A bloodless coup at the blog

OK, this is Kash writing here... I haven´t actually read what Dan has been writing so I can´t attest to the "truthines" of any of it... reader beware. This may be another "A million Little Pieces" in the making. Hopefully we will also make millions of dollars like James Frey.

So anyway on with the story. It´s Thursday the 10th now and we don´t have much planned for the day. In the morning we head out to the local market to see what it{s all about. There´s about 3 different sections that I know of and quite possibly more. First there{s the outdoor vendors along Calle Concepcion (also know as the street we live on). Here we have people selling just about everything - snacks, babyclothes, shoes, meat, pastries, socks, etc. Inside the first building are stall after stall of food and hardware type items. Nicaragua has about a million different fruits we have never seen or heard of. In fact each day at breakfastm lunch and dinner we seem to be presented with a new type of "refresco" (aka juice). Some are made with fruits, some are made with toasted corn, and the rest, well I{m still not so sure to be honest. All I know is they are vegetarian - thank goodness - imagine pork flavored juice! Amyway, so ther{s the part of the market with all the mysterious fruits and vegetables. Then there{s the part of the market with all the meats. Honestly this was one of the more disgusting moments for me. Considering that it was only 10am and that these vendors sit out here all day I was pretty horrified by by both the smell and the many, many flies being shooed away with fans by the vendors. Hey, at least theyre trying, right? Anyway what also didn{t help with the wide assortment of organs, brains, and who knows what else was being hawked. Then came the fish part of the market. Now I do eat fish but this experience really made me reconsider. The smell kind of gave me an uncontrollable gagging reflex in the back of my throat. Dan, of course, seemed totally unaffected. Honestly, after our adventure through the market we didn´t even buy anything except a small bunch of "mamons," which some of you may know as leechees (sp?).

After classes and dinner, we headed out in the rain back to the school to wacth Motorcycle Diaries and then on to a local gringo hang-out called Cafe Nuit. This is actually a really pretty open air hangout with hanging trees, gardens and a live band playing salsa music which rotated off with a DJ playing both Nicaraguan pop music and some classic US hip-hop and carribean reggae. We went out with the other students from Casa Xalteva and met up with a few others who were already there. We had some drinks and Dan managed to sample three of the local Nicaraguan beers, Toña, Victoria and Premio (or was it Premium? I guess it doesn{t really matter).

The following day, friday the 11th, closed out our first week in Nicaragua. All in all it´s strangely similar to India (but with a lot less people). Complete with three wheeled rickshaws, cows along the side of the roads and small, hungry children. Of course eveyone is speaking Spanish and the colonial buildings here in Granda have a spanish influence rather than english one but rice is still the staple of the diet and some fo the little old ladies on the street could definitely pass for indian if you put them in a sari.