I'm back home. It's time to head to jury duty and back to work. But, I'm so glad I took time off to travel and learn. It is one of the smartest things I've ever done. I know how fortunate I am to have been able to take this time off.
I also know how fortunate I am to have met such amazing people in my travles. Each country was very different from the others, but I feel confident making the generalization that the people of Central America who I had the fortune of living, working, and learning with are some of the most compassionate, proud, and resilient people I have met. I am truly humbled by the generosity and strength I had the pleasure of experiencing.
And here's the link to the pics (the Nicaragua and Costa Rica sets are on the right hand side):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13525016@N03/
Monday, February 25, 2008
Assorted stuff
- In Granada the most popular form of transport is the bicycle, and they make it work for as many people as they need. More often than not there are at least two people sharing one bike, but I now also know that a family of four can, in fact, ride together on one bike. The same goes for three teenage boys or two old women. Whoever needs a ride hops on.
- As hard as I tried, I could not make myself like papaya. Even skipping dinner so I would be really hungry for the papaya breakfast didn't work. I just don't like the icky fruit.
- Chickens sleep in trees. If you are in the country waiting for an early bus, don't sit under the tree. The chickens will poop on you.
- When you get hit in the nose with a surf board, it's really hard to pronounce a name like Brenda. For several days I had to introduce myself as Bretha.
- Hummingbirds take breaks. In Costa Rica waiting for another bus, about twenty of them landed on the ground and waddled around for about five minutes. Of course, the noise I made getting out my camera was enough to scare them away.
- Staying in hostels is a great way to meet people from all over the world. It's also a great way to get your ear talked off about way better places and trips than the one you're currently on. A few of my favorite quotes (supposedly heard by the staff) posted on a sign in a hostel:
You think that's cold? I was in Antarctica once...
Oh yeah, that's not a bad chicken bus ride. One time in Laos my bus flipped over eight times...
Grasshoppers? That's nothing. I ate baby chinchillas in Brazil...
Despite that sign, I had the misfortune of having the bunk next to a guy from Vancouver who claimed to be fluent in Spanish after reading a phrase book on the bus for five hours. He also claimed to have been in Nicaragua during the civil war helping the Sandanistas for three weeks. He is now only 19 years old. I bet he had the best second grade "what I did over my summer break" essay ever!
- If you leave smelly old sandals and ugly shorts unattended on the beach, they will get stolen. The same goes for broken sunglasses.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Posing as a chica surfista
I came to Playa Tamarindo to learn to surf. So, I woke up Sunday morning and headed to my first class. Fortunately, there were only two of us in the class. Unfortunately, the other guy was pretty much a natural. Even though it was his first time, he got up on his first try and started surfing. Then, there was me. Lets just say I drank about six gallons of sea water and received tons of nice encouraging words from the teacher (the same words I use when a student is so far off base I don`t know where to go next). That was the first hour of class. Miraculoulsy, the second hour went much better and I started to surf. I knew I`d finally made it when the teacher left me alone to go check on the other guy.
Having limited time and probably too much pride, I signed up for another lesson that afternoon. This went much better and I had a really good teacher who changed my stance to something that works much better for me. After two classes in one day, I pretty much had rubbed all the skin off my thighs, stomache, and hands and was so sore I could barely move. But, I was having so much fun!
I took only one class each of the next two days (the teacher said I would probably end up killing myself in the ocean if I got too carried away like the first day), and I`m now in a place where I can catch my own waves and I get up about as often as I fall down which is good enough for me!
Oh yeah, on my second day there was a baby sea turtle stuck in the surf. He was exhausted and couldn`t get out past the waves to get out to sea. I could totally identify. At the end of a session I can barely paddle the board back twenty feet. So, a real surfer took the baby turtle out past the big breaking waves to set him free!
