Tuesday, February 9, 2010

distraction

I need a distraction from my paper. And I just spent the last half hour looking up random statistics on random cities and countries in the world. For instance, did you know that San Marino, CA has the world's safest roads, or that South Korea has the World's Best Airport (Jae!), or that Overland Park, KS (this one is for you, Lace) is ranked 3rd for least stressed people? Anyway. Enough of that.

So, I will tell you about what I will be doing next week! I just found all this out today. (Everything here is very last minute, and intentionally so. We never really know what is going on until right before it happens, which is partially to keep us in the moment, but partially because that is the way things operate in Latin America...) On Monday, our entire group will travel to Managua, Nicaragua. It is about a 10-12 hour bus ride to get there! Woohoo! Luckily we will be on a private bus that our program uses. We will spend three days in Managua learning about US-Nicaragua relations and seeing some famous sites. Then, we will all be split up and will go to all different areas of the country! There were two choices: urban area or small town. The only details they gave were that the urban homes would likely have indoor plumbing and the small towns would not. I checked off small town, and surprisingly, almost everyone in the group did! We have all been living in the city here, and I think most people want a change. Plus, the small town feels like a more realistic Nicaraguan experience.

Then we will split into groups of 3-5 and go with a pastor to some area of the country. Each person will live with their own host family, but there will be a few other students in the area who likely go to the same church. That is somewhat reassuring to me. And for that week, we will pretty much just "be," as our professor told us. I am a little nervous about that, especially since this guy I know who went last year told me that Nicaragua was the only part of the trip that he really cried from loneliness and isolation. Ah. And I am very prone to that, and very prone to crying when I feel like that, so I am a little nervous that that will happen. Who knows? It could be the greatest week of my life. But I know that it will be difficult. It will definitely be a different standard of living than San Jose, and also, I know that people almost universally get sick there. But I also know that it will be an incredible experience and one that I probably won't have again. So I need to embrace it for all it is, and know that it will show me a new side of life and the world that I have not seen before.

So that is next week, and then when we get back, we have spring break! It is so hard to believe that already four weeks has gone by.

Ok. It's after midnight now. I should get back to my paper! Missing you all down here in Costa Rica!

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