a time of sharing that was long overdue

this little sponge is over-saturated (i.e. i've taken in so much and haven't shared it) and she's sorry....

I am horrible at blogging. I am horrible at keeping a journal consistently. There is my oh-so-obvious confession of the day. But I am good at getting settled in to life here in Nicaragua and all that I have experienced here has been incredible.

So my sincerest of apologies for not keeping my blog updated. I know this means that anyone who had motivation before to read it probably won't for my lack of dedication to it, but it will be here none the less for all of those who care to take a glance once again.

I am currently back in Managua (getting ready for Christmas already!) in my permanent home now in a neighborhood called the Centroamerica. It's a really nice neighborhood with lots of little "fritangas" or food stands that sell lots of tasty, greasy Nicaraguan food. The neighborhood is calm and is in a great location with a grocery store within walking distance and is only about a 10 minute taxi drive from my office. I have two great house mates, a woman from California and her boyfriend who is Nicaraguan. I am very blessed to have settled in so quickly to my living situation and to truly feel at home.

So where did I disappear to for a month and a half? (Or more like two and a half months...) If you didn't know I finally got the go ahead to head out to one of AMC's field projects in a very remote area of Nicaragua (basically without internet access) for 6 weeks on the Caribbean or Atlantic coast of Nicaragua in a "city" called Waspam. I was in Waspam from the very beginning of October to the middle of November. Waspam has a population of about 6,000 people that is located in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN) of Niaragua on the Coco River, which forms the border between Honduras and Nicaragua. Accion Medica Cristiana has an office in Waspam and works in more than 30 communities that live along the Rio Coco. Development work in this region is extremely challenging. To reach the communities along the Rio Coco, you must travel by boat (either a small motor boat which is called a panga or is a dug-out wooden boat called a batho) and the cost of gasoline for the motors is very high and thus restrictive. For just one trip along the River Coco from Waspam and back costs hundreds of dollars (U.S.). Also, AMC is privileged to have an amazing staff who are almost all originally from the region and speak Miskito as well as Spanish. Most of the people in this region are Miskito, an indigenous people that have populated this region for centuries. Besides the overwhelming financial costs of working in the RAAN, the cultural and language differences have kept many development agencies from working in this region as well.

In my first two days in Waspam I was sent on a trip on the lower part of the Coco River to a town not many get to visit called Cabo Viejo, which is at the mouth of the river that flows out to the Caribbean Sea, right near Cabo Gracias a Dios where Christopher Columbus landed in 1502 on the Caribbean coast. The trip was about 6 hours in a boat and then at least a half an hour out into the Caribbean Sea and then into the lagoon Cabo Viejo is on. I traveled there with 4 employees of AMC (all men so asking to go to the bathroom was interesting and showering was out of the question) to distribute mosquito nets, soap, and buckets to the people living there. We also gave a talk about the use of clorine to purify the water they are drinking to prevent waterborne illnesses, especially in children. After Hurricane Felix, the Coco River was contaminated and the area around Cabo Viejo flooded. Many animals were drowned and many fish died, both things that are a staple part of the diet for people here. When we visited Cabo Viejo, there was still standing water in places, causing problems with mosquitoes and making it impossible for people to plant their crops. All this is a reality of the people of this region that is so susceptible to flooding and natural disasters. (There have been 14 natural disasters in the region in the last 17 years.)

When I returned to Waspam, COVERED in miserable bug bites from a little insect called "la coloradilla", I was put to work in the administrative part of the AMC office with Beda and Olga. They are in charge of managing the finance reports and generally running the office. I ended up becoming friends with both of them and had a lot of fun working with them despite the sometimes boring and tedious nature of their work. Many of the financial reports AMC had to complete after the hurricane from some of the "normal projects" they were working on before the emergency were put on hold as everyone had been focusing on the distribution of aid more than record keeping. Some of my limited computer skills have really come in handy here but I've also learned a lot from Beda and Olga about the kind of accounting that is essential to keep this office and organization running.

