Nica Initiation

I’ve been officially initiated in to the Nica culture and I don’t mean to allude that I received a diploma of any kind.  That’s right my friends, I have a parasite!  A few volunteers and I went in to Masaya last week for an amazing lunch of ceviche and tropical smoothies.  Around 8 pm the following evening I knew something was up.  Let’s just say I spent most of Thursday night not in my bed asleep, but attached to the toilet in some way.  All four of us in my training town were hit hard!  We all showed up to language class the next day with a pale and queasy look about us.  After a few days of intense antibiotics I’m feeling back to normal!  One blessing in disguise was my inability to eat greasy or fried food while taking my meds, in turn improving my diet immensely by adding a new variety of fresh fruits and veggies!

By Saturday we were in good form for the futbol game. Viva Barcelona!  A group of us volunteers went to a sports bar in Masaya, which was recommended to us by my host dad.  We watched the game on flat screens standing out amongst the Nica locals.  Rum and coke is the typical hard drink here and lucky for us Flor de Cana(Nica rum) was on promotion ha ha!  The guys have also started a little tradition you may know as icing……but we call it frosting here.  Basically when someone is least expecting it someone purchases a Smirnoff Ice or in our instance a Victoria Frost(nica style) and typically sneak it on to their seat when they’re in the bano.  As soon as they discover the gift they have to get down on one knee and chug.  So far the guys are just frosting each other, but we’ll see how this progresses.

This last Monday was Mother’s Day and naturally a huge holiday here in Nica. I was granted a long weekend with a chance to explore my town of Nandasmo instead of language class on Monday.  Pedro and I hiked down from our town’s Mirador to Laguna de Masaya for a swim.  The Laguna was once a volcanic crater that filled with water and looks just like a lake.  The water was warm and the sun blazing.  I celebrated Mother’s Day at home as well with a large home cooked lunch of carne asada for the ladies and a trip to the ice cream parlor a town over with my family that night for Eskimo, the only brand of ice cream here.  I also treated my mom to a pineapple cake, which I purchased at the most fabulous bakery in Masaya!

I think I may have mentioned that we have started a youth group in my town.  The objective of the group is to create a sustainable small business that utilizes the local resources here in Nandasmo.  We have had a consistent group of about 15 youth of all ages at our meetings and contributing which has been truly amazing. Tonight we voted on what product we want to make for our small business, which will be a version of recycled materials to make decorative candles with artwork on aluminum.  It’s hard to describe really, so I’ll post pictures eventually.  We start our business plan next week.  The youth are really engaged despite our broken Spanish.  Having language class almost everyday has improved my Spanish greatly, but I also feel like living with a host family makes me aware of just how much I really don’t know.  The seven-year-old daughter loves me despite my inabilities and continues to join me when I do yoga in the evenings at my house.

This week I also observed a class at the local school where we will be helping to implement the Entrepreneurship class I talked about previously.  Observing the class was a real eye opener as the children were tardy, disrespectful and received no help from their half asleep teacher!  I have my work cut out for me! Class planning starts on Monday and I’m teaching a class with Pedro to high school seniors either Tuesday or Thursday, wish me luck!

Oh I got a cell phone this week! It’s no iPhone but feel free to text me, its free! All you have to do is visit the Claro website and text my number from there! (Instructions on my contact page)

 or call me at +011 (505) 8701 8514.  Nica fun fact: doesn’t matter how poor you are, everyone here has a cell phone, if not two. It’s free to receive calls but costs to make them. There are two cell phone companies Moviestar and Claro.  I have a Claro family plan through Peace Corps, which means I can call/text all Peace Corps Employees/Volunteers for absolutely free, but not a Moviestar phone, weird.