Mike got everyone up at 8 for our normal breakfast of granola, fruit, and eggs.  At 10, we left in a van (with too few seats, of course) to Mambacho Volcano.  It’s the giant volcano you can see everywhere in Granada and is only a 30 minute drive away.  There are 4 or 5 craters in the volcano.

The van driver kept us entertained with a “classic video mix” on the flip down TV.  The mix consisted of Kool and the Gang, Grease, and The Bee Gees music videos.  Punneh knew all the Kool and the Gang lyrics, Hannah led the way with Grease, but no one could match my falsetto on “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees.  Needless to say we were all in an up-beat, dancy mood when we arrived at the top of the volcano.  By “top of the volcano” I mean 1100 meters up the volcano, just at the base of where the “cloud forest” started.  This was the highest we went up the volcano.  We took a 45 minute hike around “Crater 1” which was formed by a volcanic eruption five hundred years ago.  Our guide took us to view points at various altitudes to look into the crater, out over Granada and the jungly parts of Nicaragua and out to Lake Nicaragua.  Apparently the crater looked like something out of Avatar (I haven’t seen the movie).  There was argument made that it looked like Fangorn Forest from Lord of the Rings.  Well, I just watched all three of the movies with my brother before I left and I was quick to disagree.  For one, this is a jungle while Fangorn is more of a Northwest type forest.  Secondly, Fangorn is pretty small in area compared to the vast area the jungle of Mambacho takes up (not to mention Fangorn is completely flat and Mambacho is a volcano).  Lastly, and what I consider the most obvious and important difference, the trees at Mambacho didn’t talk!  Honestly, I have never encountered a forest more unlike Fangorn.

During the hike, one of the groups ran into a family/herd/group (much debate occurred over the correct term) of Howler Monkeys.  Madeleine almost cried at how cute one of the babies was.  The tiny monkey gave us a scare when he almost fell off a branch into the abyss of the crater.  Luckily he managed to catch himself with his tail.  The other group only caught the tail end of the monkeys but they saw two three-toed sloths.  I don’t see the appeal of sloths but Hannah quickly announced that it was her new favorite animal.

Now is where the real fun begins.  The hike was fun and beautiful but nothing compared to what Catherine and the chaperones had planned next.  We took the van back down to the “lower forest” where we were completely out of the clouds and were basically in the jungle at the base of the volcano.  Alright, I know the suspense is hard to take so I will just spit it out: we went zip-lining.  This is a slightly confusing thing but basically we strapped into harnesses and put on helmets and walked into the forest.  We ascended a ladder onto a platform mounted in a tree and attached to ropes to a wire.  A man then pushed us and we slid along this wire, fairly quickly, across the jungle to another tree.  It was amazing because you have to conquer any fear you have of heights since you are basically jumping out of a tree and then flying at a high speed across the top of a jungle in between trees.  There were about 10 trees that we went overall and we probably zip-lined about a mile.  Some of the wires were fast and long and others were slow.  On the slow ones they had us do CRAZY things like go upside down.  I got up to attach my harness to the wire when the guy spun me around and flipped me onto my head and pushed.  So here I am flying across a wire 40 feet above the forest floor staring at the ground.  All the blood rushed to my head and it was pretty unpleasant.  But it was still extremely thrilling.  On the last leg of the zip-line, the man who stood at the end of each one to make sure we slowed down enough to not slam into the tree, started bouncing the wire. So now, as we’re going across this zip-line, we get thrown up into the air and go into freefall every second (still attached to the wire of course).  For the guys out there, you may empathize with us about having that harness strapped around your groin crotch area and having to bounce up and down… you get the point.  It was a little painful.

Just as we were thanking the Nicaraguan’s for our fun experience and hanging up our harnesses, the rain came.  And I mean to tell you, within 5 seconds (literally 5 seconds) the weather went from sunny and hot to rain coming down in bucketfuls.  It was almost like a flash flood.  All the water collected from the roads and we could see it flowing at amazing speeds down troughs in the side of the road to drain it.

The road still hasn’t stopped.  We just got back from dinner at the pizza place again.  Last time we experienced a typical pizza-eating outing for me:  no one says they like Hawaiian pizza but I push for it so we order one then everyone decides they love Hawaiian and eat it all.  A few other people noticed the same thing so, this time, Catherine ordered us 3 Hawaiian pizzas and only 2 vegetarian and combos.  The others protested saying “No then we’ll have too many Hawaiian left.”  Again I have to applaud Catherine’s leadership because the Hawaiian pizza was gone within 10 minutes and no one wanted anything else.  I got my filling though and I think everyone else did but I really hope people will finally learn their lesson: Hawaiian pizza is the best.

Tomorrow we have to get up at 3:30 AM… (this is the time where you grown and say “Aw Will I’m so sorry you have to get up so early).  Apparently the Managua airport is a “zoo” (Bob’s word) so hopefully we can get enough sleep so we are alert enough to maneuver our tubs and luggage all around the airport.

