Home.

I have been back home for almost a week now and I have to say it has been wonderful. I no sooner stepped out of the airport into the crisp, frigid air in Seattle than felt like it was finally Christmas time (90 degrees just doesn't cut it for getting me into the holiday spirit). I have had a great time catching up with many of you and it has given me plenty of chances to consider my answer to the question "so how was it?" Since this question is often asked in passing, I usually spit out the words that I think most succinctly describe my experience. So far I have:
-intense
-a growing experience
-challenging
-adventurous
-thought-provoking

While discussing the past five months of my life over dinner with my mom the other day, I came to see that an emerging theme of my time there was truly learning to make the best of any situation, and as Paul says, to be content whatever the circumstances. There were lots of times when my circumstances were less than ideal, but somehow I can look back and honestly say that most of the time I was happy there, and I had a good time. It pushed me to be more emotionally independent, take care of myself, and figure out how to find the resources I needed when no one was around to show me.

Another valuable aspect of the whole thing was that it gave me unique insight into what it's like to be a foreigner. For most of my life I have never really been an outsider. Even when living in Honduras two years ago, I was fairly protected from many of the daily struggles of culture shock because I was living with Americans who knew the place and took care of me. In Nicaragua I gained more of a sense of how darn clueless you can feel sometimes doing things that were once simple to you, whether it's finding the FedEx office or learning the etiquette (or shall I say, lack of) for shoving your way onto a bus or picking up on idiomatic expressions and hand gestures. It has helped me narrow down, a little bit, my future career goals to something in which I am helping immigrants to the US in cultural adaptation. We'll see where that leads.

In the meantime, I am enjoying catching up with friends and family while looking for a place to live in Seattle and some source of income (if you know of anyone looking for a Spanish tutor, let me know!) I am thinking that I might keep blogging from time to time, so if you enjoy my musings, maybe we will keep in touch on the blogosphere.

Reflections...

Now that I am finally done with classes, papers, and, well, my entire college career (!) I´ve had some time to reflect on Nicaragua. I´ve realized that I´ve learned quite a bit about myself here, especially from some unlikely people.

For starters, I will miss my host grandpa, Raul (the crazy old man of previous blogs´ fame). Despite the fact that we never really understand each other ( a combination of my accent and his hearing, I suppose), we have become, as he told me today with slightly teary eyes "muy buenos amigos." Somewhere in the past four months, in between me running in and out of the house and him yelling indecipherable phrases while making the "hang loose" sign at me, I have come to really admire his calm, perseverant spirit. When my host mom (his sister) is cranky with him (which happens a lot), he has a way of taking it in stride, nodding his head, smiling, and often waiting until she turns her back to make a funny face at me which says "I´m not going to let that bother me." I laugh and make one back that says "I get you." It´s a shared little secret language we have which is rather funny. Not that my host mom is a witch or anything. She just has her moments when she´s rather high strung. There will always be people like that around us, and Raul has taught me how to laugh it off and keep on living your life.

On that same subject, I think I have developed my own spirit of perseverance and been forced to be really proactive in my life at times when I wasn´t quite sure where to turn for support. Through the challenge of navegating the UNAN´s academic system, making friends, improving my Spanish, learning the quirks of my host family, getting robbed, and getting to know a new city, I figured out ways to rely on God and my past experiences to get by.

I´ve been touched by the openness of my Nicaraguan classmates who became acquaintances and friends. It has caused me to question my own hesitancy to reach out to people sometimes, and to get close to people. Even though none of them will be my best friend forever, they accepted me like one of their own and are even planning a goodbye party for me. When I get back to the states I will be a lot more conscious of the experience of international students and immigrants in my midst.

Some of the best conversations I´ve had have been with taxi drivers. They are so open to talking about their life, family, political views, and experiences as taxi drivers. I will miss out on that opportunity in the States, I think I can continue the habit of trying to learn something from every stranger I encounter.

I have experienced more first hand the effects of poverty and underdevelopment. At one point in my life I thought of poverty only as the absence of material things. Some time ago I came to realize that poverty is not only not having a TV, house, or food; it´s also missed experiences, lack of opportunity, and inconveniences in daily life. Living in Managua has given me the chance to understand that firsthand. Even though I am fairly frugal, I did not live like a poor person here. I traveled on weekends, went out to bars and concerts, and used the internet whenever I pleased. Lots of my friends at school have not seen half of what I´ve seen in Nicaragua. They´ve barely left their cities because traveling takes money, and even going out at night involves a couple of cab rides. They miss out on things they should be able to enjoy, because they just don´t have the resources. As much as I may pride myself in living simply because I don´t buy fancy electronics, I am privileged to be experiencing so much.

