Dancing Video from Mother's Day (Day 8)

Gangnam Style on Mother's Day

Check out the video above if you want to see my attempt at Gangnam style. This was the house and dancing I talked about during Day 8's epic long post (use the scroll wheel to journey to the end of it and read about the night)

Day 8 5/30/13 (Sketchy milk, Chinandega, Mother's Day, Gangnam Style and badly calculated tips/taxes)

Last night was not all that restful of a sleep for a multitude of reasons. First off: it was raining pretty hard (which was relaxing) but the rain decided to make friends with the electricity somewhere and knock out the power about when I was falling asleep. The fan turning off woke me up and the heat that rushed into the room certainly did not help me sleep any better. So I know I got less than 8 hours (probably closer to 7 hours if that) and combined with waking up at 5:45 AM (as per usual for some reason), I did not sleep well. I will stop complaining about that though. Anyways, breakfast and a cold shower managed to wake me up a bit. Breakfast consisted of B&R, a ham (?) and cheese omelet and the oddest milk/liquid rice I’ve ever had. Let me try to explain this drink: it was off white in color, grainy, thick and tasted like a mixture of four different flavored soymilks (and perhaps powdered milk thrown in too). Our homestay mother poured us like 18 oz glasses of the liquid and I felt obliged to drink it all (and not disrespect her). While consuming this liquid I felt like Kenny Rodgers doing the milk chug on the MadTV Jacka$$ sketch (which I recommend watching if you like funny videos and are not scared of Kenny Rodgers). Also this grainy patch of a thick substance would pool at the bottom of the glass and refused to mix into the drink (so I avoided drinking that part). I made the challenge and kept my breakfast down too. I apologize if my blogging today sounds like a rant/collection of complaints. I don’t intend as such.

At school we had the typical: work on pronunciation, speaking and vocab for the first two hours and then work on verbs for the second half. The first half was actually pretty interesting today as we talked about Chinandega (the town where several people will be going). The teacher (Jorge) was talking about how Chinandega has the second strongest and largest economy in Nicaragua besides Managua. He was also talking about how Chinandega is a big tourist city as it is so close to Honduras and is on the coast and has beautiful beaches. He also described how there is an active volcano in the area that draws tourists, but the volcano is a cursed blessing (because it attracts tourists, but also spews out acidic gases that make the roofs of the town oxidize more quickly (and cause problems for asthma etc)). Jorge was also saying how the town is more active because Chinandega has a monopoly on all of the trade traffic that enters Nicaragua (imports). This includes imports bound for Managua. Anyways, we also heard how the army of Honduras, Nicaragua and one other place were warring in the gulfo de Fonseca (a luxurious and well stocked fishing area next to Chinandega) except that they essentially declared the area DMZ because it was freaking out tourists. It must have been like “¡Bienvenidos a Chinandega! ¡Por favor no mires los ejercitos en el mar!” Naw, but seriously Chinandega sounds like a hopping place! It has beautiful beaches, a strong economy, tourism, clubs, good roads, good food (frutas, maiz (corn), sugar cane (caño de azúcar) (grown locally of course) and all the other standards including pollos, gallo pinto and verduras!), a dry tropical climate (about 70 to 80 ish during the winter of North America (November/December). The only problems are the acid rain and the incredibly hot temperatures (sometimes upwards of 40^oC (104^oF!!!)) the rest of the year (December through April or May and then maybe a bit milder weather (like 21 or 30^o C) May to October). Apparently there was also this famous baseball player that played on the San Francisco (maybe another team?) Pirates and became a huge philanthropist for the area. He taught others how to play and helped the area quite a bit. He also had the record for the most bases stolen. Tragically he died on the route to Nicaragua one time when there was an earthquake and now he is revered as a hero. Jorge also talked about how there is a fútbol league here. Jorge even plays in the league in the Masters class and makes 300 Cordobas a match! We also talked about how the government has tried to help the poor with such things as new roof projects and with relief efforts, but Managua is still in a bad position for those located around the lake when it rains. The healthcare system here is also completely free which is nice because they will even treat foreigners for free. There are also private hospitals that are not free and are a tad more advanced due to larger funding. The doctors are the same quality in both hospital types as these doctors change between the two. The problem with the free healthcare and other governmental efforts is that some of the Nicaraguans have become heavily dependent on the government for support. An interesting note here is that Nicaragua has an agreement with Cuba where aspiring doctors can go to Cuba and study with a scholarship (for dorms, education etc) if the doctors return to Nicaragua to work for 2 years. This is agreement is because Cuba and Nicaragua want to retain good relations. Cuba has also been working to educate rural farmers in Nicaragua with literacy programs since the farmers were uneducated back in the 1960s and 1970s under Samoza’s rule. Cuba has also provided medical supplies and education to Nicaragua to further enhance relations. At one point in 1998 when hurricane Mitch hit Nicaragua, Cuba sent over a plane of supplies, but the president at the time refused to let the plane land. Hurricane Mitch hurt quite a few areas of Nicaragua including Léon, Chinandega and Pozoltega. Pozoltega was an exceptionally tragic case as the city was near the Volcán Casita (a volcano made of a giant mound of sand). When the hurricane struck with its long intense rain, the sand dislodged and essentially buried Pozoltega in sand (talk about freaky!). Another interesting fact about Nicaraguan education is that teachers (in their junior year of college) have to go out and volunteer 8 hours a week teaching the illiterate as a graduation requirement.

