Out of the frying pan into the fire!

Well as the name of my blog says it all, I am now leaving the comforts of training and jumping into the wonderful world of becoming a volunteer. Over all the training was really a great way of getting used to the Nica lifestyle and a GREAT way of meeting other volunteers. The last few days have been pretty nice, other than my stomach playing games with me. I am seriously dreading going to the PC office and gathering the rest of m things to begin the journey to Masaya. I know the microbus guys are going to charge me an arm and a leg for the stuff, but I just want to get it done now rather than leaving some of my things at the office and then having to come back in the next few days. We are all sitting here in the shade of our little breakfast nook trying to consume the last bit of American food we can. Some just ordered the breakfast served here in the hotel while others walked to Burger King and ordered the yummy BK breakfast. I'm looking over at Stephanie and I'm thinking of assaulting her and stealing her Crossanwich. But ill fight the urge. Well I wanted to tell you all how it's going, and I think Im going to jump in the shower and make my last tour of the city before I jump to Masaya. ADIOS everyone... I'll be back.

I'm officially a Volunteer!

As of noon today, Peace Corps Nicaragua added 38 new faces to the family, and I am one of those people. It was a great swearing in today!! It started with a despedida (going away party) with our families. My host mom and my nephew came and it was great to see them again. Apparently I forgot a shirt at the house so she ironed it and got it back to me...what a great mom! The ambassador to Nicaragua was also there and he gave a nice speech. I guess today was his last day of service, and will be moving to Miami to work on another project. Now I am sitting at the hotel next to the pool watching Scott pull a coconut off a tree and cut it open.... have fun on the island. We are going our for dinner right now, so I will come back later and write more but just wanted to say a few words before I lose the chance to use internet. Talk to you in a minute.

Hi everyone

In a just a few short days from now, I will be done with training and will say goodbye to my host family. We are being sworn in on July 25th, 2008 in Managua and will no loner be trainees but volunteers! At first I couldn't wait for this, but now I realize that training has gone way too fast and I have become accustom to seeing my friends everyday and having more Charlas (training sessions) than anyone could ever need in a lifetime. Soon this will all be over and we will spread out over the country to live for the next two years in our own cities. Its a very bittersweet thought because I am going to miss the hell out of all the friends I have made during training, but I am very excited to get to Masaya and get to work teaching English to the youth of Nicaragua. It will be nice to move from a town of about 5,000 people to a city of around 159,000 people but I will also miss walking down the street and random people saying, “adios John” or “Adios Chele”. (chele= white person)

So I have been trying to think of things to blog about but I cannot seem to think of anything. Mainly because I haven't done anything exciting in a while, but also the things that I thought were weird or different when I got here have become part of daily life and I no longer find them weird or different. So with that said, I will need your help on things to blog about. If you have any thoughts or blog ideas, let me know. I think in the next few days I will go around the city and take pictures of Dolores so I can put them on the internet. I do have a shutterfly account where I would like to put all of my pics, but it takes forever to put the pictures on the internet because it is very slow here.

Lets see what can I say about the last few weeks. Umm Ive taken up reading again... I know right?! ME...READ? BLASPHMY. I am currently reading Janet Evanovich's One for the Money which seems like a promising book. Before that I read, Two Dollar Bill, Me talk pretty one day, Possible Side Effects, and The Kite Runner. When I went to the Peace Corps office I hit up the library that they have there and I grabbed a few more books which I'm sure I will have read in the next month or so.

The other night I was asked by my sister's husband if I could help him look on the internet for a soldering gun; he fixes TV's and his old one broke. I assumed this could be a simple task because he said that we could buy it online and ship it to his brother who lives in Miami and then his brother would send it here to Nicaragua. Well we went online and I looked on Google, of course, to see where I could get a nice one at a good price. After about an hour of looking he asked me if it would be faster if he gave me the name brand and the model of the gun he was looking for. LOL After we got the model number we looked for a while longer and he kept saying that it was not the one he wanted. I was getting a little impatient because we had looked and found the same model on 20 different sites, but they were not what he was looking for. After a while he found the one he was looking for on Craig's list. Turns out that the model I was blindly looking for is over 20 years old and is made out of bronze instead of aluminum or copper like they are now-a-days. He said that he wanted to find it at a store new, and not used. I had to explain to him that we were not going to find this model new ANYWHERE because of it's age. He kept insisting that we HAD to find it somewhere new because it was a good model. I then had to explain to him how things work in the US, and that although it may have been a good model, companies are always finding ways to make products for cheaper by using different and cheaper materials; I also said I was content to keep looking but I honestly thought that we were S.O.L. He finally agreed and I sent the website to his brother in Florida to look at and inquire about.

Last night we went out to the bar to celebrate everyone's July birthday in our group. There are four of us celebrating July birthdays: Me, Sonia, Scott, and Erin. A few of the girls left the bar saying they had to make a few calls home before the places closed. A few minutes later they came back to the bar with 3 cupcakes and candles and sang happy birthday to me, Scott and Erin and we enjoyed a delicious treat! Thanks for the birthday cake guys!!
Today is the day of the Revolution so we are unable to leave our sites because they feel that it is too dangerous for us to be traveling all over the place. Starting last night they began lighting off bombs to celebrate. When I say bombs, I don't mean bombs as in car bombs, but more like fireworks that just explode in the air without the colors. These things are loud! Many times when they begin lighting off the bombs, the car alarms start going off because these bombs could raise the dead. They are not thoughtful by any means when they light these things off; they start lighting them off around the clock. 3 AM is the earliest that I have heard them go off.

