Your friendly neighborhood Chela

Maybe it’s just me, but I seem to have a sign on my head that, anytime I’m alone, says “come up and talk to me!” When I wait for my theatre group to start on Tuesday and Thursday nights I’ve found it peaceful to sit at the outdoor volleyball court and watch the team practice, along with lots of other random students who make use of the space to toss balls around or just to hang out. And, without fail, every time somebody has come up and started talking to me, either to practice English (it's assumed that chelas [white girls] automatically speak English) or just to find out who I am and what a blond girl is doing at the UNAN. While I tend to have my guard up while walking around the city and try not to invite conversation, on campus I feel quite a bit safer so I usually play along and have met some interesting people. Last week I talked to a high school student from Mexico who now lives in Nicaragua, and we both talked about learning Nicaraguan slang and how different the accent is from Mexican Spanish. Later I met a guy who invited me to church, only to find out it was the church I already go to. I guess we just haven’t seen each other, which is funny because he is black (from the Atlantic coast) and as I am white, you’d think we would both stand out among so many mestizos, but I guess not. Well, now I have a new friend at church, and not surprisingly, he is eager to practice his English with me!

That goes along with a discovery I have made about the culture here which took some getting used to, but which I am fond of. When I meet a Nicaraguan it is not uncommon that on that same day they’ll ask for my phone number and ask me to do something with them. There is a certain openness and vulnerability about it that I like, as if they are eager to get to know me and it doesn’t matter if they already have a set group of friends. While it is a little uncomfortable at times (what if this person becomes really clingy or a phone stalker?), it so far has turned out okay and certainly makes it easier to make friends. I realize that I, by nature and as a product of my culture, am slow to take that step when I meet someone new. I usually figure that I have enough friends or am too busy, or I am just too shy to make myself vulnerable and say “hey, can I get your phone number and would you like to hang out some time?” right off the bat. A lot of people I’ve met don’t seem to let that bother them, and even college students are significantly less busy than students in the US. Most don’t have jobs and aren’t involved in 8 extracurriculars, so there are fewer excuses to use to distance themselves from other people.

A couple of highlights of this past week:
- I found a place where I am going to start volunteering. It is an organization called Mujeres en Accion (Women in Action), and it was started by a group of women in a poor barrio of Managua who offer different programs aimed at empowering women. I am going to meet with them for the first time on Thursday to talk about what I’ll be doing and work out the details, but it sounds like a great place.
- I discovered a place right behind my morning bus stop that sells fresh fruit smoothies for 50 cents. Obviously this is a big deal! It was perfect timing because mangoes, my previous fruit staple, just went out of season and now I have found a replacement for my fruit cravings (besides popsicles, that is).
-Yesterday Sarah and I went to the beach with our friend Gabriel, who is Nicaraguan, and a friend of his named Anna, who is from Boston. The beach had some amazing rock formations on the shore that were super smooth from years of being beaten by the waves, and it had some neat tide pools. It was generally just good for my soul to be out of the city and cool to think that even though I am far from home, I was swimming in the same ocean that I grew up around (though it was about 25 degrees warmer).