Nicaragua: The End

Our (supposed) last night in Nicaragua, we booked a hotel in Managua called Hotel Wayak. It was beautiful, clean, and modern. For $65 a night, we got an air-conditioned room with hot and cold water and a private bathroom for our first time in Nicaragua, access to the pool, a full free breakfast with unlimited coffee and juice, and an air-conditioned private shuttle to the airport included! It was more expensive than anywhere we'd stayed, but worth it, and we were determined to end the trip on a high note. Unfortunately, fate had other plans for us.

When we tried to check in, we found that TC's tickets weren't printing. When we went to the desk to ask why, we found out that it was because his flight was booked for the next day. Ugh. So, he had 24 hours to lie on the floor of Managua airport. I reluctantly said goodbye and continued onto my flight to Miami, a short 2 and a half hours away. Unfortunately, rain at Miami meant that we had to wait, fly to another airport for fuel, and the runways were backed up to the point that by the end, I spent 6 hours on the plane instead of 3. Not only that, but even though I had a 4 hour layover, I got off the plane with less than 20 minutes to catch my flight.  The man I sat next to on the plane from Nicaragua tried to help me and look up my flight, reassuring me that it'd probably be delayed and I would be able to make it.

And the plane was delayed by an hour, but the line for customs, security, and finding and rechecking in my luggage took much longer than an hour. When I asked a lady about my flight she told me "It's gone" with a dismissive wave of her hand. So now I was alone, frustrated, far from home, lost as in what to do. Thankfully, a group of ladies coming from Jamaica heard what transpired and commiserated with me about how unsympathetic and unhelpful everyone was, and they made up for it in the help they gave me. They let me use their phones since mine had died (of course), and they even called the airline for me. None of us were sure of where to go, and neither did the people working for American airlines apparently as they led us from one line to another, back and forth. I'm glad that they allowed me to follow along because they were more assertive than I am, and demanded that we get a connecting flight and be serviced right away. But was still 10 pm by the time I finally managed to book a flight to Dallas at 6am the next morning, from which I could transfer to Seattle. This kind group of ladies even offered to let me stay in their hotel with them! But as I would have to leave for the airport at 4am and it was already midnight when they asked, I decided to just pull the second all-nighter of my life.

I also chose to wait a bit because I'd been traveling for 11 hours straight and was starving. As I waited in line, I met another bunch of wonderful people. This couple, which had also missed their connecting flight, asked me if I wanted to sit with them. They too were on their way to Seattle after their honeymoon in Antigua. But more coincidental is that they actually lived 2 hours north of Seattle...right outside of Bellingham! I am so grateful to all of the people who reached out to me last night and were so friendly and kind. It makes me think that I should travel more, and being by myself wouldn't be so bad. However, by the time I reached Seattle only to be detained another hour and a half before finding out my luggage was in Miami still, I was pretty done. I think I could do without airports for a while after 26 hours in one...or four....

Anyways, here are some final thoughts on Nicaragua, as I know everyone will be asking:

How was my trip to Nicaragua, overall?

Given the chance, would I do it again?

The answer is, I'm very glad that I had this experience and now knowing what it entailed, would still want myself to have had that experience. It was a very different culture where I had some unique adventures, saw some beautiful sights, and met some inspiring people. But in terms of going back...all I want to do right now is go home, and really traveling anywhere else seems less exciting right now. So one good takeaway of the trip, is that it made me love my home in Washington even more. Nicaragua is a great place to travel as a college student, as it is a busy, bustling place where walking in the streets means weaving through streams of people and getting used to their constant clamoring for your attention…some ways better than others. (i.e., I can get used to people selling products and waving them in your face, I could live without pervy stares and being called “chinita” every couple of minutes, by children and men alike – but all male) There are chances to go on amazing adventures where you can board down volcanoes, hike up mountains, swim in craters, or scuba dive in the Caribbean. And it is amazingly cheap: the five week trip, including airfare from the states, airfare from Managua to the Caribbean coast (Corn Islands), food, and 7 nights total in hostels/hotels, I spent about $1600.