I actually did spend the most amount of time in Waspam in the office of AMC. That wasn't what I had originally wanted to do, but life in Nicaragua requires flexibility. The extremely tedious, frustrating and yet I suppose necessary at times, nature of paperwork related to the world of bureaucracies of NGO's was revealed to me first-hand. And I won't bore you with all the details of what the paperwork was about but I will say that the challenge of it all definitely brought me closer to the entire AMC team of Waspam. It was an amazing feeling as a volunteer to feel like a real member of the team in such a short period of time. But it happened because I worked side by side with them, day and night, weekdays and weeknights....crunching numbers in Excel and cursing decimal points until I couldn't express all my frustration in either Spanish or English!

My favorite moments occurred in my other two visits to communities on the Rio Coco, however. My second trip on the river took me on the upper part to a town called San Jeronimo to do a food distribution. Our batho was loaded with rice, beans, flour, sugar, salt, oatmeal, buckets for carrying water, among other things. With a population of over 1000, it took us two and a half days to distribute all of the products. It is a very tiring process as each product must be measured out according to how many people are in each community and someone from each family has to be physically present to sign for the products they receive (this is part of that frustrating bureaucratic paperwork). But not everyone from the family can read or write and not everyone from the family comes to the place where the products are being distributed. The most frustrating thing about the process was seeing the desperation that poverty causes: in every community where AMC was distributing food, there were always a handful of families who had lied on the census the leaders had given AMC to use saying they had more people in their family than they did so that they could receive more food. It was painful to see this but it is also a reminder of the awful poverty these families live in. If your family is so often at the point of starving, why not stretch the truth so that they can eat better for a few days? My favorite part in San Jeronimo though was playing with and taking pictures of the children there. The kids were fascinated by my camera and I loved hearing their giggles as they got instant gratification from seeing themselves on the camera screen!

Finally, I visited another community in the lower part of the Coco River called Andris. We completed a distribution of cooking oil and then began a process called the IAP (or a rough translation in English would be the Participatory Investigative Action process), which is basically community organizing at its best! It is exactly what I wanted to be doing so I was thrilled to be able to just start it with some of the Waspam AMC team. The goal of the process is to accompany communities in a process of learning about their own problems, prioritize them, and then empower the community to look for solutions to those problems with resources they already have. Since my visit to Andris was at the very end of my time in Waspam, leaving part of the AMC team there to continue the work without me was hard. I really didn't want to leave in the end.

There are many more things I could tell you about this portion of my journey ( i.e. more than two weeks of extremely sporadic electricity when the AMC team is straining to meet deadlines, what I observed/experienced in the communities on the river, my wonderful birthday party and goodbye celebration!), but I will resist for now. Hopefully when I get my act together, I'll be writing some article or story to become a little testimony for AMC and that I may send off the mission's office for the UMC. More updates to come...sooner than later I promise!

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season full of peace and joy.

finding my way...

So an overdue update. It has almost been a month since I arrived in Nicaragua and I feel like I´ve been here for 3 months. I feel really comfortable here and my Spanish has already improved. Language is soooooo important in terms of feeling you belong to a place. Without it, you lose your connection to other human beings and I already learned in Thailand that I cannot go without that...

What have I been up to, entonces? Starting on September 2nd, I left Managua for Estelí, a small city in the northern part of Nicaragua about 2 hours from Managua by bus. In Estelí I attended a language school called Escuela Horizonte for two weeks. The first week I stayed with a family which consisted of the mother, father, a grandmother, a three year old adorable boy, and a 15-day old baby girl. Living with them was nice and laidback but I felt kinda of lonely in their house. They talked with me and warmed up more after the first 5 days, but in general I was hoping they might involve more in the activities of the family or engage me more in conversation. I guess when you have just had a baby 15 days ago, that would probably be the principal thing on your mind.

Oh and after only a day and a half in Estelí, the category 5 Hurrican Felix crashed with incredible force into Nicaragua´s caribbean coast at Puerto Cabezas, the main port in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (R.A.A.N.) of Nicaragua. The RAAN is one of the regions that Acción Médica Cristiana (AMC) has worked in most for the past 18 years and I knew being in Esteli that everyone in the central office in Managua where I will be working for the next 15 months would immediately be swept into action planning relief efforts. I felt a little useless and disconnected from this historic (in a diasterous sense) event. But during my language classes my professor made sure to bring a copy of the newspaper everyday and we read updates about the conditions on the coast.

