A day in the life

So, as per requested, a normal day for me in Managua. So, I wake up around 6:30-7:00 in the morning. We lose water at 8, so I get my shower and such done early. Then I eat something small in the kitchen (usually granola and whatever else Crithiam (mi madre nica) thinks I should try before I go) and walk across the street to the SIT office - it's a risky business walking out your door in the morning, you just don't know where you'll end up. I'll refrain from quoting the Lord of the Rings in the future.

I usually hang out in the office (a typical Nica house with a front porch and such. Two girls live in the back and work in the office while going to school at the same time (Rosa y Norma). There are two computers and a lack of children's toys and this sets it apart from other Nica houses) for a few minutes, reading the paper or finishing homework.

Then we walk. In small groups, on our own, as one big collective, it depends. There are 18 of us, all very obviously gringos. It is about a 40 minute walk to the UCA (University of Central America) where we take Spanish in the morning. We usually take the path affectionately refered to as the "Zig-zag" (yeah, its the same in both languages) which is the shortest distance with the most shade, because even at 8 in the morning the sun is blazing (year round the sun rises around 6 and sets around 6 because we're so close to the equator). I buy La Prensa, a newspaper down here, from either the gas station on the way, or there's this family that sells it from their house which is slightly out of the way.

The rooms in the UCA are air conditioned, which means great when you just walk in, and bloody cold after an hour or two. The class goes from 9 to 12:30 with one break which is usually 30 minutes long. Class is chill, we have to present newspaper articles we read, do many gammatical things, and talk a lot about usually controversial topics. The break is when I'll stoop to buying a cup of coffee because the combination of the cold and the three hour long class is beginning to wear on me.

Some days, like once or twice a week, we talk with conversation partners. These are students from the UCA who are payed to talk to us in Spanish for an hour or so. There's usually two of us to one of them, and we scatter about the campus or go out to eat or something and chat with them about a variety of subjects. My conversatin partner is Yuritza, a 22 year old Nica girl who is studying something around communications. We agree on many things surrounding politics and the like, which makes our conversations much of one of us saying something and the other nodding sagely and saying, "Si, si."

Form lunch after class there are a few places to go. I like the cafe on school grounds becaus they sell these monstrous hot dogs for 15 cords each (a bit less than a dollar). Also, there's a soy place nearby and a great pizza place near our next class.

Which brings me to, we are usually in small groups or alone at this point, and we make our way to our next class. On Mondays this is Field Study Seminar which is kind of a reflection/methods class for our cultural immersion and research methods. On every other weekday we have RTSC (Revolution, Transformation and Civil Society), in which Guillermo, the director of this class, brings in promenent figures to talk to us on a variety of subjects. This past week we did an overview of the 80s, and Guillermo talked to us first about his experience, then we spoke to a contra (Luis Fley) of the northern front, and yesterday we talked to Eden Pastora, the leader of the fighting on the southern, Costa Rica, front. We either take the bus (always a risky thing, when they're packed (and they'r always packed) it's tough to see if someone is stealing your stuff) or walk.

Both FSS and RTSC are from 2:30ish to 5. Because they ration the energy here, the first week the power went out at 2 and came back on at 7. This week it went off at 5 and came back on at 10. In the CIES (I'm not quite sure what it stands for, but it is a branch of the UNAN which is the autonomous university of nicaragua or something like that) where we take our second class of the day there is a generator which keeps the lights on and can power the fans, but not the AC. This is not always a bad thing as this past week we've been getting rain during the afternoon and it's been freezing with wet clothes and AC.

After this class, I usually walk the block or two back to the office and do what homework I can before my mind shuts down. We can only speak spanish in the office, so usually its pretty quiet. Then we'll talk out on the patio/porch thing for a while just a few of the US kids and sometimes the girls who work here or some neighborhood kids about our age.

At about 7 or 8 I walk across the street to my house and chat with Cristhiam for a while as she gives me food fit for kings. Then, if Nadia the 4 year old is still up, we'll play for a bit or I'll chat with Cristhiam some more, or I'll go in my room and read by candlelight or write a bit. Depends. I'm usually asleep around 9-9:30 if no one is going to call.

So, that's pretty much a day in my life, for now. During the weekdays anyway.