I´ve become more patriotic while I´ve been here, despite some professors´attempts at the opposite. In spite of everything, there are wonderful things about living in a country that is relatively safe, clean, and just. I will tell people that they can argue with me, or you can also go live in the developing world for awhile and tell me how that goes.

My cyber cafe time is about to expire, so I will sign off for now. Check back soon for more updates. Lots of love!

Oh hey...

Hi there. I know I haven't written in awhile. I've been working on final papers and exams and emotionally preparing myself to come back home in a couple of weeks. I've been homesick and ironically that has made me less inspired to post. I'm still trying to think about what Nicaragua has meant to me and how to explain my experience here. In some ways I feel it has been very profound, and in someways very ordinary. I'll let you know when I figure it out... if I figure it out. Until then, I wish you all the best and am excited to see (most of you) soon!

Pictures from Up North

Here are some pictures from our group's trip up north two weekends ago, near Somoto Canyon.


At the end of a long hike! Gorgeous views....


Sarah, Mary and me, enjoying fresh-picked carrots from the organic farm.


Our group on a hike up to a rock face to see the rock carvings....



Where an old man spends his days carving images into the rocks.

Dia de los Muertos

Tuesday was a holiday here called Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which is observed in most of Latin America. I was disappointed when I learned that it isn’t considered a big celebration here like it is in Mexico, but nonetheless, it is a sacred time when people remember and pay respects to their loved ones who have passed on. In Nicaragua, this usually consists of going to the cemetery to put flowers on, clean and sometimes paint their families’ graves, and say a prayer. I was in Granada in the morning, a city which happens to have a beautiful cemetery, so I went to check out what the traditions were all about.

If most cemeteries are deserted and lonesome most of the time, this one was the opposite. Outside, dozens of vendors sold flowers, decorations, and brooms necessary for accomplishing the days’ tasks. Once I managed to squeeze past hoardes of people through the front gates, I beheld the sight of some of the largest and most well-kept tombs- all above ground- that I had ever seen. Inside was a flurry of activity as entire families dispersed throughout the area. I quickly realized that the most visible tombs belonged to the very richest families of Nicaragua- many ex-presidents are buried there- so I set out to find the graves that might have come from more humble circumstances. They were hard to find, but eventually I found a few dirt mounds with simple hand-constructed and painted crosses marking the name of the person who lay there. The scene at the cemetery was an interesting contrast: rich and poor, dead and alive, old and new. While I wouldn’t describe it as a celebratory mood, it wasn’t somber either. There was something about having the entire community out there, in the cemetery together, under a sunny sky, which gave it a special meaning not seen on other days of the year or in other places.

Because of Dia de los Muertos I had a long weekend, and used it to the fullest. Just outside of Granada there is a new treehouse hostel being built in the forest which isn’t open for business yet but is accepting volunteers to come and help out in exchange for a free place to stay for a few days. I happily took the chance to check it out. Besides helping build a “banana circle” (an organic system for dealing with waste water- I hadn’t heard of it either), I slept in a treehouse, watched and listened to howler monkeys, walked across a suspension bridge, kicked back in the hammock, ate great food, and chatted it up with backpackers from all over the place. Oh, and the property covered a whole mountainside, with trails all the way to the top, where the view was stupendous. It was fun meeting other travelers, hearing their stories, and seeing another beautiful side of Nicaragua. Apparently all around the world there are hostels which will let you work for a few hours in exchange for a free place to stay. If you’re interested, I recommend checking out Help Exchange (Google it!) to see what’s out there. It was quite the adventurous, cheap vacation.

Tell me the truth about this squirrel.

If you can say that sentence without effort, you're probably a native English speaker. Congratulations.

Recently I have been meeting with a couple guys to help them practice their English- both people who I met because they randomly approached me on campus one day and asked if I spoke English (ah, the joys of being so obviously a foreigner). It is a somewhat entertaining, and also fulfilling, experience. Both Eliseo and Pablo can read pretty well but need help with pronunciation. We went over words that I never considered would be hard to pronounce, like “truth” (that’s a lot of consonants!), “this” (the Th and the short I are both killers), and “squirrel” (oof). We also went over some choice four-letter words and idioms like “sort of” and “oh well.” In exchange, they helped me with rolling my double r’s (a sound which I thought I had down but it turns out I’ve been faking for years), and taught me some other choice phrases.

