Estoy en Boaco

I arrived in Boaco and took a taxi to my house, but my sister was still at school. There was a lady taking care of the house and one of their cousins eating lunch. The lady made me lunch and I talked to the cousin, Darwin. He seemed really nice. I unpacked all of my stuff…way too much stuff! Then, I eagerly waited for my sister to come home because I was pretty bored. Now that we have our new Claro chips I was able to text Kellie and Jess for free…it’s so nice not having to buy saldo anymore. I will have to buy some to call the U.S. or my counterparts, but now I have free text messages to anyone and free calls to other volunteers woo!


My sister finally got home from school around 6pm and I heard her opening the door so I went out in the living room to say hi. She was pretty excited to see me and I was excited to see her as well—we pretty much ran to each other and shared a big hug :) This was very special and made me feel welcome. What a nice treat—she really is a sweet girl and I look forward to getting to know her more. Hazzel told me that she wasn’t sure if her mom was coming back from the farm that night or the next day—she was still there from when I had visited 2 weeks ago! She ended up coming home that night, but her husband stayed at the farm. Apparently they go to the farm a lot and stay there for a long time. My counterpart told me I was going to go to the farm with them soon, but I reminded him of a TESL conference December 3 that we both should attend so my family is going to wait a bit. I do want to go to the farm, but my boss for PC told me that I can’t go for that long…it’s hard to tell my family that because I know they have to work there and their kids like to go. I told my host mom that I can’t go for more than 2 weeks. I kinda feel bad making them come back before they would like to, but I guess that’s just the way it has to be.

Yesterday was a pretty boring day since there wasn’t much going on. I ate breakfast with Hazzel and Dona Carmen, and then hung out and talked to Kellie and Jess. I looked through my scrapbook that my friends & family made me which was fun because it’s been 3 (or 4) months since I’ve seen everybody and it was a nice reminder of the friendships and love I have back home :) Thanks for contributing!

Lunch came quickly, even though I was bored. I didn’t feel like eating that much since I had been lazy all day, but they insisted on giving me lots of food. I told them I don’t eat much haha I decided to wash my clothes because I had a lot of laundry and guess what, my family has a washing machine. I lucked out again with this one! I bought a small bag of laundry detergent which was 10 cords. I can use it for about 2 loads of laundry, which is pretty good (50 cents for 2 loads). After that I was hanging out around the house, just watching TV and my Carmen suggested that we go over to Argelio’s house so I wouldn’t be bored. I thought Argelio was coming over to the house in the afternoon, because he told me he was, but I guess he forgot… So, Carmen, Hazzel, and I went to Argelio’s and chatted a little. I then ended up sitting on the couch with Hazzel watching an old show that was already on. So, I was doing the same thing I was at home, but watching a show I didn’t want to watch. Argelio left after awhile because he had to do something. His sister made me coffee and served me cookies as well—they are so generous when I visit. I chatted with his sister for awhile, which I enjoyed. She is a very nice lady and likes talking to me. It’s good practice for my Spanish :)

We came home later and had dinner together. Hazzel made ham sandwiches with the grill (kinda like a George Foreman). She gave me 3 sandwiches. Really?! Ok, they weren’t huge because they only had one slice of ham, but still. I only ate 2 of them. I told them that in the U.S. a “traditional meal” is grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. I hope we can make that sometime! I miss my dad’s creamy tomato basil soup!

We then watched some telenovelas (soap operas) which are oh so popular here and pretty funny. They are also good practice for Spanish :) I met Argelio’s son, whom he also told to practice English with me. He is 17 and a nice kid. He speaks pretty good English too. I told him that we can get together to practice English this weekend and he seemed excited about that—he kept saying that he didn’t want to bother me though. I think Argelio requested me to come to Boaco so I could be a private English tutor for his kids hahaha I would get paid big bucks for that outside of Peace Corps—shoot! Haha It’s a good thing that I love teaching and helping others. The Lord has equipped me well for this job!