To start from the very beginning, the characters of this narrative:
From St. Luke: Pastor Don, his daughter Kira, Laurie, her daughter Luci, Paul, his son Chris, Jennifer, her son Cody, Joy, Leif, my papa, and me;
From PML: amazing coordinator Meredith and equally amazing assistant Francisco in addition to other members of the Nicaraguan half of PML's board;
And all of our wonderful host families!
After months of preparing and, let's be honest, a day of packing, our group avowed to find each other in the airport at the beautiful time of 4:30am. We had a full day of travel ahead of us, and even though Dad's and my planned carpool with another family did not exactly work as planned, we all made it to the automated check-in kiosk for American Airlines in various states of consciousness, but at least with a reasonable amount of pre-boarding time. A few griped that nobody should have to be at the airport before its coffee shops opened, but there was a surprising amount of madness at the airport already, and we seemed to be at about the same pace as a huge pack of boy scouts who were swarming the check-in points. We all made it through security mostly unscathed (I, wearing a long skirt, had to endure the scarring experience of a right calf pat-down...), and waved to the family members who had come to see us off! As I had been away at college and had missed the majority of the orientation meetings, I was meeting a portion of our group for the first time, but that security threshold marked the point where we would have to abide in love and in each other as a collective for the next two weeks!
Everything went smoothly to get on our plane from Minneapolis to Miami, with the only tough thing that required brainpower for our group being, "Hmm, do I get coffee, or do I try to sleep?" Rough, especially when you are strangely hungry at 5am. I do not do coffee, and I may have gone slightly unorthodox, but turns out an hour and a half of sleep this time around was a pretty good idea so I functioned well enough in the airport and was awake for about the first ten minutes of the domestic plane leg. I had the fortune of waking up right when the beverage cart was at our row, had no idea what time I actually ate breakfast, semi-tried to watch the Eddie Murphy movie without sound on, and fell back asleep. Later in the Miami airport, it became the running joke that my dad was so intent on practicing his Spanish that he listened to the whole movie with the dubbed Spanish channel! Mhmm.
When we got to our gate in Miami, perhaps there was just a strange air, but a few things seemed off. We were supposed to be departing for our international flight within a relatively short period of time, yet most of our group did not have seats, there was nobody at the gate desk, the flight was apparently quite overbooked, and above all, it was pouring, which seemed to weigh everybody down. Eventually the gate computer flashed a delay in our flight, so we set about getting food (Asian and Italian for the crew anticipating a couple weeks of rice and beans), and then our kids played a few rousing rounds of spoons. Those still needing seats got to resolve that issue, and we thought all was well until boarding commenced and Don, the leader of our group, and his daughter Kira were still waiting for seats! We all tried to figure out if there was a way for two to trade seats with them so they for sure got on the plane (my dad and I could stay back because he could look out for me and I could figure out our way well enough with my Spanish if we had to take a later flight...), and at one point there was talk of the whole group just giving up our seats for the airline's cash incentive and a night in a hotel so the whole group could make sure we traveled together. But the airline convinced the rest of us to board so they could see if there were still seats left with that whole, "Raise your hand if you have an empty seat next to you" concept (aren't computers supposed to help you avoid that?), and we were all relieved seeing Don and Kira get on the plane a few minutes later.
I got a nice window seat next to a sweet Nicaraguan couple in their fifties, it was semi-awkward when I pointed to my seat and they just stared at me and motioned for me to crawl over them. Maybe it has just been a while since I have had a window seat next to strangers, or maybe it is just a cultural difference in terms of personal space, but from that moment on, it was "Alright, Nicaragua, here we go!" We sat right outside of the gate for a while as I alternated my focus watching droplets slide and race down the windowpane and the quick puddle formation on the cement beyond. The woman beside me was super nice, and I broke the ice by saying her nails were really pretty in Spanish. Her Spanish was very easy to understand, and she asked me about my purpose for going to Nicaragua and about my life as a student. I did not know how much to ask about her personal life, but I did find out she and her husband are Nicaraguan but live in New York and are going back to visit their family for three weeks. She commended my desire for wanting to practice Spanish, work with comunidades latinas, Latino communities, in the U.S., and visit más países, more countries, in Central America, and I got some good food recommendations from her (which I should have written down! oops). They were also visiting their daughter who lives in Miami en route to Nicaragua, and apparently it gets quite hot and humid there, while she prefers el clima of Nicaragua: hot but dry with scattered, refreshing afternoon showers.