Now comes the sad part for me.  This is my last blog of the trip! It has been a ritual for me to come back from dinner, pull out the laptop and write.  I don’t know how I can stop.  I am pretty attached to it at this point.  I guess I have to stop at some point though.  Anyways, I’m sad the trip is over.  We learned so much about other cultures and people, and technology.  I know we all bonded as a group and hopefully we can have many photo parties and reunions in the coming months (Kate and Punneh’s schedules are the only problem).  Not too many though because I might get sick of this group… Just kidding.

I tried to cover as much as I could but realistically I only talked about group activities and things I was involved with.  When we get back make sure you talk to someone about the trip because I know there are so many great stories out there they I didn’t fit into the blog.  Nicaragua is an amazing country and if you ever have the chance to go, don’t pass up the opportunity.  Our TSC Nicaragua crew did a phenomenal job on our project.  A high school on Ometepe Island now has a fully operating computer lab that started with an empty room and some blue tubs that came from Seattle.  For a student to go to college, they have to be somewhat familiar with using a computer.  Our hope is that our computers increase the number of kids from the school and Ometepe in general that attend college and strive for higher education.  All the TSC members should be extremely proud right now.  I know I am.

Una ultima vez, adios y gracias.

-Will and the entire 2010 TSC Nicaragua team

A van came to pick us up at 10 to take us to the market at Masaya. Masaya is about a 30 minute drive, but, unlike Ometepe, the roads are paved. Once again, the van we got was too small and we had to squeeze a few people in. At the market, we divided into small shopping groups and headed into the vast market ready to bargain and find the best deal on every souvenir we wanted.

It turns out that the market isn’t very big. From a spatial standpoint it’s fairly big, but then you have to consider that 80% of the shops carry the exact same merchandise. Most of the stuff was made in Guatemala, but when I pointed this out to a store owner as a reason why my item should be cheaper he responded, “No, no. The materials are from Guatemala but it was made here.” I still don’t buy that. I did buy the item, however. Overall the day was extremely successful and I think everyone got mostly what they were looking for.

The market trip lasted until about 3, when we reconvened at the hotel. Then the chaperones let us hit the town. The trips were mostly out to grab an afternoon snack before dinner. For dinner we went to this Irish pub (owned by an Irishman). Catherine got confused and tried to make a complicated order in Spanish and was struggling pretty bad. Luckily Punneh reminded her that the man was Irish and spoke English. Phew. A few of us ordered burgers, a few picked salads, and a few got pasta. The shocking part was that it took them almost 2 hours to prepare a burger. And the burgers were the first food item served to us. It was good to get food, because everyone was getting really unhappy.

This is a short blog, but today was a pretty leisurely day (although you wouldn’t guess that from Bob, who has fallen asleep while reading his book in the chair across from me). Tomorrow is our last day! Hopefully everyone can hold it together for just one more day. It should be fun since we are going to the top of some volcano and going ziplining. Curfew has been moved up so I’ll probably post this and then have about a half hour until bed.

Salida de emergencia,

Will

(I didn’t learn any Spanish today, but there is a sign I’m looking at that says “Salida de emergencia” so I thought I’d go with it.)

Breakfast at Hotel Con Corazon was at 9:30 this morning, earlier than anyone wanted to get up (especially Jack, so he slept in until 11 and skipped breakfast), but it was good food. Nothing really happened in the morning except logistics on how we were going to see the World Cup Final. After 2 hours of discussing, I was literally twitching with anticipation and forced them to hurry up. At 11:15 we left in 2 groups of 6 (Peter was sick with a fever but no stomach problems and Jackie was still resting). We were told to find a place to watch the game on our own and that there was possibly a giant screen being set up in the square.

A few of us decided it would be fun to run around the town really fast to find paraphernalia to wear during the game. Since I have been rooting for Spain since the beginning I convinced my group (apart from Abe who is already an avid supporter) to root for Spain with me. Upon running into some Holland supporters in the main square, we asked them where they got their jerseys. They directed us and we proceeded to look where they had advised. The store only had one jersey left and it was a Holland jersey. A worker there led us to another store which had kid’s Spain jerseys. Luckily for us, the jerseys were popular among toddlers and there were only 3 left and they were all size XXXL (no joke). Hannah, Madeleine, and I bought the full Spain kits (shorts included) for 7 dollars each (you need to make sure you see the pictures when we get back because we looked awesome). We suited up and headed out. Ben decided he wanted to go back and get the last Holland jersey the first store was selling so we did. Now here’s the scene: six white Americans walking through a Nicaraguan city, three of them wearing full Spain kits, one in Holland clothes, one with an extremely expensive camera around his neck and a money belt (Abe), and one with bright red hair (Izzy). One might say we were the most obvious group of tourists Nicaragua had ever seen.

We searched for a while and didn’t find the giant TV Bob had talked about. We asked someone and they said there was no such thing but pointed us to a street where there were places playing the game. The place we picked was a nice outdoor café with three large flat screen TV’s and lots of people ready for some football. Seated next to us were a group of 10 Dutch supporters who, by kickoff, had consumed at least 10 beers and were still ordering more. For the next few hours we sat watching the game and cheering and chanting “ESPANA! ESPANA!” with our fellow Spain supporters. It’s hard to describe but overall it was probably the most fun I have ever had watching a sporting event on TV. The atmosphere was amazing with the competing sections (Holland and Spain) and the game was extremely competitive and exciting. There were probably too many yellow-cards and definitely some chances that should have been put away early on in the game, but it was still thoroughly entertaining. When Spain finally scored in the 116th minute, the whole place erupted in cheers. I got up and started hugging all the Nicaraguans in our section who, by this point in the game, I had become close with even though I didn’t speak any Spanish but just simply through our common love of soccer. It was unbelievable.

