Motor crash, spider and power outages

Dear all,

I won't be writing every single week, but since the first week is probably the one with the most excitement and discoveries, here's a little recap of the past 8 days.
I flew to Atlanta, and from there to Managua where Chepe, my favorite driver, would pick me up to drive me to Playa Maderas. In Atlanta I found a guy who was willing to share my cab, and when I told him my story about moving here, he said he knew a girl from Austria who did the same thing. That had to be my friend Stephanie he was talking about, and indeed.. Small world! He was just another traveller who once got caught by the vibe here in Maderas and keeps on coming back, like so many others...
So I arrived late at night and got dropped off at Sergio's, where I could enjoy the last hour of pizza night. After first asking me whether I was wearing whitening make up, I was warmly welcomed by two friends and some familiar faces. The next day I went to my own house, and finally saw Stephanie and Silvia, not only my two great friends but now also my neighbors.
The house is everything I need. It's got 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and a little patio. It's very much Nica style, the toilet flushes your poo only half of the times (don't even try to flush after peeing because of the water shortage), and there's space between the roof and walls so insects and dust are daily visitors. But, I don't think I can ever feel more at home then I do here, living a 'primitive life' (at least compared to life in the Netherlands) so close to my friends. So after moving into my new home it was time for surfing and after that my first lesson on my own motorbike! 20 min later I was in the car on my way to the local hospital, bleeding from my left arm and all over my left leg. Pulled the gas while switching gears.. Oops! I'm definitely not too talented. The hospital is a hilarious experience. After waiting for a few minutes I could sit on a dirty brancard that I doubt ever gets cleaned, and the doctor would get his 3 main tools: a bottle of water, a bottle of desinfectant and a bottle of iodin. I had a fairly big whole near my elbow, so the guy had to dig some gravel out before he could first stitch it up on the inside, and then on the outside. 3 stitches on the outside with 1mm thick thread, which would probably have been 8 stitches in the Netherlands. At least I don't need a tattoo anymore, I'll get a nice scar as a reminder of my Nica adventures. They prescribed antibiotics and pain killers and told me I should come back for 8 days in a row. So the next day, one of my friends was kind enough to bring me to the city and hold my hand when they put the iodin on my open wounds. The day after, he didn't wanna bring me there. Why? Half way down the road there's guys hiding in the bushes and running down with knives when tourists come by walking or on their bicycles to rob them. So there's police guarding now everyday, which is not a great combo with the way people often drive their cars and motor bikes: without registration, without papers and without helmets.
I decided to clean the wounds myself and go to the hospital the next day. When arriving at the end of the next day, they told me I had to come back the day after. When coming back the da after, the doctor came with scissors to remove the stitches, which had to stay in for another 4 days. Luckily my Spanish has improved to the level that I could tell her this, and while laughing she put the scissors away and put a little bit of gas on the wound and tried to keep it in place with putting household tape on it. No, that didn't work. I figured I might as well save myself the hitchhike to the city every day and just clean the wounds myself.

So what else happened this week:
-I went to a surf competition where my friend Stephanie got 3rd! Here I met Sacha, a guy from Scheveningen, who decided to rent my spare bedroom for 3 nights. Scheveningen in Nicaragua, double home!
-the first (yes and only, you know me) time I was washing my hair we ran out of water when I just fully covered by hair and body in soap. I hopefully waited a few minutes but it didn't come back.
-2 days ago we baked potatoes on a fire in our garden
-yesterday I had a 'barbecue' with 3 friends and the girl who is now renting my spare bedroom, again frying all our food on a fire in the garden.
-we've already had 2 days of continuing power outages, because of massive storms. That means no wifi at the bars, no lights at home, food getting warmed up in the fridge. And, waking up to a house that is completely covered in dust (I've cleaned the house 5 times so far).
-a few days ago I had a massive spider in my house, of about 7 cm big, which could literally jump from one wall to the one perpendicular to it. Silvia told me this was one of the 3 house spiders that are always around either their our my home, and I wasn't allowed to kill it. With a lot of begging she agreed to push it outside with a broom, but she gave me such a hard time saying how sad it was for the spider, that the next day when it was back again, I just let it sit (or jump). Guess it will save me some mosquito bites.
-today I've been doing laundry.. Rubbing every item by hand while trying to use as little water as possible while standing in a 90degrees angle bended position. It took me an hour before everything was hanging to dry in the sun, but unfortunately 10 min later half of my laundry fell onto the ground and is now covered with black dust.. Takes a while to get the right skills!
-twice a week there is a water truck coming by at our house, and twice a week a food truck, which will provide you with the most delicious fresh fruits and vegetables. That is when it shows up of course... No water truck so far, and the food truck yesterday said he would come back in 6 days, let's hope he does!
-I'm forced to watch murder programs every night because that seem to be the only television shows that are English spoken with Spanish subtitles (my new way of learning Spanish). Luckily, my affinity with the Spanish language is not so bad as with laundry and motor bikes.

As you might notice, life is definitely not easy so far and I doubt it ever will. But despite the challenges in the past week, I feel like I am exactly where I need to be. Maybe in future I will want to again, but right now I wouldn't want to change the bathroom here for the luxurious one I have in Scheveningen, neither would I want to change my undrinkable tab water and exposed gas tank for the safe kitchen I used to have. I hardly get anything done during a day, because you're always dependent on when you can catch a ride somewhere, whether or not there's water, whether or not there's power, whether the food and water truck shows up... But I feel complete and fulfilled and happy, always walking (or right now still limping) around with dirty feet, tangled hair and clothes covered in dust, but I feel purer than ever.

This was it for this time, next time I'll write about successful motorbike adventures, surfing (I'm not allowed to go in the water because of risk of infections yet), and no doubt adventures that I can't foresee at the moment yet. Life just happens to you here and I enjoy it to pieces.

Love,
Alexandra