Nica News

9/19/10

Welcome back to this installment of Sam's Nicaraguan Adventure!

This week has gone by pretty quickly. Even though I have been here for only two weeks, it seems like I have been here much longer. I guess the orientations in DC and Granada have kind of distorted my concept of time. In any event I have so been super busy that I have hardly had time to stop and think.

New this week I've learn some interesting Nicaraguan body language signals. The two that are most different from the US are the Nicaraguan way indicate someone having some having sex. This is done by making a fist with one and punching the palm of your other hand. This same gesture we make if we are going punch someone. Luckily I haven't made any cultural blunder using this, but another Peace Corps friend of mine here has. The other which I think is hysterical is that Nicaraguans use their lips to point at stuff just like we use our fingers. They make a kind of kiss face with their lips to point to stuff. Sometimes they do it while talking which looks really funny. My host dad was pointing to his daughters lunch while calling her name.

In other exciting news I had my first bout of Nicaraguan food poisoning. I was in the neighboring town Catarina watching a pretty interesting marching band competition with some other Peace Corps friends. Some lady was selling potato chips only made with plantains instead potatoes it came with some fried cheese and cabbage stuff that from now on I will be sure to stay away from. Anyway I asked my friends if they had try them and one of my friends said that she had eaten them a number of times with her family and also bought some from a neighbor lady. She said she never got sick so I took my chances. I was not so lucky, I felt fine the rest of the day ate my standard dinner of rice and red beans with some small side then went to bed. The next morning I when I woke up I had a healthy dump but afterward it when from solid to liquid, not good. I thought it was just a one time thing since I was on the toilet for a good 15 minutes. I don't want to go into too much details but I felt like I had nothing left, so I took some medicine for my upset stomach and went over to regular Friday training session. Luckily there Peace Corps doctors were there giving us another vaccine and chat about Malaria, Dengue and other undesirable bugs the we want to avoid. As I was sitting there listening I was feeling progressively worse and worse. So I got up and told one of the Peace Corps training staff members that I had diarrhea, felt sick to my stomach and was afraid I was going throw up and faint. They took me outside to get some fresh air which helped my light headedness a lot because I was sweating like crazy inside. They then gave me some oral re-hydration salts. This stuff come standard in our big med kits, in little fruit flavored packets however like dentist toothpaste flavors taste absolutely terrible! But I quickly drank a liter of rotten orange mixture and started to feel a lot less weak. It was kinda like an energizer bunny feeling I was surprised how quickly it took effect. The Peace Corps doctors take such good care of us. They were primarily concerned about controlling my dehydration which apparently is a pretty big danger when it comes to diarrhea I found out. After I had drank my stuff I got to poop in a stool sample cup so they could see what I had. Turns out it was just some common bacteria infection but boy did it knock me on my ass. Within a couple hours of pooing in the cup I was back at home taking some antibiotics, more nasty drink and sleeping off the infection. The next day I felt so much better. I'm still talking the last of my drugs to make sure its killed for good.

Other than that everything thing is going well. My youth group is going well out of the 13 that were there 9 came back. We did a anonymous survey of what they wanted to learned and it was almost entirely pronunciation and speaking. Next week we will be having meetings on Tuesday and Friday and will be doing a lot of activities that help them learn to speak. I plan on us some of my favorites that I used in Spain and some others I have learned from others and my PC books.