The Trials of Santa Vanessa

Squatter community, Granada

Yesterday we got out of our stuffy classrooms, taking our teachers to visit the community center where Dorothy and Jo are volunteering. Viva Nicaragua has been working in a former squatter community, building houses and a community center; there are still no streets, but at least people  now have proper houses, with floors and everything. To my newly-arrived eyes it still looked pretty squalid, and I asked Manuel how many people lived in housing like this. He waited until no one was within earshot, then told me that actually, this was a pretty nice neighborhood - and that probably 70% of the country lived like this.

Manuel and Gabriela looking for La Solidaridad, Granada

The new community building was big and clean, but HOT. Everyone was dripping with sweat, and I realized that part of the problem was that they had no  fans - so I asked Carrie (the American ex-pat single mom from San Francisco who helps run the program) if they might like a donation of a ceiling fan. After a brief phone call to the program director, she pronounced me "Santa Vanessa" and said they couldn't imagine anything nicer. Funny how doing something nice (and being called a saint) made up for feeling like a moronic first-worlder. It even appeased my guilt enough to enjoy swimming at the $5 swimming pool afterwards. 

Elliot and I spent the afternoon making a mosaic, and then we went out for our first restaurant dinner with the Canadians, on the lovely 'gringo street', where we got serenaded by a band of traveling musicians. We walked back after dark but no one bothered us. It was all extremely pleasant.

La Solidaridad Community Center, Granada

Elliot woke me at midnight, complaining he felt sick. "Do you need to throw up?" I asked, but no, he said his throat hurt, so I brought him into bed with me. About ten minutes later he started moaning, and then he proceeded to barf all over both of our pillows. A lot. We spent the next hour in the bathroom (thankfully clean and private), where he threw up two more times. I stripped my bed, trolled the laundry area for more pillows, and we finally went back to sleep together in E's little twin bed. About two hours later I woke up with the same feeling (though having a wee bit more life experience, I can recognize nausea when I feel it), and so I spent another very unpleasant hour in the bathroom, this time by myself.

I won't bore you all with the details, but suffice to say we are both now able to drink broth and eat crackers but otherwise we are feeling lousy, and today was a bit of a write-off. One small consolation was the weather: it absolutely poured down rain today, so I'm quite sure the trip to Laguna Apoyo that we'd been looking forward to all week was cancelled.

I'm trying now to sort out what to do next week. The plan originally had been to stay in Granada for three weeks, but I think (assuming we recover soon) we will venture out of the city for the second week - either to the eco-lodge near Masaya or to Isla Ometepe (an island with two volcanoes in Lago Nicaragua, which everyone says is divine). And if we don't recover soon, I've been advised to see a doctor, as other volunteers for Viva Nicaragua have recently come down with giardia and some other nasty fauna. Stay tuned...