Today was my first day of classes! I was super excited to finally be doing what I had wanted to do for the last year! Classes started at 8 and Gloria wanted me up so that I could have breakfast. For breakfast we had some meat like Canadian bacon or bologna, all fried up, put in three buns and served with hot milk infused with sugar and instant coffee. It was very interesting… and quite a lot of bread. I am not sure how to act with my host mother, I want to eat all the food she serves me, but if I do not like something than I need to be able to tell her, I just don’t want to hurt her feelings. But on the other hand, she really does want me to feel at home, during my walk back to school in the afternoon she was asking me all the different foods that I liked and what I would want to eat.
Today was my first day of school. My host mom, Gloria, brought me to classes and when I got there my program was described to me in Spanish. After my program was introduced to me, I was introduced to my teacher and I was promptly given a test. I did not do that badly and was able to complete most of the questions. After I completed the test she brought me my workbook and informed me that we would start with the basics, the abcs and numbers, both of which I zoomed through. We then went on to verbs and conjugating ar, er, and ir present tense verbs. By the time we had finished those the day was over. Or at least the first part of the day was over.
At noon my host mother came to pick me up and bring me back to her place. She only lives a few blocks away and I can easily get there and back already by myself but she insists that she take me. When I got back to the house she made me this chicken dish that was very good, I wolfed it down. I was still a little jet lagged and so I took a little cat nap. At 2PM Gloria and I went back to school for the afternoon activities. When I signed up for the classes I did not know that I was going to be getting activities as well, a pleasant surprise! This afternoon we went to two museums the first one is the MI museum that holds many of Nicaragua’s most precious archeological artifacts. I really enjoyed it, being an ex-anthropology student. We had a guide who only spoke Spanish, but luckily the tags around the museum were all in both Spanish and English, so I could mostly figure things out. The second museum we went to was less of a museum and more of a store… it is called the chocolate museum and cafe. It had the history of chocolate on boards around the shop and also offered classes that taught you how to make chocolate yourself. It was interesting to read about the process and history of chocolate and we even got a few chocolate samples.
An interesting thing to know about today is that I did not shower, even though the last full shower I had as Friday. I did wash my hair with hotel soap on Sunday, but that doesn’t really count. I had not had the opportunity to go to the market to buys some shampoo yet, something I did not travel with because I knew I would be able to buy it here and save some room in my backpack. But enough was enough, and I knew I needed to go to the store today to get some.
After classes and the afternoon activity were over I asked where the store and local bank were. I needed to cash some of my American dollars to Cordoba, the national currency. I did not think that I would make it to the bank on time as I was told it closed at 4, but I ran over anyways and was lucky enough to find it still open. I was given 960 Cordoba for 40 dollars, I felt very rich after I left the bank and started to be more conscious that my wallet was in my back pocket.
After I changed my money, I then went down the main strip towards the market where I was told I would be able to find the things I needed. Walking down the street is a little surreal in Nicaragua. Firstly there are really no sidewalks to speak of, and even when there is one sometimes it is closed or there are people sitting on it or there is just no way that it could be used for a sidewalk. So then you have to walk in the streets. The rule of thumb is that the cars have the right of way, always. So if you have to wait for ten minutes to cross the road because cars are crossing, you wait. But if the cars do not get you, then the motorcycles might. There are hundreds of thousands of motorcycles in Granada. They are almost all small bikes 100cc and 125ccs, although I have seen a couple of larger bikes and it seems like they are all Japanese, although I could be wrong, most of the names I do not recognize. These motorcycles will carry anything from one person to a whole family to all the products being sold at the market that day. It’s amazing they can balance it all. But finally if the motorcycles do not get you then the bicyclists might. There are many more bicyclists than any other MOT, other than walking. This is the cheapest way to travel quickly in Nica, and they have exactly the same purpose as the motorcycles, although a little more difficult to ride and balance.
So walking down the street was crazy, cars motorcycles and bikes passing me in the street, while all the time I am looking in the shops, seeing what they have. Most of the shops that are in buildings are small bodegas with an assortment of stuff, kind of akin to the dollar stores in NY but smaller. I was told to go to the Pali, or local supermarket. So down the street I went looking for the store, but after a little while I started getting to an area across the river. I did not recall being told to cross the river. I wandered back and forth for a minute until I got up the nerve to ask someone for directions. The people I asked were very nice and told me that all I had to do was walk back up the street a little bit and look to my left. Lo and behold there was the store. Pali was pretty much a grocery store, although I a little dirtier and with fewer items, reminded me of a Chinese market. But I was able to find some good old American shampoo. I thought that maybe checking out would be a little more exciting but it was the same as any old checkout, except they did not give me a bag.
The rest of the day was easy peasy. I went back to the school and used their internet while I waited for my host mom to come and pick me up. When she got there we went back to her place and I did my homework while she made dinner. The rest of the evening we watched TV. I went to bed at 9pm because I was soo tired from traveling still and a long day of new place and classes. But I was feeling a lot better than the day before when I was feeling that I had made a mistake coming to Nicaragua by myself.
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