Giving Thanks

I'm thankful for...

...a sturdy house I can feel safe in.
...a well, pump and tank that allow me to have water when I want it.
...insurance that covers all my medical needs.
...several pairs of underwear.
...the freedom to leave if I really want to.
...a washsink and a place to hang clothes indoors.
...two legs that make getting around easy.
...two ears that let me hear life.
...two eyes the let me see life.
...bananas and peanut butter. Together or separate.
...a supportive family.
...first-hand clothing.
...contact lenses.
...a job.
...a refrigerator.
...literacy.
...people whose point of view differs from mine.
...diversity.
...Christmas music.
...and the ability to download it.
...family game night.
...grade schoolers and high schoolers.
...clouds and rain.
...oscillating fans.
...electricity, especially when we have it.
...a gas stove.
...the internet.
...laughter.
...shampoo for washing long hair.
...health.

The Wachi

The Wachi - That's NicaSpanish for watchguard. It's one of a handful of jobs that quickly come to mind that does not get taken into account as employment, and thus results in Port having an 80% unemployment rate. Along with teacher and vendor (street or market), I would put it up there as one of the more common jobs here.

I try to go out of my way to be social with the wachi's, even if it's a simple "Manin'" when passing by in the street on the way to school. Some wachis have the fortune of working with or near other wachis, which gives them a little bit of social interaction, at least. But a lot of them spend a long time doing nothing and making sure nothing happens (break-ins, robberies, etc.).

It'a kind of a thankless job. In many cases, you're not really noticed or talked to unless there's some sort of problem. For most wachis, there's not a whole ton of job security either. Being a wachi does not require a specific skillset. It's mainly about trust. Can the people who hired you trust you to do your job? If the answer is no, you're out.

That's the upside and the downside, of course. You don't need much of an education to do the job. But if you're a wachi, you're not considered to have much education, and you'll get treated accordingly by many people. For a lot of people, the wachis are almost invisible, just there to lock and unlock the gate. You'd almost think Wachi is a common name here in Port. Most wachis are not addressed by their name, but rather simply as "wachi."

Some people would be bored out of their mind as a wachi. Shifts are typically 10-12 hours long, six to seven days a week. The nightshift, I imagine, can be incredibly uninteresting. I've done nightshifts before where I've actually had to do work, and it's hard to not fall asleep. Just imagine sitting in a chair, or a hammock if you're lucky, all night. Try not to doze off. Of course, the evening chill might be enough to keep you awake. It's actually been cool enough that I've considered putting on long sleeves to stay warm if I'm walking around at night.

The wachi's that work for the Sisters actually have it fairly well off. They get the equivalent of a teacher's salary and a couple weeks of vacation every six months or so. They get lunch on a fairly regular basis, which is a perk I don't think a lot of wachis get to experience. Don Trinales has worked for the Sisters for 25 years now, so there's obviously something worth sticking around for. I don't see him as much because he's often out on the bike running errands or working on some project in the bowels of the convent.

Benedicto watches the gate that leads into the big playground that Niño Jesús and Escuela Maureen share. I talk to him pretty much everyday. Usually just about the weather and random other tidbits, but he said recently that he'll be sad when I go because I always stop to talk to him. I don't think he gets that from too many other people, and I think he genuinely appreciates it.

The Wachi culture would actually be a really interesting anthropologic study for any aspiring research anthropologists. I think there's a lot more to the norms and other intricacies of the wachis of Port than I've been able to get to know. I'm almost positive that most of them would be more than happy to do an interview. They don't get much attention otherwise, you know.

Jaded

I don't know if it's realism or pessimism. I suppose some might just call it negativity. In any case, I feel like I'm pretty jaded by the lack of follow-through here. I was talking with my director, Marcia, yesterday about a project that I think would be cool to do, but how I feel like it can't come to fruition based on the circumstances. She was, appropriate, offering encouragement on how to make things happen. I was rebuttling that things don't work the same here, and that it's not just an easy change.

So many times and in so many places, I've heard people here say that changes need to happen. Whether they're talking about being punctual, getting an event or activity organized or trying to bring about a more permanent change to the way things happen, I simply no longer believe there's any chance there will be a change in the near future.

I used to believe people when they would say, for example, "Practice is starting at three. We're going to start on time, no matter how many people are there or not." Or "Starting this weekend, we're going to come to the church on Saturday morning to help clean up the property. Every weekend, we need to be here so it stays clean." Or "We need to have teachers' meetings once a week to make sure we are on the same page with the scheduling and to address anything that comes up."

I've gone through an evolution in my reaction to these situations. At first, if, for example, the suggested change wouldn't work with my schedule, I would voice my opposition and ask if anyone had similar conflicts. Once I realized that my dissent wouldn't matter too much since the proposed idea would likely not be followed through on, I started to scoff at the suggestions and have conversations with people who thought likewise. Now I just play along, help in the planning process or decision-making and just accept that it will likely not go anywhere.

So, I don't really know what to do about this. It's kind of a helpless feeling, because you know things aren't going to change, even though you want them to. I guess the upside is that if there's a suggestion or suggested change that doesn't jive with me, I don't have to put a whole lot of stock in it. I recognize that I'm coming off as negative and pessimistic, but at the same time it's kind of a realistic attitude. I guess the idea of sovereignty has been drilled into my head enough that I don't feel like I should come in and try to make changes where people have been living a certain way for such a long time. If people don't want to follow through, they don't want to follow through. Maybe they just like talking through things, and that's where it ends. Of course, everything I've known would label that as a waste of time. But maybe that's just another indication of how little I know.

Sometimes I get frustrated by the unpredictability of Escuela Maureen. There are days off for what I feel are extremely obscure holidays (i.e. Literacy Day, Principal's Day). When school is on, sometimes the day is cut short for unknown reasons. Some of the kids I tutor treat school like a bad Catholic treats Sunday mass, only going when they feel like it or for special celebrations. It can be overwhelming sometimes and make me feel like there's no point.

But recently, I've had some really enjoyable, uplifting experiences at Maureen that reminded me that I know I am where I'm supposed to be. They are not particularly life-changing, and I may not even remember these moments come five months from now. But for the present, they've offered me a good pick-me-up for moving forward.

I got to know Esteli at the end of the year last year. He has pretty significant learning delays, and he is very social. He likes asking questions and being in the know on whatever's going on. Unfortunately he hasn't been studying this schoolyear, but he's been hanging out at the school more often the last few weeks, in uniform and everything. I've often felt that my conversations with him would go in a loop. I would answer a question, we would talk about something else, and then he would come back to the previous question. I just kind of blew it off as him not being all with it. But now I'm starting to realize that the first question he brings up is just what he's most interested in. So in a recent conversation, he was interested in knowing about my non-existent girlfriend. So he asks, "Y tu novia?" (And your girlfriend?). I said I didn't have a girlfriend, and he of course carried the conversation to Kathryn and Susan, because I live with them, so obviously we're married. I explained again that I didn't have a girlfriend, and he seemed content with that. He asked me about the States, commented on and played with my hair...and then he switched back to the girlfriend. It was at this point that I realized I hadn't been making much eye contact with him, because I turned to give him the same speech of not having a girlfriend, and I noticed a mischievious grin on his face. I told him with a laugh to quit asking me if I had a girlfriend. He laughed along with me, and I knew then that he was just being facetious. It was a good moment. Esteli is good people.

Eli is one of several students I tutor at Maureen, and he has been by far the most difficult to make any progress with. There are good days where he remembers things he's learned, but often it is a challenge to get him to pay attention and take an interest in the tutoring session. There has been some progress as of late, and we've been practicing reading short sentences and trying to understand what they say, as opposed to just sounding out the syllables the make up the sentence and calling it a day. So we're working out of this book to help kids learn how to read, and he reads one of the sentences, kind of sounding out the syllables but not really seeming to understand. So I say "Que dice esa oracion?" (What does that sentence say?), and he kind of stares off, as he's been prone to do. Now, I always want him to look at the syllable I'm asking him to identify or look at the sentence he's trying to understand. But he starts reciting the sentence, having only looked at it the one time and now looking off into the distance, and he gets all five words out in the right order and everything. And I'm just like, "What was that?" I totally didn't expect him to get the sentence that quickly, and I definitely didn't think he would get it without looking at the thing. It was just kind of an eye-opener for me, and I need to allow him to stare off into the distance if that's what it takes for him to remember what he's reading.

