Good classes, and…´coping´

2008 19 June

June 17th

Today started out in the typical way of me waking up at 5:30 in the morning. This also yielded my routine when this occurs – exercising. Now while it may seem that I exercise all the time (it’s true), without weights, it’s just different. I find myself having to work out 3 to 4 times as long in order to prevent myself from getting soft. Coupled with the fact that I’m losing weight because my metabolism is sky high, staying fit is no easy task. Then again, nobody ever said Peace Corps was.

Since I woke up so early, I was ready to roll really early after my gigantic breakfast of half a watermelon, half a pineapple, eggs, bread, and milk. We had a training session at 10 AM in Catarina, a town 20 minutes away, so I figured to kill time, I’d go to the internet café. The internet café opened 20 minutes late, but I’ve grown so accustomed to Nica time I just perched myself on a balcony across the street and waited. The weather was nice since it was so early in the morning, and with fewer people on the streets at that hour, it provided a nice environment to be out an about.

I uploaded my diary, saw that another foot in a shoe (the 5th so far!) appeared off the coast of Canada, and then headed back home. Avi had sent me a text telling me that we were now meeting in Masatepe at Jordan’s house, so that prolonged my lounging around time. For some reason, I was famished, so I had another hearty breakfast of Peanut Butter and Honey sandwich, a banana, and a mango. After the aforementioned indulgence, I had enough caloric intake to make it the next 3 hours.

The charla we were going to have (Coping with Stress), started late because one of the PC medical officers was sick, so we were combined with another group. I got my 3rd rabies shot (only one left!), and had to wait about 30 minutes for everybody else to get theirs. While I was waiting, I spoke with one of the volunteers who showed up, Mason, because I heard he had been talking about Colorado. A few questions later, and I discovered he was volunteering with his wife outside of Leon. Not only that, but he went to CSU, his wife went to CU, he was in Fort Collins 5 days ago, and he lived on the Congress Park side of Botanic Gardens. It was nuts – but super cool.

The charla ended up making everybody a lot more stressed than we had been before (what the TEFL volunteers told me had been right!), and since the actual charla started an hour late, Avi and Jordan had to take off after an hour to go teach their classes. The charla kept going on and on, and eventually, I too had to take off for home home to eat before my class.

I got home to discover the gas had gone out, and had to wait 10 minutes for my lunch (which I really had no time to do). I threw my papelografos together that I had prepared for my class (I’d already made them for another class), and got really worried that I was missing one of them. Fortunately, I was just missing one that just required me to write “Backpack” on it, so I wasn’t set back too much. My bowl of chicken and rice soup (with a chicken leg in the middle of the bowl) and plantains was inhaled as I was running later than I preferred, and I took off for class.

I took the route to class that is a little sketchier, but hey, I’ve found that I’m pinche with everything nowadays. I got to the school 10 minutes before my class started and had to find my class. This was going to be the first class I’d teach to my 9th grade ‘D’ class, and I had no idea where it was. I went and found my abuelita, Doña Cecilia, who incidentally is the secretary, and she pointed out the classroom for me. Jordan was wrapping up her class in the room next to mine, and the only thing I could see was how loud her class, and my upcoming class was. The professor had left the classroom I was going to teach in and the kids were beating each other up, being noisy, etc. I was kind of worried about discipline, but I figured if they were bad, I could just yell at them in English if it came to that.

I walked in to class, and being the new professor, got a lot of snickering and whatnot, but the whole class stood up next to their chairs as I put my papelografos up on the board. All the seats in the class were moved up to where some students were seated about 5 feet from the front of the classroom. After I hung all my stuff up, and got all 45 of them to sit down, and briefly introduced myself, and all the formalities PC wanted us to do with the students. For some reason, my Spanish was once again amazing, even better than yesterday, and the class went super well. I talk a class on Creativity, and they responded well to the activities that I planned, and did really understood everything I was trying to drive into their heads. Not only that, I got an applause at the end of class. I’m 4 for 4 on applauses so far. I just don’t get it though, I’m not all that keen on teaching after observing the class in Chinandega, but every one of my classes has been incredibly.

I got home around 3 and wasn’t keen on sitting in the house, so I headed to the grocery store for my 5 times a week habit of buying chocolate milk and sitting in the park people watching. The weather has been amazing as of late, so it was a good activity to kill the time. I sauntered home to find that Jordan had just stopped buy, so I stopped by her house. I generally feel really uncomfortable in her house for some reason (even though it’s a palace), but ended up hanging out and talking with her in the rocking chairs for an hour and 40 minutes – a new record for me being there when it wasn’t forced. She went over to my house to chat with my parents a bit afterwards, where my parents proceeded to give me crap about an undisclosed topic – but that’s ok.

