I'm sorry for my lack of posts recently, we got pretty busy in our last week here and I got sick and etc etc but I'm back now!
This post kinda turned out a little longer than expected. It started out as just Thursday of last week and then escalated to Friday of last week and will now include the weekend and Monday and Tuesday of this week and basically all of this week…so yeah.
(this is about Thursday of last week) On Thursday after classes we went down to El Timon, a local restaurant, for the Culture Night that they have every Thursday. It features local music, singing, and dancing, and the restaurant has pretty good food. We went with a big group of people who arrived on Wednesday (most of them are from Colorado, one is from Vermont). They won't be here for long and have already spent a week in a city up north in Nicaragua, but they wanted to see San Juan del Sur a bit before leaving. Anyways, the culture night was pretty good, except for this one dance which was literally like a decently explicit human mating dance, which was rather odd.
(Friday of last week) Today, Friday, is our 75% done marker, because we leave on a Tuesday, so our last day of teaching and Spanish classes is a Friday. It was a rather good day today: we spent the whole day at the beach. After teaching in the morning, we headed out to Playa Hermosa (which translates to beautiful beach), the name of which is very accurate. A few people from the group and Katie and Amara wanted to learn to surf, and one of the guys in the group (he's from Nicaragua and knows the country and whatnot but is married to an American lady) had agreed to teach them how to surf. Because there were 14 of us going to the beach, and the truck only seats 5 people including the driver, we had to put 8 people in the bed of the truck. Needless to say, we got a lot of up close and personal bonding time while sitting back there. On the way to the beach we were stopped by the cops, who counted the number of people in the truck and in the bed of the truck, made one us snuggle up a little more so nobody's limbs were out of the bed of the truck, and sent us on our way. It was pretty weird because they didn't really have any reason to stop us, but they did, and they didn't really have any reason to make everyone shift about, but they did. After turning the corner, however, we shifted back to the way we were, which wasn't much different but made a big difference in terms of space for the 8 of us. Later in the ride to the beach, we passed by a couple guys, one who had a machete and one who had a rather large rifle. While passing these guys we were instructed by the one Nicaraguan guy who came with us to be quiet and not look at them, which, needless to say, was pretty sketchy and creepy, but we did what he said and moved on.
When we got to the beach, we unloaded the humans first and then the surf boards and set all of our stuff down by some chairs under a tree. We walked along the beach and found a few dead fish (including two puffer fish) and tons of hermit crabs, as well as some tide pools in the rocky part of the beach. As the tide started to come in we went back to where our stuff was and ate some lunch. While waiting for our food to arrive, I people-watched, and I came to this conclusion: nobody actually looks good in a bikini. Maybe like 1% of the world's population can pull off a bikini, but the other 99% is struggling. I seriously do not understand why people feel it necessary to show so much of their body. I apologize if this is offensive to anyone, and if you're reading this and you're genuinely convinced that you can pull one off, I'm sure it's possible that you're in that 1%. But actually, I just really do nottttt understand the purpose of a bikini. It leaves so little to the imagination that you actually might as well be naked, at least then people wouldn't have to use that little bit of brain power to imagine the rest. And for those of you who will say, oh, she's just jealous, and she's probably in that 99%, you are right, I am in that 99%, and I'm really quite happy there, because I don't subject myself to the whole bikini wearing thing for a reason: I know I can't pull one off, and even if I could, I wouldn't wear one, because I'm not a sex object and blah blah women's rights/respect stuff and the value of people as humans not just things that mate because they can etc etc etc you all get the point. I guess what I'm trying to say is that seriously you ladies out there should just put some more clothes on even when you're swimming because I get that you want to be sexy and tan and whatnot but honestly wearing a bikini is not the best way to go about that and it really gives people the wrong idea about you. Rant end.
Later, once the tide came in a little bit, Katie and Amara and some people from the group went out to learn how to surf. I stayed back on the beach and watched and wrote a little bit, and apparently surfing is rather difficult, because it was pretty hard for people to stand up and there were many wipeouts. I would suck at surfing so much because I'm pretty clumsy and it seems like surfing is all about balance. They had fun in spite of not really being able to stand up, and it was really nice to get to relax on the beach a little and just not have anything to do for a while.
We're back at the hotel now and will probably be doing something similar to what we did last weekend tomorrow and on Sunday because we're going to Los Quinchos again. My parents will be here soon, which is good, because I miss them a lot. And, very soon, we'll all be home!!!!