Another one of my students is Yerson. I don't see Yerson as much, because he pretty much decides when he wants to come to class and when he doesn't want to. It's hard to keep his attention in tutoring as well, and I've had to have the "Do you really want me to keep taking you out of class or should I work with someone else" talk a few times. He likes working on math, so I mix that in sometimes, but he's super behind in reading so that's what we need to work on most often. He just isn't interested in working on it. So in a recent tutoring session, I was pleasantly surprised when he actually stayed on task and worked through nearly the whole tutoring session without major distractions. We finished reading a page out of the book we were using, and I checked my clock to see that there were two minutes until recess. So I told Yerson he could bring his stuff back to the classroom, go to the bathroom, whatever... He says "No podemos leer una pagina mas?" (Can't we read one more page?) Well, yeah! I was so shocked to hear the opposite of the normal "No, prof, ya no" (No, prof, no more), that I almost didn't know what to do. It was very refreshing to have him take an interest in the tutoring session again.

All three of these moments happened in the last week, and it's been very encouraging to have these positive interactions with the kids, especially the ones I've been working with on reading. It's refreshing, and hopefully there are more to come.

It's been over a year!

No, not that it's been a year since I wrote, though it might seem that way. It's been a year since I started life in Puerto. It's been a whole 13 months that I've been out of the country now, too. I feel like the last four or five months have gone by super-quick. Can I use that as an excuse for why I haven't done much blogging?

I've learned a lot in the last year. I expected it to be fairly simple to get used to living in another country again, and I figured I would be more prepared for the experience from having lived in Ecuador for nine months. It was a bigger adjustment than I had expected getting used to life in Port. I didn't really have a clear picture of what my job was going to be or what the schools would be like, but things ended up being different than I could have imagined. I never thought I would be teaching English at Niño Jesús. The tutoring at Escuela Maureen didn't seem that out of place, but still not what I expected to be doing. The craziness of the schedule at the schools is an experience in its own right.

Miskito being such a prevalent language also threw me for a major loop. I really expected to hear more Spanish in Port. While most people do speak Spanish, Miskito rules supreme in the streets. This was admittedly disappointing for me, because I picked up a lot of my Spanish in Ecuador just listening to other people talk, and not having that at my disposal in Port was a little bit of a shock.

We also had to do a lot on our own as a community for lack of support of a local coordinator. Between finding the right living situation, making financial decisions on major purchases, getting to know Port and getting accustomed to the lifestyle, we were largely on our own. It certainly qualifies as a learning experience, and I am grateful to have lived on my own for a few years before coming to Port. I feel like I was more prepared to handle the challenges that came up.

The challenges and surprises have served their purpose. Though I didn't really like it at the time, I know I learned from each of the situations that came up. I've come to have a much better understanding of how the education system works and how to deal with the kids in the classroom. While at first I was frustrated with the Miskito, I've come to feel fortunate to live in a place with this type of diversity, both in language and in culture.

I'm not saying everything is easy-breezy, happy-go-lucky time either. I still have some frustrations in the classroom, in the house, trying to learn Miskito, still expecting people to show up on time. Even if I'm not thrilled about the situation, though, I know I am learning from it. I still have four months left to learn. Here's hoping I can take advantage.

Yang miskitu bila man ra lan mai daukaisna

That means "I'm going to teach you miskito." Actually, I suppose proper English would be "I'm going to teach Miskito to you." Whatever.

Let's go over a couple of the basics first. To start, if you've ever learned any Spanish, you know that the pronunciation of vowels doesn't change from one word to the next. Same with Miskito. Here's how it works:

a = ah
i = long e (we)
u = oo (chute)

Correct. Only three vowels. Thing is, Miskito only has like 60 years of being a written language so some of the kinks are still being worked out. So sometimes people will throw an 'e' or an 'o' in somewhere in speech or writing. Also in writing, they might make two words into one word or drop a letter off of a word, making you think you're learning a whole different verb conjugation, when in reality it's just a spelling mistake. Not that that's happened to me or anything.

Here are the other 14 letters that Miskito employs:

B, D, H, K, L, M, N, NG, P, R, S, T, W, Y

The only words I can think of that have 'ng' have it at the end. I'm not sure why the 'g' isn't considered a separate letter. The 'w' can have the typical English pronunciation like in 'water' or it can be a 'u' sound like in iws (pronounced EE-oos), which is a command that means sit down.

The 'h' is a breathy sound from the back of the throat. I forget what that's called. Ever watch Hey, Arnold! on Nickelodeon when you were young? ...Or, like, last week? Anyone? No? Well, I'll explain it this way anyway. The bully character in the show, Helga, is secretly in love with the main character, Arnold. Everytime Helga goes into a monologue with herself about how much she loves Arnold, this creepy kid with glasses comes up behind her, breathing down her neck. It's kinda weird. But anyway, the point is that the "h" sound is supposed to be like that creepy kids' breathing. If you haven't seen Hey Arnold! and don't know what I'm talking about, I guess you're SOL. Or you can think of the 'h' in the word 'have', but instead of being at the beginning of the word, the 'h' is somewhere in the middle of the word or at the end.

The hard part about learning Miskito is that there aren't a whole lot of gringos that come through looking to learn the language, so it's barely taught. I guess there probably aren't a ton of people that can really teach the English language so well either, so it's not like it's specific to the Miskito people. Maybe all the multimedia stuff (movies, music, games) just seems to make English more accessible. Anyway, here are some basic words in Miskito.

Au - Yes (kinda sounds like 'ow' when you say it fast, but most people say aaauu)
Apia - No (not to be confused with the Spanish apio [celery])
Naksa - Hello
Aisabi - Goodbye
Nahki sma? - How are you (sma comes from the verb kaia, which means to be. Can someone give me a language where the verb 'to be' isn't irregular? I know they must exist, I just don't speak them. Why did so many people insist on making one of the most basic verbs in their language NOT follow the rules for a regular verb?! English, Spanish, Miskito - the verb 'to be', 'ser/estar', and 'kaia'? All irregular in the present tense. Oh, quechua, too - the indigenous language in Ecuador. What a dumb thing for languages to do).

Ok, I'm done with my tangent.

Yang - I, me, mine
Man - You, your
Witin - He/She, Him/Her, His/Her
Pain - Fine, good (pronounced 'pine')
Saura - Bad
Anira? - Where
Ahkia? - When
Dia muni? - Why
Nu apu - I don't know
Dia takisa? - What's up
Diara apu - Nothing

You'll notice that there are English-sounding words in Miskito (pain/fine, nu/know). The Miskito that is spoken in Port differs from true Miskito spoken in some communities here in the RAAN (North Atlantic Autonomous Region). Both English and Spanish have been incorporated into the local Miskito. Here are some more examples. See if you can guess what they are. The English translation follows below:

1. mabil
2. bas
3. ais
4. ansa munaia
5. antin takaia
6. lait
7. park
8. sus
9. raun
10. il
11. snu
12. plawar
13. markit
14. gabamint
15. nisan

1. marble
2. boss
3. ice
4. to answer
5. to hunt
6. light (electrical as opposed to tingni [natural light])
7. fork
8. shoes
9. round
10. hill
11. snow
12. flour
13. market
14. government
15. nation

The problem with all these words is that people then think it should be easy for me to learn the language! Admittedly, having a knowledge of English and Spanish makes it considerably easier for someone to learn Miskito than someone who has no knowledge of neither English nor Spanish. Still, there are so many grammatical differences, it's not a quick translation.

One of those grammatical differences is verb placement. In Miskito, the verb falls at the end of the sentence. For example, Yang markitra auna means 'I'm going to the market.' But as you can see, market is not at the end of the sentence; the verb is. Literally, the Miskito translates as 'I market to going', where the ra attached to markit means 'to.' It's tough to get in the habit of putting the verb at the end of the sentence. You really have to alter your thinking in trying to construct statements.

Miskito also employs infixes. In English, we only have prefixes (before the word) or suffixes (after the word). But miskito throws stuff in the middle, most commonly for indicating possession. Here's an example:
English - eye ; my eye ; your eye ; his/her eye
Miskito - nakra ; naikra ; namkra ; witin ai nakra
But possession indicators aren't ALWAYS infixes either. Sometimes they're suffixes. Example:
English - mother ; my mother ; your mother ; his/her mother
Miskito - yapti ; yaptiki ; yaptikam ; witin yaptika
But the confusion doesn't stop there. There are irregulars, too.
English - name ; my name ; your name ; his/her name
Miskito - nina ; nini ; ninam ; witin nina
So you can kind of see the pattern of the indicators of the first person having an 'i' (ai, ki, i) and the second person having an 'm' (am, kam, m), but the third person isn't so easy to peg down, and I'm yet to learn any rules for when to use which indicator. Just a lot of memorization.

