Hello again!

All here in Nicaragua is well, hot as normal. My online psycology course will be done in 2.5 weeks, which im looking forward to. I knew it would eat up a bit of my work time, but I didnt realize to what extent. I´ve enjoyed the class though. I´ve started looking for a spanish tutor again, but will have more independant time to study spanish once this class is over. Nothing really exciting to report. I´ve been in the schools teaching again. Last week I taught Oral hygiene to 68 3rd graders, Nutrition to 87 2nd graders. I think the nutrition charla was hard for the kids to understand. I tried to break the theme down to its basics, and to use lots of visuals, but they still seemed confused. I´ll have to re-evaluate my approach to teaching more complex and new topics to the little kids. I went to the prescholar and reviewed handwashing with the kids, which was fun. One little girl turned three, and so we celebrated with a pinata, candy and music. That little girl could dance and wiggle in ways I can´t even imagine. I also went to a quincenera. Its like a sweet sixteen in the states, its a big celebration with fancy dresses, cake and music. It was a fun experience, but around 10 all the town drunks stumbled in, and it was interesting watching the women trying to convince them to leave.

I´ve also started looking at new places to move to. My host family has been working out Ok, but I´d like to have my own space, and more control over what I eat. I just feel different, less energy, and I think its a combination of the food, the heat, and lack of exersize.

For the last couple weeks, a teacher from the US, my age, has been staying here and working. Its been really nice to have someone around to speak english with, at the cost of my spanish, and to just talk to. The peacecorps also has placed another volunteer in my site, who is in the Small Business sector. He seems really nice, and helps me alot with my spanish. Its kind of wierd to have another american around full time, but I think we´ll be able to partner up on projects which will be alot of fun. The volunteer he replaced was here for 3 months with me, but I never saw him. This actually worked out really well for me, because I ended up making lots of friend in the community rather than spending all my time with the other volunteer.

thats all for now!