We rode a chicken bus for about 30 minutes along a bumpy road to the community of La Grecia just outside San Ramon, Matagalpa to visit Mary. Mary is working with Vicente Padilla (not the baseball player) on his organic farm. You may remember Vicente's farm from an earlier visit by the entire group in May. She has experienced a wide variety of tasks
Brook is serving in a community about 22 km outside Matagalpa called Bálsamo Norte. We literally traveled over the rivers and through the trees on a rutted, rocky road for about 45 minutes to reach Bálsamo. Brook is working through CEPAD on community building. This has included
The department (state) of Matagalpa is the most mountainous of Nicaragua, and Matagalpa City, where Kyle and Allison are living, is true to form. Walking the streets of Matagalpa, you will realize that the city is spread out over a valley, but also spreading up the mountains surrounding it, making for some very steep streets. Nicknamed La Perla del Septentrion (The Pearl of the North), Matagalpa's real pearl is a red, ripe, coffee bean. The production and harvest of coffee is an essential part of the region's, and the nation's, economy. Neither Kyle or Allison is working directly with coffee, however. Kyle works with Infancia sin Fronteras,
Leon, about a 2 hour bus ride from Managua, was the next stop in our circuit of service visits, where we visited Steph and Marissa. Leon is a historic city, the site of many beautiful cathedrals, and a former capital of Nicaragua several times when the Liberal governments were in power. After 1852, the Liberals and Conservatives agreed that Managua would be the capital of Nicaragua no matter who was in power, but Leon continues as the largest city in the Nicaraguan northwest. Steph is working at
Anna and Rachel are spending their service time at Batahola Norte Cultural Center. Batahola Norte is a barrio on the northwest side of Managua. The center was started in 1983 by a Catholic nun from Cincinnati and a Catholic priest from Spain, and is now a thriving community…
The next stop on our service visit schedule was another day trip into Managua to visit Hannah and Jennifer, who are both working in the area around Barrio Grenada. Jennifer is working at Escuela Gabriela Mistral, a busy primary school in Barrio Grenada. She assists the preschool teacher, Raquel,…
After visiting with Kat and Breanna, we continued about 30 minutes north to a barrio just outside Managua called San Antonio Sur where Amy and Jen live. They work at Hogar Belen (Bethlehem Home), an orphanage for children with disabilities, a ministry of Mustard Seed Communities. Hogar Belen…
Students are now about halfway through the service portion of their service assignment, so Keri and I have started traveling around to all the service locations to check in on the students and see how their service placements are going. The first stop was La Concepcion (usually called La…
Back in late May, the students had the opportunity to learn some new dance moves. At the University where we held our afternoon charlas (chats), we asked the dance instructor to give our students a dance class. We had one problem though, our group is 18 girls and 4…
Despedida (farewell) is an event planned by the students to thank their host families and everyone that has helped to make the study portion of Nicaragua SST a success. The Despedida was held on the evening before students left for their service assignments, but preparations had been going on for several weeks.
