Since the 22nd of December (my last post), some big things have happened. We celebrated la Navidad (Christmas) here in Nicaragua and it was definitely a cultural experience. Christmas eve afternoon I left work early and came home to celebrate my host grandpa´s birthday with a family lunch and piñata. The tradition in Nicaragua is to wait for 12 pm to eat dinner with the extended family. It ended up just being everyone in the house and I ate at about 10:30pm (only two and a half hours later than usual, so about half way btw). We stayed up to 12 and then my host mom, sister and thanked God together in prayer.

New Years eve I also left work early and a manequin was at the entrance to the yard with a sign saying something like ¨good riddens to the old year and in with the new.¨Not that exactly... That eve we listened to some more music, did a little dancing I think, I almost fell asleep in the chair, then went to bed for a half hour, and woke up again to bring our manequin out on the street to light it on fire. I didn´t realise that it had cherry bombs in the torso until it started exploding. It was funny. The plan was to go to the beach for New Years day (which almost everyone in Nicaragua does) but changed our plans last minute. My host sisters and I went to the zoo. I heard some people speaking German, another group speaking Arabic, and some more speaking English. It felt like a touristy place which I haven´t seen much of.

The week after New Years was MCC´s Mesoamerica spiritual retreat. That lasted four days and was a refreshing time. It was especially nice to communicate in English for that many days in a row and with new people. We got to reconnect with some of the SALTers we met at Orientation aswell which was encouraging. The place had warm showers (which I kind of didn´t realise till the last day) and two pools, which I swum in everyday. Also, it had airconditioning, but that wasn´t necessarily a good thing because the temperature change between my room and outside was giving me a headache and the sessions were a little cold. I think my body has adjusted to the hot and humid air here. I am predicting next winter will not be too comfortable.

After that, I returned to work for a few days, then we had a Nicaragua team meeting. I really like our team and am sad we will only be meeting all together two more times. We went for pizza and to the arcade for our fun day, then Greta and I saw a movie afterwards. Overall, a well apreciated break.

I am looking forward to February because my mom is making a trip down for a week or so.

Until next time,
peace and blessings.