Countdown!

We have 2 weeks to go until we depart for Nicaragua.  We have changed our program city from Managua to Granada.  I've been busy, busy, busy getting everything prepared for my students and making sure their families are well-informed and comforatble with each and every detail. 

It's so amazing that this year I will be taking a group of 11 students!  There were many neigh-sayer who didnt believe I could get another group of inner-city young men out of the country again.  But, thanks totheir awesome parents we were able to make this happen.  Last year I took 5 students and this year that number has more than doubled. 

Here a list of our scheduled trip highlights (April 4-16):

• Spanish class in the mornings
• Volunteering  with children in the afternoons
• Tours to:

1.  American Nicaraguan School (where we will meet our penpals)
2.  US Embassy briefing, Las Huellas de Acahualinca
3.  San Juan de Oriente & Cataria, Granada city tour
4.  Las Islaets boat tour of Islands on Cocibolca Lake
5.  Mercado Masaya & Verbenas
6.  Volcano Masaya Night Tour
7.   Volcano boarding at Cerro Negro
7.  Poneloya Beach.

All of this cost $1030.90 per student! Including airfare!! 

We are all so excited.  My students are excited and nervous, ready and cautious.  A few have never been on a plane before.  Some have never gone to the beach before.  None have ever been to a volcano.  This will be a positive life-changing event for them all. 

It never escapes me... not even for a moment... how luck I am to be able to share my gift with these young men. 

I. AM. GRATEFUL.

-Echo