This week we had another good trip for our classes. This time, we headed out from Managua early Tuesday morning with Alma, a lady who works with the Nehemiah Center. The first stop was Jinotepe, about an hour away. There we visited with people working for the Luke’s Society. They work in many small communities around Nicaragua with kids, farmers, and other people. From there, we took a pick-up truck to a land bank where farmers are given their own land to farm rather than having to rent from rich landowners. Juan Carlos took us, with all our luggage, some tires and other supplies for the tires, in one pickup. This meant 4 of us girls squished in the back seat and the other 2 students rode in the bed of the truck amongst all the stuff. This was another hour drive, however instead of being an hour via highway, it was an hour via bumpy dirt roads. And these bumps weren’t just small pebbles in the road, it was holes up to a foot deep and various streams crossing the road. A few times we were sure we would get stuck. We eventually arrived safely at the first house in this community and met the family we would be staying with that night. It was very beautiful there, with a view of the mountains in the distance and trees all around. Hilberto and his wife Marta were very good hosts, especially considering they had just moved their 16 days previously. Shortly after arriving, we helped with several projects the people in the community were working on. The first was to dig up some topsoil for a planter. They turned tires inside out and we filled them with dirt and later planted seeds in them. The other project we helped with was a water filtration system to turn their dirty laundry and dish water into usable irrigation water for the fields. All of this was very interesting for us to watch, although we didn’t feel very useful since the men knew what they were doing pretty well. After finishing the work, we were able to go see the other houses in the community. There are only 4 or 5 houses there and the longest anyone has lived there is 6 months, so everything is fairly new. It was really interesting to be able to get to know the families there and see how little they have but how happy they are just because they have their own land now. All of them had previously been working under other landowners and didn’t earn very much farming that way. The one house we saw was for 5 people and in total, couldn’t have been more than 8’ x 6’. This includes sleeping area, kitchen and corn storage, although they were in the process of building a corn storage building. It was very eye opening to see this, but I have a feeling that once they get established in this land, they will be able to improve their living conditions. By about 8 we were all pretty exhausted but we managed to make it a little longer before going to bed. In Hilberto and Marta’s house, there is one big room with beds and then a smaller room that is the kitchen and then a covered area for eating and hanging out. The latrine was across the field and they had recently built a “shower” where you could take a bucket shower. In the bedroom, there were 3 beds and a cot, for the 7 women and one of the kids. That meant a lot of sharing beds and not a lot of sleep happened. The guys slept outside in the porch area on 3 cots. That meant they were up with the sun pretty early.
The beautiful view at the farm!
After a day of working hard and a night of not much sleep, we went back in to Jinotepe to drop our stuff off at the Luke’s Society. This journey was slightly easier since we had less supplies in the back, but there were 3 more people coming with us, so all of our group rode in the bed of the truck. We had a lot of fun singing songs and waving at the people staring at all these “cheles” (that’s what they call us white people) in a truck. Along the way, we picked up a lady who joined us in the back. After dropping off our stuff, we headed to another community, a little more urban this time. There we played games with kids in the morning and then watched a soccer tournament in the afternoon. It was fun to get to play with kids, doing crafts, ping pong, playing cards and other board games. We thought we were going to get to play in the soccer tournament, but once we got there, we realized that it was a lot more serious than we thought. The teams were really good and it was fun to hang out in the park with a bunch of kids and young people, although very hot. Later in the afternoon, we headed back to Jinotepe and then on home to Leon. It was a long two days, but very worth it. We learned a lot and had lots of fun too. We also learned we have a long ways to go on our Spanish skills since we met two interns with the Luke’s Society who have been here only since July and came with less Spanish knowledge than most of us had prior to coming but are already nearly fluent in Spanish. It was very humbling and made us want to practice more so we can communicate more.
Thursday we made a few visits around town for our classes. In the morning we went to the Museum of Myths and Legends in Leon and then in the afternoon we went to a Catholic Mass. Both were interesting to see and now we have papers to write about them. Since we had a few days free, we decided to take an overnight fun trip to Granada. Granada, along with Leon was one of the first cities in Nicaragua. There is still quite a bit of rivalry between the cities so it was interesting to visit. We spent the day walking around town and then spent the night in a tree house! There was a hostel up a hill a little ways in the jungle where all the buildings were shaped like tree houses and a few of us ended up actually sleeping in hammocks beneath the main tree house. There was a beautiful view of the valley. The next day we hopped on a bus to Laguna de Apoyo, another gorgeous spot in the area. We spent the day relaxing and swimming in the lagoon. The water was extremely clear, surprising to a Minnesota girl like me who sees plenty of non-clear lakes each year. I could have spent a few days there, no problem, but we had to come back to Leon to spend some time with our families. We had quite the adventure on this trip trying to figure out the bus systems and getting very lucky many times. We counted up 11 busses/taxis that we took during two days, exhausting! God’s hand was definitely guiding us all the way and we had a great weekend.
Some of the beautiful views at Laguna de Apoyo
With all this travelling, it is always good to be back with my family and as my Spanish improves, it is fun to have actual conversations that make sense most of the time. Tomorrow we head to Managua for class again in the morning and the others will all head back to Leon after lunch. I will stay in Managua though and head to Rancho Ebenezer Tuesday morning to start my internship there.
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