Jill and Anna are working at the nutrition clinic in Matagalpa that the group had visited on the field trip in early June. Maria went to visit them with Lisa Guedea Carreno, director of the GC library, who will be one of the Nica SST leaders next summer.

The nickname for Matagalpa is “Pearl of the North,” and it boasts that the surrounding mountains grow the best coffee in Nicaragua.

The “Nutritional Recovery Center for Children” is run by CIEETS, the same organization that Jessica is working with outside Leon. Anna and Jill work at the Center each morning from 9-12, playing with the children, holding the smaller ones, and helping feed them. The Center has room for 25 children. When there are fewer, Jill and Anna go with other workers in the surrounding area to meet different families and look for other malnourished children (see Jill’s journal entry). The Center said there is never a shortage of needy children in the area.

At noon Anna and Jill return home for lunch, and then return to the Center to work until 2:00. During the last two weeks of service they will also work Monday, Wednesday and Friday with another program in the same building to help prepare and serve food for about 75 street kids. Lunch is offered twice a day, at 11 a.m. for kids who go to school in the afternoon, and again at 1 p.m. for kids who aren’t going to school.

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A journal entry from Jill, “Nica Hospitality.”

I have never seen such incredible hospitality as I have here in Nicaragua. Some people have so little but are willing give something to help someone else.

A recent example of this is when Anna and I visited the campo with the Center. It was pouring down rain, and we had a ways to walk yet. A lady saw us and invited us inside. We were complete strangers. She made her kids get up out of the three chairs they owned so that we could sit until the rain slowed.

Anna had fallen in the mud because it was really slippery. We asked a lady for some water to wash the shirt out, and when she came back she also had a little piece of soap. She insisted on helping get the mud out so it wouldn’t stain Anna’s white shirt. This lady had very little but was willing to give what little soap she had to help Anna. She was a complete stranger but was so worried about Anna and her shirt.

These are events that occur often in Nicaragua. It is something that I love about living here. These events would never occur in the United States, and if they did, they would be on very rare occasions and only certain people would even consider doing it.

How does a country that has so little offer so much to help others? It is something that I will never forget and has changed my opinion about how I will view those in need in the future.