What I Learned in Nicaragua

As our month in Nicaragua comes to an end, I figure that a reflection post is in order, so I'm gonna make a list of things that I learned while being here for the past month.

1. Life has many lemons that it will conveniently throw in your face at the worst time.
When we got here, expecting to slide right into the swing of things and have everything organized already, we were not-so-pleasantly surprised by the fact that nothing was as it should have been. Being the slight control freak that I am, I really didn't deal well with this, and I had to learn to be ok with things taking time to settle down and I had to learn to cope with very uncomfortable and somewhat scary situations.

2. My sister and I are best friends, actually.
In the whole three weeks when it was just us and Katie, Amara and I never had a fight. One time she cried because I tried to make her face her fear of spiders and kill one, but we never actually fought, even though the situation we were in was less than favorable at the beginning. I think it's pretty awesome that as 14 and 16 year olds we can get along so well and have basically no problems. My sister is hella cool, guys :)

3. The third world is unreliable.
Nothing against third world countries, but seriously, you can't really count on anything here. You can't rely on people to sort out your problems, you can't rely on the Internet to cooperate, you can't rely on the electricity, you can't count on the water to be clean, etc. It's a very different way of living but we're kinda used to it since we've traveled a lot and lived abroad.

4. Even if you're a hypochondriac like me and take all the necessary precautions to avoid getting sick, you'll probably still get sick while traveling to sketchy places.
I usually never get sick in the States because the minute I start to feel a little off I drug up on vitamin C and Zinc and make sure to get lots of sleep so I don't get sick. But here, whatever sickness I had, the Nicaragua flu or whatever it may have been, still got me, and it was still awful. I ended up having to take antibiotics to clear that crap out of my system!

5. There is little value for life in some parts of some countries.
For example, in some villages here, they don't even name their kids until they're about 3 years old because so many of the kids die before they reach that age. There are tons of stray dogs here, so to whack a dog or to see an extremely malnourished one is no big deal. We saw this first hand today, and it was rather traumatizing. We were on the beach, all having a jolly time in the ocean. The owners of this hotel have three dogs, and two of them really like the beach, so we take them with us when we go to the beach. They kinda guard our truck and chase after other trucks/motorcycles/people on the beach, and usually when moving vehicles notice that there are two crazy dogs right near their tires, they slow down to make sure they don't hit the dogs. But today, this one white truck was driving by, and the dogs were chasing after it as usual, and this asshole truck sped way up instead of slowing down, and they hit one of the dogs. The poor thing died almost instantly, and the people in the truck barely even cared. They backed up and looked at the dog, and then just drove away. Turns out that the driver of the truck was a good friend of the owners of our hotel, and they'd known each other for ten years. This was the first time Amara and I had actually seen an animal die, and it was horribly sad because the people in the truck didn't even care at all, they just drove away without even stopping to look back or apologize to someone who was supposedly his friend. It was super depressing and just goes to show that everyone sees life differently. That's definitely something I'll never forget and it really makes me see the importance of all life, as death often does.

6. There are also good people in every place, aside from the people who don't value life.
There are people everywhere who are genuinely good and who care about others. This is refreshing and it feels good to know that there are still good people out there in a world that seems rather cruel and unloving. Meeting people who really care restores my faith in humanity and if nothing else shows that not everyone is only concerned about themselves.

7. I'm really lucky.
I'm having experiences right now that some adults don't even get to have. My mom pointed out that the first time she ever swam in the ocean was when she was 17, and here I am, 16 years old, and I've been to 16 countries and have swam (swum? swimmed? how do you English?!) in countless oceans. When I think about how much I've been able to experience and how eventful my 16 years have been, I really can't do anything but be extremely thankful. My parents have provided countless opportunities for us to do crazy things, and I really am very thankful to have had the chance to experience so much in my life thus far.

8. Not everything is worth worrying about.
Sometimes, when little things happen, it's way better to just let them go than to bother thinking about how to fix them. I've kinda learned to go with the flow and not be so fussy about the small things, because in ten years, even ten days, are they really gonna matter? Probably not, so I've learned to just let them slide and move on.

9. Life is pretty darn great.
We've been back for a couple days now and I've had some time to think about everything that we did and experienced while we were in San Juan del Sur. I'm finding that I'm taking away a lot of things that are similar to what I took away from the year in India. Now that we're home again I'm noticing the more negative aspects of life/Bellevue/etc and I'm also noticing the many positives. I am deeply humbled by the month in Nicaragua and I feel extremely blessed and lucky and happy that I've been able to make a difference in peoples' lives and that I've been able to experience so much in my mere 16 years of life.

Life is a beautiful thing and every day is a gift.
YAY FOR BEING ALIVE AND WELL!

Thank you all for reading, and this shall be continued the next time we go on a crazy trip :)
Aneesa

I'm Kinda Running out of "Witty" Titles

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 

First Half of Week 3

On Monday, we did the usual: we went to the library to teach, and that went well, then we went back to the hotel and hung out for a bit before going to Spanish classes, then we went home, did homework, cooked dinner, I called my parents, showered, and slept. However, I was slightly mad all day on Monday for reasons that aren't really relevant to this post. When we got back to the hotel after Spanish classes, my parents sent me a message saying that they had my scores from the AP exams that I took in May. I knew that people had been checking their scores because everyone felt it necessary to post their exact scores on Facebook, so I had been anxiously awaiting my scores all day. When my parents told me that they had them, I went downstairs and called them, preparing for the worst, because the exams I took were AP Biology (and I was pretty sure I failed that one) and AP Spanish Language, which I took only because I felt like it and I hadn't even taken that class. I went into the AP Spanish Lang exam feeling pretty confident in my ability to pass it, but left feeling like I had definitely failed that one too, because it was a lot harder than I expected. Anyways, my parents picked up and said, "Aneesa, we have your AP scores." I replied with, "Oh, god, I'm scared," to which my mom said, "Yeah, well, you should be." I was literally shaking at this point. Then my mom said, very slowly and whatnot, "AP bio was……………a 3!" That's exactly the score I was shooting for, because these tests are graded on a scale from 1 to 5, 5 being the best. A 3 means "qualified," so I was pretty freaking happy with this. Then she said, "AP Spanish Language was……………a 4!" I started yelling. I literally started yelling. (forgive my slight bragging here) "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! I got a 3 and a 4! A 4 on the exam for a class I didn't even take! A 3 on the exam for a class I was lucky to pass! YEAHHHHHHHH!" I cried from happiness, guys. A 4 means "well qualified," and I didn't even take AP Spanish Lang and still managed to pull off a 4! Oh, god, I was so happy. I know there are tons of students at my school and tons of students at other schools who did better than I did, but I don't even care, I'm proud of myself for getting those scores and I am quite happy with them. So, if you got a 5 on one of your AP exams, I'm extremely happy for you and you should bake yourself a celebratory cake and eat it all by yourself, but feel free to not rub your 5 in my face, because there are many people like myself who are happy with having done their best. WOOOOOOO YAY FOR EVERYONE WHO TOOK AN AP EXAM! 

Alright, so, today, we went to the library to teach as usual, and I got kind of upset because only one of my students showed up today. Since their vacation started, I've had about 6 or 7 students that come regularly, and I've learned to be okay with that number, but today, only one little girl came, and bless her soul, she just does not understand what we're doing, but she tries. This irked me, because I'm here to teach them for their benefit so they can learn, and then they just don't show up. It might have been a fluke or something, but if that turnout persists, we're gonna have a problem. 

Later today we will go to Spanish school, and for once, we might not actually die of heat stroke during our classes, because it's CLOUDY today! And there's a breeze and it was sprinkling earlier! That's what I like to see. 

Today we were talking about candy and I started craving a Three Musketeers bar, so somebody please eat one for me. 

