After almost a month without updates I thought it might be time again to write something. You would say that I should be very busy because I didn’t wrote for all this time but now I’m trying to think about what I’ve done in the last month it’s actually not that much special besides the last week when I had a week of vacation.

My weeks have been pretty much all the same. By now I’ve got used to my work here on the projects. In the mornings I’m still working with the little children who are sooo cute. It’s bad to say but of course I have a few favorites (mostly the very little boys with huge black eyes). I’m becoming a champion in changing diapers and washing kids after peeing in their pants. For one reason or another they always come to me when they do that or they just pull down their pants and start peeing on the playground.. I’m starting to get used to it by now.

The afternoons with the girls are also very nice. They are starting to open up a bit more to me. The Canadian people who gave the English classes have left and in two weeks I’m gonna start teaching on my own.

Coming week is Semana Santa/Holy week here in Latin America. This is basically a week with a lot of religious festivities and a lot of people are free from work and schools are also closed. The girls who I work with have a special program the whole week and I asked the chief nun if it would be possible for me to join their program. That was possible so I’m very curious about how this week will be!

Because I’m going to work during Semana Santa I was able to take last week off. I used it pretty well with 3 nice trips. First we’ve went for a night to Laguna de Apoyo (a crater lake close to Granada). This was a very beautiful and quiet place. We had a nice hostel right on the beach with free use of kayaks. After that we went to Vulcano Masaya. This is a volcano in between Granada and Managua which is very active. When we came at the crater of the volcano we saw how much smoke is constantly coming out of the volcano. Everyone started coughing right away. The gases coming out of the volcano are clearly not healthy at all. It was very beautiful and weird up there. It is really how you imagine a volcano to be. We were their around sunset which was also amazing from up there. When it was dark we went to the bat caves. These are caves with (of course) a lot of bats. We all got flashlights because we went quite deep into the caves and it was very very dark! We had constantly bats flying around our hats which was pretty cool! Unfortunately we didn’t saw any lava because the place where you normally can see it was closed for safety reasons. Hopefully I’m gonna see that somewhere else.

Then the really cool part of my week of vacation started. I went with Carlotta to the Corn Islands. These are two small islands (big and little corn) at the Caribbean coast which look like paradise. I’ve seen a lot of pictures of the islands but in reality it was exactly as you see on postcards etc. It really was paradise. We took a small plane from Managua to Big Corn (public transport through land takes about 2/3 days) and then a boat from Big Corn to Little Corn. The first night we slept in a hostel high on a hill with a great view on the coast. The day afterwards we found a place with little cabins literally 50 meters from the ocean. These cabins were even cheaper than our hostel on the hill so we decided to change. On the island we mostly relaxed and walked around. The island is about 2,5 km² so you can easily walk all around it. There are no cars, no roads and during day mostly no electricity. Very basic but also really cool! There were just come walking paths through the “jungle” and of course the beach where you can walk on. We also went snorkeling one day. There were a lot of beautiful fishes, coral and we even saw a nurse shark. Further we didn’t do that much besides relaxing and eating delicious daily fresh fish. Last two days we spend on big corn. As the name already says this island is a bit bigger (10km²) and here they have a road and some cars. After Carlotta left I had 2 days alone so I’ve rented a bike to explore the island. Even though it’s not that popular for tourists also this island was very beautiful with a lot of amazing beaches.

Now back again in Granada and up for a new week of work. You all have to miss me a bit longer by the way. I’ve decided to change my flight so I can travel a bit more after I’m done with working. Jesper is gonna meet me in Panama where we will spend about 2 weeks together and after that Sam will come and we will travel together to Colombia. So I’ll see you at the 30th of June coming from Bogotá!

Happy Easter

xxxxx