These Boots Are Made For Walkin'...

Greetings loves of my life. I hope all is well and that everyone had a good St. Patrick’s Day. I received my site assignment and I will be living in Posoltega, Chinandega for the next two years. This site was definitely one of my top choices and I was elated to receive the news of this site assignment. It is the only site of our group that is brand new – and part of my interest in this site was the opportunity to develop my own projects and introduce the Peace Corps to a new community. Everyone went immediately on a site visit with their colegas (counterparts) and I just returned from my visit to Posoltega and after a long week I have a LOT to tell you all.
Counterpart Day
Friday the 20th we had a ‘Dia de Colegas’ in Managua to meet our ‘counterparts’ that we will be working with for the next two years. As I looked through the crowd of people for the name tag(s) that said ‘Posoltega’, I eventually found the two women that would become my colleagues. It was a very exciting moment and we had about four group hugs to start our union. The rest of the day was filled with group work and explanations of Peace Corps, etc. My two counterparts were very funny and it seemed to be a great start to a professional relationship.
After a full day we all parted for the bus station with the other four volunteers that will be serving in the department of Chinandega. One of the colegas from the city of Chinandega was smitten and decided to practically lick my face and told me I had to visit Chinandega. Fab. Anyway, I have two volunteers from my group fairly close to me – one in the city of Chinandega and the other in Corinto. Craig and Evan. They are both about an hour or so away. Posoltega happens to be the closest site to Managua (where any of my fabulous visitors will be flying into!!!). It takes approximately 3.5 hours (others, such as; a few of my favorite people in the group in Rio San Juan, are 12-15 hours away) to get to from Managua. It is also close to the large cities of Leon and Chinandega (30 minutes each). Anyway, I arrived in Posoltega about 8:00pm on Friday evening.
While entering the town, it appeared pretty similar to my training town in the dim light that was available at the late hour. Roads were pretty horrible right around my house, but the taxi made it finally to the destination, a.k.a. my home for the first 6 weeks in my site (and also the home of my colega). My program director had already told me that the ‘psychologist’ that I would be living with was ‘very nice..but lived in a very humble home.’ With this sentence echoing in my mind, I entered the house. It was a generally nice living room area, with a television and a stereo. As we continued through the living room, we exited the house to the part with the rooms (it is actually separate from the house). Upon entering my room the host mom/colega told me that the only thing the room didn’t have was ….a floor. As I looked at my floor of dirt/mud I tried to keep a straight face. I vaguely remembered reading in the Peace Corps Handbook that we were not allowed to have a dirt floor – and for that reason among others, it was a little shocking. There were two twin size wooden beds in the room and… nothing else. I placed my things in the room and immediately returned to the living room area. We ate a modest dinner of platanos and rice at their table as the family asked me questions about my life in the States.
The family has a pair of twin girls, Guadalupe and Marisela and a fifteen year old boy, Jesus. The family was very welcoming and incredibly sweet. The two 9 year old girls and I ended up having a little dance party for my welcoming. I have discovered here that dancing really is without limits of language, culture, etc. Dance is a culture in its own and it is… universal. I love it. Just dance… my philosophy on life (no credit to Lady GaGa). After an intense dance sesh, I went to my room to grab my bottle of water. As I entered and turned on the light, I saw the largest rodent I have ever seen in my life. Literally. A rat or ‘raton’ was crawling right along the top part of the walls of my room. I somehow contained myself not to scream or make any dramatic responses to this finding. I simply grabbed my bottle of water and returned to my dance session. Not long after, I went to bed on the mattress thinner than a good sandwich. My parents called me quite late this night, and I have to say that it was the highlight of my day. Even if I was upset about rats and dirt floor – getting a drunk dial from my mother made everything okay. Due to this phone call and exhaustion I did not have that difficult of a time sleeping this night (for the record, I just saw a mouse in my room here in El Rosario – and simply let it out the door like a guest. Funny how perceptions change).
Hot in Herrr
So. I awoke around 7am, which apparently is considered late in this household. Everyone else was up at 6am. On a Saturday. Seriously? Anyway, I made it a productive morning and ended up cooking. I expressed that I needed to learn to cook since I will be living by myself for the majority of the two years. Guadalupe, the mother/colega, took me to the ‘meat shop’ to purchase ‘rez’ or cow. It was beyond disgusting and I saw parts of a cow that I never wanted to see in my life. Beyond that, the amount of flies and bugs surrounded all of this exposed meat, blood and bones was astonishing. Yummy. Anyway, I cooked sopa de rez (soup with cow meat) and it turned out pretty nice. I am confident in my ability to figure out cooking for myself when I move out. Everything just might be vegetarian.