 

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Lunch after all of that was substantially less interesting (B&R), chicken, plantains and lettuce. The chicken was quite good though! Anyways, I got to talk to some new people at lunch, so that was quite enjoyable! Lecture was on NIBPs (non-invansive blood pressure units that are automated with just a cuff), IBPs (invasive blood pressure units that require a needle in an artery O.o -> X.x) and good ‘ole fashioned pressure cuffs (the word is sphygmanometer). We learned about the type of signal that the cuffs accept and how this signal is converted the pressure in a mercury column to give a reading of the systolic (peak BP) and the diasystolic (valley BP). We then learned how to repair the mercury columns (remove oxidation) and how to do some testing on the equipment and change a pressure dial needle if necessary (calibration). The lab after this was a continuation of the soldering lab. Today we spliced wires together using wrapping techniques, some solder and some heatshrink. The solid core was formed into conjoined eyehooks and soldered. The stranded wire was wrapped in Western Union style with the strands being twisted in opposite directions to form a tight braiding. The wires were then soldered and heat shrunk and withstood all the pressure we could apply to them! I briefly stopped at the Euro Café to check internet type things and people were reading my blog and wondering if they were mentioned. Note to anyone reading this:

If(something.equals("crazy") | something.equals("hilarious") | something.equals("weird"))
{
blog.addMention(something);
}

It was Mother’s Day in Nicaragua and this alone should signal celebration (and that is exactly what we did. Dan and I had agreed to buy to split the cost of some flowers for our host-mother. He was invited to dine with his old host family and traveled off into Granada after class. I walked home and stopped at a florist. The first florist wanted like 250 cordobas for like 3 roses in a bowl and I thought no way. So I said “un momento” and walked to the adjacent florist and asked how much the roses were. The prices here were much better (150 cordobas for a vase with 3 roses and a pleasant floral display). So naturally I bought them for 140 (because that’s all the paper money I had in cordobas in my wallet) and did not return to the first florists (I hope they can forgive me for using capitalism). The walk back from there was about 6 blocks and it was super awkward. The reason for this was because the people along the way kept judging me and giving me weird looks when I had the flowers. At one point I walked past some guys seated in wooden rocking chairs who muttered that I had spent 150 cordobas (about $6) on the flowers (and that I must be crazy probably). I suppose that $6 is almost a day’s wage for some here, so it’s reasonable they probably thought I wasted my money. Anyways, needless to say Adrianna absolutely loved the roses! I arrived back at about 5:30 PM because Adrianna said we would be going to the neighbors at 6 PM for dinner. I changed into a nice shirt (a slick new REI shirt that cost way too much, but is quite comfortable) and got ready. At home I met a guy named Francisco who was helping cook. After we left for the neighbors I never saw him again (secret agent undercover helping to cook to keep his identity confidential?).

   The neighbors’ house is quite spacious. The front room has a high ceiling and the room is perhaps 50ftx90ft and I was given a rocking chair to recline in and wait for dinner. Shortly thereafter a music man showed up (he had a bass drum on his chest and was carrying around crash cymbals and was asking what the occasion for the people sitting around was for (as there was maybe 10 of us sitting around in the room open to the street with two huge wooden doors). He was wondering if it was a birthday or something, but the mother in the house told him it was mother’s day. I thought he left, but turns out he brought the rest of his band there (with a trombone player and a snare drum person) and they started jamming and blasting this crazy music. I don’t even know how to describe the music except for it was definitely party music that featured a blaring trombone (and was incredibly loud). I was sitting right next to the door too, so that certainly helped to amplify the sound (as did the nice acoustic room). Anyways, the younger neighbor girl started dancing a bit (dancing that resembled clubbing) and got a few of the other people there to dance a bit. I was just content to sit there for a while. Even Adrianna got up and danced a bit with her. It kinda was a roaring party there for a bit (with dancing and music). I got asked to dance a bit, but declined. Until Adrianna pulled me up there, I was just sitting and trying not to lose my hearing. I started dancing a bit like the women up there had been (just sorta grooving to the music and not really doing all that much). I had a good time there and had most of the people gathered laughing and taking photos of me (so check Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter as I may be on there somewhere or perhaps even TMZ?) While the trombone player was wailing away on his piece, the neighbors’ dog was barking every time the trombonist played a note (and was trying to chase the trombonist off). This dog is a small poodle type dog that is not fearsome at all. The most hilarious part was that the band would finish playing a song and the dog would go in the other room until the band started up again and the dog would come tearing through to back at the trombonist. The trombonist would turn his instrument down towards the dog to scare the dog back (and the cold war continued). Anyways, further along in the night at maybe like 6:30 PM the band started playing more upbeat songs and I got pulled up again by the younger neighbor girl (who is in high school I think) to have a dance competition between us I think). I started throwing down some crazy dance moves (keep in mind crazy for me is just doing shuffling, maybe some fancy footwork or some backwards “falls” and some shoot-the-duck-esque style Russian kicking). These made the family laugh even harder and take even more photos. I was having a blast and was getting into the music while she was clubbing and doing the shake one’s body thing. Unfortunately the song ended soon after. I thanked everyone and sat down (I heard Adrianna say that I won so I laughed a bit to myself). Anyways, that wasn’t the best part. The best was that Salvador Jr. decided to go back to the house to grab his iPod so I went and grabbed my Flip video camera. I took some video of the house and the group when I got back (the neighbor’s house that is). Salvador Jr. grabbed his iPod because he wanted to DJ a bit to the stereo system that was in the front room. He told me that I should do Gangnam Style (by the way Word says Gangnam is spelled incorrectly) and put the song on. I decided to oblige the request and do my best if he would video it. Thus I found myself in front of like 12 Nicaraguas with Gangnam style playing and expecting me to dance and that’s what I did. A quick note is that I DO NOT know all of Gangnam style so I just kept doing the hand motions and then started throwing in my own shuffling etc to fill time. It wasn’t the greatest, but it had the people taking photos and videos probably (and some of the fathers sitting outside the house smiling at least. On video I look like the whitest person ever dancing. Literally I am the biggest Gringo ever on that film, but it’s hilarious (I think when I was actually doing the dance I was trying not to offend anyone and trying to not think too hard about anything). I only did this for about 2 minutes because I saw this one grandma sitting in her chair frowning at me so I was like “aight that’s a good place to stop and leave before she freaks out.” I sat down and they all liked it. Salvador Jr. then said I should do LMFAO’s “Sexy and I know,” but I wasn’t going to do it alone, so he said that I would start and he would join in. I went out there again for the beginning of the song. I started doing what I could remember from the video and got the “gurl look a dat body ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh   gurl look at dat body ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” part when Salvador Jr. enters into frame. At this point we both continued to the “wiggle wiggle wiggle” part and then we started just throwing down crazy moves (he starts spongebob-ing at one point and I cannot spongebob either, so I just end up looking like a fail on camera, but it was all good). I then shuffle for a while to the rest of the song and have so much fun. After that I sat down and was sweating so profusely. The only other dancing I did was attempting the Macarena and getting my butt kicked so I sat down (on video). It seemed like an eternity until dinner at this point, but finally I got some dinner consisting of B&R, plantains, coleslaw, a chicken wing and this really good beef that had spices that made it incredibly tasty (and chewy). To wash this down I even got some red drank. Before diner I was able to have some vanilla ice cream in a dish with a blackberry on top and some jello on top as well (the jello was a weird combo with ice cream). Anyways all of that was so much fun and I had the best time with the neighbors. I waited a bit longer and got to see some more funny occurrences. Namely the neighbor girl started playing Ke$ha’s song “C’mon” while all the parents, older grandmas and young kids were in the room. For those that do not know this song, it’s basically about Ke$ha talking about picking up dudes and doing other Ke$ha trademarked activities (think super classy Ke$ha +  consumption of certain alcoholic beverages + late nights + WTF = “C’mon”). Basically I was laughing the whole time to myself. I also heard some Pitbull (DALE! –Pitbull at Shadowbrook (shoutout to Liz there)) and his song “Feel This Moment.” Basically the place was rocking! I left not too much after dinner because I wanted to meet people in town at 8:30 PM.

