Lizzie's Nicaraguan Adventures

Expat life

2007-07-02T18:50:00.000-07:00

I have found that my life in Nicaragua has gone through various phases - first there was the volunteer phase, when I mainly hung out with and connected with the other volunteers as I was first getting to know the town as well, closely followed by a brief traveller phase; then after some more volunteer time, I moved into the main locals phase, when I really put time and effort into building up my friendships and relationships with Nicaraguans here. But finally I appear to have moved into the ex-pat phase (I guess after 6 months in the country, I now count as one myself). I find myself invited on trips, out to dinner events and to visit ex-pat homes, and suddenly I am leading a weekly yoga class for another group of long-term residents. Now a whole new set of people greet me in the street. And I've had two job offers of a sort to stay here! Plus a couple of weekends ago with three friends I rented a car and drove around the "white villages" in style, as well as living it up in Managua for the evening... It was a nice change to the mud and poverty of the villages where I normally work.

Another change which I guess has added to the ex-pat effect is that I decided to splash out and treat myself for my final month in Nicaragua, and started renting my own house. No more cramped shared volunteer quarters - I have a patio and hammocks and even (as of this weekend) a water tank. That, plus the car battery power back-up system, have been coming in very useful with all the extended daily power and water outages we're now getting. I think it must be political, because there's enough rain falling every few days that it can no longer be a drought situation this rainy season. So, yes, a few changes in my Nica life for the final push. I can't believe I have just weeks to go... I'm already in pre-nostalgia!

Latest newsletter

2007-07-02T18:40:00.000-07:00

Firstly this month, apologies that there are no photos. Yahoo photo mail has closed, and though I am normally surrounded by volunteers with lots of hi tech knowledge – this is the weekend so this month, sorry, it’s all in writing.

We will catch up on some photos next month, one of which will be Cesar in his new wheelchair which was built specially for him by the Children’s Wellness Foundation. Another would be of Maria Jose, a 12 year old girl in La Prusia who also suffers from Cerebral Palsy. Thanks to the efforts of our health volunteers she is now attending a special school in Granada. Victoria Metzger who has been volunteering with us until the middle of this month sent through $50 to pay for ortheopedic shoes to help her walking, and Mark Turner has donated $250 to have a three wheeled bicycle made that her mother will be able to ride with her. (Sometimes her mother has to carry her on her back from the highway where the school bus brings her to their house about 15 minutes walk away.) Thanks to Christy’s friendships with the mothers in La Prusia we were able to find out about a little boy only 4 months old, Christofer Urtecho who was born with a ‘club’ foot. He now has ortheopedic booties and early correction will mean a cure for this child so he will grow up walking normally.

We will have lots of pictures too from International Children’s Day which was celebrated in all the schools during the first week in June. The children all had a wonderful day with games, prizes, sports, dancing displays by the teachers and volunteers, and lots of good food to eat.

The end of school term saw lots of changeover of volunteers this month, lots of farewell parties, and a few tears as we said goodbye to Alan Cowburn, Charlie Rann, Liz Gage, Mali Kedward, Rena Papatheofilou, Vitoria Metzger, Sam Duncan, Francis Peterson, Emma Close, Rachel Evans, Colin Williamson, Mike Sims, Peter Marsh, Rebekah Ramsay, Nick Atherton, Johanna Holman, Jennie O’Grady, Amanda Brown and Juiane and Karsten Kruetziger, and Mario Calderon. Some like Colin, Liz and Johanna had been here for six months, some like Mario who had to leave early only a few weeks, but all played an important role in helping the children and communities that we work with.

New volunteers this month include two who have returned, Jiri Kaiser from Holland as well as Lauren Kjos from U.S.A., others are Bev Chan, Mary Pearce, Katie Randall, Sean McCarthy, Denny Pham, Carla Sanderson, Leslie Jamieson, Susan Shuller and Darrell Bushnell all from the U.S.A. (though Darrell lives locally), Jessie Grene from Ireland, Rosa Bransky, Alex Wipf, Becky Harrison and Cathy Mitchell from the U.K., Andrea Sousa from Portugal, Huikwan Tam and Hanna Koppenaal from Holland, Gonzalo Garcia from Spain and Esmeralda Contrera from Nicaragua.

Monique’s husband Hans brought more school supplies when he arrived to visit, Carla brought a big bag of clothing and toys with here, and Susan also arrived laden with things for the children and the community. Lauren brought $150 from one of her professors Dr. Claire Drummond. Alan gave us $200 from Peter and Margaret Cowburn, and $100 from Sue and Nara Pandey. Lizzie’s mother Rosemary Dipple sent through $300 for the dentists program, and the friends and family of Peter Marsh sent 110 pounds sterling. Rosa’s friend Tom Latter sent us $300. Colin’s parents Claire and Chris Williamson gave $200 to be used for preschool resources.

Former volunteers have been thinking of us too, which is wonderful to know that their interest in a Esperanza Granada continues – Romeo Kienzler who sent $25 and Mairin Hennessy who sent $250 were both here in the days when our founder Bill was still alive. We have his picture on the wall, and those of us who knew him still miss him. Things were never quiet when Bill was around.

A future volunteer Lauren Robson sent through $180 she had collected from family and friends. We also received another bag of beads for the women’s cooperative from Collette Nolan and a paypal donation of $50 from Joe Hurd.

An interesting visit this past week from a group of teachers from Georgia in the U.S.A. who had come to Granada as part of a journey designed to give them some experience of Latin American culture to enable them to better empathize with the growing numbers of Latin American students in their area. They had an interesting morning at an internet café with some of our high school students followed by lunch with them, and then Bev took them on a tour of La Prusia which they found quite moving. Paula Mellom and Brian Padilla were the organizers of this trip, and we hope to see more of their groups in the future. They also brought us some teaching materials, books etc.

Two important dates to keep in mind for July – firstly if you are in Nicaragua, on the 28th July keep the evening free for “The First Annual Jimmy Threefingers Wanted Dead or Alive Ride” – this will be a big event featuring Harley Davidson motor cycles leading a parade through the town and ending up at the club “Extasy” for a fun filled night. All the profits from this event will go to La Esperanza Granada. Another date to book – this time for a night in, if you are in the U.S.A. – when the Samantha Brown Passport to Granada program will be shown on the Travel Channel for the first time on 18th July. We haven’t seen the previews yet, though a lot of filming was done with our volunteers and in the school at La Prusia.

The painting on the community center, both inside and out is finished now – with extras this month Chris and Mick lending a hand, along with Becky who took up where Sam, Charlie and Nick left off. Next painting will be of the new classrooms at La Epifania, Mark has donated $350 to pay for the paint.

La Epifania is the school where we are currently hold a two week intensive learning camp (the last week of school and the week of term break) designed to try and bring some of the children who are behind in first and second grade up to the level of their peers and to help stimulate their interest in learning. Seventeen volunteers are taking part in this, and there are 24 children. More about this next month when it is completed.

So we have come to the end of the first term for this year – hardly seems possible (we have only two terms here). This year in ran a week later than previous years so that the children would still be in school for ‘Dia de Maestros’ or Teachers Day – pictures of those celebrations will hopefully be in next month’s photo link too.

Till then,
Regards, Pauline.

Donations please!!

2007-06-03T13:57:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I came into the office to sort out some information for next week's dental visits, and for the different Children's Day celebrations we're planning at each of the four schools. Every volunteer gets involved with these half-sports-day, half-prize-day, half-party-mayhem no matter what other projects you normally work on.

Anyway, I've just been talking to Pauline, the long-term volunteer (she celebrated her second year in Granada last month) who manages the La Esperanza office and organises all the volunteers here, and apparently we have used up the remains of our dentist program funding, so we're now looking for new donations to keep it going. I have put forward some money myself, given that this has been one of my pet projects, but now I'm extending the opportunity to give to an excellent cause to all of you, my friends and family...

As a reminder of what La Esperanza is and does, you can see more details on our website at http://www.la-esperanza-granada.org/

And the donations page is http://www.la-esperanza-granada.org//esperanza/Help%20Donations.htm

So if any of you can join in and help it would be very much appreciated here, by the kids (OK, well many of them don't actually enjoy having teeth pulled or filled, but they will in the long run!) and by me too.

Love,
Lizzie

(P.S. Sorry about the lack of hyperlinks in this entry but the Blogger insert hyperlink function seems to be on the blink today - so you'll have to copy and paste these addresses into your internet browser.)

Mango season and the rains begin

2007-05-21T16:59:00.000-07:00

I'm just now holed up in an internet cafe waiting out a sudden rainstorm (and hence two power cuts that made me lose part of this entry) - the winter rainy season is finally beginning. But it's also mango season (you can buy a dozen small, ripe mangos for just around 10 pence) so I'm not complaining too much. Although it's so easy to eat a lot of mango (you can get a bag of peeled mango slices, about two mangos' worth, for 6 pence on every street corner) and apparently they have antibacterial properties, which are great until you eat way too many and they kill off the good bacteria in your stomach... Fingers crossed that doesn't happen to me.

At the moment I'm on a short trip out of Granada in the east of Nicaragua - travelling through the cattle highlands on my way to the Atlantic coast for a crazy music and dance festival called Palo de Mayo. I've learnt one or two moves for this dance, but it's so fast and mad that even my salsa-ing hips just can't keep up. So far I've visited small market cow towns and tiny tranquil pueblos, passing through stunning mountain scenery on the buses in between. Round here there aren't any volcanoes, although the land is still seismically active and the rocks are volcanic in origin, so the skyline is completely different to the dry, flat Pacific region studded with huge volcano cones. And it's relatively green too, although there have been such water shortages here, with the drought on (rainy season is way too late and still not as much as normal), that I've stayed in hotels without any water whatsoever. You learn to wash as and when you can... and not mind the sweat.

I had to pop in on the pretty village of Santa Lucia (my street in Granada's namesake) where I was befriended by a lovely family who took me in for the day, fed me, and the three young cousins aged 12 and 13 took me around all afternoon to visit their favourite spots. I met their friend Luca, who owns a piece of land up on the hillside and who showed me all his current crops (including the eponymous mangos). We then sat in his pristine front room for 45 minutes, trying to make conversation - i.e. I talked non-stop to fill the gaps because he wasn't the most conversationally-able (probably not getting that many visitors, especially from overseas). It was later that day that I headed over to the cow town of Camoapa, where I ended up in a restaurant/discoteca dancing ranchero, bachata and raggaeton with the local cowboys (everyone had either a seriously curved baseball cap on, or a stetson!)

Anyway, here I am now in Juigalpa: doing washing, catching up on internet correspondence and checking out the local museum, as well as eating fantastic beef and dairy products (yes, I'm still in stetson-wearing country). And tomorrow morning I head off on the bus to the river town of El Rama...

Latest La Esperanza news

2007-05-12T14:43:00.000-07:00

So you keep getting the idea of what everyday volunteer life is like, and what we do at La Esperanza, here's the latest weekly newsletter from Pauline.

Dear All,

The first of the primary school excursions was held on Friday with grade 2 from La Prusia and La Epifania visiting Posintepe for a picnic. It was a great success and the children really enjoyed it, and the teachers are following through with questions about their trip to help make it a learning experience too. For the monthly news we would like to continue with what we did this month, putting a link to an album of photos. So anyone with some good photos of the children's excursions please bring them into the office and put them on the computer (mainframe one), and this will be the photo link for next months news.