When the scene had finally simmered down at our venue, the group headed out to find the other group of 6. We found them at a different café only a few blocks away. This place was much more hectic in celebration than ours was. We walked in to find members of our group dancing on the tables along with other tourists and Nicaraguans in both Spain and Holland jerseys. For the next hour or so everyone we (especially Hannah, Madeleine and I because of our amazing jerseys) passed, we screamed “ESPANA!” To which we received loud honks from the passing cars. Dancers took to the streets and that song that Bob made us listen to before we left (Waving Flag by Knaan) could be heard coming out of every building. Overall, it was an unreal experience. Best game ever. GO SPAIN! But Holland is really good too. They played so well and Arjen Robben is one of the best players in the world.

Just after 4 everyone arrived back at the hotel completely exhausted. Skylar and I both had lost our voices from screaming (there will be less singing at the hotel tonight; only Jack will be able to). Sweat drenched our bodies and we decided to take a swim. The water cooled us down and was so refreshing. For the next 2 hours everyone just relaxed and took showers. Laundry was done last night so everyone is in clean clothes and should be for the next few days.

We just got back from dinner at Don Luca’s Pizzeria. The pizza (which is obviously what we had) was really good. There were these two young Nicaraguan street venders (younger than us) who started pestering us. Their pestering quickly turned to chatter which turned to conversation which turned to arm-wrestling. These kids who were much younger than us turned out to be surprisingly strong for their age (although, of the TSC members they wrestled, they only managed to beat Punneh). My shoulder is still pretty sore because one of the kids claimed I was cheating every time I beat him and insisted on rematches (four of them).

To celebrate Jack’s birthday, apart from the card Madeleine made him in the morning, a mariachi band sang him happy birthday in Spanish and we sang it to him in English. Across the street was an ice cream parlor and Bob treated us all to a scoop of ice cream. On the walk back we saw break dancers, skateboarders, and lots of drunk people. As Abe explained to me after I commented on all the drunks, “Today is probably the single biggest day for drinking around the world.”

So, before I go, I’ll tell you about Peter. He stopped feeling well at dinner last night and went to bed early. He woke up with a slight fever and stayed in bed all day. Mike was NOT happy and is blaming how late everyone is going to bed (which is reasonable). However, curfew remains at midnight. Tomorrow we do have to get up pretty early because we are going to the market at Masaya. That should be fun.

I hope everyone enjoyed the World Cup today because we certainly did. Oh, and happy birthday Jack,

Will

The students showed up slowly. Not all of them came but enough came that the ones who were there didn’t feel awkward. We had rice and beans, of course, and some delicious chicken for lunch. Catherine started getting stressed around 12:30 when we should have been leaving but we were still eating. Goodbyes lasted a fair amount of time and we took probably 20 or 30 group pictures (the Finca worker who was taking them was afraid they’d be bad so he kept going “UNO MAS! UNO MAS!”). The goodbyes were sad and a few people cried. We loaded onto the bus just before 1:00 PM, which was literally the last second based on the calculations of what we could do to catch the ferry. Honestly I was a little bit worried about missing the ferry, but I trusted the driver once he got out on open roads and was able to drive 70 MPH and pass everyone.

Our calculations were incorrect and, even though we left behind schedule, we got to the ferry over an hour before it shipped off. The tubs were stored in some room on the ship. I took a nap and woke up an hour later just as the ship was leaving the dock. We had some arguments over whether or not the boat was the exact same one as the one we came in on. I’m pretty sure it was. It started pouring rain just as we were leaving. Our last view of Ometepe was not of the beautiful volcano covered in luscious, green rainforest, but of a small strip of beach overshadowed by a dark, ominous cloud engulfing the entire island.

We loaded into vans on the other side and set off to Granada. The car ride was long and it rained a ton, but we had that cool flat screen TV coming down from the ceiling to entertain us. Our entertainment was a few mixes of music videos. Somehow we managed to watch the “Move Ya Body” by Nina Sky video four times. They didn’t offer much variety.

Darkness had set in by the time we got to Hotel Con Corazon, but, upon entering the hotel, we all remembered why we love this place: air conditioning, beds with real mattresses, a clean floor, no beetles falling from the ceiling (or any bugs at all), clean toilets that flush, real showers, and, of course, Wi-Fi (immediately a queue formed for internet use to check Facebooks and emails, which quickly got out of control and I had to use my blogging powers to cut in line and say “I have to blog, it’s my turn”).

