A Wild Weekend

Wow, what a weekend. So much has gone on these past couple of days that I don’t even know where to start. So I’ll try and start at the beginning. I apologize ahead of time for what will surely be a long post, but my access to the internet is now a bit more limited that I’m in my new site. And that there are no pictures, since the camera is still broken. So take a deep breath, and here it goes:

I’m now officially a full fledged Volunteer for the Peace Corps Nicaragua. I think I used the word bonefied, in my previous post, so that too. So what exactly does that mean? It means a couple of things, the first and foremost being that I have almost 100 times more freedom, and that the Peace Corps won’t be leading me by the hand anymore. If I hadn’t made that clear, that’s what it felt like during training. It wasn’t a bad thing necessarily, but after three months it’s nice to make most of my own decisions and create my own schedule. Outside of classes at my seven schools in site, I’m free to do what I please, be it joining sports leagues, start up youth groups, creating secondary projects, or just do nothing at all. Sometimes between all the kids and all the language, that’s all I want to do, sit and listen to American music. So prepare yourselves for all the adventures I will be relaying to you in the coming months! La Segunda Cosa Grande es que solamente puedo hablar en espanol. Minus some english teachers in the area, I am legitimately the only person who speaks English in my community. So the language is going to start coming much faster. Number three is that I no longer have my support group around me, the aspirantes that have transformed from strangers into strong and close friends. I almost took for granted the bonds we made during training, and we certainly took advantage of our last weekends together, especially after swearing in at Los Pinos. I wouldn’t have traded it for anything, even if it did come at the cost of a few steps back in my Spanish. I’m gonna miss those guys.

So the actually swearing in ceremony was very formal, so formal that I had to wear a tie even. Let’s hope the first and last time in two years. Am I right? Besides being at a very nice convention hall in Managua, the whole process had the feel of being way too long winded. It was in conjunction with the 50^th Anniversary of the Peace Corps (blame that one on the budget cut), and it seemed like everyone in attendance was getting some sort of award or recognition. I didn’t mind it too much, it was interesting to hear a lot of our guests talk, but I felt bad for my host mother (who deserves host mother of the year by the way) who had to sit through all of it. I will definitely miss my host family, but I’ll save that for another post in the future. What I did enjoy was hearing the Charmay of the US Embassy talk. The US Ambassador to Nicaragua retired on July 19^th, and there has been some problem in finding a replacement, so the second in command, the Charmay is what I believe he called himself, spoke and said something in particular that made an impression on me: “Eat, dance, and share with your community. That is the purest form of Democracy”. I took those words to heart, and certainly plan on doing all three. We had the privilege of meeting him at the embassy the day before, and he’s a real straight shooter, I look forward to future encounters with him.

But, that wasn’t the most interesting person I met this past weekend. Usually after swearing in, there’s a big dinner at the Country Directors house, full of American food and beer (what a foreign thought at this point), but that got cancelled. And can you guess why? I bet you can’t. It’s because Daniel Ortega, the democratically elected president/semi-dictator of the country invited us to the Presidential house to meet us in person. Now let me stress that this has never happened in the Peace Corps Nicaragua history before, we’re the first group he’s extended an invitation like this too. So we entered nervously, and not knowing what to expect, into the press room of the Presidential house and sat down in front of the cameras. As we found out later, the entire three hour event was shown live throughout the country, and multiple members of my new community were quick to point out the cameras loved me (probably because I was in the front row right in front of Ortega). When Ortega finally entered, casually an hour late, he went around the room and shook each one of our hands, and then individually interviewed each one of us, asking about where we’re from, what we studied, where we were going in Nica, and all sorts of other questions about Small Biz/Agriculture. Absolutely an incredible experience, especially since he doesn’t speak English. It was as much of a test of our Spanish as an interview. One thing I took from his responses is that he loves to speak on tangents, especially Anti American tangents. We “learned” all about why the US is to blame for why the intercontinental canal is in Panama rather than Guatemala, among other things. So all in all, it was definitely worth the time that we would have otherwise been spent partying. I’d say extremely worth it.

From then on, the weekend was one big celebration and sort of a last hurrah for all of the newly crowned Volunteers, in both Small Biz and Agriculture. Our eventual departure means we will spend less and less time together as a group, and there’s even a chance I’ll never see some of the Aggies again. It was the first time we’ve really had an opportunity to party together, and mix it up, so we made sure to have as much fun as possible. In fact, the whole weekend had the feel of a college spring break or beach week to me. Someone was “celebrating” at almost any hour of the day, and we were fortunate enough to have nice enough weather to lounge around the pool all day swimming, playing cards, playing guitar, and generally relaxing. And what would the weekend be without dancing. Those of you, who know me well, know that I love to dance, even if I’m a fool out on the dance floor. Three months ago, I would have told youI really dislike the Nica music, regaton, but now I’m a huge fan. Wwe all invaded an outdoor night club into the wee hours of the night. We danced almost to the point of exhaustion, and when we walked away, it looked like we had all just jumped in a pool. We may have looked extremely sloppy, but everyone walked out of there with smiles from ear to ear. I hope some pictures surface from that night.

So when I woke up Sunday morning, I was full of mixed emotion: excited to return to the Villa, but sad I was about to leave my close friends. And especially after this weekend, I felt much closer with everyone, and some more than others. But that’s the way life goes, and once again I just gotta adjust to the change. This week, I’m about to embark on a new life, and who knows where it will take me.

“The Future Belongs to those who Prepare for it”

            - Nica Minister of External Cooperation