la concha- escuela en espanol!

january 22
i've been living in la concha, nicaragua for the past week taking spanish classes and going on all sorts of adventures... la concha's a small city in an area known as la concepcion, about an hour northwest of managua. it's absolutely beautiful up there- tropical paradise with countless different kinds of plants, flowers, and fruits. the atmosphere is much more tranquil than managua- partially because of the heat, but also because of the way of life. things seem to pass much more slowly up here. the school steph (other fabretto volunteer) and i go to was recently built by an incredible woman from the UK named paulette. she sold all of her belongings back in england, and decided to come back to nicaragua. she'd been here 20 years ago volunteering in managua and adopted a nicaraguan baby named gaimiena, who's now 21 years old. paulette now runs a school/hotel with 8 rooms on a mountainside between san juan and la concha. her property has a multitude of rescued street animals (at least 10 dogs and 5 cats), 5 horses, countless chickens and a few incredibly self-riteous roosters, parrots, ducks, some sort of pheasant looking birds, as well as a small coffee plantation. she employs at least 15 locals, half of who are currently working on various carpentry projects and the other half of whom teach and do cooking/cleaning duties.

i get 4 hours of intense one-on-one instruction every morning. my brain hurts so much by lunchtime! the teachers are really patient though, and although learning the language is slow-going i absolutely love it. i can tell the amount of face-to-face conversation i'm getting makes a big difference.in the afternoons, the other students at the school and i (and sometimes paulette) and at least one teacher take trips to various areas around la concha. last week, we went to volcan masaya and got to peek down into an actual crater with boiling lava. it was really cool, and a bit scary- as the park ranger made our driver turn the truck around just in case we had to make a quick getaway. the next afternoon i just hung out and started reading a book about the revolution/contra affair and took a lovely 2 hour siesta in a hammock on the school's sprawling brick porch. warm breeze and a bit of sunshine makes for lovely naps.

thursday, steph and i walked to la concha from the hotel and used the internet for a while (it's quite the hike, you have to really want to get online!). the best part of that trip has to be the careening microbuses riproaring around corners and honking madly at us unfortunate pedestrians or whistling and yelling what are meant to be compliments. the internet cafe's really the hub of the youngsters' social life in the town. they play such classic tunes as 'gangsta's paradise' and lots of other old-school music. friday, we took a day trip to diriamba, one of the other close towns, and went to a fiesta celebrating san sebastian. the fiesta was an all-day affair complete with dancers of all ages, people in masks (mainly old men and horse masks?!), and a final parade down the main street with a marching band following huge levatated manequins of three saints. the parade went on for at least 2-3 miles at a snails pace in the beating down sunshine. very sweaty and lots of different sounds and colors and smells to take in... the street lined with food and drink vendors of all sorts and people drinking tona and victoria and carrying on. lots of libations, lots of music, a general hullabaloo.

