Fifteen Things You Should Know

Here are some things (15, to be precise) that you should know about my first week in Nicaragua:

• It´s 94 degrees during the day and 66 degrees at night. It´s the dry season and sometimes rather windy.

• León is a city of cobbled avenues, huge murals on buildings, and houses brightly colored in reds, blues, yellows, and greens lining a single street.

• The fruit (especially bananas and oranges) here could not be more delicious. Or cheaper.

• There is a green parrot at my homestay that speaks more Spanish than I do and occassionally tries to bite my finger.

• I started drinking the local water on my third day in the country.

• Bells (whether from the nearest church or from the itinerant ice cream man) seem to be going off at all times.

• I´d say roughly 70% of the words I say are the same: si. I can say it three different ways: si, ¡si!, ¿si? (Please note: Speaking in a foreign language is likely to give one a headache.)

• Walking down the street it is possible to buy various plantain-themed foods: Plantain chips are two cordobas while a fried plain wrapped in a banana leaf is five cordobas.

• The first billboard I saw on my ride into Managua from the airport: ¨JESUS -- Señor de Nicaragua¨

• Someone has taken the time to translate an awful lot of very mediocre American television into Spanish.

• This is a country that really understands the true essence of hammocks and rocking chairs.

• My backpack is incidentally the same colors of the flag of the Sandinistas (red and black).

• In most social situations people address each other using the informal (tu) form rather than the formal (usted).

• Baseball is the most popular sport here and I´ve already seen several men walking around with Mets caps and Mets jerseys. Let´s go Mets! ¡Vamos los Mets!

• No necesito para mi comprar bicleleta por que mi casa esta no lejos de la escuela, solamente a diez minutos a pie. Tal vez en el futuro.