This past weekend has been a bit of a Nica culture experience for me. Friday night we went out for dinner to our favourite little spot, Cafe Luz. I mistakenly, however, got these delicious Papa Fritas (which are big wedge potato fries with Cuban spices and so salty...so good) which left me feeling gross and disgusting all weekend. Did not sit well with me so I´m avoiding all fried food for a while. Or at least trying to. But anyways, after dinner we went to another cafe called Mocha Nana which was having a small live concert. It was really lively and good music. We went with a bunch of friends, from our program and people we´ve met here, so we were surrounded by good company and good music. Such a nice time. The musicians were great for being a live band and they sung upbeat, jazzy songs with some slower more romantic ones thrown in every once in a while. They were all new songs to me but I think they were just singing popular Spanish songs from Nicaragua. Whatever...Nica culture!!

Saturday, I worked my first workshop at FUNARTE with a bunch of kids. It was not nearly as big as I was told (there were only about 35-50 kids there, not anywhere near the 400 I was previously told about). It was sort of a special day still because filming was continuing for the documentary, but the kids just went about their normal antics as though nothing was new. I made a new friend, a 10 year old girl named Lourdes, who tried to teach me how to spin a hoola-hoop around my waist. Epic fail on my part. I cannot move my body that way and I have no hips to spin anything on so the hoop woudl go around me a couple times then slide off. I made a fool of myself but who cares?? I had fun, they had fun watching me. During other games and the discussions with the FUNARTE staff, she was holding my hand and reserving spots for me beside her on the floor. I was more of a student that day than a volunteer so I sat beside her and listened to the teachers talk about the day and the themes and stuff like that. The painting technique for the day was blue, white and black and the theme was human rights i.e. what do you think we as people are entitle too, like equality and freedom, etc. Lots of great artworks were created that day and we ended around 11:30am. The afternoon was spent lazily reading because it was really hot that day.

Saturday night we ended up going to Semaforo, a dance club, around 11pm. We initially were not going to do dancing and went to visit Siobhan who had just gotten back from Canada after going home for a week (family emergency). Then there was this house party that one of our Nica friends was going to and he was ¨Come on, it will be fun, etc.¨so we started walking there from Siobhans house. But then, there were 4-5 guys walking down the street towards us, most likely drunk because it was around 9:30pm - 10pm at this point, and Jess was ¨We´re going to get robbed, we´re walking right into this...¨so we turned around and went back to Siobhans house. We waited for them to pass but then we felt as though they were waiting for us around the corner (some of then kept poking their heads around to see where we were) so Jess and I decided to go/ run back home where it was safe and dry (it also started raining). But when we got home, Edna, her boyfriend of sorts Julio, Julie, Hans and another Nica friend Grelyin were ¨Let´s go to Semaforo¨and how could we say no to Edna?? So we went, 7 of us piled into a taxi (there were people on other peoples laps) and we arrived at Semaforo. It was great! There was a band playing music and the layout was dance floor surrounded by tables so you could sit or dance, whichever you wanted. We got us a table but there was dancing as well. Jess and I did some crazy ¨we don´t know how to dance, so we´ll dance how we want¨moves and then Edna got up and started dancing with us so we tried to follow her lead and copy some moves. Some Nica guys asked us to dance (oooohhhh!!) so we tried to dance Nica-ish with them but we were horrible. All my dance classes here were completely forgotten!! One guy kept trying to teach me something so simple but I think I was so bad that he gave up! Hahaha. Anyways, we stayed until 2am ish and were sleeping by 3am. Slept into 9am, which is retrospect, should have been later. Totally could have kept sleeping but I thought I should get up.

Sunday, we didn´t really do anything special. Went for a walk after lunch but otherwise...nada. Tamara, our University coordinator here in Esteli, visited us at 7pm last night to check in on us, so we let her know how we were doing and stuff like that.

Many people here don´t feel like their placements are necessary/ not making a difference. As a result, many people are thinking of ¨rebelling¨of sorts and trying to find new placements in Esteli. I sometimes wonder if they´ve gone in with the right attitudes or expectations but also I don´t work at their placements so I don´t know what goes on there. I have a few more thoughts on this but I have to formulate them a bit better before presenting them on my blog.

Otherwise...that´s about it. In my 6th week now and my 3rd week at work. Yes it is sometimes very boring and I don´t feel like I´m doing anything,which consequently caused me to get a bit caught up in the whole ¨lets change placements¨thing. But after talking to my parents, I am going to stay at FUNARTE. As they said, its the small changes, the smile here and there, the positive comment on a child´s artwork, that matters. And even though its not measurable changes (which I think is where a lot of the problem is stemming from for others...they don´t see measurable changes) I can hope at least that maybe I was a positive influence for a child that day. Its nice to hope. I know I´m not going to change the world and right all injustices while here. That would take months ;) hahaha.

So with renewed motivation for dance classes, I enter a new week. Like I said, more thoughts to come, slightly philosophical I think, once I´ve formulated them.

Hasta luego!

P.S. Spell check doesn´t work on this blog so sorry for mistakes!!