The Interview (en Español)

Good morning! It´s a sunny Wednesday in León, Nicaragua. You have woken up to find yourself, like many in this country, in the curious state of under-employment. Granted, your situation is not nearly as dire as many locals: You have a room and a hammock and enough money to live on for a few months. In fact, you are only looking for voluntary work: you want to do something worthwhile with your time. You would think that as a charming, English-speaking young man this would just fall right into your lap. Well, it hasn´t.

You spend the morning studying Spanish in your hammock, and then you go out looking for a job. Your friend Marcus, from the school where you studied Spanish, works in a project in the afternoon. You go see him after class. He tells you that he asked his supervisors and they want to meet you. (The school is called Proyecto Rocas and you want to volunteer to help the children with their homework and extra-curricular activities.)

You start walking to the restaurant for your lunch meeting. Naturally you get a little bit lost. You see a man on the street that you´ve been introduced to once before. He is thrilled to see you again. He introduces you to his sister who is holding a baby. You coo at the baby. The man brings you back to his house so you can meet his daughters. He offers you lunch. You cannot do this because you have the meeting so you take your leave as politely as you possibly can in Spanish.

You arrived at the restaurant and soon the supervisors of the project walk in: One Nicaraguan man, two Scandinavian ladies, along with your friend Marcus. One of the ladies asks you if you speak Spanish and you nod your head and say, ¨hablo un poco." They then begin, out of respect for the Nicaraguan fellow, to conduct the interview en español. This concerns you at first because you really don´t speak Spanish yet; you´ve only studied it for three weeks. And an interview is not like a regular conversation with a friend where you can trip up and make mistakes. You need to understand everything they are saying to you and answer the questions they ask. You are trying to convince them to let you work with the children in their program.

Somewhat surprisingly, everything goes splendidly. You rise to occasion, miraculously understanding words you´ve never heard before and saying things you don´t yet know how to say. You explain to them your educational background, youre experience working on projects in other developing countries, your reasons for coming to León and asking to work with them, and how you might be useful. Everyone at the table seems satisfied with your responses. Marcus looks somewhat amazed. You yourself are befuddled and sweating at the effort.

(This is much better than the time just last week when you went to the director of Las Tías, asking to volunteer. She had asked you to bring a letter of introduction, and then they start laughing at you because your letter is in English, not Spanish. Your friend Gerald quickly translates the letter. You feel embarassed but you´ve also never written a letter in Spanish before.)

So then the women tell you they are going to ask you some things in English. This is a bit more up your alley. They ask you a bit more about your experience and opinions on issues like poverty, development, and working with children. You can speak much more articulately in your native language. The women are smiling to each other. You know you´ve hit a proverbial home run.

They confer for a moment and then tell you can start that afternoon. Finding a job is apparently as easy as giving an interview in a language you don´t really know. ¡Felidades!

Where are My Interludes? (And Other Comparisons with India)

Yesterday afternoon I was walking down the street and decided to purchase a bunch of bananas. I got a dozen bananas for six cordobas, which comes out to like 2.5 cents per banana. Yeah, this is awesome.

So I began peeling my first one while I was walking home. And then misfortune befell me: my banana fell into a puddle. ¡Que rollo! I started laughing at myself and when I looked up again at the street I saw a lady chuckling along with me. This makes sense since dropping something, like falling down, is a universally comedic act. The lady was sitting on the crossbar of her husband´s bicycle and had witnessed the whole episode as he was peddling along. I immediately began to peel a second banana, and having this time completed the manuever successfully, I extended my arm, offering it to her. She gave me a broad smile and began laughing so hard that her husband had trouble stabilizing the bike.

It occurred to me later that this was the type of episode -- the small but infinitely pleasing encounters with strangers -- that made my 15 months in India so enjoyable. It is also the type of thing that I find has happened relatively infrequently here in Nicaragua so far.

I´ve found myself thinking a lot about India recently, and about how my experience here is different. I´ve been in Nicaragua less than a month, and I usually try to avoid making sweeping generalizations. But one of the biggest changes I´ve noticed, if I may be so bold, is that Indians are for the most part an uncommonly gregarious and curious people. For example, in the afternoons here I often like to go and sit in the park opposite the iglesia San Juan. I can sit on a bench and read undisturbed for an hour. If I tried to do that in India, I would last maybe four minutes before a group of 20 schoolchildren swarmed around me, jabbering away with a hundred questions. (I mentioned this to a friend here and she suggested that perhaps it´s because Nicaraguans are so used to Americans visiting, but really I must say that I´ve considered that and the response is just so completely different that doesn´t account for it.)

