This weekend

The schoolwork part of this experience is beginning to pick up. This weekend I have to write two essays about the history we've learned. I need to begin to narrow down my Independent Study Project (ISP). We leave for the Coast on Tuesday, and we'll be gone for a week. I'm not sure if I'll have internet or cell signal, so I may be incommuniado. When I return from there, I need to have my ISP idea ready to present. We're back here for a week, and then we leave for El Salvador. We're in El Salvador for a week and a half and when we return we only have a week of classes left before the ISP period begins. Then I need to research, conduct interviews and write my paper. Then I'm back. Doesn't seem too long, does it?

I'd like to give you guys a more intimate idea of what it's like to be here, so here's what my Saturday morning was like. I woke up and stayed in bed for a while and finished reading a book on Marx. This was a mistake, because when I did force myself from bed the water was off. So then I got dressed and ate a breakfast of cornflakes and fruit salad provided by Cristhiam. Then I left for the office to get some work done. I succeded in doing some work, and then succomed to the lure of the computer where I checked in vain for an email.

Eventually I was joined in the office by Johanna and Rachel and they were going to the market. I decided to join them and we met up with Brian on the way. The four of us got a taxi and went to the market. Rachel needed a handbag and Johanna needed some ingredients for a wild rice and chicken soup thing she was going to make for her family. Brian and I weren't doing anything else, and so were basically tagging along.

The market is called Huembes after some hero or another. We looked around for awhile and Rachel eventually found her handbag. There is no way to describe a Nicaraguan market. It is chaos. There are thousands of sights and smells, some enticing, others revolting. I still get nauseous when I smell cheese (since the campo), so this part was unhappy for me. The vendors are oftentimes aggressive, as are the beggers, and you learn quickly when to be nice and when to be firm.

Buying the veggies and spices for Johanna's soup took longer, and we got to explore some. I bought a movie. C$20 (about a dollar) for three movies on one disc. Children of Men, Shadowboxer and The Last King of Scotland. It was no doubt illegally downloaded and I'll be surprised if it works, but I was craving Clive Owen and apocalyptic storytelling.

We then exited the Market and took a cab back to Maximo Jeréz (the barrio). There I went back to the office to make lunch and get reabsorbed into the computer. And I'm still here.