Otras cosas

On another note entirely, I am managing to hone my meager cooking skills down here. Which means when I return Stateside, they'll be great on those great stoves we have over there! Never take the low setting on your stove for granted again. Tonight I experimented with ginger for the first time ever, and it was a success!

First, I put two thinly sliced onions in a pot with some coconut milk. After the onions were soft and transparent, I added ginger, curry powder, garlic, and peppers, then a little bit of water and a tomato after a minute or two. Sautéed up some amberjack ($4 for a 6 lb fish!), threw that into the pot, and served it all over rice! Squeezed some lime/lemon over it, and it was good! I needed some jalapeños and more garlic (like a whole clove) and maybe a carrot... Next time será mejor.

Los próximos meses

After three months of commuting between Memphis and Birmingham, traveling to Central America, and spending my time figuring out what to do next, my life is going to fall into a semblance of order in two weeks!

I'll be teaching two classes of 10-12 year olds English three days a week, and ballet to preschoolers on Tuesdays. What's even better is that the school's mission, to offer supplementary and creative education - it's the only school in San Juan offering free English classes - focuses on the poorest kids in the city. Of course, that brings several more challenges to teaching than a simple language barrier, but it's a mission close to my heart, largely thanks to NBE. I'm sure I'll take these words back when I'm exhausted and fed up with some annoying preteen, but I can't wait.

The school is one small part of a large concrete building, home to several organizations, and it is struggling. If I weren't here this semester, I honestly don't know how they'd keep the two classes I'm teaching. It's nice to know I can make a concrete contribution to their staff.

Oops...

I keep halfway writing posts, then forgetting to send them. Just as well that they're half-posts since this thing tends to post only half of what I write anyway!

Sorry about the lapse in info though... Things are going well here. We're settled in a little green house - we're talking bright kelly green outside and in - up on a hill, getting ourselves situated in daily life. I've decided to accept the offer to teach English and ballet/creative movement for the semester, and I'll meet with Jaime, the school's director, to discuss details about scheduling, supplies I'll need, etc. I'm getting more excited about delving into this project every day, and I'm thrilled to be working with an organization that looks to address education shortages with creativity and an arts emphasis. I can integrate well with that, and hopefully with the team, too. Not to mention the kids, of course. Here's hoping I love teaching and can settle on a career out of it!

San Juan

Sorry, it's been a while... Time flies! San Juan is great; we've found a cheap casa for this month and a possible better option for the next. I have basically agreed to do a workshop - teaching creative movement to preschoolers - with the creative arts/English school I talked about on here. They want me to teach one of their English classes as well, but I'm not sure I can commit to the whole semester, which ends in mid-November.

Emile cut my hair yesterday! I was totally fine with it before he started, but when he grabbed some hair and chopped it... Not so nonchalant. I like it now though; it's nice to have as much o a breeze as I can get.

Regresamos a San Juan

And here's an update.

We arrived in San Juan del Sur yesterday, the surf town where Emile spent two months earlier this year, and where I spent my spring break. The culture in this town is simply wonderful, and the prices are, too. My fingers are crossed that our opportunities here flesh out well enough to stay for a month or two.

Emile is looking into working with a group studying chronic kidney disease in the region. Nicaraguans differ from Americans in that CKD is more common among men, at least in the studies conducted in the northern part of the country. This study would find if the south corroborates that story. Interviewing subjects etc would be a boon for his Spanish, and the study ends in three weeks - plenty of time to surf, while still accomplishing something solid. I'm pretty optimistic about it!

I am meeting with the English and visual arts school this afternoon, hoping to find that interesting and worthwhile. Ideally, I would get to deal with kids of different ages and see if there's a group I might like to teach in the states. For those of you who haven't been following my disillusionment with journalism, I might not want to follow that path. Teaching was a dream of mine throughout high school (thanks in large part to my English teachers at St. Mary's), and it seems to be resurfacing as of late. Who knows, honestly. I don't feel a need to settle into a decades-long career in one area just yet.

