well. here i am. sitting in my new room, in a house full of people i don't know, doing my best not to feel too awkward, can't remember anyone's name, of course, except chris and lily, whos room i have taken and who are moving out.
i can't help but keep looking around wonderingly at this room, which is mine, ALL MINE. I haven't had my own room since I was 19.
true affection floats.
I only have a few of my things. clothes. all my fancy dresses. The plug in my room is only three pronged and the adapter i bought doesn't seem to work, so i am expecting my computer to die any moment, which would leave me musicless and securityless.
at least i have harry potter, and a jesus en ti confio candle.
I think i may be seriously messing up my body by cracking my bones. and cashiering is only going to exacerbate things.
there is a volcano painted on the wall of my new room.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Thursday, November 27, 2008
and a side note: an excerpt from my email to asher
today is something along the lines of "miss leon" day here in Leon: but as backwords an event as you can only find in nicaragua: it´s participated in by girls from a specific catholic run college, and sponsored by victoria frost, a sort of new kind of beer (the two brands of nicaraguan beer, which EVERYONE drinks, are Toña and Victoria. Owned by the same company, of course. So Victoria frost is like a bit of a new novelty beverage- like clear pepsi or something). So basically, catholic school girls are gonna get dressed up slutty and drink beer for jesus. The main party is today but i guess it started last night; i went to bed and didnt see it, but apparently there were giant floats with giant animatronic santa clauses drinking victoria frost, and girls in heels and those giant brazillian headdresses.
I´m pretty excited about tonight.
I´m pretty excited about tonight.
lets talk money
i´ve found the cheapest internet cafe i´ve internetted in to date. 8 cordoba an hour, or 40 cents. They also advertize 4 cordoba cocacolas (yes, that´s 20 cents!) I mean yes you CAN get a 5 cent coke in Barton, VT, but it´s also about the same size as a double shot.
I´ve been thinking about wanting to make a list of things you can get for one cord (5 cents). So far here is my list:
1.a plastic bag full of blessedly cold purified water.
2.a box of matches.
3.a banana (or sometimes two small ones) from a street vendor.
4.a hug from the street kid that sells hugs for one cordoba in the park.
that´s as far as my list goes. but still, not bad, right? for 4 cordobas you could have your hunger and thirst quenched, light your way and get a hug. I love this country!!
I´ve been thinking about wanting to make a list of things you can get for one cord (5 cents). So far here is my list:
1.a plastic bag full of blessedly cold purified water.
2.a box of matches.
3.a banana (or sometimes two small ones) from a street vendor.
4.a hug from the street kid that sells hugs for one cordoba in the park.
that´s as far as my list goes. but still, not bad, right? for 4 cordobas you could have your hunger and thirst quenched, light your way and get a hug. I love this country!!
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
inspired by joe: people i´d like to visit around the country
we´ll travel east to west.
dee in boston.
joe and cristina in new york city.
grandpa in ashville.
melissa and libby in new orleans.
asher in indiana.
zach in iowa.
jon in colorado.
colleen in whatever the name of that town is near sacramento.
george in santa barbara.
molly, ben and mike in los angeles.
this country is too damn big
dee in boston.
joe and cristina in new york city.
grandpa in ashville.
melissa and libby in new orleans.
asher in indiana.
zach in iowa.
jon in colorado.
colleen in whatever the name of that town is near sacramento.
george in santa barbara.
molly, ben and mike in los angeles.
this country is too damn big
Friday, November 21, 2008
leon leon leon!
dudes,
i had the best day today, srsly! it was great. And it´s only 4:12 in the afternoon.
I went to spanish school in the morning, which is finally getting fun because i now am familiar with all fourteen (14!!!) of the spanish tenses. So now it´s mainly just review, trying to cement it all in my mind. My teacher isn´t as good as my teacher in granada, but she gives me a shit ton of homework which is real good for my memorization. I´m getting it down. I think i now know when to use por and when to use para a good 80% of the time! and that is saying something.
then i went back to my hostel and fed myself, which was lovely, and drank a beer because they only cost a dollar even from a hostel and it just goes so well with beans and rice. And, it´s friday! woo! and then i went with danny to the entomology museum, which was so so cool. 50 cents to get in and it´s really a research station, or office or whatever, with tons and tons of nicely displayed specimens. And then the head researcher guy came out and told us all about everything, and took out a giant ass beetle and let me hold it! this thing was bigger than my palm, i am telling you. It was sweet.
