Getting Settled in a Completely New World

Well I made it to my training town!! I'm living with an awesome family in a small “barrio” outside of Jinotepe in the department of Carazo. I have a host father who's in his 60s and 8 host brothers and sisters who are all in their 20-30s. (Only 4 of them actually live in my house, but the others and their spouses and children are always stopping by.) =) My two host sisters are sooo sweet and always go out of their way to slow down everyone else's Spanish for me, and my 6 host brothers couldn't be nicer or more accommodating. =) One even wants me to teach him English!! They all love to make me speak because I make SO many mistakes, and they get to take turns correcting me lol. Apparently my Spanish isn't as bad as I thought it was though, because I wasn't placed in the lowest language group!! Who knew?? Regardless of what Peace Corps thinks I'm capable of, it is SOOOO hard living and breathing completely in Spanish. In the 6 hours of Spanish class we have a day, only Spanish is spoken because my teacher doesn´t speak English, and if I'm not there, then I'm at home with my host family speaking only in Spanish because none of them speak English! Luckily there are 3 other trainees in my training town, so we get to vent to one another in English on the way out of class each day. Jessi (one of the other trainees) and I have been running in the mornings at 6 which gives us English time too. Yes I can see the looks of shock about me running at 6 every morning. Lol whatever!

My house here is by far the most...shall we say, modest...of all the other host homes in the neighborhood. I'm the only one of the trainees that has an outdoor latrine, rather than indoor plumbing. I do have running water for the outdoor shower though, on the days it happens to be running (which it has been 2 out of the last 4 days =D). My “cocina” or kitchen consists of a room with 3 walls that houses a “pila,” or sink with no running water, a raised ¨fogon,¨ or fire pit for cooking, and a few shelves with heavy duty pots that can withstand the direct flames. The walls of my house don´t touch the roof, and there´s no glass or screens on the windows, so there are just as many flies and mosquitoes inside as there are outside. (Thank God for my mosquito net!!) The walls of my room obviously don't touch the ceiling either, so last night a bat flew through and left me a little “present” on the side of my net!! UGH!

The upside though? The rain sounds beautifullll on my tin roof, and the roosters out back will never let me sleep through my alarm. (Actually they start around 3-4am...way before the sun smh. Someone should tell them they're doing their job wrong.) I think in total, my family has 1 dog, 3 parrots, 6 cows, and 20-30 chickens. What's interesting about that is that we live in “el centro” of the community! We're directly across from the school and by no means out on a farm or anything. My block is right in the center of town. I don't mind all the animals and family members though. I love my new familia. They have character, and we all know I need a family with character. Melissa, my host niece is 8. I can't understand her Spanish at all, and she can't understand mine, but we exchanged necklaces yesterday, so we're obviously going to be best friends. =P She reminds me of Livi and Mary which does wonders for my home sickness.

All in all, I'd say everything here is as good as I could have asked for it to be. I had my first lesson in hand washing my ¨ropa interior¨(undies and bras) today, and I think it went pretty well, even if my host sisters thought it was hilarious that I didn't know the “right way” to hang my panties on the barbed wire that serves as our wash line haha! After that adventure, I ended up moving them to a line in my room anyway, since it started raining (which it does at LEAST once a day here during the rainy season.) I kinda prefer that to having them out on the same line as my host brothers' work clothes though lol. Now all I can do is hope that another bat doesn't fly through my room tonight and “soil” them while I'm sleeping. (PS my host sisters wash all the rest of my clothes and will continue to do so while I´m in training. SWEET!)

Right now, aside from improving my pathetic Spanish, my challenge is to master the art of timing my pre-sleep latrine run around the evening downpour. Lol gooood times. In the mean time, pray that I don't get sick because I'm pretty sure my host sisters have been washing my veggies in water that's been standing in barrels for days. =/ Don't worry mom, I feel fine so far! More to come next time I can get to the cyber when we happen to have electricity and free time (both of which are hard to come by in our busy little town.)