Blog post #4

Since there is still no water at the orphanage, it has become a daily routine to come to Cafe Latino (a couple minute drive) to get coffee, breakfast and use the bathroom. The cafe has free wifi, so it allows us to update the blog a little more often!

We posted pictures last night of the big rainstorm that hit El Canyon in the afternoon. Luckily, about 20 minutes after the rain stopped, the roads dried up and we were able to come to Cafe Latino to post the pictures and a video. After we left the cafe we headed into the city and grabbed Burger King combos for the 7 permanent orphanage employees. To them, a whopper combo is a treat, and, after eating a lot of rice and beans this week, it was nice for us as well. When we returned with the food, the 5 women workers joined us (and Allison, who is from Chatanooga and down here for 3 weeks living at the orphanage as well) for a very entertaining meal. The women have a great sense of humor and there was no language barrier since we understood most of it, and when we didn't Allison was there to translate (she's very fluent).

Today we got up earlier than normal, thanks to Jordan. Around 6:30 Jordan came over to our beds and thought it would be funny to wake us up by putting a scorpion on us. Little did we know, they had cut the tail off the scorpion, so even if a sting were dangerous (which it probably wouldn't have been), we were in the clear. Of course, we did not know this, and I jumped out of bed. After that, there was no going back to bed. We helped get the kids their food, walked them down to the school, and headed up here to the cafe for breakfast.

We are determined to finish painting the chinos (swingset) today. We were interrupted yesterday by the torrential rain. Tomorrow, very early, we are going to head to Ometepe and Granada for the weekend with Tony. Ometepe is about a 2 hour drive and 1.5 hour ferry ride away. It is an island in Lake Nicaragua and home to two volcanoes. We are going to go check the place out and stay at a hostel there Saturday night. Sunday we will head back and stop off again in Granada and do some more site seeing there. We should be back at the orphanage by Sunday evening, allowing for one more full day of work, and a half day, before we must report back to the United States. I can't believe we've already been here for 6 days, with only 4 remaining! We are being sure to make the most of our time here, but we could certainly use a few more days, or even weeks! Maybe next summer!