my new home for 2 years is...

ocotal, nueva segovia. it is nowhere near a beach - sorry, micah.

ocotal is the department capital of nueva segovia, which borders honduras. it takes about 4 hours to get there from managua. ocotal is a bigger city (per nicaraguan standards, but still no movie theatre), and my secondary projects are going to be really cool: i´m going to be working with a group of female entrepreneuers marketing their solar panel products, and i´ll also be working with ADRA teaching the LEC course to adults. as far as work in the actual institutos, i´ll be teaching 9 sections of la empresa creativa (aka the business course) in 3 different schools, and each of my classes will have more than 50 students with the largest class at 71. talk about a full classroom.

i´m heading to ocotal this week to spend time with my counterparts and meet the directors of my schools. i´ll also be meeting the group of 27 women from the solar panel business, and ADRA is going to give me a presentation one day this week as well. i´m looking forward to it all, but it´ll be more than slightly overwhelming. the family i´m going to be living with for the first 6 weeks sounds pretty cool, but i guess i´ll find out on wednesday. from the sound of it, my rent is going to be pretty expensive, so it´ll be an experience trying to stretch each cordoba to the max. oh, and most rent here is set in US dollars, which really sucks, because somehow the cordoba is actually depreciating against the dollar.

here´s the scorpion i´ve been talking about:

mangos, nica style:

next time i write, i´m posting all the info about las fiestas en san juan. i´ll post pictures, and hopefully videos of the bull penis fighting, i´ll talk all about the band (complete with trumpets and drums) that roamed the streets starting at 4am and happened to LOVE sitting on the corner next to my bedroom (and just when i was getting used to the roosters...), and i´ll throw in some info about the saint too, i guess.

miss you all...

2 down, 1 to go

no real news here...

i had my second class today, and it went pretty well. one of the PC employees came to observe and couldn´t believe how awful my students are. on the bright side, i only have to teach one more class to those banditos. it´s tough, the whole speaking-in-a-language-i-don´t-really-know thing, but i´m getting used to it...or maybe i´m actually getting better at it.

i haven´t yet had a breakdown, but we have our second language exam tomorrow, and that might beg for a cry session. we´ll see.

i might cut my hair, and by cut, i mean chop. it´s hot here. i haven´t made a decision yet though...

miss you all! just in case i haven´t said this befrore, i love getting mail here!

I know it has been a while...

sorry guys...i´ve been pretty bad about updating this thing. where to start..?

this past week we each went to go visit a current volunteer. i didn´t have too far to travel, while many others in my group were taking 8 hour bus trips to exotic locations. if you couldn´t tell, i was pretty upset with the situation at first, not because i was staying in the same department, but because i´d already visited and observed this volunteer. i was really looking forward to checking out how another volunteer lived, but didn´t get the opportunity...it turned out to be a good time, nontheless.

crap, i forgot to bring the picture of the scorpion. sorry.

we have a youth group in our community of about 15 kids. they laugh at us when we try and communicate. anyway, we decided to plant trees at the institute as a community project, but the first two times, none of the youth showed up to plant. nicas are interesting in that way...they´ll swear up and down that they´ll come to a meeting even if they have no intention of going. it´s kind of frustrating. in the end, we had to go to their school and take them out of class to plant the trees. good story, eh?

so we have our second class this week. the theme is ¨my life in 10 years.¨ i´ll let you all know how it goes on tuesday.

we went to an active volcano yesterday: volcan masaya. it was pretty cool. here are some pictures:

we went on a little bit of a hike, and this is what the volcano looks like from a distance.

these are the chicago peeps. on the left is danica, owen is in the middle, and i´m on the other end. in nicaragua, if you want to point at something, you use your lips similar to what we´re doing in this picture...

this is a picture of the majority of nica 47. i think there are 8 people missing...
oh, and i was going to have someone send me a pumice stone, but i found a great one on the volcano.

yesterday we also celebrated avi´s birthday. it got a little out of hand...we all drank too much, but had a good time overall. kat´s on the left, then me, then owen, and bobby is on the right with the dog.

