Updates Part 2

More events/thoughts:

• A week ago, two teachers from my school showed up at my house and invited me to a party. They had told me about it earlier, but I had forgotten the date and wasn't particularly excited about it anyway. In fact, on the particular night they showed up at my house, the power was out on my street and I was looking forward to using it as an excuse to shut my door and go to sleep early. I obviousily didn't shut my door soon enough, and when they asked me to come I couldn't easily come up with an excuse given the power outage..."actually, I've gotta a lot of work here to do in the house without power, so I'm gonna have to pass," wouldn't work, so I reluctantly went.

We arrived at a house and the majority of the 25 or so teachers from my school were waiting, dressed in their best. Like every other Nicaraguan party I've been to there were an assortment of plastic chairs sitting around the room and a large stereo system that blasted music at an uncomfortable volume, making conversations beyond two word phrases impossible. This never seems to be a problem, however, given the only thing that is ever said to me at the parties is !Baile, David!

When I first got to Nicaragua, I would normally decline the requests to dance until the end of the night when everyone else was dancing, foolishly thinking that given the number of dancers I would be able to blend in a bit more. It never worked and generally made things worse, only prolonging the anticipation of the other party goers of watching the gringo dance. This particular night, I decided to try the exact opposite and immediately started dancing. Was I the only one dancing in the center of the plastic chairs? No, there was one other lucky lady, but you can imagine who the wallflowers were watching. To the cheers of my coworkers, I danced to the first song wishing I had had a few drinks before coming to the party, but my strategy of dancing immediately seemed to work as the hoopla surrounding my dancing was significantly less than what I had experienced by waiting until the end to dance. After the first song, I took a seat along the side of the room and was surprised to have one of the teachers hand me a drink.

Most of the drinking I see within my site is the drinking that's done in the park by groups of men that drink cheap rum out of plastic bags. The idea of a casual drink is almost non existent and I had never seen a woman drink before this night. Given the conservative nature of the teachers and that almost all of them are women, again I was surprised to see that many of them were drinking as well. But, I didn't have much time to dwell on this thought or finish my first drink before I was grabbed again to dance.

I quickly realized that the downfall of my new strategy was that now I had shown them that I would dance, making it that much harder to turn down an invitation to dance. So, I ended up breaking it down with just about every teacher that was there. "¡A ver, David! ¡Baile!" As they all drank a little more, things started to get a little more relaxed. First the cigarettes came out. Then, the chants of ¡Arriba! ¡Abajo! started and I laughed watching all the teachers dressed is their handmade, knee length skirts dance as close to the ground as they could. Professora Esperanza, with her painted eyebrows and short, curly hair, was the clear winner and was applauded with screams of approval.

Even further into the night the karaoke dvd made an appearance and some of the teachers took turns with the microphone. Unfortunately someone also brought a karaoke dvd with songs in English...you know, all the greatest hits, ABBA, It's my party and I'll cry if I want to, Rivers of Babylon. The calls for "Dance, David!" turned into "Sing, David!" With horror I watched them put in the disc, and with delight I watched them switch the audio/video cords incorrectly. When they asked me what was wrong, I politely said "I have no idea."

By the end of the night, many of the teachers, though certainly not horribly drunk, had had a few drinks. Beer cans, cigarettes, CDs, and left over food could be found on every chair/table and the house looked more like a college house than a Nicaraguan sala. When I finally bid my farewells, I was happy I had come. I didn´t particularly want to dance as much as I had to (my original strategy is better), but it was really nice to see the women from my town enjoy themselves and relax. I wish it happened more often. I just hope that next time they don't bring the English karaoke dvd.

• I often eat two lunches or two dinners in one day. It doesn't matter where I go, without asking the family always seems to give me food. Not only do they give me food, they give me more of it than anyone else in the family. More meat, more soup, more fresco. I accept it with a smile and eat it even if it's the last thing I want.

Along the same lines, I've become quite a coffee drinker here. Like the food, almost every house that I go to, I'm given a cup of coffee. Last week, before two p.m. I had had four cups of coffee and a coke. It was rather disgusting, but what can I say when they just give it to me?

• I've posted some online pictures online. I have other pictures that I will post when I get home, so check again in about a week.

• Last week, my next door neighbors had a purisima, a celebration of the Virgen Mary. What seemed like the whole town showed up to celebrate, and the family handed out food, toys, and candy to anyone who showed up. The party was really nice, but unfortunately, the shrine to the Virgen included one of those plastic, Christmas dolls that play the really plasticky, annoying, looped music. No words, just a da da da, da da da, da daaa daaa da da to the tune of Jingle Bells, Santa Claus is coming to Town, and We Wish you a Merry Christmas.

It was drowned out during the party, but when everyone had left I began to hear it. I didn't think anything of it until I went to bed that night and it was still on. The houses here are really close and the concrete walls block no sound from passing through. It's not rare for me to be in my house, listening to a conversation that my next door neighbors are having. So, though I've learned to ignore the conversations, the blaring stereo at 5am, the roosters, and the fighting dogs, the Christmas doll was impossible to ignore.

I lay in bed annoyed, but surely someone will turn it off, right? Wrong. It played the entire night. The next day it continued and again drove me nuts as I went to bed. By the third night, I was no longer angry at the doll, I was furious at the 12 people that live in the house. Isn't there at least one person that is annoyed as much as myself. Had I not left for the weekend on Friday, I was going to pay my nine year old friend, who is always with a sling-shot in his pocket, to assasinate the thing. Thankfully, when I returned on Sunday, the doll was no longer turned on, was taken out by the other neighbors, or was out of batteries.

• I'll be in the states from December 21 through January 4. I wasn't allowing myself to think about my return trip home until this past weekend. Now, I can't wait for Thursday though I'm still debating what my first meal will be. I hope to talk to you over the holidays. Happy Holidays!