la gringuita arrives

well, it's official. i have been here a month. 4 weeks and 3 days. october 4 to november 4, though i guess since its 1 am its technically the 5th. but i figured, or rather was prompted by my mother, to begin writing a blog to let others know what i am up to down here, but also to keep a record for myself, a handwritten journal is so far out of my consciousness, even though i think i should keep one and know i would love it in 20 years. but i guess this will work.

oh, and for those who dont understand the title: a gringa is a girl from the US. clearly, i am a gringa. a gringuita is a little gringa, also clearly me. and i am in nicaragua.

i don't even really know where to begin with what my life is down here. it feels both like i have been here forever and not that long at all. in terms of being with my family, it feels like no time has passed since i last saw them; we just sort of picked up where we left off last year (minus all the trauma of not knowing if my dad was going to live when i got back to cali). i am living with a cousin of my mom's, lucia (lucy), her husband jorge, and her two sons andres (16, senior in high school) and jorge, who goes by chele (12, 6th grade-- chele is a nickname for someone fair or blonde, or so i thought until someone called me "chelita" when i went to the market. i guess it is anyone who has lighter skin than the native nicaraguan people...). lucia's mom, also lucia, my mom's aunt, lives in a little house in the backyard. lucy's daughter just left for college in the fall in pennsylvania, so i sort of took her place. the family is great and have been so welcoming to me. and their house is gorgeous and has a pool, not to mention it is on a mountain above the city of managua, so it doesnt get as infernally hot as it does down there. i have my own room and bathroom, my own a/c, AND they have an old mazda pickup truck that is mine to use whenever. its pretty old and really bad if i dont slow down enough to go over speed bumps, and the brakes are... interesting, but it gets me around. and the a/c works. but the trees up here are probably a million years old and huge and gorgeous, i keep waiting for a monkey to throw something at me from the tops of one. it rains almost everyday, big heavy rainstorms, and it is so humid i swear i can drink the air. quite a change from super dry santa fe. my hair hasnt really decided yet if it likes it here or not;its just kind of bigger than usual. the food is delicious, the fruit is amazing, and the nicaraguan beers are quite tasty. and everything seems so cheap compared to back home. which is a good thing since i am not making that much money....

which brings me to my job. i flew in late on a wednesday night, hung out on thursday and friday and the weekend, and on monday started working. a friend of my aunt's needed a helper for 2 weeks to plan an event that was the launch of a program put on by USAID and a company called RTI international (research triangle institute), the company for which my boss works. it is based out of north carolina and calls itself a scientific research and development institute. the program they are joing with USAID to create is trying to establish alliances between the private sector of nicaragua and its people, specifically in the ares of health and education. so for the first two weeks i helped them with their database of 800(!) invitees and made phone calls and just generally helped them with errands, etc. that was a good way to ease into my life here, and it was made easier by the fact that the woman i work for is also a gringa and so we speak in english most of the time. the event went really well and i got to hear the US ambassador speak, as well as people from the ministry of health and the ministry of education down here. i also got to meet some interesting people, including some from the largest coffee exporting company in the country. i had an interview with them the following week and currently am awaiting a response from them. but it seems they are waiting until after the elections. which are tomorrow. more on that in a bit. even though my job was only supposed to be a 2 week stint, i have been going for the past 2 weeks, which is nice becuase it keeps me busy and not feeling like a useless bum. since they just moved to a new office, they needed a LOT of organizing, and somehow i got roped into starting their filing system and answering their phones, among other stuff like translating and buying office supplies. but my boss, cristina, is super nice and really helpful. she has already told me that she will help me find a job if this other one doesnt pan out, and she says she is pretty good at getting people jobs. plus she likes me a lot so i know she will give me a good recommendation to anyone. it has been nice though, to establish a sort of routine, even though working from 8:30 to 6 is a little more than im used to. plus the fact taht i had to get p extra early the first 2 weeks so i could shower and brush my teeth before the power went out, as early as 7 am some days. there is apparently a pretty major energy crisis right now, although for the past few days we have been lucky. although before that it went out for about 5 hours one day. usually outages only last one hour. but i welcome the routine. i come home super tired, read a little, have dinner with the fam, read a little more and help kids with homework (one of andres' teachers congratulated lucy at a conference last week on his grade improvement. she was pretty stoked to hear that a cousin had been helping him at home...), and then go to bed. i have been getting in a healthy dose of LOST as well, as i have gotten both cousins hooked on it. its kind of fun though, to have little brothers. it is a new thing for me, as fern was the only other one growing up with me. but they are great. the younger one already wants to get me a boyfriend so that i wont want to leave and leave him alone, and he says that the empty feeling the house had right after his sister left has been filled. hes so sweet and affectionate. these latin parents have really got it down. and the older one, hes just so interesting to talk to, and he constantly surprises me with what he has to say. im just glad im with smart, capable, really nice kids.

