My Life is Crazy.

For the past four days, I have spent hours asking favors and questions of complete strangers, many of whom have families and lives and for no explicable reason should be conversing with some 18-year-old foreigner like a peer or coworker. I invited myself into people's communities and homes, asking them to feed me three meals a day and bathing myself with their bucket water. I wouldn't have trusted me if I were any of the people whose houses I slept in this week!

Words I have thought of to describe survey: long, nerve-wracking, empowering, emotional, exhilarating. I can't quite find a word or emotion to describe the being shoved off a bus in an area you've never visited, slinging your backpack, sleeping bag and cot over your shoulder and blindly searching for one or two people in a 300-family community that may or may not actually know you're coming. To spend the night in their house. I always found what I was looking for within a few minutes, insanely enough.

Also worth noting: I get to hang out in awesome communities this summer. They are all so different and interesting and stunningly beautiful.

After a week of cold bucket showers and beans & rice three meals a day and the ten thousand bugs swarming around inside my mosquito net and holding the latrine door shut while simultaneously trying to wipe myself and not let my butt touch the toilet seat in the pitch black of night (rarely a success, FYI), I was ready to come home on Friday afternoon to exchange stories with the rest of staff, relax a bit, and rejuvenate for the coming weeks. But, since my return, shit has hit the fan, as they say. Unexpected complications have led to a lot of extra work--I'll be overseeing five communities this summer and up to 12 volunteers rather than the anticipated 9. Between Friday and yesterday, I spent 15+ hours on the computer typing up all of the information I collected on survey and translating it into Spanish. Tonight, I have to go back to one of the communities I visited last week and spend the night again because I found a bat in the room I slept in which deems it unacceptable for volunteer housing. In addition, all of the 2-day volunteer training has to be planned today. It's so strange to be completing assignments and meeting deadlines and stressing out over things, but I'm pretty much okay with it. We're all supporting each other and keeping each other calm (well, everyone else is keeping me calm-- I don't know how much I'm doing for them!) and we always find time to cook together and tell crazy stories and laugh a LOT. :)

So they say it only gets easier from here. I can only hope it's true! I'm super lucky and glad to have such a fantastic and energetic group of coworkers, and I can't wait until the volunteers get here on June 28th-- when the summer REALLY starts!!

And Now...The Real Deal!!

After one more day in Leon, which three of the five of us spent lazing around the hostel and hovering over the toilet, we bussed to Selva Negra, a beautiful rainforest preserve and coffee plantation near Matagalpa, for one final, relaxed evening before beginning work in Matagalpa on Thursday. We splurged on this place and had our own room in their Youth Hostel, which was super classy compared to our other experiences that week.

The weather was much cooler and more pleasant than it had been in any other city. We decided we had to be outside, and took a short hike through the gorgeous cloud rainforest preserve. I was thinking we wouldn’t see much wildlife—it was late in the day, and why would these animals approach humans on their own volition? But I was totally wrong: the second we stepped onto the trail, we heard the monstrous sound of the howler monkey! A crew of them stared down at us and scrambled through the trees right above our heads. A pretty promising omen for the rest of our hike, I thought!

We walked through the jungle, talking, taking pictures, and stopping occasionally just so soak it all in. It was pretty freakin’ great to finally be out of the hot, humid cities. We decided to take a break, and sat down on some rocks in a small clearing. I decided to try to mimic the howler monkey sound, and in doing so, I joked that I would lure them in. As the others tried to suppress their laughter, I gave their deep, throaty growl my best shot as loud as I could. I must have been pretty spot on, because when the giggles subsided, we sat in silence for less than a minute before we heard rustling in the trees!! We saw one…then two…then THREE monkeys less than 100 feet above us. Trying to stay as silent as possible (or not let our excitement and disbelief overcome us and scare them away), we documented this ridiculous event on our cameras before they spotted us and hurried off. So, basically, you may now refer to me as The Monkey Summoner.

