Bienvenidos a Nicaragua!

      Hola y bienvenidos to my first blog post of my Nica trip! For anyone that does not know, I'm in Jinotepe, Nicaragua right now until mid December. For the first month I'll be learning Espanol and travelling on the weekends. I'll spend the last 6 weeks of my trip volunteering at Jinotepe's regional hospital and health clinic... and still travelling on the weekends of course! I'm here through a Canadian based organization called "Volunteer Abroad", which you can check out at: www.basecampcenters.com.

         Jinotepe is the capital of the Carazo region, situated on the west coast of the country. The city and surrounding rural areas are home to 44,000 people. Jinotepe is about an hour from the nation's capital, Managua, and fairly close to exciting places to visit, such as Granada, Masaya and of course, the Pacific beaches! There are quite a few funny/different things I've noticed about life here so I'll make a list!

• Ad cars - these are cars with massive speakers on them that drive around advertising anything from funerals, to parties, and what's on sale at the supermarket. Ad cars are rather annoying if you ask me and even if I spoke fluent Espanol I highly doubt I would be able to understand a word they announce!
• Tortilla man - He is a guy that walks around selling tortillas and yelling out "Tortilla, tortilla!!". I've grown accustomed to him over the past week.
• Tip Top Restuarant - Tip Top is a chain of fast food restuarants. I have yet to be and I don't plan on going, but from others I have learned that there is a doorman and actual servers that take your order at your table and then the food right to you! Now that is service!
• Riding in the back of pick up trucks - Totally legal! and very common. Usually you will see a punch of people sitting or standing in the back. I had a chance to try it this weekend, though the truck was being using as a shuttle and had a roof and benches so it was a bit less sketchy. 
• Cheapness of things! - Well, compared to North America, most things are relatively cheaper here, especially transportation. I went to a city called Granada this past weekend (more on that later) which is about 45 minutes away from Jinotepe. Each way, the "minibus" aka modified van filled with as many people as they can get cost only 16.5 cordobas (Nica currency - which is even more colourful than Canadian dollars!), so it was about 75 cents.

         The house I'm staying in is a big, old, Colonial style house. Like all other showers in Central America that have hot water (not all do!) we have electric water heaters in the shower... the mixture of water and electricity is actually less sketchy than I had imagined, which is awesome. The house has a cat, Robbin, and she had kittens about a month or so before I arrived. There is a black one and a blonde one (my fav). Other than myself, there are 2 volunteers here right now, David and Matt. There are some more joining us in November so I'll have more travel buddies then. Thus far, the weather has actually been quite nice. Jinotepe is cooler than most of the country making it comfortably warm. October is still a part of the rainy season, however the rain has not been that bad since I've been here. It has mostly rained at night so I have yet to need my rain jacket. There is much much more I could say about the past week but there is not enough time. I will write about my trip to Granada soooon. Studying Espanol takes up most of my time... I'm pretty slow when it comes to language. Those of you that have played Mad Libs with me around know the deal haha. 

In the mean time, here are some pictures. More to come soon!! 

Mural in Jinotepe

Just a glimpse of some of the BEAUTIFUL plants here!

Ever seen that many flies in one spot? This was at the dump. Strangely located right behind the gorgeous cemetery.

One of the many, many statues in the cemetery. (All cemeteries here are elaborate and pretty)

Kitten! Inspired by kittens!

Gecko! These geckos are EVERYWHERE! I don't mind them though as they eat the flies and mosquitoes. Most geckos I have seen are about 4-5 inches long, but I saw a baby gecko last night that was only about an inch long!

Thanks for reading and I will write more soon!

Mary (or should I say Maria)