Volcan de Masaya

Yesterday we had a Peace Corps meeting on diversity at the volcano! Which being me and the fact that I spent four years in college studying this particular subject with sociology, I LOVED it. They discussed many great topics such as gender, religion, ethnicity, sexuality etc. and related them to things we may encounter here in our service. We did great activities to show the diversity in our own group, such as people who may have been adopted or raised by people other than parents, people who may question their own sexuality, people who's first language was not english, people who maybe at one time or another were homeless, people who were or know people who were abused or who are HIV positive etc. People generally have this broad view of diversity as something that relates to "race" or ethnicity but its not. It has to do with MANY different topics, which is why I enjoy learning and discussing it so much. It was interesting to see my group answer questions and put themselves out there answering things that we may never have known and may never have thought. Many people have a smile on all the time and you never really know what they have been through or what they may be dealing with at the moment. It was interesting to see and we all learned a bit from each other.
After our conversation we were free to explore the volcano a bit. It was interesting as this was the first volcano I have ever seen in person. Although i consider myself an expert with as many times as i have seen Dante's Peak (hahaha). Here is what i learned:  It is a currently active volcano (one of the only active ones around if i understood correctly), it last erupted in the 70's but they expect it to erupt again soon. At one point looking over you could see the lava in the volcano but due to many scientific reasons you cannot see it anymore. You are only "allowed" to stay up at the top of the volcano for no more than 20 mins because of the amount of sulfur. We also learned how dangerous lava rocks are. One of the guys in our group was climbing some of the rocks and somehow fell. He sliced open his arm/wrist and was brought to the hospital. Last i heard he needed about 18 stitches and had to have a little surgery to reattach muscle tissue and other essential parts. DO NOT PLAY ON LAVA ROCKS KIDS!
Anywho, here are some pictures of the volcano!

Bienvenidos!

The side of the volcano

Here is the active crater

the side with the lookout you can climb up to

Another volcano off in the distance

As some of you know i will not be here next week. I am heading to the town of Corinto, Chinandega for my practicum week. We will be attending meetings with current volunteers about teaching HIV/AIDS in formal and non formal settings, working with men, working with sex workers, youth promoters as well as meetings on Organizing fairs and HIV/AIDS day. We will be giving charlas (small speeches) in a school as well as 2 charlas in the health centers and one large group charla with men on HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention. I am looking forward to this trip as it is something different than our monotonous days of spanish classes and meetings. I am also going to be in a town that is right on the beach! Not that i will be able to spend much time there, but its nice to feel a little closer to home lol. I will be leaving bright and early tomorrow morning and will return later friday night, just in time for my dinner date with my family on Saturday. My host family wants to take me to the capital for the day on saturday and go get dinner and a great cuban restaurant!! I can't wait. This is there way of making me feel closer to yoise I guess. Either way, I am looking forward to it.