(I will attempt in the next few days to construct a summary of the effects of the hurricane here on my blog.)

In the second week however, I decided to move to a different family. During the first week, the only other student in the school, Cam who is from England, introduced me to Olga, his host mom. I knew from the moment I met her that she was the type of person I wanted to spend another week with in Estelí. So I moved in on Saturday, Sept. 8th and my moved immediately changed. I walked into Donaldo José´s 22nd birthday party! The family is made up of Olga and Donaldo (her husband), Donaldo José (son), and Laura (daughter, 13). Donaldo II as we´ll call him came with his girlfriend, Ciclalli (which means star in nahuatl). Ciclalli´s mom, Alicia, and a family friend Don William. They all live in Managua and pretty close to where I will also be living. They entire night was a blast. More friends arrived, the whole lot of them characters just like the family and especially Don William, we had a cake, wonderful food, and opened presents. Then I went out afterwards with Donaldo II, Ciclalli, some of their friends, AND Alicia and Don William who are older than my parents! And we didn´t get home until 4:30am. Don William was the first awake the next day....

After that weekend I started classes again Monday, but with a cold. I was miserable for a few days with a sore throat and awful congestion but it´s finally going away after I made sure to rest and took some medicine. The overall experience in the school was wonderful. My professor, Elvia, was such a pleasure to talk to and was a great teacher. I visited social organizations working in Estelí in the afternoons with someone from the language school. And I met a few new friends from the U.S. and Canada that I was able to relax with. On my last day of language class I also experienced a celebration in Estelí of September 14th-15th, called generally las Fiestas Patrias (something like National Holidays). There was a parade of all the schools in Esteli with bands and dancing girls with batons and short skirts which lined up between 6:30 and 8am and didn´t actually start parading until after noon and was slightly unorganized. If the Nicaraguans hadn´t made this comment themselves I wouldn´t say it, but it was executed in typical Nicaraguan fashion. But it was fun to watch. I also saw after the parade with my host sister, Laura, a dance show in which on a raised stage, young girls and a few boys at times had dance "competitions" to reggaeton music, which if you don´t know what that is, just search "Daddy Yankee" on Google and you´ll find out. Basically, girls about age 10 who shook their butts and hips in a way which will get them in trouble now or later in life with men.

I returned on Sunday, Sept. 16th to Managua by bus. When I got to the bus station in Esteli to buy my ticket about 25 minutes before it left, there weren´t any regular seats left. But here in Nicaragua, instead of saying the bus is full, I was asked if I would like to purchase a "banquito" seat. Well I had to get to Managua by 3:30, this was my bus so I said yes. I realized what I was doing but a "banquito" meant I would be riding for two hours on a bus sitting on a plastic stool in the middle isle with people in the same situation lined up tightly from front to back. It was lovely, let me tell you.

As soon as I got back to Managua, I was put to work at AMC. Even though the damages and conditions on the coast after the hurricane have already stopped being front-page news in Nicaragua, sending the caribbean coast back to the status of being almost forgotten or dismissed by the rest of Nicaragua, the need in the affected territories is DIRE. People that were already living in EXTREME poverty, now have literally NOTHING. I put these words in caps because it is hard to express the pictures I´ve seen. To give you a brief fact, the harvest of the crops these people planted for their own consumption would have a occurred only DAYS after Hurricane Felix hit. This means people there have no food for another year until they can grow more crops. At AMC, they have field teams working on the ground in the RAAN and have been putting out news releases to update the situation on the ground. (Go to http://www.amc.org.ni and click on "Huracan Felix" for updates in English or Spanish) I was able to watch, listen, and then transcribe an interview done in Spanish (45 minutes worth of video) with the woman who is the AMC Coordinator for relief efforts in a municipality called Sahsa, which was almost completely destroyed by the hurricane. It wasn´t easy but I was able to do it pretty quickly because of all my practice transcribing my interviews from my Independent Study in college!

