First Post!

Okay, we we arrived safely, but promptly found out that there is no electricity in the village in which the orphanage is located. There was either a really big storm that blew out a transformer or the locals didn't pay their bills ... we've gotten both stories ... but apparently the power should be back sometime early this week!

Day 1: Saturday, August 14

We landed at noon on Saturday and were met with a "Nicaragua always wins" situation right off the bat. The Alamo rental service that I reserved a car from did not have any cars for us to rent when we arrived. They helped us find one at another company that had an economy car that we wanted, but none of us were 25, and apparently the "25 to rent a car" law applies to Nicaragua as well. Luckily, Carlos, one of the teachers at the orphanage volunteered to sign off, and away we went!

Maria Jose, Carlos and Alejandra took us to a nice place for lunch where we had some authentic chalupas and fajitas. Maria Jose then surprised us with the suggestion of going to the beach. Since my card is the one we put down for the rental car, I had the honor of taking the wheel of our awesome Toyota Yaris manual drive car. After about an hour and a half of rolling through the city and into the country toward the coast with the windows down and raggaetone blasting, we arrived on the Pacific coast aruond 5 pm. We had just enough time to get in the water and enjoy the (very large and very rough) Pacific water before watching the sunset. Remember, Nicaragua is central time, but doesn't have daylight savings, so it gets dark around 6:30. Afterwards we drove back to the orphanage and got in around 9:30 in time to go to bed. It was an awesome way to start the trip!

Day 2: Sunday, August 15:

We woke up at 7 am, which was actually sleeping in since we are staying in the big room with 13 of the older boys. They wake up at 6 am on the weekends and 5 am on school days. Needless to say, our sleeping patterns are going to be shaken up a bit. Luckily, because Nicaragua is currently 2 hours behind east coast time (6 am here is 8 am east coast), we should have a nice little routine in place when we get back to the east coast.

We went to church (which lasted 2 hours) until about noon. After church we played some sports with the older boys. The 3 gringo boys + one awesome 8 year old NIcaraguan kid beat the older Nicaraguan boys 5-4. Afterwards, Ryan and I (Alex) took some of the older boys with us on a run. The first half was all up hill and it was pretty brutal, and by the end only one boy, a 9 year old named Carlos, remained. Needless to say, he is ready to join us tonight on round 2 of our running adventures. It is pretty cool running through a tropical jungle with a thunder rumbling in the distance. After the run, another car came and Ryan, Luca, Anna, another girl from the states named Allison (who is staying here for 3 weeks) took some of the smallest kids (6 kids, 1 girl (haley) and 5 boys) under the age of 5 to Pizza Hut for dinner and then went to see Karate Kid! By the way, great movie! It was in English with spanish subtitles. Oh, and the tickets cost $3.50, and this is probably the best movie theater in the cuontry and rivals Tysons Corner or any of your top movie theaters in the US. We might have to make a trip back! On the way out of the movies we randomley ran into Antonio and KJ who were having a late dinner at a restaurant nearby. It was completely random and great to see them. Keep in mind, Nicaragua is small, but it's still country of 13+ million, so randomley seeing them was incredible. KJ is returning to the states tomorrow after 5 weeks as an intern working with groups coming with Orphan Network before heading back to JMU in a week, while Tony will be joining us tonight (Monday night) when he finishes his translations.

So far this trip has been amazing. We've only been here for 2 days and already know every kids name at the orphanage, and because there are just 4 of us (opposed to the 40 that we usually come with on the spring break trip), all the kids know us now and we've had so much more one-on-one time. After we leave the coffee shop we will be going back to the orphanage, going for another run, and proceeding to go out to Granada for a night of celebration. Granada is one of the oldest cities in Central America and about an hours drive south from Managua. We will be going with Tony, Maria Jose and possibly Alejandra and enjoying the city's ongoing independence celebration!

Personally, I must say that driving stick shift through the streets and countryside of Nicaragua has been one of the coolest experiences I've had in a long time. Hopefully we will have more posts coming tomorrow, but we thought we would give a quick summary while we had a chance! For everyone from the past spring break trip, all the kids keep asking how you guys are. They all say hello!

More to come soon! As I'm typing this, a very awesome looking tropical thunderstorm is rolling in. Once the rain subseeds we will head back to the orphanage (a 10 minute drive). Until the next time, we will continue to be safe!