#44 Halloween and Elections

Another apology for not keeping up with my blog recently. It seems to have a snowball effect for as soon a week is skipped, others follow.

Over the past few weeks a whole lot has happened, of which, I’ll do my best to remember and share, but am sure that I will be missing several stories.

We can start with Halloween. In many parts of Nicaragua, Halloween isn’t celebrated and is seen as a witch’s event. According to many other volunteers (no Nicas shared this with me), many of their Nica friends and family believe that Halloween in the USA consists of kidnapping and murdering children as they travel from house to house collecting candy. Bizarre. Anyways, my Halloween was celebrated at the discoteca in my town with some of my friends from my youth group and neighbors. As I was sitting in the bar, I remember thinking about how things have changed since this exact time last year.

One year ago to the hour, I was at the University of Maryland at Bentley’s (bar), surrounded by my close friends and half naked college girls partying and dancing to house music. There I was sitting in a bar, at the foot of a volcano in the middle of a lake in Nicaragua, speaking Spanish with the transsexual to my left, listening to meringue/salsa music, and sipping on the national beer - Tonya. Funny where my choices have led me.

A few days later were the presidential elections, a day of much importance to nearly every Nicaraguan. Presumably, the current President won with 65% of the vote… Since, the newspapers’ titles here continue to read about the lack of transparency during the voting process leading many to believe that fraud or corruption may have been involved during election day. A few days before, I had been called to the PC office in the capital for meetings and ended up staying in a hotel for the week or so surrounding the elections due to protests and violence blocking my route home. I got to pass the time with another small business volunteer and her sitemate as they were forced out of their site due to violent clashes in the street between opposing parties.

A few days after my return to the beautiful island of Ometepe, I said goodbye to my air conditioning, hot water, flat screen TV, and hammock (for now) and moved my things to a new home around the corner. I am now living in a motel-type/restaurant/family home. It is very difficult to describe, so I’ll post a video sooner or later, but I am very happy with the family, conditions, and, most of all, the food! Mmm…