Hola Srta. Brown and students.

The answers to your questions:
The scorpion bite ordeal has passed; but since the bite I have already seen 2 more in my house!!! I think now they smell me or something. I already have a set of letters that I will be sending you guys on Monday from one group of students. I have a few others interested but they haven't gotten their act together just yet.
I did not see the Olympics. I am typically in my host family's house at night and they do not have cable. Which means that we only watch telenovelas or soap operas at night. However, the strong winds last night knocked-down the antenna and so we can only watch movies now. However, there are some people in my town that do have cable. It is expensive so there are only a few. I do have a TV that was gifted to me but without an antenna or a DVD so it serves no purpose right now.
As for visitors in my house, I have seen a few cockroaches, geckos (they are tiny, harmless, make funny noises, and eat the bugs), little mice (my host family gets big rats but luckily I haven't), ants, iguanas, spiders, and that's it for now. My neighbors say that they had a snake the other day...that scares me. Oh and I will have a puppy hopefully in a month or so and eventually some hens.
You asked about the beaches here. The one I was at when I was bitten is 5 hours from my house (by bus). It was covered in beautiful rocks, had hermit crabs, a few large fish, and very blue water. It was beautiful. I would have to say that it doesn't compare to Gilson beach (which sometimes smells bad lol). There is a beach close to my house called Paso Caballo in an area called Corinto. It costs about 2 dollars to get there and requires two bus rides that total about an hour and a half. The beach has a few wooden benches for sitting and you can order food. There are 3 little huts made of wood to change in. Otherwise it is not very populated. It is covered in white sand and a bit different than Gilson beach. The water is salt water; it has a bad taste if it enters your mouth.
hmmmm if there is more that comes to mind I will let you know.
The weather right now is dry, we are in the summer time. It is windy with lots of dust. It is also HOT. Usually about 95 degrees, a month ago it was a little cooler. Everyday is gets hotter as we are entering into winter. Soon we will enter the wet season where it rains all the time. The rain does help to cool things down. There are mosquitoes that can be horrible at times and other times just disappear (Yea! we don't have any right now).
As for pen pals, my parents are leaving on the 21st of April to visit me in Nicaragua. If you would like to send letters with them you can send them through any of the neighbor kids.
Please ask me more questions!!!