My First Week in Nica

Well, right now I have been here for about a week and a half but I am going to recount all that has happened, which will take a few posts...

So we were in Managua for two nights and went out our first night to this ridiculous club called Hipa Hipa which is pretty ritzy with a dance floor and airconditioning. They have rum here called flor de cana that is very famous and sweet. So it was my whole group, Wade, Angie, Emily, Jolie, our program direction and myself. It was not a wild night by any means but the next day my legs were hurting. We had a history lecture that took longer than we thought it would, like three hours. It was outside on the patio at our hotel and poor Fancisco, our teacher who is a local and brilliant, had to put up with some sleepy eyes and jerking heads during the lecture. Nicaragua history is so interesting though and the huge movement in the 70´s lead by Sandinista made a huge impact on the country and today a Sandinista supporter names Daniel Ortega is the president. He has created a lot of controversy.

So here is a little bio on the people I am here with.
Wade: is from Boston and is studing biology (molecular, crazyness) and is a Junior at USF. He is funny and nice...
Jolie: is a horrible story teller and is from New Orleans, we tease here about that all the time because she tells a lot of stories about her home town. She is Cajun Creole or something and has explained it to me a couple times but i still dont really understand what it is. She is a junior too adn is 19, the baby of us all.
Emily: is from DC, we have shared great DC stories, and is awesome, she studies international relations, like me, but with a focus in ecology and the environment with a regional focus in Latin America.
Angie: is from San Diego and is so unintentionally funny. She is a latin american studies major and has had a lot of experience in Mexico.
Emily and ANgie and I are the only ones with family experience so this transition was a little easier for us i think.

That said i live close to Emily and Jolie in Ciudad Sandino. The city was created after the the earthquake in 72 and was a makeshift town. It kept growing and eventually got electricity and some infrastructure and is what it is today...poor in resources and money. The majority of the people who live here work in Managua which is a 40 minute commute.

Back to our first couple days in Managua. After the history lesson we took a tour of the city and saw one of the lakes that is on one side of the city. We went to El Palacio Nacional and saw where the President has his meetings, and we saw a lookoutpoint where you could see the top of the city and there was a museum of Sandino, the famous politician, who still has many many supporters today. We also saw a famous grave yard, with a lot of German graves, they had a big presence in Nicaragua in the last century. Nicaragua survives off of foreign aid, it is incredible, mostly from Europe and the US.

Will write more another day...