Then i took an awesome bucket shower, so now i feel clean and amazing.
Leon kinda rules. Granada was great, prettier, but Leon is a much bigger city and is more vibrant. The violent protests are dying down, generally just a few rounds of shooting mortars into the air every night, no real marches or riots or anything. Which is a bit of a relief. Also I have friends here, including this 20 year old swedish girl sophie who kisses all the nicaraguan boys and then wonders why they follow her around all the time, begging her to be their girlfriend.
On a street near my guesthouse (which is also awesome, by the way, and i´m paying $4 a night for a nice, really comfortable bed. also the place has a sweet courtyard with a giant grapefruit free, and a huge stack of pirated dvds, and a kitchen AND a refrigerator) there are something like 5 used clothing stores. there are a lot of used clothing stores in nicaragua, which is awesome. clothes generally go for around 10 cords a piece, or 50 cents. I keep buying things from this one awesome one, and then cutting them up to sew on things. Today i bought this silklike scarf with dogs heads in pink, aquamarine, and brown. it is great.
so yes. I love nicaragua. I am sad to leave as i am sure my real life will be dissapointing, but of course there are a few people that i cannot wait to be in the same room with again, and that should be really, really nice as well.
this sunday i´m going to leon viejo, or old leon, which is much closer to the volcano and was destroyed in, yes, you guessed it, a volcano eruption. Now it´s a cool old antiquey ruins you can go visit. AND, on the way, you change busses in the town where they INVENTED the quesillo, the best nicaraguan food EVER. I feel i may have already discussed quesillos, but i can´t remember, so i´ll talk about em again:
flour tortilla, a big dollop of mozarella like cheese, grilled onions. all cooked on a special sort of stove that makes em hot and delicious instantly, and served with sour cream and homemade salsa. fuck yeah. and quesillo places generally specialize in cacao as well, the best drink nicaragua has to offer: milk mixed with ground up cacao beans, and sugar. Shit that stuff is good.
Another thing about nicaragua which is awesome is the aprons. All the people who sell food on the street (which is like, 30% of the population) wear these distinctive, incredebly frilly aprons to keep their money in. Most of the people cooking on the street are woman, but some are men, and they wear the frilly aprons too. Earlier today I saw a buff dude with a shaved head and, yes, a pink frilly apron on. I know i´ve been here a long time because I didn´t even notice until danny giggled and said "lookit that guys apron".
alright, enough for now.
i fly back in two weeks.
it´s gonna be weird.
e
i had the best day today, srsly! it was great. And it´s only 4:12 in the afternoon.
I went to spanish school in the morning, which is finally getting fun because i now am familiar with all fourteen (14!!!) of the spanish tenses. So now it´s mainly just review, trying to cement it all in my mind. My teacher isn´t as good as my teacher in granada, but she gives me a shit ton of homework which is real good for my memorization. I´m getting it down. I think i now know when to use por and when to use para a good 80% of the time! and that is saying something.
then i went back to my hostel and fed myself, which was lovely, and drank a beer because they only cost a dollar even from a hostel and it just goes so well with beans and rice. And, it´s friday! woo! and then i went with danny to the entomology museum, which was so so cool. 50 cents to get in and it´s really a research station, or office or whatever, with tons and tons of nicely displayed specimens. And then the head researcher guy came out and told us all about everything, and took out a giant ass beetle and let me hold it! this thing was bigger than my palm, i am telling you. It was sweet.
Then i took an awesome bucket shower, so now i feel clean and amazing.
Leon kinda rules. Granada was great, prettier, but Leon is a much bigger city and is more vibrant. The violent protests are dying down, generally just a few rounds of shooting mortars into the air every night, no real marches or riots or anything. Which is a bit of a relief. Also I have friends here, including this 20 year old swedish girl sophie who kisses all the nicaraguan boys and then wonders why they follow her around all the time, begging her to be their girlfriend.