It can be entertaining to learn Miskito, though, too. I already talked about some of the English words that have been incorporated into Miskito, and there are plenty more where those came from. There's danz pulaia (to dance), which literally means 'to play dance.' Ser munaia (to share), which literally means 'to do share.' And win takaia and lus takaia (to win and to lose), which literally mean 'to go out win' and 'to go out lose.'

But there are also some 'combo verbs' as I call them (verbs that have two words), that are kind of interesting when you look at their literal translation. Here are some of my favorites:

1. Aisi kaikaia - to pay attention. Aisi means father and kaikaia means watch or see, so the literal translation of aisi kaikaia is 'to watch father.'
2. Latwan kaikaia - to love. Latwan means pain, and we know kaikaia can mean see. So to love someone is to 'see their pain.'
3. Makabi walaia - to question/ask a question. Makabi is wisdom. Walaia means to listen. To ask someone a question means you 'listen to their wisdom.'
4. Bila kaikaia - to wait for someone. Bila is mouth. So when I tell you to bili kaiks (wait for me), I'm literally telling you to 'watch my mouth.'
5. Luki kaikaia - to think about. Luki comes from the verb lukaia, to see or believe. Luki kaikaia literally means 'to see a thought.'
6. Kupia krawaia - to remember. That's the translation I was given. The dictionary has kupia krawaia as to wake up. Either way, the literal translation is cool. Kupia means heart and krawaia means the wind is blowing. So whether it means 'I wake up' or 'I remember', kupi krawisa literally means, 'the wind blows my heart.'

So the Miskito is coming along alright. I'd like to be able to speak it better, but I've admittedly been more focused on my Spanish since I'll actually be able to use that back in the States. And since no one keeps appointments or has a good grasp on how to teach the language, I'll keep picking up bits and pieces where I can, and maybe by the time I have to leave I'll have a good grasp on it!

Dang it, dengue!

Well, I was doing pretty well health-wise. I got sick on New Year's Eve and was nauseous for like a week and I've had a few bouts with the hershey squirts since coming down here, but generally I've kept pretty healthy. No trips to the clinic, the hospital; nothing that had me worried about my safety. I was doing good.

Then I got dengue.

Now, I've learned a lot about dengue since I was told I had it, (and on a sidenote, I was actually told "You had dengue" not, "You have dengue.") so before you start thinking I'm gonna kick the bucket before I get out of this country, let me give you a rundown of what I learned.

Dengue is transmitted by the Aedes Egypti mosquito, and it most commonly bites during the day. There are something like four strands of dengue, and once you've contracted one "type" of dengue, you cannot get the same type again. However, if you do contract another one of the strands, your symptoms can possibly be worse.

There is a less severe dengue and a more severe dengue. The symptoms are very similar except that in the more severe case, you basically bleed a lot more. Because blood platelets are low, blood doesn't clot and you end up bleeding kind of uncontrollably, such as from the face.

I got the cheap kind of dengue, or the classic dengue as they call it here in Nicaragua. My symptoms included sudden fever, joint pain, fatigue, bone pain, headache, fatigue, pain behind the eyes, fatigue, and....fatigue. If you didn't notice, fatigue was the most prevalent symptom. I got a fever on a Monday, and that was pretty bad. I just wanted to curl up and not do anything and stop sweating. I don't usually get that feverish that quick, and I had been feeling so-so over the previous week, so when the fever hit, I decided to head to the clinic.

So I survive the night and go into the clinic on Tuesday morning, give the doctor my symptoms. They do some blood tests and find that my blood platelets are low (162,000 per whatever), but not quite below normal (less than 150,000). So I get to come back on Wednesday morning. Over the course of the next 36 hours, I had significant bone pain and pain behind the eyes. Again, the fatigue, not really having the energy to do anything. Thankfully no uncontrollable bleeding.

Wednesday morning I go back into the clinic and they do another blood test to check on my platelets. Thankfully, they've gone up (171,000), and the doc concludes that on Monday they were under the 150,000 mark, which qualifies me for dengue. That's the part where he said, "You had dengue." At this point, despite all the symptoms lining up, I'm skeptical. I don't like this retroactive diagnosis, but I suppose I don't really know what else it could be.

I'm limited on my dengue knowledge at that point, so I'm a little concerned about the d-word. But the doc is pretty much treating this as a routine thing. He prescribes acetaminophen and vitamin-C, and I'm out the door. There's no vaccine or cure for dengue, so the plan is to stay hydrated and rest. Good luck!

Rest was not a problem. I didn't have the energy to do ANYTHING. This wasn't a big deal on Tuesday, because I was so tired that I slept all day. But by Wednesday, I was all slept out but still had no energy, and if you know me, you know that I keep busy. So I kept trying to get up and do something around the house, only to find that every 15 minutes on my feet required about two hours on my back in order to recharge.

The tylenol helped keep the fever at a reasonable level and slowly but surely I've been recovering. Any skepticism I had about whether or not I had dengue has been eliminated by the latest symptom. The new thing is this incessant itch that keeps me awake at night. Bottom of the feet, side of the leg, stomach, shoulders, feet, shoulders, hands, legs - every ten seconds there's a new itch that I try my damnedest to ignore but can't keep from scratching. It's not as bad during the day, only when I'm trying to get to sleep.

Thankfully I have my energy back for the most part. I was able to get to the gym this morning and do the normal shopping errands without feeling like I needed to flop on my bed when I got back. After a couple more days of itching I'm supposed to get a rash which will turn me a nice tint of red. Theoretically I'll be back to normal after that. They say it takes about 15 days to fully recover from dengue, so hopefully by the end of the weekend I'll be good to go.

Oh, I totally lost my appetite in this whole process, too. From last Monday to this past Monday, I was eating maybe a third of what I would normally take down. Believe me, I tried to get more down, but I couldn't do it. So I'm guesstimating that I lost about 10 pounds, which will probably take me about 30 years to put back on, but, again, at least I'm not bleeding from the face.

One of the teachers at Niño Jesús says she's had dengue four times, which is a little bit encouraging because I can't find anything scientific on the second round of dengue; just people saying that the risk is increased for the more serious hemorrhagic dengue. I certainly don't want to be dealing with that anytime soon. I suppose there's not a whole lot I can do. Just hope I dont get more dengue. I finally gave in and got a mosquito net. We'll see if that helps.

The indispensable broom

If you're like I was, you hear the word 'broom' and think that the appropriate action is 'sweep.' But my attitude toward brooms has changed significantly. Here in the Nica, the escoba is used for much more than just to barrer. Sure, I used a broom to get a stray kickball out from under the car or to get at a hard to reach spiderweb. But the broom has so many more uses! Next time you think of cluttering up your back-hall closet with cleaning supplies, just think of how much easier and space-efficient it would be to get a single two-dollar broom to handle the jobs below.

Raking. Sure, it might be more effective and efficient to use an actual rake for raking, but when you're trying to rake with your hands and you don't have a rake on hand, a broom is the next best thing. Now, if you're looking to rake up ALL the leaves in your yard, you're just being far too picky. Get what you can with the broom and move on (to burning your pile of dry yard waste)!

Squeegeeing. Since wind often blows rain onto a front porch or entranceway, there is often a good-size puddle left over that would otherwise take hours, and maybe even days to dry. Now, some might invest in a squeegee to solve this issue, but to what end? The broom gets the job done just the same. Sweep the water away out to the yard and smile triumphantly that you didn't double your home-cleaning supplies cost with the purchase of a squeegee.

Car Washing. Take advantage of a downpour to wash your car. With a bucket (previously purchased to haul water from the well when necessary) and your trusty broom, you can easily wash away any dirt that has built up around tire wells and make those windows shine like new. No it's not a $5 wash-n-wax, but it'll hold you over until the next rainfall. Note: Be prepared to get soaked in this process. Unless you're Leo, the van driver at Escuela Maureen, who sends the kids out in the downpour to do his dirty work.

Gutter Cleaning/General rooftop and siding care. Leaves and gunk clogging up the gutter? Need to get the goo off the hard to reach spots of the house? Grab that bucket and water and splash some on the parts of the house that you need cleaned, and scrub away with the head of the broom. Of course, gutter cleaning will require a ladder, so if you don't have the funds for that, you're out of luck.

Dusting. Sometimes so much dust and dirt builds up that your typical routine of dust rag and Pine-Sol just won't do the trick (ok, probably not as big of a problem in places where there are not dirt roads). Unscrew the broom head from the broomstick and reach whatever spots you can. You will, of course, have to re-attach the pieces to sweep up what you just dusted onto the floor.

