More gravy please.

I am sitting in my room, the fan pointed directly at my face in order to both feel the breeze and distract the mosquitoes, taking this opportunity to gather some thoughts and express them both to myself and to all of you. PLEASE READ ALL THE WAY THROUGH AS THERE ARE SOME BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS MIXED IN TOWARDS THE END.

Thanksgiving is in two days! This will unfortunately be the second Thanksgiving in a row that I have been abroad and not with family (L). Last year, if all you devoted blog readers recall, I was in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala and I, Avi Richman, organized and cooked a Thanksgiving dinner feast for 28 people. Thinking back to last year, I never could have predicted that I would now be sitting in Granada, Nicaragua about to spend Thanksgiving in Managua. Of course, I would have hoped to spend the holiday with my family this year and then hit up the Black Friday shopping but as they say, the turkey eating must go on.

This year’s festivities will be held at the Deputy Chief of Mission’s (DCM) House in Managua. The DCM is the #2 in command of the embassy here and I happen to have met him at the Rosh Hashana meal so a group of PCVs, mostly my friends, will be going to his residence/compound for a stress-free, complete holiday meal. He has a pool and cable tv so honestly I am not sure what could be better. I also invite you all to check back during the weekend for an after-Thanksgiving post similar to last years (here is the link) that will include all of the many things for which I am thankful and appreciate.

Before heading to Managua on Thursday, I will be going to visit my family in Masatepe to stay tomorrow night. I am also super excited about that as I have not seen them in almost 3 months…wow time really does fly.

Oh and even though the fan is directly pointed toward me, Granada’s weather has taken a huge turn for the better….like you could not even believe. I believe the change took place last Monday at precisely 4pm when the wind came in off the lake and all of the sudden Granada became not so hot anymore. You may think that I am joking when I say precisely at 4pm but it is the honest truth….weather just changes like that here. Anyway, it still is hot during the day but it is not nearly as humid and in the evenings there is normally a brisk wind. It is actually really pleasant for me and as for the Nicas, they say it is too cold…..haha…oh tropical dwellers.

Now let’s move onto some other recent news and thoughts that have been swirling around in my head.

Making friends is really hard here. I do also remember it being hard in Washington DC but here it is 50 times as hard. I have to deal with foremost the language barrier but also I have been trying to navigate how friendships/relationships even work here. Do you invite someone over for coffee? Do you meet in the park to chat? I just don’t know yet. Also where do I even meet these friends? And do these friends even exist?

There definitely is not the same 23-28 year old crowd of past college, professional types who meet for happy hour after work. Most 24 year olds are already married with two kids here. Of the ones that are not married with kids, there are many guys that are alcoholics or womanizers. Then there are those that work or study in Managua and only come back to Granada to eat dinner and sleep. Suffice to say it has been difficult for me but I really have been trying and am happy to report some successes.

This past weekend I went out Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night with new Nicaraguans. Friday I was invited to go a “party” by a guy who I met through my American friends who just left for the US. We went to someone’s house and the party ended up being a rehearsal for some traditional folk dancing that would take place in Masaya on Sunday. Thankfully, the invitees were not asked to participate and we were just able to watch the various pairs go about their business dancing to the marimba. It was very cool and very cultural.

Then Saturday I was on my bed, in my pjs, ready to read and go to sleep when I got a phone call from an old friend, Rebecca, who I met during my first week in Granada. She now works in Managua but was in Granada for the weekend and wanted me to come out. I was REALLY tired and not in the mood but I was finally able to convince myself to just do it. After all, I need to make friends and I am not doing Peace Corps to sit in my room and read books. It’s all about relationship building baby! So I went out, got to see a really random street party taking place and ended up meeting two new Nicaraguans that were with Rebecca. A 21 year old guy and a 23 year old girl. Both live in Granada and both are BIG time talkers which I really like.