The truth is that while I rather enjoy having my privacy and being able to go out in public without being bothered, I miss the extreme sociability of India: A simple walk down the street (thrust into the midst of a masive procession to a temple), or ride on the bus (seranaded with Hindi love songs), or sitting in a restaurant (invited over to dinner at a family´s house) could bring me delightfully close to the people I was around. I suppose I needed India to crash through my reserved demeanor, and it just came through repeatedly on that score. It was just easier for me to meet people and make friends there. And it provided me with a wealth of small anecdotes -- I called them interludes -- which I suspect you enjoyed reading most. And I cherished these, for these were the moments that illuminated for me how we are all connected. (So if the stories on this blog start to feel lame by comparison, now you know why.)

Now it´s not that people in Nicaragua aren´t friendly to me. Of course they are. I love going for runs in the late afternoon and greeting the people that I pass along the way. Neighbors drag their rocking chairs to the thresholds of their homes and chat pleasantly while their children play in the street. But Nicaraguans are also more likely to leave me, as a foreigner, alone, or otherwise merely greet me respectfully. India for me was a 15 month in-your-face encounter with humanity. It startled me at first but then I couldn´t get enough of it. It´s funny how you can end up missing the things that once annoyed you.

To be fair, there are many things about Nicaragua (when compared with India) that I´m enjoying: Strangers are polite to each other, the streets are cleaner, and rickshaws don´t drive over your toes. And I do rather enjoy being out in public and just being a person and not an attraction. Of course in other ways, because they are both developing countries, I find living in Nicaragua and India to be rather similar: There are plenty of crowded bus rides and stalls with delicious street food and colorful markets and the faint scent of something burning and the hot feeling of humanity convulsing to loud music.

But I must admit there is in me sometimes a great longing for India. I miss the spicy food and I miss eating rice with my hands. I miss my friends and I miss the feeling of pulling up to my chess friends and having the kids run out to greet me. I miss the desert and the sensation of sitting in a village meeting. I miss all this and more--for the time I spent there was the most formative in my life. It was the place I came to as a young man, where I saw my ideals crushed like shattered orbs, where I saw the world starkly for all its beauty and sorrow and longed to know it still more. If I left India believing one thing, it was that to be human means to share with one another.

Recently, however, a good friend reminded me of the obvious: Nicaragua is not India. Nor should it be. I´ve only been here a month. And I need to give this place time to be itself. I´ve set goals for myself here: learning to speak Spanish, devoting a chunk of time to the projects in which I´m involved, traveling the country, making friends, and learning about the people and their culture. I need to give myself time to do that. And it will take time.

I love India, and I want understanding it and helping it to be a life-long project. But I know that I don´t need to be there right now. I know I´ll gain more if I return in a few years and can look at its changes with fresh eyes. And I´ve realized lately too that I want Nicaragua, and my presence in Latin America, to also become a life-long project. Currently, I´m limited by my language abilities and skill-set by what I can accomplish immediately. But I look at my time here as an investment, one that will yield sweeter fruits down the line.

Though on a daily basis I uncover fewer interludes, I know that this is where I am meant to be: discovering a new way of seeing in a new land.

Newsflash: Spanish Lessons Suspended

Yep, I´ve suspended my Spanish lessons. Literally.

After three productive weeks at the León Spanish School in the Casa de Cultura, I´ve decided I would benefit from reviewing what I´ve learned so far on my own for a while. And what better place for an intensive Spanish review than the tranquility of my own hammock.

This afternoon my friend Jackson helped me set up the hammock on the balcony of my new flat. And I´ve borrowed a Spanish textbook from the Casa de Cultura. With the parade of life in the street below me, I sit there, with my mini-speakers and highlighter and glass of water, swinging most contendly, studying Spanish in the hammock on my balcony.

In case you can´t tell, I think this is a very fine arrangement.

