Greetings from Managua, Nicaragua!
Hola mis amigos! I hope life is going well for all of you and the summer continues to progress and the heat strikes down on the many of you in Colorado! The heat is intense down here as well, not to mention that everytime I go out I find myself drenched in sweat from the humidity. Oh what a life!

Well I have now been down here for two weeks, and what a two weeks they have been. I was able to go up to Cusmapa (where I´ll soon be working) for a day, but had to return here to begin my class last week. I spent the weekend prior to that in Leon, with one of those days at the beach nearby in Poneloya. Let me tell you that was beautiful and I came back with a nice burn. I think I have now finally finished shedding my old skin and growning into the new. Kinda ironic, huh?

In the mornings during the week I spend assisting in a 5th and 6th grade English class taught by a Jesuit Volunteer from California, also working with Fabretto. I can already tell that teaching English is going to be a challenge as the kids here have not learned to think cognitively. The only thing they know is to copy things down from the board and memorize it for the test, not fully understanding any of it.The JV has been teaching the class for the last couple of months (twice a week per grade) and they have only learned the alphabet and greetings like ¨Hello, my name is ______. It´s nice to meet you.¨That´s really it. We are starting on numbers tomorrow. Luckily for me it looks as if I will be teaching high schoolers, from 7th - 11th grade for us, and their cognitive skills are slightly more developed.

After that I go to my class for 4 hours a day and that is about the progressing slowly but surely. Last night I had the opportunity to go to Mass at the Jesuit university here. It is a small Mass of around 20 people and is celebrated by Fr. Fernando Cardenal, S.J.. He played a very big part in the political history as he presented facts to the US government back in the 70s revealing the injustices (including rapes and killings) of Somoza the dictator. Once the dictatorship was overthrown by the Sandinistas he became the Minister of Education for Nicaragua and was the driving force behind the literacy campaign in the early 80s. This brought thousands of young people out of their homes to go out to small communities all over Nicaragua teaching people to read and was hugely successful. I was supposed to meet his brother as well, Ernesto Cardenal, however he was not at the Mass as he usually is. Maybe next week. His brother is one of the most celebrated poets in Nicaraguan history with many of his poems arising from the political situation here. It´s quite fascinating. Well there´s a little history lesson for you, sorry if I bored any of you (probably most of you). But thanks for listening to me ramble!

UNTIL NEXT TIME...