In Nicaragua, the people are fond of saying ¨Hay Que Aprovechar,¨ which Jay-Z would probably translate as ¨You take advantage of the luck you handed¨ (100 awesomeness points for you if you can name the track without looking it up online). For me, luck in July constituted having about eleven actual school days interspersed with teacher work days for the end of the semester, a week of vacation, 2 days off to celebrate the Revolution, a day off for Students´ Day, and three days spent at a training in Granada. This, after 3 kinda grueling months of non-stop planning and teaching spent almost exclusively in my site. My last entry was about how I spent the week of official vacation, with Donna.
This series is about how I aprovechar-ed another vacation out of the middle of July. A lot of people are chatting about the U.S. going into a double-dip recession; in July, I took a double-dip vacation.
It started with Liz`s birthday celebration at her site in Diriá, Granada. It happened to fall on a Friday, so I did miss the two hours I was supposed to teach that day, but it was totally worth it to make the trip down and see her wearing a T-shirt with a picture of herself on it, courtesy of her U.S. family, and see that one of her gifts included a puzzle of Donna on a horse, gifted to Donna (who was happy to be rid of it lest her host family see it, complete it, and stick it on their living room wall) by her U.S. fam (U.S. Fam of mine who may be reading this take note, that the last thing I would like you to send me is my face plastered all over anything). It was good to see all my friends, but especially Meg, who I hadn´t seen in a long time. We mostly just hung out, talked, ate spicy soy tacos and delicious cake, and played with balloons and noisemakers that Donna and Alex brought.
The next day Liz, Donna, Allison and I leisurely made our way into and around Granada, stopping in at Telepizza (Excellent, but not as good as Chidos on the Island), and Eurocafe for chocolatey beverages before heading to a fachenta (Nica for Super Fancy) 3-bedroom plus full kitchen and dining room house some environment vols and one`s parents had rented for the weekend. They had a room open, and let us stay for free, which was Excellent of them! We played Kings, which brought back memories from college and Ecuador, and then went out for the main event I had so been looking forward to since hearing about it: Karaoke in English!
There´s a bar called ´Be´ in Granada with an English karaoke selection that`s pretty amazing for where it`s at. We went, and picked ¨I Will Survive¨ by Gloria Gaynor for our first song that we all sang together for Liz, followed closely by Bon Jovi´s ¨It´s My Life¨ for Donna. Lots of ridiculous pictures of our faces drenched in emotion as we belt out the songs will eventually make their way to facebook. A little after we all sang, there was a dance interlude, kicked off by Shakira´s Waka Waka, which is still omnipresent here despite the end of the World Cup. After that, and what seemed like a really long wait, I finally got my chance to do ¨Baby Got Back¨ (which was only acceptable since Sam wasn`t there with me, and thus unable to do it himself, as he traditionally does), which I very much enjoyed. Liz sang the intro for me and backed me up afterwards. Donna managed to take some great pictures of us on the mic, and of this creeper behind me that was like, stroking my head with both his hands as I was rapping. It was pretty late after that, and we sadly left without waiting for our turn to do ¨Livin´ on a Prayer,¨ but hey, now there`s something for next time.
The next day, I traveled with Allison to her site in the lush, secluded mountains of Boaco, not too far from Managua (compared to me, anyways). It started off pleasantly enough, until we decided to go to
*DUNDUNDUNDUN!!!!*
CHONTALES.
Where, it turns out, good intentions go to die...
(more to come!)
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