But, as expected, part of the reason why it is so affordable is that Nicaragua is still developing in many ways. I don’t want to perpetuate a stereotype that Nicaragua is this poor third world country that needs people from everywhere else to save it from itself. But as I said, sexism and racism are quite common. The city regularly shuts off the water for hours, without warning. There is no hot/cold water, and the only place where we found air conditioning was in one of the supermarkets a 20-minute walk away, making it one of our favorite places to visit. It was also the only place to find yogurt and salsa; I guess that’s not a Nicaraguan thing. I know that there is some progress being made toward improving many of these things, and there are posters admonishing child and domestic abuse randomly dispersed among the streets, or even a particularly harsh one against teen pregnancy in a classroom of 4^th graders (a bit misdirected? Or maybe not, I don’t know what the situation is). Whole art murals are painted on walls to encourage people to keep the streets/Earth clean.

In terms of school, new buildings are being built by volunteer organizations like La Esperanza Granada that also supply materials and enthusiastic volunteer teachers, although I hear that the education system has actually deteriorated in recent years, with less organization and expectations of the students. It was a good experience for me to have to work with a different education system and school culture, but I have to say that it is not for me personally. I don’t think that I have the temperament, at least right now, needed to be assertive and commanding enough of a classroom to create some order. I was pretty disappointed by the lack of student interest and participation, and straight refusal to do work or interact with me. With so much coming and going of volunteers and so little time in each class, it’s hard to say how much of a difference I was really making.

I was always amazed by what the students were learning in Spanish, with everything from the history of Honduras’s colonization to sine and cosine and the difference between abiotic and biotic. How could students be learning this when we can’t get  them to remember head, shoulders, knees and toes? I wondered. I was also amazed that the classroom teacher was teaching all of this, when our teachers specialize into subjects at this level of complexity. It seems like students do better with straight note taking, even though I’m not sure how much understanding they really have and how much is simply copying as games quickly deteriorate into chaos and students are not eager to generate their own responses. But there were in each class a handful of students eager to learn and get to know us, and I hope that these students can go on to pursue their educations and make use of it!

TC and I agreed that maybe in a few years, when we can see the effects of these improvements, we would be happy to go back. We never got to see the north side, which is known for cooler temperatures and growing amazing coffee (the coffee was actually pretty mediocre in most of Nicaragua since it gets exported). We didn’t do as much hiking as I would have liked. And we really didn’t get to know any of the local people as much as I’d have liked to. I know that Nicaragua has much more to offer than we even got to see.

So one last thing: what effects do I think this trip has had on me? Well, I can’t say that I feel like a new and enlightened person, or that I changed lives and will never be the same. My Spanish is not suddenly flawless, although I have lost a lot of my hesitation in making mistakes and speaking in front of people. I found that most people could understand my poorly constructed sentences or supply my lacking vocabulary from the context and my silly gestures. I found the Nica accent to be quite understandable, especially in contrast to the lisping Spanish of the many Spanish volunteers we met. I became comfortable with asking people on the streets for directions and advice, bargaining for fruit, and weaving around the streets to get where I needed to. I became a little more flexible, as it’s just impossible to plan meticulously when sometimes something unexpected would be even better. I found that many people have interesting stories that they’re happy to share, and their friendliness and kindness amazed me. I am excited to meet more people and try new things and explore some new places, but most of all I’ve started to let go of the notion that the faraway places I see in pictures with their crystal clear water and gorgeous historic cities are any better than wherever I am. The place is always so much more real when actually experiencing it: and I found this because I was amazed by how much the photos I took looked like the stuff of instagram and pinterest. But in reality, we were covered in dirt and sweat, and dying in the heat. We got sunburnt. We were infested with mosquitoes and flies. It was humid and sticky. And at many times, we had nothing to do. Not that any of this is enough to detract from the overall trip, but I realized that it’s not about chasing this dream place where I’ll suddenly find happiness. And after my travels, I think I can finally stop feeling the need to be anywhere else doing anything else, and just appreciate being home more than ever before.

Last Week in Granada

Well, we've almost made it. Just three days until I'm home!
On Monday, three new volunteers joined our English teaching team, two of whom were Austrian, and the other from Finland, but who goes to UBC in Vancouver. They are all lovely and very excited about teaching, and came in with a fresh and positive attitude that revived my own spirit a bit. We also had a week with the children being as mellow as I have ever seen them. Unfortunately, there were also considerably less students than usual and less participation, but at least we weren't breaking up fistfights.

