Meet my host family!

This morning, we met our host families and host agency representatives for the first time! After a few hours of introductions, autograph bingo, a presentation about our Community Based Initiative (or as Sam liked to call it, "mini proyecto"), and a game of Pictionary, we finally parted ways and left Mateo's house with our host families. 

My host family is very kind! They are also about the same height as me (we're all cute and short!) so I think it's a perfect match. 

     Paulino, me, and Doña Chilo

They have two daughters, a dog named Bebe, a rabbit named Joka (ho-ca), and they live with their grandmother. 

      Doña Venega and Joka el Conejo

                           JOKA!!! 

I also had a mini-adventure on my first day with Mpowering People. Ingrid, my jefe/mentor, and Gabriela, a post-graduate volunteer, arrived at my host family's home on a motorcycle to pick me up for my first day of work. Since Amigos volunteers aren't allowed to ride motorcycles, Gabriela accompanied me on the "camioneta".

Gabriela, me, and Ingrid 

A camioneta is basically a truck/caravan that serves as cheap and quick public transportation. You have to hop on quickly, because if you don't, they WILL drive away without you! The inside has two benches, and there aren't seatbelts, so whenever the driver makes a sharp turn (every single time), you have to grip onto something really tight so that you don't fall straight off. It's pretty fantastic. 

We rode the camioneta to the bus station, where we sat on the curb together, chatting about things such as how to say "sweat" in Spanish (a word which is highly relevant to my experience here thus far). Ingrid soon joined us, and we waited for the next bus to arrive 30 minutes late. 

Like Vanessa said, "In Nicaragua, if you stand in one place long enough, everything you need comes to you." This really is true! While waiting on the curb, we were solicited by at least 10 different people. A man selling bananas, a man selling water, a woman selling snack food, etc.

The bus finally arrived 30 minutes later, and let me tell you, you have to be aggressive when it comes to riding the bus or else people will run you over. The buses here are old yellow school buses from the US. To board the bus from the back, you have to sort of pull yourself up using the emergency ladder. However, instead of taking turns, everyone pushes in front of each other, clamoring to get on the bus first. At first I was trying to be nice and didn't want to push in front of people, but that simply resulted in several women taking advantage of my apparent weakness and diving in front of me to climb onto the bus. Every woman for herself! And so I learned that riding the bus in Nicaragua is like survival - you do what you've got to do. 

When I finally seized the opportunity to climb my way onto the bus, I was greeted with the next challenge: finding a seat. Every single seat seemed to be taken by either a person or a large sack of vegetables, neither of which wanted to move over for me. I ended up switching seats with Ingrid, who gave up her seat for me (brave sacrifice) and had to sit on Gabriela's lap. 

Even though the bus was already completely full, more people kept filing in, including a woman balancing gigantic baskets filled with bags of plantain chips on their head. Among the chaos, this woman was selling banana chips to passengers on the bus, sloppily scooping pickled cabbage into the plastic bags and passing the dripping bags of food precariously over our heads to people behind us. 

All of sudden, it begins to rain, and Ingrid yells that we're getting off the bus. But we just got on! I thought. And honestly, that was a feat in itself. Without understanding the reasoning behind our sudden need to evacuate, I had to squish my way through the banana lady and a million other people to get to the front of the bus. I didn't think it was possible to travel through solid matter, but making it from the back of a bus in Nicaragua to the front of the bus comes pretty darn close. The aisle was incredibly dense with people. I've never shimmied myself across so many butts and squished myself between so many people in my life, and I used to live in Hong Kong! 

When we got off, Ingrid explained that when it rains, buses don't make round trips, which means that you better be intending to stay wherever you're traveling, because there's no way for you to come back! (Imagine having to discover that for the first time) 

We had to postpone our trip to the "campo" (countryside) for another day, and instead went to the office, making a few stops along the way to say hi to various members of Ingrid's family, all of whom live practically next door to her. 

Working with Mpowering People is going to be super challenging, but I know it will be a great experience. It's going to be difficult to both work AND decipher what people are telling me in Spanish AND figuring out how to respond using my limited range of vocabulary and verbs. However, I feel extremely motivated to make a difference and to give my best effort in helping this organization in their efforts to improve the lives of local Nicaraguan communities during my six months here.