Bienvenidos a Nicaragua

One day under my belt and it has been pretty quiet, albeit interesting.  Darling, our roomate/unofficial cook made a delicious breakfast of rice, beans and bananas.  A tasty lunch of rice, beans and some sort of meat.  And finally a delicious dinner of rice, the same meat, and cabbage.  I think I'm going to have a pretty steady diet.  She's a great cook though and puts up great with my horrible gringo spanglish.

My home away from home is very much what I expected.....:).  The entire structure is made out of cement and cinder block.  There is no hot water (thank God...who would need it down here) and our stove is a propane two burner camp stove.  We do have a very nice patio and even two working computers.  I share a rather large room and bathroom with Calvin and I really think I can get used to the two inches of foam padding laid over plywood planks which serve as my bed.  All in all I find it pretty cosy and think I'll grow into it.  The pink walls throughout most of the building can only help...right?

I managed to get out into the city a little bit and even went on a quick bus trip.  I really like the bus system here.  It's composed of brightly painted school busses driving down the street with men standing in the door screaming at you to see if you want a ride while the bus driving honks at almost everyone he passes to get their attention.  It works though.  Although the only system we have right now for getting around is to know the general direction you want to go and find a bus going that way.  There are numbers and supposedly they mean something so I'll need to spend a day getting lost so I can figure it out.  You can't really complain when a fare costs the equivalent of 10 cents.

I also met Jaime, the director of Asofenix (who is also very tolerant of spanglish).  He seems like a very nice guy and from what everyone has said is very fun to be around but is also very busy.  Hopefully my spanish comes along quickly so I can communicate more effectively with him.  It was decided after some communication and hand gestures that my trip to the embassy and initiation to the city could be postponed as Calvin is going to Canceleria tomorrow to finish installing a biodigestor and it would be a great opportunity to go with him and meet the people in the village. So no rest for the weary, I'm on my way out tomorrow morning for 3-4 days of ditch digging and village living.  I'm very excited but also very nervous as I feel that all lifelines and support systems will be taken away from me as I leave Managua.  No internet or phone, no looking up words I don't know.  It feels like the deep end but I guess I have to learn how to swim sometime.

Cheers for now.  I'll be back on Monday to hopefully have something more interesting to report.