So an overdue update. It has almost been a month since I arrived in Nicaragua and I feel like I´ve been here for 3 months. I feel really comfortable here and my Spanish has already improved. Language is soooooo important in terms of feeling you belong to a place. Without it, you lose your connection to other human beings and I already learned in Thailand that I cannot go without that...
What have I been up to, entonces? Starting on September 2nd, I left Managua for Estelí, a small city in the northern part of Nicaragua about 2 hours from Managua by bus. In Estelí I attended a language school called Escuela Horizonte for two weeks. The first week I stayed with a family which consisted of the mother, father, a grandmother, a three year old adorable boy, and a 15-day old baby girl. Living with them was nice and laidback but I felt kinda of lonely in their house. They talked with me and warmed up more after the first 5 days, but in general I was hoping they might involve more in the activities of the family or engage me more in conversation. I guess when you have just had a baby 15 days ago, that would probably be the principal thing on your mind.
Oh and after only a day and a half in Estelí, the category 5 Hurrican Felix crashed with incredible force into Nicaragua´s caribbean coast at Puerto Cabezas, the main port in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (R.A.A.N.) of Nicaragua. The RAAN is one of the regions that Acción Médica Cristiana (AMC) has worked in most for the past 18 years and I knew being in Esteli that everyone in the central office in Managua where I will be working for the next 15 months would immediately be swept into action planning relief efforts. I felt a little useless and disconnected from this historic (in a diasterous sense) event. But during my language classes my professor made sure to bring a copy of the newspaper everyday and we read updates about the conditions on the coast.
(I will attempt in the next few days to construct a summary of the effects of the hurricane here on my blog.)
In the second week however, I decided to move to a different family. During the first week, the only other student in the school, Cam who is from England, introduced me to Olga, his host mom. I knew from the moment I met her that she was the type of person I wanted to spend another week with in Estelí. So I moved in on Saturday, Sept. 8th and my moved immediately changed. I walked into Donaldo José´s 22nd birthday party! The family is made up of Olga and Donaldo (her husband), Donaldo José (son), and Laura (daughter, 13). Donaldo II as we´ll call him came with his girlfriend, Ciclalli (which means star in nahuatl). Ciclalli´s mom, Alicia, and a family friend Don William. They all live in Managua and pretty close to where I will also be living. They entire night was a blast. More friends arrived, the whole lot of them characters just like the family and especially Don William, we had a cake, wonderful food, and opened presents. Then I went out afterwards with Donaldo II, Ciclalli, some of their friends, AND Alicia and Don William who are older than my parents! And we didn´t get home until 4:30am. Don William was the first awake the next day....
After that weekend I started classes again Monday, but with a cold. I was miserable for a few days with a sore throat and awful congestion but it´s finally going away after I made sure to rest and took some medicine. The overall experience in the school was wonderful. My professor, Elvia, was such a pleasure to talk to and was a great teacher. I visited social organizations working in Estelí in the afternoons with someone from the language school. And I met a few new friends from the U.S. and Canada that I was able to relax with. On my last day of language class I also experienced a celebration in Estelí of September 14th-15th, called generally las Fiestas Patrias (something like National Holidays). There was a parade of all the schools in Esteli with bands and dancing girls with batons and short skirts which lined up between 6:30 and 8am and didn´t actually start parading until after noon and was slightly unorganized. If the Nicaraguans hadn´t made this comment themselves I wouldn´t say it, but it was executed in typical Nicaraguan fashion. But it was fun to watch. I also saw after the parade with my host sister, Laura, a dance show in which on a raised stage, young girls and a few boys at times had dance "competitions" to reggaeton music, which if you don´t know what that is, just search "Daddy Yankee" on Google and you´ll find out. Basically, girls about age 10 who shook their butts and hips in a way which will get them in trouble now or later in life with men.
I returned on Sunday, Sept. 16th to Managua by bus. When I got to the bus station in Esteli to buy my ticket about 25 minutes before it left, there weren´t any regular seats left. But here in Nicaragua, instead of saying the bus is full, I was asked if I would like to purchase a "banquito" seat. Well I had to get to Managua by 3:30, this was my bus so I said yes. I realized what I was doing but a "banquito" meant I would be riding for two hours on a bus sitting on a plastic stool in the middle isle with people in the same situation lined up tightly from front to back. It was lovely, let me tell you.
As soon as I got back to Managua, I was put to work at AMC. Even though the damages and conditions on the coast after the hurricane have already stopped being front-page news in Nicaragua, sending the caribbean coast back to the status of being almost forgotten or dismissed by the rest of Nicaragua, the need in the affected territories is DIRE. People that were already living in EXTREME poverty, now have literally NOTHING. I put these words in caps because it is hard to express the pictures I´ve seen. To give you a brief fact, the harvest of the crops these people planted for their own consumption would have a occurred only DAYS after Hurricane Felix hit. This means people there have no food for another year until they can grow more crops. At AMC, they have field teams working on the ground in the RAAN and have been putting out news releases to update the situation on the ground. (Go to http://www.amc.org.ni and click on "Huracan Felix" for updates in English or Spanish) I was able to watch, listen, and then transcribe an interview done in Spanish (45 minutes worth of video) with the woman who is the AMC Coordinator for relief efforts in a municipality called Sahsa, which was almost completely destroyed by the hurricane. It wasn´t easy but I was able to do it pretty quickly because of all my practice transcribing my interviews from my Independent Study in college!
Lastly, although for the past few days I have felt really useful, my situation with AMC is now really up in the air. I was supposed to have gone to work in the field projects with AMC in the RAAN in the municipalities of Waspam and Sahsa. Because of the hurricane however, conditions are extremely difficult for any new volunteer to walk into. It´s still possible that I will go and I want to be able to make a contribution to the relief efforts if I can, but we have to make sure that my presence would actually be beneficial and would not be a burden. I'll let you know when I know...
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