Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Happy Easter!


Some pictures of the cute puppies we had at our house

Grapefruit tree
Tree nursery (Vivero) of coffee plants which will eventually be transplanted
Peluche, reluctantly receiving his weekly flea bath (after which, every time, he bolts and rolls around in the dirt!)
A water reseviour (pila) that some people have to help with watering crops, only if there is a water source nearby, which isn´t common

I can´t believe its Easter already. Time is going by pretty fast. They celebrate Semana Santa (Holy Week) quite differently here. A lot of people go to the beaches/rivers/ lakes to swim: I just went swimming in the Rio Coco yesterday with some people from my town. They also eat fish on Thursday/ Friday, and I´m not sure what else we´ll do, but I´ll find out soon. Otherwise, things have still been a little slow on the work front. But just this last week our training group of about 20 got back together to discuss our first three months of service and it seems like alot of others are in the same situation. I can finally feel my Spanish getting better, its a whole lot easier to converse and I´m starting to understand all the songs of the radio finally! We just started a project with a few women starting little gardens in their yards, but its the dry season so they have to haul the water from nearby wells, which is not fun. Also a school garden is in the works. Walking everywhere has become normal for me and there are alot of hills here, so I´m getting in pretty good shape. Also the sun is brutal, especially midday, so my arms and face getting pretty tan. I can´t really think of much of anything else interesting at the moment, but I hope to be better at updating this more regularly in the future. Everyone have a Happy Easter! (I actually saw marshmallow peeps in a store here, but resisted buying them- I thought a couple years break from them might be good for me:) )

Just a pretty rose in my first host family´s yard

Some men making adobe (straw, dirt, manure and water?) to build a house

Me on a recent hike up our nearby mountain


A nearby farm where they grow zucchini for exportation, but they also sell it in the market here. I´ve been eating it all the time, and they love zucchini bread that I´ve been making.
An old cathedral in Ocotal

Peluche being tortured by some neighborhood kids
Some kids in my weekly English class, I think the only reason they come is because I make them snack and we play hangman


A visit to a place where they grow tomatoes

Mauda´s impression of me when I get annoyed with the kids playing in my room Since I don´t get to see my neices (and nephew, finally), I have to hang out with the Nicaraguan babies and kids:)
Ena and Ruth, part of the family that I live near