off to new lands

Hello all. just wanted to let you all know that I will be taking a 4 day trip beginning Sunday to the region just below the Hondorus border called Nueva Segovia. The trip is a visit to a currently serving volunteer so that I can experience what it's really like once my service starts and get more one-on-one time with a volunteer. I'm rather excited since many have told me how beautiful and fun this mountainous region of the country is.

I'm also psyched because the volunteer I'm visiting is working with promoting health messages over the radio (which is what I am doing with my youth group) so I think I will be able to learn a lot from him. He's also a member of the GUIA committee which is a volunteer committee focused on sustainable development. He has a ton of experience with this topic, and I'm really interested in getting on the committee...so it will be great to talk with him about it.

I'll be on my visit during Valentine's Day so that will be nice to be around an American friend and not alone in my training site (well I do have 3 other buttheads with me here in Dolores but they don't count ...just kidding...you guys know you're the best!)

well here's some random (but often funny) things I have learned since coming here just to make this entry a bit more interesting:

1. Dryers are GODS! While I don't mind washing all of my clothes by hand on a flat cement board (it's hard ass work, and I'm getting muscles!), it is kind of a pain that everything has to air dry. Why? well because the hand washing really stretches everything out and usually I would use a dryer to shrink it back to size. but without one, my clothes keep expanding in size. What does this mean? well two things... first that I now have several shirts of nightgown length...and second that it's a whole lot easier for me to gain weight because as I eat more and more food, my pants aren't restricting my waist and letting me know I need to watch what I'm eating. As my waist grows, my pants do too...craziness. luckily I think I have begun to manage the food intake better and my weight is starting to decrease again....but man would I love a dryer right now.

2. I am petrified of mice. I used to think I had no problem with them. I even used to make fun of my mother, sister, and her boyfriend for their fear of them...but the other day I was in my room at night and I saw something go flying across the floor out of the corner of my eye. I wasn't sure if it was a cockroach or something else (luckily I haven't seen a roach in my house yet), so I went and got my host mom. she came in and moved some stuff around and there it was running across the floor...a small mouse. And what did Alison do? She totally flipped out. I ran from my room screaming at the top of my lungs and doing the jump from one leg to the other petrified dance...my host family found this hilarious...I wanted to cry. Luckily my host brother caught and killed the mouse, though he made me throw it away afterwards.

3. Fresh juice is wonderful, but you have to be wonderwoman to make it. at the rate I'm making juice, I'll have arthritis by the time I'm 30...but somehow it's still worth it...yum!

4. Showers in a bucket rock! They use less water, you can take one whenever the hell you want if you save the water ahead of time (faucet showers depend on when there is running water), and you can heat up the water. faucet showers are freezing cold. I swear my biggest daily challenge is getting the nerve to voluntarily walk under a freezing stream of water each morning.

5. My 4 year old sister can "shake it like it's hot" better than me! I'm still in the process of closing my mouth from the shock of seeing her break it down the other day to some reggaeton. But this is normal here. most of the kids can dance really well.

6. "cool" is out "salvaje" is in...

7. People that have the least, share the most. The kindness and selflessness of many of the people here is really humbling.

Well that's it for now. Happy Valentine's Day everyone.