Week 2

Finally! I have some pictures to show everyone. Below is a picture taken near the main park in Masatepe with the Catholic church in the background. Everyone is in the streets celebrating Nica´s independence day with a parade. It was fun, however, since my host sister was in the parade we were out in the sun for 5 and a half hours and despite sunblock and an umbrella I got a bit sunburnt.

Below is the our youth group garden that we made today and some of our group members. The three girls are my fellow PC trainees in Masatepe. Hopefully our garden makes it, although none of us have gardening experience!

Below is my host sister having fun with the PhotoBooth Program on my computer. She is 6 years old and probably talks to me the most. However, I can only understand about 25% of what she says. I love it when she explains things to me when I make a mistake because she is so serious about it. And she does an amazing job explaining things.

This is my other host sister playing the lyra (spelling?) in the parade. She is 14 years old. All week long before the parade they spent hours practing in the streets. Some days we had to stop our Spanish class and go out and watch because we couldn´t hear anything (the band is made up of mostly drums).

This is my host mom with her youngest on the day after the parade. It is also a holiday. We went to their school and watched children dance and sing and play instruments. Most the kids dress up in traditional clothing.

Things are going pretty well. Although I do have tons of bug bites, most of which I don´t know where they are coming from. I can feel mosquitos bite me, but other things I can´t and itchy bumps keep popping up all over my arms and legs.

The people here are amazingly friendly and helpful. And the scenery is gorgeous. I can see Masaya volcano from my town and hopefully I´ll be able to go to it before heading out at the end of training.

Just a funny bit of info: the Nicaragua PCV´s have the highest rate of marriages with locals of any country where PC works. Also, the highest rate of marriages is in the environmental sector. So I guess I better watch out. :o)