Lastly, although for the past few days I have felt really useful, my situation with AMC is now really up in the air. I was supposed to have gone to work in the field projects with AMC in the RAAN in the municipalities of Waspam and Sahsa. Because of the hurricane however, conditions are extremely difficult for any new volunteer to walk into. It´s still possible that I will go and I want to be able to make a contribution to the relief efforts if I can, but we have to make sure that my presence would actually be beneficial and would not be a burden. I'll let you know when I know...

the beginning continued...

So my first Friday took me on a "tour" of Managua. It wasn't really a full tour of the city but rather focused on "Old Managua" or the part which used to almost be a downtown and has buildings that survived the devastating earthquake that hit the city in 1972. The earthquake destroyed the majority of buildings in the city, killed tens of thousands of people, and Managua was never really rebuilt in the way it should have been. The earthquake hit a couple of days before Christmas that year and aid came in from many countries to help the people of Nicaragua but to no avail....the aid was stolen by the dictator Somoza and for the most part never reached the people who needed it most. But anyway I learned a lot about Nicaraguan history on the tour and ate a wonderful Nicaraguan lunch (a dish called Indio Viejo) in the middle of it.

The rest of my orientation at AMC was a little hectic as I arrived during a week of some turmoil in the organization. AMC´s communuty clinic in Managua which has a long history of providing affordable medical and dental care for people in Managua just closed and the situation has been tense for many. Please keep AMC in your prayers as they decide what to do with the space. But otherwise, I learned a lot in orientation as I watched videos and spoke with employees at AMC about the history of the organization and the current work they are doing in the projects. They are doing some amazing things and I am so excited to be a part of their work.

I also got the chance in the first couple of days at AMC to experience the type of community they have. It is a dynamic and profound community in which people work hard but also know how to celebrate and have fun! There were about 3 birthdays that were all celebrated on my second day there complete with a cake, presents, and singing many different happy birthday songs. Then I was able to attend the monthly event of an "almuerzo comunitario" or community lunch in which all the birthdays in a month are remembered and I was actually put on the spot to sing happy birthday in English on my own! Thankfully I had Belinda to help me out.

Last Tuesday, I left Nery´s house and moved into a house with a young American woman who is the Presbyterian coordinator for Central America (or something like that). She lives with her Nicaraguan boyfriend and another young woman who is on a Fulbright in Nicaragua for another couple of months. It´s a really nice place and it may be a possibility for a permanent living space for me. We´ll see!

I also got the chance to visit a Christian youth group at a university in the city in Leon. The group is called Hosanna, and it is the same group out of which AMC formed in 1984. I was amazed at how organized and dedicated they were! I know my meetings with groups in college were never that organized. The ride to and from Leon was also fun because of the people I was with. Don Salvador was our driver (who is my favorite driver right now with the most fun laugh. He is a true character.) and there were also three other young people who work for AMC: Elizabeth, Judith, and Efrain. We laughed and joked as on the way we stopped for a traditional Nicaraguan snack called quesillo and a drink called cacao. Delicious but so difficult to eat!

Right now I am in Esteli taking language classes for two weeks. It is gray and rainy today but I am glad that it is a lot cooler than Managua! It is also a little lonely here now because there really aren´t that many other students taking classes here. But my teacher Elvia is really cool and has really taken my requests for what I would like to learn to heart. I am slowly learning the daily vocabulary and phrases that Nicaraguans use. After classes in the morning, I am also getting to visit a few historical/cultural sites in Esteli and visiting a few community organizations working for social change in Esteli. It is wonderul to be able to learn more than just Spanish by taking classes here.

Two things about Nicaragua right now to keep in your thoughts and prayers: One is the people affected by Hurricane Felix (a category 5 hurricane) that just hit the caribbean coast of Nicaragua 2 nights ago. I haven´t heard about all the damage it´s done but the caribbean coast (where I´ll be traveling soon!) is very vulnerable. Two is that I have learned a lot recently about a law that was past last October in Nicaragua banning therapeutic abortions, i.e. the type of abortions given when there is a high risk pregnancy to save a mother´s life. Now even young girls who are raped cannot get an abortion. I understand that the subject of abortions in general is a sensitive one, but I believe that there are serious women´s rights issues involved when her life is in danger and there is no other way to save her than to have an abortion. Please keep all those women and other´s in Nicaragua affected by this and/or fighting to overturn the law in your prayers.