Having limited time and probably too much pride, I signed up for another lesson that afternoon. This went much better and I had a really good teacher who changed my stance to something that works much better for me. After two classes in one day, I pretty much had rubbed all the skin off my thighs, stomache, and hands and was so sore I could barely move. But, I was having so much fun!
I took only one class each of the next two days (the teacher said I would probably end up killing myself in the ocean if I got too carried away like the first day), and I`m now in a place where I can catch my own waves and I get up about as often as I fall down which is good enough for me!
Oh yeah, on my second day there was a baby sea turtle stuck in the surf. He was exhausted and couldn`t get out past the waves to get out to sea. I could totally identify. At the end of a session I can barely paddle the board back twenty feet. So, a real surfer took the baby turtle out past the big breaking waves to set him free!
The Immigration Blues
Many people I have met from outside the U.S. talk about how horrible it is even to stop in the U.S. and to have to go through immigration - apparently even if you´re just changing planes to head to another country. After making the land crossing to Costa Rica, I have just a little taste of the tediousness, but at least I didn´t have to do the retinal scan that foreigners have to in the U.S.
I left Granada at 7 in the morning to make the 5 hour trip to Liberia, Costa Rica. At 9:30 we got off the bus at the border. We had to wait for thirty minutes to leave through Nicaraguan immigration. When we got back on the bus I was actually naive enough to think that we were all done. We had given our passports to the bus driver after all. But, actually, the process was just beginning.
We got our passports back, got back on the bus and waited in a long line of cars to go through a car wash type thing to rid the bus of contaminants. We then got back off the bus and were told to get in a long line. There were actually two lines that merged into one, so I got in the back of the shorter. I should have known better.
I didn´t realize until I got to the merging point that this line was the cutting line and people in the other line held on the each other and pushed ahead to make sure my line didn´t get in. When I saw the people in my line shoving their way in I realized what was going on. I didn´t want to push anybody, but also didn´t want to go all the way to the back after waiting 40 minutes already. So, I found a nice looking old lady in the official line and told her I hadn´t known that I was in the bad line. She was very nice and let me in front of her saying that we were on the same bus anyways and if I started all over they´d have to wait for me.
After another two and half hours we finally reached the immagration desk to get our passports stamped. I was relieved and walked out to the bus ready to get on our way. But, everyone was just sitting next to the bus waiting. When I asked, I was informed that we had to get our luggage off the bus to have it inspected. So after another 40 minutes of waiting around for the official person to open the baggage storage on the bus, we took our luggage over to a long table and waited while a woman looked through it. That took a good 40 minutes (must be the magic number there), then we were off. At least I thought. We still had to stop two more times while police got on the bus to check everyone´s passports. At least we could stay in our seats for that. There is a definite concern in Costa Rica about large numbers of Nica immigrants, so I´m hoping the trip back into Nicaragua won´t be as slow. Knock on wood.
Anyways, I finally made it to Liberia at 4 p.m. (having missed my 2:30 bus to the beach) and took a taxi to Playa Tamarindo. I checked into the hostel and went straight to the ocean for a fantastic swim! Defintely vale la pena (worth the trouble) :-)
I left Granada at 7 in the morning to make the 5 hour trip to Liberia, Costa Rica. At 9:30 we got off the bus at the border. We had to wait for thirty minutes to leave through Nicaraguan immigration. When we got back on the bus I was actually naive enough to think that we were all done. We had given our passports to the bus driver after all. But, actually, the process was just beginning.
We got our passports back, got back on the bus and waited in a long line of cars to go through a car wash type thing to rid the bus of contaminants. We then got back off the bus and were told to get in a long line. There were actually two lines that merged into one, so I got in the back of the shorter. I should have known better.
I didn´t realize until I got to the merging point that this line was the cutting line and people in the other line held on the each other and pushed ahead to make sure my line didn´t get in. When I saw the people in my line shoving their way in I realized what was going on. I didn´t want to push anybody, but also didn´t want to go all the way to the back after waiting 40 minutes already. So, I found a nice looking old lady in the official line and told her I hadn´t known that I was in the bad line. She was very nice and let me in front of her saying that we were on the same bus anyways and if I started all over they´d have to wait for me.
