Report from Esteli, Nicaragua

Greetings from Nicaragua!
I spent my first two weeks in Esteli, and below are some thoughts on my experience there. Right now, I´m living in Siuna, and I´ll report on that in a few weeks.

Esteli (August 26 to September 9)
I usually measure success in a foreign country by whether or not I´ve made friends, and on that count, I´m doing well. Right now, I´m taking spanish classes, and living with a host family. Instruction is one-on-one, four hours a day, so it´s pretty intense. My first week, my instructor was named Ruth. She is my age and is really fun to talk to. We developed a good rapport by the end of the week, and I expect that we´ll keep in touch after I leave.
This weekend, I went to a region called Miraflor, which has spectacular scenery and great hiking. I cruised around with a guide named Alex, and he took us to some awesome places. You´ll have to wait for the pictures for awhile, but they´ll be worth the wait. I also have a sweet video of me jumping off the top of a waterfall. I would have done the flea, but you have to jump out really far in order to
avoid being dashed on the rocks. Since I didn´t want to wind up like Angela, I used a more traditional method of entering the water. I´d like to come back in December to catch up with Alex again, so I´ll get a chance to perform other daring dives.
This week, I have a new spanish instructor who studied in Cuba, so I have ample opportunities to learn about revolutionary movements past and present. Esteli and the surrounding region is still a hotbed of Sandinista sentiment, and they are hopeful that Daniel Ortega and the FSLN will win the election on November 5. If it does, this city will party like it´s 1979.
Last week, I went to a museum that commemorates those who died in the revolution of 1979, and among the dead was a woman from Berkeley! They had a great picture of her in a tank-top with a machine gun. It´s pretty sobering to learn how much blood was shed in Nicaragua in the 20th century, as well as how much of it the United States is directly or indirectly responsible for. I wonder what J-man´s perspective is on this matter.
Another interesting factoid about Esteli is that there are lots of bicycles here, and guys like to ride double with their girlfriends. The style here is that the girls sit sideways on the top-tube while the guy pedals. You ought to try it sometime!
This week, I hope to meet a Nicaraguan political science professor. I expect that local scholars are probably going to look at their history from a significantly different perspective than their American counterparts. One may not necessarily be better than the other, but both points-of-view will certainly be enlightening. Hopefully this professor can recommend some good books on 18th and 19th century Latin American history.
That´s about it for Esteli. The next update will deal with Siuna, where I am teaching until Christmas time.
Also, here´s a much belated link to my Guatemala photos from July

http://www.photoworks.com/share/shareSignin.jsp?shareCode=A30F1C2C211&cp=ems_shr_alb_pml&cb=PW

If you are a facebook user, the photos are up there as well.