Wire Raising. Sometimes there's a protest at the airport and the police shut down some roads so taxis and other traffic don't drive by the airport. This causes for detours to be necessary, and as a result, vehicles that would otherwise not pass down your street have no other choice. The problem with getting a semi-truck down a non-main road is that there are all sorts of telephone/electrical/cable wires hanging too low for a semi. But with a broom, you can stand on the trailer hitch of the semi and push the wires up and over the trailer. And no one loses power. Well, at least not because of downed wires.

Dog pestering. You may not own dogs, but the neighbors dogs still spend a lot of time at your house, so they're practically your dogs. Dogs toys don't abound where you are, so it turns out that everyday household supplies will have to do. Drag the broom in circles until the dog just gives up and bites the fleas off his tail. Also doubles as a dog tummy scratcher.

How have your used your broom lately?

Independence Dependency

I'm an addict. I've slowly come to this realization after sharing a house with two other people for the last eight months. I have a serious addiction, and we all know that the first step to solving a problem is stating the problem.

I am addicted to independence. I tend to rely on myself and do things myself. Over the past several years--specifically the three years I spent living on my own--I've developed a sort of fear of depending on other people to do things for me or on my behalf. I'm still not sure if this is a result of being let down in the past or if it's an anal-retentive personality trait that I developed on my own. Either way, I like to do things my own way.

It wasn't really an issue before and was actually quite conducive to living by myself. If a problem came up, I knew (usually) what caused it, why it happened and what needed to be done to fix it. Being independent, you're always on your own schedule and able to make your own decisions. You can do things the way you want to do them and control, to a certain extent, the outcome.

Having roommates has been a very good experience for me in that it has allowed me to see my dependence on independence. I still like things done certain ways, I won't deny that. I also think I've gotten better at not feeling like it HAS to be done those ways and recognizing that if it doesn't turn out the way I want it, the world actually will not come to an end. I've really tried to develop a mentality where all of my decisions take into account the people with whom I am living. Will they be ok with this? Should I wash this in case someone needs it soon? Could someone be sleeping or napping right now and how do I handle the noise I am potentially going to make getting such-and-such done. Simple stuff, really, but hard to get in the habit of thinking about when you're living on your own.

Now, I'm not saying I'm totally abandoning my independent side. I still like the experience of travelling and exploring on my own. I still feel capable of living on my own and will likely always have at least a slice of the mentality that I need things done a certain way. But I've also developed an appreciation for the company of other people and the benefits of a community life. Who knows if I'll live on my own or live with roommates back in the States. But hopefully the lessons translate not only to my living situation, but to other facets of my life as well.

Anicha

When Chepe, the coordinator of the Managua group, first told me about a silent meditation retreat, I was instantly intrigued to know more. You probably know I'm not one to talk a whole lot anyway, and I contemplated whether 10 days in silence might not do me more bad than good. But in the end, my curiosity outweighed my concerns, and so it is that I spent 10 days at La Casa de Retiro Las Teresianas in El Crucero, Nicaragua.

I got to El Crucero a little earlier than expected, and so I was one of the first people there for registration. After you fill out your information sheet, your connection to the outside world is taken away - cell phones, beepers, cameras, books, journals; anything that could potentially distract the mind is checked at the door. And with good reason, too. It's hard enough to concentrate for 11 hours of meditation without there being additional distractions.

After everyone got registered, we had dinner together. There was some small talk. Hi, how ya doin? Where you from? That kind of thing. But not a whole lot beyond that. Maybe this 10 days in silence wouldn't be so hard for any of us after all!

In the meeting that followed dinner, everything we already knew was re-explained to us one more time. We were to spend the next 10 days on the premises of the meditation center. We were not to engage in any conversation with any other participant. We were to maintain full physical separation from the opposite sex outside of the meditation hall. We were to leave behind any other spiritual/religious/meditation practices in order to give a fair chance to the Vipassana technique. And finally, in order to engage in Vipassana meditation, one must vow to follow a life of Sila (moral living) that includes the following five precepts:

1. No killing any living being
2. No stealing
3. No sexual misconduct
4. No lying
5. No ingestion of intoxicants

I know the no lying seems kind of easy - like, how do I lie to someone if I can't talk to them? Right...but these are five precepts that are also applied to life outside of the 10-day course.

After the meeting, we had our first group meditation session. The course is recorded on CD by what I would call the "guru" of Vipassana meditation, S.N. Goenka. The guy's been practicing the Vipassana technique for like upwards of 50 years now. He started in the '60s, eventually becoming an assistant professor, which meant he could lead these meditation courses. Well, his first students were his parents, late in the '60s. His parents like it so much and told enough friends that Goenka had to do another course for their friends. And then the friends told friends and it just kept snowballing until Goenka was travelling all over the place giving these courses until he first made a recording of them in the early '80s. Needless to say, dude knows what he's doing.

So the first meditation session was kind of an introduction to the course with some chanting in Pali and a "good night, get some rest before you get woken up early tomorrow morning." Since I was attending the course here in the Nica, we had the original recording of Goenka plus a Spanish translation throughout the course.

Our schedule for the 10 days (with slight changes on the 4th and 9th day) was as follows:

4:00am Wake-up call (DING rang the bell repeatedly until everyone showed signs of life)
4:30am -6:30am Meditation in your room or in the meditation hall
6:30am-8:00am Breakfast and break
8:00am-9:00am Group meditation in the meditation hall
9:00am-11:00am Meditation in your room or in the meditation hall
11:00am-1:00pm Lunch and break
1:00pm-2:30pm Meditation in your room or in the meditation hall
2:30pm-3:30pm Group meditation in the meditation hall
3:30pm-5:00pm Meditation in your room or in the meditation hall
5:00pm-6:00pm "Dinner" and break
6:00pm-7:00pm Group meditation in the meditation hall
7:00pm-8:15pm Discourses from Goenka
8:15pm-9:00pm Instuctions for the following day's meditation and brief meditation session
9:30pm Lights out

I say "dinner" because it was probably about a hundred calories worth of some mixture of fruit slices and a cup of tea. Vipassana meditation is apparently best done on about a 75% full stomach, so they make sure you don't eat too much.

The discourses every night were great. Goenka touches on the history of the Vipassana meditation, tells some stories to help understand the driving forces behind Vipassana and addresses the intricacies of the technique. During the course, we could sign up for question times with the assistant professor (who is physically present at the meditation center and meditates along with the participants), but I found that if I was patient enough, all of my questions would get answered. The one time I did sign up for a question time, my question would have gotten answered the next night during the discourse. Goenka's pretty hilarious, too, so it was easy to listen to his talks.

The first full day of meditation, we started learning the Anapana technique, which is simply being aware of one's breathing. The first day was dedicated to increasing awareness of our inhaling and exhaling. The second day, we focused on feeling the sensation of the breath either at the entrance of our nostrils or on the skin between the upper lip and the nose. On the third day, we focused our attention on any sensation (itching, warmth, moisture, vibrations) that came up on that skin between the upper lip and the nose.

Doing this helped us to practice Samadhi (mastery of the mind). It's kind of like a warm-up to Vipassana. It starts sharpening your mind and getting it focused on being aware of sensations.

Then the fourth day was overwhelming, because we started the Vipassana technique which is to be aware of sensations on all parts of the body, kind of like how we were doing for the part between the lip and the nose. So you start with the top of the head, move down to the rest of the skull, the forehead, the nose...all the way down to the tips of your toes. Then you go back up to the top of the head. If you don't feel sensations on a part of your body, you're supposed to stay there about a minute and then move on if nothing crops up.

Of course, as we're learning the technique, there's a marching band going by outside - Drums, symbols, trumpets, bottle rockets...the whole deal! I was giggling to myself when I heard it. The first day of meditation, I had been frustrated by hearing cars and trucks pass by on the road outside and having all these distractions, but then I realized that I'm probably not gonna ever have a sound-proof meditation room to meditate in, so I'd better learn to ignore all the extra-curricular activity. And by the end of the course, I was barely even thinking about that stuff.

So from the fourth day on, we practiced the actual Vipassana technique. The three times a day when we had group meditations, we had Aditthana, sittings of strong determination. The idea was to not move your legs or hands or open your eyes for the full hour. I made it through most of them, but there were a number of times when I was apparently not determined enough. Back pain.

You might ask, what's the point of all this sitting and being aware. Well Vipassana meditation incorporates two main themes - the law of impermanence and equanimity. Anicha is a Pali word that must have been used hundreds of times between the meditation instructions, the discourses and the chantings. It means change or impermanence. Goenka would remind us time and again that any sensation we were experiencing had the same characteristic as the next sensation - that of arising and passing away. Nothing lasts forever. For that reason, we are to be equanimous toward these sensations, never becoming too attached to those sensations that we deem pleasurable or creating too much aversion to those sensations that we deem as not pleasurable.