Planning to do it each month, we will do one in the coming months of each school, health, womens working groups etc. and probably it would be fun to do one of some of the photos from a volunteer party.

Elba Zamora now has a basketball hoop and backboard which Nick put up. We want to do the same for La Prusia - they have asked for a full scale basketball court though and the quote Agosto got was $8000 so we don't think it is on our priority list.

Next week excursions are on Monday, Grade 2, then Wednesday and Thursday, Grade 4 - so it will be a busy week.

Big party last night to farewell Annabel who is travelling on to Cuba. Just one new volunteer arriving this week, Charlie Rann from Australia.

We had a visit from a former volunteer who worked at Las Camelias, Lauren Bloch - she arranged with Laura to go and visit the childrenat the school while she was here which was fun for both her and the children. Friends of former volunteers Shane and Andrew also visited Granada, Daniel Colins and Sarah Jane Caldwell. They went on the tour to La Prusia, and then gave us $100 donation. Shane and Andrew had taught English in the schools.

We had a cash donation too from Andy Pinker, friend of Julia Penny, who gave us $20. We received paypal donations this week too, $100 from Phil Smy, brother of Iain who brought us the vitamin tablets, and $150 from Robert Keddy, another Canadian. Robert is processing Nicaraguan coffee in Canada, Casa Silas Coffee, and has offered to give us $1 from each kilo sold.

Another cleanup session was held at the Community Center on Saturday - and we are going to start painting soon. Would like photo's please of the clean up and of the painting, plus putting the new cupboard in for the library as all of this work to the community center is being funded by a village in UK called Adstock, they want to form a sister village relationship with La Prusia. Any ideas on how we can help make this work for the people of La Prusia would be appreciated.

Mark is back in town once again. He brought with him some photos we had ordered prints of and these will be made into blank greeting cards to sell in the office - to help pay for some of the office costs. If anyone has a couple of hours to spare next weekend we could do with your help in the office to put these together, make the envelopes etc.

Good to see Colin back this weekend.
Hope to see lots of you at the Isletas this afternoon,
Regards, Pauline.

Lizzie is staying longer in Nicaragua!

2007-04-30T18:10:00.000-07:00

Fantastic newsflash - I am staying extra weeks in Nicaragua. I just recently got the final confirmation from HarperCollins that I can extend my sabbatical by another 6 weeks, so I will be out here until later in July. All very exciting! This means I can finish the first half of the school year on the dentist program, and hand it over to the free Dentists Without Borders team who turn up in July. And the two women's groups should be fully independent, accounts-wise, by then too. At last that's the aim...

La Esperanza weekly news

2007-04-30T17:33:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of news recently - I have been very busy with the dental project (see below). But I'm soon taking off for a long weekend in the north of Nicaragua, for a bit of relaxation and travel experience...

Dear All,
Full week of school, which makes a nice change, at all four schools too. I notice that next Thursday the 26th has been circled on the school Calandario – though it doesn't say why, it would be a good idea to check in the schools. Also as Tuesday the 1st May is a national holiday – we should check if the schools are closed just for that day, or if they will in fact be closed for the Monday 30th April as well making it a really long weekend?

Sunday 6th May we will have our regular outing to the isletas – meeting down at Las Palmas restaurant at noon – I will put a reminder in next week. For those who are new – we have a free boat ride to one of the islands and then hang out for the afternoon at a small cheap open air restaurant, swim, relax etc. normally returning to Granada about 4 or 4.30.

We are full steam ahead on the dental program still now, thanks mostly to Lizzie's input. Also if any children are in need of glasses we will be able to supply them. As for adult reading glasses we have quite a number of pairs in the library.

This week we have have to say goodbye to Julia who has been with us for the past two months. Seems like she only arrived last week – but I have checked the calendar.

New arrivals this week are Amanda Brown from Canada, Alan Cowburn, Emma Close and Rachel Evans, all three of whom are from the UK.

We have had a couple of paypal donations this week, one for $40 from Chloe Sharpe from the U.K., and one of $100 from Jeremy Jensen from the U.S.A. In addition to this we had a visit from Jim and Jan Hainsworth, and Ron and Peggy Garvalia from the U.S. Jim very generously brought with him a new laptop for us – though it is not brand new it is completely reconditioned and so working like brand new – couldn't have come at a better time. The two families each donated $20 on behalf of their grandchildren, Jillian, Gwen and Anna Hainsworth, and Luke, Joe, Sam and Tony Garvalia. Plus they brought with them bags of stuff including school supplies and lots of things suitable for prizes for when we have International Children's Day celebrations.

Clay put on a very good presentation for the tutoring session this past Tuesday, and I believe that Laura will be conducting the next one – though we will need a date check on that one as it would be scheduled for the 1st May.

See you all through the week,
Regards, Pauline.

Global warming

2007-04-19T15:17:00.000-07:00

Apparently the reason the scorpions are starting to come out and about is because we're now in the height of the summer months here in Nicaragua. And boy is it hot! If I thought I was sweating before that was nothing to what it's like now. I sweat morning noon and night... everyone suffers from nappy rash somewhere (mine is on my tummy for some reason), and anything cotton just gets soaked through so that after sitting in a chair for 5 minutes you always have a lovely sweat patch all over your bum. And the dust is quite something too. I'm actually just recovering from a sort of flu/cold sort of throaty/chesty infection that has had me in bed for a few days. This sort of thing is doing the rounds at the moment because of all the dust everywhere which goes straight to your chest, plus all the kids you're dealing with who always have some bug or other. And it was pretty odd having a fever when the air temperature is above body temperature anyway. But I'm very much on the mend now and I only had one sick day off work.

And yes, the title of this post is relevant, because the two-season (dry and wet) climate here appears to be in turmoil this year, possibly due to global warming. We had two torrential rainstorms last week (very unexpectedly), and my Semana Santa trip to Rio San Juan was also unseasonably wet and cool. All very strange... So please remember to use your cars less and recycle more, because what's going on in London and the UK is having serious effects even over on this far side of the world.

Scorpion attack!

2007-04-14T16:24:00.000-07:00

As you become accustomed to living somewhere quite "exotic" you sort of forget that it is still a foreign environment with exciting and sometimes dangerous species around. And then out of the blue you suddenly come face to face with one that makes you remember where you are... So last night I came home a little after midnight after a quiet night just having a couple of drinks with friends at Cafe Bohemia, and was getting ready for bed. Then I looked over and saw something moving in my bed, creeping out from under my pillow - yes, you've guessed it: a scorpion, about 4 inches long, scuttling around on the sheets.

To my credit I didn't start screaming or anything too girly, but there was no way I was getting too near the scorpion. So I opened up my mosquito netting to the ground, to give it an escape route, and tried to nudge the pillows to make it want to leave. But the beast was having none of this, and scuttling in towards the wall side of my bed. And after about half an hour of vague attempts at scorpion extraction and generally pondering what on earth I could do, I gave up and slept in another room, in the bed of a volunteer who's away at the moment. I can tell you I had some strange, vivid dreams.

In the cold light of day it didn't seem like such a complete nightmare as it had at 1am, especially since I know that although a scorpion sting here is excruciatingly painful it's not fatal, or anything close. But I still had to rid my bed or room of the beast. So I put on long trousers, thick socks, carefully checked my boots for nasties lurking inside them, and then set about gingerly pulling off all the sheets and so on. And then 5 or 10 minutes later I felt something moving around under my right big toe INSIDE MY BOOTS!!!! In a matter of moments I had my boots off, and sure enough, curled up in the end was the scorpion, now half dead after me walking all over it for a while. We finished it off and buried it in the garden. Most likely it hadn't been able to lift up its tail to sting me, penned in by my feet - thank goodness. And apparently they cling on like crazy, so even when I banged my boots around to dislodge anything inside that wouldn't have worked. So I spent the rest of the morning a little shaken up and decided to treat myself to a really nice lunch in a very restful atmosphere... Now we've just got to hope there's no more beasties lurking around at Casa Santa Lucia (and check everything really carefully).

Volunteering joys and despairs

2007-04-11T13:58:00.000-07:00

I guess from my photos it looks like all I do is travel to tourist destinations and go to parties, but that's just because normally those are the places I take my camera. However, the week before Semana Santa (Easter week) I did manage to remember my camera for a meeting of the women's group - one of our best sessions yet.

Women's Group at Las Prusias

So the good news for the women's group is that we're going to be trying something new to sell the handicrafts: an afternoon set up on a stall on the Parque Central (Granada's main square). Apparently we've been given permission by the vice president of the artisans who usually sell there (or so the boyfriend of one of the volunteers, who works there himself, tells us), but we also need to speak to the Mayor's Office. Anyway, come what may, assuming all permissions are granted and we can borrow the required table and chairs, Friday afternoon will see Fiona and I taking turns in supporting Mirna with the sales pitch! The bad news is that the reason we're taking this new step is because we have way too much inventory at the moment, and sales are starting to drop off after the tourist season peaked and now the number of visitors to Granada is starting to fall. The rainy season is not long off (in fact, we had a big rain storm at 6.30am this morning)...

This week has also been a bit troublesome for the dentist project. Yesterday morning, when I checked in with the clinic about our newly rearranged timetable of visits to fit in another one session per week from the school whose visits are paid for by the New Orleans Catholic Missions, it seemed there was a big crisis. After numerous phone calls to the clinic and its director we were asked to suddenly halt the school visits until we had an emergency meeting to sort out the accounts. That was all a complete frustration because actually, as of a meeting we had a fortnight ago, La Esperanza has been waiting for a bill to come from the clinic so that we can pay it. Just the usual Nicaraguan crisis out of an easily solvable situation! But we had our meeting this morning, sorted it all out (hopefully) and things are back to normal, with a few tweaks, as of tomorrow. But all the work I put in arranging the new timetable - visiting the schools, talking to the teachers and sorting out a volunteer helper schedule for this week wasn't needed after all. Oh the joys of volunteering... But never mind, we're back on track now, and I've just this afternoon finished the mammoth task of updating the spreadsheet in which we record all the children's dental visits and details of the dates and treatments. I think I deserve some cake and ice cream in celebration, so it's a good job I'm going to a volunteer birthday party tonight.

Latest weekly La Esperanza newsletter

2007-04-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

Dear All,

Hope that everyone has had an interesting week during Semana Santa. It has certainly been different than a regular week here in town, large crowds of people everywhere - of course I missed seeing all of the volunteers (though some did pass by from time to time).

We had another problem with school locks - this time it doesn't look like there was any robbery. Raul Planas was up at La Prusia and noticed that there was no padlock on the school gate; he informed Nigel who went and put a padlock of his own on the gate that same day - the key for which is now in the office.

New volunteers starting this week are: May Chappel from Spain, Juliane and Karsten Kreutzieger from Germany, Rebekah Ramsay from Australia, and Lucy Fratantoni from Italy. You will also meet Mali Kedward, from Wales, UK, as Mali is already staying with us, but this week will be studying more Spanish and starting with us the following Monday.

We received some donations this week - a regular friend Jason Moody came to the office with $100 cash donation, and Jenny Herring while in the office buying some of the women's goods gave us a $20 donation. Future volunteer Wayne Sprouse sent us $40 through PayPal.