After another two and half hours we finally reached the immagration desk to get our passports stamped. I was relieved and walked out to the bus ready to get on our way. But, everyone was just sitting next to the bus waiting. When I asked, I was informed that we had to get our luggage off the bus to have it inspected. So after another 40 minutes of waiting around for the official person to open the baggage storage on the bus, we took our luggage over to a long table and waited while a woman looked through it. That took a good 40 minutes (must be the magic number there), then we were off. At least I thought. We still had to stop two more times while police got on the bus to check everyone´s passports. At least we could stay in our seats for that. There is a definite concern in Costa Rica about large numbers of Nica immigrants, so I´m hoping the trip back into Nicaragua won´t be as slow. Knock on wood.
Anyways, I finally made it to Liberia at 4 p.m. (having missed my 2:30 bus to the beach) and took a taxi to Playa Tamarindo. I checked into the hostel and went straight to the ocean for a fantastic swim! Defintely vale la pena (worth the trouble) :-)
Friday, February 15, 2008
A Very Nice Day
Yesterday: Class in the morning, then I went straight from school to visit a new special education center that has been set up in Granada by a retired couple from Seattle. A really nice woman at my language school set up a visit so I could see what´s happening. I´m so glad she did!
Just walking around the city I have seen several apparently homeless adults with developmental disabilites and one home where a child is secured to a rocking chair with belts every time I walk by. I have been asking about special education services in Nicaragua and from what I´ve been told they are virtually nonexistent in Granada especially for economically struggling families - which unfortunately means most familes.
The new center is serving around thirty adults with developmental disabilities who come from struggling families or even from living on the street. They are currently working on creating handicrafts that will be sold with the profits going directly to the individual. The opportunity to become a valued wage earner is a huge change of perspective for these adults, and they are rightfully very proud of their work. One student, Octavio, gave me a very detailed tour of the center and of the candle making process and also talked about the plans to add kitchen facilities to the school. A retired special ed teacher from Alaska was there volunteering and we had a great talk about developing a sustainable life skills curriculum. The director of the center was really excited about the prospect. I wish I´d have known earlier about the center, but I´m still pretty excited to go home and have a project to work on! Heads up sped teacher friends - I´ll be bugging you to borrow materials!
After the tour, I went straight to Carita Feliz to help with the art class and as usual had a great time with the awesome kiddos. I´m pretty sure my Spanish is getting better because even the five year olds can understand me now - well at least half the time :-)
From Carita Feliz I headed home via a quick walk through the central park to check out the goings on at the poetry fesitval. Then home for a very late lunch. Homework, then off to the language school director´s house for dinner. He and his wife are two of the most fantastic people I´ve ever met. They have been working with the boys´ program for eleven years and even have two of the boys living with them and their two kids. Not to mention the whole family is absolutely hilarious! They are also really patient with my slow Spanish which makes me much less self-concious about speaking. I think that was my first night where I hung out speaking just Spanish and felt like I could express myself similar to how I would in English. It was a really nice night, and I even got more dancing lessons from the seven year old daughter and her neighbor friend.
Just walking around the city I have seen several apparently homeless adults with developmental disabilites and one home where a child is secured to a rocking chair with belts every time I walk by. I have been asking about special education services in Nicaragua and from what I´ve been told they are virtually nonexistent in Granada especially for economically struggling families - which unfortunately means most familes.
The new center is serving around thirty adults with developmental disabilities who come from struggling families or even from living on the street. They are currently working on creating handicrafts that will be sold with the profits going directly to the individual. The opportunity to become a valued wage earner is a huge change of perspective for these adults, and they are rightfully very proud of their work. One student, Octavio, gave me a very detailed tour of the center and of the candle making process and also talked about the plans to add kitchen facilities to the school. A retired special ed teacher from Alaska was there volunteering and we had a great talk about developing a sustainable life skills curriculum. The director of the center was really excited about the prospect. I wish I´d have known earlier about the center, but I´m still pretty excited to go home and have a project to work on! Heads up sped teacher friends - I´ll be bugging you to borrow materials!
