Day 5

This morning, we went to an English church in Managua. The service started at 8:30 and ended about an hour and a half later. Everything about the service was similar to worship at my church back home. Dress was casual, the singing contemporary, and the Pastor gave a great sermon from Hebrews and incorporated a clip from the movie, “Chariots of Fire”. After church, we took a ride back and had lunch. The food has been wonderful so far. We have had great flavored pork, chicken, and beef with rice and beans. The fruit and vegetables have been so good as well. In the afternoon, we packed up our things and took the van to meet our host families at the church. For snack we had Nicaraguan tacos. They were basically fried tortillas with cheese, chicken, sour cream, and lettuce. They were good, but not what I would consider a snack. They had a Nicaraguan musician come in and sing a few songs. I could not believe that they took vans down the street that the church was on. There were people selling things everywhere. There may have been about four or five inches on each side of the van—tops.

My host mother is a single mother in her 40’s. I have two married host sisters and a host brother. Both my host mother and sister stood up to greet me. when I met them  It was funny because my host mother is barely 5 feet tall and I am over 6 feet. They introduced me to their family at the table and they began asking me questions. I don’t think they understood how little Spanish that I spoke and understood. The first four questions that they asked me, I didn’t even know how to answer. My favorite phrase today was “No entiendo”.  I did my best, and they started to slow down their words and use more actions. Within a few hours of meeting my host family, I could tell that my Spanish improved a lot. I am excited to start Spanish class and learn more conjugations…currently everything is in present/future tense, although I am trying really hard to match the verb with the subject.

 

I found out that my host brother has a “moto”. So guess who showed up to orientation on Monday morning on the back of a motorcycle. Good guess J I also tried to explain that I was a lifeguard at the pool (fail), I finally found a picture to show her, and I found out that my host brother is a lifeguard at the ocean. My host sister and brother are taking classes at the University. It is crazy to me that public universities in Nicaragua are free!

The room that I am staying in is about 10 x 15 feet. The floor is red cement, and the walls are a blue uneven cement block. It has a (Nicaraguan) full size bed, a dresser/closet, and a small desk, and the best part ---a fan! I have one outlet, and I brought a surge protector outlet. Because of the size of my charger boxes, I can only charge one thing at a time, so I’m rotating through my devices. My host mom invited me to put my water bottle in the fridge (which honestly made my week) because I really don’t like drinking warm water. It is really interesting to me that there is an opening in the hallway of the house, and when it rains (everyday) there is SO much rain running through the hallway of the house.

I gave my host family peanut butter, an American calendar, and UNO for a gift. They immediately opened the game, and we played about ten rounds of UNO. It was fun, but I was getting really tired of it by the time that we finished. For the record, I successfully explained the game in Spanish.

So far, our entire group of girls from the US agreed that we did not expect how dressy Nicaraguan women are. It was very difficult knowing what to pack. I am most comfortable in shorts and a tank, but most women here do not wear jean shorts or tank tops. I am glad that I brought so many skirts and dresses because it is really too hot to wear much else.