I'm not aware whether the bi-weekly tutoring session is planned for this Tuesday, or not until next Tuesday - so suggest team leaders check in the office on Monday.

For the next few months we have yet another house for volunteers. Arnold Jensen who has been volunteering on the project of Casas de la Esperanza has returned to Holland for a few months and has asked that we look after his house while he is away, and had made it available to volunteers at the same rates as the other houses, which is really good of him as he has a mortgage to pay.

Now that the housing situation is growing to almost hotel booking proportions - to avoid confusion - I will put a small notebook in my shelf in the office (on the bookshelves) and can anyone who has any date changes please mark them in that book for me. Messages can get lost, and it is easy to forget with so many details - so please, if you are staying longer, leaving earlier, or want to put your name down to change room etc. If it has anything that relates to the houses please write it in that notebook for me and I will check it each time I am in the office. If you can't find the book make a note on the whiteboard please. Also can everyone in the houses please pay their rent this week either on Monday or Tuesday.

Based on memories of the first day after Semana Santa last year be prepared for anything in the schools tomorrow - from teachers meetings to total confusion - it will quickly settle down again.

Look forward to seeing all of you, if not in the office tomorrow, then at the meeting on Tuesday night.
Regards, Pauline.

Jan & Eva's leaving party

2007-04-07T18:42:00.000-07:00

And since I'm doing a lot of photos at the moment, here are the photos from Jan and Eva's leaving party last month. I have to say it was the best Granada party I've been to (even including the Santa Lucia ones) - maybe because of the real mix of people who came. Jan and Eva had been living and volunteering in Granada for six months, and they rented a house in Las Camelias, one of the barrios just close to town where one of the schools we help is located. So many of the guests were local neighbours, school children and other Nica friends and family, as well as volunteers and other foreigners. It was quite an event, I can tell you...

Jan & Eva's leaving party

St Patrick's Day Party

2007-04-07T17:56:00.000-07:00

Yes, I made it back from the San Juan river trip - all went very splendidly well - and am as usual back in Granada thinking that I ought to put up some of the many photos I have taken recently. So, whilst I load up the photos I took on my trip (and it really does take hours quite literally), here are the pictures from our Casa Santa Lucia St Patrick's Day party:

St Patrick's Day party

As you can see, we really went to town with the decorations (and my goodness did we need help blowing up all those green, white and orange balloons). We also made a sort of green rum punch - I wouldn't ask what went into it to make it quite as vibrantly green as it was! Everyone who came had to wear at least something green. I think pretty much everyone managed that. And we even had 8 cans of Guinness kindly shipped in from the one Irish bar in Managua (apparently the only place in Nicaragua where you can get hold of it). It was probably one of our most successful parties yet and something close to 40 people came, with a pretty high proportion of Nica friends too. So all told, a very good way to celebrate with Fiona, my Irish housemate. The only party house damage was to my room door, when a friend managed to lock it with my keys still inside, so rather dramatically he had to kick in the door (or at least break the lock) so I could get back in. However, now our helpful household handyman Jose has subsequently repaired my door and I have everything back to normal...

Isla Ometepe part 2

2007-04-01T18:33:00.000-07:00

Well, although I didn´t climb the volcano today (unlike the two couples with whom I travelled here - and only two people completed the hike, as the others made it just half the way up!) I did hike for 4 hours (up and down) to a nearby waterfall, partway up the Maderas Volcano. My guide was the hostal owner´s 12 year old daughter, Alma, who was much braver than me at the difficult bits. At one point we even had to go up and down one slope using a rope to pull ourselves up it was so steep and just earth, with no grip - a first for me. So I think I earned the grilled chicken supper that I´ve just been told is now ready for me... But before I dash off to eat, let me just say that tomorrow I´m starting the slightly more adventurous half of my Easter holidays, as I (hopefully) board the overnight boat to San Carlos, at the edge of Lago Colcibolca and the start/end, depending on how you see it, of the San Juan River going to the Caribbean coast. I´m not going that far myself on this trip, but I hope to have some interesting experiences in a new part of Nicaragua.

Semana Santa holidays

2007-03-31T11:16:00.000-07:00

I´m like a broken record apologising for not having written any blog posts for ages, but I promise you I HAVE been very busy recently and therefore I DO have a good excuse. However, as of yesterday I have a week´s holiday from work for the Easter break, so I´ve come away for a little vacationing in Nicaragua. Yesterday I travelled (complete with hangover from the going away party for three departing volunteers the night before, so my rucksack packing was a little sketchy and sporadic!) from Granada to the twin-volcano island of Ometepe in Lake Cocibolca.

The island is a sort of figure-of-eight shape, with one volcano at the centre of each of the two circular parts. One volcano is still active (no eruptions very recently though) and throws out a bit of ash every now and again; the other (I´m staying on this side of the island) is dead, and the crater is a now a lagoon. I was thinking about climbing up it, but apparently it´s a gruelling 8-hour climb and I popped my volcano cherry last weekend on Volcán Mombacho near Granada (photos to follow, once I´m somewhere with a fast enough internet connection to download them)so I don´t really feel the need. To be honest, I just want to chill out here and rest up with some amazing views. I might hire bikes to go to the waterfalls, or saunter down to the beach and go for a swim, but otherwise I´m just happy sitting out in a hammock, swatting away the bugs and enjoying the break.

The journey here was fine, although I almost missed the 11.30am chicken bus from Granada to Rivas due to a last minute stop off at the office, trying to arrange who could cover the dentist visits for the Monday after Semana Santa (Easter week). But I did make the bus, had my rucksack thrown up on the roof (luckily it came on the same bus as me and arrived in one piece) and a very chivalrous gentleman gave up his seat so I travelled in some relative comfort the whole way. Next to me was an American teacher, part of a group of 4 teachers and 12 students on a 10-day trip to Nicaragua, and I felt for her with having all the responsibilities of looking after teenagers in this country! Then at Rivas I met a Swedish couple and an American couple also travelling to Ometepe, so we all squeezed into a colectivo taxi (yes, that´s five adults, plus five rucksacks, plus the driver in one car!) to travel 20 minutes to the port at San Jorge. We´d timed it right and only 50 minutes later the ferry for Ometepe was leaving (the big ferry rather than the smaller lancha boat, so the crossing wasn´t too rough given that this is windy season!). At Moyogalpa we waited just another hour (with a cold drink in hand) for the two-hour bumpy, dusty bus ride on unpaved roads to Mérida, where I had reserved accommodation at a hospedaje some other volunteers had recommended. It was then a 20 minute walk up a dirt track in the dark, with a five-year-old boy to guide us, and we made it here to Monkey´s Island ranch. So now I really am just chilling out and enjoying my little holiday time. It´s a charming rustic retreat (not luxurious, but clean and friendly) and I´m lapping it up...

shopping Nica style

2007-03-12T14:33:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning for ages to write an entry about the different places and ways to go shopping in Nicaragua (apart from those two Managua shopping malls). Basically it all depends on how far you want to go from your house for your groceries, and how much variety you expect to find. First there are the wandering street sellers, with enormous woven baskets on their heads, who sell fruit, vegetables, sometimes cheese, sometimes loo paper, or other random items. But it can be a bit risky waiting at home for a vendor to walk down your street, because I never know when they'll go past or what they'll have. You can pretty regularly rely on bananas, satsumas, onions, tomatoes and these local small green peppers, but anything else (of which melon, pineapple, papaya, carrots and avocados are currently the next most likely to be available) is just up to your luck.

The next closest spot for shopping is your local pulperia - a sort of corner shop which is actually someone's front room from which they sell stuff. These dot every street, and vary in size from two shelves to an entire room. They sell all sorts of handy items: tiny bags of washing powder, a few tinned goods, the ever-present gaseosas (fizzy drinks), perhaps some butter and yogurts, beer, nail polish, soap, instant noodles, crisps, etc. Some have a telephone service too. But they are still a family's front room, so the family will hang out on chairs, often watching TV, in or just outside the pulperia. [N.B. Sitting out on the street in your rocking chair of an evening, enjoying what breeze can be found is the very communal way people live here - and we join in at Casa Santa Lucia too.]

Then there are the supermarkets, of which Granada has two. Although calling them supermarkets in the UK sense of a very large shop with regular supplies is a little dubious. Stock is never very reliable, so if you see something you might want you have to buy it then and there, because it may never be back, or may take a month to reappear - for instance there has been no peanut butter in Granada for 3 weeks now. And I've only seen peppermint tea on sale for a 5-day period once. Today I went to buy chickpeas, to find that there are none, and who knows when there will be again. So you have to be flexible and just buy what you can when you can.

The same is true of the main market, in that you can only ever find things when they are in season and available locally. Apples are incredibly expensive (about one US dollar each) and are sold from special streetside apple stalls. They are one of the few imported items you can get here, and that would be why they are so pricey. So the market has line after line of stalls selling effectively the same stuff, and you can watch the seasons change as the produce on offer changes. Currently we're moving into the mango season, although it's still on the cusp. Also avocados are becoming cheaper and better. And of course the market is the main place to buy anything and everything else you might need for the home. If you can't get it in the Granada market, it can't be bought in town.

Actually, I went for a fascinating trip last Thursday morning (for work, for the women's group) to Managua's Mercado Oriental. Luckily I had a guide - the little old lady mother of one of our women's group members - who knew her way around because that market is ENORMOUS and a complete maze of alleyways, passageways and stalls for miles. There were even trees growing inside. We walked swiftly for at least 20 minutes straight through in one direction without getting anywhere close to the other side of the market. My guide was very worried about my security and told me not to bring a bag in case it got stolen (and every guide book going repeats the advice that it is full of pickpockets, etc). But having taken this advice, I really found I felt very comfortable there and was rather taken with the hustle, bustle and general craziness of the country's largest and busiest market (and not another foreigner in sight). The way it works is that people go there from here, buy up stuff cheap and then sell it on back in Granada. So the microbus back to town was stuffed to the gills with all sorts of random purchases. Even people who don't run market stalls or pulperias will pick up a few things whenever they go to the Mercado Oriental and then sell them on to their friends and neighbours. Everyone in Nicaragua needs to make a bit of extra cash on the side to keep afloat financially...

some photos

2007-03-11T16:53:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in my regular internet cafe (where everyone knows me so well, of course!) on a lazy Sunday afternoon, nursing a slight hangover after double birthday celebrations last night. Both Johanna (one of my housemates) and Guillermo (who works in our office) had their actual birthdays yesterday, so we went out for dinner and then to Cafe Nuit - of course - and then on to Kayak, one of the late night bar/clubs down on the lake shore. Let's just say much rum was drunk and I got home this morning at 7am! Oh, to be young(ish) and having fun (I now allow myself a little gentle dancing every now and again, as my ankle seems to be improving)...

So, I realise that once more it's been a long time since my last post here, and that I'd better put down at least a few words. I have nothing super-exciting to say today, since life continues in its usual Granada way: with work, socialising, household stuff, cooking/eating, poker night, volunteers coming and going, and the occasional trip away (like an afternoon spent with Becca at the big handicrafts market in Masaya on Friday looking for birthday presents, or the regular volunteer boat trip to Las Isletas last Sunday). Perhaps the hangover is inhibiting my writing abilities too - yes, probably. I left a house-full of sore heads and tired bodies lying on the sofas and armchairs watching a film on cable TV (so hopefully the TV won't do its usual half-hourly regular breakdowns when we have to bang it so hard you think it might break to recover the picture, as I don't think anyone could cope with the noise).

