How Radio Disney Saved a Bus-full of Nicas...

...and one very patient Peace Corps Trainee from a not so patient PCT.  This is the story of the bus ride from my site visit in Rio San Juan back to the capital Managua.

In the very early morning two weeks ago I woke up and dressed by the light of my headlamp, took my bag, and woke up my host brother to walk me to the one direct bus from my site to Managua.  The one that brought me there was an actual touristy bus with comfortable seats and a television.  I was under the impression that I would be on the same bus on the way back.  I was wrong.  Before me stood a big yellow school bus that probably had failed to pass safety regulations in the U.S. ten years ago, and so was sent to Nicaragua to die.

Under the yellow light of the only open pulperia, or cornerstore, in town Ismael and I said sleepy goodbyes, and I claimed a seat on the bus.  I looked at my watch.  3:50am.  Surprisingly though, I felt good, and forty minutes later we passed the next town where another Nica 55 trainee go on ready to return from her own site visit.  Then we sat.  The busdriver, the yeller, and the cobradora all got off the bus to eat breakfast, go to the bathroom, or take a nap, I´m still not sure, but they left us waiting for fifteen minutes.  It was a sign of things to come.

An hour later we arrived at the departmental head of San Carlos where I had a quick breakfast of coffee and a piece of bread, and chatted with the other trainee.  Then it was back on the bus, and we were off...for five minutes, until we had another arbitrary fifteen minute wait, after we had just been sitting in the bus terminal for thirty minutes.

This is when things started to go bad.  I had not planned well for the trip, and brought no food with me for the ten hour bus ride, thinking I would be so tired I would sleep most of the way.  I had not counted on the school bus, nor on how crowded it would be, so that I was forced to stand when I gave up my seat to a mother and child.  The other trainee was the first, actually, to give up her seat, and when I pointed out a free seat to her I was surprised to see her standing again only minutes later.

"The guy next to me threw up, and then other people started too," she explained, "I don´t do well when people around me get sick."

Usually one of us had a seat while the other was standing so we were able to switch off a few times, but by this point, about four hours in, I was a foul cloud of grumpiness.  My plummeting blood sugar, lack of sleep, the bumping of the unpaved highway, and the resulting dust that coated my hair and face, along with the blaring ranchera music drilling its way into my unwilling skull made me hate everything and everyone.  Especially the people squished up against me, and the chicken that little girl was holding.  Did you pay for your ticket, bird?  I thought not.  I´m going to have the cobradora take care of you, and then I´m gonna fry you up and eat you, you flapping nuisance.

Then, miraculously, like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, the bus driver changed the station to Radio Disney (to be said Rahdio Disnehy), and instead of nasally trumpets suddenly the bus was filled with all the cheesy Spanish-language pop my little corazon could desire.  Chino y Nacho, Selena Gomez, and Tito el Bambino, along with all my other guilty pleasures came to keep me company.  Then next thing I knew, a gentleman gave up his seat for me, and I spent the rest of the hours drifting between sleep and the serenades of teenage heartthrobs until two in the afternoon when we pulled into Managua, took a taxi to the Peace Corps office, then on to the hotel where I took the most satisfying shower in my whole life.

And even the chicken was spared...at least until dinner.

Site Placement and Visit

On my 23rd birthday, I, along with the forty-three other health volunteers found out where we would be living for the next two years.  We had received information over the possible sites, then had an interview with our programming director asking us what we were looking for in the site, and everyone was obsessing about which sites they wanted and which they would hate to get.

During my final site interview I put the information away, didn´t mention any specific sites, and only stated what I wanted in a site: 

climate didn´t matter

being the only PC volunteer in my site was ok

I wanted to do a lot of trips to outlying communities

smaller was better

I wanted to work in a casa maternal

internet had to be available within at most two hours.

After the interview, I systematically when through the information about the sites, trying to determine which site my programming director, Ximena, would pick for me, based on the criteria I had stated.  I figured that she would put me in either near Jinotega to the north, or in Rio San Juan to the south.  During the site placement ceremony, by the time Ximena got to my name on the list, I pretty much knew what she was going to say next, and I was put in Rio San Juan.

I was happy, it fit with everything I wanted, but I was also suddenly terrified as the reality of two years in this place that I only knew of from a piece of paper hit me.  It was overwhelming, especially when I read further in the information and realized that it was a ten hour bus ride from the capital to my site.  I knew it was isolated, but I´m not sure I knew it was that far away, and it´s not really that far away, it´s just that the highway isn´t complete, and travel over dirt roads makes the going rough.  But my experience with the trip there and back is another story, now I present to you my new home.

 I met two of my counterparts, the people I will be working with most, on Friday the 11th, and on Saturday I rode the bus with one of them, Ana, arriving at 5pm.  The next day she took me to a farm in one of the communities where we will work.

Ana, she´s in charge of education at the health center.

One of the doctors from the health center, and the little girl from the farm.  She never did tell me her name, she just giggled and looked away…

...just like this.

Picking guayaba.

They dye the chicks pink so no one will steal them.

We then went to a poza, which was fun.

Two of the doctors from the health center where I will be working.

It is a rural community, meaning that there are animals everywhere.

As we hiked the hour and a half back to the actual town, we ran into a party and this man decided he wanted to sing…just for me.  That is an awkward smile right there, also Dr. Chileno there, encouraging the guy on…thanks for that.

 Despite my occational moments of panic, (which are apparently normal at this stage of training), I think I will be happy here for the next two years.