No News is Good News

We've been slacking some in the posting department, but we've just been very busy getting settled in to Masaya and trying to figure out our routines. Paul works only in the afternoons at a small school that's a little bit on the outskirts of town, and I work both in the mornings and afternoons (I just have a lot of long breaks in between my classes) at a bigger school near the middle of town.

We've also started looking for a house to live in after our six weeks of living with one of my counterparts is complete (I work with three of my school's seven English teachers; Paul works with his school's only English teacher). We've found a couple of houses for rent, but so far they've been out of our price range... it's also difficult to find a house here because there is no newspaper or anything with listings; we just walk up and down the streets looking for¨"SE ALQUILA" (for rent) signs in windows, or asking people sitting in front of their houses if they know of any houses for rent nearby.

Our final adjustment we've had to make is that Masaya is noticably hotter than our training towns... Masaya is still cooler than other parts of Nicaragua like Managua or Chinandega, but Carazo (where we were before) is the coolest part of Nicaragua, so we were initially very spoiled. Now we make sure not to go anywhere or do anything without a bandana nearby to act as a sweat rag and a Nalgene bottle full of water.

We've both started co-teaching classes with our counterparts, and are going to begin getting started on community English classes soon. Until then, you can find us-- sweat rags in hand--walking up and down each and every street in Masaya looking for the place that we'll (finally) be able to call our home for the next two years.