Peace Corps Trainee Chris

Hey! I'm in Nicaragua! Safe and alive, although not without some drama. Today was a serious day. For starters it started at 1am, That's when I woke up (went to bed at 11). Then I had to check out of the hotel by 1:30. They had a bus pick us up from the hotel that took us to the airport. We had to squeeze luggage for 38 people on board (almost everyone had 2 suitcases totally up to 80lbs) and it almost didn't fit. We made it there at 2:50, however, the airport desk doesn't open until 4am! so we were just sitting there waiting. Luckily a woman there started checking us in early and giving us our boarding pass. Our flight boarded at 5:45 and we arrived in Miami International at 8:50, exactly 24 hours after I had flown out from there! We get there to find out that our 11:15am flight has been delayed to 1:15, which was delayed to 1:45, which boarded at 2:10ish. We finally made it to Nicaragua, the flight felt super short, got there at 2:55 local time (4:55 your time). We go to baggage claim where we don't see any of our baggage (we all tied orange yarn to it). Then someone in our group informs us that half our luggage is in Haiti and that a woman from a Peace Corp has a list of whose luggage that includes. My name was on the list! So those of us on that list get a huge bottle of water and pack into a van and we drive from the airport in Managua to the retreat center. All of us in the van are in this weird dream state. I can't believe I'm here in Nicaragua, its just surreal. We make it to the retreat center (where we find out no one had baggage, even if you weren't on the list) and check out our rooms, I walk into this room I'm sharing with another volunteer and see four beds, a fan, a roll of tee pee (we had to take that to and from the community bathroom), and two bars of soap. I set down my backpack (which thankfully had my toothbrush, deodorant, and a towel) and we got to the dining area where we have dinner. I had rice, veggies in a sauce, pasta, salad, french fries and red fanta. After that we had a welcome session where they introduced the Peace Corps Staff and hand out forms. So here I am, in Nicaragua, part of Nica 51 (the 51st group of peace corps volunteers in Nicaragua since their return). I'm safe, alive, excited, and even having some fun.