HERE!

I can´t believe I´m actually here. I don´t even know where to start. My flight and getting through the Nicaragua airport was a breeze. I was picked up by the country coordinator of my program as well as a girl Christine. Christine is the one who I´ll be replacing in Leon, with the family she stayed with and the program Las Tias that I´ll be working with. I feel so much more prepared already, but I´m thinking that the placement will be NOTHING like what I was expecting. Apparently I´ll be teaching english, and because almost all of the kids that come to the center are from the streets, attendance and attention levels are pretty horrible. Aside from that though, she said they´re a great group of kids…I´m hoping that I´ll find some way to keep them entertained enough to come more than twice a week. This girl ended up working with a Habitat for Humanity type group down there so there´s definitely tons of other stuff to get involved with. But I won´t actually be in Leon for another MONTH! I have a week of ¨orientation¨ training here in Jinotepe and then I stay for another three weeks for pure language training. I´ll be anxious to start working, I know, but I already love it here so I´m sure I´ll be fine. The town is great, so busy and colorful. The place that I´m staying is SWEET. It´s a big building, two floors. The second floor is all dorm type living, where we all sleep. The first floor has the kitchen, a few other rooms, the office etc. But there´s this big square garden in the middle…and everything is so open here that there´s no walls separating the garden from the rest of the first floor. The breeze is so nice, plus it just feels cool being able to be outside and inside at the same time.
There´s only one other person doing the orientation with me. She´s an older woman from Canada, but she´s a trip. Everyone else is younger, around my age or a little older, but she fits right in. Theres another guy staying at the center, he´s been here for four months and is working at the hospital around here. Apparently in Nicaragua you don´t need any schooling to put in IV´s or stitch people up, because that´s what he does most days. Apparently IV´s are easy, you just “stick the needle in”. I really hope I never get sick here. This house is also a hostel, so theres a group of engineers without borders people staying here, plus a few other people.
They had a welcome dinner for me and the other woman last night at this little Mexican restaurant down the road, and I think I got my first tast of how everything really works around here. We were all sitting around eating (delicious) and drinking (there are only two beers here in Nicaragua, and I´m pretty sure they fill the bottles from a keg in the back) when cops started walking in the place. There were a few outside and one starts arguing with the owner. We found out later that the cop was seeing if the owner has a permit to serve beer, and wanted a bribe to look the other way. After walking around town today and seeing cops lounging on the stairs of buildings and chewing on banana leaves, I´m starting to understand that perhaps law enforcement is not taken quite as seriously as back home.
I went over to Raquel, the in country coordinators house after dinner to hang out with Christine and Raquels sons. Her sons were all punked out and Taking Back Sunday was playing in the background while they took shots of cheap rum. I have to say, I felt like I was back in high school again.
Tomorrow starts language training, hopefully I´ll start feeling less like a useless tourist. I think maybe I was a little foolish in thinking that buying a Spanish workbook at the beginning of last semester and letting it contribute to the pyramid of unread books on my desk was going to help me out over here. I did manage to navigate through the town and make it to this internet cafe, only getting lost once, which I think is pretty fantastic. My next great adventure will be making it home.