Anyway, just so I have something to add here, I thought I'd link in some missing photos albums, which do have captions at least so even though they're out of sync with my posts (most are from Mexico), they should give you all something to look at.

Torey's farewell night out

Mexican sightseers

Las Mariposas Monarcas en Michoacan

Mexico City farewell dinner

La Esperanza weekly newsletter

2007-03-05T10:30:00.000-08:00

Here's this week's message from our office:

Seems like it's been a very long week. You will have all the news up the the end of February from the monthly so this is what has happened since - plus some things for the coming week.

Firstly we will have new volunteer Kyle Willets starting on Monday, and another new face that you will see in the office a little in coming weeks is Iain Smy who will be helping us with some computer organization. Iain, who is a friend of the organization for some time now has come down from Canada for a 4 month plus stay in Granada - and he arrived on Thursday night with 40,000!!! children's chewy vitamin tablets. This will give us enough for a whole school year. The district directora Margarita said that the food should start during March too, so we can then give the vitamins at food time and get the maximum benefit for the children, which will hopefully improve their learning capacity. This is one of dreams we have had for a couple of years to be able to give vitamins to all the younger children. Other good news is that the food this year is supposed to include vegetables as well as rice and beans.

We have also had donations of $100 from Denton and Terry Sparks from U.S.A., plus $100 from Nuria Terrigausa in Spain. Plus we have had lots of people bringing clothing in to the office, packets of crayons etc.

Nigel as of this week is fully in the role of Volunteer Coordinator, so he will be able to help with any ideas or plans you may have. Nigel and Christy organized a great day at the community center on Thursday with a group led by John Ogle, who completely cleaned up the yard there, and I believe it is now looking great.

Becca is working on some health clinics to be run at the schools and/or community center from two groups who will be here in the coming months and want to help us - these are both quite sizeable medical groups. We seem to be getting more and more enquiries of this kind which is great. We are starting this week with some children for eye tests with an optician too, and although we have had some donations, the eye testing is cheap, but if they all need glasses we only currently have funds for nine children to get glasses (though of course if we need some can come from general funds) but if anyone has some ideas that can help us more effectively help with eyeglasses please talk to Becca.

La Epifania had no school on Friday due to teacher training and I believe there will be no school there next Friday - but need to check on this. Elba Zamora had no pre-school on Friday. I know that we often receive short notice of when there will be no school or early closures - but could you please put it on the notice board in the office as soon as you know of anything like this. We may need to know for English teaching, School nurse, health team, builders going out to the school for repairs, promotion tours etc. So it is important please to make sure everyone has a chance to know.

The high school kids and lots of volunteers had a terrific afternoon on Friday at the Laguna. Seems like we need to have some more things of this kind to help motivate the high school children rather than just tutoring. When going to places like the Laguna though it is important that it should be seen as just individuals going with children as the organization doesn't have any kind of insurance or anything that would protect us, or more importantly help the child/family in the event of an accident.

Some hard goodbye's this week. Especially to Jan and Eva who have been here for six months - even though Jan has worked with Casas de la Esperanza for the past three months, Jan and Eva have been very much a part of La Esperanza Granada. It was Eva who really got us off the ground with Radio Volcan - plus both of them have been great team members, leaders, fundraisers, and good all round friends. Carolyn has also decided to finish this week, but has left some great things behind her, notably the volunteer diary which has greatly simplified my work. Carolyn will of course also be our star when the Discovery Channel shows Granada to the world. Carolyn did great work in promotion; Stefan is now going to take over doing the tours and helping with promotion. Another loss is Lynette who was working in all the schools with English - though she had to shorten her stay Lynette was great to work with and will be missed.

Next Saturday's library duty is for Fiona and Mike. This week Fenna and Lizzie went up with Doctor Patricia.

Today is Isletas day, and I believe a baseball (soccer?) game day too - good luck to our team, and for any I don't see at the Isletas, see you through the week.
Regards, Pauline.

volunteering work

2007-02-28T14:33:00.000-08:00

OK, I must apologise - I know I have been very lax in writing blog entries (or, in fact, with sending emails at all) in the last fortnight. My excuse is that work is keeping me actually bloody busy. And add to that the fact that temperatures are starting to rise, with the onset of the summer months, so you have to shower and scrub off the sweat and dust and sun cream and grime before you can even think about being human enough to write about what's going on (a girl's best friend out here is her body scrub!)

So given that volunteering is my excuse for not writing, I guess I'd better let you in on what that actually entails. It is what I've come out here to Nicaragua to do, after all... I am now involved with four different volunteering projects: the women's group; the dentist visit program; organising for donated computers to be mended; and communications between a Catholic Mission in New Orleans and an orphanage (yes, I have no idea how that one came about either!).

My women's group work continues as usual, with two afternoon sessions a week with the ladies where we get together and go over current business, and check the quality of the goods that have been made (the leather-bound books are going particularly well at the moment). Once a week we do the accounts and we're trying to get the women to be more involved with both the raw materials costs and the real sales, so we go through the sales and monies earned in some details. Once a week we also have Margie (a local Granadina) come up and teach crocheting, to see whether we can turn this into a saleable product. Although the raw materials for this are wonderfully cheap, it is very labour intensive and takes quite a long time to crochet anything intricate, so we're starting with crocheted borders around material for table centrepieces to see how they might go. The jewellery making group get their regular rations of good beads, and we are trying to keep a good track of costs with them too. In between the meetings, we have jobs like internet research on fair trade status and import/export costs; making new display boards; visiting old and new shops in which to replenish & sell the stock; making up samples of possible new handicraft items (one idea is to make netting bowl-covers with beaded edging); buying supplies in town with the ladies; finding alternative sources and outlets including via volunteer email queries; doing regular inventory stock takes... As you can see this project alone keeps us pretty busy!

Granada & the office

For the dentist project I am co-coordinator, so we had to start off by setting up the program with the clinic and seeing teachers at the four schools we take children from. Even just getting the days and timetables arranged involved six different schools visits (each of which requires a chicken bus ride up the main highway). Also, twice a week I take a group of six kids from one of the schools (so I'm up at 6.30am to collect the children at 8am, and then drop them back around 12.30 or 1pm) to the clinic for their treatment. Even with two volunteers to six children this can be hard work, as we have to persuade them to come and mop up any tears; keep them occupied with puzzles, games, chat, books, playing catch in the yard, etc for four hours straight; even just getting them there and back can be an effort, as we have to either brave the chicken bus or hitch a lift in the back of a truck (actually often easier with the kids than without!) Today I had to walk one boy home mid-morning because he was refusing any treatment, and I talked to his parents about him returning another day. To be honest, virtually all the kids have such bad teeth that many are having loads of fillings, teeth pulled, and more, and they come back week after week. So I coordinate and update the detailed spreadhseet records about the visits. Sadly (for the kids, although happily for me personally) the school chats to explain dental health have been cancelled for now, so I finally get a relatively quiet day on Friday.

The other two projects (computers and orphanage) are weird enough but alas I have run out of time today to explain more, so you'll have to hold your breath for another time...

Managua trips (to civilisation)

2007-02-13T14:54:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make - despite all the mod cons that Granada has to offer, I've already made three trips to Managua (the capital of Nicaragua) to the two shopping malls there, each of which has an air-conditioned mutiplex cinema. I'm afraid the need for a little retail therapy that doesn't involve haggling in market stalls plus a cool cinematic experience (the cinema here in Granada has only three showings a week!) got too great. But I suppose I do also have the excuse that I had to try to replace a few of the things I had stolen from my bag (in which I have been at least partially successful). And our lovely washing machine has this tendency to chew up whatever you wash - so a few more shirts and vest tops are required. Alas, even in Managua it's impossible to replace any bras though, because apparently there are no women in Nicaragua above a C cup (according to the underwear available in every shop I've been into). Not something I completely believe, but that's the way it goes here...

Luckily it's easy to get to Managua, since the best bit of road in the whole country links Managua and Granada. [N.B. Interestingly and strangely enough I hear that the roads here in Nicaragua, even though many are hideously potholed and not even paved, are considerably better than the roads in the much richer and more tourist-developed Costa Rica. Go Nicargaua!] So there are minivans (called expresos or micros) that run from one corner of the Parque Central in Granada about every 15 mins and take an hour to get to Managua. The ride can get a little hairy, especially if you don't get a seat (sometimes having to crouch in the passageway getting up close and personal with the guy who takes the money, and who usually spends half the journey hanging out of the open sliding door trying to encourage more passengers into the van by shouting ManaguaManaguaManaguaManagua (I don't know why but it's always four times) at anyone even vaguely lingering by the side of the road. I think the bus guys would try to persuade anyone into the bus by telling them they can get to wherever you want to go to via that bus's route. I'm assuming the buses run on a franchise basis, which might explain why the drivers and money guys (conductors of a sort) are so keen to pack as many people as physically possible in. Anyway, on the way to Managua it's normally OK to get a seat, but trying to squeeze on the last bus of the night (sadly only at 8pm) for the return journey is another matter!

La gigatona

2007-02-11T12:19:00.000-08:00

The week before my birthday it was Becca (one of my housemate)'s birthday too. Being a sports fanatic, she often plays football out in the street with some of the local kids who come knocking at our door asking for her in the evenings. When they found out it was her birthday coming up, one particular eleven-year-old boy insisted that he would bring round a gigantona (and at this point none of us had any idea what that might be) to celebrate with her. I have to admit that I think everyone in the house was a little sceptical as to whether this would actually materialise. But, come the evening in question, after a birthday meal had been cooked and eaten, sure enough there was a knock at the door and Becca's young football friends had turned up.

Becca's birthday street party

The gigatona is a oversized doll with someone (in this case another little boy) underneath and whilst the "band" plays drums and chants a long and complicated Nicaraguan song/poem/story, the gigatona twirls round and round with her skirts out flying. These little boys really went for it, and everyone who'd come round for dinner absolutely loved the spectacle. In fact, children from our neighbours' houses came out into the street to join in the fun too. It was a truly unusual and memorable Nicaraguan birthday celebration for Becca (and in fact for all of us).

Nica breakfasts

2007-02-11T11:56:00.000-08:00

Today I was going to go off sightseeing to the Mirador de Catarina, but given that the weather is strangely overcast and foreboding (but of course as ever still very much hot and sticky) that didn't seem like such a fantastic plan. [N.B. A mirador is a viewing spot!] My second idea was to take the bus to Masaya, where there is the biggest and best handicrafts market in Nicaragua, but I managed to take too long over breakfast and then missed a couple of buses. And from previous experience (see the entry on Diriamba) I know that setting off to travel too late on a Sunday is a bad idea since there may not be a bus back. Therefore I decided to have a quiet day in Granada instead - hence here I am at my favourite internet cafe with a little time to spare for blogging.

