location, location, location

I have no pre-typed report to give you all today, so this is going to be much shorter than usual!

Our trip to Chinandega went really well; lots of practicing Spanish and learning about HIV/AIDS and its presence in Nicaragua. We gave charlas in health centers and schools and fire stations and naval bases between the 24 of us, all in one day, but wasn´t all serious -- we had some fun, too! We played one game called "birdie on the perch" our last morning in Chinandega:



And I had my first dip in the Pacific Ocean, which was beautiful:



And while I´m uploading photos, here are a few old ones from our trip to the volcano in Masaya:





BUT THE MOST EXCITING THING I have to say is not any of these things. The most exciting thing I have to say is that I received my site! For the next two years, I´ll be living and working in a little town in Nueva Segovia, the northernmost department of Nicaragua. I´ll actually be so close to Honduras that my info packet tells me that in many ways my site is more like Honduras than Nicaragua! I´m super excited about it, though -- I´ll be far from Managua but in the beautiful mountains where it´s cooler than in other parts of Nicaragua.

I leave in a few days to spend a week getting to know my site and meet my host family and work counterpart; I should have lots of stories when I get back!