My New Home!!

Well, here I am in the last major ¨stage¨in my Peace Corps experience. It´s funny, the time has been going by so quickly because there has been so much excitement and anticipation in these past few months: what country we´re going to, where our training town would be, what our family would be like, and finally, where our site will be for the next two years. I don´t think I´ve ever been this excited about something before. Although, I must admit I have been trying to be extra patient and to not have any particular type of site in mind.

So, here you go! For the next two years I will be living in the Department (like a state) of Chontales. Here are some stats:

Inhabitants in my town: 450 (yes, that´s right!)
Including the surrounding areas: about 3,000-4,000
Distance from Managua: 2.5-3.5 hours
Distance from Internet: about 2 hours (hopefully I will have a signal so I can get a cell phone!)
Basic services: I should have electricity, but that doesn´t mean it´s frequent and I will have potable water, but I will mostly likely have to draw my water from a well and take bucket baths.
Weather: It rains about 9 months out of the year with April being the hottest month.
Work: I will be working in 4 schools, one in my town, 2 that are about 5 kilometers aways, and one that is 14 k´s away. Needless to say, I will probably be purchasing a bike or finding someone to let me borrow a horse.
For the first six weeks I will be living with a family and then, I will find my own place to live (unless I really like living with my family).

That´s all I can think of for now. Friday, we get to meet our counterparts which are the people that we work with in our community that are there to provide us with any help or support we need. Then, on Saturday we will travel with them to our new sites for a week. I am super excited to see my new site, but I am also going to be very sad to be leaving my family shortly. I have grown quite attached to them. We only have about another week and 1-2 with them.

It´s also been quite exciting here with the elections just around the corner, November 5th. Each political party has it´s representatives going around to each town with the trucks filled in the back with huge speakers broadcasting their campaigns. There are also usually hords of people trailing behind wearing their party´s paraphernalia. To my suprise, the Sandinistas have a pretty good amount of support, 35% of the voto duro (sure votes) and that´s pretty good considering they only need 35% of the popular vote to win. It will definitely be an exciting election!

Well, that´s all for now. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail or comment!