Getting Started Teaching

One day at my language school, the Casa de Cultura, I was explaining to the teachers how I hoped to spend my time in León teaching English to children at a local school. And they were kinda like: ¨Wait, we want to learn how to speak English. Teach us too!¨








So we started some classes. I met with a group of the teachers every day in the afternoon for an hour before our activity. It´s just a few of the teachers--sometimes only two can make it, sometimes I have a group of six or so. We´ve started from the basics, and are working our way forward one at a time. I find my new students to be extremely eager and dedicated. They are young women and men in their 20s, and they live with their families. Some have children, some aren´t married. In some cases, they are the only ones in their family earning an income. In all cases, their income is essential to the survival of their family. So it is a huge asset for them if they can pick up some English.

Of course, teaching English in this way has many benefits for me as well. I am teaching an English class, but I am teaching it in Spanish. And it´s really good practice for me to stand there and figure out how to explain things in español. More importantly still, these English classes have allowed me to get closer to my students (who are also my Spanish teachers), to start to build some friendships here. That´s something I desperately want here.












We´ve been doing this for two weeks now, and we´re making some progress. I´m really enjoying it.

Inane or Ingenious: You Decide!

Follow my logic here for a moment:

1) Flor, the green parrot who lives with my homestay family, speaks Spanish.
2) Birds descended from dinosaurs.
3) Spanish descended from Latin.

Therefore, this proves the dinosaurs spoke Latin.

Q.E.D.

A Family Reunion

One Sunday afternoon I accompanied my homestay family, the Sirias, to visit the town of Nagarote, a medium-sized settlement about an hour or so from León. This was the town where Maria, my homestay mother, grew up. She still has a lot of family there. The outing transformed into something of a family reunion, and provided me with a unique glimpse at family relationships here in Nicaragua.

When Maria told me we were going to el pueblo, I expected a village--a place remote and poor. That description does not fit this town of 10,000 people. The streets were paved, clean, and set on a neatly arranged grid. The houses were all small, built out of brick, with colorful exteriors. In fact, Nagarote has won the ¨Nicaragua´s cleanest city¨award several years in a row. Some of the inhabitants own the surrounding grazing land, and they earn an income that way.

We went inside Maria´s parent´s house, and it was typically laid out. It also seemed, like many Nicaraguan homes I´ve visited, to be strangely devoid of furniture. It was as if they had just moved in. There were only a few rocking chairs scattered in the living room, and the enormous cupboards in the bedrooms seem to hold all of the family´s possessions.

Soon we shifted to another house around the corner, belonging to a cousin, and the festivities began. Carloads of people arrived from the capital, dressed smartly. Then hugs and hearty handshakes. Then pulling up a chair. More cousins popping in to say hi. Children race around with plastic toys, screaming with delight. Garrulous women monitor a bubbling cauldron. Men lounge contentedly on plastic chairs. The big pot is stewing.

Lunch was a real feast. I was presented with an enormous plate of boiled vegetables and meat, piled high on top of each other. Then a deep, murky stew with more of the same. Another cold beer thrust into my hands. Delicious.

Everyone hung out for a few hours, talking and laughing and telling stories. I hung out mostly with Nedar, Maria´s eldest son who now works as a doctor in the army in Managua. He had plenty of interesting stories about his life there. And I was happy to observe the festivities on a relaxed Sunday afternoon. It just seemed so natural to me, like many of the family reunions I have known. One old man came up to me and told me I was now a member of the family. I think he said it because I finished my stew and then accepted a little more.

After warm farewells, I hopped into the jeep with Señor and Nedar. We set out to look for Maria, who had quickly gone to visit an uncle. But since she´s related to practically everyone in town in one way or another, it took us a while to track her down.

Finally, we all piled into the jeep, ready to go. A cousin came out to give Maria one last hug. Señor didn´t realize that this was one of those long hugs, and he eased the car into drive. Suddenly the cousin was half-running and half-dragging down the street with the car. We all laughed as she untangled herself from this prolonged embrace.

Volcán Telica

One of the things that makes Nicaragua so unique is that is one of the most geologically active places in the world. Standing on top of the cathedral in León reveals a number of hazy, triangular shapes looming on the horizon. These are the volcanoes belonging to the Cordillera Los Marrabios chain. They stretch down the length of the country along the Pacific Coast, from the Hondauran to the Costa Rican border. They are extraodinarily active, often fuming. And, best of all for me, they´re summitable.

One weekend I went with Quetzaltrekkers to Volcan Telica. (Quetzaltrekkers is a volunteer organization that guides trips to the volcanoes and donates the proceeds to Las Tías, a school for at risk street-children.) The hike takes two days, with one night spent at the summit. The cost of trip is $33.

