como se dice...

everything!!  I've arrived in Santa Teresa and absolutely love my host family!  My host-mom works at the Health Center in town and my host-dad works in Managua so is only home on the weekends.  I have two sisters, 18 and 11, and both are extremely nice and very patient with me.  I've been super busy with Spanish class this week but it's good because there isn't much to do here... a lot of sitting outside and saying Adios! to everyone who walks by.  My host-mom's favorite show is Law and Order, though, so Sarah, if you want to come hang, you're more than welcome.  It's in English and subtitled in Spanish so I've been reading everything and picking up on some phrases here and there.  And we have running water and electricity  WAHOO!!  It will be a pretty big adjustment when I move to el campo and won't have either of those on a daily basis.  

Okay, so my group doesn't exactly know Spanish yet but we are getting there (we hope)!  This past week we've had 8 hours of Spanish class every day-- usually 5 hours in the "classroom" which is one of the aspirantes' houses, then we go out into the community and practice our newly acquired skills.  My three other groups members are fabulous and we're all really enthusiastic to learn and to eventually be able to give "charlas" (talks/lessons) in Spanish.  Today we didn't have class because we went to Managua to have technical training and to learn about our four projects during pre-service training-

One is creating a survey pertaining to one of the major problems in Santa Teresa.  We need to interview at least 20 community members to gain inside on how they feel about a major problem we see in the community.  We are thinking about surveying them on water conservation, green space, or trash.  There is SO much garbage in the street, along with a ton of dog/horse/cow poop.  Don't worry, I'm always watching my step.

The second project is to form a youth group, around ages 16-22.  With the group, we need to make some sort of recycled material project (any suggestions??!!), give 2 charlas on life skills we think are appropriate to the group, and basically just get to know the teenagers and have fun!  At the end of the 3 months, we're going to present our project to the rest of the Environmental aspirantes.

Third, is teaching in an elementary school for grades 4-6.  During weeks 6-8, I will have to teach 3 lessons (in Spanish, duh, but-- ahhh!) on natural science.  I'll be collaborating with the classroom teacher to know the topics I'll be doing lessons on and I'm really looking forward to it!  It'll be nice getting back into the classroom :)

Finally, with my group, we're going to build a garden at the elementary school we'll be teaching at.  I have zero experience doing anything related to gardening but I'm going to be a pro soon.  I just know it.   Tomorrow we need to be in Jinotepe at 7:15 to learn how to start a garden!  Also on a side note, I'm pretty sure I'm the only non-outdoorsy person here.  Not totally shocking but everyone talks about their camping/rock climbing/travel experiences and I can proudly say I've been camping once with the Berkowitz's (thanks Jill and Glo!) and we had lovely running water.  I'm going to learn how to rough it.

It's been a jam packed week and I've never felt so many ups and downs in one day.  I've definitely questioned my decision once or twice but there are so many more positives than negatives so I know it's going to be fantastic.  Already I feel like my perspective has been changed on a lot of things.  For example, I probably would never look at a house made of aluminum in the US and say, wow, that's pretty nice.  Or, I'd never get up at 5:30 in the morning to run because I ate a ton of fried food the day before.  Or, I'd never think 20 cordobas was expensive because it's really $1.  

I have to get up early tomorrow to build that garden!  Hopefully the fire ants don't get to me and I am capable of using a Swiss Army Knife.  We'll see...

ps.  thanks for the comments!!