Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Update...
I´m going back home right now. The rains have mostly stopped and supposedly are not going to start up again. In fact, I´ve even heard that the rainy season is over which would be fastastic so all the stuff in my house would stop molding. Anyways, back to the real life...
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Still here...
So I mentioned in my last blog that I was stuck in a hotel in Chinandega...
Well, thankfully they let us leave and go home on Wednesday. I went back and explained to everyone why I was absent for the previous 5 days and started to get myself settled back in. But of course, Saturday morning I receive a phone call telling me a tropical storm is coming towards Chinandega and that I have to head back to that same hotel. I was not happy about it but I grudgingly packed up and went. On the positive side I got to watch the Illinois vs. Michigan game last night. Although they lost, it was a fun game to watch and cool to see the pics of Memorial Stadium and Kams. Also, the hotel is going to do some of our laundry which is fantastic becuase we cant do our own laundry on account of the rain (and not really being home to be able to wash).
In other words, Im still in the hotel with nothing new to report. Hopefully the rains stops and the sun comes out so I can go home! (but not until after tonight so I can watch the Boston v. Cleveland game on cable tv!)
Well, thankfully they let us leave and go home on Wednesday. I went back and explained to everyone why I was absent for the previous 5 days and started to get myself settled back in. But of course, Saturday morning I receive a phone call telling me a tropical storm is coming towards Chinandega and that I have to head back to that same hotel. I was not happy about it but I grudgingly packed up and went. On the positive side I got to watch the Illinois vs. Michigan game last night. Although they lost, it was a fun game to watch and cool to see the pics of Memorial Stadium and Kams. Also, the hotel is going to do some of our laundry which is fantastic becuase we cant do our own laundry on account of the rain (and not really being home to be able to wash).
In other words, Im still in the hotel with nothing new to report. Hopefully the rains stops and the sun comes out so I can go home! (but not until after tonight so I can watch the Boston v. Cleveland game on cable tv!)
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
New House
So unfortunately I’m still stuck in a hotel wasting the hours away watching TV and using internet. The rain has calmed down a lot but the Peace Corps has still not allowed us to leave. The say a tropical storm is headed our way, but we’ll see if it actually shows up.
Anyways, since I have some extra time on my hands I figured I would write about the new house that I moved into. I feel like 50% of my blog entries are about me moving or my house, but I have been moving around a lot. Hopefully, this will be my last.
So I moved to a different house in Corinto a week and a half ago. With the evacuation thing I have only spent 5 nights there but I really like it so far. I enjoyed the old house I lived at but I always knew that I wasn’t going to stay there my whole two years. My old house was right in the center of town and not on a very residential street. I always knew I wanted to live in more of a neighborhood area and away from the chaos of the center of town. Also, the walls in my old house were paper thin and didn’t reach all the way to the ground, so I could hear EVERYTHING that my neighbors said and did. And I shared a shower and patio with my neighbor, so I lacked a lot of privacy. So in the past couple of months I have been casually looking for a new place to live.
My best friend here, Manuel, told me about a house that his mom owned in a neighborhood that I really like. He told me that the current tenant was going to move out soon and I would be able to move in. I decided I was ready to move and that this was good timing. So last weekend, I paid a guy $5 to come with his pick up truck and help me move my stuff from my old house to my new house. Moving wasn´t too difficult but it was a bit tiring. The day after I moved in a bought a few new things for my house including a CD player which is awesome to finally listen to my own music! (anyone that wants to send me interesting CDs, that would be great!)
The new house is about double the size of my old house. It has a really big living room when you walk in. Then I have a decently sized bedroom and an indoor kitchen and bathroom. My old house had a kitchen and bathroom in the patio so having it indoors is a big improvement (think bathroom trips in the rainy season, much better to not have to leave the house).
The other great thing about my new house is that I live really close to a lot of my students from my 6th grade classes. The classes have recently ended with them so I still get to hang out with them. Believe or not I really love hanging out with the 6th grade kids here. Before I came to Nicaragua, working with middle school kids was my nightmare, but these kids have won me over. Anyways, I live by these kids and a bunch of other kids since this is more of a residential family neighborhood. I wanted to live by a lot of teenagers because that is the population that I work with.
Anyways, overall I am really happy about the move. I have a mango and lime tree in my backyard which is pretty awesome to me. I´ll try to post pictures soon of my house and the neighborhood but since I am not currently in my house I cant take the pics. Soon though...
Anyways, since I have some extra time on my hands I figured I would write about the new house that I moved into. I feel like 50% of my blog entries are about me moving or my house, but I have been moving around a lot. Hopefully, this will be my last.
So I moved to a different house in Corinto a week and a half ago. With the evacuation thing I have only spent 5 nights there but I really like it so far. I enjoyed the old house I lived at but I always knew that I wasn’t going to stay there my whole two years. My old house was right in the center of town and not on a very residential street. I always knew I wanted to live in more of a neighborhood area and away from the chaos of the center of town. Also, the walls in my old house were paper thin and didn’t reach all the way to the ground, so I could hear EVERYTHING that my neighbors said and did. And I shared a shower and patio with my neighbor, so I lacked a lot of privacy. So in the past couple of months I have been casually looking for a new place to live.
My best friend here, Manuel, told me about a house that his mom owned in a neighborhood that I really like. He told me that the current tenant was going to move out soon and I would be able to move in. I decided I was ready to move and that this was good timing. So last weekend, I paid a guy $5 to come with his pick up truck and help me move my stuff from my old house to my new house. Moving wasn´t too difficult but it was a bit tiring. The day after I moved in a bought a few new things for my house including a CD player which is awesome to finally listen to my own music! (anyone that wants to send me interesting CDs, that would be great!)