Well, the weekend plan for going back to Los Quinchos didn't actually pan out so nicely for me. On Saturday morning I woke up feeling awful. I was nauseous, dizzy, slightly feverish, my entire body ached, I had a pounding headache, and I was having some other problems (the details of which I'll spare you guys). Being kind of a hypochondriac, I really don't react well to being sick, so I was kinda angry when I realized that I was quite sick. At first we thought it was heat sickness (too much heat, not enough water, etc) and expected it to go away within a day or so. But it persisted, and when I wasn't getting any better and in fact was starting to feel a little worse on Sunday, it was decided that I had come down with the Nicaragua flu. I don't get sick very often, but this was probably the worst flu I've ever had. My entire body ached like I had done some crazy exercises for ten hours straight (like yoga or something oh god I hate yoga), and every time I tried to move I got crazy dizzy and just had to sit back down. Saturday and Sunday were when I felt the worst, and then on Monday afternoon my dad gave Amara the name of a medicine to get me. Amara went down to the pharmacy, all by herself (YAY!) and got me the medicine as prescribed by Doctor Father Shaikh. I took the first dose on Monday night, and by the time I went to bed I started to feel a little bit better and some of the dizziness started to go away.
(this part is about Tuesday of this week) This morning, I felt a little better but still pretty weak. I took it easy again today and ate nothing but bread for the fourth day in a row, and by the late afternoon, I was starting to feel mostly decent. And then, my parents got here, and that made me really happy, and I cried tears of joy, and it was just really good to see them again. Tonight, because I was feeling mostly like myself again, I decided to go with my family and B and M and their son to the house of one of the chefs here at our hotel. She had offered to have us over and cook us dinner, so we took her up on that offer because according to M, this lady is an amazing cook. And right she was, because the food was super delicious. I think being sick gives you a renewed appreciation for food because you can't eat anything without feeling like poo.
(This is also about Tuesday of this week) Life lesson time, guys! Tonight when we were at the chef's house, I realized something. Her house is small by American standards, but huuuge by Nicaraguan standards. She's saved up for years to be able to add on to her house and buy a refrigerator and a TV, etc. She makes around $60 a month, which is a lot compared to most people here. She doesn't have a lot and if someone in the US was only machine 60 bucks a month they definitely wouldn't be hosting any get togethers at their house. However. This wonderful lady, humble though her abode may be by our standards, was more than happy and very proud to welcome us into her home tonight. She pulled up chairs for us, pointed the fans right at our sweating gringo faces, and cooked us dinner. What's more is that she offered to feed us for free, no need to pay for ingredients or anything. We still paid for some of the ingredients, but she was absolutely willing to make us dinner and take nothing for it. This is something that I've seen in a lot of places because I've been fortunate enough to travel quite a bit: people in other countries give so much of themselves to others. They're so willing to take people in and help people even if they're really not in the best place to be helping people, because they realize that having a community and contributing to it is a valuable thing. In so many of the places I've been, especially here, the locals are completely the opposite of individualistic. Maybe it's because San Juan del Sur is a really small town, but I think it's because people here are just good people. They genuinely care about each other and even if you're so obviously foreign like we are, they are willing to help you get around and they're happy to do whatever they can for you. It's really quite refreshing to be in a place where people give so much of themselves to others even when they have so little. There's definitely something to be learned from that, because I think in the States we sometimes get lost in the craziness of our lives with work and school and getting where we need to be and always having something to do, and that's understandable, because sometimes you just have too much going on to be able to slow down for a minute. But I think it's something that we should all at least try to do, especially because a lot of us are very capable of giving so much more than we do. So, if you feel like it, y'all should challenge yourselves to help someone out this week. Bake someone cookies if they're going through a rough time. Buy flowers for your girlfriend just because. Help an old man with groceries or something. Go to Starbucks and give the dude like 30 bucks and pay for the next person's coffee. Just smile at someone you see while you're out and about. Little things go a surprisingly long way, even if they seem like they don't mean much :)
On Wednesday I finally got back on my feet and went to Spanish school and resumed teaching. This was good because I really dislike being sick and feeling like I have to be taken care of, so it was good to get back out again. On Wednesday after teaching and everything we went to the beach and swam in the ocean, which I discovered is something that I really really love doing. It feels so free and relaxing, it's awesome, except for when fish jump really close to you or something sketchy touches your foot which is creepy. Thursday was our last day of teaching, which was slightly bittersweet, and after that we just hung out for the evening. We went to dinner at this place called Nacho Libre and had burgers which were super delicious but it felt wrong to eat them because we're in Nicaragua and whatnot. After that we had gelato and it was soooooo good. Also, on the way to get gelato, Amara tripped off the curb and screwed up her ankle, which I'm sure was quite painful but was really very hilarious.
Today, Friday, was a busy day! We had our last day of Spanish classes in the morning and after that we went back to the hotel and had lunch. We then had to pack up our stuff very quickly and be out of the hotel by 3, because we were getting picked up and also because the owner of the hotel had already given our room to someone else. We got picked up by a guy who works at the resort that my parents were at last week to celebrate their 20th anniversary because our parents are awesome and decided to surprise us with a couple days at the resort! Our last weekend in Nicaragua will be spent at Soma Surf Resort relaxing, swimming, and really doing absolutely nothing. It should be great :)
Thanks for reading, more later!
Aneesa
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