William and I ended up spending a couple hours afterward writing piropos (which are cat calls, but also cheesy pick up lines). This has been an activity we’ve done the last couple days for whatever reason, and it’s hysterical every time. One of the lines you ask? “Tus ojos son más brillantes que el sol que ilumina Nicaragua.” Oh yea, we’re going to be the Casanovas of Masatepe.

Afterwards, I arranged to meet up with Oliver for a beer, so I grabbed Jordan and headed over to meet him. She brought her host brother, and we all met up with Oliver in front of the bar – which was closed. So we headed down the street to one that was open, but empty, and hung out for about an hour and a half. Oliver called me twice that night, so I got to practice my Spanish listening skills, which were actually pretty good, and hanging out with two Nicaraguans also helped improve my skills.

When my Spanish is on it’s mark, generally it’s a great day.

June 18th

Today I had another ‘exciting’ training session to go to in Olla de Barro, and like always, I wasn’t really looking forward to. The only reason I ever actually get stoked to go to training is because there is a small chance I’ll get mail. However, this inkling of hope too is dwindling as I still have yet to receive any mail – get on it people.

I was feeling none to hot last night/this morning, so I was kind of dehydrated, but nothing out of the ordinary for Nicaragua. I mean come on – I’m in the tropics. I slept until 6:30 (starting to sleep in more!), and really only had the energy to lie in bed for an hour. So of course, that’s exactly what I did. After getting in an argument about what I was sick with my host mom (she told me it was the chocolate milk I drank yesterday and that I was eating too much peanut butter), I stopped by Jordan’s house and we caught the bus to Olla de Barro.

Our first charla was about entrepreneurial activities and competition in Nicaragua. Coincidentally (but probably not), it was given by the guy who wrote the book that our group in Masatepe has to read every week and discuss with one of the business project coordinators. It was the first charla we’d had in Spanish where he would make sure we were paying attention, so I had to actually listen. I always understood the ones in the past, but I just didn’t care because all the charlas say the same thing – Nicaragua needs your help, these are the problems, blah blah blah. Yea, I got it, I’m here to help. But wouldn’t you know it, I got super into it when he busted out some economic indicators describing the state of the economy in Nicaragua. They were some misleading figures and I cut loose, but whatever. I think I’ve spoken more in Spanish today in the form of arguments than I have in any other situation – but hey, I’ll need practice arguing too!

The second charla was a practice class given by the trainees from Nandasmo and was super difficult topic to teach, but props to them for doing it. The volunteer I visited in Chinandega, Luis, helped them prepare their charla, but unfortunately for him he got wicked sick last night and wasn’t able to attend today.

After the charla, PC gave us a ride back and with me still being sick, I queasily fell asleep only to be awoken 3 hours later covered in sweat because the sun decided to invade my sleeping area. I was to meet Jordan at 3:15 so we could go to the institute we teach at, and find out the exam schedule for the following week…but stomach said that wasn’t going to happen. I accompanied her to the institute, but then went to Owen’s house to wait for her (we were going to meet there at 4 anyway). Eventually she showed up to tell us that (surprise surprise) they didn’t know what the exam schedule would be until tomorrow. Scheduling tends to be where most problems arise during training and is really something that is completely unavoidable. Initially, my reaction is some sort of obscenity-laden tirade, but after experiencing this on a daily basis, I’m a lot more apathetic to my schedule being totally screwed (at least from a trainee point of view).

We had to rendezvous at Owen’s house because PC wants out training group to do an analysis of a certain industry in Masatepe. We have to create a survey in order to analyse a certain market in the community. Since there’s an abundance of pulperias, we’re going to survey 8 pulperias and create a SWOT analysis to see the weaknesses, strengths, and general characteristics of this type of business. We don’t have any confianza (trust) with any of the pulperia owners, so the majority of the questions just scratch the surface, but can still give us a picture of how they run their business. Yea, I know – exciting.

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The Pacific Ocean and a return to productivity

2008 17 June

June 15th

Even though I went to sleep at around midnight last night, I woke up at 4 AM – not ready to roll at all, but when has that ever stopped me. I had some weird dreams and just couldn’t get back to sleep by the time I had was planning on waking up. The game plan consisted of waking up at 6:30 and making my way to Diriamba. There I would meet Danica and Dianne, and we would head to the beach.