            The night from that point on was much less enjoyable, but was still quite fun, as basically we just went to different bars and I had water and a really sugary drink called fresca (apparently a product of Nicaragua). Anyways Other members of the group were in various states of drinks consumed and more or less we were all having a pretty good time. Despite that started feeling funky toward the end of the night, the night was good. We even got to see some drunk people dancing to a street band and two members of our group got pulled onto the train those people started. Also got ripped off by the last bar we went to as they charged 24 cordobas for bottled water, which isn’t too bad. When the check came they “calculated” 10% tip at being 4 cordobas. For any people with a calculator or mental math abilities can clearly see that 4 is not 10% but rather 16% (for the tip or for tax, dunno). Next time, we’ll skip that place.

            The night was a ton of fun despite having to walk back on the sketchy streets at like 11 PM and being called on by some chick I think, but we kept walking and ignored the call. Talk to y’all later, but until then, peace and as always, don’t die.

Day 7 5/29/13 (Class, SOLDERING, SM SOLDERING (Did I mention soldering?) and a torrential downpour and flood)

          Today started off with normal breakfast of B&R, eggs with ham, and bread with orange juice maybe? Don’t quite recall. Anyways today in class we were retaking the first half of the test that we got back to improve our scores. I know I did much better on the first part already. After that we talked more about pronunciation and did a vocab exercise. Tomorrow we will present by talking about ourselves and our family a bit. During the grammar section we covered all of the present tense and the irregulars (except for estar, ser and ir). We literally covered like 30 verbs today at least. It was crazy. I feel more confident in the present tense though. We also talked a bit about where to go and what to see and the different travel options with our pronunciation professor. He said that it’s only like a 3 hour drive to San Carlos (which is basically right next to the Costa Rican border (frontera). Dan and I are hoping to travel to Costa Rica at some point during our time there. I’ve neglected to mention at any point during these entries that we have a break at about 10 AM to eat these awesome pastries filled with sweet pineapple mixtures and with meat (in different pastries).

            Anyways, for lunch we had this like boiled pork or chicken (I think chicken), B&R, warmed plantains, and vegetables (much like a stew without the broth). Decide for yourself below:

 

            All of the lunch was actually good. We then had a lecture on EKG/ECGs (electrocardiograph machines) and how to fix some minor issues with them such as the paper not showing the QRS waveform from the heart correctly, the paper not moving at the right speed, the stylus pegging on the sides of the paper (due to incorrect contacts or placement of electrodes), the calibration wave not being a square wave (due to incorrect pot settings in the machine) and the paper making exaggerated tracings (too much pressure on the paper -> change a pot setting). We also spent some time learning about how the electrodes must be placed around the heart (vectors I to VI) and how the electrodes must be placed on the right leg, left leg, right arm and left arm (if the machine is a 12 lead machine (only 10 wires); the difference in naming conventions is due to doctors and engineers not playing nice in preschool (no only joking on that last statement about the doctors and engineers). Besides this, we also had a mini-quiz on IV pumps, O­­­­₂ concentrators, ventilators and respirators. After the lecture and quiz, we got to SOLDER! As in taking rosin core melt-able wire and heating a joint until that wire flows like a silver river of connections. We practiced soldering and desoldering (with particular attention to solder braid and the solder sucker). I also tried my hand at surface mount (SM) resistors and actually got decent at doing it. I also showed people how to desolder components using just a soldering iron and pulling on the component gently. I was able to get soldering down (along with tinning the tip) since I have done quite a bit of soldering before (with all my projects). Some people were having a bit of trouble with soldering, but they were making huge advances in their skills. We were practicing on these small PCB (printed circuit boards) that were from past years and some of the ESU testing boards from the states. Most of the boards were that badly soldered in the first place except for this one half of an ESU board. Literally this board had like BB sized globs of solder on each joint. These weren’t even really soldered to the PCB holes, but rather just above them. I started to fix each joint and then Dan and I decided to leave for the day. Seriously that board was whack.

