Training in Carazo

I have been living in a small town in the department of Carazo, Nicaragua for the last two weeks. My host family here is absolutely amazing, warm and welcoming. My host parents are in their early 60s and four out of their five children live within a few blocks of our house with their own families. Needless to say our house is where the action is at, there are always kids running around and someone to practice Spanish with or play a game with.

So far I have continued to enjoy the food, beans and rice are slowly becoming addictive… as I was warned. I never knew there were so many ways to prepare rice and beans… separate; together in gallo pinto; frijoles liquadas (or re-fried beans); fried rice cakes almost like potato latkes; with cheese; with fried cheese; on a tortilla; on a fried tortilla… and I’m sure the list will go on in the weeks to come. I have also tried some new meats since I’ve been here
like fried chicken liver and sopa de mondongo. I don’t personally recommend trying sopa de mondongo (google it), but I enjoyed the liver. I have continued to enjoy new fruits and vegetables, all of which are local and fresh! I’m looking forward to cooking with my host mom and sister in the coming weeks. I want to learn all I can about cooking Nica-style from the experts.

Ilana and Brittney waiting for our youth group to show up

There are three other trainees, or aspirantes, living in my same community. My typical day right now consists of Spanish class with the other aspirantes in my living room from 8am-12pm, lunch with my host mom, and then applied Spanish class from 1-3pm, which means we’re out in the community doing activities. Then after class, we have a youth group to lead, as well as homework and group projects to do. Needless to say, we’ve stayed plenty busy so far. On Fridays and Saturdays we have technical and safety and security training with the other 27 aspirantes. Those are the two days per week that we get to speak in English for extended periods of time.

Everyone I talk to tells me that my Spanish is “bastante” which literally means “enough” so I take that as a compliment. I think it means that we can understand each other most of the time. I am pretty sure my official Spanish level is Intermediate-Low, on a scale of Novice/Intermediate/Advanced/Superior. So I have many more levels to aspire to. We need to achieve Intermediate-Mid to swear in, which is definitely do-able.

I have also already joined a women’s volleyball team and a women’s soccer team here in my town.  I played with the volleyball team the last two Sundays and I’m starting to get to know and recognize my teammates around town. The team has girls as young as 12 and 14 up to women in their 40s. I just joined the soccer team today and I’m really excited to start playing. We have games every Tuesday against other women’s teams in the big sports stadium in town, called La Cancha.  It’s surprisingly easy to join sports teams here; you just have to find them. The teams are always looking for more women to play, and there’s no registration paperwork or uniforms as far as I know.

The central park in my town

There’s also plenty to do in my town. We have two cyber cafes – which is how I’m able to post this right now – and we have several ice cream shops! My favorite! They’re called Eskimos here, because that’s the brand of ice cream they serve. There’s also a great central park and two sports stadiums in town. We have an elementary school and a high school and lots of small pulperias which sell everything from dish soap to cookies to toilet paper. The town is also really safe, and I feel like I’m slowly starting to recognize people on the street and around town. Also my new name on the street is Chela, which means light skinned person… I think it’s a pretty sounding word and it’s true, so I don’t mind the change.

Yesterday we went to Volcan Masaya after training

Overall it’s going well so far; I’m staying busy and enjoying my integration into my new community here. Please send mail if you have some downtime… I’ll write you back! Thanks for reading, hasta luego!