Still in Nicaragua, Still Sweating, Still Spanish-ing, etc

The wifi in our hotel decided to stop working for a while, so I couldn't post anything for a couple days. One of the guys who works here, bless his soul, informed me that there was another wifi router on the fourth floor that belongs to a guy who is paying for a room but isn't there most of the time (not sure what that's all about). He knew the password and told me, so at night I would go up there and sit in the hallway of the fourth floor while being preyed upon by mosquitoes and eyed skeptically by ants for the sole purpose of being able to use Skype and talk to my parents and boyfriend. Oh, the things we do for technology.

Anyways, I used the Notes app on our laptop to write things down so I didn't forget, so here are the things that happened on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then I'll add the things that happened today at the end of that.

So. Day two. We went to the library at which we're volunteering (not that I need to specify anyways because there's only one in this town) and they spontaneously decided that we should see some rural schools to decide if we wanted to teach our respective arts (music for me, paper quilling for Amara) there or at the local public school. They loaded up the Biblioteca Movil (mobile library, which is actually just a truck) with big tupperware containers full of books and we hopped in. We drove for about twenty minutes until we got to the first school on the route. The kids were really sweet, and as usual, very entertained by our foreign-ness. We talked to them, or tried to (they were a little shy), and asked them about what they were learning, etc. We repeated this process at the other two schools that we went to, while the three library workers that came with us took the books being returned and checked out new ones to the kids. The excitement was visible on their faces and in their eyes when they came back into the one-room school cradling a new book or two and smiling from ear to ear. It never ceases to amaze me how grateful these kids are for things that we take for granted every day of our lives. Be thankful, y'all, that's the moral of this story. 

After returning from our mobile library excursion, we headed over to Spanish Ya for our four hours of Spanish classes. Not gonna lie, four hours of Spanish class is pretty difficult, even for me, and I love Spanish and usually find it pretty easy. It's like a block day on steroids (my fellow highschoolers feel me on this one). Difficult though they may be, these classes are very helpful, and I can already see/hear the progress that we're all making. Following our four hours of classes, we went to the little grocery store one block down from the liquor store and bought water and bread and other various groceries. By the end of this trip, the people at that store are gonna know us by name, because we drink so much water that we have to go there pretty much every day. Oh, and the reason why I specify that the store is one block away from the liquor store is because we always think we've arrived at the store when we're actually at the liquor store and then we have to awkwardly walk past it while a bunch of dudes taking swigs from a bottle of vodka stare at us. Yeah. That pretty much sums up day two.

Moving right along, today was our third full day in San Juan del Sur, and holy DAMN was it hot. On Monday and Tuesday, sometime in the late afternoon, clouds and a sweet breeze would take over, and that brought it to a pretty tolerable temperature. But today? No such thing occurred. From moment one of the sun's presence in the sky, it was a scorcher. We left decently early in the morning to go to the library and be put to work, and the job they gave us the worst job possible given today's weather. We got the pleasure of delivering late notices to people all over San Juan del Sur. Allow me to elaborate. What this means is that we take these little red or white quarter sheets of paper and we read them. On these sheets of paper is a name and a list of books that are past due. Because San Juan del Sur is such a small town, between the two library workers that are doing this job with us, we can get to the person's house just by knowing their name. Upon reaching the person's house, we go up to the door and say, yo, we're from the library, and we're here to tell you that you have an overdue book, so if you could find it and bring it back, that would be great, and if you can't find it, just bring us a different book and we'll call it good. In Spanish, of course. Basically, to sum up this job, we walk all over the town giving people little slips of paper and telling them to bring books back to the library, some of which were checked out as early as 2006. I don't know about y'all, but if someone came up to me today and told me that I needed to turn in a book that I checked out in 2006, they'd be out of luck. I actually have to think about how old I was and where I lived in 2006, so there's no way I'm gonna know where a book is that I checked out 7 years ago. Anyways, we're walking around delivering late notices, and this is all fine and dandy for about ten whole seconds, until I start to sweat in places that I didn't know could sweat, and my clothes start to stick to my body, and I can literally feel the sun eating away at my fragile skin through my thick layer of sunscreen. We saw some pretty interesting houses while doing this, such as one that was down a crumbling dirt path, past a few pigs and chickens, over a sewer, and up a small hill. Another one was down a backroad and up about 40 stairs of varying heights (I tripped many times). 

Something that I've observed is that San Juan del Sur is actually very similar to Bangalore. This is true in many aspects: the architecture, the dirt roads, the little shops, the stray dogs, the pushy vendors, etc. It's also true in that even though the people are very poor and don't have much, they're generally pretty happy. Granted, I think that many of them live in a drunken haze judging by the amount of liquor bottles everywhere and the fact that I've seen people walking around with shot glasses full of suspicious liquids many times since being here. Regardless, though, they all seem pretty happy. And then I think of my fellow Bellevue kids (no offense meant by this, don't take it personally) who can't live without the internet (not gonna lie, I'm including myself on that one) and have to have the newest iPhone and need to wear brand name clothes all the time, etc, and I wonder how we became like that. I think it would be worth our while to stop and think about how little that all means, and how the things that should actually make us happy are the love of those who we love and simple things like music and the beauty of face-to-face interactions. I should take my own advice, because I'm the one who's sitting here complaining to myself about how obnoxious the shotty internet connection is and how stupid it is that it's so freaking hot here (the list goes on, you get the picture). But when you're faced with a situation as difficult as this one, it's really hard to man up and take it like a champ and be happy with what little you do have. It's a slow process, this whole being appreciative thing, and it's something that we should all work on, myself included, of course. 

I hope you're all enjoying your comfortable lives back in the good ole USA, because trust me, it would be extremely great to be back home right now. Revel in the glory of the Washington weather for me if you're in the Seattle/Bellevue area, and somebody please watch an episode of Weeds while eating Cheetos on my behalf. 

Today was kind of a combination of Tuesday and Wednesday. We went to Spanish school for four hours in the morning, and then went back to the hotel and had some lunch and relaxed a little before heading over to the library to fill out more late notices. Today the weather wasn't as bad as yesterday, but we got lucky in that all we had to do was sit at the library and fill out the past-due book notices instead of frolicking all over the town delivering them. After rereading that sentence I realize now that frolicking was absolutely not the right word choice, as it was actually closer to very slow walking while dripping with sweat and cursing the evil sun. Think of the way that green slug lady in Monsters Inc. moves, and that's a pretty accurate representation of us. Anyways, we got to sit in the library writing late notices while enjoying the wifi and shade, and we made a pretty hefty amount of progress. Though it sounds tedious, I actually don't mind writing late notices, it's kinda relaxing and entertaining (one guy checked out 4 books about sex all on the same day....hmmmmm). 

I think that pretty much covers Thursday, so I'll leave it at that. 

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the feelings of terror and worry and loneliness and whatever else still persist for the most part, but they're becoming more manageable with time. Or maybe I'm just getting used to it, who knows. 

Thanks for reading,

Aneesa