Last weekend I had another great adventure in the Nicaraguan countryside. Our group took a trip up north to an absolutely breathtaking piece of Mother Nature called Somoto Canyon. The canyon is more like a ravine in between two huge rock faces that was carved out by a river thousands of years ago. We had a guide take us on an epic trek. For the first couple hours we wound our way through the mountain trails until we got to the river, where we loaded all of our stuff into a (semi) waterproof container and, with the help of our life jackets, bobbed around in the currents and let ourselves be carried by the rapids. For probably a couple miles we swam, waded, and climbed over rocks to get down the river. One part of the adventure entailed jumping off a 13-foot cliff into the river in order to bypass a waterfall. I think that was a first for me. The terrain was so rugged, green, and beautiful. It was rejuvenating to be out in the fresh air and, yes, out of the city.

I have five weeks left in Nicaragua, and I have to say I am excited to come home and am glad that it will go by fast. Still, I have lots I want to see and do before I leave, so I am excited to see what other adventures I can cram into my time here.

Until next time!

This One Time, A Cow Almost Ran me into the Lake...

After two weekends in a row of random international trips, I decided to stay in the country this week. Here in Managua, the latest news is that the rainy season is coming to an end, mangoes are almost back in season, and our house just got painted yellow (a tone-down from the previous brilliant orange).

While I may have stayed in the country, I still found my way out of the city. Gabriel, Anna and I went to the nearby town of Granada, on the shore of the gigantic Lake of Nicaragua which takes up about a third of the country’s area. I enjoy that town because it is much smaller, safer, and easier to get around there than in Managua (but what place isn’t?!). I have to say that one of my favorite places there was a real live, actual, Seattle-style coffee shop. This was a big deal because they are hard to come by in Managua. Even though I could care less about coffee, the fresh scent, comfortable chairs, organic menu and colorful gelato assortment were almost too much for me to contain my excitement. I’ve been homesick for reminders of Seattle as of late, and this was a good remedy.

We also went to visit Gabriel’s mom, who still lives in the house he grew up in. This entailed an hour-long bike ride right along the beautiful lake on a road that was sometimes paved, sometimes falling into the lake, and sometimes blocked by cows. I hadn’t ridden a bike in months and I really enjoyed it, when I wasn’t nearly falling off the bike because my tire hit a piece of trash or stopped abruptly in a patch of sand. Riding along the lake, with the views of the green volcanoes across the water, reminded me a little bit of being on Whidbey Island in the summer and looking onward to green mountains. His mom lives in a simple concrete house right on the lake, so we splashed around a bit and ate a delicious lunch of fried fish (a Nicaraguan waterfront favorite), fried plantains (classic), rice, and beans (even more classic).

Back on the home front, I think my host mom and I have started to enjoy each other’s company more and are getting along well. And my host grandpa (her brother, so maybe my uncle?) is just as old and cute, but strange, as ever. I think if I ever write a novel I have some good characters already sketched out. He refers to everything I eat as “chompipe” (turkey), every potential thief as a “pirata,” (pirate), and everyday he tells the dog “No mereces mi cariño!” (You don’t deserve my affection!). In general, our conversations consist of him going on about how dangerous this or that is (“muy peligroso”), or about how natural disasters are the will of God, while I try to casually hint that I’m trying to do homework. Conversely, when I have a free hour I occasionally dare to initiate a conversation and he asks me to repeat myself five times before proceeding to answer a completely unrelated question. You never know quite what you’re going to get, so it’s always an adventure!

When I’m not arguing with old men about whether or not cold water is bad to drink when you’re sick, I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting about the reality of Nicaraguan society as I prepare to write my final papers. Recently it has begun to weigh on me just how serious Nicaragua’s economic problems are. I could have told you that before coming here, but it has started to strike me in a more personal, emotional way. As much as I am frustrated by constantly being the target of crime (I am up to 2 successful robberies and 2 attempts!), I see that there are simply no jobs here. Students at school are getting degrees without knowing if they will ever use them. It goes to show that education alone is not the key to development, if there is nothing to do with that education once you’ve graduated. As much as I am always happy to see the men pushing the Eskimo ice cream carts up and down the streets, I wonder how a 40-year old man who probably has several kids feels to be spending his life on a rather mundane, unskilled task. I suppose I take it for granted that I’ve always assumed I’ll dedicate my life to a job that both makes a difference in the world and is personally satisfying and challenging, not to mention that pays enough to live decently. I just about went crazy after two years at Jamba Juice. While I suppose the people juggling fire in the streets or wearing clown costumes around the mall are probably grateful to have an income, I wonder if it gives them dignity or satisfaction, or if they ever thought they would do something more.

As a final note, I’m trying to decide what to be for Halloween, and how to procure a costume. While it’s not officially celebrated here, there are enough foreigners in town to put on an event or two, and there is enough American influence that Nicaraguans are curious about how we dress up, what pumpkin carving is all about, and why the heck we let our kids accept candy from strangers.

What’s everyone dressing up as for Halloween?