Greetings from in-site!

After spending the weekend with my fellow Nica 58ers, celebrating our transition to volunteerhood, I find myself in the hills of Madriz. It is significantly hotter and drier now than only a few weeks ago, but I am still impressed by the beauty of my new home.

I begin my life as a volunteer during Semana Santa, perhaps one of the most holy weeks of the year for a large number of Central American inhabitants. Work grinds to a halt as people reunite with extended family, attend church services, and spend time relaxing near any locally available source of water (an ocean, a lake, a river, or in the case of Madriz, a giant canyon).

Consequently, I haven’t had much to do other than begin the settling in process. Slowly but surely, I am learning to use the wood burning stove. I am adjusting once more to the 5 am to 9 pm day (made easier by the fact that the sun swiftly abandons its post in the Nicaraguan sky around 6 pm year-round). I am getting back to grocery shopping, and have purchased a few “adjustment items” such as Tupperware and an electric hot plate (in case of emergencies or laziness).

And then there’s my Spanish. My poor brain has had a rough go of things in the language department these past two weeks. The amount of English being spoken on a daily basis seemed to quadruple following our final language interview, making any attempt to switch back to Spanish mode harder and harder. Now that I am in-site, I am struggling to get back to full operational capacity, a task made more difficult by northern Nica vocabulary and speaking styles. Although I am feeling somewhat discouraged by my ineffective communication and comprehension skills, I do find myself having small moments of success: making a joke that is appreciated by a coworker, correctly guessing the answer to a riddle posed by a child, or understanding the majority of the dialogue in the Spanish-dubbed Ocean’s Eleven. One might argue that the last example is hardly impressive given the number of times I’ve seen the movie in English, but I’m going to go ahead and list it as a success anyway. I am looking forward to seeing what advances I can make in the next few months leading up to our in-service language training.

Work starts officially on Monday. Until then, I suppose it’s time to learn the art of Central American relaxation. Anyone up for a trip to the canyon?

Nica word of the week: Chigüin(a) - child (Northern Nica! In the south, we used "chavalo")