ONE YEAR IN NICARAGUA!!

So here I am, exactly one year from when I left New York to embark on this unbelievable journey of Peace Corps service, and I hate how cliché this is, but I honestly can't believe it's been a year. At times it feels like it's been ages, yet other days I feel like it was yesterday that I was frantically packing and obsessing over “the unknown” that I was about to face. (I guess I just continued with the theme of clichés there, huh?)

It's crazy because there are some days when I ache for home – for lazy days at home with my mom, five minute drives to Tante's and Omi's, summer days at Grandma's in Catskill, Zona's with my dad, holidays with the cousins, camping with the best extended family around, Olive Garden with my girls, Dunkin with the best, movie nights with the crew, college reunions, memories of crisp fall mornings, the perfect warmth that sweat pants provide on wintery evenings – and yet there are some things from home that now seem so foreign to me. Blow driers for example hahaha. Old norms have been replaced by new ones and little pieces of my daily life here have come to make this “home.”

Waking up to the sounds of Nicaragua has become so comforting. From my bed at 5:30, long after the roosters have started cock-a-doodle-dooing, I can hear my front neighbor sweeping her part of the street, while my next door neighbor fills her water buckets and washes some clothes before getting ready for work. Since my walls don't touch my roof, it's as if there were no walls at all; I can hear every rhythmic stroke of her clothes against the cement washboard and I can even recognize the songs she hums to herself as she works. I lay in bed listening to the men go by on their ox-drawn carts, headed out to the campo for a long day's work, and I wait until I hear the first round of tortillas pass by my house. As I hear her coming down the block yelling rhythmically and evenly, “tortillas!!,” I untuck my mosquito net, slide on my flip flops, shuffle to the bag where I keep my toilet paper, and head out to the latrine. On the way back in, I fill my pot at the spigot out back with water to boil for oatmeal (or if it's a morning when I don't have to work early, I wait for Dona Lidia to pass by with fresh milk from her cows so I can make cafe con leche or creamy oatmeal instead.) Then it turns into a morning like everyone else's – shower, dress, prep for work. Of course my showers start with 5 seconds of agony because even though I'm used to cold showers my now, those first 5 seconds (or that first bowl full on bucket-shower days) are always killer.

Walking to work, I chatter quickly with my neighbors about the heat or the rain or the shame that it's only Tuesday – some things just don't change no matter where you are in the world. I don't even notice now how many horses, cows, pigs, and chickens I walk past before I get to work. I show up to school already glistening with sweat, but so does everyone else, so it's nothing to worry about. I teach my science lesson and we play games to reinforce what was learned. I almost forget that things like projectors and worksheets and school nurses exist in this world – let alone classroom TVs, classroom telephones, and Smartboards. After classes, we head out to the garden and my students go attack the weeds with their machetes. Was there a time when I had never seen a machete used to mow the lawn? I know there was because I remember the first time I saw it here and how amazed I was by it...now it's just normal.

So many things that once surprised me or captured my attention have all just become part of the day-to-day.

Not counting any time spent in the capital city of Managua, I can't remember the last time I saw a two story building here. Houses are rectangles made of wood, or bricks, or cinder blocks, or in less fortunate cases black plastic or zinc scraps. They have roofs made of zinc or rounded shingles, and more times than not, they have dirt floors.

I almost forgot that there are such things as basements and garages.

Air conditioning and heat are both non-existent in my daily life, which explains the nasty cough I got after all the air conditioned hotels we stayed in when my family was here. (AMAZINGGG times with my Lendles by the way. Everyone here – especially me – is hoping you'll decide to come back!)

Travel equals public transportation, which means what would be a 40 minute car ride turns into a 2 hour trip with at least two transfers, climbing into the back of packed school buses, awesome bus food from the vendors that get on and off at the big stops, and at least one sermon from a bus preacher.

When it rains, it pours. Streets turn to rivers in seconds, and life stands still for just a little while. <3

Just thinking about the things I've done without all year makes me realize how extravagantly we live in the States. Here, my “kitchen” consists of a two-burner gas camping stove (lent to me) that sits on a table. On that same table I have my sugar, rice, beans, oil, salt, eggs, and fruit and veggie bowls. Hanging on nails on my wall, I have my pots and pans (gifted to me), cat food, and a hand towel. On an old chair, in a big plastic tub I have my plates, cups, and silverware. That's literally it; and it's actually enough! Old memories of refrigerators, cabinets, ovens, indoor sinks, and dishwashers never even cross my mind. Well then again...it would be amazing to have a refrigerator.

My living room consists of a plastic table (lent to me), two plastic chairs, two little rocking chairs (lent to me), and a hammock. Couches? Carpets? What are those? Most people here do live with TVs, so I can go watch one whenever I want, but I honestly don't miss having one at all.

It's gonna be rough for me to go back home and reacquaint myself with all the "stuff."  I've come to love the simplicity I live with here, and I know that no matter where my life takes me after this, I'll never forget the lessons I've learned from the people that have become my dear friends and family here.  Aside from the differences in material possessions and the language, people here are exactly the same as people back home.  There are class clowns, jocks, nerds, town gossips, town crazies, neighbors willing to lend a hand at the drop of a dime, awesome teachers, crappy teachers...I could go on and on.  I've honestly found so many people here that remind me of someone back home.  The similarities in personalities of my friends here and my friends from home are uncanny.  Living worlds apart doesn't change a thing.  People are people and the relationships we build are what make our lives worth living.  All I can say is that I couldn't be more thankful for the amazing people that have welcomed me into their lives here.  I've found true friendship in a country that I had never set foot in a year ago, and that alone has made my service here worthwhile.  

Just about half-way through my service and I couldn't be happier to be where I am.  Thanks again for all the love and support from home.  I could never have gotten this far without you!! <3