Continuing this post from earlier today, it did indeed end up raining! Not just showers, either, it was a torrential downpour that happened to start right as we were walking back to the hotel from Spanish school. It was pretty cool all day today, which was really nice, and being caught in the rain wasn't so bad either, we just got slightly soaked. When we got back to the hotel, water dripping from our ponytails and our clothes sticking to our bodies, the guy at the front desk proceeded to laugh at us (not even close to laughing with us) as we walked through the lobby. I imagine we looked rather odd, a group of three gringas swaggin' our way through the lobby while leaving a trail of rainwater in our wake. It probably didn't even look that cool, though, we probably just looked like three sad puppies that fell in a puddle or something. 

I'm gonna add Wednesday to this post as well because there's not much to say about it. It was a rather normal day, except for the fact that I impressed my students today with the smallish collection of Spanish songs that I have on my phone. We had Spanish school in the afternoon like we always do and tonight we're going to have dinner with B and M and the owner of the hotel we're staying in and a group of people from the States who just arrived today. 

Thankssssss for reading, more later.

Aneesa

Los Quinchos

Today, Sunday, was quite a busy day. We woke up bright and early at around 7 and sunscreened and bug sprayed ourselves to death, packed water bottles and the food to take to the orphanage in a cooler, and headed downstairs where we met B and M. After waiting for the truck to arrive, we loaded up our stuff and got settled in the truck. Because there were more people than there were seats, Katie, Amara and I sat in the bed of the truck. This freaked me out because I have porcelain skin and freckles and Irish blood in me so I'm pretty sure I'm at least 5000x more prone to skin cancer than normal humans, so I put extra sunscreen on and tried to position myself in such a way that the sun wasn't directly on my face the whole time. After I managed to accept that we weren't gonna fly out of the back of the truck to an untimely demise and that I had sunscreened as much as possible, it was actually quite liberating and felt pretty carefree to be in the bed of the truck observing the scenery. We drove from San Juan del Sur to a Mormon church in Rivas (a town about half an hour outside of SJDS). B and M bring a lot of clothes, hymn books and other things to the church when they come to Nicaragua every year in November, so when they're here in the summer they check to see what the church needs so they can bring it down later in the year. This was an interesting experience, because Amara and I have never really been to a full Sunday service at any type of Christian church, so we didn't really have any idea what was going on, and Amara and Katie couldn't really understand anything because it was all in Spanish. I caught mostly all of it, but it still didn't really mean much to me because I'm not Mormon. During most of the service, I just felt a little odd, because all the other non-Nicaraguans there (about 4 of them) were doing their mission, and all of the preaching and testimonies and whatnot were extremely far from my beliefs as a Unitarian Universalist. However, as my Unitarian Universalist community has taught me, I try to avoid judging people as much as I can, so I left trying to see it from a positive point of view. It's good that the people of that church have such strong faith and their community is very tight-knit, which is also good. That being said, Mormonism is not for me, neither are any of the "traditional" religions, and I realized today just how much I miss my fellow Unitarian Universalists and the people of my church. If any of you are reading this, I hope your lives are all going swimmingly. 

After the whole church experience, we hopped back in the bed of the truck for a solid hour and a half or so and drove to Los Quinchos, which is an orphanage way out in the middle of nowhere. Upon arriving, we were swarmed by a hoard of boys and girls of many ages asking what our names were and where we were from. We ate lunch with the kids (the lunch we made on Saturday night) and chatted with them before getting to work. After lunch, Amara and I taught the kids how to paper quill. This was quite an odd experience. This orphanage was significantly nicer than the ones we went to in India. They had lots of room, several buildings, a few dogs, a decently large kitchen, a TV, a stereo, a living space, mattresses of their own, blankets, etc. And it was interesting to me that these kids have juuust enough that they want tons more. In India, they really have nothing, so anything they received was perceived as amazing and they were extremely thankful. But here, they have just enough stuff that the way they act when you give them something is like it's just not quite enough. Anyways, I thought that was kinda weird, but a few of them caught on to paper quilling pretty quickly and were able to make some flowers and such. One of the girls intentionally broke one of the little tools that you use to quill the paper, and that made me rather angry, because she knew what she was doing, and we only had about 15 of those tools to begin with so now we're down one more. They aren't that expensive, but anyone should know better than to purposefully break someone else's stuff. Other than that, it was a pretty good experience, and the kids seemed to enjoy it for the most part. After about an hour and a half of quilling, we stopped and packed up our stuff before checking out one of the buildings and heading out. 

Before going back to San Juan del Sur, we went to Granada to shop around a bit and because B and M decided to spend a couple days there. Katie bought a couple things in the market at the Central Park in Granada, but Amara and I just looked around. We walked a few blocks around the main area of the city, and I found it pretty interesting that that area of Granada really has not changed at all since when we were last there 3 years ago (we spent about 5 days there the first time we were in Nicaragua). I did notice that at least during the day there seemed to be fewer homeless kids, which I'm assuming is a good thing unless the reason why there weren't as many was because of violence or death or something. In Granada, they have these horse carriage things that they do tours in, and last time we were there the horses were super scrawny and looked really unhealthy. This time, though, they looked like they were actually being fed, and aside from the shmoregusboard of flies circling their twitching ears, they looked pretty healthy. Also, in case you were wondering, I learned the word "shmoregusboard" from Katie. Apparently it's a synonym of plethora, and I'm pretty sure she made it up, but I like how it sounds. 

After B and M checked into their hotel, we loaded ourselves back into the truck (inside it this time) and started the journey back to San Juan del Sur. It was about an hour an a half drive, and the roads are not quite so nicely paved as they are in the States, so it was a rather bumpy ride. They aren't as bad as the roads in India, but they're not as nice and orderly as the ones in America. Once we got back to our hotel, we put in a load of laundry, ate some dinner, and now we're relaxing a bit before we sleep. 

Thanks for reading, more later.

Aneesa

4th of July (and 5th and 6th)

This is the second 4th of July in a row that we've spent outside of the US. In honor of the 4th, I wore the most American things I brought with me: my duck dynasty shirt and a red sock. Expecting it to be just another day here in San Juan del Sur, I was surprised to find that many restaurants and bars have a 4th of July special type thing that they do with "American" food (in quotes because it's a very Nicaraguan twist on American dishes, but it passes) and there are gringos aplenty that go to such places. Katie, Amara, our saviors B and M and I went to one of these restaurants tonight and were pleasantly surprised by the fact that Nicaraguans can somewhat pull off fried chicken and potato salad. After this, we went and got ice cream and then moseyed back on over to our hotel. Later on, we heard fireworks and were startled, not so much by the fireworks but by the kids that started screaming their heads off immediately after the first firework was set off. Apparently, at Pelican Eyes, which is the super nice and very fancy hotel in San Juan del Sur, they do a fireworks show on the 4th for all the Americans that are staying there. We could see the fireworks through our tiny kitchen window, and, not gonna lie, I actually love watching fireworks. I would hate to be the one setting them off cause they're super loud and people get blown up by those things sometimes, but I love watching them. 

Anyways, earlier today Amara and I taught our respective classes (Amara with the help of Katie), and that went well. Not as many kids showed up today, but I think that's because it was the first day of a vacation today, so they might have forgotten or wanted to sleep in or something. It didn't really bother me that much, though, because the 6 or 7 of my students that did come were really good and it was obvious that they actually wanted to learn. That made me happy, because it's a lot easier to teach when the students actually want to learn. If any teachers are reading this, I'm so sorry for the times when I seemed super uninterested, because I realize now how immensely frustrating that is, and I'm gonna try harder to mask my disinterest in the future. The least I can do is pretend, right?

After teaching and the break that we have between our morning and afternoon activities, we went to Spanish school from 1-5 as usual. It was extremely hot today and there was absolutely no breeze whatsoever so I was pretty sure I was just gonna shrivel up and die, but I made it out alive, lucky for you guys. During Spanish school, I saw the owner of the school's mom throwing rocks at something. This lady is no spring chicken, but she's a pretty able old lady. I looked over and saw her throwing rocks off the balcony and I was pretty confused, and my teacher saw her too, so we were both confused. We didn't really think anything of it until we took our half hour break and heard a commotion of kids yelling and the owner of the school's husband making excited exclamations. We went over and discovered that there was a snake over there, and they had killed it. It was actually a pretty large snake, skinny, but probably as long as I am tall (about 5'6"). It was green and scrawny and decapitated (they had managed to cut its head off somehow). There was a hoard of white children huddled around the dead snake with a couple local kids and a few adults, and it was quite the spectacle. Last time we were here, we didn't see any snakes, andI was surprised to see one this time because there aren't that many in San Juan del Sur. One of the little white kids picked up the snake and was holding it up for everyone to see how long it was, then he wiggled it in front of one of the local adult guys, who proceeded to yelp like a little girl and jump backwards, which I thought was pretty hilarious. 

