Elections and elation

There are no words to describe the anticipation that built up over the course of yesterday afternoon and evening or the excited energy that exploded when the words ¨Breaking News: Obama Elected President¨ flashed onto the TV screen.

We are living in our Managua house now and have been for the last week. It is interesting -- growing up in the Community of St. Martin, I remember hearing every once in a while a homily preached that included stories of when Jack and Sara NP lived in Nicaragua. I had no idea at the time what they did there (or where it was, really). Turns out the room I stayed in my first night in Managua used to be their home. Fancy that. I´m a huge dork about historical connections to people I know in the present, so needless to say I am enjoying not only the house but the link to home.

The last three days have been a whirlwind. We are in a new country, which comes with the necessary tours around town to get a sense for historial places and to put visuals to some of the locations which we will be talking about over our time here. We also have started two new classes, a history/women´s studies course and a political science course. Both are very interesting, although right now I tend to favor the history.

Tomorrow we move in with our host families for a four-week stay. All of the families live in the same neighborhood and all have some connection to a community cultural center. When we were talking about who is going where this afternoon, Joe gave a little description of each family and they all sound AMAZING. I am immensely excited for this homestay.

Alright. This was brief and scattered, but it´s an update. I hope all is well wherever this finds you. For those of us from the US, may we sleep (and walk through the day) with our heads just a bit higher. Not because things will be perfect or because injustice has been ¨fixed,¨ but because we have one more reason to hold hope.