Site placement!!

It's official everyone.  I'll be moving to a pueblo called Wale, in Santa Maria de Pantasma in the department of Jinotega!  Jinotega (pronounced hee-no-tay-ga) is in the northern central part of Nicaragua (get your maps out everyone!) and partially borders Honduras to the north (the municipality of Santa Maria de Pantasma is approx. 40 miles south of the border with Honduras).  Here's the info I've been given about my site:  my pueblo, Wale (pronounced waa-lay), is a geographically unique community located at the entrance to the valley of Pantasma, an ancient volcanic crater.  It gets rain nearly year-round, so it's green nearly year-round (yay!).  It's main production is coffee, and most families depend on their crops and animals for their entire income.  It does have both electricity and running water, like most all the sites, but that also depends on how close to the road you live. Many houses are right on the main road, but many also live back off the road, so utilities could vary.  My home-stay family live right on the main road, I'm told (and I'll find out this week when I go visit), but after 6 months I'll have the option to move if I want to.  The nearby town of Praderas has a high school, an internet cafe (which is apparently tiny, overpriced, and rediculously hot), and on the weekends local sports teams compete in men's baseball and soccer leagues, and apparently there's a recently formed women's soccer league as well.  This site is second generation, meaning I'm the second volunteer to live there.  However, the previous volunteer early terminated after 1 year, so it's been vacant of a volunteer for a while.  I was also told today that there was actually a volunteer before that who left after two weeks at site, so I feel extra pressured to hold my own and make them proud!  This site deserves a full-term hard working volunteer!  Here I come!

So the plan as of now is this: Thursday (July 7th) we're all packing up a weeks worth of stuff and heading to Estelí to meet with our counterparts, who are Nicaraguans that work with NGO's in the community, mostly INTA, a Nica agricultural organization.  Then Friday they leave with each one of us and accompany us to our sites, where we meet our future families and live in our new site for the week, until we return next Thursday, the 14th (the day before my birthday!).  So needless to say I'm going to be super tired for my b-day. But I'm ready to meet my new family and see my hometown for the next two years!  Let's hope I don't get sick in the campo this time. . .

As for my new address, I have no idea yet what that's going to be.  I expect I'll be opening up a PO Box at the local post office, so keep your pants on, I'll let you know as soon as I can what that's all about. 

Spanish lesson for this blog (I keep it real simple):  ¿Quien sabe?    That means Who knows?  It's basically what everyone says around here, and has been my motto about everything.  I finally know where I'll be living for my service, but who know's what it's going to be like? I shall see soon enough.  And I'll try to keep you all posted along the way. . .

~Sarah~