We set out early Sarturday morning. There were about 10 in our group, long-term travelers and volunteers from the States and Switzerland. Our guides were Janine and Nigel, two cool volunteers. After breakfast at the office in León, we caught local buses to the village of San Jacinto. After examining the smoking fumeroles, the bubbling mud holes, at the edge of town, we hiked up through the campo and along the trail. The days hike took five or six hours, and unlike my other experiences hiking in New Zealand or the Himalayas, it was very hot: The high was over 90s and it was humid as well. For this reason, our breaks under the mango and orange tree were greatly enjoyed.










The hike is hot and has one steep section, but it is of moderate difficulty overall. When you reach the crest of the final hill, you get a full view of Telica--gaping, smoking furiously. An imposing monster. It is quite a strange feeling to make camp in the crater that lies right beneath the mouth of this very active volcano. (It had a major eruption within the past decade.)










The hike to the top completed, we spent the afternoon resting. But the temptation of Telica was too much, and I soon found myself hiking right up to the mouth. The scramble up over loose rocks was rewarded by stunning views into the mouth of the volcano, which in diameter is over 100 meters wide. In depth it's... well, we'll just leave that to the imagination. Looking north and south one also sees the entire chain of volcanoes in a row, and that sight is similarly astonishing.









We returned to the summit later that evening, as well as a trip to the western most part of the crater plateau, where we watched the sunset over the Pacific. After dinner, roasted marshmellows, and an intense game of Uno, we turned in. I shared a tent with my friend Ruth, who is a farmer from Humbolt County, CA. It was really fun to chat with all the people on the trip and learn about their lives, and it was a social group. That night the wind howled with surprising ferocity, but it didn't get too cold. It was beautiful to look up at the stars from that vantage point, beneath the darkened outline of Telica.

The sunrise over the line of volcanoes the next morning was enchanting. After breakfast, we started back. The downhill walk and the early departure meant that it was not as difficult as the previous day. By midday I returned to the city dirty and tied, but satisfied, having made several new friends and having completed a terrific climb that gave me the rare glimpse into the thumping, bubbling heart of the Earth.

A Note About Intentions

While walking home from school, I was thinking a bit about my title for this blog. It has a lot to do with the intentions I have for this phase of my life.

From July 2003 until July 2007, from age 20 to 24, from when I first left for New Zealand up until my intended return from Nicaragua, I will have spent a significant period of time abroad. Here´s the breakdown:

New Zealand -- 5 months
Ghana -- 3.5 months
India -- 14.5 months
Nicaragua -- 6 months
(Add in family trips during that time to South Africa and Prague/Budapest -- 1 month total)

Out of the 48 months from those 4 years, I will have spent 30 months living abroad. That´s 62.5% of the time abroad. When I think about that statistic, I can´t help but grin.

I remember there was one day during my summer in Israel where I felt I had a glimpse of what lay before me. I was 17 years old. We were hiking in the Negev. When we reached the topof a cliff, I sat down alone on a ledge, a great valley stretched out in front of me. I was filled just then with all the passionate enthusiasm of youth. I made up my mind that it was imperative thatin I go out and see something of the world. I´ve been very privileged to have the opportunities to do so with so much support.

But anyone who has lived alone in a foreign country knows that such an endeavor is not usuallywhat one would call ¨fun.¨ One could describe it more aptly as challenging, heart-rendering, inspiring, exhausting, or hysterical. I rarely find myself passing my time in the same way I´d choose to in the States. And that´s kinda the point. I´m trying somehow to open myself up to the world and understand a bit more of what´s around me while I have the chance to do so.

First book: W. Somerset Maugham´s ¨Of Human Bondage¨

The first book I´ve read in Nicaragua is W. Somerset Maugham´s ¨Of Human Bondage.¨ This is a great, big book, appropriately thick and engrossing to bring on a long trip abroad.

It´s a bildungsroman about the life of one Philip Carey, set in England just before the start of the 20th century. In it there are insightful ideas about youth and love, art and beauty. I like the way Maugham writes--his style is clear and smooth and, despite the cliché, I really did have trouble putting it down. That´s strange to me because I often didn´t like the main character or agree with his actions, but still found myself completely caught up in the story.

