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.