Random Nica-ness

This is what the school buses usually look like, they are so full you can't move. One time I was practically sitting on the drivers arm while he was trying to shift, it was ridiculous, but I couldn't move. And the side kick (Luigi guys) don't know how to say no, they try to find more people to put in even if there is literally no room, then they come down the isles squeezing you onto the laps of the people in the seats to collect the money. You can't do anything but laugh. Its an adventure every time you leave your house. At least this bus only costs .32 cents.

This is just...pretty awesome, there's a lot more pigs here than in Panama.

Money here. Its about 25 Cordovas to $1. So this is right around $27.20.

This is a parade, yes I know its hard to believe. But it is. They LOVE parades here, we were warned about this but we really didn't believe it, but seriously they have parades almost eveyday for no reason. Its like a couple neighbors get together with thier instruments and complete lack of musical talent and say "I'm bored, you want to walk around town blowing random nonsense on these trumpets?". Sometimes the people wear costumes, sometimes its religious, its ridiculously unpredictable.

I really underestimated this picture at first but its actually great for many reason. That bougainvillaea is beautiful, that pothole is huge, and yo can see Alyvia's best friend in the background. That's the ice cream guy with the cart. It walks around town ringing a bell, and I'm pretty sure it slows down in front of our house since Alyvia runs out every time he passes. He has a big verity of ice cream bars almost all for .40 cents.

This is how you get drinks to go here. This is a cantaloupe drink. They have everything in a bag here (like more than Panama which is a lot!) You can even buy milk from the grocery store in a bag!

I think you have to be able to do this to be Nicaraguan. You see ones walking around like this all the time! We've decided we're going to learn.

For .30 cents these tricycles (yes that is what they're called) will take you almost anywhere in our town.

This is the Kingdom Hall in one of the town we preach in on Thursdays and every other Saturday, its called Diriamba.

So at about 8:30 this morning there was an earthquake 25 miles away (the red dot). It was a 5.2 and lasted about a minute. Its so common to feel earthquakes here I looked outside afterwards and it was like noting happened at all. And then I realized it was so normal for me to feel them too, since while it was going on, even though it got progressively worse, all I did was lay in bed! Yeah I was super worried. On the map you can see Jinotepe, that's one of the towns we preach in, its about 4 miles from our house. You can also see Managua, which is the capital about 45 minutes away, the Lake and Island I talked about in my first post which is about an hour away, and that white line along the bottom is the Costa Rican border, which is about an hour and a half away.

Beach

 Everyone here is very service minded, we always have good sized groups out in service even though we don't have a ton of people. We go in service 6 days a week! So to refresh ourselves we have Funday Mondays.
Almost every Monday the group plans something fun, one week we had a BBQ with the need greaters in the area. And this last Monday we went to the BEACH!!!! It was about a 45 minute bus ride, about a 30 minute drive away.

Markets

On the way to the market in Masaya. We ride school buses here a lot, although they are usually way more crowded. If you thought you were done with school buses when you graduated, you were wrong, just come visit.

Inside the market. Its like a tunnel, there's no air flow or much natural lighting. I kind of felt like a mouse in a maze. I honestly can't believe we found our way out!

Outside the market where they sold fruits and veggies.

This is the market in Jinotepe, one of the towns we preach in. Its not quite as big, there is an end to it. But it is super narrow, you have to squeeze past people coming the other way.

Outside the market again
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I'm starting to realize every town here has its own market. Ours here in San Marcos is only about a block long and mainly fruits and veggies, but in other towns they are huge with everything you can imagine for sale in them. I'm not kidding. So far somethings we've bought at the markets (that aren't food) are fabric, a plug in fan, shoes, nail polish, clothes, headphones, yeah these markets are really handy, they have everything (everything? EVERYTHING). We went to one in a larger town a couple Monday's ago. It was GIGANTIC!! We never found the end of it and we were there for 3 hours. It took us the first 1.5 to find the area we were looking for. It seemed like it was separated into sections, like a very smelly cheese section, the clothing section, a very disturbing meat section, and the area we were looking for were there were souvenirey  stuff.

Field Service

Those of you following me on instagram will see a lot of the same pictures on here, but some new. I am going to get some off our cameras soon and then there will new pictures.

 Here the ministry is very different from where we were in Panama. We don't use cars, instead we take a bus to the town we're going to be preaching in that day and then we walk. Its taking getting used to (I am really not used to this much walking...at all), but it makes sense here since the houses are one after the other, while in Boquete it was a lot of mountain territory.

Mom and I in service.

You can see mom further back walking.

Here is an example of the houses on top of one another, this is pretty much how all houses are situated (including our house), although our house isn't this narrow, thank goodness!

This was taken our first week here, evening witnessing. As you can see there are a lot of single sisters serving here. 

 

 

 

 

 

I love this picture, it describes Nicaragua so well. We see a lot of cows here. This is a common sighting. And this is exactly what service looks like in most of our territories.

Mom with one of her studies.

This is how we take breaks while waiting for the group, we find a curb and sit, its common here to sit in front of someone's open door! One day my service partner and I sat down on a step right outside a closed door, but then the lady came opened the door not surprised at all. We moved, she came through and then she told us to sit back down not fazed at all by the fact we were leaning against her front door, it was all very odd.

We're moving on up...

...North
After our visit to Nicaragua in January we spent our time packing up and selling everything, and as of the end of February we are now living in Nicaragua.
So to introduce you all to this whole new world here are some fun facts.

• Lake Nicaragua is the 10th largest lake in the World and the only one in the world that contains freshwater sharks
• That lake has the largest island on a freshwater lake in the world made from two volcanoes

  

  Here is the island... surrounded by sharks :/

• There is between 20-30 volcanoes (I've heard it many ways) and quite a few are active 
• Nicaraguans are super crafty people they do lots of weaving and wood work 
• It is the poorest country in Central America and the second poorest (next to Haiti) in the Hemisphere
• The average annual income is $2,200
• The country boasts a very low crime rate
• It has 500 miles of coastline
• And 5 of the best surf spots in the world
• Nicaragua had a 7% increase in the truth in the last service year

Fun facts about our English preaching field is soon to come. All of us do have calls and studies though. 

Everything is so different here, and pictures and words can't express it. We'd love for you to come visit.

<3 you all
Aribey