My Site

Hey all so my computer is acting up again. The keyboard is crazy some key’s will work others won’t very frustrating. Anyways I can still use it with the on screen keyboard. Let’s see a lot has happened since I last wrote. I stopped at my volunteer visit right? Well I had the second LPI or language assessment. I went up a level but not enough I was hoping to do better. I will just have work harder. Though things seem to be against me. I am sick and we have less classes and more technical training. I get my site on Fri. Then it is the site visit. I will be able to speak a lot then. I am really excited about this.

A lay out of my request:

• · A small site close to the city.
• · I want to do work with conservation.
• · I want to work with NGOs and community organizations
• · I want to work with youth.
• · I am nervous about teaching but excited as well

Talking about teaching I just finished my last class in training. My class gave me 2 gifts, a pencil eraser holder and a wooden turtle. They are both very cute and beautiful. I was touched and surprised I know it wasn’t the best teaching they had but the kids even asked if I was going to come back to visit. I felt loved.

On the other hand the youth group is not working out well. There were two weeks of no meeting because of rain and Peace Corp commitments. When we tried to have our next one, we only had 2 out of 20 people showed up. We need to get our product done in fact we are changing it to something easier. We are going to do stuff with plastic bottle flowers and a mural. We now have 5 people in our group, which I am more than happy about.

I got my site assignment I am going to a small town 45min from Leon. We had our site visit the other week. My site has 3,000 people but nit feels smaller. I have two schools that I work in one in town and one about 4km away. I didn’t get to see the one fare away because of the rain it was flooded. The teachers were great and I can’t wait to start working there. They already came up to me with a few project plans, a park, a trash collection and dump, they seem receptive to a recycling campaign but it is not really part of the culture to recycle. Everyone is very nice and helps me with my Spanish. I can’t wait to get started!

My family consists of all women again. There is my mom and a 21 year old and an 18 year old. The 21 year old has a daughter 5 and the 18 year old has a 1 year old son. The 5 year old loves me and the 1 year old is scared of me. The family is really nice and I feel very welcome there. I get to be a vegetarian here as well! My room isn’t anything to write home about. It’s small with no ventilation. So in other words it is very hot. Leon is one of the hottest parts of Nica. This should be fun come summer.

Went to the Laguna yesterday which was cool if the hike wasn’t an hour straight down and you had to climb back up. I felt like I was going to die. I will not be doing that again.

Volunteer Visit

Hi, Lets see, much has happened since i last wrote. I just got back from volunteer visit. Which is when we get to spend three days with a current volunteer shadowing them and learning about what it is like to be a volunteer. I stayed in a small village in Leon which is hot and humib. When i say small I mean small. There were like 700 something people in the village. I loved it! I felt so at ease there. It was silente, well as silente as you can get on a farm. But at least there was no radio blaring or horns honking and tv's. Heaven in my eyes.

The house was really small though and it was really crowded. There were four of us cramed in there. The house was a thatched roof with a garden in the middle which was cool but took up to much space. There were alot of biting ants and i think i am allergic to them. My feel swelled up and got numb after getting bit. I'll just have to carry around benadril from now on incase i get swarmed by them. No real deal just very annoying.

The village was a bit spread out with tons of animals and farms. There was alot of errotion problems. I went to the school with my volunteer and observed him teaching two classes. Then we toured the village and spoke with people there. I was very excited i understood most of them! Afterwards we had his youth group and played soccer. We had food that wasn't meat which i was craving. I really want to live in a house by myself with in a family consetion. I feel like i will be more comfortable and sain in that situation. I'll have to talk to PC about that. I can make my own vegetarian food. I really think i will be one when i get home.

My spanish is slowly improving i guess it is hard for me to tell but i'm sure i am. I understand how it is supose to be but when i try to speek it it comes out all wrong. Very fustrating. At least i can understand everyone even if they can't understand me. I can only get better and will improve greatly when i get to my site. I can't wait I'm soo excited to get started.

Love you all and miss you though not as much as last time. Hope all is well for you guys in the states. Until next time.

P.S. I get PIZZA for lunch!!!!!!!!!!!!!