I have arrived!

Yes after 30 hours of traveling I have arrived! Wow what a trip! I know I wrote a little already on it but to recap I woke up at 8 on Monday. We spent the day packing to leave. The groups that were flying all climbed into the bus said our tearful goodbyes to the left behinds and we were outa there! We got to the first airport at about 1 or so in the a.m. which happened to be my airport (Newark NJ). 2 groups were flying with united airlines, my Nicaragua group and the GTO Southeast Asia group. The check in unfortunately didn’t open till 3 am though so we camped out on the cement floors. The guys all slept and us girls watched a movie. Then a scary looking lady told us that we could check in now so we woke up the guys and got our tickets and stuff and went through security. We just happened to be the first ones through security so that was really sweet. Ok so at this point the tiredness is hitting so I’m there talking a mile a minute and be major goofy just to stay awake so there I was singing Amish paradise in the airport at 3:30. Got a funny picture yet? We then all headed over to the food court to hang out. We got our McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts coffees and we are all goofy and tired. :) We even made a video. It’s on my FB for anyone who wants to see it. Then things started to wind down and half the group went over to a random gate. I think it was Vancouver and they all claimed an aisle and lay down and slept While others of us charged our phones or journaled. 10am came way to soon and we had to say bye to our beloved GTO group. That was hard for me! We had a 3 hour flight to Houston in which I got at least an hour of sleep and then in Houston we had a 6 hour layover. But the awesome thing was that the El Salvador and Guatemala group had a lay over there too. So we got to hang out some with them. I got an hour of sleep there too. For our last meal on American soil we absentmindedly choice Chinese! Aka rice! Ah silly me. Oh well I loved the shrimp and orange chicken. Finally it hit 6:30 (7:30 your time) and we were outa there! Nicaragua bound! This flight had tv which was cool. It made the flight seem shorter anyway. We got down to Nicaragua at 9:30 (11:30 your time) yes we are 2 hours behind yall. Customs was packed! Took forever to get through them and then our bags and tags were all mixed up so we had to sort that out. Finally we got out of there and meet our people and the separation happened again. The Waslala people went one direction and Andrea and I hopped on with the Olive branch people. Let me tell you. If people wouldn’t have known better they probably would have thought we were drunk! The lack of sleep was speaking. I got to meet the people down there. I am in Maspiasillo Nicaragua and there are two single girls and two single guys and one family. I got to meet Krista and Lanita whom I am living with down here and Jason and then also Aaron with whom Brandon is staying with. We had a two hour or so ride from the Managua to our lil town and we had to meet up with the Leon people to drop Andrea off. It seemed like slowly I had to say bye to people. First the left behinds at SMBI and then the bus at the airport then my GTO team and the El Salvador and Guatemala group then the Waslala group and finally Andrea. Sigh bye y’all see ya in a month! We got here around 12:30 (2:30 your time) and finally after over 40 hours in which only 2 of those 40 hours I got any sleep I GOT TO SLEEP! Hallelujah!! I surprising only slept to 9 and then it was !bam! My first day. My alarm clock is either Krista’s parrot squawking or the rooster constantly crowing or the truck driving past with HUGE speakers blaring out the back. Let me tell you I woke up way nervous. Will there girls like me? Am I gonna be a bother to them? Will we all get along? I didn’t know what to think. So I got up unpacked and went to get a shower and yes they do not have any hot water but it’s not like freezing cold water it was refreshing lukecold :) They then showed me around the adorable little house. They have a pet cat and ducks and chickens and a parakeet and a parrot type thing. The house is a two bedroom house, one story and one bathroom and a living room which is connected to the kitchen. I am rooming with Krista since she has the bigger room. I got to walk around the little village. It’s really quant. It turns out that the people speak like almost no English so my Spanish skills are being tried. I’m not even sure how to describe the culture and everything down here. There are animals running around everywhere. Pigs, cats, dogs, chickens etc. I loved watching Krista and Lanita interacting with the people. Everyone was curios who I was and apparently I am really tall according to them. One thing I found out was that its really laid back right now at the least the mornings are. The neighbor kids come over about 1ish. They aren’t allowed to come over until school is out because school attendance is really low down here so they don’t want to encourage low school attendance. But I loved when the kids came! We all hung out on the back pouch talking with the kids and coloring and having fun and the weather was gorgeous. We went and cleaned the church around 3ish and around 5:30 we headed down to the church for the Wednesday night service. They started out with a few Spanish songs out of the hymnal and then Jason gave a devotional. I can grasp subjects but not everything. Then came the sermon. It was on spiritual gifts or at least that’s what Lanita said. Ok this was the really trying point for me. Its rainy season down here and with rainy season comes little black beetles that love light and they get stunned really easy. So they entire sermon we had little black beetles peppering us, landing in our hair, going down our clothes, hitting our necks, landing on our bibles. I had a little girl swiping them off me. I was like no I am not gonna let this bother me too bad. So I did my best to ignore them and swipe them off me from time to time. The floor afterwards looked like someone had taken a pepper shaker to it. Afterwards the singles went out and bought supper and went back to the girl’s house to eat it. It was fun. The group is a lil more on the quiet side. Two of the guys from Leon had come down for the service. And there ya go my traveling and first day experience.