber)
· Microfiber towel- Thank you Katie! It dries me off well and then dries itself well too.
· Flashlight- At night I have to get out of bed to turn off my light and then use my flashlight to get into the mosquito net. Also helpful to find the bathroom.
· Bag of perfume samples- I never sweat in the US unless I’m exercising. Here I sweat way more frequently. This little magic bag makes me smell better. Why, you may ask, do I not just take a shower? Because it is viewed as extravagant to take more than one shower a day.
· Individual drink mixes and Nalgene bottle- We drink a lot of water here (because we never have milk, I don’t want to buy coke, and we need to stay hydrated). These help vary it up a bit.
· Alarm clock- I usually wake up around 6am. Sometimes I don’t need the clock because the chickens and other birds wake me up.
· Prescription Sunglasses- It is really sunny and these have been phenomenal.
· 3” x 5” Mirror- It is the only time I see my reflection. The other day I saw myself in a full length mirror and actually stopped in my tracks. I didn’t recognize the other person because I hadn’t seen myself in three weeks.

Things I could have done without:
· So many dressy clothes- their “dressy” doesn’t even reach our “dressy casual”
· So many socks- I only wear them when I run
· Dictionary- They gave me a better one the third day we were here. And I have only cracked it once when we had homework. I usually figure out words by describing the object or concept and asking what it is.

If I could pack again, I’d bring:
· Dressy open toed sandals (everyone here wears them)
· More pictures
· Art materials for the classroom (tape, scissors, markers, crayons, colored paper, paper clips, etc)
· Books with ideas of teaching activities

BTW: I haven’t had any really strong food cravings since I have been here. We’ve had pizza twice and I have to admit, it was fantastic! Vegetarian pizza rocks!

Why don’t we have a week to celebrate our Independence?

This whole week has been one big celebration, meaning that there was no school and nobody worked… except the gringos. We still had class Tuesday thru Saturday. However, on Monday we did get to observe the parades. They really go all out. It started around 5am with fireworks coming from the park (1/2 a block away) every thirty minutes. I finally threw in the towel and got up around 7 and watched my little host nieces get ready. They marched behind the band because they made such good grades. In Dolores, we had two separate school bands about 45-60 people strong. As you can see in the pictures, the bands consist of almost exclusively percussion. But the truly amazing thing is that they learn to play by ear; it is rare that someone can read music here. There was one little guy who was deaf and mute and was right up front, playing his little heart out. He is related to my host mom, of course.

After watching in Dolores, my host brother Raul and his wife Hazel took me to Jinotepe and we watched another 5-7 schools. It was hot as hell and all these little kids were dressed in heavy uniforms probably intended for use in Michigan during late fall. They were sweating and people were bringing them drinks in the street. They would just stop playing and chug some bottled water or bagged cola. The girls were amazing, shakin’ what their mama gave ‘em and looking like they were ready to pass out. But they put on a show and there were massive amounts of people there to watch. They were pushing and hanging from trees, climbing on anything they could to get a look at the spectacle.

This is Steve drinking cola from a bag. If you´d like to hear about his adventures, check out http://stevenmcarpenter.blogspot.com/

So other than the independence celebration I have been to a lot of technical PC training sessions. We spent half of Wednesday in Diriamba, all day on Friday in Managua and then half of Saturday back in Diriamba. Each time we have 2-3 sessions where current PCVs present topics such as: working with your counterpart, making materials, methods for the classroom, activities to incorporate, etc. They contain good info, but I can speak for most when I say it’s a lot of information. I’m counteracting that by not doing any of the assigned readings.J Instead, I have been reading The Time Traveler’s Wife, which is nice, especially when it rains really hard on the tin roof.

It has been wonderful hanging out with my training site mates (Megan from West Virginia, Elizabeth from outside of DC and Steve from Michigan) everyday and then getting to see all of the TEFL trainees three times a week. We are getting tighter as a group with basically no topics off limits anymore. I’ve been visiting others in their sites to see how they are living. The differences in the houses are sometimes astonishing.

This week I have been able to run twice and look forward to running tomorrow. I finally feel well enough to attempt it and it has made a great difference. It gives me the energy I need to get through class (sometimes this in itself is a feat) and gets me in a better mood. While I’m running, I’m also laughing at all the random things. For example, I had to pass a road full of oxen and really thought I would spook them and they would trample me, but I was good. My host dad, Francisco says that when I’m in a bad mood next time he is going to kick me out of the house and throw me my tennis shoes. He’s right on!

BTW: We were coming back from Managua on Friday in a PC vehicle and we saw that others were swerving into the other lane ahead. When we got up to the spot, we realized why they were doing this. There was a guy passed out cold in the road and no one would go out and get him. Can we say random?

