Thanks for your comments! I´m glad you are so interested in hearing about my experience in Nicaragua! It was nice to meet you :) Here are responses to your posts.
Brittany: I have seen monkeys here! When we were in the city of Granada, we went on a boat ride in Lake Nicaragua and saw monkeys in the trees on an island. We took our drove our boats up to the trees and some monkeys jumped on our boats and walked around. It was pretty cool! I also saw some monkeys when I went on a hike to the Laguna de Apoyo, very close to my town. We were hiking down to the lagoon and saw monkeys swinging in the trees. Also, there are monkeys in the trees next to the high school where I work. It´s pretty funny to see monkeys just hanging out in the trees! We eat a lot of different kinds of food here. Something we eat with most meals is ¨gallo pinto¨ which is rice and beans fried together, making the rice appear brown. Sometime onions are added for extra flavor. It´s really good! We also have a lot of fruits here. My host mom makes me fresh fruit juice every day!
Katy: It was a cool trip to the volcano! It was pretty hot up there and we could smell the sulfur. There was a sign that said to only stay by the volcano for a maximum of 20 minutes because the sulfur can be harmful to your body. I live about 30 minutes away from that volcano and I have only gone there once, but the lagoon that I hiked to is a crater of a volcano that exploded a long time ago, kind of like Crater Lake in Oregon, but much smaller. There is also a volcano right by there, which is very close to my town. It is very hot here in Nicaragua. It´s usually in the 90´s, but we have a lot of humidity, so that means it feels much hotter than what the thermometer says.
Lexi: I wasn´t scared of going to the volcano here because when I studied abroad in Mexico in 2007, I hiked a live volcano there too. We climbed to the top and got to look into the center where the steam was coming out. That experience was a little more dangerous than this one. The weather is actually nice today. By nice, I mean it is cooler than usual and there is a nice breeze. It´s usually very hot here and I don´t really like living in really hot places for long periods of time. Also, it´s only the ¨winter¨ right now, so it´s supposed to get hotter… I hope that my site will be in a cooler area.
Rose: Thanks! I´m excited to be here and doing this work. Nicaragua is very different from Oregon, but there are also many similarities. This is a very poor country, so the people have a lot less than we do back in the States. However, they are still people with families, jobs, hobbies, and they are very kind. The houses here are usually made of cement or thin wood walls, and tin roofs. There are also a lot of openings, so animals might wander in to visit, such as cats, dogs, chickens, lizards, etc. This was very interesting to me. The chickens at our house stay in the backyard, thankfully. I don´t live next to the jungle, really, but there´s a lot of vegetation around here, so it kind of looks like a jungle. I haven´t heard of any big cats anywhere around here, but there might be some in central Nicaragua. I do like leopards, but only when I see them in a zoo, because I think I would be scared to see one in the jungle!
Beth: Well, maybe we can set up a Skype session so I can talk to you guys ¨live¨ sometime. That would be neat. Anyway, I love being here in Nicaragua, and I still have a lot of time left to explore and really get to know the people and places here. I´m really looking forward to that. I do love Keizer and Oregon of course. The weather there is a little more bearable, but I think I will grow to love Nicaragua more and more everyday.
Richard: The volcano trip was pretty cool! It was hot there, but not too bad. It was pretty exciting because it was a little dangerous and it was definitely an interesting experience. It was cool because we got to look down into the center of the volcano and see the steam rising up. I´m glad you asked about my host family. I really like my host family and they are so fun to be with. There´s always someone to talk to and something to do :)
Toby: I wasn´t very scared to go to the volcano because there are a lot of volcanoes here, and as I was telling Lexi, I hiked a volcano in Mexico in 2007 too. It was pretty cool though! We do eat some similar food here, but the meals are different. What I mean is that we eat a lot of vegetables, rice, beans, tortillas, cheese, soups, chicken, beef, and other things, but the way they are cooked is different. Most of the food is fried here, which is very different than my diet back in the States, so at first it was hard on my stomach. Being in a new climate and eating very different food can make you sick. I got a little sick in the beginning, but now I´m fine because I´m used to the food. I am enjoying it here and it is fun to see all of the differences between the States and Nicaragua.
Kenzie: I took a bus with some of my friends to get to the Masaya National Park, where the volcano is located. We drove up to the top where there is a viewing point, which is basically at the top of the volcano. It wasn´t too scary because I have hiked volcanoes before, but it was cool to see the volcano this close. There are a lot of volcanoes in Nicaragua and several are close to my town. I don´t worry too much about the volcanoes, but I´m sure if anything happened, Peace Corps would help us to get to a safe place. The people I live with do not have a car, but some people do in my town. It´s very expensive to own a car here. Most people take buses or mototaxis, which are like motorcycle cars. I do get homesick sometime, especially missing the food. I do really love it here though and I´m learning a lot!
Jeremiah: Wow! That must have been scary! When did you go to Hawaii? I went to Oahu in 2006 with one of my friends. We had a lot of fun there. It´s very different from Nicaragua, but there are a lot of volcanoes in both places. I am having fun here and I´m excited for the rest of my service, working with high school students and Nicaraguan teachers.