The new house is about double the size of my old house. It has a really big living room when you walk in. Then I have a decently sized bedroom and an indoor kitchen and bathroom. My old house had a kitchen and bathroom in the patio so having it indoors is a big improvement (think bathroom trips in the rainy season, much better to not have to leave the house).
The other great thing about my new house is that I live really close to a lot of my students from my 6th grade classes. The classes have recently ended with them so I still get to hang out with them. Believe or not I really love hanging out with the 6th grade kids here. Before I came to Nicaragua, working with middle school kids was my nightmare, but these kids have won me over. Anyways, I live by these kids and a bunch of other kids since this is more of a residential family neighborhood. I wanted to live by a lot of teenagers because that is the population that I work with.
Anyways, overall I am really happy about the move. I have a mango and lime tree in my backyard which is pretty awesome to me. I´ll try to post pictures soon of my house and the neighborhood but since I am not currently in my house I cant take the pics. Soon though...
Saturday, October 13, 2007
RAIN!
Sorry I haven´t written in a long time, I have been busy in the past couple of weeks. I´ll write about that in a blog later today, but right now all I can think about is RAIN.
I wrote about rain in a blog earlier in the year, but the rainy season really kicked it up a notch in the past week. Since this past monday, it has rained continuously pretty much every moment of the day and night. I vaguely recall a thursday afternoon break from the rain for about an hour, but thats it! Is this what a monsoon is? Anyways, in addition to this, I conveniently left my rain coat in the office in Managua, good work Paul. So basically I just have to wait for the times when the rain slows down to be just a drizzle to go anywhere I need to go.
This rain has been irritating for many reasons. First and foremost, when its raining all the time you can not hang your clothes out to dry. I desperately needed clean clothes (as did the rest of Corinto/Nicaragua) so I had to wash and dry my clothes inside, which leaves everyone smelling fairly mildewy, gross. The other thing is that everything is just wet. The air is wet, you can feel it. My bed and clothes feel moist. My matches wont light which means its difficult to light my gas stove (after 20 failed tries with 20 different matches, lucky number 21 finally lit). My patio flooded. My shoes and bottoms of pants are always wet. Its just gross. Thank goodness the rainy season is over in another month.
But this irritating rain might, and already has, turn into a bigger problem. There is a lot of flooding all across the country. Peace Corps office in Nicaragua has consolidated all the volunteers in their nearest big city or in Managua, the capital city. Which means I am currently in Chinandega with the other volunteers from Chinandega waiting out this rain in a hotel (not bad, it has a TV and three free meals a day). Supposedly there are a couple of tropical storms headed our way so they are afraid if they dont get us out of our sites now, the already saturated ground will completely flood when these bigger storm systems come and we´ll be trapped in our sites. As of yesterday there were a few volunteers that were stuck in their sites and Peace Corps went to get them in their cars with snorkel gear (air intake above the roof of the car so it can pass through deep waters). I think all the volunteers are safe in their consolidation points now. Us volunteers don´t think anything serious will happen but I guess its better to be safe than sorry. The staff of Peace Corps Nicaragua is really great about keeping us safe. They may be overcautious, but they are responsible for 150 some volunteers so it makes sense.
Anyways, thats my life right now, wet and on hold. I´ll write later this week about my new house and the project I´m working on. But, I want to take pictures of my new house (hopefully not flooded!) to post on here. I hope all is good and dry with everyone!
I wrote about rain in a blog earlier in the year, but the rainy season really kicked it up a notch in the past week. Since this past monday, it has rained continuously pretty much every moment of the day and night. I vaguely recall a thursday afternoon break from the rain for about an hour, but thats it! Is this what a monsoon is? Anyways, in addition to this, I conveniently left my rain coat in the office in Managua, good work Paul. So basically I just have to wait for the times when the rain slows down to be just a drizzle to go anywhere I need to go.
This rain has been irritating for many reasons. First and foremost, when its raining all the time you can not hang your clothes out to dry. I desperately needed clean clothes (as did the rest of Corinto/Nicaragua) so I had to wash and dry my clothes inside, which leaves everyone smelling fairly mildewy, gross. The other thing is that everything is just wet. The air is wet, you can feel it. My bed and clothes feel moist. My matches wont light which means its difficult to light my gas stove (after 20 failed tries with 20 different matches, lucky number 21 finally lit). My patio flooded. My shoes and bottoms of pants are always wet. Its just gross. Thank goodness the rainy season is over in another month.
But this irritating rain might, and already has, turn into a bigger problem. There is a lot of flooding all across the country. Peace Corps office in Nicaragua has consolidated all the volunteers in their nearest big city or in Managua, the capital city. Which means I am currently in Chinandega with the other volunteers from Chinandega waiting out this rain in a hotel (not bad, it has a TV and three free meals a day). Supposedly there are a couple of tropical storms headed our way so they are afraid if they dont get us out of our sites now, the already saturated ground will completely flood when these bigger storm systems come and we´ll be trapped in our sites. As of yesterday there were a few volunteers that were stuck in their sites and Peace Corps went to get them in their cars with snorkel gear (air intake above the roof of the car so it can pass through deep waters). I think all the volunteers are safe in their consolidation points now. Us volunteers don´t think anything serious will happen but I guess its better to be safe than sorry. The staff of Peace Corps Nicaragua is really great about keeping us safe. They may be overcautious, but they are responsible for 150 some volunteers so it makes sense.
Anyways, thats my life right now, wet and on hold. I´ll write later this week about my new house and the project I´m working on. But, I want to take pictures of my new house (hopefully not flooded!) to post on here. I hope all is good and dry with everyone!
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