Peace Out USA, Hello Peace Corps: Nica week 2!

Tuesday we went to Masaya we went to Masaya (big city) to observe our first class. Try to picture this. The classroom is huge because there are about 55 students. It’s hot because well, it’s Nica. And there’s this tiny nica teacher and a tall gringo named Matt. It was awesome and intimidating at the same time. I’m totally going to go all “Stand and Deliver” Nica style (Great flick, rent it.). We lunched at in the central parque and ate delicious ceviche (more on that later bum bum BUM!)

Wednesday was the standard language class in the morning and technical training in the afternoon. After the training we went to the local mirador for a group foto. They wanted to charge the 21 of us $1 per person to enter (which is ridiculous, see previous post to understand the value of a dollar) so we refused. They we saw that the bus rate was only 2 cordobas (aka 10 cents) and asked if we could get that. And got a stupid-americans-shake-of-the-head “no” which we see way too often. Not to be detruded, our group lined up in bus form and the guy in front honked his imaginary horn, rolled down his imaginary window and we “wheeled” our way in. Here’s some fotos of BizNa$ty 56 (yes we’re that awesome we have a team name).

The Business Crew

We're serious about entrepreneurship

Came home ate and was SUPER sleepy so I tried to go to bed. If you haven’t caught my obvious foreshadowing thing rapidly go downhill from here. Let’s push this into Thursday

Thursday so approximately at 12:01am I begin my intimate relationship with the latrine. I was nauseous, had the chills and all around felt like my intestines wanted to succeed from Peteland. I don’t want to provide way too much information so I didn’t vomit but did do something that would earn a “crapton” of points in scrabble. And repeat that action every 4 to 5 hours. I literally did nothing beside lay in bed and visit my dear new friend “la latrina” (see, it’s femaine) until 7pm. At that point I decided to treat my body like a walking pharmacy and glup down pills by the dozens. Several multi-vitamins, Tylenol, Dramamine, oral-rehydrates, and antibiotics later I coma-ed and woke up…

Left shower, right latrine

Nice amenities right?

Friday LATE! Slept through my alarm and have 3 minutes to get to the entrance of our town. So I dressed (my socks were on inside out) and took a mototaxi and caught the peace corps mini bus. After a mostly uneventful training seminar (found out I don’t have parasites, but I’m still a little skeptical) I talked with my sitemates and found out they were all sick too! Ceviche = 4, Trainee = 0. Still drugged up but feeling better I ate some food and went to bed.

Saturday Woke up early and went to my host uncle’s finca (which is a tropical farm?). I walked around for an hour eating crazy fruits that don’t exist in the States. Then 12 of us biznastys met up in Masaya to watch BARCELONA! For those of you who may not know (and I will reevaluate our friendship if you didn’t know) I’m a bit of a FC Barca fanatic. They game was mind blowing, I highly recommend watching the reply if you missed it. Anywho, FCB beat Man U 3-1 so I’m clearly beyond ecstatic at this point. Walked around Masaya for a while and bought a cake for mi mama because Monday is mother’s day down here.

Sunday Oh Nica, you silly yet awesome country you. So I decided to attend a rodeo in next town over. Words struggle to explain the absurdities and overall ridiculousness of this event but don’t worry, that won’t stop me. Let’s break it down. First of all, it is constructed in this VERY temporary fashion:


I thought I was going to fall through at any moment

Next notice the quantity and completely unnecessary men in the ring. Don’t worry, they are not professionals. They are just your typical Nicas. Please note that some were even kind enough to wear red shirts, in the event they weren’t already obvious enough targets.