The theory, then, is that by controlling our reactions to these physical sensations, we can then control our emotional reactions to circumstances in everyday life. All emotions have a physiological basis and we attach positive and negative labels to the circumstances in our life. In doing so, we essentially are living in misery all the time. It sounds like kind of a downer attitude, but only if you don't want to work out of your misery. See, for most people, we struggle to live positively in the present moment. We are either experiencing something we dislike and creating or multiplying an aversion to it, or we are longing for...craving for something we do like. Or maybe both at the same time. The Vipassana technique helps to liberate us from these cravings and aversions. Looking at all situations objectively and understanding their impermanence, we can avoid becoming too attached to or too spiteful toward any situation.

This, in turn, helps us to live in better relationships with other people. We begin to feel less entitlement to things or feelings or ways of living. We begin to appreciate the way in which people are different from us and understand why they do what they do. We begin to want all beings to experience the same sort of happiness and contentness with whatever we have in front of us at the time. And so we live more compassionately and more lovingly toward one another and toward our environment. This is called Dana, selfless love or selfless giving.

The final goal, so to speak, is Panna, wisdom or insight that purifies the mind. Actually, there are three levels of Panna. 1) suta-maya panna - wisdom gained by listening to others. 2) cinta-maya panna - intellectual or analytical understanding. 3) bhavana-maya panna - wisdom based on direct, personal experience. I experienced the first when I was told about the meditation course, the second when I read about Vipassana and received instructions for meditating, and I am now in the process of developing the third by experiencing the meditation itself. Purifying the mind through bhavana-maya panna can lead to full enlightenment for those who fully invest in the technique.

Eventually, the idea is that one becomes aware of all physiological sensations on the surface level and the interior of the body, looking at these sensations objectively and with an understanding that they all arise and pass away. If one can do this with their own body, it sharpens the mind to apply the same concept to their life, and thus one can live free from cravings and aversions, peacefully experiencing each moment as it arises. But you can't crave for the sensation - then you would just be creating a new misery for yourself!

By the end of the course, we had all become good friends without really talking with one another. I could barely talk when we first broke the silence, and other people had the same problem, too. One of the first topics of conversation was the tremor that we experienced on the ninth day. A few people made the comment that our meditation was getting to be a little too powerful if it was going to shake the ground underneath us.

It's a pretty amazing thing that these Vipassana courses can sustain themselves. New students are not required to pay anything and only at the end of the 10-day course can they make a donation that would be used for the next course in that country. All other expenses come from donations to the bigger Vipassana organization and, in greater part, from returning students. It's that Dana, the selfless giving, that allows the technique to continue to be passed around the world. Hopefully I'll be able to experience that giving back next year.

Holy Semana Santa!

So it's almost been a month since the start of Holy Week, but I figure I should at least capture the week's events, because it was a week fully of activity. Unfortunately I have no pictures, because the one time I was carrying my camera, the batteries died out pretty quick.

The party side of Holy Week takes place down at La Bocana (the estuary - where a river flows into an ocean). A few weeks before Holy Week, they started paving the road that leads down to the Bocana, much to my chagrin since the dirt/gravel was softer on my knees when I go running down that way. Now, I had heard that the Bocana was the place to be during Holy Week, but I just thought there would be a half dozen or so tents and a couple performances on this stage that just sits there the rest of the year. I had anticipated that all of the activity would take place at the turn-about at the end of the road.


Well, it turns out that the festivities cover hundres of feet of beach and bluff, and there are actually about a hundred tents (maybe more), most of which are eateries/bars, as well as the same carnival set up they had in December, and they even put up a lifeguard tower to keep an eye on people swimming during the day. They also completed the stairway that previously just dropped off into the estuary so you could actually cross OVER the river instead of THROUGH it. High class! The vagos (bums) of Port find their way down to the Bocana and spend most of the week drinking; that's the only down side. But it's still a place to go hang out for the rest of the world.

I only made it down there a couple times, though, because I was occupied with choir activities most of the week. Lots of walking. It started on Palm Sunday. Normally, morning mass is at 8:00am, but this time, the service started at one of the capillas (chapels) with the blessing of the Palms. From there, we marched through the streets of Bilwi, Palms in hand, singing hymns all the way to the church. It was a good 45 minutes of processing and singing through the streets. We also sang at the evening mass that night.

Monday was just practice...for five hours. Uy! See, the problem is that we didn't really practice for Holy Week festivities until Holy Week started. For example, the first time we practiced anything for the Easter Vigil on Saturday night was on Saturday morning. We didn't exactly sing beautifully that night.

Monday I also found out we were going to take a trip to a nearby community, Kwakwil, on Tuesday. The plan was to go there and sing for the people and distribute some medications to the community. Well, the short story is that we had to find someone else to drive us after the first guy just didn't show up on Tuesday afternoon. Fortunately we found someone, but the truck was kind of small, so we were a little scrunched for space (i.e. my right leg hanging out the back of the pick-up), and the weight probably contributed to the flat on the way (wouldn't be a Nica road trip without at least one flat tire, right?). Nonetheless we made it to Kwakwil.

When we got there, they didn't have the speakers that we were told they would have, which kind of disappointed our pianist, because he loves to hear himself play. Additionally, we thought the people in the community knew we were coming, but that didn't seem to be the case. So after we got word out about our presence and got organized, we sang for the people and then called it a night. We had about 15 of us in a little three room house, about 20 ft x 20 ft. Wood floor, no mattresses, no pillows, just lay down and good luck. It was good enough for the night and then the next day we distributed the medications before heading back to Port.

Holy Thursday's evening mass was pretty ordinary by my standards. Last Supper, cover the cross after the service, nothing too exciting.

Friday morning we had the Viacrucis (Stations of the Cross). We started out by the Movistar antenna (which I know helps you locate yourself, I'm sure) and started making our way to the church around 7:30am. We'd walk for five or ten minutes, singing various depressing hymns before stopping along the way at the Stations. We in the choir were supposed to be together in the front, but we all got scattered throughout the procession and by the end, I was pretty much in the back. I guess I don't push my way through crowds as well as other people. Anyway, we got to the church around 10:15am or so and had a brief ceremony to close off the stations.

Friday afternoon, we had a "non-mass". I didn't realize this was a rule, but I guess you're not supposed to have the liturgy of the Eucharist on Good Friday. So we had the liturgy of the word, then used Eucharist blessed from the previous day in order to have communion, then had time for people to pass forward to kiss the cross. A mass, but, ya know, not really. And Bishop David made sure to point out that we didn't have mass, just in case anyone though we were being scandalous.

After the non-mass, we had the Santo Entierro (Holy Burial). Ok, so if you've ever gone to a big cathedral, especially in Latin America, in one of the "wings" of the cathedral, there's often what I call the Scary Jesus. This Jesus is dripping with blood from his side and looking like he's about to die, as though Jesus didn't die before he was laid in the tomb. Anywho, so although the church here in Port isn't a cathedral, it does have one of these Scary Jesuses in the back of the church. Santo Entierro consists of marching this ginormous thing around town and singing more depressing hymns. More walking - Cripes! Thankfully there were like 10 guys that were taking regular shifts on carrying this thing (it took about ten to carry it, and you definitely needed breaks). I took about a 15 minute shift and that was more than enough. It probably didn't help that I'm tall relative to most people here, so I either had to stand up straight and bear a majority of the weight or walk like a homo medio erectus (if a combination of Spanish and English is called Spanglish, does that mean a combination of Spanish and Latin is Spatin?) and hope I wouldn't trip.

Well, I was beat by the end of that trip, another couple hours marching around town, ready for bed.

Saturday morning we had choir practice and then went home for lunch before coming early to the convent to practice again before the vigil. We practiced at the convent, because the Easter Vigil service actually started out at Colegio Niño Jesús (right by the convent) for the blessing of the fire. So guess what we're going to do next - March the Easter Candle around town singing less depressing coritos (hmmm...good translation for coritos...I guess "choruses", like, short refrains of songs that everyone knows or can pick up on relatively quickly). The Easter Vigil itself was pretty typical with all the readings and such. Oh, one thing that's a hit is the blessing of the water. Everyone brings buckets/gallons/bottles of water to be blessed. People from other faiths that never come to a Catholic service even bring their water to get blessed. I couldn't get a good answer on what happens to this water, except one person told me that if someone were to get sick, they might drink this Holy Water. Whatever floats your boat, I guess!