We went out to dinner at a restaurant “Comidas Tipicas y Mas…” For those of you who speak Spanish you’ll understand how funny this name is, but for those who don’t understand the name literally means “Typical Food and More…” After spending 15 minutes picking out our own individual dinners, Catherine intervened and said we were just going to order a bunch of big platters like usual. I was disappointed because I didn’t want rice and beans again; I wanted “chicken in a pineapple bowl.” The “pineapple bowl” sounded awesome. The food that came was giant platters of meat and spaghetti. It was actually amazingly good especially after waiting for what seemed like hours for the food. We are now back at the hotel. It’s 10:30 at night and people are putting on their swimsuits to go swimming. It should be a good night.

Tomorrow is Jack’s birthday so festivities may be in order. However, Jack’s birthday may be overshadowed by the fact that there is a giant, all-day festival at our local square to celebrate the World Cup and Hotel Con Corazon is setting up a huge projector to watch the game.

Viva Espana and I’m rooting for you (but I will not be disappointed if Holland wins because they’re awesome too),

Will

Jack, Abe, Ben, and Bob volunteered to go down to the school to work one last time in the morning to clean up the lab. Everything was done, it was just messy. The rest of us stayed at the Finca and slept in. Some guy was supposed to come in the morning and take us on a tour of the upper part of the Finca where they have some cool petroglyphs. Skylar saw a sign that said it was a 2 mile hike. Our interest diminished. By noon, the guide still hadn’t shown up so we assumed it wasn’t going to happen. It’s probably just as well that it didn’t, because we were all exhausted.

At 12:30, the work party returned to the Finca for lunch. Lunch was fish. Not just any fish but the fish that we caught yesterday on the lake. The sight of them fully intact with the skin still on them was fairly unappetizing, but the most courageous of us dug in anyway. Now this part you’re going to think I’m lying, but I AM NOT: the fish was so good. It was amazingly prepared and there was tons of flavor. All the fish were different species but they were all white fish. We got to pick apart the fish to our liking which for some meant taking a few bites and stopping and for others meant scraping at the vertebrae with fingernails to scrape off every last piece of meat. A few people told me I took it too far. My eating style did start to resemble my dad when I picked at a third person’s fish carcass after they were done.

Lunch went a bit long and we didn’t leave the Finca until the time we were supposed to be arriving at the school. It was hot again, and by the time we got to the school everyone was sweaty. On the way, the girls started freaking out about being late and that they would cry if everyone was just standing there waiting for us. Well, we arrived at the school and there was only 5 or 6 people already there. They were setting up for an event. The event was called “La Reina de la Maiz” (Queen of the Corn). It was like a dance and beauty competition. We got there at 2:00 PM. We were supposed to be there at 1:00 PM. The event didn’t start until almost 4. So had we been on time, we would have been even more miserable than we were for the 2 hours we had to sit in the blazing hot sun.

So here we are in the sun waiting for 2 hours when finally the emcee starts announcing things. The sky starts getting dark and it starts to rain immediately after the first act. It would rain through the entire event. If they had started when we got there or when they said they’d start, we could have avoided the rain. The girl that Catherine and I ate lunch with everyday, Jennifer, competed for the Queen title and did really well. It was all traditional dance with some weird breaks between competitors. There was this big lady who danced and lip sang a Spanish song. It was pretty wacky. Then another girl, who we knew from earlier encounters, did an EXTREMELY provocative dance with another boy. Abe describe it as a fertility dance. We didn’t get to find out who won the competition because it was a two-day event, but we’re rooting for Jennifer.

After Queen of the Corn, we headed to Ben the Ice Cream Man’s restaurant for our first dinner out. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this was the best meal we had all trip so far. He made us lasagna and garlic bread. The lasagna was vegetarian so everyone could eat it, and the bread was addictive. We got ice cream for dessert. We lounged around and played games until 8 or so when Ben wanted to close up. At this time, we walked back to the school for the “fiesta.” Half of the group was dead tired and the scene of the “fiesta” was very unappealing. Basically, picture a basketball court full of tackily-dressed Nicaraguan men aged from 4 to 50 smoking and drinking, a smoke-filled room with music blaring so loudly that it hurt, and 3 Nicaraguan couples dancing to Latin pop music. For all intents and purposes, a normal dance. The large majority of the group that did not want to be there was extremely disappointed when it was announced that the bus to take us to the Finca wasn’t leaving until 11. That left 3 hours of “fiesta.” Enough people didn’t want to stay that Mike ended up arranging for the bus to come early and make two trips to pick people up. The few people who stayed said they had a great time.

Tomorrow we have to get up early to pack so that everything is ready to go when the Nicaraguans come for lunch to say good-bye. We should be to Granada by 3:30 PM by my calculations. But we’ll see.

I didn’t learn any new Spanish today and I am sad about it,

Will

Today Catherine got us up at the normal time. And, by normal time, I mean she woke us up at 7:45, we said, “Go away!”, she left, came back and said, “No, for real. Get up,” and we said, “Bah, leave.” After a long sequence of this she came in and said, “We’re having pan tostado and French toast for breakfast.” This got us up. One thing you have to know is that the French toast they make here is the greatest thing ever. The other thing that must be acknowledged is that, ever since the start of my sickness, I have become addicted to pan tostado and so has everyone else who has at one point been sick. It’s basically just toasted bread with jam. But the special thing about it is that it is never the same. Two days ago I had seven orders in one day and every single order was comprised of bread that was cut in different shapes, with different flavored jam and different levels of toasting (all along the spectrum of burnt to a crisp to un-toasted). It’s always an adventure with toast, and it keeps us guessing and adds excitement to our day.