Friday was a relatively normal day, other than excessive heat, which we dealt with by going swimming. I always think that I'm getting used to the heat, but every day it manages to feel hotter than the day before. Washington weather spoils me, and to be honest, I would rather be in frigid rain every day than in this weather every day. 

Today, we slept in a little, then went to a store called Pali, which is about fifteen minutes up the road and is kinda like the QFC or Safeway of Nicaragua. We went there with M to buy all the supplies we needed to make all the food we'll be taking to the orphanage tomorrow. We bought lots of bread, chicken, cheese, mayo, pasta, and tuna to make sandwiches and tuna salad. Tomorrow, when we go to the orphanage, we'll be teaching the girls paper quilling and having lunch with them. Later tonight we'll be preparing all the food so we don't have to do it tomorrow, which should be interesting because we get to use the hotel's kitchen and apparently it gets really hot in there. That concerns me, because it's already really hot outside, so if it's "really hot" in the kitchen, what exactly does that mean? Ehhhh we shall see. 

That's all for today! More later (with details of the orphanage visit and the really hot kitchen). 

Aneesa 

Rescuers and Teaching (finally)

Monday, though I was expecting it to be just another day, turned out to be rather interesting. I was supposed to start teaching on Monday, but, of course, when I went to the library and said I was ready to teach, they told me that the kids weren't there. I asked where they were, and the people at the library had no idea. I was super angry, because in the absence of students to teach, we were put back to work on those damn late book notices. Eventually, some kids started trickling in, and I was informed that these were my students. After a while there were about 12 kids, and they were very hyper and very entertained by the wonders of staff paper. I taught them, or tried to, for about an hour. A couple kids were giving me and the other kids sass during the whole class, so at the end of class I made the announcement that if they didn't wanna be there, they didn't have to come back. Nobody was making them come, and if they don't want to learn, they didn't need to come back, and it wouldn't bother me. I really hope a couple of them listened to that, because teaching kids who don't want to learn sucks pretty badly. After teaching for one hour, I have a whole new respect for teachers who do that all day every day. 

Anyways, sometime during my lesson I noticed that an American or otherwise white couple came in. They struck up a conversation with Katie and Amara, and I didn't really think anything of it because I was teaching. After my lesson, the guy, we'll call him B, said, "Look at you go, teaching that music! Your Spanish is really good!" I thanked him and he and his wife introduced themselves. We'll call his wife M. They informed us that they were friends of the lady who runs the library. She had contacted B and M and told them that we were kinda floating dead in the water, and told them to help us figure out the teaching situation and sort out details and whatnot. B and M immediately took us in. They invited us over to their hotel (which is the one we stayed at during the first week here) for lunch and offered to come over to our little condo in the evening and cook us dinner. They showed us where to buy meat and who to buy fruit from in the market, and then took us to their hotel and fed us lunch. We ate so much, guys, it was almost crazy. They then told us that they would meet us at our hotel that evening and cook us dinner, and we'd all have dinner together. They came over and cooked us steak. STEAK!! It was so delicious. It was like a feast. We ate watermelon and steak with onions and garlic and avocados and tomatoes and all sorts of delicious things. B and M finally connected us with someone who could take us to the school here and get us some students to teach. It was great, because they know tons of people here and have connections that make it much easier to get things done. That's what they say, right? It's all about connections. They also said that they can take us to an orphanage called Los Quinchos this weekend and next weekend so Amara can teach paper quilling one weekend and I can teach music the other weekend. It'll be kind of like volunteering in India at the orphanages there, so I'm excited. They're even gonna try to help us do some fun stuff like see turtles and do something with them on the 4th of July! THANK GOODNESS FOR FELLOW FOREIGNERS!

Today, as arranged by B and M, we met up with one of the guys who works at the hotel we're staying in now and at the library (we'll call him E (I know, I know, sorry, lots of letters to keep track of)). He took us down to the public school and talked to one of the teachers there. That teacher was going to have a meeting with the director of the school later in the morning, so we had some time to kill between the visits to the school. Between the first visit to the school and the one happening later in the morning, we went to the beach (surprisingly, it was our first time doing so since being here) and walked along it for a little while. The water is slightly dirty and some rather odd things wash up to shore when the tide is in, such as books, trash, and tiny snails. However, it was nice to cool off a bit and walk along the beach. There were a few guys walking around with wheel barrows and rakes picking up trash when all of a sudden there was some sort of group meeting. Upon approaching the group of them we could see that they were huddled around something….something unfortunate. It was a dead sea turtle. It seemed to have been digging a hole to lay its eggs in or something before it died, because it was kinda halfway in a shallow hole. It seemed like it had died of natural causes, but it was sad nonetheless.  We're gonna go back to the school in about three minutes to see what the result of that meeting was. If all went according to plan, we should have some students to teach starting tomorrow! We're going back to the school now, so I shall continue this when we return. 

Alright, we're back, and with good news! Thanks to the cooperation of the director of the school and the help of E, we will be teaching our first real class tomorrow. A teacher at the school is going to organize a group of students for me to teach and one for Amara to teach, and we're gonna go to the school at 9 tomorrow to teach. E helped us make it clear that we only want to teach the students who really want to learn, and if there are students who don't want to learn or don't care, they don't have to come. They seemed to understand and assured us that they'd only sign the kids up who really wanted to be there. Finally we're getting stuff sorted out!

Later today we will have four hours of Spanish classes as usual, and then we'll go to B and M's hotel to let them know that we have the teaching sorted out, and then we'll go back to our hotel and do our stuff. After all the freaking out I've been doing, I'm glad some people who are similar to us have finally come to our rescue and helped us figure out how things will work while we're here. There is indeed a light at the end of this tunnel!

(continuation of the post that I wrote yesterday) Today, Wednesday, was our first day of teaching the students that will be the regulars. It went pretty well, and now we have students who actually want to learn and who are catching on pretty quickly for the most part. Amara has about 12 students in her paper quilling class, and I have 11 in my music class. Is it bad that I already kind of have a favorite student? Oh well. Anyways, the classes today went well. Even though I have lesson plans, I'm kinda flying by the seat of my pants here because since I lost a week of teaching my lessons have shifted around and I'm basically just going in a random order. The good thing is that they really don't know anything at all about music, so I can start from scratch and go slowly to make sure that I don't run out of things to teach them. A couple of Amara's kids seem to be pretty artistically able, so that'll make her job a little easier as well. And so, a week and a half into our trip here, we're finally doing what we came to do. Tis a good thing!

Thanks for reading, more to come. 

Aneesa

First Weekend in Nicaragua

Our first weekend in Nicaragua was mostly alright. Saturday was a somewhat lazy day, which was much appreciated since we were relatively busy during the week. We slept in and then read and wrote for a while before heading downstairs for a swim in the pool. After swimming, we went out for dinner at a pizza place (I ate 5 slices, don't judge me, I've been deprived) before going back to the hotel and watching Anger Management (also on VHS). I went downstairs during the movie and Skyped with my boyfriend, then came back upstairs and took a shower. Luckily, no lizards or ants were encountered last night, making it a relatively calm night. Today, however, started off on the wrong foot. The power went out sometime around 3am, causing it to get rather warm in our room by 6:15am, when my sister woke me up to tell me why it was so hot our room. This is basically how it went:

"Eesa?" she said. 

"Oh, god, it's 6 in the morning, what? Why is it so hot in here?!" 

"That's what I wanna tell you," she said, "the power went out."

