First Impressions of Corinto...

So a week after receiving my future site, I get to visit Corinto for a week, in order to meet my counterpart I'll be working with for 2 years, and get to know the town and the Health Center a bit.

So here I am finally at my site after many weeks/months/years of waiting for this moment! Its sort of a roller coaster of emotions that at this moment are very overwhelming, but I'll try to explain some of my first impressions.

First my impression of the town in general. Its a little bigger than I expected but not too big. I am happy about that. It is divided into small neighborhoods that make it manageable. Although I still am overwhelmed by how big it is compared to my host town of Santa Teresa. There are some parts that are fairly nice, but there are other parts that are super poor. Everyone rides around on bicycle which I think is great. Things are just far enough away to not be able to walk, but not far enough to need a car. Also, it is surrounded by beaches which are really beautiful. Somehow I sill can't wrap my head around the fact that I am living so close to the pacific ocean.

Work so far is super overwhelming. Talking about work with my counterpart is great, there are so many awesome opportunities for work here in Cor into. But I've now been to the Health Center and met a ton of people and its just very overwhelming to think about how to initiate all the possible projects. I'm hoping that after I am here for a couple weeks/months and I know the people this will be easier. But right now I am overwhelmed by the amount of people I have met and having to explain who I am and what I am doing in Spanish to a bunch of different people that have no idea what Peace Corps is. Most people assume I'm a doctor because I'm working at the health center. And then they don't really understand why I am coming all the way to Nicaragua for 2 years just for health education. But overall, everyone has been super nice, its just overwhelming. Ok, i think I've made the "overwhelming" point. I'm super excited for the work possibilities, it will just take some time.

So the other aspect of my new future life is my host family. This I was thinking was going to be no problem. I had already lived with a Nicaraguan family and so I figured that it would be easy. And for the most part it is. Although, there have been some unexpected glitches. First off, my host mom can't understand any of the Spanish that I speak. My counterpart, and my family in Santa Teresa understand me fine, but somehow here, they can't. So I'm working on that. The other issue is food. I like all Nicaraguan food and basically here I will eat whatever. But of course they ask me what I want to eat, so I respond, "whatever your guys are eating, i like everything. " They didn't like this answer and kept asking me. So finally I answer, with a SUPER typical Nicaraguan dish, and they respond, "oh no! we don't have that right now, do you want us to go buy it, I feel really bad!" So I am irritated, because literally I will eat ANYTHING. Here is another food related discussion I had with my host mom after she gave me a huge plate of rice and beans and eggs for breakfast-

Host mom- Do you want tortilla with that
ME- No, that's ok, this is perfect.
HM- So, You don't like tortillas
ME- No, its not that, i just don't want tortillas with this.
HM- So then you hate tortillas.
ME- No, I love tortillas, its just that I don't eat that much for breakfast so this is plenty.
HM- So that's too much food...sorry, I can take some away.
ME- No, its the perfect amount!
HM- So then do you want some bread
ME- No, I don't need anything else with this
HM- So you hate bread
ME- no, its just that this is plenty
HM- I'm sorry I gave you too much food
ME- no its not too much, its perfect.
HM- Well then, here are some crackers, why don't you have some crackers with that.

And it continues from there....
I think you get the picture. Anyways, the family is super nice, but sometimes being in conversations like that start to irritate you when they happen every meal.

Overall, I am super pleased with my site but I realize now more than ever that its going to be a big adjustment for my first month or two living here. But at the same time, I'm very excited about the adjustment so lets just hope everything works out!

I'll try to take some pics of the town and post them here sometime. Happy almost st. patty's day!