Excitement was not too hard to find in the morning, however. It rained during our walk to the school and we were forced to wear raincoats! The rain went away by the time we got to the school, leaving us to haul around our raincoats the rest of the day. The early rain left it cool the whole day.

The lab is completely set up now, so today was all teaching. Skylar continued his leadership commanding half of the Nicaraguan students in the computer lab. The laptops were set up in an adjacent room, which Ben took the reins of, to teach the Nicaraguans who were deemed “more advanced” in computer use, how to operate complicated programs like “Calculadora Grafica.”

Teaching went well, but everyone was exhausted by lunch. The students brought lunch to the school again. Catherine and I sat with Jennifer (Nicaraguan) and Juan “Cico” Francisco (his name is Juan but his parents call him Francisco and all his friends call him Cico – it’s confusing) like usual and everyone ate with their normal pairs. Hannah and Jack apparently had a very interesting conversation/gossip session with Yensi (their female lunch partner) about which TSC guy all the Nicaraguan girls thought was the cutest (results are still being counted).

After lunch was exploration time. The Nicaraguans were free to explore the computers. The one thing that is becoming really obvious to us is the lack of help the students need compared to the teachers. The teachers are timid around the computers while the students feel free to mess up, which results in them stumbling onto even more learning experiences. For the TSC members, this was break time. For the blogger, yours truly, this was the time to make the internet finally work so blogs could be posted and parents wouldn’t worry. The connection was terrible. I would click a web page, walk to another computer, play a full game of 3-D Space Pinball, enter my name into the high scores (Colin Butler, if you’re reading this, I beat 2 of your high scores today), walk back to the laptop, and click on the next web page. It took over 2 hours for me to post both of the past two day’s blogs. Success is my middle name, however, and I got it done.

At 3:00 PM we walked with the Nicaraguan students to la punta (just some point on the lake). One thing that I don’t think has been stressed enough is the ability of Bob and his loquacity to split up the group and make us late during walks. After Bob found a man on the street to talk to, all the Americans ran ahead except for Ben, Mike, and I, who realized that without Nicaraguan students to guide us, we would have no idea where to go. That thought apparently didn’t register to the others. Ben had a rough day (which I’ll report on later) and hadn’t had time to eat lunch. Mike agreed to buy us both sandwiches at Ben’s (the store owner Ben) ice cream store. Mike told us to go ahead with the Nicaraguans but wait at the turnoff to la punta so he would know where to go. Well, Ben and I got to the turnoff, decided that if we just walked back up the road we could find Mike and lead him to la punta which we now knew the location of. Ben and I walked all the way back to the store and didn’t find Mike. We asked someone and they told us that Mike had already left. We made the trek all the way back to la punta and found Mike waiting there. Thoroughly confused at this point, Ben and I were then told by Mike that he was going to the store to get our sandwiches. This is where the story ends because I gave up trying to figure out what happened.

By now I’m sure everyone is wondering what we planned on doing at la punta. The jefes (“bosses”) had arranged for some of the Nicaraguan students’ families to take us out in their boats to go fishing. We all hopped in boats, 5 people in each, and started fishing. The boats were medium-sized, wood canoe-like boats. They have wood ores and string ore-locks, but the way they row is much different from the way we row our row boats in the US. The way they fish is with one net which you wrap around your arm in this complex way then throw in to the water. You have to hold the net in a way that it unfolds completely open when it hits the surface of the water. Everyone was really bad and our throws ended up landing jumbled in the water and tangled the nets. The only people who caught fish were the professionals who were rowing the boats. Competitions to see who could catch the most fish commenced when Ben told me that my net throw sucked and tried to splash water on me. The person driving my boat was the father of the person driving Ben and Chara’s boat, so the rivalry was already fully flared. For 80% of the day, my boat was leading 6 pescado’s (fish) to 4 pescado. After a quick dip in the lake (we jumped off the boats), the tables turned and Ben and Chara’s boat had a pull with quatro pescado in the net. From then on it was a one way road. It was when the boats pulled up to the docks (the big rock we loaded on) that we realized how poorly we had actually done. My boat had 6 fish. The boat with Scott and Abe (the one with the least Americans) had 11. They took the prize for most pescado. We took the fish back to the Finca and apparently will be having them for lunch tomorrow. That should be interesting.

So now on Ben’s day. I told Ben I’d blog on him less, but as the Tech Lead he is just so important and interesting. After spending the morning teaching students (in Spanish) about programs not even he fully understood how to use, he spent lunch sorting laptops to find the best 4 to give to the teachers who were present. The teachers started grabbing for the nicest looking computers, of course, and Ben had to explain to them (in Spanish) how the best-looking computers weren’t necessarily the best computers. After that whole situation was sorted out, he taught each teacher individually how to use the basic programs like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. Then he would learn that the math teacher had NEVER used a graphing calculator before. Ben says he assumed the teacher new more math than he did, but he wasn’t really sure. Overall, the day was really stressful for Ben especially after his illness the other day.

