Estas pegado con gripa?

So the energy thing is truly out of control here. Now we down to only 2 hours of working energy a day during the week but surprisingly Saturday and Sunday the energy stays on all day! What is that?!? So because of the energy shortage work is slowing during the day and generally is going on all night till like 2 am because I only have a week and a half before my report is due to the main office and I go to Managua to get some sight seeing done.

This week we ordered some ballet folklorico dresses from the “manualidades” teacher (that’s like a home ec class where they learn to sew, to cook, make piñatas, etc.) Evette. One of the teachers is going to show me a dance that I can teach the girls for WorldFest this year. They’ll enjoy that. Yesterday the preschool kids were doing a dance with a boy and a girl and at the end the boy went down on one knee and swept the girl back into a dip over his leg. It was so cute! But of course I didn’t have my camera with me because I was walking through the classrooms finding students to survey. Every time I need the thing, I end up leaving it behind. Boo unpreparedness!

Today I have to go make some copies of the survey because tomorrow I go to Cusmapa. This is my final trip to outside centers, but because the phone lines there are messed up we could barely hear each other as I was trying to make sure that they had everything ready for us. I hope everything goes according to plan because I don’t have the time to go back. Cusmapa is another trip up the mountain, this time for 2 solid hours! We’ll see how it goes. At least this time we are not staying overnight so hopefully I will not freeze or be attacked by spiders again!

The center started this week on creating a new building that will house all of the upper grades. It will be finished in January 2008 in time for the new school year here, hopefully allowing the center to provide educational services to more students. This center alone provides food and educational services to 380 students.

The weather here has turned cold at night, although the days are still relatively warm. This Thursday is a holiday here; it’s the celebration of the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution, a huge deal here, so I am not sure what is going to happen; parades, parties, music, etc. My fellow workers at the center have decided that we will take the day to go to El Gran Cañon de Somoto. Here’s hoping we make it in a taxi and that it will be hot so I can get a nice tan! I am still with the “gripa” but I am not going to let a little thing like bronchitis slow me down at this point. Also, I hurt my foot when I slipped in the bathroom and banged into the stair that leads into the shower, but what’s a sprained ankle in terms of everything else that I have been through?

The Flat Stanley race seems to be heating up, and I have other pictures to add in the mix but the internet is bogged down here because of outages so I will just let you imagine and temble in fear! See you soon friends, slightly more than two weeks left to go.