As I woke up super early, I was absolutely exhausted, completely starving (after not having eaten since lunch yesterday), but nevertheless excited about the day that lay ahead. Generally, my host mom wakes up at 5:30 AM, so I wasn’t too concerned about getting breakfast. Since we have a giant iron gate on our kitchen, I have to wait for her to wake up if I’m craving anything, like water. As my luck would have it, she woke up at about 7:45, or in other words, 15 minutes before I had to leave. I figured it would take 30 minutes to get to Diriamba because it’s really not that far, and it took me 45 minutes to get to Jinotepe (which is way farther than Diriamba) a couple of weeks ago. I ended up getting some breakfast from my host mom but had to abandon half of it as 8 AM came and went. I wanted to get there on time (why?) because I figured Danica and Dianne would arrive on time.

I ran to the bus stop to avoid missing the next bus that was coming, but arrived to find a police officer standing there waiting for the bus. I chatted with the officer about Peace Corps and whatnot for a bit before a random pick up truck full of beer refrigerators drove by, and the officer hopped in the back. Fortunately, I didn’t really need anybody to chat with as the bus arrived almost immediately. I kind of lamented that it was a big school bus because they generally tend to be overly slow, and full of people. True to my thoughts, the bus was packed (with 110 people after my attempted count), and was full of baskets of bananas, avocados, and plantains, among other eatables. Additionally, there was a bunch of fruits in vegetables in unsecured baskets on top of the bus – I’m sure you can see where this is going. While we putzed down the street at a cool 20 mph (though I’m never sure, because every speedometer in this country is either at 0 or at the max speed permanently), a huge bundle of bananas tumbled off the top of the bus. The cobrador jumped out the back door of the moving bus and climbed to the top to secure the food. Unfortunately, during his efforts, he threw a basket of avocados off the top of the bus and right into the path of a semi-truck. Needless to say, the avocados didn’t survive. However, despite these difficulties with the bus, I arrived in Diriamba only 30 minutes late. I was meeting the girls at the clock tower in town (which said 8:30, and made me think I was on time, but I later found out it always says 8:30), and waited for a bit before they finally showed up. After buying a pack of gum, I found them and we sauntered over to the bus terminal (parking lot/market) in Diriamba to catch the bus to the beach.

We were looking for the bus to La Boquita, a beach on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua just south of Jinotepe. I wandered around asking random people where the bus was and after being directed in a million different directions, and helping some lady put a 100 lb bag of rice on her shoulders, I found the bus. It was another huge school bus that was relatively empty. Unfortunately for us, and empty bus meant we weren’t going anywhere for a while. We ended up waiting about 40 minutes on the bus before it finally ended up leaving, but at least we had seats. La Boquita is roughly at the end of the route and is super far away when you take the big bus – like we did. We got to the beach after around an hour and a half to find a pretty deserted entrance to the beach. It’s wintertime in Nicaragua right now, so not many people were there, so we suddenly became the attraction.

We needed a bathroom after the ride, and upon inquiry had 5 different people telling us where a bathroom was. We headed in the direction towards the beach where we had 2 people competing over us to use their bathroom. We weren’t really sure what was going on, but hesitantly went with it. We ended up following one guy who told us (translated) “No, no, come use my bathroom, it is free.” As his competition was not offering a bathroom for free, we went with the strange man. He showed us the bathrooms and told us if we needed anything, to let him know. In addition to competition for bathrooms, there were multiple guys competing for us to leave our stuff under their straw huts. “No, no, tranquilo…” is a response we got over and over again upon asking if we had to buy anything. In spite of this answer, we were too suspicious and headed away from the huts and put our stuff in the sand and the blazing hot sun.

The beach itself was overly impressive and made me completely forget I was in Nicaragua. There were barely any people there, and coupled with the amazing weather (I’d say it was in the 90’s easily), and blue skies, we really couldn’t have asked for anything better. We arrived during high tide, which we immediately found out when we entered the water. I thought I’d experienced wicked undertows in Lake Michigan and Massachusetts, but oh how wrong I was. On top of the massive undertow, there were massive waves that surfers were tackling about 50 meters from shore. We countered this obstacle by staying about 20-30 feet into the water, which still yielded water levels of 3-4 feet. We spent a good 4 hours there and really enjoyed ourselves with good conversation, snacks (my lunch consisted of a million packs of cookies and soda), and a massive sunburn that I would discover when I returned back to Masatepe.