After a calm and relaxing Wednesday night, we finally made it to our beautiful staff house on Thursday (after Seth and I bussed two hours to Managua and back to pick up Megan, the last supervisor to arrive!) to start work with AMIGOS! The senior staff actually had to find a place for us that morning (!!!) because of some safety issues they’d had near the original house, so it was all of our first nights here yesterday. It.is.AWESOME: very spacious, super comfortable, seems extremely safe. Some of us have to sleep on cots, but I couldn’t care less. It is just SO fantastic to finally be here with everyone…and to UNPACK!!!!

We’ve been training all of yesterday and today, doing activities ranging from how to manage the AMIGOS budget to scavenger hunts around the city to how to work together effectively as a team. We met with our partner agency, CARE Nicaragua, this afternoon, and they are so enthusiastic and friendly and lovely. We were also assigned a “route” (AMIGOS lingo—you’ll learn many of these special terms throughout the course of the summer) of communities whose projects and volunteers we will be overseeing! Each supervisor has four communities; mine are about 45 minutes to an hour outside of the city by bus, I’m told. There is a Peace Corps volunteer working on community gardens in one of my communities, so that should be really interesting, although I’m not sure what to expect. Another one of my communities is completely new—an AMIGOS representative has never even set foot there, so I may or may not be surprising them when I should up for what AMIGOS calls “survey” (spending one night in each community, gathering information, meeting people, finding host families, emergency contacts, etc.) next week. Basically, this experience means talking to strangers in Spanish, eating their food and sleeping in their houses for five days. :)

We are all SO pumped and energy in the house is tangible. I am anxious and nervous for the next two months, but nothing could possibly compare to how completely THRILLED I am to be a part of AMIGOS in Matagalpa this summer!!!

The Most Incredible Activity on Earth

In the past four nights, I have stayed in three different dorm-style hostels with terrible air circulation, sweat more than a horse does in a week, downed 3-4 Nalgenes of water a day and STILL peed ten times less than I do at home, and eaten more weird, salty cheese and gallo pinto than I care to think about all at once (although, I have to admit, I am a rice n' beans fanatic). Yesterday, I went to take a shower, found that there was nothing but freezing cold water and actually thought, "thank GOODNESS." No matter how many of these factors of my week may sound uncomfortable or not ideal, you can't beat $2 meals, the vibrant Latin American buildings and markets, meeting travelers from countless countries...or VOLCANO BOARDING?!?!?

After a SERIOUS, rocky and windy hike up the side of Cerro Negro--the most active of its kind (erupted in 1992, 1995 and 1999)--with "surfboard" in hand blowing us this way and that, we wiggled on our bright orange bodysuits and green goggles, a bit prematurely to protect us from the swarm of bees (?!?).  After exploring a bit, seeing the volcano's crater, and taking in the picture perfect views of the countryside from every angle, we grabbed our boards and, in turn, became extremely intimate with Nicaraguan volcanic rock.  I thought I'd be completely flipping out right before my descent, but I just did it and it was fantastic and I couldn't have been happier to have sand and tiny rocks in my hair, bra, underwear, throat, etc. for several hours after the fact.  I know this video makes it appear a bit anti-clamactic, but it was so.freaking.amazing.

Everyone in the world needs to come to Leon and board down a volcano.

Granada Adventures

Doug, Seth, Brittini and I arrived in Granada, Nicaragua yesterday...we're made our own chocolate yesterday from Nicaraguan cacao beans last night, explored the gorgeous colonial city today, and are about to leave for a boat tour of the famous isletas of Lake Nicaragua. Here are some brief highlights of our time so far!

The four of us at the top of La Merced church/"best view of the city"--with the cathedral behind us. I have SERIOUSLY been spoiled by unbelievable views this year.

We also walked through the bustling (and seemingly endless) Municipal Market. We came across everything from fresh produce and spices to raw fish to exploded batteries to shirts and shoes; funny rotten smells and puddles of dirty rainwater aside, it was a gorgeous display. In our humble opinions, this was the most beautiful stand of them all:

Our handmade chocolate bars, which we left to harden last night but were able to pick up and wrap to take home today!

