Leaving Nicaragua

Feast on our last night; entertainment by their staff and our two singers

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Goodbyes

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Patrick's farm

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Our final group photo in front of Seeds of Learning Resource Center

Wednesday evening we had a wonderful feast with the staff of SoL and some of their families. Enrique had made a buffet of traditional foods, most of them corn based, and they explained what each food was. The ceramic serving pots and grinding stone with corn kernels were attractively arranged for the table decor. The food was terrific. They moved colorful cloth-covered tables into the courtyard, and we ate under the stars. It was a precious time, knowing this was our last night in this country with these people.

On Thursday morning we slept in a little later, but convinced Patrick that we wanted to see his farm rather than go swimming in a lagoon, which was the original plan, before we left. So all of us piled into the van -- like sweaty sardines! We drove a few miles outside the city to his property. We met the caretakers who live there, and then got to see the cistern he has just built to hold rainwater from the roof of the house. We saw his chickens, rabbits, cattle, goats, and walked through the fenced fields where he moves his cattle around periodically. On the way back, I held the gallon of fresh milk that he was taking to his mother-in-law to get pasteurized and made into cheese, which she then sells in her neighborhood. Bob held the bucket of eggs from his chickens.

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When we got back to the Center, the bus and driver were waiting for us. We loaded the van with our suitcases, and hopped onto the bus to drive to Masaya, where we were to have lunch and shopping. Patrick ordered several platters of traditional food for us to taste a variety of food again. We did our last minute shopping and stuffed our purchases into our suitcases, and headed to the airport. It felt wonderful to walk into the air-conditioned airport -- we'd forgotten what air conditioning felt like. We said goodbye to Kristine and Alicia, as they were staying for another week in Nicaragua, partly to visit Alicia's birth mother and make connections. Mateo came home with us.

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The plane trip home was very smooth. Landing in SF airport we had to remember we could put toilet paper into the toilet rather than a waste basket. We drank water out of the faucets rather than our bottles of purified water. Riding home at 1:00 a.m. with John, Wayne or Barbara, we commented on the terrific roads.

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Every one of us felt it was a very meaningful experience. We have changed as a result. We have a greater appreciation of Nicaragua, and of our own relatively uncomplicated, easy lives. Many of us will continue to support the fantastic work of Seeds of Learning.

And, we are glad to be home, safe and sound!!

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I have made a few revisions in earlier posts now that I'm home and can work much easier on my own computer that has a keyboard with things in the "right" places, and can read instructions in English! I've also added more pictures to earlier entries.

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I understand the group will share our experience in the Christ Church on Sunday, August 9, during the 10:00 worship service. Steve is creating a media presentation for the service.

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Thank you all for your support.

Muchas Gracias.

Reflections

We wore Patrick out



The teacher at Palo de Agua; inside the classroom


Beautiful children; Happy Gringos

Happy travelers

Wonderful inventions for water

Our 3 projects: building a latrine; working on new school; painting old school


We will be leaving for a day of activity and then the airport tomorrow, so I am wrapping up with some of our reflections. We did a group sharing last night and I am using some of the reflections from the group.

We are so impressed with the staff of Seeds of Learning. They are the most dedicated people ever, and do wonders with their limited resources. We noticed how worn out most of their materials are. Claudia commented that some of the puzzles they use every day are things that even Goodwill in our area would toss out.

Patrick is a miracle worker. He is so patient with us and with the people. We are impressed at how thoughtful he and SoL staff are about making sure what they do is not outsiders imposing their plans, but working with the people in a community organizing effort to accomplish great things. They are very conscientious about whatever they do and how it will impact the community.

Patrick planned such a terrific agenda for us from start to finish -- a great combination of work, interaction with people, educational and cultural opportunities as well as tourist sight seeing. He has been with us every day, as has Urania, his sister-in-law who has such a wonderful personality. They have worked overtime on our behalf, for sure.

Some other reflections about Nicaragua from our group:

--Instant friendliness of the people. Many ¨buenas dias¨ greetings as we walk down the street. Our youth yelled it out everytime we drove in or out of Dario.

--Such loving relationships -- family and community are everything. Even teens and parents seem to interact so well.

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--Patience of everyone, especially the children waiting for their turn at something.

--Children are so clean and neat, even with the dirt floors and animal waste on the ground.

--They spend hours and hours just for subsistence. They walk miles into town from the villages. The women spend hours each day making tortillas for family--sometimes 2-3 times a day. Just getting water from the well is a chore.

--Inventiveness -- they make do with what they have, sometimes with very creative results.

--Life is simple -- they don't complicate things. Things are not rushed, but people seem to have time for visiting a lot. We saw very few TVs, although we were surprised that a few people had cell phones. Nikki thought it was interesting that there was cell phone connection at various spots in Nicaragua when she can't even get good connection at her home in Santa Rosa!

--The staff are so committed. The teacher at Palo de Agua walks from Dario to Palo de Agua every day. The night watchman rides his bike many miles every night to be in Dario, and works 7 nights a week. The staff at SoL give so much of themselves.

We have also loved the cooler weather than expected. Many days had periodic cloud cover and a breeze. We did our share of sweating, however, and haven´t minded the cold showers!