My host family asked if I wanted to go to the pool and I was all for it because it is blazing hot there. After our hot, meat filled soup for breakfast we suited up for the ‘pool’. They told me we would be going by bike and I was all for it. Something about riding a bike really makes me feel like a kid again. That is, until you are walking awkwardly the next day because your backside hurts so badly. Why doesn’t that happen when you are a kid? Anyway, we went on this fabulous ‘path’ to the ‘pool’, during which I screamed a few times due to feeling like I was on X-games. We finally made it to the ‘pool’ a.k.a….a river. A cement foundation had been put in at the bottom of this river to contain the water and create a pool like atmosphere. As we were walking down these cement stairs to the river/pool, my flip-flop got stuck on one of the steps and I…fell. Got some pretty sweet scrapes on both of my feet and one of my shins and quickly learned that gnats/bugs like blood. Luckily, the river kind of helped that healing process along pretty quickly. Other than the fall, the river was great – not all that dirty, and very refreshing. There were approximately 10 boys there drinking and smoking, but I tried to ignore them and fascinated my family with my handstand abilities. After about three hours in the pool (straight.. I didn’t get out once), we headed back to the house. They asked me if I wanted to take the longer way back, to get to know a different path. After getting over the fact that, a) they called that a path and b) there was a longer path, I told them that I would prefer to take the shorter one back. Ha.
After showering in our fabulous outside shower (with warm water, ironically) I attempted to do some reading, but quickly found myself passed out in the face of this overwhelming heat. I took a little nap and then went to the Internet café that strangely exists in this town. It has about 6 computers and decent speed. I then returned to eat dinner, which consisted of…rice. I was actually craving frijoles/beans by the end of this trip. After dinner, my host mom decided to tell me her love-life story. I will save you the details, but basically – she admitted that she was bulimic, alcoholic and depressed about a year ago when one of her boyfriends left her. She is currently ‘better’ and seriously dating a…married man. It was at that moment I wished I knew less Spanish and could have pretended I didn’t understand what she was saying. She also went on to warm me about various neighbors in the community. Sweet dreams. I went to bed incredibly early almost every night in Posoltega because of sheer exhaustion. As I snuggled into my crispy thin mattress on my wooden bench-like bed frame, I saw some more ‘friends’. This time though…they were ratas or mice. Smaller, yet almost equally as upsetting because they were crawling up the wall right near my head. I slept on and off this night randomly using the flash light on my cell phone to search for mice in the middle of the night. I actually felt a little crazy.
Thank GOD it’s Sunday…literally.
So it quickly was apparent to me that this town is quite religious. Whenever anyone asks ‘how are you’ the response is, ‘I am good thank the lord.’ Furthermore, anything good that happens is given the same response. The majority of my town is Evangelical, which is more strict that Catholicism here. Gracias a Dios. I was already invited to church and will probably go just for the experience, but it will be interesting to see how this plays a role in my service.
My family invited me to go to a neighboring town to see ‘abuelita’ or their grandmother. We went by taxi, but then had to walk over 2 miles to get to her house because the roads are not passable by car. This town was equally as humble and impoverished, but much smaller. The family business of my host family is a candy they make from the sugar canes that grow on their farms. So for the next five hours I watched them make this candy. The process of making this candy was very similar to that of making fudge. If anyone has ever been to that fudge place in Baltimore where they make it right in front of you – it was a 3rd world country version of it. Meaning that they were using large wooden planks to pour the hot caramel-like substance on to and sticks to stir it while it was heating. Oh, and also – there were hundreds of flies all over the candy. Vom-it. It looked so good, but it was impossible to ignore the amount of bacteria that was more than likely on each piece. None the less it was a nice experience in terms of observing how it is made (it is literally the major/ sole source of economy for this community). We were there for far, far too long. I ended up taking a nap on a hammock mid-day (this is going to be a common theme for me).
