So as I mentioned in a previous post, I headed up to Boulder on Sunday to meet Josh Berman, a former Peace Corps volunteer and author of the Nicaragua travel guide, to get his input on Nicaragua and to try to get some direction on what I should expect. He called me early that morning and asked if we could meet 30 minutes later, which I had no problem with. However, it was a gorgeous day in the 60’s, I had my newly fixed bike, and the sun was shining – so I went up early.
I arrived at Market Street Station to drop off my bike where, for comical value and paranoia, I locked up my bike with every lock I had. Yea, it was overkill considering I have the most expensive and hardcore bike lock you can buy, but what the hell – it doesn’t hurt (or so I thought -more on that later).
I arrived in Boulder in a cool 58 minutes where I pressed on with my mindless stroll through the day. A girl who is in my Nicaragua group lives in Boulder coincidentally and she was going to pick me up so we could meet Josh at his house. I was going to meet her about an hour later, but since Boulder is home to Californians, dirty hippies, and an abundance of eclectic weirdos, I decided an accomplice would be a better idea – so I gave her a ring after 2 minutes of Boulder induced terror. To kill time I walked up and down Pearl Street (which I couldn’t find for 15 minutes because I of course knew where I was going), where I stumbled upon a wide array of street musicians. However, there were some street musicians that stood out from the rest – playing an instrument that is not all that typical of the American culture:
No, not the aboriginal person, the didgeridoo
These people were just rocking out (is that what didgeridoo-ists do?) on their didgeridoo for a good 30 minutes. It was epic, and well worth the however long I sat there listening to it. This however, made me wonder – who the hell wakes up in the morning one day and decides to learn the didgeridoo? I mean yea, many a time I’ve seen something on TV or read something and said, “Hot damn! That will be my next hobby so people can have discussions about how awesome I am!” However, this never happened. Most never actually see these “goals” through to the end. Props to those didgeridooers. Meanwhile during my “aboriginated” trance, I realised that this was where Peace Corps members go upon returning to the States and it was perfectly understandable that this is where we would be meeting Josh. Where else would he be? New York City? Get real.
Jordan (the girl in my PC group) finally showed up, we enjoyed some crazy xylophone performance, grabbed a smoothie (that fits into the Boulder domain right?), and headed over to Josh’s place. We were kind of lost, despite knowing his address, but when we got in the neighborhood, it was obvious we were in the right spot. His neighborhood was aptly named “Nomad Village” (where else would a RPCV live?), had its own theatre, communal garden, and was comprised of tons of foreigners/global nomads. We forgot the number of his house exactly, but after asking one of his neighbors, were directed up some stairs to a cozy little residence. Josh opened the door and invited us in, where he told us that they were having a ceremony because his baby was eating solid food for the first time. He said it would be great practice for Peace Corps, so we went with it.
The ceremony itself involved a tray with the following items on it: money, dirt, a stone, a book, and a pen. The baby is placed in front of the tray and let go. Whatever the baby grabs, that signifies what they’ll do with they’re life. If she grabbed the money it meant she’d be rich, the dirt meant she’d be a farmer or work with the land, the stone meant she’d be a healer, the book meant she’d be a writer, and the pen meant she’d be creative. It was a cool ceremony that was capped off by his daughter chowing down on mashed avocado (lucky baby).
Following this unanticipated event, Jordan and I took a hike in the hills next to Josh’s house where he broke down all things about Peace Corps he thought we should know, as well as things to bring, and ways to approach the experience. It was eye-opening and a complete relief as the Peace Corps book that was sent in the staging kit was terrifying. Josh did tell me that bringing all my bike tools would be a great idea because it would be an entrepreneurial activity that I could be involved in (sweet!). He also mentioned some of the setbacks we could face – bad work counterparts, one woman volunteer was attacked by her counterpart, the arduous process of gaining the trust of the people in your community, and making everyday worthwhile and doing something productive with it. The experience itself is mostly self-guided from what he said. You can have an amazing time, but you have to take the initiative. Furthermore, he told us about how Hurricane Mitch really changed his volunteer experience immensely, while the Salvation’s Army of massive amounts of second hand clothing yields and incredible thrift shopping location. You can find everything you could possibly want apparently. Additionally, he hinted at how getting help (in the form of a maid, or somebody to cook) would be essential and we would realise that after trying to be self-sufficient for such a long time. Things just take longer without the luxuries of washing machines, reliable electricity, clean water, etc.
I got home around 8 PM where I took care of the overkill locking job I did on my bike and headed home – but not without incident. I rode down Blake Street to 14th Ave where I was switching one of my locks around on my head. Some people came out in front of me and when I put my hands down on my handlebars – into my spokes my lock went, completely knocking the wheel out of “equilibrium”. The ride home was quite precarious as the wheel progressively got worse and worse. I was just waiting for it to completely fall apart where I would do a face plant in front of some huge establishment where everyone and their dog would see me eat it. Fortunately, this was not the case. Yet it still yielded enough frustration (I’d just repaired the wheel the day before) to me going to bed at 8 PM.
I headed to Jon’s the next day to repair the wheel, and he didn’t have the right size spoke. So yesterday, I went and picked up some spokes from Cycle Analyst where this cranky old guy (named Richard coincidentally) crafted me some spokes (and an attitude!) Then back over to Jon’s house on his Formula One loaner bike (a sort of BMX/racing bike, it’s awesome and gets tons of looks. You’ve never seen one, trust me.) where we “repaired” (I’m going to tinker with it) my wheel, and I got a rundown of everything that goes into a tune-up including completing my bike knowledge by learning about how to adjust derailleurs on a geared bike. Finally I’ll be able to work on all this! Bottom line is this – you don’t need gears, they cause more problems than they’re worth. Therefore, I’m going to make a singlespeed in Nicaragua with my amazing travel budget (which was 300 dollars back in 1998 when Josh was there). I could build 3 awesome bicycles for 300 dollars here in the US, so I can only imagine what I’ll be able to do with it in Nicaragua.
Lastly, this morning I received an email from Peace Corps with a suggested packing list from past volunteers which was as follows:
Clothing:
• Shirts:
o 4 T-shirts (Get real, I’m bringing around 10)
o 4 collared shirts (Preferably cotton and button down because they are cooler) (OK)
o 1 light long-sleeve (Long sleeves don’t exist in 90 degree weather)
o 1 sweatshirt (I don’t wear them here, why would I wear them there?)
• Pants:
o 3 pr cotton/linen (or skirts for women) (I do love pants)
o 2 pr jeans (Fortunately, these are how many pairs I actually own)
• 1 pr exercise shorts (Done)
• 1 rain jacket (Easy enough)
• 1 straw hat; 1 canvas hat (Sadly, I left mine in Prague)
• Shoes:
o Exercise shoes (All over it)
o Dress Shoes (Don’t own any dresses)
o Sandals (Birkenstocks are comfortable but mold in the humidity very fast) (Unfortunately I bought some)
• Socks and underwear (Plenty)
• Bathing suit (Hopefully I can buy some swimming skill in the market)
If everybody packed according to the way PC ideally wants us to, I imagine we’d all look like this:
Hogwarts here we come!
Posted by thegoggins 
Posted by thegoggins 
Posted by thegoggins 
