Hola a Todos,
Como esta? Well, school is in full swing and we are making our way through the first quarter. We are having some discipline issues with students and a veces (sometimes) our patience is put to the test (actually more like a lot of the time).
However, one good thing about the first quarter is that it is spattered with three-day weekends, which we are aprovechando (taking advantage of). My last blog talked about Angela's and my weekend in Tegus and La Tigra. Two weekends ago, which I didn't have time to write a blog about was spent with the graduating class of Cardenal on a retiro (retreat) at a cloistered nun's retreat center in the hills outside of Tegus....very cool.
This past weekend, a three-day, Angea, Mario and myself went to visit Mario's peace corp friend, Danielle, in Nicaragua. It was my first time to Nicaragua and now I have set foot in all the Central American countries!
So as soon as school ended on Thursday, the three of us jumped on a bus to Tegus from where we would catch a bus the next morning to Nicaragua. We spent the night in Tegus and the next morning before beginning our long busride Angela suggested walking around the city for some exercise....so we did.
We saw some churches
and parks...
and some good views of the city. The circular building on the right is the soccer stadium.
After walking to one place we would see something else in the distance and decide to walk there.
Some of the backstreets of Tegus.
At one point the steep streets reminded me of San Francisco.
After awhile we stumbled across a park high on a hill where we weren't the only ones exercising.
This was Parque Leona (Lion Park) and it had a great view.
Almost time to get on the bus we headed back to our hotel to shower. This is the church next to our hotel, Iglesia Dolores.
Some cool paintings inside
Then it was time to head out.
A bag of manderines, 100 lempiras less from the money changers at the border 5 hours later we arrived at the city of Leon, Nicaragua. Danielle, orginally from New Hampshire, and her Nicaraguan boyfriend, Delber, were there to greet us.
Being super generous, Danielle and Delber offered to have us as guests at Danielle's rural site 20 minutes by bus and another 40 minutes walking outside of Leon.
Here is Danielle and Angela on the path to Danielle's site.
It is nearly impossible to get a car through some parts of the road.
It was a long day of traveling and it was getting dark by the time we arrived.
Luckily, Danielle had plenty of energy and invited us into her one room house to make us dinner on her little gas stove.
Danielle has been living here for almost 1.5 years. She does agricultural and education projects in Nicaragua. She said life can be hard sometimes being so far from home, but she is loving her experience.
I could see why she liked it so much: living simply (no electricity or running water), incredible star gazing, learning another language and being in another culture. Speaking of living simply, we made the dinner right there on her bed.
Here is Angela, Mario, Danielle and Danielle's "Nica-mom," Norma. Unlike most peace corps volunteers, Danielle was put with a local family who she now calls her Nica-family. This family built her room as an add-on to their house.
Myself, Angela, Danielle and Delber (her Nica-brother and boyfriend).
Delber ... a great guy, who if you ask "como estas?" he will reply, "tuani" (the nicaraguan all-incompasing word meaning "good" "great" "excellent" "cool" etc.)
It had been too dark the night before to really see Danielle's living situation besides inside. Here is her one room add-on from the outside. As you can see she is doing some gardening for herself.
I fell in love with this place. Here is her front porch with hammock.
Mario testing her bed.
And the walls which she has painted.
Se el cambio que quieras ver en el mundo. (Be the change you want to see in the world)
Her door.
Wall
And outhouse...yep... living simply
That morning, Saturday, we decided to go hiking.
Angela was all smiles.
There are a lot of volcanoes in Nicaragua and some are not too far away from Danielle's site. Here we are walking to Volcano Santa Clara (right) through a peanut field. Not only is it ironic that we were going to hike a volcano that shares a name with the school I teach at (maybe it represents the challenge of teaching that I am going trhough this year as a teacher), but the peanuts were also ironic. If any of you reading this you may have sent me a care package box this year. In that box I have probably asked you to include some peanut butter. This is because peanut butter is a rare and expensive item down here. After asking Danielle, "what's the deal?" she explained that most of the peanuts are either shipped to the states to be made into peanut butter or given to the animals.
