2 Years and Counting!

September 2nd was my two year anniversary in Nicaragua! It seems inSANE that two years ago I was sitting in the D.C. airport with a bunch of strangers waiting to come here. I remember being beyond irritated with Peace Corps for making us arrive at the airport at 3AM when the airport DIDN´T EVEN OPEN until 5AM and our flight for Miami was to leave at 7...maybe 6:30...I can´t remember exactly but either way it was something ridiculous. We even had someone in our group from D.C. that told PC no one would be there to check us in until 5. So we sat around on our luggage in the D.C. airport.

And then our connecting flight in Miami was delayed more than 5 hours.

And then we arrived in Nicaragua to find that ALL of our luggage had gone to Haiti.

All in all, I guess it wasn´t such a technically great day, but I´m glad it happened. When PC first came on my radar as a possibility, I wasn´t sure because 2 years (really 27 months) seemed impossibly long and I didn´t think I could do it. And now, with the majority of my service behind me, I can honestly say it was the right choice for me to come here. Hats off to making good choices!

Life here is going along at a steady pace. I can´t believe I only have a little over two months left here...strange to think of living back in the U.S. again...and while I am nervous about some aspects of it, I´m also PUMPED (as you should be able to infer from the all caps, the pumped feeling vastly outweighs the nervous feeling). My reading circle thing with primary students is in full swing. I visit four classrooms. We read a story and then do a drawing. It´s nothing too complex but the kids enjoy it and so do I. My community class is plugging along as always. There are only about ten people left in the class but they come on time every time and I enjoy the small community atmosphere. My counterparts in the high school and I don´t do much together anymore. We´re working more on developing materials they can keep using after I´m gone. I still attend their classes but I do more observing and working one on one with the students having trouble or who were absent. I do believe I´ve hit a very nice rhythm for the next two months.

And I leave you with a story some find funny, others find disturbing. Last night I went out to use the latrine. I hate going there during the day but once the sun has set it gets so much creepier. There I was with my headlamp going about my business when my eye catches something moving on the door. That´s right folks. Much to my dismay, there was a scorpion accompanying me in the latrine. I stood up, hiked up my shorts, and thought about how best to kill it. My flip-flop claden feet seemed inadequate (especially since this would mean removing a flipflop and leaving one foot entirely unprotected), but that´s just what I did. The first smash didn´t quite get him; I really thought he was going to give me my first sting. But I smashed again, this time with a resounding tail-removing success.

Keep the letters coming. No more packages or I might not get them before I leave. SEE YOU SOON!