After the tour, I went straight to Carita Feliz to help with the art class and as usual had a great time with the awesome kiddos. I´m pretty sure my Spanish is getting better because even the five year olds can understand me now - well at least half the time :-)
From Carita Feliz I headed home via a quick walk through the central park to check out the goings on at the poetry fesitval. Then home for a very late lunch. Homework, then off to the language school director´s house for dinner. He and his wife are two of the most fantastic people I´ve ever met. They have been working with the boys´ program for eleven years and even have two of the boys living with them and their two kids. Not to mention the whole family is absolutely hilarious! They are also really patient with my slow Spanish which makes me much less self-concious about speaking. I think that was my first night where I hung out speaking just Spanish and felt like I could express myself similar to how I would in English. It was a really nice night, and I even got more dancing lessons from the seven year old daughter and her neighbor friend.
I don´t want to leave
Somehow the last two entries got switched, but no worries. I´m sure you can figure it out.
Well, tomorrow I take an early bus to Costa Rica where I´m going to take a week to learn to surf before heading back to Colorado. That´s the plan anyways. I may just end up going for a swim with a surf board attached to my ankle. But, I´m excited to give it a go.
Anyways, as usual it´s a bit sad to be saying goodbye. My host family here in Granada was very nice, but I didn´t have the opportunity to get to know them very well which in a way is disappointing, but also makes goodbye easier. I have to admit I will miss the two year old, Julio Cesar, and our daily game where he has the green action figure without feet and I have the gold one without an arm and we look all over the living room for our missing parts.
Saying goodbye to the teachers and the kids at Casa Xalteva was tougher. I learned so much there. Definitely my Spanish is better, but more importantly it was really inspiring being surrounded by the great people that work at the school and the kids that benefit from their programs. Casa Xalteva is by far one of the best social programs I´ve encountered in my travels and is run by absolutely fantastic people.
The truly hard part was saying goodbye to the kids I was working with at Carita Feliz. They are so freaking great! I had purchased a painting from my favorite kiddo, and today she surprised me with a gift of another painting she had been saving that wasn´t on display to be sold. She told me it was her insurance policy that I would return. She´s good, huh? So, yeah, I´ll definitely be returning to Granada!
Well, tomorrow I take an early bus to Costa Rica where I´m going to take a week to learn to surf before heading back to Colorado. That´s the plan anyways. I may just end up going for a swim with a surf board attached to my ankle. But, I´m excited to give it a go.
Anyways, as usual it´s a bit sad to be saying goodbye. My host family here in Granada was very nice, but I didn´t have the opportunity to get to know them very well which in a way is disappointing, but also makes goodbye easier. I have to admit I will miss the two year old, Julio Cesar, and our daily game where he has the green action figure without feet and I have the gold one without an arm and we look all over the living room for our missing parts.
Saying goodbye to the teachers and the kids at Casa Xalteva was tougher. I learned so much there. Definitely my Spanish is better, but more importantly it was really inspiring being surrounded by the great people that work at the school and the kids that benefit from their programs. Casa Xalteva is by far one of the best social programs I´ve encountered in my travels and is run by absolutely fantastic people.
The truly hard part was saying goodbye to the kids I was working with at Carita Feliz. They are so freaking great! I had purchased a painting from my favorite kiddo, and today she surprised me with a gift of another painting she had been saving that wasn´t on display to be sold. She told me it was her insurance policy that I would return. She´s good, huh? So, yeah, I´ll definitely be returning to Granada!
