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!