Day 3

So much fun today!

My morning started with a 7:30am alarm and got ready, had breakfast…again froot loops for me! :), and had prayer and then our daily morning meeting. We then all went on our awesome big yellow school bus called "Chavalo" which is like a guide in english…seriously "Chavalo" is written in big letters across the front of the bus! Ha it's great. Anyways, we picked up the scholars at the central mall and headed to a laguna about 45 minutes away. Now 45 minutes in a bus full of kids sounds crazy and yes it was very loud but it was also a lot of fun! I got to talk with the scholars and bond more with them and use my spanish which is always a lot of fun!

We arrived at the laguna and it was beautiful!! The mountains of trees surrounded this body of water in such a way that made me stand in awe. It's so incredible to see the beauty of God's creation. I love how God's handiwork is everywhere, no matter where you go!

The kids were so excited to go swimming and so was I! We made sure we focused on the kids and of course today wasn't about us relaxing and putting our feet up, but rather continuous outpouring of love and making sure everyone had a floaty so they wouldn't drown. A little ways away from the shore was a floating pier or wood thing or whatever you call it! :) Me and a few of the scholars and other volunteers swam to it and sat and messed around pushing each other off or dragging others in! It was great and to see these kids play with us as if we were siblings or had known each other for a long time was so special to me. Honestly, it felt like I was playing with my own brother when playing these boys and girls.

Another special thing that happened on that floating wooden board was that after a while we all somewhat calmed down, mainly from exhaustion, and 4 of the scholars sat in a circle with me and talked with me asking me questions like 'how old are you?' 'are you married?' 'why not?' Ha it was really great and I asked them questions and just to see them open up to me was so special and such a great experience! I love these kids already and its only been 3 days! I am glad I'm staying for a month because it would be very hard to leave when the volunteers leave.

I don't think I explained this but the first week of my trip is with a group of 20 or so volunteers. VISEDAL has a trip for volunteers twice a year to come for a week. Now the next 4 weeks will be spent with Jessie, the other intern, Brad, the co-founder of VISEDAL, Esmir, a native who works for VISEDAL, and Jorge, a native who also works for VISEDAL. SO the volunteers leave in a couple of days. So anyways, I am glad I am not just volunteering, because it would be so difficult to leave so soon! These kids are great and this country is beautiful!

After swimming we had lunch at the laguna…fajitas!!! Lunch was really good. After lunch we had a little down time and one of the older girls who is 20 and is very creative and paints nails so beautifully, painted my nails a beautiful blue color! Ha She was so happy and excited to do it and I let her because I knew it made her happy and who doesn't want pretty blue nails?!

We got on the bus to head back to get ice cream for the scholars and then we would go to the market. Well let's just say plans got changed around! Ha In order to get out of the laguna you had to go up this very steep hill. Our bus stalled on the hill! As we say here in Nicaragua, "Nicaragua always wins!" But the neat thing was to see the younger guys immediately jump into action and help out and take charge, which shows a lot of responsibility and maturity that I was told wasn't there when they were first brought into VISEDAL as a scholar. But anyways, it was crazy, we all had to leave the bus and stand on the side of the road and wait to see if we could get another bus to take us. We spent a few hours waiting and during that time it went so well with the kids. They all listened and stayed out of the road, we all played games, and a few girls taught me these hand games like patti-cake but very fast and they laughed because I kept messing up! Ha But is was really neat to have that extra time to sit with them and talk to them and just have fun and play around and show love towards them!

We finally got another bus to come and then halfway home had to switch to another bus! Ha We were "bus-hoppers" for the day! We finally made it to the central mall to drop the kids off and it was 5:30pm. We weren't able to go to the market but it was so worth it being able to have that extra time with the kids.

After we dropped the kids off, we came back to the hotel and showered and then headed off to a restaurant for dinner. The food was so amazingly wonderfully good! The portions were also very big and let me tell you I ate almost all of it expect for the blood sausage….I liked the taste but not the texture. It was all really good though.

We then came back after dinner and had our porch discussions and today's theme was, 'think outside the box; getting out of your comfort zone'. So we went over highlights and how this was seen throughout the day as well.

Overall today has been full of adventure and new and crazy experiences! I have definitely come more out of my shell with my spanish and am more willing to interpret and talk to the kids and they help me when I mess up and I love it!

It has been a very long day! Off to bed for me! :)


*Now I know I have been asked to post pictures with the blog but I'm sorry not for this blog this time. Pictures will be on Facebook most likely tomorrow, but its really late and I have to be up early, so I apologize for that but I promise you will see pictures in future posts! Thank y'all for reading!*