Niquinohomo, Nicaragua—My home for now and the next 9 weeks (-:
So in the short 3 weeks that I have been here, I have noticed and (hopefully) adjusted to many things. My town that I love is called Niquinohomo and is about an hour, hour and a half by bus from the capital city of Managua. There is a carretera (highway) that connects my town to a handful of other towns where other trainees, including Matt, are living. The highway is two lanes and often you can see horses wandering and hanging out on the side of it.
In my town there are probably about 15 streets that run east to west and 10 or so that run north to south (the main ones, I am sure there are more I just don’t know about). There are no street names and no addresses –I am use to the no numeral addresses, but the no street names makes it tough on someone like me who has such an awesome sense of direction to begin with (-: directions are given using how many blocks north south east or west from a point of reference such as the park or church or policia to get to where you want to go….
I am use to being surrounded by noise constantly, whether it be the newborn in my house telling us he needs something (-:, people just generally talking—which they do loudly here, roosters chickens dogs bird parakeets etc—storms, thunder lightning—and everyone’s favorite—the “baratas”—or old pickup trucks that drive around with a megaphone making various types of announcements at all times of night and day—these announcements can be about an event, a special at a store, people selling things out of the truck, or telling the town about a death of someone from the town or nearby (this is how everyone finds out when the funeral will be)—So far, my family has lost 2 close friends since I have been here—and there have been 2 funeral parades in my town—that involve everyone marching up and down the streets carrying umbrellas and playing lots of musical instruments—the music usually sounds pretty happy however. Another sound I hear a lot is just the people that walk up and down the streets carrying huge baskets on their heads selling bread, tomales, or other goods—I am pretty amazed at their ability to do this---and at the talent with which they call out what they are selling—joe tomales joe tamales joe tamales!!!!
I am accustomed to seeing moto taxis and 2-3 people riding the same bicycle in the same street as horse and ox drawn carts—also wild chickens and roosters freely roam the streets. I have also seen the BIGGEST pig of my life and a few others not so big kickin it on the streets. There are dogs EVERYWHERE and little kids running around playing soccer in the street sometimes with a small ball or bottle or whatever they have---there are a few basketball hoops in addition to the real court, or cancha, that my town has right next to the big stadium we have where they play soccer and baseball. I am pretty in love with ALLLL the little kids here and they often giggle and scream gringa gringa gringa! As you walk by---or sometimes they call out Hello or Goodbye, which is encouraging since you are here to teach English (-: I have also become accustomed to avoiding animal droppings of all sorts in the streets—which are all cobblestone-- and have taken to generally just walking in the middle of the street as most people seem to do…..there is no such thing as a stop light in my town….it is pretty tranquilo and I am quite fond of it and its peeps. People sell individual items out of their houses, like there is one house you go to for eggs, and another to rent plastic chairs, and another that sells beans etc. Some people, like Matt’s family, operate small stores out of their houses—pulperias, or may have internet cafes or sell shoes etc.
I have become accustomed to rocking chairs and spending most of my nights rocking and talking on my family’s patios as people stroll up to our house to ask about what we are selling that night—pollo hamburguesas, tacos, gallo pinto etc---I can even pass the order along to my mom or sisters who are usually busy in the kitchen. Matt and I are pretty convinced we will have lots of rocking chairs in our house in the future…I am used to a cold bucket bath every morning and filling up buckets of water to use to flush my toilet. I am getting use to doing my laundry by hand and the consistent smell of fire in my backyard…I am accustomed to tons of people passing in and out of my house—most of them family members and a lot of whom live right across the street…..I have become accustomed to going to bed around 830 or 930 and waking up around 530 or 600 without the help of any alarm…
I still have a lot to learn and need to practice my Spanish as much as I possibly can, but even just writing this helps me feel like I have been doing some adjusting over the past few weeks! I hope this helps paint a somewhat clearer picture of my town—which is a little similar to Matt’s—his is actually a little smaller, but cleaner because it has more tourists—a lookout point over the Laguna de Apoyo—it has a hotel and tons of arts and crafts stands and also tons of gardens and small plant nurseries.
As far as work goes, there is no lack of that—me and the 2 other people in my “group” have a youth group that meets twice a week to practice English, we are starting to plan a teacher workshop based on the requests of needs the professors at our instituto told us they wanted help with, and we will start co-planning and co-teaching classes (hopefully) this week—and we still have Spanish classes and usually on Weds and Fridays we have Peace Corps Training sessions in which all the other volunteers in my sector gather for formal training on different topics such as Building Strong School Relationships, Lesson Planning, and Materials Development etc---oh and to get vaccines—I am sick of shots! But understand they are muy necessario…I think we have received about 7 so far—and I thiiiiinnnk that may be it……
My host family is still amazing and they take care of me like I am one of their own for sure (still thinking about that warm water bucket bath I had when I was sick!) though they have begun to realize I am a little crazy (-: aka can be pretty emotional sometimes---I have earned myself the nickname “tranquila Julia” in my house bc I stress out too much apparently (-: but am certainly learning how to cope with a variety of tasks and adjustments while being “mas tranquilo”!
We miss you guys MUCHISIMO and have been getting random updates from some of you peeps up home that we LOVE even though it is hard to realize how much we are missing out on back home---it is way better to hear from ya’ll than not!!!!
Ok this has been quite the novel, we should be finding out our placement for the next 2 years sometime during the next few weeks so we will definitely let you guys know as soon as we do!!!!
TODO NUESTRO AMOR—
Tranquila Julia y Ya Tranquilo Mateo
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