17-18 March

All the posters in classrooms are hand-made,
many of them have been updated by our group!

Caroline helping out in the kitchen on Tuesday.

Ryan and Caleb during a class competition
(in the street).

Run, Emma, run!

Chloe with her escort friends.

Ryan and Andrew getting ready to slide
in Jinotega last week.

Today, Nia and Jon doing the Nicaraguan
version of London Bridges.

Braelyn's careful handwriting came in handy
for creating some phoneme posters yesterday.

Sophie now understands how draining it is
to check workbooks!!

From Tuesday, Jon with the Principal of
the public school we visited.

Vladi and Maria Jose, a senior at our school,
grand-niece of the director, Rafaela.

Is that Nia napping??

Waiting to pick up children at la Nicaraguita.

This is Nia Imani. This can't be as long as the other posts, because we are prepaining to go to beach, we will being enjoying the pasific coast for the afternoon. However, a short update.

Yesterday Emma James, Jonathan Gilman, Chole Zorn, Sophie Herring, and I finished the mural at Roben Dario Public School. The Public school experience was moving in a way. I saw some of the same children who beg on the street in the school, I didn't know how to feel, or how to approch them, finally I realized that a child is still a child despite poverty or wealth and that they all love colors and trees and butterflies, and flowers, and they all want to help. So on that note, we have a group of children around us every 10 minutes asking our names, and what we like to do when we were trying to paint in what felt like 105 degree weather. After painting while enjoying an orange drink, there was a young boy who wanted to take pictures of us on Sophie's camera. However he didnt know how. So Emma taught him, and from there a photographer was born, zooming in and out, putting people in the right light and poses, it was cute.

After, we returned to our home base of Nicaraguita and found everyone outside getting ready for futbol, what we call soccor for some unknown reason. The group watched the futbol game which was played with the celebration of 20th anniversary of the school in the air. We had a beautiful dinner as usual, after which I spent time with my judo master sister, Maria Felix, and my mother who is a hairdresser. Really, my sister is a judo champion here in Nicaragua in her weight class!! She is amazing. We always have a great time, lots of laughing when I understand the jokes, and even more when I think I act like I understand and it is clear that I don't. We talked about everything from food and soap operas ( and how we love to put it on mute and make up the words) to family structures and what exactly the role of a male is in the family. We talked about fathers, or the lack thereof, and brothers stepping up to fill the role of the fathers, and in the absence of both a woman doing what needs to be done. I had some really yum yum fish that my mother cooked and then insisted that we go to sleep.

This morning was pretty normal, John Gilman and I worked in 6th grade checking homework, and trying to nicely say sit down, when every student insists on a hug. I then went to work with the English teacher, and went to kindergarten and 4th grade to teach shapes. I taught the kindergarten alone, and did a pretty good job. I got juice as we do everyday arond the same time, and for some reason the juice was just beautful in my mouth, it was Nicaraguan Starbucks, it was simular to a mocha frappe...yummm. We then met up with a guest who graduated from GS in 2003 who was my sister's housemate in South Africa, and she told us about her service in Nicaragua for the past two years. We ate lunch, relaxed a little, and Cheri Mellor did not fail to remember to make me write the blog, and here we are, I enjoyed it though, I'm in Nicaragua I can't complain. However Sophie wants to go before the sun goes down, although it is not yet one hahaha (jajaja) so i guest thats my cue. Peace and blessings, paz y amor