Group number 2 headed out to explore Jinotepe After a full day of orientation, we left Managua this morning and headed for the Department of Carazo, where we will spend the first six weeks of the semester studying Spanish and learning about Nicaragua’s history, culture, arts, literature…
The Kairos staff greeted us with a special welcome board that had each student’s name on it. After a day that started with a 4:00 a.m. departure from Goshen, our 22 Nicaragua SSTers arrived in Managua at about 9:00 p.m. local time. Our Country Coordinator Dalena and…
After several sad goodbyes with families in Carazo yesterday, the group traveled to the same Centro Kairos guesthouse in Managua where they had stayed the first two nights when they arrived in Nicaragua what seems like a looong time ago. After lunch we had a worship service and some reflections…
Lunch, served from an old boat, was Caballo Bayo, a traditional Nicaraguan collection of foods. With the project presentations finished, today was a final vacation day before beginning the process of starting the journey back home. The group traveled an hour to Granada, where we boarded a…
Benson tries gallo pinto-flavored ice cream. (Not really.) The other half of the students, those who did not give their presentations yesterday, presented the findings of their projects this morning. After lunch together we took off for the craft and souvenir markets in the nearby city of…
The fumes were so heavy today that it was not possible to see the rock bottom of the crater. This morning half the students gave informal 10-minute presentations on a topic they chose before leaving for their service assignments. When the work was finished, we had lunch…
Today all the students safely returned from their service locations. They each stopped by Quinta Goshen, the house where Doug and Maria are living, to leave off homework assignments, books from the library, journal assignments, etc. Also, we were just glad to see each of them in person and welcome…
Cora reads a story to one of the boys. Cora works with Libros para Niños (Books for Children), an organization in Jinotepe that promotes reading. An earlier date for Maria to visit Cora at her work was rescheduled for this past week, when Maria visited Cora in…
Alejandro with some of his students. Alejandro is working in this small rural community that the whole group had visited in early June. After the 20-mile race on Sunday (see earlier post) Maria and Doug accompanied Alejandro back to El Lagartillo, about a six-hour trip north of…
Alejandro came in 8th place for men. On Sunday five members of the group participated with several hundred others in a race from Managua to the city of Masaya, 20 miles southeast of the capital. The race commemorates a 1979 nighttime trek of several thousand Nicaraguans…
