5/30/2010

Beginning of week 3 in training: The past few weeks have been a bit difficult. Mostly language stuff. You advance at such a rapid pace the first week then it kinda levels off and you don’t feel like your getting anywhere. I was feeling really good near the end of this week because I was understanding the family and able to explain myself well. I realized after a few days of this they realized what words I know and mostly use those and they speak slow. When I go into the town to buy something or get a motor taxi I have no idea what’s going on and I read body signals and nod my head a lot. Very realized im from America so where targets for money where ever we go. I got jipped today on a motor taxi after buying 5 gallons of water. He told me it cost more to bring something larger but apparently it doesn’t as my mom said.
Ive been to quite a few places around so far (I go to different city almost every week.) The city of Masaya is the capital of the region I live in. I went there the other day to buy my mom a mothers day gift. This was one of my first experiences with a place that was like a charity commercial on tv. There was a ton of trash littered around and things appeared to be very disorganized. I was entered in through a empalme or bus stop which kinda looked like a garbage dump. We got off the buses people loaded in and there was shit going on everywhere. People are trying to sell you plastic bags of juice, deserts, things from containers on their heads, movies, and get you on a bus. As we started to walk toward the market Liz, a Peace Corps member who was showing us around Masaya, remarked I feel like I am entering Aladdin whenever I go into this market, I felt the same way. Anything and everything was being sold somewhere. We were only showed around a little bit and we probably passed around 300 shacks/stores. Once we got away from the bus stop it turned into a normal city and was like most other places in Nicaragua, relatively clean and organized. People also like to advertise with gaint speakers blasting sound that can be heard from 4 blocks away. Over all though it went really well. I had to keep an eye on my stuff because of pickpocketers and when we went through the fish market I thought I was going to throw up. Ohh I bought my mom which im about to give her later today its mothers week ( Yea it’s a full week not one day, well actually month but the celebrating and gifts are given today.)
Managua the capital of Nicaragua: I don’t have much to say about this place because I got of a bus got on a taxi and that’s about it there was one awesome thing about this though. I went to the US Peace Corps office in Managua. it’s the place where I get paid, receive mail, letters, and can get books from there library. That was one of the coolest places ive seen. Not that it was a cool building but I kept thing of zombie attacks and defense. They have these cars I don’t remember what kind they are but there all terrain vehicles and there was a little shop to fix stuff up and I just felt really safe and badass being there.

Relatively Funny/Interesting things: I went to a concert last weekend. Couldn’t understand anything. Sat for about 2 hours waiting for what I thought was going to be fireworks at the end, nothing happened. During it I saw a bunch of other Americans. Its strange cause whenever I see Americans or white people I think to myself, why are these white people here. I’m not so concerned about talking to them as I am finding out why they are here. So basically I sat for 2 hours analyzing people imagining why the white people were there and waiting for fireworks.
Went to a mother days event at a school, understood nothing, sat for about an hour. Kinda side note, People here don’t think it’s a big deal to stare when you walk by or really in any scenario. So when I got there like half the people (around 100) just started at me while others notified people I was there. I was the only white person there and im pretty sure the principle took a picture of me possibly to show culture diversity, it was strange.

May Peace be onto you
Peter