No photos here. I am not apologizing.

This blog has turned into a photobook and I am none too pleased. Photos take about 10 minutes each to upload (roughly the same time it takes me to wash a single article of clothing, regardless of size. Seriously, a single sock takes me just as long to wash by hand as a pair of pants. There is no logical explanation). Photos wrangle wit. That sentence made no sense. Nevertheless, with those observations in mind, let me share with you some observations of my own.

It may be a small-town thing and not an Estelí thing (Amy assures me this happened in her small town all the time) but the young men “cruising” in their cars in the early evening has become a ridiculously delightful sight to enjoy. These men, some with new cars but most with 1994 Toyota Tercel-esque cars, have “pimped out” their cars and are excited to circle town to show everyone. I do not know exactly what they are looking for but for the most part they are outrageously unsuccessful as they pass by my house three or four times in a couple of hours. I should clarify that the “pimped out” cars have all of the fixin’s- three blue lights under the car, playboy bunny stickers, neon lights around the license plate, and a stereo with volume levels that should be illegal. The funniest thing about the stereo is that the music is ridiculous. There was a “cool” guy, decked out in a wife-beater and big sunglasses, riding through town and cool-ly bobbing his head to “As Long As You Love Me” (possibly the Backstreet Boys? Maybe ‘N Sync?).

The volume of televisions and music here is unbelievable. I acknowledge that in general I have my music and TV turned down quite low, but no human being can possibly think that the volume levels here are normal. You can be a block away from a house and understand every word of the soap opera they are watching (in theory. This of course requires a mastery of the Spanish language that is still far off.). This might be O.K. if (a) the individual was deaf or (b) the individual was cooking or in another room (half a block away), however, (a) my epidemiologic training leads me to believe that the entire town cannot possibly be deaf and (b) the average distance that one sits from the television in Estelí is 1.5 feet. As Amy pointed out, not only is this going to cause endemic blindness, but no one sitting behind you can watch if you’re that close.

I don’t know if I told you my weekend activities. If I did, skip this paragraph. If not, here they are. On Saturday, I hiked out to a waterfall near town with some other students. I use the word hiked liberally because we actually hiked about a third of the way and then we officially joined the ranks of “hop-alongs”, cruising the rest of the way in the back of a truck. The same happened on the way back. It’s actually a little unfortunate because I was counting on the exercise to reduce the size of my bloated, three-monstrous-meals-a-day, belly. Oh well… On Sunday I went to a soccer game. It was a little boring and the home team lost. I was hoping for more hooliganism, taunting, and singing. Instead there was just a steady flow of contraband alcohol.

What else? Oh yeah, I almost had a panic attack when I accidentally let my toilet paper fall into the toilet. After seriously considering developing a contraption to fish it out, I just crossed my fingers and flushed. I prayed for two days that the town’s infrastructure wouldn’t crumble.

And how could I forget my movie night? What a wonderful tradition I have started for myself. Friday is $1 movie night on Vince’s laptop (I think that that is the first time I’ve referred to myself in the third person… well done, Vince.). New release movies (both theatrical new releases and DVD releases) can be purchased here for $1. Out of fear that I will violate the section of the criminal code included at the start of every DVD (which ironically is the first thing you see when the DVD is tested for you in the store), I will let you figure out how I purchased the Dark Knight for $1. Suffice it to say that despite this being a “legitimate” store (i.e. not a street vendor but a building with a sign and a vendor who writes receipts (that I promptly discarded lest there be a paper trail)), I still thought that the police were going to arrest me as I emerged.

One final observation. You can’t wear hats in banks here. Weird, I know. The sign outside of one bank says “No guns, No cell phones, No hats”. Those seem to descend in importance, don’t they?