Final Days

On Tuesday we went with a professional surfer to a beach nearby for surfing lessons. Everyone really enjoyed learning but we definitely didn{t enjoy getting so sunburnt! We were on the beach for about 5 hours with no shade, which was just too much for our skin to handle!

We have gone through a lot of aloe since and spent yesterday hiding from the sun. Yesterday morning us girls walked around town and checked out all the little shops. We spent the afternoon throwing things away and trying to figure out how to pack our bags so everything fit. Last night we went to a hotel on a hill and watched the sunset on the beach, then went out to eat.

We checked out of our hotel in San Juan del Sur this morning and drove a couple hours to Managua. We{re staying in a nice hotel across the street from the airport and are just relaxing today. Tomorrow morning we{ll be in the airport getting ready for our flight back home.

Enjoying the Beach!

When we got to Ometepe island, we went to a pool that's fed by a spring. The water was so clear and we had a lot of fun. Yesterday morning we went to a beach on the island and swam in Lake Nicaragua. We ate lunch at the hotel and then packed up the van. We rode the ferry for an hour and then drove a little while to San Juan del Sur, which is right on the Pacific. We are all really impressed with our hotel here and excited to check out the beach today. Surfing lessons are on the agenda and we plan to spend today and tomorrow relaxing and enjoying our final days in Nicaragua. We have tonight and tomorrow night here before heading back to Managua and getting ready to fly home.

We'll see you soon!

Emily

We Survived the Rainforest!

We left San Carlos Thursday on a boat for Bartolo Rainforest Lodge. It was a 3'hour boat ride from San Carlos to El Castillo, where we got out and had a quick tour of the El Castillo fort that was built to protect Nicaragua from English pirates on the Rio San Juan. Then the people from the lodge picked us up in a smaller boat and it took 45 minutes to get the lodge.

It was a beautiful and relaxing place. We didn´t really have an agenda so we used our time to catch up on our journals and reading, finish our worksheets, and actually read for fun! Friday morning we left at 6 am for a 2 hour hike through the rainforest. I think we were making too much noise to see much, but we did see some cool frogs and turantulas.

Today included lots of travel time. This morning we left the lodge at 3.40 am in order to get to El Castillo to catch the 5 am boat back to San Carlos. So it´s been a long day! Some people from Self Help picked us up at the dock and we went straight to the airport, where we waited for our flight back to Managua. Willmer, our guide from Self Help, went to Managua earlier and met us when we landed. We rented a van and climbed an active volcano! Then we spent an hour back at the market in Granada that we were at last week before checking into our hotel here. Tonight we ate at an Italian restaurant and it was such a treat to have pasta instead of rice!

Tomorrow morning we leave bright and early for our drive to Ometepe, an island in Lake Nicaragua. We´re staying there tommorrow night before driving to San Juan del Sur, where we´ll be enjoying the beach and soaking in the sun until we head back to Managua Thursday night for our flight on Friday. I can´t believe we don´t even have a full week left!

Us Outside the Center and a Pic of the Stove

Day 12: Last Day in San Carlos

Today Willmer took us back to Mexico. We were all a little nervous about making it there safely but the trip there was fine. We took the forms off the stove we made yesterday so now it just has to set a little longer before they put a chimney on it and it will be ready to use.

We also picked up a lot of garbage around the daycare center. There is really no garbage pickup here, especially not in the rural areas. So garbage just gets thrown on the ground everywhere. We picked up quite a bit and hopefully they burned it today before it blew all over again. It makes me so sad to see all the litter everywhere and I was glad we could help clean up a little, especially all the pieces of glass around the center.

Some men from the community rebuilt the little room we ripped apart yesterday. I got to help rip nails out of the boards we tore off and then a few of us got to help put the boards back up on a sturdier support. The men also put a new roof on it but Fred didn{t want us climbing on the roof so we just let them handle it.

It got really windy for a bit this morning and poured rain so we were nervous about getting stuck on the way back this afternoon but we made it just fine. They did stop and get out tools at one point. We don{t know what was wrong but they messed with something under teh hood for a few minutes and then we kept driving. We made it back safely!

We are leaving San Carlos tomorrow morning to ride a boat down to the rain forest! We{ll be there Thursday and Friday night and have to take a 3 am boat back to San Carlos Saturday morning.

I am not sure when we will have Internet next but will be sure to blog again when I can.

Stuck in the Mud

Flat Tire

In front of the stove we built

Day 11-Van Problems...

