Everything is loco as usual in Nicaragua

Lots of updates from Nicaragua! I'm going to do my best to remember everything I want to share with you guys. First of all, I got back on Sunday from the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. Believe me when I say, it is a totally different country. Why? Well first of all, the Coast is an autonomous region in Nicaragua, which was an English protectorate for years and years. What does that mean? They speak ENGLISH! The majority of the people that live there are Creole and speak English, Spanish, and Creole English. The Coast is gorgeous and all they eat is seafood and coconut bread...so needless to say, I was in heaven. We got up really early on Wednesday morning and drove for about 7 hours, then where the roads end we got in a boat. We road in pongas (small boats) down the river for about 2 hours. I took a ton of pictures, and I will put them up the first chance I get.

We spent the first day in Bluefields, which is the capital of the region. Then the next day our group split in two and took pongas to two separate communities. I spent the next few days in Pearl Lagoon. Each day we had two charlas (chats) with different representatives from the community. We spoke with people from the government, teachers, NGOs, etc. It was really interesting, but just being in the community and walking around we learned a lot. The Coast has a huge drug problem, because drug traffickers from Columbia dump their cargo off the coast of Nicaragua when they are stopped by the Coast Guard and it ends up in Nicaraguan fishermen's nets. About 50% of Pearl Lagoon is addicted to crack. It was crazy to walk around. The town is extremely poor but you would be walking along and all of a sudden there would be a huge mansion. When we asked who it belonged too, the response was always...one day it just showed up, a fisherman caught something. The mansions belonged to the fishermen who found kilos of cocaine in the ocean and sold it back to the drug traffickers. We all had a great time though...swam in the ocean, ate great food, spoke English...what could be better?

Saturday we went back to Bluefields for our last night on the Coast. We learned how to do traditional Garifuna dance which was amazing, I'll be sure to teach everyone when I get home. Then Sunday morning Claire, Maddie, and I decided to go to church. They went to the Catholic mass and I went to the Anglican church. I was thrilled because the whole service was identical to home and in English, which made things much easier. The highlight though came at the end of the service. At this point Maddie and Claire were there too, because their service got out first. So we were all sitting in the back when it came time for announcements. The priest gets up at the podium and announces to the congregation of about 200, we have some visitors this morning! at this point everyone turns around to stare at the only blonde in the room. Then the priest asked us if we would please stand up and then proceeded to ask us to come to the front of the church. I was thinking at this point, okay I can handle this, he just wants to welcome us. We get to the front where he is waiting to ask us  a million questions like why are you in bluefields? are you episcopalian? whats your name? and then, here it comes. He turned to me and said, get up on the podium and say something to the congregation! If only you could have seen my face. He then made me, Maddie, and Claire all get up one at a time and say something into the microphone to the 400 eyes that were staring us down. It was great. One of the weirder things that has happened to me here. haha.

Anyways...Sunday night I had another amazing adventure. I went to a Black Eyed Peas concert! It was incredible. I figure not many people can say they saw Fergie in Managua, Nicaragua. It was so much fun! The concert was great, we rang in Claire's 22nd birthday which was yesterday, and sang along to Fergilicous and My Humps. Amazing.

So yeah, that's all I've got for now. Next Thursday I leave for El Salvador for a little over a week. So that's exciting. We are also starting to really work on our Independent Study Projects. I decided to research immigration to the US from Nica, the laws and process of immigration, how its changed since 9-11 and what effects this has had on the people here. I'm excited to get started but it's a bit stressful at this point. It's basically a thesis, in Spanish, and we all have to do extensive research and interviews. Wish me luck!

Te amo y te extraño!