After seven weeks of training, I´m finally starting to feel comfortable in my town. My family and I understand each other, I know the prices and routes the buses run. I know the local paper vendors, bartenders, and other people its good to know in town. That cooshy life will be over July 18, and after a week of swearing in and preparing, training will be over and I will start my work in my permanant site: San Sebastián de Yalí, Jinotega, Nicaragua, which boasts a bustling population of 6,000. As soon as I am comfortable at one site, I´m off to the next one, my real one!

Yalí is in one of the poorest and most remote regions our hemisphere has to offer. It is way up in the mountains for Nica standards, although the summits are just a little higher than the base level for Denver. The town is one hour from the nearest paved road and nearest person from my sector, three hours from the Department Head (Jinotega), and six and a half hours from the capital city (Managua).

Now, before you make judgements, there are seventeen other volunteers in the department from other sectors, including a health volunteer in Yalí itself. The countryside is supposed to be spectacularly beautiful and pristine, and my packet reads:
¨If you like to hike, this is your site!¨ I will be teaching high school students La Empresa Creativa, a business class designed by the Peace Corps and the Ministry of Education. I will also be teaching the LEC to 80 local coffee producers and helping them with their practices. There is also a fantastic opportunity to work with the local government on a project promoting ecotourism. It is not going to be easy without paved roads!

Anyway, after figuring everything out, this is exactly the type of site I wanted. I want a tight knit community where I will feel that I am making a difference, and am given the space for some introspection and personal development. That sounds a little lame and even a little selfish, but then again, isn´t everyone?

Sometimes its the really little, lame-ass things that make a big difference. Today, my site-mate and I went to a local orphange, which is really not local because its forty-five minutes in a mototaxi down a dirt road. We talked to the directora about having our youth group in town collect books for them only to find out that they lacked even basic necessities: fruits, vegetables and bread. We took a tour around the clean, though modest faciltities. Every door we opened held children calling every woman in the room mami, clinging to our legs, reaching to be picked up, held, talked to, and loved. I found myself with a child on my hip in every room. A two-year old named Manuel reached for my face. He grabbed my nose, pulled my lips and tugged on the flesh of my gruff, unshaven chin, over and over again. I never would have stopped him. I didn´t want to. I explained to him that it was my beard, and that one day he would have one too.

I still don´t love kids, but I found it hard to leave every room. The youngest, like Manuel, cried after spending only minutes together. I realized that these kids need a lot of loving, maybe more than this life can offer them. On the ride back, I didn´t know what else to do but joke about it. All I could say to my site-mate was ¨I can´t believe that kid tried to stick his fingers in my mouth!¨