So sorry....
Hi all, sorry it's been a while since I have written. Things have been busy, but I guess that's true for everyone. I'm trying to remember where to start explaining what's new here. The first place to start would be the fact that I was ill for a while. I started feeling tired two weekends ago, which then progressed into a fever and a headache. After I went to the clinic they said I had parasites, and gave me medicine to get rid of them. Having parasites in Nicaragua is fairly common, but the medication they give you to counter them is almost worse than the parasites themselves. While I was ill from the medication for the parasites I got a rash that covered most of my body, at which point we realized I had Dengue fever in addition to the parasites. Dengue lasts about 8 days, and depending on the person and the strain that you get can make you want to feel like you want to die, or can make you feel fairly ill. Unfortunately, with Dengue there is not much of a middle ground. Fortunately, once you get a rash from Dengue you are through the worst of it, so that meant that I had only a few more days to go. The upside of all of this is that now I am perfectly well, and have gone back to work, although for about a week things were feeling pretty hairy.
So now that I am better I am back to work. One of the things that I started doing recently was creating a database for one of the cooperatives here with all their contacts. I think I finished that yesterday, although every time I think I am done someone finds more contacts that need to be entered. We also have been working on construction, we have been making a small guard hut for the security guards at the women's sewing cooperative. They use a lot of cement to construct walls and buildings here, which at times can be a bit frustrating. We have learned a technique known here as repeo, where you take cement and throw it at a wall and then after it has dried a little you smooth it out to make a pretty wall. My first day working with repeo was a trememdous disaster. There is a certain way to throw the cement so it stays on the wall and doesn't all clump together in one place. I was not skilled at this. Luckily the next time we needed to do it I finally began to understand, and now I can work almost as well as the Nica's here. The guard hut we are working on required an inital coat of cement, and then today we began putting on another coat of finer cement to make it look a bit nicer. That's basically been our work of late.
The only other exciting thing that I can think to tell about is the fact that two of my friends and I went away for the weekend. Early Saturday morning we went to one of the central marketplaces here and caught a bus for Pochomil, which is a small coastal town two hours south-west of Managua. The drive was beautiful, complete with views of forests and valleys and mountains. We got there and were immediately bombarded by people who were trying to sell crafts and trying to get us to eat at their restaurants. This continued throughout our two-day trip, and was the most frustrating part of our journey. The coastal tourist towns are not busy right now, so any tourists, and especially gringos, are prime targets for every person who depends on tourist money for a living. We eventually learned how to simply tell people we weren't interested, but in the beginning we were a bit too nice, and people took our attempts to dismiss them as us being interested, which was not the case. Anyway, we found a fantastic hotel for $6 a night for each of us which was on a hill overlooking the vast and beautiful expanse of ocean and beach that is Pochomil. The three of us shared a room, which was comfortable and clean, although our bathroom was without a door. This wasn't a problem, although everytime one of us had to use it we had to say, "Okay, either everyone out or get to the other side of the room!" Mostly this was a funny part of our journey. Pochomil was so beautiful. The beach runs for miles and miles and we laid out and soaked up the sun, spent time in the warm water, and even spent the evening looking up at the stars with the sound of the ocean in the background. It was a great trip, and I think we all enjoyed the opportunity to escape from our familiar surroundings.
On the way back we took one bus from Pochomil to Managua, and then had to take another bus to the foundation. The bus to the foundation was an adventure as always, considering it was already over-full when we entered. Eventually some people got off and we were able to breathe, but at the next stop an entire baseball team boarded the bus and we were again squished together with all of our stuff from our weekend trip. I think when we exited we more were expunged from the bus, it was almost as if we shot out of it, because the bus couldn't take the load of people.
Today I am going to a graduation of one of the girls who lives accross the street from me. She is only 6, and I'm not sure if she's graduating from 1st grade or not. I'm excited to see this transition in her life, graduations are very important here in Nicaragua. Tommorow my friends and I are going to Leon to celebrate Purisima. This is the celebration of the Virgin Mary's birth, and apparently it is a huge day in the calender year. From what I can understand, people go out into the street and there are large parades and people give out candy and presents. Leon is supposed to have a huge celebration, so we are going to take in the culture there. I'm looking forward to it.