And with breakfast on the brain, I thought I'd let you work out which is my favourite joint. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned in previous posts that there are two particularly well-known breakfast options in Granada:

Kathy's Waffle House
pros - great food
- absolutely huge American portions
- on the way into town from home
- lovely outdoor tables
- open until 2pm
cons - ridiculously enormous portions
- very rich food
- only the coffee comes free with breakfast
- full of ageing male US ex-pats reading the Nica Times (a local English-language newspaper aimed at just that market)

Nica Buffet
pros - more achievably-sized large portions
- also delicious but lighter food
- more European relaxed atmosphere
- free iced tea (the real stuff)
- very friendly Dutch owner
cons - further from home (the other side of the Parque Central towards the market)
- you have to sit inside
- it closes earlier at 12pm

So there you have it; please cast vote on which place you think is my favourite... P.S. I may update this post at a later date to include some photos.

San Juan weekend (the full story)

2007-02-09T14:55:00.000-08:00

Rather annoyingly I'd written half of this blog entry when the computer froze (oh the joy of technology!) so I've had to write it all again. Oh well. So I just heard yesterday about the crazy weather in the UK, and I hope the snow isn't too mad. It seems so far from my reality here, where hot hot hot is what you have all the time (although actually I'm getting much better at dealing with the heat - you just get used to being hot and sticky all the time and sort of stop caring, although I'd love not to have to wear my hiking boots all the time, but my ankle just isn't healed enough yet to risk it out and about). You'd all laugh to see me here in the internet cafe, sipping an iced tea, wearing a sundress, but with my big leather hiking boots on. I think everyone in town now knows me as the "chica gringa con las botas". Even the school kids smile at them...

Getting back to my weekend in San Juan del Sur, which I promised to write more about today. (N.B. You'll have to go back a post to see the photos.) So after lunch (and I did have to have some lovely fresh fish to make a change after all the chicken and mat we eat in Granada) we settled into San Juan on Friday afternoon, and just hung out at the main town beach for a couple of hours. I took a swim, lazed in the sun and then we watched the sunset sitting on the beach, which is one of the main "sights" to see there - beautiful. Four of the other girls from the house had arrived the previous day as they wanted to practise/continue learning to surf (well three of them were there for the surfing, and the other one is a surfer groupie!) We all met up for dinner and then onto one of the beachside bars for drinks and chat... Like Granada, San Juan is something of a backpacker hangout, so there's quite a scene. Torey met a friend for a walk on the beach, while the rest of us hit the one nightclub in town. It was rather quiet so it wasn't too late a night all in all.

Then the next day it was on the 10am beach truck for the surfing girls and on an 11am launch to the other beaches for Torey, Jason and I (the lazy ones!). No one else made it so we had the whole boat to ourselves for the 40 mins trip to Playa Madrajugal, a fantastic semi-deserted bay. Our captain then took off for a day's fishing while we hung out. Torey and I had hired snorkelling gear, which was good fun, even if we didn't actually really see anything much beyond a few little grey fishes. Then we hiked over to the nearby surfers beach, Playa Maderas, where the big waves are and also a small hut which serves a couple of lunch dishes plus cold beers. It was a complete surfer dude hangout, with boards up on the walls and a lot of "how was that wave for you?" conversations going on. But cool to join in with, even if I wasn't truly in the surfer gang. If we ankle was OK, I would love to give it a try though... maybe towards the end of my trip... Becca, Chris and Fiona have become complete surfing addicts.

That night there was supposed to be a big beach party organised for a biker festival in town(!?) To be honest, there were about half a dozen very noisy bikers riding around town, but certainly not the hundreds we had heard rumours about. Torey and I had dinner with a group of American forest firefighters we'd met on the beach that afternoon (yes, such things do happen in Nicaragua) while poor Jason took it easy because of a bad stomach. [Luckily so far I haven't had too many problems of that sort, just a couple of slightly dodgy days, but nothing serious - probably because Granada has mains drinking water (apparently it's the only place in Central America with potable water) so you can trust all the juices, ice, etc even from street vendors.] We met up for drinks later with the other girls in the infamous Iguana Bar and then headed down to the beach party. I had some hopes that there might be music other the usual reggaeton, and there was the occasional other track, but still you can't escape reggaeton's iron grip on the Nicaraguan music and nightlife scene. But that's probably all for the best given my ankle (too much good music and I'd be throwing caution to the wind).

And like every other Nica night out, we ended up in the nightclub listening to/dancing to raggaeton, but so what - the rum was flowing... Becca had met a Nica guy who owned the hotel next door to the club, so she and I ended up there afterwards with him and another friend, and we went to the beach to wait for the sun rise. Sadly this is the "ugly" part of the story because I had my bag stolen (the first time in my life I've ever lost my purse)! It was all very strange, how it happened. We saw a boat seemingly capsizing in the swell (in the dark) so two of us went to try to help or find out what was happening - I thought perhaps the guy in the boat was drunk. But actually I think he might have Bean trying to steal the boat because he refused all help despite everything coming out of the boat (I located at last on oar in the sea), and without saying a word to our shouts in English or Spanish went off into the darkness using the outboard motor. Meanwhile Becca and her friend had gone back into the hotel since there was nothing more they could add, but alas not having realised that we'd left our stuff with them when we dashed off to the sea. So I returned to find my shoes, but no bag. And I was pretty pissed off and upset, I can tell you. In fact I had to wait several days before I could write about this on my blog because I was so annoyed and sore on the subject.

There was nothing to be done at this point, but cry a little, get some sleep and then report the theft to the police. At least I didn't have my passport or credit cards in my bag - just some money, a few personal bits and pieces, oh and my house keys in Granada (and there's a whole new story about when I got the locks changed on Monday...) So I finally managed to persuade the police to take down the details and give me a report for my insurance company (apparently the Nicaraguan police are notoriously loath to make theft reports because it's just a lot of bureaucratic work for them when the case comes up in court, and no one ever gets caught or prosecuted). Then it was back to Tito's hotel to hang out there and wait for him to give us all a lift back to Granada (Torey and Jason having already left early that morning to head back for an organised trip to Las Isletas). It was a long, long day, as I had had very little sleep, was pretty fucked off and generally just wanted to get home and sort everything out. But eventually once the girls had drifted off (apparently they ended up at a cock fight or something) and then drifted back it was time to go. And at least there was no fighting for a seat on the chicken bus this time. And so endeth the San Juan weekend, with me passing out on my bed back home in Granada at 9pm.

Beach weekend in San Juan (the good, the bad and the ugly)

2007-02-06T14:06:00.000-08:00

After a slightly crazy start to Friday (two men came to cut off the electricity to our house, because of supposedly unpaid bills - all resolved now!), Torey, Jason and I headed off to the bus station/patch-of-rough-ground-behind-the-market-and-petrol-station from where the chicken buses leave Granada and just made it on the 11.30am departure. We failed to get seats, but actually in the heat, standing up in the breeze is more pleasant really.

Then after a bit of haggling when we changed buses at RIvas, we got a colectivo taxi to San Juan del Sur, beach and surfer´s paradise. (Actually I´ve yet to get in anything that´s not a colectivo taxi - basically all taxis pick up mutiple random passengers en route everywhere, so you share your ride with anyone and everyone, and you always pay by the person.) Our taxi driver knew a good posada (guest house) to stay in, and given that it was much nicer (windows, fan, painted walls, etc) than some of the very cheapest options, we went for it...

OK. Sorry guys - I´ve been online chatting with Kate all afternoon and I have to go back to the office in 5 minutes for a meeting about organising children´s dentist visit, so I´m thinking I´ll just put up this message with some photos and fill in the gaps afterwards.

San Juan del Sur weekend (2nd-4th Feb)

There´s no time left to write more now, but I know I´ve been pretty lax recently. Forgive me!

La Esperanza monthly newsletter

2007-02-03T07:19:00.000-08:00

This month´s photos: Children, Parents and Volunteers walking to town for High School Registration; Doing the Paperwork; A happy student on the first day of school; Traditional Dancing at the official opening of La Prusia's new classrooms.

It feels as though all of this month has been building up to the climax of the opening of the schools for the 2007 school year. Earlier in the month volunteers continued working with both summer schools and the Children's Activity Group, but the last two weeks everyone has been preparing for the new year which commenced on Monday 29th.

We have some great plans for this coming year. As well as tutoring grades one and two in the schools we will increase our level of activity in the 'preescolar' or kindergarten all four schools (last year we only helped a little in two schools). Another area we want to place more focus this year is in community health, and especially the health of the children. This year in addition to our school/community nurse whose salary we pay, we will have a 'health' team of volunteers.

Two major building projects have been completed this month the double classroom building at La Prusia and the double classroom building at La Epifania. Thanks to The Christ the Healer Mission Group with is a Mission Group under the auspices of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, in New Orleans, U.S.A., we will be able to furnish the classrooms at La Epifania as well as the library room there, plus pay the salary of two extra teachers which means that grades one and two classes can be split into reasonable class sizes instead of one teacher having to deal with over 40 young children. The groundwork of these early years in school is so important to their future. This team, who we met through Bill Wayman last year, also brought down computers and donated 5 of them to La Epifania. We will set them up and install the programs, and plan to have a volunteer teaching computer classes in the school next month.

Teachers of course are one of the most important resources of any schools, and this year through the generosity of all our friends we will be paying the salaries of seven teachers in the schools to help reduce class sizes. One of these is a special needs teacher/child phsycologist. As part of our new efforts (some former volunteers will be amazed) in addition to orientation, and a tour around all the schools, the new volunteers spent a day preparing for tutoring, discussing how to use the items provided in their tutoring kits, getting tips on tutoring from team leaders and volunteers who were here last year, and also receiving advice and listening to a talk about local conditions and learning difficulties in Nicaragua from Georgina who will be the special needs teacher. Every second week we will be holding group meetings to work specifically with how to improve the effectiveness of time spent with the children, and having this specialist advice will be a great help.

The secondary school children now need a full team of volunteers to help them as we have over 50 children attending secondary school thanks to your sponsorship. Chris, Jessie, Judith and Karolien have been to visit the schools and have organized that the children can be tutored by our volunteers in the area they come from, e.g. in their local school. The La Prusia children of course have the benefit of our Community Center.

So many new volunteers this month, all for two months and quite a few for longer terms, we have welcomed Colin Williamson, Lynette Fairclough, Karolien Swaak, Liz Gage, Lauri Tamayo, Laura Manganello, Armando Sotero, Jason Wofsey, Judith Harleman, Lizzie Dipple, Johanna Holman, Becca Alban, Margaux Vulloid, Louis Koenig, Fenna Stomps, Brenda Registe, Linda Yu, Mike Kent Smith, Norm and Lulu Green, Torey Jovick, Jessie Godert, Oscar Bodi Lavall and Kamel Mehasni. We have a wonderful team and look forward to a good year ahead of us. We expect to be able to give to the communities something in the region of 40,000 volunteer hours in 2007!

Donations this month make a long list too and we are so grateful for all the resources so many have brought along, Armando brought over 1000 vitamin tablets, Lizzie, books and puzzles and games, Romero Hernandez Diaz brought lots of great school and art supplies, Becca had sent Spanish language information booklets regarding different aspects of mental health, Jason bought a large amount of beads and cord for the womens working group which he donated to us, Colin brought useful binders and things we need in the office, and Kamel arrived with a bag full of books, toys, even Calendars for La Esperanza Granada that he had printed to do fund raising for us before he left the U.K. (he also brought with him 290 pounds sterling that he raised, plus 40 Euros from his mother Nadia Mehasni). Laura Manganello brought lots of school supplies too, as well as $250 from her parents Bruno and Rossana.

