i can't seem to write it well, so i'll stop trying and just write it out.
nicaragua was amazing. the moment we stepped on the ferry, everything felt different. the poverty on the island was more obvious than in costa rica, but also seemed less desperate. people lived in corrugated steel lean-tos, with pigs tied to the trees outside, and didn't seem so much to mind.
i have a danger of romanticizing, i know, but there was a sense of security there that i haven't felt in costa rica. wendy and i walked for hours through the middle of the island, past houses and fields and banana forests, and i never felt once threatened. i stopped worrying so much about things being stolen or people being dishonest or dangerous or rude. we hiked the smaller of the two volcanos, and afterwards, while we were waiting for the bus outside a little hostel, we started playing with these two kids and their balloon. the next morning i woke up sated and sore, and spent most of the day writing. for those few hours, there was nothing whatsoever better on earth than a breeze and a bottle of fanta. nothing. i think i've never in my life felt so content. later we walked to the fancy hotel by the beach, and splurged on dinner - the most expensive fish, drinks, dessert for less than $10 - and watched the sun set and light the volcano like a dream. there were a few hours when i considered stopping by the little school on the way back and asking if they needed any help with anything, if i could trade a place to stay for anything at all they needed. if i could stay, somehow. it was all my willpower to get up for the 4:30am bus to the 5:30 ferry to the 8:00 bus which i missed because it said Panama and i'm an idiot. and after i'd missed it, all the willpower left not to just go back, have my stuff mailed to me, stay there on that perfect island forever.
this weekend we went to montezuma, and i felt strange and isolated in the group, the half-conscious realization that conversations seemed to stop everytime i tried to join them. i burned in the sun and too much sand and ice cream, and though everyone is friendly i suddenly feel alone. we spoke too much english and this morning in class i had nothing but static in my head.
my aunt is in the hospital because she fell and broke most everything, and this morning wheni talked to my dad and asked him if she was conscious, he said "she was this morning." i have three weeks left and that seems like no time at all. i'm suddenly filled with the fear that i won't learn anything more, that i'm facing some sort of stasis, that my brain is overfull and useless. it seems like i won't get a volunteer placement, because my spanish isn't good enough for the ones i want and i didn't arrange it in time anyway. everything feels a little bit futile right now, and the rain washes it all away if i forget to hold on. i'm so tired, and life in the states seems far away and impossible. i can't imagine going home to my crazycrazy house and working some fuckoff job and then going back to school where i'm and english major and get grades.
people in the united states die all the time from eating to fucking much and not doing anything. we have problems that just plain don't make any sense here. i can't imagine trying to explain to our taxista in nicaragua the idea of buy nothing day. we have a conference about sustainable development and it had better be in english because my brain won't be able to take it otherwise. enough.
nicaragua was amazing. the moment we stepped on the ferry, everything felt different. the poverty on the island was more obvious than in costa rica, but also seemed less desperate. people lived in corrugated steel lean-tos, with pigs tied to the trees outside, and didn't seem so much to mind.
i have a danger of romanticizing, i know, but there was a sense of security there that i haven't felt in costa rica. wendy and i walked for hours through the middle of the island, past houses and fields and banana forests, and i never felt once threatened. i stopped worrying so much about things being stolen or people being dishonest or dangerous or rude. we hiked the smaller of the two volcanos, and afterwards, while we were waiting for the bus outside a little hostel, we started playing with these two kids and their balloon. the next morning i woke up sated and sore, and spent most of the day writing. for those few hours, there was nothing whatsoever better on earth than a breeze and a bottle of fanta. nothing. i think i've never in my life felt so content. later we walked to the fancy hotel by the beach, and splurged on dinner - the most expensive fish, drinks, dessert for less than $10 - and watched the sun set and light the volcano like a dream. there were a few hours when i considered stopping by the little school on the way back and asking if they needed any help with anything, if i could trade a place to stay for anything at all they needed. if i could stay, somehow. it was all my willpower to get up for the 4:30am bus to the 5:30 ferry to the 8:00 bus which i missed because it said Panama and i'm an idiot. and after i'd missed it, all the willpower left not to just go back, have my stuff mailed to me, stay there on that perfect island forever.
this weekend we went to montezuma, and i felt strange and isolated in the group, the half-conscious realization that conversations seemed to stop everytime i tried to join them. i burned in the sun and too much sand and ice cream, and though everyone is friendly i suddenly feel alone. we spoke too much english and this morning in class i had nothing but static in my head.
my aunt is in the hospital because she fell and broke most everything, and this morning wheni talked to my dad and asked him if she was conscious, he said "she was this morning." i have three weeks left and that seems like no time at all. i'm suddenly filled with the fear that i won't learn anything more, that i'm facing some sort of stasis, that my brain is overfull and useless. it seems like i won't get a volunteer placement, because my spanish isn't good enough for the ones i want and i didn't arrange it in time anyway. everything feels a little bit futile right now, and the rain washes it all away if i forget to hold on. i'm so tired, and life in the states seems far away and impossible. i can't imagine going home to my crazycrazy house and working some fuckoff job and then going back to school where i'm and english major and get grades.
people in the united states die all the time from eating to fucking much and not doing anything. we have problems that just plain don't make any sense here. i can't imagine trying to explain to our taxista in nicaragua the idea of buy nothing day. we have a conference about sustainable development and it had better be in english because my brain won't be able to take it otherwise. enough.
