One last night in the USA..

So tomorrow I will arrive in Managua, Nicaragua. The last month has been a blast: from going to baseball games with my brother to boating with my grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins. Then, I finished up the month with visiting my mom and relatives in Illinois and down to Charlotte, NC to watch some dirt track races with my dad and say good bye to my step-mom and brother. It has been a great trip seeing everyone and got a chance to do a lot of fun things. But, all that will now come to an end as I head to a whole new world in Nicaragua.

I have now gone through two days of training here in Washington DC. Each day I see new challenges that I never thought of, however, I stay steadfast in my excitement to arrive in Nicaragua and take in the new challenge. I will arrive in Managua tomorrow around 11:00 am with 38 of the most amazing people I have ever met. The kindness and warmness shows through with every volunteer I have met.

After arriving in Managua, Nicaragua tomorrow we will have a three day retreat. During this time we will receive training on survival Spanish, vaccinations and knowledge on safety and security. We will also be tested on our Spanish knowledge and placed accordingly in our home stays. After the retreat the Agriculture volunteers, around 20 of us, will head to Esteli where we begin our home stays with 11 weeks of intensive training on language, job training, safety and security. During this time we will be staying with a local family and training with 3-4 other volunteers for 8-10 hrs per day. After we complete this training we will be sworn in as PC Volunteers and will receive a site all to our own. Wish me luck and feel free to send me any questions or comments that you have, you can do this by email (hollinsj@gmail.com) or post a comment below (thanks Sam and Bryan, although I'm guessing it was more Sam).