            I left the school and headed for my hangout: the Euro Café. Today was actually a good day there. I bought a Coke for 20 cordobas (about 80 cents) and sat down. Initially I was able to get on the ‘Net. Not too soon after I got onto FB, Outlook and Blogger the internet failed and the staff had to reset the router. A little while later the same error happened again and Mark “reset” the router by unplugging it. After that I finished uploading all the photos to FB and blogger (to make all my fanatic (joking here folks just chill) readers happy). Meanwhile the sky looked incredibly menacing with dark shades of grey and thunder. I wasn’t done blogging so I stayed at the café (mistake? Not really). Anyways when I was just about done with my blogging it started to rain. Not too bad at first, considering I was sitting with my back to the open garden inside and I started feeling mists hitting my computer and I. I shifted around to put my back against the wall shortly thereafter. The sky literally opened up and forces unknown above started pouring dump trucks worth of rain down. It was torrential. The rain was so bad that it flooded the 8 inch deep motes around the garden area in about 25 seconds. I got up on a chair and everyone started freaking out. It was like the entire place was sinking because the water was rising around the chairs. I said it was like the Titanic all over again, but with less danger. Anyways, we cleared off toward the bathroom area of the café only to realize that the water was coming in from that direction as well! I said “futz that crud” and made a break for the stairs on the other side of the room (around the ping pong table and past the blind massage area (the room is like a picture frame border around the central garden)). That was my saving grace. I was the first one on the stairs and the first one to start avoiding the water. I kept hoping that the water would not rise to the level of the electric outlets on the walls because then it would literally have been tragic most likely. We were not prepared to handle large currents in that situation (and luckily we didn’t have to). Anyways, not long after I got on the stairs the rest of the group and some other students joined me up there. Luckily the staircase was huge and lead up to an enclosed balcony where one can look down upon the garden. Meanwhile despite this chaos the internet kept on running (just like the band on the Titanic). To those people whom I was talking to during this time, y’all must think that I was freaking out, but in reality I was having a blast. It was epic! Shout out to Liz² (Liz and Elizabeth) who got a chance to glimpse second hand (through Skype) the water. Anyways there was probably about an inch of water on the floor in the café in addition to the garden being flooded. We waited until the rain subsided a bit and then made a break for our homestays. Dinner was uneventful after that (B&R, cheese, bread and that stew stuff). I have to still do some homework (for Spanish) so take care y’all! And as always don’t die!

More photos!

2440 Cordobas ($100). Enough to buy just about whatever here (except for getting into certain shoes more expensive and some phones)

A local family’s dog avoiding the heat

The oldest house in the city (and some say it’s haunted too O.o)

Some interesting architecture on the street of my homestay (also for protection)

No explanation needed.

An unknown figure outside of Masaya Volcano. Maybe the first park ranger?

Mark grabbing a photo of the cross from the 1500s on top of the Masaya Volcano. Unfortunately we couldn’t climb the steps to the cross because of seismic activity and the cross being too unstable.

Dan and I at el Volcán Masaya (at the crater at the top). Wearing my letters with pride!

The logo of the Margarita Bar (that has been mentioned frequently on this blog). There is another sign in the bar that is much better, but I will have to grab a picture of it later

Found el Flat Tires del Sur! Naw maybe this could be a good yard-find for someone looking for a project (probably would be pretty cheap too)!

 

Expectations: White sandy beach with crystal blue water and palm trees. Reality as can be seen above. Realistically this is the beachfront located right at the end of town where the pollution from town probably hurts the beach quite a bit (in Managua at the resorts the beaches looked just like those expectations). Evan, Kasper Dan and Akshay all talking about the beach too

A Mother’s Day celebration on el Calle Calzada

A (stray?) dog in the park outside the language school. I would adopt him, but customs probably wouldn’t let me bring him into the US without a plethora of shots

The entrance to Lake Nicaragua from the loading zone of the shore

 The other part of the tour with everyone just chilling on the way to the fort (The Atlantis group)

The cannon outside of the fort on one island in Lake Nicaragua. Ready to fire or at least ready to break shins as a tripping hazard save for it not being on the path. The tour guide lay down a challenge that if any person could life the cannon body even 1 cm that the strong person would not have to pay for the tour. Nobody that tried could lift it (and no one ever has the tour guide said). Two people can lift it however.

The group after conquering the fort. Evan checking for the sound of cannon fire and hostile troops.

The steeps…I mean steps from the ground level to the top of the fort. Approximately 10 inches deep by 8 inches high

The inside of the cannon at the fort on one of the islands in Lake Nicaragua. This was between cannon salvos at the approaching tour boats

Just hanging around. Chilling. He wishes that he could get onboard and get food.

Looks like the monkey dropped something O.o He could suddenly lash out and take your Ray Bans, so watch out. Naw this monkey is nice for a monkey.

 

 

Just a light snack for the monkey that boarded our boat. A ripe avocado that I gave him. This was when we were touring the isletas (small islands) in Lake Nicaragua.

The tour guide feeding the parrot

The parrot just chilling before getting some food

The OTGC feeding the same parrot

One of the more ambitious members of the group feeding the parrot on the isleta that had the Pirate Bar

The smallest Ping Pong paddle ever

The “Pirates” group on the tour of the isletas of Lake Nicaragua

 

 

Day 6 5/28/13 (More classes, warmed bananas (?), ventilators and frustration)

                        Today started at the beautiful time of 3:47 AM. I think I must be on some random time zone (like Italy or Russia time). Luckily I could fall back asleep until 6:45 AM. Breakfast today was this omelet with ham or something inside and red beans and rice and bread combined with this milk (leche con aveno which is like soymilk mixed with coconut). 