I love and miss all of my friends and family very much. More updates soon!

one week in Nicaragua

So I wish I could have written my first update sooner but access to the internet, electricity, and the opportunities to just sit down and type at a computer have been few and far between. My journey so far has found me in here in the capital of Managua muy feliz pero extranando a mi familia y amigos y amigas (happy but missing my friends and family). I have done and learned so much already. So let me try to start from the beginning and explain where life here finds me now...

I arrived last Thursday, exhausted because I had stayed up the whole night before packing despite the fact that I had started (sort of) to pack at least a week before that. So without any sleep, I left with my whole family accompanying me. That was such a blessing to be able to say goodbye to both of my parents and brother and sister at the same time. Tears came to my eyes but didn't run down my cheeks until I read beautiful notes of love and blessings from my parents in the Atlanta airport. My flights were fairly smooth even though the second flight from ATL to Managua was slightly delayed. The second flight was actually the most empty international flight I had ever been on with a lot of empty seats!

Exhausted I landed in Managua, went through migration and customs without a hitch and waited for my ride to arrive at the airport. I met a young woman about my age who was coming to work with the Seventh Day Adventists somewhere on the Caribbean coast for 9 months as a nurse. We were both waiting for rides but mine came first! I was warmly greeted by
Antonio a driver for Accion Medica Cristiana (the group I'll be working for that will now forever be known as AMC) and Nery, a woman who works for AMC in Human Resources and whom with I would be living for the first 5 days in Nicaragua. My first day I didn't do much but I met briefly many people in the AMC office who all greeted me with smiles and welcomed me to their country. Friday, I was set to take a "tour of Managua" with a tour guide named Adrian Gallegos.

.....
Ok the lights/electricity are about to go out here so I have to go but I promise to finish my story soon! Love and peace.

almost ready to leave

I officially have only 4 full days left until I leave the country for 16 months. I am at once joyful and filled with excitement, but very sad and conflicted about leaving my family and friends for so long. The past week at home has been filled with attempts to reunite with friends I have not seen for a very long time and make sure to talk to and get together with all those close to me as much as possible. It has been such an important piece of my transition. And everyone I have talked to in the past three weeks that really knows me (you know who you are) have reassured me in the best of ways that this is where I am meant to be in my life. It's so cliche to say I am about to embark on an extremely life-changing experience, but it is true. And I embrace the chance to do so.

With the suitcases out of the attic, I am currently really beginning to pack after a few days of shopping for toiletries and other essentials I don't feel I can buy in Nicaragua (or at least selfishly would like as a comfort for the first few months). I have to make choices now about what I need to bring with me and what are those things that can really remind me of who I am and where I come from. I know from my travels in the past, especially when I was in Thailand, that there will be many days when I feel so alone and homesick. It's natural. I have too wonderful of a family and set of friends not to miss home. So I am consciously making sure to pack my "heart" as well as what I own in the next few days. (thanks to a friend for that reminder)

Tomorrow is my last day of church before I take off and I am so excited to talk to both of my pastors before I leave. I need to listen to their wisdom and hopefully receive their blessing for the journey I am about to start. I admire them both greatly and wish that I had been able to connect with them more before I left. Bottom line now: use these last few days to the fullest possible extent and appreciate the blessings I have and remember who I am and why I need to do this job. Wish me luck...

I booked it!

I am now officially leaving for Nicaragua on August 23rd VERY early in the morning. I will soon be saying, "Goodbye, America." It has a good ring to it. But I won't really want to be saying goodbye to all the wonderful people who are my family and friends. I'll be missing my brother's graduation from high school and my sister's beginnings of her Junior and Senior I.S. at Wooster. I'll miss my parents incredibly and I will probably miss my grandfather's retirement from his life as a doctor. So many of my friends are in similar places to where I am at, whether that means they have plans or they are trying to figure them out. Everything seems to be in transition in my life.

And that is a good thing. Something I am trying to embrace. But it won't really seem real until I am on that plane at 7:00am on August 23rd. Right now, I have to finish my preparations to take the GRE, pack for my last trip to Canada for a few years, and put all the necessary pieces together to get myself ready to live in Nicaragua for 16 months. Here goes!