On a street near my guesthouse (which is also awesome, by the way, and i´m paying $4 a night for a nice, really comfortable bed. also the place has a sweet courtyard with a giant grapefruit free, and a huge stack of pirated dvds, and a kitchen AND a refrigerator) there are something like 5 used clothing stores. there are a lot of used clothing stores in nicaragua, which is awesome. clothes generally go for around 10 cords a piece, or 50 cents. I keep buying things from this one awesome one, and then cutting them up to sew on things. Today i bought this silklike scarf with dogs heads in pink, aquamarine, and brown. it is great.
so yes. I love nicaragua. I am sad to leave as i am sure my real life will be dissapointing, but of course there are a few people that i cannot wait to be in the same room with again, and that should be really, really nice as well.
this sunday i´m going to leon viejo, or old leon, which is much closer to the volcano and was destroyed in, yes, you guessed it, a volcano eruption. Now it´s a cool old antiquey ruins you can go visit. AND, on the way, you change busses in the town where they INVENTED the quesillo, the best nicaraguan food EVER. I feel i may have already discussed quesillos, but i can´t remember, so i´ll talk about em again:
flour tortilla, a big dollop of mozarella like cheese, grilled onions. all cooked on a special sort of stove that makes em hot and delicious instantly, and served with sour cream and homemade salsa. fuck yeah. and quesillo places generally specialize in cacao as well, the best drink nicaragua has to offer: milk mixed with ground up cacao beans, and sugar. Shit that stuff is good.
Another thing about nicaragua which is awesome is the aprons. All the people who sell food on the street (which is like, 30% of the population) wear these distinctive, incredebly frilly aprons to keep their money in. Most of the people cooking on the street are woman, but some are men, and they wear the frilly aprons too. Earlier today I saw a buff dude with a shaved head and, yes, a pink frilly apron on. I know i´ve been here a long time because I didn´t even notice until danny giggled and said "lookit that guys apron".
alright, enough for now.
i fly back in two weeks.
it´s gonna be weird.
e
Thursday, November 13, 2008
occurences
a few days ago a girl wouldnt let me try on a dress in a shop. She shook her head at me vaguely. When I asked why, she said, looking at me disdainfully "...you`ll get it dirty".
i hit a guy yesterday. Boys hiss at you constantly but it`s not too hard to ignore all but the most insistent ones (which is half of them). However, sometimes they touch you, too, and when you`re wandering down the street lost in blissful thought this can be really, really jarring. This seems to have increased in frequency lately (or maybe the boys in granada are just especially bad) and one morning it happened and i got so fed up i told myself "the next guy that touches me is gettin hit". And so he did. And so i did. He ran from me at first, but we were in a relatively crowded market street and lots of people were watching, and i think he thought he would look like a wuss running from some little foreign girl, so then he stopped and sort of took it for a second before disappearing into an autoshop or something.
the back of the packs of matches all have some drawings of ducks and then a line and some drawings of chickens. This was a bit of a mystery to me for a while. At first i thought it was akin to the drawing contests one often sees on packs of matches in the us. then i read the phrase, also on the back, "Al darlo a los niños, asegurese que la caja este vacia". meaning, essentially: "If you give it to kids, be sure that the box is empty". the plot thickens. Finally I asked my spanish teacher what the deal was. He looked at me like i was a bit of an idiot and said "its a domino". I looked closer. Suddenly it was so obvious! Dominoes! and what a useful use for empty math boxes. Also, I noticed that on the other side of the pack from the kid warning, it said "Dominó de Animales". I think i just assumed domino must mean something different in spanish than in english.
here, if i show my knees, i get hit on twice as much. However, i have noticed that women, especially older women, very often wear blouses that are either so thin or so pale (or both) that you can easy make out every detail of their bra. color, pattern, creases, everything. Why is this cool but me showing a bit of knee screams "i am a whore"?
today was my last day of spanish class in granada. this week i learned preterite, imperfect, future, condicional, subjunctive perfect and subjunctive imperfect, indirect and direct object substitutions, the real difference between ser and estar and por and para. My brain hurts, now. however, at the end of class today i had my teacher teach me some good things to say to the creeps on the street who hiss as me.
por ejemplo:
jogete (fuck you)
vete al diablo (go to hell, apparently worse than fuck you in this catholic country)
hijueputa (son of a bitch)
or, if one of them calls ME puta, i can say...