            We started class with pronouncing the letters and consonants with vowels as we had done yesterday. It wasn’t all that hard and we got to learn some new vocab that way. We also got to talk about our families a bit. In the grammar portion we got our tests back and I did okay (in the low B range), but we are going to retake the test tomorrow and try to learn from our mistakes. We also got our books today and did this really easy exercise where we had to use vocab and the correct words to express relationships (padre, hijo, esposa, primo, sobrina etc). We had a bit of homework which was to write about our state and our town.

            For lunch Adrianna brought our food into school at like 11:55 AM and it was still warm and fresh! We had _______ and ________ (fill in the blanks: rice, beans) and this chopped up meat (like beef) with warmed plantains or bananas (because whatever they were they were a bit sweet). The texture was somewhat strange on the warmed vegetable(s).

            After lunch we learned about ventilators and how to test them using either a balloon (to test the volume delivered) or with tubing (measuring the rate delivered). Additionally Ron (the instrumentation instructor) talked about the various control modes of the machines (many acronyms) and how P usually stands for pressure or positive in this case. The letter I usually stands for intermittent. The letter C usually stands for continuous or control. So for example CPAP stands for continuous positive airway pressure (basically forcing air into the lungs at all times (even when the patient is breathing)).

            While that wasn’t that bad, we had lab today that was to build an extension cord. While this may seem like and easy task, try using stranded wire to screw onto the screws on an outlet socket. It’s quite frustrating. Plus, I had the additional foresight to take my entire outlet socket apart (instead of just unscrewing the baseplate and had to jigger around with the connection ports several painstaking times to get the sockets in the right spot. I also had to re-strip and braid my wires once for the socket because I slit the insulation by accident and the wires at the base of the socket could touch (equaling instant death and fire). After all of my work, the danged thing did work correctly though (and it didn’t start any fires) and it could run a microwave (and many other devices too probably).

            After class Charlotte, Hannah, Dan and I walked around the local open air market to see what they had. I wanted to go into the local thrift shop, but Charlotte said that most of the items are from thrift shops in the US that don’t sell (which is probably partially correct). After that I went to the jolly ‘ole Euro Café for a good banana milk smoothie and some solid blogging. Several other members of my group and I left the café at 6 because the internet was turned off (so I apologize to all of those to whom I said I would post pictures yesterday) and I couldn’t get any more uploaded. Dinner was pretty good (___________, ___________, huevos revueltos (scrambled eggs), cheese and this red drank (that was quite sweet probably the equivalent of like high-c). Today I’m keeping it short (due to complaints from a certain Ukrainian individual).

            Also if anyone has any feedback on the blog so far or has suggestions, please feel free to let me know! (I will probably try out a few styles of writing and whatnot).

            Before I go, this was a picture I took of myself to show Adrianna Elana how a camera works (it also kinda captures my exhaustion/come culture shock/spacing out). Enjoy!

Day 5 5/27/13 (School, school, Spanish, respirators and formatting issues)

Today started off well I suppose, if you consider waking up at 5:45 AM a nice start. I didn’t have to get up until 6:45 AM, so I quickly passed out again for some more sleep. Anyways today was the first day of classes (Spanish and technical training). It started with a breakfast of (any guesses?) rice, beans, tortillas and cheese and scrambled eggs. Despite the bland sound of the food, it was actually quite good (especially the eggs). After that it was off to class.

            Arriving at the school at 7:45 AM, Dan and I saw the gated doors closed. We thought this meant that we couldn’t go inside, but this woman just walked up and looked at us sitting off to the side thinking to herself “man these Gringos are dumb” and just opened the gate. It was only slightly embarrassing. Classes today were focused on getting the students sorted into Spanish levels. The owner of the school read off names of those in the different levels. There are five levels (1 to 5) with 5 being the most advanced. Somehow I managed to place myself in level 4 and it was good for the first 2 hours (where we were working on grammar and pronunciation), but the second 2 hours were quite taxing (listening and speaking). I can read and write Spanish decently well, but the speaking is challenging for me now. The man teaching the grammar is patient and his name is Jorge (George). The woman leading the speaking and listening is named Mariella and she speaks quite a bit faster and is a bit harder to understand. I was able to understand a bit of what was happened, but every now and then a new word or phrase would lose me and it would take a few sentences for me to catch up. I think it will get even easier as I go along, so I didn’t get too down on myself. During the speaking session (2 hrs) we talked about Nicaraguan culture and about ourselves (because Mariella wants to get to know us). Mariella talked about the different customs here and the safety of the cities. For the most part the cities and public transport are reasonably safe, but Mariella said not to take a taxi alone or to have cellphones or wallets in back pockets on buses. Mariella was also saying that Nicaragua is much safer than most central American cities because in San Salvador people can’t even walk around safely because there is so much gang (gangs = pandillas) violence. Mariella was happy though because there really aren’t any gangs in Nicaragua. The primary reason for this is that in Nicaragua, the family is a very strong unit and force. It already can be seen in the fact that much of the family lives together for economic reasons and for the safety. Beyond this Nicaraguans typically spend most of their waking time together if they are not doing other things. This stresses the important family connections and ensures safety. Due to this time together, gangs aren’t really able to get a grip on society as the family doesn’t want them to. This was after Mariella said that one of the gangs beat up a woman’s son and the woman went to the hospital with the son and took care of him. She then talked to different families to prevent gang violence I think.