What I really love though about a great piece of artwork -- whether it´s a painting, song, or piece of writing -- is the way that it not only captures the deepest yearnings and intentions of the artist, but that it resonates too in the heart of those readers who are fortunate enough to encounter it.

Consider this passage on the aspirations of youth:

He did not know how wide a country, arid and precipitous, must be crossed before the traveller through life comes to an acceptance of reality. It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illsion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of truthless ideals which have been instilled in them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are brusied and wounded.

And this one:

He seemed to see that a man need not leave his life to chance, but that his will was powerful; he seemed to see that self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion; he seemed to see that the inward life might be as manifold, as varied, as rich with experience, as the life of one who conquered realms and explored unknown lands.

To me there´s something very knowing in much of what Maugham writes, and as often happens when I come across a great piece of literature, I feel wiser for the experience of having read it.

(Next up: John Steinbeck´s ¨The Grapes of Wrath¨)

A Day at the Beach

León is only 20 km from the beach at Las Peñitas. This is, of course, a very pleasant development in my life. I´ve resolved to make it out there about once a week.

It´s delightful to swim in the Pacific: the water is warm but refreshing, and I like to let the salty waves wash over me. Usually I go for a long, slow run down the beach, barefoot and shirtless. It is so quiet that I look up from the splashing, shimmering surf on the smooth sand and see not a soul in either direction. When I get tired or hot, I just collapse into the ocean for a bit.









Then I spend the rest of the day lazing in the shady hammock, sipping on fruit juice, writing in my journal, and trying to memorize Spanish verbs. Yep, life at the beach is pretty sweet.

My Homestay Family

While studying Spanish in León at the Casa de Cultura, I´ve been staying with a homestay family, the Sirias family. There are currently four people from the family living in this house. Though none of them speaks a word of English, getting to know them has certainly been one of the most interesting of my trip thus far.












My homestay mother Maria is a charasmatic, garrolous woman. She has a way of speaking to me in a somewhat conspiratorial manner, drawing me into her confidences. She also has a habit of laughing at her own jokes; I like people who do this. She clearly cares about my well-being and offers a high-five to her ¨chico¨ (that´s me!) every time I master a new Spanish phrase.

My homestay father Nedar is a small, affable man, always smiling. He works as a professor at the university in the sciences. Often we share nights of American music videos from the 70s and the 80s, of which he (and the rest of the country) are fond: Especially the rock band Chicago: you may (or may not) remember the hit ballads, ¨Hard to Say I´m Sorry¨and ¨You´re The Inspiration.¨It´s wonderful to sit there with him while we rocked out on our air guitars together. Lest you think that he only enjoys American music, he and has friends have a band called the Los Fermons. They break out their instruments every Thursday at 7 PM, playing salsa, merengue, rock, and a variety of Latin beats; Nedar plays the drums. They´re actually really good, and I like to sit on the porch in the gathering darkness and listen to the music.

My homestay sister Cony is my age, 23, but seems to regard my existence with cordial indifference. She is a university student but is on holiday at the moment. Therefore, she spends her day hanging out and watching TV. In the evening I sit with her and we watch American melodramas that have been subtitled in Spanish. Together we laugh at the stupid people. Our favorite is the show "NEXT!" on MTV, for obvious reasons.










Likewise, my homestay brother Anibal is a couple of years older. He is also on some type of semi-permanent holiday at the moment. Turns out he submitted his thesis and is waiting for results. In the meantime, he turns up every few days, wheeling his motorbike into the living room. We enjoy similar music and films and get along well. Often he brings his mattress and drags it into front of the TV so he can take a nap while watching TV. He´s a pretty ameable and helpful guy.

In addition there are two other older brothers in their late 20s who have moved out: William and his wife live in another part of León. And Nadar is a doctor for the army in the capital. I have met them on a couple of occassions and they are quite friendly as well. Grandma also seems to be hanging around the house a lot lately: knitting, moving about real slowly, and watching her Mexican soaps.

They also have some pets in the house: Rufo (the dog that follows me everywhere), a tiny cat (which I call el gato pequeño), and the omniscent bird Flor, the green parrot who is 29 years old, speaks fluent Spanish, and acts a bit like he runs the place.










