It's Not Your Turn: 3 Feb 2014

!Hola Familia y Amigos!

I ate Chinese food this week! We went out to eat with Roger and his lovely girlfriend, Patricia (Whom we are teaching!!! Aaahh! Huge news because she has been agnostic for years and was super angry about Roger getting baptized . . . at first. Then she met us and now she loves us. Boom. Success.), and I can now say I have eaten the Nicaraguan version of Chinese food. It wasn't bad, but definitely not the best I've ever had.  Our waiter tried to talk us out of what we decided on ordering and was kind of rude about it, and it reminded me of the Chinese food incident my family and I had in Ireland.

Mountain Climbing: 27 January 2014

¡Hola familia y amigos!

I woke up this morning thinking about how amazing the women are here with balancing things on their heads. Huge baskets laden with bread, fish, tortillas, tamales packaged in banana leaves...how do they do it? I've seen women get on the bus with their giant baskets on their heads and nothing happens. I tried walking around the apartment with my journal on my head and it fell after 30 seconds. Sad.  You should try it and let me know if you have more luck than I did.

Wal-Mart: January 20, 2014

!Hola familia y amigos!

You know I honestly have no idea what I'm going to write about in this email, so bear with me if I'm all over the place.

Firstly, Hna. G really wants to learn English and I've been having so much fun teaching her. I can teach her anything I want! The power is almost too much.  So, naturally, I taught her how to say, "He's a jerk," "just kidding," and the usage of the words "random" and "awkward," because there aren't direct translations for those phrases in Spanish.  Her English is probably about as entertaining as my Spanish was at the beginning. She asked me today, "Can you borrow me?" haha "Um... no thank you, hermana."

Sandwishes: Dec. 31, 2013.

!Hola familia y amigos!

Allow me to say a belated Feliz Navidad, Prospero año y Felicidad.

They made all of the missionaries in my zone put on stupid little elf hats and sunglasses and sing that to the entire stake of Leon, and whomever was supposed to turn off the music after "Feliz Navidad" played three times forgot.  So, we ended up singing it SEVEN times (yes. I'm being serious), and by the end of it I couldn't even sing because I was laughing so hard.   We just really, really, really wanted everyone to have a Merry Christmas from the bottom of our hearts.

Dr. Meow: 20 December 2013

(Sorry this is two days late--we have had problems with internet as well as meetings in Managua that have switched around our schedules. I wrote this Monday but am sending it today. With permission, Dad. No worries. )

Hola familia y amigos!

Rutas + billowy skirts = bad combination.  Let's just say Nicaragua saw a whole other side of me today. And I wish I was joking.

I Used My Bugspray as Perfume: 9 December 2013

 ¡Hola familia y amigos!

I used my bugspray as perfume today because our supposedly clean laundry smells like death this week. And if you were wondering, I hate the smell of bugspray. Oh well. I have decided I just don't care anymore, haha.

First of all, I promised I would describe the market scene in my last email, so I'll do that now.  The market closest to the Central is the coolest--tons of huge umbrellas in primary colors blocking out the sun for each of the many vendors set up in their little shacks and tents. There are little sections blocked off for each vendor, some shelves bearing nothing but tons of ripe pineapples, huge woven baskets filled with yellow/green oranges (Green oranges. It's a thing.), limes, platanos (Plantains, which I eat every single day here in various forms. Boiled, fried, mashed, cut into strips and dried like potato chips . . . you name it.), bananas, sugar cane, coconuts, fish, crabs crawling around in buckets, gigantic papaya (which I don't really like that much. The outside is yellow tinged with green, and the inside is a deep orange color. The taste is bland. It is, however, good in smoothies), giant bags propped up in rows filled with uncooked rice and various types of beans and spices, and everwhere, everywhere, little bolsitas (little bags) filled with various things. I've seen bolsitas strung up filled with ketchup and mustard and mayonaise, with water, various juices, flour, salt, bike parts, you name it.  There's something kind of fun about ducking in and out of the umbrellas, side-stepping rutas and horses and cars and motorcycles and taxis and triculos (a man riding a bike with a two or three person bench behind him on wheels and covered by a little canopy) and other people.  You don't wait to cross the road, you just go for it and assume they'll move for you--which they almost always do, but I've had a few close encounters that got my heart racing.

Two Cats in a Birdcage: December 2, 2013

¡Hola familia y amigos!

I would just like everyone to know that dreams do come true.  Last week on the night before Thanksgiving I had an abnormally long dream about cake.  I was making cake, and eating cake, and walking around in bakeries full of cake...and when I woke up in the morning, well, I'm sure you can imagine, I wanted cake (shout out to Emily Pickett--your chocolate cake at 2 am is still the greatest).  Well, my dreams were fulfilled! The woman who makes our lunch, Iris, made four cakes (yes, four) for her daughter's birthday party that day, and I had to help make the cakes (mixing with my hands because they don't have a mixer), and was then given a cake for myself.  It was a fat, happy day for Hermana Najarro and I.  The cakes here kind of taste like twinkies held together by sweetened condensed milk, and that is fine by me.

Gigatonas: November 25, 2013

¡Hola famila y amigos!

