Bienvenidos a Nicaragua!

We made it!!

Saturday morning we got up at 2:45am and were in flight at 5:15. Everything went relatively smoothly and the volunteers we will be joining in Managua were there to greet us when we landed! We took a truck to Granada to meet our host families..  When I first arrived I was so excited to see new things and meet everyone. However, in a matter of minutes, I went from pure to joy to: WHAT DID I GET MYSELF INTO?!  Alone in my room, and without access to internet or phone (or even a way to get a hold of Ana or Matt), I had no way to contact everyone back home to let them know I made it safely. I felt so disconnected from the world and like I was all alone.  I started having feelings of pure desperation, doubting that I was cut out for such a commitment so far from home...

God works in mysterious ways.
It is always amazing to me how such moments of desolation bring me to a place where all I can do is pray.  The remainder of my day was literally a litany of short, silent prayers:

• I prayed that God would bless the food, and "especially the stomach that received it".  So far so good!
• I have been praying that I would have a baby around. I have a 2mo. old nephew named Jose Miguel...perfect.
• I wasn't even sure what to pray on my way to the restroom the first time, but I was relieved to find a flushing toilet, functioning shower, and sink (a huge improvement from our homestays in the Dominican Republic... adding to my "single story"!).  However, I was back to praying a quick "Oh God!" when the cold shower water hit my back for the first time!  That'll take some getting used to, but--again--easier than a bucket shower. 
• One of the greatest blessings was in the midst of a "send me some kind of sign or confirmation that I can get through this"... I decided to cheat and look a little ahead in my journal (that many of you wrote in before I left!), and found the following quote: "If you're feeling frightened about what comes next...don't. Embrace the uncertainty. Allow it to lead you places. Be brave as it challenges you to exercise both your own path towards happiness. Don't waste time with regret. Spin wildly into your next action. Enjoy the present--each moment as it comes--because you'll never get another one quite like it. And if you should ever look up and find yourself lost, simply take a breath and start over. Retrace your steps and go back to the purest place in your heart, where your hope lives. You'll find your way again." -unknown       God is good. 
• As I crawled in to bed that night, I prayed that the fan in the corner of my room would be enough to keep the mosquitos from devouring my bare legs. So far so good, except a swollen *eyelid* (really, God?) from a nasty bite last night. However, my host-mom did promise to find me a mosquitero, a net that hangs from the walls around your bed to keep the mosquitos (and spiders!) out. Maybe this eye-soar ( sorry  for the pun) was God's way of getting that point across to her! 

Anyhow, although it is still a constant struggle to find my way, God has definitely answered my prayers.  I have a nice house with a mom (Berta), dad (Jose Jose), three siblings, and my little nephew. There is another student living with us from Germany.. Her name is Francisca and she's super nice! She speaks a little bit of English and is learning Spanish at a different school.  We have electricity and running water (Franci and I have our own bathroom with a shower, flushing toilet, and sink!), and the house is between Ana's and Matt's so we pick each other up on our walk to class each morning.

Classes at language school (Casa Xalteva) have been great the past two days... We each have our own professor (or Matt and I share one, depending on the day), and we basically just converse in Spanish. When they identify a consistent error, we stop and review the grammar/vocabulary. It's probably the most effective way of teaching Spanish that I've received so far.  The professors are young (20s or 30s) and are very open to talking about whatever--cultural differences, politics, our families, whatever. They also have "excursions" each evening that we can pay to go on (to the lake, volcano, etc), but we've decided to pace ourselves with additional costs since we have a few weeks here.

Plus, my host-mom is alllll about giving tours. She walked Franci and I all the way to Lake Nicaragua yesterday (we were gone for almost 3 hours!), and wants to take all of us to the islands of the lake (in a boat with a guide) on Saturday morning.  On Sunday, Franci and I joined her for Mass, and then last night she took us to a huge celebration for John Paul II.  The details are shady, but evidently he was here in Nicaragua in ~1984 but didn't feel like he was received well (possibly because he evidently failed to even acknowledge the political/societal situation that the people were experiencing?), but the Jesuit who led the celebration eventually met him in Rome and explained that the Nicaraguans love the church and him.. this was quite evident in the procession we joined in the streets last night. We were led by a giant statue of JPII and one of the Jesuits carrying a relic/piece of his cloak. There was a band, singing, candles, etc, and it ended at the church near our house with a rosary (in Spanish).  It was an exciting (and interesting!) evening, and brought great conversation to our dinner table that night!