"?Quien causa tanta alegria?

!La concepcion de Maria!" This is the chant of the Purisima - a 9 day celebration of the Virgin Mary. The kids started their celebration early today to end the school year. Even though it's a public school they had an assembly where they prayed, sang religious songs and shouted this chant. It was adorable.

To add to the fun Dave and I raised money (thanks fam!!) to buy plates for the school (so the kids can eat every day even if they forget to bring their plate and spoon from home) and bought fun food for the day. Other volunteers helped us set up everything up and after the assembly we handed out the dishes filled with sandwiches, pastries and candies to the kids. They LOVED it!!!

The kids now have their summer vacation until February when they will start the next grade. I'll be working over the vacations with older kids that got scholarships to attend private high schools in the city. Since they've lived in the outskirts their whole lives we'll be familiarizing them with the city and city life. I'm sad to not work with the little kids anymore, but happy to use more spanish and try something new!

Our long term plans have changed a bit and now Dave will be headed back to Durham, NC on Dec. 8 to start working again. I'll move into a homestay here in Granada for a few months to focus more on my spanish. We've loved being here together, but I've been speaking way too much english with Dave and not forcing myself to speak spanish. But don't worry, through the miracle of Skype we'll still get to "see" each other!  :) 

Love you guys and more soon!

Ahh, the Granada market. The FDA's worst nightmare, the terror of every vegetarian, and every street dog's favorite place on earth. This is where the people of Granada come to get just about everything:  fruits, veggies, rice, beans, eggs, cheese, meat, and even various sundry goods like shoes, diapers, shampoo, dresses, and aprons. You name it, it's probably for sale down one of the alleys, on one of the street corners, or in the central market building (a half-indoor, half-outdoor structure teeming with colors, smells, and flashes of activity). 

Though it's quite a shock to our refrigerated, air-conditioned, sterilized, seran-wrapped American sensibilities, we are getting slightly more adventurous with our market purchases of strange fruits and veggies, and even some fish occasionally. But for now we'll leave those stacks of fresh beef to the professionals.

We took a walk this weekend to the outskirts of town, where we came across Granada's cemetery and old hospital. The cemetery is a huge plot of land with whitewashed tombs, statues, and mausoleums as far as the eye can see. There are centuries-old graves, graves from soldiers who died in the revolution of the 1980's, and fresh graves from the last few years. We walked through this part of the cemetery to the pauper's graveyard beyond, where graves are marked with small wooden crosses or crosses made from PVC pipe and held together with pipe fittings. 

The old hospital, pictured above, is definitely the most intriguing structure in all of Granada. While it looks like it has been decomposing for a century, it was really in use until the 1980's! Now it is completely overgrown with weeds and flowers, its walls are crumbling, and the interior is nearly gutted. When we visited, there were kids playing a soccer game in front of the building where ambulances once rushed emergency patients into the hospital.  

Isla de Ometepe!

Continuing our volcano-themed adventures, we journeyed four hours by ferry across the wide lake to Isla de Ometepe, Nicaragua's Eden-esque island of monkeys, flowers, farms and cute kids like the ones pictured here. 

We left Granada on the Thursday afternoon ferry. The lake is big enough to have its own tides, waves, and weather systems, and the water was pretty rough. All around us, weaker stomachs revealed themselves with proverbial over-the-rail leaning and barfing, but we were strong and weathered the storm like true seamen (and women). 

Going to Ometepe is a little like stepping back in time. The island is basically just two huge volcanoes jutting out of the lake, connected by a thin isthmus of beachy land. Everywhere there is wild, lush land, tall trees, rolling hills with farms, and of course the ancient volcanoes spewing just a little steam. It all creates the illusion of prehistoric times, as if the appearance of a Brontosaurus around a bend in the road would not be the least bit surprising. 

Some highlights of the trip: 1) Horseback riding! Not only are we sea-worthy, we are also capable of doing some good ridin' and probably ropin' as well. The horses were very well behaved and our guide was great on our two-hour tour near the lake shore to some ancient petroglyphs in the hills. 2) Swimming and kayaking in the lake, which is nice and warm and very beautiful around sunset. 3) Animals! The entire island is one huge farm without fences, so we were greeted by baaaaaing sheep, adorable little piglets running down the road, and plenty of long-horn bulls with serious looks on their faces. At breakfast one morning, we were entertained by a flock of exotic birds who looked at us with wild eyes and eventually were bold enough to steal beak-fulls of sugar from our sugar bowl!

After weeks in civilized Granada, it was nice to spend some time in a place that's a little less developed, and little less marred by tourist infrastructure . . . a place where your routine could still potentially be interrupted by a crazy bird, a muddy and impassable road, or even (gasp!) a volcano.