There are more pictures on the web for folks to check out. My same friend Eric has posted his pictures from our weekend trip on the web, I would encourage everyone to go look at them. They are really great. The website is: www.flickr.com/photos/egruen If you go to the top album, it says 12/4/05 on it, you'll be able to see them. You'll even see me in a few.
So now that I am better I am back to work. One of the things that I started doing recently was creating a database for one of the cooperatives here with all their contacts. I think I finished that yesterday, although every time I think I am done someone finds more contacts that need to be entered. We also have been working on construction, we have been making a small guard hut for the security guards at the women's sewing cooperative. They use a lot of cement to construct walls and buildings here, which at times can be a bit frustrating. We have learned a technique known here as repeo, where you take cement and throw it at a wall and then after it has dried a little you smooth it out to make a pretty wall. My first day working with repeo was a trememdous disaster. There is a certain way to throw the cement so it stays on the wall and doesn't all clump together in one place. I was not skilled at this. Luckily the next time we needed to do it I finally began to understand, and now I can work almost as well as the Nica's here. The guard hut we are working on required an inital coat of cement, and then today we began putting on another coat of finer cement to make it look a bit nicer. That's basically been our work of late.
The only other exciting thing that I can think to tell about is the fact that two of my friends and I went away for the weekend. Early Saturday morning we went to one of the central marketplaces here and caught a bus for Pochomil, which is a small coastal town two hours south-west of Managua. The drive was beautiful, complete with views of forests and valleys and mountains. We got there and were immediately bombarded by people who were trying to sell crafts and trying to get us to eat at their restaurants. This continued throughout our two-day trip, and was the most frustrating part of our journey. The coastal tourist towns are not busy right now, so any tourists, and especially gringos, are prime targets for every person who depends on tourist money for a living. We eventually learned how to simply tell people we weren't interested, but in the beginning we were a bit too nice, and people took our attempts to dismiss them as us being interested, which was not the case. Anyway, we found a fantastic hotel for $6 a night for each of us which was on a hill overlooking the vast and beautiful expanse of ocean and beach that is Pochomil. The three of us shared a room, which was comfortable and clean, although our bathroom was without a door. This wasn't a problem, although everytime one of us had to use it we had to say, "Okay, either everyone out or get to the other side of the room!" Mostly this was a funny part of our journey. Pochomil was so beautiful. The beach runs for miles and miles and we laid out and soaked up the sun, spent time in the warm water, and even spent the evening looking up at the stars with the sound of the ocean in the background. It was a great trip, and I think we all enjoyed the opportunity to escape from our familiar surroundings.
On the way back we took one bus from Pochomil to Managua, and then had to take another bus to the foundation. The bus to the foundation was an adventure as always, considering it was already over-full when we entered. Eventually some people got off and we were able to breathe, but at the next stop an entire baseball team boarded the bus and we were again squished together with all of our stuff from our weekend trip. I think when we exited we more were expunged from the bus, it was almost as if we shot out of it, because the bus couldn't take the load of people.
Today I am going to a graduation of one of the girls who lives accross the street from me. She is only 6, and I'm not sure if she's graduating from 1st grade or not. I'm excited to see this transition in her life, graduations are very important here in Nicaragua. Tommorow my friends and I are going to Leon to celebrate Purisima. This is the celebration of the Virgin Mary's birth, and apparently it is a huge day in the calender year. From what I can understand, people go out into the street and there are large parades and people give out candy and presents. Leon is supposed to have a huge celebration, so we are going to take in the culture there. I'm looking forward to it.
There are more pictures on the web for folks to check out. My same friend Eric has posted his pictures from our weekend trip on the web, I would encourage everyone to go look at them. They are really great. The website is: www.flickr.com/photos/egruen If you go to the top album, it says 12/4/05 on it, you'll be able to see them. You'll even see me in a few.
posted by Emily at 10:42 AM
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