Although most of the children are used to volunteers coming and going every few months, and I couldn't spend as much individual time with them as I'd have liked to, there were a few students who we got to know and whose bright personalities I will miss. We even got a few love notes! The children were always very interested to know if TC and I were brother and sister or friends, and looked shocked when we told them novio/novia.

They all spelled TC's name 'Tixi'.

These are also some of the things we passed on the long walk to school. We were so grateful and relieved when on our last couple days of school, a man in a truck offered the five of us a ride to school in the back of his pickup truck. (We wouldn't have done it if it were just the two of us, don't worry!!) 

In terms of safety and health, TC and I have been truly blessed. We haven't heard of violence in Granada, but we have heard many stories of people getting robbed and petty theft. We've also avoided getting sick probably in great part thanks to cool water bottles with a filter that were gifts from TC's dad, and also because we cook so much of our own food. Lately, it's been mostly rice and beans. But, we managed to survive this whole week on less than $20 for the two of us! (excluding housing, but at $3 a night it's hardly breaking the bank) 

We did try some of the local food here though, including local favorites such as nacatamal (like a giant tamale, but with a softer masa dough around the pork, and with tomatoes and potatoes), vigarón (chicharrones, or fried pork rind, with boiled yucca aka cassava), and tiste (a corn and chocolate drink with cinnamon and other spices). And of course, lots of gallo pinto, fried rice and beans.

In the upper right is the nacatamal (40 cords), wrapped in banana leaves as is the fried potato stuffed with rice and pork below. In the front is a plate with a vinegary cabbage salad, tostones (fried plantain), plantain chips, rice, and fried chicken (80 cords). At the exchange rate of 26.50 cords to the dollar, not too bad!

So how have we entertained ourselves for a week without spending any money? We a.) sneak into the chocolate museum nearby, which has a pool, as often as we can. Me always vowing to buy some chocolate and make it up to them, but with 500 cords between us ($20) to get us to Managua and survive until Monday when our flight leaves at 10am, it's yet to be determined... 

And b.) play/cuddle/watch GOP presidential debates with Julio, our beloved cat. 

His 'is Trump for real' face

His 'getting neck massages' face

Obviously there are a few moments of boredom.

I can't wait to come home and enjoy everything about Seattle! One of the greatest takeaways from this trip has to be making me love home even more.

Tourists

  

I'm quickly losing momentum in my blogging as our daily life becomes more routine, and as our Cords run short (thus our weekends become less exciting). There was also no school on Thursday because after arriving hot and sweaty from the half hour walk, we were told to evacuate the classroom. I at first thought that the students were gathering on the basketball courts for an assembly, which I was excited to see. I found out by talking with a teacher, however, that it was actually because there was a magnitude 7.1 earthquake predicted to hit Managua, and the weak roof of the school could collapse. "Didn't I know, Managua is famous for earthquakes? That's why it's so flat??" I had no idea. I was pretty worried considering the tin roofs and roughly hammered together planks that made up many of the houses and buildings here! However, no one in the streets of Granada showed any signs of worry and we never felt so much as a tremor.

This weekend we considered going to San Juan del Sur, a nice beach town famous for parties and surfers, which is a volunteer favorite. However, we aren't much partiers nor surfers (as proved by our last adventure), and I figured that if we were going to splurge on the nice restaurants and shops, we could do that while in Granada, playing tourists in "our own" city. We also considered hiking Mombacho volcano, but had heard that most people took a taxi up to the trail head at $15 a person! Plus a $5 entrance fee, we weren't trying to spend $40 on a hike. We planned to hike that portion ourselves, but hearing that it was 4000 feet in 3 miles just to reach the trailhead, we changed our minds.

  The views we *could have* had.

But we ended up getting some pretty views anyways at the church La Merced, where you can go up the bell tower and have a pretty good view over Granada. The tower is not so high, but neither are any of the buildings here except for the churches.

