Darwin Day

In my life thus far, "Survival of the fittest" has only ever seemed to apply in the college application process and eight hour/three day dance conventions, but today this theory took on a whole new meaning. I am surprised that no one who ever went on a program with SIT seemed to think it was necessary to warn me about the second day of orientation, but when we arrived in the colonial city of León after a two hour bus ride and our director said, "Welcome to your first drop off! Pick a partner, take this envelope, do whatever it tells you to do, and meet at el Hotel del Convento in five hours," I experienced a whole new world of shock. Every time the bus stopped two more people got off and looked dumbfounded as the rest of us drove away. "This is part of the SIT experience!" she said. Holy crappers...

All I could think about was the fact that I am absurdly white and especially in this state of shock, the only Spanish phrases I could utter were, "Sí" and "Tengo miedo". "Sam from Claremont, CA who goes to Willamette University" and I were the seventh pair off the bus, and our job for the day was to find out what were two or three well known legends of León. We decided it was in our best interest to speak in Spanish with each other for the rest of the day, and after passing a cock fight, too many churches to count, and a garbage truck full of cat-calling men, we finally had the courage to talk to our first Leoneses. They were super nice, so we built up the chutzpah to talk to more people, and ended up getting invitations into local homes to talk about legends. A bunch of the locals also told us that there was a museum at the old jail where they had records of all the legends of Nicaragua. Unfortunately, directions in Nicaragua are given in relation to the nearest well known landmark such as, "Go to the supermarket then go three blocks west and two blocks south" so we had absolutely no idea where we were going. Finally, after asking a few different people, we found it and spent 10 córdoba each (about 50 cents) to have a guided tour of this incredible museum where we learned the history of the prison, the torture methods used there, famous Nicaraguans, and of course, the many legends. We ended up staying for about an hour or so talking to our 21 year old guide, Mario, about everything from Juanes to baseball. Finally, we left, grabbed a quick lunch, and found our way to the hotel. Qué exciting.

While it was super stressful, I am really glad I worked so hard to use my Spanish and get to know some of the treasures of this amazing town. This is just a taste of what I will be getting into for a month at the end of the program with my independent study project, but I am hoping I will be more prepared at that point.

Tomorrow we have our homestay interviews and Spanish language placement exams in preparation for the beginning of our homestays on Sunday and classes on Monday. Besides the humidity, things are fantastic here, and I hope to thrive and survive for the rest of the semester.

Abrazos,
Nicole

¡Estoy aquí!

Hello everyone!

I have arrived in Nicaragua! The people on the program with me seem great - there is even a girl from Sammamish, WA (for those of you who are not familiar with Washington´s suburban geography, that is about five miles from my house). There is also another Jewish student, so hopefully we will be able to research our options for the coming holidays.

We will be staying at a hotel in Managua called Casa San Juan for the next three days for orientation, and on Sunday we will meet our host mothers from Colonia Máximo Jerez. I am very excited, but also super nervous about communicating with my family. Regardless, I am already feeling pretty optimistic about this semester.

It is super hot and humid, and this morning I took my first cold shower of the trip which woke me in ways an alarm clock could never do; however, running water is a luxury here, and especially at my future homestays I will more often have the privilege of indulging in bucket showers...mmm.

Thanks for reading, hope everyone is having an incredible day, miss you all, and for those of you on your way back to Bates, good luck moving in!

Love,
Nicole