The Stinky Girl Travels

I really enjoy the food that my host family makes. Every day, I get to try something new!  My FAVORITE food is definitely the "frescos", or fresh fruit juices, which are ubiquitous in Nicaragua. My host family makes the most amazing frescos, which they keep in a huge bucket in the fridge.  During the first day with my host family, I drank about five glasses of fresco de pitaya because I liked it so much!  So far, I've tried pitaya (dragon fruit), arroz con piña (pineapple and rice), limonada, and the national drink, tiste (cocoa and maiz)           Fresco de Pitaya (dragon fruit juice) Gallo pinto, tostones (fried plantain chips) and queso Limonada, tortilla, ensalada, arroz, and creamed zucchini  Fresca de piña y arroz, plantain chips, gallo pinto, and queso         Ensalada de papaya y banana        Pescado frito con tostones           Tiste (chocolate and corn drink...

Every day is a new adventure for me, here in Nicaragua! Today, something especially hilarious happened at the office of Mpowering People.  Sometime in the afternoon, Gabriela came running and screaming from the bathroom, shouting " Ayeeee! Hay una garrobo!!"  Ingrid and I started laughing like crazy, although I really had no idea what a garrobo was. We ran to the bathroom to investigate this "garrobo", and all of a sudden, an iguana about one foot long pops out of the sink!  Ingrid goes absolutely nuts and runs away screaming, towards the office. At first, I was a bit curious about the iguana and stayed behind to stare at it. However, it jumped out of the sink and proceeded to CHASE me, its legs flailing around as it rapidly pursued me, all the way to the office.  For some reason, El Garrobo decides to run into the office and terrorize Ingrid, who is terrified of iguanas. Both Ingrid and Gabriela reacted by jumping onto the desks, and I proceeded to join them.  ...

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...

After a traditional dinner of nacatamales with Mateo's family, the volunteers got a special surprise twist on how our host agency + family selection would be revealed to us!  If you are not familiar with how the Amigos gap year works, basically volunteers don't know what they'll be doing or where they'll be staying until a week after in-country training, which in our case, took place at Mateo's home. This way, the staff can get to know the volunteers more personally and figure out the best placement for us.  So after dinner, Vanessa took us outside to look at the lengthy mural painted on the wall of a school. This mural spans an entire block, depicting the history of Sutiaba, the region of León which used to be inhabited by native people. The history is actually incredibly fascinating, especially when told through the beautifully painted mural. However, we didn't get to hear the entire story because while we were outside, Mateo had been setting up a surprise and...

We went out to a restaurant for lunch today, a little eatery called.... something that's located.... somewhere (At this point, I have absolutely no idea where things are located in León or the names of the restaurants we've eaten at. Typically we just hop into Mateo's truck and go wherever he decides to take us.) The restaurant is pretty busy - lunch is the biggest meal of the day, so the place is filled with hungry customers. Inside, there is a wood fire stove in the center of the restaurant, filling the room with a thick, smokey scent.  Upon entering the restaurant, I passed by an older Nicaraguan man, whose face lit up when he saw me. "Ohhh!" he exclaimed. "Sayonara Arigato!!"  I laughed. It was something that caught me completely off guard, and the incongruity of it struck me humorous, since the man obviously thought I was Japanese.  If this same incident had happened back in the States, I would have felt insulted, but there was something about how t...

We made it!  After 12 hours of traveling, we've finally made it to Nicaragua...."we" being myself and the whopping THREE other volunteers - Maddy from Portland, Olivia from Denver, and Sam from Chapel Hill! I was surprised by the small group size, but apparently that's characteristic of the gap year program.  We actually flew into Nicaragua during a lightning storm! It was quite the experience to be in an aircraft, flying among the clouds, while bolts of lightning are shooting down all around you. Fun stuff!  Our in-country Amigos coordinator  met us at the airport, outside of customs, where a huge crowd of Nicaraguans were clustered about, families waiting to greet family coming off the airplane as well as various taxi drivers and vendors advertising their goods and services.  We chucked our backpacks onto the bed of the coordinator's pickup truck and drove to a restaurant, where we had our first meal in Nicaragua!  Enchiladas con mole y champiñones The en...

Packing is insane.  Alright, so I've been telling everyone for WEEKS now that I am "all packed and ready to go!"  A.k.a I shoved a clump of stuff into my backpack, saw that it fit, and left it on the floor for the next few weeks with a false sense of being totally ready for my trip to Nicaragua.  Oh, how wrong I was.                 My room exploded  It's funny how productive we can be at the VERY LAST MINUTE.  (Thank you, procrastination skills. You do me well)  Within one crazy, hectic hour, everything I'll be using for the next three months went from a disorganized blob-mound to being shoved/squished/crammed/jam-packed into two backpacks.                     Ordered chaos My 36 liter backpack proved to be a challenge when it came to fitting everything inside. I had to omit a lot of clothing just to make it work, but I'm sure  it's better this way...