July 15, 2015

Saying goodbye to our new friends

The people of Miraluz gave us parting gifts to remember them by

Today was our last day in Miraluz :-(  We finished as much as we could of the final touches and then we had a closing/goodbye celebration.  I completely did not expect to get as emotional as I did because of how short a time we spent there.  But I did - I guess that just means that the community stole my heart with their kind and generous hospitality.  I feel so very grateful that I was given this opportunity because it has completely solidified that I feel called to something in this capacity.  It was completely needed and I will continue to be thankful for this opportunity.  After lunch, we headed out to the Masaya Volcano.  It was gorgeous!  Being able to walk right up to the mouth of an active volcano is pretty thrilling.  And of course, who could ever get sick of a gorgeous 360° view.  I also managed to get a decent hike in.  I might have considered going further if it wasn't for the fact that my back hurt.  But I still got some great pictures nonetheless (at least I hope so).  We had another delicious dinner (fish!) and after that we sat around the campfire singing songs and talking about our experiences and what we will take away from this trip.  I know that my life has been changed from helping the people of Miraluz and will always remember this trip :-)

Our group standing at the mouth.  We could only stand there for 5 minutes.

The mouth of Masaya Volcano!

Enjoying the view!

July 14, 2015

Almost finished!

Claudine, with one of the boys from the community, sitting on the seats for the latrine

 The last 2 days have been filled with mostly working on the school BUT, we are (pretty much) done!  All we have to do tomorrow is wet the cement so that it becomes extra fortified.  I'm so excited that this project is close to finishing because that means it's that much closer to being able to house students who will be able to complete their education.  It's such a rewarding feeling to complete a project like this.  I've learned a lot from the community of Miraluz.  They have taught (or rather reaffirmed in) me that it's not about what you have, but more about being grateful that you are alive.  I've also been reminded to be thankful for what I do have, because the people of Miraluz have so little, yet can still find joy in the little things.  Today I learned that Doña Sofia is a warrior, who defends her community at every possible opportunity, and has fought (literally) people (some in the same community) to get this school built.  I admire the way she cares for others and how she is concerned for people she hardly knows.  Yesterday Elsa was sick and Doña Sofia kept asking how she was doing.  It's been such a pleasure to get to know her.  I knew this experience was going to be life-changing but it has caught me off guard by how the people have affected me.  The youth have bonded with a lot of the younger kids and it has been a delight to watch.  there is this set of 3 sisters:  Cristiana, Illyaida (sp.?), and Maria-Guadalupe, that are so sweet.  Maria-Guadalupe is the youngest and she always tried to do everything the bigger kids do.  They are all quiet but love to joke around with us.  And they love to take photos with you :-)  I'm glad about that because then I'll have them in my mind always.  I'm a little sad that tomorrow is our last day in the community, but I'm glad that I'll be home soon to tell people all about my work down here and everything I took away from it.

Eileen (top, middle) and Axie (bottom) with some of our new friends from Miraluz

July 12, 2015

Many of the isletas have private residences on them

Another beautiful day sightseeing in Nicaragua!  We took a boat tour of some isletas (small islands) around Lake Nicaragua.  They were formed when the Mombacho Volcano erupted a few hundred years ago.  There are 360 islands, many of which (at least that we saw) are privately owned and inhabited by people.  One guy owns two and put a species of Spider Monkey on one.  Now people go up to the island to feed & see the monkeys.  After the boat tour, we went ziplining!  OMG it was AWESOME!!!  I'm so glad that I chose to do that for my 30th birthday.  Flying above the rain forest canopy was absolutely beautiful.  I wish I was able to get pictures of me doing it, but sadly could not.  At least I have the memory of it though.  The youth decided that for my 35th birthday, I should go SCUBA diving.  I think I will go to Fiji for that.  After ziplining, we went to a potter's studio in San Juan de Oriente.  His name is Pedro Guerrero and he walked us through his process for creating pieces out of clay.  I bought a small jug for $12.  It just so happened to a day that the village celebrates/honors their Patron Saint, St. John the Baptist.  Pedro's son invited us so we decided to participate.  That was fun.  As an act of penance, people walk through town and go door to door asking for blessings and serving food.  Then they gather in the main part of town & beat each other with sticks made out of bull penises.  We didn't stick around for the beating part, but did enjoy walking down the street with the locals.  Then, we went to the Artists Market in Masaya and did some shopping.  I got a shirt & bag for myself, t-shirt for Terral, shot glass for my dad, and coffee.  I even bought some cookies.  Then, we had pizza for dinner & came back to Mundo de Fe.  All-in-all, this weekend was pretty amazing!  It's back to work tomorrow, which everyone is looking forward to because the people of the community are amazing.