We also treated ourselves to dinner on La Calzada, the touristy street with the higher end bars and restaurants where the price of dinner almost matches what it would be in the states. Blasphemy. When you can get street food for $1, and a good restaurant meal for $3-4, it hurts to think of all the times I've paid ten dollars, for a meal??! That could be 260 mangoes right there. Going home will be hard to get used to, BUT I'M SO READY

As we sat waiting for our food, under the glowing streetlights at outdoor tables during the warm night, a man with a guitar serenaded us with "Bésame Mucho". A little boy came up to me with a woven flower and put it behind my ear, and told TC that I was "hermosa". He was 10 years old and his English was the best of the children we've met. Of course, he followed up by asking for a dollar, but the server shooed him away. And it's a good thing, because he called me pretty and I was pretty charmed and willing to oblige...

It's actually very common here for children to hand us either these flowers or a grasshopper woven out of these long stalks of..plant. They give it to you, then ask for a dollar saying how hungry they are. Usually I just smile and hand the gift back since I don't have dollars for all of them! I wish that I could help all of the children, the stray cats and dogs, and rescue the thin and scarred malnourished horses garishly decorated in lavish ribbons, but unfortunately we have $40 in Cordobas for a week(!) left in Granada, so I'll have to come back for them another time.

In other news, I'm so excited to come home. I miss clean air and not being so hot and walking down the street without being catcalled and stared down or worse yet more common, dealing with perpetual  and blatant racism, everyone at home, everything. I have a good amount of free time before and after class, so please please FaceTime/Skype/message me!

Weekend Trip: Laguna de Apoyo

Last weekend, we went to Laguna de Apoyo, a half hour shuttle ride away from Granada. Somehow a lake formed inside of a volcano crater, a lake with warm, clear turquoise water. The hostel we stayed at was called Paradiso, or Paradise, and the place was about as true to name as it could be. 

It was a weekend of reading on the beach or in a hammock, floating in inter tubes, pool and ping pong, and kayaking on some surprisingly rough water. I don't understand where the waves in the lake of a crater even came from, but the canoe bounced enough to remind me a bit of the panga ride between the Corn Islands. Looking back at the shore from the lake, it was amazing to see how lush the forest was, and at night there were only a few small lights on the entire hillside. We even saw some small squirrel-like animal that I thought was a lemur, but we couldn't figure out what it was. One of my favorite parts was the cats though! There were three adorable kittens, and since for some reason I could not sleep, I spent a lot of time with them at midnight. Which may not seem so late, but in Nicaragua the sun sets at a quarter after 6 and the roosters crow at 5, so the nightlife begins by 7:30. 

As I have also befriended the cat, Julio, at our hostel, I am finding that I may be a cat person despite some mild allergies... I never knew what it was to cuddle with a cat but I'm obsessed now. TC and I sneak him some yogurt when he jumps on the dinner table until one of the workers scold him and drag him away. 

(Not Julio, the tiny adorable kitten I had to leave behind :'( 

In other news, we're back at it at school. This week we reviewed the body parts we'd taught last week, then introduced some clothing items. We usually introduce a list of basic vocabulary in both Spanish and English and let the children take notes in their notebooks (which are often mysteriously missing, along with their pencils, making doing work impossible. But not really, they just don't feel like taking them out). One of the girls makes me check her notes every time and asks if they are good. When I say yes, she asks me, "Can you write 100%?". So I do, and she asks "And write, 'good job'? And draw a heart or a flower or something?" While I am glad that she takes such meticulous notes and cares about doing well, I don't know if I want to encourage working for the teacher's praise...

Then we try to do a game or activity to get them involved. The past couple of days (since we repeat lessons at two schools) we played a game that I'd played in Spanish class, Matamoscas. The teacher describes one of the vocab words, or in this case, gives it in Spanish, and two children from opposite teams race to find the word from the scattered words written on the board. As always, it works differently in every class. The older children especially, sit uninterested in their chairs. We literally had to drag the students of some classes out of their chairs to play a game, while in others we struggled to keep the children from running up to the board out of turn.

I realized that given the way the streets and traffic are, with cars, bikes, and pedestrians jamming themselves in whenever and wherever they can (if you are walking they will. not. slow. down. They will just honk as they speed toward you while you run, praying that you don't trip before you reach the sidewalk. Or at least I do) and people on the streets will constantly yell out for you to buy things, waving products in your face, it's no wonder that the concept of waiting in a line and sitting quietly until their turn is so foreign.