On the note of illness, Punneh stayed at the Finca resting, but she was match-ready and desperately wanted to help today. Other than that, everyone was healthy, if a bit tired, today.

Sunday, as you all know, is Spain vs. Holland, the World Cup Final (and also Jack’s birthday). Originally we were planning on arriving in Granada on Sunday and risked missing the game if the boat was late or something. I told Catherine I would never forgive her if I missed it. Obviously I scared her because she immediately changed the plans so that we are now leaving for Granada on Saturday so we can be settled in at Hotel Con Corazon by game time Sunday. Go Espana.

Tomorrow, three volunteers and a chaperone are heading down to the school at the normal time to clean up the lab. This should put the finishing touches on things. The rest of us are planning on going to some petroglyphs in the morning. After lunch, the students have planned a fiesta for us. This probably entails more uncomfortable dancing and “awkward cultural experiences.” We’ll see.

El pescado no es muerte,

Will

(“The fish is not dead.” This is a reference to how, instead of putting the fish out of their misery after being caught, the Nicaraguan fisherman let the fish flail, still alive, in a small pool of water in the bottom of the boat for hours. The fish flop around gasping and it’s a pretty awful sight. I guess it keeps the fish fresh longer.)

P.S. Heidi: Mike wants to know if it would be OK for him to have two of the Nicaraguan students here come stay at your house next year as exchange students. This is the new plan circulating among the jefes.

On that note, last night I got sick again and didn’t go to the school today. I stayed back with Ben, Jennifer, Bob, and Punneh. It was a normal, boring sick day except for the World Cup Semi-Final. Bob and I were the only ones that got out of bed to watch it. Our only two fellow soccer-watchers were these two German women. They were pretty disappointed, but I (Spain has been my team to win it) and Bob (roots for Spanish-speaking nations) were happy. The TV was almost impossible to watch because the wind was strong and reception was bad, but we made it through. There were two work parties today: one went to the normal high-school and the other went to Mano Amiga. Since I wasn’t there, Madeleine is going to write about the day. Hopefully it will be less vanity-flicky than Abe and Peter’s guest post the other day.

Hello, everyone! As a novice to the blog-writing thing, the idea of each of you reading this is quite thrilling. I have been instructed to give an unbiased account of this tenth day of our life here on Ometepe Island, but I feel it is necessary to give a personal account of last night. It all started when I crawled under my pink mosquito net after a long evening of rain, only to find that the once-comforting, fort-like enclosure of my bed had become a cage for two birds. I later realized that they were only large moths, but that only makes it all worse. Long story short, several of the travelers who have moved their beds to the deck of the Finca were not pleased when I fled to their quarters dragging my bed behind me. I suppose I proved them right by shrieking all night when I discovered beetles in my bed.

This morning, the evil sickness that has yet to claim me had overcome the only five members of our group who were not holding a grudge against me from the past night. Needless to say, it was a quiet walk of shame to the school for me. Once in the lab, however, Skylar began to use his energy to lead the TSC clan in teaching Nicaraguans about the wonders of Microsoft Word, rather than reminding me of my past failures. His Spanish skills are really quite impressive. About a half hour later, Abe, Chara, and I left the school to begin installing three computers in the community center called Mano Amiga. Despite the distraction of a few painfully adorable puppies, which I was not given permission to pet, the three of us got some work done. We will return to finish crimping in the morning.

The Mano Amiga crew returned to the school to eat lunch with our Nicaraguan buddies. It was hard for the students to live up to the whole fish, complete with a face and eyes, that they brought me yesterday, but they do get extra points for the lack of rice and beans in today’s lunch. On the way back to Mano Amiga after lunch, I saw a pig, un cerdo, the size of Beethoven, that dog from the movies. I’ve decided that pigs are the best animals in this country because even though they are unbelievably cute, I don’t feel the same urge to pet them as I do with the sweet, lonely dogs that the group’s anti-rabies rules prevent me from comforting. I do, however, have about 50 pictures of different little piglets to share when we return.

Back at the Finca, it’s been a very relaxing evening. Despite devoting my attention to my book for a solid half hour, I only made it through about five pages due to the stress I felt about my approaching blog-writing duties. Just kidding, this is a piece of cake compared to spending the night scouting a bug-free place to sleep. Our spirits are all high, seeing as the lab was finished today. The best computer in the lab, “the teaching computer,” also has internet! All is well on the island.

Madeleine

P.S. – Sorry about the lateness of these posts. Internet access has been terrible and I have spent literally 2 hours at the school today making sure I posted this so as to minimize worrying.

We are in the middle of our third rainstorm of the day. I think this one is the worst, but they all have been sudden and amazingly wet. Rain should be wet, but this rain is ridiculously wet.

Catherine wasn’t messing around this morning and decided to get everyone up 15 minutes earlier than normal because apparently we were a half hour late yesterday. We arrived in time to have to wait 15 minutes for the principal to arrive and open the door to the lab. Good call, Catherine. We didn’t start right on time, though, because we had to set up an adjacent room with laptops on desks so that a group of us could teach students and teachers how to use Microsoft Word while another group of us finished the main computer lab. Three networking cables we found not working because they had been cut all the way through by an ignorant worker. Those were redone.

