Too Early to Leave Nicaragua

Due to pressing family matters, I am returning to LA for a couple weeks. In order to prepare for the harsh realities I face and the unpleasant actions I must take to save a family member, I decided to take a mental holiday and see the rest of Nicaragua before I leave. I hope to return to Leon at some point in the future. I love the vibe of the city and really like the people I have met and the friends I have made.

Before leaving, I invited some friends out for a last drink. The Peace Corp gang and I formed a trivia team to participate in the monthly trivia contest at Via Via. We performed impressingly well, but not well enough to beat Rufus' international team that wins every time. Still, we enjoyed our bottle of wine prize. Lena and Magdalena, the Austrians, said their goodbyes as did Gerry and Carla, the Canadians. I introduced Gerry and Carla to the Peace Corp gang so that they can replace me in the English Camp. As for Fundacion Leon 2000, they are wrapping up their end of year activities and have no funding for new projects and so I didn't leave any projects open.


But most of all, I will miss Mily, the 5 year old granddaughter in my homestay. We would often sit at the dinner table, just the two of us, and have very adult conversations on how our day went. We would then retreat to my room where she would talk about children stuff. Not everything quite registered with my intermediate level of Spanish, but we had fun nonetheless. I will also miss the rest of the family. The grandfather is a chemistry professor and we bonded (no pun intended) immediately when he learned that I had majored in chemistry. We often shared in geeky chemistry jokes and named elements in everything we ate. With Daniela the 54 yr old grandmother, we connected through dancing starting at 6am every day when the music blared from their living room to begin their day.

If all goes well, I plan to fly down to Bolivia at the end of December where I have a job lined up to work on Diabetes education. I will help kids learn how to better manage their disease. When I will return to Nicaragua remains unseen since I could stay in Bolivia for quite some time. All part of the fun of figuring it out on the fly.