"WHY IS THIS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW" (slams head back into pillow)

After unsuccessfully trying to sleep for another three hours, I finally gave up and got out of bed around 9. Between the hours 0f 6 and 9am on a Sunday you'd think that people would be aware of the fact that some people might still be trying to sleep and kinda keep it down when they're in a place like a hotel, but this was not the case. Some ladies downstairs were eating breakfast and cackling and talking extremely loudly, so in addition to the fact that it was freaking hot in our room, it was too loud to sleep as well. Anyways, the power still hadn't come back yet, so I went downstairs, dazed and half-asleep, and asked if it was a problem with the breaker or if the power was out everywhere. A guy told me that he would fix it in five minutes, so I went back upstairs expecting the power to come back on in five minutes or so. When the power still hadn't come back after almost 20 minutes, I went back downstairs and happened to run into the guy who must be a part-time owner of this place. He's American and obviously speaks English, so I told him what was going on. He told me he'd fix it for me right then, so he went and fixed it. Meanwhile, I started talking to a guy who was coming into the hotel while I was waiting in the lobby. I found out that he lives here in Nicaragua and rotates between the hotel that we were staying at last week and the one we're in now. He was a nice old guy from Michigan and it was kinda nice to properly meet a fellow American who we'll be seeing around. Anyways, throughout the day the power has been going off and randomly coming back on, causing the wifi to be very unstable, hence the reason why I'm typing this in the notes app again and not in an actual post. We tried to take a nap earlier in the afternoon today, but there were some screaming kids at the pool and Nicaraguans really like to party so there was loud music coming from the streets. I gave up after having two weird half awake-half sleeping dreams that I thought were real, and decided to do my homework from Spanish school instead. There was a brief period of maybe an hour or so during which the wifi decided to work, so I used that time to talk to my parents a bit and reply to Facebook messages. I thought it would continue working, but sure enough, after the power went out another couple times, it stopped working again, so here I am now. First world problems, I know, but when I have to rely so heavily on wifi to talk to people, it's super obnoxious when it keeps disappearing. 

About an hour ago, the music that has been blaring all day sounded like it was getting closer. We heard people yelling and these little firework like things (they really only make smoke and a super loud boom) going off, so we decided to go downstairs and check it out. Upon reaching the outside world, we were greeted by probably 200+ horses being ridden by people dressed in jeans, long-sleeved shirts, and cowboy hats. I have no idea where all these horses came from, but they were beautiful horses, not the scrawny under-fed kind that we've seen around town. Music was playing and being played (earlier when I said there were at least 2 trombone players and at least 4 trumpet players…scratch that and make it at least several of each, plus a euphonium player and lots of percussionists) and people were dancing and talking and those on horses were prancing around majestically on their horses. After a short while, a huge thing with a big plastic bull on the front of it (it was like a parade float except the kind that's on the ground and has wheels) and scantily clad dancing girls on the back of it drove by very slowly. It was basically a beer float, because it said the name of a local beer brand all over it, and the few items of clothing worn by the girls were the colors of this company. It was almost like being in America--we had the beer and mostly naked women, all that was missing was the football. Anyways, this whole horses and people and music charade went on for a while and there wasn't really an end in sight, so we went back up to our room and went about our business after taking some pictures and videos. 

Now we're gonna do a couple loads of laundry and eat dinner, and probably watch another movie before going to bed. If anyone reading this plays viola or tenor sax, please get your instrument out and practice it on my behalf. I miss my instruments so much. And, to my amazing fabulous parents who I know will read this, I miss and love you guys so freaking much, and to my incredible boyfriend who will also most likely read this, I miss and love you tons as well. To all my friends, I guess if we made it through a year in India, we'll be fine with just a month, right? I miss you guys, too. 

Everyone else, thank you for reading, more will come later, that's for sure. 

Aneesa

Summary of Friday and Reflections

Well, guys, we made it through the first school week, and since we leave on like a Tuesday or Monday night or something, this means that we're 25% done. Friday felt like a rather busy day even though we didn't actually do that much. We went to our four hours of Spanish classes in the morning, and then stopped by the hotel we were supposed to stay at to see if we could move in yet. We've been staying in a hotel near the beach but pretty far away from the library and the Spanish school because there was a problem with the air conditioning at the hotel we were supposed to stay at. The people at the hotel told us that we could finally move in (initially, we were supposed to move in on Tuesday, then it became, Wednesday, then Friday), but we had to wait until 2:00pm, and it was only 12. Considering the fact that we have more bags than we do people and the bags that we have weigh about as much as a small child, we weren't quite sure how we were gonna move everything across town by ourselves. We went back to the hotel by the beach and asked if anyone could help us move our stuff, and a guy said that he could, but it had to be at 1:00 because by 2:00 he would be gone. We decided to just go with that because there was no way we were gonna lug enough bags for a small army across town by ourselves in the stifling humidity. Working extremely quickly, we managed to repack all of our crap in about 40 minutes, and have it loaded up in the truck by 1:00. The guy from the hotel by the beach drove us over to the new place, and took all of our stuff up to our room, and they ended up just letting us move into the new place an hour early. The new place isn't much bigger in terms of size/number of rooms, but it feels more homey because there are big couches and a somewhat proper kitchen and whatnot. 

Anyways, after moving into the new place, we unpacked everything and put all of our food into the cabinets and made it all real nice and proper. We then headed over to the library to fill our more late notices for about two hours. This is rather dull and mindless work, but for some reason I kind of like it. It's easy, doesn't involve any movement, and it's indoors so there's no sun demon trying to fry you the minute you step outside. You know how there are lizards or snakes or something whose internal body temperature relies on their environment? So if it's really warm, their internal body temperature is warm, so they can move around super quickly and get lots done in their little reptile world. Or, if it's really cold, their internal body temperature is cold, so they can't move much and just kinda have to sit there until it warms up. I'M THE OPPOSITE OF THAT. When it's warm, it's like my limbs shut down and decide that they aren't gonna function at the normal rate, so if I'm gonna try to make them move, it's gonna be slow and painful and nobody is gonna like it. However, if it's cold, I'm good to go, because there is always a way to escape the cold. You can always put more clothes on, or use those little hand warmer things that are like small beans in a bag that somehow heat themselves up with your body heat, or you can start a fire or something. HOWEVER. You can never escape the heat. It doesn't even matter if you walk around completely butt naked, it will still be hot, you will still sweat, you will still get sunburned, and you will still hate every second of it. Reason number 5,987,436,219 why cold weather is better than hot weather. 

I got sidetracked, that's my bad. Back to the story of the day. After we wrote a bunch more late notices, we went to the grocery store. This trip was actually an organized one: we had a list and extra money just to be safe, etc. Seeing as how we went to this store every day this week, we thought we'd already seen everyone who works there. Yesterday, though, we were checking out, and there was a new lady there. She looked at us with an odd look on her face when she was tallying up the cost of all our stuff, and then she said, "I think I know you guys. I've seen you before." To which we replied, "Well, yeah, we've been here every day this week, so you've probably seen us earlier this week." She shook her head and said, "No, no I've seen you before, a long time ago. You've grown a lot though. Have you been to San Juan del Sur before?" She also asked who Katie was, to which I stuttered out the response that she was an old friend (saying old babysitter sounds weird and from my experience merits lots of weird looks). My eyes were probably the size of potatoes by now, because what are the chances that this lady would remember us from 3 years ago?! I told her that we had indeed been to San Juan del Sur before, but it was three years ago. She told us that she remembered us from then, and that we've grown a lot, and she asked if our parents were with us too. I told her they weren't here yet but they would be later, and she sent us off with like 6 bags of groceries and a general wtf-just-happened look on our faces. Three years ago, I still had braces, my hair hadn't quite settled down yet, and I still looked like a kid for the most part. Now, my hair is a solid 4 inches shorter than it was then, I got my braces off which changed the way I look quite a bit, and I look (so I've been told) like an adult. I still can't believe that lady recognized us after all this time, especially given the number of random gringo tourists this lady's probably seen during the past 3 years. 

