My Life, Thus Far

My everyday routine. Been getting up early and take my time on the stroll up the five semi-hills up to the training center, which is pretty muc like school. It definitely feels like it with a 730-430 schedule and a ton of homework afterwards. At the end of the day I try my luck at the internet café and do what I can with usually a half hour slot and head home, if the connectionis running at all. Then I help out with preparing dinner which has become my bonding time with my host mom and a good way to learn how to make the local eats. I linger a bit after dinner to watch some telenovela with the like La Fea Mas Bella or Pasion es Prohibida or some American film dubbed in Spanish. Quality programming, I know. Ideally, I should´ve done my homework at this point, since I do not have a desk in my room and have to do all my studying in their patio-like area which either gets really cold or too bug/mosquito infested after 8 p.m. Any work or reading I do in my room immediately leads to passing out.

My Mosquito Net. All the trainees were required to use mosquito nets which I really appreciated as soon as I started identifying at least three different species of bugs in my room. Whenever I see them crawling on the walls, I feel protected within the safety of my mosquitera- and layers of insect repellant which we are also required to apply on a daily basis.
Weekends. This is when I usually have been doing my laundry (i.e. by hand) and ironing and sometimes meet with trainees for a school project. I have also gone to the campo, which is the gorgeous football field they have situated hillside and having a picturesque view of the surrounding mountains. I only go to watch games and hang out, I haven´t quite desired to turn into Pele or Ronaldinho, not especially after Brazil lost in the World Cup. Painful, painful.

Last weekend I went on a hike with a couple of other people to a national park called La Tigra. I think it was my first time to hike an entire mountain- I wasn´t quite expecting to do that when I was told there was a nice “trail” we could hike on. Seven hours later, drenched from the forest rain, we emerged victorious. I was ecstatic to have survived and would know better next time when somebody invites me for a stroll through the mountains. It was gorgeous, though. As rough the terrain was on the down hill with the rain pouring, at some point it just became peaceful and my mind just wandered in the clouds- which was where we practically were.

Social Life. Surprisingly, I have been able to go out dancing the past three weekends I´ve been here. The first Saturday, the host families put together a welcome party for us held in the school and even had a DJ – complete with strobes and all that good stuff. For some of us, as long as there was music, that was all we needed. Once in a while there is a party held at one of the social centers they have here and of course all the trainees are all over that. There was a smoke machine when we went....ooh. Aside from that, there´s this local dive that all the trainees go to regularly for their cervezas and it occasionally plays music in a back room which we will invade. Apart from that, it was either seeing the football games together (over by now) or just getting together for cafe con leche. We are in a rural area afterall, and until the ban is lifted on going to the capital, it usually is an early night for most of us.

It´s all about the Benjamins. Uh, what Benjamins? Cash here is actually in Lempiras, or limps, as we refer to it. It´s tragic that everything here is pretty dirt cheap ($1=Lps. 18), but then again I don´t have the U.S. dollars to roll with…especially not with the Lps. 50/day we get for our walk around allowance. $2.50. Pitiful, I know. But for now it´s actually sufficient since all my meals are covered by my family anyway. All my extra money goes to this internet place, which thankfully is pretty cheap. Way cheaper than sending snail mail- which will cost Lps. 40 PER letter. Crazy! So my peeps will definitely hear from me the cyber way more than ever, as much as I love writing snail mail. Gotta keep up with the Math whether I like it or not.
It´s not so bad, though, as we´re bound to get more moolah (I hope!) when we get to our actual sites in September. But this early though, I will begin the fundraising for “Buy Leah a Refrigerator Fund” as our move-in allowance definitely will not cover that. It´s usually a luxury that volunteers acquire. But I have a few more months before I worry about that.

Looking Ahead. This weekend we will be doing our Volunteer Visits where each of us are paired with an existing volunteer in the country to see what their life and work are like and gain exposure. Which also means we get to travel! Hooray! My first real trip beyond the confines of training. I was actually paired with another trainee to visit a married couple in Choluteca- which is down south, close to Nicaragua. It should be fun- and educational of course. Then in two weeks, we are to pack up and sort of start over again for our Field Based Training, which will be in La Esperanza. We will be there for a month to put our theory training into practice, basically. I will be staying with another host family but eventually go back to Santa Lucia for a few more weeks before we get sworn in. September 8 is the big date, baby. When it all becomes official.

For now I´m just taking things one day at a time, living off on mail and phonecalls to stay connected to home and taking in the new things that everyday brings. Nothing too exciting, I know, but so far, so good.