Preschool Graduation

My Lovely Host Mom

My Youth Group and Our Huevos Claus

December 1, 2008

Greetings all,

I am now in my second week in El Charcón, and things are going great. Training wrapped up very well. I was really glad to be done with the monotony of a very structured schedule, but also sad to leave a host family and a community that cared for me so well. After we left our training towns, we headed to Managua for some final training sessions before our swearing in ceremony on the 22^nd. It was a very interesting time to be in Managua as parts of the city were being engulfed in riots daily over the outcome of the Municipal elections, held earlier in the month. The opposition claimed that the Sandinistas stole the elections and the Sandinistas called their forces to the streets to defend the votes. There was never any danger to us but every night you could hear the motors (think big fireworks) going off.

Our swearing in ceremony was held at the U.S. Embassy and due to the current state of the city was not televised as we had been told and was much smaller. It was still very nice and I felt really proud of everyone as we finally swore in as Peace Corps Volunteers.

I arrived in the town of Praderas, about 2.5 km from my host family’s house, last Sunday in the afternoon. I had called to let them know I was coming, but as I got off the bus with about eighty pounds of luggage I didn’t see anyone that I knew. So I began my trek to my new home, up a huge hill, with everyone staring at me and struggling mightily with all of my bags. When I got about halfway there two girls came up from behind on a bike and said hello and asked how I was, but I didn’t really recognize them. They then offered to help me with my bags and as I saw them driving off with half of my possessions I began to wonder who they were and whether or not I would see my stuff again. Fortunately, they turned out to be part of my enormous family, and I settled in nicely that afternoon.

There are about 17 people who live in the house with my family and numerous others who take their meals there, so it is always a bustle of activity. There are lots of little kids who have finally accepted me and have begun to want to play constantly. This past week I spent mostly hanging out with the family, meeting people around the community, and attending community bank meetings. The previous volunteer set up three community banks that I hope to start anew in January, and formalize a little more to make them more sustainable, since I will be the last volunteer coming to this community.

I have also been working on the house where I will be living come January. There is a water project that will hopefully be bringing water to my back yard and I have plans to put in a shower area and put down a cement floor over the dirt in the bedroom. I haven’t ridden my horse yet because she was on loan to someone else but I have plans to do that very soon. The people here have been really nice so far and I am really looking forward to getting to know them better and diving into more projects with them soon.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, I really missed all the great food, I have had beans and rice every meal for eight days. Take care,

Austin