saturday we spent a day at the beach, la boquita, which is a good 2 hour drive from la concha. we get chauffered everywhere in the back of a truck, sitting on benches and holding on to metal bars for our dear lives. it's quite amusing considering the amount of potholes here... leads to a few small prayers offered up for one's life about once every 10 minutes or even less! the truck cannot be rivaled (not even close) by the microbuses... which are dilapidated 8 person vans. last one i rode in i counted no less than 24 people inside it. not even exaggerating. sky, one of the other girls at the school, told me one time she counted 37 people. people sitting 3-deep, not complaining one word about it. that's just the way things are here. the beach was beautiful (pacific coast) and paulette's built up quite the relationship with one of the cantinas right on the playa. we spent the afternoon frolicking in the waves, drinking rum with ice and fresh limes, and laying around in hammocks. a perfect saturday if you ask me. sunday, i went for what i thought was going to be a 'morning walk' with sky, nathan, and miguel (one of the local guides) which actually ended up being an 8 mile jungle trek (!) we started at the top of a ridge where a beautiful wood-floored library with huge windows overlooking the valley floor was plopped down amidst what have to be about 20 families houses within a 5 mile radius. it was bizarre! the trek took us down to the floor of the jungle, through a coffee plantation, an unmarked path (i definately got some poisonous plant brushed up against my leg... i have a wicked nasty itchy rash on it), through an area which felt completely untouched by man. the trees seemed hundreds of years old, there were plants with 3 foot leaves, vines everywhere, butterflies, parrots, and lots of other bugs. we also happened upon a family of three monkeys- who we watched playing in the treetops for a bit (or rather they watched us with some curiosity). the hike back up to the library was BRUTAL, but we made it. then nathan said "so... the taxi's picking us back up here?" to which miguel offered a short, well-intended chuckle. oh noooooo..... he pointed to the next ridge and explained that it was a short walk, only 5 kilometers back to la concha so we'd be walking back around the other ridge. we passed a handful of houses made entirely from sticks, string, and tarp... children wearing completely tattered clothing with wide serious eyes... papas happy to show off their armadillo armor they'd collected. pineapple and coffee farmers living on the top of a mountain- a brutal existence. i can't imagine what it must be like during a storm up there. tarps don't hold well for high winds, that's for sure. and farming?! the sides of the ridge were incredibly steep. beautiful vistas, lots of dust (i think i have some in every spot on my body possible), and some honestly dangerous descents. but we made it in one piece! the funniest part of the journey was at the end, we went to a pulperia to buy a bit of water and the lady said 'it has some ice in it' to which i thought... GREAT! ICE! (meaning it would be cold). we hadn't had water for the whole hike. sky and i cheersed our waters and both went to take huge gulps only to have a few drips fall out timidly. the whole bottle of water was frozen. typical. a sad moment, punctuated with much laughter. seems like there's a lot of those down here.

i haven't even got to the best part of la concha- my nicaraguan family!!! i'm staying with gina, her kiddos david (17) and raquel (8), and across the yard eva maria (gina's sister), jadalin (17)., and elton (10). gina's brother eduardo also lives with us. there's people in and out of the place all the time. we have mandarin, orange, and plantain trees in the yard. many flowers and all sorts of other trees. my family's relatively well off, they have a 4 room house (one of the bedrooms is mine, one eduardo's, one that gina, raquel, and david share, and the kitchen/dining/living room). doors open at all times... they're re-doing half of their roof right now cause a mandarin tree fell on it, so we're a bit cramped. they're wonderful though. raquel and elton have played with me since day one- we read, play soccer, basketball, and just sit around and giggle. raquel and i also enjoy making animal sounds at eachother, because they sound so different in spanish and english. gina's been wonderful. she treats me like a princess, i've been eating so well. mainly rice, beans, plantains, cheese, and fruit. the pineapples are SO yummy. oh wow. we also get tomatoes and tortillas sometimes, which are a treat. she just discovered that i like coffee, so she's been making me some every morning :) this morning i learned how to juice by hand (mandarins), made gallo pinto (rice & beans), and fried plantains. she's going to teach me how to make beans and do my laundry... she's very concerned that i'll be living by myself and i need to know how to do these things. i haven't had enough time to articulate how i feel about this family, but i've had a few moments which thus far completely define the experience for me.one was last night, raquel's cousin alejandra came over and the two entertained me with poems and songs and dancing for about 2 hours, asking me all sorts of questions, giggling, and such. raquel keeps asking me when i'm going to come back to visit. actually she asked me that after the first day, how blessed am i to be so cared for and cared about?!

the other came a few nights ago after gina and i were talking about the sandenista revolution and how awful the US had been to nicaragua during that time. i wish i could understand more so i could ask more questions... but when i come back to visit i'll have time to talk to her about it more. anyways, we were talking about greedy politics and other things like that, and i asked her if she had nail clippers. she went on a hunt for them, and came back 5 minutes later with a nail file... couldn't find them. i thought she'd just hand it to me but instead, with great care, she sat and filed each of my nails one by one. i had tears in my eyes. it was one of the most tender moments i've ever had- and completely symbolic of my time here thus far. truly indescribable. well i must be going, we're in managua right now for the afternoon (had to download my pics so i could take more!) and we need to catch a microbus back soon so we aren't packed on the roof with 37 other lovely microbus patrons! much love, cal