Writing from home!

Made it home safe and sound. When I told everyone in Nicaragua I was going home they all rushed to give me presents to take to my family--typical Nicaraguan sweets and crackers. It was really nice and made me realize even more how generous the Nicaraguans are. At the same time they were kind of saying goodbye like I wasn't going to come back which was a little disheartening, but I made sure they all knew it was just for 10 days. My sixth graders were actually angry that they were going to have two weeks of vacation because they said my class gets them out of their houses.

The Carlos Fonseca English extravaganza was a complete flop. The "acto" on Friday consisted of the kids doing their skits in the library for my counterparts and I (although I only went in the afternoon. My a.m. counterpart told me not to go). The kids in the morning did it mostly in Spanish because my counterpart didn't help them or, the three times I asked her, tell me who they were so I could help them. The two groups my afternoon counterpart and I had been working with did really well. The following Monday was supposed to be the big competition between all the schools in my town and my high school was the only one to show up. We combined the morning and afternoon groups into 2 acts (about 60 kids total) to go to the department capital to compete against schools from all over the department on Wednesday. I spent Monday afternoon translating and finding the rhythm to a Nicaraguan song I'd never heard before and Tuesday morning practicing with all of the groups. Wednesday we went to the department capital, Jinotepe, at 2pm when it was supposed to begin. We waited and waited and waited until about 4pm. Only one other school had shown up and they eventually found out that the event had been postponed for a bunch of bogus reasons. Supposedly they're going to reschedule but I don't believe it. What a waste.

Home has been really nice. I've already been here for a week and it's flown by. I was expecting it to be weird and overwhelming with the air conditioning, free wireless internet and readily-available hot water but it mostly just feels like a continuation of last summer before I left for Nicaragua. The hard part will be re-adjusting to the inescapable heat, cold showers and pay-by-the-hour Internet cafe, but it shouldn't be too bad. My grandparents and an aunt, uncle and cousin came down to visit from New England which was really nice. I've eaten lots of healthy, grilled (not fried!) food and have spent a lot of time with my family and friends.