First week in La Dalia

Well. we officially love La Dalia! We have enjoyed very much the freedom that we have had as volunteers. Especially after the rigorous training that we have been through. We have spent the mornings at work. Kory at the Centro de Salud and I at the Casa Materna. We have been working on this big poster about Family planning methods. It is pretty awsome. We are getting ready to participate in a Jornada de Vacunacion at the end of the month. This is a huge campain that the health centers do in order to vaccinate all the children in the rural areas. It takes about two weeks and tons of work on the part of doctors, nurses, and other NGOs. We will be helping out and giving charlas ... of course. It will be fun to get to know the municipio better.

In the afternoons, we have been cleaning our house and getting it ready so we can make charlas there and have an office. We have cleaned our little tails off! Kory rewired almost all the lights, we fixed the pila (water reservuar) and did laundry. We mopped about 6 times, and I just bought some floor wax so it will stay shiny. Kory even crawled on the roof and patched the holes with some special tar tape. It was pretty manly. We tried cooking beans yesterday and remembered that the pots have holes in them about half way through. That was poo. There was bean soup everywhere. Luckily our neighbor happened to bring us some sweet rice and beens as a gift! How sweet! Anyway, hopefully next week we can work a lot harder at being volunteers now that our little minds are organized.

Let me just mention a few things about the animals here. There are these immensley enjoyable little lizards all over the walls called Escorpios (not to be confused with scorpians.. though there are those too we hear.) I didnt know that they layed eggs! Kory warned me and I didnt believe him, so I crushed one and it had a baby escorpio inside! It was incredibley sad! So here is a picture of the eggs that I will now now be protecting with all my might.

This poor little guy we found stuck and dried to a piece of duct tape. Tragic!

Another thing I would like to talk about is these freaking screamer bugs!
They are called Chicharras.. google this. Trust me. They are EVERYWHERE and they scream so loud that you cannot hear anyone talking! They are about two inches (kory says three and would like to verify this because he had to catch two of them in our room last night and cast them out the window while I quivered in the corner.) We find their wings all over the house because the birds eat them and leave the wings for us. I hate them! Actually, I dont mind them until they come inside. They are quite harmless, in fact, helpless if they land on their backs. But if you kick them lightley or move them, they begin flapping around in a hysteria like a small bird with a blindfold on! And who knows where they will land.... We had two in our room last night as I mentioned. THank HEAVEN for mosquito nets.. that is all I can say! When kory caught this one, it started screaming, but it sounded like a parrot with a sock over its head. Its kind of funny.

Well, a few last items, this reserve is about 20 mins from our house.. looks pretty dang sweet! We might check it out. And if anybody comes to visit, They might want to check it out too.
http://www.lasombraecolodge.com/la_reserva.htm

And lastley, I would like to leave on a note about oral higene. I have always been a Crest Complete toothbrush kind of girl. When they went out of popularity a few years ago, I sought their sawtooth beauty in every grocery store. When the time came for a new toothbrush here in nicaragua, We found only one kind of tooth brush in the store that day. It was one of those expensive new fangled things with bling on every corner.. I never would have bought this thing in the states. But, we didnt have a choice that day. BUT. Im here to send praises to the gods for making a toothbrush so delightful as this. So delightful in fact to warrant a paragraph and picture on my blog. Kory says, ¨It feels like a hug in my mouth¨and boy, thats an understatement. Well. WE must get back. Chat with you all next week!