            Mariella also talked about the safety of Nicaragua. One of the first things she mentioned was that Managua is not super safe. She also mentioned that most of the areas that we (as students) would be travelling to would be pretty safe. Dan and I said that we will be travelling to San Carlos by the San Juan River (Río del San Juan). She said that it’s hot, but the river makes it more manageable. The downside is that this brings more mosquitos and Dengue fever to the area. So bring on the drums of DEET! (for the second month at least). We then had a lunch of seasoned beef, rice, beans and tortillas. After lunch we had a lecture on the medical equipment (respirators) and then a “lab” naming the tools in Spanish.

 

The Euro Café

 

 

 

            After class I went to the Euro Café (the hipster-tony-exclusive café that is really chill and is actually none of those prior adjectives) to grab some WiFi. With Coke in hand, I plopped myself in a chair and settled in to do some good Facebook-ing. I decided to start blogging on Blogger too (for those just reading this, welcome to my blog. How are you? Good good. How’s the weather where you are? Here it’s pretty rainy. Anyways I have to go do important internet things. See y’all!). Back to the ever interesting story of me spending 2.5 hours in the Euro Café. I spent this time checking up on internet life and tried to format Salvador’s MicroSD card (which by the way is either corrupted beyond reformatting or needs to have the previous partition erased). I am hoping the latter is the case. I have to download a program to erase the partition, but this program is 25 Mb. Usually I could download this in about 10 seconds at home or at WPI, but this will take at least 40 minutes (at 10 Kb/s     -.- / /  [router]-/  ). Anyways, I got back later and tried to nap a bit, but one of the neighbors decided that 6 PM was the perfect time to set off fuegos artificiales (fireworks) and my napping plan backfired. Anyways, today was pretty chill besides that. Gonna work a bit on getting some photos together for the blog. Take care y’all!

Photos Post 1

Sherwin Williams on the trip from Managua to Granada (Mr. Peters would be proud)

Sculpture work in the center of a roundabout (take note Oregon artists!)

One part of the street that my homestay is on (there's a bout 6 blocks to walk to the school from the homestay)

The main cathedral and tourist photo everyone takes

The slope on the side of the Mayasa Volcano (showing extensive fire damage where an employee started a blaze when that person was fired)

The cross on the top of Mayasa (due to seismic activity we couldn't reach the top of it). Made in the 1500s

The owner of the language school depicting "tectonic plates shifting" at Mayasa

Looking off the slope of Mayasa down toward Granada

Whatever you do, don't trip or fall (or say hello to the inner crater at Mayasa)

Day 4 5/26/13 (Mass, Exploration, Monkeys and Ghost Radio)

Today started nice and early at 7:15 AM when I got up and took a nice cold shower. This is the shizzle here! Normally it’s nice and warm in the mornings in the room, so a cold shower is both refreshing and wakes me up. The reason for the early rising on Sunday (today) was because I attended Mass with Daniel en el cathedral cerca de nuestro casa. Mass started at 8:00 AM this morning and went until 9 AM. I’m not Catholic, so I could not really understand anything that was going on, but I’ll try to summarize it as much as possible. We went with Salvador (the kid) to the church and walked in while the band was singing a song of praise. I was the tallest person in the first like 15 or 20 rows ahead of me and I didn’t check behind me. Dan and I were one of only a few gringos in the church. Anyways, the Nicas didn’t really mind us being there since we are both Christian. Dan is Catholic, so that’s why we went to Mass. During the service there were several short songs that I couldn’t really understand; save for a few words here and there and a “hallelujia” or an “amen” that sounds like amen. The pastor even had a time where he spoke to the children about the bible and told the story of Jesus Christ and how there is only one God (and that Jesus and God and probably the virgin mother) are the same one God. There was also communion later on in the service, but the priest was the only one to drink the wine while the congregation could go up for communion. Dan went up to take the wafer, but I didn’t as I am not Catholic. Luckily I wasn’t the only person who chose to not take communion, but at the same time I think the priest saw me in the congregation and might have looked directly at me once. In the time before communion, a kid and an older man walked around with butterfly nets collecting the donations in the nets (an interesting idea as opposed to the offering bowls). The rest of Mass was nonchalant except that they were advertising this week long festival celebrating the heart of Jesus (el Corazón de Jesus). This week will be starting on the 29^th of May I believe and will be going until the 6^th of July. On the 6^th of July, there is a day-long celebration with food, dancing, processions and prayer that starts at 5:30 AM and goes until probably like 6 PM at least. Talk about devotion!