Today we went to work in a small community called Mexico. I´m guessing it would take half and hour to get there if there was a good road with better bridges but it takes 2 hours because of the horrible road conditions. We built a stove for a daycare there and helped rip apart the walls of a room attached to the center so it can be rebuilt.

We left at 1:30 to head back to San Carlos. After 30 minutes of driving our tire popped and we all piled out of the van while they changed it. Everyone here sits outside their house and of course this happened in the middle of a town so the group of us standing outside our bright yellow van drew a lot of attention. We drove about 10 more minutes before we got completely stuck! It rained off and on all day, which made the roads even worse. We all had to pile out again and several of us ended up helping push the van out of the mud and puddles. But once we got out we were fine-we just had to stop for a second because the engine was overheating. So...our journey back to San Carlos took a little longer than expected but was definitely filled with excitement.

It is raining again as I type this, but we are planning to head back there again in the morning so I sure hope the roads aren´t any worse. Tomorrow we are going back to help finish the roof and the stove at the daycare.

Day 10

This morning we drove quite a ways to the Los Chiles community to paint a daycare center. We got to paint it lots of fun stripes of colors! The boards had never been painted before so it definitely made the center more cheerful. Children get their most nutritous meal of the day there.

This afternoon we walked to a small swimming pool in San Carlos and cooled off for a while. Most of us are using the rest of tonight to catch up on our journals and homework.

Tomorrow we´re off to build a stove (since we´re pros now) and fix a roof.

Painting!

Group Pic in San Carlos

San Carlos airport

Here´s us right after we got off the plane! The plane is right behind me and the airport consists of a little room and this outside loading and unloading area.

View of the cockpit

I had a nice view of the cockpit from my seat on the plane!

In San Carlos

We made it to San Carlos this afternoon! This morning we packed up and went to the Managua airport to wait for our flight. It was a 12 passenger plane so the plane was a bit snug. It took us about 45 minutes to fly here and we landed at a tiny airport with a gravel landing strip.

Our guide, Willmer, met us at the airport and drove his truck right on the side of the landing strip to load our luggage in it. We are staying at a fairly nice place although the power already went out for a bit earlier and it sounds like running water is a little funky at certain times of the day.

Willmer just walked us around San Carlos and told us a bit about its history. It´s right on Lake Managua so we saw women washing clothes in the lake and a lot of people take a boat to Costa Rica from here. Willmer´s a funny guy and we are looking forward to working with him!

Group pic!

A group shot of us as at the volcano this morning.

Piñata!

Yesterday a few of the kids in the community tried to break the piñata and then they let Aaron finish it off. They loved getting all the candy but it was so sad to say goodbye to them!

A much needed break...

Today was a well deserved day off! This morning we all went zip lining and then hiked around a dormant volcano near Granada.I cannot remember what it is called but it started with an M. I was dissappointed that the volcano has been dormant for a while and their was no lava. But it was like a tropical rain forest in the crater and we hiked around it.

This afternoon we went to an open air market and spent some of our money! And the best part of today was the pizza we had tonight! We were all thankful for a meal that didn.t include rice and beans. Only we forgot that our stomachs have shrunk so we ordered quite a bit extra but our guides Jimmy and Catalina are going to give the extra away to some kids in their hometowns that could use it so we didn.t feel quite so guilty about ordering so much more than we could eat.

Tonight we are staying in the hotel in Managua that we stayed at the first night we got here and tomorrow we are flying south to San Carlos to work with Self Help International.

It was a great night and we are all thankful for warm showers and no outhouses! Oh, and there are less bugs here. I keep forgetting to blog about it but the place we stayed at last week had a lot of geckos running around as well as some other bugs and a few cockroaches. One night I think each room was screaming about something in their room. A gecko crawled down the wall onto the side of my bed so we scared it back up the wall but the walls weren.t connected to the ceiling so we weren.t sure if it went outside or over the wall into the other girls room. A little scary but also funny when I look back on it.

El Porvenir Well

We planted more than 200 tree seedlings around this well that El Porvenir helped the community build.

The La Dante Girls

All the kids in the village love getting their picture taken! Whenever they see my camera they pose and then run over so I can show them the picture and they point and giggle and go pose again. These girls are in front of a house we built a stove at on Thursday.

Cementing!

Here´s us mixing the cement for the stoves outside of one of the houses.

Getting the dirt ready...

Here´s a photo of us shoveling, sifting, and bagging dirt to plant tree seeds in. A couple of the kids from La Dante enjoyed helping us and teaching us some Spanish while we taught them a little English.