Then Sunday I hung out with one of the girls I met on Saturday night and we chatted in the park and then went on this train that rides around town on the weekends. This chica literally knows everyone in Granada and always seems to be what we would call in the US, a student leader. She is probably involved in Student Government and all that jazz. Anyway she is really cool and hopefully a friendship will blossom.

Basically I give myself a ten for making friends over the weekend and if I can actually become friends with one of the people then that would just be well…swell.

Basketball League. I think I mentioned before that I am playing in a basketball league. Well this past weekend my team had two games and I got thrown out of the second one….the first time ever in my life that I have been thrown out and it happened in Nicaragua. And I have probably played, coached, and reffed in well over 1000 games. So why did I get thrown out? Well just so it is a little more understandable…first I fouled out. Also I fouled out just a few minutes after I was really getting into a good rhythm and had just scored 8 points in a row….this was the first time I had actually done anything well offensively on this team. So as you can imagine I was not happy.

I think I have what I will define as comparable to the Black man’s syndrome in the US who think that every misfortune to him is because of discrimination. That’s how I feel a lot of the time here, slighted because I am a foreigner, lets call it the Gringo Perceived Discrimination, or GPS. I have fouled out 3 of the past 4 games and at least 2 of the 5 fouls from every game have been complete bullshit….calls where I honestly did not even touch the person. So I really feel that because I am a foreigner I am getting singled out. Maybe it’s true, maybe it isn’t.

After I fouled out, I just let the refs have it from the bench, screaming and cursing up a lot BUT all in English. Haha…no one can understand me….haha…the Gringo has an advantage over you. I can smack talk and you just don’t know what I am saying. But after enough times of saying F#%$, I think they caught on and finally gave me a technical foul. Yet the technical foul came a good 15 seconds after I was completely calm and sitting silently on the bench. Of course, I yelled (this time in Spanish) that I had been sitting on the bench quietly doing absolutely nothing and now you call a technical. This is bullshit. Esto es mierda. And then I officially got thrown out and had to leave the court. BUT it’s an outdoor court so I just went far enough away and continued to watch the game. We were far enough ahead and better than the other team so I knew the techs wouldn’t matter but I still apologized to the team after the game. Hopefully I at least earned the respect of the referees and my team. That’s all I ever wanted in the first place….

Kids. I need to do something that involves kids. A group of my students came to hang out with at the house the other day and it was really fun just chatting with them, getting to know them better, etc. They invited me to a little despedida party they are having to celebrate the end of the school year but as it is on Saturday afternoon I may still be out of town.

Blog Writing. I was selected to write for the www.peacecorps.gov website under the Volunteer Blog section so yeah I gotta brush the shoulders off (for all you old people out there….that means that I am congratulating myself). They are working out the final kinks for the site but you should see me there soon and you can say you know me. More updates on this once I know more.

Family Visit. 33 days and counting. You have no idea how excited I am for their visit. It is going to be awesome!

News flash. Jaguars suck! Who would have ever imagined that our season would be over by week ten? No one is the answer. At least I wont be missing a playoff game.

News flash. Gators are good. Two more to go, baby. And I will use this public forum, to officially announce that IF the Gators make it to the national championship, I, Avi Mordechai Richman, will be there, in Gator apparel, watching the game, on US soil. I just have to go if we make it. And I am not even close to ready to go back to US but it’s just Miami so I can just speak Spanish the whole time and ignore all of the white people.

News flash. Nicaraguan elections are “over”. They did an official recount and the Sandinistas won a vast majority of the mayoral offices including Managua. Now the opposition party, the Liberales, are beginning a campaign to annul the election results and have a new election in January. There has been scattered violence and protests throughout the past week but all is calm now….at least for a while. We will wait and see what happens.

HAVE A HAPPY THANKSGIVING AND PLEASE ACTUALLY GIVE THANKS FOR ALL OF THE WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITIES AND ADVANTAGES THAT YOU HAVE BEEN GRANTED IN YOUR LIFE!