i have tons of other cousins down here too, and i am constantly meeting some new aunt or uncle who knew my mother in elementary school or who knows i was born in hong kong or who remembers some obscure fact about my family. its pretty fun actually, especially seeing people that i remember but have not seen since i was a little kid. its also fun to see the people that i do remember, my younger cousins especially, getting to be all grown up. its fascinating to talk to them because i just cannot imagine growing up in nicaragua, especially having actually grown up in the bay area. they are just two completely different experiences. my moms brother, guillermo, and his kids are still some of my favorites, i just love them. i dont see them as often as id like because, like everyuthing else down here, families have interesting dynamics. sometimes certain different parts of the same family can seem so different, and be so different, and its strange to come in from somewhere else and see what has been "the way it is" the whole time when you werent there. it can make things a little awkward, especially when these already very different branches of the family also differ hugely in politics. and the big thing right now is politics.

the election that is happening tomorrow, or rather today, could very well change the country's course. daniel ortega, the sandinista leader who ran the country back in the 80's (he raped/violated his own step-daughter, and just helped them ban ALL abortions in the country, even ones that are necessary to save a womans life... not a good guy) is running for president for the 4th time, but the scary thing is this time he might win. (read this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6112942.stm ) his biggest opposition is the liberals, but they have been split into 2 parties each with a different candidate. (i was lucky enough to meet both of them, eduardo montealegre and jose rizo) the problem there is that the votes that could easily defeat daniel (they refer to some of them by first name, like daniel and eduardo) are now split between two, making it easier for daniel to have more than both of them. but, if he does win, hopefully it will be a close enough race that there will be a run-off, in which case the liberal candidate who will be second (because one of them will) would win hands down, because all of the people whose votes were split between two would be voting together. but its crazy to think about ortega winning, and i have had to think about it a lot. people keep asking me what my plans would be if he won. in all honesty, i didnt think it was an issue that serious. but i hear all my relatives talking about moving to the US if he wins. i know they are not entirely serious, but it makes me think. maybe i'll be coming back sooner than expected. although at this point i hope not-- i have really begun to like it here and i feel like this could be my life for a while. i just want my job situation to be more concrete; the uncertainty upon which i usually thrive in my life is driving me crazy for the first time. maybe im finally growing up and realizing that i sort of need a plan. thats a scary thought...

other than getting to know how politics and people work in this country, i have been keeping a pretty low profile. i have been reading a lot, feeding an addiction to sudoku, and sleeping more than i ahve in a while. i finished ayn rand's the fountainhead, a couple of garcia marquez stories, some ruben dario poetry (most famous nicaraguan poet, also called the father of modernism in poetry), she's come undone, and most of salman rushdie's the jaguar's smile, its about his trip to nicaragua in the 80s. i am also starting some nietzsche (thus spoke zarathustra) and i bought 100years of solitude in spanish to practice my reading, and david foster wallace's the infinite jest. so i have a lot of material to work with, and im so excited. i have only gone out once, and it has been a nice break. although the bars here are FUN. i went out with some new friends last friday night; i went with my aunt to the swedish embassy to have tea (yes, tea) and her daughter is living here with a friend until may. so i get to go out with two tall blonde swedish girls. we dont stand out at all. especially when we wear heels. but we went to a couple of bars here in managua and had a great time, talking to a lot of people and enjoying the cheap drinks. if partying here is any indication, i definitely have latin blood running through me... people know how to have fun AND they know how to dance. i am looking forward to going out again soon although this weekend was slow due to a ban on alcohol all day before election day. i suppose thats a good call to prevent drunken voting.

well enough for one post. if anyone made it through in one sitting i am impressed. but thats all i can think of for now.... i will write more about the elections tomorrow.... should be an exciting day!