Carpe Diem Quetzal would like to extend its deepest apologies for being terribly remiss in the posting of blogs recently. Computers have been rare and electricity to power them even more rare. Now with a return to modernity and a hostel with free computer usage we can all catch up like the good friends we are.
So lets start where the last blog left off. We left the island of Ometepe and nobody puked which was widely regarded as a success. We took a microbus from San Jorge to a magical place called Playa Gigante where the beaches were adequately large to live up to their name. One of the larger debates in the town of Gigante is the number of streets. Some say one, some say two, and a few more adventurous people will bet all the way up to four. Whichever version you believe the answer is far less than ten, and they are all made of dirt, low on cars and usually blocked by a few pigs. After bidding our busdriver good day, we ate lunch at a restaurant and met with the project WOO staff. Project WOO (Waves Of Optimism) was started in 2006 when a couple of young peace corps volunteers noticed the potential harmful effects of surf tourism in the small fishing village of Gigante. Gigante is an interesting place to visit right now, as it is a tropical paradise with fantastic surfing and amazing beaches and year round wonderful weather, and as of yet hasn’t been swallowed by giant resorts or domineering tourism. Every year resorts are swallowing up larger and larger pieces of land which is slowly decreasing local access to beaches and land. Project WOO is working to contain the negative effects of tourism through community driven projects in combination with a coalition of international volunteers. In regular people words: Project WOO only does what the locals want. Â Many of us entered the town with expectations of large service projects in mind like building schools or planting crops, our minds filled with grand development projects that would forever alter the future of the town.
We soon learned that this was not the case. Project WOO deeply believes in gradual changes and community development, and rather than allowing 12 young unskilled laborers near sharp objects and important projects they needed to have some idea of what the community was like, what they needed, and where they lived. Dividing into pairs we met our host moms and walked to their houses. The lodgings were modest, but we lacked for nothing.
We ate dinner with our host families and endeavored to get to know them through the most popular form of cultural exchange: cards. I cant speak to what many of the other homestays were like, but mine involved several kids and an uncountable number of cousins who would wander in when they pleased and demand to know why my hair was so red.
The next day we all ate breakfast and then met at Playa Armarillo (yellow beach) and played some games with our host moms and some of their kids, featuring a particularly competitive sack race where Kaitlin showed us all how gracefully she can trip in a sack. After the games we sampled the ocean which is unusually clear and delightfully warm and the waves are big. For a few hours we just played in the waves like the children that we are and reveled in how awesome our lives are right now, swimming in sunny Nicaragua getting sunburnt and sandy, while all our friends and families suffered the torments of winter and its frosty bite (see, we do think of you guys sometimes.) We ate lunch at Buena Vista restaurant, which aptly named, stands on top of a cliff overlooking the beach. The afternoon was free time which most of us spent swimming more. Each night we returned to our homes by the 5:30 curfew mandated by WOO, ate delicious dinners, hung out with our families and went to bed early because this trip has turned us all into senior citizens who go to bed by 9 oclock.
Day two started at one of the volunteers house, after which we went to the school and helped with  a service project, painting their well and some of the building, building a fence so that the kids wouldn’t wander into an open field and that animals from that field wouldn’t wander in. Those of us painting learned a valuable lesson about acrylic paint, in that it doesnt wash off of skin or clothes ever. That afternoon we went surfing with the WOO staff who taught us to shred like Nicaraguans. Some of us stood up a lot and rode waves often. Others swallowed a lot of ocean water as they crashed time and time again. I spent more time underwater than above it. We also learned that the ocean here is teeming with devil-spawn-satan-children-evil-evil-jelly-fish (for those of you who think this is all just fun and games.) As we were leaving the beach we also saw the single best sunset of all time but thats a story for another time.
Day three was el dia de la accion de gracias or thanksgiving. We spent the morning trying to teach enthusiastic and extremely energetic kingdergarteners, first, and second graders some words in english through games and dancing. The kids were of course adorable and their dedication to learning english (be it through screaming or the timid whisper) was heart warming and fun for all of us. In the afternoon we all returned to our houses to help our moms cook some Nicaraguanized Thanksgiving food. When night arrived, we gathered at a beachfront restaurant, put 10 tables end to end and attempted to have a bilingual multicultural food sharing thanksgiving with the ocean a couple yard away. We put on a miniature play complete with bad costumes and narrated in Spanish to explain how thanksgiving came to be to our host moms. For many of us this felt strange. To be away from home on a very family oriented holiday is a challenge in and of itself, and in a place that looks so very different from the snowy and frosty fall thanksgivings spent in matching sweaters or boots added degrees of difficulty to realize that it was actually thanksgiving taking place. It was different to say the least, but one needed only to look around and notice that a more honest thanksgiving couldn’t be asked for. The first thanksgiving was between two vastly different cultures with vastly different experiences sharing food and language and memories, and thats precisely what we did. We had chicken instead of turkey, and of course gallo pinto, and in the end we all shared what we were grateful for. Ill tell you a secret parents and friends: no matter how much your carpe traveler might act like they don’t miss you or appreciate you, we all announced how thankful we were for our loving amazing fantastic inspirational families and attractive intelligent friends for everything they have done for us and for supporting us on this crazy central american adventure. Although we didn’t get to spend Thanksgiving at home, we got the next best thing spending it our new little carpe family who have grown to be just as close.
Friday morning we went fishing in two groups which was fun and underwhelming when we only caught 10 very small fish total. That afternoon we had free time to go surfing and once again we endeavored to be much cooler than we actually are. There are some surf stars among us but mosty its important to remember that its not about winning or standing up but rather about having fun and not crying when you fall really really really hard. That night we took awesome pictures at sunset as the waves crashed behind us.
I know this blog is getting long and I have to save some events for other people to blog about. I wanted to shed light on the smaller moments of the trip. We have all our big ticket items which you can see on the itinerary like working with turtles and trekking to lakes in the mountains of guatemala, but that often neglects to mention all the fun moments in between. Like hanging out with 14 of your best friends on the beach and just joking around. Or having weird impromptu dance parties or playing hacky sack. All of this longwinded explanation is to say: this trip has been amazing. Its been life changing and eye opening and long and educational, and its been flat out fun. Getting to know 14 people so well and share this crazy experience we call life for three months in exotic locations like the beach at sunset or on top of a volcano at sunrise has, at least for me, been probably the best time of my life.
Looking forward to seeing you all soon
Byron Crawford and the Quetzal Crew
