Victór, Tres Leches, and Jeitinho

Rats!  It sure is HOT here!  No amount of fans blowing in my face can cure it.

The supervisors got home from survey today.  They all seem like they had a pretty good time, aside from the usual complaints about the food ("Rice and beans are soooooo awful!") and a few problems here and there.  They all seem to have done OK Spanish-wise, which is definitely good.

Cheka and I spent the 4 days while they were gone running MORE errands (they never end), meeting with more contacts (also neverending), and planning the training days that we are going to have on Monday.  On Monday, 2 youths from every town along with 1 contact from the health center and 1 contact from the school in every town, will come to Granada or Rivas, depending on their location, for a training workshop that staff is going to facilitate.  It's just a short morning meeting to give them more information about AMIGOS, our mission, our goals, and to discuss how the volunteers will be working with  youth in the health centers and schools.  It should be fun?

Now, on to Victor.  Victor is our landlord and he loooooooves us.  Loves us to the point of dropping by all the time to "check in," and staying for long conversations about anything and everything.  He's super nice and he would do ANYTHING for us, which is great, but he really is, frankly, a pain in the neck.

"Oh, hey, I just wanted to see how you guys handled the rain storm last night."

"Oh, hey, I brought you a piece of Tres Leches cake from the bakery in the neighborhood where my dad lives."

"Oh, hey, I just wanted to see if my electricity bill from last month came."

"Oh, hey, I just wanted to..."

You get the picture.  And every time he comes over, it turns into an hour long discussion of the cultural interchange between Nicaraguans and Americans.  He promises to get an email address so we can all keep in touch when we leave.  Great.  And he's already planning the recuerdos he is going to give us at the end of the summer to remember Nicaragua.  Again, great.  It's not creepy or anything, this dude is just nonstop.  One time, he even demanded that Meredith get him water.

"MARISOL!  AGUA!  POR FAVOR!"

Now, we just offer him water when he shows up to avoid that awkward moment again...

Everything else is just settling into the routine.  We are getting ready for the training workshops on Monday and planning volunteer briefing, as the 55 volunteers arrive in less than a week, on June 11!

Cousin Henry Greeley, Amigos veteran and current Peace Corps volunteer in Nica, will be coming to the volunteer briefing to discuss culture, history, working with rural Nicaraguans, etc.  That should be cool, and it will definitely be fun to see Henry.  I'm going to try to get out to his community where he's living by the end of the summer.  It should be easy enough to slip away for a day (and maybe a night!) sometime during the week when the supervisors are out on route.

We just installed a really loud doorbell.  Well, it's not actually a doorbell.  It's a SCHOOL BELL, attached to a doorbell ringer by the front door.  I sure am pissed at Meredith for thinking THAT was a good idea...

The next couple of days are going to be CRAZY busy.  So much to do to get ready for the training workshops on Monday and volunteer briefing, beginning on Wednesday.  Briefing will last until Saturday, when the volunteers will head out to their communities.  Forgive me for being frank, but that day cannot come soon enough!  Briefing is always so crazy, and it's such a relief to send them out to their communities!

Huzzah! BYE!