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!