35 Degrees Celsius And I Have A COLD!!

This is how you crush fried chicken for lunch!

Yes sir you read that title right. I am in Nicaragua where its 35 degrees Celsius, sunny every day with cooling rainstorms every night and I have a head cold. It has come complete with sneezing and the sniffles that does not make me the fan favorite.

Week 1 of my TEFL course is in the books. I also have all my assignments completed and am ready for the chaos that surely will be week 2. No more practicing as this week I teach my first class. Two (2) hours of beginners English. From what I have learned this week I only have command of beginners English so this should be a snap.

I am hearing about teaching opportunities in Chinandaga for the January semester. Its about 90 minutes North towards the Honduran border and it would be a short boat ride to El Salvador. My interest is "peaked". For all its romantic revolutionary history that I adore, this is still Nicaragua and where is secondary to the fact I am here.
 Here is a great quote from Lonely Planet
"Sultry Chinandega’s never going to end up on anyone’s Top 10 list. Sorry. It’s just not. It isn't that the town’s ugly (it’s OK) or that there’s nothing to do (there’s some stuff), it’s because Chinandega’s the gateway to some of the most breathtaking spots in the entire northwest. And by the time you get there, your memories of this little workaday town will be well overshadowed by the glory before you".  This sounds pretty good to me. Getting off the beaten path in a country that does not yet have a beaten path.

Choking the chicken part 2

 I am very sad to announce the decision to get away from street food and the gorgeous friend chicken that abounds everywhere. It would be one thing if I was hiking volcanoes every other day as I did in the past when I was here, or driving a truck and slugging a 20lb pipe wrench in - 30 degree cold for 12 hours a day as I did in the Oil Patch, but I am sitting in a classroom doing paperwork. Besides the life of the soda pop has started to creep into my day as well.  Canada Dry, Ice cold Pepsi in old school glass bottles and a Dr Pepper caught my eye the other day. They do go hand in hand in the glorious and hideous partnership of bloat. It was a fun filled greasy fiesta washed down by bottles of sugar water heaven in a week of debauched gluttony.
As said by the simple genius that was Dr.Suess ."'Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened. So with that BE GONE STREET FOOD AND SODA POP, BE GONE. And it was so.
Good man that Doctor!

For those keeping score. I have rented a room with shared amenities for a month, have eaten pretty good for the first week including buying groceries and the aforementioned street food, drank my share of beer one night, lunches and coffee in a "Western coffee shop" 5 times, dinner out a few times this week including a really good welcome meal (again with Ice cold beer) and small things here and there. Grand total for the first week including the accommodations. $280dollars and we were over charged by $30 for the room. Nicaragua is not without its issues. We have lost power twice including internet (oh my the horror of that), water once and the traffic is a bit chaotic. Its not paradise but for now it is my slice of tranquility even when I catch a head cold when its 35 degrees Celsius outside.