Visitors

So, to make the transition home a little easier, our friends Becca, Richard, Alli and Adam decided to come down and spend a week touring around Nicaragua with us. We started off by visiting Granada, where we did a tour of the cloud forest on volcano Mombacho and went sight-seeing in the town, the oldest colonial city in the Americas.

Walking around on Mombacho, the volcano overlooking Granada

A barn at a coffee farm on Mombacho

From there, we headed to Managua to take a plane to Big Corn Island off the Eastern Coast of Nicaragua. It was the first time that matt and I had the pleasure to visit the east coast and it was a phenomenal experience (aside from the stomach issues experienced by nearly all). The island was a picture of what Carribean islands must have been before cruise ships and five store resorts made their way ashore. Funnily enough, Nicaragua had one last present in store for us on this trip, and it was a good one for a change. Our hotel plans fell through completely (it was holy week and so I had made reservations; however, the word reservation is a lot less firm in Nicaragua than in the US and when we arrived the rooms were not the ones we had wanted and were not suitable for staying in unless you were of the rodent family). Oddly enough, we had met an American in Grananda who happened to have a house on Corn Island. He was renting it to a group of Italians who were on the island helping to film the Italian version of the TV show Survivor, but they had bailed at the last minute. A quick phone call to him, a cab ride and one local tour guide later, we had ourselves a beachfront house for an amazing price. Not a bad way to see ourselves out of the country.

Our crew, in front of the plane that took us from Managua to Big Corn Island

Corn Island as we were approaching to land

The boys trying to figure out how to string up our hammock

The view from the front porch of our rental house...breathtaking

Richard and Matt...manly as ever

Waiting for the bus to Somoto

Chatting in Somoto

We returned to mainland Nicaragua with our friends and headed up to Somoto to show them the place that we had spent two years of our lives. A few last meals, a goodnight’s sleep and a free truckride later, we were on our way out of town to the airport to make arrangements for them, our animals and ourselves on our way back to the US of A.

Last Days in Somoto

One last picture with Ena Sofia, Adriana and Akhnatito...

The last few weeks in Somoto were tough. Matt and I spent a lot of time saying our goodbye’s – to our host family, our neighbors, our colleagues and other Peace Corps Volunteers. As much as we had tried to make sure that all of our projects were done, we ended up working down to the end. It felt weird to be in Somoto and not go to work, so that’s what we did.

Taeko (Japaneses health volunteer with whom I worked), Rubenia (my primary colleague), me and Noehmi (head of nursing)

I finally finished up my Partnership project, spending hours and hours on end working with teachers who volunteered their time to review my books and painstakingly explain the finer points of Spanish grammar to me. The books are at the printer as we speak and will be helping Nicaragua secondary students in the coming academic year. Thank you again to all of you who contributed financially and emotionally to making the project a reality.

Matt spent the last few weeks making sure that the transition of projects would go well for the volunteer that will be replacing him at the health center when we leave. This involved a week showing her the ropes and a week coordinating on the coming year’s project with the Irish University group that visits Somoto annually. For those of you who read the blog regularly and know of Los Quinchos, you will be happy to hear that they have decided to make themselves a more sustainable center and are going to be setting up their own garden and chicken shed to help cover the costs of feeding their students. The Irish group will be helping them to build these things in July and the new Peace Corps volunteer will help them coordinate with local contractors.

A picture with Enrique at a 15 year-old's party that we were invited to in our last week

Staff from the health center where Matt worked after they threw us a going away party

The last meal that we made for our host family - an American-style breakfast to say thanks before going away.

So our work wrapped up, Matt and I set to packing up two years of our lives for a transition back to the states. But after our time in Somoto, of going through really tough times and really special times, it was harder than we thought to pack up and leave. In the end, we didn’t actually pack much. We left the vast majority of our Nicaraguan possessions to other Peace Corps volunteers, to local schools, libraries and neighbors, including English/Spanish dictionaries, children’s books, clothes, shoes, the futon that we had built by hand, the eggplant and chile tire gardens, the bed and fridge, sheets and plates. All of it was left to someone to be put to good use. We packed a suitcase a piece, two guitars a dog and a cat. Our last two days in town, we had a number of despedidas or going away parties. The health center and health department where I worked gave us both certificates and appreciation and said heartfelt words. Tears were shed, hugs given and email addresses exchanged with promises of staying in touch forever. It was hard. But it made us realize that we had impacted people and we knew that they had impacted us.

Matt and Aknatito saying goodbye (in their own special way)

With things packed and ready to go we set off to bridge our two worlds, spending our last week in Nicaraguan showing it off to great friends from home.

Ringing the bell, a Peace Corps Nicaragua tradition for all volunteers who have officially finished their service