We eventually left and started the two mile walk back to the main road. On the way there, my counterpart told me that a Peace Corps volunteer lived in this community. We found out where and I was able to stop and talk to her for a while. Her name is Paula and she is an environmental volunteer from the state of Virginia. She has a cute little house in one of the rural communities of Posoltega. Basically my town has about 3,500 people in the urban center and then another 22 communities surrounding it. In total in the municipality there are about 17,000 people. Paula has a sweet little garden in her yard and I am definitely looking forward to some mentoring in eventually starting my own garden. We also talked about possibly working together on potential projects, because she has a lot of interest in HIV/AIDS education/prevention as well. After my host mom/colega asked her to borrow her deodorant I thought it was time to leave. It was definitely nice to speak to someone in English, even if for a few minutes and I definitely look forward to getting to know her better and working together.
I cannot say for sure how I was feeling on Sunday. Lack of independence. ‘Stuck’. Slightly disappointed about my living conditions. Scared of rats. Exhausted from only speaking Spanish. Mal-nourished. Not working. Well the combination of factors started to pile up throughout the day and I started speaking less and less to my host family. As I got ready for bed around 9:00pm, I looked at my phone and realized I had a missed call from my parents. I called them back immediately and we got to speak for about 20 minutes or so. Within minutes of starting the conversation with them, I saw a mouse crawl up the wall near the head of my bed. I was so overwhelmed with feelings that I burst into tears, trying to explain to my parents how I felt. It was the first time in this experience the thought ran through my head ‘What the hell am I doing here??’ It’s not as though I had incredibly high expectations of Posoltega, I just had no idea what I was getting myself into. Our training towns, although very different from the United States, are catered to aiding us through the ‘transition period’ and it became more and more clear to me that our training towns do not represent what the reality of life is here in Nicaragua. After speaking to my parents, I cried myself to sleep…but still holding on the hope that tomorrow would be better when I started work.
Walk it out…
Monday morning I went to a comedor (basically this is someone’s house that serves as restaurant as well) for breakfast and had the best food I had gotten since I had been there. More than anything, it was just nice to be by myself for a few minutes, eat and read the newspaper. Something so simple, yet sacred. My host mom/counterpart and I arrive at the Health Center around 7:45am. (I will primarily be working with MINSA (the ministry of health) here in Nicaragua). My primary counterpart is the one that I am not going to be living with,Sozima, who is the Community Educator in the health center. There was an awkward moment when Guadalupe (host mom) wanted Sozima (primary counterpart) to introduce me to everyone, and she…wouldn’t. Ha. Guadalupe went on to tell me that Sozima is apparently very lazy. Fabulous. Still trying to stay positive. The Director of the health center ended up calling a ‘staff meeting’ to introduce me. About 25 nurses and doctors crowded into their auditorium (I must say, that their health center is gorgeous). Before starting, my host mother led everyone in a prayer (did I mention it was religious here?). Each person introduced themselves, and I pretended to write down some names (names are really difficult here). They then asked me if I wanted to say anything, somehow I whip something up and sounded pretty damn good. Just that I was excited to work with all of them and to serve Posoltega.
The morning went better than expected, and then Sozima asked me to come along to salida (to a rural community) to visit one of her patients. Nurses and Doctors piled into the MINSA truck and we began to set out to the more rural communities. These roads looked like scenes out of an Indiana Jones movie. It was incredible that these were the only paths reaching some of these communities. We went to various communities to drop off the medical staff at the health posts (smaller health centers in more rural communities). Eventually, we made it to the patient that my counterpart was going to check on. Apparently TB is a really big problem here and a lot of her work is working with these patients. My counterpart was incredibly confused at times, forgetting what Peace Corps was, and introducing me as a nurse to everyone we met. Licensing here is quite funny. If you have a degree in psychology, you are a psychologist. If you worked as tutor, you are a teacher. Needless to say, I am qualified for many things here – criminologist, nurse, lawyer, teacher. The most interesting side trip we took was to ‘Radio Emanuel’ the only local radio station in Posoltega. It is..religious, of course. But it was incredibly interesting; it is run by an American and his Nica-wife. This American Emanuel, was apparently in a plane accident and is now confined to a wheelchair. His wife was incredibly sweet, and her beauty reminded me of Frida Kahlo. I will definitely be returning to this house and it could potentially be part of a future project.