Then after the vigil people started talking about spending the night at the church. I guess a bunch of people stay up all night at the church until there's a service at 4am. Well, I wasn't feeling super by this time, so I declined. Plus, last time I stayed up all night and went to mass in the morning, I had to leave after the homily because I nearly fell over from falling asleep standing up.

I'm hoping there were a lot of people at that 4:00am service, because Easter Masses were kind of like Christmas Day and New Years Day masses. Everyone shows up the night before and barely anyone's there for what we in the States would consider the main event. There were maybe 100 people at the 8am mass and like 50 or so at the 6pm mass.

So that was Holy Week. By devoting so much time to the church, I built up enough good Karma to get an invite the next day to the Vipassana meditation course I was on the waiting list for. I'll try to write about that soon.

Personality Puzzle

Lee is not a name that comes along very frequently in Nicaragua. I'm fairly confident that, at least in Puerto Cabezas, no one has ever been named Lee or anything similar. When I tell people my name, I often get confirmatory responses like ¿Luís? or ¿Jim? (Yeah, I'm not sure where Jim comes from either, but I'm just assuming Jim is a more common name and since the "i" is pronounced like an "e", they just go with what they've known). When they catch on, many people like to say, Ah, como Bruce Lee (Oh, like Bruce Lee.) or ¿Como la marca de jin? (Like the brand of jeans?), and I've actually taken to putting these examples out there immediately, rather than wait for someone to ask me if my name is Luís. But after six months here, I've been given various nicknames or called by various descriptors to the point where I feel like I might soon develop a personality complex. Here's a peak into how I'm known in Port.

Prof./Profe./Teach - Short for Profesor, Prof. and Profe. are among the most common addresses I receive. Being that we foreigners stick out like a sore thumb at the schools, most all the kids know our names, even though we may not know all of theirs. Sometimes kids are identifiable when they're wearing their school uniform with their insignia (at least for Colegio Niño Jesús), but I'm more likely to be seen by kids when they're not in uniform and their Hola, Prof. comes as a surprise since I don't recognize them. Kids that I've actually had for English class sometimes like to call me Teach instead. I don't have a problem with that, but on 9th grade's test last month, there was a question that said Can she teach? Everyone was totally confused because they apparently never learned that teach is actually a verb (and, by the way, it's really hard to explain that teach is a verb when they don't understand the concept of a verb) and that Teach as a way to address someone is the English equivalent of Prof.

Agua - Yes, some people like to call me Water. In the indigenous language Miskito, li (pronounced like my name) means water. I do get some Profesor Agua from some students sometimes. I'm still pretty amused by the people that like to point this translation out to me when I'm meeting them for the first time. Really? My name means water? No, no one's ever told me that.

Mister Lee - You can't prounounce this like any old Mister Lee. This is Mee-stare ehLee. I get this from a few different people, including one of the watchguards at the convent, Juan (the vice-principal at Niño Jesús) and one of the ladies that has a snack booth outside the gate to Niño Jesús. Kathryn recently told me that this lady's name is Jessica. I kind of felt bad not knowing her name, but as I walk through the gate she is often trying to tell me how lonely she is and how she needs someone to keep her warm at night. It's pretty much extremely awkward, so I try to keep interaction with her to a minimum.

Jesucristo - Only one person - Loy, the carpentry workshop teacher at Escuela Maureen - actually calls me Jesus Christ, which is probably a good thing since I don't want to be a widespread source of blasphemy, but the Jesus references have come on pretty strong whenever I let the beard grow out. In Kathryn's religion class with the 11th Graders at Niño Jesús the other day, she asked What does Jesus look like? One of the students responded Like Lee! I'm both amused that people think I look like Jesus simply because I have a beard and long hair and somewhat distressed that the image of White Jesus has been pounded into their brains to this extent. Loy's been telling me recently that we all have to come to school on Good Friday, even though there's no class, so I can get crucified. Something to look forward to, I guess.

Chele/Gringo - These two I put together despite their distinct meanings because they often come from the same source - people I don't know. Chele is a reference to a light skin color (much in the same way someone with dark skin would be called moreno), whereas Gringo is a reference to a foreigner, typically the light-skinned ones (although there are those who will tell you Gringo applies specifically to Americans). Going for a run in the morning, passing through the market or even just walking down the street, friendly people like to throw out a "Oye, Chele" (which, now that I think about it, doesn't translate well into English, other than Hey, light-skinned guy). Chele (or Chela, for females) is also used to refer to other Nicaraguans who are of light-skin, so this is by no means particular to me.

Licenciado - Literally this would be "Licensured", but I'm pretty sure that's not a word in English. In any case, to be a licenciado one has to have completed university studies in a chosen profession. Since going to and graduating from college is not as prevalent here as it is in the U.S., completing the U.S. equivalent of a bachelor degree is more notable than it might be back home. Some people are surprised when I tell them how much more common a university degree is now than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Anyway, I mainly get this name from one of the guys at choir. He also likes to play word games and call me Silenciado (silenced) from time to time.

Lee Valentín - It occurred to me recently that, in the States, I get the occasional Mr. Valentyn, but rarely get addressed by my full name. Here, there seems to be some entertainment value to it. The Valentyn in English becomes Valentín in Spanish, which is actually more commonly a first name. As I mentioned before, most people know the name Lee from Bruce Lee, and obviously that's a last name. So some people seem amused that my first name is a last name and my last name is a first name. Plus it carries the same vowel sound so it kind of rhymes.

So that's my story. I guess I can add these to the shorter list of "nicknames" I have in the States - Unclee and Bruddah. I'm kind of getting used to the Agua thing though, so don't hesitate to keep that one going.

Sights and Sounds of Bilwi

It's quite a process, one I don't know I would manage very well. The first person sits on the bike frame and holds on to the middle of the handle bars. The second person puts their hands on the handles of the handlebars and begins pushing. The second person then jumps onto the seat of the bike and tries to begin pedalling while the person sitting on the bike frame helps steer the bike straight down the road. Once the bike gets going, you better hope you have a clear path, because any loss of momentum puts you at risk of toppling over and having to start the process all over again.

It's tandem biking (on a single person bike), and it's just one of many things that have rooted themselves in my conscious mind as normal, despite how abnormal they would appear to me in the States. Of course there are rules for tandem biking: It is often a chauffeur service for young ladies. Young men will bring their counterparts to their destination, but apart from helping getting the bike going, the females do not steer. Same-sex tandem biking is also common, but then one person steers and brakes while the other person pedals in the back, balancing him or herself by putting hands on the steerers shoulders.

Physical contact between friends is also much more common. Hand-holding among women and walking with an arm draped around a friend's neck and shoulder among men are visible on a daily basis. When someone's knee falls into yours as you sit side-by-side, there's no uncomfortable shift to avoid the contact - you just sit there "connected at the knee", so to speak. I am not shocked to see opposite-sex friends rubbing each other's backs or sitting on each other's laps as though they are dating. At first, I thought one of my friends from choir had about five girlfriends, until it stuck that the physical contact is just that much more common.

Palm trees have mostly assimilated themselves into what I would consider a normal everyday sight. There are some real tall ones that still catch my eye and remind me that all these trees around me are not ones I would see much of in Wisconsin, but the palm tree has become just another piece of nature. Actually, I should probably appreciate them more while I'm here!

School uniforms. Man, you should see the parade of kids around the noon hour when primary school classes have just gotten out and secondary school classes are about to begin. The streets are just filled with kids in white tops and navy blue slacks and skirts. Well, except the nursing school, who has their students wear green skirts (nope, no male nurses here yet, that I know of). There were a couple shops in the market that went almost exclusively into School Uniform mode a few weeks ago. Must be a good business since all the kids have to have them. I'm not sure how long they keep them. I wonder how often those unis get washed...

Barking dogs have pretty much become an afterthought. When I'm Skyping with people, they're like "What's going on? Why are all those dogs barking?" And I don't even really notice that there are dogs barking! The dogs tend to bark for any reason, and the barking is contagious so all the dogs in the neighborhood break into a symphony of "ruffs", "woofs," and, for little guys like our neighbor's dog Pando, "squeeks." But it's such a regular occurance that it doesn't really do much to me anymore.

Taxi horns were also confusing and somewhat aggravating when we first got here. Taxi drivers are hard up for work and don't want to let any customer slip through their fingers, so they'll honk multiple times as they approach from behind and look at you as they drive past and honk one more time just in case you didn't know they were an in-service taxi. Honking in general is used for the same reasons as it is in the States - "Watch out, pedestrian thinking about crossing the street!", "Excuse me, car in front of me and stopped to drop of people, I would like to get through!", and "I'm here in front of your house waiting for you, customer that called me - Please come out!" It's just in such an abundance that I barely even think about it now because it blends in with the sounds of the day. Of course, when you actually get INTO a taxi, there's no getting used to the Grand Prix race you're in for, but you just have to trust that they know what they're doing.

