Semana Tres

I can’t believe that I have been in Nicaragua for three full weeks. It seriously does not feel like it has been that long. I am sure it might have something to do with being in class every day of the week, learning extremely quickly and more thoroughly than ever before the basic concepts to Spanish.  And only a week left of classes. I know that I have learned a lot more Spanish in the last three weeks than I have ever in the two and a half years I took it in school. I really think that if someone really wants to know a language they have to go to a place where it is the only thing they hear around them and is spoken to them.  I still do not know a lot of Spanish. There are a lot of words out there, nouns, verbs, adjectives and everything in between. I feel like I will never have a full vocabulary of Spanish words. But as one of my teachers said to me in my first week; I have had twenty five years of studying English, I should give myself credit for knowing as many words in Spanish for the two years I have studied.

Speaking of 25, my 25th birthday is next week! What a year to be in a foreign country for my birthday. I think milestones like 16, 20, 12, 25, and 50 should be properly celebrated with lots of friends and family around. But alas, this year I will have neither of that. If I do anything it might be to have a nice dinner out, a piece of cake, a beer and a long phone call with my mom and then girlfriend (in order of time zone).  

This week was yet another week. I learned four new verb tenses in class: the future, conditional, pluscuamperfecto, and the preterito perfecto compuesto.  It was a lot to take in all at one time ad at the same time I was still trying to get the preterito and the imperfect down pat. I mean, shucks, I still get the present tense wrong from time to time.  So my brain might be starting to be fried and my tongue is definitely tied, but I am not giving up on my Spanish. I even just bought a novel in Spanish, Tuck everlasting, or in Spanish, Tuck Para Siempre. I figure if I can read a book in Spanish I can do anything in Spanish. Of course after the first two pages, looking up every other word because I do not know describing words, I was fried.  Learning a new language is hard!

So as I said in my previous post, there are only three of us in class this week, myself and two young Dutch girls who are participating in an internship and living in Nicaragua for 5 months. I am a little jealous, they will def know Spanish by the time they leave. Because the class is so small, we have been doing a lot of traveling on the crazy old school busses that serve as Nicaragua’s most common means of transportation. We went to San Juan de Orient, Niqinohomo, Laguna de Apollo, and the Masaya market place. It has been quite a week of traveling. I was also able to complete all of my touristy shopping. With the exception of a couple more post cards and the potential of buying a hammock. 

This entire week there has been a continual anxiety with everyone. Firstly there is my Spanish teacher and her son, who is super cute and only about 6 years old, who only speak Spanish. Then there are the two Dutch girls who can speak English but prefer to speak in Dutch all the time, and then there is me. I speak English and a bit of Spanish and no Dutch. So I have a few options, speak to my teacher and her son, which I did a lot. Speak to the Dutch girls in English, which I did but never went very far as the Dutch girls would revert back to their Dutch really quickly, or be silent which I also did a lot of. It is a good thing that I do not mind being silent because I might have had a hard time with this week if it were not the case. It is really hard when the group is soo multi-cultural. Don’t get me wrong, I love culture, after all I majored in anthropology, but I can only take some much when I am trying to learn something at the same time.

So other than the language barrier the most exciting thing this week has been the traveling. If you have ever traveled in a third world or second world country you know that it can get a little sketchy. This week, on our way to Masaya in one of the more safe looking mini busses we quiet nearly got into an accident. We are speeding down the highway dodging our way around motorcycles other busses and cargo trucks. I did not even notice how fast we were going until the bus started to move very close to another smaller bus. I was watching in horror as the bus got closer and closer a man had his head out the window and I watched in horror as the bus nearly took his head off. The bus just barely cleared the other bus, and I am pretty sure that our bus nicked the other one.  I was so flustered by this almost accident that I really started to notice how fast we were going and the crazy driving that the driver was doing. It was really scary. But this was not the end of the craziness. Later on the trip to Masaya in the same bus the bus that we nearly hit zoomed past us and the man that nearly got his head cut off leaned out the bus and hit our bus with his hat. The bus then pulled in front of our bus and slammed on their breaks. I seriously thought we were going to get into an accident this time. The bus in front kept slamming on the breaks and our bus would jolt back and forth slamming on the breaks. The bus in front of us eventually stopped and so did ours. Out of the bus in front of us jumps a bunch of men. I thought that they might jump the bus or something, the all looked really mad. From the back of the bus I could not hear anything but I am sure they were saying some not so nice things to the bus driver. Nothing really happen and the men walked back to their bus and we all went on our merry way.

So looking at my pictures reminded me of some of the other things I have done this last week that I have completely neglected to mention. First we went to San Jaun de Orient which I have already written about. Then we had another cooking class where we learned how to make Nicaraguan tacos. I neglected to take pictures this week regrettably. Pretty much just rolled up tortias with cheese in the middle and fried over the customary vinegar and cabbage salad. And as I have said before and will say again, frying something always makes it more tasty.

Later in the week we went to Ninquomohomo which was the birthplace of Nicaragua’s most famous freedom fighter, Agosto Sandino. We toured a school/ library that was built there in his honor and contains a couple of pictures and a short history of sandino, all in Spanish of course. I read in my tour book that there used to be other things of his there but the government took them and put them on display in their private collection, the jerks.

We then went to the Masaya market and then on Friday we went to the laguna de Apollo which I had been wanting to go to to swim in since I first saw it from the Catarina madador. And swim I did. The water was soo warm, much warmer than any water I have ever swam in in NH. But the two dutch girls thought it was too cold. I think they just did not want to change into their bathing suits. Super lame. But while I was there I attempted to teach the teacher’s son to float. A feat that is even more difficult when you do not speak the language. I think I got him floating a little but at one point I left him in the water where he could stand and I think that his mom did not trust me after that so she jumped in the water and tried to help him float. She cannot swim and it was funny waiting someone that is afraid of swimming teach another person to float. It just cannot be done. I think she was just more afraid for her son than anything.

Anyways, I can't believe that three weeks have already gone by, and that this next week will be my last week of classes! I really hope that volunteering works out great!