It is hard to imagine that I have already been back in site for two weeks. Costa Rica was so amazing, but it is quickly vanishing into the past. I love and hate how I have become so obsessed with time since I have gotten to site. I can tell you what percentage one day is of my time in country and of my service. I create analogies of my time complete to the percentage of my walk to school complete or the hours of a day that have passed. It is not an exaggeration to say that I have become mildly obsessed or just crazy. Ha, I guess the perfect example is that I wrote a friend about how I was talking to myself about a point and then realized it is not normal for one to be having an open discussion with oneself.
Any who, I guess time away from your normal culture will do that to a person and I am of course making my points quite liberally. I am in no ways nearing mental insanity and I know the voices in my head are not actually other people. I will not be listening to my index finger anytime soon saying redrum.
So you may already be saying to yourself, so what Jason, why are you writing all of this? Well I don’t really know and the truth is I don’t have too much to report on this week. My first week back in site was pretty lackluster. I was expecting a whole bunch of drama since I was gone for an unprecedented 10 days, but I was disappointed. I of course questioned where I had been and if I had been lost, but within a day life had returned to normal. In the schools I took the week pretty easy. I couldn’t teach because I hadn’t been able to plan with any of my teachers or didn’t take the initiative; read into it as you wish. However, I did have a pretty eventful weekend. On Saturday I went with one of my professors to learn how to make bricks. They had made 13000 bricks for their new church out of horse manure, water, and mud. Now it was our job to move these bricks from one pile into a larger pile to fire. Now it was just manual labor, but that is my specialty and I worked with them for about 7 hours in the sun. I surprisingly had a lot of fun and was eating up all the attention. They kept making bets that I couldn’t carry more bricks and were impressed how many I took. It really was humorous because anyone who knows me knows that I am not known for my strength. I am actually pretty weak, but I was showing up all those Nicas and I left out the part that I am weakest of all my friends back in the States.
On Sunday I was a little sore but I couldn’t let that stop me. I was off to Benedicto’s farm at 6 in the morning to go milk some cows. Now it wasn’t anything new and was a lot of fun, I am getting better at it but it didn’t stop a group of four or five kids from laughing at me. That afternoon we had a soccer game with my youth group. The big thing was that during the week we were able to get uniforms. I am really proud of my group because they did most of the work and raised most of the money. They look really professional in their uniforms and it was a definite moral booster.
This last week I got right back to work, no more just sitting back and observing. I taught in all of my schools and even shared my obsession with the math puzzle Ken Ken. In each school I taught the importance of tree nurseries and reforestation. After my little charla we went out and planted our own nurseries. It went really well and in each school we made at least 100 bags of different types of trees. Each class was really good and kids brought cow manure, sand, and dirt. It seems like my projects are really working and I am always surprised about how receptive they are. I can now walk around any community around San Dionisio and will always be greeted by, “Adios Jason” or “Adios Profe”. It is really endearing and helps me think that I am doing something positive.
So this week’s random story. I went to get my haircut yesterday at my local barber. We are already pretty good friends and I say hi to him every week on my way to school. Well just to set the scene it is basically the front of his house and he has put in a few chairs and he was pumping some batchata music. Haircuts are $1 and you usually have people yelling hello to you as you get you are getting your hair cut. Well today I went in because it has been over a month and at $1 who can refuse being freshened up? Everything was going normal, I was getting my typical high and tight and the barber always makes an effort to point out I look just like the picture he has above the mirror. Now I haven’t shaved in about two weeks; that isn’t to say I was burly, I still haven’t hit puberty, but I was a little straggly. My friend whips out a straight edge ravor and starts to shave. It is a little terrifying trusting someone with a razor to your neck, but it is the closest shave I have had. But it gets better, you know when you get your hair cut you usually get tiny hairs everywhere including in your ear? Well usually that is the job of a q-tip later, but not in Nicaragua, the barber actually stuck his fingers in my ears. I was shocked, I didn’t know what to do. Finally, I thought I had all I could take, but then he takes out one of those nose trimmers and sticks it up each of my nostrils. All in all, it was quite a visit to the barber.
In a nutshell that has been my last two weeks. I have had my share of ups and downs, but life is looking pretty good. I am trying to enjoy my time as best as I can. I know that I will miss my life here once I am back in the States and I don’t want to waste a minute of it. Life here is much simpler and I will miss the slow pace and seeing what really matters. I have made a lot of good friends and I feel like they really do care about me.
On a final note, April is a very big month for the family. I was looking at the calendar and it seems like it is the month with the most birthdays. Now for you special people, you might want to keep an eye out in the mail, but I want to wish you all a happy birthday.
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