Spanish lesson of the week for you: Foco = lightbulb.  Foca = seal (as in, the aquatic animal).  When you ask someone who owns a tiny little shop on the street corner if they sell focas, they can and will laugh at you.  haha 

I don't know why I haven't remember to write about this earlier, because it's definitely not a normal tradition: "Gigatonas" (higga-tone-uhs).  Every night here for the month of November, people dress up in these giant, 12 foot creepy looking Barbie doll costumes and grace (or plague) the streets of Nicaragua. No one knows exactly why they do it, just that it's a tradition from Spain--I want someone to Google it and tell me.  There are at least six or seven Gigatonas in our area in Leon alone; someone steps inside the doll (the person's heas is at about the section of the doll's midriff), and dances around, swaying the doll's long arms and tiered ruffled dress and long, colorful plastic-streamer hair in the process.  You always know when one is coming because they're followed by a procession of little boys banging loudly on drums and another boy wearing a giant head of some sort of Hispanic looking man jumping around in circles (he kind of looks like an apish Mexican bobble head).  Hermana Najarro and Rosita (the member here who goes out and teaches with us almost every day--more on her later, she's awesome) have decided the Gigatonas are my descendants, because they're the only things here that are taller than me. One Hermana in our district is terrified of them (she actually runs away when she sees one coming, haha).  But apart from the  fact that the drums are annoying because you can't hear anything when they pass by, I think it's a fun tradition.

FIRST BAPTISM (and Pupusas!): November 18, 2013

¡Hola familia y amigos!

Recently I have just been entertained by the things tell me in English.  There are two words for white-girl here, "Chela" and "Gringa," and I respond to both respectively.  My favorite occurrence this week was with a possibly intoxicated man with a mustache sitting on the street corner, who called after me (imagine your best low, dumb beefy-guy voice), "Chela. I lohve yoo fohreverr."  Hna. Najarro says that to me almost every day now. 

What I find entertaining is that many people will say things to me in English just because they know how to say them.  For example, a man on a bike turned around to declare loudly, "It is hot." Yes, yes, it is.  Thank you.  Or, "Byeeee!!!" haha The graffiti here is equally as funny.  Just random words in English that don't really mean anything. "You are a boy." "Cool man." "It is here."   Whatever "it" is, it wasn't there. The building it was written on was abandoned long ago.

Attack of the Insects: November 11, 2013

¡Hola familia y amigos!

I. Hate. Insects.  I hate them hate them hate them.  And this week, they were out to get me.  

I killed ten huge cockroaches in our house this week. TEN.  All the size of tablespoons or larger.  Ugh....I don't even want to know how many are actually in our house. And then we picked up our laundry from Johanna's house across the street and returned to our house, I noticed some food or something had been spilled onto the mesh laundry bag, and ALL of my clothes were just teeming with these tiny little ant/weevil like insects.  I know it's silly and dumb, but I just...cried. hahaha I just feel so disgusting here, all of the time.  I love nature and being outdoors, but I also like to smell good and feel clean, and here I just feel so GROSS all of the time. My hair is gross, my skin is gross, I smell weird, my clothes smell weird, there are ants all over my books, and now a little colony of new friends that live in my clothes. I needed a minute to compose myself, and then I was fine.  I still love it here, no worries.

Taxi Mishap: November 4, 2013

Hola familia y amigos!

Story time!! I have so many stories for you this week, I hope I have time to write them all down.  The smallest of which is that, for the first time in my life, I saw a chicken cross the road.  It was an oddly pensive moment for me.  All of those "why did the chicken cross the road" jokes took on a whole new meaning.  And, if you were wondering, the chicken actually sprinted across the road to avoid being squashed by a motorcycle.  Now you know.

Pinolillo: October 28, 2013

Hola familia y amigos!

"And it came to pass, that Hermana Behan did consume much rice and grow fat, like unto the beasts of the field." 1 Caribbeans 6:3

I'm getting used to the food, but if I'm not careful, I'm going to "engordar" and come back to you with just that more more of me to love, haha.  We eat whatever we want for breakfast, and then we have a big lunch at a member's house and are expected to eat all of it.  We don't eat dinner, which is kind of sad, because every day around 7 I feel hungry sorry for myself.  I ate a cucumber with peanutbutter for dinner the other day.  It tasted about as good as it sounds.  That and Ritz con Queso or delicious bread from Panerias..  But Hermana Najarro and I have sworn ourselves away from both of those things....too dangerous.  I tried two new drinks this week as well! Tiste, which is a clowdy brown color, sort of an horchata like texture, and tastes slightly like beans and sugar and a hint of coffee (it's not coffee, no worries).  Also Pinolillo, which Nicaragua is famous for.  It's also a murky brown color with flecks of tan colored floaties in it, which are apparently pieces of toasted corn.  It tastes like...toasted corn and cocoa powder, and water, which is all it is.  It was expecting it to taste like dirt, so I'll take what I can get.

Spanish Catch Phrase: October 24, 2013

Hola familia y amigos!

Let it be known throughout the land, I have OFFICIALLY FINISHED MY FIRST WEEK IN NICARAGUA, AND I'M NOT DEAD YET! No parasites so far! I'd say that's a success! I might just die from heat exhaustion, though. I am convinced that on his way down through the seven levels
of hell, Dante passed briefly through Nicaragua.

If any of you decided to come and visit me, it would be fairly easy to find me, because I might just be the only gringa (white girl) here. I'm the one with the shiny skin and poofy hair who everyone honks at (everyone..all taxis. Everytime.), blows kisses at/whistles at (five times today), or yells random things I don't understand...which is probably a good thing.