Fall Has Arrived

Well, not exactly. The rainy season is actually here, although it's nothing like it was last year. It's rained on and off most of today, and we get occasional afternoon showers, but mostly we've had rain in the evenings when I'm in bed, which is fine with me. At least it's rain.

Last weekend Jason and I went to a place called Barcelo to celebrate our third anniverary. Thank you to everyone for their anniverary greetings! It's strange to live in a family in which so many people get married around the same time period. October (or almost October) is apparently the month of choice for most of us. Anyway, Barcelo is an all-inclusive resort, so you pay and then basically everything inside is included. It was marvelous! Our room was great and had cable, which was kind of fun for the novelty of it, and we slept all night in ac and didn't worry about the power bill! I took a day off of work and we drove to the beach, where it is, and we got there about thirty minutes before check-in, but they let us into our rooms anyway. We played mini-golf (with some of the most interesting, but impossible, holes I've ever seen), played a bunch of ping-pong, watched a monkey pound some muffins into itsy bitsy pieces, went boogie boarding, which I haven't done in years, watched alittle tv, did almost no reading, sat in hammocks, watched the sunset, drank tons of virgin tropical drinks, took walks on the beach, and ate like you wouldn't believe. It's a big buffet, but for being buffet food, I thought it was really good. We left early that Saturday afternoon. It was a wonderful way to spend our anniverary, and incredibly relaxing, although after looking over everything that we did it seems really full.

School has just completed its first nine weeks, which means I am about 25% of the way through this school year; that's odd to think about. I've been here substantially over a year now, and it is sometimes odd to think that I've spent a year of my adult, married life in a developing country. Jason's spent 3 years, so I think he's more accustomed to the idea. Sometimes I think about going home and trying to explain what it's like to people there, beacuse usually people are kind of interested, but only in a very abstract way, as in "Wow, you lived there? What was it like? Interesting..." and then turn to the next topic of conversation. How would I summarize it? I think that if someone asked me, I would have to say incredibly hot, beautiful, frustrating, fascinating, and in desperate need. It still blows me away to think that some of the places I drive by or things I see on a regular basis have become normal to me, even when it's fairly impoverished. In the same vein, though, there's also a fact that I really like. I think my conception of what a "middle-class" life is supposed to look like is now permanently altered. At least, I hope it is. Part of me is afraid of going home and just getting sucked into a world that we're told we're supposed to want. Part of me thinks I could never end up doing that at all, though. I think it will be something I'll always struggle with and have to find the balance with at the same time. It's hard to go to one of the new malls in Richmond and not be interested in the cool stuff that is there. The other part of me is really disgusted by it, though. I want it, but I don't want it. I suppose that will always be part of the battle between the flesh and the spirit, and one that I'll have to be very cognizant of when I'm not in Nicaragua. Here, a luxury is buying a pair of scissors to act as my kitchen shears. In the states I was likely to buy another mixing bowl just because it looked cool. I mean, it's a MIXING BOWL for crying out loud! lol. Just an example.

As I'm typing all of this, I'm actually sitting in a very upscale, new coffee shop, complete with WIFI and CCR in the background. On my laptop. Eating a croissant. Yes, I am still certainly a North American, and sometimes that it very, very nice.