The family lives a couple blocks from the center of town.The exterior is painted the blue color of the Nicaraguan flag. The neighborhood is mostly residential, aside from a couple of small shops. The house is across the street from the bombed out shell of the San Sebastian church, and, of course, the melodious new San Sebastian church located adjacent to those ruins. The San Sebastian church was bombed in 1979 by Somoza, and he was of course using artillery provided by the U.S. government; I never imagined I would be living across the street from a church bombed because of my government´s policies. But I am.

The house itself is rather spacious by Nicaraguan standards. My room is comfortable, what I´ve come to expect from my homestay experiences in foreign countries. The living room and the kitchen are both quite large. Everyone shares one bathroom. There´s a nice garden out back, about the size of a basketball court and bordered by a high wall. There´s a wood shed with tools in various states of rustification. And luckily for me, there are hammocks strung up between the coconut and mango trees. I wash my clothes by hand in a basin out there. We often eat in front of the TV.









Come to think of it, the entire household spends a lot of time in the house watching TV.

Nicaraguan Baseball

Baseball is Nicaragua´s most popular sport. There are four teams in the professional league. León has a team so I recently made the trip out to visit the stadium with some of the professors and students from my school. Luckily, it was a playoff match-up against rival Chinandega, so the atmosphere at the park was pretty intense.

The stadium is a crumbling wooden and concrete structure, rather similar to an old minor league park in the States; it has lots of charm. By game time the place was packed with a capacity crowd of 8,000; fans squeezed onto the stairs and blocked the aisles. Women in aprons slide through the crowd, selling homemade quesillos, plastic bags of plantain chips, and boxes of pizza. For most of the game the crowd was chanting and dancing, and it became particularly intense in the area where the rival fans were located.










The progress of the game itself was likewise exciting. It was a well-pitched, scoreless affair until León got on the board in the 6th: It started with a hit batsman; the crowd climbed to its feet and screamed with delight for the baserunner on first. Then a throwing error made it runners at first and third with only one out; the crowd jumped up and down wildly with anticipation.

My immediate though: Gee, these people desperately want something to cheer about.

Well, they got it: Rivas that batter. One out, runners at the corners. Here´s the pitch: It´s a deep fly ball to left. It´s over the left fielder´s head. It´s over the wall! And now the fans are going absolutely beserk because Rivas and León have broken this game open, 3-0, in the bottom of the 6th innning.

But it wouldn´t be so easy. León gave back two runs in the top of the 7th, and carried a 3-2 lead into the 9th. But then their closer served up a one-out, solo shot to Chinandega: Shades of Armando Benitez. And the game was tied 3-3 going into the bottom of the 9th.

In the bottom of the inning, the lead off man Garth reached with a walk. He was quickly bunted to second. Then a strike out. With two down on and a runner on second, Yoni Lasso came to the plate. The standing crowd watched nervously as he worked the count. And then the climatic moment arrived:

Man on second, two down. Here´s the 2-1 pitch to Lasso: It´s a shallow fly ball to left. Here´s the left fielder charging. Here´s the ball sinking. It looks like he´s going to... No! It´s under his gove and past him. Garth is racing around third! He´s coming around to score! Would you believe it? León has won the ballgame 4-3 on Lasso´s RBI single with two out in the bottom of the 9th! I don´t think it could it possibly be louder in this stadium!

¡Viva León Jodido!

January Daily Schedule

What am I doing with myself all day? Good question!

--7 AM: Wake up, cold shower, eat breakfast, & walk to school

-- 8 AM-12 PM: Study español at the Casa de Cultura

--12:30 PM: Lunch at my homestay

--2-3 PM: Teach English to the teachers at the Casa de Cultura

--3-5 PM: Activity with the students and teachers of the school

--5 PM: Go for a run around the city or just lie in the hammock

--7 PM: Dinner at my homestay

--8-11 PM: Hang out with my host family (watch TV, generally), read, & study Spanish

--11 PM: Time for bed

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.

A Linguistic Muddle

Namaste! Menya zavoot Big Kwesi! ¿Como estás?

If anyone has suggestion for how to untangle several languages knotted in my head, none of which I know very well, I´m all ears....

¡Bienvenidos a Nicaragua!

¡Hola! I have arrived safely in León, Nicaragua. I am going to be staying here for a while I learn Spanish. My travels went quite smoothly. This seems like a peaceful, friendly place to be. First I will learn some Spanish and then I plan to find some type of work. I will stay in Nicaragua for six months, returning to the States on July 3. Stay tuned for more news.