This Weekend

Well, I don't know how this managed to happen, but I'm sick. I woke up Monday morning, and went to the preschool to help with a different class (this class doesn't listen to anyone). It's hard to be super happy and energetic when you don't have energy, your entire body aches, and you don't have a voice. As soon as I got home I laid down and took a nap, then started burning up so I moved to another room with a fan. I didn't go to school yesterday or today, as I assume they wouldn't want me there with a fever (we never did get that checked out). I was feeling a little bit better yesterday, my voice is here half the time so it's ok. David brought in some lunch to me, which was very sweet... Calala and orange juice, and some eggs and salsa. I had been sitting in my room all afternoon, and didn't have the energy to get up. I read 2 1/2 books yesterday, because everything else makes my head spin. Today was just miserable. I had hot sweats, and chills, and nausea, and basically everything that's bad when you're sick. Hopefully it will go away so I can work more than 6 days in the preschool.


Caroline and Claira have really been obsessed with the idea of me getting married and having a baby, so they asked me one night when i was getting married. I told them, for the 45th time, that I would not be getting married for a long time and that I would only have a baby after I get married. Claira's prayer (the best quote of the last few days) went as follows: Please bless me get baptized. Please bless me be born. (?) Please bless me get married. Please bless boys. Please bless Mommy. Please bless Mommy. Please bless Mommy's baby. Please bless me have baby. Amen.
After the prayer Caroline asked me why I was laughing. I said it was just a good prayer.

So, this weekend started off pretty relaxed. I just hung out at the pool, and tried (obviously failing) to catch up on my blog and journal. In the afternoon, Wes asked me if I wanted to go ziplining over this lake in downtown Managua. Sure, why not? My mom had told me to accept every possible adventure I would go on, and this seemed to count as one of them. The site was an old torture camp owned by Samosa. I wondered why he would want this wonderful view for so horrible a place.

 As soon as I saw the cables and how high up we were going, I felt kind of sick. My fear of heights was acutely at odds with my sense of adventure, and so I went. I made sure not to scream, as we had an audience.

Once we got to the first stop, they asked me if I wanted to ride the next line upside down. I think my blood drained out of my face, because they said don't worry one of the workers will be riding with you. I didn't know which was worse-- riding by myself upside down on a zipline, with no way to break; or riding upside down on a zipline with an older man riding behind me, holding onto my legs. Nevertheless, I let him do it. And here's the results:

I was terrified when he told me to let go of the harness. Letting go went against everything my brain was telling me. I did let go finally, but only for about 10 seconds. Then he started shaking my legs, and I immediately grabbed back my harness. Most of the pictures of me looking like a starfish hanging up to dry were taken at the end, after we had already stopped.
On the third and final line, the workers asked me if I wanted to do what they called the "Superman", where you lay facedown on your harness and (again) a worker takes you through the line. I said yes, against my better judgement. Once we got out into the open space, I realized why this was against my better judgment. I really wished I had gone running more, because the harness was starting to strain. Then, I started laughing, because I thought of "Titanic"-- "Look Jack, I'm flying!" Here are some of those pictures:

After we had finished riding the ziplines, Wes took me to a part of Managua I might have never seen. We went to the National Museum, and went to a beautiful old chapel that had been damaged in the earthquake of 1972, but had never been repaired.

In addition, there was a giant embassy, where the Nicaraguan Supreme Court was meeting at that time. We didn't get very close to that building. After that, we drove around parts of the city that were pretty dangerous, drug lords and gangsters and stuff like that. They were more likely to inhabit this part of town because it had been damaged in that same earthquake, and the government hadn't fixed it since. So the property was condemned, but people still lived there when they had no other place to go. While we were driving around there, Wes gave me a history of the government, and why it's so corrupt and how hopeless it is for the people. Always kind of a depressing thing to think about.
After I got home, I had to fulfill a promise to Caroline and Claira to have a sleepover with them. Claira was SO excited, I don't think she'd ever slept in a real bed besides with her parents. They both kept trying to tell me secrets, and when Claira would tell me a secret she would put her mouth to my ear and yell. I was laughing so hard I didn't even catch what she said. She just tries so hard to do everything Caroline does.
I fell asleep trying to get the girls to sleep, and woke up an hour and a half later with Claira on my face. I had to go try and clean up the kitchen, and while I was doing that I turned on my Facebook to see if there was anything new and exciting. Well, there was, but probably not "exciting" in the way that I enjoyed it. I found out one of my friends from high school had passed away in some type of accident that morning. It was pretty shocking, because I had always just assumed I could see my friends later when I had gotten back from Nicaragua and say hi to them. I guess one of the reasons why I found it so... creepy, in a sense... is that I had just had a dream about high school graduation (all of 2 years ago, i know), and the speaker said "This is the last time you will all be in the same room again". I had always assumed that, because not everyone was going to show up to reunions and stuff, but I didn't assume it would be like this. I'm definitely going to have to make calls and get lunch with people as soon as possible, so that I can see them. Needless to say, I was very shaken up by that. But luckily my mom and dad were there when I called them and did a good job of consoling me. My mom also tried to distract me, and the best way to do that was by asking me about Claira. I told her all the funny things she had done that day, and that was a good way to get me to laugh.
After I got off the phone, I went to bed and woke up with Claira on my face again. For a little girl, she certainly enjoys taking up ALL the room on the queen sized inflatable mattress.

That's kind of it for now. I have some more pictures of Barcelo (the resort), which are here. But for some reason, my camera's batteries died AGAIN. Which is so weird. I'll have to go buy some more.

A bat cave... that little black dot in the middle of the picture is a bat. We had to physically restrain Caroline from going in there.

Our companion at the pool, he really wanted to swim even though they were dumping chemicals in the pool.

Caroline has no problem holding it.

Claira throwing a tantrum. It's hilarious to watch, I got a video of it too but i STILL can't figure out how to get videos on here!