Bienvenidos a Nicaragua

I was a little nervous when I woke up at 2:30 on Friday morning and realized that I was really, truly leaving the country for two solid months whether I felt ready to do so or not. Luckily, the ridiculous hurry up and wait nature of the day kept any other trepidation at bay because I was too focused on getting to Houston; Once in Houston, I was too focused on the fact that I was in Houston; on the second flight, I was 100% engrossed in "Room"... and then I was here.

Here, I was met with a wall of humidity, a wall of humid people, and Jose, who's the orientation manager (among other things) at BaseCamp. I wasn't very talkative during the 1.5-hour drive to Jinotepe through the torrential rain, I'll admit, because I was too busy gawking. At first I tried to recognize the words in Spanish on signs and buildings, but then I was distracted by the fact that so many were words from home - Hyundai, Kraft, Parmalat, Esso, Avis... The juxtaposition between these familiar logos and the colourful but ramshackle buildings around them was definitely interesting.

When I wrote in the real Nicaragua Notebook on Friday night (more on that later,) I wrote that "I've never been so disgustingly sweaty in my life." Luckily, the humidity hasn't been as bad as it was in Managua and I'm finding the weather so far perfectly manageable. (Knock on wood!)

Yesterday, my first day, started with a cold shower (it's too hot for a hot one to be worthwhile anyway) and breakfast of eggs, toast and gallo pinto, which is a delicious concoction of beans and rice. I had a short orientation session afterward that covered the house rules, etc., and then Jenny (a volunteer from Calgary) and I walked to the central square. My friend Matt told me that the most important thing to do while I'm here is eat Eskimo ice cream, so that's the first thing we did. It was - of course - delicious.

I really wish I could share some of the pictures from my first day, but I'm having some incredibly frustrating technical difficulties. Basically, everybody else can conect to the house wireless, but my mac keeps telling me that "AirPort does not have an IP address and cannot connect to the Internet," or something like that. My dad says he might have a solution that involves updating firmware on the routers (there are three...) and I really want to be able to use my own computer, so I'll try that. If it works, there will be more posts and more photos very soon!