mindsay 
Meg, Yoshi, Karen, and I admire our lovely reflections in Hotel Granada’s ceiling.
So after two months I think I’m almost used to living here because instead of being glued to the window during long bus rides I became engrossed in a cheesy J. Lo chick flick called “Enough.”
The view from Hotel Granada. Yes, I felt that this weathered cathedral deserved Sepia, interestingly it’s not that old-Siobhan said that it is from the 1930s.
Border crossing was exciting but a little anticlimactic. I expected armed guards, barbed wire, and a swarm of vendors trying to sell baked goods and crafts. Instead, there were a few money changers and some women in ruffled aprons selling snacks and plastic toys.
Our dining room at Hotel Granada where we enjoyed events like our Professor Egardo’s birthday party.
Around 2 PM, we arrived at Hotel Granada and found our rooms. I followed Starbuck and Miriam through a dining hall with an elegant wood paneled ceiling and wide archways. Bleary-eyed and exhausted I threw the contents of my bag down on the bed and collapsed. After a few minutes I looked over and saw Miriam neatly folding and putting away her clothes so I decided out of respect to do the same.
Capilla del Santismo, which is the major temple of Granada was the 1st stop on our tour.
Once everyone was unpacked we broke up into our 3 directed research groups for a tour of historic Granada. Though the climate was the similar to that of Costa Rica I felt like I had stepped into another world. Our tour guide was a beautiful opera singer clad in a traditional flowing 19th century black dress. She covered everything from plate tectonics to indigenous culture to 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue to architecture and current politics. Nicaragua (about the size of NY state) is the largest country in Central America and is located at 13 degrees N and 85 degrees W.
Unlike back home where construction is roped off from a significant distance we basically walk straight through this construction site. I was impressed with the slate road they were putting in, it will be very nice and more sustainable than asphalt.
I liked the guide’s explanation that Nicaragua is very young and “born on the 8th day of creation as a result of the Cocos and Caribbean tectonic plates.” The friction and pressure of the two plates pressing together caused volcanoes to swell up and build a chain of islands off the Pacific Coast. Over time the lava built up the land high enough and connected the island so that Lake Nicaragua was separated from the sea. Though our hotel is about 3 blocks from Lake Nicaragua we can’t swim in it because it is heavily polluted and home to freshwater sharks.
Our guide singing in the second cathedral we visited.
Our guide had the voice of an angel. She took us into several churches and sang traditional hymns. It was haunting how her voice reverberated off the walls and a little strange because I didn’t think that opera was a type of traditional music in Nicaragua. In the second church a tall, thin man in raggedy clothes asked our guide for money so that he could buy milk for his family. It bothered me a lot that she just ignored him and walked away. I didn’t give him or the begging children any money because I didn’t want them to depend on begging for a living and because a little bit of my money couldn’t have helped them that much. (But my conscience hurts because what if a few of my cordobas could have made the difference between getting to eat or going hungry for a night. One darling little girl with a wide face asked me for money to buy school supplies. Am I human? I didn’t give her anything because I was feeling uncomfortable with my new surroundings and I’ve been trained not to trust strangers. Now I feel a little guilty.
I take notes on the history of Colonial Granada while standing in the town square in front of Mombacho Volcano.
Seeing children begging will either break your heart or harden it. It is so tough because I want to help them but I keep thinking of the proverb “if you give a man a fish he will have dinner for a night, but if you teach a man to fish he will be able to feed himself for a lifetime.” It’s hard to teach people to fish in a country where the lake is filled with the effluent of thousands of toilets and ~70% of the population is illiterate. Back in our hotel room after the tour I saw an advertisement on the Disney Channel for movies that teach kids English. Such programs would really help the kids to develop some great “fishing techniques,” but how many of the people have access to television and the ability to purchase such videos for their children?
Boys drum for in a parade for a theater celebration day.
