Nandasmo

This tiny pueblo is my new home for the next 11 weeks.  It has been a long five days since I arrived in Nandasmo on Saturday morning.  Let’s just say it’s taken this long for the culture shock to finally subside.  My host family is incredibly sweet and ridiculously poor.  My mom, Ceyla, and host dad Roberto are still rather young for having daughters Sheila(7) and Jhorleni(14).  My new house is blue and white with fresh Nica air flowing throughout.  Like all Nica houses I do not have hot water or air conditioning, but I do have indoor plumbing and electricity as promised.  My room is rather small, but it doesn’t really matter because I never find myself sitting in it.  I should mention that Ceyla has four sisters and Roberto has seven siblings who live in the neighborhood with their children.  I made a family tree tonight to help sort things out and it was quite the event!  Everyone had an opinion on how it should be done and had a pencil in had to help draw.  At any given time there might be about 20 people wandering through my house.  I have no idea who is my aunt, uncle, or cousin, but they know who I am!  Everyone is very interested in the gringo girl.  I was also thrilled to find that my host family has a sweet little dog along with a two-month old puppy that is absolutely adorable!  I’ve never seen such a playful and happy puppy.

Me with the puppy!

When I arrived on Saturday I wandered aimlessly not knowing what to make of my surroundings.  I received the most rural training site assignment possible for a business volunteer, which was hard at first, but I’m starting to realize that this lifestyle is going to teach me more about Nica culture than any text book or big city.  My family does their best to accommodate me and persuade me to love their small town as much as they do.  In an effort to showcase the Nica culture my mom Ceyla insisted we go to the neighboring town’s fair on Sunday night.  My entire family plus cousin David loaded in to my dad’s taxi(did I mention he is a taxi driver?) and drove to the next town over for a fair to enjoy the festivities until 10pm.  I was pretty impressed with their stamina since little Sheila has class early and Roberto drives to the large city of Masaya for work around 7 am.  A popular Nica band was performing while I danced with other volunteers and members of my family.  The fair was very similar to an America fair with art, jewelry, popcorn, cervezas, and cotton candy, which I haven’t had in years!  It was great to run in to other volunteers that live in that town which isn’t hard when we stick out like soar thumbs!  During the day on Sunday I hiked with Pedro(another volunteer) to the town’s lookout over the nearest lake which has a public pool with a restaurant which should be opening soon! On Sunday I also taught a yoga class in Spanish to other volunteers and our host sisters, which went over really well!  Yoga is going to be my saving grace over these next few months.  Let’s just say there was more visual than verbal ques, but I’m sure I’ll get better as my Spanish improves.

Monday was the first day of training, which was held at my house.  I naturally wake up around six in the morning here with the rest of the locals to the sound of trucks and roosters in the streets.  Since I am up and the air is cool I have been taking advantage of that time for an early run before class starts.  I’m pretty sure the locals think I’m insane, but I just nod and say “Buena” as I run by.  Hola is common here, but Buena is short for Buenas Dias and is the typical Nica greeting.  I do enjoy the language training.  I have already learned an incredible amount of new words since I’ve been here.  What’s great about the training is it isn’t just out of a text book and its solely in spanish.  No one, I mean no one, speaks English here.  Our trainer is a local Nicaraguenese who walks with us around town and is taking us to a large market in the capital on Friday to actually use our Spanish in context.

My class

Our second day of training was dedicated to learning how to get around Nica.  Nicas don’t use street names or addresses, just imagine.  The directions to my house are from the internet café go half a block “arriba” which translates to up and means east here.  It’s the blue house with two trees in front.  The most popular mode of transportation is a moto taxi, which is basically a motorcycle with a carriage behind it with room for three people(see pics).  Everything is ridiculously cheap, which is good news considering my salary.  To put things in to context, I spent 10 Cordobas on an hour of internet use which is around 50 cents here.

My family is fascinated with the fact that I do yoga.  I taught another yoga class at my family’s house and everyone was getting in on the action.  The eldest daughter was pretty in to it until the seven year old broke in and showed her up.  Not minutes after that my dad got involved.  I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard with so few words spoken.

I just spent the last hour with my host family in the kitchen going over all the fresh foods Ceyla bought at the market.  I told Ceyla that I love fruits and veggies to get her mind jogging since the Nica diet consists mostly of rice, beans and anything fried.  The good news is there is a lime, avocado, and banana tree in back that I can utilize when in season.   While we sat around chatting my family insisted on calling volunteers that they have hosted in the past and still keep in touch so I could chat with them.  The past volunteers filled me in on all the places to go out for fiestas and get cervezas.  I’m slowly getting in to a routine here and I’m totally appreciating the torrential down pours of the rainy season, which cool Nandasmo off in the evening.   Tomorrow we have our first session at the local school and on Friday we start our community bank.  I’ll have the projects section of my blog updated in not time! I’m off to the Cyber café to post this blog if I can get the puppy to stop wrestling with my pant leg.