Home Sweet Home

I've been quite busy the last few weeks.....finally. I have a lot of updates, so bear with me.
I just moved into my own house and am super excited to finally settle in and really unpack and make it my own. I will be using the Christmas ornaments and many pictures that you all sent me to decorate.
I slept on my new bed last night and it was heavenly. The first time I've slept on a real mattress in the past 5 months and my back is thanking me today. I'm slowly acquiring all the furnishings of my house because let me tell you it's pretty darn expensive to furnish a house, especially on a Peace Corps budget. I splurged and bought two beds, so anyone that would like to visit will have their own room and bed....hint hint. Luckily, my host family and neighbors are extremely generous and are lending me lots of things to furnish my house. Each day I'm amazed by the hospitality and generosity of everyone I've met here in Nicaragua. People may not have much, but that doesn't mean that they're not willing to share what they do have with others. For example, every time you visit someone you're guaranteed to be given food and/or drink - which I'm thankful for, but also means that I'm going to have to make sure that I have something on hand at all times for my visitors. And the other day when I was moving, my host mom told me what's hers is mine and it's very true. The tables, chairs and other furniture in my house all belong to her. I will never be able to thank her enough.
I'll keep you posted on how living on my own goes because even though I'm pretty sure I'm capable of it; everyone here has quite a few doubts. I'm quite far from the standards of a Nica woman. They're convinced I don't know how to cook and occasionally drill me with questions on how to prepare rice or beans; and I'm sure they will be dropping in on me to see what I'm cooking and how I'm cooking it. The other day I was helping my host mom prepare dinner and I was informed that I cut tomatoes incorrectly, I didn't know that was possible but apparently it is. I try to tell them that I can cook, but I can't cook Nicaraguan style. Maybe I'll just survive off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and oatmeal for the next two years, I can't mess those up, can I?
Besides moving, I've been keeping myself busy by having manualidades (arts and crafts) classes and English classes with kids every day. They all love coming to the classes and I'm grateful because otherwise I would still be sitting around doing nothing. At first I was only offering manualidades twice a week in the mornings and all the kids wanted to have classes all day, every day. At first I was a little hesitant, but they don't have anything to do when school's not in session, nor do I...so I gave in. The attendance has been really strong and they even want to continue having classes in the evening when school starts. I can't tell you how much I love it! I taught them to sing "head, shoulders, knees and toes" the other day while learning body vocabulary. I'll have to take a video of it to show all of you how quickly they're all learning. There are a few moments where I can't help but laugh because the pronunciation sometimes leads to a completely different word. For example, we were learning animal vocabulary and bear sometimes sounds like beer for some of them; and even better (not better, but funnier) is the word beach sometimes sounds like bitch - I had to emphasize the precaution with that word and if pronounced differently it results in a bad word which only lead to questions about more bad words. AY! They all want to have quizzes each week, so I give them little quizzes and told them that for their test they have to talk to my brother in English when he visits because I don't want to translate for him for a whole week! HA!
I've finally started running daily. I held off for a bit because I wanted to get to know more people in town before they see me running around; unfortunately I held off a bit too long because my endurance wasn't where it used to be. I try to run around town, but I can't go very far without someone stopping me to talk or by having herds of children come out and start running with me. So sometimes I resort to running laps around the baseball field (which is really boring) and then sometimes get talked into practicing with the baseball team. That's a spectacle.
My host family got a new puppy. It's adorable, but I've been reprimanded because I pay attention to it and hold it and let it fall asleep on my lap. Unfortunately, it likes me more than them. To prove their point, the other day they told me to get up and walk around the house and the puppy followed me and then jumps around my feet until I pet it. Oops! I'm secretly hoping that it will follow me to my house and end up living with me, their other dogs ended up sleeping on my porch last night.
I'm really starting to feel comfortable in town. More and more people now know who I am and use my name instead of chelita, gringa, muneca, etc. I have friends even though most of them are either kids ages 6 - 15 years old or members of the baseball team. It's really looking up and I'm excited that school will be starting soon!
Thank you everyone for all the cards and packages! The packages that were intended for Christmas are finally rolling in and I love it! Miss you and love you!

2012

Sorry for the delay between posts, but you know how the holiday season goes....actually I really have no excuse because unlike back at home I didn´t have to do Christmas shopping, I didn´t decorate a tree, I didn´t even really listen to Christmas music.

Christmas was a bit of a bummer for me since I was without my family and friends, but I really appreciated the phone calls, cards and packages that I received from everyone back at home. My waistline doesn´t necessary appreciate it since I devoured many of the goodies within a short time span, and don´t worry I did do some sharing with my host family and the neighborhood kids in my English class; but I did selfishly keep my favorites all to myself, like the peanut butter M&Ms (thank you Nick and Emily).

After Christmas I traveled to the beach to celebrate New Year´s in style, especially since if this really is the end of the world what´s better than a beach celebration?! It was lots of fun and even more fun since I didn´t suffer any sunburns while I was there. After 24 years, I´m finally learning I need to apply sunscreen practically every hour to avoid redness or gaining any color at all since the first thing my host mom said when I returned was that I didn´t have much color. Another downside to the trip, I was terrible in the sense that I didn´t take my camera out once to take a picture, at least we have Facebook where you´ll be able to see some pictures from the weekend (that is if people ever post the pictures).

Everything was going really well I was ready to come back to my site, but as I was getting off the bus I literally tumbled down the stairs and fell onto the pavement in the middle of the crowd of people waiting to load the bus. I suffered a scraped knee and some embarassment, but I´m also wondering is that a sign I shouldn´t have returned? I could have easily stayed on the beach skipped a sunscreen reapplication or two, maybe gained some color and enjoyed some more delicious ceviche; but no I´m back in the mountains where it´s much, much cooler than the beach and I´m wearing jeans and long sleeves. I´m slowly getting back into my routine of manualidades classes and English classes and more reading in the park. Just waiting for one more month until classes start up again and I shouldn´t complain because time is surprisingly going by rather quickly. Instead of 27 months of service, I´m down to 23....

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. Thank you all for the warm wishes, cards, calls and packages. Miss you and love you all!