The friends of Charlotte and Stefan Schmidt who I mentioned last month have promised to send 4000 Euros, to be used for our teachers salaries fund. This is a wonderful boost as extra teachers are so badly needed, no matter how many volunteer hours we can offer the money was raised when Huib Roskam held a 15th Anniversary dinner for his company. The evening was called Jubileum Vijverberg and featured a powerpoint presentation about La Esperanza Granada.

We also had pay pal donations this month, from Denton and Terry Sparks, $100, from Jeremy Jensen, $50, from future volunteer Wayne Krause $30 and $25, James Hanesworth sent $200. Delia and Cyril Blakeman sent through $100 Australian. Desi McCaul, who had labored here for some months helping build the new houses in La Prusia for Casas de la Esperanza sent us $500.

The village of Adstock in Buckinghamshire, U.K. sent us $1020. This was thanks to Roger Simmons who had visited last year. Roger put on a fundraising slide show in the village and now the village would like to help one of the villages here who are less fortunate. Maybe we can start a Sister Village project! (Sister City would be a bit big for us)

Thank you so very much to all of you who have been helping us so much and caring so much about La Esperanza Granada. Im sure I speak on behalf of all the volunteers here when I say we will do our best, and we look forward to a wonderful 2007 filled with the joy of helping.

Regards, Pauline.

birthday party but stressful afternoon

2007-02-01T14:44:00.000-08:00

Last night´s birthday festivites went very well (see the photos below).

My 32nd birthday party

The food turned up only about 45 minutes later than planned, but was such a delicious feast that it didn´t matter at all. We ate carne con verduras (sort of meat and veggie stew), gallo pinto (rice and beans), pollo (chicken), tostones con queso (plantain slices fried with Nica cheese on top), albondigas (meat balls), arroz (rice), frijoles (pureed beans), vegetales (vegetables), tortillas (home-made and fried), guacamole, ensalada (pureed coleslaw, sort of)... We also had a pineapple and orange juice refresco to drink, which went very well with the huge bottle of rum that the guys from the other volunteer house brought over! Also my housemates had organised a birthday cake, iced with "feliz cumpleaños Lizzie". I think in the end there were about 25 of us, and we all ate very well, with plenty of leftovers in the fridge for today. It was so sweet, because I received all sorts of lovely gifts too - a woven bag, a necklace and earrings set, a carved pineapple (!), a home-made CD of Latino music, a bracelet. I felt very touched by people´s generosity. And then of course, we had to go to Cafe Nuit (just for an hour or so) for a bit of a boogie afterwards.

So onto my stressful afternoon today: well, obviously in the way of the world any great evening is then balanced out by a not so fantastic day, so I´ll write it down and then forget about it (and I´m off to San Juan del Sur tomorrow morning for a little weekend away at the beach anyway).

Today was one of womens group sessions, and the one where we do the weekly accounts, working out how much each women has sold of her work, and therefore how much she earns. We all got off to a slghtly slow start this morning at home because firstly we were all a bit tired and hungover from last night. But also we had a water leak problem from under our sink, which in this heat meant that horrible water full of food particles was lying in the sun in a gully by our garden. To cut a long story short I had to get our friendly handyman and his assistant to clear out the blocked pipe and wash it all through, but the smell was disgusting, and then we had our daily water stoppage, so we had only our emergency water tank supply to use and it took ages to find any disinfectant (our cleaner uses only water on the floors, I think). And all the while no one could take an outdoor shower because of the men all around. So we got down to the office rather later than planned to work out the accounts. Also, we´d arranged that a lady was coming to today´s session to start teaching a sort of weaving/crocheting skill (which I´m trying to learn alongside the ladies - you should see my practice threads!) plus the English mother of a long-term volunteer was coming too to see how the group works as she could teach knitting at a later date.

But when these visitors turned up at the office we weren´t ready and were only just finishing the accounts and Jo and Fiona were still sorting out new beads to take to the jewellery-making ladies. So after about 20 mins of them hanging around, I suggested I take the two visitors up to the community centre and open it up and that Jo and Fiona follow in a few minutes. [I just felt uncomfortable that our visitors, who´d given up their time, shouldn´t have to hang around while we phaffed.] The trip up there involves a 10 mins taxi ride and then a 10-15 mins walk/scramble across fields along a rocky track. So I´m making comversation in a mixture of Spanish and English for my two comapnions.

We get to the community centre and open up and I get things sorted for the women. But without the keys (which Fiona couldn´t give me before, as they were stuck at the bottom of her bag) I wasn´t able to open up the cupboard in which we store materials, so I made another 20 mins of slightly difficult conversation with everyone, whilst unable to actually do anything. I felt so bad given that Margie was giving up her free time (as a local working person) to teach, plus it was giving Joan a very unprefessinal impression of what we do. Then eventually the other girls turned up and we got started with the crochet class. Despite the late and tricky start, what we actually did was good, plus we gave out new beads and did the accounts with the ladies. So the session went well (depsite me having not thought to bring any scissors to cut the threads - thus looking even less prepared then ever, although I suppose it wasn´t just me).

Afterwards Jo and Fiona were heading off on this afternoon´s bus to the beach (I prefer to take my time, finish everything off that needs doing and go tomorrow morning), so they dashed off and I locked up and then took our two visitors back to Granada. Cue yet more dual-language conversations (which I find quite tiring). Then on the main road, the first taxi to come along was one of the horse and carriage ones that always ply for trade in the main square. I have so far managed to avoid taking one, because the horses look so thin and unhappy and it´s generally not great. But somehow, perhaps because each of us was hedging around the sensibilties of the other and not wanting to seem too difficult, we agreed to take the horse and carriage taxi back to Granada. Which then mean a further spell of semi-translated conversation, whilst I could feel Joan sitting beside me getting more and more unhappy with the horse situation. We actually told our driver not to take on board more passengers when he tried, because it would be too much work for the horses. I also asked him not to whip the horses, and paid him an extra 10 cords to feed them something nice (which of course is unlikely to happen, but I felt the need to try). All of which was painful to sit through, plus the shame of being so amateurish in front of our guests (one of whom is connected to a La Esperanza coordinator).

So I´ve just had an ice cream to cheer me up, and now I´m off home for a long, cold shower... And then tomorrow is a new day. *deep breath*

a perfect Nicaraguan birthday day

2007-01-31T16:16:00.000-08:00

Today being my birthday (for those of you who managed to forget - shame on you!) I'm taking time out from catching up on my adventures in this blog to give you a picture of my lovely today here. Although reading all your birthday messages has been really nice, it does make me miss you all, so thank goodness I've managed to make lots of good friends here already.

As usual I woke up horribly early with the heat and light, plus construction noise from next door, but I decided to put that behind me and go to the gym (yes, I have managed to find some trainers and join a gym even here) for a short workout on the exercise bike, etc. It was hot and sweaty, but lifted my tired mood... Then I got back home around 9am to find that we had two sets of visitors: firstly a strange little old man and a boy, clearing out all the grass and weeds from our patch of inside patio garden (I later found out this was to remove the risk of snakes breeding there!), and even more excitingly Jose, our lovely handyman, who had come to finally install ceiling fans in our rooms (the best birthday present I could ask for right now, as the breeze is dropping and the temperature rising with the onset of summer). And I opened my fantastic birthday card and present from Mike and Kate (thanks a million guys!) brought over from England in my rucksack and carefully not opened until today.

The water was off again this morning, so I had a quick outdoor shower in the garden from our emergency rainwater tank (actually a lovely experience, so I hope the water holds out for a while) before heading down into town to the office. About an hour later and dustier, another volunteer Erin and I had more or less finished boxing up packs of missing schools materials from the office supplies/donations for the four schools we work with. Then Erin took me off for a birthday drink - my choice, so I opted for a clementine refesco (fresh juice drink) at one of the stalls in the parque central (main square/park). Erin had made me the most amazing collage birthday card with a full story told inside about my last weekend's adventures. And a couple of other volunteer friends here passed by and said hi. Then it was off to the market to buy tape, pencil sharpeners, balls and crochet hooks (how I love bargaining!) for the kits and women's group.

After lunch I had a meeting with the other women's working group volunteers, Fiona and Johanna, at a very nice house where the English parents of a long-term volunteer here are staying. They wanted to talk to us about a couple of possible handicrafts projects, and also to invite us to use their wonderful refreshing pool. I should mention that all pools here are plunge pools, rather than for swimming, but in this heat it's divine no matter how small. And as they'd heard it was my birthday, they had bought in some cakes and lit a candle in my honour - plus they plied me with a very English tanqueray gin and tonic for good measure too. It was absolutely a lovely afternoon (the perfect mix of work and pleasure). Now it's back home, after a quick stop off at the second hand clothes shop for a new (sort of) T-shirt and sundress (who says you can't buy your own presents!), and then here at the internet cafe to let you all know about my day.

For tonight I've arranged a caballo bayo (a sort of Nicaraguan mixed feast) cooked by Erin's host mother here, who runs a comedor (local in-house dining room). She insisted I taste various dishes before committing to the dinner, and the food was spectacular in a home-cooking way. So I've invited all the volunteers I know well and anyone else I've become friendly with here to come over, and I think we may be about 30 people in the house. Then probably we'll head off to Cafe Nuit afterwards for more celebrations...

I have to say that despite today being a day when I miss my friends and family back home, I'm actually having a beautiful day in Nicaragua and I can sincerely say that I feel loved here too.

Well, as my dinner is arriving at the house in just 50 mins, I'd better sign off now and go home to have a shower and get changed. Have a great evening, everyone!

Weekend fun at the lake and in Diriamba

2007-01-30T09:17:00.000-08:00

Today is a quiet day for me, since the high school preparation sessions are over and so, apart from my work with the women's group, my other jobs haven't really got started yet. Therefore, I'm finally able to catch up with what I've been up to in recent days/weeks.

I think I have to go back to the weekend before last which was a good one for getting out and about, and also for socialising. On the Friday night we had a party at our volunteer house, inviting all the other volunteers around, plus any Nicaraguan friends we had made, and any other random people passing through. Granada being a small town, with quite a large proportion of travellers stopping off for a few days' rest here (plus a lot of longer-term visitors and volunteers on various projects) it's very easy to keep bumping into the same people time and time again. In the town itself there aren't really any discotecas as such, just a handful of bars, a couple of which also have music and possibility of dancing. Which means that everyone in town - locals and visitors alike - ends up in Cafe Nuit (with live salsa/merengue/bachata band and piped in reggaeton music - extremely annoyng for me stuck in my hiking boots and unable to dance properly because of my ankle!) But it's a great place to meet new travellers or other people and we all went there both Wednesday and Thursday night before our party to try and gather together enough men to invite to the party to make up for the great proportion of women volunteers here at the moment!

