beginnings...

After a couple of days with the new crew of students, I'm thrilled to report that although our group this semester is small (just eight as opposed to recent groups of 18) thus far the group has been lovely. Considerate, informed, very interested and grateful - they have been a joy to be with and I'm happy and hopeful for a fabulous experience with them all. I love this job and the ability to hear things more than once with people who are hearing it for the first time - there's a consistency and perseverance to it accompanied by new observations and wide eyes - a combination that feels utterly life giving.

Battling a headache tonight, I'm excited to get to bed, so I'll keep it short. Our time here in the capital is already done. Any thoughts and prayers appreciated tomorrow as we wind through the mountains to Xela: our new home for the next few weeks!

on the road again...

After a gorgeous day Saturday, including brunch with my dear family and then an afternoon celebrating Mandy and Craig's union, I headed out early early Sunday morning to fly back to Nicaragua. I spent almost a week there, some of it reconnecting with coworkers, and re-acclimating to the heat, the culture, and the language of Managua (Nicaraguan Spanish is *so* different than the Mexican Spanish I got used to this summer). I also spent a few nights away in a nearby cloud forest, with a day trip to the ocean; it went by all too quickly, gorgeous surroundings, fabulous conversation, great food, and incredible company. It was a sweet little getaway - time to think of nothing but exactly where I was, to disconnect from the life to which I so recently said goodbye and the life we'll pick up from in the airport on Monday.
And now, I write to you from San Salvador, en route to Guatemala with my ever-entertaining compañero Chepe (it's such fun to be traveling with him again). We got in yesterday afternoon and head out today for Guatemala City. It's been fabulous to see all of my coworkers again and everyone is so genuinely excited for the new semester to begin that preparations have been a joy. We're headed for the bus station again in a few minutes, so I should head out. Best wishes to all! I miss you Minnesotans already!

the summer in review...

It appears as though my summer vacation also turned into a short hiatus from my blog. After a month and a half of not having written, I feel I should have more to report. But the last two months have been nearly entirely about focusing on people and letting myself sink into the relationships here at home that remind me who I am. When I'm out and away it's easy for me to focus mostly on who I could be, what my potential is, what the need is and how I might be able to shape my life accordingly.

Home is about who I am, right now. Home offers roots, friends offer space to be ridiculous and be appreciated for it, family offers endless support and insight that portrays a love I can't fully understand. I think that at times I'm tempted to see one place as more valuable than the other, or as more necessary at specific periods of time. It's an obvious realization, but it's clearer after some slower time here that they're immensely different, but of equal value.

After my last blog post I finished up the book "The Country Under My Skin" by Giaconda Belli (very worth reading) and she writes about moving to the United States with her partner after a life of service and loving dedication to being Nicaraguan. She writes more beautifully than I ever could about some of the same feelings I have attempted to express in recent posts. So, I'll paste a quote below and put up a couple of pictures from the summer. And I'll be writing with much more frequency again, so check back in soon.

"I was often tormented by the fear that I would become soft and compliant, assume the attitude that people term ‘realistic’, hang up my gloves and resign myself to the idea that we lost the battle or, in the best of all worlds, that the fight to achieve new utopias would now fall to other people. But reality taught me otherwise. Life has shown me that not every commitment requires payment in blood, or the heroism of dying in the line of fire. There is a heroism inherent to peace and stability, an accessible, everyday heroism that may not challenge us with the threat of death, but which challenges us to squeeze every last possibility out of life, and to live not one but several lives all at the same time. To accept oneself as a multiple being in time and space is part of modern life..."
- Giaconda Belli