Day 5 February 2, 2009

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. (James 1: 2-4 Message)

Well classes started today. Man I am totally not used to waking up so early anymore. It was a struggle and I almost didn't make it. I hit snooze like 3 or 4 times so about 20-30 minutes passed. Maria had my breakfast waiting when I got up! Phenomenal but they feed me so much food!! I had hot dogs, eggs, 2 rolls, yogurt, something else that I can't remember and this really thick drink that looked like a protein shake. Who even knows? And in their culture it's typically rude not to finish everything on the plate so I eat tons. But I do walk more now than I ever have in my life. So many hills, walking to buses and school and all that. It's rough man.

Well we only have one class every day but it lasts a full 3 hours. Dang. We are still done by noon though so it's cool. We have lunch then do whatever. We can leave, stay, go home, go out. It's sweet. Today was History. It's the history of Nicaragua. There's a lot to be said about it. As I learn, so will you, don't worry. It's interesting though, intriguing and sad. Lots of politics, lots of corruption. Being from Chicago, I certainly know plenty about all of that (sad face). All afternoon though I worked on setting up this intense blog. I want to have an entry for every day, a document for everyone to see and a record for my future when I want to look back and reflect. It's also great therapy to write down these days of my life and allow others in to comment and reflect as well. Thank you for being part of this. It is definitely a lot of work though. I've been trying to put up more photos on this blog but it takes forever so they will all by on my FACEBOOK page. You can search for me: Dilaun White on that main page. I don't let free loading internet junkies look at my personal information so you'll probably have to sign up to Facebook and send me a friend request so you can view my photos. It may sound complicated but I promise this is all relatively simple. Then you can see where I've been and where I'm going in full color.

Back to the day, well after class, I walked to the bus with a few people. It's cool to just walk and look at the unique beauty of this place. It's not traditionally beautiful, poverty is abundantly clear in most cases but nonetheless it is beautiful to me. It is funny though because on the walk in to the Nehemiah Center and home, there is this ridiculously long path which takes a good 15-20 minutes. On one corner there is this group of men who literally sit outside all day waiting for trucks to drive by and ask for workers. They just sit all day though. It reminds me of that Jim Carrey movie Fun with Dick & Jane. But these guys like I've heard would happen whistle and say crazy things to us ladies when we walk past. I'm just glad I don't know that much Spanish yet so it's easy to ignore them. I have no idea that they're talking to me or about me anyway. One time some guy was talking and I thought he was saying something to the ladies I was with but he said something like bonita negrita or something which means like beautiful black girl. People are funny. It can get annoying but I don't care. I said that looking and speaking is one thing but if someone tries to touch me, then we have a serious problem and the sweet Dilaun will certainly disappear. I don't play that. But they don't do anything, they just talk noise.

A couple interesting things about Nicaragua I thought I'd share in this entry: First of all, the currency. It's cordobas and roughly 20 cordobas = $1 in the U.S. It's insane how cheap stuff is. One bus costs like 2.50 cords which is like 20 cents in dollars. A movie is like $3.50 in US dollars and there's a 2 for 1 movie deal on Tuesdays. Wild! We take 2 buses to get to school and to get home.

Another thing is dogs. There are dogs EVERYWHERE!! Not owned by anyone...just there walking around all over. Some people do own dogs and keep them chained up but many dogs just roam the streets eating garbage and such. They don't bother people and seem scared usually. I still would never touch one. What I want to know is where the heck are they coming from?

Another thing that's interesting and different is that there are no street names. Not only no street signs but no street names. I was told that after the earthquake years ago, they just didn't do street names anymore because everything was destroyed. When they tried it, people had gotten used to their own version of directions so it wasn't worth spending the money to creat signs no one would use. So Only major roads have names and even then it's usually the kilometer it falls on or something. So when people tell directions, they use a landmark and say go 3 blocks from that then right and down 6 blocks and so on. Wow, you really gotta know where you live. No addresses either. How do they survive? They manage well actually.

Finally, cold showers. Oh yes, no hot water my friends. At first I was like :cringe: but it's really not bad at all. When I wake up in the morning, it's already like 80 degrees or higher it feels like. We are much closer to the equator down here. I get up by about 6 am so by the time I shower and get dressed, I'm already hot again. I finally get it and so living in hot weather, I now appreciate cold showers.

To make it clear, these are all things that I've noticed, no complaints about any of it, just observations. But I also have to make it clear that I have cable tv and internet at my house so I'll take a cold shower anyday. Thanks for reading!!