We decided to take off at around 2:30 to ensure that I didn’t miss the last bus back to Masatepe. After changing, taking a bunch of pictures, and finding a random pig wandering around, we left the beach. Fortunately, the bus stop is right outside the gate to the beach, so we didn’t have to go far. Luck seemed to be on our side as a microbus showed up almost immediately, and we all got a seat in the back row together. Not even that, but instead of the 1 hour 30 minute plus ride that we experienced before, we were treated to a brief 40-minute bus ride back to Diriamba. Lesson learned for today? The microbus is worth 4 cordobas more than the ride in the school bus.

As if we hadn’t already destroyed our diet for the day, we decided that since we had time (we got into Diriamba at 4), we would go out for ice cream. We met up with Joanna, a TEFL volunteer that lived in Diriamba with Danica, and chatted with her a bit while we all enjoyed our ice cream. Unfortunately, our reunion lasted a short time as Dianne and I had to get out of Diriamba before the last busses left the city. We accompanied each other to the bus stop, said our goodbyes, and saw each other off (as luck would have it, roughly at the same time).

The ride back was uneventful and minus the avocado adventures of my morning bus ride, which was exactly what I needed – tranquilo. After a brief 40-minute ride, I got back to Masatepe safe and sound. The rest of the night just held a trip to the internet café, trying some new vegetables (this is becoming my newest pastime), and watching the horrible movie House of Wax (at least Paris Hilton dies in it). That’s enough for one day after sleeping only 4 hours.

June 16th

I was to tired to do anything after last night, so I slept the longest I have yet – until 8 AM! I initially woke up at 5:30 AM, but since I’d been running on roughly zero sleep for a bagillion days, I said to hell with my class I had to prepare for, and slept longer. I had already prepared the class 2 weeks before, so it really wasn’t all that pressing of an issue, but I hadn’t looked at it since I initially prepared it. However, after having such an awesome day yesterday, I wasn’t about the kill that mood by planning a class. No way. So 8 AM came and went, so did 9 AM, I did some exercises for a bit…then 10 AM rolled around, and I decided it was time to get down to business – so I took a walk.

I decided to walk over to Owen’s house to see what he did for the theme I was going to teach, just to see if he had any pointers. I showed up to his house to find his sister Pastora, who told me that he’d gone to the mayor’s office. Being the procrastinator I am, I went to the mayor’s office as well. There I found Avi, and Owen out in front of the building and chatted them up for a bit. They were waiting for their youth group to show up for a meeting with some environment specialist, so we passed time by discussing how we couldn’t remember how to be productive since it’s been so much time (2 or 3 weeks) since any of us have taught a class.

Eventually, I sauntered back to my house, but took a detour first…well, my first scheduled detour. I ran into just about a million people that knew me in the streets, so I had to stick around and chat for a bit with all of them before heading back to my neighborhood. But anyway, my detour was to Jordan’s house to talk to her about my class and get any ideas she had for my class. She gave me a great idea for an activity I could do in the class, we chatted a bit, and then I headed back home.

I was really in no hurry, so I putzed around for a bit longer before I finally buckled down and prepared my class. I spent roughly 40 minutes on it then had some lunch before I headed over to the school. Fortunately, this time, class wasn’t canceled and the professor wasn’t surprised to see me there like she was in the past. The bell rang and ella se fue, leaving me with all 40 of the kids to deal with by myself. Immediately I thought “Oh no.” but the class was incredible, and honestly, I don’t think I could’ve taught the class better in English. I don’t understand it, I hate teaching, but every class that I teach keeps getting better and better. Nevertheless, I want to do less teaching and more nothing (just kidding, more community stuff).

I was overly ecstatic with how my class went, so I stumbled through the town to Avi’s house to give him all my papelografos for the class. We chatted for a bit before I headed back home for my nap – well, that was the game plan. At around 5, Oliver, a guy I’d met at Avi’s birthday party on Saturday showed up. I told him “you should pass by my house sometime” when I was leaving, but didn’t really expect him to actually do so. Fortunately, I meant it, so it wasn’t a problem. He parents own the best ‘restaurant’ in Masatepe, and he works there most days. His Spanish is also ridiculously fast, and told me I speak Mexican Spanish, and I’m still unsure how to take that. For some reason though, I understand him really well, and my Spanish with him is super good, so we hung out for a couple of hours. We exchanged some music and chatted before he took off for about an hour to do an errand. When he came back, we talked about the party from the previous week, and I got some interesting chisme (gossip) about some people in Masatepe. Good times – gaining the trust. The rest of the night I just ate, which was followed by William and I hanging out and exercising on the broken swing set for about an hour. This was another one of those days where my Spanish was just amazing. No complaints, but speaking Spanish all day long really leaves you tired at the end of the day.