A few of our group have had "tourista" problems, but we have loved this trip.

We have been so fortunate to have Kristine Sheerin with us. She has been a constant interpreter, as she is fluent in Spanish. She has been a blessing!

And a huge Thank You to Linda Carroll for organizing this trip. She was our "jefe" (leader, in Spanish, if I got it right!)

Home soon.

Hasta luego.

Wednesday-Day 10

Our work for the last day



Some of us worked, but the kids loved chasing the chickens, leading the pig on a leash, playing with the dogs, especially the little dog they named Oreo, riding horses


Linda and Renee greeting the group

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watermelon time

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Our entertainment

Troy and Nicole singing Star Spangled Banner

piñata time

battery operated boom box
their school children singing their national anthem


the juggler; dance time


goodbyes; gathering in the latrine
Wringing out shirts after the pick up ride in the rain

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This was our last work day at Palo de Agua. We made tomato and avocado sandwiches for our lunch at the work site. Once there we decided not to leave early for another side trip -- we wanted to do as much on the latrine as possible, and finish painting the blue half of the school. (The half white and half blue paint is a popular color scheme for schools here.)

When we finished, the old school looked beautiful with it´s fresh coat of paint. The latrine was at least 5-6 feet high. The new school had all the walls up -- ready for roof and finishing sometime after we´re gone. Daniel, the leader, will continue to go out to the site to work with the community to finish it.
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We had a ¨tail gate¨ lunch, then took our portable tables to the center of the school yard and cut up 5 watermelon to share with the community. I counted about 75 people that gathered from the community. Their community leader, Renee, thanked us for coming. Linda, our leader, told them how much we appreciated being with them also. Our group provided the entertainment -- the Virginia Reel and a folk dance. We´d never make it with ¨Dancing with the Stars¨ but we had fun, especially trying to avoid the rocks on our ¨dance floor.¨ We women looked real cute in our skirts over our work pants and tennis shoes! The men had hats and hankerchiefs. What costumes! We sang a couple of hymns in Spanish (Santo, Santo, Santo and Lord, You Have Come to the Lakeshore.) I´m not sure they understood what we sang, but they asked for the words on our song sheets, so we left them behind. Nicole has a beautiful voice and sang a solo. (Our youth have been doing a lot of singing while here, actually, thanks to Nicole´s influence.) The finale for our entertainment was Nicole and Troy singing the Star Spangled Banner in a rendition they created. It was beautiful, and a few of our group noticed a lump in their throats during some of the singing. Then their school children sang their national anthem for us. Their choir sang a couple of hymns for us -- their 2-3 women could sing as loud as the 13 of us!

Then the fun really began. Several of our group had gotten a large piñata to take out, and had filled it with candy. The music was turned on -- their boom box is powered with an old car battery. They had the smallest children try to hit the pinata first. Each one of the children did a little dance while striking the piñata -- really cute. After all the candy was distributed, we passed out lollipops and cookies. Enough sugar for one day to get them extra hyper! We seemed to have enough energy left to do some dancing to their music before we left. Nicole and Kaitlyn finally got their horse ride!

Lots of hugs and goodbyes. It was raining when we left, so our pick-up riders had their shower before getting back. We had another flat tire on the way back, with many helpers to fix it -- Bob doing the most work. Then Patrick took us around some of the area in Dario that had been rebuilt after Hurricane Mitch. We saw homes that Habitat for Humanity and SoL helped rebuild.

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Tuesday -- Day 9

We made peanut butter and guava jelly sandwiches on white bread before leaving today since we were going to have lunch away from our home base. We only worked a couple hours at Palo de Agua-- it seemed like we had just gotten out the material and it was time to take it back to the home-shed where it is stored. Every day we start by walking to the home to get the equipment we will need for the day, and it looks like a parade carrying all the stuff.

More latrine building. And tying rebar for the top of the new school. We had lots of helpers from the community there today.

We finished early so we could go with one of the elders of the village who has planted numerous fruit trees and other plants on his steep hillside. We climbed down to where his water wheel pump is -- he carries buckets of water up the hill to water each tree individually. Hard work, but he is very proud of his plot of land. The view from his field across the valley is fantastic. Several people sat on his porch visiting with his wife while we hiked up and down.

From there we all piled into the truck -- usually we have two vehicles for all of us, but we needed to leave one behind at the work site for Daniel, the ¨contractor¨on the project. We went to Los Cocos, another small village on the way back to Cuidad Dario. We ate our lunch in front of their house. After a leisurely visit, we were invited into the house so the mother could show us how she makes tortillas. She soaks the corn kernels and washes them several times, then puts them in a grinder. The ground corn then goes on a rock slab. She kneads the dough, then presses it with a rock roller until very fine. She seems to know just when it is ready, and puts a handful on a plastic circle -- the shape of a tortilla--and begins patting it out to a perfect circle. She then had many of us try it. Despite the lack of clean hands or clean water, we did try. She cooked the ones we had made and we ate them. We had brought some cheese to put on them when they were still hot. A treat, certainly, but we´re hoping none of us get sick!