Land of Lakes and Volcanoes

These are pictures from my Thanksgiving dinner, where I received delicious US style food. Including real pecan pie, since our host was from Georgia!! PC here has a really cool program where people can go to PC staff´s houses for Thanksgiving or we can go to an embassy family. And I was very fortunate to be invited to have dinner with a public relations person from the embassy. I have a bunch of stuff to catch up on, since my last post I have been to the All Volunteer Conference in Managua, and moved to my site permanently. In the work department, I have attended one parent meeting so far, and have a list of the 17 potential teachers I will work with, and my job for the next few months is to meet all of these people in their various villages. A number of them live on the side of the island that is extremely difficult to get to, and therefore, I will be learning the transportation system of the island rather intimately. On top of that, I am trying to find a house to move into at the...

Some flower pictures I received in the mail from two very special ladies: The card I got while I was in the hospital: And the youth group program with our cool project mentioned in it:

Today I met the US ambassador to Nicaragua, Paul A. Trivelli . I´m sorry, but that was just cool. Maybe my gushing enthusiasm doesn´t suit a woman of my mature 26 years, but I don´t care. That is the second ambassador I´ve had occasion to meet since my Peace Corps experience began, and it was just as amazing the second time as it was the first. In Washington, the Nicaraguan ambassador to the US came to speak to us, and today the US ambassador came and spoke to us about what he sees as the Peace Corp´s role in the US mission here. I asked him a question. It was spectacular. A large number of volunteers will also be having Thanksgiving dinner at his house. I won´t be one of them because it´s usually second year volunteers, but it´s still just cool that that´s an option. I have realized that it´s the unanticipated amazing experiences that are sometimes the best. I also told someone today that the good thing about coming from a small town is that there are so many amazing experie...

I would have given it 5, except for that pesky abdominal pain. I have just been released from my first Nicaraguan hospital stay, and I have to say, while I could have done without being in the hospital entirely, that was by far the nicest hospital stay I could have hoped for. On Thursday night, my agonizing, gut-stabbing, double-over abdominal pain returned, and after keeping me awake all night, reached a shivering, sweating peak Friday morning. Normally, I dislike hospitals (who likes hospitals?), but by this time, my inner monologue was begging for an IV drip. My outer monologue was busy remembering to breathe. I thought I would get a quick dose of drugs, and be returned to home sweet home in Masatepe, but I was mistaken. Three days and three nights later, I finally got out. Turns out I had some sort of horrific bacterial infection, probably salmonella, that had my intestines all inflamed and icky. Yes, that's a technical term. I am much better now, thanks to feats of modern medi...

Today we had the ceremony to wrap up our youth group activities. Each pueblo had to explain their activities with their youth groups, and then the kids needed to say a few words about what they learned, and what they got out of the youth group experience. Then there was cake and soda. We told our kids to come intheir uniforms, and they showed up all cute and pressed. They had their hair done very nicely, and they all looked so good. Each jóven also got a certificate with their name on it saying thanks for working with Peace Corps. Finally, the best part of the day, the restaurante where we always go for these things has a playground, two to be exact. Obviously, the playground provided much diversion both before and after the ceremony. Here´s a picture of our youth group members with their maceteras. All except Jose, who wasn´t there that night. Finally, during our swearing in ceremony, there are two parts, one with just the aspirantes and the families, and one with the ambassado...

Wow, the past week has been um, pretty busy. We finished up our youth group project last Thursday, so hopefully after our week of absence there are still planters hanging in the school. I went to Mérida for the first time, my new site and therefore home. It was quite an adventure, and very different from the life I am living now. It is at least a 2 hour bus ride from Managua to San Jorge, the port city, and that bus ride has proven uneventful both times. Then, you can either take a launch or a ferry to and from the island. I took the ferry the first time, and a launch the second time. Here´s a picture of the launch I took on my way back to Managua. Then, there´s at least 2 hours by bus from Moyogalpa to Altagracia, and then back down to Mérida. I like my site a lot, but it´s pretty out there. I have 4 schools, and I visited 3 of them, one 10K away on a bike, and on that day I discovered I would not be making that trek on a regular basis on a bike, as it is up and down, up and d...