"mas puta que to madre no puedo hacer" (I couldn´t be a bigger bitch than your mother)
of course, when a fat dude whipped out his penis and started rubbing it in front of me a few minutes ago, all of these phrases managed to slip my mind.
there are a lot of street dogs here, it is pretty sad. this is true everywhere, though. but today over breakfast i heard an american lady explaining to some other american dude how she had sent 7 or 8 street dogs to the united states to live with rich people. This costs around $800, she said, after shots and all that. But then they get to live with people who have private tennis courts. One one level i find this romantically pleasurable: the dogs do have shit lives here, and it is nice to think of them being happy and well fed with some rich people. On the other hand, there are plenty of suffering dogs on the street in the united states, too. It seems a bit misguided to spend almost a thousand dollars rescuing one from here, but i guess when you are rich you can spend your money however the hell you want.
tomorrow i´m off to leon. Leon is like the rival of granada, a little like sf and la, i guess. Both have colonial architecture and...um...tourists? I am not sure exactly where the fight stems from, but there you are.
here, if i show my knees, i get hit on twice as much. However, i have noticed that women, especially older women, very often wear blouses that are either so thin or so pale (or both) that you can easy make out every detail of their bra. color, pattern, creases, everything. Why is this cool but me showing a bit of knee screams "i am a whore"?
today was my last day of spanish class in granada. this week i learned preterite, imperfect, future, condicional, subjunctive perfect and subjunctive imperfect, indirect and direct object substitutions, the real difference between ser and estar and por and para. My brain hurts, now. however, at the end of class today i had my teacher teach me some good things to say to the creeps on the street who hiss as me.
por ejemplo:
jogete (fuck you)
vete al diablo (go to hell, apparently worse than fuck you in this catholic country)
hijueputa (son of a bitch)
or, if one of them calls ME puta, i can say...
"mas puta que to madre no puedo hacer" (I couldn´t be a bigger bitch than your mother)
of course, when a fat dude whipped out his penis and started rubbing it in front of me a few minutes ago, all of these phrases managed to slip my mind.
there are a lot of street dogs here, it is pretty sad. this is true everywhere, though. but today over breakfast i heard an american lady explaining to some other american dude how she had sent 7 or 8 street dogs to the united states to live with rich people. This costs around $800, she said, after shots and all that. But then they get to live with people who have private tennis courts. One one level i find this romantically pleasurable: the dogs do have shit lives here, and it is nice to think of them being happy and well fed with some rich people. On the other hand, there are plenty of suffering dogs on the street in the united states, too. It seems a bit misguided to spend almost a thousand dollars rescuing one from here, but i guess when you are rich you can spend your money however the hell you want.
tomorrow i´m off to leon. Leon is like the rival of granada, a little like sf and la, i guess. Both have colonial architecture and...um...tourists? I am not sure exactly where the fight stems from, but there you are.
Friday, November 7, 2008
hurricane paloma
is just about to make it rain here. like, a lot, i think.
I´m actually fairly excited because it hasn´t been raining hardly at all.
i´m considering moving back to santa cruz....
rather than san francisco
so i can work at new leaf just for 6 months
and then take off again.
I do really want to work at rainbow, but
they will need a commitment
and i won´t be able to come hang out in nicaragua for months and months
which i think i might really want to do.
it´s just fucking impossible to know what i really want.
except it´d be reeeal nice to have a friend here. crap.
I´m actually fairly excited because it hasn´t been raining hardly at all.
i´m considering moving back to santa cruz....
rather than san francisco
so i can work at new leaf just for 6 months
and then take off again.
I do really want to work at rainbow, but
they will need a commitment
and i won´t be able to come hang out in nicaragua for months and months
which i think i might really want to do.
it´s just fucking impossible to know what i really want.
except it´d be reeeal nice to have a friend here. crap.
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