Our group arrived in Managua yesterday and spent today traveling north to Jinotega. We´ve yet to accomplish anything other than wearing ourselves out and eating our yearly quotas of fried meat. What the Nicaraguan diet lacks in diversity is made up in the items they´ve thought to fry. Today´s lunch included no fewer than five fried choices, to which I said, “Hello, rice and beans, old friends.”
So far the adventure has gone well. I´ve got 12 other people on traveling with me — none of whom have ever been here before. Literally at each turn in the road there was an excited question about the cultural significance of plants, cars, paint, bricks, food, music, dress, etc. The first hour of the drive I found this amusing. The second hour it was annoying. The third and fourth hours I took the AfricanKelli irritation evacuation route by way of a good hard nap. Not so surprisingly, everyone is so much nicer after a two hour journey to siestaville.
Tomorrow we begin constructing houses and working on a water project. Manual labor, here I come. I´m more than a bit worried considering my lack of grace and propensity toward stupid injury. For example, I´m currently sporting a lovely burn on my upper lip. Why you ask? Because I thought I should have my lip waxed per trip preparation and the girl at the salon burned me. Lovely. (A stranger at the Houston airport had the balls to ask me if it was a fever blister. I said no, I was just trying to look like Katie Holmes.) Pair this lovely scab moustache with road burn down my right arm. Technically, it is hill burn. After I woke up from my two hour nap this afternoon while on the road to Jinotega, I realized I´d slept through the previous bathroom break. I begged our driver to stop, ran over to the side of the road to find a latrine and proceed to fall straight on my ass and down half a steep hill, only to be thankful I didn´t piss myself to make it worse. My wrist and hand are all cut up, but again, I have a feeling it isn´t anything a good nap could help make feel a bit better. Or a Nicaraguan beer. Or maybe a beer and then a nap.
Oh, the adventures of public health!

Cheers,
Kelli