Adios July. Hello COS Conference.

Well July is going out with a lunch of pizza and a side of rain. That´s right, we are still in the rainy season. It started in the middle of May and will go until November (aka the rest of the time I´m here). Here the rainy season is called winter and the dry season is summer. At first I was confused because we´re not south of the equator so they should be on the same seasons as us (minus snow). But now it makes sense. The dry season is unbearably hot and dusty all the time while the rainy season is cooler when it´s actually raining...which is not all day. After the rain the sun REALLY blazes.We`re talking ant under microscope heat. Being an ant is never fun.

However, what is AWESOME is that my books are finally here! In early spring I signed up to receive books from the International Book Project. It´s a terrific organization that sends used/new books to developing countries that don´t have much access to reading material. Due to the kindness of my friend Billy and a foundation (it costs $100 to send a package of 30 pounds of books and the IBP donates $100 and I had to raise the other $100 myself = Billy and the foundation), I received the books no problem. I have been waiting for them for MONTHS (they were mailed in the beginning of March or April) and I now have them! There is everything! Books in Spanish, books in English, English text books, chapter books, sports books, science books, CHARLOTTE´S WEB IN SPANISH! I am INCREDIBLY grateful and pumped! I haven´t quite figured out how I´m going to introduce these books to my schools but I´m thinking about trying to have a reading half an hour or hour at some point during the school day. Any suggestions?! Once my service is completed here (in another 3.5 months) I´ll leave the books with the school libraries. Right now my job is to spike the kids´ interest in reading so the books don´t just sit on the shelves for eternity.

August starts tomorrow! Tuesday is my sister´s birthday (happy birthday!) and I´ll be celebrating by heading to Managua. On Wednesday my group has our final language interview (so we can see how we´ve improved since our training) and Thursday and Friday are our COS conference (where PC tells us what we need to do to leave and what we should plan on for when we come home). I´ve heard it´s a bit hard to deal with because it gets you all excited to go home and then you still have another three months or so...but it´ll be okay. I´m excited for it.

Keep the letters coming! If you want to send a package, please do so in the next two weeks to ensure that I get it in time (sometimes packages take 8 days, sometimes three months). There´s not exactly a mail forwarding service here :) Love you all and thanks so much! See you soon!