I have definitely had my frustrations. I have never had students so blatantly ignore me. When I tell students it's their turn, even the middle school girls will just shake their heads and purse their lips at me, and the boys will put their heads down and not even look at me as I stand in front of them. I'm trying not to be offended, but it's exhausting to face an entire class with this attitude. I am also disappointed that some of the volunteers, when I give suggestions for involving the class more, have told me that "Some of them just don't care, we'll never get them all to care." Nonetheless, I'm sad that most of our team of volunteers is leaving soon, and it may be TC and I with the French guys who speak neither English nor Spanish well. That will be a new challenge, but at least the children are starting to get a little more familiar with us! One of the older boys who sits alone in the back corner (classroom organization does not exist, ahh. Desks are scattered everywhere) at the end of the day gave me a smile and a high five, and I started to feel like hopefully, maybe there is someone who appreciates me coming school.

School in Granada

Today we woke up to the sound of rain beating down on the roof, thunder, and departing high school students saying their tearful goodbyes to each other. We're looking forward to a few days of peace before the next crew moves in. Just as we were about to make the journey to school today, praying that the rain would start again, our wish was granted. The heavy rains here mean that school is canceled, so we walked home relishing the rain dripping down our faces and soaking through our clothes. I feel somewhat guilty to be so happy to not have school, and it's not that I haven't enjoyed my time working with the children...but it's pretty exhausting.

Today I wanted to write a little bit about what the schools are like. This school is actually the nicer, or at least the better behaved, of the two. It is crazy how much of a difference there is between them! On Tuesday, we did a review of the test they had just taken, then began a lesson on the human body, teaching them some basic vocabulary such as head, mouth, nose, eyes, etc. We then practiced by playing "Simon says, touch your..." and showing them the "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" song. It was such a challenge even getting the children to hear us and pay any attention that we were only able to do either the song or the game with some classes. Then yesterday, at the other school Nueva Esperanza, the children finished so quickly we didn't even know what to do with the last five minutes! Many of the children at this school were also able to name the body parts in English even before we taught them. I wonder where they got this extra exposure to English, and what makes such a big difference in their behavior...

Both of the schools have these bars that make us take back our words for ever saying our schools look like prisons. It also means that the classroom is no relief from the heat outside, and we have to yell over not only the students talking, but the noise of the construction work outside.

The playground is nothing more than a few swings and this dirt courtyard, but the boys play soccer here with imaginary goals when they're lucky enough that somebody brings a ball to school. The girls mostly sit around and talk, or go on the swings. One of the girls, Karla, invited us to play "Tiburón", which literally translated means 'shark', but is just tag.

We've started to get to know a few of the children, and while we don't pick favorites...there are a few who we're especially excited to see. I was totally swept off my feet yesterday when a little boy walked into the class late, wearing a purple dress shirt tucked into slacks. He started to take the chair next to me at the very back of the class, so I asked him he wanted to move the desk forward. He nodded, so I got up to help him. He looked at me and waved his hand, "Siéntate....por favor" he said with a smile. ("Sit down, please"). Probably the biggest gentleman I have encountered in Nicaragua so far.
Yet, he is a sweet goofball with an adorable giggle.

It is hard to say how much of a difference we're making here, and I'm not sure what kind of changes would be allowed to improve the system. While I see the benefit of knowing English here, I know that just being exposed to so much vocabulary without it being incorporated and reinforced over time into their curriculum isn't conducive to much retention or meaning for the students. When students decide that they don't want to do the work or don't even want to go to school, there isn't much that anyone can do. I just hope that for 45 minutes a day, we can make some positive experiences with the children and help them to see in a positive light.

Weekend trip: León and Las Peñitas

This weekend, TC, Angela (one of the volunteers) and I, made a trip to Leon, one of the less touristy cities where the biggest draw was being close to Cerro Negro, one of the only places in the world where it is possible to go volcano boarding. It took an hour from Granada to Managua, two hours from Managua to Leon, and a twenty minute bike carriage to get to our hostel in Leon. Thankfully, each bus was only one or two dollars as gas here is still around 85 cents. One of the first things we did was go up to the top of an old church, the Basilica Cathedral de la Asunción. They had repainted the church white and it immediately became a huge tourist attraction, so that while the view itself is not actually exceptional, the blinding white domes of the roof were stunning. The stormy weather also made for a pretty amazing backdrop!

