Life as a Vago

Well, what a week it has been, and as my host mother was happy to tell me, “Nunca esta aqui, esta vago. Vago, translates to vagabond more or less, and it’s not the best thing for your reputation in a small Nica town. People talk, and usually it leads to them thinking you leave so often because you don’t like being there. They have a good point I guess, but it’s untrue in my case. My schedule was just chock full this past week, and I was all over the country, for a mixture of work and play, and hit up four of the bigger cities of Nicaragua: Managua, Granada, Masaya, and Chinendega.

            I can’t remember if I mentioned it in my last post, but last weekend was the Annual Emprendedurismo Cocktail party, a big fundraiser for our national emprendedurismo course at the end of the year. Between bringing in teams from all over the country and hosting the nationals at a big time venue, it takes quite a bit of money to host the event. So what better way to raise money that throw a party for all volunteers, and anyone interested in supporting the competition. The best way to describe it is like Ring Dance, but a little less classy as most of us didn’t bring tuxedos down to Nicaragua with us. So more than being a way to raise money, this party is a chance for us PCV’s to all gather under the same roof, dress up in our Sunday finest, and actually pretend like we’re back in the states. We enjoy all the excellent amenities that Managua and the Holiday Inn have to offer, such as warm water showers, room service, and excellent rooms and facilities. The Holiday Inn is actually a bid deal down here, and is one of the nicest, and tallest building in Managua. So the actual even was an absolute blast, full of music, dancing, and your best friends down here. Throw in rum, a pool, and easy access to the roof, and we had quite the bacanal. It took me more than a couple days to recover from all the fun we were having. Some would say “Too Much Fun”, but that just doesn’t exist.

Suprisingly we can clean up a bit. Unfortunately this is the only photo I managed to take of the weekend

            The only bummer of the cocktail party was that I didn’t have any time to recover, as its still competition week, as I like to call it. My municipal competition may be over, but we still had plenty of regional competitions to plan and host over these past couple of days. Usually, you have the luxury of planning a regional competition in a site where a Volunteer is, but we lacked that this year, as the volunteer in Granada unfortunately fell sick (enough to be medevaced to Panama) right before the competition. So Leslie from Rivas, Chalin from Diriamba, Jordan from San Marcos, and me from La Villa, have spent the past two weeks or so at our new “site”, Granada, making contacts, meeting with all of the local schools, and doing all the legwork to make sure things went off without a hitch. And Granada is not close by the way, easily at least a two and a half hour ride via public transportation, which makes for interesting commutes. But despite being a bunch more work, it really has been a great experience, and a lot of fun, and as a result I’ve really got to know the other volunteers in my area. And speaking of the competition, which did do off without a hitch at the beautiful Convento San Francisco, my team SoyaMix, from Farabundo Marti, rocked it, taking home First Place no problem. The kids were absolute pros, put up a bomb presentation, and swept the judges off their feet during the question portion of their presentation. It’s pretty exciting stuff, and it means we continue on to the National Competition at the end of the month to represent Villa el Carmen, as well our region of Managua, Carazo, Granada, and Rivas. It’s a pretty big deal, as a lot of volunteers accomplishing this feat, so as you could guess, I’m pumped about it.

            To celebrate Halloween, the start of a steadfast, and a friends birthday, I headed up to Hot and Sunny Chinendega for the first time. According to the volunteers up there, it’s a fiery hell that is significantly hotter than the rest of the country. For any of those volunteers reading this, quit complaining. It’s not any cooler anywhere else, and I don’t want to hear your whining anymore, or worse, you all bragging about your heat. I mean, c’mon. Unlike Masaya, Granada, or Leon, Chinendega is known as a true Nica city, without any of the tourist attractions and bells and whistles of the previous mentioned towns. So what that means, as my host so bluntly put it, it’s ugly. But despite its ugliness we still managed to have some fun, dress up like idiots for Halloween and attract strange looks from Nica’s. We even managed to play flip cup and shot gun beers, two things that haven’t happened since leaving the states almost six months ago. Just a little taste of home, in the form of college party games. And I swear that beer tastes better shotgunned, and encourage you all to go out and try it one more time if you haven’t lately.

            So now, life as a Vago ends, and things will turn back to normal, kind of. The elections are coming up in two weeks, and depending on how they turn out, things could get pretty wild down here. Especially if the current ruling dictatorship, the Sandanistas, manage to lose somehow. And then, all hell will break loose, something I would love to witness first hand. With the Arab Spring going on in other parts of the world, maybe I could find myself in the middle of another revolution. But so as a result of this potential madness, the Peace Corps has established a steadfast, meaning volunteers are prohibited to travel from their sites for the next three weeks, starting today at noon. So I’ll be kicking it here, trying to teach the last couple of themes of the school year (which ends the first week of December), playing a lot of soccer, and hopefully a fair bit of surfing if I can swing it. Life will get routine, and a little boring once again, but I couldn’t be more excited for it.

And I apologize if this entry was a little dry, I’m still absolutely feeling the effects of a long week of work, and a heavy night of drinking.