Onward ho!

This whole blog thing is not being as cooperative as I'd hoped this time around. Each of my posts is only half of what I wrote, so here's the second part of my post last time:

Yesterday we climbed Volcan Concepción, a 1,600 m volcano right outside town. Hiking a pretty narrow, pretty steep trail was good for my workout for the day, but Emile was a goat and said he was struggling with a pace that slow... I wish I had that problem. We didn't summit, though, due to the little visibility through fog and rain at the top. On a clear day, apparently you can see across Lake Nicaragua to the Pacific and Caribbean oceans. We had no such luck, but it was beautiful nonetheless! Another couple climbed with us, along with a Frenchman and our guide. We weren't the most talkative crew unless Emile was next to the guide, in which case the conversation got away from me pretty quickly. Emile has gotten ahead of my Spanish skills, no me gusta! I plan to rectify that ASAP ;)

I've spoken with an NGO in San Juan that works with children in English and visual arts. They need volunteer teachers, and it sounds pretty great if I don't have to pay to intern, and if Emile is up for returning to the clinic where he worked this spring. Working on some other leads in Grenada, Ometepe and León, so we shall see what happens.

Fwd: Ometepe goodness

Ometepe has been wonderful, except for the mosquitoes. We are staying in a hostel in Myogalpa, the biggest town on the island. Our hostel is more like a house than anything else- the woman who owns it has two kids running around drawing, playing and watching TV at all hours, and there are chickens outside and two horses next door. I have to wear ear plugs at night because the roosters wake me up... I thought someone was yelling "welcome home, mom!" in my dream yesterday mornjng, but it was definitely a rooster crowing.

We've only really met one guy in our hostel, an interesting fellow from Chicago. He dons full-out outdoors gear - safari hat, shirt, cargo shorts, and those five-finger shoes - to walk around town, and he only eats fruits. And a few vegetables, when he makes a salad, blends it up and drinks it. It's called the 80-10-10 diet, and it sounds completely bizarre, though the guy is very nice.

This morning Emile woke up with a very swollen right eyelid, which had been sore since we left the states. He's been tough about the pain, but this morning was no bueno. After a hydrocortisone shot and something else shot in his butt at the hospital, he seems to be feeling better.

Ometepe: Día Uno

Fresh off the boat in Ometepe! Haven't seen the town yet; we literally walked straight to our hostel, and here I am. What I see is lovely though - drying bamboo outside our window leading to a quaint blue house across the road.

Beginnings

So, I've been in Nicaragua for about two days now. In Grenada, a City that has survived with cathedrals and horse-pulled carriages intact since Spanish colonization, making it the oldest colonial city in the Americas. It's a fifteen minute walk from my hostel to the lake, and ten minutes to the bustling market where Emile or a shoe and I a dress fixed yesterday.

We've been cooking and grocery shopping, sleeping and reading and walking mostly. It's damn hot, so we kind of meander slowly down the street wherever we go. Unless we're sprinting, in which case we get lots of stares and comments in Spanish I can't understand!

My only real experience with traveling like this was in Uganda and Rwanda, so I'll probably make lots of comparisons between that trip and this. For one, Grenada has more resources at its disposal than Gulu - more cars, nicer buildings, fewer poor areas, greater variety of food and stores and amenities. That said, it has far fewer resources than Kampala or Kigali, which might be expected since Grenada is not the country's capital. There are almost NO men catcalling here, which is extremely refreshing, and way less attention from locals in general. It is much more normal to see gringos around here, I guess. Or maybe people here just don't automatically expect white people to be aid workers. Our hostel is full of people from all over - last night a group of 20ish French speakers had a giant dinner, taking over the whole kitchen when we first went in to cook. A nice couple from California stays in the room next to us; if we stay another night, we might go get a drink with them.

The plan is to leave for Ometepe tomorrow morning. We'll take a bus to Rivas, then a ferry across the lake to the island. I've heard only good things about it, so I'm excited!

More to come...