estelí, nicaragua

this week i am in estelí, this dusty mountain town in northern nicaragua. it´s pretty different than what i´ve seen so far. outside of the school, i have yet to run into another gringo on the street, but instead the streets are filled with kids in catholic school uniforms and serious nicaragüense cowboys.

along with leon, this is a sandinista town that saw tons of fighting during the revolution and with the contras in the 80s. yesterday after lunch i ended up studying at cafe at the casa de cultura, which is a former mansion of somoza´s that the city has turned into a gallery and vegetarian restaurant! there´s a picture of it above. this has been such a crash course in all the nasty u.s. involvement in this poor country. it´s so shameful how the u.s. supported all the dictatorships and then the contras and who knows what they´re going to do next. i am absolutely falling in love with this place and will definitely be back soon.

i am staying with this wonderful family in this pretty humble house that is definitely not the colonial mansion i was priviliged to stay at in leon, but a small concrete house with a hot tin roof. i´m rocking the bucket flush and bucket hand-wash again, which is fine, especially since this family is so awesome and so into having a student in the house. they talk to me all day long and it´s really helping my spanish. when i got into town my stomach was totally bothering me and they called a doctor who came over to the house and got me a prescription for some antibiotics, which all turned out to be about $30. the family is SO wonderful. i was talking with geovanna, the mother, today during lunch and she told me that her father was murdered by the national guard during the revolution, just a block from the house when she was six years old. she said there´s a picture of him hanging in the gallery of heroes and martyrs in town, which i am definitely going to check out tomorrow.

spanish is improving and it´s really nice that there is absolutely no one around to speak english with. heading to the miraflor nature reserve at six am on saturday for the day and then off to honduras on sunday. then rana in guatemala next thursday!