Monday, February 11, 2008
Cosiguina
This past weekend I had the pleasure err... opportunity to go on a three day backpacking trip to the far northwest corner of the country. My friend from Holland, Cecile, and I left Granada Thursday after class and headed to Leon. We checked into a great hostel and used her guide book to take a walking tour of the city´s churches and murals. Leon is a very politically minded city, so it was really fascinating to check out the murals and their strong statements. I also met a group of three siblings who where guarding their mom´s bike cart while she was selling fruit on the street. They asked for money, so I said I´d give them ten cordobas if they´d let me give them a ride on the bike. Their mom was totally cool with it, but as soon as they climbed on and we started out for a spin around the park about ten other kids appeared out of nowhere and jumped on. It was kind of like riding the bus here - when I think it´s a bit crowded I get a quick reminder that I have no concept of crowded. It was a lot of fun and quite a workout with kids hanging on everywhere, but most definitely worth the fifty cents I spent.
The next morning we got up way too early and packed up and headed out towards Cosiguina. The six hour bus ride was a pretty typical chicken bus ride until we stopped for a break with about 40 minutes left to go and our guide suggested that we could ride on the top of the bus if we liked. I was super excited and climbed on up. Not only was it cooler and quieter up there but the view of the villages and the ocean was fantastic and constantly ducking to dodge tree branches was a fun game. I also got to help a little bit with lowering things down from the roof when passengers got off at the stops.
When we finally arrived at our stop, we grabbed our bags and hiked to a deserted beach. It was absolutely gorgeous with black sand and views across the bay of both Honduras and El Salvador. The village nearby is truly isolated, so many people came down to the beach to see what we were up to. One young kid even let me take his horse for a ride on the beach. The water was wavy, but not too strong and perfect for swimming. The local kids showed us how they search in the surf for what they call chiquitin. They are some sort of shell fish-beetle type thing they use to make soup. We collected fire wood, watched the sun set, and ate dinner around the fire. One of the locals who helped teach our guide the trail to the nearby volcano told us jokes and stories in Spanish, but also had this amazing ability to look at the Orion constellation in order to tell what time it was. No matter how many times we asked over the two nights we were there, he was never more than five minutes off with the time.
The next day we headed off to hike the remnants of what used to be the tallest Volcano in Nicaragua, Volcan Coisguina. Fortunately, because I had to climb up this thing, after a huge eruption it's no longer as tall and there's beautiful crater lake where the top used to be. Most of the hike was in the scorching sun walking through sand. It was much better when we finally reached the forest section which provided a bit of shade. The view at the top was stunning. The crater lake was about five hundred feet below the summit with cliffs going straight down to it. I've never wanted to swim so badly, but it just wasn't possible. However, four hours later when we finally returned to camp it felt so great to jump in the ocean!
That night we had dinner in the home of a local family. This was one of the richest families in the community, but that is definitely a relative term. They lived in a tiny shack without electricity or plumbing. They had one bed and the kitchen was outdoors. The animals roamed freely including a rooster perched on the footboard of the bed. They also had two pet parrots that had babies that they spoon fed milk. There were also three dead iguanas in the sink that the grandpa was cleaning. I'll spare you all the details but the noise it made when he pulled off the skin will haunt me forever. Fortunately, we had fish for dinner!
We camped on the beach again that night and got up early to head back to the city. The long bus ride was really crowded and especially interesting because lots of people got on the bus carrying their game cocks for the big fight that day.
But the most exciting part of the ride came when the guide said it was time to get off, so I activated my chicken bus departure skills and grabbed my pack and jumped off. Unfortunately, I was a bit too efficient because when I got off I was standing alone in a cloud of dust with nobody else from my group around. I was kind of pissed and confused, so I decided I'd better just start figuring out how to get back to Granada from this middle of nowhere town. I asked somebody where the bus terminal was and he said it was three blocks ahead. So, I started walking. After about ten minutes and no bus stop, I asked again. This time the guy said the terminal was about four miles up the road, so I tried to hail a taxi that passed but it didn't stop. I kept walking along this deserted road cursing the guide. After about a mile, a bus came along so I hopped on and headed to the terminal. At the terminal I actually caught up with the group again, and the guide felt so bad. He said he had made a mistake and by the time he told everybody to stay on the bus I'd already hopped off. He said he was totally impressed with my speed, but apparently it didn't serve me well. He did buy me a banana pineapple smoothie to make up for my troubles, though!
