Week One: Nicaragua ("Where the Streets Have No Name")

I have just arrived in Leon. Elliot has come to meet me while Monica is off to her home stay. We planned to meet for dinner picking a restaurant that overlooks the central square. Elliot has his tourist-style map of Leon, which reminds me of the kind you get at an amusement park with tourist attractions marked and many advertisements. 

Unlike most maps, there are no street names. You must navigate counting streets, noting landmarks and anything else that may trigger a memory. Elliot and I were trying to find a restaurant overlooking the the central square and travelled in three complete circles ending up in front of the same church highly reminiscent of the "Big Ben" scene in the movie European Vacation!

In the village of El Tololar, it gets even more extreme. Currently, there is no map on file of this community although I highly doubt any of the locals ever get lost here. (Meanwhile, I can barely find my way around Worcester, MA after a year and a half living there.) What's most difficult is that there are so many dusty peanut fields that look very similar.

Even when you think you have filed away some landmark, your mind can play tricks on you. We are working in conjunction with CIDS and the health post workers to create a map by marking each house with a GPS. This will make it easier for us "outsiders" to better understand the village on a scientific level, in an effort to identify what the people may need while learning who each of them are, one at a time.

At the end of the week, I have come to find that the mornings are always my favorite time of day; it's fresh outside, the dawn light slowly getting stronger. All of the animals are excited for their breakfast and there is considerable bustle about the yard.  The roosters are definitely not the highlight as there seem to be about 50 outside my door that get their start at around 4 am, not my time to rise!

Life is simple, relaxed without the constant burden of electronics. It's frustrating to be out of touch and at the same time, refreshing to be left with just your thoughts or the company of friends. I am excited today for a weekend at the beach and the adventure of sledding down the side of Cerro Negro, a volcano that I usually only see smoking in the distance.