Ode to the sentimentals...

So it's been a month. Seems about average. Maybe if I set my standards low about how much I will write here, it will make me really excited when I write once a week when I first get to Nicaragua. This entry will be more stream of consciousness than anything. Last night, I went to see the movie "Waitress" with Larry. Adorable movie. It stars Kerri Russell (I forgot how gorgeous she was) who is a waitress at a pie diner and is a fabulous baker of pies. Everyone raves about her pies. She ends up getting pregnant with her husband's baby, but she hates her husband so it is not really a joy for her. She has an affair with her OB-GYN and watches as her waitress friends go through their own relationship troubles. It has a wonderfully happy ending but I won't spoil it for you. The point I really want to make here is that I feel that there are certain people who will cry in movies like that, those that will admit that they enjoy them, those who will say, "Yea I guess it was ok," and those who just won't even go see them. I feel most akin to people of the first two types. My heart goes out to you. Don't be ashamed at being touched by art.

Tonight I had a blast with some of my friends from college. Three girls who I was definitely friends with but who I did not hang out with as much as I would have liked to. It's funny how you don't appreciate things as well as you do once they are practically out of reach. But I also learned two pretty fun card games tonight: Tonk and Turretts. We had a blast. Oh and note to self...aim for the center of the cue ball and you will succeed more at pool. Nighty night. Happy August. 4 days till Canada. 4 days till I take the GRE (eww). less than a month till I leave for Nicaragua.

rekindling the fire (of justice)

July...hmmm. My life seems to be speeding by at the speed of light. Training continues to exceed my expectations and all of the people in this group continue every second I interact with them to inspire me, love me, laugh with me and at me (in a playful way), and speak to my heart in an incredible way. I am in true community. Today our training session was about power in the media and I regained or re-ignited a fire (that thing called passion for social justice and that "righteous indignation" that MLK, Jr. talked about) that has always been in me. We discussed the current situation with the media and the war in Iraq. I am deeply disturbed by the complacency that has been created by the lack of access the media has been granted and the lack of accountability the media and government have been held to by the American public and the world. We are all a part of the system and should all be ashamed for not really taking action to hold those who deliver our information to us accountable. One of the most powerful pieces of the workshop for me was understanding that when the huge media conglomerates sell airtime, they are really selling OUR time. WE should have the last say in what we are seeing on TV, hearing on the radio, and reading on the internet. The women who ran our session today were from a group called the Center for International Media Action (CIMA). You can check them out at http://www.mediaactioncenter.org/ to learn more about what you can do to add your voice to the fight for media that works for the public interest.

After dinner, we watched "The High Cost of Low Prices" which is a documentary about Wal-Mart which I had seen before. I still get so angry as I am reminded why my conviction is so strong about never supporting their business. Please, check out more information about Wal-Mart and if you don't have to, don't shop there. Sorry to sound self-righteous, but it is an awful corporation.

On a lighter note, I ate delicious popcorn all through the movie. At least my tummy was happy.
Manana muy temprano por la manana (very early tomorrow morning) we'll be heading over to the Church Center for the United Nations and participating in a protest against a restaurant in NYC which refuses to treat its workers justly. Justice is sweet but I promise not to get arrested....this time. I love the United Methodists more every day. Don't worry Presbyterians, you still rock my world.

lovin' it up in NYC

So I am currently in NYC and loving everything about the beginning of this experience. I am here in the city for 3 weeks for my training to become a Mission Intern with the United Methodist Church. Last night I was overjoyed after I had almost a 2 hour conversation with Belinda, the Methodist missionary I will be working with in Nicaragua when I start my job at the end of August. We spoke all about the organization I will be working with, which is called Accion Medica Cristiana (AMC) and means Christian Medical Action in English. The organization is an NGO started in the 1980s in Nicaragua by Nicaraguans and focuses on serving communities by providing public health services, leadership development, health education/prevention, and overall working with very remote communities on the Caribbean coast and in communities in Managua to promote community development. I am excited about all of the opportunities I will have there to expand my worldview, improve my Spanish, and learn and grow as an individual.

