¡Siguatepeque!

Well, we finally got our site assignment and we will be living in Siguatepeque (See-watt-e-peck-ay), which is pretty much in the middle of the country. We´re working with Proyecto Aldea Global (Project Global Village), which is involved in Food Security, Health, Domesitic Violence, Protected Areas, Education and a number of other things. Dan will be doing a lot of work in Parque Nacional Cerro Azul Meambar, and I am still figuring out which part of the organization I would most like to help with.

We are currently exploring our new community and organization because we are on a 4-day site visit. We will return to our training site for 2 weeks of additional training before we swear in on the 26th (finally becoming official volunteers) and then head out to our site permanently on the 27th to start our two years of service. We will live with a host family for our first 2 months in Siguatepeque and then can find our own place.

Here´s a little info about Siguat:
It´s heading into the mountains, at a little over 3,000 feet, so the temperature is cooler here than in other parts of the country (low to mid-80s during the day). We are near Lago Yajoa and Parque Nacional Cerro Azul Meambar, so should have lots of great outdoor recreation nearby (and if anyone wants to come visit, it would be a cool place to stay). Siguat itself is relatively large (roughly 50,000 people) with many of the amenities of a larger site (eg. internet), but the barrios (neigborhoods) feel like much smaller communities, with dirt roads, roosters crowing, and cows and horses grazing.

¡Adios chancleta! ¡Que le vaya bien!

Last Saturday, our Municipal Development training group had a joint birthday party for Ana and me (Emily) at Kristin´s host parent´s house. We danced, ate cake, and had a wonderful time. The last couple hours of the party, it started to rain really hard, but we just figured it would pass. After a while, Dan and I decided we shouldn´t wait any longer because we were going hiking the next day in Parque Nacional la Tigra, so we chose to brave the rain.

We headed out, getting absolutely drenched in the process, but we only had a few blocks to get to our host parent´s house. Suddenly, we came to what had formerly been a cobblestone street and was now a river. I decided to ford the ¨river¨ and stepped in, only to find that the water was at least a foot deep. I took another step, and as I lifted up my right foot, I stepped out of my chancleta (flip-flop). As soon as the chancleta popped up, it started shooting down this quickly-moving river. I started to chase it, almost knee deep in water and with only one chancleta on, but it hit a gutter and floated even faster than before and "se fue" (was gone). So all I could do was say, ¨Adios chancleta. Que le vaya bien (Goodbye, flip-flop. That your journey goes well).¨ Here are a few pictures of this eventful night...

Here is a picture of the ¨raging river:¨

Here I am, soaking wet, with the remaining chancleta:

...and Dan and I with the chancleta




Though I mourned the loss of my chancleta, I received lots of ¨Peace Corps Points¨for my story. ¨Peace Corps Points¨are given when something very Peace-Corps-like happens. For example, our friend, Ana, received a lot of ¨Peace Corps Points¨when she was on a bus to her site visit and the woman sitting in front of her spat out the window and the spit flew through Ana´s open window and hit her square in the face. She received significanly more "Peace Corps Points" for this incident than I did for losing my chancleta. We will be sure to keep you posted when we earn more ¨Peace Corps Points¨ in the future.



The next day, we went for an amazing hike in Parque Nacional la Tigra (which is only a half-hour bus ride and a beautiful, but mostly uphill, hike from our current training site) with Kristin and Jessica D (we have 2 Jessica´s in Muni-D). We hiked for a number of hours and were able to see some spectacular waterfalls and gorgeous tropical plants. Here are some pictures from that hike.

Jessica standing next to a beautiful and enormous tree:

Heading into the jungle:



Also, here is a picture of our street at our Field Based Training site. Our host family´s house is on the right, though it´s hard to see. But the picture gives a good idea of what our lives look like right now.

We will be receiving our site assignment on Monday (finally), so most of our energy right now is going toward being patient. In a little less than 48 hours we will know where we will be living for the next two years. Thank you to all of you who have sent us updates. It is so wonderful to hear from you and to hear about your lives right now. Please keep the emails coming!

Love,

Dan and Em