Adjusting. When describing the past week I would say I am adjusting. No matter how hard to you try there are always so expectations coming into a trip like this one. I can tell you one thing, this isn’t what I expected. In previous trips I’ve taken and ones that I have heard about the schedule is go-go-go and then after a week or so we come home exhausted to rest. Here that is quite impossible. If we go-go-go like that for 8 months it may be bad. So we are just living life. Hanging out. Being people. We are learning not to become visitors in this culture but to learn to be embraced and intern to embrace the culture.

That of course has its difficulties, the biggest of which being the language barrier. I have met less than 10 people who speak English since we have been here, and most of them work in the mission. It is very hard to bond with people when you can’t understand them. So added to my to do list when I get home: Learn Spanish.

But so you can see how it is here are some pictures of where we are staying! It is a small town called Jinotepe, Nicaragua and is about an hour drive from Managua.

The girls room at the mission, my home for the next 3 months!

My bed (bottom) and my bunkmate Bekah!

Turn your head to see the lobby in Casa Mateo, a hotel in Jinotepe where we get internet, this is what I am looking at as I write this. (There are parrots speaking spanish to my right)

View from the roof of Casa Mateo, if you look close you can see the mountains and volcanos in the back! 

I will post more pictures of people once we start to build relationships, for now we leave our cameras at home for fear of theft. Thanks so much for your continuous prayers!