Challenging, To Say the Least

So I know it´s been a while since I´ve posted on here, but I´ve been super super busy. Last time I posted, I said I was waiting to hear about my site placement. Well I got it and I spent the last week visiting my new site, in.....drumroll pleaseeee......BELÉN, RIVAS!!! I was so excited when I found out where I got placed! It was my first choice and the Department of Rivas has so many positives, I can´t even list them all. Well maybe I can lol...

1. Super close to San Juan del Sur, an awesome beach on the Pacific Coast.
2. Perfect view of the island of Ometepe, which is composed of two volcanoes.
3. Fellow volunteers to visit on the island!
4. Just about an hour from my training town, so I can visit without too much trouble. =)
5. Less than 2.5 hours from Managua, the capital of Nicaragua.
6. Known for it´s 6 (or more?) different types of mangos!

Even with all of these positives, spending a week in my new pueblo, Belén, was way harder than I could have ever imagined. Training these past two months has been great for getting me accustomed to life in Nicaragua, and for improving my Spanish; however, it has meant I´ve lived in a small town with three other trainees in my exact same situation. In Guisquiliapa, my perfect bubble of a training town, everyone knows us and understands that we´re in training. They´ve had other trainees before, and therefore expect our Spanish to be disgraceful. They have tons of patience with our questions and with our funny American tendencies. Living within walking distance of other trainees has also meant that we had our own little support network for days when we wanted to just chill and speak English, or for when we wanted to escape to the ¨city¨ for pizza (or anything other than rice and beans.)

My site visit however, was unbelievably different and extremely challenging. To start with, Peace Corps gave us each two sentences worth of directions to our sites and left it at that. We all had to find our own ways to our sites, which was luckily for me, not too hard. I was told to get off the bus at the ¨entrada¨ or entrance to my town. So, when we got to the entrance, I got off with my huge suitcase, backpack, and sack of books from Peace Corps and proceeded to walk the 300 meter stretch to the school, rolling my suitcase behind me, and sweating more than I´ve ever sweat in my life. Rivas is way hotter than Carazo, and the fact that I was more nervous than I ever have been didn´t help things. I must´ve looked so ridiculous to the people passing me on their bikes, and to the people sitting on their porches, especially when I stopped to ask them how to get to the school.

Once inside the school with all my luggage, I was greeted by the sub-director, who told me that my host mom, (the director) was at home because she had taken a fall and was on crutches. She then cheerfully elected 4 kids to walk me to her house. The kids were so sweet and took turns carrying my things, and when we arrived at the house, I was warmly welcomed by my new host father and mother. They were as nice as I could have asked for, but after the quick hellos, it became insanely akward. What do you say to someone when you´re moving into their house? During training, there wasn´t much time for akwardness because we were always quickly shuffled into Spanish class and we therefore got to integrate into our families little by little. During the site visit though, I was on my own for creating a schedule for myself, which meant hours of time that couldn´t be filled due to the fact that it is literally impossible to fill 6 complete days with activities, especially when one is dropped into a new world, only half speaks the language, and is not the most outgoing person in the world.

So, to sum things up, this was by far the most challenging week of my life. I ended up having to present myself in front of a community meeting, on stage, with a microphone, in front of the mayor and all the teachers I´ll be working with - and no, I wasn´t given a warning about it ahead of time! I had to present myself to every single class in my 3 schools, to the police, to the people in the Mayor´s Office, to a million and one new family members...I could go on and on.

Luckily, my town seems great! It´s much bigger than my training town, which worries me a bit, but I know I´m going to eventually love it there. One of the teachers invited me to her house my third night, and her daughter gave me my first pedicure ever. Then her 5 year old son and I danced for at least half an hour on her compact dirt floor. Things like that make me realize that I´m going to eventually love it there. I just hope when I get back, the level of akwardness will quickly be replaced by comfort. In the mean time, please hope/pray/petition the universe for my ability to stop being so damn shy and akward. I need to tap into the outgoingness Peace Corps Volunteers are supposed to have.

Today though, I´m back in Carazo and couldn´t be happier to be ¨home.¨ I plan to soak up every second of these next two weeks, and hope they go as slowly as possible.