It's been a while

Well ladies and gents, my fate has been decided. I shall live the next two years in the great and artistic city of MASAYA!!

Before we went to the meeting to find out where were are going to live, we decided to play with fate a little bit, and have everyone throw in 10 cords (50 cents) and guess where everyone would be sent to, and the winner would keep the pot. The total got up to 120 cords, and the winner was Lara with an unbelievable 4 correct guesses. Way to go Lara! You still have a way to go before you can call yourself a psychic, but that 120 cords sure helped pay for your beer at the bar. (And of course when I say beer and bar, a rough Spanish translation would be coffee and and coffee house, respectively.) I have been told that some of the TEFLers out there are not telling where they are going but, I'm going to let you in on a little secret where the people from Dolores are going. I will be going to Masaya, Masaya; Elizabeth is going to Chinandega, Chinandega. Lara and her hubby are going to Leon, Leon and Ryan is going to **ahhem** Villa el Carmen, Managua. We are all going to capital cities except for Ryan. (see Ryan, I told you by giving them money, they would send us to nice places...you should have listened to me!) It was a great surprise to everyone where they are being sent, but when I got my name called, I was excited and could do nothing more than an enthusiastic fist pump! Below are a few pictures of us when they called our names, just so you can see how happy we were.... well most of us.





The last few days, Elizabeth and I have been talking about how when we move to our new sites, how said it will be that she wont be able to see me. Oh yeah and that I wont be able to see her either. So we decided to jump on the Nicaraguan bandwagon (yes, they have them here too) and buy a picture of us printed on a piece of wood. But these are not like any ordinary pictures, you see, they carry the picture of the person superimposed on a wonderful background such as a garden, or a waterfall; they also have butterflies (also superimposed) and about the size of the person's head flying in the background. We were so excited to see them man walking around our city today we took a picture to him. On Monday Elizabeth and I will join the ranks of the elite, by becoming owners of said picture. Oooh I cant wait. I will take a picture of it and put it on just as soon as I can, so I can share it with the world. Until then, I will share the pictures that we gave the man. You will notice that we are not smiling, but rather are carrying somewhat of a serious face. We decided that we want to be able to look at the picture an laugh our asses off when we are alone, without each other.



**************** a few days later***********************************

Well, I went on my site visit, and it was somewhat of an awakening. I really realized that I should enjoy the time I spend with my friends here in Dolores because in about 2 weeks, I will not have them in close proximity for the next two years and that is very disheartening to think about. The first night was very uncomfortable. I came there very late at night, and the meeting we at the meeting beforehand in Managua we were supposed to be served dinner, but that never happened; I arrived at the house and my counterpart told the family that we did not eat so they busted out some food and made me dinner. The entire next day, and the following half day, I didn't converse with my family much, and when I did, it seemed very weird. But that passed like a horrid B.M. The third day, they brought me to the Laguna de Apoyo on the outskirts of Managua, which used to be a volcano, but for some reason is now filled with water and is an awesome lake/ excellent place of rest. From then on, my family and I spoke a lot more and I felt a LOT better about the whole situation. I suppose it was a little weird for them as well, as I was the first PC volunteer that has stayed with them, so I'm sure they didn't know what do do/expect.

On my site visit, I met with all of the English teachers and also met the chief of police of Masaya. She seems very nice, and as a matter of fact, she has family that lives in Madison, Wisconsin so we had something to talk about. She told me that if I ever need any help or just want to talk around the city with her (so that everyone knows that I am friends with the chief of police so they don't “F” with me) she was willing and happy to do so. She even gave me her personal cell phone number, so we are like BFF's now.

I thought that I was going to have a very sad and uneventful day on the 4th of July, but it turned out otherwise. There is a group of American Legion people from the states (St. Louis I believe) and they hosted a party with free beer, hot dogs, and hamburgers for all American and British people in Granada. I guess the Brits were included because it's sad they lost the war. The first thing Liz said to everyone after opening her first beer was, “Way to win the war guys!” I thought it was funny... because war is something to laugh about. Totally kidding. Either way, we met a lot of American who live in Granada who are in charge of NGO's and great people to get to know. They were great!! THANKS AMERICAN LEGION GRANADA POST #1 for a great time on my first 4th of July out of the country!!







When I came home it was great to see my family! I was welcomed home with a big bowl of Albondiga soup! MMMMMmmmmm. I love that soup. My host mom also let me know that when the man came to deliver our pictures to us, she gave him a piece of her mind! The man had told us that the pictures were going to cost us 250 cords, and when he came to the door my mom started the conversation, “How do you think that you are going to charge these people 250 cords for these pictures, that is ridiculous.” The man (red in the face) answered, “Well, I never told them a price, but I'll give it to them for 200 cords.” My mom answered that with, “well it looks like you made those pictures in vain because I will not let them buy those pictures for 200 cords either, you are without shame sir, trying to steal the money of volunteers. They don't even get paid enough money to survive here, let alone buy frivolous things like the pictures. Looks like you lose a sale.” He then offered to sell them for 170 cords and she accepted the offer. LOL. She is a great bargainer.

Well, for now that is all I can think of, so I will leave it here. ADIOS