ah.

so it is thursday. almost noon here. what does that mean?

1. its hot and only getting hotter, the heat peaks around 230 when my first class starts.

2. sweat. everywhere all over me and its getting to be normal but nasty, and i can only shower in the morning cause my shower is outside. this means one shower a day before i feel horrendous.

3. lunchtime traffic, everyone goes home from work or school or where to eat at the house and then returns to where ever they were. sometimes other family members take food to the work or the school of other family members the streets of ocotal are busiest right now.

4. im not eating, ive got some nasty fucking diarrhea so im not putting anything else in here until i hit the doctor and get my poop examined, im almost going on the hour. its pretty fucking terrible.

what it does not mean is that tomorrow, i will be getting on a bus to go to Estelí and have breakfast at an amazing organic biodynamic restuarant just outside the city. it serves whole grain bread, fabulous cheeses, fruit drinks, coffee, hot chocolate and all sorts of goodies that i am not used to here. my life, my diet, some the main excitement in my day consists of rice and beans or gallo pinto(exact translation: painted rooster) but what it really is rice and beans with oil and salt tossed in a pan, oh its delicious but for three meals a day, i tend to get edgy with understanding and patience, meaning that id like some fucking chinese food or a sweet bowl of pesto right about now. however, im happy and accepting this along with everything else is just part of the ride.

the ride has its ups and downs. class is a mix of both. 4 hours a day, more or less or drilling verbs, vocab, practicing conversation and just absorbing until the point of explosion. as it gets hotter, the dry season just started, so this heat is actually nothing it will only get much much much worse before the rains begin in late may, absorbtion of words and grammar becomes more difficult. it is as if our brains are like the earth lacking water and cracking with dehydration as we attempt to fill ourselves with the knowledge of a foriegn language that we can barely decipher.

ok i lie, we can decipher the language but it is only now, week 4 that i can really begin to hear and speak with less fear and hesitation and even there is the speed and accent with which people talk, pronunciation and stresses upon words and syllables that i am struggling with, though progress is being made. to that affect i am seeking long term employment here or internship, and yeah, by long term i mean a year or more. ive been looking for jobs teaching or working with non-profits in order to really sit down, cement and allow my spanish to grow its roots. to the point in which i am considering the peace corp. yeah i know, but still its an awesome experience.

my plotting, in addition to the peace corps, knows no limits one of the other gringas and i are talking about farming in france or working on yachts. im dreaming of china still and trying to find a way to stretch my green as far as it can go. tense, exciting, nerve racking - yes racking, like The Rack from the time of castles and kings, where the string the poor sucker up on the torture device and pull him slowly, ever so slowly, apart, limb by limb, by limb. thats how my nerves feel sometimes.

like at night, in my room, my cement room, with four exits, two doors and two windows when i think about the past and feel fear, and amazingly enough i dont think that i had ever really felt fear before. it makes you sweat. not because you are hot, but because your insides turn to ice, a chill works it way from your insides out and when you feel it grip all your skin you break out in that icy sweat of fear. this is unlike the sweat i am sweating right now. because i am hot now and fear is cold, cold like winter, the middle of winter, when its snowing all the time and you cant see behind you because the flakes are turning like mad in the air as the drifts pile up around your past and all you have built and when you look ahead all you see is one thing, the fear, the result of the storm and there is no option its not like a future without fear, you cant choose you just walk in a straight line without thinking about anything ever, going blindly where you know you will be going. fear is totalizing, it is legion and it sits quietly growing and waiting to take control.

control. i have a little of it these days. gave up coffee and have really really really cut down my drinking out of a desire to stop both. i really want to give up drinking but wine. the beauty of wine pulls at me so bad. im trying. and im happy about the trying. maybe the control is an attempt to beat the fear. maybe im making a mountain out of a molehill.