Sunday March 7th: to Jinotega.

I woke up in the morning feeling almost exactly the same as I did the day before: sleep-deprived. I barely got any rest due to a malfunction in my common sense/AC. I was sleeping right under the AC which was set at 18 Celsius; a.k.a. I froze almost to dead… f.y.i. Russ can not let go his jealousy towards me; bottom line: read his blog.
So as you can imagine, and surprisingly enough, I woke up so early I was at the buffet restaurant of the hotel exactly 10 minutes before 7 a.m. Gallo pinto awaited for me as well as queso fresco… but my cravings of the day (besides some adrenaline through my veins) were those fried plantains I grew up eating. I asked the waitress if they would prepared them for me if I paid for them, explaining her how long it has been since I’ve had any. She went to kitchen and came back with three sliced, gold-fried plantains with not a ticket for me. A.k.a. she liked me.
Right after breakfast we loaded up the luggage into a truck to be driven directly to Jinotega, while we explored the main touristic places in the area.
The weather was just exceptional. The sun was shining all the way through the pores of my skin. The not-so-gentle, rather wild, wind was blowing, carrying the humid mist of the tropic into my life again. Oh how I’ve missed this!!! Highlight WAS. I’ll explain later.
We drove to the “Canopy” place to our zip-lining experience. Although I have done this a couple times before in cables way longer than the ones we were exposed today, I got to admit: I was really scared. Curiously not at the beginning, but after the first cable I went through… when I realized how out of shape I am and how I really did not trust all this instructors –kids-, maybe due to the fact they were all hitting on me. I just couldn’t trust them. We met a young guy; David I believe is his name. Orphan from very little, he was raised by his grandmother. He graduated from high school already and is struggling to learn English while he works at the Canopy place. He has dreams of working as a translator, traveling with the American tourists all over Nicaragua, learning about their culture while showing off his. He bonded with Mamma Baker, which I thought was too cute. He’s too sweet of a guy, so much of a hard worker. If only we would have gotten him on tape!!!
After the adventure, first experience for many, we went to a very popular chicken restaurant: Tip-Top. It is like the Nicaraguan version of KFC –no promotional intended. Later, we drove to the Handcrafts Market in Massaya: a beautiful castle-like building, full of little booths with different people selling handcrafts and popular souvenirs from/made in Nicaragua. We spent around and hour and a half. While all the crew was managing to get the stuff they wanted in broken Spanish, I dedicated the time to the search of interesting jewelry: my fascination.
The almost 3 hour drive that followed was incredible. We got to admire the mountain chains, volcanoes and valleys, rising from the clearly blessed horizon. And even though the beauty of it all was astonishing, exhaustion won me over for the last hour of the trip.
We got to Jinotega around 6 p.m., just on time for church. At this point the weather change was obvious: it was chilly outside, and cold wind kept blowing throughout.
The service was very interesting, for one, it was almost completely in Spanish, and the majority of the audience was American. I had a hard time trying to find the verses the preacher talked about without really citing them… I’m pretty sure the majority of the crew was completely lost in terms of what was going on. The song leader had the idea of singing a couple songs in both languages, and I guess it worked pretty ok, although it is hard for the Nicaraguan community to keep the beat and the time of the song… it was too cute! At the end of the service, Papa Benny asked me translate the announcements. The man who made the announcements in Spanish did not give me a break to translate, so most of the message was lost in my thought processing… but I hope I translated the very necessary part of them.
After church we came back to the compound to bring the bags in and split into the rooms. After a little break, we ate sandwiches for dinner and later we met to talk about some rules and regulations, and general guidelines for the trip.
Tomorrow the communications team is meeting in a café near by to organize our ideas and give some structure to the documentary, the final product we are walking towards. My anxiety is not letting me see further than a couple hours ahead... I can't wait to meet the people, to hear their stories, to share with them! But I've learned that organization, guidelines, and due dates, are completely overrated. So, I'll relax and wait until tomorrow, try not to worry about what to do or not: be spontaneous, let things happen. I'm sure God will shine his light through the right way to approach this project. Today I also learned that not-awkward bulldogs do exist… in Skidmore’s terms – random! After some bonding time with the group, almost everybody went to bed. Breakfast time tomorrow: 7 a.m.
The weather was not in our best interest though. The wind kept growing stronger, louder, wilder, and unpredictable. The whole place was ice cold – at least it felt so to me, the only Latino in the group… not fair! The huge rows of windows kept bending into the room, they resembled plastic in the spring mild breeze; it made me a little nervous even when I know they are not going to break. I’m afraid the blanket we were given was not enough to make up for the invisible – and unexpected – presence. I do not know how I am going to endure… but I am freezing! I’m exhausted! I’m off to sleep… so pray with me I’ll get the rest I so deserve and need! Until tomorrow!