We made it! It was quite a journey getting everything down here as people were very generous in their donations. We brought down nine bags full of art supplies, sports equipment, clothing- even musical instruments. Due to recent airline restrictions, each bag was a considerable cost to bring down, but, as we have already seen in our first week down here, well worth the effort.
The trek to Limon Dos was even more difficult than we had envisioned based on Pope's description. The dirt road that connects this small town to the small city of Rivas had been closed off due to extensive rainfall in the weeks before our arrival. It is said that this was more rain than the locals had ever seen- even during the rainy season, which we are at the end of now. Once we arrived, the rain had ceased and we were able to make it to Limon Dos. However, once we arrived we realized how serious a closing of that road can be. The town had lost power for a week, meaning no lights, fans, refridgerator or water. It also meant that food could not be brought in, leaving only one local restaurant and a few tiendas that sell drinks and snacks open. Even for us at the Surf Sanctuary, we did not have power the first few days and could not shower or escape the suffocating heat.
Still the Surf Sanctuary is a beautiful place. Our home is at the end of a road lined by beautiful, tall orange flowers. We have a nice kitchen and living room area and two bedrooms. Quinn is sleeping in one bedroom and we are sharing bunk beds in another. The house has not been lived in for a while so we've had a few surprises- including the four scorpions and thirty-two baby scorpions we've encountered (but whose counting). Once the tourist season picks up in November, the pool and restaurant will open here and we should have a few more neighbors for company.
The town of Limon Dos is actually just two perpendicular dirt roads lined by houses. One road is the same one that takes you all the way to Rivas; the other goes down to the ocean. The people here really are some of the poorest in the world. Their houses are not the ocean masions that one might envision when thinking of tropical Nicaragua. We have yet to actually enter one, but as Pope has explained and is easy to see from passing, they are dirt floors with pieced together walls and rooves, which often leak. The people cook on large clay wood-burning stoves, located outside their houses due to the extensive smoke. There are also animals that roam freely- mangy dogs, large pigs, chickens, cows and horses. Despite this poverty, the people seem very happy and very generous. The main problems here are probably the lack of employment and overwhelming number of children in each family.
The past week we have busied ourselves with the school. The building itself is very pretty, two stories with a significant amount of land that has yet to be fully utilized. There is a small soccer field, what will hopefully one day be a baseball field, and a nice garden that has persevered despite local scavengers.
Our favorite aspect of the trip so far has been the children! They are all so friendly and full of energy and life. Although their lives are so drastically different than their American counterparts, their personalities and mentalities are surprisingly similar. They love soccer and arts and crafts, as well as simple games such as jacks and marbles. We have already taught them Simon Says and Duck Duck Goose, which they quickly caught on to and loved. Their are also a lot of children who are dedicated to their school work and spend the majority of their time at the school studying and being tutored, with great success in even the week that we've been with them. We end each school day with a meal- generally some combination of rice and beans and potatoes. For some, this is the largest and most nutritional meal of the day.
On Saturday, we separated out the donated clothing for the children. This can be a daunting task, considering the wealth that the clothes represent for these families always inevitably leads to some gripping over the fairness of the distribution. Because of this, Pope decided, and we conferred, that it was best to let the local Nicaraguan teachers be in charge of distributing the clothes. We helped separate out all the clothes and then watched as they divvied them out to the children who came to the school the most, based on their sizes and likes and dislikes. Overall, the process went very well and there were almost no mishaps.Our goal for the next coming weeks is to work with the local teachers to create a more structured and constantly innovative cirriculum that will engage and challenge the children. We want to devise games and projects that are educational as well as fun. We also want to make sure that we aren't stepping on the Nicaraguan teachers' feet but rather working together with them, since locally led education will be the most effective and sustainable in the long-term. Other goals for the school include: making the soccer field more bare-foot friendly, further structure for the tutoring group, deveoping a nutrition class with a local health clinic volunteer and hopefully at some point planning a field trip with the children. As for our own personal goals, we hope to get started on some Spanish tutoring in the next week, as well as continue to meet and bond with the local people here, and see more of Nicaragua.
It has been great having Quinn down here with us. He has been helping with the tutoring and has become the official soccer coach for the children. He has also saved us from several scorpions- even getting bit by one of them. We will be sorry to see him leave in a week and a half as he has definitely bonded with the children here and been a spirited component of the trip.We are writing to you from a little hexagonal brick building in the center of a lush and green
countryside. The wind is blowing strong, giving us a bit of a break from the heat, and we are off to go enjoy another day with the kids. We hope to write again later in the week, before we leave for a trip we are planning to the island of Ometepe.
Un Abrazo,
Jane (Juana) and A (Alejandra)
To see our photo album for the trip, go to:
http://picasaweb.google.com/