Two Weeks Left!

The La Dante community welcomed us Monday with some dancing and singing. They also said farewell this afternoon and we had a pinata to celebrate. We were all sad to leave our friends there.

Wow! We´ve been here a week already! We accomplished so much this week! Yesterday and this morning were spent building 3 cement stoves for 3 local families. The stoves improve the health of the people because they have chimneys so most of the smoke goes outside instead of staying inside their home. They don´t have a welder so we learned to used pieces of wire to make re'rod frames to put in the cement. There were no cement trucks involved but instead we mixed the cement ourselves ouside of the homes and then carried it in and poured it into forms. In a few weeks the cement will be set and ready to cook on!

This week we planted 268 tree seedlings in the ground and bagged 1,368 tree seeds and made 3 stoves!

Tonight we are staying in the nicest hotel in Grenada, which is such a vacation from the places we´ve been at all week. It has a monstrous swimming pool and an awesome restaurant. We all wish we were staying here longer. Tomorrow we´re going to a market and hiking the volcano and doing some zip lining before heading back to Managua. We fly from Managua to San Carlos on Sunday to start our work with Self Help International.

Day 5...Soccer Champs!

This morning we visited a local school. The elementary kids were there this morning and then the high schoolers have school in the afternoon. We talked to a few classes for a bit and gave them coloring books and crayons that the Winter Term Wartburg classes had prepared for the school.

Today we went to a different village, Conte Grande, to plant trees. They planted tree seeds like we did yesterday about a month ago and they were now ready to be put in the ground. We, with the help of some local people, planted 264 trees around a well that was recently built for the community.

This afternoon we played the local high school girls soccer team. U.S. scored 2, Nicaragua scored 1! We were all exhausted and are worn out tonight. We had a couple girls who have played soccer before and some that have never played. I don´t even know the rules! We were dreading getting dominated by the local team but we ended up having a ton of fun!

Tomorrow we are building 2 or 3 stoves in La Dante, where we spent Monday and Tuesday working. Friday we are working there in the morning and then we are presenting a cultural show that afternoon for the community. When we first came they sang songs and danced for us so now it´s our turn. We are still debating what to do, but are thinking the YMCA or Macarena...none of us seem to have very good talents to showcase.

Emily

We made it!

We didn´t think we´d have Internet all week but today found a little Internet cafe in Terebona, a small town where we are staying all week.

Day 1..Our flight got in Saturday night and we were all sweating as soon as we walked out of the airport. The nice thing is that Nicaragua is actually in the same time zone as Iowa except they don´t observe daylight savings time so they´re an hour ahead. So jet lag wasn´t an issue. We stayed in a nicer hotel than I was expecting the first night.

Day 2..We had a little orientation with El Porvenier, the organization we´re volunteering with for the first week. Then a women who teaches in Managua but is from the U.S. gave us a lesson on the country´s history and culture that really helped us understand a bit about Nicaraguans. After driving aroudn the city we ate lunch at the hotel and then drove about 3 hours to Terebona, a rural area. We are staying in the main town and have decent rooms. The showers are cold but we are thankful for running water and the light they installed in the shower today so we can see better and shower later at night since it gets dark at about 6.30 here.

Day 3..Monday we began volunteeering. We drive about 20 minutes to a small village in the Terebona area called La Dante. We spent Monday digging dirt from a dry creek bed and sifting it into piles. Then we mixed manure and ash in it to create a potting soil for trees. It is a lot of physical labor and we get tired really fast because there´s little shade and the sun is so hot. We reapply sunscreen constantly but most of us have gotten burnt a little and a few have had to wakl back and sit under trees for a while.We´re definitely consuming alot of water here!

Day 4..Today we finished our tree planting project! We scooped teh soil into little bags and lined them in rows then filled them with tree seeds and watered them. They´re goal for us was to plant 1000 but we had about 1500 done by this afternoon! The village will care for teh trees and eventually transplant them, often around wells to help catch water so it can drain into the well. They sometimes plant fruit trees for the people to use for food and profit but we planted hardwood trees to provide firewood to the community. This afternoon we visited a hospital and learned about the nationwide healthcare here and the ehalth issues in the area.

Tomorrow we are planting trees around a well and visiting a local school. Most of the group has taken a little Spanish and are picking up more words and phrases all the time. The local children like to helpand talk with us. We are all looking forward to climbing a volcano and shopping at a market this weekend before flying south to work with Self Help International for the next two weeks.

Emily