One of the first weeks of being down here, Rebecca told us a saying that she and her friends use when things just don't go how you think they should or how you expected. "Nicaragua always wins." And that has been so true these past few days.

Let's start with Thanksgiving, a day that our leaders so lovingly gave us off. We were so excited for this meal and time to be together as a group and celebrate Thanksgiving Day. We had a turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, bread... we were also making some "pumpkin like" pies, as well as stuffing, vegetables, apple crisp, and deviled eggs. While Tana and I headed off to get some extra potatoes from Pali (the grocery store), the turkey was starting to cook in our oven and people were hard at work getting all the food ready. Then, Tana gets about 5 phone calls and one of those happens to be Roberto telling us that men were at our house threatening to cut our electricity. They claimed we hadn't paid the bill which Tana knew we had. We hurried through Pali and got home to find our house without electricity. Not what you want on Thanksgiving, especially when you need the oven to cook a huge bird. So, my teammates, being ever so resourceful, went to our neighbors and asked to use their oven which then started off the process of how do we get the bird into the other oven without burning their hands and wondering if the turkey was even going to fit... Anyways, long story short, the turkey fit and we're very grateful to our neighbors for helping us. What happened with the electricity was the company had never given us a bill for October and because of that we didn't pay the bill (go figure) so they cut our electricity. Well, Tana gives money to Roberto to go pay the bill because we really wanted our electricity back. After he pays the bill though, he informs Tana that they will probably be at the house in 24 hours to reconnect the electricity. (This is about 11 oclock or noon on Thursday) However, he says that if we bribe the electricians they will come by sooner. So, we bribe them- it's just a fact of life down here. So, we all go finish cooking our food at different places, somewhat calmer because we're going to get our electricity back...

So now, it's Saturday. Still no electricity. No electricians. Nothing.

Roberto has gone and tracked the workers down about 3 or 4 times I think and they say they're coming over but they never show up. It's obviously not that big of a deal in the day time, we don't need light. But at night, we all pull out our handy little head lamps and wander around in our pitch black house. Plus, we always have to have someone at the house now, waiting to see if maybe they feel like showing up. Last night, we stayed up til 11, hoping that they would come by. Our friends down here have been helping so much, calling people, trying to figure out what's up. Last night, Roberto actually called the electricity company and stated our situation as an "emergency". But still no one has come.

I'll admit it's frustrating. Without electricity we can't use the washing machine, the lights, any electronics that we have are dying cause we can't charge them, and the fans don't work. I know for me the fans are what I miss the most. They keep us cool at night as well as keep the mosquitos and other bugs off of us while we sleep. Also, arriving back to the house on Thursday with a bunch of leftovers and having the fridge and freezer not work was kinda frustrating. Sometimes, we just have to laugh about it though so that we don't get too frustrated. So we're hoping today that they'll come- but it is the weekend and actually right now everyone is celebrating the Virgin Mary (there was a parade at 4 oclock this morning). So who knows.

Nicaragua, you win this round.