Yesterday Alex (the OTGC (on the ground coordinator or contact (for those that think I’m on a spy mission down here))) setup a tour where we would see the islands scattered throughout Lake Nicaragua (the largest lake in all of Central America). So we had to scuttle down to the school to meet the group at 10 AM to depart for the lake. We took a bus to the lake with one of some tour guides that seemed to be just like English “bros” but from Nicaragua. They were chill. Anyways, we got to the tour guide base on the edge of the lake and boarded canopy boats about 40 or 50 foot long by 10 foot wide that could hold 12 people, a tour guide and a pilot. Motoring lazily through the first lagoon area, we could see gaunt cranes and smaller black birds. The initial lagoon that we had to boat through was dirty water (with sediment and mud and a few pieces of trash), but the vegetation along the sides of the lagoon were lushiously green. When we got out on the lake, it literally seemed like the ocean: stretching out endlessly with blue crests. We started travelling around to several of the islands. The tour guides showed us at least 8 or more islands in the areas and there were still more islands to visit. Some of the islands even had dwellings on them and others were for sale. One island belongs to the ex-Costa Rican President and another belongs to an Asian businessman. The Asian businessman’s house is huge and has the old Japanese styling with the pitched roofs slanted downward. The house has its own decently island despite the large house. The house cost $8 million dollars to construct it over a span of 8 years. This house not only has internet and AC and hot showers and all the amenities that we consider worth living for, but has its own helipad too! Dang! At one point we went past this island that had a place called the “Pirate Bar” located on it. Besides the restaurant and seating area on this mini island, there’s even a 3 foot deep by 100 foot long curved swimming pool! It was cool! The water in the pool is essentially the same as in Lake Nicaragua (save maybe for some minor purification if any), so I can say that I swam in Lake Nicaragua! Anyways, for lunch I had churros con pollos (fried chicken pieces) along with circular fried plantains. As a dipping sauce for the fried chicken, I was provided with a bowl of ketchup with mayonnaise drizzled on the top of it. While this sounds absolutely repulsive (and I thought the same way before trying it), it’s actually quite good! Since our group was so large, we had to wait close to an hour for food. In the interim time we resorted to spearing fish and eating them like Gollum. Naw, just kidding. Yesterday Kasper and I had tried to play ping pong and discovered that good ping pong balls do not exist in Central America and are not sold here. So note to self, bring like 100,000 ping pong balls down (that way I can give them out or use them to help me float in case the plane goes down on the way). Anyways, after realizing that Kasper brough his ping pong ball, paddles and net that he had with him. Now this is not an ordinarily sized set of paddles and net. The paddle could entirely be fit in my palm and the net was about 2 foot across on little suction cups and plastic tubes. This makes it nice to play actual table tennis. So Kasper set up the net, handed me a paddle and we started playing across the lunch table while we were waiting for food. We actually got pretty intense, busting out some Randy Daytona moves here and there. After getting a max volley of 29 hits, we stopped playing.  Also, I also had to demonstrate the growing worm/straw technique for a few people who still had not heard of it before, but sadly the worm/straw was really pathetic. Thus, we turned to playing Go Fish with 8 people, which is actually quite the feat (as each person only has like 6 cards). After a few rounds we were done with that too. Then food started arriving like a gradual downpour. It came. We ate. Some didn’t. Alex didn’t get his food until wicked late after the rest of us. The food was also pretty expensive (250 cordobas or about $10). After lunch we went swimming in the pool/lake hybrid. I was the first one to jump into the pool and it was actually nicer than I had anticipated, although I underestimated the depth of the pool and my feet felt the bump. The water was probably 60 or 65 degrees and it was quite refreshing. Most of the group tried the pool. After swimming we had to pay and then headed back to the shore. Not before we were able to feed the monkeys though! We were able to stop by monkey island (not the Tell Tale Games version sorry) and throw fruit at the island (aw yeah getting some Fruit Ninja sensei action in)! When we got close, one of the monkeys jumped onto our boat and ran to the back where I was sitting. She graciously accepted the dead ripe avocado that I gave her and sat there contentedly eating it while I took photos and a video. After that she jumped ship for the other boat and ate some more before being dropped off on the island. There were like 4 monkeys on the island. After that we headed back to the shore and paid for the tour and left.

Back in Granada I went to the Euro Café with my laptop and spent some frustrating moments fussing over the WiFi. Eventually I was able to connect to the internet and get on the usual fare. I then came back and played 2 chess matches with Salvador Jr. who is quite the chess player actually. He beat me both times, but I was close on the second match where we were both down to 3 or less pieces (him with a king, rook and queen and me with a king, bishop and knight). I lost shortly thereafter. I might have been able to do better, but he got a pawn across the board and trade it for a queen. Anyways for dinner it was TACOS! with cheese and refried beans, that ketchup/mayo combo and coleslaw. I have also been working to erase a micro SD card for Salvador, but that jawn is messed because it won’t let anyone reformat it and erase the contents. I did a command prompt format that checked each sector and it said it couldn’t reformat the drive because it might have a bad sector O.o. Anyways I need to get some sleep for the first day of classes tomorrow! Hasta luego! P.S. on the down low as Dan is reading and then I’m going to bed. Anyways, the Spice Girl’s song “My lover” (if you wanna be my lover, gotta get with my friends etc into annoyance) was playing on the TV earlier (shout out to Liz as this song is still probably one of her jamz). Also, the Pirate bar today was playing some cool radio station that was 106.7 FM but apparently my phone is incapable of picking that up -.- First world problems there. I’ve decided to try the radio tuner on my iPod instead, but it has to charge a bit first. I was also listening on my phone earlier on the station 96.5 FM and they were playing “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles? It was cool, but I couldn’t figure out how to turn the volume down so it was wick loud and I changed stations and 96.5 had disappeared for some Spanish station O.o Not pirate radio, but ghost radio. It’s pretty creepy. Then again that phone has an antenna that seems to be about 1 mm long because all it can get is this one Mariachi station and that’s it.

Day 3 5/25/13 (A volcano, a bar and much walking)

Today was a chill day. I woke up around like 7:30 AM to get ready to be at the school at 8:30 because the group was heading to el Volcan Masaya (Masaya Volcano). Last night I had played around with the EWH phone that I have and found out that the phone has a very bright light on it and that I can change the idioma (language) of the phone to English. I also found that the phone has extensive multimedia options such as playing MP3s and watching movies as well as a radio tuner on the phone! Anyways Dan and I went to the school and got there before everyone else. Cuando los otras llegaron, nosotoros fuimos al volcan (when the others arrived we went to the volcano). The bus ride there was about 40 minutes long and it took us past a new series of buildings and places that were not as nice as Granada (but this is to be expected for such and area as this area is not the tourist destination that Granada is). Once we arrived at Volcan Masaya, we had to drive an additional 4 km to the top of the volcano where the parking area and the large crater are located. The volcano is an active volcano and as such the trip bears some interesting precautions. For example the ranger service tells you to park your car facing backwards so that in the unlikely event of falling debris or eruption, you can quickly leave. We when arrived at the volcano it was releasing gases that gave the appearance that the entire crater was on fire (white sulfur gases were everywhere). Sadly, we couldn’t see the entire crater because the gases were so thick. Luckily, some wind would blow the gases away for a bit so we could glimpse the outline of the front of the crater and the lower crater. The crater was probably about 800 or more feet deep and maybe about 1000 feet wide. Located on the top on the nearby peak is a wooden cross that dates back to the 1500s. Usually we would be able to walk the nearby staircase to the top, but due to recent seismic activity, we could not. We also were not allowed to walk up the nearby road for some reason. The volcano was still quite impressive; despite the fact we couldn’t see it or see any lava.

