First impressions in Chone

Wow, this place is loco. Completely different from the Sierra region, a ton more going on.

• My counterpart is awesome – extremely friendly and already has a million great ideas. He’s also got a couple of really cool compadres who are my age who i’ll be working with a well. I’ve been very skeptical of PC training but they really hooked me up with this site. The people here want help making blogs for tourism and also I’ll be doing outdoor education with youth here, among other things. This is right up my alley, I couldn’t have asked for better.
• My host family is an older couple that is extremely warm and have a ridiculous house. I have my own big room with a bathroom, queen size bed, tv, and AC! My PC friends are going to want to kick me in the nuts when they hear this. It’s unheard of.
• I just went camping at this touristic farm with an awesome dude named Nixon Dixon. You can’t make this stuff up. I swam in waterfalls and and slept in a bamboo cabin. This is the place that will be used for outdoor education with you here, which is awesome.
• The Spanish accent here is insane with some people. I’d compare it Jamaican English or something. There are entire sentences that people say where I can’t pick out a single word. This will be a challenge, but on the other hand my ears will get really good.
• We just had insane rain last night. All of the fields are flooded and I was worried that my bamboo hut would get hit with lightning. The city streets are under a foot of water and I had to buy flip-flops to get to my counterpart’s office. This doesn’t seem that out of the ordinary.
• As far as I can tell I’m a bit farther from other volunteers, but in the next group of health volunteers that comes in June, 2 will be in Chone, which will be great company.