Upon returning to our new condo thingie, we unpacked the groceries and sat down for a little bit. Suddenly, Katie had a craving for chocolate chip muffins, the mix for which we brought with us. I decided that I would go ahead and make them cause some chocolate chip muffins didn't sound so bad at that moment. However, much to my dismay, there was no muffin pan, so I couldn't make them properly. And, there were no bowls that were any bigger than what you would use to eat cereal, so I wasn't sure how I was gonna mix up the batter either. Fear not, though, creative thinking and desperate times calling for desperate measures came to the rescue! Using a pitcher and a spoon, I mixed up the batter with minimal difficulty. Then, after consulting my mom and my aunt, I decided to make the muffins in a cup in the microwave. I dumped some batter into the cup, stuck it in the microwave, and cooked it in 30 second intervals. Surprisingly, it worked out beautifully, and we ended up with some chocolate chip muffins to eat with our scrambled eggs (made by Katie also in a cup in the microwave because the stove wouldn't turn on) for dinner. Pretty solid problem solving, if you ask me. While eating dinner, we watched Legally Blonde on VHS (lolololol so old school), which was comforting because it's a chick flick in English and what have you. 

Later in the night, we were greeted by some friends in our condo. Amara encountered a lizard (small, like the size of your index finger, unless you have really huge hands) in our bathroom, and her and Katie tried to catch it under the plunger, leading the lizard to eject its tail and run far far away somewhere. I was downstairs when all of this happened, but we couldn't find that lizard after that. When I came back upstairs, after I took a shower, Katie found another lizard in her bedroom. However, thanks to my ninja skills, I was able to catch it on her wall under a bowl. Then, very slowly and very carefully, we slid a folder under the bowl and then threw it outside. It was rather intense and there was a lot of screaming and Amara was just sitting there recording the whole thing and cackling at us. 

I went downstairs to the lobby at around 9 to get closer to the wifi router and talked to my mom for a while then Skyped with my boyfriend. The talk with my mom helped me realize that though this trip isn't exactly turning out how I wanted it to, it's ok, and there are still many things to be learned by this experience. My four week curriculum that I slaved away at was cut down to three weeks because nothing was actually organized when we got here, and then I was informed that they have a break during the school week from the 8th to the 12th (Mon-Fri). I won't be able to teach during that week either, so my four week curriculum that turned into three weeks has now been turned into two weeks. If you know me really well, you know that I hate skiing. I've done it a few times and have never liked it. But, the reason for that is because though I'm very mellow and usually easy-going, I'm a control-freak. I don't want to control other people, not that kind of control freak. I'm the kind of control freak who needs to have complete control over herself and what she's doing at all times. It's for this reason that I don't like skiing. I feel like I have absolutely no control over where I'm going because I suck at it, and I hate the feeling of not being able to control myself. So, imagine this situation from my shoes. I've worked so freaking hard at writing all these lesson plans and raising money for the instruments thanks to the generosity of my friends and family and coworkers of my parents, etc. I've learned how to say "quarter note" and "eighth rest" and "trombone" in Spanish so I can teach these kids what I know about music. I have flown to Miami and then hurried to catch the connection to Managua in order to get here, to San Juan del Sur, where everything promptly fell apart. Though we were being continually assured that everything was organized and would be sorted out by the time we got here, this was not true, causing me to lose the first week of teaching. The library basically didn't have anything for volunteers to do, thus leading them to give us late notices to fill out as busywork (not so bad but not exactly life-changing). Then I find out about this break that the kids have, which is apparently their first somewhat long break in a long time, and there goes another week of teaching. Can you see how someone who needs to have control over herself and what she's doing would start to go a little crazy with all of this? I told my mom all of this and told her how I was really disappointed that this isn't turning out how I wanted it to and how I just felt like everything was completely out of control and how I really really hate that. But, as mothers tend to do, she helped me see another side of things. Though it sucks a lot that this whole experience is turning out to be less than favorable, there are still lots of things to be gained from this. Our Spanish is still going to get a lot better while we're here, regardless of how much we teach, because it's total immersion basically the minute we step out of our condo. We're here in a foreign country in a weird little town, and that gives us the chance to people watch, explore, and get to know the culture of the town. I love writing, as you guys can probably tell, so when I'm not teaching, I'll probably be focusing a lot on writing and bettering my writing because it's something I really like and I think I'm pretty good at it. As for not dealing well with the whole having zero control over anything situation, that's a good thing for me to experience. At some point or another I'm gonna have to accept the fact that not everything is in my control, and I'll have to learn how to deal with that. It's hard, and I really don't like it at all, and I don't think I'll ever like it, but it's a part of life that is gonna come up again, and if I can somehow manage to handle having no control over anything in a foreign country, it'll make it easier to handle this kind of thing in the future. This experience has made me learn a lot about myself already, and I know more of that will come. I've learned that I am DEFINITELY staying close to home for college (call me what you will but I love my parents and I don't like being this far away at all). I've learned that I feel pretty empty and incomplete when in the absence of my parents and boyfriend. I've learned that all Spanish all day is mentally exhausting. I've learned once again that we have so much back home and a lot of times we don't even realize how lucky we are. I've realized that I'm very dependent on technology, though I think a large part of this is because of the fact that the only way I can communicate with my people is through the Internet. The list goes on, and I know there will be more revelations to come. I guess what I'm trying to say by all of this is that sometimes, things just aren't gonna go your way, and that's something that we all (unfortunately) have to live with. 

Before school got out, I watched Forrest Gump for an extra credit assignment in history. I wasn't expecting to get much out of this other than a bump in my grade, but I actually gained a lot by watching that movie, aside from just a boost in my grade. Two of the lessons that I took away from that movie were as follows. At the part where Forrest is running across the country for no particular reason whatsoever, a guy comes up and runs next to him while asking him some questions. While they're running, Forrest steps in dog poop. The guy says something like, "Dude, you just stepped in dog shit!" Forrest casually responds with, "It happens." The guy asks, "What happens? Shit?" Forrest says, "Yeah. Shit happens." I'm realizing that this is more true than I ever thought it was. Sometimes, stuff just happens, and there's not really anything you can do about it, because it just happens and you just have to deal with it. The other lesson that Forrest Gump taught me was the infamous "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." I feel like this just goes to show you that you never know how things are going to turn out. Things will pan out for the best but it might be a rocky road to get there. I'm still having some trouble accepting this but it's a slow process and I'm trying. So, to my history teacher from the 2012-2013 school year, thank you for putting that assignment out there, because I gained more from it than I thought I would. 

This wasn't actually supposed to be such a long post but I guess I had more to say than I thought I did. Thanks for reading, guys.

Aneesa

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 

Perhaps our Craziest Experience Yet

Yep, that's right. Crazier than a year in India...I think. This is it: right now, Amara, my younger sister, and I are here in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua for a month without our parents. Katie, who used to babysit us when we lived in Kansas, is here as our adult supervision for the first three weeks until our parents meet us here for the 4th week. I'm here to teach basic music concepts to 3rd/4th graders at the local public school, and Amara is here to help me with that and teach paper quilling (you should look that up if you don't know what it is because it's pretty cool). I wrote all the lesson plans by myself and it was mostly my idea to come here and actually carry this whole shenanigan out. And at first, I was pretty confident that this would be super great and mostly easy and not scary at all.

I was wrong.