So I quickly learned that everyone works at the health center from 8-11:30ish. That’s it. I figured we would go home from lunch and … return. Nope. That’s it. I ate lunch at the comedor again and happened to be sitting next to a meeting going on about a ‘taller’ or workshop happening tomorrow. As I sat their eating my chicken and listening I heard random works of interest. Eventually I got into their conversation and they asked me what I would be doing here in Posoltega and for how long, etc. They explained to me they were part of a NGO called ‘Programma Amor’ which worked to improve the development of children and women’s rights. They invited me to the workshop the next day and even asked me for ideas for games or ‘dynamicas’ to use during the taller. It was very exciting – and I was looking forward to attending the workshop. After lunch, I went home and changed my clothes to walk around by myself and try to get to know the community. Also, Peace Corps has us fill out several forms (emergency form locater, etc.) and one of them included a map of our community. It was really nice to walk alone and say hi to everyone that walked by me. I attempted to make a map of the community and eventually ran into two people I had met at the pool on Saturday. A boy and his older sister, Kenya, who is the same age as me. They invited me into their home I spoke with their entire family. They gave me a beverage and some bread as they asked me questions about my job and the United States. We then walked around the community for another hour or so and they helped me correct some errors on my map. They were incredibly sweet. Kenya taught herself English and loves trying to speak it to me. My only request was that she can speak English to me, but I can only speak Spanish to her. She got a degree in ‘Computacion’ at a University in Leon, but has not been able to find a job. We made plans to cook the next day after the workshop/taller and I returned to my host house feeling worlds better than the night before. To top it off, I got the opportunity to watch the epic film of… Daddy Yankee. It was sad how much I enjoyed this movie, seriously. If this isn’t an example of the limited entertainment I have been exposed to here, I don’t know what is.
Integrating…
I went to the workshop at 8am by myself, because my counterpart said she wasn’t able to go. As soon as I got there, the three people I had met the day before came up to me and asked me to start the workshop off with a dynamica. As I stood there like a deer in headlights, I decided I did not feel comfortable in doing this. There were going to be approximately 75 women of Posoltega and surrounding communities in this workshop – I wanted to first observe before I dove into something far over my head. As the workshop was getting started, Jonathon, the guy in charge, came up to me to tell me that my counterpart/host-mom was on the phone for me. She told me to go to the health center because the director wanted me to go out to a very rural community to get to know it. I was incredibly pissed off, because I had already talked to my host-mom and she made it seem that it was fine that I was going to the workshop. I walked about a half mile to the health center only to see my other counterpart, who told me to go back to the workshop and that it was important that I get that experience. En serio? (this is my favorite Spanish saying which means..seriously). I walked back to the workshop and stayed for the remainder of the day.
Did I mention I thought a ‘taller’ was about three hours or a half day? It was 8 hours. The bulk of the day was about child development and an hour or less was on family planning methods. Whether the whole day was relevant or not to my future work – I think it was relevant to my integration into the community. I participated in the group work with the educators and volunteers. During the lunch hour, I walked back to the health center to talk to the director. Due to frustration, I felt it necessary to explain to her that I would not be in the health center every day (especially if there is no work), and that my job the first three months was to integrate into the community and get to know all parts of the community. She seemed to respond well and I followed it up by asking what role she saw me filling at the Health Center. She said that it was up to me, but that forming youth groups and pregnancy groups were a goal of hers as well. I felt better after speaking to the director about the miscommunication (lesson #8 observed on this trip).