And off we flew into the tormentas, the thunderstorms! I could see a few people on the beach, even in the stormy weather, and a bizarre coastline with inlets, lakes, and human-made oval islands connected by long bridges. I awoke to a customs form resting on my knee, and we had left the tormentas behind in Miami. Just beautiful blue and white, the colors of the Nica flag, to greets us with puffy cotton balls dotting the ocean below. Zooming closer to the far-off mountains, you can look down and see the lakeshore is pure, graceful hills that looked like they were covered in dark green corduroy surrounding the lagoon filled with agua dulce, freshwater, AKA Lake Nicaragua, the largest lake in Central America. So much green and red as you pass over civilization: trees and more trees and red roofs, and to me what seemed a surprisingly high forest to palm tree ratio. Gorgeous.
Our group reunited and went over last minute questions such as how specific to get with the Nicaragua address on the customs form when we definitely did not know our host families' addresses, nor if we should get any more specific than the city of León itself. But we unified our answers, and had a little fun with the Spanish-to-English translations of customs advice, such as: "Wash your hands with abundant water and soap for at least 20 seconds; Cover your mouth at coughing, sneezing in your elbow's fold or with a disposable towel..." Everything went smoothly through customs, except who knew you had to pay $10 to go through? Oh well, that happened here. The group stuck together magically well, and on the other side of the glass doors was an excitedly waving Meredith, our PML coordinadora and delegation leader! We had group introductions outside of the airport, where we were already sweating with the moist air awaiting our transportation, and then a group of the many uniformed men just sitting around sprang to help us load our bus, then asking for tips, of course. An eight-year-old boy with a huge scar across his neck also came to us with pleading eyes, which is one of the hardest parts of being a foreigner.
After that whirlwind our group regained composure and rejoiced in the air conditioning of the "microbus!" In the hands of our trusty chofer, José, we set out for Centro Kairos and our one-night stay in Managua.
And in our bus I learned:
- Gas is pretty expensive: try $4/liter! And there are about 4 liters to a gallon... so about $16/gallon?
- Most of the buses are imported from the U.S. 80's. Actually. Then they are painted over, usually with messages like "Todos nuestros esfuerzos son para Dios": "All of our efforts are for God."
- Beyond the vibrance of the buses, there are tons of vibrant murals and house colors even though a lot is run-down and made of a collection of available materials.
- Trash does not really go away, it is thrown on the side of the street, if you are lucky, in one pile formation, and then it is burned at some point. The state actually does not provide trash service, however it does have other focuses that do help the people and their well-being, which we will learn about later.
- There are plenty of seemingly random horses. Horses in a city?
- You can fit four people on one moto, one motorcycle.
- There are no sidewalks. People walk along the side of the highway to get to where they need to go.
- Lago Managua, Lake Managua, is dead because of decades of pollution, so property values are the opposite of what we Minnesotans would expect - the closer to the lake, the more desirable the property, right? Here, the further away from the lake you can get is more expensive because the lake itself is apparently pretty gross and unhealthy.
- Here they have two national beer brands and they drink chilled red wine - who knew?
- Nothing seems new, at least on our drive. Everything seems old, dirty, and reused. Make do with what you have!
- Kids play soccer on random dirt that could I guess be considered a field in between sides of the highway. Whatever works, right?
- Cemetaries are typically above ground and very colorful, and sometimes when you run out of space on a family plot, you slide one out to fit another one in!
- "Oh, look at that pretty, huge white building, what is that?" "Ahh, that would be our embassy." The flag was also at half-staff for the deadly Colorado shooting rampage at the Dark Knight Rises theater just two days before we left. So even from countries away, our hearts went out to those families again as we passed our embassy in Managua.
A few more of the sights:
I will save the history lesson from our coyuntura, an introductory juncture, and the rest of our Managua stay for the next entry, so I hope to keep your interest piqued!
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