How time does fly!

Once again much has occured since my last post. Where to begin… well I suppose to start with my reason for not posting has been my latest run-in with some bad food. This happens frequently in a new country of course, but one would expect it to occur with the food of this country, right, and not American food. This was not the case with me however. Last weekend a group of us went in to Esteli to partake in good ole American Pizza.. 6 hours later I was vomiting my guts out. Yeah, it wasn´t pretty either. Out of the five of us that ate there, only two of us where sick. Mary, my friend and co-sick buddy, was a bit worse off than I. To spare the details I will just say I had everything in me coming out in whatever way possible… you can imagine the rest. So me and Mary spent the next two nights in this clinic in Esteli with IV´s hooked up to our arms. That was an experience in itself. It hurts like hell when they inject you with whatever crud they were putting in my arm, but at least it prevented me from dehydrating. Today is the first day since Sunday that I finally feel well enough to eat food and walk around without becoming exhausted. So, all is well now, but I will never eat Pizza again!

Before this eventful moment we had our tech week. 8 of us were sent to El Sauce in Leon to meet some of the volunteers and get some hands on experience. It was amazing. I absoutely loved it. The trip was over crazy rocky roads and a bit painful, but a beautiful journey despite the bumps. We were split up into three different homes and got to work on several different projects. The first was an improved stove that is very similar to the traditional stoves built here but uses less fire wood and has a small over built in to it as well. It is very important to use the least amount of wood possible especially in leon and chinondega because deforestation is a huge problem here. Some people walk for miles to find firewood. The next project we did was a biodigestor. Now if you have never heard of this contraption before.. you must look up information on it. This is the most amazing thing ever. It is a completely sustainable way for women here to have gas stoves. There are the initial costs but after paying those and building the contraption it is totally free as long as you have cows that poop.. or any other animal fece (including human) that you would like to use. You fill up this big bag in the ground and as it ferments it produces a gas that filters through a tube and can be used to gas up the stove for women. It burns odorless and prevents women from using firewood or burning plastic to start fires. I love the idea and hope to be able to bring it to whatever site I get put in.

Speaking of sites – we had our site fair this week, despite my nearly incapacitated state, I went and chatted as much as possible with the volunteers. I am hoping to be sent to the region of Leon. we will see how that goes. We find out on Tuesday were we will be sent and on thursday we meet our community counterpart and will have a site visit for a week. That means me.. the gringa.. by myself in my new site.. kinda crazy.  I am definitely excited, but nervous as well.. I am sure it will go fine though!

Well I will definitely have more updates after my site visit. These past weeks have simply flown by, I can´t believe that I will be on my own soon! Don´t forget any letters or cards are greatly appreciated from you all!!! Missing everyone!