"It´s like a giant game of red rover"

Last night, all I wanted to do was curl up at my house after dinner, listen to the rain and enjoy a quiet evening. Fortunately, Isabel Cristina convinced me to go out with the other US girls, which led to...

A series of highly ridiculous events. We started the night at this wine place right on the central park. The other girls apparently really miss "good" cheese, and this is the only place in town they´ve found that will serve a cheese plate. I´m ambivalent about the whole cheese situation. While we were enjoying our wine and brie, we noticed a marching band headed out way. That´s totally not unusual here since there are high school marching bands practicing at all hours of the day and night in all parts of the city. What we quickly realized was unusual about this band was that they were accompanied by dancers and all the musicians were covered in glitter. They ended up stopping at a stage about 2 blocks from us, so we walked over afterwards to see what was going on. It turns out this is just the beginning of a month long rev-up for the big carnival in August. Each city in Nicaragua celebrates their saint with huge parties. August 1-10 the party starts in Managua then moves this way, arriving in Granada on August 15, at which point the parades, bull running, drinking and dancing go strong for a few days and nights. But, of course, the high school bands have to start practicing now, and Miss Granada has to be crowned early.

We clearly didn´t fit in there since we were significantly older and more foreign than most of the crowd, but that didn´t stop us from somehow becoming part of the human barricade. The Nicas told us to interlock fingers and to not, under any circumstances, allow anyone from the crowd to break through and disturb the performers (hence the "giant game of red rover" comment). We all held hands and eventually the 5 of us got separated as more and more people pushed through. Imagine the pushiest crowd you´ve ever experienced, and then double the noise and the force. Eventually the Nicas decided we weren´t worthy of their barricade and we were literally carried away from the frontlines by the crowd. We ended up standing around and watching the band and dancers perform for awhile, then escaped to a nearby restaurant until the parade had moved on. We ended the night at a bar called Mi Tierra, where we were (pleasantly) the only foreigners and by far the worst dancers in the place.

Needless to say, we laughed a lot last night.

Today we were without both power and water for the morning. What do you do when there´s no power or water? Generally, you sit around your house and complain about how hot it is. You then go to your cousin´s house and complain about how bored and hot you are. Afterwards, you might go for a walk around town and buy some ice cream to console your sweating body. When you pass a house and notice their tv is on, you go home in hopes that the power has returned to your block as well. But don´t count on it.