I got back fom my site visit yesterday! It was really great. The town is really beautiful, in a valley and surrounded by mountains. I went on a hike one day with my site mate, Owen, to a big stone cross above the city. It was a nice, pretty quick hike and gave a great view of the town. Apparently there are lots of outdoor attractions and pretty lagunas, rivers and stuff like that nearby. The pictures below are me and Owen at the cross with Yali below--I have pictures of the actula cross, but I'll put them on later.

The town is about 7000 people in the city center, I think, and there are lots of surrounding (very poor) communities. It has a cyber (!) and a pool and my host family has a hot water shower head!!! Noone here has hot water heaters, not even the hotels. To get hot water, you either heat it on the stove or you have an electric shower head, that heats the water as it comes through. It is so nice, esoecially in the mountains, where the water comes pretty cold. I'm definitely gonna be spoiled while I'm living in this house. It's just a man and woman- they have kids but one is married and the the other two study in Leon and arent home very often-so it's pretty laid back and I'm pretty sure I'll have my own bathroom when I go to stay, like in Teresa, and that is very rare. I only have to stay with them for 6 weeks, but it seems like I want to stay there longer, as long as I get to cook some of my own meals.

One of the days I went to one of the surrounding communities and watched while one of the nurses did like a census kind of thing. They go house to house (on foot, hiking-it was hard work) asking how many people live in the house, they record the state of the house, what it's made of, how many rooms there are, what they do with their trash, what health problems they have. It was really interesting and eye opening b/c these people are poor. We went to about 15 houses and every single one them had dirt floors, the majority had 1 bedroom with on average 5 inhabitants, about half had no toilet or latrine at all, and almost everyone complains of respiratory problems and headache because they all cook on their wooden stove inside the house which lets out tons of smoke and no one drinks water. Below is one of the ladies we talked to--when she was asked how much schooling she had had, her answer was "I don't know anything" and as we were leaving she showed us her ID card and asked us if we could please tell her how old she is. (69)

Anyway, I'm very excited about my site and ready to get started!! 3 more weeks!Tomorrow we are going to the beach to hang out and then next week is our last reall week of training where we have work to do, and then it's getting ready to swear in!

In case I don't get back to the cyber in time-- Happy Birthday Everett!! Love you!

♥Danielle