Sunday, June 29, 2008

Almost Independence Day!

Finally the weather is becoming bareable! Whew, before I would be sweating no matter what i´m doing. Now if i´m sitting in the bus and the breeze is blowing, i don´t sweat! Oh what an amazing thing... and just think, its gonna get cooler. well be cooler i actually mean like ya know, low 80s, but still! it will be more than tolerable.
things are going well. getting back to work after the vacation has been fun, but in a week i will have another week off. and this monday is teacher´s day! that means, no class and all day party! that should be fun! i can´t wait, well actually it gives me quite a bit of pena (kinda like embarrassment) to dance in front of the teachers, but they love it, so i´ll just have to suck it up. hey, at least there will be free food and gifts!
also hopefully i´ll get to celebrate the 4th with some other pcvs here in chinandega. should be a good time if we can make it happen. nothing better than celebrating the 4th of july with firneds grilling cheeseburgers in the backyard! I´ll be sure to let you all know how that turns out.
Things in general are going well. The transportation strike has been kept at bay so far, so nothing to worry about on that end. And the weather looks like its starting to cool down. The rain is coming (on and off right now, but that will be changing to just on soon) so that keeps it more or less cool, well there´s at least some cloud coverage to block out the sun. The day of the revolution is coming up soon as well. July 19th, big day here. Not sure how it will be spent. I hear that there are festivities that take place in managua to remember it. I´ll let you know.
Well as you can see, life is just getting back to normal.
However, i did have a very nice elderly man say something very sweet to me 2 days ago when i was riding my bike through town in the rain. "chela fea!" he yells at me, wasn´t that sweet of him. i really should have said thank-you. ya know, nothing makes you feel better than old men yelling "Ugly White Girl!" as you as you pass.
well that´s the exception though, to be honest i don´t get too many "fea"s or "chelona"s (menaing big white girl) usually it´s "mi amor" "gringa" is by far the most popular, sometimes i even get "chelita" (which i know is a lie but it makes me feel good)
well happy 4th of july everyone! hope you all get to go to the parades, and grill out and enjoy life in america. don´t take it for granted this year. we are fortunate to live in a country that truly has indepence. while some argue that with the growing oil crisis we are dangerously becoming dependent on other countries, I´ll confidently say that we are nowhere as vulnerable as we could be. oil dependence is one thing, total economic dependence is another.
So do me this one favor as you´re relaxing in your lawn chair this 4th of july. Pop open a nice cold (really cold b/c it´s really hot here remember) beer (anything but miller, i´m not a fan) take a moment to think about how fortunate our country is, and how hard we work as individuals, families, communities, states, and a nation to keep it that way, raise your can annd take a huge gulp!
!Felizidades!

Friday, June 13, 2008

I´m baaaaaack!