The teaching room operated fantastically, and the students and teachers all know how to type, edit fonts, insert images, add WordArt, and operate basic Word functions like cut, paste, and undo. Skylar led the teaching and his Spanish turned out to be adequate enough for the Nicaraguans to follow.

Now is that fun time where I share with you the significance of the title. Until lunch we had a full crew of workers including all kids and chaperones. At lunch, Ben was not feeling well so Mike escorted him back to the Finca. It may need reiterating, so I’ll tell you that the Finca is about 2 miles away, uphill, from the school (although Bob’s original estimate was a half mile…). I did not go with them, but Mike reported to me that Ben was feeling so nauseous they had to stop every 100 yards to take a break and eventually caught a ride the rest of the way to the Finca. When the rest of us got back to the Finca, Ben was asleep. Soon, however, he would appear in the doorway of the room and say, “OK, we have a problem. I just threw up all over my bed.” Needless to say, the Finca workers had to clean up Ben’s bed. He then resituated himself in a hammock. He then threw up in the hammock. His next attempt at rest was on the wood floor of the deck of the Finca. This too he would throw up on, but we realized that if he pukes on the wood floor we can just hose it off. Ben is now sleeping with a blanket and pillow on the floor. The reason for Ben’s sickness can be inferred. Sometime into his puking, it was discovered that Ben has been drinking the tap water for 2 days now. Only one white person on the island had told us that the water is safe to drink, everyone else said, “DON’T DRINK THE WATER.” Well, Ben did, and that is what he has learned: don’t drink the water. Bob is also in bed at this point and the last time Mike tried to check on him, Bob wouldn’t stop talking (as Bob is known to do) so we assume he is getting better. Bob is the most optimistic person I have ever met.

Back at the school during the day, the crew struggled to connect all the computers to the network which we named Gucci 2 (named after the rapper Gucci Mane). Catherine had scheduled a mini soccer tournament in our lunch groups, but, due to fatigue and illness, we decided to postpone that and head to the Finca early instead. The lab is still not completely done, but we have the laptops that we can use to continue teaching while we continue finishing the lab. We are multitasking now in order to finish.

Part 2: It is now day 10 but I have to finish day 9 because I got sick in the middle of writing last night and went to bed. The only thing from last night to report is that after Jack, Skylar, and Punneh decided to sleep outside a few nights ago, the group of outside sleepers increased last night to seven. For us who stayed inside, it was a pain because the large group of people wouldn’t stop talking. Nikki got fed up and told everyone to be quiet, and I know Jack was not happy about losing his serene sleeping conditions. Ben and I both took one of Abe’s “mystery anti-diarrhea pills” last night to try and help our stomachs, but you don’t get to find out how everything turns out until I write the blog of day 10 tonight… Oh, the suspense.

No fumar por favor,

Will

Today, Catherine came into the man cave with the routine mission of waking up the slumbering beasts. Maneuvering through our piles of disgusting clothes, half-full glass soda bottles, and an astounding array of toiletries, she failed to wake us up on her first attempt. Like a ray of sunshine, she repeated this act four more times before Hannah picked up where Catherine had failed. Hannah confidently strolled into the pit of masculinity and burst into song. Somehow the men’s hearts were won and they crawled out of their mosquito nets one by one. Once we were all out of bed, we realized that we had a situation on our hands. Will was sick, and seemingly grumpy. We left him alone… Hannah and Jack also stayed at the Finca today nursing their sicknesses. All three are recovering and should be back in the field tomorrow.

The team hastily prepared for our trek to the school, when Abe realized he lost his shoes. In quite the situation, he commandeered Will’s flip-flops, mistake number one. As he left the room, Will gave him notice that they were sharp, and Abe ignored the caveat, mistake number two. Fast forward to our arrival at the school, and Abe discovered that the flip-flops were incredibly adept at removing skin, he desperately asked the rest of the crew for a spare pair of shoes, and Catherine was the only volunteer. A look of happiness turned discontent when he realized that they were size 5 women’s. He put them on his size 10 (mens) feet, and hobbled around for the rest of the day, yet another mistake. He claims they were comfortable; he probably just didn’t want to be made fun of anymore.

Once work was underway, we discovered that all of the kids were extremely tired and grumpy, possibly as grumpy as Will. We decided that letting the Nicaraguan students crimp our network cables without proper instruction (and a massive language barrier) was probably not the best idea. The entire morning was spent cleaning up the mess and redoing everything. Don’t worry, Sarah, any imaginable vacation would be far more enjoyable than this morning. Jubilance pounded us like the rain from a daily tropical storm. Fun. I think we all got to know each other a little bit better this morning, at least those that were capable of working. During our long day, we networked all of the computers, and configured 12 laptops for the teachers. During this process, we listened to a copious amount of No Ceilings, the infamous Lil’ Wayne mixtape, some Gucci Mane (who we, ironically, named our shared file folder for the network after), and our new favorite artist, Tha Joker.

