After lunch a local brother Tonio picked us up . .I went to the toilet whilst we were waiting and Darren nearly had us going in a cab with 2 random guys, fortunately Tonio then walked in carrying a watchtower! It took nearly 2 hours from Managua to San Isidro and we realised just how little Spanish we knew! This was our house when we arrived . .the sister who stays in it is working a lot the next month and so wasn't there when we arrived. It was what we expected in our heads but the reality was a little difficult! After making the bed and rebuilding the wardrobe which had collapsed it felt a bit more homely. The first night was difficult as we felt a bit lost, didn't speak Spanish, the house was really dark and the noises were so strange plus seeing a cockroach in the bathroom was not reassuring!:-/
The next day the group was in our house! 8:15am! The brothers and sisters slowly arrived and seemed disappointed we didn't speak Spanish because as they kept telling us Matthew spoke Spanish! Fortunately for us there is a Swiss sister(Tabitha) who moved in last week and speaks English fluently!yay! She is married to Mexican Joshua who is an elder and speaks a little English. At the group I was put with Tabitha and then a brother called Immanuel said he wanted to work with Darren . .turns out he lived in Miami for 2 years and his English is pretty good!
The next day(Saturday) ministry was in La Trinidad a little village about ten minutes from San Isidro. We crammed 5 in to each taxi as even the local brothers said the buses were too full and the more people in a taxi the cheaper the price(12 Cordoba each about 30p) I worked with Lucie and it really tested my Spanish! I had a little presentation and then she would jump in and save me when I had no more to say! The ministry is brilliant here! Everyone listens, most people have you in . .the local brothers are just not very good at following up interest and conducting regular bible studies so the c.o in his visit last week had stressed to them all to work on this.
Sunday was our first meeting! The brother doing the public talk was late so we had the watchtower first! The brothers and Sisters all speak so fast but we followed roughly along. The brothers and sisters are good because they are really pushing us to learn Spanish quickly!
Cramming the bus full!
Monday there is no field service group and as Tabitha and Joshua are new here as well, Tonio took us for a trip to Estelli shopping. Its about 45mins on bus . .and it has a proper supermarket!! It wasn't quite how I would expect a city to look but it was amazing to see what you can get here. There are loads of clothes and shoe shops which sell second hand stuff of good quality and at good prices!(Heather would love it!) and you can get a washing machine! We all bought a big shop as meat and a few other bits are hard to get in San Isidro. Tonio has been a life-saver .. he lives just 2 doors along and showed us where everything is and insisted walking with us the first couple of days. In San Isidro he said(Tabitha translated or we would of never known!) there was a man who wanted to rob you following us but i killed him with my eyes. . thanks Tonio! In general we feel pretty safe around here . .we struggle to get into our house with all the locks! And during the day there are so many people about that we feel safe enough.
Anyway that's us for now! Time for family study in Espagnol! :)
