A break from training...

All the trainees are splitting up this Sunday and everyone is going to visit a different volunteer in their site until Wednesday. The peace corps staff picks where we are going based on what we are interested in in location and job. I received where/who I am visiting today and I am really happy! I am going to visiting a volunteer who is living in Chinandega. Chinandega is the capital city of the Department (same as State) of Chinandega. If you´re looking on a map, it is in the very Northwest corner of the country. Let me give you a little background on this place and why I´m excited to be going here:

The Department of Chinandega has the second highest rate of HIV/AIDS infections in the country to Nicaragua. The only Department that has more is the Department that the capitol city is in (Peace Corps Volunteers do not working in that department). So as a Peace Corps Volunteer, you biggest chance to work with HIV education and prevention is in the Department of Chinandega. I am almost positive that this is the field I want to be working in so I am happy I get a chance to visit it to get a sense of what it is like. Also, since it has the second highest HIV/AIDS rate it has a lot of NGOs working there with education and with group of people living with HIV. Many of the health volunteers placed in the Department of Chinandega work with these NGOs on education projects and with training nurses and doctors on appropriate care for HIV+ patients. This work sounds super interesting to me so I´m excited to see exactly what a volunteer does there in a typical day.

So the volunteer that I am visiting lives in the capitol city which is pretty rare for a health volunteer. This means that she works more with the administrative/policy part of health care (but obviously, her main focus is education). I still don't know exactly what she does, but she has been involved in some really great projects. One thing she has been involved with is initiating and carrying out a counseling program for people that are going to get an HIV test and for people that have been recently diagnosed. It will be great to learn more about the stuff she has been working on and how she got involved with it.

Overall, this is pretty much the site I wanted to go to most, so I am super happy about it. The only negative thing about it is that I don't get to visit a volunteer that is living in a more rural area and see that perspective. I wish we could visit two volunteers! I´m still torn on whether I want my site to be more rural or a bigger city. I think that both have their advantages and I hope to have a better idea of this after I get back from my volunteer visit.

I´ll leave this Sunday and then come back to Santa Teresa on Wednesday, valentines day. Some of the kids in our youth group invited us to be a part of their "Amigo Secreto" game. This basically entails us picking from a hat somebodies name in the group, and then you are their secret friend, and you buy them a gift and everyone exchanges them on valentines day. Here valentines day isn't quite as romantic in the US. Its called "dia de los novios" and also "dia de amistad" which both mean, day of boyfriend/g-friend, or day or friendship, so it works both ways. I plan on getting a gift for my person on my little trip to Chinandega.

Anyways, Happy Valentines Day to everyone else! I´ll be sure to update when I get back from the trip...