I'll start from the beginning. Our flight from Seattle to Miami was supposed to leave at 9:30pm (or sometime thereabouts), putting us in Miami with a five hour layover until our flight from Miami to Managua, Nicaragua. Five hours is annoying, I know, but at least it gave us lots of time. We got to the SeaTac airport nice and early to be extra safe. Then, our flight got delayed to 10:30. Still ok, though, because of the 5 hour layover. At this point, we're still fine, we just have some extra time to hang out at the airport (oh joy). But THEN, plot twist, our flight is delayed to 1:10am. Our five hour layover, giving us lots of extra time, has now disappeared, and the flight to Miami lands at the same time as the flight to Managua boards. This is when the panic sets in. Those of you who know me personally know that I'm usually a very calm, levelheaded person. Those of you who know me personally, then, would probably not believe what happened next. I lost it. I panicked hardcore. I have no idea what happened, but I freaked out like never before. I was terrified that we would miss our flight and be stuck in Miami for who knows how long. But then I started thinking about what exactly we were going to do in Nicaragua, and I started to freak out about that too and I started to think that maybe being stuck in Miami for who knows how long wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

We were on our way to Nicaragua by ourselves, where I would be teaching music. I've been playing viola since I was 4, so the music aspect of that really isn't what worried me. What worried me was the "Nicaragua" part of that whole scenario. Nicaragua = Spanish. Teaching a curriculum that I've never taught before in Spanish. What also worried me was the "by ourselves" part of that scenario. Traveling in the US by ourselves? No problem. But flying to a third world country whose main language is not English? PROBLEM. Granted, I've been taking Spanish for a really long time, like seven years or something, but I was still scared sh*tless.

I was panicking a lot. We called our parents and got the whole flight situation sorted out, and we ended up making our connecting flight to Managua with no problems. However, I was, and still am, scared to death. We made it to Nicaragua. But this whole being here alone thing? It's terrifying. It's like that first day of school excited but scared feeling that you get, except really heavy on the scared side and add the deathly hot temperatures and stifling humidity and what you have is a horribly terrified, sweaty, frizzy-haired 16 year old girl and her younger sister and used-to-be babysitter. Yeah. And I'm the only one who knows enough Spanish to communicate and translate.

I feel lost, worried, and lonely, and did I mention terrified? This trip, a whopping two days in, has made me realize that I think I have mild separation anxiety, no lie. I really don't like being this far away from my parents & boyfriend with no way of communicating with them unless I have the internet (yes, we do have internet here, obviously, or else how would I be posting this, but it literally works in one specific place in our bedroom and in the lobby, which is not air conditioned therefore it is very very hot). This whole situation is just incredibly scary. I want my mommy and daddy. There, I said it. I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know how I'm gonna teach these kids anything, because I've never done it before and what if they hate me or they learn nothing or my curriculum fails or any other horribly bad thing that could happen. It's so scary. And yes, I know, anything that I teach them will be more than what they already know, and it'll be valuable because it's a once in a lifetime thing for them. And yes, I know, my Spanish is pretty good and has been good enough to get us around this far. And yes, I know, my parents are only a Facebook message or a Google Hangout away. And yes, I know, a month isn't that long and it'll go by really quickly if I just don't focus on how long a day is. But that doesn't help! It's still freaking scary and I literally feel like I have no idea what I'm doing any time I try to do anything and I have this permanent pit in my stomach and that pit is where all the emotions and overwhelmed-ness and worry and nervousness live. ahhhhhhhhhwdruwoidfusoiahwwfhewailurg

Anyways. Today was our first full day in Nicaragua, and it was a holiday called San Juan Day. There was some crazy stuff going on, such as parades and dancing and a few guys climbing up a very smoothed down tree with no branches that was covered in oil. Yeah, I don't really know what that's all about. It was cool, though, and I now know that if there are no other musicians in this teeny tiny beach town, there are at least 2 trombone players and 4 trumpet players, all of which were surprisingly good, considering the fact that they probably haven't had any formal training. We've walked the majority of the town a couple times already because it's so small that basically everything is in walking distance here (which is why I find it odd that there are so many taxis here). We've reconnected with the people we knew from last time we were here in 2010, and that was good because it helped us not feel so out of place.

To sum this all up somewhat quickly, though I am usually a very calm, stable person, this trip is bringing out a side of me that I didn't even know I had--the very fragile, scared, nervous side. Turns out that traveling to a third world country with no parents as a teenager is really overwhelming--who'da thought? Nicaragua is extremely hot and today was a holiday (the history of which I really don't know) which was interesting and I learned that there are at least 6 musicians in this town. Also, before I started typing this, I only had one mosquito bite, and now I have like 6. This experience is insane. I'm sure that by the end I'll see it as a good insane, but for now I'm gonna leave it at that. It's insane.

And I'm scared.

Thanks for reading, yall, more later.

Aneesa

To Give You a Sense of Closure

I know, I know, I fell off the face of the earth. I'm sorry, guys, you'd be surprised how busy one can get in a very short period of time! I'm sure you're all wondering what happened and how it all ended up, so, as I sit here on one of the last days of winter break, I shall tell you. The last time I posted was a long time ago, I think it was around February or March, maybe April. Regardless, it was a really long time ago. So...I guess I'll go from there!

Miraculously enough, I finished all my schoolwork with straight A's. It was tough, and it was a ton of work, but I did it. I pushed it way too close though, I didn't finish until Monday before we left India for good on Friday. I'm really glad I finished and did so well, but I'm not gonna say it was easy, because it wasn't easy at all. Anyways, I finished school, and that was a huge relief.

We left India on 3 August 2012, and headed out to Barcelona. We spent 5 days in Barcelona, and we all loved our time there. It's an amazing place, and I got to speak a ton of Spanish, and of course, the shopping and food were freaking fabulous. I literally have dreams about this one salad that we ate there, and I usually don't even like salad. It was that good. I would go back to Barcelona for the sole purpose of eating that salad...but, for reasons aside from that salad, I fully plan on going back there someday, because I absolutely loved it. :)

After Barcelona, we went to Iceland for 6 days. We did a roadtrip in an adorable little Subaru through the southwestern part of Iceland. Out of all 16 countries that I've traveled to, I kid you not, Iceland is the most beautiful one I've been to. I raved about the Maldives, and those islands are close competition, but DANG. Iceland is immensely beautiful. The people are super friendly, the food was great, the scenery was incredible, and the sheep were adorable. We all loved it, and that's another place that I'd love to go back to one day.

After Iceland, we went to Texas for a few days to see my mom's sister and her family. It was good to see them again because it had been a while since our last visit. We got to catch up, shop on tax-free weekend, play boardgames, and have some family time, which was really nice.

Following our short stay in Texas, we finally returned home on 19 August 2012. A couple days after we got back, I cut off 11 inches of hair and donated it to an organization that makes wigs for women with cancer. I did this in honor of my grandma who passed away from ovarian cancer in 2008, and it felt really good to do it. On 30 August 2012, I got all four wisdom teeth taken out. This process was quite interesting, what with me being on Percocet for a couple days and having a super swollen face and stitches in my mouth, but the healing process was relatively painless. I started school on 4 September 2012, and though my face was still pretty swollen and I couldn't eat much other than pudding and applesauce and other soft mushy things, the first day went well.

In all honesty, the repatriation process was a pretty odd one. It was slightly more difficult than anticipated. You'd expect to move back from a year abroad and slide right back into life as it was before, but that's really not how it is, in spite of the familiarity of everything at home. In some ways, it's like we never left. We moved back into the same house, we're in the same school district, my parents have the same jobs. In other ways, though, it's like we missed huge parts of our own lives. People changed, we changed, etc. India changed me as a person. It made me completely different. I feel like it made me who I should have been all along. My perspectives on so many things changed. I've seen and done so much now that I never would have seen/done otherwise, and it made me a whole new person.

People always ask me, "Oh, wow, you spent a year in India! What an experience, how was it?" And I'm always at a loss for words when people ask me that. It's such a vague question, and it really doesn't have an answer. Sometimes, I loved it. Sometimes, I hated it with a passion. It was rewarding, but painful. Good, yes, bad, yes, fun, yes, torturous, yes. All of it. So, how was India? I don't know, to be truthful. To answer about "India" as a whole is impossible, if you think about it. It's a hard question to answer. But overall, I am indeed glad that we did it, because it was quite an experience, and I learned a ton about myself, life, the Indian half of my culture, and more.

