My New Home!

The School Bus.

After arriving in Managua we had walked accross the street to the Best Western, the hotel to which were confined for 3 solid days.  It was certainly a culture shock leaving the piña coladas and pool and venturing out in an old yellow school bus to our training towns.  My group is training in 6 small towns in Carazo, a "department" (district) of Nicaragua.  The Healthy Living group is training in Masaya.

 We watched from the windows of the bus as each daughter was dropped off at her Nicaraguan home into the open arms of her new family.  We will be training here for three months, learning the language, the culture, and trying to integrate ourselves as quickly as possible.

 
My small town has a central park, a big Catholic church, a health center, a police station, many small stores and not much else.  Taxis leave every 20 minutes for Jinotepe, the capital city of Carazo.  I have a Nicaraguan mother, two aunts, a few cousins, a sister, a niece and a nephew.  They all live in a few connected houses on the same small plot of land.  I have my own room with a double bed, a desk, and a standing clothes rack.  The first night here was intolerable.  So many noises.  Thankfully I brought a big container of earplugs.

My humble home.

My sister, Soraya, cooks me three meals a day.  The food is delicious, but too much.  Tonight at dinner I will practice the art of not eating everything on my plate.  With any luck I will not gain 10 pounds before I am assigned my worksite.  I have acquired a new best friend - my three-year-old niece Stefanny.  She likes to draw, dance, play soccer, and look at my things.  I don´t understand half of what she says, but she seems to like me!

There are four Peace Corps volunteers in my Spanish class.  Nelson is our instructor.  He is very soft-spoken and we found out that he was a monk in Costa Rica for a short time.  Rita, Renee, and Lenka are my classmates.  We have class for 6 hours every day at Rita´s house, but in a few weeks we will change our location.

I will come as often as I can to the internet cafe, which is really eight computers set up in someone´s livingroom. . .

The Internet Cafe.