Si Dios Quiere

There's a certain level of comfort that comes along with knowing what lies ahead. Knowing what to expect or what is expected of you allows for appropriate plans to be made and preparations to take place. But that's not how things work here.

Aside from what it says about the apparent religiosity of the people here, the phrase Si Dios quiere ("If God wants", or, in more familiar English terms "God willing...") carries a connotation about a perception of the future, specifically the lack of focus on the future, that people have here in Port. Trying to get information out of somebody for an event two months--even two weeks--down the line can be downright painful. Even simple conversation closers like, "Alright, I'll see you next Friday" can induce a Si Dios me presta la vida (If God allows me to live [until then]). Cripes, people! All I wanted to hear back was a Va, pues (Alright, then).

This can be, for someone with my personality, quite a challenge. I like to be able to plan for the next step, to be able to make a schedule. My first reaction to the lack of setting plans for the future is What if... What if this happens? What if that happens? What if it's the day before classes and we don't have an English teacher (real life example!)? We need to have these things figured out!

But it also makes me consider my own propensity to overthink the future and not live in the here and now; and sometimes to the point that I start concerning myself with outcomes that haven't even occurred yet. Maybe you've had the same experience. If it's really bad, I almost get paralyzed by these concerns--I put off doing something because I don't want to experience one of the potential results I have in my head.

I've seen it in myself and other people--the tendency to create a new reality that is separate from the actual reality, and then worry about the new reality and live according to it. But that's not healthy. Nor is it productive. So I tell myself instead of forming new realities and living in the future, live in reality and allow the future to form itself.

Now, of course there are times when thinking about the future is appropriate...planning a celebration, working on a long-term project, putting money into a retirement account (of course, I could argue against this logic, using my timing of opening and dumping a bunch of money into a retirement account in August 2008 [If you don't get my drift, read here http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/29/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm]).

But getting wrapped up in the outcome and losing sleep over how well something will turn out is not worthwhile. It's funny - on my mp3 player I recently found a couple audio tracks from a hypnotist I saw in college. Maybe he's where I subconsciously started developing this idea from five or six years ago, seeing as though he talks about this very topic. Anyway, he suggests picking a future event, say something a week down the line. Then, everyday until that event, worry about it for an hour. It's kind of extreme, but that's essentially what people do--or at least I do--when I get wrapped up in something over which I don't have complete control. But it's really not worth it.

I'm sure I'll still have my moments when I got lost in thought about the outcome of something weeks or months or even years down the line. And I don't know that I'll ever fully adjust to this Si Dios quiere/Si Dios me presta la vida mentality that comes so naturally here. But simply catching myself when I start to create realities helps me to curb the anxiety, letting the future worry about itself.

Where have I BEEN?!

The last month has been busy, as you can probably tell by my lack of blogging. Let me tell you a little bit about what I've been up to.

Christmas week was pretty busy with choir activities. We had a performance with other churches in the plaza, a festival (say that with your best Spanish accent so it becomes a Spanish word and not an English word) with other choirs at our church, and we sang at Christmas Eve mass, as well as Christmas day masses at 8am and 6pm. Phew! It was a busy month of practices and performances/masses that kept me more occupied than I had anticipated!

We were also supposed to sing at the New Years Eve and New Years Day masses, but I got sick on the 31st and was pretty much out of commission for those two days. I was better on New Years, but by that time, we found out we would be bussing over to Managua for our retreat, instead of flying (holiday travel busyness applies to Port, too. Who knew?). So I took advantage of the opportunity to rest and try to fully recuperate before getting on the bus, because these trips are supposed to be quite the adventure.

And quite the adventure it was! The fun started when we got to the bus "terminal" around noon:30 and they told us the tickets we had were for the bus that left at 10:00am. That's the part where your stomach goes into little knots. But after a while, they figured out that this was not the case and that we did indeed belong on the 1:00pm bus.

So if you enjoy long bus rides on school busses, you probably would have had a ton of fun on this trip! However, I am not a huge fan. Things went pretty "smoothly" for the first few hours. I use smoothly in a figurative sense to say that we didn't have the kind of problems we had later in the trip. In a literal sense, the ride is anything but smooth as the driver must navigate crater-filled roads and try to avoid other obstacles that may have surfaced in the recent months.

Our first stretch break came at a river, where we would load the bus onto the lanchón (hmmm...ferryboat type floating device that brings people and vehicles back and forth across the river. If you have a better translation, let me know). The pulley system on which the equipment operates runs on an old semi-truck motor. I'm not smart enough to know the logistics of all that or why that's cool, but that's what one of the drivers pointed out to me.

So when we got across the river, the drivers had ascertained that we had a flat tire. This was the first of six flats on the trip. That's SIX flat tires for those who are only skimming and not reading thoroughly! The good part about the flat tires was that it allowed us time to get out and stretch for a little bit. The bad part is, they obviously make the trip longer.

Stops were also made whenever we got to an accessible form of water. You see, water is free, and engine coolant costs money. So why buy engine coolant when you can stop every hour or hour and a half to fill up a bucket with water? Of course! Problem is, this system has its holes, and a few hours outside of Managua we had some overheating issues. After about an hour and a half of trying to figure out what to do and getting some fruitless advice from passing motorists, it was decided that where the coolant would normally be poured, we were going to pour not only water but also oatmeal. Yes, oatmeal. I was slightly upset that oatmeal was going in an engine and not in my belly, but I got over it when it worked. No, I do not understand the logic behind this, but shortly thereafter, we were on our way again.

Once in the city limits of Managua, we were stopped not once, not twice, but thrice by local police. The first two times, the police officer had an ID out and was apparently trying to locate someone that had participated in recent criminal activity. (Comforting, huh...) The third time, there was some issue with the license plate on the bus. Why not?

Overall, the trip took about 25 hours (probably 19 hours travelling and 6 hours stopped for the aforementioned reasons).

And we went in the dry season when the roads are good. ¡Imagínate!

So the purpose of this trip was to get to the Managua area for our first CapCorps retreat. Unfortunately, we couldn't gather with the Lima crew as well, so it was just us Port volunteers and the Managua volunteers, but we had a grand ol' time. The retreat was a very welcome respite from four straight months in one place. We went about half an hour outside of Managua to Las Palmeras Retreat House in Diriamba. It was a surprisingly large complex that we had all to ourselves, likely due to the fact that we were there from a Monday to a Thursday and that it was the week after New Years. So it was nice to have just us there.

We had four days of reflection on our time thus far and how we want to move forward. We were challenged to let go of thoughts and practices that might distract us from concentrating fully on the retreat. It felt really good to focus on where we were and what we were doing. I'm still working on developing my "being in the present," and this was a good step toward that.

The last night of the retreat, we played Uecker. My first time playing, which I as a Wisconsinite am somewhat ashamed to admit. We had a grand ol' time, despite the fact that the team I was on lost. But it's not about winning and losing, people! Anywho, the retreat was great and the food was fantastic :).

After spending a night in Managua, I was on my way to Costa Rica to renew my VISA. You see, Nicaragua gives you a 90 day tourist VISA when you enter the country which can be renewed once. After those 180 days, you have to leave the country. "But Lee," you say, "You are but 50 miles from the Honduras border. Why don't you go there to renew your VISA?" Well, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have a Convenio de fronteras abiertas (Open Borders Agreement), which allows travelling between the countries without all the normal hassle and paperwork at the border. Great for people looking to travel, bad for people needing to renew a VISA.

So Rich Coast it is! Another bus ride -yay! But this is a coach bus, with soft seats and a TV..well the TV's color is busted, but it's still a TV. And who needs color for Mr. Bean reruns anyway?

The first few hours of the trip I had an open seat next to me, which was nice because I could stretch out a little bit. When we got to Rivas, Nicaragua, we picked up about a half-dozen people, and that's when Fritz (Fred) sat down in the seat next to me. Fred was born in Germany, spent about 8 years in the States and has been living in Nicaragua/Costa Rica for about 15 years. He goes between Costa Rica and Nicaragua every couple of months to tend to the businesses he has in each country. Anywho, it was great to have Fred because of his knowledge of San Jose. Since we didn't roll into San Jose until midnight, I felt much more comfortable having gotten the lowdown from Fred.

