Roosters and Floods

Seven Roosters
Here, Kaz is holding a rooster that lived across the street from the Spanish school where we studied in Nicaragua last week.

Tuesday night, while in Nicaragua, I went to bed hoping to sleep until 7:00. The town of San Juan del Sur had different plans for me.
At 4:45, the roosters living right below our second-floor house began to crow. They crowed every 15 seconds for so long that I eventually became habituated to the noise and drifted in and out of sleep again, though at times it sounded like the roosters were having a contest to see who could crow loudest. At 6:00, one of the other intern’s’ alarm clocks went off. She hit the snooze button, then hit it again when it went off 5, 10, 15, and 20 minutes later. At 6:30, the church gong clanked loudly. How can I describe the noise? Well, it sounded like something between a gong and a huge cymbal. I later realized it was summoning the town to Ash Wednesday mass. There was no chance of sleep, so I gave up and got up.
Flood
When we arrived at the school/house, some of the interns staying there were sweeping and mopping the floor and did not say hello or look up from what they were doing. Thinking they were being really industrious and helpful, I shouted a jolly hello and started taking pictures. One of them said, “It’s not funny, and don’t take pictures.”
The story gradually unfolded of how, in the middle of the night, two of the interns had managed to break the sink off the wall in one of the two bathrooms. (Don’t ask- you don’t want to know, and I don’t want to incriminate anyone.) This flooded the bedrooms, threatening mattresses, travel bags, clothing and shoes on the floor. By some sort of divine intervention, the owner of the house dropped by just then and was able to turn off the water at the source. Nonetheless, it took awhile for everyone to sweep the water out of the house. No one could sleep due to the tumult and the awful odor- yes, there was vomit involved.
When the cook, Maritza, arrived in the morning, no one bothered to fill her in, so when she found the water wasn’t working in the kitchen, she went out back and turned on the main water valve. The house flooded all over again. Needless to say, our classes started a little late that morning. The Director of the Spanish Language School was furious, and everyone else was exhausted and irritable. Definitely not our best day.

Here, Kaz is saying goodbye to his Spanish teacher in Nicaragua. His teacher gave him a certificate and a wooden keychain with a sea turtle on it.
This is the front of the house where our Spanish classes were held. Yes, that's a rooster out front.