Our last field trip was only about 30 minutes away from Jinotepe, but in an area that felt a lot farther away. We drove through the town of Diriamba, where 7 students live, and continued past the soccer stadium where the road eventually turned to dirt. We bumped along the road
On June 1 we headed out on our last full-day field trip. The original plan was to visit Volcán Masaya and explore the active volcano. However, soon after the students arrived in late April, the volcano shot out some fireballs and started some small fires. The volcano has remained close since then. So, we came up with an alternative plan. We started out the morning
Mother’s day is celebrated in Nicaragua on May 30th, but the entire month of May seems to be about celebrating motherhood. As a special tribute to our host family mothers, we had Nicaraguan singer-songwriter, Moisés Gadea perform a concert for the mothers and the students.
We ended our four day field trip with 1½ days in Managua. Our first stop was Barrio Grenada, a lower class barrio where Companeros, Inc (the company that our in-country assistant Dalena works for) has been focusing their work for the last two years. We heard from community leaders about the projects they have completed over the last several years, including a security wall for the school, murals, and potable water. Their project this summer is working to complete a sewer project in a newer part of the barrio
Matagalpa is a beautiful northern Nicaraguan town, set among the mountains well known for being the perfect climate for growing coffee. We left Esteli on Saturday morning and drove to Vicente Padilla’s farm north of Matagalpa. Vicente runs an organic coffee farm on five manzanas (one manzana = 1.68 acres). Before exploring his farm,
At the end of May we took a 4-day field trip to the northern part of Nicaragua, specifically the towns of Esteli and Matagalpa. We focused our time in Esteli on learning more about the Contra war, and visiting a women’s paper-making cooperative. Many parts of the war to overthrow the Somoza dictatorship in the 1970s and the Contra War in the 1980s, (supported by the US against the Sandinista government), were in the hills around Esteli and Matagalpa.
We heard late this morning that Lynelle and Caleb have safely arrived on the East Coast. We dropped them off at the bus station last night where two buses were waiting to go to El Rama. One was a chicken bus with lots of people getting on and the other…
Early this morning students arrived at Quinta Goshen eager to leave for service. It is hard to believe that six weeks have already gone by. We sent 15 students in a microbus toward Managua with Don Jose (our trusted taxi driver), Dalena (in country coordinator) and a lot of luggage on top.
The last two weeks of the study portion of SST have been filled with lectures, field trips, and Spanish classes. This post will focus on the lecture portion of these activities, with posts following later about field trips and classes. Students learned about the challenges of Nicaraguan health care from Doctora Gloria Lopez. The five principal health problems in the department of Carazo
Part of the academic requirements of SST include journaling three times a week on various topics. Below is a “free choice” journal entry written by Brook, which she agreed to let us share here. One thing I've realized about SST is that it is basically life continued. (A different type of life, but life.) I mean I'm still me, I still have hard days and awesome days, I still "go home" after school and hang out and do my homework. I think I was expecting SST to be this wild/crazy adventure (which in some ways it is - there are 'wild' moments) - but one of the treasures about SST is actually the opposite, the chance to slow down life for a while, to have time to reflect on life and on subjects that I really care about.
