A visit from family!

After a wonderful week’s stay in Nicaragua, my family departed last night back to Los Angeles. I thoroughly enjoyed the quality time I was able to spend with my family and was happy that I could show them around the area. I had not seen my sister or father for seven months, which was longest period I have spent away from them in my life. During that time, my sister actually outgrew me!

While my family was here, I enjoyed a brief vacation away from my host family, staying with them in peaceful eco-lodge in Catarina, Masaya that overlooked the Laguna de Apoyo. My family spoiled me with the opportunity to enjoy hot showers, a brief reprieve from mosquito attacks, and the ability to avoid walking the dusty streets by cruising in an air-conditioned, new rental car. Seeing the area from a tourists’ lens was honestly quite strange after six weeks immersed under much different conditions and watching my family’s reactions to what they saw around them gave me some new perspective into my experiences over the past six weeks.

While they were here, I introduced them to my host family. They brought a whole duffel bag of assorted gifts for them, and in return my family treated them to a Nicaraguan-flavored “chow mein” dinner. Unfortunately my family knows little Spanish, so conversation was limited; however, my father, extroverted and unabashed as always, pulled out his Google translator app on his Nexus phone and was somehow able to engage them in conversation the whole time (with a bit of my translating help). My family was overall impressed with how much my Spanish language abilities had improved and admitted to me that they had thought that my pre-trip Spanish accent was no bueno.

I also had the opportunity to show my family what I have been up to over the past seven weeks. They accompanied me to my Monday health workshop for the pregnant teenagers at the Roberto Clemente health post. I was lucky to have my mom there to help me prepare because the theme was “Caring for your Infant: Breastfeeding, Bathing, and More”, and I did not have much prior first-hand experience with this.

Afterwards, I got to show them around Malecón Park, downtown Masaya, and the main healthcare clinic.

They also helped out with my Thursday Chicas Poderosas meeting with the secondary school girls. The day’s theme was birth control methods, and I was forever grateful my parents were there because the girls were infinitely much better behaved. The girls were naturally embarrassed at the topics I covered, so my sister led the girls in an arts and crafts project afterwards. They embellished hair ties with bows and flowers.