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!!!
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