To see your smiling faces...

Last Saturday was my first camping experience here in Nicaragua! About 10 of us got together and hiked a ways up the mountain here and set-up camp in a deserted rock quarry. It’s a gorgeous spot, too bad I don’t have any pictures to send you right now from that night! There’s a great view of the neighboring cities from the quarry as it’s situated a good hike up the mountain! We all chipped in and bought marshmallows & chocolate covered cookies, unfortunately we are not use to the different types of trees here in Nicaragua and it took us about an hour and a half to actually get a campfire started! But once we did we chowed down all the roasted marshmallows and improvised smores. One great thing was no one had tents, so we all camped under the Nicaragua moon! It was almost like camping back in the states (hehe, I don’t think I’ve ever camped without a tent in the states). It was a great time and a perfect night; the rainy season is over so we didn’t have to worry about waking up in a puddle of water!

Last Sunday the entire country of Nicaragua had its municipal elections (elections for department/state mayor), so there has been some drama around the country since. The percentage of voting citizens here is outstanding, 80% of Nicaraguans get out and vote. There are two distinct political parties the Sandinistas and the Liberales; they are constantly combating each other. The reining party now is the Sandinistas, so there have been debates that the Liberales lost/miscounted ballots in certain departments. Unfortunately, some people are very passionate about their political party and a few people have been killed because of the instability. Don’t worry; none of the incidents have been close to our location, so it’s very peaceful where I am! However the news in Nicaragua has been very interesting and the PC has kept us on a short leash, meaning we can’t enter certain areas of the country, mainly Managua. The activity has begun to stabilize, which is a very good thing as we are headed to Managua on Tuesday for the swearing in ceremony.

We leave our training communities this coming Tuesday for Managua, where we will be staying in hotels all week to officially swear in as Volunteers. The swearing in ceremony is something very important for every Peace Corps Volunteer. We meet the ambassador to Nicaragua Robert Callahan and receive a briefing from him, we were supposed to go to the Embassy, but they had to take it out of the agenda. The PC is highly respected here; so many TV news stations will be present during the ceremony as well as other government officials from Nicaragua and the U.S. So it’ll be a great event and a way to meet the “important people” in the country! However, many in our group are just as excited to eat the Pizza Hut pizza that we get on Friday, as they are to swear in as volunteers! Which I find quite hilarious!

– Yeah, one week of a real shower and not a bucket bath, that’s definitely something I’m looking forward to! –

So a week from today I’ll finally be an “actual” volunteer and no longer a trainee! It’s crazy to think that I’ve almost already been here for three months! But I haven’t stopped thinking about everyone back home; I miss you guys a lot! I’ll be in Managua Tuesday – Saturday, so I should have easy access to the Internet and phone all week! So keep me updated on your life in the states!