 On the ride back to the city, I spoke to a member of the group that I didn’t know. For the life of me, I cannot recall his name, but he was a BME junior looking to go to med school to become a surgeon. I got talking about WPI and our term system and robotics at WPI. He was saying they had a unique program in their senior year where they work with a group to complete a senior project. I got talking about WPI’s projects and then eventually got talking about robotics since he was interested. I then spent probably a good 25 minutes talking extensively about FIRST robotics and MOE and FLL and FRC and St. Louis and FTC and everything. It was quite intense (in English) and he had never heard of FIRST but wished he had. After getting back to Granada, Dan and I went back to the homestay to have some lunch which had rice and a spaghetti-like main course. It was like spaghetti in vodka sauce with white rice (buttered rice that was wicked good) and fried plantains (basically potatoes that resemble bananas). We also had red Fanta which was really sugary. A las uno the big soccer match started. It was a championship match between two German teams. Dan and I watched the first 55 minutes at the homestay and only one team scored a goal in that time. We wanted to go join the group in a bar to watch the second half, but it was dumping rain outside at halftime and we waited until the rain let up a bit. By the time we arrived at the bar, the other team had tied up the score. Con nuestro grupo vimos el fin del partido. The first team to score made a second goal at 88 minutes (the match was 90 long) and they won. During the second half, I sat down at the bar next to a guy named Graham in our group, and not tool ong after a man put his hand on my shoulder and said I had taken his seat (in English). At this point I wanted to freak out as he said I had taken his seat next to his girlfriend. Luckily he said it was okay and just stood there for about five of the most awkward minutes of my life. He eventually sat down to the left of his girl. After we left the bar some of us decided to walk down to the dock and look at the beach. On the way we passed a house where they had an interesting piece of furniture: a (plastic) torso of a man chained against a wall. It was quite interesting. The beach looked nice from far away, but we quickly learned that this was deceiving, as the beach was polluted and was dark grey sand.

We then headed back to chill at the Euro cafe. We tried to play a little ping pong, but the ball was so badly cracked that it wouldn’t bounce reliably. A small group of us decided to explore a bit of the city east of the school. We found the cinema and a store that sold all sorts of DVDs, videogames, videogame systems, phones and iPods. They even sold NES games! Anyways we met a guy that wanted to just shake our hands and a guy that tried to sell us weed (that spoke in English). We also had a guy that punk’d Matt. The same guy then started dancing and doing back handsprings and handstands. He then started grunting/moaning and made handgestures that we should return to el calle Calzado a las siete par aver mas personas bailando (and having a rager probably). We decided to meet at the Magarita bar at 830 and went to eat dinner. I arrived at the Magarita bar at around 840 because I was typing this journal and showing little Adrianna Elena my camera and some photos on my computer. When I arrived at the bar, I didn’t initially see the others because they were sitting at a table outside, but I found them and bought a coke (for 25 cordobas for a 500 mL plastic bottle when Salvador vende un botella de coca cola en 355 mL por siete cordobas) and sat down to enjoy. My walk to the bar had been rather uneventful save for one instance where a security guard freaked me out when he was standing inside the courtyard of an abandoned home. Before I left Salvador told me to take a taxi back because last week there were 3 guys with knives out at midnight down the block (and we would be coming back late). I felt so bad because at the bar dije “un coke por favor” y el hombre de la barra me dio un Toña (una cerveza). I then had to ask for a coca cola and then when he asked if I wanted the beer I said no and he seemed a bit sad, but slightly jovial too. Anyways I got to meet another guy named Travis that was in Nicaragua to help with a local lagoon and trying to develop a marketing strategy for them to attract more tourists because apparently this lagoon is a nice landscape feature, but no one knows about it. Later on in the night (about 10 PM) I played a couple games of pool with Kasper and even got to be on a team with Charlotte  and despite me being awful at pool and her being slightly intoxicated, we did alright and only lost by one ball. Anyways I had a good time playing pool with Charlotte and chatting with her a very miniscule bit unfortunately. Anyways we got to see some break dancers and Akshay got punk’d again into buying two Mariachi songs from roaming guitar players for 100 cordobas. The first time he got punk’d was earlier where he went to buy a hammock from a hammock kid. The kid said that usually the hammocks go for 200 cordobas (like $8) and Akshay “bartered” him down to 165 cordobas ($6). The funny part was that after we were walking away and Akshay was in the front of the group, the kid told Charlotte, Hannah and I that the hammocks were only 150 cordobas.

At about like 1130 PM Dan and I took a taxi back to the house and had to wake Salvador unfortunately because the house estaba cerrada. One other thing about the day was that Kasper asked if I had thought about what I would do for my comedy routine and I said that I had thought a bit on it. I need to think more about it though. Perhaps I could talk about frustrations of being a gringo aquí, the flight down here, buying things, drinking things, talking to people (both those with EWH and those here in Granada), types of sketchy encounters that we have, walking from my homestay to the school (seems to take forever), expectations vs. reality of the dock and “beach,” the torso thing in the one home, the whole culture shock (which I am still feeling a bit of), buying things for cheap with cordobas and fixing things for an EE. Anyways tomorrow we see the islands and have Mass! Night y’all!