Saludos a todos que están leyendo este blog! (Hello to all who are reading this blog)
First I would like to begin by describing exactly why I am here in this beautiful country of Nicaragua. Unfortunately, Clark is extremely limited with its study abroad programs. There are only three options of places to go where you can speak Spanish and only one of these study abroad places can also apply to my major of International Development and Social Change. This place happens to be the Dominican Republic, where I was for 11 weeks over the past summer and did not have the greatest time while I was there. So I decided that I wouldn't do a Clark study abroad program. I may be being picky and/or ungrateful but regardless, I decided to create a study abroad program independently. This program is through a non-profit called the Foundation for Sustainable Development and entails an internship that I will be doing with a local organization called La Biblioteca Tres Ernestos in a small community here in Nicaragua. Although I am not sure exactly what I'll be doing yet, I know that it involves implementing projects based on youth and community development. These projects may include teaching classes, organizing community events, writing grants, etc. I will find out exactly what I'm doing during my orientation, which starts tomorrow. While I was expecting for my faculty adviser at Clark to be frustrated with my choice of doing a non-traditional and non-Clark program abroad, she actually said that she thought I'd probably learn more than on any of Clark's study abroad programs. No offense to anyone who is reading this and is doing a Clark study abroad program. I'm sure you're having an amazing time wherever you are and aren't having to go through the bureaucratic nightmares I'm going through in order to get simply one internship credit. Anyways, enough of my rambling and on to Nicaragua.
I arrived this morning after a red-eye from San Francisco to Houston and then on to Managua, Nicaragua. If I had no idea that I was landing specifically in Nicaragua, I would still be able to tell that I was somewhere in Latin America simply from the way it looks. There are many vibrant colors, vast quantities of motorcycles, and excessively gaudy buildings that just so happen to be right next to shacks with clotheslines. When I got out of the airport and stepped into the insanely humid air, the program coordinator Ramiro was there to meet me with a cab driver. Although I had been worried for a moment about having lost a little bit of my Spanish ability over break, I was able to immediately start speaking to Ramiro when I first saw him. It's funny, I guess that anybody's foreign language ability can usually come back to them when they go to a country where that foreign language is spoken. We went to a busy restaurant in Managua where I had some rice and beans and afterward, Ramiro brought me on a tour of the tourist sights in Managua. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I had been on a red-eye on the way to Managua, I had not had very much sleep and had some trouble listening to the history behind all of the sights. Anyways, I saw the National Palace, the National Theater House, the Cathedral of Managua that is falling apart, the Memorial to the fathers of the Sandinista Revolution, and the extremely polluted Lago de Managua. After that we got on an overcrowded bus to head down the Interamericana (a highway that starts in Alaska and goes all the way to the eastern end of Panama where it becomes a dirt road near the Colombian border) towards Tola, where I'm having my orientation. In both Managua and along the Interamericana, I continuously saw billboards with pictures of Nicaragua's president Daniel Ortega and a message below his picture saying "Viva la Revoluci
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