Fast forward to right now! It's the start of a new year, and I'm happy to be back in America. School is going well, it's fun, and I've made lots of new friends and gotten back in touch with some old ones as well. I started and finished drivers ed, and have been driving with my permit for a few months. Driving is fun :) We've settled back into our houses and my parents are back at work and such. I love Bellevue, it's so beautiful and quiet and it smells good and people are friendly and it's great :) I've also gotten back into viola and voice lessons, which is so awesome, because I love me some music! In addition to viola and voice private lessons, I've auditioned for and joined a women's barbershop choir, which is a ton of fun.

I miss a few things from India, though. I miss being able to volunteer every weekend and see the difference that I was making right away. I miss my best friend in the world, Kavin. I miss a couple of the foods there. Occasionally, when the Bellevue weather is particularly bad, I miss the Bangalore weather. I miss having my own bathroom. I miss a few other things, but those are the main ones. However, at the very top of the list of things that I miss is Kavin, my very best friend. I miss her more than anything :)

So, I guess that's how it all came to a close. India was definitely one of the best experiences of my life, and I'm sure I'll keep seeing this in different ways as I get older. Though it was really tough, I'm glad we did it. I love Bellevue, and I have a weird love/hate relationship with Bangalore, but I'm glad to be home and back in the swing of things.

Thanks, guys, for being loyal followers while I was posting more frequently, and I hope this gives yall a sense of closure as to how our year abroad came to an end. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask, and I'll try to answer :)

I guess from here on out I'll just write about new places that we travel to, because traveling is fun and interesting and whatnot :)

Bye for now, my lovelies :)

What's Been Happening

Okay, so, I know that I've been really really bad about posting on this blog, and I apologize for that. Things have been super stressful lately and I just haven't had a lot of time to spare. That being said, this post is probably going to be pretty long, so you may wanna sit down for this. In terms of what's been happening, I'll tell you guys about school, the family, and the volunteer work that we've been doing.

School. Since leaving the hell known as Indus, I've been doing online school. That was going pretty well, and it wasn't too hard or anything, but that was only as far as I knew. Unfortunately, I was a little too relaxed with it, and I got myself in a bit of a situation. Turns out that I was way too relaxed with my easiest classes, and pretty uptight about my harder classes. So basically, I'm going to finish geometry, biology, and chemistry way earlier than I had originally wanted to, but I'm going to be working on English, Spanish, and AP world history for way longer than I had originally wanted to. I first wanted to be done with everything by the end of June, which is gonna work out okay, except for a couple classes (I'll get to those in a bit). Another thing is that taking AP world history as a freshman doing online school was a big mistake. It's WAY more work than I thought it would be, and each assignment takes me forever to finish. The work itself isn't hard or difficult to understand, it's just extremely time consuming and extensive. So AP world history is a class that I'll be working on until the end of July, which kind of sucks. English and Spanish are both super easy, but I was too chill about those and I'll be working on those until the first week of July. Other than all of that stuff, school is going okay. We made a spreadsheet of all the work I have to do so I know exactly how much I have to finish every week, and I'm sticking to that so I can have at least a small summer break.

Family. We've been okay lately. We're getting a little sick of being here and we all miss Washington and our lives back home SO much. We're going to visit Washington at the end of March, and I honestly don't know if I'll be able to get on the return flight back to Bangalore. Before moving here, I never realized how much I loved Washington and how much I would miss the little things that are so characteristic of Washington. How green everything is, driving across the bridge and seeing the mountains in the distance, the lack of speed bumps every quarter mile on the roads, seeing Starbucks around every corner, our house, our kitchen, my friends, our cat....the list goes on and on but I'll leave it at that. Anyways, bottom line is that we're doing okay but we're literally counting down the days until we return to Washington for good. (Literally counting down the days on a calendar countdown on my mom's phone).

Volunteer work. A much happier note. We've recently started teaching English at the Abhayadhama Boys Home, which is an all boys home about 15 minutes away from our house. The boys who are living there are not all orphans, but some of them are. They range from ages 15 to 23, and they are all there to study one of three fields: welding, carpentry, or auto-mechanics.  They pick one of these fields that they want to study, and then they complete a training program that lasts a couple years in that field. This allows them to be qualified for a job back in their village, which will give them a future in something that can provide an income and a steady source of work. My dad and a group of other good people in Bangalore have started a group called Orphanage Outreach Bangalore, and their main mission is to connect volunteers with orphanages and homes that need work done. They volunteer by giving medical exams (physicals), tutoring the kids in math or science, doing extra-curricular activities with the kids, and teaching things like English or other subjects/skills. My parents and I have started teaching basic spoken English the boys at Abhayahama to help them be more competitive for jobs in the future. English speakers in Bangalore have a much better shot at getting jobs because so many expats live here. So far, we've taught them three times and it's going really well so far. I think they like us and they're always eager to learn new things. Some of them are extremely advanced compared to the other boys there, but they are all learning fast. Each time we teach them, we include two music videos or clips from movies/TV shows just to give them a break from learning for a couple minutes and show them some music or movies that are popular among westerners. So far, they tell us that they like Michael Jackson, Pirates of the Caribbean (Captain Jack Sparrow specifically), and Mr. Bean. I'm always surprised and entertained by the things that they know about. I definitely wasn't expecting them to one day randomly call a boy (named Jackson) Jack Sparrow. Anyways, teaching English is a lot of fun and I really love doing it. We're planning on going regularly starting this week--every Wednesday and every Friday for one hour. We decided not to focus on reading and writing, though most of them already know the alphabet and how to read a little, because it would slow down the process a lot. We're just working on speaking English and having conversations.

I'll post a more recent update (I wrote this one a couple weeks ago but didn't get around to posting it until now) a little later about our trip to Dubai and our visit back to the States, and our most recent charity effort called Baking for Bacchas! I'll try to post that next week or the week after, maybe this weekend if I get lucky, but until then, thanks so much for reading even though I've been horrible about keeping this up-to-date! School is pretty stressful, but I'll try to be better about posting on here. Thanks for reading!!:)

Everyone in the universe must go to the Maldives.

Y'all don't even know how true that is. If you've been to the Maldives, I'm sure you know why I say that. We went there for a week, and it was seriously one of the most amazing places I've ever been to (if not THE most amazing place). It was especially convenient for us since Bangalore is only a two hour flight away from the Maldives. After about half an hour of flying, you're over water for the rest of the flight. Right when we were about to land, I started freaking out because we were getting dangerously close to the water and I couldn't see an airport anywhere near us. All of a sudden, a strip of land seemed to pop up in the middle of the water and the plane lands on this thing. It was literally a runway jutting out into the water, just wide enough and long enough for the plane to land on. We taxied for a long time before the rest of the airport finally came into view. Upon stepping off the plane, we were hit with a wave of stifling heat. This would have been really bad if there hadn't been a beach within five seconds of anywhere on any island of the Maldives. 

Anyways, we get off the plane and recover our backpacks from baggage claim and step out of the airport. Customs and immigration was hardly even anything worth worrying out about; we were in and out of that stuff within half an hour. After finding the guy who had a sign with my mom's name on it, we followed him to a taxi and drove to the little house we rented. At first we were confused because his name was Rifau (pronounced Ri-fah, with a short I sound), but the information on the house said that a guy called Mohammed would pick us up. Rifau said that Mohammed was at the house, and, figuring that he was telling the truth, we got in a taxi with him. The house was about twenty minutes away from the airport, on another island called Hulhumale. Hulhumale is a man-made island, but it's just as beautiful as all the other islands. Throughout the ride to the house, all of us had our jaws on the floor like idiots because we were in awe at how clear the water was. I'm pretty sure that there is no water bluer or clearer than the water in the Maldives, except for maybe it's tied with Thailand and Australia (not that I've been to either of those places but I've seen pictures). It's clearer water than Hawaii, and Jamaica (according to my mother). So we go into the house, and I'll be honest, it wasn't a five star resort or anything, but it was nice. Really cozy and cute, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, two living spaces, a nice patio, and a kitchen. But get this--it also came with two full time, at-your-disposal guides (Mohammed and Rifau) who would take you anywhere, tell you any random facts you wanted to know, and who were able to help you with stuff whenever you needed. AND, to top it all off, the house came with two boats as well! The guides and the boats turned out to be the two things that made our trip what it was. Mohammed and Rifau took us to several different islands and snorkeling places. We went to Hulhumale (or course), Picnic Island, Male (the capital), and a fishing island (which was not at all touristy, it was all locals). It was so awesome to have a boat that could take us anywhere we wanted whenever we wanted, and Mohammed and Rifau were so great to have around. We learned a lot from them and they were really nice. 

