My weekend in Nicaragua

So weird that I'm watching Linkin Park's new video for "Burning in the Skies" right now.  It's the first time I've seen it, and I'm in Nicaragua.  Turns out (at least during training) that I may not miss out on everything US.  That's only cause my family has cable TV, and my sister and brother watch music videos a lot.  No complaints here!  Turns out I may also get to see "Pirates" 4, if I'm lucky.  Let's keep our fingers crossed people!

So yesterday our whole ag group met at an INTA training site (Instituto National de Technologia Agropecuaria) which is our ag counterpart while we're here as volunteers. Check out my shutterfly page, I posted all the pics from yesterday.  We learned how to start a compost pile, build different types of fences, and how to plant various types of seeds.  It was nice to actually get out and do something physical for once.  So many people got sunburned!  But not me!  I was prepared with my sunscreen (don't worry Mom!).  We planted some more delicate seeds (tomatoes and peppers) to bring home to take care of before planting in our garden in our neighborhood.  This week we're also going to officially meet with our youth group to start brainstorming on a product to make and commercialize.  I'm totally nervous about this.  My Spanish is not nearly good enough to be leading youth groups on commercialization projects!  I've never even done this myself, let alone had to teach it to others!  So it'll be interesting. 

Today (like in 30 minutes) my family's house is hosting a political neighborhood get-together outside in the street.  Should be interesting.  My mom said she's expecting like 100 people, so I've got to get my act together to start talking to more people and introducing myself.  I've got integrate!  That's like one of the biggest goals PC pushes on us to accomplish.  No pressure. 

On a lighter note,  I took a dance class last Thursday!  Turns out that the house directly behind me is a dance studio, and has classes everyday for kids and adults.  So Paige and I went to one last week to see what it was all about.  I guess there's a guy that comes down from Managua to teach.  The class was not what I'm used to.  I'm used to some kind of warm-up, a lesson on some kind of choreography to a particularly popular song of the times, and then a warm-down.  Not the case here.  It was more like an aerobics class, where he just danced in front of the class and everyone followed him, doing the same moves to each of the 5 songs that were on repeat like 3 times.  Don't get me wrong, it was a lot of fun, I liked the moves (a lot of salsa-style stuff in place with some other  fun twists and turns and rolly hip stuff), he could dance REALLY well, and the music was totally fun.  I'm just hoping that other days he switches it up a bit.  We, of course, were the only non-locals there, totally discustingly sweating all over the place, while everyone else seemed just fine.  It was pretty funny.  Half way through the class he told us to come up to the front, so we had to dance side-by-side with him!  Basically making everyone stare at the white girls who came to visit.  Well get used to it ladies!  I'm going to go more.  We actually went again the next night, but after an hour of waiting for people to show up (I forgot to mention that no one's really on time to anything here) we just left cause we had to get up early the next day, and our families were probably holding up dinner for us.  We've been told by PC staff that showing up late 15 minutes is actually considered being on time, and so people will generally show up 30 min late, since to them that's right about on time.  I have a feeling that's gonna drive me crazy.  It's one of the many things I'll have to become accustomed to. 

More later. . .