We stayed at Bigfoot Hostel and met our other newly made volunteer friends Matthew and Brianna. This hostel was a huge party hostel. We slept in dorm beds with about twelve people to a room, and most of those people came in drunk around 2 in the morning. I was not a fan of this. But this hostel is also the one known for beginning volcano boarding and having the fastest boards, and at less than ten dollars a night, I guess I can't complain.

At 9am (rough for our poor dorm mates), we got into a huge orange truck and drove about an hour past fields, stopping for cattle to cross and ducking beneath tree branches, until we reached the base of Cerro Negro, the volcano. We each had to carry our wooden boards with us, which the guide warned us would quickly become heavy, so we were offered the option of having a local carry the board for us for $5. As my cash is quickly running low and my arms could use some toning, I carried the board up myself.

The climb was steep and windy, and took about an hour, but we stopped frequently when there were prime photo-ops. All of the pictures that I have from trip were taken by our tour guide. My phone charger is breaking, so my phone was pretty much out of commission. Phone, keys, wallet (i.e., everything my dad taught me about being prepared)  is quickly becoming irrelevant as my phone is dead, I have little money, and our door doesn't lock.
But anyways, volcano boarding:

Volcano boarding is essentially sledding down a super steep volcano made of pebbly stone and ash, and the record speed for going down is 92 km/hr! I didn't go anywhere near that fast, I had read a few stories about people falling off and landing face first and was not willing to take that risk. With pebbles flying and filling up my goggles while trying to steer straight, knowing that the number one rule was YOU CANNOT STOP I was focusing on survival more than speed. It was a quick couple minutes down, but I actually enjoyed the hike up more. The views were spectacular and our guide shared some interesting stories about the volcanoes and how volcano boarding was founded.

My jumpsuit was at least three times too big for me. We wore our t-shirts around our mouths to keep ash from flying into our mouths, but I was still shaking rocks out of my clothes hours later. Thankfully our whole group made it down the hill unharmed, although there were a few minor tumbles. We were rewarded at the bottom of the hill with a cookie and a cold beer.

Immediately upon arriving at the hostel, we took the shuttle from Leon to the other Bigfoot hostel located on the beach in Las Peñitas. I was feeling pretty dizzy at this point, so we walked down the street until we found a small market manned by a little girl who sold us soap and shampoo (I should have known hostels don't provided those, and we were in greeeeaaat need of a shower) and found a restaurant by the beach. We got some breakfast food for dinner (I don't think we've eaten out yet without at least one of us eating eggs and gallo pinto) then walked down to the beach in the middle of the storm.

Standing up on some rocks overlooking the water, huge waves crashed down into the rocks, sending up spray at least 15 feet up. We had never seen the ocean so powerful to this. With the cross on top of the rocks being washed over by vast amounts of grey ocean, lightning cracking in the distance, and thunder rumbling ominously, it looked like a dramatic biblical scene. I was amazed to see that there was somebody surfing in the middle of this and was slightly worried about our surf lessons the next morning.

Thankfully, the sky cleared and at 10:30 the next morning, we went out with one other couple for our lesson. We practiced on the sand first of how to push up and stand, then went into the water to wait for a wave and try it. Not easy. I expected that the hard part would be standing up, or balancing on the board, or something related to surfing. Instead, I struggled just trying make it out into the water, staying in place as waves crashed into me, and hold up my board high enough so that it made it over the wave instead of going under, dragging me along the sandy bottom with it. I swallowed more ocean water than I ever wanted to. I did manage to stand up on my third try, but in the hour and a half stood for the combined period of maybe 30 seconds. Surfing is not nearly as laid-back and easy as its people are. We came out of it with a few bruises, a free shirt, some intense tan lines, and one less thing on my bucket list.

Four hours of buses and taxis later, we were relieved to be back "home" in Granada. We missed it already! Ready for school tomorrow after we grade some tests :)

La Comida y Las Bebidas (Food and Drink)

A post dedicated just to the food.