Literally ten steps outside of the house was a beach. Super soft white sand that led up to the clear, bath-tub-temperature water. The beach had some litter on it, which made me kind of mad, because how could anybody ever litter on such a beautiful sight?! It was even more painful to see litter in the water itself. The beach right outside the house was a local beach, and guess what that means? Since the Maldives is a Muslim country, it means that women are getting into the water in full borka and hijab. Yeah, that's right, people are getting into the water fully clothed! It was so different from the usual beach wear that you see people in--no bikinis whatsoever, not even any one-piece swimsuits! Our family all wears rash guards (t-shirts that are made to be worn into the water) because my mom and I burn really easily and Amara and my dad get super tan. Even though our good friends in a family that we've known since I was 5 think that tans are okay and healthy, they aren't any better than getting sunburned. You can get skin cancer from any prolonged sun exposure, which can mean getting tan or getting burned (true story, my padre is a doctor). Anyways, that's not something that any of us want to risk, so we put on sunscreen obsessively and wore rash guards.

The two boats that we had were a normal boat to take us to the other islands and reefs, as well as a banana boat. Yeah, I didn't know what that was either when we first got there. We later discovered that it was an inflatable boat shaped like a torpedo/banana. It had room for four people, and it was attached to the back of the other boat. The other boat then drove you around on the banana boat, and basically, the goal of Mohammed and Rifau was to throw us off the banana boat as many times as possible. It sounds like it wouldn't be fun, but it was actually tons of fun (aside from the few rope burns that we got from trying to old on for dear life to the floating banana-shaped-torpedo-like boat). 

Now I'll tell you about the snorkeling. When we went to Picnic Island for the first time (we went twice), Rifau went out with us to snorkel. The water was unusually calm and the snorkeling was amazing and gorgeous. It was our first time to snorkel in the Maldives, and it was super beautiful and really different form anything we've ever done before, at least for my dad, sister, and me. It might have been similar to Jamaica for my mom, but she went there alone. I think it was still pretty different for her too. Sooooo, when we first started snorkeling on Picnic Island. It seemed like Rifau knew exactly where to go, so we just followed him. The water didn't get any deeper than about six feet at the beginning, but it was super clear so the depth didn't really matter anyways. The coral was of so many different colors and the fish of even more colors. At Picnic Island the first time, my mom and I got massive sunburns on the backs of our thighs. Basically, our butts got so sunburned we could hardly sit down. My burn was worse, and it's started to peel a little bit now, which, let me tell you, is disgusting. Moral of that story is, put sunscreen on EVERYWHERE that isn't covered, because you have no idea how uncomfortable a really bad sunburn is on your butt and the bends of your knees, and pretty much anywhere else. 

While snorkeling at Picnic Islamd, all of a sudden, I noticed a significant change in the color of the water, and I also noticed that the coral and fish just seemed to...disappear. I pointed to where they seemed to disappear, and said to my mom, "What is that?!" She said, snorkel in her mouth, "That's the egg." I was so confused, and I had no idea what she meant by "that's the egg." Once we finally got to this so-called "egg," I realized that what she had actually said was, "That's the edge." Not egg, edge. I then started laughing really hard at myself for thinking she had said "egg," which caused me to inhale a lot of salt water and therefore cough until I thought I was going to die. After recovering from my near death by choking on the saltiest water you've ever tasted, I submerged my head in the warm water once again and almost died all over again. There was an edge indeed, and a very scary one at that. One of our family friends, I'll call her A, warned us of this before we left. She said, "The thing I don't like about snorkeling in the Maldives is that it suddenly just drops off into a never-ending abyss of nothingness. It's kinda scary." I didn't have any idea what A meant by that, but once I saw the edge of the reef, I definitely understood. It does indeed drop off into a never-ending abyss of nothingness. You'll just be chillin in the water, snorkeling and oooh-ing and ahhhh-ing at the pretty fish, then, BAM, all of a sudden, the six-foot deep water turns into an edge that leads down to the bottom of the ocean. You can't see the bottom, even though the water is so clear, because it's hundreds of feet deep. The edge is beautiful though. It has the most incredibly vivid colors of fish and coral that Crayola couldn't even begin to replicate. The fish get bigger and more brightly colored the farther down the edge you look, and the coral gets different too. Snorkeling at Picnic Island was the first time that I had ever seen this edge, and it scared me a lot. I mean, think about it. You can no longer see the bottom, the fish are huge, and you don't have a clue what could be lurking in the deeper waters off the edge. What if there's a shark down there, waiting to eat you?! Okay, it might sound irrational, but that's because it's hard to visualize. You have to see it to understand what I mean when I say all this. 

Some people take to the edge better than others, like my parents did. My dad wasn't at all scared by it, and my mom was even less scared by it that my dad. She almost immediately said, "All I want to do is dive down there. I just need a mask, a tank, and a buddy and I would be off that edge in a heartbeat." My MOTHER said that. My mother, who grew up on a farm, who thinks skydiving is too dangerous, who doesn't want my sister to get a third ear piercing, wanted to throw herself off the edge and into the never-ending abyss of nothingness and dive down there with the scary and probably man-eating fishes. Granted, she has her diving certification and she used to dive a lot when she went to Jamaica for a couple weeks, but still. The edge is everywhere in the Maldives. Any reef that you go to, the main attraction is the edge because that's where all the good stuff is. The edge is where we saw tons of different types of fish, a shark, two turtles, several eels, lots of different coral, sea cucumbers, and more. My parents went out by themselves one time and say a manta ray! They said it was "a majestic beast," which is most likely an excellent way to describe it. We also saw tons of dolphins while we were on the boat, which was really cool to see them so close. 

One of our favorite snorkeling sites which we went to several times was called Kurumba House Reef. The reef was amazing and the edge was incredible. This was also the place at which Amara conquered her fear of fish and jumped off the boat and snorkeled with us. Being the first time in about three years that she's snorkeled with us, we were all really happy that she got over her fear of fish and the ocean and got in with us. We loved the snorkeling every time we went to Kurumba, except for one time. The snorkeling was good, but the water was pretty choppy. We had been snorkeling for a little while already, when suddenly we started to feel little pricks on our skin. They itched and stung, and we weren't sure what they were. I then realized that the things stinging us were little brown floating blobs. They were almost microscopically small, but if you looked closely you could see them. Apparently, since the tide was in and the water was a little choppy, these little demon-bities as I called them (they were actually tiny jellyfish) came in with the current. Yeah, they were jellyfish. And they stung us all over. However, Mohammed and Rifau were quick to let us know that they weren't poisonous and the stinging/itching would go away after we took a shower. That turned out to be true, and the itching and stinging mostly went away after a shower. 

One of the funnier things that happened while we were there was when we were snorkeling at Kurumba. I saw these HUGE but weirdly flat fish swimming about fifteen feet off the edge. They were really hard to see, but we asked Mohammed what they were. He said, "I don't really know how to say it in English, but in our language we call it 'floating rubbish in water.' I guess that's what it is in English, but I don't know the name for it." Floating rubbish in water, how funny is that?! We all thought that was pretty hilarious. 

Alright, well I think that's enough about the Maldives for now, I might write more about these lovely islands later though. I already started writing a new version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, replacing the words to the original version with words that describe the Maldives in all its glory. :) I'm definitely going back someday! 

Also, for those of you who are wondering, we asked Rifau and Mohammed how the name of the Maldives is actually pronounced. When we asked them this, they replied with, "Well, yes, there is diving here, but not in the name." So, that means that the I in Maldives is pronounced like a double E instead of like the I in dive. Mal-deevs, not Mal-dives. :)

Thanks for reading, more later! :)