Summer in León (yes, it´s summer)

I can´t get this computer to let me post any pictures on here, but most of them are on facebook anyway. I apologize to those of you who are a)still interested in knowing what I am doing, and b) don´t have facebook, because I am a traitor and I gave in to the facebook world. It seems that it´s been a while since I wrote any updates, so let´s see what I can remember of the past couple months.
December:
December 7th and 8th is a holiday which I´m pretty sure is to celebrate the immaculate conception of our lord and savior, Jesús Cristo. During this holiday, people run around the streets yelling ¨Quién causa tanta alegría?!¨(roughly tranlated as who causes all this happy craziness?!) and the answer is shouted back, ¨la concepción de María!¨(the conception of Mary...you get it). Kids (and adults, actually) run from door to door and the neighbors give out candy. It´s a little like Halloween except less pagan/satanic and more sacred Catholic. I went to the beach where there was a huge party and people came from all over the country. I drank too much national beverage (rum) and somehow lost my (second) cell phone in the sand. I now have the third cellphone I´ve bought since being here (the first was robbed) and even if I lose this one I will not buy another.
I had a wonderful birthday party, brought to me by my friends Sofie and Danny, during which we played guitar and went dancing. Christmas and New Year´s eve were pretty calm, actually, but included a lot of fireworks. That´s normal, though, because I swear these people are celebrating something every day.

January: I started work again after a holiday break, first at the Academia Europea and most recently at the National University of Nicaragua, here in León. I LOVE giving classes at the University, and it has just reinforced my belief that I should probably get certified to teach English so I can do it anywhere in the world (including the USA, which I WILL come back to eventually, despite what some of you may think). The last few weeks have been the usual León adventures, a few of which I will now elaborate.
-Took a short vacation to Estelí, a town in the north of the country where it is significantly colder and more importantly, is not León. It is really crucial to get out of here once in a while- León is a small town where you get to know everyone pretty quickly and yes, get sick of everyone pretty quickly too.
-I started learning Swedish, but have only learned the most important phrases, like ¨I slept with your ex-boyfriend¨, ¨give me a fork¨, and ¨nice to meet your Santa Clause, you whore¨.
-My friends Sofie and James strip searched a prostitute and her gay pimp who came to their house and stole a bunch of Sofie´s makeup from the bathroom. They vehemently denied having taken anything, but the stolen goods were found stashed behind a door in the room they had been in.
-I walked home to Sofie´s house with a guy who came to accompany us and as we approached her house, some dude on a bike with a machete came up from behind us and started punching the guy we were with. He ran, tripped and fell, broke his wrist and got a few minor machete scratches on his back. Sofie´s neighbors came outside because of the commotion and the machete guy ran away. We were unharmed. These are the stories my parents do not like to hear about.
-I had a fun couple of trips to Immigration, where I had to go to extend my visa which expired in December. As usual, I spent over two hours waiting in lines until I finally got the necessary form, filled it out, and paid my fine and the money to extend the visa. I can now stay here for 2 more months, legally.
-A couple weeks ago we went to a farm to swim and see some waterfalls and a cockfight. I mostly went for the swimming, but I will try (almost) anything once, so I watched the cockfight, too. We got a ride out to the farm on a truck with a big open bed and sped along the highway towards Managua, standing up and getting wind so fast in our faces that we could barely talk to each other. Once we got there, I watched the cockfight which consisted of 2 roosters with small razor/knife things attached to their feet (to more efficiently injure each other) fight it out until they were both bloody and one was barely moving. At that point, the one who could still move was declared the winner. In order to make this delightful spectacle last longer, the men in the ¨ring¨ would occasionally pick up the roosters and give them what seemed to be rooster CPR. They sucked some of the blood out of their mouths and gave them some more air. When they looked up their mouths and arms were covered in rooster blood, making them appear to be either vampires or some fucked up Jeffrey Dahmer-style rooster serial killers. While this was happening, the men around the ring were betting and the winner and cheering them on, while drinking way too much beer and rum.

Once I had enough of watching this ¨cultural experience¨, I went to a friend´s grandmother´s house and we sat around chatting and waiting for the swimming part. The driver of the truck we had ridden in on had gone down the road just to pick up some bikes and bring them to the house, and while he was getting the bikes about 8 children decided they wanted to come back for the ride. All of a sudden, we heard a vehicle screaming down the dirt road and a huge crash, as the truck carrying the bikes and now the kids veered off the road and hit a tree. After that I heard one of the most horrible sounds I have ever heard...children screaming and crying, mothers running in the direction of the truck shouting ¨mi hijo! mi hijo!¨. We ran to the truck and pulled off the children who were bleeding all over. I held a four year old little girl in my arms and felt her head- it was dented in two places and she had cut her arm. One guy was holding his head with a towel someone had given him. When he took away the towel for a brief second, I could see that part of his scalp was torn away and he was basically holding his head together with that towel. The driver was pulled out of the truck, holding his head which was covered in blood and screaming ¨estoy muriendo!¨(I´m dying). He fainted and was lying on the ground for what seemed like forever until a car finally came and took him and the guy with piece of his head missing to the hospital. We had called the ambulance and police, but neother had arrived, and someone later told me that you have to tell the ambulance you will pay for the gas (which is very expensive) or else they will take their time getting there. I called a friend of mine who has a van, and he came and we went with the rest of the kids to the hospital. As we were leaving the farm, already on the highway home, we saw the police arriving. The next few hours I spent in the hospital with a passenger who was in shock, and I was told my the doctor to take the prescription and go get some ant-anxiety pills for her at the pharmacy upstairs at the hospital. I went up there and gave the pharmacy the prescription. The guy working there looked at it and handed it back to me saying, ¨no hay¨(there is none). I had to go to an outside pharmacy to get the pills. The driver and the guy with the head were in surgery, and as far as I know, they both lived. The driver had had an entire liter of rum by himself at the cockfight, and was therefore wasted when the accident happened. He is now at home recovering, and will suffer no consequences for driving 8 little children into a tree.

I swear, my life is not all violence here, it´s just that writing boring recounts of being hit on by latin men gets old. Other than these stories, life here is great. It is 90 degrees all the time, I have some local and foreign friends, and I spend a lot of time teaching, playing guitar, and eating rice and beans. Even a boring day is not too boring- I can just go to the park and play soccer with the street kids or chat with the hippies who make jewelry. To cool off, I go to the bank, the movies, or the supermarket, even if I am not shopping. I have gotten braver, and now go into the pool halls which are typically reserved for men who look at me like I am insane for playing pool, as I am a woman.

I hope the next updates I write can include pictures and perhaps be even more uplifting than this one. I miss you all and hope to hear from you soon!