Acclimatization, the adjustment phase

It’s been one month since I arrived in Managua. At the same moment it feels as if I just arrived but also that I left Canada ages ago. It’s like being stuck in some strange time warp. In the first month, it has been a fine balance between fitting into my new environment, while keeping my own identity.
There have been a few “concessions” or “adaptations that I have made.

For starters, I’ve started drinking coffee. I don’t know how it happened, but I crave a coffee now. Tea just doesn’t really do it for me. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the 200+ teabags I have.

It took a few weeks, but the watch came off. It was initially taken off for safety’s sake – I was going to the market for the first time and my host family advised me to leave the watch at home. But, except for one day last week, the watch hasn’t found it’s way back to my wrist. I’ve started getting used to “Nicaraguan time”. I'm asking “what time?” less, because I’ve learned that the only answer I will get is “later”.

I’ve also started eating chicken. Sometimes. Chicken is basically in every meal here. The word “rooster” is used synonymously with “the best” – so the animal is kind of big deal here. If I wanted to eat in Nicaragua, I would have to start eating chicken. It has been a bit tougher that I thought it would be. It’s like eating something like grapes for the first time in 13 years. An acquired taste.

I’ve had to adjust my wardrobe a bit here too. In an “after-latte high” I bought a pair of pink heels. I still haven’t really worked them in yet – but I’m slowly moving away from the gringa flip-flop and into something more Nica (meaning: non-flat and dressier).

I’m getting used to the cold water showers (by adding a bit of boiling water), the muggy heat (sometimes) and the various farm animals in the city (I think I have a pig as a neighbour). Every once in a while I do manage to sneak in some of my own guilty pleasures. It feels paradoxical to be lying in bed, in sheets that were washed by hand, listening to dogs & roosters & gheckos & random birds while at the same time watching an episode of Gossip Girl on my Ipod.