A Typical Nicaraguan Day - by: dw

Tuesday, Oct. 2nd

(more pics have been posted - http://www.flickr.com/photos/dwnicaragua)

Hey there – just want to give a brief recap of yesterday before I write a bit about today. For those of you who have never been to Nicaragua, today’s adventures will certainly give you a better sense of what life is like here in a much better way than I could ever explain. I am excited to share this with you.

Yesterday we had our first day of Spanish classes. The classes are intense - from 8-12 and one-on-one. There is no hiding in the back, hoping to avoid being called on. The first two hours are spent practicing conversation and are quite enjoyable. The next two hours are spent learning grammar.

Lauren seems to really enjoy her classes. She tells me that she spends the majority of the four hours giggling. I am pretty sure that she has learned more yesterday than I did during the first two weeks of Spanish I took at WM. She is picking it up amazingly fast.

I really like my conversation class. My teacher, Gema, basically just asks me questions and we talk for 2 hours in Spanish. She corrects my frequent errors, but always does so with a smile. Sometimes during my grammar class, though, I feel like I am perhaps a prisoner being interrogated. My instructor, Jose, speaks really quickly and only in Spanish. He also asks me many questions, the majority of which I cannot answer, haha. He’s great though, I am certainly learning a lot.

After class yesterday we had lunch and then went to Momotombo, our real estate company, to sign the lease for our apartment. The process was fairly frustrating, as one of the agents speaks only a little English and most of the affair was conducted in Spanish. We finally got all of our questions answered, signed the lease, and did a walkthrough of our great house. We were able to post a few pictures today. More are on the way soon…

Ok, now for today! Today was a very “Nicaraguan” day. I’ll explain:

Our morning started with a breakfast of cold canned tuna and corn mixed together on a plate. It was…full of protein, at least. We have come to expect unusual meals here. They keep us on our toes. We then went to class, where I was again grilled. Here’s an example: Jose defines a new verb (all in Spanish) as “the opposite of ‘to be clean.’” I guess “dirty,” “unclean,” and “not clean.” All wrong. He continues to ask me to define the verb, probably about 5 or 6 times, giving me the same hint. I, frustrated, finally tell him that I don’t know. He tells me it means, “to litter.” Haha. Nicaragua. I love it.

After class and lunch we went back to Momotombo to pick up the key to our apartment and have an agent who speaks English help us set up the internet at our place. We thought the fact that our taxi driver found the office without getting out and asking someone was a sign that the day would progress smoothly, but we soon found that thinking incorrect. The agent, Maria, called a company and got some prices for internet service. This process, which would have likely taken about 5 minutes in the states, took about 45 because the cable company had trouble understanding our address. This is not too surprising, however, as the address we got from the landlady is (translated):

Villa Fontana Norte

From the rotunda, 2 blocks south, 1 block west, ½ a block north

House #10.

Understandably, this is a bit difficult to track in a computer system. Somehow she finally verified the address and we got some prices. Maria tried calling another company but couldn’t get a hold of anyone, so Angel, another agent who speaks English, offered to take us to talk with the second company, Enitel.

We walked about a mile to Enitel, only to find out that they had moved about 2 weeks prior. We took a cab ride to a mall called Galarias, during which the driver drove the wrong way on the highway for a brief section because he didn’t want to drive up and make a u-turn. Real tight. We found the Enitel store on the second floor but the man there said they didn’t sell internet service there and that we had to go to the Enitel store on the first floor, on the other side of the mall. We walked there and spoke with a representative who informed us that, in order to receive internet service, we needed our address (not so helpful), passport numbers, a letter from our landlady Doña Norma, and, interestingly enough, a letter of permission from my father. Imagine if Comcast tried to pull something like that. Angel was not pleased and said we were going to see the other company, CableNet.

While we were at Galarias, however, another agent, Rosa, met us and brought us our key. Supposedly there was a misunderstanding and our landlady had been waiting for us for 2 hours at the apartment to give us the key. Nicaragua…

We took a cab to the CableNet office, where we were given special visitor passes and taken into a back office where we were offered coffee. Angel and Rosa talked with the sales rep for probably 20 minutes, during which I deduced that things weren’t going well by the increased speed and volume of everyone’s voices. Sure enough, there were more problems with the address and finding our house in the database. Go figure. The next part was boring for us, and we were there, so I won’t go into all of the details. In short, we sat there silently for about an hour while Angel and the sales rep talked quickly in Spanish and tried to locate our house in the system. With the help of many phone calls to Doña Norma, they found it and he started to process the sale. We got a cable modem and supposedly we will have internet at the house starting on Friday.

Afterwards Angel told us he’d take us to get copies of our key made. I was envisioning us stopping by a Home Depot and much to my surprise we stopped at a shack on the side of the road where a young man made hand-cut copies of our key. I hope they work.

Finally we took a bus (a huge accomplishment) to Metrocentro where we got some coffee and walked home. Of course, we ended up getting semi-lost in our neighborhood, which we have nicknamed “The Labyrinth.” Hopefully there is no Minotaur here.

Our dinner tonight capped off the day perfectly. We had mashed potatoes (the same batch we had for lunch), rice and beans, and this sick cheese which somehow we forced down for breakfast the day before. Both Lauren and I are adventurous eaters but this cheese might be one of the perhaps five foods I really cannot eat. We decided to wrap the cheese in our napkins and bring it back to our room to flush so our host mom wouldn’t be offended. Seemed like a great idea until we dropped the cheese in the toilet and realized it’s not currently flushing.

Today’s events hopefully give you a good snapshot of how things operate around here. First, inefficiency is widespread and chronic. I guess that’s to be expected when there is a sharp clash of modernity and the obsolete ways of the past. Secondly, the kindness of the Nicaraguan people stands out today. Angel spent almost 3 hours of his own time with us, speaking for us and helping us get internet. There is no way we would have ever been able to do that on our own. Lastly, today was full of much frustration, but also just enough ridiculousness that we couldn’t help but laugh throughout. Life in Nicaragua is much harder than life in the US, but it seems to be crazy enough that we thoroughly enjoy the challenge and adventure.

Sorry for the ridiculously long post. Good thing Lauren will probably write next. Hope everyone is well. Much love to all.

dw