Miami orientation

The adventure has started! After leaving Houston about two weeks ago, having a wonderful road trip home to Michigan with stops in New Orleans and St. Louis, I arrived in Miami on Wednesday to begin orientation. Manna Project started having an orientation prior to leaving the country three years ago,and I'm really goad we've had these few days to learn about Manna and development, meet each other, and get ready to head abroad.

For those of you who don't know much about Manna, here are the basics: Manna was founded in 2004 by a few Vanderbilt alums who wanted to do service abroad with a focus on forming relationships. They went to Nicaragua, and then expanded to Ecuador in 2007. Just last year, a new site was started in Guatemala. Each site works a bit differently, since the communities are different, but the pillars that we work from are the same: holistic development, community focus, and volunteer development. Our focus on holistic development means that Manna doesn't just focus on one area such as English classes, health, or microfinance. Instead, we focus on forming relationships and determining what the community members are interested in and need. Because of this, the programs we have in Nicaragua range from English classes to a child sponsorship program to women's exercise classes to a feeding program, and much more. I worked with Manna in Ecuador in 2009 for a month, and was incredibly impressed with the organization and how integrated they are in the communities. Obviously, I was excited enough to want to spend a year with Manna! I'm really looking forward to becoming a bigger part of Manna's mission and vision throughout this year, and to get the chance to know the communities we will be working with.

At orientation these past few days, we've spent time discussing Manna's history and mission, the role we will play in the organization, what is expected from us in next month, cultural differences, and the basics of development theory. It has been very beneficial - in particular, I have enjoyed learning about different development theories since this is something I've never studied before. I'm looking forward to having time to do some reading on the topic and learn about some of the different theories and models used. It will be particularly interesting to see how these look in action throughout the next year.

In addition, it has been really really wonderful to get to know the other program directors and the Manna staff. It has been fun to have a chance to meet the PDs who will be in Ecuador and Guatemala before we all head off to different countries. It is a really diverse and interesting group of people, and I hope we're able to keep in touch during the year despite being in different countries.

I fly to Nica tomorrow morning, and then have a low-key day at the Manna house - I'm excited to meet the current PDs and learn about their year, which is wrapping up. On Sunday, we head into Managua and meet up with our host families, where we'll be staying for the next two weeks. We'll be taking language courses in the mornings and then exploring Managua in the afternoons for the first week. The second week, we will still have classes in the morning, but will spent the afternoons getting acquainted with Manna's communities and programs. I'm very excited (and a little nervous!) for the home stay, and I know that using only Spanish during classes and with my host family will be great for my Spanish ability. I won't have much access to internet in those two weeks, so don't expect an update until after language school is done and I've moved into the Manna house. I'm sure I'll have quite a bit to report at that point though!

I hope you all have a wonderful few weeks, and thanks for all your support! Looking forward to having a chance to be in touch more in a few weeks!