Thursday, June 28, 2012

A day in Boaco


Thursday, June 28, 2012

Our second full day in Boaco was a great success.  Acclimatization is coming along well.  I’m so relieved!

We begin our day at 5:30 with a basin/bucket shower and eat breakfast around 6:45, cooked by the maid Julia and her daughter Lupe.  Breakfasts have been decently sized, rice and beans and eggs at the very least.  We hop the free bus to the hospital at 7:40 from the corner around the house, and this time instead of getting the grand tour of the hospital, we head straight to maintenance and begin work on the malfunctioning infant incubator; Cathy advised us that if they were giving us equipment to work on we needn’t bother with the inventory until we had nothing left to work on, which makes it so much easier to decide which tasks to do.  We spent most of our time getting used to the controls and normal operation, but we ran into a few errors which shouldn’t have happened, which we’ll iron out in the days to come.  The work environment is very laid back.  Most of the time we don’t see many of the maintenance guys, but they come and go, and they never seem to be working too hard for very long.  In contrast, Kate and I always try to look like we’re doing something, and we actually are, but for us that’s translating the incubator’s service manual or writing down our progress with repairs.  We’re working on our own.  That’s okay with me!

After having a taste of the USB modem last night, Kate and I headed straight for the Claro (cell phone) store after work and bought ourselves (with minimal difficulty) a 3G wireless modem.  We now have instant internet access for a month with a data limit of 5GB.  As long as I stay off of Youtube, avoid big pictures, and don’t let Windows Updates get carried away and eat all my data, we should stay well within the limit of 80ishMB per day, and I’ll be able to update the blog daily and communicate more easily with the program participants to meet up on weekends.  It looks like it’s going to be a bit of a pain, but we’ll manage in order to see each other!

We had a hilarious encounter with some of Lupe’s friends after they got out of school this afternoon.  Yesterday as we were walking back home we ran into them and they said something about “gringas,” and we automatically gave them a look that said “Yes, we know…” and they were amazed that we understood Spanish at all.  Today we made the mistake of sitting on the main path in the park and we attracted a crowd of about 10 middle-school girls all crowded around a park bench asking us how to say things like “crazy,” “ugly,” “fat,” and a whole slew of other words in English, most of which Kate and I had no idea what they were talking about.  If anyone knows what “bomba sexi” means, let me know.  I’ll tell them.  They asked us to have a conversation in English, and it consisted of me saying “They want us to have a conversation” and Kate saying “Oh, this is awkward…” but had them in fits of excitement and giggles.  It makes me feel a bit like a zoo animal at a circus, but their excitement is infectious and I can’t help but be entertained, too! 

We lost power for a few hours tonight, but Kate and I didn’t much care.  Our dinner was candlelit and we just used our laptops.  We’ve decided that we’re not going to travel much this weekend because our host grandmother is having a big birthday party with all the relatives around, and it would far too much fun to miss the festivities, which will include food and drink and cake and dancing.  We have a total of four free weekends.  If we can pull together a day trip for Sunday, that would be ideal.  We have to do a bit more research to find a place close enough, though.  Maybe we can just get a taxi to take us and avoid the whole bus ordeal.  We shall see.

It’s only 9:30 here and I am dead tired.  This time last night I couldn’t hold my eyes open.  I’m doing slightly better tonight thanks to my laptop.  I guess when you’re woken by the pet chickens at 4 in the morning it’s difficult to stay up much past 9.  I’ll head to sleep now.  Kate and I will have to watch Despicable Me another night, and I’ll have to write all about the town at a later time. 

Thanks so much to all of you who’ve been commenting here and on Facebook!  I haven’t been able to read them all, but I will and I really appreciate the support!  Wish me luck :)

2 comments:

  1. Tell Abuela Happy Birthday from your Canadian Auntie

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  2. Tell her NOT to put dos gatos in cada ojo, dos veces al dia.
    I hope you got my note about that so you don't think I'm senile, although I just might be. Glad you feel more settled already. You are doing great work. Love you and am proud of you.
    G Patty

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