The next morning we got up way too early and packed up and headed out towards Cosiguina. The six hour bus ride was a pretty typical chicken bus ride until we stopped for a break with about 40 minutes left to go and our guide suggested that we could ride on the top of the bus if we liked. I was super excited and climbed on up. Not only was it cooler and quieter up there but the view of the villages and the ocean was fantastic and constantly ducking to dodge tree branches was a fun game. I also got to help a little bit with lowering things down from the roof when passengers got off at the stops.
When we finally arrived at our stop, we grabbed our bags and hiked to a deserted beach. It was absolutely gorgeous with black sand and views across the bay of both Honduras and El Salvador. The village nearby is truly isolated, so many people came down to the beach to see what we were up to. One young kid even let me take his horse for a ride on the beach. The water was wavy, but not too strong and perfect for swimming. The local kids showed us how they search in the surf for what they call chiquitin. They are some sort of shell fish-beetle type thing they use to make soup. We collected fire wood, watched the sun set, and ate dinner around the fire. One of the locals who helped teach our guide the trail to the nearby volcano told us jokes and stories in Spanish, but also had this amazing ability to look at the Orion constellation in order to tell what time it was. No matter how many times we asked over the two nights we were there, he was never more than five minutes off with the time.
The next day we headed off to hike the remnants of what used to be the tallest Volcano in Nicaragua, Volcan Coisguina. Fortunately, because I had to climb up this thing, after a huge eruption it's no longer as tall and there's beautiful crater lake where the top used to be. Most of the hike was in the scorching sun walking through sand. It was much better when we finally reached the forest section which provided a bit of shade. The view at the top was stunning. The crater lake was about five hundred feet below the summit with cliffs going straight down to it. I've never wanted to swim so badly, but it just wasn't possible. However, four hours later when we finally returned to camp it felt so great to jump in the ocean!
That night we had dinner in the home of a local family. This was one of the richest families in the community, but that is definitely a relative term. They lived in a tiny shack without electricity or plumbing. They had one bed and the kitchen was outdoors. The animals roamed freely including a rooster perched on the footboard of the bed. They also had two pet parrots that had babies that they spoon fed milk. There were also three dead iguanas in the sink that the grandpa was cleaning. I'll spare you all the details but the noise it made when he pulled off the skin will haunt me forever. Fortunately, we had fish for dinner!
We camped on the beach again that night and got up early to head back to the city. The long bus ride was really crowded and especially interesting because lots of people got on the bus carrying their game cocks for the big fight that day.
But the most exciting part of the ride came when the guide said it was time to get off, so I activated my chicken bus departure skills and grabbed my pack and jumped off. Unfortunately, I was a bit too efficient because when I got off I was standing alone in a cloud of dust with nobody else from my group around. I was kind of pissed and confused, so I decided I'd better just start figuring out how to get back to Granada from this middle of nowhere town. I asked somebody where the bus terminal was and he said it was three blocks ahead. So, I started walking. After about ten minutes and no bus stop, I asked again. This time the guy said the terminal was about four miles up the road, so I tried to hail a taxi that passed but it didn't stop. I kept walking along this deserted road cursing the guide. After about a mile, a bus came along so I hopped on and headed to the terminal. At the terminal I actually caught up with the group again, and the guide felt so bad. He said he had made a mistake and by the time he told everybody to stay on the bus I'd already hopped off. He said he was totally impressed with my speed, but apparently it didn't serve me well. He did buy me a banana pineapple smoothie to make up for my troubles, though!
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