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Two more days of training (or rather…sauntering about?)

2008 6 June

June 4th

Today training didn’t start until later (which was great since I was sick the previous day/most of the night), so I didn’t have to stumble over to the bus stop to go to Olla de Barro until 10 AM.

The bus ride was uneventful if anything, and we arrived without incident. Training itself consisted of a charla concerning a bunch of stuff everybody already knew. It lasted about an hour and a half, and I’m not sure there was anybody that was particularly interested in anything that was said. That being said, the execution of the presentation could’ve been better, but hey, it’s training. Following lunch at the restaurant in Olla de Barro (where we all learned about Coburn’s multiple Nicaraguan lovers), we started the afternoon session. This session was more of a ‘get-to-know-you’ session where we were able to share some more intimate details of our lives with a select number of individuals. Coincidentally, I always seem to get put in a group with my friend Kristen, who I sat on the plane next to going to Miami, and going to Managua. The session consisted of learning about the types of situations we would be facing through the next 8 weeks of training, as well as evaluating the last 4 weeks (with regards to our mood). I was doing great until yesterday, and my chart reflected just that. Additionally, they gave us a little information about our volunteer visits that will be occurring next Sunday. They’ll be sending all of us to all parts of Nicaragua to stay with a volunteer and observe how they live for 4 days. After the visit, we’ll do an evaluation of what we thought about the visit, what went well, what didn’t, and what we thought about the site. All of this will be taken into consideration when deciding what our sites will be for the next 2 years. The day I find out my site is actually rapidly approaching – in 23 days, I’ll know where I’ll be living for the next 2 years. It’s kind of exciting to have training flying by and being that much closer to being out there on my own Gogginizing the country.

After the training session ended at 4, one of the PC staff offered to give us Masatepean folk a ride back, which was awesome with me being pinche (cheap) and all. However, wouldn’t you know it? I lost 5 cordobas while I was seated in the car, so it ended up costing me 25% more getting a ride with Peace Corps than if I’d taken the bus. Yet another example where I’ve found it doesn’t pay to be pinche.

A bunch of people headed to the bank to withdraw money (I still haven’t activated my debit card nor taken any money out of my account in 3 weeks), so I headed back home. William was there and I spoke with him for about an hour about…well, about nothing really. William never really has much to say. I headed off to the internet café for an hour and then headed back home for dinner.

I was passing time in the hammock (this happens a lot), just sitting there thinking (this has become another one of my favourite pastimes), when my host dad asked if I’d go with him to the cyber café to help him send his C.V. to a couple companies in Honduras. Apparently the economic situation in Nicaragua right now is absolutely terrible so he’s applying to an international organization in Honduras that strives to provide potable water to everybody in the country. It’d be a more financially stable job (which are very hard to come by here in Nicaragua), as they are hard to come by in Nicaragua. He said that the only thing he cares about is the well-being of the family and is therefore following up on every job opportunity he has heard about.

We walked around to a couple internet café’s that were all full before we finally found one that had an open computer over by where Owen (a guy in my group) lives. There I ended up talking with a bunch of guys who were sitting on the corner whom were friend’s of my host dad. The conversation immediately started with the question of how many girlfriend’s I had. “Um…none.” They found this hard to believe, which I then countered with the fact that I’d only been in Masatepe for 29 days. This apparently did not seem to matter. So to switch the conversation, I just reverted to the trailed and true method of saying, “Pues, soy pinche” (Well, I’m cheap). They then lectured me about how I’d never get a Nicaraguan girlfriend if I insisted on being pinche. Whatever. Ultimately, after talking with me about the mayor about how they were going to party when he finally left office (I didn’t care to inquire further), somehow the topic of girlfriends came back up. “¿Cuantás novias tenés en los Estados Unidos?” I misunderstood this as I thought they were asking me how many I’d had in total in my life. So I said 3, which yielded the response of “Oy! Bandito!” I again had to change the topic as they then asked why I still didn’t have 3 girlfriends, and suggested that I keep 3 girlfriends in the U.S. while having 3 girlfriends in Masatepe. However, at that time, my host dad finished sending his C.V., and all the guys I’d been talking to told me to call him “Kimba”. So I told him that I just learned that he’s ‘Kimba’ which put the men in hysterics. Maybe I should look that word up…

What a cultural experience.