The women in the taller were simply amazing and inspiring. After returning from lunch hour (which consisted of Ritz crackers), several women started asking me questions and they happened to be the women of the urban center of Posoltega. After the taller, we walked back together into town. An 18 year old girl, Hilda, offered to walk me around later to get to know the town better. I said later was perfect, because it was already after the time I said I would be at Kenya’s house to cook! I practically ran to her house and apologized for my tardiness. I explained my misunderstanding of how long a taller was and that I did not intend to keep her waiting. It was a non-issue for them and their main concern was whether I was hungry or not. I figured they were asking because we were about to cook, but no – she ran down the street to buy me taquitos and a little salad (which here consists of coleslaw and ketchup). I inhaled the taquitos and gave the salad to the little brother. It is amazing how much people love cream, mayo, salt, sugar and oil here. We ended up scratching the cooking idea, and just sat and talked for about two hours. Kenya, her sister Amanda and I talked about politics, my job at Brandywine counseling, drug problems in Posoltega, Amanda shared that she has a tumor in her head and had to stop going to school (she is only 16 years old), Kenya talked about feeling different than everyone else her age because she is not married nor does she have children, and much much more. It was the best conversation I have had in Nicaragua. I learned so much throughout the conversation, about Posoltega, and even more so about Kenya and Amanda. During such a difficult time economically in the United States, it is difficult to think about the suffering of other countries. As poor as our economy is in the United States right now, as high as unemployment is – we will never be on the same level of disparity as other countries. The U.S. economy affects the entire world’s economy. Just because other countries don’t have as far to fall – doesn’t mean they aren’t hurting equally or more as us. The pure lack of opportunities here is astonishing. Something I never fathomed before. I left this conversation feeling both inspired and humbled. Also, when I left they gave me two packets of delisoya (aka the only source of milk I will drink here), bread and raisons from their pulperia. I tried to offer them money for their kindness, but they refused. Their welcoming was so comforting at a time when nothing was familiar.
I went on a walk with Hilda right afterwards and we walked the entire community several times (I am going to get in shape quickly here). Although younger, she carries very similar characteristics of Kenya. She is in her second year of studying law in Leon, is not married nor does she have children. Her dream is to go to the United States. She and I talked for hours during our walk – and she is very sweet and intelligent. She introduced me to some of her friends and made sure I knew which each building was in town. She also shared with me that she feels ‘different’ from everyone else her age and in the community because she is not married with children. She talked about how she identified these as obstacles to achieving her goal of being a lawyer. It was incredibly inspiring to hear from another young woman in the community who dared to take a different path than the majority of her peers. I can definitely already see beautiful friendships forming with both Hilda and Kenya.
I already have made it a point to express my interest in finding my own house after the first six weeks in my community (it is a requirement of Peace Corps). I feel that even though I have returned to my training town, there are several people in my town helping me find more comfortable housing. Oh yea, because I also made it very clear that I need to have some type of floor in my room/living area.
I ended the day with a 46 cordoba (over two dollars!!) conversation with Nico, my friend from Minnesota. He and I talked about the already identified obstacles in our communities and with our counterparts. It was nice to be able to talk to someone going through the same experience. I told him of my mice and rat friends, and right before my minutes ran out on my cell phone – the last thing he said to me was ‘mice are very mobile.’ Night night. Having minutes on my phone will definitely be essential to my service and sanity throughout these two years. It is bizarre how their cell phone system works – it works out to be more expensive to call within Nicaragua than the United States.
Yo Soy…
Wednesday was dedicated to introducing me to the important people of the community. Sozima went around with me this day and the first stop was the high school to speak to the director. I spoke with Sozima prior to leaving that it was important that she not introduce me as a nurse or a lawyer anymore. The first stop was … less than perfect. The school itself was incredibly beautiful and clean. As we entered the director/principal’s office, the radio was blaring. I wrongfully assumed that the radio would be turned down during this conversation. Despite the immense background noise, the director seemed excited and welcomed me into the school to help with health education. Then it got a little messy. He went on to explain the foundation of the buildings and the lack of activities for the kids to do on the campus and several ideas he had for projects with my ‘american money’. Ha. Rewind. Apparently Sozima’s explanation of what Peace Corps is was not sufficient for him. I explained a little further that we were not an organization of money and that I certainly did not have mula. I guess I can’t blame him for trying. Another lesson learned. The remaining introductions were all prefaced with a detailed explanation of what Peace Corps is, human and technical assistance – not financial. The remainder of the introductions went very, very well. So many of the woman hugged me so tightly and clearly incredibly excited to have another person on their team – trying to better their children’s future. My favorite organization was definitely movimiento de las mujeres, a women’s rights organization. They gave me a substantial amount of information about their organization and were more than ready to let me be part of it. They do workshops on Domestic Violence, Family Planning and many more things that are right up my alley. There are countless opportunities for project partners in Posoltega and I am very excited to see how they all develop.
