Friendship and school buses

First of all, I get the feeling that a fair number of people are worried about me being lonely here. Just to put your fears at rest, let me explain what I´m learning. Every day, I´m forced to redefine "friendship". At home, my friends are the 10 or so people I see regularly and make an effort to hang out with. And at home, I´m pretty stingy with who I apply the term "friend" to, because it´s a heavy word to me. Here, though, I have to let that go. Because right now, my friends include Marjan (my dutch friend), Derica (my 16 year old "cousin" who´s so fun to talk to), my host family (none of whom are within 8 years of my age), Elsa and Claudia (the daycare employees) and random children I meet on the street. The thing is, though, every time I get so lonely I can´t stand it, I end up hanging out with Marjan and laughing a lot, or talking to Derica for an hour, or laughing at the ridiculous things the 4 year old Marie Esther says. So every day I wake up and wonder how I´m going to make it through being so alone, and every day I lie down exhausted from being with so many people.

Speaking of Marie Esther, here are some fantastic things that have come out of her mouth:
"You can´t be named Catharine, I´m Catharine!" (for the record, Catarina is one of the characters on Patito Feo)
"Do you want me to go with you to the bathroom? I always accompany my friends to the bathroom." (This one was actually directed at Cristina. Who, by the way, has lost all fear of me and screams CATHY-LEEN, which is the closest she can get to my real name, when I come home. Lesbia also uses me as leverage at meals times now, as in "If you don´t stop throwing your rice on the ground Catharine won´t want to eat with you anymore.")
"Catharine, your hair makes a circle around your head. Why is that?" (It´s because the humidity is probably at 80% and I sweat from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Lay off.)
"Look, my doll´s cheeks are red like Catharine´s!" (Well... yeah.)

Marjan and I just got back from Masaya, which is a town about 30 minutes from Granada. It´s known as the crafts central of the country. In the states, if you want to go somewhere, you drive your car. In Argentina, you buy a bus ticket at the station. In Nicaragua, you stand on a street corner until an old American school bus comes barrelling by. When the man hanging out the door screams MASAAAYYAAA, or wherever you´re headed, you run after the bus and take a flying leap through the back door, praying to God you don´t land on any of the sweet old ladies who are taken their baskets full of fruit, blankets, etc to the market.

I liked Masaya a lot. I´d heard it was touristy, but I think that means touristy with the Nicas, because I only saw about 5 other foreigners during the 6 hours we were there. I bought a hammock for 13 dollars, and although that´s probably more than I should have paid, I didn´t see the point in haggling over the price for much lower than that. We also walked around and saw one of the neighborhoods where they make a lot of the hammocks. At one point we were wandering around iglesia San Jeronimo, which used to house the patron saint of Masaya until it was destroyed by an earthquake in 2000. We got in good with the cleaning people, who let us see the inside of the church, and when we came out 2 men had appointed themselves as our guides and spent about half an hour with us explaining the history of the church, its restoration and the festivals surrounding the culture in Masaya. They then took us to see the statue of San Jeronimo, which, if I´m translating correctly, was about the only statue not destroyed in the earthquake (sign from God?). After our guides released us, we made our way back to the market and hunted down a return bus for Granada. I was nervous about travelling here, since it´s a little less organized that I´m used to, but today was so smooth in that chaotic south american way that I feel way better about being by myself in July. Although, if anyone wants to come hang out with Nicaragua and Honduras with me, I wouldn´t say no.

Other than that, things are good here. My Spanish is decent but not awesome. For some reason I´ve decided to forget the difference between imperfect and preterite, as well as the difference between very basic words like "to go" and "to come". But hopefully each day is an improvement, and at least I know I can´t get any worse while I´m here. There is a group of high schoolers from Austin at the daycare this week, and I end up translating for them a lot, which is actually fun in a twisted "my Spanish is better than your Spanish" kind of way. Maybe I´d like to lead service trips when I get out of college for awhile...?

Finally, yesterday was Isabel Cristina´s 55th birthday. She had about 8 of her friends over, and when I returned home after class I heard what sounded like a chorus of dying cats coming from my house. It turns out that 55 year old Nica women really enjoy karaoke. And I really enjoyed watching them.