June 5th

Today I thought I was pretty sure I had a lot planned, I just had no idea what it was. I figured I’d just take it one step at a time. So the first step – wake up. It poured as soon as I turned off my light last night, so the rain drowned out all the other nonstop noise that usually keeps me up. This yielded me waking up at 5 AM – this meant it was time to do some yoga. I’d only done some moderate stretching since I got down here, so I decided a brief 20-minute yoga session would be good. I browsed through the yoga PDF files I have and chose one I thought would be perfect – Detox Yoga. I figured since I’d been sick recently, what better way to get my body back into equilibrium than something like Detox Yoga? Well, long story short – I kicked my ass. So my first lesson of the day – yoga level 3 (out of 5 levels) is actually hard. I felt great afterward, but after it was over, I was sweating like crazy (but I was totally limber and ready to roll). So I did some quiet reflection, and then hopped in the shower. It was really a great way to start the morning – you just kind of have the feeling that you’re floating around.

After a huge breakfast (that included watermelon, not that terrifying mine shaped fruit), Jordan and I headed over to the alcaldia in hopes of finally meeting the mayor. Avi was sick, or something, so he didn’t show up, and Owen was 20 minutes late. Oh Nica time. We finally started waiting, and after 40 minutes we were informed that he went to Managua. At first they told us he would see us in 5 minutes, but then all of a sudden he went to Managua. I’m not quite sure how that works, but I’m not all too interested in meeting with him now. This is the second time we’ve tried to meet him and been unsuccessful – at least it’s only a formality as opposed to something that is crucial to what we’re doing during training.

We headed back to our neighborhood afterward to grab a camera, and I grabbed my debit cards, as I had to activate my Nicaraguan Bancentro card and also withdraw 200 dollars because I’m an idiot. But…as things tend to go, we wandered around and ended up on Owen’s porch and sat in rocking chairs for an hour. On an interesting note, Peace Corps mentioned Wednesday how hard we’re working during training. My friend Liz and I then noted how we get paid to sit in rocking chairs and hammocks for about 12 hours a day. But I digress, I had errands to do! After…working…on Owen’s front porch, I headed to the bank to find out where I could get US Dollars and also to activate my card. I don’t know how, or why now, but my Spanish has been absolutely amazing the last 2 days. I went to the bank and not once had to ask what they were asking me, or anything. Everything went as smooth as a hot knife through butter. However, they did tell me that I’d have to go to San Marcos in order to withdraw dollars. So home I went where I grabbed my host dad to accompany me so I wouldn’t get robbed of all my debit cards/peace of mind on a trip to San Marcos. Also, I didn’t have any money for the bus. We went to the bus station where one of his friends with a car pulled up and we hopped in and got an express ride to San Marcos. He wanted to practice his English, so I agreed reluctantly. He couldn’t believe I moved here at age 22, and he also couldn’t believe I’d been to 16 countries. However, he did point out that out of all Latin America, I couldn’t have gotten any better than Nicaragua, and I tend to agree.

I got to theother bank where they told me I needed a passport to withdraw money, so I went up to my host dad, told him ‘bohuzel’ and we went outside where I withdrew dollars from an ATM. I didn’t even need to deal with the bank. Screw them and their ‘policies’! Mr. ATM didn’t care who I was, as long as I could hook him up with his magnetic strip vice.

After stopping by a Claro stop to recharge my cell phone (my number is +505.924.9465 if you want to call me), we caught the bus to Pio 12 to pick up my host dad’s truck that was being repaired. The school bus that pulled up looked like it came straight out of a 3-year-olds colouring book. It was a huge mix of fuchsia and bright aquamarine with bright red ribbons in the windows. Just to top it off, we had a huge speaker blaring some crazy music. I wish the school bus had been this fun in high school.

My host dad’s truck was broken, but the guy who fixed his car was exceedingly nice (and I noticed all his 5 front teeth were molars), but alas, it wasn’t ready. So we headed home where I…slept for 3 hours. What can I say, it was hot. Aside from that, our youth group was a total failure…cause it rained…so…bohuzel.

But whatever!

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