Nicaragua Week One in a Flash!

¡Hola a todos! Por fin puedo darles un poquito de asegurancia que hemos llegado en Nicaragua, finally I can give you all a little assurance that we have arrived safely here in Nicaragua. Today is the Saturday of our first week here, and it has been an incredible experience so far. I compare it to how it feels time passed in Carleton, where each day feels so long because you can pack so many things into one day but the weeks pass quickly and then boom, you’re gone! The time has passed perhaps even quicker for my papa because he has to go back to work next week and therefore has to leave this beautiful country tomorrow already. His presence will surely be missed, with his dorky-cute attempts and fumbles with Spanish (and sometimes English…), supreme clean-up skills, and mother-hen-guarding-pollitos capabilities. ¡Te veo cuando regreso, Papá, y con más historias y fotos! (I’ll see you when I get back, Papa, and with more stories and photos!)

Bueno, I only have a short while to write this, so I will give a brief overview of the week, and probably only after I get back will I be able to sit down in mi casa más refrescante, my chillier house, to write in-depth day-by-day synopses of daily events, thoughts, and photos. I am not able to get my photos off my camera while I am here, but I promise we have a few decent ones! I almost ran out of memory already on my main camera card, so I have swapped it out and it is going safely home with my dad so I can go through all the photos when I get home. I am thankful indeed that I decided to bring my DSLR also, because in the event that I felt unsafe with it here, I could lock it up with our other valuables in the PML (Project Minnesota-León) office in the city. And since I have felt completely okay keeping it with me (other than when my adorable, but extremely curious, hermanitos in my host family clamor for it), I hope my photos can be a resource for the memories of the whole group as well.

(To bust out a little Minnesotan): Sooooooo, just for a tiny taste, we have oriented ourselves with Nicaraguan history, climbed a mountain, stepped in horse poo, used latrines, admired baby chickens, wanted to feed the skinny guard dogs, played sports with children, had a craft day, taken tours of some of the city and rural villages, made carpets out of sawdust, painted in the primitivist style, seen sweet murals, done a little souvenir shopping, slept in hammocks, tried to buy hammocks, eaten tons of rice and beans and probably plantains too, relaxed on the beach, attempted to function and communicate well with our lovely Nicaraguan families, felt so much love from the community, and more! I have listened to and learned and reflected on so many things that we are a week in and I am halfway through my notebook! Hopefully my brain will not explode further with activity in the next week or I will run out of pages for my thoughts…

Anyways, I apologize that this is all I can give you all for the moment because I am currently given a special privilege to write this while the others are learning the paper mache steps for the foundation of their piñatas (So is it really a privilege? I’m a room away and listening to the sounds of furious newspaper-crumpling, laughter, and trash-talk between the teams). I’d better head back and make sure my dad has not drowned ours with our instructor’s homemade yucca glue.

Until I can write again!

Con amor,

Kathryn

¡Vamos para Nica!

Hello again, dear readers! My travel blog is back, this time with a mission to further connect me to Latin America. I have been to Mexico and Brazil and nowhere in between, so this trip to Nicaragua is going to fix that. Actually, I completely failed at blogging Brazil. I almost filled a notebook of my thoughts and observations when I was able to spend three weeks in that incredible and fascinating country on Carleton's winter break program, but alas, I have not translated those musings into intelligible thoughts and photos in blog format. My apologies, I want to get on that, but more pressing is this next upcoming adventure: Central America.

My church has gone to Haiti many a time but never done a trip to Central America that I know of. This intended to be a youth trip, however, by chance of who was able to go, St. Luke's will be represented by six youth accompanied by six chaperones on a two-week delegation with Project Minnesota/León (check out http://www.mn-leon.org/!). I think a few church members have wondered if I would be considered a "youth" or a chaperone, but at 22, I am happy to help bridge the age gap between the parental generation and the high schoolers. I jumped at the chance to be put on the possible chaperone list when I first heard inklings about the trip, and I am so looking forward to getting to know our youth better, especially since I have been away at college and to the opportunity to experience Central America firsthand. What will be really cool about this trip is that it has a cultural exchange focus, so we will be investing ourselves in the cultural experience, serving the community-building projects and art fairs if we can be of service, and hopefully extending a positive, constructive image of estadounidenses, United Statesians.

For the next two weeks, the list of possible events includes a variety talent show, a climb up to the mountains where we'll sleep overnight in hammocks, exploring the city of León, and oh yea, a day with our host families! All the St. Lukers will be staying with Nicaraguan host families in a humble town just outside of the city of León, which will be a wonderful, albeit intimidating, way to get some Spanish immersion, something my school-learned Spanish can definitely use. Most of us are with young families, and mine is apparently comprised of a young couple with three boys under the age of five - coloring books and crayons are definitely coming along! It's time to cometer some errores en español, bailar some salsa, comer some gallo pinto (their rice and beans dish), and intercambiar some cosas culturales with the wonderful people of Nicaragua!

With a 6:30am flight first to Miami (which I am wholeheartedly excited to see, also - I have heard the Miami airport is a fascinating place), we will be forced to function before the coffeeshops open, so you know it's early. I myself am going the short-nap-at-night-and-sleep-on-the-plane route since I would get antsy with anticipation and not sleep well anyways. I'll tire myself out tonight and then conk out, hopefully awaking next in Managua!

¡Ya vamos!

Until I can get internet and update you on nuestras aventuras, ¡cuídense, take care!