¡Matagalpa!: Only one week left!

More gorgeous scenery on route

Coming down to the end, we’re even busier than usual here at Staff House, although this whole process is getting even more exciting and fulfilling than usual as well…so even though I’d love to talk more about how proud I am of how each of my vols has grown, how frustrated I’ve gotten at gender relations here, how much I’m looking forward to dancing and stuffing my face with tamales during my last visits to communities and how much I’m not looking forward to saying good-bye to four communities in two days…but I feel as though I’ve only got time for a burst of photos, a quick update, and a list of things I’m going to miss.

The amazing mural my girls are painting. We're pretty excited.

A little recuerdo from the girls on my shirt

I just saw my volunteers in community for the last time. Projects are wrapping up, educational summer camps with kids are turning into giant good-bye parties, volunteers are getting reflective and sad to leave and anxious to go home and—you might never have thought it would happen for some of them but gosh darn it, it’s true—downright grateful to their dear Project Supervisor. I’m so incredibly proud to see how far they’ve come…and to be allowed to claim however much credit for it as I want because I’m their P-Sup and there are no witnesses to tell you otherwise :P

Their teary-eyed good-bye comes tomorrow, and mine is a few days later. Some of the things I’ll be missing:

This one incredibly warm family whose house I can never manage to walk by without eating a meal, who brag about the 145 grandchildren and 60 great-grandchildren of their still-living abuela. I’m not sure how much I believe them on that one
Being asked to explain how it’s possible that the Chinese-American volunteer in one of my communities 1) lives in the United States and not in China and 2) no, does not know Jackie Chan personally
Spontaneous dance parties at Staff House
The gap-toothed grin of this one guy super-ripped guy who I have seen in literally every one of my four communities who I have also literally never seen not smiling
Buñuelos. Like funnel cake: fried donut-hole-sized balls of dough but really fried not just donut-fried, soaked in syrup. Also tamales, fried plantains, and mango

Beautiful fresh corn, all you need to make tamales

Spanish. And people understanding me when I speak in non-stop Spanglish
Watching the rain move in from miles away across bright green rolling hills until the downpours finally swoops in, cooling everything off as giant rain droplets pound down on tin roofs like little mallets on steel drums
The incredibly friendly and helpful bus driver…who also can’t stop proposing to my vols and asking me to give him one in exchange for his fiancé
“Que le vaya bien,” “Adios,” “Va pue’ ”
This one dog on the way from Q to C that always, always, always barks like mad and chases after me. Always, that is, unless it’s after 2 p.m. in which case the sun makes him lazy and he just slowly lifts his head to look at me before deciding not to bother
The feeling of satisfaction after surviving that dog and crossing the river and finishing my 2 ½-hour walk to C alive…and that feeling of changing into a fresh shirt afterwards
And the one thing I will not miss: rron-rrones. These are big loud harmless-but-annoying beetles that come out at night. They sound like flies with loudspeakers lodged in their mouths, buzzing around for only about three seconds at a time before they inevitably run straight into a wall and crash to the ground, usually landing on your head on the cot. Then they squirm on their backs, unable to turn over or get up, for about five minutes before the cats finally eat them. Then fifty of their closest friends come to keep you up all night. Rron-rrones are spawned from the deepest pits of Hell, to where they will soon return as soon as they stupidly die because of their own damn fault

Hiding from the rron-rrones on this cool folding cot that one host family has

In some ways, the summer already seems to be over: I saw my vols in community for the last time, I finished my evaluations of them and read their evaluations of me, and I feel so proud with how they’ve grown and how I’ve done…most of what really matters about this summer has ended, and most of it has gone really well.

Now I’m looking forward to this exciting set of back-to-back-to-back good-byes. First we celebrate in Granda with the vols before sending them back home. Then I return to communities one last time for more celebration and more good-byes. And then I have two days with my Project Staff to wrap up everything and relax before we all head home too.