A public apology, a lake and a complaint

Dear neighborhood,

Sorry I yakked on the sidewalk. Twice. Thanks for all standing around watching me from your front porches. Thanks for not judging me after I stood up and managed to squeak out "Good evening, everyone..." Sorry for disturbing the peace. Thanks also to whoever washed the bushes down with a bucket of water before I had time to do it myself. It won´t happen again.

So, yes, Friday night between the hours of 8 p.m. and 3:30 a.m., I managed to puke 8 times. It was pretty gross. But fortunately, Saturday was...

Beach Day!!! (Points to anyone who caught that Office reference. Or the reference to the "beach day" Cotrupi, Heidi and I enjoyed back in May over in 6 Mile.) Anyhow, there´s this really beautiful lake about an hour from Granada called Laguna de Apoyo. The laguna itself is set into a crater (which is, incidentally, the lowest point in Central America) and surrounded by beautiful forest. There are problems with too much construction going on but they´ve still managed to preserve a lot of the area. I went with 5 other girls to spend all day Saturday, Saturday night and Sunday at a hostel called The Monkey Hut. We swam for about 3 hours in the beautiful water, and then when it started raining I crawled into a hammock and read/slept (mostly slept) for the next 24 hours. Sometimes I changed hammocks or crawled into our dorm to grab a pack of soda crackers, which were all my stomach could handle at that point. The stars came out that night and the other girls hung out on the dock for awhile with a couple of Nicaraguans they met. Walking was kind of rough for me, though, so I stayed in my hammock and had a completely peaceful time. Essentially, it was the perfect place to spend my post-vomit day. Sunday morning was sunnier so we swam then, too, and hung out and read and had a really tranquil day until the bus came by around 11. I definitely needed a quiet weekend away from the city and all its noise and dirt, and Laguna de Apoyo was so perfect.

Next weekend will be my last weekend in Granada before I head off on my great exploration of the Nicaraguan/Honduran countryside.

Now for the complaint: my volunteer position just hasn´t been what I expected or wanted. I was told I´d be working with teenage girls and I ended up in the daycare. This is hard for several reasons, not the least of which being that I just don´t really like kids that small. Beyond my personal irritation, though, it´s incredibly hard emotionally because I´m starting to get invested in a lot of these kids, and the chances that they´ll be stuck in the poverty cycle are pretty high. Which is hard to take, especially when I´m leaving in a month to go back to my life of comfort. Also, I feel like rather than changing the situation, I´m just here to change diapers and pick them up when they cry and then 6 weeks later I peace out and nothing is different. I know they need this kind of help, but somehow I want to do more. I want to do something more permanent. I´m not very eloquent right now. A few other girls I´ve met are involved in projects with women´s rights or health organizations. It´s hard not to get a little bitter that I´m not doing something similar. I´m learning a lot about stuffing my pride into a corner.

Today when I asked one of the high schoolers I tutor in the afternoons if she wanted to get married, she laughed and said, "No, I´ve seen the problems of the world." She said she´s seen what bad marriages look like, and it was hard to find a man who was honest and who wouldn´t hurt you. Keep in mind, she´s 15. And she´s seen the problems of the world. She´s also teaching me how to play the guitar.