A month of celebrations

This month flew by with a ton of celebrations and special events. On December 8, the Feast  of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, we had baptisms and communions in the home. I was lucky enough to be a godmother to two of the boys in the section and was so happy to be able to be part of their special day. They are both developmentally challenged but that did nothing to diminish their joy in receiving Christ. The two of them have a bad habit of behaving bad in mass but as Mat* told me he "Lowered the crank on my (his) energy" so he could receive God properly. 

So much happiness!

Group photo with everyone involved

My two new godsons!

Getting ready before the big show :)

Then a mere four days later were the graduations. In the house we celebrated preschool, elementary school, high school, college and vocational workshops. The entire home was proud of all the accomplishments as we had a nurse, chef and pharmacist graduate from university to begin their professional careers  this year. It truly speaks to the strength of the NPH family when you take into account all the graduates who earned their new degree. I was especially proud of all of the 6th graders as I taught all of them and many for 2 years.

All the 6th grade graduates!

Trying to get my godson to smile as I escorted him to the stage.

Receiving the diploma!

Receiving thanks for my service from the school director. 

As for other happenings in the home, we had several birthdays and therefore a LOT of birthday cake and cracking of eggs over the head (a Nica tradition). 

We also had a very blessed late crop of beans so were all happy to go to pick them one December morning. Due to severe droughts this year the majority of the harvests were lost, causing a bean shortage in a country whose staples are rice and beans. This means that in the coming year beans will be not only sparse but also extremely expensive which is cause for many worries about how everyone will survive. When the beans are ready to pick everyone in the home wakes up at 5 am and picks till the sun rises at 10 am to avoid the sun beating down. Picking every single bean from a huge field becomes easy work when everyone over the age of 8 years old pitches in. 

All the boys (and me) lining up to choose our rows. 

Even the director comes out

Picking before the sun rises is the only way to go

Then of course Christmas time came around and with that Christmas decorations. Check them out...

Some of the volunteers in the ranch.

Casa San Jose and our Christmas tree

After all of the joyous celebrations and decorations came my goodbye. I came home Dec. 19  and spent a bittersweet last day with the boys and night with everyone else. In honor of my return to the city with the best pizza ever I took them all to pizza in town. Needless to say we all had a blast! 

Pizza in town

 

A presentation during my goodbye with everyone

Whether you're coming or leaving the line of hugs is NPH Nica tradition

Although I am extremely happy to see my family and friends it was also terribly to difficult to say "See you later" (because I refuse to let this be a goodbye) to my new family in Nicaragua.  

If you want to hear a reflection on my time in general with NPH Nicaragua you can check out my testimony. All volunteers are asked to write a reflection as they wrap up their time to be posted on the website but I'll post mine here as well. 

October/November Updates

The past two months have been filled with celebrations, activities and quite a bit of work with the end of the school year. But school is now over, grades are in and I have time to post a few updates.

In October I taught my students all about Halloween, using Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin as my motivation. We also made pumpkin and skull masks to celebrate. They had quite a blast with the break from a typical class routine.

My fourth graders and their pumpkins. 

Fifth graders and their skulls

Third graders and their final products. 

This past week classes ended for the school year and I had to say goodbye to my students. It was a ton of work making final exams, grading and then handing in monthly, quarterly, semester and final grades for my 100+ students. However, I was sad to say goodbye to all of the kids.

 

Saying goodbye to 2nd/3rd graders

Funny faces!

            In the house the kids have been working very hard on final projects or studying for final exams. The 5^th and 6^th grades had a presentation in the religion class of the nativity scene and had to make Sheppard costumes.  I volunteered to help them even though I was pretty clueless as to making a tunic from a sheet. After quite a few laughs and blunders we managed to sew together passable tunics.