Alright, so the vacation to the states went even better than I had hoped, but it also went a lot faster. I am very happy that I was able to see so many of my friends and family and also that I got to see my little sister graduate from high school! Yay Brooke! I´m sooooo proud of you!
The trip was all in all a huge success... well up until the flight home that is. I had a flight out of Miami at 12:45pm on Wednesday that was supposed to get me into Managua by 1:15pm local time (plenty of time to get back to my town) but the flight out of Miami was delayed because of maintenance issues. But not an issue that I had ever heard of before. Not that they had to replace a some instrument on the panel board in the cockpit, or even that inside cabin pressure gauge wasn´t reading correctly (which have happened when I have flown before) no, this time it was because there was a dent in the plane. A DENT. Now, I was never informed how it got a dent, I don´t know if maybe it had a mid air collision with a bird, or maybe ran into another plane when it was taxi'ing to the gate, but the point is, there was a dent. So they had to fix this dent because it had "no history" apparently dent´s with histories are perfectly fine, but because this one was a newby they had to check it out. They they decided after the 30min long inspection that this dent must be repaired, not a problem just another delay.... sure not a problem if we hadn´t already boarded the plane and hadn´t already been sitting there for 30min. (not to mention the fact that having a dent in the plane is freaking me out... i mean i don´t know much about flying but i´m pretty sure it´s important to have those panels on nice and tight and dent-free... I couldn´t get all those news clips of the space shuttle with the problematic loose paneling out of my head... there was going to be sparks and fire caused by air friction and this plane was going to go down... right in the middle of the golf of Mexico... or so i thought to myself.) I was however, trying to be very careful not to share these thoughts with the 13yr old boy traveling alone in the seat next to me (well he said he was 13 but he looked more like 10 to me).
So 2 hrs later..... they make the announcement that the mechanics have "fixed" the dent in the plane and that we would be taking off shortly, just had to finish up the paperwork.... 2 1/2 hrs later we take off... I´m exhausted by this point and try to fall asleep, well that and not to mention the fact that i was scared half to death to fly on this plane. (Here I must mention that I actually love to fly. I am rarely scared or nervous to fly maybe because I do it so often, I´m not sure. But THIS was not like most times) So roughly 1/2 hr into the flight we start to hit a little turbulence which wakes me up from my little nap on the fold-down table from the seat in front of me... and I quickly remember the dent, not that I had forgotten really but ya know rough air and dent just didn´t sit right with me. But the turbulence was soon over thank God and I was calm again.
THEN we dropped. We dropped out of the sky. The plane I was on dropped so fast that had I not listen to those videos at the beginning and had not fastened my seat belt I would have touched the ceiling (not kidding). Everyone screamed, except your´s truly (but not because I wasn´t scared, Oh was i ever, and not even because I wanted to be brave for the little boy flying alone next to me) because I couldn't make the noise. I was too scared even to scream. THEN CAME THE BANK, after the fall the plane decided to turn sharply to the left and the people that were once sitting calmly to my left were now sitting almost below me... now people were really getting rowdy. Kids started screaming, Women started praising Jesus and saying prayers in Spanish, other´s were covering their hands and balling so nobody would here them. But the little boy next to me just looked over at me, with tears in his little eyes and said, "I´m scared". Man did that just jerk me into reality. I realized that I could NOT let this kid think he was going to die. (Even though that´s exactly what I thought was going to happen... just like i had predicted, going down into the middle of the gulf of Mexico) So i then started to explain to him about how sometimes when we go through clouds it get rocky like that, and I´m sure the pilot is going to fly us up a little higher so that we can get out of it, and that it won´t happen again.
Finally the turbulence calmed down and the pilots did take us up higher, and little boy finally had a calm face...but needless to say the 1 1/2 remaining on the flight was the longest in my life!
But I´m back. Safe and sound. Had to stay the night in Managua, but it all worked out for the best.
It was a wonderful trip (menos the flight back) I was able to do so much more than I hoped for and see people that I was not expecting to see ;) but now it´s back to work. I just want to thank everyone-I truly had a wonderful time.

Now for the upcoming plans. I´m still working in the schools 4 days a week, I´ve been playing with a group of 6th graders on Wednesdays but I am hoping to evolve it into something more like a scout group rather than just something where we play games. And I am also planning to build onto one of my schools. I hope to put some pictures of that up soon. Things are doing well all in all... I think. I already miss all of you and hopefully some of you will be down to visit me soon ;) You all must know that I welcome visitors at anytime... it´s just that if you expect to have some fachenta vacation here, you might have to be my sugar daddy for a bit of it considering i make in a month what most of you make in less than 1 week ;) but honestly, if you´re flexible, traveling here is cheap, safe, fun, and ALWAYS an adventure. I promise you will be in good hands if you come to visit me. I´m now taking reservations. I cannot have more than 2 or 3 people visit me at once though, and 3 is honestly stretching it. Well that´s if we come to my town, if not than as many of you can come at a time as you want.... but we wouldnt be able to stay the night in my house... which I know will just bum you out ;)
take care all
I´ll write soon
Emalee