The remainder of the afternoon was used to wash (by hand!) all of my clothes. I worked very hard to wring out my sopping wet clothes – reopening blisters from my bike outing; only to see that in less than one hour even my heaviest clothes were bone-dry. That is how hot it is there. I took my second shower of the day and decided to go to the Internet Café. I was so fortunate to get to speak with John, Kimmy, Liz, Megan and several more of my favorites via g-chat or facebook chat. It was exactly what I needed. Hilda and I went on another walk, even further outside of the main part of town. As I told her I would be leaving the next day to return to my training town – she told me that she could not wait until I would be returning. I assured her that I was and that there would be two years for countless walks. That night we had a random, heavy rainstorm. On a tin roof this sounded… less than soothing. I was up for the majority of that hour or so.
Thursday I went to the health center only to do… nothing. So I decided to head back to my training town a little earlier than planned. I was told that I could get a bus to Leon right in town on every hour. This proved to be very false – as I waiting from 9:45-12:00pm for a bus. At noon it finally arrived and I went on to Leon. Leon has been talked about as a very touristy place, but I did not get that feeling as I wandered the streets. It takes about 45 minutes or less to get there, and it has all the fruits and veggies I could ever want. Now I just have to buy a fridge at some point to keep these fruits and veggies. After wandering around for a while, I got on a bus to Managua and then from Managua to Jinotepe. I was incredibly excited to return to something somewhat familiar and to my little three year old host-sister. Missed all fifty pounds of her.
Random thoughts…
After returning and being able to reflect both within myself and with others in my group – it is clear to me that everyone is going to have challenges in their sites. I am the only person in our group that has a dirt floor in their room. This will prove to be a challenge – if for nothing else than staying clean. It is not possible. I would get out of the shower and then immediately end up dirty just from trying to get dressed in my room. I did speak with my Program Manager about this and she said that she and a PC Doctor went out to the house to make sure it was okay – and they found it fit to live in. I told her that she probably didn’t see the rats and mice. Nonetheless, it is something that I am going to have to deal with – and I did not sign up for the Peace Corps expecting to live in a high-class apartment. She did tell me that she is going to talk to the Program Director to see if I can move out after four weeks in my host family, as opposed to the rule of six weeks.
So, one of the biggest ‘culture shock’ moments during the trip wasn’t even the dirt floor. In actuality, it was viewing one of the neighbor’s children. There was a little boy about a year and a half, maybe two years old. 75 percent of the time I saw him, he was completely naked. He is also a paraplegic and only has the use of his arms. Therefore he used his arms to hoist himself around the dirt floor and roads, completely naked. No one was watching this child – no one was looking out for his safety. Needless to say, there are not many cars in my town – but just the lack of concern for this poor child made me so, so sad.
So three things that will be essential to my two years in Posoltega will be: a fan, a bike, and a … cloth. Due to the amount of dust and random things flying through the air – everyone carries a cloth around. To brush off their seats, cover their face, wipe their sweat. Multi-purpose cloth. I am debating on whether to buy a new or used bike. There is only about a 200 cordoba difference – we’ll see. Fan. Beyond essential. Kinda want one of those water sprayer pumps that my parents used at the beach. I would use it every day. Make-up will likely not be used once during these two years. Ha.
For some reason everyone in the town thinks that I am from Spain when they meet me. I guess I will take that as a compliment since it can't be a bad thing about my spanish skills! :)
Latrines are going to take a little bit of time to get used to (my impression is that there are not toilets in any homes in Posoltega). The smell is just … indescribable. I try and hold my nose, but you don’t want to taste what’s going on in there either.
Probably my favorite thing about my host family’s house is the shower. It is three walls, with no ceiling. But there is something empowering and exciting about showering outside. Ha. Looking up and seeing the sky, maybe even getting a tan during your shower. Eureka! Why didn’t I think about this?
Sick Girl…
So today is Sunday the 28th and I have been violently ill all weekend. Fever, vomiting and diarrhea…again. Vomiting was the worst part of this one. I kinda just diagnosed myself and started taking an antibiotic Friday night before I even started vomming. I feel incredibly weak right now, but other than that I am much, much better. It is beyond annoying to be that ‘sick girl’ and my host-mom here is so less than supportive. An example of this would be her saying to Hana last night, “Can you imagine Amanda living by herself in her site?” Thanks for that. The ironic part is – that I am likely getting sick from her cooking. Oh well, I just feel bad for my stomach – it is going to be a long two years if this continues at a once a month rate. Just keep on truckin... I know I can!
Well I love you all! I am getting two packages on Wednesday!!! Can’t wait to see what they are. I Am praying they are my girl scout cookies!