           

            It hasn’t been all work and no play, however. During one of our weekly walks I taught the boys how to make cream cheese and bologna sandwiches. For some strange reason we received a big donation of cream cheese so I decided to take advantage and change up the mid-walk snack. They all loved it and had a blast “playing”” with the bologna that was leftover. I may or may not have encouraged it by showing them how to make faces by biting the bologna….

           

            In November we also celebrated Thanksgiving with the directors and coordinators. Every month or so the directors and volunteers share a dinner to build community and in October the national director mentioned that he would love to celebrate Thanksgiving. Naturally Kay (an American volunteer) and I said “Of course!”. So we ended up cooking a thanksgiving dinner for the directors, the priest, volunteers and coordinators. The other volunteers pitched in to help but the day was still full of cooking, stressing out (on my part) and coordinating logistics of cooking for 15 people. In the end everyone said it was great and someway or another we even had leftovers.

            In November I also visited Jinotega with some other volunteers. Although this is a small and tranquil city, it is recognized as the coffee capital on Nicaragua and has been on my list for quite some time Hidden on the edge of the city market was a cooperative of local coffee growers who served export quality coffee to locals in a small café. It was the best cup of coffee I have ever had. Hands down. Amazing. They export their coffee all over the world and have won several prizes. Only bad news is that they don’t export to the U.S.A.

Best coffee shop in Nicaragua!

A cross placed on the mountains surrounding Jinotega. 

View of the city from above

Coffee finca outside of the city

Enjoying our coffee!

       Last but not least, I am also helping to collect donations to send our kids on vacation to the Island of Ometepe for Christmas break. Although I will not be here to spend it with them (I leave Dec. 19) I want them to have the best break they can. Here is a link (https://www.youcaring.com/nuestros-pequenos-hermanos-nicaragua-471018)  to the website with a full description of what we are raising the funds for! Any help or prayers is much appreciated. Thank you! 

Also…in the past few months I also ran a 5 K for ending violence against girls and climbed a few more volcanoes. Check out the pics below!

I won 2nd place! 

Above Cerro Negro in Leon. 

Tired from lugging my 30 lb pack up and down volcanoes 

The view of Volcan Momotombo from El Hoyo, another volcano.

Camping out on a volcano!

Laudato Si

A few weeks ago the family here came together to celebrate the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation (Sept. 1), as proclaimed by Pope Francis with a day of massive reforestation. Here in Nicaragua deforestation is a serious problem as trees are burned for fuel for cooking or construction material and simply clear-cut as the country continues to develop. A nearby farm donated 1,500 tree seedlings to us to help counter this destruction and care for the land that God gave to us.

The task: Plant 1,500 tree seedlings on Saturday morning from 8-12.

The crew: The NPH family around for the weekend; including about 100 kids ages 4-24, 15 tios/tias, 2 directors, 3 volunteers,3 farm hands and the priest.

The Plan: None…

In typical Nica fashion we began a bit late on Saturday morning with no plan other than “plant”. Surprisingly enough, however, we managed to organize ourselves somewhat and set to work in a reasonable amount of time. The directors decided to plant in two main areas-a hill leading down to the soccer court and a clearing behind the woman’s houses- and people quickly split up between the two.

Everyone then picked up a job according to his/her ability. We had pick swinging hole makers, soil patting seedling planters, bucket lugging water carriers, and measuring stick wielding markers. The youngest kids were employed as water carriers with containers ranging from simple 2-liter water bottles to huge wash buckets.

At one point during the morning, Chad*, a boy from my house was on water duty with Tony*, a five-year-old. They had schlepped a massive amount of water to where we were planting with only had a few meters to go and decided to take a quick break. When they moved again a minute later poor Tony lost his footing and began to tumble down the hill. Tony had a wonderful grip on the bucket though and in tow came Chad and the bucket. When the two stopped tumbling they stood up covered in a mix of water, leaves and dirt and found not a single drop of water in the bucket. They immediately fell back down in a fit of laughter that everyone around could not help but joining.

