Fight For Your Right Part II: It’s a Birthday Party; It’s your Birthday, Happy Birthday Darling!

After a night on the town in Managua with Misty to celebrate being done with camp, it was finally time for me to lug my entire wardrobe of clothes (which, thanks to Misty’s washing machine, was now clean!) back up to Jalapa. But, I only stayed a few days before leaving to celebrate my birthday on the beach outside León with a few of my favorite people: Donna, Liz, and Meg. After Donna came up to visit me on my actual birthday, and we went to see Clara in Estelí (and got lunch at the all-veggie restaurant Ananda! I'd definitely recommend their veggie-nacatamales!) on the way to León. As we were lying out and enjoying the waves on the beautiful beach, this little black puppy came up to us


and sat down, begging for food. We gave him one cracker, then another, then a couple packages worth, and then some leftover pizza, and then some water set out on a plastic bag, all of which he greedily slurped up (with a liberal helping of sand). He was really cute, and trusting, and tranquilo for a street dog. Amazingly, he followed us all the way back to our hotel room, after which it was decided that Donna would take him home as an early birthday present for her host sister. We named him Sombrito, which means “Little Shadow,” and the next day we put him in a cardboard wine box,


and successfully bussed him halfway to Donna’s house, stopping at Liz’s for the night. After shampooing him the next day (and cleaning up the messes he left around Liz’s house during the night), Donna took him by herself the rest of the way to the Island


(Samantha and Sombrito!)

where I can now report that he is perfectly adjusted to Island life, chasing cows, riding on motorcycles and eating three meals a day. It was a great story from a great, long birthday weekend, easily the best time I'd had celebrating it since my 21st.

Afterwards, I finally went back up to Jalapa for a sustained bit of time... Kind of. There was still no school, thanks to a Sandinista decree to start two weeks later than usual, and that weekend was Super Bowl Weekend, which is one U.S. national holiday I feel compelled to celebrate down here (having watched the Saints win last year with my Director in a bar in Jalapa). I spent it in Ocotal with about 40 other PCVs, many of whom conveniently were there on official business for a meeting of all of Nueva Segovia’s volunteers (like me!), but many of whom were just there to watch the game and hang out. It was great to see the other TEFL people from my department, and hang out, watch the Packers win (woo green and yellow!) and play beer pong with them and Donna, who was up for the festivities.

And of course I was going to aprovechar al maximo that two-week late start. So the next weekend I went down to the Island to celebrate Samantha’s 5th birthday with Liz (conveniently after I collected money and signed up teachers for the workshop I'm organizing around the new TEFL manual, which I had to take to Managua). Last year’s party was legendary, as it turned into kind of a ridiculous dance party after the little kids went to bed, but this time around it was much more tranquilo by all accounts. Some party guests (and me, I have to admit) played flip-cup for the first time with Liz and Donna, who taught us all how to do it. For whatever reason, people got the idea that I would dance if they held up the tag on my shirt, which I went along with, since it was fun. The next day we went to the beach, and hung out and ate dinner at the Fiestas Patronales at Esquipulas, the town next to Donna’s, an equally tranquilo time. The next day was Valentine’s Day, which I was happy to get to spend at least the first few hours of with Donna (and give her the gift I made for her) before I had to leave on my twelve-hour journey back to Jalapa, where it was finally time for me to get back to work and stop being Vago... sort of ;)