Do What You Love Even When It Includes Feeling Squirrelly

Today's intention and constant thought: do what you love. Nicaragua has been an absolutely crazy situation from day one - I've learned that I do indeed have patience, I do believe in myself (for one of the first times I believe I'm capable of accomplishing anything my heart and soul truly desires), I can easily get lost and remove myself from stressful work situations at any moment by taking deep breathes and focusing on the beauty around me (thank you beautiful flowers, Ometepe, and random birds and nature that is constantly within eye shot), and that I truly love being in Nicaragua. I knew as soon as I heard through the great vine about a long term opportunity in Nicaragua that this was meant for me and it was my adventure for the taking. I can't fully explain where the confidence or how/why everything lined up perfectly...other than to simply say that I felt open to opportunity and the universe aligned accordingly. Although I'm not here for leisure, I do find myself laughing often, smiling constantly, and totally absorbed in the energy and beauty around me. I do love being a geologist and love the freedom to experience adventures and challenges outside, submersed in nature - all over the world. I love being able to evolve and change daily, to me, it's what life's about.

 

My awesome Machete

A bit of humor: I have this awesome driver that takes me everywhere named Sergio. He's looks and acts exactly as you would imagine a Nicaraguan named Sergio would. Basically he's badass. He wears the whitest shirts I've ever seen every single day, wears lots of cologne, and sweats profusely. He always carries a machete, tie-down straps to transport anything you could imagine possibly fitting (or not fitting) into Hilux, and a red bandana. The most important part about Sergio driving me around is that he blasts the damn AC (I am talking the highest possible setting every time to the point of giving me a brain freeze). For the past 10 days we have daily battles between me putting my window down and him rolling it up...because the AC is on. He only speaks Spanish and I only speak English, so this battle is solely based on actions. Hilarious. My coworkers can attest that the AC is a serious situation between Sergio and I. Anyways, yesterday, I accomplished the (near) impossible. Basically I asked others nonchalantly how they felt about windows (secret sabotage) and totally explained that the air is cool enough when we are moving and is clearly way better than AC. Everyone got on board and as Sergio went to roll our windows up, we rolled them back down. Power in numbers: we pretty much boycotted the AC situation. He eventually understood and we got to drive with all four windows down! SCORE!!! So moral of this story: anything is truly possible. As I re read this I realize this is probably only funny because I'm in Nicaragua and extremely exhausted...but it's the small things in life!

Also, a very important tid bit of information. So here I thought that I'd finally get away from the crazy, aggressive, over confident squirrels that live in the US. However, I was wrong. Nicaragua has squirrels of their own...and they're bigger, with raccoon-like tails (don't intrude personal space like in the US), but always win at staring contests. It's obviously a squirrelly situation.

Until next time - lots of peace, love and happiness!

-Liz