By 12 o’clock, we had the system down pat: Marker marks spot and calls for hole. Digger digs hole and calls for seedling. Planter comes, plants and calls for water. Waterer comes, waters and the process starts again.  However, we were hot tired and loosing steam.

With a little mischief, one girl, Mary* reanimated the adults pretty well. As I took a break from digging my hole I looked over as a tia (caregiver) called for water and Mary brought over a bucket. The tia looked down to pat the soil as Mary poured the water. However, Mary decided that it was the tia who needed watering and with a devilish smile poured the entire bucket over the tia’s head. The refreshing bath was well received with only a laughing “Mary!” from the tia. Once again, we all broke into laughter as Mary’s genius-When else could she pour an entire bucket of water over her tia’s head without getting in trouble?

By 1:30 we were all covered in a mix of sweat and dirt and called it a day. A few of the boys also had hands covered in blisters, of which they were extremely proud and used to brag about the number of the holes they had made. The next day my arms and back were sore but I couldn’t have asked for a better way to care for God’s creation.  

I don't have any pictures from that day as we were too busy working to take pics but here is just an example of the beauty of God's creation here in Nicaragua  (A shot of Volcano Concepcion on the Island of Ometepe) 

August Updates

Thanks for having faith and not giving up on my blog. Life in the past two months has been a bit crazy as I picked up another class to teach (5^th and 6^th graders who are too old to be in the mainstream classes), subbed in for the volunteer coordinator and helped out a lot in the sponsorship office. Somehow or another there is also more work to be done here!

But I finally found some time to sit down and write so here are a bunch of updates on life here…

The boys…

This past weekend I did tie-dye with my boys and was ridiculously impressed with how good it came out for all of them. A few of them had done it before with visitors but for the majority of them it was the first time they even heard of tie-dye.  It is so foreign to the culture here I couldn’t get a translation other than “camisas hippy” (hippy shirts). Well, for first timers they were pretty successful and creative. Check out the pictures below!

 

A few weekends ago we had a night of games down on the soccer courts and Kay (another volunteer) and I decided to bring down a bucket a chalk we found in the house. We clearly underestimated its popularity as within minutes all the pieces were snatched up and the whole area turned into a work of art. I found myself working on a crime scene with one of my boys, outlining the “dead” bodies fallen. He then decided to take artistic liberty, adding a six-pack here, lopsided eyes there and Mickey Mouse ears there. We even got the assistant religious director to play along and all ended up doubled over in laughter. Thankfully it didn’t rain for a few days and we got to enjoy the work.

How gorgeous is this!?

 At school…

In class I did a food unit with all of the grades, culminating in a “Menu Project” for the project the students paired up and had to create their own English menu complete with food and drinks for breakfast, lunch and dinner and prices. I was so proud of the work of my 5^th graders that I mounted all the menus and made a poster to hang in their classroom. As for my second graders, an entire menu was a bit much so we went with “My Favorite Foods” which I also put up on a poster. Check them out below!

My house…

For some reason my house has become hit with quite a few tarantulas recently. And for even less known reasons, they only like to reveal themselves to me. So, over the past two weeks I have found them in my toilet stall, on the curtain above my bed and right outside my door. I am slowly screaming less, having shorter temper tantrums and even trying to kill them! My reaction is no longer as comical for the other volunteers but at least I’m getting over my fear bit by bit. Here’s a pretty one I found in my bathroom.

And last but not least the food update….

This past Friday when I had to stay during my weekend off I went into town and bought myself a chocolate milkshake. It was amazing. No question. Made life so much sweeter. If you’re having a bad day I suggest going to the nearest ice cream store and buying the biggest one they have. It’s total therapy.

I couldn't resist drinking half of it before taking the picture.

Until next time,

Eliza

Here are a few more fun pictures from the last month...

Playing keep away basketball with my 2nd grade boys. 

You're never too old to color! 

A few of the younger girls showing off their new sneakers.