More parade pics...

I just posted about independence day, see previous post. Here are some more pics.

Cute little girls in traditional dresses.
I thought this girl was funny. Despite the fact that all other participants got hot and tired after 2.5 hours (temperature in the 90s and long sleeve and marching, yikes!) this little girl did not stop dancing the whole time.

More traditional dress...

This is my host sister in Corinto, Karen. All the girls from her school braided their hair like that the night before. This is also taken very close to my house.

Independence Day...Nica Style

September 14th and 15th Nicaragua celebrates its independence from Spain. When they gained their independence in 1821 it was as part of a coutry that comprised of all of Central America. Central America would later break apart to the independent countries that exist today; Nicaragua gained its complete independence in 1838.

In Nicaragua they celebrate independence day with a big parade, similar to the United States. The parade consists of representatives from each primary and secondary school. Each school has a Banda de Guerra which is basically a marching band, but with only percussion. Each school somehow obtains drums (I think they borrow them from somewhere, but I´m not sure where) and then for the 3 months leading up to independence day they practice how to play the instruments. Also, each school has their own band uniform. Some are just variations on their school uniforms, and some are much more elaborate marching band uniforms. Because they have to pay a neighborhood lady to make their uniform, usually only the rich kids can play an instrument (but I guess thats not much different than the U.S.). Accompanied behind the band are the best students of the school (who don´t have to pay, so there is some justice). In front of the band are the dance group. Most of the schools also have some students in traditional dress that will carry the sign saying which school they are representing.

Today (14th) they did a parade around Corinto with each school all dressed up, dancing and marching and playing their percussion heavy songs. The dancer girls would dance scandalously in front of them. Even though I´ve never seen the movie, I couldn´t help but feel like I was on the set the movie Drumline. It was really fun because I know a lot of the kids that were marching so it was fun to see them all dressed up in uniform and playing an instrument. Plus, marching bands are just cool.

Tomorrow they are going to have a competition between the secondary schools for best band. Should be pretty great to watch.


Here is a picture of one schools dancing girls.

This is the public high school of Corinto, and also the biggest secondary school in Corinto.

Another one of the marching bands, with possibly the most extravagant uniforms. The two kids playing the xylophone things are my students. This also happens to be right in front of my house, with the ice cream shop in the background.

These are some of the girls in nicaraguan traditional dresses (but people only wear them for nostalgic occasions like this, you won´t see any random woman on the streets like this).

This is the group that especially reminded me of Drumline. The girls shook their stuff in 5 inch heel leather boots during a 2.5 hour long parade. Now thats pride for your country.

Hurricane Felix

I got a few questions if I or any of my friends were affected by Hurricane Felix that passed through the eastern coast of Nicaragua and parts of Honduras. Luckily, no one I know was affected. I am on the western coast of Nicaragua and the hurricane never passed here. Peace Corps Nicaragua doesn´t have any volunteers on the east coast (for security and logistical reasons) so there were no Peace Corps Nicaragua volunteers were involved. Some volunteers in the northern Nicaragua border areas were evacuated as a precautionary measure but the hurricane did not end up passing through there.

The northeastern Nicaraguan coast was hit pretty bad as well as parts of Honduras. Since I don´t have a television or recieve the newspaper I get sometimes get unreliable information, but I´ve been told that 90% of the roofs in that region of Nicaragua were torn off in the storm. On Monday, my site Corinto, the biggest Nicaraguan port town on the Pacific, is doing a fundraising event to to support the relief effort in Puerto Cabezas, the biggest Nicaraguan port on the Atlantic. Hopefully, Puerto Cabezas, and the rest of the towns affected, will recieve the support they need to rebuild.

You can read (perhaps more reliable information) about the Hurricane Felix in this New York Times article sent to me by a friend:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/world/americas/05hurricane.html?em&ex=1189137600&en=4199cd261ec85c76&ei=5087%0A

Paradise

A week and a half ago I had the great opportunity to go to San Juan del Sur with a couple of friends from my training group. My friend Danielle (who was my neighbor in my training town) had her parents visiting Nicaragua for 2 weeks and her parents rented a villa in this beautiful Nicaragua tourist destination. You may have read about this beach on the south western coast as ¨the next Costa Rica¨ and the ¨great new place for Americans to retire¨. There is a lot of development going on in that area, but luckily it isn´t overrun by tourism...yet. There are a lot of foreigners around in this small town which is nice because it causes coffee shops and english language bookstores to exist (whereas they are non-existent in the rest of the country).

Anyways, these pictures are part of my response to the people that said ¨Why the hell would I want to go to Nicaragua?¨ when I tried to convince them to visit me.


This is our ¨family dinner¨ cooked by Danielle´s stepmom. As you can tell we had bottles of wine, nice dinnerware and delicious chicken cacciatore. It was a nice break from rice and beans eaten alone at my plastic table and chairs on Winnie the Pooh plastic plates (that makes my life sound really sad, but honest, its not!).


This is me, Danielle, Lisa and Jonathon in the wonderfully American kitchen.

The villas are built into this hillside. The brand new Villas de Palermo are only $130 a night (two bedrooms, two bath, kitchen, living room and a gorgeous pool...do you see my future as a travel agent?)

This was our view from the villa. You can see the reception/restaurant and pool are in the bottom left corner. You can see the ocean in the background. The only drawback was that the ocean (and town) was a 5 minute drive away. But to us it wasnt a drawback because the pool overlooked that beautiful green landscape so we were more than content to spend our time lounging by the pool.

The PCVs poolside.

As you can see it was a beautiful spot and we were very lucky to be invited by Danielle´s parents to spend the weekend with them. It was also a great chance to just relax with some of my friends here. Usually when we see each other we are in a big group and rushing around somewhere so this was a nice break. Anyways, your trip to Nicaragua to visit me can clearly be as luxurious as you want (as long as you´re paying). Think about it...

p.s. for you future retirees: these villas are also for sale and San Juan del Sur is supposed to be a good investment right now. I´ll even offer my services of ¨taking care¨of the villa during my time here...