Hakuna Matata-para llevar una vida sin responsabilidades ni preocupacions

...is not as easy to say as "it means no worries, for the rest of your days"

So, I haven't written in a while..which is a good thing because it means I've been busy! I left off Monday night...that was our first experience in a taxi. The other Americans wanted to go to TGIFridays so even though Kristen and I had already eaten, we went with them just to hang out. It was fun and now we know how to get a safe taxi, etc. Then, Tuesday morning, Kristen and I ventured to MetroCentro by ourselves. It's less than a 10 minute walk so that wasn't bad except that it was by far the hottest day so far. Once we got there, we found the phone place (Movistar) and all in Spanish, all by myself, I had to buy a new chip for my phone and some minutes. Everything worked out and most of the time the guy understood me so I was pretty proud of myself. Then we ate lunch at the food court-but this time we decided to skip the American food and eat at the Nicaraguan place. I wasn't too hungry but I tried Queso Frito (fried cheese). Kristen loves it, and I know it sound delicious, but for some reason I think I've found the only kind of cheese I don't like hahaha. After lunch, we walked back to UCA and went to Rebeca's presentation. Her final project to graduate from UCA was the website she made about the Fairfield-UCA exchange program (www.studyabroadnicaragua.com) you should check it out - it's awesome and she passed with flying colors. I'm so glad we got to see it. After her presentation we had class. We were actually supposed to have class at 2, but since that's when Rebeca's presentation was, she just asked our teacher if we could miss an hour of class and she said yes...they're sooo laid back here. Class isn't anything like I expected it would be. It's very easy and we're not really learning anything new. Towards the end of the week it got a little better, but for the most part those 3 hours seem like 3 days. Wednesday went pretty much the same way as Tuesday. In the morning Kristen and I went to Maria Dellores' office to try to finalize our schedules. Next Tuesday the 6 of us have a meeting with Maria and Kathe to get the final copies of our schedules. I know for sure I'm taking History of Nicaragua, Photography and Sustainable Development...it's just unsure whether or not I will have an internship or take a theology class - both of which are very interesting to me! After talking to Maria, we had class at 12 instead of 2 so that our teacher would be out in time to go the barrio where she works/lives. It reminded me sooooo much of Gawad Kalinga it was unreal. The kids ran right up to us and said hi and gave us hugs without even knowing or caring who we were or why we were there. It was really kind of random that we even got to go, our teacher just asked if we wanted to see where she worked, so we went. We told Alba about it the night before, and she said as long as we were with a teacher and we didn't bring anything too valuable we'd be fine. I'm so glad we did...they only need volunteers on Fridays there and we'll probably be traveling a lot so I hope to find something else like that where I can volunteer.

Yesterday after Greisy's class at 10, Kristen, Greisy and I walked to La Union to pick up a few things that we needed and some fruit since we don't get much of that at our house. So far we only tried the grapefruit, and I don't really like grapefruit but it was delicioussss. After La Union, we got lunch at UCA (vegetarian fajita..yummm) and went to class. After class we came home to do our laundry...by hand. (pictures to come..when Alba saw us doing laundry she actually suggested we take pictures because as she said it's an "experience") Then we ate dinner quickly and Carlos picked us up to go the movies. It took us quite a while to find Greisy's house, but now we'll never forget. Then us 3 girls and Carlos went to see Tripulacion Dave aka Meet Dave. It was all in Spanish with no subtitles (which is weird because most of their movies are in English with Spanish subtitles) but we were able to understood most of it. The movie wasn't that great, but it was good for practicing Spanish.

Today we took the time to sleep in, and then did our homework in the late morning since we didn't have time the night before. Get this we a) had to DRAW (which neither Kristen and I can do) a picture of anything b) describe it in Spanish for 10 minutes. When we told Carlos it had to be 10 minutes, he laughed. It ended up that it didn't actually have to be a full 10 minutes, but mine was 8 anyway because I talked about EHF, and obviously I can talk about that foreverrrr. Class actually went by a little faster today because we had more work to do, so that was buenooo. After class we finally ran into Alvaro! We gave him a small guilt trip for not talking to us yet, but he's been really busy and he might come out with us tonight. I think all the Fairfield people and our language partners are going to try to go to a discoteca, so that should be an experience. And tomorrow we're going to Granada for the day with Alex and Dave, the other Americans at our house. And Sunday Rebeca's having a little get together at her house at 11am and Carlos is having a party at his house at 7 or 8 at night. So basically, we have a ton of fun plans coming up and I can't wait! Escribame!!!

p.s. - Fairfield people, take lots of pix this weekend...I want to see everyone's new TOWNHOUSES!!!!