But before getting to San Jose, we had to cross the border. Fred figured we would be there for about an hour, but it was getting close to two hours when we were getting back on the bus, and customs still hadn't checked the bags. So what's our plan, money collector guy? Mira, que todos aporten un dólar o veinte córdoba para que no nos revisen el bus o las maletas. Translation? "Alright, everybody chip in a dollar or 20 cordoba so they don't check the bus or the bags." I literally almost burst out laughing when he said this, and I had some thoughts about perpetuating the corruption in Latin America, but hell if I wanted to sit there for another hour while they checked the bags. So we got the money together, the customs people came by and opened the luggage compartments and came on the bus for like 30 seconds to make it look like they were doing their job, and we were on our way. Totally awesome!

So Sunday was my first day in Costa Rica. I got up and wandered around the city a bit. Since we got into the city so late, I ended up just staying at a nearby hostel for a night intending to find a different one for the other nights. So I wandered over to the barrio (neighborhood) where there were supposed to be some good backpackers hostels. Well, eventually I ended up running into a dead end street that actually led to Simón Bolívar Zoo. Sure, why not? Zoos are fun. So I spent some time checking out the toucans, poisonous frogs and capuchin monkeys. Of course I had to get pictures of the Capuchin Monkeys - they're my Brothers!

Afterwards, I grabbed a quick lunch and then went to the Catedral Metropolitana (Metropolitan Cathedral, which you probably figured out) for noon mass. If you know Latin American history, you know that when the Spanish came, they built their City Centers with huge elaborate Catholic churches (most often Cathedrals). Well San Jose is no exception. Metropolitan Cathedral is definitely a huge Catholic church that has all the bells and whistles of the conquista. The service was nice, though, and the people were sociable.

Since I had some money saved up, I decided to be a tourist and look for some kind of Costa Rican adventure. I found a nice combo tour that consisted of a Volcano tour and a visit to La Paz Waterfall Gardens, which I had looked up before going to Costa Rica. So I booked that for my Monday.

But my Sunday wasn't complete. The tourist package place I found was connected to a Holiday Inn. So here comes white privilege: I know my Packers are playing, and hotels always have bars, right? So I wander into the hotel and up to the bar on the second floor and walk in as a couple from the States is walking in. All the TVs have fútbol on, and the husband is like, "Oh it looks like just soccer today." So I say, "Oh were you hoping to watch the playoffs, too?" "Yeah, we wanted to watch some football." Perfect. Now I'm not the only gringo that wants to watch football. So we had the barista (bartender) put the game on. So Jim and Jan are a doctor and a nurse, respectively, and were on a 9-day Costa Rica circuit. We were later joined by their friends Mark and Betty, Mark a former helicopter pilot and Betty also a nurse. They were great company and even better company when they insisted on buying my beer :). Only bad part about the night was that the Packers lost. Guess eveything can't go better than planned.

So Monday was the tour day. The bus picked me up at my hostel at 6am and we went around picked up the others (about a dozen of us in total) and headed out of the city. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there was a third part of the tour that included breakfast. So, our first stop was at Tres Generaciones coffee plantation. There was a really heavy cold front moving through Costa Rica for the three days I was there, so it was a cold and windy and rainy, but it was one of those rains where the sun was out, so this combined with the altitude produced a whole lot of rainbow time. At one point we had two rainbows, and at another point, I saw what was easily the brightest rainbow I have seen. Really cool. The coffee plantation tour was pretty cool. I'm not a big coffee drinker myself, but being that it was cold, I grabbed a cup with breakfast.

After the coffee plantation, we headed over to Volcan Poás. As we drove up to the parking lot, it was quite apparent that the weather was going to impact us here a little more than at the coffee plantation. It was about a twenty minute hike up to the crater in 40 degree, rainy, windy conditions. Thankfully, the tour guide had an extra umbrella to lend me, since I came unprepared for this fantastic cold front. When we got to the crater, it was completely clouded over. We were disappointed but pretty amused by the computer-generated depiction the volcano (oh so THAT's what it looks like!) and the fact that there was a raised picture-taking platform for which there was a 10 minute limit (we weren't even all up at the crater for ten minutes before we were ready to leave). Oh well...

The rains followed us to La Paz Waterfall Gardens, but it was still a cool experience. There was a lot more there than I had understood there to be. There were five waterfalls, I want to say, of which we saw three, hiking from one to the other. One of them is called Magia Blanca (White Magic). Looking at the center of the waterfall for about thirty seconds produces a kinetic effect when you look at the wall to it's right, as though the wall is warping. It's pretty sweet. Someday I'll get a video up on Facebook. It works watching it on the camera, so hopefully it'll work on a computer screen, too.

There was also a butterfly sanctuary, a hummingbird house, a panther, a leopard, all sorts of amphibians and reptiles and a full-scale model of an indigenous family house back in the 1800s. The house seemed kind of out of place, but they had good fresh bread :).

They also fed us lunch at the waterfall gardens, which was delicious. Between lunch and waiting for the mini-bus after the tour was done, I had three more cups of coffee to stay warm. Like I said, it was cold, even for me. I don't drink coffee, by the way, in case you were unaware.

Another benefit of the tour package was that there were yet MORE cool people to meet. I ended up talking with Randi quite a bit, since we were both travelling on our own. Randi grew up in the States but moved to London when she was in her 20s and has been living there for about 20 years.

Annika and Sebastian are from Germany. Annika had been travelling and doing research on rainforests throughout Central America for about nine months and Sebastian had just gotten into Costa Rica a few days earlier to spend a few weeks there before both of them were headed back to Germany. Annika had all the plans laid out but wasn't telling Sebastian anything, something that kind of made Sebastian nervous, as it would do to me. Gotta be in the know! Anyway, it was fun listening to them speak German between each other, and they both spoke really good English. Annika spoke quite a bit of Spanish, too, from spending time in Central America, and I think she knew quite a bit of French. Jealous, party of one :).

Then there were two guys from Italy who have been living in and working in Germany for the last eight years. Libero and Eros. How sweet are those names? "Hi my name is Libero, which means 'liberty' or 'free.'" "Hi, my name is Eros. I'm named after the Greek God of Love." I'm still not over those names. Anyway, real good people.

After talking with Libero for a while, he said he and Eros were renting a car to head down toward Jacó, a beachtown on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. So they invited me and Annika and Sebastian to come with them on Tuesday. So we did that. Spent the day swimming and taking in some sun and trying to get coconuts down from the trees. Thankfully, the cold front wasn't impacting the Pacific side, so it was actually beachy with the sun and the warmth and everything. When I tried to offer Libero money for gas and chipping in on the car rental and the water and snacks they brought, no dice. People are so generous. They finally let me buy them a beer when we got back into San Jose that night. Still quite a deal.

So the Rich Coast experience was great. I had a relatively uneventful trip back to Managua. We even let customs revise our bags and the bus instead of paying them off, since the border was less busy than on our way there.

But we're not done yet! I stayed Wednesday night in Managua before heading over to Masaya to get a guitar. I got into Masaya late afternoon and was having some trouble getting oriented to the city, so as dusk is settling in, I grab a taxi and ask the taxi driver to give me a spin around the city so I can get my bearings. Couldn't have found a better guy than Eddi. So Eddi takes me around for like 45 minutes showing me the markets and the schools and the churches and the good barrios and the bad barrios, and he even has a neighbor that owns a hostel that he can show me that's close to the Artisan Market, which is where I want to be for the Berbenas cultural celebration that takes place every Thursday. Eddi charged me $2.50 for this 45 minute tour around Masaya and gave me his cell phone number so I could get in touch with him when I needed to get somewhere in Masaya. The next day he took me to get my guitar and waited around for more than an hour while I picked out a guitar and had it restrung for my left-handed self. Price again? $2.50. I don't know, maybe that's a lot for him, but it seemed like quite a deal to me.

So I ended up getting back to Port on the 16th of January. We started back into work (sort of) on the 18th. The regular teachers are enrolling kids. Susan, Kathryn and I have kind of been coming and going to the schools as we see fit. I ended up tutoring a few kids most of this past week because their mom brought them to the school to enroll and wanted some tutoring before the schoolyear. Sure, why not?

The kids start back in classes this coming Tuesday, February 2nd. I still don't have a totally set schedule. A lot of it depends on Niño Jesús' schedule, which I haven't seen yet, because the vice-principal takes care of getting the schedule out, but he had to go down to Bluefields and Corn Island to tend to some issue with some land that he inherited and some company is starting to harvest crops on...without asking permission. So I think he just got back yesterday. Maybe there'll be a class schedule by Monday....the day before classes start!

Oy, what a whirlwind. Congratulations if you read all the way through and actually know what's going on. If you don't like reading and this is the first full sentence you're reading of this post, maybe I can work on finding a time to Skype with you :).