I arrived in NYC on Sunday and will be spending my time here with all of the other Mission Intern candidates (who will be placed in communities all over the world in places such as South Africa, Hong Kong, Palestine, the Phillipines, Brazil, Germany, and Grenada) and all of the US-2 candidates (who will be working for 2 years of service in cities around the U.S. (including in Hawaii and Puerto Rico), and our two trainers/program coordinators, Lauren and Alycia. I am so fortunate to be in an environment with such inspiring and incredible people. I am much more at home than I thought I would be and have so much to learn and experience here. Monday and today were days of sharing our life stories with one another. We each used artistic visuals and had 20 minutes to talk about ourselves and our life. I could not do it in 20 minutes and neither could most. But hearing everyone's stories was so inspiring, uplifting, and eye-opening as we all began to bond and hold up each other's background as an essential piece of who they have become today. I can't wait to continue to learn from all of these amazing individuals. We also spent the later part of today exploring different street blocks close to the dorm we are staying in at Columbia University. We were able to get out in the community and speak to locals and see how people spent their lives in the West end of Manhattan. Fun stuff. The really nitty-gritty of training starts tomorrow as we will be spending all day at the General Board of Global Ministries' (GBGM) headquarters in NYC. By the end of tomorrow I will know more than I ever wanted to about the United Methodist Church. Alright. Hasta mas pronto, con mucho carino.

lazy summer bum

Coming back from an absolutely amazing 3 weeks in Peru with Bridget has turned me into a summer bum. It is currently 6:02pm and I am still in my pajamas. Yes, you read correctly. My routine since returning home has consisted of waking up around noon everyday and then not getting to bed until around 2am. It's a schedule I need to change ASAP. So that being said I have again fulfilled my habit of not posting regularly but since no one really knows about this page yet, I have decided that's ok. I intend to come back and write several entries about Peru and the tons of stories that go along with the experience.

Right now it is hard because I am both reflecting on this trip I have just taken and looking towards the next step and direction my life is taking. I have only 6 more days until I'll be heading to NYC for three weeks of job training and getting to know my fellow Mission Interns. Hanging out with Posse friends and Larry again has been great but incomplete as Bridget now heads back to D.C., Jill is starting grad school in Columbus at OSU and Alissa is still in Boston doing an internship with a judge (I think). Life moves on...I also really miss college friends, especially Rynnie. She's with her family in Maryland and then heads to Europe for a month. I'm so happy for her but I miss her.

But in general, I really can't complain. I am very loved and blessed in so many ways. I have the opportunity of a lifetime on my horizon to work and live abroad for a year and a half at the age of 22. Now I just need to clean my room, exercise, start studying for the GRE (ewww) and stop being such a bum. Until next time, this bum is signing off.

a quickie from Peru

Ok so this has to be quick. I´ve been on the internet too long and Bridget is waiting for me to get dinner! It has been a wonderful first evening and day in Peru with adventures galore already I´ll fill in later. I really have to pick up a journal in Cusco tomorrow. So I think I may be going to Nicaragua for my job!!! So exciting I am just waiting to hear back from Belinda, the woman who I might be working with. This summer is going to be crazy but I am looking forward to it all. Ok comida! Bridget´s found restaurants and they close at 8....more from Cusco! chao.

Entering the world of blogging

So I'm new to this. Be gentle, blogosphere. I thought it about time to start this thing they call a blog as I am on the cusp of so many new things in my life. Having graduated from college just 2 days ago, I am only 6 days away from spending three weeks in Peru with my "sister from another mother" and only a few months from spending a year and a half in another country working for social justice. When I traveled to Thailand 2 years ago, I sent out emails to practically every person I knew. They were, I'm told, PAINFULLY detailed and very few people actually took the time to read through every word. I don't blame them. I also hate having my in-box full to the brim, and so this page with be available and kept up to date with reflections on my future endeavors. Read them at your leisure. I apologize in advance for writing a book with each post. Please know that as I travel to Peru and to (hopefully*) another Latin American country for the next year and a half, I will do my best to explain any Spanish words or phrases that I slip in. But always feel free to post a comment and scold me for being insensitive and not elaborating on the meaning of palabras en espanol.

Coming soon to a post near you...where I will be for the next year and a half! Trust me I am as anxious as you are.