Nica week 4

Geplaatst op 19 mei 2018 om 21:16 uur

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Be prepared, this week was a messy one. For the people who haven’t heard or read about it, the Dutch ministry of foreign affairs changed the traveling advice for Nicaragua to code orange (which means don’t go there unless it’s highly necessary). More and more roads are being blocked by protesters. The Nicaraguans hold more anger towards the president each day. There are still people dying every week, but sadly enough this is mostly peaceful protesters getting shot by the police… For the people who are worried, I am still in Granada, which is the most “tranquilo” city of all the bigger cities in Nicaragua. The worst places to be are in the north; Managua, Masaya, Léon and all the others further north. This partly has to do with the history of the country, but Granada is also a place where many tourists go. Since this is the biggest income of this country, you can imagine that they don’t want to look like an unsafe place, so in Granada basically nothing happens aside from people marching the streets sometimes.

This is of course a positive thing, but it is also so incredibly confusing. It’s like I’m living in a bubble where everything is nice and good, while it’s all but good on the outside. I know that the situation is bad from what I hear and read (from reliable sources, because many of them aren’t) but I haven’t seen a thing. So these drastic measures of changing to code orange which means that some of the other Dutchies have to leave the country just feels so shitty. I know, safety first, but still…

Anyway, latest is that the President didn’t show up at the last dialogue and later sent the church to tell the people that he will not step down. They then came to the agreement for an “armistice” (if that’s the right word) for two days. After that it’s said that they will talk again, but “talking” didn’t solve anything in the last 4 weeks, so why would it change something now. Again, we’re just going to wait out what happens on Monday and I’m not making any rushed decisions about leaving the country yet. As much as this is bothering me, I love volunteering and I love traveling and being my independent self (I really give myself credit for that, haha).

Because of all this my week at the school was a bit messy as well. Not many kids came to school because the public schools are closed for safety reasons. That’s why they think that we’re closed as well. It was still fun though, because the little kids are just the cutest and the older kids I get along with pretty well. The teacher wasn’t there this week, and on Monday the other volunteer had a day off as well. So, I was asked to do the Zebra class (older kids) on my own that day. That made me a little nervous because my Spanish is ok, but not great. But I just didn’t have the heart to cancel these kids’ class, so I did it. I thought; oh well, they will get math problems again anyway and I can help them with that. Well, I thought wrong, they got Spanish language exercises. They all forced their paper into my face saying “iek, iek, iek!” for me to check their answers and I was so lost!!! They are super sweet but man, they are not patient. Finally, another teacher came in to help me out a little and I told the kids that if they were finished I would just check if they had done everything and that they had to check it with their teacher when he got back. So, the next day I asked for math problems, that worked out a lot easier (lol).

This weekend I’m staying in Granada, even though it should be calm. I just don’t want to risk anything and besides, Granada isn’t the worst place to be. This way I get to spend some time with the other Dutchies as well, before they have to leave. We went out for dinner last night and we’re going to have a bbq and some drinks tonight.  

By the way, it is for sure the rain season now. Every night from 7 or 8 pm the rain comes pouring down. It’s nice because it cools everything down a little and it means that very soon a lot of people and animals have plenty to eat again. It’s just a little inconvenient when I’m not home yet. Everyone goes inside, including taxi’s, so I’m lucky to find one that takes me home in the rain. The taxi service is really great here by the way, they take you anywhere within Granada for 50 to 66 dollar cents.  

I really hope this week things will calm down a little and until then I’m just going to be as careful as I can. Only five more weeks to go…

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