This week we met up with the Project Director, Joayne. She interviewed everyone to learn what their experiences and preferences are. While we were talking, she mentioned that those with teaching degrees will be put in a site that is centrally located in a region so that we can help all the teachers in the region. I will probably be traveling to help observe/evaluate other TEFL volunteers during the first year or so, as well as getting conferences and workshops together for all the English teachers in the area. Who knows, I might be in a big place and possibly even with a site mate. It is way too early to know anything, but you never know.

Well, I hope all is well on the home front and the fall colors are about the change. I’ll really miss seeing it, so if anyone wants to send me some pictures, that would be great. Thank you to everyone who has written me emails in the past week or so (pcnic09@yahoo.com). They really make my day!

PCT Laura Sanders

Cuerpo de Paz

Apartado Postal 3256

Managua, Nicaragua

Centro America

Random Photos

Above is my host mom, Isolina. She is about 55 and a very nice woman. She makes clothes, including the outfit she is wearing here. This picture was taken on our way out the door to go to the Quinceanera.

Our bus of gringos leaving the training retreat to meet our host families. If we look a little tired and disgusting it is because we are wearing the same clothes we arrived in 3 days earlier.

These are my host nieces. The twins are 8 and the little one is 3. They are adorable, but I can hardly understand them.

This is me leaving the Knoxville airport with all my luggage. It looks like a lot, but it actually wasn´t too bad.

I don´t remember what it feels like to NOT be sick

Well, I am at the end of my second weekend with my host family. It sure has been an interesting week. I’ve had Spanish class 6 hours each day, and can proudly say that I have now improved my proficiency to Advanced. This means that after two more weeks I won’t have class everyday, but only once weekly to discuss Nicaraguan culture.

Wednesday- The whole TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) group got together today to discuss a health issue in Peace Corps. This past weekend, someone was tested positive on a test that could indicate the H1N1 Influenza (Swine Flu). That girl and 6 others that she was in close contact were brought from their training sites to Managua to be in quarantine. They received Tamaflu and were put up in a hotel. Peace Corps got our training group together just to let us know they have medicine for all of us and give a talk on symptoms to look for.

Thursday- Today and tomorrow we have a National Conference for English Teachers. There are over 1000 in attendance including all the TEFL Peace Corps Volunteers. Different presenters give sessions on various topics. As I have mentioned before, the English teachers here are in need of our assistance. The Ministry of Education (MinEd) quoted to us that 60% are not certified teachers and the other 40% have a low English proficiency level. It was good to talk with MinEd and sit in on the session to see exactly where these teachers are coming from. It gives me an idea of why I’m here… and now I know I do have a place here.

Friday- My first medical testing was today. I haven’t been feeling too great for the past two weeks, and finally decided to see what was actually going on with my body. The results say I have a bacterial infection from something I ate down here (yeah, that narrows it down) and my body reacts to any fat or dairy. Limiting dairy is not an issue, because I can think of two times I’ve eaten it. One morning I drank a bit of milk in my coffee which is a treat down here. The other was a dish called “atol,” which is milk cooked with corn starch and cinnamon. Afterwards, I was up every hour that night being sick… fun times. The grease in the diet is a bit harder to control considering that the main ingredients for food here are oil and salt. To get feeling better I have to take an antibiotic and limit my diet to fruits, vegetables, and liters and liters of rehydration salts. Finally I have an excuse to ask for no bread or gallo pinto!!

The gringos had a movie night at my host brother’s house, with his wife and friends. Steve and I made a special trip to Pali, the local supermarket in Jinotepe (1 km away) to get Oreos, chocolate milk, snickers, popcorn, Diet Coke, spicy yuca chips, and more cookies. It cost us a whopping 180 cordobas ($9). We finally settled down to watch Nacho Libre, where a Mexican monk played by Jack Black becomes a wrestler with his atheist street rat side kick to help out the orphanage where he works. The gringos thought it was pretty funny, but it wasn’t as funny to the Nicas. Can we say awkward? I guess it was the world balancing out after the experience we had at the conference today.

The conference’s closing ceremony started off mundane with the president giving 30 minutes worth of “special” thanks to a laundry list of people. I think it even included the guy that changed the light bulbs that morning in the auditorium. Afterwards the Nicaraguan version of Adam Sandler came out, acting like an old man walking slowly with his guitar. Because he was speaking with a forced old guy accent, no one but the native speakers in our group could understand him. He started singing a comedic song about gringos and all heads in the auditorium whipped around to stare at us. Do the gringos understand? Are they going to laugh? Can we laugh? I understood enough to know he was making fun of the way we dress, eat, dance, and use protection not to have 15 children. I’m sure there was more, but I stopped listening and started to play MASH with another chick (Ashten Kutcher and I are going to live in an apartment near a trash dump in Kasas where we have 7 kids and drive a horse-drawn cart and I’m a professional meat slicer.) . After the ceremony, multiple people stopped to take pictures with the gringos. I couldn’t help but feel these pictures were going to become something of a trophy. “Look, I got a picture with the gringo that only drinks bottled water and nothing with grease!”