One of the volunteers, Angela, described cooking here as "similar to college, but honestly, more limited". I am grateful that ramen is universal.
At first, I wondered where people even bought their food, as there didn't seem to be many grocery stores, although there are some pulperias around whose food selection I would compare to that of a gas station market (limited packaged snack-type foods). Luckily we happen to be staying only two streets up from Pali, one of the major supermarkets. The other is La Union, which is air-conditioned, has more American selection, and is slightly more expensive. But it seems like most people shop in the outdoor market which is just one street down from us, and covers a couple blocks. It is always packed and crammed with people and stands with fruit and vegetables, cheese and eggs, electronics, shoes and clothes, and really anything you might need from knives to tupperware to toilet paper and soap. The market is not necessarily cheaper, especially for us tourists who sometimes are given a higher price. However, the difference of a couple of cordobas is pretty minimal (26 cordobas to the U.S. dollar). I was pretty excited to have bought a pineapple and three fat mangoes for one dollar! And not only that, but the fruit here is extraordinarily sweet and flavorful.

The selection is pretty much limited to bananas, mangoes, pineapple, onions, potatoes, avocados, tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots. Other fruits and vegetables (berries, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, etc., are both rare and very expensive, at least in comparison) I love the fruit for snacking, but have been trying to get creative in terms of what to make with these ingredients. Suggestions? 

Besides the limitations of ingredients, the kitchen is somewhat limiting as well. The knives are the dullest I've used, even the new one I bought after getting frustrated with the one here. They are also shaped like mini machetes, curved and pointy at the end, which is not ideal for dicing or mincing or bread-cutting. We can't seem to find scissors either, so we put our keys to work to pierce open the bags of salt and spices, rice and beans, and oatmeal. Even the milk comes unrefrigerated in rectangular boxes that require scissors (the dairy's not great here) so I had to use a very dull knife to stab a hole into the top. I suppose I just have to be thankful that there is a fully-equipped kitchen here for us to use. Along with the other twenty-somewhat people living here...

At the beginning of the week, I made a big pot of rice (without a rice cooker??!) and we have been eating a lot of fried rice since there is no microwave to heat it. Today we had the rice with a salad of lettuce, bell peppers, tomatoes, and onions with some lime juice (we're too cheap for olive oil or vinegar :/) along with some pan-fried...tiburón! Aka, shark. It is best described as chicken-y fish in both taste and texture. They sell it commonly at the stores here, so we had to try it. Not bad at all!

We're still reminiscing about he first meal that we ate here, when we sat outdoors at Parque Central and were blown away by the gallo pinto and eggs. Gallo pinto is very popular here for breakfast, and like this one, can be fried until crispy. The eggs are also crackly and crispy at the edges, and every single egg we've had here has a deep orange yolk that makes the sad yellow ones at home pale in comparison. Literally.

 Even when cooked through, they were some of the most flavorful eggs. But when the yolk is drippy and runny, mhmmmmmmmmm
We've been so good and have only ate out twice in Granada with the meals costing about $5, and done the rest of the cooking ourselves to save money, but I would love to try some more of the local food here! Especially the street food, although there are some risks with doing so...

I also get to talk about the drinks here. The drinking age is 18, but I doubt that that law is often enforced. Nobody has ever asked our age, and the luxury of a casual beer, the local Toña or Victoria Frost/Classic for just over a dollar, will be missed. The national drink here is the Nica Libre, rum and coke with lime, and most happy hours will offer these 2-for-1 for 3 dollars.
Every Wednesday at 7:30 la Esperanza Granada hosts pub quiz, and in a team we compete to answer trivia. It gets dark here by a quarter after 6, so the night life is already thriving by then, and 9:30 seems late. We sat with two French girls, a Spanish girl, and an American, and attempted to cheat our way to the grand prize, a bottle of rum.

I loved the night life here! The pouring rain stopped just in time, and the night was warm enough for us to not need a jacket but finally stop soaking through our shirts in sweat (tmi, tmi). On La Calzada, or "Gringo Street", since it is frequented by White tourists, people sat outside the bars and restaurants eating and drinking, laughing, smoking cigarettes, and talking. A small mariachi band performed for the table behind me. A group of young boys did a breakdancing routine which I found highly impressive although TC laughed at me for being easily impressed. The scene was all so sweet and pretty and I enjoyed it a lot. When all of the vendors clear out and the park is lit up at night and you don't have to worry about being hit by a car, Granada is a beautiful place.