Kamila and Nicaragua

Kamila, our exchange student from Tajikistan of 10 years ago, joined us here last Wednesday. She has been living in California for a few years now, and is going to start the MBA program at Georgetown in the fall on practically a full fellowship. In the meantime, she has a break, and wanted to spend some time here with us.

I have to say, Kamila was less than impressed by our one-star accommodations in Monteverde, and we found a scorpion in the house on her first two nights with us. She did not like the number of spiders or millipedes either. Or the cold. Or the noise. It really sounds like birds are playing dice on the roof sometimes at night. The fact that the toilet still doesn´t flush didn´t bother her, nor did the lack of any other modern conveniences, but the bugs really got to her. She survived (barely) her first three days with us, and now we are in Nicaragua for a week in comparatively nice accommodations.

We are in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, while on break from school. Kamila, Kaz, and I are studying Spanish at a Spanish language school every morning from 8-12. We have the afternoons off, and as our house is blocks from the Pacific ocean, we have spent every afternoon so far at the beach. We share our house here with two other interns from the Cloud Forest School who also are here for the week. Another 8 interns are staying at another house the school owns, where we have all our meals and our classes. Our house is comfortable for us. Kamila and I have our own rooms with double beds, and the other two interns share a mattress on the floor of the living room. Kaz has a single mattress on the floor of the pantry area next to the kitchen. The pantry has a door with wooden bars that makes it look like a jail cell, so we call it his ¨Jaula" or cage. We could also call it his nest. He´s happy there.

When we first arrived, the toilet at our house did not flush. I don´t know what it is about us, but someone must not want us to have the luxury of a toilet that flushes this semester. Fortunately, this was fixed the second day, AND we were able to buy toilet paper, and though there is no hot water in the shower, it´s not freezing cold either. So, we are fine.

The weather here in Nicaragua is much warmer and drier than in Monteverde. It has rained every day, but not for long, and it´s pretty refreshing.

Today during our morning break from classes, Kaz went to the pier and bought a fish. He brought it back to the school and the woman who makes our meals helped him clean and fry it. Kaz insisted on cutting off the head and tail, but did not filet it or even remove the scales. It was actually a nice addition to our lunch- tasty and fresh. The teachers told him he´d paid too much for it, though. He paid $2.50, (would have cost at least $8 in the U.S.), but they said he could have gotten it for around 75 cents. Things are much cheaper here than in Monteverde.

Our Spanish classes are great. Kamila has her own teacher, and Kaz and one other student share a teacher. I also share a teacher with one other student. What a great student-teacher ratio. We are all learning a lot.

Gotta run, but I will try to post more information and some pictures when we return to Costa Rica on the weekend.