First Impressions

After delays in D.C. due to snow, I have finally arrived in Nicaragua.  Instead of going to Granada as planned, our three day orientation retreat has been in Managua, in the Best Western situated directly across from the airport.  I was actually in the first group to reach Nicaragua, since after the snow canceled our flight they had to scramble to get us on other flights, and splitting us up was easiest.  We left the hotel in Arlington at 1:30am on Thursday and arrived the same day in Managua after detouring to Panama.  The first eight of us arrive a day earlier than everyone else so we were able to go to Peace Corps headquarters, meet the Country Director, do our languange interviews, and recieve our first vaccines (typhoid and flu). 

Since then all 44 of us have been busy learned about what it means to be a Peace Corps Trainee and what will happen during our three months of training.  I just found out who my host family is, and I will be leaving tomorrow with three other trainees to the little town of Dolores, which is just outside of Jinotepe, another small town just fourty minutes outside of Managua.  We are all Health trainees, but this is the first time in Nicaragua that the Peace Corps has split the groups so that one, called Health Lifestyles, will focus on HIV/AIDS and reproductive health, while my group, Maternal and Child Health, will be working in Casa Maternas and with children from ages 0-5 years.  In previous years they have been combined, so I am excited to be in the pioneering group.  Go Nica 55.

P.S. I just hit the spell check and everything (except Nicaragua) was highlighted, apparently it´s set to Spanish, so please excuse any typos my sun-soaked brain has missed.