First Day

I've arrived! Last night 2 of the other volunteers and I arrived in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. The other two are Tess and Sarah, and they are from Chicago and Boston. Our program director, Mateo picked us up and we drove about an hour and a half to our hostel in Leon. The drive was wonderful, and it brought back a lot of memories and reminded me of how much I love Central America. Over the years I have been to Costa Rica 5 times, and Nicaragua once, and it was funny to see how much I remembered of the culture, and although it is a foreign country, it felt very familiar. At the hostel we met the fourth volunteer, Emma, and the assistant director, Vanessa. We spent the rest of the night in our room talking and introducing ourselves, but went to bed fairly quickly, as we had all had a long day of travel. In the morning we were able to actually see our hostel, which we weren't able to the previous night, due to us arriving when it was very dark. The hostel is so pretty- it's very open, with bright colored walls and tin roofs. Outside our room is an open porch/balcony with chairs and a hammock, which is where I am writing this. 

 The hostel provides guests with pancake batter for breakfast, and there is a full kitchen with pots and pans, so we each made our own batch of pancakes. There were a few other American twenty-somethings in the kitchen that we talked to, who were very interested in our program. We learned that one of them was in the Peace Corps in Honduras and the other two were visiting her After breakfast we headed over to Mateo's house, which is also the program office in Nicaragua. We did a lot of introductions, talking about expectations, and learning more about the community work, which resulted in a lot of excitement from the volunteers. It was great to get more information about what we'll be doing with our communities and host families, and learn about the experience other volunteers have had in the past. We had lunch at a local casual restaurant, and practiced our Spanish, which was really helpful. There's a wide variety of different Spanish levels among us, which is comforting to know. 

 My 18 hours so far in Nicaragua have been great, and I can't wait for the next 3 months!

Our room

Outside our room