So, things are great. We've been eating boatloads of beans & rice (called gallo pinto), probably the most typical Nicaraguan fare. And I have become totally hooked on a tiny jungle fruit called mamones. Other than feeding new addictions and sweating a gallon of water every hour, Nicaragua NicaROCKS!

The Final Chapter: Nicaragua: First Impressions

I (along with my friends/fellow supervisors, Seth and Doug) have arrived safely in Managua, Nicaragua, after waking up at the equivalent of 2:30 am Nicaraguan time-- or, in Doug's case, flying through the night! We found ourselves in the scorching hot at humid capital city, immediately charged 20 US dollars (!!!!!!!) to get a cab from the airport to our hostel. Thank goodness we're only crashing here one night, because we were over this city after the first hour. I have to admit, we didn't really give Managua a chance since none of us were running on very much sleep...but the first place we found ourselves after stopping by our hostel was a ginormous mall, complete with American "FOOD COURT," as we searched frantically for a bank to convert currency or ATM to withdraw it. Once we had money sorted out, we proceeded to the least sketchy food source we could find: a hole-in-the-wall comedor that served heaping plates of beans, rice, plantains, and various meats sitting behind glass panels, which they so generously microwaved to order. It was only 40 Nicaraguan córdobas--or $2--per plate, though, and it really wasn't the worst first Nicaraguan meal we could have had! We sat in the unlit, pretty literal hole in the wall for an hour after we finished eating at least, feeling sticky with sweat, unable to face the heat of Managua, but still so happy to be where we were and full of uncontainable excitement.

The three of us are having a fantastic time...even while doing nothing, which is pretty much what we did today. Tomorrow we will greet another friend coming in from Atlanta and go straight to Granada, an allegedly lovely colonial city, where we will see some gorgeous architecture and maybe go on a boat tour of the famous islets in Lake Nicaragua. From there, we're on to León (at which time another fellow supervisor will join us) to go VOLCANO BOARDING!!! Finally, we'll head to the youth hostel at Selva Negra, a famous Nicaraguan hotspot for coffee, birdwatching and hiking, for a relaxing two days before things get crazy at our work site, Matagalpa! Should be a fantastic week-- except I realized today how ridiculously hard it's going to be to pack and re-pack my camping backpacks every time we move. Also, I forgot a LOT of things (including but not limited to: a hairbrush, flashlight, first aid kit, and razor). Regardless, we should be in for a super awesome week of travel!! But, honestly, I just can't wait to start working!!!

Getting Ready-- Again

So here I am at Kitchen Counter, House, Arlington, Virginia, USA, a little over two weeks into my visit home with only six days to go! Since being here, I have spent many of my evenings at Lost Dog, trying to get a little money (read as: minuscule amount) in my bank account since I don't anticipate having a job again until winter break. My mom and uncle and I have decided to get some of our backyard ready for vegetable planting (!!!), so we've been working on that a bit and--in theory--will have some spinach, green onion and cucumber seeds in the ground in the next few days (and hopefully something will actually grow even though it's a little late in the planting season...). Aside from this, I have been doing a lot more sitting around than I am really comfortable with. But that will certainly change beginning June 9th when I leave for Nicaragua, so I'm trying to accept/embrace it!

What I really should be doing instead of nothing is packing everything I own and putting it in one of two places: my backpack that will accompany me to Nicaragua, or my suitcase(s) that will accompany me to college. On August 17th, about 36 hours after I return home from Latin America. I am not going to lie about how extremely and surprisingly overwhelming this packing extravaganza is. I'm not in the college mindset yet-- there's a foreign country standing between me and it! But I know I'll be hating my life on August 16th if I don't have everything completely ready before next week...so I have to find some way to make that happen. My college pile is full of these crazy odds and ends that I'm hoping will eventually evolve into a group of belongings that actually make sense (Utensils? A mirror? Post-it notes? A small table fan?).

Everything will come together soon! And there's a lot to look forward to!