The party was a grand success, and went on until the early hours. That weekend (in fact until this most recent Sunday) we were just six girls living together in our volunteer house, which is by far the nicer, bigger and better party venue than the other volunteer house, so I lucked out there. Chris (from Germany) and Fiona (from Ireland) have been here the longest. Becca and Jo (from Washington DC) arrived the week before me. And Torey (from Montana) arrived the same day as me, as I think I've mentioned in a previous post. Chris and Fiona are good friends with a local Dutch bar owner who provided with ice and mint for us for the occasion. There are really only two things to drink in Nicaragua - local Toña or Victoria beer, or the Flor de Caña rum. So as long as you provide ice, limes and maybe some mint and sugar, everyone's happy!

The next day a British TV producer from the Discovery Channel who'd been at our party invited the whole house out for a huge, hangover-reducing breakfast at Kathy's Waffle House (one of two big breakfast locations in town). Later that afternoon I took a taxi down to the shore of Lake Nicaragua with a couple of new volunteer friends (you can walk down to the lake from town, but it's not really nice for swimming in the water there, as you need to go further along). And that evening Torey and I had dinner with another survivor from the party, an American guy who runs a boat doing tourist trips along the Pacfic coast and who invited us to go to the beach (Pacific coast) one weekend and that he would give us a boat ride.

I had previously read that that weekend was when the San Sebastian festival was on in the town of Diriamba, and so on Sunday three of us went on a crazy bus trip to visit it for the day. Getting there was easy enough, with just two and half hours by "chicken bus" and a single change. However the return journey was altogether more complicated (more later). The festival itself on the Sunday took the form of a "hipica" or horse show, Nicaraguan style. It was quite a crazy party in the streets, with spectators lining the streets and hundreds (literally) or horses riding and dancing around the course, interspersed with brass bands playing for the horses to dance to. It was probably a little dangerous with street vendors weaving amongst the horses and no barriers seperating us from the mass of animals, but in usual Latino style we all just went along with enjoying the day... You could tell that this festival was also celebrated by the richest levels of Nicaraguan society (just check out the photos to see what I mean in terms of well-kept and well-fed horses and humans!)

Festival de San Sebastian in Diriamba

For our return trip we had been informed that our best bet was to take a taxi (hard enough given the traffic, crowds and mayhem for the festival) to the next along bigger town of Jinotepe and from there catch the last bus at 5.30pm to take us back to Granada. Alas, we got to the Jinotepe bus station to find that we'd been misinformed and that actually the last bus had left at 4pm. But we saw there was another bus leaving for Masaya (a biggish town halfway between Granada and the capital Managua) which probably gave us our best bet of another way home. We jumped on that and managed to get seats, which turned out to be a huge relief, because this bus then took us directly back through Diriamba, except that now the traffic was so jammed up that we had no hope of actually getting through. The bus filled up to bursting point and beyond (there were even chidren passengers sitting with the driver on his seat!) as well as people hanging out of windows and sitting on the roof. Then we had to make a detour through some local villages (down mud streets not wide enough or made for a bus) being directed by a local man sitting up on the front bonnet of the bus (yes, in front of the windscreen) as it got dark. There were branches coming in thorugh the windows and everyone lurching around as we battled up and down potholed hills, not really sure where we were going. Eventually about an hour and a half later we made it to the main (i.e. paved) road but coudln't get onto it correctly at the angle we joined it, so actually we turned onto the wrong lane and drove for another 5 mins backwards the wrong way down the road until we could turn around. I was actually very impressed with the driver's skills! From then on the bus journey to Masaya and then shared taxi back to Granada was a mere nothing... And so ended the weekend.

P.S. My next post will be about Becca's birthday on Monday and then last weekend's cigar launch party excesses with the crazy Canadian posse. But my camera batteries have just died, so I can't upload any more photos right now. However, before I sign off, for anyone reading this today I would very much appreciate a nice birthday email tomorrow, please!

another La Esperanza newsletter

2007-01-28T15:38:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of recent posts, guys. I keep meaning to come to the internet cafe and write up all that's been going on, but then so much is going on that I keep having no time left over for actually catching up with myself! Anyway, I absolutely PROMISE to write several posts this coming week. And in the meantime, here's this week's La Esperanza newsletter:

Dear All,

Firstly welcome to all the new volunteers who are joining us this week, Jason Wofsey, Lauri Tamayo, Norm and Lulu Green, Mike Kent Smith, Lois Koenig and Margaux Vulloid, and Linda Yu.

I'm sure that you are all aware that this week is the start of the school year, so it may be a little chaotic this week, the first week of school normally is, but next week you will find things settling, and hopefully all of us enjoying our roles.
On Monday there were to have been two official openings. One at La Epifania at 10am, the other at La Prusia at 3pm. I was notified last night that there has been a time change for these, so please check with the office before going to either of these if I get the new times this afternoon I will send another email.

For the new arrivals who have not yet had an orientation and introduction to the schools this will start at 9.30 am in the office tomorrow. For all volunteers who will be working in the schools there will also be a special tutoring and introduction to Nicaraguan education on Tuesday at 1.30pm.

Charlotte and Stefan have had some problems on their travels so will not be able to return until approx. 17th February. Because of this Judith and Chris will organize things for those volunteers working with the secondary school children, and Lynette will organize the English classes in the primary schools.

We had news of a wonderful donation today from the village of Adstock in Buckinghamshire, U.K. Roger Simmons visited Granada last year and went up to the villages on a tour. As a result of the impression the children and the people made on Roger he decided to have a fundraising night in his local village to make people aware of the needs of a Nicaraguan village. Today we received a paypal donation from the people Adstock for $1020. Thanks too to Lauri Tamayo and her friend for bringing lots of school supplies, especially for arts and crafts, to Armando Sotero for bringing vitamin tablets, to Jason Wofsey for bringing beads and cord for the womens working group. (and if I have missed anyone or anything, which I think I may have please let me know).

Next Sunday we will be making a trip to the Isletas for Sunday afternoon leaving at 11.30 returning at 4pm which is a great chance to all get together and relax.

So see you all through the week, lets make it a good one. Regards, Pauline.

P.S. - just one other thing for anyone new who may not know - though it says in the printed Orientation that meetings are on Thursday evenings (we need to re-print them) volunteer meetings are now on a Tuesday evening at 7.30pm in the office.

weekly La Esperanza charity bulletins

2007-01-25T15:28:00.000-08:00

I've decided that it would be nice to show you all what happens at La Esperanza (the charity I'm working for here) so I'm going to copy in our weekly emails so you can what's going on for the charity as a whole. It will hopefully put my blog posts in context too so you can better understand what goes on with life here and what it's like working as a volunteer... Following here is this week's one:

Dear All,
Its been a great week this week and a very productive one. The books in the library have been inventoried, and all the new books listed, covered, and taken up to the Library. The tutoring kits are all up to date ready for the new year. The high school children are just about complete with all the many things that they need to start the school year, not to mention the fact that the High School Prep team has been continuing classes with those starting 1st year. It is an enormous job with each child having to be enrolled, and last years re-enrolled, collecting letters for sponsors, copies of report cards etc. Even such things as sizes of shoes, socks, shirts and many other things. The supplies for their backpacks, notebooks etc. have been delivered to the office and this week we will have the backpacks ready to fill.

Childrens activity group have been having fun and will continue this week for the last week before the start of school.

I am adding the notes of last weeks meeting to this email. Since then we have another four new volunteers who have joined us. Lynette Fairclough from the U.K. who is a TEFL teacher and will be teaching English, Colin Williamson from Ireland, Laura Manganello from Italy, and due to arrive today Liz Gage from Switzerland. These four will all have orientation on Monday.

On Tuesday we will have a meeting at 2pm which Erin will lead just to give some preparation to those of you who are already here who will be working in the primary schools. Erin will give you each a tutoring kit as well because we will have so many more new volunteers by the following Tuesday it will be good to get some organizing done in a advance.

We had some great donations this week. Lizzie Dipple who arrived last week brought some lovely childrens books in Spanish, plus skipping ropes and toys, Becca Alban had sent down from the U.S. some books/booklets in Spanish pertaining to Mental Health which should be useful in the community. Laura Mangenello brough a cash donation from her family of $250, and we had a paypal donation today from Celias Cottage in Antrim, Norther Ireland of $500. We also received the news that Iain Smy, a friend from Canada has obtained 40,000 childrens vitamin tablets for us and will be bringing them down with him in March.

On Friday we found that the school at Las Camelias has changed their class times with grades one two and three in the afternoon this year, though pre school will be in the morning. Christy will talk to those of you who will be at Las Camelias at the next meeting on Tuesday.

We had a visitor this week David who works with the Discovery Channel, he spent lots of time with La Esperanza Granada during his stay and we are very hopeful that we may be shown when they do the filming of their Granada segment of Passport to Latin America from 16th to 20th February.

THE OFFICE HAS TO MOVE !!! We will only be moving next door but in order for the new hostel to open behind the office they have to dig up the floor of where we are currently to install grey water pipes. The office next door is larger, has a bathroom and has been freshly painted. So we will plan the move for Wednesday any helpers appreciated.

Be prepared to see lots of new faces arriving during this week and next weekend Jodi Winemiller, Michael Kent Smith, Norm and Lulu Green, Armando Sotero, Lily Laban, Margaux Vulloid, Louis Koenig, Jason Wofsey, and Linda Yu will all be starting the new school year with us.

See you all through the week,
Regards, Pauline.

Notes from Wednesday 17th Meeting Present, Fenna, Judith, Christy, Torey, Erin, Becc, Lizzie, Johanna, Carolyn, Jesse, Mark, Pauline, Mara, Karolien, Carolyn, Chris and Fiona.

Posters for the schools incentive prizes will be done by Johanna, Karolien and Jesse.

The Obra was cancelled for Thursday 18th, and will now be on 29th in both La Prusia and La Epifania.

Materials in the office to be sorted out to take to the various schools will be done by Erin and Lizzie.

Tutoring session will be in the office on Tuesday at 2pm for all those who will be teaching/tutoring in the primary schools.

Womens working group will change from Tuesday and Thursday afternoon to Monday afternoon.

Team leaders in each school will organize the placement of volunteers in that school e.g. first grade, second grade, pre school.

Team leaders/volunteer meetings will be on Tuesday from now on to see how that works. We will have the team leaders meeting in the office at 6.30 any other volunteer who wishes to attend for any reason can just ask their team leader to bring them along, then we will have the volunteer meeting the same night at 7.30 at the Central which will now be next door to our office.

P.S. for new volunteers who don't know we will be making a trip to the isletas on Sunday 4th February - this is optional, on a Sunday afteroon - the boat is paid for and it is a great chance to get out of town and relax together for the afternoon.

daily life

2007-01-23T18:45:00.000-08:00

Granada first impressions

As usual, I am hot, tired and sticky by the end of another Nicaraguan volunteer day (and considering how best to put across the simple but extreme pleasure of washing your hands at a moment like this!). But happy because I got what I needed to buy at the market this afternoon.

Most days I wake up around 7am because that's when it gets hot and light, plus noisy from the workmen building things next door. To be honest it gets so hot in the day that actually it's good to get going by 8am before it's too much to take. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I walk up to one of our schools (called Las Camelias) which is just outside Granada. Then at 8.30am I help bring a group of kids preparing for high school back down into Granada for their 30 mins of computer "class" at the internet cafe. We're then taking them to the market to help buy the school uniforms (it was girls on yesterday's trip, so quite different again to the boys). As everything here is rather chaotic it's hard to describe what this can entail - for instance we only found out yesterday that the high school will only accept students wearing exactly one sort of uniform so some of the kit we've bought isn't right. And then you've got the kids wanting to swap the style of socks they've each got or running off to buy refrescos or something from other stalls, or us having to find and pay people to mind the kids' bicycles... Mayhem just isn't the word. But the children are nice, if quite lively! In fact it's interesting to see the difference between the "rougher" urban kids and the country ones from a village further out. Anyway, there's just two more sessions like that to go before school starts.