Anyone want to start a peanut butter making factory with me to sell to hungry volunteers teaching abroad?
We continued our hike through the peanut fields and down jungled paths,
along a highway,
through waist -high fields in which we got lost,
under vined-trees
until we finally made it to the base of the volcano.
Here we are, minus Delber, taking a breather.
We didn't make it to the top, but the view was pretty good.
hanging out, enjoying the view and conversation.
but then it was time to head down again because we wanted to spend the second part of our day in the city of Leon.
before heading to Leon we went back to Danielle's house and had homemade peanut butter on our sandwiches ...
que tuani
Then we packed up and left Danielle's site for Leon.
that required walking the 40 minute road to the highways again.
arriving in Leon after getting off one of the buses which Nicaraguans take pride in
Then we hopped into a taxi truck to find our hotel.
like many Central American cities there were markets
full of fruits and vegetables
and churches.
Eventually we arrived at out our hotel, regrouped and headed out into the city to see what there was to see.
One place we had in mind was the Cathedral of Leon. It is the biggest cathedral in Central America, which we were excited about seeing. Here is a view from the side.
It is hard get a sense of how big it, but maybe the fact that it was hard to fit the front of it into my picture frame helps.
Inside, there were 10ft tall paintings of the stations of the cross.
The center part of the cathedral.
the altar
and many statues
After seeing the cathedral we wandered out into the central square in front of it to buy some souvenirs.
ladies making comstumized
pulseras (bracelets)
Humble Mario finding something in his size.
After that it was for some dinner on the street!
And what better way to end the day than to find a bar that happened to be playing the Giants/Phillies game for the last World Series position?
Angela and Delber are big baseball fans. Unlike most Central American countries, Nicaragua's main sport is not soccer, but instead, baseball and then boxing.
We had a great time not only because the Giants won,
but because we had had a great weekend in Nicaragua.
Sunday, we got up with the sun to catch a bus home. Unfortunately I am sick and so didn't go to school today, Monday. I think all this traveling has not left me enough time to rest.
That's latest ... hope all is well.
Gathering with Honduran families...
pavos
adventures to remote destinations through mud, rain and cold...
Well, we had a spiritual retreat with students, faculty and some guest speakers.
Although most of the time the students just wanted to play soccer instead of sit through "charlas" (talks), some got into it and got some big things off their chests. Here are some happy 8th graders.
We got a new science teacher who is spicing things up.
We had our first junior high dance.
And we volunteers had a Halloween party.
Here are most of this years volunteers.
The kids really get into actividades class (like arts and crafts class).
We were invited to a student's country property, Alex, yesterday. It was his little brother's birthday part.
We ordenamos una vaca (milked a cow),
We saw some churches
and parks...
and some good views of the city. The circular building on the right is the soccer stadium.
After walking to one place we would see something else in the distance and decide to walk there.
Some of the backstreets of Tegus.
At one point the steep streets reminded me of San Francisco.
After awhile we stumbled across a park high on a hill where we weren't the only ones exercising.
Almost time to get on the bus we headed back to our hotel to shower. This is the church next to our hotel, Iglesia Dolores.
Some cool paintings inside
Then it was time to head out.
Here is Danielle and Angela on the path to Danielle's site.
I fell in love with this place. Here is her front porch with hammock.
We continued our hike through the peanut fields and down jungled paths,
through waist -high fields in which we got lost,
We didn't make it to the top, but the view was pretty good.
Then we packed up and left Danielle's site for Leon.
that required walking the 40 minute road to the highways again.
like many Central American cities there were markets
and churches.
One place we had in mind was the Cathedral of Leon. It is the biggest cathedral in Central America, which we were excited about seeing. Here is a view from the side.
but because we had had a great weekend in Nicaragua.
