19 days left. I look forward to May 10 in two ways- excitement because I will be coming back to the states! And sadness because I will be leaving all the friends I have made in the past 6 months here in Nicaragua.

Lately our team has felt pretty discouraged by the sequence of events that have happened here in Granada. It seemed like everything we were pouring our hearts and energies into just backfired and left us feeling alone and beat down. Liana and I went to see Margarita (see blog -Margarita ) our friend from the hospital, only to find out from her brother-in-law that she no longer lives at her house. She "returned to alcohol" he said, shrugging his shoulders sadly. She lives on the streets now, and her family doesn't even know where she has gone. She returns when her clothes are dirty, only to wash them and go back out on the streets – back to her life of drugs and alcohol. This is what happens to so many people here. They just fall back into the vicious circle of hopelessness.