Last week was Semana Santa (Holy Week). This is the week before Easter in which all people in Latin-America and also Spain have a lot of religious activities and most people don’t have to go to work. In this week also all schools are closed and because of that most volunteers don’t have to work either and so almost everyone left for a trip. I was curious about the whole thing so I decided to stay and join the girls I work with at my project with all their activities. It was an interesting experience but I don’t think I ever wanna do it again.

On Monday I’ve joined the girls for a day of praying. This was a very long and exhausting day. The guy who said the prayers and read from the bible (who was not a priest but just a random guy) spoke from 9 AM until 5.30 PM. We just sat and listened... My Spanish is absolutely not good enough to understand all those religious things so I basically just sat there all day doing nothing. It’s probably for the best that I didn't understand all of it because otherwise it might have been even worse since I’m not really into all these religious stuff.

On Tuesday we went to a little village outside Granada. Here we made mixed groups with us and the children of the village. In groups we went by all the houses in the village to read them from the bible, I did the reading (I know it's pretty crazy) and the others explained and discussed what it meant. Later on in the afternoon there was a service. The priest arrived in a big car with a mobile phone in one hand and the hostias in a plastic bag in the other hand. Afterwards there was a procession in which the children played parts from the bible.

On Wednesday we went to another neighborhood just outside Granada. Here everyone dressed up as Christian figures and then we did another procession. This procession was about the walk of Jesus with the cross up the mountain. They took it quite serious. The kid who played Jesus was really carrying a cross, other kids had to hit him with sticks, he had to fall down several times, they painted blood on his face with red paint and in the end they “attached” him very realistically to the cross.

On Thursday where was a big service in the main Cathedral in Granada. This was actually kind of impressive. There were about 30-40 priest walking in a long row to the front and I think the Bishop was also there because there was one guy who was really dressed up and who was wearing a mitre. I didn’t take my phone because I thought it might be a bit disrespectful to make pictures in a cathedral during a service. I was very surprised to see a nun with a big iPad making pictures and videos... At the service on Tuesday I took the hostia because that’s what I would also do back home since I had my baptism and my commune even though I’m not practicing. But before this service started the chief nun came to me and told me that it was actually not appropriate for me to take the hostia because I didn’t do confession recently. She offered me to arrange to do confession that afternoon so afterwards I could take the hostia, but I decided not to do that, they take it all very serious here. Later that afternoon we went again to a village outside Granada for another service.

On Friday (finally the last day!) we did a long procession with loads of people up on a hill to a cross. This was kind of similar to the procession on Wednesday but now with adults. It took very long and afterwards we were all a bit burned in spite of our sunscreen.

For the weekend I went to Leon and I was really up for something totally different and didn’t want to see any other service or procession because I’ve had enough of that during the week. I went on a trip to Vulcano Telica. This is a very active Vulcano near Leon. Once a month they have a full moon-hike. I decided to do this one because it’s quite unique. It was a very cool experience. We first had diner all together at the office of the tour operator. Then at 10.30 we headed to the Vulcano. Here we hiked until 3.30 AM until we were at the top of the volcano. During the walk we barely needed a light because the full moon already provided so much light. The days before there had been a fire on the way to the volcano and our guide told us that the path had been closed for several days. They waited until the last moment to decide whether we were allowed to go up or not. On our way we saw several spots that were still glowing. It kind looked kind of like a bonfire at the end when there are no flames anymore but you can still see it glowing. But then a lot of those spots along the way. When we were more up we could see another big wildfire at the other side of Leon. That was not close to us but because we were that high we could see it quite good. When we were on top of the volcano we walked to the crater to see the lava inside. I expected to see a bit more but it was still very cool to see! After that we just lay down on the ground next to the volcano to sleep for about an hour until sunrise. This was very cold but at the same time amazing. Just imagine lying on the ground with a big steaming volcano, a full moon and a lot of stars with several horses walking around you. After “sleeping” for an hour we got up again to watch the sunrise. Then we had breakfast made by the Telica tribe who live around the volcano. They started at about 4 AM with cutting wood to make our breakfast. Because the glowing spots which we saw on our way up apparently started to burn a bit more we could take the same way back down so we took a shorter way and then had a long ride by car/truck on a very very bumpy road. It was a very exhausting but really amazing trip!

This week I've started teaching English to the girls on my own. I was a bit nervousabout it especially because some of them are real teenagers with the matching attitude but it actually went surprisingly well. They listened to me and they seem to like the classes. Part of the collected money I’m using now to make the lessons more fun and to provide them some materials they can also use after I leave. Unfortunately it’s impossible to find good learning books in whole of Nicaragua. They just don’t have it at all... So I’m creating the material myself. I've bought all of them a nice map to put there papers in. Further I’m now talking with the nuns about other things they need.

Now I've started teaching I'm constantly very bussy with preparing classes and everything. Time is passing by very quickly now and I feel like I'll never have enough time to do everything I want to do... On the other side time passing by this quickly means that I'm having an amazing time which is really the case so that's a good thing