So, we get all the info on the possible sites next week, and we find out where we´re going the following week. we don´t really have a say in where we go, but we do get to discuss with the country director where we´d like to go and why. we´re all super curious about where we´ll be living for the next two years. once we get our final site placements, we go and visit for a few days and stay with the family with which we´ll be living for at least the first 6 weeks of service...

first day of class...

i had my first class today:
-51 students
-51 students in a classroom the size of my old cube
-51 students in a classroom the size of my old cube and all with mouths that talk out of turn

no, it wasn´t bad. i think it probably could´ve gone better, but for my first class, i´ll take it. my facilitator said that i sounded confident in my spanish...and, well...i´m glad it sounded that way. i´m pretty encouraged, actually. i´m excited to be a teacher, but it´s definitely a lot of work.

oh, and i had my first encounter with a scorpion. i didn´t get stung, but i have some pictures that i´ll post next time i get to the internet.

another note: i eat avocados every day that are the size of my head.

miss you all!

i´ve survived my first hurricane...

well, i´m surviving it right now. it´s only a category 1, but it´s pretty crazy. i guess it´s the first tropical storm of 2008 - hurricane alma - and it´s about the size of the entire country of nicaragua.

did i forget to mention the fiesta we went to..? the one where the bouncers wouldn´t let us leave..? yeah, that was pretty cool.

next week we start teaching in classrooms...in spanish...we need to fill 45 minutes with material while keeping 15-16 year olds entertained. my first class is on tuesday, and needless to say, i´m more than a bit nervous.

ok, must get back ´home.´

oh, and ps, i love the letters. keep ém coming!

another day in san juan de oriente...

I can’t believe I’ve only been gone for 2 weeks – it feels like ages ago that I was waiting until the last minute to pack for this adventure. Which, by the way, I did a crappy job of doing… But anyway, this is where I live:

Yeah, that´s a volcano.

My room temp was about 80 last night, and I was definitely wearing sweatpants. They say it typically takes a person 2 weeks to fully adjust to a climate, and I’m pretty sure I’m close to achieving that goal. That’s not to say I’m not sweating in the 95% humidity, 95 degree heat during the day, it’s just a small milestone of the many to come…hopefully.

My host family is awesome. We can’t really communicate that well (maybe that’s why we all get along..?), but we most definitely try. It’s interesting, living with a family, because I haven’t really lived under someone else’s roof for a solid 6 years. I can’t say I miss the “where are you going?” and the “what time will you return?” questions, but I imagine it could be much worse. Oh, and I just found out that my family has a finca, so my host brother and I are going to check out the mango groves and avocado trees after my classes today. Yeah, I have classes on Saturdays.

These are two girls that live with me:


Speaking of food, pineapples are white here, not yellow. They’re just as sweet, but somehow quite a bit more tasty. They seem fresher, just like the avocados (which happen to have bright green casings here). I drink freshly blended juice for breakfast and dinner each day. On the contrary, I’ve never had so much fried food in my life. Gallo pinto, although really only rice and beans, is fried, and we consume that at least twice each day. Oh, and I think I had an omelet with hot dog the other morning, but it could’ve been some other form of mystery meat. Back to the fried food topic - I’m pretty sure that if my host mom wanted to attempt to burn down our house, she’d have enough grease in the kitchen to give it a wicked shot. Wait, does concrete melt..?

Oh, and sorry for the atypical vocab word - did I mention that one of my current sitemates is from Boston..?

So I sleep under a mosquito net, which makes it difficult for flying beasts to penetrate my sleeping bubble. Inevitably, one or two find a way in throughout the course of my 7-hour toss-and-turn-fest. The other night though, it wasn’t the dengue-carrying, malaria-spreading fiend that attacked me – it was a spider that was hanging out in my sheets. And where did this frisky little spider bite me, you ask? Let´s just say it wasn´t on my legs or feet...
Whoever said that roosters crow in the morning was so wrong. Last night, for instance, the roosters started in at 10:30pm, and stopped at around 7:30am. Nonetheless, it´s still a beautiful country:

This is a lagoon that was formed by a volcano - once we finally got down there it was amazing, but the hike back up was treachorous.

Oh, and one of the guys in my group is named Avi. Every time I see him I say “Avi-ously.” I’m really annoyed with myself for doing it, but I just can’t help it…luckily he doesn’t hate me…yet.

More soon!

Spanish class for how many hours a day?

6. Need I say more?

San Juan de Oriente is great so far. The people here are so accommodating, and besides the occasional cat call, I have nothing negative to say about Nicaragua. Well, maybe the heat...

There is a transportation strike going on right now, so we cant do much besides wander around our town. If youve seen anything about it on CNN, Im sure it was about the one violent act that occured. Honestly though, I couldnt feel safer where I am right now.

Ill update ASAP.

Oh, and I totally had pancakes for breakfast the other day. Score.

Miss you all!