Getting Back into it...

And I'm back. I was in the States for the holidays, twelve days, maybe twelve and a half since I had to stay a night in Chicago on the way back but I made it just fine. It was nice to touch down and immediately ditch the sweater I had. I spent New Year's at the Laguna de Apoyo with other volunteers and it was beautiful. The Laguna is the best swimming hole in the country and was once a volcano that sunk a very long time ago and became a lake. We stayed in small actual villas which was very cool. I also toured quickly the colonial city of Granada on my way back up, a popular tourist destination. Beautiful architecture and good food but it definitely did not feel like being in Nicaragua so I was glad to get back to site.
La Mora was exactly where I left it, everything is pretty much the same here. Unfortunately too many days spent speaking English had a detrimental effect on my Spanish but I have been getting back into it, even starting some novels in Spanish for practice. I went to a birthday party the day after I got back and found out what I had thought was very odd Kool-Aid was corn liquor- guaro. Oops. I handed the rest of mine off after I found that out. I would prefer not to accidentally get drunk in front of people I want to respect me.
I started the youth group meetings back up. I also started a small competition, practically bribery. At every meeting there will opportunities to gain points and at the end of the month the person with the most points will win a prize. We had two small races. I gave them Post-its with body parts written on them in English and they had to put them on their partner in the correct places. We had a good laugh especially when the wind came up and they struggled to keep them on. The second was a relay race of crab, bear, rabbit and seal walking/ jumping. To finish they had to answer a question correctly about Nicaragua. But the best part came when I unveiled some of the donated items I brought back from the States (thanks to my family and the Methodist church). Many of the items are still in the PC office in the city of Esteli because with the forty minute walk from the bus stop I simply couldn't carry them but I did bring two Frisbees and three baseballs back. Soon I was ducking to avoid being hit in the head with those same baseballs and Frisbees. On Saturday, we went down to an open pasture and I taught them the game Ultimate Frisbee or as I called it in Spanish “platillo al maximo”. I am pretty sure they liked it because they have played it every day since, usually just in the road with four people.
I also found some recipes for chocolate cake and banana bread that I will be trying out this week with some of the women in the community. They recently built ovens with the help of a cooperative but people in the community still buy a lot of the bread that is brought in from other cities. I also just filled out an application for tree seeds with an online non- profit Trees for the Future. February is best month to plant trees, starting them out in small bags and then planting them in the ground at the beginning of the wet season in May. That's all for now, take care.