Im one month in!

Im officially one month in! Its amazing how quickly time passes here. This week was INSANE with the amount of work we had - had to give a class, organize a new youth group (bc our previous group fell thru), give a talk to our youth group on decision making, decide on a secondary project to do with them (they decided on arts and crafts), and make a survey for the community on the topic of gray water and water contamination. But, the insanity is finally over and I can now look forward to my volunteer shadowing visit for half of next week. I will be going to the department of Leon up north. The volunteer is actually a married couple in their 20s so I will be staying with them with another trainee, Steph, who is also in my training town. Apparently their site is relatively big and they have a nice home so I look forward to relaxing and getting to check out what a day and a life of a current volunteer is like! Sunday, a bunch of them are taking us trainees to the beach so that should be really fun!

The language barrier here has become pretty apparent when last week instead of going to what I thought was the beach, we hiked for over an hour down to the lagoon, took some pictures, and walked back up. The Spanish word for beach, ¨playa,¨only actually refers to what we think of as the beach if its the ¨playa del mar¨or of the sea. Ha, oh well. Even though I had some beautiful views on the walk down, the lagoon was actually a pretty sad sight. It was really polluted and there were people bathing, washing their clothes, and fishing there. The poverty here is a major issue. Will try to post pictures on my next post.

Last weekend we never did end up going to Managua to go dancing because plans fell through, as Ive sort of come to expect here, but I ended up going to a birthday party of my host sisters friend instead, which was fun. She had a pinata at her house and when I played, it reminded me of how much fun it was as a kid! Good times. I also went to Catarina with my host brother where there is a lookout over a (different) lagoon and you can see the city of Granada. It was pretty dark so I dont have pictures but I have plans to go again tomorrow, pending the weather cooperates (fingers crossed).

So things overall have been going well! Ive been having some pretty unpleasant gastrointestinal issues (ill spare you all the details) but hopefully thatll pass ha. Its pretty common here among the trainees so at least we all have something to bond over!

This week we switched Spanish teachers (to get a chance to learn from somebody with a different way of speaking, teaching style, etc) and I really like our new one, Gloria, as well. Shes probably in her 70s and has been doing this for 11 years. So the teachers are very patient and incredibly helpful and warm people.

I enjoy getting news and political updates from you all back in the states. I dont have much access to US news on a daily basis, but Ive been hearing about all the economic problems, political debates, etc. Keep the updates coming - I like to stay informed.

Hope all is well with you all! Thanks for reading!