los fines de semana

After surviving our first week here, the weekend provided a nice 3 day break. Basically we explored, and then explored some more.

Friday we walked all over town checking out free museums, churches, and whatever else we found around the bend. The highlight was assending the tower of La Iglesia La Merced which from atop offers pheomenal views in every direction - the Cocibolca Lake, the Zapatera Volcan, Mombacho volcan, the gardens in the middles of people's houses and restaurants, the main Cathedral and all other churches, and abeautiful sunset. (See picture in previous blog).

That night we ate comida corriente (plate of the day- chicken, rice, salad, tostones (plantain) at La Colonia and then followed that with some caiparinas (rum, lime, ice, sugar, soda water) on La Calzada, Nicaragua's main tourist drag with cafes and restaurants lining a cobblestone, pedastrian only, street.

Saturday was spent cleaning house, doing yoga, meeting our new roomate Sally from Germany, eating out, walking across town to buy groceries and walking back with our arms laden down, and in the evening we attended OctoberFest at another volunteer house.
There we learned Germans really like to play American college drinking games like Flip Cup and Proximity Beer Pong. Matt and I are actually quite glad to be in less of a party mode house, without 14 other roommates, and away from the noise of the main plaza. Evidently, the churches not only ring bells at every hour but frequently fire off canons to ward off evil spirits. We'll stick to our neighborhood dogs and birds waking us up instead.

Sunday we got up bright and early to go on a tour of "Las Isletas" with our household. The tour consisted of being in a 15 passenger boat, and looking at 40 out of the 365 teensy islands formed from volcanos in the lake. The highlights were seeing many beautiful birds, going to monkey island (enough of an island to have 4 trees growing and 5 monkeys), and conversing with our funny and charming tour guide who speaks English like a hoodrat. He taught us some Nica slang like "Ella es mi jana" ( with an ene) for "she's my boo," "tuane" for "cool", "hasta la verga" for "drunk", "me doy" for "i give up" etc.

After the tour we decided to be practical and walk across town in the heat of the day to the other supermarket for a few select items. Needless to say we got very sidetracked when we realized we had our swimming gear in our bags (from the lake we did not swim in due to the sharks that supposedly live only on the other side of the lake) and passed the Mombacho Beach Club swimming pool. So for a good 3 hours we worked on our tan and swam with some ducks. Literally.

Today was back to work. Matt works with 2nd grade and the 2nd grade teacher was not at school today (apparently this happens quite often here) so his classroom was utter chaos with kids climbing on him like he was a walking jungle gym. He got them to settle down and read some books and play memory games, all for the price of a calcomania (sticker)! I tutored 2 new kids and then prepared my art project for tomorrow's art class. Then we went to a new house in the barrio and did some more math and reading practice with Rayner 7, Maria 7, and Abagail (11).

Tomorrow is Dia de la Raza and there will be a fiesta at school at 10. Que Viva!