I had said that this past week was ridiculous and I was not lying. Between Monday and today, Sunday, we’ve done the following:
- Met world famous ceramic artists living in my town
- Received a packet with all of our potential sites and interviewed with our bosses regarding our top choices sites
- My Nica father’s mother passed away and we went to her wake/funeral
- Had a language proficiency exam
- (Still) Celebrating Father’s Day and [The town’s] Saint’s Day
- Hiked around an active Volcano
- Befriended a millionaire Nica Businessman
A previous volunteer from the 90s has been working with the top local artists in my town to sell their pieces for, often, the thousands of dollars that they deserve. He is visiting this month and showed us around the town and introduced us to several artists. The work they do is jaw dropping and I will show you pictures the next time we speak with them.
Our packet of sites… our home for the next two years is in there. Unfortunately there are 20 sites and we won’t know until Wednesday at 3:00. The anticipation is intense and seems to dominate conversation daily. My top choices are: 1st = Island life living in the middle of the huge lake in Nicaragua (o0o0o0o0o0o), 2nd = Rivas, a nice medium sized town close to beaches with plenty of work to keep me busy, and lastly Diriamba, similar to #2.
The passing of my Nica grandmother was the most culturally interesting experience I’d had thus far (until the celebrating of Saint’s Day). My grandmother had been severely sick for 3 nights prior to her death and my house was filled, even more than usual, with people I didn’t know supporting my family. The night of her death, there was a wake at her house. The four of us Peace Corps trainees tagged along with my mother and upon arriving at the house, we were four of about 200 or more consoling my father and his family. We walked through a tunnel of curious stares to the house where the black coffin sat in the middle of the one bedroom house with a glass opening over the head of the body. I hugged my Nica dad and his sister then waited outside followed shortly by my sitemates. More and more people came carrying bread and buckets of coffee, sitting in hundreds of plastic chairs, eating and talking. There was music, a sermon, and prayers for about an hour all the while the four of us exchanging the same looks describing how mind boggling our lives were at this exact moment.
The next day was our language proficiency exam/interview, where we were all told that we were on track to ‘graduate’ with the required Spanish level. Woo hoo, we’ve all been working our asses off in the whole Spanish thing, so that was really good to hear. During our interviews, a parade of people carrying my Nica grandmother’s casket walked by towards the church prior to making their way to the cemetery.
The music started that same morning, probably around 4 or 5 in the morning. From that time, until this very moment and throughout today and tonight, a marching band and fireworks have literally been passing/exploding near my house at least once every hour playing one of three songs on repeat. I wish I were exaggerating because then that would mean I’d have been able to sleep or nap like a normal person since Thursday. There is this big canopy of sorts thing that they’ve been collecting and hanging fruit and flowers from since Wednesday. They have also set up two stages on my street with an absurd amount of speakers to perform concerts at night where the street turns into Woodstock for a few hours. During the daytime there are violent traditional fights with bull penis tendons turned swords between males and females, children and adults. They all get sloppy drunk, brutally fight, and celebrate afterwards. They likely wake up the next morning with huge lashes all over their body regretting the day before. One of my cousins can’t see out of his left eye because of this fighting. Oh Nicaragua.
We were driven and got to hike around the national park of Masaya to see the Volcano Masaya. The smoke from the mouth of the volcano made seeing anything/breathing nearly impossible. Dope to be that close to an active volcano . 
Afterwards, while waiting for the bus, we met a humble (not so much) lawyer/businessman from California who has lots of land here in the hopes of building homes and hotels to attract tourists. We walked to his nearby house and saw his 40 acres of pristine naturally beauty and a home in the works. He wasn’t lying, the views were gorgeous and for $10,000 an acre he got one hell of a deal. It is now valued at $75,000 per acre just 15 years later.
We have today, Sunday, off to rest and I hope to get my integration on by chatting up those artists I mentioned earlier, or perhaps go on another field trip with my family to meet more of their family in other towns. Who knows.
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