Did I also mention that the closing ceremony included a rap performed by one of the English teachers? Language conference and rap concert all rolled into one!

Saturday- I went to a Quinceanera, a party celebrating a girl’s 15th birthday. It started with a processional from the girl’s house to the church. First came the court, made up of 10 or so couples that the quinceanera picked out to support her on this day. At the church, they had a brief 10 minute ceremony talking about how she was now a woman and had responsibilities, and the procession went to the restaurant. The girl and her father had their first dance and then the court performed a choreographed dance. Afterwards, the Christian band started playing their ear splitting set (seriously, my ears are still ringing) and the people were served their FIRST dish of food. **The US is not the only ones with an obesity problem** No one was able to talk because the music was so loud, and it was a Christian celebration so no one could dance. The best part was the 40 year old chick next to me that kept asking if I knew any gringo that she could marry. She emphasized that it didn’t matter if he was ugly. Any takers?

When I got back home, my host dad was kind enough to kill the mouse I found climbing on the wall above my bed. Thanks, host dad! All of you should be proud… I was not girly… no screams, no running away, nothing!

Did I tell you that during training they showed us Nicaragua Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmer? The best part was where he ate iguana eggs. They are soft boiled so the yolk is still runny. You pop the whole thing in your mouth, suck out all the insides and then you have to pull out the shell. Zimmer just about puked! One of my site mates, Steve (who happens to be vegetarian) was served iguana eggs by his family. He tried them… and to see his face as he recounts it is fantastic! I don’t think he ralphed, but he was pretty close. It might have been a dine and dash… to the bathroom.

A few things I’ve seen on the street:
- Dead dog
- Men completely passed out on the sidewalk
- Ox drawn cart
- Horse drawn bicycle
- 23 people packed in a microbus

It´s the small things that count

So I am quickly learning here that my successes will have to be measured a bit differently here than they were in the US. For example, navigating a taxi is usually not a big thing, BUT today I really did a good job. My friends and I were traveling here to Jinotepe to go to the Cyber (internet cafe) and we had to go by the post office first. I was able to get the correct cab, tell them where we wanted to go AND get the nica price. He tried to charge us 6 cordobas, but I knew better... it should only be 5! :)

We have also made it a game to try to figure out what all the advertisments mean and why stores are named certain things. So far I´m in the lead.

Another way that success here is different is how I spend my day. Yesterday was very good. Here´s how it went:

7 am- I got up and was planning on taking a shower. However, there was no running water at the time so I had to take my first bucket shower. My host mom was very nice because she boiled some water to mix it with the reserve water so it wouldn´t be a cold. When I was done, she commented on how I bathed like a nica- without using much water. I had breakfast with my host mom (watermelon, crackers and coffee) and then headed out to school.

8am-12 pm- We attend class in another volunteers host house and talk about family, cultural aspects we don´t understand, or special topics the teacher brings up. We really don´t have to write anything besides new words or grammar words we don´t know. Like I said before, I´m the dumb kid in class, so my notebook is quickly filling up.

12 pm- After morning class I return to my house, which is about a five minute walk. Lunch is usually soup of some kind. Now, I love soup, but I find it hard not to sweat to death while eating it here. I wash my face before I go back to class so the others don´t think I´m about to fall over from heat stroke.

1-3pm- More class, but this time in the park. Class is always more fun outside. Today for example we played Simon Says, aka Laugh at the Gringos Hour

3-6pm- This is the time that I hang out with the other volunteers in my town. We went to the Cyber and picked up a chocolate doughnut at the bakery. It was heaven!

Around 6 or 7- I eat dinner with my family each night. Usually it is my host parents, and their son and his wife. We eat gallo pinto (rice and beans), some type of meat, and vegetables. One night I got a quesadilla type of thing but the tortillas were of corn, fried and filled with a typical salty cheese made here in Nicaragua. Not exactly like Applebee´s. Dinner is a good time for me to practice my Spanish because I am finally warmed up a bit and can speak freely. I am finding that I am not nearly as funny in Spanish as in English- at least not when I mean to be. Trust me, I am their source of entertaiment currently. They definitely get their fair share of laughs at all my mistakes.

8-10pm- After dinner I go to my room to study. For the first time in 3 years I have mandatory reading that I will be tested on. It feels nice to be a student again, but it´s hard to stay awake with such dry material.