We continued to work until 6, when we heard great news. We were going to get a ride back to the Finca on a bus. As we climbed on the bus, we surrendered to the seats, pushed down by our sense of accomplishment. Sure today was hard, but we got a heck of a lot done. Building character much? Abe, being the pro photographer that he is, managed to snap a few schnazzy shots around Balgue and on the bus. Peter, being the photo jocker that he is, is still showing the pictures to anything with a pulse, including the thousands of insects invading our dinner, and personal space… Abe. Punneh encountered a few in her food, and everyone was disturbed by her shrieks. We don’t understand how someone who chooses not to eat meat out of kindness to animals can hate beetles so much. Madeleine, the other animal lover, even threatened to slice a beetle in half.

We are blogging during dinner, and Peter is continuing to chow down on french toast. I don’t know why this is blog worthy, it is as routine as the sunrise. Every day, he is that one gringo who wants breakfast for dinner. The staff at the Finca are aware of this, and they know him by name when they approach him to ask if he will be continuing his tradition. The lady came over and tapped him on the shoulder before asking, “Peter, you have Pan Frances?”

As dinner came to a close, we started an endless crusade. We decided it was our job to solve the insect problem ourselves, and we starting the grueling battle to toss them all off the porch. There are two types of rampant animals on this island, stray dogs and beetles. Violence is prohibited when dogs are involved, but it’s fair game when bugs are the target. Jennifer is our expert bug wrangler, and everyone holds their breath as she daintily picks them up with a napkin and drops them over the railing. I’ve never seen such a refined technique when dealing with bugs. Catherine prefers a butter knife for the job. She just dropped one on Peter; I think he peed a little.

It’s going to be bed time soon, and everyone on the team needs it. Hopefully a night in the man cave will give the guys the rest they need. I’m sure the girls will do the same in their room of ponies, fairies, and whatever else they like.

Good night, and good luck.

Your guest bloggers for the night,

Abe and Peter

Last night, many people stayed up late because we didn’t have to get up early in the morning. During the night, Hannah got sick and threw up. In the morning, Abe got up early because he was not feeling well and he sat in a rocking chair with a trash can next to him because he thought he would puke. Abe took a mystery pill which his dad packed for him and it made him feel much better by breakfast. Hannah, however, didn’t get better in time, so she didn’t go on today’s adventures. Jack refused to wake up on time again, and when he finally got up he was too groggy and not feeling so hot, so he stayed back too. Mike decided to chill at the Finca just in case they needed anything.

The rest of us walked down to the main road to catch a bus to Charco Verde. Charco Verde is a beach that has some trails going away from it and a big pond. The bus ride was really long so we were only able to swim for a few minutes before going on a walk around the pond. We split into two groups at one point, and the half that I was in walked across this peninsula to a view point of part of the island and the lake. It was nice, but Nikki and I agreed that it was not worth the hike considering how exhausted we all were. Bob was always ready to get moving and wanted to fit as many things into one day as possible, so we decided to move on to a new beach.

The second beach we took the bus to was La Punta de la Peloma (The Point of the Dove). On the way, Scott, Bob, and Kate made a stop to get us some knock-off Doritos chips and watermelons. At the beach, Scott cut all the water melons into thirds and we all got a slice. While making our way to the actual beach part of La Punta de la Peloma, Ben took a side-trip to hold this man’s pet squirrel. I took some pictures and the squirrel started to get restless so the man had to take the animal back. He had already offered to sell Ben the squirrel to which Ben replied, “Well, what would I possibly do with it?” Needless to say, the Geyman’s will not be having a new pet squirrel.

La Punta de la Peloma is really cool because somehow there is this big pier-like formation of sand that juts off the beach. You can basically walk off the beach on this narrow sand walkway and walk for a long time without drowning. Eventually we were just standing out in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. It was pretty wacky and the current started getting strong and the waves got bigger, so we had to head back to dry land to avoid disaster.

The bus ride back was super long and I fell asleep and woke up multiple times. It was dark when we walked up the road to the Finca, and we were back right at dinner time. Ben set a new rule at the meeting we are having right now: “You may stay up for the rest of the 4th of July but you may not be awake on the 5th.” Basically midnight has been set as the curfew to try and avoid further sickness. We are also getting up early tomorrow since we are still behind in the lab-construction due to the whole tub scenario at the beginning. Hopefully we can start teaching the kids tomorrow. Oh, and Jennifer has remind us that tomorrow is malaria medication day! YAAAY!

Estoy muy cansado,

Will

P.S. – To my family: I miss you guys and I hope all is well. Also, I have decided that I want to get a fish.

P.P.S. – To Amy and the Geyman’s: Ben also wants a fish.

A Fourth of July Message from Madeleine

As a special gift on this joyous occasion, Will has finally given in to my begging and is letting me have my fifteen minutes of fame on this blog. He is making me hurry because the internet is working right now, but I’d like to say that despite the lack of patriotic barbecues and fireworks, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere other than Ometepe Island. Although moving here is not an option, because I’m too much of a daddy’s girl, I’d call this the best 4th of July I’ve ever had. I hope all is well back in Seattle and can’t wait to get off the plane in a place where it isn’t 234937248923 degrees. To mommy and daddy and sissy: I love you! Good night to all.

Madeleine