By noon you're tired and hungry and so we often stop off for a fantastic second breakfast. As Granada is a small town you very often bump into the other volunteers (or hangers on that we get to know from other projects or just passing through) several times a day at one of the many spots where people pass by, eat or watch the world go by. There are two particular breakfast spots that everyone goes to too. Then afternoons could involve tutoring training, inventory of schools materials, or my seemingly interminable search for the kind of room fans that are missing in two of the rooms in our house. On Monday and Thursday afternoons we have the women's group meetings (held at the community centre - a concrete hut up a hill out of Granada where mosquito repellent is essential and you either bus, walk or hitch a lift in the back of a truck back down afterwards), so Tuesday and Thursday mornings involve work for those sessions as well, checking inverntory, doing accounts and trying to expand things (like me talking to a Nica lady today who is interested in teaching the women to weave bags, but first we have to set up a meeting to see samples and work out the cost effectiveness plus whether the possible markets are there. But everything always takes a very long time compared to how long you think it might. The women often bring their children with them, so part of the job (which I leave to the other two volunteers) is to play with the little kids and keep them out of trouble. You could say we're keeping pretty busy.

Then there are house things and shopping and washing (you have to wash your clothes pretty much every day because they get sweaty and dusty so quickly, so it's a good job we have a decent washing machine at the house) and so on to fit in around the day as well. But it's so social at home and out and about that actually it's fun too. I normally take a (cold, becasue that's all there is, but actually it's fine) shower in the evening since that's when there's water pressure. And given that we haven't been getting the same number of power cuts as were happening last year you can do that too (showering in the dark might be a step too far!)

first impressions of Granada

2007-01-17T11:42:00.000-08:00

OK. This morning´s power cut is now over and I´m in a better internet cafe than last time, so I can at least put down a few first impressions of Granada, where I´m now living.

I arrived late last Thursday evening at the Casa Santa Lucia, which I´m currently sharing with 5 other girls, although I believe a couple are joining us in a fortnight or so. I managed to wangle a room to myself, although I don´t know if you can call it "to myself" when I share it with more than 30 spiders! I have to say that there´s no way you could live here with a fear of spiders, but mainly I just let them be (even the ones in my shower). So yes, the house is quite basic but it´s also quite comfortable and the other girls are very friendly. I´ve taken a few photos and once I come back with my camera I´ll upload those here.

Since a group of volnteers who´d been here a while were heading off for the weekend to the beach, another new arrival and myself stayed in town to acclimatize to the heat (we arrived during a 32 degrees "cold spell" which sadly is now over) and get to know the town. Granada is chaotic, ramshackle and dilapidated, but actually also very pretty and relaxed. I have to admit I really like it - even the market which some people find intimidating. It´s clearly the richest and most developed town in Nicaragua, but then that´s not saying much!

So Torey and I spent Friday and Saturday shopping, wandering and generally hanging out. Oh, and we did manage a bit of a night out on Friday too. Granada is quite small so there´s really only a handful of bars to go out in, so I think you very quickly get to know everyone - particularly who´s local, who´s a volunteer/ex-pat and who´s just a traveller passing through. Then on Sunday we visited a nearby Lagoon created by water filling in the crater of a (hopefully) dormant volcano. It was really chilled out and beautiful. Great swimming too.

Monday was our orientation day at the office, when we got something of a tour of the town and the local poor villages we help in. I have to say the organisation is pretty chaotic, but hopefully it will calm down once more of the recent influx of voluteers find their way. It turns out that I will be working with the women´s group but also helping out with the schools too. I´m trying not to get annoyed about it (after my long email discussions with the volunteer organiser about precisely this subject) and just go with the flow. It is the Nicaraguan way, after all. In fact you can´t do anything here quickly at all, so everything involves going with the flow. Even just buying something at the market stall can involve 10 mins of conversation. Nothing happens "rapido" in this heat.

Yesterday was my first day with the women´s group getting to know some of them and seeing how the payments are made. We managed to sell quite a few items of jewellery to a local hotel to sell on, so that´s great. And today we bought materials at the market to make a couple of display boards too. Also this morning I helped take a group of 11 boys (aged between 12 and 14) to computer class - for which read 30 mins paid for at a local internet cafe with us 3 volunteers showing them how to change font, cut and paste, etc in Word - and then on to the market to buy them all shirts, trousers, shoes and socks for their school uniforms. Complete mayhem as you can imagine. But actually the boys are naughty but still friendly and wanting to learn...

Nicaragua contact details

2007-01-15T16:19:00.000-08:00

I´m at a terrible internet cafe with a very slow connection and a sticky keyboard, so I can´t write the interesting piece I was going to on my first impressions of Granada, or upload my first photos.

However, I will at least give you my postal address, in case anyone wants to send me a letter or card, or something:
Lizzie Dipple
La Esperanza Granada
Hostal Central
Calle La Calzada
3 Varas Oeste
Granada
Nicaragua

And I´ll write more next time from a better internet cafe.

Nicaragua here I am

2007-01-12T10:54:00.000-08:00

Last night I flew in to Nicaragua (to the capital Managua) and then came down here to Granada by taxi. Just as we were leaving the airport my taxi driver Felipe got a phone call to say that he had to pick someone else up at the airport, so we went to a nearby petrol station and stopped there while he invited me to a juice and a chat whilst we waited for the other person´s plane to land. Felipe was full of thoughts and discussions about the new president of Nicaragua (old-time Sandinista Daniel Ortega) who had been sworn into office the day before, and what he´s going to do to the country. I have to admit I was a little worried sitting there at the garage with all my travelling worldly goods on me, but actually it was pretty cool talking to Felipe.

So this morning I popped in on the charity´s office to say hello, and to find out where and when I have to get started (9am on Monday for an orientation session) and I´m spending the rest of today hanging out with another newly arrived volunteer, Torey from Montana, getting to know the town of Granada and getting used to the heat. We´ve already met a few US ex-pats over breakfast, who´ve given us some tips on cool places to go. The other girls at the house are off for the weekend to the beach for some surfing, but I think I´d like to spend at least 24 hours here in Granada finding my way around before I head off...!

Mexico City catch-up

2007-01-12T10:18:00.000-08:00

I had a few problems with Blogger on my last two attempts to write an entry in Mexico City, so I´m afraid I´m now having to do a quick catch-up on what I was up to there...

The lovely Artus put me up in his flat very close to Coyocan metro station (for those of you reading this who know Mexico City), and I spent my first couple of days just hanging out, wandering around and remembering to speak Spanish. It was lovely to relax after all the craziness of packing up in London. Then on Friday night Artus organised a tradtional Fiesta de la Rosca and invited many of my old Mexico friends. This is a party where you cut and eat a traditional cake ring to celebrate the Dia de los Reyes Magos (6th Jan) when Mexican children receive their Christmas presents from the Wise Men. Of course our party involved more drinking wine and chatting than anything else, but even so... I´m having difficulties downloading photos from my camera, but if and when I manage it, I´ll put up a couple of fiesta photos here (click on the photo to see the rest of the album).

Fiesta de la Rosca

It was funny how my Spanish improved greatly as the evening (and the drinks) wore on! It was extremely nice to see many of the friends I´ve hardly been in touch with since my last visit to Mexico almost five years ago.

Artus has also had his Maltese boyfriend Chris staying with him, and we three had a touristy day on Sunday, first taking the new Turibus open-top bus tour all around the city (so much has changed it´s incredible - all new shiny skyscrapers being built in the Zona Rosa and around, and now La Condesa has moved on from hip to a bit passe). The centro area has also changed loads, as it´s lost its sketchy, edgy feel and now is (comparatively) much smarter and safer. I have to admit though that secretly I sort of miss the old cool too. Then later on we went to the Ballet Folkorico to see a show of traditional Mexican regional dances (along with a theatre full of gringo tourists). The following day we took a trip out to the state of Michoacan with Artus´s mother to see the Monarch butterflies which come through and spend winter here in their millions.

Mexican sightseers

Las Mariposas Monarcas en Michoacan

A couple of things I´d wanted to do in Mexico as part of the Latin American acclimatisation were to travel around by pesero/microbus and also to wander and eat in the markets, both of which I managed to fit in in between my photoshoot with Toño for Artus´s friends gallery of photos (and let me tell you this was quite an experience!) And then, horribly quickly it was my last day and night - I met up with an old friend Pancho for a traditional comida corrida lunch and then we had a dinner and drinks de despedida (goodbye) in the evening with everyone. Funnily enough all the lovely Mexicans were on British punctual time and I was the Mexicana arriving 20 mins late! We had a fantastic evening, and I felt very sad to be heading off the next morning... But I have made lots of promises to return to Mexico very soon.

Mexico City farewell dinner

Mexico City arrival

2007-01-04T12:31:00.000-08:00

Despite all the craziness of finishing off packing up my flat, I did manage to get most of it done by the skin of my teeth, and then I packed up my rucksack (rather chaotically) and got on the plane yesterday. I arrived here in Mexico City last night, and my goodness was I glad to see my friend Artús waiting for me at the airport to take me home... I think I´d used up all my reserves of energy for the packing and sorting out and then the 11-hour flight on top of it all was just exhausting.

But today is a new day and I´m out and about re-acclimatising to the Latin American vibe. I´ve already eaten quesadillas and nopales (cactus) and I´m wandering around on a sunny afternoon not needing my fleece jacket at all. I think with all the frenetic activity of getting prepared for the off I had forgotten what going away for 5 months really means, so it´s only now that I´m pausing for breath that I have realised what I´m doing - scary stuff!

Now I have a few more days here before I head to Nicaragua for the real purpose of this trip. More to follow once I get there...

Panic sets in

2006-12-30T15:38:00.000-08:00

I'm afraid the title says it all - I've got 72 hours to go, my flat hasn't even really begun to be packed up, I've still got shopping to do for the trip equipment and now I'm coming down with flu. Joy oh joy! But I suppose I always knew this time would be frantic so I can't complain (too much). Hopefully tomorrow will bring a new day in which I can tick more things off the list. Lovely Alex has agreed to come round and help me move some bookcases (not something I should attempt on my own with my dodgy ankle) and despite having to stop every 10 mins to let the machine cool down, my shredder is getting through the huge mound of paper... eventually... And I'm down to only 5 more loads of washing to go. So, fingers crossed things do get done before the off. And that I get a chance to go out and celebrate New Year's Eve tomorrow night. Have a good one!

First Post

2006-12-22T15:56:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am sitting at home a couple of days before Christmas, feeling a little overwhelmed by everything I've still got to do getting ready for the off. Kate and Mike have just left after coming round for dinner, which was another "goodbye - and see you next June after you're back from Nicaragua". It's exciting and yet also a little sad... Anyway, time to think about tomorrow's to-do list (new hiking boots and a sun hat are top priorities). Good night.