10pm- Finally I brush my teeth with my bottled water at the outside sink and wash my face. Did I mention that I sweat quite a bit here? When I return to my room, my alarm has to be set for tomorrow and the mesquito net has to be arranged just so before I can crawl into bed. Once there, don´t forget the ear plugs!

First week in Nicaragua

Hello everyone! This is my first week in Nicaragua and it has been a fun and interesting 7 days since I left Tennessee. Last Tuesday all the Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs) going to Nicaragua met in Washington D.C. It was wild to walk into a room and almost everyone be extroverted. They had set up an ice breaker for us, but none of us needed it. Within thirty minutes, the game was forgotten and we were all just having a great time! We went through a few training hours which was the typical coma-inducing class you find at any seminar. The best part was meeting everyone… there are two groups: TEFL (19 people) and Environmental Education (18 people) and we come from all parts of the country. Many people are from California and the Mid-west. I am one of 2 southerners. I guess I’ll have to call ya’ll to hear the Appalachian drawl.

After class ended around 7pm a group of us went out, where my last U.S. dinner consisted of a buffalo chicken sandwich and a nice pint of Stoney’s amber ale. Our group decided that there was no point in going to sleep since we had to check out of the hotel at 1:30am, so we stayed out and got back just in time to make sure we had everything.

The airports were a big blurr. It was 3am by the time we got to the DC airport. Apparently I was sleeping on my bag in line, because the random businessman behind me had to wake me up occasionally. We finally reached Miami around 8am where we were supposed to meet the PC Director Aaron Williams. However, since there was bad weather, our plane was delayed for HOURS and he had to move on. We finally did see him a few days later at the training center.

The training retreat was like one big summer camp. We bunked three to a room, ate in the cafeteria, and had class for the majority of the day. What really made it feel like camp was that we were all stinky. You see, nobody received their bags when we reached Managua. One lucky group received half of their bags on the 2nd night and the rest of us got them the day we left the retreat (Friday). I met my host family in the same clothing that I left Knoxville in. But no worries, I still gave them a big hug but then quickly excused myself for a long, COLD shower!

A few nights ago I woke up in the middle of the night. This is not an uncommon thing, because even though I wear earplugs to sleep, I can still hear the music, chickens and roosters, dogs, and something that sounds like a whistle. I woke up because I had to pee. I’ve been drinking tons of water so as not to get dehydrated, but I didn’t want to get out of bed to go. Let me explain the process: I sleep under a mosquito net to prevent dengue and malaria, so I have to untuck that from the bed and find your way out, put on my shoes (you can’t walk barefoot or you might get worms), and then find my way to the bathroom. All this kept going through my mind as I lay there covered in a sticky layer of sweat and bug spray, asking myself if it was worth it. Finally, I just had to go. But then do you flush the toilet and make noise, or just leave?

Sunday morning, my host mom and I went to the market in Jinotepe. I currently live in Dolores, the smallest “town” in Nicaragua, which is about a kilometer from Jinotepe. We were in search of some flip flops for me and chicken and vegetables to make soup for lunch. It was quite the experience, which there is no way I can do justice. (Go to youtube and search Nicaraguan market. Look for the outdoor one.) There are people selling anything and everything you can think of. To name a few things being sold: granny panties, vegetables, pirated DVDs, spices, little pigs, lottery tickets, home-made sweets, 4 inch wedged shoes, and a tube top that stated the wearer was “hot stuff”. They have stalls on the streets and you just look around for the person who is selling what you need for the best price. I’m so glad that I went with my host mom or it would have been very overwhelming. She always goes to the same people each time because she has known them since she was a girl.

It was also helpful to have her to navigate the taxi. My town, Dolores, is right on the Panamerican Highway (all my students should know what that is) so it is very easy to get to other towns. But apparently they have taxis that only go to certain places. Now, there is no marker or indicator of that; you just have to know. If you get into the wrong cab, it can cost you much more than the real price. So we got into the correct cab, and along the way we picked up two other people. Yes, that’s right. It’s like splitting a cab, but you never know how many they will try to pile in. We were lucky there were just 5 of us going there. On the way back there were 6. The good thing is it only takes 5 cordobas per person to take the cab… that’s roughly 25 cents.

There are 3 other “aspirantes” (aspiring PC volunteers) in my town. We all have Spanish class together 6 days a week for three hours in the morning and then again in the afternoon for as long as they want to keep us. I tested in as a strong Intermediate high speaker and the others in my group as Advanced Medium speakers. That makes me the dumb kid in class. So I am really going to have to put in the effort to keep up. To do that, I’m currently reading Charlotte’s Web in Spanish that I borrowed from my 8 year old host nieces. She keeps asking when I’m going to return in… but I’m only on the fifth chapter! I am excited about the 200 hours of language class that I will receive in the next 3 months. Apparently the PC language program is one of the best in the world for the results it gets.