Hey guys, I know it's been a while. Time is so strange here, like it works in a different realm. The days go by slow, but then I look at my calendar and BAMB - "Mayo" has arrived. Tomorrow I will be celebrating my one-year anniversary in country, and on August 1st I will be celebrating my one-year as an official volunteer. So whoever you are, whereever you are, or however you are, buy a drink and raise it for me, and then we'll be celebrating together.
How bout' a work update?: 1) In a few weeks, I'll be working with the local cooperative in town helping give agrobusiness charlas (lectures) to local farmers. 2) I have joined forces with a truly awesome environment volunteer, who lives a few kilometers up the highway, and we will be giving charlas to youth groups about recycling materials and using them to make new products (ex. jewerlry out of glass bottle caps and nail polish). 3) I am still teaching Entrepreneurship on a daily basis to the senior classes of 3 high schools, and the subjects are starting to get a little more complex. Wish me luck. 4) I am teaching English to a few groups (age range 8-50), and this proves to be a more promising venture than trying to teach whole classes at once. My props to the English volunteers, you guys are my heroes. 5) I realized that the community bank that the PCV before me started is still running, so that's good! I will be working with them a little more directly from here on out. 6) I am sleeping in my hammock for at least 30 minutes everyday; you should buy one, seriously. 7) I have killed 5 scorpions to date, and haven't been stung by one yet. Although I have been stung by 2 bees... Okay okay, enough with the boring stuff...
I present to you wonderful people, although the majority could possibly be living in my head, a re-cap of my vacation on the Caribbean side of Nicaragua...
In the beginning of Semana Santa (Holy Week), I set off with 2 travel buddies to explore the east coast at roughly 9:00 pm. There was some slight confusion about the bus we were taking due to a poorly-operating roman numeral system, but eventually we made it to El Rama at 4:00 am. After a 2 hour wait, we were on a small boat with about 20 others and their luggage to go to Bluefields, where we waited for another hour, and caught the final boat to our distination Pearl Lagoon (Applause). Our friend Nga greeted our grungy, oily-haired, sleep-deprived faces with a camera and butt-out hugs. At this point, it was around 11:30 am, and sleep was the only thing on our minds... well, and a bucket bath. We got both. During the night we met her boyfriend, who will be referred to as Cool Runnings from here on out, and some other guys in town. After dinner, we were all besties.
After a night of relaxing and gossiping about what girls gossip about, we woke up and decided that that day would be a beach day. And how could it not? Walking through rows of coconut trees, grass (not astroturf), and reggae music, we had entered an atmosphere entirely unlike what we had been accustomed to the last year. We were in paradise. It turns out there wasn't really a beach, but a hill with tiki huts serving seafood and chicken, and blue water below. But this water was different. This water was paradisiacal water. We were able to sit in the water, sipping on drinks and playing with the coast kids, for hours. You could honestly walk out half a kilometer and the water would only come to your waist. Eight hours later, at the sun's decent, we decided it was best to get walking; we'd be back.
The next day we caught a bus to a town called Rockey Point, and talked to some local farmers. This is an ag site, and walking around felt like walking through a beautiful tropical forest; fortunately, the mosquitos were few and far between. I drank coconut water straight from the source, ate the remains, and tried a variety of other tropical fruits fresh off the tree. After a few hours, we heard the bus horn calling us, and decided it was best to turn back. The dilemma - we were a 20-minute walk from the main road. "Looks like our 20-minute walk turned into a 2-hour walk," we chimed. But we were not deterred! And eventually after 45-minutes of Disney songs sung and 78 bottles of beer taken off the wall, we were picked up and our hitchhiking duties were fulfilled. When we got back, our local boy friends made us the traditional dish of RunDown (a scrumptious mixture of hot coconut milk, starchy veggies, and seafood. We had 3 types of fish, a crab, and a shrimp... the shrimp was for me). Good day.
On our 4th day, a Wednesday, we shopped for veggies so Nga's host-grandma could make a yummy lunch. We ran into some new volunteers, and all had savory fish and steamed vegetables together. It was a relaxing day, and we followed it up by going horseback riding in the Savanna, forest on one side, town on the other, wide open plain in between, for absolutely no money at all. Talk about your Caribbean hospitality, eh? There was one casuality that involved Nga falling into a swamp, and Cool Runnings jumping in after her, but I won't go into that.
Thursday was another beach day, and just as beautiful as the one prior. Aside from a complete stranger-man asking us to take him to our country, it was another blissful experience. That night we got all girlied up and went out with some friends for drinks and chair-dancing (a complicated affair which involves moving different limbs to the beat of music without actually getting up from your chair).
On our final day we "splurged." For sixteen dollars each, we rented a small panga boat and motored our butts an hour away to a set of islands called the Pearl Keys. We chose our island, one that you could walk the length of in under a minute, with only 6 coconut trees and gorgeous white sand, and settled there, a group of less than 10. As an unknown treat, the boat captain grabbed a pointy stick and a pair of goggles, dived into the ocean, and brought up a handful of lobster for us to share. And holy hell, Red Lobster doesn't have anything on this. About an hour later the boys went out fishing, while us girls were playing with starfish the size of our heads and glowing with happiness on our private island. A little while later we all had fried fish and sweet plantains, swallowed down with the national drink of rum and coke; the fact that it was warm didn't sway our delight. It was a near-perfect day.
The next morning we had to leave, not wanting to go in the slightest, and promising to be back next year to relive our experience in paradise.
Just to brag: In 7 days, I spent approximately $115 (Travel, Lodge, Food, Boat ride, Getting pretty, etc...), and it was worth every penny. Can you get that experience for that price anywhere else? I don't think so. Even the mosquitoes couldn't kill my spirit!
So if there's anything you've learned from this story, whether it be to get your ass to Nicaragua on the next plane, or to defend your favorite restaurant Red Lobster, I hope you at the very least enjoyed the tale. Love you all. Aleia.
Pictures of travel buddies, new friends, RunDown ingredients, and good times.