One of the monkeys of "Isleta de Monos" ("Island of Monkeys")

Someone else managed to get a photo of me!

Potter Pedro Guerrero, showing us how he creates

Celebrating San Juan in the village!

July 11, 2015

Today was the first of 2 days off.  We swam in Laguna Apoyo which is an extinct volcano.  It was amazing!  After lunch, we celebrated Aldrin's 18th birthday with a piñata.  then we went to Granada which is the oldest city in Nicaragua.  We are staying here for the night.  We were originally going to go on a boat tour, but the weather was bad so we may do that tomorrow if we have time.  We got a chance to walk around the city and look at some of the buildings.  Everything in Granada is colonial and brightly colored.  Our hotel is very nice and owned by a guy who is originally from Botswana (or Israel - I can't remember).  When we got near the lake, Elsa was tired so she decided to take a horse & carriage back tot he hotel.  There was room for six people total so Axie, Claudine, Alicia, Angelica, and I joined her.  The driver gave us a tour of Granada & took us all over & explained a lot of the streets and buildings to us.  It was awesome.  When we got back tot the hotel, we had a little down time before dinner, so we rested.  For dinner, we went to a restaurant called Nectar.  I had the Nicaraguan "Ropa Viejo" (which translates to "Old Clothes," but definitely does not taste like that, lol) - seasoned shredded beef w/sautéd veggies.  DELICIOUS!  It was a very active, but wonderful day.  Tomorrow, we get to go ziplining!  I'm so excited!

Laguna de Apoyo, an extinct volcano and lake.

Enjoying a refreshing kayak ride!

We enjoyed the afternoon at Laguna Beach Club, a resort on the lake.

Enjoying the sun and a refreshing swim.  The water was very nice!

Pastor Rich secures the blindfold on the birthday boy, Aldrin.

View of our hotel's courtyard & pool from my room

Iglesia la Merced, one of the many cathedrals in Granada

Girls just want to have fun!

July 10, 2015

We made more progress on the school today, with the help of the master builder from Villa Japon, Dimas.  More people from the community came to help.  One boy, Alvarado (maybe 16 or 17) helped me set blocks.  He was very soft spoken and fast speaking, which made it difficult for me to understand what he was saying.  A lot of our communication was through gesturing to one another, which I though was pretty cool.  If we continue the same amount of work, we will most likely finish the walls, and maybe even start on the roof, which I feel really good about.  The work is much more intense compared to SSP because we are building from the ground up, as opposed to just repair work.  After lunch, we went back to Miraluz to Doña Sofia's house and learned how to make tortillas - from corn!  We started with boiled corn, ground it into a paste, added water to make Masa (dough), shaped them to tortillas and then put them on the fire.  They were the most delicious tortillas I have ever had in  my life!  And we put some queso on them; ooh!  SO GOOD!  Of course we ate as soon as we got back and I'm still stuffed, nearly 4 hours later.  Elsa has been doing a lot of translating for us and she said that Doña Sofia is so happy to see that we are so united as a team already that she was moved to tears.  It warms my heart when I hear that because it means that I am playing at least a little part in enriching someone's life here.  Doña Sofia is so nice and welcoming.  She was patient with us as we went through the process of making the tortillas; and we've only been in the community for 3 days.  I can already feel like it's going to be hard to say goodbye.  It's so fun to see the youth interact with the children of the community also.  I can tell how much this experience is changing them which is truly amazing.  And I am getting to see more and more of each of my youth's personalities as we bond as a team.  I am so glad we were able to make this trip happen!

