Swine Flu and Volcanos

Alright… so I haven’t dropped of the face of the earth, although it may appear to be the case! So I was thinking the other day and realized that in only four small months I will have been here for a year. That is bizarre to think about. Time really goes so fast sometimes, although at other times it definitly just pokes along! 

In case you all were wondering, there is NO swine flu in this country, as of yet. We aren’t alowed to travel to Mexico though. Not that I had any pending plans to do so. We have been given lotsa info and prep for what we should do in case poeple start to get sick here. I have a feeling I am safer here than I would be anywhere else when it comes to illnesses. The Peace Corps really does a good job taking care of our health. I am SO greatful for that! Luckily I haven’t been sick lately though, hopefully it will stay that way!

Nicaragua has recently done some messing around with telephone numbers so for one reason or another you now must dial an 8 in front of my number if you want to call me…

011 505 8 831 1843

Who knows why, but it is a fact, so hopefully that means you can now all call me!!!!! 

So the rainy season is supposed to start this month. I can’t wait, but apparently this doens’t mean it will be cooling off. We already have ridiculously hot temperatures.. only now it will be humid, great. I bought a fan today.. i can’t wait to use it. I sweat while I take a bucket bath… the coolest part of the day is when I wash my dog in frigid water. She doesn’t really appreciate it, but I do, so she gets it regardless if she wants it or not!

My mom and Joedie got to come and visit me!  It was wonderful! If you want to visit you should ask them for tips  and such, I am sure they would love to recount their stories! We got to hike up the Volcano Momotombo that I can see from my house… We camped at the top.. so much fun, but really really really hard. I am not exaggerating  the difficulty either. It was SO hot. I picked a perfect season to hike it, haha. But beautiful and worth it nonetheless! Then I got to hike Volcan san Cristobol with some friends here. It is the tallest active volcano in Nicaragua. It was definitely difficult as well, but not quite as trying as Momotombo. We have decided we are going to hike all of the volcanoes here by the time we leave. There are 15 active and 19 in all. 

Life in La Fuente has been good. It’s difficult still at times, but I do enjoy my life here. I have started english classes twice a week.. we will see how that works. I have some good progress with the community banks and I just got done with a workshop where we had to bring someone from our community and we learned how to start a big project in our site. I am excited about getting to work with my conterpart on this stuff. I just got back from another volunteers site were we built an improved oven out of bricks, glue made from tree bark and horse poo. It is awesome. I am going to hopefully get some going in my site as well! 

I have a little library in my house of about 15 books that the kids, especially my two neighbor girls have just been eating up. The kids don’t have anything to do if they don’t go to school and even if they are in school alot of them don’t have homework or the work isn’t challenging. My friend Juana was amazing when i told her that I didn’t get bored really and wanted to know what I did. I listed off a huge amount of things one can do, including reading. They just don’t have access to books here. If anyone would like to donate a book or two in spanish to my little library I would be more than glad to accept it! Books of all levels, from children’s book to novels. I have Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in spanish and the girls LOVE it! I am thinking about have a reading/story time once a week with the younger ones. Also if anyone has any ideas for how I could get alot of spanish/english dictionaries donated, I would be very interested in learning about it! It is so sad because the kids have english classes but no one has a dictionary because they are too expensive and so they can’t actually really learn. I am alot of poeple’s dictionary. I have two but if I let kids borrow them, I am stuck without one myself and can’t help kids with difficult questions. So any ideas would be awesome!!! 

My house is still doing well although I am thinking about making it a bit more secure. I had a little girl break into my kitchen and steal my soap and shampoo…. harmless of course but still.. I wasn’t too thrilled about it. Her grandma came to me with the stuff. I was more relieved than anything though because I would rather a little girl be sneaking around in my kitchen then some drunk man! 

I hope you all are all doing well and keeping safe from the pig flu if it’s near you! Wash your hands and keep me updated on your lives. I love to hear from everyone!!! Miss you guys