December 5th
In the U.S. when something unjust happens, it’s accepted that people will go out on the street corner and bitch and moan until the head of the organization that did the shafting says, “O.K. guys, they caught us, let’s stop being the total asshats we were trying to be.” Here in Nicaragua, that isn’t the case – but it’s not going to stop me.
As I have mentioned many times before, water has been a huge issue in Achuapa, particularly in the last couple of weeks. They just installed a motor to give us water the whole day (at least that’s what they told us, which was a lie), and due to the power being knocked out by wind, we’ve been waterless and powerless for a huge majority of the time.
Well, we got our water bills the other day to find out that there was a new ‘minimum’ consumption that we would be charged for. I thought the fixed rate fee that everybody gets charged covered the minimum consumption, but I guess I miscalculated. The new minimum consumption is 16.5 ‘units’ (whatever the hell that is), and is 12.5 more ‘units’ that what I use. So, instead of paying 24 cordobas, I now pay 84 cordobas due to this new ‘minimum rate’ we all have to pay. But do we all have to pay it? After a few phone calls to many volunteers, I found out that no, we don’t all have to pay it. In fact, it appears that only people in Achuapa pay this new minimum fee. My huge problem with this minimum fee is that A – we had a minimum fee already, B – we never have any water anyway, and C – if I left every single faucet open so water drained for the entire month, I STILL wouldn’t used 16.5 ‘units’ of water. We never have water, but now we’re being charged a huge amount. Everybody is outraged. But I think I’m the most outraged.
The water company is engaged in thievery right now. That’s all I have to say.
Maybe I should start a march!
December 6th
With the whole having the government steal from me as well as everybody else in Achuapa being a thing of the past (so I keep telling myself), l kept myself relatively mentally and physically occupied for the most part. Some of my soon to be 4th year students have pen pals in Florida, so I did a bunch of translations for them so they could send responses. Additionally, today was the graduation for students at one of my institutes (though I didn’t go – I don’t know any of them, or so I thought), and I did some reading up on places to bring my parents to when they come next month. I also caught that Mel Gibson movies Apocalypso – it was nice to watch a movie with subtitles instead of watching horrible dubbing.
But that aside, I had one amazing high point of the day. A couple of days ago, I noticed that the fruit stand down the street now had watermelons. Being the glutton that I am, I bought an entire watermelon as opposed to buying a slice like everybody else in the town was doing. I’d wager that it was about 7-8 pounds for 30 cordobas (about $1.50 – I think I overpaid, but I don’t care).
Today, I really dove into that watermelon and ate roughly half of it. This unleashed a torrent of endorphins that quickly overtook my body, thus rendering me in a sort of euphoric state. It reminded me of summer (though it’s December and summertime here) where I’d have access to all those super great summery fruits like cantaloupe (in Spanish it’s ‘melon’ for those of you interested), honeydew, watermelon, etc. Totally gorging myself seemed to almost transport me to a sunny park out in Denver – I completely forgot I was standing in my kitchen in Achuapa.
Those are the kind of simple things you appreciate in Peace Corps. Simplicity never tasted so good.
December 7th
Since I forgot to write it 2 days ago when I finished it, here it is:
Mountains beyond Mountains – A. A book about a doctor devoted to improving conditions for the poor. Real good book that was pretty inspirational – it surprises you just how much one person can do.
Today was a normal day for me. Nothing too exciting happened – this stems from the fact that it was a weekend, but also because I live in the campo. That being said, I did my normal round of visits.
I have developed a new hobby though – peeling oranges, the Nicaraguan way. It’s a great way to pass time, act Nicaraguan, and people watch at the same time. So every day, I buy a handful of oranges (10 cents a piece no matter what size they are!), and sit in front of my house and peel oranges with a big huge knife. This way, I get to ‘adios’ passer-by’s, enjoy the weather, and eat tons of oranges to boot.
While I’m on the topic of food, I’ve been eating extremely healthy lately. I easily eat about 2 lb. of bananas, oranges, and watermelon (now that it’s in season) everyday, and I’ve started eating chicken livers frequently too (though it’s not my choice), which are loaded with vitamin A. All this combined with my new hardcore exercise routine, and I should be getting into mad good shape in a matter of no time (speaking of which, one of my counterparts says I’m fat because my shoulders are wide – ?????)
December 8th
Today, I was under the assumption that it was the “purísima”, but upon waking up and asking a couple people, I discovered that all the parties and fireworks that I slept through last night was in fact the “purísima.” Whoops. I guess I’ll just have to wait until next year.
On that note, I wasn’t really in the mood to sit in my house the entire day, so I hopped on the bike and did a couple rounds of the town visiting people before borrowing the key to the gym. I have access to the gym whenever I want, and I don’t even have to pay for it. I might ask if I can make a copy of the key so I can just stop borrowing it. After a couple of hours in the gym, and an hour on the yoga mat, I ate some lunch (first time I’ve had tuna fish in more than 7 months!).
On that note, it appears that I’ve fallen into a routine; when I went to buy my tortillas from the lady on the corner, she didn’t even ask how many I wanted, she just gave me how many I always ask for. She’s not the only one either – whenever I go to the fruit stand, the lady always asks me if I want 6 bananas or 3 oranges. I gotta start mixin’ things up.
I hung out with Edys (like the ice cream!) at his shop for a couple of hours during the afternoon. I also ran into Claudia and Kenis from the cooperativa while I was at Edys’ shop. The big thing during the summer time is swimming in the river in a part of the river that I’ve never seen before – and this is nothing new. I find myself asking people very frequently about the location of places. My town is only 4ish blocks by 4ish blocks, and I rarely travel outside of that square. I know there’s supposed to be a river some 100 meters to the north of the last street and a waterfall to the east of the town, but I have yet to see either. I should really go exploring with all this free time.
I helped a new ‘student’ with English today as well. So we started the whole assessment process for her so I can figure out where she struggles. She took off at 6 (after she left I realised that I have absolutely no idea what her name is), and I headed to my counterpart’s house for dinner. It was his 6 year anniversary with his wife (he’s 2 years older than I am), so they made a huge gigantic dinner of grilled meat, rice, tortillas, and the mountain of vegetables that I bought this morning. (Mom and Dad – we’re going to eat at their house when you come visit)
Comparatively, that was a pretty productive day.
Oh! A volunteer from the business group before me got medically separated yesterday. So while she’s not from my group, her loss brings the total number of SBD volunteers to around 28 I think. Each group started with 20 people. Nuts. Peace Corps kills you, well, at least small business volunteers.
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