Howard (another chaperone) & Nancy show off their beautiful work!

Roger was our Master Builder.

Axie, taking a break from working to play with some of the children.

Axie with Moisé, one of the children who stole our hearts.

Eileen (one of our youth), having fun with some of her new friends.

Nancy & Elaine (another one of our youth), grinding the corn into masa as Doña Sofia (right) supervises.

Another beautiful sunset at Mundo de Fe (see the volcano in the distance?)

July 9, 2015

Today, we got to participate with more of the community.  People came throughout the morning to help wherever needed.  Many of us were mixing cement and one woman, Maria, never took a break.  Elsa (another chaperone, who was incredibly helpful at translating for us!), Nancy, and I kept having to stop because the shoveling was too much for our backs.  I learned how to set cement blocks from Sheldon (another chaperone, and expert builder who has lead many mission trips to Kenya to help build a hospital), which was cool.  He seems to really enjoy seeing how buildings are built in different places.  It seems like the more time I spend with him, the more I like him.  After lunch we went to one of the community learning centers to interact with some kids.  We played games, colored, and got to take a tour of another school that Seeds of Learning (SOL) is working on.  When SOL first came to Villa Japon 2 years ago, there was only a two classroom school.  They built a second and the community ended up doubling their enrollment.  Now, they are building a third 3-classroom building because the high school kids can only attend school on Saturdays due to the fact that every classroom is currently housing 2 classes - a morning shift and an afternoon shift.  The hope is to be able to have enough rooms in order to ensure that kids stay in school all day because kids are less likely to attend if they have to attend the afternoon shift.  It was really interesting to interact with the kids because they were so accepting of us all.  One boy, Bryce, insisted on coloring with me.  Then he took Alicia's phone and took a selfie with me.  The kids also made us friendship bracelets.  Such a great day.

David (one of our youth), Elsa (top right), and Nancy (bottom left) playing Jenga with one of the kids of Villa Japon.

Me with one of the children from Villa Japon.

Axie (middle), one of our youth, interacting with some of the children from Villa Japon.

Claudine (one of our youth) helps a boy from Villa Japon with his Math homework.

July 8, 2015

Today was our first day at the work site.  We got quite a bit done, which is good because our day was cut short because of... wait for it... RAIN!  And lots of it too!  Coming from drought ridden California, it felt so refreshing that I stayed out in it for about 10 minutes.  If I had known that we were going to have to walk back tot he car in the torrential downpour (at least according to this gringa), I may not have done that.  But it was so nice to hear the rain - I never realized how much I missed it until I heard it.  So now we are back at our home for the next two weeks.  The food is still so delicious and I could totally get used to someone cooking me lunch and bringing it to the work site each day, instead of the PB & J's that we get at SSP, hahaha.  Because of our unexpected trip back home, we were able to watch a video on the recent political history of Nicaragua - the Sandinista Revolution.  Like much of Central & South America, up until the 1980's, Nicaragua was under a military dictatorship.  The revolution, while successful, did take it's toll on the economy, which is why Nicaragua is the second poorest nation in Central America, after Haiti.  It's almost time for dinner and rumor has it we're having homemade tortillas!

Our work site

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Nancy (one of the other chaperones) and I had a conversation earlier about the availability of water to the community of Miraluz.  They don't have running water and rely on 3 water wells to get water from.  Yesterday, I was talking with Julian (the regional director for Seeds of Learning, the organization that SSP teamed up with to make this trip possible) and he mentioned that each house is limited to a certain amount of water jugs per day.  It's amazing at how your perspective can change on what you think are necessities when you are serving a community with much less that you.  Nancy and I came to the conclusion that the people in Miraluz only bathe maybe once a week and/or for special occasions, and toilets are latrines - holes dug in the ground (18ft deep), with a seat built on top.  But, even though the community struggles, many still seem content with what they do have.  It's amazing, and make me feel like they are much richer than me in many ways.