Esteli - Week One
Trip Start
Jun 16, 2008
1
11
23
Trip End
Sep 01, 2008
Esteli,
Nicaragua
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
As we ventured down to the central park it was evident that the party wasn´t just at our house but across the whole of Esteli so we sat in the park tasting the atmosphere before me and Oli went to a barbers to get his haircut. I wanted to watch to see how he would get on and after some cutting, shaving and cut-throat razoring the 14 year old barber had done a good job to Oli´s relief.
In the evening we went for a few drinks with the girls, taking full advantage of the fact that we had nowhere to be the next morning as Israel had told us to go and enjoy the celebrations. On our way back from walking the girls home we bumped into 3 of our family members (Brenda, her sister and her husband and their son - there´s so many people in the family we still don´t know all of the names!), they offered us a lift so we all crammed into the car. We thought we were heading home but they had other plans, telling us they´d take us to a good bar! It was evident from their laughter and Brenda´s sister´s husband´s driving that they had already found a perfectly good bar as we drunk-drove across Esteli. Having dropped the son off at home so they could go and get more pissed, and having shown us their house and their dog a few times, we headed off the wrong way down the street to the bar. The place that they took us to was actually a casino with a bar at the back of it and we spent the night drinkning and listening to Nicaraguan karaoke - me and Oli had put down to do a song at their request but unfortunately we left before our number came up! So it was back into the car with the husband driving, not me or Oli as they had offered! It was an excellent night and they´re definitely our kind of people!
As next morning arrived I was more grateful of the day off than I had been before the drinking and I rolled out of bed to head down to see the celebrations which were for the 29th anniversary of the revolution, during which most of the fighting took place in Esteli, meaning that it´s a big event here. The afternoon was passed by chilling in the park and in the evening we followed the crowds to the makeshift stage right outside the girls´ house where the president Daniel Ortega gave a speech (we understood nothing) and there were fireworks.
Having sampled the party we all went to mine and Oli´s house where we played cards. Brenda was sat in the lounge, babysitting her daughter´s baby and recovering from the night before at the casino but I persuaded her to play cards with us. The card game soon turned into a drinking game and we ran out of alcohol pretty quickly. Thankfully there is an off license quite near our house (nextdoor actually), so we popped out to get more drink and continued playing. Before we knew it half of the family was stood around watching us with amusement, half of the family were actually playing the drinking game with us and Rachael was drunk from a few sips of rum. Knowing I needed to catch-up, despite being consistently targeted in the drinking game, I kept drinking the massive bottle of vodka that I had bought (knowing that I´ll be here a few weeks). As the girls had underestimated how much they dared to drink, Brenda´s sister´s husband (probably should learn his name for blogging!) drove me out to get more alcohol twice, as the off license had closed. It was only on Thursday morning that it sunk in that I had polished off most of the bottle of vodka the night before, and I felt like death. Still drunk, I staggered to uni, suffered for a bit whilst people talked and did things, then headed home for bed.
On Friday we had the introduction ceremony for the start of the semester. This consisted of a few people making speeches (Ellie and Natasha made one for the group) and the students sat an entrance test which we later marked to determine which ability group they were in. We also made plans with the students´ union president (Fidel) to head to the capital Managua on Saturday morning to experience the revolution anniversary party there. Knowing I´d be up at 4:30am for a 5:30am bus, I went to bed early.
We arrived in Managua with Fidel and took two buses to Managua university where we had a tour of the uni before walking to the UNEN offices to meet the national union of student representatives in Managua. After giving us some lunch, we got in a pick-up truck to go to our hotel where we had ten minutes to get changed before heading back out for the evening. The celebrations were really good and the UNEN members made us feel part of the party by giving us T-shirts, a flag, translating parts of the speeches by Daniel Ortega and Venezuela´s president and by dancing with us, taking photos and singing. Although we stood out like a sore thumb we didn´t have any trouble apart from one guy being so amazed by how weird Ellie looks that he stuck a camera in her face and took a photo!
After the fireworks and celebrations had finished we agreed to buy a bottle of rum and head to the beach with the UNEN guys. Me and Oli spent the journey there in the back of the truck singing Nicaraguan songs and having fun - except for a sombre five minutes when we realised that if we crashed it would be game over as we were sat in the back of a truck bombing it along country roads to the beach. Our grip on the truck tightened! After a few hours on the beach, the driver moved into the drivers seat, as opposed to the backseat where he had spent most of the time with Mrs UNEN, to drive us home! On Sunday it was back into the truck to head to a volcano. There were some amazing views and the weather was really nice to round off a good weekend in Managua, before we got the bus back to Esteli ready for our first class in the morning.
Comments
AA
I do hope this doesn't mean you will be returning as the first family member in need of AA !!!
xxx